New Chaotic Friends!

by GMBlackjack

IV - In Which the Dorito Virus is Unleashed

Bill Cipher made no attempts to hide himself whatsoever. He walked right out of Friendship Castle, his golden, ominous eyes on display for all to see. No one who looked at ‘Rarity’ could possibly believe there wasn’t something else behind those eyes.

He didn’t care whatsoever. He let them gawk, cower, and tremble.

“WHAT’S THE MATTER? NEVER SEEN A DREAM DEMON POSSESS A UNICORN BEFORE?”

The mare this question was directed to fainted, flopping amusingly onto the grassy ground.

“HAH! TOO EASY! IF YOU JUST DROP LIKE THIS, WHAT’S THE FUN IN PUTTING EFFORT INTO IT?”

Answers were not forthcoming, screams and shivering ponies were. They would remember him. The being who looked like Rarity but wasn’t.

He trotted right over to Rarity’s boutique and opened the doors. There had been a stallion curiously examining the “Closed” sign, clearly ecstatic that Rarity was back from her outing. Chuckling, Bill slammed the door in his face. “SORRY, BUDDY, INSPIRATION HAS HIT, THERE WON’T BE ANY CUSTOMERS TODAY!”

“But you alwa-”

Bill lit his horn, transforming the “Closed” sign into a “VERY CL∆SED” sign. “NOPE. GET LOST.”

“Why, Rarity, what’s gotten into you?”

“...DO YOU NOT SEE THE EYES?”

“...Pff, who needs to look at a pony’s eyes to understand them? It’s all in the posture a-”

Bill teleported him to a random location. It took a lot more of his internal magic reserves than he would have liked, but he still managed to get rid of the offending and frankly quite boring stallion. Bill had work to do, and pretending like he was Rarity was not on that list.

He trotted up to Rarity’s personal chair behind the Boutique countertop and sat down, pressing his hooves together and closed his eyes, smiling all the while.

“COME AND GET ME…”

~~~

Discord, Spike, Fluttershy, and the Mask walked up to the window of Carousel Boutique.

“VERY CL∆SED.”

“That’s Bill all right,” Discord said. “Can’t mistake him and his obsession with triangles.”

“What if I suddenly developed an obsession with triangles?” the Mask asked, currently in a dress made of triangular corn chips.

Discord ripped the dress off her and ate it.

“AIEEEE!” the Mask covered herself.

Fluttershy took control. “Calm down. It as just a dress.”

“We’re naked!”

“You didn’t mind earlier.”

“Why do you love my jokes one minute and then ruin them the next?” the Mask wailed.

“Because she’s better at chaos than you?” Spike suggested.

“Oooooh,” Fluttershy said, giggling. “Nice one, Spike.”

“Thank you.” He cracked his knuckles. “Now let’s save Rarity!” He pulled a fist back and punched the door.

The door didn’t budge.

“Aughahah…” Spike whimpered, clutching his wrist. “T-there goes the dramatic entrance…”

Fluttershy touched a wing to the door and lifted up the Boutique’s latch. It wasn’t locked. She raised an incredulous eyebrow.

“...That’s not dramatic though…”

“Oh for goodness sake,” Discord grumbled, snapping his fingers and teleporting them all into the Boutique.

Bill was sitting behind the counter, fixing them all with a very annoyed glare. “FINALLY! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG I’VE BEEN SITTING HERE?”

“Less than an hour?” Fluttershy offered.

“OVER AN HOUR! I MADE MYSELF EASY TO FIND, WALKED RIGHT TO THE MOST OBVIOUS PLACE, MADE SURE PONIES SAW ME, AND THEN SAT DOWN AND WAITED! BUT DID YOU SHOW UP? NO! YOU WENT ON SOME GALAVANTING HIGH ADVENTURE WITH MASKY.”

“We freed Applejack,” Spike said. “And now we’re gonna remove you from the fair Rarity!”

Bill rolled his eyes. “I’VE SEEN A LOT OF DELUSIONAL PEOPLE IN MY TIME, KID, BUT YOU HAVE GOT TO BE IN THE TOP HUNDRED. I’M IN HER HEAD, TRUST ME, SHE HAS ABOUT AS MUCH INTEREST IN YOU AS A LUMBERJACK IN A SCREWDRIVER.”

“Lumberjacks use all sorts of tools.”

“...BUT WHICH ONE DO THEY LIKE THE BEST? COME ON, DRAGON, IT’S NOT THAT HARD OF A METAPHOR TO GET, USE YOUR NOGGIN. OR DO YOU EVEN HAVE ANYTHING IN THERE?” Bill smirked. “WANNA LET ME IN, SEE WHAT I CAN FIND? MAYBE GET YOU A GENIUS PRIZE. OR A SHOW OF YOUR OWN WHERE YOU AREN’T THE SIDEKICK!”

There was a hack hack hack noise from outside. The Mask was felling a tree with an oversized flathead screwdriver. She appeared back inside, laying the tree and the tool in front of Bill. “Did it!”

“AHAHAHAHA! A PROOF OF CONCEPT! I LIKE IT - BUT WE CAN ONLY IMPROVE IT FROM HERE. ADD SOME SNAKES MADE OF PAPER HEARTS FOR ADDED IRONIC TRAGEDY. YOU WERE NEVER WEIRD ENOUGH, MASKY.”

“...Not weird enough?” Fluttershy gasped. “What is weird enough?”

“OH, YOU KNOW, BASIC THINGS LIKE SCREAMING HEADS, NIGHTMARES, BODY DISASSEMBLY, MUTATIONS, MONSTERS, SOUL-STEALING TRICKS, INSANITY, RIVERS OF BLO-”

“Discord do the thing already!” Spike wailed.
Discord snapped his fingers, forcing Bill out of Rarity with ease. The white unicorn slumped into her chair, fast asleep, just as Applejack had been when she was freed.

“That’s that!” Discord said, dusting his hands and marching out the boutique door. “Next!”

“We’re just going to leave her here!?” Spike asked.

“Uh… yeah?” Discord cocked his head. “Why not?”

“It is her home,” Fluttershy added.

“And that chair looks mighty comfortable,” the Mask continued.

Spike grumbled to himself, marching out of the boutique as well. “Still feels like we should do m- ...where’s Applejack?”

“With the CMC, ding!” the Mask held up a triangle instrument, grinning. “I’ll collect two-hundred dollars, thank you.”

“Uh… you didn’t get it right,” Fluttershy said. “The CMC are right there. She isn’t.”

The CMC were talking amongst themselves, strangely without the Applejack that had been dumped on Scootaloo only a few minutes prior.

“Girls!” Spike shouted. “What did you do with Applejack?”

Apple Bloom blinked. “What? Do? She just woke up and went home!”

Discord’s jaw dropped. “Woke… up?”

“Yeah. Was that not supposed to happen?”

“Ponies in comas don’t just wake up and walk it off!”

“I knew that was too easy,” Spike muttered.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” the Mask asked.

Spike groaned. “This is my life now… constant jokes at my expense by a green mask and an overgrown snake.”

“Awww, they’re just giving you attention because they care about you!” Fluttershy said.

Spike facepalmed. “Let’s just get to Sweet Apple Acres and figure out what’s going on.”

Travel was so simple with chaos on your side - just a snap and you were where you needed to be. In this case, right outside the Sweet Apple Acres barn, where a certain orange farm pony was sitting in a rocking chair, a piece of straw in her mouth.

Her eyes were bright yellow and mischievous. “AT LEAST YOU GOT HERE QUICK THIS TIME!”

Discord grabbed Applejack by the chest. “How did you do that?”

“WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO KNOW?”

“I know! I know!” the Mask waved her hoof in the air. “Ooh, ooh, pick me! Pick me!”

“THIS IS THE METHOD BY WHICH BILL CIPHER INVADES THE BODIES OF OTHER BEINGS.”

“What is dream manipulation?”

“DING DING DING! YOU WIN AN ALL EXPENSE PAID TRIP TO NOWHERESVILLE!” Bill glared at the Mask mischievously - the expression quickly replaced by a frown. “...OH. I’M NOT A UNICORN ANYMORE.”

“And you won’t have any more tricks.” Discord lifted Bill into the air.

“DO YOU REALLY THINK I’D MAKE IT THIS EASY FOR YOU? AHAHAHAHA! YOU’RE AS SMART AS YOU LOOK!”

“...Who else have you possessed?” Fluttershy demanded.

“ANY PONY CURRENTLY ASLEEP AND OF A WEAK MIND, WHICH IS ALREADY SEVERAL DOZEN. NIGHT WILL FALL SOON AND MANY OTHERS WILL JOIN THE NETWORK OF DREAMS! I AM A VIRUS OF THE MIND!”

“Ooh, Dorito Virus…” the Mask rubbed her wingtips together. “That sounds tasty.”

“IT IS! THE DELICIOUS NIGHTMARES AND INSECURITIES OF SO MANY IN THE REALM WHERE I AM MASTER! AND WHO KNOWS? EVENTUALLY, I MIGHT BE ABLE TO OPEN A FISSU-”

Discord forced him out of Applejack.

“He’s infecting dreams,” Spike frowned. “...We need to remove him from the Dreamscape.”

“To Luna!” Fluttershy declared.

“We do a lot of jumping around on this show,” the Mask observed.

~~~

It took significantly more than one jump to make it all the way to Luna’s private chambers. The anti-magic security installed on Canterlot Castle had done a surprisingly good job of keeping Discord’s machinations out. It would take hardly any effort for Discord to teleport to the main entrance of the castle and then teleport somewhere within the interior, but the fact that he couldn’t teleport directly from anywhere he was to Celestia’s Royal Court made his regular ‘impulsive chaos’ decisions less regular.

Being forced to think before doing chaos? Absurd! If he couldn’t get in and out for a quick joke then what was the point?

Needless to say, he completely forgot the Castle had the enchantment on it momentarily and ended up teleporting all of them several stories in the air above Canterlot.

Luckily both Spike and Fluttershy had wings - but they still gave Discord a death glare nonetheless.

“Eheh… ooopsy?” Discord shrugged. He created a giant snake-slide that brought the three of them down to the main entrance. Once they physically crossed the barrier, the Mask folded them all the way up to Luna’s private quarters.

The two batpony guards at the doorway took a wary look at Discord.

“Please, as if I wouldn’t be here if it wasn't important.”

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. “Really, DIscord? I remember you swapping the decor of Luna and Celestia’s rooms not that long ago.”

“You’re not helping!”

Spike sighed. “Spike the Brave and Glorious here, we need to see Princess Luna, there’s a dream demon in the dreamscape.”

“There’s always a dream demon in the dreamscape,” one of the guards said. “That’s part of her job.”

“This one’s from another world and already invaded both Rarity and Applejack’s dreams.”

The guards looked at him blankly.

“Element of Generosity and Honesty? Owner of Rarity for You? Sweet Apple Acres? Do you guys ever get out?”

“We have not left this hallway for centuries,” one of them said.

Spike groaned. “Can you just… get a message to her?”

“She’s sleeping right now.”

“This is more important than sleep,” Fluttershy said.

“Yeah!” the Mask added, smacking herself on the head with a baseball bat. “Does this look normal?”

“...No,” the guard admitted. “But that does not give you the right t-”

Discord snapped his fingers, turning the two guards into bats - the animal, not the sports implement the Mask was swinging around. He kicked open the doors to Luna’s chambers.

She wasn’t there.

Frowning, Discord turned the guards back. “Where is she?”

The guards stared in shock at her empty bed. “We… we have no idea.”

“SHE WAS ASLEEP!” a Bill-infected pegasus called from Luna’s window. “FAIR GAME!”

“What have you done with her?” Fluttershy demanded.

“YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIGURE IT OUT. JUST PUT SOME ELBOW GREASE INTO IT, IT’LL BE FINE!”

Discord removed Bill from the pegasus, prompting her to drop out of the ground and land in a painful pile of garbage.

“Oooh, that’s gonna leave a mark…” Spike winced.

“A dead end!” the Mask declared, tracing a path along her maze-print dress. “We must turn around and find a new path onward!”

“Celestia can probably find her, and I know she’s not asleep,” Spike said. “Just be careful, she’s probably in-”

Discord teleported them all into a fancy room filled with nobles.

“-court.”

Celestia let out a sigh and the nobles shifted uncomfortably. “Discord, I thought I told you never t-”

The Mask cleared her throat. “Woooooooooooah Luna’s missing, there’s a dream demon on the loose, and you should have already gotten the letter about all the other problems we’re smokin’ in.”

Celestia stood bolt upright. “Luna is missing?”

“Yeah. Can you find her?”

Celestia nodded. “Easily. I know where she is at all times, I just need to…” She froze, turning to stare at a blue unicorn noble who had been wearing oversized glasses.

With a chuckle, the noble removed her glasses, revealing bright yellow eyes. “I DO LIKE HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT!”

“Why do you hide where it is so easy to be detected?”

“YOU COULD HAVE DETECTED ME ANYWHERE I COULD HAVE GOTTEN QUICKLY.” Bill dropped the disguise, revealing that he was, in fact, controlling Luna’s body. “SO I MADE SURE I GOT TO SEE THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE. PRICELESS, BY THE WAY, I THINK I’M PRINTING IT ON A MUG. I HEAR YOU LIKE FACES ON MUGS.”

“Aaaaand AVAUNT!” Discord declared, forcing Bill out of Luna’s head. Unlike Rarity and Applejack, Luna did not pass out from the procedure.

She did let out a howling pain that sounded like a cackling hyena that decided attacking a wolf mid-howl was a good idea and quickly regretted its decision.

“That… that cur!” Luna shouted.

The nobles gasped at Luna’s language. A few fainted.

“I am going to tear him out of the dreamscape with my bare hooves!” Luna shouted at the top of her lungs.

“What if he traps you again?” Spike asked.

“That’s what you three are for,” Luna said.

“Yep, the three are four,” the Mask chuckled.

Luna stared at her in confusion.

“Don’t think about it,” Fluttershy dismissed. “We’re here to help. What can we do?”

“We are going to enter the dreamscape… we are going to confine Bill Cipher… and then we will banish him from this realm once and for all!”

“PRINCESSES!” a royal messenger shouted, rushing into the room. “Fires have started breaking out all over Canterlot! It’s too much for the fire department to handle, and the guard suspect foul play!”

“OH NO, LOOKS LIKE THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE TO DEAL WITH!” A noble said, pulling her mane out of her eyes. “WHAT WILL YOU DO?”

“I will see to Canterlot,” Celestia said. “Luna, the Dreamscape is yours.”

“Agreed, sister.”

“THE ONE TIME YOU TWO REALLY NEED TO FIGHT…” Bill sighed. “HEY, LUNA, I BET CELESTIA IS GOING TO GET ALL THE CREDI-”

Discord banished him. “That’s getting more annoying than cathartic…”

“How do we get into the dreamscape?” Fluttershy asked.

“WITH MOON BOOTS!” the Mask declared, bouncing around on her set of four moon boots.

“...The boots will not help,” Luna said. “Only my magic will. Please, come to my chambers, we will sleep to enter the realm.” Luna narrowed her eyes at the surrounding nobles. “None of you will ever take that out of context, do you understand?”

“Yes, princess.”

“Good. See to it that you don’t forget. Remember what happened to Tizzy Tail’s tail.”

The nobles collectively shuddered.

Luna decided she had wasted enough time here, teleporting them back to her room.

Which was decorated with Celestia’s furniture.

“DISCORD!” Fluttershy shouted.

“What? You gave me the idea!”

Luna twitched. “If you weren’t such a danger to the realm I would simply let him take you over…”

“Ouch. You wound me Woona, you really do.”

~~~

Normally the dreamscape was a calm, serene locale filled with stars, varied doors that led to different dreams, and the occasional dreamy wildlife. Sometimes the dream creatures were nasty and demonic, but equally often they were puffy little clouds of pure positivity.

All this was gone when Luna dragged Discord, Spike, Fluttershy, and the Mask into the dreamscape. The stars had been jostled around randomly and colored with a yellow tint. Immense mutant creatures lined the voids between the sparks dominated the view, filling Spike’s mind with images that would give him nightmares for weeks to come. Geometric shapes twirled around overhead, most laughing, but there were a few that were crying or screaming in agony.

“WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL!” Bill declared, rising in front of them in all his triangular one-eyed glory. “DO YOU LIKE WHAT I’VE DONE WITH THE PLACE, MOONBUTT?”

“This realm is not your own, Tartarus-spawn,” Luna hissed. “Leave and return to your own realm!”

“AND BE A STATUE? HA, NO THANKS, THAT’S JUST PATHETIC. I THINK I’LL REMAIN RIGHT HERE AND DRIVE NIGHTMARES INTO THE MINDS OF EVERY LAST ONE OF YOUR CITIZENS! IT’S SO MUCH EASIER TO DO THAT HERE THAN BACK HOME. DON’T EVEN NEED ANY DEALS, JUST RAMPANT INVASION OF PRIVACY! HOW’S THAT SOUND?”

“We will stand for no such thing!” Luna declared. “We will drive you out!”

“NOW IS THAT THE ROYAL WE OR THE GENERAL WE? MATTERS A LOT HERE, BECAUSE I NEED TO KNOW IF I SHOULD DANGLE DIAMONDBUTT’S FIGURE IN FRONT OF THE DRAGON TO KEEP HIM DISTRACTED OR NOT.”

“W-what?” Spike sputtered.

Several thousand Rarities flew into him from nowhere, flooding him in the sound of so many “dears” and “darlings” he felt like his ears were going to explode. They probably would if this were the real world. Of course, he’d notice the broken bones from the impact first in that case.

“HAHAH. EASY. HE’LL TAKE A WHILE TO GET OUT OF THAT. NOW, SORRY TO JET, BUT I’VE GOT NIGHTMARES TO RUN AND YOU’RE ALL DREADFULLY BORING.” He said the last two words through the mouth of a loose Rarity.

Luna flared her wings and encased all of them in a sphere of darkness. “Bill Cipher! You will not be going anywhere. YOU WILL FACE US!”

“UGH, FINE, WE CAN DO THIS TH-”

Discord pointed a finger and tossed several thousand statues of Bill at Bill, surrounding him in reminders of his own failure. “How do you like your own medicine?”

“I LIKE IT JUST FINE. PREDICTABLE, REALLY.” He floated out of the pile, colored red and ten times larger than before. “HERE, I’LL DO YOU BETTER!”

Bill imagined a single Discord statue - one that matched Discord’s every move. If he snapped his fingers, the statue would do the same. A giant fish appeared and was hit by a fish made of stone. A tremendous army of cookies marched into the lines of a perfectly matched opposition.

“Oh come on!” Discord shouted. “The copy game? Really?”

Bill yawned by stretching his eyelid wide. “YEP. KEEPS YOU OCCUPIED PRETTY WELL, DOESN’T IT?”

“Only one of us,” Luna said, appearing behind Bill and smashing him with the moon. “Drive him out!”

“On it!” Discord pointed his fingers… only to find that his statue was still operating, countering his moves. “That’s not fair! You can’t focus!”

Bill rose out of the moon as if it were made of liquid. “YOUR POWER IN THIS REALM IS TIED DIRECTLY TO YOUR IMAGINATION! BOTH OF YOU PALE IN COMPARISON TO ME, WHO DESIGNED CIVILIZATIONS!” He got rid of Discord’s statue entirely and opted to counter him with a mass composed entirely of different colors of wriggling caterpillar while Luna got to stare at her own face turned inside-out.

“Nightmares do not deter me, triangle!”

“OF COURSE NOT! BUT YOU CAN’T DO AAAAAAANYTHING. ANYTHING YOU CAN DO I CAN DO BETTER!” He turned her army of imagined dark monsters into a series of fractal patterns, twisting them into the cake-monsters of Discord’s dream constructs. “I BET YOU TWO WERE MUCH BETTER WHEN YOU WERE ‘EVIL!’ PROBABLY MORE FUN TO HANG AROUND TOO!”

“Does friendship mean nothing to you?” Discord demanded.

“LEMME THINK ABOUT THAT… PFFT. FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC. HEHEH. OH, THAT’S RICH, THA-”

“Maybe you should do some more RESEARCH next time!” Fluttershy shouted, smashing into him from above. He retaliated - against her. The Mask was able to jump in, creating several comically oversized hammers to hit Bill while Fluttershy recovered from the assault.

“Two minds! One body!” the Mask laughed. “Out imagine this!” A giant creature made out of the cutest, fluffiest creatures imaginable appeared behind them, colored with vibrant pastel crayon-like textures and far too many limbs in unnatural places.

“THAT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING A FIVE-YEAR-OLD COULD DR-”

Its mouth opened, revealing a tommy gun that shot the concept of happiness.

“...WHAT?”

RAT-AT-AT-AT-AT-TAT!

Bill was unable to block the concept of happiness because, well, that shouldn’t have been able to cause physical bullet-like damage. But it did.

“JUST A LUCKY GRAB. YOU A-” He blinked. He only saw one opponent. “WHAT.”

“We have fused!” Luna-Discord-Fluttershy-Mask declared. “Our dreams are one, together you will fall!”

“THAT’S CHEAP!”

“Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak dreams stronger. But since when do you play fair?”

“MASK, STOP HELPING THEM, IT’S… AGGRAVATING.”

Bill was hit with several thousand Rarities, a hammer, two wolves made out of crayons, a leaf blower, cigarette smoke given the form of a panda bear, and what he was sure was a version of himself in a bear suit.

He pushed it all aside, enraged. “PARLOR TRICKS! I AM OLDER THAN MANY UNIVERSES! YOU FLESH-BAGS WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO TRULY BE ONE WITH THE MIND! LET ME SHOW YOU!”

“How about… no?” Discord said, tapping Bill on the back.

Bill’s eyes widened. No. Discord had been part of the others. They had fused! He couldn’t have hidden himself…

“Get out of here.” Discord snapped his fingers.

“WAIWAIWAI-”

Bill was gone before he could say another word.

~~~

Chara eventually asked the right question.

What if I fold myself into my mane?

It wasn’t even that hard to do. She just stuffed her face into her mane and rolled around until she wasn’t in Equestria anymore. She was in… The Pinkie Zone.

The fact that Chara could hear Pinkie say that ominously in her head annoyed her to no end.

The Pinkie Zone contained everything that could be pulled out of Pinkie’s mane - objects ranging from cakes to streamers to joy buzzers to video games to outdated party planning files that no longer needed to be contained in the party cave.

But that was just the stuff that was easy to reach. Chara could see much, much further into the distance. With a slasher smile plastered on her face, she began to climb. The higher she went, the more bizarre and esoteric the objects became. One moment she was walking in a river of jellybeans, the next she had found a river of ketchup that contained fish made of french fries. Higher still, and she found televisions far too advanced for Equestria, looking more like some Chara recognized from her world.

Higher still she found entire test dummies made to look like Pinkie Pie, roombas, and overly colorful gardening implements. Things that definitely didn’t belong in this world: shapes made of felt, a hyper-detailed alligator sleeping on an atlas of Earth, and a box with eleven seasons of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

That’s impossible. This observation did not surprise Chara in the slightest.

She passed a few extra Elements of Laughter - including some that were dark, sickly, almost black. Knives that looked like they were covered in blood. Real blood. Even though Pinkie couldn’t harm anypony, she apparently could crab these…

Some cupcakes… those looked tasty.

Pinkie was very connected to things that didn’t belong in her world. And this gave Chara a lot to work with.

She picked up a dark crystal brimming with dark magic. She pulled a knife out of the skeleton of some kind of alien and traced it along the edge of the crystal. “I’m getting an idea….!”

The universe trembled at Chara’s idea.

Comments

[Venerable Ro]

Bill ought to have known better than to get into a contest of absurdity with the Mask of all beings.

Pinkie was very connected to things that didn’t belong in her world. And this gave Chara a lot to work with.

Oh dear, if she drags enough material from the darker realms of the spectrum, she might manage to shift this world's placement, and annul some of the bindings.

[Herald of Opera]

Somehow, I'm not surprised that Pinkie's mane would contain boxed sets of more seasons of her own show than will ever exist. Mostly because they'd just be from some other universe where it was greenlit for more seasons.

[SuperSaiyanDiclonius]

I have one question.....WHERE! IS! TZEENTCH!!!!

Well, two actually, can you show us the Main 6 are doing, please?

[omegasnowfall]

oh god.

[Draco Dei]

“WHAT’S THE MATTER? NEVER SEEN A DREAM DEMON POSSESS A UNICORN BEFORE?”

If one includes the comics, then she probably has.

“ANY PONY CURRENTLY ASLEEP AND OF A WEAK MIND, WHICH IS ALREADY SEVERAL DOZEN. NIGHT WILL FALL SOON AND MANY OTHERS WILL JOIN THE NETWORK OF DREAMS! I AM A VIRUS OF THE MIND!”

Well-now, I don't know about their relative power levels, but he just plunked himself down square in the middle of an additional ally's realm of power, so... "To the Luna-Signal!". Come to that, Ponyville as a whole has proven to be a decent militia for that sort of scenario and if they only select the stronger-willed Ponies to have Discord put under a sleep spell for Luna to recruit... well, it might not be as good as just letting Luna handle it personally, rather than maintaining a 100-way dream meld.

Looks like Bill is more well informed and a better tactician that I knew (unsurprising given how little I know about him). Still, I was right that Luna is a not-completely-trivial threat to him, but far from being in his "weight class".