Brave New World, Discord's Revenge

Tom watched as Owen left for Ponyville. He saw another tarpaulin covered object in another corner of the hanger. His frowned and moved over to it.

"It can't be..." He whispered. "No..."

He tore the tarpaulin off the object. A smile erupted on his face.

Lying in front of him was a beautiful, red Fokker triplane. It was equipped with a rotating barreled, rainbow laser.  He beamed happily then climbed in. He chuckled as the engine purred to life.

"Where are you going?" Ebony ran over to him.

"I'm off to help Owen defeat Discord!" Tom yelled triumphantly. He thrust his hoofs against the accelerator and soared out of the hanger, into the pale green sky. He laughed as the wind whipped at his face.  It felt like the first time he had flown a plane. A long time ago.

***

The Professor flew at an eastward coordinate. He checked the altitude of the zeppelin and pulled a lever, releasing some of the helium into the atmosphere.

He turned to Twilight who was giggling. She hadn't flown before, not like this. She watched as the pink candy floss floated by. She sighed and turned to the Professor.

“This will be able to save us. Right?” She questioned.

Owen didn't respond. Instead he turned on a microphone and spoke into it.

“Kitchin, Palmer. How are things in the anti-air compartment?”

A crackled message came through. “Alert! Alert! We have a large number of explosive pies coming our way! “

Owen frowned then looked out of the window. To his horror, Discord was throwing endless amounts of pastry based products at the airship.

Owen lunged at the controls of his beloved airship; he turned the ship around until it faced Discord directly. He activated his microphone again. But this time it could be heard outside the zeppelin.

"Discord! I demand that you surrender yourself to Celestia or face utter destruction!"

Discord laughed loudly and brought out a huge mallet. He swung it toward the blimp.

Owen growled and almost screamed into the microphone.

"Jake! Sam! Mallet at nine o'clock!"!

Sam and Jake heard him and turned their anti-air guns to see the oversized mallet swinging toward them. They both clenched their triggers. The guns fired.

The rainbow lasers cut through the mallet, turning it to mere ribbons. Shards of steel fell through the air.

Discord looked shocked, even impressed. He then growled as Jake and Sam opened fire on him. He screamed in horror as wherever the rainbow lasers touched him, turned his body to stone. He hovered in the sky, looking at his hand, which was now littered with heavy stone polka dots.

He summoned a gun of his own. Two very large Gatling guns appeared in front of him. They both began to rotate and fire endless cupcakes at the anti-air room. Jake and Sam lept out of the room into the pilot's cockpit as the room behind them exploded. It was a tight squeeze but they all managed to stay unclaustrophobic.

Owen turned to them.

"Hows the anti-air bay, guys?"

They all pointed to the burning wreckage behind them.

"My anti-air guns!" The Professor cried.

The cockpit shook violently. A large red light on the dashboard started to flash.

"Wha-?" Owen said.

"Need a little help, Owen?" A voice called over the loudspeaker.

A large blurred object, flew past the windscreen. The Professor pressed his face against the window. He could just make out a large red triplane flying off into the distance.

"TOM?" Owen yelled.

"Evening, Professor. Need back-up?" Tom replied over his built-in microphone.

"Please." Owen replied as the cockpit shook violently again. "Where the hell is Rainbow Dash?"

"Already on her way." Tom said. He turned his plane around and aimed at Discord.

Tom's hooves clenched around the trigger and his tongue came out as he concentrated. He pulled the pulled the button on the trigger. His huge mounted anti-air guns blasted rainbow lasers out of there barrels.

Discord turned, but had little time to react as his torso was bombarded with rainbow lasers. He growled.

"Enough!" Discord screeched.

He pulled his arms in and thrust them out again, sending a huge rippling force outward, towards Tom's triplane. Tom tried to avoid the ripple of energy, but he failed. He yelled as the wings of his plane exploded and caught fire. His engine roared until it died, then it to exploded. He tried to use his wings to escape but to no avail. The entire plane erupted in flames then exploded into a huge fireball.

Ebony, Aimee and Rainbow were flying at a quite high speed toward the burning plane wreckage. Ebony was flying the fastest, using her hatred for Discord at this point in time to fuel her. The more she thought about her boyfriend's chared corpse, the more her wings beated. Faster and faster toward the mess.

She flew inside the plane as it was falling toward the ground. She saw Tom, still alive, and picked him up onto her back. She used her wings to fly out of the crashed plane, with Tom precariously balanced on her back. Tom opened his eyes and yelped as he realised how high up he was. He grasped onto Ebony for dear life.

Meanwhile, Discord had turned his attention back to the Professor's airship. He scrunched up his nose and pointed his eagle claw at it.

"You have meddled in my affairs for the last time, Professor!"

He pulled his arms in again, ready to release another energy thrust. Owen wiped the sweat from his brow.

He pushed a button on the microphone. "Divert all power to the main laser." He said, simply. No emotion in his voice at all.

The zeppelin lit up a phycadelic colour. It was pulsating in a rhythm. A rhythm that was getting faster. Discord looked at the pulsating zeppelin. He stopped the energy flow just to watch.

Inside the cockpit, Twilight was screaming as the engines were roaring horrifically and smoke was spewing out of them. She thrust her hoofs around the Professor. Jake threw himself through a window to avoid death, teleporting to some unknown location. Sam flew out of the window, avoiding falling materials from the airship. Owen kept at the controls, steadying his beloved airship. He wasn't going to lose, not when he was so close.

He altered some numbers on a screen, insuring that they didn't go too high. He also pressed a few switches on, then off again. His face was contorted with concentration and he was so close. He pushed a few more buttons until...

The dashboard died.

Owen stopped breathing. He looked at the dead control panel. A single button light up. Owen's face exploded into a huge grin like that of a child on Christmas morning. He looked out of the cockpit. Discord was still hovering there in the sky. He looked smug.

"Time to wipe that grin off his face..." The Professor muttered.

He turned on the microphone again.

"I won't repeat myself again, Discord. Surrender now, or face utter destruction."

Discord stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry, before throwing an oversized rubber duck at the pulsating blimp.

The Professor turned off the microphone. "Suit yourself." He shrugged. He strapped himself into the seat, tightening his seatbelt.

"I don't know how powerful this will be..." He said as he turned to Twilight, who was still hanging on for dear life. "Strap in and hang on."

***

Ebony landed on the hard, blue, polka dotted ground. She rolled Tom off her back. He groaned and looked up at her. He smiled, gently before raising a hoof to point at the zeppelin. Ebony frowned, then turned to see what he had pointed at.

The airship was no longer a rainbow colour, but it was still pulsating. It was releasing huge amounts of energy from its engines and pressure valves, even though it wasn't going anywhere.

The Professor's microphone turned on for the last time and a few choice words were delivered.

"In the words of the immortal Dick van Dyke. Chim chimney, chim chimney, chim chim, screw you."

There was a huge burst of blinding white light. Everyone immediately put there hoofs to their eyes to stop them from being visually impaired. a split-second later, however a huge roar came from the airship.

It was a deafening, head splitting, ear-drum popping roar. It sounded like a wounded animal, finally being put out of it's misery.

Everyone scrambled away from the noise, groaning in pain.

Discord stood there, enjoying the firework show. He materialised a pair of sunglasses and placed them over his eyes.

"Ah, much better." He said, bringing a box of popcorn out of thin air. He raised an eyebrow, as he sensed something coming towards him. Something powerful.

VERY powerful.

Discord screamed as a huge rainbow laser erupted out of the barrel of the Defender, hitting him square in the chest. He gasped for air as his entire body was slowly turned back to stone. His eyeballs disintegrated and his teeth turned to dust. He moaned in pain as the cartilage in his nose crumpled. He let out one last defiant yell, before his entire body was returned to the stony prison from whence it came.

The body fell through the air, and as it hit the ground, Equestria was returned to it's natural unchaotic state.

Owen sat in the cockpit of the Defender. The blood pumping in his ears as they were still ringing from the noise. Oddly, that noise had stopped, as had the noise of the main engines. He turned to Twilight, who was sitting there, dazed.

He moved her slightly, until she regained her consciousness. She woke up and looked at him.

"Did we... win?" She asked.

"I think so..." Owen replied.

The two embraced each other in a hug. Twilight was happy now, happier than she had even been before. She had found where she belonged, with her hoofs wrapped around the one pony she loved. Owen cut the hug short. Immediately Twilight questioned him.

"What's wrong?"

"Does that sound... good to you?" He said, tapping at the walls of the cockpit.

***

Owen's Earth friends looked over the hill they had been using as shelter from the racket. The rest of the Mane Six were there too. They were all looking backwards and forwards between the defeated statue of Discord and the Defender.

"Way to go, Professor!" Rainbow dash squealed.

Everyone bursted in a mix of applause and cheering. Owen, however was still pacing around the cockpit.

Everyone fell silent. "What's he doing?" A local asked.

"Is he okay?" another said.

The blimp seemed to be sucking in energy again, pulsating like it did before. Only this time, the noise it made was barely a whisper, almost inaudible to the pony ear.

The silence was broken by an ear-splitting "click". The Defender's engines shut down and its propeller stopped working. Ebony frowned.

"What's going on... I wond-"

The Defender spontaneously combusted into a huge burning, ball of fire. The balloon section fell away from the cockpit and the propeller exploded into tiny fragments of metal. The rudder of the ship caught fire and disintegrated in less than a second. Eventually after two whole minutes of burning, the fire reached the main rainbow laser's core.

The entire zeppelin went up in a huge Sonic Rainboom, the first to be created artificially, leaving behind a huge black sky, filled to the brim with debris.

Everyone stared up at the sky. Ebony narrowed her eyes. She could about see a small object flying out of the smoke cloud. She gasped and pointed.

"Look! They made it out!"

Everyone joined in with a huge applause, welcoming their saviour home. The crowd that had gathered on the hillside suddenly parted to reveal a large, white mare walking towards the cliff.

Princess Celestia stood at the very edge of the cliff and looked around. All her subjects were bowing to her, and so were a few new ones that had arrived earlier on in the week. She smiled at the five newcomers, then she looked at the skies.

A small, dirty object was flying slowly towards her. The object crashed into the hillside and stopped, abruptly. Celestia walked  towards it and brought a small body out of the wreckage.

Celestia gasped in horror as she saw her most faithful student lying there, covered in blood, clutching at something.

"Twilight! My faithful student, are you alright?"

Twilight shook her head vigorously.

"Are you hurt?" Celestia asked, shocked.

Twilight, once again shook her head. She sat on the ground, her head in her hoofs. After a few moments she brought forth a small object she had been keeping close to her chest. Celestia took a closer look at the object. Everyone gasped.

It was a small, slightly burnt, black top hat. The one Owen had been wearing.

"He's gone..." Twilight sobbed. "He's gone..."

Twilight buried her head head in her hoofs and began to cry. She had just lost her only special somepony. The one that had really mattered. Celestia looked up at the burning wreckage in the sky. Her horn light up a florescent gold, and the debris and smoke disappeared. She looked back at her faithful student, who's heart had just been broken by the loss of her greatest love.

Twilight replayed the memory in her head.

***

"Should you be tapping it like that?" Twilight asked.

"It sounds solid, it should sound hollow. That's odd." He turned around. His eyes widened as if he'd remembered something.

"Oh, hell." Was all he could say before the cockpit burst into flames. He dodged a burning cable and threw Twilight into the driver's seat.

He pressed a small green switch and looked at Twilight. It was a sad look. A look of sorrow. Twilight was about to say something before she fell.

Twilight gasped. She had fallen out of the zeppelin. Only she was in a something. It resembled Tom's triplane, only this had one pair of wings. she thumbed down the accelerator and the plane zipped forward. Twilight screamed as the Defender exploded and something hit her in the back of her head. She frowned and picked it up.

It was his hat.

She looked at it and tears welled in her eyes.

"No..."

The plane crashed into a small mountainside and Twilight jerked forward. Her head was bleeding, she could feel it dripping down her forehead. Some of her blood dripped onto the Professor's hat. She felt something pull at her, and someone's telekinesis pulled her out of the plane.

It was Princess Celestia.

***

Twilight lead there on the grass, stroking Owen's hat. It smelled like him. It smelled warm and kind. She clutched it tightly. It had been three hours since the accident. According to Celestia's scientists, the zeppelin had discharged too much energy which had resulted in the explosion. The scientists had taken the remains of the blimp for further research.

Discord's statue had been removed and had been taken into a vault for safekeeping. (Or at least that's what Celestia had said.) To ensure that he could cause no more harm to anyone.

The Professor's body hadn't been recovered. She hoped it was never found. She didn't want to identify it as her Professor.

She sat on the hillside, as lonely as can be.