So Long, and Thanks for All the Ponies

by Sir Ginger

Part 15- Discordant

“Improbability Factor one to one, normality restored!”
Zaphod was pacing. His hooves, encased as they were in solid Fabulosium alloy horseshoes, kicked up sparks. “For Zarks sake Eddie! We can’t just go picking up every group of zeebs we find floating around in space! It’s getting old real fast!”
“Didn’t it work out fine last time buddy?”
Zaphod glanced at the other ponies sharing the bridge with him. He took slightly too long to reply. “I guess so...”
“Can we just get a look at them on the screen?” Dash interjected. "I hope they’re some kind of weird alien. Like a dragon, but made of fire! Or, some kind of awesome thing with hundreds of tentacles, or some alien warrior in full armour! That would be so awesome!”
“Sure thing buddy!”
A visi screen flicked on, displaying a view of the new guests. There was a silence as each pony grasped what they were seeing.
“Ohmygosh!”
“It’s them!”
“How wonderful!”
Zaphod gave the others a look. “You... know these ponies?”
“Darling, they were, well, oh my, well they escaped Equestria with us! I can’t believe we never told you about them!”
“Zarking Fardwarks, so we happened to pick up ponies you know, on top of picking them up inside that thirty second survival window for anypony ejected into space?”
Eddie cut in. “Nope, we picked them up from the middle of a party on the surface of a planet! That’s even less likely!”
Zaphod facehoofed. “Does this sort of thing happen every time this thing gets turned on? Oh god, this could NOT get any weirder.”

This observation would confuse any intelligent observer, because it is the sort of comment that is only ever made when it is about to be proved spectacularly wrong.

“Wait... is that who I think it is?” Zaphod had finally looked closer at the pink pony currently hopping with glee in circles on the screen. He peered closer, pulling his Joojanta 200 super-chromatic peril-sensitive sunglasses (this particular pair, having a better than average sense of peril, had been permanently blacked out since purchase) to get a better look. “I know that crazy frood!”
“You what?” Incredulity overcame joy in Rarity for a moment.
“Crazy cat, loves to party, odd ability to see what’s happening and spends most of her life ignoring the laws of reality like the petty nuisances they are?”
“Yes...”
“Yeah, I know her. Ok, I’m going to need more olives, and if she doesn’t FREAK when she sees how cool I am about seeing her I will be sorely disappointed in myself!”

*

Pinkie Pie was literally jumping for joy. Her current biggest problem was that she usually jumped for joy, so she was struggling to come up with a suitable visual indicator of just how particularly over the moon she was right now. Here she was, reunited with her best friends, with the inclusion of a long lost party buddy to boot. On the most expensive stolen ship in the universe, capable of doing anything. It was all too good to be true. She hopped gaily towards the nearest door, operating on pure instinct as to the right way.
“Pleased to open for you!” said the door as it did so.
“Thank you!”
“It is my pleasure to open for you and my satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done!”
“Thank you!”

For reasons of concision, the proceeding ten-or-so miniature conversations with cheerfully helpful doors has been cut from this edition of this story by the Arcturan Society for Cutting to the Damn Chase Already. Suffice it to say that by the time our ponies and dragon arrived at the bridge, the impressiveness of talking doors had begun to wear off, and all except Pinkie Pie were already sick of hearing how much they had illuminated the life of a humble door by the simple act of passing through it.

The bridge was occupied predominantly by Zaphod. His posture exerted a strange control over the focus of the room as he lay with exquisitely crafted nonchalance on the sofa, sipping a drink as if he could take it or leave it, but it was still the most interesting thing available.

In the corner, the heart of the Heart of Gold dripped brown sweetness.

The effect was spoiled slightly by the group hug of exuberant joy that exploded in front of him. It really is pointless to try and describe adequately the simple heartwarming joy of friends reunited. There were happy tears, gabbled questions, snatches of stories and growing storm of joyful laughter, culminating in a large heap of pony happiness on the floor. It took quite some time before Zaphod felt he could interject and be heard without giving the impression that he particularly cared about being noticed. He had used the time to have several drinks, and both of his heads were feeling more than a little woozy. “Hey guys, glad you new guys could make it!”

In the corner, unseen by anypony, the drip had become a flow.

Zaphod was hit full in the face by a force of nature known only as Pinkie Pie. “Guys?” Pinkie said, her head rising above the tangle of hooves. “I want you to meet my friend Zaphod!”

The pony hug, having not yet run out of energy for love, migrated swiftly to the couch to engulf a protesting Zaphod in general friendliness.

The flow became a torrent.

An explosion. Searing light burst from the machine in the corner, which seemed to fold in on itself as the light poured out, and seemed to pool in the centre of the room. Everypony stopped dead, dumbstruck. Staring. Each pony backed away from the light, hovering eerily. (The light that is to say; the ponies were not hovering eerily. Indeed, apart from Rainbow Dash there was no hovering on their part at all. Isn’t grammatical ambiguity a bitch?)

There was, as is traditional on occasions such as this, a long, triumphant laugh. It started out deep, grating, shaking the room around them until it built to a high pitched crescendo. It was a laugh that plainly said “I have already won, the rest of the universe just hasn’t realised yet, and that is hilarious.”
In the middle of the room, a shape slowly formed, and the laugh stopped coming from everywhere, and started coming from somewhere. That somewhere was a face only a mother could love, and only then if said mother was blind, manic and on at least four varieties of psychoactive drugs.

Vaguely pony shaped, but gaunt, drawing up from an overlong muzzle into two mismatched eyes with a gleam of pure malicious joy deep in them. A mane that appeared to give up any effort as it travelled down a neck to a reptilian body, from which limbs seemingly collected at random from a highly successful zoo stuck out as though not entirely sure they wanted to be a part of the creature to which they belonged. For now, all four limbs, head and draconic tail were curled up in a ball, shaking with glee as Discord, the spirit of all chaos, disharmony and, on occasion mischief, hovered before them, laughing himself silly(er).
His voice was as rich and smooth as dark chocolate, and as poisonous as that same chocolate after several years soaking in aqua Fortis. As he laughed, it rose in pitch to almost a squeal of mirth.
“THE LOOK!” He gasped, his voice peaking like an excited child. “The look on your faces! I NEVER get sick of that!” He dropped to the ground, his hoof and paw raising small clouds of dust from the floor as they came down. “Almost worth being imprisoned for, just being able to break out and watch everyone nearly die on the spot!” He snickered, then fell backwards again into helpless mirth, once again floating off the floor.
“Discord.” Twilight’s voice was dangerous. “What are yommmmmmf!” Suddenly her muzzle was tied up with bright purple ribbon, which snaked its way around her head, silencing her instantly.
“HEY!” Dash was immediately on the offensive, making a dive for the draqoniquis still laughing his head off. “Who do you think yoummmmffffff!” a sizeable ball of sky blue ribbon had caught her full in the face, stopping her mid dive, before curling disturbingly over her face and body, binding her jaw and then her wings.
Discord snapped his fingers, and everypony present found their mouths similarly bound. “That’s better.” He reached out for a bottle of dark green liquid from a nearby table. “Now I can monologue in peace. Do any of you have any idea how hard it is to write good believable dialogue involving nine characters? Consider this my little gift to the author.” He pulled a large white plate out from behind his ear, and began pouring the bottle out onto it, moving his claw in small circle. “The embodiment of disharmony, locked in a prison only broken by a bit of perfect harmony! That’s so neatly nonsensical I could just MELT.” The green drink piled up as though it were filling an invisible jelly mould, into the shape of a hamburger. He tossed the plate aside, and took a bite from the liquid lunch he had just created. “The real question is, what to do now?” he said, mouth full, spraying small crumbs everywhere. “I could make you all ironically act in opposition to your elements again, but, it’s so boring to do the same thing all over again don’t you think?” The last question was posed to Fluttershy, above whom he suddenly appeared, floating once again. He tickled her under the chin before floating upwards again, musing. “I DO want to do something for revenge, but I suppose I should be grateful. Nice to be let out of that infernal machine. Only allowed to sow chaos when switched on? I ASK you, is that any way to live?” He disappeared in a puff of smoke, appearing in a puff of rose petals beside Zaphod. After a moment’s consideration, he slashed a claw at him, talon swinging brutally through the air, apparently clean through the more talkative of Zaphod’s heads.

Zaphod’s head luckily remained in one piece; and indeed he doubted whether having it cleaved in two would realistically feel much worse than a well-made Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. His ribbons had however fallen away from his mouth, and he decided to give vent to his spleen.
“Hey baby, I don’t know who you are, but you must be at least four galaxies out of your mind!”
“Oh don’t be so boring Zaphod, normally you’re so good at being an entertainment. Big fan, by the way; I may have to ask for an autograph at some point.” He nudged Zaphod, and a small stack of moderately unflattering photos of Zaphod fell out of his mane.
Zaphod mouthed for a second, unsure of exactly how to react. Inside his mind his emotions had descended into a full on brawl to be the first thing on his mind. Curiosity just clawed its way to the fore. “What in the zarking belgium are you? How did you get on my ship?”
“Oh but I always have been, as long as it’s been your ship you understand.” Discord rose, spreading his mismatched arms. “I was just flitting around, enjoying myself, at large in a universe of such wonderfully constructed chaos, always spiralling just on the brink of absolute anarchy, I barely had to do anything at all, it was all so beautiful.” In an exaggerated movement, he wiped a tear from his eye. “And then probability changes itself, centred on me! I find myself somewhere, trapped impotently in some contraption with some boring scientist looking at me!”
“Hey, what?” In the circumstances, more could not reasonably have been expected from Zaphod.
“A whole year trapped inside some little nugget of gold, the slave of whoever owned the ship! I can’t say how grateful I am that that somepony turned out to be you. So much more fun than the alternatives.” He turned and appraised the other ponies currently glaring at him with a mixture of fear and dislike. “And you brought me all of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony!” Discord was suddenly dressed in a flowery dress with a dainty bonnet on top. He hugged Zaphod around the neck in an exaggerated imitation of a fawning love interest in a bad novel. “Oh honey, you do care!” He kissed him on the cheek with a wicked grin.

Zaphod was profoundly irritated by the presence of a being with, it seemed, even more strange ideas about looking good than he had. Furthermore, this ‘Discord’ or whatever, was quite frankly stealing his thunder. “Hey man, I don’t know the who, the what, the how, the where and I can’t even begin to get started on the why! But this is my ship, and I want you off it right now! If it helps, you can imagine I have a Killozapp blaster aimed right at your face right now! To help your imagination out I’ve included a visual aid!” The pistol hovered menacingly in the air. “I forget the rest of the schtick, but you’re an uncool zeeb and I want you off my ship. Right. Zarking. Now!”

Fear, obedience, recalcitrance, these things were all completely absent from Discord’s features as dress and bonnet disappeared. He mockingly raised both hands into the air. “Please don’t shoot me Mr. Beeblebrox sir, I never meant to be an inconvenience to you.” He blew a raspberry, and reached out to pull the trigger himself. A particularly deadly beam of light (Killozapp™; kills ‘em deader than dead) lit up the room, streaking at very slightly above light-speed towards Discord’s body. Upon contact, much to the beam’s own surprise, it found itself becoming a stream of water.
“Now I’m wet.” Announced Discord to the world at large.
There was a damp pause in proceedings.
Zaphod pulled the trigger himself, more out of curiosity than anything; he probably didn’t actually have it in him to shoot to kill. This beam ended its life as a puff of sand against its target. The Killozapp blaster turned into a small pigeon and flew away from embarrassment.

There was another pause.

“Now.” said Discord “I’m sandy too. May I continue?” He snapped his fingers, muzzling Zaphod again. “Good. Now ladies, I think it’s time for you to receive a little explanation. You see, that little statue of me in the Canterlot Gardens? Well, that’s just how my dear Celestia keeps me off of her own little eden. The only place in the galaxy where there truly is harmony. How revolting! But I’m the spirit of chaos! I have my run of the whole universe! Only by making me have a prison on your world could she keep me away! Well, until I got trapped in this thing that is.” He jabbed his tail at the ship in general. “But you know, I suppose even eternal freedom is a little monotonous. Get an imprisonment or two in there to keep things unpredictable eh?”
He waited for a response. Then he sighed. “Okay, I can’t monologue forever, let’s have some FUN!”

Comments

[Silver Streak1]

How did I know Discord would show up

[lady eclipse]

“Now I’m wet.” Announced Discord to the world at large.
There was a damp pause in proceedings. ......... i-i dont even..... i think i love you
welboo of course discord is in this the title says dicordant

[Ckat_Myla]

Called it! (for myself)

[JollyGreenGI]

"Isn’t grammatical ambiguity a bitch?" Quite so good sir. You get a fave and a following for that. Oh, and a mustache. Mustaches are cool.

[Romaji]

942736
duh, IID (infinite improbability drive)

[Zubric]

Gah reader mode hates the long paragraphs