> Discordant Disaster > by LewdaCRITS > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prologue > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Mane 6 wasted no time using their Elements of Harmony to turn Discord back into stone. Discord begged in disbelief to be spared, but by that point, it was too late. He snapped his fingers one final time before his entire body was encased in stone. For the second and final time, Discord was defeated. In the aftermath of Discord’s brief but impactful reign of chaos, Equestria reveled in the hard-won victory of the Mane 6. The Elements of Harmony had once again triumphed, restoring order and peace to Ponyville. Once the town was returned to normal, everyone went about their usual routines, and it looks like most things were going smoothly. Princess Luna back to raising the moon was another chore off of Celestia’s plate. Sure, she herself can do it, but was no an easy task. She was using twice the magic to lower the sun and lift the moon at the same time. It can get exhausting, especially after doing it for a millennia. But what hurt her the most was Luna’s banishment and how harsh her punishment was, but she knew it had to be done to keep Equestria safe. Ever since she returned as Nightmare Moon and restored back to her normal self by the Elements of Harmony, while Celestia was willing to forgive her, Luna never forgave herself. In fact, Luna was deeply depressed from self-loathing after all the heinous acts she’s done and how immature she behaved a thousand years ago. It took a whole year of therapeutic help, but Luna was finally ready to fulfill her duties of raising and lowering the moon again and ruling alongside her older sister as a princess. Celestia was more than thankful her younger sister is back and feeling better. As Luna raised the moon, Celestia got ready for bed. She did remember Luna not feeling very well lately. She’s been staying up past her bedtime on some nights and would be tired all day. Thinking she’s just insomniac, she encouraged her to keep a consistent sleep schedule and avoid stimulants close to her bedtime. She agrees, and as of right now, she’s seeing a bit of improvement. Celestia can rest feeling thankful. She switches off the lamp next to her bed, climbs into her bed, and makes herself comfortable before closing her eyes, preparing to drift off to sleep. A few minutes pass. Celestia hears slow, faint hoofsteps coming from outside her bedroom. Her door, which hasn’t been closed all the way, slowly swings open, revealing the silhouette of a disheveled Princess Luna. She groans as if her lack of sleep has put her in a zombie-like state. Celestia hears this and her eyes blink open to see her troubled sister on the doorway. “Luna…?” She got out. “Are you feeling alright?” Luna’s response came only in the form of more groans, each growing in intensity as she stumbles closer to her. This only serves to worry Celestia and leave her uneasy. Without warning, Luna lunges forward towards her older sister, mouth gaping wide for a bite. Celestia didn’t have time to react before she found Luna’s teeth digging into her neck. She screamed in agony and shock, her cries of pain echoing throughout the hallways of the castle. She manages to wrestle Luna off of her and shove her away. Luna falls onto the floor. Celestia hastily crawls to the other side of her bed, turning on the lamp to get a better view of her surroundings and her sister. What has happened to her, Celestia wonders. What compelled her to bite her own flesh and blood? She hears galloping from the hallway, and two unicorn royal guards came in through the door, each with magic at the ready. “Your highness!” Said one of them. “What’s going on?” Celestia looks at her sister rise from the ground with a growl. Thanks to the glow of the lamp, she sees that this isn’t Luna anymore. Her eyes are black, only accompanied by white pupils staring down her target. Her eye sockets are also covered in darkness, the color matching her eyes, making it seem like it’s just a shadow cast over her eyes, but now with the light, it is clear that this is no ordinary shadow. Something had taken control of Luna, and Celestia needs to know why. “Something's wrong with my sister!” Celestia says as Luna jumps over the bed to go for another attack, only for Celestia to dodge her lunge and run straight out of her bedroom, closing the door behind her. She orders them to barricade the door while she finds a paper and pen to write a letter to Twilight. Though she may not be awake right now to receive this message right away, it’s now or never. If she’s gonna die soon, she might as well send word out there that her sister needs saving. Once she finds a pen and paper, she lifted the pen via her magic, with difficulty, and hastily wrote: Dear Twilight, It is with utmost urgency that I write to you about an unexpected turn of events that took place in my castle. It involves my sister, Luna. She may have been taken over by some sort of curse. And I urge you to contact a few other magic experts and find a way to lift this curse. Tell them to come by my castle in Canterlot. I'll be waiting. With hope, Princess Celestia. She folds the paper to fit into an envelope with a red and gold royal insignia on the seal flap. She closes it and gives it to another one of the guards, who was galloping by to help the others keep the door shut, as Luna is now trying to break through. This guard happens to be a female pegasus. “Send this to the Golden Oak Library.” Celestia orders. “You’ll know when you see it.” “Yes, your highness.” The pegasus complies, taking the letter and galloping out of the castle. Once she was outside, she flies full speed to the Golden Oak Library. The library was almost impossible to miss, since it’s a large tree house, while a great majority of the houses in Ponyville are just regular houses. Finding it should be as easy as pouring one's own cereal. > Finding Solutions > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is now a couple of days since the virus began. Most of Equestria believes Luna had betrayed them once more despite Celestia saying it’s not Luna’s fault this time. However, there have been protests that have sprung up for different and more complex reasons. Each riot demands a change in the government, believing Celestia and the government had grown increasingly incompetent since that faithful night. Celestia was unable to raise the sun, and Equestria may literally no longer see the light of day until she feels better. It is very possible that Luna’s bite had drained some of her magic. As of right now, doctors are simply dubbing this disease the Lunar Disease. Whatever disease Celestia is coming down with, it’s not affecting just the residents of Canterlot. The best she could do was issue a nationwide curfew in order to lessen the Lunar Plague cases. Twilight lives alone in the Golden Oak Library, hard at work at finding any solution to this virus. She has her mane tied in a bun as to not get in her way. She also wears her glasses, with brass rims and clear lenses, as she normally does when reading or doing any research. With no one to assist her with additional tasks or even spend some quality time with, her work hasn’t been very easy. Everyone seems to be busy this evening, including herself. She’s seeking to be a scientist or a scholar since she has an interest with chemistry and has learned some biology from Fluttershy last week. She imagines that she could find a position in a prestigious magical institution, where she can solve magical mysteries. She may have encountered her first magic-related mystery, and it seems to be the most dangerous and most mysterious by far. She still can’t believe Celestia can no longer raise and lower the sun anymore. She remembered vividly that it was nighttime, the analog clock hanging on her wall reading 10:03 PM, and she needs to get ready for bed and continue her research in the morning. At that moment, Twilight had some lingering thoughts running through her head. Just the other day, Princess Celestia wishes to promote her into a princess, but she refused. Celestia understood, and allowed her to pursue her own dreams as long as it doesn’t negatively impact her friendships. Twilight looked at her clock, and her mind was interrupted from its autopilot once she realized what it read, fearing that being three minutes off schedule wouldn’t be good for the amount of sleep she’ll need for tomorrow. Each time the second hand ticks—every second that passes—feels more like a ticking time bomb that’s about to go off if she doesn’t do something. She stops whatever she was currently doing and hastily goes to the bathroom to brush her teeth before crawling into her bed upstairs, making sure she put everything away nicely, of course. Aside from the occasional adventures she and her friends have, Twilight follows a strict schedule. It gets very repetitive, that’s the way she liked it. It’s her baseline. Things seem normal for her like this. After brushing her teeth, Twilight went to her bedroom upstairs without hesitation. She makes herself comfortable in her bed before closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep, but not without checking the time once again, first, on the digital alarm clock on her nightstand. It’s 10:12 PM. She made a mental note to get ready for bed earlier next time as she lay down with her eyes shut, concluding yet another productive day. This would be the last time her schedule would follow the same pattern that she had gotten used to. Because when she woke up to the loud and obnoxious beep of her digital alarm clock next to her bed, she found out it was still nighttime. She initially believed her clock was misleading her and she had just set her alarm too early. But, she explicitly remembered to set that alarm at 8:00 AM, which was what her digital alarm clock and analog clock hung on her wall read. Her friends as well as everypony else was skeptical and confused. It took hours for them to realize that their clocks weren’t lying. It has indeed been ten hours since 10:00 PM yesterday. It’s not their clocks that are experiencing difficulties. It’s the ever present waxing crescent moon that remained in the sky since that hour. The letter recently sent from Celestia that Twilight found in her mailbox gives some sort of context. When she revealed it to the rest of the town, they have some mixed opinions. Twilight and her friends did try to calm them down and assure that Luna was being held against her own will by this curse. Many remained unconvinced, blaming Luna for keeping the moon in the sky. Twilight had already visited the castle to inspect Luna, who is now contained in a glass cell. So far, Celestia isn’t experiencing any dangerous symptoms other than her waning control over her own magic. She expected to come face to face with Nightmare Moon again, but the real state of Luna did suggested something different. She hasn’t seen anything like this. She was allowed to do more research on the matter with added assistance from her friends and a few other magic experts. However, Applejack was busy at the farm and is getting very protective of her family since the night Luna was possessed. Rarity didn’t want to abandon her sister, Sweetie Belle, either. And Fluttershy was busy at the vet. That leaves Rainbow Dash and Pinkie. They did everything they could to help her, but they couldn’t do a whole lot to help with the magical mystery. Even so, Twilight was thankful. As of her latest findings, the only way this supposed curse could have befallen on someone like Luna would be via a special type of magic that no ordinary unicorn or even an alicorn is capable of possessing. Out of the 37 different types of magic used in the entire world in pony history (not counting magic potions, beverages, or foods), she doesn’t quite know what kind of magic would be responsible for the Lunar Disease, as only 25 of those types of magic are capable of casting curses or producing diseases. Even the curses or infection spells that require said magic to work aren’t too different, but are unlike the one Luna is currently being influenced by. One of the magic experts claim it must be Discord, but that’s impossible. He’s stone, now. It’s only when he explains Discord’s desire to bring chaos did Twilight understand a little more. But they can’t be so sure. Without Discord’s direct testimony for confirmation, they’re reliant on historical records to determine whether chaos magic could’ve played a role in Luna’s infection. While this theory makes more sense than assuming it’s something from the Everfree Forest, politics, news outlets, and the general public thought it was an assassination attempt to kill both princesses. Twilight asked her friends about their thoughts on how Luna was infected. When they said they had no idea, she asked more specific questions, like if they think Discord might’ve infected Luna or if any of them see him snap his fingers at some point before being encased in stone. Only Pinkie and Rainbow Dash said yes, with Twilight herself even recalling Discord at least raising his right hand, while Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity either didn’t notice or remember. While Twilight and her friends are the only eyewitnesses to Discord’s defeat and what he did right before he was turned into stone, the discrepancy on their recollections didn’t quite give a definitive conclusion to this theory. Until they can gather some definitive proof, this theory will remain as such. During the whole day, Twilight had to make use of the little time she was allowed outside and kept a fair distance away from the few others who are brave enough to venture out from the safety of their homes. By the time she went back home after asking her friends, she realized she wanted to ask Pinkie something else, but couldn’t muster the courage to do so. She always took a liking to Pinkie. She always finds a way to bring joy to the smallest things. What makes it seem more interesting is that Pinkie seems to enjoy spending time with her more than any other pony, finding comfort in her calmer and more sophisticated nature and can’t seem to back away from her when she entered Sugarcube Corner to ask her some questions for her investigation. Despite being full of energy, there are times where even Pinkie can find solace in the quieter aspects of life. Twilight has seen her read books before, most of them being cook books, and in her spare time, her favorite works of fiction to read involve drama, romance, and comedy. Maybe when she gets the time to see her and she’s not so busy at the moment, Twilight can talk about their feelings a little more. She hadn’t noticed that it’s almost midnight by the time she got home, or at least that’s what the clock said. The waxing crescent moon is still positioned an hour after astronomical dusk. It still felt unnatural for the moon to still be up after 5:00 AM. Once Twilight noticed her analog clock, and her mind was interrupted from its train of thought when she read it. In a panic, she prepared for bed, no longer willing to make dinner for herself. Once she got into bed, she unties her hair bun ans took off her glasses, putting them on the nightstand next to her, where the digital clock sat. She checked the clock, which read 12:04 AM. She cursed under her breath before she made herself comfortable, closing her eyes, and eventually drifting off to sleep. She couldn’t seem to get Pinkie off her mind that night.