"Hey, Brick," Digger announced to his friend, the two construction workers sat atop a large steel girder while on their break.
Out of sight from everything below them, the high altitude they were sat at offered a brisk wind. Perhaps the only thing not made of clouds in the city were the things used to construct the imposing, if pointless, pillars and structures which broke up the city and made it look a little less like an assortment of clouds.
The large, brown pegasus turned his head from his sandwich to respond, "Yeah?"
"Does that cloud look like a porta-potty to you?" The smaller, grey-coated pegasus asked, cloud-spotting. His friend stared at the cloud intently.
"That is a porta-potty," Brick said tiredly.
"Oh, right... clouds," He realised, watching the toilet float majestically through the air, bobbing up and down gently. "Hey, how does it work if it's made of clouds? Where's all the plumbing for the... y'know..."
Brick eased the sandwich away from his face reluctantly, sighing. "Shame, I really wanted that sandwich." It rested to his side, a single bite out-of-place from perfection.
"Alright, just wondering," Digger finished, accustomed to his friend's natural state of unhappiness.
From the inside, Cloudsdale was a little... blurry. What wasn't made of clouds didn't have much colour, so there were not many distinguishable areas, aside from the rainbow-spewing factories, of course. They had gotten used to it, like any pegasus in Cloudsdale, but all it took was a visit to the surface to remind them that there was more variety than just fifty shades of white, and the joys of carpets and grass that could welcome them.
They did feel like pillows though.
"That one looks like an insanely fast vehicle speeding towar-..."
In an instant, the two were swept away by Discord and his cloud race-van. They were glued to the bonnet in pain from the rapid shift of air-to-steel, or at least it felt like steel. Their two heads took up the entirety of the windshield, and they gazed inside to see his mad face.
"So sorry, gentlecolts, no autographs!" The draconequues inside laughed, and pressed a button on the dashboard.
The windshield wipers activated, casually bouncing off of the heavily-embedded pegasi bodies. Discord frowned, activating the water as well. All it did was wash away the bits of lettuce from Brick's teeth.
Discord sighed and stopped the van. He opened the door and got out, hovering in mid-air and materialising a crimson crowbar in his hand-paws. Holding it near them, he did the least safest thing possible.
Lining it up like a baseball bat, he swung at the indented bodies and smashed them off into the sky with a comical bonk sound. Instead of cries of agony, Discord had replaced their feet with fireworks, the whistling echoing away in the distance.
Spitfire and Soarin were unsure of what was going on. Earlier, they were cooling down after three practise laps of the wonderbolt stadium obstacle course, and now, they were in pitch-black darkness. There was a steady, low rumbling beneath them, and every now and again some kind of box would fall on to one of them from a stack of others.
They assumed they were in some kind of vehicle, the sharp turns always leaving them sliding across the floor and into each other or the walls. Soarin was resting against a collection of boxes, using them ingeniously as a cushion. They were sat opposite each other as far as they were aware, lying back-against cold, metal walls. The faint highlights in the wonderbolt suits were enough to be vaguely aware of each other's presence.
"Betcha I'm being ransomed off for more..." Soarin challenged abruptly.
"Sorry, Soarin, I didn't realise your suit had my captain badge," Spitfire retorted.
"It's not just about rank... the kidnappers'll charge more when they see how stylish I am."
"Y'know, I can't see you, but I'm guessing your goggles are strapped around your muzzle right now..."
There was an elastic snap, and Soarin whispered to himself in pain.
"...I think it feels odd, that's all..." He said quietly, and it was possible to hear him rub his neck.
Some time passed in silence, save for the creaking of the vehicle and tumbling of the boxes. Spitfire poked a hoof at her metal back-rest, hoping the non-existent super strength she possessed would cause them to tip over or something interesting. Surprisingly, nothing but a metallic, hollow knock sounded.
She sighed, boredom would defeat them before their abductors could.
An all-to-familiar smell assaulted her unexpectedly.
"Soarin... are you eating?"
Swallowing and clearing his throat beforehand, he replied, "No..."
"I can smell the apple pie."
"Maybe," He said dejectedly, accepting his imminent fate.
"And you were planning on telling me, right?"
"I was too overwhelmed by the emotion of finding a box full of pies to say anything."
"You can make it up to me by passing me one."
Soarin sadly felt around in the dark until he came across the box of food once again, pulling out a small-sized apple pie. He threw, rather than slide or hold out to her, the pie, face-hoofing as soon as his hoof was free of the dessert, realising his grave mistake.
His target was the sharp, yellow highlight in her suit, that apparently had minor glow-in-the-dark properties, that was just below her neck. He hit it successfully, a 'splat' giving way to a deathly, resentful silence.
"Wow... I hate you so much, Soarin. So much." She wiped off some of the remnants from her chin. "I swear, if I had the resignation papers on me I would force you to sign them."
Soarin snickered to himself as the fragrance of apples spread throughout their prison. Spitfire shed the blue and yellow suit, tossing it at Soarin and his pie, triumphantly ruining his happiness.
"Aw, gross, you sweat more than I do," Soarin said, dropping both the suit and the tainted pie to the floor.
"Hey, most of that is apple pie."
A screaming whistle came into earshot before dying instantly, masked by the noise of fireworks exploding. Gears grinded and squeaked as they came to a thunderous halt, the two flying across the jail cell and denting the wall to their left side. They were left in a heap of aching limbs, but at least the rumbling had ceased.
While Spitfire groaned in pain, a choking sound came from Soarin, who was rolling about the floor in a spasm of fear and asphyxiation.
"Spitfire!" He gagged. "Goggles... around neck... pie... in throat.... vision fading to darkness... redness... whiteness..." He clung on to his throat, coughing and breathing frantically.
Light suddenly burst through the rear of the prison and near-blinded the two inside. The wind swept away the traces of apple in the air and Spitfire was finally able to see herself and her friend with his tongue hanging out.
Around the midst of a dark shadow slowly coming into focus, they saw Cloudsdale, but not as they remembered it. Volumes of colour assaulted them, making whatever usual, mundane clouds that would hang around outside turn to a flurry of vivid hues.
The shadow lightened enough until a figure of a pony was revealed. The colours came in to view and Spitfire discovered that it was a grey pegasus. And finally, the deciding factor of its identity was the earnest yellow eyes scanning the prison, with one wandering off on a tangent of adventure.
"Derpy...?" Spitfire asked, still disoriented by the collision and wiping her eyes. She knew the mare from countless laundromat deliveries, the courier never quite content with one job at a time. "Why are we in a truck? Why do you have a truck?" She asked, becoming more alarmed at each question.
"Oh my gosh, the wonderbolts... in the company truck!" She held the two doors aside that once barred their exit wider. "I bet Rainbow Dash ordered you!"She beamed happily.
"Why is no-one helping me...?" Soarin croaked faintly, his head turning a darker shade of blue than was normal.
Spitfire stomped a hoof on his stomach, causing the foodstuff to propel itself from the wheezing pegasus. Afterwards, he was able to remove the goggles constricting his neck. Coughing and spluttering, he moved to his side as he breathed deeply. When he had regained his composure and correct skin colour, he spoke.
"Okay... something.... something about a truck?"
"Well," Derpy started, raising a hoof to the side of her head as she recited perfectly from memory with her eyes closed: "Under clause fourteen-b of the postmare's manual; use of the company truck is permitted to any employees undergoing large and/or long distance deliveries. Except Derpy."
The captives waited for it to sink in; Derpy dropped her hoof and smile when she realised, eyebrows furrowing in worry.
"Oh, shoot," She cursed quietly to herself. "Hey, why is the inside of the truck covered in pie?" She asked, momentarily forgetting her worries.
"Eh, long story," Spitfire lied, anxiously trying to skirt her head around Derpy's position to get a better look at Cloudsdale. "So, can we get out of here now?"
"I don't know..." Derpy thought. "Rainbow Dash won't be happy."
"We weren't being delivered," Soarin interrupted. "We just kinda appeared in here."
"Oh, okay," Derpy grinned. "Mix-ups like this happen all the time. Except usually it's my fault." She moved aside to allow passage outdoors, and acknowledged the looks of amazement on the wonderbolt's faces. "Yeah, Cloudsdale's being weird today, huh?"
They stepped out and immediately were bogged down by the fluffy cotton candy that had replaced the clouds. Stuck in place, at least they could survey their blindingly colourful surroundings.
One explanation for the sudden floods of multi-coloured patterns over pretty much everything looked to be due to the rainbow factory remnants jammed across the landscape. Bits of it were stuck in the clouds, and the original site for the factory had been replaced by another. This new, imposing structure was adjacent to a sign saying: 'Discord's Dirt Factory. High quality dirt or your money back!'. Beneath it were blocks of dirt landing square on Ponyville.
A set of clouds in the far-off distance replicated a massive pair of slippers, stomping on the meeker clouds that squeaked and deflated like balloons under the tremendous force.
Various floating objects burst through the clouds at random intervals. Submarines, dragons wearing dinner jackets, giant brains, there was really no telling what would show up next.
A piece of sky-toffee floated easily into Spitfire's fiery mane, and Soarin's spandex wonderbolt suit attracted a large collection of small, metal bobby pins until they coated his body.
"What," Was all Spitfire could say. Not in a questioning way, nor intending it to be any sort of declaration, it was the only word she could think of at that point.
"What's going on here, Derpy?" Soarin asked, chewing his hooves out from the delicious ground.
"Oh, it's not just Cloudsdale. Strange stuff's happening all over Equestria. Somepony's probably fixing it though," She said optimistically.
"I hope so," Soarin finished, watching as the metal pieces were absorbed into his suit.
After digging out each other from the pink floss, Derpy followed the wonderbolts as they wandered the stray pink platform they were on.
There was really no other words to say that Cloudsdale was in chaos. Looking below, they could see Canterlot shared the same state of anarchy, miniature volcanoes leaking gold all over the divine mansions.
The foothills and plains trying to escape vainly into the horizon held large monuments made out of clay. One artistically crafted, beautifully coloured masterpiece seemed to depict a dragon or a lizard-type thing sitting on a toilet. Anther was a monolith-sized cookie with watermelons for chocolate chips and for some reason a goatee for facial hair.
"Well, ponyfeathers," Spitfire said. "I've got no idea what's going on here... or what to do about it. Any ideas, Soarin?"
She turned to see a missing area where her friend once was, only the maroon sky meeting her eye.
"Soarin?" She repeated, seeing and hearing nothing in response. Derpy was much too absorbed in leaning precariously over the edge and admiring the view to notice the issue.
"Cloak disengaged," A robotic, deep voice boomed in her ear, and she was met face to face with Soarin, wide-eyed and grinning like a lunatic.
Spitfire contained her inner terror at the sudden arrival through mutual wide eyes and a questioning glance. In fear of the possibility that her voice had not quite gotten over the scare, she did not speak.
"Isn't this awesome?!" Soarin asked explosively, the words all tumbling out at once in pure glee. Chasing his tail like a dog, he showed off the suit that they had always wore. "I can go invisible!" He clicked a button that had never once been on his goggles, and the voice stated:
"Cloak engaged."
Soarin vanished once more, and Spitfire was impressed. Sure, it was a bit redundant having a voice shout out when you're hiding, but it wasn't like they'd be able to pinpoint you afterwards.
"Okay, tha-" She squeaked, halting and clearing her throat before retrying. "That's pretty cool," She resumed normally. "It do anything else?"
"I dunno," He said, still invisible. By the sound of it, he was fumbling around with the goggles again.
"Bio-organic scan engaged... scanning..." The cloak dropped, and a wall of thin blue light shot out in front of the amazed Soarin. It washed over the yellow pegasus, scanning her up and down. "Scan complete... processing..."
They weren't too keen on getting a lecture about anatomy at this time, it looked like there were far more pressing matters, but anything to appease Soarin in flashing around his apparently-upgraded suit.
"Eighty-four percent marshmallow. And bones," The robot said casually. It wasn't the most professional body scan she'd received, but she supposed it was kind of accurate.
"Sixteen percent helium," It finished.
"What?" She peeped in a squeaky, high voice, and then held her muzzle in alarm.
"Seventeen percent... eighteen percent... twenty-four percent.... helium increasing exponentially. Seek medical assistance."
"Ah!" She screamed a hilarious scream. "Soarin! Do something!" She began floating in the air, and not by her own accord. She struggled to flap her wings in any direction but upwards, but they seemed useless against the rising helium. Her body inflated and her limbs were gradually absorbed into her torso.
Soarin could no longer take her frantic, tinny babbling. The rapid string of alarmed, shrill speech caused him to fall on the floor in laughter. He rolled around, fully consumed and in love with the dysfunction of it all.
Fortunately, he must have landed on a button, as the suit rushed to the ascending pegasi's aid.
"Vacuum engaged," A black, plastic tube darted out of the back of Soarin, the blue pegasus still enveloped in laughter, and made its way to Spitfire.
It attached itself to her muzzle, a suction noise humming through the air. While the angry, yellow balloon was being deflated, Derpy had managed to acquire popcorn, incessantly throwing pieces at the bouncy, spherical mare.
In seconds they were back to the closest they would get to normality. The two wonderbolts lay on the floor as Soarin's laughter died and Spitfire's lungs refilled. Derpy stood up and made her way to them.
"I don't think I want to find out what else that suit does," Spitfire sighed..
"Except maybe," Derpy suddenly interposed. "Maybe it's able to... I don't know..." She looked around in a wide circle sheepishly. "... Bake things?"
Before Derpy could confirm her wish, things got weirder.
As hard as it was to believe, but then again, not much was anymore, the air began trembling. Like the far-off echoing of a blast furnace, the searing, dividing sound of fire penetrating the atmosphere called out. The mutated, purple eagles fled from their freshly-made candy floss nests as the world seemed to shake.
The once-dormant dirt factory had risen, detaching itself from the cloud base and hovering with the help of six chrome rocket thrusters protruding from the bottom of it. The dull, brown-painted complex appeared to stare them down, each individual window glistening in the glare of the giant sun which was actually an orange.
"Um," Soarin added helpfully.
While it was hard to tell exactly what was going on from the distance they were at, they noticed the roof of the factory cave in on itself. Then the sides expanded and stretched, literally bending to some unknown force's will. The top and bottom smoothed out into a heavy, dark brown, and the sides had sloped into each other until it took the shape of a flying saucer.
The mobile dirt fortress emitted a perpetual alien sound, which, mixed with the reverberating thrusters, felt like their doom was incoming. But the sign was still plainly visible at the front of the saucer, so it clearly wasn't anything but a dirt factory.
"That is one strange shirt factory," Derpy said. The others were too wrapped up in the fact that it was moving towards them to fix the mistake. While the speed on it wasn't amazing, for a massive, omnipotent UFO it wasn't something to be laughed at either. It crushed everything in its wake. Granted, that was only a few clouds, it still looked pretty scary.
Without warning, all three of them were suddenly covered in pink...
"Silly string? Really?" Spitfire asked, trying to wipe it off. "That thing is shooting silly string at us," She pointed out, the endless stream of it angled in such a way as to hit them perfectly, stemming from the saucer.
The clinging substance refused to part with them, and that was before it was suddenly ignited.
Only two of them cared though, screaming, stopping, dropping and rolling as they were coated in the flaming strands. Spitfire watched her friends in a hybrid of worry and devious delight as she smoothed back her fiery mane.
"Huh, guess I'm immune to fire."
"Extinguisher engaged."
The immediate area around them was clouded in a frenzy of white extinguishing fluid. It tasted remarkably like whipped cream, Soarin noticed. The crackling fire ceased and the new twines of string entering their area were rendered useless. The smoke faded into the sky as the fluid melted into the floor, leaving them startled, but relatively unscathed.
Soarin's coat was blackened by lines of ash trailing his body, and Derpy's tail was still comfortably on fire, not bothering her. Of course, this was nothing compared to the one who wasn't involved in it. The extinguishing fluid left Spitfire's face, and Soarin struggled to keep upright.
Derpy tried to raise a point, but Soarin jammed a hoof in her mouth, holding in his breath as he stared at the wonderbolt.
"Soarin, you alright?" She asked.
He opened his lips as little as possible so not to betray any of his thoughts. "Yes."
"Because you're going really red."
"Cloak engaged."
"No I'm not."
"Derpy," Spitfire started, looking at them both suspiciously. "You know what's wrong?"
Her mouth was covering Soarin's invisible hoof, but she nodded with a simple look on her face.
Spitfire charged at where she thought Soarin would be, knocking him over and hearing the sound of it being disengaged as Derpy shouted as soon as her mouth was free:
"You're so bald!"
Her eyes twitched, split off in separate directions and a cracked smile formed ever so slightly in her lips as she hesitantly touched the smooth, orange dome that was her scalp. Her mane was no more, and the smile departed as her head cocked to the side. It creakily turned to Soarin, looking like it might fall off at any second.
"Hey! Woah! This wasn't my fault!"
"I'm not saying it was, Soarin," She near-whispered.
"Then stop looking at me like that!"
A roaring green laser exploded the ground between them, successfully breaking the horrifying stare locked between them. They saw the dirt factory saucer, a great deal closer than when they last left it. It was charging multiple green cannons scattered all over the mighty structure.
"Kill me later!" He faintly called out as he fled into the sky.
Deciding to hold him to that, Spitfire followed. Derpy raced after them, but could not match the speed of which the athletes were accustomed to.
Futuristic, neon-style lasers stabbed the free spaces between them as they dodged the fluffy, pink clouds. The lasers changed colours on a whim, like they were in a mid-air rave party. Narrowly avoiding some of them, the heat gave off kicked them into a faster pace. If any positives were to come of Spitfire's baldness, it would be the lack of wind resistance in her hair.
They turned sharply to catch a glimpse of the threat. It was trailing far behind. The sigh of relief was suffocated by soul-crushing dread as they spotted Derpy in the shadow of the colossus, about to take a face full of laser. She was frozen still, her only movements being the flaps of her wings.
Not needing to think twice, the wonderbolts dashed for her, clueless of how the actual rescue would work.
The individual cannons dotting the saucer's dark body receded into the structure, a churning hum replacing them.
A mighty, deep hole covered the face of the saucer, the depth inside charging up with green light.
Reaching the hypnotized mare, Soarin and Spitfire tried and failed to valiantly to save her. She was immovable, locked in place by her own strength of will to see what would come out of the cannon. A block of grey, stubborn concrete that watched the imminent blast.
The wonderbolts grunted and heaved with force as they tried to simply move her arm. This couldn't have just been Derpy alone. Waving a hoof past her eyes, they still received no response.
"Soarin! It's-a charging its laser! Can't the suit do something now?!"
Desperately fiddling with the goggles on his head, Soarin was crumbling under the pressure of the eerie, hollow noise of the cannon as it amplified. Nothing seemed to be working, he even tried the suit itself for answers- pressing different body parts at the speed of light.
Only after the secret armpit button did something happen.
"Maximum armour. Shields enga-"
The voice was drowned out by the ear-splitting shot, the lighting up in a flash of green and the blue of Soarin's glowing suit.
Their senses were overwhelmed. They felt stuck, cemented in. They saw a light brown haze wherever they looked through closed, stuck-shut eyes. Everything was warm, and they could feel eye-crusts halting them from understanding the area. Where they teleported somewhere? Because it smelt amazingly like a...
"Muffin!" They heard Derpy's voice exclaim with pure happiness. They could feel her presence running around, bumping into them with glee.
Though there could have been several other options, they had to agree it seemed, in all probability, like they were inside a hollowed-out muffin. The air was chokingly sweet, and their hooves were squished into a spongy floor texture. But, they still had no vision, the eyes plastered closed by gunk.
Derpy recognised this. "Just eat 'em!"
"The... eye-crusts...?" Soarin reaffirmed sickly.
"Yeah! Don't worry, it tastes like muffin," She finished.
Grudgingly accepting her instructions, they ate the thick crusts. For some reason, it was surprisingly abundant, chewing for a good minute before they could see. An ill feeling washed over them, despite it actually tasting muffin-y too.
"When did our tongues get that long? To reach our eyelids?" Soarin asked as the surroundings were exposed. It cosy, brown, and surprisingly spacious inside. Chocolate chips the size of their heads were implanted into the walls. Add some furnishings and it would be Derpy's ideal home.
"I gave up on figuring this stuff out ages ago. More importantly, how're we supposed to get out of here?" Spitfire wondered, not much of a fan of muffins.
"I... think Derpy's already on that..." Soarin said, pointing at the tunnelling pegasus behind her. She was revelling in her element, devouring the soft, chewy mines without pause.
"Go Derpy, go! Eat our way to freedom!" Spitfire cheered, the three pegasi confined in an excavation of delicious stalagmites and stalactites.
Time passed, and the lack of oxygen, for Spitfire was sure that was the reason, was dishevelling her. Her mind was muddy with confusion, the things she had been through today, while uniquely insane, could only be vaguely remembered. She recalled a distinct desire to smash Soarin, but not for the hair thing, it was something else.
Light, albeit obscure, tainted light, dived through to the cavern. Derpy finally stopped from lack of muffin to eat. Before she could divert and consume another line of it, and before the wonderbolts could flee, a face appeared in their exit.
It was the creature whose monument was of it on the toilet. They weren't sure how to feel about that.
It had a mining hat on, a flash-light sunk into its center. He smiled deviously at the worn down pegasi, and his red eyes lit up with life.
"Looks like I don't even need to bother making you insane," He said casually. "You just ate through pounds of dirt to escape. Bravo, I suppose." Spitfire only needed to have swallowed the eye crusts to feel sick now, figuring out that they too were muffin-flavoured dirt. "You know, you really should pay more attention to signs. There's a reason it said 'Dirt Factory'."
They stared at him in silence. Even Derpy was bewildered, but at least she wasn't vomiting up the piles of dirt.
"Yes, it's an actual factory. No, it isn't a dying business," He cleared up, reaching a thin arm in and pulling a piece of pristine dirt straight from his stomach. "Tell me you wouldn't pay a pretty penny for this."
They had to admit, it was nice dirt.
Tired of formalities, or whatever that was supposed to be, he clicked his fingers. They now stood atop the giant flying fortress that was chasing them previously. This time, there was a collection of other ponies with them, all just as beaten as them.
Spitfire shied away from the crowd, hiding her lack of hair from them by ducking behind Soarin. If a single picture got out about this, Canterlot wasn't likely to forget. At least she still had her tail.
"Discord, how come we get a UFO instead of that candy van now?" A small, white filly tugged on his arm as if he was no threat.
"Scratchcard," Discord said. He scanned the ponies, doing a short headcount and totalling eight distressed-looking adventurers. "You ponies wouldn't happen to know what a minefield is, hm?"