An ordinary morning at Canterlot University was shattered by a shout of urgent desperation.
"DISCORD!"
Ponies whipped their heads around as Princess Celestia burst into the lecture hall. At the front of the room, Discord, wearing a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows and smoking a pipe, stood behind a podium. The blackboard behind him had "CHAOS THEORY" written on it.
"Ah, hello, Princess Celestia. Come to sit in on my lecture?"
Celestia strode purposefully down the aisle, drawing excited murmurs and whispers. "Discord, there's an emergency down in Ponyville. Twilight Sparkle could use your help." She looked around at the startled faces of the students, then frowned. "Come with me, we should discuss this in private." In a golden flash, she was gone.
"Well, students, it appears you're going to have a free period," Discord said sadly. "For our next class, please read pages 327 through 243, in that order, in the textbooks I'll be giving you next Thursday." With that, he vanished, leaving a crowd of confused collegiates staring at each other and shrugging.
Discord found Celestia in the tower which once belonged to Twilight Sparkle. "And how may I be of assistance this fine day, Celestia?"
Celestia whipped around sharply. "What do you know of ancient Anugyptian curses?"
Discord blinked. "Anugyptian curses? You'll need to be more specific, I'm afraid. Every Anugyptian tribe had curses for everything from locusts to hangnails."
"The curse of Queen Neferkitti."
Discord's eyes fell out of his head. Then his head fell off his body. Then the rest of his mismatched parts fell apart. His eyes blinked up at Celestia. "Ne-Neferkitti?"
"Yes. Neferkitti."
Discord reassembled himself and shuddered. "Don't tell me some idiot actually brought her back from the dead."
"According to the report from Twilight Sparkle, that is precisely what has happened," Celestia said. "Already, all the water in Ponyville has turned into milk, and I've just received word that—"
"Cats, cats, yes, I know," Discord said distractedly. "And it's only going to get stranger from there." He chuckled. "They really knew how to party in those days."
Celestia groaned. "Discord...please, I'm asking you, go to Ponyville and—"
"Oh, I would love to, Your Highness, but I'm afraid I can't," Discord said.
Celestia frowned. "You would refuse me, after I have forgiven you time and again and you have yet to fully regain my trust?"
Discord sighed. "Look, Celie baby..." He put a paw around Celestia and leaned close. "Just between you and me...this is literally a problem I can't help with."
Celestia brushed his paw off and stepped aside, then glanced at him. "I'm afraid I don't understand," she said. "Is not chaos your area of expertise?"
Discord grimaced. "I know it sounds like chaos magic, which is right up my alley, and if it were that simple, I'd put Ponyville right in a heartbeat...well, maybe. If a certain purple pony princess asked nicely. But the thing is...I can't counteract anything Neferkitti does."
"And why is that?"
"Because Neferkitti's power comes from the one type of magic neither of us has any dominion over," Discord said. "The magic of death."
Celestia frowned in confusion. "I don't quite follow."
Discord began to pace, puffing on the pipe which had reappeared along with the tweed jacket. "You and Luna control the sun and the moon, both of which give life and nourishment, yes?"
Celestia nodded.
"And all you ponies that control the weather, the seasons, the animals...everything pony magic does is, in some way or another, ultimately tied to the very lifeforce of Equestria, am I right?"
"Yes, of course," Celestia agreed. "Even dark magic such as King Sombra's is, in its own way, part of the balance of nature."
"Which is why it's impossible to destroy dark magic altogether," Discord said. "Only suppress it." He blew a smoke ring shaped like a hawk eating a snake. "The same is true of chaos magic." He gave Celestia a sharp, piercing look. "Tell me, Celestia. In all the time you've known me, in all the quarrels we've had...during all that time I ruled Equestria and amused myself with all your precious little ponies..." He narrowed his eyes. "Did I ever once kill a single one of your subjects?"
Celestia blinked, her brow furrowing. "I...honestly don't know," she admitted. "I don't remember anypony ever actually dying back then, but things were very chaotic, and—"
"The answer is no," Discord interrupted. "I have never taken a life. Turned ponies upside down, brainwashed them, driven them insane, flung them into other dimensions, yes. And yes, those are terrible things and I assure you I'm quite ashamed of myself." He tossed his pipe into the air; it turned into a flying fish and swam through a wall. "But at no point in all my long years of life have I ever directly caused the death of another living being. And do you know why that is?"
"I'm almost afraid to ask," Celestia said, a faintly nauseated look on her face.
"Because death is the ultimate expression of order," Discord said. "Death is an absolute. It is the inescapable finality of life. It is the very antithesis of chaos." He cracked his back and let out a loud sigh.
Celestia blinked, her muzzle crinkling. "That...is very profound, actually," she said. "And makes quite a bit of sense. But I don't understand what it has to do with what is most assuredly chaos running loose in Ponyville."
Discord sighed. "Celestia, the dead coming back to life is...it's unnatural. It defies the order of the world. It spits in the face of an absolute law of existence." He gave Celestia the most solemn, serious look she'd ever seen on his face. "Life is chaos, Celestia. Life is chaos, and death is order. Now, given that, what do you think undeath is?"
Celestia frowned. "An abomination."
"An abomination," Discord repeated, "which will resist the magic of life in every form."
"Including yours," Celestia said, comprehension dawning. She shook her head. "So how can we stop Neferkitti, if the magic of life won't work against her or her curse?"
Discord sighed. "You just answered your own question," he said.
Celestia paused, tilting her head. As the answer came to her, she went pale, her ears and wings drooping.
* * * * *
The situation in Ponyville had deteriorated by lunchtime.
Despite their best efforts, Twilight Sparkle and her friends had completely failed to make any headway against the tidal wave of cats swarming through Ponyville. Other ponies were trying to help, but so many ponies had been clawed, scratched, or were suffering so severely from cat allergies that most of Ponyville had shut themselves up tight in their homes, occasionally expelling the odd hissing, spitting cat.
The cats were hiding everywhere, shredding things, tearing up flowerbeds, using the dirt roads as a giant litterbox, and making a terrible racket.
And then, just past noon...
"Twilight!" Rainbow Dash cried as she flew up to Twilight and Fluttershy, who were still rescuing ponies from the cats in the streets. "Somethin' REALLY weird's goin' on out by Fluttershy's cottage!"
"M-my cottage?" Fluttershy squeaked. "M-my safe place?"
"What's going on?" Twilight asked.
"You gotta see this for yourselves," Rainbow said. She led the way; Twilight and a panicking Fluttershy followed in her wake.
As they neared the stream at the edge of town, a ball of lime-green yarn whizzed past them. Twilight skidded to a halt, turning to stare. "What?!"
Fluttershy's irises shrank to pinpricks. "M-my..."
Twilight and Rainbow were blown aside as Fluttershy sped off to her cottage. They only had time to blink at each other before a horrified scream of rage shook Ponyville.
"MY YARN! MY KNITTING! YOU BAD, BAD KITTIES!"
A dozen cats ran back the way they'd come, bouncing unraveling balls of yarn between them. Fluttershy gave chase, screaming bloody murder.
As Twilight and Rainbow watched, another ball of yarn, maroon this time, flew past. Shaking herself, Twilight sped off to Fluttershy's cottage.
The inside was a mess. Fluttershy's animals were locked in combat with several cats, while several more were streaming in and out of a secret door hidden behind a bookcase. Every now and then, a ball of yarn bounced up the hidden stairs; a line of cats would bounce the yarn out the front door and send it flying into Ponyville.
Twilight frowned and teleported past the cats into the secret room below. She stared in astonishment at what she found.
Against all logic, against all reason, Fluttershy had a cavernous cellar, lit by a single bare electric bulb, which was full of knit crafts. Everywhere she looked, there were objects made from yarn—butterflies, bunnies, goblins, flowers, stars, moons, and even a giant crochet dragon.
There were also dozens of balls of yarn, and the cats were getting into it and making a mess. Even more cats were methodically tearing apart some of the knitcrafts and winding the loose yarn back into balls.
Twilight's ears wilted. "What..."
"Whoa!" Rainbow said from behind her. "Where'd all this come from?"
Twilight frowned. "Looks like Fluttershy has a secret hobby," she said.
Suddenly, three cats pounced on Rainbow, winding yarn around her wings and hooves. She cried out in alarm as she was suspended from the ceiling in a giant cat's cradle. "GAH! Get me down from here!" She flailed helplessly around, tail lashing wildly.
Twilight watched the cats prowl around her, mischievous grins on their faces. Her ears fell. In a burst of light, she and Rainbow Dash were outside the cottage, hovering over a yarn ball brigade of cats.
Angel Bunny was wound up tight in a ball of pink yarn, looking utterly put out. Many of Fluttershy's other critter friends were similarly ensnared.
"Oh boy," Twilight muttered.
* * * * *
Somehow—and try as she might, Applejack still couldn't figure out exactly how it had happened—she and Rarity had managed to get stranded on the roof of Sugar Cube Corner during the cat stampede. While Rarity was throwing a tantrum, Applejack had tried to find a safe way to get down without getting buried in scratching, hissing, angry cats.
And then things got worse.
Now, not only were they stranded on the roof of Sugar Cube Corner, they were also completely ensnared in dozens of strands of yarn. As far as the eye could see, dozens of colors of yarn had been woven into an intricate cat's cradle in which at least a dozen ponies were trapped. The enormous, complicated yarn construct left dozens more ponies at a loss, as between the cats, the yarn, and the general confusion, nopony was quite sure how to navigate the streets—or skies—of Ponyville anymore.
"Nggh!" Applejack grunted as she pulled a hoof free from one loop of yarn, only two find it ensnared in two more. "Consarnit! Ah can't get—GAH!—loose from this crazy cat's cradle!"
"We're positively going to die up here, alone and forgotten!" Rarity wailed.
"Dang it all, Rarity! You gotta have SOME kinda spell t' deal with this!"
Rarity sniffled. "I...I don't think so, darling! I have no knitting needles, and pulling on the yarn with my magic is just as ineffective as what you're doing...!"
"Can't you, Ah dunno, teleport us offa this roof?"
"Don't you think I'd have already done that if I could?" Rarity said, all traces of drama switched off like a light. "In all the time we've known each other, have you ever once known me to teleport?"
Applejack paused in her struggles. "Well...now that you mention it, no," she said. She scratched her head, which led to her ear getting tied up in a double knot of yarn. "Y'mean you can't?"
"Hardly," Rarity sniffed.
"Huh," Applejack said. "Ah jes' thought that was somethin' all unicorns could do. Seein' as Twilight does it all th' time an' all."
"In case you hadn't noticed, Applejack, I am not Twilight Sparkle," Rarity said acidly. "Her magic is on a level far beyond your ordinary unicorn. Even before she became an alicorn."
"Well, yeah, Ah know that an' all," Applejack said. "Ah jes'..." She sighed. "Forget it."
Rarity sighed. "I'm sorry, Applejack. I'm just a bit..."
"Ah know," Applejack said. "It's okay." A long, uncomfortable moment passed in silence. "So...is there anything you can do about all this?"
Rarity paused and tilted her head. "As a matter of fact, there is." Her horn lit up.
The yarn ensnaring Applejack turned mostly black, with lovely brown accents that matched her complexion.
"There," Rarity said. "At least now you're in fashion for fall."
"Swell," Applejack said with half-lidded eyes.
* * * * *
"GET BACK HERE, YOU—!" Fluttershy screeched as she flew after several yarn-bouncing cats.
By the side of the road, Lyra and Bon Bon hung upside-down from a lamppost, bound tail to hoof in bright yarn.
"Wonder what's got her so wound up?" Bon Bon wondered.
Lyra glared at her.
"And where's Princess Twilight?" Bon Bon asked. "Is she just off woolgathering while all of Ponyville is wrapped up in misery?"
"If we ever get down from here, I am going to bite you," Lyra seethed.
* * * * *
It had taken over a hour for Rosetta Stone and Amber Glow to fight their way through the chaos in the streets and make their way out to Princess Twilight's castle. Fortunately, none of the madness that had overtaken Ponyville had touched the castle, and Twilight's young dragon assistant Spike had shown them to the library. Between the ample volumes of information the princess had on her own shelves and the materials the two of them had brought with them, they had almost every scrap of data on Anugypt the EEHS library in Canterlot had.
Unfortunately, it still wasn't enough.
Two hours after they'd started searching, Spike rushed in. "Uhh, guys? Not that I wanna rush you or anything, but things are getting REALLY weird down in Ponyville..."
"I know I had something here in my...notes..." Rosetta Stone trailed off, his ears pinning back as he stared at a page of his notebook.
"Vell?" Amber Glow demanded. "Did you find something?"
Rosetta Stone turned to her, face drawn and pale. "W-well...there is one other reference...listed...r-reference on...on Anugyptian curses..."
"Und?" Amber Glow bit off impatiently. "Spit it out, dummkopf!"
Rosetta Stone floated his notes over to her shakily. She frowned and looked down at the page. Her own ears fell flat, her eyes wide and disbelieving. "But...nein..."
Twilight Sparkle appeared in a magenta flash. "Any luck?" she asked tiredly.
"W-well," Rosetta Stone said, swallowing heavily. "There...might be a way to stop all this," he said.
"Yes?" Twilight's wings fluttered. "What is it?"
The two unicorns exchanged a solemn glance. Rosetta coughed. "Umm...it...it might require a certain, umm...book..." He adjusted his glasses. "Which...which may or may not even exist, you understand, it's all very vague and...and..."
"SPIT IT OUT!" Amber Glow roared.
Rosetta Stone jumped in alarm, then turned sheepishly to Twilight. "It's, it's, well..." He took a deep breath. "There's a legend of a book that was sacred to the cats of Anugypt." He looked at Amber Glow, then back at Twilight. "It's called the Nekonomicon."