Welcome to Discordtopia

Princess Celestia and Luna continued their trek as they approached the barren deserts of the southern regions of Equestria.

As expected from such a hostile environment, the area was sparsely populated save for a few settlements like Appleloosa and the roaming buffalo tribes. Appleloosa was actually one of the first attempts to create a thriving pony community within the southern flats, an attempt that sadly ground to a halt after Nightmare Moon and Discord.

As the princesses flew, they quickly noticed how the sky filled with massive storm clouds and pouring rain.

Princess Celestia, curious, opened her mouth only to spit the water out immediately. “Ugh, that's salt water. As if this region wasn’t dry enough already.”

Luna similarly looked displeased at the water, though also looked at how dark and dreary everything was beyond the simple storm clouds. “Didn’t Twilight mention this land had become depressed recently? Do you think she was being more literal in her description?”

Celestia blinked as more rain pelted her face. “Are you implying this rain is…”

“Actual tears, yes I am.”

Now, viewing the liquid more disgustedly, Celestia wasn’t sure what to think. “As always, Discord enjoys his irony and pun, doesn’t he?”

Luna shrugged. “It certainly gives, “cry me a river” a whole new meaning.”

Indeed, several large rivers were flowing through the previously barren landscape, hence the reason for their flight. As they flew onwards, they started to notice some large structures in the distance.

The two then saw massive statues of draconequus, one that was hunched over, looking dower and depressed, arms hanging limply at its sides. The other, meanwhile, had its arms angrily crossed in front of its chest, its face twisted into a scowl so sharp there were actual cracks on the face of the stone.

Below the massive monoliths, the land itself had several roads carved of what appeared to be dark black stone. The pathways were made to be high enough above the large swaths of water to avoid them, likely one of the only ways to move about in spite of the rain.

Princess Celestia paused, taking a moment to look around. The alicorn was getting used to how Discord’s chaos had altered her world, but this was much darker than the other places they’d been to.

“This is strange even for what we’ve seen. Discord can be cruel at times, but this seems far too morbid for his taste. This is more akin to King Sombra or Tirek’s doing.”

“Those statues certainly don’t look like Discord.” Luna eyed both of the tower pieces of stone. “Perhaps he chose to adopt an alter ego of sorts for this particular region. Barring that explanation, perhaps he cloned himself?” Luna asked, shivering at the thought of facing two of the draconequus. One was bad enough.

Celestia shared a similar thought process; cloning was certainly something the mad being was capable of. “Sound theory, but that wouldn’t explain the dower appearance of everything. Discord has always been a mischief-maker first and foremost; this all seems antithetical to that.”

The pair still eyed the statues, confused Luna, looking for some kind of clue. “Could Discord have given some of his chaotic power to another or turned them into a draconequus, similar to what he did to Trixie and Twilight?”

A pause hung in the air as both sisters quickly had a concerning thought.

“You don’t think?”

“We better hurry and find this rock farm Twilight mentioned. I just hope we’re wrong.”

With greater haste, they proceeded along the black stone road, ignoring the rain as best they could. However, it was only a matter of minutes before another and considerably more bizarre obstacle was in their path.

“Luna, you’re seeing this too, right?”

“I am sister, and at this point, I’m positively numb to it.”

Walking along the path about a hundred or so yards away from the pair was a collection of massive chickens!

The enormous pack of poultry behaved rather normal under the circumstances, waddling and clucking about, pecking the ground, and occasionally snatching up boulders and crushing them between their beaks. Other than their size, they seemed relatively normal.

“This seems rather pedestrian for Discord’s magic, doesn’t it?” Luna pointed at the gigantic birds, looking almost disappointed. “I mean, surely there is more to them than….”

A pair of the birds had suddenly started to squawk angrily at each other right before one opened its beak, and a massive stream of fire blasted the other.

“And, there it is.”

Despite the creatures's ferocity, Celestia chuckled a little at the beast. “Twilight did mention we’d likely encounter some hostile creatures on the way. Looking a bit more closely at the creatures, she noticed that each chicken was two-toned, with their waddle and head crest being a different color from their bodies, and each bird was a different color combination. “I wonder if perhaps these chickens were originally dragons. It would explain the size and fire breathing.”

“They certainly still act like dragons, so it is plausible.” Luna reflexively took a step back when there was more fire from the beasts. “I would suggest we sneak around them,” Luna whispered.

“Yes, it's probably best to avoid them,” Celestia added as the pair quickly took to the sky and started to ascend towards the clouds. However, as they rose, one chicken looked up and noticed them before it started squawking and flapping its wings, quickly riling up the rest of the chickens.

Luna couldn’t help but snicker, "Well, it’s a good thing chickens can’t fly.”

But just as she said, the massive chickens stopped and glared at the two, and then they started to flap their wings again, only this time as they actually started to rise into the air. As they started to rise, they also quickly followed up with multiple streams of fire from their beaks, aimed at the now panicking princesses.

“You just had to mock them off, didn’t you, Luna!?” Princess Celestia snapped at her sister as the two princesses flew through the air at incredible speeds, avoiding being blasted by flames and the snapping of beaks.

Fortunately for the pair, though the chickens could fly, the speed at which they rose was quite pitiful so it didn’t take long before the two alicorns cleared the clouds and were beyond their reach.

Flying above the clouds for some time, they eventually descended to see if they were any closer to their destination. They were greeted by the sight of a massive city with a pyramid that stood out among the skyline, the top even piercing through the clouds.

Slowly lowering to the ground, they arrived at the gates of the massive city and were greeted with the sight of hundreds of ponies made of stone, all looking utterly depressed and void of any life as they mindlessly were building things, monuments, towers, and statues, cluttering the walkways, not really caring where they build or why?

“Yet another pony population corrupted by Discord’s magic.” Luna sneered while feeling pity for the somber collection of ponies. “I dare say these seem to be among the worst we’ve found.”

Celestia nodded. “At least with the ponies in Canterlot or Ponyville, they seemed relatively well adjusted. The sheer misery is so potent you can practically taste it.”

At that moment, another drop of salty rain flew into Celestia’s mouth, hacking rather painfully.

“Make that literally,” Luna noted, patting her still-coughing sister’s back.

The two continued their trot through the desolate acropolis as they approached the pyramid. The entire structure was made of dark and gray stones, and hieroglyphs showed ponies smashing rocks with their hooves or pickaxes.

“Do you think this was the rock farm Twilight mentioned?” Princess Celestia asked out loud.

Luna looked at the map and said, “Yes, it seems so…. I guess it could mean that this draconequus had made this place its lair.”

Cautiously, hey approached the entrance of the pyramid, where there were no guards or monsters stationed. Then again, if the enemy was a draconequus, it wasn’t like they needed one.

“Once more into the breach,” Celestia spoke as the pair slowly made their way inside the pyramid.

Back in the newly uncorrupted Canterlot, Twilight was standing near the cells beneath the palace, almost overwhelmed by the dread surrounding her as she was finally going to confront her evil counterpart.

Slowly, the mare walked by the various empty cells, the sense of foreboding growing stronger with each step she took, until finally she arrived at the cell of her doppelganger, currently seated on the floor, horn covered a sealing collar.

The evil Twilight glared upwards and snapped. “What do you want?”

Twilight paused, not exactly sure how to start a conversation with a pony she’d effectively helped imprison. “Hey, um…listen, I’m not here to gloat. I honestly just want to talk.”

The evil Twilight merely sneered at the attempt of diplomacy. “Talk about what? If it’s about Discord, then you’re wasting your time. I don’t have a clue where he is. He vanished after explaining the basics of Chaos Magic, and we haven’t seen hide nor claw of him.”

Twilight gave an annoyed sigh and said, “Yeah, okay. I guess that sounds pretty in character for Discord, but I didn’t just come here to get information. As cheesy as this sounds, I wanted to try to suggest that you should give friendship a chance.”

“Friendship!?” the evil Twilight scoffed, “Please, I have no friends. And I certainly don’t want any.”

Twilight winced, expecting such a reaction considering this This Twilight never had the chance to grow under Princess Celestia’s guidance, to say nothing of never meeting her friends or even Spike. Then again, that was only part of the problem.

“Listen, I know we were never the most social of mares, even when we were fillies. I practically couldn’t go for two minutes without my eyes peering down a good book. Looking back, I sometimes wish I could go back and tell my past self to give friendship a chance. Honestly, I could see myself turning into you without Princess Celesita's mentorship.”

Her words continued to fall on deaf ears, her dark counterpart merely walking up to the front of the cell, annoyed and angry.

“What’s even the point of all this? In case your eyes aren’t working, look at me. I’m still a blank flank who, up until a couple of hours ago, served as an oppressive dictator for everypony in Canterlot. Nopony would want to even look at me, much less be my friend.”

Twilight sighed, again having a hard time arguing with that. “You’re not wrong, I'm not sure you can repair all the damage you’ve caused, and I doubt everypony will forgive you. But the fact that in spite of everything you did to them, the Princesses are even allowing me to talk to you proves they don’t harbor grudges even when they have every right to.”

“So!? I’m supposed to scrape before them and beg for their forgiveness? Is that what I’m supposed to do for the rest of my life?” Evil Twilight roared, practically throwing herself at the bars.

“I am not asking you to beg for anything. I just want you to talk with some ponies and see if you will be friends.

“Seriously!?” Evil Twilight wasn’t certain if her counterpart was blindly naive or just stupid.

“Yes, seriously!? I’ll let you out of this cell, and you can speak with them, perhaps start to mend things.”

The other Twilight merely eyed her cell for a moment and grumbled. “Fine, I’ll try…I've got nothing better to do.”

“Good, I’ll set things up then! Twilight chirped and flew off, eventually finding Spike waiting for her as she trotted up the stairs. “How’d it go?”

“Seems as if she’s willing to give friendship a chance, but we need to set up a lunch for her and the others.”

Spike seemed to turn a little green at the idea. “Lunch, huh? Let’s just hope she doesn’t try to serve us heads on platters.”

“Spike! I know she’s a bit evil, but Starlight was too, and she’s changed, so we have to try, or we won’t ever get home.”

Twilight, of course, conveniently left out that Starlight needed to see the light, not only the many doomed realities her actions created, but also be imprisoned in one of those realities. She had a good feeling about this.

“Right, well, there's no harm in trying, I guess,” Spike replied with a shrug as they walked off towards the dining room, Twilight following after.

Princess Celestia and Luna continued to walk through a hall of hieroglyphs depicting a family on a rock farm. They apparently did a great many relatively mundane things, eating rock soup, bucking rocks, and then going to sleep. The family itself seemed to be unbothered by the uneventful lifestyle based on the images….all save one.

Throughout, the glyphs showed a single pink filly amongst the family, depicted with a storm cloud over her head and a somber expression on her face. The further the images moved through time, the larger the cloud and more dower she grew, whilst her family remained unchanged.

Eventually, the story arrives at the point when Discord appears before them, transforming the older pink pony into a copy of himself. Discord showed how fun it was to turn old ponies into foals, dragons into chickens, and buffalo into cows, almost like trying to teach the concept of joy to the pink creature. But the other creature just seemed bored and didn’t care, and eventually Discord left.

Over time, the transformed mare started creating an empire of stone-like ponies, turning her family into golems before doing the same to others who stumbled upon her rock farm. Eventually, the small farm was transformed into the massive city they saw outside.

The princesses found themselves enamored by the story pictured on the walls as they entered a central chamber, where a family stood around a table, mindlessly munching away at several massive hunks of rocks.

Like the ponies outside, the family were made of carved rock, expressions flat and unchanging as their bodies moved as if guided by another hand. However, as with the glyphs, there was a single figure who stood out amongst the others, the very same one they’d seen in the images before.

Like the carvings, the draconequus was pink and scaled like a serpent, a mismatch of several creatures joined together like Discord. Her mane was a straight dark pink, and her eyes a dull blue. She, too, thoughtlessly threw the massive stones into her mouth, though unlike her family, who gradually gnawed at the massive boulders, her mouth opened wide, like a snake’s, allowing the entire stone to slip right in before being crushed by her jaws.

Celestia and Luna slowly stepped closer, the draconequus pausing, her eyes drifting towards them. “Huh, new visitors.”

“Yes, we are. I’m Luna, and this is my sister Celestia?” Luna spoke cautiously, Celestia herself offering a light wave at their host. “Might we have your name perhaps?”

“Oh, me? I’m Pinkie Pie.” The now-identified creature spoke offhandedly as she threw another rock down her throat.

Celestia felt another wince of pity and irritation, seeing another of Twilight’s “friends” being so completely consumed by Discord’s magic and potentially working for him. “How is it that so many ponies Twilight knew ended up in such positions?”

Putting that thought aside, she put on her best smile and approached the former pony.

“Well, um, Pinkie Pie, we were wondering what exactly is going on here? Is there a reason you turned all these ponies to stone and have them build these statues?”

“Everypony here was scared of Discord, and I gave them a place to hide, but they needed something to do, so building stuff seemed like the best option. To keep their minds off everything.” Pinkie spoke again with little interest, content just to throw more rocks in her mouth, barely giving the princesses her attention.

Luna replied, “Pinkie Pie, I’m not sure you are aware, but Discord hasn’t been around for some time, and um…we came here to find you.”

That actually got Pinkie to stop mid-rock and give the Princess of the Night her full attention.“By who?”

“Twilight Sparkle.”

That actually caused the pink draconequus to chuckle, though it was hollow and dry, making both alicorns shiver a little. “So she finally came to take over, huh? About time, I suppose.”

“No, the Twilight you're thinking of is in a cell.” Celestia quickly picked up. “Another Twilight came here from a different timeline, and we are trying to end Discord’s reign. And you are apparently crucial in taking him down.”

Rather than sound intrigued, Pinkie merely huffed, blowing strands of her mane out of her eyes and slumping in her seat. “What if I don’t want to take him down? He gave me this kingdom!”

Celestia immediately pointed her hoof at the rest of Pinkie’s family. “And look at it, everypony here is miserable!?”

“Everypony was already miserable here, to begin with.” Pinkie snapped her fingers, causing the glyphs to start moving, replaying the monotone life of the family in full. “Just farming rocks, eating rocks, and sleeping, day in and day out. Now, at least, they never have to worry about being hungry, tired, or having feelings!” She then pointed her own hoof at her family. " This is what my world was like: boring, gray, and dull! All they cared about was dumb rocks. Well, now they can have as many of them as they want!”

Both Princesses reflexively took a step back, and the vitriol and anger in the draconquss’s voice were evident.

“Life doesn’t have to be like this,” Luna spoke calmly. “ From what I learned from the other Twilight, you were a fun, energetic pony who loved planning and hosting parties!”

Pinkie Pie’s eye twitched ever so slightly, her straight mane seeming to move slightly along with it. “That’s funny, that’s not the first time somepony said that to me…”

“It wasn’t?” Celestia asked, “Who else told you this?”

“Discord…he tried to make me his apprentice.” Pinkie snapped her fingers, making the glyphs shift again, showing Discord floating above Pinkie, speech bubbles hinting at his intentions. “He told me that I should be more like him, more wacky and crazy. But I was so depressed and angry when he turned me into this…thing!” She angrily waved a claw over her form and continued, “Instead, I just turned ponies into statues so they could forget about the horrors of Nightmare Moon’s reign and any other ponies who didn’t want to live in Discord’s insane world. I just wanted us to live here without anypony disturbing us.”

“And nopony will disturb you. Things are steadily returning to how they once were, and once they have, you can be whatever you want!?” Celestia replied, still feeling as though she was hitting a proverbial wall with this conversation. “But first, we need you to turn these ponies to normal and help restore this land to how it used to be.”

Pinkie Pie simply leaned back in her chair without a hint of urgency. “Even if you’re telling the truth, so what? Ponies here will never have to worry about anything again, no more work, dealing with relationships, worrying about how to live their lives, or worrying about broken dreams, or even getting old. Maybe life is just better this way.”

The princesses were dumbfounded at the response, Celestia especially.

“You’re saying you’d rather live a dull, uneventful, and stagnant existence simply to avoid any kind of hardship?”

Pinkie simply yawned and nodded, not even bothering to speak.

Luna, seething at the act, quickly pulled her Celestia aside. “Sister, I fear this Pinkie Pie is a lost cause. Whatever passion or joy she might’ve had is long gone at this point. Maybe instead of trying to change her back, we should just try to convince her to fight Discord as a draconequus. Fight fire with fire.”

“Luna, Discord is the one who gave Pinkie her powers, to begin with, and I imagine he can just as easily take them back. We just need to try a different approach.” Princess Celestia contemplated a solution before an idea began forming in her mind. One that left her internally groaning at the idea. “Maybe we should try….being clowns again.”

“What!? Are you serious!?” Luna feared her sister had finally snapped.

“I know it’s the last thing either one of us wants, but if we can cheer up Pinkie Pie, then maybe we can finally convince her to return things as they were. And hopefully, defeat Discord for good.”

“But sister, look at her.” Luna again pointed to the miserable former mare, who’d returned to robotically eating rocks with her frozen family. “Even if we did don those ridiculous costumes again, what possible hope could we have to even get this mare to crack a smile. You saw the walls; she’s been miserable for years, and Discord couldn’t even convince her.”

It certainly was a tall order, and it wasn’t like Celestia or Luna were even good clowns to begin with, but still. “We have to try, sister. We owe it to the citizens of Equestria to consider every option we have, even if it’s a long shot.”

“....I still wish to correct the mistakes I made previously. So, if this is what I must do to atone, then fine,” Luna mumbled.

Plan in hoof, they slowly approached Pinkie Pie, Celestia clearing her throat to get her attention. “Pinkie Pie, I have a proposal. If we can make you laugh and show you how to have fun, would you be willing to at least try helping us?”

“Make me laugh!?” Pinkie actually looked slightly intrigued by the idea, sitting up ever so slightly.

“Yes, make you laugh!”

Sitting up further, Pinkie actually looked more awake now than ever. “And how would you do that?”

“For starters, we were originally cursed by Discord to be clowns.” Using her magic, Celestia created a projection of their previous “clowney” appearance. “Maybe if we turned back into clowns, we could show you!”

Pinkie Pie, now both curious and quite interested, obliged, and with a snap of her claws, the two were returned to their clown attire, including poofy afros and red noses.

Luna’s shoulders sagged a little at the familiar sensation. “And here I was really hoping I’d never have to wear this again.”

However, she felt Celestia nudge her shoulder before pointing to Pinkie, specifically how her mouth started to twitch ever so slightly before returning to its original flat position.

Seeing that their plan had merit, the pair quickly resumed their original routine. Pulling unicycles out of their manes, they started riding around and throwing pies at each other for actual flavor.

One pie collided with Luna’s afro, practically knocking her off balance. “Sister, I know we aren’t exactly experts, but at least aim for my face instead of this cotton swab on my head.”

“Sorry, Luna,” Celestia tried again, only to hit the wheel of her sister’s cycle, causing it to slip and Luna to fall face forward, dropping one pie right in the direction of where her face landed while the other pie managed to hit Celestia square in the face.

The monarch of the sun landed flat on her shoulders, flank high up in the air, which was immediately greeted by yet another pie landing square on it, while a fourth pie managed to cream Celestia again in the face, right as she managed to clean her face off.

Though the entire debacle was undoubtedly something for the statue ponies, they weren’t sure what to make of it. However, Pinkie was having a different reaction. Initially, the sight of Luna’s hair getting hit made her mouth twitch further, then having her fall into a pie forced her to hold her mouth shut, and finally, once Celestia got triple pied, poor Pinkie couldn’t hold it anymore and was laughing like mad.

Wiping their faces clean, the two sisters looked at each other and laughed. “Seems being clowns wasn’t our calling after all.” Celestia chuckled as she removed chunks of pie from her mane.

“Too true, but more importantly, Pinkie Pie, you laughed! So, as per the rules stated earlier, you have to help us!” Luna exclaimed, silently happy this also meant their time as clowns was over as well.

“Fine, yeah, I’ll change things back to normal,” Pinkie said, still chuckling somewhat before snapping a claw and making the entire pyramid disappear. They were now in a shabby and somewhat somber-looking home, and the stone golems were now normal earth ponies, all just looking confused. The outside ponies had similarly returned to normal, sharing the family’s own perplexity.

Pinkie then began to change herself. Her mane started to poof out like the sisters' afros and somehow became lighter in color. At the same time, her previously dull eyes became bright and cheerful, leaving Pinkie positively squealing. “Oh wow, what's happening to me!?”

She then started shooting streamers from her talon and paw. Then a massive birthday cake appeared, slammed onto the table, and splattered the pastry all over the walls as she laughed.

“Oh wow! This is amazing!”

Celestia grimaced at the cake. Her old self would have been drooling to see so much of her favorite pastry, but now she could barely stand the sight of it. “Yes, well, don’t get too carried away. You need to turn things back to normal, not go crazy with your newfound powers.”

“Right! Well, come on then!” Pinkie smiled as she threw the two alicorns onto her back.

“Wait, you didn’t turn us back to normal! We're still clowns!” Luna practically screamed in fury at her still cartoonish state.

Sadly, Pinkie Pie wasn’t listening as she started flying over Las Pegasus and saw a bunch of foals running around. With a snap of a claw, they were turned back to adults or old ponies; they went to Appaloosa, now filled with cows with crazy colorful spots plastered on them, all munching away on grass chocolate grass, and with a snap, they were all turned back into ponies and buffalo again.

Eventually, they came across the fire-breathing chickens, and she snapped a claw, and they all suddenly turned to dragons who were still pissed off but instantly flew off, happy to simply be able to leave and not interested in a fight.

Satisfied, Pinkie then turned her attention to the statues and, with another snap, made them literally poof out of existence. She then fired a beam of magic straight at the clouds. In moments, the previously dark, tear-soaked clouds were replaced with normal, white, puffy clouds….that were raining gumdrops.

“Pinkie!”

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it,” Pinkie squeaked. Then, with another snap, the gumdrops turned to normal rain. They then continued their flight towards Canterlot.

Back in Canterlot, the others were gathered around the massive dining table with a spread-out banquet. Despite prior events, everypony was laughing, talking, and having a good time. The lone exception was the Evil Twilight, currently sulking in her stewing in her own seat and munching away.

Twilight glanced at her counterpart from across the table and looked ready to reach out and speak with her, only for a rumbling sound to get her attention.

In an instant, a massive, pink draconequus came smashing through the window, sending Luna and Celestia crashing into the table.

“Awww, that was awesome!” Pinkie Pie laughed out loud at the land before noticing the crowd in the room and squealing with excitement. “Oh, come on!? You're having a party; this is the best you can do!”

With that, she snapped a claw; the place was transformed. The bland, dull food became various kinds of baked goods and sweets. There was a place for “pin the tail on the pony, " with pin-ups of Celestia and Luna as clowns. There was now a dance floor with a massive disco ball, and cheerful music was blasted throughout the room.

“Now it's time to make this entire castle into a super party palace!”

The princesses, getting up from their crash, both shouted, “NO! " Without another word, they splashed some “disenchanting water” onto her, turning her back into a pink earth pony.

Now, finally back to normal, though her hair and eyes were still as bright and lively as a few moments ago, Pinkie did look a tad sheepish at her outburst. “Oopsie, guess I got a bit carried away, huh?”

“Yes,” Celestia and Luna snapped angrily as they both got up and poured the water onto themselves, reverting to their regal selves. Their clown attire faded, and their manes became long and wavy once more.

However, before either of them could relax, Celestia spotted the Evil Twilight currently seated at the table, unchained and with virtually no restraints, seemingly having a normal conversation with the other Twilight and a few other mares she’d managed to pull over.

“Seems Twilight was busy while we were away.” Luna chimed, looking cautiously optimistic, though Celestia still looked ready to say something. However, another rumble was heard outside, followed by the screams of many ponies.

“Oh, for Faust's sake!” Luna shouted. “What now! What more could we possibly have to deal with?”

They, along with the Twilights, Starlight, and the other ponies, quickly rushed out to see the sky literally open up and gaped in horror at who they saw slowly fall through the gape.

“Finally! Now things can get interesting!” Discord said with a smirk, looking down upon the ponies with excitement and glee on his face. “So, who's ready to play?”