Pandemonium Party

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“Rarity?” Twilight banged on the door to Carousel Boutique, to which she received no reply. “Rarity, open the bucking door already, we’ve got a problem!”

Much to Twilight’s surprise, Rarity did indeed open the door.

A couple of meters in dead air a few feet away.

“… What.”

“See?” the cranky draconequus shifted Twilight’s saddle bag over to his other shoulder. “I told you, you can’t trust anything you see!”

Ignoring him, Twilight frowned and turned to the equally perturbed unicorn.

“Rarity, we need your help. Pinkie Pie stole Discord’s ‘chaos’, or whatever, and now she’s going on a rampage.”

Rarity blinked, looked down at the ground for a few seconds, and eventually turned to Discord.

“Hold on, stole your… your ‘chaos’? How does that even…?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Discord’s eyes narrowed to pinpricks, and he let out a shudder.

“Don’t have all day, Rarity,” Twilight snapped impatiently, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow. “Kind of need to get moving…!”

“Really, I’m trying, dear,” she furrowed her brows, taking a tentative step down from the air and to the ground. “But in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a little stiff at the moment.”

And, true to her word, Rarity really was surprisingly stiff.

Her back half had become part wooden mannequin.

“Oh, I envy you so much right now,” Twilight seethed, only serving to make Rarity even more confused.

“Really?” she huffed, grabbing a large decorative hat before trotting rigidly after Twilight and Discord. “Whatever for?”

“Let me put it this way,” Discord slumped along in a foul temper. “She’s been trying to resist the urge to jump my bones the whole way-”

“LIES!” Twilight shrieked. “Lies, all lies! I am not nigh unbearably horny!”

“… Ooh… kay…?” Rarity blinked.

“Shut up, Discord!”

“I didn’t say anything.”

… Whack.

“Oh Celestia, my balls!”

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“Any luck on stopping me yet?”

Twilight jumped at the sound of Pinkie Pie’s voice, lurching around in the middle of the dirt road to spot her floating lazily above them.

“Pinkie!” Twilight puffed. “Get down from there, we need to talk!”

“Yeah!” Discord shook his fist at her.

After he was safely behind Twilight again, of course.

“Yeah, that’s great,” Pinkie yawned widely, rolling around to look at Rarity before giggling. “Oh, hey. I always said you had a stick up your plot; guess I should have said a whole log, huh?”

“This is not funny, Pinkie,” the unicorn growled. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to wake up like this?”

“So, you’re having a bad experience with morning wood?”

It was dead silent for a full four seconds.

“I get it!”

“Shut up, Discord.”

“Er-hem,” Pinkie cleared her throat loudly, all but waving her hooves at them. “If you don’t mind, I kind of expected a little bit of attention for a teensy weensy while?”

“Oh, sure,” Twilight resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Tell you what, Pinkie Pie. You tell me how you ripped the chaos powers out of Discord, and I’ll give you all the attention you want.”

“Rip?” Pinkie blinked. “Oh, no. I suck-”

“RIPPED!” Discord bellowed, his face clearly redder than a bushel of beets. “That’s right, ripped it right out of me!”

“But-”

“Enough talk!” he roared, brandishing a twig from the roadside and wielding it as a rapier toward the floating pink party pony. “Have at thee!”

“That isn’t funny,” Pinkie deadpanned at the weakly swinging draconequus.

“Yes it is,” he defended himself automatically. “I’m the god of chaos. I’m hilarious.”

“Ex god of chaos,” Pinkie corrected him, balancing lithely on her tail in midair. “And you weren’t funny then, either.”

“I think chaos had made Pinkie mean,” Rarity stage whispered to Twilight.

“No, Pinkie has just gained a greater perspective,” she pointed to herself. “Now, this is funny.”

Pinkie Pie slammed her hooves together, creating a monstrous thunderclap that shook the entire earth. The clouds split apart and clashed together again, causing billowing sheets of chocolate milk to fly out at odd angles and sear through the sky, whistling as they did so. Lighting whirled around her, and her mane stood completely on end as she clapped her hooves together again, and a brilliant ball of pink slammed into the ground before them in an awesome shower of sparks and fog.

“Ta-da!” Pinkie proudly presented her creation, mane still standing on end as a couple of sparks visibly rippled through it.

“… Is that what I think it is?” Twilight stared, dumbfounded.

“Eeyup,” the crazed goddess of chaos bragged, hefting up the yellow chunk. “It’s a rubber chicken.”

“It isn’t funny just because it’s anticlimactic!” Discord stamped a cloven hoof in outrage. “It’s just anticlimactic for the sake of b- OH CELESTIA, MY BALLS!”

The rubber chicken heaved Discord up with one stubby wing, tossing him high through the air and let him land with a rather painful sounding thud.

“… What,” Rarity stared at the abomination. “Just… what. What.”

“Meet General Cluckerson!” Pinkie presented the saluting rubber chicken proudly. “My commander in mayhem, general of disarray!”

“Buck-awk!”

“General Cluckerson says hello,” Pinkie explained seriously.

“Pinkie Pie!” Twilight barked. “This is insane! The world’s tearing itself apart, we don’t have time for this!”

Pinkie’s mane promptly flattened.

If any of them could have seen Discord, they would have noticed that he was busy creeping away in abject horror.

“Oh, I think we do. I think that we do have time for this, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “As a matter of fact, I think we’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Well, that was foreboding,” Rarity promptly marched off. “I want no part of this.”

“Rarity!” Twilight spluttered. “What about your back half?”

“I can live like this,” Rarity threw a hoof over her shoulder without looking back. “But the last time Pinkie Pie got that look in her eyes, things went south immediately afterwards and I nearly lost my face. I need to find Sweetie Belle, I'm afraid you’re on your own, darling.”

“Why, that-that…!” Twilight pawed at the ground in fury, unable to comprehend why her friend would simply leave her.

“Awfully stiff of her, wasn’t it?” Pinkie joked, suddenly turning green with pink polka dots.

"That's not funny."

"No, wait - it's probably because she has such a wooden personality! Get it? Get it, Twilight?"

“Still not funny,” Twilight scowled. The look Pinkie gave her instantly made her wish that she could take back her words.

“… Say, Twilight,” Pinkie inspected the bottom of her hoof carefully. “You’ve done a pretty good job of fighting off the heat.”

“Run!” Twilight heard Discord screech in an unexpectedly high pitch in the background. “She’s going into a villainous monologue, run!”

Pinkie Pie let out a puff of breath, tapping a hoof against the side of her nose and promptly teleporting Discord within punching distance. Unfortunately for Discord, that was ten feet in the air.

“Buck-awk?”

“No, General Cluckerson,” Pinkie Pie said distractedly. “I’ve got a better idea.”

“Can we go back for a second?” Twilight asked nervously. “I’m confused.”

“That means I win!” Pinkie bounced excitedly. “Also, I’m totally causing you enormous amounts of suffering until you concede that I am genuinely funnier than Discord.”

“… Why?”

“Because suffering is the root of comedy!” Pinkie cackled, cracking her hooves together again.

Absolutely nothing happened.

“Absolutely nothing happened,” Discord rubbed his aching back and eying the vicious rubber chicken warily.

“Sure it did!” Pinkie grinned as a tree floated past. “You probably won't find out until it's too late, though. We’ll just wait to see your reactions.”

“No, wait!” Discord snapped his talons. “Pinkie, how about we play a-a game?”

“Yeah,” she deadpanned. “A game where I totally put up my new kickflank chaos powers as part of a gamble.”

“But-but…!” the draconequus floundered, disheartened that she had seen through his ruse so swiftly. “I need my powers back. Without them, I’m just snapping my talons!”

He demonstrated with a few sad snaps of his fingers.

Pinkie scoffed, which her rubber chicken emulated.

“So?” she snorted. “I could do that before. Watch.”

She sprouted a couple of appendages from her hoof, snapping them together loudly and causing several explosions far in the distance.

“Oh Celestia, my balls!”

“Pinkie Pie,” Twilight backed away from her in disgust and horror. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“How come?” Pinkie snapped her fingers repeatedly, causing a myriad of effects to go off in the surrounding area. “What are you gonna do to make me stop?”

“Come on, Discord!” Twilight sped off. “We need the other Elements for this! We – Discord?”

“Hail your new overlord!” Pinkie squealed in delight, whizzing high into the air and exploding in a bang of cotton candy and streamers.

Believe it or not, Twilight was a little more distracted by what she had done to Discord.

And she stared for a good, long while, because it was just too difficult to take in.

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Big Macintosh finished washing up, a long day’s work hanging heavily on him as he dabbed at his face with the towel. It had been difficult enough finishing plowing the field with his mind on… other matters. But he had finished nonetheless, and he was thoroughly infuriated when he looked back out over his work and noted that the entire field had mysteriously turned into streams of liquid licorice.

“Granny,” Big Macintosh called through the Apple household. “I wouldn’t advise goin’ outside for a while, looks like we’re a little bit flooded.”

“Yeah, I’m makin’ a flood, alright!” the elderly mare called back a bit stifled, to which the stallion simply shook his head. What was she, too good to talk to him face to face now? Just what was it with everypony and going bonkers today, anyway? If he had to put money on it, he’d definitely say that Discord was up to something again.

But then again, he hadn’t been running around like a wild dog all day, so maybe it wasn’t so bad.

“Are you two done in there, or what?” the red stallion knocked on the kitchen door a couple of times, at which point he heard a violent rustling that went on for a painfully long two or three minutes before somepony finally opened it a crack.

“Don’t use th’ eggbeater,” Applejack poked her head through with a mad grin, hair damp with something.

“Why?” Big Mac asked, beginning to feel rather left out since the activities had been moved away from prying eyes. Or more specifically, the pegasus that he’d had his eyes on for a while.

“You just-” his sister started, only to squeal loudly and giggle before latching the door loudly.

He sighed heavily, tramping upstairs in search of a towel to help clear off some of the licorice that had, for some reason, decided to stick to him more viciously than bristles. It was only stuck to one hoof, too; so though it was a mild annoyance, it was an annoyance that wouldn’t go away unless he made it go away.

Unfortunately for Macintosh, the upstairs bathroom was also occupied.

“Granny,” he knocked wearily on the door. “Sorry to tell you, but puttin’ a linen closet in the bathroom was a bad idea.”

“You’re telling me,” he jumped when the drenched green mare stood crankily beside him.

“Granny?” he blinked. “Thought you were in – why are you…?”

“Ask Filthy Rich,” the aged mare scowled. “That lying bastard! Here one minute, gone the next! And just when we were goin’ at it, real hot and heavy-”

“Granny!” Big Mac shied away, flustered.

“Can y’all keep it down out there?” he recognized the voice of Apple Bloom feebly calling out from the locked bathroom.

“I’m afraid t’ask,” he started slowly, shaking his head. “How long has Apple Bloom been locked in there?”

“That’s the effects o’ puberty, young ‘un!” Granny Smith cackled.

“Granny!”

“Aw, don’t be so embarrassed now,” she tottered away shakily. “Heck, when your brother was your age, he done spent twice as much time yankin’ his yoke, if you know what I mean.”

“GRANNY!”

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Fluttershy hummed merrily as she plucked another carrot from the ground with grace, lithely tossing the vegetable into the basket she carried. With the tuneless melody in mind, she hefted up her load and started toward her cottage, busying herself with preparing breakfast for herself and Angel.

Or at least, she would have, had all of the carrots not begun floating away into the sky one by one.

“… Oh, my.”

And that was all she could really muster as she watched bunches and clusters of her labor defy gravity and float haphazardly away into the sky, punching holes in the clouds. She stared after them for a moment before letting out a long, drawn out sigh, noting that the clouds appeared to have been made of cotton candy.

Meaning that either somepony had slipped something into her morning tea, or Discord was at it again.

She was actually a bit hesitant to bother carrying the basket inside with her, as it was now completely devoid of its contents. With a little sigh, Fluttershy dragged the much lighter load back toward her cottage. At least she would have something to help distract her from her unexpected bout of heat.

“Discord?” Fluttershy asked in mild disappointment. “Discord, I thought we-”

Her voice faltered as light was thrown into her home, revealing an enormous, writhing black mass of vines, a veritable mass of inky black tentacles. Each and every head of the living ropes shuddered upward upon her entry, turning sharply toward her as if they were part hawk. And suddenly, Fluttershy wasn’t quite so concerned about her carrots anymore.

“… Oh, fuck the hell yes.”

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