> A Nightmare in Ponyville
>  by Paleo Prints
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: He's Back
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


A Nightmare in Ponyville
By Paleo Prints
Chapter 1: He’s Back


The lights of Ponyville twinkled in the distance as Twist and Truffle watched the stars.  Twist smiled as she rested her head on her portly coltfriend’s belly.

“Truffle? Do you even wish for stuff on the stars?”

The introspective teen sat up, adjusting his fez. “I foresee no situation I could ask for better than the present.”

Twist giggled as a shooting star past through her view.  Impulsively, she sat up as well.

“Truffle. I’ve been saving something for you.”

The young stallion raised his eyebrows. “Indeed?”

“Oh yeah.”  Twist smiled. “You’re going to be the first one to share it with me.”

Truffle nervously adjusted his glasses.

Twist turned around, smilingly demurely as she leaned on her coltfriend’s leg. “It’s got peppermint and sprinkles, and it’s in the wagon.”

Truffle’s eyes lit up. “My dear, you spoil me so.”  He pulled himself to his hooves.  “Allow me to grab our treat.”

As he trotted across the grassy hill Twist reclined onto the ground.  He’s so perfect.  Her wistful daydreams were interrupted by the sound of hooves on grass. “Truffle? Is that… ”

She had no response to the sight of Diamond Tiara feeding her coltfriend an ice cream sundae.

“Truffle? What’s going on?”

While he messily gulped down an obscene amount of ice cream, Diamond responded with a smile.

“He’s my boyfriend now, Twist.” She raised a skeptical brow.  “Did you really think he liked you for you?  Now that my confections are better than yours, his heart is mine.”

Twist slammed a hoof onto the ground. “That’s ridiculoush… ridiculoush… “ The horrified teen raised a hoof to her mouth.  A touch confirmed that the long hated braces of her childhood had returned, replacing years of speech therapy.

“An’ then he’ll be my boyfriend!”

Still reeling from the unreality, she whirled on Apple Bloom.  Somehow her friend had crept up on her while holding a over-sized silver platter. “I gots more apple fritters than you got personality!”

“That’sh… that’sh cruel.  How can you even calculate that convershi… ”

Truffle obediently trotted over to Apple Bloom and opened his mouth.

Twist fell to her knees and began to cry as Sweetie Belle jumped out of a bush.

“I’ll have him next!  I got a whole cake!”  She nimbly balanced it on one hoof.

Truffle nodded with approval.

“Go away.”  Twist shut her eyes and screamed. “Go away!”

“You’ll never guess what I brought,” she heard Scootaloo say.

Curious in spite of her herself, she opened her eyes to see an empty-hoofed pegasus.

“What ish it?”

Scootaloo smiled cruelly. “You.”

Twist tried to stand but her body rebelled.  Looking down she was horrified to find her glazed legs coated with red stripes.

Truffle’s eyes went wide. “I do love candy canes.”  He sprung into a gallop, licking his lips.

Twist shook her head in fear. “No.”  When Truffle pulled out an over-sized hammer she started to cry.

“Please no!”

As Truffle wound up his swing, Twist thought she saw a multi-colored structure rise from the ground behind him.

Several minutes later, Truffle galloped across the empty hillside. He put down the baking tin in confusion as he scanned the hill.


“Twist?  Twist, what tomfoolery is this?”  He slowly turned at the sound of carnival music as a giant building pushed out of the grass like a brightly-colored tombstone.



If an 80’s nostalgia exhibit exploded next to a stationary shop, it would resemble Cheerilee’s apartment.  Nestled in the middle of an ancient Old Canterlot housing complex, it had enough music memorabilia and teaching aids for the entire town.  Unfortunately, most of it was on the floor.  The panicked schoolmare gingerly stepped between scattered records and heard a pencil crack. She sighed heavily. “Red, you better be getting your luggage ready!”  

She slowly made her way through the chaotic living room, walking amongst the clutter as if surrounded by precious landmines.  “Red Glare, I will ride the ten o’clock express to Ponyville without you if… “

Cheerilee produced an arguably adorable squeal of surprise as sharp pain lanced through her hoof. Looking down revealed a small, brightly colored pyramid covered in numbers.  She sighed and used her teeth to place it on a shelf as she walked into her bedroom.

Moving to the second part of her clutter disaster exhibit, Cheerilee saw a bright scarlet flank bobbing out of her closet.  Behind it on the bed lay an opened suitcase from which protruded an uneven stack of jackets, a triple beam balance, and some piece of clothing that still had the hanger attached.

She breathed out slowly as a smile rose to her face. “Red, you pack your luggage like you stock your science cabinets.”

Seconds later, a stallion’s head stuck out of the door and raised an amused yellow eyebrow. “Is it full of wonders to discover?”

She giggled as she leaned over the bed and began to straighten his effects. “No my dear, I mean it’s a dangerous jumble of unlabeled reactants.”

Red snorted in admonition. “I have to store oddly-shaped materials. Do you know how much more taxing that is than literature books, ‘Lee?”

She turned and touched her nose to his.  “I bet you one day of substituting that there’s still a can of pears in your engineering cabinet.”

After a second of her confident stare Red Glare turned away, scratching his mane in embarrassment. “Um… Cheerilee, the love of my life… “

She cocked her head in anticipation.

“Could you pack my stuff?”

Her shoulder slumped with exaggeration as she nodded.  Turning back to her work her eyes widened in remembrance. “By the way, I stepped on another one of those dice.”

“So?”  Red responded as he kept examining the dark, untouched recesses of the closet.

“It was one of the pointy ones!  Screwball needs to make sure that she and her friends clean up after their games.”

Cheerilee yelped at the playful bite that tugged her tail.  “You’re sore about the last time you played,” she heard from behind her.

She snorted. “That’s ridiculous. It’s just an overly complicated board game.”

She felt Red’s breath on her ear. “Yeah.  And your seapony got eaten by a barbarian horseshoe crab.”

Cheerilee made an effort to shrug noncommittally. “It’ll do Screwy some good to get away from a table and run around. Summer in Ponyville will work wonders.  I have family and friends there, it’s beautiful, the festivals have so much… ”

“No horseshoe crab barbarian hordes lying in wait.”

Cheerilee gave Red a wrathful look before losing her composure in a giggling fit.  “Mister Glare, you are treading a fine line.  Be rude and I may refuse to pack your luggage.  After all, I already packed my own teacher’s editions, notebooks… ”

“Love, it’s summer! We’re on vacation!  You brought your things on last year’s summer cruise.”  Red puffed his cheeks out. “I was promised a ‘no-paperwork summer’ at last.”

She turned with anxious eyes. “We have new textbooks next year! I have to read them, make new lesson plans, and design assignments.”

Red leaned out of the closet and ran a hoof slowly down Cheerilee’s chin. “You are going to relax this summer even if I have to leave that suitcase at home.”

Cheerilee spent a warm moment inspecting Red’s eyes. “Mister Glare, I also happened to pack my new pairs of socks in that case.”

He froze. “You bought socks?”

She nodded.

He blinked repeatedly.  “Did… did Screwy see you buy them?”

She leaned close and whispered in his ear. “No, and they have a trim.” As he shivered she continued. “If you get me your lab coat I’ll wear them for you while we’re alone.”  

Red Glare saluted and dashed away, leave his spouse in laughter.  She worked in silence for a while as she straightened Red’s suitcase.  “Red, is that lab coat ready?”  No response was returned. “Glare, are you going to help me pack or not?”

He stepped out and dramatically produced a red-checkered flannel jacket on a hanger.  He dangled it off of his hoof as Cheerilee’s eyes rolled in her skull. “Cheerilee, where’d this come from?”

She lunged for the jacket, nearly running into a dresser as Red whipped it around like a matador.  “Give me that. It’s one of my old college scene clothes.”

The jacket was now on the bed, Red examined it careful. “Wait one rock-farming minute. The peppy filly from Ponyville went through a grunge phase?”

She groaned, sitting back on her haunches and covering her eyes. “I went through a period of serious soul searching, okay? I had a lot of issues to work out.”

“There are crayons in the pockets.”

“I was in a teacher training program and I still had issues, okay?”

Red’s smile lessened as he saw his mare stare off into space.  She thought he was patiently waiting for her, so she started talking. In reality, the socially awkward science teacher had no idea what to say.

“Red, I made some good friends in college and I lost some. I had a bunch of choices in front of me, and…”

“Apparently, you were immortalized in crayon.”  He was flattening out a sheet of paper pulled from the front pocket.

Cheerilee sat up with a smile. “Is there a drawing still in there?”  She waited for Red to crack about the drawing style but he stood silently.  She walked around the bed to face him and saw a shocked look on his spellbound face.

“Cheerilee, what is this supposed to be?”

“Oh that,” she demurred. “That’s just a drawing one of my first students gave me. I think it was supposed to be me and the pony I was supposed to marry.” She chuckled. “I hid it so I wouldn’t have to explain about me marrying a red pony in a white dress.”

The seconds stretched on. “You got this in college?”

“First year,” she asserted.  “Only semester I got to stay at Canterlot University.”

Red rotated the drawing to face Cheerilee.  As she looked at the ancient drawing she felt as if someone had sucked the breath from her lungs as months of denial fell away.

“’Lee, that’s not a mare in a dress.  That’s a stallion in a white lab coat.  What was the name of the student that drew this?”


“Surprise!”

The older mare’s voice echoed through the small Ponyville cottage as she carefully followed the sound of whispering teens.

“Surprise! Where are you, honey?”

Inside a darkened bedroom, a young pegasus clutched herself tightly with two white wings as she spoke into her bedroom mirror.  Her breath caught as the door to her bedroom slowly opened.

“Surprise?”  Her mother looked in confusion at her frightened daughter curled up on the bed.  During her early years, the young filly had sent babysitters screaming into the night.  In all their years together, Coin Counter would have never imagined her energetic daughter sitting still in a darkened room.  Coin walked slowly towards Surprise.  

“Honey, are you alright?  I thought I heard you talking to someone.  Is Twist over?”

Surprise rolled toward her mother. She had managed to dredge up a smile while wiping away the tears.  “Nope.  I’m okay, Mom. Just have some things on my mind.”

She mother slowly nodded. “Should we go to Doctor Muffinhead tomorrow?”

Surprise shook her head as she rolled off the bed and onto her hooves. “That won’t be necessary. It won’t be a problem by then. Besides, the kitchen roof is going to spring a leak. You’ll have to deal with that.”

“I… ”  Coin smiled slowly, failing after all these years to look casual around her daughter’s amazing intuition. “I could look for the leak now.”

Surprise flew into the hallway. “It’s not there yet!”

Coin nodded philosophically and followed her daughter.  “Slow down, Little Cloud!”

Surprise trembled at the nickname. Under her breath she mimicked her mother as they both said, “I don’t have wings, remember?”

Coin found Surprise standing in front of the opened front door.  The teen stared outward into the noisy Ponyville streets, quivering and yet refusing to step outside.

“Surprise, I worry about you.  You haven’t brought any of your pals home lately.”

Surprise turned to the confused mare. “I’m heading now to meet them at Sugarcube Corner. It’ll all work out in the end, Mother.”

Coin snorted.  “I miss the bundle of pluck I remember. What ever happened to you, Little Cloud?  You should try to find some nice young stallion to spend time with, like Apple Bloom.  I want you to be happy.  Don’t you ever worry about your future, Surprise?”  Surprise bit her lip as Coin continued. “It wouldn’t kill you to make some new friends.”

Sniffling, Surprise threw her forelegs around her mother’s neck.  She smiled sadly. “I don’t know about that, Mom.” 


It was difficult to get lost in Old Canterlot.  The mining town that had quarried the stone for Canterlot Castle was laid out in eminently logical grids.  A pony that found themselves out of place would be easily able to cut across the parallel streets to view most of the village in quick succession.

None of this explained why Quest Talltale found the time disappearing too quickly as he walked his girlfriend Screwball back to her adoptive parent’s house.

“S-so,” he stuttered, “Is Cheerilee going to mind that the game ran an hour late?”

The pastel purple mare beside him had been quiet and was staring straight ahead, or at least a reasonable facsimile.  Her dark violet eyes spiraled in opposite directions.  Quest thought of those eyes like guards that kept her mind away from the world she found so confusing.

“Yes!” Screwball smiled as she started trotting merrily. “Me think she hate you for it! She hate both of us forever!”  Suddenly she breathed in as they turned a corner, having spotted her home.  “We’re not close to me home at all.”

Quest nodded, having grown used to Screwy’s unique dialect. “Well, time with you seems to disappear.”  As they walked together he stepped closer to her, laying his head on her shoulder.  Her little spinning beanie nearly fell off.  How does it do that without the wind?  Quest shrugged.  The young earth pony had long since given up on physics playing nice around his mare.

The two stood on Cheerilee’s doorstep for several minutes in silence. Quest raised an eyebrow. “Screwy? Are you okay?

She took off her hat and began half-heartedly playing with the propeller. “Me having good dreams lately.  Me head nice and settled.”

Quest nodded, stepping onto the stair to kiss her on the nose. “Don’t worry.  You’ll have a fun summer and be back soon.  The gang will be gaming at your table soon enough.”

He managed to draw a smile out of her. “Me certain about that. That horseshoe barbarian made nice with Mom.  She’s never mentioned it.”

Quest coughed.  “I’ll see you, Screwy. Before you know it.”

He turned to walk away.

“Wait.”

Quest looked back at Screwball to see her mildly trembling.  Her hoof was raised to block a trail of blood pouring from her nostril.  Screwy slightly trembled as she addressed him in an unsure voice.

“I’ll miss you. I love you, you know.”

Her coltfriend rushed to her side and drew a well-worn hoofkerchief kept for such events. He offered it to Screwball as he placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Hey, none of that now. I speak ‘Screwball’ perfectly.  No need to strain yourself to speak…”

 What do I tell her? ‘Normally?’ ‘Right?’ ‘Correctly?’

“… like not my girlfriend.”

Quest hoped he showed more confidence than he felt.  Screwball pulled him into a firm hug, one hoof on her nose.
“Quest, don’t you ever get tired of your girlfriend saying she ‘hates you’?”

He shook his head as the embrace relented.  “I know what I like.  I can’t mind Discord so much if he made you.  Have a great summer, Screwy.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for seconds on end.  Emotion hung in the air until a voice from behind the front window whispered, “This is the part where they kiss.”

The two teens turned to the window, causing a flurry of retreating galloping noises.  Shaking her head, Screwball gave a peck to Quest’s cheek as she walked into the disaster area of the living room.  Her eyes spun faster as she took in the record piles, tottering towers of textbooks, and scattered trip preparations.

A whispered reproachful rant concluded in Cheerilee’s bedroom. Her voiced called out, “Screwy?  Could you try to tidy things up?”  It was tinged with a smidgen of self-conscious embarrassment.  “Red and I have been very busy away from the front window, and we need you to… ” Cheerilee stuck her head out of her bedroom and dropped her jaw.  

The living room was immaculate.  

Stacks of records stood side by side on the table, organized by year of release.  They lay near an arrangement of travel papers.  The indoor plants had been straightened, their soil overflow swept away in a matter of seconds. The education bookshelves were snugly ordered by edition, on top of which an arrangement of many-sided dice had been used to construct a model of a geodesic dome.  In the center of it all stood Screwball, smiling as her propeller gradually came to a stop.

“Wow.”  Cheerilee’s eyes nearly leapt out of her skull at the sudden imposition of order. She stepped out into the living room. “I can’t believe you accomplished eep!”

Cheerilee lifted her hoof and pulled a small, colorful triangle out of it.  

Screwball’s grin went from celebratory to bashful. “Um… Me am perfect in everyway.”

Cheerilee threw the dice behind the couch and nuzzled her adopted daughter’s neck.  “Enough for me, dear.  Oh, I cannot wait to introduce you to the kids I used to teach in Ponyville.”

Red trotted into the room with a sardonic smile. “You mean the ones that got you ‘banished’ here for releasing Discord?”

She sighed. “I can only hope the years have given them maturity.”


The wind noisily ruffled the leaves near the Apple family house.  The trees were constantly being put into motion at the moment they finally appeared settled. Applejack thought she knew how they felt.

With Big Mac looming silently behind her, Applejack summoned up the sternest gaze possible to level on her little sister.
“Now, y’all two are only headin’ out to your friends, right?”

Apple Bloom nodded, her bandana holding back her long hair.  “I promise we’ll be at Sugarcube Corner’s cafe tables all night!  Ain’t no funny business gonna happen on my watch.”  She raised a solemn hoof. “Apple’s honor!”

With gritted teeth Applejack turned to her baby sibling’s coltfriend. “I expect you to be a proper gentlestallion the entire night, do I make myself clear?”

Snails stared back at her with the blank look she once mistook for stupidity.  She gave his mental gears a second to turn before he smiled. “Um, if we stay out ‘till morning can I act differently?”

As Apple Bloom tittered Applejack raised herself on her front hooves and stared into Snail’s eyes. “Come mornin’ your supposed to help us with the back field, ‘member?”

After a pause he nodded. “Yup. I got’s an idea ‘bought the irrigation. Gonna need an umbrella.” He stopped and scratched his chin. “I think I need a hose and two wheels, too. Also, thirty-three and a quarter feet of pipe and some holdberry tree seeds.”

As her little sister stared in admiration at the lanky stallion, Applejack snorted in irritation. “Get off with the both of y’all!  Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

The two young ponies trotted off for a space of seconds before Snails turned back and waved. “We won’t run off to Dodge Junction neither!”

“Why, that little polecat… ” Big Mac’s steady hoof kept Applejack on the porch as she tried to run after the laughing couple.  “I’m gonna geld that… ”

“Nope,” Big Mac interrupted.

She turned to her brother. “Could you believe that he’d make a crack about that?”

Big Mac patiently scratched his ear before replying. “Eeyup.”

Applejack seethed as she turned to watch her feisty little sister walk off with Snails.  He paused to stare thoughtfully at a patch of flowers.  Apple Bloom patiently waited with a smile for several seconds of silence.  The lanky gardener turned and whispered something into Apple Bloom's ear and both young ponies exploded into laughter as they skipped down the road.

Shaking her head again, Applejack turned to Big Mac.  “Brother of mine, I never could have guessed that our bouncing bundle o’ baby sister would fall for the tall, silent type.  Did you ever reckon as such?”

Big Mac chewed his piece of corn husk contemplatively. “Eeyup.”

“What?”  Applejack turned. “How in tarnation could you have…  ”Suddenly staring at the smiling Big Mac, Applejack found herself speechless as the revelation hit her.  Her eyes spun for a second in denial.

“Buck you, Mac. I need a hit of cider.”

As his sister left the porch, Big Mac could only giggle.


This day is going to be perfect, even if I have to stick a muzzle on Red.

Cheerilee’s contemplative gaze lightly passed over all of her wedding guests.  Between the Ponyville visitors and the townsfolk, the Old Canterlot Town Hall was nearly full.  If the animated conversation she saw between Twilight Sparkle and Golden Ratio about math proofs was any indication, they all seemed to be hitting it off fine.  Still, looking over her guests brought up one or two concerns.  She had no idea why a half-dozen wildebeests in zoot suits were at the snack bar in any case.

Warmth flooded over her back as a neck was tenderly draped over her mane.  “Your dress looks lovely, Mrs. Glare.”

A satisfied breath slid out of her.  “I can’t believe everything is going so wonderfully today. It’s what I always dreamed of.”
She could feel Red’s neck movement as he nodded. “Don’t look now. Parents at three o’clock.”

“Oh! Yours or… “

Cheerilee stopped at the odd pair that came into view.  Her mother’s porcelain joints made clicking noises as she walked forward.  A perpetual smile was permanently painted on her smooth face.  Next to her hovered a gigantic rolling storm cloud, churning with lightning.  It occasionally convulsed, letting out a peal of thunder.

Is something wrong with Mom & Dad? They look… off today.

Cheerilee quickly pulled Red to the side. “Okay, Glare. Let me do all the talking.”

He swallowed. “I don’t think your Dad likes me.”

“Don’t worry about him. He’s just another pony… ” She stopped, disturbed about something she couldn’t quite place.

As the giant doll and the incarnate weather paused in front of them, Cheerilee embraced her mother’s cold and fragile flesh. “Mom! Dad! I’m so glad to catch you after the ceremony.  How can I… “

As she pulled away her mouth stopped moving, though not for lack of trying. She would shiver if she could have.  Cheerilee suddenly found herself frozen solid within a block of ice.  The numbing cold and the inability to shiver were nothing compared to the coldness that spread in her stomach as Red addressed the cloud.

“Um. Hi. Dad.”

The cloud quaked at the familiar form of address.  A bolt of lightning leapt from the cloud, igniting the nearby guest table.  Thunder roared from its churning mass.

“Plans? Um.  Not much. We’re pretty good as it is. At least your daughter is.”

The storm-thing swirled, expanding to twice its own height. The rest of the room was silent, staring at the embarrassing spectacle.  Lightning flashed out, hitting one of the flower-filles and igniting her dress and mane.  No one ran. They were held spellbound at the social debacle that played out in front of them.

Cheerilee’s mouth strained to open, but the frozen coating kept her immobilized.  Attempting to move was like trying to raise and lower the sun.  Impossibly, she could hear with perfect clarity while entombed inside the ice block.  She strained her impotent and numb muscles to respond as she watched her mother-doll silently begin nodding to her father’s roar, clicking and clacking as it bobbed.

“Grand-kids? Well, we have Screwball. I mean, she’s the best grandkid you could hope for, right? Why would you want more?”

The cloud turned black, letting loose a peal of discontent that shattered every glass in the wedding party.  Red tried backing slowly away from the looming mass of incarnate anger.  Suddenly a lightning bolt stuck him as Cheerilee’s vision went white.  She forced her eyes to move, bloodying them as they scraped against the uneven surface of her solid prison.  Muted screams vibrated out of the block as she saw the blacked skeleton lying next to her inside a tuxedo.

The fury-filled cloud sounded again, and Cheerilee impossibly knew the statement was somehow directed at her.  She also had the impression of someone new entering the conversation. Through the haze of frost she made out a long, mismatched form with yellow eyes.

“Well,” it said in a smooth voice that dripped with malice. “Aren’t you going to answer your father?”

Cheerilee screamed as she bolted up in her train seat.  Falling to the floor she flailed her hooves wildly, shrieking in fear.  As Red jumped off of his bunk and steadied her with his hooves she finally started making identifiable words.

“No, Daddy! I’m sorry! Please bring him back!”

She opened her eyes as Red shook her violently. 

“Wake up!”

Her eyes snapped open.  She heaved as she took in Red’s concerned face.  Pulling herself to her hooves, she saw through a bleary screen of tears the concerned face of Red.  Screwball lay flat on her bunk, shaking in fear.
Cheerilee steadied herself.  She nuzzled Red for a second before walking over the Screwball.

“I’m fine, Screwy. I was just having a bad dream.”  She tousled her daughter’s chaotic purple and white mane.  “Everyone gets them.”

Screwball nodded. “Me hasn’t had any lately.”

The three ponies jerked forward momentarily as the train whistle blew.  Through the window Cheerilee saw the afternoon sun caressing the brown roofs of Ponyville. She turned back to Screwball with a little more color in her face. “We’re here, honey.  Let’s get our things ready.  Your grandparents should be waiting.”  She shivered unconsciously.

As the family checked the train car for their belongings, Red looked at his wife with worried eyes.  “Love, what did you dream about?  You were saying some disturbing stuff.  It didn’t sound like the usually ‘go to class unprepared’ dream.”

Cheerilee rolled the dream around in her head as she stocked her cart with luggage. Her mouth finally free, she sighed as she ran out of excuses to speak.

“Nothing. Just some nervousness about meeting my folks, I suppose.  You know how sometimes parents just don’t understand.”  Her eyes glazed over for a second.  “Screwball?”

Screwy turned back as she strapped on her mother’s cart.  “No?”

Cheerilee walked to her daughter’s side, staring at some of the lines under the teen’s eyes. “Have you been sleeping well?  You said you were having nightmares.  What have you been dreaming about?”

She couldn’t bring herself to ask the question that hung in the air.  Not about… him?

Screwball sighed as she pulled out of the room.  “Normal things. Organized things.”  She gaze her parents a faraway glance as she moved into the hallway.  “Most nights, me isn’t seeing a white pegasus filly.”

Screwball walked away, leaving a disturbed Cheerilee and Red exchanging nervous looks.   She pulled her burden toward the exit ramp, passing a lanky conductor standing in a shadowed corner of the hall. She didn’t make eye contact as he addressed her.

“This stop is Ponyville, little lady!  Next four stops are Kalamakazoo, Tambelon, Tanelorn, and Tartaurus.  You getting off here?”

She nodded weakly, eyes kept straight ahead.

“Wonderful little town, this is. I’m sure you’ll get in touch with your roots.  Hope you’ll stay a long time. Enjoy the ride!”

He snapped a claw like a griffon’s, which drew Screwball’s head to the darkened corner. The strange conductor was already gone.
> Chapter 2: Ponies Are Strange
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


A Nightmare in Ponyville
By Paleo Prints
Chapter 2: Ponies are Strange


The market stalls of Ponyville hummed with activity in the faint ending of the afternoon sun.  Up and down the street could be found vendors laying an appraising eye on their potential customers, shifting their maximum price based on the fullness of their coin purse.  The life of a Ponyville merchant was based on squeezing out the price for whatever the market could bear.  They had heard of the concept of a fair market, and based on the title alone had decided they wanted none of it.

In the middle of the busy throng of ponydom, Surprise sat on a bench, completely alone.

Surprise scanned the crowd restlessly down the street from Sugarcube Corner.  She sighed, resting her head on the seat.  To Ponyville’s credit, every so often a stranger would approach the pensive teen and ask if they could help.  Her response was always in the negative, though she considered carefully each time.  Eventually, Surprise could no longer stand the anticipation.  

She closed her eyes.

The sounds of Ponyville drifted away, as if the town was quietly receding at the approach of a predator.  She heard the wind pick up, smelling uncomfortable scents along the breeze.  Eventually she made out the sound of a large, asymmetrical mass dragging itself along the ground.

“It’s not that bad.”  Surprise shook her head. “It’s not that bad.  Don’t look at the heads.  Stay away from the paw and don’t look at the heads.”

Surprise had gritted her teeth in anticipation.  Suddenly the noise stopped behind her as she heard an indignant snort.  Ignoring every instinct, she opened her eyes.

The streets of Ponyville were deserted underneath a cold and moonless night sky.  Surprise had never even imagined a moonless sky.  She now truly felt abandoned.

A large and indistinct shape stepped away from an alley and solidified.  Two yellow eyes glowed from the top.  Loudly snapping something like fingers, the shadow produced a clipboard.  In that second of illumination, Surprise saw in his eyes an wellspring of malice that would patiently grind down mountains out of spite.

“I don’t like having my fun spoiled.  Let’s check your permanent record. Everything really does go on there, you know.”

Suddenly peering through a pair of glasses, it gave out a masculine chuckle dripping with menace.

“Well my dear, according to this you’re afraid of spiders, terrified of rejection, and… ”

Surprise and the shadow simultaneously spoke the words “slightly clairvoyant.”  Surprise smiled. She knew it was the one thing she’d get on him this encounter. 

The shadow sighed. “Well, this is a joyless endeavor.  Your dreams called me here! Why did you even bother volunteering?”

She swallowed slowly. “So my friends get more time to figure this out.”

The yellow-eyed darkness snorted.  “How noble. How heroic. I just threw up in my mouth a little.”  He sighed.  “You’re no fun at all.  The show must go on, though. So, you’ve been spoiled. It was the sled, he was dead the entire play, and the butler did it.”

Surprise shuddered.  His tone dripped with frustration, like a tsunami grumbling about the beach conditions.

“Um… yes.”

The shadow suddenly twirled around, draping himself in a cape.  He twirled a sporty new mustache.  “Oh course my dear, you must know I’m not letting you leave.”

She nodded slowly

“Hmm.”  The shadow pulled off his new top hat and idly inspected a rabbit pulled from within.  “How can I entertain myself with a spoiled audience?”  A light bulb ignited next to his head, paradoxically taking none of the darkness away.  He stepped forward until he loomed over Surprise.

“You know what’s coming, huh?”

“Y-yes.”

“You know that no one’s coming to save you.”

“M-maybe.”

His eyes narrowed. “You don’t actually believe you’ll win, do you?”

Surprise slowly nodded.

The darkness snorted out a cloud of candied fireballs.  “Let me sway you of those pathetic notions.” He grinned malevolently.  “I’m going to teleport to the other side of town. I’m going to make something to chase you.  You know what’s coming, you know that it’ll catch you, and you still won’t be able to resist running.  I’ll even leave you your wings.  You’ll be easy to spot in the sky, after all.”

The shadow disappeared, only the yellow eyes remaining.  “Time to learn a lesson, my dear. Sometimes, it’s better not to know.” He paused as something angry roared from the other side of town.  

“Sometimes, it’s better to be caught… by ‘Surprise.’  See you soon, dear!”

From the other side of town a terrible cacophony sounded.  It howled.  It whined. It was after her.

Surprise shivered.  Then she ran. 


Cheerilee knew that time travel was real.  She’d never forgotten a drunk Twilight ranting about trying to stop time.  One of her favorite students had written a detailed paper on combining explosives with chronomancy, literally intent on blowing herself into the past.  In every case, Cheerilee had been impressed with the difficulty inherent in overcoming the chains of time.

These things flashed into her mind as she stepped onto the Ponyville train station platform and realized the secret of time travel;  Twilight and Bomber needed to simplify things.  The moment her mother started toying with her hair Cheerilee felt that she had transformed into a moody, resentful teenager again.

“Mom,” she protested as a hoof smoothed her mane backwards.  “Please stop. It’s just nap mane.”

Cheerilee’s mother pulled back with the concern of a doctor stopping treatment.  Orchid Petal’s violet coat and bright red mane never strayed away from perfection.  She had served for decades as the face of the family seed business, and had a hard time letting appearances drop.  Cheerilee often wondered how much of their client loyalty stemmed from the semi-flirtatious monthly visits many of them spent at the seed warehouse.

I’ll never forget the night I heard Dad yelling at her over the amount of tail-bouncing she was doing in front of the customers. I know it was an important deal, but I’m sure she was… “moving enough product” for their tastes. 

An older stallion, muscular despite his age, made his presence known by tapping on the ground behind Orchid.  Thorn Seed was carnation pink with a white mane, the kind of coloration one would expect from a ballet dancer.  Much as intentionally naming a newborn colt something like “Fluffy Frilliness,” “Missy Pretty,” or “Sue,” his coloration had a hardening effect on the adolescent Thorn.  Years of defending his stallionhood produced the unfriendly stare he now shot at Red.

Red Glare pulled an overburdened cart out of the train car.  Straining at the weight, Red accidentally jolted the cart off of the train’s gangplank.  Fallen suitcases convulsed, casting their wares along the platform.  Other busily departing ponies gave Red irritated glares as he worked to refill the cart of spilled belongings.

Thorn shook his head.  “You should find yourself some stud who's a little less clumsy.”

“Dad,” Cheerilee said as she scowled. “I’m married.”

“Give it time, dear.”

“Happily married, Dad.”

Orchid snorted as she lifted a set of green and white socks, bound together with a scarlet ribbon.  “Apparently,” she said with a wistful smile as she tossed the clothes back to Red.

Cheerilee covered her face with her hoof.

The four adults were interrupted by the approach of Screwball’s wagon.  Out of the claustrophobic train cars, the filly had started to regain some of her usual cheer.

“Grandma!”  She threw her hooves around the neck of a discomforted Thorn, who gave his wife an embarrassed glance.

“Yes, Honey.  Welcome to Ponyville.”  He gently pushed her away and stepped back a few hooves. “Well, shouldn't we go someplace… more private?”

Ponies gave Screwball looks of interest and confusion.  Thorn Seed nearly withered in the attentive stares of the passersby.  Orchid noted Screwy’s confused look and stepped closer, resting her neck across the younger pony’s own.  “Oh, come here Screwy. It’s good to see you.”

Screwy nuzzled Orchid’s chin. “Grandpa! Me am so sad to be here!”

Cheerilee sighed as Red finally managed to pull a restocked cart into the conversation.  “So, how’re we doing in terms of… you know.”  He almost unobtrusively inclined his head toward her parents.

She shrugged.  “All told, it’s about a seven out of ten.”  She suddenly grinned happily. “Just put on your most encouraging teacher face and nod, dear.”

Nodding philosophically, Red smiled back as the group headed away from the platform.

The sounds of bustling Ponyville danced around Screwball, filling her ears and eyes with a festive atmosphere that was far from the simple pragmatism of Old Canterlot.  Her family was making noises with their mouths, but there were so many more interesting things to observe!  Concentrating on architecture alone revealed to her three distinct building styles of roofs that denoted different periods of construction.  Screwball wondered how anyone could walk the streets without marveling at the roofs, to say nothing of the artistic touches hidden in the hanging signs of the businesses!

Conversations filtered into the whirlwind of Screwball’s consciousness.

“So, are Lyra and Bon-Bon serious? How old is the kid?”

“Did you hear what Bitbiter’s charging for cherries this week?”

“One, two, Discord's coming for you.  Yakety Sax, Five Tons of Flax.”

She stopped, scanning the marketplace for whoever was talking about the Bad Father.  Her eyes settled on a small group of foals playing jump-rope when a burst of purple light filled her vision, depositing a tired yet happy unicorn.

“Cheerilee!”

“Twilight!”

The two mares embraced.

“Lee, I am so glad that the teaching job worked out for you.”  For a moment Twilight Sparkle breathed quickly.

“Twilight?”  Cheerilee chose her words carefully.  “Is something wrong?”

Her friend stared off and smiled widely, clear body language to anyone who knew her that something was wrong. “Oh, nothing’s up. Say, have you seen Spike lately?  I haven’t been able to find him since last night.”

As Cheerilee listened intently, Red’s father-in-law leaned over to him.

“Listen Red, while she’s talking to that… um… lavender unicorn there… ”

“Sir, her name is Twilight Sparkle. It’s a nice name, so you might as well use it.  Say, isn't she supposed to be one of your daughter’s best friends?”

Thorn cast an inquisitive glance at his wife.  She nodded.  Raising an eyebrow, he cast an analytic gaze over Twilight.  “One of her… college friends, dear?”

She shook her head.

“Anyway Reddie, have you given any thought to that talk we had?  You maybe considered my idea of going into administration?”

Red giggled.  The grin it brought to Thorn’s face was not a happy one.  “Oh, no.  I love the classroom way too much. It’s where I belong.”

His in-laws exchanged a look.

“Red,” prompted Orchid politely, “school administrators make more, don’t they?”

Red nodded. “Three to four times more, Miss.”

They both stared at him expectantly.  He merely returned an oblivious smile. 

An exasperated sigh exploded out of Thorn.  “Are we speaking minotaur at the moment or something?”

“Oh no, not at all sir. You’d be putting a lot more emphasis on the ‘ch’ sounds.”

Cheerilee walked back into the conversation, concern preventing her from noticing her father’s growing rage.  “All right everypony, let’s keep an eye out for a missing baby dragon while we’re about.  Screwy, are you okay?”

Screwball stood away from the group, looking off into space while drawing glances from passers-by.  No matter how hard she stared at the spot Twilight had occupied she couldn't find the playing children she had heard.



Somewhere that was nowhere, Spike the dragon sat on nothing.

“Hello! Hey, is anybody there?” The nervous youngster looked around at the encompassing dark.  “Could somebody turn on a light?”  He looked down at his hands.  “Wait. I can see myself fine.  It can’t be dark out. This place makes no sense.”

Spike stood up.  If Cheerilee had managed to see him, she would have been surprised at his growth since she had left.  The confused dragon grit his teeth in a mouth that had become much more snout-like.  While not quite taller than a pony, he was at least able to reach the top of a unicorn’s horn with his gangly arms.  Rarity now described him as her “strong, big Spikey-Wikey.”  The description came to him ironically as a force roughly shoved him and spun him back onto his “seat.”

Spike was lying back on the “couch” of darkness, blinking in confusion when the voice spoke.

“Gut!  You’re here for your appointment.  Ve vill start on time, zen!”

Searching for the voice made Spike aware of two yellow eyes brightly lit behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.  They sat on a shadow, differentiated by the surrounding dark by the slightest contrast of brightness.

“Um.  Hello, Mister Shadow Person. I’m on a couch.  How does that work?  I mean, it looks like it’s the same thing as everything else, but it’s a couch. Weird, huh?  Hey, didn't I walk through a door to get here? It was a lot brighter a second ago.  Where’d the music go?”

The shadow rubbed its brow with an odd claw.  “Ja, of course, forget about it, now we should begin… “

Spike pushed up onto his elbows. “Hey, am I dreaming?”

The shadow briefly bit it’s forefinger in frustration.  “Ja, indeed! You a dreaming, mein herr!  So zen, nothing bad can happen in a dream, right?  Shall we begin?”

Spike waved a hand.  “Sure.  Hey, do I get a supporting cast? Maybe like, Rarity or Apple Bloom?  Can I dream some food here?”

The shadow glared at him. Spike eased himself back onto the nonexistent couch.

“Man, my subconscious is a jerk.”

“Wunderbar! Wunderbar.  Danke for quieting down, little dragon.  Let’s begin.”  He raised a quill with a glowing tip.  “Tell me about your mother.”

Spike blinked.  “I… I don’t know anything about her.  Is it weird that I think of Twilight as my mom?  I mean, would my real mom mind?”

The shadow giggled.

“We’re off to a good start, ja!  I see you have zo many crippling emotional issues to choose from!  Zere’s your fear of hurting all you love, your isolation from your own kind, etcetera. We can vork on ze teenage body issues later, perhaps combined mit you adorable hopeless crush on that pony.  Zo, we choose an issue, set things in motion, don’t mention ze the war… ”

“Can I ask a question, scary sir?”  Spike twiddled his thumbs as he stared into nothing. “Is zis… is this really a dream?  ‘Cause I wouldn't mind waking up right now.  I think we've reached the freak out quota.”

Spike had heard maniacal laughter plenty of times before.  Sometimes it was from a dark-hearted villain while he was at Twilight’s side on a daring adventure.  Occasionally it was from Twilight herself, most recently after devising the ill-fated scheme of self-returning library books.  Regardless, he considered himself a connoisseur, and the peals of dark delight that the shadowy figure bellowed was among the most disturbing he ever heard.  The accent certainly added to the creepiness.

As the shadow recovered, it wiped a tear off dramatically.  “My little draconic delinquent, you aren't comprehending the position that you’re in.  I can’t have your gastro-intestinal communication system alerting Her Majesty’s Little Mary Sue Sunshine to what’s going on.  I may pick on others for comedic value, but you?"  The shadow stood at attention in a battle helmet, a striped shirt and medal-decorated epaulets.  “You’re a priority target, son!”

He pulled a lever, catapulting Spike through the darkness.  As he shot high into the air he made the mistake of looking down.  He had always known Fluttershy to freeze when she saw the ground get far enough away.   At the moment the only rational thought that broke through the fear was his wish to at least see the ground as he hurtled through the lightless abyss.

Spike’s momentum suddenly stopped as his feet touched something solid.  The ground had rushed up to meet him, leaving him to idly wonder if it had answered his pleas.   He still couldn't see anything.  Feeling around in the darkness revealed a flimsy-feeling prison of wood.

Spike raised his fist and hesitated.  He scratched his chin.  A smile spread across his face as Spike crossed his long, lanky arms and sat down.

“Oh, scary.  I’m in a dark box.  Y’know, I could just sit here, Mister Shadow.  What’re you gonna do if I don’t play?”  The petulant purple prisoner laughed. “You can hear me, can’t you? Well, let’s use that against you. What’s that band that Pinkie listens to, again?”

Spike placed his claws on his knees, breathed in deeply, and started crooning loudly and off-key. For once he was thankful for the scratchy voice of puberty.

“Particle mare, particle mare. Doin’ the things a particle caaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!”

The box side’s ignited into green flame.

Spike lifted a remonstrative finger. “That’s not fair or smart. Y’know I’m a dragon, right? Kinda fireproof.”

The flaming walls fell away, revealing a miniature Ponyville.

Spike’s eyes narrowed. It was a perfect reproduction of the town on a tiny scale.  He could see the library was only about a hoof or so tall.  While part of him wanted to laugh, a small and hidden part of his brain screamed, begging him to run away. 

“Okay. What kinda game are we playin’ here?”

The rest of his brain remembered as the first pony screamed.  Flinching at the high pitch, he looked down and saw ponies the size of salt shakers running in fear. Spike felt indignant heat rise in his throat.

“Oh.  Not cool.  Not funny.  Okay, I’m still just going to sit here and… ”

Spike fell over as two dozen hard objects slammed into his side.  It seemed to happen in slow motion as the bulk of a collapsing Ponyville cottage strained against his weight.  Spike stood up to see dozens of Wonderbolts and Royal Guards flying around him in formation.

“Not. Gonna. Work.”  Spike carefully pushed himself up, ignoring the impacts of the military ponies. They hurt, but he was focused on avoiding the situation he was being railroaded into.

This time I can talk, you stupid shadow.

Spike coughed into his hand to clear his throat as wave after wave of unicorn shock troops pelted his back with spears.  He took a deep breath.

“Listen, everyone! We’re being played!”  That was what he wanted to say.  What came out was a burst of green flame so hot his back fins visibly glowed.  Spike watched helplessly as a swath of Ponyville caught fire, a trail of devastation culminating at the focal point of the blaze.

“Oh, no. Celestial sisters, no.”

The Carousel Boutique was wreathed in flames. It’s beautifully painted exterior peeled away from the walls like charred skin.  The top sagged as the walls turned to smoke, gravity dragging it straight down into the building.

Spike grabbed his head and turned away, tears in his eyes. “This isn't real. This isn't real.”  He cupped his hands as he shouted into the air. “Hey, Dream-guy? You suck at this!”

The only thing he produced was flame. 

The assembled soldiers stopped for a second, their attention helplessly captive at the bright devastation.  Spike could hear the two closest pegasi soldiers hovering and discussing the sight.

“Sarge, w-wasn’t that the shelter?”

“Buck it, they told me that building was more structurally secure! I hope it was quick for the ponies inside.”

Spike’s eyes widened. “No. No. No. No.”

“That’s monster’s stronger than the last time. It’s ten times worse now!”

The soldiers wheeled in a wagon with a metal sculpture made to look like an angry unicorn.  The wagon's horn threw bolts of lightning into the anxious dragon's thigh.  Spike didn't even notice.

Spike’s knees hit the ground, the shock wave overturning nearby merchant carts.  His claws gripped both sides of his head tightly.  “No. Not happening.”  He realized he could hear agonized screaming of overwhelming familiarity.  Spike threw back his head.  “This is not happening!”

“Hey, man. Good job.”

Spike’s heart jumped as a loud voice boomed over the sound of the dwindling Ponyville population.  He turned to see a gigantic gangly red dragon stomping down on Sugarcube Corner.  The humongous teen gave him a thumbs-up. 

“Garble?”  Spike started sweating at the memories of the ill-fated Great Dragon Migration years ago.  “What’re you doing here?”

“Same thing you are, dude.  Not as good as you, I have to say!  I thought you’d turn out to be a great dragon, man. Good work. Help me divvy up the ponies, here.”

With a roar of rage Spike threw himself at the other dragon.  His shoulder slammed into the stunned monster’s chest, sending him falling backwards onto the Ponyville schoolhouse.  As he bull-rushed the other dragon, Spike stepped on the unicorn-shaped wagon, crushing it to gravel.

One Royal Guard raised an exasperated eyebrow toward another.  "Those darn things never work."

Garble started to stand.  He smiled, picking up the Ponyville joke shop. A terrified mare beat her hooves against the window inside.  “Ah, yeah. Building fight!”

As the military surrounded him Spike dropped to his knees, the very cobblestones of Ponyville melting into slag from his flaming tears.


Dinner was not going well.

Cheerilee watched her flower soup philosophically.  One of her blossoms wasn't performing its floating duty competantly.  Most of the symmetrical flowers sailed the soupy sea just fine.  Just one of the floating delicacies was suffering because of its asymmetrical petals.  The unique flower began taking on broth, eventually sinking to the bottom of the bowl as the remaining identical treats floated on.    

Cheerilee sighed.

She forced herself back into the conversation.

“So we took first place this year,” Red happily chirped as her parents stared back nonplussed.  “The kids weren't able to get their rocket back, though.  Well, most of it.  They have talent.  I really think some of them may join Princess Luna’s rocket program.”

“Really, son?”  Thorn rolled his eyes.  “How good is the gardening on the Moon?”

Red was warming to the subject.  “Well, any plants on the lunar surface would flash-boil almost instantly.  Surprisingly, the loss of temperature causes water and blood to boil in such a low atmosphere.”

Thorn stopped, sighing.  “Then why would I want a single bit of my taxes going to send ponies there?”  He took a long sip of his soup as Red blinked back in confusion.  Looking back, Thorn shook his head slowly.

“Boy, I keep Equestria fed.  You babysit foals with firecrackers.”

“And I babysit foals with stories?”

The table stared at Cheerilee, still staring into her bowl.

Her mother coughed.  “No, dear.  Teaching ponies to read is a wonderful thing.”

“I mean, reading a book I can understand.”  Thorn inclined a hoof toward Red. “But playin’ around with plastic tubes and pots and pans… ”

Cheerilee leaned onto the table with her forelimbs.  Casting a quick glance, she breathed in relief that Screwball was away from the table.

“Dad, it took a pony like him to build all the wonderful stuff that keeps the business running.  Or would you rather go back to 'One pony, one rake'?”

Petal cleared her throat.  “So, Red.  When are we going to have a grandchild?”

Red stayed silent as he considered. “You do,” he finally stated.

His mother-in-law nickered in embarrassment as she looked to her husband for a conversational rescue.

“Son, Cheerilee, what your mother means is a real grandchild.”

Cheerilee cocked her head, and alarms sounded in Red's brain as he looked at her face.  Most ponies would have seen it as a blank, neutral expression.  He lived with her.  He scooted six inches away from his wife.  He immediately rolled his eyes, thought about loyalty and couches, and scooted twelve inches towards her.

Cheerilee smiled the grin Diamond Tiara would get from her after dropping ink in someone’s mane.

“Screwball is a real grandchild.  She’s my daughter.  Regardless of how she got here… ”

Thorn scratched his beard as he coughed nervously.  “I don’t care how Discord… I mean… I hope magic was involved.  Y’know, I don’t wanna think about him and, um, things I’ve never seen before behind bolted doors.”

Even Petal was watching Thorn trying to recover his composure.

“I mean, Discord was supposedly omnipotent. It’s good to see he couldn’t make a perfect pony.”

“Dad.”  Cheerilee’s tone was a mix of pleading and warning.

“I mean, cheers for Celestia.  If that’s his best…  I mean, you’re doing a wonderful thing giving that poor thing a home, but could you picture me passing the family business down to her?  What’ll she do, water it in chocolate milk?”

Several things shattered.

Every table inside the restaurant turned to the sound.  Screwball was standing several feet away from her family with her mouth hanging open.  Upon her head had balanced a large waiter’s plate with their meals, drinks, complementary second vase of daffodil appetizers, and an ice sculpture she had whipped up of the five of them dancing.  The cracked sculpture rested on its side, caked with tomato sauce.  The four representations of adults had just enough mass to absorb the shock.  

Screwball wasn’t so lucky. She had broken completely.

As Screwball turned and galloped away, Cheerilee rushed out of her seat, only to slip in the large pile of pasta.  She pulled herself to the door in time to see Screwball run into a large crowd of marketplace ponies.

“Wait!”

There was no way Cheerilee could have caught up to her daughter in the crowd.  It was chaotic, jumbled, and definitely Screwball's element.  The crying teen ducked underneath a tall and lanky pony, flipped over a shocked family of three, stepped onto a cart of apples for balance and leapt into a throng of vegetable vendors.  Cheerilee felt her chest constrict as the last sight of the green beanie vanished behind a cart.

Thorn Seed tapped on his table as he eyed the destruction of dinner.  He gestured to it as he addressed a waiter.

“Could we get another, please?”


Apple Bloom and Snails were laughing loudly as they walked into Sugarcube Corner, and the Cake's smiles and the sound of young ponies greeted them.  As Mrs. Cake worked the bakery counter, the tables of teens on the other side of the store buzzed with laughter.  A year ago, Mister Cake had been insistent that a place for snackers to sit at would bring in a few extra bits.  With the prospect of more easily covering young Pound Cake’s enormous grocery bill, his wife had relented.  The youths of Ponyville responded by throwing their bits at the Cakes in droves, leading to the addition of an entire separate counter.

A stocky and short unicorn waved at the couple from their usual table.  The past few years had stretched out Snails, but Snips had only gained pounds, acne, and what one could only charitably call a beard.

“How’s my main mare and stallion!"  Snips grinned as he rubbed his hooves together.  "Guys, I got a great idea!”

Apple Bloom groaned as she slid into the red plush diner seat.  “What kinda crazy skit you wanna charge ponies to see now?”

Snails scooted in, fully attentive. “Yeah. Talk.”

Snips leaned in, one hindleg vibrating in anticipation.  “C-check it out.  I f-finished repairing the costumes.  We can put on another show as s-soon as we want.”

Snails nodded.  “We are going to bring back the invisible thread trick?”

Apple Bloom put her hoof under her chin and smiled.  “Y’all don’t actually have magic cutie marks, remember?”

Snips threw his hooves around widely as he sputtered. “Doesn’t matter!”  He knocked over his root beer float in excitement.  “My boss has gems on her flank and makes dresses.  Y-you can think laterally, okay?  Not everyone gets something as simple as a h-hammer, you know.  Anyway, the partnership works!  Snails thinks up the tricks, I make the costumes and props, and now is the time when I knock your socks off, my little farmer girl.”  

Apple Bloom blushed.  “Ah don’t wear socks!”

He raised his eyebrows and stared at Snails.  “Work faster, my friend.”

"Hmm."  Snails nodded absentmindedly as he eyed the mess.  “Um,” he said calling to the malt counter employee.  “Can we have some napkins, please?”

The employee in the red-and-white hat and uniform rolled his eyes and threw a wadded mass at the table.  “Be more careful next time,” Soda Jerk said to the teens.

“I hate that guy," Snips said as he shook his head.  Apple Bloom gave him a sympathetic nod, and he sighed.  "Look, here’s the idea.”  He paused dramatically just a second too long to be cool.  “We catch a bullet in our mouths.”

Apple Bloom's eyes crossed.  Snips’ mostly silent assistant stared at the portly conjurer.  Snails tapped his chin absent-mindedly.  “Um. You thought of all the problems, right?”

Snips nodded.

"Oh, no," Apple Bloom declared with a shake of her head. “Y’all ain’t doing this.”

Snails chewed his lip.  “We’d have to write our names on the bullets first to make it look cool.”

"My thoughts exactly," Snips shouted as he bounced on his seat.

The color drained from Apple Bloom's face.  “Snails, tell me you don’t think you can actually do this. Please?”

His marefriend and best friend stared at Snails as he concentrated, staring off into nothing.

Snips leaned forward and winked at Apple Bloom. “S-see that? This is where the real m-magic happens.”

Snails nodded.  “I need some wax and some magnets.”

Snails jumped up and down as Apple Bloom gaped. “Y-yes!  I knew that you would crack that part!”  He suddenly froze as he looked out the window.  “Oh Celestia, she’s here.  Apple Bloom, you gotta play me up.  I’m begging you!”

Apple Bloom sighed.  “Snips, you intern at her sister’s shop.  You can talk to her anytime you wanted about a bunch of stuff you both have in common.”

He nearly mounted the table as he leaned in to whisper to Apple Bloom .  “I’m p-pleading here.  Your my best bud’s girl. Help me!”

The front door bells rang.  Apple Bloom saw sweat on Snips’ forehead. 

“Pleading. Pleading, s-s-seriously.”

“All right.”

“We’d need a pane of glass, too.  And we couldn't perform it in temperatures under sixty-seven degrees.”

Apple Bloom waved to the front of the shop.  “Oh, great,” she whispered out of her pained smile. “Look who she brought.”

Diamond Tiara stepped toward the table regally as Sweetie Belle followed.  As the two teen Cutie Mark Crusaders shared a hug, Diamond gave Snips a withering glare.  “You’re sitting in my seat, Snips.”

“Um-m, hey Sweetie Belle. I’m glad to see you.  And everypony else, I mean.”

Diamond Tiara snorted, but Sweetie Belle returned an innocent smile.  “It’s good to see you, Snips. How’re things around the shop?”

"You know, he doesn't have to beat around the bush," Apple Bloom whispered as she leaned over to Snails.  “He could just ask.”

Snails blinked. “I didn’t just ask you.”

She giggled.  “Okay, the fireworks were a nice touch.”

Meanwhile, Snips was doing the most enthusiastic job of puffing his chest out possible with the equipment nature and his eating choices allowed.  “Oh, I’ve made myself invaluable.  I’m a c-cut above the rest.”

As Snips admired Sweetie Belle’s musical laugh, Diamond scooted in next to him.  “Be a dear and move to the other side, please?”  She grinned with more teeth than politeness would call for.

“W-why?”    

Diamond cocked her head.  “Because I’m not sitting next to you until you get stronger deodorant.”

Apple Bloom sneered.  Snails narrowed his eyes only slightly.

Sweetie Belle nervously laughed in a tone Snips wished he could bottle.  “Come on, Diamond. Play nice.”

Diamond shook her head.  “Sweetie, if I am going to slum around with your old friends, it’ll be on my terms.”

“Y-you’re gonna regret this,” Snips said as he quaked.

The young socialite laughed into her hoof.  “I’m terrified of offending a colt that makes dresses.”

Snips stuttered, spitting wildly.  He stopped himself by grinding his teeth.  “Ye-ye-yeah. I make costumes. Get on my good side.”

"Oh, dear."  She her hoof hovered over her mouth as she tittered dismissively.  “Why?”

“Be-be-cause you’re going to need some friction-free outfits later when you swing around a pole for a living!”

Diamond Tiara paused as the table drew a sharp intake of breath.  She inclined her head to Sweetie Belle. “I told you this was a bad idea.  I’m leaving.  You should, too.”

Sweetie Belle looked imploringly at her other friends as Diamond walked away.  “Snips, did you have to do that?”

“U-um.”  He scratched his stubble.  “I c-could’ve offered to make her a muzzle.”

Sweetie stood and turned to the door, catching sight of a stunned Diamond Tiara.  The young pale magenta mare stood still, her violet and white hair spilling around her shoulders as she stared into the spinning eyes of a young pale magenta mare with violet and white hair spilling around her shoulders.

Everyone in the building suddenly looked towards the two identically-colored teens.  Apple Bloom stared from one to the other.  “Golly!  You ever dream of two Diamond Tiaras? “

Snips giggled.  “Nothing you’d want to hear about.”  

Screwball sniffed as she looked into Diamond’s eyes.  Her spiral pupils had red lines in-between the curves.  “Me… not need a bathroom.”

Diamond Tiara stared in frozen fascination for several silent seconds.  “You’re wearing a beanie.  Take care of that,” was the only statement her mind could produce.  Partially satisfied with herself, she nodded and pushed past her crying near-copy.

Sweetie Belle finally gained control of her body and galloped after Diamond, giving Screwball a confused but sympathetic look.  Apple Bloom and the colts watched as Screwball slowly walked past them towards the marked restroom door.  She turned back as she felt their gazes burn holes in her coat.

“Keep staring, please.”

They were quiet as she pushed herself through the doors.  No one at the table knew how to respond.  Snails turned to his friends with a contemplative look.

“Interesting times, huh?”

Inside the bathroom, Screwball leaned over the counter and cried into the sink, tiny corkscrews of water splashing as they hit the basin.  A voice suddenly drew her attention upwards.

“Help me, Screwy.”

Screwball looked up, staring into the eyes of the white pegasus on the other side of the mirror.

“Help me.  He’s come for the children.”
> Chapter 3: Blood Red Sandman
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


A Nightmare in Ponyville

By Paleo Prints

Chapter 3: Blood Red Sandman


Snails had once compared Sweetie Belle to a machine.  To his offended friends, he quickly (for Snails) said that it wasn’t an insult.  He only meant that while she sometimes took a while for her to take in new data, once the stunning young musician’s gears started spinning she cranked out ideas at a mean rate.  Sweetie Belle’s musical laughter confirmed that she had felt complimented that day.

Snails would have understood what had happened after she left.  Sweetie Belle shivered in the night air of Ponyville, looking for the offended Diamond Tiara.  Her mind reeled with possible destinations for her friend, but she hadn’t yet noticed that night had fallen hours early.

Sweetie pushed through crowds of loitering townsfolk as she galloped across the town square.  She scanned their faces, looking for Diamond’s perennial scowl of disappointment.  Her eyes passed right over all the emotionless expressions without note.

“Diamond!”  Sweetie called out as she slowed down, panting.  “Dia, let’s talk about this.”  She caught her breath and shook her head.  “Why does everything with that mare have to be so arduous?”

“Sweetie?  Dear, whatever could be the matter?”

She turned at the sound of Rarity’s voice.  In her fugue, Sweetie had somehow ended up on the lawn of Carousel Boutique.  She spared a second wondering if Rarity had renovated the building.  The doors and windows seemed oddly out of proportion.

“Rarity!”  Sweetie galloped to her sister’s side in excitement.  “Rarity, I need your help.  Two of my friends are fighting.” She smiled.  “Don’t you have a degree in friendship by now?”

Her sister was garbed in full work mode.  Several tape measures lay draped across her back.  Her scarlet glasses sat on a charming yet asymmetrical angle of the bridge of her muzzle.  Rarity massaged her chin thoughtfully as she tilted her head, giving her mane an effortless bouncy flourish that always made her little sister jealous.  “This has something to do with that Diamond Tiara, I predict.  I’ll bet my tail on it.”

Sweetie nodded, sitting back on her haunches like a young filly.  She waited for her sister’s pronouncement.

Rarity placed a hoof on Sweetie’s shoulder.  “Dear sister, you must remember to keep up appearances.  Even if her companionship is hard, the social connection she represents is invaluable.  She’s motivated, funny, and could use a friend to steer her right.”

Sweetie nervously shifted to one side.  “Rarity, did you have a hooficure?  Why is your hoof so… fluffy?”

Sweetie suddenly spun in surprise as Rarity’s voice suddenly sounded from behind her.

“Darling, you still must remember your friends!”

Impossibly, Rarity stepped out from behind Opal’s favorite climbing tree.  This sister bore the marks of a stressful night, a beautiful dress hanging off of her in tatters.  Some kind of red mark stood out on her neck.

Sweetie blinked.  “Rarity?  Rarity and Rarity?”

The newcomer flashed and indulgent smile at her confused sister.  “My dear, do remember your older friends.  Why, I swoon at the thought of that pink harpy insulting poor Apple Bloom!  Remember your priorities!”

The original Rarity pushed her hoof down on Sweetie, the bottom flattening and spreading out in a boneless mass.  “But good friends should understand your social choices.”

Sweetie Belle pushed the soft dressmaker away in panic, her hooves finding Rarity’s coat strangely smooth and yielding to the touch.  “Alright, what’s going on here?”

The disheveled Rarity stepped closer, blocking of Sweetie’s retreat.  “Why don’t you let Diamond leave if she wills it?  After all, you could spend time with that nice Snips boy.”  She bounced her mane and battered her eyelashes at Sweetie.  “I think he’s going to grow up wonderfully.”

The dressmaker stomped.  “But I do insist on you getting a young stallion who’ll help your status, dear.  We Ponyville girls must work to better ourselves in this world.”

Sweetie ducked to the side as the party mare reached out a forelimb that bent in too many ways.  She glared at her twin sisters as she backed away from the pair.  “I don’t know what you two are doing, but I’m going to Twilight.  Whatever happened, she’ll fix it.”

The Rarities blinked.  They turned to each other in confusion.  Suddenly, they both smiled.

“I-de-a!”

As Sweetie turned to run she felt the ground pull away.  Her “sisters” smiled in triumph as their horns glowed, drawing Sweetie to them through the air.

“Help!  Apple Bloom!  Snips!”  The terrified teen writhed as the Rarities placed their hooves on her.  The socialite wrapped her hooves around Sweetie’s shoulders as the workhorse’s limbs twirled around Sweetie’s legs like tentacles.  “Anypony, please help!  Scootaloo!”

They pulled.

“Darling,” the partygoer said with breath that smelled of cider, “I insist that you keep you best friends in mind.”

“However,” the dressmaker continued as she strained, “I want you to have the opportunities I never had at you age.”

Tears filled Sweetie’s eyes.  “Rarity, you’re hurting me.”  As the pliable ponies tugged on her ends, she smelled a sweet scent.  Bizarrely, her mind flashed onto a Cutie Mark Crusaders campfire sleepover.

“You must remember to be a proper lady, respectful of all your connections!”

“However, I insist you behave ethically in all ways!”

Sweetie felt her mid-section distend.  Agony seared through her stomach as she saw herself stretch like a piece of taffy.  She heard the sound she had always associated with Pinkie stepping on a balloon.

“Please, stop!”  Sweetie struggled to escape the boneless Rarities.  She turned to the side as another voice joined the fray.

“Remember this, dear.”  A Rarity in a bathrobe smiled as she approached.  “Your singing lessons are paramount.”  She wrapped her hooves around Sweetie’s midsection.

“But never neglect your education!”  A Rarity in a sun-dress gave Sweetie a reproachful look.  “I will not abide a slip in your grades.”

Sweetie closed her eyes as the pain increased.  “Rarity, stop!  You’re tearing me apart.”

The agony stopped for a second.  Sweetie opened her eyes.  The Rarities were sharing confused looks with each other.  As one, they all sighed and gave Sweetie a look of long-suffering patience.

“Sweetie, darling,” they said in unison.  “I’m only doing this for your own good.”

The socialite nodded.  “Once you’re older you’ll understand.”

The dressmaker brightened, turning to her doppelgangers.  “Now then, shall we give this our best try?”

The Rarities nodded as one.  As Sweetie started screaming, something chuckled darkly from the shadows.



In the Ponyville where the sun yet shined, three friends stared each other uncomfortably.  Snips pushed himself up from the table first.

“Celestia spank me hard, I screwed up!”  As he moved towards the door, Apple Bloom blocked him with a hoof.  “Ah, come on Abby.  I gotta go apologize!”

She raised an eyebrow.  “One, don’t call me Abby.  Two, she need some time to cool down.  Three, say mah full bucking name and don’t call me Abby!”

Snips breathed out in annoyance.  “Yeah? Well, how do you know what she needs?”  He moved to slip around her hoof.

Apple Bloom jumped to her hooves in front of her.  “Alright, Snippy, pay attention.  I’ve known her since we were blank flanks.  Also, you always come to me for advice on her anywho.  Finally, I happen to be a girl too, silly!”

“Good thing, too,” Snails said as he looked off into space thoughtfully.

Snips ground his hooves into the ground as he tried to control his breathing.  He flashed a guilty look at Apple Bloom and nodded.  Sudden squinting at her, Snips frowned.  “Snippy?”

Apple Bloom raised her head triumphantly.  “You keep calling me Abby and I’ll spread that one.”

“Ah, come on! Your sister lets us use AJ!  This is bull-“

The two teens jumped back as a pink blur flashed between them.  Pinkie Pie balanced on her roller-skates, holding a tray of root beer floats on each hoof and her head.   “Howdy-hoo!  How’re things hanging for my Cutie Mark Crusaders!  Except you’re not crusading for cutie marks, anymore.  Are you the Hormone-Headed Heroes now?”  As Pinkie talked she spun on one skate, spinning her waitress skirt and managing to drip not a single drop of malt on her uniform.

Snails nodded.  “Yup.  I thought that would happen.”

Apple Bloom swallowed.  “We were just worrying about our friend, ma’am.”

Pinkie nodded, making the sounds of ice cubes clinking against each.  “Of course!  I thought she looked sad, too.”

Snips and Apple Bloom exchanged a glance.  Snails stepped onto the floor.  “She’s right.  That girl looked like she was in terrible trouble.”

Apple Bloom's eyes widened.  “Oh!  You mean the other Diamond Tiara!”

Snips snorted.  “Maybe she’s from some alternate universe.  She may be the kind and good Diamond Tiara.”

Pinkie nodded.  “I was thinking to myself and wondering about trampolines and marzipan and I thought, ‘Golly, that filly looks sad. Someone her age and gender should go see what’s wrong.’”

Pinkie’s eyes narrowed as she leaned closer to Apple Bloom.

“Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight?”

Apple Bloom swallowed.  “Yes, ma’am!”  She saluted unsteadily as she walked toward the mare’s room.

Pinkie nodded to herself.  “Gee, I hope… ”

“Yup,” Snails agreed.

Pinkie closed he eyes and smiled.  “Absolutely!  And that means… ”

Snails smiled back, “I’d think so.”

“Glad we’re in agreement!  Oh, if you see Truffle and Twist say that they’ve missed their afternoon Double-Straw Delight two days in a row!  Ta-ta!”  Pinkie Pie skated away on one hoof.

Snips peered at his heterosexual life-partner skeptically.  “Did you two just actually communicate any information?”

Snails nodded.  “Yup.  Sit down.  We’ll wait for the girls.”

Snips shrugged and sat down.  He contemplated the table before calling out to the counter.  

“Hey, Jerk!  Can I get some fries over here?”

Soda Jerk snorted.  “That’s Mister Jerk.  Get them yourself.”

Snips rested his head on his hooves.  “I really hate that guy.”


In the restroom, Screwball stared at the white filly on the other side of the bathroom mirror.  She turned around briefly, confirming that she was indeed alone on this side of the glass.  Screwy looked back at the sadly-smiling pegasus who leaned on the reversed-counter in the reflection.

“Me know just what’s going on here.”

Surprise sighed.  She turned on the faucet on her side, splashing water onto her faces.  Black, brown, and red substances pooled into the sink.

“You know me,” she said looking up.  “You absolutely know me because we met each other and it counts even if it was only in a dream and its kinda dreamy now and I have to talk quickly because he’s coming.  Do you mind if I wash myself? I feel like yuck warmed over.”

Screwball pulled herself onto the mirror, shaking and sweating.  For years she had dreaded this.  The only time she met her creator (she couldn’t bear to use the word “father” even in her mind), she learned the reason for her life.  She was a joke, badly wired.  The strain she put on her body by acting “normal” sometimes lead her to the obvious conclusion.

Why make a joke to last?  Screwball had thought that hallucinations would be the first sign.  She shook with trepidation at the thought that she was finally breaking down.

“This is reality.  Me is perfectly sane.  Nothing is wrong.”

Surprise peered in confusion.  “You talk funny.  When we hang out or picnic or ride the Galaxy Express you talk fine.  Where does the weird come in? “

Screwball’s eyes widened in recognition.  “You and me haven’t met before.”

The white ball of energy nodded, almost vibrating into a blur.  “Yuppers!  We met in dreams, Silly-Dilly-One-Eyed-Willy!  You and me and Jake and Finn and Marceline, remember?  Only… ”

“Surprise is fake!”  Screwball leapt onto the counter and squeezed her face into the mirror.  “Surprise!  Don’t come out and meet Cheerilee and play!  I have plenty of friends here.”

Surprise’s expression made Screwy pause.

“Screwball, I’m trapped here.  You need to get me out.  You're the one who can get all of us out.  Spike and Truffle and Twist and Featherweight and… ”

The lights flickered on Surprise’s side of the mirror.  Her wings flared out.

“He’s coming.  Help me, Screwy-Dooie-Kablooie.  You’re our only hope.”

The mirror-bathroom’s door started to open.  Screwball pounded on her mirror in frustration.

“Where?  Surprise, where you aren’t?”

Surprise started to flicker.  With eyes wide and quick breathing she screamed at Screwball.

“It’s Discord! He’s come for the children.  You have to save us!  You have to find the Funhouse and… ”

The door opened in both bathrooms.  As Surprise disappeared, Screwball turned toward her own door with a snarl.

Apple Bloom took a nervous backwards.  Ah think this one is plumb loco.  “Um, I came to see if you were okay, but if you wanna be alone… ”

Screwball raced toward the frightened filly.  She reared up and grabbed Apple Bloom's shoulders.  

“Me don’t need help!”

Apple Bloom edged out of the imploring pony’s grasp.  “Well, in that case, I’ll be outta here.  Sorry for the inconvenience.”  She retreated, keeping her front to the agitated stranger.  Screwball leapt forward as Apple Bloom threw a defensive hoof in front of her face.

When it starts, pretend it’s Diamond Tiara.  You’ll buck her up good.	

Apple Bloom waited for the fight to begin.  She stared Screwball right in the eyes, remembering fighting advice Big Mac once gave her.  As she stared into the spirals, one of them flared into crimson life.  Red filtered out of the curves, filling the white of the eye.  Apple Bloom stared in horrified fascination.

“Help me.”  Screwball’s shoulders sagged.  “Please help me.  My name’s Screwball, and I have a… brain thing.  It hurts to talk right for too long.  I need help.  My friend’s in trouble.”  Liquid ran down Screwy’s cheeks, clear on one side and red on the other.  “Please.”

A tightness rose in Apple Bloom’s chest as she saw the shuddering Screwball drop her head and stare away.  She grabbed a rag off of the sink counter and wiped Screwy’s face off.  Gently, she hooked a hoof around the hesitant young mare’s shoulder and pulled her out of the bathroom.  

Snips and Snails stared at the pair as they approached.

Apple Bloom gently guided Screwball into a stool and rubbed a hoof on her back.  “Gentlecolts, this is Screwball.  She’s got a… kinda… talking problem.”

Snips and Snails exchanged a look.  Snails tapped his friend on the shoulder and gestured to Screwball.  Snips rolled his eyes and nodded.

“Fine, bro,”  he said under his breath, “I’ll get your initial d-data.”

Snails nodded contently.  Snips leaned his forelimbs’ knees on the table and tried to look nonchalant.  “So, uh, S-Screwball.  How’re you feeling?”

Screwball scrunched her shoulders together.  “Okay.”

Snails raised an eyebrow.  His eyes made a circuit of Screwy’s facial features as she sniffed into a napkin.  He stood up and left the table, drawing a baleful glare and an exasperated sigh from his girlfriend.

Snips tapped on the table.  “Right.  So, what’s going on?”

Apple Bloom placed a limb around the quivering girl.  Screwball steadied herself.

“It’s not Surprise.  She’s not in the bathroom mirror.”

“Of course,” said Apple Bloom.

“Duh, yeah,” agreed Snips. “Because, I mean even suggesting she was in the bathroom mirror… ”

Snails walked back to the table, carrying a tray with two drinks in his mouth.  He placed it down as his friend stopped talking and joined in.

“…would be kinda implyin’ that there was somethin’ fundamentally wrong with the nature o’ things.”

Snips nodded.  “Exactly, bud of mine.”

Apple Bloom looked from her coltfriend to his best friend. “Um, should I leave you two alone?”

Screwball blew into her napkin.  Snips looked at Apple Bloom and nodded.  “I have no idea what’s happening.”

Snails gently tapped the table twice.  Apple Bloom and Snips reached for the drinks before an interposing hoof blocked them.  The lanky stallion cleared his throat, drawing Screwy’s attention.

“Um.  Screwball.  I brought you, um, chocolate and vanilla.  Which one do you want?”

Her eyes widened.  “Vanilla!”

He nodded to himself with a pleased smile. “Point to it.”

A hoof shot out toward the chocolate with lightning speed.  Snails pushed it towards her, and Screwball grabbed the drink.  Sounds like a quarry eel trying to drain a lake came from the slight young mare’s mouth.

Snips furrowed his brow.  “Wait just a daisy-picking second.”

Apple Bloom looked at Snails with a beaming smile and sighed dreamily.

“So, Screwball,” Snails continued conversationally.  “Who’s not in trouble?”

She came up for air long enough to say, “Surprise.”

“Where isn’t she?”

“Trapped in the mirror world.”

Snails raised an eyebrow as Snips and Apple Bloom’s mouths hung open.

“What’s not the problem?”

Screwball noisily finished the drink and came up for air.  “Discord’s taking the Ponyville kids to some kind of weird, evil not-so-funhouse.”

The table sat silently for a second.

Snails sucked on his lower lip for a second.  “Hrmm.  Alright. Yeah, let’s go to Surprise’s house.”

Apple Bloom sputtered as she nearly failed to get coherent words out. “You really sure about this?”

Snails nodded.  “Yup.  I contemplated it pretty thoroughly.”

Snips shrugged as he hopped off his seat. “Okay. Lead on.”

“Hold on a second!”  Apple Bloom stared at her coltfriend as he politely helped Screwball up.  

“Snips, you can’t think this is a good idea.”

Snips turned and shrugged.  “Applegirly, you know my mate ‘bout as well as I do.  Has he ever been wrong when he’s used the word ‘contemplate’ before?”

She smiled. “Nope.  Never ever.” Apple Bloom sighed.  “All right.”

As the quartet of teens moved out into the street, Screwball looked at Snails with wonder.  “Me don’t… Me mean, me always… “

He gave her a wink.  “Use gestures.  You’re fine with gestures.”

She tackled him with her forelimbs, throwing both hooves around his neck.  He nervously patted her back.

“Screwball,” he weakly sounded out.  “I’m glad I could help, but if you choke me my girlfriend will mess you up.”

Screwball reared back onto both hooves, saluted Apple Bloom, and moved beside her to step in lockstep.  Apple Bloom shook her head.

“Snails, ah don’t know how you do it sometimes.”

He shrugged.  “We both think differently.  We’re closer to each other than to most other ponies.”

Apple Bloom flashed Screwball an intimidating look.  After a moment she looked away with a guilty expression, glad that Screwball hadn’t noticed..

Screwball’s hard-earned cheerfulness started to fade as her new friends lead her through the marketplace.  She would have expected the three Ponyville teens to notice the atmosphere around them.   On one side a street vendor was haggling half-heartedly as he discussed his son’s nightmares.  A younger pegasus reclined on a bench, occasionally plucking one of her own feathers out as she started to nod off.  Every few houses a poster of a smiling, bushy-haired filly had been hung.  Screwball paced up to the flyer, parsing out the tear-stained mouthwriting.

Please look for my daughter, Twist.  Last seen with Truffle.  Reward offered for whereabouts.	

Screwball shivered.  When someone called her name her heart skipped.

“Screwy, I was so worried about you!”  A warm neck pressed down across Screwy’s mane.  “I’m so sorry,” Cheerilee said.  Turning to her mother, Screwball saw reddened eyes.

The Ponyville teens gaped.

“Miss Cheerilee?”  Apple Bloom stepped cautiously toward the embracing ponies.  “You’re… Screwball’s mom?”

Snails kept quiet, eyeing the encounter.  Snips leaned over to his friend to whisper.  “Wow.  When we were colts did we realize how hot Cheerilee… ”

Snails place a hoof over his friend’s mouth and shook his head.  He stared away for a second in thought.  He then smiled and nodded, then cocked his head towards Screwball and raised his hoof to his lips with a shush…

Screwball rubbed her head into the familiar smell of her mother’s coat.  Cheerilee caressed her mane and turned to her former students.

“Children! It’s so good to see you again.  I’m so glad to see you spending time with Screwball.”

I’m glad I recognized the cutie marks, Cheerilee thought.  It’s always hard to recognize old students when their cheekbones change.

Snips gave Screwball another look and gave a start.  “Um, Miss Cheerilee?  Where was she when w-w-we were growing up?  She wasn’t locked in an attic or anything, r-right?”

Everyone stared at him.  He scratched behind his ear nervously.

Cheerilee sighed.  “I adopted her in Old Canterlot.  Kids, it’s great to see you grow so much.”  She turned to Apple Bloom with shining eyes.  “Where’s Sweetie and Scootaloo?”

Apple Bloom stammered incoherently.   Snails stepped over, placing a hoof on her shoulder.  

“Sweetie went home, Miss.  We… Scootaloo doesn’t come by much.”

Cheerilee watched as her students exchanged looks with each other.  Her smile returned as she saw how Snails was holding onto Apple Bloom.  I guess the kids are alright.  She turned to Screwball.

“Dear, if you’re okay I’m going to meet back up with Red.  A few of my oldest friends are meeting me for some cider and flowers.  Do you want to come with?  Sparkler might be there.”

Screwball shook her head.  “We weren’t going to see Surprise.”

Cheerilee’s hoof fell off of Screwball, hitting to floor limply.

Apple Bloom blinked.  “You know Surprise, Miss?  Did you want to see her?”

Surprise.

“No… no, I’ll be at Cuisine’s Café.”  It’s just a coincidence, it has to be.  “It’s great to see how you’ve all grown.  I’m so proud of you.”  Cheerilee kissed Screwball’s forehead.

Screwball nodded as her mother walked away.

As the children left her sight, Cheerilee turned toward their direction.  She chewed her bottom lip until the singing of children drew her attention.

“One, two, Discord’s coming for you… ”

Cheerilee’s heart stopped.  She looked behind her to see a group of young fillies running away with a jump rope.  She sighed as her heart gradually slowed down.  The pattering of rain distracted her from her worries.

“It’s just a coincidence.”



Snips gingerly pushed the front door open, letting the sounds of the storm fill the shadowy house.  “Miss Counter? Are you there?”

Screwball stepped past him into the house.  Her eyes picked out the fragments of a dropped cup and saucer sitting in a pool of tea.  The remains of a hot soup sat in the center of the table.  From elsewhere in the house, Screwy could hear the sound of soft crying.

The group walked into the kitchen, confronting a trembling earth pony sitting in the floor.  Her tears fell and mingled with a spreading pool of water that was feed by the overflowing kitchen counter, illuminated by the soft light that poured in through a hole not quite over the sink.

Coin Counter rubbed her eyes as she looked at Apple Bloom.  “I… can’t stop it.  I don’t know where she is and I can’t stop it.”

Apple Bloom nodded.  Silently, she walked to the pantry and started rooting around.  Screwball gave Snips a questioning look.  He shrugged.

“She’s fixing things,” Snails said with a smile.

Apple Bloom walked out of the pantry with a toolkit in her mouth as she climbed onto the kitchen counter.  Coin smiled thankfully as the teen began patching the hole.

Screwball saw Snails eyes light up with a mix of admiration and worship. “It’s what she does,” he concluded.

“Um, M-m-miss Counter?"  Snips padded wetly through the room.  "Have you seen Surprise lately?”

Coin sniffed and shook her head.  “She was supposed to be with you all.  She’s been gone for hours.  I m-meant to go out and look, but it started raining and the roof leaked and I… ”

Apple Bloom leaned over her with a hoofkerchief in her mouth that Coin gratefully accepted.

Snips shuffled uncomfortably from hoof to hoof.  “Um.  Do you have any idea when she’d be home?”

Coin shook her head.  “Now.”  She blew her nose loudly.  “She’d always come home when I felt this way.  I can’t imagine what would keep her from me.”

Snips heard a door click open down the hallway.  A quick check of the kitchen confirmed that Screwball had wandered away.  “Eh,” he said. “So, do you mind if we check her room? Maybe for some kind of hint to where she went?”

Coin nodded as Snips breathed out relieved.  Snails cast a look up .  “Abby?  Are you going to be okay here?”

Apple Bloom nodded, saying something in a reassuring voice through a mouthful of nails.  Snails beamed as he walked away with Snips, who raised an eyebrow.

“Can’t believe you got away with the Abby thing.  Hey buddy,” he said.  “Wouldn’t it be cool if we were actually in one of those monster-horror plays?”

Snails frowned.  “I’d be worried.”

Snips snorted.  “You? Ah, come on.  Buddy, you’re the strong, silent leading stallion with the tough girlfriend.  I’m the wise-cracking fatty with the s-sense of humor.”  He giggled.  “You and Abby would be fine.  I’m the schmuck who gets it by the first intermission.”

Snails said nothing.

Inside Surprise’s room Screwball stared in wonder at walls  covered with elegant drawings of fantasies.  Everyone in Ponyville wondered where Surprise got her tales of magic creations.

Screwball knew better.

The artwork showed Surprise traveling through fantastical landscapes with bizarre creatures.  One had Surprise riding a flying bed with strange creatures through a land of mirrors and ladders.  Another showed her with a yellow dog and monkey-like things running through a field.  Screwball was with her.  A nearby sheet held a sketch of a fierce sea-pony knight labeled “Foamrider.”  On the walls of Surprise’s room were the memories of a hundred pleasant dreams that Screwy had always held as her own personal treasures.

Screwball paced around the room, scrutinizing every corner.    She stopped moving in the middle of the room and closed her eyes. Snips and Snails found her that way as they walked in. Noticing Screwy's concentration, Snails held a hoof in front of his friend.

“What’s she doing?” Snips asked.

“Thinking,” Snails explained.

Screwball opened her eyes.  She scanned all of the written records posted along the room.  Turning, she ran to a well-used inkpot and quills on her bedroom dresser.  Nodding, Screwball flipped over Surprise’s bedroom pillow.  A diary lay underneath.

As Screwball flipped open the diary,  Snips looked at Snails uncomfortably.  “She’s not going to read that backwards, is she?”  He stepped forward.  “Um, Screwball?  I could read that if you want.”

“Dear diary,” she read in a near-perfect imitation of Surprise’s ebullient tone and hurried speaking cadence.  “Today I saw the creature again.  I was riding an ankylosaur to the gates of Slumberland when I saw it slinking through the edge of the forest.  I caught it’s face for a moment and it was a real meany-weany, total tizzie-dizzy of a stinker.  It’s nasty, smart, and getting closer.”

Apple Bloom trotted into the room.  “Well, the ceiling’s fixed.  Did I hear Surprise ‘round here?”

“It’s staying around Butterfly Hill,” Screwball continued.  “I think it’s planning something.  I need to invest all up in his gate.  I don’t like this.”

Apple Bloom shivered, gently pawing at Snails' shoulder.  "Tell her to stop doing that voice," she whispered.  "It's... not right."

Screwy closed the book, slipping it into her saddlebags.  Turning to her shocked new friends, she stared with haunted eyes.

“It’s not real.  She didn't know about it.  Now she’s free.”



“And right when Red proposed, the darn thing exploded.”

At an outside table of Horte Cuisine’s Café  Ditzy Doo-Smith and Lyra Heartstrings broke out into giggles as Cheerilee raised a glass of cider.  “True story.”

Ditzy reached across the table with her wingtips for the flower vase appetizers as Lyra egged Cheerilee on.  “And then, ‘Lee?  Where’d it go from there?”

Cheerilee grinned.  She leaned back, hearing the sound of rain on the café table umbrella.  The rest of the café’s customers had headed inside, but they had promised the waiter a heavy tip to keep serving them outside.  “The three of us never knew when to come out of the rain,” Lyra had explained.

At the moment Lyra was grinning knowingly at Cheerilee.  Cheerilee swallowed her tea and breathed in.  “Well, we were alone, in the middle of the steamy Outback, soaked to the skin, so… Ditzy, how did John propose to you?”

Ditzy nearly spit up her drink at the sudden change of subject.  “John proposed at a diamond waterfall.  I mean, there were diamonds involved.  And waterfalls.  Kinda.”

Cheerilee and Lyra exchanged amused grins.  “How romantic,” Lyra said.  “I always worried that you married a wet blanket.  I saw the way you looked at him, but how much adventure is in the heart of a guy who putters around in a blue shed in the backyard?”

Ditzy looked into her cider.  Her smile betrayed no hint of her thoughts.

“Lyra," Cheerilee said as she reached for a plate of batter-fried sunflowers.  "I’m so happy for you and Bon-Bon.  How did you propose?”

Lyra sat up on her seat, drawing pained looks from her friends as they contemplated what the unicorn’s backbone looked like after years of her antics.  “Bon-Bon… proposed to me.”

Cheerilee giggled as Ditzy shook her head.  “I call horse apples,”  Ditzy said as she crossed her forelimbs.

Cheerilee downed her cider in one gulp.  “Miss Doo-Smith, rarely have I heard you use such language.”

Ditzy blew her a raspberry.

Cheerilee turned back to Lyra.  “I agree with her, Ly-Ly.  Spill it.”

"Okay," Lyra said with a sigh.  "One order of dark shame, coming up."  She rested her head on her hooves.  “She convinced the cops not to arrest me.”

Ditzy and Cheerilee just stared as Lyra continued.

“We were at a club for our fourth anniversary.  I had just beat this raging plothole into the ground after he grabbed my flank.  I was dizzy from a punch and Bon-Bon was holding me upright.  The fuzz were just about to slap the cuffs on me when she screamed at them.”  Lyra grinned and dropped her eyes.

Ditzy and Cheerilee leaned forward. Lyra cleaned her throat.

“She said, ‘I swear to Celestia if you let me take this stupid, irresponsible, disorganized idiot home tonight I will marry her and make an honest mare of her.’”  Lyra played with her empty mug.  “I don’t know if they were deeply touched or just terrified of her.”

Cheerilee reached over and placed a hoof over Lyra’s.  “I’m… I’m so glad for the two of you.”

They both turned at the sound of Ditzy’s crying.  Cheerilee steadied her with a hoof as Lyra passed her a napkin.

“It’s just…,” Ditzy choked as she tried to speak.  “I’m always glad to see you two happy.  Things could have been so much worse.”

Lyra raised a questioning eyebrow.

Ditzy cleared her throat. “I mean, I always thought so,” she quickly said as she looked into her cider.

Lyra snorted.  “Ditz’, you know I’m invulnerable.”

Cheerilee giggled.

Ditzy nodded.  “I guess the three of us have someone… I mean,  somepony looking over us.”

As Cheerilee and Lyra picked up their conversation, Ditzy smiled to herself.  “I just wish he’d do the dishes sometimes,” she whispered.

While the three mares rejoiced, a bedraggled purple mare joined them at the table.  Cheerilee hooked a forelimb around her daughter.  “Ladies, you remember my pride and joy.”

As Lyra winked at Screwy,  Ditzy through her a sympathetic look.  “Screwball, how are you holding up?”

Screwy turned to her mother.  “Me don’t want to go home.”

Cheerilee nodded and dug a hoofful of bits out of her saddlebags.  “Girls, I’ll be around town for a while.  Let me get Screwy home.”

Lyra nodded and returned to her plate while something ran around inside Ditzy's head.  Ditzy fixated on Screwball with a troubled look.  She opened her mouth, letting it hang open for a moment before closing it.  Staring into her drink, Ditzy whispered, “Be strong, Screwball.”

Screwy gave her a questioning stare as Cheerilee packed her things.

“Hey, Ditzy,” Cheerilee said.  “Would you want to bring Dinky and Sparkler over tomorrow?  The girls always have fun together.”

Ditzy bit her lip.  “John and I are taking the girls out of town for a while.”

Lyra smirked.  “You going to be back soon?”

Giving out a long and pensive sigh, Ditzy shrugged.  “I hope so.”

Screwball took her mother’s saddlebags as Cheerilee stood up.  Cheerilee looked at Lyra wistfully.  “Ly-Ly, I’m so…”  She sighed.

“Shut up.”  Lyra opened her forelimbs.  “Talking bad.  Hugs now.”

The two mare’s let the touch of each other’s warmth linger while Screwball watched the rain fall.



Screwball fell onto her grandparents' guest bed, exhausted.  She stared at the ceiling as Red stuck his head through the doorway.

“Screwy?”  Red stepped carefully past the threshold.  “Screwy, are you alright?”

She rolled onto her side.  “Me don’t want to sleep now.”

Red caught his breath.  He walked over and kisses her cheek.  “I have to go play nice with the in-laws.  And if they don’t play nice tomorrow, I’ll bury them in the Everfree Forest.”

Screwy snickered as Red left the room.  She waited until she heard the sound of the door-latch close, then pulled Surprise’s diary out of her saddlebags.  Carefully lighting a candle,  Screwball turned to the first page.

Dear Screwball,
Hello!  It’s going to be so great being your friend.  I have no idea how I’m going to be your friend, since you don’t exist yet.  That’s really weird, but one day when you will you’ll explain it to me!   I know people usually write personally to their diaries, but I also know that you’ll be the first person to read it.  I hope you asked for permission, because otherwise I’ll be mad at you!

Screwball closed the diary and stared at the ceiling.  After a few seconds she continued reading.

Dear Screwy,
Today I met an awesome teacher at the college library! There was this statue and it had a fork but it was really a trident and my new teacher told me that!  She’s training at the school at my mom’s school.  Does that sentence work? I don’t know.  I’ll ask her.  I think she’s going to be your mother.  Her name’s Cheerilee.

Screwball shivered as she read ahead.  The candle burned low as Screwball blinked bleary eyes over the writing.  Peering at the scrambling lines, she got out of bed to get a snack.  She pushed open her door and walked onto the landing.  Downstairs was the living room, containing the pool table, sculptures, and exotic plants that years of her grandparents' dedication had paid for.  She crept down the stairs quietly as she heard her family’s voices.

“So, you’re turning her in tomorrow?”

Screwball gritted her teeth at her grandfather’s voice.

“That’s right,” Cheerilee said.  “She’s getting a little broken down.  Her eyes don’t work, and then there’s that talking backwards thing.”

Screwball stopped.

“Don’t forget that bloody nose nonsense, dear.  I swear, we should have done this ages ago.”

Screwball could have sworn that was Red’s voice.  She stuck her face through the side of the staircase railing and looked down.  Her family was gathered around a large box on the living room floor.  Packing tape and labels lay scattered about, bearing the logo of “Dr. Ocsid’s Acme Adolescents.”

Cheerilee grunted as she pulled an immobile pink pony limb out of the box.  “We got a discount on the new model since the last daughter they gave us was so dysfunctional.”

Red’s voice echoed inside the box as he searched inside.  “Yep.  Got all the protocols fixed, took away the emotional insecurity.  Even managed to keep all the good bits.”  He pulled out of the box with a torso in his hooves.  “Whichever those were.”

Screwball turned away and vomited onto the steps.  When she looked back, Cheerilee had stuck the limb she held onto the torso.  It affixed with a sucking sound and started moving.  She then placed a head onto the torso’s shoulders, where it immediately twitched into life.

“Hello, parent!”  The pinkish girl flashed her stunning blue eyes and grinned.  “It’s so wonderful to be a fully-functional part of your family.”

Petal brought in a tray of tea and placed it onto the table.  “You should have replaced her years ago, Little Flower.  After all, it’s not like she’s a real pony.”  As one, Screwball’s family turned to stare at her with self-satisfied smiles.

The unfinished pony gasped in shock.  “Please dispose of the previous child to avoid voiding contract.”

“This… is real.”  Screwball backed up the stairs.  “Me am seeing all of this.”

She squeaked as she bumped into something.  Turning around brought her face-to-face with a smiling draconequus dressed in clown clothes.  Each claw held a stick of cotton candy.

“Hello, Screwball.”

Screwball screamed.  She backed against the railing, chest heaving.

Discord grinned at his captive audience.  “A proper daughter is given a place.  An imitation just takes up space.  No birthday clowns for a mocked-up freak.  She’ll be thrown out within the week.”

As the smiling face leaned in Screwball flung her hooves over her face.  The railing gave way behind her, and she flailed her hooves to grab onto something as she tumbled into nothing.

Screwball continued to scream as Cheerilee shook her awake.  She turned to see her parents’ fearful eyes in the glare of the morning sun.

“Screwball, wake up!”  Cheerilee continued to shake her as Red held a flashlight in his mouth and shined light into Screwball’s eyes.  “Please wake up!”

“Mommy, am me real?”

Cheerilee stopped shaking Screwball.  “Oh, dearie.”  She pulled her daughter into a hug.  “You are my child, no matter what anypony says.”  She pushed her face into Screwy’s coat to conceal her tears.

Red sat down next to the bed and ruffled his daughter’s mane.  “Oh, Screwy.  Who said that you weren’t real?”

“It wasn’t Discord.”

She felt Cheerilee shudder as Red jerked upright.

“It wasn't Discord.  Mom, Dad, Discord isn't coming for the children of Ponyville.  He’s not in our dreams.”

Red stood behind his wife and brought her close. Cheerilee shook her tearful head.  “That’s impossible, Sweetheart.  That’s impossible because Mommy’s friend’s dealt with him.  Discord can’t hurt you or anyone, dear. He won't be coming after you because Mommy’s friends hunted him down and turned him to stone.”

Screwball nodded and looked away.  She ruffled her hoof underneath her blanket and pulled out a rainbow-colored paper cone with cotton candy on top.



Rarity steadied herself with one hoof as she flung back the champagne glass in one gulp.  “And she never came home!  Twilight, why wouldn’t she have come home?”

Inside the Ponyville library, Twilight Sparkle listened in silence as she took in this information.  “Rarity, there’s doubtlessly a good explanation.  I’m worried about Spike, but we have to keep calm.   I mean, I don’t want to worry you… ”

“Worry me!”  Rarity’s horn flashed as the glass shattered against the wall.  “I want you to worry me,” she declared in a husky voice that dropped all pretense of propriety.  “Give me something concrete to worry about rather than these nameless fears.”

Twilight looked away as Rarity heaved.  The silence was broken as Cheerilee stormed through the door of the library and screamed.

“We got one!”
> Chapter 4: Hellraiser
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Nightmare in Ponyville
by Paleo Prints
Chapter 4: Hellraiser


“‘S-s-scuse me!  Comin’ t-t-hrough!”

The terrified crowds of Ponyville leapt out of the way as a bundle of nerves, mass, and momentum galloped through the early morning streets.  Snips bounded over cobblestones with a panicked air and the rapid breath of a conscientious objector to physical education.  He nearly collided with a baby carriage as he ungraciously slowed to a stop outside the Carousel Boutique.

“Miss Rarity!”  Snips careully pushed open the front door despite his panic.  The soft-spoken disapproval his employer gave him the last time was in the forefront of his mind.  “Be gentle with delicate things,” she had said.  Her slightly hurt look of disappointment stung worse than a tongue-lashing.

“I’m s-s-sorry I’m late.  Had a bad night’s sleep.  Let’s get to.. ”

Snails stopped as he took in the chaos that was the Carousel Boutique.  The sewing machine table was scattered with bits, the treasured device’s pieces strewn around as if neglected in the middle of a job.  Piles of fabrics lay tipped over on the sides of the room.  In the middle of the mess, Rarity lay on a couch in the dark.  The seamstress quietly stared at the walls for several seconds before visibly realizing Snips was here.  Her coat was dotted with dirt.  The entire room smelled vaguely of alcohol.

“Snips.”  She smiled as she pushed herself onto her hooves.  “Think nothing of it.  I didn’t expect to get any work done today at any rate.”

Snips gaped at Rarity’s state.  “Miss Rarity, you’re a m-m...”

Stop!, screamed his brain.  Remember what she taught you about mares!

Snips swallowed, hours of his boss’ advice coming to the fore.  “Um, Rarity?  E-excuse me for s-saying,” he said before swallowing, “but the store’s a little cluttered.”

She giggled.

“M-maybe you’d want to freshen up before the customers get here?  I c-could clean up while you do.”

Rarity petted Snips gingerly down his mane.  “My word, you’ve become such a pleasant young stallion.  You behave like a true gentlecolt, Snips.”

The teen shivered speechlessly at the emotional mare’s touch.  Idle daydreams of similar moments played in his head, but he found himself frozen now that the fantasies had become reality.  All he could force out of his mouth was, “C-C-Celestia bless you please, M-Miss Rarity.”

She chuckled.  “My friends should be by to pick me up any minute now.  If you could only be a dear and make this place presentable for them, I’ll do the same for myself.”  Rarity raised a hoof to his lips.  “And you must never tell anyone of the horrors you witnessed here this morning.”

The two tailors shared a quiet laugh before Rarity moved toward her bedroom.  Snips spent the next hour quietly tidying the workroom, self-consciously listening to the sound of Rarity in the shower.  For a brief time the water noise stopped, and silence reigned except for the soft sounds of Rarity crying that he could barely make out.  He whistled off-key to himself over her voice.

Rarity eventually reappeared.  To the average stallion she would have passed for her stunning normal self.  Snips had spent time almost every day for over a year with the older mare.  He could still see the fraying edges as she sat down at her table and sipped a snifter of something strong smelling.

“Um.  Is Sweetie Belle coming over today?”

Rarity cast a blank glance at the teen.  “She’s not here.  Today, I mean.  She’ll be back.  I’m certain of it.”  She considered her glass momentarily before telekinetically emptying the half-full container into a potted plant.  She smiled at Snips with genuine warmth.  

“Snips, dear?  Go home for the day.  I don’t think I’ll get much work done, and I expect Twilight will be here soon with some research she’s helping me with.  Go home to your family.”

Snips nodded slowly.  “Um. Sure. Fine.  If you need me back for anything I’ll c-come a-running.”

Rarity walked over to Snips and kissed him on the forehead.  “You’re going to make some lucky filly very happy someday, young stallion.  Now, hurry along.”

Snip’s brain was still trying to put a sentence together as the front door swung open, revealing the bloodshot eyes and off-kilter grin of Twilight Sparkle.

“Rarity!  I found the right spells!  Once the girls arrive we should... ”  Twilight stopped and panted in place as she noticed Snips.  He cast a nervous glance back at his boss.

“Head home, Snips.  We have things to deal with.”
______

“But that’s not fair!  Ah didn’t do anything!”

Applejack slammed her hoof into the Apple estate floor, making Apple Bloom jump as a crack sounded.  Her older sister ignored the damaged board, keeping a level glare at the younger sibling.

“Ah expect you to stay home for today.  As head o’ the household, that’s final.  Get yer chores done, do some homework, and on no account go into town!”

Apple Bloom looked away from her sister’s intense gaze to throw a pleading look at Big Macintosh.  He shrugged his shoulders.  She bit her lip and turned back to Applejack.

“What did I do?  Is it Snails?”

Applejack sighed.  “Listen, it ain’t nothin’ you did.  I gotta go check with Twilight and Rarity about somethin’.  If I’m gettin’ scared for a heap of nothing, I’ll apologize.  Just stay here for a  few hours, no matter what happens.”

Her pronouncement over, Applejack nuzzled her sister and walked out of the house.  Apple Bloom stared in shock as she disappeared down the road.

“Big Mac, I’m startin’ to worry.  I got a bad feeling about this.”

“Eeyup.”
_____

While Apple Bloom’s thoughts turned to him, Snails slowly walked past piles of scrap metal behind a Ponyville cottage.  He gingerly stepped over the salvage as he maneuvered through the town junkyard.

“Hey, Alula?  You there?”  Peeking his head around a dead candy machine revealed the town junkstallion’s daughter.  A vanilla-coated pegasus girl was blinking arhythmically, using her mouth to steady the parts of a pointed and polished collection of scrap welded into the shape of a rocket.  She pushed her safety goggles up as she turned to Snails.  Bleary eyes stared back at him from an unsteady head.

“Hey.  Snails.  Could you hold this thing?  I need you to put it in the thing.”  She yawned.  “It holds stuff.”

Snails sat down, looking at the quickly-fading young engineer with worry.

“Hey.  I need your help.”

She nodded, leaning forward.  Her eyes closed, but she jolted awake after a second.  Alula  bucked herself hard in the face with her right hoof.

“‘Kay.  Always have time, Snails.  I just have to finish this today.”

Snails regarded the sleek device that he had watched materialize over many years.  Inside the open door a tiny costume astronaut helmet hung over a panel of levers and dials painstakingly cast from collected bits of odds and ends.  He furrowed his brow as he saw the Alula was hammering pieces of steel to the side of the rocket in random patterns.

He sighed.  “I need you to wake up, Alula.  I need your brain to bounce things off.”

“Lemme guess.  Apple Bloom not around?  I don’t mind being your second choice, I guess.  Been used to it for awhile now.”  She nodded listlessly.  “I’m up.  Been up for a bit.  Don’t feel like sleeping lately.”

“Listen, trouble’s coming.  We have to make a plan.”

She yawned as she leaned against her rocket.  “I know.  I just gotta finish this soon.”  She petted the rocket wistfully.  “My escape craft.”

Snails watched her bite the edge of her hoof and sit upright.  She trotted over to him.

“I know what’s coming for us, Snails.  Grab me some coffee and help me finish this.”  She picked up a hammer in her mouth and turned back to her gleaming metal dream.

He regarded her thoughtfully before turning to an improvised heat plate simmering away behind him.  Dozens of used coffee bags lay discarded in front of it.  “‘Kay.  But we gotta talk about you.  You ain’t never worked on a project while tired.  You said that it was dangerous to... “

He turned at the sharp, metallic impact.  Her hammer rested on the metal fin she was working on.  There was no sign of Alula.

Snails stared at the hammer for a long time before leaving.

_____

Outside the Ponyville library, Cheerilee took a deep breath and stared at the closed door.  Red placed a steadying hoof on her shoulder.  She nodded, knocking on the door with as much determination as she could muster.  

Why do I feel like a filly at a parent-teacher conference?

They both yelped as the door swung open to reveal Twilight Sparkle’s grin.

“Excellent!  Almost everypony’s gathered for the ritual!  Now all be have to do is bend reality a teensy bit!”

Red stepped away from the beaming sorceress.  The normally mellow librarian was grinding her teeth hard enough to make gemstones.  Twilight’s eyes were red and bloodshot.  Red hadn’t seen her like this since she had to plan Cheerilee’s bachelorette party.  

Behind her lay a library in ruins.  Pinkie rolled through the chaotic stacks of books on skates, passing around trays of chocolate cupcakes laced with espresso beans.  She braked by Twilight’s couch, offering her wares to Applejack while the farm pony tried her best to comfort Rarity.  Rarity was wearing a self-described “very brave face,” occasionally bolstered by sips from a simmering mug of coffee.

Cheerilee stepped in front of the terrified Red.  “So, I don’t see all of the girls,” she offered conversationally.

“We’ve had something of a morale emergency, so Fluttershy’s with Rainbow Dash.”

Cheerilee nodded.  “That poor thing.  I worry about Fluttershy whenever something like this happens.”

Twilight’s eyes looked anywhere but into Cheerilee’s.  “Yeah.  Heh, Fluttershy.”

____

A firm yellow hoof tapped on a fluffy bedroom floor.  “Rainbow Dash, come out of that bed right now!  Everypony is counting on us!”

Two shivering eyes stared back from the darkness.  A cyan head gradually pulled itself into the light.  

“C-come on, Shy.  I’m sure Twilight has some awesome spell thingy.  We’re, like, the back-up mares.”

In a heartbeat a stern yellow face was inches away from Dash’s own.  In Fluttershy’s eyes, Rainbow saw the harsh gaze of her childhood flight instructor.  For a brief second, Fluttershy’s visage softened as she smiled.

“Rainbow,  I know you want to help your friends.  I understand you’re scared.”  Rainbow flinched as Fluttershy threw her head back and screamed.  “Now get out from under that bed!”

The terrified pegasus shot out from under the bed in a prismatic rush.  Shivering, she stood to attention in front of the now-beaming Fluttershy, who patted her gently on the head.  “There, there.”  She waited patiently for Rainbow Dash to speak,

“He... he took my wings, ‘Shy.”

Fluttershy nodded, aiming encouraging eyes at her friend.

“I... ”  Dash hesitated.  “Heck, I guess we better go knock his block off before he makes Rarity bald or something.”

Fluttershy nuzzled Dash’s cheek before walking to the door of the bedroom.  Looking back towards Dash, she extended a hoof outwards.

“If somepony takes your flight, you go and make things right.  Now, let me apologize to Cheerilee when we get there.  I’m so dreadfully sorry I spent so long hiding under my bed, Dash.”

Rainbow nodded and wiped her eyes as she flew off.
___

Cheerilee nodded.  “Has anyone tried to go to Canterlot and alert the Princess?”

Twilight shook her head.  “Nope, nope, nope!  If You-Know-Who is here, we can’t leave Ponyville undefended.  We have everything we need to deal with the problem right here.”

Cheerilee cast a brief glance to Red as he wolfed down his third of Pinkie’s “Super Insomnia Homina-Homina Surprises.”  His vibrations were noticeable.  I must get that recipe for report card week.  Turning back to Twilight, she scratched her mane.  “But don’t you need to get the Elements of Harmony from her?”

Twilight pulled Cheerilee closer into the library while laughing.  “‘Lee, that’s silly. Imagine if we had to run all the way to Canterlot when a threat appeared!  The last time we needed them, we had to fight an army hoof-to-hoof.  Following the days of EVENT CAKE APATHY, the Princess asked us to surreptitiously carry them around in-case some other villain got the idea of camping out the vault room.”

Cheerilee’s mind reeled. “What if you leave your saddlebags in a café or something?  I feel guilty enough when I lose a student’s work.”  Suddenly she gasped, covering her mouth while her eyes looked back and forth.  “Not that that happens, mind you.”  

“Don’t be silly,” Twilight said.  “Saddlebags?  ‘Lee, with what we do… ”

Twilight jumped into the air.  Cheerilee covered her eyes as the gleeful wizardess started glowing brightly.  As Twilight hovered for a moment, Cheerilee swore she saw some kind of incredibly fast spinning dance number.  After a moment, Twilight floated gently to the ground, a large tiara already in place.

“… we don’t need saddlebags.”
___

Snips stirred his milkshake listlessly.  He gingerly poked the gigantic basket of spicy hay fries he had finally obtained from Soda Jerk.  The knowledge that he and Snails were the only occupants of the Cake Cafe during the normal teen lunch rush made his victory feel hollow.  As Snails stared off into space, he feebly attempted conversation.

“Yeah, I spent the morning feeling like I was in the start of a letter to the editor.  ‘Dear Playcolt, I never thought that it would happen to me, but the older mare I blah blah blah.’  You know, reading those things doesn’t really prepare you for when the real thing happens.”

Snails’s unchanging gaze continued to rest on something non-existent as he nodded periodically to his friend’s comments.  

Snips sighed.  “This is a rewarding interaction,” he said as he threw a quarter bucket of hay fries into his mouth.

Seconds later he nearly choked on his hard-won bounty as a breathless Apple Bloom ran into the diner.  She skid along the floor as she galloped towards her friends.  Panting, she lifted herself onto the seat and leaned onto Snails’ shoulder.  He blinked, smiling as his consciousness slowly regained its interface with reality.

“We need to get Scootaloo.”

Snails nodded.  “I was just thinkin’ the same thing.”

Snips emptied his massive soda glass and coughed.  Sputtering, he threw a challenging eye at Apple Bloom.  “Why do we need little Miss Fast, Brash, and Distant?  In fact, why do we need to do anything at all?  Everypony seems to be off for the day.  Sweetie’s not even at the boutique today.”  He sighed.

Apple Bloom gasped.  “Snips, y’all ain’t thick enough to miss what’s goin’ on here, right?  Is Sweetie really missing?  That means we gotta do something.”

Snips gave her a withering look.  “I h-heard the diary too, all right?  I’m t-terrified, but if anything’s going on the Elements of Harmony should be able to h-handle it.”  Suddenly animated, Snips slammed his hooves onto the table.  “News flash, Abby, but I’m just a fat tailor’s apprentice and part-time magician!  What am I gonna do if Discord has Sweetie Belle, make him a suit?  Maybe a card trick will help, you think?”  He sat down, shivering.  “Heck, I d-don’t even know why you’re here.  With this much gloom and doom, I’d thought you’d be as grounded as Scoota... ”

Apple Bloom slapped him.

Snips raised a hoof to his red cheek.  “Oh, that was uncalled for, lady.”

She nodded.  “I know.  That’s why I stopped you before you finished sayin’ it.”

Snips’ eyes flashed.  He suddenly turned to the stern gaze of Snails.  He sighed.  “Buddy, lay it on m-me.  That’s was too far, wasn’t it.”

“Eeyup.”

Snips sighed.  “Okay, I’m s-sorry.  Convince me, then.  Why do we need Scootaloo?”

“Well, she’s the bravest mare I know, and we spent years havin’ the kinda weird adventures that give you the experience to deal with something like this.”

Snips squinted.  “You really think that ‘C-Cutie M-Mark Crusader’ hours count in this?”

Apple Bloom sighed.  “Snips, I learned alchemy as a blank flank.  We were runnin’ from monsters while the rest of the kids we’re making slambooks.”

Snails smiled.  “You did summon that necromancer for junior prom!”

“Huh,” Snips said with consideration.  “Well, there was that time with the yetis.  I guess the Stable for Disease Control incident counts, too.  Celestia, why aren’t you fillies dead yet?”  He shrugged.  “Okay, I g-g-gi-gi... concede.  Let’s get Scootaloo.”

-----

The setting sun cast a mournful red through the trees, throwing shadows across the distant roofs of Ponyville.  Snips watched as the town receded, almost disappear as a small cottage drew closer.  Piles of wheels and machinery lay scattered on the lawn between rusted athletic equipment.  Barring the Do-Smith cottage on the edge of town, Snips was sure that this was the farthest you could go and still be in Ponyville.  

“So,” he offered to break the silence, “she’s p-p-probably not home.”

Apple Bloom shrugged.  “She’s most likely out on her package route.  Her parents are probably up in Cloudsdale at the moment.”

“Great.  S-so, nopony’s here.”

Apple Bloom smiled at a “Beware of Dog” sign sitting in the front yard.  The word “dog” had crossed out and replaced with “Heh, Heh.”  

“No ‘pony’, guys.  Still, be polite.”

Snips shivered.

While Apple Bloom and Snails started to discuss the intricacies of the machinery parts, Snips ventured a peek in a nearby window.  The dresser on other the side of the glass held a mess of bolts, doodads, a ribbons-wrapped set of junior flight goggles, dust clinging to the faded and unopened package.  A menagerie of adventurous memories were displayed against the walls.  Seven photos of the girls being awarded by the Princesses hung over a spear and tiki mask.  What had to be an official space program jumpsuit lay under a box labeled “BUNGIE CORDS/ FORENSIC KIT.”  Several weapons lay on a pile of bits.  A decaying school map of Equestria dominated the far wall, thumbtacks of every color scattered everywhere.

Snips was so entranced that he screamed when something stared back.

Two slitted yellow eyes appeared in his vision, sending him flailing backwards.  The dusky yellow feathered thing jumped on the dresser, using its long black and white tail to balance.  Snips broke into a cold, shivering sweat at the sight of the beast’s teeth and the grasping claws on its wings.  Each foot bore a vicious curved hooks that it tapped in odd patterns on the furniture.  A collar with a metal heart hung around its neck.

Snips kept screaming until Apple Bloom covered his mouth.  She shushed him and raised a calming hoof toward the window.  The beast stared at her briefly, then disappeared back into the room.

A mess of stuttering gradually formed into a single, empathetic shout of “What the buck is that?”

“Oh.”  Apple Bloom smiled.  “That’s Ponce.  He’s grown a bit, now that ah think of it.  Ah remember when he could fit in her scooter basket.”

Turning to her friends, she saw looks of confusion.

Snails stepped forward into Snips’ vision.  “Was... that what I think it was?  I thought those were extinct.  Point of fact, every book I ever read said so.”

Apple Bloom lifted Snips up onto his feet and flashed a knowing grin to her coltfriend.  “Boys, we had an interesting childhood.”  Her eyes opened wide at something down the road.

The boys turned to see a cloud of dust as something launched itself into the air over a hill.  The last traces of sunlight gleamed off a chrome frame that buzzed like a beehive.  Smoke billowed out of the back as a purring machine skid into place in the driveway.

The three-wheeled dream stopped as an athletic pegasus in patch-covered denim jacket stepped off.  Two small wings poked out of holes cut in the back.  A red helmet with stylized lightning bolts was lifted off the riders head as she flipped her mane sideways.  Snips would always swear that moved in slow motion.  Snails thoughtfully closed his mouth for him.

The tubby tailor-in-training clapped on the driveway.  “That was awesome.  You were r-r-really flying with that thing.”

Apple Bloom facehooved as two purple eyes bored into Snips’ soul, visibly trying to stop his heart.  They succeeded for a second.

Snails leaned in.  “Don’t mention the ‘f-word,’” he offered.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom stared at each other.  The silent rider slowly smiled, as Apple Bloom stuttered, failing to begin a sentence.  It wasn’t a very kind smile.  Scootaloo rolled her eyes.  “So, never heard of a surprise pity party,”  she said in a challenging tone.

“Scoots, we need to talk.”

Scootaloo sighed, pulling her bike toward the open garage.  “Whatever it is you want, I’m not interested.”  She turned back to Apple Bloom.  “You need something, right?”

Snails put a steadying hoof on his girlfriend’s shoulder as she started shaking.

“Scoots, why don’t you ever come into town?”

Scootaloo sighed as she locked up her bike, placing it near several others.  “I come into town everyday for work.  You see me everyday.”

Apple Bloom stomped on the cobblestones.  “Ah mean to see us!”

Scootaloo hung up her helmet, still not deigning to look her old companion in the eye.  “You know where I live.  You could stop by any time.”

Apple Bloom trotted around Scoootaloo to look her in the face.  “Y’all made it pretty clear that ya didn’t want that!”

“Yet, you’re here," Scootaloo said with a raised  eyebrow.  "Didn’t get your cutie mark in listening, huh?”  She grabbed a wrench off of a shelf with her teeth and bent down near a tipped over scooter.  For close to a minute, the soft sound of repair work was the only noise Apple Bloom heard except for her own pounding heartbeats.  Snips and snails stepped behind her, casting pleading looks at the irritated mechanic.

Scootaloo dropped the wrench and breathed out an aggravated sigh.  “Look, can I fix this in peace?  See, this is why I don’t need your bucking pity party... “

“Ah never pitied you!”

After the scream, the only sounds Snips could make out were a combination of rustling and loud clicks drawing closer.  He started to sweat.  He listened half-heartedly before realizing he was the one speaking.

“L-l-look, I -k-know this mare m-means something to you! Y-y-you wake up everyday to like twenty p-pictures of her!  Can’t you j-just hear her out?”

Snips prayed to the Princesses that his words would work as he watched the door that connected the house to the garage.  Something was slowly turning it.

Scootaloo stared at Snips.  The door clicked open.  She turned to the creaking noise.

“It’s okay,” she said without looking away from Snips.  “They’re with me.”

Something shut the door.

Scootaloo put her head on her hoof, looking at Apple Bloom in amusement.  “Okay, you got one minute to make me care.”

The trembling farm girl sat down next to the prone bike.  “The side frame looks a little loose.  I think you could tighten it to reduce pressure on the intake valve.”

Scootaloo smiled.  “Okay, Hammerhead.  That buys you five more minutes.”

Apple Bloom bit her bottom lip.  “He has Sweetie Belle.  He’s back, and he has Sweetie Belle.”

Silence fell for a minute.

"Does her sister know?”

Apple Bloom nodded.  “An’ they may have dealt with him.  If they have, Sweetie’s had a terrible time and would need cheering up.  If they haven’t...”

Snails sat down next to Scootaloo.  “Maybe we have to think of something.”

Scootaloo nodded.  She walked to back of the large garage, weaving unseen between a bevy of bikes.  Apple Bloom and her boys exchanged worried looks.  Scootaloo re-emerged within a minute, passing them as she pushed a spike-covered scooter with two-passenger carts on either side.  Reaching the road, she turned to the speechless ponies.

“Get in, chumps.  We’re going for a spin.”

Snips thrust a hoof into the air.  “Awesome!  We’ll be riding like Dethstomp.”  He jumped into a side car and picked up a waiting pair of safety goggles.  “I even get to ride alone.”

Scootaloo grinned. “No, you don’t.  Squeeze in, Tubby.  You’ll need the space.”

“What?”  Snips watched Scootaloo whistle towards her bedroom window.  Something inside very carefully undid the latch.

“Oh, no.”

The window was pushed open.  A feathery, hissing shape leapt down into the tall grass of the backyard.

“Oh, screw this.  Snails, Apple Bloom, tell me I’m not sharing a seat with that thing.”

He felt a tap on his shoulder.  Turning around brought him face to face with Scootaloo.

“That ‘thing’s’ name is Ponce.  He has shotgun.  If he doesn’t let you ride with him, you get to cling to the back of the ride.”

Snips swiveled as the mass of feathers, teeth, and claws jumped into the bucket-seat.  The muscular bird-reptile pushed him against the very edge of the seat.  It turned its slitted eyes towards him.

“Um. Hello?”

“Skreeeeeeeeeeoooooooooonk!”

Ponce licked Snips nose, drawing out a feeble whimper.  Scootaloo laughed as she smashed her hoof down on the pedal, sending the group off toward Ponyville and leaving clouds of dust behind them.

____

Red looked around the Ponyville Library in disbelief.  By all accounts, a terrifying reality-controlling monster was about to be poked with a thaumaturgical stick.  In spite of this,  the Elements of Harmony and his wife were engaged in something very like a tea party.

The seven mares were resting on cushions splayed around the room.  Red thought for certain that Twilight would have to draw large geometrical patterns everywhere.  He actually brought a protractor in anticipation.  Instead, the frazzled sorceress sipped tea out of a floating tea cup as numerous glowing quills danced around her, writing equations on papyrus.  Nearby candles held back the darkness of night’s first touch.

Red continued thinking with such focus that he gave a startled yelp when Cheerilee placed her hooves over his eyes.

“A bit for your thoughts, big stallion, and it better not involve cutie marks.”

Red breathed out.  

“I just can’t figure this out,” he admitted.  “By all accounts this is a special military operation, but it’s acting more like a... knitting circle.”

Cheerilee sat down next to him, their conversation almost drowned out by laughter as Rarity reached the peak of one of her high society anecdotes.

“Red, those are the Elements of Harmony, remember?  They’re powered by friendship.”

He blinked.  “So... they’re recharging their weaponized relationship equipment?”

His wife shrugged, then shushed him as Twilight Sparkle rose to her hooves and began gently tapping the floor.

“All right, girls!  I’ve got the spells narrowed down to pull Discord into this world.  It’s actually a simple reversed teleport mixed with a few divinatory... “

“Speak Equestrian,” interrupted Rainbow Dash.

Twilight sighed.  “Okay, I cast a ‘where are you’ followed by a ‘get over here.’  Simple enough?”

As her friends nodded, Applejack raised a hoof.  “So, how long is this here ritual going to take anyway?”

Twilight swallowed.  “I said it was simple.  Once I have the combinations, I could bring him here within a minute.”

Nervous looks were exchanged.  Rainbow Dash grinned, smashing her front hooves together as Rarity and Pinkie placed theirs on Fluttershy’s shoulder.  The shivering pegasus nodded and smiled amiably.  Applejack tilted her hat down.

“Ain’t no time better than the present.”

Twilight nodded as her horn began glowing. Ribbon-like purple tendrils spread from a bright light at the tip.  The magic ribbons crawled over the area like determined feelers.  Fluttershy squeaked as one moved across her flank, while Pinkie Pie giggled at the tickling touch that danced over her face.  All of the tendrils suddenly raised in tandem as Twilight strained with closed eyes.  Turning like snakes, the ribbons dove together toward a single point at the center of the library, the tips colliding together into a single glowing point.  To Cheerilee, it looked like the magic “limbs” were reaching into some kind of hole.

“Almost... have it.  I’ve got something,” Twilight said with effort.

“Oh,” Pinkie exclaimed.  “Get a teddy bear!  Careful though, they’re kind of heavy and you just know that they pick the heavy ones and make the claw too weak and does it have any candy in there?”

The tendrils reversed, pulling out of the tiny portal.  Twilight grinned like a satisfied fisherpony as something solid started to enter her world through the glowing light.

Rarity breathed out.  “Girls, I do believe it’s showtime.”

Red’s breath caught as the Elements of Harmony levitated into the air with flashing lights and spinning dances.  He reach a careful hoof around his shivering wife as she buried her face into his fur at the imminent arrival of Discord.

Rainbow Dash stared at the object breaching into Ponyville through the veil of dimensions,  “Wait a second.  Is that a doorknob?”

Books flew and ponies scattered as the opening in space tore, releasing a funhouse slightly smaller than the library inside it.  Ponies ran for cover as parts of her roof fell among the hurrying Elements.  The bookshelves of the Ponyville library tensed as the multicolored building expanded. The meticulously organized volumes spilled onto the floor as the shelving shattered.  

Twilight sat immobile as floorboards of her home separated and windows exploded outward into the streets.  She quickly surveyed the locations of her friends, noting Rainbow pulling Applejack off the ground by the indignant applebucker’s tail.  Rarity’s chest heaved as she levitated a cloud of falling beams above her and Fluttershy.  “Go,” the sweating unicorn whispered to the terrified pegasus.  The screams of other unseen friends mixed together with the roar of shattering wood into a heart-rending din in Twilight’s ears.

Twilight’s eyes narrowed as calculations swam in front of her eyes.  Purple light flashed inside the library.  The ponies disappeared a moment before a railing impaled the spot that Twilight had just occupied.

The ponies suddenly found themselves sharing a small corner in the basement.  Twilight breathed out as her count revealed everyone intact and accounted for.  

“All right,” she said. “Let’s get this--”

A heartbeat afterwards the first floor gave way entirely, dropping the funhouse and an avalanche of books into the basement only a few hooves away from the Elements of Harmony and their friends.  With a final shudder, the former library surrendered completely, the split open tree releasing clouds of dust into the sky of Ponyville.

Twilight helped Cheerilee up as they coughed in the dust.  

“Well,” the teacher said with feigned cheer, “that was unexpected.”

Everpony’s eyes were drawn to the funhouse.  It was a large, dilapidated cottage painted in mismatching splashes that each glowed with their own hue.  The front was dominated by a massive bas relief of Discord’s head, his laughing mouth framing a door.  Two chimneys bellowed smoke out of his horns as the yellow-tinged window eyes regarded the ponies with seeming disdain.

Applejack whistled.  “That there is the ugliest barn I’ve ever seen.”

Rarity stepped in front of her, her necklace glowing as she snorted.  “My sister is in that barn, dear.  Let’s crack it open.”

The door gently swung open, revealing a mirthful Discord.  The calm draconequus sipped from a shotglass full of chocolate milk, looking placid in sunglasses and a red smoking jacket.  He lifted the glasses as he cast a disapproving look at the fallen wreckage.

“Well, well,” he said with a snort, “the housing values sure have fallen around here.”

“Discord,” Twilight said.

He cocked an eyebrow.  “Yes?  Are you going to reproach me now?”

She pawed the ground with her hoof.  “Not this time.”

A yellow blur flashed in front of Twilight, imposing herself in front of Discord.  Twilight thought with a shudder that the debris-coated disheveled Fluttershy looked just like she had at the Gala all those years ago.

“I can’t believe you, you monster!”  Fluttershy’s hooves were held in a punching stance as she hovered inches away from the impassive Discord.  “Breaking someone’s home is bad enough, but kidnapping children is unforgivable!”

Discord touched the bottom of her chin gently.  “Oh, don’t forget the torture, dear Fluttershy.  After all, without that I’m just running a guerrilla babysitting service.”  He drank down his glass, leaving a mass of chocolate milk in his hand.

As Fluttershy tried to find words, Red leaned in to Cheerilee to whisper.  “You... you bucked that thing in the face?”

She swallowed.  “Yes.  I hope he doesn’t remember.”

Rarity screamed and telekinetically threw a broken bookshelf at the draconequus.  The monster snapped his fingers, reducing it to a shower of chocolate chips.

Twilight coughed.  “Girls?  Time to turn those Elements on.”

Six hovering ponies illuminated the basement. The laughing monster threw his chocolate mass against the wall, the brown cylinder bouncing out of sight.  “Well then, enough of this jibber jabber!  Have at you!”
______

Screwball screamed as she fell off of her bed.  The prone teen scanned her room attentively.  Cheerilee had lit a candle on the nightstand before leaving.  She had kissed Screwball and smiled, noting that lighting a bedroom candle during the day was how their family worked.  Screwball listened, but couldn’t hear Red or Cheerilee’s voices elsewhere in the house.

“Me knew it was something scary.”  She yawned as she walked into the bathroom by moonlight.  Screwball dipped her face into the sink, blowing bubbles into the still water.  

WaIt a SECond. mE feLl asleEP.  WhErE is DisCOrD?

Screwball lifted her head up from the water, barely registering the dark red blur in front of her.  She rubbed the water out of her eyes and screamed as Cheerilee beat on the glass from the other side of the mirror.

“Help me,” the terrified mare said through tears.  “Help me, please.”
> Chapter 5: Dream Warriors
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


A Nightmare in Ponyville
by Paleo Prints
Chapter 5: Dream Warriors



As the blood drained from Screwball’s face, a little of it managed to reach the bathroom sink counter.  She didn’t notice.  Shaking, she wiped a hoof across the flat pane of glass before her.

“No,” she said, refusing to believe what she saw.  Despite this command, reality rudely refused to shape up and start making sense.

The bathroom “mirror” was, in all truth, barely functional.  Perhaps it would have been best to return it, if the mirror salespony who saw it wouldn’t have immediately gone insane from the revelation.  Currently, the glass in question was doing an epically poor job of reflecting things, instead showing a grimy public bathroom.  Pipes burst from the wall like roots breaking free of a sidewalk, continually shrouding the floor in a heavy mist.  Screwball’s bedroom was lit by a small candle, whereas, the scene in the mirror was maddeningly brighter, lit by flashing ceiling lights.

Of course, the big flaw in its performance was that Screwball wasn’t the mare reflected in it.

“Mom,” Screwy whispered.  “Mom, how did he... ”

“I’m sorry,” Cheerilee said as she pushed her hooves against the glass, straining towards her daughter.  “I’m so sorry.”

Cheerilee turned away as a scream reached Screwy’s ears.  It was faint, as if it came from a long distance away.  

“Mom,” Screwy begged.  “Mom, talk to me.  Please!”

Cheerilee shook once, then slowly turned back into view, a slight smile across her face.  “Calm down, Screwball.  Daddy and I need your help, so please pay attention to what I’m about to say.”

Screwball sat down, nodding attentively.

Cheerilee breathed in, holding her composure and confidence in place on in her mind as they both screamed and tried to run.  After the moment her emotions sat down quietly at their desks, the mask was in place, and Cheerilee began the lesson.
___

Every shelf of the Ponyville Library held a different challenge for Twilight Sparkle.  The books on magical theory shared authors and subjects with those of magical engineering, and the nuanced cataloging therein provided many a lively debate in cafes near the Canterlot Library.  The children’s books constantly required reorganization, binding repair, and food removal.  At least they stayed where they were, unlike the illusion books.

All of these constant struggles passed through her mind as the hippo in the luchadore mask missed her with a belly-flop, reducing the final shelf of the library (Early Equestrian History, Dream Valley to 500 P.M.) to splinters.

As the wrestler looked about in confusion, Twilight shook her head.  Partly, it was the shock of seeing her last battlefield of literary order destroyed so pointlessly.  It also shook her mane out of her sight while she stood upside down on the ceiling, or at least what was left of it.  She filed the mental volume “Things I’ll Cry Over” in her backmost mental shelf as she carefully leapt between the separate, splinter-covered beams of the destroyed basement roof.  

Galloping down a fractured sections of board barely as wide as she was, Twilight skidded to a halt.  Directly underneath her, Pinkie was working hard to pull an irritated Rainbow Dash out a pile of slime.  The accumulated ooze had splashed out of a destroyed pony-sized snail-shell on tank treads, the large monstrosity having holes in the side as if something had blown through it.

Filing the scene in her mental drawer labelled “Don’t Think About Too Carefully,”  Twilight called down to the pair.  “Pinkie!  Rainbow!  We need to get everyone together to use the Elements!”

Pulling herself to her hooves, Rainbow Dash punted a goo-covered army helmet across the room.  “That’d be a great if we could just stop fighting the peanut gallery for a second.”  She peered at Twilight skeptically.  “Can you activate the elements upside-down?”

“Silly Dashie,” Pinkie giggled out while bouncing.  “I can do everything upside-down!”  She bit her lip.  “Except croquette.  I tried twice.”

Grinding her teeth, Twilight said, “Just get the girls together!  I see Fluttershy near the squid ballet, and... ”

Twilight ducked closer to the roof as a shattering of wood sent Rainbow and Pinkie scattering.  Beneath her, a muscular armadillo in sunglasses pulled its boxing glove out of the wreck of the floor, snorting in Rainbow’s direction.

Rainbow Dash grinned, eyes locked with the boxer as she pawed the ground.

Across the wooden wasteland, Cheerilee peeked out from under the makeshift shelter of several scattered bookshelves.  She stared out onto a candy-coated confusion, the room having become a nightmare of bright colors and odd shapes from which one of her friends would occasionally surface through the chaos.  For a second, she saw Applejack and Rarity leap into the air above the crown, pursued  by a school of flying gummy sharks, and then they were lost to view amongst rotating posts studded with candy corn spikes.

“They’ve lost control,” she muttered.  “Red, what are they going to do now?”

Next to Cheerilee, her husband appraised the mess.  Explosions sounded out constantly as multicolored materials splattered against the walls.  The screaming and the insane besieged a small group of responsible ponies as they tried with all their might to finish their task.  Through all this, the troublemaker in charge hovered over the din, cackling maniacally.

Honestly, it reminded him of his fourth period chemistry class.

Red Glare sighed.  While his principal would have said he lived with danger, it was more of an impersonal danger he and his students caused instead of things willfully trying to smash him.  Still, he had stuck his head over enough beakers and manually launched enough rockets by his own hoof to keep calm under pressure for at least another minute  With a quick kiss to Cheerilee’s cheek, he resolved to make use of the next fifty-six seconds before he started screaming.

“Red,” Cheerilee said with a gasp as he climbed out of the shelter and onto the bookshelves.  “What are you doing?”

Grunting as he remembered why he didn’t teach physical education, Red pulled himself onto the slanting platform of furniture.

“Getting the class’ attention, honey.”  He sighed, then, in a louder voice, said, “You know, Cheerilee, I heard this guy was funny.”

The room was suddenly silent.  A squad of oyster-headed gangsters lowered their gumdrop-firing tommy-guns as the woolly mammoth hockey players-skidded to a halt.  A cloaked pony-shaped figure paused, gummy worms spilling out of his mercifully opaque covering.  Off to the side, Rarity took advantage of the sudden silence to sweep kick an overly large crab and enter the shadows..

They all stared at Red.  Discord appeared in front of him in a flash of light, his arms crossed.

“Excuse me,” he said with a wave of his claw.  “Did you just happen to say something?”

Red quaked on his feet.  Locking eyes with the Lord of Chaos, his mind fought hard to interject consonants in his next sentence.  Before he could try, he heard Cheerilee’s voice beneath him.

“I mean, you’re just mixing random animals and costumes," he heard her say.  "It’s kind of getting predictable.”

As Cheerilee walked towards Discord, her face a placid smile with a disappointed cast,  Red marveled at his wife.  In this terrible moment, he was sure that she wore the most perfect teacher’s mask of false calm that could have ever graced a classroom.  Red knew for certain that someplace far away, where it was always last hour planning and the teacher's room vending machines were always filled, the spirits of past educators applauded.

Discord gritted his teeth until one fang popped off, embedding into the wall.

“Oh, my critical little ponies.”  He lowered down and flicked a claw underneath Cheerilee’s chin, her smile staying firm despite the drop of blood on his nail.  “Celestia may one day make a stained glass window of what I’m going to do to you.  Children will beg their parents to take them out of the room it’s in, and wake up screaming that night.  Heavy metal album covers will be based on it, but they'll tone it down.”  He blinked, leaning in until Cheerilee could smell breath like a decade-old bag of Nightmare Night candy.  “How could you still be smiling, my dear?”

Cheerilee shrugged.  “Because I’m looking behind you.”

Discord spun, seeing the familiar sight of a rainbow shooting at him from six shimmering ponies.  

He rolled his eyes.“Oy, this meshugenah thing with the floating and the glowing again!”  

Levitating in a warm field of energy, Applejack was the only one of her friends to feel a spike of uncertainty.  She saw the grin on Discord’s face.  As the Rainbow of Harmony descended on Discord, he did something that none of the world-shaking would-be-conquerors had ever done in recent history.

He reacted.

Discord snapped his fingers, teleporting right in front of the Element Bearers a second before the prismatic beam hit him.  The rainbow turned in mid-air, twisting toward Discord’s new location

Twilight’s glowing eyes went wide, illuminating the room slightly more.  “He dodged it!  How could... ”

Discord snapped his fingers and dropped a prism half his size in front of the Bearers, then teleported right behind them.

“Uh, Twilight?”  Applejack kicked out, trying to move while suspended in midair.  “He’s kinda dodging right for us.”

Both Cheerilee and Red closed their eyes a second before he rainbow hit the prism.  They were or had taught science, after all, and had some idea of what was about to happen.  They saw the flash of light through closed eyelids just before the shattered colors of the rainbow poured out of the prism and hit the Bearers of the Elements as Discord simultaneously snapped his fingers.

Cheerilee hesitated for several seconds, hoping to hear the voice of her friends.  When the silence continued, she opened her eyes on a scene that burned a permanent place in the dark memories of her mind.

Twilight Sparkle tried to blink in surprise.  Two things prevented this. The first was that she was made of stone.  The second was that she was no longer Twilight Sparkle; each of the Elements of Harmony had been turned into a small bear staring dumbly ahead, their cutie mark emblazoned on their tummy.

Discord flew into the air over the six petrified post-ponies, pumping his fist into the air.  “Yes!”  His eyes were a mad gleam of triumph.  As he casts his gaze across around the room on his creations, every multicolored and misshapen knee or knee-equivalent bowed as the animals and candy-things lowered their gaze.  Discord took several bows, giving kisses to his silent audience.

As then Cheerilee’s knees shook as she made eye contact with him.

Discord skated across the room as his creations threw roses, rice, toast, and socks in his direction, finally skidding to a halt in front of the terrified teacher.  He spread his claws wide and smiled.

“Why, hello there Miss Book Reports! I’m sorry I couldn’t give you my full attention.  I had to deal with all the important ponies first.”

Cheerilee looked at her solidified friends “You shouldn’t have…” She swallowed. “Twilight once said you bragged about not turning ponies to stone.”

The triumphant trickster lord levitated closer until he blocked out her field of view. “My dear,” Discord said with a chuckle,  “you’d be surprised what a little frustration does to one’s comic repertoire.”  He reached an arm around Cheerilee’s shoulder, yanking her closer as she tried to pull away.  She shivered as he held her in place.

“Now, Cheerilee, there is one question you don’t want to ask.  One fact is screaming in your subconscious while your higher brain sticks fingers in it’s ear, shouting ‘La la la.’  Do you want to know what that one teeny fact is?”

Hyperventilating, Cheerilee shook her head frantically.

“Good,” Discord said with a nod.  “I’ll tell you, then.  After all of this mayhem and madness, the defeat of the elements, a handsome young god taking you in his arms,” Discord said as he floated three feet across the floor, dragging the terrified Cheerilee along.  “After all this,” he said with a grin, “why hasn’t your husband said anything.”

Cold ice poured over Cheerilee’s heart.

“All you have to do,” Discord whispered as he extricated himself from the quivering pony, “is turn around.”

Cheerilee shook on her hooves.  Her head dropped toward the floor for a moment before she pulled herself up.  Breathing in and out, Cheerilee started to say something before she saw Discord’s face.  His eyes were looking behind her, and he clicked his tongue as he shook his head.  

Cheerilee turned around, and the scream that had been suffocating inside her burst out as it broke the surface.  She fainted, and the nearly-omnipotent being beside her did not a single thing to make her fall less hurtful.

“Ah well,” she heard as consciousness spiraled out, “You know what they say.  Those who can’t, teach.”

___

“Dad!”

Screwball pushed her hooves up against the mirror, tears streaming as he breath made wet spots on the glass.  

“Daddy,” she said in a choked whisper.

Cheerilee placed her hoof on the matching part of the mirror, pressing against it as hard as she could.  

“Don’t worry.  Daddy’s here.  Discord wouldn’t let a plaything go so easily.  I’m... slipping away, dear.  The dreams are coming back.  It’s like I’m a forgetful actress remembering my lines.”  Pressing her face nearly against the mirror, Cheerilee wiped her streaming nose and eyes clear.  “My poor baby.  Listen carefully.  We’re all counting on you.  You know that nice farm girl I saw you with today?”

Screwball obediently nodded.

“You have to get to her,” continued Cheerilee as the lights in her bathroom flickered.  “Get Apple Bloom, and have her get the Crusaders back together.  One of them could speak a word and end this.”

Cheerilee turned away at the sound of a door splintering,  eyes wide as she took in the gigantic sword of coral that had pierced through the wood.  As it tore down through the door, Screwball could just make out a flurry of moving brown limbs like spears.

“It’s time,” Cheerilee said as she jumped onto the counter.  “I can’t let him find out!  Screwy, put your ear against the glass.  Remember this"

As her daughter tearfully complied, Cheerilee shielded her mouth with her hooves and whispered into the mirror.  She had just finished when the clacking, bipedal horseshoe crab grabbed her from behind and pulled her off the counter.  It raised it’s sword as Cheerilee screamed.

"Get us out, Sc-- "

Then Screwy only looked into her own eyes, and found no comfort there.

___

Thorn Seed walked along his living room, eyeing his potted plants with the stony gaze of a drill sergeant.  He knew that his success in business could have bought large, extravagant green rarities with sweet, buttery blossoms.  Thorn didn’t care.  Lined up along a table his wife knew better than to touch were many small ferns and flowers in unassuming pots.  Individually, none of them were over six inches tall.  Taken together, they were the dozen most difficult-to-grow plants in Equestria.

The spiky vine he was watering now cost as many bits as a small house.  On the opposite end of the display was a light violet flower that would barely net a hoofful of coins at a swap meet.  Thorn made no distinction between these two excluding their gardening requirements.  He could always buy rare plants.  Thorn’s joy was in practicing a skill to draw something of worth out of difficulty.

That was why he sighed when a lightning flash revealed Screwball out in the rain in the garden.

“Petal?”  Thorn continued to snip at a thorn limb as he called into the kitchen.  “Petal, could you deal with the kid?”  No answer was forthcoming; she had most likely already left for her bridge group.  Placing down his pruning shears out of irritation, (expensive ones with a tasty cork handle: some luxuries he allowed himself), he sauntered towards the door.

“Damn kid would probably drown if she looked up at the rain for too long.”

Screwy was standing in the middle of Thorn’s business experiments, head lowered nearly to the floor.  She looked for all the world like she was having a staring contest with a tile.  Screwball lifted her head as Thorn walked closer, her beanie propeller slowly ceasing to spin.

“Hello, Grandma,” she said.

Thorn winced as he approached.  “It’s Grandpa, okay?  I know your mother lets you get away with that, but let’s clear this up while she’s away.  What are you doing out here in the rain?”

Screwball shrugged.

Thorn lifted a forelimb to rub the bridge of his muzzle.  “Look, honey, you got to get inside.  This is my business clipping lab.”  He gestured widely around the garden.  “I can’t have you... ”

Thorn stopped.  The garden had changed.

The large fenced-in backyard had always been a mess, the tiled floor covered with dirt while pots of prospective crops spread out over every table.  Tools were always out, ready for Thorn to decide to come out and tinker with the greenery.  Plants came in and out so much that implementing any system of organization seemed useless.

Screwball raised her head inside her grandfather’s newly cleaned, organized, and water-proofed labeled planting yard and shrugged as he gaped in silence.

“Well,” she said.  “Let’s pretend me didn’t spend a little time on it.”

Thorn sputtered, ignoring the rain.  “But, they’re even organized by species!  I was here fifteen minutes ago!  How could you possibly do this?”

Screwball bared her teeth as she glared with one red, quickly spiraling eye.

“I’m special, Grandfather Thorn.  Not an idiot.”  She took an angry step towards him, sending him stumbling back in surprise.  “Totally off topic, Grandfather.  I’ve always been able to get your names right.”  She smiled without friendliness.  “Me making you uncomfortable has nothing at all to do with the way you treat Red, me promise.”

Thorn stood in silence for a while, basking in Screwy glare as the rain poured down on him.  “Look,” he finally said, “maybe we should talk about this.  Have you seen my daughter?  Do you know where Cheerilee is?”

Screwball turned away, walking to a vase with three flowers.  She sniffed them, leaving a drop of red running down a petal as she pulled her head away.  “I know what’s happened to my mother.  You’d never believe me, though. I’m leaving now, to do what I have to do.  And if I never come back, remember that we talked here.”  She walked towards the door, turning back just at the end.  “I didn’t want you to think that your poor, retarded granddaughter drowned by looking up in the rain.  I wanted you to know that I tried at the end.”

Thorn just stared as Screwy turned away and left.

___


Thunder sounded as Snails lifted his lantern over the crater that used to be the Ponyville library.  Four pairs of eyes stared into the settled heap of sawdust, planks, and books nestled between the split halves of the local landmark.

“I’ll get the bike running,” Scootaloo whispered.  As she walked away, the yellow-feathered thing that perched on the crater’s edge warbled mournfully, then turned to follow her.

Snips said nothing.  It wasn’t  funny anymore.

“Well,” Apple Bloom said quickly, “maybe they went somewhere!  They might be hopping around in some kinda other world, or maybe... ”

“Give it a second,” Snails said.  Apple Bloom followed as he walked around the rim of the crater, stopping only as his hoof finally nudged a stray copy of “The History of Unicorn Magic” toward her.

“What?”  She squinted at the book.  “I don’t-- ”

“Give it a second,” he chided her.

For a moment, nothing happen.  Then a small sound of hope cracking sounded as the first drop of rain fell on the cover.  There was an expectant moment of held breath before several of its comrades began their sky-dropped assault on the book.

“Nope,”  Snails said with a shake of his head.  He look up to see his girlfriend shaking, tears running down her cheeks.

“B-b-but... Twilight Sparkle wouldn’t have let that happen!”  Apple Bloom poked the wet book with her hoof.  “Not in a jillion years.”

Snails calmy wrapped his mouth around the book and picked into up, passing it into Apple Bloom’s saddlebags and closing them tightly.  As the patter of rain picked up its voice, he stepped forward and kissed her silently and quickly, then ran his hoof down her cheek.

Moments later the sound of a motor sped away from the town as the storm pounded the library’s crater, washing ink from scattered books into running tears across the Ponyville streets.

___

Screwball walked through the darkness of Ponyville, alone except for the clatter of the rain.  The streetlights were lit, but even the fireflies seemed subdued tonight.  No candlelight peeked out of the houses, their windows all shuttered away.

Screwball stood in the dark for awhile before the voice called out to her.  It was familiar and friendly, but unexpected.  Whenever Screwball had heard it previously it was always at the edge of her vision, the family friend who visits but somehow keeps his distance at get-togethers.

“Empty, eh?  Yeah, that’s the way it always gets when there’s monsters about.  I always think of it like a play where the extras budget ran out.”

Down an alley a new light had turned on on top of a blue barn.  Sitting in its open door was a brown earth pony in a trench coat that Screwball had seen often, but never quite gotten to know.

As she walked towards the blue barn, Screwy asked, “Uncle John?”

Inside the box was Ponyville’s eccentric brown-coated tinker, wrapped in a trench coat and worry.  Heavy thoughts were visible in his eyes.  Although Screwy had a talent for grasping the bizarre, most ponies distrusted the odd ex-traveller with the confusing name of “John Smith.”

Few ponies knew the reason for the odd, foreign name.  It was a perfectly traditional name from where he came from, but you would have had to put away the geography books and pick out a few science ones to locate it.

Standing a few hooves away from the barn, Screwball stared into John Doo-Smith’s eyes and decided that honesty had been working fine for her so far.  “Have you seen Ditzy?  I don’t need help, and you like me better than she does.”

“That’s not true,” John said with his clipped Trottingham accent as he shivered, looking away. “I’ve always been quite fond of you.  Love the backwards talk, by the way.  Classic.  Really, a big fan.”

Screwball’s eyes narrowed.  “Ditzy avoids me whenever she visits.  You always stay near.”

He stepped down out of the box and sighed.  “Well, I admit I’ve been a bit ha... Hooves off.  I can’t screw you up, Screwball.”  As she cocked her head, John Doo-Smith continued.  “You’re special.  Wonderful.  Unique.  You just might have a magnificent destiny ahead of you, and I have to not meddle.”  He shrugged.  “If you... if everything works out, why don’t you sleep over at our house?  I’ll tell stories until dawn, I promise.”

Screwball approached him, her spiraling eyes unreadable.  “If everything doesn’t work out, I’d hate that.  If things... ‘work out,’ it won’t matter.”

John breathed in.

“Screwball,” he said, standing to gently adjust her beanie. “Dear, little not-confused Screwball. So many would say you’re confused, but you see a lot more clearly than anyone catches on, don’t you?”

She swallowed and nodded.

John sat back down in the door of the small blue barn and offered a hoof.  “It’s honestly an honor to meet you.”

Screwball shook his hoof, then let her mouth dropped as she stared past John into the impossible vastness of the room inside the blue box.  Her eyes spun wildly as connection sparked in her head.  “It’s smaller on the inside!  You’re not the Wizard of the Travelling Box!”

The strange stallion chuckled, scratching the back of his mane uncomfortably. “They still tell that story, eh?  Maybe I should have double-checked Starswirl’s notes.”

“Help me.”  Screwball said as she shivered.  “Oh, please help me. Something twirly-whirly crazy is going on.”  She wetly coughed before continuing.  “If you have the Travelling Box, if you’re really a time traveler, please help me stop this from happening.”

“Don’t strain yourself,” he said with a sigh.  “If there’s a wall in your head, get around it.  Screwy… Can I call you Screwy?”

She nodded.  He seemed inordinately pleased with the permission, like someone who had been told they could address the Princess as Celly.

“Screwy, does your Mom take you to a lot of plays?”

The excited teen jumped up and down. “Labyrinth is the worst play ever!  I haven’t seen it fifty-three times!”

He snorted.  “You should meet the actual Goblin King.  Not half as nice as Ziggy Stardust.  Anyway, do you ever see plays where bad things happen?”

Screwball nodded.

“Screwy, what happens if you ran on stage and prevented it?”

“T-the… ”  She held her nose.

John Smith waved a hoof irritated.  “I don’t need to bleed you dry.”  He pointed to the glowing light at the top of his strangely-placed shed.  “You’ve been sitting here long enough.  If I’m a wizard,  then maybe my box works magic.  While I’m here, just for right now, why don’t you try not forcing it?  We were talking about interfering, and what would happen.”

“The play would stop, and... ”  Screwball’s eyes went wide as her sentence sputtered off, slowly reforming into a toothy grin.  Locking eyes with John, she loudly projected, “I’d get thrown out, and Red would complain about the ticket prices, and this doesn’t hurt!”  Screwball leapt into the air spinning as she screamed.

“Mountains are tall!  Ponies have hair!”  As she dropped onto the ground, leaving little dust clouds. ‘I’m speaking fluent normal!”

He looked at her sternly. “You’re speaking like others.  Boring, humdrum others who are not Screwball and would be jealous if they understood what that meant.  Don’t ever worry about being normal.  Screwy, think about what would happen if you went back in time and prevented Discord’s rampages.  A lot of ponies would be happy, right?”

She nodded, thoughtfully.  “But, I wouldn’t be here.  Discord offered that to my Mom once.  She bucked him in the face.”  She smiled proudly.

“Ponyville girls.”  He shook his head. “Tell me about it.  Screwy, I wish I could help you, but it’s too risky.  I can change a few things here and there.  Little fixes in the flow of the river.  Still, there are events that have to happen.  I could try to stop Tirek from crafting the Bag of Darkness, prevent the rise of Nightmare Moon, or save a very dear earth pony friend of Luna and myself from a… bad day with the Smooze.  I could fix everything.  But if you change the most important parts of the play enough, it may stop being the play you recognize.” He shrugged.  “Heck, I could bring the whole theater crashing down.  The play is ‘Screwball Faces Discord,’ and its an important one.  This story has to start, and I can’t rewrite it.”

She slowly nodded.  “Does it have a happy ending?”

He breathed in sharply. “That I don’t know.  History kind of stumbles like a blindfolded drunk sometimes.  That’s not fixed.  But look up at the sky.  Look for just a second.”

Screwball cast two swirling eyes upward briefly, and then turned her attention back to John Doo-Smith.

“Okay, Screwball. How many stars did you see?”

“Three thousand, four hundred, and seventy-five.  Two are going nova, three are actually double stars, and one looks kinda funny and suspicious, like its slowly getting farther away.”  She cocked her head.  “Why?”

He stepped out of the doorway and placed both hooves on her temple. “Oh, that brain!”  He was almost hopping with giddiness as he spun Screwball around himself. “That amazing brain!  Discord had no idea what he made here, did he?  Screwball, I can’t fix this problem.  I know for a fact that you can.  Go out there, and have at ‘em!”

She nodded with bleary eyes. “Thank you.  Can I say something?  Not for you, but since I can say it now I’d like to say it even if I have to say it to you so can I… ”

He raised a hoof.  “Slow down before you get a nosebleed anyway, love.”  Sitting back on his haunches, he pulled a white paper bag out of his coat pocket and popped a piece of candy in his mouth. “I’m all ears.”

Screwball breathed in.  “Cheerilee is the best, most wonderful and caring mother and teacher ever.   Red’s always tries to cheer me up. Quest hears even the things I don’t say. I love them all very much.”

John Smith nodded with a smile, standing up.  “I have to go, Screwy.  I may have already affected your story too much, and I have to get Ditzy and our children to safety.”  He reached over to grab the barn door, then stopped in mid-pull.  John breathed in slowly as he looked at Screwball.  “I’m not used to running away after hearing the phrase, ‘Help me.’  I’m sorry.”

In response, she threw her forelegs around the strange stallion.  As she closed her eyes, he looked nervously in all directions and ventured a single hoofpat on her back.

“Uh… there, there.”

“Thank you,” she said as she pulled away. 

As John into the doorway he returned a quizzical look.  “What for?”

Screwball made eye-contact with John.  Having learned over years to stare into Ditzy’s eyes, it was easier than he thought.  

“Helping me,”  she said.  “That you for letting me talk, and thank you for listening”

He nodded, and Screwball turned and walked away.  Shortly, she heard a weird rumbling sound.  Turning back revealed an empty alleyway where the strange blue box had sat, and she nodded to herself.

“I… I can’t do this.”  She smiled. “My name’s not Screwball, I’m not special, and I can’t do this.”

___

Snips gave a skeptical look to the darkened inside of the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ tree-house.  He stepped off the gangplank onto the clubhouse floor with hesitation before quickly jumping off.  Standing there shivering in terror for a second, he turned around at the sound of giggling to see Apple Bloom barely containing herself as she stepped into the gloom.

“It’s not funny,” Snips said as he uttered a phrase which has never in the history of galactic intelligence stopped someone from laughing.  “Like, I weigh as much as three fillies myself.  How is this place still holding up?”

Shadows around Snips fled as a lantern filled with fireflies walked into the room.  Snails deposited the light in the center of the floor before turning to Snips.  He punched Snips in the side in the way boys comfort each other when girls are watching.

“Because Apple Bloom built it,” Snails said with a smile on his face.  “Things she touches last.”

A clattering noise stopped as Apple Bloom turned, ceasing to root around in one of many unlabeled crates of random doo-dads.  “Thanks,” she said with a blush barely visible in the lantern light.  “That was mighty poetic.”

“I will vomit,” Scootaloo said as she walked in and threw her biker goggles on a hat-rack made of spears.. “And I will do it in your mouths, lovebirds.”

Snips, leaning against a rusted tuba, shivered as Ponce walked in after Scootaloo.  “W-w-wait, that’d take great aim.  I mean, you’d only get a few seconds to-- ”

“You,” Scootaloo said with a smug smile, “have no idea how many cutie marks we practiced for.”  She stepped behind an ancient podium and tapped her hoof impatiently.  “So, where are we going to go now?”

Snips had been trying to pry open an old can of fruit, but dropped it at Scoot’s question.  It rolled along the floor until it hit a yellow-feathered talon.  Ponce leapt into the air, kicking his feet while the sound of metal buckling filled the air.  As the blood drained from Snip’s face, Ponce pick up the cleanly-opened can and placed it in front of Snips with a polite chirp.

“U-u-uh.  Thanks b-buddy.”  He telekinetically threw a slice of peach in the air, and the bird-reptile-thing caught it in his mouth easily.  “Anyway, why should we go anywhere?  This is k-kind of a shelter, after all.  We weather the storm.”

Apple Bloom swaggered up the the stage.  Holding a hoof out, she smirked at Scootaloo.  “Come on Snips.  Cutie Mark Crusaders never know when... ”

Scootaloo snickered, pounded her hoof into Apple Bloom’s.  “... to stay out of the rain,” she concluded.

“Among other things,” called an aggravated voice from up the gangplank.  A violet-white mane that had gone from perfectly styled to dripped in an hour crowned the morose head that entered the door. “Is Sweetie Belle still slumming with you miscreants in this place?”

Scootaloo slammed her head onto the podium.

“Diamond Tiara?”  Apple Bloom grinned the nervous grin of a Royal Guard watching a changeling strut around Canterlot.  “Why, what a weird coinci-- ”

“Can it, Hayseed.”  Diamond Tiara said as she whipped her wet mane back and forth.  “Where’s Sweetie Belle?  In fact, where’s every teen and kid in Ponyville except for us?  Spill it.”

Apple Bloom stepped from one leg pair to the other.  “Why, ah just don’t know-- ”

Diamond rolled her eyes as she climbed onto a stool.  “Oh, come off of it, Hammer-butt.  You and her have Elements of Harmony in your families.  Anything weird in this town get discussed over your dinner tables.”  She leaned in with an eager smile.  “Now, your old newspaper editor wants the real story.”

Snips looked down at the can of peaches he was levitating slices out of.  He then turned his gaze from the chummy grin of Diamond Tiara to Ponce’s fanged mouth, chewing on a broomstick.  His head bobbed back and forth between the two.  Shrugging, he scooted over and threw a forelimb around Ponce’s neck.  As the primeval beast made a curious squeak, Snips tried to put on his best non-threatening smile.

“You know, considering the choices, you’re okay in my book, pal!”

“SQUUEEEONK!”  Ponce drew a amused shudder from Snips as he ran a long tongue against the pony's cheek.

“Look,” Snails said with a calculating eye on Diamond Tiara.  “This might sound weird, but Discord’s been kidnapping ponies in their sleep and hurting them in the dream-world.”

Diamond clicked her tongue.  “And your plan would be?”

"You believed that?"  Scootaloo leapt over the podium, slamming hard onto the floor and drawing a whimper from Snips.  “Hold on a sec!  It can’t be that easy!”

Shaking her head, Diamond shrugged.  “Scoots, since we were little fillies any trouble in town has had at least one of you three running toward it.”  She snorted.  “If something weird is here, you’ll be in the middle.  Duh.”

Wavering on her feet, Scoots leaned against Apple Bloom for support in a world gone mad.

Diamond threw an impatient hoof around Snails’ neck, pulling him closely yet not gently.  “So, you were about to tell me what we’re doing to get my friend back.”

A lightning bolt illuminated the outside, and for one terrified second Snips thought that the gates of insanity had flung wide and another Diamond Tiara had arrived to torment them.

“We could go to him,” Screwball declared from the doorway  “We could find him in the world of dreams, and fight him together, couldn’t we?”

Snails pushed Diamond Tiara off and trotted over, bouncing with excitement.  “You made a clear statement without implying the value of truth, didn’t you?”

Screwy shrugged with a coy smile.  “There may or may not be a wall in me head.  Somepony might or might not have suggested I find ways around it.”

“Clever girl,” Snails replied with his eyes alight.

Scootaloo heard the click of teeth grinding.  A quick glance at Apple Bloom’s jealous grimace sent a flash of pride through Scoots’ heart.

“Hey, Hayseed,” she whispered in Apple Bloom’s ear.  “If that’s how eggheads flirt, you better step in.”

“Ah certainly intend to.”

Apple Bloom stepped towards the pair, heavy hoofsteps ringing throughout the tree-house.  Diamond Tiara and Scootaloo shared a look of mutual anticipation for the first time.  Watching the scene, Snips decided to stay safe in the corner with the vicious predator.

“Excuse me,” Apple Bloom sneered as she stepped between Screwy and Snails.  “Could you stop making goo-goo eyes at my boyfriend.”

Screwy blinked, her spirals reversing in confusion.  Snails stopped, his quick mind mind grinding to a halt in the face of impending relationship danger.

“She can’t,”  Snips said, drawing the surprised look of the assembled teens.  Shrugging away his thoughts of continued existence, Snips stood and readied for the screaming.  Tartaurus, he thought, might as well go all out.  “Goo-goo eyes is k-k-kinda her normal state of being, Aby.”

Diamond Tiara giggled, happy to be back in her comfort zone of laughing at people’s differences.  Astonishingly for Snips, almost everyone else completely lost it as well.  Even Apple Bloom had switched from anger to stark surprise.  He looked from Screwy to Diamond, shivering as they snickered.  It’s like taking her and making a warped, imperfect reflection of her in a twisted funhouse mirror.  He shrugged.  Well, a warped reflection without a beanie, anyway.

Before the confrontation could resume, Screwy bowed low to Aby.  As she rose, Apple Bloom tried to interpret those spinning eyes.  They were a curtain of mystery over a locked box of bouncing thoughts.

She snapped out of it when Screwy said, “You two fit.”

“Huh?”

Screwball coughed before continuing.  “Me would always try to come between you two.  You fit like mismatching puzzle pieces.  Splitting you two up would bring chaos to the world, and me’d love to do that to friends..”

Apple Bloom quavered on her hooves for a second, the room spinning as she took in Snails’ smile.  “Um,” she began, “Um.”  Awkwardly returning the smile, she whispered to Scootaloo, “We don’t have any extra capes to pin on her, do we?”

“So, this is lovely,” Diamond Tiara said as she idly rapped on the podium.  “I’m here because I’ve invested too much time making Sweetie Belle not a Cutie Mark Crusader to let her go.  How are we going to do this?”

Throwing a hoof backwards through her hair, Scootaloo shot a gloating smile at Diamond.  “By working like Cutie Mark Crusaders.  Apple Bloom, you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Ah think so, Scoots, but we never did add enough cinnamon.”  Confusing even Screwball, Apple Bloom dug through a row of ancient cardboard boxes until she pulled out a stoppered flask of brown liquid, inside which green sparklers swirled.

“Ah, yeah.”  Scootaloo gave a little stomp on the floor, which made Ponce’s head snap to attention.  “Cutie Mark Crusader Barristas ride again.”

As Screwy and Snails looked with wide eyes at the glowing potion, Snips blinked.  “All my whats.”  

Scootaloo almost ran across the floor to stare at the bottle.  “This, fillies and gentlecolts, is the last sealed bottle of Sweetie Belle’s cappuccino from our coffee stand.  I love Sweetie, but Aby was always the group alchemist.”

“Wait,” Snips yelled indignantly, “she lets you call her Aby?”  He crossed his forelimbs.  “Not fair at all.”

“Anyways,” Aby said with a smile, “this here coffee drink will send you right to dreamland with one sip.  It’s the best way to all go together.  So, are we ready to do this?”

An expectant look spread from pony to pony.  Snips breathed in.  “Well, it’s go time.  If anypony has to use the outhouse or make any soulful last minute confessions, now would be the time.”

Screwy bit her lip, turning to the pouring rain in the open door.  A flash of lightning illuminated distant Ponyville, and Snips thought she flinched as her eyes stared above the town.  She would never tell him what she saw.  Aby and Snails moved closer to each other, and as Snails breathed in to speak Scootaloo totally ruined the moment as she said, “I got one.”

She threw her hoof in Diamond Tiara’s direction, drawing an amused raise of the eyebrows from the young socialite.  “Okay, I’ll shoot.  Why?”

Diamond pursed her lips.  “More specific, please?”.

“Diamond, you had a raging wing-boner for years to tell us all what useless ponies we were.  I’ve heard almost everything out of those rancid lips of yours.”

“Wow,” Dia said.  “Such diplomacy... ”

Ponce lowered his head, snarling at Diamond Tiara.  Snips shuddered, hoping that Scoot's tone set off the beast.  He may have shared a moment with the feathered thing, but Snips didn’t want to consider that Ponce spoke Equestrian.

“No,  I still don’t get you."  Scootaloo bit her lip, hesistating for a second before taking a deep breath.  "If I’m gonna let you have my back when it counts, you gotta answer me this. Out of everything you could have said about me, why didn’t you ever mention my wings?”

Apple Bloom drew in a sharp breath, and scanned the room to see if their old first aid kit was still here.

“Because that was the one thing that was never your choice.”  Diamond Tiara stared at Scootaloo with curious eyes, waiting patiently.

Scoots nodded.  “Good enough.  All right, everybody get in a circle, sing “Celestia Loves the Little FIllies, and give me the bucking bottle.  It’s party-time.”

___

When the serious-looking stranger walked into her class, she knew something had gone wrong.

Cheerilee’s day had already been a gauntlet of obstacles and horrors.  Filing Sluice’s withdrawal papers was time-consuming enough.  Combined with her meeting with Bomber’s parole agent, she had lost her entire planning period.  As Cheerilee heard the stampede of her class fleeing the confines of Luna's School for Disadvantaged Youngsters, her hopes had risen that she might find a single moment of solitude and satisfaction.  

After five minutes of powering through the stack of disappointment called “quizzes,” the knock sounded at her door.

“Is there a Miss Cherry Lee in there?” The voice asked.

The voice was respectful and officious, with the hint of an Appleloosan accent.  Inwardly, Cheerilee groaned.  Well, here comes another parent to remove their child.  Another one bites the dust.

“Come in,” she called out cheerfully, her professional mask settling into place.

She would have never been able to describe the stranger who walked in.  She got the vague impression of an unremarkable office drone, but her brain refused to process any further.  It was currently screaming as someone magically slammed its fingers into a drawer again and again, and Cheerilee only knew that she had a headache that wouldn’t leave.

“Sit down, please,” she said as she gestured to the least rusty desk and massaged her temple.  “I hope you don’t mind if I keep grading.  What seems to be the problem?”

The stranger sat down, clutching his briefcase - were those polka dots, Cheerilee briefly thought before the drawer slammed with renewed force- and then sighed.  “I have some bad news, Miss Cheerilee.  It’s about the field trip.”

Cheerilee made eye contact, then looked away as her irises started to burn.  I need more sleep.  “You’re quite mistaken, sir.  I didn’t go to the mine today.”  Only a dentist could tell how Cheerilee ground her teeth inside her pleasant smile.  “That’s why I’m the only non-sub in the jungle today.  All the others teachers went.”

“Miss,” he said as he adjusted his Groucho glasses, “I regret to inform you that nopony’s coming back from that field trip.  Ever.”

Cheerilee’s pencil fell out of her mouth, rolling across the desk until it fell into the trash.  Something in the laws of physics conspired to make it land in the nastiest thing in the bin, despite the actual arrangement of garbage.

“Please explain.”

“There was a localized tremor.  A cave-in happened.”  He spread his mismatched arms.  “We would have mounted a rescue, but the river got into the shaft and filled it up.”

Cheerilee’s eyes burned.  “This isn’t happening,” she stammered out. Her mind agreed with her, and screamed as white hot nails pierced it.  She didn’t hear.  “Red, Globe, Golden, and all those children.  They can’t be... ”

He suppressed a snicker.  “‘Fraid so, Miss.”

Five minutes later the test papers were soggy and unreadable under Cheerilee’s spread forelimbs, her shaking head lying on top of it.  He ate some popcorn.

“Wuh.”  She rubbed her nose while trying to look him in the eye.  “Was it over quickly?”

“Not at all, ma’am.”  He saw her face crack.  “We figure that they-- ”

Then he convulsed in laughter, and Cheerilee heard her brain scream.

“I swear,” Discord said as he held his head in his hands.  “That absolutely never gets old.  The memory-wipe is totally worth repeating.”

Cheerilee lifted herself up on the desk.  “You.  You tricked me.”

He flailed around wildly, kicking back in the chair as he laughed into his hands.  “Yup!  I did that one hundred and forty seven times, and it keeps getting funnier every time I do it!”

Letting out a scream of rage, she leapt across the desk.  Cheerilee twisted in mid-air as hundreds of licorice tendrils snaked out of her desk, slamming her into the wood.  Her ribs suddenly knew how her brain was feeling.  A spray of water from Discord’s lapel flower kept her consciousness from sinking into the river it vainly paddled in.

“Oh, I vary it sometimes,” he continued.  “I did your mother and father a few times.  Actually once managed to convince you that everyone in Old Canterlot had disappeared!.  Anyhoo, I’m breaking character and my vicious cycle to do more than gloat.  She’s here.  Look’s like someone brought your daughter to the slaughter.”

Spreading his palms on the desk, he stared directly into Cheerilee’s widening eyes.

“Let the games begin.”

___

“Is there a Miss Cherry Lee in there?” The voice asked.
> Chapter 6: The Game
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Somewhere that wasn't, Cheerilee ignored the fallen stack of knocked over papers and the laughter of her class. For a moment, the walls seemed to be shadows, and someone she didn’t know (her brain screamed in disagreement) was whispering to her.

“Time to play the game,” the voice said with a chuckle.

Somewhere else that shouldn't be, Red Glare was distracted by the screaming of the class, the smell of the exploded rocket, and the prone form of his recent volunteer. As terrified students ran out of the school yard to find bandages (or a blanket, if they were sharp-eyed enough), Red saw a smiling face peak over the horizon.

“Time to play the game!” It declared in tones that shook Old Canterlot, or at least this version of it. It was altogether a a different "Old Canterlot" than Cheerilee was currently in. Here, what passed for Cheerilee was a depressive mess made of taffy that quarreled with Red constantly and left town without a forwarding address or died almost as often. She had just finished volunteering for a demonstration, and was now lying on the for next to (and among) the pieces of a rocket that a more awake and aware Red would have certainly realized was overstuffed with gunpowder.

As the echoes of the face’s voice faded away in Red’s ears, he forgot it (and all of that panic that had seemed to come from nowhere) within seconds as the class quieted down, ready for the demonstration, and Cheerilee helped him steady the rocket.

“Remember to step away when I light this,” he uselessly reminded “Cheerilee,” unable to see the marionette strings that held her together. “We only get one shot at this.”

___

Somewhere, in a house that sat on the corner of madness and laughter, six young ponies opened their eyes hurriedly as a voice screamed mirthfully into their ears.

“It’s all about control, my little ponies, and if you can take it.”

As Scootaloo and Screwball’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, Snips and Snails blinked in the sunlight and overgrowth, and Applebloom and Diamond stood up in the sand, all of them heard the same declaration ringing in their mind.

“I am the game, and I want to play!”

___

The sound of groaning machinery filled Scootaloo’s ears as she lifted her head off the floor, All around her pipes bulged and gears crumpled against each other, screaming their protests into the claustrophobic spaces. The room was dimly-lit, illumination filtering in through cracks in the machinery, but she just could make out Screwball, already on her hooves and inspecting the area. Celestia, she adapts quickly.

Standing up with an unconscious wing flap she’d never admit to, Scootaloo coughed in the smoky-spicy air. “Where are we?”

Screwball kicked around some of the gear and screws. “Me am absolutely sure.” Her eyes spun as she huddled over the pile of pieces, limbs and mouth moving quickly and with purpose.

Scootaloo paced the enclosure, a chill moving up her spine as she watched a kaleidoscope of light rays visibly flicker in the steam. The back of her brain had an inkling of where they were, but the middle had shouted it into silence. If that thought had gotten to the front, the whole thing would’ve shut down.

“Okay,” she said while coughing, poking the closed walls with her hooves. “This stuff is garbage.”

“Me thought it was very well made,” replied Screwball as she worked over a mass of rusty metal.

Rolling her eyes, Scootaloo pointed at a wall of gears. “No, Screwyball look at this. I’m a mechanic, remember? This stuff doesn't make sense. It could never run for very long with breaking the whole thing.” She whirled around, pointing a hoof at a wall of chains. “Those should have rubbed themselves into pieces against the gear teeth ages ago, and certainly not stuck around long enough to get rusty. Heck,” she said as she started to turn in a slow circle, “I think someone’s actually replacing parts when we’re not looking.”

Screwball looked up and sniffed. “Me have no idea why me are thinking of a play.”

“Yeah,” Scootaloo agreed as she examined a particularly intricate rectangle of pipes, “this is for our benefit. Now, I think we can get through this way. The stuff on this wall doesn’t move, and there’s a space for--”

A massive, patchwork collection of bits in the shape of a key was dropped in front of her.

Scootaloo poked it, pushing it over. All of the pieces fit into each other, locking in place like jigsaw puzzle pieces.

“Screwy,” she said with a grin, “you can come hang out in my garage any day.” 

While Screwball bounced happily, Scootaloo lifted the rusty object into a matching hole and turned it. With a click, all for walls fell away, taking the ceiling with them as they splashing into churning liquid.

“Me know where this is,” Screwball said as her eyes played amongst the girders and walkways. When no response came, Screwy looked at Scootaloo. The normally-confident and unflappable pegasus was silent and shaking. “Scootaloo, what isn’t this place?”

Screwy gestured below them to the multicolored vats of liquid that made up the entire floor. Not a single patch of solid surface lurked below their level. Looking down revealed churning pools of every color, bubbling over the thin separating walls as pipes pumped unidentifiable masses into them much too far down for Screwball to identify. Scootaloo wished she didn;t suspect what they were. The enormous room was an unsafe labyrinth of walkways, switches, and levers, suspended over the brilliant vats of sickly shades. At the end, prismatic clouds belched out of a gigantic furnace.

Screwball leaned onto Scootaloo, slightly nuzzling her neck. Scootaloo responded with a jolt, breathing heavily as the touch brought her back from whatever mental box he had hid away in. She looked into Screwball’s trusting, curious eyes and knew that she would have to give voice to her fears. Until then, it was only a suspicion, but she knew the moment she said it’s name there was no turning back.

“It’s... it’s nothing. Just an old story pegasus foals tell each other to scare themselves. It’s a story ab-b-bout where the bad and the u-useless get sent.” Scootaloo swallowed, steeling herself for the moment of truth. “I never believed in the Rainbow Factory, anyway.”

“Really, Chicken?”

Scootaloo’s eyes went wide at the familiar voice, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn around. She stared at the floor as hard as she could. As Screwball squinted in confusion above them, Scootaloo saw the shadow of a hovering shape around her. Wings drawn tight against her body, Scootaloo looked up at the hovering pegasus.

“Seems to me, you’ve always known that you’d end up here,” Rainbow Dash said with a smile.

___

Apple Bloom spat the sand out of her mouth as nudged Diamond Tiara. “Wake up. We’re here.”

Diamond rolled onto her hooves, coating her legs in the sand. “Where would here be, exactly?” As she rubbed her eyes, she heard Apple Bloom draw in a breath.

“Well now, It’s something of a right surprise.”

Diamond Tiara opened her eyes see the looming form of a swing set. There were several things wrong with this, she knew intellectually. One, the Ponyville Schoolhouse swing set had been replaced years ago. Two, it shouldn’t have been that big.

It was when she looked into the familiar eyes of the scared, blank flanked Apple Bloom that she knew where she was.

“Why...is it recess time?”

Apple Bloom snaked a limb around Diamond Tiara’s neck, pulling her off-balance. “C’mon. We gotta get out of here.” Apple Bloom’s voice sounded higher and scratchier to her, but she shrugged it off and focused on the danger at hoof. “Discord’s going to notice us any second now.”

Diamond blinked, trying to shake off a haze that clung to her head. “Discord? That sounds...”

“...quite unlikely,” said her tiara.

Apple Bloom scooted back a step, bouncing her rump on the iron swing bar. She blinked, and the tiara blinked. Each of the five rounded tips of Diamond’s tiara had a face on it, and they all smiled back at her with the same face.

“Hello, Apple Bloom,” they all said together. “How wonderful to have play time with you today.”

She took several unsteady steps toward the talking tiara. “Diamond,” Apple Bloom said as she tapped her on the forehead, “tell me that you hear that?”

The tiara shook it’s head, and Diamond Tiara followed suit.

“She didn’t hear anything,” the faces said smugly.

“I don’t hear anything,” Diamond declared as she stuck her nose in the air. “Except maybe a blank flank whining and touching me.”

“Oh, she’s good,” one of the faces said.

Another nodded. “I know she’s improving, but she barely needs directing as it is.”

Apple Bloom cast her eyes around the playground desperately. 

“Call out for Miss Cheerilee,” her hairbow suggested.

“Miss Ch--”

She snorted, yanking the ribbon out of her hair. Apple Bloom started to stomp on it until a forceful shove sent her onto her side.

As Apple Bloom, spit sand out of her mouth, she searched Diamond Tiara’s face for any signs of resistance. All she saw was the predatory smile that had haunted her dreams for years. “Come on Diamond, wake up. You’re better than this.”

Diamond leaned forward until their noses were almost touching. “You got it wrong, hayseed. I’m better than you.”

A chorus of giggling sounded from Diamond’s head, and Apple Bloom heard chuckling erupt all around her.

“Good work,” said all of the Silver Spoons as they surrounded Apple Bloom.

___

The jungle smelled wrong.

The scent’s curdled Ponce’s stomach. The plants sent a sickly sweet smell down Ponce’s nostrils, bark included. The rising mist crystallized onto the trees, and even the insects smelled like the strange food the Pink One delivered, the kind that had made Ponce sick when the Brave One had tried feeding her some.

Ponce stalked onward through the treeline, her foot-claws slicing through the gelatinous grass. A small thing rushed out of the underbrush, and Ponce snapped it’s head off in an instinctive flash. She retched the squirming thing back onto the ground, gagging. The insides of the prey were a solid white with black liquid inside. Ponce kicked the noxious thing away and ran on.

Hours later, she was starving and exhausted. The Brave One was nowhere to be found, and the squirming, shiny treats from the pond the Brave One gave her were also missing from the water. Ponce had tried to drink from it, but it had only been a solid mass of fruity gunk. She was on the verge of collapse now, weakened and frustrated as she lay on the side of a hill.

Then she heard the Brave One.

The Brave One was on the top of the hill, with the Squeaky One and She Who Builds. They were smaller now, as small as when they had first found Ponce. This time, the Three Who Were One Pack were baring their teeth at Ponce. 

The Brave One had always been kind, but she was laughing at Ponce now. The Three raised pointed sticks, and the Squeaky One threw one of the sticks at her with her glowing head point.

Ponce decided that if the Three wanted to eat her, she would let them. She was too tired. She closed her eyes. Perhaps in the Time Beyond, she would see her original pack.

As the wind shifted, a smell jolted her eyes open. The Brave One stood over Ponce, raising the pointed stick, but the Brave One smelled wrong. Instead of oil, sweat, laughter and regret, she smelled of candy, the wretched and awful candy that was everywhere. She Who Builds smelled sweetly-soured, and the Squeaky One stank like a block of the white that is held over fire.

Ponce leapt at her, snarling of anger and endings.

___

Snips heard the voices as he came down the stairs.

“He is a little on the heavy side, darling.”

“Have you seen the way he looks at me, Rarity?”

“Sweetie Belle, simply everypony has noticed. It’s by far time that we--”

They stopped as Snips entered the kitchen of Carousel Boutique. From the bottom of the landing he spared a brief glance at them both before ambling past into the kitchen. The two sisters shared a guilty giggle, averting their eyes.

That was why they didn’t see the scissors until too late.

“Hello, Snips,” Rarity said while averting her eyes. “You’re late ag--”

A glowing pair of fashion scissors flew through her tail. After a moist, sucking sound, Rarity’s tail fell onto the floor in a single, bouncy mass.

She sprang to her hooves as Sweetie Belle screamed. Snips turned to her, sweat running down his face in rivulets as he lifted a hoof to his mouth. “Hold still.” In the history of Equestria, that statement has worked fewer times than a bubblegum- based suit of full plate, and its track record improved not a bit as Sweetie Belle bounced across the kitchen floor.

The scissors flew through Sweetie, leaving a taffy-like chunk of tail at Snips’ hooves as she ran out the front door.

Snips breathed a sigh of relief as he regarded the second piece of candy and starting scanning the room, slowly stepping towards the door. Dozens of fashion scissors and (even a pair of garden shears) shined brightly as they slowly orbited him, points facing outwards. His composure cracked just before he stepped a hoof out the front door when Rarity called out, “Snips, please don’t leave me.”

He sighed, turning around to see her sprawled on her fainting couch, forelimb thrown across her brow. “Snips, darling, what brought you to perform such violence?”

“Well,” he said as he peeked out of the doorway, “I f-f-figured I’d better test...Wait, why am I talking to you?” He shook his head a few time. “Whoooh. Gotta watch that.”

As his hoof hovered over the welcome mat, Rarity stood up, whipping her mane around her in a way Snips could never forget. “I am appalled to think that, after all I taught you, you could you possible treat me like that.”

Kicking the doorframe in frustration, Snips whirled on “her” with gritted teeth. “L-l-look, we’ve been dancing around it quite a bit, but let’s come clean, sister. You’re a marshmallow. Y-y-you’re made out of marshmallow.” He breathed in as she advanced on him. “Y-y-you're just a d-distraction. I can’t hear you, la-la--” 

As "she" grew close a strange look gleamed in “her” eyes, and the marshmallow-thing made a smile that could have sold a line of perfume. “I could be much nicer than real.”

“What.”

“I could be such a sweet, soft marshmallow,” it said as it gave his face a fluffy nuzzle. “I hear once you stick them and warm them properly they just melt for you.”

Snips blinked. After thirty seconds of harsh metal slashing noises, he turned his back on the quivering pile of white parts and walked away. Just as he reached the door he stopped, looking back around with a snort. High on confidence, he shouted back at the bouncing pile of white cubes.

“My future sister-in-law is a proper lady, Discord.”

His head held high, he strode onto the front lawn, squinting at the horizon. Bladed instruments still spinning around him, he paced back and forth as he considered it.

“O-okay, so this is a play, right?” He kept talking to himself, knowing that he was only putting off the moment of terrible suspense that lurked ahead. “But instead of a budget of bits, you got one of concentration. I-I b-b-b-b-bet you fake some stuff. You can’t keep your attention on everything at once. Like that sunset over there. I bet it’s not that far off after all. Just small and really close.” He smiled. “After all, you probably expected that I’d be too busy...”

Snips closed his eyes and pawed at the ground for a second, then stopped. He opened them and stared at the distant, inconsistent trees with a still rage.

“My name is Snips,” he said as he took a step forward. “I cut things. My cutie mark is cutting things.” He was jogging at a good trot by then. “If I met Queen Majesty on the road,” he shouted, “I could cut her.”

Eyes wide open, he ran full tilt at a setting sun that did not move away.

“I will cut that wall. I will cut that sun! Discord, I’m g-gonna cut you out completely!”

Snips ran at the horizon until he cut the sky.

___

Four blue hooves landed on the girders, shaking the entire infrastructure of the room. Rainbow Dash flashed a toothy smile at Scootaloo and Screwball as the metal bridges vibrated over the bubbling pit.

“Well, Chicken,” the Rainbow-thing said, “looks like the floors aren't so stable.” She started walking forward, heavily slamming the metal underneath her with every step. “What’re you going to do when it collapses? Fly?”

Scootaloo stood still, shaking more than the ground could have caused her. She felt the girder lighten, and a quick glance behind assured her that Screwball had leapt onto a higher walkway a good ten hooves away. Typical, Scoots thought. They all leave.

“Aaaaand... you’re alone. Taking on the awesome and disappointed Rainbow Dash maro y maro.”

She was almost within a wingtips reach of Scootaloo. Rainbow started snorting and pawing the the metal lacework of the overhang as Scootaloo stared back at her.

“You know the legend.” Dash reared up in glee. “Useless fillies get turned into--”

A swinger girder slammed into Rainbow from the side, knocking her into the air. Her wings became a blur as she blinked and worked to right herself.

Scootaloo glanced up to she a grinning Scewball hopping from pipe to pipe like an acrobatic ballerina. As the bridge under Scoots started to dip, Screwy winked at her and started to tighten bolts seemingly at random. She paused a second to give Scootaloo a wink.

Scootaloo swallowed and nodded. Okay. If I’m trapped in a metal crazyland being knocked apart, it just may be a lunatic I’m looking for. “Good work...uh...screwing things, Screwy! Keep this place together while I deal with the thing.”

Screwy hung upside from a steam-pipe and saluted before whipping back up to the metal rafters. Just as she did, a prismatic flash slammed into the side of Scootaloo’s bridge. She felt the bridge drop to an angle, and grabbed the railing with both limbs as it steadied. 

“You may want to stay right there,” Screwball cried from above.

As a shadow fell across her, Scootaloo turned and ran for a dead end, galloping towards a gigantic lopsided wall of pipes.

“You can’t outrun Rainbow Dash, you cheap imitation,” she heard as the suspended floor shook again.

Scootaloo slid to a halt in front of the pipes. “You know what’s interesting about the Stalliongrad number seven pipe nexus joint?"

“Bored now.” 

Scootaloo could feel the hoofprints getting closer. Suddenly she spun around, wielding a pipe in her mouth. The Rainbow-thing shrieked as the metal connected with her left wing, crumpling it.

"The interesting thing," Scootaloo said as she flipped the pipe into the air, catching it with her mouth, "is that it screws out of a frame so easily."

“What the hay did you do?” The Rainbow-thing squeaked out, quivering.

Her answer was a faceful of pipe, and her response was to flip backwards onto the catwalk, gritting her teeth in pain.

“I know Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo said out of the corner of her mouth as she approached the sprawled pegasus. The catwalk was stained with a dark purple, smelling like rancid blueberries. She lifted the pipe, bringing it down on the struggling candy creature’s other wing. The Dash thing screamed as the wing exploded into jam.

“She’s the closest thing I have to a sister.”

There was a squelching sound, and another scream. Screwball, watching from the rafters, closed her eyes and plugged her ears.

Scootaloo looked into two terrified magenta eyes as she stepped onto a hind knee that popped into jam. 

“Lady, you sure ain’t Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash is loyalty. She would never do this in anyone’s wildest dreams.”

The half-splattered thing pulled it’s head forward, nearly detaching the neck in the process. “And you suck at being Rainbow Dash, groundpounder. You can't even--”

The head smashed into the side rail as a the sounds of metal pulping jam grew louder. Through her plugged ears, Screwball heard a voice screaming angrily through a mouth full of pipe, interspersed with squelching sounds.

“No, I’m not her! I am never, ever going to be like her!”

Something burbled through half-formed vocal cords as it was pushed into the bubbling liquid below, and screamed as it sizzled.

Scootaloo dropped the pipe onto the catwalk, panting as she leaned against the railing.

“And she’s still proud of me,” she whispered with tears in her eyes.

___

Apple Bloom huddled in the metal shelter under the slide as the sound of pounding rocks on its outside continued. She was lucky that the Ponyville Schoolhouse had replaced the old one with a fancy new four-legged model with a little room underneath. If they wanted to, she knew that nothing she could do would prevent a full dinner set of Silver Spoons from bodily dragging her out. The only possible goal they could have had was fear.

That just served to piss her off.

Bruised and aching, Apple Bloom leaned against the battered frame, edging close to the door.

“Diamond? Can you hear me?” The pelting of rocks died, replaced by the sound of (mostly identical) muffled giggling.

“What’s up, Hayseed? Going to beg me to let you out?”

Apple Bloom breathed in. Hay, if this doesn’t work I’ll take a few of ‘em with me. “Y’all know we’re not fillies anymore, right?”

Giggles grew into laughter. “Why should I trust a blank flank?”

The maniacal chorus of hench-fillies laughed in unison.

Apple Bloom banged her head against the metal wall in frustration as she hid in the dark. “I wish this was something I could fix with a hammer,” she muttered. Her mouth curled into a smile at the logical progression of that thought, but she shook it away. Even then, there were too many.

“What would Snails do?” Good luck guessin' that one. Heck, I don’t even Miss Twilight could think the way he does. “What would Applejack do?”

Apple Bloom blinked, then shrugged. 

“Okay,” she nearly sighed out. “Here goes.”

Slightly sticking her muzzle out of the door, she drew a deep breath as she waited for the rocks. After a second’s peace, she hollered out, “Diamond? Y’all don’t have to be afraid, sugarcube.”

The Spoons stayed silent.

“What?” Apple Bloom could hear Diamond pace closer to the slide. “What are you talking about, farm girl?”

Apple Bloom closed her eyes and concentrated hard on the phrasing of her neck sentence, not noticing that she grew about three inches as she did so.

“Afraid o’ bein’ alone, ah mean.” Dangnabbit, I don’t talk like that anymore, she thought, growing another inch. I mean, unless I want to. “Ah...I mean, afraid of growin’ up.”

After a moment’s pause, one of the Spoons spoke up. “Hey, I know! Why don’t we--”

“Can it!” Diamond’s voice sounded closer. “Why would I be afraid of growing up?”

Apple Bloom drew deep breath. “You’re afraid of not being important anymore,” she said as she huddled in the cramped confines under the slide. “On the playground, you where the first filly with a mark and the rich guy’s daughter.”

“I don’t see a mark on you!”

Apple Bloom could hear Diamond’s closeness. She must have been right outside. After a moment’s hesitation, she squeezed through the slide’s legs and stood up. She shook her long mane out of her eyes and stared down at the tiny, surprised child in a tiara.

“Look again,” she said. “We all got our marks, Diamond, and we left this place long ago. I know Filthy wants you to take over the store, and Silver’s been hanging out with Sweetie more often. You can’t strut around as the biggest,meanest princess on the playground anymore. It’s time to grow up.”

“That’s not true!”

Apple Bloom flinched as the child pitched a rock at her flank, sharp pain running down her thigh. She bit her lip, then lowered onto her knees.

“If you had any other friends, why did you come to our treehouse for help?”

The crowd of Silver Spoons stood dumbly as Diamond Tiara sniffled. One moment she was a sniffling filly that could have rode Apple Bloom, and in the next she was a red-eyed, angry teen.

“You want me to cry, Hayseed?”

Apple Bloom steeled herself. She had faced down monsters, maniacs, and more, and this was the hardest thing she’d ever have to do. Applejack could do it, she thought. Then she leaned forward and hugged Diamond Tiara.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” she whispered into Diamond’s ear, and felt her shake.

As they held each other, one of the Silver Spoons cantered closer. “Come one, Diamond, buck her in the face!”

Diamond’s wet eyes snapped open. “Hayseed, you’re wrong about one thing.”

Uh oh. “Um, what?”

“I’m sick of doing Discord’s work for him,” she said with a grin. “It’s time to go on...”

Diamond kicked up onto her feet and bucked the nearest Silver off the ground and into the air. She knocked into a half-dozen others, sending them flying with the sound of clattering wood.

“...strike,” Diamond concluded. Her head was down, her nostrils snorting and flaring as she bared her teeth at the terrified mass of identical fillies. “Apple Bloom, right now I am the biggest, meanest princess on this playground, and it’s time we taught these skanks a lesson.”

Apple Bloom trotted by her side. How’s that for a friendship letter, sis?

___

Somewhere in an empty hallway, a banging sound behind a wooden wall became louder and louder. Suddenly the wall crumbled into dust, leaving behind a gaping hole with rusted pipes behind it. Bathed in a kaleidoscope of steam, Scootaloo and Screwball pulled themselves into the hallway and both collapsed, panting.

Scootaloo looked around at her surroundings. It reminded her of an old-style hotel, with wooden paneling and doors painted cherry red, chains drawn across them that met in a combination lock. If she saw this place on screen in the Ponyville cinema, it would be in black-and-white. As it was, the images around her were grainy, with an occasional flicker in the filmstrip of reality.

“Ugh,” she eloquently commented as she struggled to her hooves. “Okay, Screwy, you were right. It was that wall. I have no idea how this place makes so much sense to you.”

Turning around, she saw Screwball running her hooves along the doors, sniffing at the air. Screwball licked one of the doors experimentally, and Scoots didn’t bat an eye. She had grown up around Pinkie Pie, after all.

“Screwy? What’s behind the door, Screwy?”

Screwball stared at the chained face of door number two-hundred-thirty-seven-and-eighteen-elevenths. As she put her ears to the door, her beanie and spiral eyes spun wildly.

“This is a disaster,” she squeaked out in a familiar voice that made the blood from Scootaloo’s face drain. “You said you worked on this dress! They laughed me off stage before my first song ended. We had to refund the tickets, Rarity! We’ve lost everythi--” 

“Okay, enough,” Scootaloo said as she wandered forward. So, everypony’s trapped behind one of these rooms. How do we get inside one?”

“You don’t, Discord said from down the hall.

“Run,” Scootaloo said, but Screwball was shaking too hard with fear to comply.

“So, the prodigal daughter returns,” Discord said, levitating down the hallway as he examined his nails with a bored look. “I’m overjoyed.” His gaze jumped to Screwy. “There’s new things I’d love to do with that brain of yours. What happens if I make your legs think they’re one the wrong side of your body?”

“Run, Screwy!”

Galvanized with fear, Screwball galloped after Scootaloo. At the end of their hallway it branched off into two directions. Behind them, the sound of chuckling drew ever closer.

Scootaloo panted in place for a moment. “You go left and stay clear. I can end this now.”

Screwy shook her head wildly. “Spitting up is a good idea!”

“I’ll be fine,” Scootaloo said as she ran down the rightmost hallway. “Cheerilee said so, remember?”

Biting her lip, Screwy ran away from the only friendly face she had seen since waking up, and found herself in a circular room of doors. As she turned behind her, a door that wasn’t there before slammed shut, cutting off her exit.

“Wonderful. Me thought this was a great idea to begin with.”

___

Down another path, Scootaloo pushed herself, straining her legs at the slim hope she had seen at the end of the hallway.

“Oh, Scootaloo,” she heard behind her. “I’m getting closer! Maybe we’ll play freeze tag. I’ll touch you, and you’ll freeze!”

Her last chance in sight, Scootaloo leapt out of the opened window into the black outside. Her heart stopped for a second as she sailed through the void into nothingness, but soon her hooves landing on the unseen ground outside the funhouse. It was glowing glaringly bright, she noticed, without actually illuminating any of the blackness around her.

She turned and grinned at Discord, peered at her from the window with a bored look on his face.

“One word, Discord. One word and I end this.”

“Really?” He leaned on the window sill, flipping and catching his detached head with one claw. “What would that be, pray tell? Eggplant? Antidisestablishmentarianism? Cellar door?”

Scootaloo drew in a deep breath. “This is only a dream, Discord, and you’re just the nightmare of my childhood. And I haven’t needed to fear nightmares in years.”

She closed her eyes, reared back, and screamed, “Luna!”

The edges of the darkness lit up with the light of angry thunderclouds. Scootaloo saw that she was standing on nothing as a brilliant, silver light burned away all of the shadows. With eyes of brilliant light, a dark and vengeful goddess descended from a gigantic moon that hung close to the funhouse. Her hooves crackling with lightning as she hit the ground.

“I got a dream buddy, Discord,” Scootaloo said to the shocked draconequus, “And now she’s gonna kick your--”

“I’m a pretty, gothy princess,” Luna screamed in a loud sing-song voice. “Would you like to brush my mane while we listen to emo music?”

“What.”

Luna’s head straightened as her eyes went dead, the sound of a zipper being pulled coming from her back. A seam opened up in her back, and the limp fabric “princess” collapsed as a second Discord drew himself out of the costume. With a smile he tugged in the air, and the sound of a click heralded a blinding glare. Scootaloo blinked until she made out the grinning draconequus holding the pull-chain of a ceiling light inside a bare, wooden room.

“I’m still in the freaking funhouse, aren’t I?”

He nodded, barely containing his laughter. “You feel for it! A self-contained mental subdimension, and you thought there’d be an open window!” He grinned at Scootaloo, leaning in close. “You didn’t really think it’d be that easy, did you?”

“You know,” she said with a smirk, “for a second there, yeah. I kinda did. Do your worst. I’m ready.”

“Oh, such a boast. Let’s put that one to the test.

___

Screwy paced the confines of her cage of doors, worrying running across her face as she passed the same padlocks again and again. The repetitive path took less time to walk with every go-through, and she was certain the room itself was shrinking.

Experimentally, she tapped one of the combination locks. There were seven dials. It was a metal wheel of long numbers, and she stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth in concentration (a gesture she had picked up from her “aunt” Ditzy), as she gave it a few experimental spins.

The opposite side of the room bumped her in the rump. Terrified, Screwball realized she only had one shot at the lock. She extended her shaking hooves over it, then closed her eyes and spun the wheels as fast as she could. As a symphony of clicks reached her ears, she slammed a limb into the lock. It stopped moving, clicked open, and fell to the ground just as the shrinking room pushed her against the door. She shuddered as she considered what could have happened if she had picked the wrong number.

Screwball found herself lying in a tangle of grass. She thought that her lawn got tangled in summer when Red lazed off about mowing, but this grass was as wide as a board and taller than her twice over. Experimentally, she picked a direction that felt good to her and walked off. Her heart and hooves beat faster as she heard voices through the underbrush.

“A giant Apple Bloom with a salt shaker. Uh, that’s not very creative.”

“Shut up, twerp.”

“Honestly, it’s kind of obvious.” she heard Snails say as she raced towards the sound. “I have four guesses about what your wisecrack is gonna be.”

Screwball poked her head through the overgrowth, her jaw dropping open in shock at the sight before her. A bored looking caterpillar with Discord’s head reclined on a mushroom, staring bloody murder at a pony-sized snailshell with Snails’ head sticking out of it.

“Merciful Tirek!” Discord looked to be at his wits’ end. “Come now, how many clairvoyants can one little podunk town produce?

“One a generation, I’d expect.” Snails lacked limb, speed, or hope, but he was smiling. “I just know because you’re bein’ pretty transparent.” He gave Discord a bashful smile. “I expected better from your reputation.

In the bushes, Screwball was sweating. Me HAve SeconDS beForE thiNgS go GoOd. Me NeeD to NoT to ThiNK OF thIngs!

In a flash of light, Discord turned from insect to draconequus, hovering in the air with his talons on his mismatched hips. “No one like a know-it-all!”

Snails stared at him blankly for a second. “Hey, you’re omniscient,aren’t you?”

Discord’s chest puffed out. “The very closest thing to it in Equestria, my little snailly.”

“Ah. So that’s why no one likes you.”

A thunderclap sounded as the garden ground was pounded with rain, and Discord narrowed his eyes. He extended his his claws into the air. “When I snap my fingers, boy, you’re going to--”

And that was when, swiftly and bloodless, Discord’s thumbs rolled into the grass at the snip of two levitating pairs of scissors. He threw back his head, howling in pain and frustration before throwing his arms in front of his face to guard against a cloud of swirling, sharpened metal.

Snips leapt onto the mushroom and bucked the squealing god in the stomach, sending him tumbling head-over-tail into the grass. He turned to Snails with a smile.

“Did you expect this, good buddy?”

Snails shrugged as best as he could without shoulders. “Yup. You never let anyone bully you.” He suddenly started choking as her found Screwball forelimbs thrown around his neck.

“Me am so sad to see you both!”

“Me too, kid,” Snips said as he jumped down. "Now let’s get--”

Discord snorted as he rose out of the grass. “Now, you little butterball, I’m going to...going to...”

He waved his fingers uselessly, then dropped to his knees as he started rooting around in the grass.

“I’m going to make you so sorry once I find a thumb!”

The three teens responded with uproarious laughter, and Discord’s face darkened.

“No pony laughs at me.”

“Nope,” Snails said, shaking. “No matter, uh, how hard you try!”

Steam fell out of Discord’s ears before his face brightened up.

“Uh oh,” Snips whispered.

With the slow motion of a conjurer producing a rabbit from a hat, Discord dramatically lifted a thumb into the air.

“Run,” Snails said.

Screwy shook her head. “Me will leave you immediately.”

“Run! I can’t keep up, and you can’t carry me.”

Discord jabbed the severed thumb onto his hand, crying out in pain as it bent backwards. “Wrong hand! How did I even do that? My limbs are color-coded!”

“Please, Snips. Run.” Tears were running down Snails's face. “I can’t think of a way out.”

Screwball ran behind Snips and bit his tail, pulling him towards cut-out rents in the fabric of reality behind which a dingy motel hallway beckoned.

“First,” said Discord as he flexed his fingers, “I’ll take the slimy know-it-all and--”

A hail of scissors pelted him, cutting him into quickly assembling pieces that glowered with rage.

“Come on, Discord!” Snails shouted at him as he ran back into the funhouse. “Chase the doughboy!”

___

Diamond Tiara strained as she leaned on the boards holding shut a living room window. All around her the walls of the Apple family house strained inward under the timber wolves assault.

“Hey, Hammer Butt,” she screamed to Apple Bloom. “I need more nails on this window, pronto! Giddy-up!”

Across the room, Apple Bloom hammered frantically on an opposite wall. Beside her, Granny Smith rocked back and forth in her chair with the look of a pig farmer who came in last at the county show.

“Apple Bloom, I just want ‘cha ta know that everything that happened is yer fault.”

Biting the hammer so hard she left marks, Apple Bloom said nothing as she pounded away on a makeshift barricade. A wooden snout pushed in through a large knothole, and Apple Bloom drew a whimper from the owner as she nailed it into place. 

“Yuh see, as the runt o’ the litter ever your parents--”

Granny’s head exploded into green gumdrop gunk as a Diamond Tiara kicked an iron spittoon through her forehead.

“Thanks,” Apple Bloom mumbled through a mouthful of hardware as Diamond joined her at the window, holding down a struggling plank.

“Shout if you need me,” she replied, accentuating her sentence by bumping her rump into Apple Bloom’s. “I’d hate for you to get left behind, partner.”

Ah am rightly never gonna get over that.

Across the room, something snarling smashed it’s jaws through the front door.

___

Snips felt his heart pounding almost out of his chest as he tried to keep up with Screwy down corridor after corridor. Finally, he fell to his knees. “Scr-sc-screwy. C-can’t. Run. F-fatboy, remember?”

Screwball turned, worrying in her spiral-surrounded pupils. She hopped onto one leg and spun in a circle, whipped her hooves across half-a-dozen locks locks. All of them fell to the floor in her wake.

“Don’t hide. Follow me. Me can’t lead him on.”

Snips raised himself onto one leg, panting. “I was kinda sorta s-supposed to be the d-distraction, Screwy!” Shrugging he listened to the wails of despair coming out of the doors. As the sounds of world’s ending endlessly filled his ears, his eyes jolted fully open at the soft, sad melody of one particular apocalypse. Snips leapt into that door.

Some time later, Screwball ran up a flight of stairs to find herself on the funhouse roof. Looking over the wooden fence showed her the house, hovering in the an endless field of stars. Ribbons of mist crossed the sky above her at odd angles. Screwball would have sworn that, for a brief second, she saw a door above open up out of nothing and close again.

“Well, well. Daddy’s very disappointed in you. He’s going to send you to your room, baby. My little walking, talking get-out-of-stone-free card has become very naughty.” He flexed his claws. “I need you intact, you know. Not happy.”

Screwball turned in time to dodge Discord’s outstretched arms as he lunged at her. As he flew at her again, she rolled across the roof.

“Don’t wait,” she said with a leap over him. “Why you not chasing me? Why you just snap fingers?”

He shot up into the air, grinning as his shadow fell across her. 

“Something, my broken little experiment, you have to stop and smell the roses. Now, let’s--”

“Hey, Discord! I cut through the walls of your stupid, predictably, absolutely not wheelchair-safe funhouse!”

Rolling his eyes, Discord shrugged. “Can’t I get one uninterrupted gloat? Boy, I’ll deal with you later!” He lowered himself toward Screwball. “Now, where were we?”

“I cut some folks out of their dreams, Discord! There’s one or two people here who want to shake hands with you!”

Screwy saw Discord’s eyes catch fire and incinerate as the veins on his neck strained and popped, sending clouds of confetti into the air. He grew twice his size, spinning in the air to scream at Snips with seven horned heads. “Shut up! For one merciful second, just shut up! I don’t care what simpering child or weaponless Element you managed to--

A flurry of feathers and claws slammed into him from the side, kicking and screaming. The black-and-yellow bundle of rage shrieked as bits of Discord were sliced off like pieces of jelly. A cleanly severed hand bounced across the floor and snapped it’s fingers. Ponce stopped tearing into bouncy, candy torso as a cannon shot a pony-sized fireball candy into her, knocking her prone form through the railing on the opposite side of the roof.

“I,” Discord said as he reassembled, “Have. Had. Enough!” Her rolled up suddenly-appearing sleeves as he stalked towards Snips. “No professional can work under constant assaults from hecklers!”

And that was when the gigantic, scaly purple arm broke through the ceiling of the funhouse from below, rose high into the air, and slapped down on Discord, spiking him like a volleyball back into the building.

As the dust settled, Screwball peered down into the yawning hole Discord had disappeared down through dozens of floors with shock on her face. As a shadow fell over her, she looked up into the eyes of a gigantic yet slightly gawky dragon. It was giving her a thumbs up.

Spike squinted at her. “Screwball, right?” 

She nodded, smiling up at the gargantuan teenage reptile.

“‘Kay. Makes sense, I guess. I can slap him around a little, but that ‘s probably more a fun way of drawing this out. Do you know how to beat him?”

She nodded, and Spike cracked his knuckles. 

“Okay, then. Leave everything to “little Spikey-Wikey.” He turned around to Snips, who stood at the edge of the stairs next to Sweetie Belle. “You keep her safe, and find Twilight and her sister, okay?”

Snips saluted.

“All right then.” He placed his gigantic palms of the roof and leaned over the hole Discord had been flung down. “Hey, Discord! I’m here to eat gems and kick your tail, and I’m all out of gems!” The building shook as he dived into the hole, nearly splitting the roof in half. Snips stared dumbly at the fissure as Screwy walked over and hugged him.

“I-I-I remember when I was bigger than him.”

Screwball patted him on the head, then turned to Sweetie Belle. She stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry before grinning, then shivered. Snips and Sweetie stared in concern as Screwy started coughing up something substantial-sounding. She swallowed it, whipped the blood off her nose, and smiled with bleeding gums.

“Hello, Sweetie Belle,” she said. “I’m Screwball. I’m a friend.”

“Are...are you okay?”

Screwy shrugged. “Didn't have an aneurysm this time. At least, not yet. I just needed to make you understand quickly. Stay here,” she said with worry in her eyes. “He probably won’t look up here for a while, and Snips and I have business downstairs.”

A yellow head poked up from the side of the roof and weakly asked, “Meep?”

“Ponce!” Snips hugged the bedraggled reptile tightly. “You’re okay!”

“Sqeeeeeeonk!”

“Snips,” Screwball said gently. “We have to go.” She nodded to Sweetie, then walked downstairs.

Eyebrows raised, Snips ruffled the feathers on Ponce’s head. “Okay, girl. I need you to stay here and guard Sweetie Belle, okay?” 

His answer was a gigantic tongue licking his nose.

Snips walked to Sweetie, wiping the drool off of his face. “U-U-Um. I g-g-gotta go.” He sighed. “I’m really g-glad you’re safe. I w-w-was so worried.””

She nodded, her brow furrowed. “I was worried about everypony, too.”

Snips bit down his immediate reply. Ah, Tartaurus. I taunted a god today. Might as well go for broke.

He leaned forward, kissing Sweetie Belle on the cheek. Her face turned redder than Big Macintosh as Snips pulled back and winked. “Be safe, okay.” He disappeared down the stairs.

Ponce leapt next to Sweetie Belle, purring.

“Yeah,” she said, wobbling on her feet. “I know.”

___

Screwy nearly limped through the cavernous halls of the funhouse. Her mind was screaming at her to run, but it was also screaming geometrical patterns, showtunes, and an ordered list of everyone she had talked to today, so she tuned it out. As she forced herself onward, coughing and running her head, she felt vaguely irritated that nopony had commented on how every angle in the place was at least seven degrees off, but let it slide. It had been a long day.

Snips followed behind, noting the trail of red, liquid breadcrumbs that dripped from her face. She had once fell to the ground on her forelimbs, and as she had turned back to him her face was a mess of tears and embarrassment. He had nuzzled her neck and wordlessly eased her back onto her hooves. After that, she had leaned on him for a while.

“Don’t hurt yourself on my behalf,” he whispered. “I can understand you find.”

She ran a playful hoof through his hair. “Nay, brave shearer of evil, I hurt not. Describing a dungeon’s layout is natural to Pearlshield, knight of Foamrider. I swear I will tax myself no more.

“Um. So, where are we going,” he asked, dreading the answer.

Screwball coughed. “Thirty-seven hooves ahead, them a left turn followed by a staircase down. After that...”

She trailed off at his incredulous face. “Snips? I’ve been there before.”

He nodded, noting a statue of Celestia being dipped in something molten and the distant, the shaking in the floor, and the constant sound of distant destruction. “Screwy, have you noticed that the layout of this place keeps shifting?”

Her spiraling eyes rolled upwards. “Verily. Forsooth, they’ve shifted slightly in the last minute. We’ll have to adjust our path after the third turn.” She snorted something up her nose. “The last twenty feet just shortened; we’re not close enough to see that yet, though.”

He decided not to ask. Once, after making a left turn, Screwball chuckled. “Okay, sorry, now it’s a right, turn us around.”

“Wait. Why didn’t we turn right to begin with?”

She shrugged. “Left was correct when we took it, my brave knight.”

He kept silent after that until they reached a hole from out of which poured steamed rainbows. Screwball pushed off of him experimentally and found sure footing on her own hooves. Placing a hoof in front of her lips, she crawled back into the Rainbow Factory.

Snips followed, sweating from a combination of the humid heat pouring off the color vats and the unsteady metal walkways. “So, h-have you seen Aby? She might have found where Snails was.”

Screwball shook her head, and Snips dropped his, sobbing.

“Screwball, i-i-i-it’s nuh-nuh-not f-f-fair. Why didn’t he get me? In these kinda plays, the fat funny guy’s supposed to...to...”

She as they dropped down onto a larger catwalk, she turned back, reaching a hoof to Snips as he stayed sprawled on the ground. He pulled onto it like a liferope, hugging her and snaking as he buried his face in her coat.

“I-I-I-I did e-e-everything I needed to. I fought a d-d-draconequus. I saved the g-g-girl.” He blew wet snort, and Screwball only hugged him tighter. “I want them to know! It’s not f-f-f-f--”

“Shhh.” She whispered into his ear. “Shhh.” A tear rolled down her face. “Me promise everything will be okay. Me just need to not find the furnace.”

___

Well into the parent conference, Cheerilee stared at the scars in her teacher’s desk through bleary eyes, her head in her hooves. The screams of the angry parents assaulted her senses from the other side of the desk. Why can’t they just converse normally? She nearly put her head on her desk as she felt another glob of the father’s spittle fly out of his mouth, landing on her neck.

Removing her hooves from her face, she smiled as she held onto her mask for dear life. She would not break down here. “Look, Mister and Misses Shinybrick, I know you have a point. I know Principal Placeholder agrees with you. I just think that--”

Discord slammed open the door of the classroom. His left claw massaged his neck as he staggered inside. “Miss Book Report, you have no idea what trouble your little special-ed student is giving me.”

“Discord?” Cheerilee pushed away from her desk. “Why would you be here? I’m not Twilight Sparkle or anything.”

“This is ridiculous,” shouted the red-faced father. “This conference is supposed to last until seven-forty, and I will not-

He pointed at Cheerilee. “You, Remember.”

She sucked in a ragged breath, then narrowed her eyes.

Discord waved his finger at red-faced Mister Lusterbrick. “You, shut up. You’re a taco.”

He was. His wife was utterly confused, but kept quiet due to years of matrimonial training. Discord nodded, levitating to the former Mister Lusterbrick’s chair. He carefully picked up the taco and handed it to Mrs. Lusterbrick. “Be a doll, and hold this. Be careful. He’s a little cracked.” 

Turning back to Cheerilee, she noticed sunken bags underneath Discord’s red, raw eyes. She smiled genuinely for the first time in her memory. “How’s she doing, Discord? You look like you need a last-period-planning nap.”
.
He sighed. “Look, Miss ‘Save-Our-School', and listen closely. I’m going to see your daughter now.” He leaned backwards onto the corner of a suddenly appearing boxing ring, towel around his neck. A chihuahua in a trainer suit walked out of nowhere and pitched a bucket of orange baby alligators towards him. As they splashed against his face the wriggling reptiles exploded into liquid, after which Discord favored the dog with a thumbs-up.

“I’m not out yet, Misses Flower Rump. I’ve come by to pick you up for the main attraction.” He stood up as a bell sounded. “We’re going to see Screwball now. When we meet...” He smiled. “Well, it’s not going to be very funny.”
> Chapter 7: Partytime
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Snips could barely see the lights of the outside hallway streaming feebly through the multicolored miasma of the the Rainbow Factory. Every so often a particularly dense purple cloud would totally obscure the hole and he would shudder. He couldn’t help wondering if it the funhouse’s wounds had started to scabbed over. Snips hated the idea of the funhouse as a living entity, but from where he was in its wet, hot guts it was a hard thought to dismiss.

Next to a large pile of dropped scissors, he nervously shuffled on the gridded metal platform towards Screwball, in his estimation having spent too much time standing near the edge. He ducked an occasional bolt or screw while she worked to open the gigantic furnace which dominated the far wall of the factory, rusted over in vivid patches from the color bubbling only a few feet below the grid. Her eyes spun very slowly under her furrowed brow as she pulled open the furnace’s cover, hot air blowing her fluffy hair straight for a moment. Her beanie’s propeller stayed still.

“Screwy?” Snips looked at the dull blue and purple rocks inside the burner, ignoring the white bits scattered inside. “W-w-what are we gonna do here? I mean, are we gonna wave a red blanket in front and make him run inside?” He stared at the sickly green flames, hoping the faces that churned there was only his imagination.

“We’re down here to fight him. Me aren’t here to break his power.”

She stood in front of the opened grate, fire licking towards her faces, and Snips wondered why he suddenly felt so cold.

“Go on,” he said.

“Snips, me,” she raised a hoof to her forehead, nearly pitching over before steadying herself. “I know what I have to do. He said why he made me. He can return to Equestria over and over because of me.”

She looked into the coals of the furnace, her spirals having stopped moving altogether.

Snips nearly broke a tooth as he grimaced. “No! Buck, no! You can’t seriously be considering--”

“It’s the only way.” Screwy jostled Snip’s mane wistfully. “If that’s where he put tangible power, the only way to beat him is,” she coughed, pale and sweating on her hooves, “me must not destroy it.”

“Horse apples!” The metal floor shook as Snips stomped down indignantly. “This is a rotten way to end it!”

Slowly and carefully, Screwball kissed him on the forehead. “Snips, everything will be okay. Me promise. No one will care.”

“I’m almost out of friends! I won’t let you-- ”

And before Snips could say anything further, with not even a tear, Screwball took off her beanie and skipped it through the air into the open furnace door. The two ponies flinched backwards from a brilliant yellow light. Blinking away the sweat, Snips saw a quivering pile of melting slime falling apart into individual gummy bears, each one moaning in a high-pitched voice about life’s fleeting precipice.

Snips blinked. He looked at Screwy, sucking on her bottom lip with tears in her eyes, and blinked again. Then he sat back on his haunches and started screaming.

“Seriously? That’s it? It wasn’t you, it was the beanie the whole time?” He snorted two tiny clouds out of his flaring nostrils. “You could have put your cards on the table a little clearer there Screwy! I thought--”

She hugged him, and he decided that was worth more than the shouting. After a moment she pulled back, rubbing her eyes. When she finally looked at Snips she was giggling uncontrollably.

“Whoah. Me should have kept that forever. My head feels so much clearer.”

“Screwy?”

Screwball was busy bouncing in place, nodding at almost a vibrational rate.

“It’s going to work! Or me don’t think it will work, if you prefer it that way. I understand the house, Snips.” She started bouncing towards him, and nearly with Screwball nearly nose-to-nose he started backpedaling while staring into eyes that spun so face they were one solid color. “I can anticipate the emus, now. I can see the fnords!”

As his back hoof kicked off the precipice, he gently pushed Screwball away and started to rub his head. “Um, question? What is a fnord?”

“Oh, believe me,” Discord said behind him, hovering over the bubbling sea of green, “it’s a little obtuse. Why, let’s try something simpler.”

Snips turned, transforming the pile of cutting tools into a cloud of steel that whirled into Discord. The startled trickster spun backwards through the air, dozens of handles protruding from him.

“Oh, no! How horrible!” Discord writhed in the air as he wailed . “My lifeblood!”

Snips nodded in self-satisfaction before turning to beam at Screwball. At her slow shaking of her head, he looked back at Discord. 

“Ouch! Oooch! Eich! Oh! Ouch! Oooch! Eich! Oh!”

Snips gave out a long breath as he watched the weightless Discord quake with giggles with dozens of oversized plastic scissors tied on with rubber bands “sticking” into him. As he flailed, Discord hit one too hard, knocking it flat against his fur and exposing the blunt, play tip.

“Cheater!” Snip screamed.

Lying down in mid-air, Discord spared him a thumbs-up and a wink. “Draconequus,” he said with a shrug. Hovering to a stand, Discord grinned at Screwball. “You’ve cost me quite an expenditure of energy today.” Donning glasses, he produced a clipboard from
which paper rolled downward for over a dozen feet until finally resting in the quagmire of the rainbow vats. Discord paced in the air as he read to Screwball, who hadn’t moved a hoof since he appeared.

“Wall repairs, overtime and injury pay for the actors, catering, I mean even the special effects are over budget!” He flung the paperwork angrily into the scarlet soup below, claws curling into fists. “Do you know how hard it is to do this without going to the union?”

“You’re stalling, Discord.” Screwball stepped forward, and after finding herself not instantly destroyed went a few more to the edge of the platform. “Me am so excited. Me know everypony wants to listen to you kvetch.”

Snips would have clapped if he wasn’t petrified with fear. A witty retort fought its way out of his mouth, only to become an incoherent whimper.

Discord stopped smiling, thrusting his left claw upward to count on his paws. “One, I am incredibly funny. Two, don’t get smug because you toasted my little control cap. When I’m done, every brick in Ponyville will be laced with me. Three,” he said, puffing himself up to three times his height and screaming, “I am incredibly funny!” He panted in anger for a second before staring at his fingernails. “So there. Let’s get this started.”

“Don’t get ready. Me have good feeling,” Screwy said to Snips.

Nodding weakly, he asked, “Ready for w-what, exactly?”

Discord snapped once, and the entire funhouse became transparent. The gray mists of nowhere visibly swirled outside, and Snips and Screwball saw dozens of glass rooms where ponies suddenly snapped out of their nightmares. Acts of horror and despair paused and monsters disappeared as the inhabitant of the funhouse looked around in confusion, all eventually turning to the bright glow of the rainbow factory.

Only two ponies showed an emotion other than confusion. Screwball saw Sweetie Bell with Ponce trailing behind her, testing the locks on doors that were now invisible. In the room right next to the Rainbow Factory, Twilight Sparkle stared out of her prison. No terrible creatures or disappointed relatives waited inside her cell. The only things keeping her company was a floating cloud of crystal balls. Inside each of them, the goings-on of the other rooms were visible. Her eyes red, her coat stained with tears, Twilight grinned in joyful anticipation as she made eye contact with Screwball. Screwy nodded back at her and winked before turning back to Discord.

“Mission accomplished,” Snips said with a swallow. “Totally not ready for that.”

The gloating trickster was gleaming in a sequin-covered ringmaster costume, a top hat held in his claw.  Next to him a levitating white tiger hovered off the ground, looking rather out-of-sorts at it’s sudden existence and lack of dignity.

Discord turned in a slow circle, bowing with his hat in his claws. The magically-altered glass of the prison rooms distorted his face, giving every inhabitant the feeling that they were making direct eye contact with the mad god. He saw the fear and reveled in it. The thoughts in Discord’s head would be hard to explain, being something not unlike glass butterflies covered in a madman’s calligraphy smashing into each other at high speeds. Still, if one could read his mind, stay sane, and derive some intelligent thought from it, the largest represented species of butterfly would say something like the following.

I need to do this one more often, he’d think with the clattering of shattering wings. I love that look on their faces, and there’s so many places to try. Every nation has a Ponyville.

“Fillies and gentlecoats,” he said with a smile, “come on and welcome to the show!” With a gesture, the interlocking glass prisons reformed, all actors and props disappearing as the funhouse reassembled into one gigantic arena. Each prisoner resided in a pony-sized glass box, grouped together in the semblance of the stands of a circus tent. Kangaroos in uniform hopped between them, selling boxes of popcorn with caramel and springs to customers who couldn’t pay, take the merchandise, or mostly stop screaming. 

Inside one of the cells, Apple Bloom paced the perimeter. She was covered in scratches, dirt, moss, and whipped cream, and she was grinning from ear-to-ear. Leaning on a wall, she shared her grin with the equally bedraggled Diamond Tiara.

“See that, Diamond? He had to cheat on us.”

Diamond panted as she collapsed onto the other side of the wall, wiping mayonnaise and algae out of her mane. “Yeah. Call that a win?” She closed her eyes and started to snore.

Yeah, Apple Bloom thought, you can tell she ain’t never done a day o’ farm work in her life. She said nothing, though. Apple Bloom had once wrote to Princess Celestia to say that friends don’t kick each other when their down, and she remembered that.

Away from Discord’s sight, on a precarious platform underneath the arena blocked from view by the shimmering pool of rainbows, hundreds of bizarre props sat. Their creation had been instantaneous, but their shapes suggesting loathsome purposes somewhere between a griffin inquisitor and a Neighponnese game show. Animals in mismatching uniforms ran frantically amongst the machinery in desperate acts of preparation. 

One of them was slightly less focused than the others. Between the marzipan guillotine and a ball-pit of sea urchins, a yellow-feathered reptile dragged an unconscious kangaroo into the shadows. The darkened corner lighted up for a second as a young unicorn focused, using her horn to resize the kangaroo’s striped uniform.

Above the sparkling sea, Screwball stood on the hovering grid-work of rust, the single remnant of the Rainbow Factory’s machinery. From the precipice of the platform, she scanned the stands intently. In the front row, she finally caught sight of two glass cells marked “Reserved.” Red Glare and Cheerilee were inside, wearing dunce caps and staring back as they pressed their hooves against the separating wall.

Cheerilee was shocked at her daughter’s condition. Screwball was covered in multicolored patches of filth and sawdust, her tangled hair spilling over purple eyes now tinged mauve by the red of exhaustion. Cheerilee giggled hysterically as her brain somehow conflated Screwball with a spelling bee contestant, ready for her first word. In that moment, she knew her duty.

She pulled her hoof away from the spot on the glass wall opposite her husband’s hoof and reached deep inside the teacher’s desk in her mind. Carefully, her mind’s hooves shaking, she slipped her mask on with no more hesitation than if the principal had walked in for an observation. With all her mental might, Cheerilee smiled at her daughter.

Screwball smiled back, waving. From that point on, Cheerilee assumed everything was going to be all right. Of course, that didn’t prevent her heart from speeding up as the two minotaur clowns reached out of the rainbow lake and pulled themselves onto the platform. Glowing muscles flexed around cruel faces covered in greasepaint, and one of them crushed his ham hock of a hand around the rubber ball of a horn, sounding out an inappropriately cheerful toot.

Spellbound at the drama in the arena, Cheerilee suddenly shrieked as her glass cell flung itself into the air. It skidded to a stop in next to Discord, who shook a bag of popcorn at her from outside the cage.

“Want some? This is going to be excellent! The final showdown between the little brain-damaged and the Lord of Laughter. One-on-one--”

“Excuse me! Hello!”

Discord blinked. Even the minotaurs stopped honking for a second a Snips waved a shaking hoof in the air from the corner of the platform, a place equidistant from the two horned hooligans.

“Really? The fat one’s still up?” Discord sighed. “Wonderful. You get an award for bravery, tenacity and cholesterol.” He rubbed a irritated claw across his face, taking much of it off as his visage stared out from his palm. A slap against his head brought back the annoyed look to its proper place.

Screwball smiled, stepping to Snips’ side. She gave him a spinning wink, drawing a weak nod from the sweating stallion.

“Hold on, guys,” Discord clicked his tongue and waved to the clowned-up cattle creatures. “Union break.” He hovered down to the platform’s level, steam pouring out of his ears.

As the audience held their breath, the minotaurs both produced a tiny tea cup from nowhere and began sipping.

“Now, my sharp little doughboy, my vengeance on you is a little bit later.” With a gesture, Discord placed a glass cell with an open door right behind Snips. “Kindly exeunt the center stage and you’ll get some fleeting moments of peace and quiet before we discuss your earlier, painful indignities.”  His neck and arm stretched out impossibly far to whisper into Snips’ ear. “This next part might be a little physically tiring.”

Snips shook as he saw the pain promised in Discord’s grin. He looked away, only to be confronted by the eyes of dozens of Ponyville teens staring back from inside their transparent cages. Some had looks of hope and other of confusion, but mostly they stared back at him in underwhelmed apathy. He saw them through a tunnel of memories, and in every eye contact made Snips could see years of memories looking back at him.

Hey Snails, wanna play conjoined twins?

Hey Snails, there’s a magician’s wagon in town!

Hey Snails, I know our moms said to never go by Deadmare’s Drop again, but--

In every teen, some part of their mind said, This guy? This is the one guy that’s free? The one that invented the transferable butt tattoo?

Snips swallowed. “Nope. I’m in this for the win. Time to bring it, Ponyville-style.”

Wondering if he heard applauding hooves on glass or his own heartbeat, Snips felt Screwball’s steadying hoof on his shoulder. If it was any more forceful, it would have knocked him over completely.

Discord chuckled, floating off to a hovering director’s chair. “Well, congratulations on choosing a partner, Screwball. May the oddballs by ever in your favor. Begin!”

Snips flinched as the minotaurs cast their cups against the group, sending a cloud of porcelain fragments into the air. “Uh,Screwball?” Snips asked as the two clowns started to circle the pair. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Yes,” Screwball said with a smile.

“Oh. Um. Is that a straight ‘Yes’ or a backwards ‘Yes’?

“Yes!”

“Ah.”

By now, the minotaurs were slowly circling Screwball, dramatic piano music sounding out from nowhere to keep time with their ponderous steps as they drew near, fingers twitching in an anticipation that showed on their smiles. One of them waved a rubber chicken at Screwball as threateningly as possible, while the other smirked at Snips while cracking his knuckles.

“Now!” Screwball leapt straight up into the air as her minotaur charged. He waited beneath her, arms wide. 

“Now?” Snips leapt to the side to duck his attacker, rolling like an action hero with an unfortunate addiction to pies. “We didn’t have a plan! What’s ‘now’? What comes after ‘now’?”

Screwball was silent as she spun through the air, drawing her legs close to her body. At the peak of her jump, Screwball’s tail curled into a coil, and she came down on her pursuer like a cotton candy-colored corkscrew.

There was a loud metallic sproing as she came down directly onto the minotaur's face and bounced away. The confused clown staggered around, his vibrating nose squeaking uncontrollably like a drunken boyband fan club..

Snips pulled himself onto his hooves while thunderclaps pretending to be hoofbeats advanced towards him. He could feel the stink of the grease-painted maniacs breath draw near as he struggled to stand. Just as the last limb found purchase on the slippery metal, all four hooves were snatched into the air as pain exploded at the base of his tail. Suddenly, he was staring into the white, upside face of the grinning minotaur.

“I’m gonna tear you into pieces, little horse.”

“Yeah? Well, you first, buddy!” Throwing his head back, Snips’s horn flickered into life as a loud popping sound heralding the escape of the minotaur’s clown nose.

“No! Matilda!” The minotaur (who can’t properly be referred to as a clown while noseless, of course) dropped Snips as he ran after the the glowing, bouncing ball. It bounced in place on the edge of the platform patiently as its owner drew near, finally leaping away into the glowing pool of colors. Under panicked momentum, the minotaur soon followed, it’s frantic leap carrying it far enough to grab the clown nose.

Snips stared as it hung in the air. The minotaur screwed the red nose back on and turned back towards Snips.

“Okay,” Snips said as he swallowed. “I think I can guess how the laws of this place work.”

He pointed downwards, wiggling his eyebrows at the clown. Slowly, the clown looked downwards at the rainbow pool beneath it. Gravity suddenly realized that it had skipped something, and with a resigned shrug the minotaur plunged into the rainbow pool.

Snips collapsed onto the platform, wiping sweat of his brow. “And Mom said the Ponyville Theater Cartoon Hour was a waste of time.” He flopped onto his side to see the other clown stumbling about, eyes spinning wildly as canaries, spirals, and circles with glowing “X”s inside spun about it’s head. It ambled unknowingly towards the edge of the platform before two pink hooves bucked it in the seat of the pants. The “X”s instantly shattered as it dived into a headfirst blue-and-red splash.

Screwball watched the spreading purple waves with a nod before helping Snips to his feet. He smiled; there was no mistaking the sound of Ponyville’s pounding hooves on their glass cages. He reared back and whinnied. 

“We won! Hey, Screwy, you saw what I did there?”

She nodded, before turning a colder gaze to Discord, silently stewing in mid-air.

“Oh.” Snips rubbed his eyes, leaning over to whisper to Screwball. “How do we actually win this?”

Discord’s head spun off his neck into the air as he grit his teeth. “Come on now, winning isn’t fair!” The head landed back on his neck backwards, and a moment of flailing arms and a quick two-clawed adjustment passed before he could see straight. A snap of his fingers silenced the applauding crowd. They still pounded on their floors, but no sound trickled down into the arena. Gradually the captives realized this, and the hoofpounding mostly stopped except for about a half-dozen mares whom Discord have never managed to successfully cow.

He spread his claws and clicked his tongue. “I’m sorry, my little ponies. That was quite the unorthodox play you pulled. I’m going to have to consult the judges on this one.” The politeness on his face ran away as he twisted and screamed at the back of the room. “Judges, I demand a ruling on this!”

Behind him, against the wall of the room, a clawful of mismatched thrones sat in nothing that remotely resembled a straight line, each of them bearing a draconequus. From a door in the back of the platform came a constant stream of animal servants with snack trays. As koalas in bellhop outfits and frilly rhino maids paraded around them, piles of discarded nonsense sprung up.

One Discord sat regally, wearing a huge flat-topped black hat and a red robe with black sides. Thoughtfully, he sucked something out of a pretzel rod, casting away the floppy and seemingly whole remains. As he briefly stopped grabbing pretzel sticks from the penguin roller skate waitress next to him, he bellowed, “Guilty!” He quickly chewed on his thumb, staring at the ceiling in thought. “Provisionally!” He pronounced with glee.

As one Discord dressed in a tuxedo shrugged, another in a clown suit yawned. “Honestly, I‘ve barely been paying attention.”

The ringmaster quaked in frustration, turning to the last Discord at the table. “And what doe the celebrity guest say?”

A draconequus in glasses with a fake mustache attached pulled his cigar out of his mouth. “Five tons of flax,” he chortled before kicking back off the chair and rolling on the unseen floor.

“Eh.” Discord shrugged. “That’s about what I thought.” Meekly, he turned to the audience. “I’ll have to allow it.” He smiled, teeth bared. “I’m about to allow a lot of things to happen.”

“Hey, Screwy,” Snips whispered. “Shouldn’t we try to do something while he’s arguing with himselves?”

Screwball shook her head, lowering into a runner’s crouch. “Me don’t need him to keep going.”

As the teens on the platform braced themselves and the entombed audience alternated between rapt attention and nervous breakdowns, Discord pulled a magnifying glass from his front pocket. Peering through it, Screwball saw the enlarged image of his eye wink before a claw that could juggle wagons stuck out through the glass.  It flickered in unsubstantial black and white for a moment, the fingers twitching spasmodically, before it grasped the rim of the tool and pulled the rest through.

“I’m large, little ponies,” he said in a booming voice, “and most definitely in charge.”

Snips’s heart nearly stopped when he realized that Discord was big enough to wear the carousel boutique as a hat. Screwball pawed the ground, and expectant look on her face.

“Well,” the chuckling colossus said, “it’s time for the big finish.” He snapped his fingers in remembrance. “Let me put on some mood music.” He plucked the glass coffins of Red Glare and Cheerilee out of the air and held them against his ears as a black band grew between them over the crest of his head. At that height, Screwball could just see Red pounding on the walls against Discord’s ear, while Cheerilee seemed a mostly still dot far away. Their screams ringing in his ears, Discord banged his head in place with closed eyes for a few seconds before opening them and breathing in slowly.

“Ah,” he said as he hit his chest with his fist. “Music to really gets the blood flowing.” He reached to the side of Red’s case, turned a switch marked “volume” past ten, and nodded. “So why don’t we do just that?”

With the snap of his fingers, the surface of the rainbow pools quaked. The varied colors began to spiral down into a tie-dye nightmare, leaving Screwy and Snips’ platform hovering dozens of feet above a rusted metal surface, bare except for a solidified lump of blue candy with multi-colored streaks clinging to the drain.

“Is athletics more your style? Well, a good ringmaster plays to his performer’s strength.”

Dozens of lollipops appeared in the air, the smallest of them being as wide as a wagon wheel with a stick like a ski. They floated together and rotated in the air, creating an moving framework of spinning wheels and poles. One would occasionally stop dead in the air, only to recklessly spin away seconds later and reconnect to a different place on the levitating jungle gym.

As Snips stared at the assemblage of unsafe, spinning floors, he realized his platform was shaking.

“S-S-S-Screwy, I c-can’t d-do t-this.” Panting heavily, sweat was pouring down his facial coat. “I-it’s been fun, but you c-c-c-can--”

He screamed as two strong hooves bucked him in the rear, sending him flying off the platform. Snips saw a life of embarrassment and camaraderie flash into front of his eyes as he hurtled toward the surface of a chocolate-filled spherical lollipop. He threw his hooves in front of him frantically around the white pole holding it to the rest of the scaffolding, wrapping his legs around it just as it started to spin.

Bile rose in the back of his throat. Can I puke in a dream? What'll come out?

“S-S-Screwy! Help!”

He saw three of her hopping from hoof to hoof along three quickly-spinning white bars. The herd of Screwballs somersaulted over three of a solid block-like lollipop that swept into her path, a terrified cricket silently screaming inside each one. Each Screwball gave Snips a quick smile as they reached a house-size, rainbow-colored spiral disc. 

“Watch out for emus!” She shouted back with a friendly smile and hoof wave.

Snips blinked.

“Wait, what? Was that one backwards or forwards? Aaaaaaargh!” Snips screamed continuous as the ball he sat on started to move in two directions, going around like a hyperactive clock’s pendulum while the shaft spun on.

Through it all, Screwball ran straight for Discord, eye narrowed. Chuckling nervously, he waggled his fingers through the air like a conductor. The entire candy contraption started to fold and spin. Screwball, finding herself turned around, balanced on one hoof as she tried to study the shifting framework. Almost immediately she backflipped away as a gigantic lollipop shaped like a charging unicorn swung through the space she had just occupied. It’s trajectory unimpeded, it slammed into the wall of the arena, lodging through the steel before the helicopter prop at the base of its stick spun in reverse. The unicorn lollipop flew back into the fray as two identical candy weapons fell in behind it into a V-formation, patrolling in search of Screwball.

While Screwball raced around the perimeter of the obstacle course, Snips’ lollipop hung down, finally immobile. Snips had scrunched his eyes shut as the world continued to reorient itself around him, but as his chocolate-filled conveyance stopped he risked cracking an eye open. Something between a desperate laugh and a nervous scream ran out of his throat as Snips threw himself upwards, dragging himself up along the stem of his lollipop. Seconds later, two gigantic rainbow spirals with sharpened edges collided right beneath him, turning the candy sphere that was his vehicle into a cloud of shards and chocolate chunks and leaving jagged pieces of themselves in the mix.

Hope and need rose in Snips as he turned his mouth sideways, bit the pole, and concentrated hard. He felt blood rushing, his pulse hammering through his blood vessels like a marching band, but he simultaneously willed the cloud of debris to not fall and his pounding head to stay unexploded. He slipped downward nearly two feet before the cloud of sharpened sugar lifted to his rapidly-descending eye level.

Grunting, Snips telekinetically jammed the larger sharps bits into the lower part of white stick he hung from. Experimentally, he lowered his hooves and found purchase on his makeshift platform. Standing on a swing candy plank like a tasty circus act, Snips slumped against the cardboard bar he clung to, embedding as many shards into it as he could right before his horn finally released the remaining scraps to clatter on the floor far below.

He panted for a second, rubbing his hoof under his nose to wipe off a trickle of blood.  Whether it came front his exhaustion on an impact masked by his adrenaline, he didn't care. He held the bloody hoof inches away from his face and laughed.

“This is how Screwy feels all the time, I bet.” Looking up, Snips cast a critical eye at the jagged pieces of candy he’d manage to obtain.

Elsewhere Screwball ran in leaping strides, jumping from one horizontal cardboard bar to another to keep just ahead of a cloud of sharpened lollipops the size of Hearth’s Warming trees. Heart pounding as she bounced for one floating jungle gym to another, she had no idea that Discord was finally getting bored.

He had shrunk back down since the show had started. Regardless of how impressive it looked, he found that triumphing over your enemies is less fun when you tower over them. Unless he’d squish them himself (and he was sorely tempted), it’s was like trying to watch a hoofball game played by hamsters in their tunnels.

So, lounging near the full-service bar and hovering only slightly over the platform of giggling clones he’d created as an audience, Discord disinterestedly turned around and tapped on Cheerilee’s box. Hers was the only cage he’d allow sound to penetrate out of. It was funnier that way, since everytime he talked to her Red Glare would pound his hooves against the glass and bluster, terrified at the possible threats to his wife he was deaf to.

“So,” Discord said conversationally, “I’m rather bored now. I just might snap my fingers and kill your daughter.”  While her world froze and her brain readjusted itself, Discord  aimed a baleful glance at the glass with an umbrella he held in his claw. “More importantly, I think we’re almost out of the fixings for screwdrivers.”

“You wouldn’t. That’s not funny. That’s not fair.”

He slid a pair of sunglasses down his muzzle, staring into her eyes as he carefully sucked a metal screwdriver out of his glass point-first.

“We’ll, it’s just feels like death. After all, nopony ever really dies in the funhouse.” He sighed. “Besides, I don’t have all day, and I don’t think the bartender knows how to mix ingredients and keep them edible.”

“Please.”

Crumpling his glass like paper, he chuckled. “Please, what? Please, you’ll give me something? Please, or you’ll wreak terrible vengeance on me?”

“Just, please,” Cheerilee said, pushed against the walls of her cage. “She’s my daughter. Please.”

Swallowing whole the metal tool shoved through an orange, he belched in Cheerilee’s face before snorting.out a cloud of screws and bolts from his nose.

“I’ll give you one minute,” he said while watching as Screwball flew through the air, trailing the cloud of cones. “One minute to convince me not to do this to her.” He slurped the last bit of metal hardware from his glass before throwing it over the railing. He crossed his arms, raised his eyebrows, and waited patiently.

Cheerilee breathed in. Thoughtful quotes and motivational speeches from a long and distinguished career of teaching whirled behind her eyes, but none of them made any sense to her. They were, at that point, empty passages she could have recited without comprehension. A sweatdrop running down her muzzle brought her out of mental paralysis, and with a quick breath she launched herself into the one line of reasoning she thought would work on a malicious chaos god.

“Look,” she said, “if you--”

Smiling, Discord snapped his fingers.

Many things happened at that moment. First, Cheerilee crumpled onto the floor, wailing. Second, the trio of unicorn lollipops spun in the air in their unerring pursuit of Screwball. Third, Discord created a flux in the fluid space and time of the dreamworld, an invisible rip that would instantaneously appear in front of Screwball and send her careening unto the first of many pointed, rainbow demises.

Finally, Screwball dodged it.

The second before it opened, Screwball pushed down on her forehooves and flipped over it without breaking a stride.  As Discord’s jaw hit the floor and rolled under a chair, she smiled at him and kept running.

Discord reached out his claw without looking, and the bartender’s horn flared as she levitated the jaw back to him. Screwing it back in, he stared incredulously at the accelerating, angry pastel blur heading for him.

Cheerilee, crying, started to giggle.

Snapping his fingers only for effect, Discord grabbed another drink from the bar and threw the whole thing, glass and all, into his mouth. Crunching the glass and swallowing, he snapped his fingers again and repositioned the candy missiles right in front of Screwball.

She leapt at the foremost unicorn pop, and with a tap of her hoof it turned into a cloud of twenty-sided dice falling harmlessly to the floor below. The other sugary weapons shot past her harmlessly.

Clenching his claws, Discord snarled. “That doesn’t even make sense!” Suddenly in a sequined jumpsuit, shades, and a bouffant hairdo, Discord began snapping his fingers rapidly. The lollipop maze starting pulling apart before Screwball bent down and whispered to it, and it began to reform, straightening out towards Discord like a bridge. 

A mob of chain-wielding biker emus fell upon Screwball, and she rolled her eyes as she tapped each lollipop she past. She watched the gang get slammed by quickly repositioning candy construction materials the swung out on their own and ran on, waving to a hidden fnord only she could perceive that had snuck in from a higher dimension to watch, 

Sometimes, it takes a screaming argument. Sometimes it takes a fearful confession, or an unexpected wedding. That moment, watching the lollipop scaffolding twist at Screwy’s will, was the single event that made Cheerilee finally understand her daughter.

Her mind flashed back to that first day with Screwball in her classroom. Cheerilee had turned her back for a second, and when she had looked back her daughter-to-be had cleaned years of dust and destruction away completely. Even recently, from her miraculous pre-trip apartment straightening to the dinner platters she had arrange in minutes, Cheerilee had started to take Screwy’s ability to do the impossible almost for granted.

Everything was so clear now, and Cheerilee laughed and laughed until Discord stared at her sourly.

“What could possibly be so funny?”

She wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, Discord. You’ll never be her father, but you made her. You picked out the mane, the coat color, everything. You even gave her a cutie mark. Did you think those were for show?”

Discord examined his thumb carefully. “Is this thing even loaded?” True to form, he started to vent his frustration at the nearest captive audience. “What are you babbling about, you trumped-up babysitter?’”

Cheerilee stood to her feet, wiped the tears off, and grinned through the mask that all true teachers keep behind their face. This was the variety of mask they wear when they bump into a parent they’ve been trying to contact at a grocery store and casually mention how their wonderful child flooded the science lab on purpose. This was the grin a triumphant teacher wears when impending punishment is in the air.

“I’m explaining slowly with examples so that I know that you understand the lesson, dear. Our cutie marks mean something. Mine is to inspire and nurture, and you gave me her to work with. I nurtured her to be the most she could, and all that is going to rain down on you shortly like the horn of an angry alicorn. Are you following? Is my cutie mark involving book reports still so funny?”

“Oh, spare me the braggadocio.” He was sweating. Screwball was getting so close, he could make out the direction of her eyespin. “What are you getting at?”

“You didn’t choose a special talent for her, so she grew one from what she was made of. She brings order out of chaos, Discord, and we’re standing in the middle of a realm of chaos.”

Discord dropped to the floor, sweating and fully focused on Screwball. His trains of thought crashed together and wrapped around each other in a perverse mating dance of groaning steel. A thought flickered from their diesel-choked copulation, and he focused he consciousness on the one way he could--

“Excuse me, sir? Any more drinks? Popcorn maybe, peanuts? Ice cream? We have a new flavor today!”

He whirled on the bartender, murder in his eyes. She saw the murder, a particularly complicated one played out by eight stick figures made out of his independently moving eyeball veins, and smiled.

“What is it?” He screamed at her.

“Dinosaur surprise.”

Sweetie Belle (in a poorly stitched together bartender outfit and worse false mustache) threw a drink in his face just as something made of feathers, claws, and loyalty jumped him from behind the bar. Knocked to the floor with body parts bloodlessly bouncing off of him, Discord raised his arm to snap his fingers just before a glowing cloud of candy-cutting blades reached the area and sliced it into a pile of yellow, twitching marshmallows.

Discord screamed in pain. He hollered in anger. Suddenly, as the clawing stopped, Discord looked up into Screwball’s livid, confident eyes. As her hoof lowered onto his face, he suddenly couldn’t think of anything to say, and an ancient magic promise of his turned a small chunk of Tartaurus into an ice skating rink.

She tapped him on the forehead, and everything went black.

___

When he opened his eyes, the sky was mostly white. Giant black vents hand been cut through it, and he felt a light, invisible snow falling onto his face. Blinking, he stretched a claw across his face and accidentally hit the sky, making it bounce back and forth. 

“Okay, this is a good one.” He wiped his eyes clear of sleep gunk, much of it crawling away. “Did I do this one?”

He stood up, hitting the roof of the sky. His head punctured into it, and he ducked out of it while coughing and gagging.

A few steps brought several facts to his attention, and his composed a mental list.

Firstly, Discord thought, the sky was still blue, and he had just woken up under a mushroom.

B, I’m smaller than a mushroom.

Item number seventeen-q, he thought as he looked up into a pair of vengeful, spiralling eyes that were wider than he was, Screwball is way bigger than a mushroom.

He was, in fact, standing next to a mushroom on the lawn of a Ponyville cottage. Screwball towered over him, as did all of the other joyous residents of Ponyville who surrounded them, standing a few steps backwards from the two of them. 

“Goodbye, Discord,” she said pleasantly.

“Heh.” He cringed a little, waving weakly. “Heh, I get that. Backwards. ‘Hello,’ right?” He took a step away from her. “Hello, Screwball.”

She shook her head. “Nope, nopety, nonsense. Not what I said. I said, ‘Good-bye, Discord,’ and I meant it.”

From his perspective, the ground shook as she stepped closer to him. He jumped back, colliding with the mushroom in a pile of white spores.

“Oh, you burnt the beanie. That’s right.” He should up, wiping the spores out as he grinned obsequiously. “You’ve also strained your brain into a better shape, haven’t you. Fixed yourself, then?”

Screwball grimaced with a sharp intake of breath.

“No. I’m not fixed.” She slammed her hoof onto the dirt, sending Discord scrambling away. “Me was broken all the time. I just learned some new options, but I was never broken. Now, I do get to fix you.”

Sweating, Discord turned around slowly, noticing the anticipatory grins on the faces of the looming Ponyville crowd. He had the uncanny feeling of being trapped in an arena and hearing people comment on how hungry the lions were.

“Look,” he said, holding his claws in front of him, “you don’t want to do anything rash.” He snapped his fingers in the air. “You wouldn’t hit a draconequus with--”

His talons scratched his nose. He snapped his fingers. He snapped them again. He snapped them one last time, because he knew in his soul that comedy required things in threes.

“Where’s the glasses? The joke doesn’t work without the glasses.” He swallowed as Screwball lifted a hoof, the shadow falling over him. “Uh oh.”

Her limb slammed into the ground, sending him running away. “Don’t come around here no more,” she said.

“Did you hear that?” At the head of the crowd, Cheerilee quaked with laughter. “I love that song.”

Red Glare shushed her. “I know, dear,” he whispered. “She’s her mother’s daughter, just give her this moment.”

“That’s my daughter,” Cheerilee whispered with tears running down her face.

Discord ran down the street, passing several ponies who stepped backwards as he drew near. He cast a terrified glance behind him as Screwball stomped closer, gaining on him.

“Quit walking down my street, Discord.”

He ran onto the lawn of the Ponyville cafe, screaming incoherently. Discord jumped into the air, straining to fly with wings sized for comedy. He landed face first onto a discarded napkin. “Help me!” He picked himself up, covered in sweat, and started climbing a cafe table. “Help me!”

Screwball walked at the head of the Ponyville mob, chuckling. “Help you? Discord, who would? Who do you expect to meet?”

As the crowd drew closer, Discord leapt against the leg of a table, driving his talons into it. Muscles straining, he scaled the table leg, swinging himself up onto the surface only to pitch face first into a full tea cup. His head broke the surface just in time to see Screwball blot out the sun.

“Please, don’t.” Discord shook his head, bawling into the hot drink. “This... this isn’t the way you play the game.”

“Discord, you let things get away from you. Now I am the game,” she said as she lifted the teacup on a hoof, raising him to eye level, “and me don’t want to play.”

She slammed her front hooves together, making the teacup vanish completely.

“Whoah,” Snips said. “Hey, buddy, that’s a great magic trick. We should ask her about that one.”

Snails nodded, patting his partner on the shoulder.

Screwball stood still, eyes closed, focusing on the teacup that wasn’t there as a warmth started to surround her. The sounds of gasping ponies and the bright light filtering through her eyelids made her turn around and look. Screwball smiled, because no pony ever lived that can see the smile Screwball saw then and not reciprocate.

“Hello, Princess Celestia.”

It was like looking into a burning star that loved you. 

“Screwball,” said warmth, love, and justice, “the most unexpected and surprising of all my subjects. Everything Luna says of you still doesn’t do you justice. Equestria owes you a great deal for your services to her.” Celestia inclined her head. “I owe you much for the safe return of my student, as well as all of my ponies.” She furrowed her brow. “Now, where is Discord? Does he still exist?”

Screwing nodded, opening up her hooves to reveal a miniature funhouse.

“Oh, yeah,” Snips exclaimed, “that trick keeps getting better!” He lowered his head as the crowd shushed him.

The funhouse, bathed in gold, rose into the air to Celestia’s eye level. “The living nightmare trapped in a house of dreams. I approve of the irony and mercy. I know the perfect caretaker for it.” She levitated it away, into the hooves of a waiting royal guard, before turning back to Screwball.

“There are many rewards I could bestow on you...” She turned to the waiting crowd to look at the assembled group of Cheerilee’s family and former students. Having read years of letters filled with Ponyville gossip, she noted Diamond Tiara standing next to Apple Bloom and filled it away as the twelfth most surprising thing of the millennium. “...but I doubt anything would be as great as the friendships you have won this day.”

“Ah, c-c-come on!”

The whole town turned to glare at Snips.

With an exaggerated sigh, Princess Celestia rolled her eyes. “Very well, Snipsy Scissors. I suppose we could go through with the traditional celebratory banquet feast and party at Canterlot Castle. That is, if that pleases you, Snips?”

Snips shook silently as the accumulated eyes of Ponyville stared at him. He finally nodded as Sweetie Belle tapped him on the shoulder.

Celestia nodded back. “Well, then. Screwball, I owe you that much for keeping this town safe.” She spared a glance towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders, standing close together. “Also, for reforging what should have never been broken. I will leave you in order to plan. Let me attend to business for a while, and we will all be together later.” She kicked off the ground, and flapped towards the Ponyville library, leaving Screwball alone in the middle of the crowd.

The crowd charged her, but not in the way Screwball always assumed it would.

Seconds later, Screwball giggled as she was pitched into the air by the screaming mass of teen ponies and parents. She twisted, waiting to fall back down on her hooves. As she stayed stationary, Screwball looked down into the amused eyes underneath her and smiled.

“Me knew me would never see you again,” she said to the owner of the two white forelimbs wrapped around her midsection.

“I know,” shouted the hovering Surprise, “right? We’re going to have so much fun together, and that party is going to be great, and you won’t believe who kisses each other, and...” 

Nearby, ponies turned from the triumphant Screwball to check on their own loved ones

“Scoots, you are amazing!” Rainbow Dash ruffled Scootaloo’s mane while keeping her in a tight headlock. “I mean, it wasn’t really me, but a fake Rainbow Dash is the awesomest thing he could have whipped up. Hayfeathers, you stood up to the Lord of Chaos! I’m proud of you, kid.”

Scootaloo nuzzled into Rainbow’s neck, feeling Ponce doing the same thing to hers. “I know,” she whispered.

Elsewhere, Apple Bloom beamed as Applejack swallowed her pride and shook Snails’ hoof.  Nearby, Rarity was lecturing Sweetie Belle on helping others to rise to an occasion.

“Darling, you see how tonguetied he was in front of the Princess. You really should accompany him. Purely out of a desire to avoid embarrassment and aid him in diplomacy, of course.”

Sweetie sighed. “Of course, Rarity.”

Rarity blinked, and took a deep breath. “That’s my suggestion and opinion, though. Whatever you choose for yourself, I’ll understand.”

“I’ll do it,” Sweetie said with a nod. “I want to.” She gasped for breath as Rarity grabbed her and nearly asphyxiated her.

“We’ll have to have a fitting. He’ll look so gallant in a tuxedo!”

With most of her friends talking to each other, Screwball stole a quiet moment to sit at a far table on the cafe lawn. Watching the crowd was astounding. It was an everflowing ocean of relationships and interactions, and Screwy was engrossed in watching how every pony related to the others in town.

“People watching is fun,” whispered the voice in her ear.

She turned to smile at the chestnut brown stallion with the hourglass mark. Ditzy’s husband was wearing a ridiculous set of paper glasses, one lens blue and the other red. As he passed a hoofful of his box of popcorn, she instantly decided she wanted a pair.

“People?”

“It’s an archaic term,” he said with an enigmatic smile. “So, wow. The final sealing of Discord. The first of Screwball’s great tasks. I’m honored to be here for it.”

She blinked. “First?”

He choked on a piece of popcorn, slamming his hoof into his chest. “Sorry. Spoilers. Got to go see Ditzy and Cheerilee, arrange a nice dinner.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I really want to talk to you about butterfly wings and hurricanes.”

Screwball narrowed her eyes. “Me didn’t hear you. First?”

“Don’t look at me.” The pony who called himself “John Smith” threw his hooves up innocently. “Didn’t say anything. Can’t actual speak language. You’re just assigning meaning to the random grunts I make. Shame on you.” He winked, stood up, and walked off after tousling Screwball’s hair. “See you for dinner, Screwy.”

As Screwball shook her head, John walked over to his wife, coughing into his hoof. “So, she, um, can shape chaos into order. Got a brain like a machine. Good with children.”

“John,” Ditzy whisphered in a sweet tone. “My husband, father of my children...” She threw her forelimbs around his neck. “The love of my life...”

“Yes?”

“She is not going in that damned blue box with us.”

“Aw, come on!”

Ditzy smiled. “At least not until she finishes school.”

With her head on her hooves, Screwball watched the crowd from the cafe table. She breathed in as she felt familiar hooves rubbing her tense back.

“So, my wonderful daughter, what are we going to do for the second day of summer vacation?”

Screwball’s eyes leapt from one of the new ponies she had met to another. She heard Scootaloo and Apple Bloom making weekend plans, and watched Surprise wave from the line at Sugarcube Corner. Sweetie Belle was ushering Snips into the boutique, and Ditzy was planning some kind of dinner with Red Glare and Lyra. Ponyville was buzzing with life.

Screwball smiled.

“Everything.”

___

“Hello? Is anybody there?”

Discord peeked into the empty funhouse room before slamming it shut. He scratched his forehead nearly to bleeding as he considered the hallway that stretched out in front of him endlessly.

“I don’t even remember making this part. Hello!” He tried the next door, finding the same results. “Somepony help me, please! This isn’t funny anymore!”

From nowhere, he heard a familiar, musical laugh that chilled his bones.

“We disagree, Discord,” the voice said with a chuckle. “We’ve only just started, and methinks the funny has been doubled.”