//------------------------------//
// Enemy Colors 
// Story: Dueling Keyboards 
// by FanOfMostEverything 
//------------------------------//

An all-too-familiar flash of light made Twilight look up from her reading. Discord hovered before her, lion paw held out defensively, eagle talon behind his back. "Before you say anything, I didn't do it."

The unicorn rolled her eyes as she stood, floating her book back into its proper place in the Golden Oak’s shelves. "I don't even know what it is, but now I think you did."

"Your faith in me never ceases to amaze. But our interpersonal issues aren't the problem right now." Discord brought his talon into view, Scootaloo held in it. "This is."

Twilight tilted her head. The filly seemed rather grumpy about being held by Discord, but aside from that, she seemed fine. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? Can't you—" Discord cut himself off, his severed head doing a complete somersault before reattaching with a more thoughtful expression on it. "No, I suppose you can't. Pony eyes aren't nearly color sensitive enough to detect this sort of thing; that's why I designed the effect that way."

“What do you mean?” said Twilight as she narrowed her eyes.

“Somehow, through no fault of my own, this hyperactive hummingbird happened upon a bit of raw chaos magic. And wouldn’t you know it, it went and did to her what I did to you and your friends during our first little battle of wits.”

Twilight gasped. “You inverted her personality!?” Now that she thought about it, Scootaloo surely should’ve said something by this point, but she was still just sulking in Discord’s clutches.

Discord rolled his eyes. “No, some wandering scrap of chaos did. Probably blew out of the Everfree. Besides, if I had done it then…” His face twisted as he gritted his teeth.

“Then?”

Discord’s mouth was on top of his head by the time he brought himself to respond. “Then I’d be able to fix this myself.” He reached up with his free hand and readjusted his face. “I hate to admit any limitations, but without knowing precisely how that bit of wild magic did what it did, I could make the problem vastly worse.” He sighed. “So, go ahead, use whatever you did to undo it last time. It should work again.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Is this all just a ploy to find out how I broke that spell?”

“Wha…” Discord’s mouth worked wordlessly for a few moments. “No! This is not a ploy, a ruse, a cunning stratagem, or anything other than me asking for your assistance as a friend. Is it really so hard to believe I might be concerned about the welfare of…” He snorted and shook his head. “No, no, not even I could finish that with a straight face. But Scootabout really does need help, and she's going to make me look bad until she gets it.”

“I don’t know…”

Discord threw his lion arm up into the air, where it split into confetti and began reassembling itself. “Oh, come on! What do I have to do to convince you that this is serious?”

Rainbow Dash opened the library’s door. “Hey Twi, did you get that copy of—”

“YOU!” A sound so throat-tearingly furious had no right coming out of a mouth so young, but it did. Scootaloo thrashed with all the energy she’d lacked until now, tearing herself out of Discord’s talons and pouncing on Dash before either could react.

Dash blinked. "Uh, hi, Scoots. Happy to see you—"

Scootaloo silenced her with a punch to the face. “You are the cause of all the world’s problems! You don’t care about anypony else! Constantly puffing yourself up, exploiting others, putting them in danger, belittling them, sabotaging them, everything! You’re why my parents are dead!”

Dash just stared at her for a time before saying “Your parents are fine. I just passed by them on my way here.”

“While planning to murder them! You—” Scootaloo’s rant became muffled by the magical muzzle now around her lips as Twilight floated her writhing body away from Dash.

The older pegasus got to her hooves, wavering a little until she shook her head. “So, aside from learning how Scoots has a decent right, somepony wanna tell me what’s going on?”

Twilight looked at the floor. “Chaos magic that wasn’t Discord’s fault, hard as that may be to believe.”

Discord crossed his arms. “With compliments like that, you should take up tennis.”

“In the meantime, I’m about to restore Scootaloo’s memories.”

Scootaloo managed to whip her neck fast enough to cry “History’s greatest monster!” before the muzzle caught up to her.

Discord leaned on Rainbow Dash’s withers and closed her jaw. “What do you say we agree she was talking about me?”

She nodded. “Yeah, let’s go with that.”