It was a nice late-morning in Canterlot as Cheerilee led her class towards the area of interest right outside the palace labyrinth. The class consisted of Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Twist, Snips & Snails, Shady Daze, Featherweight, Apple Bloom, Twinken, Sweetie Belle, Button Mash, Scootaloo, and Rumble.
“I want to start our field trip here, in the world-famous Canterlot Sculpture Garden!”
The colts & fillies looked around and saw all kinds of statues and sculptures, some depicting ponies in glorious poses, others of monsters, and some were just artistic.
“That one over there represents ‘Friendship’,” she said, directing everypony’s attention to a statue of three little ponies smiling and standing on each other’s backs. But then a whistle and electronic beeping got Cheerilee’s attention and she sighed, “Button Mash, I told you no Joy Boy!”
Everypony looked to the back and saw Button Mash playing his game and his pupils dilated to pinpricks when he realized he’d been caught. He opened his mouth but Cheerilee cut him off, “And I don’t want to hear about what level you’re on, power-ups you’re getting, or bosses you’re facing, give it to me!”
“But Cheerilee…!” Button whined but Cheerilee’s glare made him oblige.
“You can have it back when we go home,” Cheerilee compromised sternly, ignoring the pouty glare Button gave her and the Humgonian nonsense he muttered.
“Now pay attention, my little ponies!”
She led another statue, saying, “This one represents ‘Victory’!”
“What an awesome pose,” Rumble commented.
“How cool would it be to have that for a cutie-mark?” agreed Scootaloo.
“Cool, if y’all were actually victoryful at sumthin’,” Apple Bloom teased.
“That’s not a word!” Sweetie Belle disputed.
“What are you, a dictionary?” retorted Scootaloo.
“Girls!”
They looked and saw the class had moved onto another exhibit, Cheerilee explain as the girls rejoined their classmates, “Now this is a really interesting statue. What do you notice about it?”
The class gazed up at the statue and noticed how odd and nonsensical it looked.
“It’s got an eagle claw,” Apple Bloom spoke up.
“And a lion’s paw,” Scootaloo added.
“And a snake’s tail!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed.
“And one feathered wing,” Rumble noted.
“And one bat wing,” Twinken brought up.
“And its legs don’t match!” Button stated.
“This creature is called a Draconequus,” Cheerilee explained, “He has the head of a pony and a body made up of all sorts of things. What do you suppose that represents?”
“Confusion!” answered Apple Bloom.
“Evil!” stated Sweetie Belle, pushing her out of the way.
Scootaloo did the same to her before insisting, “Chaos!”
“It’s not chaos you dodo!” Sweetie Belle argued,
“Don’t call me things I don’t know the meaning of! And it is too chaos!” Scootaloo back-sassed.
“Yer both wrong,” Apple Bloom butted in and the three fillies started tussling.
“Oh boy, there they go again,” Rumble muttered to his friends Twinken and Button as they both nodded in tiresome agreement.
“And they wonder why we don’t go crusading with them…”
But Twinken then felt some kind of twinge in his horn and looked up at the statue, feeling like something wasn’t right. He looked at the girls fighting and back at the statue and immediately used his telekinesis to break them up, Cheerilee saying, “Actually, in a way you’re all right!”
Twinken let the girls down, Cheerilee going on, “This statue represents ‘Discord’, which means ‘a lack of harmony between ponies’. In fact, you three have demonstrated discord so well, that you’re each gonna write me an essay explaining it.”
The girls lowered their heads in embarrassment as the rest of the class, not including Twinken, Button, and Rumble, laughed at their expense.
“Now let’s go, and I don’t want any more fighting,” Cheerilee scolded as she led her class off, none of them noticing the cracks appearing on the statue that represented Discord nor did they hear the ominous laughter…
The next day, Rainbow Dash and Thunderlane flew over Ponyville, the latter saying, “it was described as moving on its own so it probably wandered in from the Ever Free Forest.”
“Yeah, well we can’t-” Rainbow was saying when something pink zoomed past her, sending her in a twirl.
She gathered herself and gasped at the target zipping about.
“Come on, Thunder!”
“Right behind ya!”
They zipped after the oddly-colored cloud but realized it was faster than it looked, Thunderlane flying up alongside his co-captain, asking, “The ol’ one-two-three?”
“You know it! One…” She slowed just enough for Thunderlane to grab her by her hooves, him saying, “…Two!”
He spun round and around, increasing his velocity before they yelled, “Three!!”
With the extra-oomph, Rainbow easily caught up with the cloud and immediately wished she hadn’t.
“Eew!”
Thunderlane was surprised to see the cloud sticking to Rainbow’s wings and hooves as she shook it off, “What is this?”
Thunderlane reached out and took a bit off her hooves and gave it an experimental taste.
“Cotton candy…?”
“Uh, Thundy?”
He looked at Rainbow and saw her eyes were following something and he looked and gasped to see more of the same clouds, pink and likely also made of cotton candy, zipping about all over the airspace above Ponyville, when they heard a crack of thunder and looked up. Directly above them was a bigger cotton candy cloud and it released a brown drop, Thunderlane suddenly complaining, “Hold your horses, the rain is scheduled to pour tomorrow! You can’t-”
He was interrupted by a sudden shower from the cotton candy cloud, leaving both weather ponies to sulk, Rainbow Dash muttering, “It did.”
Meanwhile, Applejack and Big Mac were collecting from their cornfield when they heard…
“Hey! You get back here!”
They looked up and saw their two favorite weather ponies chasing after a pink cloud only to be followed by more that were much bigger and thundering and pouring.
“Rainbow, Thunder! Wha's goin’ on wit’ this rain?” Applejack demanded.
“Chocolate milk.” Big Mac corrected.
“I mean – Chocolate milk rain?!” Applejack could not believe what she was saying and seeing, Thunderlane zipping down.
“Crazy weather is popping up all over Equestria!" Thunderlane explained, "In fact, Fillydelphia is already covered by a blizzard of mashes potatoes and gravy!”
“Don’t worry, we ain’t leaving Ponyville hangin’ till all of this is under control!” Rainbow Dash assured, and they just noticed the cornfields suddenly popping popcorn for no reason, and Big mac got pelted by some in the face, as the popcorn suddenly started gathering into hills of the stuff.
“Why would you wanna stop this?!” Pinkie cheered as she dived happily through the popcorn hills and opened her mouth to catch the chocolate milk raindrops.
“Ahem.”
Applejack and Big Mac looked to see Rarity in a heavy raincoat, wearing a hat, and a saddle-supported umbrella.
“I heard about your troubles, dears, and came to see if there is any way I might lend a hoof without getting wet. Or dirty. Or out from underneath my umbrella.”
Applejack and Big Mac both sighed when they heard the sound of wood creaking and they gasped to see the apples in their trees suddenly enlarge to the size of beach balls, and start weighing down the branches and bending the trees over, and if that weren’t enough, squirrels suddenly started eating these enlarged pieces of produce.
“Fluttershy, do sumthin’!” begged Applejack.
Fluttershy saw her bunny Angel getting into an apple, “Now Angel, you really shouldn’t-”
But she gasped to see Angel and all the other bunnies suddenly get long and lanky legs, like those of a deer, “No! It’s not possible!”
She looked around and saw them stampeding about, “I must be seeing things!”
“Don’t worry everyone!”
They looked and saw Twilight, Midnight, and Spike, Twilight declaring, “We each have a spell that should fix everything! I’ll go first.”
Midnight gave a mock-bow and stepped aside as Twilight’s horn flared with life, and she released a wave of magenta magick and a shockwave of power, and when it cleared…!
Nothing. The cotton candy clouds still poured chocolate milk, popcorn still popped, apples still big, animals still crazy.
“Step aside for a real unicorn mage,” Midnight said haughtily and chanted his spell.
“Mystic power wane in peace, arcane forces gone awry
Magic spell, I bid you cease, rampant curse dispel and die
"Finité Arcanorum!"
He released a blue shockwave of power that blazed like fire and engulfed all the problems as everypony was blinded for a moment by an intense light. But after it dimmed, they saw only the popcorn had stopped popping, and Twilight gave Midnight a look.
“Hey, at least I stopped one problem!” he protested.
“Well, at least it did better than my Fail-Safe spell,” Twilight admitted. “Whaddoo we do?!”
“Uh, give up?” Spike offered lamely, the two unicorns giving him a look.
“Oh Spike, I’m sure our two resident master mages will come up with something,” Rarity assured him as she replaced her saddle/umbrella onto Twilight’s back and she considered.
“Hmm, time for plan b! Rainbow, Thunder,"Twilight called, "can you corral all those clouds in the sky?”
The two weather ponies shook off the cotton candy and saluted before getting to work, collecting the clouds. Midnight knew where Twilight was going with this and called, “AJ, Mac, we need you to lasso those cotton candy clouds to the ground!”
Rainbow Dash and Thunderlane had just forced all the clouds into one as the two farmers each took a lasso and their aims flew true as they brought down the cloud, Big Mac grunting, “Eeyup!”
The cloud stopped pouring, much to Pinkie’s indignation, “Hey! What happened?!”
As Big Mac forced the cloud down, Twilight whispered something to Fluttershy, who perked at her idea.
“Oh dear,” she called out rather loudly while AJ tied the cloud down to a post, “I hope none of the animals see these delicious chocolate-filled cotton candy clouds. I'd hate to have to share them.”
“You and me both, sister!” said Pinkie as she munched the cloud, only to get pushed back as all the animals ran up to it and started eating it themselves. “Hey!”
“And when y’all are done with that,” Applejack called out, “feel free t’ have some popcorn as dessert.”
“Take a look, Spike,” Midnight chuckled quite confidently, not noticing Spike hurking, “There’s nothing you can’t accomplish so long as you have good friends and work as a team.”
*BURP*
Twilight levitated the message and what she read made her gasp.
“Come on, everypony! Princess Celestia wants to see us all in Canterlot immediately!”
Big Mac nuzzled Fluttershy’s head as she leaned against his shoulder, neither of them having a good feeling about this summons.