Twilight Twinkle, aged fifteen (physically aged nineteen)
Growing up, Twilight Twinkle had heard all manner of stories, especially of all the fiends her mother had faced. Rampaging gods fueled by misplaced jealousy, disembodied evil overlords from ages gone by, emotion-eating shapeshifting armies, swarms of annoying clones, Twilight Sparkle had faced them all and survived and told tales about them all. And she had only told her daughter the tale of Discord once. Nightmare Moon had been defeated by harmony, the Changeling Queen and her army by Shining Armor and Cadance's love, Sombra by Spike falling off a building, but Discord... Discord wasn't in the same league. He wasn't a unicorn gone mad with greed, a princess who felt ignored, or a half-starved army of bugs. He just was. Everything about him looked wrong, his very actions, his ability to defy all normal laws.
And then Fluttershy had managed to instill some form of good in him, and everypony had just assumed that was that.
"Discord, what are you doing?!" Twilight Sparkle demanded. The deity looked at Twilight, and frowned. He pulled out a pair of glasses, and stared intensely at her.
"You look different" He said. He 'hmmd' and 'hahhed' and finally leaned back and snapped his fingers.
"Of course, a new hairstyle!" He said triumphantly.
"Nice wings, by the way" He added, casually.
"You didn't answer my question" Twilight said. Next to her, Twilight Twinkle was planning to make a break for it the first chance she got.
"Well, I got a bit bored of wandering around, so I thought I'd come back here, see the old gang, shake things up"
"You said you wouldn't use your magic for evil anymore!" The mismatched entity stared at Twilight. He put his arm behind his back and then returned it, only now it had a blue puppet wearing a crude purple felt hat and cape. He started speaking in a nowhere near accurate impersonation of Trixie.
"Well, kiddies, Discord is what Twixie calls a 'chaos entity', which means of course he is wandom, and unpwedictabwe." He said, slowly and carefully.
"Goodness, Trixie, you are so clever!" He said to the puppet, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Not as clever as you, oh glorious artist of chaos!"
He turned to look at Twilight, who was not smiling.
"Oh, why must you be so gloomy, gloomy, gloomy all the time? Why can't you be like Fluttershy. Only without the branches and roots and leaves."
Twilight Sparkle gasped in horror. "You turned Fluttershy into a tree?!"
"She said wanted to be a tree!" He said, defensively. "I just... helped her."
And at that Twinkle ran, ran as fast as she could. Strangely she didn't seem to be moving. She looked down and saw why. She was suddenly on a treadmill.
"And what's this?" Discord said, sliding into view in front of her. She tried not to look at him. She felt his claw examining her hair. Then she heard him gasp.
"Goodness me, Twilight Sparkle... you didn't." He laughed.
"You've been busy!" He sighed and threw his arms into the air.
"I turn my head for all of five minutes and you go making more ponies and sprouting wings everywhere. And you say I'm the crazy one?"
Twinkle finally noticed that right next to the treadmill was solid ground. She leapt and hit the ground running. She quickly reached the library and slammed the door shut. Then she realised she'd left her mother outside. Then there was a knock on the door. Unfortunately with the chaos gods appearing out of nowhere Twilight Twinkle's brain was not working at full pelt, so she turned and opened the door. Discord was standing there wearing a cheap-looking suit and carrying a clip-board, and next to him was... Discord, also standing there wearing a cheap-looking suit and carrying a clipboard.
"Hello," the first Discord said calmly, "We're doing a survey, and we wondered if you would be willing to ask a few questions. Are you currently satisfied with your current long-range chaos provider?"
She stared at the mind-breaking sight.
"Would you be interested in switching to Discordia for a month?"
There are some basic instincts that all beings, big and small have built in. The desire to survive, knowing that something glowing green probably isn't healthy, intense distrust of lawyers, was one of them and so it was that Twilight Twinkle, by complete reflex, slammed the door, and then bolted it shut for good measure. Then she crumpled to the floor.
She wasn't sure what to do. She was facing a being of unlimited power and unknowable intent and she had no idea what to do. She'd studied to face your standard, every-day monster like trolls, cockatrices, changelings, or really big green things with teeth, not a being that could turn your mind to rice pudding.
For a few moments she sat there, and then realised her mother would probably be in the middle of everything trying to find a solution, and that was probably the safest place to be. And besides, she had a whole slew of magic she could use against anything Discord creatred. What was the absolute worst he could really do?
She unbolted the door and opened it, and felt vaguely satisfied that Discord wasn't there anymore. She rushed out into the street, and then heard screaming. She stood there. Knowing Discord, it was almost certainly a trap, or something mind-breakingly bizarre, but if somepony was in trouble, then she had to help. She had to.
She set off towards the source of the screaming. She found something that proved without a shadow of a doubt that her mind had clearly already snapped.
A giant tree was apparently trying to eat the McIntoshes, but that wasn't the strange part. Giant walking, pony-eating trees seemed perfectly rational in the face of the Great and Powerful Trixie being turned into a sock puppet. It was the fact that this tree was made, from leaf to root, out of custard.
She wondered if she had any anti-dessert spells, before she decided some of her repertoire could probably repurposed. She leapt into the fray.
*****
It was a long, sticky, unpleasant fight, but eventually the custard tree was slain.
"Oh, thank you" Mrs McIntosh smiled, before she looked about.
"By the way, what's going on?" she asked, as she removed some custard from Lil' McIntosh.
"Discord" Twinkle stated.
"What should we do?" the older mare asked.
"I..." Twinkle paused for a second, "Help anypony you can and... try and find somewhere safe?" The obvious quibble with that last part remained unchallenged, so the farmponies nodded and quickly hurried away. Twinkle sighed, and tried to wipe a bit of congealed custard off her fur.
Randomly striking out wasn't going to find her mother. She had to think like her. Or think like her thinking like Discord. Or, alternatively she could try to find her father. She briefly wondered if he'd even noticed everything that was going on.
*****
"Stand still you stupid microscope!"
Apparently he hadn't, nor was he even concerned that the lab microscopes had grown crab legs and kept moving about. All he seemed to be doing was trying to swat it with a notepad. She quickly zapped it, and her father quickly seized the initiative to put rubber bands over the legs.
"Gotcha!" He yelled. Then he looked up.
"Hi, Twinkie" he said calmly, waving a hoof at her. Without thinking, she waved a hoof back.
She considered the various possible ways to go from there, including screaming, panicing, yelling or just being polite yet firm.
"You do realise this is Discord's doing, right?" she said slowly, checking in case his fur colour was muted in any way. It wasn't.
"I had assumed that. I was planning on waiting for your mother and her friends to do something amazing that would fix everything." He smiled nervously. She stared in shock.
"What? I'm a scientist, what am I gonna do, throw my notebooks at him? Make him recite pi to four thousand places?" Despite everything, despite the sheer insanity of everything that was happening, she laughed at that.
"Now come on, let's go find her" he declared, his voice serious and calm. She'd never seen him like this. But then, she thought, they barely ever talked anymore. She'd been so focused on patching things up with mother, and all that nonsense about aging herself and learning magic.
"Aren't I supposed to be the one dragging you into this mess?" she asked. He stopped and turned to look at her.
"I said I'd be there for you and your mother, and I meant it. Even if it means just standing and silently lending emotional support, even if there's nothing I can do to help, I'll still try." He smiled, and she could see something in his eyes. Their eyes were so alike, everypony said, only hers were a slightly darker shade of orange. And she could swear she saw... sadness? No, not sadness. Resignation.
"And I'll protect you. I know you aren't a foal anymore, physically or mentally, but you will always be my little girl. And I'll always be here for you." He said, pointing at her heart.
"Dad, where's this coming fr-" There was a mighty explosion, the roof above them was torn to shreds and the two unicorns were flung backwards. From outside there was the sound of distant yelling.
"I think the Royal Guard's here" Twinkle muttered.
*****
Rainbow Dash and Sonic Boom glowered at Discord.
"Ah, the redoubtable Rainbow Dash, how are you?"
"Drop dead!" The pegasus yelled. Discord took a step back.
"My my, such anger. It's not like I killed your turtle. Or tortoise." He suddenly drew a strange brick-like object out of nowhere and pressed a small button on its side.
"Note to self: Need more turtle soup."
"You touch him and you're deader than deader than dead!" Rainbow Dash roared.
"Oh, fine. Rabbit soup. Or chicken soup." He said, winking at Sonic Boom. The bright orange pegasus growled and rushed at him, only to suddenly stop, and then turn into a chicken, still wearing the mare's signature flight helmet. Discord made a small disappointed noise.
"I don't think I got the feet right. What do you think?"
Rainbow Dash quickly rushed in and kicked him in the face. He simply stared at her.
"Yes, that isn't going to work" He sighed.
"Where's Fluttershy, what'd you do to her?" Rainbow Dash spat. Pegasus and Draconequus stared each other down.
"Well, Fluttershy..." He tapped his chin, "Fluttershy is..." After a few seconds, he groaned in frustration.
"Darn. I already used up all my good tree puns." He lifted up the strange brick device again.
"Note to self: Replace script-writer at earliest convenience."
A blast of magic hit him in the side. He looked at the scorch mark. His eyes narrowed, and then he turned to look at the source of the blast, which happened to be Twilight Twinkle.
"YOU HURT ME!" He said, his words like cannon-fire. Rainbow Dash dropped to the ground, holding her ears. The chaos god turned in the direction the blast had come from.
"YOU INSIGNIFICANT SPECK!" He grabbed Twilight Twinkle and glowered at her, as she tried to prise his claws open, to no avail.
"Well, of course. The daughter of Princess Twilight Sparkle, child of Velvet, child of Twinkle, Princess everlasting." A cruel grin spread across his face.
"But you don't have a kingdom, and you aren't a princess, which makes you... well, nobody really, does it?"
The royal blue unicorn fixed him with a Glare. It was quite difficult, since just looking at him (or it) felt wrong.
"Go ahead and kill me then, if I mean so little!" she hissed.
Discord's eyes went wide in surprise and horror.
"Kill you? Kill you?" He placed his free paw (or possible a sudden third arm he didn't usually have, she couldn't tell from her vantage point) over his heart (or where his heart probably would have been, if he actually had one) as if suffering palpitations.
"Oh, I can't kill you, even if I wanted to" He said, his voice suddenly amazingly quiet, as he brought Twinkle closer to his face.
"But then, I don't kill ponies. What fun would that be?" He looked down, and somehow, Twinkle could tell he was looking at her father. There was the sound of a pony being grabbed.
"And look at that. I can injure two ponies with one stone. I can hurt you, and get revenge on Twilight Sparkle." Twinkle started trying to flex her way free.
"You leave him alone! Don't you hurt him!" she yelled.
Discord looked at her.
"Oh, please."
He flexed his paw, and her father... exploded. Or shattered. He just disintegrated into a million shards and blew away with the wind, with a sound like chimes.
Twinkle felt herself drop, vaguely, though it seemed to take minutes. As she hit the ground, there were distant, muted sounds of something happening, somepony saying something, brief bursts of sound. She saw some tiny glimmer of light settle gently upon the ground, and rushed over towards it. It felt like she was trying to move through a crowd constantly bumping into her. She saw the little shimmering fragments blink out and evaporate. She dug at the ground, as if somehow digging enough might reveal her father. After what felt like an eternity she felt a set of hooves around her, trying to drag her back. She strained and kicked and struggled, hoping to make the fight as difficult as possible for whoever was doing it. She felt, just barely, her hooves leaving the ground, the sensation of being in the air. She spat and raged and called whoever was lifting her hideous things. She watched as the town shrank into the distance, some still barely functioning part of her mind informing her she was moving in the direction of Canterlot. She continued calling the pony names until she was gently placed upon a small patch of grass. She was certain several ponies were restraining her, and then...
the world went white. And then dark.
*****
She awoke to the sound of medical equipment slowly working away. There was the muffled sound of birdsong.
"She's awake! Look, her eyes are moving!" that sounded like Rarity. She opened her eyes to see her mother's friends standing there, relief visible on their faces. For a split second, she actually wondered what they were all doing in the same room.
"You had us worried there for a while." Rainbow Dash smiled. Apparently nopony had told the pegasus she didn't have to wear her uniform to visit her friend's daughter.
"What... happened?" she slurred. She saw Fluttershy, who looked exactly like a pegasus, and not a tree.
"Well, you passed out, and then a lot of things happened, mostly weird stuff like giant kittens knocking over everything in Ponyville, but eventually we nailed Discord" Rainbow Dash said, accenting that last bit with a little hoof-pump.
Twilight Twinkle smiled, a genuine happy smile.
"That's great. Everything's back to normal?"
"Yuh-huh, we even threw a special everything's-back-to-normal party just to celebrate!" Pinkie Pie said, before ducking out of sight, and reappearing with a slice of cake. "Here you go!"
"That's great" Twinkle said, gently waving away the cake as she tried to stand up. She looked about the room.
"So, where's my dad? Is he all right?"
Nopony responded to that. In fact, their expressions changed ever-so-slight.
"He's... okay, right? It was just one of Discord's jokes, right?"
Nopony spoke.
"Well? Is somepony gonna say something?" She said, nervous.
"Kid... Discord hit you pretty hard" Rainbow Dash stated eventually.
"And you have been out for quite a while" Fluttershy added.
"Apparently disorientation is... not uncommon after something like this." Rarity chimed in.
Twinkle laughed the sort of laugh reserved for humourless occasions. The sort that preceeded raised voices.
"Where's my father?" she said, taking care to emphasise each word.
It was Pinkie who spoke first. Long would everypony involved wonder whether Pinkie was doing it just out of cluelessness, or to spare anypony else the burden of being the one to say it.
"But you don't have a father" She said, uncertainly.
Twilight Twinkle stared at Pinkie Pie, her expression icy cold.
*****
It wasn't a rampage. It wasn't. Rampages were the result of equicidal insanity, or Cutie Mark Failure. She was just stuck in one of Discord's little mindgames, and just needed to break whatever she needed to get out.
So it certainly wasn't a rampage, no matter what anypony might have said. Though she did at least make sure to take it outside, in case there was a slim chance that she was actually awake and actually hurting ponies. Not that she was actually hurting anypony, just moving them out of the way, though perhaps with a bit more force than was really necessary.
"Twilight Twinkle! What are you doing?" a voice boomed. There was a fluttering of wings. She looked up and saw one of the last things she wanted to see.
Her mother.
The mare landed in front of Twinkle and walked over toward her.
"What is it?" she asked, in her best mom-voice. Twinkle realised she was crying. She hadn't actually noticed, what with the grabbing whatever she could find and throwing it.
She tried to say something, but all that came out was inelegant sputters.
*****
As it turned out, nopony had heard of her father. Every picture of him was missing, every bit of work gone, his former co-workers just looked confused and asked if she had the right name. And worst of all was her mother's reaction. At first she'd simply sighed and tried to sound soothing, but after a while she started getting more and more stern, and each time Twinkle insisted harder, and each time she thought perhaps she'd convinced her mother of the truth, forgetting that it would take near-Hurricaniean effort to change Twilight Sparkle's mind. So each time her failure stung harder, and the arguments grew more and more heated.
And then the worst moment came, when her mother finally gave up.
"Twilight Twinkle, I think it is time you stopped lounging about the house coming up with foalish tales and went and did something with your life. You can't exactly lounge around doing nothing all day, after all. Therefore I have arranged for you to study at Princess Celestia's Institute for Higher Learning."
As it turned out, the institute had been only too willing to accept her. Heck, she hadn't even needed an entrance exam. Just like last time. So, for the few weeks until she was shipped off to a small, cramped little cupboard in the largest university in Canterlot, she decided to spend most of her time with Wisp. For a reason she couldn't quite understand, she liked being with him. She felt less angry at the world around him, more willing to be rational, more at peace. Wisp just seemed to make everything better.
"I feel like I'm going crazy" she said to him one day.
"I know I'm right, that my father existed, but everypony refuses to believe me. I just know it, and I don't know how to prove it." She looked into his eyes. Those deep, bright blue eyes. It was quite easy considering how close they were walking, although for some reason he had a problem walking in a straigh line.
"I believe you" he said, eventually. She smiled at that.
"I mean, I believe that you believe your father existed" she frowned at him.
"But then," he mused, "You aren't given to strange flights of fancy. Aside from when you thought it was a good idea to walk into the Everfree Forest on your own."
"Shut up" she said, though she was still smiling. And walking incredibly close. She couldn't help it. His fur felt incredibly like velvet. And he smelt really nice. Probably because his home was right next to the Everfree Forest, so whatever weird smell that place gave off was rubbing off onto him, or something along those lines. And he was taller than somepony at the age of fifteen should reasonably have been, although maybe that was just something to do with changeling biology, or he hadn't noticed his height yet.
They continued on their aimless walk through Ponyville, until they reached the train station, and suddenly Wisp stopped. He was staring at something, his eyes focused and his wings flared.
"You need to go" he said. She looked at him. She'd never seen him like this.
"Why?"
"Just go." She followed where his eyes were staring. Standing on the platform was a tall, dark blue unicorn with bright red hair framing her face, and her strange, cat-like yellow eyes. Twilight Twinkle did the mental calculation for what she could be, and her horn flashed. She wasn't going anywhere.
The mare walked over to them, and glanced at Twilight Twinkle the way a jogger looked at a piece of dog droppings. She then turned her gaze to Wisp.
"Hello, son."