Disclaimer: I do not own MLP:FIM, or anything that is copyrighted.
It was a normal day in Ponyville as the ponies in the town wandered around doing their usual business without fear of the typical monster barging in and threatening all of their lives (Some creatures would say that the lack of dangerous threats in Ponyville means that today was an unusual day, but that is beside the point.) On this day, five ponies and a young dragon were sat in a park having a peaceful picnic.
"… and then I said 'That's not a cupcake, that's a muffin'!" Pinkie Pie said causing the group to laugh as Spike the dragon shovelled down another helping of ruby raspberry ice cream. "Oh Pinkie Pie, you're so random!" said Rainbow Dash as she picked up another cupcake from the tray and taking a bite from it. Pinkie Pie looked over at Applejack and said "Oh that reminds me, Mrs. Cake wanted me to ask you for an extra batch of apples in the next delivery for her scrum-deli-umptious Apple Cherry Tarts."
Applejack nodded as she placed down her punch glass and said "That's might helpful of you to tell me, sugarcube. Tell the Cakes that they'll get all the apples they need." Twilight picked up a cupcake in her magic as she looked around, before asking "Do any of you know where Fluttershy is? She's never this late for anything." Rarity looked over to her as she picked up her drink and said "Don't worry, darling. Fluttershy told me earlier that she may not turn up, as Discord seemed to be acting weird last night." Rarity took a sip of her drink as the rest of the ponies stared at her in confusion.
After a moment, the dressmaker finally took notice of her friend's confusion, so she placed her drink down and continued "I honestly don't know that much other than that, so we'll just have to wait until she turns up to find out." As if by magic, the sound of flapping wings grew as Fluttershy appeared from the nearby forest before gently landing near the others. "Sorry I'm late, everypony, but Discord needed to leave for a couple of days to visits some of his old acquaintances."
The group of ponies turned to each other for a moment, before turning back as Rarity asked "What do you mean when you say 'old acquaintances', dear?" Fluttershy walked over to the picnic blanket as she said "Well Discord said that they were a group of old rock icons, and as a friend I didn't want to intrude on his privacy." Applejack raised an eyebrow at this, while Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash looked at each other in confusion.
Meanwhile, Spike had dropped his spoon and turned away from the ruby filled ice cream and placed a claw on his forehead, letting out a low mutter "Damn it, I should really learn when I'm about to have a brainfre-" He suddenly stopped when his cheeks filled up with magical aura, before burping out a flame that turned the aura into a letter that landed in front of Twilight. The purple princess picked up the royal letter and opened it, saying "Oh look girls, princess Celestia sent us another letter." Pinkie Pie popped up behind Twilight and said "Oh, tell us what she said, Twilight! I hope it's about that party I sent her in the mail." Twilight gave Pinkie Pie a strange look, before skim reading the letter.
Twilight looked up from the letter with a worried look, before saying "The princess is worried about the safety of the nation, and requests us to find her in Canterlot immediately to avoid possible disaster!" The ponies and dragon looked at each other for a moment before running towards Ponyville, leaving Pinkie Pie at the picnic. She looked at the food on the blanket for a moment, before picking up the entire blanket with the food on it. She started to run towards the town, with picnic blanket in tow, as she said "There's no need to be in a hurry, you guys. We have the rest of the chapter to get ready!"
The guard sighed as followed the team of servants that were pulling a cart full of thick straps towards the royal statue garden. He looked over to his comrade while mindlessly following the cart, before looking away as the rising sun reflected off his helmet. "Damn it Safe, why do you have to polish your helmet every day?" He said as he faced away from the refection, only to hear Safe say "Well I'm sorry if I wish to be presentable to everyone I happen to meet, Brute. Speaking of which, why don't you clean up some of your armour; it looks like you've just broken through a wall in that."
Brute shook his head while saying "Well at least ponies can look at me without being blinded by the light reflecting off my armour. Anyway, it's hard to clean armour when you don't have a horn or wings" He heard Safe exhale in frustration as the cart passed over a bush archway of the garden when he suddenly felt a cold shiver run through his body, and all emotion seemed to disappear from the traveling party. Brute turned to Safe and asked "Did you feel that?" Safe nodded slowly as he said "You mean the feeling of someone walking over my own grave? Yeah, I felt it." Brute suddenly realised that the sun wasn't reflecting onto Safe's helmet as a shade flew over them, so Brute looked up to the sky only to see that there was a giant, black bird circling the gardens.
The bird suddenly stopped circling the gardens and dived in front of the now stationary cart, before landing on the back of a badly chipped statue and pecking at the stone. One of the servants pulling the cart broke away from the rest as she attempted to scare the bird away, but it simply glared at her before hitting her with a wing and sending her flying into the other servants. Brute looked at Safe as he prepared his spear, before he nodded at Brute and the pair of them charged at the creature.
The creature noticed the pair of guards running towards it which allowed the servants fled away from the fight, as it swiftly lifted itself off of the statue and bolted towards Safe and Brute. Brute managed to dive out of the way of the creature and looked towards where Safe was; only to notice that Safe was gone and his spear was embedded into the ground. He looked at where the creature was headed, only saw that the bird had grabbed Safe in its talons and was flying upwards.
Brute felt his guard training kick in as he grabbed the fallen spear and threw it towards the giant bird and the flailing guard. The spear flew at a great spread and hit its mark dead centre as it fully penetrated the beast through its chest, causing it to release Safe from its clutches. Safe started to plummet to the ground as several of the servants grabbed him in their magic, and the creature flew away from the gardens and beyond the castle.
"Well, that was quite interesting." Said a voice behind Bruce, making him jump in surprise and turn in preparation for another fight. Discord raised his claws sarcastically as he said "There's no need to get violent, Bruty. I'm just visiting my old conversation pals." Brute sighed as he turned to watch his comrade being softly being placed on the ground. "Princess Celestia said that discord is no longer a threat to us, but that doesn't mean that I have to trust him."
Brute thought, before seeing that the claw marks in his armour and the cuts in his skin creature had made in Safe, as he struggled to stand up. Brute walked over to his fellow guard and helped supported him, before turning to a servant and saying "I'm going to take Safe to the infirmary and send another battalion of guards over, so I want you to get that statue ready to move ASAP." The servant nodded before running over to the others and relaying the message, which allowed the two guards a chance to get medical attention.
Discord watched as the ponies found ways to occupy themselves, before turning to the statues in front of him as he said "Well, you'll as lifeless as I last met you." Discord chuckled to himself as he walked over to his empty plinth and sat on it, and a voice from a nearby statue said "Oh look who it is, everypony; It's Mr 'I'm not going to release any of you because you're no fun'." A trio of voices piped up before Discord could reply "You could have at least given us something interesting to look at, but no; you go and put into another garden surrounded by tall bushes." More voices piped up with complaints about Discord "You made me itch all over!" "You just had to make the sun shine into my eyes hundreds of times, didn't you?" "You owe me a chocolate bar!"
Discord huffed for a moment, before saying "Alright, I may have lied to you all. But really, what did you expect; A cake?" As he spoke a large cake appeared in his claws and he pulled out knife and started to cut the cake, but suddenly a large bird swooped down and grabbed the knife away from discord and took off into the sky. Discord looked at the bird in confusion when a voice decided to speak again. "Well, some of us will be joining you soon, Dick-cord. And then we'll see why you shouldn't hold out on us."
Discord turned his attention to the servants as a group of armed guards led them into the castle with a cart containing a cracked statue, which had pieces of black cloth sticking out of it. "Well that's interesting…" Discord said, before disappearing into a hail of confetti.
