“Griffonstone? Interesting choice of location,” Discord said.
“Cater to the crowd I suppose, next stop land of the bird cats,” Spike said before marching towards the exit.
“Wait!” they turned to see Ocellus running up to them.
“Sorry Ocellus, but you can’t come,” Spike said.
“I know, but I heard from Harmony of what’s been going on and I need to know, did you see my family there? At the hive? Are they okay?” She pleaded.
“I’m going to be honest I’m not sure, my main goal was to retrieve you and Thorax if possible, but with your help we can fix everything, we need to get the rest of your friends first though,” Spike explained.
“O-ok,” She said sounding worried about the hive.
“Alright, let’s go,” Discord said and Spike nodded before getting ready to leave, before pausing.
“Wait a second, where are we going to get a DNA sample of a griffon? Gallus was the only griffon who lived in Ponyville,” Spike pointed out.
“Good point… what do we do?” Discord pondered.
“Um… if you don’t mind,” Ocellus said approaching from behind.
“Yeah?” Spike questioned.
“I overheard, you said you needed a DNA sample for what again?” Ocellus asked.
“Well I need a DNA sample to locate the lands of the other students to find and help them,” Spike explained.
“I-i can help then,” Ocellus said.
“How’s that?” Spike questioned.
“I-i…. please tell nopony this but… I like to collect… mementos of my friends, in case I lose them,” She admitted sounding embarrassed.
“...What?” Spike said both interested and grossed out.
“I know, it must make me a freak but, I got a scale from Smoulder, a feather from Gallus, a hoofchip from Yona, and another feather from Silverstream, and a hair from Sandbar… please don’t hate me…” Ocellus begged.
“Hate you? I should be thanking you, you have saved us a ton of trouble!” Spike exclaimed.
“Talk about plot convenience,” Discord rolled his eyes.
“Where is it?” Spike asked.
“Back at the hive…” She admitted.
“...Well, at least we know where it is,” Spike said, “is it alright that we have a DNA sample to track your room?” Spike asked.
“Ok… please only look for a small pink box,” She said.
“Why-”
“Please,” She said firmly.
“Oook,” Spike said with his hands up, Ocellus then broke off a small chunk of her carapace with a wince and hoofed it to Spike.
“I hate it when they do that,” Spike said.
“Sorry,” She said.
“It’s fine,” Spike said before waving them off and heading for the exit, Spike had to make the looong journey back, thank the sun for chaos magic being able to give one super speedy flight or this would take forever.
Spike landed behind an indigo tree and saw the Changelings swarming out from their hive and trying to break the chaotic rope restraining their walking hive.
“Ok… Discord?” Spike asked.
“Yeah?” Discord asked.
“We need another distraction, watch my back,” Spike said creating a second Spike and sending him off.
“On it!” Discord saluted.
The animal-headed Changelings and the ones that were changing into random animals were using sharp rocks to cut the rope.
Before they suddenly heard rocks falling. All attention was shot to the fake Spike waving at them before running off.
The Changelings hissed and flew after him.
The real Spike snuck into the Hive by turning intangible and flying through the side of the hive.
“Ok, now where is her room?” Spike said following the trace carefully until he came to a room.
It looked as distorted as everything else, but he saw a nightstand floating by.
“Hmm, it could be in there,” Spike said floating up to it, before pausing.
“Only look for a small pink box,” Spike remembered Ocellus saying, he didn’t want to invade her privacy any more than he was already, so he ignored the nightstand and floated around the room looking until he saw a pink box, deciding that must be it he grabbed it and flew back out through the walls.
“Well that was easier than before-” Spike paused when he got outside and found himself surrounded by Changelings.
“I did my best,” Discord admitted.
“Of course…” Spike sighed before snapping his fingers and making smoke fill the area in a burst.
The Changlings scattered and searched but Spike had teleported to safety and snuck off while the Changlings searched.
“Hah, suckers,” Spike said running off.
Spike got to a safe area and turned a rock into a key before using it to open the box and find the samples.
“Ok, little grossed out but to each their own,” Spike said picking out the feather and using the trace spell to lead him to Griffonstone.
“Ok! Let’s go!” Spike said anticipating what he was going to face.
He crossed several mountain ranges with his own chaotic version of the rainboom… chaos boom? Spike Boom? You get the point…
Spike landed at the base of a cliff.
“Ok, the path leads up from here," Spike flew upwards to the top of the cliff, the whole way he was dreading what he might find… will he find bizarrely shaped creatures? Strange weather? Or some land of eldritch nonsense in which there is no escape with ones sanity intac-
BKAW!
“WHAAA!” Spike yelped as he flew backwards seeing what can only be described as a literal large and raw pre-thanksgiving meal turkey nearly nailing him out of the air as it leaped from the cliff wall and onto another.
“What the absolute hay?!” Spike exclaimed before hearing clucking noises not wanting to look but having no choice Spike used his magic to light up the cliffside and he saw a swarm of those giant undercooked turkeys making chicken noises.
"This is hands down the weirdest thing I've ever seen… like I can't even tell what I'm looking at…" Spike said.
"I believe the human world refers to this as Thanksgiving… even though it's July…" Discord said
The clucking turkeys jumped from their perches and tried to divebomb Spike.
"AAAAAHHHH! Spike yelled as he flew around avoiding the deadly rain of poultry.
"Get to higher ground!" Discord exclaimed.
"Ok!" Spike dodged another turkey and flew up avoiding more and finally getting over the top of the cliff and saw what's become of Griffonstone.
There's no other way to describe it, the place looked like it had been replaced with a lush green land with weirdly shaped trees and houses that looked like ovens and lakes made of… stuffing and gravy?
"Ok… weirdness level has been officially turned up to eleven…" Spike said.
"This is to be expected, the further the world decays from the chaos pollution the less sense everything will make," Discord said.
"Then we better hurry," Spike said flying to the ground and running.
As Spike rounded a corner he saw more of the killer birds and hid.
He saw one of the turkeys gorging itself on the stuffing from a stuffing lake.
Once it was full it wandered past Spike approached a house oven and climbed in before the oven turned on.
"If this seriously gets any stranger I'll puke…" Spike said.
"It's like they're cooking themselves for a feast or something… for who though?" Discord questioned.
I don't know but I should get out of here before they decide that I'm fit to be stuffing," Spike muttered before moving on.
Spike made his way through a forest with strange trees and saw more of the turkeys, so Spike quickly turned himself invisible and laid low.
As Spike followed the trace to hopefully find Gallus and get out of this place Spike came out of the forest and saw a large field where the turkeys were walking around.
These ones were different though, they had wings.
The magical sphere led him into that field so he followed it.
"You don't think these turkeys are the griffons right?" Spike asked.
"Griffonstone is mainly inhabited by Griffins and I don't see anything else here besides evil turkeys so it has to be," Discord said.
"And the changelings only had random transformation to deal with this is almost humiliating for the proud Griffins," Spike said before he bumped into a turkey and became visible involuntarily.
"Huh?!" Spike exclaimed, as his invisibility fell.
"BRAAAAWK!" The turkey clucked angrily.
"Oh dear! They've got an anti-magic field surrounding them! Run!" Discord exclaimed.
"Ok!" Spike tried to run but the bird lunged and ate him in one bite.
"Oh no, Spike!" Discord exclaimed.
"Discord? Help!" Spike yelled as the Turkey ran off with him inside it.
"Hey! Get back here you fowl beast," Discord said chasing it.
"Hey you! Spit me out right now!" Spike demanded.
"Don't be so stubborn Spike. Soon we'll be cooked together into a single delicious meat-pie Spike! Doesn't that sound wonderful?" Said Gabby's voice from all around him.
"Gabby?!" Spike exclaimed
"Isn't it wonderful Spike?" She said dreamily.
"Gabby you're corrupted with chaos magic!" Spike said trying to reason with her.
"Of course I am! I was in Griffstone, now I'm a delicious turkey dinner ready to be cooked and served! And you get to be my stuffing!" She said casually.
"That's horrible!" Spike said.
"It's fun! I've done it a dozen times already! I'm gonna stuff myself even more this time! Maybe It'll be a cake next! Or ice cream! Or chili! I'm not bound by anything anymore! Whoopie!" Gabby cheered.
'At least I don't have to worry about being cooked, I once took a nap in Twilight's oven and came out not even noticing it'd be on.' Spike thought.
Gabby was speaking to him, respond, maybe he could still reason with her?
"Gabby! If harmony isn't restored Equus is gonna explode!" Spike said.
"Explode? I haven't done that yet!" The turkey exploded, in several little Gabbys... Spike landed on his rear, the little Gabbys in a circle around him and all said together. "Come on Spike! You're chaos too! Great new look by the way! Totally cool! You know total freedom for a little while is better than living on and on in some boring predictable world!" she said.
The little Gabbys then joined back together like they were playing cards being shuffled back into a deck, Gabby grew several times her size, but now her rear was avian with wings, and her front was feline. "Besides, we'll just glue ourselves back together! I thought chaos was nothing but trouble too... griffins being selfish and mean, and Discord made me the griffionist bully greedy griffin in history when he twisted everything before the rainbow fixed me... but now I AM chaos." Gabby said sinisterly.
“No, your just corrupted! Right now you're not even Gabby! I need to find Gallus to fix this,” Spike said trying to leave before she cut him off.
"That's right! I'm New Gabby, and I LIKE being New Gabby! Just like YOU like being New Spike? Don't you?" She then turned into a tiny kitten with gigantic gut-wrenchingly cute and innocent eyes. "You wouldn't want to make someone never heard from again would you?" she said in a high-pitched voice.
“N-no!” Spike said a little perturbed.
“You're just holding back your REAL self Spiky-Wickey." Gabby shape shifted into a gray version of Rarity with a blue mane. "Stop being a stick in the mud and join the fun!"
“...” Spike had to admit, being chaotic is fun… and- NO! Twilight and the others need him! “Sorry Gabby, but no,” Spike said squaring up.
“Awww, you party pooper!” Gabby said turning into a giant multicolored dragon.
“Whoa….” Spike said backing up, Discord caught up to Spike panting and gasped as he saw this.
“Spike… you didn’t happen to do this did you?” Discord asked.
“No, at least I don’t think I did,” Spike said.
“Oh dear… I think she assimilated with the chaos magic! Run!” Discord said.
“Sure thing!” Spike turned and flew off as the Gabby dragon roared and began to chase.
Spike ran through the field and any nearby turkeys scattered as Gabby ran through the area after Spike.
“Come back here Spike!” Gabby roared.
“Why is she trying to attack me?!” Spike asked as he flew faster.
“Remember how out of control you were when you first got chaos powers?” Discord pointed out.
“Yeah?” Spike said.
“I’m thinking she’s out of control too!” Discord said.
“How do we calm her?!” Spike demanded.
“Ice cream! Remember?!” Discord reminded him.
“Oh yeah,” Spike said remembering that ice cream calmed angry chaos beings.
So Spike flew higher and searched around while Gabby flew after him, shifting into a manticore with a party hat and a wedding dress on.
“We can be buddies in chaos, Spike! We don’t need saving after all!” Gabby spoke out.
“Come on! Stuffing lakes, gravy ponds with gravy boats, lakes of cranberry sauce, where’s the ice cream?!” Spike said as Gabby shifted into a three-headed giant flying squirrel with wings.
“Get back here Spike!” She shouted, taking a swing at Spike with her claws.
“Yikes!” Spike swooped under her swing, she bit her teeth at him a few times and Spike teleported a good distance ahead of her.
What she did next he didn’t see coming.
She puffed up her cheeks until they were gigantic and blew a power gust of wind at Spike knocking him out of the air and sending him flying into a rainbow-colored waterfall.
“Nooo!” Spike yelled as he splashed down, before popping his head out and shivering.
“Wait… cold, creamy… this is ice cream!” Spike said, glad something is going his way this time.
Looking up he saw the flying squirrel monster fly above him and drop down with the intention of body slamming him.
“Wait for it,” Discord said.
“Alright,” Spike responded.
Spike waited a few seconds and she was nearly upon him before he snapped his fingers and teleported.
She slammed down on the ice cream and made a huge splash.
Spike reappeared about a mile into the air and watched carefully… then suddenly, he saw a familiar griffon crawl her way out of the ice cream and collapse.
“Gabby!” Spike exclaimed flying over to her.
“Spike, be careful,” Discord warned.
Spike reached Gabby and she slowly stood up and shook her body to shake off the ice cream sticking to her coat.
“Ugh, what happened?” Gabby asked.
“Gabby?” Spike asked as he flew into view.
“Spike? Hey, I just had a dream about you, I was a turkey and I was having so much fun in a chaotic no rules world and-” Spike cut her off.
“That all really happened,” Spike said.
“Hmm?” Gabby tilted her head “So, we’re really in a no-rules world?” She asked looking giddy.
“Oh no, don’t get crazy on me again,” Spike said.
“I mean, why fix what ain’t broken?” She asked.
“Because the world is going to explode if I don’t!” Spike clarified.
“We could always glue it back together, right Discord?” Gabby asked.
“Huh? Wait, you can see him?” Spike asked.
“Yeah, he’s right next to you,” She said.
“It makes sense, after all she seems to have bonded with the chaos magic in her body thanks to her naturally chaotic disposition and her contact with a lord of chaos,” Discord pointed out.
“Is that how it works?” Spike said confusedly.
“Clearly,” Discord said.
“So… I have Discord powers now?” she asked
“Limitedly it seems, since you got yours an unnatural way, I can assume it’s more limited than Spike’s magic,” He said.
“You're sure? She turned into a giant dragon,” Spike said.
“You really don’t know the limits of your own chaos power do you?” Discord said knowingly.
“Not really,” Spike admitted.
“Well you better learn them, if you're going to showdown with Chaos in the future,” Discord said.
“Wait, what if I don’t want things to return to normal?” Gabby said.
“Gabby, please just help us, my sister and friends are in trouble and I don’t know what else to do but find Gallus and the others to help,” Spike said.
Gabby looked conflicted upon hearing this, but after a few minutes of thinking she looked back.
“Ok… But on one condition,” She said.
“Yeah?” Spike said, relieved she was helping.
“I get to keep these powers,” She said.
“Deal,” Spike said.
“I hope we don’t regret this,” Discord muttered.
“Alright, where is Gallus, surely you know,” Spike questioned.
“I saw him earlier over by the gravy pond, follow me,” She said as she flew off.
Spike flew with her and the two seemed to cover alot of distance with their quick flight.
When they got to the gravy pond Gabby flew to cover.
“Gabby?” Spike questioned.
“Follow me,” She said.
“Ok,’ Spike then flew with her to cover and they landed in some bushes.
They poked their heads out of the peppermint-scented bushes and saw the gravy pond where multiple turkeys were bathing in gravy.
“Not the oddest sight i’ve seen today,” Spike admitted sadly.
“There he is,” Gabby pointed at Turkey off to the back of the pond, splashing around the edge.
“Alright,” Spike said getting ready to fly.
“Wait!” Gabby said.
“What?” Spike asked.
“There are some other things, the gravy is boiling hot, so don’t go into it, there’s something swimming in there too,” Gabby said.
“Ok, we ready?” Spike said.
“Nope, I have to do some damage control first, so your on your own here,” She said.
“What?” Spike said before Gabby teleported.
“...Ok…” Spike sighed.
"It's rather nice actually... having creatures who LIKE being chaotic now that they've had a taste of it," Discord said wistfully.
"Maybe you coulda done that instead of tormenting everypony like they were your toys," Spike said sardonically.
"Hindsight is 20/20," Discord said.
Spike flew out over the gravy, carefully watching the clucking turkeys.
A few tried to grab at him with their featherless arms but he stayed out of reach.
“Alright Spike, just keep your eyes on the turkey we need,” Discord said.
“Ok,” Spike said… Before suddenly the gravy exploded behind him, Spike spun to see a giant snake emerging from the gravy, only it had Grandpa Gruffs face on it.
“What the?!” Spike exclaimed as the giant Gruff snake roared at him and lunged to eat him.
“Ah crap!” Discord said as they flew around the snake’s head and hurried off towards the shore.
“Where did Gallus go?!” Spike asked having lost track of him amidst the scattering turkeys.
“Over there!” Discord pointed to a turkey that was climbing a tree to escape.
The giant snake splashed down and pursued Spike across the gravy lake.
Spike frantically flew with his plaid contrail away from the snake and he got to the edge of the pond just in time to avoid its bite.
He flew up to the tree Gallus was scaling and grabbed him before flying off.
The snake chased them through the forest and Spike struggled to hold the thrashing clucking turkey.
“Discord!” Spike called.
“I don’t know what you want me to do?!” Discord said.
The snake snapped its teeth at them several times and Spike was panicking, before he could think of an out suddenly an anvil fell on the snake's head.
“Huh?” Both Spike and Discord said looking up and seeing Gabby.
“Run ahead Spike! I’ll catch up!” Gabby said before turning into a dragon again and landing on the snake as it recovered.
“Gabby!” Spike called.
“I got this! Go!” She called.
“We have to move!” Discord said.
“But Gabby-”
“She’s giving us an out, let’s go!” Discord said.
“...Ok…” Spike said as he flew back out of Griffonstone while Gabby fought the giant Gruff serpent.
Spike was panting as it wasn’t easy carrying a struggling turkey all the way back to the cave of harmony.
But he managed.
When he got back he placed Gallus on the ground, in the cave, everypony present stared at the odd sight of a giant raw bird thrashing on the ground.
The turkey clucked, got up and tried to flee but Harmony appeared in front of it and flashed her light to turn him back.
Gallus tumbled to the ground and looked sick.
“Ooohh….” Gallus groaned.
“You okay Gallus?” Spike asked, Gallus, answered by getting up, turning and vomiting stuffing onto the ground.
“Ugh!” Spike said.
“Tell….nobody…” Gallus said before collapsing.
“Gallus!” Spike said running up to him.
“Let him rest, it was quite the ordeal in Griffonstone,” Harmony said.
“And a weird one at that,” Spike said before noticing some griffons in the group now.
“Huh? Where did they come from?” Spike asked.
“Gabby brought them here,” Harmony said.
“Oh… so that’s what she meant,” Spike said.
“You should rest too Spike, that was not an easy run you had,” Discord said.
“Ok,” Spike said agreeing, before he heard a voice.
“Spike?” Celestia’s voice called.
“Celestia?” Spike said picking up the communication crystal.
“Oh thank goodness, we’ve been trying to contact you,” Celestia said sounding relieved.
“What’s up?” Spike said.
“You need to hear this, we’re still tracking the chaos spread and found it’s speeding up! We need to hurry up,” Celestia said.
“Ok, I guess we need to skip the break then, i’ll hurry,” Spike said.
“Thank you, Spike,” Celestia said before the transmission cut.
“So much for a break…” Discord sighed.
“No time, where too next?” Spike reached into his backpack and pulled out the box of DNA samples.