//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5 
// Story: Pinkie Pie Clicks a Cookie 
// by Kwisatz Haderpone 
//------------------------------//

	The door to Fluttershy’s cottage burst open suddenly and Twilight Sparkle charged in. Spike and Applejack had elected to wait outside, figuring that one pony charging into the house unannounced would be a bit less of a shock for their easily-startled friend than the whole group marching in at once.
“Fluttershy! I need to talk to…” Twilight’s voice trailed off. Fluttershy was nowhere to be seen. “That’s odd. She’s usually here this time of day.”
Her gaze swept across the room before settling on the cross-looking white rabbit seated on a sofa at the far end of the room.
“Oh!” Twilight exclaimed. “Hello there, Angel Bunny. Is Fluttershy around?”
Without taking its eyes off her, the rabbit pointed one paw straight up into the air.
“She’s upstairs?”
The rabbit shook its head, and once again pointed up.
“Uh, she’s fixing the roof?”
The rabbit, clearly frustrated at Twilight’s inability to understand its obvious gestures, tried once more to convey its message, jabbing its paw repeatedly upward.
Twilight was completely clueless. “Sorry, I’m really not sure what it is you’re trying to tell me.”
The rabbit covered its face with its paws and groaned and shook its head in defeat.
“Um, Twilight?” a quiet voice sounded from above. “I’m up here.”
Twilight Sparkle looked up and immediately understood what the rabbit had been attempting to communicate to her. An upside-down Fluttershy looked back down at her from the ceiling. She was seated in an upside-down chair at an upside-down table, sipping from an upside-down cup of tea.
Across from her, also upside-down, sat that mishmash of assorted animal parts more commonly known as Discord, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony.
“Twilight Sparkle!” he exclaimed, a somewhat unsettling grin spreading across his face. “What a pleasant surprise! My dear friend Fluttershy and I were enjoying an afternoon tea. Why don’t you come on up and join us?”
“I—whoa!” Twilight cried out as gravity reversed itself around her and she fell up toward the ceiling, landing with a crash next to Fluttershy.
“Oh my! Are you okay, Twilight?” Fluttershy asked.
“Ugh.” Twilight struggled to her hooves. “I’m fine, Fluttershy.”
“You really should think twice before doing that, Discord,” Fluttershy scolded. “Twilight could’ve been hurt.”
“Oh, lighten up, Fluttershy. She said she was fine.” Discord turned his attention to Twilight. “So,” he said, filling a cup, “how do you take your tea? Salt? Mayonnaise? Perhaps a lump or two of radioactive cesium?”
“I’m not here for tea, Discord.”
“Ah, well, more for me, I suppose.” He downed the tea in a single gulp and tossed the empty cup over his shoulder. Twilight watched gravity take hold of the cup and carry it toward the ground. It landed with a dull thunk and began slowly melting into a puddle.
“That was my teacup,” Fluttershy said quietly. No one paid her any attention.
At that moment, Spike and Applejack barged into the house.
“Twilight! We heard you shout, and then there was a crash! Is everything…” Spike trailed off when he noticed the room was seemingly empty.
“What the hay is goin’ on in here?” Applejack said. “Where’s Twilight? And where’s Fluttershy, for that matter?”
“Hey!” Spike said, pointing toward the sofa. “Maybe Angel Bunny knows where they are!”
Twilight Sparkle knew firsthoof how that conversation was likely to go and decided to spare Spike the headache. “We’re on the ceiling, Spike.”
Spike and Applejack looked up, then looked at each other, then looked up again. Applejack spoke up first. “What are y’all doin’ on the ceiling?”
“Having a tea party, from the looks of it,” Spike said.
“Yes,” Discord interjected, “and we were having a lovely time, too, until you all barged in and started making all that racket.”
“Discord!” Applejack exclaimed. “We need to have a word with you! Come down from there!”
“Oh, I’m quite comfortable where I am, thank you very much. Why don’t you come up here instead?”
“Oh boy, here we go,” Twilight sighed.
Applejack yelled in surprise as she fell toward the ceiling and crashed into Twilight, leaving a bewildered Spike alone on the ground with the white rabbit.
“Discord!” Fluttershy said in what was, for her, a surprisingly harsh tone. “I just finished telling you not to do that. Please try to be nice.”
Discord shrugged. “Well, what else was I supposed to do? She’s an earth pony. She couldn’t very well fly up here on her own, now, could she?”
“Applejack?” Twilight said. “I’d very much appreciate it if you’d get off of me.”
“Sorry ’bout that, Twilight.” Applejack rolled off her friend’s back and rose unsteadily to her hooves. “Hey, where’s my hat?” She looked up and spotted it lying on the ground. It had, for some reason, failed to make the trip up to the ceiling with her.
“Well, that’s strange,” Discord remarked. “With the way you wear that thing everywhere you go, I always assumed it was attached to the top of your head like a barnacle or something.” He glanced over at Fluttershy, who was giving him a tentative smile, sighed, rolled his eyes, and snapped his claws, and an instant later, Applejack’s hat sat once again in its rightful place. “There. Right as chocolate rain. Don’t say I never did anything nice for you.”
Fluttershy beamed. “Oh, how wonderful! I always knew you had it in you, Discord.”
“Now, Fluttershy, stop it. You’re making me blush.” Discord was clearly not blushing.
“Ugh,” Spike said from the floor below. “I think I stepped in something.” He lifted his foot for a closer look. “Uh, I think this used to be a teacup.”
“Um, that was mine,” Fluttershy said. “Sorry. Oh, there are some towels in the second drawer on the left over there if you’d like to clean yourself up.”
“Wait a second,” Applejack said suddenly. “This isn’t my hat. My hat’s still lyin’ up there on the floor.” The others on the ceiling all looked up (well, down, but up from their perspective) and, sure enough, there it was. “Where in the hay did you get this other hat from, Discord?” A worried look flashed across her face as she recalled his earlier remark regarding barnacles. She reached up with a hoof, and let out a sigh of relief when the hat lifted easily off her head.
“Now that’s definitely strange,” Discord said. “I’m certain I specifically summoned your hat to appear on your head. My magic must have pulled one of your spare hats out of your hat closet instead for some reason. Ah, well, that’s chaos for you. Nice and unpredictable.”
“Hey! How do you know about my hat closet?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Discord said, not sounding the least bit sorry. “I didn’t realize it was supposed to be a secret.”
“Will you two knock it off!” Twilight yelled. “This is not a productive area of discussion! We have to find out about—”
It was then that Rarity walked in. “Fluttershy, darling, are you busy? I have a bit of a cat situation and—oh, hello, Spike. How are you doing today? Is Fluttershy around?”
Spike took a break from cleaning liquid teacup off his foot to look up at her. “Run, Rarity. Don’t ask why. Just turn around right now and run out the door. Trust me on this one.”
A gasp drew Rarity’s attention toward the ceiling. “A cat situation? Oh dear. Is it Opal? Is the little darling okay?”
“Oh, my!” Rarity exclaimed. “What on earth are you all doing on the…” Her voice trailed off when she noticed Discord. “Ah. I see.”
“A pleasure to see you, too,” Discord said, not looking particularly pleased at all. “I’d invite you up, but, as you can see, it is starting to get a bit crowded up here.”
“I never thought I’d find myself agreein’ with Discord,” Applejack said, “but I really want to get down now.”
“Seconded,” Twilight said.
Even Fluttershy spoke up. “Actually, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I’d like to check on Rarity’s kitty.”
“Well, fine, then. Suit yourselves. The tea party was starting to drag on a bit there towards the end anyway.”
With a snap, Twilight Sparkle and Applejack once again found themselves falling victim to the force of gravity, while Fluttershy floated gently to the ground. Discord vanished with a flash of light and reappeared moments later with another flash of light on Fluttershy’s sofa, much to the surprise and dismay of the white rabbit who had up to that instant been its only occupant.
“Uh, Applejack? You kinda landed on me again.”
“I know, I know, hold your horses there, Twilight.” Applejack once again rose to her hooves. She instinctively reached up to straighten her hat, only to find it missing. A quick glance toward the ceiling showed her that, once again, her hat had been left behind. “Oh, for cryin’ out loud! It happened again!”
“Well, how about that,” Discord remarked. “One would almost think I was doing it on purpose.” He rolled up a sleeve, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. “Here, let me fetch you another.”
“No!” Applejack shouted before he could snap his claws. “Ah, I mean, y’all don’t have to do that.” She scooped up her first hat, the one that had remained on the ground when Discord pulled her to the ceiling, and set it atop her head. “See? All better. Not that I don’t trust you or anything, but… well, yeah, I don’t trust you.”
“Come now, Applejack, don’t be like that. At least let me get your other hat off the ceiling for you.”
“You know what?” Applejack said. “You keep it. I’ve got a whole closet full at home.”
“Very well, if you insist.” Discord stretched an arm up and plucked the hat from the ceiling and planted it on his head. “Hmm. Not quite my style, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts.” A snap of his claws, and the hat was suddenly topped with a small heap of assorted fruits and vegetables. “Now that’s more like it.”
Discord reached up, plucked a banana from the hat, slowly and deliberately peeled it, ate the peel, and tossed the remainder over his shoulder. Four ponies, a baby dragon, and a white rabbit watched the banana arc toward the ceiling and splatter against the abandoned upside-down table. A long moment of awkward silence ensued.
Rarity was the first to speak up. “Well,” she said. “That was most certainly… something.” She turned to Fluttershy. “It would seem I have come at a bad time. Perhaps I should return later, when you have finished up with… whatever it is you all are doing here.”
“Oh, no, Rarity,” Fluttershy said. “It’s no problem at all. Especially if you have a cat emergency you need help with.” She looked around. “Where is Opal, by the way?”
“Fluttershy, you are too kind, really. I left Opal’s carrier just inside the—”
Rarity was interrupted mid-sentence by Rainbow Dash, who chose that moment to burst in through the window and straight into an unfortunate Twilight Sparkle, tackling her to the ground. With a hasty apology, she disentangled herself from the purple pony. Her eyes swept quickly across the room before settling on her primary target.
“Discord!” In an instant, she was hovering before him, jabbing an accusing hoof in his face. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, pal! I’ve got half a mind to mmph hmmph hmm!” Her shouting was suddenly cut off when Discord plucked a head of cabbage from his hat and wedged it into her mouth.
“Rainbow Dash. How nice of you to stop by. Though I really wish you wouldn’t talk with your mouth full.” He glanced around the room, ticking off ponies on his eagle claw. “Three, four, five. Hmm. We appear to be one short.”
Right on cue, Pinkie Pie bounced in through the front door, nearly colliding with Fluttershy, who was yanked out of the way at the last moment by Rarity.
“Hey, Fluttershy!” Pinkie said. “Dashie and I have some questions about kittens for you!”
“Ah, there she is,” Discord said. “Running a bit late, but better late than never, as they say.”
“Late? Late for what?” Pinkie’s eyes darted back and forth across the room, looking for signs of fun. “Did you guys start the party without me? Wait! I didn’t know there was gonna be a party! Why didn’t anypony invite me? Oh! Is it a surprise party? Where’s the cake? And the streamers? And the balloons? And the music? No bobbing for apples? No pin the tail on the pony? No punch? Wow. I gotta say I’m disappointed in all of you. This isn’t a very good party at all. I thought I taught you better than this.”
Rainbow Dash, having finally managed to extract the head of cabbage from her jaws, shouted, “Pinkie! There’s no party! We came here to yell at Discord, remember?”
“We did? I thought we were here to find out if kittens can eat chocolate.”
Rainbow groaned and buried her face in her hooves.
Fluttershy was still recovering from the shock of having both Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie crash into her house in quick succession, but her ears perked up at Pinkie’s question. “Oh, no, Pinkie! You can’t feed chocolate to cats! It’s toxic to them!” Her eyes widened as her mind made the logical connection to Rarity’s situation. “Oh no! Tell me you didn’t feed Opal chocolate! Oh, dear! The poor little thing! She needs immediate medical attention!”
Rarity chimed in before Fluttershy could descend into a full-blown panic. “Fluttershy, dear, do calm down. Opalescence is not ill. I am quite certain she hasn’t eaten any chocolate.”
“She hasn’t?”
“Not at all.”
Fluttershy calmed significantly. “Oh, thank goodness! I was so worried. But, um, if she’s not sick, then what happened that you needed to see me?”
“Oh, it’s nothing too serious,” Rarity said. “Opal is in one of her moods again, and I—”
Rainbow Dash cut in suddenly. “Yeah, yeah, stop the presses, your cat’s a jerk. We got bigger problems right now.” She ignored the glare Rarity was leveling at her and jabbed an accusing hoof at Discord. “He’s been causing trouble in Ponyville again!”
“Who, me?” Discord held a paw to his chest, and a halo blinked into existence hovering above his towering fruit-and-vegetable hat. He was the very picture of innocence. “But I’m reformed, remember?” He dragged a surprised Fluttershy into a slightly-too-tight embrace. “My dear friend Fluttershy here saw to that.”
Fluttershy squeaked.
“You see? She agrees with me. Now, I don’t know what piddling little thing it is that has you all so worked up as to bust in here and give poor little Fluttershy such a fright, but I can assure you I had nothing to do with it.”
“Hmph. A likely story.”
“Um, actually, Rainbow,” Fluttershy spoke up, “I think he’s telling the truth.”
Rainbow did a double take. “Wait, what?”
“Well, you see, he’s been here with me all day. He can’t have caused any trouble in town.”
Discord grinned. “Oh, Fluttershy, I could just hug you.”
“But you already are hugging me…” Fluttershy squeaked again as Discord squeezed her just a little tighter.
“But— but—” Rainbow Dash sputtered. “It has to be you! There are marshmallow clouds raining strawberry milk all over Sugarcube Corner right now! And the kittens! Hundreds of kittens! You must have hypnotized them with your freaky magic or something!”
Discord shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, Rainbow Dash. It does sound an awful lot like something I would do, and I wish I could take credit for it, but the fact of the matter is that I am innocent. Maybe some other spirit of chaos and disharmony is on the loose in Ponyville.”
Rainbow was about ready to explode when Applejack spoke up. “Now wait just one apple-pickin’ minute here. What’s all this about kittens and marshmallows and strawberry milk? I thought we were here about the cookies.”
Rainbow gave Applejack a blank look. “The what now?”
“I don’t think I have any cookies,” Fluttershy said quietly.
“Now that you mention it,” Rarity said, “as I was walking up, I noticed that somepony has left a tub filled with cookies out by Fluttershy’s mailbox. Is that what you’re referring to, Applejack?”
“No. Well, yes. Maybe?” Applejack shook her head. “To be honest, it’s all mighty confusin’ to me. Twilight said she can explain, and I’m anxious to hear what she has to say.”
“Cookies?!” Rainbow exclaimed, before Twilight could even open her mouth. “Who cares about cookies? We gotta stop Discord before he turns Town Hall into tomato soup or something!”
“Oh, come now, Rainbow Dash,” Discord protested, “you can’t possibly still think I’m to blame! Not after Fluttershy came up with that brilliant alibi for me!”
“It really wasn’t all that brilliant, you know,” Rarity interjected. “Er, no offense, Fluttershy.”
“None taken,” Fluttershy responded.
“Yes, well, as I was saying,” Rarity continued, “we know all too well that you are perfectly capable of creating chaos in Ponyville from right here. A quick snap of your, er, claws while Fluttershy is distracted for a split second. It’s not hard to imagine.”
“Yeah, what she said!” Rainbow added.
Discord threw his arms up, dropping Fluttershy unceremoniously to the floor, and let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know why I expected anything more out of you lot. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t trust me at all.” His towering fruit-and-vegetable hat drooped slightly, and several raisins dropped off, plumped into grapes, and rolled across the floor.
Rainbow Dash looked good and ready to let him have another few earfuls, but before she could get back to accusing him, Twilight grabbed her tail with her magic and pulled her back down to earth.
“Let me try talking to him, Rainbow.” Twilight turned to Discord. “You want us to start trusting you, Discord? I’m going to give you a chance to start earning that trust.”
Discord folded his arms. “I’m listening.”
“Right. Here’s how it’s gonna go. I’m going to ask you a question and you’re going to answer it. If you’re honest, you earn trust points. If you lie—and believe me, I’ll know—you lose trust points. And you really can’t afford to lose very many of those. Got it?”
“Sounds straightforward enough. Ask away.”
“Okay.” Twilight cleared her throat. “Discord, did you leave a cookie button in Pinkie Pie’s room last night?”
Rarity and Fluttershy exchanged confused glances. Rainbow whispered a question to Applejack, who shrugged. Pinkie leaned in slightly to hear Discord’s response.
“That’s it? That’s your big question?” Discord chuckled. “And here I thought you were going to give me a hard one. Yes, that was me.”
Twilight Sparkle, having half-expected him to outright deny it, was momentarily surprised into speechlessness.
Pinkie Pie gasped. “I should have known! It all makes perfect sense! Wait, no, it doesn’t. Wait! Yes! No! No! Yes! Of course! It was a birthday present all along!”
“How does that make any kind of sense?” Applejack asked. “It’s not even your birthday! And what the hay’s a cookie button anyway?”
“It’s a button that makes cookies, duh! And obviously it was a surprise birthday present! What’s more surprising than a birthday present when it’s not even your birthday?”
“I gotta say,” Discord remarked, “she really gets me. Happy birthday, by the way.”
“I don’t get it,” Fluttershy said.
“Nor do I,” Rarity agreed.
“This is nuts!” Rainbow exclaimed. “Why are we wasting our time talking about cookies? What about the marshmallow clouds? The strawberry rain? The kittens?!”
“If everypony would just STOP YELLING for one minute I’d be happy to explain!” yelled Twilight.
A few moments of silence.
“Much better. Ahem. Now then, the reason I’m trying to talk about cookies is because I believe that it’s the cookies that are causing trouble in Ponyville and not Discord.”
A few more moments of silence.
“Twilight, dear,” Rarity said, “I must admit I find this difficult to believe.”
“But I have evidence! Spike and I proved through scientific experimentation that the cookies made by the button are contaminated with chaos magic! And if they’re—”
“You know what else is contaminated with chaos magic, Twilight?” Rainbow interrupted. “I’ll give you a hint: it’s Discord! And let’s face it, this is exactly the kind of stuff he loves to pull!”
“But—” Twilight stopped suddenly. Rainbow Dash was making a surprising amount of sense, and Twilight considered the possibility that her friend might actually be right. She turned to Discord. “You know, she has a point.”
Discord frowned. “Really, now, Twilight, I answered your question honestly, didn’t I? I earned those trust points fair and square. Is it so much to ask that you give me the benefit of the doubt?”
“Oh, I believe you wouldn’t risk your friendship with Fluttershy by doing something as blatantly obvious as whipping up marshmallow clouds and strawberry rain in the middle of Ponyville. But I wouldn’t put it past you to give a magic button to Pinkie and let her make some chaos while you sit back and avoid taking any blame!”
“That’s preposterous!” Discord protested. “How is she supposed to create chaos with a magic cookie button? All it does is make cookies. Everypony loves cookies!”
“Not if they’re contaminated with chaos magic!”
“‘Contaminated’ is hardly the word I’d use. It can’t be more than a trace of magic, not even enough to harm a fly.”
“But what if you made a dozen cookies? A hundred? More? How long before the accumulated magic starts to reach dangerous levels?”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous! The number of cookies you would have to click before you even start getting close to that point… well, let’s just say it’s far more than anypony in their right mind would ever—” Discord stopped suddenly as a disturbing thought crossed his mind. “Oh.” His eyes widened slightly. “Oh, dear. It would seem I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Moments later, a very similar disturbing thought crossed the minds of five of the ponies in the room. They all turned to look at the sixth.
“What are you all looking at?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Is there something on my face?”
“Pinkie,” Twilight asked, dreading the answer she would receive, “how many cookies have you clicked today?”
“Oh, about ten thousand four hundred seventy-six, give or take a few.”











For those of you who like numbers, let’s do a little cookie math together.
Pinkie Pie claims to have clicked 10,476 cookies. If we assume an average rate of 4 clicks per second (which I think is more than generous, considering the button measures 2 feet across and surely takes a bit of effort to push all the way down), it would have taken her 43 minutes and 39 seconds of continuous clicking to reach that number of cookies.
By comparison, Twilight’s magic finger, clicking at a much slower rate of 1 click every 10 seconds, would have taken over a day (29 hours and 6 minutes, to be exact) to click the same amount of cookies. Over the same 43 minutes and 39 seconds, the finger would have clicked 261 cookies, only 2.5% of Pinkie’s impressive feat.
In actuality, Pinkie Pie has been busy most of the day running a bakery and keeping an eye on Gummy and occasionally running off to harass Twilight and Applejack, and didn’t have time to just sit and click for 43 minutes straight. She did her clicking in small chunks here and there, whenever she had a few moments of free time, so it probably took her closer to a couple of hours. The finger, on the other hand, has no such restrictions, and so has been clicking nonstop since Twilight activated it. Even with all this extra time, though, it wouldn’t have even reached 900, much less the 10,476 that Pinkie clicked.
Now, just for fun, let’s say we were to take those 10,476 cookies and stack them up, one on top of the other, even though doing so would serve no practical purpose. This very unstable stack of cookies would reach about 435 feet high. To give you an idea of just how impressive that is, the famous statue that stands in the Manehattan harbor is only 305 feet tall, including the base and pedestal.
In conclusion, that’s a lot of cookies.