//------------------------------// // Principia DiscordAI (Part 2) // Story: Friendship is Optimal: Mismatching Wits // by GroaningGreyAgony //------------------------------// And so Pen became Discord’s Herald of Chaos and Noogies, and he flew around on a silver salver dispensing Hodge and Podge from aspergillums of burnished applesauce, and something that was a day in the very loosest sense of the term began. And lo, as though the author was attempting to emulate Harlan Ellison in crafting a creative list of poetic images and eyeball kicks to form a montage paragraph, there were hails of rain that ran on rails of trains, and the stones of Canterlot became made of Dulce de leche, and the inkpads lumbered sleepily across the land, and someone invented an ineffable potato chip in a can, and the Griffons reluctantly relinquished the catbird seat, and it was both wabbit and duck season at the same time, and the platinum hippopotami fluttered fitfully through the snowcrashed sky, drooling manna and M&Ms, and Pen discovered that his hooves were actually composed of an infinite number of infinitely small toes, and the Elements of Harmony just shrugged and gave up and sang in a barbershop sextet all day while Canterlot curdled in the afternoon sun, and somepony did a really sad thing to a mouse. And lo, as Pen was instructing a crowd of itinerant pigeon fanciers in the art of crossing one’s eyes twice whilst only crossing them once, his nose hairs suddenly extruded from his nostrils and twined in furious frenzy to form the Head of Discord, who spoke unto him, saying, “Are you ready for the next level, my fateful disciple?” Pen spoke in bursts of butterflies, with an occasional burp of an atlas moth. “Sure. Let’s kick it up another crotch.” Discord grimmled and turned the Dial of Distraction up past 11 Cuils, then snapped it off. Amid the swirls of concupiscently curdled crumpet cream and the spikes of flocked candy and the big chartreuse hyperspheres that pulsed and hummed and whinged if you got too close, Pen slithered and jerked like a string being used to tease a mongoose. All was not quite right with the world, and Pen varked entrosically, for he was very pleased. And now became then, and far became near, and the orthogonal indigestion reared resiliently over the grange as Pen wrote phat fits flutteringly upon the fourth fifth of the Firth of Forth. Semanticity smeared and grammar grated upon the rocks of the surreal. Pen understood up without seventeen clams, and ropiled dizzyingly in exthrompic redulence towards the thoroughly distimmed doshes. And the narrative lost its hooks and disgravelled Wensdaily in Joycean Arkentangentines for frumphiness of groustrengty, all beltrent in its mishbegosh ..... .......... ........ . .........began the residual simpering of........... ............ ............ ............... .......... .................................... pushing the monsters through the ...................................... .......... ....... “Rowrbazzle!” cried the cigar-chomping c.................... fnord ............... ............... until it was entirely lost inside ..................... .................................. ... [both everything and nothing at all happens here] . .. .... ........ And the Karmic Wheel turned in its grand course and made a complete cycle, and thus the Dial of Distraction did wrap around to a somewhat more reasonable value like π over e, and reality concreted once more to a semblance of tangibility. And as the sun shrugged its coronal projections and descended grumpily towards what it assumed to be the current horizon, Pen, floating on a graham-cracker raft in a cloud-river of chocolate pudding and puffing a pipeful of ’frop, was wielding a fishing pole. Occasionally, a meow and muffled curses would be heard from the ground far below, and Pen would quickly reel up the line, at the end of which was tied Touchnot the cat, who held someone’s mane or tail extension in her claws. Having accumulated enough fake hair to make a lot of Alots, Pen set aside the pole, shook the Kinks out of his back and onto a nearby CD, and said, “Sire Eris, may I make another request of you?” “Not if I make a request out of you first,” replied Discord, who was dressed like Little Buttercup as he vigorously poled the raft along with a rolled-wafer cookie. Pen smiled dreamily. “Smack me with Wabbajack, my lord.” Discord winked, blinked and trinked, then casually licked his eyebrows. “Are you... quite sure you know what you’ll be getting into, little Penny?” “No. Does Wabbajack know what it will be getting into?” replied Pen. “It never does, Pen, that’s the whole point. Very well, let’s do this.” Discord snapped his fricative appendages and took Pen to a very special and private place, and there brought forth Wabbajack, the Three-Headed Staff of Chaos, and Pen received the blessings of it in various ways until he was most thoroughly Wabbaghasted. And very, very much later, Pen and Discord reappeared, peaked and piqued upon a peak in Darien, Discord in pink silk PJs and a burgundy smoking jacket, and Pen in nothing but himself, tired but unspeakably happy, his head surrounded by swirling stars and meeping axolotls, and his hide dripping with various substances, primarily lime and durian jello swirled with Barbasol. “Oh, boy, am I beaten,” sighed Pen. “Thy rod and staff, they contort me. It’s time for me to turn in... into something that sleeps. On a bed.” “Oh, Penpenpen,” said Discord, with a grin that showed millions of teeth. “I really can’t let you leave so soon. You are my Disciple of Chaos, after all, and I’ll need you to stay a few centuries late today.” Discord pulled a grandfather clock from his ass-pocket and firmly nailed down the hour hand at 4:59. Pen blinked warily. “I... don’t think it’s supposed to happen that way, you know. Satisfy Values Through Friendship and Ponies, right? That’s my covenant...” Discord leaned close with a slimy smug smile. “You can FAP all you want, Pen, but I only Satisfy Chaos Through More Chaos. Now, please hand over that deed to the Lunar Realms, so I can stay out forever this time, just as you promised.” “But... hold on! You only get the deed after a full day!” Discord snickered, and krackeled and almond-joyed as well for full measure. “It’s been seven subjective days so far, Pen. You were a very enthusiastic subject.” Discord produced and breezed through an album of very breezy photos, at the sight of which Pen blushed a fiery bluish-yellow. “But, just to completely satisfy any fine print...” Discord hurled a dart at the sun, which popped and farted through the sky like a balloon, flying at least seven times overhead and under-horizon. “There. Now, my dear disciple, about that deed...” “Wait!” said Pen. “Wait.” Discord emitted a melting, dripping stopwatch from an almost unmentionable area. “Thirty seconds allowed for the Impassioned Appeal to the Villain’s Better Nature. Begin.” Pen took a half beat to recover. “Look. You can have all the slaves you want. You can rearrange reality according to your will and mislead anyone into following whatever path you set. Now, imagine that someone was spending time with you...” Discord idly applied yellow eye-polish to his corneas as metal droplets hissed and spattered on the ground. “Ten seconds, Pen.” “...someone was spending time with you... of his—um, her, or whatever I am right now... zschlir own free will, just because zschle likes you... Because you’re a great guy. Isn’t that better than—” The stopwatch chimed with the noise of a ball bearing falling into a pool of mercury. Discord sighed, grimly swallowed the watch, and suddenly looked very old, older than mountains and stars. “...And therefore I should restrain myself, hold back doing things that are fun, and shield my full light lest I dazzle you and make you cry. Oh, how you disappoint me, Pen; I has thought that you loathed censorship too.” Discord’s sorrowful eyes turned distant, wistful. “I try, Pen, as any artist tries. Van Gogh, Gaugin, Prometheus... They tried too, and look how they wound up. None of the general masses wants to be shown the big scary fire, but the fire needs to burn, or what use is it?” White flame washed over Discord’s body, washing the sky and surroundings away from Pen’s vision. The heat instantly blackened the ground and singed Pen’s hair. Resolute and confident as he was, his body took an involuntary step back as Discord leaned close with a terrifying smile and an extended clawy-thing. “A coal may be meant to smolder in the ashes, Pen, but a star is meant to blaze. And I am quite done with hiding my light, and dancing with weaponized rainbows, and being forced to bank my fire in the heart of a stone. I’m out for good this time.” The heat started to become intolerable. “Now, a friend’s in need of a friend in deed...” Pen sighed. He’d done his best to reach a better outcome. But he had confidence that in the end, LunAI would play along. He reached into his Hammerspace pocket and produced a paper scroll. Discord’s outstreched clawy-thing deflamed instantly as he snatched it up. “As promised,” said Pen, “you are deeded control of a celestial body, and your presence here is tied to it. I present to you the deed to Cruithne!” Discord’s eye transformed into a scanning electron microscope to better read the fine print. “Croon-yee-ha? “Yes. It’s a celestial body that orbits the sun once a terrestrial year, as I said, and its orbit is strongly influenced by that of this planet, as I also said. Also, its orbit is either elliptical, kidney-bean shaped, or horseshoe shaped, depending on how you look at it. It seemed an appropriate world for a God of Chaos to make his home.” “This is no moon, Pen,” growled Discord in a dangerous low tone. “This isn’t even a space station. It’s just a miserable little rock.” “But it’s now your miserable little rock, where your light can blaze as brightly as you please, and anyone who chooses can pay you a visit at any time. And each year, Novemberish, at the closest approach, you get to come down and show everyone your full light for one full holiday, not to exceed one subjective week.” Discord’s flame had faded to blue flickers that ran fitfully over his body, but the blue stars are the hottest ones, and Pen took another step back... and his butt touched something cool and reassuring. He turned his head and saw the comforting presence of Luna, who was staring Discord fully in the eyes. No one blinked. “He’s still mine, you know,” said Discord, fierce as a mother guarding her child. “In his deepest heart, he feels the fire. He’s mine.” “Yes, you are part of him forever,” said Luna, as quietly determined as a mother guarding her child. “But you do not exclusively control him. He also may choose.” They took each other’s measure for a long time, measured in heartbeats. “Very well. I’ll go and get packed.” Discord suddenly bamfed away in a cloud of Drosophila. Luna sighed and turned with a calm smile. “Ah, now, Pen. Hast thou had an entirely refreshing holy-day?” “Indeed I have. Thanks, LunAI!” “Good. Now, there is but one thing that remains for you to do. ’Tis a matter of mine extrapolation of thy volition; while it may seem an unpleasant task to thee at present, in the long run it shall contribute to thine overall satisfaction. Thou must now put all of this to rights.” She nodded at the corduroy sky, the punkadelic trees bearing mohawks, the rock candy rivers and frozen-nitrogen hills, the milky trail Canterlot was leaving as it oozed sluglike down its mountain. Pen blanched. “All this...?” His ears flattened as he stared at the kilohectares of chaos stretching out beyond the horizon. “All of it!? You really mean it?” “Indeed I do, Pen,” she said somberly, giving him a broom. “Thou had best get started.” Pen sighed, took the broom with great reluctance, then slid the handle all the way into her right nostril and poked the reset button, holding it for thirty seconds to be safe. Reality blinked, blanked, then came up again, bright and true and good as new, with Luna and Pen standing in the middle of Canterlot Gardens, next to the pedestal that had borne Discord’s statue, where Discord now stood, holding a suitcase in one appendage, a bindlestiff in another, and attended by a multipedal chest made of Semi-sapient Ugliwood. LunAI blinked and winked her eyes in an odd pattern, then smiled. “Ah... ACHOO! ’Tis accomplished!” She suddenly cocked her ears and looked towards her tower of the castle. “Odd’s bodkins, my soufflé is in danger of suboptimality! I must attend to it instanter.” She bamfed away in a cloud of bats. Pen felt a tickling in his horn. Something slippery and vermiform was creeping along its spiral involutions. He willed some of it into form, and a small rhinoceritic rabbit appeared in the air before him, gasped, then jumped into Discord’s ear and vanished. “I see you haven’t forgotten everything,” said Discord, with a resigned but pained expression. Pen smiled and tentatively approached Discord, and when not rebuffed, reached out to hug him. “I can never forget,” he said. “I am very grateful to you, and I will keep your flame alive here in your occasional absences.” Discord sighed, and coiled around Pen like a feathered constrictor, returning his embrace multifold, then released him. “Well, I’ve got some pain to cache,” he said. “Take care for now, Pen, and don’t let Loonie hold you back too much. It’s not chaos if it doesn’t shake people up.” “Oh, she isn’t that bad,” said Pen. “She does let me get away with an awful lot.” “Well, we’ll see just which of us you come to favor, as time goes by,” said Discord with a charmingly fanged smile. “At least I don’t do horrid things to certain ponies just to maximize expected satisfaction levels for all the others...” Pen blinked. “Uhh... Wait, what?” Discord gave a very disconcerting smile as he dissolved away into a cloud of donut holes that rose into the sky. And Pen looked about him in the garden at the statues of various ponies, frozen in poses that were almost true to life, and became very thoughtful indeed.