The prison cell was drab, boring, grey. Bars of cold iron embedded in unforgiving concrete. Celestia slammed a gold-shod hoof into the bars of her prison, and growled in frustration when they didn’t yield one bit. Of course they wouldn’t. These bars were not of this world. A supernatural construction, wrought to keep Celestia and Luna occupied, all while Discord slowly tightened his hold on the land of Equestria, tearing it asunder with pure chaos.
“Discord!” she shouted to the ceiling, using the Royal Canterlot Voice to amplify her cries. “Let me out!”
“Oh no,” Discord’s voice boomed around her. “I think this is only fair. I spent over a thousand years in stone, I deserve this, I’m entitled to it.”
“Worry not, sister!” Luna’s voice rang out, a lot quieter than Discord’s. “Your incarceration shall be only temporary!”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Discord growled. “No, our dear Celestia will pay the price, and I’m going to take extreme pleasure in taking that payment.”
“I can still escape,” Celestia muttered. “You haven’t got me yet.”
“I severely doubt that,” Discord chuckled. “Go on, dear Celestia. Try your best. You’ll not escape me, and when I take my payment from you, you’ll be so plot-pained, you won’t be able to sit down for a week.”
Celestia glared out the window of the cell, and saw a titanic yellow eye watching her intently.
“Luna,” she said.
“Yes, sister?” Luna’s voice came back.
“Do it.”
There was silence, then a titanic boom of falling weights, the ground shaking ever so slightly as massive objects bounced across the land outside. The shaking came to a swift end, and Luna cheered.
“Huzzah!” Luna cheered. “Take that, Discord! Mine sister is to be free!”
“I don’t think so,” chuckled Discord. There was another loud boom, and Luna swore in an ancient tongue.
“Thou art a cheat!” she protested. “An absolute, and utter cheat!”
“My dear, you’re just a sore loser,” Discord dismissed. “And with that failiure...”
“No,” Celestia growled.
There was a sound like velcro tearing, and Discord was suddenly standing on the other side of the bars, dressed like a prison warden, hat, truncheon and all.
“I’m going to take my payment,” Discord said, sheathing his baton and fiddling with a zip. “And I’m going to enjoy it. Open wide, Celestia...”
Celestia grunted in frustration as she was magically pulled to the bars, and found her hooves moving of their own accord.
“You’ll never get away with this, Discord,” she grunted, as her hooves moved to where she didn’t want them to, and Discord’s “payment” was exposed. “Twilight and her friends will stop you.”
“Perhaps,” Discord laughed. “If they can pull themselves together, but I sincerely doubt that. They’re not acting like themselves. And even if they do...” Discord’s claw reached out. “It’ll be too late for you, Celestia. Your fold will be plundered so hard... you’ll never forget this.”
Celestia gritted her teeth, and closed her eyes. This was something she didn’t want to see, it was going to hurt enough as it was.
There was a rustle, and a snap of elastic. Celestia blushed as that which was most precious to her was violated, penetrated deeply by Discord as he sought his payment.
“And you’re free to go,” Discord laughed, holding up a blue piece of paper in his claws, laughing, before tucking it inside his wallet, sealing it with the zip. “How does it feel, Celestia? How does it feel to have that hard-won rent money pulled out, just... like... that? You, the supposed master of Monopoly?”
Celestia opened her eyes, and fixed Discord with the meanest glare she could, putting her billfold away back underneath her regalia.
“You’re going to regret this, Discord,” she growled. “I’m going to make sure you land on one of my motels, and I’m going to ream you for every last dollar you have.”
“Oh,” Discord said, mockingly. “I’m so scared, I’m quaking in my top-hat.” He laughed, tearing off the warden’s costume and vanishing as the cell door rattled open. “It’s my turn, again!”
Celestia pursed her lips, and stepped out of the cell. She wanted to cry.
“I’m sorry, sister,” Luna apologized quietly in her mind. “I tried three times, but... I couldn’t roll doubles.”
“It’s okay, Luna,” Celestia whispered. “This game can’t go on forever. We just have to stay strong until Twilight can get the Elements of Harmony together.”
Celestia left the jail area, and looked skywards; in the sky above, a titanic Discord and Luna leaned over the board, and all around her on the flat land that was the board, green houses and red hotels stood proudly. Two giant ivory cubes left the ground, lifted by a mismatched claw, and were cast back to the earth with a thunderous impact, as they bounced and rolled across the landscape, narrowly missing one of two massive piles of card.
A thousand curses upon Discord for putting her and Luna through all this. But it was either subject herself to the most dangerous, high-stakes game they’d ever played, or risk the lives of her subjects, and no matter how you sliced it... she’d rather risk herself than her subjects.
Didn’t mean she had to actually enjoy this, though, and if there was anything Celestia hated more than anything else, it was losing at Monopoly. Not as much as Luna, though, and the last time they’d played together, it had ended in an attempt to instate perpetual night and somepony getting sent to the moon for a thousand years.
“Ten!” Discord crowed, voice booming around Celestia thanks to her vastly smaller size. “Lucky me, that’s just what I needed!”
“Since when did a six-sided dice have a side with eight dots on it?!” Luna protested hotly.
“Get with the times, dear Woona,” Discord laughed, moving a giant metal top-hat along the board. “Community chest! I win the beauty pageant!”
Celestia gritted her teeth as Discord proceeded to take his twenty-dollar prize money.
She just had to stay strong. Twilight and her friends would save the day, she could feel it.
