Chapter Six
The (Attempted) Reign of Chaos
This is a story from when Discord rocked up, looking to make trouble. He realised he would need a base of operations, somewhere where his chaos could spread from, so he thought long and hard about where he could go. He thought for a good long while before he decided to go for the town of Buckston.
Now, the ponies of Buckston heard Discord was coming for them, and their first reaction was, quite naturally, to panic. Some tried to flee, some stayed to fight, some tried to get everyone to calm down but only succeeded in getting themselves wound up.
One pony, though, wasn’t going to take this lying down, and his name was Dirt Cheap. He was an earth pony, and he decided he was going to do something about Discord.
“I’ll go out,” he said, boldly, “and I'll stop him in his tracks.”
Of course, no one heard him because they were all panicking. He sighed and went to fetch his father's gun. His father had been a traveller back in his day as far as Zebra country, where he had bought a jezzail, a kind of huge gun. It was as long as a pony then half as long again, a big metal pipe with a long lever for a trigger. It took all of Dirt Cheap’s not inconsiderable strength to lift it on to his back. He packed his saddlebags with powder and shot to load it, and set off out of the door.
“Where are you taking that?” said his mother.
“To stop Discord, mother,” he said, simply.
“Are you mad?” she said, incredulous that anyone would think to try, let alone her son. “You'll never kill him with that gun. He'll turn the shot into biscuits in mid-air, or he'll turn the gun into a drainpipe, or he'll turn you into something else unnatural! In fact, the only way you'll take him down with that gun, is if he puts it into his own mouth and pulls the trigger himself.”
Dirt Cheap shrugged. “If that's how it is, mother, that's how it'll be.”
And with that, he left, walking through town. Ponies stopped their panicking to watch this lone figure, walking quite calmly out of the town. Dirt Cheap paid them no heed, trying to think of a way to defeat Discord, ultimate force of chaos and commotion.
Already chocolate milk was falling, turning the long road out of Buckston to mud. The sky was pink with cotton candy clouds and the pigs were roosting in the trees. Regardless, Dirt Cheap walked on, the jezzail across his back, the shot and powder heavy in his saddlebags.
The rain became heavier, the clouds became thicker, and a troupe of dancing hippopotamuses rushed by. Dirt Cheap soldiered on through the storm, one hoof held out to shield himself from the driving chocolate milk. His burden grew heavier and heavier and heavier, until at last, he fell down at a crossroads.
He lay there for a while, face down in the mud until he heard laughter. Deep, hearty chuckling it was. He looked up and saw a proper jumble of a creature. Bits and pieces of every animal you could think of. A lion's paw, a dragon's claw, a goat's horn, wings of different colours, there was only one thing it could be.
Dirt Cheap lifted himself up and hollered over to him.
“Hey! Mr Discord!”
Discord turned and glided over with a sound like a steam whistle.
“Hullo, my little pony,” he said, with a grin like a peeled banana. Knowing him, it might actually have been a banana. “Wherever are you from?”
“I'm from Buckston,” said Dirt Cheap, his face stern underneath the mud.
“Is that right? And where are you going?”
“To find what I'm looking for.”
"How wonderfully vague.” said Discord. “And what's this on your back?”
“That,” said Dirt Cheap, smiling, “is a pipe.”
“Yes, I can see that,” said Discord, irritably. “It's a long metal pipe with a wooden bit at the end and a little mechanism.”
“Ah, yes, but more correctly it's a smoking pipe.”
“Smoking pipe?” said Discord. He'd been in stone a long time, so he hadn't the faintest clue of what a pipe was.
“Yes, you put tobacco in one end, light it, then take a big drag of it into your chest, then blow out the smoke.”
Discord peered at the gun. “Sounds rather... interesting.”
He picked it up in both claws, this gun that Dirt Cheap could barely carry, and looked down the barrel and fiddled with the hammer and the trigger.
“How does it work?” he said, curiously.
“Ah, let me show you,” said Dirt Cheap. “Could you stop the rain for a moment? The tobacco must be dry if it's to light.”
Discord grumbled, but stopped the rain anyway. Dirt unhitched his saddlebags and set about pouring the powder into the gun.
"What's that?” said Discord, peering at it suspiciously.
“This is the tobacco,” said Dirt.
Then, he set about pouring lead shot into the barrel.
“And what's that?” said Discord.
“That's the weights,” said Dirt, ramming it all down, “to stop the tobacco from floating away.”
“Right,” he said, “now it's ready. First, you need to put the pipe bit into your mouth."
“'Ike 'is?” said Discord, his jaws wrapped around the muzzle.
“Yes, like that. Now, this is a rather fancy pipe. You see, you have to pull that lever down there, and the flint will make a spark and burn the tobacco.”
Discord nodded sagely. He reached out with a cloven hoof and pushed the trigger down. The flint fell, sparked in the pan, and then...
BANG!
It blew Discord's head clean off. With that one drag, he’d got higher than he'd ever been. His body keeled over backwards and landed in the mud with a slap as his head soared into the sky. Dirt Cheap smiled to himself and lifted the gun back onto his back with the bags of shot and powder, and set off back to Buckston.
Discord's head flew through the sky, through the clouds, into the stratosphere, orbited the earth once, then fell back down, through the fire of re-entry, back on to his neck at that crossroads.
He shook his head, checked it was all okay, and tried to remember where he was going. Buckston? No, not Buckston. Whenever he thought of Buckston, he got a terrible headache. He looked at the sign by the crossroads, and saw that one road led off to a town called Fetlock. There perhaps, he could set up his base of operations, his chaos capital.
So Discord set off on the road to Fetlock. However, he was seen by a lone pegasus, desperately trying to fight off the waves of pink clouds buzzing around the town. Seeing Discord coming down the road, she rushed back to Fetlock and told everyone what she'd seen. And again, there was panic. Ponies were about to flee, fight and try to calm each other down, when a single voice spoke out, loud and clear.
“Don't worry, everypony, I have a plan.”
The local cobbler, Boot Black, stood in the centre of town with a large bag, smiling proudly.
“I need all your old shoes,” she said. “Every pair you can spare, bring them to me.”
So they did. They were a little apprehensive, maybe, but Boot Black seemed to know what she was doing. Soon enough, every thrown horseshoe, every worn-out workboot, every out-of-style high heel in town was in that bag. Boot Black slung it on her shoulder and headed down the road towards Discord.
She walked over the hill just outside town, and sat by the roadside with her bag of shoes. Before long, levitating pies came, then the flying pigs, the line-dancing bison. Finally, Discord came along.
“Hullo,” said Boot Black, conversationally.
“Hello, my little pony,” said Discord, a little cautiously, maybe.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To Fetlock,” he replied.
Boot Black drew the air through her teeth, hissing and shaking her head.
“You don't wanna go there, mate,” she said. “Long way to Fetlock from here.”
“How far?”
“Well, I set off from Fetlock a good ten years ago,”
“Ten years?” said Discord, incredulously. “No way.”
“Yes way, mate,” said Boot Black. She lifted the bag of shoes and dumped it in front of Discord. “Because that's all the shoes I've been through since I set out.”
Discord balked.
“Well, to hell with that!” he roared. “I'll find somewhere closer!”
And with that, he turned back and stomped off. Boot Black smiled to herself, and when she was sure he wasn't watching, she slipped back to Fetlock with her bag of shoes.
So Discord stood at the crossroads again, fuming with anger, chocolate rain pouring down around him. This time, he looked up at the sign at the crossroads, and saw the arrow pointing down the road to Ponyville...”
* * *
“And of course, we all know what happened next!” said Tales.
“Of course we do, we were there,” said Pretty in Purple, abruptly. “This is absurd.”
“What do you mean absurd?” he said, more than a little hurt.
“All this! All these stories, all these... lies! Stupid tricks and chance encounters! That’s not how it works! That’s not real history!”
“Then what is ‘real history’?” Tales asked. Lies? As if they were lies! They were stories! A small voice in his head said, don’t get involved. This isn’t part of the plan, arguing with the audience. Come on you dolt, he thought, drop it or they’ll remember you as the arsehole who shouted at their friend!
“Magic!” she shouted, sounding somewhere between angry and desperate. “Dragons, princes, princesses, politics, brave heroes! That’s what history’s about!”
“We had King Art in there!” Tales protested, against his better judgement. “He’s a hero, and he’s real history!”
“Yes, but the Black Knight wasn’t!”
“Sir Goin’ got married to Lady Ragnail, that’s in books!”
“Yes, but it’s argued that-”
“SHUT UP.”
All eyes turned to a yellow pegasus, who abruptly shrank back.
“I’d just like to hear some more, is all...” she said, shrugging.
“Ahem, sure, right, well.”
Tales scrambled for a story briefly. He cleared his throat.
“Well, as we all no doubt know, Discord’s return was not the first time Equestria has suffered under the rule of an eldritch abomination from before the dawn of time...”