7. Discordant
Meg found herself on a cloud back in her penthouse suite. Why the cloud? Silly question. At least Discord hadn’t forgotten to turn her back into a pegasus. The cloud hadn’t been turned into cotton candy either. Be thankful for small miracles.
She could use a few, after what she’d just learned.
First things first. Steve must’ve been wondering what the hell had happened to her when she suddenly disappeared from the gift shop. Calling from Canterlot hadn’t been an option. Her phone had gone to whatever limbo clothing and stuff went when she transformed, and Twilight had left hers in Ponyville. Now that she was a pony again, it was once more affixed to her left fetlock.
There was no signal.
Great.
Going to limbo must have severed its connection back to her world, and round-tripping back home to reestablish it was not an option. Should she wait here until they inevitably return, or go and look for them? It was a big casino.
They could be right below me, you know. She went to the edge of the cloud and looked down. A familiar pony had made herself comfortable, passing the time reading a book, but it wasn’t Rainbow Dash or her husband.
She jumped off the cloud and glided down, touching down in front of the mare.
A. K. Yearling looked up, her glasses as fake as ever. “You were not in this room when I arrived,” she stated with raised eyebrow.
“Just got back from Canterlot via the draconequus express. Princess Celestia had requested my presence. It’s…”—she shook her head—”a long story. I don’t suppose you happen to know where Steve is.”
“Long stories are my specialty,” she said with a smirk as she got up. She trotted over to the house phone and picked it up. “A. K. here. Please inform Security that Meg has been found and let her husband know that she’s with me in their suite.”
“You got dragged into this?”
Daring Do sauntered back to her. “An advisor to the Royal Court mysteriously vanishes into thin air? How could I pass that up?” She flashed a hungry smile. “I might even get a book out of it.”
Meg sighed. “It’s not one you’ll be able to publish for a while, if ever.”
“I see.” Daring returned to her place on the opulent cushion. “It figures Celestia wouldn’t interrupt your vacation to discuss new floral arrangements in the palace gardens.”
“No, it certainly wasn’t that.”
“Oh come on, spill it. I’ve got clearance now, or have you forgot?”
Should she? Just because Daring had clearance did not entitle her to every detail. That workplace break-in didn’t concern her.
Meg considered the disguised explorer in front of her. Daring had dealt with unsavory characters. She indisputably wrote about them. Perhaps she had useful insight.
“Wait until Steve gets back,” she said after making up her mind. “Telling it once is enough.”
“Fair enough, it shouldn’t be long now. What should we talk about until then?”
It didn’t take Meg long to come up with a question. Being a casino owner, she’d certainly know the answer. “Why do unicorns hold cards with their hooves and not telekinetically with their horns?”
As expected, Daring had a ready answer. “To prevent cheating, unicorn magic is prohibited; telekinesis is usually permitted, but for cards and dice even that turned out to be too risky. It’s enforced by detection spells.”
That was easy enough. An earlier conversation came to mind. Meg doubted this topic would be as easy, but it seemed as good a time as any to bring it up. “Ahuizotl. Why does he permit everypony to think he’s one of your fictional characters?”
Daring stared blankly for a second, then broke out in laughter. “Oh, that’s a good one!” She caught her breath. “I have to give you credit. That question never occurred to Rainbow or Twilight.”
“And?”
“I don’t think he gets out of the jungle much. Perhaps he’s never heard of my books?”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
She visibly suppressed another round of laughter. “Are you so sure I haven’t?”
Meg replied with silence.
“How about this: It suits his purposes.”
Meg rolled her eyes.
“Tell you what: I’ll arrange for you to meet him. You can then ask him yourself—if you can first get him to stop monologuing about his latest evil plans.”
Meg sighed. “No thanks. My life is complicated enough as it is right now.”
Daring shrugged. “Your loss.”
One unexpected teleportation later, and Twilight found herself in Celestia’s tea room. A quick glance revealed her mentor by her side. She saved her irritation for the draconequus by the panoramic window, who was taking in the view. “Would walking have killed you?” she demanded.
“Oh, come, come, now,” he replied. “Time spent walking is time not spent talking.”
What was even more irritating was that he wasn’t wrong. “You could’ve at least warned us first.”
Discord turned around to face them. “That would have taken precious seconds,” he pointed out. He checked a pocket watch that hadn’t been there before. “Seconds we are now wasting.”
“Since when are you so organized?”
He placed his paw over his heart. “That hurts. Surely you know me better than that by now. If I was never organized, my disorganization would be too predictable.”
Twilight took a seat at the table. “Fine,” she mumbled.
“Then let’s get down to business.” Celestia sat next to her former student. “Discord, would you know if Chrysalis had found some way to cross over to the human realm?”
He paced back and forth a few times as he stroked his goatee. “I believe so,” he said. “The magic required is quite distinct.”
Which was how he knew to intervene when the Crusaders had used his plaid pills without permission, Twilight remembered, or knowledge of how to use them. “And the fact that you’ve never mentioned sensing this magic means… it hasn’t happened?”
“I’m not sure I liked the way you asked that.”
Celestia waved it away. “We’ll take it as granted that the changelings cannot cross over on their own.” She flash-heated a kettle and added tea leaves.
Twilight was about to say something when Celestia cut her off. “We’ll also take it as granted that you have not given Chrysalis her own supply of plaid pills.” The diarch gave Discord a questioning look, waiting for him to confirm or deny.
He raised a talon in objection, then thought better of it. “Of course I haven’t.”
“Then we do have a mystery, one that cannot be solved without the prisoners cooperation.”
Twilight frowned. “Which we don’t have. Hopefully the agents will have better luck with them.”
Discord was playing with a yo-yo. “And if they don’t?”
“Then they don’t?” Twilight didn’t know what the point of that question was.
The yo-yo vanished. “Is not a cell next to my ex-BFF, Tirek, still an option?”
Oh, that point. “Well, technically, it is. Nothing physically prevents us from doing it. But that’s not the plan. That was just to scare them into cooperating, if not with us then with the Feds.”
Discord waved it away. “Yes, yes, humans call it the ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine.” He smirked. “I’d never imagined you playing the ‘bad cop.’”
She’d have to ask Meg exactly what that meant, but she doubted she’d like it.
Those red-on-yellow eyes bore into her. “But what if the plan doesn’t work?”
Meg finished her recap.
Daring Do wrote some final notes. “You can’t make this stuff up,” she said.
Steve shook his head. “They really were that convinced they’d kidnapped you.”
“I don’t know what’s going with that, but there’s no question they cleaned out my office. Maybe all my stuff is in that van Twilight brought back, but I doubt I’m that lucky.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Daring said. “It stands to reason they removed your stuff from the premises at the same time they removed ‘you’—whatever that ‘you’ may turn out to be.”
Meg trudged over to the expansive windows and gazed at the Silver Lining Cloud casino across the strip. Lightning flashed across the cloud-like logo every now and then, triggering a light show of falling silver coins. “Kinda ruins the vacation, doesn’t it?”
“You should be concerned with what comes next,” Daring said. “Whoever pulled this off has connections and motivation. They’re not going to take this setback lightly.”
“I’m a bit surprised they’re sending Agent Fowler to see the prisoners, and not the FBI.”
Meg turned around to face her husband. “I think it’s a matter of trust. Daring’s right. Who knows who can be trusted in the FBI? In any government institution? This is a potential national security issue. Someone, with or without clearance, knew months ago what we were doing and got a plant hired by us.”
She faced the window again. “Sending Jessica’s plausible enough; foreign leaders are their jurisdiction.” She looked down at the moving strips below, full of ponies. “I wonder how this is being portrayed in the news.”
Steve joined her by her side. “It’s asking too much, isn’t it, to put this aside until we return.”
“Why the hell did this have to happen on our vacation?” she demanded.
“We can’t leave before tomorrow, so we might as well make the best of it?”
Meg’s jaw set. “We’re in the realm of pink, fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows. I think we can do better than that.” She walked to the hot tub in the middle of the suite, scanning the walls as she went. “Show yourself, Discord!”
Everypony waited for the draconequus to appear—in vain.
“Never a deus ex machina when you need one,” Daring quipped. She quirked an eyebrow. “Fluffy unicorns?”
“Maybe he’s still with the princesses,” Steve said.
Meg stamped a hoof in frustration. “There’s gotta be some way to get his attention.”
“As fascinating as this is,” Daring said, getting up, “I’m afraid I must leave you, as I’m already late for an appointment.”
“You’ve already been of great assistance,” Steve said, “and thanks for the room upgrade.”
“It would’ve been otherwise unoccupied,” she replied with a shrug. “I do have one last suggestion: go to the Discordant. You might have some luck getting his attention there. He doesn’t own or operate it, mind you, but his chaos magic is present.”
“We’ll do that,” Meg said. “Thanks.”
Daring began walking to the front door. “And if that doesn’t work, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The door opened before she reached it. Rainbow Dash flew in. “Hey guys! You won’t believe how much—” She caught sight of her favorite author. “You’re here?”
“Was here, past tense,” quipped the disguised Daring Do as she walked out the door.
Dash flew over to Meg and Steve and noted their less than joyous mood. “Uh, did I miss something?”
Twilight removed the last box from the van, putting it on the floor beside all the others. The contents of the box floated upwards then spread out. There were some flash drives, a notepad, and manuals. It all came back together and re-entered the box.
Half the magic generators were accounted for, to her surprise. It turned out they were all switched off, which was why she hadn’t noticed them in the other realm. They knew to do that. They had an inside man, she remembered.
Unfortunately, nothing from Meg’s office was here, and that included several enchanted crystals, like the one that prevented eavesdropping.
Spike entered the room. “Jessica’s pickup confirmed for nine tomorrow morning at the Bethesda lab.” He scanned all the boxes on the floor. “She wants to start with the physical evidence.”
Pictures she had taken with her phone had already been forwarded. “Thanks, Spike.”
Twilight hopped into the van and made her way to the front, just to make sure there wasn’t another box. The front seats were empty as was the floor in front of them. There was some miscellaneous stuff in the pockets built into the doors, but it was probably best to let Agent Fowler deal with that. She turned around and exited the back of the van.
“Do we have everything they tried to steal?”
Twilight walked out of the room, unable to lift her head. “No. They got away with some important stuff.”
“What’s the point?” he asked. “They don’t have spell-casting unicorns to take advantage of it.”
Not every item needed a unicorn, but she didn’t feel like correcting him. “I don’t know, Spike.”
Getting answers from the prisoners was increasingly hopeless. Maybe Discord was right; she ought to have Tartarus cells ready. She could discuss it with Jessica tomorrow.
They returned to their residence. “I could really use one of Pinkie’s cinnamon and daisy swirl vanilla shakes right about now,” Twilight said. She looked around. None was to be found. Even Pinkie Sense had its limits.
“How about hot chocolate?”
“Okay,” she said. It would have to do. “Extra decadent.”
“One extra decadent hot chocolate coming right up!” The baby dragon hurried up the stairs.
Twilight went up the stairs after him at a more sedate pace. She joined him in the kitchen and took a seat at the table.
“Sometimes I wonder if this is worth it, Spike. First that ‘ransomware’ on my computer and now this.”
He put the kettle on the stove. “What about all the new books and the stuff you can learn?”
“I’d be happier if I could have just that and leave behind all the chaos that’s attached to it.” She rolled her eyes. “At least it makes Discord happy.”
Spike snorted. “I bet it does.”
“I’m worried it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” She sighed. “And we still don’t know where that mysterious message to Meg came from.”
Riding the moving strips was different, Meg had to give it that. They were on the fifth strip from the sidewalk, moving maybe seven or eight miles an hour. To be more precise, she and her husband were on the strip; Rainbow Dash was in the air, matching their speed. With the steady wind in her face, the temptation nagged Meg to catch the air with her wings.
Naturally, the pegasus in the air hadn’t failed to notice. “Nothing wrong with flying, you know.”
“Thanks for the tip,” she huffed.
Dash rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Dash had insisted on tagging along. She wasn’t going to let them deal with Discord by themselves, assuming he showed up, and if he did offer them an express trip back to Ponyville, well, Twilight obviously could use her help and the sooner she could provide it, the better.
The overpass approached. The Discordant hotel/casino was on the far end of the strip from Planet Do, on the opposite side of the “slidewalks.” Steve began working his way across the strips back to the sidewalk, avoiding the other riders. Meg stayed close behind. Rainbow Dash went up, over, down, and hovered, and waited for them.
It was a short trot to the overpass, but not an especially easy one. Under the rising moon they worked their way through the crowds clogging the sidewalks—Rainbow Dash simply flew above them, naturally—and eventually they reached the overpass.
There was nothing special about it. The overpass gently sloped up, leveled out, passed over the moving strips, then gently sloped down. It was wide enough for both pedestrians and vehicles—not that any vehicles were present. Pegasi didn’t rely on ground-based transportation.
The Discordant wasn’t far now. Glowing, mismatched yellow-and-red eyes peered out from the letters “o” and “a” in the name, eerily shifting about as if it was Discord himself looking about.
As they approached the end of the overpass, something apparently caught Dash’s eye. She rocketed away. From the ground it wasn’t possible to see anything past all the other ponies. “I’ll go up for a better look,” Meg told her equally mystified husband.
She took off, trying to look all directions at once. While nowhere near as congested as the ground, the air was far from empty of flying creatures. Soon she was hovering a dozen feet above the overpass and looking in the direction Dash had flown. There she was, four, maybe five hundred feet away—her mane was hard to miss—hovering above…
“You gotta be kidding me.”
She flew back down. Steve was waiting for her by the balustrade lining the overpass, staying out of the flowing river of ponies. It was easiest to hover on the other side of the balustrade; it was low enough for ponies to look over.
“Well?” Steve asked.
“It’s Trixie, the Great and Powerful. She’s putting on a show over there.”
“Out on the sidewalk?”
“That’s right,” she singsonged. “Not a big crowd either.”
“You’re sure?”
“Sure enough,” she said. “I can make out her hat, her coat color, and that beat-up wagon she calls home and uses as a stage.”
“And Rainbow Dash went over there to…”
“Watch, for now. I don’t think she’s been spotted yet.”
“Should we get involved?”
She sighed. “You know what? No.” She took advantage of a break in the flow to land beside him. “Dash is a big filly, and we have enough crap to deal with.” She started walking. “Let’s go find a draconequus.”
They made their way down to the sidewalk. Trixie was to the left; they turned right and made a beeline towards the Discordant’s entrance.
The glass doors looked ordinary enough. Meg pushed one open and entered. Steve kept it open with his magic and followed her in. Rows of slot machines greeted them—figuratively speaking—no different from the slots back at Planet Do. Meg walked over to the nearest row and examined the reels of one machine after another. It used Discord-themed symbols, like cotton candy clouds raining chocolate milk and a picture of his face, but along with the usual gaming symbols it was so… ordinary. None of them even so much as moved. They did in Vegas, thanks to the video gamification of slot machines.
She looked around, at the carpets, the ceiling, the walls—the patterns could be considered chaotic, but they were just patterns. Clashing eyesores, really. No magic required.
“Wasn’t there supposed to be chaos magic at work here?” Steve asked.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Meg replied.
“I’d say I was the one fooled,” added a defeated voice behind her.
She spun around to find Discord reclining on a psychiatrist’s couch, lion’s paw resting over his mismatched eyes. Not being in a mood to put up with his melodrama, she got to the point. “We need to get back to Ponyville right now, Dash included.” She added, “And don’t forget our luggage.”
A red-on-yellow eye peeked out from under the paw. “Can’t you see I’m busy here opening up my feelings?” he complained. “It’s not easy wearing my heart on my sleeve.”
A pulsating object caught her attention. Why does he have to be so literal about everything? The heart was still attached to arteries and veins that went back under the skin of his lion arm. It would have been a lot less disturbing to look at if it had been merely a cartoon. “I’d say you’re finding it quite easy to do.”
“Oh, really? Do you see a sleeve?”
True, he wasn’t wearing a shirt, but so what? He was just being difficult for the sake of being difficult. Time for a different approach. “You know what’s going on. You’d do it if Celestia asked you.” Probably. “As her royal advisor, I’m asking you in her name.” Her façade cracked. “I can do that, right?”
In a flash of light, the couch vanished and his heart, thankfully, returned to its proper place. He stood before her wearing spectacles, flipping through pages of a thick book. “Can you? That’s an interesting question.” He found the page of interest and scanned numerous paragraphs of dense text with a talon. Satisfied, he slammed the book shut and willed it away. “No, you cannot.”
It was looking like a lost cause, but she had to persuade him somehow. “Since when do you follow rules? You should let me do it just to break them.”
“Hmm,” he said, tapping a talon to muzzle. “Intriguing… if breaking rules is my thing, a rule that I follow, then that rule must also be broken, which means I don’t break rules, which means—”
“Enough!” she interrupted. She sat on her haunches, fuming. “I’m not in the mood for paradoxes.”
Steve inserted himself into the conversation. “I think we can spare a few minutes,” he said. Meg glanced his way but didn’t object. “So, what is the story behind this casino and why hasn’t it worked out for you.”
The couch reappeared, with Discord already lying upon it. “It was Fluttershy’s idea,” he began. He waved his paw at the surroundings. “A themed casino so ponies could willingly experience the wonders of chaos. Even Sunbutt got on board; she helped find a casino operator for me to partner with.
“I was full of ideas! Hotel rooms should randomly change their layout whenever nopony was inside. All you can eat buffets where the more you ate, the hungrier you got—instant weight loss! Slot machines where you bet your lifespan; you age an hour each time you play, and if you win you get younger!”
His joy melted away. “But they were all rejected. Ponies don’t want their rooms to be rearranged, they said. Ponies eat to end hunger, not increase it, they said. The house cannot make money on slots that took lifespan instead of chips, they said.”
Discord fell silent. In the distance, the sounds of spinning reels competed with the sounds of a jackpot being paid off, the steady clang of crystalline chips pouring into a metallic bucket.
“That is… unfortunate,” Meg forced herself to concede. Regardless, the longer this pointless exposition went on, the longer before she could get back to Ponyville.
“Isn’t there supposed to be some chaos magic operating here?” Steve asked. “That’s what Dar—what we were told.”
Discord dismissed it with a wave. “The wallpaper and carpet change every now and then. That’s about it. They’re not allowed to change more than once an hour. Oh, and those eyes in the name outside? That was their idea.”
A light bulb appeared above Meg’s head—or would have, if she had been a draconequus. “I bet there are many bronies who’d love to experience chaos as it’s meant to be—within limits, of course. Rearranging floor plans is fine, but…” She shook her head. “We can talk about that later. But before hordes of bronies can visit Equestria, we have to get past the current crisis, and the sooner we can get back to Ponyville…” She gave him a pleading smile.
Discord gave her a flat look and sighed. He got up, reached out and lifted up the coach, somehow stretching out his arms, collapsed the coach like an accordion until it was no thicker than a sheet of paper, then he folded it in half, and again, and again, and again.
Meg watched, in growing irritation, as Discord gratuitously ate up time.
He kept on folding until it was no larger than a sugar cube. Finally, he popped it into his mouth and swallowed. He snapped his talons.
Twilight checked over her calculations once more. She frowned, and she finished off her second hot chocolate. It was doable, but not without the assistance of Discord’s magic. He would have to come along anyway, as only he knew how to access hyperspace from the mirror realm.
Would Meg also want to come? She probably would; it concerned her most of all, her husband too.
She sighed as she collected all her notes and assembled them into a neat pile. It had to be a last resort. There was no denying, however, that she was running out of options, and she needed to know what the hay was the story behind Meg’s mysterious message, her alleged kidnapping—and most of all, the incident that had started it all, that doll.
“What the—couldn’t you have given me a head’s up first?!”
Twilight’s ears locked in the direction of Rainbow Dash’s voice. She wasn’t supposed to be back for another four days.
“Well, if you had stayed with us instead of flying off like that…”
She stood up and walked to the railing overlooking the lower floor. Dash wasn’t the only one back early, it would seem.
“I saw Trixie, and I had a message for her.”
She found Trixie? That’s one item that could be crossed off the checklist—wait, no, it didn’t sound like she had actually talked to her.
“Well excuse me for not knowing.”
Twilight reached the railing and looked down. All three of them were back, their luggage too.
“I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation for your sudden and premature return.”
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I'm pretty sure that the ransomware and this groups extensive knowledge of Twilight's operations aren't exactly unrelated...
By "Meg", do you mean the woman from Disney's Hercules?
8667904
Read the previous story, Destinies. Meg is the main character.
8667573
I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. As for this other Meg, though... It's not changelings, so... No, an evil twin would be another use of an overused cliché... What else is there? A master of disguise?
Scratches head, maybe the bad guys have a Meg from the future?
Honestly, I feel kinda sad for Discord here. It's true he has a (bad) history, and even at the best of times he's kind of annoying. But he's obviously making a real effort to reach out, and at best people are only humoring him. Mostly because they're only willing to be near him when they want something.
I mean, I get it, but it's still sad.
Oh god a discord casino, RUN!!! lol
Meg really needs to stop pushing with Discord. He seems to be getting a bit aggravated.
That said, a Discord-themed casino in Vegas with his chaotic magic rearranging floor plans, even doing short term transformations on patrons, would likely be highly successful.