Chapter 2 (by Seismic_Newton)

Back at the campsite in the Everfree forest, the dig was going well.

“How is the excavation coming along, Princess?” Twilight asked Princess Celestia.

“Very well, Twilight,” she replied. “The diggers are just finishing uncovering the One Muffin. Go ahead and take a look down there.”

Twilight Sparkle went down the steps from the campsite and into the excavation site, which was a very large hole in the ground as a result of trying to dig up the One Muffin after its disappearance. The place was filled with very large and very bright spotlights similar to stadium lights, all directed towards one spot where everypony was gathering. Though it was night, the lights were so bright it felt like daytime. Twilight continued through the array of huge, slender poles on which the spotlights rested to the discovery that was now the center of attention. There, she saw her six friends at the front of the mass of ponies looking at what the diggers had just finished uncovering.

“Twilight!” said Rainbow Dash. “You’re just in time! They just finished digging this thing up!”

“Oh my God, Twilight, look!” said Derpy, nearly pouncing on Twilight with happiness. “It’s a gigantic muffin! I mean it’s really got Discord’s spirit, but it’s a giant muffin! A giant muffin, Twilight! It used to be just like a regular-size muffin, but now it’s a giant muffin!”

“Yup, a big-ass Discord muffin,” Rainbow Dash said to summarize Derpy’s chatter.

“Yes, well, it is pretty incredible, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to destroy it now,” said Twilight.

“What?” said Derpy, heartbroken. Her eyes started becoming crossed again.

“Well, you see, Derpy, that muffin has Discord’s spirit in it. As long as it’s around, he’s around. We’re going to have to destroy it to get rid of him completely.

“But Twilight, it’s a giant muffin. A giant muffin. How many muffins have you ever seen that are fifty feet tall? Isn’t there any way, you could, like, take Discord’s spirit out of it and just leave the muffin?”

“I’m sorry, Derpy, but it just doesn’t work that way. We have to get rid of the whole thing for Discord to be gone.”

“Well, I have to at least touch this thing.” With that, Derpy began walking towards the One Muffin.

It was an incredible sight, and it was right in front of her, real as anything. A fifty-foot muffin poking out of the ground still covered a little with dirt at the base. As she got closer, she began to feel strange… she was having a feeling of revelation, something of an epiphany, and she felt so… inspired. She even began to feel like she knew the meaning of life, because this fifty-foot muffin was the single greatest thing she had ever seen. Now she was standing less than a foot away from it, and she could smell it—it was a lemon-poppyseed muffin. She extended a hoof to touch it. As she brushed the paper lining, she felt a wave of warmth and happiness pass through her body. This thing was definitely real. A couple of tears fell from her eyes. She continued rubbing it with the side of her leg to get the real texture of it.

Just as Derpy was stroking the side of the Muffin, a very loud, very unpleasant buzzing, ringing noise filled everypony’ ears, presumably emanating from the Muffin. Everypony began to flee the area to escape the ugly sound. Derpy dropped to the ground and tried to cover her hears with her hooves, but it did no good. The sound was being beamed directly into her brain and there was no way to escape it.

Then, once the area was clear and Derpy was the only one around, the tone faded and she heard a voice calling her. It sounded like it was coming from the muffin.

“Derpyyyyyyy! Derrrrrrpyyyyyyyy!” It was Discord’s voice.

“Discord? Is that you?” Derpy replied, beginning to get up and turn around.

“Yes, Derpy, it’s me. Come over here, won’t you? I want to talk with you.”

“No way, I’m not going to fall for it this time. You’re gonna just try to tell me that my friends hat me and then turn me into a gray jerk again, just like last time.”

“Now why would I do that? You seven have defeated me already. I’m nothing but a talking muffin now. Silly, isn’t it? Almost… chaotic?” So come on over here. I just want to chat.”

“Well… okay.” She got up off the ground and walked over to the base of the giant muffin.

“Ah, yes, Derpy Hooves. The element of acceptance.” began Discord. “Interesting how your friends ran away without you, isn’t it? They just galloped off. They didn’t even see you were on the ground. And now they’re probably back at the campsite and haven’t even noticed you’re not there.”

“But my friends would never leave me. They just wanted to get away from the ringing. I’ll bet they’re at the campsite looking for me right now. And I should probably go back anyway.”

“But don’t you think they would have come back here to look?”

“Well… maybe they’re busy… or something… I don’t think they would actually forget about me.”

“Oh, but they have. Just look at this…”

A bubble of magic appeared out of nowhere in front of Derpy and showed her six friends and the Princess back at the campsite talking with each other.

“Well… that was sure something. Are we missing anypony?” said Twilight.

“One, two, three, four, five, six of us,” counted Applejack. “Nah, Ah don’t think so.”

“Oh, are you sure?” said Fluttershy. “It feels like somepony’s missing.”

“Nope, we’re all here!” said Rainbow Dash. “Six of us, just like it’s always been.”

“All right then! Let’s head on out!” said Twilight.

“You see?” said Discord, seemingly sympathetically. “They’ve all forgotten about you. Some friends they are.”

At first Derpy looked heartbroken, and her eyes started going crossed again. Then she shook her head and said, “Hold on, you’re just trying to trick me again. I’m not going to fall for it.”

Discord sighed. “You’re making this difficult Derpy.”

Suddenly, Derpy felt like her mind was being taken over. All voluntary thoughts ceased, and she was now being controlled by Discord’s spirit.

“I can show you what you truly want, Derpy. A world made just for you.”

Everything around her began to fade into something else. The sky was now a brighter blue, occupied by funny muffin-shaped clouds. The grass was greener and muffin-bearing trees were growing with chocolate trunks and cotton candy leaves. There was the sound of vague, happy music floating through the air. And all around, there were little muffins with arms and legs. The muffin people were skipping and playing and dancing together.

Then, one of them turned to point at Derpy and called out, “Look, everymuffin! It’s the Muffin Queen!”

They all happily ran towards her shouting and reaching their arms out to touch her. The muffin people then arranged themselves into a circle around her and began to skip and dance and sing, “La la la la la la la!”

Derpy grinned stupidly and her eyes started to cross again. “Heh heh… I want that.”

Another, slightly larger muffin was floating in the sky and began circling around her. This one had no arms or legs, but it had Discord’s menacing face.

“And it can all be yours, Derpy,” said Discord. “A world where everyone respects you. Everyone loves you, and you’re not the butt of anypony’s jokes. You see, in Ponyville, nopony likes you. Everypony makes fun of you. They laugh at you. Just because of your eyes. Just because of your clumsiness. Just because you’re stupid.”

At that, something clicked inside of Derpy. “Stupid?” she said as her eyes quickly straightened themselves out. “Nopony calls me stupid.” Everything faded back to the Everfree Forest with the giant muffin in front of her.

“You’re not going to trick me a second time, Discord!” she continued. “I’m going to go get my friends, and then we’re going to kick your butt again!”

As Derpy flew back to the campsite, Discord said, “Oh, I don’t think it’s going to be that easy, Derpy!”

When she arrived, though, her friends weren’t there. There were just a few workers from the excavation standing around.

“Girls?” she called out. “Twilight? Fluttershy?” No reply. So she flew into another part of the forest to search for them.

“Girls? Where are you?” Eventually, she heard voices in a break in the forest, and quickly followed them. Sure enough, there they were. Strangely, they were a bit grayer than they were before, and it sounded like they were having something of an argument.

“Hey, there you all are!” Derpy interrupted happily.

“Oh. It’s just you, Derpy.” Twilight sounded reluctant to greet her and was almost unhappy with her presence.

“What’s wrong, Twilight?” Derpy replied. “You seem upset.”

Pinkie jumped right in front of her, and her mane was completely flat instead of fluffy and curly. “Upset? Of course we’re upset! There’s a giant Discord muffin over there, and now we have to deal with the stupid pony who caused all this!”

“I think you mean retarded pony,” Fluttershy corrected. “She’s got funny eyes and she’s always screwing things up.”

Derpy was brought nearly to tears. “Why are you all acting like that? It’s not my fault my eyes are like that!”
“Let’s all laugh at Derpy,” said Fluttershy. “She’s the dumbest, clumsiest pony in Equestria! Ha, ha, ha!” The others began to join in, too. Derpy could feel a few tears running down her cheeks.
“Wait a second, where are Rainbow Dash and Rarity?” she said.

“Ah don’t know, Ah haven’t seen a thing!” said Applejack, suspiciously.

“Rarity thought she saw some gems and ran off, and Rainbow Dash just flew away. Like a couple of douche bags.”

This all seemed so familiar. Suddenly, Derpy had a realization. “Discord,” she said to herself, starting to feel a flame grow inside of her, accompanied by deep sadness. Without thinking, she just ran away.

She ran into the depths of the forest, tripped over a tree root, and wiped out on the ground. Instead of getting up, she just curled up and lay there crying.

“All my friends have turned into jerks again…” sobbed Derpy. “And it’s because of that big, dumb meanie Discord.”

She cried on the ground for a several minutes. Then, she remembered the memory spell Twilight had used before to bring everypony back to normal, which briefly made her happy, before also remembering that Twilight had been Discorded, and being a Pegasus, she couldn’t do magic herself. She continued to wallow some more, before she had an idea.

“I know!” she said out loud to nopony, her eyes going crossed again. “I’ll find Princess Celestia to help me!”

Derpy flew back to the campsite, excited. Everypony was gone now, but she could clearly see the backside of the Princess still there. “Princess Celestia! You have to help me! Twilight and the others have been Discorded again! We have to do that memory spell thingy!”

Instead of a proper response, the Princess just started laughing in a particularly horrifying way and turned around to look right at Derpy. Her eyes were dilated, her mouth was watering, and she had a disturbing smile across her face.
“It’s ‘Princess Molestia’ , Derpy!” she said. Derpy realized this must be more work on Discord’s part.
Molestia swung back around and shoved her hindquarters right in front of Derpy so that her face was pressed against her buttocks and her snout was between her legs. Her tail caressed Derpy’s neck and back.

“I’ve been naughty,” she said. “You must punish me.”

Derpy’s pupils shrank.

“AAAAAAHHHHH! Princess butt!” she screamed as she galloped away. Princess Molestia flew after her. Derpy tried to avoid her by running in a serpentine manner through the forest, and then hid behind a tree. She could hear in the distance, “Derpyyyyyyy! Come on out, you adorable thing!”
As the voice grew fainter, Derpy felt a wave of relief pass over her while she could still feel her heart beating out of her chest. She let out a long, quiet sigh, and turned her back to return to the campsite. As she did, she felt two warm hooves grab her from behind.

“There you are!” said Molestia, suddenly bringing Derpy into a tight hug. She breathed in deeply and pleasantly, taking a huge whiff of the smell of Derpy’s mane. “Mmmmmmhhh! Bananas!”
Derpy tried to flap her wings and pry her way out of the lock to get away. Molestia then lowered her onto the ground and pinned her down, looking at her with her deepest bedroom eyes. As she closed her eyes and slowly moved her head closer to Derpy’s, Derpy realized what was about to happen, and panicking, she kicked Molestia in the stomach with all her might, knocking the wind out of her. Now free, she flew like she’d never flown before to get out of there. She could hear the sound of Molestia’s coughing echoing through the forest. She touched down in another part of the forest, coincidentally in front of a little house she remembered very well. Derpy got an idea. “Zecora! I’ll ask Zecora! She’ll know what to do!”

She walked up to the door, knocked on it, and was quickly greeted by the familiar zebra.

“Ah, Derpy, my friend! Is there a problem tonight you wish for me to mend?” she answered.

“Zecora! You have to help me! Discord’s back but this time he’s a giant muffin and now he’s turned all my friends into gray jerks again!”

“I remember now, you see—the fix last time was memory. A solution I will brew, before the night is through!”

“Thanks, Zecora, you’re the best!”

Derpy watched as Zecora combined several strange ingredients in a cauldron of boiling water. When she was done, she went into a large closet and came back out holding a box of tranquilizer darts and the gun that went with them. She loaded several darts with an appropriate dose of her concoction. Derpy looked at her confused.

“Zecora, what are these darts for?”

“Approach your friends without fright, for a shot in the ass will set things right.”

Derpy wasn’t sure if she was hearing Zecora quite right. “So… you mean I have to inject my friends with this medicine stuff by shooting them in the butt with tranquilizer darts?” Zecora confirmed this by simply smiling back at her.

“Now… how do I work this thing?” she asked, picking up the dart gun and fooling with it. She loaded a dart into it, and began inspecting it and trying several levers to figure out how exactly to shoot it. “This must be trigger,” she said, pulling what she presumed to be the trigger. When she did, the dart fired out of the gun, right into her leg. An unspeakable amount of pain instantaneously shot from the location to the dart right to her heart and her eyes. She screamed, pulling the dart out and grabbing hold of her leg, rolling around on the floor in fetal position and crying. She had no idea what effect the medicine could have on her, but she could feel the sensation in her entire body disappearing, and everything faded to black around her.

When she woke up, she saw the gun right in front of her face and the box of darts, and a wave of embarrassment passed over her as she remembered she had just shot herself with essentially a tranquilizer dart right in front of Zecora.

“Care must be taken with that gun’s power,” said Zecora. “You were out for nearly an hour!” To avoid the same thing happening again, she gave Derpy a lesson on how to properly fire the gun.
Afterwards, Derpy set back out to shoot her friends, feeling very unsure of herself. In the distance, she could hear Princess Molestia still calling her name out, which made her realize she would need a disguise. So she jumped into a puddle of mud, and then into a bunch of shrubs, getting all cut up in the process. She emerged covered in leaves. “I’m a bush!” she said to herself, proud of her idea.

As she walked through the bushes and trees, she began to hear her friends still arguing in another break in the forest. Ready to take care of business, she went over in her head how to fire it as a sort of a practice round. But by the time she pulled the trigger at the end of her process, it was already too late when she remembered there was actually a dart in the device, and so once again, it shot out right into her other leg. She tried her best to hold in her panic, as she wanted to avoid her friends knowing she was there. Instead of screaming, she grabbed hold of her injured leg and flopped around on the ground. As everything faded around her, the realization came to her that she had just shot herself with a tranquilizer dart not once, but twice.

When she woke up, she was surprised to find her friends were still there, and still arguing. Determined not to fail this time, she prepared the gun, aimed, and fired a dart first at Twilight, right in her flank. She let out a yelp of pain that sounded both extremely surprised and distressed, but the others just ignored her as she fell to the ground, knocked out. Derpy then fired a dart at Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and then Fluttershy, all right in their rear ends. With all four of them knocked out, Derpy walked out into the middle of the break to wait for them to wake up.

“Ugh, what happened?” said Twilight as she came to. She was beginning to regain her soft lavender color.

“I feel all funny,” said Pinkie Pie. “Where are we?”

“Now how long have Ah been asleep?” said Applejack. “And just what the hay are we doin’ in the middle of this here forest?”

“Oh… I can’t remember anything, but I feel like I’ve done something wrong…” said Fluttershy, blushing.

Derpy was thrilled to see her friends back to normal. “Girls!” She yelled, running at them to start a group hug. “Discord’s spirit in that muffin turned you all in to gray jerks again, so I went to see Zecora, and she gave me these special darts to shoot at you to get you back to normal!”

“Why does my butt hurt?” asked Pinkie. The others began wondering why their hindquarters hurt, too.

“Zecora said I’m supposed to shoot those darts there,” said Derpy.

All four of them looked at her funny, feeling a little violated, until Twilight said, “Ooooooooooookay then… and what are those two deep marks on your legs?”

“Oh, I just shot myself with a dart gun twice.”

“Why did you do that?”

“It was an accident. I just don’t know what went wrong.” Twilight and the others looked at her oddly unsurprised.

Applejack also inquired, “Why are you all covered in mud, leaves, and cuts and blood?”

“Camouflage!” said Derpy, still proud of her idea. She then added, “Oh, by the way, we need to find Rainbow Dash and Rarity,” Derpy added. “They both ran off.”

“Look!” said Pinkie. “There’s Dashie right up there!”

Sure enough, Rainbow Dash was flying right above the area, and so Derpy prepared the dart gun. She aimed, and right as Dash flew over the break in the forest, she fired. Dash’s body instantly went limp, and came falling back down to Earth. Twilight caught her in a levitation spell to prevent her from crashing into the ground.

“While she’s waking up, we should go look for Rarity,” suggested Twilight. “If she’s hoarding gems again, she’ll probably be near the Caves of Altamira. There are lots of gems there.”
Applejack, being the strongest, put Dash’s motionless body over her back to carry her. Twilight led the way there by using the spell she’d used before to search for gems to rescue Rarity from the Diamond Dogs. Suddenly, Twilight got an unusually strong signal, and began running inside of one of the caves and into a passageway. As the others followed, they could hear a voice down the passage and could see a light from a torch. It was Rarity, and she was dancing around another boulder.

“All right!” Derpy whispered, trying to keep their presence a secret. She started to prepare the gun again, but Applejack stopped her.

“Wh-hoa, there. Ah wouldn’t do that if Ah were you. Ah mean, can you imagine how furious she’d be if she found out you shot a dart into her flank?”

“That’s a side of Rarity we definitely don’t want to see again,” said Twilight, imagining the fit she would be throwing. “I’ll just use that spell I used on you all last time.”
Twilight and Applejack both ran towards Rarity. As she noticed them galloping at her, she tried to jump out of the way, but Applejack quickly pounced on her.

“NO!” she shouted. “You just want to take Fred! Well, you can’t! He’s mine! Mine! All mine!”

As Applejack held Rarity down, Twilight applied the spell, and Rarity seemed to go back to normal very quickly.

“W-what happened? Where are we, in this filthy place?” she asked, bewildered. “Was I just… hugging another rock?”

Rainbow Dash was beginning to wake up now, too. “Applejack? Where are we? What happened?” she said, not bothering to get off Applejack’s back and onto her feet.

Derpy explained again to both of them. “Discord’s spirit in that muffin turned you all in to gray jerks again, so I went to see Zecora, and she gave me these special darts to shoot at you to get you back to normal!”

Then Derpy remembered something. “Oh… Princess Molestia…”

“Molestia?” asked Twilight. She had no idea what Derpy was talking about.

“Yeah!” said Derpy, recalling her awful experience. “Discord turned her into a crazy sex monster and she tried to make out with me! We’re going to have to fix her too.”

Her friends looked at her totally disgusted, and in partial disbelief. But just then, she heard a voice coming down the passageway. “I found yoooooouuuuuuu!” called out Molestia triumphantly.

“Princess?” Twilight said to her, confused.

Molestia ignored her and went straight to Derpy. “You really are great at this hide and seek stuff, sweetie!” she said. “Now, let’s get right back to where we left off!”

Derpy’s heart sank as she realized what she would have to deal with a second time. The Princess pinned Derpy to the ground again, straddled her, and bent down to lower her head to Derpy’s. She hugged Derpy with her wings, and stuck her tail between her legs to try to tickle her. Derpy blushed and her heart started to race as she felt her lips meet Molestia’s. She closed her eyes, realizing she was going to have to take it.
Meanwhile, her six friends just stood there red-faced and motionless, unable to comprehend what they were witnessing. They could see Derpy waving her hooves in the air and flapping her wings to make some sort of attempt at getting away. When Molestia paused to breathe in, Derpy took advantage of this opportunity to yell out, “Twilight! HEEEEEELP!”

Twilight started to think of how to respond. She wouldn’t be able to cast her spell, because she wouldn’t be able to get a clear shot at the front of her head. Instead, she picked up the dart gun Zecora had given Derpy, loaded it, and fired it right at the Princess’s royal flank. She let out an alarmed yet aroused yelp, and then fell right onto Derpy, unconscious.

Twilight dropped the gun, and her eyes were wide and panicked. “Oh God!” she said. “I shot the Princess!” And she fell to the ground unconscious, too.

The others could hear Derpy’s muffled voice from underneath Celestia’s body. “Girls? A little help?” Applejack went over to help her out from underneath the body of the mare that was considerably larger and heavier than Derpy.
Derpy looked over to see the rest of her friends, who were all still in total shock due to what just happened. Rarity’s and Fluttershy’s faces were both deeply rose colored now, Applejack looked mostly recovered, Pinkie seemed more oblivious than the others, and Twilight was passed out on the ground. Rainbow Dash was actually blushing the most, but seemed the least disturbed by what she’d seen.

“All right, then…” said Applejack nervously. “Ah reckon we should start tryin’ to take these two back to the campsite. And Ah don’t think it would be a good idea to let the Princess know about this.”

“Actually, can we agree to just not remember any of this?” asked Derpy.

“Agreed,” they all said in unison.

The six of them picked up the unconscious bodies of Twilight and Princess Celestia and headed back to the campsite. They were going to need plenty of sleep to forget all this and find a way to destroy Discord once and for all.