Looks Like I'm Gonna Have To Start Trying

by marmalado

Well, Look At It This Way: I Mean Technically, Her Party is Saved

After a quick check for any residual damage Sombra's beam might have caused, the focus began on gathering the scattered party guests. Given the sheer size of Headquarters and the base number of agents employed at Precinct 13579 specifically (estimates have it at around 200), this was usually a more difficult feat than anticipated, but Otto found them all huddling together in the Crying Room within minutes. He chalked it up to every guest being relatively new to Odd Squad by some sheer coincidence.

Oprah opted to make an official announcement declaring the place to be free of danger, sending the Maintenance department to fix up the Tube Lobby, the Trophy Room, and the rooms that Tirek had blasted through once she discovered that. (Finding out she could have freed herself without having to resort to a shadowy unicorn's magic was something she would be stewing over for the next month. But she didn't want to be branded a liar and make the bullpen a hazard zone by having some agent's head.)

As the party really began to get going, Oscar wheeled his present over to his boss. "Here, Ms. O." He smiled sheepishly. "This was a last-minute gift on my end, but hopefully you enjoy it, heh."

Oprah stared at the gift. Faking enthusiasm was something she had gotten skilled at over the years, and it came in handy with this gift that was so obviously a bike. And not even a store-bought bike -- it was generated with a gadget.

"Oh, a bike!" She examined it. "With a horn...oh wow, and a basket too!" A blush began to form in her cheeks, one that was completely involuntary. "I love it. Thank you so much."

This verbal seal of approval was met with massive applause from the party guests.

"Now let's cut some cake! All that fighting made me hungry."

Chopping oranges, apples, and other such spherical fruits in half with one simple hand chop was one thing. Chopping an entire cake was another.

"Ah ah ah-" Polly made a mad grab for Oprah's wrist. "Maybe we should just use a knife."

"Why? It's not fun that way."

"My Aunt Beryl tried to chop a cake with her hand once. Scrubbing the wall to get that off was no easy feat." Polly chuckled. "No need to make a big show out of it. Just cut it evenly with a knife."

Oprah scoffed. "I hope you're not taking that attitude to the Parliament building."

"Please. They make a big show out of everything in there. That's why politics are terrible nowadays." Polly puffed out her chest. "Just wait until I get in there."

"Uh-huh." Oprah reached behind her back and took out a large pointy knife. "Well, I got the knife, so-"

"Ah ah ah-" Polly made a mad grab for the knife. "Curvy blade. Not pointy. You need to be a role model."

"For who, my mom?" Oprah pulled the knife back, tucked it away, and came back with another knife that had a curvier blade. "There. Let me cut the cake already."

Polly simply gave a wink to the reader and allowed her friend to work her magic in splitting the cake into even pieces for everyone.

From there, the party went off without a hitch, though Olaf had to be dragged off after his howls communicated clear complaints about the lack of potato. Olive was in attendance as well, but it was clear she would be having nightmares about The Magic Beam That Caused a Close-Call Haircut for at least a month.

During a break in one of the party games, Musical Exercise Balls, Otto found himself faced with an innocently-toned question from his boss. One that nearly made him abandon the game he was winning and book the nearest toilet with the closest window of availability.

"Hey, agent...after you took a bite of that roasted draconequus, what exactly did you do with it?"

For the rest of the day, Otto began to feel the same kind of dread his partner had experienced.

Oprah, on the other hand, went to bed a happy immortal child. She had beaten up several things, had a spectacular birthday party, and saved her Headquarters from utter destruction. So aside from the birthday party, it was nothing more than a typical day at Odd Squad.

The more she thought about it, though, the more her curiosity grew about the world of Equestria. Sure, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, but there had to be some sunshine and rainbows, right? It couldn't be a world populated solely by villains. That would be absurd.

Oh well. Something to tackle another day. Right now, it was what Otto had once lovingly called "honk-shoo time".

---

Back in Equestria, in a rock-filled clearing, the surviving villains all surrounded a silver plate with a roast chicken on it.

"What...is it?" Cozy asked.

Chrysalis tried to respond, but her tongue was too mangled to form words properly.

"It appears to be meat of some kind." Tirek observed. He caught Starlight reaching out to it with her hoof and smacked it. "Don't touch it, you foolish pony! Who knows if it's poisonous?"

"By touching it? Don't kid yourself."

Tirek rolled his eyes. "If you wish to answer the question yourself, be my guest. But I say we should burn it."

"Who, me?"

Screams resounded through the area. With a bright flash, the roast chicken was gone, replaced with the whole form of Discord.

"Ahh, it feels so good to be me again. If I'm honest, being roasted is not how I want to go out." He chuckled. "Goodness, if I had stayed back in that wretched world with that ugly-looking human, I'd be as good as dead!"

Starlight blinked. "What?"

"Oh, yes, right, you weren't there, were you?" Discord shook his head. "No, no, see, when I faced off against that 'Oprah' character, she tackled me full-force, pinned me down, then used some kind of machine to turn me into roast draconequus. It took me by such surprise that I hardly had a chance to fight back." He stroked his beard idly. "I could remember hearing other voices, and someone taking a bite out of me."

Cozy's cheeks bulged, and she quickly raised a hoof to her mouth to keep from spewing, with Starlight doing the same. Chrysalis's lopsided eyes widened as far as they could. Tirek tried his damnedest not to laugh.

Discord thrust a talon at the latter. "Don't. You know fully well I could have turned back to normal. But my magic was weakened. As was yours, I presume?"

That got Tirek to drop his amused reaction. "Not so much weakened as it was that I could not find one being to pry it from. That world has no ponies. Only..." He bared his teeth. "...magicless humans."

"Oh, they're not so bad." Discord said. "Though Oprah did manage to break my spell rather easily. Too easily."

Cozy crossed her legs. "Take it from me, Discord: you underestimated her. All of you did." A smug smirk formed on her face. "She's a villain. A child villain. I'm a child villain. You see where I'm going with this?"

Silence. And then, a chorus of "ohhhhh" sounds.

"She knew she had the upper hoof. She went to sleep on me while I was telling the amazing story of how I nearly drained Equestria of all its magic! Went! To sleep!" Cozy landed and stamped her hoof on the ground, her expression turning into an ugly depiction of anger hardly ever seen before on a small Technicolor equine. "I ended up having to go to her stupid lackeys to get me back here!"

"Typical."

"What was that?!"

"You heard me." Starlight said. "I'd have suggested you kill her, but with your small hooves I doubt you could do much."

"Oh? And what about your horn?" Cozy flicked it, making it bounce up and down like a door stopper. "You couldn't even beat Twilight and her dumb little friends. How did you manage to beat Oprah?"

Starlight stammered, her eyes darting back and forth in an effort to avoid eye contact. No matter what, though, Cozy took up most of her field of vision, and so she quickly conceded. "I...didn't." she muttered. "But it's not for a lack of trying."

Cozy simply raised an eyebrow.

"I tried all sorts of spells on her. She dispelled every one of them. Until she..." Starlight craned her head downwards and pawed at the ground in shame, though not because of her obvious lie. "...punched me into the tube and sent me up."

The group erupted into mocking laughter. Even Chrysalis got in on it, despite her laugh sounding more like that of a deranged serial killer.

"It was sudden! I had no idea what was going on!"

The laughter grew louder in volume.

Starlight growled. "Forget it! I'm leaving. Time wasted here with you frauds is time better spent planning how to take down Twilight Sparkle and the others."

With her head raised upwards, she left the clearing in a bright aqua-blue flash of magic.

"Ahh, what a party pooper." Discord wiped the tears away from his eyes, his body heaving with a few more laughs. "She is right, though. As fun as it is talking with you all, I do believe there are some areas I must study to enact the perfect chaos. Or 'oddness', as it were."

Cozy pouted. "Aww, can't you stay a little longer?"

"I'm afraid not, my dear." Discord ruffled the filly's head. "Chaos waits for no one, not even myself. And the sooner, the better!"

A snap of his fingers, and the villain meeting attendance count was down to a measly three.

"So Tirek, are you gonna try and steal magic again?"

Tirek's eyes narrowed slightly as he thought over Cozy's question. "Hmm...perhaps. I am quite curious to know if Oprah meant anything by leading me to a source of magic..."

"I wouldn't take her words at face value. Context?"

"She offered it in a deal."

"Yeah, she's lying."

Unable to think of a suitable swear, Tirek gave a growl of frustration.

"I don't blame you. She's very convincing. Her and her minions." Cozy sighed and looked at the dark cloudy sky above her. "At least we can still conquer Equestria!"

"Hm. Indeed." Tirek smirked. "What say you and I team up?"

"Golly! You and me?" Cozy's eyes widened in mock surprise. "I'd love to, partner. Let's get started right now."

Chrysalis only barely caught the little filly's devilish smile. She knew that smile. It was the "I'm going to stab you in the back and regret absolutely nothing about it" smile. Her torn-up body thrashing about, she tried to tell Tirek that he was due for a nasty surprise.

Tirek noticed, and responded in kind by taking her magic, leaving her more powerless than she was before.

Would she die? Probably. There was a strong chance. Did Cozy and Tirek care? Not worth the successful conquering of Equestria, let alone the world. They had each other. That was all that mattered.

And as for Oprah...well, revenge on her would come in time. Once they figured out her weaknesses and all that stuff. But that was a long ways away. Equestria came first.

Sombra, however, never made it to the impromptu villain gathering. He died halfway into the journey, via his shadowy form being mixed up and turned around to degrees that, while possible in the realm of Equestria, were near-fatal to completely fatal in the world of Odd Squad.

The gadget he had been trapped in was later found in a bog by a few traveling ponies, but left to float in its endless stretch after said ponies decided the gadget was just another piece of trash from a litterbug.

If this all sounds unsatisfying to you, the reader, look at it this way.

Now Twilight and co. only have two villains to fight by the end of Season 9.

Author's Note:

I had originally wanted to publish this for Crackfic Storm 2024, but at the time I found out about the event, I had four more chapters to go and I knew I wasn't going to get this done in time. So this serves as a belated April Fools Day fic. Hope you all had a good run this year, whether you took part in the legendary Explosion Event or not.