The combined ribbons of light, all white but mine and Twilight's, slammed into Discord, and then slowly faded away; like an after-flash of lightning on the retina.
"What!" Twilight shouted, before turning to me in astonishment. "It didn't work! How come yours worked?"
In front of them Discord was laughing maniacally, so very amused by their epic fail.
"That was too funny!" the draconequus wiped his tear-stained red eyes. "The look on your faces, AGAIN – priceless!"
I stood there, utterly stunned. The Element of Loyalty had worked through me and I had really no clue how that was possible. Wasn't it only to work for Rainbow Dash? Twilight Sparkle must have had the same feeling because she and her pet dragon gaped openly at me. Then Spike gasped and ran away; darting into the area behind me.
It was only partially registered on my awareness, but I was no longer in the hedge-maze I had landed in from the dimensional rift. Instead I was standing on blue and green checkerboard ground in front of a huge, habited tree. It must be the tree-library that Twilight lived it; although it truly looked nothing like the cartoon. It looked real; realistically real – which was awesome. The tree-bark was something I latched onto in order to cling to my sanity. The tree-bark was real; brown in color and evolutionarily correct (just like an earth tree would be: ridges, smell, texture and all). Being around Discord was slowly warping my brain's primal-functioning basic beliefs – like being in a dream where you were in first in one place, then a completely other location within a heartbeat.
Snapping out of my Discord-induced fugue, I was aware of the grey-monotone Rarity grabbing the element of Loyal off my equine neck, screaming; 'MINE!' before dashing away. The other ponies all sneered at each other before parting ways and moving elsewhere.
'Fine! See if I care! With friends like you, who needs…" Twilight Sparkle's despair-ridden voice was thick enough to make me wince. "…enemies…"
Shaking my head to clear the fog of confusion, I trotted over to her and blinked as her very big teardrop fell onto the ground, making a broken heart shape. I watched in shock as her beautiful purple coloring slowly bleached away as her spirit was smashed into dust.
"NO!" I neighed in spiritual agony – only to be whisked away to Discord's side. The draconequus draped over my backside, laughing.
"Ah-ah, no interfering, my dear." The hateful, mischievous monster draped an arm over my flank. "It would be no fun if you jumped in and saved the day."
Glaring – scowling – at him over my turquoise-colored flank, I snorted impressively through my new-found nostrils. "You are a 'Grade-A' bully! If there is anything I HATE MORE than seeing peop-ponies' (here I stumbled at the verbal change of the word 'people') spirits crushed like that; it is those who take pleasure at enacting such detestable acts."
"Awh, is the wittle Gwittermind gonna do something about?" He taunted me before turning his head to the sorry sight of a retreating Twilight. There, we viewed a second 'Discord' verbally bashing the magical unicorn even more. I couldn't hear what she said, but the fake Discord cheered in victory as the pony grew even gloomier. Her color was grayed, like the other ponies who had ran away moments before.
Suddenly, I was in the middle of the Ponyville entrance, looking at the chaotic clusterfoal mess of the village. The sky was pink, blue and orange, with clouds of pink cotton candy raining chocolate rain. Buildings were floating upside-down, sideways, tilted, inverted and/or spinning in place. I gasped at the scene as I viewed more. The dirt and grass were soap and paper; the plants grew many things inconceivable like radios, records, lollipops, coffee mugs, wagon wheels and fish. Trees were changing seasonal stages in minutes; the hapless pony citizens of the village finding themselves trapped in twisted, looped and pointless labyrinths. Many just floated in the multi-colored air, their hooves running uselessly.
A purple pony with white and lavender white floated by, a beanie hat upon her head and a hoof playing with her equine lips. It was Screwball.
"Ok, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! THIS is TOO random." I neighed as a deluge of chocolate-milk and wax-strawberries rained upon me. "Make it stop, or I'll stop it myself! Why, HOW, am I even here?"
"Oh, Glittermind, my dear, you are truly a powerful spirit." Discord had viewed his handiwork with me and now addressed me. "I know your purpose and used my power to trap you here; in a dimension without a way back to your home! There are no ways home here, you are forever stuck." His leonine hand held up a triangular silver cameo-pin, which encased a broken diamond; something that was mine.
"WHAT! How'd you get that?" I was surprised on how devious this insane monster was. He knew all about my fate of being lost in the dimensions of the fabric of space. I had to find pieces of my shattered jewel-talisman – a fist-sized, celestial-born diamond – to forge a way back to my home-dimension. Now Discord was saying there was no diamond shard in this dimension for me to find, claim and move on in hopes to find a way back home. I was trapped.
"Seriously, my dear, did you not think there would be a possibility of being trapped like this? You rely too much on your own cosmic luck and take things for granted." Discord lounged in his purple and blue striped throne and leered at me. "Did you think I was some two-bit villain in some kiddie show?" He was scaring me to the core of my soul with the things he was verbally revealing.
"You can't possibly…" I started saying. "We just met…how can you say that…"
"Oh, come now my dear, I know all about you. You think you would get away from me, go save Twilight Sparkle and her friends and win the day, then go home? Please, since I have you here, I am growing more powerful by the second. I feast on chaos and discord, and your confusion is quite delectable." Here he paused and reached up to a low-laying cloud and extended his arm, offering me a glass of chocolate rain. "Here drink this, you'll feel better."
"Fine, anything to get you to shut up." I tilted my head and drank from the glass. Worst mistake yet. I reared back and neighed; spraying the awful liquid out of my mouth. The chocolate-rain liquid tasted like the nasty, grainy orange-flavored cough syrup medicine. GAG.
"THAT'S AWFUL!" I shook my head in attempts to rid my pony tongue of the taste.
"You see? You rely too much on the basics; like how your new friends, Color Jam and Butterpond are going to come and rescue you." Discord smiled as he tossed the glass over his shoulder. It fell and grew into a frog-flower. "They are still in the hedge-maze, expecting for you to rescue them."
"Huh!" My body shivered once because I felt a chill inside. Those two ponies were waiting for me to rescue them? "What?"
"Also…" Discord paused as he drank his own glass of whatever. "All those friends you made in dimensions past, they are relying on you to return."
Ok, that was depressing to hear. I had no control of when, where, what or how I traveled through the fabric of the cosmos – let alone returning to previously visited planes. Fighting against the evil known as Green Iron Wing was a bad call; it was her heinous energy that tore a hole in space/time. She had managed to throw me into the hole; and I had been lost ever since. I figured this dimension of 'My Little Pony' was my fifty-third stop. I had forged and abandoned just as many friendships; having found the shard of my broken talisman in each previous dimension. Physically touching those jewel shards had sent me into the next dimension; to the next closest jewel-shard. Sometimes, I had no chance to explain my exit or even say farewell to those in that dimension I would never see again.
Drooping my head as my heartache over these thoughts flared again; my body felt heavy and cumbersome. Discord was right; I relied too much on myself and my unexplainable, inane cosmic luck to make things happen.