THE COBpocOLYPSE HAS COBUGUN!
“I’M AS GOOD AS DEEEEEEAAAAAAAAD!” cried an errant Stallion, conveniently named Errant.
“SAVE ONLY THE THINGS YOU CARE ABOUT!” screamed a mare actually called Selfish.
“APPLES ARE THE WORST!” cried a mare throwing mad shade in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres.
“YOU’RE THE WORST!” returned fire a mare who was sick of someone turning down the heat.
“My god!” Exclaimed The Doctor. “Somepony hates somepony else from Hell!”
“Quite!” Discord said as he disappeared in a puff of smoke and appeared on Amethyst’s shoulder, no bigger than a horse hoof. “You must be Dearest Heart’s cousin. Oh, I’ve heard so much about you!”
“Is that so…” Amethyst replied dryly as she narrowed her eyes in suspicion at the pint-sized Lord. “What did she say, exactly?”
Discord’s head suddenly ‘poofed’ into a copy of Dearest’s, “…Oh… and I couldn’t possibly forget my dear cousin Amethyst Star! She practically lives with us and is so good at helping my husband and me with the kids! Plus, she helps us out in all kinds of other ways and has probably helped save the planet or universe at least half a dozen times!”
Amethyst couldn’t help but feel a bit perturbed by the sight of DH’s head at the end of Discord’s long neck. Though, it was nice that she was not an afterthought regarding DH telling the Lord of Chaos about her family. Wait, maybe that’s why he’s here! He wants to corrupt DH and the rest of us so we spread confusion and anarchy across Equestria!
There was a sink-shattering ‘Ka-Boom!’ from the kitchen that briefly shot caused flames to lick at the edges of the kitchen, more fiery cobs of corn to be ejected into the dining room area, and a black cat with green eyes to run past Amethyst’s legs.
Amethyst sighed. The family did not, in fact, own a cat, but THAT cat seemingly just was fated to show up every now and again. By the Wheel of Samsara, she swears she could tell the time in 24.80769230769231-minute intervals by how often that cat shows up.
Discord’s head, now thankfully ‘regular’ by what she remembered from school field trips to Canterlot, opened its word hole, “Is that cat a family pet?” IT, erm… hehe, HE asked.
“Uh… I erm… You know? I should check with Dinky or Cloud and Windancer…” Amethyst inhaled then shouted, “Hey, Dinky!”
“Blimey, Amethyst” The Doctor shouted back, clearing minding his Ps and. “D.H. the Second is a few bloody meters from you at the table!” he added, arbitrarily deciding to not mind his Ps and Qs, that jerk!
“Yes, Aunt Amethyst?” Dinky shouted back, matching Amethyst’s volume and tone perfectly.
“Do we own a cat?!” Amethyst shouted back, the conversation with her niece and her cousin-in-law now out decibels the cacophonous catastrophe that was going on in the kitchen.
Discord could feel the edges of his smile grow a bit further.
“Gee, no!” Dinky replied. “I think!”
The Doctor sighed. “That cat has been here for as long as you have Amethyst! It is your bloody cat!”
“Kuro Neko-Sama cares not for this extra dose of insanity!” hissed the cat.
“Children!” The Doctor exclaimed chipperly as he produced his sonic screwdriver, the blue glow and whirling sound filling the room as chairs and the wood paneling of the kitchen were used to create a makeshift dam.
“Not now, Dad!” exclaimed Ditzy as she hovered over her little sibs, gleefully observing the progress on their latest creations. “We’re doing science!” she exclaimed as her fuchsia-lighted, buzzing lightsaber of curved gold and a silver casing.
“We are making evil plates!” exclaimed Cloud.
Windchaser produced a small pillar of gears, circuits, crystals, and errant shimmering threads held up but naught but air and a whirl the sound of leaves in the wind.
The Timeline Abides
“We are making plates that hate!” exclaimed Windchaser.
“We are making plates that Hate!” protested Cloud, his clocklike arrangement of flat-ware, sword-shaped sonic screwdrivers that glowed like Hearths Warming and Christmas were having a decoration off.
“Sorry, sis!” Ditzy interrupted as the fushia glow of her screwdriver whirred like spinning hands on that thing that is her jam. “Bro’s order reads better!”
The Timeline Abides!
“We are making evil plates!” exclaimed Cloud.
“We are making plates that hate!” exclaimed Windchaser.
“Annhialpate! Annhialplate! AnniiLPATE!” screeched the plates.
“Oh, kitchen be a dammed!” cried the Doctor. “I want in on these hateful plates.”
“Oh, Amythest!” Dinky sang over the plateful hate. “We’re building the instruments of our potential demise because you lefty us out of your siiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiight!” she sang so hard the ambient light in the dining room diminished.
“I understand there is already enough purple in there!” Bellowed Discord.
The burning rag that had already begun the COBULATION into more COBS of COBtinual COBRight VIOLATORS! “It’s the little things, the little things, the little things that KILL! But all those little things, those little things are here to pay the bills!”
“I’m entertaining our guest!” replied Amethyst in a frustrated tone, the fushia aura of her horn opening a portal THROUGH space as she picked up the Staff of Corning and merely touched the tiny kernels of screaming fire rag COBS, which turned them into deliciously cooked cream corm which the COBs of the Kitchen of ‘OH MY ACTUAL C-O-B IS THAT WATER ON FIRE?!’ who realized they needed the COBoats of heads of things they did not COBBOBULATE and the COBS born of Dishwater Water and Oven Fire.
Glancing down with one eye, Discord began pointing at the COBs that were on the Marsh of Creamyness, electing the cooked from the creamy and making everything down there extra COBScreamy!
“No, father!” the COBS screamed, accidentally outing their maker.
Amethyst side-eyed Discord with anger and annoyance in her eyes.
Discord visibly gulped.
Through a terse smile as her staff of COB-De-Construction continued to CREAM all that it touched, Amethyst said, “Thank you for all the CORN, Lord of Chaos.”
Discord tossed a glance at the 4th wall, “Wait, have we met before?” he asked as he caught sight of a Pink Pony whose expression was somewhere between panic and wondering how many chili cook-offs would solve the problem on the floor. Pinkie waved at Discord, Discord flashed a claw of greeting back, Amethyst smiled with tourmaline orbs of ‘how fun was last night, party pony, and how fun is tomorrow night going to be?’ and greeted Pinkie with a breathtastic “Hi, Pinkie!”
“Uh, Hi Amy!” Pinkie greeted, “Just, how long is Muffins going to–?”
“Pinkie!” Greeted D.H. “I’ve invented the spagetta-Muffin!”
“WhaaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaaat?!” She crooned Winking at Amy on her way out and smiling in a ‘Hi, Dissy, how clean is your bedroom?’ at Discord, she scampered off from her black-white hisstastic hole in that, ‘someday that wall will be repaired’ wall of the hall and joined Discord in the kitchen.
“PARTY HORSE HAS JOINED THE MUFFIN-MAKING OPERATION!” Alerted She Co-Keeps all this Running.
“I have so many ideas that involve things that should be CREAMED and atmospheres that need to be cleaned of excess Chilli!” Err of Breath.
He who Co-Keeps this running sounded the Angels Attack Alarm for the benefit of the those who didn’t understand his wife was tiny-tad on the vindictive side.
And then Sunset Shimmer, E.B., and Justice of the Angelic Number 3442 ran into the kitchen in only a way people who were truly welcome could
Amethyst glanced at the cavalcade of helpers, and know that somehow, everything would be–
“HAVE AT THEE!” screeched Justice in a masculine tone. “IN MY COUNTRY WE DRINK YOU FOR FUN AND USE YOU TO KEEP OUR VEHICLES ON THE RUN!”
“Tis’ the Holy Mother of the COBBenING,” declared COBBeRiValist the Pulpiter declaring “Not every COBBing thing has to be about the Holy COB, yet we must COB to the BLIGHT of the COBBILISTS!”
“Hello, children!” exclaimed Justice.
“Holy number 26!” cried High Priestist COBRP. “Changing to Holy Number 27!”
“Wait…” said Amethyst. “What was that about Justice being the Holy COBBer?”
“But enough that!” dismissed Discord with a dismissive wave of his eagle talon, dismissing many COBI-Planes that had began to COBBALesc in the glowing atmosphere of the hallway increasing COBlering.
“I’m more concerned that Err has joined the fray in a delightfully corny way.”
Amethyst twerked her lips, “Well, to Err is to human!” Her gleaming tourmaline eyes pendulum swung from left to right. “Did I say that right?”
“What is a man!” Howeled Discord as Discord flicked his lion’s paw and a fishbowl stem-glass filled with red wine appeared. “But enough talk!”
And then an angry bat pony from a future Home-Again Home-Again Jiggity-Jig screamsplooded it prematurely.
“I needed that prop!” screeched Discord back at the bat.
“ALLONSY! YOU SHOULD HAVE REINFORCED THE CUPS!” The Doctor bellowed from his fortress of Dinatude!
Author's Note
THINGS ARE LOOKING UP. LOOKING COB!
Chapter 1: Special Delivery
Dearest Heart let out a long, continuous sigh that carried with it some of the weight from today’s slew of unfortunate deliveries. She had misread and misdelivered no less than nine letters and packages based on her simple inability to keep her eyes focused. Then she had misdelivered five more packages because apparently, ponies thought doing algebra via cutie marks and esoteric symbols was a suitable replacement for these things called addresses and then got MAD at her when she took her best guess and got it wrong.
Two letters had been dropped in a stream. Really, that was hardly her fault though, that tree came out of nowhere and hurt like the dickens.
She tried to perk herself up with a sandwich when the high from this morning’s muffin binge wasn’t enough to keep her going, and then another letter caught fire during her lunch break because it was too close to a candle… that she’d lit in hopes of her darling joining her. She knew he was busy, but hope springs eternal...
Why bother preemptively setting ambiance if it was just me trying to eat a daisy sandwich?
Oh, her stomach rumbling reminded her she’d also delivered half of the same daisy sandwich to Bulk-Biceps by mistake and that was gone-daddy-gone.
It had been, to put things mildly, a bad day. Though one devoid of her ‘helping’ in her husband’s workshop and accidentally unmaking portions of reality that ponies probably would need. So... all in all, it could have been a worse day, except it was also bad because not helping meant not getting to be near him.
Thinking of him, Dearest gathered up a length of the long, multicolored scarf of earth tones and gave it a little sniff. The warm, comforting scent of her husband immediately filled her nostrils and a content smile flooded across the stress that had started a colony on her face. It had been hours, agonizing hours since she had been with her dearest, but the scarf was the next best thing to having him around.
The day wasn’t particularly chilly, but the scarf was a good thing to keep on hoof to immediately make her feel better, except for those times where its length meant it got caught on doors, branches, small fillies, and then she’d face plant hard into the ground…
Those times where almost all the times.
DH took another small sniff.
Worth it!
DH gently wrapped the length of scarf around her neck and glanced at her blue mailbag. Another thing that reminded her of her husband, as he had made it for her. It was perfect in every way, from the buckles that managed to keep her mail inside even during the worst crashes, to that little gold name tag with the adorable little picture of a muffin on it.
Her stomach grumbled again, reminding her loudly that if dinner was also mishandled as lunch had been there would be consequences.
Well, let’s get this last one over with…
She opened the mailbag, fighting the urge to cringe as she haphazardly rummaged a foreleg in the empty space. The bag was deceptively larger on the inside, which made it difficult to find things, but saved her many clumsy trips back to the post office for her route due to the sheer capacity of it.
“Yes!” she declared to nopony around her as her forehoof touched… something? She reached in with her other forehoof and pulled out a package that was shaped like no-shape that had or would exist before in reality. Squinting with her lazy eye, she could see that the address was actually haphazardly written across several surfaces, some of which couldn’t possibly exist in this plane of relatively predictable physics, as well as several glyphs, hints, and riddles that danced across her eye in the form of a mysterious tapestry of directions that threatened to destroy her concept of what was real and not and also possibly threaten her brain with eminent melting.
DH let out a gasp.
“Yay! An easy one! Finally!” She gleefully cheered as she clutched the un-item to her chest.
With effort deceptive of what most considered a handicap, DH flapped her wings hard and was suddenly above the thatched roof houses and tree line of Ponyville. She squinted with both her focused eye and ‘lazy-but-actually-the-hardest-working-eye-in-Equestria-thank-you-very-much’ as she used a forehoof to shield them from the sun. “There it is!” she declared excitedly. Far too excited for her own good, DH flapped her wings and flew past a pair of houses into a Ponyville park in a literal fashion as she smashed her forelegs against the ground and went into a roll across the empty grass and walkways until she stopped with her hooves in the air and her walleyes staring up at a placid frog, next to a red mushroom, that seemingly watched her with a detached interest.
Smiling to herself, DH focused her eyes on the frogs’ and watched as its frog lips moved perfectly horizontally across its face and its eyes shifted as if it had a quick glimpse of the future and knew, unequivocally, that death comes for us all in due time, and perhaps the hour was nigh. Despite this new bit of existential dread the animal was suffering, it hopped onto the mushroom, and offered a croak followed by a raspy, “Password, please.”
Dearest scrambled to her hooves and began to brush dirt away from her beloved scarf and mail bag. “Whatever! It’s Two-thousand-and-Nineteen!” she said in an uncharacteristically indignant tone. Both the words, tone, and metaphysical un-vibrations she exuded were accepted, clearly, as the frog opened its mouth and shot out its sticky tongue.
DH was immediately pulled into a soft-purple swirling vortex and then flew out of it into a whole new world. Her wings extended and she did her best to pick some sort invisible plane to right herself on as she was now clearly in a land where gravity was more a guideline than law. She looked up, down, left, right, all at once with both her eyes to take in as much as what was going on in the land as possible. The place blew a wind that was magically intensified as the black sky to her left began to rain blood. Without a moment to lose, Dearest shoved the scarf into the mailbag as she heard the disdainful shrieks of what must have been living furniture or pirates from the house relatively right and below her, on account of how often she was hearing concerns over ‘wooden legs’.
As the bloody rain fell sideways into her, a content smile formed on her lips.
Magic was something that Dearest Heart thought was ‘very good’, and one of her eyes could see it permeate and swirl chaotically through even the smallest molecule of this peculiar land.
The rain fell like leathery sheets atop DH’s ghost as she hovered down to the house with the blood-covered package.
She rapped a hoof gently across the door. “Special delivery!”
There was a crash, a snarl, and then a cannon shot as a lead ball tore through the wall scant few inches from Dearests face.
“I’m coming! I’m coming!”
Dearest Heart leaned over and peered into the house. If one discounted the fact that the furniture was alive, armed with cutlasses and flintlock pistols, and also engaged in multiple sword-fights with the homes’ pony-goat-dragon-griffon owner, it was a perfectly lovely and normal house.
Oh, and the owner? He just shimmered and glowed with an aura unlike anything DH had seen before. He was easily top 10, one of the most astoundingly beautiful creatures she had ever seen, after her dear husband and loving family, of course!
“Take your time!” Dearest said cheerily.
The unmistakable entity known as Discord placed his lion’s paw on the arm of his eagle talon and pulled away a bit of his arm revealing a watch as he fought off cutlasses with a trio of his own swords taped to his feet and tail. “You’re early!” he cried angrily. “Several weeks so, in fact!”
Dearest Heart let out a mirthful chuckle. “Well, that’s a first! No pony has ever been mad at me for delivering their package early before!”
Discord produced two flint-lock pistols and fired them into a woodgrain ottoman with purple cushioning. The bullets connected and the ottoman stumbled through the fray of fighting furniture before collapsing and gasping “The treasure … is buried ... in ... castle Argh!” as his other limbs fought off the chairs, end table, and the couch that had banded together.
“Look, no pony, and I mean no pony has ever been able to locate my home in anything less than two weeks with the packages that are sent to me! They can’t follow simple directions! So, either you’ve stumbled here by sheer dumb luck or you don’t even exist.” Discord reached behind his back and produced a simple black grenade with a fuse he dropped amongst his attackers who all scattered.
“Hide!” screamed the couch. “No! Not behind me!” it pleaded as the other furniture piled behind it.
“Yar!” cried the end table. “Time ya be takin’ one for the team!”
“Curse you, Black-Handle! I’ll see you in HE—”
“KABOOM!”
“So, which is it?!” Discord demanded. “Are you lucky or are you even real, hmmm?”
Dearest Heart just laughed. “Oh, I’m very real, but I’m not lucky! I simply followed your instructions to the letter! Even the imaginary ones.”
Discord’s eyes widened and his expression went blank. Not only was this pony observing a multitude of things that she should consider outside the bounds of possibility, had she really followed his instructions regarding the package he mailed to himself just to make whatever hapless mail pony that had the misfortune of delivering it work harder in their entire lives to deliver it. This pony apparently couldn't care less about his antics, had followed his direction with ease, and paid no mind to the fact she was covered in blood.
“He’s distracted!” Cried Black-Handle. “Yar! Resume the attack!”
His expression unchanging, Discord snapped his fingers and the house immediately struck an iceberg he had just created and began to take in water only through the new gouge in his home.
“Shiver me timbers!”
“We get it! You’re a pirate!” a comfy-looking baby blue colored easy chair said in a feminine voice.
“We’ve struck ice!” Black-Handle declared. “All is lost! To the lifeboats!”
“Captain!” began one of the chairs. “They mutinied and you left them adrift at sea just last week.”
“Ah! Those treacherous scallywags! It’s every piece of furniture for themselves, then!” The furniture all picked windows to fling themselves out of where they were immediately caught in the ocean current that surrounded the house, flooded the living room, and poor harmlessly off the side as Dearest sidestepped the new stream coming out of the open door.
“Come again?” Discord said.
Dearest Heart just giggled. “Yeah, the instructions were so easy to follow. And the riddles were just so much fun! Hehehe… Go to where the Fun-guy sits next to the one that knows one day it will croak! Not to mention the password spelled out via symbols! I worked that out by applying alternating cubed Pythagorean theorems and—”
Discord simply watched, transfixed, as words poured out of the pony’s mouth. Time seemed to slow down as she blinked, her eyelashes and gazed upon him with an unfocused eye that clearly missed nothing… He could swear he heard music playing in the background specifically because some of his bedroom furniture had begun playing music as they accepted their watery fate.
♪Suddenly… Life has new meaning to me!♪
♪There’s beauty up above... and things we never take notice of.♪
♪You wake up suddenly… you’re in love...♪
This... this mail-mare… She would be his… Oh yes, she would be his! She would be his friend forever, and that was the end of it. No… that would be the beginning, end, alpha, omega, and everything in between, and no one would say otherwise.
“— So, yeah!” DH concluded as she pointed at a surface on the package that was busy phasing in and out of this dimension. “Super easy!” Dearest Heart held out the package. "So... here it is?"
Discord finally cracked a smile. “Yes, yes of course," Discord said as he picked up the package with his eagle talon and tossed it into a nearby ankle-high waste receptacle in one swift motion. Said waste receptacle coughed, wheezed, then toppled forward onto its side where it ceases motion. "Oh, where are my manners?” Discord motioned towards his kitchen. “Care for a spot of tea?”
Dearest Heart giggled. “I would, but your kitchen is mostly underwater, now.”
Discord turned. “So it is!” he frowned heavily then turned back with an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, I don’t get a lot of guests here.”
“Oh, no!” Dearest Heart said in a tone of genuine concern. “Well, maybe you can have dinner with me and my family?”
Discord’s eyes widened and hope danced a merry jig in his eyes… metaphorically speaking, but also literally. “Your… family?”
Dearest nodded. “Yep! Husband, kids, and my cousin!”
Discord felt all his hearts beat as one as they sang in unison.
‘Gimme!’
They began to beat faster and faster.
‘Gimmie!’
‘Gimme! Gimme!’
‘Gimme!-Gimme-Gimme!-Gimme!-Gimme!-Gimme!’
“Oh, you’re going to loooove them!” Dearest Heart declared.
“I can tell I already do,” Discord said darkly.
Dearest Heart gasped. “Then you’ll come?! On such short notice, even!” she said giddily.
Discord favored Dearest Heart with an icepick smile. “I couldn’t possibly imagine any place I’d rather be.”
“Yay!” Dearest Heart declared as she closed her eyes, pranced in place, nearly fell off the edge of the lawn into the watery, furniture abyss below, but was quickly snatched by Discord’s eagle claw which he extended to grab her before it was too late.
Dearest Heart gave Discord an embarrassed smile. “Whoops! Sorry!”
“Think nothing of it, my dear,” Discord said magnanimously as he gently placed Dearest Heart back on terra-firm-enough.
“Oh! Where are my manners? You agreed to come to dinner and I haven’t even told you my name, yet! I’m ‘Dearest Heart’ or ‘DH’ for short! Some of my friends call me ‘Muffin’ and uh… some call me…” Dearest Heart swallowed and whispered out the last bit “Derpy Hooves…” she said shamefully.
Discords face hardened. “Who calls you that? And how well do you suppose they would survive with their vital organs flipped to the outside of their skin?” The anger cemented on his face cracked as a devilish smile made itself known. “Because I can guarantee they’ll survive the experience given enough warning… and I can guarantee they’ll treat you with more respect from then on.”
Dearest Heart waved her forelegs about dismissively. “No-no-no-no-no! It’s just a silly nickname from my school days! They don’t mean any harm by it!”
Discord grunted in displeasure as his bushy brows closed in to display the same emotion on his face. “If you say so.”
He took a calming breath and a brief moment to wonder what was happening to him and would he even recognize himself in the mirror after today. “Well, I... am Discord!” he said as he motioned dramatically to himself with his eagle talon and lifted his lion paw into the air before offering it to the pony below. “Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
“Oh, of course!” Dearest said. She placed a forehoof into the paw where it was firmly shook. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, finally!”
Discord couldn’t help but whimper as a glassy-eyed look came over him. “No one has ever said that to me before… ever.”
“Whaaaaat~? Get out!” DH said in disbelief as she playfully swatted at a spot that was supposed to be Discord’s thigh but turned out to be empty air. “You’re an utter delight!”
A sound that had to be gas and not a squeal of pure delight escaped Discord. Yes… just passing gas and nothing else.
He took a moment to look around and sighed. New friend or no, he couldn’t leave things here in such a state. “I’ll have to meet up with you later, my dear. I have so many things to attend to, first. The furniture is still alive, the house is still mostly intact and the dishes are getting cleaner the longer they soak in the sea water!” Discord shook his head and tutted himself. “It simply cannot stand.”
“Oh?” DH tilted her head and glanced in seemingly all directions, as if taking in the entirety of the realm with a mere roll of her head. She mostly focused her eyes back on Discord. “Erm… May I…?”
Discord nearly replied with ‘May I, what?’ but instead decided to see what would happen next. “Of course. You are a guest, after all.”
Smiling warmly, DH took flight and built up speed until she was next to a tree which was twirling and whirling in the unspace of the realm. “You should probably come up here with me if you don’t want to get splinters!”
“Oh, uh…” Discord floated up towards DH. “Of course.”
Seemingly satisfied that her new friend was out of harm's way, DH forcefully smacked her flank against the tree and sent it hurtling towards the iceberg. It screamed all the way before it smashed into the ice which exploded into chunks that blew massive holes in the barely standing home and rained down on the waterlogged furniture.
Furniture that yelped and hollered before being silenced by falling ice.
Then everything was quiet for a moment before Black-Handle’s pitiful wail pierced the air.
Discord smiled widely. “Impressive! Just let me finish up and—”
“Be patient!” Dearest said in a gentle, maternal tone. “It’s almost done!”
“What is…” A dark shadow fell over the pair. Discord looked up to see a flaming meteorite, roughly the size of a hoofball field, fall towards the remains of the house.
He didn’t know where the meteorite had come from.
He didn’t even know he had a meteorite!
Dearest averted her gaze and shielded her face as the flaming space debris smashed into what was left of the house and send bits of wood, water, and shards of glass EVERYWHERE.
Except for, somehow, the space she and Discord were occupying.
Discord’s jaw dropped and he took a moment to turn and just appreciate the creature flapping idly in the air next to him with a look of contentment. She couldn’t be a normal pony. She just couldn’t. She was… she was something cosmic. She had to be... destruction…
Just… pure Destruction made manifest in the form of seemingly clumsy Pegasus.
Discord marveled, looking at his new friend in an entirely new light as they were both backlit by the flaming remnants of his home.
While he was certain she’d never be able to pull off the Chaos he had mastered, her ability to destroy everything around her was simply unparalleled.
And she was going to be his best friend.
Discord felt a tug at his eagle claw and looked down into Dearest Heart’s adorable smiling face. “Shall we go?”
All of Discord’s hearts skipped a beat as he took the hoof in his claw. “Of course, my Dear. Lead the way!”
DH’s smile evaporated.
Concern finally appeared on Discord’s face. “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong? You do know the way out, don’t you?”
“No… I… erm… Yes! I know the way out… Just… No one… no one has ever asked me to lead the way before...”
Discord could feel his eyes well up with water but quickly hid the display behind a dismissive wave of his lion’s paw. “Pish-posh. You have a perfect sense of direction.”
Dearest Heart let out a squeal of such unbridled joy Discord briefly considered bottling it and starting a many-years-long addiction to the sound and feeling.
Dearest scanned the horizon once more, her eyes picking out two stars amongst the swirling chaos. “Let’s go!” she said.
Hoof in claw, claw in hoof, the pair lifted off and flew to the second star to the left, and straight on until evening.
Amethyst Star shook her head as she floated over a chrome item that looked like two rectangular staplers that came together around an azure light. “Seriously, DH was too busy delivering mail to help you with this?” she griped as the lilac glow of her magic carried the item past under some sort of propulsion engine and into the waiting brown hoof of the pony below the massive pod the engine was attached to. She frowned to herself and looked up at a clock that seemed to have been cobbled together from random bits of junk. “Where is that mare, anyway?” she mumbled to herself. “She better not be tangled in that scarf in a tree again…”
There was a scoff from below. “You’re suggesting I ask the world’s clumsiest pony to help me with this delicate operation?” A stallions voice responded dryly. “Do you want the concept of reality shattered across an infinite amount of doomed self-destroying timelines? Because THAT’S how you get the concept of reality shattered across an infinite amount of doomed self-destroying timelines!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Amethyst replied in a tone that suggested she’d heard the line many times before and that the potential complete annihilation of known existence is just something that comes up when her cousin came up in conversation. She looked the pod up and down as ‘bangs’, ‘buzzes’, and an angry utterance of “Bloody, bucking, black-mater burner!” could be heard. It was several times larger than a pony, but the domed cockpit was clearly only large enough for one, so no doubt beneath the cockpit and attached to the propulsion systems where all the science-wiency bits that accomplished… whatever it was the thing was supposed to be accomplished. “Sooo… what’s it do?”
“Iwwts a twimewwine cweeafure!”
“Yeah, I don’t speak ’there’s a sonic screwdriver in my mouth’!” Amethyst said in annoyance. “Let’s try again!”
There was the distinct sound of a tool being spat out onto the floor. “It’s a timeline creator!”
Amethyst Star’s brow went from ‘confused wrinkles’ to ‘irritated wrinkles’ in a matter of seconds. “You have me in here helping you build a time machine?! You! The Doctor! You’re building a time machine?!” She looked the device up and down. “Is this some mid-immortal life crisis thing?! Is this a bucking sports car of time machines? Help me out!”
There was a heavy, irritated sigh from the floor and the stallion below pushed himself into view, the work dolly he was on making it a smooth ride so his bright, blue eyes could stare up with just enough of a vexed genius quality that he might as well have been staring down at a child. Something of a comical site as he was also covered in something that looked like oil, but was more of a void-like color of purple that seemingly sucked in the light around it. “It doesn’t allow you to travel through THIS timeline! It allows you to travel to an alternative timeline you first create by using the machine, then BACK to the same timeline or an unlimited number of new timelines!”
Amethyst’s glare only increased. “How is that different from regular time travel?!”
The Doctor’s expression softened somewhat. “It’s technically copying an entire dimension and moving you to the copy! You can’t travel back-and-forth in the existing timeline.”
Amethyst’s eyes narrowed as her expression subtly shifted from ‘vexed’ to ‘unamused’. “So it’s a broken time machine?”
The Doctor’s face picked up the dropped annoyance. “Do you want a new, safe dimension to go to if this one is going to be destroyed by evil creatures, Princess Twilight’s castle mate, or, Heaven forbid, Dearest Heart herself, or not?!”
Amethyst let out a defeated sigh. “Point taken.”
The Doctor nodded satisfactorily and rolled himself back under the device. He held out a hoof. “Hydro-spanner.”
Amethyst resumed her duty of floating tools to the good Doctor with a bored expression. Equestria suffered so many threats internally and externally having a backup was a no-brainer. Who knows what the next threat would be, a misused spell from a well-meaning unicorn would hit, or seemingly random thing her cousin would do that might endanger literally everyone and everything?
The sound of a large wooden sliding door was heard, the workshop’s entrance. “Hey, guys! I made a new friend on my route!” Dearest Heart’s chipper voice rang out.
Amethyst turned and it was like her blood flash froze in her body. No. It was like the concept of liquids existing inside her was gone and replaced by pure, solid dark-matter. Her cousin was back and she was covered in blood, and that was somehow the least of her concerns.
WHY DO I EVEN TEMPT FATE BY HAVING THOUGHTS?!
Her cousin was standing there with her big ‘It’s been a good day!’ smile, which may or may not be cause for alarm, but was undeniably a good reason to encourage the doctor to get his prototype up in running as soon as possible was standing upright next to DH.
Discord, Lord of Chaos, Equestria Bane, Jerk Jester of Joy was RIGHT there, just… smiling with the most casual evil way imaginable. He wasn’t rewriting reality around him. He wasn’t snapping his finger to create a chair to lounge in while this, removed from context, mundane conversation took place. He wasn’t even talking.
He just smiled.
Amethyst Star thought she understood true despair just by virtue of being her cousin’s family member and go-to babysitter.
She was wrong.
“That’s wonderful, Dearest!” The Doctor called out from underneath the device. “You should invite them to dinner.”
Amethyst wasn’t aware her horrified eyes could get any bigger, yet there she was! The sentence caused the silent dragonesque’s smile to widen and instead of accepting, he simply raised his lions paw to his crooked smile in a gently ‘shushing manner’ as something in his wild eyes told Amethyst she’d be turned into something unnatural if she didn’t comply.
“Yay! You read my mind!” Dearest Heart declared as she did a giddy in-place galop, lost her balance, fell into Discord and was gently put back on her feat by the chaos lord.
The casual friendliness of the act followed by no hint of malice somehow increased how terrified Amethyst was. Through the fog of pure terror, she could somehow hear the Doctor smirk as he replied, “It’s what I’m here for!”
These were the end times. There would be no escape. There was no sign of hope, which was now dead.
“Goody! Goody! I’ll get Dinkums to help me cook! Oooooh family dinner with a friend! I’m so excited! We can do hay fries!”
“You almost burnt down the kitchen with that oil fire last time, my dear!” The Doctor replied casually.
“Right, right! Fondue!”
“I was grooming cheese out of your feathers for weeks!”
“Uhhh… roasted eggplant!”
“You destroyed a nearby mountain range when you tried to flash roast with the particle accelerator, my love!”
“Dinner muffins! I get to make DINNER muffins!” Dearest Heart declared triumphantly, this fourth option clearly being superior to all the others anyhow. She leaned over and whispered, “Dinner muffins are more savory than breakfast and lunch muffins,” she whispered into Discord’s elbow, apparently forgetting he was standing upright and also substantially taller than her.
“Looking forward to it, Dearest!” The Doctor replied without looking up.
“Me too!” Dearest Heart replied as she clumsily turned. “Have fun working on that dimensional-timeline creator and traversing unit!”
“We will!” The Doctor said. “See you soon, Dearest!”
Discord still said nothing, still performed no magical feats, or doing anything but just standing and grinning. A grin that seemingly grew with every syllable that fell out of DH’s mouth. Finally, he simply saluted Amethyst Star, and walked on after Dearest.
“Amethyst?” The Doctor called out. “I’m done with the multi-tool!”
“… Right…” Amethyst replied, her voice empty of energy as she floated the double-boxed item away to be with the rest of the fantastically futuristic tools, her task far from the forethoughts of her mind.
We’re all going to DIE here!
Chapter 2: Introductions...
Fire
Destruction
PANDAMONIUM
ChaOs
Any and all of those words would describe the (W)Hooves’ kitchen at this particular moment, and also most moments in which its head baker was busy creating. Batter dripped from the ceiling, smoke was pouring from the oven, the sink was engulfed in flames while overflowing with water. And those were just the broad strokes of what was transpiring.
Discord looked on in awestruck amusement. He usually had to do something for this magnitude of Chaos. However, this particular disaster localized entirely within a Ponyville Kitchen was the happy multiple, potentially cataclysmic accident of one Dearest Heart.
Despite the flames, smoke, and growing pond in the kitchen, Dearest Heart flitted here and there adding flour, salt, and other dry ingredients to a green mixing bowl while singing merrily to herself, seemingly oblivious or ignoring the disaster area that was her own kitchen. “Don't feel like dancin', dancin'…”
Amethyst Star stood next to the Draconequus that loomed over her with a feeling of impending doom. Oh, this is just GREAT! she thought in the most sarcastic tone her brain could muster. I usually only have to deal with this feeling from DH and occasionally Dinky… also The Doctor… and also when I don’t know exactly where Cloud and Windancer are and a bunch of tools and parts are missing.
Images of traveling through the sky via a quickly constructed rocket, landing on the moon, and going on a colt and filly search danced through Amethyst’s head briefly. She shook her head from side to side briefly. Focus, Amy, focus. The Lord of Chaos is standing next to you and you haven’t even introduced yourself yet… Amethyst tilted her head slightly as her ears twitched. Wait, what would we even talk about? ‘Hey, Discord! I recognize you from all the terror you’ve inflicted on Equestria! Have you brought any other realms to their knees recently?’ An errant corn cob, Dekernelled the one who COBS in the Invisible Light, rolled out of the kitchen, flames enhancing plant matter. ‘Hello, Mr. Cord, sir! How are you this lively, smoky and dimensional aberration day?’ With a fuschia glow of her horn, Amethyst floated over a damp red cloth from the kitchen and dropped it on the burning cob as if it was burning corn-cob hour-of-ye-ol’-day and smothering the flames is just what one does at that particular time.
“I accept your tribute!” screeched Dekernelled as he both incinerated and COBED all the free rag into more fire COBS that began seeking additional targets.
“I hear the screatch of a COB friend!” cried Windchaser.
“Weaponize the plates!” exclaimed Cloud.
“Ditzy Doo requires additional pylons!”
“Busy!” sang D.H.
BUSY!” shouted Amethyst The buck was I thinking about? ‘Oh, hi! I didn’t see you standing right next to me for the last several minutes. Could you maybe not conflagrate into a fountain of whimsey and add to the dangerous unpredictability already ever-present in my life? That would be swell.’ Amethyst frowned. Yeah, none of those sound right.
“Oh, goodness gracious me!” Discord called out, simultaneously interrupting Amethyst’s train of thought and saving her from having to take the first step of an introduction. “A Princess Twilight experiment has seemingly gifted us with an original flavor clone.”
Amethyst felt her blood boil as her left eye began to twitch. “I will impale you multiple times with my horn until I pull out your heart and toss it into the open portal to the COB dimension.”
Discord let out a hearty guffaw. “Oh, I like you!”
…Why me? Why are weirdos attracted to me? Wait, I got it! She continued to think as Discord gleefully examined her crossed eyes. She uncrossed her eyes to the opposite sides causing Discord to real his head back with an A-O-K sign.
That’s it! Thought as if she had solved the mystery at hoof. He wants to corrupt us!
“Whoop’s!” DH called out from ground zero of the catastrophe as she used a wing to protect a tin of steaming muffins from flames and water shooting out of the pipes where the sink had once been. “I just don’t know what went wrong!” she chirped.
He wants to corrupt us FURTHER!
Discord disappeared from Amethyst’s shoulder and reappeared as his full height, his head still bearing the form of his host. “Magnificent…” he whispered to himself as his eyes took in the wonderous display of disarray before him.
“Uh, do you mind maybe changing your head?”
“Oh!” Discord raised his lion’s paw and eagle talon to his head and began reworking it as if it were clay. The result was a replication of Amethyst’s head, complete with horn and color change. “Better?”
“Much!” Amethyst said with a mischievous smile, earning a small look of surprise from Discord. “Honestly, I’m not sure why you don’t just use that head all the time.”
Somewhat disconcertingly, Amethyst was treated to her own face grinning back at her with a look of impish intent. “Oh, I really like you…” Discord purred as the purple pony head began to sag and then slop off his face in a purple pile of glop that fell on a flaming corn cob, smothering the flames.
Amethyst scowled at the remaining three flaming cobs and levitated them off the hardwood floor. She grouped them close together and floating the damp cloth off the floor, smothered the fires.
“Is it always this lively around here?”
Amethyst couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Oh, not at all. At night, everyone sleeps. Occasionally, they’re all out on the same hour. Friggin’ functional insomniacs.”
“Oh my!” Discord bartoned, creating an errant bear behind the purple princess that fled the scene. “I can barely believe it!” he added, the bear desperately searching the smoke for an exit back to Fluttershy’s cottage.
Discord continued, “Apologies for the little joke there.”
Amethyst’s expression tightened. “Very little…” She winked. “It was unbearable.”
Roaring at the indignity of ponies and their crazy kin, the bear cried again.
“Discord!!” Exclaimed a Butter-yellow pegsus with a flowing rose-petal pink mane, who entered the cottage as if it was hers. “You leave Mr. Bear out of your bits!” Her blue tourmaline eyes darted around what was perceived as a standard Ponyville home from the outside but was much more spacious on the inside. Her pupils narrowed. “Oh no!”
“Hey, Fluttershy!” Amethyst called out.
“Hey Flutters!” D.H. called from the flame-soaked kitchen.
“Hahaha!” Exclaimed the Doctor. “I’m improving the glassware!” he exclaimed victoriously.
“Auntie Flutters is here!” exclaimed Cloud excitedly. “Run! You will not appreciate our rampant sciencing of functional things!”
“Brother is right!” chimed in Cloudchaser, knowing that if not all family members present addressed the emissary from the Land of Kind, then the author would be judged on not presenting equal time to all adoraponies present.
“Run Mr. Bear!” exclaimed Fluttershy as the frightened pegasus flapped off into the night, pursued by Mr. Bear who was keeping pace while glancing tersely at the house behind.
“I’ll see you on Thursday!” Discord exclaimed over Fluttersy’s exclamation of “Omega Scenario is in EFFECT!” pierced into every ear of Ponyville.
Discord batted his eagle talon at the open door. “I’m sure she herd me.”
Amethyst extended a hoof. “Amethyst Star!” she introduced, knowing she was now in the safest place in Ponyville."
Discord, smiling like he met the only other friend he had one over with his charm, took his hoof and said. “Discord, Lord of Chaos.”
Taken aback as she let the chaos lord shake her hoof, she tearfully smiled back. With an expression of one who understood familiar love one understood the concept of love itself. Because only one with a fool’s heart and one named Dearest Heart could make this moment come.
Author's Note
Next chapter VERY soon.
Catch you in the comments, readers.
