//------------------------------//
// Chapter Twelve, Part 2 - Downfall 
// Story: DECEPTION 
// by Christian Harisay 
//------------------------------//

Rainbow, Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy were all huddled up in the darken bunker, their alert eyes darting across the six surfaces of their desperate refuge as though at any moment the head of the projection of a certain draconequus might burst in from one of them like a ravenous quarry eel.

The thing-pony kept its gaze on Twilight. Or on the wall behind Twilight. Or nowhere in particular. It was hard to tell with eyes that resembled clouds in a crystal ball.

Rainbow looked to and fro, her wings frequently twitching. She reached up with a hoof and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She could feel her temperature rising with her ire to leave multiple bruises in the shape of her hooves on Discord’s face.

Applejack reminded her Stetson to fan herself with it. “Whew, is it just me, or did it start gettin’ hot in here?”

Fluttershy shifted uncomfortably as she pawed at the ground with a hoof. Her eyes went wide in alarm. “The floor is getting hot!”

Rainbow took to the air. “He's found us!”

The mares still on their hooves looked around in fear. Suddenly the floor began to tilt, and next they knew, they were sliding towards the wall where the thing-pony stood as gravity shifted. The unconscious Twilight and Pinkie slid helplessly towards the corner. Applejack leapt forward and caught Pinkie as the thing-pony caught Twilight. It looked Applejack in the eyes, then made a quick nod towards the sleeping mares before looking back up at her and making a gesture with its forehooves, rapidly circling one around the other.

Applejack just looked confused. “What?” Then her eyes lit up in realization. “Oh, got it!” She affirmed, then withdrew her rope and tied Twilight and Pinkie together around the barrels with it, binding the end in a sturdy knot just as the bunker began another rotation, sending the occupants sliding from what was once one of the walls to what used to be the ceiling.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” Rainbow exclaimed, her coat visibility matted with sweat from the sweltering heat.

She positioned herself to do an aerial dive through their only means of escape, but right before she could move the thing-pony had gotten in her way, blocking the door with its body and a raised hoof. It shook its head, then began another set of charades as it made a motion with its forehooves punching down, then drew its hooves back up with a series of diminishing wiggles. It held one hoof up, then held up both like it was holding up a box in front of its face. It held its hooves in that position, then flipped them to a right angle, then punched through the air horizontality.

Rainbow groaned in frustration. “Ugh, this would be so much easier if you just talked!”

“I-I think he's trying to say we need to wait for one more flip before we try to escape!” Fluttershy suggested as she tried to pick Rarity up into the air with her to keep their hooves of the searing floor.

The thing-pony jerked its head over to Fluttershy, making the timid pegasus shy away. It pointed a hoof and nodded vigorously, then looked back at Rainbow.

“Of course Twilight's projection starts calling the shots!” Rainbow said with a slight roll of her eyes.

Rainbow flew as close as she could to the wall opposite the entrance without touching it. Rarity was using what lift she was getting from Fluttershy to dig into the side wall, trying to find purchase off of the burning ground. Applejack and the thing-pony had taken hold of opposite ends of the rope around Twilight and Pinkie, waiting for the moment to escape.

The confines of their pocket dimension levelled out, and the exit was not right in front of them.

“GO!” Rainbow yelled, then rocketed towards the door.

Her forehooves pulverized the exit door, turning it to splinters. She flinched, feeling dozens of tiny daggers poking at the skin. A wave of scorching heat slammed into her, voraciously consuming the moisture in the air around her; it chewed at the tears that had formed in the corners of her eyes and licked her body with burning tongues.

Rainbow hit the ground and skidded to a halt upon the streets of fever-dream Ponyville. Five ‘thumps’ as the mares hit the ground like that many sacks of apples came from behind her. She looked back, and saw their former safe house skewered by spears and rotating slowly over a raging bonfire.

A tuft at the end of one of the thing-pony's spindly ears has caught a small fire. Fluttershy looked at it in alarm, but the thing-pony just nonchalantly let go of its end of the rope and reached up to snuff the flame with a hoof.

A disappointed groaned came from in front of them. “Aw, so we're not going to have a cookout? But I was going to have Princeton make us s’mores!”

Rainbow wiped around and snarled. “You're going to have to try a lot harder than that to kill us!”

Discord broke into an uncharacteristically shrill laugh that sent chills down the girls’ spines. “Kill you?! I don't want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off outside source material again? No, no… you complete me.”

Rarity scoffed. “Oh, that sure is a mawkish platitude!”

Discord chuckled, his voice returning to its normal baritone pitch. “Not at all, my dear. Order and chaos are just opposite sides of the bit; you can't have one without the other. So you can't kill me, because I'm already inside Pinkie. And I won't kill you, because you girls are just too much fun.”

Discord stretched, limbering up his serpentine form. “However, I can't have Twily here spoil all the fun,” he said with a growing devil's smirk, then reached behind his back and withdrew an entire above-ground swimming pool currently occupied by a wallaby wearing a set of floaties. “Besides, I’d so loathe for her to miss out on the fun.” Then he flung the pool at them.

Rainbow grabbed Twilight and Pinkie and launched into the air. Applejack and the thing-pony dodged in opposite directions to avoid the miniature wave, while Fluttershy flew up with Rarity, catching the wallaby with her face on the way up.

Rainbow looked down as the wave passed beneath them, dissipating across the street and becoming nothing more than an exceptionally large puddle. She looked back at Discord and laughed in derision.

“Is that the best you've got?!”

Discord smirked in return. “Oh Dashie, I haven't even gotten started.”

Discord snapped his fingers, and the whole world began to shake. First small quivers, then as trembles, then heaving rumbles. Each mare still on the ground fell from the tumultuous vibrations, and even the thing-pony was forced into its ready stance as buildings began to weaken and collapse.

A regolith plume erupted from the earth, casting aside homes and businesses in contemptuous disregard as a jagged spire of rock arose from the ground like a dagger emerging from an exit wound. As it pierced the red sky, storm clouds began to form and swirl around it's peak. Bursts of lightning arced between them, sparking explosions of thunder and making the dark clouds weep with torrential downpours. Deluges of water began to cascade down the bluffs in the grooves that scared its stony hide.

Near the crest of the nascent mountain, a roaring waterfall gushed from the opening of a dark cave like geysers from the mouth of a sea serpent. From the threshold of shadows appeared a hollowed-out log of a thick tree trunk. Inside sat two blank ponies like those in attendance at Pinkie's trial. They passed over the lip of the towering cataract, then plummeted at terminal velocity down the waterfall towards the pools that had formed at the base of the mountain, where they disappeared behind a curtain of thorny bramble and mist.

Applejack glared up at Rainbow Dash. “Ya just had to open your big mouth…”

Discord snapped his fingers again, and the six of them disappeared, reappearing inside a spacious cavern, split up in groups of two—Rainbow and Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy, and Twilight with Pinkie—then bound by thick ropes in different logs that were all floating in a line down a narrow waterway. Ubiquitous music that sounded way more cheerful than it had any right to be played throughout the dimly lit cave.

There was a crackle of static, and Discord’s tinny voice came out over a set of blown-out loudspeakers.

“Please keep your hooves, legs, and wings inside the car at all times. Please remain seated and do not stand up until the ride has come to a complete stop… not that you have much of a choice. But hey, if you want to get decapitated, that's on you.”

Their water-bound logs lurched as they hit an inclined conveyor belt, dragging them up a hill with a cacophony of click-clacks that forced their ears back.

Rainbow turned around as best she could. “See if you can use your magic to untie these knots!”

“I'll do my best, darling,” she said, then activated her magic.

Applejack looked back at Fluttershy. “Hey, sugarcube, think you could use those laser eyes of yours to cut through these here ropes?*

“Yeah…” her face paled. “But I don't want to cut through you too!”

“Then try cutting it from the sides, and brace yourself against something if ya have to. Just don't dally, girl, we gotta get outta this quick!”

Their logs reached the crest of the lift hill and slid down an incline back into the steam, causing a modest splash. Rainbow went stiff looking at the car in front of them as Twilight and Pinkie were flecked with a few droplets of water.

Rainbow turned around again. “Hurry up! We have to get Twilight and Pinkie away from all this water!”

Rarity made a whine in frustration. “Applejack, do you have any advice on untying complex knots?”

“Is it one of those knots where the rabbit comes out of the hole, goes around the tree, then runs back down the hole?” Applejack asked.

Rarity squinted at the knot. “Ah… it looks as though the confounded hare got intoxicated and then invited an entire fraternity over to meander around the tree and the burrow as they pleased!”

Fluttershy looked up. “Bunny!”

“They're talking about ropes, Fluttershy!” Rainbow shouted.

“No, I mean there's an actual bunny-rabbit ahead!”

All four of them looked towards a fallen tree just to the right of the steam, where a grey and tan rabbit with the tell-tale uneven red and yellow eyes and snaggletooth of Discord hopped into view. He gave them that manic smile of his, then addressed them.

In song.

“Hello, everypony.
The day is nice and sunny.
Oh look, I'm a bunny.
Hey, want to hear something funny?
Then come along, it won’t take long.
Wave bye to your sanity before it's gone.”

The Discord-rabbit bounded off into the dark. Rainbow whipped back around to Rarity and began to frantically struggle against her binds.

“Let me off of this stupid foal’s ride!”

“I'm trying, I'm trying! I haven't seen a knot this terrible since that time Sweetie Bell tried to give herself dreadlocks!”

They rounded a bend in the waterway, where a Discord-turtle sat on the edge of a dock with a fishing pole in its claws. He looked at them, then tipped up his fisher’s hat to get a better sight of them.

“Well, what do we have here?
Six little ponies, passing past the pier.
Downstream it gets a little queer.
But considering your company
Includes a certain pink pony, 
That should’ve been abundantly clear.”

They passed under a curtain of willow branches and into a thicket of moss-coated cottonwood trees, where a populace of Discord geese and frogs were singing the refrain of the verse.

“Downstream it gets a little queer!
Your company should have made that clear!”

Rarity’s ears folded back. “I find this exceptionally aggravating.”

“I don't know, I think it's kind of nice,” Fluttershy muttered. “I mean aside from the whole Discord thing…”

Rainbow, however...

“RARITY GET ME OUT GET ME OUT GET ME OUT GET ME OUT!”

“Quit your cryin’, ya big baby! Losing it ain't gonna get us out of this any faster!” Applejack hollered.

“Yeah, and what happens if Discord shows up as a troupe of singing sea ponies? What then, Applejack?!” Rainbow countered.

A Discord-alligator emerged from the water next to the log with Rainbow and Rarity and looked up at the pegasus.

“Thanks for that idea!” he said, then submerged back into the shadowy swamp.

Applejack’s face twisted in horror. She gulped, then turned to Fluttershy.

“Hey, uh, sugarcube, could ya get back to cutting me outta these ropes?” Her face became more anxious. “Like, NOW?!”

Fluttershy eeped in alarm and swept back down to Applejack's binds, gritting her teeth in nervous concentration.

“Almost… got it!” She exclaimed as she cut through the last wrap.

Applejack stood, shaking off the shreds of her bonds. The intercoms crackled again, and Discord's voice came through in a nasal blare.

“DO NOT STAND UP ON THE RIDE.”

“Buck off!” Applejack yelled in response, then turned to address Fluttershy with a tip of her hat. “Thanks, girl. Need me to help you out?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “No thanks, I can cut myself out. Rainbow needs your help more than I do!”

Applejack nodded, then clambered up to the front of their log. She tensed up, then did a short running jump over to the timber transport with Rarity and Rainbow. The log was just out of reach, and she slammed into the back end. Her rear hooves pawed at the log, trying to find enough purchase to hurdle herself over.

The Discord-alligator erupted from the murky waters, snapping its tooth-riddled jaws at her. She bucked it right in the snout and used the leverage from the contact to push herself up and over into the log with her friends, flopping ungracefully onto Rarity’s back. The unicorn flinched away as Applejack peered over her shoulder.

“Ah, I get what the problem is. See, that there is one of them knots where… well, let's just say a knot like that explains why there are so many rabbits running around.”

“So how do we untie it?” Rarity asked.

Applejack rubbed the back of her head. “Yeah, about that… sorry in advance.”

Rarity leaned back a little. “Sorry for what?”

Applejack grabbed Rarity’s head, thrust it horn-first into the Gordian tangle, and yanked up hard, tearing the knot in half in spite of Rarity’s cries.

“Oh thank Celestia!” Rainbow exclaimed as she burst from her twine prison and promptly shoved both of her forelegs hoof-deep into her ears.

Rarity snapped towards Applejack. “Was that really necessary?!”

“Was if we want to get out of this as quickly as possible.” she replied.

Rarity scrunched up her face. “You could have at least warned me!”

“That up-front ‘sorry’ was your warning.”

Fluttershy cut herself loose and flew over to join the others, and began to cut away at the ropes holding Rarity. The dense swamp suddenly cleared away, and the four found themselves cutting through a grey, barren field littered with rocks that stretched for acres in any given direction. The only other feature to disrupt the vast, gravel-choked expanse was a rustic, run-down farmhouse. The dreary collage of bleak greys, muddled browns, and dull sky was contrast by a bright pink ragdoll filly with blue button eyes and flat nylon streamers for her mane and tail that was glumly pushing one pile of rocks over to another pile of rocks. She nudged a stone over to the heap, then the filly Pinkie puppet pouted with unfulfillment.

“Golly-gee, this farm sure is a bore
Pushin’ ‘round rocks and perfunctory chores
What I wouldn't give to instead be partying
To be with everypony, playing and smiling…”

The front door to the house in the background banged open for a tan earth pony stallion puppet with grey sideburns and wearing a cockel hat.

“I said no singing!” He yelled, then slammed the door shut behind him.

The Pinkie puppet sighed. “Gee, this place is a bore.”

She turned to look at her flanks, revealing her patchwork cutie mark.

“Rocks aren't my special talent
This farm sure isn't me
Would it be better if I left?
Boy, that would just be crazy.”

The Pinkie puppet’s face went stiff, shot up into the air where she hovered for a second with her legs locked straight, and her mane and tail puffed out into a tangled mess.

“Them that's exactly what I'll do!
Follow me down-fall and I'll party with you!

Rainbow’s ears had folded back like horns, and her eyes were sharpened to scimitar blades.

“Now he's just taunting us,” she growled through gritted teeth. “Next time we find Discord, I'm going to pound him until there's nothing left to regenerate!”

Fluttershy scratched the side of her head with a hoof. “‘Down-fall?’ Doesn't she mean ‘down-steam?’”

Their ears perked up at the sounds of rushing water. They looked ahead, where the stream wove back into the thick underbrush just in time to see the back end of Twilight and Pinkie's log tip forward and quickly vanished from sight.

Rainbow screamed and bolted after them into the shadows of the canopy and down the waterfall. She landed in front of Twilight and Pinkie, then turned and spread her wings out as a shield. They barrelled through the whitewash at the bottom of the drop, splashing cold water across Rainbow's back. She grit her teeth at the contact, but Twilight and Pinkie remained relatively dry, Dreamscape undisrupted and their slumber undisturbed.

Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy followed the second after, the plume of water spraying their coats at the end of the chute. Applejack wiped the clinging droplets from her face, then pulled her rope from her saddlebag, and lassoed a knob on the back of the timber in front, then pulled the two together. She slipped her lasso back into her saddlebags, then crossed over to Pinkie and Twilight. She looked down at their binds, and her eyes went wide.

“Uh-oh…”

Fluttershy cut through the ropes holding Rarity, who then threw off the shreds and rubbed her sore rope burns.

“Thank you, dear,” she said, then clambered over to the tree-boat with the others, Fluttershy joining them with a short flight. They both got a look at the material restraining their friends, and froze.

Twilight and Pinkie weren’t tied with ropes, but thick, wrought-iron chains that likely weighed more than than the ponies tied up in them did, and were bolted straight through the wooden floor.

Rarity looked straight at Applejack. “You are not sticking my horn into that.”

Applejack held her hooves up in defense. “Not on a first date, I'm not…” She looked at Fluttershy. “Can you cut through it?”

Fluttershy looked closer at the chains. “I don't know… I'll try, but it's going to take a while. These chains are a lot thicker than the ropes.”

“Then we’ll buy you the time!” Rainbow said as she took to the air. “Heads up, we've got more of Discord's tricks incoming!”

Their wooded surroundings now bore a resemblance to the Everfree forest, with its gnarled trees, thick underbrush, and strangely open pathways that seemed all too inviting for a leisurely stroll, one of which they currently drifted down. There was a bend in the river followed by a rustling of leaves, and the Discord-rabbit appeared around the curve.

“So she left home, looking for adventure
Set out to stake another tenure.
Abandoned her life of petriculture
Trying to find her effervescent cure
But she’ll still go crazy, that's for—-”

“DIE YOU STUPID DEVIL RABBIT!” Rainbow screamed as she rocketed towards the Discord-bunny.

Her hooves connected with the projection’s face, but it dispelled like mist. Rainbow swept right through the particle haze and crashed into a hollow log behind it, leaving nothing except her rear sticking out as her hind legs flailed.

There was another static pop over the intercom. “DO NOT LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE.”

The hare Discord rematerialized next to Rainbow. “She'll still go crazy, that's for sure.”

He snapped his pawed fingers, and a crude chalk drawing of a smiley-face and a set of antlers appeared on her rear. Discord condescendingly patted her pony butt, then teleported away with another click of the digits.

Applejack withdrew her lasso and roped Rainbow around her waist, taking advantage of the current to help pull her from the wooden trap. Rainbow shook her head to clear her mane of twigs and splinters, then with considerable irritation swept away her posterior ornaments.

“Don't go shooting from the hip and flying off by yourself like that!” Applejack ordered. “We're gonna have to work together to keep Twi and Pinkie safe!”

“But he was right there and—-”

“Separating us is how he nearly won the last time.”.

Rainbow looked into Applejack’s eyes, and saw only sincerity. She nodded.

“Right. Got it.”

They arrived at another opening in the trees, revealing the scene of Ponyville town square, where the Pinkie puppet hopped into view. She surveyed her surroundings, then turned to them with a delighted smile.

“Wow, this sure looks like the place!
There’s a sunny smile on everypony’s face,
And not a single rock to see in this space!
I thank Celestia for all her grace
That I should find this town of bliss
So I think it's here I'll make my hospice!”

The sight of the town was once again obscured by trees, plunging them into shadow. There was little they could see, but they did hear the unmistakable sound of roaring water.

“Aw, crap!” Rainbow yelled.

The log tipped over the crest of the next drop, and the six careened down the fall. Fluttershy and Rarity started screaming and clung tightly to Twilight and Pinkie respectively.

“Keep Pinkie and Twi from getting’ wet!” Applejack shouted over the howling wind and hungry waves as she pulled her hat from her head, held it over Twilight's face, and pushed her down to cover her from the coming collision.

They barrelled into the torrents at the foot of the chute. In spite of Rainbow once more body-blocking Twilight and Pinkie from the waves, water gushed over and into their dingy boat, soaking Rainbow and splashing AJ, Rarity, and Fluttershy. Several flecks sprayed Twilight and Pinkie, making their auras sputter.

All four of them gasped. Dreamscape flickered, then stabilised.

Fluttershy looked up. “What do we do if we're still on the ride when we get to that big drop at the end?”

They all looked at each other. Their worried expressions were the only answer needed.

Rainbow's face hardened. “We're not gonna be here when that happens!”

“Yeah, but we still gotta deal with what Discord throws at us ‘til we can get off this ride,” said Applejack.

Rarity's eyes lit up. “I-dea!” she chimed. “Could you spare me a moment? I think I have a solution against these aquatic assaults!”

Rainbow looked ahead. “Make it quick, ‘cause there's more on the way!”

The choking bramble opened up into another scene of Ponyville, decorated with Pinkie’s trademark flare of streamers, banners, and balloons on any surface that she could squeeze them onto and enough confectioneries to feed the entire village. The Pinkie puppet, now a grown mare, popped back up with a broad smile that didn't reach her lifeless button eyes.

“Boy does my life have a new lease!
Kick it back or kick it up,
I can be as merry as I please!
My party quota always need sating
No, I’m sure not compensating
Now come join the festivities!”

Rainbow was glaring at the animate mockery, but Applejack was looking ahead. Her eyes went wide, and she turned to her company.

“We've got incoming!” she called out.

Just in front of them was a wide turn that encircled a kiosk of coin machines, where a young Discord with an eager smile on his puerile face was pulling another Discord dressed (poorly) in drag by the hand to the booth.

“Look mommy, ponies! Can I have some bits to water bomb them? Please?” The young Discord pleaded.

Dragcord smiled at the little tyke. “Of course, sweetie,” he/she/it answered, and made a stuffed sack of bits appear with a snap of the fingers. “Knock ‘em dead.”

The little Discord's face lit up like a colt on Hearth's Warming Day. “Thank you!” he trilled, then split into three separate mini Discords that tore the moneybag apart like a pack of jackals. They began stuffing coins into the machines, then mashed the buttons on them with gleeful fury.

“Eat dihydrogen monoxide, dwarf equines!” one of the child Discords cackled as churning jets of water erupted from vertical pipes surrounding them stream the mares drifted on.

“Heads up!” Rainbow yelled, then bolted into the air. She darted between the clusters of airborne water, bucking it into mist, then darted to another in the blink of an eye like a pinball in a bumper pocket.

Even with Rainbow's mind-boggling speed, the sheer volume of water proved to be too much for her, and several buckets worth began to fall towards the sleeping mares.

“Fluttershy!” Rainbow called out.

Fluttershy looked up and squeaked in fear at the coming downpour. Her laser-eye beam swept through the air in a broad, panicked sweep, vaporizing whatever Rainbow hasn't dispersed.

Another volley of aquatic mortars launched into the air. Dash shot back and forth between the globes and bucking them into vapor while Fluttershy atomized whatever Rainbow wasn't hitting. Fluttershy’s countermeasures were far less coordinated, and in her clutched deportation accidentally seared off the tips of the feathers on Rainbow's left wing.

“YEOOOW!” Dash cried out in pain. “Watch it!”

Fluttershy’s eye beam cut out and her hooves flew to her mouth in a startled gasp. “Sorry! Sorry! I'm sorry! Sorry!”

The moment of distraction allowed a fat gob of water to sail past Rainbow on a collision course for Twilight's face. Applejack held up her hat in front of her sleeping friend just as the water got within inches for the unconscious unicorn. Twilight was shielded from the blast, leaving Applejack to take the brunt of the blow.

“Could use that solution of your’s any time now, Rares!”

“I'm trying!” Rarity protested in her defense. “Just give me a moment longer! Trying to work with these chaotic matrices is like trying to sew a flag while it's still flapping in the wind!”

The three little Discords scowled at the unwoken mares, then snapped their fingers in unison. The coin machines morphed together into one control panel with a single big red button on its console, labeled as ‘THE BUTTON.’ They held their right hands together in the air, and slammed down on the ominous device. A sinkhole opened up right underneath the mares’ vessel, and the five of them fell screaming into the darkness.

“Moments up Rare!” Applejack yelled over the rushing winds. “Whatever you've got, we need it now!”

“Almost… got it!” Rarity proclaimed. The dream warped in an aura around Twilight and Pinkie.

They landed roughly on the water below. The splash from the impact punched up great rippling waves and a thick surf, causing water to spill into their boat and thoroughly drench them.

There was a hard clock of hooves striking wood as Rainbow landed on the log.

“Are they safe?! Are the girls still asleep?!”

Rarity lit her horn and cast an illumination spell. Twilight and Pinkie were now bedecked in heavy, stylistic raincoats that completely covered them from head to hoof. Applejack lifted the large hood on Twilight's head, and the gentle glow of a still functioning Dreamscape greeted them all.

Rarity raised a hoof in the air in triumph. “Aha! Fashion saves the day again!”

Rainbow and Applejack stared at her with deadpan expressions. They looked at each other, then looked back at Rarity, their unamused faces becoming more stern.

Rarity looked back and forth at the two in confusion. “What?”

Applejack glanced back down at the raincoats her two friends were wearing, then looked back up. “Were the stitched embroideries and sequins really necessary?”

Rarity huffed a little. “They were the best I could do on such short notice! I didn't even have enough time for the color gradients!”

There was a thock of Rainbow's forehooves smacking against her skull as she groaned.

“I think they're nice,” Fluttershy spoke up, “and they kept Twilight and Pinkie in their dream, so I say you did a good job, Rarity.”

“Thank you, dear.” Rarity gave a hard look at Rainbow and Applejack. “At least somepony appreciates the art.” She scanned the black setting around them, the darkness abating no more than a few feet from their little lit haven. “So just where are we now? Aside from still being in the heart of the cliffs of insanity, I mean…”

A succession of snaps as circuits activating echoed throughout the empty space, bringing light to a Ponyville that stood as a dilapidated ghost town, alive with the echoes of failures fled. The colorful populace had been replaced by the shining faces blank ponies with hollow eyes in which one would see more movement in decomposition, padaring the torn streets under the jarring colors of party decorations, while the ubiquitous music took on a dissonant tone.

Rarity glared at the festive, decaying village. “Oh, so we've gone from the belly of madness to its bowels. How peachy.”

“Even considering I'm an apple mare, I'd say that's an insult to peaches,” added Applejack.

The Pinkie puppet appeared amongst the ghostly faces parading the streets. Her smile was much more tight, putting a visible strain on the fabric that made her face.

“Though it may seem preachy,
Life definitely sure is peachy!
I've made friends with everypony,
So I'll never ever be lonely!
Now only laughter ensues
No, I don't have any iSSUES!”

The current began to move more swiftly, and a sharp bend took them past a cutaway of the Golden Oaks Library, where the Pinkie puppet pounced upon an unsuspecting Twilight animatronic.

“How do you do, Twily?”

“That moniker is reserved for Shiny.”

“Hey! Want to come to my party?”

“And postpone my studies in academia?
It's uncopasetic to try and fathom dementia.”

“I'll take that as a ‘maybe!’”

The Pinkie puppet gave Twimatronic a farewell pat on the head before jumping across the turn in the stream over to Carousel Boutique, where she skidded up into the face of a Rarity marionette.

“Come to my party and satisfy your sweet tooth!”

“A sophomoric shindig? How uncouth!”

“Oh, won't you pretty please?”

“Darling, if you wish me to take your tease,
Shouldn't you suite a soiree for a lady?”

“Will do! Whatever makes you happy!”

  The Pinkie puppet bounced on her tail and broke up through the roof of the shop.

Applejack looked around them in worry. “Is it just me, or is the stream moving uphill?”

Sure enough, the canal began to twist and turn more, moving very assuredly against gravity. The Pinkie puppet came back into view, bouncing back and forth between the ground and a cloud where an oversized action figure Rainbow Dash lounged.

“Come to my party and we’ll play a little game!”

“Pin the tail on the pony? Pfft! Lame!”

“Aw, but I thought you like fun, Dashie!”

“If that's where you want me to be,
You have to make it as awesome as me!”

“It'll be the most awesome thing you ever did see!”

Pinkie puppet hopped down from the cloud and landed in the fields of Sweet Apple Acres, where she landed on top of a scarecrow Applejack.

“Come to my party! Bring everypony you know!”

“Ah’ve gots seeds ta plant an apples ta grow!”

“Are you just looking for a way out?”

“Ah ain’t got no idea whach’yer talkin’ about!”

“You know where to go should you so cull!”

“Family an’ apples! Apple Family family apples!”

The Pinkie puppet skirred through the artificial forest of apple trees, arriving at the outskirts of town by the cottage of a doll Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy, you gotta come to my party!”

“Oh Pinkie, I don't know…”

“We’re friends! You have to come!
You need to MAKE ME HAPPY!”

“I SAID NO!”

“Okie doki loki!”

The Pinkie puppet hopped off in the usual cheerful manner of the real mare, back into the Everfree Forest, now ascending up a hill. The canal followed her into the intimidating thicket, now moving well against gravity at a steeper incline. The waters were flowing with a much fiercer current, accelerating at a constant rate. After a few moments, they caught back up with the Pinkie puppet. She turned to face them, and her deranged smile became as manic as the twelve-note song of insanity.

“Oh my gosh, you all came!
I'm glad you did, cause this isn't the same
As just any old Pinkie party
This one is sure going to be
Assuredly and completely
TOTALLY FREAKING CRAZY!”

Just then, every tree in the forest caught fire. The girls screamed in alarm as their species-intrinsic pyrophobia lit up. Their cries were quickly drowned out by the screeches of the alien pterosaurs flying up through  the canopy to escape the blaze.

Downstream, Rainbow saw two long walls composed entirely of mirrors facing each other parallel to the river, separated by clusters of more trees. She turned to her friends in alarm.

“Don't freak out! Whatever you do, don't lose your cool!”

“At what?” Rarity asked with fear in her voice.

Rainbow looked back ahead. “The mirrors! What they're going to make you see is just an illusion!”

The mares rushed into the lane of mirrors. Rainbow looked down at her body, and as she had suspected, saw moving columns of herself disappearing and reappearing between the vantage point of the mirrors and trees, with the empty spaces where parts of her should have been revealing the visceral composition of her body underneath the skin. Rainbow managed to hold her composure even as one again seeing cutaways of her own internal anatomy sent chills down her spine. Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack however almost literally began screaming their lungs out. Their mortified cries echoed ad infinitum through the woods. Rainbow looked up at one mirror wall, and saw the six of them reflected an indeterminate number of times over, where another set of screams seemed to come from every single one, creating a delayed feedback that resonated with terrifying harmony.

“Don't be afraid! It's just another trick!” Rainbow intently tried to corral her friends, but the sight of the pegasus speaking to them while passing bars of her face revealed bone and brain as she spoke just made them scream even more.

They whisked past the hallway of mirrors, and their bodies returned to normal. Applejack and Rarity frantically checked themselves to ensure they were still in one piece, while Fluttershy was afraid to even look at herself. Rainbow turned to look ahead to the tall, imposing buildings of the nightmare Ponyville that lay ahead, and came nose-to-nose with the flat-maned Pinkie puppet.

“Gah!”

The music grew as psychotic as the smile on the Pinkie puppet's face.

“We're going to have oh-so much fun!
You'll feel like a new mare when we're done!
So do you like what I've done with the place?
It matches the smile on everypony’s face!
Enjoy the ride, and just sit back!

Several buildings next to the rapids were swept aside by a giant paw. Fluttershy let out a blood-curdling scream of terror at an imitation of the monstrous she-wolf.

“I'VE GOT QUITE THE APPETITE, LITTLE SNACK.”

There was a roar of engines, and a life-sized model of the scrapyard pirate ship of The Scurvy Gits with the Rarionette from earlier tired to the front flew overhead.

“Blimey, dat’s one big dog!” the Mr. Screw model remarked.

The Captain Blacktooth model shook Screw eagerly on the shoulder. “Ya know what DAT means!”

Each model of the Scurvy Gits raised its gun into the air. “WAAAGH!”

The orc pirates opened fire on the she-wolf. It yelped in lethal pain, then fell behind the row of buildings. Right on the beat came another roar, but this one of a tidal wave overlaid by the shark viking melodic death metal of the replica Razorfin clan.

“TWILIGHT OF THE THUNDER GOD!” Their vocalist bard bellowed as the rest of the warriors windmilled. Their ship jack-knifed The Scurvy Gits’ vessel, carrying it off to the distance.

The Pinkie puppet got up on her hind legs. “Everything I do, I do for all of you!”

There were ripples in the swift water next to the boat right by Applejack, from which emerged a troupe of sea-ponies.

“Shoo-be-do! Shoo-shoo-be-do!”

“AAAH!” Applejack latched onto Rarity, much to the bewildered unicorn’s shock.

The Pinkie puppet slammed her forehooves back down on the boat, now traveling along rapids so steep they were ascending vertically. Her next lines weren't sung as much as they were screamed.

“Everything has now come together
So we can be friends forever!
No, my mind is not diseased
So I beg of you all to please…”

The Pinkie puppet leaned even closer and the mares scooted further away as she screamed: shrill, desperate, and spiteful.

“PLEASE BE FRIENDS WITH ME,
YOU TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE PONIES!”

The Pinkie puppet's psychotic smile grew so wide that the stitches around her mouth began to pop. The Pinkie puppet didn't even flinch as the yarn holding her right button eye snapped, sending her eye right into Rainbow's face. The contact jolted Rainbow from her stupor, and the pegasus spun around to buck the animated ragdoll off their car. The Pinkie puppet went flying off from the blow, then tumbled into the shadowy deep beneath. The ceiling they were rushing towards was a wall of churning water, frothing like the waves of an enraged sea.

The girls just stared at the wall for a moment, at a loss over what to do.

“I'm not going to be able to fabricate more raincoats that can withstand that,” Rarity admitted.

“Then make us a tarp or somethin’!” Applejack urgently yelled over the wind and water. “I'll try an’ make another pocket with the enclosed space!”

Rarity closed her eyes and grit her teeth, concentrating as hard and quickly as she could. A small wave rolled up out of the water, flattening out into a thin sheet and solidifying into a blue polymer canvas. Rarity cried out in pain and fell to the floor of their primitive boat from the sudden strain.

Applejack yanked the tarp over the front of their log, secured it with one end of her rope, then pulled the cover over them to the back of the log and tied it down with the other end. Her face scrunched up in urgent focus, and the edges of the tarp formed a seal around the seated interior of the log boat. They crashed into the seething waves, and the frigid water pressed in around them. Applejack collapsed to the floor with her hooves clamped to her temples, screaming in pain from a splitting migraine.

There came a break from the crushing dark, and a sudden lurch as gravity shifted. Their log tilted forward, falling upon turbulent waves.

Applejack held her head in her hooves, groaning in pain. “Oooow… criminy, let's not do that again!”

Howling winds blew around them, tearing at the edges of the tarp. Suddenly it was ripped away, revealing them now to be in a basin of churning waves and jagged rocks just underneath the weeping clouds and arcing bolts of lightning. A jutting, pointed spire of stone rose from the restless waters like a stage for the final demented act.

The Pinkie puppet shot up from the water right where they had just emerged. The ragdoll mockery hovered in the air, violently convulsing as something inside its barrel began to viciously pound against its confines. With a sickening succession of seams tearing, a hole in the Pinkie puppet's chest split open, and it fell motionless back into the malicious pool as Discord swiftly slithered out from the cavity, wearing a striped boater hat and wielding a cane.

“Hello my ponies, hello my playthings,
Hello my fun-time mares!
Everything is now perfectly fine
Soaked in chaos sublime!
You think you can lose me
But you just can’t refuse me
And now Pinkie Pie’s all mine
For the rest of your mortal time!”

Rarity grabbed the string running through the hoods of Pinkie and Twilight's raincoats and pulled them tighter.

Discord descended onto the elevated rock formation, then spun on his hoofed foot. He twirled back around to face them, now adorned in red robes and a blue wizard's hat decorated in golden stars and moons. The music became a symphony of mental sickness as he held out his mismatched hands, and roils began to form where his fingers were pointed. He swung his lion's arm in the direction of the ponies, and a wave pounced from the water towards its equine prey.

Rainbow met the attacking wave head-on. Her hooves hit the crest, dispelling it into a spray of frigid mist, soaking Rainbow to her skin and chilling her to the bone.

Discord held out his talon-clawed hand, then swung it towards the boat. Rainbow doubled back around and struck the wave with a flying kick, drenching her in water that made her shiver.

Discord held his hands to the tortured sky, and the bleak sky grew even darker. He cast his arms back down, and sheets of rain so thick that they appeared to be falling waves came down upon them all. Rarity and Applejack respectively grabbed Twilight and Pinkie to pull their heads down to shield them from the riled storm. Fluttershy cried out in fear and cast her atomizing gaze to the sky, turning as much as she could to stream.

Discord extended both arms this time, and the waters on both sides of the boat began to boil. He swiftly brought his arms up over his head, clapping his hand together. Dual waves struck from the flanks, looming over the mares like the closing jaws of a starving kraken.

Fluttershy screamed and instinctively blasted one oncoming wall with a wide beam from her eye laser, vaporizing most of it. Rainbow sideswiped the other across its peak, shredding the bulk of it to droplets..

With a cackle, Discord threw his hands up in the air and titled his entire body back to an extreme degree. His lithe form snapped back forward like a coiled spring, and the entire half of the mountain lake behind arced over him, heading towards the ponies like an awoken mustakrakish that had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed.

Rainbow’s groan of exasperation turned to a yell of fury. She flew in between her friends and the angry tsunami, then began to fly in a loop at supersonic speeds until there was a full spectrum discus separating the two. The wave slammed into the bright shield with back-breaking force. Rainbow screamed with rage and exertion, but her barrier held. She altered her flight pattern from a level plane to a parabolic arc, capturing much of the wave and flinging aside the rest. Rainbow appeared behind the epicenter of her vortex, then bucked the hydrosphere back at Discord.

The draconequus held up his arms as if to push the wave back. The wall of water halted before collision, then began to condense and darken like the forlorn skies above. Further still the former wave compressed until it was nothing more than a sphere the size of a wrecking ball that was black as coal. Discord seized the orb, held it above his head, then rotated it to reveal a blasting cap with a lit fuse trailing out of the top.

“Aw, buck me!” Rainbow exclaimed.

“Gladly!” Discord jeered. He threw his bomb up in the air, and his body morphed into an oriental dragon cannon. The mass ordinance fell into his open mouth, then the Discord-cannon tilted forward, and fired the explosive right at them.

Rainbow held up her hooves, and the bomb collided with her. She pushed back with furiously beating wings, but her efforts did little to impede its trajectory.

Applejack pulled her rope from of the log and lassoed the oncoming bomb. She yanked up and around, accomplishing the considerably easier task of redirecting the bomb’s momentum. She grit her teeth and groaned in exertion, swinging the bomb around their vessel. With a lash of her muscular neck, she flung the explosive slingshot-style back at its original owner.

Discord popped out of his cannon form, then disappeared with a snap of the fingers. The bomb crashed up against the pillar Discord had been standing on, then exploded with a deafening force that left the girls screaming just to keep their eardrums from rupturing.

The explosion completely destroyed the stone pillar, cracking open a hole in the basin. The waters began to swirl around the hole, dragging the log car into a dark, aquatic tunnel with Rainbow trailing behind. The girls were violently rocked back and forth by sharp twists and shearing turns through a snaking tunnel in near pitch-black shadows.

The currents took a sudden shift upward,  carrying the girls towards a bright exit. The log slowed as it reached the threshold, then came to a stop at the lip of the opening. Their eyes adjusted to the light, and they found themselves at the peak of the waterfall pouring from the top of the mountain.

“Almost… got it!” Fluttershy exclaimed as she finished cutting through the chains keeping Twilight and Pinkie confined.

There was a pop above them. Discord landed on the front of the log, tipping it past recovery down the waterfall.

“Caution; passengers on this ride may get wet!” Discord exclaimed, then snapped his fingers. The cut chains on Twilight and Pinkie resealed, their raincoats disappeared, and new sets of chains materialized around the conscious mares.

Then they went over the edge.

Rarity and Fluttershy began to scream in terror as they plummeted at terminal velocity towards the drenched swamp, over which a tenebrous storm cloud had formed and was pouring rain like a waterfall. Applejack grunted as she struggled against her confines, while Rainbow snarled and fought in vain to break free. Discord coiled his serpentine body around the tree boat, laughing gleefully as Pinkie and Twilight fast approached their liquid doom.

Discord looked further down the falls at a bear and fox versions of himself, the latter of which holding a camera in its paws.

Discord grinned. “Everypony say ‘disharmony!’”

A plume of water began rocketing up the waterfall towards the seven of them at speeds equal to theirs. Discord eyes went wide in bewilderment when he caught sight of what was coming.

“What th—-”

The thing-pony delivered a flying backflip kick to Discord's face with such overwhelming force that he was knocked clear off the boat and went sailing up into the anguished storm clouds with a yodeling howl. It landed on the bridge of the log boat, looked at the chained mares, then at the waterfall that was mere seconds away.

The thing-pony hopped in the air and slammed it's hind legs down on the back of the log. The vehicle tore off from the rails and flipped completely inverted. With the undercarriage of the log boat now above them, they flew through the hammering rain and over the impenetrable briar patch at the base of the monolithic waterfall. Then the thing-pony kicked the boat like an oversized skateboard to mostly revert it back right-side up, but now flipped horizontally to the direction it had been facing. Finally the thing-pony wrapped its foreleg-arms around the heads of Twilight and Pinkie, and pulled them protectively close to its chest.

They landed hard on the waters of the swamp, skidding across the surface and causing a big wave by the impact. They washed up on the shore, coming to a halt on the dry ground on one of the warped Ponyville’s suburban streets. Only after they had come to a complete stop did the thing-pony loosen its grip on the two mares, revealing the soft glow and gentle whir of Dreamscape.

“Oh, thank Celestia!” a tired and soaked Rarity breathlessly gasped, then hung her head over the side on the beached boat. “I think… I think I'm going to throw up…”

Applejack growled in finality and began to furiously pound on the wooden prison with her rear hooves until the timber began to crack. She turned to Fluttershy.

“Heya girl, think you could help tear up this hunka junk?”

Fluttershy didn't respond, just stared off into the distance and shivered from her fear and the cold.

“Fluttershy? Flutters!”

Fluttershy squeaked out a startled scream and looked up at Applejack with wide, quivering eyes. The cowgirl loosened up and softened her tone.

“It's alright, the ride’s over now. No point in keeping this thing afloat, do you think you can cut yourself out by shootin’ your eye lasers straight through the wood?”

Fluttershy stared for a moment, then wordlessly nodded and began burning right through the wood. She didn't even notice when she absentmindedly cut the last few inches of hair right off her own sopping wet tail.

Rainbow looked flatly at the thing-pony. 

“What kept you?”

The thing-pony pointed back at the swamp. The waters were filled with unconscious aquatic reptile Discord copies from alligators to crocodiles that got larger the further out they got until they got to full-blown sarcosuchus. There was even a Discord-spinosaurus closest to the base of the waterfall.

Rainbow blinked. “Ah…”

“Feller’s evidently had problems of his own,” Applejack said as she finished bucking the wooden floor her binds were bolted through into pieces. She cast aside her chains, then waded out into the shallows where her hat had fallen off when they had crash landed. She fished it out from under the surface and smacked it down onto her head, not even caring that it had the effect of dumping a bucket of water on her: she was already drenched anyway.

Applejack made her way back to the washed-up log and began to work on getting Dash and Twilight while Fluttershy was working on liberating Rarity and Pinkie. She gave the thing-pony a sideways glance as she worked.

“S’pose we owe ya for saving our skins. Again.”

The thing-pony just shrugged.

Applejack couldn't help but chuckle a little. “Shoulda figured.” She looked away, and noticed a smashed wall in a nearby house, revealing a room with dirty walls and colors that burned like an inferno of torment. The Pinkie puppet lay slumped up against the corner, stuffing spilling from the open wound in her barrel, her severed button eye next to her, and her stitched mouth burdened with a morose frown.

Rainbow flittered over to Pinkie and pulled her up onto her back. “Come on, we still need to give Twi and Pink's more time! If we hurry, we can get back to the library before—-”

A distant scream from above grew louder as it got closer. The ponies snapped into a defensive formation as Discord fell from the skies and slammed into the ground with a force that kicked up a cloud of dust and left him squashed flat.

Discord lay there for a moment before peeling himself off the dirt with a sound like velcro. When he pulled his snaggletooth out of the ground, his serpentine neck snapped his head back like a rubber band, then compressed to normal with the sound of an accordion. He glared at them for a second, then held out his hand to his side.

“Camera!” He barked.

The Discord-fox materialized next to the draconequus and gave him the camera, then disappeared. He checked the image on the back screen, then his face grimaced with disappointment.

“Aw, you ruined it!” he bemoaned, then angrily flipped the camera to show the group. The picture had been taken at the exact moment after the thing-pony had left an impression of its rear hooves on Discord's face and sent him to explore the upper troposphere.

Applejack smirked. “What's wrong? I think it turned out perfectly fine.”

Discord shot Applejack a dirty look, then turned his glare towards the thing-pony, now in its ready stance.

“As much as I would like to delight in Twilight having such an enigmatic construct lodged in her brain, it’s inherited all of her intentions of interfering with my plans, so I'll have to deal with it accordingly…”

Discord snapped his fingers, but nothing happened. He raised an eyebrow in confusion, then tried multiple times in succession, each with as nil an effect as the first.

“Why is your head still attached to your shoulders?!” an irate Discord asked the thing-pony. It responded by picking up one of the pieces of the splintered boat and chucking it at his face.

Rainbow shot a cocky sneer at Discord. “Didn't get the memo? Twilight's projection-thingy is immune to magic!”

Discord glared at Rainbow. Another chunk of wood bounced off the side of his head, turning his glare to flat and unamused.

“Is that so? Well then,” Discord pointed his open hand at the thing-pony, palm up. The thing-pony leapt for another flying kick. Discord closed his fingers, and the ground closed around the thing-pony, imprisoning it in earth. Discord levitated the soil coffin into the air, then turned and flung it through the nearby wall of Vinyl Scratch’s house.

“I suppose I'll just have to improvise,” Discord fished, then turned back to the mares. “Now where were we? Oh, I remember!” Discord snapped his fingers, and a pair of goggles and a snorkel appeared on his face. “Finishing this!”

Discord flung his arms up in the air with such force that he arched back. The entire swamp lake receded into the distance, then charged forward as every ounce from the body of water like the hand of an angry ocean god.

Rainbow dated over to Twilight and Pinkie in an attempt to escape into the skies with them, but Rarity held a hoof out in restraint.

“Everypony chill out, I got this!” she asserted, then lit her horn. The oncoming tsunami got closer by the second, but Rarity held her composure. Seconds from impact, the red diamonds from the fallen playing card house flew over the roof and encased Twilight and Pinkie in a protective shield. She tried to peel off another sheet of water from the wave to fashion into a tarp, but the wall of water crashed into them before she had the time.

The power of the wave nearly forced all the air from their lungs, but surprisingly did not sweep them all away to parts unknown. It did however thoroughly drench the four mares all over again. When the crushing wave passed, Applejack stared straight ahead with an unamused face as she lifted her hat up to drain it off the water that had accumulated there, in the process letting loose another bucket on her head.

Discord stomped a hoof in anger. “Must you ruin everything?!”

Rainbow whirled around and snarled. “You ruin everything! You almost ruined Equestria, you nearly ruined our friendship, and now you're trying to ruin Pinkie!” Dash shot towards the draconequus like a bit. “Now eat hoof and die!”

Discord merely glared at her and held out his talon hand at her. Rainbow froze in midair, struggling but restrained firmly in place by an unseen force. Discord flicked his wrist, and Rainbow was tossed back at her friends, knocking them over on impact. They crashed into the sphere of diamonds, scattering them, revealing Twilight and Pinkie were now gone.

Discord looked at the empty space in shock. Applejack just looked back at him with a smirk.

Discord growled and materialized above, looming over them. “I have done nothing but unveil the chaos that dwells in everything, including you six! So I promise you that this will go far smoother if you just stop fighting, bring the interloper and my charge back, and we can all live together in harmonic chaos!”

“NEVER!” The four shouted in unison.

A permeating thrum filled the air and reached the girls to their bones, saturating the mares with an energy that made their skin crawl.

Discord looked firm at them with a gleeful, sadistic animosity, holding up his talons to show arcs of electricity traveling up between them. “So be it.”

And that's when it hit the girls: they were all soaked.

Before any of them could react or Rainbow could move to buck away the coming storm, Discord held out both hands and shot massive bolts of lightning at the four of them.

Each one fell to the ground in an instant. Their muscles seized up, voluntary control wrenched from them, unable to do anything but writhe and scream.

Rainbow had been electrocuted by lightning before. She knew the feel of that jolt to the heart, the slight sizzling of the brain, and the sensation of every millimeter of her muscles being pinched at the same time.

This was incomparably worse.

Every muscle fiber felt like it was exploding and being replaced by an exact copy to explode all over again. Somepony had replaced all her blood with acid and her veins with molten copper. Her nerves were endless snakes made purely of venom, and her heart pounded to bursting in a panic lest it stop beating altogether.

The familiar pungent fumes of ozone smoked her nostrils. Steam began to rise off her as the water in her coat began to fry. The acrid stench intensified, and Rainbow realized she was smelling her own fur starting to burn.

Fluttershy and Rarity wailed in tormenting agony. Even Applejack screamed like Rainbow had never heard her before. Dash had always tried to be the brave one, but there was no resilience to withstand this. The lightning had turned her own body into an iron maiden, and all she could do nothing but scream her lungs to tatters as her vision began to fade and a distorted thrum began to build in volume…