A Hiccup in Reality

by Twinkletail

Rating: everyone
Tags: Main 6, Discord, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy
Length: 1020

Discord has the hiccups. This is a bad thing.

Wacky things are going on in Ponyville. The cause? Discord's got a dangerous case of the hiccups.

Written for One-Shotober.

Published 2013-10-03 18:20:07 UTC
Last updated 2013-10-03 18:20:07 UTC

Chapter 1

Twilight Sparkle's head was a teapot.

This was not a clever metaphor, meant to provide imagery for something such as a bout of steaming anger or a propensity for whistling. Twilight's head was, quite literally, a teapot. And it irked her.

It had started about two minutes ago. Twilight had been studying, which was par for the course. All of a sudden, she had a strange headache. The next thing she knew, Spike was freaking out. She looked down to him, and the warm tea that poured onto him from where her nose usually was did nothing to improve his disposition. A quick look in the mirror revealed exactly what had happened. Her usual cute little head had been replaced by a purple teapot, complete with her face on the front, and try as she might, her magic would not fix it. She was about to begin frantically searching through magic books for a solution when her front door burst open.

"Twilight! We have a problem!" Rainbow Dash shouted.

"You're telling..." Twilight began. Then she stopped. Rainbow Dash was indeed standing there, but she now had the body of an ostrich. Next to her was Applejack, who was now a paper doll; Fluttershy, who had three heads; and Pinkie Pie, who was shaped like a banana.

"...Me," Twilight finished lamely. Then she tilted her head. "Where's Rarity?"

"I can't fit in the library," came a booming voice. Rarity's giant eye peeked through the top floor window.

"Oh dear..." Twilight bubbled. "Does anypony know how any of this happened?"

"Well...at first we thought it was poison joke..." Fluttershy said.

"But then we realized we hadn't come into contact with it anytime recently," Fluttershy interrupted.

"And then we remembered that Discord was in town," Fluttershy interjected. Each of the three heads apologized to each other.

"So Discord's behind this!" Twilight exclaimed, her anger percolating. Her shout was loud enough to cause Rainbow to hide her head in a pile of pillows.

"Well, yes and no," Applejack said flatly.

"Discord has the hiccups," Rarity explained. "Not an issue for most, but a large problem for him."

"You have to help us help him!" Pinkie shouted. "I'm not finding this shape to be very appealing!" She then burst into raucous laughter. "Get it? A-peel-ing? And I look like a..."

"Simmer down, Pinkie, we get it," Twilight responded. "Let's go find Discord!" The group headed out, Rainbow grabbing AJ in her mouth so she wouldn't be carried away by the wind.

~~~~~~~~~~

Discord sat in the center of town, both irritated and positively entertained by his current affliction. On one hand, it may have looked to ponies like he was trying to take over Ponyville again. This certainly was not the case. Despite what he'd initially expected when agreeing to only use his powers for good, being a nice guy wasn't so bad. Ponies seemed to be mostly alright with him, and he was even able to get away with a few little gags here and there without being bothered. He didn't want to give the impression that he was trying to take over anymore.

On the other hand, everything that was happening was absolutely hilarious. The things he did intentionally entertained him enough as it was. Watching all of this wackiness unfold by accident was twice as uproarious. He hiccuped again, and watched as a nearby tree transformed into a plastic trout. Another hiccup made the clouds in the sky turn plaid. Discord clapped his mismatched hands excitedly, watching the chaos unfurl. It was out of anyone's control, his own included, and that was utterly fantastic. The embodiment of chaos rested his head against the fountain, which had turned into a giant fountain-shaped pillow a number of hiccups ago, and reached for his glass of water. He attempted to sip it, but hiccuped again. The glass of water changed into a large marshmallow. Discord snickered; he was thirsty, but this was so worth it.

"Discord!" Twilight shouted, tea spilling out of her spout.

Discord looked up from his reclining spot. The first thing he saw, naturally, was the three-story tall Rarity. One couldn't possibly miss her at that size. He covered his mouth with his lion paw, holding his laughter back for just a bit, and looked down near her hooves. Rainbow Dash caught his attention next, her long neck poking above the other ponies. He noticed Applejack just as quickly, her flat form clasped in Rainbow's mouth and flapping in the breeze. Fluttershy was galloping next to Rainbow, her three heads showing sternness, concern, and exhaustion. Pinkie Pie bounced next to her, her pink peel starting to come undone. And next to her was Twilight, who happened to slip on the bit of Pinkie peel that was on the ground. She slid forward, landing on the ground in front of the draconequus, spilling tea everywhere.

Discord sat there silently for a moment. Then he fell over, laughing harder than the ponies had ever seen him laugh before. The afflicted ponies glared at him, none of them very happy with this whole situation.

"This...this is priceless!" Discord guffawed, pounding at the ground with his eagle claw. "L-look at all of you! I think I like you better this way! Ohh, I hope these hiccups never go away!" He gradually recovered, waiting with bated breath for his next hiccup. After a few moments, he tilted his head. "Oh...they're gone, aren't they? Pity..."

"Change us back!" Twilight demanded. "Change everything back!"

"Oh, fine," Discord said, pulling himself to his feet. He gave Twilight's spout a tap. "I'm surprised that these new forms weren't your cup of tea." Only Pinkie laughed. He gave the banana-shaped pony a pat on the stem. "At least somepony appreciates me." He snapped his fingers, changing everything that his hiccups had affected back to normal.

"Phew!" Twilight said, her head and her friends now back to normal. "That was an ordeal." The ponies and the draconequus looked at each other, unsure of where to go from here.

"So...what now?" Pinkie asked.

"...Water-skiing?" Discord offered.

And so they went water-skiing.