Chapter 7: Partytime
Snips could barely see the lights of the outside hallway streaming feebly through the multicolored miasma of the the Rainbow Factory. Every so often a particularly dense purple cloud would totally obscure the hole and he would shudder. He couldn’t help wondering if it the funhouse’s wounds had started to scabbed over. Snips hated the idea of the funhouse as a living entity, but from where he was in its wet, hot guts it was a hard thought to dismiss.
Next to a large pile of dropped scissors, he nervously shuffled on the gridded metal platform towards Screwball, in his estimation having spent too much time standing near the edge. He ducked an occasional bolt or screw while she worked to open the gigantic furnace which dominated the far wall of the factory, rusted over in vivid patches from the color bubbling only a few feet below the grid. Her eyes spun very slowly under her furrowed brow as she pulled open the furnace’s cover, hot air blowing her fluffy hair straight for a moment. Her beanie’s propeller stayed still.
“Screwy?” Snips looked at the dull blue and purple rocks inside the burner, ignoring the white bits scattered inside. “W-w-what are we gonna do here? I mean, are we gonna wave a red blanket in front and make him run inside?” He stared at the sickly green flames, hoping the faces that churned there was only his imagination.
“We’re down here to fight him. Me aren’t here to break his power.”
She stood in front of the opened grate, fire licking towards her faces, and Snips wondered why he suddenly felt so cold.
“Go on,” he said.
“Snips, me,” she raised a hoof to her forehead, nearly pitching over before steadying herself. “I know what I have to do. He said why he made me. He can return to Equestria over and over because of me.”
She looked into the coals of the furnace, her spirals having stopped moving altogether.
Snips nearly broke a tooth as he grimaced. “No! Buck, no! You can’t seriously be considering--”
“It’s the only way.” Screwy jostled Snip’s mane wistfully. “If that’s where he put tangible power, the only way to beat him is,” she coughed, pale and sweating on her hooves, “me must not destroy it.”
“Horse apples!” The metal floor shook as Snips stomped down indignantly. “This is a rotten way to end it!”
Slowly and carefully, Screwball kissed him on the forehead. “Snips, everything will be okay. Me promise. No one will care.”
“I’m almost out of friends! I won’t let you-- ”
And before Snips could say anything further, with not even a tear, Screwball took off her beanie and skipped it through the air into the open furnace door. The two ponies flinched backwards from a brilliant yellow light. Blinking away the sweat, Snips saw a quivering pile of melting slime falling apart into individual gummy bears, each one moaning in a high-pitched voice about life’s fleeting precipice.
Snips blinked. He looked at Screwy, sucking on her bottom lip with tears in her eyes, and blinked again. Then he sat back on his haunches and started screaming.
“Seriously? That’s it? It wasn’t you, it was the beanie the whole time?” He snorted two tiny clouds out of his flaring nostrils. “You could have put your cards on the table a little clearer there Screwy! I thought--”
She hugged him, and he decided that was worth more than the shouting. After a moment she pulled back, rubbing her eyes. When she finally looked at Snips she was giggling uncontrollably.
“Whoah. Me should have kept that forever. My head feels so much clearer.”
“Screwy?”
Screwball was busy bouncing in place, nodding at almost a vibrational rate.
“It’s going to work! Or me don’t think it will work, if you prefer it that way. I understand the house, Snips.” She started bouncing towards him, and nearly with Screwball nearly nose-to-nose he started backpedaling while staring into eyes that spun so face they were one solid color. “I can anticipate the emus, now. I can see the fnords!”
As his back hoof kicked off the precipice, he gently pushed Screwball away and started to rub his head. “Um, question? What is a fnord?”
“Oh, believe me,” Discord said behind him, hovering over the bubbling sea of green, “it’s a little obtuse. Why, let’s try something simpler.”
Snips turned, transforming the pile of cutting tools into a cloud of steel that whirled into Discord. The startled trickster spun backwards through the air, dozens of handles protruding from him.
“Oh, no! How horrible!” Discord writhed in the air as he wailed . “My lifeblood!”
Snips nodded in self-satisfaction before turning to beam at Screwball. At her slow shaking of her head, he looked back at Discord.
“Ouch! Oooch! Eich! Oh! Ouch! Oooch! Eich! Oh!”
Snips gave out a long breath as he watched the weightless Discord quake with giggles with dozens of oversized plastic scissors tied on with rubber bands “sticking” into him. As he flailed, Discord hit one too hard, knocking it flat against his fur and exposing the blunt, play tip.
“Cheater!” Snip screamed.
Lying down in mid-air, Discord spared him a thumbs-up and a wink. “Draconequus,” he said with a shrug. Hovering to a stand, Discord grinned at Screwball. “You’ve cost me quite an expenditure of energy today.” Donning glasses, he produced a clipboard from
which paper rolled downward for over a dozen feet until finally resting in the quagmire of the rainbow vats. Discord paced in the air as he read to Screwball, who hadn’t moved a hoof since he appeared.
“Wall repairs, overtime and injury pay for the actors, catering, I mean even the special effects are over budget!” He flung the paperwork angrily into the scarlet soup below, claws curling into fists. “Do you know how hard it is to do this without going to the union?”
“You’re stalling, Discord.” Screwball stepped forward, and after finding herself not instantly destroyed went a few more to the edge of the platform. “Me am so excited. Me know everypony wants to listen to you kvetch.”
Snips would have clapped if he wasn’t petrified with fear. A witty retort fought its way out of his mouth, only to become an incoherent whimper.
Discord stopped smiling, thrusting his left claw upward to count on his paws. “One, I am incredibly funny. Two, don’t get smug because you toasted my little control cap. When I’m done, every brick in Ponyville will be laced with me. Three,” he said, puffing himself up to three times his height and screaming, “I am incredibly funny!” He panted in anger for a second before staring at his fingernails. “So there. Let’s get this started.”
“Don’t get ready. Me have good feeling,” Screwy said to Snips.
Nodding weakly, he asked, “Ready for w-what, exactly?”
Discord snapped once, and the entire funhouse became transparent. The gray mists of nowhere visibly swirled outside, and Snips and Screwball saw dozens of glass rooms where ponies suddenly snapped out of their nightmares. Acts of horror and despair paused and monsters disappeared as the inhabitant of the funhouse looked around in confusion, all eventually turning to the bright glow of the rainbow factory.
Only two ponies showed an emotion other than confusion. Screwball saw Sweetie Bell with Ponce trailing behind her, testing the locks on doors that were now invisible. In the room right next to the Rainbow Factory, Twilight Sparkle stared out of her prison. No terrible creatures or disappointed relatives waited inside her cell. The only things keeping her company was a floating cloud of crystal balls. Inside each of them, the goings-on of the other rooms were visible. Her eyes red, her coat stained with tears, Twilight grinned in joyful anticipation as she made eye contact with Screwball. Screwy nodded back at her and winked before turning back to Discord.
“Mission accomplished,” Snips said with a swallow. “Totally not ready for that.”
The gloating trickster was gleaming in a sequin-covered ringmaster costume, a top hat held in his claw. Next to him a levitating white tiger hovered off the ground, looking rather out-of-sorts at it’s sudden existence and lack of dignity.
Discord turned in a slow circle, bowing with his hat in his claws. The magically-altered glass of the prison rooms distorted his face, giving every inhabitant the feeling that they were making direct eye contact with the mad god. He saw the fear and reveled in it. The thoughts in Discord’s head would be hard to explain, being something not unlike glass butterflies covered in a madman’s calligraphy smashing into each other at high speeds. Still, if one could read his mind, stay sane, and derive some intelligent thought from it, the largest represented species of butterfly would say something like the following.
I need to do this one more often, he’d think with the clattering of shattering wings. I love that look on their faces, and there’s so many places to try. Every nation has a Ponyville.
“Fillies and gentlecoats,” he said with a smile, “come on and welcome to the show!” With a gesture, the interlocking glass prisons reformed, all actors and props disappearing as the funhouse reassembled into one gigantic arena. Each prisoner resided in a pony-sized glass box, grouped together in the semblance of the stands of a circus tent. Kangaroos in uniform hopped between them, selling boxes of popcorn with caramel and springs to customers who couldn’t pay, take the merchandise, or mostly stop screaming.
Inside one of the cells, Apple Bloom paced the perimeter. She was covered in scratches, dirt, moss, and whipped cream, and she was grinning from ear-to-ear. Leaning on a wall, she shared her grin with the equally bedraggled Diamond Tiara.
“See that, Diamond? He had to cheat on us.”
Diamond panted as she collapsed onto the other side of the wall, wiping mayonnaise and algae out of her mane. “Yeah. Call that a win?” She closed her eyes and started to snore.
Yeah, Apple Bloom thought, you can tell she ain’t never done a day o’ farm work in her life. She said nothing, though. Apple Bloom had once wrote to Princess Celestia to say that friends don’t kick each other when their down, and she remembered that.
Away from Discord’s sight, on a precarious platform underneath the arena blocked from view by the shimmering pool of rainbows, hundreds of bizarre props sat. Their creation had been instantaneous, but their shapes suggesting loathsome purposes somewhere between a griffin inquisitor and a Neighponnese game show. Animals in mismatching uniforms ran frantically amongst the machinery in desperate acts of preparation.
One of them was slightly less focused than the others. Between the marzipan guillotine and a ball-pit of sea urchins, a yellow-feathered reptile dragged an unconscious kangaroo into the shadows. The darkened corner lighted up for a second as a young unicorn focused, using her horn to resize the kangaroo’s striped uniform.
Above the sparkling sea, Screwball stood on the hovering grid-work of rust, the single remnant of the Rainbow Factory’s machinery. From the precipice of the platform, she scanned the stands intently. In the front row, she finally caught sight of two glass cells marked “Reserved.” Red Glare and Cheerilee were inside, wearing dunce caps and staring back as they pressed their hooves against the separating wall.
Cheerilee was shocked at her daughter’s condition. Screwball was covered in multicolored patches of filth and sawdust, her tangled hair spilling over purple eyes now tinged mauve by the red of exhaustion. Cheerilee giggled hysterically as her brain somehow conflated Screwball with a spelling bee contestant, ready for her first word. In that moment, she knew her duty.
She pulled her hoof away from the spot on the glass wall opposite her husband’s hoof and reached deep inside the teacher’s desk in her mind. Carefully, her mind’s hooves shaking, she slipped her mask on with no more hesitation than if the principal had walked in for an observation. With all her mental might, Cheerilee smiled at her daughter.
Screwball smiled back, waving. From that point on, Cheerilee assumed everything was going to be all right. Of course, that didn’t prevent her heart from speeding up as the two minotaur clowns reached out of the rainbow lake and pulled themselves onto the platform. Glowing muscles flexed around cruel faces covered in greasepaint, and one of them crushed his ham hock of a hand around the rubber ball of a horn, sounding out an inappropriately cheerful toot.
Spellbound at the drama in the arena, Cheerilee suddenly shrieked as her glass cell flung itself into the air. It skidded to a stop in next to Discord, who shook a bag of popcorn at her from outside the cage.
“Want some? This is going to be excellent! The final showdown between the little brain-damaged and the Lord of Laughter. One-on-one--”
“Excuse me! Hello!”
Discord blinked. Even the minotaurs stopped honking for a second a Snips waved a shaking hoof in the air from the corner of the platform, a place equidistant from the two horned hooligans.
“Really? The fat one’s still up?” Discord sighed. “Wonderful. You get an award for bravery, tenacity and cholesterol.” He rubbed a irritated claw across his face, taking much of it off as his visage stared out from his palm. A slap against his head brought back the annoyed look to its proper place.
Screwball smiled, stepping to Snips’ side. She gave him a spinning wink, drawing a weak nod from the sweating stallion.
“Hold on, guys,” Discord clicked his tongue and waved to the clowned-up cattle creatures. “Union break.” He hovered down to the platform’s level, steam pouring out of his ears.
As the audience held their breath, the minotaurs both produced a tiny tea cup from nowhere and began sipping.
“Now, my sharp little doughboy, my vengeance on you is a little bit later.” With a gesture, Discord placed a glass cell with an open door right behind Snips. “Kindly exeunt the center stage and you’ll get some fleeting moments of peace and quiet before we discuss your earlier, painful indignities.” His neck and arm stretched out impossibly far to whisper into Snips’ ear. “This next part might be a little physically tiring.”
Snips shook as he saw the pain promised in Discord’s grin. He looked away, only to be confronted by the eyes of dozens of Ponyville teens staring back from inside their transparent cages. Some had looks of hope and other of confusion, but mostly they stared back at him in underwhelmed apathy. He saw them through a tunnel of memories, and in every eye contact made Snips could see years of memories looking back at him.
Hey Snails, wanna play conjoined twins?
Hey Snails, there’s a magician’s wagon in town!
Hey Snails, I know our moms said to never go by Deadmare’s Drop again, but--
In every teen, some part of their mind said, This guy? This is the one guy that’s free? The one that invented the transferable butt tattoo?
Snips swallowed. “Nope. I’m in this for the win. Time to bring it, Ponyville-style.”
Wondering if he heard applauding hooves on glass or his own heartbeat, Snips felt Screwball’s steadying hoof on his shoulder. If it was any more forceful, it would have knocked him over completely.
Discord chuckled, floating off to a hovering director’s chair. “Well, congratulations on choosing a partner, Screwball. May the oddballs by ever in your favor. Begin!”
Snips flinched as the minotaurs cast their cups against the group, sending a cloud of porcelain fragments into the air. “Uh,Screwball?” Snips asked as the two clowns started to circle the pair. “Do you have any ideas?”
“Yes,” Screwball said with a smile.
“Oh. Um. Is that a straight ‘Yes’ or a backwards ‘Yes’?
“Yes!”
“Ah.”
By now, the minotaurs were slowly circling Screwball, dramatic piano music sounding out from nowhere to keep time with their ponderous steps as they drew near, fingers twitching in an anticipation that showed on their smiles. One of them waved a rubber chicken at Screwball as threateningly as possible, while the other smirked at Snips while cracking his knuckles.
“Now!” Screwball leapt straight up into the air as her minotaur charged. He waited beneath her, arms wide.
“Now?” Snips leapt to the side to duck his attacker, rolling like an action hero with an unfortunate addiction to pies. “We didn’t have a plan! What’s ‘now’? What comes after ‘now’?”
Screwball was silent as she spun through the air, drawing her legs close to her body. At the peak of her jump, Screwball’s tail curled into a coil, and she came down on her pursuer like a cotton candy-colored corkscrew.
There was a loud metallic sproing as she came down directly onto the minotaur's face and bounced away. The confused clown staggered around, his vibrating nose squeaking uncontrollably like a drunken boyband fan club..
Snips pulled himself onto his hooves while thunderclaps pretending to be hoofbeats advanced towards him. He could feel the stink of the grease-painted maniacs breath draw near as he struggled to stand. Just as the last limb found purchase on the slippery metal, all four hooves were snatched into the air as pain exploded at the base of his tail. Suddenly, he was staring into the white, upside face of the grinning minotaur.
“I’m gonna tear you into pieces, little horse.”
“Yeah? Well, you first, buddy!” Throwing his head back, Snips’s horn flickered into life as a loud popping sound heralding the escape of the minotaur’s clown nose.
“No! Matilda!” The minotaur (who can’t properly be referred to as a clown while noseless, of course) dropped Snips as he ran after the the glowing, bouncing ball. It bounced in place on the edge of the platform patiently as its owner drew near, finally leaping away into the glowing pool of colors. Under panicked momentum, the minotaur soon followed, it’s frantic leap carrying it far enough to grab the clown nose.
Snips stared as it hung in the air. The minotaur screwed the red nose back on and turned back towards Snips.
“Okay,” Snips said as he swallowed. “I think I can guess how the laws of this place work.”
He pointed downwards, wiggling his eyebrows at the clown. Slowly, the clown looked downwards at the rainbow pool beneath it. Gravity suddenly realized that it had skipped something, and with a resigned shrug the minotaur plunged into the rainbow pool.
Snips collapsed onto the platform, wiping sweat of his brow. “And Mom said the Ponyville Theater Cartoon Hour was a waste of time.” He flopped onto his side to see the other clown stumbling about, eyes spinning wildly as canaries, spirals, and circles with glowing “X”s inside spun about it’s head. It ambled unknowingly towards the edge of the platform before two pink hooves bucked it in the seat of the pants. The “X”s instantly shattered as it dived into a headfirst blue-and-red splash.
Screwball watched the spreading purple waves with a nod before helping Snips to his feet. He smiled; there was no mistaking the sound of Ponyville’s pounding hooves on their glass cages. He reared back and whinnied.
“We won! Hey, Screwy, you saw what I did there?”
She nodded, before turning a colder gaze to Discord, silently stewing in mid-air.
“Oh.” Snips rubbed his eyes, leaning over to whisper to Screwball. “How do we actually win this?”
Discord’s head spun off his neck into the air as he grit his teeth. “Come on now, winning isn’t fair!” The head landed back on his neck backwards, and a moment of flailing arms and a quick two-clawed adjustment passed before he could see straight. A snap of his fingers silenced the applauding crowd. They still pounded on their floors, but no sound trickled down into the arena. Gradually the captives realized this, and the hoofpounding mostly stopped except for about a half-dozen mares whom Discord have never managed to successfully cow.
He spread his claws and clicked his tongue. “I’m sorry, my little ponies. That was quite the unorthodox play you pulled. I’m going to have to consult the judges on this one.” The politeness on his face ran away as he twisted and screamed at the back of the room. “Judges, I demand a ruling on this!”
Behind him, against the wall of the room, a clawful of mismatched thrones sat in nothing that remotely resembled a straight line, each of them bearing a draconequus. From a door in the back of the platform came a constant stream of animal servants with snack trays. As koalas in bellhop outfits and frilly rhino maids paraded around them, piles of discarded nonsense sprung up.
One Discord sat regally, wearing a huge flat-topped black hat and a red robe with black sides. Thoughtfully, he sucked something out of a pretzel rod, casting away the floppy and seemingly whole remains. As he briefly stopped grabbing pretzel sticks from the penguin roller skate waitress next to him, he bellowed, “Guilty!” He quickly chewed on his thumb, staring at the ceiling in thought. “Provisionally!” He pronounced with glee.
As one Discord dressed in a tuxedo shrugged, another in a clown suit yawned. “Honestly, I‘ve barely been paying attention.”
The ringmaster quaked in frustration, turning to the last Discord at the table. “And what doe the celebrity guest say?”
A draconequus in glasses with a fake mustache attached pulled his cigar out of his mouth. “Five tons of flax,” he chortled before kicking back off the chair and rolling on the unseen floor.
“Eh.” Discord shrugged. “That’s about what I thought.” Meekly, he turned to the audience. “I’ll have to allow it.” He smiled, teeth bared. “I’m about to allow a lot of things to happen.”
“Hey, Screwy,” Snips whispered. “Shouldn’t we try to do something while he’s arguing with himselves?”
Screwball shook her head, lowering into a runner’s crouch. “Me don’t need him to keep going.”
As the teens on the platform braced themselves and the entombed audience alternated between rapt attention and nervous breakdowns, Discord pulled a magnifying glass from his front pocket. Peering through it, Screwball saw the enlarged image of his eye wink before a claw that could juggle wagons stuck out through the glass. It flickered in unsubstantial black and white for a moment, the fingers twitching spasmodically, before it grasped the rim of the tool and pulled the rest through.
“I’m large, little ponies,” he said in a booming voice, “and most definitely in charge.”
Snips’s heart nearly stopped when he realized that Discord was big enough to wear the carousel boutique as a hat. Screwball pawed the ground, and expectant look on her face.
“Well,” the chuckling colossus said, “it’s time for the big finish.” He snapped his fingers in remembrance. “Let me put on some mood music.” He plucked the glass coffins of Red Glare and Cheerilee out of the air and held them against his ears as a black band grew between them over the crest of his head. At that height, Screwball could just see Red pounding on the walls against Discord’s ear, while Cheerilee seemed a mostly still dot far away. Their screams ringing in his ears, Discord banged his head in place with closed eyes for a few seconds before opening them and breathing in slowly.
“Ah,” he said as he hit his chest with his fist. “Music to really gets the blood flowing.” He reached to the side of Red’s case, turned a switch marked “volume” past ten, and nodded. “So why don’t we do just that?”
With the snap of his fingers, the surface of the rainbow pools quaked. The varied colors began to spiral down into a tie-dye nightmare, leaving Screwy and Snips’ platform hovering dozens of feet above a rusted metal surface, bare except for a solidified lump of blue candy with multi-colored streaks clinging to the drain.
“Is athletics more your style? Well, a good ringmaster plays to his performer’s strength.”
Dozens of lollipops appeared in the air, the smallest of them being as wide as a wagon wheel with a stick like a ski. They floated together and rotated in the air, creating an moving framework of spinning wheels and poles. One would occasionally stop dead in the air, only to recklessly spin away seconds later and reconnect to a different place on the levitating jungle gym.
As Snips stared at the assemblage of unsafe, spinning floors, he realized his platform was shaking.
“S-S-S-Screwy, I c-can’t d-do t-this.” Panting heavily, sweat was pouring down his facial coat. “I-it’s been fun, but you c-c-c-can--”
He screamed as two strong hooves bucked him in the rear, sending him flying off the platform. Snips saw a life of embarrassment and camaraderie flash into front of his eyes as he hurtled toward the surface of a chocolate-filled spherical lollipop. He threw his hooves in front of him frantically around the white pole holding it to the rest of the scaffolding, wrapping his legs around it just as it started to spin.
Bile rose in the back of his throat. Can I puke in a dream? What'll come out?
“S-S-Screwy! Help!”
He saw three of her hopping from hoof to hoof along three quickly-spinning white bars. The herd of Screwballs somersaulted over three of a solid block-like lollipop that swept into her path, a terrified cricket silently screaming inside each one. Each Screwball gave Snips a quick smile as they reached a house-size, rainbow-colored spiral disc.
“Watch out for emus!” She shouted back with a friendly smile and hoof wave.
Snips blinked.
“Wait, what? Was that one backwards or forwards? Aaaaaaargh!” Snips screamed continuous as the ball he sat on started to move in two directions, going around like a hyperactive clock’s pendulum while the shaft spun on.
Through it all, Screwball ran straight for Discord, eye narrowed. Chuckling nervously, he waggled his fingers through the air like a conductor. The entire candy contraption started to fold and spin. Screwball, finding herself turned around, balanced on one hoof as she tried to study the shifting framework. Almost immediately she backflipped away as a gigantic lollipop shaped like a charging unicorn swung through the space she had just occupied. It’s trajectory unimpeded, it slammed into the wall of the arena, lodging through the steel before the helicopter prop at the base of its stick spun in reverse. The unicorn lollipop flew back into the fray as two identical candy weapons fell in behind it into a V-formation, patrolling in search of Screwball.
While Screwball raced around the perimeter of the obstacle course, Snips’ lollipop hung down, finally immobile. Snips had scrunched his eyes shut as the world continued to reorient itself around him, but as his chocolate-filled conveyance stopped he risked cracking an eye open. Something between a desperate laugh and a nervous scream ran out of his throat as Snips threw himself upwards, dragging himself up along the stem of his lollipop. Seconds later, two gigantic rainbow spirals with sharpened edges collided right beneath him, turning the candy sphere that was his vehicle into a cloud of shards and chocolate chunks and leaving jagged pieces of themselves in the mix.
Hope and need rose in Snips as he turned his mouth sideways, bit the pole, and concentrated hard. He felt blood rushing, his pulse hammering through his blood vessels like a marching band, but he simultaneously willed the cloud of debris to not fall and his pounding head to stay unexploded. He slipped downward nearly two feet before the cloud of sharpened sugar lifted to his rapidly-descending eye level.
Grunting, Snips telekinetically jammed the larger sharps bits into the lower part of white stick he hung from. Experimentally, he lowered his hooves and found purchase on his makeshift platform. Standing on a swing candy plank like a tasty circus act, Snips slumped against the cardboard bar he clung to, embedding as many shards into it as he could right before his horn finally released the remaining scraps to clatter on the floor far below.
He panted for a second, rubbing his hoof under his nose to wipe off a trickle of blood. Whether it came front his exhaustion on an impact masked by his adrenaline, he didn't care. He held the bloody hoof inches away from his face and laughed.
“This is how Screwy feels all the time, I bet.” Looking up, Snips cast a critical eye at the jagged pieces of candy he’d manage to obtain.
Elsewhere Screwball ran in leaping strides, jumping from one horizontal cardboard bar to another to keep just ahead of a cloud of sharpened lollipops the size of Hearth’s Warming trees. Heart pounding as she bounced for one floating jungle gym to another, she had no idea that Discord was finally getting bored.
He had shrunk back down since the show had started. Regardless of how impressive it looked, he found that triumphing over your enemies is less fun when you tower over them. Unless he’d squish them himself (and he was sorely tempted), it’s was like trying to watch a hoofball game played by hamsters in their tunnels.
So, lounging near the full-service bar and hovering only slightly over the platform of giggling clones he’d created as an audience, Discord disinterestedly turned around and tapped on Cheerilee’s box. Hers was the only cage he’d allow sound to penetrate out of. It was funnier that way, since everytime he talked to her Red Glare would pound his hooves against the glass and bluster, terrified at the possible threats to his wife he was deaf to.
“So,” Discord said conversationally, “I’m rather bored now. I just might snap my fingers and kill your daughter.” While her world froze and her brain readjusted itself, Discord aimed a baleful glance at the glass with an umbrella he held in his claw. “More importantly, I think we’re almost out of the fixings for screwdrivers.”
“You wouldn’t. That’s not funny. That’s not fair.”
He slid a pair of sunglasses down his muzzle, staring into her eyes as he carefully sucked a metal screwdriver out of his glass point-first.
“We’ll, it’s just feels like death. After all, nopony ever really dies in the funhouse.” He sighed. “Besides, I don’t have all day, and I don’t think the bartender knows how to mix ingredients and keep them edible.”
“Please.”
Crumpling his glass like paper, he chuckled. “Please, what? Please, you’ll give me something? Please, or you’ll wreak terrible vengeance on me?”
“Just, please,” Cheerilee said, pushed against the walls of her cage. “She’s my daughter. Please.”
Swallowing whole the metal tool shoved through an orange, he belched in Cheerilee’s face before snorting.out a cloud of screws and bolts from his nose.
“I’ll give you one minute,” he said while watching as Screwball flew through the air, trailing the cloud of cones. “One minute to convince me not to do this to her.” He slurped the last bit of metal hardware from his glass before throwing it over the railing. He crossed his arms, raised his eyebrows, and waited patiently.
Cheerilee breathed in. Thoughtful quotes and motivational speeches from a long and distinguished career of teaching whirled behind her eyes, but none of them made any sense to her. They were, at that point, empty passages she could have recited without comprehension. A sweatdrop running down her muzzle brought her out of mental paralysis, and with a quick breath she launched herself into the one line of reasoning she thought would work on a malicious chaos god.
“Look,” she said, “if you--”
Smiling, Discord snapped his fingers.
Many things happened at that moment. First, Cheerilee crumpled onto the floor, wailing. Second, the trio of unicorn lollipops spun in the air in their unerring pursuit of Screwball. Third, Discord created a flux in the fluid space and time of the dreamworld, an invisible rip that would instantaneously appear in front of Screwball and send her careening unto the first of many pointed, rainbow demises.
Finally, Screwball dodged it.
The second before it opened, Screwball pushed down on her forehooves and flipped over it without breaking a stride. As Discord’s jaw hit the floor and rolled under a chair, she smiled at him and kept running.
Discord reached out his claw without looking, and the bartender’s horn flared as she levitated the jaw back to him. Screwing it back in, he stared incredulously at the accelerating, angry pastel blur heading for him.
Cheerilee, crying, started to giggle.
Snapping his fingers only for effect, Discord grabbed another drink from the bar and threw the whole thing, glass and all, into his mouth. Crunching the glass and swallowing, he snapped his fingers again and repositioned the candy missiles right in front of Screwball.
She leapt at the foremost unicorn pop, and with a tap of her hoof it turned into a cloud of twenty-sided dice falling harmlessly to the floor below. The other sugary weapons shot past her harmlessly.
Clenching his claws, Discord snarled. “That doesn’t even make sense!” Suddenly in a sequined jumpsuit, shades, and a bouffant hairdo, Discord began snapping his fingers rapidly. The lollipop maze starting pulling apart before Screwball bent down and whispered to it, and it began to reform, straightening out towards Discord like a bridge.
A mob of chain-wielding biker emus fell upon Screwball, and she rolled her eyes as she tapped each lollipop she past. She watched the gang get slammed by quickly repositioning candy construction materials the swung out on their own and ran on, waving to a hidden fnord only she could perceive that had snuck in from a higher dimension to watch,
Sometimes, it takes a screaming argument. Sometimes it takes a fearful confession, or an unexpected wedding. That moment, watching the lollipop scaffolding twist at Screwy’s will, was the single event that made Cheerilee finally understand her daughter.
Her mind flashed back to that first day with Screwball in her classroom. Cheerilee had turned her back for a second, and when she had looked back her daughter-to-be had cleaned years of dust and destruction away completely. Even recently, from her miraculous pre-trip apartment straightening to the dinner platters she had arrange in minutes, Cheerilee had started to take Screwy’s ability to do the impossible almost for granted.
Everything was so clear now, and Cheerilee laughed and laughed until Discord stared at her sourly.
“What could possibly be so funny?”
She wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, Discord. You’ll never be her father, but you made her. You picked out the mane, the coat color, everything. You even gave her a cutie mark. Did you think those were for show?”
Discord examined his thumb carefully. “Is this thing even loaded?” True to form, he started to vent his frustration at the nearest captive audience. “What are you babbling about, you trumped-up babysitter?’”
Cheerilee stood to her feet, wiped the tears off, and grinned through the mask that all true teachers keep behind their face. This was the variety of mask they wear when they bump into a parent they’ve been trying to contact at a grocery store and casually mention how their wonderful child flooded the science lab on purpose. This was the grin a triumphant teacher wears when impending punishment is in the air.
“I’m explaining slowly with examples so that I know that you understand the lesson, dear. Our cutie marks mean something. Mine is to inspire and nurture, and you gave me her to work with. I nurtured her to be the most she could, and all that is going to rain down on you shortly like the horn of an angry alicorn. Are you following? Is my cutie mark involving book reports still so funny?”
“Oh, spare me the braggadocio.” He was sweating. Screwball was getting so close, he could make out the direction of her eyespin. “What are you getting at?”
“You didn’t choose a special talent for her, so she grew one from what she was made of. She brings order out of chaos, Discord, and we’re standing in the middle of a realm of chaos.”
Discord dropped to the floor, sweating and fully focused on Screwball. His trains of thought crashed together and wrapped around each other in a perverse mating dance of groaning steel. A thought flickered from their diesel-choked copulation, and he focused he consciousness on the one way he could--
“Excuse me, sir? Any more drinks? Popcorn maybe, peanuts? Ice cream? We have a new flavor today!”
He whirled on the bartender, murder in his eyes. She saw the murder, a particularly complicated one played out by eight stick figures made out of his independently moving eyeball veins, and smiled.
“What is it?” He screamed at her.
“Dinosaur surprise.”
Sweetie Belle (in a poorly stitched together bartender outfit and worse false mustache) threw a drink in his face just as something made of feathers, claws, and loyalty jumped him from behind the bar. Knocked to the floor with body parts bloodlessly bouncing off of him, Discord raised his arm to snap his fingers just before a glowing cloud of candy-cutting blades reached the area and sliced it into a pile of yellow, twitching marshmallows.
Discord screamed in pain. He hollered in anger. Suddenly, as the clawing stopped, Discord looked up into Screwball’s livid, confident eyes. As her hoof lowered onto his face, he suddenly couldn’t think of anything to say, and an ancient magic promise of his turned a small chunk of Tartaurus into an ice skating rink.
She tapped him on the forehead, and everything went black.
___
When he opened his eyes, the sky was mostly white. Giant black vents hand been cut through it, and he felt a light, invisible snow falling onto his face. Blinking, he stretched a claw across his face and accidentally hit the sky, making it bounce back and forth.
“Okay, this is a good one.” He wiped his eyes clear of sleep gunk, much of it crawling away. “Did I do this one?”
He stood up, hitting the roof of the sky. His head punctured into it, and he ducked out of it while coughing and gagging.
A few steps brought several facts to his attention, and his composed a mental list.
Firstly, Discord thought, the sky was still blue, and he had just woken up under a mushroom.
B, I’m smaller than a mushroom.
Item number seventeen-q, he thought as he looked up into a pair of vengeful, spiralling eyes that were wider than he was, Screwball is way bigger than a mushroom.
He was, in fact, standing next to a mushroom on the lawn of a Ponyville cottage. Screwball towered over him, as did all of the other joyous residents of Ponyville who surrounded them, standing a few steps backwards from the two of them.
“Goodbye, Discord,” she said pleasantly.
“Heh.” He cringed a little, waving weakly. “Heh, I get that. Backwards. ‘Hello,’ right?” He took a step away from her. “Hello, Screwball.”
She shook her head. “Nope, nopety, nonsense. Not what I said. I said, ‘Good-bye, Discord,’ and I meant it.”
From his perspective, the ground shook as she stepped closer to him. He jumped back, colliding with the mushroom in a pile of white spores.
“Oh, you burnt the beanie. That’s right.” He should up, wiping the spores out as he grinned obsequiously. “You’ve also strained your brain into a better shape, haven’t you. Fixed yourself, then?”
Screwball grimaced with a sharp intake of breath.
“No. I’m not fixed.” She slammed her hoof onto the dirt, sending Discord scrambling away. “Me was broken all the time. I just learned some new options, but I was never broken. Now, I do get to fix you.”
Sweating, Discord turned around slowly, noticing the anticipatory grins on the faces of the looming Ponyville crowd. He had the uncanny feeling of being trapped in an arena and hearing people comment on how hungry the lions were.
“Look,” he said, holding his claws in front of him, “you don’t want to do anything rash.” He snapped his fingers in the air. “You wouldn’t hit a draconequus with--”
His talons scratched his nose. He snapped his fingers. He snapped them again. He snapped them one last time, because he knew in his soul that comedy required things in threes.
“Where’s the glasses? The joke doesn’t work without the glasses.” He swallowed as Screwball lifted a hoof, the shadow falling over him. “Uh oh.”
Her limb slammed into the ground, sending him running away. “Don’t come around here no more,” she said.
“Did you hear that?” At the head of the crowd, Cheerilee quaked with laughter. “I love that song.”
Red Glare shushed her. “I know, dear,” he whispered. “She’s her mother’s daughter, just give her this moment.”
“That’s my daughter,” Cheerilee whispered with tears running down her face.
Discord ran down the street, passing several ponies who stepped backwards as he drew near. He cast a terrified glance behind him as Screwball stomped closer, gaining on him.
“Quit walking down my street, Discord.”
He ran onto the lawn of the Ponyville cafe, screaming incoherently. Discord jumped into the air, straining to fly with wings sized for comedy. He landed face first onto a discarded napkin. “Help me!” He picked himself up, covered in sweat, and started climbing a cafe table. “Help me!”
Screwball walked at the head of the Ponyville mob, chuckling. “Help you? Discord, who would? Who do you expect to meet?”
As the crowd drew closer, Discord leapt against the leg of a table, driving his talons into it. Muscles straining, he scaled the table leg, swinging himself up onto the surface only to pitch face first into a full tea cup. His head broke the surface just in time to see Screwball blot out the sun.
“Please, don’t.” Discord shook his head, bawling into the hot drink. “This... this isn’t the way you play the game.”
“Discord, you let things get away from you. Now I am the game,” she said as she lifted the teacup on a hoof, raising him to eye level, “and me don’t want to play.”
She slammed her front hooves together, making the teacup vanish completely.
“Whoah,” Snips said. “Hey, buddy, that’s a great magic trick. We should ask her about that one.”
Snails nodded, patting his partner on the shoulder.
Screwball stood still, eyes closed, focusing on the teacup that wasn’t there as a warmth started to surround her. The sounds of gasping ponies and the bright light filtering through her eyelids made her turn around and look. Screwball smiled, because no pony ever lived that can see the smile Screwball saw then and not reciprocate.
“Hello, Princess Celestia.”
It was like looking into a burning star that loved you.
“Screwball,” said warmth, love, and justice, “the most unexpected and surprising of all my subjects. Everything Luna says of you still doesn’t do you justice. Equestria owes you a great deal for your services to her.” Celestia inclined her head. “I owe you much for the safe return of my student, as well as all of my ponies.” She furrowed her brow. “Now, where is Discord? Does he still exist?”
Screwing nodded, opening up her hooves to reveal a miniature funhouse.
“Oh, yeah,” Snips exclaimed, “that trick keeps getting better!” He lowered his head as the crowd shushed him.
The funhouse, bathed in gold, rose into the air to Celestia’s eye level. “The living nightmare trapped in a house of dreams. I approve of the irony and mercy. I know the perfect caretaker for it.” She levitated it away, into the hooves of a waiting royal guard, before turning back to Screwball.
“There are many rewards I could bestow on you...” She turned to the waiting crowd to look at the assembled group of Cheerilee’s family and former students. Having read years of letters filled with Ponyville gossip, she noted Diamond Tiara standing next to Apple Bloom and filled it away as the twelfth most surprising thing of the millennium. “...but I doubt anything would be as great as the friendships you have won this day.”
“Ah, c-c-come on!”
The whole town turned to glare at Snips.
With an exaggerated sigh, Princess Celestia rolled her eyes. “Very well, Snipsy Scissors. I suppose we could go through with the traditional celebratory banquet feast and party at Canterlot Castle. That is, if that pleases you, Snips?”
Snips shook silently as the accumulated eyes of Ponyville stared at him. He finally nodded as Sweetie Belle tapped him on the shoulder.
Celestia nodded back. “Well, then. Screwball, I owe you that much for keeping this town safe.” She spared a glance towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders, standing close together. “Also, for reforging what should have never been broken. I will leave you in order to plan. Let me attend to business for a while, and we will all be together later.” She kicked off the ground, and flapped towards the Ponyville library, leaving Screwball alone in the middle of the crowd.
The crowd charged her, but not in the way Screwball always assumed it would.
Seconds later, Screwball giggled as she was pitched into the air by the screaming mass of teen ponies and parents. She twisted, waiting to fall back down on her hooves. As she stayed stationary, Screwball looked down into the amused eyes underneath her and smiled.
“Me knew me would never see you again,” she said to the owner of the two white forelimbs wrapped around her midsection.
“I know,” shouted the hovering Surprise, “right? We’re going to have so much fun together, and that party is going to be great, and you won’t believe who kisses each other, and...”
Nearby, ponies turned from the triumphant Screwball to check on their own loved ones
“Scoots, you are amazing!” Rainbow Dash ruffled Scootaloo’s mane while keeping her in a tight headlock. “I mean, it wasn’t really me, but a fake Rainbow Dash is the awesomest thing he could have whipped up. Hayfeathers, you stood up to the Lord of Chaos! I’m proud of you, kid.”
Scootaloo nuzzled into Rainbow’s neck, feeling Ponce doing the same thing to hers. “I know,” she whispered.
Elsewhere, Apple Bloom beamed as Applejack swallowed her pride and shook Snails’ hoof. Nearby, Rarity was lecturing Sweetie Belle on helping others to rise to an occasion.
“Darling, you see how tonguetied he was in front of the Princess. You really should accompany him. Purely out of a desire to avoid embarrassment and aid him in diplomacy, of course.”
Sweetie sighed. “Of course, Rarity.”
Rarity blinked, and took a deep breath. “That’s my suggestion and opinion, though. Whatever you choose for yourself, I’ll understand.”
“I’ll do it,” Sweetie said with a nod. “I want to.” She gasped for breath as Rarity grabbed her and nearly asphyxiated her.
“We’ll have to have a fitting. He’ll look so gallant in a tuxedo!”
With most of her friends talking to each other, Screwball stole a quiet moment to sit at a far table on the cafe lawn. Watching the crowd was astounding. It was an everflowing ocean of relationships and interactions, and Screwy was engrossed in watching how every pony related to the others in town.
“People watching is fun,” whispered the voice in her ear.
She turned to smile at the chestnut brown stallion with the hourglass mark. Ditzy’s husband was wearing a ridiculous set of paper glasses, one lens blue and the other red. As he passed a hoofful of his box of popcorn, she instantly decided she wanted a pair.
“People?”
“It’s an archaic term,” he said with an enigmatic smile. “So, wow. The final sealing of Discord. The first of Screwball’s great tasks. I’m honored to be here for it.”
She blinked. “First?”
He choked on a piece of popcorn, slamming his hoof into his chest. “Sorry. Spoilers. Got to go see Ditzy and Cheerilee, arrange a nice dinner.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I really want to talk to you about butterfly wings and hurricanes.”
Screwball narrowed her eyes. “Me didn’t hear you. First?”
“Don’t look at me.” The pony who called himself “John Smith” threw his hooves up innocently. “Didn’t say anything. Can’t actual speak language. You’re just assigning meaning to the random grunts I make. Shame on you.” He winked, stood up, and walked off after tousling Screwball’s hair. “See you for dinner, Screwy.”
As Screwball shook her head, John walked over to his wife, coughing into his hoof. “So, she, um, can shape chaos into order. Got a brain like a machine. Good with children.”
“John,” Ditzy whisphered in a sweet tone. “My husband, father of my children...” She threw her forelimbs around his neck. “The love of my life...”
“Yes?”
“She is not going in that damned blue box with us.”
“Aw, come on!”
Ditzy smiled. “At least not until she finishes school.”
With her head on her hooves, Screwball watched the crowd from the cafe table. She breathed in as she felt familiar hooves rubbing her tense back.
“So, my wonderful daughter, what are we going to do for the second day of summer vacation?”
Screwball’s eyes leapt from one of the new ponies she had met to another. She heard Scootaloo and Apple Bloom making weekend plans, and watched Surprise wave from the line at Sugarcube Corner. Sweetie Belle was ushering Snips into the boutique, and Ditzy was planning some kind of dinner with Red Glare and Lyra. Ponyville was buzzing with life.
Screwball smiled.
“Everything.”
___
“Hello? Is anybody there?”
Discord peeked into the empty funhouse room before slamming it shut. He scratched his forehead nearly to bleeding as he considered the hallway that stretched out in front of him endlessly.
“I don’t even remember making this part. Hello!” He tried the next door, finding the same results. “Somepony help me, please! This isn’t funny anymore!”
From nowhere, he heard a familiar, musical laugh that chilled his bones.
“We disagree, Discord,” the voice said with a chuckle. “We’ve only just started, and methinks the funny has been doubled.”
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YES! SCREWBALL IS BEST PONY! YOU ARE BEST AUTHOR! sorry about that. This was an amazing sorry. the bug reveals were well laid, and the tropes were used masterfully.
Whoaaaa. Now that's a finish.
The only flaw in this story is I can't like it -twice-.
Amazing story one of the best I've ever read can't wait to see if there will be more tails of screw ball cheerilee and red as Well as all her friends from Canterlot and her new ones from ponyville
\
Is that a Twilight Zone reference I see?
"The world is full of maple streets"
I wish I could find the alien monologue at the end.
3701058
While I LOVE that story, the quote is from closer source material. In "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" (Spoilers: IT WASN'), Freddy says that "Every town has an Elm Street."
3701156
That is where I got mixed up, I though I head that exact quote. but I guess I tried sourcing it to the wrong place.
I originally thought it was supposed to be elm street, but I also thought it was the Twilight Zone. so leaned over to the Twilight Zone.
looking back I realize how weird that thought process was.
P.S. Doesn't Freddy say that at some point in the first one as well?
Makes sense. He is gonna have a grudge against her, so he would give her the worst of it.
Screwball for best pony! Have I mentioned I love this Screwball? Because I love this Screwball. So hug, much sweet. Such cute. Wow. Also, are we gonna get an origin story for Ponce? Because that sounds like it would be awesome.
I swear, taking a vacation, it seems like I suddenly have even less time...
I am so sorry I didn't get to this in time...
WHEW.
Whelp.
Thank you.
Hmmm... it seems that Screwball has been Illuminated. Therefore I can only say:
The Mafia, with the support of the KGB, Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow and the Bermuda Triangle attacks the SLA for control.
Excellent work. Great finish. I applaud you. *applauds*
Awesome! Now Cheerilee, Red and Screwy deserve a family vacation. Perhaps to some far flung galaxy? Also, what happened to Surprise?
3710799
Oh, she's there.
"Seconds later, Screwball giggled as she was pitched into the air by the screaming mass of teen ponies and parents. She twisted, waiting to fall back down on her hooves. As she stayed stationary, Screwball looked down into the amused eyes underneath her and smiled.
“Me knew me would never see you again,” she said to the owner of the two white forelimbs wrapped around her midsection.
“I know,” shouted the hovering Surprise, “right? We’re going to have so much fun together, and that party is going to be great, and you won’t believe who kisses each other, and...”
3710845 whoops, missed that. Misread it as Snips somehow.
inb4 the REAL final chapter is a "where are they now" montage.
3717146
Fixed!
Way to go paleo prints i am impressed this is a great fanfic you have here and i enjoyed the entire thing
Noooo! Why must all things end? The only solution is a new, greater beginning! One that passers expectations! Destroys preconcepted ideas! And features Screwball in the TARDIS! That is a beginning to look forward to! One that will live on as the first did, transcending its ending in a glorious light that blots out all other fanfics! Truly perfection is at hand! You can be the instagator! Write the fic! Gain the glory! MAKE MY DAY!
stood up
great story, really enjoyed it.
That was brilliant! A great story for me to start 2014 off with, and now I'm going to have to read the other story then this one again.
Whew, finally got around to reading this. Great finish to a wild ride! Screwball is a fun character.
The first of Screwball’s great tasks. I’m honored to be here for it.”
Does that mean theirs gonna be a sequel? Because that would be awesome!
I agree
excellent story it was.
Great story. But what I don't get is how Discord was defeated. I mean, clearly Screwball used her chaos-to-order abilities on him, but does that mean her reality-warping powers are greater than his? Why did his powers fluctuate like that?
Wonderful follow-up on a great story! I really enjoyed seeing the grown up ponies of Ponyville, and you played with the fears of the teenagers quite well. Great characters, great story, great author!
Paleo are you gonna do a sequal to this I can see a whole bunch of stories you could do
Loved it! Loved it so much. Thank you!
Great ending, though. Good job.
7040418
Screwball will always be exactly as Screwball as she wants to be.
7056699 But she's less Screwball than she was.
So what is actually are the rules for Screwball's speech patterns, and how did they change? Sometimes it's hard to follow.