Discord decides to make his friends more... chaotic.
Discord grows tired of Twilight and friends not getting that chaos magic is unlike theirs. So he then decides 'What if they were to see it for themselves'... And that was how Equestria was unmade.
[This story was a long work in process and I'm hyped to show it, this story would have been pretty subpar were not for my editor George. I owe the awesomeness of this story to his skills.]
The sound of apples falling into a bucket was the most common noise heard if you frequented Sweet Apple Acres. If you visited enough, you’d eventually meet the Apple family, a family of farmers who harvest the apples and live by the sweat of their brow.
The farmer currently collecting apples for the upcoming harvest is none other than Applejack, one of the Elements Of Harmony and as honest as she is strong.
“Ah think this may be the first time, ah’ve caught the apples when they’re at the peak of ripeness!” Applejack said with a wide grin. She then trotted over to the next set of trees and bucked them, watching various types of apples fall into the bucket.
Red delicious, fuji, honeycrisp, gala, granny smiths, apricots, cherries, banana’s, orang- “wait, what?!” Applejack thought as other fruits besides apples began to pour into her buckets. She looked up at the treeline and saw various fruits decorating them, including guavas, coconuts, cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, and even pumpkins.
“Most of those don’t even grow on trees!” Applejack said in horror at the blatant defacing of her farm’s stock.
And she knew right then and there who was to blame…
***
Rarity rose from her evening nap, refreshed and renewed for her upcoming last-minute tasks. She gave a stretch, a brief but unladylike yawn, and strolled slowly into her bathroom for a quick toilete before the tide of inspiration was to sweep her back into action.
After finishing her business, she approached the wash basin and bent down, gathering her make-up supplies and applying them to her face, flawlessly even with her eyes closed. “Oh Rarity. You are such a fortunate mare.” A brief touch-up with her evening lipstick, the faintest application of rouge to her cheeks, and she continued, “Gilded Canvas will simply marvel at your creations next week. All that remains is how to best arrange them so she is properly swept away!” Rarity mused as she reached with her magic for her mane brush. As she did, there was a breeze behind her, and she realized the bathroom window was open.
"Odd. I don't remember leaving that open." She thought about it for a moment before shrugging the incident off as a side-effect of her fatigue from a long day of inspired design. A quick glow of her magic closed the window before she returned to the wash basin and her interrupted thoughts.
“Gilded Canvas can be a most difficult critic to satisfy, but I'm quite sure she will be singing the praises of Rarity when I am through with her.” Rarity closed her eyes while getting ready to brush her mane, imagining the designs she had planned for the occasion. "They will be simply marvelous, my greatest success-- yeouch!” She gave a pained yelp as the firm bristles of her brush raked against her delicate scalp, she then held the offending instrument in front of her for closer examination..
“That’s odd. Why can’t I feel my mane?” With the hesitance of a rabbit in a timberwolf den, she turned to the mirror…
...and beheld her bald head…
***
Party time was always the best time for Pinkie Pie, and she bounded and bounced around the bakery, determined to make this one the best party ever!
“Alrighty! Next up we need fifty more streamers, twenty-five more cupcakes, seventy-two more balloons for the northern side of the bakery, nine fully functional chocolate fountains, three trampolines big enough for Gummy to do his famous mid-air spin, a partridge in a pear tree, and a million other things the author is too impatient to type down! CHECK! Operation best party ever is a go!” Pinkie squeed (which is totally a word, because she was doing it, and you can't do something that fun without a word to describe it) as she raced around, putting the finishing touches on her party.
As she finally finished, Mr. Cake entered and gave a low whistle at the work done.
“Wowzers, Pinkie. You really outdid yourself this time,” he said with a smile as Pinkie bounced up to him.
“Thanks! Now we just need to wait for the birthday boy to get here!” Pinkie threw herself onto a beanbag chair with the intent of taking a small break only to collide with the wall.
“Ooof!” Pinkie sat up before looking back at the beanbag chair in surprise, and saw it was made of cardboard.
“That’s weird, I could’ve sworn I put an actual bean bag chair here.” Pinkie shrugged it off and set the cardboard cutout back up, figuring it could be a funny prank for the party. Pinkie then went over to the punch table to relieve her thirst. When Pinkie grabbed a cup and tried to drink, she ended up picking up the whole table.
“Wow! Did I accidentally pick out the helium-filled punch table again?” Pinkie said before realizing the table was just as flat as the chair.
“What? More cardboard?” Pinkie said, seeing the table was made of cardboard as well as the cups and punch. Seeing a pattern here, she darted about the room finding out all the decorations were made of cardboard. even the cake was just cardboard and frosting. “Oh, no! Mr. Cake! The cardboard is taking over my party!” Pinkie cried out before noting the lack of response and turning to see Mr. Cake just standing there…
...before he suddenly fell over, revealing he too was a cardboard cutout.
“AAAH! Mr. Cake was made of cardboard all along!?” Pinkie freaked out and tried to look for an escape when she accidentally tripped and fell into the fake cake. As she sat up, a droplet of icing fell onto her lips, and she licked it up, noticing a weird taste.
“Hmm… tastes like almonds, pickles, hot sauce, chocolate milk, ketchup, jalapeno peppers, peanut butter, vegetable gravy, applesauce, and just a hint of rutabaga…”
Pinkie set her face with an uncharacteristic glower. “Only one guy makes icing like this…”
***
Fluttershy had just fed her animals when she decided to take a well-deserved break, and curled up on the couch.
“Whew… I sure hope Mr. and Mrs. Hoppington are done having babies. I’m not sure how much more spare space the burrows have. But at least everything is taken care of for now.” Fluttershy looked at Angel who was hopping after her with an impatient look on his face, in hopes the small bunny would agree with her on the subject. With a yawn, Fluttershy laid down on her side and decided to take a brief power nap.
…
…
…
“Hey! Ain't you gonna feed me too?!” a gruff male voice called out, startling Fluttershy so bad she leapt up and clung onto one of her cottage’s ceiling beams.
“Hey, hey relax it’s me!” the voice called out again. Fluttershy’s panicked gaze swept over the room to find the mysterious intruder.
“W-w-who’s there?” Fluttershy squeaked, shivering in fright
“Down here!” the gruff voice called out, and Fluttershy looked down to see Angel Bunny still standing there and tapping his foot impatiently.
“Angel? Do you know where that voice is coming from?” Fluttershy asked, hovering down to him. Much to her surprise Angel answers her.
“Whaddya talking about? I’m the voice! Now, are you going to get me my salad, or do I have to make it?” Angel asked impatiently.
Fluttershy gaped at her talking rabbit…. Before screaming and backpedaling away from him. Her backpedaling caused her to crash into an indoor birdhouse causing a bird to fall out.
“Oh! I’m so sorry little one,” Fluttershy said, reaching down to console the bird, when suddenly the said bird suddenly poofed to three times Fluttershy’s size, scaring the crap out of Fluttershy.
“Um, pardon me?” Fluttershy turned around at the new voice and saw Harry behind her but he was now wearing a suit and tie.
“Do you have any more trout? I just met this female bear, and I want to impress her,” Harry asked eloquently.
Fluttershy’s mouth flapped open and closed in a silent panic before she darted outside screaming. Upon getting out, she held the door closed panting.
“W-what’s going on?! C-could it be-” Fluttershy didn’t get to finish when she saw how her animals were acting. The ground-bound animals were now flying while the birds were walking on really long legs. Her panic became even worse, and she called out to the culprit with every bit of strength she could.
***
Rainbow Dash punched through a dozen clouds at once, creating a series of rings in her wake. With a swift loop back and forth, she flew back through them, adding a tight spin to scatter the fragmented bits remaining. She paused a short distance away and looked back at her work with a quick hoof-pump and a loud cry of success.
“AWW YEAH! A new record! Applejack owes me a free mug of cider,” Rainbow Dash said enthusiastically. As Rainbow flew off to claim her winnings, however, a cloud cut her off.
“Huh? That’s weird” Rainbow tried to fly around the offending cloud, but it moved in front of her again. Not very patient on the best of days, Rainbow snapped at the misbehaving cloud
“HEY! Move it punk! I got places to be!” Rainbow managed to get around the cloud by faking it to the left and flying right around it, only to faceplant into another cloud.
“Oomph! Hey!” Rainbow Dash cried out as she suddenly found herself surrounded by clouds.
“What’s going on?” Rainbow said, getting nervous as the clouds began to cut off her escape routes.
“Why?” one of the clouds asked.
“H-huh? W-wait a sec are you speaking?” Rainbow stuttered
“Why do you buck us around, punch holes in us, and sleep on us? You even once pee’d in one of us when you thought nopony was looking!” the cloud to her left barked.
Rainbow was shocked, a little afraid and a bit embarrassed at the memory. “U-uh… I-I um” Rainbow stuttered, not sure how to respond.
“Hey, guys! Why don’t we knock her around so she can know what it feels like!” a shorter cloud called out from the back. The other clouds hummed their agreement and began closing in on her.
“H-hey! Wait a minute! I didn’t know you guys could talk, I swear! C’mon, can’t you let me off the hook just this once?!” Rainbow cried, but the clouds didn’t slow down in their approach, and eventually, instinct took over. Rainbow noticed an open spot in the clouds’ formation and bolted through it screaming, and the clouds gave chase.
As they chased her around the sky, Rainbow spotted a familiar figure standing behind a tree before he dove out of sight.
“Are you serious?!” Rainbow gritted her teeth at finding out who the culprit behind this was, and she opened her mouth to shout at him.
***
“Why are we researching Starswirl’s notes again? It’s not like you haven't read them a thousand times already.” Spike strained as he carried a tall stack of books down a set of stairs, cautiously easing his way down each step while the books swayed above him.
“I know, I know, but It never hurts to check again!” Twilight sang as she flew around to a desk to prepare for a studying session and Starlight set down a stack of books with her magic.
“You can never know too much about the past, I do agree. But you should branch away every once in a while Twilight,” Starlight said as she made herself comfortable in a chair and levitated a book on cooking vegetarian lasagnas with magic.
“Well it’s like I said, it never hurts to look again.” Twilight landed and waited for Spike.
“Speak for yoursel-WHOA!” There was a dragon-sized crash, several thumps, and a loud whump that Twilight quickly identified as Spike sprawled out at the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by scattered books.
“Spike!” Twilight and Starlight galloped over to him and helped him up. “Are you ok?” Twilight asked
“Yeah, it was weird. One of the books jumped off of the stack like it was alive or something,” Spike said, which just earned a confused look from Twilight.
Twilight and Starlight glanced at each other confused before looking at Spike. “Um, are you sure you didn’t just hit your head on the way down?” Twilight asked disbelievingly.
“Hey! I know what I saw!” Spike defended
“I don’t think-” Twilight began before she saw movement to her right. Turning, she quickly ducked with a yelp as a book lunged at her head, and Starlight gave a cry as one began snapping at her hooves. Twilight grabbed Spike in her magic and dove behind a table while Starlight dove under the couch. The other books around her began bouncing around, some started flapping their book covers and flying across the room.
“I TOLD YOU!” Spike called as he ducked down.
“Sorry for not believing you! What’s going on?!” Twilight cried as her books began acting all chaotic-... Wait… chaotic? Now that her head was a little clearer on the situation, this definitely looked like the work of a particular nuisance…
***
Discord was standing behind a podium, tapping a baton on the podium a few times, waiting for his favorite time of the day.
“They should be vocalizing in about... 3...2…” Discord hummed before the air around Ponyville was shaken with six individual shouts, some horrified some enraged and all exasperated
“DISCORD!”
“DISCOOOOOORD!”
“DISCOOOOOOOOOOOORD!”
“THIS ICING WAS MADE BY DISCORD!”
“DISCORD!”
“Discord!”
“Hahahaaa! Ah, music to my ears!” Discord laughed,
...two hours later
A group of rather irate ponies sat at a table in the castle, their silent seething being proof enough that they were all here for the same reason. Fluttershy remained more silent than usual, because she really did not want her friends angry at each other. At last, the alicorn in the room broke the silence by clearing her throat.
“Well, I assume we’re all here for the same reason?...” Twilight said, glancing about her friend’s varying expressions.
"That was already covered in the introduction to this part of the chapter," said Pinkie but Applejack spoke up before anyone else could respond.
“Tell me where Discord is,” snapped Applejack. “Ah’m gonna buck his head on backwards! Look what he did to mah family’s stock!” Applejack produced random fruits and a few vegetables from a straw basket beside her.
“Umm… I don't see the problem here. If anything, it looks like he expanded your family's stock,” Fluttershy said, hoping to bring out a positive in the situation.
“He defiled it is what he did! We’re th’ Apple family! Apple! We got a set stock and program, and we follow it to the wire! Now he’s going to turn it back, or Tartarus will be had!” Applejack said with clear vehemence until she saw the horrified look on Fluttershy’s face and took a few deep breaths to calm down.
“Ah’m sorry, sugarcube. Ah got a bit riled up there. The point is ah want him to fix this because we have a process to Sweet Apple Acres, and we can’t afford so many new crops right now. It’ll mess with the system we’ve worked so hard to set up,” Applejack said, which calmed Fluttershy down a little.
“Moving on! My day was just as crappy,” Rainbow said over their conversation, earning a scowl from Applejack. “Discord had me chased by a horde of clouds...that um… had lots of lightning and ninja swords and-” Rainbow quickly added to save some face. Still, a look from the others told her it wasn’t working, so she sighed and continued on about how they chased her until she had to dive into the forest and hide in a log until they gave up and dissipated.
“Ah can’t believe ya’ll got chased around by clouds,” Applejack said with apparent amusement.
“They were talking all creepy-like! How was I supposed to react?!” Rainbow Dash barked back
“Moving on!” declared Twilight. “Pinkie, what has he done to you this time?”
“Discord nearly ruined my party by replacing everything with cardboard, and he even turned Mr. Cake into cardboard. I barely got the party set up in time, and even then It wasn’t as splendoriffic as my first one was going to be,” Pinkie said, looking uncharacteristically miffed, not speaking any further.
Twilight nodded and turned to look at Fluttershy, only to be unsettled by her shivering. Deciding she most likely did not want to talk about it, she moved onto Rarity, who had a false grin frozen on her face.
“Um… so what did he do to your mane Rarity?” Twilight hesitantly asked.
Rarity’s head turned to her with an almost metallic creak, her twisted smile not leaving.
“Why whatever do you mean, darling? My mane is fine,” Rarity said through gritted teeth.
“Uh, what mane? Yer hair is all go-” Applejack said before Rarity sent her a crazed look.
“MY MANE IS FINE! MOVING ON!!!!” Rarity shrieked at her, causing all eyes to stare at her fearfully.
“U-uh yeah! Umm, sorry about that,” Applejack stuttered, mentally noting to never get involved with a prank involving Rarity’s mane.
“Easy mistake, darling,” Rarity hummed.
“Well, then we’re all gathered here for the same reason. Given that Spike and I had some trouble with some sentient books, I can only assume Discord was behind it,” Twilight said to her irate friends, getting a series of agreeing nods.
“Is it just me, or is he being more of a pest than usual?” Applejack said gruffly.
“W-well I mean… He probably just needs to know we need a break is all…” managed Fluttershy in an attempt to show some support for her chaotic friend.
“Oh no!” Rarity snarled. “We’ve been lenient enough with him! He always ignores us when we’re being light on him, so I say it’s time we show him what’s for!” Rarity finished with an angry growl, which caused Fluttershy to cringe back in her chair.
Twilight announced “I do admit Discord needs to be more considerate, or we’re never going to get anything done around here. Let’s go find him and put a stop to this nonsense.”
With that, the group got up and left the castle, followed reluctantly by Fluttershy who was feeling too nervous to go through with any confrontation, but wanted to support her friends.
---meanwhile---
After his perilous experience alongside Twilight involving an attack of the living books, Spike felt like having a bowl of gems to calm his nerves.
"Some rubies, sapphires, garnets, and amber with whipped cream and chocolate chips sounds nice," Spike said, drooling a little at the thought of the tasty treat he was going to have. As the small dragon went to the pantry for his meal ingredients and opened the door, Mr. Cake came tumbling out and onto the ground, startling the little dragon so badly he nearly peed himself.
"Ooof!" Mr. Cake said when he hit the floor.
"M-Mr. Cake?" Spike said after recovering from the shock. “What the hay were you doing in the pantry?” Spike asked.
Discord laid back in a tree just outside the Everfree drinking a glass of chocolate milk.
“Ah, what a fine day. The only thing that could spoil this is six irate mares coming to nag me. You would think they would appreciate my making their dull little lives more interesting. Ah, and here they come to thank me."
Discord chuckled before teleporting to them. “Hello, my dear friends! How may I-” Discord began before Rarity ran up to him and jammed her nose against his.
“GIVE ME MY MANE BACK!” the irate mare yelled, which just earned an eye roll from Discord.
“Aww… but my fifth-dimensional chinchilla simply adores it,” Discord said, pulling out a strange looking chinchilla wearing Rarity’s mane.
“DISCORD!” Rarity shouted again, clearly not in the mood for games.
“Fine fine…” Discord sighed and teleported Rarity’s mane back onto her head.
“Thank you…” Rarity seethed before stepping back and producing a brush out of her purse to straighten it out.
“Well, now that that’s out of the way,” Discord said with a knowing smirk.
“You know why we’re here, right?” Twilight said glaring at the draconequus.
“Ah yes, you're all here to scold me for having a spot of innocent fun,” Discord said with a sigh. Rainbow wasted no time zipping up to his face.
“You had me chased down by freaky talking clouds! What were they going to do to me if they caught me?” Rainbow Dash demanded.
“Disperse because they’re nothing but water vapor” Discord said cheekily before pinching her cheeks and earning a growl from Rainbow. “I would have thought that would be obvious to a pegasus.”
“You nearly ruined the party I set up.” Pinkie cut in, “I had to set it up again and was too exhausted to party with the birthday boy!”
“Oh come now, anypony with your stamina could pull it off,” Discord said with a dismissive wave.
“You messed up all the book sorting that Spike did; he worked hard to get them organized so well,” Twilight added. Before Discord could reply, Applejack interrupted.
“Not to mention you defiled mah family’s stock! You better turn it back or else!” Applejack yelled at the draconequus, at this point all of the mares were complaining to Discord, minus Fluttershy who was getting more and more frightened by the second before shouting to her friends.
“STOP IT!” The others paused and looked over to Fluttershy, who was panting before she straightened up and trotted over to Discord.
“Hmm? Can I take them out now?” Discord said removing a pair of earplugs, which annoyed the mares even further.
“Discord, I think this is a sign you need to stop. Or at least calm down with all the pranks,” Fluttershy said calmly.
“Oh, dear Fluttershy. I am sorry that I got a tad overzealous with the prank I played on you; however, I must inform you all that I did what I did since I have chosen a peaceful lifestyle among you harmony users. I have to spread some chaos or I'll go mad with boredom.”
“Can’t you just get a hobby and stop bothering us with your usual brand of insanity?” Rainbow Dash said irritated.
“Rainbow!” Fluttershy said, offended by her harshness but Discord put his hand on her shoulder before she could begin scolding her rude friend.
“It’s quite alright dear,” Discord said before turning to Rainbow. “And I do have a hobby. Chaos!” Discord said jovially causing some fireworks to shoot into the air.
“I mean a less annoying hobby,” Rainbow said.
“Oh, come now. Is a spot of fun such a crime?” Discord said, crossing his arms.
“No, but we’d prefer it if you would stop interfering with our daily jobs. Most of us have hobbies too,” Twilight said
“Yeah, ah would also appreciate the returning of my family's crops to normal!” Applejack said, not willing to let Discord skip out on fixing what he did to the apples.
Discord sighed and looked out at the mares with an unusual expression.
“I know you're all tired of my little jests here and there, but I assure you it’s necessary and quite out of my control.”
“Out of- that is the lamest excuse ever,” Rainbow said, clearly not buying it. However, Twilight noticed how serious Discord was being, and trotted up to him.
“Using our magic is a choice we all make. How can it be out of your control?” Twilight said, genuinely curious.
“Let me put it this way.” Discord snapped his fingers and conjured in the middle of the dirt road; a plank of wood to one side and a pile of grease to the other.
“Um… what’s that going to prove?” Rarity said, taking a cautious step away from the grease.
“Alot!” Discord snapped his fingers and set both on fire. The mares jumped in surprise and began making moves to put it out but Discord stopped them. “Ah ah ah, this is part of the demonstration.” He snapped his fingers and conjured two buckets of water.
“These fires both represent the natural urge to release pent up magic and the water represents the effort to resist it. The urge to use unicorn or alicorn magic can be easily resisted through simple meditation and self control, due to it being limited based on the emotions and capability of the projector,” Discord explained, dousing the first fire easily. This lesson quickly flew over the head of all but one of the mares who was drinking in this philosophy Discord was presenting.
“And the grease fire?” Twilight asked
“Is a representation of chaos magic, my little pony,” Discord dumped the last bucket of water on the grease fire, which only succeeded in spreading it over a larger area.
“Chaos magic works differently, the more you try to suppress the urge the more it spreads throughout you. Like some kind of itch that won't go away but only gets worse. Eventually your mind will give in and you’ll spread chaos, whether you like it or not,” Discord said knowingly before making the objects and fire disappear.
Twilight mulled his demonstration over and turned to her friends. They chatted among themselves and turned to Discord a minute later.
“We’ve talked about it” Twilight said
“And?” Discord said with a raised brow.
“We’ve decided that isn’t a valid enough excuse to pardon the constant interruption in our schedules,” Twilight said with finality. Discord was shocked and sputtered for a moment before face palming.
“I’m supposed to be the complicated one, not you six.” Discord sighed
“Chaos magic may be different but it’s still magic. Self control can be taught to any magic,” Twilight said knowingly.
“Chaos magic is a different matter,” Discord said sternly. “It can affect your mind if you don’t vent it,” Discord insisted but Twilight shook her head.
“What I’ve always been taught is that any magic can be harnessed by a strong will and stable emotions. Chaos magic shouldn’t be any different,” Twilight said, and before Discord could get a word in she cut him off.
“I’m sorry to sound rude Discord, but we’ve all got important events coming up eventually and we need to be prepared. So can you undo your pranks so we can get back to it,” Twilight said, hoping to avoid a debate so she could get back to her studying sooner.
Discord grumped and snapped his finger undoing the results of his chaos magic pranks.
“Thank you,” Twilight said as she and the group began to walk away, but Twilight paused and looked back. “We can talk about this tomorrow but today we’re busy,” she said before continuing on home.
Meanwhile, Discord huffed and teleported back to his dimension.
“Well, that took a turn for the worst… usually Fluttershy defends me but even she’s irate with me now…” Discord said, looking morose walking through an upwards opening door in the wall rather than his front door and sat on his inverted couch with a sigh.
“They don’t understand that chaos magic is a magic unlike theirs…” As Discord pondered for the next hour or so for how to resolve this he thought back to when he ruled Equestria.
“Back when I was in charge making sense didn’t make sense, nopony even got irate with me, well mostly because they were too scared… But most of all if one wanted to try and oppose me I'd give them a fighting chance out of personal boredom-” Discord’s eyes widened at that particular memory, mulling over the specifics he recalled just how he gave them a fighting chance.
“Would it work? Is it a good idea?... hmm, I sense somepony is writing a Fimfiction here with such a crazy idea entering my noggin.” After a few moments of pondering, a big smile appeared on Discord’s face. “Yes, it could work indeed. If they refuse to see chaos magic based on their lack of understanding of it… then I’ll let them see for themselves what chaos magic is like!” Discord said eagerly before snapping his fingers and teleporting away.
Discord appeared and was crawling through the darkness of the night with the silence of a mouse and the movements of a snake slithering forward until the castle came into view. “Alright, let's get to work!” Discord said as he moved across the ground and slithered his way up to Twilights front door, he then stood at the door revealing he’s now wearing a black suit and a ski mask and is holding lockpicks, bolt cutters, a cutting torch, and a crowbar. “Alright my former enemy what kind of method shall I need to use to breach your sanctua-” as Discord was speaking, however, a breeze blew the front door open making the Draconeqqus put on a bemused frown.
“...She left the front door open… how has she not been robbed yet?” Discord said as he made the tools disappear and he walked in.
"The poor thing really should lock her door at night," mused Discord as he stepped inside. "You just never know what kind of despicable chaotic criminal might come inside and rearrange the books. Or something a little more fun, and far more educational." Discord slipped upstairs being as silent as he can to avoid waking the other inhabitants of the castle.
As Discord reaches Twilight’s room he spots an owl sitting on a perch next to her door who saw him approach. "Ah, Twilight's inevitable guardian of the night. So what do you intend on doing to protect the library?"
"Who?" the bird said tilting his head
"You, of course." Discord said amused
Owlicious simply shrugs and flies off and Discord chuckles to himself. “Well that was easy, I can be glad she never bothered to get any royal guards,” Discord said, turning himself into a shadow and slinking in through the crack of the door and hovered over Twilight. Getting to work Discord plucked a hair off his head, rolled it in his palms turning it to dust, and then sprinkling the dust over Twilight. “She can appreciate this I’m sure. Come morning she’ll see things from a different perspective.”
With his work here done he teleported silently outside and laughed to himself. “Ah, this will be a breeze! Now to get to work on Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, and...Fluttershy.” Discord trailed off at the end, honestly thinking about what he’s doing. “...Mmhh… I’ll do this for the rest but… to her? She’d be very upset with me… oh do I do it?” After a minute or two of pondering, he decided to flip a coin. “Heads I do, tails I don’t.” Discord gave the coin a flip and it landed on heads but it had his face on the bit.
“Very well, I just hope she doesn’t get too angry with me.” and with that Discord teleported away to do his work with the other five mares.
***
The sun shined over Ponyville and the ponies were ready to tackle the day as they began the early morning hustle and bustle. Just as things looked peaceful for once an angry scream echoed from the castle.
“DISCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORD!” came the angry voice of princess Twilight Sparkle rang out and most of the ponies present just rolled their eyes.
They were hoping they’d get a break today…
---a half an hour earlier---
Twilight was dreaming of studying spells of incredible rarity, each tome she came across surpassing the last, and the shelves reached for miles meaning there was no end to the reading fun.
“Wow! A tome dictating the amazing life of Princess Amore and the spells she learned?! You can’t find this in any known library!” Twilight exclaimed as she got ready to read the legendary ancient spells.
“Step one: snap your fingers, step two: think of something...fun and chaotic?... Wait what?” Twilight said as she skimmed the first page. She turned the page only to find the next page had information about dishes you could make with chaos magic.
“What does chaos magic have to do with Princess Amore?” Twilight said before looking at the front of the book and gaping in shock. Where it once said “Life and Spells of Princess Amore” it now said “How to live like a Draconeqqus.”
“Wh-what?! When did I-” all of the sudden she heard a strange knocking sound, it sounded distant and echoing all around then she felt a tapping on her shoulder and she turned to see Discord… or not!
“W-who are you?!” Twilight yelled going into a defensive position.
“Isn’t chaos a type of magic?” the strange Discord-like creature said.
“Huh? What do you mean?” Twilight asked, wincing as the knocking sound echoed around her ears again.
“You know what I mean, is. It. magic?” the being demanded.
“Y-yes?” Twilight said nervously.
“Then why don’t you study it, feel it, wield it! You are the element of magic, right?” the being said.
“Yeah, but that magic is specific to Discord. it’s not possible for me to use it,” Twilight responded.
“Not anymore…” the being said with a chuckle.
“What do you mean?” Twilight said getting scared and the knocking sound intensified in her eardrums.
“Wake up,” the being responded.
“What?” Twilight responded.
“WAKE UP!” the being shouted and the knocking suddenly boomed loud enough to rattle Twilight's ears and she yelled in surprise.
***
Twilight tumbled out of bed all wrapped up in her covers. She groaned in pain and felt a lump on her head meaning she just hit her head on her nightstand. The door was magically opened and Starlight came in.
“Twilight? I heard noises, are you alr-” Starlight paused as she saw the blanket cocoon on the ground groaning in pain.
“Twilight? Are you alright?” Starlight asked worriedly
“Yeah… I'm fine, just slept funny is all,” Twilight replied, not leaving her cloth cocoon.
“Sorry for knocking so loud, but you overslept and according to your schedule you had to be awake two hours ago.” Starlight said instinctively taking a few steps back waiting for her teacher to have her freakout, however, no freakout came much to Starlight's surprise. Twilight just mumbled something and began shifting about in the blanket.
“You're taking this unnaturally well. Usually, you'd be panicking that the order on your schedule was disrupted by oversleeping,” Starlight said with a proud smile hoping this will be a continuing trend.
“Mmmmeh… who cares about order....” It was only after she said that that she became shocked by what she just said, Starlight's own expression mirroring it.
“What did you say?” Starlight said out of her shock
“W-who cares about order?...” Twilight said in equal shock, still not leaving her blanket cocoon.
“Can you get out from under the blanket please, Twilight,” Starlight said through her shock as she was tired of talking to a blanket. She gave a light gasp as a scaly pink tail slithered out from under the blanket, a tuft of a familiar tail hair at the end of it.
“Twilight?” Starlight hesitantly said as the blanket was gradually removed by the being that’s supposed to be Twilight under it. Starlight backed away a few paces as the being stretched her serpentine body out and gave a heavy yawn and turning her lavender eyes towards the frightened unicorn.
“What?” Twilight asked confused
***
“I’m so sorry…” Starlight said once again as Spike was putting out a couple of the fires in Twilight's room. Twilight herself sported a few burns and a black eye.
“It’s fine… considering what you saw so suddenly I would have panicked and fired off a few defensive shots too…” Twilight said, examining her new form. After the little fiasco with Starlight's panic attack(s) Twilight had gotten a good look at herself and threw her own fit where she shouted Discord’s name as loud as she could.
“How do you know this was Discords doing?” Starlight asked, sitting next to her teacher turned female draconequus.
“This has his magic written all over it. I couldn’t think of anything else that could have done this,” Twilight said with some anger at the prankster.
“So what are we going to do about it?” Starlight asked.
“How about you use your new powers to clean this room?” Spike said with a raised brow.
“Spike, I don’t even know how to walk upright properly in this form, how would I know how to snap appendages of an animal I've never been and use magic I've never had to clean this place up? I could end up turning you into a termite by accident for all I know,” Twilight said with a deadpan.
“That…. Makes sense…” Spike said with a huff that she was right.
Twilight then turned to Starlight. “What we need to focus on is finding Discord and making him fix thi-” Twilight’s nose began to tingle “Uh oh! S-Starlight take cov- ah! ah!” Starlight knowing the situation could be bad given that an inexperienced female draconequus was about to sneeze dove at and grabbed onto Spike before putting up a barrier. A second later a powerful sneeze echoed through the entire castle causing a series of chaotic events to occur through the castle from the ceilings being covered in chocolate sauce to chairs and other legged appliances gaining motion and running around and even green and periwinkle clouds appearing in random rooms in the castle and raining down deviled eggs. Twilight fell off of her bed as it galloped out of the room as Starlight deactivated her shield and trotted over to Twilight with Spike at her side.
“I’m not going to have to clean this, am I?” Spike said hoping the answer is no.
“Don’t worry. I’ll help out,” Starlight said with a sigh and she turned to Twilight. “You should probably get going, before you sneeze again and cover the town in syrup or something,” Starlight joked.
“How am I going to do that? Judging by your reaction I may end up with more scratches and bruises along the way,” Twilight grumped
“You're the one with reality-warping powers, so try and focus.” Starlight shrugged.
“Starlight, you know what will happen if I use my powers,” Twilight said, gesturing to the chaos already running amok in her home.
“Well, what does Discord do to use his?” Starlight asked.
“He snaps his fingers, but I feel like there's more to it than that” Twilight pondered.
“Then try that,” Starlight said giving her a supportive smile
“But I never learned how to snap these things when I was in the human world,” Twilight said, moving her fingers confusedly.
“Maybe you should ask the help of the one friend you know who has fingers,” Spike said, tapping his foot.
“You know how?” Twilight asked, a little bit of confidence returning to her face.
“Here, let me help you,” Spike said as he approached her. After a crash course on snapping your fingers from Spike, Twilight felt she was ready.
“Ok… here goes nothing,” Twilight said shakily as Spike and Starlight hid behind a dresser that looked like it wanted to escape the room before something blew up. After a couple of fumbled attempts, she snapped her fingers and she flinched before opening a single eye to see if anything happened. A few moments passed like this and Spike poked his head out from behind the dresser.
“Nothing happened,” Spike said both relieved and disappointed
“Maybe I did it wro-” Twilight was cut off by a loud KABOOM that sent her flying out the window, through the air, and into Sweet Apple Acres landing headfirst into a tree and slipping to the ground. As Twilight was about to get up, a pile of apples fell onto her burying her beneath them.
---Back at the castle---
The dresser was flat against the wall before it fell over, revealing Spike and Starlight, who were also flat against the wall and coughing.
“I really should have seen that coming…” Starlight groused.
A blurry figure came into view and Twilight groaned as she tried to focus. While Twilight continued to try and clear her hazy mind, a familiar voice came to her.
“Twi...oka...ah…” The orange blob continued to talk to the dazed draconequus.
“Whaaa…?” Twilight slurred, rubbing the repeatedly abused lump on her head. Before she could come up with another dazed response a surge of ice-cold water splashed all over her face and she blubbered and cried out in surprise.
“Bout time you woke up. Are you feeling alright, Sugarcube?” the blurry orange figure revealed to be Applejack said with a tone that mixed annoyance and concern.
“Applejack? Oooh, my head… I think I hit the tree headfirst…” Twilight groaned, rubbing her sore horns.
“Ah’m not sure how you ended up here, but ah should be glad you did. Now you can help me get that no good snake Discord to fix what he did to both of us,” Applejack finished with a growl.
“Both of us? What are you talking about Appleja-AH!” Twilight gave a cry of surprise when she saw that Applejack was also a draconequus.
“Eeyup, ah was gonna buck him in the head for what he did to mah families stock the other day. Today? Ah’m gonna tie him to a tree and use him as bucking practice!” Applejack said vehemently, Twilight jumped a little bit when she saw Applejack snort literal flames out of her nostrils in frustration.
“A-Applejack?! He did this to you too?!” Twilight said struggling to her hindlegs but ended up grabbing the tree next to her for balance. Twilight noted with a small hint of jealousy that Applejack seemed to be standing on her hind legs without much issue.
“Eeyup, and ah assume to the rest of us as well…” Applejack nodded solemnly.
“I don’t understand! Turning an Alicorn into a draconequus is already inconceivable, but an earth pony? The internal magic ley lines for such a conversion from non-caster to caster should be impossible! No offense,” Twilight said, geeking and panicking at the same time.
“It’s fine,” Applejack dismissed.
“If this has happened to all of us then we need to get the girls and find Discord,” Twilight said trying to stand up straight but her lengthy body just wobbled and she fell face-first into the ground. “Darn it, I had this back at the castle, how are you standing so easily Applejack? I'm the one who’s stood on two legs before,” Twilight said, annoyed which got a chuckle out of Applejack.
“Let’s just say we Apple family have a strength at our core that helps us adapt anytime. This isn’t actually the weirdest stance ah’ve taken.” Applejack said smugly.
“It isn’t?” Twilight said shocked.
“Eenope, once ah lost a bet with Mac and ah had to go a whole day on one hoof,” Applejack said with a sense of pride.
“Wow, that’s actually impressive- we’re getting off track!” Twilight said shaking her head, realizing they were getting distracted.
“Agreed, we need to find the others.” Applejack nodded
“And we need to do so carefully, we’re in an altered state where the most sudden stimulation can trigger a series of chaotic events,” Twilight said. Applejack was about to reply when there was a sudden explosion of purple in the distance.
“...Ah’m going to assume either Rarity or Pinkie just woke up,” Applejack said with a deadpan.
“Oh no! We have to do something before-” twilights panicking was interrupted by a strange wave of magic. Turning their attention to the forest, they both noticed several trees suddenly uproot themselves and run away.
“Th’ apple trees!” Applejack cried and tried to pursue them only for Twilight to grab her shoulder.
“You can go after them later! If my guess is right that was probably Fluttershy, and she’s going to be the most delicate case.” Twilight said, taking charge.
“What are we going to do? We probably got two or more draconeqquses in town causing a ruckus and one in the forest probably freaking out!” Applejack demanded before the air shook around them. They looked up at the sky over Ponyville and saw the clouds changing to random colors and raining down a green liquid.
“ACID RAIN! Look out!” Twilight exclaimed. She and Applejack ran for cover only for Twilight to stagger and fall over.
“TWILIGHT!” Applejack cried as Twilight curled up and braced herself for the burning rain to harm her… instead, it felt... cold and sticky?
“Huh? Hang on.” Twilight stuck her tongue out and briefly noted with surprise that it was forked like a snake’s before letting a few drops land on her tongue, her expression gained a mix of relief and annoyance.
“Are you ok, Twilight?” Applejack asked
“It’s cucumber juice.” Twilight sighed and stood
“Really?” Applejack said surprised and she tasted the chaotic rain as well.
“The fact that burst of chaotic magic happened in the sky could mean that it was Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said before noticing a shape in the sky descending towards the ground. “Is that her?”
“Ah think that was! C’mon, Twilight. We know where she is so let’s go get her first!” Applejack insisted, running off with Twilight close behind her.
***
As the two draconeqquses ran through the forest to the crash site they noticed several bizarre occurrences. A really big butterfly, random trees having the appearance of lollipops, and even birds with oversized wings flying around.
“Ah think she’s over here!” Applejack said pointing where the chaos was most prevalent. As the two ran through the brush they came upon an impact crater with a blue and rainbow-colored draconequus.
Rainbow Dash groaned “Uuugh… did anypony catch the number of that flying bus?...”
“So I was right, after all, Discord must have turned you me and all our friends into draconeqquses,” Twilight said grimly.
“Yeah, an she’s hit the ground so hard she’s speakin’ nonsense,” Applejack said with a sigh and pinching of the bridge of her nose.
“No, I literally got hit by a flying bus, it had wings and it smacked right into m-” Rainbow paused when she looked up and saw two more draconeqqus’s staring down at her. “WHOA! STAY BACK!” Rainbow cried, springing to her feet... Only for her body to wobble and fall backwards, “Darnit! I’ll kick your flanks as soon as I figure out how to keep straight!” Rainbow struggled to realign her body until Applejack came over and helped stabilize which limb went where. Rainbow Dash struggled but Applejack held her tightly and looked her in the eye.
“It’s Twilight and Applejack, Rainbow! We’re in the same boat as you, so calm the hay down!” Applejack said shaking Rainbow.
"Guys?" Rainbow Dash looked back and forth between them. "It is you, right?"
“Fraid so” Applejack confirmed and Rainbow's expression grew annoyed.
“Tell me where that mishmash freak is so I can tie him in a knot and throw him down a hole!” Rainbow Dash said, pushing Applejack off her.
“Let’s focus on gathering the others before any more damage is done…” Twilight said impatiently.
“Fine, but I get the first swing at him!” Rainbow Dash said with a growl, throwing a few air punches to demonstrate. “With my new hooks, I’ll show him a thing or two.”
Twilight immediately tried to prevent the fight like she usually did. “Hold on there, Rainbow Dash. We’re not going to start a fight, we’re just going to make him turn us back.”
“We told him to lay off the pranks yesterday and he does this to us! I’d say this has gotta warrant some kind of penalty,” Rainbow said irritably.
“Ah agree, clearly we didn’t get the message across the first time when we said we wanted a break.”
“Let’s… just find the others for now and figure out what we’re going to do later.” Twilight sighed.
“You an’ I should go into Ponyville to gather up Rarity and Pinkie,” Applejack said.
“Good plan, Rainbow. Think you can retrieve Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.
"Psh, I bet I can get her here in ten seconds flat!" Rainbow said confidently. She bent her wings back and sprinted up into the air, tumbled briefly, then returned to the ground, face-first. "Darnit! How the hay do you fly with two different wings!?” Rainbow shouted in frustration.
“Ya just might have to walk there, Rainbow,” Applejack stated, which just got a drawn-out sigh from Rainbow.
“Well!… this is gonna suck…” Rainbow Dash groaned, got up, and wobbled on her way to Fluttershy.
“We should get moving too, Applejack,” Twilight said, already moving on ahead.
“Ok.” Applejack nodded in response and ran on ahead with her.
Rainbow Dash’s trek through the woods was not going smoothly…
With her heavily mismatched body, off-center gravity, inability to fly with her mismatched wings, and the fact that she keeps bumping into things and falling over.
“Dang it! How does Discord move around like this!?” Rainbow shouted as she fell over again. Rainbow tried to stand once again, only her upper half to wobble and sway before she tripped and tumbled down a small hill and into a large mud puddle. Rainbow raised her head out of the mud with a scathing look on her face and she let out a frustrated yell. She banged her fist into the mud and instantly evaporated it, surprising her.
“Whoa! How did I….Oh yeah…” Rainbow Dash grumbled before an idea came. “Wait a minute… if I can use these powers, maybe I can get to Shy’s in a snap!” Rainbow said getting up, eager to try.
“Ok! Now!....Um… how do I do this?” Rainbow said after realizing she doesn’t know how to use magic. “I think he snapped these things?” Rainbow said out loud wiggling her new fingers confusedly. After more than a dozen failed attempts to snap them she threw her hands up in the air.
“Oh come on, give me a break! Why couldn’t I have gotten a crash course in how to do this stuff?” Rainbow said irritably.
…
…
…
“Just use your imagination” a strange voice whispered in her ear.
“Gyah!” Rainbow spun around to clock whoever snuck up on her in the snout… only to find that there was nopony there. “Huh? Who said that?! Is it you Discord!?” Rainbow shouted whirling to and fro.
“No genius… it’s you,” the voice said almost annoyed sounding.
“What? Cut the crap, Discord. I know it’s you. And stop sounding like me!” Rainbow shouted to the canopy.
“You don’t need to snap your fingers to use chaos magic, it’s just a nifty trick to focus your magic. There are other ways too,” the voice continued on, ignoring Rainbows protests.
“Discord! I’m warning you!” Rainbow Dash said, still ignorant. The voice just sighed.
“Wow, you’re dense… and this is coming from you. Listen, you're not going to find Fluttershy unless you use your chaos magic, capische?” the voice said with some condescension.
“Well… I guess, but how?” Rainbow conceded.
“Picture where you want to go, then perform an action,” The voice said, happy she was complying now.
“Perform an action?” Rainbow said confused, which drew another sigh from the voice.
“Like clapping your hands, stomping your foot, wiggle your hip, whatever,” the voice said, hoping the draconequus understood now.
“Alright then… I want to go to Shy’s place.” Rainbow said and gave a light clap. She tensed expecting something to happen, but nothing did. “You liar! Nothing happened!” Rainbow said upset.
“Because dummy, you expected it to happen.”
“Expected it to happen?” Rainbow said, confused.
“Yes, the fun part of chaos is not even you will fully know what will happen, but if you try to anticipate how you’ll get there like through teleportation, it’s not gonna happen. You have to be willing to be caught by surprise too otherwise the magic isn’t chaotic, because you already know what will happen. This, of course, is only one factor of chaos magic you will eventually learn,” the voice stated.
“What?” Rainbow said, her head spinning from the instructions.
“Oh for crying out loud, just will yourself somewhere and don’t think about how!” the voice yelled, at its patience’s end.
“Ok! Ok!... sheesh” Rainbow said defensively before shutting her eyes, thinking very hard about going to Fluttershy’s, and giving another clap. A few moments passed like this and before Rainbow could accuse the voice of wasting her time all the sudden she found herself flat against the ground and then she realized she was flying through the air. Looking back she saw a raised portion of earth that looked like a catapult.
“What the heck!?” Rainbow cried, instinctively flapping her wings frantically as she flew through the air.
“Meh, crudely done but it’ll do,” the voice said passively.
“I CAN’T FLY WITH THESE WINGS!” Rainbow cried, flapping her differently proportioned wings unevenly.
“You do know you can levitate and change form whenever you want right?”
“HOW?!” Rainbow cried seeing the ground approaching rapidly.
“Something you’ll learn one day” the voice said. “Before impact, hopefully.”
“I’M GOING TO DIE!” Rainbow cried as she barreled to the ground. When no pain came she then opened her eyes and saw that she was flying over the trees. “Huh? Did I somehow figure out how to fly again?” Rainbow said looking back at her wings only to see she isn’t flapping them, she looked further and saw something shocking. Angel bunny was holding her by her tail and had a pair of wings himself.
“The hay!? When did you get wings?!” Rainbow said in surprise.
“Since twenty-five minutes ago. Now shut up, I'm bringing you to Fluttershy” Angel replied. Rainbow Dash thought her eyes might pop out if they widened any further.
“THE DOUBLE HAY!? Since when do you talk!?” Rainbow said, struggling a little.
“Since yesterday! Discord never got rid of my voice! Now unless you want me to drop you, stop struggling!” Angel replied irritably.
Rainbow pouted as Angel carried her the rest of the way to the cottage and dropped her on the ground with a thud. “OW! Hey! You did that on purpose!” snapped Rainbow at the airborne rabbit, who just stuck his tongue out at her and flew off. After that fiasco Rainbow got a good look at Fluttershy’s home and gaped at what’s going on. All the fish that were usually in the small river in front of Fluttershy’s house had sprouted legs and were walking around, the birds usually nestled in their birdhouses were somehow flying underwater, and the land mammals were flying in the air.
“...It’s a sad statement to my day that I'm not as shocked as I should be…” Rainbow Dash sighed and got up, ready to go retrieve her most likely scared-out-of-her-wits friend.
---meanwhile in Ponyville---
The sight Twilight was expecting to come upon was some kind of destruction or chaotic mess.
Instead…
Ponyville had been divided into two sides. One side had ponyquins wearing fancy outfits and wigs, trotting around and mingling and some are even trotting through the air. The other side of the town appears to have become a candyland with what looked like the citizens dressed as clowns.
“This isn’t quite what I expected…” Twilight said confused.
“Really? Seems like them to me.” Applejack said in a bemused tone.
“What I mean is that I expected the results of their chaos to be more random. This is more symbolic of them and their personalities.” Twilight said watching a clown bounce over to a ponyquin and offering a full cake but the ponyquin dismisses with a wave.
“Ah admit, this could be worse,” Applejack said, wandering over to the ponyquins and getting one's attention. “Scuse me, ah’m looking for a friend of mine who may or may not look like a chimeric snake similar ta me,” Applejack said only to get silence from the faceless ponyquin. For some reason, Applejack felt an immediate surge of frustration. “She lives around here, has a purple mane and speaks in your hoity toity accent,” Applejack added but only gave a frustrated sigh as the ponyquin continued to simply stare. “HER NAME IS RARITY! Anypony around here called that?!” Applejack snapped at the ponyquin and finally got a response in which the ponyquin nodded and pointed at the boutique before trotting on.
“Whoa, calm yourself Applejack,” Twilight said as she walked up behind Applejack whose shoulders were heaving from her frustration.
“Ah’ll be calm when these living dolls stop wastin mah time! CURSE THE LOT OF THEM!” Applejack snarled with sudden rage.
“Applejack?” Twilight said with a bit of fear.
“Ah outta drag Rarity out here and make her teach them some proper manners! Like how ta properly greet others instead of turning their noses up like they think they're better than me! Then ah can….can…” Applejack panted and looked a little dizzy for a moment like she just realized how she was acting. Twilight slowly approached her and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Have you calmed down now?” Twilight hesitantly asked.
“Yeah, ah... ah have no idea what got into me. For a moment there ah actually contemplated destroying that ponquin for not getting it on the first try.” Applejack looked a little fearful of the thought.
“It could be these forms... “ Twilight mused.
“Then let’s get moving. The sooner ah’m an earth pony again the better.” Applejack said walking towards Sugarcube Corner.
“Let’s divide and conquer, then. You get Pinkie and I’ll get Rarity,” Twilight strategized.
“Sounds good to me,” Applejack said with a nod.
---inside the boutique---
Twilight entered the boutique and looked around, seeing what seems like an empty space with fabric and flying ponyquins arranging certain outfits.
“This isn’t just chaos. It’s so much more specific. All this looks like a chaotic take on Rarity’s interests and personality,” Twilight observed as she hopped from one platform to another but wound up tripping and using the length of her body to hold onto another platform. “Darn it, I still can’t walk right like this!” Twilight said exasperated as she saw all the floating debris.
“How am I going to get to Rarity like this? I don’t even know how to-” Twilight began before a familiar voice rang in her ears.
“For someone who is good at magic, you're terrible at knowing when is a good time to use it,” the voice said with a smugness to it.
“Who’s there!?” Twilight shouted, turning to and fro at the sudden voice.
“Oh come now, you don’t remember me?” the voice said with mock hurt.
“Wait… Hold on, I remember you!” Twilight immediately tried to get defensive upon recognizing the voice.
“If you recognize me then why are you getting ready to fight?”
“Because you appeared to me just as this started! Did Discord make you or something?” Twilight said getting to her feet.
“Discord? No no, I’ve always been a part of you, Twilight,” the voice said simply.
“You’ve always been a part of me? What do you mean?” Twilight said, confused.
“We all have a chaotic side to us. I’m yours, Twilight. Discord just let me out,” the voice chuckled.
“If that’s the case then… oh no, my friends!” Twilight began to hop across the floating platforms faster.
“Why are you scared?” the voice said with a sound of confusion.
“Your planning to corrupt us aren’t you!?” Twilight yelled defiantly as she climbed up a floating dresser.
“What makes you say that?” the voice said smugly.
“My...my thinking has been off, usually this would bother me but I'm getting less and less concerned! And Applejack nearly got violent because somepony wasn’t answering her questions immediately. We’re changing emotionally, I can tell, you're trying to manipulate us aren’t you?!” Twilight said as she climbed up a floating ponyquin and finally reached the stairs, but the voice just laughed.
“That’s a good one, Twilight. I’m not manipulating you I’m simply helping you adapt to your new body, that’s all.”
“Why should I believe you?” Twilight demanded, having to sit down for a moment to catch her breath.
“We haven't talked since the dream, and you need to find your friends. Given the circumstances, it’s safe to say that you aren’t going to find your friends unless you allow yourself to be a little chaotic yourself,” the voice reasoned
“Still, why am I starting to feel like this?” Twilight demanded as she went up the stairs.
“To be honest I’m not sure, perhaps you're starting to adapt to the idea of chaos, or maybe you're starting to think like Discord as a result of the transfiguration. Beats me but like I said you're like this now so you may as well use what you’ve got,” the voice said.
“And stray from harmony magic? I could never, I-”
“Rarity needs you, is it so wrong to use the other kind of magic for the sake of helping a friend? Discord does it all the time.”
Twilight thought about it for a while and sighed when she realized the voice was right. “Alright, you win, what do I do?” Twilight asked.
“About time, you just need to imagine flight. Like you’ve never experienced it and think about what weightlessness is like.”
“But I have flown before, how am I going to imagine something as a new experience when I've already experienced it, it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Exactly, you just need to forget it, then imagine it. Sounds complicated but it gets easier over time”
“You're not making any sense” Twilight deadpanned
“I’m your chaos, I'm not meant to make sense…”
“Put it more clearly, step by step so I can form the process, just saying forget then imagine isn’t very clear,” Twilight said back, as she had been walking she found herself at the top of the stairs and saw a hallway that was twisting in a weird way with floating objects.
“Aren’t you the smart one of the group?” the voice asked clearly annoyed.
“Yes but I have a process, so please get on with it,” Twilight replied equally annoyed.
“Fine, first clear your mind,” the voice instructed and Twilight nodded, doing so. “Good, now don’t think about flapping your wings, just think about flight and how it feels to be aloft.”
“Alright,” Twilight concentrated.
“Good, now keep that up. Don’t lose focus, picture yourself simply floating through the air.”
“Visualization,” Twilight said suddenly.
“Hmm?” the voice hummed at the sudden word.
“The secret to flying is visualization, and that could also account for much of chaos magic, am I right?”
“That’s… part of it, yes. Wow, you really are a quick study.”
“You’re me, aren’t you? You already know I’m a quick thinker.”
“Yes yes, I know that, but this is the concept of chaos magic. I figured it’d take even you longer than that.” the voice said like it was proud of her.
“Yeah, apparently I sometimes surprise myself too.”
“Har har, well apart from that there’s also the fact that if you look down you’ll see that you’ve learned how to do it subconsciously.”
“What?” Twilight looked down and saw that she was floating across the twisted hallways. Before she could stop herself, she let out a giddy squeal, which surprised her so much that she tumbled out of the air.
“Ow…” she groaned as she was draped over a draped over a filing cabinet, filed under 'D' for obvious reasons.
“Save the squealing for later. You need to focus.”
“Why did I even do that? I was glad I managed to float myself but why did it make me that excited?” Twilight asked herself as she floated back into the air.
“If you don’t know then I don’t know.”
“Makes sense,” Twilight thought out loud as she finally reached Rarity’s room. While approaching, she heard crying on the other side and began to worry. Twilight knocked on the door. “Rarity! It’s Twilight, please open the door!” Twilight called hoping the door would open.
“GO AWAY!” Rarity’s voice echoed from within. This spurred Twilight on.
“Please open up, Rarity! I know what’s going on. I’m here to help!” Twilight pleaded.
“NO! YOU MUSN’T LOOK AT THE MONSTROSITY I’VE BECOME!” Rarity dramatically replied. Twilight sighed and tried to think of a way to get Rarity to open the door when suddenly a voice came from nowhere.
“Oui, ze madam has requested you leave the premises. I would advise you listen,” a Prench accent laced voice spoke, startling Twilight. Upon looking for the source, she found that the door had a face on it.
“AAAHH!” Twilight stumbled backwards and landed on her rump.
“Yes yes. A face on ze door. So frightening. Now do move along,” the door retorted.
“Let me in! I need to see Rarity!” Twilight shot back after recovering.
“No,” the door said simply. For reasons Twilight didn’t know she felt an immediate surge of frustration.
“LET ME IN!” Twilight demanded
“I cannot, Mademoiselle.”
“I WILL BURN YOU-” Twilight quickly realized what she was saying and shook her head. Looking at her hand she saw it was on fire and she gasped.
“Y-you wouldn’t,” said the door nervously “Would you?”
“L-look! I need to get through, whether you want me to or not.” Twilight extinguished her fist before pushing the door open, despite its protests. “Rarity? I’m coming in, so please don’t freak out.”
“G-go away Twilight! I'm hideous…” Rarity’s trembling voice came from under her bed. Twilight knelt down to speak to her friend.
“It’s ok, Rarity. I know what’s going on. Sort of…” Twilight said comfortingly
“Y-you do? Regardless, I cannot be seen like this!” Rarity cried, Twilight couldn’t help but roll her eyes at this.
“Sheesh, why don’t we help her out before this drives us both crazy.”
“How?” Twilight quietly asked herself
“Focus on the bed and point at it,” the voice instructed and Twilight did so.
“Now picture it floating into the air and hold that image.” Twilight nodded and did so again, although the bed remained solidly on the floor despite her best efforts.
“Am I not thinking clearly enough? Maybe if I just-” Twilight’s thought process was interrupted by Rarity’s bed launching into the ceiling hard enough to become embedded in it.
“Needs work…” the voice mulled out loud
“Yeah…” Twilight grimaced at the damage done. Afterwards Twilight glanced down at the draconequus curled up on the ground. Rarity looked up and saw Twilight staring down at her and hid her head.
“No! Do not look at me! I'm a freak! A chimera! A monstrosity!” Rarity wailed.
“Rarity... I'm in the same boat as you,” Twilight said with a deadpan. This made Rarity open an eye and she glanced Twilight over.
“My word! You look just like me!” Rarity gasped. “Only different” she added
“Not always the sharpest tool in the shed, is she?” the voice in Twilight's head spoke.
“Hey, don’t say that about her!” Twilight mentally scolded the voice
“Yes yes I know, but I’m not wrong.”
“Rarity, Discord did this to us. We need to gather up and find him before we end up causing any more damage,” Twilight urgently said
“Of all the no-good rotten, Discord has gone too far this time!” Rarity growled and took Twilight’s bird claw with her white lioness paw to stand up. Rarity was about to say something else but a piece of the ceiling fell on her head and she looked up at her bed smashed into the ceiling and sent Twilight a frustrated look.
“I-in my defense, I haven’t mastered chaos magic yet!” Twilight put her hands up defensively.
“I still expect restitution for these damages. That bed wasn’t cheap and it came from Canterlot,” Rarity grumbled.
“I will, but for now let’s focus on-” just as Twilight was about to tell Rarity about the situation the bed fell from the ceiling onto both of them smashing them through the suddenly brittle floor.
“OOOF!” Twilight cried.
“OW!” Rarity yelped.
They tumbled into the lower floor buried under wood planks and a bed. Eventually, they poked their heads out from the pile and groaned in pain.
“Oooww…” Rarity groaned.
“Why did the floorboards give out-... wait a minute.” Twilight picked up a board and found that it was peanut brittle.
“Brittle floorboards....” Twilight gave a mental facehoof.
“Hahahaha! Classic!” The voice in Twilight's head laughed, as the two draconeqqus climbed out.
“This is all Discord's fault! Oh when I get my… um hands on him, I’m going to-” Rarity paused when she realized that they were in the kitchen and locked eyes with Sweetie Belle who was paused mid-cookie while glancing between the two.
When Twilight and Rarity made their way outside, they saw that things had only gotten worse. Because now there were flying chickens and walking bushes and the clowns were putting on a circus act while the living ponyquins acted as the audience.
“Things are only getting worse,” said Twilight Sparkle, hesitating briefly at the feeling of déjà vu before continuing, "We need to gather up the other girls, and... Rarity. Why are you hiding behind that bush?"
The bush was struggling to keep walking, but four strong claws were holding it in place, and Rarity's voice hissed out from behind the temporary concealment.
"I'm not here!"
Twilight looked up at the sign floating above the bush that said 'Rarity's Hiding Place - Go Away!' Then she took a deep breath, tried to keep her calm, and waved her hands until the sign broke up into peppermint-scented clouds and drifted away.
“Rarity...” Twilight sighed, realizing Rarity was still stuck on the same subject as before.
“Nopony will see me in this abhorrent form. I’d sooner date that cur Blueblood than be seen like this!” Rarity whispered harshly.
“Rarity, get out from behind the bush, please,” Twilight said feeling annoyed
“NO!”
“How are we going to find Discord when you're too busy hiding behind a-” Twilight stopped her lecture to Rarity when suddenly a loud ACHOO sounded and a gout of flame blasted the bush Rarity was hiding behind, burning all the leaves off of it.
“Hwah?!” Rarity yelped, jumping back as the bush covered itself up in embarrassment and ran off. “Spikey-Wikey, be careful. You nearly burnt my coiffure!” Rarity scolded, turning to her left only to find herself face to face with a draconequus Pinkie Pie.
“HIYA!” Pinkie squeed.
“AAAH!” Rarity cried, stumbling over her mismatched feet until she fell onto her back.
“Pinkie?! When did you get out here?” Twilight cried
“Y'all really want to ask that to Pinkie of all ponies when she's a draconequus?” Applejack said in a bemused tone as she walked into view.
“...Point taken…” Twilight helped Rarity pick herself off the ground, then looked around at her friends. "I don't see any more ponies like us, " she offered cautiously.
"Please tell me we're the only creatures that Discord twisted and perverted to his own evil ways," wailed Rarity. "If the whole town is like this... I don't know how many 'Discords' Equestria can handle!"
“Why so grumpy? This could be fun! I bet if we pool our draconequusy powers we could conjure a brownie the size of the sun! OH OH or how about an ice cream sundae big enough to see from space! OOOOOH! I KNOW! LET’S THROW A PARTY SO BIG WE CAN INVITE EVERY CREATURE ON THE PLANET!” Pinkie cheered, already dreaming up the possibilities with her new powers.
“NO!” Twilight vehemently denied, which surprised everypony present, herself included. Coughing awkwardly into her hand she resumed, “It wouldn’t be wise to tamper with these powers when we’ve already accidentally triggered this much chaos.” Twilight’s friends nodded understandingly. Pinkie, however, wilted at the suggestion.
“Our main focus should be watin until Rainbow comes back with Shy,” Applejack said sitting on the ground.
“Then why are you just sitting there? Shouldn’t we be getting to a safe location just in case six draconequuses being in such close vicinity could cause more damage?” Rarity implored
“Ah ain’t moving until Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy get here. Sides if ah do nothing then nothing will happen, right?” Applejack reasoned
“I suppose that could make sense, however, I sneezed earlier and it triggered several chaotic events. We should avoid doing anything that would suddenly trigger chaos while we wait,” Twilight said to her friends. Pinkie however wouldn’t sit still and Rarity was still looking for a place to hide herself. Before Twilight could insist on Rarity calming down she noticed Pinkie was talking to herself.
“Quit arguing, I know we can agree on something eventually,” Pinkie mumbled to herself.
“Pinkie? Who are you talking-” Twilight began before being cut off by Applejack.
“Well that took less time than ah thought,” Applejack mused outloud and stood up. Twilight turned to see what she was talking about and saw Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy walking over to them.
Deep down, Twilight had hoped at least Fluttershy had been spared this fate but it seems Discord was willing to go far enough to even play this horrible prank on his ‘Flutterbuddy.’
“Wow, Pinkie, Rarity. You two really messed up the place,” Rainbow Dash said looking around.
“I-it wasn’t our fault! I woke up this morning and found myself like this and I began panicking. How was I supposed to know this would happen?”
While the two bickered Applejack walked over to Fluttershy who seemed oddly calm despite today's events.
“You alright sugarcube?” Applejack asked.
“Yes, I’m fine, a little stressed but fine,” Fluttershy responded.
“Ah imagine you were panicking a whole ton when you woke up this morning,” Applejack said comfortingly.
“Well, actually I wasn’t too bothered,” Fluttershy responded.
“What?” Applejack said a little surprised.
“Yeah, you two would be surprised what went down at Shy’s.” Rainbow Dash walked over to the group, ignoring a still-fuming Rarity.
---An hour earlier---
“Fluttershy! Listen I’m sure you're scared right now and you're probably going to be alarmed when you open the door but before you do, just know that I'm just like you right now, but I'm still me. We’re going to get Discord to fix this if you just don’t freak out, ok?” Rainbow Dash called out to Fluttershy through her front door. Rainbow waited a few minutes before hearing steps approaching and then the front door opening revealing a draconeqqus Fluttershy.
Rainbow Dash expected a number of things, Fluttershy panicking, a disheveled look, chaos (literal and magical) around her house.
Instead, Fluttershy looked unusually serene despite the events of today. Her eyes widened a little when she saw Rainbow Dash at the door but then her expression shifted into an understanding one.
“Hello, Rainbow Dash. I see we both got pranked today, didn’t we?” Fluttershy said with a chuckle. Rainbow just stared in shock, because she didn’t expect her to be taking it this well. It made Rainbow ashamed of the panic she had when she woke up.
“You're... not scared of what’s happened to you?” Rainbow Dash said with a gaping mouth.
“Oh, I am, but I'm also used to waking up transformed into something else. Discord lives with me sometimes, remember?” Fluttershy responded with a casual wave of the hand.
“So then… how did that happen?” Rainbow pointed outside to all the chaotic animals.
“Well, the land mammals wanted to know what flying felt like, the fishes wanted to walk on land and the birds wanted to swim so I decided to reverse their roles, at least until this is all fixed,” Fluttershy said giggling a little and a few legged goldfish scampered about around her feet, while Rainbow Dash gagged a little at the sight and looked like she wished she could be flying off the ground right now.
“Would you like to come inside?” Fluttershy offered.
“Actually we need to find the others, now,” Rainbow pointed out.
“Oh ok, Angel!” Fluttershy called out to her bunny companion, who flew in next to her.
“What? What’s with all the yelling? I’m trying to sleep here!” Angel complained.
“Angel dear, could you watch the others until I get back?” Fluttershy cooed to the winged rabbit.
“Can I get some shut-eye and quiet time if I do?” Angel asked, tapping his foot.
“Of course,” Fluttershy smiled
“And I want a salad in return! Extra carrots, less broccoli,” Angel demanded
“Wow… talk about taking her for granted…” Rainbow thought bitterly towards the ironically named rabbit.
“Only if you’re good,” Fluttershy replied.
“Alright, deal.” Angel nodded and padded off into the house. Fluttershy then closed and locked the door before turning to Rainbow Dash.
“Shall we Rainbow?” Fluttershy gestured and Rainbow nodded, following her.
“I didn’t expect this…” Rainbow Dash mumbled.
---Back to now---
“And that’s what happened,” Rainbow finished while Applejack looked surprised.
“Wow, mah hats off to you, Shy. Seems you took it better than we did,” Applejack said smiling.
Fluttershy blushed at the praise “Thanks, AJ.”
---Later---
The six were walking back to the castle, finally reunited and ready to find Discord. Upon entering, there was surprise and shock from the castle's inhabitants, but ultimately the hysteria calmed enough that the group could gather their thoughts.
“This is startin’ to become a daily occurrence,” Applejack wryly commented as she and the girls were seated at the table.
“He’s gone too far this time! Stealing my mane is one thing but transforming me into this horrid hybrid state? He has some nerve!” Rarity spoke out bitterly.
“Not to mention the town is all messed up now,” Rainbow Dash added in.
Fluttershy watched the other draconeqquses nervously, knowing full well her input wouldn't help Discord this time considering the severity of his actions.
"Then we all know what we have to do. We need to find Discord and have him turn us back," Twilight reasoned.
"Yeah, then kick his flank!" Rainbow added.
"Rainbow!" Fluttershy moved into the conversation to protect her friend.
"Fluttershy, even you've got to admit this is over the top. I can't train like this, none of us can do anything like this! I get he's very close to you but he can't pull something like this and get away with it," Rainbow shot back irritably.
"Still, planning to hurt him isn't right," Fluttershy meekly said
"Ah gotta side with Rainbow on this. Ah can't work like this, and ah can't risk doin so when ah could be one sneeze away from blowin the farm off the map," Applejack reasoned.
"But these powers could be fun! We just need to find out how to control them!" Pinkie tried to reason with her friends as to the positives of the situation.
"Pinkie Pie, we can't take any risks like that. We need him to fix this so we can use our elements to fix the damage," Twilight said as calmly as she could.
"But not on Discord, right?" Fluttershy said worriedly
Twilight smiled comfortingly to Fluttershy. "Of course not, but unless Discord does the clean-up, we're going to have to."
"Why can't we just use them now?" Rarity asked. Meanwhile, Spike entered the room with some refreshments.
"Spike and I tried that earlier, but when I touched my element it burned me," Twilight replied.
“It makes sense ah suppose. Discord can’t touch the elements so ah guess we can’t right now,” Applejack reasoned.
Spike was handing out drinks to everypony when he saw how miserable Rarity was. Approaching the distressed draconequus, he put a comforting claw on her shoulder.
"It's alright, Rarity,” Spike said reassuringly.
“No, it isn’t, Spikey-Wikey. I look terrible…” Rarity pouted.
“Come on, it’s not that bad. I still think you're pretty.” Spike said, then he blushed at what he had blurted out.
Rarity managed a smile at his attempts to cheer her up. “Thank you, Spikey dear, but I won’t be happy until I’m me again.” Spike nodded in understanding.
Twilight stood and got everypony’s attention. “Alright girls, we need to find out where Discord is, which is why I had Starlight run a cursory scan for chaos signatures besides ours in the vicinity.” As Twilight spoke, Starlight trotted up to the map and lit her horn, causing an indicator to pop up on the map.
“The widespread chaos you all caused made it difficult to pinpoint him but my magical scans have detected his magical wavelengths in this area right here,” Starlight informed everypony as the indicator hovered over a spot just outside of town.
“That’s where we found him yesterday,” Rarity pointed out.
“And we know where that is, now let’s get him!” Rainbow Dash said eagerly.
“Once again Rainbow, we’re not picking a fight. We’ll demand he change us back and maybe discuss why doing this was wrong,” Twilight said sternly.
“Oh come on! Like he’s going to listen to us. I mean yesterday we told him to give the pranks a rest and he turns around and makes us into his species!” Rainbow Dash snapped at Twilight.
“I wonder if he’ll let me stay like this as long as I want,” Pinkie mused.
“You’re not staying in that form and that’s final Pinkie. It’s too dangerous,” Twilight stated in a tone that forbade argument.
“Aww…” Pinkie said with a pout.
“Let’s get goin’ fore he knows we’re coming and decides to include a ‘hide and seek’ game like that one time,” Applejack said while getting up.
“Agreed. The day just started and I’m already feeling exhausted.”
“Should Spike and I come? In case you need backup?” Starlight asked.
Twilight winced at the thought of putting her student and little brother in trouble. “No, you two should stay here. I don’t want to risk either of you with seven draconeqquses being in one location.”
“No arguments here, I've dealt with enough chaos for one day,” Spike said nonchalantly.
Twilight smiled. “Thanks for understanding. Alright, girls! Let’s go fix yet another mess.” Twilight said as she and the girls walked out the front door.
Discord reclined on a chair, regarding his front-row seat to the chaos running rampant through Ponyville with mild amusement.
“Heh, they told me to lay off on the pranks. They haven’t had their powers for a day and they’ve already warped the whole town.”
Discord chuckled to himself as he drank a glass of chocolate milk. What the girls didn’t know is that things would have been much more widespread and chaotic than this if he had not been containing the chaos erupting around Ponyville, with only a mild amount of strain.
“Let’s hope they get here soon. Even I won’t be able to contain this chaos forever.” As Discord continued to recline he couldn’t quash a minor worry of how enraged the girls will be when they get here, with their untrained powers it could result in disaster. “Luckily my dear author I know a way to keep them calm long enough to explain myself.” Discord chuckled as the author sighed in exasperation about the fourth wall getting broken again, and he’s expecting it to be broken a whole lot more during this -series-.... um, he means story.
“Spoiler alert,” Discord chuckled once more before noticing six chaotic auras approaching his position.
“Ah, right on time!” Discord exclaimed, making the appliances disappear before jumping into the nearby bushes.
***
“I’ll give him a left! Then a right! AJ you go for his legs and I'll push him!” Rainbow Dash rambled on about a ‘likely combat scenario’ for when they ‘fight’ Discord.
“For the last time Rainbow we’re not picking a fight. Words will be had but nopony is hitting anypony,” Twilight said, getting annoyed.
“We’ll see,” Rainbow Dash said confidently.
“At this point when I'm turned back to normal, I’m just going to go home and sleep. Today has been just too stressful,” Rarity grumbled.
“I second that,” Rainbow Dash said
As the group was ascending the hill leading to Discord’s usual hangout spot, they heard a faint whistling noise.
“Are you all hearing that?” Rainbow Dash asked, glancing about.
“Be on your guard, girls. Discord could be up to something,” Twilight said getting ready for anything.
“Oh ye of little faith!” A familiar jovial voice called out from above and the girls looked up to see a sphere descending on them, bouncing on the ground a few times before settling.
“Is that a… circus ball?” Applejack asked curiously
“I bet he turned into it to throw us off!” Rainbow Dash said indignantly as she marched up to it.
“Rainbow Dash, wait!” Twilight cried knowing this could be another one of Discord's tricks.
“Get out of the ball, Discord! We’re here to file another complaint!” Rainbow Dash barked as she approached it only for it to suddenly inflate and pop releasing a shockwave that sent her tumbling back to the group.
“WHOA!” Rainbow yelped as she tumbled back.
“Are you alright Rainbow?” Fluttershy asked.
“Yeah,” Rainbow got back up and got ready to shout at Discord to show himself again when suddenly fireworks shot out from a box that was inside the ball, creating a spectacle that was visible during the day.
Rainbow Dash felt weird as she saw the colorful display, almost… happy?
“Whoa,” Fluttershy, Twilight, and Rarity said in amazement.
“WOWIE! Discord’s got a good taste in firework displays!” Pinkie Pie cheered.
“Heh, and the part with the ball was pretty clever…” Applejack drawled.
“Yeah… WAIT, what am I doing?!” Rainbow shook her head, as she realized she was getting distracted.
“Yeah, that was weird. Why did that fascinate us so much?” Twilight said rubbing her head.
“DISCORD! WE’RE DONE WITH YOUR GAMES! COME OUT!” Rainbow Dash bellowed, losing her patience.
“Geez, no need to shout,” Discord said casually. Rainbow Dash turned to her left and saw him sitting at the base of a tree.
“YOU!” Rainbow marched up to him, destruction in her eyes.
“RAINBOW DASH! Don’t hurt him please!” Fluttershy begged but Rainbow Dash ignored her as she closed in.
“Do you have any idea what we’ve been through today!? Turn us back right now or I’ll-” Rainbow found herself cut off as she stepped on a red button that wasn’t there a moment ago, and before she could react, a pie impacted her face.
“It’s like he’s not even taking us seriously!” Rarity fumed before she and everypony else noticed how Rainbow Dash was shaking with rage.
“Rainbow Dash, calm down! We can still solve this peacefully!” Twilight said desperately, seeing the situation dissolving. As the girls were about to run over and restrain her they heard something they didn’t expect to hear.
Giggles.
The giggles came from Rainbow Dash and grew louder before the pie fell from her face showing a broad smile and looking as if she were restraining a laugh.
“Aw great, she’s so angry now she’s lost it!” Applejack said nervously
“No, this is different.” Twilight watched amazed as Rainbow gave a full out laugh and rolled onto her back, kicking her legs and banging her fist on the ground. This continued until Rainbow caught her breath and calmed down. As Rainbow Dash sat up and rubbed her head the others came over to her concerned.
“Are you okay, Rainbow?” Fluttershy asked.
“Y-yeah… What was that? I couldn’t control myself back there.” Rainbow Dash straightened up and actually looked slightly nervous.
“That my fellow mismatched friend, is a natural instinct of an amateur draconequus,” Discord chuckled.
“DISCORD!” Rarity shouted, being done with these games. She marched up to Discord, who stared up at her expectantly. “You listen here, I am expecting an important client soon and I am NOT going to greet her looking like-” Rarity began before Discord suddenly shoved a pinwheel into her hands.
“Huh? What are you-” Suddenly the pinwheel began to spin on its own and make a whistling noise. For some reason Rarity found herself entranced by it and began to giggle like a filly as it continued to do so, losing focus on what she was just doing.
“What the? Now ah know your messin’ with us, Discord! Can’t ya take us a little more seriously!?” Applejack barked at the Lord of Chaos impatiently.
“How about this?” Discord suddenly pulled out a wind-up teeth toy and set it on the ground where it began to bounce and chatter. Applejack tried to resist it but it was like ignoring a glass of water after going a week with no drinking. She soon found herself flattened on the ground along with Pinkie Pie and they were watching it with sparkles of wonder in their eyes.
“Discord, what did you do to them?” Twilight asked nervously
“Draconeqqus’s, mainly inexperienced ones have a tendency to get distracted easily and elated by amusing things, and I happen to know the right ones.” Discord shrugged
“Well make it stop! This isn’t right!” Twilight snapped at him.
“I’ll stop when all of you give me a chance to speak my piece,” Discord responded casually.
“Ok, negotiations are over!” Rainbow said at her wits end with today's events. She tried to approach only for her to suddenly receive another pie to the face which drove her into more laughter despite her attempts to resist.
“I can do this all day, Twilight. You’re free to keep it brief though,” Discord said.
“Look! We just want to be turned back to normal! Is that brief enough!?” Twilight said, throwing her hands in the air.
“Yes and I'm going to tell you, I can’t do that yet.” Discord responded making all the distractions disappear with a snap of his fingers.
“WHAT!?” Rainbow Dash shouted in dismay. “You mean we’re stuck like this?!”
“Oh, dear! Gilded Canvas will never even approach my boutique if I'm stuck like this! This is terrible! Awful! The-” Rarity cried out before Applejack cut her off.
“-Most horrible thing, we know! Point is, Are you saying you can’t fix us Discord?” Applejack demanded.
“Oh I can, anytime. However, before I do, I need to settle a dispute. “ Discord said standing up.
“Settle a dispute?” Twilight parroted.
“Y-your not mad at us are you, Discord?” Fluttershy asked with a worried look on her face.
“My dear Flutterbuddy, I could never be mad at you. What I mean by that is a serious question has been posed and I'm open to testing it.”
“What question? Twilight asked carefully.
“If whether or not chaos magic is as easy to resist as conventional magic is. And so far, you six haven't been doing well” Discord said gesturing to the chaos going on in the town “Honestly, how Celestia and Luna haven’t noticed by now is baffling.”
“Seriously? THAT’S what this is all about?” Rainbow Dash groaned.
“Yes, you six believe that I'm not being sincere about the difficulty of resisting chaos, then I want you six to prove your point.” Discord said crossing his arms.
“This isn’t the right way to go about it. We could have talked about it first!” Twilight complained.
“I believe it was somepony nopony really remembers the name of who said ‘Actions speak louder than words’ and ‘experience is our best teacher.’ instead of arguing your point, how about you prove to me that chaos magic is easy to resist.” Discord stated.
“But- Why do this to Fluttershy? You could have scared her to death!” Rainbow Dash said continuing to be the vocal one of the group.
“But she wasn’t,” Discord responded simply.
“Still! Why?” Rainbow Dash demanded.
“I did a coin flip. Does that count for anything? Besides she would have opted to join you girls anyways.” Discord pointed out.
“He isn’t wrong,” Fluttershy admitted, “I wouldn’t bear the thought of my friends going through this without me because it wouldn’t be right.” Twilight and the others nodded understandingly when a question that had been gnawing at Twilight came up.
Kicking the annoying question out of the way with one foot, Twilight turned to Discord and asked, “How did you even do this? Transforming a non-caster into a caster type should be impossible due to the unique magical leylines.”
“Simple, I turned them into unicorns first and then used their new magical ley lines to catalyze the transformation from caster into chaotic beings.” Discord shrugged as Twilight’s jaw dropped.
“What?” Rainbow Dash said, head spinning from all the smart talk.
“YOU CHANGED THEIR TRIBE?!” Twilight exclaimed.
“Yep. I used a spell that I commonly used when I was extremely bored back during my days as ruler. I would use this spell to turn unicorns into draconeqquses. Then give them a week to prep, and then do battle with me. I was always the victor in the end but it was amusing.” Discord stated
“You’d use a spell that had such a barbaric purpose on us?” Rarity said, taken aback.
“But that still doesn’t explain-” Twilight attempted.
“I’m the Lord of Chaos and Disharmony, I can do things you can’t even imagine,” Discord said surprisingly stern, and Twilight began to look nervous.
“Soooo… You're going to fight us now?” Twilight said with a slight gulp.
“No, I’m just stating the transformation's origin. This will serve its purpose for a little bet I’d like to propose.” Discord said getting to business.
“A bet? Discord, we are not taking part in this. We’re all very busy right now!” Twilight said exasperated.
“Considering I'm the one who can turn you back, perhaps you should stop shouting at me, and besides, this could be your only opportunity to study chaos magic,” Discord stated.
Twilight paused at this and considered what he said. “That is true… chaos magic is a new avenue to explore.” The voice in Twilight's head sounded interested.
“Yeah, it is… No! What am I thinking!?” Twilight mentally berated herself before turning to Discord.
“Discord, the damage, and potential risks are too great. We need to be turned back to fix this mess.” Discord just rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers and the chaos in town was quickly reversed.
“There, problem solved,” Discord said casually.
“Wow, that was quick,” Rarity said as she saw the repaired town.
“This changes nothing. Discord, we still need to be returned to normal,” Twilight said not taking her eyes off of Discord.
“I’m afraid I must insist,” Discord replied
“Why?” Twilight sighed.
“So we can settle this debate, and have some fun doing it,” Discord said
“Discord! I’m being serious here-” Twilight started but found herself trailing off as Discord began juggling some colorful balls with his tail.
“If you’ll let me speak now, This bet is also to serve as a means for convenience since I'm going to be out of town for a while. I’m heading to a crystal dimension to meet up with my buddy the Smooze and some triangle-shaped cyclops he told me about and discuss things beyond your mortal comprehension. We’re also playing bingo. I’ll be gone for a week and so now I’ll discuss the bet.” Discord said amusedly watching Twilight zone out a bit as she continued watching him juggle while the others thankfully managed to pay attention.
“We don’t have a choice in the matter, do we?” Applejack sighed
“No, not really,” Discord said with a shake of the head “Now, I’m going to be gone for a week.”
“Thank goodness…” Rainbow Dash muttered, before getting a sour look from Fluttershy.
“And in that time, you six will prove to me that chaos magic is easy to master,” Discord finished.
“Can’t we do this next week or something? I’m expecting a special reviewer to come and appraise my work and I don’t wish for this to ruin it,” Rarity demanded.
“I thought ahead for that and decided to give this to each of you.” Discord said handing out a colorful sphere, Applejack held Twilight’s since Twilight was still spacing out watching Discord’s tail juggling.
“What’s this?” Fluttershy asked
“I call it a ‘boring sphere’ Use it to disable your chaos magic for two hours, or you can say ‘undo the undo’ and your magic will be returned to you. Just in case something big comes up,” Discord explained
“Well, at least he’s given us a chance to take a break,” Applejack muttered before noticing Twilight was still watching him juggle. “Are ya ever going to let her snap out of it?” Applejack asked
“I’m certain you all can relay what she needs to know afterwards. It will be quicker and easier if I explain it to you all first,” Discord replied “Now if I come back and find Equestria in chaotic trouble, then I suppose I win,” Discord said confidently
“But we hardly know how to use these powers!” Rainbow Dash stated exasperatedly.
“Then use this.” Discord tossed a thick book at their feet, the words ‘How to be a Draconeqqus for Dummies’ were titled on it.
“There’s a guide?” Rarity asked confusedly
“Yep! Written by yours truly!” Discord announced proudly. The girls glanced between each other and sighed at their current situation, knowing Discord wasn’t going to listen unless they could prove themselves. They did not want to resign themselves to the inevitable, but it looked as if there was no choice.
“What’s in it for us? What happens when we win?” Rainbow Dash said approaching Discord carefully.
“If you win is what you mean. And what’ll happen is I’ll acknowledge you were right and work harder to cease my pranking, you girls will finally have a chance to relax and I’ll even throw in a prize of your choosing.” Discord stated. That caught Rainbow Dash’s interest.
“And if we lose?” Rainbow Dash asked
“You’ll have to acknowledge I was right, you’ll stop pestering me about how annoying I am and you all have to spend a week sleeping over at my house,” Discord said smugly as the girls paled at the last condition. Little known fact, sleepovers at Discord's house are like a nightmare, the last time they did so was a night they’d sooner forget.
“Well girls? Is it a deal?” Discord asked, the other elements looked to each other and shared a reluctant expression.
“You’ll really try to cool it with the pranks if we win?” Rainbow Dash asked
“Yep,” Discord responded
“And we’ll all get a free request of you as well?” Rarity said with a hint of hope.
“Yes, you will, within reason, of course, I don’t do embarrassing things even for free.” Discord nodded. The girls thought this over and knowing Discord wouldn’t be swayed decided they could at least play for the benefits at the end.
“Alright Discord, we’ll play yer game, but ah still need to know how to turn back or at least look normal again.” Applejack said impatiently
“All that and more is in the book. Now, if you ladies will excuse me, I have to get packing.” Discord snapped his fingers and summoned a briefcase and began walking off before pausing. “Oh and do let Spike know to pack his toothbrush because the crystal dimension doesn’t have any convenience stores,” Discord mentioned.
“Inform Spike? Why would we need to tell him that?” Rarity asked
“Oh, didn’t I mention I'm bringing him with me?” Discord said with a speculative look on his face.
“YOU’RE WHAT?!” the five draconeqquses shouted at the same time.
“Yes, I figured me and the little guy never hang out at all so I thought I'd invite him along since it’s a dimension of crystals.” Discord chuckled.
“You are doing no such thing!” Rarity seethed.
“Why’s that?” Discord said with a raised brow.
“Who knows what trouble you’ll get him into!” Applejack added in.
“Oh come now, you can trust me.” The looks the girls gave him said otherwise…
“We’ll let him decide that,” Discord said before walking through a portal.
“This bet better be worth it….” Applejack sighed.
“If it means I can actually train like I used to, it’s going to have to be…” Rainbow said, giving a bigger sigh before walking over to the book and picking it up.
“YAAAY! This means I can stay like this!” Pinkie Pie cheered. The others began to look through the book while a lavender draconequus finally stopped spacing out.
“What? What just happened?” Twilight said, still in a slight daze.
Discord was in his dimension getting packed for his trip. He gathered only the essentials for both him and the little dragon.
“I can’t wait to see his face when he sees all the crystals there. This way I can claim I already got him his birthday present and get away with not getting one for his actual birthday.” Discord chuckled when he suddenly felt a massive burst of chaos magic in Ponyville with an audible voice that was so loud he heard it from in his dimension.
“DISCOOORD! WHERE ARE YOU?!” The horrible noise was the unmistakable voice of Twilight Sparkle probably panicking about her little brother being carted off to a different dimension.
“Oooh boy…” Discord groaned, grabbed his belongings, and teleported back to Ponyville. Much to his amusement, the town looked like some kind of theme park, centered mainly around books, while ponies were all legged books, trotting around as if nothing changed.
“Perhaps winning this bet will be easier than I thought.” Discord chuckled before sensing a chaotic signature darting around town centering on his position. “And here we go…” Discord sighed as he saw Twilight barreling [more like stumble/running] in his direction.
“DISCORD! I need a word with you! And no distracting me this time!” Twilight growled as she got up close to him.
“Is it about Spike?” Discord asked.
“YES! I heard your plan and I'm telling you no! Spike is too young to go off to possibly dangerous alternate realms with you!” Twilight growled, her anger more amplified than usual for some reason.
“Technically he’s twenty in dragon years.” Discord stated knowingly.
“Yes, but in pony years and by physical definition he’s only ten!” Twilight snarled.
“Easy there, Twilight. It’s rather easy for an inexperienced draconequus to lose control of their temper when dealing with what annoys them, and in your case, that couldn’t be more true.” Discord casually watched Twilight's expression grow madder.
"I CAN TELL!" Twilight bellowed at the top of her voice. Her face was so red that flames had begun to flicker on the top of her horn and were burning down like a fizzing fuze on a bomb. “I’M NOT LETTING YOU TAKE HIM! YOU’RE JUST GOING TO GET HIM IN TROUBLE AND WHO KNOWS HOW CHANGED HE’LL BE WHEN HE GETS BACK! YOUR GOING ON THIS TRIP ALONE AND THAT IS FINA-” Twilight paused her rant when a tub of ice cream was launched into her face.
“Cool down there, Twilight,” Discord said with a chuckle.
Twilight pulled the ice cream tub off of her face and looked at Discord with surprise. Her anger was gone, completely. In fact, she actually felt happy now. The happiness quickly faded to annoyance as she looked at Discord questioningly.
“What? So ice cream can calm an enraged draconequus?” Twilight guessed.
“Yes indeed, it’s a good treat and stress reliever,” Discord said
“How much about draconeqquses don't I know?” Twilight said tossing the ice cream aside.
“What you don’t know about draconquuses can fill an ocean, literally!” Discord said laughing.
“This doesn’t change my opinion, Discord! Spike still isn’t going with you,” Twilight said.
“Oh come now, is me treating the boy to a vacation and an early-” Discord glanced around “-birthday present, so wrong?”
“I just…” Twilight faltered a little as she thought of her little brother being in danger in some bizarre dimension. The worry she felt for him created a knot in her stomach.
“You're worried about his safety, I get it. You don’t need to worry though. He couldn’t be more protected with any other sitter,” Discord said gesturing to himself.
“That’s such a relief,” Twilight deadpanned.
“Well then, let's let him decide.” Discord snapped his fingers.
“I don’t think-” Twilight attempted to say before Spike suddenly appeared in front of the two draconeqqus’s... soaking wet and covered in soap suds…... singing into a scrub brush.
“Oh Rarity! Oh Rarity! How you are so pretty, your eyes glitter like the diamonds on your flanks! Your mane is so soft to the one who gave it to you, I give thanks! One day I hope you grace me with your lips, as I kiss you ba-” Spike’s song was interrupted by joined sounds of laughter from Discord and stifled giggles from Twilight.
“Huh? Discord!? Twilight?! What are you doing here in the bathroom? I'm taking a shower- wait a sec… WHY AM I OUTSIDE?!” Spike looked around frantically and saw everypony as walking books, as weird as this is, he was more concerned about how many heard him right now. Spike turned his blushing red face to Twilight and Discord who were still laughing.
“I don’t mean to laugh, Spike, but were you just singing about Rarity?” Twilight tried to contain her giggles, honestly, she wanted to stop seeing how embarrassed Spike was, but it seemed her new draconequus nature was preventing that.
“Oh, man! That was a real gut-buster right there! The lyrics and the way you were singing! Gotta record that!” Discord gasped in between guffaws.
“H-how much did you hear…?” Spike said looking red as a tomato
“From ‘Oh Rarity’ onward,” Discord said through his laughter.
“Everypony heard that didn’t they?...” Spike said looking like he wanted to sink into the ground in embarrassment.
“I...Eh… well” Twilight attempted after managing to calm down.
“They didn’t” Discord stated out of the blue.
“They didn’t?” Spike said hopefully.
“How do you know?” Twilight asked.
“Books don’t have ears. Trust me. I'm a master of chaos, remember?” Discord said pointing to the books who seemed to go about their day not paying them any mind. “You lucked out kiddo.”
“Whew… thank goodness…” Spike sighed in relief, before looking to the two with an annoyed expression. “This couldn’t have waited until after I was out of the shower?” Spike said irritably.
“Forgive us for intruding on your personal symphony about your crush, but I was looking to know if you wanted to come with me on a trip,” Discord asked
“Ummm… No offense, Discord, but I'm not sure that’s safe,” Spike deadpanned
“Thank you!” Twilight said, happy that Spike was agreeing with her for a change.
“Oh come now, Spike. I think you’ll enjoy coming with me to-” Discord began
“Really, I'm good,” Spike said, eager to get back to finish his shower
“To a crystal dimension,” Discord finished
“Discord, I said I'm-... Crystal dimension?” Spike looked at him surprised.
“Yep, thought I’d treat you to some tantalizing gems that dragons haven’t even seen yet and show you some of my friends. It’s what friends do, right?” Discord said with a hint of smugness to Twilight, who glared at him.
“I don’t know… doesn’t that mean Twilight won’t have my help for a whi-” Spike began.
“You’d rather stay here for the week and experience the chaos they might accidentally unleash?” Discord asked with a raised brow.
“.............I’ll pack!” Spike yelled as he ran off towards the castle.
“Hold on, Spike!” Twilight cried trying to run after him but he was indoors before she could catch up and she wound up tripping over her feet.
“Guess that’s a yes,” Discord said smugly. Twilight sighed, sounding irritable, and stood, looking towards Discord resignedly.
“Alright fine… “ Twilight managed from between gritted teeth “Do you promise to watch over him?”
“Like he was my own,” Discord assured
“You're not going to let him get hurt?”
“Nope.”
“He comes back with you the same way he is now?”
“Perhaps with a greater understanding of the universe.” Twilight gave Discord a look. “Come on where’s the trust?”
“Pinkie promise me he won’t come back altered or traumatized,” Twilight demanded.
“Ok ok fine, cross my heart, cupcakes in eyes, all that jazz, can I go now?” Twilight still looked upset but she turned and walked into the castle.
“My my, this story is taking quite the turn isn’t it?” Discord chuckled before disappearing in a flash.
---one hour later---
“Toothbrush?” Twilight asked
“Check,” Spike responded
“Med kit?”
“Check.”
“Books as well as comic books to keep you stimulated?”
“Check.”
“Spare towels?”
“Yeah, check.” Spike groaned, already knowing that Twilight was going to have him go over the entire stock again.
“More importantly do you have-”
“Twilight, I triple checked everything. I think I’m ready for my trip with Discord” Spike said, tapping his foot.
“It wouldn’t hurt to quadruple check,” Twilight suggested.
“No, Twilight. I think that's enough checking,” Spike said, not wanting to rehash the supply list anymore.
“Just one more thing,” Twilight said, cutting him off.
“What’s that?” Spike sighed.
“This.” Twilight handed Spike a golden-colored parchment.
“What’s this?” Spike asked curiously, taking the parchment from Twilight.
“It’s called a tracker parchment. I was saving it for a special occasion since I learned how to make them a month ago. Just use your messenger fire on it and no matter where you are, I’ll be able to find you,” Twilight said with a smile.
“It’s a little creepy how you put that…” Spike said with a little shiver.
“Alright Spike, just be careful, listen to Discord unless he’s sounding like he’s up to something, then ignore him, and stay safe,” Twilight said, giving him a hug, which Spike returned.
“I will, Twilight. Good luck with the whole chaos thing,” Spike said back.
“I will do my best.” Twilight and Spike went outside to see Discord standing by the portal to another dimension with vacation gear.
“There you are, my scaly little friend!” Discord said picking Spike up and giving him a noogie.
“Ow! Hey!” Spike said, trying to wiggle out of his grip.
“By the end of the week, Discord. No more no less,” Twilight said sternly as Discord put Spike down.
“Sure thing, and remember, if I come back to a chaotic Equestria, then I win,” Discord said smugly.
“You won’t win. I’ll show you that chaos magic can be tamed!” Twilight said with determination.
“Sure you will.” Discord chuckled. “Well! We best be off, my little buddy.” Discord walked through the portal, with Spike walking in after him once he had given Twilight a cheerful wave. The portal blipped out of view and Twilight released a long sigh filled with dread for the coming week.
“A day ago I never would have expected this could happen at all… Well time to call another meeting.” Twilight said walking back into the castle.
Twilight was hurrying back to her castle, trying to work out what kind of message she wanted to have Starlight send to her friends. They needed a way to remain hidden for starters.
Once she reached her castle, it became obvious how any planning was going to fail before it even started.
And all it took was opening her front doors.
Twilight nearly jumped out of her skin as several cannons fired off at once. It was only a small portion of the surprise she got because she saw that the interior of her castle had devolved into pure chaos.
Books had sprouted legs and were crawling up the walls, party decorations were everywhere, rainbows and posters of Rainbow Dash were all over the place, a volcano was in the middle of the room spewing fruit punch over everything, bunnies in fashionable outfits were walking around and conversing like Canterlot nobles, and as if to harm Twilights patience even further, the girls were squabbling like crazy ponies.
Pinkie and Rainbow were trying to see who could overpower the other in converting the room to their style while Fluttershy was trying to get Rarity to understand that what she did to the bunnies was wrong and she should restore them to being ordinary bunnies. Applejack was simply trying to help Starlight out as she was being dangled by her tail by a ceiling lamp with a mouth and tentacles.
Looking at the mess Twilight felt irritation building in her body. She then let out a frustrated scream which thankfully caught all the attention of all the mares and all the chaos paused. As they stood watching the panting draconequus, Twilight finally found her voice.
“What is going on here? Why are you all already here and why is Starlight dangling from the ceiling!?” As if on cue Starlight landed on the ground next to Twilight with a solid thud.
“Oof!” Starlight grunted in pain. “I’m ok!” Starlight called out when nopony asked.
Pinkie was about to begin a long-winded explanation spoken so fast it was nearly one word, but thankfully Applejack beat her to the punch.
“We’ve been trying to get a handle on our powers but it seems Ah’m the only one willin to try.” Applejack directed an annoyed glare at a laughing Pinkie who had begun shooting stuffed animals out of a floating cannon at Rainbow, who was retaliating with colorful clouds.
“Focus!” Twilight snapped making the two former ponies pause their little play fight. “That still doesn’t answer my other question.”
“Pinkie teleported us here. She thought it would be fun to gather up and throw a party,” Applejack said plainly.
“A party?...” The girls didn’t notice Twilight’s silent seething.
“YEPPORONI! I wanted to use these powers to make a fun party nopony will ever forget! And thanks to this book by Discord, we can!” Pinkie squealed, holding up the otherwise ordinary-looking book.
“There are instructions on how to be a draconequus?” Twilight asked incredulously.
“Yeah, you kinda ran off before we could show you,” Rainbow said with a shrug.
“So Twilight, wanna help make the most splenderifficous awesomest most wonderfullest party EVER!?” Pinkie cheered.
Twilight just growled.
“Huh?” Pinkie said, noticing the violent aura Twilight was giving off.
“You okay there, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash said
“First off, you barge into my house, then you render it practically unlivable with all this chaos, and now you want to throw a party? Do you have any idea how much stress I'm under right now!?” Twilight snarled as she closed in on a scared Pinkie.
“U-uh, not too stressed to par-”
“I DON’T WANT A PARTY!” Twilight bellowed
“Twilight! Compose yoursel-” Rarity attempted before Twilight turned her reddened face towards her.
“SHUT IT! I’M UNDER ENOUGH STRESS RIGHT NOW GIVEN THAT DISCORD FORCED US INTO THIS STUPID BET IN THE FIRST PLACE! AND I’M TRYING TO CURB THESE TURBULENT EMOTIONS CAUSED BY THIS FORM BUT YOU ALL ARE NOT HELPING!” Twilight screamed at her friends causing all but one to wither at her tone.
“HEY! Don’t take your bad mood out on us!” Rainbow said, stomping up to Twilight.
Fluttershy obviously saw the upcoming fight and quickly moved to end the argument “H-hold on! The book clearly states that inexperienced draconeqquses have problems managing their stress levels! We need to calm her!”
“I KNOW THAT! BUT ALL THIS MESS AND TALK OF PARTIES, WHICH STILL ISN’T HAPPENING, IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!” Twilight said only descending further and further into anger. Even in the throes of her wrathful mood, however, Twilight remembered Discord’s advice about how she can calm herself.
“Pinkie! Ice cream! NOW!” Twilight turned to Pinkie.
“But I thought you sai-” Pinkie said.
“I SAID NOW!” Twilight shouted and Pinkie winced before snapping her finger and summoning a chocolate sundae with bananas and peanuts.
“HEY! WE’RE HAVING A CONVERSATION HERE!” Rainbow Dash yelled as Twilight began to take several spoonfuls and eat them. Visibly beginning to simmer down, she took several deep breaths.
“Ok… I’m better now…” Twilight said, giving a relaxed sigh.
“I SAID WE WERE TALKING TWILI-” Rainbow Dash’s words were cut off by Twilight plonking a spoonful of ice cream into Rainbow Dash’s mouth.
“What? Hey! Not cool!” Rainbow said, swallowing the ice cream forced into her mouth. Before she could resume berating Twilight, she felt an odd calming effect wash over her.
“Whoa… Hey, I suddenly feel... better? Pinkie, what was in that ice cream?” Rainbow said, trying to make sense of the weird emotional shift.
“It’s just a regular banana nut fudge ripple coconut ice cream supreme.” Pinkie shrugged.
“Discord told me ice cream has a calming effect on draconeqquses.” Twilight sighed before turning to the others. “I’m so sorry, girls. I lost myself back there. I didn’t mean most of those things I said.”
“It’s fine.” Applejack waved it off, though she couldn’t help but speculate on Twilight’s claim that ice cream would fix their bad moods.
“So we just eat ice cream and we stop feeling angry?” Fluttershy asked, while Pinkie Pie practically burst with joy at the thought that she actually has to eat tons of ice cream and not just because she wanted to.
“You're partially correct. Eating ice cream causes an emotional shift from anger to happiness. This could give us insight in how some foods affect us in different ways,” Twilight said before walking up to Fluttershy. “I’d like to read that book if you're done with it,” Twilight politely asked.
“Umm, actually I’m not done,” Fluttershy hesitantly said, expecting another freakout from Twilight.
Thankfully, Twilight just waved it off. “Alright, just loan it to me when you're done.”
“Ok,” Fluttershy said with relief.
“Wow, ah have a feeling when this is all over we’re going to have a much better understanding of how Discord works,” Applejack said
“I’m counting on that, Spike! Take a letter ple-” Twilight said before remembering Spike was with Discord. “Oh yeah….” Twilight facepalmed
“I can take over for him until he gets back,” Starlight offered, trotting up to Twilight.
“That sounds great. Thanks, Starlight,” Twilight said with a smile
“Alright, we know we have the information we need in this book. Do you girls think we can control ourselves for a whole week?” Rarity hesitantly asked.
“Oh come on! What’s the worst that can happen?” Rainbow Dash laughed only to get a cold stare from everyone.
“Never say that!” Rarity warned, expecting something to happen.
“We need to fully review that book before we do anything else, otherwise we’re looking at an Equestria-wide problem. I don’t know why our actions only affected Ponyville, but I’m not looking to test our luck,” Twilight said seriously.
“Agreed,” Rarity said before turning to Fluttershy. “Does that book have anything on returning to my normal appearance? I do have to get back to work on my boutique before tomorrow.”
“Hmmm… It says here ‘to transfigure yourself, simply imagine what you want yourself to look like and hold that image in your mind as you activate your magic.’ At least that’s what it says,” Fluttershy responded
“Very well then,” Rarity said, shutting her eyes in concentration. After a moment, a flash overtook the area and when they looked they saw Rarity as a pony again… missing her back half.
“Snk, forget something there Rarity?” Rainbow chuckled
“What do you mean?” Rarity said in confusion.
“Sugarcube, how do I put this? You’re half the mare you were,” Applejack said, hoping she would understand.
“What?” Rarity said in surprise before looking behind her and seeing nothing there. “AAAAAHH! WHERE’S THE REST OF MY BODY?!” Rarity ran about the room in a panic while Rainbow was rolling on the ground in silent hysteria at the sight of a two-legged pony running around.
“That looks like fun!” Pinkie cheered and promptly did the same to herself and ran around the room with Rarity.
“Girls! Can we focus!” Twilight snapped
“No, don’t stop! This is too much!” Rainbow said laughing her head off. It rolled on the ground for a second before Rainbow noticed and put it back on. Twilight, who was unamused, looked to the voice in her head only to sigh when the voice was laughing at the situation as well.
“I need help here!” Twilight murmured angrily.
“Sorry, I can’t help it! This is gold!” The voice laughed
“What. Do. I. Do?” Twilight said impatiently
“Just do as Fluttershy said and focus on them,” the voice casually replied.
“Alright,” Twilight said as she focused on Rarity and Pinkie. With a snap of her fingers and a moment to take a small amount of pride in how good she’s getting at snapping her fingers, the two looked like normal ponies again.
The term ‘look’ being exaggerated, as she could still feel the chaos magic radiating off of them.
“Aw, why’d you mess up the fun?” Pinkie said with a pout
“Sorry girls, but we need to get down to business. We’ll cycle the book between ourselves and read it cover to cover and try to get a handle on our new powers. Remember, we just need to last a week and we can finally get a break from Discord’s constant interruptions,” Twilight said firmly
Rainbow Dash nodded, remembering all the crazy things that had happened so far. “I can agree with that. We need to get things under control or we’ll end up messing up the town again. And I refuse to go to another sleepover at Discord’s house again after last time,”
“Alright, hold still girls. I think I’m getting the hang of this.” Twilight focused and snapped her fingers again, returning everypony in the room back to their original appearances.
“Yay, I’m a pony again!” Pinkie said, prancing about before pausing, wondering if she still had her powers.
Fluttershy stretched out her body before looking herself over and smiling at her familiar form being returned to her.
“Nice! Rainbow Dash is back in action!” Rainbow Dash said taking to the air again,
“Boy is it good to be me again.” Applejack said with a smile looking her familiar earth pony body over. She felt a tingle in her nose and before she could warn everypony, she let loose a sneeze, causing a ripple of magic to pass over the room.
Everypony tensed, knowing something could happen.
“Good going, AJ. Now what's going to happen?” Rainbow Dash said, glancing about nervously.
“Ah didn’t mean to! It was one of those sneezes that just came out of nowhere!” Applejack said, getting defensive.
When nothing happened, the girls one by one began to relax a little bit.
“M-maybe it was a fluke?” Fluttershy hoped
“I don’t trust this…” Rainbow Dash said, keeping high up in the air.
“Perhaps it was something subtle? Keep an eye out for anything differen-OW!” Twilight yelped as her face met the ceiling.
“AAAH!” was the collective response from everyone else as a massive appletree suddenly sprouted out of the ground beneath the seven mares and the tree wound up slamming them into the ceiling.
“Is everypony okay?” Twilight said, managing to wiggle out from the branches.
“Fluffershy’s flank ish in my facsh!” A muffled voice said amidst the branches.
“I’m being squished against the ceiling but apart from that I’m alright.” Starlight's strained voice spoke from above Twilight.
“OH! Who just kicked me!?” Rarity’s outraged voice said from somewhere.
“Don’t worry girls! I got this!” Pinkie's voice chimed out and suddenly the tree vanished, making the six mares fall out of the air and onto the ground.
“Thanks, Pinkie.” Twilight squeezed out from under the pile of ponies.
“What’d you do with the tree?” Applejack said curiously
“See for yourselves!” Pinkie exclaimed pointing to a wooden table with various apple confections on it. “Call me Pinkamena Recycling Diane Pie!” Pinkie said before conjuring some drums and giving a rimshot.
“She’s getting good at her powers,” Twilight noted
“Guess there’s less chance of the town becomin’ a circus again then.” Applejack said
“Actually Pinkie mastering her powers has me more concerned than relieved…” Twilight said
“Why?” Rarity asked
“She could already do things nopony could understand when she was a pony. Now she’s a draconeqqus! Who knows what she’ll do now that she can bend reality!” Twilight said panicking, visions of a party-apocalypse destroying the world flashing in her mind.
A heavy silence descended on everypony as the implications hit them.
“Perhaps we could call Discord and ask him to exclude her?” Rarity asked
“No, if we do that it’ll look like we’re quitting!” Rainbow Dash said looking angered at the thought of Discord gloating over his victory.
“Not to mention it wouldn’t be nice to do that to Pinkie. She really seems to be enjoying herself,” Fluttershy added.
“Alright! Let’s… just be careful around her.” Twilight conceded
---Later---
Twilight’s friends left the castle as subtly as they could. Having reviewed the book and taken some time to practice their new powers, the mares were now ready to tackle the upcoming week.
In the window of her castle, Twilight watched them all wander off, and couldn’t help but let her eye wander off to the town and all the rolling hills and peaceful landscape. When she looked at this sight she always couldn’t help but admire the beauty of the overlook she had to herself.
Right now it felt different…
It all seemed too boring, too static… too… un-chaotic… Twilight tried to shake the strange feelings but they didn’t go away. A part of her wanted to make the town a bit more interesting, more chaotic.
“These must be the urges Discord told us about,” Twilight said taking a deep breath and sitting down on a meditation rug “I will prove that chaos magic can be tamed, no matter what urges try to twist me!” Twilight said resolutely.
“Why fight it? Being chaotic is fun!” The voice in Twilight's head said.
“Because I’m trying to prove that chaos magic can be mastered. If I allow it to run amok then that will just prove Discord was right and then he’ll never let me live it down.” Twilight responded trying to regain her focus.
“He may have been onto something, because you're so much more powerful like this!” the voice protested
“The answer is no!” Twilight barked before going back into her deep concentration. The voice distanced itself from Twilight by going into her subconscious, and if it had a face it would be smirking.
“You think you can resist Twilight, but there’s a beautiful chaos in your heart… and soon, everypony shall see it.” The voice gave a laugh as she went dormant in Twilight's mind, one last set of words echoing out before silence descended.
