My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is owned by Hasbro, The Hub and of course Lauren Faust who seems to have gone out of her way to make a show about pastel colored ponies with names like "Twilight Sparkle" completely awesome. This story is just for fun and no profit shall be made so please above mentioned people don't sue me. You're not gonna get much. Any OCs that pop up in this fic belong to me and can be used with permission. Please don't steal from me. Now with that out of the way, on with the show.
The Elements of Discord
Chapter 2: The Gathering Storm
Deep within the Everfree Forest, the forgotten unicorn Dark Sky walked through the ruined, moss covered hallways of the once great and majestic castle of the royal pony sisters. She remembered a time when the castle stood tall and proud and filled with ponies paying homage to the caretakers of the sun and the moon.
But that was in the past. At the moment she had much more important things on her mind. Like how long had she been petrified? What became of her Empress? And what was this strange feeling drawing her deeper into the castle? Her horn shined as it drove her toward the very...familiar presence. Eventually she found herself in one of the higher towers of the castle. Like the rest of it, the room was dilapidated and mostly in ruins but unlike the rest of the castle it held faint traces of life. As if some ponies had been in there recently.
But there was something else. Traces of powerful magic that only increased that strange sense of familiarity. It then hit her as to why it felt so familiar when she found discarded pieces of armor laying on a raise circular platform at the other end of the room.
"No," she whispered in horror as she ran over to the platform and looked at the bits of armor. "What happened here?"
She took a second to breath and calm herself before she closed her eyes and started to chant softly.
"Peel back the pages of time and reveal the past unto me!"
Her horn started to glow as she initiated her spell and her eyes flashed when she snapped them open. Before her, ghostly images of the recent past began to play out before her. The first thing she saw was a black, winged unicorn wearing the very same armor that lay broken before her in the present.
"Nightmare Moon!" she cried out happily. "She did escape! I knew it! But what happened to her?"
She glanced down and saw four spherical rocks at Nightmare Moon's hooves, each with a depiction of a gem carved into it.
"The Elements of Harmony!" she sneered. "No wonder. But who was using them this time?"
The answer to her question came soon enough as five ponies she had never seen before walked into the room to help out a purple unicorn who had tired in vain to battle Nightmare Moon and use the Elements herself. A satisfied smile crossed Dark Sky's face as she watched the dark pony smash the Elements before her. Her enjoyment was short lived, however, when the fragments of the Elements started to swirl around the six ponies.
"W-what is this?" she gasped in amazement. "They're still using the Elements?" She watched the illusion before her closer. "No. No they're not using the Elements, they are they Elements? These six ponies are the Elements of Harmony! But...how?"
She watched in horror as a rainbow shot out from the six glowing ponies and shattered Nightmare Moon's armor, returning her to the smaller form of Princess Luna. It was then that Dark Sky closed her eyes and shook her head to break the spell. She didn't want to see anymore. She had seen everything she needed to see. And yet...she still needed to know more.
"If the Elements of Harmony bonded with those ponies, then what become of the other Elements?" she wondered as she rubbed her chin with her left hoof.
With a sense of determination, she galloped into the deepest recesses of the old castle to a room she hoped was still there. She stopped and let out a sigh of relief when she came upon a chamber that many decades ago, held several magical items and tomes. She pushed on what was left of the wooden door then jumped back in fright as it fell off it's rusted hinges and slammed to the floor, crumbling slightly. She rolled her purple eyes at her own foolishness the stepped over the rotted door and into the dust and weed covered room in search of six very important items.
She tossed a few sparks from her horn onto the thankfully still usable torches along the walls to light the darkened room. A twisted smile spread across her muzzle when she saw six spherical rocks nearly identical to the Elements of Harmony lined up in a circle around an ancient alter. Just like before her enjoyment was short lived when she saw they all had a crack in them, splitting their own gem images in half.
"No! No this can't be!" she shouted in frustration then leaned forward to try to detect some magical residue with her horn. "Nothing! They're completely empty! Just useless rocks!"
She let out a frustrated howl then kicked the stone closest to her with her right leg. An action she immediately regretted when she felt a jolt of pain run through her hoof.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" she cried as she tried to shake the pain away. "I don't believe this! How could they just-" she stopped herself when she remembered what she had seen in the illusion. "But if the Elements of Harmony bonded with those ponies than may be the Elements of Discord did the same thing with other ponies. I have to consult the tome about this."
She crossed the room to where she last remembered keeping a tome given to her by a much darker pony than either her or Nightmare Moon. One that had explain the counterbalance between the Elements of Harmony and the Elements of Discord. A conflict as old as the universe itself according to the malevolent benefactor. Though at the time she didn't care about that. She just wanted to know how to use the Elements of Discord for her own nefarious needs. But if there was another facet to both sets of Elements she over looked, then surely the tome would say something about that. Unfortunately, her bad luck seemed to continue as when she reached the podium she has placed the tome on she found that it was...
"Gone!" she gasp. "Maybe it's in the library then."
Once again she raced through the castle to her new destination and once again met with failure as the entire Grand Library sat completely empty safe for the vines and insect.
"The whole place has been cleaned out!" she shouted indignantly.
She let out another angered scream and was about to kick one of the half rotted bookcases but stopped when she remembered what happened last time. Instead she used her unicorn telekinesis to lift it up and through it violently across the room. She then threw another one. And another. And another. She continued this action for several rage filled minutes until she finally wore out the majority of her anger.
"I can't believe this," she growled. "Untold years of being stuck as a statue and this is what I have to wake up to? Oh somepony is going to pay dearly for this! But first I have to find that tome."
She paced around the ruins of the library for a moment as she tried to come up with some kind of solution to her problem.
"Wait," she mused as she stopped. "If I remember correctly, there was some small village not far from here. Perhaps it might hold some answers to what happened to the tome. At the very least I can learn how long I was petrified and what's going on in Equestria now. And then..." she grinned wickedly, "oh then comes the fun part."
( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - )
The Everfree Forest is not a place most ponies chose to go. However, for one unfortunate unicorn, he felt he had no choice but to go through there in an attempt to get away from the various life threatening antics of his so called "friends". The white pony frown deeply which perfectly matched his frowny face Cutie Mark as he wandered further into the twisted woods. He wasn't really sure how far he was going to go but he just knew he had to keep walking to get away from them. Once he was sure he was a safe distance away, then he would figure out what exactly he was going to do.
He came to a dead spot and a chill went through his body when he heard an eerie laughter seeming to come from the trees themselves.
"W-who is that?" he asked in a deep voice.
The laughter only continued.
"Seriously, who is that?" he called out again. "If it's you guys I'm not in the mood for this right now! I just want to take a walk through the horribly twisted and scary forest all alone, all right?" He paused as he waited for an answer. "Guys?"
He whipped his head around in fear when he heard rustling in the bushes to his right, but quickly let out a sigh of relief when he saw a midnight blue unicorn approach him.
"Oh good. Sorry, I thought you were these two guys I know who are a little...insane," he explained himself.
The other unicorn merely tilted her head as she gave him a strange look. He stared back at her in confused silence.
"So...um...you from around here?" he asked to try to break the tension.
The next thing he knew, a blinding pain shot through his head as both the other unicorn's and his horn began to glow. He couldn't explain the feeling but it was like she was pulling out parts of his mind. It stopped after a few agonizing seconds and he stumbled backwards, nearly falling over.
"What was that?" he shouted in terror.
"Sorry, just needed to pick up the new language and taking it directly from your mind was the easiest way," she explain almost gleefully as she stepped closer to him.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Dark Sky," she introduced herself with a small bow. "You might say I've been... away for a long time. I need to get caught up with current events and you're going to help me big guy."
"I-I am?" he coward in fear.
"Yep," she smirked as her horn began to glow again. "And just to warn you this will hurt. A lot."
An agonizing scream then echoed its way through the Everfree Forest with only one other pony around to hear it. To her, it was simply the most beautiful music in the world.
( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - )
Shortly after her "information gathering", Dark Sky came upon the village she now knew was called "Ponyville". It was much larger then she remembered it but that was to be expected after a 1,000 years of being stuck as a statue. In addition to being larger, the town positively reeked of good feelings and kindness. The kind of sugary sweetness that made her stomach turn. She wanted to take care of them all right now, but she had other plans she had to enact first. Plans that involved getting into the town's library unseen. If what she had pulled from that unicorn's mind was true, then Princess Celestia's latest protege was living there and so would make the perfect hiding place for the tome she was looking for. Who better to guard an ancient book than the Princess' own student? In a library no less. Where it could just be hiding among all the other books. But it couldn't be hidden from her. She would find it.
"It will be mine again," Dark Sky mused to herself with a wicked smile. "Oh yes, it will be mine again."
The only problem with her plan was the problem she had been forced to deal with her whole life. She let out an irritated growl as she looked up and saw black clouds already starting to form over her. It wouldn't take long for the Pegasus ponies to figure out something was going wrong with the weather. Especially since they had created such a nice day. This would force Dark Sky to be creative. To find a good distraction before she made her way to the library. Surely, somewhere, in this town there were some ponies that weren't dripping with sweetness that would be willing to help her out. She just had to find them.
Keeping to the edge of town for now, she lit up her horn with a spell to locate some ponies more inclined to her line of thinking. It took her a moment or so, but she finally picked up two auras that were a bit darker than the others. She thought she felt a few others too, but she couldn't be sure. They felt a bit...off. For the moment she decided to go with the ones she was sure about and turned left to follow the directions her horn was giving her.
( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - )
Just outside Sweet Apple Acers, two brawny earth ponies watched the workers there harvesting the latest crop of apples in barely restrained contempt. One was dark purple in color with a crazy green mane that hung all around his face and had the Cutie Mark of a large hammer posed to strike. His companion was a light grey pony with a tightly cropped black mane and a pony powered sleigh on his flank. A myriad of emotions swirled through them as they looked down at the farm, most of them negative. Still there was a hint of wistfulness in the purple pony.
"You know Sledge, I kinda miss working down there," he confessed.
"Only because you miss ogling Applejack, Hammer," the other retorted.
"Well yeah! Have you seen her?"
"I know you have. And if seeing her was all you did we'd still have jobs there. But no, you just had to go and make those stupid comments about her. In earshot no less!" Sledge sighed and shook his head. "You're just lucky that Big Macintosh got to you before she did."
"Eh, I could have taken him if I wanted to," Hammer grumbled but then smirked wickedly. "Least they didn't catch me skimming apples off the top."
Sledge's blue eyes widened at the comment before he glared at his friend.
"Which was working until somepony caused so much of a scene that one of the other workers caught me putting apples in my own saddlebags!" he snapped.
"You sayin' that was my fault too?" Hammer snapped back.
"What are you gonna do about it if I am?"
The two snorted at each other and started to stamp their right hoofs on the ground in preparation to charge each other but were stopped suddenly but a mysterious voice calling out to them.
"Boys, boys, boys," the feminine voice chided them. "Surely they must be better ways for you to get that lovely aggression out."
"Who's there?" Sledge demanded.
In response, a midnight blue unicorn with a silver mane slowly walked out from behind a patch of trees and made her way over to them with what seemed to be a trail of black clouds following her.
"My name is Dark Sky," she properly introduced herself. "And who might you gentlecolts be?"
"I'm Sledge," the grey pony said, holding a hoof up to himself then motion to his friend, "and this is Hammer."
"'Sledge and Hammer'?" the unicorn smirked. "I like it. So boys, what seems to be the problem here?"
"Eh, no problem, we're just miffed 'cause we got kick offa that farm down there," Hammer told her, pointing to Sweet Apple Acers.
"That farm?" Dark Sky asked as she took a step closer for inspection.
It looked like any other earth pony farm she had seen before. Oddly she found a strange sense of calm in knowing that some things hadn't changed over the last thousand years. Still, if it was a way to get those two on her side, she'd just have to roll with it.
"So let me guess," she started as she spun back around to them. "They did something to offend you and you'd like to them pay, yes?"
"Oh yeah! Especially that Big Macintosh jerk! I'll show him who's better around here!" Hammer blurted out.
"Well, if you come with me, I can help you get your revenge on him and all the other ponies that mocked you," she offered.
"And why should we?" Sledge asked bluntly. "We could find our own ways to get back at them and not have to be indebted to you."
Dark Sky chuckled and shook her head to toss part of her mane out of her face as she gently walked over to Sledge.
"I can see you're the smart one of the two," she complimented.
"Hey!" Hammer protested.
"Now let me guess again," she continued, completely ignoring the other earth pony's squawk. "You're the kind of pony who wants something more out of life. Like say...wealth? Power maybe?"
"Maybe," Sledge replied calmly, keeping his face expressionless.
"Well then, my dear Sledge, if you do just a few teensy weensy favors for me, I can see to it that you get both those things and more. How do you like the sound of that?" she asked him as she gently scratched him under the chin with her right hoof.
Sledge tried to keep his calm demeanor up as long as he could, but his resolve quickly faded thanks to her tender touch.
"Fine," he sighed.
"Good!" Dark Sky cheered then dropped her hoof and started to walk off. "Then come along boys, we've got a library to visit."
"Huh?" Hammer mumbled in confusing, raise an eyebrow.
"It's a place where they keep books," Sledge corrected as they started to follow the unicorn.
"I know that! I just don't get why we're going there."
"I guess we'll find out soon enough."
( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - )
Down on the farm itself, Applejack let out a small sigh of exhaustion after she kicked another basket full of apples out of the tree behind her. She smiled proudly to herself as she looked over her catch. She made have learned that she can't do all the applebucking by herself, but she could still take pride in the parts she could do. And it might not have been too much of a stretch to say she was the best applebucker on the farm.
She was about to get back to the work she was so great at when a dark shadow passed over her. Frowning, she looked up at the sky and saw a storm cloud rolling in over the farm. She scowled as she looked around and found Rainbow Dash swatting away a few other black clouds that seemed to have appeared from no where.
"Hey Dash, what the hay is going on around here?" she called out. "I thought you weather Pegasuses...Pegasi...ponies were supposed to make it a sunny day today."
"We are!" Rainbow Dash returned as she shoved one arrant clouds away. "I don't know what's going on here! Someone must have messed up at the cloud factory."
"Well, could you please hurry up and clear the sky? I'd like to get this part of the field down before dinner."
"What do you think I'm doing?" the blue Pegasus returned as she placed her front hooves on her hips in annoyance.
She didn't have too much time to wait for an answer, however, when another cloud appeared and knocked her away. She spun out of control for a second, but quickly corrected her flight path and glared at the cloud.
"Why you..." she muttered before charged towards it.
Applejack shook her head at her friend's antics and was about to return to her work again when something else caught her eye. From across the field she could just make out the last two ponies in Equestria she wanted to see right now; Sledge and Hammer. Course it didn't surprise her they were hanging around the farm, they always were the types to start up trouble. What did surprise her was the fact that they seemed to be talking to some unicorn she had never seen before. The three seemed to discuss something for a few minutes before they all started to walk off.
"Now what in tarnation are those varmints up to?" she wondered allowed.
She was just about to gallop over there to follow them when the loud shrieking of her name caught her attention.
"Applejack look out!"
She turned around just in time to see Rainbow Dash falling towards her. The next thing she knew, the world was spinning and there was another pony tumbling along with her. Thankfully, the rolling didn't last too long and soon enough she was laying down face first in the field. Unfortunately, she also had a surprisingly heavy Pegasus laying on top of her in a heap.
"Wh-what just happened?" she asked, still a bit disorientated.
"Heh. Sorry about that AJ," Rainbow Dash chuckled nervously. "I went to clear one of the clouds away and when I got to it, it just kinda disappeared. Then I realized I couldn't stop and well..."
"I kinda figured the rest," Applejack muttered irritably. "Now will ya'll please get offa me?"
"Oh, right, sorry again," the flying pony said quickly as she climb off her friend.
She then helped the earth pony stand and even helped dust her off a bit. Applejack ignored her for a second as she tried to find where Sledge, Hammer, and the weird unicorn were, but they were no where to be found.
"Dang, they're gone," she whispered.
"Who's gone?" Rainbow Dash asked curiously.
Applejack turned to her and was about to explain what she saw but stopped short when she caught a glimpse of what was on the Pegasus' head. Namely, her favorite hat.
"Ahem!" she remarked rather unsubtly as she glared at her friend's head.
"What?" Rainbow Dash returned obviously.
The earth pony tilted her head upwards a bit thought it seemed to do little to clear the confusion. After a few seconds of this, the winged pony finally looked up at her friend's head to notice that her almost trademark hat was missing. She then slowly reached up to her own head with a hoof and noticed the hat perched atop her multicolored mane.
"Oh!" she finally gasped in realization then chuckled nervously again. "Sorry."
Applejack just reached out to grab the brim of her hat with her teeth and yanked it off Rainbow Dash's head. She then threw her head back a bit to perfectly flip the hat back to where it rightfully belonged.
"Cool trick," Rainbow Dash complimented.
The blonde earth pony glared at her some more.
"Um...I'm gonna go see what's going on with the weather factory! See ya later!" she said hastily before she took off into the air once more.
Applejack shook her head with a sigh before she turned back once more to look at the spot the strange ponies once stood.
"Something dang weird is going on here that's for sure," she mused to herself and gently rubbed her chin with a hoof. "Maybe I should go talk to Twilight about it. She usually seems to know what's going on."
Her mind made up, Applejack hunched over so she could balance the two basket straps on her hindquarters and walked them over to the near by cart. After that she was going to inform her brother about what she saw and what she planned to do so that he could look after the rest of the harvest. She hated to bail on him like this, but she just couldn't shake this feeling that something bad was stirring up.
( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - )
Back in the center of Ponyville, the town's ponies continued to go about their daily routine, seemingly oblivious to the danger that walked among them. In fact, the only thing that really caused a stir were the strange black clouds that kept appearing throughout the town. The Pegasus ponies were working overtime to clear them all out and to try to understand what was going wrong. Little did they all know that the source of the trouble was right in their midst.
Dark Sky hid between Sledge and Hammer as they walked as inconspicuously as they could down the side streets of Ponyville. Thankfully nopony seemed to have made the connection between the clouds and herself yet. Still, she didn't want to take any chances of somepony catching on. She singled for the other two to stop just as they were in sight of the library.
"All right, I need to get into that library undiscovered," she informed them. "So I need you two to create some kind of distraction while I sneak in and hopefully find what I'm looking for."
"What are you looking for anyway?" Sledge questioned.
"You'll know when you need to know!" she snapped. "Now just create a distraction."
"Distraction, eh?" Hammer mused as he looked over the crowd of ponies.
He looked over at the town square for some kind of inspiration for what he could do. As he glanced over the various stands and ponies, he spotted a familiar looking earth pony with a cream caramel colored coat and caramel brown hair. The spotting of a three blue horseshoes Cutie Mark told him that this was indeed the pony he thought it was.
"I have an idea!" he proclaimed excitedly just before he raced off.
Dark Sky stood in open mouth amazement at his sudden burst of energy while Sledge just shook his head with a sigh. Once she recovered, the unicorn looked up at the taller pony.
"Excitable one, isn't he?" she remarked.
"He's never been one to think things through," Sledge informed her.
"Well that might work to our advantage. Still I'm going to need some time. Back him up and keep the commotion going as long as you can until you seen me slip back out of the library," she instructed.
"Right," he nodded before he ran off after his friend.
A few yards away, Hammer had already bumped into the pony in his sights and knocked him into a nearby cabbage cart.
"My cabbage!" the distraught own cried out then glared at the pony laying in the middle of it. "What's your probablem buddy?"
"My problem!" he shot back angrily then pointed a hoof at Hammer. "It was him! He slammed into me for no reason!"
"Me?" Hammer gasped in mock surprise, holding a hoof to his chest dramatically. "Well I never would have done anything like that!"
"Yes you did! I saw you do it!" another pony called out from the quickly gathering crowd.
"What's your problem, anyway?" the caramel colored pony asked as he picked himself up from the cart. He brushed himself off when he got a good look at the other earth pony. "Waitaminute, I know you! You're Hammer, right? Weren't you kicked off of Sweet Apple Acers for making rude remarks to Applejack?"
"Maybe I was. But if I remember correctly, you're Caramel, right?" Hammer asked almost to eagerly.
"Yeah...what about that?" Caramel asked back, giving him a suspicious look.
"Well if the rumors I heard where true, I'm not the only one who got kicked off the farm for making remarks about members of the Apple family. Though from what I hear, you went after Big Mac."
A series of overly dramatic gasps came from the crowd at the revelation while Caramel himself looked quite shocked and annoyed.
"What? No!" he screamed angrily. "I never did that! Who keeps spreading these rumors? I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that but that's just not me!"
"That's not what I heard," Hammer teased him in a sing-song voice.
"Well, you heard wrong!"
"Actually I think he's right," Sledge spoke up as he stepped out of the crowd. " 'Course, I heard the Caramel who did that was a cute little mare." He looked the other earth pony over. "Somehow I don't think that was you. Unless of course there's something you're not telling everypony!"
Another gaps erupted from the crowd.
Caramel's face turned red as his cheeks flushed in anger. "That was my cousin Caramelle. She leaves out in Appleloosa."
"Or maybe you're trying to cover up the fact that you have a unicorn friend preform some kind of sick, twisted spell on you!" Sledge accused.
Yet another series of gasps was heard followed by one thud sound. Everypony looked to see a Pegasus laying unconscious on the ground. One of the nurse ponies quickly ran up to check on her.
"This pony is over gasped!" she stated.
"Hey, can unicorn magic really do that?" one of the earth ponies in the crowd asked a unicorn beside her.
The unicorn shrugged. "I guess. Not something I can do, but others could, I suppose."
"I don't even know any unicorns that can do that!" Caramel defended himself again.
"Oh don't you?" Hammer pressed, with a wicked grin.
"NO!"
As the commotion continued to build and attract more attention, Dark Sky carefully made her way towards the town's library. As she approached the door she glanced back over at the crowd the two had drawn with their wild accusations.
"They may not be the smartest ponies around but at least they're good for something," she mused to herself.
She was so caught up in her own musing that she failed to notice the purple and green baby dragon standing in the middle of the room until he addressed her.
"Oh hello," he greeted in a friendly tone.
"Gah!" she jumped back in surprise.
"Oh sorry, didn't mean to scare you," he apologized even though he snickered a bit. "My name's Spike. You here to check out a book?"
"Actually, yeah," Dark Sky said once she recovered. "But I don't really want anyone to know I was here so..." her horn glowed softly just before she commanded him to, "Sleep! Sleep and forget you ever saw me."
"Getting...tired..." Spike mumbled drowsily as he swayed a bit.
Soon enough, he completely collapsed onto the floor and was fast asleep. The midnight blue unicorn smiled to herself in satisfaction but then quickly frowned when she looked up at the columns of books in front of her.
"This may take longer than I thought," she noted. "Though if I were trying to hide an ancient tome of unspeakable power in a place like this, I'd probably start at the top where ponies are less likely to look. So..."
She used her telekinesis to pull the rolling ladder over to her and carefully climbed to the top where she started to levitate the books out of their rows to glance at their covers. Unfortunately, all of them seemed to be rather standard, and somewhat boring, looking books.
"No," she grumbled as she tossed another towards the floor below then moved onto the next one. "No. No. No. No, no, no! ARGH!" she cried out after trying a series of different books. "This isn't getting me anywhere. There was to be something in this library that stands out!"
She moved the ladder to the next column and started with the first book there. It actually did catch her eye but for another reason.
"'Everything You Wanted To Know About Slumber Parties But Where Afraid To Ask'?" she read the cover in disbelief. "Who in their right mind would need something like this?" She shook her head in disgust then let the book fall onto the ever growing pile on the floor.
The next book also caught her eye but because it looked decidedly...different than the others. It's cover looked tough and leathery as if it wasn't made from wood pulp at all but rather...skin. It also seemed to have a set of eyes and mouth on that were stitched shut. It was certainly like no book she had ever seen before. She stared at it for a few seconds in consideration.
"Maybe later," she noted before she slid the book back in place and continued her search.
It didn't seem to fair much better in the other stacks, however, and she was quickly beginning to lose her patience. She made it about half way through another row when she let out a frustrated scream and used her powers to knock the rest of them off the stack in a blind rage. She let out a few huffing breaths and was about to move on when she noticed something odd in the back of the bookcase. There was a portion of it where the color seemed...off somehow. And as she looked closer she could just barely make out some faded seems in the shape of a square. Acting on her suspicion, she gently knocked on the back of the case on the left side of the square with her hoof. It sounded solid. She did the same thing on the right side of the square and it too sounded solid. She then knocked on the center of the square itself and was rewarded with a hollow sound. A wicked smile of satisfaction crossed her face as her eyes glinted dangerously in the light.
"Gotcha!" she exclaimed before she use her telekinesis to rip the false front off it's hinges.
Inside was a rather thick, ancient looking book inscribed with a seal that had lost all meaning in the passage of time. Even she was never quite sure what it meant, but she knew it when she saw it. There was no mistaking it. This was the book she was after.
"That was pretty clever. But not clever enough," she remarked as she pulled the book towards her.
She climbed down the ladder and moved towards the door when she stopped and thought of something.
"I don't want to have to levitate this thing all the way back to the castle and I'm certainly not going to trust either of those two numbskulls to carry in their mouths without drooling on it. So I wonder...?"
She looked around for something she might be able to carry the tome in, but unfortunately found nothing that suited her purpose. Spotting a small flight of stairs, she walked up them to a personal living space in the upper floor of the library.
"Who would want to live in a library?" she wondered aloud as she looked at all the various trinkets and even more books scattered about.
During her search of the area, she spied a set of white saddle bags with a large purple star emblazoned on the front of them.
"Perfect!" she remarked then pulled them towards her.
She set the bags on her haunches then safely tucked the book away in the right side one before she left the library as quickly as she had entered, leaving only a sleeping baby dragon and a pile of discarded books in her wake. When she stepped outside she was a bit surprise to see that Sledge and Hammer had actually kept their humiliation of the other pony up and now the entire crowd seemed to be discussing all sorts of matters. She waved a hoof to get Sledge's attention then quickly levitated the book out of the saddle back and gave him a nod to let him know the mission was accomplished. He nodded back then turned to his loud mouth companion.
"All right I think we've proven our point well enough," he told Hammer. "I think it's time we leave this sad sack alone."
"I'm not a sad sack!" Caramel defended himself once again, a small tear in the corner of his right eye but he couldn't tell if it was from sadness or anger.
"You just keep telling yourself that buddy. See ya around!" Hammer shouted then took off a quickly as he had arrived, Sledge following close behind him.
They caught up with Dark Sky, and soon enough all three of them where heading out of town and towards the Everfree Forest. When he realized that's where they were going though, Hammer suddenly stopped and skidded to a halt right on the very edge of the cursed place.
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa!" he shouted, waving his front hooves around widely. "You never said anything about going in there!"
Both Sledge and Dark Sky shared a slightly annoyed glance before they looked back at their terrified teammate.
"What's the problem now?" Dark Sky demanded.
"I'm not going in there!" Hammer repeated, pointing a shaking hoof at the twisted forest. "There are all sorts of weird, horrible creatures in there!"
"How do you know that?" Sledge pressed.
"Because I've heard the stories! Manticores! Hydras! Cockatrices! They're all in there!"
"Have you ever actually seen any of those things?"
Hammer stopped shivering for a moment to think that over. "Well...no..."
"So then how do you know they're in there?" he repeated.
"Cause-"
"Don't tell me you heard stories!" Sledge cut him off. "I want to know if you personally saw any of them."
"No. No I didn't," he answered softly while hanging his head.
"Then just write them off as just stupid stories and let's get going."
"Here I'll do you want better," Dark Sky spoke up. "The most dangerous thing in this forest is me. And you're traveling with me, right?"
"Yeah..." Hammer agreed, lifting his head slightly.
"Then as long as you stay with me nothing will hurt you. Now let's get going!"
"Hey! You're right!" the large earth pony exclaimed as he stood up and moved towards them again.
Dark Sky let out another sigh then turned and led them through the dark forest. Along the way they passed by a white unicorn that was laying semiconscious on the ground and muttering incoherently as he twitched a bit.
"No. No. Not the Banana King," he rambled.
"Who is that?" Sledge asked, nodding his head towards the fallen unicorn.
"Just someone who was unfortunate enough to get in my way," Dark Sky responded with a light, sinister chuckled.
Behind her, Sledge and Hammer exchanged worried glances but kept their mouths shut. Soon enough they came upon the ruins of the old castle and made their way carefully across the old rickety bridge. Once inside the castle, the two earth ponies followed the unicorn down a flight of stairs into the deeper recesses of the ruins. As they did so, they trailed back just slightly so they could talk amongst themselves.
"Hey Sledge, I'm not so sure about this anymore," Hammer whispered to his friend. "I'm it was fun at first but I'm starting to get a really weird vibe from her and this place."
"I know, I know," the grey pony nodded back. "But I think it's a little too late to turn back now. For better or worse, we're in this thing deep. Let's just hope there's a good pay off in the end."
"'Pay off'?" he spat back. "I'm more worried about my head coming off!"
"Just act cool, be calm, and do what she says and we should be all right," Sledge advised him.
"I better be. If I die and you don't I am totally coming back to haunt you," Hammer warned.
The rest of the trip was made in silence until they came across the remains of a wooden door that led into a torch lit room. Dark Sky ignored them as they looked about the room at all the strange artifacts scattered about and walked right up to the alter she had visited before. She drew the book from the saddle bag and laid it carefully down on the stone slab. She used her magic to flip it open to a passage she had read a long, long time ago. She began to read through them all again rapidly in an effort to find any hint of what to do in her current predicament.
As she read silently to herself, Sledge looked around for something that might be valuable to him. Unfortunately, what little was there seemed to have given into the ravages of time and weren't worth savaging. It was then that he stumbled upon six round rocks laying around a circular pattern. He cocked an eyebrow at them then leaned forward to get a closer look.
"So what are these things?" he asked Dark Sky offhandedly.
"DON'T TOUCH THOSE!" she shrieked in blind rage, spinning around and levitating him off the ground. "Even cracked those stones are worth more than both your pathetic lives! You understand me?"
"Yes ma'am!" they both quickly spat out.
"Good," she remarked then dropped Sledge to the floor and turned back to the tome. "Now leave me alone for awhile. I need to catch up on my reading."
Hammer helped Sledge back up to his feet and the pair stepped out into the hallway.
"What was that about?" Hammer whispered to him.
"I don't know. But it'd be best not to touch those things ever again," the grey pony muttered.
"No kidding," the other one nodded. "So what do we do now?"
"I guess we just wait and see."
"We could try running."
"Doubtful. Like I said, for better or for worse we're in this thing til the end," Sledge said remorsefully.
"Just hope it's not our end," Hammer added grimly.
( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - ) ( - )
Back inside the room, Dark Sky was engrossed in the book she had liberated from the Ponyville library. She poured through as many pages as she could to learn all the secrets of about the Elements of Discord that she could. As her eyes scanned over passage after passage she realized she should have done this a thousand years ago. Then maybe none of her sorrow would have come to pass. Maybe things would have gone differently. Much differently. But she was determined to make up for those past mistakes. This time things would be different. This time it would all work out for her and her Empresses. This time, they would be victorious! She just needed to find something that would help her in her quest in the here and now.
"Aha!" she cried gleefully. "'Finding the new Elements of Discord'. This must be what I need. I already found them before and it wasn't anything like this spell. So then..."
She levitated the book then walked into the middle of the circle and laid it down carefully on the floor. She made sure she was perfectly in line with the six stone before she started to read the ancient incantation. As she did so she could feel something coming from the stones. Something so faint she wasn't able to detect it with her own magic before. But now she could feel it. The stones were still active and linked to new Elements of Discord. Her voice grew louder as she continued to read the spell and her horn glowed brighter and brighter, overcoming even the light from the torches. Beams of energy started to shoot out of the stones and connect to her horn, flowing straight into her body. Pain started to course through her but she pushed it back. This was nothing compared to what she dealt with before. As the power grew stronger and stronger she actually started to levitate off the floor.
She hung suspended in midair by the power flowing them the stones and into her. She had already completed the incantation but the spell seemed to have overpowered her. Her mind opened wide to the secrets of the universe and for a moment she could see it all. It was all so overwhelming but so enticing.
"I see it! I see it all! I know everything! I am everything!" she screamed, her voice echoing with power and rage.
Then, just as it seemed she couldn't take anymore, the world suddenly went black.
She awoke a short time later to someone calling her name and gently nuzzling her. She cracked open a sore eye to see Sledge and Hammer standing over her with surprisingly concerned looks on their faces.
"You're...still...here," she mumbled in surprise.
The glanced at each other, not sure how to take that reaction.
"Well...yeah," Sledge remarked.
"We were just out in the hallway. We saw the whole thing. What a light show!" Hammer cheered.
"So what was that?" the grey pony asked as he helped her up.
"Just the tool I needed," she replied weakly. "I can now find the other five ponies I need."
"Ponies? We were after ponies the whole time?"
"Yes and no," she started to explain as she walked a little unsurely over to the nearest wall to lean against it for support. "What we're looking for are ponies who bonded with those," she motioned to the rocks.
"Ready to tell us what those are now?" Sledge prompted.
"The Elements of Discord."
"'Elements of Discord'?" Hammer repeated in confusion. "No, no, no, it's the Elements of Harmony. Like in the story."
"Is there any story you don't listen to?" Sledge mocked.
"Not...really."
"He's right to listen to this one," Dark Sky defended, her strength slowly returning. "There are the Elements of Harmony but there are also there opposite side, the Elements of Discord. And like the Harmony elements, these ones got used up in a battle a long time ago."
"Oh the one that sealed Nightmare Moon up on the moon, right?" Hammer guessed.
"Yes, that very same one. And just like the Elements of Harmony, the Elements of Discord have bonded with ponies in the present here."
"And the spell was so you could locate them," Sledge reasoned.
"Exactly," Dark Sky nodded, finally standing up on all four hooves. "I saw the other five we'll need to gather up. Another unicorn, two more earth ponies and two Pegasus ponies. And if what I saw in my vision was true they're all in or around Ponyville in some can cosmic sense of irony."
"Ponyville? But we just came from there," Hammer whined. "I don't wanna have to walk all the way back there."
"You won't have to. Since I have a connection to them I should be able to use my new enhance magical skills to teleport us all close enough to the other Elements," she informed them and then stumbled slightly. "But I'm going to need to rest a bit to gather up my full strength. I suggest you do the same boys because we've got miles to go before we sleep tonight," she declared with a wicked smile.
To Be Continued...
Author's Notes: First off, you might have noticed the display title of this fic changed on the FF.N page. Well that's because apparently there's another fic also called "The Elements of Discord" and the author of that one asked me to change the title of mine to avoid confusion. So I obliged him a bit. I couldn't change it completely though because as you can see the Elements of Discord are going to play a big part in this fic. Now let me say I didn't even know he had a fic called that and the similarities there are purely coincidental. Honestly from what I've seen the only real similarities are the fact that there things called the Elements of Discord in both our fits. Beyond that they will be going in very different paths. Well...I might use one of the same canon characters that shows up in that fic but I won't say who just now. You'll have to try and figure that out on your own.
Of course, I had originally planned to introduce all of the Element of Discord ponies in this chapter but then I realized how long the thing was getting so I decided to switch things up a bit. The next chapter we'll be going back to the canon characters for a bit and then the chapter after that we'll meet the new ponies. Kinda think it'll flow better that way now actually. Here's hoping I'm right.
Now for something extra fun I figured I'd throw out the ideas for "voice actors" for Dark Sky, Sledge and Hammer. These are the voices I hear in my head when I'm writing them. I know that sounds kinda wrong, but it's really the most accurate description I can give. I try to "hear" all the characters voices in my head to help make sure I'm getting the canon one's right and to provide some good personalities for my OCs. Of which I have many and plenty of will be popping up in this story. So anyone who doesn't like OCs should just bale right now.
Anyway these are who I would cast in these roles should they ever be on TV:
Dark Sky-Grey DeLisle
Sledge-Rino Romano
Hammer-Kevin Michael Richardson
If you go look up some of their credits you'll see I actually have a bit of actor allusions to the designs of Sledge and Hammer based on those casting choices.
Oh I also had a bit of fun with the fandom in the scene regarding Caramel and his...interactions with Big Mac and his extended family. Just a little nod and a wink I couldn't help but throw in there. You guys can also play my favorite game, "How Many Pop Culture References Are There?" Seriously I tossed quite a bit of them in this chapter and they're be plenty more to come. Some are subtle, some are not. Can you find them all?
Well that's all of my rambling for now. Better get to work on the next chapter, huh?
See ya guys there!