Higher Ground

by Lissamel

Rating: everyone
Tags: Comedy, Random, Adventure, Discord, Zecora, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 5073

An off-the-wall bonkers dimension with Discord seemingly the only sane one.

Reincarnated as a pegasus, Discord is somehow brought into another dimension. Here, Ponyville is called Jadeite. Here, everypony seems crazy and nobody believes Discord is who he says he is. Here, not everywhere is ruled by Princess Celestia.
It's weird to think, but being a statue is better by comparison! But how is he to get back?

Published 2012-04-10 05:44:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-04-20 12:27:53 UTC

But Truly Two

It was surprisingly dark, he noticed.

Wait. He noticed something? That was odd in itself, actually. While he remembered having some consciousness while a statue (he knew very well dear Celestia let her phoenix perch on his head sometimes), but he hardly noticed changes in the light. Something was up, and it was unsettling.

Although his eyelids felt incredibly heavy, he forced them open to see a mass of brown, green, and black. Blinking a few times, his vision stopped being foggy as he saw he was in a woods—The Everfree Forest, he reasoned. Wait, how did he get to the Everfree Forest? The grounds he usually was at was quite a ways from here.

He stood on shaky legs and promptly fell over. He growled a little, looking at them, though gasped in slight horror to find they were hoofed. Looking at his back legs, he saw they were hoofed, too, and there were two wings on his back, a small, black spiral just after them.

A pegasus? But he was a Draconequus! What kind of surreal illusion was this? Flapping his wings a few times, he hovered a few inches above the ground, much more used to flight then walking on four legs. How did ponies do it?

His head turning back and forth, he suddenly found a sign painted purple. It said, in swirly blue lettering: The Great and Marvelous city of Jadeite, only a few seconds in this direction. -->

Jadeite? Since when was that a city? It wasn’t even a pun. Nevertheless, deciding anywhere was better then a forest (because, let’s be honest, unless you were a magical zebra or some wild beast, forests were not the best places to live in), Discord fluttered in the direction the arrow helpfully pointed out. He began wondering blankly if some things (including, apparently, his species) had drastically changed while he was inanimate, if this was some cruel psychological prank by somepony—the first to come to mind was Luna—or if he had broken the dimensional border while a statue. He preferred the last option, since it really just made him sound more awesome.

Quickly he made it from the forest to the rim of the city, only to find—to his utter dismay and slight confusion—Jadeite looked exactly like Ponyville. Well, why go through all the trouble of naming it if you were going to keep it the same? Really, it seemed like a waste of time. Discord glanced around at all the ponies doing mundane things, coming to the conclusion that…Yeah, if this was an alternate dimension; it was a really stupid one.

Suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, a pony caught his eye. Levitating a suitcase next to her, she was purple, streaks in her darker mane and tail. W-wait, was that—It couldn’t be—It was! But how did she get here? Didn’t alternate dimensions have different pony populations? Figuring he had very little to lose, he flittered over to the mare, slightly confused. “Twilight Sparkle?”

Her head turned, and he lurched back.

Her eyes looked as though they were rimmed with crazy, wearing a smile that wavered between ‘sickly-sweet’ and ‘insane psychopath’. Her mane, now that he looked closer at it, was ruffled beyond all belief, and even the magic glow around her horn seemed more jagged then smooth and wavy.

“Helloooooo.” She said, drawing out the word more then necessary, only serving to kind of creep Discord out. “What’s yooooooour naaaaaaameeee?”

“Oh, please, I might be a pegasus, but I’m hardly that forgettable.”

She stared at him blankly.

“Discord! God of chaos and disharmony!”

She kept her blank look for a few more seconds before erupting into shrill laughter, almost rolling on the ground. He noticed some ponies looking at her a tad strangely, but they all seemed not to care all that much. Maybe insane ponies were just common in this alternate dimension.

“Yoooooou can’t beeeee Discooooord!” She choked between laughs, somehow keeping up her streaching-out-words verbal pattern. “Eeeeeeverypooooony knows that Diiiiiiiscord hauuuunts the Everfreeeee Foreeeeeest!”

Haunts? He was a force to be reckoned with in this place! He was proud for all of three seconds, since then he remembered he was still here. Sigh. Deciding he didn’t want to seem very vain and ask about himself in this place, he asked, “What’s with the briefcase?”

Twilight’s eyes darted back and forth, as though somepony was watching them. “I’ll teeeeell yoooooou inside.” She promised before bolting into her library (something was normal here, gasp), the briefcase following behind. Sighing, Discord followed her.

The minute he entered, the door slammed shut and the lights flickered a bit. Oh dear Celestia, she was going to kill him, wasn’t she!? Discord turned around quickly and fumbled with the doorknob, but since he was still incredibly clumsy with hooves he could barely turn it an inch.

“Where are yooooooou goooooooing? Weeeeeee’ll haaaave a nice chaaaaaaat after I take my toooooonic.”

Why did just the drawn-out word ‘tonic’ make his heart jump a beat? He turned around slowly, watching Twilight levitate a small bottle filled with thick, dark blue liquid next to her head. “You’re sooooo juuuuumpy.” She scolded Discord before downing about a third of the bottle’s contents in one gulp.

“I wouldn’t be so jumpy if you didn’t look like you wanted to kill me!” He hissed.

Twilight eyed him. “Murder? That would be highly unprofessional, wouldn’t you say?”

That tonic was some strong stuff. Twilight had gone from looking like a crazed murderer to looking, well, like herself, albeit a bit colder and sharper. She smirked a little, opening the briefcase and organizing the papers. “Yes, what is it that you want?”

“…You’re joking, right?”

“You did break in, I expect you to at least have a motive.”

So when undergoing the whole Jekyll-Hyde process (which did beg the question of which personality was the default, but really he didn’t want to know), she had lost some memory. Oh, swell. “When you were a crazy pony, you let me in.”

“I highly doubt that. I am a lawyer, and this library is not a hotel. Talking of which, I have another case tomorrow.”

Mildly curious, he asked, “Who against?”

“Princess Celestia. She’s been my opponent for the last month or two. She says if I win, I’m banished from Equestria.”

Well, banishment was something dear Celestia did so very well. “And if you lose?”

“My client makes me do it again. It’s a favor, really. I’m already in bad debt to her.”

Lawyers were one of the most boring types of pony. However, he was talking to Twilight Sparkle, element of magic, so he should be asking more important questions, such as, “Know anything about alternate dimensions?”

She shot him a look that made him cringe. “Do I look like it, Mister…”

“Discord.” He replied, “And yes.”

Twilight snickered. “Discord. I’ve heard of princess impostors, but Discord imposters…? Nopony in their right mind would do it.”

Discord stomped a hoof, which made no sound, due to the fact he was still hovering above the ground. “I am Discord, one and only, God of chaos and disharmony, ruler of Equestria--”

“And a bragger with a big ego.” She finished, opening the door via magic and gesturing with her head. “Now, please, leave. I have evidence to restock. We’ll talk about your identity issues some other day.”

“I can hardly comprehend what you don’t understand, I AM Discord!”

A magical glow surrounded his body, and then threw him out of the library and onto the street, sprawled on his back. “And stay out!” Twilight snapped coldly, the library’s door slamming shut behind him.

“Gladly!” Discord snapped back, struggling to straighten himself up. He attempted to stand on his hind hooves, under the illusion that that would make his travelling endeavors easier, only to find it did not as he landed on his face.

Ponies snickered at him. He growled low back at them.

Flapping his wings again, he flew only inches above ground. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Why couldn’t he have been reincarnated into a unicorn? At least then he would have had magic to his aid.

Suddenly, a patch of sky just above him darkened. Irritated from both this and his encounter with Twilight Sparkle, he looked up to see a pitch-black storm cloud. Great, context-sensitive weather. Was there anything this dimension didn’t have besides, I don’t know, sanity?

However, under closer inspection, he noticed something blue rearranging the clouds in the sky, moving every cloud to it’s perfect position and then moving it again. It was a pegasus.

He smiled a little. A pegasus that left a little rainbow trail wherever it went.

Hello Again, Sir!

Rainbow Dash was, quite honestly, not Discord’s favorite pony. He found her annoyingly smug (which was actually a decent description of Discord himself) and was pretty sure she had quite a few conflicting loyalties. Element of loyalty, his…Er, hoof, he guessed. However, if Twilight Sparkle was a Jekyll-Hyde lawyer in this place, he was very curious to see what everypony else was, if only because he still had no idea how in Equestria he was going to get back to the normal dimension.

He flittered up to the clouds, staring at one of the white ones, as though almost trying to will it to change color. It didn’t, of course. Growling, he proceeded to mold the cloud into a star shape, since he wanted to be different somehow. Discord then quietly sat on the cloud, waiting for a certain pegasus to zip by.

She did, mere seconds after he sat down. At first, she seemed not to notice, though suddenly froze up and stared first at the cloud and then at Discord. “What did you do to my cloud!?” She snapped.

“Well, I just thought they could be more…Decorative.”

She quickly scanned him up and down with at least five jerky head motions. “And you don’t have a badge! Why are you molding clouds without a badge!? You could be banished!” She paused to give an irritated sigh. “Don’t you know how Triple-W works!? I can’t just have any pegasus doing anything they wanted!”

“Rules are meant to be broken.” He replied simply. This Rainbow Dash was apparently high-strung. Oh, he could play around with this. “And don’t you have some, I don’t know, friends or something to see?”

Dash seemed confused for a split second, then shook her head. “I can’t have friends! If I have friends, they’ll keep trying to talk to me and then I won’t have time to make all the weather in Equestria picture-perfect, and if it isn’t picture-perfect then Triple-W will fire me and if Triple-W fires me, then it’s all over!” She stopped, gasping. “I forgot to make it rain over by Applebuck Acres!” She realized, and then darted off, carting the storm cloud that had previously annoyed him behind her.

Well, he’d seen how some pegasai changed the weather before. And hey, anywhere could use a good hailstorm, right? Smiling to himself, Discord stood up and began jumping on his cloud, at first making it rain but then freezing it into hail roughly the size of jelly beans.

He smiled wider. Oh, what pony just liked a mundane partly-cloudy day? He flew to the next cloud and did it again. With angered shouts and complains as background music, he went from cloud to cloud, jumping just enough to make it hail.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”

He should have known his fun wouldn’t last long.

Dash zipped up to him, panic dancing in her eyes. “Oh dear Celestia! Now people are going to file complaints and then Celestia will have to come and fire me and then I’ll get replaced by that Ditzy…Derpy…Something!” In a mad rush, she began stomping on the clouds to make the hail stop.

And quietly following behind her was Discord, hopping on the clouds again to make it rain.

When she finished all the clouds she found, to her shock, a third of them were raining. Growling, she zipped back to make them stop, only to look over and find it snowing in some places.

Discord yawned with a little smile. After all, this was his game.

Fed up with it all, she bumped him out of the way before flying, faster and faster and faster, around the clouds, making something of a rainbow-hued tornado. It didn’t have the time to touch down on the ground, since she stopped just before then, leaving the clouds in a perfect sphere.

She zipped back to him, her nose almost pressing against his face. “Now look what you’ve done! I have to go rearrange those clouds in double time just because you wanted to play mad scientist with the weather! And people are going to file complaints and then I’m—You know what, you know the drill! Just leave the clouds alone, you got it!?”

“Sorry,” He smiled, “But that’s not what I do.”

“Then start doing it!” Dash snapped, then suddenly panicked about something. “What did I make the weather in Canterlot?” Seemingly out of nowhere, she yanked out a clipboard and flipped though the papers, gasping. “Light clouds!? I made them heavy! Oh dear Celestia, and the gala is so close I can’t mess this up!”

“Certainly I could do it for you.”

“NO!” She nearly screamed. “And don’t touch anything, y’hear!?”

And with that and a rainbow streak, she was gone again.

Of course, you can’t give a command like ‘don’t touch anything’ to somepony known for chaos and then just leave a sphere of clouds in front of him and expect him to do nothing. He flew up to the top of the ball and began walking, rolling it across the sky, a smear of cloud marking his path. He whistled, as though smearing clouds was his day job.

He made a hopscotch board in the sky and then broke off a small hunk of cloud, tossing it at a space. It landed on space number eight. He hopped from space to space, the ball still rolling under him.

He drew a giant maze with lots of loops and turns and dead ends. Looking down, he saw some fillies trying to solve it by tilting their heads. One of them was smiling smugly, obviously, it had won.

He sketched a tic-tack-toe board and began to play a round with a brown earth pony. The earth pony won, to his dismay.

He tried a round of Hang-Pony with two mares. He won, though it might have been because using French words was hardly fair game (the word being, of course, désaccord).

However, just after the game, the cloud ran out. He stood on a little block of cloud and looked around the sky, admiring his work. Wouldn’t Rainbow Dash be surprised! Discord sat down, awaiting her return.

‘Surprised’ was not the emotion she used when she did come back from Canterlot. Actually, the emotion was more like ‘enraged’.

She didn’t even bother to yell at him as she zipped around, forcing the smeared cloud shapes to return to their more puffy, natural state of being. When she got to the little bit of cloud with Discord on it, though…

“CAN’T YOU JUST DO WHAT YOU’RE TOLD FOR TEN SECONDS!?”

“Oh, certainly. I just don’t want to.”

Hissing, she bumped him out of the way again before molding the last cloud back to normal again. She then pointed to the ground. “Out of my sky. Now.”

“Fine, fine.” He grumbled. He’d had his fun and had somewhat run out of ideas. Well, he could make a giant cloud castle—Oh, great, right when he gets an idea he’s forced out of the sky by Rainbow Dash.

He landed on the ground (or, at least, close as he could, since he was not attempting to walk on hooves again) and looked up, watching Dash rearrange the clouds once again. Well, if he needed amusement, he now knew the pony to go to.

Lets see, four more ponies he wanted to find to see? Looking back and forth, he decided perhaps he would see Pinkie Pie next. I mean, she was…okay…he guessed. Didn’t she have a job somewhere…?

From wandering blankly, Discord found himself in front of a bakery called Rhubarb Pastries. Well, obviously, that would be where Pinkie was, if she wasn’t out throwing some party. He pushed open the door, a bell announcing his entrance.

Lovely Food...

It was dark inside, despite it being rather decently light outside. Discord had to blink a few times just to see a counter with a rack displaying perfectly frosted cupcakes. Did she just not care if people could see the things she sold, or could she honestly not pay for lighting? He’d believe either one.

He looked back and forth, wondering if anypony even owned this store. I mean, there were cupcakes, but who knew how old those were? Most likely, they were left there for the illusion that somepony owned this place. Deciding that if the place was deserted nopony would care; Discord began stacking the cupcakes one atop the other until he had a little pyramid made of cupcakes. And since he had to carry each one in his mouth, he came to the conclusion that they were either rotten or very bitter. No wonder they hadn’t been sold.

“You going to buy these? Three bits to start, but really you can get it much cheaper.”

Looking over from his cupcake pyramid, he saw the unmistakable face of Pinkie Pie, smiling eagerly. While her mane seemed to be a weird mix of curly and straight and she seemed remarkably thin, nothing to unusual had happened to her.

“Haven’t a bit to my name.” He replied matter-of-factly.

“That’s okay!” She insisted, then attempted to force some money into his hooves. “You can take some of my bits, and then pay me back with them!”

While he may know nothing about owning anything like a store, he did know that this was an incredibly dumb way to get ponies to buy things. You would make no profits. “No, really, I don’t want them.”

“Please take it and buy them!” She insisted, “I need to pay off my debt somehow!”

He frowned and took her bits. He probably wouldn’t get sweets with them, but maybe there was a fountain he could toss them into.

“Good!” She smiled wide. “Now, what do you like? We have cupcakes and tarts and cakes and cookies and cinnamon rolls and éclairs and doughnuts and beignets and so many other things! Best in Jadeite, I promise!”

Discord highly doubted that. He’d had a taste of the cupcakes, after all. “I don’t know…”

“PLEASE!” She shouted, her eyes wide. “I need this money! Barely anypony gets things from me and if I don’t repay my debt I could get thrown out of the city! Thrown. Out.” She emphasized the words, as though Discord didn’t grasp the concept. “Is there a problem? Are they to sweet? To dry? Is it me? I could change if it made you buy something.”

Surprisingly, he was at a loss for words. That hardly mattered—Like usual, Pinkie was doing all the talking for him. “Are you afraid there’s nothing you’d like? I can do custom orders. Oh! Do you not like sweets? T-that’s okay, I’m sure I can get some other things, too…”

He tried to get a word in, but suddenly Pinkie looked off in the distance. “Is someone out there…? Please buy something, oh ones who watch over me and all I do, and help me with this debt! I can’t be banished! Mother and father back at the rock farm will never take me seriously.”

“Do you often have horrible delusions?” He asked bitterly.

She looked back to Discord, blinking. “Rarity told me there’s ponies who watch all things I do, and that they’d buy my sweets when I needed them to! Um, it hasn’t worked so far.”

He smiled a bit. “Well, maybe you’re not begging hard enough.”

“Ah?”

“Don’t you understand?” He chuckled. “To get otherworldly beings to like you, you have to grovel at their—H-hooves, yes.”

It took a moment, but soon, she smiled freakishly wide. “Are YOU an otherworldly being?”

Finally, somepony noticed it! “Yes.”

“Are ALL pegasai otherworldly beings that’ll buy my sweets?”

“Well…I…Yes. Yes they all are.” He replied, completely deadpan.

Pinkie quickly dropped to the floor, bowing her head. “Oh great pegasus sir, all my gratitude and honor goes to you! Now buy something!”

Why couldn’t taking over the normal Equestria be this easy? Discord smirked smugly. Now, all he needed to do is convince all other ponies of otherworldly beings. “Yes, yes, dearest Pinkie Pie. Certainly.”

She suddenly looked confused. “How d’ya know my name?”

Oh, good going. “…Don’t all otherworldly beings have complete knowledge of all ponies?”

“Oh! Yeah!” Pinkie nodded. “Of course they do, why wouldn’t they?”

He nodded. Dodged a bullet. “Now, for my first action as your supreme over…pony…I would like a really big cake. Red velvet, of course, with cream cheese frosting and a little model of me on top of it—Made of marzipan! It should be about five layers with a layer of frosting between each layer of cake.” Discord paused to see Pinkie slowly smiling and nodding. This must be her big break. “And then I’ll write up an IOU and pay you sometime next month.”

Pinkie nodded eagerly. “Yes sir! I’ll get on that right away. Do you want text on that, too?”

“Oh, yes, all the better.”

“What should it say?”

“Just my name, of course. Just ‘Discord’.”

She blinked. “Okay, Disco! You can count on me!” And with that, she began hopping off into the kitchen, happily muttering about how lucky she was.

“R-D!” He yelled, not wanting his cake just to say ‘Disco’. That would be stupid! “D-I-S-C-O-R-D!”

She giggled. “That’s not how you spell ‘Disco’!”

Well, at least Pinkie was acting like her normal self, even if she was under the wrongful assumption that his name was ‘Disco’. Smirking to himself, Discord began walking out, hoping his lovely cake wouldn’t be as bitter as those cupcakes. “And I expect it done sometime next week!” He added, though he barely knew if he would still be here by next week.

She didn’t reply, but he assumed she got the message as he left, the bell announcing his departure.

Now thinking about it, something was off—And he meant more then usual. Hadn’t Pinkie said, of all ponies, Rarity was the one who told her about otherworldly beings? That seemed weird. Rarity was not the type to associate herself with the occult. So why would she mention that to Pinkie…?

Whatever. Maybe when he found her, he’d ask about it. Flying away from Rhubarb Pastries, he looked around for somepony else to see. How about Fluttershy? While annoying in her mushy sweetness, she was an easy-to-manipulate doormat. Discord scanned the area, looking for an animal shelter or something else distinctly Fluttershy-ish.

He came upon a sign, a pastel yellow in color. In precise pastel pink lettering, it read:

Fluttershy, spirit medium, fortune teller, and pet whisperer! (As seen in Trixie’s Amazing Travelling Circus)

Well, stumbling upon things at random really was working for him today! Looking at the little bungalow, he tapped on the door with a hoof and waited for a reply.

...For Rabbits, That Is

Mere seconds after his hoof knocked against the door, a small mail slot near the bottom opened. Beady black eyes scanned him up and down for a moment or two before the slot closed again. There was some chatter going on inside, and Discord leaned closer to hear it.

“What is it, Angel…? Oh, a visitor? Is it Trixie? I want to do another show, show Rarity I can be just as—It isn’t? Aw. Well, go and let him in, then.”

That…Sounded incredibly normal. Well, this got underwhelming really fast.

The door opened moments later, a small white rabbit happening to be the doorman. The rabbit blinked, then allowed Discord to walk in, and he did so. “Olly-olly-oxen-free?” He called jokingly, looking around.

At his hooves were various animals—Kitties and puppies and hamsters and the like—obsessing over him like crazy. From the ceiling hung tarot cards and little clear plastic balls. Obviously, decorating was not Fluttershy’s strong point.

“Hello, Mister...?”

“Discord.” He replied, though he knew full well how smoothly that was going to go.

There was a slight pause before Fluttershy said something—“Slight identity issues. Oh, come this way, please, and I’ll see how I can help you.”

He didn’t need help; he knew full well who he was. Nonetheless, he followed the sound of her voice, since the room was rather dim, save for candles every now and then. Was that why it smelled overwhelmingly of orange vanilla? “Marco.” He said blandly, hoping she’d play along.

“Polo.” She replied.

Discord found her quickly after that, illuminated by the same orange vanilla candles and wearing a purple fruit hat. Wait—A fruit hat? Okay, this just got more surreal. She was staring into a crystal ball that was seemingly filled with smoke.

Without looking up, the mare gestured with a hoof. “You may sit.”

He looked behind him to see a blue velvet sofa. He stared at it a while, knowing how ponies were supposed to sit, but not knowing how to twist his body into that position. Maybe it wasn’t worth the effort. “Nah, I’ll stand.”

“If you insist.” She muttered, sticking out her tongue as she stared harder into the smoke within the crystal ball. “Now, anything in particular you want me to see?”

Well, maybe he could screw around with her. “Where am I right now?”

Fluttershy began to do a few spastic gestures, her fruit hat tipping to the left. When she finished, she pushed it back up. The smoke within the ball twisted and spiraled, and then suddenly cleared, showing…

…Nothing.

Nothing?

Fluttershy looked up, and finally, her brain processed the question. “Oh, ha-ha-ha, very funny. Now, what about a real question? I’m rather popular and don’t have all day.”

As shown by that total lack of a line outside her bungalow, of course. As smoke refilled the ball, he paused for a moment to think, then asked, “Can you do, oh, I don’t know, previous incarnations?”

She smirked, flipping a hoof dismissively. “Of course I can! No fortune teller can’t.”

“Then do so.”

She began gesturing like crazy, some fruit actually falling off of her hat as she was nearly dancing. The smoke weaved and dipped and dived, made loops and turns, went all the way to the top and then snapped to the bottom.

The smoke cleared, an image shaking into view. Discord leaned slightly closer, looking at what it was.

Wait…Was that--?

A-A Diamond Dog?

“There you go. Now, that’ll be twenty bits for a start-up fee…”

Discord frowned. “But that’s wrong.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “No, my predictions are always right. Now, two times fifteen is thirty…”

“But I was told by another one what my previous incarnation was—And it sure as heck wasn’t a Diamond Dog.”

“Fine, mister better-fortune-teller-then-thou. What was it?”

He smiled proudly. “Obviously, a Draconequus.”

She looked at him with a perfectly deadpan expression. Then, she looked over at her white rabbit, and the two muttered between themselves for a moment or so. Suddenly, she looked up again, shaking her head with a little laugh. “No, no, everypony knows there’s only one of those.”

Honestly, he should have guessed she would say that. “Yes, maybe there were more, though.”

“Now, are you going to pay me? Twenty plus thirty is—Oh, would you like a spirit guide animal? That’ll be fifty bits extra.”

Obviously, she wasn’t one to dwell on a subject for that long. Discord lay out the bits Pinkie had forced him to take and counted them. Six bits exactly. So how did she expect him to pay out, at minimum, fifty bits? “You’re joking. I don’t have that kind of money.”

Fluttershy leaned over the table, counting his money again, just to be sure he did it right. She came to the exact same conclusion as he did. “Oh, you’re in debt, too? Should have figured.”

“D-Debt? To whom?”

“Rarity, of course.” She scowled a little just as she mentioned the unicorn’s name. “Everypony’s in debt to her nowadays. Really, how does she expect me to upstage her when nopony can pay for…” She paused abruptly, then buried a front hoof in her forehead (Discord had overheard, once, this was called a ‘facehoof’) and muttered. “Oh, yeah…”

Discord laughed a bit. “Listen, can I write up an IOU? I should be able to pay you back sooner or later.” Quick, think of some plausible job! “Triple-W pays me sometime this week.”

He never thought he’d think this again, but thank you, Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy looked over, frowning at him. “Oh, I know you! You’re the pegasus that made the snow almost cave in my roof.”

He chuckled nervously. “Now, now, that was just a heck of a doppelganger…”

“You were trying to kill me! And my animals, too!”

“Well, not to get a bad fortune and run, but—That’s exactly what I’m doing. Toodles!” And with that, Discord flapped his wings furiously, darting out of Fluttershy’s bungalow and slamming the door behind him, panting a little. Dodged another bullet. He pressed his ear to the door to hear what might have been Angel restraining the pegasus from breaking the door down. Then, so he wouldn’t cause an unwanted distraction, he quietly flew away.

You know who he hadn’t seen? Applejack and Rarity. I mean, twice now, he’d heard talk about the unicorn, but the earth pony seemed to be gone from existence. All the better, he guessed. However, if the unicorn was such an extreme force in this place as to put near everypony in debt, maybe she was worth conversing with. After all, he’d made her greedy first.

In the distance, he saw a large building, the same shade of purple as the sign. Well, if Rarity was going to be anyplace, that was it. He darted a bit faster (making a magenta mare drop her groceries in the process) until he reached the building. Smirking to himself, he wandered inside.