Part 3 - Dream Drop Distance
(sleeping world = discorded ponyverse)
Riku: (earth)
Recovering from the fact that this was a dream world, or at least a world living in sleep, Riku did not dwell on the fact that he was no longer in human form. As he wandered into town, he wondered, "What's the matter with this place?" Out of all the worlds he'd been to or heard of from the others, he was fairly certain that things in this world were not quite right. Pink cotton candy clouds were raining chocolate milk over the chessboard landscape. Buildings were either floating upside down or constructed out of cardboard that blew over in a slight breeze or random animal stampede.
He walked into a sculpture garden and discovered that one of the statues was broken. Three equines - one with wings, one with a horn, and one with neither but a giant red bow in her mane - stood arguing nearby. "Is everything okay here?" Riku asked the young fillies; he knew the answer was no but needed an explanation from somepony soon.
The three of them stopped arguing and all but clammed up. "My sister told me not to talk to strange ponies," said the yellow one with the bow. "But no, everything is NOT okay!"
"You're not from Canterlot are you?" the white unicorn filly with two-tone mane asked.
"Please don't let the princess banish us to the moon!" begged the orange pegasus.
"Um, okay," Riku stammered. He did not know what to make of their behavior. Were they going to tell him anything or not? "I'm not from Canterlot, but would you mind telling me anyway?"
The three fillies kicked their hooves in the dust, looking guilty. "Our teacher Miss Cheerilee was telling our class about the history of the statues in this sculpture garden, but we weren't really listening because we were fighting," the unicorn said.
"So she told us we had to write an essay about Discord, but when we came back here -" the yellow pony continued.
"The statue was gone!" the orange pegasus concluded. "We were fighting next to it but we didn't break it!"
Riku looked at the broken pieces of statue lying on the ground. They didn't seem to fit together to form a complete statue - it looked more like the statue had shed its skin, but that was impossible, right? "I don't think you broke the statue," he said, making the girls momentarily relieved. "I think something broke out of the statue."
"It was...ALIVE?" the unicorn squeaked in terror.
"What did your teacher say about Discord? Was there a legend about the statue itself?"
"I don't know. I can't remember," the yellow pony despaired. "If only we hadn't been fighting. This never woulda happened."
It can't be their fault, can it? Riku thought. An evil cackle was heard and he looked around as the three fillies cowered behind him. The pieces of statue had become enchanted and formed the face of Discord. "Thanks for freeing me girls. Your act of disharmony is what allowed me to break out of the stony state your princess put me in. If you need anything else, ask away."
"Leave them alone!" Riku shouted. "Wait, why am I talking to a statue?"
Discord glared at him. "I'll have you know I was still alive when I was a statue. I could hear everything within earshot of my pedastal. But I have something better now - a throne in the center of Ponyville! Now that I've taken out the Elements of Harmony, there's nothing Celestia or anypony can do to stop me! I will rule Ponyville as the Chaos Capital of Equestria! Are you taking note of this, ladies?"
"Elements of Harmony?" Riku echoed, not knowing what he was talking about.
"What have you done to our sisters and the others, Discord?" the yellow pony demanded.
"Yeah!" the unicorn chimed in.
"Oh you'll find out soon enough." With that, the pieces dropped and Discord was gone. Red-eyed Dream Eaters appeared in his place, and Riku took his Keyblade in his mouth to fight them off, turning them from bad to good. The girls hid behind the other statues and watched him. "Wow, cool!" the orange one said. "Not as cool as Rainbow Dash, but still cool!"
"We gotta find the others and fast," the yellow one said, and all three split up to find their sisters.
By the time Riku was done fighting, the girls were nowhere within sight. While deciding whether or not to go after them, they eventually found their way back. "Everypony in town has gone crazy!" the unicorn reported. "My sister totally ignored me and she was talking to a giant rock in her living room!"
"I can't find Rainbow Dash anywhere, and Miss Cheerilee is completely bonkers!" the orange one said.
"My whole family's acting weird! What do we do now?" the yellow one asked, near tears.
"Please, mister, you have to help us!" the orange one begged.
"I thought your sister told you not to talk to strangers," Riku asked, but he realized the situation was getting desperate for them if they were the only normal ponies in town.
"You fought off whatever those were back there, so I guess you're not a stranger anymore," the yellow one said. "My name's Applebloom."
"I'm Sweetie Belle," the unicorn introduced herself.
"And I'm Scootaloo," the pegasus said. "What's your name?"
"I'm Riku. Can you tell me more about the Elements of Harmony? They seem to be important."
"They sure are. Our sisters and three of their friends used them to defeat Nightmare Moon before like the princess did," Applebloom said.
"There are six elements - honesty, kindness, laughter, generosity, loyalty, and magic," Sweetie Belle recited.
"That's what makes a friendship last," Scootaloo said. "Friendship...ugh, this really is our fault. I don't want to fight with you guys."
"Me neither," Applebloom agreed.
"We acted like terrible friends," Sweetie Belle added. "I'm sorry, girls."
"Me too," Scootaloo added.
"Me three!" Applebloom added.
All three put their hooves together. "Cutie Mark Crusaders! Yay!"
Riku noticed the remnants of the statue glowing but growing weaker. The three girls' bickering may have released Discord somehow, but their making up didn't seem to have the full effect in reverse. "If the Elements are the only thing that can stop Discord, then your sisters are the only ones who can do it, right?"
"We'd better write that essay together. If Twilight hasn't figured out a way to get the girls back to normal, we'll need to read it to them to get them to realize it," Applebloom said.
"Maybe we'll get our Cutie Marks in friendship!" Sweetie Belle suggested.
"What would that look like?" Scootaloo asked skeptically.
Riku didn't know what Cutie Marks were, but he figured whatever those three felt they needed to do they should, and fast. They left him behind in the sculpture garden. He unlocked the keyhole that appeared there and walked through it, hoping to catch up to Sora in the next sleeping world.
Sora: (pegasus)
"Whoa! When did I get wings?" Sora asked himself as he realized he had turned into some kind of winged horse for this world. Previously he had transformed into a lion cub in the Pride Lands, a merman in Atlantica, and a vampire in Halloweentown. He took off flying and had a relatively easy time of it, having flown before on pixie dust in Neverland. He passed over an off-color blue pegasus with rainbow mane napping on a cloud, not noticing anything out of the ordinary. He found a group of off-color ponies coming out of a house in a tree. He landed next to them and almost got crushed by a giant rock being thrown out a window. "Hey! Watch it!" he shouted, annoyed.
"Watch out yourself!" sassed the off-color yellow pegasus, shoving him.
"I'm so sorry about that," the brightly colored purple unicorn apologized. Then she got a crazy idea. "Say, you're a pegasus right? You can fill in for Rainbow Dash! We can't find her anywhere."
"What? But I -"
"You're Rainbow Dash!" the purple unicorn yelled, attaching some kind of necklace to him.
"What is this?"
"No time for questions. We have to vanquish Discord!"
Suddenly a creature with the head of a goat, the body of a snake, and the limbs of a lion and an eagle appeared. "Fire when ready," he taunted, holding a mock bull's-eye target in front of himself, knowing they wouldn't succeed. Indeed they didn't, as the purple unicorn's spell didn't work without the real Rainbow Dash or with the girls' reversed personalities. Discord flew away cackling as the off-colored ponies threw their necklaces on the ground and walked away, abandoning the purple one. Upset, she became off-colored as well and stormed back inside her partially destroyed house.
Not knowing what else to do, Sora followed her inside. "Hey, what happened to you and your friends?"
"I don't know, and I don't care!" the off-purple one snapped. "I'm going back home to Canterlot! Coming here to make friends was a waste of time!" She yelled for her dragon assistant Spike, who was too busy regurgitating scrolls from the princess to answer.
"I don't know what's going on either, but I do know you can't turn your back on your friends," Sora determined. "Your vanquishing spell doesn't work without them, and I'm guessing you're the only ones who can pull it off."
"How did you know that?" the unicorn asked.
"I'm not Rainbow Dash. I don't even know what to do with this thing," he explained, taking it off and giving it back to her. "But I have a feeling that the real Rainbow Dash does, and I think I know where to find her."
Spike managed to crawl into the room, begging Twilight to make the scrolls stop. As Twilight read them, her color started to come back until she realized she had to fight to get her true friends back to their old selves. Spike stayed behind, but as Sora and Twilight exited her house, they found it was surrounded by red-eyed Dream Eaters, which Sora fought off with his Keyblade in his mouth. Together they rounded up her friends and one by one she turned them back to normal. "Thanks...what was your name again?" Twilight asked.
"I'm Sora," he replied. "I hope everything's okay with you guys now."
"It will be. Discord couldn't keep us apart forever. Come on, girls. Let's go get 'im!"
As the girls ran off, a key hole appeared in the sky. Sora flew up to it and unlocked it, hoping to meet up with Riku in the next sleeping world.
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