As the Mane Six left the safely of Twilight's castle, the ground started to rumble, and the tower of cards across Ponyville started to collapse.
Twilight jumped in surprise. "It's an earthquake!"
"No, it's a stampede!" Applejack pointed her hoof toward a cloud of dust in the distance.
A hoard of bulls were trampling across the road. But something was off about these bulls. These bulls were bright red, round, and their horns looked more like a stem then an actually horn. Twilight squinted her eyes, and noticed that these bulls were different.
They were apples.
Their bodies were in the shape of a large oval apple, their head was the shape of an apple with their horns being apple stems, and their tails being the apple stem with a leaf.
"Applejack!" Rainbow a Dash exclaimed. "You didn’t tell us that there were apple bulls tramping around earlier!”
"That's because they didn't exist earlier!"
Rarity squinted her eyes as she noticed something purple and green hanging off the tail of one of the bulls. "Wait a minute...is that Spike!?"
"Wait, Spike?" Twilight turned her head toward Applejack "Wasn't Spike sleeping over at your place, Applejack?"
"Yes, he was..." Applejack gasped in horror. "Oh, no! The farm!"
As the bulls made their way closer to Ponyville, the Mane Six could hear the Spike's cries for help.
"Twilight, help me!" the green dragon yelled.
"We'll help you, Spike!" Twilight yelled. Twilight tried using her magic, but there was no use, it was to hard to concentrate when she kept tripping over ground shaking.
Applejack checked under hat for her lasso, hoping to rope Spike, but it wasn't there. A long, animated rope slithered around Applejack's hooves. She smiled excitedly and grabbed the rope. "Hope ya don't mind me using you."
"Every pony, stand back!" Applejack exclaimed, swinging the rope.
As the bulls passed the Mane Six, Applejack used the rope and lassoed Spike from the tail of the bulls. Applejack pulled Spike back towards them, and he landed in Applejack's arms. The bulls continued to trample through Ponyville, knocking down house of cards after house of cards.
"Thanks, AJ!"
Aplplejack smirked. "No problem, Sugarcube."
"Spike, are you okay?" Twilight asked, rushing in to hug the dragon.
"I'm fine, Twilight," Spike smiled. "Maybe a little scrap, but no broken bones."
Applejack patted his shoulder. "Is my family okay, Suagrcube?" she said with a worried look.
"Oh, sure! Big Mac and the others are fine," the little dragon explained. "I saw them get inside the barn before I got swept up by the stampede.”
The orange earth pony sighed in relief. "Oh, thank goodness."
Spike was silent for a moment. "So, do you guys have a plan about what to do about this chaos?"
"Oh, yeah," Twilight answered. "We were just about to do it."
The ponies and the young dragon found an empty spot in the middle of the Ponyville where the town hall should be standing. Spike watched as the Mane Six started to form a circle around each other.
“Alright,” Twilight started, stepping into the circle. “Let’s activate our Elements of Harmony 2.0 and use our summoning spell to bring him here.”
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “Our Elements of Harmony 2.0?”
“Got any better names, Rainbow?” Twilight asked, glaring an eye.
"Well, I..." Rainbow Dash was silent for moment. “...I’ll get back to you on that.”
"Alright, everypony ready?" Twilight asked.
"Ready!"
Twilight's horn started glowing and simultaneously, each pony closed their eyes as Spike stepped back as they started to hover in the air, and a white glow started to envelope the ponies. Moments later, they reappearred with their manes and tails, oversaturated and enlargened.
They paused to readjust themselves from the strange transformation, and zapped an open spot with a bright rainbow. The rainbow started spinning and spinning until it faded away from existence, and there was the draconequss, taking a shower. Fluttershy felt a flush crept up her face.
“C’mon every pony smile, smile-ooh!” The draconequss quickly snapped away the shower, and wrapped himself in a towel. “Really again, Twilight? You know I already told you to give me a heads up before you summon me...but this seems a bit déjà vu...”
“Q-uiet!” she cleared her throat. “Discord, as you may recall when we released you from your stone prison, we specifically asked of you not to cause chaos when you’re free. But can you please get rid of this chaos before we have to do something that no pony wants to happen?”
The draconequss gave her a look of confusion as he snapped the tub away. “What chaos? I’ve been in my cottage this whole time, taking that particularly, relaxing shower.”
“Are you that blind, Dip-cord?” Rainbow Dash questioned, flying up in front of the draconequss. “Just look around you and tell us you didn’t just notice this!?”
“Well, Miss. Dash. By whatever do you mean?”
"Just look for yourself!"
The blue pegasus twisted his head behind him in full view of the mayhem enveloping around them. His eyes literally popped out of his head as he stared in shock at field of chaos developing around him. As he scooped up his eyeballs, and jaw, that he didn't notice had fallen off as well, he gazed back at the awaiting ponies who were blaming him for the cause of this.
He nervously cleared his throat. “Y-You think I caused this chaos? After all we’ve been through, you still don’t trust me? And here I thought we were becoming such good friends.”
"You think after the whole Tirek situation, you think you got off scot free?"
"Well, we did have a group hug, so I assumed that I did."
"Then you've got another thing coming, if you think that!"
"Not now, Rainbow," Applejack whispered, pushing the pegasus out of the way. “We’re not blaming ya, Discord," she explained, stepping forward toward the draconequss. “We’re asking ya if ya did.”
“Oh, how thoughtful of you!” Discord exclaimed sarcastically, clasping his hands together on his cheeks. “Actually asking this time.”
“This isn’t a game, Discord!” Twilight snapped angrily, stompping her hoof. “This is serious!”
The draconequss was silent for a moment. His mischievous expression melted into a stern glare. “Serious, eh? Fine then, but let me ask you a simple question,” he snapped his fingers and a pink and blue cotton candy cloud appeared in front of him. “Have you ponies, except Fluttershy, forgotten the difference between my pink cotton candy clouds and these...blue cotton candy clouds...?”
Discord paused as he stared at the blue cotton candy cloud. He felt a nagging sensation course through his body as he sensed something...familiar about the blue fluffy ball of stickiness like he seen this somewhere before, but the origin of it is puzzlingly evading his mind.
“Discord?” Fluttershy asked, stepping forward.
Discord’s ears perked when he heard her familiar voice. "Ah, Fluttershy," he smiled gleefully. "I was wondering when you'd finally join in on the conversation! I know I can trust you can tell me what in Equestria is going on."
"I wanted-- I mean, we wanted to know if you're were the one, causing all this chaos," she said as she seated herself in front of the draconequss. "We don't want to do anything hasty to you. We just want to know if you're causing this chaos, please."
"See, that wasn't that hard to ask. All you ponies had to do was say, "please"," he explained, crossing his arms. "And my answer is no, I did not create this chaos. But if you ask me, I do like this chaos, though it's amateur work at best. Raining larks is child's play."
"Oh, thank goodness," Fluttershy whispered softly, smiling as she felt a wave of relief wash over her. "Okay, now that that's finally settled, can you please help us remove this chaos?"
The draconequss tapped his chin, as a mischievous grin curled upon his mouth. "Hmm, I suppose I could," he snapped his talons, and disappeared in a flash of light. He reappeared as a tiny version of himself in her ear as he whispered. "However, I'd like to rain some chocolate milk after this is all over though. Seems fair that I get to stretch my chaos muscles as well."
Fluttershy giggled softly, rolling her eyes. "I'll talk it over with Twilight, and then we'll see."
He chuckled. "Fair enough..."
"Not to ruin all the fun here, but Ponyville's still being rampaged by chaos! So if you don't mind, please try hurrying it up a little bit?!" Rainbow Dash yelled in frustration. "I think there's colony of red ants starting to prepare for a revolution!"
"Alright, alright, I'm doing it,” Discord grumbled in annoyance. "But I'm keeping those ants though, serves you right for ruining all this chaos."
The draconequss snapped his talons once again and reappeared back to his regular size. He let out a dreary sigh as he prepared to snap his talons once more. As every pony stared in anticipation, their anxiousness turned into surprise as they saw the draconequss lower his talon.
"I can't do this..." Discord said, lowering his head. "Not until I get a picture of this!"
"Discord!" Twilight yelled, staring at him angrily. "You've got to be kidding me!"
"Discord," Fluttershy whined as she frowned in disappointment. "You said, you'd fix it."
"What? I will," Discord said excitedly as a camera appeared around his neck, and he clicked the camera everywhere he looked. "A chance like this doesn't appear that often!"
Twilight huffed, flaring her horn. “If you don’t remove this chaos this instant, I’ll...”
“You’ll what?” The draconequss questioned, materializing in front of the alicorn. “Send me to my room? Turn me back into stone? Last time I checked, I'm not doing wrong here, now am I?" he smirked as he snapped his camera in Twilight’s face, temporarily blinding from the bright flash. “I’ll put this in my collection of times you’ve been a real stick-in-the-mud.”
The alicorn rubbed her eyes. “What I was going to say...”
"Wait, Twilight," The yellow pegasus advised. "Let me handle this," she narrowed her gaze at the draconequss, and said sternly. "Discord, in the count of three, if you don't remove this chaos, I will cancel our weekly tea parties permanently."
Discord's eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, you wouldn't dare.” he said, narrowing his eyes at the yellow pegasus.
"One..." she said sternly.
Discord's eyes blinked in surprise. "Oh, you're...serious."
"Two..." she uttered.
He gulped as he felt a chill go down his spine. "N-Now l-let's not get hasty here, Flutters."
"Two-and-a-half." she said, levitating above the Discord as she glared down at him in exasperation. "Thhh..."
"Okay! Okay!" Discord exclaimed, raising his paw and talon up in fear. "I'm doing it!"
Her stern glare melted back to her innocent smile. "Thank you."
Discord shivered to himself. “Sheesh, remind me to never get on your bad side."
The draconequss grumbled under his breath as he snapped his talons, and in a bright flash of light, the chaos disappeared, and then it reappeared again... Discord frowned in confusion, and then snapped his talons again. The chaos disappeared and then popped back up into existence.
"Uh, is something wrong, Discord?" Applejack questioned.
“Why, of course not!" he chuckled nervously. "Must've done the wrong spell."
"What spell?" Rainbow Dash said, surveying the area from the sky. "Nothing happened."
"Well, I can assure you one of two things did happen,” he smiled mischievously. “You might want to check your little cloud in the sky later, I hope you like a colony of company."
Rainbow Dash widened her eyes in surprise. “Oh, no...don't tell me, Discord...don't tell me you put them in there!"
Discord happily ignored the blue pegasus' pleas as he resumed where he had left off. He snapped his talons again and the mayham surrounding them disappeared in a blink of an eye. The draconequss paused for a second and waited to see if the chaos would appear again. After a few moments of waiting, the chaos didn't reappear. The town was normal again.
He smiled proudly to himself, and turned toward the others. "Hope you're happy, you ponies, ruining all that glorious chaos and the fun I could've had. Now if you'd excuse, there's a rubber ducky calling my name." he said as a shower cap appeared on his head, poking through his horns.
Discord snapped his fingers and the tub from earlier had appeared before him. He slid into the tub and grabbed onto a squeaky steering wheel that suddenly appeared. The tub started making engine sounds and he drove off and disappeared in a flash of light, leaving a trail of flames behind him.
Fluttershy let out a small sigh. "Thank goodness, that's over with."
"Oh, and Fluttershy," Fluttershy jumped in surprise as Discord popped into existence in front of her. "Oh, sorry, didn't mean to startle you. Don't forget about our little agreement for Twilight."
She smiled. "Oh, I won't, I promise!"
The yellow pegasus yelped as he suddenly pulled her into a tight hug. "Wonderful! See you next Tuesday!" then he let her go and disappeared once again
Fluttershy stood dumbfoundedly as she felt a small smile tug on her lips. She wished she was still hugging him, but this time he didn't let go, and she had a feeling that Discord didn't want to let go either. She couldn't help but laugh at herself for thinking that, thinking as if she was like a little filly again that is having her first schoolyard crush.
Twilight sighed in relief. "It feels great to have a change of pace once in a while, we solved the problem fast and with minimal..."
SNAP!
The sky erupted with blue cotton candy clouds raining down root beer instead of larks, thunder striked, but instead of lightning shooting out, it was giant pretzel sticks. The roads turned into bouncy, green jello, and the ground became a twisting pattern of green, blue, and purple.
"Oh, c'mon!" Twilight yelled in frustration, throwing her hooves up in exasperation. "Can't it be easy just this once?!"
Rarity shielded her mane as she ran for cover. "Oh, dear, my mane is gonna get all sticky!"
"Oh, goody!" Pinkie pipped as she was skipping around, licking the droplets of root beer."It's a dream come true!"
"Ya dreamed about raining root beer, and salty thunder bolts?"
The pink pony shrugged. "Eh, it's close enough, though there was supposed to a giant chocolate bunny."
One of the cotten candy clouds slowly pulled itself down and in front of the lavender alicorn. She noticed there were letters inscribed in root beer on the cloud that read, Stick-in-the-mud.
She huffed. "I am not a stick-in-the-mud!"
The root beer words reshaped itself into, Ha Ha!. Twilight tilted her head in confusion and then the cloud squirted root beer at her, drenching her in root beer, Twilight grumbled to herself angrily. The rain started to stop, and all of the clouds the sky shifted its focus on Twilight. There was a small crackle, and the root beer starting pouring down onto the purple alicorn.
"Aw..." Pinkie frowned in disappointment. "Why do you get all the root beer?"
Twilight's eyelids drooped. "Pinkie...not now."
A cloud appeared above Pinkie Pie's head and started to pour down on her. Pinkie's face let up in excitement as she started bouncing around gulping down as much root beer as possible.
"Something's missing...does the root beer come with vanilla ice cream?" the cloud stopped raining, and a brown glop of icy coolness dropped on Pinkie's muzzle, she licked it. "Chocolate? Even better!"
"Discord!" Twilight shouted through the rain. "Come back here!"
Discord appeared before them again, but instead of being in the tub again, he was floating on a green recliner with a bowl of ripped up paper that he was slurping as if it was spaghetti with his claw. His face had a pinched expression etched into it.
The draconequss grunted in annoyance. "Oh, for crying out loud, what now?!"
"Whatever you did, Discord, it didn't work!" Spike explained, as he was struggling to get out of cotten candy cloud. "It only caused the chaos to become like a thousand fold more crazier!"
Discord stoked his chin. "Hmm, as much as I hate to admit it, this is a bit too chaotic, sadly even for me."
SNAP!
"Why did you just snap your claws?" Twilight asked.
Discord stared dumbfoundedly at hands. "I'm not sure..."
SNAP!
"You just did it again!"
"I don't mean to, something is..." his hands started to raise, and he tried to pull them back down, but it was as felt they had a mind of their own. "...s-something is making me do it!"
The draconequss pulled his arms off like breaking a piece of a puzzle apart, and through them on the ground, making his hands start wiggling around like snakes.
"I need to get some new hands once this is over."
SNAP!
"Oh, dear..." Discord turned his head, and he saw the fur on the end of his tail had snapped its fur made fingers. "I forgot about you..."
In the distance, Twilight saw the crystals of her castle shift in place, and the crystals started reshape itself into a new shape, forming into a deformed statue of Twilight wearing a lopsided crown, while holding a staff with a miniature version of her head on it.
Twilight scowled. "This isn't funny, Discord! Fix my castle now!"
"Well, I would, if I could," Discord said, as he picked up his arms with his tail, and put them back into place. "My magic isn't obeying me at this moment."
The draconequss looked for something or someone to help him. He spotted the yellow pegasus, who was being strangely quiet for something like this. She was his closest friend, never doubted him before, and always defended him to the end. Why isn't she helping me? Everytime he looked at her, her eyes would avert away from him, like was she afraid at looking at him.
Discord felt his head spinning in confusion. Something's not right... he stared at her anxiously. No, she can't...she wouldn't believe this nonsense, right? Nervermind she would, she's friends with me... he felt an urge, he had to know, he needed to know.
“What about you, Fluttershy?” he snapped his fingers, disappearing in flash of light and reappearing above of the yellow pegasus, and almost startling her. “Surely you’ll believe me, right? You don’t believe that I would cause this havoc?”
Fluttershy bit her lip nervously. “I-I, uh...”
“Hey!” Rainbow exclaimed, flying up into his face. “Don’t you even think of manipulating her into your favor!”
The draconequss shot her a grim look. “Really, Rainbow? Would I really manipulate, dear Fluttershy, and possibly damage our friendship? Do you think I would stoop that low?”
SNAP! Rainbow felt herself become heavy, and she fell towards the ground. The blue pegasus gasped in horror as she noticed her wings had disappeared.
"My wings! Give them back to me, Discord!"
"I didn't take your wings, honest!" the draconequss protested, holding up his hands.
"Quit lying, and bring everything back to normal!"
"But I'm not, this is all just one big misunderstanding!" He grabbed Rainbow's shoulders, and starting shaking her. "Why won't any of you believe me?!"
She gave him a dead-eyed stare. "You're not giving us any reason to."
"We're done giving you chances, Discord," Twilight advised. "maybe a third time in stone you'll learn your lesson and actually care for once."
"It's about time we get to something interesting." Applejack huffed, starting to glow up.
"What! No! Give him a punishment like being unable to use his magic, or preforming community service, or even allowing him free time from being in stone!" Fluttershy fell to her knees, clasping her hooves. "please, Twilight, just don't turn him to stone!"
"Turning him back into stone may be the only option we have left, Fluttershy," Twilight explained, giving her a look of sympathy. "I'm sorry, Fluttershy."
"No, Fluttershy, She does have a point," the draconequss said quietly, lowering his head. "My magic is not behaving as it should be, I'm losing control of it..."
Fluttershy snapped around and gasped in horror. "Don't agree with her, Discord! You're the one that's going to be turned back into stone, d-don't you hate that? And why does it matter if your magic isn't behaving?! You're meant to be unpredictable! And...and...I..."
A closed zipper appeared on Fluttershy's mouth, Discord lowered his fingers and let out a long sigh. He silently walked toward the quiet pegasus, and caressed her cheek.
"Before you say anything, I want to say that I'm sorry, but you have to understand that what is going to happen to me is for the greater good. Now I'm going to remove the zipper, and I am going explain why, okay?" she nodded. "Good."
He snapped his fingers, and the zipper unzipped itself from existence. "You didnt have to zip my mouth shut."
"Like I said, I'm sorry," he frowned as he gave her faint smile. "Now, I am letting myself be turned to stone to keep you and Equestria safe from my uncontrolable chaos, I don't want to cause anymore problems like what happened with Tirek. I caused that to happen. I have made up my mind, you will turn me back into stone, and I don't want to hear any buts about it."
Fluttershy's lip quivered. "Bu-"
"Ah, ah, ah," he uttered, wagging his claw. "I said no buts. Look, I care for you, Fluttershy, more then I understand. And I'd hate to see you or any of your friends get hurt because of me, most especially you."
"But there has to be another way, you don't have to turn yourself into stone!"
"I'm sorry, Fluttershy, but what else can we do? My magic is causing this, and it won't fix it."
"I don't know...but if it's the only way, and you're okay with this...then I respect your decision..." the yellow pegasus lowered her head in defeat.
"I'm sorry that it had to end like this," he said, giving her a look of sympathy.
"Yeah," she sniffled. "me too..."
Fluttershy returned to the others, and then The Mane Six formed a circle around the draconequss, getting ready to zap Discord back to stone.
"Are you sure about this?" Twilight asked.
"Just get it over with already," he said flatly. "You're the one that wanted this."
The Mane Six joined hooves together, and they started to change up. They soon began to float up in the sky, Fluttershy looked away, unable to watch as they shot the rainbow into the sky, and plummeting directly toward the draconequss.
The yellow pegasus felt her heart sink, she couldn't do anything to stop this, it had already been set in motion. She couldn't stand it anymore. Even if she had a plan to figure out if Discord had feelings for her were ruined. She knew she wasn't going to see him again for a while. Why now? Why like this? The rainbow was inching closer to the draconequss, and this was her only chance.
"I'm sorry, Discord! I never wanted this to happen!" Fluttershy gulped, as she placed her hoof on her chest. "But while you're in stone, I'll make sure to take care of you b-because...I-I lo-"
A zipper appeared once again on Fluttershy's mouth, preventing her from finishing her sentence. Her eyes widened in surprise as she saw the sad draconequss wink smugly.
"I'm know, Fluttershy," Discord whispered. "I know, and I-"
BAZAP!
Fluttershy's heart started to ache as she heard the draconequss roar like a wounded animal. She felt cool tears wash upon her checks when the sound stopped. She knew it was done. Once the smoke cleared, there was the draconequss trapped in stone.
As the Mane Six reverted back to their original forms, Fluttershy felt a chill go a down her spine as her eyes narrowed upon his statue. The draconequss' statue was etched differently this, he wasn't frightened or laughing. His head seemed to be reeling from pain, but stuck in a frozen state, his teeth was bared and sharp, and his hands were covering his head as if he couldn't bear it.
Despite turning the draconequss back to stone, the Main Six's efforts were futile, the chaos still remained, ravaging it's havoc throughout Ponyville. The sky soon turn purple like grape soda, giant breezies floated by, and flying pigs started sneezing, blowing down houses, the only thing that disappeared was the zipper covering Fluttershy's mouth.
"Why is all it still here!?" Twilight yelled, stomping her hooves. "It should've disappeared when Discord was turned to stone, what in Equestria is going on!?"
Spike tapped his chin. "Wait, if the chaos is still here, and Discord is in stone, does that mean Discord wasn't behind after all?"
"I guess that makes sense," Twilight paused, scratching her mane. "but if it wasn't Discord, then who's doing this?"
"I don't know, but if you need me, I'll be over there drinking root beer..." Pinkie gave them a half smile, as she skipped toward a crowd of blue cotten candy clouds.
Every pony become silent as they couldn't do anything to stop the chaos. Rarity was the first to break the silence as she approached the lavender alicorn.
"So...um, Twilight. What do we do now?" The white unicorn asked.
"I don't know, I don't know," the lavender alicorn repeated. "If Discord wasn't the culprit behind this, then that just leaves us with nothing to work with. We need to talk to Princess Celestia about this."
Spike gagged, and burst of green flames burped out with a letter materializing. "Uh, Twilight?" he said as the scroll landed his claws. "Letter from Celestia."
"Oh, really?" the lavender alicorn grabbed the letter, and started scanning through it. Her expression turned from intrigue into confusion. "Underwater? Princess Celestia? We need to get in Canterlot now. Something is wrong with the Princesses!"
"Wait, what did the letter say!?" Rainbow questioned.
"I'll tell you on the way!"
As Twilight ignited her horn, she noticed Fluttershy was sitting in front of Discord's statue. She stopped the spell and approached the pegasus from behind. Without turning her head, Fluttershy said:
"Look at him, Twilight," Fluttershy pointed at the statue. "He's in pain. He didn't derseve being turned to stone. He's was innocent, and now he's probably all cold and alone right now."
Twilight patted her head. "I know, Flutters, but this isn't your fault, it's ours. We didn't believe him. I'm sorry..."
"No, Twilight," Fluttershy uttered, shaking her head. "it's none of our fault, it's whoever's doing this is to blame."
"We have to figure this out' Fluttershy. But first we have get to Canterlot."
"Alright, but he's coming with us." she gestured toward the statue.
"That's okay," she sighed with a tired grin. "Lets go."
As Twilight, the others, and Discord's statue disappeared in a flash of light, they didn't notice an unusally large, blue cotton candy cloud hovering above with a mysterious figure, smiling gleefully.
"I'm sorry, Master, but don't worry," the mysterious figure whispered. "I'll save you from those vile ponies' control."