After his last major piece on his show, Discord took a little bit of time to carefully try and figure out the next one. After the first few episodes of his show and how extremely popular his series had become, the draconequus noticed that now other shows were beginning to emerge as more and more households across Equestria were now beginning to have televisions in their homes. Leading to a bunch of different shows emerging across Equestria from the ordinary to the downright bizarre. This was not exactly something that he wanted to discuss however… but some of the things that were being broadcasted could potentially be used for future jokes and references.
Because tonight, he needed to get back to some serious topics. Things that were not exactly covered a lot over the last week, but still seemed important nonetheless. Because after hearing about a certain… disturbing trial at the Canterlot day court, he decided to look into it and what he found was something that he thought needed to be addressed immediately. Especially given who the issue affects the most. But it wasn’t something that he could just immediately dive into just yet. For there were some other stories that were considered as more ‘immediate’ headlines right now.
So, putting on a new navy colored suit and tie, Discord appeared from a cloud of pink smoke behind his desk as he greeted his audience this evening. “Welcome, welcome to Last Week Tonight! I’m your host Discord and thank you so much for joining me! Just in time for a quick recap of the week and we begin in Canterlot, where this week, Celestia is planning for major trade negotiations between her and Equestria’s allies. However, one thing that has made some ponies concerned is that she wants Prince Blueblood… seen here on the left in his pajamas,” An image of Prince Blueblood in pj’s and slippers was then seen for a few seconds as the crowd laughed. “To be with her at the meeting and if you think… that Prince Blueblood would take some time to prepare for these negotiations… deep down, you probably know the answer to that.”
“I think I’m ready. I don’t really think I need to prepare much… It’s about having the right attitude… the willingness to get things done and to make sure that I don’t say anything that might sound offensive to other po- I mean creatures.”
That… left Discord a little surprised as he looked back at the audience and raised an eyebrow. “It’s not about about being prepared, it’s about attitude… That strategy doesn’t even sound like something that would work on Suri Polomare’s Drag Race,” A new cut away image was now shown as the audience could see a few of the mares that were on Suri Polomare’s new reality drama as the draconequus continued to speak. “I mean, sure… bring the attitude, but if you want to have a chance at winning, you better also have knowledge of Manes, Wigs, Dresses, Accessories and Sass if you even think you can handle the challenges ahead of you.”
Changing the image back to Blueblood, Discord redirected the conversation back to the current topic as he continued to speak. “But Blueblood right now is actually very confident in this approach of handling this. In fact, when a reporter from the Canterlot News Network asked him a question about how would he and Princess Celestia would know that talks would be going well, he said that he would know ‘within the first minute or so I’ll know… it’s just my ‘feel’ on the matter’. And it does not really give you confidence when it comes to negotiation when so much depends on tone and choice of words that he’s describing his strategy in the single most discouraging way possible.”
Several of the ponies in the audience were also a little bit grossed out by Blueblood’s own choice of words on the subject as the spirit of chaos thought of it as the perfect moment to switch subjects. “But for the moment, we can all be thankful that Celestia is closely watching him, so let’s move on to Queen Chrysalis… the former queen of the changelings and voted ‘most persistent nuisance’ by Evil Bad Guys Magazine,” The next image displayed was a image of Queen Chrysalis in a sinister looking pose for the cover of a magazine that looked to have been made up. “Now, you might be thinking… wait, why are we talking about her? I thought she disappeared into the sunset and swearing revenge when King Thorax took over… Well, it turns out she was actually plotting a comeback… but her plan had… mixed results.”
That had several ponies look back in confusion as Discord began to explain everything. “For you see, Queen Chrysalis herself tried creating a series of evil clones that would try to sow seeds of doubt amongst Twilight and her friends… However, Queen Chrysalis did not exactly have any form of control over them and her newfound minions turned on her. Seriously… that was exactly what happened. Twilight and her friends did not even know that Chrysalis was somehow involved in this and it’s rather strange to see that a princess like Bookworm right here can’t even see or hear a clone of herself when they are just a few feet away… But there was something else that looked weird… Because when I actually talked to Twilight about it, she had an entirely different response.”
A clip of Discord having a conversation with the princess was now on screen as Discord began to show her a series of pictures. Those that resembled that of the clones that Chrysalis happened to make… even though she had a rather… different response. “Discord, are you sure that you aren’t going back to your old ways? These pictures look more like you discorded my friends than anything else.”
“She’s right!” Discord announced, throwing up the same pictures that he originally had into the air as they were thrown all over the place. “It looked like Chrysalis just ripped out a page of my old book of villainy in order to do this villainous scheme of hers. She must’ve gotten so far down the rabbit hole in trying to formulate an original revenge plot that she ends up trying to plagiarize what I did before being reformed!” That was followed by side by side comparisons of Twilight’s friends, both the clones that Chrysalis had made and when Discord had discorded each one of them. And they looked almost exactly the same.
“And sure… Chrysalis is still a threat that needs to be dealt with, but her evil doings are lacking so much in originality that she honestly treated this whole mistake as a ‘plan for conquering Equestria’. That’s like if a young colt was drawing a stick figure picture and treated it like something that should be hung up in a museum,” The draconequus added, causing his crowd to laugh as an image of what looked like ‘Chrysalis’ plan for world domination’ was drawn on a piece of paper using crayons. “And you know what’s the most embarrassing part of it? The fact that somepony who was able to invade Canterlot and also foalnap ponies all across Equestria, two huge plans in order to try and stop the Mane Six so she could get what she wanted… ended up rushing the sequel to those two plots and had the whole thing become a complete and utter mess. A movie director… who takes time in order to be able to make movies and sequels to them… would not just try to rush a third installment to a franchise in a short amount of time. That would just ruin the whole thing.”
As Discord took a deep breath and straightened his suit, he then came up with a final statement for the piece. “So, if Queen Chrysalis is going to try and come up with some sort of crazy plan to take over the world, let’s just bear in mind that sometimes… she gets way too ahead of herself to the point that she has to watch her own plans melt away directly in front of her…” At that segment, it showed the clone of Twilight melting in the long tendrils of the tree of Harmony as Discord pointed directly at the camera now. “And now, this…”
And now… Last Week Tonight presents… How is this still a thing? This week… Queen Chrysalis. How is she still a thing?
Ponykind across the world first learned of the changelings back during the royal wedding. Where their leader, Queen Chrysalis, used her magic to take the form of Princess Cadence and throw the real her down into the mines. Some ponies though would want to know why she would do such a thing originally? Was it to steal love, both figuratively and literally? Was it because most ponies were too easy to trick and when one pony tried to speak up about the whole thing, almost everypony was foolish enough to think that the most smartest pony in the room was somehow wrong? Well tonight, we try to answer that question and find out… Just how the f*yay*ck is Queen Chrysalis still a thing?
We first thought that we would try asking some of the ponies that were around Canterlot about what they thought were the reasons behind the Canterlot Wedding invasion. What we heard was… well, to put it frankly, disappointing. Because the reason for it does not involve trying to declare war on Ponykind…
“Did she try it to declare war against us?”
No, it had nothing to do with declaring war against Ponykind.
“Did they want to steal everything that we hold dear?”
No, not that either… Plus, you aren’t really specific about that last part.
“Oh, isn’t it because back then, they wanted to steal love from other ponies and also steal Cadence’s boy toy?”
Okay… just… eww. And did you have to say that when Shining Armor is directly behind you? Seriously, the poor guy already has a blush that looks like a really bad sunburn. Don’t give him bad thoughts of him possibly sleeping with someone other than his wife. It hurts his self esteem. But to be fair, he does have a particular point… The wedding was used as cover in order to steal love from other ponies, but that was only one time. The other times she has been a big threat has been when she uses some b-movie plotline of trying to take over the world and only have one defector of her hive actually undo everything. And that defector is Thorax… Yes, the new king. And he himself will even tell you a surprising fact about Chrysalis.
“When I was once a drone there, Chrysalis barely shared her plans to anybuggy. I mean… if you have this plan that you want to pull off, then the least that you should do is actually tell somebuggy your plan so they are on the same page.”
He’s got a f*yay*cking point there… Communication is vitally important, whether it’s working for the Wonderbolts during drill practice or if you are some kind of douche who wants to pull off a flash mob in the middle of daytime traffic, you need to be able to communicate with your base. Otherwise, you’ll just end up being a one pony band and just like what Pinkie Pie would say when babysitting the Cake Twins…
“Wow… Tough crowd…”
And just when you think that can’t be enough… whenever the plans that she never tells anypony about go wrong, she acts like a foal and plays the blame game. On who, you might ask… Well, specifically on former equality dictator, former student to Princess Twilight Sparkle and Friendship School Guidance counselor Starlight Glimmer… and before you ask, I did say all three of those things in that particular order. A pony who only got on her hit list because all she wanted to do was extend a hoof of friendship… which lead to Queen Chrysalis swatting it away and basically telling her to shove it up her flank. Almost like most ponies who throws tantrums when they don’t get what they want… Exhibit A…
“BUY ME MORE JEWELRY!!!”
Exhibit B…
“Oh come on!! Why did I mess up on the last boss?!! Now I need to start over again!!”
Exhibit C…
“Quiet! I pay an assistant to sew and get coffee, not talk. 'Kay?”
See? Even a pony who thinks she’s entitled to get what she wants from who she considers as a deadbeat of a husband acts, a colt who spends too much time at the arcade and the former employer of Coco Pommel who now hosts a reality show with no point to it whatsoever and making ponies on their question their sexuality can be seen as a villain. So, as Chrysalis flies off into the night sky and curses the very existence of Starlight Glimmer into oblivion… all while the Elements of Harmony have no idea what exactly just transpired on their friendship getaway, we ask ourselves… How is Queen Chrysalis still a thing?
The Following Morning
“Hey Spike,” The voice of Smolder had the young dragon look up from the table he was having breakfast at as he noticed the orange dragon leaning on the doorway to Twilight’s office. “Um… Have you seen Professor Applejack? She was supposed to be helping with the morning lessons, but nopony has seen her this morning.”
“Oh uh…” Spike said, scratching the back of his head as he looked back at the dragon in the doorway. “She went to go get her eyesight checked.”
“O… kay,” Smolder asked with a raised eyebrow. “Well, where’s Rainbow Dash? She can fill in for her, right?”
“Um… She’s getting her eyesight checked too…” The dragon admitted as he looked away for a moment. “And Rarity… and Pinkie… and Twilight… and-”
“Okay, seriously? Why would Princess Twilight need to get her eyes checked? Is she reading too many books to the point that she’s straining her eyes?” Smolder now asked.
“Well… Um, she told me not to say but…” Spike replied back as he looked at the female dragon. “The girls were out on a camping trip over the weekend, but… it turns out that a former villain with a grudge against Starlight tried to ruin the whole thing.”
That had Smolder fold her arms for a moment before asking a new question. “Seriously? Who would hold a grudge against a guidance counselor?”
“An angry former changeling queen who tried taking over Equestria somehow by creating clones of Twilight and the others to the point that they couldn’t even tell them apart from the real thing,” Spike admitted, before placing both claws over his mouth and accidentally falling backwards onto the ground. “Oww…”
It was as Smolder saw this, and as she was helping Spike up that she happened to notice something. It was the same ‘television’ that Discord had left for the Princess in her office, showing the most recently broadcasted episode… and from it, Smolder got an idea. “Hey Spike, can I borrow this?”
“Umm… Are you sure? That belongs to Twilight…”
“It will only be for a little bit… I have an idea in order to try and help out the faculty, but I’m going to need your help and also the help of the entire class.” Smolder smirked, taking the TV with her before leaving the room as Spike was trying to contemplate what just happened.
“Why do I have a really bad feeling about this?”
Later…
“Well that was the last two hours of my life wasted,” Rainbow groaned as she was returning back to the classroom with each one of her friends right beside her. “I mean sure… I would expect you needing an eye exam Twilight, but why would you think that everypony else needs one?”
“Rainbow, you saw the new episode of Discord’s show along with everypony else. None of us could tell what was really going on or thought for a moment that there were evil clones of us,” The princess of friendship told the pegasus. “In order to prevent a repeat of this incident from happening again, I wanted to make sure that all of us could be able to tell if there’s a difference between us and a fake.”
“If ah have to speak here, the only question ah have in my mind is why does Chrysalis have so much of a grudge against Starlight?” Applejack then asked. “Ah mean… sure, Starlight and Thorax did save us and all when Chrysalis kidnapped us, but seriously… why does she blame her for when everything goes wrong?”
“Honestly, I don’t even know the answer to that question,” Starlight spoke up as the guidance counselor opened up the door to the friendship school and looked back at her friends. “At least we can be able to get back to doing what we do best.”
“Yeah! And now that our suspension’s are over, AJ and Rainbow can get back to teaching!” Rainbow triumphantly declared… before asking something as she stepped into the school. “Wait… Where is everyone?”
It was something that the rest of her friends were also beginning to notice too. Everything seemed… quiet. Not even Spike was there in order to greet them when they came back, making things seem a little more weird as everypony was trying to figure out what was going on. They even checked all of the faculty rooms in order to make sure that nopony was hiding inside. However, it was just as they were checking inside the main classroom that Twilight herself noticed something.
The TV that Discord had ‘provided’ for her… was in the main classroom. And the entire class was watching it. “Oh no…”
That stray comment alone had all six of the students inside turn to face them as the door was closed from behind. Some going as far as to use the desks almost like they’re weapons… and Silverstream using her slinky like it was a bola snare in order to prevent anypony from escaping. “Woah woah woah! Hey, what in the world is going on!?” Rainbow blurted out. “Can’t you see that it’s us?!”
“Oh really now?” Smolder asked. “And how are we so sure that it is you?”
“W-what-?”
“Spike told us that you all were getting your eyesight checked…” Smolder said, as the TV showed the ending of the ‘How is this still a thing?’ clip from Discord’s last episode. “Yet, we have no way of knowing if you are our actual teachers or it’s those fakes.”
“Ooh Ooh! I got an idea,” They heard Silverstream say out loud. “Let’s do a personality quiz!! Let’s ask them questions that they only know the answers too!”
“That sounds like a good idea.” Sandbar then nodded his head in confirmation.
“Works for me.” Gallus then added on as he looked at Ocellus and Yona to see what they would have to say. While both of them nodded their heads in approval, Smolder then had all the students huddle up in order to discuss what they were going to do next.
Unfortunately… Silverstream was already getting started. “Oh princess Twilight… do you recognize this?” The hippogriff asked, holding up what looked like a copy of the published Friendship Journal that she released last year. One that was actually signed by her no less.
“Y-yes?” The princess answered.
“Well… how do you feel about this?” Before Twilight could even ask, Silverstream tore out a page of it right before her eyes. Causing the Alicorn to drop to the ground as she looked at the damage book and began to cry out in pain.
“Wow… that’s one way of proving that’s her alright,” Smolder commented as Silverstream let Twilight go so she could mourn the loss of a personally signed mint condition copy of her book. “Now… what about the others?”
“I have an idea for Rainbow…” Gallus said as he walked over to where Rainbow was held up.
“H-hey, come on! I’m not some fake! Can’t you tell how 100% awesome I am?!” The Pegasus said as she squirmed in the restraint around her and her friends.
“I believe that… But just to be sure…” As the griffon finished his sentence, he held out what looked like a Ponaroid picture of her Wonderbolt teammate Soarin at the beach... in a speedo. Causing a massive blush to emerge on Rainbow’s face and for her wings to spring outward. Hitting two of her friends in the face as they had gone stiff.
“O-oww! Hey, what gives Rainbow-?!” Applejack asked as Rainbow’s right wing was obstructing her view, while her left was obstructing Rarity’s.
“D-darling, what is this nonsense!?”
“Yeah, that’s Rainbow… Let her out, Silverstream.” Gallus told his classmate as the hippogriff allowed for Rainbow to catch her breath… before noticing something. Pinkie Pie had slipped out of the restraint… and parts of the spring looked to be covered in butter.
“Heehee! That was fun!!” Pinkie Pie then said, popping out of nowhere as she was bouncing in place next to Twilight and Rainbow. “Whatcha looking at, Dashie?”
“Oh! N-nothing!! Nothing at all.” An embarrassed Rainbow said as she scrambled to hide the picture that Gallus had shown her.
“Well, that’s three down at least…” Smolder now said as her classmates and the staff that were free now looked back at her. “Now we have three more to go… Any suggestions on what we should do?”
“How about I ask why are you doing this?!” Everypony turned towards Starlight as she posed the question for them. “Is this because of what happened on our camping trip?”
“We just wanted to make sure that you are who you say you are.” Gallus added on, now leaning back in a chair against the wall as he and Sandbar were playing with a deck of cards. “I mean… think of it, the students need to be just as prepared for when a villain hatches a maniacal scheme as you guys, right?”
“Well, y-yeah but…”
“And we already know that you’re the primary thing that crazy Chrysalis changeling curses into oblivion so… yeah.” The Griffon also added, which cause Starlight to look a little bit embarrassed as the rest of his friends were all thinking about what to do next. Just as Ocellus was whispering an idea to Smolder and Yona.
Then… the yak took over as she looked at Fluttershy. “You!”
“Eep!!” Fluttershy quivered at first, before looking back at Yona. “Y-yes?”
“Yona have test for you,” The Yak proclaimed. “Name each animal you care for at cottage.”
“O-okay,” Fluttershy stammered, before she began to think of the names for all the animals that she was looking over at her cottage. “Um… there’s Angel the bunny… Hummingway the hummingbird… the orange bird named Constance, a pair of otters… Elizabeak, the chicken… Fuzzy Legs, Mr. Mousey… Harry the bear… Oh and Toby!”
Both Rarity and Applejack looked at her for a moment at the last name she said, raising an eyebrow. “Who’s Toby?”
“Oh right… I had not introduced him to you yet…” Fluttershy sighed. “He’s a fruit bat that I’m caring for. Though, I didn’t tell you because of… well… what happened last time-”
“Well Smolder… she did recite them all…” Ocellus muttered shyly, leading to the dragoness nodding her head.
“Very well, Fluttershy is clear… Now we have two more,” Smolder replied back as Fluttershy was released from the slinky that was holding them all together. “But who to do first?”
And again… Silverstream was already on that as she looked towards Rarity. “Your fashion was so yesterday.”
Which… caused the fashionista to twitch as she looked back at her. “E-excuse you? What did you say about my fashion-?!”
“Yep, that’s Professor Rarity alright!” Silverstream declared, before yanking her out of the snare and leaving Applejack as the last pony inside. “Now… how we should test to see if Applejack is truly her?”
“I don’t know… maybe have her name all her family members or something?” Sandbar asked.
“That would take forever. We need something much simpler.” Smolder replied back, before looking to Rainbow and the rest of the faculty. “Any suggestions?”
“We got this…” Rainbow then volunteered as she trotted over to Pinkie Pie for a moment to whisper something in her ear… before she dashed off to the kitchen for a quick moment. Returning with something in her hooves… something that Applejack did not realized until Pinkie shoved it in her mouth.
It was an orange. And one that Applejack immediately spat out as she looked back at Rainbow. “What the hay are ya trying to do?! Choke me!?!”
Which, lead to all of the students cheering out in glee and Silverstream to almost sing. “It is her!!”
“Darn right it is!! Ah mean… ah know that ya want to make sure that we are the real thing, but did ya have to do that?!” Applejack asked, glaring at Rainbow for a moment.
“Well, you know what they say…” The pegasus grinned as she looked back at her friend while Silverstream let her out of the slinky. “Desperate times call for desperate measures…”