MLP: Age of Chaos

by religarro

Chapter 10 - Read At Your Own Peril

It was supposed to have been a quiet Tuesday morning. A certain purple alicorn princess was trying her best to partake in one of her favorite relaxing activities; reading her favorite books. This particular morning she had chosen a personal favorite: The Life of Star Swirl the Bearded. These special times, when she could just relax and enjoy herself, had regrettably become few and far between since her baby brother had become Disarray.
Admittingly a small part of her was happy he was growing into his own drake. Another part of her however was upset that she had failed him so, for him to go down such a dark and twisted path. He had become a villain. Granted there were still times they joked and laughed together just like they used to, as if nothing had ever changed. However she’d be lying to herself if she still wasn’t unnerved by his appearance; those black scales and glowing eyes. Then there were those ponies he teamed up with. He was her brother and she loved him, but she just couldn’t trust those Masters of Mayhem. They were rotten to the core, to borrow one of Applejack’s sayings, and they were just going to corrupt him and push him further down his dark path.
Oh if only she had discovered their identities when she had gained access to his room. Maybe if she had put more power into it? Maybe if she had turned the whole place upside down and inside out she would have found what she was looking for. He wouldn’t be happy, but surely he’d understand she was doing this all for him. Maybe he’d see reason, stop acting out like this, and go back to being her number one assistant; just like how things were. Just like how things should be.
Twilight was pulled from her musings by various loud and unusual noises coming from Disaray’s room. With a sigh she tried to concentrate, but the odd string of buzzing, boinging, hammering, drilling, whirling, and what sounded like wonky clockwork were driving her bonkers! It was bad enough he had to act out like he did and drive her up the way with his pranks. Bad enough her and the girls were constantly having to clean up the messes he and his team left behind. But to have him mess with her reading time?! To get between her and her favorite book?! That was it! With a huff, Twilight teleported right to the front of Disaray’s door, banging on it with her fist.
“Disarray! Disarray I know you hear me in there! What the buck do you think you’re doing?! You know fully well my reading time is sacred! SACRED! I don’t care if you’re the new god of chaos or not, you let me read! Do you hear me?! LET. ME. READ! Don’t you have something, anything, better to do than just annoy me?? You know, go hang out with your ‘friends’ or something, I don’t care, just let me be!”
Slowly the door opened, and there stood Disarray, arms folded with a very annoyed expression on his face.
“This can’t and won’t wait. Somepony broke into my room, or at least tried to. So I’m upgrading my security system. I thought a few well placed pranks here and there would do it, but clearly that’s not enough. I’m rewriting the very fabric of reality for this one!” the drake said, raising a brow at his big sister “Say, by the way, you wouldn’t happen to have any idea who tried to break in would you? Any sieges on the castle while I was gone or anything?”
Twilight blanched, the color slightly draining from her face as well as all semblance annoyance and anger. She was the guilty party, of course, but she couldn’t let him know that. The whole thing had been a bust anyways, Blueblood’s agents couldn’t uncover anything either, what little information they presented she had already known. She blushed a little and gave a sheepish smile to her brother who at this point was looking royally pissed.
“N-no. No one tried to break into the castle or anything. Maybe somepony was just trying to get you back for some of the pranks you’ve pulled? Seems perfectly logical, you HAVE managed to upset a good size of the Equestrian population”
Disarray studied her face, his anger seeming to flare for a bit before fizzling out. With a sigh he just shook his head. “Like us or hate us, you’d have to be insane to try to step up to us. I mean, we’re gods and the gags are just that...a joke. Let me be honest with you Twi...I don’t even keep anything valuable in my room. Nothing was stolen. The things that were messed up could be easily replaced…” The dragon turned away, seemingly lost in a thought. “It just the principle of the matter….” he said softly.
Twilight let loose the breath she didn’t realize she was holding. A part of her was relieved that she hadn’t been found out, another part was frustrated that it was all for naught anyways as there never was anything in his room. She was about to open her mouth to respond when Disarray softly said
“...the pony or ponies would HAVE to have realized I would know who’d done it…that I’d be more upset about….” He trailed off.
She froze.
“Look, Twilight” the drake said, fixing her with his gaze “you can read later, I need to finish upgrading my security system…” Disarray gave her one last look of...what was that? Betrayal? Disappointment? Those were definitely there, she could see them flash across his face. No, the expression she saw, one that made her heart sink a little, was his look of sad acceptance.
He turned away and the door started to close on its own before she stopped it with her magic. He knew. Oh no, he knew! How could she have been so stupid, of course he’d know!  She had to get him to see. She did it FOR him.
“Look, Disarray...this whole Masters of Mayhem thing...it’s starting to get out of hand and I’m worried for you. I love you. You’re my baby brother.” She saw him flinch a little when she said that, but paid it no mind “Even if you have magic and powers now, I trust you. But what about the others? What about them? Are they trustworthy? Perhaps they are a lot more sinister and evil than you realize? Please, Disarray, just tell me who they are. I don’t want to see them hurting you. I...I tried to break into your room. It was me. I promise I won’t try to do it again if you’d just please tell me who they are…”
Disarray just rolled his eyes.
“I told you Twilight; that’s their secret. It isn’t mine to share. Besides, a very important part of friendship is trust, remember? No, you’ve clearly forgotten that. I trust them. They’re my friends. You should be able to trust in my judgement, and that should be enough”
Twilight just nodded slowly, ashamed of herself. She was supposed to be the princess of friendship after all. “I...I understand Disarray...but could you please do this later? I’ll even help you if you’d like, but please let me read”
A small puff of smoke escaped Disarray nostrils. “You read every single day. I’ll finish this in no time, granted you stop bothering me. Don’t tell me you can’t spend a single day without opening a book”
“What are you talking about?!” Twilight gasped. “Reading is very important for adults and foals alike! Books are a magic all their own, able to expand our minds and fill our imaginations. You could take the greatest and best trips in all Equestria! See far off lands! Learn about all sorts of plants! Explore never before seen places! All within a book!”
“Yes, yes, blah blah blah take a look it’s in a book, I know the speech Twi. Besides, I can go wherever I want with just a thought” said Disarray before disappearing and reappearing in a burst of purple flames, holding a miniature of the Eiffel Tower. “See? A nice souvenir from Maris, Prance. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
Twilight frowned and stared at Disarray.
“I want to read…”
That was the point when the dragon lost his patience, and the last one of his fucks for the day fluttered away.
“Reading, reading, reading! If it was up to you, everything would be reading! No one would talk anymore, you’d have to read everything! I’ll be the first to admit the importance of knowledge, and that a good book can bring you lots of fun, but not everything is reading! Besides, you read every day, and I’ll finish this in like a few hours! Why don’t you read at any other time?!”
“Other time? Other time?! You don’t know how many headaches I have to deal with now when I organize my day to day schedule! My whole day is full of paperwork and appointments. Everything has to be planned out! I’ve already lost a ton of time just from this pointless conversation alone so no, I can’t just read some other time! And another thing. YES! Yes, I would do anything to live in a book, but since I can’t I have to conform to  just an hour or so of reading in the library. So please, please, PLEASE pause your little project until then”
Twilight took a couple deep breaths to calm herself down. She didn’t mean to snap at him like that but he was being so difficult. It was about that time she started noticing black and purple energy arcing across his scales. What was originally just a wisp were now two black plumes of smoke pouring out of his nostrils. Purple flames leapt out the corners of his mouth and down his body. She finally started to understand just how angry Disarray was…
“Always bossing me around. Always making me stop anything I want to do, anything I needed to do, anything I enjoy doing, just because of your stupid books.” he said, flames shooting out of his mouth with each word.
With a growl that deep inhale, Disarray blew purple flames. They mixed with the arching energy and then pushed out like a pulse. This was the first time Twilight had really seen his powers at work, she could swear she could see reality itself rippling as his powers pulsed out over all of Equestria. It was so fascinating, but oh so very terrifying.
For the first time since his transformation, Twilight Sparkle didn’t see her rebellious baby brother Spike Sparkle. She saw Disarray; God of Chaos and Mayhem.
“Wh-what have you done?” asked Twilight, timidly.
Disarray just smiled as a ridiculously long beard appeared on the purple alicorn’s face, followed by a certain mage’s robes and hat, bells include. She quickly summoned a mirror.
“I’m...Star Swirl?” she asked out loud, giggling a little. At first she was worried, now she was amused “By my beard, thee shall know the full power of Star Swirl! Haha, this is pretty fun!”
Slowly, a realization begin to dawn on her. She was still her, in a way, but it seemed that the character of Star Swirl had been layered on over her. It was the incarnation of him from his early years, back when he was still an explorer. It was her favorite part. Back then, he was fearless, courageous, inventive, outgoing. She could feel all of it and more. Pools of ancient knowledge was flooding her head. She knew and understood things she knew she never knew before. She shaved her beard off magically, noticing how more and more of her mind was seemingly being overwritten by that of Star Swirls.
“No. No, I must resist” mumbled the alicorn, and slowly, slowly, she succeeded. “What did you do this time Disarray? This can’t be all of it!”
Twilight turned to find a closed and locked bedroom door, the strange noises having already restarted. With a shrug, Twilight took a few moments to enjoy her newly acquired ancient knowledge, letting her mind wander over subject matter she’d never even thought to think of.

“Hm, okay, this definitely is awesome. Maybe things won’t turn out so bad this time. I mean, come on, I’m Twilight the Bearded! Ha! Disarray, if you were trying to annoy me, you have failed absolutely miserably!”
She grinned and pranced around in place a bit “So much knowledge! To much to experiment with! So much to explore and experience! This is going to be the best day ever!” she proclaimed, throwing open the window to observe the world through the lens of her new mind. What she saw caused her to freeze, and her jaw threatened to drop to the floor. Disarray’s prank wasn’t nearly as amazing as she had originally thought it was.
Outside was Time Turner, an avid lover of dark scifi with a horror lean. He always borrowed books like H.L. Ponycraft from the library. Twilight watched as he was engulfed in purple flames and arching black energy and transformed into an eldritch horror; a creature as big as a dragon with a face covered in tentacles, enormous claws for hands, and giant webbed wings on it’s back. Orange eyes surveyed Ponyville. Cthulhu had been freed.
“That...that is definitely not right…” muttered Twilight with a gulp.
Behind her, Disarray chuckled. “Literature can be amazing, wondrous, and charming. It can also be very dangerous and in some cases quite alarming” hinted the dragon.
Twilight turned to face him, noting his own choice of costume; Humdrum from the Power Ponies.
“All have their favorite character from book, comic, tale, and fable. Try to stop this one, if you’re able.”
“I thought you didn’t like Humdrum…” said Twilight with a small frown, not liking the sudden direction the day was taking.
“Oh, not at first, but after what happened in issue number two hundred and fifty nine, where the Mane-iac dies, I can’t help but love the guy. You see, it turned out that the chemicals that gave Mane-iac her powers and drove her insane had also been slowly poisoning her the whole time. In her last moments she confides in Humdrum, who apparently was her childhood friend or something, and turns him into Ultra-Drum; the Power Ponies’ new arch nemesis. He was a complete failure as a hero, but as a villain he is amazing. Unlike Mane-iac who was just insane, Ultra-Drum is truly evil” answered Disarray with a grin.
“....seriously?” asked Twilight. “How long ago did that happen?”
“Hmmm, ironically it was around the same time I joined Team Chaos. Funny right? Anyhow, you’ll finally see how dangerous reading too much can be! Now, if you’re excuse me, I Have a security system to upgrade”
He teleported away and Twilight looked through the window again. Outside was pure chaos. She spotted Rainbow Dash in an explorer’s outfit fighting with a whip, not at all surprising, alongside Long Joan Silver the pirate. Ok, a little more surprising. Some noise caught her attention and she turned her head in time to see Fluttershy swinging from a vine giving a triumphant yell, leading a band of gorillas towards the Everfree Forest.
In other parts of town a suspiciously green Santa Hooves was climbing in and out of chimneys. In another part the derpy Mad Hatter and dinky Alice were sitting at an crooked table drinking tea. A squadron of flying monkeys flew over head at the orders of the wicked witch of the west. A worm drove by in an apple wagon, a mouse ran down the road with an overly large cookie, a fox in bright blue sox danced a jig, and a large caterpillar at a peach but still looked hungry.
“At least not everypony likes dangerous creatures…” sighed Twilight. “Well, here we go, same routine as always; gotta go find the girls”

Meanwhile, in Canterlot, in a dedicated wing of the palace, a select group of researchers, chefs, and experienced confectioners were studying a single crumb from a strange candle the Princess gave them using the best equipment bits could buy. Celestia thanked the sun she was messy eater in private or else she wouldn’t have had that crumb. She also thanked her desperation and frantic spell casting to search her whole study for any remaining specks of the candy she had so carelessly consumed. Now things were finally going her way. She would find out how to replicate that damned candy no matter the cost!
“So?...” she asked the ponies. “Mares and gentlecolts, you’ve had three days. Have you figured out anything? Anything at all?”
A researcher walked over to the princess, reading a clipboard “Princess, we’ve studies the speck as well as we good, and even though we didn’t have much to work with, we managed to get some molecular scans of it…” she began. “It truly is a wonder, by all reason it should be able to exist. It would be impossible to recreate such a thing using pony magic”
“Oh?” Celestia responded with a frown.
“I’m truly sorry Princess, we’ve managed to identify some components, but there are...components of the candy that we can’t identify. If I had to wage a guess, I’d hypothesis that they aren’t even of this world, as they don’t match anything we know or understand of reality. We can’t recreate things that are both magically and scientifically unclassifiable and frankly, impossible”
A chef piped up “Yea, we can’t recreate something that by all accounts shouldn’t even exist in the first place”
The vein on Celestia’s forehead bulged.
“Impossible? Impossible?! NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!! IF THAT DRAGON COULD CREATE THIS THEN CERTAINLY THE BEST OF THE BEST IN EQUESTRIA COULD!”
“But Princess…”
“NO BUTS! I want that Candy of All Candies replicated as soon as possible!”
“Princess, in order to achieve that we would need teams of chemists, pharmacists, mages well versed in transmutation, schoolers of Fabric theory, botanists, and even herbalists just to name a few. We make candy, not mad impossible science. This marvel needs culinary skill, magic, and science to be created. We only ask for more help!”
After a few seconds of silence Celestia nodded, much calmer. Of course she would need a lot of help to recreate the Candy of All Candies. It’s only logical after all.
“Alight, I’ll start looking…” she began to say before jerking her head to side, ears erect to full alert. With all she had to do in support of the past few months of damage control due to to the Master of Mayhem, she had spell and wards put in place to alert her of any surge of chaos magic heading towards the castle.
She concentrated and poured all her power into created a small shield around that room. The idea was the block the magic to keep her staff from distraction. The shockwave caused by the clashing of Light and Chaos magic almost destroyed the lab, but the kitchen was ok.
“Princess, wince we are unable continue forward with the project, may we please go home?” as a chef near the back of the room.
“...Yes, I suppose you’d better” sighed Celestial. “When this is all over, we’ll resume and concentrate efforts into looking for more specialized personnel to support this investigation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go see what Team Chaos did now”
Chefs and confectioners said their goodbyes and Celestia made her way to the throne room trying to guess what the prank was this time. Knowing what she did about Team Chaos, it could be almost anything. Nothing seemed to outlandish or silly for them. As she rounded a corner she came face to face with a pony she had hoped to never see again.
“Nightmare Moon!” she said, preparing for a fight.
The dark alicorn stood tall, her normal regalia and armor gone and in its place was a tight fitting pinstripe dress, complete with matching pumps with little skulls on them. She looked at Celestia with both confusion and suspicion.
“And just who in tartarus are you?”
“What do you mean who am I? I’m Celestia, your older sister!”
“Sister? I don’t have any sisters. I am alone...alone. Why are you hear? Why do you mock me so? Have you come to take my title as the Pumpkin Queen?”
Celestia knew there was never any point to trying to reason with Luna in this state, so she just sighed and let her magic flow through her horn, charging for an attack. Nightmare just let out an exhausted laugh.
“If that’s what you want….go ahead, take it”
Celestia felt as if she had been smacked across the fact. Her magic sputtered and she just stared at Nightmare Moon in front of her. She must have been hearing things.
“I’m sorry...what?”
“My title. Take it. I don’t want to be the Pumpkin Queen anymore”
Celestia was so confused. She looked at the dark mare in front of her as said mare make her way over to a nearby window, looking out with sad longing, music beginning to play from both nowhere and everywhere. What the hay was happening?! Celestia was about to vocally question what was going on when Nightmare Moon began to sing;

Blue flames appeared, seemingly dancing along to the sad music. Nightmare Moon then turned to Celestia, the later still having a look of confusion as she facepalmed as the former continued to sing. It was clear now that this Nightmare Moon had nothing to do with the original.

Nightmare walked over to Celestia, sighed and sat down on a nearby chair. Celestia was curious where this was going, and even she had to admit...it was a really good song. Nightmare moon gave out a sigh, tears starting to roll down her cheeks as she muttered out “But who could ever understand...the Pumpkin Queen with the evil grin would tire of her crown. If only they understood...that I’d give it up if only I could”

At this point Nightmare Moon was silently weeping, looking off to the horizon longingly.
This whole thing was just weird for Celestia. The song was beautiful, she had to admit, but seeing Nightmare Moon like this was strange. Still, it hurt to see her sister crying, so she charged her horn and hit her sister with a memory spell. Sad expression was replaced with confusion as Nightmare looked looked around.
“Huh….that was pretty interesting” the black alicorn said with a small smile.
“Indeed it was” agreed Celestia. “What was with that song of yours?”
Luna, still in Nightmare form, simply scratched her head
“I’m not sure, but it reminds me of a tale young Pip wrote me last Nightmare Night”
“Pip? Ah, that young stallion who admires you and sends you letters almost weekly?”
“Yes! That story is my favorite” said Nightmare “He wrote it himself. It’s about how there is a world of holidays, and Nightmare Moon rules over Nightmare Night as queen. It’s a town full of monsters and horrid creatures, who spend all year planning the next Nightmare Night and how they’re going to scare ponies. All for fun of course. Nightmare Moon gets bored and lonely of both her title and of doing the same thing year after year for centuries and decides to steal Heart Warming Eve”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, it has a lot of wonderful songs also written by Pip. The one I was singing was called Moon’s Lament if I am remembering it right. I love every part of his story, especially the ending when I found out that in the bottom of my heart I didn’t need a new holiday, I already had everything, I just needed somepony to share it with. I needed love, from his character also named Pipsqueak”
Celestia chuckled “well, as charming as it sounds, and I would love to read it later, we really need to figure out what the Masters of Mayhem are up to”
Without really anything better to do, Luna followed her sister; both ready for anything. As they made their way to the throne room together they found guards impersonating various characters, like one of the Musketeers who offered Celestia a diamond for her collar. One said he buried his treasure on the island of Monte Celestia.
One of the guards talked about finding treasure island, another laughed and talking about drilling to the center of Equis. Before both could argue, a third popped in and proclaimed he would fly around the world in only eighty days.
“Ah, well, Mystery solved then” said Luna “We’ve all been transformed into our favorite characters from our favorite books. Let us wait for the Bearers to solve this”
“How can you be so sure Luna?” asked Celestia
“Because I turned into a singing version of Nightmare Moon, these three guards are planning global ventures, and We do believe We hear one down the hall proclaiming something about a white whale. Moby Dick, a classic griffin tale. Either way, now we know what’s going on”
Celestia nodded. “I suppose we should wait”
“Do what you want, I plan on enjoying this”
And thus, Nightmare began to sing again, dancing her way down the hall.
Celestia looked on with a sigh “Oh great...I kind of wish I was affected by this….”

Back in Ponyville, Twilight finally managed to corner Rainbow Dash and blasted her with a memory spell.
“Twilight! Wow, so this is what it feels like to be Daring Do? This is so cool!”
“I know right?! Actually being Star Swirl is amazing! But we need to hurry and fix this before something bad happens”
“Something bad? Like what? Asked Daring Dash.
Twilight the Bearded pointed to her left...where a manticore roared loudly trying to fight Poinicules who was leaping left and right, avoiding the stinger of the beast. Suddenly Flutteryshy landed nearby with her army of gorillas.
“I, as queen of the jungle, demand you leave now or accept the consequences! I won’t tolerate ponies that attack my animal friends!” she proclaimed, pointing a finger at Ponicules.
Dash just raised an eyebrow and looked over to Twilight who just sighed and responded “Tarzan, King of the Jungle by Edgy Rice”
“Whatever, let’s hurry this up already!”
Rainbow quickly tackled Fluttershy while Twilight pulled the manticore away with her magic. One of Fluttershy’s gorillas pulled Dash away and attempted to throw her, but she recovered thanks to her Daring Do abilities. With her whip, she was able to keep the gorillas at bay.
“A little help Twilight!” urged Daring Dash
“Hold on for a few more seconds, we may have a bigger problem on the way” responded Twilight, looking up as a giant dragon flew over Ponyville.
“WHERE ARE YOU, LITTLE THIEF?!” it bellowed out.
On the other side of town, Hymnpnonic and Bad Seed were enjoying the show.
“Ah really should read more, there are so many interesting characters around and Ah only know where around half of em are from” the dark earth pony said, looking at a stallion who had turned into a mare, who was then narrating the events of another pony who was currently rubbing a gold lamp.
“Yea, but some aren’t that good…” sighed Hymn, looking at Applejack who had simply turned into a botanist and was just walking around telling everypony she came across about apple trees.
They shrugged and moved on, calmly walking down the street, simply enjoying the chaos around them since they already had orders not to intervene this time.
“Have you seen Disarray?” asked Seed
“Yea…” sighed Hymn “I’ve never seen him so pissed off. If I were Twilight, I’d go hide for at least a week”
Back with Twilight and Dash, they had managed to scare off the gorillas with some help from Ponircules and immobilized Fluttershy. One memory spell later and the yellow pegasus was profusely apologizing.
“Oh girls I’m so sorry! I never meant to attack you with gorillas! You should be very upset…”
“Not with you Fluttershy, not with you…” said Twilight, glancing back towards her palace. “Now, lets go get the others and be done with this craziness already. That damned Disarray! I’m actually thinking about not reading for awhile”
“I...um...I mean…” stuttered Fluttershy, staring at Twilight wide eyed.
Daring Dash raised a brow in equal shock “I never thought I’d ever here you say that, egghead…”
Twilight only grumbled in annoyance as the trio went to Rarity’s. Approaching Carousel Boutique they took note how it was oddly quiet. Dash leaned over to Fluttershy.
“What do you think Rarity’s favorite book is?” she asked, to which Fluttershy just shrugged.
They reached the door and knocked. Rarity answered, opening the door, but the white unicorn looked...different. Her usual perfectly curly mane was now completely straight and a few shades darker, her pristine white coat had a greyish tone to it, and her bored expression rivaled that of Maud Pie. Well not boredom per say; weariness.
“What, prey tell, do you want here...in this place?” asked Rarity.
“Um...are you feeling alright Rarity?” asked Twilight in response.
“Rarity? Is that my name? I can’t remember, but then again I can’t remember anything about my history, life, motivations, interests, passions, or really anything that would drive a story or provide plot development or even just a decent fleshed out character. Not that it matters. All that matters is Trender Hoof. He is an over a hundred year old vampire who wants to drink my blood and also is obsessed with my body.  He likes to sneak into my house at night and watch me sleep, which I find romantic for some weird reason. All that matters is that I, a barely eighteen year old, am completely and unconditionally in love with him despite no actual reasoning and in the face of all logic and decent story telling. Somehow this is all seen as perfectly ok…not that it matters”
With that, she shut the door.
After a facepalm hard enough to give herself a headache, Twilight explained.
“That was a reference to-”
“Don’t bother Twi, who doesn’t know about that stupid vampire saga?” sighed Dash. “And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse they went and had to make a play about it!”
Fluttershy agreed. “I went and saw it. It was painful.”
Twilight shrugged and forced open the boutique door with her magic and entered. The two outside could hear her struggling to secure and recover their friend.
“NO! STAY AWAY FROM ME YOU SERVANTS OF THE ZOLTURI! I BELONG TO TRENDER HOOF, HE’LL MAKE ME IMMORTAL!!”
There was a flash of light and Rarity calmly walked out of the door fixing her hair. Twilight followed behind, sighing and shaking her head.
“We won’t ever speak of this again. Ever! Understood?” Rarity asked sternly. Fluttershy nodded her head, Dash just tried to hold back snickers.
“Just two more to go” said Twilight “Applejack and Pinkie Pie. Pinkie’s house is the closest, let's hurry!”
They ran to Sugarcube Corner, but instead of the small bakery, they were greeted by an enormous factory protected by an iron gate that opened as they approached.
“Please, enter” a voice commanded over a loudspeaker. They slowly entered, looking around nervously.
“P-Pinkie?” called out Twilight.
“Come forward” the same voice commanded. They hesitantly began moving into the courtyard of the massive complex. “Close the gate.”
As the gate close, ominous organ music began to play and the girls got a good scope on how big the factory was. Slowly they made their way to the large front doors of the factory.
“Dear visitors and best friends, it is my absolute pleasure to welcome to my humble factory” the voice spoke out again. “And who am I? Well….”
Twilight was trying to figure out what book this was from, it was on the tip of her tongue when suddenly the doors and walls in front of them slid away, revealing a stage full of marionettes, puppets, and fireworks. Before any of the girls could comprehend what was happening in front of them, the puppets began to sing.

As the song finished a red throne with the letters PP engraved in gold rose from the floor center stage as several fireworks activated lighting the happy looking marionettes and puppets, making them melt and look really really creepy.
The five ponies just stood there in shock before one started to enthusiastically clap and cheer. The other four turned to the whooping fifth. It was Pinkie Pie, decked out in a red satin tailed coat, dark goggles, and a chocolate brown top hat.
“Bravo! Amazing! Spectacular! At first I was worried it was getting a little boring around the middle, but that ending! I mean wow!”
Twilight felt a huge sweatdrop on her forehead as she gestured to her friend.
“Pinkie...um...shouldn’t you be sitting up there?” she asked, pointing to the throne.
“Well, if I was sitting up there, how was I supposed to enjoy the show? Duh!” the pink party pony responded, looking at her friends and taking out a small stack of cards out of her coat pocket.
“Ahem. Now, let’s see here...Welcome distinguished guests and finders of the golden tickets, I am Pinkie Ponka” she began. “I will be personally giving you a guided tour through my amazing factory and afterwards each of you will leave with a truck full of Pinkie’s finest chocolate.”
Twilight shot her with a memory spell.
“What book was that?” asked Fluttershy.
“Calm Heart and the Chocolate Factory!” said Pinkie, bouncing happily. “It’s really fun and every time I read it I have to eat like ten or twenty chocolate bars of it would be absolutely torture! Delicious, yummy torture. So, what’s the big evil scheme this time?”
The girls explained it to her on their way to Sweet Apple Acres. Upon arriving, they found Applejack in her barn, standing in front of several chalkboards. The farmmare quickly ushered them in, sat then down on nearly placed hay bales, and began her speech.
“In today’s lesson, we shall delve deeper into the subject of Malus Domestica, better known as the domesticated apple tree. A tree from the rose family, it is cultivated worldwide as a fruit tree with the most common species being that in the genus Malus. Domesticated over fifteen thousand years ago by early pony settlers, today we count well over one thousand varieties as a result of countless hybrids between both farmed and wild varieties. If you’ll look to the board, I have taken the liberty to draw up a few charts, showing the genetic path took to create the variety commonly referred to as the ‘Golden Delicious’. Roughly several thousand years ago…”
“Oh sweet Celestia let’s do something before she bores us all to death!” protested Dash, covering her ears and rolling on the ground.
Twilight sheepishly raised her hand. “But it’s interesting!”
“Twilight!” protested the others.
Again a mare was shot, reluctantly, with a memory spell.
“Yee-hah!” cheered Applejack “That was mighty informative! Who woulda guessed Ah’d become the auther of mah favorite book?”
“We can discuss it later, and I may want to borrow that book..” said Twilight. “Right now, we need to finish this, quickly. How dare Disarray use my hobby against me! He can’t fool me, I know he did all this just to keep me away from him so he can finish his stupid project! Hmph! Well, lets undo this mess, we’re going to need to concentrate to really take care of this one, who knows how far the effects go.”
The girls nodded and they all got in a circle, holding each other hands. As soon as the ring was complete, they were overtaken by a purple flash of light. When their eyes finally adjusted they found themselves back in the Castle of Friendship. Down on the ground in between them was a single comic book. A comic book crackling with chaos energy.
“Oh ya got to be buckin kiddin me…” groaned Applejack as her clothes magically transformed into that of Mare-Velous.
The others quickly noticed their Power Ponies uniforms and sighs erupted from the group. Sighs and the sound of chuckling. Quickly turning, Team Harmony came face to face with Disarray, still dressed as Ultra-Drum, with a smirk on his face and a dark glint in his glowing purple eyes.
“Let me explain how this is going to proceed, hm? Do you still think that your want for books are more important than my needs or plans, Twi? Do you still think that your desire takes priority over my privacy? I already finished upgrading my security system hours ago, just like I said I would, but this is far from over. You pissed me off Twi, you really did. So do you want to end this? Defeat me. You as Matter-Horn and me as Ultra-Drum. You can even ask your friends for help, but in the end this is between you and me”
“Disarray, look...I know you’re angry but we can settle this as adults. There’s no reason to fight” pleaded Twilight.
The dark drake just shook his head.
“You still don't understand, do you? It’s always the same with you, you didn’t respect me before; hardly listening to me, always interrupting me, always sending me here or there at your will and if I didn’t want to you’d force me to do it with your magic. Enough! At first I thought you respected me a bit more when I became one of the new gods of chaos, but while I was away on vacation you went behind my back and tried to break into my room to snoop! To try and find out about private things you have no business knowing! So what do I do? I upgrade my security system. Twilight, I shouldn’t even have a security system in the first place, but I can’t trust you! I can’t trust you because you don’t trust or respect me….”
The anger and hurt was almost tangible in Disarray’s eyes.
“Best of luck Twi…” he said darkly “You’re going to need it. Power Ponies is a lot more mature now; darker with a lot more violence.”
With that, he seemed to melt into shadows and vanish away. The others turned to face Twilight.
“Seriously? You tried to break into his room? The room of your baby brother who happens to be a god of chaos? Not only have you crossed a line Twilight, this is just downright idiotic!” scolded Rainbow Dash.
Rarity nodded in agreement “And this is coming from Rainbow Dash darling…”
“Hey!”
“Why did you do it?” Fluttershy asked quietly “I mean, he may be a chaos god now, and be kinda scary...he still deserves a bit of privacy…”
Pinkie Pie didn’t say anything, just shook her head slowly in disapproval.
Applejack sighed “Ya really screwed up big this time Twi, he seemed right steamed at ya…”
Twilight lowered her head, slightly ashamed.
“Yes, I broke into his room...but I only did it because I wanted to know more about his friends, the other Masters of Mayhem! I thought if I could find out any more information them, like who they really were, we would be better able at handling them. Maybe even find a way to stop them for good and save Disarray...but I admit, I shouldn’t have broken his trust like that. It’s unfair to him. Sorry.”
“We ain’t the ones ya gotta say sorry to. Apologize ta Disarray when ya see him” said Applejack “And ah mean it; apologize!”
Twilight nodded. She would think of the proper way to say she was sorry later, right now it was time to fight and finally put an end to this mess.
Her bravado was short lived at the comic book flew open and sucked Team Harmony inside. The last thing she could remember seeing was the ‘T for Teen’ rating on the cover.