“Thinking is unnecessary."
"My head hurts." Twilight said aloud. Luna agreed, because the lack of sun combined with the haphazard neon signs, bright clashing paints and impossible geometry made for an extremely unpleasant sight. The unnatural silence did not help.
Twilight was still trying to make sense of what had happened. Luna's story was hard to swallow and made her worry about what might happen. However she had to focus on getting back home. And finding Trixie, but she had lost much hope in that happening.
"This map makes no sense, the cardinal directions are in the wrong order and the map keeps changing." Twilight was holding the map given to them by Anarchy with her magic. "The only thing that doesn't change is this." She then pointed on a rough drawing of what looked like a stadium on the map. Luna took a look at the map. "Then that's where we need to go." She concluded.
"But how do we get there?" The purple princess asked, still staring at the map trying to understand it. "Just pick a direction, that's how it worked when I first encountered Anarchy. Trying to use logic will just make things worse." Luna answered with a frown on her face.
They then both noticed a normal bottle laying there on the ground. The fact that it looked normal made it suspicious. It then fell over due to a sudden gust of wind and spinned a bit on the ground. Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Spin the bottle?" She hesitantly said aloud. "It's one of those games done by teenage ponies, isn't it?" Luna asked. "I still don't understand many of these modern games, but it might work."
She then proceeded to grab the bottle in her magic and spinned it on the ground. For the next minute the bottle went and spinned faster and faster, before flying into a random direction and smashing through a wall. "We now know which direction to go to." Luna said, while Twilight was busy staring through the bottle shaped hole in the wall.
After wasting half-a-minute opening the door to the building, which opened in a diagonal fashion, they entered the building. All the furniture was nailed and duct taped to the ceiling and the walls were covered in backwards paintings of clowns. If she didn't know better Twilight might have mistaken this for Discord's antics. The both of them moved to another room trying to navigate in the backwards architecture. The next room looked like a kitchen, due to the hundreds of yellow pans littered over the room.
After pushing some of the pans on the side, and finding that this wasn't a kitchen, they found an open window to the outside. They climbed through it and landed in an open courtyard. They were overwhelmed by a sickly sweet smell and the ground felt sticky. It was made out of gummi candy. "Maybe we should fly?" Twilight asked while staring at her candy covered hooves.
Luna shuddered. "No, we would end up flying backwards. In every sense of the word." She emphasized that last part. The other princess decided not to insist on flying after seeing her companions' reaction. After taking way too long to traverse the sticky courtyard they reached the building on the other side. The bottle shaped hole also present in that building made it clear that they still were in the right direction.
This time the door was easier to open as it was made out of paper. The inside was filled with dark, rainbow colored bubble wrap. The bubblewrap popped as the princesses stepped onto it. It was very satisfying. They both felt mild distress at the fact that the popping could even feel so unsatisfying.
This one had no exit door on the ground floor so they went up the stairs. After climbing up sixteen set of stairs they reached the first floor. It looked exactly the same as the ground floor but it had windows leading to the outside, that did not lead back to the candy courtyard. Having no choice they carefully flew out the window. It went pretty smoothly, except for when gravity got inverted for two point seven seconds.
"I think I found our destination." Twilight groggily said. Luna turned around and saw a massive stadium not too far away, maybe half-an-hour of trotting. In normal circumstances.
The stadium itself was half backwards. Like if it had been cut in two and one half was then turned on its head. There was also a railway directly into the walls, as if it were duct taped. Multiple trains and trams could be seen moving on said railways and ramming against each other.
The fact that the straight upward road led directly to it was not reassuring. "Were not going straight to it?" Twilight asked with surprising confidence. "A giant boulder would likely come rolling down the street if we did." Luna answered. So they headed towards the closest building. The night princess then got a cake straight into her face as she opened the door.
They then spent the next two hours moving through all the illogical and frankly, quite nightmarish buildings. Going from rooms filled to the brim with boobytraps, backwards stairs, cold fire, underground tunnels, unfriendly mannequins and a whole bunch of other miscanscellous chaos. Also paint, lots of paint.
They endly exited the row of buildings and reached the stadium. Well, there were still some forty meters between them and the stadium. They slowly and carefully etched their way forward. Nothing happened. "They did that on purpose, didn't they." Twilight deadpanned. An annoyed Luna simply nodded in agreement.
Now that they were in front of the building they decided to rest for a few minutes and have a better look. The stadium was covered in worrying graffities. It looked like the kind of disturbing drawing that children would sometimes draw. Especially when they are haunted by unpleasant spirits and ghosts. Twilight knew this from her courses in ghostology and child psychology. She had a master for both.
After taking a breather they tried entering. The door was locked by a code. A typewriter was nailed beside the door, above it lay four strange squares and beside it there was something written. 'Who is the stupidest pony with an awful color scheme' Luna sighed. "Sometimes they're so childish." She said dejectedly before typing her name. Each letter appeared in a square. A bell was heard when she finished typing her name and the door opened.
"How childish." Luna muttered. The other princess stared through the doorway. The inside looked pretty normal except that everything on the left half was upside down. She could spot multiple radios and megaphones. Both ponies then entered the stadium. The second they were both inside the door closed behind them.
The radio's and megaphones then came on and a shrill voice started speaking. "Ladies, gentlemen, abominations and whatever else is present please head towards your seats because the guests of honor are now present. Guests of honor please follow the arrows towards the center." The voice then seassed and half-a-dozen songs started playing creating an unpleasant cacophony. There were dozens of arrows painted on the walls pointing towards one disheveled double door.
"Maybe we should have talked about this earlier..." Twilight started speaking. "...but maybe we should have spoken about Anarchy's powers and what to expect." Luna shook her head. "If we tried to prepare or plan then they would simply intervene and make things worse. And as for what to expect, same as Discord but much, much worse." Obviously the thoughts of something worse than Discord was worrying to Twilight. “No plan survives enemy contact.” She muttered under her breath.
The music then stopped and the voice started speaking again. "Could you please hurry to the center or do I have to call the bouncers?!" It sounded very impatient. The arrows started glowing in a bright, yet somehow also dark and unpleasant light.
Both princesses, having no choice, walked through the door. After an unnerving and long walk through the hallway, they reached the center of the stadium. It was... cluttered. Platforms and makeshift wooden towers littered around the field and all painted in dozens of different colors. There were also wooden suspension bridges and slides.
The seating area was filled to the brim with plushies, cardboard cutouts, mannequins and pillows with faces painted on them. They were even cutouts of Twilight and Luna in the crowd, all wearing silly oversized hats or with mustaches painted on them.
"It seems our guests are ready for the show to start." A then very generic sounding clapping could be heard. "Thank you, thank you." A massive figure then appeared on the other side of the field. The figure then slowly coiled around a wooden tower. Its lower body was a massive snake tail which was covered in scars, stitches and dozens of differently colored scales and patches of fur. Its upper body had two arms and was pretty slim and had two arms. It wore at least three different suits stitched to each other.
It was missing its left hand and instead had a sickle quite literally duck taped to the stump and it was wearing some mismatching jewelry. Its head was smooth with dull edges. No mouth could be seen. No details could be seen actually. Its face was pitch black with two red eyes. The back of the head had four different horns, not pairs, just completely different and asymmetrical horns.
It stared at the two princesses, malice obvious on its featureless face. "Please give a round of applause to our esteemed guests." The being waved a hand towards the two ponies. Applause could be heard from all over the stadium even though none of the "spectators" could be seen moving.
"Now let me explain the rules." The strange presentatore shouted in a shrill yet somehow also bombastic voice. "First no flying..." Both Twilights and Luna's wings were suddenly tied by ropes that had appeared out of nowhere. "...and that was the only rule. So the only thing our two guests need to do is get the The teddy bear of doom under their control and they win."
A loud roar could be heard coming from the side opposite of the two ponies. Then very loud thumping, before something big and furry bursted through a gate. At first sight it looked like a bear, but it clearly wasn't. Its two heads didn't even belong two the same species and both had blue glowing eyes. Also one of its rear legs ended in a hoof. The eight point three different colors were just the cherry on top of the cake.
The two big cylinders on its back were however the oddest piece on the creature.
"And here he is, the star of the show, our great and illustrious Doom Beartm." The presentator then took a deep breath. "And he is named Teddy just so you know." Luna and Twilight both whimpered. "I would wish you luck but we all know that would be a lie." A loud and somehow very generic laughter erupted out of the "lively" crowd.
The bear then chaoticly charged at the princesses.