Princess Twilight and Prince Fire Dawn were the newest royals to Equestria. It had been a good millennia before they had ever had a new ruler. But the day they became ruler, something happened: the very balance of nature was thrown off. The new rulers had become royal allicorns through the dishonest means of magic, and that meant chaos was rising. Discord, the most serious threat that was ever made to Equestria, came back. And this time, he only wanted revenge. The world they once knew was thrown into an apocalyptic state. All hope lost, Discord turned everypony into the most chaotic creature he could think of: human beings. Princess Twilight, desperate to help her citizens, made a gate before she was captured. A gate…to the real world.

"Mary? Mary!"

"Huh? What?" I woke up with a start. We were in my mom's car, and I had fallen asleep, again. For the past few months, I had been having sleep problems. Not only that, but I had been having the weirdest dreams. No doctors had been able to find a cure for it. But that's not relevant; what was is that I was going to a private school.

I took a box of essentials: food, supplies needed for the classes I would take, and some random knick-knacks. The car finally came to a complete stop as my mom announced, "Here we are; PerryAcademy." I took off my seatbelt and carrying the box of essentials, I got out of the shotgun seat. The campus had students from all around, and I was just one of many. I looked back to my mother, and said, "I'll call you as soon I get situated into my dorm, okay?"

"Alright," she sighed. "I'll try and text you everyday, alright?"

"I'll make sure to respond." After a tearful farewell, I looked around again. The principal said that she would meet me out here, but I didn't see her anywhere. I then heard a voice from behind that asked, "Are you new here?"

I turned around to see a young man not too much older than myself. He had brown hair, which was tucked underneath a brown hat, and was wearing a brown trench coat. He was wearing yellow jeans, and brown shoes that matched everything but the pants. I greeted, "Oh, hello. I was…supposed to meet the principal out here, but…she seems to not be arriving until later."

"Actually," he laughed, "I was supposed to get a new girl to come to come with me." I pointed to myself, hoping he would know what it meant. "Yes, I'm guessing it's you!" I smiled, and asked, "Shouldn't there be more new arrivals?"

"Well, you'd think." He started walking to the principal's office. "For one thing, the school's expensive, and only a few out of many can afford it. And another thing, it's kind of a ways out of town, and most people just want to go to a public school anyway. But don't worry; the teachers here are more attentive to the student's needs. Oh, and also, most of the kids got here last week to settle down and make friends."

"Oh…" I said under my breath, feeling out of place. He just laughed, "Don't worry. The students and teachers here are very welcoming of newcomers, so you won't stick out. I should also note you that the school has no strict dress code, but it's important you wear the sweater-vests so they know you're a student." We stopped outside of a door marked, Principal's Office. He turned around to face me again. "Any questions?"

"Yeah, two. One: what's your name, and two: do you work here?"

"My name is Charlie, sophomore, and I help the principal to sort of get to know the students. I don't have an official title, though."

"How about 'Principal-Student Relations'?" I joked, sitting down in a nearby chair. Charlie sat down as well and laughed, "Hey, that just might work. Principal Romore should be out in just a few minutes." It wouldn't have taken long for her to come out, I knew, but I soon fell asleep. And just when I thought my sleep disorder wouldn't be important…

"I…I need to get out of here….

"How….how can I survive without food?" The blonde girl looked at her surroundings. She had on an orange buttoned blouse, dark jeans, cowboy boots and a hat to match. She found herself in the cellar where they kept preserves. She looked at the last of the hard cider and with a groan, drank it all down. "Where's all the cider gone?"

"Heh, maybe if you didn't drown your sorrows in it, there would still be some left," an unfriendly voice replied.

"Can it, Discord. You're the only reason I'm drinkin' down this stuff…" She threw the bottle into the sky, only for it to shatter to the ground. She took up a nearby broom and sighed, "The days you show up never make it easier…"

"Well, I seem to enjoy it. Why don't you return the favor?" She gave an angry scowl to the sky and replied, "Discord, you've been messing with me an' my family for 500 years now. I wouldn't care if you smite me right here, right now!"

"Oh, that would be no fun. There's no fun in dead ponies, so I made you immortal, not to mention human. I thought you would enjoy it…"

"What I would enjoy is for you to let us have a free pass to th' Elements of Harmony, because I'm gettin' tired of havin' the same gosh-darn argument with you every other day of my stinkin' life!"

"Well, it doesn't matter now. Not keeping bonds for five centuries really takes its toll on their power…"

"I ain't ever givin' up! There is nothin' you can say to convince me to go through that gate!" There was a silence for a minute. She said to herself in triumph, "That did the trick," but soon heard a knock on the cellar door. She walked to the door to open it, shouting, "If this is some refugees, we aren't takin'! We're all out of food and I don't have any ban-!"

She opened the cellar door and gasped, "Sweet mother of all that is good an' pure…" She saw two people, who would've been ponies if they weren't cursed right now. The women, to her right, looked middle-aged in human terms. She had blonde hair that was natural, although light brown highlights were starting to set in. She had on a faded red blouse and had a dark red handkerchief on. The man had curly red hair and white hairs were coming in, as he was also middle-aged. He wore a hat that vaguely reminded her of the Flim-Flam Brothers, a bowtie and collar, and a yellow-green shirt.

"Mom! Dad!" Applejack exclaimed, throwing her arms around them. She started to shed tears. "I-I've never been this happy all of my life…why did ya'll come back after so long?" The parents released from her tight hug, and the mother, her name Lucky Shot, answered, "Well, Granny Smith is right in telling you we were at Hoofington. It's just…business started coming up, and things kept getting in the way. Eventually, when the chaos hit there, we decided that our girl wouldn't be safe on her own, even with the news that you were an Element of Harmony. It…took us a while to find this old place, and with the chaos happening everywhere, it was much harder to find it. But…it was all worth it to see my daughter again!"

"Come on in!" She gestured to the cellar door and both of her parents went in. She took a look at her surroundings. Somewhere, the lowly farmhand that she had hired was picking off the overgrown apple trees, getting scuffed and bruised from going up in the high branches. But after a while, she got to appreciating the help of her friends and neighbors, and hoped that the farmhand would bring enough back for some visitors.

"Are you sure that she's the one?"

"Yes, and that—Oh, she's waking up." I opened my eyes to see Charlie and…a woman staring at me. The woman was wearing a pink dress suit and had wavy blonde hair, which was much fairer than my dirty blonde. I questioned the woman, "Principal Romore, I presume?"

She nodded. "And you must be Mary. It's very nice to meet one of the newest students to join us here at PerryAcademy. I will take you to your dorms and help you with your things." She took the box out of my hands and smiled. I smiled back, getting up. "Oh, thank you!"

"It's the least I can do," she reassured me. I followed her to wherever my dorm might be as she explained, "I just got out of a board meeting, and would be happy to show you to you room. Over the past few months"-she sighed as she opened a door for me—"We haven't been getting many submission forms for here. Most people don't want to pay and with some families taking their kids out, we're quickly losing money."

"That must be rough." I looked around the school grounds as we soon made it back inside to the dorm rooms. She turned to look at me, like she was observing my looks and quickly turned back. "Mary, how did you get those pink streaks in your hair?" I looked to my up-do, which was a mass of bobby pins, hairspray and sheer willpower holding together. Yet, I was able to pull it all off.

"My mom let me dye it," I simply replied as we walked up a flight of stairs. "My friends put different streaks in theirs. I also noticed some of the students here had them."

"Oh, that's what every student here seems to be doing," she stated. "Heck, I may have to join the trend just to look 'cool.'" I laughed at the thought, but she didn't look back, probably because she knew that not all teachers were blessed with being the cool ones. She came to a door marked 65P.

"Well, here we are," my principal told me, setting the box right next to the door. "This will be your dorm room. Oh! I forgot to mention. I usually pair up the Freshmen with the higher-people-on-the-totem-pole, so to speak, so you will be rooming with a Miss…Jackie Hollings. I hope you don't mind…"

"No! Really, it's okay…" I said, taking a bag of snacks from out of the box of dorm stuff. "But she knows I'm going to be here, right?"

"We try to let the higher-grade students know who they're going to be roomed with, though for Jackie, she said 'surprise me.'" We both laughed at her joke, and with a wave good-bye, she left. I put the opened snack bag back in the box and carried the box inside. I put the box down near the bed and checked my surroundings. It was a small dorm, as most are only one room, but it had a separate bathroom, which was nice. The room had plain white walls that were covered with various posters, drawings, and other decorations. There was a full-body mirror, a desk, and a small armoire at the foot of the bunk bed. I laid down on the bed and the feeling of sleep quickly passed over me.

Applejack set up a table in the cider cellar, out of a box and an old sheet, just to impress her parents. She was very nervous around them. After all, it had been a very, VERY long time. They had left only a few days after Applebloom's birth, and were gone afterwards. She wanted to impress them. She turned to see them both crouching to sit at the makeshift table and asked, "So, how are the relatives in Hoofington?"

"They were wondering about where you were," her mother explained. "But we couldn't bring you there because you were still in school, of course. I was still in pain from just giving birth to Applebloom a few days earlier, but I was still healthy enough to make the trip with your father. So, how's your brother, Big Macintosh been doing?"

"He left," AJ solemnly stated, "said he was looking for somepony, and needed to help her…"

"And how's Granny Smith? I didn't see her around when we came…"

"Oh…" Applejack's heart sank when her mom mentioned that name. She decided if her Element were going to shine through in these hard times, it'd be now. "Granny Smith…she died a long time ago. Before we were all cursed with immortality. I-I'm sorry, I should've told you when y'all came…"

"It's okay, dear." The tired mother got up from crouching down. "After all, honesty is the best policy." Applejack started to get tears in her eyes as memories of her early childhood came flooding back. She sniffled, "I…I remember you always told me that…" and hugged them as tight as she could.

Suddenly, there was another knock on the cellar door. Not complaining like she did the first time she answered it, she opened it and wholeheartedly smiled at the figure. It was a male, a brunette to be precise. He wore a collared shirt, like most of the people around the farm did. He was holding a basket of apples, filled to the brim, but you could tell he had been through a lot to fill it. His shirt and jeans were all scuffed up, and he had visible bruises and cuts all over his skin.

"Hey, Caramel," she greeted, allowing him inside. He went down the steps and noticed the other two people immediately. Putting the basket down to his side, he asked, "So, who are these guys?"

"Caramel, these are my folks. They finally came back…" He shook hands with both, but looked at them nervous. Caramel then looked at AJ, and asked her parents, "Can we have a minute to ourselves?" The parents turned around while Caramel took Applejack to a more private section of the cellar. There, he pulled her down. She asked, a bit annoyed, "Caramel, what are you doin'?"

"AJ…how long has it been since you've seen your parents? Well, not counting the years we've been stuck like this."

"Um…I don't know…I was about seven when they left…er, and I was 28, so….21 years?"

"How many times have you thought about the likelihood of their return after about…say, one third of those years?"

"Caramel, what are you implying?"

"I'm thinking…that those aren't your real parents out there."

"Caramel, you've made many mistakes about these kinds of things before…" Then and there, Caramel remembered his real name, Chance-a-lot. Through chances, he had gotten through life, and through even more luck, he met Applejack. He became a farmhand to her, and through even more chance, got his cutie mark. For many, the horseshoes cutie mark meant either hoof-shining in Manehattan or service or assistance to somepony else.

"But I'm pretty sure I'm not flubbing this," Caramel replied, stopping his brain from going off-track. Applejack sighed, "What am I gonna do with you?" She then heard her mother call, "AJ! There's something me and my father want to talk to you about." AJ got up from sitting, and with a stern glare at Caramel, said, "Don't you dare ruin this for me." Caramel quickly nodded, and followed her back to where her parents were standing. AJ looked at her parents and asked, "What is it?"

"Before we came here…" her mother said, looking a bit nervous, "we decided it would be best if all of the family members…come with us to the gate."

"The gate?!" Applejack exclaimed, both shocked and worried. Being one of the Princess' good friends, she knew where the gate went. Once you went through, and if you were an earth pony, you lost all of your memories. As a unicorn or Pegasus, it was even worse. You had to hide your horn or wings, memories from this world in tact. The pegusi and unicorns were meant to keep ponies alive and survive for many generations, trying to keep them from losing sight of what was important: saving this world by finding the True Wings.

"Are you insane?!" AJ exclaimed again, stopping her thoughts from trailing away. "My friends, the Elements, they need me to stay here!"

"Your friends are probably dead!" Her mom shouted.

"N-no," her daughter said, firmly holding to what she thought was true. "My friends would never desert me, and I'm gonna go out there and prove it to you." She started to walk back to the ladder and door, but her mom grabbed her wrist as tight as she could. Her mother argued, "No, you're my little girl, and you're coming with me!"

"I'm not your little girl anymore! I can take care of myself!" She tried desperately to get out of her mother's grip, but it wouldn't budge. She tugged at it with both hands, and Caramel soon tried to help her out of the grip as well. AJ finally was successful, but found to her horror, her mom's arm was stuck to her, still gripping to her wrist. Her mother's hand was missing, and her face was starting to drip away like wax. AJ looked in horror, and stated nervously, "Caramel…I have the feeling you were right…."

"Applejack…..I'm so sorry…"

"What are you sorry for?" she scoffed. "You're obviously creations of Discord."

"We….we are…and I'm sure….that if we were your real parents…they would really love you…." Every word she spoke was true, as her wax melted away. By the time there was nothing left of her but a puddle, AJ found her "father" had become a common cricket. Applejack chuckled. Caramel looked at her oddly. "What's so funny?"

"I was right. Discord works cheap. Remember that rock I told you about?" He laughed, remembering that story. He sat down, and shooed the cricket away. AJ sat down next to him, a worried look on her face. "Caramel…what if they're right? What if…my friends have deserted me?"

"AJ, your friends would never desert you, and if they did go through there, they'd never leave another Element of Harmony behind." Applejack put her arms around him, tearing up. He soon did the same, and patted her back to comfort her.

I awoke with a start, my pillow soaking wet with cold sweat. I saw the moon was waxing outside. I laughed to myself and thought, waxing…that had something to do with my dream…didn't it? I shrugged it aside and got a box of snacks from my box. As I crunched down the junk food, I heard a groan. I looked to the bunk bed and found the roommate the principal had spoke of on the top bunk.

She had ginger hair, long eyelashes, and was wearing a zebra-print night shirt with striped pajama pants. I didn't want to wake her just to ask who she was, so I went back to bed quickly. Soon realizing I had brought no nightgown with me, I quickly fell asleep to another dream I would have no memory of.

The shop was closed. The doors were bolted, and the windows were shut. The delicious smell of food had gone away, and all the first floor of Sugarcube Corner had to offer was a thick layer of dust. The only person there was up in her room, sleeping away her life, hoping that everything outside would go away.

The turmoil, both physical and psychological, was unbearable. The windows were boarded up so she couldn't see the horrid scene outside. Most of Ponyville had been destroyed, and only the buildings with people still in them were spared, only for Discord to use the people later for his own shenanigans.

She was probably one of the people he used most often. She used to love his chaos; the silly kind of course. But when she found a more serious side to it all, she swore she would never enjoy it again. Her poufy hair had gone flat, and would remain that way. She then awoke to a voice she wish she had forgotten.

"Hm, Pinkie Pie, I know you stayed this way for most of my time back, but could you…I don't know…get up and be fun again?" She growled in response, "My world is dead. There's no fun here anymore. Since you made my world dead, why don't you DROP DEAD?!" He scolded her, "Now that's no way to treat somepony's company you once enjoyed…"

"There's nothing to enjoy. Maybe I did, but there's nothing fun about the world as you've made it now." He flashed in, as she could see, and gave a stern look to him. He asked, "Pinkie, why do you even try to hide behind this serious façade?"

"Because, if I show any emotion but bitter hatred towards you, you'll use it against me." He couldn't deny that; he relished in playing with ponies' (or now people's) emotions, especially the weak and naïve. But, he still stated, "Pinkie, think of all the memories we had together."

Suddenly, memories came flooding back. She knew that this was his magic. He loved using it on her to stir up any emotions he could to make her less stoic. The labyrinth appeared in her mind, so vivid, both in mind and body. She felt all the emotions he put her through again: joy, then confusion, then sadness, and finally anger. The anger lingered over her for what seemed like days, and he wanted to bring it up again, but not anger for him; anger for the ones she loved.

Pinkie tried her best to hold back the tears, and put a pillow in her arms and buried her face in it. Right now, she wanted it to stop. She would've begged and pleaded, but she knew that was exactly what he wanted. The memories ceased, and she said, trying to keep her voice steady, "Get out…of my house…"

"Well, it's not like I want to go," he stated, ignoring her request. "I'm just going to keep putting you through this, unless….you'd rather leave." Oh, it was so hard not to take the request now. He filled her mind with more thoughts; thoughts of the others leaving her behind, and if she didn't go through the gate now, they would never remember her.

Then she saw what would happen if she went through the gate. The world on the other side was lush, but like anything, had its down sides. Her hair was curly again, and she would go on with her life carefree…and with no knowledge of what Equestria was like. She was not angry now, she was seething with rage. She couldn't hold it back anymore.

"GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" She threw the pillow she had buried her face in at Discord. It would've been a perfect shot if he hadn't flashed out. She sighed, and looked around. After all these years, she had trained herself to feel if he could hear her; it was like a modified Pinkie sense. She didn't feel anything, and that was her cue to let the tears flow.

She bawled all of her sorrows out. In the hour, her bed was now littered with tissues. She looked to an old, worn picture of her friends on the nightstand. She was an Element of Harmony. The Element of Laughter, and Discord's favorite Element, probably because he enjoyed laughter himself. But she knew there was a difference. She asked herself aloud, "If I get joy out of making ponies happy, why does he get joy out of making ponies suffer?" Even after 500 years, she could never understand.