From Outside

Omake

Shiney stood up, something Makoto was not yet capable of. "I just want to make sense of what's happening here."

"Make sense, where's the fun in that?" came a voice, which galvanized all the ponies.

What materialized in the middle of the room over the writing desk was a complete creature of totally mismatched parts.

"Youma," Makoto said of the creature as she sat up.

It was too busy looking from ponies, to humans, to the Elder Thing, and back again, its head kept rotating clockwise, winding the body up like a spring. Finally it unwound spinning the creature violently back the other way.

"Why does he sound like John DeLancie?" Patrick asked.

His name is Discord, Nightmare told Makoto.

"Who's John DeLancie?" Makoto asked.

"A character actor played a few roles in The Six Million Dollar Man and Emergency, nothing else really spectacular or noteworthy, which I thought was a shame," Patrick said.

Discord exploded, literally. "Are you INSANE? Or just STUPID?" he thundered at Patrick as he reassembled himself, "He played the master reality warper, in Star Trek!"

"That was William Campbell," Patrick argued.

Discord handed a bag of small pebbles to Bruce, and popcorn to the others. "The other one," Discord said.

"James Doohan did those voices in the animated series," Patrick said.

"Okay, even I know when I'm being trolled, " Discord said, cracked his knuckles, and the six mares of the assault force appeared, making the room a trifle crowded, "I'm not hanging around in one of YOUR stories."

"Necklace, necklace, necklace, necklace, necklace and big crown thingy," Discord said, leaned down to the lavendar one, "It's pronounced tiara, Buffy." Then he straightened up. "Care Mare Stare s'il vous plait. I never want to see you things again." He said and blew a raspberry at Patrick, a potato at Ranma, a glob of something gelatinous at Bruce and a rose at Makoto.

The ponies powered up their heavy weapon, lifting into the air as Makoto, Patrick and Ranma scrambled to be nowhere near the blast radius. Bruce reached over with a 'foot-tentacle' and dragged Chrysalis directly behind Discord. A moment later, the creature was turned to stone.

"Weird critter, but a good cook, this actually tastes like something," Ranma said as he munched the potato, then noticed the mares were swinging around towards Makoto.

"Has she really done anything warranting a death sentence?" Bruce asked, "Because that's what you're giving her."

The light gray and indigo unicorn with the gold and rose pegasus depowered and returned to the ground. "No, we cannot," the unicorn said.

Makoto acted fast, and returned the mares to the spa, as their devices floated down to the ground. "Okay, someone can explain all that later," she said, as she turned to Shiney, "You have your assignment, go."

She focused on Ranma. "There are these creatures in the castle, they're shapechangers, find them and put them in prison." She faced Bruce. "Elves and these things, we need to flush them out, they have an army somewhere. We have today, tomorrow and the next day to find and neutralize them."

"I'll need a plunger and a whisk to exterminate them," Bruce said, "On my way."

Patrick looked around. "What about me?"

Makoto decided to really disgust Nightmare, while channeling her at full strength. "I'm going to have you stripped, washed and brought to my bed."

Patrick's utterly surprised expression was almost as wonderful as the mental voice of Nightmare piledriving the dry heaves.