Twilight Sparkle had been so wrapped up in her latest text detailing the evolution of chalk that she barely heard the front door open and slam, followed by the springy steps that could have only indicated a certain pink pony.
“Twilight!” Pinkie Pie yelled from the foyer of the castle. “Twilight!”
Tempted as she was to ignore her friend in lue of her continued studies, Twilight slowly shut her book and steadily made her way downstairs. “You don’t have to yell, Pinkie. I’m right here.”
The pink Earth pony ran towards her, the usual energy present in her step now replaced with concern. “No! I think I do need to yell, Twilight! Something terrible is happening! Right this minute!”
Twilight furrowed her brows. “What is it?”
“Something grotesque!” Rarity added from the entrance of her castle. “Whatever she has told you, Twilight, it is completely true. I know it may be hard to believe, but—believe me—it’s happening right this very moment.” She held a hoof to the side of her face, a blush rising in both cheeks. “The sight itself was both horrifying and yet encapsulating at once. As much as I wanted to peer away, I found myself drawn to it. Perverse at it was!”
Twilight closed her eyes and put a hoof to her temple. “And what pray tell was so perverse, because I haven’t been given a single solitary clue from either of you.”
Rarity put a hoof to her lips. “Oh, didn’t Pinkie tell you?”
“No.”
Pinkie jumped in between the pair. “Fine! I’ll tell her!” She regarded her purple friend, eyes wide as if about to tell a spooky ghost story. “Discord’s attacking Ponyville, Twilight!”
Twilight blanched. “What? How? What is he attacking exactly?”
“He’s attacking everyone’s innocence, Twilight,” Rarity added, “one stroke at a time.”
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “One… what at a time?”
Rarity wrapped a condescending leg around her friend. “He’s playing with himself, darling. Right in the middle of Ponyville. Right where everyone can see. And he’s been doing it for hours now and no one save for us seems to be able to look away… even if it was difficult to do.”
Twilight Sparkle thought for a moment. Then she mentally erased that thought to start anew. Since the reboot did little to remedy neither the situation nor the expression of concern evident in both of her friends, she said, “Take me to him.”
***
If one could ignore the large crowd that had circled the thin bench near the center of Ponyville, Twilight might have deemed the day a normal one as always. The sun was high in the sky, radiating a blissful shimmer to everything it gleamed upon. The white, puffy clouds floated lazily across an endless sea of blue. The gently blowing breeze teased at her mane, catching the faint whispers of the hundreds of gawkers standing and staring in the exact same direction.
Before Twilight neared the bench at the very center of it all, she stopped to watch an orange mare that stood stock still next to a fruit stand, eyes locked in a piercing gaze while her mouth chewed away on words that could barely be heard. Twilight waved a leg across her vision and found it did little to sway her from her spot. Next, she lowered her head to hear what she was mumbling, only to come away with mere fragments of queer statements. “It’s beautiful… it’s terrible… why won’t he stop?” the mare mumbled listlessly.
Rarity sidled up beside her. “And nearly all of them are acting like that. It started with a dozen or so and then those that came to see what was going on latched onto the view of the bench and joined in with the rest. And it’s already been hours, Twilight! And he’s still going. We need to put a stop to this right away!”
Twilight scanned the faces of dozens of others, bringing the total congregated herd somewhere over a hundred. Each face read close to the same—some excited, some close to horrified, while a majority remained confused. But it seemed as though none could look away from whatever had ensnared them to begin with.
“Let me go talk to him,” Twilight said stoically.
***
Leaving both of her friends a good distance behind (she would never risk their safety unless she thought she couldn’t handle things on her own), Twilight approached the bench and with growing apprehension glimpsed the back of the tall draconequus. In his upturned left hand he held a book that he was pleasantly glancing at. Out of view was his other hand, somewhere in his lap. From that angle it was all she could tell.
“I don’t understand…” she mumbled as she slowly neared. “He’s reading… what’s the big deal?”
Keeping her defenses in check, she slowly circled the bench and took not a single lone eye from the creature. Since he was still busy reading and flipping through pages, she thought he might not have seen her at all. Finally she rounded across the front, eyes skyward to his studious face. And still nothing seemed out of the ordinary to her.
“I don’t understand…” she started again, as she slowly lowered her eyes. “What’s the big… penis!”
Discord finally lowered his book to glimpse the shocked alicorn. “Oh, that’s very nice of you to say, Twilight, but I’d consider it average at best. Although I would consider them rare.”
Without a single notion of just what his free hand was doing to himself, Discord returned to his book while Twilight felt her face turn the color of a tomato. Pulling at her head, she tried her best to look away from the sickening sight, but a good wave of curiosity made her turn back.
“Why are you…” she mumbled, watching him work.
Without a care in the wind, Discord’s paw stroked at his erect member in near rhythmic intervals, stopping every few strokes to rub at the tip. Although Twilight would never mention the slight interest, she had always been curious as to what—exactly—remained hidden under the draconequus’ hood, especially since he couldn’t lay claim to a whole animal identity at all. With almost flat disappointment, Discord’s shaft nearly mirrored that of a stallion’s, perhaps only three-quarters its length but a good size thicker. It was even a light pink in color. His rotund pair of balls matched the brown fur on his chest.
After gazing for what felt far too long, Twilight raised a leg to block out the bottom half of the busy creature. With the sight out from view, she shook her head and said angrily, “Could you stop?”
Discord eventually noticed her down below. “You’re right, Twilight. This is rude.” Then he shut his book to set on the bench, his other arm still making hurried work of his tall member. “Now what is it you’d like to talk about?”
A small batch of heated air barely escaped Twilight’s thinly shut mouth. “Talk about? Talk about! How about what you’re doing to yourself in front of everyone! In public!”
Discord looked unperturbed. “Reading about different types of cotton-swabs?”
“No!” she screamed. “That! How you’re—” Twilight was at a loss for words. She said much quieter, “How you’re… touching yourself.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific, Princess.”
“Gah!” she pointed her view-blocking leg towards his dirty work. “How you’re masturbating and don’t even seem to notice!”
Discord breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh! That! Oh that’s nothing, just a little bit of business I need to take care off.”
“And you couldn’t have taken care of that at home, Discord?” she chirped.
He rolled his eyes. “You can’t just control when the mood strikes you, Twilight. How was I to know that my innocent shopping expenditure would include such scandalous pineapples, ripe for the tasting?”
Twilight ground her teeth together. “Then either finish, or stop and go away. Every pony in town now knows what you’re up to and for some reason can’t pry their eyes from the sight. Somehow you’re affecting everyone with your… lewd conduct.”
With no knowledge what so ever of the act Discord swapped out his right hand for his left, barely missing a stroke. “There’s a lot you don’t know about draconequus’, Twilight.” His free hand patted the space of bench next to him. “Have a seat and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Twilight said bluntly, “I think I’ll stand.”
“Suit yourself, weirdo.” He cleared his throat. “Where was I? Oh yes, I hadn’t even begun. Once every one-hundred years, a draconequus needs to rub one out; otherwise dangerous occurrences are bound to develop. Having lived for more millennia than I can properly remember, I’ve sampled more sexual activities than you could ever read about.”
Twilight mumbled, “I highly doubt that…”
“Having said that,” he continued, “the more years that pass by, the longer I find it takes to reach a justly conclusion.”
It nearly pained Twilight to ask her next question. “So how long until you finish, Discord?”
“Well, let’s see…” Discord scratched at his chin while counting on one hand. Without missing a beat, his tail had wrapped around his hard member, servicing it with agile quick strokes. “Last time this happened was a hundred and six years ago. That time it took me three weeks to finish by myself. And I was walking in the woods when the mood struck me.”
“Three weeks!” Twilight yelled. “You can’t sit here for three weeks, Discord! Even more than a minute is crazy! And a better question is why everyone is staring and can’t seem to stop?”
Discord grew glum. “I’m afraid it’s almost like a curse, sweet Twilight. When I start, I cannot stop until it’s over, same as those that look upon the act. When I was in the woods by myself, dozens of small woodland creatures came to glimpse what was happening, only to perish days later due to starvation. I could only weep for them and continue to beat my metaphorical drum skin in their honor.”
“You’re sick!” Twilight spat.
“I only need help, Twilight,” Discord said gravely. “While it may takes weeks to finish on my own, the touch of another will only speed the process up tremendously. But know this: if I stop before I am finished—if I even drop below a single stroke once every second—I will cease to exist. A black hole will form at the center of my body and scoop me right from this world.”
Twilight said thickly, “I think I could live with that.”
“You are cruel, Twilight. So cruel. Not only have to caught me with my symbolic pants down, but now you wish for me to die instead of lend a helping hoof. I thought you were the Princess of Friendship, were you not?”
“My job description never included watching you masturbate, Discord.”
“The only problem, I’m afraid,” he said slowly, “is that if I stop or fail to finish, that black hole at the very center of me will not only swallow me whole, but all of Equestria with it.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
“Then take every one of the ponies watching me now. They can’t turn away even if they tried. That is part of the draconequus curse, and I am not lying about the rest.” He leaned forward on the bench, swapping his tail for both hands stroking all the way near his balls to the very tip of his dotted head. “Either you let me finish by myself for however long it takes—effectively dooming every pony here in Ponyville—or you be a pal and lend a helpful hoof. Or two! Two would be better!”
Twilight was unmoved. “If there’s such a curse, then why could my friends and I look away from your act?”
“Because as impossible as it may seem, all of you Elements of Harmony are somehow stronger than my dick.”
For the longest time, Twilight Sparkle wondered about all the things she would have rather been doing at that moment. Mowing the lawn. Taking out the trash. Doing the dishes. Taking a cold shower. Dying her hair green. Eating a bowl of tacks. (The list only grew worse from there.)
She said flatly, “So either you stop what you’re doing and the entire world is sucked into a black hole, or you finish on your own and every pony watching you likely dies. Or you finish sooner and everyone lives, effectively requiring me or someone else to help jerk you off until completion. At minimum, sixty strokes per minute.”
Discord thought it over. “Yes. I think you’ve summed it up nicely.” He smiled at her. “So what do you say, friend? Not to sound melodramatic, but the fate of all of Equestria rests in your gentle hooves. Ready to save the world for the sixth or seventh time?”
For close to forty seconds she regarded the lithe draconequus and his flapping, thick member. Deep inside her head she remembered each exciting battle between a foe that appeared beyond beatable. Now she was being asked to beat away at another nemesis of Equestria. But wasn’t there someone else who could take the reigns on such a predicament?
As though she were chewing on something bitter, she finally said, “Before I do anything I’m bound to regret, Discord, let me go see if Fluttershy’s home.”