Once upon a time, there was a certain pink pony named Pinkie Pie. She was often regarded as extremely strange, capable of mysterious abilities and uncanny foresight.
“Hello Twilight! You should smile more!” Pinkie stated, hopping along.
“Oh, by all things literary! Pinkie! What the sweet fragrant cinnamon buns are you doing here?” Twilight replied, casting worried glances at the bouncing disaster approaching her like an incoming apocalyptic cataclysm.
“I decided to prevent the end of the universe by giving candy to Featherweight! It’s incredibly complicated.”
“How... how can two events so entirely dissimilar like that possibly be related?” Twilight felt her eye twitch as the strain on her brain grew tenfold.
“I don’t know, I just know!” Pinkie finished her statement with a shrug. “Anyway, I’ve got some cakes to bake! Seeya later!” She hopped merrily away, her fluffy mane bouncing along.
Three days later, Pinkie returned to Ponyville, but many things were... off about her. Her normally vibrant pink skin was graying. Her mane was limp, and in tatters. Tendrils of her flesh dangled off, exposing rotting flesh underneath. However, despite her clearly decomposed body, she was still bouncing, singing, and happying as ever. She came across Twilight again, who reacted to her encounter with even less warm a greeting.
Twilight screamed and ran away, Pinkie’s laughter seemingly warped into demonic cackling by her overactive brain.
“Teehee, come play with me, Twilight! I want to zombify you! We’ll eat brains together, and it will be the most delicious happening to ever happen in the history of Equestrian happenings!” The sounds of hooves hitting the ground grew more frequent, and as Twilight ran she knew it was only a matter of time before Pinkie caught up to her. She looked back, only to take note of the suddenly apparent fact that Pinkie was no longer behind her. Now more confused than ever, she turned back around again only to come face to face with zombie Pinkie Pie.
“Aaaauuuggghhh!”
… and then Twilight was a zombie.
Luckily, they were both the good kind of zombies. They only took the brains of old ponies who had died peacefully.
Later that week, Twilight sat in her library, reading “Equestria: A History”, accompanied by a pudding that seemed similar in texture to tapioca. But it wasn’t tapioca; it was brain pudding. And to Twilight it made a delicious snack for reading. With split focus, she simultaneously turned pages at a breakneck pace and kept a constant flow of brainy goodness traveling into her mouth. The more brains consumed, the fresher the body became. So right now, Twilight actually seemed fairly normal. Vibrant skin and mane, healthy muscles, etc. She was mostly able to keep up appearances, and to her delight her zombieness did not hamper her reading ability at all. She could pretty much just read all the time without having to worry about finding proper sources of nourishment, thanks to the fact that Pinkie always seemed to make sure Twilight had plenty of mushy pink stuff to consume for a healthy complexion.
Yet all too soon, the tapioca pudding was depleted. As satisfactory as it was to consume, it only left Twilight hungering for more.
Gambling on Pinkie’s uncanny ability to be everywhere at once, she called out to nowhere in particular “Hey, Pinkie Pie! How ‘bout some more brains? I’m empty over here.”
She wasn’t exactly sure what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that which occurred almost instantaneously after her apostrophe.
A great rumbling sound became apparent, as something massive must’ve been approaching the library.
“Pinkie...?”
BOOM! The wall of Twilight’s humble abode exploded outward in a shower of splinters. Tomes and scrolls flew everywhere, a flurry of literature all a-flutter.
“What. The. Buck!” Twilight pooped herself when she saw the huge contraption before her. She had never seen anything like it. It was enormous.
“Twilight? Did you just poop yourself?” Spike asked, easily distracted by the droppings, such that he didn’t even notice the huge behemoth before them.
“I think there’re more important things going on right now than my bowel movements, Spike!”
“But Twilight... I clean your floors. You can’t expect me to wipe your brown smelly stuff up after you.” Spike fumed, “That’s disgusting!”
“Oh shut up Spike! What in the dear sweet name of Celestia is that... that thing?”
“Oh right. That’s a... a...” Spike scratched his head, “I dunno.”
“A tank!” A disembodied, echoing voice resounded ominously through the tree library, in Pinkie’s unmistakable bubbly tone.
“A tank!” Spike exclaimed moments later, agreeing with the bubbly voice.
“Aah!” Twilight flinched from the noise, cowering, her hooves held over her head. She then realized that was ridiculous and closed her eyes, deep in concentration. She levitated Spike over to her side, and surrounded them with a purple, glowing forcefield. “Show yourself, intruder!”
“This is me, you silly filly! I’m a tank now! Isn’t it fantabulous?”
“What... but I... but you... but... how?”
“Magic.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m Pinkie Pie!”
Spike faceclawed. Twilight facehoofed. Pinkie Pie began moving her treads in opposite circles, happily spinning in a circle.
“Wheeeeeeee!”
“Luna’s flowing mane! Stop it, Pinkie! Stop destroying my house!” Twilight shouted in exasperation as Pinkie’s turret began ripping through the walls full of books, ruining them. “And my books! My precious books! You monster!”
“I’m not a monster, I’m a tank! I thought we went over this already!” Pinkie’s giggles continued to echo, as if emanating from inside her chassis.
“Buck you, Pinkie. Buck you to the pits of Tartarus!” Twilight wept, picking up the tattered, broken books in her hooves, fat salty tears flowing down her face in rivulets.
“Aw, Twilie. They’re just books. You can always get more.”
“No, I can’t! Some of those were priceless antiques! Found in the ruins of forgotten castles, rescued from a dull existence of slow decay and decomposition! It’s my duty to protect the knowledge which can be found in books. Knowledge is power!
“Bored now. Don’t care.” Pinkie sang, spinning herself in the opposite direction, “Wheeeeeeeee!”
Now infuriated beyond the point of no return, Twilight’s eyes glowed in white-hot rage, and her horn emitted a flowing purple aura.
“Twilight? Are you going to poop on the floor again?” Spike asked, ruining the moment.
At once the magical aura surrounding Twilight winked out like an electric lantern that had just been unplugged. Her pent-up breath escaped and she deflated, now back to her depression at the loss of so much fine literature. Plus, it was starting to smell. She wrinkled her snout in disgust, and regretted her unfortunate loss of control over her digestive system.
“Just... Pinkie, could you just leave? I think I need some time to myself.”
“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie turned towards the front door and blasted right through it, shattering the frame and further jeopardizing the integrity of the home. Any more tank damage and the whole structure was likely to collapse.
“What the Tartarus?” Spike shouted while waving his fist at the receding pink vehicle. Suddenly he dropped to his claws and knees and started to gag. He heaved a few times before letting out a rancorous burp that shook the foundations of the library. With a shudder running through the building, Twilight only had a moment to act. She quickly teleported Spike, the newly apparated letter, and herself about twenty meters away from the collapsing library, just in time to turn around and watch all that she owned collapse into a pile of rubbish.
Suffice to say, Twilight was now homeless.
“At least it’s not raining.” Twilight said, looking up at the sky, only to see Rainbow Dash putting the last nimbostratus in place over her head, blocking out the final ray of sunlight. With a roar of thunder, the heavens opened up, showering the purple unicorn with all they had as if the universe itself was conspiring to make this the worst possible day in the history of her life. “Figures.”
“Ohh... my mouth,” Spike moaned. “Twilight! Twilight! It’s a letter from the Princess!”
Ripping the scroll out of the dragon’s claws, she opened it. Her face blanched, her stomach churned, and her frustration reached heights previously only known by princesses banished to celestial objects which may or may not be made of cheese.
Discord had once again broken free of his stony prison.
“Bucking Tartarus!” she ejaculated.
“Discord?” Spike asked.
“Oh, how’d you guess?”
“Anytime you read about or hear Discord’s name, your right eye twitches, your pupils dilate, and your tail starts to twitch back and forth. It’s almost like Pinkie, except for instead of predicting things, your sense just reveals how flustered you are.” Spike grinned, “The pooping, however, is a new thing.”
“Spike!”
“Sorry! Just... never seen it before. You’re not going to make it a habit, right?”
“Actually...” Twilight smirked, “Maybe if you don’t do as you’re told, I’ll intermittently fill your bed with little... surprises.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Oh yes, I would.”
“Oh no you wouldn’t.”
“Oh yes.”
“Oh no!”
“Oh yes!”
“Oh no!”
“OH YEAH!” A strange glass pitcher suddenly burst up from the ground (lacking any walls to burst through) but then noticed that the scene was filled with tension and slunk back underground with a bit of an embarrassed flush upon his visage.
“Did you just-” Spike began.
Twilight shook her head.
“But-”
Twilight shook her head again. It was probably just a hallucination anyways, brought on by excessive stress. Plus, she hadn’t slept in three nights, and Spike had recently eaten suspicious emeralds, which might’ve been a contributing factor.
“Fine...” Spike pointed to the two tracks in the ground headed towards Fluttershy’s cottage, “but what do we do about Pinkie?”
“We have to go after her, round up all the girls, and use the Elements of Harmony!”
“So, the same stuff we do every time?”
“Eeyup. Let’s go.” Twilight levitated the dragon onto her back and galloped towards the nearest best friend’s house: Carousel Boutique.
Rarity was outside her home, or what was left of it, staring bleakly into the distance. Her mouth hung open to display a sense of bewilderment and trauma.
“Hey there, hot stuff. How’s about we partake in a little whoopee?” Spike enunciated suggestively.
The white unicorn snapped her head around, her reverie broken, “What did you say?” Rarity barked.
“I said, ‘What kinda bad mistake turned your home into debris?’” The dragon replied with an innocent smile.
Rarity narrowed her eyes slightly at Spike before shrugging inwardly, “It was absolutely horrid!” she cried as she began her tragic soliloquy, “I was just minding my own business sewing a dress for Twilight because she’s been such a terrible shutin lately...”
“Hey!”
“... I figured a new dress would be just the confidence boost she needed to go out and see people! But then a large pink metal monster burst through the walls, shouted ‘For Narnia!’ and then proceeded to destroy everything in sight!”
“Yep... that’s Pinkie Pie alright.” Spike sighed flatly.
“You mean Pinkie Pie is inside that... that hideous, horribly gaudy thing?”
“I mean Pinkie Pie is that hideous, horribly gaudy thing.” Spike corrected his elegantly articulate and magnificent white horny ungulate.
“Oh, no! This is the. Worst. Possible. Thing!
“Actually, it might come in handy,” interjected Twilight, “because Discord’s on the loose again, and we can use all the help we can get. But where’s Pinkie now?”
“I have no idea. I was a bit more concerned at the loss of my living quarters, and being so distraught, didn’t take the time to track the retreat of the crazy and candy-obsessed death machine.”
“You’re not the only one who’s homeless!” Twilight shot back, “Now when’s this rain supposed to...”
“Chocolate rain... some stay dry while others feel the pain...” A melodic alto voice sang out.
“Oh fiddlesticks. Chocolate rain. That means...” Twilight looked around and saw the delinquent draconequus hovering in midair in the distance. “We’ve got to find the others lickety-split!”
The two unicorns and Spike headed towards Sweet Apple Acres as fast as their lissome pony legs could carry them. Their swift gallop was punctuated with occasional sounds of laughter and popcorn lightning.
“Twilight, are you seein’ all this? Don’t tell me ‘he’ broke free again.” Applejack quipped.
“Okay, I won’t.”
Rarity stepped up to the plate, “Discord’s free.”
“Aah, horse-apples. Ah knew it once it started pourin’ chocolate like some... uh... some metaphor fer pourin’ water?”
“Yeah, don’t you just hate it when you can’t think of any good rhetorical devices?” Twilight added sagely.
“Guys? Tank. Discord. World in danger of devolving into absolute chaos? Stuff be whack, yo!” Spike interjected, bringing everypony’s attention to the important details.
“Most assuredly! Spike’s right, we can’t let Discord win! Let’s go find Flutters-” Twilight was cut off by the sound of wanton destruction.
The mares ran towards the source of the noise, only to see that half of Applejack’s barn was now in shambles. A pink tank plowed its way through the apple orchard demolishing any tree unlucky enough to be standing in its way.
“You gotta be kiddin’ me!” Applejack vociferated, “What in tarnation’s that thing?”
“Pinkie.” Twilight groaned.
“Pinkie.” Rarity exhaled in resignation.
“Pinkie.” Spike put in, just wanting to be a part of the group.
“But... how?” The moment the question left her mouth, Applejack regretted it.
“It’s Pinkie,” The three amigos replied at the same time.
“She actually just destroyed Twilight’s library, and my boutique. If we don’t stop her from her maniacal rampage, I doubt there will be anything left to protect!”
“So... what do we do now?” Spike propped his chin under his claws, an inquiring look upon his draconic visage.
“Well, if we were a massive pink death machine bent on spreading laughter and destruction to all its closest friends, who would we see next?” Twilight thoughtfully tapped her hoof against her cheek in concentration.
The ponies shared a glance with each other and muttered in unison, “Fluttershy.”
The three mares and Spike were now galloping towards the cottage on the edge of the Everfree Forest. Sadly, they were not on time to save Fluttershy’s cottage. In fact, you could have ventured to say it was now Flattershy’s cottage. The yellow Pegasus stood at the entrance of her home in shock, all her worldly possessions nothing more than a pile of wreckage.
“M-m-m-my home...” Fluttershy squeaked, “B-b-but... I just finished paying off my mortgage!”
“Guess ya hadn’t noticed the rain. Discord’s back,” Applejack pointed out.
“Oh, I’m sorry, but I’ve got a few other things on my mind at the moment.” Fluttershy retorted, “So, please excuse me if I seem rude and uncaring... wait, did you just say Discord? H-h-he’s back? Is he the flankhead who destroyed my home?”
Twilight wiped Fluttershy’s spittle from her face, a souvenir from the sudden outburst. “Relax, Flutters, don’t get your tail in a knot. What was it that totaled your humble abode?”
“Humble?” Fluttershy squeaked with a hint of indignation. “A-anyway, it was this pink... oh. Oh my. It was Pinkie, wasn’t it?”
The three mares nodded solemnly.
“Oh. That... that... poopy poo-poo head!”
Spike snorted, and nudged Twilight with his elbow, “Poo-poo. She said poop. Remind you of something?” He guffawed quietly into her ear.
“Spike?”
“Yes, Twilight?”
“Remember what I said about leaving you little ‘surprises’?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Spike wisely zipped his mouth shut.
“Okay, now all we need to do is find Rainbow Dash, then we can worry about Pinkie.” Twilight turned to her friends, “Let’s go!”
The four mares galloped towards the patch of terra firma directly beneath Rainbow’s house.
“Well, at least there’s one good thing about living up in the sky.” Twilight yelled over the sound their hooves were making as she thundered onwards, “There is no way that it could be... damaged... by a thousand... ton... machine...”
Applejack’s jaw dropped. “Is...”
“... that her house? Yes.” Twilight felt her eye start to twitch again.
“At least Applejack still has a home.” Spike asserted.
“Not helping, Spikey-wikey.” Rarity declared through gritted teeth.
Rainbow Dash was flying around her house wailing like a banshee, tears flowing from her eyes. She spotted her friends and landed between them. “My house! My beautiful home! Gone!”
“Um, Rainbow Dash, don’t you normally sleep in trees and on small clouds anyways?” Spike appended in a manner most rude.
“That’s not important right now!” she yelled, “What matters is that my cloud mansion just got blown to smithereens by pink cotton candy and enormous jawbreakers! It took me like... a whole month to find just the right clouds to make it! I even lost the crown from the Best Young Flier’s Competition...”
“Oh my, that’s just dreadful! Now we’re all homeless...” Rarity couldn’t help but employ as melodramatic a tone as she could muster whilst speaking, complete with a swoon onto a couch from offscreen.
“Ah ain’t,” Applejack cut her off, “just barnless.”
Suddenly Pinkie the tank seemed to pop out of nowhere from behind the rest of her bestest friends ever, accompanied by the sound of bubble gum bursting open due to overinflation.
“Found her.” Spike stated matter-of-factly, pointing at the humongous tank.
“Oh really?” Twilight replied, looking a wee bit more annoyed than usual. “Pinkie! Rainbow! Discord’s back, and we have to use the Elements to defeat him.”
“Again? Why can’t that flankhole just leave us alone!” Rainbow whined.
“Look, let’s get rid of Discord, then we can concentrate on rebuilding our homes, okay?” Twilight knelt down in front of her favorite assistant, “Spike, I want you to run back to Sweet Apple Acres and wait there until I come and get you.”
“Okay, Twilight. Um... be careful.” With that, the little dragon ran off as fast as his pudgy little legs could carry him.
“We should go and find the Elements of Harmony...” Rarity began.
“No, no need. We’ve got a tank.” Twilight turned to Pinkie, “If she can destroy Rainbow’s home like that, then I think Discord could use a little spanking before we turn him back into stone; give him a reason to think twice about coming back.”
The girls all nodded in approval. They liked that plan, even Pinkie, whose turret quickly moved up and down.
“So, what do we do?” Rainbow asked.
“Let’s all go inside Pinkie, surely the chaos of Discord won’t be able to reach us there.” Rarity suggested.
“Uh... inside me?” Pinkie’s voice asked, “B-b-b-but...”
“Pinkie, you’re a vehicle now, ‘inside you’ has no connotations, okay? We’re going to be inside you as a vehicle so that we can get Discord back and show him what for.” Twilight reassured her friend, although it did sound a little kinky.
“Well... if you say so, Twilight. After all, you’re usually correct, except for when you go crazy about something like yourself from the future, or tardiness with a friendship report, the lack of tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala, your supposed lack of usefulness during Winter Wrap-up, Celestia’s reaction after the Parasprite invasion, Zecora cursing us all when it was really Poison joke...”
“Pinkie!”
“What?”
“Just open your hatch already and let us in!”
“Oh, wow, Twilight! I didn’t know you were so forward!”
“What? That’s not what I meant at all—”
“I mean, it’s practically the only time I’ve been in this form, and already you want to investigate me thoroughly, looking in all the nooks and crannies for the sensitive places.”
“You’re a vehicle for Luna’s sake! How can you even feel things?”
“With sugar!”
Such a response elicited a pronounced facehoof from the severely annoyed Twilight, whose patience was now running thinner than Featherweight’s forehooves after a bout of food poisoning and stomach flu.
“OPEN!” Twilight demanded.
“You take all the fun out of teasing, Twilight. Fine, hop into my opening and plumb the depths within, you naughty girl!”
After a few shared groans between the friends, they all clambered into the tank.
“Ooh.” Pinkie moaned as Twilight entered her.
“Aah!” Pinkie gasped when Rainbow Dash descended into her.
“Oh my!” Pinkie cooed as Rarity slid down her entrance.
“No, not there! Further to the left!” Pinkie pleaded in ecstasy as Fluttershy shuffled deeper into her.
Not willing to indulge Pinkie’s insanity any further, Applejack promptly bucked one of the inside walls after dropping inside, which was surprisingly effective for terminating the falsified erotic sounds, whose origins were still mysterious and echoing.
They all stood there confused, and Fluttershy even blushed. Despite bits of embarrassment abounding though, one peculiar point suddenly popped into the heads of the idiosyncratic and moderately dysfunctional ponies. How were the insides so surprisingly roomy? Not one of them had yet even bumped into the other.
“Pinkie,” Rarity started, “how is this tank bigger on the inside?”
“I had Dr. Whooves modify me earlier! It was kind of like getting my tank cherry popped, if you know what I mean!”
“Pinkie!” All the girls barked at the same time.
“Movin’ on...” Applejack stated, “how do we work this thingamajig?”
“Leave it to me, Your Appleness! My fuchsia armour will shelter you from the most despicable and deadly of dastardly darts! Also, I can somehow absorb nutrition from the environment around me, especially this chocolate rain! It’s like being gently massaged from all sides while simultaneously consuming enormous quantities of sweet chocolatey goodness! Oh, and treat yourself to my sweet sticky balls of love!”
A hidden hatch seemingly ten meters above the ponies opened and bombarded them with pink hard candies the size of beach balls, each with “Love” written on it in curling calligraphy, and a thin layer of gooey caramel.
After the initial ejaculations of ‘Ew’ and ‘It’s so sticky!’ and ‘I think I just fell face-first into Pinkie’s balls’, their taste buds registered the blissful deliciousness of diabetes-inducing glucose overload, giving them all a quick burst of energy and invigorating them for the battle ahead.
“Let’s go dragonequus hunting.” Twilight proclaimed with the authority gained by frequent leadership.
Pinkie obeyed, and they thundered off towards... “Twilight, where am I going?”
“Use your Pinkie Sense.”
As if on cue, a panel in front of them folded out. On it was a series of green dots, and a single red triangle in the middle over what looked to be Ponyville Cemetery.
“W-w-we’re not goin’ in there are we?” Applejack asked worriedly. She hated spooks, apparitions, banshees, demons, devils, eidolons, ethereal beings, ghosts, haunts, incorporeal beings, kelpies, phantasms, phantoms, poltergeists, revenants, shades, shadows, lost souls, specters, vampires, and wraiths almost as much as she hated Discord and his dishonesty. But lately, seeing as Twilight was a zombie, she had warmed up to them at least.
“Yes. We are.” Twilight’s voice had a slight malicious edge to it.
“Vroom, vroom, vroom!” Pinkie roared, and off they went.
That which appeared to be a radar began to beep and boop rhythmically, indicating increased proximity to the target.
“Oh, and by the way, who wants cupcakes? All you gotta do is take a cup of flour, add it to the mix!” Pinkie was only moments away from launching into one of her musical tirades, when the tank suddenly lurched as if it had just hit a small but significant speed bump.
“What was that?” Fluttershy asked, clearly worried that they had accidentally ran over some poor unfortunate soul.
“How should I know?” Twilight looked up, “Pinkie, what did we hit?”
“Well, with my onboard computer I did a few calculations, analyzed the data on the object which recently traveled under my treads, extracted a small sample of the entity in question, and determined that it was none other than a solidified ball of chocolate hail, about the size of a kumquat. The first of many, I’m afraid.”
Suddenly the ceiling of the especially spacious armoured vehicle pinged with the sounds of deflected, gravity-powered cocoa projectiles. It was as if a jackhammer was simultaneously pounding away at the hull from all sides. Additionally, through minute seams and openings in Pinkie’s armour, a cold draft wafted in, and shivers wracked the bodies of the scantily clad equine quadrupeds.
“Yummy! Chocolate hail! Not only is it diabetastically delicious, it also means Discord is...” a strange slurping sound as of a certain pink pony shamelessly devouring a kumquat-sized chocolate-flavored ice, which confounded Twilight who noticed no orifice on the tank which could be used for digestive purposes, echoed around them in a curious manner but Pinkie just continued, “precisely two hundred twelve point zero six meters north, at an elevation of approximately thirteen feet above sea level, over the cemetery!”
Twilight fought off the feeling of her brain overloading. She needed to save Equestria. “Just go, Pinkie. Let’s get this over and done with, then we can work on fixing you.”
Suddenly loud, heavy orchestral music blasted out from hidden speakers as the tank charged forwards towards the graveyard.
“Pinkie! Turn it down! I can’t hear myself think!” Twilight yelled over the din.
The music instantly adjusted through unseen channels and the volume decreased to a far more tolerable level, more of a background music than a gaudy and overbearingly obnoxious clamor.
“Gosh. That’s so much better.” Fluttershy peeped, rubbing her ears with her hooves.
Discord’s disturbing laugh suddenly echoed throughout the tank, resonating with the vibrating metal hull of the tank and causing it to buzz disturbingly. Bolts and rivets rotated out of their grooves, plinking to the floor.
“Holy tomales, Twilight. Is that who Ah think it is?” Applejack gasped.
“What a horrendous and hideous cackle!” Rarity pronounced, “What ever will we do?”
Pinkie knew a perfect three-word phrase for this situation.
“Ready!” The slot to the main cannon opened up, and a hidden piston launched a large pink gumball into the receiver.
“Aim!” A subtle groaning of the metal occurred as it adjusted to the target’s current location.
“Fire!” All five of the girls yelled at the same time.
Nothing happened.
“Pinkie, why aren’t you shooting something at Discord?” Twilight demanded, “Let’s blow this thing and go home!”
“But, you guys... chocolate rain!”
“Pinkie!” All five mares shouted contemporaneously.
“Fine...”
BOOM! went Pinkie’s main gun.
Kablooey! went the shell that collided with its target.
“Dear, oh dear. You girls really showed that tree a thing or two.” A melodic voice sang out from behind them. A mini-Discord sat down on one of the many chaise lounges that occupied Pinkie’s insides, while Pinkie’s sound system did a record rip, the music ceasing as suddenly as it started. “If I didn’t know better, I’d guess you were aiming for me.”
“Discord!” Twilight pointed a hoof at him with a glare and an accusatory tone, but unfortunately it would take more than that to keep him down. As it was, he only responded with a condescending laugh.
“Hehehe, indeed, that is my name, Twilight Sparkle. But you know that well enough, as do I, so let’s get past the formalities, shall we?” In his tiny eagle claw, he conjured up a pink cloud of cotton candy, held it up to the eye level of the ponies, and started pelting them with chocolate rain.
Luckily, the floor was still covered with various reflective forms of candy, which Twilight picked up with her telekinesis. The chocolate rain droplets bounced from hovering jaw breaker to floating gumball and back, or stuck to those caramel-covered goodies. Granted, the rain wouldn’t have caused any physical harm anyways, but Twilight was determined to protect her friends from all threats, foreign and domestic. Plus, she kind of wondered what they would taste like under a chocolate coating... but that was most likely an aftereffect of inhabiting a Pinkie Pie-filled environment for an extended period of time. She tried one sticky caramel and chocolate coated sweet, and was surprised by its tastiness.
Rather than seem irritated at the failure of his attack, though, Discord’s smile, like that of a Cheshire cat, only seemed to grow all the wider.
“Do you like it? I call it ‘Sweetbread a la Gusteau’. Oh, wait, that name’s already taken, plus it doesn’t make any sense... which only makes it all the better! Let’s go with that.”
With her usual straightforward brashness, Applejack was the first to speak up. “What in the hay are ya goin’ on about, Discord? Ah reckon you’ve gone even crazier than Pinkie on caffeine.”
“Not at all, milady Applejack. You see, I’ve realized that the world as it is currently is plenty chaotic. Perhaps not this universe, but this certainly isn’t the only one. There are actually quite a few universes out there, and through my absolutely devious vision, I can read them, see them, and yes, even taste them. My Little Dashie tasted like melancholy and sarsaparilla. But you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, so for once I’ll dispense with the cryptic nonsense and tell you what I’m actually intending to do! I want... to become a chocolatier.”
“A chocolate tear? But how do you even make chocolate cry? Do you feed it melancholy and discuss the depression commonly caused by immortality when one realizes that they will have to watch all their friends die? But then again, chocolate is short-lived as it is, its life often ended but a blink from its creation. Do you tell the chocolate it only has a day to live, and no way to express itself through last words, nor any output for its emotions? That’s cruel even for you, Discord. Plus, how would you become that tear, wept from a nonexistent tear gland of an inanimate object, in the first place?”
“Pinkie, as much as I adore your whimsical ramblings, they are completely and utterly ridiculous. So for that, kudos. But I don’t want to become a chocolate tear at all. I only want to become a maker of chocolate. A chocolate inventor, as it were.”
“Ooh, a choco-ventor! Why didn’t you say so?”
Discord could only rub his temples with his paw and claw.
“So, what are you trying to say?” Twilight asked slowly, unsure of what must have been nefarious intentions of the draconequus.
“All I’m saying is that I have abandoned my aspirations in spreading sweet, delicious chaos, at least for the time being, in exchange for pursuing a career in confectioneering.” Discord smiled toothily, his single fang glinting in the sunlight?
The girls all exchanged unsure glances with one another.
“Well...” Twilight barely uttered before being interrupted.
“You can’t be serious!” Applejack hollered, stomping her hooves in emphasis.
“I’m as serious as eons spent locked into a form of stone.”
“Discord has finally turned away from chaos in order to indulge in a life of making children smile. You know what this calls for? A party!”
“This can’t end well.” Twilight mumbled apprehensively.
“So! You just couldn’t resist, could you, Discord?” Twilight shouted over the sound of the wind rushing by her face. She was standing in Pinkie’s hatch, a helmet on her head, and a pair of binoculars in her hooves.
“I am a creature of chaos, and also prone to experiment. A development such as this was sheer inevitability, I assure you.” Discord’s tone was surprisingly calm for facing Pinkie head-on in tank form.
“Turning ponies into chocolate?” Twilight shouted incredulously.
“No use trying to reason with Discord. We’ll sooner become screwballs before we can unearth the convoluted labyrinth that’s his mind.” Rarity shouted up to Twilight from inside Pinkie’s chassis.
“You’re right, Rarity. It’s time to prepare the Elements of Harmony.”
“You mean the Orbital Friendship Cannon?” Pinkie chimed in.
“Uhh... sure, Pinkie. Just get the amulets and tiara thingy so we can encase him in stone.”
“But he always gets outta there anyways!” Applejack interjected.
“I have a solution for that!” Pinkie added. A previously unseen turret suddenly appeared before Twilight, which she promptly mounted and aimed toward Discord.
“Twilight, press the red button, then pull the trigger! I promise you won’t regret it!”
“Pinkie, are you sure!”
“Absolutiviliciously!”
“All right then, here goes nothing!”
Twilight followed the commands of the animated fuchsia monstrosity, only to realize that the red button just shot confetti out everywhere.
“Don’t worry, the trigger is where the real fun kicks in!” Despite Pinkie’s reassurance, Twilight was having second thoughts, but she shoved her misgivings aside to focus on the task at hoof.
Discord was temporarily distracted by the falling fragile pieces of paper, pausing to ponder their usefulness in the grand scheme of things, and was thus unaware of the hot caramel swiftly approaching him.
“Eat my sweet melted sugary fury, you big meanie-head!” Pinkie’s metallic voice rang with the fury of superheated hydrogen, at a temperature and pressure great enough to produce nuclear fusion.
It also happened to be a chilly fall day at the time, which resulted in the caramel cooling rapidly. Discord was so thoroughly frozen that the girls would have three years of leisure time to stroll casually into Canterlot, properly petition Celestia for the usage of the Elements of Harmony in order to permanently imprison Discord, and sing a few merry tunes along the way. As a matter of fact, they might have forgotten the unfortunate draconequus had not Fluttershy accidentally tripped over him at one point while caretaking for the cemetery, which prompted his final rainbow-colored petrification once Twilight was able to properly schedule Discord’s permanent incarceration.
“That was awesome! Now what do we do about our pink candy projectile launcher slash armoured fortress of a friend?” Rainbow asked, still eager for payback for her demolished cloud-house.
“Actually, I’m a pony again!” Pinkie chirruped brightly, conveniently appearing directly above Rainbow Dash just to glomp her in an aerial hug-attack. “And it feels so good to have hooves again! Now I can go back to baking! Plus, the Elements of Harmony returned all zombies to normal pony status.”
“What... but… how?” muttered Rainbow from beneath the cotton-candy-maned paradox.
Said paradox swiftly struck a triumphant pose, her hooves on her hips whilst standing on her hind legs, “Because I’m Pinkie Pie!”