> Discord and the Dimension of Chaos
>  by Spirit Chaser
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Dimensions and Sidekicks
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"This. Is. Boring." Discord complained as he crossed his arms in frustration.

"Discord!" Princess Celestia shouted over to the towering creature to the left of her. "You must learn to listen, Shine Kicker here just asked you something and you didn't even hear her." 

They both looked down at the peach-colored Earth mare kneeling at the steps of the throne.

"Ugh, fine. I'm sorry my dear but I need you to repeat yourself." Discord bowed only half sincerely.

"Oh, sorry Mr. Discord," Shine Kicker apologized politely. "I merely asked if you could make these boots mud proof, you see I just spent my last bit on them and it would be a shame if-"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, here you are!" Discord over-dramatically snapped his fingers at Shine Kicker's stylish blue boots which produced a giant purple smoke cloud that when cleared appeared as if it hadn't done anything.

"There you go, 100% mud, dirt, water, fire and most of whatever-else-Pinkie-Pie-will-throw-at-you proof." Discord insisted as he teleported behind her.

"Who's... ah it doesn't matter! Thanks ever so much!" Shine Kicker bowed once more, then galloped out of the palace,

"What exactly did you do to those boots?" Celestia asked patiently as she rose slightly from her throne. 

"Oh a little of this, a little of that." Discord remarked as he conjured what looked like a cup of tea out of midair.

Celestia narrowed her eyes.

"Please, if I can withstand a Pegasus' set of disapproving eyeballs, what makes you think-"

Celestia flowed light gold magic through her horn.

"When was the last time you even cast an actually harmful-"

A scroll and quill floated into the room shrouded in the same color as Celestia's horn. Smirking, Celestia brought the quill and scroll over her face and began writing out loud "Dearest Fluttershy-"

Realizing what was happening, Discord made the cup evaporate and floated back over to Celestia "Maybe you're not that boring after all Celestia, fine, the boots actually absorb all those materials I mentioned, eventually making them big balls of chaos! HAHAHA- ahem, I mean, I can fix it." 

"Discord!"

"What?! They won't be dirty, but if they absorb too much material they may explode... but I doubt she could really be that careless-" The rest of Discord's sentence was cut off by the sound of a very soft explosion in the background.

The castle doors opened and sure enough, in walked Shine Kicker, covered in mud and boot strands.

"Um, I think there was a slight malfunction, ahem, Your Majesty." Shine Kicker attempted to say with a straight face.

"My dearest apologies, Discord! Conjure up some mud proof boots, and do it right this time please." Celestia stared.

With a huff, Discord snapped his fingers and a pair of actually mud proof boots appeared in a purple puff of smoke and drifted down to Shine Kicker's hoofs. 

"There you go my dear, so sorry for the last pair, but you know how unstable magic can be." Discord summoned a halo above his head and clapped his hands together.

"Yes, well thank you again." Without another word, Shine Kicker picked up the boots with her teeth and trotted through the castle doors.

Celestia laid her head down and let a sigh escape "Discord, you may be a spirit of chaos, but you still must behave yourself. You must control your natural desire to cause even the slightest bit of chaos, and genuinely try to solve the problems of the townspeople. Am I clear?" 

"Oh and I was wrong! You're still boring!" Discord conjured up his own throne and sat on it. "Let me ask you something, princess, when do I get to have any fun, huh? When does Discord get to boogie?!" As if on cue, Discord turned the castle room into a dance floor, complete with a disco ball and disco outfit.

With one mean glance from Celestia, Discord turned everything back to normal, except the disco ball.

"This is the kind of nonsense I'm referring to, you can't resist any opportunity to cause chaos can you?" Celestia narrowed her eyes once more.

Discord morphed onto the glass prophecy once again. "Well, of course I can't! Or did you already forget who I am?"

The castle doors flew open once again and the royal guards flooded in. "Princess Celestia, the other townspeople are wondering if they can come in now."

"Tell them I'm sorry, but I don't think Discord is up to the task at the moment." Said Celestia as she glared at the still glass Discord.

"Fine! If that's how you're gonna play it, then Discord is out!" Discord shouted as he disappeared from the window and from the room in general.

The guards immediately went into- well- guard mode. "Your Majesty, should we go after him?"

"That won't be necessary, he wouldn't dare try anything to jeopardize his friendship with Fluttershy, but do try to keep an eye out, some of those ponies have serious needs." Celestia ordered.

The guards saluted and galloped out of the room, all except for her personal guards. Celestia sat her rump down into her throne and closed her eyes. Oh, Discord she thought, What next?


Who needs order anyway? Discord thought as he flew deeper into the forest close to the castle. Making sense was soooo boring. He missed the days when he could snap his fingers and everything around him just fell apart. Of course, Discord still had the power to do that, but if he did, he could lose his best friend and as much as he hated to admit it, he wouldn't let that happen. He stared at the ground as he flew, wondering what to do next. He paid so much attention to the ground that he didn't notice the giant rock he flew right into.

"Dumb old rock." Discord muttered as he snapped the rock away.

As soon as the rock disappeared into thin air, he continued to hover into the forest. It was so easy to make things go away, but so hard to make things stay, things always seem to be changing. He stared down at his own hands- paws- claws. Where do things that he snaps away go? The question almost made Discord fall to the ground in confusion. He scratched his head, he had never really wondered that before, it always seemed so... unimportant.

Discord moved his arms through the air as if to detect some sort of magical residue in the air, and continued for about a minute... before he remembered he was Discord after all and simply transported himself to wherever the rock went. When he reopened his eyes, the first thing that he noticed was that there was white everywhere. In fact the whole place was white space, except for a few spots where his transported objects had fallen.

Overall Discord was impressed that he had access to this place. Sure it was just a big empty dimension, but it was somewhere he could finally escape Princess Borelestia and her army of fun-haters. Discord decided to quickly scan the place just in case and when he did he found that this place was actually made of energy similar to the kind he could manipulate. At first this meant nothing, but then an idea formed in his head.

Discord focused on one single white spot, which was insanely difficult in this place, closed his eyes and concentrated. He imagined something that Fluttershy would like to be. He heard a magical sound and opened his eyes. Right where there had only been white, there was now a lovely pink and yellow tree. It worked! Then again, was there ever any doubt, in fact, he probably didn't even need to close his eyes! Concentrating was for ponies. He was the King of Chaos after all.

Discord focused on another spot of pure white and simply snapped his fingers, instantly, a big rock sprung out of the ground. This was amazing! Of course he had limited control over the world, but it was nothing compared to his control over this dimension! In a surge of power, he snapped in all directions, laughing like a maniac as he did so. The dimension easily bent to his will, trees sprung everywhere, streets paved themselves and best of all, statues of Discord himself rose from the ground, each doing a different pose.

This was great, fantastic even, but he still felt like something was missing, something important. He snapped his fingers as he realized what was wrong and accidentally created a fountain of water to burst from the ground. Smiling in embarrassment, Discord snapped away the water and concentrated on his new project, one that he didn't have much experience in. He had to manipulate a large concentration of energy in here to achieve this feat, but he tried it anywhere.

First he swirled the energy in the base of the body itself, then he worked on creating the legs for his creation, then the head, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, organs and everything else that went into a pony. (He wasn't an egghead.) When he was done he backed away from his still glowing masterpiece, this truly was his greatest creation... if it was alive. 

"Please excuse me if I bother you but I was just wondering if you could breathe." Discord called over to the immobile creature.

No response.

"You know, it's rude to ignore other people." Discord called once more.

Still no response. Discord morphed into a hydra and screeched as loud as he could into the ear of the unconscious pony. Not even a stir. Discord morphed back to his normal (at least as normal as Discord can get) form, hovered onto the rock and sighed. "Oh it's no use, I'll never wake that ungrateful little pony."

"Who's there?!" The formerly unconscious colt shouted as he flew on his feet.

Discord yelped in surprise and fell on his back.

"Oh my gosh! Are you okay?" Asked the colt as he raced over to Discord.

Discord soared into the air laughing like a maniac once again. "Okay kid. you get props for surprising me, but if you ever play dead again, I'll hand you over to Pinkamena." 

"Oh, I wasn't playing, my body was starting up all my new organs and functions- wait, who's... Pinkamena?" The colt responded with a confused expression.

"Uhhh- so I see you have a cutie mark! Let me see here... HAHAHAHAHA!" Discord immediately started crackling when he saw the mark on the young colt's flank.

"What? What is... are you kidding me?!" On the colt's flank was a portrait of Discord's claw giving the thumbs up signal.

Discord stopped laughing long enough to transport behind the colt. "That's too rich! You're special talent in life was being created by me! HAHA! It's just too much!" 

"Ugh, I can't believe this, well the least you can do for me now is give me a name!" The colt demanded.

Discord abruptly stopped laughing and began examining the colt. He was an Earth pony with red eyes and a dark blue mane, his colors didn't seem to match too well, but he was the result of chaos after all.

"Hmm, how about Snare Trap?" Discord offered.

"But, that has nothing to do with me." He responded.

"Exactly, glad we had this talk Snare. Now if you don't mind, we have a lot of chaos to create in our brand new dimension!" Discord shouted to the heavens.

"Who are you yelling at?" Snare Trap asked.

"Who cares?" Discord asked as he flew forward and motioned Snare Trap to follow.

This was the start of a beautiful partnership... and chaos, don't forget the chaos.

> They're Here
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Snare Trap trotted alongside Discord in the endless dimension, a barrage of questions planted themselves into his artificial head. All of the questions were probably ones that Discord could answer, (well if he was cooperative) but probably wouldn't, still it couldn't hurt to try. After all, if he was going to roam this dimension with Discord forever, it would be on his terms! Who was he kidding? He would be lucky to get one answer out of Discord. Nevertheless, Snare decided to go with the question that would be the easiest for Discord to answer. 

"Discord, why did you give me this horrible color scheme?" Snare Trap asked with a childlike innocence. 

"You think it's horrible? Well that hurts, it really does." Discord faked sadness.

Snare Trap sighed, of course anything involving Discord wouldn't be easy. "Oh c'mon, I have like the weirdest colors ever. Just look at this!"

Discord grew eyes in the side of his head and looked over Snare Trap once. Now that he thought about it, Discord's powers were a little frightening. A strange thought for one who was literally created by Discord's abilities, but he was a thoughtful real-fake pony after all. 

"Forgive me, but I'm not seeing the problem here, I think your design is wonderful, inspired, one might even say... cool!" Discord created a giant thumbs up paw to emphasize his point. 

Snare Trap frowned and lowered his head at this. All he wanted was to do was question the strange pattern of his hair colors to his spirit of chaos creator, now was that so hard? Discord got the message and made the giant paw vanish into midair.

"Don't be so glum, chummy chum chum!" Discord playfully punched Snare's shoulder to little effect. "Wipe that frown off your  crown! You live in a dimension where we can create anything we want, whenever we want, unless it makes sense, because that's just no fun."

Snare Trap stopped trotting and lifted his head to where he was staring his "father" in the face, although he knew there was no way he looked even the least bit threatening, it was worth a shot. "You mean that you can create anything you want, whenever you want, which leads me to my next question, why don't I have powers? You created me, the least you could do is give at least a portion of your abilities!"

Discord threw back his head and let out a gasp that was clearly rehearsed. "Now listen here my ungrateful little pony, I made you to be my sidekick and sidekicks don't get cool powers, understood?"

Discord stared right back at Snare Trap's eyes with double the force of his stare. Now that he was staring directly into the chaos god's piercing yellow eyes, he lost all of his will to fight back and simply felt like submitting to whatever Discord said. Snare looked away, unable to allow himself to be controlled by Discord's chaos vision any longer, which was strange and horrifying because Discord wasn't using his vision powers, he was just simply staring at him.

He looked ahead into the endless depths of the mostly blank dimension. "Fine, I'll drop it for now, but this isn't over."

"Marvelous!" Discord snapped back into his joyful mood. "Now let's discuss where we want to place the bowling alley, I'm thinking next to the all-you-can't-eat chaotic dinner theater, but then there's the bottomless pit to consider..."





It's always sunny in Canterlot, no matter what anypony thought about the city, the one thing that stood true above all else is the fact it simply has good weather 24/7. Nopony knows if it's because Princess Celestia wills it to be, or if Canterlot is just such a nice city that even the weather is nice. Actually, since Canterlot is mostly made of snobs, ignore that last thought. These were the thoughts going through Twilight Sparkle's head as she stepped off the train from Ponyville and stared into the sunny sky, letting out a sigh of happiness in the process. 

"What'cha staring at, Twilight?" Pinkie Pie asked as she happily bounced out of the train behind Twilight.

Twilight smiled and playfully rolled her eyes at her pink friend's caring and yet random nature, even if it could be a tad bit annoying at times. "There's not much to stare at in the afternoon sky is there, Pinkie?"

Pinkie continued to bounce in a circle around Twilight as she answered. "Well, usually there's just the sun, and looking at the sun hurts a lot, especially if you don't look away fast enough, so I figured you weren't looking at the sun, but you were looking at the sky, so I thought that maybe you saw something else like a balloon or a rock or- ooo! Maybe a flying house!"

Not knowing where to begin, Twilight merely stared at Pinkie and asked "A flying house?"

Pinkie nodded her head at the speed of light and stopped abruptly five seconds later. She turned a quarter-circle to the left as her eyes widened. "Oh. My. Gosh. They added a new bakery since we've last been here!" Pinkie leaped into the air and took off in the direction she was pointed at.

Even after all this time she and Pinkie had been friends, it was still a little hard to just shrug off her randomness, then again, you're not supposed to be prepared for randomness, right? Soon her other four friends joined her outside the train. Knowing that her purple friend was deep in thought, Rainbow Dash snicked to herself as she sneakily flew to the far right and zoomed to the far left, leaving a bright rainbow-speckled trail right in front Twilight's face. She yelped and leaped backwards into Applejack who was last to leave the train.

"Rainbow Dash! What was that for?" Twilight demanded as she jumped off of Applejack who was slowly getting back on her hooves.

"Thanks for the help, Twilight." Applejack mumbled sarcastically as she stretched out her body.

"Because it was funny, duh!" Came Rainbow's joyful reply. Upon a quick turnaround in midair, she realized that her marefriend was nowhere to be seen. "Hey, where'd Pinkie Pie go?"

"She trotted- well, more like rocketed off to check some new bakery out."

Rainbow settled on the ground and began trotting into the city. "Well, we better catch her before she does something...pink, c'mon slowpokes!"

"Sometimes I wonder why we bring Pinkie on these little trips of ours if she's just going to be a distraction." Rarity chided as she began trotting after Rainbow.

"Rarity. Pinkie's our friend, we simply must invite her." Fluttershy softly criticized as she trotted alongside Rarity.

"I know darling, I just don't think that we can afford to be delayed by even a minute when it's the princess that we're delaying."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think the princess can...wait, until we make sure Pinkie isn't causing the destruction of Canterlot, again." Twilight said as she paced next to her friends while she glanced around nervously.

"Quit your worryin' Twilight... that is, if you are worryin' about somethin' sometimes Ah just can't tell." Applejack half reassured her friend.

Twilight returned her attention to the sky, in reality, she was wondering what the princess wanted this time. She didn't dare say it out loud, or even think it too hard, but the constant trips to and from Canterlot to receive some epic quest that might cost her her life could get a little frustrating at times. It wasn't that she didn't want to be her most faithful student, she just wished she could visit Canterlot for some time with her friends and family, instead of fending off invasions. Any thought she would have had after that was interrupted by a BANG! Followed by an equally loud "HOW DARE YOU!"





"If it says 'Grand opening' then shouldn't it have a party?" Pinkie Pie asked happily as she munched on her slightly squashed cupcake while Rainbow Dash laughed hysterically behind her.

"Pinkie!" Twilight shouted as she magically combed the frosting out of her mane. "Just because they're celebrating something doesn't mean they need confetti!"

"It kinda does." Rainbow called out when she finally stopped laughing long enough to calm down.

Applejack was combing the frosting out of Fluttershy's mane with her hoof while she whimpered softly, meanwhile Rarity trotted up to them after fleeing the scene when they starting throwing cupcakes everywhere shouting "My hair!" while she galloped off. "The nerve of them, launching pastries at us like that, you'd think they would have more common sense than that."

"What the hay are you talkin' about? We were the ones takin' all the hits while you were off who know's where!" Applejack snapped while she rubbed the frosting off her hooves.

"I-It wasn't s-so bad." Fluttershy tried to interject even though she shaking uncontrollably, the memory of the recent attack on her and her friends still fresh in her mind... and her hair.

"Honesty though, was the party cannon really necessary?" Twilight pondered as she estimated how long it would take to reach the castle now.

"Duh! Like I said, they really needed a party." Pinkie responded as she reloaded the mentioned cannon that appeared in thin air.

Twilight rolled her eyes like that and turned on Rainbow. "And you didn't do a thing to stop this like maybe, I don't know, pull her away or even explain the situation?"

Rainbow fidgeted with her mane. "Well, I was going to do something like that, but Pinkie handed me a cupcake and it was really good, so, uh... actually I thought it'd be funny so I just sat back and watched, sorry." Rainbow admitted with a faint tint of red appearing on her cheeks.

Twilight facehooved and slowly dragged it down her face. "Well, that's just great!"

"I said I was sorry!" Rainbow called from behind her.

"Not that!" Twilight responded angrily. "We've spent too much time on this, we need to get to the castle right now!"

Applejack stamped her sticky hooves in frustration. "No use, we have to use magic."

"That's a lot of energy for all six of us, let's just start galloping, like right now." Twilight responded.

"Ah mean this blasted frosting, it's not comin' out of Fluttershy's mane!" Applejack gestured to Fluttershy who was tightly curled in a ball muttering nonsense about "The sugar."

Twilight magically (and roughly) combed all the frosting out of Fluttershy's hair and levitated her onto her hooves while she continued to whimper softly. "Now let's go already!"





As soon as the six friends burst into the castle, they could tell by the look on Princess Celestia's face that their bad luck was showing. It truly was amazing how many things can go wrong in one day. After they raced off in the direction of the castle, Twilight went through a number of ways to explain to the princess why they were late, but she lost her train of thought when her and her friends were halted by a stallion who told them that they had to wait like everypony else. Twilight was about to tell him off for speaking nonsense when she noticed that there was a long line leading up to the castle doors. As Twilight attempted to explain that she had an audience with the princess, the stallion got physical, which resulted in Rainbow Dash getting physical, which, of course, resulted in an all-out brawl right in front of the castle.

"G-good afternoon, Princess Celestia." Twilight stammered out as she poorly attempted to trot calmly up to Celestia's throne and bow respectfully. 

The other five didn't even attempt to hide their bad luck as they copied Twilight. As they got up, Twilight put on a large smile which might have worked if her friends didn't collapse around her from exhaustion. "We might have run into a bit of trouble on the way over here."

"Did you now? I was wondering what that explosion was, I was about to send a team of guards to investigate." Celestia said coolly. 

"Heh, yeah that was us, but we also may have, sorta, accidentally-"

"We started a fight!" Rainbow Dash shouted proudly.

"Rainbow!" Twilight scolded.

"A fight? That sounds like a story I'd want to hear." Celestia replied.

Twilight couldn't help but admire how calm her teacher always was, even in times of chaos. She hoped to achieve that level of demeanor one day, but she obviously still had a long ways to go. "Well actually princess, there's not much to tell, I don't know if you noticed, but you have an angry line of ponies waiting outside... well now they're brawling outside, hehe."

"Yes, I've taken notice, it's actually part of the reason that I've called you all here, you're all familiar with Discord." Celestia stated while glancing at her side.

At the mention of their enemy-turned-friend, everypony had different reactions. Rainbow Dash rose into the air and crossed her forelegs, Pinkie Pie face turned into a confused expression, Rarity huffed and tilted her head upward, Applejack kicked at the ground a few times and Fluttershy sat up straight and stopped muttering. "Has something happened to him?" She asked immediately.

"That's why you're all here, after Discord and I had a minor disagreement, he stormed off, technically speaking of course. He was last seen heading into the woods, I would send a fleet of guards to find him, but I doubt they would have any luck. Without Discord here, I'm unable to solve the problems of my more needy subjects, therefore, you must bring him back here as soon as possible. "

Rainbow Dash landed, looking angry. "So we finally got Discord out of our lives, and now you want us to waste our time looking for him, only to bring him back in?! You've gotta be kidd-"

"We'll do our best, princess." Fluttershy interrupted.

Rainbow Dash was too distracted by the fact that she just got interrupted by Fluttershy of all ponies, to continue her rant.

"I have the utmost confidence in your success." Celestia replied, ignoring Rainbow Dash's anger.

"Let's go, girls!" Twilight called as she bowed one last time and ran to the castle doors.

The others followed suit, even the reluctant multi-colored Pegasus. "Can't believe this..." 

It does feel odd to go out of their way to set Discord straight when he even remotely steps out of line, but what could they do? Anything for the princess... at least that's how things seem to play out. How would Princess Celestia even react if Twilight decided to reject her order for once? No, she couldn't even think about disobeying the princess, that would have consequences, not just for her, but for Equestria. 

As soon as the doors opened again, it was clear that the brawl didn't even begin to show signs of slowing down. Ponies were still trading blows left and right, not to mention the occasional blast of magic and floating Pegasus feathers. Twilight looked over her shoulder to see if the princess was seeing this, but she seemed to have gone into another room as soon the doors opened. Twilight mentally sighed and turned to her friends.

"Okay girls, there's no way we can risk going back in there." She gestured to the chaos behind her. "So does anypony have any ideas?"

Twilight searched her friend's faces for answers, none of them seemed to be thinking very hard anyway, and Fluttershy had an entirely different game face on. As she wondered what to do, she noticed that somepony was missing. As she resisted the urge to facehoof again, she scanned Pinkie's face for an answer to confirm her fears. Pinkie put on a nervous smile and pulled a cyan cupcake out of nowhere. 

Oh no. Twilight thought as she slowly turned towards the battle, only to see a colorful blur moving through the crowd, making ponies fly around. How did she even get by me?

Twilight had half a mind to tell Rainbow Dash off for willingly throwing herself back into the battle until Applejack gestured at Rainbow. "Wait y'all! Look at what she's doin'." 

She took a closer look at the blur moving around without rhyme or reason. At first she saw nothing, but then she realized that Rainbow seemed to be pushing ponies aside down the middle of the crowd instead of at random. It seemed like she was making... a path. It she didn't know better, she could have sworn a light bulb went off over her head.

"Everypony, run down the middle!" Twilight shouted to her friends as she took the lead. 

As she entered the ridiculous of this schoolyard brawl, she knew that this wasn't going to die down anytime soon. It felt like negative energy was radiating off these normally civil ponies as she ran past. The look of murder staring daggers at anypony unlucky enough to be caught in their field of vision. Why were they like this? Is it really so bad that their needs weren't getting listened to? Then again, their situations were similar to hers in a way... she had to stop thinking like that.

As they reached the other side, she looked over her shoulder to make sure the others were following her and was surprised to see that Fluttershy was galloping right at her side. It was amazing what determination could do to this shy mare, especially if it's a friend doing it. Finally, they exited the crowd and entered the forest. Rainbow Dash joined them a few minutes later.

"I'll take my compliments now, thank you very much." She said confidently as she flew in front of them.

"Your plan was crazy and ill-advised." Twilight mumbled.

Rainbow shot her a glance and did a barrel roll so that she was facing forwards. "I didn't see any of you coming up with anything."

Twilight opened her mouth to argue but got interrupted by Applejack. "Look, we made it through, does it really matter? How about we focus on what to do next?"

As usual, Applejack was right, what did they do now? It was unlikely that Discord was just sitting on a rock in the middle of the forest, but then again, it was unlikely of Discord to do anything. Either way, he wouldn't have walked far in the forest without doing something. 

"Let's stop in the clearing up ahead and look around." Twilight stated.

They slowed to trot as they entered the wide area in the forest. As Twilight trotted around, she could feel something off here, off in a mystic sense of the word. "Can anypony else feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"I can feel the filthy mud on my delicate hooves."

"What are you talking about, egghead?"

"Does it feel like a kumquat?"

"I can't feel anything."

If none of her friends can feel it, then it must be because it has a relation to magic. She did have a new spell to uncover dark presence but this wasn't dark, at least it didn't feel dark... she better cast it anyway, better to be safe than sorry. She surged magic into her horn and released it into the form of a purple wave washing over the specific area. Nothing happened. Well, on to the next spell she supposed. As she readied her magic to perform the next spell, a small spark appeared in mid air. She wouldn't even had noticed if the spark didn't release a powerful wave of magic afterwards.

"What the?" Twilight thought aloud as she backed away from the area.

Her friends ran to her side as the spark reappeared slightly larger than before.

"Twilight? What was that?" Asked Applejack.

She opened her mouth to respond, but the portal that blasted into existence interrupted her. The portal was more like a giant ball of magic than anything else, but she knew it was a portal because it was created by a familiar form of magic.

"This feels... familiar." Twilight said as she rubbed her chin.

"Is it gonna eat us?" Pinkie asked happily. "Because I don't think we taste very good, but it's gotta eat something right? Whoa!" She shouted as the portal turned on it's vacuum mode and sucked Pinkie Pie in it.

They all gasped and backed away except for Rainbow Dash who shouted "Pinkie!" And flew after her marefriend straight into the large glowing orb. By now, the other three were shrieking excitedly as they looked to each to decide what to do.

"We can't just stand here! That thing ate our friends!" Applejack yelled, pointing at the portal like it was some kind of monster.

"Well we can't just leap in there, we don't even know where it leads to!" Twilight said with uncertainty in her voice.

It was true that they didn't know where the portal lead to, but their friends were in there somewhere and they couldn't just leave them there. 

"The longer we stand around, we more time we're wastin'. YEE-HAW!" Applejack yelled as she charged into the portal.

Down to three. Now three of their friends have entered a one-way portal... what point was there anymore?

"C'mon girls." Twilight said calmly as she levitated herself, Rarity and Fluttershy directly into the portal.

Travelling across time and space through a mysterious portal they knew nothing about wasn't as bad as one would think. Everything was a calm white, and it actually felt slightly pleasant, like you were at peace... at least until she was launched out of it like a cannonball. She hit the ground snout first and let out a yelp of pain while she held her pained snout. She let go of her snout for a moment to feel the ground below her, the ground was smooth and white, she definitely entered another dimension entirely.

After hearing a soft yelp of pain and an over-dramatic yelp behind her, she could confirm that they landed in the same area, now if she could only look up, she could find out where- is that a goat leg in front of her? With a dragon leg right next to it? There was only one being she knew with that type of body, and his voice speaking loud and clear in her ears only further confirmed her fears.

"I've been expecting you, Ms. Sparkle."
































> Bowling Blues
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

If anypony—literally anypony else was in a situation like the one Twilight was in, they would feel extreme emotions that they probably wouldn't even be able to control. But as she directed her eyesight onto the mismatch of a creature before her, while laying on the floor of an alternate dimension with no clear way back, all she felt was annoyance. 

“Discord!” Twilight shouted as she picked herself up from the ground. “I—you—w-what gives?” As the mixed-up mess of words escaped her muzzle, she could immediately tell that she could have chosen a better set of words. Or maybe an actual sentence that made sense.

“And I thought I was the expert in chaos,” Discord rubbed his chin with all three of his paws. “But it appears I have some competition from ‘Twilight the Great Sentence-Former!’ That actually has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” 

Of course talking to Discord just made her even more annoyed at the world, what was she expecting, to feel better? “This isn’t a joke, what are you doing here? What even is this place anyway? And who is that strangely-colored pony with you?”

“Oh, this is Snare Trap, isn't he just the coolest?” answered not Discord, but Pinkie Pie, who suddenly appeared behind the pony. “Discord made him all by himself, we’re so proud of him, aren't we Rainbow Dash?”

The aforementioned Pegasus shrugged in absolute confusion as she hovered above them. She didn't look nearly as confused as Snare Trap himself, though. “I haven’t even said one word to you, how could you possibly have known that?”

“Just roll with it, darling,” Rarity assured the bewildered colt. “If there’s anypony you should never question, It’s Pinkie.” The party pony smiled in response.

“Uh, can we start focusing on the important stuff here?” Applejack wondered aloud. “Tellin' us where we are sure would be a great start, Discord.”

“Oh, Applejack, what a silly pony,” Discord chuckled. “We’re wherever you want to be, I would've thought that would be obvious. Maybe I should hang a really big sign or something.”

“You’re not seriously going to start going all crazy on us right now of all times, are you?” Rainbow frowned at the spirit of chaos.

“Rest assured, I’m not ‘going all crazy’ on you. Especially since I’m always crazy, but back on topic, this is my own little dimension that I found. It turns out I can manipulate it anyway I want as easy as one, two, four. How about that?”

An entire dimension made of a type of matter that Discord can bend to his will whenever he wants? If that didn't sound like a ticking time bomb ready to blow, nothing did. Deciding to analyze this strange and likely dangerous material, Twilight cast a spell that allowed her to process the feel of anything the spell analyzed and send it back into her brain. Magic and science, two polar opposites met as Twilight continued the spell. The results flowed into her brain faster than she thought, and harder than she thought too, because as soon as it entered her head, she lost consciousness.

“Twilight? Oh my goodness!” Fluttershy's hushed tones of concern were the last sounds that she heard before she passed out completely.





“Is she waking up yet?” Squeaks of curiosity echoed in her head.

“Nnnope.” Replied a bored voice.

“How about now?”

“Nnnnope.”

“She has to be waking up now!”

“Actually I think she just flatlined.”

“WHAT?!” shouted multiple voices.

“Just kidding! She’s waking up.”

A wooden ceiling came into view as Twilight’s pained eyes slowly forced themselves open. A lavender hoof came to rest on her forehead as she massaged her throbbing skull. Every thought felt like a tiny nail lodging itself in her brain. She attempted to think back to what could have happened earlier to cause this pain. She was in the middle of crossing off casting a backfiring spell when it hit her (perhaps too literally as it still hurt to think), the analyze spell she cast, it worked a little too well on the matter of the dimension that was made up of— 

“Chaos!” Twilight shouted as she sat up in her surprisingly comfortable bed. “Everything in this awful dimension is made up of a form of solidified chaos. That’s why Discord can control it so well!”

The group of friends (and Discord) surrounding her in the large cabin they were all located in looked at her with confused eyes. Applejack broke the silence. “Sugarcube are you sure your brain is working okay?”

“It has to be! Discord said that he fixed it all better, right?” Pinkie asked.

“Well, technically, all I did was was poof up a bed and a fancy log cabin, but it’s the thought that counts right?” Discord shrugged with all four of his arms.

“Not when somepony's got a massive headache ya jerk!” Rainbow yelled.

“My brain’s fine now,” Twilight rubbed her massive eyes. “Well, not entirely, it hurts when I think and I think my eyes are trying to kill themselves, but the smart side of my brain is fine. Listen, the matter here is definitely unstable to the point of chaos, I think something may have been here once, but it destroyed itself and was reduced to this white space.”

“Whoa, so the reason you passed out is because you sent that stuff into your brain and messed it up?” Rainbow patted her own head.

“I think so.” Twilight nodded, which was a big mistake.

“That’s... awesome! Send something into my brain, like a cloud! That would be the coolest thin—” Twilight’s piercing glare cut off the rest of Rainbow’s sentence.

“Or not. Uhh, Discord, we came here to take you back to Princess Celestia so that you’ll go back to doing what you said you’d do, remember?”

“Hmm, I’m gonna have to pass on that, but you’re welcome to stay in my apparently dangerously unstable home for as long as you want.” Discord snapped his fingers and an entire bowling alley grew out of the once wooden wall. He flashed in front of one of the lanes holding a custom ball embedded with his face on it. With one paw covering his eyes, Discord turned the opposite direction and threw the bowling ball. With expert accuracy the ball flew through the pins which all exploded, resulting in a perfect strike. “Haha! See? We have fun here.”

Making his presence known, Snare Trap trotted up to his creator. “Discord, if you have a duty somewhere else, you should live up to it. It’s what I would do.”

“Yes, but despite being one of my creations, you’re actually pretty boring sooo yeah.” He went back to his overly perfect game of bowling. 

Unsuccessful in his goal, Snare Trap trotted back to the group of ponies still on the cabin side of the strange building. “Well, he didn't listen to me, so I don’t think you’ll be able to convince him, unless you know someone who has experience with crazy people.”

Instantly, five sets of eyes found themselves on the shy pony at the edge of Twilight’s bed. “Me? Oh no, just because we’re friends—”

“Open your eyes, Fluttershy,” said Rainbow. “We all know you’re the only one he’ll ever listen to. He doesn’t even listen to Princess Celestia for pony’s sake.”

“There has to be a reason he doesn't want to go back, maybe we just have to figure out what it is and help him through it.” Fluttershy offered.

“And by we you mean yourself right? Because like I said, he’ll only listen to you.”

Seeing that she was going to have to go through with this task, anyway, Fluttershy looked directly at Snare Trap. “What?” 

“Can you help too? I’m sure he’ll listen to you if you try hard enough, you’re kinda his son.”

“Believe me, he sees me more of a sidekick than a son, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to try again. It’s not like I can say no with that look you’re giving me.”

Fluttershy blinked innocently despite the fact that her face was basically giving off mind controlling waves of cuteness. “Huh? What look?”

Snare shook his head to make sure he wasn't hypnotized. “N-nevermind, let’s go waste five minutes of our time.”

The shy Pegasus and artificial Earth pony trotted back to the bowling Draconequus, the one thing they had in common. Sure he wasn't the best of friends to Snare Trap, but he definitely meant well, most of the time anyway. It wasn't like Snare had anyone else, maybe Discord could make him some friends, as soon as he was done playing perfect games in bowling that is.

“Um, Discord, I think we need to talk,” Fluttershy stated with authority that Snare would have never expected based on her appearance and personality. 

“Ah, Fluttershy! My dear friend, oh how I never get tired of that word. Want to play? I don’t mean to scare you, but I’m kinda winning.” That was the understatement of the year, Discord hadn't scored lower than a perfect strike the entire seemingly endless game. 

“No, thank you. Actually about that, you really need to stop what you’re doing and go help Princess Celestia back in Canterlot.”

Discord unsurprisingly scored another perfect strike and turned to face his friend. “Tell me, if you had to attend a boring meeting but your butterfly friends invited you to their butterfly social, which one would you rather do?”

Of course you could leave it to Discord to give you trick questions. At first, Fluttershy would just have said the meeting, just to help convince Discord, but even though she wasn't the element of honesty, she found it nearly impossible to lie to her friends (not to mention Discord would surely know if she was lying).

“I would want to go to the social,” Fluttershy made sure to word her answer carefully. “But as long as I had business to attend to, I just wouldn't be able to make time for fun. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

“Well of course I do, I’m not a child,” Discord stopped bowling... for all of five seconds, then he picked up another ball. “I hear what you’re saying, but I just can’t comprehend it long enough to actually care, no offense.” The sound of pins knocking together and then exploding signaled another perfect strike.

Certain that she failed in her task, Fluttershy tilted her head to signal that it was Snare Trap’s turn to try. He sighed and slowly trotted up to Discord, who was still enjoying his effortless game of bowling (doesn't this guy have any other hobbies?).

“Blah, blah, go back to work or I’ll set your toes on fire,” Snare monotonically threatened. 

“Meh, go ahead, it feels like a miniature snow storm,” at this point the scoreboard was absolutely useless as even when Discord threw the ball in the opposite direction, it homed in on the pins and completely destroyed them.

“Seriously, you have to go with them, if you just slack off and do whatever you want, no work is gonna get done and then everything is going to become chaotic.”

Discord dropped his bowling ball and starting laughing maniacally, his other hobby. “S-so your argument is that if I don’t return to Equestria, chaos will spread everywhere, good argument, you’re good at making points.” The dropped ball still zoomed into the pins, earning one more perfect on top of the mountain of them.

“Why are you being such a jerk?” Seeing that the two they sent in failed, the other five joined them, with Rainbow Dash in the lead. “You said you’d be good, you can’t be good in here!”

“Not true, I’m very good in here, haven’t you seen my score?” Discord gestured to his impossibly high score on the scoreboard. Rainbow’s cyan blue face began turning red in anger.

“She’s right, ow, even though you’re not technically misbehaving, you’re still not doing what you promised, ow, and if you continue then we’re going to do something about it, ow!” Twilight’s speech was interrupted by her still-aching head.

Discord sighed. “Look, you don’t know how boring it is to devote your formerly chaotic life to fixing problems instead of causing them. I just can’t stand it, that’s why I came here. No one to tell me what to do, no one to tell me not to overdo it, everything is bendable to my will, nothing is restricted, this is paradise for me, and as my friends, I can’t believe you would try to take it from me. Shame on you, shame on you all.”

Fluttershy lowered her head while Rainbow raised hers in outcry. “I’m not your fri—”

“We understand, Discord,” Twilight assured him. “We get that you found somewhere you can be happy, if we were in your place, we would probably act the same way, but there has to be a compromise, maybe you can talk to Celestia about when you get to come here when you’re not working, like a break. That could work, right?”  

“Yeah, right, Her Royal Highness would never trust me enough to follow her rules. She would never trust me period.”

“Of course she trusts you, why would you think otherwise?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because she couldn't even trust me long me enough to come back on my own, she had to send you in to retrieve me like I’m a missing puppy. I know why too, she only needs me for my powers, she doesn't care about me, and I thought I was evil. Well I won’t go where I’m not properly wanted, Discord is out, peace!” With that, Discord flashed away.

“Discord!” Twilight rushed forward, but run into nothing. “I-I didn't know he felt like that, did any of you know he felt like that?”

Her friends all shook their head, or offered a verbal response that said that they didn't know. All except for one.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight stepped towards her friend. “Did you know? Or not?” 

The Pegasus raised her head, in her normally hopeful eyes, there was only sadness, the kind that said a mistake had been made. “I assumed he felt that way, but I didn't know for sure, I didn't want to pressure him into doing something that made him miserable, so I didn't try very hard to convince him, I’m sorry.”

Twilight found it impossible to be angry at Fluttershy, no matter the situation, so she backed down. “I understand, and I forgive you, but we have to find a solution to th—does anypony else hear that?”

They tried to listen for the mysterious sound, but none of them heard anything, well, except for Snare Trap. “Seriously, not one of you hear that? I think I can actually feel it.”

“Exactly, it’s like... everypony get outside now!” Twilight bolted for the door on the other side of the cabin/bowling alley. The others followed, albeit somewhat confused while they did. Opening the door with magic, Twilight made sure they all got out safely, and took a step away from the building.

“Twilight, what are you going on about? I told you we should've let Discord take a look at your brain.” Applejack told off her friend.

“My brain is fine, well maybe not, but I definitely heard something, and Snare Trap heard it too, and... felt it?”

“Yeah, it was weird, kind of like a part of me hurt that wasn't even there.”  

“Like a phantom pain.” Twilight offered.

“Sure, whatever that is. I just know it was weird and—ugh—it’s still happening!”   

He was right, Twilight could still hear it and it was getting louder. 

“What’s happening to this place?” Rainbow gestured at the strange building.

Just by glancing at it, Twilight saw nothing wrong, but by really looking at it, she saw something really weird, Something that probably shouldn't happen to most buildings.

It was melting.

The corners and top of it were becoming liquid and sliding down the front and sides of itself. The glop that hit the bottom lost color and faded in with the white floor of the entire dimension.

“Oh no,” Twilight realized what was happening to it, and it wasn't good. “No, it’s still happening, it hasn't stopped!”

“What’s still happening?” Pinkie asked. 

Twilight merely continued to gesture at the melting monstrosity. What started at the corners spread to the rest of it. Soon the entire structure was reduced to a giant pile of goop on the ground. A second later, it also turned white and merged with the floor. Where there had once been a strange hybrid of a cabin and a bowling alley with one player, there was now absolutely nothing. There wasn't even any trace that something once stood there.

“Whoa.” Rainbow exclaimed in awe.

“Snare Trap, has this happened often?”

“Yeah, yeah I think it has actually, earlier Discord made a bunch of stuff pop up and it’s not here anymore, I didn't even realize it until now. Is this going to happen to everything that Discord makes out of this material?”

“I think it’s going to happen to anything Discord made in here period. Even if he used his regular powers to create it, the unstable nature of this dimension would just absorb the chaos of the creation into itself. Just being in this place could be a death sentence.”

“How dreadful, we should exit this place at once.” Rarity insisted.

“We can’t leave without Discord,” Twilight argued. “We came here to take him back to the princess and we’re not leaving until we do just that. Besides, we literally can’t leave without him, there’s no way out of this place.”

“But Twilight, that goopy goop is in your brain isn't it? What’ll happen to you?” Pinkie’s blue eyes were filled with worry, not unlike Fluttershy’s sadness.

“I’ll be fine, I think.” Twilight was extremely unsure of her statement. Technically the actual matter wasn't in her brain, but it still acted as though it was. She even felt what Snare Trap felt, and he was completely made of the stuff. A cog seemed to turn in Twilight’s head at her most recent revelation. She turned to Snare to see if he was thinking what she was thinking. The worried look in his eyes seemed to confirm that they were both thinking the same thing.

The matter erased itself, and Snare Trap was entirely made of that matter.

> Incoming Feels
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sad look on Twilight Sparkle’s face told Snare Trap exactly what he was afraid of. Discord created him with the chaotic matter in the dimension; when his time was up, he would become the white space. Great, he had only been alive for...well, he didn’t know how time worked in the chaotic dimension, but it wasn’t long! He enjoyed having a brain and talking, and thinking, and he just couldn’t go back to being nothing. He just...couldn’t. 

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash broke the silence. “We’ve got a problem, and it’s a big one. Now we just need a solution. Any ideas, Twilight?”

Twilight broke their staring contest and cleared her throat. 

“Before we decide on anything, we need to find Discord. We literally can’t do anything about this until we’ve discussed this with him.”

“I was actually looking for an answer that didn’t involve Discord,” Rainbow Dash coldly responded. “There’s no way that nutcase will help us now, besides, he probably left us here to get absorbed into this place like the jerk he is.”

“Rainbow,” Fluttershy piped up. “Would it really be so hard to have a little faith in Discord just this once? Sure, he’s not the nicest pony; he’s not even a pony, but he’s not evil either.”

“Fluttershy, when are you—”

“She’s right,” Snare Trap interrupted. “He’s not perfect, nor does he try to be, but Discord isn’t nearly as bad as you think he is. He has issues just like everyone else.”

“Yeah, if everypony was a psychotic jerk who did what they wanted when they wanted!” Rainbow rudely countered. 

“Is it even possible to get through to your thick skull?” Snare Trap snapped.

“I don’t know, why don’t you come over here and find out?” Rainbow scowled.

“STOP!” Pinkie Pie said very dramatically. “No more fighting from either of you. Dashie, if you don’t apologize right this millisecond, then no more snuggling for you.”

A look of panic flashed across Rainbow’s face before she appeared inches away from his face and muttered very quickly.

"I'msorryitwon'thappenagain."

“Um, apology accepted, I think?” Snare uncertainly said. 

“Yay,” Pinkie celebrated. “Now that we’re all friends again, we should go find Discord before we all die here.” With that slightly depressing note, she trotted off in a completely random direction.

“She’s a strange one,” Snare Trap commented.

“Yup, and she’s all mine,” Rainbow said happily as she flew off to join her marefriend.

Snare Trap understood emotions well, but the fact that two ponies could share their emotions to form a relationship still confused him. He understood paternal and maternal bonds because that was just natural. He also understood that finding a mate is also natural, but to him, it just wasn’t. He still wasn’t sure if natural concepts went over his head because he was artificial or because Discord just made that way.

Although for a being of chaos, creating something without emotions sounds boring. If there was one thing Discord hated, it was boredom. So then why would he leave Snare Trap without any trace of emotional understanding? When they found him, Discord had a lot of explaining to do.

“Should we follow them?” Fluttershy’s voice startled Snare Trap (which was extremely ironic).

“You know how hard it is to deter Pinkie once she’s set her mind to something,” Twilight smiled. “Let’s just catch up to them.”

Even in the face of their own destruction, these ponies still had the energy to joke and love one another. Snare Trap couldn’t decide if he respected this, or thought that it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard of. 

“Do y’all have any idea where we’re goin’?” Applejack asked as they caught up to them.

“Not a clue,” Pinkie happily responded. “Oh, wait! I do have a clue! This way has the most chaotic feeling to it, and where we find chaos, we find Discord!”

He had never heard anything that made so much and so little sense at the same time. 

“Well, if you say so,” Twilight agreed with a nod of her head.

How could someone as logical as Twilight just go along with that nonsensical statement?

“We’ll find that jerk Discord before we know it!” Rainbow Dash confidently stated.

Even Rainbow Dash, who spoke her mind no matter what, had appeared to be convinced by this plan. If they were complete strangers, would they still have listened to each other as much as they did now? The problem with that thinking is that just by looking, or listening to these six; anyone could tell that they were born to become friends. He had to confirm a theory of his.

“Excuse me,” Snare spoke up. “What’s the situation surrounding you all and Discord? I know he has an agreement to fulfill, but I don’t know the details.”

“Long story short,” Twilight began, “Discord was somehow freed from his prison and after a frustrating series of events, we used our friendship to fuel the Elements of Harmony, defeating Discord again. That is, until recently when Princess Celestia told us to reform him, which Fluttershy handled all on her own. He’s supposed to be helping out in Canterlot right now, but here we are now.”

“Twilight, even though you said long story short, that was still a long story,” Rainbow Dash commented.

“Well, you try making it shorter!” Twilight dared to challenged. 

“Discord’s evil, we’re good, we beat him, he works for us now.”

“Real specific.”

“You didn’t say it had to be specific, just that it had to be short, which it was.”

Their friendship alone allowed them to power ancient artifacts and defeat a god? Their logic must have been infectious, because he found himself believing that. If their bond could also find a way to save him and themselves from the dimension, then he would do a triple backflip off the moon into an exploding asteroid, propelling him into the sun. He would never tell this to Discord, because he would make it happen in a heartbeat.

“How muuuuch looonger?” Pinkie Pie complained.

“We just barely started trottin’,” Applejack pointed out. “Not to mention that goin’ this way was your idea to begin with.”

“Oh yeah,” Pinkie seemed to remember. “Well then me, I declare that we have at least five more jars of sugar to go until we get there.”

They laughed at Pinkie’s randomness as if it was actually meant to be a joke (which he wasn’t really sure of at this point). If he survived his own destruction, would he go live in Canterlot with Discord? Could he even fit in with the ponies there? It wasn’t enough that he was oddly colored, he couldn’t even fake having a normal personality if he tried.

All happy thoughts aside, he wondered how far away they really were from Discord. He couldn’t feel himself slipping away yet, but he didn’t want to know how it did feel. Glancing at Twilight Sparkle, he saw her clutching her head again. They were still unsure of what would become of her when the chaos in her brain turned to the white space. It seemed likely that it would take the rest of her brain with it, but of course, no one wanted to say it out loud.

“Hey, guys,” Rainbow Dash said. “Do any of you see those...ghosts?”

Snare looked in the direction her cyan hoof was pointing at and wished that he didn’t. Gliding towards them at a speed he wasn’t comfortable with was a small army of pitch-black ponies with gaseous manes and tails. 

“W-what are those things?” Twilight stammered. 

“What, do you think I’m an expert on ghost ponies or something?” Rainbow Dash sarcastically asked.

“Nevermind,” Twilight shook her head. “Okay, everypony just stay calm and don’t do anything unless they do first.”

Against their instincts, they all stood as still as they could with their bodies shivering beyond control and waited for the ghostly ponies to glide by. They got ever closer and before he knew it, one had finally slipped past Snare Trap as if it didn’t notice him. He thought he heard it mutter something, but maybe he was imagining it. A scream from Rarity as one passed by her told him otherwise.

“It said something!” Rarity shrieked. “It whispered something in my ear! Oh dear, I feel so violated!”

As they passed by them in swarms, they all let out cries of panic as the phantoms spoke. Now that he knew he was supposed to be listening, he began to pick up on some of the things that they were saying. 

“Never wanted...”

“No one cared...”

“Just a freak...”

“No feelings...”

“Pure evil...”

“What are they saying?” Twilight asked.

“It sounds like someone’s feelings,” Snare replied. “They’re saying judgmental things like ‘No one cared’ and ‘Just a freak.’”

“Whose feelings are they?” Fluttershy squeaked. 

“I’ll give you three hints,” Twilight sighed. “Let’s just ignore them and keep moving.”

Twilight trotted ahead, seemingly unaware of the phantoms that were gliding past her towards some unknown destination. Snare Trap followed her lead, along with the others. Trotting past them was the easy part, because just hearing the negative remarks they muttered made him feel uneasy. How could anyone possibly put up with this much negativity in their lives?

If this was what it felt like to have such extreme emotions in your body, Snare Trap was glad he didn’t have them. In fact, he began to feel sorry for his pony friends, having feelings as strong as these, even if they’re well hidden, must be awful. Then again, why would anyone be glad to feel nothing? Even if it’s hate or anger, feeling something is how you know you’re a pony, which was certainly something he would never properly experience. 

“Are the ghosties gone now?” Pinkie asked. She was right for asking, the flow of phantoms had thinned greatly.

“I think so,” Twilight responded, “but that just means that we have to watch out for whatever comes next.”

“As long as I can hit it, we’ll be good,” Rainbow Dash boasted. “Those ghosts get a pass for being...ghostly.”

Even though they talked normally, he could tell that they were affected by the horde of negativity they just faced. He deeply hoped that the next thing they faced wouldn’t be so personal. His answer came when they approached what was only the third strangest thing they’d seen that day. 

“What in tarnation?” Applejack exclaimed at the sight of it.

Standing in front of them were stone statues of Twilight, Rainbow, Pinkie, Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy. Each with a blank expression and standing perfectly still. It may not have been the strangest thing, but it certainly was the creepiest thing they’ve seen all day.

“Holy moley, ponies,” said Pinkie Pie. “It’s stone us! Except they don’t look very happy to see us.”

“You’re kinda missing something here, Pinks,” Rainbow spoke. “Like, why are random stone statues of us in the middle of this crazy place?”

“Should you really be questionin’ anythin’ in a chaos dimension?” Applejack asked.

“Nope,” replied not Rainbow Dash, but the stone Applejack.

They all immediately took a step away from their sediment clones. Did it really just...? One glance at the others told him that they were scared out of their nonexistent pants, which meant that he had to be the brave one and investigate the statues. Trotting up to them, he realized that it was eerie to see his friends made out of stones. It was almost as if they were...encased in them.

“Hello?” he said, feeling rather stupid. “Are you statues, um, alive?”

They didn’t move at all. Letting out a sigh of relief, he turned away from his stone friends to talk to his pony friends.

“See? Nothing to be afraid of. It was probably just a figment of our imagination.”

“How could we all have the same figment, though?” Twilight wondered. “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t.”

This time, he nearly jumped three feet into the air along with the others. He studied the statue again and didn’t see any evidence that it had moved, but this time, it clearly did. He was about to open his mouth when Twilight stepped in.

“Hey, statue,” she shouted, “can you hear us?”

“Yes, we can,” her stone counterpart replied in it’s gravelly voice.

It took a step towards them, which made them all take yet another step back. The other statues also took a step towards them. The small yelps from his friends didn’t help.

“Are you girls seeing what I’m seeing?” Pinkie grabbed hold of Rainbow Dash to stop shaking.

“Oh, they’re never seeing what you’re seeing,” the Pinkie statue approached her flesh counterpart, “but they’ll tell you they are, just to calm you down. Who wants to see a psycho get crazier, right?”

“Huh?” Pinkie squeaked out.

“Don’t listen to it,” advised Rainbow Dash. “They’re Discord’s statues, they’re designed to tell us exactly what we don’t want to hear!”

“Pfff, you would think that, Ms. Wonderbolt,” the Rainbow Statue scoffed. “Oh I’m sorry, I meant, Ms-Never-Gonna-Be-A-Wonderbolt! We’re not just telling you what we don’t want to hear—”

“We’re also telling you your worst fears,” the Fluttershy statue spoke up. “And boy does Fluttercry have a lot of those. My favorite is the idea that your friends don’t actually like you, they’re just taking advantage of your naivety and kindness.”

“They’re actin’ like Discord did in the maze,” said Applejack. “Like when he got some bushes to tell me we weren’t goin’ to stay friends.”

“You would fall for that,” Applejack statue snarled. “Dumb cowpony, can’t even understand basic math. You may be honest, but we all know you’re not smart at all.” 

“If we let them overcome us, then we’ll never find Discord,” said Twilight. “Let me think of a way to defeat these jerks.”

“The brilliant Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight statue spat. “Afraid that one day, she won’t be smart enough to lead her friends out of danger. If you ask me, that’s a pretty big one.”

“Stop this madness at once,” Rarity snapped. “What do you have to gain out of tricking us?”

“We gain amusement, something you know nothing about,” Rarity crudely remarked. “Who wants to be friends with someone who either spends their days working or relaxing at the dumb spa? You’ll never be outgoing enough to match your friends.”

Based on brave they sounded from past adventures, Snare expected his friends to stand up to the statues and deny what they said, but instead they all just sat there with their heads down. What was happening? Applejack even mentioned that they’ve been through this before. 

“Girls?” Snare asked. “What’s going on? Aren’t you going to stand up to them? You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” Applejack muttered, “but you can’t deny the truth, and it never gets easier to hear.”

“But it’s not the truth is it?” Snare questioned. “Not if you don’t make it the truth.”

“Oh, why are y’all askin’ a dumb cowpony like me for?” Applejack pulled her hat over her eyes.

The stone doppelgangers laughed on in triumph as they spat out more insults. How could they let such silly traits get in the way of such an important task? Twilight’s fear of failure, Pinkie’s fear of being annoying, Rainbow’s fear of not achieving her dream, Rarity’s fear of being lackluster, Applejack’s fear of being dumb, and Fluttershy’s fear of rejection. They all seemed like normal fears to have, but they shouldn’t let their imagination overcome them. Then again, what did he know? He still wasn’t completely capable of— 

The solution was so obvious that if it were literally under his nose, it still couldn’t be more obvious. Taking one last look at his forlorn friends, Snare Trap took a deep breath and charged into the Twilight statue. As his shoulder collided with hers, the only thing he seemed to have done was injure his shoulder. Then her shoulder grew cracks with purple light emitting from them. The cracks grew all over her body as she looked on in shock. Once her entire body had become covered in cracks, she exploded in a burst of purple light.

The other statues gasped in shock as they all backed away. Smiling at his ability, he charged into stone Rarity, then stone Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Applejack until they all exploded in colorful lights and vanished from their lives. He panted as he backed away from the pebbles that remained of their enemies. Turning his head to share his look of victory, he realized that he was being stared at by six pairs of eyes.

“What?” he asked. “We won. Why are you staring at—”

“How did you know?” Twilight choked out.

“Know what exactly?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Rainbow snapped. “How did you know that you were the only one who wasn’t bothered by those guys?”

“Oh, well, I saw that you were being brought down by your emotions and I don’t really have emotions so...yeah.”

Their eyes got wider as they opened their mouths in silent gasps. Surprising, Fluttershy stepped up first.

“Of course you have emotions,” she said calmly. “You went out of your way to help us. That shows that our friendship brings you happiness, right?”

“I suppose, but I definitely don’t have the extreme kind of emotions that you all have.”

“Who said that was a bad thing?” Pinkie bounced up and down. “Too much of a bad thing is a bad thing, after all. Not that feelings are a bad thing, right Dashie? But too much is like having too much frosting: it seems like a good idea, but it’s not.”

“That’s...very smart of you to say,” Snare said, dumbfounded by Pinkie’s statement of wisdom. “But I still want to know why Discord made me this way.”

“Maybe he was too afraid of his own emotions to pass them on to someone else,” Twilight signalled them to keep moving.

They followed, but like before, Snare felt that encountering such raw emotions had negatively affected them. Hopefully, it was just some chaotic side effect. Speaking of chaotic side effects, he was surprised that he wasn’t experiencing any horrible pains from the dimension. Clearly Twilight was still experiencing it, so there was still work to be done, but why wasn’t he? 

Looking around, he saw that whatever they’d done had made more random objects pop up. Strange food like flying apples and singing lettuce were all around them, alongside random things like completely red trees and bouncing bricks. If they weren’t all in a negative mood, they probably would’ve taken more notice at the chaos around them. Was it them defeating their enemies, Discord, or the dimension causing this new chaos? 

“Twilight, what do you think is causing this?” he asked.

“I dunno, Discord?” she half-heartedly replied.

“Maybe...are you feeling okay?”

“Considering the chaos in my brain and everything that just happened, who would be okay?” 

Finding no suitable response for that, Snare Trap left the conversation. How could such a simple day/week/month/nanosecond that started out so light, become so dark? Was that the true meaning of chaos? What if Rainbow Dash was right and Discord was doing this to them on purpose because he’s a jerk? That still didn’t sound like the full story, but considering everything that’s happened...

“Look,” he said. “I want you guys to know that whatever’s happening can’t be Discord. Or at least he can’t be doing it on purpose.”

“Save it,” Rainbow snapped. “We’re not in the mood to be lectured about Discord’s inner goody-goody right now.”

“I was just making sure you weren’t planning on doing anything rash when we find him.”

“Oh I’m going to do something rash,” Rainbow proclaimed. “If he hadn’t run off like a big baby, then we wouldn’t losing our minds right now!”

“That’s exactly what I was talking about! We need to give him a chance to explain, right Fluttershy?”

“Oh,” she squeaked at the sound of her name. “Um, yeah, we need to give him a chance t-to explain.” 

Even Fluttershy sounded uncertain about the nature of Discord’s actions. Was going through all this actually worse than whatever reason Discord had for it? They already knew that he felt neglected and mistrustful by Celestia, but what feelings did he have beyond those?

“Cheer up everypony,” Pinkie said with the bit of happiness she had left. “When you’re feeling sad, remember that there’s a bunch of weird-looking ponies reading your every move.”

Unable to properly assess what Pinkie meant by that, they all decided to continue sulking in silence. It didn’t last long, however, because they soon discovered their next trial. Definitely different from the last; ahead of them stood a large colorful building that didn’t really have a certain shape one way or the other. It didn’t have doors, but they couldn’t see what was awaiting through the gaping hole.

“This must be where the beast lies,” said Rarity. “I for one am ready to give him a stern talking to.”

“We all are, but we have to be careful about this,” Twilight informed them. “We have no idea what awaits us.”

“If we’re going by Snare Trap’s word, then there shouldn’t be anything dangerous in there,” Rainbow teased. “If we’re going by MY word, then we need to be ready for anything at any time.”

“Hey, I was just—”

“Let’s try to go by a little bit of both, okay?” said Twilight.

“Fine,” Snare huffed. They were supposed to be asking Discord to fix the dimension, not preparing to fight him. He understood that issues in the past and their negative emotions were causing the mistrust, but there was just no way Discord was going to attack them...hopefully. Twilight led them into the shapeless building, illuminating her horn (which looked very painful) and putting on a brave face even though she too feared the unknown. 

The light from Twilight’s horn didn’t seem to affect the darkness at all, but considering they were in uncharted territory, this was expected. Twilight extinguished her horn as they walked around in darkness, unable to see their own hooves in front of their faces. They clung to each other, but none of them expressed fear (except for Fluttershy, of course). Perhaps it was because they knew what they up against. Anyone who could predict chaos itself earned his respect. 

“Maybe we can sneak up on him,” Twilight whispered. “See what he’s really up too—”

“Discord!” Rainbow shouted. “We know you’re in here! This stupid darkness won’t fool us! Come out and explain yourself!”

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight shouted. “What the hay is wrong with you? Are you just dedicated to ruining all of my plans?”

“Of course not...I don’t ruin all of your plans...right?”

“Forget it,” Applejack snapped. “Let’s just get to Discord and hogtie him ‘til he talks!”

“You wanna hogtie Discord?” Snare Trap repeated, dumbfounded. 

“Let’s do it!” Pinkie shouted in agreement. Pinkie broke into a gallop down the dark hallway. Rainbow Dash followed her, followed by the others, who were followed by him. He wasn’t scared of the dark, but not being able to see anything was making him a bit uneasy. He wished that he could at least see ahead of himself so that he wouldn’t run into a wall.

Unfortunately, he got his wish when the room changed from black to white.

“Ahh!” They shrieked in unison as the change in brightness hurt their vision. Rubbing the pain out of his eyes, Snare looked around and saw that the walls and floors were indeed completely white. It was as if they were made entirely out of light.  

“You want to know why?’ Discord’s voice echoed around their light prison. “Why the dimension itself attacked you? Why I left? Why did I create Snare without emotions? Well, I suppose the point of having a question is to find an answer, unless you’re me, then there is no point.”
 
A large draconequus shadow appeared on the white wall. It casually waved to them as if it were coming over to borrow some sugar.

“I’ve never had friends to share my past with before,” said Discord. “This’ll be fun. Let’s start with the day I met dear Princess Celestia.”

The shadow moved aside to welcome a shadow Alicorn mare wearing a crown. The draconequus appeared to be trying to greet the Alicorn, but she turned her head away from him. The draconequus lowered his head in despair. 

“I had been a spreader of chaos for some time before I came to Equestria. To be honest, coming here was more like a vacation, who knew it would end up being a thousand year vacation? Anyway, Celestia caught wind of my ‘talents’ and summoned me to Canterlot for an audience. Never before had I ever met somepony like her before. She was powerful, wise, and best of all: immortal.”

“I’ve never been particularly fond of ponies; no offense, but Celestia was a special case. I knew that the two of us could cause chaos like nopony had ever seen. All I had to do was convince her to leave behind her old boring life to join my more chaotic, fun life. I even told her that I would leave Equestria alone if she went with me. Unfortunately for me, that is when I was met with the deal breaker: Celestia was a goody two-shoes through and through.”

The draconequus whispered something to the Alicorn, something that she apparently found offensive as she gasped and smacked him with her tail. Once again, the draconequus began to mourn his failure.

“She told me she knew she couldn’t stop me from spreading my chaos, so she simply asked me to keep it away from Equestria. She was correct on the grounds that I would hate to stop spreading chaos, unfortunately for her, she was also wrong to ask me to stop, because that only made me want to spread more.”

The Alicorn disappeared as the draconequus stroked his shadow goatee. A light bulb appeared above his idea as he emitted a gasp. He raised his arms and thrust them forward; shadowy fire erupted from them. He chuckled as he laid waste to the shadowy land of Equestria. Snare Trap’s friends looked horrified at Discord’s retelling of his past. Twilight seemed be keeping a hoof to her head at all times now. He still wondered why he wasn’t experiencing anything besides the fact that he could sense when the creations were destabilizing.

“I decided that I was going to rule Equestria as it’s king and nopony was going to stop me. Except for the part where somepony did stop me. Two someponies actually: Celestia and Luna defeated me with their magic jewelry. I suppose I’ve had worst defeats.” The shadow Alicorn returned with her shadow Alicorn sister. They had shadowy jewels surrounding them. The jewels created a shadow bubble around them that unleashed a shadowy blast against the draconequus, imprisoning him in his little shadow statue prison. “You know what comes next, but the answer doesn’t come in the future, it lies in the past. Because Celestia declined my offer of partnership, I lashed out against Equestria. She didn’t trust me to leave her nation alone if she went with me, so she refused my offer outright and caused this big mess. Is any of this really my fault?”

“Yes!” they shouted in unison. 

“Hmm, I don’t understood your point,” Discord played innocent.

“Discord!” Twilight shouted angrily. “First of all, show yourself and stop this dumb puppet show.”

“As you wish, Ms. Sparkle,” Discord blinked in sight. With a snap of his fingers, he made the shadows disappear.

“Second, Princess Celestia declined because she’s not evil, not because she didn’t trust or care about you. She obviously doesn’t feel that way about anypony. If this has really been bothering you, then you should talk to her about it instead of running away from it.”

“Why do that when I can stay here in my chaotic wonderland?” Discord blinked on a snow outfit and skis. “Here, it could be winter in summer, it could be spring in fall, it could be—”

“Destabilizing,” Twilight interrupted. “Your dimension is destabilizing. So is the chaos in my brain, which could kill me, and so is Snare Trap.”

“Don’t be silly,” Discord laughed. “Snare Trap can’t destabilize, I specifically created him with a blend of my power and the dimension’s power. As long as he remains here, he’ll be fine.”

Twilight looked at Snare Trap, who returned the stare. That was why he wasn’t experiencing the symptoms? Discord protected him from the start?

“Wait, you knew the dimension was unstable from the start? Why didn’t you take more precautions, like removing the chaos in my head for instance?” Twilight asked angrily.

“I didn’t know from the start, c’mon, I just found this place. I knew as soon as I left you stranded in the middle of nowhere, which was hilarious by the way.”

“So, can you fix my br—”

“But why did you make the dimension bombard us with emotions like that?” Rainbow demanded.

“I didn’t really make it happen on purpose,” Discord shrugged. “I was just maybe, a little, dealingwithmyemotionsatthetime.”

“Excuse me?”

“Iwasdealingwithsomestuffatthetime.”

“Speak up!”

“I was feeling all the emotions I felt when Celestia rejected me at the time, and I guess I reflected it through the dimension. Happy now?”

“Oh...oh.”

With that, it all made sense. The negative feelings, the fears, they were Discord’s emotions. Wait, Discord had emotions? 

“I’m sorry, Discord,” said Twilight. “We had no idea that...well, you actually had emotions. I promise we’ll help you work through it, but can you please fix my br—”

“Wait a minute,” Snare interrupted. Twilight groaned behind him. “You still haven’t said why you made me without any emotions, why?”

“Oh, isn’t it obvious by now?” Discord gestured. “I didn’t create you with emotions because I don’t even like having emotions. Why would the new reformed me wish a burden upon somepony else? Geez, hanging out with you ponies is like living a soap opera.”

“Welcome to our world,” Twilight sighed. “Now can you just fix my br—”

“You made me nearly emotionless to protect me from them?” Snare asked. Twilight groaned even louder and hit herself in the face. “I didn’t expect that level of caring from you. Thanks.”

“Don’t count yourself too lucky,” Discord warned. “I only do a nice thing every once in a few hundred moons.”

“You should do one right now by fixing my br—”

“Does this mean you’ll go with us back to Equestria?” Fluttershy asked. Twilight took several deep breaths to prevent herself from exploding with rage. “We really do need you back home.”

“I suppose I could maybe, possibly go back to try and work things out with Celestia. We really need to come to terms about my break periods.”

“Good,” Twilight smiled. “Good, we’re all going back to Equestria, we’ve all had a heart-to-heart with each other. Everything’s been settled. Now fix. My. Brain.”

Usually, Discord would’ve joked around first, but to Snare’s amazement, he just snapped his fingers and a light engulfed Twilight’s head. He couldn’t blame him, if Twilight was looking at him with the same gaze she gave Discord, he would’ve done anything she wanted. After a moment of swirling light eating Twilight’s head, it vanished. Twilight had her eyes closed tight.

“Twi’?” Rainbow spoke first. “You okay in there?”

“Better than okay,” Twilight’s eyes flew open. “I’m great! My big, beautiful brain is back to it’s normal self. Thanks Discord. That everything’s been settled, let’s get back to Equestria and leave this dimension to it’s constant destabilization.”

“Wait.” 

Everypony turned to the speaker: Snare Trap.

“Discord said that I was apart of this dimension and his own magic, and that as long as I stay here, I won’t destabilize, but if that’s true, then I won’t be able to go to Equestria with you guys.”

Everypony emitted a small gasp and turned to Discord for confirmation. For the first time, he appeared dumbfounded.

“That’s...right. The half of you that’s made from my magic isn’t enough to to sustain you in Equestria, and if I tried remaking you with all of my magic...well the results could be very messy.”

“But he’s our friend too,” Pinkie said. “He has to come with us. We can’t just leave him here in this big dumb dimension all by himself.”

“Of course not, darling,” Rarity chimed in. “There has to be a solution that will satisfy everypony.”

“Hmm, I think I may possess the answer,” Discord chuckled. “But first things, first, we need a portal out of here.”

 















 


  
 

 





> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Disclaimer: I, Discord, master of chaos, do not approve of how clichéd this ending turned out to be. If I had done it differently, I would’ve ended it with a detailed account of how the meteor wiped out the Dinosaurs. Oh, well. Enjoy anyway.









“We won’t be long.”

“We promise to return, darling.”

“I still owe you one for saving us back there, and I don't forget promises.”

“Sit tight, this won’t take long.”

“Prepare for your welcome party!”

“Um, we’ll be back, um, soon.”

As the ponies said their goodbyes to Snare Trap, Discord was busy creating their escape route. Typical ponies, everyone knew that saying goodbye was for chumps. Saying bye was basically saying that they would each other again, they just didn’t know when. He always preferred to keep them guessing. After all, chaos was all about guessing...and crayons, can’t forget the crayons. 

Creating a portal for their exit wasn’t really hard, especially with the energy he was still receiving from the dimension, but he thought that he would give the others more time to say their goodbyes. A rare kindness, but he theorized that the more time he spent with Fluttershy, the more her kindness would rub off on him. It was somewhat of a double-edged sword. At last, the glowing white ball was finished.

“Alright, if you’re all done with your overly long goodbyes, we got business to take care of,” Discord announced, presenting the portal.

“Okay, let’s go,” Twilight sighed.

“Bye-bye!” Pinkie shouted for the thousandth time, bouncing through the portal.

Unable to top her enthusiasm, the others merely waved as they trotted through the portal, leaving just Discord and Snare Trap alone in the white dimension. He was so close to leaving without a stupid goodbye, but he made the mistake of leaving last. He could sense Snare’s desire to have a proper send-off, and he was going to go crazier if the colt wouldn’t just spit it out already.

“We’re back where we started, aren’t we?” Snare asked, looking around. “Just us alone in this crazy place. Except now I think I have more answers than questions.”

“I certainly hope that means you don’t have anymore annoying questions for me to answer,” Discord shook a box that said “Input Questions Here.” The slot to put in questions was sealed shut.

“I still have at least one left in me,” Snare ignored the box, having grown used to Discord’s madness.

“How terrific, fire away,” Discord responded with a bored tone. He conjured a familiar target on his chest.

“How much do you really care?” Snare asked. “About me, I mean.”

The genuine question actually caught Discord off guard. He blinked away the target and stroked his goatee. Avoiding the question with a joke would just make Snare Trap angry, and even though he enjoys annoying ponies, even Discord knew when the time was right.

“Up until recently, I never cared about other lifeforms. They weren’t me, so why would I? It was only recently when I learned how nice it feels to care about someone other than myself, therefore I don’t have much experience in caring. Sorry to burst your bubble,” Discord popped a bubble that appeared out of nowhere.

“Oh,” Snare’s eyes dragged his head down to look at his hooves. “I-I understand. See you later.”

If it was anypony else (besides Fluttershy, of course), Discord would’ve accepted the fake understanding and left, but when the pony in question was Snare Trap.... So this was what it felt like to have a conscience.

“But, if I had to estimate how much I—what was the term—cared about you, it would be...very much. In fact, if I had to have a son, it would be...Pinkie Pie!” After a confused stare from Snare Trap, Discord said, “All right it would be you.”

Snare Trap’s normally emotionless eyes lit up with joy at hearing what he’d be waiting to hear.

“But, why?” Snare asked. “We haven’t even had much time to spend together, what with everything that happened lately. How could you feel so close to me that you even wanted to protect me from emotions?”

“How you ask? It’s simple: I created you,” Discord explained. “A parent will almost always feel an immediate bond with the child they produced. It’s nature’s way of making sure love never dies. I don’t approve of it, but I seem to have fallen victim to it.”

“Discord,” Snare’s eyes were now rimmed with tears. “Thank you.”

Snare galloped up to give Discord a hug. Considering the only hugs he ever gave were sarcastic hugs, he wasn’t good at genuine ones, but he gave it an attempt. It was astounding how a being of chaos could find feelings like love to be so satisfying. Could he even be considering that chaotic anymore? 

“Well, this was sappy, but I’m sure our pony friends are waiting for me, and while I love to keep ponies waiting; we have to get this over with,” Discord released Snare and started towards the portal.

“Bye, Discord.”

Discord turned around to face the second pony who had ever caused change in him. All these years he’d be taking ponies so lightly, but they really lived to their reputation of being magical.

“Bye, Snare Trap.”

He walked into the portal, and experienced the feeling of flowing through space and time. It would’ve been exciting if he wasn’t all-powerful. Manipulating the laws of reality got so boring after the thousandth or so time. With a pop and undoubtedly a flash, he unfortunately appeared in the middle of the city known as Canterlot. Looking around, he saw that the city was full of the usual ponies, except now they seemed much more grumpy.

“Discord!” shouted a collective force of voices from behind him. He turned to see that his colorful pony companions were galloping up to him. How normal of them to be fashionably late.

“Where have you all been?” he asked, paws on his hips. “I’ve been waiting for four seconds.”

“Where have we been?” Twilight asked, her teeth clenched. “I swear to Celestia, once we’re done here, I’m taking a long break from all things chaotic and annoying. Meaning you!”

“What Twilight is trying to say,” Fluttershy patted Twilight on the shoulder. “Is that we were actually waiting for you, not for that long though.”

“In that case, I forgive you,” Discord violently shook Twilight’s hoof. “Now that I’ve forgiven your carelessness, let’s go talk to good old Princess Lamelestia.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” Twilight stated. “The doors to the royal palace have been magically sealed and there are enchantments up preventing us from teleporting in!”

“Well, that does sound like an issue,” Discord stroked his goatee. “Any particular reason why?”

“When we left, these ponies were going crazy,” Rainbow explained. “Princess Celestia must have put up those enchantments for security. How’re we going to get in there?”

“Did you try knocking and saying the password?” Discord laughed, conjuring up a cup of tea.

“Ugh, why are you never helpf—wait,” Rainbow stopped mid-sentence. “That could actually work. She’d need to know when to open up eventually, right?”

“But we already pounded on the door,” said Applejack. “If they’re in there, they just ignored us.”

“Clearly you don’t knock like I do,” Discord boasted as he stretched. With a snap of his fingers, they were blinked directly in front of Canterlot Castle to mixed reception from the ponies.

“That was...interesting,” Twilight muttered as she attempted to stand.

“Yeah, give us some warning next time you decide to transport our molecules, jerk!” Rainbow complained, messaging her head.

“Chaos doesn’t give warnings, silly,” Discord winked. He popped his knuckles and slowly put them up against the door. Suddenly he pulled away and snapped, revealing an army of claws and paws floating over the doors, ready to knock. With a low whistle, Discord gave the command, and the claws and paws began their assault. It sounded as though a thunderstorm and multiple cannon fire fused together to form the loudest rumble ever. Judging by the ponies covering their ears, it earned it’s title.

“Oh Celestiaaaa!” Discord shouted as the rumbling died down. “It’s yours truly, and I would like to have a word with you.”

The silence that followed seemed extra quiet due to the storm that it followed. After a few more moments, the others seemed to give up. If Celestia didn’t hear that, what would she hear? Suddenly a voice passed through the doors.

“Discord?” Celestia’s voice asked faintly. “Is it truly you and only you?”

“If you expected an army, you’ll be disappointed by the fact that I only brought six extremely colorful ponies,” Discord responded slyly.

“While I surely appreciate your presence, you returned too late,” Celestia sighed. “My subjects were on the edge of revolution before I sealed myself away. I can’t undo the enchantments unless you offer me proof that you’ve come to fix this mess.”

“Well, let’s just say that I’ve—how do you put it—learned an important lesson in friendship.”

Silence fell for a short period, then the sounds of various locks and magic filled the air. The doors swung open faster than what even seemed possible. There stood Celestia, looking a bit roughed up, but smiling.

“Do tell,” she insisted as she beckoned them inward. “And please close the doors on your way in.”

“Why?” Pinkie asked.

“Hey!” shouted a random pony. “The princess opened her doors, charge!” A stampede formed out of nowhere heading straight towards them. Discord snapped his claws and the doors sealed shut once more.

“Oh,” said Pinkie. “That’s why.”

Walking through the normally tranquil halls, it was obvious from the cracked windows and the dirt on the carpet that the angry mob was here. 

“In the process of redecorating?” Discord couldn’t help letting out a snide comment.

“No, but you will be once we’ve settled this matter,” Celestia countered, sitting on her somehow undamaged throne.

“Let’s not make assumptions here,” Discord stated. “I haven’t even said if I’ve come back to work for you again.”

“He has.”

“Yup.”

“Definitely.”

“Um, uh, eep!”

“Thank you, unwanted opinions,” Discord scoffed. “I think I can take it from here. Ahem, Celestia Princess, you obviously know by now that I’m a lover of all things chaos. By assisting you in solving pony problems all day, I am exposed to boredom. Boredom isn’t chaotic, it’s just boring. I’m sure you can clearly see my problem, so let me just submit my request. My only request is that I get a break whenever I want, deal?”

Discord held his arm out, waiting for Celestia to eagerly shake it with her foreleg, however the only thing he got in response was silence. The smile he plastered on his face was beginning to hurt. Finally, he sighed and put his arm down.

“Okay, I can see that my original proposal has received mixed to negative reviews, so instead I’m going to go ahead and ask what it is that you want, Celestia?”

“Well,” Celestia patted her chin questioningly. “I suppose the thing I ‘want’ is for you to tell me about this important lesson in friendship I’ve heard about.”

“Oh,” Discord wiped his forehead with a napkin. “No, no, you don’t want to hear about that. I only mentioned it so that you’d open your doors, and now that you have, well we need to decide on my break status.”

“We seem to have different motives here.,” Celestia stated, blatantly. “I wish to hear your friendship lesson, and you are hopelessly trying to secure a break schedule. Let it be said that I am a busy and successful diplomat, therefore, you should feel inclined to meet my demands first.”

“Wow,” Discord stared, dumbfounded. “I don’t even know how to respond, but I will find a way, just give a second.”

“Discord!” Twilight shouted. “Don’t forget that there’s someone who’s counting on us. I know it’s outside of your nature, but you need to be reasonable for once.”

Ignoring something that was true was chaos 101, but this time, Discord listened and actually understood the truth. Right now (or not, considering time difference between dimensions) Snare Trap was waiting for Discord to come through for him. Such a responsibility has never been placed on him before. He couldn’t say he liked it, but it was probably more of an acquired feeling.

“Fine,” Discord pouted. “Look the lesson is more of a story, and I’m going to make it a short one. I was actually in an alternate dimension the whole time, and while I was there I made a friend-slash-sidekick-slash-son and he’s still there right now. I don’t actually care about my breaks, but I do c-c-care about him, so I was hoping that I could spend my breaks in the dimension from now on. In order to do that, we need to reach a civil agreement, so what I’m trying to say is that I’m not speaking for my sake, I’m speaking for his sake.”

“Hey, you left us out of the story,” Rainbow snorted angrily. “And that story wasn’t very short either.”

“Blah blah blah is all I hear when you talk,” Discord snootily responded.

Celestia considered Discord’s story for a moment before summoning a scroll. She simply read the scroll for a while, smiling as she did so. And Discord thought he was good at wasting time.

“Excuse me, Princess,” Discord coughed with more than one mouth. “I believe we were middle of discussing something.”

“Indeed we are in the middle of a discussion,” Celestia replied, still smiling.

Discord gave Twilight a confused look. The lavender unicorn simply shrugged.

“I believe we’ve reached a conclusion,” Celestia announced. 

“We have?” for once, Discord was the confused one.

“Yes,” Celestia confirmed. “Discord, today you have learned to put others above yourself, a skill most important for a do-gooder to have. You are now truly ready to return to your position of doing good deeds for the citizens of Canterlot.”

“That’s...nice,” said Discord, “but what about my f-friend?”

“I was reviewing some information, and I think I found the solution. I ask that you create a portal to this interesting dimension right here,” Celestia gestured to the empty spot beside her throne.

“Well, I’m always happy to stir up some interdimensional chaos,” Discord laughed. “But I’m afraid I can only summon a portal in a spot brimming with chaotic energy.”

“I think you’ll find that personal growth can affect more than just emotions,” Celestia said, still gesturing.

Shrugging at Celestia’s confusing wisdom, Discord wiggled his fingers for effect and attempted to conjure a portal. The absence of the chaotic environment from before was differently bothering him, but it felt as though he was capable of his task. After a minute of concentration, a gateway popped into view, frightening the ponies. Typical ponies. 

The gateway in question was a mirror-type portal, where you could see the other side and easily step between the two destinations. Waiting on the other side, looking equally as frightened as the ponies (typical ponies) was Snare Trap in all his mis-colored glory.

“Discord?” Snare breathed. “Where did—”

“An easy way to enjoy life, kid,” Discord chuckled, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”

“Are guys at that Canterlot place?” Snare asked, eyes brimming with wonder.

“Yes,” Celestia said, coming into view. “Hello friend of Discords. Clearly, you are a creation of his, judging from your strange appearance, no offense meant. You should have seen the trouble your friend just went through just to make sure he would see you again.”

“Okay, Celestia,” Discord sighed. “Let’s not push it, I’m still the king of chaos, after all.”

“Whatever you have to tell yourself,” Rainbow muttered. 

“I heard that,” squeaked a disembodied Discord ear floating behind Rainbow Dash. It flicked her in her ear and flew over to join Discord’s head.

“Let me just get things straight before Pinkie begins celebrating,” Discord said, stopping Pinkie’s cannon mid-confetti. “I can visit this dimension anytime I want as long as I remain here in Canterlot and continue doing good deeds for you?”

“More than that, this way, my citizens can easily trot into the portal and ask you of something directly.”

“I didn’t realize you were so open to having ponies just trot into your castle, Celestia.”

“Your lesson in personal kindness can wait another day, for now, enjoy time with your friend while the girls and I calm the city down. I think they’re about to break down my doors.”

The thuds coming from the doors were indeed increasing in volume. The ponies trotted over to calm the angry mob as Discord floated through the portal to begin his new life.

“Did you tell her about the betrayal you felt at her hoof all those years ago?” Snare Trap eagerly asked.

“No,” Discord responded. “It really was stupid, besides, some things should must remain in the past to carry on with the future.”

“Didn’t know you were secretly sappy.”

“It’s an after-effect of learning a friendship lesson, it’ll wear off soon, then I’ll turn you purple for calling me sappy.”

“Even after that comment, I think I’m gonna like this arrangement.”

“Yeah...me too.”

The two friends wandered off into the depths of the dimension, in search of new adventures and happiness. The needs of the Canterlot ponies could wait another day, for this day was theirs and theirs alone. So ends the tale of the hero and the sidekick, for without any obstacles to stand in their way, they shall live happily ever after. Or will they?
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.
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Yeah, they will.