Author's Note: Sorry about the wait, it's just been hard as heck to write this shenanigans. Hopefully I'll get part two out soon.
The wind blew through my mane as we approached a castle.
Oh no, a castle. A castle means that there’s royalty, and that means that I have to do a thing I don’t like.
Let’s just hope that the princess is in another castle.
Landing, the entire host of ponies inside of the chariot leapt out and charged inside of the two large double doors.
Excluding me. I’ve never liked people in places of power.
The gate led into an outside walkway, where the six ponies charged down into. It then lead to another set of double doors, and a few stairs leading up to them. Stairs. I hated stairs. Not even out of this body do I like stairs and now I get to tackle them in a body that I haven’t even gotten that used to yet.
I got to the three steps when the six ponies burst through the two double doors.
“Princess Celestia!”
Oh no. They didn’t just break out the ‘P’ word, did they? Royalty. By the Gods, do I hate royalty. Way back in the 14th century, I served under a king. Don’t quite remember what country it was, but he was obsessed with complete loyalty.
“We came as fast as we could!”
I stumbled up the first step, landing jaw-first. I hate stairs. Anyways, as I was saying with the King, he had all of his servants hypnotized by a gypsy from Romania. It turns out I’m very susceptible to mental imprinting, so I was a golden example of how well it worked.
“Thank you, Twilight. Thank you all.”
Up yet another step, shakily getting balance. Have I told you how much I hate stars? GOOD, BECAUSE YOU’LL HEAR IT ANOTHER THOUSAND TIMES. Now back to the interesting self-narration. Unfortunately, the brainwashing was too good, and now I have to act upon the wishes and commands of any person, or pony in this case, that has a certifiable seat of power within a monarchy.
“Is this about the weather, and the animals’ weird behaviour? What’s happening out there? Why isn’t my magic working, what’s up with this crazy pony we found that’s causing things like this-”
The speaker abruptly stopped mid sentence. Great timing for me to break into the scene. Even if it was in a place of royalty. That was a good entrance until I tripped up the last step.
Tumbling into the room, I smiled under my hair that had flopped over in front of my face.
“Best time for a ‘Speak of the Devil’ moment ever I’ve seen one. Now what were you saying about me, Twilight?”
Gathering myself up, I saw the brightest pony I’ve ever seen on top of a very large set of stairs overlooking the entrance of this room staring daggers into me as the lavender unicorn slightly ahead of me did the same. Wait, there was something wrong about the first pony...
Well for one she was huge, well, she was to what I think the status quo is for regular ponies. And then she had both a horn and wings with her. That, and a tiara. Gods and Goddesses of Insanity, this is who I have to bow down to and swear fealty towards for my time in this world?
This needs to be fixed as fast as possible.
Twilight spluttered a bit as she stared at me with eyes filled with indignation. “This is the stallion I was just talking about, Celestia! He’s been able to do things like what’s been happening lately, but he denies ever doing the things with the clouds and the animals and my magic and-”
The Princess lifted her hoof to silence Twilight, not moving her eyes off of me. “Interesting. Do not worry Twilight, I will take care of this stallion. As for now, I called you six here for a matter of great importance. Come with me. Sir, if you could stay out here while I discuss this matter to these six? I’ll talk with you once I am done with them.”
More of a statement, but whatever. She turned on her hooves and opened another set of double doors. The six ponies marched up the flight of steps and filed into the doors, closing behind them with a muffled thud.
For just a second, let’s recap of what’s just happened. One: I am Mentis. Two: I hate royalty. Three: Royalty just left me alone inside of her castle. Four: I’m bored.
What do you think is going to happen? Insanity? Good. At least I don’t have to explain myself for the billionth of times.
Looking around me, all I saw were about three more doors, and a large about of tapestries. Well, I can’t wreak much insanity here, can I? For starters, let’s just turn the tapestries into cheese. After a brief poof and the smell of rapidly-aging dairy, all of the tapestries were dairy product. Looking around, there really wasn’t much I could do without immediately alerting the entire castle of what I was doing. So I did what was the next best thing. Listen into conversations of monarchs!
Quickly stumbling up the steps to the two wings, I approached the left doorway that the ponies entered. Pulling the earpieces of a stethoscope out of my hair. I popped them into my ears. Then I pulled out the end of the stethoscope out of my mane. This was my special stethoscope, modified by me especially for what I used for it. By modified I mean just attach a car battery to the chord connecting to the flat thing at the end to the earplugs with a few shoelaces and call it good. I put the car battery on the floor.
Placing the flat thing to the door, I heard the ponies inside talking about something. It sounded like I came in right in the middle of the Princess explaining what was happening.
“- is the mischievous spirit of disharmony. Before my sister and I stood up to him, he ruled Equestria in an eternal state of unrest and unhappiness.”
This actually sounds like the status quo. Might be good to listen to goody two shoes sparkly Princess whitehorse talk about it. But before that, it was time to turn on the battery. Moving my hoof down to the top of the large box, I turned the self-inserted switch to start energy flow. The battery lit up and it started to make a distant humming sound.
“Luna and I saw how miserable life was for earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns alike. So after discovering the Elements of Harmony... We combined our powers and rose up against him, turning him to stone.”
As the car battery began to flash a bit and hum just a mite louder, another voice interrupted the Princess’s. An abrasive, tomboyish voice broke out from the Princess’s natural monarchical speak.
“All right, Princess!”
“I thought the spell we cast would keep him contained forever. But since Luna and I are no longer connected to the Elements... The spell has been broken.”
Twilight interjected the Princess.
“No longer connected?”
Elements of Harmony, huh? Sounds like something I should know more about... Or completely blow off. I looked down, glancing at the now violently shaking car battery. Looks like I can access the special modification soon. I might need it.
“This is Canterlot Tower... where the Elements are kept inside since all of you recovered them. I need you to wield the Elements of Harmony once again and stop Discord before he thrusts all of Equestria into eternal chaos!”
Eternal chaos... Oh-hoho yes, I found my mark. Twilight interjected again.
“But why us? Why don’t you-”
“Hey look! We’re famous!”
Pinkie Pie. No one can mistake that voice.
“You six showed the full potential of the Elements by harnessing the magic of your friendship to beat a mighty foe. Although Luna and I once wielded the Elements, it is you who now control their power, and it is you who must defeat Discord!”
The battery suddenly stopped vibrating and initiated its last charge-up stage... Which it completely failed and shot a poof of soot into the air. Frowning, I pulled a wrench out of my hair and smacked the battery a few times. That led it to work, and I happily slid the wrench back into my mane. Checking to see that everything was connected with shoelaces, I turned the battery on fully. Which did nothing. What do you think a battery connected to a stethoscope would do? I’m not MacGyver.
“Princess Celestia, you can count on-”
“Hold on a second! Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys. Chocolate rain! “
“Don’t listen to her, Princess. We’d be honored to use the Elements of Harmony again.”
There was a short silence and just the sound of clopping hooves against stone as the ponies inside of the wing moved around for a bit. Suddenly, a posh accent broke out.
“Oooooh… You can keep the Elements. I’ll take that case!”
Whatever these Elements are, they must be some kind of rare thing or something. Sounds just like the type of thing I would reduce to nothing but bubbles, confetti, and little bits of cheesecake. As I was wondering about the Elements, Celestia spoke up again.
“Have no fear, ponies. I have total confidence that you will be able to defeat Discord... With these.”
There was a prolonged silence as I heard the echos of a heavy object being dropped rebounding off of the walls. Then Pinkie piped up.
“Oh, well. If anyone needs me, I’ll be outside in the chocolate puddles with a giant swizzle straw!”
Oh shoot, Pinkie incoming! Abort mission, abort mission! Where’s my cardboard box and sneaking suit? I stowed my magical MacGyver stethoscope back into my mane of holding plus five and fell down the flight of steps that led to the entrance. Jumping under the carpet, I sneaked my snout out from under my improvised blanket to look at the doors.
After a bit of time of sitting under the carpet, I fell asleep. What? I was bored and the castle was deadly quiet. I also had the biggest blanket ever and it was raining the nicest amount of chocolate milk outside. After a bit of dozing, I was woken up by a strangely echoing laugh that seemed to break through the heavy double-doors that lead to the herd of ponies. The echoing laugh then turned into a voice.
“Make sense? Oh, what fun is there in making sense?”
Warping up to the door from under the carpet, I reached back into my hair with my hooves. Unfortunately, I seemed to have shoved my stethoscope too far into my hair, and it’s now gone. I suddenly sneezed, spitting out the stethoscope with the car battery and the wrench I used earlier, along with a little rubber duckie. I placed the wrench back into my hair, and put the random duck on point to watch my back. The voice spoke out again.
“Did you miss me, Celestia?”
There was a short pause as I clumsily put the earpieces back into my ears and smacked the metal part back to the door. The voice spoke up again.
“I’ve missed you. It’s quite lonely being encased in stone, but you wouldn’t know that, would you? Because I don’t turn ponies into stone!”
Celestia cut in against the voice’s accusations.
“Enough! What have you done with the Elements of Harmony?”
I was getting the feeling that this voice was the voice of Discord. Oh, the fun that we could have together, setting bubbles on fire, and when they pop, molten caramel pours out of nowhere! Fun, isn’t it?
“Oh, I just borrowed them for a teensy little while.”
“You’ll never get away with this, Discord!”
“Oh, I’d forgotten how grim you can be, Celestia. It’s really quite boring.”
He was right. Celestia is really boring. This man speaks of truths that no other would dare utter.
“Hey! Nopony insults the Princess!”
There was a meaty sound, the sound of a body smacking into glass as somepony charged the glass after that line. Guessing the speed required to make that much of a cartoon logic noise, I would say that it was one of the pegasi that did it.
“Oh! You must be Rainbow Dash, famed for her loyalty—the Element of Harmony you represent.”
“That’s right! I’ll always be loyal to the Princess!”
Rainbow Dash, huh? Either she’s incredibly stupid, or incredibly thick headed. Judging from the noise, I would guess both.
“We’ll see about that.”
That line from Discord was followed by an ominous laugh. Or was that omnius? I can’t quite remember which from what.
And in a different universe, a certain Traveler got a random chill as he thought that he heard his name from his boots.
“I can’t believe that we’re wasting our time on this tacky window.”
There was that posh voice again.
“The beautiful Rarity, representing the Element of generosity, if I’m not mistaken.”
“So yah know who we are. Big deal.”
“Oh, I know more than that, Honest Applejack.”
“You seem to know our strengths too.”
“Yes, Twilight Sparkle. And yours is the most powerful and elusive Element—magic. Fluttershy’s is kindness and Pinkie Pie’s is a personal favorite of mine—laughter.”
I was seriously confused at this point. Were the things that they were getting the Elements what they were going to use, or were they themselves Elements? Whatever, I’ll figure it all out once the insanity really starts to roll. Pinkie started to giggle and snort at something, something that obviously annoyed Twilight.
“Pinkie!”
“He’s standing on your head!”
Admittedly, that is pretty funny. I might try that sometime in the future if I feel like it.
“Stop stalling, Discord! What have you done with the Elements of Harmony?”
“Oh, so boring, Celestia, really! Fine, I’ll tell you, but I’ll only tell you my way.
To retrieve your missing Elements,
Just make sense of this change of events.
Twists and turns are my master plan,
Then find the Elements back where you began.”
A riddle, huh? I took a step back from my face-smashing up against the door and stowed my stuff back into my hair. I guess that’s the best way to completely dupe your enemies into not-incasing-you-back-into-stone via hiding the macguffin. But the best way to win is by just completely hiding said macguffin. Deep space rockets, anyone?
Unfortunately, my own thinking caused me to be smeared onto the wall by the double doors suddenly and violently being thrown open by a stampede of multi colored ponies. I shimmied my way to the top of the doors, balancing my nearly 2D form easily on the wide door’s top. Sticking a hoof into my mouth, I blew myself back into form. As I prepared to jump off, Celestia called from the wing.
“Mentis, if you could enter this wing, please.”
Basing it off of her tone, she didn’t know that I was up here.
Time for a surprize round.
Walking onto the wall over the door, I popped my head into the wing from the ceiling. Everything looked funny, hanging off of the roof.
“You called~?”
Celestia looked up at me, her face filled with a strange mix of surprize, annoyance, and bemusement.
“Mentis, get down from there. I need to speak to you.”
Tsking under my breath, I clopped my hooves together, teleporting and floating mid-air a few feet from Celestia.
“Yes, Celestia?” I put my front hooves under my chin and fluttered my eyes at her as I did lazy little barrel rolls in the air. “I didn’t know you wanted to talk to me. I mean, I know I’m a good looking pony, but this is just too much~!”
Celestia stared at me with hard eyes. I sighed and started to backstroke through the air, slowly floating down the hallway.
“What’s the matter, Celestia? Can’t take a joke when your Equestria is on ‘the brink of eternal chaos’?” Twisting through the air, I turned to face her. “Or is it the fact that I’m just like him, huh?”
Celestia put her hoof on the bridge of her snout.
“Mentis, could you be serious, if just for one moment?”
I stopped, eyeing her for a good long time. After about five minutes of awkward silence, I broke out into wall-shaking laughter.
“HAHAHA! Celestia-pffft. That was how long I can be serious. In fact, I just used all of my serious for the next year. I saved it special for you, Celly~!”
Her jaw hung limp as she was knocked off track by me yet again. I landed on the ground just to zap into the stained glass windows.
“You know, this feels ticklish,” I looked about my 2D plane of existence, sporting a piecemeal creature that looked to be controlling three ponies. I glided up, lounging on the creature. “I guess that this is the aforementioned Discord, Celestia?”
Celestia stood there and stared at me, as if I was some kind of obscene picture carved into a wall.
“You’re... You’re mad.”
Smirking, I teleported out of my dimension and popped up next to Celestia, reared up and leaning against her side. I idly rubbed my hooves together as I brightly said,
“Why thank you for that, Celestia! I really appreciate it. Now, about that guy in that window...”
I trailed off, hoping that she’d answer me before the shock of my sudden appearance wore off and she would royally kick my flank.
“Yes, that is Discord.”
Then she finally realized just what I was doing and she took a step away from me, leaving me to lean on thin air.
“Mentis... You do not act like my little ponies, you aren’t one of them, are you?”
I laughed at that as I dropped down to four hooves.
“What made you suspect this? The chaotic powers, the insanity, or the inherent disrespect of the land’s leader?”
She blinked at me as her horn flared into life.
“Actually, it wasn’t any of them,” She handed me a picture of me in my pony form, one that suspiciously looked like a picture that I saw before... “I believe that the tip came from a pony named Dr. Whooves.”
My eyes narrowed. Hell hath no fury for a madman scorned, good Doctor. I hope you know just how big of a can of whoopass you have just gleefully opened. I also hope you know what flavor it happens to be.
Taking my eyes from the picture, I grinned.
“Well Celestia, it’s also ‘cause I’m not one-a your ponies.”
I thought about it and added in a wink.
“But if you want, I could pretend~”
Celestia’s eyes narrowed as she fluffed her wings up and pawed at the ground. Uh-oh, I struck a nerve.
“No. You will show me what you are, and you will show me it now, Mentis.”
A little prickle at the back of my mind reminded me on just who I was talking to. Yup, gotta do it now. Yay.
Grinning up at her, I cracked my neck.
“Alright, Princess,” I couldn’t keep the scorn from infecting my speech like the zerg infests worlds. “I’ll show you. But mind not looking too close at the transformation, sometimes people say it looks nasty the first time. Shows too many squishy bits.”
Yup, I can transform from the body that the universe gives me, if any, to my natural human form. It’s a neat little trick when you can’t use your regular weapons in a form that you got, even better of a trick that somehow automatically gives you your clothes. It’s also a nice little shock tactic when your enemies expect you to be one thing, and you suddenly turn into something completely alien to them.
The transformation itself isn’t too uncomfortable, usually just a mild ticklish sensation, but sometimes it gets a bit painful, depending on what form I have to switch to. I reared up as I let go of my current form, getting a bit taller as the fuzziness around me increased and finished the end of the body morph.
I snap-pointed at Celestia and winked again as she continued to stare at me with a contemplative expression.
“Like what ya see, Celly?”
She tilted her head down and talked to herself for a bit, and I could pick up just a few words.
“Looks like they were right...”
Then she lifted her head again, her eyes filled a guarded hopeful shine.
“So, Mentis. What do you plan on doing here?”
I stretched out my arms and cocked my head at her.
“Well, right now, I got my sights set on Discord. After that, I might put my summer house here. I like the atmosphere, and your little ponies scurry when a bit of insanity is introduced.”
Celestia had a guarded smile after that statement, and I decided that she needed to cut loose.
I slid up to Celestia and draped my arm over her neck.
“Ya know, for an all-powerful ruler, you really need to learn how to relax.”
With my free hand, I snapped again, summoning a floating oven to me. Putting on an oven mitt that came out of my hair, I opened the door and pulled out an aluminum baking tray covered in the best creation known to man: Pizza Rolls.
“Here’s something to get your mind off of things,” I wafted the smells of the pan under Celestia’s nose. “Pizza Rolls~! They don’t have pepperoni in them, I made sure of it~!”
Suddenly, I heard the babbled squeals of the six ponies that had just smashed me to the wall. Leaving the pan to continue shuffle itself under Celestia’s sniffing nose and the mit to fall to the floor, I screamed out to general direction of the group,
“WHOOPS! LOOKS LIKE SOME-PONY JUST GOT OWNED BY DISCORD! MY SERVICES MIGHT HAVE BEEN USEFUL, BUT NO. YOU GOTTA LEAVE ME WORSE THAN WHEN COYOTE FALLS FOR THE OLD PAINTED TUNNEL IN THE ROCK TRICK!”
Ahem.
I turned myself to see Celestia levitating one of the little packets of delicious.
“And what does this have inside of it?”
I grinned.
“Nothing but cheese and tomato sauce, Celestia. Nothing but delicious.”
I suddenly got an idea, grinning and rubbing at my chin.
“So Celestia, do you like bananas?”
--- --- ---
“Well, well, well. Somepony broke the ‘no wings, no magic’ rule.”
Discord snapped his fingers, returning everypony’s Celestia-given natural talents back.
“Game’s over, my little ponies! You didn’t find your precious Elements. Looks like we might be due for a big old storm of chaos.”
Discord retrieved and opened up an umbrella, it mewling like a cat as he did so. Twilight stepped foreward.
“B-but I don’t understand?”
I teleported from where I was standing to show up next to Twilight. She gasped in shock and Discord eyed me with guarded curiosity. Squatting down next to Twilight, I leaned a bit against her.
“Well Twilight, it’s simple really. Discord owned you, and now he won,” I put a handkerchief over my hand. “Even if you DID have the Elements,” I made a gesture over my hand and summoned Twilight’s element when I removed the cloth. :You wouldn’t be able to use them.” I sent the crown back to its hiding spot as I made a marshmallow equivalent. Then I took a bite, elicting a gasp yet again from Twi and a chuckle from Discord. “Caush’ RD just left.”
I straightened up and motioned to Discord. “Isn’t that right, Discord?”
He nodded again as I shoved the rest of the shmallow-Element into my mouth.
Looking down at Twilight, I could taste the four-oh-four error coming off of her brain. Her jaw flapped a few times, not making a sound as her thoughts raced to update with the things that just happened. I can’t wait until they do.
Updating...
Updating...
Updating...
Click!
Updating competed!
“You just ATE THE ELEMENT OF MAGIC!”
I widened my eyes and placed a hand on my stomach.
“Really? No wonder it tasted like Metaphysics.”
She spluttered incoherently as she seemed to prepare the most exquisite swear of all time.
“... AND THEN YOU CAN ALL CLIMB INTO A CANNON AND JAM YOURSELVES SO FAR UP CELESTIA’S FLANKS THAT-AND THEN ONCE I’M DONE WITH YOU IN A CASTLE SO FAR AWAY THAT NOPONY CAN HEAR YOU-ALAKAZAM!”
After she was done, even Discord had a blush on his face. However, I fed off of her frustrations. So, I burped up a little gem like the one on the top of the crown and rubbed it against my hand.
“You know Twilight, I think that Celestia would like to know what feelings you have for her when you can describe the uses of her flanks so well. Heck, I might even want in on that. You know, cause Celestia’s got the hots for me~!”
I took a bite out of the gem.
Twilight exploded. No, really, she exploded into a hot flaming fire monster. It was impressive, really.
Backing up, I summoned a bucket and dumped its contents all over Twilight. What I didn’t notice was that said bucket was filled with fish.
Well, it did calm her down.
But I don’t know if that means that I’m going to get my ass kicked.
So there was Twilight, standing there. Covered in fish. With nothing coming out of her mouth as she stared off into space.
“One... Three... Five... Seven... Eleven... Thirteen...”
Twilight was counting prime numbers. I am so screwed.
“Seventeen... Nineteen... Twenty-three... Twenty-nine...”
Not wanting to be there when she was finished with counting up, I teleported next to Discord.
“Seeing that I’ve completely made you angry, I don’t think that either Discord or me will want to be anywhere near you when you’re done... Ciao!”
Grabbing onto his tail, I turned and teleported away yet again, us ending up just outside of Canterlot.