Hidden Wings

Rainbow Dash moved as fast as she could through the hedge maze, she had to find either the elements or her friends, preferably both. She stopped in her tracks when she heard the sound of rumbling thunder come from somewhere close, she moved towards the sound and spotted a small cloud flying quickly through the maze occasionally spewing bolts of rainbow coloured lightning.

"I've got you now element." She said to herself before bolting after the cloud, she followed it through the many twists and turns of the hedge maze only to be confronted by Discord, currently lounging on a hammock made of clouds while wearing a pair of flashy green sunglasses.

Discord gave a half hearted yawn while stretching out his mismatched limbs, resulting in several pops and cracks coming from them. "I can see why you like these clouds so much, very plush." he said while patting the cloud he lay on.

"Get off there and put 'em up!" Rainbow Dash said as she assumed a fighting stance.

"Hey, I'm here to deliver a message." Discord said while sitting up from his hammock.

Rainbow Dash however couldn't care less. "I've got a massage for you too!" She shouted as she threw several gabs in the air.

Discord, seemingly growing irritated took off his sunglasses and moved closer. "Listen closely this is important." He then suddenly appeared on Rainbow Dash's right. "A weighty choice is yours to make." He then pulled away to appear on Rainbow Dash's left. "The right selection or a big mistake." He then pulled away again only to appear behind her, wrapping his lion arm around her back. "If the wrong choice you choose to pursue, the foundations of home will crumble without you."

Rainbow Dash was confused at what the lord of chaos meant, but when he snapped his finger it became all to clear. The cloud Rainbow had been chasing earlier had reappeared and began to spin around, what it revealed was a vision of Cloudsdale crumbling and its populous running in fear.

"Honey?"

"Cloudsdale... crumble... without... me?" Rainbow Dash said as Discord's trick began to take hold.

"Sweetie!"

"NOOO!" Rainbow Dash screamed as she watched the city she grew up in crumble.

"Rainbow!"

Suddenly a box appeared in front of Rainbow Dash. "That box contains your wings, you can take them and leave the game or continue endlessly wondering this maze, your choice." Discord said as he caressed Rainbow's cheek, as he did so the colours of her coat and mane began to become more dull.

"Anisoptera!!" The voice from inside Rainbow Dash's head screamed, snapping her out of the trance Discord had put her in.

Rainbow Dash shook her head in an attempt to shake off the last of the mental manipulation. She looked to the box and then to Discord, who had a smug grin stuck to his face. (Literally there were stickers of smug grins stuck across his face.) Instead of dignifying him with a verbal response, Rainbow Dash smacked the box out of the air and darted off into the maze.

"... Well that was unexpected." Discord muttered to himself. "Oh well, 4 out of 6 is still a passing grade in my book." he said as he laid back down on his hammock.

"Thanks mom." Rainbow Dash said to her mother over the hive mind.

"No problem sweetie." Queen Meganeura responded "Once your done I'll see if I can get some of those candies you like as a treat."

Rainbow Dash groaned "Mom I'm not a grub anymore, stop treating me like one."

Before she could hear her mothers reply, Rainbow Dash heard voices from deeper in the maze.

"Well looky there, Rainbow Dash is flying away. She's abandonin' us." She heard Applejack say.

"Well I know that's got to be a lie." Twilight said.

"Yeah, what the hay AJ?" Rainbow Dash said as she rounded the corner.

"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight cheered as she dropped the boulder she was carrying for some reason, and ran up to hug Rainbow.

Rainbow Dash returned the hug while receiving a large amount of love from Twilight. She then turned to look at the rest of her friends but... something was wrong. Their coats and manes look like they had the colour sucked out of them, and that was just the most obvious change. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie both looked aggressive, Pinkie gave off the feeling that she would punch you for saying the wrong thing, while Fluttershy looked as if she'd do it for sick enjoyment. Applejack looked very shifty, it was just like the nights where the two had played poker together, eyes darting around and lips sucked into her mouth whenever she lied. And Rarity was obsessing over the large bolder that Twilight had dropped, when Fluttershy had gotten to close she screamed at her to get away from 'Tom'.

There was one more thing that only Rainbow Dash noticed, the only love she could sense was Twilight's, which was being directed at all their friends but mostly at Dash, and Rarity who's love was directed only at the boulder and nothing else, she couldn't feel any love coming from the others.

"Twi what happened to them?" Rainbow Dash whispered into Twilights ear while gesturing to their other friends.

"I don't know." Twilight whispered back. "I just found them like this. First I found Applejack who seemingly can't stop lying, Pinkie doesn't want anyone to laugh or be happy, Rarity is obsessing over that boulder, and Fluttershy is acting super mean."

Upon hearing this Rainbow Dash's mind wondered back to her encounter with Discord. "Twi I think I might know what happened to them." She said, looking at Twilight with a serious expression. "I ran into Discord earlier, he tried to mess with my head to try and make me abandon you guys." Her body shuddered at the memory, the draconequus had come so close to making her throw away her friends and strongest moral principle. "It didn't work, obviously, but..." Her gaze drifted to her friends.

"It might have worked on them." Twilight finished. "Oh no no no no!" Twilight began to freak out, pacing back and forth and muttering to herself about potential ways to fix this.

Rainbow on the other hoof, knew where some information on Discord's magic, and thus his mental manipulation, could be found. "Can someling check the hive library for anything about discord and his magic?" She said over the hivemind. That library had books from before the first Hearth's Warming, there was bound to be something about Discord.

Receiving several conformations to her request, Rainbow Dash moved to comfort Twilight. "Twi you need to calm down."

"Calm down? CALM DOWN!" Twilight screamed. "How am I supposed to calm down?! This will make it impossible for us to use the elements!" She then began to hyperventilate.

Rainbow Dash placed a hoof on her friends shoulder. "Listen Twi, your smart, if you can't figure out a way to fix this then nopony could." She said with a reassuring smile. "But right now you can brainstorm ideas while we look for the elements, no point in slowing down to do something we can do while we're searching."

Twilight seemed to calm down thanks to Rainbow Dash's reassurance. "You're right, thanks Dash."

"Hey when am I ever wrong." Twilight bit her tongue to stop herself from going down the list of times her prismatic friend has been wrong. Rainbow Dash meanwhile turned to address their friends. "Alright everypony lets get moving!" The four acknowledged her with a chorus of grumbles as they began to plod forward.

However before the group could get far the entire maze began to rumble, and the hedges began to sink into the ground. Once it was over the group found themselves standing in a large crater, at the edge of which was Discord, still lounging on his hammock, but now with a large tropical drink held in his lion paw.

"You know, I think that was the first time anyone has been able to slip something by me, I am very impressed Rainbow Dash." He said before taking a long sip form his drink. "But rules are rules, and you broke the no magic no wings rule so this game is now over." He snaped his talon and the groups horns and wings returned to them.

Twilight and Rainbow both looked at the lord of chaos with looks of horror, which caused him to burst out laughing and begin rolling on the ground.

"And what are you laughing at!?" Pinkie Pie shouted.

"Oh you ponies are just the most fun I've had in eons." Discord said while wiping a tear from his eye.

Pinkie suddenly dashed to stand right in front of Discord. "Well quit it! You better think before you laugh at the pink...ie pie!"

"Oh yeah, well ha ha." Fluttershy mocked.

"Quit it!" Demanded Pinkie.

"No, ha ha." Fluttershy continued. The two then began to go back and forth, neither seemingly willing to back down.

Meanwhile, Applejack incited an argument with Rarity about whether or not they should share Rarity's boulder, this argument quickly turned violent, with Rarity trying to attack Applejack, but Rainbow Dash quickly grabbed Applejack and flew her away from the crazed fashionista before any harm could be done.

Twilight made a futile attempt to stop her friends from fighting, all the while Discord laughed. "Oh this is just too entertaining."

"Stop it Discord, you're not playing fair." Twilight demanded.

"I'm not playing fair?" Discord said. I Don't think we've met. I'm Discord, Spirit of chaos and disharmony. Hello?"

Then Rainbow Dash swooped in, pointing her hoof accusingly at Discord. "Hey you took away the maze before we found the elements."

"Yeah." Twilight added. "And Dash couldn't have violated your no wings rule, she didn't have them when we ran into each other."

A sinister grin grew across Discords face. "Ooo now this is an interesting development, you mean you don't know?"

A look of confusion spread across Twilight's face, and one of dread spared across Rainbow's. "Don't know what?" said Twilight.

"Ah well then I mustn't spoil things, these events turn out much more chaotic the longer you let them stew. And as for the elements, I never said they were in the labyrinth." Discord then snapped his fingers and Twilight and Dash found themselves just outside the elements vault looking at their past selves.

"Twists and turns on my master plan. Then find the elements back where you began." The past version of Discord said, once he finished Twilight and Rainbow found themselves back in the present.

"What, But.. then... where..." Twilight stammered before being cut off by Discord. "Well gotta run, I've got chaos to spread, toodeloo." He said before disappearing in a flash of light.

As soon as he left, Discords cotton candy clouds began to role in and drenched everything in chocolate milk. "Think Twilight, think. Find the elements back where you began, back where you began." Twilight began to mutter to herself.

Meanwhile Rainbow Dash received a call over the hive mind. "Princess, we have a problem." Anax the captain of the Hive guard said.

"What?" Rainbow asked.

"Everything we had on discord in the library has been destroyed." Anax let out a long, exasperated, mental sigh. "It seems like every book that mentioned Discord directly was turned into a bomb, a whipped cream bomb."

Rainbow Dash smacked her hoof to her face. "Great, just great."

"Home! Back where you began." Twilight Cheered. "The elements must be in Ponyville."

'The train or walking will take way to long, especially with Rarity lugging around that boulder.' Rainbow thought. 'We'll need some help.' As soon as she was done thinking she raced off towards Canterlot.

"Wait, Rainbow where are you going? We need to get to-" Twilight was then suddenly cut off by several popping sounds from behind her. Turning around Twilight saw what she least expected, standing there were around 20 ponies that Twilight recognised as students from Celestia's school for gifted unicorns, and at the head of the group was Twilights old friend Lemon Hearts.

"Hey Twilight, good to see you." Lemon Hearts said as she walked up to twilight and gave her a hug. "Before you ask why were here, Dew Dro-." Lemon Hearts flinched as is if expecting to be yelled at. "I mean Rainbow Dash asked us to help you guys get back to Ponyville faster."

"Wait but how-" Twilight tried to speak but was cut of by Lemon Hearts. "Listen I'm sorry we don't have time to talk, we can once you've saved the world... again."

Once she was done speaking Lemon Hearts lit her horn, along with all the other students which, as Twilight noted, all shared the same magic colour of magenta. A few seconds later and Twilight, along with her friends and the boulder were gone.

"Are you sure they'll be alright princess?" Asked one of the students.

"I've known Twilight for years, and Anisoptera for even longer, they won't stop trying until they physically can't." Lemon Hearts said with a chuckle. "They'll probably figure something out before that."