Twilight Sparkle awoke to the sounds of ponies running about in the streets of Ponyville. Some were screaming in terror at the top of their lungs, while others were excited and jubilantly jumping about.
“Spike, what is going on?” Twilight inquired as she quickly rolled out of bed and jostled Spike with her hooves.
He awoke in surprise with a wide look in his eyes, completely confused as to what Twilight was trying to talk to him about. He yawned and opened his mouth to respond, but by the time he had, Twilight had already left the room to investigate whatever it was that was occurring outside. Spike shrugged from the comfort of his bed and pulled the blanket back over himself and fell immediately back to sleep.
Outside, everything looked normal to Twilight at first glance, but there was something that she just couldn't put her hoof on, besides the occasional scream from a pony far off in the distance. Before she could spend another moment to try and figure out what was happening, Fluttershy trotted up to Twilight, completely out of breath.
“Twi...Twilight...” Fluttershy panted heavily.
“Fluttershy, what's wrong?” Twilight replied with concern in her voice.
“It's...terrible...I...” Fluttershy took a few more moments to get back her breath.
“Did you run here?” Twilight looked at her, confused. “Why didn't you just use your...” Twilight looked at Fluttershy's sides where her wings should have been, “...wings? Where are your wings?”
“That's...what I'm trying...to tell you...I woke up this morning and they were gone!”
“Gone?”
“Yes,” Fluttershy replied softly, her eyes looking downward. “Also, I have a horn...”
Twilight looked at Fluttershy's forehead. “Holy Celestia, you have a horn!”
“Yes, I do...” Fluttershy replied softly, continuing after several moments, "and you...don't?"
"What?" Twilight replied. "Of course I do, I--"
Twilight crossed her eyes and looked up, and instead of seeing the familiar purple horn in the middle of her vision, all she saw was crisp, blue skies and a couple stray clouds floating above her. "What--What is going on?"
Suddenly, they heard a crash far off in the distance. “CONSARN IT!”
Twilight tilted her head towards the voice. “Applejack?”
“I'm a comin'!” Applejack replied hurriedly. From behind a distant house, Applejack appeared in the air with a pair of vibrant, orange wings at her sides. She tumbled around in the air like a leaf caught in a windstorm until finally making her way over towards Twilight and Fluttershy, landing with a thud into the dirt beside them.
“You too?” Twilight inquired.
“How do y'all use these darn things, they're so flimsy!”
“Well,” said Twilight, “you just have to make sure you use equal force on both wings at the same time to ensure your thrust vector is properly aligned and--”
“That was a rhetorical question,” Applejack replied as she got up from the dirt, not bothering to dust anything off. “Can y'all tell me why I woke up with a pair of wings this mornin'?
“Well,” said Twilight, “Fluttershy woke up without wings and has a horn and--”
A familiar voice echoed from the Carousel Boutique. “OH MY. OF ALL THE THINGS THAT COULD HAPPEN, THIS IS THE. WORST. POSSIBLE. THING!”
Applejack rolled her eyes, and the three ponies hurried off towards Rarity's home. Inside, they saw a mound of clothes piled up in the middle of the room and Sweetie Belle standing awkwardly beside it.
“Sweetie Belle,” said Twilight, “where is Rarity?”
Before she could reply, the mound of clothes began to move as Rarity sobbed underneath them. Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes.
Twilight walked up to the mound. “Rarity? Are you alright?”
“NO,” Rarity replied, followed by several pathetic sniffles.
“Do you want to come out of this mound of clothes so we can figure out what's going on around here?”
A moment of silence followed by a couple more sniffles passed until Rarity replied. “Okay.”
She emerged from the mound of clothes with her face stained with tears and her mane full of knots and tangles, and an obvious vacancy where her horn should have been.
“Isn't it absolutely terrible?” Rarity asked. “I'm nothing without my horn. What am I supposed to do without it? I'll have to quit my job as a dress designer. How will I eat, with my hooves like some sort of savage animal?”
“We earth ponies get by just fine without fancy unicorn horns, thank you very much,” said Applejack. “I'll just pretend I didn't hear that savage animal remark.”
“We need to see if anypony else was effected by whatever this is,” said Twilight.
As if on cue, Rainbow Dash burst through the door. “EVERYPONY, GUESS WHAT?” she said excitedly. They all looked at her, expecting her wings to be gone. Instead, their eyes drifted up towards her forehead, where there was now a rainbow-colored unicorn horn. “I'M AN ALICORN!”
Rainbow Dash flew around the room, practically bouncing off the walls and shooting rainbows from her horn in the process. “Isn't this the coolest thing ever? Just imagine all the awesome tricks I could do now!”
“Rainbow,” Twilight said, trying to calm her down.
Rainbow Dash stopped flying around them and skidded to a halt in front of them. “Yeah, Twilight?”
“We need to figure out what's going on right now,” she said.
“Why? This is amazing!”
Rainbow Dash readied herself to fly up into the air again but Applejack held her down with a wing. “Simmer down, sugarcube. Some ponies drew the short straw for this crazy catastrophe.”
“Whoa, you have wings? That's awesome, you should totally let me teach you how to fly!”
Twilight slapped her forehead with a hoof. “Rainbow...”
“Oh...sorry,” she replied with an embarrassed smile.
“It seems the only pony left is Pinkie Pie,” said Twilight
Twilight opened the door to Sugarcube Corner and it creaked open slowly. Inside, all the lights were turned off. Everything was oddly silent. “...Pinkie Pie? Are you there?”
“...I'm upstairs...” Pinkie Pie replied with such a lack of emotion that they weren't even sure it was her until they opened the door to see her lying down in the middle of the room with her mane wrapped around herself.
“Pinkie Pie, what's wrong?” Twilight asked. She didn't have a horn, and she didn't have any wings, so everything seemed normal.
“Everything...” she replied dejectedly, followed by a long, drawn-out sigh.
“Could you be a bit more specific, darling?” Rarity asked politely.
Pinkie Pie sighed depressingly. “I lost my Pinkie Sense...”
“Nonsense,” said Rarity. “You can't lose that!”
“Oh yeah?” Pinkie Pie replied, “Somepony knock over that vase over there.”
“This one?” Rainbow Dash inquired, pointing a hoof at a vase sitting on the shelf.
“Yes, knock it over.”
“Alright,” she replied, knocking over the vase onto the ground. It shattered and sent a pile of dirt pouring over the floor.
“See?” Pinkie Pie said. “I didn't even sense that coming.”
“But...you told her to knock it over, darling. Surely, you must hav--”
“I DIDN'T SEE IT COMING,” Pinkie Pie replied and began sobbing uncontrollably.
“Oh, my...” said Fluttershy.
“And I thought I was the drama queen...” muttered Rarity. "What in Equestria is the reason for all this?"
Twilight stood and pondered thoughtfully for all but a few moments until she knew immediately what was happening. A certain Draconequus always seemed to be the culprit behind moderately annoying, yet not overly bad antics in and around Ponyville. The others looked at her as she thought until she opened her mouth to speak.
Then, they all spoke at once. "Discord..."
In Canterlot, Twilight and her friends walked into the throne room up to Celestia. If Twilight still had her horn, she could have teleported them all at once. Instead, they had to take the train, since the only other ponies with horns were Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, neither of which were capable of such advanced magic.
Celestia smiled as she watched the six of them trot towards her. It always brought a smile to her face to see all of them together. But as they drew closer, her smile receded and was replaced by a look of puzzlement. "Hello Twilight and friends," she said awkwardly. "Is there something...different...about all of you? I don't recall Applejack having wings, or Rarity being an earth pony...or...Rainbow Dash...being an Alicorn?" Celestia reared her head backwards.
Rainbow Dash stood majestically with a look of pure pride on her face.
"And where is your horn?" Celestia continued.
"Good question..." Twilight replied with mild annoyance. "My best guess would be that this is Discord's doing. Some kind of harmless prank." She made quote marks with her hooves.
"Well, we mustn't assume--"
"--Somepony rang?" Discord poofed into existence to the right of Celestia, holding a disconnected telephone receiver in a claw against his head.
"Discord," Celestia said, "is this your doing?"
He turned away from Celestia and surveyed the six ponies in front of him, taking his time to observe. "Well, I'm not one to toot my own horn," he replied as he honked a horn two times, "but I am rather proud of this one."
Twilight steamed. "Proud? I thought we've agreed that messing with other ponies' bodies and swapping their horns and wings is a definite no-no!"
"Have we?" Discord replied innocently. "I don't recall that specific example. Really, Twilight, we ought to work on our communication skills."
"Well, let me make it really clear," Twilight replied angrily. She looked like she was about to blow a fuse. "If you ever do something like this again, I'm going to rip--"
A yellow hoof delicately pressed against her mouth from below, causing her to immediately stop her angry outburst. Fluttershy looked up at her meekly.
"Thanks, Fluttershy," said Twilight. Getting angry wasn't going to solve anything.
Celestia broke the short silence. "It seems that something needs to be done, and I don't think a lack of communication is the issue." She glared at Discord. She thought for a moment, and then a smile appeared on her face. "I have an idea," said Celestia. "Discord, since it seems you are incapable of determining what is and what isn't acceptable for pranks, I think it might be a good exercise for you to see the world from a different point of view."
"Oh, 'Tia, I see the world from every point of view. You know, master of chaos, manipulator of the universe, that sort of thing."
Celestia ignored his reply. "Guards, retrieve the Elements of Harmony."
"Elements of Harmony?" Discord said with the faintest hint of fear in his voice. "You're not going to turn me into stone again, are you? What good would that do? We all know that didn't work."
"No, I have something else in mind," she replied as the guards brought in the Elements of Harmony and distributed them to everypony.
"What is that, exactly?" Twilight said as she placed the crown on her head.
Celestia smiled. "Discord is going to learn what it's like to be a pony."
"A what?" He said, this time with definite fear in his voice. "You can't turn me into a pony, I've been a draconequus for thousands of years!"
Celestia continued. "And you will remain a pony until you accomplish this decree: do one hundred good deeds. As soon as you do this, you will be turned into a draconequus again."
Twilight and her friends stood in a circle around Discord, with Celestia filling the only empty spot.
Discord panicked. "Can I at least be a unicorn?"
"No," said Celestia, "you'll be an earth pony. No magic."
"Pegasus?"
"No."
The Mane Six and Celestia powered the Elements of Harmony and magic, shooting seven colored beams of magic into Discord. His body glowed pure white and contorted into several shapes as he rose into the air. Rays of light bounced off in every direction for several seconds until the display of magic waned, leaving a light brown earth pony with a black mane and tail laying on the ground with all four hooves.
Discord stood up and looked at himself. His cutie mark was a dark, swirling vortex of chaos. "Well, at least I still look like a rebel."
Discord's Doubtful First Deed
"Why is his face still like that?" Pinkie asked inquisitively, in reference to Discord's new pony-esque appearance.
"Yeah," said Rainbow Dash, "it looks kinda creepy."
Discord admired his reflection in a nearby stained-glass window. Despite what semi-hurtful things had been said to him, he was an expert at dismissing anything that poked at his character or appearance. "Thank Celestia," he said ironically as he turned around to look at the alicorn herself, "at least my beautiful face still remains untarnished." He lifted a hoof to poof a hand-held mirror into existence and look into it as a joke, but immediately realized that his magic was indeed gone, and then returned the hoof back towards the floor awkwardly. "Isn't this whole Elements of Harmony thing a tad overpowered?" he said with a hint of annoyance.
Celestia answered him. "Only if not used for good."
Discord snorted. "Well, I suppose you do make a valid argument, but who gets to decide?"
"Not you," said Twilight, obviously still steaming from her earlier outburst.
"Okay," said Celestia, "I think that is enough. The pressing matter at hoof is now to decide on where Discord will be staying for however long it takes for him to accomplish his task."
Everypony shifted their gaze towards Fluttershy, who stood motionless with eyes widened. She quickly recovered from suddenly being the center of attention though. Fluttershy stumbled her way through a response. "I'd be delighted to have Discord as a...permanent...guest..."
"Without his magic, I'm sure he'll be no problem at all," said Rarity.
"Sheesh, for a group of ponies who call themselves friends, you sure hold a grudge," said Discord.
"It's been less than a day since you did this to us," said Twilight. "Speaking of which...why is my horn still gone? I thought Discord's magic was taken away?"
"It was," said Celestia, "but anything he'd done before will still remain."
The room went completely silent, until Celestia broke it again with a slight chuckle. "Oh, but I can reverse it," she added. "Reversing chaos is a skill that takes ages to master." Everypony sighed except Rainbow Dash, who seemed completely uninterested at the prospect of being returned to normal.
Celestia lit up her horn with dark magic, causing an aura of blackness to swirl around it and build up charge until she released it into the floor. The burst of magic spread through the ground and into each pony, one by one. Rainbow Dash hopped into the air and fluttered for a moment, avoiding the spell and was met with a look of entertained bemusement from Celestia, who then zapped her directly with the magic, turning Rainbow Dash back into a regular pegasus.
Pinkie Pie suddenly stepped sideways and a paint bucket fell directly beside her. She squealed in delight at having the innate sense of all things unpredictable returned to her.
"Sorry!" exclaimed a pegasus pony far above them, who happened to be painting the ceilings the entire time they were in the room.
Back at Fluttershy's cottage, Fluttershy was preparing an area where Discord could call his own. She would, of course, have to reorganize practically her entire home, as every space imaginable seemed to be occupied by an animal of some sort. But she managed to find room for him.
"A closet?" said Discord. "That's where I'm expected to sleep?"
"Well, it's actually quite large from the inside," she replied meekly.
Discord gave her an expecting look.
"I suppose I could stay in the closet."
His face lit up with glee. "Oh, really Fluttershy? That's so nice of you! It's so great to have a friend as generous and courteous as yourself!" He trotted over towards the stairs and attempted to walk up them with less-than-ideal results. "Really, how do you ponies get around all the time without magic? This is exhausting!"
It was very odd to watch the chaotic draconequus she had known so long try to get by in just a regular pony's body. So much of what defined him was his magic, and without it he seemed almost normal. She quickly dismissed the thought as she followed him up the stairs and watched him completely randomize the contents of her bedroom to suit his need for utter chaos.
"Make yourself at home," Fluttershy said ex post facto.
The next morning, Fluttershy was busy in her kitchen preparing breakfast for all of her animals and herself. In that order. Angel Bunny stamped his foot as he stood beside her, waiting impatiently for his delicately prepared food. Next, she started preparing the breakfast for the rest of her pets, but Discord emerged from upstairs.
"Good morning, Discord," she said cheerily.
"How is it that you ponies sleep on those things?" Discord said as he attempted to crack his back several times by arching it over various objects around the kitchen. "Is there any possible way you can acquire some quantum memory foam?"
"I...don't think so..." Fluttershy replied.
"Hmm, I suppose I can do without for awhile. It shouldn't be too hard to do a hundred good deeds, anyhow."
Fluttershy smiled at his enthusiasm.
"Speaking of which," he continued, "would you be a doll and make me a bacon egg and cheese omelette? Normally I'd just poof one into existence, but--"
"Bacon, what's that?" Fluttershy asked.
"Oh, um, forget I mentioned that. I forgot nopony eats meat in this dimension. Egg and cheese will be fine."
Fluttershy looked at the hungry, impatient faces of the rest of her pets. "You know, Discord, there is something you could do for me that could probably count as a good deed."
Discord raised a hoof to his face and saluted her. "Good deed doer, at your service."
Fluttershy chuckled. It was amusing how Discord still managed to remain his chaotic self without his magic. Then she realized that it was probably eating him up on the inside. "Well, I am a bit busy right now. Could you possibly feed these pets while I make your breakfast?"
Discord eyed the line of birds, squirrels and other small animals that were scattered around the house waiting to be fed. "It sounds like an awful amount of work..."
"It's not too hard. The only fussy one is Angel Bunny," she replied. Angel was devouring a bowl of salad at that particular moment.
"I suppose I could give it a try," he said.
Fluttershy smiled. "Okay, just give the squirrels some nuts and the birds some birdseed. I can make us breakfast while you do that."
"Squirrels, nuts. Birds, birdseed. Got it." Discord walked over to the counter and began taking out the food from the cupboard, handing a nut to every squirrel and pouring some birdseed into a bowl for the birds. That was, until Fluttershy turned around to see what he was giving to her pets.
"STOP!" she shrieked as she dove towards Discord's outstretched hoof to knock away what he was about to give his next recipient.
"What, I thought you said the birds get birdseed?"
"That's not birdseed," said Fluttershy, "that's popcorn kernels!"
"Oh," said Discord. Meanwhile, several birds were pecking at the popcorn kernels trying to eat them with varied results. One in particular had managed to get one halfway down its throat and was coughing with tiny little bird squeaks.
"Baxter!" Fluttershy exclaimed as she rushed over to the bird and performed a mini Heimlich Maneuver with her hooves.
"Whoops..." said Discord, immediately continuing, "So does this still count as a good deed?"
Fluttershy finished the manuever and shot Discord a look. The only time Fluttershy could ever look truly angry was when a pet of hers was put in danger. But it quickly subsided. "I don't know," she said after a few moments of thought.
"Well, how am I supposed to know, exactly? I don't exactly have a glowing cutie mark that tells me when I'm following my destiny or some shtick like that."
Discord looked at his "cutie" mark on his flank. "Oh, actually it appears I do! Would you look at that..." His swirling vortex of chaos was pulsating for a few moments until it stopped and then shrank ever so slightly.
"I guess that means it counts," said Fluttershy.
"I suppose it does," said Discord. "You know, I could get used to this thing. It's quite convenient to have an indicator for these sorts of things." Discord looked around impatiently. "So anyways, how's that omelette going?"
