Celestia and the Mysterious Red Button

by Word Worthy


World Warping Extravaganza

After what seemed like an eternity, time returned from its near stand still.

"T...Tails?" Celestia murmured, dread welling up in her gut. Nearby, still fully engrossed in the mountain of enticing bubble wrap, Luna paid no attention to the outcome of the coin toss. Still beaming at her, the Twilight Twins stared at the Princess of the Sun as she began looking around the throne room, expecting disaster at any second.

"Oh dear," Male Twilight declared.

"Looks as if its tails this time." Female Twilight concluded.

"Let's see what becomes of this toss then, shall we?" Male Twilight added.

Predictably, the all powerful, ever dangerous red button powered up again, preparing to discharge its pent up magical energy throughout the room. Startled, Luna poked her head out of a pile of bubble wrap, a sheet of it dangling from her muzzle. Seeing the convulsing supernatural device, the dark alicorn's eyes widened. "Oh no. No, not again Tia! You didn't have to take the second coin toss! It was my turn anyhow!"

Celestia returned her sister's gaze with a stricken grimace. "But, who could resist a coin toss Luna? It's so enticing... fifty-fifty chances to win!" She then put her hoof to her chin, as the Luteces, ahem I mean Twilight Twins continued to beam at her with smug amusement. "Remind me to convert the Royal Library into a casino when this is all over, will you Lulu?"

Luna gave her a look that suggested she wanted to shout at her older sibling in the Royal Voice again, but fortunately for hearing lovers everywhere, she did not. Ear drums were left intact, at least for now.

"What, Luna? The Treasury could use the bits, and we all know our little ponies are notorious suckers for falling for silly schemes." Celestia chuckled elegantly. "Like the time when I sent out the Flim Flam brothers to shake up the Apple family's cider monopoly. Shame about that one, how it turned out though."

The younger sister was almost at her wit's end tonight. "Tia, you really need to focus right now!" She pointed a hoof at the well-dressed pile of discarded bits near them that was originally Discord. "Even our most powerful former opponent has been reduced to mere coinage by this foul button's power! The universe is in danger– we need to..." Luna was cut off by the growing disturbance.

Shaking violently and emitting a loud beeping noise, the button was nearly ready to release its next wave. Whatever this one change was, it was going to be a big one. The guards look to each other fearfully and braced themselves, while the Princesses stared at the button on the floor wide-eyed.

Male Twilight cleared his voice, then let out a hardy chuckle. This briefly turned the alicorns' attention away from the charging device. "Well Princesses, it has been an honor making your acquaintances."

"We would stay longer, but we have business in realms elsewhere now." Female Twilight added with a serene smile.

"Do have a good night now, wont you?" Male Twilight said.

"I wish you the best of the luck with the button! Hopefully your world won't be turned to pure nonsensical chaos, adieu!" Female Twilight said in conclusion. With friendly waves, the Twins vanished through a blinding-white tear in reality.

"But... I...We... WAIT! What do you two know about the button?! How can we keep it under control?" Celestia urgently inquired in their wake.

"We have no idea. We just saw an advertisement on the Internet submitted from somepony regarding the modification of the button's effects via coin toss. We didn't have much to do at the moment, and we love coin tosses. Good night to you, Celestia." Female Twilight's now disembodied voice replied. At that, no trace of the Twilight Twins remained. Simultaneously, both of the Sisters' ears fell flat, as the button's incessant beeping reached a crescendo. Slowly turning back to face it, the device finally unleashed itself.

Celestia, Luna, Philomena, and the Royal Guards all collectively flinched as the energy wave passed over them.

At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the Throne Room save for the bubble wrap and bit piles. Then, everything went to Tartarus in a near instant.

"Mother of me..." Celestia whispered while her eyes widened at the new sights taking shape before her. Next to her, Luna similarly gazed at the scene with her mouth agape, her wide cyan eyes spelling out pure disbelief.

Their world as they knew it, was finally being fully warped. The entire atmosphere of the Throne room was becoming distorted and nonsensical, all reality now completely devoid of logic. Objects such as vases, tables, and even guard weapons and armor vanished or morphed into odd, non-objective shapes. All the world was quickly descending into something short of a Vincent Van Gogh painting, such was the sheer chaos.

With a yelp, one of the guards' bodies turned completely stark white. Magical letters hovered above him reading warning: texture file 'royal_guard_7 dot-troll ' not found.

The stallion was not the only thing demonstrating this unexplainable break in reality. One of the throne room columns was replaced with a red exclamation point icon, and above it was a Windows 2000 style error screen reading warning: scenery file 'architecture_canterlot_column_ 01 dot-troll' invalid or corrupted.

"What is this nonsense!" Luna exclaimed, as all the bubble wrap in the room was transformed into old Xbox 360's, each flashing red rings of death. The others were turned into old Sega Dreamcast and Sega CD consoles.

"How insulting!" Luna was now quivering with rage. "Nopony ever found enjoyment in these infuriatingly defective models! Truly we must be doomed then, if this is what the button now summons, my sister!"

In response, the bits piled around the floor turned into Xbox 360 copies of Sonic Freeriders Kinect, Fable III and Ride to Hell. The sight of the horrid games almost made Luna blow a gasket, which would certainly not be the first near-occurrence tonight. She pointed a hoof at the now largely inert button still lying innocently on the ground. "You are truly crossing a line, supernatural...thing. Whatever you are, with Celestia as my witness, you are going to meet a gruesome end before Tia raises the Sun in a few hours! You hear me, villain?"

Naturally, the inanimate object did answer back. Instead, Discord was summarily turned back into his normal self, now wearing the top hat and monocle that had appeared when he supposedly dissolved into money. He smiled at the two. "Celly, Lulu, you wouldn't believe the wonderful adventures I just got back from! Oh, the sights, the smells, the chaos!"

Discord rubbed his goatee with his eagle talon, grinning. His eyes were as a crazy looking as ever. "Houses tied to balloons traveling across entire continents, alien space wars, storms raining food, improper actors portraying and ruining beloved super heroes, celebrities dancing nude and looking like chickens... Oh and did I forget to mention the CHAOS?!" He pulled a strange object out of his hand.

"Care for a souvenir, my dear Luna?" He inquired. The object was a lemon-flavored muffin.

Luna, once again that night, could only stand their and gawk with her mouth agape. Behind Discord, several surfaces were covered in scrawling lines of numerical text, and multiple clones of a single Royal Guard trotted across walls and the ceiling, or floated randomly, defying gravity while their normal guard comrades watched them and the other bizarre sights with abject horror.

Meanwhile, something was going on with Celestia once again. She was standing completely still, not looking at the button this time, but not staring at anything in particular either. Instead, the older Princess was seemingly staring off into space.

"Tia! You need to stop losing attention here, our people need us!" Luna shouted urgently, trying to arouse her sister back to reality from whatever odd fantasy world she had returned to. "Apple boats ship ketchup bootleg chicken running dinosaur feathers." The white-coated alicorn muttered in response. Discord laughed at this, while Luna frowned deeply.

Celestia's normal, beautiful violet eyes had been replaced with static, like on an old television getting no reception. In the middle where her irises would be, a message read 'NO SIGNAL'. "Dubstep, dubstep, dubstep beats skrillex competition ten fold four score and seven years ago pegasus meat pie bomb." Celestia continued her nonsense ramblings. Discord clutched his gut as he rolled across the floor, laughing at humor only a draconequus could comprehend.

Getting up with a loud sigh of amusement, he snapped his fingers and a Direct TV antenna appeared on Tia's head. With a loud electronic 'bwrrrphhhh!' noise, the Sun Princess' eyes returned to normal.

"What the? Discord! What did you do?" Celestia exclaimed.

Discord flashed her a mock hurt look, staring at Celestia with puppy dog eyes. "I merely freed you from mindless oblivion, your very welcome. Now if you don't mind... I think the chaotic button is getting a little out of hand, even for my tastes..." The Draconequus pointed past the sisters to portals that were opening up near the entrance to the room.

Loud dubstep music began to fill the room from unseen speakers, causing the poor guards to cover their ears with their hooves. Dropping their spears again, the weapons' clatter was lost in the resounding chorus of 'wub-wub-wub-wub' that resonated within everypony and everything in the room.

Right at the entrance, three portals opened up. It would seem this most recent activation had a much longer duration of effect, still shaping the world minutes after last being pressed.

The first of the portals admitted a horde of Discord clones wearing various gentlemanly and goofy pieces of attire, who all looked to each other and the original draconequus, waving and exchanging catchy pleasantries.

The second let out a grey pegasus mare, who glared at everything in the room with a fierce facial expression and eyes that occasionally rolled around at odd angles. "WHO TOOK MY MUFFIN!" Ditzy Doo roared, her eyes charging up like lasers...wait...lasers?

The third portal, was about to release a true abomination, a second horde. It was a large crowd of eight and a half-feet tall alicorn monstrosities with generic colors, weird wings, and overly-long horns. The first, a black and red coated stallion, stamped his hoof on the ground over on their side of the portal.

"Equestria, fear not! Your mighty alicorn warrior has arrived to defeat your villains and save your world by instantly befriending everypony and defeating the enemy with one hit!" He declared boldy.

"No ponies, ignore that fool! For I am this land's true savior! All will bow before me or I will leave your pathetic world to ruin!" An pure black-coated mare declared.

"My home dimension is soooo depressing and crappy..." A third alicorn whined.

"LUNA, DISCORD, ONE OF YOU SHUT THAT THIRD PORTAL NOW! THEY MUST NOT CONTAMINATE OUR REALITY!" Celestia roared, using her own Royal Voice for the first time in who knows how long. Combining their magic together, the draconequus and Luna swiftly imploded the portal before any of its contents could escape. Equestria was spared one great threat, but three others still remained. Still resting in its place on the floor, the button radiated a false atmosphere of innocence and indifference. If anypony were to look at it too long, you would hear a voice say 'Why are you staring at me? I'm just a random button. Press me, or bugger off.'

The other two threats also stood before the two alicorns, the draconequus, and the caged phoenix.

Ever enraged, Derpy flared her nostrils, snorted, and ran her hooves threateningly across the marble floor, her laser eyes aglow. Nearby, the Discord copies wandered about, harassing the guardsponies, tripping over the video game debris, and laughing at the button-altered furniture and architecture.

Apparently that was not all. Outside the Castle, a horrendous soprano of screams issued out from the direction of the distant White Tail Woods. The trees were wailing in fright, and uprooting themselves, running towards the East.

Celestia looked from Luna, then to reformed Discord, then back to Throne Room again. "Discord, Luna, I fear this is beginning to truly get out of hand." Dubstep music continued to play, now at a much reduced volume, emphasizing her words.

Rubbing his hands together, Discord chuckled slightly. "Indeedy! The effects of the button have finally left the Castle, I see."

Luna nodded vigorously. "Only we can stop this all, but we must stay focused, and not allow this little evil device to take control of our minds! No matter how shiny, we must RESIST the urge to PRESS IT!"