Pinkie Partakes in a Power Trip
On a typically serene afternoon within the central square of Ponyville, the resident Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle, was dispersing the tail end of a lecture that had, in an irregular circumstance, firmly gripped the attention of her commonly restless and not-too-academically-disposed companion Pinkie Pie.
"...so the undeniable logic we can draw from this little aside is that the absence of evidence does not equal the evidence of absence."
"Well zooks, Twilight!" Pinkie exclaimed in her surprise.
"That's not a word!" protested the lexically knowledgeable Twilight.
"It is now!" Pinkie shot back indignantly. "In fact, you know what? I hereby declare this day to be Zooks Day, in which we observe the day the word "zooks" was invented!"
It was at that instant that the town of Ponyville's reigning non-Princess authority, Mayor Mare, leapt into the vicinity, as if having heard a cry for order and salvation from the defilement of the town's preset system of observed dates.
"You can't just start making up terrible new holidays! That's MY job!" proclaimed the Mayor.
Pinkie giggled off the Mayor's bold display in the face of a shift in the status quo. "Don't be silly, Bo Billy... as you're hereby demoted to! Now be a dear and herald my ascent of Ponyville's political mountain, my loyal Bo Billy!"
Having gazed into the maw of defeat, the powerless Bo Billy hung her head low as the newly-crowned Mayor Pinkie-
"HEY! That's THE Mayor Pinkie to you, you narrating ninny!" yelled Pinkie at me. I scuttled into the shrubbery of my observatory realm in my embarrassment of such an ignorant faux-pas toward our magnificent and reasonably attractive The Mayor Pinkie Pie, who was beginning the process of issuing the royal decrees of her liking.
However, one brave soul would do no such scuttling off when political upset was afoot. Princess Twilight furled her regal brow as the direness of the situation became too much to stomach.
"In a world where Pinkie has become too Pinkie for Ponyville's executive branch to handle, only one particular individual can paradoxically restore the natural balance by out-Pinkie-ing Pinkie.
...I should visit him!" Her errand fully arranged, Twilight frolicked her merry way somewhere off-screen.
Meanwhile, in the strange, surreal laboratory of Offscreenville, Dr. Discord and his idiot assistant-slash-cousin Oliver were in the midst of making a mechanical man of massive mathematical might, which was about to receive the bolt of life that would allow it to carry out and fulfill the very purpose of its existence.
The eager Discord cried out to his ready assistant across the room. "OLIVER... DO THE THING!"
Oliver gingerly creeped his hand toward the lever that would bring their chrome calculus-capable creature to life, only to fall victim to the door he stood next to swinging open and striking him so forcefully that his very being was flattened to the point where each and every molecule of his corporeal being ceased to exist, thus wiping all memory of hi... wait, what were we talking about?
Well, anyway, Twilight trotted her way through the threshold of Discord's abode of science and fancy doodads of the sort. "How d'ya do, Discord? Hope I'm not interrupting something important."
Discord turned his attention away from playing, uh... who-or-whatever it is that makes ponies living things, and redirected it toward the purple monarch that graced his presence. "Oh, this is important, Twilight... for my grade-point average! You see, I finally sold my soul and integrity to the local community college, so now I'm making me a robot that will do all my math homeworks!"
"...Quite!" was the sole response Twilight could muster at such a shenanigan. If there's one thing she had learned from her long, shall we say... acquaintanceship with Discord, it's that she should never question why he does things, so she mentally elected there and then to instead steer the conversation to its rightful course.
"So, Discord, I heard it through the grapevine that someone won themselves the medal for "Excellence in Indiscriminate Pinkie Pie-ing" for the second year in a row," mentioned Twilight in the most flattering tone she could manage.
"How kind of you to bring that up," Discord beamed as he materialized the said medal into existence, obviously intent on showing it off. "It is a particularly impressive accomplishment considering I established the award myself just last week."
"And I'm all the prouder of you for it," Twilight complimented. She took a turn away from this gushing as she continued. "But I'm afraid something's come up that threatens your good title."
Discord's ears twitched at that procession of words, his ego thoroughly prodded by the implication that anyone other than himself could possibly excel at being Pinkie Pie. "I'm listening," muttered Discord, his usual joviality sharply chilled.
Twilight cleared her throat and internally thanked herself for giving her "bearing the bad news" muscles a lifelong workout. "The namesake of your beloved medal, Pinkie Pie, has gone on what is clinically referred to as a "power trip", possibly brought about by ignorance of your prodigious credential. As the reigning Princess of Friendship, I'm assigning you the royal task of demonstrating to her first-hand why you're the incumbent Champion of Indiscriminte Pinkie-Pie-ing, and by doing so restoring the natural order of things!"
Twilight's triumph was offset by Discord's deflation at the daunting duty of fulfilling the one deed that he, as the spirit of chaos and disharmony, was intrinsically opposed to. "But I'm baaaaad at thaaaat!" whined the mechanical genius Discord.
Twilight couldn't help but chortle blissfully at such an unusual display of self-doubt coming from the very embodiment of all that is irreverent to the sheer concept of natural talent. "Oh, Discord, the only thing ponies should be bad at is getting arrested."
Having recognized the Princess of Friendship's cheerful if thinly-veiled coercion for what is was, Discord took his continuing legal status into account and pondered his pending stance on this matter. "I do want to be not-arrested... oh, okaaaaay."
"Hooooo-RAAAAAYYY!" cheered Twilight in a flurry of hearts, sparkles and other symbols of joy and general positive emotions.
"BLAAAUGH-aughugh!" vomited Discord at Twilight in a stream of bile and half-digested foods, plastics and paper. "I'm diabetes-intolerant. Stop doing that."
"Sorry," groaned Twilight. Before she could drip on the nice sterile floor anymore, Discord took grasp of a corner of the scene and turned it over to the next one.
Back within the hallowed halls of Ponyville's highest office, The Mayor Pinkie Pie spent her sweet time barking orders at her loyal, royal Bo Billy in the interest of subjecting her will upon the town citizenry.
"And have it be known that all working citizens of Ponyville shall now be taxed for 95 percent of their income! Not 100 percent, of course, because come on, that's totally stealing."
As Bo Billy moaned in despair at the unfairness of all that revenue going to someone other than herself, a faint muttering permeated from the other side of the office's main door in the form of Discord's complaining.
"Do we have to do this?! This is silly! And not the good, funny kind, the stupid kind!"
"Discord, you major in Stupid Random Nonsense with a minor in Silliness," reminded Twilight.
"Oh yeeeeeah..." recalled Discord.
Pinkie's ears vibrated in light of the slight aural disturbance that had infiltrated her surroundings. "Doth mine ears deceive me? Intruders?! SHOW YOURSELVES NOW!"
On cue, the room's ornate doors flung ajar from the force of Twilight's kick. Jigging her jolly way through the office threshold was Princess Twilight adorned in an old-fashioned sailor's uniform, followed by a much-less-enthusiastic Discord, performing a similar jig and dressed in identical attire. A background score of unidentifiable origin reverbed throughout the room's atmosphere in a fashion comparable to an electric organ at a baseball stadium. As the music transitioned from its opening stinger, Twilight's spirited singing and Discord's disdainful droning harmonized to make for a fairly one-sided duet:
We sail the ocean blue and our ship's a saucy beauty.
We are sober mares and true and attentive to our-
"ENOUGH!" shrieked The Mayor Pinkie with such force as to brush Twilight and Discord with a warm breeze. "You insolent, musical peasants! You invade government property, partake in wanton singing and jigging without a permit, break down my fancy door and you expect me to show you mercy?! You're under arrest for all that stuff I said just now! I ORDER YOU TO BE ARRESTED!"
Twilight stomped her hoof in defiance. "Nooooo WAAAAAAAYYYY!" The sheer force of Twilight's free will manifested itself into an overwhelming, tumultuous gust that knocked The Mayor Pinkie and her seat right onto the floor. Her authority thwarted by the free will of a semi-common mare (who just happened to be an alicorn princess and had backing from a reality-warping demigod), Pinkie found herself brought down to ranks equal to those of everybony who had inhabited this town, and as it sunk in, Pinkie bounced about impotently and unleashed a profane torrent, the likes of which she had never uttered up til this very point.
"SWEAR SWEAR SWEARITY SWEAR SWEARY SWEAR SWEARSON SWEARINGTON A TON MORE SWEARS AND ESPECIALLY SWEAR!"
After giving Pinkie a brief moment to huff and puff after such an obscene outburst, Twilight stepped forth as gallantly as she could in such unbecoming garb. "Consider this a coup-slash-intervention Pinkie! Ever since you found your calling in life as a tyrant, you've been acting like a complete hoser!"
"And a poser," contributed Discord.
Twilight continued her tirade. "I put my trust in you and was pushed as far as I can go! For all this, there's only one thing you should know... you're mean!"
Gutted by the accusation of being something nopony wants to be, Pinkie's exasperation plummeted into sorrowful realization. "...Mean?! ...I don't want people thinking I'm mean!"
"Who does?!" retorted Twilight. "Meanness is not part of the picture we've painted over at my place! You're the Laughter Seat in my Friendship Council, and last I checked, ponies don't laugh at meanness!"
"But Twilight-" Discord interjected, only to be met with Twilight's hoof-raise of silencing.
"EHP! You've violated our group dynamics, Pinkie, and if this were to get out to the public, our social standing, not to mention our toy sales at the Canterlot Gift Shop, are sunk! There's only one course of action available to me in the interest of avoiding a costly scandal... the Ponyville Town Hall must be suicided."
Bo Billy bolted up in protest. "Princess Twilight, you can't do this!" she pleaded. "My position, my decrees, my... er the taxpayers' money, you can't take all that away from me!"
Twilight nodded in rebuttal. "I'm sorry, Mare, but this building is a monument to all our sins, and to salvage our images and profits, I as the Princess of Friendship hereby order these sins to be cleansed. MR. DISCORD, TEAR DOWN THIS HALL!"
Discord groaned petulantly. "But I don't waaaaanna solve the conflict all by myself! That's BOOOOO-riiiiing!"
Twilight chortled once more at Discord's moaning and moping over being the most capable being in the known universe. "Oh, Discord, the only thing ponies should think is boring is watching paint dry."
Traversing the intricate nuances of Twilight's veiled remark in his mind, Discord grunted and twitched in seething agitation before finally emitting a sigh of defeat and complying with Princess Twilight's direct order.
As the snap from Discord's fingers rung through the air, the background that housed him, Twilight, The Mayor Pinkie and Bo Billy began to swiftly crumple in a similar fashion to paper in the midst of a furious discarding. In no time flat, the group found themselves standing within the open, empty foundation of where Ponyville's town hall once stood; what once resembled a large building was now condensed into an insignificant crumpled ball within Discord's light clutch.
Discord stretched his mouth open and chucked the town hall's remains into his gaping maw. He chewed the crumpled hall only a few times before he suddenly spat it down to the ground and retched in disgust.
"It tastes like lies and deceit... with a hint of bad hair!" cried Discord. He took to stomping and jumping on the moist morsel that had offended his taste buds for the first and last time in its miserable existence.
The once proud and imposing Town Hall of Ponyville now reduced to a dirty, mangled and saliva-coated mess that even the most indiscriminate of raccoons wouldn't touch, the Ex-Mayor Mare crawled to the sorry sight and wailed in her mourning and self-pity.
"NOOOOO, MY BEAUTIFUL TOWN HALLLLL! What did I do to deserve this, I mean besides the cover-ups and seized property?! WHY, CELESTIA, WHYYYYY?!"
"Doh, chin up, Mare!" consoled Twilight. "Karma may've collected your debt today, but there's a place where all ponies of your particular... attributes can take on a more beneficial role in society that doesn't involve setting anypony on fire... Clown College!"
Regardless of the questionable sensibility of Twilight's proposal, Mare resigned herself to the imminent fate of distracting and entertaining crowds in a more ironic fashion than what she had past aspired to. Mare pulled out and subsequently donned a large, red afro wig and rubber nose; what she had once reserved for Nightmare Night festivities would now be garments she would be professionally recognized by from this day forward. "Nowhere to go but up, I suppose."
Watching the most despondent pony to ever wear such garish accessories saunter away into the horizon hit Discord with an abrupt epiphany.
"You know, I've never seen anypony dressed so silly look so dreary. It's made me, dare I say it... learn something."
"REALLY?!" Twilight lit up, her self-esteem bone tickled at the prospect of having taught the corporeal representation of irresponsibility and pointlessness something of value.
"Yea verily," affirmed Discord. "What I've learned... is that selling out was a horrendously deplorable idea! I mean, who even gives two feathers about some stupid numbers beyond whatever two-plus-two equals?!"
"Hey," Twilight uttered, her previous beaming having quickly faltered to terse indignance.
Discord segued to his concluding point. "From now on, I stick to my strength, my specialty and my true calling in life... bucking the system in the wrong holes!"
"All of them?!" Twilight gasped.
Discord grinned deviously "And mooooore... Cheerio!"
And with that farewell, Discord disappeared in an ascending downpour of loop-shaped cereal and milk. Twilight and Pinkie stood by themselves and meandered upon the scene in silence, until Twilight figured that they should remove themselves before anypony got the idea to question why the town hall used to be there but wasn't anymore.
"So, I'm dressed like a sailor and you're not totally evil anymore. What should we do now?" pondered Twilight out loud.
"Wanna have an ambiguously gay prance into the Everfree Forest that likely won't mean anything on paper but will nevertheless buy us the adoration of self-indulgent critics and coffee shop patrons for a few months after the fact?" proposed Pinkie.
"...Okay." agreed Twilight.
And that's what they did.
Author's Note
A little My Little Pony one-shot I've been writing in really short spurts for the last 9 months; this started out as maybe two or three short scenes/lines I thought were funny in my head and turned into an attempt to string the said bits together in a way that resembled a story and kept the funny up at some level.
