//------------------------------// // For once do it yourself // Story: Chaos: the Age of Spike // by Kaliann25 //------------------------------// For once do it yourself Once again, silence reigned at the Castle of Friendship. But unlike the other times, it wasn’t an angry or uncomfortable silence, but one of excited anticipation. Both Agents of Chaos and Bearers of Harmony were looking at Spike’s latest invention with a mixture of excitement and fear. “I wonder if this is the right thing to do,” gulped Fluttershy nervously. “Nope, but that’s the point,” smiled Shadow Bloom. “Besides, what she can do to us? Seal our powers for three hours? Yeah, we’re not afraid.” “Sadly, Ah’m aware that there are ponies who you just can’t talk to with reason. Sometimes, you gotta force them to see sense.” “By the way, how did you take the news that Apple Bloom will become immortal as well?” Rarity asked the cowgirl. “Ah’m not gonna lie to ya’ Rares, Ah'm very relieved. It might sound selfish, but ah like the idea of never having to say goodbye to mah little sis.“ Rarity just nodded and sighed. Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie just giggled happily. “I can’t wait to see Celestia’s face when she realizes she’ll have to actually do something! It’ll be epic, the mother of all pranks!” The Agents of Chaos grinned and nodded. Of course it wasn’t hard to convince Pinkie and Fluttershy to forgive Twilight when Rainbow, Applejack and Rarity made them realize it wasn’t all her fault. At best, she was only 19% at fault. From there, it was easy to convince them to join their little revenge scheme. “But she’ll get really mad,” mumbled Fluttershy. “Are you sure this isn’t dangerous?” Twilight shook her head. “Don’t worry about that Fluttershy. I know her very well, and I’m pretty sure she’ll get the message. But if something goes wrong...well, between Spike and I, we will stop her from harming you.” “And if you think about it, if she really wants to harm Spike, she’ll need the Elements of Harmony. But this time, I’m not moving a hoof to use them against the little fella“ said Rainbow Dash with an evil grin. The other Bearers all nodded in agreement. “But I’m surprised Twilight wanted to join us for something like this,” said Night Seed. “Aren’t you always praising your teacher, ‘Princess Celestia did this, Princess Celestia does that, according to Princess Celestia, etc.’ Why did you join the dark side?” Twilight looked at the second floor, where she kept the Chest with the Rainbow Power and her Harmony Grenades, and shrugged. “Rarity guessed what I really thought and felt. This immortality stuff terrifies me and telling you was almost like admitting it. Again, I'm really sorry about that. But seriously, why didn’t she warn me before Nightmare Moon returned and we had to use the Elements for the first time? Furthermore, you’re right. It’s always the same: a random villain from her past comes out of nowhere and WE must stop him, or her, while she does nothing to help us. I’m as sick of the situation as the rest of you, so yeah, it’s time for a little payback.” “That’s my friend!” cheered Rainbow, making a high-hoof with the purple alicorn. And then Spike added the final touches to his creation: a couch. “This is it! The world’s most comfortable couch!” The older ponies just looked at the thing with a blank expression, was this for real? The couch itself wasn’t much, just one of those old couches that you find in almost every living room in almost every home. Seriously, what was the fuss about this couch? Knowing what the Bearers were thinking, Spike made a signal to Night, who pushed Pinkie to the couch so that the pink pony ended up sitting on it. (The reason why her Pinkie-sense didn’t warn her was because Pinkie-sense and Night-sense nullified each other) “You know you could just ask her to sit?” scolded Fluttershy. The kids chuckled and shrugged. “Time for the main attraction!” sneered Mist evilly. “Would you do the honors Night?” Night prepared herself, and before anypony could stop her, the Cutie Map table was shoved to one side of the room. It was swiftly replaced by a dance floor, a low-hanging disco ball, lasers, and a sound system with two giant amps worthy of Vinyl Scratch herself. The foals began dancing happily and invited Pinkie to join them. “Want to join the party?” Spike asked. “What are you guys doing?” asked Rainbow, raising an eyebrow. But Pinkie’s answer froze everypony. “Party? Why would I want to join a party when I can sit in a couch as comfortable as this?” Three, two, one… “WHAT?!!!” Shouted the adults. Spike grinned impishly. “I get it, the wrong kind of party. How about this one?” He snapped his claws and everything transformed into a childish party like the ones Pinkie loved: balloons, pizza, cake and a fruit punch so sweet that caused cavities with a single sip. “What about now?” asked Spike, offering Pinkie a piece of cake. Pinkie looked at it and shrugged. “Pass. This couch is soooooo comfy, that I don’t ever want to move. Why would I want to do something besides sitting here?” Everypony’s jaw dropped. Oh but the Agents weren’t finished yet. They kept offering tempting ideas that Ponyville's pink party pony would usually love: “Pinkie! Would you like to go to the mirror pond and multiply until we’re enough to cover Equestria and the entire world?” asked Night. “And what about pull King Flames’ tail until he gets angry?” suggested Spike. “Or pretends to get angry, what he loves the most is play with the hatchlings who come to visit him” Pinkie let escape a satisfied sigh. “No, you have fun. I’ll just stay here and get comfy.” Spike summoned a recently painted canvas and presented it to Pinkie. “Want to watch the paint dry?” “Okay, as long as I don’t have to move from my couch.” Twilight paled. “Spike, this is the most dangerous thing you ever created! If this thing appears all over Equestria, then nopony would want to move again. They'd just sit comfortable for the rest of their lives.” “Correction: everypony except for Celestia and all of us” explained Spike, making more couches appear out of thin air. “So, wanna take a seat?” Without further need for explanation, everypony jumped onto the couch. As soon as they did it, they lost interest in everything else except for sitting. It was too comfortable to care about anything else. Soon after, copies of the couch appeared in every single home, office, restaurant, etc. Wherever there were ponies, there was a couch with a stupid warning sign that read: DANGER! TOO COMFORTABLE!! And no matter who saw it, everypony reacted the same way: “What’s this? It’s too ridiculous.” And of course they sat down on the couch, only to prove it. A few ponies immediately noticed the couch was a trap and tried to walk away, but the couches' chaotic magic would force them to sit anyway. The trap was set. … The next day, Princess Celestia woke up early and raised the sun, as usual. She trotted down to the dining room for breakfast, but noticed something weird on the way: there were no guards in the halls...or servants...or anypony. “Now what? Hello? Hi, it’s me, the Princess of the Sun!” Walking down the hallways, she found her soldiers comfortably sitting in on strange couches. “Ahem!” called Celestia. One of them turned his head to see her and shrugged. “It’s just the Princess. What can we do for you?” “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, a little upset. “Me? Sitting on a couch. It’s all I want to do now. Isn’t that right, Bombchu? Mirror Shield?” “You say something Hookshot? I got lost into my couch.” “I don’t blame you, this is just too comfortable.” Another soldier, scratched his chin. “Hey dudes, I think we’re forgetting something. Do you know what it is your Majesty?” Celestia had a pulsating vein on her forehead, but right before she spoke, the soldier known as Dungeon Map interrupted: “Who cares? I’m too comfortable to care about anything else besides this couch.” “True,” said one of the few female guards, Compass. So the Princess of the Sun sighed and walked away, knowing this had to be Spike’s doing. But she couldn’t figure out his plan yet. Couches? Well, without servants or soldiers, this was going to be long day for her and her sister. And speaking of her sister, what happened to Luna? She found her in the Throne Room, right in front of another of those couches, staring at the sign. “What’s that?” asked the elder sister. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out” chuckled Luna. “'Too comfortable,' well, seeing what it did to everypony else in the palace, I certainly believe it.” Celestia nodded. “Be careful, alright? We’re not sure how it works.” Luna nodded and walked away, or at least she tried to. Suddenly, the black and purple energy of chaos pulled her back, making her fall right on the couch. Celestia tried to help, her but it was too late. “Leave me Tia, I’m too comfy to do anything,” Luna said, smiling lazily. “So comfy, so comfy…why don’t you join me and just sit together like this forever? This is too comfy.” The white alicorn made a face-hoof. Of course this had to happen. Sighing, she began to wander around the palace. It was as she feared. Effectively, every single pony was under the effects of Spike’s power. Not even the fearsome Lunar Soldiers bothered to stop her when she entered Luna’s private wing without permission (and they normally wouldn’t hesitate to aim their swords at her). But just like her own guards, they were too comfortable to do anything. Without saying a word, Celestia just returned to her throne, sat down and decided to wait for Twilight and her friends to solve the problem. However, her stomach claimed her attention. “First things first: we must get something to eat,” she said to herself. Being completely alone was kind of a nuisance. So she went to the kitchen to cook herself a couple of eggs, after she took care of a couple of small fires on the stove. The chefs were too busy being comfy on their couches to tend to what they were cooking. “I must admit this is the hatchling’s most dangerous creation.” Once she finished eating, she sat on her throne to wait. She picked up a book to read to kill time, but she felt a little discomforted. The castle had become too quiet to concentrate. Nopony doing anything unnerving her more than it should. “Usually I’m very patient, but this is too much. I’ll check on what is taking them so long. I can’t stand this silence anymore. No wait, what I need is some music to calm my nerves.” And she went to put on a record, but it didn’t do much to replace the background noises. “Fine, I’ll go to Ponyville! This is driving me crazy. Somepony prepare my…oh, wait. Whatever.” And so, she flew to Ponyville. But when she arrived to Twilight’s palace, she was frozen from what she found. “No Twilight, not you too!! Please get up! The six of you!” Twilight just looked at the Princess but shrugged and sighed in satisfaction. “Too comfy.” “Twilight Sparkle get up!!” she ordered using the traditional Royal Canterlot Voice. Nothing. Then she tried to shake Twilight, but still nothing; it didn't work with the rest of the girls, either. Everypony was too comfortable to move. “Please girls, you must fight this prank! It’s too dangerous!” Twilight just shrugged. “Princess, why don’t you take a sit? You look like you could use some rest.” “Equestria is in grave danger!!” “Whatever, too comfy.” And the purple alicorn just closed her eyes, enjoying her rest. Celestia sighed and prepared her magic. “Fine, then I must force you.” However, when she tried to pull the six ponies off of the couch, an alarm bell began to sound all over the place. Before she could react, a ton of feathers fell on top of her. “Seriously?” Once again she tried to pull the six Bearers with her magic, but the alarm activated again. This time, what fell on top of her was a ton of ping-pong balls. “Is this supposed to mean something?” Third time, third alarm, and a pile of golf balls fallen on her. “Yeah, right” said Celestia, using her magic this time to clean the room (even if the Bearers didn’t care to be under a ton of stuff since they were ‘too comfy’.) But the alarm activated again and, instead of something light, she had to create an emergency shield to protect all of them from the falling bowling balls. “Okay, that is enough! Looks like I’ll have to have a word with the Lords of Chaos.” And she went upstairs where they were simply playing an enchanted board game. “Come on, suffer my Final Smash!” cheered Rumble. But suddenly, Celestia destroyed their game. “You’re lucky we weren’t playing downstairs” said Spike annoyed. “Next would be cannonballs” Celestia ground her teeth together, also annoyed. “That's enough! I came to ask you to stop this! This prank is especially dangerous for all ponykind!!” “You know the rules Princess,” said Spike uninterested. “I can only be stopped by Harmony.” “You incapacitated the Bearers, Spike,” complained Celestia. But he didn’t listened to her. He took another enchanted board game from a shelf and presented it to his Agents. “Then, want to try 'Disharmony: Gods Among Ponies?'” “From the creators of Deadly Kombat!” shouted Rumble. “Why you didn’t told us you had this pal?” “Isn’t it a little too violent?” “And it’s only for two players,” complained Sweetie. “Then, what about…” “STOP THIS PRANK IMMEDIATELY” shouted Celestia. “Again, the rules says we must be stopped by the Elements of Harmony,” said Scoots firmly. Celestia face-hoofed. “Then you leave me no choice. I must stop you.” The Agents grinned, this was what they were waiting for. “Are you sure?” asked Spike. “Somepony has to,” sighed Celestia. “Suit yourself,” said Spike snapping his claws. A bunch of cannonballs came out of nowhere and began to fall on top of Princess Celestia, who barely could protect herself with a force-field. “What do you think you’re doing?!” she cried. But then, Night aimed her party cannon at Celestia, who got blinded after receiving a laser right on her eyes. “What the…” Mist cackled evilly and whistled to call Owlowicious, whose wings were now giant. The damn bird's wings created gusts of wind so strong that they sent Celestia flying right to a window that Sweetie Black ‘accidentally’ opened and she fell on some mutated daisies that immobilized her. “Stop it right now!” commanded Celestia. “This it’s not a game, it's aggression!” Shadow shook her head. “Nope, it’s humiliation. Each of us used to focus on humiliating our counterpart, but since they're occupied and you’re alone against us, ah guess we gotta share ya.” The plants released Celestia, just in time for her to be washed away by a powerful current of sports drink that would drag her all over Ponyville. In the end, she was soaked and dripping with sports drink and shame. Luckily, the ponies were too busy being comfortable to pay attention to her embarrassing display. “Ok… this was indeed humiliating, but…” Spike appeared before her in his floating throne. “Well, didn’t you used to fight with Discord? This is pretty much the same, right?” “Not exactly, it was easier since he worked alone,” explained the Princess. “However, weren’t you worried about pranking us, last time? Why this sudden change?” “Because this time we’re not pranking you; you’re trying to stop one of our pranks, so this is a fight.” And he charged his black and purple energy of chaos. Celestia stared at him, then teleported before he could do anything to her. Back in the Castle of Friendship, she tried to shake Twilight, but again it proved useless. “This is what I call a good rest. You should try it too Princess.” “Twilight Sparkle, try to resist please! Wake from this spell! For Boss’ sake, you must stop Spike before this goes too far!” “No, there’s no use,” said Black appearing behind her. “Twilight, girls please do something!” called Celestia. “Your Majesty? You seem a little tired, want to take a seat? Girls, anypony want to give up your seat?” mumbled Fluttershy. “It's your idea, you do it,” said Rarity. “Yeah, I’m good here,” added Rainbow. “Eeyup, aren’t ya’ Kindness? Give yers,“ said Applejack. Celestia looked at Twilight, who pleasantly smiled to her before shaking her head. “Sorry, too comfy to move.” “Come on, Twilight Sparkle!” begged Celestia, growing desperate. “Pinkamena Diane Pie, want to throw a party? The Crown will pay for everything, you'll have unlimited resources, just get up and stop them!” “No thanks, but how about a 'Stay-on-Couch' party? It’s fun, comfy and pretty cheap. You just have to sit, and nothing else.” Celestia frowned and created an energy field to protect herself from Spike’s security-system as she tried one more time to pull Twilight off of her couch. “This is mine! Get your own!” protested the purple alicorn, using her own magic to resist her teacher’s. “Sorry, but I must do this!” complained Celestia. Having had enough, Twilight attacked her with all her power at point blank range, sending her flying all the way to Sweet Apple Acres. Celestia fell right into the Apple’s kitchen, where Granny Smith was comfortably sitting on her couch in front of her carbonized breakfast. “Normally, ah would charge you for the damages to my roof, but Ah’m too busy being comfy.” From his own couch, Big Mac just nodded. “Eeyup.” Celestia rolled her eyes in annoyance. After placing a bag of bits on the floor, she simply walked out the door. But upon opening the door, instead of the fields of Sweet Apple Acres, she found herself in an unfamiliar cherry field. “What now?” Miss Cherry Jubilee just smiled at her from the couch on her porch, but eventually, she uninterestedly closed her eyes and sighed out of satisfaction. “A visitor? Normally I would give you a tour, but it feels too comfy sitting in here. Or did you want to buy something? Sakura, you have clients!” The intern from Japony shrugged and shook her head, so Cherry Jubilee smiled apologetically to Celestia. “Oh, she’s resting too. Sorry, I guess we’re closed for today.” Every single employee of the cherry farm moaned in satisfaction from their respective couches, much to Celestia’s annoyance. “Great, a crazy door. Whatever. This can’t possibly get any worse!” A blue, bubblegum cloud appeared above her head with ScootaDark on top of it. Dark just chuckled. “Princess Celestia, here's some free advice: never say that in front of us because we’ll just take it as a challenge.” “Don’t you dare, Scootaloo! You may be an Agent of Chaos, but you must respect your elders, especially royalty. Understand? Or must I make you understand?” And with that, Celestia channeled her anger and frustration into her horn and shot a frightening bolt of lightening at Dark. However, Sweetie Black teleported in and transformed the lightening into light bulbs at the last second. Then, she took the lightbulbs and screwed them into several lamps that she brought. “I owe you a big one, Black!” “Don't mention it! We’re a team pal!” Celestia frowned. Once again, their sincere friendship and teamwork made them difficult to deal with. And just like that, Dark activated her cloud that automatically began to follow Celestia. “I’m warning you, don’t you dare,” said the Princess. “I’m starting to get pissed, and if you keep going with this, you'll leave me no choice but to fight back seriously, and you won’t like it,” she threatened. Sweetie Black gulped, but grinned. “Need we remind you that Spike is stronger than you?” ScootaDark nodded. “And each of us have powers to match our counterparts, Equestria’s strongest protectors.” Celestia prepared herself. “Fine, if it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get!” But before Celestia could react, the cloud unleashed a stream of cola and ice cream right on top of her. The Agents of Chaos took their chance and, with cups they took out of nowhere, filled them with fresh chaotic cola-float. “Cheers!!” the chimed. A magic explosion beneath the cloud warned the girls not to linger, so Black teleported them away to avoid facing Celestia’s anger. “SHOW YOURSELVES! COME ON, DIDN’T YOU WANTED TO FIGHT?!” Celestia shouted furiously. This time a ton of whipped cream, chocolate chips and cherries covered the Princess. The white alicorn melted the treats off before staring up at Spike, who was calmly drinking a shake made from the 'candy of all candies'. “What? Not enough whipped cream?” he asked. With a snap of his claws, he covered her with a new coat of whipped cream. “What’s the big idea, Spike? You must have a reason for this,” she asked. “I do, but in the meantime, enjoy this!” Three buckets of chocolate syrup and caramel sauce dropped all its content on the alicorn. “I’m warning you, Spike!” But the dragon ignored her and turned to Mist, who was on his own floating throne with some kind of white box between his hooves. “Do you think I’m missing something?” asked the Lord of Chaos. “Yeah idiot, honey. This won’t work without honey.” “Right!” And the dragon snapped his claws, summoning a fourth bucket filled with, of course, honey and poured all its contents down on the Princess sundae. “FINE! IF THIS IS HOW IT’S GOING TO BE…!” But again, the chaotic dragon didn’t seem especially afraid or concerned about the Sun Princess' rising temper. “Mist, release the bees.” The black Pegasus grinned while the white alicorn paled (an incredible achievement for somepony with an alabaster coat covered in whipped cream). “No, no, no, don’t you dare…” Too late, Mist opened the box, exposing the honeycomb within. “Fuck.” While the bees attacked, Spike and Mist flew away to reunite with the rest of the Agents of Chaos. “What do we do now?” Mist asked. “Let’s head back to the castle and wait. This won't hold her for long. So we can at least prepare ourselves before she counterattacks.” “Now we’re talking.” … Officially, this was Celestia’s worse day ever. In the beginning, she believed that even if the children were harder to fight, they wouldn’t be as mean as Discord. But damn, did they prove her wrong. “First they feel bad about having to fight me, then they go this far to humiliate me. What have I ever done to those kids?” “The question you should be asking yourself, is what have you ever done to their sisters?” Celestia turned. “Star Swirl!” The crazy magician magically had added wheels to his couch and was staring at the white alicorn with an amused look. “Aren’t you affected by the power of chaos?” she asked. The old wizard laughed. “Not that much. It's true that I don’t want to get up, but I’m still able to think. More importantly, have you considered that the last time they went this far in fighting somepony was when they faced me? And it was because I threatened their families.” Celestia froze and the magician smiled at the princess: “So, have you finally realized what you have done yet, my faithful student? Hahahahha!” “They’re trying to give me a message.” Star Swirl nodded. “You have your homework. Go and fix this before they drive you crazy.” Celestia nodded. “Thank you my old master, I owe you for this.” “Stop trying to capture me and we’re even. It's not like you could, but still…” In the end, the Princess sighed and teleported to Twilight’s castle. Or at least she attempted to. Instead, she ended up at King Flames’ Castle in the middle of Reptilia, capital of the Dragon Kingdom. King Flames, the oldest and wisest being of the world, just looked at her from his couch and shook his gigantic head. “Visiting hours are from ten to noon and diplomatic meetings are made via appointment only.” Celestia face-hoofed. “Great. Spike, stop it! I want to talk! Help me understand why are you doing this!” she shouted at the air above. And so, the lord of chaos appeared right before her. “What’s to understand? We’re just creating a chaotic crisis like always, and since you want to stop us, we must, in turn, stop you from interfering.” “Spike, please, I give up. You win. Now why are you fighting me? What I did to deserve your anger? Was it something I did or said to Twilight?” Celestia asked pleadingly. Spike sighed. “So you guessed it.” “I’m still waiting. What’s the meaning of all this hostility?” The black and purple dragon finally snapped his claws and they teleported to the Castle of Friendship, where the Element Bearers were still comfortably sitting on their couches. At his signal, the Agents of Chaos detonated the Harmony Grenades themselves, making the couches vanish. “She wants to talk,” explained Spike to the confused Bearers. The Princess just looked at the pleased smiles of the Bearers of Harmony at seeing her current estate. “So you all were in on this?” The girls nodded. “How did it feel to fight Spike and his team?” grinned Rainbow. “Pretty hard, right?” “How does it feel to do it yourself?” Fluttershy asked. “Aren’t they exhausting and exasperating as well? Aren’t they too well coordinated and random to react at their attacks?” Rarity added. “It’s fun at some points, but then you get mad, and yet you know you can’t use too much force because they’re just children,” Pinkie said. Twilight nodded. “So yes, we’re the Bearers of Harmony and we have a duty to Equestria and the rest of the world. We accept that. But you should have asked us before laying all this responsibility in our laps. Besides, if we’re going to be doing this forever, we need to know the whole truth, Princess. Which enemies from your past are you still hiding from us? Any other secrets that you're keeping from us that we should know? If you don’t tell us EVERYTHING right now, we’ll quit.” Applejack grinned. “No matter how far Spike goes, we won’t lift a hoof to stop him, leaving YOU to be the one to put that dragon in his place. At least yer getting paid for that, but what about us?” Celestia lowered her head in shame. “So you really want to know?” “Unless you want us to leave Equestria at Spike’s mercy,” threatened Dash. Celestia frowned. “And you think you can just come and demand those things?” Spike nodded. “Yes, or do you have a problem? Because I can summon more of those couches right now and keep fighting you. Do you really think you’ve seen everything we have?” At this point, Celestia actually gave up. Spike is the Lord of Disharmony and Chaos, but unlike Twilight, he chose to take up the role himself. Nopony fooled him or forced him to accept that responsibility. Unbelievably, Discord acted more fair than she did. And more importantly, Spike was Twilight’s brother, and he would protect his sister from anypony who would hurt her, including Celestia if he must. “Fine, I’ll tell you everything I know. I acted selfishly irresponsibly, and I admit it. So I guess the least I can do is to take you to Mr. Boss’ office and fix a salary for you too, as well as talk about…you know, possible threats.” “Now we’re talking,” Rainbow approved. Celestia shook her head. “Yes, I’ll arrange an appointment with Mr. Boss. But in the meantime, I suppose I need to tell you about the greatest menace of our world. Tirek, King Sombra, and old enemy called Grogar…unlike Chrysalis and Spike, they work for someone (or something) else than Mr. Boss, so they’re, by far, much more dangerous.” “What you mean? Isn’t Mr. Boss the Unique and Only God?” asked Twilight. “Exactly. But his twin brother is the Unique and Only Devil. We call him 'the Other One,' or 'the Source of All Evil.' Mr. Boss is the Creator, the Other One is the Destroyer, and his favorite thing to do is corrupt Mr. Boss’ creations just for fun. He was the one who cursed the Elements of Harmony…the one responsible for your status as immortals. The greatest enemy of all, and the only one who cannot be defeated, not even by Mr. Boss.”