//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12: Midnight City 
// Story: Friendship is a Quantum Infinite 
// by angelicoreXX 
//------------------------------//

	Our ghostly Valkyries traveled at what was probably the speed of light considering the flashing array of colors they’d been literally assimilated into. Even though they were no more than split molecules, they were still able to take in the overwhelmingly breathtaking view. The entire affair was a kin to a spinning kaleidoscope being thrown through an endless wind tunnel that had been covered in Christmas lights.
It was one of the strangest sensations any of them had ever experienced. None of them could see each other, but they still retained the impression that they were in a collected group the same way you might pick up on someone standing behind you.
Passing through the steel and iron of the International Space Station was an entirely different mess. The hulk was clearly being dragged along for the ride but the girls were simply too fast for it. They didn’t just pass through it and get a peek at the panicking crew inside, they shot straight through every atom of every single strand of matter aboard. It was like existing in the creative realm of a god.
Eventually they left the ISS behind and entered a world of mirrors. It was like meeting those six ponies all over again, except these dimensional doppelgangers weren’t ponies at all. Shortly summarized, the titles went something along the lines of ‘My Little Kitten’, 'My Little Arachnid', ‘My Little Vegetable Garden’, ‘My Little Ant Farm’, ‘My Little Cephalopod’, ‘My Little Android’, ‘My Little Sex Change’, etcetera. The inconceivable list was about as creative as it was absurd.
After some time they finally got past their ridiculous tunnel of possibilities. As if their little rainbow ride had ever really used any logical application of time and space to begin with, they eventually found themselves plummeting through the very same atmosphere they’d just been shot through. This approximation of Earth however was very different. There was no darling landscape, nor was there any smiling sunshine or puffy clouds or even any of those lovably colorful ponies. All that sat before them for as far as the eye could see was the color gray.
A brilliant flash of light filled the atoms that might’ve otherwise filled their eyes and within a heartbeat all six of them were standing on the uneven broken foundations of what was once Washington Square.
The park was littered in scrap metal tanks and dead soldiers. In fact, the only real pieces of evidence to cite their location were the crushed architecture that couldn’t have belonged to anything else but the Washington Arch. That poor old arch had been stretched out and butchered, much the same fate that eventually befell the city. She just sat there, left for dead with her clothes thrown over her dull body.
“I-I used to come here all the time…” Raine sat over the dry steps that surrounded the fountain’s cracked spout. It was the same spot she’d always sat in with her usual park buddies talking of the day and planning their typical antics. The park was completely silent today however, and it had nothing to do with any renovations. At the center of the circle laid what might’ve been a desperate soldier carrying out his final duty to shield a little girl. It looked as if he was still protecting her, even in death.
Twyla may have burned out her mind over the expectations of their return, but nothing could’ve prepared her for this, “Oh, gosh…!” Twyla winced away from the corpses. She knew that returning home would’ve been sobering, but this was simply too much.
She had Regina to thank for a comforting arm around her shoulder, “I-It’s alright, Twyla. We knew to expect this after all…”
No matter how much she wanted to stop, Raine just couldn’t turn herself away from the sheltered little girl. She didn’t look a day over five.
Fiona couldn’t stand it, and even further she couldn’t stand seeing Raine trapped by it. She placed her palm over Raine’s cheek and turned her away from the tragedy. She covered Raine’s girly blush with a motherly embrace. She didn’t have any words for the fighter pilot, but she’d stay by her side, and somehow, that was all the hope that Raine needed.
“I-I think we should get out of here, girls.” Piper nearly stumbled over a nearby corpse, the sight of which sent shivers up her spine.
Aprile pulled the cream puff away from the dead body with the best smile she could pull out of her pocket, “It’s alright kid, just make sure to show these boys some respect. If it’s too much though, don’t feel too bad. There ain’t no shame in lookin’ away.”
Unfortunately for Piper, there would be quite a lot to look away from that day.

They eventually got over their grief, not to mention over the minefield of body parts, and finally made it out of Washington Square.
Fifth Avenue had certainly taken a beating, whether it was due to a gaggle of rampaging monster pigeons, a rat infestation to define all rat infestations, traces of what appeared to be a giant squid attack or just the hopeless defense of the National Guard, nothing had been gained from it. Wherever the last stand had really taken place, assuming the bombs had actually done their jobs was as good a question as any, and our girls were certainly at a loss for any real answer. They were in the middle of a post-apocalyptic tale that had ended just before survivors had climbed out of their bunkers, that is, if they’d survived even that.
“So, uh, now that we’re here, uhm, I got myself few questions for ya’ll.” Aprile began, “Besides what exactly we’re supposed to do now, how do we know that your plan actually worked, Twyla?”
Twyla knew that her answer just wasn’t going to be good enough, “Well, uh, Twilight and the others were supposed to send us a signal letting us know if Discord hadn’t transferred back into their world. Although considering we’ve traveled through dimensions and space time-”
Raine crossed her arms, “So, what you’re saying is, he’s either left already and been taken care of, or there’s a delay with that signal and we could very well be walking into one of his traps.”
Twyla really wanted to rip her hair out, “Look, he can watch us whenever he wants, right?” which didn’t exactly bring any comfort, “I’m sure if he was still around, he would’ve done something by now.”
“But how can you be so sure, dear?” Even Regina had become a skeptic, “You know that all of us have put aside quite a lot to return to… well this. Just what exactly are we supposed to do now, Twyla!?”
“Hey! Cut me some slack here. I’m only a teacher! I did the best I could with what I had, and I was only looking out for everyone’s interest.”
“There ain’t nothin’ interestin’ about this place, Twyla.” Aprile snuffed.
“Come on girls! It’s not like she’s a rocket scientist or anything!” Piper remained one of the few loyalists alongside Fiona by default, who was too preoccupied with a hair at the corner of her eye to object.
Regina turned away, “Look, I-I’m sorry. It’s just that we’ve left so much behind and come so far to be uncertain.” The leaning buildings, overturned vehicles and burnt shadows were just too much for the diva to stomach.
“Whatever, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starting over.” Raine didn’t know exactly where she’d start, but she’d make her mark somehow. She stretched out her arms, “Feels good not having anymore debt.”
“Well, given there’s been no signal so far. I’d imagine that we’re in the clear.” Aprile put an arm over Twyla’s shoulder, “Come on, sug. Maybe we can find somethin’ to eat around here.”
Twyla had parked herself against a battered car and was too busy pinching her brows and contemplating the situation to respond. She was still a little sour considering she’d gotten her friends home in one piece only to be thanked with a ruined city, not that she was expecting any applause, but it would’ve been better than doubt. If only she’d told Twilight Sparkle to send them a different message if everything had turned out alright, then maybe she’d have the ease to accept Aprile’s offer.
Piper pulled away the farm girl, “I think we should give her some space for now.”
Regina moved in as the other two left. She leaned up against the car next to Twyla as silently as she could. She wanted to apologize again and alleviate that burden over her shoulders, but she was afraid a single slip of the tongue would offend her. She reached out, but before she could ease the woman’s frustration, Twyla stood up, “Look, it’s cool, Regina. Don’t worry about me, because we’ve got more important things to worry about right now.” and walked away.
Regina hadn’t even gotten the chance to read her script. Twyla just wasn’t in the mood for an apology.
There it was again, a strange scuttle just beyond the focus of the human eye, and the only person that seemed to notice it was Fiona. She was clearly anxious, but thanks to her typical silent demeanor and well, her voice box being sore given all the screaming she done the night before, her warnings fell on deaf ears.
She scampered in every direction but where she’d caught a glimpse of the apparition, and like the inept ditz that she was, accidently bumped into Raine, “Oh, Fiona, you don’t have to pretend to bump into me just to cop a feel.” Fiona nearly fumbled backwards, half way over trying to explain herself, but Raine was there to catch her with an arm around her waist. She pulled the little tulip back onto her feet, “Seesh, you sure are clumsy! Here, let’s try this instead.”
Fiona had already changed colors, but her situation was about to become even more cluttered, “W-Wait!”
Raine wrapped one of her legs around Fiona’s hips and placed the virgin’s hand on her butt, “Feel that?” it sure was plump, “Now you have some control.” She squeezed Fiona’s butt with the hook of her leg, which only made the poor thing squirm.
“R-Raine…!” she was on the verge of bursting a blood vessel.
“Remember, it’s all about placement.” Raine took up Fiona’s nervous hand and placed it under her rainbow colored hair so that her ear sat just between her thumb and index finger, “Now just curl that and draw me in.” She giggled like an idiot and slung her arms over Fiona’s shoulders, “Come on, Fiona. What’re you waiting for...?”
Fiona was terrified, in more than a few different ways. Her heart pounded and her legs trembled. She was very much still curious and wanted those lips more than anything else, but her apprehension betrayed her.
It was a kin to having your date slide their hand down your pants in the heat of the moment. You were finally going to get lucky and you were probably going to lose your head over it but mostly due to the falling guillotine. It wasn’t a very good combination.
Twyla shoved her face into the palm of her hand and tried to give the two some space.
Aprile sighed, “Where’s my darn Bible when I need it…”
“Oh, don’t even start with that, Aprile.” Twyla hissed.
“Don’t start with what? Showin’ ya’ bonafide proof that that sorta’ thing ain’t natural?”
Twyla got right in Aprile’s face, “How about you start by showing me how you’re still not a bigot?”
“So I guess you’re callin’ God a bigot then?” Aprile dismissed.
“You can’t be called a bigot if you don’t exist!” swung Twyla.
Aprile was ready to bop that teacher right in the teeth until Piper showed up, “Love is love! You can’t judge someone for who they love, Aprile!”
Regina rolled her eyes, “And what exactly would ‘you’ know about love? When was the last time you even had a boyfriend, Piper?”
“Hey! I-I’ve had a boyfriend before! H-He just lived far away...”
“On the internet, right?” Regina held back a laugh.
“S-So what? What’s so funny!?” Piper stomped, “He was a great guy! We used to chat all the time on Skype, and we’d play games together on Steam, and all sorts of other stuff!”
“So then, how was the sex?” Aprile laughed, “Or did ya’ll type it out over the computer?”
“Wow, Aprile. I’m surprised you even know what a computer is.” Twyla scoffed, “Have they upgraded to AOL 3.0 on that there barn of yours? I heard that the CD’s come in cereal boxes now. Maybe ya’ll can fancy yer’selves over to that thurr’ ‘Walmart’ and pick up a copy!”
Aprile grabbed the schoolteacher by the collar, “You got a problem with me, hippie? We’ll go right now.”
Twyla threw up a grin, “Fair warning, there won’t be any cops around to pull me off of you.”
“Girls! Girls, stop it!” Piper did her best to intervene and split them apart, “Regina, help!”
The diva rolled her eyes and pitched in, though of her efforts became rather pointless given her fears of breaking a nail than actually breaking the scuffle.
Fiona was nearly there, she could taste Raine’s heavy breathing but she just kept getting caught up in all of the spaghetti falling out of her pockets.
By now, Raine had become rather impatient and was just about to force her lips into Fiona’s, that is, until a familiar cackle shook the entire group out of their nonsense.
The laugh undid Twyla’s hold around her friend’s throat, and even withheld Aprile’s fist.
Like a shrill gust, the sinister laugh returned snaking its way around the boulevard and shot down Fifth Avenue. It came as it had always done, from every single corner at once.
Aprile lifted Twyla off of the hood of a car, “S-Sorry, kiddo.” She whispered, wondering which direction the demon would come from.
“I-It’s okay, I’m sorry too.” Twyla’s apology might’ve been more genuine had her heart not sank into the sole of her foot.
If a roaming shadow or the thought of kissing Raine again hadn’t made Fiona uneasy then she was definitely having a panic attack by now. She whimpered and trembled but luckily for her, she was in the protective arms of Raine, “Genki Sudo, protect us.” She whispered a prayer under her breath and held onto Fiona, “I-It’s alright, sweetie. I gotcha’.”
Piper shivered, “I-I thought he was gone…!”
Regina hushed the cream puff and held her hand firmly, “We’re a bit vulnerable out here, Twyla.”
Twyla nodded, and before she could find suitable cover, a pigeon landed on the roof of a nearby car, “Quite vulnerable indeed, my dears.”
Twyla jerked away from the pigeon, landing into Aprile’s arm, “D-Discord!”
Piper yelped and scurried behind Regina.
“Were you expecting anyone else to welcome you home…?” the sight was probably more disturbing than that one time he’d been flying around like a mosquito, “I’m just thrilled that you could make it. It got boring playing Hungry Hungry Hippos by myself.” Which he was doing on a rather large scale, “Oh, and Bravo! You even somehow managed to return with your little space station and save Ponyville all at the same time! Very well done my-!” The fowl Discord was practically splattered over the car by a heel.
“You little-!” Regina punched quite a few holes into the banged up frame of the vehicle, but the feathered demon was just too quick for her.
“Almost got me that time!” he chuckled at the top of a crooked lamp post.
Twyla picked off her slipper and threw it at the bird, but missed horribly. Thankfully, her unimaginable frustration was abstracted by the begging question, “Just what in the blue hell are you still doing here, you bastard!?”
“Pardon me…?” Discord quirked his neck, in much the way a bird would, “Whatever do you mean, child?”
Twyla picked up her slipper and nearly tripped getting it back on, “It’s your fault that we were sent to Equestria in the first place, but we’re back now, so why are you still here? You should’ve been sent back in the same way that… S-Stop laughing!
The silliest grin choked over Discord’s, well, I suppose his beak, “What…?” he tossed them another mocking laugh, “Wait a second. D-Did you really think that…? Oh dear, that’s just hilarious!”
If there was ever a demoralizing moment for our girls, it was right about here.
Twyla felt as if she’d just been humiliated at a public debate on the topic of Evolution. She was at her wit’s end.
“I-I just can’t believe you buffoons thought that you could influence a god! It’s just too funny, really.”
Those ponies should’ve sent her signal by now Twyla thought, given the obvious circumstance, “What have you done to them?!”
“With who…? Oh! You mean your little pony friends? Oh, they’re probably having so much fun by now. I mean, why else would I summon you here in the first place?” he snorted, “Emotional chaos is my newest favorite game, you see! I mean, I couldn’t very well allow them to lend you any assistance, now could I?”
Regina growled, “Why you-!”
“You son of a bitch!!” you might’ve expected that sort of language from Raine or Aprile, but no, that was Fiona yelling at the top of her lungs. She tore herself away from Raine’s arms, “How dare you play games with us! You better not have hurt Ditzy or Fluttershy or any of the others you sick bastard!”
Discord couldn’t resist the chuckle, “Oh dear! I love that spicy flavor in you, Fiona. I may just come down and join you for a little bite.”
“Dinner’s on us, asshole!” Raine barked, standing impressed with Fiona’s bite.
“If you so much as harm a single hair on Applebloom’s head, so help me Lord I’ll stomp a mud hole in you!” You could roast a marshmallow over the fiery glare in Aprile’s eyes.
Piper wouldn’t be left out of the challenge, “You’re big and fat and stupid and full of poopoo! You big fat stupid poopoo-head!”
Discord squawked, “Fine, I’ll let you goofballs humor me for a moment.” He pointed out a wingtip, “Do you see my lovely castle over there?” he was of course referring to the Empire State building with the comically tossed letter ‘D’ over it. “Meet me at my bastion and we’ll have ourselves a grand old showdown.”
“Why wait!?” Twyla wasn’t one for animal abuse, but the anger bubbling in those tears were ready to make an exception.
“Oh, where’s your sense of drama, Twyla? Where’s your sense of climax…?” Discord fluttered into the air, “Do you want an end to our little game? Do you want your precious little city back so badly? Then come and take it from me already!” and with that he flew off prepared to dodge all sorts of flying shoes.
Twyla bit her lip and fell to her knees clenching her temples. She looked as if she actually missed her old beat up sedan if anything else but to pummel it into the ground.
Aprile dashed over and put an arm around her, “Now don’t you dare blame yourself for any a’ this.” Twyla was too swept up in her frustration to really listen, but Aprile made sure she got an ear full, “Now you listen to me, damnit! I ain’t come all this way to pick a fight with ya’ or watch ya’ sit there and fret! I came back here to knock that bastard’s lights out and I intend to keep that promise, and you’re comin’ along for the ride whether you like it or not. You know why?”
Twyla hadn’t the slightest word, but mostly she had her mouth in Aprile’s grip.
“It’s ‘cause you’re one of my best friends, Twyla! We’re all we got left and I ain’t about to leave you sittin’ there bawlin’ yer’ eyes out, now git-up!”
“That’s right!” Regina was still wielding her heels, “Even if there’s nothing we can do about time collapsing on itself, we’ve still got a dragon to slay!”
Piper cartwheeled into a pose, “I’ve got my dragon shouts ready!”
“Might be a bit of a suicide mission, but I like them odds. What do you think, sweetie?” Raine slapped Fiona’s perky little behind.
Fiona wasted no time, given her sudden burning spirit. She grabbed ahold of Raine’s cheek and gave her the worst but at least most passionate kiss Raine had ever gotten.
Aprile rolled her eyes and but at least kept her scripture pocketed and turned to Twyla, offering her a hand and a smile, “Dry them eyes out, sug’. We’ve got a job to do.”
Twyla rolled her wrist over her eyes with a sniff and took up the girl’s hand, “…You’re too good for me, Aprile.”
“Eh, cut that crap out, would ya’? Let’s get a move on, ladies!”
The others nodded and followed the cowgirl’s lead.
Twyla did her very best to collect herself, “Damnit, we have to hurry and put a stop to this! Twilight and the others are in trouble, I just know it!”

Yeah, let’s go ahead and see what’s happening over in good old Ponyville.
“Defensive positions, girls!” Twilight Sparkle stood by her best friends. Somewhere somehow their plan had gone horribly wrong and not only could they not grant Twyla her request, but they might not even be around long enough to handcuff Discord if he ever did come back.
‘They’ hadn’t quite entered Ponyville just yet. The only things that stood in their way were the six most courageous ponies they’d ever watered their mouths over, or at least whatever creative machinations made up their appetite.
“W-What are those things…!?” Pinkie Pie hid under Applejack’s hat somehow.
“T-They look kind of scary.” Ditzy had had enough of monsters for one week, and without Fiona around she had no idea how she’d fare.
“More zombies?” Dash questioned, “Man, that Discord’s really running out of ideas.”
There were about a dozen of them. Not exactly what I’d call a real zombie breakout, but what did horses know about horror flicks? Certainly nothing about the undead and how they behaved.
This bunch was far more organized, stepping out of the nearby forest and into the meadow. They looked like human statues with the motif of an animal carved throughout their gray bodies. A few noticeable faces involved a wolf, a goat, a spider, a crocodile obsessed with his stupid chiwawa, a suicidal dark horse, a snake in severe need of validation, some useless bird with family issues, I think it was a crane or something, and a mantis just to name a few.
They were all led by an Arch king who for some reason resembled a grasshopper although he at least had some sense of taste. He wore an elegant white scarf around his neck which had been thrown into a constant flowing breeze. Fashion was convenient that way, I suppose, “Take them, they’ll be the first of many to join our race.”
“Pardon us, but what did you just say…?” Rarity raised a brow, “I appreciate your sense of drama but I shan’t be going anywhere today. We’re… sort of in the middle of something, you see, and-!”
The ponies jerked at the sudden ejection of biomechanical swords, blades, tusks, fangs, and other bodily cutlery.
The spider giggled maniacally, “I like the pink one! I’ll take her!”
Pinkie Pie popped out of AJ’s hat with a gasp, “Oh gosh, girls! They like me! I guess they’re friendly after all.”
Ditzy was ready to hop into the hat herself, especially if Pinkie was on her way out.
The ghastly spider grinned and snickered to himself.
Applejack adjusted her anxious hat, “I-I don’t think that one’s the friendly type, Pink.”
“Oh, but we are!” The snake countered, “All we want is some new friends. Won’t you join us for a party?” to which Pinkie gave an adorable, “Yay!”
“Grow the herd, my friends!” The king commanded and his subjects swarmed with blades and teeth at the ready.

If there was one thing Aprile knew that didn’t involve apples, it was how to get a truck to work. Even with an ignition key, which had been conveniently fished out of the glove compartment, the truck still refused to budge.
Twyla had no idea how she’d done it, but with what sounded like a crank, a whack and a bit of friendly persuasion, the truck started. It may have been missing a few chunks of paint along with entire panels due to the blast, but that engine somehow rustled to life and they’d all jumped aboard.
Twyla hopped into the center seat, “We need to find some weapons, preferably some guns.”
Regina hopped into the remaining passenger seat, “And preferably automatic.”
“That’s an awesome idea!” Raine cried from the bed of the truck, “We’re gonna’ need a lot of ammo too!”
“And missiles!” Piper added.
“And rockets!” Fiona added even further.
“Well this is New York after all.” Aprile cranked the transmission into gear. It worked almost as smoothly as her old tractor did back on the farm, “Shouldn’t be too hard to find at least a shotgun.”
The engine stammered for a bit but it eventually got its act together and began moving down the cluttered road. There were more than a few frightful obstacles to avoid laid out in the streets. Aprile distracted herself with the snowflakes of tattered papers sinking in between the off centered office buildings. She almost ran over the body of a downed woman which nearly sent Fiona tumbling off of the truck bed, but of course Raine was faster than your typical flight dummy, “Just where are you going…?”
“Oh, uh-” Fiona actually had a sexy quip ready, but caught that same lingering shadow at the edge of her eye. It had to have realized that it had been caught in the act, because it disappeared behind a pile of wreckage within the bat of an eye.
Raine pulled her close, “Something wrong, Fiona?”
Fiona cleared her vision. She imagined that given the shock of the city, her mind was probably just playing tricks on her. It probably wasn’t the smartest decision she’d ever made, but go figure, “Oh, uh, nothing.”
Raine chuckled and slapped the roof of the truck, “Aprile! There’s a gun shop up ahead! Make a left up here!”
Aprile banged her knuckle against the overhead ceiling, “Gotcha’!”

It took a bit of effort and maneuvering but the truck eventually got them to the weapons depot.
“Oh! There it is!” Piper could tell it was a gun store based on the amount of bullet holes in the windows, as well as all of the sandbags surrounding the joint.
Regina exited the vehicle followed by Twyla, “We don’t have a lot of time. We have to hurry!”
The thought of her newest friends fighting for their very lives haunted her, and the only thing she could think of was hoping that somewhere in that blackened heart of Discord laid a magical mcguffin powerful enough to put a stop to it all.
Regina was the first to the door, which was just barely hanging off of its hinges, “Hello…? Is anybody in there?”
The place looked worse on the inside. It appeared as if it had been used as an outpost at one point, though incredibly unorganized which may have explained why it was no longer inhabited.
Raine peeked in, “I seriously doubt anyone’s home, you know, because of all the-!”
“Hands up! I-I swear to god, if any of you crazy fleshbags make a move I’ll blow your stinkin’ heads off!” the scrawny figure looked as if the army cap was two sizes too big for her own head, and the machinegun being even larger.
The girls ducked for cover except of course Aprile and Raine who batted a pair of hilarious grins at one another.
Regina did all she could to stuff herself behind a sandbag without actually getting any dirt on her outfit, “D-Don’t shoot!”
“W-We come in peace! We mean you no harm!” shouted Twyla.
Aprile chuckled and nodded, to which Raine gave a careless sigh and walked right up to the supposed crackshot.
“Raine! What’re you-!” Twyla tried to warn the fighter pilot, but Aprile hushed her.
“I-I mean it! I’ll shoot! Stay back!” The figure nearly stumbled over a pallet of Twinkies as Raine closed in.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she snatched the gun away from the girl, “Can you believe this, Aprile? Not only do you have the safety on, but you don’t even have a loaded cartridge in the magazine well.”
Twyla poked her head through the door, “Seriously?”
“Did I ever tell you guys I sort of became a bit of a gun nut?” Raine smirked.
Aprile tipped her hat and leaned back against the door frame, “I’m a might sure she did, she mentioned it to me anyway. Gotta’ say, I’m awful impressed to see that kinda’ thing out of a hippie like her.”
Raine laughed, “So what exactly are you trying to gun down with this sort of crap? What’s been going on around here?”
The girl dug herself out of a mountain of Twinkie boxes and backed herself against a wall, “W-What do you mean? Where the heck have you guys been!? Haven’t you heard?”
Twyla rolled her eyes and finally entered the shop, “We’ve been on a bit of a ‘vacation’ let’s say, but we’ve heard about what happened.” Twyla moved in and removed the army cap off of the blonde haired woman, “Care to fill in the details?”
By now the lone survivor was surrounded by all six of the Valkyries and she really had no other choice, “Fine! B-But please, just close the front door first and follow me.”

Apparently her name was Debbie, a blonde postal worker with a familiar look in her eyes. She took them into a backroom that at one point was probably a makeshift operations room used by long gone soldiers or at least a few freedom fighters. Wherever they had gone or if they were even still alive was anyone’s guess. All Debbie could do to honor them was to guard their leftover ammo, weapons, and the very little that remained of their lunchboxes.
She poked her head out the door and inspected the hallway as she’d done each night that week before finally sealing it shut with a series of bolts and locks.
Fiona walked up to her, obviously catching hint of the familiar face. She giggled to herself over the awfully close resemblance, which had the poor thing taking guesses, “You remind me of a very good friend of mine.”
Debbie scratched the back of her head in hopes of stomaching the compliment, “Thanks, I guess?”
“Makes sense.” Twyla observed, “She must be the dimensional polar of Ditzy.”
Regina took a good look at the confused mail carrier, “Now that you mention it, the likeness is uncanny!”
“W-What…?” it was quite a peculiar thing to say after all, “What’re you people talking about?”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Piper scurried into the picture and nearly threw Regina against a wall, “I know! Would you happen to like muffins?”
That did it, “Oh God, I haven’t had a muffin in forever. What I wouldn’t give for a muffin right about now…” Debbie was nearly frothing at the mouth at the mere mention, “But it’s just too dangerous to go outside and look around for anything. They said they’d send more help but it’s been a few days now and you guys are the first I’ve seen of anybody since.”
Twyla eased Piper out of the frame, “What do you mean dangerous? What’s exactly going on out there? And how did you even survive?” She was of course quite familiar with Discord’s tricks first hand, but merely wanted a bird’s eye view of what nonsense he’d been up to here at home.
Debbie wasn’t sure if they’d just walked in from another dimension or were just stupid, “Sheesh, well at least you guys missed out on all of the bad parts. It all started about a week ago now. It was awful….”
Twyla and the others thought they knew the depths of Discord’s madness, but they had no idea what lengths he’d gone to and what sickness had plagued the people of the city. As if all the monsters and chaos Discord had unleashed hadn’t been enough, even a week later he was still tinkering with their souls.
Those fortunate enough to escape the searing light of the blast awoke to a merciful Fallout. He had been kind enough to pluck the spike of radiation from the city, and how did the remaining survivors thank him? They turned on each other.
It was every man, woman and child for themselves. Food, clothing, shelter, heck even electronics, DVDs, televisions, guns, things that weren’t even necessarily needed for survival were fought over. The very nature of Natural Selection toyed with the hearts of the people, but there was more to it than just that.
Debbie described a strange taste in the air, which was all the reason she needed to barricade herself in doors. Twyla imagined it might’ve been residue left from the blast but allowed the woman to continue.
There was a strange sensation outside that turned good men into cannibals, tearing away food from the arms of their own loved ones. It started out small, in fits of reasonable desperation, but it only got worse from there on out.
She described one instance where a mother suddenly threw over her baby’s carriage to attack another much older woman, clawing and biting at her. The others tried to stop her, but the strangest thing happened.
Debbie was still visibly shaken from having witnessed the incident first hand. The group, which had apparently been looking for shelter or a way out of the city, went from trying to separate the two to immediately turning on them. The elderly woman’s liberators soon became her worst nightmares and finished the job her assailant had begun.
Debbie recalled blood splattering against the window before running into the very room they stood in. She was afraid they’d come running in at any moment that day, but they never did, and if anything else the suspense of that alone was even more terrifying, “They turned into zombies or something… it was horrible…”
“Hasn’t Discord had enough?” Regina shuttered, “It’s just too much…”
Twyla cupped her chin, “It’s just like Twilight said. Discord turns people against each other, even good friends and family alike. He’s like some kind of infectious plague incarnate, but I never imagined he’d go to such lengths even after annihilating an entire city… It’s like he’s never satisfied.”
“Just like what he did to us.” Aprile remarked, “Practically had us killin’ each other over nothin’.”
“Exactly.” Twyla turned to Debbie, “Are there any other survivors you know about, Debbie? Anyone else at all?”
She shook her head, “When the monsters attacked, I ran into this building. The shop owners were kind and took me in. They told me to hide in the back where I’d be safe, and then they grabbed their guns ran outside to help the police. I remember a bright light coming from outside and the entire building shaking around me. I thought it was going to collapse and then I remember waking up on the floor… Everything was so quiet, and it was just me.”
The room sobered up a bit. Seeing the city in ruin was one thing, but hearing about how it got that way was quite another. Piper might’ve felt the tension in the air if she hadn’t been messing with a weapon that looked like it was something out of Wayne Enterprises.
“I’ve stayed in here ever since, hoping maybe the army would come back. I-I’m just too scared to go back out there and check for survivors, at least by myself.”
“Well, don’t worry about all that. We’ve dealt with zombies before!” Raine threw an arm around Debbie, “We’re here to take care of all that, Derpy, erm, Debbie. S-Sorry about that.”
Debbie sighed, “Oh, don’t worry about it. My friends used to call me that all the time, and it’s actually kind of nice to hear it again.” The insult was enough to garnish a smile out of the girl, “Anyway, we should be fine as long as we stay inside.”
“Well that’s not happening.” Twyla glanced over at Piper, who had educated herself on a host of weaponry.
“Look what I found!” Piper threw Twyla a shotgun and a case full of shells.
“We’re going to need a lot more than this.” Twyla loaded the weapon.
“Oh, there’s plenty to go around!” Piper started tossing around glocks, rifles, and ammo as if they were cupcakes.
Fiona was given a P-90 submachine gun, which in itself was probably too big for her, “O-Oh, my! How do I even use this-?”
“Here you are, darling.” Regina had fancied something much bigger than a simple pistol and so she traded Fiona for her weapon.
“Oh, uhm, okay…”
“Yeah, here we go!” Raine cocked a HK-416 assault rifle, “This’ll be just like playing Black Ops.”
“A little underwhelmin’, doncha’ think?” Aprile rested a good old AK-47 against her shoulder. She was a far cry from some stinking old Commie’, but recognized superior firearms when she saw them.
“Oh, don’t you even start with that.”
“Yeah, besides!” Piper pranced into the debate, “Bazookas are better!”
Twyla handed Debbie a full magazine, “We’re getting you out of here, so get ready.”
“W-Wait! You guys can’t just go back out there! It’s dangerous!”
Aprile kicked the door with her boot, “And you can’t survive in here forever. He’ll eventually get you, and we’re fixin’ to stop him.”
“Him…?” Debbie questioned.
“You’ll be much safer with us than in this filthy bunker, dear. Now come along.” Regina would’ve offered further assurance but a loud crash of glass silenced the entire room.
Their voices hushed and they huddled against the damp wall on either side of the door.
“You wanted to play some Call of Duty, well you’ve got your chance now, Raine.” Twyla whispered, which even under the circumstances was enough to make Raine laugh, “We’ll have to run for it. You and Aprile lead the charge, and shoot anything that looks crazy. We’ll bring up the rear.”
Another smash had stormed the defense and was probably helping itself to a batch of Twinkies, which would’ve been fine if that was all they really wanted, but the otherworldly sounds of hisses and shrieks suggested otherwise.
Aprile nodded as Raine filled her jacket with ammo, “Roger, dodger.”
Twyla did the same, “We make a B-line for the truck and we head straight for the Empire State building, everybody ready?”
“Are you guys seri-!?” Regina covered Debbie’s yap and before the mail carrier could prepare herself, the locks broke and the door flew open.
Like an ambush, they rushed down the hallway and surprisingly there was plenty to fight through. All Debbie could hear were shots being fired and loud inhuman shrieks down the corridor. She was being pulled along for the ride whether she liked it or not. Though she supposed an escort of armed guards gave her at least some chance at getting out of there alive.
Whatever they were, ferals or just plain ghouls, they had filled the building and were nearly crawling on the ceilings by now.
The things might’ve been human at some point but the poor unfortunate souls had been horribly corrupted. They were lost to society and Twyla made sure to put an end to their suffering one shot at a time.
“Oh dear!!” Fiona was probably too delicate to fire a gun, but even she managed to make use of the piece she’d been handed. Her shots needed improvement, but luckily for her it was impossible to miss.
Shells fumbled against the walls in the dozens under the shouts for target practice. Debbie wasn’t really sure what to do, given she was far from an expert tactician. The closest she’d ever come to firing a weapon was filling a muffin with a frosting gun. She was in no position to be picky however, and went with the flowing tide of absolution.
To think that if these girls hadn’t arrived when they did that she’d probably be screaming for her life by now.
“Zombie at six o’clock!” Twyla cried out, one headed straight for Debbie who had lagged to the rear of the group.
Thankfully this time, Raine had taken the safety off of her weapon and she actually had some bullets to fire. Her finger was shaky and her heart pounded, but she finally took the shot. The little gun jittered in her grip and at least a few bullets pierced the ghoul and tossed him into his fellow undead brethren. Unfortunately zombies were far from the grieving type and treated him like a speed bump.
“Too slow! Here, let me help!” Piper had never fired a bazooka before, especially inside a building, but that wasn’t exactly going to stop her.
“Piper, wait!” Twyla should’ve known better.
The throng had just begun to pick up speed when Piper fired a rocket that disemboweled the first few zombies before finally exploding in a blast that shook half of the block.
The girls certainly got their assistance getting down the hallway. At least they’d made it into the lobby without any broken bones just yet.
“Piper, you idiot!” Raine cried, “You could’ve gotten us-Gah!”
Piper spun her party cannon around, accidently bopping Raine over the back of the head and aimed it at the paparazzi waiting just outside the shop, “Don’t worry! It’s on the house, girls!” Another jet stream rocketed into the crowd and blew them all to bits.
“Come on, ladies!” Twyla ran led them out of the building, which looked as if it was about to crumble at any moment, “Oh, great.”
Their only ticket down the rest of Fifth Avenue was absolutely covered in ferals. They seemed curious, as if the zombies were actually trying to figure out how to operate a truck all over again.
“No sudden moves. Keep quiet, ya’ll.” Aprile hushed.
“Don’t worry, I got it!” Piper got on a knee and cleared the ghouls off of their truck the only way she knew how, with a bazooka. The truck, along with every little flaming zombie on it flew into the side of a nearby building in a giant fireball.
“Holy cow…!” Debbie nearly wet herself.
“You gadumbed blasted idiot!” Aprile rang, “That was our truck!”
“But I did get rid of the zombies, now didn’t I?” Piper winked.
Twyla groaned, “We don’t have time for this!” which was a sentiment proven by the ever growing throng of zombies gathering south of the street behind them, “Move!”
What had gone from originally a suicide mission to the trigger’s end of a firing squad had reverted back to yet another suicide mission. The Empire State building wasn’t very far off now and they were caught between a horde of hungry zombies and a diabolical deviant awaiting their arrival in his favorite lawn chair. Their fight would prove to be the steepest uphill battle our ladies had ever climbed.

Pinkie Pie had come within a hair’s distance to finding out just what sort of party these statuesque figures had in store. The slice of a blade had nearly given her a mane cut had Twilight not intervened with a convenient bubble shield, “Hang on tight, Pinkie!”
“To what?” like a wrecking ball, Pinkie was swung around batting the foes back and forth like bowling pins. To have expected a real fight from a bunch of miniature horses was well, unexpected.
The king attempted to get back to his feet and fight, but Twilight knew an opportunity when she saw one and planted him into the grassy pasture with the sphere.
“Twilight, careful! What about Pinkie?” Rarity was clearly concerned, as anyone would’ve been.
“Oh, don’t worry. I used a mild gravity spell.” She giggled over Pinkie Pie happily dancing and prancing around in the pink ball as if she hadn’t felt a single thing. She pretended to stomp her hooves over the king’s back and laughed to herself.
“How ungrateful!” the mantis chirped, “Denying the obvious next step in your evolution? Are you simply mad?”
“We’re fine just the way we are, thanks!” Dash cried raising a hoof as if it were a defying fist.
“Well then, if you won’t volunteer your bodies, then we’ll just take them by force.” The dark horse raised his blade and with a swing he sent bolts of blue fire hurling at the ponies.
A shield of faint blue magic diverted the fireballs away before they even had time to wince. It had taken every strand of fashion sense Rarity could muster but it did the trick, “Not all… at once now… Anytime you… like. Feel free to… assist…!”
“We have to use the Elements of Harmony!” Dash begged.
“No, we can’t! We need every ounce of its power to help Twyla and her friends.” Twilight gazed down at her book, “It’s never been done before, and I don’t know if it’ll work…”
“That’s alright! We’ve done just fine without them before.” Applejack skidded her hoof through the dirt, “Come on, ya’ll! Let’s give these here fella’s the hoof!” she spun around just in time to catch a warrior’s face with a swift kick.
“Stay put, Pinkie!” Twilight readied her magical yoyo for another round and knocked out another charging monster, and then another one, and yet another. She might as well have been the Green Lantern himself with the way she was wielding that hysterical wrecking ball.
The dark horse nearly decapitated Rainbow Dash but as you might’ve guessed, she was just too fast for him. She impaled his gut with a pair of kicks, which doubled him over just in time for a mouth full of hoof.
Rarity may not have had the mystic training of her unicorn friend, but she operated that shield with surprising skill, using it like a rubber band to catch and deflect the persistent marauders.
The crane extended a set of wings that formed her gray gown, and with a swift flap she sent herself leaping into the air. Without a sound, the harlequin landed before Fluttershy with a glare. She had prepared a deathblow, but hadn’t prepared herself for the quivering ball of shy adorableness that trembled at the bird’s feet.
Although her instinct commanded her to increase the size of the herd, it was impossible to feel at least some remorse. The crane bent down to a knee in some hope of comforting the little yellow Pegasus, “Oh, uh, don’t worry, little one. It only hurts for but a second, but then you’ll be okay. It takes a bit of getting used to but it’s totally worth it!” she even scratched the bottom of Fluttershy’s chin as if she were a kitten. It was hardly any comfort, but the Pegasus would’ve been the very last pony to have bitten back.
One could probably blame the concern her previous human life may have carried for such an adorable creature, but it only served to prove Fluttershy’s charm.
Ditzy swooped in to Fluttershy’s unnecessary defense, “You leave her alone, you big meanie!”
The monster stepped back, “M-Meanie…?” even with the circumstances, it was still one of the last things she’d ever expected anyone to call her.
The arch king regained his crown, “Just what are you doing, Yuka? Kill that wretched pony and turn her over to our side, at once!”
The crane was torn, which was far from unfamiliar territory for her, “B-But, sir, I-I can’t harm these innocent…!”
“I said-!” the king’s demands were met not by his weary subject, but by a piercing repeating ping that planted a series of small red dots over the crane and much of the king’s men.
An electric voice rang down from the heavens, “Exceed charge…!” Those who were caught by the targeting laser found themselves paralyzed under its grasp and before they could cry out for help, a spinning tornado of red hot laser held each of them in place. A figure sent a blazing kick through the crimson cyclones and quite literally through each of her targets one after another. The assault was swift and indiscriminate, and within but a couple of seconds at least half of the king’s army cringed under the piping hot bursts of blue flame before collapsing into a pile of sand.
The front line had been utterly decimated, separating the raiders from the seven ponies, and at the center stood a dark silhouette covered in cables, black latex and bands of red and silver.
Twilight finally let Pinkie out of her hamster ball, “P-Princess Celestia…? Is that you?”
The princess might’ve been missing her crown and her traditional royal armor but she had certainly remembered to bring along her pair of golden crescent shades, “You know, I had a pair of red shutter glasses but for the life of me I can’t remember where I’ve put them.”
“Them’s a mighty fine raincoat ya’ got there, Princess.” Applejack bowed.
“Oh, pardon my intrusion. Was I interrupting something, girls?”
Pinkie Pie giggled, “Not at all!”
“In fact, we were just about to send you an invitation.” Dash chuckled.
Rarity was probably more concerned with her suit than the actual matter at hand, “Quite the impressive weapon of an ensemble you have there, Princess. Oh, and I must say, the hair bun suits you quite well. You look just adorable, dear.”
Celestia cheeks perked with a giggle, “Why thank you. I do try to keep up with the trends.”
“Seriously, where’d this even come from, Princess?” Twilight begged the ultimate question.
The Princess greeted her faithful student with a bow, “Oh, a special little friend of mines gave it to me. I’ll tell you all about it later, but for now, I believe you have something far more important to take care of.”
“Oh, we sure do!” Twilight adjusted her golden crown, “Would you mind finishing up here? Our friends back in the human world really need our help.”
“Of course, my dear.”
“Thanks, Princess!” Twilight gathered her comrades and went on their way to prepare the spell.
“Excuse me! How dare you ignore us!” The king stood alongside what was left of his limping troops, “Just who exactly do you think you are…?”
Celestia casually turned her attention to the statues and shrugged, “Oh, no one really. I’m just passing through.” She hoofed a switch on the side of her leg and the same electric voice came to life, “Complete.” Her suit glowed with a pale light and a pair of chromed armor slides that had sat over her chest split, turned, and rested over her shoulders like collar to reveal what could only be described as the intake of a nuclear fusion engine. Even her crescent shades toned from a shimmering gold to a deep crimson because once again, fashion had a way of being convenient on the battlefield.
The king snarled and balled his fists, “You dare defy me? King of the Orphnochs? Our race ‘will’ thrive and we will conquer this world one way or-!”
“And I’ll never show mercy to those who make my kingdom weep.” She tapped the device again and activated a countdown sequence, “Start up!” the beating sound of a buzzing alarm lifted the air around her which eventually fell to the shrieking call of a turbine engine.
“Y-You won’t get away with this! You’ll never be able to stop all of us…!” the king began a desperate push for what had clearly become a losing battle. Not even his own comrades had any hope of winning and they were sorely tempted to run for their lives rather than dying for a noble cause.
“Pardon me, but would you mind if I defeated you?” Celestia’s Eyes Glazed Over.
“W-Wha-?”
“What’s that? Sorry, I can’t hear you…” the engine her suit was apparently made of hissed and roared in a bellow of steam and within the hymn of an electric blur, she vanished.
A billionth of a second hadn’t even passed and yet the king and his pathetic band of men had been disintegrated into puffs of burning blue powder.
“Two… One… Time out! Reformation.” ten full seconds had slipped beyond the stroke of time and Celestia finally gave her suit a chance to breathe. The slides of armor returned to her chest and her shades shined gold once more. She turned and glanced back at the filthy particles of dust that had dared to fall upon her soil, “Such arrogant vile creatures…”

Twilight braced herself, “There’s not a moment to waste. They could be in grave danger!” she flashed through her spell book one last time, “Get into position, everypony!”
They didn’t need any reminder and nodded, the jewels in their golden charms glowed and sparked to life once again. They each knew Discord’s refusal to return could only mean the worst of things, but they held out their best hopes and offered what little they could.
Ditzy watched closely, wishing there was something she could do to help, “Please be okay, Fiona…”
Twilight gazed up at the brilliant rainbow defying the sun’s will to set, and finally pulled the trigger, “Hang in there, Twyla. It’s coming.” 
Their eyes lit up and from the very pits of their souls shot out a searing beam of heat that pierced through the rainbow’s bend once more.

“Now ‘this’ is entertainment!” Discord sat in his red and white striped lawn chair atop the uneven balcony of the Empire State building. The dozens of little ants scurrying below were quite the sight, especially the smallest ones at the very center. They were putting quite a show while screaming and fighting for their very lives.
Twyla had remained at the rear of the group, making sure each of her friends could get to safety before she could. It was a noble tactic, one that at least so far had paid off. She discharged another round into the head of yet another zombie, “Keep running!”
The truck would certainly have made the mad dash up Fifth Avenue a lot easier had it not been blown up, though they weren’t exactly about to dump the heavy weapons chick out of the group for her stupid mistake. Piper was after all pretty trigger happy with the rockets and doing quite an excellent job clearing the road. She’d even been promoted to the front line. “Just a little bit farther girls!” although her skipping and prancing down the street was hardly the morale support.
Fiona had long used up her cartridge and even knocked out a zombie with the toss of her empty glock. She’d been downgraded to ‘ammo carrier’, which to be quite honest she preferred. The heavy load was a bit to deal with but shooting just wasn’t her thing.
Raine gunned down another trio of ghouls, “Man, where do these things keep coming from? How many survivors were there!?” There must’ve been at least a hundred of the beasts all flooding into the avenue from every alleyway and corridor. It was as if the mere pop of a gunshot rang the dinner bell for every zombie in New York City.
“Just keep shooting!” Regina sprayed down a separate line of incoming ferals. Normally she would’ve been worried about breaking a nail or some other type of post traumatic dress disorder, but she had plenty of motivation to get messy.
She took out a few more ghouls to her left before her heel snapped, “Gah-!” She fell to the floor in a heap of easy pickings.
“Wait! Cover fire! Cover fire!” Twyla rushed back and helped the diva back to her feet under the spread of gun smoke.
Raine’s rifle choked on itself, “I need another magazine, Fiona. Hurry!” Fiona offered what she might’ve thought was the appropriate magazine, and for once she’d gotten it right.
“For Christ’s sake, I loved this pair!” Regina whined as she tossed the other slipper into the assembling crowds.
Twyla pushed her ahead, “Don’t worry we’ll get you another set, now come-!” The laps in cover fire proved to ultimately be their undoing. Aprile and Debbie did what they could, but the ghouls had grabbed at least a leg by now and their teeth were far too close for comfort.
Twyla’s shotgun butt was too slow and she gargled through a scream. She tried fighting them off but she was slowly being sucked into a starving maw.
“Twyla!!” Regina kicked away a feral and put that P-90 to good use running down Twyla’s captors.
“God damnit!” Raine dashed in with a swing of her rifle followed by a fresh discharge of ammo which had been more than enough to send the things scurrying away.
Aprile and Debbie were in next and helped contain the area while Piper dragged Twyla to safety, “T-Twyla! Are you alright!?”
“Oh God, I’m so sorry!” Regina cried.
Twyla groaned through her clenched teeth, “Just keep… shooting!”
Fiona was the first to notice it, “She’s been…!” they gasped.
They had hoped it hadn’t been too late, that their countermeasures had shown efficiency, but that gaping chunk of torn flesh in Twyla’s ankle disagreed. Lying helplessly on the floor between Aprile and Raine’s falling shells, she winced and cried out in pain, reaching out for Piper’s hand.
Piper’s breathing tightened and she dropped her lone empty bazooka. She didn’t bother with the hand, and instead pulled Twyla completely to her side and wrapped her arms around her, holding her close to her chest. The horde could come if they wanted, but nothing would tear Twyla away from her.
They might’ve been a block away from the skyscraper by now, but their escape may as well have ended right there. Their only route had been cut off and our ladies now found themselves surrounded by an endless tide of party animals. The only thing keeping them alive was a hand full of diplomacy and a dwindling stock of ammo.
Regina’s submachine gun gagged, “I’m out!”
Fiona didn’t know what to say, because she certainly didn’t have anything left to offer.
“Concentrated bursts!” Raine called, “We’re running thin!”
The surrounding zombies were cautious, but their swipes and teeth grew closer as the seconds ticked past.
“It’s been a might pleasure, ladies!” Aprile did what she could to thin out the ferals, a couple of shot at a time.
“D-Don’t talk like that!” Debbie still had some shots left in her, but there was only so much she could do about the closing tide.
Regina picked up Twyla’s shotgun and finished off the last remaining rounds, “I-If this is it, then I just want you all to know… You’re the best friends a girl can ask for!”
Raine gritted her teeth and she backed into a terrified Fiona, “It would’ve been nice if we could’ve gone out to a movie some time, Fiona, maybe taken things a little further than that. I-I always sorta’ thought you were cute, y’know.”
Fiona sniffed back a tear, “I-I would’ve liked that!”
Piper rocked back and forth with Twyla in her arms, “A-At least, this time we’ll be… zombies together!”
Twyla grabbed hold of her shoulder and forced a whimper through the agony spreading up her leg, “No…!” she pulled herself up, “We’ve… come too far!”
Aprile’s AK fell silent, and Debbie’s machinegun soon followed as well. “I’m sorry we got you into this mess, kid. You were right.”
Debbie stood back to back against Aprile, “Well, at least this beats hiding. It was a fair shot, I guess...”
It was a far cry from the final vengeance filled fire fight they’d wanted. They hadn’t even gotten a chance to fire a single ball of spit into the face of Discord, but it was what it was, and the zombies who put two and two together finally began to close in for their latest appetizers.
Their cold yellow eyes hungered for flesh. They hissed and moaned even for just a taste. They hadn’t been fed in at least a few days, given most anyone that was left had already been turned or consumed.
If they were about to be eaten alive, they’d submit but only in the mercy of each other’s trembling arms. They closed their eyes and hoped for the impossible, a quick and painless end.
Discord rested his chin over a knuckle and watched patiently, “Any second now.”
And there it was, a message out of the sky from what might’ve been God himself, although it might’ve been a horse god for all any human knew. A brilliant light told all the cross little clouds to get the hell out of the way, and they obeyed because that light definitely knew stuff that they didn’t.
The zombies were caving in, but an Equestrian mine rescue operation arrived just in time and sealed off the ferals. Twilight Sparkle hadn’t forgotten her debt and with the help of her friends she’d sent a mighty golden pillar of radiance. It was laced with the faint shades of a rainbow, but it was more than just a light show. The surrounding undead, who couldn’t have known any better, continued on with their assault only to be disintegrated on contact with the column.
Discord barfed up a laugh, “Here we go, now it’s about to get good!”
Twyla had expected a light at the end of the tunnel by now, but this was ridiculous. Thankfully no teeth had followed them through, “T-They did it…! They really did it!”
Piper helped her to her feet, “Did what?”
Debbie thought she’d seen it all that week, “W-What is this…?”
Twyla stumbled forward and into the arms of Aprile, “T-This here’s… our Plan B. Our ace in the hole…!”
“You sure you’re alright? I mean…” Aprile pointed out the obvious.
She groaned and grasped the side of her leg. It was as if the lower half of her body had already turned, “I-I’m fine, for now.” Twyla wiped the sweat off of her brow and gazed around their brilliant room at all of her friends, even Debbie who she’d only known for about an hour.
She recalled every little thing they’d done together, getting into the same high school, competing over which date was better for prom, making sure they got into the same college together, the parties, the drinks, the trips, all of it.
Twyla looked up at Aprile with a cold determined look in her eyes, “Aprile… If I turn, I-I want you to-”
“Ah, hell no! Don’t you go forcin’ that burden on me, because I ain’t about to do it nor is anyone else here gonna’ do it.” She pulled Twyla to her side, “Either we’re getting through this together, or not at all! You hear me? As God as my witness, I ain’t losing any more of my family!”
“That’s right!” Regina agreed, “We’ve been through too much for anymore sacrifices.”
“No one gets left behind!” cheered Fiona.
“Victory or death!” Raine cried.
Piper grabbed Twyla’s shoulder, “Yeah! And we’re going to have a great big party after all this is done, and ‘all’ of us are going!”
“C-Can I come…?” Debbie meekly asked.
Piper snorted, “Of course you can!”
Twyla bit her lip and did what she could to restrain her tears, “T-Thank you! I-I love you guys so-!”
Aprile smiled, “Hush now, sug’. Somethin’s comin’.”
Some might say that what happened next was due to the unbreakable strength within their hearts, while others would argue that it was all a part of their keen plan from the very start. Whichever was true, hope had come in form of a blinding thunderclap that threw Discord off of his lawn chair.
The pillar had slapped away even those ghouls that had feared its touch, and those that hadn’t been able to afford front row seats were left covered in a blanket of ash.
They truly were Valkyries, shining in a glow of golden radiance. It wasn’t magic or superior armor they’d been blessed with, but rather the tools of retribution along with all the convenient skill and knowledge needed to prepare that cold dish.

Twyla couldn’t resist a laugh over what had just appeared in her hands, “Oh, those crazy ponies. This is just rich.”
She had been gifted a brand new shotgun, but not just your typical run of the mill police shotgun. This was a monster of an advanced military grade tactical combat shotgun. It was something along the lines of a Benalli M-4 Super 90, but taken to an extreme. It had settings for short bursts, mid-range fire, and even long range blasts surprisingly.
It felt like holding onto a piece of violent decadence, because its most striking feature was of course that its outside casing had been completely chromed in gold.

“Well butter my biscuits…” Aprile had gotten her mitts on quite the golden semi-automatic sniper cannon.
Similar in design to the German PSG-1, but its range and firepower had been nearly doubled in almost every aspect. Its size alone was daunting, nearly as long as Aprile was tall, and it certainly had a weight to it, but a weight that made her knees weak in all of the right ways.

The P-90 personal defense rifle had been quite useful in their desperate escape, but like anyone who’d felt the jitter of a cocking machinegun, Regina wanted more and she certainly got it. She rested it against her shoulder and made little “Bang, bang, bang!” noises under her breath.
The Colt M4A1 carbine felt nice to play with, especially since it had been fully modified and equipped with everything from a scoped lens to a grenade launcher. The gold trim was especially pleasing, “Oh my… I just want to take you home and, and…” the innuendo had something to do with her trigger finger, but I felt it was a bit too much for this story.

Guns simply weren’t Fiona’s forte. As angry as she was, she just couldn’t withstand the recoil. She’d taken special training classes on how to handle animals from scorpions to alligators, and yet a gun was somehow still a fearful concept.
“Oh my!” What she received instead was just as deadly but probably more to her suiting, ironically enough, “I got a bow and arrow!” but not just any old bow and arrow, this was a golden compound combat bow equipped with a set of adjusting cables, pulleys and wheels for precision strikes and even a small sight scope and laser tipped guide for good measure. It would’ve been painted a stealth black since that would’ve made more sense, but there was a high demand for consistency by the Elements of Harmony that simply couldn’t be argued against.
There was a weight tugging at her shoulder. Fiona wondered just how many arrows had been packed into the quiver against her back. She attempted to investigate, but instead of finding the tug of leather, all she found was the cold hard surface of Plexiglas. It was like a scuba tank, but it had a series of buttons and devices on it along with an output where the next lucky arrow sat to be plucked. The machine seemed complex, especially since she couldn’t really see what buttons she was pushing. Fortunately for Fiona, the Elements had thought ahead and programmed the machine to dispense different specialized arrows completely at random.
I’m honestly not sure if this would’ve been a benefit or not, but given Fiona’s luck, it would probably be safe to assume that she would’ve made efficient use of it, whether she intended to or not.

“Hey, hey, hey, Aprile! Remember that old Aliens movie?” Raine giggled.
Aprile sighed.
“Check it out.” She couldn’t control her laughter, “I’m totally Vasquez.”
The Elements had apparently known all too well of her crazy obsession with flight, as well as her daunting failures with it. They needed something powerful, something that commanded respect, even from Raine herself, and most of all, something she’d easily recognize, admire, and put to good use.
Do you know where the term ‘Gatling’ comes from? It belonged to Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling, who amongst many of his inventions in the mid 1800’s was most known for his ‘Gatling Gun’. It was a terrifying automatic cannon that could decimate an entire platoon of soldiers, operated in the right hands of course.
The American military took advantage of this new weapon early on, but it only reached its maximum potential when the air force built one for the sole purpose of attaching a bomber onto its back.
The Gau-8 Avenger Cannon was and still is one of the most fearsome and respected weapons on the face of the planet today. We’re talking about a Gatling gun that fired depleted-uranium tipped ordnance the size of your arm at four thousand two hundred rounds per minute.
The original model was almost twenty feet long but those crazy Elements had thought of that as well. This size of this weapon had been reduced to just under a third of its original size, which was still fairly large and came with quite the drum load over Raine’s back.
Twyla looked over, “Isn’t that a bit too heavy?”
Raine swung the enormous golden cannon around with ease and unlocked the trigger, “WHO CALLED ‘ZE HEAVY WEAPONS GUY?” which sent seven of the most chilling barrels any of them had ever seen spinning in a wild screaming blur, “OH, HO, HO! LOOK AT ‘ZAT TINY BABY DISCORD SITTIN’K UP ‘ZERE! HE IS SO SMALL! IS FANNY TO ME!”
To be quite honest, Discord thought it was just as hilarious.

Piper nearly fell over laughing over the impersonation. It was actually rather good all things considered, “Oh, I got something too! Two of them too!” Whatever spirit had filled those Elements had clearly lost its marbles. All of its marbles.
They’d not only given Piper a brand new state of the art bazooka, but given her two of them. She pranced around and tried balancing the golden cannons in either of her hands like an idiot.
She noticed a warning label at the entrance to where a rocket would normally be loaded, “Weird, it says infinite. What’s that even supposed to mean?”
Debbie got a closer look, “I’m pretty sure it means you have… Erm, wow. Infinite ammo?”

Raine aimed the outtake hatch away from her comrades and let loose with a terrible Russian laugh, “PREPARE FOR TRAUBLE!” The sound of the cannon had a deafening authority to it, which was actually enough to frighten the hordes of zombies around her.
If Rainbow Dash had her Sonic Rainboom, then Raine had her little friend which fired off seventy sonic booms per second. With ease she cleared a nice deep chunk out of the morbid crowd.
She released the trigger for a moment and glanced over at a shaking Fiona, who’d never heard anything so loud in her life, “Hey baby, wanna’ go for a ride?”
“W-What…?” Fiona’s ears were still bleeding.
Raine laughed, “Open fire, ladies!” in fact, there probably wasn’t a single person there whose ears weren’t ringing, but they got the gist of it.
“Give ‘em hell!” Aprile pointed, aimed, and clicked, and with a single shot she managed to blow apart at least three of the zombies, as far as she could tell anyway.
It wasn’t long before a swarm of bullets, rockets, and arrows began flying in every direction. Fifth Avenue had gone from a hopeless left for dead scenario to a bullet hell shooting gallery. If the ghouls had been curious over the loud fracas before, then they were certainly running from it now.
Twyla had never seen zombies retreat before. She couldn’t think of a single film off the top of her head, regardless it was a nice distraction from her biting fate and popping the heads and torsos off of the vermin before her proved to be more than just a reassuring game. She cocked her shotgun once again, and watched as another feral burst into chunks of dead meat before her eyes.
“Does this count as genocide if they’re all already dead?” Regina wondered, hugging the butt of her rifle to her shoulder and gunning down the poor fiends.
“Ya’ know, I’m not really sure honestly.” Aprile had begun to feel guilty, but then she took another shot and felt much better for it.
“What’re you talking about?” Piper shouted, “They tried to hurt Twyla!” there was a loud explosion for every other second to whom they had Piper to blame for her organized trigger work. How a pastry chef managed to stay balanced and control the recoil of two bazookas firing one after another was completely beyond anyone there.
“That’s right!” Fiona picked an arrow from her mechanical quiver and guided it along the groove on her bow. She wasn’t sure what the gambit had thrown her this time, but she’d made a guessing game of what the next shot was going to look like.
She plucked the line, and released the arrow into the panicked mob, “Oh wow! Confetti!”
Debbie kept along with the firing squad, which had turned into a charming stroll down Fifth Avenue if you could excuse the roaring gunfire. She was the only one without anything to really shoot with.
Fiona glanced back at her, “Here, Debbie. Would you like to give it a try?”
“R-Really? I’ve never shot an arrow before.”
“Oh, it’s pretty simple. I used to shoot them when I was a little girl in camp.” Fiona plucked another arrow out of the machine’s dispense port, and handed it to Debbie along with the bow, “They used to tease me in camp, but I got good at shooting arrows, and after a while they stopped. I could never really figure out why though.”
Debbie tried to place the arrow against the bow, but as you may have expected, it tumbled from the arch.
“No, no, no. Like this, Debbie.” She placed the arrow over the bow’s guide, “Hold the bow at an angle but keep your arm straight out, and with your other arm, pluck the arrow between your thumb and first three fingers.”
“Like this..?”
Fiona smiled, “There you go, now aim carefully down the line of the arrow, and release when you’re ready.”
Debbie picked a target, which didn’t take much effort, and finally released the line. This shot definitely had an explosion in it.
“Oh, I think that’s napalm. Interesting.” Fiona would’ve been lying if she’d said she hadn’t been at least a little jealous, and so she took back her bow, “M-My turn!”
Eventually the streets had run red, or perhaps brown with decay. Any ferals that were left were probably hanging off of the bent light posts above, in pieces of course. It wasn’t long until our Valkyries grew bored of the slaughter.
“I-I think that’s all of them.” Twyla had gotten an itchy trigger finger, but she knew there was still plenty of shooting to do.
Raine’s sexy cannon finally came to a stop, “YES! VERY VERY GOOD. ‘VE MAKE GUD TEAM, SAN’VICH!”
“Sandwich? What do you mean, Raine?” Fiona asked.
Raine smiled as if she was poking out of the backside of a black van, “You… You’re my tasty little sandwich.”
“Oh, oh my…!”
“You’ll have plenty of time for a romantic ‘end of the movie’ kiss after all this is over, you two.” Regina carefully polished her gorgeous assault rifle with a tug of her dress, “Don’t worry my darling, they won’t steal the spotlight away from us. We’re going to be the ones that get to have the final kiss at this story…” Love was a very fickle and yet very suicidal bitch.
“Uh, right.” Twyla turned about and glared up at the very top of the Empire State Building. She could see the twisted little imp laughing and having his fun, and she couldn’t wait to spoil it, “Discord!!”
The call sent a shudder up his twisted spine. It was like being violently woken up in the middle of class and being summoned to the white board, which quite frankly was a skill Twyla hadn’t just developed overnight, “Alright, alright, that’s enough.”
Discord got out of his lawn chair and took a step off the edge of the skyscraper. He descended a long and winding flight of imaginary stairs as if he were the duke of spook himself surrounded by zealous sweat collectors, “I must say, you had my curiosity before, but now you have my attention.” He exited the escalator and placed a Mexican pointy boot on solid ground, “I just knew that somehow, you’d be able to-!” A bullet stopped him dead in his tracks and sent him for a wild spin.
Aprile restocked her sniper cannon, though mostly for impact sense ammo wasn’t really an issue, “Lanky son of a…”
If he wasn’t a god, the potshot might’ve actually blown him to pieces, though he still needed a second to regain his rustled composure, “…Quite the shot there, child.” He had to reintroduce himself with the rest of his shoulder, “W-What do you even call those little toys? The Armory of Harmony…?” he was just about toss them another one of his mocking snickers when a river of shots climbed up his body.
Regina snarled, “You shut your bloody mouth and die slowly, you heartless cur!”
He winced, holding his jagged claw to his chest, “H-Heartless…? My dear, now that’s just insult-!” He just wasn’t getting anywhere fast, but the bullets were.
Swiss cheese was as chaotic a cheese as they came, but there simply weren’t enough holes for Raine to be satisfied with, and so she made plenty more, “CRY SOME MOAR, TINY BABY!” It was like being shot with an exploding grenade seventy times per second, and Discord certainly did whimper and flounce about in the most colorful of fashions, “C-Come on! Hit me again! Gah-!”
Their trigger fingers were still itchy, and it didn’t take more than a few hails of Raine’s accent to get them all going. Discord had become nothing more than just a pile of miserable puffs of smoke, dust, and shaky screams.
“Shucky, ducky… Quack! Quack!” Piper braced herself and fired two rockets into the dust bowl at the same time. The explosion sent what may have remained of a mangled Discord smashing back into his tattered castle against one of the two guarding columns of the entrance. The force would not only have cracked an ordinary human’s spine but may as well have gone the extra mile and snapped them in half. A column fell from its base and landed into the pile of vague dust.
“Hurray! We did it!” Piper cheered.
“Wait, I didn’t get a chance to shoot!” Fiona finally joined the party and shot her little golden arrow into the rubble. The tip wedged itself into a slab of rock and a little flag unfurled from the rod that read in red, ‘Bang!’
“Aww, that’s just not fair.” She moped.
Raine gave her a pat on the back, “Don’t worry, kid. I’ll give you plenty to shoot at later.”
“That ain’t even made any gadumb sense!” Aprile cried.
Piper giggled, “Love doesn’t have to make sense, silly!”
“Well, I mean, it kind of does if you think about it…” Debbie got a bit too embarrassed and stopped while she was ahead, to which Aprile simply rolled her eyes.
Raine held her giant Gatling cannon in one arm and pulled Fiona to her side with the other, “Come on, sweetie. How about a victory kiss?”
“Oh, uh, uhm, alright.”
The arrow had warned of a ‘Bang’, and it certainly meant it. Their kiss was sealed with a terrible explosion that nearly finished off the skyscraper.
“Quite the dazzling lightshow.” Regina threw a tuft of hair out of her eye and glanced over at Twyla, “It looks like your plan worked after all.”
Twyla cracked a smile, but bit into it right after. She winced and grasped at her abdomen, “D-Damnit…!” Her leg had long gone numb but she could already feel the terrible venom seeping into the pit of her stomach. She doubled over, holding herself up with her golden shotgun like a crutch.
“Twyla…!” Regina reached an arm out to help her, but another one beat her to it. This one however came with a familiar pink pincer that stretched out of the wreckage ahead of them.
Twyla gave a blood curdling scream. If her insides weren’t being crushed before, then they certainly were now.
“Twyla!!” the others shouted.
A miserable voice set at the very bottom of G-Minor rose up from the rubble, “You pitiful little whelps think you can actually defeat a god…?” those blood shot harlequin eyes shined bright and with their terror came a juxtaposition of redundant appendages and bestial extremities.
He lifted the frantic Twyla into the air with what must’ve been his fourth or fifth claw, not counting his talons or tentacles of course. And of course I didn’t mean his his scorpion claw but rather his crab claw to be precise. He was a regular King of Limbs, though obviously a little Feral.
If we had ever amusingly referred to him as a Slenderman before, then the comparison had become the understatement of the century. He was just as much a skeleton dressed in what was left of his ridiculous tuxedo, but instead standing at almost forty feet tall like some sort of nonsensical nephelim that gone through photoshop far too many times.
There was a slap of skin hanging from his cheek, though it was impossible to tell if it had been torn from being shot to ribbons or through his rapid evolution into oblivion, “I graciously grant you an opportunity to return home, and this is the way you thank me…!?”
“Twyla! We’ll get ya’ down, just hang in there!” Aprile aimed and fired, picking off one of many forelimbs.
Raine spun her cannons, “I hope you’re ready for the main course, asshole!” but her bullets clogged.
“Careful now. You wouldn’t want to accidently hurt your little friend here, now would you?” Discord was a classy villain, and held out the tortured Twyla out into their crosshairs, “Go on! Put her out of her misery! She’s just going to turn into a mindless zombie anyway!”
“You sick bastard.” Regina gritted her teeth.
“Put her down right now!” Piper stomped.
“Oh, I will! I’ll throw her ‘all the way down’ as soon as I reach the top of my castle!” he chewed through a cackle and with the swing of an arm he fired a cadre of thorns at the girls.
“Look out!”Raine arched the bulk of her cannon around and managed to shatter a decent amount of them while Regina sprayed down the remaining spines and proceeded to follow up with the fleeing Discord, who had already made his way onto the side of the Empire State building.
“Get back here!” Piper fired a few rockets into the building, but Discord had apparently taken rock climbing lessons, not to mention having more limbs than an arachnid. He was just too agile to answer their demands.
“Catch me if you can! Though you may want to catch Twyla first! ” he scoffed.	
“Ow!” Debbie fell to her knees and grasped her arm.
Fiona rushed over and helped her up, “Debbie! Are you hurt!?”
At least she hadn’t been stabbed or impaled, but her shoulder was definitely missing a chunk of meat and had sprung quite the leak, “I-I think I’ll be okay… I-It’s just a flesh wound.”
“Yeah, well don’t lose your legs just yet.” Aprile raised her hat to the monster climbing up the building, “We’ve got a spider to squash. Come on ya’ll!”
Raine hefted the length of her cannon against her shoulder, “Right behind you!”
Without any thought as to what they might face, they scrambled into the building for the long ascension to the very top. They’d have to somehow climb a hundred and two stories before Discord reached the top, and they didn’t have time for calculating logic.
Regina was the last one in through the door. Time was obviously of the essence, but that keen eye of hers noticed that something was missing. She couldn’t find Twyla’s shotgun anywhere.
“Hurry up, Regina!” Piper shouted.
“Coming!”

Twyla felt like she was being slowly split in half. She had already felt like that before frankly, but Discord wasn’t exactly helping, “L-Let go of me you-!” She suddenly realized just how much of a silly request that was.
“You might want to save such talk for when we get to the top, child.”
“Why? Why even wait…?” she winced, “It’s not like its… going to make much difference…!”
Discord shook his head, “Tsk, tsk, tsk, you really have no sense of drama, do you Twyla?” he was nearly half way up the building by now and he’d left quite the footpath up its side, “Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when you have my permission to die. We’re just going to have a little fun, you and I.”
The pain was indescribable. Just about any sort of death would’ve been an escape from the pain she was in between the grip of that claw and the grip of he own body working against her. She could hardly control her breathing and her heart was about to burst out of her chest. The world was beginning to blur and she felt like she was going to throw up her own intestines. Whatever toxin had infected her leg must’ve conquered her entire system by now, because she felt her mind slipping away into something far more primal and simplistic, “…P-Piper! Raine! Gah… Aprile!”
“I honestly doubt they can hear you from all the way up-!”
“Regina! F-Fiona…!” the call had played its last cord on her throat, and she coughed up a spat of blood. Her cries for help may have seemed to be just that, desperate, but in reality the smiles of her friends were one of the only things left that she had to hold onto, “P-Please, ahh…!” she didn’t want to die, at least not like this and at the very least not without knowing that her friends would be safe. She’d worked so hard for them, regardless of her miscalculations and failures. It had always been for her friends.
Discord glanced over at the helpless damsel with a glint of disgust in his eye, “I told you that you could go ahead and die when I said it was okay. Seriously, am I the only one on this pathetic planet that understands the concept of theatre? This is simply pitiful!”

Aprile had lost count of the flights of stairs they’d climbed, but she figured they were only around a third of the way there, “Hang on, Twyla! We’re comin’!”
Regina helped the injured Debbie get up the stairs. She’d even torn a strip of her own gown to fix a tourniquet over the poor thing’s shoulder. It was a bit crude and far from suave, but it at least stopped the bleeding.
“Piper, can you give us a hand?” Raine’s Avenger cannon may have commanded the battlefield with a ferocious supremacy, but it navigated the narrow stairwell as well as dump truck. Fiona was doing what she could to help curve and wind the length of the Gatling up and around the turns, but they may as well have been playing twister.
“Sorry, ladies, but I have enough stuff to carry.” Piper had her hands full circumnavigating the zigzagging stairs with two oversized golden bazookas on either shoulder. She had made a game of it as you might’ve expected, and you could hear her making little flying noises on her way up.
“You better be flyin’ real fast up them stairs, Piper! We ain’t got time for yer’ nonsense.” Aprile barked.
“Hey! I’m flying as fast as I can!”

Discord reached out his second set of falcon talons and pulled himself onto the derelict observation deck, or as he liked to call it, his little vista at the end of the world. He climbed up, tossed Twyla and her little shotgun onto the platform, and made himself comfortable, “So, I was thinking we’d have a nice little standoff. It’d be me, the hideously mutated but incredibly clever super villain versus the desperate little protagonist in a fight to the death, and all of it right here at the top of the world. Classy, huh?”
Twyla’s faculties still had control over maybe an arm and part of her brain. She lay on the crooked concrete, suffocating under her own heavy breaths trying her best to process a simple thought. She rolled over and threw up a vat of blood along with something she didn’t want to bother identifying.
“Oh, come now, Twyla my dear. It isn’t that cliché of a climax, it’s a homage!” he planted an arm or two and hovered over the sputtering carcass beneath him, “Come on, Twyla. Where’s that rage? That burning anger in your heart? Haven’t I done enough to you and your friends…? I’ve stolen away your home, your loved ones, and everything you’ve ever held dear, and unless you stop me I’m going to make it a point to torture those little pony friends of yours until I’m downright bored to death!”
Twyla winced through a cough, it hurt to even budge. She wondered just how long she had left. Her vision was blurry and her eyes had already begun to glaze over, but her ears still worked and she could hear Discord’s disgusting tongue loud and clear.
“I bet it makes you angry, doesn’t it? I know you can still hear me, though it’s a shame you won’t be able to hear Twilight’s screams as I burn her little village to the ground. Oh, I might just even influence time a bit so I can burn it over and over again until I can think of something else to do to them.” He chuckled and licked a stain of bloody vomit off of Twyla’s cheek.
She was still conscious enough to feel the giraffe’s tongue and squirmed away as best she could. She reached out with what little control she had left in her fingers and pulled her shotgun to her side.
“Oh dear. Did I strike a chord? Oh yes, go ahead and grab it.” He even assisted the weapon into her weak grip, “Yes, just a little more! Come now, you’re the only hope your friends will ever have again. They’re all depending on you, Twyla!”
She coughed and her voice slurred. She could hardly manage her finger through the trigger guard, they were just too numb to manipulate. Not even the memories of her friends could keep her afloat any longer. The only real thought that kept repeating itself over and over within her mind was to satiate the little passion that was left of her anger.
“Here, darling, I’ll even hold the gun in place for you.” He wrapped a squid’s tentacle around the shotgun and leveled it right up to his forehead, “Don’t slip now!” he even cradled her limp arm against the weapon, “Now pull! Do it, I dare you. Finish what you’ve come so far to accomplish! Save yourself and all of your friends from my laugh!”
“F-Fuc…!”
“Say it! Let me hear your anger! Give it to me!”
Twyla was just on the verge of saying it when her fingers fell from the trigger. With a final gasp, her murky eyes narrowed, her throat shut tight and her boundless struggle came to a pitiful end.
Discord hesitated, “Come on! Just pull the trigger already. Quit joking around!” it took a couple of seconds for it to sink in until he finally realized that he’d broken his little toy.
He sighed and placed the girl’s shotgun at her side, “Worthless mortal filth. Although I do suppose her friends might serve for decent sport.” He gazed down at her wide-eyed lifeless body, which was already starting to tremble with a killer’s instinct and shook his head, “It’s a real dying shame, Twyla. I thought you had more in you than that.”
“Twyla!! We’re coming!” whispered a nearby ventilation shaft. The voices were still a long ways away, probably half way up the building by now, “Just hang on!”
Discord leaned against probably the third story off of the observatory and gazed out at the drowning sun, “Well, here it comes.”
It certainly did, just not in the way he’d ever expected.
Twyla’s body stirred as her faculties made their best attempts to manage their new found appetite. Her eyes had already yellowed and her skin had begun to cook under the falling sky, but there was a small glint in her eye that had refused to give up. Nothing too fanciful, not even the humongous Discord had noticed it.
There it was again, that insignificant little rainbow streaking across the sky. It laughed at the sun's weakness and defied natural law. Even as nightfall quickly approached, it refused to submit and it glared down at the dead woman with a painful determination, daring her to live once more.
Her shotgun glimmered and trembled by her side, as if it was trying its best to wake her up again. The corpse had been somewhat restless ever since her last breath, but it suddenly broke out in a violent shutter. Her weapon responded and began to shine brilliantly as if the agent was entering meltdown, which easily caught Discord’s attention.
He covered his eyes with as many of his arms as he could, but there was no escaping the burning light, “Gah-! What sort of…?” half the city was nearly blanketed in its radiance, like a lighthouse aiming a ray of hope into the cold dark skies.
Discord felt his foot slip off the edge of the building, but managed to grab hold of the Empire’s spire, “M-My eyes…!” they were quite literally burning. Fortunately for him, the light suddenly vanished before the insides of his eye sockets could be charred. He stumbled for a moment, trying to clear the tears and bits of cooked scabs from around his eyelids.
“This shotgun...”
Discord frantically searched for the voice, “W-Who said that…!?”
“This shotgun is mine. There are many like it, but this one is mine!” there she stood, proud, fearless and alive, and she was holding her affectionately named ‘Darien’ in her clutches. By Darien I don’t mean that blasphemous teenage vampire crap, I’m talking about a suave man who knew how to wear a tuxedo.
“Son of a-!” whatever miracle that shotgun had dragged out of horsetown, it had brought with it an unbridled fury that blasted the chaos god’s ankle into splinters. Although at least he now had a makeshift peg leg to stand on as he fumbled over against the observatory.
“My shotgun is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.” Twyla didn’t even give him time to cry out, and blew off at least three arms in a puffy cloud of meaty smoke, “Without me, my shotgun is useless. Without my shotgun, I am useless. I must fire my shotgun true!” she cocked that beautiful stallion once more and filled Discord’s belly full of lead, rainbow lead.
He shrieked and doubled over with what little remaining arms he had left, “Y-You little…!”
“I’m a little what?” Twyla had forgotten of her shotgun’s automatic setting. For a civilization that didn’t have any room for war or opposable thumbs, they sure knew their way around weaponry. She unloaded and began popping chunks of flesh and bone alike off of the demon as if he was some sort of overgrown piñata.
He screamed and desperately swung for the woman’s head, but she had Harmony on her side and rolled through a dodge just in the nick of time.
Discord stabbed a deadly mantis talon into the foundation’s bed which had nearly taken Twyla down with it, but a simple leg split was enough to avoid the point of his aggravation. She promptly severed the entire thing with her shotgun’s indifference, “Rise, you lousy sack of crap! You begged for me to shoot, now take it like a man!”
Discord’s own mammoth weight had betrayed him. To think that it had only been moments ago that he’d sat there and watched Twyla slowly puddle over and die, and already the horseshoe was on the other hoof.
He frantically tried to pick up his own pieces and even heal himself in the precious seconds he’d be given.
“What’s wrong? Do you want me to sing again? Will that make you feel any better?”
“N-No, please…!”
Twyla knew she had a terrible singing voice, but she was going to torture that poor soul in each and every way she could think of, “I’ve seen your face in the shadows~! I’ve seen your face in the places I wasn’t meant to be~!”
“S-Shut up!” Discord swung his slimy squid tentacle, but Twyla was very familiar with Japanese cuisine and knew a thing or two about preparing California Rolls. Greasy chunks of wriggling meat landed at her feet, and she flat-lined the largest portion with the heel of her shoe.
“I’ve heard them whisper about you~! I’ve heard the men in the bars and I’ve seen the women lock their doors at night~!” she whispered the chorus under her breath, “They say your eyes on-!” which made her laugh given his eyes had actually been set on fire. She pretended to accidently shoot Discord in his remaining good leg, “T-They say you’d kill a man for walking the wrong side of the line~!”
Discord cried out and tumbled onto his side in a heap of blood and moans.
Twyla jumped onto his disemboweled stomach, and made a point of stomping her foot down on it as hard as she could, to which he spat up a spoonful of vile. She hoped onto the demon’s chest and gave him a look that suggested that he wasn’t even worth spitting on, “But hey, they say a lot of foolish things… And in the end, the only words I can find to believe in are mine~!” She cocked her smoking shotgun and pinned it right against his forehead, making sure that he felt every degree of the barrel’s heat, “Is this where you wanted it? A shot right here…?”
There wasn’t much use in fighting it any longer, and under the coughs of blood and shock, he silently nodded.
Twyla raised a brow, and snatched away the barrel, “Wait a second, just what exactly are-?”
“P-Please! Just do it!”
Just when Twyla thought she couldn’t have been any more upset, “What? And give you the coward’s way out? The easy way out? Is that what you’re looking for?” if death was his only request, then she was prepared to deliver but only with the butt of her shotgun, “Y-You pathetic miserable little worm!”
“Twyla!” he grabbed hold of her shotgun with the last functional arm that he had left, “Please, I’m begging you…!”
“Begging me!? You’ve nearly killed all of my friends, destroyed my home, and threatened to do the same to Ponyville, again, and now you’re… begging…?”
He could hardly face her, which probably only made things worse, “D-Do you think I want to beg? Since when do I, Discord, ever beg? How do you think I feel about this?”
“Well then why would you?”
“Please, d-don’t make me explain, just make it clean…”
She had to clear her voice for this next bit with a short chuckle, “Excuse me, but once again, you’ve absolutely ruined my life. The very least you could do is give me a proper explanation!”
“F-Fine! Just please, get off of my throat!”
It’s not that she didn’t notice her foot was there, it was more about whether she really cared or not. Eventually, she sighed and stepped off of him allowing him the breathing room he’d needed, “Just a moment, please.”
His humongous broken and bullet ridden corpse began to heave and sizzle. He gave a final cough and his face wrinkled as if being dried of its juices. The rest of his carcass followed suite and withered out in a gust of bitter decay.
“Wait! I didn’t say you could die yet!” she protested, playfully picking the words from his erstwhile banter.
Whether he’d escaped his own exposition or planned something else entirely, Twyla imagined that a farewell gift was in order, and hawked up the most disgusting loogie she could pull, “Good riddance.”
The last thing Twyla expected to see was an arm punching its way out of Discord’s hulking ribcage. She thought she’d seen it all that day, but she couldn’t resist clutching Darien in fright.
“Pardon me, just undressing. I-I’m a bit embarrassed.” He quite literally climbed out of himself, this time more to his previous scale wearing a flamboyant tuxedo that had apparently just left the cleaners, “Alright, fine, I’ll-”
Twyla wasn’t very comfortable with how clean it was and still had a mouthful of complaints, and so she spat on his suit.
Discord gasped, “Was that really necessary?”
She folded her arms and leaned her head back. The only answer she had for him was a revolting glare.
“Right.” He grumbled, “Look, Twyla. Perhaps you take me as some kind of monster, and-”
“Which I do.”
“And I can imagine just how hard my jokes have been for you.”
“Which you can’t.” Twyla spit on him again.
“…I-In any case, the reason why I brought you here was because I wanted you to put an end to my… suffering.”
Twyla leaned forward, as if to somehow understand this idiot’s complexity and coughed up a laugh, “You’re kidding me right? Do you have any idea how much nerve you have?” she was nearly in tears, “Seriously, do you not have any sort of tact or consideration at all? Do you even put the tiniest shred of thought into anything that comes out of that mouth of yours?” she probably didn’t even need the shotgun anymore. This was far more gratifying, “Hang on a second. Let me spit on you again, you stupid insignificant puddle of bird piss.”
“P-Please, wait!” Discord fell to his knees, unsure of what he could do to calm the banshee.
Twyla snatched him up by the collar, “Wait? Excuse me but, you want me to wait?” she scoffed once more, “People wait for buses, they wait in line, they wait for a text message, people wait for a god damned bill, and you want me to wait for you?” she shook her head with a hapless chuckle, “I can’t believe this! Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me? You know what?” she made sure that she swallowed every bit of saliva in her mouth, “You’re no longer even worth spitting on, because my spit is more valuable than the entirety of your sniveling little existence. And now you want me to do you a ‘favor’ and play Dr. Kevorkian with you? Why on Earth would you ever expect a favor from me?”
“…B-Because, you’re the only one that has the resolve to do it, Twyla. You’re the only one reliable enough to trust.” The world’s smallest tear crept out of the corner of Discord’s eye, “I’m not asking for forgiveness or mercy, I don’t even care how you do it, I just want to be done with all of this.” 	He stood up from Twyla’s grasp and stared out at the sky just in time to meet the night’s newest stars, “I’ve been doing this sort of thing for tens of thousands of years now. I’ve conquered entire civilizations with a simple punch line and I’ve been yanked off stage far too many times to remember. It’s all just the same old tired acts over and over again. I’ve seen it all, done it all, and felt every bit of it. All I know is chaos, and yet its chaos itself that keeps me alive.”
Discord turned back to her, “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be sealed up within a cold hard rock for a thousand years? Unable to move, breathe or even blink. Anyone else would’ve suffocated within minutes, but not me! Not an immortal spirit of chaos! I stood there, all cooped up and drowned in a mad world of anger and insanity unable to simply die while little fillies would come and dress me up like a Hearth’s Warming Eve tree, or while that Princess Celestia would just sit there drinking her stinking tea and mocking me. Do you know what that does to a person’s mind? Do you have any idea what it’s like to just stand there for centuries hoping some clumsy gardener might accidently bump into you and tip you over? Sure it’d be an awful way to go, but even the most agonizing end would be preferable to being trapped in that damned statue!”
He grabbed hold of her shoulder, “And then the day finally came when by some folly, I’m relieved of my imprisonment. The first thing, the very first thing I thought of was – What can I do to piss off these little ponies so that they can finally just finish me off?” he laughed at himself, “I gave them a good number. I didn’t hurt anyone, but I drove them absolutely crazy! And what did they do? They let me live…! Those sick twisted little zealots of the Princess locked me back into that horrible granite!” he wanted to claw his own face off, but not even that would have been enough to end his pain, “I just want to die, Twyla. I didn’t want any of this so called apocalypse! One thing just led to another, and in the end all it was really worth was to get you girls to come back!”
Twyla stood there and watched him with a cold bald fist, but she just didn’t have it in her to beat his lights out.
“I tried though, I honestly tried to make the best of it. Somehow I’d hoped that a new world would change things for me, even cheer me up, but all it did was remind me of how stale and lonely I’ve become. Why do you think I kept coming back to that dreaded Equestria? I exaggerated every word I said to you hoping you’d come and find me, guns a blazing, hunting for my head. I’d hoped that maybe we’d have one last great climax together and then I’d make sure I submitted to your retribution. It’d all be over. You’d have your home back and I’d finally have my release…”
Discord bowed his head, the trembling sniveling mess that was once a devious tyrant was no more than a quivering child, “So please, I beg of you, please! Just put an end to this wretched old soul of mines. Don’t make me beg anymore. Haven’t I given you more than enough justification to kill me? Please, Twyla, please just kill me.”
Twyla gripped the arm holding her shoulder and sighed, “You have got to be the most despicable person that I’ve ever met.” She tossed aside his mutant hand and got right in his face, “I’m not going to give you an easy way out of this. You’re selfish and you’re a coward. You aren’t even sorry for all of the heartache you’ve caused us. The very least you could do is try to make up for what you’ve done instead of begging like a child. Sure, it must’ve been awful living inside that statue for so long, but you brought it all on yourself! You could’ve easily just left everyone alone, gone on your way, picked up a hobby and maybe even made some friends, but all you could think about was yourself!”
“N-No! Please!”
Twyla crossed her arms and snuffed him, “I won’t have any part in this. Besides, the scarring in space time is all because of you coming here in the first place! As much as we wanted to, we didn’t come here to kill you, we came here to send you back to Equestria  so that our worlds can return to normal.”
He frantically searched for a rebuttal, “B-But they’ll just seal me up again and-!”
“Stop it!” Twyla shoved him against a wall, “So you’re immortal! So you’re burdened with outlasting eternity! Fine! But it’s still your life and you’re the only one that gets to decide your fate. I don’t know how you came to be or who gave you permission to be such a jerk, but you’re somehow blessed with something supernatural. Mortals only have a finite time to achieve their goals and make something of themselves, to prove to themselves that their journey was worth it and that they accomplished everything they set out to do.”
She couldn’t believe that she was actually trying to reassure someone so awful and pathetic, but she supposed that her instincts were just funny that way, “How dare you feel sorry for yourself! You’re immortal! You have all the time in the world to do whatever you want. You have the luxury to take your time and plan for things. Most of us get thrown right into the thick of it and we only get seconds to adapt. We have to persevere and work hard for what we want because time is constantly working against us! I ‘died’ today, no thanks to you, but I earned that death fighting for my friends, for my home, and for what I believed in!”
Twyla shoved the butt of her shotgun into his chest, “And then here you come, suddenly all out of Band-Aids and scared to pay for your own crimes like a little baby. So you come crying to me, someone you’ve caused nothing but trouble for, and start begging for an easy way out? You deserve to live forever!”
His eyes watered up and he slowly sunk against the wall like a child who’d just been denied purchase of his favorite toy.
“You have a decision to make, Discord. You can either choose to make everyone around you miserable or you can choose to better yourself, redeem yourself, and make yourself useful. If you’re so bored with your jokes then find some new material! Because I’m tired of seeing you die on stage.” Twyla snatched her shotgun off of his chest and walked away. She took a seat on the edge of the skyscraper and took in the limitless stars, “Go home, Discord.”
“T-Twyla…”
“I said, go home!” she slumped over, sat her shotgun over her lap and planted her chin over a palm.
Discord sighed and covered his forehead. Somewhere in that distorted mind of his, an electric pulse snapped through a chemical imbalance, and for the first time in as long as he could remember he actually thought that someone besides himself might just be right.
Maybe it was actually time to make himself ‘useful’ as Twyla put it. She did say that he had all the time in the world. Maybe there was a way he could change things so that he didn’t have to worry, at least that way he could enjoy his eternity in peace amusing himself with harmless little puns. Maybe he’d even make a friend or two.
It was probably too much of a long shot, but it easily beat what he’d made of himself here in this dead city. He stood up, for himself, and walked over to Twyla with an offering and a rough rehearsal under his tongue. The ink was still wet, and the words had already begun to smear, but he was going to get his point whether she’d listen to him or not.
Twyla glared over at him, “Yeah? You still here?” 
Discord’s heart raced, as if he was at the front of the class about to beg for his Gameboy back from his teacher, “Twyla, I-I…”
The door to the observatory suddenly flew off of its hinges and a cavalcade of weapons forced their way through with an innocent Discord in their sights.
Regina measured her sights, “Twyla! Move out of the way!”
Twyla didn’t even have a second to cry “Wait!” and so she rolled and ducked out of the way.
Raine swung around her Avenger, “Time to taste the painbow!”
Ten thousand screaming bullets, a couple of rockets, and a clever arrow reached out for Discord’s gullet, and he caught every single one of them in a vicious beam of light.

Bon Jovi had been left idly playing over the speakers. The coffee table, which at one point had been stacked to the corner with everything from Absolut to Whisky, had been left with no more than a few teetering wet bottles that had drunkenly rolled into a set of damp shot glasses.
The room must’ve been lived in at some point, or was at least on its way to the cleaners from the looks of things because it was completely empty.
“Aw! Who drank all of the Smirnoff?” Piper whined.
“What in the world?” Déjà vu was staring Twyla right in the face, quite literally.
Regina panned around the room, “So, uhm, does anyone else recognize this place?”
Aprile picked up a magnum of half empty Whisky and sniffed the rim. It was still fresh, in fact, she could still taste it. Fiona was curious of the bottle herself, but Aprile snatched it away from her, “This ain’t Pepsi, lightweight.”
“Ah man! Where’s my awesome Gatling gun?!” Raine actually checked her pockets for the massive cannon and even under the couch seat in the room.
“Okay, so then it isn’t just me! I wasn’t just dreaming this whole time.” Twyla chuckled under her breath, “We were all at the very top of the Empire State building just now, right? And all of you remember Discord standing there… right?”
“I remember puttin’ a shot right between that suckers eyes, I remember that much.” Aprile downed a shot of Whisky before Fiona’s desperate eyes.
“Just one? I had like a dozen in that muppet’s head before you even pulled the trigger!” Raine challenged.
“Quiet you two, this is probably some sort of trap on Discord’s part.” Regina suggested, “Somehow he’s managed to snatch away our weapons. He could be anywhere by now.”
“Oh, there he is!” Piper shouted.
Regina threw herself against a wall, “Where!?”
Piper took a bottle and smashed it against a harmless fly on the wall so hard that it got a shriek out of everyone in the room. No one was cut by the shards of glass, though the fly was far from lucky.
Twyla slapped the bottle head out of the lunatic’s hand, “Piper! Stop it!”
The door to the room opened, “Is everything alright in here, ladies? I heard a glass break.”
The very last thing any of them had expected to see was a waiter, or at least one that wasn’t walking with the dead. There was a pause that lasted for an eternity until the waiter finally spoke up again, “Uhm, Okay then, I’ll leave you ladies alone for now. We’ll have the check up front when you’re done, alright? Have fun, girls.” He awkwardly closed the door and left them to their whistles.
There was a glacier of silence in the room, and they did their best to scale it until eventually the ice broke.
“Twyla! Check your phone.” Regina whispered, as if she was hiding from something.
The room was suddenly filled with Twylas. To think they’d actually forgotten about their cell phones in little more than a week, but one after another, the time remained the same. The displays clearly read just a minute past midnight, but the original Twyla hadn’t stayed long enough to hear the news.
She found herself running out of the room and down the hallway. She’d nearly knocked over a waitress on her way to deliver a round of tequila shots and she’d even convinced the manager that she was ditching on her bill, but nothing could possibly hold her back from opening that front door.
There it was, New York City in all of its careless splendor lighting up the night like she’d always done before. A few busy cars drove down the street and the sidewalks had their usual pedestrians looking for someone to call home for the night.
Twyla felt her legs go numb and she fell onto the curb. It was impossible to hold up all of the joy in her heart, but that smile on her face was certainly enough to carry the tears streaming down her cheeks.
It wasn’t long before the others found their way onto the sidewalk as well.
Piper nearly tackled Twyla to the ground, “Look Twyla! Look! Regina’s phone says its midnight! And so does Fiona’s, and Aprile’s and Raine’s, and, well, mines probably does too but I think I forgot to pay my cell phone bill this month, again!” She snorted.
Twyla hugged the goofy cream puff tightly. She desperately needed a napkin after all.
Regina handed the manager his payment along with his marbles and strolled over, “I-I don’t understand quite what’s happened, but it looks like everything’s okay, somehow.”
“Wait a second, where did Debbie go?” Fiona asked, to which a cab just happened to pass by.
The rear window slid down and the fare nearly jumped out of the car, “Guys! Look me up on Facebook! Let’s hang out tomorrow, alright?” It was all that Debbie managed to shout before her cab disappeared into the next intersection, to which Fiona frantically waved and shouted, “Will do!”
Twyla couldn’t stop crying between Piper’s arms, “I-I’m so happy!”
Fiona giggled and joined in the hug.
“Now don’cha leave me out of it.” Aprile chuckled and wrapped her arms around all three of them.
Regina squeezed herself in, “T-This is just amazing! I know we just technically had a party but we should totally go out and something!”
“That’s a great idea!” Piper cheered, “What do you think, Twyla?”
“I don’t care what we do, as long as it’s with… hey,where’s Raine at?” Twyla peeked her head over, “Get in here, Raine!”
Raine walked out of the karaoke bar with a confused look in her eyes, “Hey Twyla, there was a card in the room with your name on it.”
“Huh?” Twyla eyed her friends, “I thought I said no cards or gifts!”
None of them had bought any such thing, as per her strict request of course. Twyla broke out of the moment and the others followed suit.
Raine wasn’t quite sure what to say and handed her the envelope. It was marked ‘Twyla’ in the fancy curl of a ballpoint pen.
“Well, go on and open it, dear!” Regina shoved.
“Yeah, what does it say?” begged Piper.
Twyla’s heart began to drown. She really didn’t want to open it, but her fingers moved of their own liberty. She frantically pulled the piece of paper out of the envelope and unfolded it…

Roses are red, Blue roses are blue, Time space isn’t skewed and neither are you.

Yeah, well, I listened to what you told me and as much as I hate to admit it, you’re probably right. I don’t think there’s any way I could ever apologize for the trouble I’ve caused you, but if apologizing means that I can change things, that I don’t have to live such a pedantic and miserable life constantly begging for attention, then I think it might just be worth it to retire from all of this super villainy.
You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve decided to return to Equestria. Oh, and don’t worry, I’ve only turned back time for your reality, so don’t think that your pony friends have forgotten about you. Incidentally, I’ve also mended the scars in time space so your world won’t be getting any more little surprises.
Anyway, think of this as the best a god of chaos could come up with for an apology. Thank you for standing up to me and slapping me in the face with reality.

Happy Birthday Twyla,
Sincerely, some asshole named Discord

Twyla couldn’t believe what she’d just read, and neither could anyone else there. It was like something out of a comic book.
“Dear lord, what did you do to him, Twyla?” Regina asked.
“There’s no way he wrote that. Let me see it!” Raine snatched away the letter from Twyla’s limp hand.
“There’s gotta’ be more to it than that. I mean, after all he’s done to just turn face like that. That’s sloppy writin’.” Aprile dismissed.
“Well, we are back home again, back where we first started off.” Offered Piper, “Maybe he just had a… change of heart?”
“Wow, this really is legit. What did you say to him, girl?” Raine prodded.
“And how’d you survive that bite?” Aprile wondered, “We thought you’d be done for before Discord could even throw you off that roof. You have no idea how fast we were stampedin’ up them steps!”
Fiona put her hand over the egghead’s shoulder, “Twyla, what on Earth happened up there?”
She couldn’t recall a single moment where she’d ever cared for Discord’s peculiar predicament. It was his fault to begin with, but regardless, her words came from the heart and apparently were enough to reach his. An unnecessary guilt had settled in and she almost thought she’d gone too far with a few phrases. Twyla didn’t owe him a single thing, but looking back on it now, she probably could’ve wiped the spit off of his tuxedo, “You know what? I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starved. How about I explain everything over some Denny’s?”
Raine laughed and handed her back her birthday card, “Sounds good, Twyla.”
“I’m down for that!” Piper bounced.
Regina was all for it, “Oh yes, for the love of God, please, I haven’t had a taste of meat in a week.” She got on her cell phone and within a minute her chauffeur arrived in a white limousine that seemed to stretch for miles, “Over here, darling!”
The door swung open and they packed themselves into the yacht. 
Aprile was all for bacon and eggs, but she was apprehensive of climbing aboard, “Uhm, guys, I think I’m just gonna’ go home. I really wanna’ see my family.”
“How? You gonna’ walk home?” Raine chuckled.
“Certainly not! And especially not after all we’ve been through.” Regina would have none of it, “I shan’t let one of my best friends be reduced to simple cab fare on such a momentous occasion! We’ll grab a quick bite to eat and then we’ll drop you off at home. I simply will not take ‘no’ for an answer.”	Regina had struck all of the rights chords. Aprile wanted nothing more than to gorge herself on a helping of diabetes, but she needed to at least step in the front door of her home and make sure everything was just as she had left it.
“Oh, get in here already.” Twyla yanked the poor thing in and Piper closed the door before the limo finally sped off. Twyla threw her arm around Aprile’s shoulder, “I’m sorry Aprile, but it wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t with us to celebrate.”
“Damn right!” Raine rustled the cowpolk’s hat with a laugh.
“Gah! Get off! Go play with your girlfriend, hippie.” Aprile grumbled.
“Fine, I will! Fiona, get over here! Aprile wants a show!”
“Oh, come on!” Twyla whined.
Regina palmed the side of her face, “Can’t you two wait until we drop you off at some sleazy hotel somewhere?”
Fiona scooted over to her mistress like an obedient little puppy, “Y-Yes…?”
“We never got to have our romantic kiss at the end of the story, Fiona!” Raine chuckled and pulled herself in, “Open wide, I need to perform an inspection.”
“Oh, uhm, O-Of course, ma’m.” Fiona opened her shy little mouth and stuck out her nervous tongue.
“Wait a second, you guys already kissed!” Piper ventured.
“Oh dear, it looks like we’ll have to operate!”
“Oh no! Is it terminal?” Fiona whimpered.
“I’m not sure. We’ll have to go deeper!” Raine took Fiona in her lips and demonstrated her impressive medical expertise. The prognosis called for a deep tissue mouth examination, and she was going to take her time with it.
“Eww…!” Aprile turned away, regretting ever being talked into coming along.
Twyla shrugged, “Well, I’ll at least give them points for the amusing roleplay.”
Regina had had enough of the nagging trope. She scooted to the front of the limousine and banged on the window, “Please hurry, Alfred!”

“I suppose it’s worth a shot. I mean, I’ve been alive for so long and yet, all I’ve ever done is prank and harm others.” Discord sighed, “Why haven’t I ever just tried to relax and be nice to folks?” He had long entered the void and the light at the end of the tunnel was rapidly approaching.
“I guess I’ve just always been so bitter about things, bitter to a heckling crowd always throwing me off stage. It hurts, but I really only have myself to blame in the end…”
A series of lit rings began to pass over his body as the tunnel came to a close, “Who says chaos necessarily has to be a bad thing though…? After all, there’s constant chaos in nature. A volcano erupts and hardens with time leaving just enough room for a flower to bloom.”
Discord found himself enveloped in a blinding curtain of light. He eventually untangled his eyes and found himself standing atop a small cloud as an aroma of humble farms and lush valleys filled his lungs.
For once, it felt nice, if not relieving to see Equestria agreeing with itself. There wasn’t any need for bad puns or gags. It was fine just the way it was and it brought a smile to his face to finally realize that.
He sighed and wondered what he might do with himself now that he’d returned home, “Perhaps I’ll set up a small business, creating all sorts of things for ponies. I do have the power to influence matter after all.” but he couldn’t help but second guessed himself, “No, no, that would just wreck the economy. That would be foolish! I should instead use my powers to assist the locals. Maybe apple picking, watering crops, rescuing kittens from tall trees.” He chuckled at the thought, “In any case, I certainly do have a long way to go. I have all the time in the world to think about what I want to do and-” and he’d certainly have all the time he’d ever need as a statue.  A brilliant laser plucked him from the sky’s grace and sent him whistling all the way down to Earth like a falling bomb, though as usual, he was no more than a dud.
“Got him! We did it girls!” Twilight Sparkle was nearly hopping out of her own horseshoes, and so were all of her little friends, “See girls! I told you that Twyla knew what she was talking about. It might’ve taken a little while, but she did it!”
“She sure did! They all did!” Rarity cheered, wrapping her hooves around Twilight.
Pinkie Pie was a regular loudspeaker, chanting and cheering, ranting and raving over their victory, and of course all of which at twice the speed of light.
Fluttershy giggled as Ditzy bounced in and out of her own flight itinerary, “Woohoo! Fiona did it! Oh boy, I bet she and the others are probably having the biggest party ever right now!” she altered her altitude and snatched up Fluttershy in her hooves, “Come on Fluttershy! We should celebrate too!”
Startled from the sudden gust, she still managed to smile, “T-That sounds like a wonderful idea, Ditzy.”
Applejack hefted the statue into a wheel barrel with the toothiest grin she’d ever worn on her face, “The Princess sure is gonna’ be glad to have her favorite garden gnome back again!”
Rainbow dashed in and flicked Discord’s stone nose with a chuckle, “Check it out, AJ! We got him in a nice pose this time.”
Applejack chuckled, “Looks like he’ll have plenty of time to ‘think’ about everything he’s done.”
Indeed, he’d become a perfect knockoff of the Thinker and at least this time he’d do a much better job at tying together Princess Celestia’s trophy garden.
You could practically cut through the agony with a butter knife, but it’d probably be put to better use buttering Ditzy’s blueberry muffins.

Regina kept her promise, and made sure that Aprile got home as fast as their chauffeur could drive them there.
“Have a good night, Aprile.” Twyla smiled and gave the anxious woman a hug.
“Let’s hang out tomorrow!” Piper suggested, “We’ll bring Debbie along and everything.”
“I’d normally have to work the apple trees, but I’ll definitely swing by for it. Don’t party too much without me, ladies!” she gave a John Cena salute and ran up to her porch.
“Later!”
“Bye Aprile!”
“Sleep well, dear!” and as soon as Aprile fumbled her way through the door, the yacht drove off down the dirt road.

It was around three in the morning and Aprile frankly didn’t give a damn. She scrambled through the house, her clacking boots nearly running up the walls until she came upon her big brother, who was snoring on the couch as reruns of Judge Judy lit up the living room.
Aprile held back a laugh and covered him in a blanket. She pecked a kiss against his forehead and turned off the television, “Night, big bro.”
By now she’d hung her boots over her shoulder, finally having come to terms with both her relief and her joy. She crept down the hallway and peeked in to her good old Grandma’s room, who was probably snoring louder than the entire living room combined. She giggled and gently shut the door.
Aprile fell back into the hallway and turned towards Abbie’s room, which had a dim light coming from the crack underneath the door. “Up at this hour? What could that little rascal be up to.” as if she really had the nerve to punish her.
She snuck into the room with the silence of a frozen lakebed. She could hear small murmurs coming from a tent pitched with a flashlight over the little girl’s bed, “Abbie!”
The flashlight was the first thing to tumble over and in her frantic attempt to pretend that she was still sleeping, Abbie nearly tumbled off of the bed herself. She poked her little head out from under the covers, “I-I’m sorry, Aprile! I was just doin’ a little readin’ is all. I promise I’ll go to sleep right away! J-Just gime’ five more… Sis, why’re you crying?”
Aprile thought she could’ve relied on the room’s darkness to hide her tears, but no matter how hard she bit her lip, they just wouldn’t stop coming.
She was starting to scare the little girl, “Aprile, what happened?”
Aprile wiped away her tears and sat down beside Abbie. She wanted so badly to tell her of the beautiful land she’d visited within the space of a minute and all of the new friends she met there, but she couldn’t stand the thought of her knowing all of the atrocities and hardship that her adventure had brought along. Abbie probably wouldn’t have believed her anyway, “It’s alright Abbie, nothing’s wrong. I-I’m just really glad to see you is all…” she leaned in and gave her little sister a tight hug and popped a little kiss on her forehead, “So what’re ya’ readin’ there, squirt?”
Abbie was still a little confused. Her big sister was obviously sad about something, and so she figured her book might help cheer her up at the very least, “I-I’m readin’ a book called ‘Robot Zot’. I got it at the school library today. It’s about a totally awesome robot that crashes into a bunch of kitchen appliances and has to rescue a cellphone princess!”
The synopsis did the trick and had Aprile holding her sides, “Well, it looks like you’re just blasting off all over the place, Abbie. Just how far along are ya’?”
“I’m half way done with it. It’s great!”
“It definitely sounds great.” Aprile smiled and stood up to switch on a tiny lamp light, “Sounds like something totally out of this world!” she sat back down and plopped her hat onto Abbie’s head, “Would ya’ mind readin’ a bit of it to me? I’m still pretty wide-eyed myself.”
“Of course!” how could Abbie possibly refuse? She snuggled up against her big sis and found the page she’d left off on, “Say, did your hat get wet or somethin’? Feels a little smaller, but at least it fits me perfect now	!” she squeaked through a giggle.
Aprile laughed, “Maybe. There’s a lot of really good memories in that hat. Now go on, squirt. I wanna’ learn all about this here Mister Robot Zot.”
Abbie giggled, “Alright, alright, I’ll start where I left off I guess.” She went on to describe a strange alien world filled with an army of fearsome marauding home appliances led by an evil television dictator. However, there was a newcomer among them, a mechanical hero that would stand up to evil and challenge the very heart of tyranny.
The tale was probably even more ridiculous than Aprile’s entire trip put together, but it didn’t bother her one bit. Abbie could’ve been reading aloud Gilbert Gottfried’s interpretation of Fifty Shades of Grey for all she cared, and Aprile still would’ve sat there and listened.
She wrapped her arms around Abbie and made sure she was protected by the bed sheets as she read her little story.

The iron belly of a commercial airline screamed overhead, and it dragged a few panes of grass along with it.
The limousine had pulled up to a rest stop at the end of an airport runway facing JFK international. Regina’s chauffeur really didn’t mind waiting at her every beck and call, no matter how late it actually was. It had always been a pleasure to serve her, especially since he was one of her only assistants that always remained behind her on her infamous warpaths.
Alfred had an opportunity to take a smoke break and tuned up the radio as per Raine’s request, playing ‘Victory’ by the Notorious Biggie Smalls. Hip hop wasn’t necessarily his cup of tea, but it certainly provided a distraction from the show sprawled out above the hood of his yacht.
Raine murmured a lyric into Fiona’s blushing ear, “The sun don’t shine forever… but as long as it’s here then we might as well shine together…” she teased a squeeze, and pinched her earlobe in between her teeth.
Fiona whimpered and did her best to pretend to squirm away, but Raine had pinned her down against the limousine’s hood and wasn’t about to let her little pet escape.
Fiona felt like a tomato, but she also felt reassured by the gentle palm caressing the side of her cheek. She may have been inexperienced in the matters of intimacy, but she’d stay for the lecture. Fiona awkwardly grabbed Raine’s butt, “L-Like this..?”
The airline waitress left the earlobe, “No, no, no. Not yet. I mean, you could, but it’s better to take it slowly and work your way down there later.” She took Fiona’s hand and lifted it back up, “Start up here first.” And then she placed over her breast, “See, how’s that feel?”
Fiona was nearly on the verge of a nosebleed, and even worse off she wasn’t exactly sure what to do. She tried to squeeze a handful of boob, but all she really managed to squeeze out of it was a laugh from Raine, “Oh, no! I-I’m sorry, I must be awful at this…”
“That’s okay, sweetie. I was just playing around anyways. Just give me a hug, and get over here…”
Fiona clumsily graced her mistress’ shoulders and pulled Raine’s body against hers in a soft kiss.
“Oh, my word.” Alfred adjusted his collar and reached for the dehumidifier.

Twyla closed and pocketed her cellphone before walking back over to the railing, “Well, it’s done. Though I have to admit that I sort of feel bad for calling in sick today, Regina. I mean, I feel perfectly fine to teach.”
Regina patted her over the back with a chuckle, “Oh, Twyla. You just returned from an exhausting journey battling a god and defending a civilization of tiny talking pink horses and you even got yourself killed in the process! Do you have any idea what that kind of stress does to your complexion?”
Twyla couldn’t resist a laugh, “I guess I do deserve a day off. Besides, it’d give us time to hang out again.”
“Now that’s the spirit!” Regina smiled.
Piper leaned over the railing and pouted, “Oh yeah? Well I have tomorrow off too. In fact, I’ll probably have days off for the rest of my life!”
“It’s okay, Piper. You’ll find another job.” Twyla rubbed her shoulders.
“Really? How?”
“Just be yourself!” Twyla smiled, “You’ve got a great personality! You’re funny, you’re great with people, and you have a beautiful smile. I mean, don’t you remember last night? You and Pinkie Pie gathered the entire town and cut a rug through the streets. That was amazing! Just keep that smile up and I know you’ll be able to find something in no time at all.”
“She can have my job if she wants.” Regina closed her cellphone.
“What?” snapped Piper.
Twyla raised a brow, “Don’t tell me…”
Regina sighed, “No, I haven’t just yet, but I think I’m going to retire this week. I’m going to sell off all of my stock, take my retirement package and relax.”
“B-But fashion is your passion!”
“Yes, but paparazzi, magazine signings, editing articles and boardroom meetings certainly are not. Working in Rarity’s boutique gave me a chance to stretch out my fingers and create. I can’t tell either of you how long it’s been since I’ve pricked my finger with a needle or had to work out measurements in my head, and if there’s anything that I took away from Ponyville, it’s that fame and money can’t always bring you what you want in life.”
“Well, what’re you going to do with your time then?” Twyla asked.
“What do you think, darling?” Regina grinned, “I’m going to go back to designing, of course. I’ll probably set up a small business or an online shop and auction off my ensembles. No more bending over backwards unless it’s for myself!”
“Well that’s great to hear, I bet you’ll be much happier that way.” Twyla smiled and watched as another plane taxied towards them on the runway.
The busy lights of the city reached out and blanketed the stars, but they couldn’t capture all of them. Twyla leaned over the rail and cupped her chin. She gazed up at those twinkling little lights and wondered if anyone else might be enjoying the beautiful night’s sky as well.
Piper hung herself out to dry out over the bar. She rocked back and forth dipping her head over the side kicking her feet up into the air like a kindergartener, “So Twyla, what do you want to do tomorrow?”
Twyla smiled blankly and simply replied, “Second star to the right, and straight on until morning…”
“Wait, what?”

The celebrations and festivities that had sprung up that night in Ponyville had made every single party they’d had that week combined look like a tea party. The townsfolk had the figurine of Discord to thank for their newest parade, though much of the credit belonged to those such as Pinkie Pie and her friends who led the way with plenty of pastries and cookies to be enjoyed by all. She even popped a birthday hat on the bust’s head so that maybe he might not feel so left out.
But not even Pinkie’s largest ice cream cake could’ve tempted the tongue of Twilight Sparkle, not even if Princess Celestia herself popped out of the top of it.
Twilight had perched herself on the balcony of her tree house. The night was at its very peak and she had waited to capture every moment with her telescope.
The door downstairs creaked open, “Hey Twilight! Pinkie Pie sent over a slice of cake for you! I’m going to put it in the fridge, alright?”
“Actually, Spike, could you bring it up here for me?”
The little dragon scampered up the steps, into Twilight’s room, and up to her balcony, all while helping himself to a finger’s worth of cake frosting, “What’re you doing up here all by yourself, Twilight? You’re missing out on the party, again.”
The unicorn swept up the plate with a mist of magic and forked a small bite, “Oh, it’s okay, Spike. I’ve had more than enough fun this week. Besides, we’re watching the stars tonight.”
“We’re?” Spike didn’t see anyone else, “Oh, you mean us, right?”
Twilight giggled, “Oh, of course, Spike.”