• Published 22nd Feb 2015
  • 54,882 Views, 2,767 Comments

Magical Mystery Oops - BookeCypher



Twilight manages to turn herself into a draconequus - now the only one who can help her learn to control her new chaos magic and change back is Discord. What could possibly go wrong?

  • ...
70
 2,767
 54,882

Go For the Throat

Draconequus and alicorn alike backed away from the massive avian slowly as it stepped forth from the rift in reality, the rip closing as soon as it was clear. And massive it was – the over-sized pseudo-bird was the size of one of the nearby buildings. And the way it was eying them was making Twilight very nervous.

“Birdie, no,” Discord did his best to warn the bird off, but the massive beast seemed to take offense to that. It cracked its over-sized beak open and let out a shrill shriek that caused everyone still in the square to wince and cover their ears as best they could. Celestia didn't wait for a second one as she charged a spell. Discord went bug-eyed as soon as he saw what she was doing, “Wait, don't-” Celestia fired off the spell before Discord could stop her.

The spell got within a hoof-length of the birdie before seeming to unravel a split-second before it simply exploded with enough force to send three princesses, one chaos lord and an overly curious pegasus flying back into a collection of unfortunate food carts, “Would someone,” Luna said with a groan as she picked cabbage from her mane, “please tell me what just happened?”

“It unraveled her spell,” Discord replied as he extradited himself from a pile of pears, “Normal magic isn't going to work on it any more than it works on me.”

“Then you try something!” Twilight replied as she watched it tear through one of the few remaining food carts.

“Gladly!” Discord replied, grinning as he conjured up an orb of light and hurled it at the Birdie. It got about as far as Celestia's spell before it imploded with a dramatic explosion that sent Discord crashing through a wall. After a moment, a dazed draconequus pulled himself out of the wreckage, “Did everyone see that? Because I am not doing that again!”

“Now what are we...” Twilight started before pausing, “...what is it doing?” Nearby, everything around the Birdie had begun to... disintegrate. Paving stones began to crumble into dust under-claw as the Birdie unfurled its wings and laboriously took flight. Each flap was a slow, deliberate stroke and with every flap the wind began to blow faster and faster until a whirling maelstrom surrounded the creature's floating form in a seemingly perfect sphere that ended where the spells had unfurled.

But it was getting larger.

With every pulse of its wings, the sphere inched a bit wider, and everything that was caught inside simply disintegrated, “I take it back,” Discord said, the hint of genuine fear in his voice scaring Twilight more than whatever they were facing, “This isn't like facing me; this is worse.”

“Worse how?” Twilight asked as she tugged a string out of place and redirected it at the sphere. Instead of a rain of tangerines, the string simply snapped as another – thankfully small – explosion went off.

“It’s rejecting reality and substituting its own,” Discord explained. Nearby, Celestia and Luna were throwing up shield after shield against the maelstrom, only to have them pop in a shower of sparks when the wind wall touched them, “It's like that stupid Shrubbery, only dumber.”

“How is this anything like that?!” Twilight demanded to know. The sphere of un-reality had expanded to take up the entire center of the square and had dug a good meter and a half into the ground. Strange purplish not-lights were starting to appear inside.

“The Shrubbery was a cross between your Tree of Harmony and my Plunder vines, right?” Discord replied, “It used your magic to construct itself and my magic to eat all the things. This is just doing the latter.”

“Then how do we stop it?” Celestia shouted over. The wind was now a constant howl around them.

Discord shrugged, “How did we stop the Shrubbery?”

“That was different!” Twilight shouted back, “My magic could actually hurt that! This thing is just ignoring it.”

“Then make it not ignore you,” Discord replied, “It can hit us, can't it?”

Twilight turned to Discord, blinking owlishly for a moment before it clicked, “If it can hit us, then we can interact with it. And if we can interact with it...”

“We can kick its flank,” Discord finished with a smirk, “So – how?”

“Okay,” Twilight took a deep breath as she screwed her eyes shut, softly humming to herself between muttered words, “Think Twilight, think. Work back from first principles. If it's interacting with our reality it has to be on the same phase-line... unless it's just forcing things out of their natural phase-line... but that implies it has its own phase line... AHA!” Twilight spun around to face Discord with a triumphant smirk, “It's still solid and interacting with light, which means its personal reality is a near phase-line to our own; we just need to retune our spells!”

“Good, great, wonderful!” Discord replied with a clap as her returned her grin, “How do we do that?”

“No idea!” Twilight replied cheerfully, “Help me figure it out. Celestia! Luna! Buy us some time!”

“How much time?” Luna asked as she threw up another shield. Her sister looked like she was still trying to process the sudden burst of mania from her faithful student.

“Uhh, about six minutes,” Twilight replied with a shrug as she started digging through the wreckage of what had been a music store before half a cart crashed through the shop window, “Why?”

“Because I seriously doubt we have six minutes,” Luna replied grimly as their shields popped once again. The only saving grace was that the spheres expansion had apparently stopped.

“Okay,” Discord said as he joined Twilight in digging through wrecked music machines, “How do we re-phase magic or whatever?”

“Our research has been about how chaos magic and normal magic interact, right?” Twilight replied as she yanked a small brass pump-like device from the guts of a calliope, “This should work on the same sort of principle.”

“But all of those interactions end in explosions, remember?” Discord pointed out, “You know, the whole harmony and disharmony thing...”

“That's why we need to build a spell-matrix to channel it,” Twilight replied, before frowning, “But how do we keep the spell phase-locked? If this thing is anything like you then its phase isn't going to be constant.”

There was a moment of silence before a light bulb suddenly lit up over Discord's head. He promptly plucked it down and ate it before saying, “Use its magic!”

Twilight blinked before her face lit up, “Genius! We reroute the Birdie's disintegration field through a spell matrix, and use its underlying directional thread to tune our own spells! We can even use it to power the matrix!”

“This has a small, but fascinating chance of actually working!” Discord said as his expression began to match Twilight's, “Let's do it! You handle the matrix, I'll take care of the primary input. Break!”

“Twilight?” Celestia shouted back as her latest spell splashed off the Birdie's barrier, “What are you-” the solar diarch paused as she saw her student and the lord of chaos rushing about, rummaging through destroyed shop fronts, “-planning?”

“Leave them, sister!” Luna shouted back as she fought to keep the creature’s attention. Any slack in the onslaught from the two Alicorns gave the creature a chance to start drifting toward one of the narrow streets out of the square, “They will pull through for us, same as always.”

Celestia turned to her sister, a retort already ready, but it died on her lips as she saw the look on Luna's face. Celestia simply nodded before turning back to the trans-planar abomination before them and letting loose another spell.

Twilight and Discord payed this no mind as they worked to convert a toaster and half of a film projector into the basis of their spell converter. “It'll take me a moment to set the initial configuration of the spell matrix,” Twilight said quickly as she slotted a crystal into place. You take care of power routing?”

“Stole the guts from the grifter twin's fancy ride,” Discord replied as he continued to levitate the in-progress construct between the two of them, parts floating around it like a partially-exploded technical diagram, “Anything else?”

“Just one thing,” Twilight replied with a frown, “We need a power source to feed the re-phase circuit and boost stages; Something stable and won't burn out too fast. Otherwise we'll get a feedback loop and all we built was a really pretty bomb.”

Discord mulled it over for a minute before snapping his claw, “It needs one of those...” He paused as he shoved a claw into one ear, vanishing far further then it had any right to, “Ah, one of those...” Another pause as he continued to rummage around in his own head. Given what Pinkie seemed to keep in her mane, Twilight found this one of the least disconcerting tricks Discord had pulled, “oh, how embarrassing. It's gone completely out of my head. Hold on.” He pulled his claw out, giving her a polite bow before pronking off across the square, dodging flying debris before diving into a pile of rubble – and promptly popping out of the pile next to Twilight, a glowing orange watch in paw, “You know, one of these!”

“Perfect!” Twilight exclaimed as she snatched up the small artifact, tearing off the watch face and digging out a small assembly of crystal and tuning forks, “A zero-point aetheric mana reactor! Lovely piece of kit assuming you can keep it from exploding.”

Discord blinked, “And Luna put that in a watch?”

Twilight glanced up from the highly unstable mana-generating device and frowned, “Who did what now?”

“Nothing,” Discord replied with a dismissive wave as another store facade collapsed, “Perhaps we should finish it?”

“...Oh, right!” Twilight quickly slotted the small assembly into place before nodding, “Alright – ready to compile!”

Discord nodded before floating the constellation of parts in front of him, drawing himself up to his full height before announcing with grave ceremony, “Raising Heart, Set up!”

“We are not calling it that,” Twilight said flatly as the construct assembled itself.

“What?” Discord replied with what was at least a close approximation of honest confusion as the assembled device descended toward Twilight, “You tend to befriend anything you fight and I thought it would be a very appropriate since it'll let you befriend with even larger energy bolts than usual.”

“Only if it works like we want,” Twilight replied as she took the device. It was strangely shaped – almost like a small cannon with a claw on the front, the main body glowing a dim orange through the support structure that connected the front aperture to the rear handles – of which there were two. One went straight back, and the other jutted out from the side. As it settled into Twilight's waiting claws, she realized that this was not a weapon meant for ponies.

“Alright everypony!” She shouted as she began channeling her magic into the device, causing the strange orange glow to increase until it looked like a contained fire, “Stand back! I'm going to try Science!”

Luna and Celestia had just enough time to turn around, look at Twilight, blanch and dive out of the way before a bolt of arcane energy as thick as one of their legs shot forward, punched through the wind and strange spatial effects and slammed into the giant birdie's chest with a thundering explosion.

To the Alicorns it had simply looked like a bolt of energy – to Discord and Twilight though, they saw it for what it was; a thread of reality, retuned, reinforced and redoubled until it was a veritable battering ram.

There was a long, keening cry from the creature as it reeled back and everything abruptly stopped. The howling winds ceased so fast that it left Twilight's ears ringing until the sounds of falling debris filled the silence.

But soon even those sounds died out and the square was plunged into stark, absolute silence.

Nopony or draconequus moved as the Birdie rose again, slowly righting itself as it brought its gaze to bear on them. It has noticed them before – but now it was actually looking at them.

“Okay, we got his attention,” Discord said nervously, “What the hay was step two?”

The beast gave a shrill, ear-piercing cry before charging at Twilight. Discord neatly side-stepped across the square as the purple draconequus gave a small 'eep' before vanishing in a puff of confetti and re-materializing on the other side of the square, “Okay!” she shouted as she tossed Discord the converter, “Your turn!”

Discord caught the device and gave a predatory grin as he chambered a new round with a satisfying 'chu-chunk' – despite the fact that the device, in fact, did not utilize any sort of cartridge mechanism, “Oh... Yeah...”

The device glowed an eerie yellow a split-second before it started spitting out bolts of searing energy faster than Pinkie could clear a platter of cupcakes, Discord cackling like a mad-pony as he began bounding around the square while singing... Gill Bait and Sullen Vein? “Come on! Where's my chorus?”

“Discord has the only weapon capable of harming that monstrosity,” Luna said as she alighted next to Twilight, “What do you suggest we do?”

“Keep it distracted,” Twilight replied as she snapped her claws. In response, a menagerie of colorful papier-mâché animals popped into existence around the birdie – and promptly exploded with an impressive combination of concussive force and confetti, “Don't let it focus on whoever has the converter!”

“...'whoever'?” Celestia asked, blinking in confusion.

The reply came in the form of Discord tossing the device toward the solar diarch, “Your turn sunshine!”

Celestia glared at Discord as she caught it in her telekinetic grasp, ignoring the birdie as it charged, “I told you...” she didn't bother looking away from Discord as she leveled the device at the creature, taking half a moment to charge the device before unleashing a pillar of fiery plasma into the creature's face. It reeled back with a screech as Celestia continued to speak, “...not to call me that.”

“Spoil-sport,” Discord stuck his tongue out at her before leaping over the birdie, twisting around before landing on the other side and sprinting off, still singing intermittently , “Still no chorus!”

Luna and Twilight split up, Twilight moving to follow after Discord while Luna made to follow her sister, “You shouldn't mess with Celestia like that,” Twilight admonished the other draconequus as they both sent waves of animated debris leaping at the birdie.

“That's like telling water not to be wet, or you not to be adorkable,” Discord replied as he teleported an entire roof over the birdie, drawing its attention as Celestia shot it in the face again, “And besides... where is it going?”

Twilight looked from Discord's sudden frown to whatever he was frowning at and saw the Birdie moving in a new direction, “Oh fiddlesticks – it's trying to get out of the square.”

“...Oh my,” Discord said after a moment of stunned silence, “That is bad.”

“Come on!” Twilight shouted as she shot forward, bounding across the square in two long strides before jumping onto the roofs and continuing after the Birdie as the Alicorns continued on at street level. Luna lashed out with silvery-white bursts across its tail while Celestia continued to barrage it from ahead. Now that the creature knew what to expect, though, it seemed able to press on, “We need to stop it!”

“In case you haven't been paying attention,” Discord said back as he sped along next to her, lounging back on a speeding cotton candy cloud, “We've been trying to do that. It's not cooperating.”

“We have to do something!” Twilight snapped back, “We just aren't damaging it fast enough.”

“What if we tried more power?” Discord asked, suddenly sporting a black hat.

“The converter would probably explode and level half of Ponyville,” Twilight replied with a shrug, “But the resulting fissure in space-time would likely-” she paused as her face lit up, “Ideeeeaaaaa~!”

“Rarity has that copyrighted, you know,” Discord quipped, but Twilight had already bounded off toward the two Alicorns.

“Luna!” Twilight called out, drawing the Alicorn's attention as she dropped back onto the road, “I need you to piss off the Birdie!”

Luna blinked once before nodding and turning toward her sister, “Tia! Your student says it is my turn with the shadow-cursed mana cannon!”

It was Twilight's turn to blink, “I didn't say that.”

“Your device is the best way to harm this 'Birdie', at the moment,” Luna replied as she caught the cannon in her magic, “Now, I assume you have a plan?”

“You're going to make the Birdie want to eat you,” Twilight replied calmly, “And then we're going to set off an explosion that will hopefully not destroy Ponyville. I've got to go set up the other thing – try to steer it back to the square, kay? Thanks, bye!”

Luna watched in stunned silence as the purple draconequus dashed off, leaving her with an angry pseudo-bird and a piece of arcane tech kludged together from spare parts. “...Alright then,” Luna said with a frown as she turned, leveling the device at the Birdie, “Prepare yourself, foul beast, for we have had a very trying day.”

And then she shot it in the tail with what looked like a ground-level shooting star.

Twilight didn't pay the scene any mind until the reeling Birdie took out the building she was running on top of with an errant claw. Twilight found herself running on air for all of two seconds before gravity decided to re-assert herself and tug the purple draconequus ground-ward.

At least until Discord swung through and grabbed her.

“Need some help, milady?” Discord asked as they alighted at the edge of the square. Discord was dressed in a ridiculous red superhero costume, complete with mask and a large gold emblem on his chest.

Twilight just gave him a level gaze, “What were you even swinging from?”

Discord shrugged as he tugged on the rope, “Passing pegasus,” A moment later, Ditzy Doo fell into Discord's waiting paw, looking even more discombobulated then normal.

Twilight sighed as she buried her face in a claw, “Hey Ditzy.”

“Hey Twilight,” the blonde pegasus replied, giving herself a quick shake before looking around at the ongoing destruction, “So, uh... you working again?”

“Just taking care of some stuff,” Twilight replied, “I have it under control.”

As if to punctuate the statement, the building Twilight had been running on chose that moment to finish collapsing, sending up a great plume of dust as it slowly imploded. Ditzy stared at the ruins for a minute before she said, “I'd hate to see out of control.”

“Okay, thanks for dropping in!” Twilight quickly said before teleporting the gray pegasus away with a snap of her claws, “There, that should keep her out of harm's way.”

Discord stared at his now empty paw, before asking, “Where did you send her, anyway?”

“My kitchen,” Twilight replied with a sigh as she pulled out a piece of chalk, “I'll have to restock the ice box.”

“So, what are we doing now?” Discord asked as he started pulling out more scavenged pieces of equipment, “Since I assume the answer isn't 'blowing up Ponyville',”

“Blowing up Ponyville,” Twilight replied simply as she continued sketching out a massive diagram across the square.

Discord looked between her and the square a couple of times, “...Huh. You know, I thought I'd be happier about this...”

“We're only blowing it up a little bit,” Twilight elaborated as she finished the diagram, tossing her chalk aside as she started digging through the equipment, pausing to yank out a gemstone every now and then, “We need to set up a secondary focusing array and then use it direct an overcharged converter shot across the spatial fold to force the gate to reopen in reverse.”

“But that would require...” Discord counted off a few numbers on his claw, “...a lot of power. Can we even sustain a spell like that?”

“Nope!” Twilight replied cheerfully as she started laying the crystals out, “That's why we're only going to cast it just as we overcharge the converter.”

“So, just to clarify,” Discord asked, leaning against nothing in particular as he gesticulated, “You want to cast the only spell preventing your cutsie little town from being leveled on a timing window of.... what? Half a second?”

“Four hundred and sixty-seven milliseconds, to be precise,” Twilight replied, turning to him, “So, are you going to help?”

Discord blinked, one eyebrow rising questionably, “Are you kidding?” after a moment, his mouth broke into a massive grin, “Just tell me what to do.”

“Alright, first-” Twilight was interrupted by a shrill cry and sudden crash as another building fell, “...actually, could you go help Celestia and Luna? We kinda need the Birdie back over here,” she paused before adding, “and I guess they should hear the entire plan...”

“Saving Sunshine and Moonpie and then telling them what to do, aye,” Discord replied, snapping off a salute before turning and jumping up onto the nearby rooftops.

Twilight watched him go for a moment before turning back to her work. Discord could take care of himself, she thought as she sketched out the next part of the circle, even against some sort of freakish trans-planar bird-thing. Her line faltered as scenes from the Everfree flashed through her mind, but she quickly dismissed them as she erased the errant line and redid it. This was already risky enough – no need to complicate it with inaccurate mana channels.

There was another crash, and this time it had nothing to do with her nerves as another building behind her crumbled under the rampaging avian's onslaught – and then Discord flew past her and slammed into one of the buildings before her it too crumbled into rust. After a moment, Discord pulled himself out of the debris, dusting himself off and popping a lollipop into his mouth, “Figured out what the nasty is weak against.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at this, “What's that, Discord?”

“Point blank annihilation,” Discord replied before vanishing with a small 'click' and a puff of confetti, leaving a lawn gnome in his place.

Twilight glanced back toward the running fight that was slowly but surely drawing closer before turning to the gnome, “I don't suppose you have a better idea than this one, do you?” At the gnome’s silence, Twilight just sighed and returned to her runes, “Didn't think so.”

Twilight managed to finish the last of the runes and had started giving the array its initial priming charge before she was interrupted again. The first sign that something had changed was the warm breath rolling across her neck. The second clue was that everything had gone very, very silent. “Discord...?” she asked as she turned around – and found herself snout-to-beak with a very perturbed looking bird-thing. Twilight's face contorted into a frown as she stared up at the Birdie, “You're not Discord.”

The Birdie replied by shrieking in her face at point-blank range, making her mane billow out behind her and causing her to stumble back a few paces. Twilight took a moment to stare up at the beast in a mix of stunned awe and dawning terror before shouting not-frantically, “Discord!”

Discord poofed back into existence a few paces to her side, the converter in-paw as he grabbed Twilight’s arm with a claw, “What are you standing here for!? I lost the thing to-” he turned right, “-WOAH!”

The birdie screeched in their faces, dust shaken off the destroyed wall behind them falling to the ground.

Discord just stared back before replying with a shout of his own and shooting the Birdie in the face, sending it reeling back and tripping over a ruined pastry shop, “Okay – that bought us maybe ninety seconds. What do we do?”

“The framework's finished,” Twilight quickly replied, waving at the lattice of runes across the ground under them, “Now we just need to charge the array. Once that’s done, I need you to prep the converter and be ready to cast it at my signal.”

“Just to be clear,” Discord said. Behind them, the Birdie was starting to stir, “That's the signal for the four-hundred and something milli-whatever window, right?”

“Four hundred and sixty-seven,” Twilight replied with a nod.

Discord pondered it for a moment before he shrugged and started channeling power into the array, “Just checking.”

The spell-array began to glow with a strange energy as the Birdie finally stumbled back onto its claws and began to charge at them again, “I’ve got this!” Twilight shouted as she started pouring her own magic into the circle, the charging array beginning to spark and thunder under them as she did, “Get the converter ready!”

Discord shot Twilight a split-second look of concern before breaking off, grabbing the converter from where it had fallen and lifting it up to his shoulder as it crackled with energy. The Birdie stomped to a thundering stop half a pace from Discord and roared.

Discord just grinned as the spell behind him reached a crescendo. “Smile for the birdie!”

“NOW!” Twilight shouted.

Two massive detonations rocked the square as both draconequui triggered their respective spells in perfect synchronicity. But instead of an explosion, there was instead an implosion as clouds of dust rushed toward the circle.

Twilight blinked in surprise, peering around but seeing nothing but a world of white and brown. Everything seemed fuzzy…

...oh, wait. Everything was fuzzy. “Discord,” she muttered, her voice muffled, “Get off.”

“Well, excuse me princess,” Discord replied, stretching out the syllables as he nonetheless complied, “I was just trying to do the proper noble thing, but am I thanked? No, of course not...”

Twilight ignored the whining lord of chaos as she took stock of her surroundings. All told, she couldn’t tell much – a dense fog was wrapped around them, leaving everything beyond maybe an arm's length little more than vague outlines. Dust and feathers hung in the air around them as a pained, keening wail echoed from what sounded like a ways off, “...What happened?”

“Not sure...” Discord replied with a frown as he started lazily waving his paw in wide circles. As he did, the fog slowly began to recede, revealing the ruined remains of the square and the strange shimmering black sphere hanging just above it center. Another wail echoed from inside it even as it contracted, before imploding with a small, rumbling, pop. “...Huh,” Discord said after a moment, “Guess that’s that.”

“We… did it?” Twilight said, incredulity tinting her voice for a moment before her face lit up, “We did it! It actually worked!” The purple draconequus began pronking around her opposite, giggling like a mad-pony, “We actually did it!”

“Well, of course,” Discord said with a smirk as he watched her, “Who the hay do you think I- woah!” Discord was cut off as Twilight threw her arms around him before promptly throwing herself at the other draconequus.

“We just ripped a hole in space-time and we didn’t kill anypony!” Twilight exclaimed, still grinning and laughing as she grabbed Discord and pulled him close before kissing him square on the lips. She was still grinning like mad as she broke contact and went back to pronking, “That was great! We should definitely-”

Discord didn’t catch any of the rest as he suddenly floofed up, his coat puffing out as the rest of the elements of harmony arrived. “Hey, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash called out, alighting a few paces away from the pair, “We got everypony cleared to the other side of town and-” she paused as she caught sight of Discord. “Woah. What happened to you?”

“Flurgen,” was all the still somewhat glassy-eyed draconequus could manage.

“Oh, hey girls!” Twilight pronked over and came to an energetic stop in front of her friends, flashing a grin that would make Pinkie proud – and, based on the score-card she was holding, in fact did, “Sorry about all of that! Had a tiny problem with a trans-planar monster, but Discord and I took care of it and we didn’t even blow up the town! Right Discord?”

“Blpft,” was the ancient draconequus’s eloquent reply.

“See?” Twilight continued, turning back to her friends and still grinning, “Everything is fine!” she paused, briefly frowning as she added, “If you didn’t know what was going on, why’d you evacuate everyone?”

“We saw ponies rushing from where you and Discord were at and we put two and two together,” Rainbow Dash says with a shrug. Behind her, Applejack and Rarity were talking in hushed whispers – the latter excitedly while the former sounded more annoyed – as Rainbow Dash continued, “Jeez, you draconequui get all into your freakish, twisted courtship rituals-” She glanced toward Discord, who Fluttershy was trying to coax some sort of reaction out of even as Pinkie amused herself prodding at the frozen draconequus, before adding, “What’s with him anyway?”

“Huh?” Twilight looked up from her own rapid babbling to see what Rainbow was talking about, “...oh. No idea. I guess something surprised him?”

“Then that makes two of us,” everybody turned at Celestia's voice, seeing the regal form of the white alicorn striding forward, her sister close behind and neither looking like they had just been dueling some horrid beast. Celestia gave the other ponies polite nods and greetings as she made a beeline for Discord, “I have to say, Discord, that this is something I have not seen since… well, quite a while ago.”

“She started it!” Discord blurted out. At the stunned silence he received in reply, Discord blinked rapidly, smoothing out his coat before consummately continuing as if nothing strange had happened and flashing Celestia his best grin, “Ahem – I mean, enjoy the show, Sunshine?”

Celestia shot back with a smirk as she spoke, “I am finding myself pleasantly surprised. I’d almost forgotten the feats you could accomplish if you set your mind to it.”

Five ponies, an alicorn and a purple draconequus raised an eyebrow at this as Discord remained nonplussed, his grin remaining as he replied, “Well, that sounds like there’s a story behind it.”

“One I’d be more than happy to share,” Celestia replied, turning and walking away a few paces before glancing back, “Perhaps over tea at the castle, this weekend – assuming your schedule allows?”

“I’ll have to check my calendar,” Discord replied as he floated forward, slipping into place next to the solar diarch as the two began to move, “But I’m sure we can work something out...”

The seven left behind watched the pair leave for a while before Luna leaned toward Twilight and whispered, “We are not sure… what just happened?”

Twilight frowned as she watched Discord and her teacher vanish into the distance, “I’m not quite sure...” But this was a good thing, wasn’t it? Discord and Celestia were suddenly getting along.

So why didn’t she feel happy?