Discord Writes a Ship Fic

by Phoenix Quill

Practical Chaos Pt.1

Meanwhile, at the place with the thing...

The group continued down the hallway at a brisk speed, as Cave lead the way, Discord lazily floated above the group trying not to fall asleep as Cave continued to drone on. "And that's when I found out that one of the Cave's was obsessed with some kind of half spider, thing. Sold newspapers, didn't have any mind for science at all."

"Well," Wordsmith said with a frown, "that's certainly-"

"Uselessly boring," Discord said haughtily. "Listen, I didn't drag myself cross country to listen to you talk about yourself in other dimensions. I came over to see what you are doing with our funding."

Cave cleared his throat nervously before continuing on. "Ah yes, the funding. Well as you can see, due to your generous funding, we were able to expand our testing facility." He paused before a door that was marked with a sign warning about the dangers of opening it's doors too quickly. "In here is were we have the master control room for the test chambers, there's very sensitive equipment inside, so don't get all touchy feeley with everything, understood?"

The group nodded in agreement, and with their consent he kicked the doors as hard as he could. The sound of a pony screaming as he flew away from the door that struck him was quickly followed by the sound of something shattering. "Alright everyone, inspection time! What have you got for us?"

There were two ponies and a diamond dog in the room. The one that had gone for an unscheduled flight was currently pulling himself out from a glass table that had shattered under his weight, spilling the other's lunch all over him. "This one has canned spaghetti," one of them called from the back.

A normal pony would have been embarrassed and backed off quietly. Cave wasn't like any other pony. 'What are you all doing? What do I pay you for, loafing about? I need pictures, pictures of Spider-mare! I mean, results! SCIENCE!"

While Discord's group was confused, Discord himself and the employees of the room seemed nonplussed at the whole scene. "So, boss pony does not want my canned spaghetti?" The diamond dog said with a frown.

Silence sat in the room like an unemployed musician on a couch, and it was violently ejected when Cave threw a chair at the diamond dog, smashing into splinters on the dog's head. The dog whined and grabbed his head as Cave stood tall and towered over the cowering dog. "Do you know why I threw that chair at you?"

"Because you're trying to win an Oscar?" The dog offered with a smile.

Discord sauntered over and looked over the dog with what could pass for pity. "Cave, I don't think that was entirely necessary."

Cave was suddenly wearing very round thick framed glasses, where they came from nopony was sure. "Boss breaks chair over employee's face," Cave said with an air of a professor lecturing to a large group. "We've seen it, covered it." A panel opened up on a wall for a trio of large mechanical ponies to sing in a bass tone, "We've got farmers. Bum-ba-da-bum-bum-bu-du-ba!"

"Let's move along," Cave said swiping off the pair of glasses. Discord's group seemed much more unsure of this trip than they were before.

---

Elsewhere at the castle with the ponies... IN CANTERLOT!

"I'm so very glad to see you all here my little ponies," Celestia said to Twilight and her friends. She paused for a moment before adding, "And Stella." Stella waved energetically at the princess before a loud cough was heard off to the side of the throne. "Oh, Luna!" Celestia exclaimed, "I didn't see you there in my shadow. Glad you could make it at such an early hour."

Twilight felt an involuntary twitch of her wings as she looked at the clock. It was a little after two in the afternoon, and Luna looked as if the only thing keeping her standing was a comically large cup of coffee. "I couldn't sleep," Luna said in a monotone. "Especially since you had somepony ring a bell."

"Surely a little bell ringing wouldn't bother you." Celestia said with a smile.

"He was in my room."

"That sounds silly." Celestia returned.

"I think I gave him a concussion," Luna said with a frown before settling back into her sister's shadow.

"Anyway," Celestia continued. "We are gathered here today to discuss the Discord problem." Celestia's horn glowed as she pulled out a small stack of papers. "While I know that he's been having several moments together with the six of you."

"Seven." Starlight suddenly interjected.

"Seven," Celestia corrected.

"Eight" Stella said with a frown.

"I'm not addressing you," Celestia said, "I know you work with him but I'm talking about Twilight and her Ponyville friends."

"Then the Great and Powerful TRRrrrrrrRRRrrRRRRrrrrRRIXIE!" Trixie said with a particularly long rolling of her R's. "Would still make it eight."

Celestia began to rub her temples and closed her eyes. "Fine. EIGHT of you."

"What about me?" Spike said in a small voice. "Don't I count?"

"Spike," Celestia said with restraint in her voice. "I'm not in the mood for this. Just consider yourself as Twilight's uncounted shadow."

Spike drooped visually at this as Rarity spoke up. "I'm sorry Princess Celestia, I know Spike's a dragon, but he is a part of our group!"

"Rarity, be quiet." Luna said before downing more of her coffee. "You're all equal in my eyes, all ten of you."

"Yes," Celestia said. "Everypony is equal in my eyes. Except Twilight. She's special." She paused for a moment of thought before finishing with, "And Shabadoo my court jester." Shabadoo beamed brightly and made the sound of a bulb horn honking before playfully cavorting out of the room. "My speed you magnificent-"

"Sorry," Applejack interrupted. "But what is the purpose of me being here? I've got farmin' to do."

"Did somepony say anything? Celestia asked the group. Everypony, even King Thorax shook their heads while Applejack unleashed a storm of a thousand dirty words you can't write in a story rated for everypony.

---

Elsewhere at Aperture...

"Ahh, here we are," Cave said with the air of a gracious host as he opened the door to another room. "This here is one of our many testing chamber control rooms." He held the door open for the group as they fell into a line by the observation window.

"So what exactly are you testing here?" Hearthstone said as he tried to peer through the glass into the dark room. "I don't see much going on."

"This is our chamber for our multiverse initiative program," Cave said with pride. "We knew that you were coming and decided it would be a good exercise for our team to show you this before sending it off to the so-called, Cave Prime." He said the last two words with contentment.

"Mr. Johnson?" Screwball said with a frown, "you okay? You sounded as if you had contentment in your voice when you meant to have contemptment."

"Don't tell me how I feel when I hate not being the original," Cave grunted as he sat and spun in an office chair. "At least, that's what he says I am. Or said, it's been a while. ANYWAY!" He flipped a switch and lights came on through the other side of the window. This test chamber is something we put together just for you."

The chamber lights flickered for a few moments as the fosforescente tubes warmed up. When they finally became steady, it revealed a massive room with slate black walls, two openings, one of which had a lazer grid in front of it, two doors, one down and to the right, and one that was level with them and attached to a stationary platform on rails. The problem was there was no way to reach the platform, and it was too far away from the door.

"This test is called Practical Chaos, in honor of your very generous donation." Cave said with a smile. "We've taken surveys from our scientists, as well as your own ministry to see how far we can push ponykind in these test chamber scenarios." He casually flipped another switch and a large bulky computer began to spin reels and whir as it's printer spat out an image.

"If you look here on the map," he paused as the printer continued to use numbers, lines and other symbols to print out the map. Finally it was ready and he yanked it away, "this chamber has within it's confines a large maze one needs to navigate in order to get several cubes and spheres. The test subject, would then take those and place them where they belong to activate some portable surfaces, operate the platform, and escape the test chamber."

"Impressive," Discord said with a nod. "So, what did you learn from this test chamber?"

"Mostly that ponies can't see in the dark very well," Cave said with a grin. "But that problem is mostly licked, now we're going to be testing it again today."

"So who's the test subject? Hearthstone asked.

"Thank you for volunteering for the Aperture Science Multiverse Test Chamber Initiative," a robotic voice called from a speaker. "You, [subject name here] must be the pride of [subject hometown here]." With that, a trap door opened up, taking Hearthstone down a slide to the beginning of the test chamber.

---

At Canterlot Castle...

"As you can see, Discord's been rather busy lately."

"Busy is a bit of an understatement," Twilight said to Celestia as everyone looked at the leaning tower of fiction. "I don't think anypony on record has ever written so much of anything ever before, is this all romance?"

"Most of it," Celestia said with a frown. "I would hazard to say almost all of it is in some way Discord's version of a love story, but out of all these, I think that only five or so are complete stories."

"Only five?" Rarity said with a frown. "You would think that with this much paper he'd manage to have something worth while, don't you?"

"So," Dash said as flew in a reclining position, "Why do we have to look at it? It's not like this really involves us."

"May I sister," Luna asked with a smile."

"By all means, Luna," Celestia said with a hint of a smirk as Luna passed by to search through the stack. It didn't take very long before she had found what she wanted and floated it over for Rainbow Dash to read.

Rainbow Dash looked at the small papers, and turned it over a few times. "Out to sea, what the hay does this mean?" She then turned passed the title page and began to read. At first she looked annoyed, then confused, and then finally angry. "WHAT?" I don't. I mean, what the... I couldn't, no way!"

Rarity, who was reading over her shoulder gave a rather bored looking shrug as she interjected, "Well, I'm sure you could with the right stretching before such a rigorous," she paused at the looks everypony was giving her and gave them all a very confused look. "What?"

"That's not all I'm afraid," Celestia said with a serious look on her face. "Discord had made stories about almost everypony he either knows, or managed to pull out of an address book." She then started pulling out and passing some of the bound up sheets of paper. "It's all here, black and white in some cases, and crayon in others. Discord has, shipping sickness."

Everypony gasped while Spike gave off a resounding, "BUM-Ba-BUMMM!"

---

Back at the science place

"Look it really doesn't look that hard, why isn't he moving?" Screwball then tried to grab a microphone on the control desk before Cave slapped it away with his hoof. "Ow, what was that for?"

"No coaching," Cave said in the same flat tone he'd used the last thirty times he's said it. He then pressed a button on the desk and spoke into the microphone himself. "Cave here, listen, I know that you've been a war hero, a soldier, have a boss that was banned to the moon by her slightly chubby older sister, but you know what that makes you, brave. Now lets get out there, and do this thing! Could use a little more hustle on the test however."

Hearthstone rolled his eyes and gave off a grunt. "Are you seriously expecting me to wander in that pitch black maze, with no flashlight and searching for stuff I don't know what it looks like, where I MIGHT run into a turret."

"Will run into several turrets actually," Cave interrupted over the loudspeaker.

"Fine, WILL run into, but I don't have ANY IDEA WHAT THAT IS!" He paused to catch his breath. "Or I can prove how dumb this whole test chamber is in like, two seconds." He waited for a response, and saw the silhouettes up in the observation window look like they were laughing at something, while cave tried to choke Discord's disembodied head. "Right, let's do this."

He then spread his wings, and flew up to the small recessed platform, where the door immediately opened for him to let him out of the test. He made a right into another hall and opened the door to the observation room. "This chamber is flawed in design, and I vote not to endorse funding for this project."

"Now wait a minute," Cave said as he waved his hooves back and forth. "I'm pretty sure that non flying creatures are meant for this," he then looked over a few scattered papers on the desk. "Yes, here it says that some bipedal creatures of some sort are to use this test chamber, uses claw like appendages..." he then trailed off into mumbles before pressing down on a button and yelling into a microphone, "BARKER! GET IN HERE!"

The doors to the observation chamber in less than a second, revealing a slightly panting diamond dog. "Yes? Pony boss call?"

"Barker, I want you to get in there and demonstrate this test chamber!" He then tapped his hoof on the ground twice before pointing out the window. "Come on, chop chop, what am I paying you for?"

"Boss," Barker said with a sigh. "This one designed Practical Chaos. This one would be unfair to send into chamber to solve in seconds."

"Hmm," Cave rubbed his chin with a hoof. "Alright, you're excused. Go clean the colt's room or something." He then turned to look at the group in the room with him. Wordsmith did his best to hide behind his boss, while Screwball was actively jumping with a hoof jammed into the air and a grin on her face. "Hmm," Cave repeated as he thought it over.

He looked at Hearthstone once again, and shook his head. "No, we just tried that..." He then looked at Discord and gave a smile. "Yes, you should do."

Discord raised an eyebrow at this. "Me?" The draconequus pointed at himself as he gave a rather smug grin. Alright, I'll bite, why me?"

"Why not?" Cave said with a shrug before pushing a button opening a trap door. Slightly to the left and behind Discord. Unfortunately for Wordsmith, that was where he was standing. "Huh, must have moved the desk," Cave said with a frown before looking into the chamber. "Alright blue boy, let's get a move on!"

Wordsmith looked around the room he was ejected into and took a step forward. "Okay, I can do this..." He took a few more steps forward and looked left to see a laser grid blocking his path. A different, thinner red laser however was pointed right at him. "Hey, what's this red dot on my barrel?"

"There you are," an electronic voice called out in a sinister tone before Wordsmith heard the electronic whir of servos opening up. He looked through the grid and saw a tall ovoid shaped thing with a red eye open it's sides before a series of popping noises came out of it.

Wordsmith ran across the room into another small chamber, and looked up to see a hole near the top of the wall. As he looked, he paused for breath. That was when the floor moved up to put him level with the tight, dark hallway. And there, at the end of the hall, was a pair of smooth white hard plastic looking gauntlets.

---

Princess Luna opened a drawer and used her magic to pull out a small collection of papers. She eyed the sheets for a few moments before she started to laugh a little. "What's so funny?" Twilight said with a tilt of her head.

"Nothing much Caffeine Queen," Luna said with a smile before tossing over the papers. "Just take a look at that."

"Starswirl and the Cursed Colt?" Twilight read aloud before tossing the story away. "Princess, I thought that we were here to do something."

"We are," Rarity trilled out as she moved through another stack of papers. "It's called entertaining ourselves while we wait for him to return."

Twilight gave a dismissive snort as she made herself comfortable on a sofa. "What entertainment could you possibly get out of Discord's writing, I ask you?"

Fluttershy gave a soft shushing sound as she turned another page to see a rather crudely drawn picture of a pony getting struck by an arrow with heart shaped tips. "I'm trying to read, if that's okay that is."

"Whatcha find?" Rainbow Dash asked as she swooped in to look over her friend's shoulder. "Is it about Applejack?"

"Please, nopony would want to write about Applejack," Starlight said with a wave of her hoof. "She's so..." she looked over to see Applejack giving a look of lasers coming out of her eyes. "Dependable, and trustworthy that nothing interesting happens to her because she's the best pony ever."

Applejack gave a look that clearly said that Starlight should avoid sleep for a few days while Fluttershy, oblivious to the drama, gave a short giggle before turning the page to show them all. "No, this story is about..."

---

A Diamond in the Rough.

"FORE!" Rarity trilled as she used her magic to swing the club at the small white ball. She missed the ball entirely, and the club went on swinging until it flew off into Spike's back. "YEOW!"

"Be quiet Spike," Rarity said as she threw her hoof out to slap him across his weird ear flappy floop things. in all seriousness, what are those things on the side of his head for? "Golf is a serious game of serious seriousness." she said matter o-factly.

"Whatever you say, my..." he paused, not wanting to go on and admit the thing that A BLIND DEAF AND DUMB SEA CUCUMBER CAN KNOW I MEAN COME ON SERIOUSLY? he dare not admit, for he was far too insecure with himself to ever just get on with it.

"Yes yes, go on then and back up," Rarity said with a wave of her hoof. "You're blocking my swing." She then gave a mighty swing before Spike could react, and sent the ball flying high and left, right into a small forest. "Darn it all," Rarity said in a most lady like way.

"Oh I'll get it Rarity," he then mumbled "my sweet," under his breath as he hovered with his arms folded. It's weird how ponies and dragons and such can do that witout wings, isn't it?

Rarity gave a sigh as she put the club into it's bag. "No," she said with a frown. "It's quite alright. Here," she then floated over a small collection of bits. "Go to the clubhouse and get yourself a treat. Afterward I want you to go ahead and buy a replacement ball, just to be safe."

Spike looked at the coins and his eyes gleamed. "Okay Rarity, I'll be right back!" "Take your time darling," Rarity said with a smile. And with that, Spike ran off to the clubhouse at the far end of the course.

Rarity used her magic to have the golfbag follow her as she made a leiserly stroll over to the clump of trees. There, she followered the paith of where she assumed the ball flew off. "Mayhap I shal find out where my ball went on it's own before Spike returns here, and I can play in,"

Her thoughts were inturupted when a great shadow loomed over her. "Poni with hots pants finds this ball, yes?"

Rarity felt her skin crawl at the accent and knew before she looked around. There, just in back of the tree, was a diamond dog holding her ball.

"Ah, yes indeed." Rarity said in the absolute most posh voice she knew, "That is indeed mine, perchance I can have it?"

---

"Why'd you stop?" Rainbow Dash asked before chewing on a piece of popcorn.

"Well," Fluttershy said with a frown. "It doesn't seem to go anywhere after that. There's some notes here, something about finding diamonds in a hole, a cream filled marshmallow, I'm not sure if he's trying to be lewd or clever."

"Either way," Luna said, "Things are getting too far out of hoof. I mean, just look at Rarity." She then pointed a hoof over to the alabaster unicorn, who had read ahead in the story, was now curled up in a ball on the floor and stroking her tail while whimpering.

Comments

[Snowdrifter]

10307571
Nope, Monty Python's Flying Circus.

[Astelle Evening Star]

10307660
Uncle Monty. Or Montgomery Montgomery. He was a herpatologist. A scientist who delt with snakes.