The Crystal Eclipse

They were guided by guards to the outskirts of the badlands. They quickly flew off to the hive in the distance as Arone brought up his disguise once again. They looked back at the hive until Bini went through her saddlebag and pulled out a map of Equestria.

"So next we..."

A flash of light appeared and Discord stood in front of them with bandages cuts and bruises. The group cringed, yelped and took a stumbling route away from him until the shock wore off and they slowly approached him together. He groaned and moved to lay in a tree to relax.

"Discord? What are you doing here?" Bini asked.

Discord groaned as a response and mumbled something under his breath.

"Are you...Okay?" Chocolate asked. Discord glared at the group and gestured to the bandages on his lion arm, then on his midsection, and the one on his wing.

"Do I look Ok? What a silly question." He snapped back then relaxed against the tree again. Arone opened his mouth to ask a question but stopped once Discord held up a single finger in their direction as a signal to keep quiet. "I know what you next stupid question will be. Why won't you heal yourself? Well, I can't because even with my infinite power I can't heal wounds caused by dark magic. It is much too complicated to explain to little minds."

Bini rolled her eyes as Chocolate narrowed them and stepped closer to him.

"Alright. Are you here to take us back to the Crystal Empire?"

He shook his head and adjusted his position on the tree.

"No. The Crystal Empire is currently under the rule of Tia. The other Royals are in hiding in the icy caverns with a few of the guards as they come with a plan to take back control. I am here to prevent you from going back...At least for now, to the Crystal Empire." Discord revealed with a hint of hurt.

"W-Why? We need to help out!" Arone barked in protest. Discord yawned and rolled his eyes dramatically.

"What you need to do is deliver that scroll to Lulu." Discord said as he pointed to the scroll. "But first I am sending you on your own private trip...A week from now."

"We don't have time to wait around for a w-"

A smaller Discord ran up and zipped Bini's mouth shut before giving a thumbs up to the original Discord, then disappearing from existence.

"I am altering time for you four to a week ahead." He explained. "Twilight and her fluffy friends will be at the town on their way to the Crystal Empire. I am sending you four as well. But only a day before you. Not long. It will be more entertainment for me! It is better than watched fifty guards, a prince, and a princess arguing about battle strategies in a dark cave."

"If you can do that, then why not send everypony a week before this disaster took place!?" Rocky asked.

"If I were to do that then everything would be messed up. I can freeze time for a limited number of ponies, while everypony else continues on with their life, and then drop them a week later. Use your tiny heads please." Discord said. "Besides. It is more chaotic this way."

Discord snapped his fingers before the four could respond and suspended the four ponies in the air. They were frozen in time. Nothing else was amiss, just them. He snapped his fingers again and they vanished. At the moment they were in his realm. In a week, they would be near Manhatten in a small town called "Our Town."

Discord couldn't think of a stupider name to call a Town.

Bini found herself faceplanted into the ground, her mouth was unfortunately open when Discord used his powers on her. She was going to ask why they needed to go to that town. On that exact day. Well. It didn't matter anymore as Bini pushed herself up and started spitting out the dry dirt.

She looked around and found herself near the edge of a cliff with the rest of her friends in a barren wasteland. She could barely see Manhatten far in the distance but her eyes moved to the "town" a few meters away from the cliff. The town was made up of two columns of houses with one house at the head of the area.

The group argued among themselves about what they should do before finally deciding that they would play along with Discord's game for one day as they already lost a week of progress, thanks to the Lord of Chaos. Also, Bini was infinitely curious as to why they were here.

They slowly slid down the cliffside and approached the town slowly. They made their way through the one street and looked at the residence. They all had the same hairstyle. They all had dull colours. They all had the same creepy smile and worst of all. They all had the same cutiemark.

"OK. I might have nightmares from this." Bini announced to her friends as they stood and watched the strange actions of those ponies.

"Do you know what this is?" Arone asked as the smiling ponies gave them waves. "This is a cult."

"I don't know." Chocolate said as she looked around. "It doesn't look like there are any issues here. It looks like a peaceful place to live."

"Maybe you aren't seeing it right because of the Eclipse," Rocky stated and pointed to the ponies around the street that could be seen in the artificial light of the two. "Look very closely."

"I am!" Chocolate snapped back with a tone of defence. "Sure, their cutiemarks are all the same but they aren't hurting anypony."

"By the way, they are looking at us, I think they might eat us before we can even think they are hurting us." Bini muttered as a group of curious smiling do-gooders started to come closer. "Damn me and my curiosity."

"They aren't zombies!" Chocolate demanded.

A purple unicorn, whose colours stood out more than the rest came up to them with a surprisingly more screwed up smile than the rest of the villagers. Bini mumbled something under her breath that Arone was able to make out as "I don't know what time it is but it is too early to have my brains eaten."

"You don't have any brains though." Arone said as a reminder. Bini growled at him and swatted him with her hoof against the back of his head.

"Welcome to our little town!" The pony greeted. The group did a collective gulp and gave a small unconvincing wave of friendship. "I am Starlight Glimmer. We are so happy to have more ponies to come to join our family."

"F-Family?" Bini stammered as her thoughts shifted back to her family that was in Canterlot. She pushed it down and took a few steps away from the Starlight Glimmer character. "W-What are you talking about?"

"Well, we all have a similar goal. To make sure that everypony is treated equally! This is why we all have the same cutiemark for Equality." Starlight said and pointed to the equal sign on her flank. "No pony is better than the other pony here! We are all equal! No fights, no arguments, no special talents!"

Chocolate stepped forward with a big smile.

"That sounds lovely! How did you accomplish this?" She asked before Arone could come up with a clever response to get them out of that wackjob of a town. Village. It was more like a village. Maybe it was even too small to be a village. He hit his hoof against his face and prayed to the Alicorns that he didn't actually believe in.

"How about we show you!" Starlight suggested.

Then a three-minute song took place that looked way too planned as they marched to the outskirts of town surrounded by singing crazy ponies. They entered a cave and travelled deep within to stop in front of a shelf full of cutiemarks with a wooden staff in front of it on a pedestal.

"I'm delighted you're interested in our cutie mark vault. We hope someday every pony in Equestria will make a pilgrimage here to our little village to have theirs removed too, and our message of perfectly equal friendship can finally spread across the land." Starlight explained.

"That wouldn't fit in that shelf," Rocky said. Only to get a glare from Starlight.

"Anyway." Starlight barked with a roll of her eyes and used her magic to levitate the staff and whirled it around to amuse herself. The group moved closer to themselves as the crazy ponies moved closer around them. Bini's magic flared up but flickered and died out.

"Oh no...My magic is still recovering from being drained at the hive. Arone, you try." Bini said. Arone attempted to teleport the group but was met with flat denial from his mind.

"I-I can't. I am running low on love. I can not teleport all of you..."

"You know that every time you say something about feeding off love it makes me cringe to unbelievable new heights every time. Every time." Bini snapped. Arone used his back leg to buck her to the floor. Her face planted to the floor as Starlight gave them a curious look. "Spoiled."

"Oh! We have a changeling in our presence." Starlight said with a giggle and clapping her hoofs together.

"Why don't we just announce to the world that I am a Changeling!" Arone snapped back in sarcasm. "I am friends with idiots!"

"Let's see if those bugs have any...Special Talents." Starlight said with an evil grin.

"I really don't like how she said that." Arone said as Starlight got closer to them as she twirled the staff.

"Here is the Staff of Sameness. It was one of the great Mage Meadowbrook's nine enchanted items. We are incredibly fortunate to have it here. This is the tool that allows us to free ourselves from our marks!" Starlight explained as the crowd nodded together.

The group looked for disparate ways to escape but the weirdos had blocked any exit.

"I told you we should have just left this town before we even entered it." Chocolate cried out as her nerves started to fry from fear.

"You never said anything! Maybe you should talk more!" Bini said to Chocolate who had curled herself into a ball.

"Why can't we ever have a normal conversation!?" Rocky asked. Chocolate, even in her crazed state, Bini and Arone looked at Rocky slowly.

"Now? Can't we discuss this later?" Arone hissed at Rocky. Starlight was losing her patience quickly.

"I have had enough of this show." Starlight barked and blasted the staff at the group. They were lifted into the air and groaned and yelped and maybe screamed in pain as their Cutiemark's were ripped from their bodies. Their talents and basic personalities and interest disappeared with the special marks that floated to the shelf and disappeared behind a glass wall. Even Arone's talent was stripped from his pony body, his green flame, that was his cutiemark. Took a bit more but finally loosened to join the others. Arone's disguise dropped and he went limp to the floor like the others.

---End of Chapter Six--