> The Trial of Discord Draconequus
>  by 42Zombies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: Indictment
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Far away from Equestria, in a place where time and space weren't always in agreement, a meeting was being held. Arguments were being made. Snacks were being eaten. A case was being built.

They had already decided that he was guilty. They weren't completely in agreement over what he was guilty of, but they all agreed that he either had or hadn't done something. They could settle on the details later; there was no rush. The important thing was that he'd been found guilty, and that meant it was time to hold a trial.

Normally, of course, a person is found guilty after a trial. They all knew this. They didn't care. There was no reason to do things in the proper order, especially since none of them were fans of proper order in the first place. And anyway, they were all fairly inexperienced with these sorts of things in general. Anyone could forgive them if they made a few mistakes.

Once they had more or less come to agreement, they immediately went to work gathering the things that they'd need for a trail. They got things like desks and benches; judge's stands; oxygen, gravity, and linear time. It took them no time at all to set up their own little courtroom.

Yes, they had everything they needed for a trial. But after a few minutes of appreciating their hard work, they realized they were missing something: the defendant. They needed him in their courtroom if they were going to find him guilty.

But this presented a problem. In order to collect the defendant in question, they would need to leave the room they were in. None of them had ever done that before, so they were all a little bit hesitant.

Eventually, however, the youngest among them volunteered to do the job. He would go out into Equestria, find the defendant, and bring him to the courtroom so they could get things started. He was the one who was most eager to see the defendant be punished, so he was more than willing to do the dirty work.

They all agreed that this would work, and so they sent the youngest on his way. With a snap of his fingers, he disappeared from the place without a name. The others got to their places and waited for their cohort to return.

It would not take long at all.
> Summons
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Discord, time was something that he only really bothered with for convenience's sake. He didn't need to do things in a linear order. He could exist outside the normal flow of time if he really wanted to. It was hard to maintain a schedule when you lived like that, though; not to mention it was just headache-inducing in general.

It was much easier for Discord to just follow the laws of causality. That way, he wouldn't miss his tea with Fluttershy.

It was early in the afternoon at Fluttershy's cottage. It was presumably also early in the afternoon in the rest of Equestria, but Discord didn't care about that. All that he cared about in that moment was tea, pastries, and friendship. Everything else could jump off a cliff.

Discord savored another sip of the tea Fluttershy had chosen for the occasion. It had a hint of orange, and something sweet Discord couldn't quite identify. Whatever it was, he adored it. It did a wonderful job distracting him from how exhausted he was feeling.

“... And it was just the noisiest thing,” Discord said, continuing the story he'd been telling. “I mean, an entire elephant? With a trombone? How was I supposed to sleep with that in my room?”

Fluttershy, who was listening attentively, nodded as she set her own teacup down. A butterfly landed on the rim of her cup while the rest of the animals in her cottage flew and flopped around. The little critters would be distracting if Discord hadn't gotten used to them. These days, he hardly minded the annoying little monsters.

“That must have been horrible,” Fluttershy said sympathetically. 

Discord waved a paw dismissively. He shooed away the butterflies that had been converging around his own teacup and took another sip. Maybe the other flavor was just a hint of mint? A mint hint? Discord wasn't sure.

“Oh, it's more embarrassing than anything,” he said. “And to be fair, that elephant wasn't half-bad on the brass. I'm mostly upset because I conjured it up in my sleep. It's been ages since I lost control of my magic like that.”

In truth, Discord couldn't even remember the last time he'd conjured something in his sleep. The last time he'd cast a sleep-spell must have been when he was just a child, back in... Whenever he'd been a child. If he'd ever even been one. Discord couldn't actually remember. Things that far back were a little fuzzy, and probably weren't that important anyway. What was important was that Discord was too old to be losing control of his magic like that.

Several more butterflies approached Discord and floated mere inches from his face. He absentmindedly waved them off, and they flew away momentarily. After a while, however, the butterflies returned in even greater numbers. Discord tried to ignore them as he helped himself to one of the cucumber sandwiches that hadn't been nibbled on by Angel.

Fluttershy sipped her tea with her eyes closed, then looked up at Discord thoughtfully.

“What do you think could have caused you to use magic in your sleep?” She asked. “Has something been bothering you?”

Discord had been lifting the cucumber sandwich to his mouth when Fluttershy asked her question. It gave him momentary pause.

“Bothering me?” Discord repeated incredulously. He set the sandwich down on the table, where it was quickly stolen away by a chipmunk. Discord payed the theft no mind.

“Really now, Fluttershy. What in Equestria could bother a Lord of Chaos?” Discord laughed. He was trying to play Fluttershy's question off as a joke, but her genuinely curious expression made it clear she was serious. She just looked at Discord inquisitively while he waited for her to laugh.

“It's nothing to be ashamed of, Discord,” Fluttershy said. “I won't judge you for being worried about something.”

Fluttershy smiled at Discord, and the spirit of chaos had no idea what to say in response. He felt guilty, but he wasn't sure why. After all, it wasn't like he was keeping secrets or something. He really didn't think there was anything bothering them. Fluttershy was the one making assumptions.

Discord reached for another cucumber sandwich. He shooed away the little critters and butterflies converging around the plate and picked up one of the few remaining ones. The butterflies quickly returned once Discord moved his hand away from the plate.

“I have nothing to worry about!” Discord said. He moved his arm in a theatrical arc, waving his finger-sandwich in a dramatic gesture. “I appreciate your concern, Fluttershy, but you mustn't mistake me for someone like Twilight Sparkle. I don't have some new friendship problem every week-or-so. I may cause problems, but I don't have them.”

Discord stopped being dramatic for a moment to gauge Fluttershy's reaction. She looked a bit more concerned now. She was frowning up at him, and it told Discord that she didn't entirely believe him.

That was ridiculous. Discord believed what he was saying, even though he knew he was lying. Why wasn't Fluttershy buying it? Weren't friends supposed to believe whatever bald-faced lie you told them?

“Oh, let's just drop this,” Discord grumbled. He grumpily lowered the arm he'd been using for his dramatic flourish so he could finally eat that cucumber sandwich.

In the brief time that the sandwich had been out of Discord's sight, a group of butterflies had completely enveloped it. Countless blue wings covered the entire sandwich, preventing Discord from even seeing it. If he didn't know for a fact that the sandwich was still in his hand, he would have thought it had disappeared.

With a frustrated grumble, Discord tossed the butterfly-and-cucumber sandwich to the floor. The butterflies momentarily scattered once it hit the ground, but more of the little bugs quickly took their place.

“What is it with all of these butterflies?!” Discord  finally asked as he turned his attention back to the table. He was used to seeing three or four butterflies around when he came to Fluttershy's cabin for tea, but this was ridiculous.

Blue-winged butterflies were floating all around the room, landing on every available surface. They buzzed all around Discord and Fluttershy's heads. They crawled all over the food on the table. The air from the butterflies flapping their wings buffeted Discord from each and every direction; it was like being in the world's weakest hurricane.

“Oh dear.” Fluttershy said, looking concerned. She ducked her head a bit, but making herself smaller didn't stop the butterflies from swarming all around her. “I don't know. I didn't even see them come in!”

Discord frowned. He hadn't seen the butterflies enter the cabin, either. They were just here now, as if they'd always been there but had gone unseen the entire time.

The butterflies were swarming all throughout the cabin now. They hovered around Discord's and Fluttershy's heads. They flew in circles around all of the animals, eliciting squeaks and chitters of annoyance from the squirrels and birds that Fluttershy had been caring for. The butterflies were even harassing Angel, much to Discord's amusement.

Sadly, that silver lining wasn't nearly bright enough to make this situation better. Really, the amount of butterflies was just getting ridiculous. Discord could have just used his magic to get rid of them, of course, but he had a feeling that would upset Fluttershy. Still, the solution was getting more and more tempting.

“Fluttershy, could you PLEASE ask these... these party-crashers to leave? They are ruining our tea!”

Discord spoke through tightly-gritted teeth as he tried to keep himself from doing something he might regret. The Lord of Chaos took a deep breath in through his nose and did his best to calm down. With a long sigh, Discord reached down and picked his cup of tea back up. He closed his eyes, tried to block out the flying nuisances all around him, and lifted his cup to his lips.

A geyser of butterflies erupted from out of the teacup, buffeting Discord in the face. Discord coughed and sputtered as his vision was blanketed by a constant stream of tiny, blue wings. More and more butterflies kept flying out of the cup, even as Discord aimed it away from his face. It was only when Discord tossed the tea cup to the floor that the eruption ceased.

“Alright.” Discord angrily slammed his hands down onto the table between himself and Fluttershy. The plates and cups shook as the draconequus stood up to his full height. “That tears it. Fluttershy, I apologize in advance, but...”

Discord raised his right hand up into the air. Just as he'd done countless times before, he drew upon the elemental chaos that made up his entire being. He readied his magic with the same amount of effort it took him to blink his eyes. And then, to add a bit of flair to his spell, he snapped his fingers.

There was a quick, blinding flash of light. In less than an instant, all of the butterflies were gone. Fluttershy's cabin returned to its normal state, much to the relief of every creature inside of it.

Fluttershy lifted her head up off the table and looked around nervously. A few of the animals in the cabin huddled up around her worriedly.

“What was that?” Fluttershy asked.

Discord wiped his hands off and slowly floated back down into his seat. He still felt angry. The tea party had been thoroughly ruined.

“That was some sort of magical prank,” he said as he took one of the spare tea cups and went to work preparing a new cup. “Not a very funny one, either. I mean, just butterflies? That's hardly what I'd call--”

Thousands of butterflies burst out of Discord's mouth. They came out in a constant, powerful stream; like water coming out of a hydrant. The force of their emergence knocked Discord's head back until he was staring up at the ceiling. Fluttershy screamed. The animals ran around in a panic. Once again, the small cabin was filled with countless blue wings.

As soon as Discord registered what was happening, he clamped his jaws shut. It was surprisingly easy to do-- the butterflies offered little resistance. Once his mouth was shut, Discord covered it with his paw. He could still feel the few butterflies left in his mouth fluttering around. Slowly, however, that sensation stopped. Any foreign bodies inside of Discord's mouth completely disappeared.

With his hand still on his mouth, Discord lifted his claw up and once again snapped his fingers. There was another flash of white. This time, however, the butterflies flying around Fluttershy's cottage stayed where they are.

Discord tried again. And again. Still nothing. He snapped his fingers faster and harder, but the butterflies stayed where they were. In between each flash of light, Discord grew more and more frustrated at the insects' insistence on continuing to exist.

But as his magic continued to prove ineffective, Discord's frustration turned into genuine confusion. He dropped both of his hands onto the table as the cloud butterflies flew overhead. All Discord could do was watch them in befuddled defeat.

“Discord, what's going on?” Fluttershy asked. She was starting to sound panicked. “Why isn't your magic doing anything?”

Discord shrugged limply.

“I don't know,” he admitted. He looked down at his hands, staring at them as if they could provide some form of explanation. When they failed to give him the answers he hoped for, he curled them into fists irritably.

“Something must be countering my magic before it can have any effect.” Discord folded his arms over his chest petulantly and sunk into his chair. One of his nostrils flared as he tried his best to ignore the butterflies flying overhead. “And whatever it is, it's countering my magic all for the sake of some stupid joke involving butterflies.”

Discord grumbled crankily and kicked one leg in the air.

“A really stupid joke...” he said. “It doesn't even make sense.”

Fluttershy frowned sympathetically at the draconequus. Her wings lifted her up out of her seat as she flew to Discord's side.

“Oh, there, there,” she said as he patted Discord reassuringly on the shoulder. Discord considered the act a little bit patronizing, but he appreciated the gesture nonetheless. With a sigh, he unfolded his arms and sat up straight.

Then the butterflies asked a question.

“Where's the fun in making sense?”

Fluttershy and Discord both froze when the unfamiliar voice asked the familiar question. Neither of them said anything as they looked at each other with wide eyes. The only sound were the noises made by Fluttershy's critters running about the place. Slowly, both Fluttershy and Discord looked up towards the ceiling, where the voice had come from.

The swarm of butterflies still blanketed the ceiling of Fluttershy's cottage. There were more of them than Discord could count. Considering that Discord could count nearly to infinity if he wanted to, that was really saying something. They buzzed noiselessly. Their patternless, blue wings flapped together in perfect sync. 

Discord slowly narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the cloud of butterflies. It was becoming clear to him now. These insects weren't just the byproduct of some prank; they were also the culprit.

“Alright, what's the big idea?” Discord floated up out of his chair. He rose until the tip of his snout was mere inches from the butterflies' flapping wings. He folded his arms over his chest and glared at the insects.

“Who's responsible for this? Is that you, Eris? Mister Mxyzptlk? Is it Q? Oh, you'd better not be Q, whoever you are.”

“Wow. Wrong on all three counts.” The voice was young; young and smug. It sounded as if it was taunting Discord with every syllable. It seemed to come from all of the butterflies at once, like a thousand mouths speaking in stereo.

Down below, at the table, Fluttershy politely raised a hoof into the air. “Um... Who are you, then?”

“Oh. Pardon my manners.” The voice's tone immediately shifted, dropping any mocking edge when it addressed Fluttershy. “I'll introduce myself in a moment; give me a second to get changed.”

The cloud of butterflies started to move. A spot in the center churned and swelled, the butterflies moving like the surface of the sea. A column began to descend down from the larger swarm. It was like water coming out of a faucet, pouring down onto the tea table.

Once the column had been formed, it separated from the blanket of butterflies still swarming the ceiling. Despite the sizable number that had left the swarm, the number of butterflies didn't seem to have diminished at all. They still absolutely covered the ceiling.

The column that had separated from them, meanwhile, began to shift around. It soon lost its column shape as butterflies blossomed outwards like tendrils. The butterflies spun about, flying in spiraling patterns as they began to take on shapes. Arms. Legs. Huge butterfly wings. A long, noodle-like body.

Like a living sculpture, the butterflies were swarming together in the shape of a draconequus.

Then, as soon as their shape became recognizable, the butterflies dispersed. The shape they had formed remained behind, however. A blue-and-black draconequus with large butterfly wings balanced on one leg on the tea table. He stood there as if he'd always been there; as if he'd merely been covered by the butterflies, not just formed from them.

Discord arched an eyebrow in dumbstruck confusion. As he floated back down to ground-level to get a good look at this stranger, he could confirm it was indeed another draconequus. It had the head of a pony, and the body parts of all sorts of different creatures. But while Discord's form was gloriously chaotic and mismatched, this new draconequus was far too symmetrical. Everything more-or-less matched up.

The new draconequus stood posing on the table for a few more seconds before floating up off of it in a theatrical twirl. His butterfly wings didn't move at all as he did this; clearly, they were just for show. Evidently, Discord thought, this guy was going for some sort of motif with the whole butterfly thing.

“Allow me to introduce myself!” He said. He gestured to himself with his black-furred, feline arms and smiled a disgusting symmetrical smile. 

“My name is Chance. I'm one of the Lesser Lords of Chaos.”

Discord's eyes widened in confusion. He looked back to Fluttershy, who was looking back at him curiously.

“There are other Lords of Chaos?” She asked.

Discord looked between Fluttershy and the new, unfamiliar draconequus. He felt a little alarmed by Fluttershy's question, but he wasn't certain why.

“What?! No!” He said. “There's only one Lord of Chaos per universe! There's no such thing as a 'Lesser Lord'; we're not a bureaucracy! There's always only just been me!”

Chance smirked condescendingly in Discord's direction.

“Oh yeah?” He asked. “Explain me, then.”

Discord narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Alright then. If you're another Lord of Chaos, how come I've never heard of you? Why is this the first I'm hearing about lesser lords?”

“Because you're too self-absorbed to notice anything outside of your own little bubble.” Chance pirouetted gracefully in the air before giving Discord a mocking bow.

Discord frowned. Even though he didn't believe what Chance was saying, he couldn't really argue about being self-absorbed. He wracked his chaotic brain for some sort of comeback, but nothing came.

“You win this round,” he grumbled reluctantly.

Chance held his head up high proudly. There was an almost pungent aura of self-importance radiating from the blue draconequus. Just being near Chance was wearing on Discord's nerves. For a moment, it made Discord wonder if this was how others must feel whenever they interacted with him. He quickly dismissed that idea, though. Discord knew he was far more charismatic than this little bug.

Fluttershy looked over her tea table, a hoof up to her chin in thought. All of the plates and food had been scattered by the mayhem. Sandwiches littered the floor. The tea pot laid on its side, spilling its contents out onto Fluttershy's nice table cloth and staining it was nasty brown.

“Oh dear,” she said in a dejected tone. “I wish you hadn't made such a mess of things, Chance.”

Chance's eyes flickered open. For just a second, his expression changed. It happened almost too quickly for Discord to notice it, but he managed to catch it. The haughtiness drained from the blue draconequus's face. He looked as if he was only just now realizing he'd interrupted the tea party, and Fluttershy's words had come as some sort of embarrassing shock to him. It was like an actor breaking character just long enough to realize he'd flubbed his line.

The expression lasted for the barest of a moment, and then Chance's smug smile returned.

“Relax. I can clean up after myself.”

Chance casually snapped his fingers in a gesture Discord found all-too familiar. There was a flash of light, and in an instant, everything was back to how it had been before. The plates and cups were back on the table. The sandwiches were all neatly arranged. The tablecloth was nice and clean, without so much as a crumb or a stain.

The butterflies were still covering the ceiling, however. Apparently, Chance didn't want to completely remove his handiwork.

“In my opinion, I think it looked better as it was,” Chance said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “That's hardly for me to decide, though; it's your tea party. I just dropped by to collect something, and then I'll get out of your mane.”

Fluttershy, who had been examining the now-clean table with a smile, looked up at Chance.

“... Collect something?” She repeated, an eyebrow raised in suspicion.

“Well, whatever it is, could you hurry up and grab it?” Discord asked impatiently. “This was a nice, peaceful tea party before you showed up.”

Chance's head whipped in Discord's direction. Once again, his expression changed. This time, however, it was much more noticeable. A look of disgust turned the blue draconequus's smile into a contemptuous sneer. His nostrils flared, and his ears flattened back. Chance bared his teeth at Discord and eyed him with a disdain that actually unnerved the redeemed Lord of Chaos just a bit.

“'Peaceful?'” Chance repeated the word slowly, as if he couldn't believe he'd even heard it. “Did I hear you correctly, Discord? You want things to be peaceful?”

Discord and Fluttershy both exchanged an uncertain look.

“Well, yes,” Discord said after a moment. “I look forward to my tea time with Fluttershy; I don't need you ruining it.”

Chance narrowed his eyes at Discord. Gradually, the smile returned to the draconequus's face. This time, though, it was a cruel smile. It was the smile of someone who'd just pulled off some sort of malicious trick.

“If I had any doubts before, that's all I'd have needed to hear to get rid of them.”

Once again, Chance snapped his fingers. Discord felt something in the air stir, like a storm was coming. Magic crackled like electricity in ozone; Discord could practically smell it. The sound of wind flowing through a cave filled Fluttershy's cottage.

“Discord!” Fluttershy yelled in fear. She was looking up at something. Discord did the same.

The butterflies were gone. So was the ceiling. 

Where the ceiling had once been, there was now a huge, swirling vortex of magic. The vortex shimmered with every color, and twinkles of stars shined in its spiraling surface. The sound of wind was coming from this portal, roaring louder and louder as it spun like a violent whirlpool.

Outraged, Discord looked at Chance. The younger draconequus's smile had only grown since opening the portal. He looked absolutely delighted.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Discord asked as he floated up to stare Chance in the eyes. The blue draconequus's smile turned manic.

“Discord Draconequus!” Chance yelled over the roaring wind. “You are hereby charged with behavior unbecoming of a Lord of Chaos!”

Discord didn't get the opportunity to ask what that meant. His body lurched upwards suddenly, as if his tail was trying to drag him toward the portal above. Discord felt the portal pulling at him, sucking him up like a vacuum while everything else in Fluttershy's cottage was merely blown around.

With a wordless grunt, Discord scrambled with his paws to try and grab something to hang onto, but the portal's pull was far too strong. He could feel ever inch of his body stretching and compressing as the tip of his tail drew ever-closer to the eye of the vortex. He was like a rubber band being pulled in from one end until its other end snapped.

“Discord!”

Fluttershy's voice just barely reached Discord as his body stretched more and more towards the portal. Discord looked to see where she was, but he couldn't find her. Everything in the cabin looked like it was zooming rapidly away. Discord tried to call out to Fluttershy, but he couldn't move his mouth; it was already wide open. The edges of his cheeks and lips were being pulled back by the portal, as if Discord had his face in front of a powerful fan.

Finally, Discord reached his limit. His body snapped upwards like the elastic band of a slingshot as the portal's pull became too much for him. Discord was swallowed up by the portal and Fluttershy's cottage stretched away into nothing.
> Arraignment
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The process of stretching and compressing caused by intense gravitational pull is called 'spaghettification'. It is also known as the 'noodle effect'. 

Once Discord was pulled through the portal Chance had created, he began to experience that very effect. Thankfully, Discord was already a noodle, so he really wasn't bothered by it.

Beyond the threshold of the portal was a tunnel of light and sound. Threads of light traveled at ludicrous speeds, being pulled in the same direction as Discord. Discord wasn't exactly able to notice any of this, however, as his body was being stretched out into a long, thin line of nothing as he was dragged, tail-first, to the other end of the portal.

Not that Discord really had a tail anymore. He'd been stretched so thin that he was nothing but particles. He had no limbs, no eyes, no brain. This was incredibly annoying; Discord wasn't a fan of it. Being stretched out like a rubber band wasn't any fun without a body to properly enjoy it.

Thankfully, Discord's trip through the portal didn't take very long. As soon as the longest end of his thread-form reached the end of the tunnel, the stretching stopped. The rest of Discord's body snapped towards the end of him, like a slingshot being released. His body contrasted back into his normal, corporeal self.

Unfortunately, he didn't have time to enjoy having a normal body again. Because now he was falling from a great height.

Discord fell from the other side of the portal with a cry of confusion. His face found the ground first-- he slammed face-down onto a cold, stone surface. The rest of his body followed soon after, crumpling behind him.

It wasn't the most dignified entrance Discord had ever made, and he'd made some pretty undignified entrances in his life. As Discord laid there, his view obscured by the floor, he could only hope that no one had been around to see it.

These hopes were more or less dashed when Fluttershy fell from the portal and landed on top of him. 

Fluttershy let out a yelp of anxiety once she realize just who she'd landed on. Discord felt her fly up off of his back, and was distantly aware of her apologizing profusely. He was too busy recovering from his much rougher landing to pay much attention, however.

With a muffled grunt, Discord braced his paws against the ground. He peeled his face up off the stone floor and groggily got back up onto his feet. His ears were ringing, and his brain felt as if it were being tumbled around in a dryer. Traveling via event horizons tended to do that.

“Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked. She seemed to be handling the trip through the portal much better than Discord was. Discord imagined this was just due to him being more sensitive to certain metaphysical experiences than she was.

“No,” Discord grumbled. “I always get a headache going through those sorts of portals. I hate singularities.” With a sigh, Discord examined their surroundings.

They were on a massive, stone platform. There were no walls or ceilings; just endless void in all directions. Distant stars in impossible configurations drifted slowly through that emptiness. They were so small and far away that they only gave off just enough light to be visible. Despite that, Discord had no trouble seeing that the platform was empty aside from himself and Fluttershy.

“Where are we?” Fluttershy asked as she looked out into the void. Her voice was filled with awe despite the situation she'd found herself in. She stared out at the infinite expanse that spread out above them.

“Some sort of pocket dimension, from the looks of things.” Discord folded his arms over his chest, unimpressed. “Whoever made this place could use some decorating advice, because this is really bare-bones.”

There was a flash of bright light. As if in response to Discord's critique, furniture appeared on the platform. There was now a wooden table standing before Discord and Fluttershy, as well as an accompanying pair of chairs. Off to the right, just a few feet away, was a matching set. Discord couldn't help but notice that the other table had some glasses and a pitcher of water on it; his and Fluttershy's table, meanwhile, was completely bare.

Those weren't the only things that had appeared, however. Far ahead of the table, at the very back of the platform, three massive podiums rose up above everything else They were carved from slabs of gray rock, jagged and irregular. The stand in the center stood higher than its two neighbors, signifying some sort of importance.

“... Well, I hardly think this counts as decorating,” Discord said after a while. “There's still a total lack of color.” He folded his arms over his chest and held his nose up in the air.

Fluttershy squinted at the three podiums that now stood before her and Discord. She held a hoof up to her chin and leaned forward over the table just a bit.

“Those look like... judge's stands?” She said uncertainly. “Are we in some sort of court?”

A familiar, annoyingly smug voice rang out from Discord's left.

“Bravo, Fluttershy! That's exactly right!”

It was Chance. He was sitting at the other table that had appeared. He was tilting back in his chair, legs kicked up on the tabletop. Despite his only just arriving, he looked as if he had been sitting comfortably for some time.

The other draconequus made the effort to get dressed since Discord had last saw him. Chance now wore a black suit jacket and a bright, purple bow tie. Discord was rather peeved to see that the tie was shaped like a butterfly. Of course it was.

Discord narrowed his eyes at the blue draconequus.

“Alright, 'Chance,'” he said. “if that's even your real name. I don't know what sort of death wish made you think all of this was a good idea, but I'm willing to be a good sport. What's your game here? What's this all about?”

Chance rolled his eyes. “I already told you.” In one swift motion, he pulled his feet off of the table and let his chair fall back down onto all four legs. He took the glass and pitcher that he'd been provided and began pouring himself a glass of water.

“What, that nonsense about 'behavior unbecoming of a Lord of Chaos?'” Discord asked. He couldn't stop a hint of his outrage from creeping into his tone.

Chance ignored Discord and continued pouring water from his pitcher. The glass was overflowing now; water spilling out onto Chance's hand and the surrounding table. Chance didn't appear to notice this. He just kept pouring.

There were few things in life that irritated Discord as much as being ignored. Being ignored by someone like Chance, though? That really pushed Discord's buttons. He'd only known Chance for a few minutes, but Discord could already feel himself starting to hate this other draconequus.

“Well then.” Discord propped his elbow up on the table and lifted his hand into the air. “If you're not going to explain yourself, I see no reason for us to stick around. We'll be leaving, now.”  With a snap of his fingers, he cast a spell to transport himself and Fluttershy back to Equestria.

But nothing happened.

When Discord snapped his fingers, there wasn't so much as a flash of light. Once again, Discord found himself looking at his hand in disbelief.

“Discord?” Fluttershy asked from the seat beside him. “Why aren't you, you know... doing anything?”

Discord had no answer for her. He was stumped, himself. Were his powers just not working? It didn't feel like that was the case. He snapped his fingers again and tried to cast a different spell. He would summon something; some sort of animal.

There was a flash of light. Then, a large-mouth bass fell from the ceiling and landed flat on Discord and Fluttershy's table. It flopped around for a bit, then hopped up and walked away on its tail fins. The test had been a complete success. 

“That's not really what I meant by 'doing anything,'” Fluttershy said hesitantly. “But, um, I suppose you know how to use your powers better than I do.”

Discord frowned thoughtfully as he examined his hand. He could still feel the chaos magic flowing through him; it wasn't being blocked off. But somehow, it seemed that some of his spells were being canceled out before they could even manifest. It was as if, just when the spell was supposed to be cast, it decided to change its mind and do nothing.

Discord lowered his hand down and tapped his fingers on the table. He glared once more in Chance's direction. The younger draconequus was still pouring his glass of water. The pitcher didn't look like it was anywhere close to running out, despite the massive puddle of water that had spilled out of the glass.

“Am I to assume you're responsible for my magic getting snuffed out?” Discord asked irritably.

Chance finally set the pitcher of water down. He picked up his freshly-poured glass of water and held it up to his eye to inspect it. He turned the glass, examining it from multiple angles as the glass surface shined. Then he tossed the glass, water and all, over his shoulder. It broke against the stone floor and spilled its contents everywhere.

“Natually.” Chance said as he conjured a towel to dry his hand. “We all draw our magic from the same source. That means we can veto any spells you cast that might interfere with things.”

Discord raised an eyebrow. Behind him, Fluttershy vocalized the thought going through his mind.

“Who is 'we?'” She asked.

The sound of a gavel being banged against a sounding block filled the air. Discord and Fluttershy's heads whipped around to face the source of the noise; the three judge's stands at the edge of the platform.

The stands were no longer empty. Three strange creatures now sat at them, towering up above Discord, Fluttershy, and Chance. All three were looking down with stern, serious expressions.

In the stand on Discord's right there sat a creature that appeared to be constructed entirely out of red light. Its features were difficult to make out. At one moment, it had a body like Discord's or Chance's; at another, its body was segmented like some massive spider. Its limbs and form kept shifting around, like lava in a lava lamp. Throughout all of this, however, it had the head of a scowling unicorn.

On the left was a creature that Discord at first mistook for a zebra. Several things indicated that this was not the case, however. Instead of stripes, thin, black lines formed geometrical patterns across a white, equine body. Much more noticeable, however, was the fact that this creature didn't have a zebra's head. Instead, attached to the neck where a head should have been, there was a bucket full of turnips and flowers. Even Discord, who was used to the strange and unusual, had to raise a brow at that.

Finally, in the center, sitting at the tallest pillar, was the most normal-looking of the three. It was a creature called a gnu; a sort of cross between a cow and an antelope. It had a long face, dark fur and small, curved horns protruding from its head. The beast was dressed in a red-and-black robe with a large, triangular hood.

The creature in the middle banged their gavel again.

“Quiet down!” The creature said in a deep, masculine voice. “I will have silence! Calm down,  you savages! I will not have you make a mockery of these proceedings!”

The shifting, red creature on the right nodded in agreement.

“That's right!” It said. Its voice was feminine, and sounded as if it was coming from underwater. “Any more disruptions and we'll hold you all in contempt of court! We'll have you all put to death!”

“Apricots,” said the bucket-headed creature. Its voice was scratchy, and carried no emotion at all. “Tuesday at once.”

Chance cleared his throat.

“None of us were speaking, your honors,” he said quietly. “The trial hasn't even started yet.”

The robed creature looked surprised, and sheepishly put its gavel down.

“Is that so?” It asked. “Sorry about that. I'm figuring this out as I go.”

Discord pinched the bridge of his nose. As the Lord of Chaos, he had an incredible threshold for random nonsense. This was infuriating even for Discord, though. 

“Let me guess,” Discord grumbled irritably. “You three are minor Lords of Chaos, too?”

“That's none of your business!” The red creature said as its head spun fluidly around on its body. “We're the ones asking the questions here!”

The gnu in the center raised a hoof. “You are correct, though. We are minor Lords of Chaos.”

“That's right!” The red creature exclaimed.

Chance floated over in front of the stands, his butterflies remaining ever-stationary. He cleared his throat and gestured up to the creatures above him.

“Please allow me to introduce the presiding judges,” he said. “This is Her Honor Judge Bedlam, Lady of Mayhem...”

Chance pointed to the shifting creature made of light. She responded by sneering down at Discord, her head completely upside-down on her body.

“His Honor the Bewildebeest, Lord of Confusion...”

The robe-wearing gnu smiled. He gave Discord a small, courteous nod of the head.

“And finally, er...” Chance paused. He looked up to the bucket-headed creature on the left. It stood perfectly still, bucket facing forward.

“What am I supposed to call you?” Chance asked hesitantly.

The bucket-headed creature didn't move at all as it spoke. “Polygraph to the masses, system. Seventy, seventy, seventy.”

Chance shrugged, evidently garnering some meaning from the creature's words that Discord wasn't able to.

“Alright,” Chance said. “This is Their Honor Judge Dada, Master of Absurdity.”

Fluttershy put a hoof to her chin. She looked over all four of the so-called Lords of Chaos, taking them all in. Discord felt a little insulted by how seriously she was taking all of their claims.

“So you're all lords of different kinds of chaos?” Fluttershy asked.

Chance grinned and nodded.

“Of course,” he said. “Whereas Discord just represents Chaos in general, we represent its many different facets. I myself am the Lord of Chaos Theory, and I will be--”

Upon hearing Chance's title, what little patience Discord had remaining completely flew out the window. This was going too far. Discord rose once more to his full height and slammed his hands on the table, causing it to shake. Fluttershy flinched and gasped, and all of the lesser lords of chaos looked at Discord in surprise.

“Now you're just being ridiculous!” Discord snapped. “Chaos Theory isn't even chaotic; it's just a bunch of nerds trying to ruin chaos with dumb math! If you're a Lord of Chaos, then Twilight Sparkle might as well be one, too!”

Chance whipped his head around to look at Discord. His lips curled back into an ugly, hateful sneer as he stared down the other draconequus. Discord just stood his ground and stared back at him defiantly. He only stopped staring when he felt Fluttershy tugging at his elbow.

“Um, Discord?” Fluttershy asked as she floated at his side. “Maybe you shouldn't antagonize the creature who abducted you and is cutting you off from your powers. These other Lords of Chaos seem to think you've done something.”

Discord scoffed. “Oh, please. So what if I did? What right do they have to judge me?”

Fluttershy frowned. She looked up at the three judges' podiums and then looked back at Discord.

“Um... They're judges?” She pointed out.

Discord raised an eyebrow. As a representative of the forces of chaos, Discord wasn't exactly well-informed when it came to law and order. He had heard of judges and courtrooms, certainly, but his experience with them was rather minimal. On top of that, Discord just wasn't used to other creatures having any sort of authority over him.

That's why, despite the abundance of evidence around him, Discord didn't fully realize what was happening until Fluttershy spelled it out to him.

“Discord,” she said cautiously, “I think you're on trial.”

Discord looked at Fluttershy blankly for a good, long while. He was trying to tell if she was joking. Fluttershy could have a very dry sense of humor sometimes. After all, the idea of some creature trying to put Discord on trial was ludicrous! Who could ever attempt such a thing? They'd need some way to stop Discord from just snapping his fingers and...

Oh, right.

“But this is absurd!” Discord exclaimed, turning to face the court. “Why am I on trial? I've never done anything wrong in my life!”

Fluttershy gave Discord a very uncertain look before turning to face the judges.

“What exactly is Discord charged with?” She asked.

“Discord Draconequus stands accused of behavior unbecoming of a Lord of Chaos.” The Bewildebeest said as he leaned forward over his stand. “The charges against him include willingly and knowingly supporting the status quo; abiding by the rules and laws of others; and, perhaps worst of all, actively undoing acts of chaos caused by himself or others.”

Hearing the charges against him out loud made Discord's heart sink in his chest. As much as he wanted to deny them, his mind very quickly brought up examples of those actions. Helping to defeat Chrysalis? Cleaning up the storm during the last Summer Sun Celebration? Generally following the laws of Equestria? Discord had done all of that.

But that didn't change the fact that this trial shouldn't be happening at all.

“Alright, maybe I've gone soft a bit,” Discord admitted. He pointed an accusatory finger at the other so-called 'Lords'. “But none of you have the right to question me about what I've done! I don't care what you call yourselves; I'm the only Lord of Chaos! I decide what is and is not acceptable for a Lord of Chaos to do! You have no authority over me!”

Bedlam chuckled.

“Of course we don't,” she said. “Did you expect any different, Discord? Of course this trial is a farce; we're beings of chaos. What other kind of trial could we have?”

Discord raised a finger, but he found he couldn't come up with a suitable answer. Once again, they'd made a point that he couldn't argue with. Even if these creatures weren't true Lords of Chaos, they generally seemed to think in the same way as Discord.

Discord wasn't used to being around creatures who shared a similar thought process. He wasn't sure how to feel about it. At the moment, it was equal parts annoying and unsettling. It felt strange to not be the craziest one in the room.

“Alright, fine,” Discord said. “That explains why you brought me here. But what about Fluttershy?” Discord pointed to the pegasus floating beside him, as if he could be talking about anypony else. 

Fluttershy's eyes darted around as every creature's attention turned to her. She smiled anxiously and lifted a hoof in greetings.

“Uh. Hi,” she said quietly.

“Why is she here?” Discord asked. “What are the charges against her, hmm? She reformed me, but you can't hold her accountable for my actions! Fluttershy is completely innocent! Why did you bring her here?”

“We didn't,” Chance said bluntly. “She flew into the portal before I could close it.”

Discord looked to Fluttershy. She nodded sheepishly by way of confirmation.

“None of us have any sort of vendetta against Fluttershy,” the Bewildebeest said. “We're not going to do anything to her. She's fine.”

The other judges both nodded in agreement.

Chance, who was once again smugly smiling, floated closer to Discord's table.

“Indeed,” he said. “It wasn't my intention to bring Fluttershy here. But perhaps it's good that she chose to come. She'll be able to provide Equestria with a first-hoof account of your sentencing. Everypony will hear about what happened to you straight from the horse's mouth.”

Discord snorted. “Getting ahead of yourself, aren't you? You haven't found me guilty yet.”

Chance began to laugh. At first, Discord assumed that it was just him being smug. But then Bedlam and Dada joined in on the laughter. Only the Bewildebeest remained silent. As the central judge banged his gavel, however, Discord noticed that the Lord of Confusion looked the slightest bit annoyed by his companions' mirth.

The laughter died down, but Chance kept his amused smile.

“Oh, Discord, Discord, Discord.” Chance shook his head as his toothy grin grew wider. “Do you really think we'd go about all of this in the proper order? This trial is just a formality!”

Discord blinked. “What?”

“We have already reached our verdict,” the Bewildebeest explained cordially. “We've already decided that you're guilty. This trial is meant to determine how guilty you really are, and what the appropriate sentencing will be.”

“Oh my,” Fluttershy whispered. She held her hooves to her mouth worriedly as she looked between Discord and the judges.

Discord, for his part, didn't share in Fluttershy's concern. He had his elbow on the table, resting his cheek in his palm. As he did so, he idly inspected his free hand as he cast a few minor spells. He conjured up a spoon; he turned the spoon into a tiny whale; he made the whale explode into a cloud of confetti. This was as much a symptom of his boredom as it was a test of what kind of magic he was still capable of.

“What kind of sentence could Discord be facing?” Fluttershy asked, oblivious to Discord's apathy.

The Bewildebeest cleared his throat and reached for something under his podium. He produced two things; a piece of yellowed parchment, and a pair of small spectacles. Donning the glasses, he squinted and examined the paper.

“Well,” the Bewildebeest said, “there are several possibilities. Personally,  I'm of the mind that he should be reprimanded and then sent on his way; perhaps made to pay some sort of fee. That's a best case scenario, however. It's much more likely that he'll be, well...”

The Bewildebeest trailed off uncomfortably. The silence that followed was tense. Finally, the Bewildebeest gave a sigh and continued.

“It's much more likely that, at the end of the trial, Discord will be stripped of his powers.”

Discord's ears perked up. His eyes widened in alarm. For the first time since he'd arrived in this pocket dimension, he began to genuinely worried. In a panic, Discord jumped up to his feet and slammed his hands on the table.

“Stripped of my powers?!” Discord repeated. His eyes darted around the courtroom frantically. “Y-You can't do that! It's cruel and unusual!”

“I'm cruel,” Bedlam countered.

“We're all unusual,” the Bewildebeest added.

Discord sputtered indignantly.

“But you can't just cut me off from my magic like that!” He said. “What would I even do without it? I need magic just to get to my house!”

“So?” Bedlam asked. “Your poor real estate choices are of no concern to us.”

“Worms in the outhouse,” Dada said, in what was probably supposed to be agreement. “Permissive anteater rebel.”

“Indeed.” The Bewildebeest nodded. “Besides, that might not even happen, Discord. It's up to the prosecution to argue for that kind of punishment.”

Discord felt his heart sink in his chest. He slowly looked over at Chance. Chance, who was dressed in a suit and tie. Chance, who had now produced a very professional-looking briefcase. Chance, whose fanged grin had only grown larger.

“You're the prosecution, aren't you?” Discord asked, even though he already knew what the answer would be.

Chance nodded and tugged on the lapels of his suit proudly.

“Oh, yes. And let me reassure you, Discord, I am absolutely, 100% in favor of you being rendered powerless at a bare minimum. Personally, I'm hoping for a much, much worse sentence.” He gave Discord a little wink and then began floating back to his table.

Discord couldn't think of what would be worse than being rendered powerless. Past experiences being cut off from his magic told him that it was terrible. As such, he didn't take Chance's threat of a worse sentence very seriously.

Really, though, Discord was reluctant to take pretty most things seriously. He felt like it went against his nature. But he was being forced to take this whole trial seriously, and he resented that fact.

“Well!” Discord folded his arms over his chest and held his nose in the air. “If there's a lawyer for the prosecution, I think I should have a lawyer to represent myself.”

Fluttershy frowned. “I don't think Chance is really a law--”

“Okay.” The Bewildebeest said after exchanging a look with the over judges. “You may pick any creature, living or dead, to serve as your defense. I highly advise you to choose a living creature, however; dead lawyers are notoriously unreliable.”

“I have the perfect man in mind,” Discord said with a smile. He raised his hand into the air and snapped his fingers.

A second Discord popped up from under the table. He rose up between Fluttershy and the first Discord and slammed a briefcase onto the tabletop. As soon as he did, the case popped open. Dozens of bubbles floated out from inside of it and popped in the air.

This Discord was wearing an ugly, plaid suit, and had a pair of square glasses balanced on his nose. He adjusted them as he walked to the front of the courtroom, arms tucked behind his back.

“Hello, everyone,” the new Discord said. “I'm from the law firm of Discord, Discord, And Discord. My name is Discord T. Draconequus, Esq. DDS PHD CPA MIA. I am extremely legal, let me tell you. Just look at my suitcase.”

While the judges nodded in approval of Lawyer Discord, the original Lord of Chaos leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smirk. If he was going to go through a trial, he was going to mock it at every step of the way. And besides, who better to represent him in a court of law than himself? A lawyer with themselves as a client was probably the best person for the job!

Fluttershy, meanwhile, didn't look like she found this amusing.

“Discord, don't you think it's a good idea to get a real lawyer?” She asked, putting stress on the word 'real'. “This seems like it's pretty serious, and the odds already seem stacked against you.”

Discord waved a hand in the air dismissively. “Oh, pshaw, Fluttershy. What's so difficult about representing yourself in a court of law? I could do it very easily.”

Fluttershy lowered her eyelids, unconvinced. The expression made Discord uncomfortable. He hated it when Fluttershy looked at him disapprovingly like that; he felt as if he was getting scolded. And Fluttershy was one of the only ponies who could successfully scold the old draconequus and get away with it.

Friendship truly was terrifying.

“Psst. Hey, pal.”

Discord blinked. Someone was whispering in his ear. But it wasn't his own ear; it was the ear of the doppelganger he'd created. Discord heard what his copy heard as clearly as if he was there himself. He turned in his seat and saw Chance was whispering to the second Discord, a hand held up to his mouth.

“Hey, can I offer you some advice, lawyer-to-lawyer?” Chance whispered. “You don't want to take this case.”

The second Discord cast a brief, worried glance towards his client. Discord looked back at himself, confused by his apparent apprehension. After a moment, the Lawyer Discord turned back to Chance.

“I don't?” He asked, trying to keep his voice low.

Chance shook his head quickly.

“No, trust me,” he said. “The case against this guy is airtight. I have it on good authority that he's going to go down in flames. You don't want a loss like this on your record.”

“I had no idea it was that bad...” The second Discord mused. His eyes darted between Chance and the original Discord for a moment. For a moment, he seemed to be weighing his options in his head.

Finally, the second Discord leaned away from Chance, cleared his throat, and turned to face his client.

“Sorry, pal,” he said brusquely. “You're on your own.”

In a flash of light, the lawyer Discord and his briefcase both disappeared from the courtroom. Discord could actively feel his doppelganger return to the nothing that he had been spawned from. It was not an unfamiliar feeling, but in this particular instance it felt strange. Discord had never had one of his creations dismiss themselves before.

In any case, though, this was intensely disappointing.

“Well.” Discord folded his arms over his chest. “How do you like that? I should have known I wouldn't be a reliable lawyer, but I had no idea I could be so callous.”

Fluttershy frowned. “Again, um, I don't think that he was a lawyer. I'm pretty sure no one here is actually qualified to practice law.”

The three judges examined the spot where a lawyer no longer was. They waited to see if he would return; if this was just some sort of bit Discord was pulling. But when the doppelganger proved to truly be gone for good, all three judges turned their gaze towards Discord. None of them seemed particularly sympathetic to his loss of legal representation.

Chance, meanwhile, looked pretty pleased with himself. He had his arms folded over his chest, and wore a particularly punchable smile on his face. He was looking right at Discord, almost daring the older draconequus to try and retaliate; to try and cast a spell that the court would no-doubt cancel out. It made Discord tighten his fists in anger.

The Bewildebeest cleared his throat.

“Well,” he said, “it appears that your lawyer has stopped existing, Discord. This does not bode well for whatever legal strategy you might have planned.”

Fluttershy raised her hoof once again.

“Oh. Excuse me?” She asked. The judges all turned their attention towards her. “Can't he try and find a new lawyer?”

The Bewildebeest brought a hoof to his fuzzy chin and rubbed it. A thoughtful expression formed on his face as he considered Fluttershy's request. Discord was surprised by how seriously the judge appeared to be thinking about it.

Before the Bewildebeest could make a decision one way or another, however, Bedlam slammed one of her shifting appendages down onto her stand.

“We've wasted enough time already!” She said impatiently. “I didn't help build this pocket dimension so we could sit around all day! Let's start the trial already!”

At the other judge's stand, Dada began pounding their hooves on their desk arrhythmically. The Bewildebeest was left looking between his two peers wearily. After a moment, he sighed and shook his head.

“Very well,” he said reluctantly.

Discord watched as the Bewildebeest picked up his gavel and struck it against the sounding block. This time when he did it, the noise it made was like the toll of a deep, brass bell. It wasn't a noise that gave Discord much hope.

The Bewildebeest, Bedlam, and Dada all looked down at the stony platform that served as their courtroom. They were all looking at Discord.

“Court is now in session.”
> Opening Statements
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Bewildebeest laid his gavel down and folded his hooves in front of him. He and the other judges peered down at the makeshift courtroom below.

“We will begin the trial with opening statements,” the Bewildebeest said.

“Indeed.” Bedlam nodded her head, which was now attached to what looked like a large bear. “We can't begin with the closing statements, because then the trial would be over too quickly.”

“Rutebegas,” Dada chimed in. The contents of their bucket-head shifted slightly, despite the rest of their body remaining motionless.

The Bewildebeest turned his attention to the prosecution's table, where Chance was sitting in an upright, dignified position. His decent posture irritated Discord. Then again, so did everything else about Chance.

“Is the prosecution prepared to present its opening statement?” The Bewildebeest asked.

“They are, your honor.” Chance floated up out of his seat, his butterfly-wings remaining still as he did so. The blue draconequus made his way to the front of the court and took his position right beneath the judge's stands.

“Ladies and gentlecreatures of the court,” he said as he adjusted his glasses, “this is not a complicated case. Discord's crimes are not just obvious; they are numerous. The man can not even go a week without doing something orderly. One needs only look at his schedule to find evidence of his orderly behavior.”

From behind his back, Chance produced a thick, leather-bound day planner. Discord recognized it instantly; it was his. His name was written in golden ink on the cover. Discord had written some of the letters upside-down or backwards, just because he through it was funny at the time. Seeing it now didn't exactly have Discord in a laughing mood, though.

Chance held the day planner up above his head for all to see.

“Here is his schedule,” he said. “Take a look at it. Written inside of it are plans and appointments; a routine. What kind of chaotic spirit would willingly allow themselves to develop a routine? What sort of avatar of disorder would bind themselves in such a way? Hmm?”

Discord heard the judges above murmuring to themselves. He couldn't quite make out the words, but they sounded serious. Discord needed to derail things.

“Fluttershy,” he whispered to the pony next to him, “what's that word I'm supposed to yell when I want to object to something that the prosecution is saying?”

Fluttershy looked back at him, an eyebrow raised. She looked like she couldn't tell if Discord was serious or not. Discord got that look a lot from Fluttershy. And from most ponies in general.

“Um, 'objection?'” Fluttershy whispered back.

“OBJECTION!” Discord yelled. He stood and pointed an accusing finger at Chance. “He shouldn't be able to use props!”

Chance scoffed. “This isn't a prop; it's important evidence. And you're in no position to say someone can't use props, considering how much you rely on them for your jokes.”

That criticism stung a little, but Discord didn't mind. The judges had stopped their muttering, and that was what Discord had wanted. The way he saw things, the less the judges were able to discuss the case, the better Discord's chances of keeping his powers were. As long as he could keep them distracted, he didn't need to know how all of this court stuff worked.

Bedlam leaned forward from her judge's stand, her head extending outwards on a vine-like tentacle. “What sort of words are written inside of that thing?”

Chance smiled as if he'd been waiting for someone to ask that very question. He opened the day-planner to a random page somewhere in the middle and began to read.

“Let's see,” he said, bringing a finger up to the page, “we have 'Tea with Fluttershy'... 'Guys' Night'... 'Help Fluttershy With Animals'... 'Resolve Magic Threats Before Princess Purple Can Have a Stress Aneurysm'... and, finally, there's an entry for something he simply refers to as 'Parfait.' These are the things he gets up to every week, your honors.”

The three judges made sounds of disapproval. Discord flattened his ears back and glared at Chance.

“I don't see how any of this proves that I've been failing my job as a Lord of Chaos!” He snapped. “Just because I've developed a routine doesn't mean I've lost my edge. Am I not allowed to plan things ahead of time at all?”

The Bewildebeest once again banged his gavel.

“Discord, if you keep interrupting the opening statements, we'll be here all year.” The gnu stroked his furry chin thoughtfully. “Although I suppose you have a point; just following a schedule isn't particularly compelling evidence.”

With a satisfied smirk, Discord leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. He was getting the hang of this whole 'trial' thing. It turned out that the secret to winning was to disagree very loudly until you got your way, just like in real life.

Chance, who didn't seem at all perturbed by the schedule's dismissal, adjusted his glasses once again.

“Even if we dismiss the fact that he uses a schedule, we should still make of note of what he uses it for,” he said. “Tea parties? Animal handling? These alone aren't exactly acts of chaos, but I would like to draw attention to one of the scheduled events in particular. Discord has specifically set out time during the week to resolve magical threats.”

Discord dropped his smirk. All eyes (Or whatever Dada used instead of eyes) were now on him. The Lord of Chaos tugged on an imaginary collar and sat up straight.

“Well.” Discord cleared his throat. “You see, the thing is, ever since Twilight Sparkle ascended to the throne of Equestria, I've sort of taken it upon myself to-- and trust me, this is more chaotic than it sounds-- to deal with any sort of magical disaster before it can really, you know... start disastering. For fun. I do it for fun.”

Fluttershy nodded.

“It's true,” she said. “He tells me all about it during our tea parties. Ever since Twilight's coronation, Discord has been doing a lot of good for Equestria.”

The judges once more began murmuring to themselves. Chance shook his head in mock disappointment. Discord fidgeted awkwardly.

“Fluttershy, that's not helping,” he whispered tensely.

“Oh.” Fluttershy frowned and hung her head. “Right. I forgot what kind of court this is. Sorry.”

Chance tossed the day-planner aside and floated back to his table. As he did so, the book fell upwards until it disappeared into the void above. Discord hoped that it would be sent back to his home once this whole mess was done with. He didn't want to go looking for it.

“Your honors,” Chance said, “by the time this trial is over, your honors, the information Fluttershy just shared will pale in comparison to the evidence you will be presented with. You will be shocked and horrified by the sheer depths of Discord's orderliness. I intend to prove that Discord is no longer fit to serve as a Lord of Chaos, and should be punished in the harshest manner possible.”

Chance reached up and adjusted his butterfly-shaped bow tie.

“Thank you for listening to my opening statement,” he said. “I hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as I enjoyed writing it.”

All three of the judges applauded politely. With a grateful smile, Chance bowed in appreciation and then took his seat.

Discord quietly seethed while the judges' applause died down. It was bad enough having his chaotic qualifications brought into question; but having them be brought into question by someone as punchable as Chance? That really got Discord's blood pumping. Not that Discord really had blood; the stuff flowing through his veins was more like a kind of syrup.

“A very good opening statement, Chance,” the Bewildebeest said cheerfully. “It'll be hard to beat that. Next up, we'll hear from the defense. Discord?”

Discord blinked. “Oh! Do I get to speak, too?” He was pleasantly surprised.

The Bewildebeest nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “Please stand and give us a brief summary of the case in question and how you intend to prove your point of view.”

Discord turned to Fluttershy. The yellow pegasus gave him a reassuring nod and smile. After a moment, Discord nodded back and stood up from his seat.

“Alright,” Discord said. “Let me start off by saying that Chance is full of garbage and everything he says is a lie. He's an annoying, disgusting little amoeba; an insult to flies, maggots, and other vermin. He's the lowest of the low, and once this whole charade is done with I hope he crawls back into the slimy hole he was spawned from and never sees the light of day again.”

The Bewildebeest sighed.

“Be that as it may, Discord, it has nothing to do with the case,” he said. “Please stick to how you plan on presenting your case.”

Discord thought for a moment.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose I'll simply prove that these allegations against me have been wildly exaggerated. Even if I've gone a bit soft, I'm still the Lord of Chaos. And then, once I've been proven innocent, I'm going to shrink all of you down and crush you in the palm of my hand like the insects you are.”

The judges began to murmur approvingly. Discord had not expected that. He took it as a good sign, though.

“I'll show you all that I haven't lost my touch,” Discord continued. “I'm still the undisputed master of mischief. I may go about things a bit differently these days, but--”

A crumpled-up ball of paper hit Discord in the side of his face. It had come from the right; over in Chance's direction. Discord looked over to see the younger draconequs was sitting at his table, twiddling his thumbs and whistling innocently. This was despite the fact that there was a stack of paper and several more crumpled balls sitting in front of him.

The judges were all still looking at Discord, their expressions almost unreadable. Or, in Dada's case, completely unreadable due to the lack of a face. None of them seemed to be paying any attention to Chance.

“Discord, is something wrong?” The Bewildebeest asked. “Why have you stopped?”

Discord stammered a bit in disbelief.

“Did you not just see that I was interrupted?” Discord gestured over at Chance. “The prosecution just threw something at me!”

Bedlam laughed.

“Yes, very good!” She said. “Please continue.”

Discord looked back at Chance. The blue draconequus flashed a toothy grin and wiggled his fingers in a wave. Discord looked to Fluttershy, who could only offer a shrug of sympathy. At least someone was on his side here.

“Well,” Discord sighed, “as I was saying, I haven't lost my touch. I've moved onto performing smaller, more unpredictable acts of--”

Another paper ball hit Discord, this time right in the eye. It stung a bit. Discord's eye blinked open and close rapidly as he brought a hand up to it. His nostrils flared in anger as he turned to look at Chance, who was still smiling.

“Stop it,” Discord snarled. “Stop throwing paper balls at me.”

“Alright,” Chance said. “Sure thing.”

“Discord,” the Bewildebeest warned, “you really need to keep on-topic. Please do not stop giving your statement again. This is your last warning.”

Discord grumbled irritably as he rubbed his eye. He wasn't even going to point out that it was Chance's fault Discord was losing focus; it was becoming clear the judges didn't care.

“Fine,” Discord said. “In that case, all I have to say is--”

Chance threw one of the chairs at his table at Discord.

The wooden chair splintered as it hit Discord in the side of his face. He could feel the wood breaking apart even as the impact knocked him off of his feet and down to the ground. The other side of his head smashed against the hard, stone floor with a sharp thud. Pain radiated all throughout his skull from both sides of his head. It felt like his brain was bouncing around inside of his head.

“Discord!” 

Fluttershy's voice reached Discord over the ringing in his ears. As he slowly got up off the floor, the entire courtroom appeared to be tilting back and forth. Discord felt as if he would get sea sick for a moment. With a groan, he shook away the pain and tried to regain his bearings.

“Discord, are you okay?” Fluttershy sounded panicked. That was good, right? Discord was too dazed to remember if that was good. He supposed it would be a good idea to say something to let her know he was okay.

“Thank you for listening to my opening statement,” he said groggily. “I hope you enjoyed writing it as much as I enjoyed listening to it.”

The judges resumed their murmuring as Discord staggered back to his desk. He kept trying to use his magic to get rid of the pain-- or, better, to retaliate against Chance in some way. Every time he did so, however, Discord felt that same sensation of his magic being cut off before it could actually manifest. Apparently, Discord would just have to put up with his throbbing head.

Discord hated having to put up with things. Not being able to just get rid of problems with magic was awful. Discord had no clue how ponies put up with this sort of thing.

“Are you okay?” Fluttershy whispered again, a look of concern on his face.

“I'm perfectly fine,” Discord said as he rubbed the spot where the chair had hit him. The pain made him envious of the days when he didn't have any bones. “Don't worry about me. Nothing these frauds can do can affect me. I'm just humoring them until I figure out how to get my magic working again.”

Discord almost believed himself when he said that. Even he could see the reality of things, though. He knew he was in trouble. But he didn't want Fluttershy to worry about him. It was best to try and play things off as less serious than they were.

Unfortunately, Fluttershy still looked as if she wasn't completely buying it. Clearly, that just meant Discord had to lie even harder.

“Alright,” the Bewildebeest said. “We have reached a decision.”

“A decision?” Fluttershy asked. “About what? Those were just the opening statements.”

Bedlam nodded. “Yes. We've decided that Chance's opening statement was far better than Discord's. Chance used props, and didn't get hit by a chair a single time. The first round goes to Chance.”

“Rounds?” Fluttershy repeated, an eyebrow raised. “Trials don't have rounds.”

Discord sighed and shook his head. “No, Fluttershy, they're right. Chance may have cheated, but I have to give the first round to him.”

“But trials don't have rounds,” Fluttershy insisted. A very slight hint of frustration was starting to creep into her voice.

The Bewildebeest banged his gavel against the sounding block. It made a wet, squishing noise.

“That's enough,” he warned. “We will now move onto the second round. The second round is the rest of the trial. Whoever wins the second round wins the case.”

From the look on Fluttershy's face, it looked like she was having trouble processing exactly what she'd just heard. Eventually, she sighed in defeat and wordlessly shook her head.

“We will now proceed with witness testimony,” the Bewildebeest said.

“Yes.” Bedlam nodded. “The testimony... of witnesses.”

“Pull the words out like teeth,” Dada said. “Soup cans into nothing. Make poetry from fortune cookies.”

The other two judges both nodded. Discord had no idea how they could understand what Dada was saying. Discord was all for random absurdity, but the bucket-headed Lord of Chaos seemed like they were just going overboard. Discord was actually a little annoyed by it, which surprised him.

“Chance,” the Bewildebeest said, “would you like to call the first witness?”

“Yes, your honor.” Chance stood up from his chair-- the one he hadn't thrown at Discord's head--  and folded his hands behind his back. “Your honors, the prosecution calls Discord Draconequus to the stand.”

“Why do you keep saying 'Draconequus' like it's my last name?” Discord asked irritably. “I don't have a last name. I'm Discord.”

Chance just shrugged. He didn't look like he cared.

“Noted,” the Bewildebeest said. “Discord, please take the stand.”

Discord looked around the rocky platform that his trial was being held on. It really was pretty barren. Discord didn't know a lot about courtrooms, but he knew that this one was lacking several things that most courtrooms had. There were no doors, or jury stands. There was no ceiling, and no little insects living beneath the floorboards. There were no floorboards, either. But most importantly...

“What stand?” Discord asked.

The stern, impassive expression on the Bewildebeest's face went away. Chance's smugness disappeared. Bedlam's eyes widened. Dada, who didn't have a face, didn't really visibly react. All four of the lesser Lords of Chaos looked around in all directions as they slowly realized what Discord meant.

“Did we forget to make a witness stand?” The Bewildebeest asked. “I don't see one.” He looked under his sounding block to see if the witness stand was there. It apparently wasn't.

“Whose job was it to make the witness stand?” Chance asked.

“Don't look at me,” Bedlam said defensively. “I'm the one who set up the gravity. I had my han-- my, er, appendages full.”

Discord and Fluttershy watched in confusion as all of the other Lord of Chaos began talking at once. There was a lot of arguing and blame-shifting, but Discord couldn't make out exactly what was being said. He wasn't really curious enough to try and figure it out, either.

The Lesser Lords kept on arguing, though. And as they continued talking over each other, Discord realized that none of them were paying attention to him anymore. Indeed, for the moment, they'd seemingly forgotten about him.

Discord had a chance to try and use his magic to save himself. 

Slowly, Discord leaned towards Fluttershy and whispered out of the side of his mouth. “Act natural,” he hissed. “I'm about to do something.”

“Oh. Goodness.” Fluttershy shuddered anxiously. Then, she forced herself to smile very insincerely and adopted the most unnatural-looking posture she could in the current circumstances. Apparently, she was trying to lean on her hoof nonchalantly, but it looked incredibly forced. Thankfully, the lesser lords of chaos were still too busy arguing to notice this strange pose.

“Perfect,” Discord lied. “You're doing great.”

Now it was up to Discord to use his magic. But to do what? He couldn't just get rid of the lesser lords. That would require a lot of magical power, and they would almost certainly be able to sense it if Discord made the attempt. Likewise, simply teleporting himself and Fluttershy out of the court was tempting, but Chance and the judges would be able to just bring him back.

Whatever Discord attempted, it would need to be small. Unnoticeable.

Discord's eyes darted over to Chance's table. The blue draconequus had left his seat so he could argue with the judges at the front of the court. He had left behind the stack of papers he had been pelting Discord with.

An idea formed in Discord's chaotic brain. While the lesser lords of chaos argued, Discord slowly and carefully reached his arm out towards Chance's table. He reached and reached, his arm stretching out across the wide space between the two tables. Ordinarily, this sort of slow stretching would be accompanied by the sound of a slide-whistle, but Discord was trying to be sneaky.

Discord's arm finally stretched until his hand reached the stack of papers. He quickly grabbed one of the sheets and then pulled his arm back into its normal, reasonable length. That done, he then set his newly-acquired piece of paper down onto his and Fluttershy's table.

The lesser lords' yelling was beginning to decrease in volume. Discord could tell that their argument was winding down, and with it, the time he had to put his plan into action. Trying to move as little as possible, Discord leaned down and whispered a message to the piece of paper.

“Fluttershy and I are in court,” he said, speaking quickly. “Follow this letter's magic trail. I'm sure you know how. Please help!”

Discord paused. “Oh. Warm regards, Discord.”

As Discord spoke, the words he whispered appeared on the surface of the paper. The letters and punctuation shook and vibrated erratically, as if they were having trouble standing still. There was no time to fix that, though. Discord needed to focus on sending this message to the one pony he was confident could help him: Twilight.

As Discord folded up the note, he envisioned in his mind where the message needed to end up: Twilight Sparkle. This needed to go to Twilight Sparkle. The purple horse who was good at magic. The one who was fun to annoy. Twilight Sparkle.

Keeping that image of Twilight in his mind, Discord snapped his fingers. The letter disappeared into thin air.

“What did you just do?”

Discord looked up to see that Chance was glaring right at him. All of the arguing had stopped the moment Discord had sent his message. Now everyone was looking right at him.

“Well?” Chance asked. “We all felt it. What did you do?”

Discord hesitated. He tried to think of a good enough lie. Normally, that would have been easy for him, but he was under a lot of pressure. He settled on the next-best alternative.

“Um. What did you do?” Discord countered.

“He has a point, Chance,” The Bewildebeest said.

Chance looked up at the judges before sighing and shaking his head.

“Whatever,” he grumbled. “Can we just move on with the trial already? This set back has significantly, well... set us back.”

The Bewildebeest nodded solemnly.

“Very well,” he said. “We will take a brief five-minute break so that I can make a witness stand. I'm going to take the time to make sure it's really tasteful, so everyone get settled in. Read a book or something.”

The Bewildebeest, apparently looking forward to the opportunity to engage in some light carpentry, smiled cheerfully. He lifted his gavel and banged it against the sounding block. Almost immediately afterward, a construction hat appeared on top of his black hood as he began to work his magic.

The magic was, of course, literally magic. Discord had no idea why it would take five minutes for the stand to be built. But if it bought him some time to try and figure out more ways to save himself, he wasn't going to complain.

Out of the corner of his eye, Discord could see Chance glaring at him as he floated back to the prosecution's table. There was real malice in those eyes. It was starting to unnerve Discord just a little. It made him worry about what punishment Chance had in mind for if Discord lost the trial.

Hopefully, Twilight would know what to do.
> The First Witness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The newly-created witness stand was nor a very comfortable place to be. It was a dinky little set of walls that had been set up up between the judges' stands and the tables for the prosecution and defense. The only seating was a tiny wooden stool inside of the enclosure that wobbled on uneven legs if its occupant so much as breathed.

As the first witness to be called, Discord had the dubious honor of being the first to use the witness stand. It felt far too small, and that feeling only got worse when the door on the enclosure was closed. The hard stool was unpleasant to sit on, and the stand itself was so cramped that there was pretty much no tail-room.

If Discord was the first one to use the witness stand, he felt bad for whoever would use it after him.

While Discord settled into his new seat, Chance floated before the witness stand. His butterfly wings were as annoyingly as still as ever. Although his businesslike expression betrayed no emotion, Chance still somehow managed to look smug without even doing anything . Discord didn't know how that was possible; maybe he just disliked Chance that much.

Chance reached into his suit's pocket and produced a small notepad. He flipped through the first few pages before looking up at Discord from over the rims of his square glasses.

“Please confirm your identity for the court. It says here that your name is...” Chance squinted at his notepad. “'Dis-cord?' Is that right?”

“You know it is,” Discord seethed.

“Huh.” Chance frowned in bemusement and shrugged. “And, to clarify, your occupation is serving as the current Lord of Chaos?”

Discord glared at the prosecutor with barely-restrained frustration. 

“Not 'current,'” he said through gritted teeth. “Only. I am the one and only Lord of Chaos, no matter what any of you pretenders say.”

“Uh-huh,” Chance said dismissively. He was looking at his notebook once again, paying little attention to Discord. “Alright, Mr. Cord, let me start off by asking a very simple question.”

Chance lowered his glasses and gave Discord a very serious look.

“Guiltypartysayswhat?”

Whatever Chance had said had been so quiet that it barely qualified as a whisper. It had been more like a sigh with consonants. Discord had to assume that this was some petty attempt to annoy him; that, or he had suddenly become hard-of-hearing. The former option seemed more likely.

“Speak up,” Discord demanded impatiently. “If you're going to keep bothering me, at least be audible with it.”

“Guiltypartysayswhat?” Chance repeated, slightly louder this time.

“... What?” Discord asked. “I can't understand what--”

Chance suddenly let out a cry of triumph, causing Discord to jump in his seat. The judges all laughed uproariously, much to Discord's confusion. He looked over towards his table, where Fluttershy still sat. He was hoping that she would be as confused as him, but instead she had her face buried in her hooves in a clear display of embarassment. That wasn't a great sign.

“What just happened?” Discord asked.

“Guilty party says what!” Chance exclaimed, finally speaking at a normal speed. “You said 'what'; that means you're a guilty party!”

The judges all applauded. Chance bowed graciously as they began throwing roses at him.

“That's not fair!” Discord protested. “That's entrapment, or leading the witness or something!”

Bedlam snickered. “Sounds like something a guilty party would say,” she said mockingly.

The Bewildebeest, still recovering from his laughter, sighed and wiped a tear from one of his eyes.

“No, no,” he said, a chuckle still in his voice. “Discord is right. That was great, but we can't actually use that as evidence against him. Sorry, Chance, but you'll need to actually question the witness.”

The laughter in the courtroom died. Bedlam, Dada, and Chance all looked fairly annoyed by the Bewildebeest putting a damper on their fun.

“Fine,” Chance said through gritted teeth. “I was going to keep on asking questions anyway.”

Chance regained his composure and calmly floated closer to the witness stand. Discord spitefully stuck his tongue out at the prosecutor, and he was pleased to see the gesture angered Chance a little.

“Alright, Discord,” Chance said. “Could you please explain to the court when you first decided to stop being chaotic?”

Fluttershy raised a hoof.

“Um. Excuse me?” She said. “Objection? Leading the witness?”

The Bewildebeest opened his mouth to speak, but Bedlam wound up beating him to the punch.

“Overruled,” she said in her strange, wet voice. “We're never going to get anywhere if you keep interrupting the prosecution. Discord, answer the question.”

Fluttershy lowered her hoof uncertainly. Even at this distance, Discord could see that the pony's brow was ever-so-slightly knit with frustration. Discord empathized with her; he was sick of this trial, too.

“I ask you again,” Chance said from his spot off to the side. “At what point did you decide to give up on being chaotic?”

Discord turned his attention back to Chance and glared impatiently at the younger draconequus.

“Frankly, I don't think I should answer such a ridiculous question. I AM chaos. I would never stop being chaotic. Why would you ask a question with such an obvious answer.”

“What about that time you had Fluttershy over to your house for tea?” Chance asked casually. “You stopped being chaotic then. It nearly killed you.”

Before Chance had even finished asking his first sentence, Discord's eyes widened in surprise.

“How do you even know about that?” Discord asked in a disbelieving whisper.

Chance shrugged disinterestedly, as if Discord had just asked him what he wanted to do for lunch. He glanced up towards the judges' stands, where one of them cleared their throat.

“We've done extensive research in preparation for this trial,” the Bewildebeest said from on high. He stroked his mighty gnu beard as he looked down at Discord. “We are aware of all of the facts pertaining to your case; everything you've said or done. There really isn't anything you can hide from us, Discord. Unless you hid it somewhere we'd never look, like the moon.”

Discord stared up at the judges in horrified confusion. He didn't understand how the lesser lords could know all the things they were claiming to. Had they been spying on him? Or did these self-proclaimed lords have some way to read Discord's mind? The latter one seemed unlikely. Even Discord sometimes had trouble making sense of the chaotic thoughts that regularly swirled around inside of his head.

Regardless of if it was true or not, the very idea that he was apparently an open book to these creatures made Discord extremely uneasy. He was a draconequus who valued his privacy.

“Alright, I tried being normal once.” Discord said, trying his best to brush off the Bewildebeest's claim. “But it was a one-off. I never did it again.”

“So you say.” Chance removed his glasses and began cleaning them with a chain of handkerchiefs he produced from his suit pocket. “But how can we know you're telling the truth? How do we know you're not constantly acting normal in secret?”

Discord folded his arms over his chest, unimpressed. “I thought you all knew everything I've said or done.”

“We do,” Bedlam clarified. “But we don't know everything you haven't said or done. So if you haven't done something, we don't know about it. Since we can't know if you haven't been acting normal in secret, we have to assume that you might have been doing it.”

Discord blinked. “But if I had been acting normal, you'd know about it,” he pointed out.

“Yes.” The Bewildebeest said. “But you haven't been acting normal, so we can't know for certain if you've been doing it or not.”

Discord supposed he had to concede that they had a point. What the court was saying didn't make any sense, but it did make a sort of nonsense. There was an illogical logic to it; the kind of thinking that a chaotic being like Discord could really appreciate.

Fluttershy, meanwhile, looked as if she was getting a headache from trying to wrap her head around what the judges has said. Discord offered her a look of sympathy before returning his attention to the case.

Chance set his glasses back on his face and began putting his chain of handkerchiefs back into his suit pocket.

“Let's get back to something we do know for sure,” he said. “Discord hasn't been as chaotic as he used to be. If we were to make a graph tracking Discord's chaos over the last thousand years, we'd see a sharp downturn around the point where he was officially reformed.”

A small smile formed on Chance's face.

“In fact,” he said, “imagine that I have such a graph with me right now.” Chance gestured to the empty air beside him, where a chart like the one he'd described might be. “Please pretend to take a good look at it.”

The judges began making sounds of disapproval, and Discord could imagine why. If the chart Chance had described really existed, it wouldn't have put Discord in a very positive light. It probably had a very sharp decline, or a gradual fall into truly abysmal numbers. Maybe it was even labeled. It would be terrible if that chart existed.

“As you can plainly imagine,” Chance said, “the drop in chaos is a steep one. It plummets down to numbers that are only marginally better than the chaos Discord produced while he was a statue. There are some blips of chaos after this downturn, but it never comes close to equaling the earlier points in the graph.”

Bedlam shook her head. “The graph I'm imagining is shocking. Discord, these imaginary numbers are inexcusable.”

“I am the president of anger,” Dada gurgled. “Disappointment, disappointment, disappointment.”

“Wait, 'graph?'” The Bewildebeest asked, surprised. “I thought we were imagining a giraffe.”

“That's right your honors,” Chance said as he finished shoving his chain of handkerchiefs back into his pocket.. “This graph would be extremely incriminating if it actually existed. In the face of such imaginary evidence, can you really afford NOT to give Discord the harshest sentence possible?”

The judges murmured among themselves. Once again, Discord couldn't make out exactly what was being said. Just like Chance's graph, however, Discord could imagine that it wasn't good.

There needed to be an interruption before the judges reached any sort of decision. That strategy seemed to be working for Discord so far, and he was always willing to try it again. This time, however, he didn't get the chance to interrupt the judges himself; somepony beat him to the punch.

“Um. Excuse me.” Fluttershy was hovering up above the defense's table. She had a particularly stern expression on her face, one that Discord knew meant she was starting to get frustrated.

“You can't present imaginary evidence in a trial,” Fluttershy said firmly. “And even if you could, Chance should have presented the evidence earlier. Everything Chance just said should be struck from the record. If that's okay.”

Discord was pleased to see that all of the lesser lords had been taken aback by Fluttershy's chastising. Even Chance looked a little uncertain of himself. Discord allowed himself a small smile of triumph. It turned out that Fluttershy getting pulled into this mess with him was paying off.

Unfortunately, Discord soon realized that the judges weren't caught off-guard because Fluttershy had chewed them out.

“... Are we supposed to have a record?” Bedlam asked, surprised.

“Courts are supposed to have stenographers, yes.” Fluttershy said, her eyelids lowered in a thoroughly unamused expression.

“First the witness stand, now the stenographer?” Bedlam pinched the bridge of her nose with the crab claw she was currently sporting. “Whose job was it to set up a court stenographer?”

“Not mine,” The Bewildebeest said.

“That was not in this cat's wheelhouse,” Dada said.

All eyes turned to Chance. The blue draconequus hovered with his arms folded over his chest. He raised a single eyebrow in annoyance before sighing and rolling his eyes.

“Of course we have stenographers.” Chance said as he raised his hand into the air. “They're right here.”

With a snap of Chance's fingers, a large wooden door appeared in the middle of the courtroom. It hovered in midair, not attached to anything. Discord had seen hundreds of doors like it. They were very convenient; you could just put them away when you didn't need them, and there was no room attached to take up space.

The door opened on its own, swinging inward on hinges that didn't exist. Through the doorway, which was now just a rectangular hole in existence, Discord could see a clean, well-lit room. From what he could tell from his limited perspective, the room was positively massive. It seemed to stretch back forever. But that didn't surprise Discord anywhere near as much as what was in the room:

Monkeys. Billions upon billions of monkeys of every shape, size, and species. There were more monkeys than Discord could even begin to count. Each monkey was sat at a desk, and each desk had a typewriter. The monkeys were all typing away at the typewriters, their fingers dancing nimbly. The air was filled with the nonstop clicking of the typewriters.

“Oh my stars and garters,” the Bewildebeest said in a hushed tone.

Chance smiled proudly. “There's an infinite number of them in there, all slapping away at the keys at random. With enough time, they'll have produced every possible combination of letters, spaces, and punctuation. That means that, eventually, we'll get a perfect transcript of this court case. Let me show you.”

The blue draconequus reached into the phantom doorway and snatched away a sheet of paper from one of the monkey's typewriters. Smiling smugly, Chance brought the paper up to his eyes to read it. However, once he saw whatever the monkey had typed, his smile disappeared.

“'Act 1. Scene 1. Elsinore. A platform before the castle. Francisco at his post. Enter to him Bernardo...?'” Chance squinted in disbelief at what he was reading. “What's this malarkey?!”

Chance raised his head and glared furiously at the monkey from whom he'd taken the sheet of paper. “You're not supposed to be working on your screenplay, Emile! Get back to work!”

Chance balled up the offending piece of paper and tossed it at the responsible monkey, hitting them square in the eye. Discord winced in sympathy while Fluttershy gasped in horror.

Once again, Chance snapped his fingers. The door to the monkey room slammed shut, then shot up into the sky and disappeared into the void above. Chance shook his head, a frustrated grimace on his annoying little face.

“Okay, so they haven't produced it yet,” he conceded. “But they have all of eternity to work at it. Eventually, we'll have our court record, and then we can remove whatever it is that Fluttershy was complaining about.”

With speed that she normally wasn't capable of, Fluttershy bolted out of her seat and flew right up to Chance. She was practically nose-to-nose with him, a furious expression on her face as she looked Chance right in the eye.

“You did NOT just do that!” Fluttershy yelled quietly. “What kind of bully treats a poor, innocent monkey that way? You've been nothing but mean all day, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

Chance was taken aback by Fluttershy's outburst. His eyes were wide with shock as he flinched away from the little pony. All of the smugness that Discord had grown accustomed to seeing on Chance's face was completely gone. It was, at once, both shocking and extremely satisfying.

The Bewildebeest banged his gavel once more. This time, it made a theremin-like sound that Discord couldn't quite identify. He found it pleasant, though.

“That's enough! I'm sick of this case going off-track.” With an angry snort, the Bewildebeest pointed his gavel down in Chance's direction. “Fluttershy is right to chastise you, Chance. Monkeys should not be court stenographers. They should be butlers, and nothing else. Let this be a lesson to you.”

Fluttershy gave Chance one last glare before returning to the defense's table. Chance, clearly still shaken, dusted his jacket off and floated back to the witness stand.

“Alright,” Chance said, a slight crack in his voice. “Now, as I was saying earlier, Discord, your chaos has been in a decline for some time now. Could you please tell the court, in your own words, why that is?”

Discord rolled his eyes. “I already told you, I'm just as chaotic as I used to be. But if you're asking me why I don't get up to the same tricks I did when I ruled Equestria, the answer's simple: I'm reformed. I'm one of the good guys now.”

Chance nodded in apparent understanding.

“Now, why does that prevent you from causing the same chaos you used to?” He asked.

The question gave Discord pause. Off the top of his head, he wasn't quite sure how to answer it. He needed to glance over at Fluttershy, who was quietly fuming, to remind himself.

“My friends don't want me to,” Discord said plainly. “They like Equestria the way it is, for some reason. They don't appreciate the kinds of changes I would make. And since I'm such a good friend, I take their feelings into account.”

Discord gave the question some more thought.

“Also, if I tried to take over Equestria again, they'd probably turn me back into a statue,” he said. “But it's mostly the friendship thing.”

Chance stroked his chin in thought. He began intently studying Discord, much to the older draconequus' discomfort.

After what felt like minutes, Chance finally spoke again.

“You make it sound like your friends are the only thing keeping you from turning Equestria upside-down,” he pointed out. “Is there any other reason? Do you in any way regret your actions from a thousand years ago?”

“Oh, what's to regret?” Discord asked with a wave of the hand. “Sure, the ponies didn't enjoy being tormented every day of their lives, but honestly? I think they were overreacting. It was all in good fun.”

As the memories came back to Discord, he chuckled wistfully to himself. Those had been some good times. They made Discord so nostalgic that he didn't even realize something was wrong until Chance pointed an accusatory finger in his direction.

“You heard it yourselves, your honors,” Chance said loudly. “Discord's letting the feelings of others dictate his actions. He'd happily go back to his old ways of brainwashing the masses or turning the oceans into jelly, but he won't; not because of any sort of moral decision, but because it would upset some ponies. He has, quite frankly, given up.”

Discord began sputtering in disbelief.

“Now wait just a minute!” He said as the judges began their murmuring. “That's not what I said! I mean, it sort of is, but you're reading too much into it! And I've never turned any oceans into jelly in my life!”

“And now he's saying that we read too much!” Chance exclaimed. “He's calling us nerds!”

The judges gasped in horror.

“There is no need for that kind of senseless bullying, Discord!” The Bewildebeest chastised. “You would do better than to insult the few people in this court who are sympathetic to your plight.”

Bedlam and Chance both looked very confused when the Bewildebeest mentioned having sympathy. Apparently, they hadn't been informed that that was a viable stance to have during the trial.

“I have no further questions, your honors,” Chance said as he adjusted his jacket. “I think the defendant's words speak for themselves.”

The Bewildebeest sighed, a small frown on his fuzzy face.

“Very well,” the Bewildebeest said with a hint of disappointment in his voice. “Discord, return to your seat. Chance, do you have your next witness prepared?”

“Um. Hang on.” Fluttershy raised her hoof. “Doesn't the defense get to do a cross-examination?”

“No, of course not,” Bedlam said. “Why would we allow that? We're trying to find him guilty.”

The Bewildebeest nodded solemnly, looking like he was acknowledging an unpleasant truth. “Yes. Even if we did allow it, Discord would have to try and cross-examine himself. And since he already refused to represent himself in this case, that would be impossible.”

“But I should be allowed to defend myself somehow!” Discord said. “Otherwise, this whole trial is a farce!”

“Well, yes.” Bedlam said, bemused. “That's kind of the point.”

Dada and Chance both nodded in agreement.

“Oh. Right.” Discord had suspected that to be the case, but wasn't sure of how to respond now that it had been plainly said out loud.

After thinking some more on the matter, Discord decided the best thing to do would be to just go back to his seat.

“This doesn't seem to be going well,” Fluttershy said once Discord returned to the defense's table.

“It doesn't, no,” Discord agreed. “I don't know much about trials, of course, but it doesn't feel like things are going in our favor.”

With a frustrated sigh, Discord pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. He felt like a complete fool. Of course this whole trial was a farce; how had he not realized that sooner? These lesser lords weren't actually interested in giving Discord a chance to defend himself. They were just mocking him. It was the exact sort of thing Discord would have done if he were in their position.

That thought only made Discord feel even worse. The longer this trial went on, the more Discord realized how similar he was to his abductors. He was starting to think that they really had been telling the truth when they'd claimed to be other lords of chaos. But Discord still didn't know how that was possible. After all, they couldn't have come from the same place Discord had come from.

Could they?

“Discord.”

Fluttershy's quiet voice snapped Discord out of his thoughts. The little yellow pegasus looked and sounded concerned. She was looking at Discord with an uncertainty that was more than a little worrying.

“Were you telling the truth when you were up on the stand?” Fluttershy asked. “About how the only reason you haven't gone back to your old ways is because of your friends?”

“Of course it was the truth,” Discord said. He held a paw over his chest, where he imagined his heart would be if he had one. “I know you all don't like how much of a bully I used to be. I don't want to upset the only friends I've really ever had. I promise you, Fluttershy, you all have completely reformed me.”

For some reason, Fluttershy only looked even more worried. Discord had thought he'd been rather reassuring, but apparently he hadn't given Fluttershy whatever answer she had been hoping for.

“Okay.” Fluttershy frowned and glanced off to the side as she tried to find the right words to say. 

“That's nice of you, Discord,” she said hesitantly, “but you sort of make it sound like you don't feel bad about how evil you used to be. You do know that the way you acted was wrong, right? You said it yourself: ponies lived in constant terror when you were in charge. That's bad.”

Discord stared at Fluttershy in silent confusion.

“If you two are done with your private conversation, we're about to call our next witness,” Bedlam said in a rather hostile tone.

Fluttershy gave Discord one more concerned look before they both turned their attention back to the trial.

“Your honors,” Chance said as he once more folded his arms behind his back, “our next witness is a victim of Discord's chaos-stifling ways. He foiled her plans to upset the status quo and eventually reduced her to a state wherein she was unable to cause any further problems for the ponies of Equestria.”

“That's terrible!” Bedlam exclaimed. “I love problems!”

“Syzygy,” Dada agreed.

“You're both right,” Chance said. “Except for Dada. But the next witness does not need our sympathy; she needs to be heard! And tonight, in front of a live studio audience, she will be!”

With a dramatic flair that Discord had come to hate, Chance raised his claw and pointed at the witness stand.

“I call to the stand,” he said in his most theatrical voice possible, “Queen Chrysalis!”
> Silent Witness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The void was silent. The mood was tense. Queen Chrysalis had taken the stand.

Chance had summoned the Changeling Queen with little-to-no fanfare, and she had been surprisingly cooperative so far. There were none of the complaints or snide remarks that Discord had gotten accustomed to when he'd impersonated Grogar. Even when Chance asked his questions, Chrysalis held back on the biting sarcasm. 

That did not mean she was calm, however. The expression on her face was one of pure anger. And no matter how cool Chance tried to play it, every creature had the sense that Chrysalis might snap at any moment.

“Now, Queen Chrysalis,” Chance said, “Discord once aided in foiling your plan to conquer Equestria, yes?”

Queen Chrysalis said nothing. Chance waited uncertainly for her to give some sort of response, but none came. She merely stared forward, snarling at the blue draconequus.

“Hm.” Chance frowned and squinted at the Changeling Queen. “Well, how about the time he posed as Grogar? Tell us about that.”

Once again, Queen Chrysalis gave no response. Her expression was one of defiant anger, and it had changed very little since she'd been summoned to the court. She looked like a she might start ranting and raving at the top of her lungs at any given moment.

“Your silence speaks volumes.” Chance said with a nod. “Now, what do you have to say about Discord as a person? Do you have anything positive to say about him at all?”

Chrysalis continued to be silent. Her stony expression remained unchanged.

At the defense table, Discord held his head in his hands and groaned wearily. He'd been so optimistic when Chrysalis had first taken the stand. She had been so cold and uncooperative. Now that her testimony was underway, however, things were looking more and more hopeless.

“This is a nightmare,” Discord groaned as he dragged his hands down his face. “She's absolutely destroying me up there, Fluttershy.”

“Um.” Fluttershy looked toward the witness stand and Chrysalis with an uncertain frown on her face. Her eyes darted between Discord and the stand a few times before she gave Discord a very confused look.

“She's a statue,” Fluttershy said flatly.

Discord had no idea why Fluttershy felt like now was a good time to point out the obvious. Of course Chrysalis was a statue; she, Tirek, and Cozy Glow had all been petrified after their failed takeover. Discord and Fluttershy had both been there when it happened. Discord didn't need to be reminded.

“She's a statue that's going to cost me this case, Fluttershy.” Discord pointed to the witness stand, where Chance was attempting to move Chrysalis's frozen form into a more intimidating angle. He was not succeeding. A statue can only look so frightening.

Eventually, Chance gave up on trying to frame Chrysalis in any particular way and threw his hands up. “Okay, I think we've gotten all we're going to get out of her. Can I call my next witness yet? I want to call someone who can physically assault Discord.”

“Now hold on.” The Bewildebeest said with a gesture in Chrysalis's direction. “As enlightening as the last hour of questioning has been, I feel like we really should unpetrify her. We brought her all the way here. This terrible golem deserves a chance to speak, don't you think?”

Chance lowered his eyelids disinterestedly. 

“Well, your honor,” Chance said, “as much as that makes sense to do, I'm afraid we can't. She can only be set free by the same kind of magic that froze her in the first place. So she has to be a statue forever. Oh well.”

Chance shrugged half-heartedly. Evidently, he was impatient to get on to the next witness. Discord couldn't blame him. There was only so much material you could milk out of interrogating a statue, and Chance had most-likely run out of ways to amuse himself with this charade.

But the Wildebeest was ruining everything by continuing to take this sham of a trial seriously.

“There must be some way for us to hear from her,” he pointed out, stroking the thin beard that dangled from his chin. “We're Lords of Chaos. We can do all kinds of crazy things. Surely we can find a workaround.” 

The Bewildebeest continued to ponder things as he looked down at Chrysalis thoughtfully. The other Lesser Lords grumbled to themselves irritably, but the Bewildebeest didn't appear to notice.

As for Discord, he didn't mind if the Bewildebeest spent all week thinking this one over. If the trial kept stalling, it would give Twilight plenty of time to figure out a way to save Discord and Fluttershy. Of course, that was assuming that the message had properly reached her in the first place.

Without free access to his magic, Discord didn't have the luxury of being able to come up with a backup plan. That meant that, if Twilight wound up not getting the note for some reason, Discord's only remaining option was to play along with this mockery of a trial. He might have not had any chance of being found not guilty, but Discord was certain he could at least manage to get his sentence reduced.

Well, he was relatively certain. Trials, again, were not something Discord had an intimate knowledge of. He generally tried to avoid them.

At the witness stand, the Bewildebeest had given Chance a hammer and chisel and instructed him to try and free Chrysalis. Chance looked understandably baffled by this request, and hadn't even started chipping away at Chrysalis's stony form. He probably knew just as well as Discord that the Bewildebeest's plan wouldn't work. A part of Discord wouldn't mind watching them try, though.

“This trial can't progress until you get her out of there, young man,” the Bewildebeest said sternly. “Get to chipping.”

“First of all, we're the same age.” Chance pointed the chisel at Discord dismissively. “Second, this is his trial; shouldn't he be the one doing this?”

The Bewildebeest looked at Discord thoughtfully. The old gnu was actually considering it, wasn't he? Unbelievable. For someone who was apparently sympathetic to Discord, the Bewildebeest wasn't making this trial any easier.

Discord sighed irritably. “As much as I'd love to take a hammer and a chisel to Queen Chrysalis's face, I'm not going to do it. It wouldn't free her, and she'd feel as every piece of herself would be chipped away. It would just be needlessly cruel.”

“That settles it, then. Someone definitely needs to start going at her with that chisel,” Bedlam said, a hint of excitement creeping into her voice.

The Bewildebeest glanced to his left and gave Bedlam a worried frown.

“Er, no,” he said. “I've changed my mind. Let's find another way to--”

“No, no, I'm into this plan now.” Chance began to nod enthusiastically. “Now that I know she'll be aware of what's happening to her, I think it's imperative to this case that we start breaking her up into little, tiny pieces.”

As the Lesser Lords began arguing, Discord felt Fluttershy tugging at his arm. To no surprise, Fluttershy looked slightly worried about the fate about to befall Chrysalis. Discord understood why; slowly getting chiseled into smaller and smaller pieces was a pretty gruesome punishment, even for someone like Chrysalis. Someone needed to stop these idiots from actually trying to do it.

Wordlessly, Discord nodded to Fluttershy and turned his attention back to the trial. Chance, Bedlam, and the Bewildebeest were all still talking over each other. No one had made any moves to try and do something to Chrysalis yet, but Discord didn't know how long this stalemate would last.

As Discord tried to think of a way to get the court to let go of this morbid idea, his attention was drawn to Dada's stand, where the strange zebra-thing was sitting patiently. They did not appear to be participating in their colleagues' debate, nor did they seem particularly interested.

“Are you going to do anything about them?” Discord asked the Master of Absurdity, not really expecting an answer.

There was no way Dada could have heard Discord's question. He hadn't spoken particularly loudly, and the other lords were making far too much noise with their arguing. Nevertheless, Dada did respond.

It was a response that made Discord realize he should never ask Dada anything ever, ever again.

Dada slowly raised one of their hooves up and slammed it down on the judge's stand. The ringing noise it produced was deafening, but it only lasted for a few seconds. It was still enough to stop the lesser lords' argument abruptly. Bedlam, Chance, and the Bewildebeest all whipped their heads in Dada's direction, alarmed, as the striped lord did... something.

Discord didn't know what it was that happened, but it was something. There was really no other way to describe it. There were no words for whatever it was that Dada had done; not because it was difficult to describe, but because it, whatever it was, actively fought against any kind of description. Whatever it was, it violently resisted any attempt to understand it as more than just 'something'.

The judges all cried out in disgust at whatever it was Dada was doing. Discord had to agree with their reaction, but he wasn't sure why. Fluttershy, meanwhile, just looked confused. She squinted, like she was trying to decipher some abstract piece of art. The answers, if there even were any, persistently eluded her.

As it continued happening, bits and pieces of whatever it was were becoming clearer to Discord. He caught glimpses of a few bizarre images that he could, at the very least, use words to describe. A hole opening up somewhere and spitting something out. A pony dragging a piano through a desert. A living creature coming out of a sink's faucet like water.

Discord furrowed his brow anxiously. What were these things he was singing? Were they metaphors? Just weird images for the sake of being weird? Discord felt like trying to figure it out was a waste of energy. Maybe the only meaning to it all was that there wasn't any.

Eventually, something stopped happening. Whatever it was that Dada had done, it seemed to end before anyone even really realized it. Silent confusion hung in the air as everycreature waited to see if something would start happening again. Only when they were certain there would be no more of whatever it was did anyone dare to speak.

“What?” Discord asked. He knew he probably needed to use some more words, but at the moment he couldn't quite remember any. That would pass in time, but for now he was just too flummoxed to say much more than just that one word.

“I'm a solution,” Dada warbled. 

This was not a good explanation. The court became filled with uncomfortable murmuring.

“Dada, don't just use our magic on your own like that,” the Bewildebeest said. He was trying to hide it, but he couldn't help but sound a little bit stressed. The gnu lord let out a deep breath and adjusted his robes.

“Now, I believe we were discussing--”

“That was the worst possible way you could have done that,” a new voice said.

Nobody had noticed that there was a new addition to the court. How could they have noticed? Whatever it was that Dada had done had been incredibly distracting. And whatever it was Dada had done, it had brought someone to the courtroom. Someone who was now standing next to a statue of themselves.

It was Queen Chrysalis, in the flesh, or carapace, or whatever she had. She was just here now. The petrified Queen Chrysalis remained in the witness stand, unchanged. Whatever had happened, it hadn't freed Chrysalis. But Discord could tell it hadn't just whipped up a doppelganger, either. She was, again, just here now.

And she was soaking wet, for some reason.

Fluttershy gasped in terror, her hooves flying to her mouth as she ducked beneath the table. Discord couldn't blame her; Chrysalis had him on edge, too After the whole Grogar incident, he'd learned that Queen Chrysalis was dangerous, even if you were a handsome genius like Discord. Indeed, even though Discord was the most handsome genius of all time, Chrysalis and the others had still managed to catch him off-guard.

That was why, even though Chrysalis looked like she'd been dragged through a few rough miles of swampland, Discord wasn't about to let his guard down.

As the entire court stared at Chrysalis, she continued to seethe.

“I thought nothing could be worse than being trapped in that petrified form with only Tirek and Cozy Glow for company.” Chrysalis said through bared teeth. “But then you drag me here and make me listen to your nonsense for an HOUR. I was aware of every inane question you asked me, you know. Ever. Single. One.”

Chrysalis leveled a downright poisonous glare in Chance's direction. The blue draconequus flinched, eyes darting about nervously as Chrysalis eyed him. Discord liked how shaken Chance looked. It was cathartic.

“Oh, but that wasn't bad enough, was it?” Chrysalis's head spun to glare upwards at the judges. Her sneer grew more hateful with every word she spat in their direction. “No. Because you had to go and free me from my prison in the worst. Way. Possible.”

There was venom in every syllable coming out of Chrysalis's mouth, and Discord was rather pleased with who it was getting aimed at. The Lesser Lords (Save Dada, who was always inscrutable) were all clearly uncomfortable with the vitriol being leveled at them, and it was just delightful. The only thing ruining it was the fact Chrysalis was back.

The Bewildebeest fidgeted awkwardly under Chrysalis's piercing gaze.

“Er... Why are you so... wet?” He finally managed to ask.

What little calm Chrysalis had had up to that point vanished in an instant. The Changeling Queen's eyes widened at the apparent gall of the Bewildebeest to ask such a question. In a flash, Chrysalis flew up to the judges' stands and got right up in the Bewildebeest's face, her manic eyes mere inches from his own.

“I don't know!” Chrysalis screamed at the top of her lungs. “I don't WANT to know! I've put up with your nonsense long enough, and I DEMAND you release me at once!”

As much as Discord was enjoying watching the Lesser Lords get yelled at, it sadly couldn't last. Eventually, one or more of the lords would remember that they were nearly omnipotent. Sure enough, just when it looked like Chrysalis was about to bite the Bewildebeest's face off, Chance stretched his arm out and grabbed Chrysalis by the neck before dragging her down to the witness stand.

“Okay, little lady,” Chance said as Chrysalis landed with a dull, wet thud. “Stop being such a drama queen and play along. You should show a little gratitude to the draconequui who turned you back to normal.”

Chance glanced at the statue of Queen Chrysalis, which still occupied the witness stand.

“Well... we sort of turned you back to normal.” Not giving it any further thought, Chance pushed the still-petrified Chrysalis out of the witness stand and sat the living version down in its place.

The Changeling Queen looked to be a mix of outraged and shaken. With an impatient scowl, Chrysalis set her hooves on the door to the stand and made to open it so she could leave.

Just as Chrysalis did, however, her eyes darted in Discord's direction. She stopped. Her eyes narrowed. Discord could practically see the gears turning in Chrysalis's head. Then, after a moment of thought, she sat back down in her seat.

“Fine,” Queen Chrysalis said. “You want me to testify against Discord? I'll tell you everything you need to know.”

It was only at that moment that Discord remembered that, oh right; Chrysalis being here was a bad thing. He'd been so amused by her tirade against the Lesser Lords that he'd forgotten about the whole trial thing.

“Er, objection!” Discord said as he stood up from his seat. “The witness is clearly unreliable. She is a known liar and manipulator. Nothing she says should be taken at face value.”

Bedlam shrugged her amorphous shoulders.

“That's fine,” she said. “It's not like we swore her in or anything.”

“That's another thing I take issue with,” Fluttershy said as she poked her head up from under the table. “You really should be swearing your witnesses in.”

Chrysalis glanced towards Fluttershy and hissed threateningly. With a small yelp, the little pegasus ducked back down beneath the table.

Chance was looking positively giddy at the moment. He knew just as well as Discord how incriminating Chrysalis's testimony could be. The blue draconequus rubbed his hands together eagerly as he floated before the witness stand.

“Alright, your highness,” he said. “We'll start things off relatively simply. How long have you known the defendant?”

“Too long.” Chrysalis answered.

Chance's excited grin died just a little.

“Could you be a bit more specific?” He asked testily.

Chrysalis blew a wet lock of hair out of her face and leaned her cheek on her hoof.

“I didn't actually meet him until the incident with Starlight Glimmer.” The Queen's voice momentarily deepened when she mentioned the mare's name. “But I was aware of who he was before then, of course. I saw his work when he took over Equestria, and when he helped Tirek eat the ponies' magic. But we didn't actually meet until he decided, apparently on a whim, to set me up for failure.”

“It wasn't on a whim!” Discord protested. “It was a carefully-orchestrated plot, I'll have you know!”

Chrysalis snarled threateningly at Discord.

“Discord, please don't interrupt.” The Bewildebeest chastised. “Miss Chrysalis, please continue to tell us about Discord's wonderful plan to ruin your life.”

“This buffoon took me in when I was at my lowest,” Chrysalis said, gesturing towards Discord. “He essentially forced me into taking part in a plan that was never meant to succeed. That's entrapment. It's only thanks to my own clever planning that I was able to turn things in my favor and nearly conquer Equestria. Even after all of that, however, he still found a way to ruin things for me. I have no idea why he decided to single me out for this, but it's all his fault.”

Discord looked at Chrysalis skeptically. “'Single you out'? What about Cozy Glow and Tirek?”

The mention of her accomplices made Chrysalis look as if she had suddenly developed a very bad taste in her mouth.

“Oh. Them.” Chrysalis waved a hoof dismissively. “They were also involved in things.”

Chance looked up at the judges' stands, a stern expression on his very punchable face.

“There you have it, your honors,” he said. “Discord manipulated this poor, innocent changeling into taking part in a scheme that was doomed from the start. All this plan would have achieved was a brief blip of chaos before returning to an orderly status quo. And on top of all of that, he committed entrapment, which is improper police procedure.”

“Did you just call me 'poor?'” Chrysalis asked.

“This is just further evidence that Discord is failing at spreading chaos,” Chance continued. “Furthermore, he's failing as a police officer. This is why I suggest that he be stripped of his title and his badge, and then punished to the fullest extent that the court can possibly--”

“I'm not a police officer!” Discord protested, exasperated. There were other, more prudent points that he knew he should have been arguing against, but the police officer thing was just too distracting for Discord to leave it alone.

“That's no excuse for this shameful behavior, Discord.” Bedlam said scathingly. “Personally, I don't think there's any excuse for what you pulled with that little Grogar stunt. You ruined whatever wonderful chaos would have been created by Queen Chrysalis.”

“He certainly did,” Chrysalis said dismissively. “If it weren't for him and his little pony friends, I'd be ruling all of Equestria right now.”

“But what about Tirek and Cozy?” The Bewildebeest asked.

“What about them?” Chyrsalis countered.

While Chrysalis glared at the Bewildebeest hostilely, the gears in Discord's head started turning. There weren't any literal gears; at least, not as far as Discord knew. But regardless, an idea formed in Discord's head as he stroked his goatee.

“Discord?” Fluttershy whispered, poking her head out from beneath the table. “What's wrong? You're just sitting there, tugging your beard and staring off into space.”

Discord stopped stroking his beard. He didn't stop staring off into space, though, because that was technically impossible to do. Everything occupied space, so if you were looking at something, you were looking at the space it filled. Right now, Discord was looking at the space that presently contained Fluttershy.

“Sorry. Just thinking of something.” Without bothering to explain things further, Discord stood up from his seat and raised a claw. “Excuse me! Your honors!”

The Bewildebeest squinted at Discord and pointed his gavel in the Lord of Chaos's direction.

“Yes? The tall gentleman in the front row? What is it?”

“I know that I'm not supposed to question any of the witnesses in this trial,” Discord said. “But I just wanted to let you know that I'm about to anyway.”

“That's fine,” the Bewildebeest said. “Thank you for letting us know in advance that you're about to do something we don't approve of. It was very polite.”

Chance scoffed and raised an eyebrow skeptically. The eyebrow he raised was Chrysalis's, much to her clear irritation.

“What question could you possibly have to ask?” Chance asked mockingly. “The facts in this incident are clear, Discord. Don't try to weasel your way out of it.”

Discord didn't let Chance's bad attitude get to him. With a small smile on his face, Discord looked to the ex-Queen occupying the witness stand.

“I was just wondering,” Discord said. “Queen Chrysalis, could you please paint a clearer picture of what I ruined? What, exactly, would you have done as the ruler of Equestria?”

Chrysalis swatted Chance's hand away from her face and narrowed her eyes at Discord.

“For starters, I'd get rid of your precious pony friends,” she said. Her eyes darted in Fluttershy's direction for a moment. “That includes the princesses. Then I'd get revenge on Starlight Glimmer and those ungrateful traitors from my old hive.”

Discord waved a hand in the air. “Yes, yes, okay. Revenge is great; we all know it's good. But I'm asking about how you'd rule things. How, exactly, would you run your kingdom.”

“Oh.” Chrysalis folded her hooves and gave it some thought. “I'd find minions to enact my will; either through hypnosis or creating them on my own. Then I'd send my agents to stamp out any possible resistance. The ponies of Equestria would be either workers or food, and would obey my every order without question. All of my subjects would love and fear me under pain of death, and my word would be law. Shining Armor would--”

“Aha!” Discord clapped his hands triumphantly before pointing an accusatory finger at Chrysalis. “There it is!”

“There what is?” Chance asked.

“What is there?” The Bewildebeest asked.

“Is there what?” Dada asked.

Discord grinned with confidence.

“You all heard it yourselves,” he said. “Straight from the changeling's mouth. She just confessed that if she had successfully taken over Equestria, she'd rule it with an iron hoof. Did anything she described sound particularly chaotic to any of you?”

The judges looked among themselves uncertainly as they thought over Discord's question. While they mulled it over, though, Chance was looking up at them in desperate shock. It pleased Discord to no end to see the smugness wiped off of Chance's stupid face.

“The fact of the matter is, Chrysalis's reign would have been even less chaotic than Equestria already is,” Discord continued. “And I'm willing to bet that Tirek and Cozy Glow would be no different. These amateur villains have no skill when it calls to sowing havoc and mania. All they care about is being in control of every little thing so they can placate their flimsy egos.”

“Flimsy?!” Chrysalis slammed her hooves down on the walls of the witness stand and lifted herself up off the stool. “How dare you belittle me, you insane little buffoon! I'm no amateur; I am a Queen! I was born to rule! I don't care about chaos! I only care about making every creature in Equestria grovel at my hooves!”

“Lady, stop! You're just digging us deeper!” Chance pleaded. All that got him was a snarl from Chrysalis.

The judges murmured quietly while Discord sat back down with a big smirk on his face. He had nailed it. He'd finally figured out how to turn this case in his favor. From here on out, it would me smooth sailing, even if Twilight never showed up.

“Discord has a point,” the Bewildebeest said after he finished convening with his colleagues. “If he had actually gone through with helping Chrysalis and her accomplices achieve their goals, it would have only resulted in a more rigid status quo.”

“Yes,” Bedlam grumbled. “As much as I hate to admit it, this isn't as cut-and-dry as I'd like it to be. I'm not sure if we can use this incident against him.”

Chance made a noise as if he was about to speak, but stopped before he could say more than a syllable. The blue draconequus looked mortified. He dragged his paws down his face in a display of frustration that made Discord feel all warm inside. And while Chrysalis looked more annoyed than angry at the little trap Discord had sprung on her, Discord still couldn't resist giving the queen a mocking little smile.

“I think I'm getting the hand of this whole 'trial' thing,” Discord said to Fluttershy. He leaned back in his seat and crossed one leg over the other. “Pretty impressive of your old pal Discord, isn't it?”

“Well, I don't know if that trick would have worked in a normal trial,” Fluttershy mused, her expression thoughtful. After trailing off, however, she looked back at Discord with an excited smile. “But you did great! We might be able to turn this trial around!”

The Bewildebeest banged his gavel, and the shrieking sound it made gave Fluttershy a little start. Both she and Discord looked up at the judges who were looking down at them.

“Don't go celebrating just yet,” the Bewildebeest cautioned. “We have more witnesses to go through, and not all of them will be as this insect-woman. Oh, speaking of which...”

The Bewildebeest looked down at the witness stand, where Chrysalis was glaring spitefully up at him.

“You're dismissed.” The Bewildebeest banged his gavel once again, and there was a bright flash of light. Discord could feel their shared power being used to send Chrysalis back to where she'd come from.

When the light faded, that had certainly happened. But there was a slight complication. The petrified Chrysalis, who had originally been summoned to the court, had indeed been sent back to her point of origin.

The flesh-and-blood Chrysalis, however, remained in the witness stand.

“Huh.” The Bewildebeest said after a moment. He looked at his gavel, as if it had somehow messed things up, then turned to his right. “Dada, could you get rid of her?”

“No.” Dada said.

The Bewildebeest shrugged. “Oh well. I guess she lives here now. Chance, you may call your next witness.”

Chance, shoulders slumped, sneered at Discord before turning back to face the judges.

“Fine,” he said listlessly. “I mean, you're clearly making a very stupid mistake, but FINE. I was going to call more witnesses anyway, but I guess it's cool that this one completely screwed up. What do I care?”

Petulantly, Chance kicked the air in front of him like he was a child throwing a tantrum. From the looks on the judges' faces, they had about as much sympathy for Chance as Discord.

“Did you really just say that I screwed this up?” Chrysalis asked incredulously. “Don't blame me for whatever it was that just happened. I refuse to play along with whatever insanity is--”

With a wave of his hand, Chance took Chrysalis's mouth away. It popped out of existence, leaving smooth carapace in the spot it had been. The Queen's eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in outrage. She glared at Chance, her eyes conveying the anger she couldn't express with words. This time, though, Chance wasn't anywhere near as intimidated.

“Blah, blah, blah,” Chance said mockingly, moving his hand like a puppet's mouth. The normal smug condescension in his voice was gone; now he sounded angry and tired. “Your testimony's over. You're done talking. If you talk to me like that again, I'll take away the part of your brain that lets you speak. Understand?”

Chance snapped his fingers, and Chrysalis's mouth reappeared on her face. The Changeling Queen quietly snarled at Chance, but wisely kept silent for the moment. She begrudgingly exited the witness stand and trotted over to the prosecution table, where she took a seat. 

Discord didn't know if Chrysalis was actually allowed to sit there, but he was willing to wager that neither did any of the lesser lords. In any case, none of them were raising a big stink about it. Meanwhile, Chrysalis was busy channeling her unending animosity into an angry glare that was being divided between Chance and Discord. The lesser lords probably wouldn't raise a stink about that, either.

“Now, let's move past that nonsense that just happened and get into some truly compelling testimony.” Despite still sounding fairly irritated, a wicked little smile was forming on Chance's face. “My next witness is someone who knew Discord before his first takeover of Equestria. I call to the stand--”

Chance stopped, his eyes wide. He was sensing the exact same thing as Discord: a magical disturbance happening nearby. It was subtle at first, like the change in a stuffy room after a window had been opened. But there was no ignoring the fact that the atmosphere was changing.

A twinkling spark of magical light, no bigger than a pinprick manifested in the middle of the courtroom. It danced in the air like a will-o-wisp, or like electricity crackling at the end of wire. Every now and then, the spark would stretch and extend before quickly returning to its original size. Every fluctuation of its form was accompanied by warbling, twinkling sounds.

“Ah, this must be the next witness,” the Bewildebeest said cheerfully. “It's nice to meet you, Flickering Mote of Light.”

“This isn't my witness,” Chance said. He scrutinized the magical phenomenon in front of him as he rubbed his chin. “I don't know who this guy is. I think we might have an intruder.”

The Bewildebeest smiled. “An intruder? How did they get in? Did they get in-tru--”

The dot of light suddenly burst, loudly expanding into a massive, pink dome of magic. Sparks flew out from the dome as energy crackled all along its surface, filling the air with noise.

Chance had been right; something was trying to get into the pocket dimension. Discord could feel a powerful magic attempting to puncture a hole into the fabric of this void's reality. Discord could only think of a few creatures powerful enough to attempt something like this, and one in particular who was smart enough to figure out how.

Which meant the note had worked! Discord gave Fluttershy a confident smile, and the little pegasus smiled back. She looked a bit uncertain as her eyes glanced in the direction of the spell being cast, however.

The dome of light fluctuated wildly, its surface collapsing and expanding at random as whoever was on the other side tried to stabilize their connection. Chance hesitantly approached the magical apparition, paw outstretched, only to jump back when it shuddered out towards him. The blue draconequus looked up to the judges, a concerned expression on his face.

“Shouldn't we be doing something about this?” Chance asked, an accusatory edge to his voice. “This could disrupt the trial.”

The Bewildebeest leaned over his judge's stand, still smiling eagerly.

“Did you hear me? I asked, did the intruder get in-tru--”

The dome exploded outwards, filling the void with blinding light. Discord was quick to provide both himself and Fluttershy with a pair of sunglasses to shield their eyes. This also served to make them both look cool as heck. Even with the glasses on, though, the light was absolutely blinding.

Then, in a split second, the light was gone. It retreated back to its origin point, as if it were being sucked back into wherever it had come from. The dome of magic was gone now; the only sign it had ever been there was the scorched circle that had been burnt into the rocky ground. Inside of that circle was a pony. The pony who'd cast the spell. The pony who'd traveled to a different reality. The pony who had received Discord's note.

Unfortunately, it was the wrong pony.

“Discord!” Starlight Glimmer said as she trotted out of the burnt ring. “I got your note! What do you need me to do?”

“Note?!” Chance repeated angrily.

“Starlight Glimmer!” Chrysalis snarled furiously.

“In-tru-der window!” The Bewildebeest exclaimed excitedly. “The intruder got in tru da window! Get it?”

Nobody laughed at the Bewildebeest's great joke.