The Day of Discord

by GJT_Productions

We Shall Have Order

"You're right, Spike. I've got to fight for my friendships. For them. For me. For Equestria!... Oh... uh... why don't you just stay here and rest? I'll take care of the whole fighting for friendship thing myself."

"Ugh...you...do...that...Twi... ERRRP!"

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Acting Guard Captain Shining Armor and Princess Cadance exchange nervous glances as Princess Celestia continues to send out scrolls to Ponyville, the aftereffects obvious on the floating screen as Spike on the other end continues to burp them up, each scroll sending another wincingly-intense wave of pain through his small body. The small dragon remains curled up on the floor, the only way he knows how to handle the pain.

"So, should somepony tell...?" Shining Armor whispers tentatively toward Cadance.

"Let me handle this. She may not have noticed what was going on the screen." Cadance whispers back, at that point shuffling over to beside where Celestia was still focused on the small pile of scrolls in front of her.

"Um, excuse me Auntie, but I don't think you need to keep sending them out..." Cadance cautiously asks of her aunt.

"Cadance, I'm not done yet. Let me finish with the pile." Celestia scolds, looking up from the work back towards her niece.

There is a brief, awkward pause while Celestia looks over at the floating screen, seeing (and hearing) Spike continue to belch out the letters she was sending, and then the sun princess continues: "Besides, if it didn't amuse me to have a dragon burp up letters for me, I wouldn't have taught him how to use a special variation of dragon's fire breath only he knows to do it!"

Shining Armor recoils back in mortification as an amused grin spreads across Celestia's face, and Cadance lets out a long, irritated sigh. After a few moments, she turns back to Shining Armor, already knowing arguments will be useless.

"Captain, just... go back to the office and update us on what's going on in Canterlot right now. There's no point in having you around here anymore." Cadance shoots out in exasperation.

"Understood. On my way." Shining Armor replies with a salute, not needing to be convinced that it was ultimately a good idea...

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MEANWHILE, IN THE CITY OF CANTERLOT...

The unicorn guard on patrol stared with great concern around the corner at the half-destroyed offices of "The Mule", a powerful earth pony lawyer. What worried him wasn't just the devastation, but the agitated crowd coalescing around the building, shouts of sympathy and outrage from various ponies peppering the air. The old lawyer himself was perched just in front of the broken building, his aides and fellow lawyers busy at work organizing the crowd.

After a few minutes, the crowd is organized enough to allow the old lawyer to address them, his voice billowing only slightly touched by his advanced age: "Friends and fellow citizens of Canterlot, I see your outrage. I see your pain and suffering. I have experienced some of it myself from the strange force released upon the city this day, but I will need your help to see justice done for it. Are you willing to help me?"

The crowd echoes with affirmations, which causes the old stallion to press on: "You have seen with your own eyes that Princess Celestia is no longer capable of doing her job properly. Her single-minded obsession with promoting 'the magic of friendship' above all else has lead her to slack her duty to protect her city and subjects! Now I tell you, will you let this slide without consequence, fine ponies?"

The crowd again shouts out indignation and anger, his words whipping their attitude up again. He continues one more time: "We must hold the princess accountable for her negligence! We shall have order in this city again, regardless of what it costs to make it happen! Join with me, and you will get the restitution you deserve! If you're with me, give a shout!"

Immediately - and alarmingly to the guard - the entire crowd burst into shouting, demanding "restitution" and "accountability", among other things. The patrolling unicorn guard, now thoroughly spooked by the still-growing mob, immediately turned and ran at full gallop to bring news of the speech to the castle...

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BACK IN PONYVILLE...

"Retreat! Retreat!" Lieutenant Meadow Song shouts out as a barrage of letters coming from a chaos-activated mail sorting machine are spewed throughout the back rooms of the Ponyville post office where some of the citizenry had retreated to as chaos enveloped their town.

The Guard Lieutenant checks if all ponies present - Guard Upper Class Caramel, the mailpony Derpy Hooves, Mr. and Mrs. Cake (the latter now very obviously "expecting" what would be the twins Pound and Pumpkin Cake) and Mayor Mare - have been evacuated before slamming the doors shut, the high-speed letters pinging off the doors as the small group catches breath in the lobby of the post office. Just outside, through the windows, is the Wonderland-style dystopia Discord has turned the town into with his chaos magic.

"I just don't know what went wrong!" Derpy Hooves exclaims through a sheepish grin, too obviously marking her as the source of the idea to hide in that back area in the first place.

"You wall-eyed pegasus, you're going to get us all killed with your ideas!" Caramel shouts in indignant frustration.

"Guard, yelling won't do any good here." Mayor Mare interjects. "We can't keep running the Cakes around from place to place considering how far along Mrs. Cake is right now, this kind of stress can trigger labor prematurely, and we have no safe way to a hospital if that happens."

"Do you have any ideas what we should do next, Mayor?" Meadow Songs asks of Ponyville's temporarily displaced mayor.

"I have one." comes a reply before Mayor Mare can even open her mouth to respond, the words seeming to come from the smashed front door to the post office.

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All eyes turn toward the door, and see Twilight Sparkle stroll in, her eyes filled with determination. A few flickers of hope appear among the group dramatically demoralized by the sudden and unstoppable wave of chaos that's overtaken Ponyville.

"I seriously hope you do have an idea, Twilight. She's expecting very soon, and we can't keep running around with her in that condition." Mr. Cake pipes up, referring to his wife beside him.

"There's ponies I need to find. And I'm going to need your help, all of you, to find them." Twilight Sparkle explains, the grim determination in her eyes encouraging the spirits of the other ponies in the room.

"We are at your disposal, Twilight Sparkle, as you are the last hope of Equestria. Command us as if you were Princess Celestia herself." Meadow Song affirms as he and the rest of the crowd bow slightly in Twilight's direction, a foreshadowing of Celestia's ultimate intent...