The next room was another white cube, this one a little smaller than the last. It was made up of the same white panels, but some of them - six, Twilight quickly counted - looked like the sides of the jack-in-the-boxes that her friends had been trapped in. So what do I do here? She thought. Six sides make a cube - so am I supposed to get to those panels and put together a jack-in-the-box?

Unfortunately, all of the panels were far out of reach - either on the ceiling or near it. “This chamber will test your spatial reasoning skills,” said Discord. His voice was oddly monotone, and he was making an attempt to sound feminine. “Please use the Rubik’s Device located in the center of the room to move the wall panels and complete the challenge.”

Twilight turned her head to the center of the room. “There’s nothing there, Discord.”

“Please keep in mind that these are pre-recorded instructions that cannot respond to your queries,” said Discord, still high-pitched and monotone. “Please do not develop the suspicion that the entity speaking to you is conscious and intelligent, as that is intended to be a mid-game twist.”

“Okay,” said Twilight. “So we’re back to referencing things I’ve never seen.”

“If the Rubik’s Device is not present, then we regret to inform you that this test chamber cannot be solved,” said Discord. “Please starve quietly and do not attempt to investigate any secret rat holes behind loose panels.”

Twilight huffed, and inspected the walls near the floor with increased scrutiny. She hadn’t noticed it at first, due to the eye-catching jack-in-the-box panels, but one of the ordinary white panels on the wall was indeed loose, and dim orange light shone from behind. “Okay,” said Twilight, “Let’s see what’s back here.” She poked her head cautiously into the crack, and saw a cramped-looking space with frenzied scrawling all over the walls. Diagrams, pictures, lines of text - nothing coherent, as far as Twilight could tell, but maybe a closer look would be enlightening. Twilight squeezed her body through the crack, with some difficulty - it didn’t look like it would be a tough fit, but Twilight wasn’t accustomed to having a thick rubber suit on her body, or a big poofy diaper on her butt, and she had to wiggle her backside in order to squeeze through the gap.

Once she popped through to the other side, she trotted over to the far wall to get a better look at the scrawled writing. But her focus was interrupted by Discord’s voice from the room behind her. “It seems that you have left the testing area,” said Discord. “We regret to inform you that the -” Discord’s voice wavered, dropping out of the high, feminine register as he broke into a peal of laughter.

“I’m sorry,” said Discord. His voice was high and monotone again, but it seemed like he was still holding back laughter. “We regret to inform you that the cake - hee hee - the cake is…” Twilight glanced back into the “test chamber” and saw Discord laughing uncontrollably on the monitor, alternately holding his sides and slapping his knee. “I’m so sorry, Twilight,” he said, now in his normal voice. “It’s just… the thing I’m trying to say is just so unbelievably funny… if you knew what it was, you’d never, ever get tired of hearing it, no matter how many times it was repeated.”

“Okay,” said Discord. “For real this time. The cake is -” and then Discord howled with laughter for literally two entire minutes.

“Well, never mind,” said Discord, wiping tears from his eyes. “To be honest, I prefer pie anyway.” And with that, the “test chamber” raised itself up, moving away from the cramped crawlspace that Twilight had squeezed herself into. As the chamber moved aside, Twilight saw that it was just one of many chambers, each one suspended in an enormous space that went on as far as the eye could see. She was in some kind of highly mechanized, automated facility, where robotic arms positioned and repositioned those same white panels in different configurations all around her. Twilight realized that it was all created by Discord’s chaotic magic - and, in all likelihood, a reference to something she wasn’t familiar with - but it was still pretty impressive.

The test chamber she'd been in now shifted away from her, sliding away by some mechanism, revealing a floor of metal plates underneath. The floor was expansive, almost five times as big as the room, and Twilight hopped down onto it from her little crawlspace. The room slid into the center of the floor, stopped, and turned itself inside out. Each of the inward-facing white panels shifted outward, turning the room into an enormous white box. Then it dropped from the railings that suspended it, crashing into the floor with so much weight that Twilight was momentarily certain it’d collapse and fall into the void.

But it held steady, and as Twilight watched, the test chamber raised itself up, using the white panels on its base as feet. The mechanical arms that supported each panel bent in unison, like dozens of legs testing their knees - and then the ones nearest Twilight shifted down, as if the chamber was a bull ready to charge. Twilight yelped and started to run, circling the giant white box to get out of its path.

Sure enough, the test chamber charged forwards, towards the spot Twilight had been standing - and since she wasn’t there anymore, it charged right past that spot and slammed into the side of a massive pipe, hitting it with enough force to separate two sections that had been bolted together. Twilight cringed - both because the impact shook the floor again, but also because she was afraid more Smooze Gel would erupt from the busted pipe. Luckily, it seemed to have been empty.

“Blast!” Said Discord. His monitor, now on the outside of the mobile test chamber, showed him in front of a comically overcomplicated control panel that was leaking steam, oil, and sparks from various sections. “I should have gotten more practice with this thing!”

“Discord!” Twilight shouted. “That seriously could have killed me!”

“Uh, no doy?” said Discord distractedly, pressing buttons and pulling switches seemingly at random. “I’m kind of a villain over here, Princess.” The test chamber picked itself up from where it had crashed - but instead of charging at Twilight, it began to stagger drunkenly around the floor, swaying from side to side.

“Oh, fiddlesticks,” said Discord. “I’ll never squash you like this. I suppose I could test out the mobile test chamber’s experimental combat mode...” He jabbed at a button, and the white panel next to the monitor receded into the chamber. When it re-emerged, it was carrying something. Something big and round…

“It’s a pie, Twilight! From before?” He looked at Twilight expectantly. “Remember when I said I preferred pie?” His face fell. “I suppose a little too much time has passed since the setup to that punchline. Hey Twilight, you know what the most important thing in comedy is?”

Twilight didn’t respond; she understood Discord’s sense of humor well enough to understand that he was about to throw that pie at her, and she wanted to be ready. Sure enough, the panel twisted, aiming the pie down at her. And before gravity had a chance to make the giant pastry fall, the panel sprang outward, propelling it in her direction. With a desperate leap, she managed to get out of its way, and it splattered on the ground, landing upside-down and leaving behind a trail of whipped cream as it slid to as stop. Twilight looked at the fallen pie ruefully; it was about six feet in diameter, and while it wouldn’t have killed her, she was still glad she’d dodged it.

Twilight walked over and nudged the pie tin with her hoof. “Wait, is this just whipped cream in a pie tin?” she said. “You have the power to alter reality and this is the ‘pie’ you come up with?”

“This is an experimental setting,” said Discord, “But I appreciate your feedback. Let’s see if you like this one more.” He pressed a button, and a different panel receded and re-emerged with another six-foot pie. This one was apple, and it looked deliciously decadent, dripping with syrupy filling… it also looked piping hot, fresh from the oven.

Should have kept my mouth shut, thought Twilight, as she dodged away from the scalding-hot dessert. She circled the mobile test chamber, and once she started moving, it resumed its drunken stagger, moving unsteadily around the floor. Its movements were difficult to predict, but as long as Twilight kept her distance, it seemed like she’d have no trouble reacting to it.

The pies, on the other hand, were starting to worry her. As soon as she rounded the corner of the test chamber, two panels retrieved pies and threw them. Twilight tightened the circle she was running in, moving closer to the swaying test chamber, and the pies sailed over her head. One pumpkin, one blueberry.

She ran a circle around the chamber, dodging more and more pies as she rounded each of the cube’s corners. The rubber suit was restrictive, making running a chore, and it trapped her body heat. If I don’t do something, thought Twilight, I’m going to pass out. Or at least slow down enough that I get hit by a pie.

By her third time round the room, she was running through piles of spilled pie filling, struggling to keep her balance on spilled fruit and fragments of shattered crust. With one unlucky step, her hoof slipped in a puddle of filling, and she fell face-first onto the floor, sliding forward on sticky boysenberry. A little got in her mouth, which wasn't so bad. Some more got into her suit, which she was less fine with.

Twilight grunted and pulled herself up - and then whimpered as an enormous shadow closed in on her. Before she could move, a pie slammed into her, totally engulfing her body beneath its crust.

“Finally!” said Discord, pumping his fist as Twilight kicked her way through the crust, covered in cheesecake.. “Ooh, you’re lucky that one wasn’t hot. What is that, strawberry cheesecake? Raspberry?”

“Whatever it is.” said Twilight, licking her lips clean, “It’s in this suit all the way down to the diaper.” She eyed the test chamber suspiciously, but it wasn’t readying another pie yet; Discord seemed more interested in talking.

“What a messy Princess you are, Twilight,” said Discord. “But since you’re having a hard time, and I’m having great fun, I’ll throw you a little hint. Perhaps you should examine that big red button over by the busted pipe.”

Twilight turned her head to look at the pipe the test chamber had charged into. There was, indeed, another red button on a pedestal. “Hang on,” said Twilight. “That wasn’t there before.”

“Excuse me?” Said Discord, “It absolutely was, Princess.”

“No, I was standing over there, and there wasn’t a button.”

“Princess,” said Discord, through gritted teeth, “That button is part of the level design, and I assure you that it was there from the start. You’re not accusing me of not playing fair, are you?”

“What do you care?” Said Twilight. She tilted her head, making her cheesecake-splattered jester hat wobble. “You seemed proud of cheating the first time we met.”

“I care,” said Discord, steam rising from his ears, “Because this is the one time I’ve played fair, and I want some acknowledgment!”

“Okay, okay,” said Twilight. Then, under her breath: “The button wasn’t there, though.”

“Yes it was!” Bellowed Discord. His hands flew over the control panel in front of him, and every single panel on the mobile test chamber flipped over to reveal a thick, charred metal nozzle. He curled his talons into a fist and slammed it on a thick yellow button, and each of the nozzles belched a gout of angry red flame.

Twilight screamed and ran in the direction of the button, hoping that it would still accomplish whatever purpose it was intended for. She hurtled herself at it and slammed her forehooves onto it, then turned back to the mobile test chamber. It was still staggering around the floor, but its flamethrowers made it a genuine threat. Twilight kept her eyes on it, ready to move left or right as it came closer…

And then the enormous broken pipe behind her began to rumble and shake, and an echoing burble rose up through it. Before Twilight could conduct any sort of threat assessment, Smooze Gel erupted from the break in the pipe, a ten-foot-wide jet of slime scoring a direct hit on the mobile test chamber. Thanks to the gel’s non-Newponian properties, it hit the chamber like a freight train, knocking it back and sending it stumbling away from Twilight. The gel splattered after its impact, leaving a slimy green coating over the flamethrowers that lined its sides. The nozzles glowed red with heat underneath the ooze, and then the slime began to bubble… and then dark, ominous smoke began to pour from the test chamber’s interior.

The mobile test chamber wasn’t quite like anything Twilight had seen before, but she was pretty sure she recognized an imminent explosion when she saw one. There was nothing for her to hide behind, though - nothing on the floor besides her, the test chamber, and a few thick pools of Smooze Gel that had fallen near her…

Twilight groaned miserably as she was struck by a brilliant idea. Usually, brilliant ideas made her happy, but this idea involved coating herself in the fallen Smooze Gel so that its unusual physical properties would absorb the impact of any flying, white-hot debris that came her way. As fast as she could manage, she scooped up all the slime she could, slathered herself in it, then dove into a pony-sized drop of Smooze Gel that hadn’t yet lost its shape.

Seconds later, the shaking, smoking test chamber exploded, flinging burning debris in all directions. Most of it tumbled into the abyss, but several pieces smacked against the side of Twilight’s slime-bubble. The bubble held steady, turning solid and wobbling with each impact, and after holding her breath as long as she could, Twilight wiggled free of the ooze.

In the center of the floor, where the test chamber had stood, was a jack-in-the-box. Twilight had all but forgotten that it had been part of the test chamber, but there it was, intact, not even singed by the explosion. Weaving through flaming wreckage, feeling slime and cheesecake squishing against her limbs and inside her diaper, she trotted over to the box and began to turn the crank.

This time, the box produced an a capella version of “Pop Goes the Weasel,” perfectly on key and expertly produced, with all vocals seemingly performed by Discord himself. Twilight was more disappointed than surprised when the box burst open halfway through; she’d really wanted to hear all of it.

“Wow!” Said Pinkie Pie, as soon as she popped out of the box. “Twilight, you’re a mess!”

“Uh, you’re welcome,” said Twilight, scowling up at her.

“Oh my gosh!” Said Pinkie Pie, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that! It’s just, you look like you’ve been through a lot!”

“Yeah, it’s been trying,” said Twilight. “But that doesn’t matter. The most important thing is-”

“TIMING!” Shouted Discord triumphantly, his face appearing on a smoldering monitor lying next to the jack-in-the-box.

Twilight stared hatefully at the monitor for a long moment, then turned back to Pinkie. “-is that you’re okay, Pinkie Pie,” she said.

Pinkie vanished, and Twilight turned back to the monitor. As she’d expected, it switched to the red-curtain room, where Pinkie was already staring into the camera. “Hey Twilight!” She said. “Cool diaper! It’s like super poofy!”

Twilight sighed. “Yeah,” she said, shaking her back leg. “It’s also totally soaked with slime and cheesecake.”

“Aw, I’d have changed it for you!” Said Pinkie Pie. “I’m like an expert at that now!” Rainbow Dash and Applejack laughed offscreen, and the feed cut out.

“Oh, would you look at that,” muttered Twilight, stepping out of the dark corridor. “It looks like I’ve stumbled into one of the sections of the funhouse that… is… a nail salon.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth!” Said Discord. His face appeared on one of the framed images of flowers that lined the back wall of the empty nail salon. “I thought you could use a little cooldown. That last challenge got a little more emotionally charged than I was expecting. We both ended up saying some things that you’re going to regret.”

Twilight laughed softly as she parsed what Discord had just said. “Hang on,” said Discord, raising an eyebrow. “You hated my other references. Why’d you like that one?”

“That was a reference?” Asked Twilight. “I laughed because it was a funny thing to say, all on its own. You know, Discord, the thing about reference humor is-”

“Hold that thought,” said Discord. “If we’re going to have a discussion, we may as well get started on your next challenge.” He reached his arms out of the painting he was in, grabbed the edges of the frame, and pulled himself through. “Twilight,” he said, taking a seat in one of the salon’s padded chairs, “This next challenge will test your ability to give me a pedicure.”

“Pedicure?”

“It’s like a hooficure,” said Discord, “Only it’s not a made-up horse word.” He raised his brown leg and looked down at the dark hoof it ended in. “Actually, I guess half of it will be a hooficure,” he said. “I always forget which limb is which.”

Twilight sighed. “I guess it was too much to expect that I would be the one getting a hooficure,” she said. “Fine, let’s get started.” Drawing on memories of spa days with Rarity, Twilight retrieved the foot soak tub from beside Discord’s seat. “You know,” she said, “I’m not that good with my hooves. This would go easier if I had my horn back.”

“Oh, you didn’t notice?” Said Discord. “You’ve already got it. I put it back on your head at the start of the last challenge. I was wondering why you didn’t use it. You could have been levitating pies out of your way and making force fields instead of covering yourself in Smooze Gel…”

“What?” Said Twilight. “I did not have my horn back there!”

“Let’s not get into this again, Princess,” sighed Discord. “Anyway, it scarcely matters now.”

“Yeah,” said Twilight. “I guess it doesn’t.” With her magic, she levitated the tub, scented water, and epsom salts - and gasped as the room around her seemed to shoot upward, She dropped to her knees, seized by vertigo, as the ceiling receded and Discord loomed huge over her.

“Ah, this is the fun part,” said Discord. “With each step of the process, you’re going to get a little bit smaller. Giving me a pedicure would hardly be a challenge otherwise.”

Twilight groaned, levitated the tub into place beneath Discord’s feet, and began to fill it. “Well, as long as I don’t have to go through anything like what happened with Applejack…” She stared up at Discord. His lanky, patchwork body had never really been intimidating on its own, but now he was a towering presence. Twilight guessed she was at about half her original size, and apparently she was only going to get smaller over time.

“No, no,” said Discord. “I don’t think of you that way, Twilight. Now, er… what were you saying about reference humor?”

“Well,” she said, placing the filled tub under Discord’s feet, “Reference humor works best when the reference is funny on its own and doesn’t rely entirely on the audience being familiar with what’s being referenced.”

Discord dropped his feet into the tub, and Twilight flinched as herbal-scented water splashed onto her, seeping into her rubber suit. Well, it’s the least unpleasant thing that’s gotten in there today, she thought.

“I think I see what you mean,” said Discord. “Like how the song in ‘Marge Vs. The Monorail’ is fun and catchy even if you’ve never seen ‘Music Man?’”

“Well, I don’t know what most of those words mean,” said Twilight, “But… yes, it sounds like you’ve got the basic idea. See, this is -”

“Done soaking!” Said Discord, kicking his feet out of the tub. Twilight flinched again, but got splashed with another wave of fragrant water. Twilight knew from experience that forty-five seconds of soaking was hardly sufficient, but she was ready to agree with anything that got this over with faster. She picked up a pumice stone in her telekinesis, instantly shrinking down to less than a foot in height. Discord’s feet looked huge now, big enough to stomp her flat. She steeled herself and trotted over to Discord’s lizard foot, raising the pumice stone to its surface.

“As I was saying,” said Twilight. “This is the sort of thing I was hoping you had learned from your friendship with Fluttershy. You keep making these references that amuse no one but yourself… I’d really hoped that friendship would teach you that sharing laughter with other ponies is much more fun.” She moved the pumice over Discord’s scales and talons, working off their rough surfaces. Discord’s talons curled, and Twilight cowered involuntarily; Discord didn’t seem to have much of a taste for physical violence, but now that his foot was looming over her, she was acutely aware of how dangerous he could be with just his claws.

“I tried making other ponies laugh,” said Discord. “You remember the Gala, I was upstaged by the low-energy comedy stylings of Pinkie Pie’s stone-faced sister.”

Twilight walked over to Discord’s other leg - the brown one that ended in what was now a huge black hoof. Twilight raised the pumice stone and ran it along the hoof’s underside, She was glad to have her magic back, so that she could do the job from a distance; having to be directly underneath the enormous appendage would have been… stressful.

“Maybe you should talk to Maud, actually,” said Twilight. “She doesn’t have the easiest time relating to ponies, but she understands how to make them laugh.”

“Sounds like you’ve already got my redemption arc all planned out,” said Discord dryly.

“Well, I’m trying,” said Twilight. She lowered the pumice stone and picked up a nail file. She shrank again, down below six inches. The nail file was now ponderously heavy and terribly unwieldy - Twilight’s horn was beginning to ache so bad that she almost wished she hadn’t gotten it back. She couldn’t even lift it up to the bottom of Discord’s hoof; the farther away she moved the file, the weaker her telekinesis became.

Discord looked down, between his legs, to where the tiny Twilight was struggling. “Oh, let me held you with that,” he said, and he reached to the side of his seat and cranked a lever. His chair lowered down in a sudden jolt, and his hoof - which he’d repositioned to be directly over Twilight - sank down to within inches of the floor. Twilight screamed and threw herself flat onto the floor, and the massive black hoof stopped just a half-inch above her head. “Oh, terribly sorry!” Said Discord. “My, that was close.”

Twilight crawled out from under Discord’s hoof, her body still tense and shaking. “You know,” she said, trying to keep anger out of her voice, “I have a friend named Moondancer-”

“Oh, here we go,” said Discord, resting his head on his paw. “I know, Princess. You have lots and lots of friends.”

“And Moondancer used to push ponies away because she was afraid of getting her feelings hurt. She was cruel to ponies who reached out to her because she felt sure that they would hurt her.” She ran the file along the side of Discord’s hoof, smoothing out some uneven sections, then trotted over to his lizard foot. Flipping the nail file over, she ran it over his claws, smoothing out the sharp points.

“I see what you’re trying to do, Princess,” said Discord. “You’re trying to bore me to death with stories I can’t relate to. I’m an elemental force of chaos who has lived for millennia. I don’t have anything in common with mortal ponies, however they may strut and fret their hour upon the stage.”

“Well then, let’s not talk about my friends,” said Twilight. “Let’s talk about your friends.” Discord scoffed and idly knocked a plastic bottle off the shelf behind his seat. From Twilight’s perspective, the shelf was a few hundred feet up, and when the bottle hit the floor, she felt the vibrations in her hooves. The bottle began to roll in her direction, and she erected a wall of magic to bring it to a stop before it could crush her.

The bottle contained “Rose Massage Oil,” according to its label, and Twilight took this as a cue that Discord wanted a foot massage. The bottle was almost a foot tall, more than twice her current height, so she just let it lay on its side and unscrewed the cap with her magic. As soon as the cap was off, though, Twilight found herself shrinking again. She was once again gripped by vertigo; all around her, the nail salon expanded into a space so massive that her eyes could hardly make sense of it, and Discord towered above her, unimaginably huge, bigger than a mountain.

And the massage oil, spilling onto the floor, was a thick, oily flood that swept Twilight up, flailing and spitting, before coming to a stop a couple feet away. Twilight’s rubber suit was soaked with scented oil, which was almost pleasant - but the squishing sounds coming from her diaper and the overwhelming flowery odor made it decidedly undignified.

Twilight walked back over to the spilled bottle, formed a basin with her magic, and filled it with spilled massage oil. Discord’s lizard foot was dauntingly huge, itself the size of a dragon to Twilight’s eyes, but she focused on the task at hand and used her magic to work the massage oil into his scales.

“As I was saying,” said Twilight. “You have a friend who shares some of your problems. A friend with a connection to a powerful elemental force. A friend who’s also coming to terms with the prospect of outliving her friends.” She hammered at the underside of Discord’s foot, emphasizing her words. “You were immortal and then you started to make friends. I started to make friends, and then became an immortal. We’re both coming at this from different angles, but we’re wrestling with the same problem.”

Twilight collected more oil and walked over to Discord’s hoof. “Sometimes I want to lock the doors of my castle and tell my friends I don’t want to see them anymore,” she said, working the oil into the underside of the gigantic black hoof above her head. “It would be so much easier if I could just shut everyone out and wait until time severs all my connections to the ponies around me.”

The muscles of Discord’s leg shifted, and for a moment Twilight thought that he was going to bring his hoof down. It was too big for her to get away in time, and she knew her magic couldn’t hold him off for even a fraction of a second. If he decided to squish her, then it was all over.

But he didn’t; instead, he hopped out of the chair and landed on the floor several feet away from Twilight. “Here’s your friend,” he said, sounding entirely humorless. “See you in the next room.” He held something in his paw, something far too small to see at this distance, and tossed it onto the ground.

Twilight raised her forehoof. “Discord!” She yelled. “I’m trying to help-”

But he vanished, and the tiny object he’d tossed at Twilight came closer and closer, falling like a meteor. First Twilight could see that it was red, then that it was a cube - and she realized it was the jack-in-the-box that held one of her friends. She reached out with her magic, trying to catch it before it hit the floor, but she’d exhausted herself by lifting larger and larger tools over the course of the pedicure, and she couldn’t conjure anything strong enough to bring the box safely to a stop.

The box hit the ground with a crack - but it was the floor that was damaged. The box stood unharmed inside a crater in the white tile floor, and Twilight walked over to turn the crank. This time, the “music” was a bored-sounding Discord mumbling the approximate tune to “Pop Goes The Weasel,” until the box popped open. Rarity sprang out, slowly wobbling to a stop on the end of her spring.

“Twilight!” Said Rarity, “What are you wearing, dear? What am I wearing?” She prodded the underside of her rubber jester suit. “Oh, this is dreadful!”

“Well, it could be worse,” said twilight. “Discord could have put you in a diaper.”

Rarity peered at Twilight’s rear end. “Oh, you’re quite right,” she said, stifling a laugh. “That would be a great deal worse. I hope you’re holding up all right, darling.” She stared down at Twilight, still wobbling slightly on her spring. “Er, would you help me down from here?”

“Uh…” Twilight put her hoof to her chin. “Discord would usually teleport you out fright about now,” she said. “I think he’s… in a bit of a mood at the moment.” Rarity vanished at the exact moment, as if Discord was listening and wanted to insist that he was not, in fact, in a mood.

In the wall behind Discord’s chair, a mouse hole-sized door opened up into darkness. Twilight sighed and trotted toward it. “Discord…” she mumbled uncertainly, shaking her head.

Author's Note

This story was a commission! If you want one of your own, see my commission policy and prices here. I can also be reached at massdriver77 {at} gmail {dot} com, or on Discord at MassDriver#3858.

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