Chapters Tap! Tap! Tap! Discord taps on Faust's shoulder as he pushes himself out of the computer screen behind her.
"Hello, Ms. Faust!" says Discord slyly. Lauren turns around stunned, shocked, and surprised.
"Wha...wha...what are you doing here, Discord, you're a creation of my imagination?" says a startled Lauren Faust.
"I'm a fourth wall breaker as well as a lord of chaos!" replies Discord with a smirking grin. He then snaps his claws and grabs the pen from her hand. Faust looks at him surprised. "My turn to write the show!" cackles Discord. He then proceeds to bind Faust with a rope, take her seat, and begins to write an episode that he titles "Villains vs. The Mane Six". Meanwhile, Faust struggles to try to free herself but to no avail. She's scared for her show and she knows, with Discord on the loose, things could definitely get out of hand easily and probably scare away her viewers for good.
Discord then writes the first phrase: 'it's a stormy day, but it's not just any rain, it's chocolate rain coming from cotton candy clouds'. He continues to write the script. After several days, he finishes it then starts on storyboarding all the scenes. At this, Lauren begins to freak out even more. Her show is in jeopardy and it's all thanks to a rogue Discord and right now, she's helpless to do anything about it.
"You won't get away with this, Discord!" hollers Lauren.
"Oh Lauren, I already have and you can't stop me!" says Discord in a little girly, girly voice mockingly.
"You're damaging my rep, Discord!"
"Like I care," replies Discord. "Why would I care?"
"Because, this isn't just for little girls, it's also for John de Lancie fans, and adults!" hollers Lauren in response.
"John is just an annoying voice inside my head," laughs Discord. He continues to fill in the coloring of the characters, except it's not their normal colors.
"Discord! You're ruining my beautiful characters with your trashy color combinations!" cries Lauren. "Please stop, just please stop! You're ruining my baby, my pride and joy, my beloved ponies!"
"Ph, I don't care," replies Discord. "Because I actually think I'm doing you a favor. I think I'm making the show better."
"No!" replies Faust, "you're ruining the continuity and grace and flow of it all! You're ruining everything!"
Faust then finally gets fed up with Discord. She manages to grab a pen and write herself into her Fausticorn form and uses her magic to attack the draconequus. Discord looks stunned and confused. He can't figure out how she managed to get herself free. He's perplexed, confused, and for a lord of chaos, that is far from normal. He may create confusion, but he's not supposed to be confused himself. It's simply not in his nature. Lauren then blasts him with another beam of magic as she flies overhead. She attempts to try to turn him into stone but to no avail. He dodges her stone transformation spell several times and not once does it actually hit him. He then snaps his claw and causes her magic to backfire on her. He then snaps his claws and binds her up once again.
"See, not even the great Lauren Faust herself can stop me," taunts Discord. He then chuckles and gets back to work on his episode.
"Lauren! Faust!" Hollers Twilight. "I can't hold him back forever!" Lauren shoots a beam of magic at Discord and stuns him. Twilight follows suit and does the same. They manage to stun him for another few hours. Unfortunately, not long after, he manages to break free.
"We can't hold him back that long and the episode's supposed to go out this weekend, what am I supposed to do?"
"Keep up hope, Lauren, we'll defeat him yet."
"Thanks for the encouragement, Twilight," replies Lauren, a faint smile appearing on her face. This boost of confidence from Twilight gives Lauren the courage to shoot a beam of freeze magic at Discord, freezing him in place. She then starts to cover him in stone. Twilight begins to help her cover him in stone. The two do so to great success. They then rush over and begin to rewrite his horrid episode idea and to great success. They get the series back on track and just in time for the episode to come out that weekend. Meanwhile, from his stone prison, Discord mumbles 'I will get free' and then goes silent.
"There," says Faust, "now he can cause no more trouble. I leave it to you now Twilight. Thanks for the help."
"Don't mention it," replies Twilight. She then takes Discord in her cart she brought with her and uses her transport spell and transports the two of them to the pony world. Everything is back to normal and Faust returns back to her human state and plops back down in her seat. Now, she can write and animate the episode her way in the vision she initially imagined it.
Back in Equestria, Twilight and Discord pop into Celestia's castle in Canterlot. There, Twilight hands the statue over to Celestia. "Thanks for returning Discord, what'd he do this time?" says Celestia.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," replies Twilight as a sweat droplet falls from her forehead. She then begins to giggle. Twilight then flies off to her own castle to take a nap. She's had a busy day as it is.
Back at Twilight's castle, she goes to her room in the castle and immediately passes out asleep on the bed. She's worn out from battling Discord alongside Lauren Faust.
Meanwhile, at Sugar Cube Corner, all the rest of the ponies are enjoying their sweets. They're glad that everything is back to normal.
"Man! I'm so glad everything is back to normal!" says Rainbow Dash.
"I can agree to that," replies Rarity as she pulls a stray piece of cotton candy out of her mane. Pinkie then eats the cotton candy off of Rarity's hoof which causes Rarity to squeal and freak out. After a few minutes, though, she calms back down and gets back to enjoying her slice of cake. Everything is perfect now that it's back to normal. They can definitely agree to that.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Lauren is back to work on the episode. "I'm glad things are back to normal," sighs Faust. She continues to write and storyboard. A few minutes later, her husband Craig knocks on the door. She then hollers for him to come in.
"Come in!" hollers Lauren. Craig enters the room.
"Thanks," replies Craig as he comes into the room. "Is everything okay Lauren?"
"Yeah, if you consider having to fight off your own creation okay?" replies Lauren.
"Let me guess, Discord broke fourth wall and tried to take over the show," teases Craig.
"Uh, yep," replies Lauren semi-annoyed.
"Well, you look like you need a break, how about we go to your favorite restaurant for dinner then watch some My Little Pony? What do you say to that?" responds Craig.
"That actually sounds perfect," replies Lauren as she follows him out of the room and off to dinner.
At dinner at Lauren's favorite restaurant, the two relax and unwind over a glass of wine and some nice big steaks. The two are so glad to finally catch a break. Lauren maybe more so than Craig. He has no idea what she truly had to put up with during that whole Discord incident and she has no plans of ever telling him.
The next morning, Craig tells Lauren things as they are. "Lauren, I think it's time for you to step away from the show for a little while." She nods her head in agreement. He's right. That afternoon, she tells everyone she's quitting and walks out of the studio. All the staff are stunned. Meghan then runs down the hall after her.
"Lauren, but why?" she asks.
"I can't tell you that. I'm just tired and need a break from the show for a little bit," replies Lauren as she bows her head and walks out of the building. "But now, Meghan," she says to Meghan in the parking lot, "You and Larson are in charge. Do me proud." Meghan nods and then returns to the My Little Pony studio at Hasbro. She then tells everyone the bad news. She then tells everyone that Lauren left her and M.A. in charge. The others look at her shocked. They can't believe Lauren left her baby, her ponies and without an explanation no less. Nonetheless, they work on the show and put out the episodes even though in not as cheery a mood as they usually do. At least, they still have the show. At least, she didn't cancel the show. They can definitely agree to that.
Not long after quitting the show, Lauren is crying over a cup of coffee in the local coffee shop. She knows it's for the best but she's going to miss her multicolored ponies. After all, she started the whole new generation and now she has to leave it behind and move on to a new show.
Meanwhile, the news of Faust leaving has started to pop up all over online, on the TV, everywhere and Bronies have started freaking out. They can't believe their goddess is leaving the show she loves. What happened to make her make this choice? They want to know the truth. They want answers. Alas, Lauren refuses to give them answers. The reason she quit is one secret she swears she will never share with the fans. If she told them the truth, they'd riot and that wouldn't be good for anyone. Lauren takes her coffee and walks out of the coffee shop and walks down the street to her car. She then heads for home. Maybe Craig will be working on another show that she can help him with. Just the same, she can't help but admit, she's going to miss her ponies and that's never going to change. She bows her head and lets a tear fall from her eye. She's letting go of the biggest show she's ever worked on and now, she knows, there's no going back now.
Meanwhile, in the pony world, the ponies look around perplexed. "Why is it raining chocolate milk? Why are the clouds cotton candy?" asks Twilight. "This isn't normal. Something is wrong. Who is writing this episode anyway?" She then realizes. "Oh wait! Oh no, Discord broke the fourth wall and is writing the episodes. He's done something to Lauren. I'm sure of it!" Twilight then uses a transport spell to transport herself to the human world. This way, maybe she can stop Discord and return him to the pony world. At least, that's what she's hoping.
Discord then looks into the corner when he sees a flash of light. Twilight then appears right in front of him. "Let Faust go and return to doing what she loves! Discord, return to Equestria to be rightly judged!" demands Twilight.
"Never in a million years!" shouts Discord. He then snaps his claws and shoots darts of candy cane at her. She dodges them with a shield spell. She then runs over and frees Faust and makes it so she can use magic again through a simple magic return spell of her own. The two then use their combined power to try to return Discord to stone but to no avail. The three continue to fight for hours. Even so, it still feels as though Discord has the upper hoof. The two are beginning to lose hope, especially Lauren.
"Twilight, what am I going to do?" sighs Faust. "He's ruining everything I created and I can't seem to stop him. I don't know what to do."
"We keep fighting," replies Twilight. "Eventually, we can beat him and everything returns to normal." Faust nods and shoots another beam of magic at Discord. This time she manages a hit and actually weakens the draconequus. She then goes for another hit, but this time, it fails. Twilight then takes a hit and succeeds and weakens him again. Maybe, they can get the upper hoof after all. Sure enough, they can turn things around. It'll just take time and tons of effort. Unfortunately, that's not something they have much of because the episode is supposed to go out officially in a few days time.
At the Canterlot castle, Celestia just stares at the Discord statue. "How did you manage to break from cartoon to reality so easily?" she sighs. "How powerful truly are you?" Celestia stares at the statue once more then walks out of the room and off to her sister's quarters.
Meanwhile in the human world, in bed that night, Lauren has nightmares of the battle from the day that she had with Discord. She has nightmares of possibly losing her show forever and of Discord binding her down. She wakes up screaming and begins rocking back and forth on the bed. Craig then wakes up and tries to reassure her and calm her down. "Shh, Shh, Lauren, honey, calm down, it's okay," says Craig in a calm voice. He strokes her back. "Do you want to tell me what happened today?" Lauren nods.
"Fine," sighs Lauren, "I didn't tell you everything. Yes, I did have a fight with Discord this morning, actually, this entire week basically. He came into our realm. He tried to take over the show and did for awhile. He bound me up so I couldn't do anything until I managed to grab my magic pen to turn myself into Fausticorn and battle him. Twilight Sparkle then came into our world through a transportation spell and helped me. It took us five days to stop the out of control draconequus and two full days and nights to fix everything he messed up. It was just horrible. Just terrible. I don't know if I can do this anymore Craig because any time I sit behind my desk and pick up my pen all I see is myself being bound by Discord." She begins to cry. "I don't think I can do it anymore." She falls into his arms and continues to cry until she finally falls back asleep. He can see how much this has scarred and traumatized her. He'll tell her in the morning, but he knows, it's probably best that she toss in the towel and hand it over to M.A. Larson and Meghan McCartney.
