Chapter 4: All Play and No Work Makes Discord a Sane Draconequus
The One Where Pinkie Gets Even
Chapter 4: All Play and No Work Makes Discord a Sane Draconequus
Discord let out an exasperated groan as he drove his frozen yogurt-plated Segway down the hallway of Canterlot castle. Even the fact that he was making a melted banana-and-turnip sorbet mess wasn’t enough to make him feel better.
Twilight had made him remove the chainsaw entirely. He had tried to compromise and ask if it could at least go on the side for the colts and fillies to play on, but she wouldn’t budge. His offer to bronze the giant hockey mask and make it the centerpiece of Ponyville Park had been shot out of hand. Twilight was less than thrilled to add a permanent lightning storm to the clock tower, asking ‘Who would even need 1.21 gigawatts at a moment’s notice?!’ He also had to replace all the damage caused to the instruments in the zeppelin explosion and wasn’t even allowed to fill them full of complimentary macaroni and bees.
Also he got yelled at because many of the musicians were injured and probably needed therapy… or something?
His ears had fallen off at one point and it took him a while to find them again.
As he approached his door, Discord dismounted his Segway, letting it continue forward until it smashed into a centuries-old suit of royal guard armor on display. The Segway exploded in a fiery crash, sending debris and yogurt everywhere.
Discord momentarily considered replacing the armor with a statue of him eating several hundred cans of sweetened condensed milk… Celestia would at least chuckle.
“Feh,” he said dismissively as soon as he opened the door to his realm. To think he still had so many chores—
From a distance, it almost seemed his front lawn had been turned into some sort of green level plane.
Instead of donning his diet Colta-Cola and Mentoats jetpack, Discord teleported directly to the edge of his lawn, floating in the open air just an arm’s length away.
Discord tilted his head so his eyes were level with the grass. Somehow… Each blade was completely level.
Discord felt his brow tighten. He thought the grass having emotional issues and cutting itself to a roughly uniform length was bad enough, but this. This was… this was just pure, undiluted sanity this was! He felt himself peering closer… and closer… There was something… more…
Discord recoiled in horror. Each blade of grass was also facing the exact same direction… How… How!?
“GHA!” Discord cried out in shock and disgust.
He huffed…
And he puffed…
And he bleeeeeeeeeeew his grass back so it at least wasn’t all facing the exact same direction.
Discord smirked; his lawn was at least disheveled enough to be an average-looking lawn.
Discord cringed. Well, we can’t have ‘average’, now can w—
Suddenly Discord heard a breeze and felt something tussle his goatee. Somehow, the grass was uniform again.
Magic? It couldn’t be… Discord would have sensed it.
Discord blew another large gust of air.
The grass became disorderly, and suddenly shifted back into uniformity.
Discord blew again.
The grass shifted back again.
Discord blew.
The grass returned.
Discord summoned a fireball and exploded his lawn.
The grass caught fire and turned to ash.
The grass burned away, and with his lawn now little more than a smoking crater, Discord could finally see what was forcing his law into a single level plane.
Ah-HA! Just as I suspected, it was some sort of complex, air-pumping device designed to force each blade of grass back into place should it be disturbed!
Discord frowned.
…No, actually that’s insane… Who would think—
Discord’s eyes shot open wide. Did he… did he just question the insanity of something!? He bolted into his house and slammed the door. At least in here he’d be… be…
Discord swallowed hard.
His house was immaculate.
The windows were washed, the carpets were perfectly cleaned, and all the dust bunnies had clearly been let loose into the wild!
How dare she?!
How could she?!
His own home!
Discord took a few calming breaths.
Steady… steady… this is what she wants. I’ll just… I’ll just make something to eat… relax a bit, crash a flying lawnmower into the living room, and maybe let loose a pack of baboon-mounted mountain goats around the house.
Discord sighed as he floated into his kitchen. Of course it was spotless too. He checked the sink. It was empty.
Great. Just great.
If his pans weren’t there, then…
No…
She…
She wouldn’t…
Discord gulped and leaned down, opening a cupboard by the side of the stove.
She would.
She did!
SHE PUT THE PANS IN THE CUPBOARD NEXT TO THE STOVE! DOES HER WICKEDNESS KNOW NO LIMITS!?
She even…
Discord felt himself quiver from the sheer horror of what he was witnessing.
She even stacked all the pots and pans neatly and arranged them by size… smallest to largest, left to right, front to back.
With great effort, Discord looked away, his eyes locking with… the fridge.
He ran over to it and threw it open, slamming it shut nearly as quickly and throwing his back to it.
He only caught a glimpse. But… but for a moment… He swore everything had been organized by food group.
He dared not check the freezer.
Where does it end? Did she… did she get everything?!
Discord quickly took a few side steps and threw open his spice cupboard. He let out a high-pitched screech at what he saw.
All his spices… even the ones with unpronounceable names and letters that didn’t exist were somehow in complete alphabetical and xerchgurgle!@#$%^phethran~!gical order!
But that means my silverware is…
Discord pivoted and pulled a drawer out so hard it came out of his counter entirely, falling to the ground along with his lion’s paw he let detach from his body.
His silverware drawer…
It… it…
It’s full of silverware! No! NO! And it’s all placed nice and neat in one of those silverware holders! But if my silverware is here… Where’s my werewolf slaying kit?!
Discord placed his talon on his chest and took a few deep breaths. Maybe they didn’t have a place for it. Maybe it was thrown out into the swirling, shifting, screaming nothingness of his backyard in complete disa—
Discord’s caught something out of the corner of his eyes. There... there was a label… A label on one of his cupboards. The one where he usually kept his bowler-skating equipment.
A label that said, ‘Monster-fighting stuff’ in pink glitter pen. The ‘i’ was even dotted with a heart.
Shaking with fright, Discord leaned over and pulled the cupboard open… His wolfsbane, silver bullets and revolver were there, all clearly labeled with sticky notes with a placard that read ‘Werewolf’ in front of it. His stakes, wooden mallet, holy water… ALL OF IT WAS LABELED in a newly created ‘Vampire’ section!
Discord quickly reached in and grabbed a baseball bat from the new ‘Piñata’ section. He began to swing the bat wildly as he gripped it one-handed near the top of the handle.
“Stay away from me!” he cried, swinging his bat in the direction of his pots and pans cupboard.
“Please!” Discord swung at the fridge, his bat glancing off the side with a ‘thwack’.
“Don’t hurt me!” he pleaded as he smashed the bat into his spice cupboard, sending colorful powders in all directions. Discord took a step back from the overly organized cloud he had just created.
‘Jingle’
Discord looked down. He had just placed his dragon’s foot directly into the silverware drawer that was on the ground.
It would be missed.
Discord took a one-handed swing at his own foot, with a solid ‘crack!’ his foot went sailing off his body and shattered a kitchen window.
“Stay away from me!” he screamed at the ‘Monster Fighting Stuff’ cupboard as he leveled his bat at it.
Then… only then… did he notice. So desperate for something to defend himself was he that he didn’t even take notice…
On the side of the bat was a sticky note…
A note with the letters…
B
A
T
“STAY AWAY!” Discord shrieked as he let his eagle talon fall to the floor, still gripping the bat.
He hopped out of the kitchen and into the dining room as fast as he could on his goat leg, letting out a cry of despair as he noticed all the chairs had been perfectly arranged and spaced at his dining room table (somepony even fixed the uneven leg so it didn’t need a water balloon to hold it in place).
He hopped through a pair of perfectly straightened red satin curtains that separated his dining room from the hallway, letting the curtains slide over him as he currently didn’t have hands to part them with. He was determined to make it to his room where… Well, he’d probably have to unmake the bed… but that was nothing compared to… compared to…
Discord caught sight of himself in the mirror.
What happened to you, Discord?
You’re falling apart. You… you…
Discord’s eyes shot open wide as he took a closer look at his face… or rather… his eyebrows. They… they were perfectly symmetrical. His left eyebrow was supposed to be bushier! He knew that.
Suddenly he noticed it… He couldn’t tell if it had just been put there or if it had been snuck in during his panicked frenzy, but there was something in his mouth that shouldn’t be there.
Discord opened his mouth, glanced in the mirror, and let out a blood-curdling scream. There were two fangs in in his mouth!
Also, he needed to replace his blood with some that hadn’t just been spoiled by screaming, but that was of secondary concern.
Discord wrapped his tongue around the offending fang and ripped it out, flinging it back towards the dining room entrance as he tried to hop once more down the hallway.
He quickly lost his balance and fell chin first to the disgustingly clean wooden floor.
‘Thud!’
As much as he loathed having more contact with the floor, he needed to move fast. Well, he knew how to slither, but that meant he now had extra weight. There was no time to carry dead weight around. His goat leg popped off and he slithered down the hall until he reached his bedroom door. He turned the bedroom knob with his mouth and practically fell inside.
Much to his chagrin, the bed was made. In fact, his plaid and polka-dot comforter had been replaced with a tasteful light blue one. He shuddered to think that it was probably in his Lenin closet and that his souvenir from the Russian Mausoleum was… I don’t know… It was probably next to his Egypt bandage collection in the basement. Pinkie better not have opened his souvenir; it was still mint in box.
Anyhow, first he’d have to unmake the bed. But how? All his limbs were now contaminated and no longer attached to him.
…
Of course!
Robot limbs!
Discord instinctively tried to snap his talon, but then remembered it was no longer attached to his body. Slightly miffed, he settled for snapping his tongue. Shiny and chrome arms and legs appeared on him instantly. He gripped the blankets tightly and—
Is that a mint on the pillow? Don’t mind if I do!
Discord quickly grabbed the mint and ate the wrapper, spitting out the sweet treat. Then he grabbed the blankets and threw them on the floor.
Huh… I didn’t even have to spend a millisecond arguing with my limbs to get them what to do… Maybe robot limbs are the way to…
… way to…
Stop, stop, stop!
Discord stopped and looked at his limbs. Mechanic… Orderly. Had…
Had he fallen?
Had he fallen completely to the nonchaotic side?
No! It wasn’t too late. He could… He could put it back, right? Or… or… He could make new organic limbs! Maybe a nice tentacle or giraffe leg. Discord raised his right metal arm and held his fingers as if to snap them, but stopped and stared at the new appendage.
Discord gave a melancholy sigh as he stared at his robot limbs. “Oh what have I become…?
Memories of his snapping talon resurfaced. Why he remember the time he snapped it and rearranged molecules to how he saw fit… which was pretty much every time.
Discord began to sniffle. “Sniff… My… my sweetest friend…?”
Tears, not ice cream tears, or fruit punch tears, or even crocodile tears, but regular, salty tears began to pour down from Discord’s face.
“Every…sob… everypony I know… hhehh… goes away in the… snort… end…”
Discord broke into open sobs. Powerful moans that shook his body as he grabbed the comforter and wrapped it around himself.
Was this what she wanted? Was this her plan all along? Had he really underestimated her so much? Was she really such the chess master that she manipulated every move of Discord’s little chrome car all the way to the end zone?
Suddenly a voice spoke. Calling out to Discord in a soft, yet disturbing sing-song voice.
“Diiiiiiiiiiiscooooooooooord~. Why are you a sad Sally, Discord?”
Pinkie! Where is she?! Is she even anywhere? Does that question have any bearing in—
Discord swallowed.
—reality?
“Go… GO AWAY!” Discord cried.
There was a giggle. “Oh, but you didn’t even see the bathrooms yet!”
“No… please… leave me be,” Discord pleaded. “Don’t tell me you put the medicine in the… in the… inthemedicinecabinet!”
Another giggle. “Okay! I won’t tell you that.”
Discord began to gnash his teeth and beat the ground. “How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?” Discord glanced upwards briefly. “And actions… mostly actions, really.”
“For as long as it takes…” Pinkie’s voice answered cryptically.
Still kneeling, Discord furrowed his brow. “Takes for what?”
Pinkie tut-tutted. “Now Dissy, where’s the fun in me just telling you?”
“Look. I'm sorry about the hair…” Discord made a sound like a cat coughing up a hairball and coughed up a massive pink gob of soggy hair into his mechanical hands. “Look! See!” he said offering the hair out to… well… pretty much just his mattress as Pinkie didn’t seem to be physically in the room. “You can have it back!”
“Oh, we're past that...”
Discord teeth began to chatter. His eyes darted around the room in a near frenzy. “Wh-What are you going to do…?”
Another giggle. “Do? Silly-Billy. I’ve already done it!”
Discord swallowed. “Done what?”
"I found your closet, Discord."
“No...."
"I divided it into sections based on outfit type..."
"NO!"
"And then I alphabetized those… based on color! Hehehehehehe!"
All his outfits now triple organized. This was far, far beyond anything he could have dreamed or even conjured in a nightmare. Discord snapped his metallic fingers and was suddenly wearing a black outfit complete with long cape, helmet, boots, and chest plate with buttons on the front. The helmet was curved at the sides with a long breathing apparatus for his muzzle. The fact that it took Discord a microsecond shorter to conjure the outfit stung that much more.
Discord threw his arms up to the heavens, clenched his fists, and screamed up to the sky. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
His house shook, windows and lamps broke, and dishes fell out of cupboards and shattered on the floor.
It was a start, but… but how long until Pinkie came back? How long until she casually fixed and reorganized all he had painstakingly, haphazardly messed up?
He couldn’t live like this.
Discord broke into a cold sweat.
I need help.
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I think this is how bachelors feel when they get girlfriends.
It could be worse, Discord.
She could have enlisted Twilight Sparkle and your entire world would become an OCD paradise. Er, nightmare.
Oh-HO!
Now THAT'S how you take revenge, Pinkie Pie style!
Well played! Given how badly Discord was scarring everyone else emotionally, I had been a little worried that Pinkie's revenge was going to go a little grim-dark. But this hit the sweet, dastardly clever spot.
Throw in a free flux capacitor and you've got yourself a deal.
Breaking and Tidying Up?
Thats an Amazingly Obscure shout out to a series that occured decades ago?
If I have my understanding correct, then he would need Twilight on this?
Lesson Zero Twilight.
Okay. I'll admit it. That was hilarious and the perfect nightmare for Discord.
Can't wait for more.
HiddenMaster out.
I could think of someone. If you don't get it you had no childhood.
You messed with the wrong mare.
You really did
Uh pinkie,
I think you broke him.
good
Or
Discordian Horror Story
This chapter is brilliant. Well done.
Holy...
She's a monster. Where is the Dark Tag?!?!
Oh good lord...
I was fine enjoying watching Discord freak out over having his chaos turned into Order, but...
Then this line...oh gods this line...
And suddenly the reason why Discord's deliberately trying to keep them all at arms reach by not really learning friendship makes sense. It's heavily implied in the series that Discord is far older than Celestia or Luna.
Imagine you're born. You grow up. You make friends. You watch them grow old. You watch them die. You bury them. You go to make more friends to keep yourself company until you die and rejoin your friends in the afterlife.
But then you don't die. You watch your new friends grow old and die. You bury them, too. This repeats until you realize you're much longer lived than most creatures. So you find the really long lived ones - in this world, that'd be the dragons - and befriend them. They show you the idea of sleeping through a century or so. You sleep with your new friends.
One day you wake up and they don't. They're dead. You bury them.
You realize that anyone who you could ever befriend will die on you...and you'll never see them again, because without dying, you can never enter the afterlife.
You're left with two choices. Make more friends, knowing you will lose them eventually and forever. Or seclude yourself from others...left only with your memories, with the last memory of each friend - of burying them - is always the strongest one in your mind.
...is it any wonder Discord is mad?
So discord pulled a Vader
6584549
I definitely agree that Discord must have a very detached view of 'life'. I go into a bit more detail in Chaos Vs. Order, but the basic idea is Discord is truly primordial and (it's been hinted here and there in this story) experiences a number of senses that ponies aren't even really aware of.
As of such, even sort of humoring some of these pony concepts has got to be hard since his thinking is quite a bit alien. He's possibly known life on this planet since it was just single celled organisms and he's essentially humoring the whims of beings, that, from his standpoint, fairly recently just figured out you could use fire to cook something. And on top that, it's almost certain he's made some sort of attachments to creatures, either sentient or possibly otherwise, who only existed a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of Discord's long life.
So yeah, if Discord wasn't born mad, it's quite likely he'd have little choice in the matter.
6584549 and things went dark.
I bet Discord jut needs to take a nice sit down in his liar's chair.
6584401 Now we know how Pinkie does what she does: her quantum wavefunction has never collapsed.
You brought this on yourself, Discord. Abandon all hope.
Pinkie, you monster! You don't organize a man's closet without marrying him first.
6584634 She's not just everywhere and nowhere... she's everything and nothing too! Pinkie is god! Explains the heck out of the platypus at least.
6584549
Keep Calm and Flutter On:
"Who cares? I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. I'm Discord, the master of chaos!
You think you can boss Discord around? You think I'm just going to turn all this back because you say so? Because if I don't, I'll lose the one friend I ever had?
...Oh. Oh. Well played, Fluttershy. Well played."
So, Discord never had friends prior to Fluttershy, unless we call his memory into question.
However, there's still wiggle room in your theory for some entertaining acquaintances and/or rivals that stuck out to him over the centuries. Celestia and Luna likely weren't the first to try and take him down, after all.
6584705
Easy way to account for that.
Deliberate memory loss. The pain of the memories was so much he erased them...and then went mad from the hole in his mind and heart where the memory of his friends should have been. And now that he's making friends...it's all starting to come back.
6584619 Another good chapter to pass away the hours--thank you.
6584723
Hence why I mentioned we could call his memory into question, Tats.
That sounds extremely painful though, moreso than living with those awful last memories. Doesn't exactly sound as simple and easy as pulling a band-aid.
6584755
And that's why Discord is insane.
That awkward moment when you go sane.
WOAH MAN. Keep it G-rated!
...
...Win.
6584549 Even in other stories, you manage to hit everybody where it hurts.
Right in the feels, Tats. Right in the ******* feels.
6584915
Whoops! Fixed. Thanks.
This right here. This is some gooooood
, I tell you what.
6584634
Schrodinger is screaming and thrashing in his grave.
Someone give the poor corpse an anesthetic.
Ah.... Poor fellow.
Um...wow. I did not see that coming. Pinkie truly is evil...
I thought she was just going to tell Fluttershy to ignore him, but this is much better.
Lesson learned DON'T F*** WITH PINKIE PIE
Wow. Pinkie broke Discord.
I like how you put Pinkie's organization skills to terrifyingly good use here.
6584268
I dunno, Pinkie seems to be doing pretty well on her own...
6584266
Having been in that position, I can tell you no, it isn't. Oxytocin is such a marvelous drug...gets you over that nasty initial shock a treat!
Discord could have his house constantly rearrange itself, or have some security guards made out of Nyan Cats or whatever.
Eh, just playing devil's advocate. This is more funny than I expected, though.
6586446
Oh, she IS. I don't think Discord would survive a prank assault fueled by Pinkie's creativity and Twilight's raw organizational power.
He'd be a babbling puddle of drool inside of a week. Who needs Elements of Harmony when you've got the Dewy Decimal system?
Funny! But I don't think Discord is so badly disarmed by contact with excessive order. Otherwise, Celestia and Luna wouldn't have had to use the Elements of Harmony: importing a few dozen Swiss maids, housekeepers and janitors should have been enough to drive him from Equestria...
6588174 You're assuming Tia and Lu were on a housecleaning basis with Discord. I doubt he invited them over for High Coffee at midnight.
Discord has the power of chaos...
But Pinkie Pie possesses Madness... and knows how to use it!
Mein Gott......this isn't war.....this is straight up assassination!!
A truly chaotic system will achieve an ordered state, given sufficient time for the system to work. This is because the opposite statement, that a chaotic system cannot achieve an ordered state, is a restriction on the system and therefor prevents it from being truly random.
In other words, Discord is bad at chaos.
Wow. She's good.
Wow.
Darth Vadercord.
This story is amazing, though sorry to say, my attention was stolen.
6584612 your current profile pic, it is killing me. A Winged Sword of the Dark Angels shoulder Pad... and the coloration and Armour decorations of a *shudders* Ultramarines captain... No.
Lawn.