“Make it stop!” The only pony nearby to hear Octavia’s pleading could not enjoy this anymore than he did. Well calling him a pony would not be quite right. After all, he was nothing less than draconequus and the spirit of disharmony.
“Don’t you like my orchestra?” Somehow he managed to sound cocky and hurt at the same time. When Octavia started glaring daggers at him he could not help but laugh himself to tears. When the laughter finally died down and all the fun was drained by his actions he snapped his fingers.
The massive amounts of accordions popped out of existence. Finally being able to hear her own thoughts Octavia gave a sigh of relief. As much as she loved most kind of music, that many instruments at such a volume was not exactly her definition of a good time. Discord on the other hand seemed to have the time of his life.
“Why did I even agree to this stupid competition?” Octavia grumbled under her breath. “Stupid Vinyl and her stupid game shows.”
“Oh come on, it’s not that bad,” Discord smirked at her. With a snap of his fingers the snow storm disappeared. “You just have to embrace the fun of it instead of denying it.” Another snap of his finger and the ground started shifting beneath Octavia’s hooves.
Before Octavia could fathom what was happening she found herself galloping on the spot. The ground beneath her was spinning.
“Discord, what are you doing?”
“I call it the ponywheel!” The draconequus exclaimed with glee. Octavia noticed that he had in fact not removed the blizzard. He’d simply shut it out. Shut it out with a huge spinning glass dome that was.
Octavia could feel the phase quicken and with that her pulse. At this rate she would be too exhausted to run within the minute. She gave Discord a frown of disapproval, which was met by an outburst of laughter.
“Y-You should see yourself,” Discord managed to blurt out between fits of laughter. “You look like a hamster trapped in a ball!”
After meeting Vinyl the ever so reserved mare had given up. What pride she once wielded was far gone and her image crushed. There was no point in holding back. She’d do what she had to do to please that cursed mare, even if she had to participate in “The Discorded Games.”
The games was a fairly new show introduced to Equestria after the reforming of Discord. Apparently, it was an agreement with the princess after Discord had a little too much fun on his day off. With Equestria in a peaceful state, there was not much for him to do these days, so eventually he came up with the idea of “The Discorded Games”.
Only a week after it had started it was all ready the most watched game show in the history of Equestria. There were two rules: First, Discord can do anything he wanted as long as he did not hurt anypony, second was if you gave up, you lost the game. That did not sound to bad did it now? The thing is, the winner would get fifty thousand tax free bits. With that much money in play, obviously Discord did not hold a lot back.
Of course the first thing Vinyl had done was to sign up. Why would she not? She’d always dreamed of her own nightclub, and the bits would cover that and more. But seeing as Octavia was in a glass dome galloping with all her strength in order not to fall fate obviously had done something wrong.
The day before the games Vinyl had somehow managed to hurt herself during one of her crowd dives at the nightclub she currently worked in. This resulted in hours of pleading and countless puppy-faces until Octavia finally gave in and took her place. After all, she could never crush the dreams of her marefriend, even though she had to sacrifice both her dignity and sanity.
A loud pop brought Octavia out of her thoughts and back to the freezing reality. Of all the places Discord had decided to have this round of the games, it had to be the icy wastelands surrounding the Crystal Empire.
As the exhaustion overtook Octavia’s legs, she fell down to her haunches and simply stared at the god of chaos. All he did was grin at her like nothing had happened. After she’d rested for a minute or two she finally got back up to her hooves.
“You really should exercise more, Octavia, all those fancy dinners are starting to show on that flank of yours.” Seeing only a blank stare as a response to his little insult Discord decided to step it up a notch. “Ready for round three?”
With another snap of his fingers the ground beneath them gave in. Octavia tried to scream but found she could not produce a single noise with her mouth. The further she fell the darker it became. Eventually the walls around her had become pitch black and she could no longer see her hooves.
After what felt like minutes she finally ceased trying to scream. Just as she closed her mouth she could hear a small snicker. Soon it turned into a full out laughter. It took a few minutes before the laughter died down and the sly voice of Discord spoke up.
“It’s been almost a minute since you stopped falling, Octavia,” A white grin contrasted the dark. “This is the third challenge. Inside this room is the key that leads to victory. There’s no telling how big the room is or where the door is. Good luck!” With that the grin disappeared and Octavia was on her own.
With no other option she took a step forward. What she was met with did not please her as her face hit a slimy wall. She did not want to find out where the slime came from she changed direction. Once again, she hit a slimy wall. She decided to use her hooves to feel around the room for a way out. After spinning halfway around she could feel her hooves hit wood.
Had she found the door all ready? Well that was easy, now to find the key. She kept tracing her hoof along the wall only to find the room was a small circle barely bigger than she could reach out her hoof in. After searching around for a while she finally found a button. She pressed it and the whole “room” lit up.
What Discord had so delicately called a room was in reality a well. In the ceiling was a key attached to a string. On the floor was a rope knotted into a lasso. Of course. Why would he not put a lasso in the room and hang the key in the ceiling?
Octavia picked up the rope with her mouth. The rope was covered by a layer of the same slime as the wall, which disgusted Octavia to no end. Now to actually get the key. Octavia had to admit, she was no expert with the lasso, but it could not be that hard could it?
The first throw did not even make it halfway there. The second she managed to hook her tail and fall face first into the floor. The third was equally horrible. After uncountable many throws she finally managed to hook the key. Unsurprisingly enough, the key simply vanished.
With no patience left, Octavia groaned and bucked the wall behind her as hard as she could. Not a second later she felt something fall out of her mane. With a cling it landed on the floor and taunted her to no extent. On the ground right before her laid the key. All this time it had been in her mane.
Barely being able to keep herself from running rampart inside the room she unlocked the door and opened. Outside stood Vinyl, Discord and a crowd of ponies. Octavia instantly tackled Vinyl to the ground with an evil smirk.
“You owe me, Scratch, big time.”
