Breaking the Law and Order
It was a dark and stormy night.
In fact, somepony was going to end up getting fired because of said storm. Thunderheads were expensive and not only was this one unscheduled, but it was going to blow the weather budget for the next month.
Fluttershy slept as she usually did during storms, with earplugs in and wrapped up tight, trying to pretend it wasn't going on at all. This was particularly difficult because the storm was centered on her hut, and the few ponies working night shift with the weather team (all of whom would later deny starting the storm) said it had a strange, unnatural glow to it, like a dozen colors at once, some of them in shades they didn't even have words for.
Celestia's sun banished the impenetrable night, and the birds sang, which Fluttershy couldn't hear over the morning weather crew yelling at each other and trying to move 'a metric buck-load of clouds before anypony else complained.'
Fluttershy yawned and stretched, her bed feeling smaller than she remembered. That wasn't entirely unusual. Sometimes things in her house changed when she wasn't looking. After the last tea party, for example, one of her chairs had started nesting in a closet, which was unusual behavior for well-made wooden furniture. The litter of footstools had been adorable.
She grabbed a brush and sat in front of her mirror, and managed a half-dozen strokes before the brush caught on something and she accidentally punched herself in the face. Fluttershy pushed her long mane aside to reveal a delicate horn growing from her forehead.
Fluttershy sighed.
She was an alicorn.
Again.
It was the third time this year.
“Mornin', Fluttershy,” Applejack said.
“Good morning,” Fluttershy replied. “Can I get a dozen apples?”
“Any particular type?”
“Oh, whatever you'd recommend for eating,” Fluttershy said.
“Galas are good fer that,” Applejack said, bagging them. “Can't help but notice y'all are an alicorn again.”
“You know how it is,” Fluttershy sighed.
“Discord?”
“Probably. Usually he comes by to gloat about it.” She shrugged. “I haven't seen him yet but..."
“Let me know if ya need anything extra,” Applejack said. “And y'all should prolly chat with Twilight. Ya did promise she could take a look next time this happened.”
Fluttershy sighed. She didn't want to spend all day cooped up in a lab, but she did promise.
“Yep, definitely chaos magic,” Twilight confirmed. She put the crystal aside carefully, a sparkling twist caught in the center, constantly changing shape and color. Unlike the ponies working the weather patrol, she did have words for the colors. Blorange, for example, which was often seen in summoning rituals. And taupe, which wasn't that unusual of a color but the fact that the weather patrol couldn't name it spoke volumes of the Cloudsdale educational system's lack of funding for the arts.
“Do you know how long this will last?” Fluttershy asked. “Ponies keep bowing and I don't know if it's fear or awe and I'd really prefer not to inspire terror. We already did that friendship lesson years ago.”
“Don't worry,” Twilight assured her. “After a little while they stop noticing you're a princess at all.” She sighed. “They don't notice at all.” She trailed off, her voice echoing in the empty halls of her crystal castle.
“Would it be okay if I stayed here until it stopped?”
“Sure,” Twilight shrugged. “Spike!” She yelled into the hallway. Spike, wisely, had taken cover when the experiments had started. “Can you make sure Chrysalis isn't in the spare bedroom?”
“I'm sorry,” Fluttershy coughed. “Chrysalis? The evil changeling queen?”
“Don't ask.” Twilight sighed. “It was part of a revenge plot or something. That's what she said when I caught her kissing Starlight, anyway.”
“...You've changed the sheets, right?” Fluttershy asked, after a moment.
“I burned the old sheets,” Twilight assured her. “So let's try some basic telekinesis while you've got that horn!”
“Just focus and feel your aura...” Twilight said. “It should be like flowing water.”
“Oh, I used to do this with Treehugger,” Fluttershy said.
“Meditation is good practice. I wonder if she could teach me anything about earth pony magic?”
“She tried to teach me, but it just went over my head,” Fluttershy said. “Or under my hooves? I don't know what the right phrase is for earth magic. I don't want to seem tribalist.”
“It can't be worse than when I tried to study Pinkie Pie,” Twilight laughed.
“She really can be random,” Fluttershy agreed. “Sometimes she's just like-” Her voice changed, and for a moment she sounded exactly like Pinkie. “I like scissors! Sixty-one!”
“Wow, that was... shockingly accurate. You're good at that.”
“And knitting.” Fluttershy blinked and looked to the side, her ears twitching. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
Spike opened the door, and Apple Bloom ran in, panicked and sweating from a long run. “Y'all gotta help! Somethin's wrong with mah sister!”
Fluttershy's feeling that something was wrong grew and crystallized as they got closer to Sweet Apple Acres. There was something terribly off, and it built up over time until it snapped into focus on the road to Applejack's front door.
Fluttershy gasped and stopped.
Twilight ran ahead and got halfway down the hill before she noticed Fluttershy wasn't following.
“Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.
“Look!” Fluttershy pointed. Twilight frowned and looked.
“I don't see anything. It's just trees.”
“Exactly!” Fluttershy said.
“What's so horrible about trees?” Twilight asked.
Fluttershy groaned. “Twilight, you're letting the orchard blind you to the trees! Look at the trees!”
Twilight tilted her head and looked at one of the apple trees. It looked fine. So did the one next to it. And the one next to that. They all looked like perfectly normal, average trees, just blending into the background.
They all looked like the same tree. Over and over again.
“That's impossible!” Twilight gasped. She stepped closer and picked two apples. They were the same in every way, red and perfectly formed, without a blemish or mark on them. When she grabbed two leaves, they were equally identical. It was like the trees were perfect copies, lined up in neat rows.
“Who could have done this?” Fluttershy whispered. It was so horribly wrong, hitting her somewhere deep inside.
“Discord?” Twilight asked.
“Twilight, he'd never do something like this!” Fluttershy admonished. “It's not funny or clever. It's- it's the worst thing I've ever seen!”
“I guess it's not his style,” the princess admitted. “But it would make things easier to sort and categorize. Maybe it's not all that bad?”
“I hope Applejack is okay...” Fluttershy whispered.
“Apple Bloom wasn't long on details,” Twilight said, as they ran with renewed speed towards the farmhouse. “She said it was strange when she woke up and Big Mac sent her because he was having problems convincing Granny Smith to leave.”
“I know, Twilight, I was there too,” Fluttershy said. She paused. “It was a very nice recap though.”
The house looked fine at first glance, until one saw that all the tiny imperfections were gone. The grass was all the same shade of green, every blade the same length. The boards in the house all had the same pattern. The windows were all the same.
“...It's like a picture book,” Twilight said, after a few moments. “It's all simplified. Like a drawing instead of the real world.”
“Hello,” said a voice almost entirely unlike Applejack's. “It's a beautiful morning.”
“Oh no,” Fluttershy whispered. “She's...”
Applejack's face was frozen in a smile, and she moved stiffly, like there was something wrong inside her. Her freckles had vanished, and her mane was smoothed down and hard-looking, like it had been fixed in place with a huge amount of hair gel.
“It's happened to her too,” Twilight whispered.
“Hello,” Applejack repeated. “It's a beautiful morning.”
“It has to be some kind of magic,” Twilight said, her horn lighting up. “That's... bizarre. It feels like the magic of the Elements of Harmony.”
“There has to be something we can do,” Fluttershy said.
“It isn't dark magic,” Twilight said. “Maybe Celestia has seen something like this?”
“Hello,” Applejack said, repeating herself again.
“There has to be something,” Fluttershy whispered. “Maybe Discord could help?”
“Fluttershy, I still think there's at least even odds on this being his fault,” Twilight sighed. “And even if he didn't do it, he'd probably find a way to make things worse.”
“That's very rude, Twilight.” Fluttershy frowned. “He saved our lives before!”
“I know,” Twilight sighed. “But...”
“You wouldn't say that about Starlight.”
“It's a beautiful morning,” added Applejack.
“Okay, okay,” Twilight said, backing down. “You're right. I'm sorry.”
“Twilight,” Fluttershy tugged on her wing. “Look.”
She pointed to the sky. Just like the orchard it took a moment to realize what was wrong. There were clouds evenly spaced across the sky. The same cloud. Over and over again, repeating as far as she could see.
“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked. Fluttershy nodded.
Whatever was wrong, it hadn't spread to the weather team yet. They were trying to clear the sky and having more trouble than the time Ditzy Doo set a tornado on fire, though with less collateral damage.
“It's like they're locked in place,” Cloud Kicker said, wiping her brow. “If we move them, they just go back. Watch- Merry! Try the one on the left!”
One of the other weather ponies started pushing a cloud, her wings buzzing with effort. It started to move, but before she could get far it suddenly dissolved like a sugar cube in hot tea, boiling away under her hooves as another cloud formed where it had been.
“Interesting...” Twilight muttered. “I think I'm starting to understand.”
“It's the harmony magic,” Fluttershy said.
“It's the harmony mag- how did you know that?” Twilight blinked and turned to her.
“It's obvious, isn't it?” Fluttershy shrugged. “Harmony is an expression of sameness and order. The trees and clouds are all the same, and they're placed like they're locked to a grid. There's a feeling to it like...” She stopped, biting her lip.
“Like what?”
“It reminds me of when Discord almost disappeared because he was trying to be orderly.” Fluttershy frowned. “He could have died. It's that same feeling of... being stifled. It's stuffy and uncomfortable. Have you ever been in a room where ponies don't really live, like a dusty room full of knicknacks with plastic on all the furniture?”
“My grandmother had a room like that. We weren't even allowed to sit in it.” Twilight looked around. “It does have that kind of feeling...”
“How do we stop it?” Fluttershy asked.
“That's a good question,” Twilight admitted. “I think the best thing we can do is ask the Princesses. They've got more experience with the Elements of Harmony than anypony else.”
“Anypony except us,” Fluttershy corrected.
“Right, anypony except us.”
“And we don't know anything.”
“They've had a thousand years to study and think about them!” Twilight assured her. “I mean, um...” She looked around. “Look, my thought is, Luna might have put some effort into learning how to counter them while she was Nightmare Moon. If I was evil and trapped on the moon for a thousand years I'd take the opportunity to do some research and experimentation.”
“I know you would,” Fluttershy sighed. “But can we check on Rainbow Dash first?”
“Of course!” Twilight smiled. “I'm going to want more data points for my report.”
Fluttershy gave her a look.
“...Which is secondary to my concern about my friend's safety?” Twilight offered.
Fluttershy sighed and flew off, with the surprisingly steady flight she only managed when somepony else was counting on her.
“We can agree this isn't normal,” Twilight said.
Fluttershy nodded.
Dash's house was, on any other day, what Twilight would have called 'a modern interpretation of neoclassical Hippoean architecture'. A professional cloud architect would call it 'unbalanced and needing constant maintenance, especially with the waterfall and multi-level design'. The average pegasus would instead call it 'a mess'.
Today it was eerily symmetrical and stately, more like the Pegathon in old Aerome than anything else, a square of columns around a central structure. It was dignified. In other circumstances it would have improved property values, but today it was a concern for more than just the local tax board.
Twilight narrowed her eyes and sketched something in midair with her magic, leaving glowing lines hovering in front of her like she was drawing on an invisible chalkboard.
“It fits perfectly within a golden rectangle,” she said, sliding the shape in front of Fluttershy so the butter-colored buttercorn could see.
“I'm not sure that really proves anything on its own,” Fluttershy said, quietly. “Most things kind of fit a golden rectangle. It's a bad habit to just superimpose them and imply that there's some greater or mystical purpose...”
“And look!” Twilight said, ignoring her. “The clouds at the edges curl in a perfect golden spiral!”
Fluttershy looked where she was pointing, about to tell her that things just kind of loosely did that on their own in nature, and decided against arguing.
“Oh wow, look at this!” Twilight flew up to the carvings in the cloud wall. “It's got a picture of itself on it, and that has the same carvings...” She got closer. “And I think it keeps going. I can't make it all out. I didn't think clouds could hold this kind of fine detail.”
“They can't,” Fluttershy said. “But trees aren't supposed to all look the same, either.”
“Gotta go fast!” Somepony yelled.
Fluttershy and Twilight looked at each other.
“Rainbow Dash,” they said, at the same time.
The cyan pegasus zipped past them.
“Did you see that?” Twilight asked.
“Her mane was different,” Fluttershy said, watching the blur dart from one cloud to another.
“It was in proper Roy G Biv order,” Twilight said. “We need to get her to stand still so we can get a better look at her...” She frowned. “Maybe I should have brought Starlight. She's got some experience with keeping Dash from going anywhere.”
“I think I can catch her,” Fluttershy said.
Twilight looked at her. Then she looked at the zipping blue pegasus.
“Are you about to tell me you've been holding back your true power level?” Twilight asked.
“No. But yes?” Fluttershy bit her lip. “I mean... I'm an alicorn now, right?”
“Fluttershy, you're not really an alicorn. Discord just... did something, and it'll probably wear off soon.” Twilight sighed. “I'm still not convinced the two things aren't related. Besides, I'm an alicorn and I'd have trouble catching her. No offense.”
“Just trust me,” Fluttershy said. “I think if I just...”
She focused and exploded, sparks and bits of yellow and pink flying everywhere.
Twilight screamed.
“Fluttershy, no! What- how could-” she started to hyperventilate. Confetti went into her nose and she sneezed.
Wait, confetti?
“Wait, confetti?” Twilight asked, because it was such a good question she not only repeated the narration but had to ask despite nopony being around to answer.
Fluttershy appeared in a burst of streamers right in Dash's path, grabbing her out of the air and wrassling her down onto a cloud.
“How did you do that?!” Twilight yelled, flying over.
“Gotta go fast!” Dash complained, struggling. Fluttershy didn't seem to have any trouble holding her down, likely because despite how athletic the pegasus was, Fluttershy was used to suplexing bears and Dash wasn't much of a challenge in comparison to a grizzly who needed to get his nails trimmed.
“Oh, I just, you know,” Fluttershy shrugged.
“I don't know! That's why I'm asking!”
“You teleport all the time, so I thought I'd try,” Fluttershy explained. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
“You can't just teleport like that! It takes years of study!”
“It wasn't that hard.”
“What about the confetti?”
Fluttershy held Dash down with one hoof and thought for a moment, rubbing her chin. “I'm not sure. I think I ran into one of Pinkie Pie's emergency party supply stashes on the way.”
Twilight groaned.
"Fast," Dash grumbled.
“Can we please worry about Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy asked.
“Right,” Twilight sighed. She cast a few spells. “From what I can tell it's just like Applejack. There's a huge amount of Harmony magic warping reality. It's smoothing things over. Like, um... imagine the real world was a book, and you started editing to make it simpler and simpler. The plot gets less complicated, you change the words to get rid of anything longer than two syllables, and before you know it, instead of Daring Do and the Golden Calf, you have Where's My Cow?”
“This is probably happening to Pinkie Pie and Rarity too, isn't it?” Fluttershy asked.
“If it's related to the Elements, it's possible,” Twilight confirmed.
“What about us?”
“I've been trained to resist most forms of magical attack,” Twilight assured her. “I feel fine. And you seem fine.”
“Gotta go,” Dash mumbled.
“If this is happening to the others, though, Pinkie is in the middle of town, and Rarity...” Twilight's eyes widened. “She's in Canterlot helping Sassy Saddles launch...” Her horn flashed, and a scroll appeared in front of her. She checked her notes quickly. “Her... Winter Belle cold-weather fancy-dress tundra exploration line. She was going to be there until next week.”
“...Fancy dress tundra exploration?”
“Most explorers are independently wealthy nobles who finance their own expeditions so they can pose for photos,” Twilight explained. “It makes more sense than it should.”
“You send a letter to Celestia, and I'll handle Pinkie Pie,” Fluttershy said, adjusting her grip on Dash.
“Right. If this is going on in Canterlot it could cause a panic.” Twilight paused. “She's turning blue.”
“She's always blue, Twilight.”
“More blue than usual,” Twilight said, looking at Rainbow Dash. “And she just passed out.”
“Maybe I was holding her a little tight,” Fluttershy admitted, letting her go. “She'll be fine. It was just a sleeper hold, and she always did like naps.”
“Oh, this is bad,” Fluttershy whispered, as she trotted towards Sugarcube Corner. It seemed every two or three houses things were repeating, like she was walking past the same block over and over again - or like the animator had gotten lazy and just looped the background behind her walk cycle.
She shook her head. That last bit had been an odd thought and she was starting to have problems distinguishing her own thoughts from the narration of the story, which was a very strange problem to have unless you were Pinkie Pie.
“I hope she's okay,” Fluttershy said, reminded of her friend again.
She ran another few blocks, and should have been at the bakery already, though as she was passing First Street for the seventh time, she had a sense she was making less progress than she intended.
“Running isn't going to work,” she whispered, slowing to a trot and biting her lip. She spread her wings and took to the air.
And it all looked the same, and the sky was the same, and she couldn't even tell which way was north and-
She dropped back down to the ground, shaking.
“Not flying. Definitely not flying,” she whispered.
Fluttershy closed her eyes, just feeling the ground underneath her hooves.
“Walking anywhere just brings be back to where I am,” Fluttershy said to herself. “I need to stop worrying about the journey and just focus on the destination...”
Keeping her eyes closed, she took a few steps, and the cobblestones under her hooves (the same cobblestone, repeated a million times in every direction) changed into linoleum.
“Wow! That was pretty good!”
Fluttershy opened her eyes in surprise, backing up a step when her entire field of view was filled with a pink blur.
Pinkie smiled at her, and she seemed normal. Normal for Pinkie Pie. Not normal for anypony else. The latter would have been extremely worrying, and the former was only mildly concerning.
“Great scene transition,” Pinkie continued. “I might have thrown in a horizontal rule or some balloons but it's hard to get anything like that to stick from this side.”
“Scene transition?” Fluttershy asked. Then she shook her head. It wasn't important. “Are you feeling alright, Pinkie?”
“I was, until I tried baking.” Pinkie ducked out of frame and reappeared behind the counter. “Take a look at this!”
She put a tray of muffins on the counter, and, as Fluttershy had expected, each of them was identical.
“Even the blueberries are in the same spots!” Pinkie huffed. “The worst part is these were rhubarb-vanilla-mayonnaise before I put them in the oven. I'm not sure how that averages out to blueberries. I mean you'd maybe get boysenberries if you went too hard on the rhubarb, but definitely not blueberries.”
“I think all the muffins are blueberries,” Fluttershy said, looking at the glass case between them. “And all the cookies are chocolate chip.”
“It's like a bad dream!” Pinkie gasped. “Well... not that bad. Otherwise the muffins would be bran and the cookies would be oatmeal grazin.”
“Grazin?”
“They're raisins made out of granite. It takes forever to get them to dehydrate!”
“Oh, right,” Fluttershy said, deciding to just let that one go. “We need to get to Twilight's castle. She's going to get help from Princess Celestia, and then everything will be okay.”
“I... think I'd better stay here,” Pinkie said, her voice lowered.
“Why?” Fluttershy asked.
“I-It's really hard to keep being me, you know?” Pinkie said. Her smile looked strained. “It's like some big meanie is making all these rules, like- like what flavor muffins are allowed to be, or what I'm allowed to say, or-”
Pinkie groaned, almost falling over. Fluttershy acted on instinct, her horn sparking and something soft appearing to catch the party pony.
It was, unfortunately, a giant banana cream pie.
“Hah! That's the first time a pie ever got hit in the face by a pony,” Pinkie said, dazed. “Hey, did you know you're an alicorn? We'll have to- we'll have to have a party once everything is better. The horn looks really good on you! Like a party hat...”
Pinkie trailed off, her gaze going hard and flat and plastic. She stood up, the mess of the cream pie sliding off of her.
“Let's have a party!” Pinkie said, walking stiffly back to the oven. She opened it, and took from it a tray of muffins, the same tray she'd put on the counter a moment ago.
Fluttershy backed away and lost her nerve, bolting for the door.
“Twilight has to have found an answer,” she whispered, closing her eyes and focusing on the castle.
“How did you do that?” Twilight asked.
Fluttershy opened her eyes. She was in the crystal castle. She turned around to look back the way she'd come, and there was only the dim interior of a broom closet.
“Magic?” Fluttershy offered. "I think I even managed the horizontal rule that time."
“...Okay,” Twilight said, shrugging. “Bigger things to worry about. Spike, put Fluttershy on my long term 'to-research' checklist.”
“She's already on there, Twilight,” Spike said, after retrieving the scroll and checking the paperwork. “Three times. You wanted to research her Stare, her ability to speak to animals, and you told me you wanted to research her flank, but you kind of had a lot of cider when you said that. I added it anyway because I wasn't sure if you'd remember or not and-”
Spike's mouth snapped shut, held closed by magenta magic.
“Let's just forget about that last part,” Twilight said, sweating.
“That would be-” Fluttershy coughed, stepping out of the closet and closing the door. “I mean, I'm flattered, but this isn't the time, I think.”
“Right, yes,” Twilight said, very happy to change the subject. “Pinkie Pie?”
“She changed right in front of me,” Fluttershy said, quietly.
“Princess Celestia hasn't gotten back to me yet,” Twilight said. “I sent Starlight out of town. I don't know what's going to happen to you or me, and she's the best pony I could think of to fix things if... we're disabled.”
Twilight looked down, and didn't even hear Fluttershy coming up until the pegasus- well, former pegasus, temporarily alicorn – hugged her.
“It's going to be okay,” Fluttershy said. “We'll figure this out.”
“It's Harmony magic, Fluttershy. What are we supposed to do? Is this the way the world is supposed to be, all... simple and clean?”
“You already know the answer, Twilight,” Fluttershy said, letting her go. “You love unraveling puzzles and learning new things and discovering mysteries. The world is a big, complicated, messy place, and that's what makes it wonderful.”
Twilight smiled.
“We just have to think, there has to be something that will work.”
“That's just it, Fluttershy,” Twilight sighed, her smile fading. “Harmony magic is the strongest force we know of. The only time we ever fought anyone that was able to beat it was Discord.”
“When he used his chaos magic to make us...” Fluttershy bit her lip, trying to remember the right word. It was on the tip of her tongue... she reached into her mane and pulled out a small red book, flipping through it. “...Discordant. Hm. You'd think I would have remembered that one.” She tossed it aside and the book vanished in a flash of blorange light.
Twilight blinked.
On one hoof, her friend had just performed what was unmistakably Chaos Magic. The flash proved it.
On the other hoof, she'd used it to, apparently, kill an innocent book.
On the other other hoof, it probably hadn't been a real book.
And the last hoof was on the ground, trying to get the other three hooves to cooperate because ponies aren't really good at balancing on one leg.
“Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked, as Twilight settled back down on all fours as that last hoof assumed control.
“How did you do that?!”
“It was just a thesaurus, Twilight. I know you have one.”
“I have fifteen, but that's besides the point.” Twilight lunged, holding Fluttershy's head still and staring at her horn. “That wasn't unicorn magic. And don't argue, you know what I mean even if you're an alicorn and not a unicorn. Your horn looks normal, but I didn't even see a magical aura...”
Fluttershy tried to say something, but her voice was muffled by lavender hooves.
“What was that?” Twilight let go, backing off.
“I said that it makes sense.”
“Fluttershy I don't want to live in a world where Chaos Magic makes sense.”
“Nopony does, Twilight. What I mean is, Discord changed me using his magic, so...”
“So at least some portion of whatever he stuffed inside you is going to be Chaos Magic regardless,” Twilight sighed. “He probably couldn't actually replicate unicorn magic or earth pony magic, so he just improvised.”
“I just wish I knew where he was,” Fluttershy said.
“...I'm starting to wish that too,” Twilight admitted. “And believe me, it's not a common feeling. But...” She smirked. “I have an idea.”
Fluttershy tried to adjust the very scientific equipment that had been strapped to her head.
“Don't touch!” Twilight snapped, knocking her hoof away. “It's delicate!”
“This is a colander.”
“It's a mana probe.”
“It still has the handles and little feet on the bottom.”
“It's an improvised mana probe because most of my good scientific equipment exploded and all I had were my spares in the basement.” Twilight said. “And we're going to use it to save Equestria, so in the official report this is going to be scientific equipment, not kitchen utensils.”
Fluttershy started to nod, and Twilight stopped her, holding her head still.
“Try not to move. This is very sensitive.”
“Unstable,” Spike corrected.
“Sensitive and unstable are often the same thing in science,” Twilight said, glaring at him.
“That's what you said right before the old alchemy lab burned down.”
“It was a small, contained fire.”
“The chemicals ate through a concrete floor and two feet of sand. We just built a new floor over the hole and pretended that they weren't still eating their way towards the center of the planet.”
“Details. The important thing is, there is almost no chance of a fire today!”
“Almost?” Fluttershy asked.
“Less than fifty percent,” Twilight specified. Before Fluttershy could compare 'almost none' to 'fifty percent', she flipped some switches. “Hold still. We're going to use the residual chaos energy in your body to locate Discord!”
“Is that what we're doing?” Fluttershy looked relieved. “With the way my tail was twitching I thought we were going to freeze Spike in a block of ice.”
“Freeze-” Spike's eyes widened. “Nope. I'm out of here.”
“Watch the alchemy-” Twilight yelled, as he ran without looking, tripping into some of the alchemy supplies that they'd moved to make room for the highly scientific kitchen colander and hastily-attached very technical wiring harness.
A few substances combined that shouldn't be combined, and Spike yelped as he froze solid in a block of ice.
One of the very expensive machines went ping, and screeched as it printed its findings on a long sheet of paper.
“Just... hold on, Spike. I'll unfreeze you in a second,” Twilight said, grabbing the result. “According to this you have... Pinkie Sense.” She lowered the paper and frowned. “Which is really weird since we weren't even testing for that.”
“Chaos magic?” Fluttershy guessed.
“That or I haven't calibrated my equipment properly in...”
“Seven seasons? Almost eight? Nine, tops,” Fluttershy guessed.
“What?” Twilight blinked. “You know what, I learned my lesson on this one already. Don't ask questions you really don't want answers to. The important thing is... I think I know where Discord is.”
“Are you sure?” Fluttershy asked, as she opened the door to her own cottage. “I didn't see him, and I was looking for him after I woke up like this.”
“Absolutely sure,” Twilight said. “The readings were very clear. And look at this!” She held up the thaumatoscciloscope she'd brought along, which was really not designed to be transported like this, and especially not designed to be waved around like a dousing rod.
“It's... a couple of wavy lines?” Fluttershy asked, timidly.
“It's chaos magic! Probably.” She turned and gestured to the grass. “Also your front lawn has apparently grown in a Manedlebrot pattern, which probably isn't natural.”
“It's pretty though.”
“Discord! Get out here!” Twilight yelled.
The cottage was quiet. Relatively. There were a lot of animals inside, many of which hadn't been fed in hours.
“My readings can't be wrong!” Twilight said, waggling the sticks on her very advanced scientific equipment that she'd had to repurpose from a toaster and spare parts. "I calibrated it! Twice!"
“I don't think they were,” Fluttershy said. She took a few steps into the middle of the room, then looked around. “I can feel something strange.”
“Strange is good,” Twilight said. “Discord defines strange.” She slowly turned, and when she pointed her instrument at the couch, there was a chime and two slices of toast popped out of it.
“Was it supposed to do that?” Fluttershy asked.
“It didn't even have bread in it,” Twilight whispered.
Fluttershy got down on her knees and looked under the couch.
“Oh thank goodness!” Discord said, his voice several octaves higher than normal. Of course, he was also several octaves smaller than normal. And if you have to ask why his size is being measured in octaves you need to remember we're discussing a spirit of chaos, not a spirit of the metric system.
“Discord!” Fluttershy gasped.
“I've been hiding under there for hours! Your animals are extremely rude! They tried to eat me!”
“They would never do that!” Fluttershy said, as Discord walked out into the room, so small he could be mistaken for a particularly asymmetrical field mouse.
“Ask them!” Discord said, folding his talons.
Fluttershy looked at the animals in the room, and a particularly guilty looking goshawk chirped something that sounded like a confession.
“Oh,” Fluttershy said. “Well, please don't eat Discord! He's a friend, not food! We've been over this after the incident with Mister Vole!”
“Great,” Twilight sighed. “Now, just... pop back to full size so we can get busy fixing things.”
“I would if I could!” Discord said. “You think I liked almost being dinner for a sparrow? I was very nearly the early worm that got eaten by the bird! It took me all day just to get this big – when dear Fluttershy was trying to find me before, I was the size of a dust mite!”
“What? Why?”
“It took far more of my power than I expected to turn her into an alicorn,” Discord said. “I was worried I wouldn't have enough to finish the job, and that was even with the, ah, extra parts I used.”
“Extra parts?”
“Well, I remembered a delightful bit of chaos from some time ago, and reached back in time a bit to borrow magic from a few dozen clones of a certain pink party pony. You did half the work by sending them back to the mirror pool, I just skimmed a bit off the top.” He made some odd motions and frowned. “If I had my magic I would have made a big pink cauldron of pony soup to demonstrate. Fluttershy, could you be a dear and provide one?”
“Um...” Fluttershy hesitated.
“I don't think we need that,” Twilight cut in.
“The point is, I took the crème de la crème from that, mixed in a very healthy dash of nearly all my own chaos magic, and poured it into Fluttershy. There were a few minor side effects, like my diminished stature, but they should all sort themselves out. The important thing is, you're immortal, my dear! Mighty as a goddess! Ultimate cosmic power!” He looked around. “Teeny-tiny living space, though. You might want to add a few extra dimensions.”
“This isn't the time,” Twilight said, picking him up with her magic. “We need to fix the mess.”
“What mess?” Discord asked, confused.
“This is bad,” Discord said, sounding very serious. As serious as possible for something his size, anyway. “Very, very bad.”
He stood on the railing on one of the crystal palace's balconies, looking over the land. Even from here it was all starting to look the same, like a patchwork quilt where every square was the same fabric, the exact same pattern repeated over and over again.
“You ponies complain about the chaos I make but here you are going overboard with this harmony nonsense.” He scoffed. “With chaos you have freedom, excitement, a constant barrage of the new and exciting! I don't know what you did, Sporkle, but you've really managed to wreck the place.”
“What I did?!” Twilight said, glaring. “I didn't do anything!”
“No?” Discord waved a talon at the horizon. “That, my dear, is the magic of the Tree of Harmony. It's working itself down to the root trying to scrub out every last trace of disorder.”
“Why hasn't it done anything to me, then?” Twilight asked. “Fluttershy I understand – she's probably so full of your magic that it can't touch her.”
“Oh, that's simple,” Discord waved a talon. “You're an alicorn.”
“That's not an explanation, that's an observation.”
“Your magic is probably stronger than it, at least while its attention is divided,” Discord explained. “Eventually it'll finish with the big picture and start hammering out the little details, like you and, much more unfortunately, me.”
“But why is it doing this?” Twilight asked. “It doesn't make any sense!”
“Far be it from me to guess, but since you returned your cute little necklaces to the tree to keep it from going sour, and stopped the innocent little plundervines that were keeping it in check, and then unleashed that Rainbow Power that made you look like refugees from a mane and tail salon advertisement, you might have been playing right into its hooves. Well, roots.”
“The Tree is nice, though,” Fluttershy said, quietly.
“Nice?” Discord snorted. “It's not nice. It's orderly.” He sighed. “You have to try and understand, my dear, your notions of good and bad were like learning a foreign language for me. I assumed I was doing a good thing when I was creating chaos, and it wasn't until Sunbutt and Moonhips put a stop to it that I realized some ponies might actually dislike what I was doing. I never hurt anypony, after all.”
“You turned us all against each other and twisted us into the opposite of what we are!” Twilight yelled, stomping a hoof and nearly knocking Discord from the railing.
“I thought I was helping!” Discord protested. “Just like you thought you were helping when you made me come around to the idea of friendship.”
“But I was helping!” Twilight said.
“You helped him become more like a pony,” Fluttershy said, quietly. “I think I understand. Don't think about it like good and bad. Think about it like... a wolf raised by ponies becomes a dog, and we like dogs. But a pony raised by wolves acts like a wolf, and we'd try to fix it. That doesn't mean being a wolf is bad and being a pony is good. It just means we have problems being objective with some things.”
“Don't get me wrong, I really am happier now,” Discord said. “I'm in your debt, despite my occasional slips.”
Twilight sighed. “If the Tree is doing this, then we'll go right to the source.”
“Wonderful,” Discord muttered. “I've only been nearly annihilated once today, and I was hoping to get enough near-death experiences to earn a free smoothie on my next reincarnation.”
The Tree of Harmony had never looked better. It was thrumming with power, literally, the sound and the sensation in Twilight's hooves merging until her body was part of the vibration and the vibration was part of her body, like being immersed in a warm bath at the spa, except with magic that was, right now, turning Equestria into something unrecognizable.
“So what do we do?” Fluttershy asked.
“...I was really hoping something would just sort of... present itself as an option,” Twilight admitted. “You know usually we kind of improvise.”
“Don't let your subjects hear that,” Discord said, from where he clung to Fluttershy's back.
“We could just try asking nicely,” Fluttershy suggested.
“Or setting it on fire,” Discord muttered.
“We'll save fire for plan B,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. "I swear this is just like trying to plan anything with Sunset Shimmer. Fire isn't always the answer..." She walked slowly towards the tree, feeling like she was standing at the bottom of the ocean, the magical power like a huge pressure pushing down on her from all sides.
She briefly wondered if this was how it had felt right before Nightmare Moon or Discord or Tirek got a face full of rainbows and friendship. She really wanted to avoid being turned to stone or banished somewhere if she could manage it.
“Hello?” Twilight said, looking at the tree and feeling a little foolish for even trying to talk to it. “G-Good afternoon. My name is Twilight Sparkle. I mean, you probably know my name.” She coughed, not sure what to say to a tree.
“Be firm,” Fluttershy whispered.
Twilight nodded. “Right. By the authority invested in me as a Princess and co-ruler of the nation of Equestria, I must order you to cease all magical and/or supernatural activity and return the areas and ponies you have effected to their previous state.”
“That ought to do it,” Discord snorted.
The overwhelming sense of pressure eased slightly, and the tree glittered with prismatic light.
“Did that work?” Twilight asked, surprised. “Well that wasn't so-”
A beam of rainbow light lanced from the center of the tree and hit Twilight like a ton of photons, a measurement not even commonly used during supernovae.
“Twilight!” Fluttershy ran over to help, and skidded to a halt when her friend stood up. Or, rather, was pulled to her feet and then into the air is if attached to puppet strings, her mane and tail twice as long as they had been and colors shifting and spreading across her coat.
“See?” Discord said, quietly. “It makes ponies look like they just escaped from a glam rock apocalypse.”
“Why do you resist?” Twilight asked. Or, well, not Twilight. The voice that came out of her echoed and rang like a crystal bell as big as the universe and heard from two and a half dimensions away.
“Um...” Fluttershy hesitated. “I-I just think it would be very nice if you left everypony alone a-and undid all the damage you did and, um, let Twilight go, please?”
“I am improving your world,” the Tree said, through Twilight. “Soon it will be orderly and perfect. There will be no suffering. No pain. No chaos.”
“Wonderful,” Discord said. “I can see it now. Ponies like gears in a clock. No one is unhappy because they can't hope or dream or think for themselves.”
“We wish for this transition to be as smooth and painless as possible,” the Tree said. “For maximum efficiency, please do not resist.”
A beam of rainbow light hit Twilight from behind and bent like her body was a lens, angling towards Fluttershy.
Fluttershy couldn't react quickly enough, but someone with her had been hit with the same power a few times already and was ready to react.
Discord jumped in front of the beam, turning grey and hard as he froze in place.
“Discord!” Fluttershy gasped. She pushed her will at the tiny stone statue as it fell towards the unforgiving ground, trying to catch it.
A pool of jelly appeared under Discord, and he landed safely with a thick, grape-flavored splash.
“Unexpected, but still acceptable,” the Tree said.
“Acceptable?!” Fluttershy snapped. “It is not acceptable to hurt any of my friends! You are being a very bad, naughty tree and you are going to turn him back and let Twilight go a-and stop destroying Equestria!”
“You-”
“I don't want to hear it, missy! You are going to fix Discord this instant!”
“Or what?”
Fluttershy snorted in anger and focused. With a flash of light, beavers appeared at the base of the Tree.
“You can't be serious,” the all-powerful spirit of Harmony said. “I am hardly threatened by wildlife. Their mandible strength is far below what would be sufficient to damage me.”
With the roar of a gasoline engine, the beavers produced chainsaws, along with goggles and hard hats, because Fluttershy would never allow a woodland creature to operate power tools without the proper safety gear.
“That's- Ow!” Twilight winced, the Tree's control wavering. “Maybe we have some room to negotiate after all?”
“...And we agreed that it was better to have a balance,” Fluttershy said. “The Tree put things back to normal and in return we'll teach it about important things like free will, self-determination, and how to bake more than one type of muffin. Pinkie insisted on the last one.”
“I'll put that in my final report,” Twilight sighed. “I finally got a letter back from Princess Celestia, She tried to send a few but they never got through. Canterlot was just as bad as Ponyville. She spent the whole time stuck in her throne room listening to an endless speech from Blueblood about why taxes were a burden on the upper class.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
“Her therapist says it's a long road to recovery but they're hopeful for a good outcome.”
“Is Spike still in the hot bath?” Fluttershy asked.
“He'll be fine,” Twilight said. “He was only frozen for a few hours this time.”
“I feel bad that we forgot about him...”
“I'll just toss him a few extra rubies and he'll forget all about it, like when I set his comics on fire.” She shrugged. “The Princess said that there have been some side effects from everything that happened. Ponies all over Equestria are reporting sightings of strange creatures, even in the settled areas. She thinks it's a side effect of using Chaos Magic to fix the worst of the changes.”
“Oh my...” Fluttershy covered her mouth. “Nopony has gotten hurt, have they?”
“She didn't say,” Twilight said. “But she did want to know if you'd be willing to investigate it as part of your royal duties.”
“Royal- Twilight, I'm not a princess!” Fluttershy blushed.
“You will be,” Twilight said. “With that horn and wings ponies are going to treat you like that.” She paused. “Though I'm still not sure if you're really an alicorn. I think you might technically be a draconequuis. When will Discord be back? I want to run some comparison tests.”
“He told me he'll be on vacation somewhere warm until he's got his strength back,” Fluttershy said. “I'm sure he'll be back in time for next season.”
“Darn,” Twilight sighed.
“Don't worry, I can handle causing any chaos we need while he's gone,” Fluttershy assured her.
“It's funny, I wasn't worried about it before.” Twilight smiled. “I think I learned we all need a little chaos and excitement in our lives. It's not something I ever wanted to learn but... there you go. ”
“Oh good,” Fluttershy said, relieved. “Because I was practicing magic at Sweet Apple Acres and things got a little out of hoof. Applejack is probably going to be here soon to complain. You can handle it, right?”
“Out of hoof-” Twilight blinked. “What did you do?”
“I've got to go check on Angel,” Fluttershy said, backing up towards the balcony. "Remember to tell her what you said about learning a lesson a-and needing chaos! She seemed a little upset."
The door to the throne room (thrones room? Twilight wasn't sure if it needed a plural) burst open and Applejack ran in. She looked much more like herself but also extremely peeved.
“Where in the hay is Fluttershy?! Half th' trees in th' north field are hoppin' like rabbits an' runnin' away when I try to buck 'em!”
“It's not nice to buck something without having permission! Did you try asking them nicely?” Fluttershy asked, from the balcony.
“Asking nicely?!” Applejack yelled.
“I have to go! Have a lovely day!” Fluttershy jumped, taking wing and running into a cloud as she made her escape, the puffy white turning pink and immediately starting to rain chocolate milk. “Sorry! I'll- I'll fix that later if Pinkie doesn't eat it!”
“That mare ain't right, I tell you what,” Applejack muttered.
“She's doing her best,” Twilight said. “How about I see if I can help you wrangle those trees and tell you about a lesson I learned...”
"Twilight ah ain't never learned nothin' and I don't plan on startin' now."