//------------------------------// // Chapter Fifteen // Story: Head Full of Cotton Candy // by TheManWithTwoNames //------------------------------// Head Full of Cotton Candy A “My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic” fanfiction By TheManWithTwoNames I do not own any of the characters contained in the following work. “My Little Pony” and all subsequent properties belong to Hasbro and Lauren Faust. Maybe I'm just talking crazy talk, but what if when I end this story, I'll finally get away from my kidnappers and get reunited with my T-Shirt? The world of chaos had become as still as the grave. The darkened sky was empty, abandoned by clouds and creature alike. No wind brushed the leaves of the Everfree Forest. The rolling waves of the ocean had been halted. Beasts hid in their burrows, huddled in fear with their kin. Hiding deep in their caves, father dragons protectively concealed their hatchlings under their wings. Only a few ponies remained in sight, their bodies too frozen in fear to flee for shelter. Friends and strangers took shelter together, holding tight to their comrades to find some sense of peace. And for it all, not even the smallest whisper could be heard across the land. It was as if all life in Equestria had been extinguished. The Spirit of Death beamed. “Since the dawn of time, we have been. Spirits of this world. My brothers and sisters have lived in symbiosis with your species, surviving on the energies you offered up to us. In return, we kept your world in balance. We kept your world in order. We have devoted ourselves to ensuring your existence. And you returned our auspices with betrayal. “Through your own ire and thirst for power, you engendered a new spirit to be your own undoing. By senseless war and bigotry, you had brought life to a monster to reflect your own horrid hearts. But now, Brother Chaos threatens to be the end of my kin as well. My brothers and sisters have been starving, fading away to nothing as this weed you have planted chokes us and robs us of our lives. Attempts to reason with our rogue brother have resulted in failure and even greater loss. He will not leave this world. So for our own survival, this world shall be purged. This Equestria and all those who dwell within it shall be returned to nothing. We will create a new world, and we will survive. “Brother, I speak now to you.” Death crossed his wings in front of him, balling the end of one wing like a fist to rest his chin on. When he spoke again, he had replaced the grim solemnity in his voice with a more familiar oily smarm. “You really did bring this on yourself, you know. We tried playing it nice, but you had to have it your way. I honestly can’t see what you find so entertaining about this world that would make you so stubborn to leave it. But we decided we’d give you one more opportunity to visit us before your precious world goes up in smoke. You know, for old time’s sake. And I can’t think of a better place for your time here to end than where it all started. And just maybe, if you’re a good boy and listen to your big brothers and sisters, we just might leave your ponies alone! “We so look forward to seeing you again, Brother. Don’t keep us waiting~!” The phantom faded away in seconds, giving a crooked grin in Canterlot’s direction before he vanished. “I am so sick of this family,” Discord gnarled as he glanced at the paralysed mare cradled in his arms. She hadn’t started raving yet, but he was confident that even the heralding of the apocalypse wouldn’t keep Screwball quiet for long. The collapsed throne room did not look any better closer up than in the air, with chunks of broken mortar and stone lying in heaps on the floor. With a snap of his tail, the gray stone covering the dirtied carpet began to float upwards like balloons, fitting together in the open roof like a jigsaw puzzle until it was as good as new. “You can put me down now.” The words were almost too soft for him to hear, but Discord complied. Screwball gently stepped out of his arms, keeping her head bowed toward the floor. The stiffness in the room was agonizing for Discord as he waited for Screwball to finally say something. He discovered with some disgust that his tail had somehow wound up being twisted between his paws. But with no one looking at him, he decided there wasn’t any harm in indulging a bit. After only a single squeeze, he opened his fingers and let his tail drop down to the floor with a sigh. He wished she would at least look at him. Desperate to find something, anything else to focus on, he tore himself away from her and approached one of the stained glass windows. He unceremoniously tore the curtains off the wall and scowled when he watched the cloth turn into an enormous slice of cheese in his touch. He hadn’t even tried that time; it was automatic. He quietly groaned and dusted the yellow crumbs on his chest before turning his attention toward the painted window. It was nice, in a way, he thought. Earth ponies and unicorns were running and smiling in a world of green. Pleasant. The pegasi soared in a blue sky around a purple mountain, forever frozen in that moment of pure bliss. Quaint. But it wasn’t him. Though at that moment, he wished it was. He wished he could look at the scene and believe he could jump inside the window and be happy there too. He wanted to want it. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. His eyes drifted up to the top of the mountain where the image of a great king was standing proudly above his realm, basking in the rays of the sun he held in the sky for his subjects. He was an alicorn. Discord lifted his arm and firmly pressed his talon against the king. He kept his claw in place as the king turned brown and rose onto his back hooves, spreading his mismatched arms wide as if embracing the world. He had wanted to help. He really, truly did. Maybe it was because Screwball told him to do it, or maybe it was for her, or maybe he wanted to do it to satisfy some stirring of empathy that might have once had. But he had wanted to help. But no one would let him. It didn’t matter if he tried to do it Screwball’s way, or if he tried to do it his own way; every effort was just a failure, because of him. He pushed harder against the glass. Even if things started to go right, he would always do something to ruin it. It was never once on purpose! He just didn’t know. But no one wanted to understand. Maybe he shouldn’t have given up on his subjects. Though he didn’t see how else he could have reacted to them. And now, once he was ready to help them again with everything going right, all his mistakes finally caught up to him. It wasn’t fair. He didn’t care if it sounded selfish. It wasn’t fair. Discord only finally opened his eyes again when he heard a crackling. He pulled away his claw and took a step back from the window. The image had been deformed by jagged cracks stretching all along the glass. The moment of joy had been destroyed. The sky and earth were fractured in random patterns. Earth ponies had their legs broken from under them. Unicorns had their heads split from the rest of their bodies. The wings on the pegasi were too heavily marred to even recognize. But no matter how or where it was cracked, the breaks only ever joined at a single point. At the top of the mountain, the draconequus’ arms were spread wide, with the hideous lines spreading out from his chest. ‘Well isn’t that emblematic,’ Discord thought bitterly, spitting on the window. His saliva quickly spread and bubbled, eating away at every inch of the glass until was clear and the cracks were mended. “He said that they were starving…” The sudden words startled Discord, though he was certain that he hid it. He turned around and folded his hands neatly behind his back as he waited for Screwball to continue speaking. “What did he mean by that? That you were... like a weed.” Screwball tried not to speak too loudly. She didn’t want to risk letting Discord hear her voice waver. “That’s why they’re... doing this.” “I believe he was talking about their gray,” Discord answered smoothly. “Their what?” It was unnatural to hear what should have been one of Screwball’s outbursts spoken so mildly. “How do I explain this to a pony?” the draconequus mused as he tickled his beard. “Almost everything has this sort of color that I can feel. Well, I can’t really feel every color, but I can still see them all if I look hard enough. I only ever actually get a feeling from the gray. I can somewhat feel green as well, but not as strongly. I suspect it had something to do with that disgusting brussels sprout jawbreaker in the forest. And the colors were all connected to whatever was causing it. Whenever I’m around something unnatural or chaotic, I can see the gray and feel it warm me. Imagine holding your hooves in front of a fire after coming in from the snow. It takes all the numbness away and fills it with just... Mmm!” A questioning look from the pony told him that he should continue. “But if I ever went too long without warming up, I would start feeling... Hm, not quite pins and needles. Aha! Like going to a doctor for a broken leg and getting a dose of morphine to numb the pain. You know the leg is still there, but you can’t move it. And you can touch it, but it doesn’t feel like it’s still really a part of you. It feels like touching something that’s you and not you. It...” The energy in the spirit’s voice dwindled, but the words were coming too quickly to stop himself now. “It felt like I was touching a corpse. Like I was dying.” He took no pleasure in the reaction telling the ugly truth rewarded him. “I just never wanted to feel that way again. So I filled the world with chaos. And I never paid it much attention, but I don’t see much of the other colors now.” “So when you were filling the world with... gray, the... other colors that kept the spirits alive faded away,” Screwball said, gaining momentum as she finally found the sense in this catastrophe. “And now they’re going to reset the world to save themselves!” “They most assuredly are not,” Discord cut in, “because I will not allow it.” ‘That’s a good start,’ Screwball thought to herself as she began to pace around, ‘but there still has to be a plan.’ Whenever trouble came her way, she found it was always the best course of action to stay moving. It was impossible to predict when it would be necessary to start running so, it was just safer to be prepared. She did her best thinking on her hooves, anyway. The usual pacing did not seem to be helping, so it was time to get serious. She changed from moving back and forth down a straight line to walking in a circle. Simple patterns, that was the trick. Keeping her body in a rhythm would keep her mind on track. Around and around in circles, like juggling a ball in the air. And if one wasn’t enough, then she only had to add another one. And a third one. As many as it took to keep her mind off the realization that the world really was ending now and that she was still responsible for it. It still was not enough. She stomped her hoofs on the ground just so she could drown out the sound of her panicked heartbeat, but it only thumped harder. She shut her eyes and let her legs take her wherever she had to go. Was this it? Did she have no more advice to give? Was she just useless now? A fool to the end after all. Some advisor she turned out to be. After all her effort, she still couldn’t be the pony Discord needed her to be. She couldn’t save the world. She couldn’t even stop Time’s prediction from coming true. Her hooves finally stopped moving and she opened her eyes to see the grand doors towering in front of her. She looked over her shoulder to see the path she had taken to end there. A squiggling pattern of lines spread around the floor, her hoofprints exploring every corner of the room. And following the path, taking care to place his feet in every hoofprint, was Discord. Blissful memories returned to Screwball like long-lost friends. Dancing down the road with the clumsy draconequus imitating her every step; having silly conversations for hours about everything and nothing and all that was in between; guessing games and riddles to while away the hours; sleeping side by side, protectively curled against one another. She wanted to laugh. With all the amazing experiences they had shared, the memories she cherished most were those trifling details. Those tiny moments that seamlessly blended together into days and months to become a single memory of unending happiness were worth any amount of hardship or pain. And as Discord came nearer down the path, she knew with absolute certainty that she was no failure. She had saved more than Equestria with her one crazy idea those years ago. She had saved Discord. Without her, Discord could have become anything like the rest. He could have been as perverted as the Spirit of Love, or vicious and unrestrained as the Spirit of Nature. He could have followed in the Spirit of Time’s model and become passionless and single-minded in the execution of his duty, or as heartless and uncaring to the misery of others as the Spirit of Death. He could even have become a thoughtless and savage force of destruction that was as dangerous to himself as he was to others, like the Spirit of Chaos she had seen at Ploughmouth. But Discord wasn’t like a Spirit. He had lived among ponies, raised by a pony who taught him and loved him with all of her heart. He had known joy and sorrow, victory and loss, anger, fascination, fear, and compassion like any living pony. She had taught him to be the King of Equestria. Now she had to trust him with it. “Discord,” she said, her voice breaking against the lump in her throat, “what are we going to do?” “They’re asking for an audience with me, and they’re going to get it. I’m going to meet with them face to face,” Discord answered resolutely. “But we can’t just walk right into whatever trap they’re planning! We should—” “Screwball… I don’t think there’s going to be a ‘we’ this time,” Discord said miserably. “I can’t take you with me. This is goodbye.” He forced himself to look away from her as he raised his talon, knowing he would lose his nerve if he waited any longer. Something caught him by the neck and he was tackled to the ground, knocking the back of his head against the carpet. “You are never going to do that again!” Screwball shouted sternly as she pinned him down, her eyes on the verge of tears. “I did not wait twenty years just so you could leave me again!” “They’ll destroy all of the world if I don’t go! This is all happening because of me! Now there’s only one thing left that I can do to stop my crazy family from bothering you and Equestria ever again,” Discord pleaded. Two legs wrapped tight around his neck before he could say anything more. “There has to be another way...” “If there is, we’d better think of it quick,” Discord sighed as he slogged down the length of carpet. He only untied his purple pony necktie once he reached the foot of the throne. Screwball stayed by his side as he climbed the steps and flopped onto the chair, the cushion making a sound like a rubber squeak toy. The doors exploded off their hinges and hammered the ground in quick succession. Two sets of hooves clacked against the toppled wood, echoing through the cloud of dust scattered up by the impact. Screwball used the smokescreen to take cover behind the throne. Discord already had a strong hunch of who his visitors might be, especially given the force that one of them was putting into ever stomp of her hoof. He snapped away the dust to give his friends a proper greeting. “Why Little Luna! So nice of you to drop in! You should have told me you were coming, I would have tidied up. Oh, and hello to you too, Silly Celestia,” Discord welcomed with mock-sweetness as a bolt of lightning struck him in the chest. “You unbelievable, unforgivable monster!” Celestia shrieked as she let loose another wild bolt. The blast struck its mark, though it was unable to so much as singe Discord’s fur. The draconequus frowned more at the particular choice of words than at the attack, but given the circumstances, he tolerated the discourtesy. “Is something bothering you?” He feigned a gasp, “Don’t tell me I forgot about a date!” “Your mischief has gone too far, snake!” Luna shouted. “It was already insufferable living in these chaotic times, but now you’ve brought the end of days upon us all!” “I know. It’s just awful isn’t it? And I never got the chance to introduce you to a friend of mine I think you would have liked. She was a nosey little pegasus who had some trouble flying the other day,” Discord said casually, delighting in the growing look of shock on the princess’ face. “You both have so much in common, too. You both have blue fur, you share an interest in astronomy, and you’re both not nearly as clever as you think you are.” Celestia stepped in front of dumbstruck sister and took a stance, spreading her legs and wings and aiming her horn directly at Discord’s eyes. “This is all of your fault, Discord!” “Oh, you blame me for everything! Death was the one announcing the end of the world.” “Death?” “My big brother.” Discord rolled his eyes. “And I was actually in the middle of a conversation about this same issue before you two started blowing down doors like you own the place.” “This is their castle,” Screwball piped up from behind the throne. “Was their castle,” he corrected. “You, be silent!” Celestia snapped at her enemy before pointing a hoof at the pony trying to shrink behind the throne. “Who are you?” “Who, me? I’m nopony worth worrying about...” Screwball’s escape was foiled when she was picked up by a red, scaly tail and dropped into Discord’s lap. “Celestia, Luna, I would like you both to meet Screwball, my advisor.” “You’ve been keeping a hostage?!” the mare gasped in shock, earning a throaty chuckle for her exclamation. “That’s what I love about you, Silly Celestia, you’re always good for a laugh. But you couldn’t be more wrong. Screwy came to me right at the start.” He felt a little guilty for using Screwball to ruffle the big white turkey’s feathers, but Celestia was wasting what precious time he had left, and getting her angry was always the quickest way to make her storm away from a conversation. “So she’s a traitor to Equestria then,” Celestia said darkly, narrowing her eyes at the pony in Discord’s lap. Discord’s lip curled for a moment before he jumped up from his seat. “Scroob is no traitor,” he said firmly as he floated down the steps toward the unintimidated sisters. “In fact, she’s practically saved the world every day for the last twenty years. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know if I would have ever thought to raise the sun. It’s not like your old man left a list of instructions for me,” he added nastily, turning on his heel and strolling back up the steps. “Now, if you would be so kind as to remove yourselves so we can focus on saving the world, that would be terrific.” “Not so fast, snake!” A green orb exploded from the tip of Celestia’s horn. The ball suddenly expanded in a spider web pattern and wrapped around Discord, wrapping around him like a net. The prisoner gave a few uninterested tugs at the trap, each prod causing the net to crack with an unpleasant spark. “I will make you regret those words. And when I locate Father’s legendary battle armor hidden in this palace, I will take pleasure in using its power to defeat you and your wicked brother!” Diving from the throne and rushing to Discord’s side was Screwball’s very first instinct. But she remained frozen. The princess’ face was twisted and horrid, her eyes burning with all the wrath of her father. No one was ever brave or stupid enough to stand up to the king on a warpath. Screwball could remember every uproar, every explosion, every monstrous rampage of the Sun King, and all she could think to do was to hide in her tiny room and wait for it to be over. ‘Well you haven’t had the luxury of doing that for a long time, so stop being such a coward!’ Savoir Faire jeered from the back of Screwball’s mind. Screwball blinked. It was true. She had come under attack from the very first day she left the castle. Each threat had been more dangerous and frightening than the alicorns ever were, and every time she wanted nothing more than to run for her life. But she never did. Whether it was some insane wolf, or psycho circus pony, or horrible giant owl, or a whirlwind of pure chaos, she never once ran. She couldn’t. ‘Maybe I am a coward,’ Screwball thought as she purposefully marched down the steps, ‘but I’m brave when it matters.” ‘Try to take a swing at her for me.’ “You’re going to kill... Death?” the earth pony asked, looking at the two deposed princesses with contempt. “It… does sound peculiar to say out loud. But we shall find a way to stop him.” Even Luna herself appeared unconvinced by her own declaration. “Alright, then. Say you manage to stop Death. What will you do about the others?” Celestia’s ears pricked up and she took her attention off her prisoner to stare down at this ally of chaos. “...Others?” “Yes. Others. Discord has more psychotic family members than you have hooves. And I’ve had the pleasure of meeting every one of them and having them try to age me to dust, eat me alive, gas me to death, and hypnotize me into having sex with them. You spent twenty years trying to deal with one spirit, and you had the luxury of him not trying to kill you! Any other spirit would have killed you without even a second thought!” Celestia rapidly looked from the earth pony to the proudly grinning draconequus in her net. Discord met her eyes and crossed over his chest before snapping his paw. He dropped the paper heart that appeared in his palm and gave Celestia a knowing wink. “And you think that your heartless father’s armor is going to protect you from all of them?” Screwball’s ranting turned into a pained scream as another magical net wrapped around her, burning her skin wherever the magic touched her. “B-be quiet!” Celestia commanded through grit teeth as she stood over the squirming pony. “Tell me then! If these spirits are so fearsome, how did you survive against them? Just what protected you!?” “Sister…?” Luna’s voice was soft but urgent as she cautiously stepped backward on trembling hooves. “Not now, Luna!” Celestia hissed. “Ahem.” Ice ran through her veins as she slowly turned fearful eyes to discover Discord, free from her spell, towering over her. She jumped backwards in what she hoped was a fighting stance. Celestia took her eyes off of Discord for only a moment to look at the space around his head. The air was melting like wax. She felt his eyes burning into her even as he was pulling the net off of the purple pony. He crumpled the magic into a ball in his fist as he stomped toward her, his every footstep sounding with a crack of thunder or a guttural roar. It dawned on Celestia as she joined with Luna that she was witnessing something she had never seen before: Discord was angry. Furious. But why? For that pony? What did he care about any pony? Celestia’s thoughts shifted as the seething draconequus came closer, the warped space around his head oozing down and puddling on the ground. Her heart was racing but her mind was even faster as she tried to anticipate what he would do to her. He had never laid a hand on her before. Even while she was trying to murder him, he never once tried to fight back. It had always infuriated her. It made her feel as though he didn’t think of her as a serious power. But now, as she feared that she may very well die before Equestria, she realized what a blessing it had been. She heard herself whimper when her rear hooves pressed against the wall. The cry was taken back with a sharp inhale, and Celestia wrapped her neck around Luna’s in one final embrace as she waited for the strike. “To answer your question,” Discord growled, leaning in close to Celestia’s ear. “Me.” Celestia shivered at the word and braced for the worst. Sweat dripped down her forehead as she waited for the strike, the blast, the end, anything. But it never came. After what felt like an eternity, she dared to peek her eye open and screamed as a rubber balloon exploded against her face, staining her pristine coat with soy sauce. “I—But—You—Augh! Discord!!” “Hahahahaa! It’s too easy! It’s too easy, Celestia!” Discord howled with laughter as he rolled on the floor, oblivious or uncaring as the still-shaking alicorn fled from the room, leaving a trail of dark brown spots behind her. When he was finally able to put a lid on his giggles and wipe away his tears, he was surprised to see Luna still standing in the doorway, regarding him curiously. He raised an eyebrow in intrigue, but after several seconds of silence he decided he was tired of waiting. “Do you have something you want to say?” “Your laugh sounds happier.” Luna immediately turned and trotted out the doorway after her sister, leaving Discord feeling puzzled until the last of the princess’s hoofsteps faded away. “Darn it,” Screwball cursed as she rose to her hooves and shook off the last tingles of magic from her coat, “she was right there! And I completely forgot to tell her off about their stupid owl duke!” “You had quite the life before I came along, didn’t you?” Discord chuckled as he made his way back toward her at the foot of the throne. “And after. I think that maybe I’m just not cut out for normalcy,” she lamented. “It’s overrated anyway. But you’re looking in pretty good shape for somepony who just got attacked by a fussy alicorn. Are you sure you’re alright?” “Yeah, I’m... Actually, I am.” She shifted uncomfortably as Discord kept his eyes on her, though she felt as if he was looking clear through her. “Is there a problem?” Discord took a moment before he answered, shaking his head as he strolled over to the single clear window. “No, not at all. Everything’s just peachy. That is, if we aren’t counting how I’m going to have to get myself killed to save Equestria. It’s a great day.” “What?!” “Have I ever told you how much I love that little squawk you do when you get upset?” Discord asked sweetly, batting his suddenly enormous eyelashes in a futile attempt to get a giggle out of the pony. “How did you get it into your head that getting killed would make anything better?” “Because of you.” Discord half-expected her eyes would pop right out of her head. “You said it yourself, Screwball. ‘A king has to make sacrifices for his subjects.’ Celestia’s mother and father gave their lives to protect Equestria from me. Now it’s my turn.” “That’s not what I—There’s no point in a sacrifice if it only makes everything worse!” Screwball’s voice strained as she shouted the last word. “It’s win-win. If I beat them, then I save everypony. Then I could start pulling back some of the chaos and things will be okay again,” he said solemnly as he looked out the window at the world of chaos outside. “And if I… don’t, then I’ll be out of their hair for good and they won’t have any reason to go through with destroying the world. All the chaos will be gone again and everything will be okay again. There’ll be no more ponies worried about shift storms, or falling houses crushing them, or wild animals attacking them…” He turned from the window to give Screwball a weak smile. “So you see? It’s win-win. That’s why I said this was goodbye.” “No…! No!” Screwball yelled, thrashing her head back and forth, making her mane bounce around and her beanie’s propeller clatter. “There’s got to be another way! We’ve just got to think about this, you don’t have to do this!” Discord closed his eyes and leaned his horns against the wall by the window with a strained exhale. “Do you know what I always envied about you, Scroob? It’s that you like to think so much. You always sit and wait and come up with all these ideas and plans. But that’s something I envy about all you ponies. Those little marks on your rears. They stand for what you’re talented at, but not who you are. They’re only a small part of you. You found out that you excelled at making ponies laugh. But you never had to become a jester in the palace. You never had to do anything related to your mark if you didn’t want to. For all of my magic and my powers, you could do more than I ever could. “Me? I don’t have some little thing that tells others who I am and what I’m good for. Instead, I have...” he trailed off and simply waved his paw in front of his entire body. “It’s all of me. So I never had the ability to make choices. My first and only instinct was ‘turn it upside-down’ or ‘make it sticky’. There’s no thought or reason involved, I just have to do what I have to do. And this is something that I have to do.” He finished by kneeling down to look Screwball in the eyes. White and purple clashing with red and gold, begging and pleading the other to stop. Discord took not satisfaction when Screwball turned her eyes away, looking defeated. “If this is really something that you have to do,” Screwball began, swallowing her courage, “then I have to do it, too.” Discord had to pick his jaw up off the floor. “I think I had something crazy in my ear, could you run that by me again?” “I’m serious. I promised you that I’d follow you and make sure that you stay safe. So that means I’m coming with you,” Screwball declared. “Oh no you don’t!” Discord shook a finger in Screwball’s face. “If you come with me, you’ll only get yourself hurt or worse!” “No I won’t.” “How do you figure that?” he snorted. “Because I know you’ll protect me, too,” Screwball answered with a soft smile. “So I guess that means we have to stay with each other to keep our promises.” Discord flapped his mouth uselessly for a few seconds as he tried to mull over the not-so-twisted logic, letting his eye twitch as he realized it was the wrong kind of nonsensical. The good kind. “Are you… are you being crafty with me right now?” Discord asked, his voice practically a gasp. “Suddenly now you start getting clever?” “I guess I just needed the right motivation,” Screwball replied with a shrug and a smug grin. He tried to fight it for as long as he could, but he was helpless. A smirk split across his face, completely destroying any hope for his cause. But when life gives you melons, you make melonade. “Alright then, have it your way.” Discord snapped his fingers and the two were popped into the air by the force of an enormous wooden chest slamming to the floor. The spirit had already thrown the top open and was almost completely submerged in it before Screwball even had the time to ask “what’s that?”. “It’s simple,” Discord’s voice echoed from inside the chest as he threw a random collection of pies, pastries, cupcakes, juggling balls, bowling pins, strings of bells, spinning plates, seltzer bottles, kazoos, paper fans, and a dozen other pieces of junk out from the chest to scatter around the room. “If I’m going to be seen with you in a final battle, I can’t have you looking like that.” “Like what?” Screwball dared Discord to choose his words carefully. “You’re so...” he pulled his head from the trunk and twisted his mouth side to side as he tried to choose the perfect word. “You’re so naked!” he settled as he dove back in. “This is a formal event, Screwball! We can’t have you just strutting up and letting it all hang out! You’ll embarrass me in front of my family!” “I can’t even believe what I’m hearing.” “So to correct this, I’m going to give you a little wardrobe update. Voilà!” In one smooth movement, Discord had pulled out a glittering silver cape and draped it around Screwball’s neck. The cloak immediately conformed to her body, wrapping around her like a second skin. “Here we go! Only worn once on a trip to Austallia, this cloak is sleek, stylish, and made with pure chaos magic. The perfect thing when you want to impress a gang of ancient forces of nature, and protect yourself when they try to rip you to shreds to get their hands on it!” “That’s a lovely mental image,” Screwball said flatly as she ran a hoof along the fabric. “I could have been the Spirit of Marketing,” Discord said with a cheesy grin. He flicked the propeller beanie while Screwball was entertaining herself with the robe and began to count under his breath. “So this is really going to protect me from… Discord?” “Yes?” “Why am I hovering in the air?” “Seven seconds. I thought it would take longer,” Discord hummed as he looked at the pocket watch embedded in his claw. “But to answer your question, it’s because they can all fly.” “You really thought this all out,” Screwball observed with an impressed smile as she practiced with the beanie for a bit. She was delighted to find that controlling it was as simple as wanting to move in a direction. “What more can I say? I’m in my element. But we aren’t done yet!” “We aren’t?” “Of course not! What, first you want to show up in the buff, and now you’re expecting that I’m just going to have you flying around on the sidelines? Oooh no, sister! If you want to tag along, you’ll have to get your hooves dirty!” Discord said anxiously and gave a sharp whistle. The chest spun in the air, steadily becoming smaller and shaking as it hovered. As it did, the piles of junk Discord had littered the room with flew into action and poured into the shrinking chest. The chest dropped back down to the ground, this time with a much less dramatic crash. Discord scooped the transmogrified saddlebag up with his tail and hung it around her back. He gave it one last touch and turned the wood pattern into a design of light purple and white swirling together with a screw and a baseball emblem on the face of it. “So this is my arsenal for fighting the spirits of nature, huh? A bunch of whatever you had lying around? You could have at least set me up with one of those spring-loaded boxing gloves.” Screwball wasn’t even surprised when her request was granted. “They’re all made from my magic. It’s funny to think, but a single one of those cupcakes could do more harm to a spirit than Celestia ever could with all their trinkets put together.” “And how much harm can one of these cupcakes actually do?” “Don’t eat any of them if you get hungry,” Discord advised with a scheming wink. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Screwball tightened the strap of the saddlebag with her mouth and found for the umpteenth time that Discord had his eyes glued to her with a curious expression. “You’ve certainly been staring at me a lot lately. Do I have something on my face?” “I was just noticing how calm you are about all of this,” Discord said. “Yeah… I guess I am,” Screwball agreed. It was strange that she hadn’t noticed it before. Her heart wasn’t pounding, her knees weren’t shaking, and her voice wasn’t cracking—she was even telling jokes! What was happening to her? “Ha! It really is the end of the world if you aren’t worrying about something,” Discord ribbed, tussling Screwball’s mane playfully. “Why would I worry? There’s only one way this can possibly end.” “And how’s that?” Screwball grinned. “I’ll tell you after. So are we ready?” “Just about.” Discord scooped the pony out of the air and squeezed her tight in a warm hug for a few seconds before letting her go. “There. A nice, traditional draconequus good luck ritual to see us off.” The two shared another hug and vanished in a flash.