The calm light of the moon illuminated the dark hallways of Canterlot Castle. For most of the the ponies, this meant the end of a successful, productive day. Only the night staff and guards remained, giving the whole palace a unique, mystical feel that only the night can truly provide.
Yet a certain someone was not happy. Laying in bed and staring at the ceiling, Nick groaned. "Ugh, I should not have had all that coffee earlier to help Celly with decoration ideas for Nightmare night. I'm gonna throw my whole schedule out of whack... thank goodness I dont need a real job here. If only I had some music, maybe I could sleep. Wait a minute, music..." a grin crept across his tired face. It might take all his energy to even get out of bed, and halfway to dreamland wasn't the best time for it, but there was pranking to do!
And so, the human set off into the bowels of the castle storerooms to find what he needed. It took about an hour of digging through old artifacts and documents to find the prize he desired. "Ah, here we are! I wonder, which of these is going to be the most useful here..." then he looked to his left, and his eyes widened. "Hello, what have we here..."
What a day! Celestia sighed into her bedsheets as she felt her stress leave her tired body. After putting up with nobles all week, it was finally friday night, so she could get some shut-eye. She curled up with her teddy bear and closed her eyes, a soft smile on her face as she drifted off to dreamland...
Suddenly, a massive blast of noise shook her out of her relaxation, shaking the room slightly as the unknown sound reverberated through the room. It was so startling and loud that Celestia nearly had a conniption thinking the kingdom was under attack again.
Celestia nearly fell flat on her face as she scrambled out of bed in a panic. Getting to her hooves over the cacophony of noise, she rushed forward and forced the balcony doors open, knocking a vase backwards from the force of the swinging frames.
The garden below was a mess. Much to her confusion (and likely to the upset of the ponies that cared for the gardens), the entire garden was covered in rainbow, glow-in-the-dark silly string, and it was EVERYWHERE. In the trees, under water in the fountain, even over the castle walls.
"What in tartarus is going on here?!" She exclaimed.
Looking down below, she found the reason her night had become so disturbed: One very familiar, irritating human with the one she thought she had buried so deep in the castle it would never be seen again: The 'quadruple-barreled, chaos causing turbo-tuba', as Discord had named it during his first reign of chaos.
Nick, however, seemed just as confused as she was. "Whoa! What the heck, this thing shoots silly string? I just thought it was a marching band tuba with two sound projectors instead of one! Oh boy, this is gonna be fun. Time for a concert! And a one, and a two, and a-" Nick took a deep breath and blew into the mouthpiece again, the four bells (where the sound comes out) began to rotate and spew silly string again as very bad, off-key tuba music played out of them. More and more silly string coated the garden as Nick paraded around, clearly pleased with himself.
Celestia flew down, ignoring the silly string getting caught in her fur and mane. "Nick! What are you doing? That is an artifact from the chaos wars, it is- in good grief, you can't hear me! NICK!" She didn't like having to pull out the royal canterlot voice, but she had to in order to catch his attention.
"Huh? Oh, hey Celestia! Look what I found! This thing is so cool! Look at how much fun it is to spray glowing silly string everywhere, the garden looks like a light show!"
"Nick..." Celestia brushed her now glowing mane out of her face. "That was created by Discord in order to... uh... well, mainly cause chaos and annoy Luna and I. Please stop, before you end up ruining the garden more than you have!"
Nick shrugged. "Oh, lighten up Celly. What's the worst that could happen?" As soon as the words left his mouth, the bells began to rotate, blasting horrible music and shooting glowing silly string straight into the sky in massive quantities, easily covering the entire castle before the 'song' ending triggered a final explosion of glitter glue to soak the entire garden, its occupants included, in neon plaid glitter.
"You had to say the trigger phrase, didn't you, Nick."
"Oh. Uh... oops. Hey, how is the glitter plaid? That shouldn't be possible."
"Discord."
"Fair enough. Guess a quick dip in the moat is in order... need to clean off anyway. I think I'm ready for bed now."
Celestia breathed a sigh or relief. "Thank goodness. I was hoping this would end fast. Why even use this, anyway?" She inquired, lifting the instrument in her magic.
"If I can't sleep, noone else can either."
As the pair carried the tuba back to the storage vaults, they passed through the throne room, recently cleaned by the staff in preparation for the upcoming Grand Galloping Gala. Nick smiled. "Hey, Celly?"
"What is it, Nick?"
"What's the worst that could happen?"
As the tuba started up again, primed to ruin the throne room, Nick dashed off, cackling maniacally. That night, a single, infuriated scream woke up all of Canterlot to join the human in his insomnia.
"NICK!!!!!"