//------------------------------// // 14 Prequel - The Early Life Of Screwella Lucille Ball // Story: Twilight's 1000th Birthday Blowout // by Cyndaquil //------------------------------// Some time ago, Though also in the future, The future before the other future, It happened when it happened; Okay Whee-hoo-Wah! The best thing about snowboarding on an upside-down mountain of vanilla frosting is that when you make a jump you never know if you’ll fall up or down. “C’mon Screwy,” Twilight called out. “The frosting is extra sugary today.” “I’ll pass,” was her melancholy reply. Twilight Sparkle turned her head, not having expected so gloomy a response. This caused her to lose focus and crash into a snow… uh… frosting-bank. She poked her head out of the bank, then licked what looked like a Santa beard off her muzzle. Promptly, she jumped down and flew towards the pony draconequus hybrid who just looked like a pony. “Screwy.” She turned her head away from Twilight. In response, Twilight just flew around to the other side of her. “Screwball.” She turned around once again. There was a gust of wind as Twilight flew off, and another as she immediately returned, now cradling something in her arms. “Wanna play with a baby duck.” She held out a baby duck in her hoofs. “I don’t feel like it.” “What about Mr ducky’s feelings?” Twilight gently petted under the creatures beak. “He looks lonely; and possibly airsick.” Finally she grabbed the duckling. “I told youse not ta fly so fast while hold’n them.” Screwball spat. “Sorry,” Twilight paused for a moment, and then asked: “are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” “I’ll give youse a hint. It’s the same thing that was wrong yesterday.” That wasn’t a very good hint. Ever since a certain incident, Twilight had trouble keeping days straight. Every morning she’d wake up with vivid memories of some day which never seemed to be tomorrow. Why could she never remember tomorrow? It had been even better since she came to live in the realm of chaos. Seasons changed at random, Discord decided whether it was day or night, and nobody ever bothered to correct her. “Fluttershy took Philomena from Princess Celestia!” “No, that ain’t it,” was her flat response. She hugged her duck a little too tightly. “You want to leave again. Don’t you?” “Why can’t I?” The truth was that Screwball was a danger to Equestria. She was too powerful, too unpredictable, and too immature. That’s not how Twilight answered of course. She didn’t want to keep Screwball here forever, or stay herself, regardless of how surprisingly well acclimated she was. “You can’t leave because you haven’t finished your friendship lessons.” Twilight spoke matter of factly. “How can I finish my lessons Twilight! There’s nobody to be friends with.” ‘Nobody to be friends with.’ The words cut into Twilight. “If you spent as much energy on those lessons as you do trying to break out of here, you’d have finished them years ago.” Twilight had never said this before. She praised every once of progress, while Screwball never had any point of reference to tell if that progress was fast or slow. To hear this hurt her right back, and Twilight realized if might as soon as she had said it. Screwball flashed her teacher an angry glare, then whipped her hoof across the blade of her beanie propellor. There was a putt-putt noise, but nothing happened, so she whipped it again. In a moment she was airborne. As she flew, screwball passed a structure. It was a simple marker of stones so that they wouldn’t forget where this particular location was, especially since things tended to move around in the realm of chaos. There was a point where mystical ley lines between Discords realm and Equestria converged. Even if he poofed from miles away, the magic was still relayed through this point. A similar point existed somewhere in Equestria on the other side of the convergence. Twilight had once explained to Screwball what kept them inside the realm of chaos. On the Equestrian side of the convergence was an old changeling artifact, known to deflect non-changeling magic. As long as the artifact was in that location, travel to Equestria was impossible. Honestly, Screwball didn’t even know how Twilight planned to bypass the artifact if they ever did leave the realm. She must have a way to get messages to the other side, so that someone could move the artifact away from the convergence point. At the end of the lane, there were two twin cottages. These were the homes of Discord, and Twilight Sparkle. As for Screwball, she usually alternated between staying in one or the other. Today was supposed to be Twilights turn. She moved towards it for a second, then with a huff, she turned and headed towards her fathers cottage instead. She stayed in her father’s cottage for the next five nights, so on the sixth day, Discord poofed himself into Twilight’s cottage. The room he poofed into was a mess of scattered papers and books. For the larger part of her life at this point, Twilight had not been the most organized of ponies. Though he was hovering about the ground, Discord made mock gestures as though he was trying to avoid stepping on anything. There were several scrolls of circuit diagrams with the title ‘Analog Electronic Brain - Mach 1.’ It was part of a project whose main folder was labelled ‘Silver Streak.’ Twilight worked strictly by scroll and quill. By this point in time, any other pony would have done such work on a computer. Discord did a few mental calculations, then fixed up a circuit in the part of the design which would allow for creative thought in the robots. It’s not that Twilight’s design wouldn’t have worked, just that the new life forms may enjoy the ability to dream, even if it raises the likelihood of a robot uprising. Twilight watched from behind, as Discord made his changes. When he noticed she was there, he acted startled and tried to hide the quill, even though his work was in green ink and hers had been in purple. The lavender mare just looked over the calculations and nodded approval to Discord. The scent of fresh baked pie, both pumpkin and apple, wafted into the room, from the kitchen where Twilight had been. There was also a scent of gingerbread. “Baking?” the draconequus asked. “Yes, I’m baking for Hearth’s Warming Eve.” “Wonderful!” Twilight hadn’t woken up thinking it was Hearth’s Warming Eve in three whole weeks. Maybe a little of her pumpkin pie would break Screwball out of the funk she was in. If not, the gingerbread-ducks always cheered her up. They rushed into to the kitchen to check on the pies. Discord noticed a note on the fridge. It explained the situation with screwball, and had tick marks to show Twilight how many days it had been going on. There was another note from the day before. ‘Try Hearth’s Warming.’ Discord realized she was only pretending to have the days mixed up; not that there was any chance she knew the actual date. Without ponies constantly correcting her, her eccentricity did seem to grow. Also on the fridge were pictures from happier, relatively recent times. Mostly it was pictures of Screwball on birthdays and Hearth’s warmings; rarely celebrated on the correct date. There was one of her as a filly, walking alongside a flock of baby ducks, a few of her in various Nightmare Night costumes, or dressed and Caesar from when she did a one pony pageant for her homeschool project. There was even one were she held up a little league trophy. The team consisted of two dozen Discords, Screwball, and Twilight. “Do you have a gift picked out?” Discord thought for a second, then snapped his fingers. A baseball mitt appeared in his clawed hand. He snapped them again and it was giftwrapped in a manner which made it look like a wine bottle. He tossed it aside, the package sprouted wings and made its way under the tree in the next room. “I’m set, how about you.” “I was going to take her to see Equestria.” Discord sighed. He was about to say something but Twilight cut him short. “Sometimes the only way to know if somepony can handle responsibility is to take a leap of faith and trust her with it.” “She’s not ready.” “She’s such a good filly.” Twilght spoke while retrieving a pie from the oven. “She really isn’t.” “It’s time.” “Twilight please don’t force me to be the responsible one. I’m a chaos spirit, it’s not for me.” “C’mon.” “No!” “C’mon.” “No!” “C’mon, C’mon, C’mon.” “No, No, and double No!” Ka-Pow! The ground shook suddenly, the floor even cracked. Twilight crawled under the table, and urged Discord to do the same. Instead Discord looked out the window and scanned the terrain. Soon his eyes made there way to the structure which marked the point were there was convergence between realms. Off a little to the side, Screwball wore sunglasses and a soldiers bowl hat, with a badge that looked like her cutie mark in gold. She waved a baton in the air. “Ready - Aim - Fire.” A barrage of missiles bombarded the area. Was she hoping a big enough explosion would destroy the barrier between universes? The second wave was only ballistic. They would have to stop her before she went nuclear. Discord turned to Twilight. “You were saying.” The gingerbread-ducks that Twilight spent a morning lovingly baking went to waste. Screwball did not attend the Hearth’s warming party. Twilight and Discord just sat at the table with Twilight feeling dejected. Twilight looked at the grand feast before them and wondered. “Discord, I’ve been thinking.” “About what?” The draconequus shovelled sweet potato fries into his plate as he listened. “About something Screwball said.” She was referring to the comment about having nobody to be friends with, though Twilight didn’t tell Discord that. “It might help with Screwball’s friendship lessons if she had somepony else besides us to talk to. Maybe we could let her exchange letters with Spike.” Spike the dragon was Twilights only lifeline to Equestria. His letters would magically appear before her, and she would reply by burning messages inside a magic fire pit that once belonged to Princess Celestia. “That’s not a bad idea, I’m sure Spike will back us up and tell her she’s being a spoiled brat.” That, of course, was not Twilight’s intention. “Hey, when was the last time we got a message from Spike?” As Discord asked, he realized that there was no chance Twilight would be able to answer that. “You should know Discord, we were together the last time we got a message.” At this point, Discord wanted to scold Twilight. He quickly reminded her that the last message he read was over a month ago, and that Spike normally wrote at least twice a week. He told her to look at the top right corner of every message. Spike always dated the messages so that Discord (at least) could keep track of how much time passed in Equestria. “Well if he writes twice a year…” “Week!” “If he writes twice a week then how come you went this long without reading any letters.” “I’m not reading any of his letters until Spike admits I’m right!” “Right about what?” “He knows.” Realizing this was a waste of time, Twilight reached into the drawer where she stored letters written to her by her number one assistant for life. Twilight looked at one date, then another, then back to the first, trying to find out which was the newest letter. Discord grabbed the pile from her, and checked each one. “Are you sure these are all the letters Twilight.” “Of course I’m sure. I keep every letter ever. I have a library of them back in Equestria.” “That’s an oddly compulsive thing to do. Anyway, Spike hasn’t written us in four months. That’s a long time. Have you written him.” Twilight swallowed a bit of worry, and answered. “Oh sure, writing Spike is like keeping a journal for me, I send messages to him every other day.” She took a look at the magic fire pit that was supposed to send letters to Spike. It was full of ashes. A scary thought occurred to Twilight. The letters weren’t poofing, they were burning. They wanted to panic. First the two took a moment to examine the situation. Basically they were trapped in the realm of chaos. There was one place where Equestria and this dimension converged. You can’t see a portal there or anything, but no matter where Discord poofs from, he has to relay through this point. On the Equestrian side of the convergence is a Changeling artifact which blocks magic, thus trapping them in the realm. Spike was supposed to remove the artifact only on Twilights say so. Twilight did have a contingency plan. If anything happened to Spike, then Celestia would move the artifact, and free them. “Maybe the artifact has already been moved,” Twilight suggested. Discord disappeared, then reappeared in a puff of smoke. “Nope, it’s still there.” A few minutes later Twilight was pounding on the door to Screwball’s room within Discords cottage. “Screwball, I’m so sorry. I can’t reach Spike and we can’t get to Equestria, and something might be wrong with Celestia too. This is all my fault! Oh Screwy, I know you hate me, and you have every right too. Please, you might be all I have left. Please don’t leave me all alone! What if it’s more then just Spike and Celestia? What if something horrible happened to all of Equestria? It could be a space invaders, or a zombie apocalypse for all we know. You hear that Screwball, we’re all that’s left, so please-please don’t abandon…” Her panic attack was interrupted when Screwy opened the door. The door opened inward, and Twilight was leaning hard against the passage, so you can imagine what happened. Screwy pulled Twilight off the floor by the hoof. A million words rushed through her brain. She wanted to say sorry, or that she understood, or promise to take her boring friendship lessons more seriously. It also occurred to her that she should be mad. What if they really were trapped in the chaos realm forever. All the promises of new friends, new places, or a special somepony would never come to be. She couldn’t play baseball, or roller derby on a team her father hadn’t conjured into existence. At last she settled on one word. She grabbed Twilight and called her “Mommy.” In the days that followed, at least they got along better. They put the friendship lessons on hold and instead brainstormed ways to escape the realm of chaos. There were some possibilities: Screwball figured that if one of them had a nightmare that was scary enough it might get Princess Luna’s attention across realms. They binged on B-schlock horror movies for two days, and somehow slept more peacefully then normal. Twilight drew the line when her daughter wanted to try augmenting the experience with some mushrooms that grew in the wilds of the chaos realm. Twilight dug an old magic book out of her belongings, which she once used to communicate with Sunset Shimmer in another dimension. Unfortunately, the matching book was buried with Sunset, where no living human could receive its message. They tried time travelling to before the changeling artifact was ever used to create a barrier between worlds. Unfortunately, the chaos realm didn’t follow the same physical laws as other universes. Travelling backward through time caused them to de-age, which made no sense because Twilight was an immortal and they were only supposed to be going back twenty years. “Hey mom,” Screwball one day asked, “Why is it that you and dad live in separate houses.” “Well, when I came here, he poofed me a house. It was a nice house, he poofs it clean twice a week, and poofs food into the fridge, so I stayed.” “I mean why don’t youse live together, y’know, like married couples in storybooks.” Twilight tried to be delicate in explaining this. She didn’t mention, that when they brought her to the chaos realm, Twilight figured she’d be done her friendship lessons in less than ten years. All those storybooks she mentioned, they were chosen with a prepubescent filly in mind. Actually they never had spoken about that thing married ponies do that sets them apart from just being really good friends. “Oh, Screwy, we just don’t have that kind of relationship.” “You talk’n about sex?” “What!” Twilight turned beat red. “Where did you even hear that word?” “One time I yelled for Dad cause my pet ducks looked like they were fighting with one another. He whispered in my ear…” “Okay, that’s enough. Discord and I, we’re not like that.” “Why not!” “Well, we’re not even the same species.” “Dad must be okay with it, otherwise where did I come from? In fact, I look a little like youse, and if I get that from my mom, then yer probably his type.” “It’s not like that between us.” “But if it were, then youse could be my real mom.” Her enthusiasm towards the idea surprised Twilight. “Think about it. If we never get back to Equestria then you and dad can make me brothers and sisters to play with, and…and if we do go back to Equestria you…” She lowered her head. “You won’t leave me.” One day, they were on their way to test a device that should have created a new dimensional convergence point, if they could get it up to 88 mph, when Discord told them that the barrier is down. “What do you mean the barrier is down?” “I’ve been testing it every day, and today I could go to Equestria.” The two looked at one another in surprise. “Are you sure?” Rainbow coloured light with star sparkles encircled the three. Really it just had to be a poof, but this was Screwballs first trip to Equestria, and Discord didn’t want to disappoint. Lightning crackled wind gusted, and a woman rode by on a bicycle which morphed into a broomstick. She cackled madly. In a moment they were in a new land, surrounded by trees foreign from what Screwball knew in the chaos realm. A crater had formed in the spot where they appeared, as though they arrived with a mighty blast. When they arrived, a dragon was waiting for them. “Look ma, There’s Spike, He’s okay!” Screwball had never seen Spike before. She only had a vague idea what dragons looked like from storybooks. Twilight turned to look, feeling hopeful that it was him, then disapointed that it was not. “No, that’s not Spike, that’s his second wife Ember.” Ember flew towards them. “Hey Sparkle, it’s been a while. Did you really have to mention the second part.” With a gallop, Twilight met Ember half way. “Is Spike okay,” she pleaded. “He’s fine.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “He was in a coma for about seven months.” There was a collective gasp. “The ‘second’ thing he did when he woke up was tell me to move the artifact for you. You play things pretty close to the heart Sparkle. You could have told more people how to reach you y’know.” “I told Celestia.” Hearing that made Ember pause for a moment. “Some monster attacked the dragon realm, it did a lot of damage, and put Spike into his coma. It was on the move to Canterlot and there wasn’t any time, so Celestia went to stop it. There was an explosion, the monsters gone and Celestia hasn’t been seen since.” “Twilight gasped.” She was horrified to learn that in the end Celestia was left to face something dangerous all by herself. Her life should not have ended like that. “If only you had come back a few months sooner. What took you so long?” Embers words cut into Screwballs heart. She herself had been the reason Twilight took so long. Twilight had given up years of her life for Screwball, more years then Twilight had intended. The Day Celestia Disappeared Celestia’s wings grew sore from the long flight. She slowed slightly. Suddenly she burst forward, forcing her wings to move faster. She had to be strong, everyone needed her. If only there was time to reach Twilight. In the time it would take to get her the monster would long since reach Canterlot. Celestia would not allow that, so all which was left was to face it herself; She only prayed she had the strength. Suddenly there was a flash of light. Something appeared in front of her, and it took no small effort to manoeuvre out of the way and avoid hitting the UFP (Unidentified Flying Pony). What appeared looked like an earth pony, who flew by wearing a beanie (propellor hat) of all things. “Oh hey, there youse are.” “Who are you?” “I’m Screwball.” She playfully flew spirals around her as they spoke. “Screwball, that sounds like the name Discord gave to his daughter: Screwella Lucille Ball.” “Yup, that’s me.” Screwy turned up the speed on her propellor hat. “Youse on ya way to fight a monster. Don’t worry about it! I got this.” “Really, are you sure young one? This is no small feat.” “Sure I’m sure. I’m totally sure. Besides you don’t want to be late for the party.” Celestia raised a brow. “What party?” “Twilight’s birthday, better hurry, you only have a few hundred years to get there on time.” Screwball snapped a finger, and Celestia disappeared, a look of shock on her face. Next Discords favourite little abomination turned her eyes forward. Off in the distance was some giant creature that seemed to have a vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. With a smile, Screwy pulled a ballistic missile launcher out of nowhere, and fired upon the creature. Ember had already mentioned an explosion, so she’d just have to complete the predestination paradox.