Chapter 6
An uneasy silence fell over Fluttershy’s house as the ponies within struggled to make sense of what Pinkie Pie had just said. Knowing her well, they had expected the cookie count to be high. Maybe even into the mid-hundreds. But this was just plain ridiculous.
“Ten… ten thousand?” Twilight Sparkle finally found her voice. “Ten thousand, four hundred, and seventy-six?! What in the name of Celestia could you possibly need that many cookies for?!”
Pinkie Pie shrugged. “I figured it’d be best to be prepared in case eight hundred and seventy-three ponies came into the shop asking for a dozen cookies each.”
Another few moments of silence ensued, as Twilight tried and failed to follow Pinkie’s logic.
“The button makes cookies instantly, Pinkie! You could easily fill each customer’s order as they came in! There’s no reason to stockpile them!”
Pinkie considered this for a moment. “You know, you’re right! What was I thinking?”
“That’s a good question, sugarcube,” Applejack said.
“Twilight, dear,” Rarity interjected, “If I’m understanding correctly, these cookies are potentially dangerous in large numbers. How dangerous, exactly, are we talking here?”
Twilight thought for a moment. “Well, I can’t say for sure. Chaos magic is unpredictable by its very nature. But whatever happens won’t be anything good. And the more the magic builds up, the worse things are going to get. We’re starting to see some of the effects already: marshmallow clouds, strawberry milk rain, kittens behaving strangely, all in the area of Sugarcube Corner, where we know somepony”—she shot a glare at Pinkie Pie—“has been hoarding cookies.” She paused for a moment. “I’d say we’re lucky that so far, kittens and strawberry milk are the worst things that have—”
“Oh!” Pinkie Pie interrupted. “I just thought of something, Twilight! When you wanted to know how many cookies I clicked, did you want me to include the ones your magic finger made? Because I didn’t count those.”
All eyes in the room shifted suddenly to Twilight, who was suddenly looking a bit pale.
“Oh no. The finger! I completely forgot!”
“Don’t worry, Twilight,” Pinkie reassured her friend. “That finger was sooooooo slow at clicking, it’s like a drop in the bucket compared to the ones I clicked myself.”
“But it’s still something! Every additional cookie just makes things worse!”
“Uh, I don’t mean to worry you more, Twilight,” Applejack said, “but there’s also all them cookies Pinkie grew on my farm.”
Twilight turned a few shades paler.
“Oh my,” Fluttershy said with a concerned look at her friend, who appeared about ready to toss her cookies. “Discord, isn’t there anything you can do to help?”
“Well,” Discord said, “I can fetch her a cold compress and some ginger ale, but really the best thing in situations like this is for her to get it out of her system. Maybe I should grab a bucket and a mop, just in case.”
“That’s not what she meant, you dummy!” Rainbow Dash said. “She wants you to do something about the cookies!”
“Oh, yes, that makes much more sense.” Discord stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Nope. Can’t help there. Sorry.”
“What?! What do you mean, no? This is your mess! You should at least act like you want to help clean it up!”
“First of all, Rainbow Dash, it is only half my mess at best. Pinkie Pie shares some of the responsibility, as does our queasy friend over there, apparently.” He waved an arm in the general direction of Twilight Sparkle, who had shut her eyes tightly and was taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm down. “Second, I was being literal when I said I can’t help with the cookies. It’s out of my control at this point. If I tried to help, it would likely only make things more… well, more interesting is one way to put it. I’d say ‘fun’, but I don’t think any of you would appreciate the results nearly as much as I would.”
“Don’t give me that! We’ve all seen you poof much weirder stuff back to normal before! They’re just cookies! Make with the magic and disappear them already!”
Discord sighed. “Oh, right. I forget how dense ponies can be sometimes. Maybe a visual aid will help. Do try to pay attention, now.”
Ignoring Rainbow’s glare, he conjured up a chalkboard, upon which was drawn a stick-figure version of himself.
“This is me.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Duh.”
The chalk-Discord snapped his claw and squiggly blue lines appeared around him.
“And this is my magic.”
The squiggly blue lines wiggled away from chalk-Discord and began swirling around and around. A drawing of a cookie button faded into view at their center, and the swirly blue lines sank into it.
“Now we have a cookie button. Let’s click a few cookies and see what happens.”
A chalk-Pinkie trotted in from the side of the board.
The real Pinkie was overjoyed. “Look, look, it’s me!” she said, bouncing with excitement.
The chalk-Pinkie walked up to the chalk-button and clicked it. The swirly blue lines reappeared and began vibrating rapidly. One of the swirls turned green and broke away from the rest. It spiraled around itself, faster and faster, then collapsed entirely.
Where the green swirl once was there appeared a chalk-cookie, with tiny green squiggles radiating from it. The chalk-Pinkie promptly devoured the chalk-cookie, then proceeded to repeatedly mash the chalk-button. More and more chalk-cookies popped up across the chalkboard.
“Notice how the magic in the cookies is different now than it was at the beginning. Different enough that I no longer have control over it. And if I were to try to get rid of them, well…”
As he spoke, the chalk-Discord launched squiggly blue lines at the chalk-cookies, but they were unaffected. Instead, the squiggly blue lines bounced off in all directions and exploded in little chalky puffs of smoke. Soon the chalkboard was filled with drawings of spatulas and bowling pins and muffins and tubas and other miscellaneous objects.
“Let’s just say different wavelengths of chaos magic don’t mix well.”
With a swipe of his paw, Discord vanished the chalkboard back to wherever he pulled it from in the first place.
“And that’s how Equestria was made. Any questions?”
Twilight Sparkle, mostly recovered from her panicked state, had been watching Discord’s demonstration closely. The classroom-style presentation combined with the soothing (to Twilight, anyway) scent of chalk dust brought up pleasant (again, to Twilight) childhood memories of sitting in lecture halls and learning about intermediate magic theory, which helped her relax and think clearly.
“Wait,” she said. “You expect me to believe that your magic changes so much in the transition from you to the button to the cookies that you lose all control over it?”
“That’s about right, yes.”
“But what makes that happen? What does the button do that alters your magic so much?”
“Well, it’s really all rather complicated. It has to be, in order to summon cookies from nowhere on demand like that. And the magic sort of gets jumbled up in the process. I could’ve drawn up some complex mathemagical formulas on the chalkboard to illustrate exactly what happens, but that would have taken far too long and gone over most of your friends’ heads. I figured the silly cartoon drawings would get the point across just as well, and without boring everypony to tears.”
“Okay, fine, let’s just say you’re right,” Twilight said. “The cookies are off the table. But what about the button? If your ‘silly cartoon drawings’ were accurate, its magic is still very similar to yours. You should be able to stop it easily.”
“Huh.” Discord blinked. “To be honest with you, it never occurred to me to try that.” He scratched his head, and glanced for a moment over at Fluttershy, and then sighed heavily. “Oh, I suppose I can give it a whirl.” He snapped his claws.
Nothing happened.
“Strange. That usually works.” He snapped again.
Nothing happened.
He frowned, and snapped several more times.
Nothing happened.
A few moments of silence.
Discord shrugged. “Well, I’m out of ideas.”
“Wait, that’s it?” Rainbow said. “Big bunch of help you are.”
“Look, I tried stopping the button, all right? It’s not listening to me. Maybe all the heaps of cookies piled around it are interfering with my magic or something.” He sat back down on the sofa, pulled an orange from his hat, and stuck a straw in it. “If you can bring the button here I’ll shut it off for you. But other than that, you girls are on your own.”
Twilight was disappointed but not entirely surprised. “Right. Guess we’re doing it the hard way, then.” She turned to her friends. “We’ll split into two groups. Applejack, you and Rainbow Dash head to Sweet Apple Acres and pull up those cookie shrubs.”
“You can count on us,” Rainbow Dash said. Applejack nodded in agreement.
“Pinkie and I will go to Sugarcube Corner to retrieve the button. Fluttershy, you’d better come with us. If those kittens are still there and under the influence of the chaos magic, we might need your help.”
Fluttershy nodded meekly.
“What about me, Twilight?” Rarity asked.
Twilight thought for a moment. “Hmm. You can go with Applejack and Rainbow. That’ll keep the two groups balanced.”
Rarity looked horrified and disgusted. “You can’t possibly expect me to go to a farm and perform manual labor! I’ll get all sweaty and gross!”
“Yeah!” Rainbow chimed in. “She’ll just spend all her time complaining about the dirt and telling us how we’re pulling up the shrubs all wrong.”
Rarity gave her a nasty look. “You’re not helping!”
“Girls, please!” Twilight said. “We don’t have time to argue. Rarity, you can either go to the farm, or you can come with us and help Fluttershy deal with a hundred potentially hostile kittens. It’s your call.”
This caused Rarity to reevaluate her options. “Oh my. When you put it that way, a little farm work suddenly doesn’t sound quite so awful. I have enough trouble dealing with only one angry cat. I don’t even want to imagine what a hundred would be like.”
“Okay, that’s settled, then. Remember, our top priority for now is to stop all cookie production. We’ll meet up afterward to figure out a way to deal with the cookies themselves.”
Twilight looked to each of her friends one last time and nodded.
“Right. Let’s go!”
As the six ponies rushed out the door on their way to save Ponyville, none of them noticed that Applejack’s tub of cookies, left sitting next to the mailbox, had been completely emptied.
~ * ~
Fluttershy’s house fell silent once again. For a few seconds, anyway.
“Wait,” Spike said. “Did they all just leave without me?”
Angel Bunny shrugged.
“Looks that way,” Discord replied.
“Huh.” A few moments of silence. “I don’t know whether to be mad that they forgot about me, or happy that I don’t have to deal with this whole cookie mess, or worried that they left me here alone with you.”
“Oh, we’re not alone,” Discord said. “Angel Bunny is here. And it appears that Rarity left her cat as well.”
The cat carrier, sitting against the wall next to the front door, let out a menacing growl.
“Now, what say we find some way to entertain ourselves?” Discord pulled an ear of corn from his hat and handed it to Spike, who was only a little surprised when it began to pop. “Here, have a snack, grab yourself a seat, and let’s watch an ornery cat chase a bunny around the house. That should be fun for at least five minutes.” He reached toward the cat carrier.
“You really don’t want to do that,” Spike warned. “Rarity’s cat can reach some pretty epic levels of nasty.”
“Come on, kiddo. I’m the Spirit of Chaos, remember? I think I can handle one grumpy little cat.”
“Even if she’s being affected by the cookie magic like all those kittens in town?”
Discord jerked his claw back from the cage door. “You know what sounds fun? Sitting quietly on that couch over there. Let’s do that.”
~ * ~
Applejack and Rainbow Dash arrived at the front gate to Sweet Apple Acres at nearly the same time. Rarity caught up about half a minute later, panting and wheezing and struggling to catch her breath.
“Did we really… have to run here… so fast?”
“You heard Twilight,” Rainbow said, trying to hold back a smile. “We can’t afford to waste any time.”
“That’s right,” Applejack added. “Now suck it up and let’s get a move on!”
“You girls… go on ahead… I’ll be along… shortly….” Rarity gasped. She lit her horn and a fainting couch appeared, onto which she promptly collapsed. “Just need to… rest a bit….”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “We should probably just leave her be, Rainbow. She ain’t gonna be no good to us in that condition anyway.”
“Right,” Rainbow said. “Don’t take too long, Rarity! I’ll be sure to save a couple shrubs just for you!”
And so Rarity was left alone to recover while her two more athletic friends made their way to the carrot fields. It didn’t take them long to reach it, and it didn’t take them much longer to notice that something was missing.
“So,” Rainbow said, “where exactly are all the cookies?”
Indeed, the rows of shrubs growing in the carrot field had been picked clean. No cookies remained on their branches, and no cookies filled the tubs scattered across the field.
“I don’t rightly know,” Applejack replied. “But Big Macintosh was harvestin’ ’em last I saw him. Maybe he did somethin’ with ’em?”
“Maybe,” Rainbow said. She pointed toward the barn, where Applejack’s brother was unhitching himself from an empty cart. “We should probably ask him.”
“Hey Big Macintosh!” Applejack hollered, running toward him, Rainbow Dash flapping along beside her. He nodded in acknowledgement.
“So, you finished harvestin’ the cookies then?”
“Eeyup.”
“And you took ’em into town to deliver ’em to Sugarcube Corner?”
“Eeyup.”
“But Pinkie wasn’t there?”
“Nope.”
“But she left a note on the door with directions on where to take ’em in case she weren’t back yet?”
“Eeyup.”
“And you didn’t run into any weird chaos-magicky stuff along the way?”
“Nope.”
“And nothin’ crazy goin’ on here at the farm while I was out? Besides the cookies, I mean.”
“Nope.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“Eeyup.”
“Okay,” Rainbow Dash interrupted, “how in the hay are you guys doing that?”
“Doin’ what?” Applejack asked.
“That whole conversation! It’s like you can understand… but all he ever says is… but you were…” Rainbow threw up her hooves in defeat. “You know what? I don’t even really care anymore. This whole day has been one big bucket of weird and I want to get back to my nap. So let’s just do what we came here to do and be done with it already.”
“Right,” Applejack nodded. “Say, Big Macintosh, care to lend us a hoof diggin’ up those cookie shrubs? Twilight reckons they could be a mite dangerous if we let ’em go on makin’ cookies, and after hearin’ what’s been goin’ down at Pinkie’s place I’m inclined to believe her.”
Big Macintosh considered this for a moment, before replying with an “Eeyup.”
The three ponies worked quickly. Nearly a quarter of the shrubs had been dug up by the time a mostly recovered Rarity showed up to help. Well, not so much to help as to fret over the way the shrubs had been tossed aside haphazardly. As the other three continued their work, she spent her time and energy arranging the discarded shrubs into neat rows, and then magically trimming them into more visually appealing shapes.
Soon all that remained was an empty field and an arrangement of uprooted heart- and flower- and star-shaped shrubs.
“You do realize we’re gonna have to burn those, right, Rarity?” Rainbow said.
“Yes, but until then, we’ll have something a little nicer to look at than an ugly heap of untrimmed shrubbery.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Whatever. My work here is done. If you all need me for anything, just look for a cloud with an awesome pegasus napping on it. And then go find somepony else to ask.” With a flap of her wings, she was off. Or, at least, she would have been off had Applejack not caught the tip of her tail in her teeth.
“Not so fast there, Rainbow. Your work ain’t done just yet. We still gotta head into town and meet up with the rest of the girls to figure out a way to get rid of all them cookies Pinkie’s got piled up.”
Rainbow sighed impatiently. “Fine, let’s get going, then. The sooner we’re done, the sooner I can get back to doing more important things. Like catching up on lost nap time.”
The three friends departed for Ponyville, leaving Big Macintosh behind to finish the cleanup.
~ * ~
By the time Twilight, Pinkie, and Fluttershy arrived at Sugarcube Corner, the skies were clear and the streets were devoid of kittens. Only mostly-dried puddles of strawberry milk and lots of tiny, muddy pawprints remained.
“Everything looks normal,” Twilight said. “That’s a bad sign.”
“It is?” Fluttershy asked. “I thought it would be good. If the chaos has stopped, then maybe the cookies weren’t as dangerous as we thought.”
“They’re dangerous all right, Fluttershy. And the chaos hasn’t stopped. Not unless the cookies all spontaneously combusted or up and walked away. The fact that the clouds and kittens are gone could simply mean the chaos magic has taken on a new form. We’ll have to be extra cautious from here on out.” She approached the back entrance to the bakery slowly. “I’m going to open the door now, girls. There’s no telling what may be behind it, so be prepared for any—”
“Hey, what’s this?” Pinkie shoved Twilight aside to closely inspect the scrap of paper pinned to the door. “A note!” She read it out loud. “‘Temporarily closed. Please redirect all cookie deliveries to 742 Horseshoe Lane.’ That’s weird. I don’t remember leaving a note. And I certainly don’t remember authorizing any changes in scheduled cookie deliveries!”
“Let me see that.” Twilight magically yanked the note from the door and brought it in for a closer look. “Strange. There’s nothing at 742 Horseshoe Lane. Half of that block is just empty lots. Why would they want cookies delivered there? And what do they intend to do with them? And why would they sign it with a…” She looked closer. “A tiny pawprint? Did one of the kittens…?”
The creaking of door hinges distracted Twilight. She looked up to find her friends gone and the back door of Sugarcube Corner wide open. “Well, so much for being cautious.” She followed Pinkie and Fluttershy into the shop’s kitchen, and froze in shock.
The place was a mess. All the drawers and cabinets had been opened and emptied onto the floor. Pots and pans and sheet trays and utensils lay scattered around the room. The faucet had been left running and the sink was overflowing with water. A sack of flour had been torn open and tipped over. Tiny white pawprints covered every surface, including the walls and ceiling.
“Oh no!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “All the cookies are gone! And the button, too! I’ve been cat-burgled!”
“That explains why there’s no chaos here,” Twilight said.
“Just look at this mess! It’s gonna take me hours to clean this up! Mr. and Mrs. Cake would have kittens if they saw this! And more kittens is the last thing we need!”
“Oh, those poor kitties!” Fluttershy said. “There’s no way they would ever do such a thing on their own! The chaos magic must have driven them to a life of crime!”
“We’ll have to track them,” Twilight said. “They’re loaded down with thousands of cookies, so they can’t have gotten too far.”
As it turns out, Twilight, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie were not very good trackers. The trail of muddy pawprints they were following ended at a patch of grass, where, apparently, all one hundred kittens had meticulously wiped their tiny paws clean before continuing on.
“This is hopeless!” Twilight said. “We’re never gonna find them at this rate! Today is turning into one big catastrophe!”
Pinkie Pie snorted and burst into a giggling fit. “Hee hee! I see what you did there! It’s gonna be a CAT-astrophe for sure! A PURR-fect storm! The whole KITTEN-caboodle! The—”
“Pinkie! Please! This is no laughing matter!”
“Sorry.” Pinkie covered her mouth with a hoof in an attempt to suppress any further giggles.
Suddenly, Twilight’s face lit up. “Wait! The note! It was signed with a pawprint! The kittens must have taken the cookies to Horseshoe Lane! And I’ll bet they took the button there too!”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Pinkie said. “Let’s go get those cookies back!”
~ * ~
The two groups of friends ran into each other a couple of blocks away from Horseshoe Lane. Twilight was pleasantly surprised to learn that the shrub situation had been handled with ease. She was less pleasantly surprised to learn that Big Macintosh had already delivered an entire crop of cookies to 742 Horseshoe Lane.
“The cookies Pinkie clicked were able to summon kittens and create strawberry rain all by themselves. Adding the cookies from the farm is only going to make them that much more powerful! We have to put a stop to this soon or—whoa!”
The group turned the corner and skidded to a stop. A sizable crowd of ponies was gathered in the middle of the street.
“Whoa nelly!” Applejack exclaimed. “It looks like all of Ponyville is here!”
“What on earth is going on?” Rarity wondered.
“Block party!” Pinkie shouted, darting off into the crowd.
“Don’t worry, I’m on it.” Rainbow took to the air with a flap of her wings and flew off to keep track of Pinkie.
Twilight flagged down the nearest pony, a gruff-looking earth pony stallion. “Excuse me, sir,” she asked, “you wouldn’t happen to know what all these ponies are doing here, would you?”
“Waiting on the mayor, mostly, I’d guess,” he answered. “Word is she’s gonna make a speech soon. Don’t know any more than that.”
“We’d better go and see for ourselves,” Twilight said. “I have a bad feeling about this.” They pressed on, working their way through the throng of ponies, Fluttershy apologizing to each and every one she accidentally bumped or jostled, until finally they broke through to the other side, where Pinkie and Rainbow were waiting for them.
“Twilight,” Rainbow said, “you are really not going to like this.”
“What are you…” Twilight’s voice faltered when she saw what Rainbow meant.
Before them, in what was very recently a row of empty lots, stood 742 Horseshoe Lane. It was huge, stretching nearly the entire length of the block, a rectangular monstrosity of red brick and tall, narrow windows, twin smokestacks jutting into the sky. The sign rising from the roof, featuring a smiling cartoon kitten, identified the building as “Fuzzy McWhiskers’ Old-Time World-Famous Original Chocolate Chip Cookie Factory”. The banner hanging above the door proclaimed this to be a “Grand Opening”, and the smaller sign on the sidewalk announced “Factory Tours Available: Inquire Within”.
Rainbow Dash was right.
Twilight didn’t like it at all.
For those of you who are curious, this is what Cheerilee found drawn all over her chalkboard when she showed up at the schoolhouse the following morning:
She hadn’t had her morning coffee yet and was in no mood to deal with Pinkie Pie and/or Discord’s shenanigans. So she did the only sensible thing: she erased the board completely, drew up the diagrams and equations she’d need to teach her first lesson, downed a few good doses of caffeine, and went about the remainder of the day as if the drawing had never existed in the first place.
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MOAR PLZ!!
Um.. I mean... if that's okay with you.
6122610 As long as there's a grandma left in the universe, someone is gonna make cookies. And with enough cookies, bounds of space and time are MEANINGLESS
I don't recall being able to purchase milk to attract kittens to click the button for you... but it's as good an explanation as any.
They are so doomed.
Is it bad if I now want an art of Spike and Discord sitting quietly on a couch, mugs of coffee/coffee of mug in claw, trying to make small talk? Because that sounds hilarious.
Spike's commentary after the Mane 6 is too meta. What's this? Your Spike is evolving!
The Mane 6 having to do battle against a litter of cats sounds about part for an above-average day in Ponyville.