I… I felt totally zonked out. There was a gaping hole in the roof of the bakery, and the floor was charred black with a draconequus’ outline. I- maybe this past week has taken more of a toll on me than I thought. I slumped out of Sugarcube Corner, leaving quite the number of bits on the counter… mostly a formality in this day and age. I’m sure the roof got a chaotic remodeling once a week regardless.

“So where are we going next, murderer?” Discord asked, sporting a sly smile coupled with a piercing gaze.

My plan was to go return to a degree of normalcy after a week with Discord, meeting up with friends, doing my best to hang out and have fun despite the chaos… but with *three* more days in the Jingleberry, looks like a wrench or two has been thrown into that idea.

“Oh don’t look so glum, chum! I won’t press any charges, I am nothing if not benevolent. Now, weren’t you going to join a friend of yours today?” Discord said, twirling circles ‘round me as I trot, and shrinking down into my saddlebag. Had I told him that? He’s not wrong, but it would’ve been basically inviting him to say such a thing; something neither me nor my acquaintance would want.

…but I suppose that didn’t matter now. I slowly nod my head, eyes feeling glazed over, as I accept that a proper return to my life would have to wait a few days. I believe we were meeting at the usual spot, a fairly large yet overlooked alley between some stores. There’d be a slight change of plans, but so it goes.

A small little pest peeks out from my bags. “You know this ‘Fringe’ pony seemed quite anxious to meet with you, left a letter and everything. Doesn’t seem to be quite fond of me, but I suppose anypony would be jealous if they had their precious Dusky stolen from them for a Jingleberry or two”

Great. Discord’s been stealing my mail. So now I can’t weasel out of this huh.. and Fringe has set herself up as opposition.. and… did he say two weeks..? He.. has to be bluffing. Hopefully.

Betwixt the Hay-fer-Days and the dentistry is where Fringe and I usually confer. No way am I showing Discord that ‘lil spot though. Luckily there are benches around roads in ponyville. They may be sinking in butter, but they are benches nonetheless. I can sit within sight of where Fringe will be, and I’m sure she’ll come crawling out. ‘Tis unfortunate Fringe is walking into a Discord trap, but, at least the in-bag hiding Discord will be none the wiser of such little cracks.

I sit ai ft yhi the bench holds, and now we wait. The birds chirp with the grace of a dying manatee, and the sun beams down with a.. slightly perturbed expression on its face. Probably admonishing me for staring at it, I didn’t, I sshouldn

Now Fringe took the bait. A solid chomp. A bite for the ages. The anxiety welling, the suspense killing. The horse, the earthen pony walks, saunters towards the bench. A coat of a deep reddish brown topped with a lighter green mane. The mane. Fringed. Cut. Bangs. Cut. Yeah.

“Watcha doin’ out here?” Fringe said, plopping down next to me on this steadily descending bench.

With interspersed winks, I reply “Oh you know, I’m just uh… meeting with my good friend my pal Fringe Cut like I would ordinariIAA-”

With a BANG, a BOOM, a SHim sala baba a fireworks display is set off RIGHT behind us. Fringe and I leap up, right onto.. The low-fat mayonnaise roads. Ick. We turn around to bear witness to the display. It’s rather tame really, a big image of Discord’s puntable face takes center stage, with several flizzle flazzles of varying colors framing it.

Fringe looks away and glares at me. “Wouldn’t’ve minded a warnin’ of him still lurkin’ around…”

“I didn’t need a meeting reminder in writing you know… he reads stuff. He’s a menace. A literate menace. He wants to extend the week, the dingleberry, the whoozleschoozle, by a couple of days, and here we are. My hooves; absolutely tied.”

The fireworks begin to contort into colorful appendages. The searing, crackling visage of the draconequus begins to loom down above us.

“So what’dya think? Is this a good look for me? Am I a rad, bad dude? Did I startle ya?” The Discord a la fireworks displayed inquired, a sly, sparkling smirk spread wide.

Please plase plase please go away discord, not fring, iilke fringe fringe is good friend fiend. Discoard FUUuulip fu flip is a safe word. Dont let them take that from us.

The 花火 display was loud. It was obnoxious. A constant crackling emanated from this newfound form. Not to mention it was bright. My eyes were reduced to mere slits peaking out. I was soon to have an aneurysm. I was angry, yet, flat.

“...yeah, you sure did. Scare us. That was loud. Thank you, benevolent chaos chaos.” I replied, trudging my way out of the disgusting mayo pit back onto clean butter. Fringes blows a raspberry at the visage of Discord. We are in a form of agreement.

“Buhbuhb bibi bobobob” Discord mutters, coalescing back into his corporeal form. He puts on a tie, eyeglasses, and whips up a clipboard to shuffle through. “So what’s on the agenda today, lad and lass? A lovey dovey date? An adrenaline pumping activity? Plans of *insurrection against yours truly*?” Discord’s neck stretched out and his eyes probed leeringly as he gave the last guess.

“nah, just some uhh cloud gazing. love what you do with the… weather” I lie, through my teeth. I absolutely abhor what is done with the weather. I could weather. I weather. Better than this bozo.

“Always nice to meet a fan, particularly one to specializes in the field!” Discord chirps, chipper, happy, merry. What a bozo. “Mind if I make for a plus one? I do love some group activities”

This guy. This Draconcadfuus. “That fireworks show freakin’ pooped me I’m goin’ home.” Fringe announces, raring to take her leave. One the one hand, go. Go forth and escape. On the other hoof, there’s no way. No way Discord allo

“Okay then. Sorry about that, I tend to overdo these kind of things. Guess it’ll just be me and my greatol pal Cloud. What a name. Really on the nose bud.”

Discord takes his eagle clawed arm hand and wrings it around my neck, not unlike taffy, doing a few laps around. He actually let her go. Mmm. And he made fun of my name. I had that legally changed to cloud so people would remember I’m a cloud kinda unicorn. I thought it was cute. Dang.

Fringe is going. Gooing. Gone. “So uhh. How about that weather?” I utter, breaking the short lil silence we had going.

“How ABOUT that weather?” Discord puffs up, eyebrows furrowing, and laugh lines deepening as his face contorts into a scowl.

“I uhh, iunno, it’s kinda.. stubborn. I can’t touch it up much. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“Oh have you now? Think you can do better?”

“This is like day 8 of you being with me. We have had this conversation like 30 times at least. It always goes like: You like precipitation. Sure. Playing with the state of matter. no. Solids? Suck. Cats dogs armadillos bricks lollipops, a lot of stuff is like hail but worse it aint good for the roofs or moral. Gas, no no, denser than oxygen always equals not good. And Liquids. Well, aside from the hydrogen peroxide incident, you tend to keep them cleanly. well, aside from the armadillo urine incident, but, that wasnt as funny as one would think.”

“It was very funny, you’re just a sourpuss.”

There’s another marked silence. For a big ol’ chaos monster, Discord sure can’t carry a conversation. Or maybe it’s just the fact we’ve already ran most discussion points over a whole week, I tend to forget about the week, it’s almost as if some genius skipped over that week.

“Start doing something interesting within the next minute or your roof is coming off your house.”

Fuck.

I think on my hooves. “Alright, I got something in mind. We’ll need some supplies though.”

“Oh goodie! I do hope it entertains, else there will be consequences..” Discord adds ominously.

I begin to trot around ponyville, looking for the one, the only, hardware store. It’s got more than just hardware you know. It possesses something far, far more exciting.

Discord floats behind me, and after some time chimes in. “Need directions, lost little horsie?”

“No no, a surprise is a surpis” I reply. And it is.

I find it. I go in it. The owner, terrified and betrayed that I let a stray in, but, c’est la vie. In the back of the store is what I’m after, rows of paints. Simple, good ol’ fashioned paints. For houses. Like mine. I grab a plain and simple white, nothing too exciting, and proceed to takee it to the fornt.

I pay, I leave, I ignore the colorful wooden monstrosity formed in that shop, and I start towards my abode.

“A singular bucket of plain white paint? Your gall is large, but do you have the creativity to back such a premise up?”

“Oh I already have a brush at home dont aowt aworry” I reconvince to assure.

We get back, I go inside. I get my brush. I also chump on a snack, a little chytsamtheuym nothin special. To the backyard, the machinations will turn.

I face the back wall of the house. It’s seen better days, what with Discord’s day to day habits. Stains of a myriad of colors scatter all across the poor wood. Most ponies homes look in a similar fashion, and few care to clean it up when the mess is renewed weekly.

Discord pulls up a stool to sit on. “Is this to be your canvas? I’m not sure how you intend to improve upon such artistry, but you are the painter here.”

That’s right, I’m the paint here. I got the paint. ANd the brush. I open the lid, utitlizing my UNICORN magic, and dip the paint brush in. I place the brush onto the wood, and being a single stroke. Twisting and turning the brush, I masterfully curve the line weight to bring a singular beautiful stroke to the canvas. What a start. Discord materialized a whole stool only to use the edge.

No screw this noise, I lift up the paint bucket and splash it all over the wall. Big white glib, all the wall.

Another patented silence comes to greet us.

Discord pops off his stool to get a closer look. “Is that it? Is this complete? I suppose you subverted all expectations with that move, but that’s like the snack food of entertainment. Your marks are looking low.” he comments.

I respond, cool, and collected. “No, we aren’t quite done yet.” I sit. I plop a squat. And I gaze.

Discord returns to his stool, and awaits what happens next. Seconds, minutes, even a whole seven minutes pass. And as the time moves on, so too does the furrow of his brow.

“Is this all a ploy to make us watch paint dry for hours on end?” he asks.

“I deny not.”

“Well then.”
Discord gets up. He approaches the drying paint, and with a snap of his talons, a love colored spectrum coats his paw.

“I shall take a turn of my own.”

I step back, and let him paint as he wishes. Of all the maddening events he has made me and the rest of ponyville suffer through, this one is shaping up to be rather mundane.

Discord works quickly and sloppily. He’s drawing a crude representation of ponies. A pegasus of yellow, a duo of a pink and orange earth pony, and… a certain former owner of the local boutique. He was drawing the elements of harmony.

“The other day you inquired on what I did to Twilight and her friends. I told a fib and said I didn’t remember. Naughty of me I know, but in truth I remember quite clearly. I just tire of every pony badgering me about it. You can only tell the same story so many times without it growing *dull*.” He mused. With the addition of a certain speedster, he was only missing one element.

“But a little visual aid can always spice things up, can’t it my dear friend, Mr. Dusk?”

I’m starting to slide along the ground.. the canvas! The wall, it’s pulling me towards it! Before I can say anything, a rapid surge of movement takes me, and leaves me in a daze.

The colors are blinding, and the world feels oddly out of place. I look around to see.. Discord’s handiwork. Surrounded by images of the elements of harmony, I look forward to see the painterly form of Discord, sitting on a throne.

'They confronted me in the center of this very town you see.'

The surrounding crew sparked to life. Some more visibly angry and vicious than others.

'I had made the elements worthless, but somehow that silly purple unicorn found a way to jumpstart the things. Or so she thought.'

Twilight. A memorable name, especially in the field of magic.

'Not all her friends were so keen on taking me down. The pink one in particular tried to convince them otherwise, but to little avail.'

Jumbled noises came out of the Pinkie Pie, as she gestured wildly around clouds of cotton candy. Discouraging glances reeled her back in, and the gang posed into action once more.

'But the elements they had once known were far from the ones they remembered. Not realizing this was a mistake that would cost them oh. so. dearly.'

The Rainbow Dash nudged me with a hoof, and garbled some more jargon. Then, the six of us began to float up, a surge of paint strokes darting to and from each of us. Discord began to chuckle.

'Ahh hubris. How good it felt to not be on the receiving end this time around.'

My whole body began to compress. Terrible imitations of screaming came out from all around me as each of us began to seemingly be sucked into the elements we wore. The pain was excruciating, and the world went dark.

'And so it goes, there were no other ponies with both the power and the will to stop me.'

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

When I woke up, it was in my bed, with a searing headache. Things had not turned out quite how I would hoped. No paint addrying wathicng, just Discord gloating and laughing as he relived his virtoy.

Hunger demands much of us, and there was no hiding from Discord forever. I went to the kitchen to get some food and assess what time it was. Not an easy task in Discord’s world, but one that we do anyways. On the table there was a newspaper. Dissonance Weekly, everyone’s favorite. The headline read ”Just a little goof: an extra day on the ol’ block!” Reading further, it seemed the two or three days he promised had not come to pass. I suppose when pony you shadow descends into paint drying, that’ll happen.

I get some food. Some toast, some most. And then. I get a paper. Not to eat, but to write. Addressed to, my dear old friend, Fringe Cut, with but a simple two word missive.

Operation 6.

Author's Note

And so the court is passed, the ball is in the other court. Fear.