//------------------------------// // Bowling Blues // Story: Discord and the Dimension of Chaos // by Spirit Chaser //------------------------------// If anypony—literally anypony else was in a situation like the one Twilight was in, they would feel extreme emotions that they probably wouldn't even be able to control. But as she directed her eyesight onto the mismatch of a creature before her, while laying on the floor of an alternate dimension with no clear way back, all she felt was annoyance. “Discord!” Twilight shouted as she picked herself up from the ground. “I—you—w-what gives?” As the mixed-up mess of words escaped her muzzle, she could immediately tell that she could have chosen a better set of words. Or maybe an actual sentence that made sense. “And I thought I was the expert in chaos,” Discord rubbed his chin with all three of his paws. “But it appears I have some competition from ‘Twilight the Great Sentence-Former!’ That actually has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” Of course talking to Discord just made her even more annoyed at the world, what was she expecting, to feel better? “This isn’t a joke, what are you doing here? What even is this place anyway? And who is that strangely-colored pony with you?” “Oh, this is Snare Trap, isn't he just the coolest?” answered not Discord, but Pinkie Pie, who suddenly appeared behind the pony. “Discord made him all by himself, we’re so proud of him, aren't we Rainbow Dash?” The aforementioned Pegasus shrugged in absolute confusion as she hovered above them. She didn't look nearly as confused as Snare Trap himself, though. “I haven’t even said one word to you, how could you possibly have known that?” “Just roll with it, darling,” Rarity assured the bewildered colt. “If there’s anypony you should never question, It’s Pinkie.” The party pony smiled in response. “Uh, can we start focusing on the important stuff here?” Applejack wondered aloud. “Tellin' us where we are sure would be a great start, Discord.” “Oh, Applejack, what a silly pony,” Discord chuckled. “We’re wherever you want to be, I would've thought that would be obvious. Maybe I should hang a really big sign or something.” “You’re not seriously going to start going all crazy on us right now of all times, are you?” Rainbow frowned at the spirit of chaos. “Rest assured, I’m not ‘going all crazy’ on you. Especially since I’m always crazy, but back on topic, this is my own little dimension that I found. It turns out I can manipulate it anyway I want as easy as one, two, four. How about that?” An entire dimension made of a type of matter that Discord can bend to his will whenever he wants? If that didn't sound like a ticking time bomb ready to blow, nothing did. Deciding to analyze this strange and likely dangerous material, Twilight cast a spell that allowed her to process the feel of anything the spell analyzed and send it back into her brain. Magic and science, two polar opposites met as Twilight continued the spell. The results flowed into her brain faster than she thought, and harder than she thought too, because as soon as it entered her head, she lost consciousness. “Twilight? Oh my goodness!” Fluttershy's hushed tones of concern were the last sounds that she heard before she passed out completely. “Is she waking up yet?” Squeaks of curiosity echoed in her head. “Nnnope.” Replied a bored voice. “How about now?” “Nnnnope.” “She has to be waking up now!” “Actually I think she just flatlined.” “WHAT?!” shouted multiple voices. “Just kidding! She’s waking up.” A wooden ceiling came into view as Twilight’s pained eyes slowly forced themselves open. A lavender hoof came to rest on her forehead as she massaged her throbbing skull. Every thought felt like a tiny nail lodging itself in her brain. She attempted to think back to what could have happened earlier to cause this pain. She was in the middle of crossing off casting a backfiring spell when it hit her (perhaps too literally as it still hurt to think), the analyze spell she cast, it worked a little too well on the matter of the dimension that was made up of— “Chaos!” Twilight shouted as she sat up in her surprisingly comfortable bed. “Everything in this awful dimension is made up of a form of solidified chaos. That’s why Discord can control it so well!” The group of friends (and Discord) surrounding her in the large cabin they were all located in looked at her with confused eyes. Applejack broke the silence. “Sugarcube are you sure your brain is working okay?” “It has to be! Discord said that he fixed it all better, right?” Pinkie asked. “Well, technically, all I did was was poof up a bed and a fancy log cabin, but it’s the thought that counts right?” Discord shrugged with all four of his arms. “Not when somepony's got a massive headache ya jerk!” Rainbow yelled. “My brain’s fine now,” Twilight rubbed her massive eyes. “Well, not entirely, it hurts when I think and I think my eyes are trying to kill themselves, but the smart side of my brain is fine. Listen, the matter here is definitely unstable to the point of chaos, I think something may have been here once, but it destroyed itself and was reduced to this white space.” “Whoa, so the reason you passed out is because you sent that stuff into your brain and messed it up?” Rainbow patted her own head. “I think so.” Twilight nodded, which was a big mistake. “That’s... awesome! Send something into my brain, like a cloud! That would be the coolest thin—” Twilight’s piercing glare cut off the rest of Rainbow’s sentence. “Or not. Uhh, Discord, we came here to take you back to Princess Celestia so that you’ll go back to doing what you said you’d do, remember?” “Hmm, I’m gonna have to pass on that, but you’re welcome to stay in my apparently dangerously unstable home for as long as you want.” Discord snapped his fingers and an entire bowling alley grew out of the once wooden wall. He flashed in front of one of the lanes holding a custom ball embedded with his face on it. With one paw covering his eyes, Discord turned the opposite direction and threw the bowling ball. With expert accuracy the ball flew through the pins which all exploded, resulting in a perfect strike. “Haha! See? We have fun here.” Making his presence known, Snare Trap trotted up to his creator. “Discord, if you have a duty somewhere else, you should live up to it. It’s what I would do.” “Yes, but despite being one of my creations, you’re actually pretty boring sooo yeah.” He went back to his overly perfect game of bowling. Unsuccessful in his goal, Snare Trap trotted back to the group of ponies still on the cabin side of the strange building. “Well, he didn't listen to me, so I don’t think you’ll be able to convince him, unless you know someone who has experience with crazy people.” Instantly, five sets of eyes found themselves on the shy pony at the edge of Twilight’s bed. “Me? Oh no, just because we’re friends—” “Open your eyes, Fluttershy,” said Rainbow. “We all know you’re the only one he’ll ever listen to. He doesn’t even listen to Princess Celestia for pony’s sake.” “There has to be a reason he doesn't want to go back, maybe we just have to figure out what it is and help him through it.” Fluttershy offered. “And by we you mean yourself right? Because like I said, he’ll only listen to you.” Seeing that she was going to have to go through with this task, anyway, Fluttershy looked directly at Snare Trap. “What?” “Can you help too? I’m sure he’ll listen to you if you try hard enough, you’re kinda his son.” “Believe me, he sees me more of a sidekick than a son, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to try again. It’s not like I can say no with that look you’re giving me.” Fluttershy blinked innocently despite the fact that her face was basically giving off mind controlling waves of cuteness. “Huh? What look?” Snare shook his head to make sure he wasn't hypnotized. “N-nevermind, let’s go waste five minutes of our time.” The shy Pegasus and artificial Earth pony trotted back to the bowling Draconequus, the one thing they had in common. Sure he wasn't the best of friends to Snare Trap, but he definitely meant well, most of the time anyway. It wasn't like Snare had anyone else, maybe Discord could make him some friends, as soon as he was done playing perfect games in bowling that is. “Um, Discord, I think we need to talk,” Fluttershy stated with authority that Snare would have never expected based on her appearance and personality. “Ah, Fluttershy! My dear friend, oh how I never get tired of that word. Want to play? I don’t mean to scare you, but I’m kinda winning.” That was the understatement of the year, Discord hadn't scored lower than a perfect strike the entire seemingly endless game. “No, thank you. Actually about that, you really need to stop what you’re doing and go help Princess Celestia back in Canterlot.” Discord unsurprisingly scored another perfect strike and turned to face his friend. “Tell me, if you had to attend a boring meeting but your butterfly friends invited you to their butterfly social, which one would you rather do?” Of course you could leave it to Discord to give you trick questions. At first, Fluttershy would just have said the meeting, just to help convince Discord, but even though she wasn't the element of honesty, she found it nearly impossible to lie to her friends (not to mention Discord would surely know if she was lying). “I would want to go to the social,” Fluttershy made sure to word her answer carefully. “But as long as I had business to attend to, I just wouldn't be able to make time for fun. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?” “Well of course I do, I’m not a child,” Discord stopped bowling... for all of five seconds, then he picked up another ball. “I hear what you’re saying, but I just can’t comprehend it long enough to actually care, no offense.” The sound of pins knocking together and then exploding signaled another perfect strike. Certain that she failed in her task, Fluttershy tilted her head to signal that it was Snare Trap’s turn to try. He sighed and slowly trotted up to Discord, who was still enjoying his effortless game of bowling (doesn't this guy have any other hobbies?). “Blah, blah, go back to work or I’ll set your toes on fire,” Snare monotonically threatened. “Meh, go ahead, it feels like a miniature snow storm,” at this point the scoreboard was absolutely useless as even when Discord threw the ball in the opposite direction, it homed in on the pins and completely destroyed them. “Seriously, you have to go with them, if you just slack off and do whatever you want, no work is gonna get done and then everything is going to become chaotic.” Discord dropped his bowling ball and starting laughing maniacally, his other hobby. “S-so your argument is that if I don’t return to Equestria, chaos will spread everywhere, good argument, you’re good at making points.” The dropped ball still zoomed into the pins, earning one more perfect on top of the mountain of them. “Why are you being such a jerk?” Seeing that the two they sent in failed, the other five joined them, with Rainbow Dash in the lead. “You said you’d be good, you can’t be good in here!” “Not true, I’m very good in here, haven’t you seen my score?” Discord gestured to his impossibly high score on the scoreboard. Rainbow’s cyan blue face began turning red in anger. “She’s right, ow, even though you’re not technically misbehaving, you’re still not doing what you promised, ow, and if you continue then we’re going to do something about it, ow!” Twilight’s speech was interrupted by her still-aching head. Discord sighed. “Look, you don’t know how boring it is to devote your formerly chaotic life to fixing problems instead of causing them. I just can’t stand it, that’s why I came here. No one to tell me what to do, no one to tell me not to overdo it, everything is bendable to my will, nothing is restricted, this is paradise for me, and as my friends, I can’t believe you would try to take it from me. Shame on you, shame on you all.” Fluttershy lowered her head while Rainbow raised hers in outcry. “I’m not your fri—” “We understand, Discord,” Twilight assured him. “We get that you found somewhere you can be happy, if we were in your place, we would probably act the same way, but there has to be a compromise, maybe you can talk to Celestia about when you get to come here when you’re not working, like a break. That could work, right?”   “Yeah, right, Her Royal Highness would never trust me enough to follow her rules. She would never trust me period.” “Of course she trusts you, why would you think otherwise?” Twilight asked. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because she couldn't even trust me long me enough to come back on my own, she had to send you in to retrieve me like I’m a missing puppy. I know why too, she only needs me for my powers, she doesn't care about me, and I thought I was evil. Well I won’t go where I’m not properly wanted, Discord is out, peace!” With that, Discord flashed away. “Discord!” Twilight rushed forward, but run into nothing. “I-I didn't know he felt like that, did any of you know he felt like that?” Her friends all shook their head, or offered a verbal response that said that they didn't know. All except for one. “Fluttershy?” Twilight stepped towards her friend. “Did you know? Or not?” The Pegasus raised her head, in her normally hopeful eyes, there was only sadness, the kind that said a mistake had been made. “I assumed he felt that way, but I didn't know for sure, I didn't want to pressure him into doing something that made him miserable, so I didn't try very hard to convince him, I’m sorry.” Twilight found it impossible to be angry at Fluttershy, no matter the situation, so she backed down. “I understand, and I forgive you, but we have to find a solution to th—does anypony else hear that?” They tried to listen for the mysterious sound, but none of them heard anything, well, except for Snare Trap. “Seriously, not one of you hear that? I think I can actually feel it.” “Exactly, it’s like... everypony get outside now!” Twilight bolted for the door on the other side of the cabin/bowling alley. The others followed, albeit somewhat confused while they did. Opening the door with magic, Twilight made sure they all got out safely, and took a step away from the building. “Twilight, what are you going on about? I told you we should've let Discord take a look at your brain.” Applejack told off her friend. “My brain is fine, well maybe not, but I definitely heard something, and Snare Trap heard it too, and... felt it?” “Yeah, it was weird, kind of like a part of me hurt that wasn't even there.”   “Like a phantom pain.” Twilight offered. “Sure, whatever that is. I just know it was weird and—ugh—it’s still happening!”   He was right, Twilight could still hear it and it was getting louder. “What’s happening to this place?” Rainbow gestured at the strange building. Just by glancing at it, Twilight saw nothing wrong, but by really looking at it, she saw something really weird, Something that probably shouldn't happen to most buildings. It was melting. The corners and top of it were becoming liquid and sliding down the front and sides of itself. The glop that hit the bottom lost color and faded in with the white floor of the entire dimension. “Oh no,” Twilight realized what was happening to it, and it wasn't good. “No, it’s still happening, it hasn't stopped!” “What’s still happening?” Pinkie asked. Twilight merely continued to gesture at the melting monstrosity. What started at the corners spread to the rest of it. Soon the entire structure was reduced to a giant pile of goop on the ground. A second later, it also turned white and merged with the floor. Where there had once been a strange hybrid of a cabin and a bowling alley with one player, there was now absolutely nothing. There wasn't even any trace that something once stood there. “Whoa.” Rainbow exclaimed in awe. “Snare Trap, has this happened often?” “Yeah, yeah I think it has actually, earlier Discord made a bunch of stuff pop up and it’s not here anymore, I didn't even realize it until now. Is this going to happen to everything that Discord makes out of this material?” “I think it’s going to happen to anything Discord made in here period. Even if he used his regular powers to create it, the unstable nature of this dimension would just absorb the chaos of the creation into itself. Just being in this place could be a death sentence.” “How dreadful, we should exit this place at once.” Rarity insisted. “We can’t leave without Discord,” Twilight argued. “We came here to take him back to the princess and we’re not leaving until we do just that. Besides, we literally can’t leave without him, there’s no way out of this place.” “But Twilight, that goopy goop is in your brain isn't it? What’ll happen to you?” Pinkie’s blue eyes were filled with worry, not unlike Fluttershy’s sadness. “I’ll be fine, I think.” Twilight was extremely unsure of her statement. Technically the actual matter wasn't in her brain, but it still acted as though it was. She even felt what Snare Trap felt, and he was completely made of the stuff. A cog seemed to turn in Twilight’s head at her most recent revelation. She turned to Snare to see if he was thinking what she was thinking. The worried look in his eyes seemed to confirm that they were both thinking the same thing. The matter erased itself, and Snare Trap was entirely made of that matter.