Head Full of Cotton Candy

by TheManWithTwoNames

Chapter Sixteen

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.

I got into an argument with one of my kidnappers today. I hope they don’t stay mad at me. We usually get along so great.

“Here he is. The prodigal son returns,” Death announced as Discord and Screwball approached.

“Would it not be. More punctilious to say the prodigal. Brother?” Time interjected.

“Does it matter that much do you, dear Brother Time?”

“Yes, Brother Love. It does.”

“Can we please not fight about this right now?”

“No one is talking to you, Harmony,” Death snapped.

“How can you be so rude to her when you insisted on her coming?” Life huffed.

Discord rolled his eyes as the five spirits continued bickering. How he could have ever passed up the opportunity to join their little club, he had no idea. A wince was smothered before it could begin when his gesture accidentally provided him with a better view of the area. Shaking it off, he cast his eyes around him, taking in the barren wasteland that would witness his greatest shame and his greatest triumph.

It was strange to think that he had his humble beginnings in such an empty and dour place. Maybe it used to be exciting but then all the fun got transferred into him when we was born? Though, seeing how it was a gulch, it was likely that it was a pretty plain plain to begin with. Hah! Even in the face of abject annihilation, he still had it! Now that he had broken the ice, he could actually have a proper look around the place.

The half-lit sky colored everything with patches of black and peach yellow, as night and day still struggled for equilibrium. A tiny trickle of water cut through the muddy ground and divided the desert in half. Tall and jagged cliffs rounded around one corner of Bison Gulch’s border and by all that is turbid it was so dull! It would be hard to feel bad about anything he had done to any geologists when this was over. With a lame sigh, Discord redirected his attention back to his squabbling ‘family.’

The first one he noticed was big brother Death casting his shadow over everyone around. The others were puny in comparison. He saw good ol’ Creepy the owl ticking and twitching along as always. There was something different about Love, though he couldn’t quite put a finger on it. What really caught his interest were the two new faces.

One of them was a cow, standing proudly despite, or because of, the impossible amount of paunch stretching from her stomach. Intrigued, Discord blinked a few times to get a good look at the glowing colors his sister had brought, and then he proceeded to blink several more times after being nearly blinded by the enormity of the light radiating from her. Two white, downy wings folded against her back, making him wonder if those were because she really was not able to walk—or maybe she wasn’t even able to fly with those small things. Perhaps this was one of those catoblepases Death had mentioned before.

On the back of the cow was a much less impressive sight. He had always imagined phoenixes as splendid, majestic creatures striking awe with just their very presence. This one looked like it thought it could turn invisible if it wished really hard and quivered like a gelatin earthquake. He had seen fireflies that burned brighter than this sad thing.

“Should we come back later?” Discord called at long last. The wait was killing him more than anything the spirits could muster could. Not out of anxiety, but out of boredom of waiting around.

“Or maybe you’d like to come back another time?” Screwball added boldly. Wings flapped urgently as Time took to the air, squawking with the sound of grinding gears.

“HeBrought the abomination!” the owl shrieked, burning yellow eyes focused on the pony who was too busy being puzzled to be insulted. As quickly as his outburst started, Time reigned himself back in, moving in reverse motion to resume his calm stance beside his brethren.

“Brother,” the cow addressed Discord as she moved to the front of the pack. Her wings fluttered to assist her legs in transporting her girth, yet somehow the glide remained quite balletic. “You may call me Life. And this,” she motioned to the jittery phoenix on her back, “is your starving sister Harmony. We are here to make our final offer to you.”

The firebird looked from Life to Discord several times before giving a shudder and fluttering off of her back and clumsily landing on her feet. She slowly took a few hops toward the unimpressed draconequus, shrinking even further under his glare. She twisted her head away and clenched her eyes tight as she tried to move closer, and she was certain she heard one of the others moan behind her. It was probably Death. It was usually Death.

“B-brother? I know that we’ve never… spoken with each other before. I, um… I was supposed to see you one time, but I didn’t. I’m sorry!” she shouted as she flinched, waiting for some strike. “I just d-didn’t think I could be much help in convincing you before. But… I’m hoping that you could find it in your heart to… come… with us? We’re all hurting very badly, and no one wants to do anything to all these nice ponies. If you just came, then everything would be okay and eep!”

Harmony cringed and was paralysed as two hands scooped her off of the ground and lifted her upward. She kept her beak tucked against her chest, shivering in fear of what would come. It was strange that it wasn’t cold, though. The air around Chaos and his pony was lukewarm, unlike almost everywhere else in the country. And it came as a complete shock at how soft her brother’s paws were. Could she… should she?

Taking a chance, Harmony slowly opened her eyes to see Discord directly at her. His face was completely still, but she could almost feel something inside his head tumbling, changing, thinking about what she said. She even risked a hopeful smile.

Discord clamped his paws around the bird and hurled her into the air like a screaming, feathery football. “In your dreams!”

Harmony’s terrifying flight came to a merciful end when she was caught inside of a red bubble. Her screaming only stopped once Love lowered the bubble down to the ground and let her drop onto Life’s back.

“That really, really makes me…” Harmony simmered, conjuring up all her raw fury before she finally cried out, “Have a hard time getting along with you!”

“That went as swimmingly as we could have hoped for,” Love scoffed, tossing his mane dramatically and angling himself toward Discord and Screwball.

“Do you look different?” Discord asked after watching the pink alicorn toss his body around for a bit.

“Oh, you noticed!” Love cheered, clapping his hooves together gleefully. “Yes, I thought that I would change my look a little bit. How do you like it?”

Screwball tilted her head to the side. The Spirit of Love was drastically shorter and less muscular than last time. Even the wings were smaller. His coat was dyed a lighter shade of pink, and his mane and tail now fell low to the ground in curls of gold, rose, and violet hair. His flank bore a new cutie mark as well, a teal crystal heart laced with gold. The longer she looked, the more she felt that her observations were threatening to become something more. She urgently shook the thoughts from her head and gaped at Love in disbelief.

“I think becoming a mare is more than just ‘changing your look a little bit,’” Screwball said.

“Do you like it?”

“I… eh…”

“Brother Love, do. Stop frat-er-niz… IngWith the enemy.”

“I’m just fishing for compliments, you don’t have to ruin everything for me—”

All other voices were lost under the sound of the thunderous roar bellowing out from Death’s mouth. The howl rung in the air long after he had finished to scowl down at the rest of the assembled spirits.

“Can we get on with this already? The world is going to end on its own by the time you’re all done talking!” Death boomed.

“Patience, Brother, wait just another—“ Life’s words died mid-sentence as Death snapped his enormous jaws inches away from her face.

“Death waits for nothing!”

“Brother Time may be able to change your mind,” Life retorted. The basilisk growled and raised his head to stew and mutter above the rest of the spirits. Life allowed her glare to linger on her brother before turning it on Discord.

“I never wanted it to come to this, Brother Chaos, but you have left us with no other options. We are dying, and if you will not concede to our generous offer and leave this mortal plain with us, our only chance for survival is to wipe this world clean and start again.”

“My name is Discord,” he corrected through clenched teeth. “And how dare you come to my kingdom, threaten my subjects with annihilation, and call yourselves the victims!”

“You have lived long enough in your schizoid paracosm,” Time clicked. “You have no valid argument. To claim greater ownership of this. World over us. We are within our right to ensure our survival.”

“Not when it’s at the cost of millions of lives! All those ponies and dragons and all manner of creatures will be erased! Wiped out as if they never existed! And none of that matters to you?”

“And do they matter to you?” Life questioned.

“Of course they do.”

“All of them?”

“No. But there’s more than enough of them worth protecting.”

Love tutted, “You really believe there’s any room in your heart for true compassion? I can see to the real you, and there isn’t even enough room for a heart! If they really mattered to you, you would never have torn their world apart so senselessly. At your core, you’re still a spirit and as selfish as you see us to be.”

“If you will not leave this world willingly, then we will remove one from the other by whatever means necessary,” Life announced as the other four spirits began a slow advance, their expressions ranging from fearful, to expressionless, to uncontained enthusiasm.

“You haven’t stopped me yet.”

“Perhaps,” Death hummed as his horrible teeth twisted into a smile, “but from what I’ve seen, I’m much better at killing things than you are.”

Discord kept a straight face as the world glowed around him. It was coming in from every direction now. He felt the ground moving beneath his feet, as if Bison Gulch was stirring from its slumber to witness the new war. Screwball burned like a torch as she hovered at the ready, her eyes locked on one specific enemy as she dug in her saddlebag for the proper tool. Even the other spirits were all tainted now, making the sensation greater as they closed in. The blaze exploded in his stomach, racing out to consume every fiber of him once again. It was halted, forced down, and contained with only the slightest thought of a purple pony, but it was not extinguished. Discord let it burn hotter than the sun but no bigger than an ember, keeping it as the smallest part of him.

He was the Spirit of Chaos, a draconequus, a king, and a protector. But above all else, he was Discord.

“That may be true.” Discord let a playful grin creep across his face. “But I still might surprise you.”

Death lunged forward, mouth opened wide to swallow them whole. Discord and Screwball dove to opposite sides of the basilisk’s head as he thrashed in fury, struggling to pull his fangs from the hard earth. Discord stumbled on his feet, unable to reclaim his balance before a pair of silver talons clamped around his arms. Time’s grip tightened the more Discord struggled to break away. With his limbs threatening to snap at any second, he summoned a spark of magic to flow through his arms. Discord effortlessly pulled his arms free and smacked Time away with his tail.

“How?”

“Butter fingers,” Discord answered mockingly, licking some of the yellow cream off his arm. “Margarine?”

Time took to the air again and screeched in preparation of another dive. The war cry became a rattling wheeze as a silver and purple blur slammed into the owl’s chest with an echoing clang. His moment of vulnerability was punished with a buck to the stomach that made his head spin. With the sense knocked out of him, Time’s body instinctively acted to escape. He raced for the far end of the gulch, leaving his brothers to fight alone until he could get away from his attacker.

“That’s the spirit, Scroob!” Discord cheered to Screwball as she chased after the owl and pelted him with whatever she pulled from her saddlebag.

“Sister Harmony, would you be a dear and help Brother Time?” Love sighed.

“Okay. If you think it would help.” Harmony took a few steps before her wings finally lifted her up and after the pony. “Please stop! It’s dangerous!”

Love shook his head in embarrassment of his sister, tossing his mane out of place. He tried to raise a hoof to adjust it, but found his legs were trapped in a giant puddle of glue. The alicorn became uneasy as six miniature Discord clones appeared around him, each one holding some sort of giant, colorful foam tube in front of them.

The Discords didn’t wait for Love to even ask before they began to pummel him with all the malicious glee that a foam pool noodle could bring. At first he had wondered if wetting the tips would be too cruel, but he had a world to save. The lashing continued for a good minute before one of the copies noticed the shadow that had moved over them.

“Hey, other mes. We should probably split,” the Discord said nervously.

“What? You mean again?” another asked.

“I mean out of the way of the big rock,” the first said flatly, pointing up. Death had freed his mouth and had taken a five hundred pound souvenir with him, clenching the boulder in his teeth. The Discords collectively gave a small “oh” and slid together as the rock plummeted closer.

In an instant, the two spirits were taking cover under a giant trampoline. The light from the spell didn’t have time to fade by the time the boulder dropped onto the bounce mat. The fabric stretched close to the ground and snapped up, throwing the stone back at Death, striking him solidly on the jaw and sending him onto his back.

“Hey, look! We’re like twins now!” Discord called as the serpent tried to shake away the mother of all migraines. Death came to his senses once when he laid eyes on his younger brother reclining on a bloody, basilisk-sized tooth. He ran his forked tongue along the inside of his mouth, stopping when he tasted his own blood where one of his fangs used to be.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I think I’m just going to—ah yes, there it is,” Death said as a new fang sprouted with a small gush of blood.

“Be that way. But I’m keeping this! The Tooth Fairy is going to go berserk when she sees this one!” A pungent smell was all the warning Discord was given before he was overwhelmed by a cloud of noxious gas. It felt as if his entire body was corroding away. He writhed in pain for what felt like decades before he managed to click his fingers together and teleport away from that searing hell.

The instant he reappeared, Death was already spewing another torrent of gas his way. The draconequus flapped his mismatched wings and sped in every direction he could think of, keeping his path as erratic as possible to stay ahead of the poison as he tried to plan. Discord knew that he wouldn’t be able to last long against Death in a straight fight. The basilisk was undeniably more apt at killing any target that came in sight and just as eager, but Discord had imagination and the ability to put it to use. And did he ever have some good ideas.

Discord took off for the sky, veering from side to side to avoid the bursts of poison chasing him. He thought it strange that the sky had suddenly become overcast at some point in the battle, mostly because he had no idea where they could have come from. Chaos only knew that the pegasi certainly weren’t making them today. The idea crossed his mind that perhaps the clouds had appeared in response to his own sense of drama, which seemed like the likely answer when he cut through one to discover it was made of rice pudding. He chose one out of the many at random and burrowed inside of it.

It did not take Death long to follow after, muttering spitefully about the childish nonsense of the clouds as he dessert clung to his feathers and hair. He coasted, slithering around clouds and keeping his eyes opened for any sign of motion. There was no chance of him going inside one of those floating pudding cups to find Discord. He was not about to try flying blind and wind up getting caught in a sneak attack. Even more, he refused to return from battle covered in pudding of all things. No. He would wait for his victim to show himself, and when he did, Death would be prepared.

Death gave an alligator grin when he spotted a cloud jiggle not far from him. He rushed ahead and cleaved the cloud in half with his tail. He was not prepared for two enormous, muscular arms to burst out from the cut halves and grab him by the neck and tail. His first instinct was to gas the arms, but it was not such an easy task with a crushed windpipe. Death cursed the fragility of this flesh body as his mind went hazy. In one final act of desperation, he tossed his head backwards. His hair stabbed into the hand binding his neck, the poison-tipped quills instantly making the arm go limp. A blast of acidic breath then melted the second hand away. Though he was free, Death was far from happy.

“You must think you’re very clever,” he sneered at thin air, “but you cannot hide forever.” It was remarkable that Chaos had the restraint to stay hidden for so long, Death thought as he continued to stalk around the clouds. Given his very nature, it would only require the tiniest bit of bait to make him crack. “If you have no time for me, then perhaps I’ll entertain myself by finding your little pony. I could go for a snack.”

He threw himself around and dove behind him at the faint sound of fluttering wings. He flapped his wings with all he had, cutting a trail as he streamed above a cloud, refusing to allow Discord to slip away again. Unleashing a roar as he climbed to the peak of the cloud, he looked down and finally found his target.

“All forces, attack!” Discord gave the order to a fleet of squealing troops. The pigasi squadron scattered like confetti, diving around the basilisk’s snapping jaws and charging helmet-first into his soft underbelly. Death thrashed and spewed at the pigs wherever he found them, but for every dozen that came into sight, another dozen slipped away and caught him by surprise.

“And Luna thought I was ‘weird’ for liking pigs so much,” Discord laughed as he adjusted his aviator goggles and red scarf. The nose of the furry triplane growled when he pushed forward on the yoke, sending it diving beneath the rest of the skirmish. “I bet she’d say the same thing about a bearplane. No one has any respect for vision.”

After dropping low enough, the Discord pulled back up. Death was still being held in place by the pigasi, fighting with inspiring pluckiness for creatures that had been pudding clouds just a few moments ago. And with the diversion a success, it was time for the Red Bearon to rejoin the fray. Discord pushed the two triggers and the dual machine guns pummelled the basilisk’s underbelly with a rapid-fire spray of bright green glow sticks. Death roared and writhed as the sticks punctured his scales, lashing out in blind fury at anything around him.

Without a clear shot, Discord changed his tactics and continued his fire at any moment he wasn’t rolling to avoid being obliterated by a swinging tail or a pig swatted from the air. His knuckles whitened around the plane’s controls. The pigasi were being taken out by the handful now with the remaining soldiers slowing as the magic holding them faded. But they had to hold on, just for a little bit longer. Just long enough to wear Death out and give Discord time to figure out how he was going to bring himself to kill him.

He threw his arms up to protect his face as his triplane’s wings were ripped to shreds around him. Discord narrowly avoided getting his head pierced by an arrow turning around to see the bogey behind him. Love was on his tail, each flap of his wings launching a volley of heart-tipped arrows ahead. Discord didn’t have the chance to shout “mayday” before his engine exploded in front of him and tore what remained of the plane to smithereens. If there was a higher power in the universe that wasn’t currently trying to kill him, he would have thanked it for making the cloud he crashed into out of pudding and not concrete. But since there wasn’t any, he settled for blacking out.

“Do you need a hand, Brother dear?” Love cooed, trying without success to stop from snickering at the sight of Death personified struggling against a few ham sandwiches with wings.

“I don’t need help to—”

“To kill, maim, murder, blah blah blah. You’re so glib, I hope you know,” the alicorn snipped. His horn shimmered with blue light and a puffy red heart began to expand from the tip, stretching like a rubber balloon until it finally drifted into the air. Within seconds, the pigs had abandoned their attack to cluster around Love’s spell, oinking and squealing with delight as the pressed against the heart.

Their ecstasy was destined to be short-lived. Death belched out a wave of gas that entirely consumed the gathering. When he inhaled the smoke back into his body, the pigs were gone.

“What’s going to work?” Love sing-songed.

“You’re ruining the afterglow.”

“Teamwork!” Discord’s voice appeared before the rest of him.

“Thank you!” Love cheered. Satisfied, he turned to frown at Death. “Why can’t you be more like Brother Chaos?”

“Because we’re trying to destroy him,” Death answered flatly.

“Are we? You see, I got confused after someone tried to drop a boulder on me!”

“You’re fine now, aren’t you?”

“No thanks to you! If Sister Life hadn’t come to help, I just might not have been able to come and help you with your piggy problem in time.”

“What is the cow doing here, anyway?” Discord spoke up. It was starting to get insulting that the spirits kept ignoring him in the middle of his own showdown.

Love was nearly surprised to see Discord still there. “She’s here to ensure that our bodies are not destroyed before yours is. Speaking of which.” A blue web launched from his horn and constricted around Discord, binding him in place.

Discord immediately noticed that the spell was considerably more painful than Celestia’s attempt. Once he was finished processing the agonizing pain coursing through his body, he also noticed that flight was difficult even for him without the use of wings. And as he fell through the cloud layer to find Bison Gulch rapidly expanding to greet him like an old friend, he considered if being ignored had really been all that bad.

Once upon a time, in a fit of curiosity, Discord had discovered that he didn’t have a spine or any ordinary bones to speak of. Instead, his skeleton was almost entirely cartilaginous. So while he could truthfully boast that he could fall six thousand feet into solid rock without breaking a single bone, it came as little comfort when all the cartilage in his body had been reduced to powder.

“Uuooh… Am I dead yet?” Lines and shapes blurred into a muddled soup as his eyelids involuntarily twitched open and shut. But he did not need to see to know what was casting a shadow over him.

“Just about.”

Something rough and wet wrapped around his waist and Discord was hoisted upward. A hot and foul wind blew against him, and then everything went damp. For something that was just one enormous neck, Discord was surprised how short the fall down the oesophagus was. As far as he could tell it was to make room for more stomach.

He lied still on his back, completely motionless aside from the occasional pained grimace. Even the slightest attempt to move his broken fingers felt like having a railroad spike forced down his arm. The results of his tests weren’t very enheartening: only one pinkie claw was still useable. So unless being able to show manners at a tea party would open a fresh-smelling exit from the leviathan, any chance of using his magic seemed unlikely. Just the way he liked it.

“Here’s one for the list,” Discord wheezed to himself as he lifted his finger up. He rose to his feet a second later, sore but mobile, and pulled a rolled parchment and a quill from thin air. Between “Blue whale naughtiness” and “World hunger,” he scribbled in “What is the sound of one finger snapping?” before scratching it out.

The next order of business was to think a way out of the enormous stomach and never speak of it again. The most obvious solution was to teleport, so there was no chance of that. The second most obvious answer was not a pretty one. His next idea was to light a fire inside Death’s mouth and make him sneeze him out. It might have worked if the spirit didn’t already use smoke as mouthwash. After a few more seconds of brainstorming Discord snapped his fingers in triumph.

A seven-foot tall peppershaker appeared, complete with tail fins and a fuse. He struck his right leg’s claws along the end of the fuse and held onto the peppershaker for all he had in him. In just seconds, he was rocketing halfway up Death’s throat and screaming like a kid in an amusement park. He held out his paw and grabbed onto the uvula when he reached it, letting the rocket crash into the roof of the beast’s mouth and explode in a shower of pepper.

Death’s mouth flew open in a violent hacking fit, spitting pepper, glass, and an underwhelmed draconequus in every direction. The ultimate goal was to get out, true, but the coughing completely ruined the presentation. He wanted a sneeze! Was that too much to ask?

“I’m going to chose to remember this with you sneezing me out,” Discord informed his brother as he finished clearing his throat.

“He certainly is tenacious,” Love commented.

“I don’t know what you did in there,” Death snarled in preparation for another lunge, “but this time I’ll be sure to chew.”

“You know what? I was on the fence before, but now I’m not even going to feel bad about this,” Discord said while slowly dropping to the ground.

“About what?”

Discord unscrewed his goat horn and held it parallel to his mouth. “You never took those glow sticks out of you.”

“So?”

“I didn’t fill them with chaos magic.” He blew into the horn, and there came the sound of a flute.

Death dove forward to snatch his brother while he was vulnerable. He opened his mouth wide, the rushing wind around his teeth whistling in a hollow wail. Just one bite was all it would take. A snap, a crunch, a tear! And once he was finished with the appetizer, the real feast would begin!

His jaws came together with the power to split stone. Discord didn’t bat an eye at the snap mere feet above him. His fingers moved with a shocking yet dazzling grace as he gently breathed into the flute, the music coming not from him, but from the earth and sky, dancing on the wind. Love could only stand and listen in awe as the music became louder, stronger, but never harsher. It was beautiful and somber, fragile and mystic, with a power that felt as if it had a mind of its own.

“Sister…?”

Death screamed noiselessly. No matter how hard he fought, he could not will his body to move. What was this?! All control had been stolen from him, yet he could still feel every ounce of pain that burned across his body. Across every inch of him, tendrils were stretching, growing, and spreading in every direction. They tore through his skin, forcing away his scales as they pushed upward. He watched in horror as his brother’s trickery came to fruition.

Trees. All over his body, trees were pushing out from his skin and overtaking him. Those green sticks hadn’t been weaponry, they were seeds! Like millions of shovels all scraping and digging at his flesh! Boring into his nerves, paralysing him, making him a hostage in his own body! The torture had nearly reached his head now, and he only hoped that it would deafen him to Discord’s noise.

A blast of magic caught Discord in the stomach and everything stopped. The instant Death felt control of his body return to him, he stretched his wings and retreated for the center of Bison Gulch, leaving a trail of branches and leaves in his wake.

“I am truly sorry for that, Brother,” Love apologized as he waited for Discord to reattach his horn. “It was… beautiful.”

“If you liked that, you should hear me on the sousaphone.”

“Sister,” Death spoke with as much dignity as he could, “I am in need of some aid.”

Life sniffed at the sight of her brother’s injuries and turned her head. “I’m not going to waste my energy on you when the others still have more than enough to manage the situation.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“You should—not be—here,” Time stated as he slipped between temporal rifts.

“Like I already told him, there’s no way I’d stand by and let you get away with this!” Screwball yelled back as she tossed a bowling pin in an arc over her head. The pin spun in the air and struck Time in the head as he emerged from a portal, sending the spirit’s head spinning.

“O-okay, I think that you’ve had enough of that.” Harmony’s attempts to placate the mare only inspired her to hurl her weaponry even harder. “What if, instead of throwing the pie, we just sat down and shared it—look out! Oh… Could you possibly try throwing a little more gently at least?”

Time hacked up a gear when a spring-loaded boxing glove blasted him in the stomach. Flapping his wings madly, he split open half a dozen tears in space and dove into one at random.

“Okay, you didn’t throw that one, but that still isn’t what I meant,” Harmony explained, discomfited. It was starting to feel like the pony was deliberately trying to upset her. And with how close Screwball was cutting every throw, she almost thought she didn’t mind hitting her, too! No more playing around, things were getting serious. It was time for extreme measures. Harmony tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but it didn’t want to go away, so she just let it stay there until it was ready to go on its own.

Harmony shut her eyes tight and dove at Screwball with her wings spread wide. It was now or never. Time to show all the others what she was really made of! She opened her eyes and smiled in excitement—her plan was working! She was headed straight for the pony’s throat and moving too fast for her to react. She struck dead on and wrapped her blazing wings around her neck in a gentle hug.

“Shh… I think we should just take a minute to talk this over. I’m sure we can all get along if we just communicate,” Harmony said as she petted Screwball’s curly mane. Screwball gaped at the mighty spirit cuddling against her cheek with a mixture of confusion, genuine comfort, and anger.

“Where were you when that wolf was trying to make me into a snack?” she huffed.

“I’m sorry.”

The pony had to sigh at the timid little thing. She could only hope she had never been such a pushover in palace life. If she had been, she had certainly more than made up for it since. Just look where she was now! Advisor to the king of Equestria, sort of! Flying all on her own, in a way! Holding her ground and battling for the fate of the entire world! When she wasn’t indulging one of her enemies in an awkward hug.

“No more fighting anymore, alright?” Harmony said soothingly.

“Hhff… Alright,” Screwball agreed, defeated. “I guess I can just wait and kill time until Discord finishes.” If Harmony hadn’t been enjoying her first real hug so much, she would have jumped for joy. “And there he is now!”

Time held up one wing to shield his body against a shotgun blast of confetti while he used the other to cut a new tear to flee through. He couldn’t even get his head through before a jump rope snared his feet and yanked him away. He tumbled back and righted himself, spinning his head around to find where his opponent would come from next. In any other situation, his foresight would have made him untouchable. But this creature’s anomalousness left him all but powerless. Even the most basic manipulation of the flow of time became challenging in her presence. A horrible rattle from his midsection forced him to retch and regurgitate another jam and lug nut pellet. He was too crippled to even reverse the harm done to him. With every passing second, the syrups and creams she bombarded him with oozed further in his chassis and made simple motion a trial.

Screwball slammed into Time’s head from above. It wouldn’t have come as a surprise to her if she kicked his head out through his bottom. And with the sound it made, she had no doubt that was hurting the stupid bird even if she didn’t feel a thing. Time jerked his wings asynchronously as he struggled just to stay in the air so Screwball took the opening to hit the spirit with everything she could grab. Twenty pound juggling balls mercilessly pummelled his armored body. Steel-tipped playing cards punctured his frame and created gaps to the revealed machinery inside. The cracks were covered with pies that exploded in a shower of foam that seeped through the holes.

Time gave a slow caw and fell like a chunk of lead, crashing to the Gulch below. Screwball looked over at her handiwork with some dark pride. The owl was helpless on its back, every part of it moving out of sync with the rest of its body. Toes kicked, wings twitched, his beak stretched open again and again, and then everything would reset all at once and resume the pathetic display. The lights behind the glass dome eyes were dim and wavering, like an electric candle blinking to death. Screwball wordlessly dug into her back and withdrew a seltzer bottle and a cupcake for the coup de grace on her long-overdue payback.

“Please! No more fighting!” Harmony wailed as she threw herself over her larger brother’s body in a failing attempt to shield him.

“He started this when he tried killing me back at that hotel,” Screwball said coldly.

“What I… in…ten…ded was a mer-cy,” Time droned brokenly, his voice slowing and hastening at random, “com…pared to Chaos’ med-dl-ings. He… has… doomed you I. OfferMy deepest… sympathy-yey-ies.”

“I’m not going to listen to your garbage this time,” Screwball said as she stepped forward. Harmony flinched but remained loyal in her defense even as the pony readied her final blow.

“You have not aged.” Screwball froze. “It is his… fault and only-ly-ly the begin…ning.”

“Tell me what you know. Now.”

“You are… an abomina…tion never. Seen before. In. History. Lay-ered in the magic of spirits… you have faced. Time… Death… Nat-ure… all fight to touch your-bod-dy as the nat…ur…al order intends. But that night chaos broke the. Order even his own. A wish to create. An eternal stillness. You. Chaos’… magic surrounds your body unnatural. Ly it deter-i-orates even… entropy. Your body shall… never… for-ever… for-ne-ev-vev-er ever change. Feel pain, become… weary. But your mind shall.

“A mortal mind… can not survive an im-mortal. Body. Percep-tions will change. Senses… will fade and madness. Will rob you of. Yourself. I am sorry.”

“Is that all?” Screwball sounded unimpressed. “That should be something easy to fix.”

“Not… in this-case. Your destiny. Is… like… a… prison.” Time’s words had slowed to a crawl now. Only his beak remained motional. “You cannot escape it. How long do you think… you-can-live with… immortality?”

“…Was that supposed to be a joke?” Screwball asked pointedly. “Have a tip from an expert, puns are the lowest form of comedy. Besides, I don’t have to live forever. I can live out my time and then when I’m ready to move on, Discord can undo whatever he did.”

“Then… what… will… he… become… without… you?”

She opened her mouth to speak and immediately closed it again. Time was entirely motionless now, with only the smallest speck of light in his eyes as a sign of life. Her weapons trembled in her hooves as she aimed them at the cracked open beak. She just had to squeeze the valve and she would end it. She would have her closure. He was helpless now.

“Please…” Harmony sniffed, looking up at her with misty eyes. “I know you don’t want this.”

The bottle was heavy in her grip. She wasn’t sure if it was condensation or sweat that made it so hard to hold on. She wasn’t sure if she really wanted to hold on. Giving him what he deserved was one thing. But she couldn’t bring herself to actually finish. If she didn’t stop them, they would destroy Discord or Equestria. But she couldn’t.

Screwball lowered the bottle to the ground and lowered her face. Harmony risked a hopeful smile.

‘Of all the—! That’s it, get out of the way!’

Without wasting another second, Screwball kicked Harmony out of the way to pounce on Time’s stomach. She shoved the bottom of the cupcake on the mouth of the nozzle, and the only thing that was able to match the glint in her eyes was the sadistic grin warping her face.

“Hey, Time. What’s soaking wet and blown to pieces?”

Savoir Faire pulled the trigger and the cupcake launched into Time’s open beak. She hadn’t counted on it exploding. The pony was thrown up and landed hard on her head. The pain only lasted less than a second and soon she was back on her hooves, shaking herself off. There was no trace of Time anywhere. All she could find was a shell-shocked and terrified phoenix shaking on the ground.

“Hey… Uh,” Screwball approached uncomfortably, “are you alright?”

“I… I…” Harmony sniffed before wrapping herself around Screwball’s neck in an open sob, “I just wish things would just be okay again!”

Screwball rubbed her hoof against Harmony’s back. “Yeah. I think we all do.”

A horrible wail filled the air. Screwball and Harmony turned and screamed together at the sight. Death was coiled tight at the center of the canyon with his teeth sunk deep into Life’s skin. His body rose and fell, becoming larger by the second as the screaming cow shriveled to dust. Death lifted his head and turned the sky black with a single breath.

“Now that felt good!”