The Elements of Literally Anything Other Than Harmony
“Okay girls, now we’re going to go into that maze, and show that Discord who’s boss!”
The alicorns (thanks to the Element of Alicornity) cheered and pumped their hooves in the air as they approached closer to the large, green maze that stood before the group. Their horns glowed with mana as large amounts of necklaces and, behind Twilight Sparkle, crowns were magically carried behind them.
As the alicorns neared their way to the maze, they were unsuspecting of any foul trickery that may have been lurking in secret. So it was with great surprise when a sudden burst of bright light appeared on their magical appendages, and in a blink, vanished along with the horns and wings. The heaps of jewelry fell down at once, causing the earth to shake.
The mares gasped in horror when they realized what just happened, frantically touching the empty areas where the wings and horns once were. A loud sound drew the ponies attention to the front of the maze’s entrance, where a green ball of magic was spinning rapidly. In a brilliant burst of white light, the ball of magic exploded. After recovering from their blindness, the six ponies looked up to see a large, misshapen creature that seemed to borrow features from many different animals. A creature that the six feared to face: Discord.
Twilight Sparkle growled and jumped into a fighting stance as the chaotic creature began to cackle.
“Discord! What have you done?”
“Oh calm down, my dear Twilight!” Discord flashed a wicked grin. “It’s just to make this maze game a little more interesting! Now, in order to find the Elements, you mus-” Discord abruptly stopped talking, his grin changing into a frown. He pointed past the confrontational mares toward the six large piles of jewelry standing behind them.
“Okay, now what the hell are those behind you?”
Twilight smirked. “Ha! Looks like we have tricks of our own! We don’t need to find the Elements you hid. Because we have our own!”
Discord just scratched his head. “So you got a whole bunch of them?”
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Well, not all of them actually work, but some do, so ignore the first thing I said. In fact, what first thing I said? All you need to know is you’re going down!”
“Wait, so you’re telling me that your plan in defeating me is to use possibly defective Elements while I stand here and let you do it?”
The six ponies all nodded.
Discord blinked for but a moment before putting a claw to his head and sighing. “Oh, there is no hope for me. You surely have me beat.” Discord spread his arms wide in a sacrificial manner. “Do your worst!”
The ponies looked at each other and smiled before rushing over to their respective piles. With their backs turned, DIscord dropped his act and began to chuckle maliciously. “Oh, this will be interesting!”
Discord was never more bored in his entire life. One would think that in his several thousand-year experiences, Discord would have surely tired at his exploits at some point. While it was true that he did grow tired with his actions at some points, he was never really bored with them.
He couldn’t say the same of whatever the hell was going on here.
Equestria was in shambles, that he knew. And he didn’t even do anything. There was the Element of Warmony that started a war between pony tribes. And then the Element of Romeony started a fire in the majestic city of Canterlot. Despite Rarity’s reassurances, she hadn’t found an Element of Posterity just yet.
He wouldn’t have even minded the weird combinations if they were pulling more Elements of Rigatoni and Elements of Garlic Aioli, but those were now few and far between. This was just getting ridiculous now, and Discord didn’t know how much longer he could take it. Why was he still here? They did find at least three actual Elements, of which Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie were wearing while sitting on the sidelines away from the others, sipping on some Element of Harmo-Tea. It had been an hour though since Pinkie Pie joined the other two after finding her actual element. Was this thing ever going to end?
“Listen ponies,” Discord pleaded, “this obviously isn’t working out. Just come into the maze and find the Elements I hid for you to find. You’re wearing my patience thin.” Couldn’t they just come in so he could deharmonize them and be done with it?
“Silence!” Rarity shouted dramatically, a Element of Generosity freshly pulled from the stash behind hanging, around her neck. “We won’t fall for your tricks! You will face the power of true harmony!” The other two ponies nodded in agreement.
Discord facepalmed. “Okay, clearly you’re not listening to what I’m saying here. This isn’t going to work, so just get through this quicker and there's a large rainbow beam coming at me so I’m guessing you didn’t listen to me.”
A large rainbow beam struck Discord and, as usual, he didn’t feel anything. But the maze behind sure did, as it suddenly transformed into beautiful hedge animals. Fluttershy gasped in delight.
Twilight took off her crown with a puzzled look on her face. “The Elements of Hedgemony.” Suddenly, cows appeared and began to eat the detailed animals. Fluttershy began to cry.
Rarity took off her necklace and squinted at the words on the back. “Element of LiveStockity it seems.”
“That’s not even a word,” Discord muttered.
The cows took their mouths off the animals and, with mouths full of grass, began to moo angrily at the ponies. Fluttershy was now on the grass struggling not to cry. With shaking hooves, she took her Element off and looked at its lettering on the back. “Uh, the Element of Crassness.”
“Oh well, let’s try again girls.” With that, the girls began trotting back to the piles for another go. Discord snapped his fingers, and the hedge animals transformed back into his maze. Screw the cows.
‘Okay Discord, think. What to do, what to do… nah. I’ve got nothing.’
“Hey,” Discord whispered to the sidelined ponies. Rainbow Dash looked up.
“Yeah?”
“Want to go on the maze and find the Elements?”
Rainbow Dash thought for a moment before shrugging. “Nah, not particularly.”
Discord was getting desperate now. “Oh come on, anyone else want to get this done quicker and go in the maze I designed for you?
“Nah, ah’m good partner.”
“No.”
‘Damn! Will there be any end to my suffering?’
“Alright Discord, your time is up!” Twilight called out, the three ponies walking menacingly towards Discord. “Prepare to be turned to stone!”
“Wait!” Discord waved his arms frantically. “Let’s just stop this. Please! We aren’t getting anywhere. I don’t even know why I’m letting you do this!”
Pinkie shrugged. “Eh, we’re not being serious. It doesn’t matter.”
Discord was sweating now. “Just go in the maze I have for you!”
“We know you’re tricking us Discord. I bet there's not even any Elements in there.”
A sudden idea came to Discord. A frantic, last-minute idea. He summoned a book, and quickly opened it and showed its pages to the group. Or rather, the lack of pages. There was a hole inside the book, and in the hole were the elements, arranged clumsily inside the small interior.
“Look! These are your elements!” Discord then closed it, turned and chucked it over the maze's walls. “Now it’s in the maze. Go and find it!”
“...Nice try Discord. But we know those aren’t the real Ele-“
“YES! Yes, they are! Go in and find them! You’re not going to defeat me with those!”
“Oh yeah?” Twilight asked smugly. “We’ll see about that. Come on girls!” Immediately another rainbow beam erupted from the three. It struck Discord and… he actually felt something! A weird, hardening sensation. At first, he almost laughed. Finally, his torture was at an end! He realized too late what was actually happening. He was turning back to stone! He began screaming and thrashing to get out, but to no avail. Once the rainbow faded, all that remained was a statue of a weird goat thing, a terrified expression on its face.
The ponies magical appendages reappeared, and they all entered a group huddle, laughing at their victory. “We did it! We defeated Discord!” Twilight yelled victoriously.
“Now wait a sec,” Applejack spoke up. “We didn’t feel anything. That couldn’t have been the right ones.”
The mane six all broke away, confused expressions on their face. Fluttershy checked her element and looked up, her confused expression remaining. “M-mine says Element of Kindness.”
“And mine the Element of Generosity.”
Twilight suddenly began laughing loudly, the Element of Friendship in her hoof. Upon noticing her friends' confused and slightly scared faces, she showed them the back of the crown.
“The Elements of Karmony.”
