//------------------------------// // Epilogue // Story: Discord Comics // by Silent Strider //------------------------------// The prank war against Luna wasn’t going as well as Discord wanted. Ever since Celestia taught the anti-chaos shield to Luna she was able to avoid most of Discord’s pranks. Worse, she had found ways to use the anti-chaos shield to prank Discord himself. He, the master of chaos and lord of pranks, being pranked by a mere - His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. It was the gray mailmare delivering a large package. She also asked something about playing in the garden with her daughter, but Discord wasn’t paying attention, so he just nodded, made sure the garden was as chaotic as always, and got back inside while two excited ponies played with his flowers outside. His attention was on a master comic on top of a table. With the first store for enchanted comics opening he had his pick of ponies to watch, but he was waiting for one special “guest”, a purple baby dragon that had purchased a Power Ponies enchanted comic and left without hearing how the comic worked. Discord could already see the faint glow on the master comic; Spike was getting to the part when he would enter the Power Ponies story. Any moment now… The master comic glowed, signaling the start of Spike’s adventure. But then it kept emitting bursts of light, six more. Curious, Discord quickly flipped through the pages. His face turned to pure glee, as he quickly conjured a sofa and a big popcorn bowl. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun!” Eagerly watching the action, soon Discord was rolling on the floor with laughter. Twilight Sparkle and her friends had entered the comic with Spike, but they didn’t know anything about their characters and were basically defeating themselves! Rainbow Dash, as the climate-controlling Zapp, had just trapped all her friends by accidentally conjuring a tornado. The villain Mane-iac was already leaving, which Discord knew would trigger a scene change, when on a flight of fancy Discord reached through the comic and made her recline on a bed of her own hair, allowing the scene to play out in full. The rest of the story wasn’t as fun, but it was still entertaining. Discord kept watching, munching his popcorn - Until he saw Fluttershy about to be hit by Mane-iac’s secret weapon, still unable to wake the power she was granted by the story. If it was any of the others Discord wouldn’t mind, but Fluttershy was the one pony he didn’t want to see suffer, to feel like she couldn’t help her friends. Thinking about what to do, Discord glanced at his fishes, swimming through the stream that was passing through the windows again. Fishes. He remembered how Fluttershy had stared him down when she thought Discord was scaring those stupid fishes. Fluttershy’s stare when she was defending little critters was a completely different, and far more powerful, thing than the one she used in her attempt to reform him… A light bulb lighted above Discord’s head. He took the comic book and used his power to add a small, nearly unnoticeable detail: a firefly obstructing Mane-iac’s aim. That was enough. In her haste to fire at Fluttershy, Mane-iac thoughtlessly batted at the firefly, finally making Fluttershy angry enough to trigger her power and turning her into the unstoppable Saddle Rager. The battle was over shortly after, Mane-iac and her henchman utterly defeated; shortly after the master comic glowed again, signaling the end of the adventure as the ponies and dragon were returned to the real world. Discord closed his eyes and promptly started to laugh again. Remembering everypony’s faces as they initially found themselves useless, he made a mental note to ask Dawn Glory to draw that first combat against Mane-iac, absentmindedly opened the big package he received earlier - And promptly got a facefull of cream pie. He snapped his fingers, expecting the worst; sure enough, the cream pie was shielded against chaos magic. Swiping cream from his eyes, Discord looked at the bottom of the box, looking for another of his tormentor's notes. “You just got pranked by the oldest trick in my book, and that is telling something.” Completing the note was Luna’s face blowing a raspberry, and as soon as Discord finished the note he heard laughter coming from outside. Frowning, he went to take a look. It was the gray mailmare pegasus and her daughter, which Discord now noticed was an unicorn filly, her body something between gray and violet and her mane golden. “Well, my vengeance against Luna can wait.” Discord cleaned his head with a wet towel and went outside to play with the two ponies. It was rare to find such chaos loving souls, after all.