• Published 20th Oct 2019
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Anarchy: Pony of Chaos - Ninjadeadbeard



Fluttershy and Discord decide to have a child. May the Gods have mercy on their souls.

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12 - The Pony of Chaos, Part 5 - The Princess of Chaos

The ‘crowd’ went wild. It was like nothing Cozy had ever seen before, in that had she seen it before, she’d have thought she’d gone completely insane. Dozens of pony and creature statues filled out the hall of portable-chairs while a static-laced recording of a cheering, exuberant crowd played over the speaker system, while the almost zombie-like band of Cheese Pies played one inane, overblown number after another. Confetti rain and party cannons had been running nonstop the entire time.

And the star of this bizarre pageant, the very conductor of madness, was eating up every second of it.

“Thank you! Thank you!” the Princess Anarchy smiled and waved to the crowd, which only encouraged them to cheer louder… sort of… “You’re all too kind!” She tilted her red crown at various angles as she drank in the crowd’s simulated adoration, and twirled the royal cape as regally as she could.

Cozy Glow, for her part, had just… watched in mute confusion as the strange events played out in front of her. Any plan to… disrupt whatever this was had been put on hold, if only because she didn’t know what this was.

Seriously, she thought to herself as the statues, hefted up by an unseen force, appeared to be giving Princess Anarchy yet another standing ovation, I think I might be going crazy…

“Oh, no, you’re not crazy, Cozy,” the Princess half-turned towards the pink Alicorn filly, a mischievous smirk on her face, “Well… you’re certainly not hallucinating, in any case.”

“Wait,” Cozy’s brain finally managed to register something familiar, something with a pattern it could hold onto, “You’re not talking with a lisp?”

Anarchy furrowed her brow, then raised a hoof to her ear. “What?” The ‘crowd’ had surged in volume.

Cozy frowned as well, casting a quick glare towards the ‘crowd’ before repeating herself, “I said! You’re not lisping!”

The Princess tilted her head with some confusion, then turned back towards the band. She gave them the general hoof-signal for ‘turn it down’, and they seemed to comply. Their sound didn’t really change, relative to the crowd… but it did sound like somepony had lowered the volume on the entire ceremony.

Cozy snarled, and said again, “You’re not talking with a lisp!”

“Why would I?” Anarchy giggled in a very un-ladylike fashion, “It’s my special day, after all. And I’m not a little filly anymore, so who cares about safety features?”

“Safety Features?”

Anarchy nodded, “Oh, yes. You weren’t in the chapter that explained those… huh…”

That… that was weird.

The Princess slowly turned around, until she found a space in the air where nopony was standing or watching…


She taps the air in front of her with one hoof, which makes a very glassy sort of noise with each hit. Anarchy’s eyes grow wide as she takes in the new sensation, and grins maniacally.

“Omigosh!” she exclaims, another blast of confetti flying up from nowhere as she looks you right in the eye.

“I can’t believe it,” she prances in midair, “I can see it! I can see it!”

“See what?” a little voice comes from off-screen, “Who are you talking to?”

“Them!” Anarchy cheers, “They! The readership! The audience! The… the Commenters!”

She leans in close enough to leave a little puff of fog on the screen, and starts talking excitedly, “Oh! Oh, oh, oh! Hi Toriandthehorse!!! FanofMostEverything! I love your comments! You didn’t let Screwball eat all the popcorn, did you? She’s kinda rude, I know.

“Hi Yami!” she continues, “And I see Hillbe, and WanderingPony, and Anon E Moose…”

Her eyes glisten, and the Princess takes a few moments to wipe her eyes, the smile never leaving her.

“Thank you…” Anarchy whispers, “… thank you all…”

“WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?”


The smile was gone from Anarchy’s face as she returned to her next… project…

“Excuse me, folks,” she stage-whispered, “I’m due to take somepony apart…”

Cozy practically shook with anger, a vein throbbing at the side of her neck. It was bad enough when Discord acted like a lunatic, and now this… off-brand pony was doing it too?

What exactly is going on!?” she snarled, “Who even are you!? What is all this!?” With every other word, Cozy jumped up in the air from the sheer force of her shouting, eventually leaving her sucking in slightly haggard breaths. It was tough work, getting worked up.

Anarchy gave her an unamused glance, and then began to languidly trot down from midair to Cozy’s level. She could do things languidly now. She had the legs for it.

“Well,” she smiled, pulling a couple of Pinkie’s Patented Double Deluxe Dough Drop Donut Cookies out of thin air and passing one to the filly before her, “I suppose I should answer those backwards, since that’s really the best way to explain it…”

The Princess… and she did so clearly love having that title tacked on… took a bite of the confectionary treat, and said, “So, what this is, is my Coronation! A Chaos Coronation, to be specific.”

“So, what?” Cozy rolled her eyes, before taking a bite herself, “You’re an Alicorn Princess too now?”

“Goodness!” Anarchy’s sudden blush and tone of voice perfectly mimicked her mother, before she dipped back into her silky smooth ‘adult’ voice, “Nothing so common. I’m a Ponequus, the very best of Discord and Fluttershy mixed together like… like a cookie that’s also a donut!”

She triumphantly held up the Donut-Cookie with a grin. “But since I’m part Pony… it only made sense to go with Princess once I ate up all of Dad’s magic.”

Cozy rubbed her forehead with a look of utter disgust and irritation on her face, a clear sign of her annoyance with all this… or a sugar headache from Pinkie’s awful creation.

“Okay, so you… you’re Discord and Fluttershy’s foal…?”

“Title drop!” Anarchy grinned… then sighed, “Well… it used to be… but, yes. Got it in one!”

“So, the Bell…?”

One of the Band-Cheese’s began playing a solo version of Iron Mare on his guitar, though at a polka-pace. Anarchy took a moment to nod along with the tune before she answered.

“Gram…” Anarchy’s eyes widened at the slip, but her voice pushed through strong, “Grogar’s Bell jump-started my ascendance to becoming a full-fledged Spirit of Chaos.”

Cozy’s head hurt more. Whatever answer the pony-thing just gave… even if it made sense, it was still insane, and Cozy would have no part of it.

“So, I guess that’s the What and the Who of your questions,” Anarchy accepted a paper cup full of applesauce from a Cheese waiter, and offered one to Cozy, who, naturally, blew a raspberry and tossed the Donut-Cookie away.

The Princess, her smile becoming thin, continued, “So, now we come to the Why…”

“And am I gonna get a non-stupid answer?” Cozy growled, “Sorry, but I’m more than a little fed up with having my victory interrupted so some trussed-up freak can play make-believe!”

Anarchy’s smile didn’t change. She took a breath through her nose, and then asked, “Hey, Cozy?”

The Alicorn scowled, and grumbled, “What?”

With a thunderous bang, a metal safe slammed into the floor, vanishing Cozy Glow entirely from sight. The sound echoed off the walls for what felt like a full minute. Even Anarchy had to check her ears when they wouldn’t stop ringing.

The safe’s lock began to spin, slowly. Then, the door simply popped open. Cozy, scuffed, and with more than a few feathers out of place, plopped out onto the floor again, and coughed.

“Are… are you CRAZY!?”

“What a wonderful question…” the Princess beamed.

But Cozy’s neck-vein was bulging, “You could have killed me!!!”

Should.”

WHAT!?

The Princess’s smile grew strained, “That should have killed you. Ever tried checking how much safes weigh?”

Cozy’s teeth gnashed, and her neck-vein throbbed. But as she opened her mouth to scream again…

Bang.

An anvil flattened her. But from what really should have been a bone-crushing hit, she slowly dragged her way clear…

Bang!

A refrigerator.

Cozy fell out of the freezer, an ice cream cone stuck to her frozen mane. Anarchy snapped it up, but reconsidered when she realized it was vanilla. Cozy slowly thawed, the boiling rage within her more than enough to ensure she would…

BANG!

Now… the sailboat? Even Anarchy was surprised she managed to fit one in the throne room. The boat’s cabin door swung open, and a Cozy Glow dressed in an admiral’s hat… and missing a few teeth, stepped out onto the deck.

“I…” she gasped, possibly for air, but more likely for some scrap of understanding, “I’m…”

BANG!!!

Another safe landed on Cozy Glow.

Anarchy snorted, “Okay, I wasn’t sure if it would be funny the second time…”

The Princess followed this up by clapping her hooves together once. A pink flash of light filled the space around her, leaving Cozy Glow lying on the ground without a boat or a safe in sight.

The pink Alicorn remained face down on the ground.

“Uh… Cozy?” Anarchy frowned. “Cozy Glow? You… you doing okay there?”

Nothing. Cozy didn’t make a sound.

Anarchy tapped her chin with one hoof, “Huh… I thought I enabled Season 1 physics…”

The hum of magical energy was the only warning Anarchy got, as Cozy’s horn flashed red with power.

“Ha!” she cried, hurling a crimson bolt of power at the Princess, “Gotcha!”

The beam ripped through the air like a lightning bolt… and struck nothing. Anarchy’s whole body twisted around like it was made of rubber, allowing the blast to harmlessly strike the steps up to the throne.

Undaunted, Cozy started hurling bolt after bolt of her magic at Anarchy. The Ponequus bent and twisted the whole while like a gymnast with no bones, laughing maniacally as she cartwheeled about the room.

“Woop! Wa-hey!”

Cozy’s screams of frustration started off unintelligible, but as she chased Anarchy across the room, she seemed to find enough of a rhythm to her enraged spellcasting that she could work out a few curses to toss about.

“Grrrrr! When I catch you, I’m gonna stick you up in the Royal Pigeon Coop!!!”

“Joke’s on you,” Anarchy tauntingly waved her flank and tail in Cozy’s face, “Mom potty-trained them…”

“Just hold still for a moment!”

Anarchy stopped in midair so quickly that Cozy could hear tires squealing. The Princess of Chaos smiled, and then planted her hind hooves on the ground, letting her lean with one foreleg propped up against Flurry Heart, and the other set onto her hip.

“Alright, shoot.”

Cozy paused, magical fury twisting and coiling around her horn.

“What’cha waiting for, Cozy?” Anarchy swept one hoof across her barrel, revealing a red-and-white target painted straight onto her, “I’m right here!”

Something’s not right… don’t take your hoof off the piece…

She narrowed her eyes at the Princess, with her stupid cape and crown cocked at a jaunty angle, that ridiculous, smug look on her muzzle that looked like Discord’s mocking, apple-eating grin…

“No tricks?” Cozy ventured, warily.

Princess Anarchy sprouted an extra set of legs at that moment, and had them complete a complicated, if familiar, set of motions.

“Stick a cupcake in my eye,” she smiled and closed her eyes. Anarchy even lifted her chin a little bit, daring Cozy to do it.

These ponies, Cozy Glow laughed mentally. They never seem to learn.

Cozy built up another surge of magic, almost giddy as she realized how much power she truly held now. And with a self-satisfied smirk, she let it loose on her soon-to-be lawn ornament.

Just before the blast enveloped the Ponequus, obscuring her from Cozy’s view for this last transformation, she noticed something odd. The crown atop Anarchy’s head tilted forward, just a bit, and then toppled over… right into the path of Cozy’s beam.

And as the beam struck, Cozy heard an all-too familiar sound over that of her magic.

A dissonant tolling of the Bell.

NO” Cozy cried out, her eyes reduced to pinpricks, “No, no, no no no nonononono!!!”

Instantly, she could feel a creeping cold in her hooves. And within seconds, that cold had started climbing up her flanks and settling into her very bones. Her wings began to shrivel up, and she felt herself lose a full inch of height as the familiar transformation completed. Idly, in the midst of her panic and terror and fury at having lost… AGAIN… she couldn’t help but notice that the music and fake crowd sounds hadn’t been turned off, only lowered, which now meant that her defeat had a rather distressing soundtrack.

Her horn was the last to go, reduced to a pink mist as it went with all the rest into Grogar’s Bell, now held in Anarchy’s hooves, a self-satisfied smirk on her lips.

“Wow,” she laughed, “That wasn’t hard at all. Now…”

She gave the Bell a hard shake from side to side, then up and down. The only sound it made was a hollow rattling, rather than the usual tolling sound it had made before.

“C’mon!” Anarchy snapped, “Get out of there!”

Cozy watched from her slumped position on the floor as two orbs of light unceremoniously dropped out of the Bell, like a pair of oversized jawbreakers, one gold and the other purple. They clattered on the ground once, before they lifted themselves back up to Anarchy’s level under their own power.

The Princess pointed one hoof towards the crowd of statues like it was a command.

“Alright, back to where you’re supposed to be,” Anarchy motioned for the magical orbs to return to their rightful owners, pointing out the Princess Twilight and that Trixie-looking unicorn, both stuck in the front row.

To Cozy’s amazement, they looked like they were… shaking their ‘heads’ would be a weird way of putting it, but not entirely inaccurate either. If she hadn’t felt like she’d just run a marathon through Tartarus, she might have been able to smirk or giggle at Anarchy’s expense.

The Spirit of Chaos frowned at this behavior. She closed her eyes and seemed to take a deep, cleansing breath. Then, she opened her eyes wide again, and the air around her almost felt like it had turned solid, as she directed a Stare towards the magical orbs that would have made Fluttershy proud.

The magic shook, this time in fear of those crimson dots glaring into their… again, Cozy didn’t want to say ‘souls’, but it felt weird not to call it that.

“You two,” Anarchy almost hissed, “March your non-Euclidean butts over there right now. I don’t want to have to tell the Princess or Miss Lulamoon what you were up to, but I will.”

The purple and golden orbs flew like cream pies at one of Pinkie Pie’s Throwing Parties. Which was, to say, very fast, and directly into their originators, who remained statues throughout the process.

Anarchy smiled at a job well done.

Cozy, struggling to stand up, grunted, “You… you lied…”

Princess Anarchy rolled her eyes at the pegasus, “Yeah? And?”

Said filly had regained her hooves, and found her head was clearing nicely after… well, losing again. It was becoming distressingly common at this rate, Cozy reflected.

“What do you mean? ‘And’? You’re a Pony, ain’t’cha?”

The Princess sniffed, regally, “Ponequus.”

“Whatever!” Cozy stomped a hoof, and found it carried a lot less power than it had a few minutes ago.

So long, earth pony magic.

She waved one hoof around in an all-encompassing fashion. “You’re one of Sparkle’s friendship students, or whatever. You’re not supposed to lie. That’s like…”

Anarchy chuckled, “What’s it like? A villain thing?”

“Yeah! You goody-goodies aren’t supposed to do that! It’s cheating! Even Discord…” she spat at having to use his name, “… never outright lied! He always did by omission, or used a clever puzzle. I know, I checked.”

“Yeah, Dad liked his games,” Anarchy smiled, sadly, then allowed her brow to furrow again, “But I’m not playing games here, Cozy.”

“Whatever,” the pink pegasus rolled her eyes, “Just get it over with.”

Now, this certainly drew a confused look from the Princess. “Beg pardon?”

Cozy waved her hoof around again, “This. Whatever this is. Just… toss me back into Tartarus, or turn me to stone… or whatever it is you’re gonna do to punish me this time. I don’t have all day… wait…”

While Cozy attempted to walk back that last statement, in light of have literally all the time in the world, depending on the specific punishment that was coming to her, Anarchy just… smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, either. It was the smile of a leopard who just found a rather hefty sheep tying themselves up to a stake in the woods while sunbathing with BBQ sauce instead of oil.

Anarchy tilted her head, and still smiling coyly, asked, “Why would I do that?”

That seemed to bring the little filly up short for a second or two. But a few quick blinks and she was back on track. “Because… you’re one of Twilight’s friendship pony followers. What else can you do?”

“Cozy,” Anarchy took a moment to crush the Bell in between her hooves, popped the twisted form into her mouth like a mint, and said through her chewing, “You’re making a lot of assumptions here.”

“Yeah?” Cozy’s voice seemed a little strained as she cocked her head to one side, justifiably suspicious of what this Ponequus was saying.

“Uh huh,” Anarchy swallowed, then began stalking towards the little pegasus with a slight bounce in her step, “You seem to be under the impression that I’m the hero.”

Cozy’s jaw locked up. She really hadn’t expected that sort of response, all things considered. As she watched the Ponequus Princess start to circle around her, Cozy started running through the past few minutes in her head.

There’s gotta be a clue here, she thought desperately, something I missed. What is up with this kid?

Eventually, Cozy snorted in frustration and shouted, “Look, I don’t wanna play your stupid games! So, just tell me what you want! Why are you making this so complicated!?”

Anarchy took a step back, her eyes shifting to a neutral expression, an appraising expression. Those yellow and red monstrosities in her face, framed by a bright-yellow muzzle and scraggly white eyebrows, seemed to be measuring something in Cozy, and she didn’t like it.

Then, the Princess smiled again.

“All right, no more games. This is what I want from you.”

Cozy waited. And waited. And waited some more. This… Anarchy sat in front of her, silent as stone itself. It took all of the little pegasus’ willpower to not scream, not when she was so close to an answer…

That was… until she felt the first drop of water hit the top of her mane. Cozy, having learned better, took a flying leap to the side. Within the span of a heartbeat, a kitchen sink crashed down where she’d been standing a moment before, leaving a deep gouge in its wake.

She scowled up at Anarchy, “Ha! You missed—!”

BANG

The entire Elements of Disharmony statue now sat in the middle of the throne room floor, a flattened, still-struggling filly grunting and gasping as she pulled herself out from under it.


“I… what!?” Starlight Glimmer was utterly confused at what had just happened.

“What?” Tirek sighed, “What happened?”

Starlight mentally licked her changeling fangs and tried to project the image of herself smiling gleefully into Tirek’s mind.

“I think… Cozy Glow’s in trouble.”

“Ooh!” the centaur squee’d, “What fun! Tell me every detail, Glimmy!”


“That,” Anarchy said simply, “I want to do that to you… forever.”

Cozy finally pulled herself out from under the statue, no worse off than feathers rustled and her mane a bit flatter than it had been. She threw a look over her shoulder at her former allies. It was a calculating look, Anarchy could tell, in more ways than one.

“That should have…” the filly muttered to herself, not so much confused as worried.

“Yup,” the Princess nodded, “Squashed flat, considering how much that statue weighs…” she glanced up to the statue, “… and yes, I am calling you two fat.”

“So, you’re, what…?” Cozy frowned, “… keeping me alive?”

Anarchy nodded.

Cozy frowned harder, “But what’s the point!?”

Anarchy smiled.

“You’re…” Cozy’s eyes widened, and she took a reflexive step back. “But… that’s not… you’re a…” words dribbled out of her mouth, without any logical connection between them.

Her brain simply couldn’t decide which horrifying realization was worse.

“You mean…”

The Princess of Chaos chuckled in a sinisterly low voice, instantly reminding Cozy of Discord. “That’s right, Cozy,” the Ponequus walked slowly forward, closing the gap between her and Cozy by degrees, “I’m going to keep doing this… forever.”

A cold knot formed in Cozy’s stomach. “What do you mean… forever?”

Anarchy paused mid-step. She blinked rapidly, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d heard. Then, she flashed a fang-filled maw of a grin.

“I mean… forever. I’m going to keep doing this and more, forever. Forever, forever, too! Not that wishy-washy forever my Dad and the Princesses put you in stone for.

“Think about it like this…” she began drawing a picture for Cozy, literally. A foalishly animated mountain took shape in the air, with an accompanying, also foalish, image of a griffon.

Anarchy spoke with an air of whimsy that Cozy could no longer discern as real, “There’s a mountain out there, somewhere, that’s made entirely out of diamond. It’s two miles across and two miles high. It’s big, is what I’m getting at. But then,” here she made the griffon trot up to the mountain, “this griffon comes by to sharpen his beak on the side of it.”

She directed the images with her tail, like it was a conductor’s baton, and they her orchestra.

“Now, the griffon gets his beak sharpened, and he moves on. The diamond mountain isn’t really affected, but there’s still a little wear and tear on it, no matter how small. The griffon also doesn’t come around to do this again for another hundred years.”

She leaned in, uncomfortably close for Cozy’s taste, and whispered, “Bit suspicious for a griffon to live so long, but stories are like that…”

The Princess popped, instantly teleporting up to her throne, where she continued to tell her story while lounging in comfort, the images acting on their own to follow her stage directions.

“So, every hundred years, a griffon comes by and sharpens their beak, got it? Now… how long do you think it will take for that mountain to be completely eroded away?”

A spotlight snapped on, revealing Cozy Glow sat astride a high stool, wearing a dunce cap. Despite this obvious slight, she was clearly fighting the urge to snap back or snark, instead settling for a quiet sulk.

When Cozy didn’t answer, Anarchy pressed on. “It’s a long time. A long, long, loooooooooooooooong time,” she said, her voice dropping down multiple octaves as she stretched out her words for emphasis.

“When that mountain has completely gone..." the images vanished in a puff, "...then the first second of Eternity will have passed…”

Princess Anarchy’s apparent mirth over the shenanigans she was putting Cozy through… faded, just for a moment. For just a moment, her lips curled in a snarl, and her hair straightened ever so slightly.

Cozy’s heart skipped as she saw Anarchy’s eyes… burn.

“… and then,” the Princess’s voice hid none of the naked, venomous contempt held in her heart, “Then… I’ll still be warming up…”

“But… why!?”

Anarchy closed her eyes, and looked away. “The fact that I even have to tell you why is proof to me that I should skip the physical torture first. We can come back to that later. Right now…”

She opened her eyes, only to find no pink pegasus standing before her.

Anarchy sighed, her annoyance plain.

“Guess we’re skipping right to emotional and mental…”


Cozy had gotten on the bad side of a lot of ponies, and creatures. Tartarus had been like a rough timeout. Stone had been that, but with less bathroom breaks. But it hadn’t been until this moment that Cozy had ever really put two and two together on why those punishments had been handed down instead of what she’d probably have done to those who crossed her.

Tartarus had been merciful. Stone had been lenient.

Whatever this was… wouldn’t be.

Cozy Glow flew down Palace corridors and halls with every ounce of wingpower she could give, heedless of any obstacle in her way. She zipped past frozen guards where she’d placed them before, her eyes catching the frozen fear in theirs…

Suddenly, that didn’t seem as funny as it once was.

Don’t think about it, Cozy… just get out of here, and AWAY from that… that…

The Palace’s huge front doors came into view, and Cozy’s mind completely emptied of all other thoughts. Escape was the name of the game, and she aimed to win this one. She nearly crashed into the doors, slowing just enough to not hurt herself as she placed her hooves onto them, pushed with all her might…

And re-entered the throne room. The statues were still set up as a crowd. The music, though different, was still playing; the stain-glass figures were playing card games like they were waiting for somepony.

And Anarchy was still sitting on her throne, watching Cozy with a wry grin.

“Ooh, tough,” she tsk-tsked, “Wanna try for door number two? Or perhaps three?”

She indicated the two side doors with one wing each. Her wings were long, Cozy noticed, idly wondering just what was up with her body proportions as the little filly bolted for the right-door, the one she vaguely recalled leading towards the kitchens.

It didn’t. Not this time.

Cozy felt her stomach lurch as she dropped out of a blue sky, one that shouldn’t have been there. For a panicked second, she felt a hot wind blowing around her, and heard her own garbled gasp as she fell, helplessly, into a floor of rough sand.

She sputtered, unfortunately while her head was immersed in the hot sand, and flailed her legs about to free herself. But as Cozy pulled her head from the sand and shook as much of the offending detritus out of her eyes and mane as she could, she couldn’t help but groan at what unfolded before her.

She was in a desert. A bright, sandy desert underneath a boiling sun. Stone arches stood in the distance like frozen whales in mid-leap; monoliths caught in a moment of time. Cozy, eyes free of sand, could only blink at the sight of the shimmering heat, the brilliant sunlight, and the rings of an alien world orbiting this one, far, far away in the daylit sky.

This was all impossible…

“Eugh,” she snarled, “Chaos. Right.”

Cozy tried to get her wings buzzing, to get some altitude and figure out just where she was after Anarchy’s little prank… but nothing happened. No buzzing. She couldn’t even feel the muscles in her back that she…

Cozy Glow screamed as she turned her head to look at her back.

“My wings!?” she screeched, noting the complete absence of wings or any sign that they’d ever been right where they were supposed to be. For all intents and purposes, Cozy was now…

“I’m a mudpony!?” a little part of her twinged at her outburst. It was the part that remembered she was being hunted by an omnipotent Chaos God who, most likely, was taking the death of one such mudpony… personally.

“Right. Focus, Cozy,” she tried some of those breathing exercises she’d seen Twilight perform while the Princess thought she was alone, “This is just magic. It’s all magic. Discord could get cross, but he always calmed down eventually. Just give Ann time and she’ll do the same.

“Yeah, right,” Cozy groaned again as she realized how desperate she sounded, “Even saying ‘what could possibly go wrong’ couldn’t make this worse…”

At her declaration, the sand began to shift.

I WAS KIDDING!!!

A low, menacing rumble seemed to shake the whole desert. Even the sun overhead started rattling in the alien sky, and Cozy could feel the distant vibrations race up her legs. She’d never felt anything like it. She wondered, worriedly, if this was an earthquake, or something else that freak had set up.

She got her answer, moments later. Off in the distance, the sand seemed to shrink back as a shape rose up from the earth. Cozy’s brain short-circuited as she took in the truly titanic form of the colossus that reached up out of the sand and into the sky. It was a monster, a giant snake the likes of which Cozy had only seen in her nightmares, whose body was cut by black and white stripes, and whose huge head seemed to split down the side in a wicked grin.

Cozy’s heart raced. She knelt down, hoping that it wouldn’t see her.

But then, its head swiveled straight towards her, and to her horror, its mouth split open at the jaw-line, and as the whole head unhinged itself, a second head pushed its way out. This one, yellow with pink highlights, snarled and bellowed in a way that caused Cozy’s mane to stand up, and her heart to seize.

And then… it charged. The whole desert burst apart as it rampaged through the dunes towards Cozy Glow, and the filly’s mind almost blanked out from the sheer Panic settling into her bones.

Almost.

She turned, and tried to run from the inevitable fate which was barreling down on her. But the sand snatched at her hooves, and the sun ripped the air and water from her flesh. Cozy tired within moments, her little body unable to keep her going.

It’s like running in a nightmare, she despaired. No matter how much effort she put into the act, she got nothing back. She wondered, for a moment, if she was actually going backwards

The monster was almost upon her. Cozy could feel its shadow catching up to her, and her heart pounding like hammer-blows in her chest. She couldn’t keep this up. She couldn’t do it. Not alone.

Which was when a silver thread dropped into Cozy’s vision. Silver, with a single, black stripe down the center.

“Come vit me,” Anarchy said in a horrendous Germane accent, a huge pair of sunglasses covering her eyes, as she leaned out of a doorway that hung several meters in the air, like it was no big deal, “if you vant to live…”

Cozy glanced at the Ponequus’s tail, dangling in front of her face from out of the door. She looked back, for about half a second at the wall of churning sand and teeth that was hurtling towards her, and she leapt for the tail.

“Whoops!” Anarchy laughed as she tugged her tail just out of Cozy’s reach. Cozy didn’t waste time getting off the ground and jumping again.

And again.

And again.

Cozy didn’t stop to scream or complain. She was far, far too scared to stop for any of that.

“Come on, Cozy! I know you can do it!” Anarchy laughed, pulling her tail just out of hoof’s reach again.

If Cozy could hear her heart pounding, she’d know how close she was to having a stroke. But, as luck would have it, the sound of the entire desert vanishing into the maw of a monstrous beast drowned that out neatly.

It also, thankfully, drowned out the whimper that came unbidden from Cozy’s throat. She’d never live it down, assuming she lived through this.

But a certain Ponequus had far better hearing than a little pegasus. Anarchy’s tail held dipped down, enough to wrap its tip around one of Cozy’s outstretched hooves. With a sharp tug, and a swinging whip-like motion, she brought Cozy up to the door and back into Equestria.

Cozy Glow sailed through the air in an uncontrolled trajectory, soaring over and past Princess Anarchy, only to hit the hard floor and skid to a panting halt almost on the complete other side of the hall. She didn’t dare move for a number of seconds after, only allowing herself to gulp down muzzle-fulls of air, and sweat profusely all over the Princess’s tile.

Then, once Anarchy had closed the door to the desert, slamming it in the Worm’s face, Cozy allowed herself a moment to silently cry.


The Princess of Chaos, by contrast, scowled as she watched Cozy Glow whimper on the floor, tucking her legs in and shivering with each shaky breath.

What a piece of work, she thought. I bet she expects me to believe all this.

Still, she paused for a moment, letting Cozy get her breath back. It would do no good to let the filly kill herself.

Not before Anarchy had the chance.


A few minutes later, Cozy could finally start thinking clearly. While her breathing slowed down, her mind sped up. The last ten minutes or so had been a nightmare, far worse than anything she’d experienced back in Tartarus, and she’d heard Tirek’s singing. This had already been worse by an order of magnitude, and Cozy was only just starting to appreciate her position.

When in a hole, stop digging, she quoted to herself. Sun Zoo was a wise pony, after all.

As she regained her hooves, Cozy looked towards the Princess of Chaos, and visibly cringed at the sight. This time, it wasn’t the Ponequus’s eyes or her monstrous appearance. It was the storm cloud of emotion playing across her face, a pained fury that Cozy could only imagine being hurled her way.

She needed to get out of this. This wasn’t about winning, or power, anymore. This was survival.

Alright, she thought, taking a gulp before speaking, Remember everything Grampa Glow taught you

“Ann… I mean, Princess?” she began, gingerly, “Maybe we got off on the wrong hoof. I believe we can both be reasonable ponies about this…”

Anarchy snorted, “Reasonable? Were you being reasonable when you killed my best friend?”

For once, the regret on Cozy’s face was genuine. Had she known she’d be at this creature’s mercy after the fact, she probably wouldn’t have dropped that particular statue. Still, too much cringing would only antagonize, so she held her ground, planted her hooves, and kept her wings at…

Right. Mudpony.

Cozy took a breath, and said, “Look… Princess… I’m real sorry about what happened…”

“No, you’re not.”

The dig, so quick and sure, caught Cozy off-guard. It made her façade crack, just a little, and let loose a little fire she’d been holding back.

“You don’t know me!” she snarled, though that flash of rage instantly died as her brain caught up to what was happening.

The Princess laughed. She actually laughed, throwing her head back and everything.

“You? What’s there to know? Wait…” Anarchy’s chuckling subsided, and Cozy got a good, first-pony view of that same wicked grin she’d had when she made what was looking like the worst mistake of her life only minutes ago.

It looked a lot more wicked on a Ponequus. “What do I know? Let’s find out!”

Far too quick for Cozy to do anything about it, one of Anarchy’s batwings wrapped her up and spun her around. And like a cheap transition in one of those silly moving picture shows Cozy’d seen back before her first villainous takeover, the entire throne room went dark.

Cozy landed in a soft, cushioned seat in a large theater, dimly lit by magic crystals in the floor. The whole room was filled to capacity, seats filled by the creatures she’d turned to stone today, the stain-glass versions of Twilight and her friends, a gaggle of Cheese Pies and one Vinyl Scratch (still bearing Discordian eyes), and sitting on Cozy’s immediate right was the Princess of Chaos herself.

Anarchy slapped down a Gigantic soda in Cozy’s lap, nearly crushing the filly instantly, and offered her a bit of popcorn. Well, un-popped kernels covered in chocolate sauce and mixed in with jelly beans and gummy dragons.

The flush of green in Cozy’s cheeks probably told Anarchy she could keep her snack, and as the huge screen flickered to life, the Princess knocked back a hoof-full and took in the show…


The show started. No trailers for this one, though Cozy wouldn’t know what those were in any case. Instead, she was shocked to hear, actually hear, music accompanying the picture, something that hadn’t come out until after she went away for the second time! There was even a moment of wonder as a trill of piano notes joined the sight of a (It’s in color!?) large pink balloon, carrying a rather familiar… purple unicorn and purple baby dragon through a bank of clouds…

🎶 “My Little Pony,

My Little Pony…

Ah, Ah, Ah, AH…!”🎶

“W-what?” Cozy’s soda slipped from her hooves, her eyes widening to the size of saucers, “WHAT!?”

A mass, collective shush came down from the crowd of statues behind her, like a little wave of annoyance. She flinched at it, then threw a pleading look up at her tormenter. But the Princess seemed fully engrossed in… whatever this was.

Despair. That’s what this is, she thought to herself. For the first time in her entire life, Cozy Glow felt a shadow fall across her heart. In the past, with Grandpa and the orphanage, she’d just gotten mad. She let that little fire in her burn through thoughts of defeat and acceptance. And then, after her failure at the School of Friendship, and when she, Tirek, and Chrysalis were defeated together, it had been anger that carried her through to want to live another day.

But, in that moment, as the final strands of the opening music played, and her own mind began to shut down from brushing up against the Fourth Wall… Cozy just couldn’t find it within herself to care anymore.

🎶 “Do you know you’re all my very best Friends…?” 🎶


Time passed, Cozy thought. She was vaguely aware of it passing, in any case. But for most of it, her mind was elsewhere, trying desperately not to confront the blatant metacognitive dissonance caused by Anarchy’s little trip past the Fourth Wall.

Cozy found herself staring at her hooves as she sat on the cold throne room floor. She wasn’t sure when or how she’d gotten there. She could recall music, and some sort of movie… no doubt magically created… that detailed parts of her original plans for world conquest.

Again, Cozy didn’t want to think about it. But Anarchy… boiled in her throne as she contemplated things.

“I… I don’t believe it,” she fumed, one hoof propping up her chin as she glared daggers at Cozy Glow, “I just… I can’t believe that the reason my friend is gone… is some nobody pony.”

Cozy barely heard her, but something within her managed to get her mouth working. “I’m not nobody,” she said, weakly.

Anarchy appeared beside Cozy, walking on hind legs while she counted on her forehooves… a new one popping up with each item she listed, “You’ve got no backstory, no family, and no motivation outside of ‘take over the world’. Sounds pretty ‘Nobody’ to me…”

“I do too have a family… well, did…” Cozy pointed out, lamely, not as ready to snap as she once was.

Anarchy said something under her breath in a huffy tone, which Cozy couldn’t quite grasp. Something about ‘not being canon’… which was odd since Cozy had no idea how Pinkie’s party cannons featured into all this.

Then, she said, “Still, why’d you even want to take over the world?”

At this, Cozy finally got back a little of her old snark, as she laughed and said, “Because that’s what you’re supposed to do, uh doy?”

When Anarchy gave little more than a flat, unamused stare, Cozy decided to try another tact. “Everypony is out to scam every other pony. So, why not scam harder than everypony else? If it’s all a game, play to win, ya know?”

“So,” the Princess clicked her tongue, which rattled like castanets, “You decided to purge the world of magic, potentially killing everything… what we in the biz call ‘a Glim-Glam Wham-bam’… because it was fun?”

There was a brief chill that ran up Cozy’s spine, a sign her subconscious was trying to warn her again, but all she could really do was shrug and nod at what Anarchy had said. It was mostly true, in any case.

“It’s a horse-eat-horse world,” she said, as though it were wisdom from the Gods.

Anarchy just stared. And stared.

And then, worryingly, she smiled. “Hey, Cozy?”

“… Yeah?”

“Two questions,” the Ponequus returned to a predatory prowl around her eternal prey, “What do you know about Buckball? And… do you like puppets?”

“Um…”

That’s a strange question. Questions.

“Maybe,” Anarchy chuckled, “But we’re all strange in some ways…”

Cozy cringed at the mental intrusion… but this wasn’t a good time to provoke the Chaos God. Not that there was a good time.

“Some newfangled sport invented by mudponies,” she rolled her eyes, “And… eh. Puppets are alright, I guess.”

Anarchy nodded, “Good.”

And with that, she scooped a panicking Cozy Glow up in her long, silver tail, and leapt high into the air. Her eyes flashed with a vibrant pink light, which traveled down the length of one of her wings. Cozy watched as the wing became a claw… and with a single flap, it tore the very air apart.

Just below them now, a swirling pink vortex hung in the air, spinning and spiraling like water down a bathtub drain. And in the center, Cozy could see… something take shape.

“W-what…?” her mouth dried out as she gazed into the abyss, and saw that something stare back, “What is THAT!?”

Anarchy lifted Cozy up so that their eyes could meet.

“Well,” she smirked, “What does it look like?”

Inside the vortex, all Cozy could see was… felt. Red felt. A red felt… something what the buck is thaaaaat!?!?

Cozy’s mind was screaming. As was her mouth.

As was her soul.

“Awww,” Anarchy pouted, her voice nearly drowned out entirely by Cozy’s lung-defying feat. “Don’t worry Señor Dorado Rojizo de Patata,” she said in a thick Puerto Caballo accent, complete with flamenco guitar riff, “even if somepony doesn’t have manners, I still appreciate you.”

“Please,” Cozy tried to worm her forelegs loose so she could grip something, anything of Anarchy’s to keep her from… that, “I’ll do anything! Anything! Just don’t…”

Anarchy raised an inquisitive eyebrow, and said, “Now, now… you haven’t asked me why I wanted to know your thoughts on Buckball yet.”

Cozy closed her eyes tight, and breathed. “W… why…?”

Anarchy lifted herself another few inches into the air, and suddenly spun around. The motion caught Cozy off-guard, and the pink pegasus’s filly’s screams distorted as she was swung around, and around.

Just as the blood threatened to flow up into her mane, Cozy felt Anarchy’s tail slip, and let her fly… straight down, into the portal, still screaming as she sailed into the Puppet Dimension.

“I call it the Anarchy Slide Pass. You like?” Anarchy grinned.

No one laughed. There was no one to laugh.

The portal closed behind Cozy, and made that an undeniable fact. Silence filled the dead air, leaving Anarchy… leaving Ann to sigh, and drift back down to the ground. As her hooves touched down, she sighed again, before reaching up to rub one of her eyes.

“Why did I do that?” she asked the silence all around her. She sniffed, and tried to dry her eyes. It wouldn’t do to have Cozy come back and see her like this.

She sighed, one more time. “What am I doing?”

Ann tossed a look over her shoulder, to the field of statues bearing silent witness. Just by chance, her eyes fell on Shady first.

“Don’t you judge me,” she growled, quietly, half-heartedly, “What was I supposed to do?”

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His eyes, whether frozen in horror and fear at turning to stone… or at seeing his friend acting this way… it didn’t matter.

She found herself casting her eyes around to the others.

“Well, Pearl,” she took a seat next to the unicorn, “I guess… I guess you were right. I suppose me and Grampa can work out things later. After all…”

Ann closed her eyes.

“We’re both monsters…”

When she opened her eyes again, they were hardened. Like iron. Like the Princess of Chaos should be.

“But that’s my choice. My destiny, I guess.”

She stood back up, and watched with her hardened gaze as another pink portal tore open the sky, and deposited a shaking filly back into the throne room.


“I…” Tirek took a moment to compose himself, “I’m starting to get a little worried. About Cozy, I mean.”

“I concur,” Starlight Glimmer coughed, “At least… worried that I won’t get a chance to annoy her again. That’s… that’s what I…”

Tirek’s eyebrows, intangible and invisible as they were, raised noticeably.

After another moment, Starlight sighed.

“I hope she’ll be okay…”


“Welcome back,” she greeted Cozy with a strained smile.

The pink filly snapped her head up, a wild look in her eyes. Cozy leapt to her hooves, but seemed to instantly regret that action. Instead, she doubled over, and began to retch. Anarchy looked away, more out of politeness than anything else. When she looked back, Cozy had deposited a pile of yarn onto her floor. It looked dry.

Cozy dry-heaved once, then staggered a few steps back. She took in the room slowly, before her gaze settled on the Princess once more.

“You… nothing changed?” she frowned, confused, “I was sure you’d have redecorated…”

“It’s only been five minutes,” Anarchy shrugged, “But give me time. I might surprise you.”

“Five…?” Cozy’s eyes shrunk to pinpricks, and her mouth hung agape, “That’s… that’s impossible!”

The Princess chortled, “Nothing’s impossible for me, kiddo…”

Cozy began trotting in circles, “No! But…! But that,” she pointed to the vanishing portal, “That was… I spent months trying to get back! I… I walked a thousand miles! I tricked puppets, I stole and manipulated my way…

“It was all for nothing?” her little shoulders shook, her breathing growing harder and harder, “Or… did it really happen?”

“Oh, it happened,” Anarchy was already thinking of what came next, but since the best part of this was the Panic, she was fine stretching the bit out, “But it still didn’t matter.”

Cozy slid down to the floor again, her gaze on nothing in particular. She just… stared, probably for the sake of staring.

Anarchy pointed back up into the air with a hoof, and another portal began to take shape. “And… for my next trick…”

She didn’t get farther, as there was a sudden, loud, screaming explosion right in front of the Princess.

NO!” Cozy screamed, leaping back up to her hooves, “THAT’S IT! ENOUGH!

“What’s enough?” Anarchy frowned, “You think I’m gonna cut my fun short just because…”

Shut up!” Cozy jabbed a hoof into Anarchy’s chest, eliciting a truly shocked expression from the Ponequus. “Just… shut the BUCK up!”

Veins had popped out on the filly’s neck, and her eyes had bulged out of her face like some freaky, spooky drawing of Dib’s whenever he liked to spook Ann or Shady. Her whole body had shifted to a slightly darker pink, as well, as the blood flowed into her face.

“Now you listen here,” Cozy’s voice took on an edge that she’d been lacking ever since this whole ordeal started, “You want me to cry? To say I’m sorry? You want me to break down over, and over, and over again with your elaborate torture regimen?

“Well, screw that! I won’t give you the satisfaction!” she stomped one tiny hoof on the ground for emphasis, but didn’t stop there. “You said that you know me? Well, guess what, doll face? I know you just as well! All you are… is a bully!”

Anarchy’s jaw dropped. She blinked rapidly, and tried to take back the initiative, “W-what? B-but I… you…!”

“You’re getting satisfaction from pushing me around, right?” Cozy cocked her head to the side, “Finally! You get to be the one to push around somecreature weaker than you. For once in your life, you actually have control over your destiny! I know what that feels like, Ann. I know what it feels like to finally cut loose and let everypony know you beat them.”

She chuckled, dryly, “Sure, I wasn’t welcome at the orphanage anymore after I pulled my stunt there, and I might have wound up in Tartarus a little over a year later from the other thing… but you’re already so much worse than I was then, and so much better at being a villain.

“Yeah, I said it,” Cozy snarked, “You’re a better villain! So, why don’t you get it out of your system, and either let me go… or finish me off!”

“I don’t KILL PONIES!” Anarchy snarled back, white flames licking at the edge of her mane for an instant as her eyes lit up. Her voice had taken on a familiar, discordant timbre.

But Cozy wasn’t done. Not even close.

She laughed, “And torturing me forever is better?”

Anarchy had nothing to say to that. So, she squeezed her eyes shut, and tried to breathe.

Cozy continued. “I actually can’t believe you’re Fluttershy’s kid.”

The Ponequus didn’t move. There was no reaction.

“I mean,” Cozy said, glancing over to the frozen Element of Kindness, “Can you imagine what she’d say if she saw this?”

“… stop talking…”

“Oh! Um!” Cozy said in an eerily good impression of her former professor, “That’s so mean! How could you do that to anycreature, Ann?”

“I said,” Anarchy’s eyes opened, and let loose a glare that would peel paint, “Stop. Talking.”

Cozy hadn’t heard her. She held up a hoof to her forehead, in a mockingly Rarity-tier drama pose.

“Oh! How could my widdle baby do this? Where did I go wrong as a mother? How could I have raised such a monst—”

Her voice caught in her throat, alongside her breath. Cozy felt a hot, throbbing pain stick in her chest. She tried to drag in air, and found only a trickle getting through. Something was… somecreature was blocking her airways. What…?

Her eyes lifted up… and she saw Death.

Ah, Cozy thought as the flaming, crimson eyes bore down into her soul, should have quit while I was ahead. Story of my life…

“If you can’t say something nice,” Anarchy said in a voice as calm as a tensed wire, “Say nothing…”

The Princess’s voice trailed off, her eyes unfocusing. She seemed to stare past Cozy, at something that wasn’t really there, but in too many ways was suddenly more real to Anarchy than anything else in the room.

Anarchy blinked, and took a deep, steadying breath. “Fine,” she began to rise into the air, “Request granted…”

Cozy’s breath returned, but as she took in a deep, grateful drag of air, she could feel her whole body seized by Anarchy’s invisible power. Both ponies sailed up into the air once more, as the Princess looked around. For what? Cozy had no idea.

Then, Anarchy took both her forelegs, and stabbed them into the air before her. With a puff of air, and the sound of straining wood, Cozy watched as the world split in half. Anarchy ripped the air apart, as she’d done with the… Cozy shivered… Puppet Dimension.

But there were no puppets. There wasn’t anything. There was nothing. Total, complete, and utter. Nothingness.

Nothingness was very, very dark, as it so happened.

“Uh…” Cozy’s breath caught as Anarchy swiveled around to glare back at her.

“I was going to just send you over to Sunset Shimmer’s universe, you know?” the Princess explained, her voice full of barely-restrained fury, “That’s the human world, if you never saw the Mirror back in Twilight’s castle. I was gonna just toss you in for a few weeks, but maybe as a fish, or some variety of fern.

“How would you have liked that, Cozy?” she drifted close enough to where their muzzles almost touched, “Not being able to think about things? Every thought in your head just… vanishing every five minutes or so as you swam in circles around your bowl. Or, you’d just sit there, waiting for another bit of rain and sunshine so you could grow a bit more. I wonder how you would have handled that?”

Anarchy flew around to Cozy’s back, and pushed her closer to the black void that hung in the air. “But… since you insisted I end this… here it is! Utter Oblivion!”

“Wait!” Cozy’s legs kicked out, as if she could slow her descent into the tear in reality, the nothingness before her, “Wait! Please! I… I didn’t mean all that!”

“I’m pretty sure you did.”

“Alright… I… I did! Alright! I did! But…” Cozy’s voice pitched higher, “You can’t do this! Please, don’t do this!”

The Princess said nothing.

So, Cozy did.

“Ann! Please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry I said those things, and I’m sorry I did those things! I’m a bad pony! I admit that!”

Non-existence approached. Slowly, purposefully. The blackness beckoned like a church bell. Like an open grave.

“I don’t wanna die! Please!” her voice cracked, and hot tears began to drip down her cheeks. As the darkness came close, the tears started falling towards it, vanishing without the slightest sound. In fact, the silence that met each drop could have been the total opposite of sound, a silence so profound that silence itself could not compare.

Cozy closed her eyes, and cried.

“Help me! Somepony help me! Grampa…!”

Cozy Glow wept. Openly. Loudly. Her sobs were muffled only by the stifling depth of the throne room itself. She hadn’t cried since… since she couldn’t really remember. Maybe before the orphanage. She wasn’t sure anymore. But right now, in the dark, the walls around her heart came down, and Cozy Glow cried like the little filly she might have been, deep down where nopony could hurt her.

“What did you say?”

The voice, hollow and haunted, came from in front of Cozy, but she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. She barely understood the words through the solid fog of tears and fear and sorrow that had fallen over her.

“I asked you a question!”

Cozy just cried harder. Angering the Ponequus was what caused all this…

“Stop it! Stop crying!”

The voice was still angry.

“Please! Stop crying!”

The voice wasn’t just angry. There was something else there. Something familiar that Cozy had thought forgotten…

Cozy lowered her hooves, and opened her eyes.

“Please…” Ann whispered, her cheeks wet with tears, her lips quivering, “… don’t cry. You’re… you’re making me cry…”

Her words hung in the air with them, for a moment, mere inches from the void.

Then, the hole in the world closed up with a little pop, and Ann let herself and the pink filly set down on the floor once again. Their eyes never left each other the entire time.

Ann reached out a hoof, tentatively, shaking the whole time. She held the pose, her eyes still not leaving Cozy’s.

Cozy stared. Her eyes stared at Ann… and then at her hoof… and then back at Ann.

Then, Cozy Glow took a step forward, and hugged the Ponequus every bit as tightly as Ann hugged her.

“I’m sorry,” Ann cried, her whispers muffled by Cozy’s mane, “I’m so… so sorry…”


The skies above Canterlot had certainly seen better… less weird days. At the present moment, nocreature could deny that, considering the storm clouds had taken on a pink and black spiral pattern whose center hung neatly over the throne room’s highest tower. The ‘eye’ of the storm, as it was, also appeared to be a rather large… yellow and crimson eyeball hanging in the sky.

It was disconcerting. Especially when it winked.

“Three guesses who’s to blame for all this,” Celestia sighed wearily, standing just before the idly open gates to her former residence, “And the first two don’t count.”

Her sister Luna stood by her side, dressed in an ‘I :heart: Manehattan’ t-shirt and carrying a ‘Princess Burger’ mega-cup (the one with a shifting holographic of herself and Nightmare Moon on the side) in her magical aura.

“Tia, ‘tis clearly the work of Discord. A second guess, I shall not need.”

Celestia stared, nonplussed. A bolt of blue-and-yellow striped lightning landed nearby with a nearly-silent quack, punctuating her expression.

Luna grinned. And flipped her ears forward and back in turns. She almost started waggling them when Celestia finally blinked.

“That show has ruined you,” the former Sun Princess shook her head, almost hiding her smirk, “You’re unbearable when you’re happy.”

“Oh, let me have my fun!” Luna laughed.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Celestia smiled, “I’m just worried. Where are the ponies?”

Luna looked about, curiously, but stopped suddenly as she spotted somecreatures moving within the castle. “Ho! Who goes there?”

The Princesses trotted up to the doors and quickly came upon a peculiar sight. Their dear friend, and fellow retiree, Grogar, was draped rather unceremoniously across the back of a dark-brown kirin, who watched the Princesses with rapt attention. Beside him, a somewhat familiar pink-maned unicorn beamed as she saw the Princesses enter.

“Princesses!” Twinkleshine cheered, “Oh, thank Cel… I mean, thank You, you’re here!”

Twinkleshine ran up to Celestia and threw a tight hug around the former ruler’s forelegs. Celestia smiled at the reaction, careful not to notice her sister’s grumble at the clear favoritism.

The kirin, Rainy Blaze, waved a hoof in greeting, and then said, “Why, we didn’t think anypony knew what had happened yet. Glad to see a warning got out in time!”

The Royal Sisters shared a worried glance.

“A-actually…” Celestia began, subtly pushing Twinkleshine away from her with a touch of magic, “We were in Manehattan, taking in a show…”

Luna cut in, “When some sort of magical force yeeted Cloudsdale all the way back to Canterlot before First Snow could occur.

“That is how our tour guide described it, did she not?” Luna looked up enthusiastically to her sister, hoping her use of the hip new lexicon of the day would be well-received.

“Y… yes…” Celestia had never been happier to have developed a thousand-year poker face, “We decided that when… that happened, we should investigate. So…”

She leaned in close to Twinkleshine and Rainy, while Luna took up Grogar in her own aura.

“What exactly happened here?”


Neither moved for a long, long time. They didn’t dare. Each cried silently in the forelegs of the other, their breathing hard and ragged as they each tried, and failed, to get their emotions back under control. How long they stood there, hugging, was anycreature’s guess.

But, eventually, Cozy Glow and Ann stopped. But they did not let go. Again, they didn’t dare. For the first time in a long while, each one was without an enemy, a threat to their safety or their lives.

This, naturally, couldn’t last forever.

“What now?” Cozy Glow sniffed, and pulled herself from Ann’s embrace, “I… thank you… for not…”

“You really shouldn’t have to thank somecreature for not doing… that…” Ann lowered herself down onto her belly. “At least… unless they’re monsters. Like me.”

Cozy bit her lip. A thousand thoughts flew through her mind just then. She could still grab one of those folding chairs. A good hit to Ann’s noggin would buy her a few minutes to fly… run out of here. Ann wasn’t looking at her now, instead inspecting the floor, which meant it was as good a time as any for Cozy to just… take off. Heck, Ann was so distraught, she probably wouldn’t even chase her down today. There was time. Time to flee, recoup, recalculate what she needed. She could still win this. All she needed…

Cozy Glow sighed.

She was so, sooooo tired.

“You’re not a monster,” she said, quietly, but firmly. “If you were… I wouldn’t be here now, right?”

Ann didn’t react. She rubbed at her eyes again, more out of reflex than to wipe away tears. Then, she looked to Cozy.

“What do we do now?”

And like that, it was back to the quiet game. Neither one knew, precisely, what the next step was. Both were fairly certain at least one of them was getting locked up in Tartarus after today, but which one was still up in the air.

“Well,” Cozy glanced around the room, “I… guess turning everypony back to normal would be step one?”

“Everycreature,” Ann corrected, unenthusiastically.

Cozy snorted, but let that go. “I mean, what else are ya going to do with them? I was thinking, pigeon coop… but I’m the bad guy here…”

“Nah,” Ann shook her head, “You said it yourself. I’m the bad guy.”

“Not if you turn everyp—creature back,” Cozy said, her voice a little firmer than it had been. “What’s stopping you, anyway? You’re basically all-powerful right now.”

“Yeah,” Ann sighed, “but Phenomenal Cosmic Powertm doesn’t really help me here…”

“I mean… I saw you do it once.”

Ann looked away, “Not that part. I can do it… but that would mean telling them what I did. It would mean telling Mom what I did, and the Princess, and the Council. It would mean I’d have to tell Pinkie that… that I…”

A hoof touched Ann’s foreleg. She glanced up from there into Cozy’s… smirk?

“For what it’s worth,” Cozy shrugged, “I was the one who actually killed him, so she’d probably be mad at me.”

Ann frowned. “You know? I bet those puppets would welcome you back…”

NO!” Cozy’s hooves gripped Ann’s shoulders before she knew what she was doing, her eyes haunted by the memory. Slowly, she let go of Ann, and tried to smooth out the coat where she’d ruffled it.

“Ahem,” she coughed, unconvincingly, “No… that’s okay.”

Ann watched Cozy for another moment, and then sighed. “Cozy… I can’t fix Cheese. I can’t bring him back. That’s not how Chaos works.”

“Uh, why not?” Cozy asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Anytime I tried to fix stuff with my magic, it went haywire. Like when I tried to dry off my friend Pearl when she got mud on her. I just ended up poofing her coat and mane. And that’s after I set myself on fire trying to dry after a bath!”

Cozy rolled her eyes again, “Well, what’s the worst that could happen this time? He’s already rubble!”

“I’m not chancing it,” Ann shook her head, “What if I turn his bits into butterflies? Or popcorn? What would I do then?”

“Well…” Cozy’s mouth snapped shut before she could finish the thought. She’d only just gotten back into Ann’s good graces, after all. Best not spoil it with a hasty joke.

Instead, Cozy rubbed her chin and took a look around. The throne room was still the same as it had been for a while. Banners and deflated balloons were everywhere, partly covering the piles of confetti strewn about. Even the statues hadn’t moved since the coronation.

The statues…

Cozy ran over to the front row, and took a quick inventory.

“Cozy? What are you…?”

The little pink pegasus found what she was looking for.

“Here he is!” she proudly pointed up into the face of the one, and only, Draconequus. “You want an out? I can’t think of anycreature more qualified for getting into trouble, and then somehow talking their way out of it!”

As she said this, Cozy scowled. “He clearly got away with setting me up…”

Ann’s eyes widened. Slowly, with the speed of an oncoming continental plate, a smile spread over her face.

“Cozy…” she whispered, “You’re a genius!”

“I try…”

“Of course, Dad would know how to fix Cheese!” Ann pranced in place, her silver mane waving about as she cut a little rug, “He’s the Spirit of Chaos! He can do anything with it!”

“Yeah,” Cozy grumbled, “including turning ponies into living statues…”

But Ann just trotted past the filly with a laugh, “Ah, quit griping! It all worked out, didn’t it?”

“I’ll work you out, you…” Cozy’s words descended into grumbling growls.

After a few moments, during which Ann tried several times to settle down in her excitement, she finally managed to focus. She sat before the statue that was Discord, and closed her eyes. Unlike the last time she woke up a statue, this time Ann didn’t need to dig that far down to find the power. It came to her like a faithful pet.

Pink light bloomed around the Ponequus. It shifted and flowed like oil on water, hugging her close, yet never catching or slowing down. Cozy watched Ann draw upon the powers of Chaos in a way that made certain parts of her brain start salivating at all the schemes she could…

“Focus!” she commanded herself. “Survival, not winning…”

A flash of pink lightning jumped from Ann’s hoof, striking her father directly in the face. The sound was… quieter than Cozy was expecting, and sounded faintly of a wet, hacking cough. And with that, there was a second, louder explosion as the stone covering the Lord of Chaos flaked off and burned.

As the pink flames scoured him clean, Discord stretched and groaned. His serpentine body twisted up, straightened out, and curled back in on itself. The sheer impossibility of his contortions made Cozy Glow briefly grow sick. Ann merely beamed with utter happiness at seeing her Dad go through his morning stretches once again. Sure, there were fewer fireworks and tangerines, but she was just glad to see him alive once more.

Finally, Discord seemed to complete his transformation to flesh, and let out a long and languid yawn while scratching at his back. He finished up by smacking his lips and squinting at the state of things around him.

“Hm,” he said, finally, “Took you long enough, my little rounding error.”

“Dad!” Ann threw herself at her father, which proved somewhat disastrous. Both Draconequus and Ponequus collapsed into the statue-crowd, toppling the chair Discord had been strapped to and sending them both to the floor.

Ann grinned sheepishly. “Um… I might have… gained a few inches…”

She got a paw ruffling her hair in response, as well as a low, happy chuckle, “I’ll say. Growth spurts hit earlier and earlier; it would seem. I blame video games.”

Ann giggled, “Yeah, because plumbers hopping on turtle shells means the downfall of society!”

Cozy frowned. “What?”

Discord, however, smiled. He reached out, hugged his little girl, and planted a kiss right on the top of her mane.

“And the fact that you get that reference,” he said, choking up as he leaned back, “makes this all worth it.”

Father and daughter giggled together in shared bliss… for about another ten seconds. Which was just long enough for Ann to realize what her father had said.

“What… do you mean, this?”

Discord’s eyes widened.

“Dad…?” Ann’s voice took on a worryingly agitated tone, a tone that, the old Draconequus was reminded, usually meant he’d done something wrong.

“W-well I… I just meant that this situation was… quite trying for you. And that, if nothing else, your ability to see the Fourth Wall was a resounding success… I mean, consolation… oh…”

The slap which heralded Cozy face-hoofing caused Ann and Discord to turn around towards the filly.

“Really!? You engineered this whole situation?” she glowered from under her curly blue mane, “Didn’t you learn last time!?”

“Oh, Cozy Glow,” Discord rose up off the floor and walked over to his least favorite pony, “How horrible to see you again. I was only partially rooting for the puppets, you know…”

“Dad…”

“Alright! Fine! I knew this was going to happen!” the Lord of Chaos folded his arms in a pout, “Happy?”

Ann, standing as tall as her father, stood right next to him and glared as she shouted, “Not really! Did you know Grampa was gonna let me resurrect a supervillain!?”

“Of course not! I just…” Discord pondered how he was going to put this, “I just realized that your ultimate moment of character growth was upon you, and that I had to cede the reins of Main Character-hood over to you for this one.”

Cozy Glow frowned, again. “What?”

Ann stared into her father’s eyes, crimson on crimson. Hers narrowed in suspicion, bushy white eyebrows furrowing more and more…

Until she smiled, warmly, “Alright! All’s forgiven.”

Cozy scowled. “WHAT!?

“Yup,” Ann said, simply, “He didn’t know about you until he got here. It’s still… well, my fault…”

“Tut-tut, my dear!” Discord declared, lifting his nose in an imperious fashion, “The Lord… sorry, Princess of Chaos apologizes to nocreature… Except your mother,” he grinned.

Ann blanched, “You… you heard all that?”

A tiny, Alicorn Big Macintosh zipped by their heads, dragging behind him a banner which read: “Eeyup”.

Ann scrunched up her face at this.

“Wait… I have all your magic. How…?”

Discord picked up a half-eaten carton of popcorn from Ann’s movie theater jaunt, and started snacking, much to Cozy’s confusion and disgust.

“You haven’t been paying much attention then,” he waved one claw about, “There’s so much residual Chaos flying around now because of you, I probably could have gotten loose myself, give or take another hour. Still, I’m happy you decided to do it early.”

“So am I,” Ann sighed, relieved. Then, her face lit up as she remembered her purpose. She quickly started making chewing sounds with her mouth, before blowing what appeared to be a huge, grey-blue bubble. Cozy balked at the sight, but had by now lost any reason to be surprised at all by the goings-on around her, so she kept quiet.

The ‘bubble’ popped… revealing Grogar’s Bell, whole and well, in Ann’s hooves. She eagerly held it out for her father to see.

He saw. He also just stared at the bell like it had just asked him about the weather.

Discord coughed. Cozy frowned. Ann… kept smiling, despite her face beginning to ache.

“So…” she said, “I guess you can take back your magic now, and fix everything.”

The Draconequus looked back up into his daughter’s eyes.

“And… why would I do that?”

Cozy lay down on the floor, and decided to just stop caring for a while. It would surely hurt less.

“What do you mean… ‘why’?” Ann spoke slowly, trying, despite her very nature, to be as calm and logical as possible. There was, surely, an explanation forthcoming.

“I mean, why?” Discord shrugged, “You’re the Pony of Chaos. I have every confidence in your ability to fix up Cheese before you have to wake up Mama Ponkers.”

With that, Discord walked over to his former seat, and laid back in his chair, scarfing a few more bits of chocolate-gummi-popcorn mix while Ann looked on.

And boy… did she look on. Ann’s body didn’t move an inch, save for the sudden twitch in her left eyelid, and the funny way her hooves started gripping the Bewitching Bell. After a solid minute of this, the twitching had moved down to her tail, and her whole body shook with an unvoiced scream.

Until she voiced it, of course.

WHAT!?

“Not so loud!” Discord sighed, “The acoustics in here are quite good…”

Ann nearly bowled her father over as she came to a screeching halt before him.

“What… what do you mean by this!?” her eyes had widened to the size of Cozy now, “I can’t do this on my own!”

Discord tilted his head, “I mean… I’m retired. Simple as that.”

In the deafening silence that followed, he waved one paw towards the ceiling, which vanished in a flash to reveal the strange, spiraling sky of pink and black.

“Love what you’ve done with the place, by the by,” he chuckled, “New Management, new ideas! I can’t believe I never thought of it before.”

“But, Dad!” Ann whined like the filly she was, deep down, and tried to press the Bell into her father’s arms, “I… you can’t be retired! You’re the Spirit of Chaos!”

“Sorry to break this to you,” Discord shrugged, and pushed the Bell aside, “But if Sunbutt and Moony Loony can retire, so can I.”

Discord leaned back in his seat, somehow fully extending the folding chair, complete with a foot-rest. As he crossed his arms behind his back in a show of obvious comfort, he leisurely explained, “It’s how things go, after all. I was the master of my craft. I did the whole ‘Lord of Chaos’ thing for untold ages, until my apprentice came of age and supplanted me.

“You, my dearest dice pool,” he threw Ann a deeply contented grin, “You’ve achieved what I always knew you could. You are Chaos! Every parent wants to see their child surpass them, and you’ve done it in record time. Well done, by the way.”

Cozy poked her head up at this, “Wait… but you’re immortal. Why can’t you just…?”

An anvil, out of seemingly nowhere, slammed into the ground next to the pegasus filly, causing her to jump nearly twice her height and dive for cover.

“Anyway…” Discord continued, smirking slightly, “The student must surpass the master, the child their parent. Otherwise, the whole Sequence of Progressive Narrative comes undone. We’d have utter and complete Order on our hands!

“Can’t you see it now?” he threw himself forward, eyes wide open, arms outstretched, “Stories would start, progress, and end in the completely wrong order! There’d be no progression, just flat characters having flat, predictable adventures! Growth and change are needed for stories to be interesting.”

“I…” Ann shook her head, “I kind of get it, alright? I do. But…”

“Ann, my little Ann,” Discord sighed, happily, “I’m not going to stop being retired. This has been my end-goal for a while now. I’m completely satisfied with you taking over.”

Ann licked her lips, and started looking about the statue crowd, as if she could find an answer there. She returned her attention to Discord shortly, and said, “But, I need you, Dad. I need help! I… I can’t help Cheese. My Chaos doesn’t fix stuff. All I can do is make things worse, or weird. Or… different.”

Tears bloomed in her eyes, and a pressure every bit as heavy as stone and as hot as the sun sank in her chest. Ann’s voice became a strained whisper as she said, “Dad… I need help. I need you to help me. I don’t… I don’t know why you won’t. Are you… are you mad at me?”

Discord’s eyes narrowed into a half-lidded, focused stare. He idly chewed a mouthful of popcorn, never taking his eyes off his little filly.

“Ann,” he said, finally, with eyes closed, “I could never…”

His eyes opened, and a silly look came over the Draconequus. “Alright, well… I’ve been mad at you before, and this isn’t like then at all. Suffice to say, I could never be truly angry with you… not enough so that I wouldn’t do everything in my power to help you.

“Yes,” he reached out and held her cheek in the palm of his claw, “I daresay, I’d do far, far worse than anything you tried to do today, if it meant protecting a single hair on your beautiful head.”

He took a long, deep breath here, and exhaled it slowly. His smile was warm, and it felt to Ann like a marshmallow drenched in warm maple syrup giving her a hug as he looked upon her with unreserved pride and love. She nuzzled into his claw, and for a moment, she could remember that first time he’d held her like that, moments after she came into being. She could feel the love in him for her, even before she knew the words to describe it.

But then, his gaze became fragile, touched by a distant sadness. His claw fell away, and he walked back towards the crowd of statues, leaving Ann frozen in place, a look of terrible loss in her eyes.

“But… this is me helping.” He sat back in his chair, and folded his arms in front of his chest. “You have everything you need. I truly… truly believe in you.

“It’s time you learned to believe in yourself too.”


Silence returned to the throne room. Discord quietly sat in his chair, nibbling on the strange, popcorn concoction as he did so, not a care in the world if one judged by his contented smile. Cozy Glow paced lightly in circles on the other side of Ann from Discord, finding it a slightly better waste of her time than simply laying down and waiting for the two Chaos Gods to figure out what they needed.

Ann just… stood there. She hadn’t moved a muscle.

It wasn’t even clear if Ann was aware her father had sat down. She stood before him, eyes closed, and ears twitching hither and thither as she thought. Cozy could tell the Ponequus was having a little war in her own mind, mulling over plans, motives, ideas, and such things. She’d seen that same look on the faces of more than a few ponies as she put them into ‘check’. Metaphorically and literally.

After a few minutes of this, the pegasus filly grew bored and started looking about the room again for either a distraction or an inspiration. Her eyes immediately fell onto the chair holding up the pile of dust and pebbles that used to be Cheese Pie.

“Well,” she tapped her hooves on the stone floor, “I guess, worst case scenario, we could always get some glue and…”

“You volunteering, Cozy?” Anarchy snarled, a venomous glare shooting over her shoulder.

Cozy, deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, leapt headfirst into a confetti pile and kept still for a long, long time thereafter.

Ann’s eyes focused on the little mound of chopped-up paper and string. Not for any particular ire towards Cozy, however. By now, Ann wasn’t sure exactly where she stood with her once tormentor and recent tormentee.

But that little joke, that innocent… if poorly thought-out… jest was just the ultimate, final straw. The camel had been weighted down to the breaking point with loss, after loss, after disappointment, after crushed and disheartened dream, only for a little ribbing to finally snap his spine and make this a horrifying metaphor in Ann’s opinion.

She felt the tears burning her cheeks before she realized she’d been breathing heavily.

And to confuse the metaphor just a bit more, Ann felt the dam finally give out.

She screamed, an unearthly wail of inconsolable fury, and smashed her grampa’s bell into the ground with both forehooves. The bell gave out a weak, warped cry as it bounced away, and Ann let loose all that had built up in her heart.

“It’s not fair!” she cried, cracking the floor with a hard stomp, “I try to follow my destiny, and it all goes wrong. Then, I try to fix what I did… and it still goes wrong! My friends are stone!”

Dust fell from the rafters as she stomped again.

“Cheese is gone!”

The stain-glass windows shook, and their occupants cowered.

Ann fell to her belly, her legs covering her streaming eyes in shame. “This is all my fault. Everything’s gone wrong because of me… what will they think? What will they say when I… when I have to tell everypony…?”

“Darling!” a voice accustomed to the trappings of high society snarled, “We are all very disappointed in how you’ve behaved!”

“Fer sure,” another joined in, a drawling voice that felt heavy with condemnation, “Ye only caused trouble fer all of us.”

Cozy’s ears perked up as she heard those voices, those incredibly familiar voices. She poked her head up…

And immediately sat back down. She’d seen a lot today. Far, far more than she’d ever want to remember, in fact. Right now, at the top of her list of things to forget about, was a complete set of her old professors surrounding Ann, glaring into her soul with those soulless Discord-eyes of theirs.

“Nope,” she whispered, “Nope. Nope. Nope…”

“I’m sorry,” Ann whispered to herself, not daring to look up, “I’m sorry…”

Rainbow Dash’s voice cut her to the bone, “Apologizin’ isn’t gonna bring back Cheese, now is it? You can forget about those private flying lessons, by the way. I don’t want you anywhere near my skies!”

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

“I’m sorry too, Anarchy… but for such crimes as you have committed, the only punishment suitable would be to banish you to the moon…”

“…sorry… sorry…”

Discord watched this all with a placid face, betraying nothing of his thoughts. He watched the phantoms of Ann’s mind dance around her in an accusatory gyre with the practiced eye of a master observing his student’s final demonstration.

He’d quite forgotten all about the popcorn.

Smaller hooves clicked on the ground before Ann. The sound caused her to peak out of her huddled defense, and she quickly beheld a pair of furry fetlocks.

“We told you,” Shady shook his head, flames licking at the edges of his mane, “We told you, but you didn’t listen. You were so selfish, so self-absorbed that you never even considered what your supposed friends were trying to tell you…”

“No, Shady…” Ann sniffed, and tried to wipe her face dry, “It… it wasn’t like that…”

An elegant mezzo, tainted by wroth, snarled, “Oh, but my dear! That’s precisely how it was!”

“Pearl,” Ann stood up, but her once-friends still towered over her, “I didn’t mean…”

“You never meant anything, you are quite correct,” Pearl snapped, and looked away with her yellow and crimson eyes, “How could we have thought you were really our friend, when you so clearly only listen to your own chaotic whims?”

Ann’s body shook from another unvoiced sob. “But… I… I never…”

“It’s all about you, then?” Moon walked around the Ponequus, his own eyes hidden by his sunglasses again, but not the utter contempt that beamed out of them. “Cheese is dead because of you, and you keep making it about yourself?”

“No!” she quailed. Ann’s legs gave out, and she fell back to the floor, tears staining the stone as well as her own fetlocks. She couldn’t hold them back. All she could do was let them go, and shudder beneath the hateful gaze of her friends and family.

She knew Pinkie was watching her. That terrible gaze she knew she could never face. From so many feet away, she could feel it, like the sun burning through the clouds.

I killed her son

The tears, and the weeping cries, did not stop. They couldn’t. They never would. Without friends, what point was there in stopping?

I wish I’d never been born. At least then, no one else would be sad…

Another clatter of hooves sounded before her, but Ann was too weary, too resigned to her fate to look up at yet another vengeful ghost. She simply waited to receive its justified hate.

The voice though, was soft. Gentle, even.

“Ann?” Cheese said, as though Ann were the one who was hurt, “Do… do you really think so little of us?”

At the sound of those words, Ann’s eyes opened. With halting, choked breaths, she looked up. Looking back, she could see a pair of warm, open eyes.

Green eyes. Green like the fields of grass around Ponyville. Green like the color he’d turned when Ann had first shown him what a rollercoaster designed by Chaos could do. Green like life. Green like living things.

Cheese smiled.

“If nothing else,” he chuckled, “I hope you don’t think so little of yourself.”

Ann licked her lips, and swallowed another sob before it could catch her.

“But Cheese,” she whispered, “It was my fault.”

He shrugged, “Eh. Not the way I saw it. Stuff happens, you know?”

“No,” Ann sighed, “I don’t know.”

At this, Cheese laughed. And it was a kind laugh. The type of laugh that Ann missed hearing, oh so much.

“Ann, you turned your grampa to stone the day we met! You don’t think I knew what I was getting into by being your friend?”

She briefly thought back to that moment, when she’d decided that having her grampa follow her and Cheese to the park was more a hassle than it was worth, and… despite herself, she giggled.

“But you got shattered…”

“And?” Cheese lightly punched her shoulder, “If living with my mom has taught me anything, it’s that when you pick your friends, you’re picking an adventure for life. And… sometimes those get a little dangerous, but they’re always worth it in the end!”

He turned, and with a quick gesture, brought Shady, and Pearl, and Moon back. Their scowls faded as they approached, and soft smiles settled on their faces.

“We could never hate you, Ann,” Cheese said, wrapping his forelegs around the others’ shoulders, “We love you too much.

“And,” he added, slowly lifting his gaze up, “Neither could she.”

Ann, tears of another nature still falling from her eyes, felt the shadow fall across her. But it didn’t come with terror, or sadness, or ill-feeling, or anything like that. As that shadow covered her sight, Ann could only feel a sense of calm and peace overtake her.

She turned around, and came face to face with the last pony she had wanted to see, but the one she knew she absolutely needed to.

“My little Anarchy,” Fluttershy’s tears, pooling in her eyes, matched Ann’s own, warmth for warmth, “Oh, how I missed you.”

Ann swallowed, and sniffed, “You… you’re not… mad?”

Fluttershy didn’t answer, at first. She just leaned forward, and wrapped her daughter in her forelegs. Then, her wings joined in the loving hug, and both mares settled their heads into the crooks of each other’s’ necks.

Neither seemed to mind the feeling of warm tears landing on their shoulders.

“I could never be mad,” her mother cooed, “Not as long as you remember who you are.”

“But…” Ann trembled, “Who am I?”

Ann could actually hear Fluttershy’s smile.

“You’re exactly who you’re supposed to be. Chaos… and Kindness. You’re creative, and fun, and you love your friends dearly. You want them to be happy, even if you’re unhappy. But you’re willing to fight for them, when you have to.”

She chuckled, “Maybe you fight a little too often, but I still love that about you.”

Ann nuzzled deeper into her mother’s embrace, and smiled. But, after a moment, that smiled strained.

“Mom?”

Fluttershy hummed, questioningly.

“Are… are you real?”

“She’s every bit as real as the part of her that’s in you, kid,” Discord wrapped his way around the two, trapping Ann in the most Draconequus of hugs.

“We all are, dear,” Pearl joined in, as did Flawless. As did Beau, and Shady. Moon and Dib joined, and Goldie, and Pinkie, and Apple Bloom, and Silver Spoon, and Cheese, and on, and on, and on.

Ann stood in the center of a hug that spanned time and space. Even if it wasn’t, strictly speaking, real… well, that had never stopped something from still mattering.

“What can I do?” Ann whispered. “What can I do to fix this?”

She felt her mother’s kiss, just atop her mane.

“Be yourself, my love,” she said, the sighing wind of Chaos billowing all around them, “Be wild. Be proud. Be brave, and wonderful, and loving, and free.

“But most of all…” Fluttershy’s voice began to fade, as did all of the spirits conjured there. Ann stood alone, save for her father, who remained wrapped around her in his hug. And save for a little pink filly, who tried to hide her red-rimmed eyes behind a pile of confetti.

And the last echoes of the Fluttershy within could still be heard.

“… be kind.”

Ann’s tears stopped. If she had more to shed, they would come another time. But for now, her eyes closed, she smiled, and felt… for the first time… complete.

Discord unwrapped himself from her, and stood off to one side, a hopeful grin playing on his mismatched features. He carefully draped a cape of red, trimmed in white and black ermine over Ann’s shoulders. And then, he set a soft, red crown atop her head.

She looked to him, and smiled.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Anytime.”

She squared her shoulders, and faced the silent crowd. Ann’s eyes locked onto the pile of stone that had once been… and soon would again be… her friend. Pink flames came to life around her, and slowly gathered strength.

Even Cozy could feel the air pressure shift. Chaos was moving, and flowing like never before. The world seemed to hum with it, in a strange yet beautiful harmony. The building light almost burned as it swirled about the Ponequus, but Cozy would not see what would happen next.

Discord dropped a pair of sunglasses over her eyes.

“Trust me,” his own were, naturally, 3-D glasses, “You’ll need it.”

Ann held up one wing, which set itself ready to snap. She would say one more thing, and then no more, her voice thrumming with untold power, even as the world held its breath.

“I, Princess Anarchy, First of My Name, Seneschal of Serendipity, Lady of Lunacy, Empress of Nothing, Queen of Never Were, Princess of Chaos…

“… do hereby ABDICATE!!!”

And with that, snapped.

Author's Note:

If you're reading this, then congrats! There's a second chapter posted today! So no cliffhangers! Even though this... thirty-thousand word beast was all one chapter when I wrote it... :pinkiecrazy: