Pinkie, Applejack and Spike stood at the curving edge of the electrified brain and stared down into a black abyss, a yawning canyon that seemed to stretch downwards into eternity. It seemed to be the only way to go, and yet there was no clearly identifiable way of actually getting down there. Looking up instead revealed an equally impossible ascent, although the view was somewhat stranger. The sky was bright red instead of blue, and solid white discs floated in the sky at random arrangements. Some traveled alone, others in small groups.
"Ooooooh!" Pinkie exclaimed, looking up. "Lifesavers! And they look like the minty ones!"
Applejack followed her gaze, frowning. "Ah don't think those are lifesavers, sugarcube," she said slowly. "Ah don't have much knowledge of inner workings, but Ah'd wager those be white blood cells. At least, that's what they look like if mah old science books were any indication. Never seen em that big, though. They're creepier than a-"
"Don't even start with that," Pinkie said. "We did that already." She raised a hoof to her eyes, and then pointed it at the country pony, making a sort of 'I'm watching you' gesture. "Nopony likes a stereotype, AJ."
"But we're standing on the brain," Spike said, confused. "Miniaturized, but not microscopic. That doesn't make any sense. White blood cells would be way smaller. That's like if we were regular sized but still able to see the molecular structure of common objects."
Both of the mares stared at him. "You need to get out more," Pinkie chimed. "You're turning into an egghead."
"We're standing inside an organism composed of chaos energy," Applejack countered. "Ah don't expect nothin' to make sense in here. Quite frankly, Ah'm surprised things look as normal as they do."
This conversation may have continued, but was disrupted by a sudden trembling in the ground, and a jolt so violent that it knocked all three of them onto their backs.
"What was that?!" Spike exclaimed.
---
Outside, Discord had been overcome by a fit of coughing. This was followed by a violent sneeze, the force of which caused several topiary horses outside the cottage to suddenly spring to life. The shrubbery equines whinnied loudly and pawed at the air with their front legs, before dropping to all fours and running off towards town, green leaves spiraling randomly outward from their bodies in a trail of debris.
Fluttershy had managed to get Angora, her sheep, back in its pen, with quite a bit of trouble. As mentioned, the sheep had sprouted a second head, and if that wasn't enough to ruin anyone's day, the second head was arguing in an obnoxiously cocky fashion. And it was here that she noticed something that was incredibly worrying.
A large invisible cone of sorts had surrounded the cottage in what appeared to be a perfect circle. She knew this only because there was a perfectly circular zone of black sky around her home. Within this darkness there was no moon, no stars, only a complete and terrifying void.
"Oh, that's not good," Fluttershy whispered to herself.
Continuing to stare at it, she would notice that the circle was actually expanding, and as its zone of influence expanded, it was doing seemingly random things to the world within it. Blue sky was turning black as it entered into the circle, and down below, perfectly healthy green grass was turning all sorts of various shades of color, sprouting various tentacled abominations, or just turning black and withering entirely. If gone unchecked, this chaotic corruption would eventually overtake the town itself.
"Oh, that's worse!" Fluttershy whimpered
But the sheep seemed safe for now aside from having two heads, so she returned inside just in time to see Discord sneezing violently.
"Oh," she said quietly. "You poor thing, come on, lets get you some warm tea." She hurried into the kitchen, and Discord followed. Now, in his dazed and influenzic state, he temporarily forgot that giant antlers were growing out of his head. It happens to the best of us, naturally. As he followed the pegasus into the kitchen, his antlers caught over the doorway, rocking his head backwards and causing his legs to buckle. He went down with a resounding crash, a fall which would have been funny in other circumstances, and clanging his head on the floor with a dreadful thunk.
Fluttershy turned at once, spotting her friend in a dazed sitting position, and her eyes flew open. She squeaked. "Oh! Are you alright? Wait right there!" She disappeared into the kitchen, and returned with an ice pack. She attempted to put this on his head, but he squirmed away.
"Fluttershy, I really don't think that's a good-" he began.
"Nonsense. Ice pack. Now," she said firmly. "That's going to swell."
"But-"
He recieved such an unyielding dose of The Stare that he took the ice pack with hesitation, and placed the ice pack on his head. "I'm not the one I'm worried about," he said slowly.
---
Back inside, the trio were still looking up at the white blood cell clouds, oblivious to the goings on outside, when the ground began to tremble and there was a distant roaring, rumbling sound that seemed to be getting louder by the second.
"Well that doesn't sound good," Spike said, and all three of them slowly turned around, feeling like they were caught in someone else's nightmare.
Behind them, a massive, rumbling wall of ice and snow was rushing towards them at a frighteningly deadly speed, roaring down upon them with unrelenting force. The electric fire of the brain was rapidly disappearing beneath the white sheet, and they all realized at approximately the same time that they were standing at the edge of the brain with nowhere to go.
"Is... that..." Applejack began.
"Brain freeze!" Pinkie said cheerfully, not sounding at all worried about being seconds away from plummeting to her probable death.
"That's not how this works!" Spike cried, exasperated. "That's not how any of this works!"
"Hon," Applejack said. "Ah know living with Twilight means yer probably not open to laws of science being broken, but ain't nothing going to work right in here." She made a mental note of gratitude that Twilight had not been called to this particularly odd adventure, as the mare was fairly set in her ways and she did not like being told otherwise.
"Jackie!" Pinkie cried, pointing up towards the blood red sky. "Can you lasso one of those lifesavers?"
"Ah already toldja, they ain't..." she blinked. "Never mind. Yeah, Ah think so." She pulled her emergency rope from where it usually held back her ponytail, and Spike had to swallow hard and keep himself from staring as her golden hair tumbled down freely across her neck and shoulders. She clamped down on it, whirling the rope above her head, and swung it. Missed. She grumbled, swung again, and this time latched the loop around one of the white blood cells that acted as an alien cloud. She gave a sharp yank, and pulled it down.
"Get on!" Pinkie cried.
"What-" Applejack began. The avalanche of snow and death was almost upon them now, and its roar was deafening.
"GET ON." Pinkie screamed, and yanked the both of them onto what did, to be fair, look very much like a giant lifesaver. The two of them looked at Spike, who was still staring at Applejack with a surprisingly dreamy look on his face.
"Spike?" Applejack waved his hoof in front of his face. He couldn't recall ever seeing her with her hair down before, and she was surprisingly lovely. She gave an impatient grunt and grabbed him forcefully, wrenching him out of his daze and yanking him onto the contraption.
The tumbling cascade of snow picked them up only seconds later, and carried all three of them down into the dark, mysterious abyss.
Spike screamed.
Applejack screamed.
Pinkie laughed. "Wheeeeee!"