[HW-1] Technologic

“Twilight! You’re just the princess I was looking for!” Discord said, swooping over to the rather smart, purple pony. “I’ve been trying to solve this riddle for hours now, and I think a second set of eyes would do wonders.”

“What puzzle?”

“Why the flying machine, of course!”

“Flying machine?” Twilight repeated, trotting up to the telescope, interest piqued. Placing her head against the eyepiece. “What flying machine?” she asked, squinting through the eyepiece.

“What do you mean ‘what flying machine?’” Discord asked, pushing Twilight out of the way. The machine sat there, right where he’d left it. “It’s right there! You can’t have missed it!” he said, pulling away from the aperture once more. He moved Twilight back into place, pressing her head back down against the telescope.

“Discord! Cut it out!” Twilight said, teleporting herself from his grasp. She reappeared a few feet away, rubbing her eye. “There’s no flying machine!”

“There quite obviously is!” he said, gesturing towards the sky roughly. “I don’t know what game it is you’re playing at, Sparkle, but I will find out.”

“What game I’m playing at? You’re the one looking at imaginary flying machines!”

“Imaginary?!” Discord scoffed, paw on his chest. “You think I, Discord, master of chaos and mischief would go through the trouble of creating a vile contraption that even I cannot control?” Twilight stared unamused back at Discord. “You know, hearing it out loud…”

“If you’re the only one that has to deal with this trick, fine. Just leave me out of it.”

Discord, rather perturbed by Twilight’s lack of cooperation – or even acknowledgement – disappeared into a flash of light. Something was up, he knew this much. Had he forgotten a planned prank? It wouldn’t exactly have been the first time that happened, but…

No. No, this was different. It wasn’t his style, for one – the thing looked absolutely hideous! It was all function, no style! Whipping up a cotton candy cloud, Discord lounged while looking towards the sky. Snapping a pair of binoculars into existence, the Draconnequus gazed up vaguely in the machine’s direction.

Sure enough, there it was, floating menacingly above Ponyville.

Grumbling, he tossed the binoculars off to the wayside, folding his arms as he pondered. What imbicile would create something they couldn’t control? He scowled upwards, snapping his fingers in disgust. No flash of light, no resounding peace, not even a discordant palatte change on the vehicle! He snapped his fingers in anger a few more times, before removing his claw and throwing it up towards the machine.

A futile attempt at best.

Somewhere below, his claw made a resounding knock on a certain pegasus’ head, stirring her from her own daydreams. “What the?” came the brash voice of a certain Rainbow Dash. A few moments later brought genuine terror to the cyan pony, and a moment of bemusement from Discord. Leaning over the cotton candy cloud, the chief of chaos observed his idle handiwork.

“Excuse me miss Dash, but I’ll be needing that back,” he said, dismembered hand pointing back up at him.

“Discord!” Rainbow yelled, throwing the claw back up at the pink cloud. “What’s the big idea?!”

“It’s not my fault you decided to nap under my cloud.”

“Your cloud wasn’t even here when I got here!” the riled rainbow pony retorted. “Is that a cotton candy cloud?” she asked, one eye eager to twitch.

“Of course! You expect me to lounge on a mundane Ponyville cloud?” he scoffs, rolling back over to reattach his claw. “And it’s none of your business, Rainboom Crash.”

“Discord!” Rainbow yells, flying up to his level. “If you’re up to your old tricks again, I-“

“Oh hush,” he snaps, pushing a tuft of cotton candy cloud into her motor mouth. “I’m not interested in your precious Ponyville. There’s something far more interesting at play here, and I’m going to find out what.”

“Mmffmfm?” Rainbow mumbled, chewing her cottonmouth away. A few blissful moments of peace later, and her irritating voice was back at it again. “What do you mean ‘more interesting than Ponyville?’” she sneered, coughing up bits of cotton cloud. “This town is amazing and you know it!”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure,” he said, waving his paw dismissively. “But even ponies don’t have flying machines.”

“Have you been to Cloudsdale?” Rainbow growled.

“Nopony has created a machine that can fly above the clouds,” he said, looking back towards where the machine was.

“Above the clouds?” Rainbow repeated, eyes widening in awe. “Lemme see!” she said, jumping at Discord’s binoculars.

“I beg your pardon?” Discord said, casually moving the binoculars out of Rainbow’s path. “I’m afraid this is something far too sophisticated for-“

“Got it!” Rainbow said, snatching the binoculars.

“Impressive! You got me monologuing!” Discord chuckled, folding his arms. “Have a look then,” he said, gesturing up towards the sky.

“Alls I see is blue.”

“Oh of course! You didn’t think very far ahead in this plan, did you?” he asked, adjusting her gaze for her. “There.”

“Nope, still just blue.”

“I should’ve known better,” he said, mashing his eyes to the other side of the binoculars. “Of course you’d be in on Sparkle’s joke – you probably helped come up with it!” he fumed, snatching the binoculars back. “If this is the kind of treatment I’m going to have to put up with, you can keep your clouds to yourself!” he said, disappearing in a snap.

“What I don’t understand,” he mused, claw to his forehead, “is why.” Being a statue was almost preferable to this. Still between realities, he tossed the now gooey binoculars too the void. “I’ve got it! The one pony who can’t help herself!” he said gleefully, materializing in the ponie’s reality once more.

“Applejack!” he blurted out, startling the earth pony. She yelped, dropping her bushel of apples to the ground. “Just the pony I was looking for!”

“Discord!?” AJ growled back, collecting herself. “What in tarnation do you want?”

“The truth,” he said, rubbing his hands together. The rather moustache may have been a touch too much, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Truth about what, exactly?” she said, now keenly aware that Big Mac wasn’t aware of their uninvited guest. Clapping his hands together, Discord produced a few balloons and began sculpting. Soon he had a full balloon-telescope sitting before his dear friend, pointed up at the sky just so.

“I need you to tell me exactly what you see,” he said, patting the squeaky pink balloon sculpture.

“Uhh,” AJ started, raising an eyebrow. “A balloon,” she paused, examining the sculpture further. “Telescope?”

“Oh! Of course!” Discord said, popping the collection. A telescope not unlike Twilight’s stood in the sculpture’s place, bits of balloon floating to the ground. “Now, what do you see through the telescope?”

“I can tell you what I’ll see – the sky!”

“No no no, more specific than that!”

“Stars?” AJ asked, scratching her head. “Why don’t you ask somepony like Twilight about this?”

“I’m not asking Sparkle, I’m asking you.”

“Can you at least tell me what I’m lookin for?” she asked, peering down at the eyepiece cautiously.

“That would taint the experiment – I can’t tell you what I’m expecting you to see,” he said simply, snapping a lab coat and clipboard into existence.

“I dunno,” AJ said, looking back to her bushel of apples. “What am I thinkin! I don’t have time for this – I’ve got work to do!”

“Please!?” Discord said, lunging down to latch onto her rear leg. In hindsight, probably not the best of ideas.

“Gah!” she said, kicking back reflexively. Discord’s head now firmly buried in one of her apple trees, she groaned and looked back to the telescope. “Fine, if it’ll get you to leave me alone.” Discord popped his head through the other side of the tree, clapping excitedly.

“Excellent!” he said, snapping back down next to her. “Now, what do you see?”

“Well,” she said, pressing her eye up to the aperture. “Blue. Lots and lots of blue.”

“Anything else?”

“Some clouds?”

“No no, something more! Something that’s not supposed to be there!”

“It all looks pretty normal to me,” she said, shrugging.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to lie!” Discord hissed, replacing the telescope’s eyepiece with his own eye. “Or are you not the element of honesty?”

“I would never!” she said, kicking the telescope down. “Not even to you!”

“Of course not, you simply don’t see it, isn’t that right?” Discord mocked, eye twitching.

“I don’t know what it is you’re looking for, but I didn’t see anything strange up in the sky! Now will you please leave me alone? You’ve already put me behind-“

Discord disappeared in a snap once more. Whatever her lame excuse was, he wasn’t interested. The element of honesty just lied to him, of that much he was certain. Half of the elements of harmony so far have covered up this thing’s existence, and he was no closer to figuring out why.

Maybe it runs deeper than this shanty of Ponyville? Maybe Sunkist and Moonpie were up to something, and they were just the pawns? “To what end?” he openly pondered, his voice echoing in the nothingness. This was maddening. If it weren’t for the fact that his magic had no effect on the flying machine, he almost could’ve chalked it all up to the ponies at least growing a sense of humor. But this was different.

Something unknown that he hadn’t conjured up. Something that he had no control over, and at the same time, appeared to be the only being aware of its existence. At least, aware and willing to admit it…

“It’s been weeks now!” Discord yelled, claw curled up at the sky. “Who sent you?” he barked, popcorn spewing from his mouth. “Why do you torment me?!” The machine remained silent, not even so much as a glisten of metal. The sound of glass shattering echoed through the treebrary as Discord’s popcorn bucket smashed into the ground.

“Hey, I’ve gotta clean that up!” Spike barked, fuming as he made Twilight’s bed for the fifth time today. “What’s the big deal, anyways?”

“The big deal?” Discord whispered. “The big deal?” he repeated, louder this time. “It’s far too big a deal for you to understand! There’s no possible,” he paused, a gleam in his eye as he turned to look at the dragon. “Actually, I think I know just the thing to make you understand.” Spike cringed, taking a step towards the door. He knew that tone. No – that voice.

“Discord?” he asked, his voice cracking.

“My dearest Spike, I have a gift for you,” he said, snapping his fingers. A jewel as big as the baby dragon appeared, hovering just above Discord’s claw. Its translucent red body glistened in the light, slowly lowering itself to Spike’s level. “Bon appétit.”

The dragon wanted desperately to hesitate. He wanted desperately to heed the alarms going off in his head about a gift from an embodiment of chaos.

But that ocean of drool in his mouth would have none of that.

The baby dragon dove at the gem, landing on top of it’s smooth, delicious surface. This was easily the largest he’d ever had any hope of eating. Licking his lips one more time, he went in for that sweet, sweet, crisp first bite.

Instead of his jaws clamping down and revealing what true heaven tasted like, nothing happened.

No. No that wasn’t right. He’d definitely bitten into the gem.

He pulled back, looking down at the jewel, still perfect, still shining. Still without any signs of being eaten.

“Take it, my dear Spikey Wikey,” Discord said, mocking Rarity’s tone. “Take it, and let it drive you slowly to madness as you try and understand something that defies what you know. That defies existence itself, but only to you,” he sneered, turning back to look at the sky.

“Discord!” Twilight yelled, snapping him from his courtship of chaos. “This has gone far enough!” Discord cringed, closing his eyes in preparation. “You’ve been obsessing over this imaginary machine for too long – give it a rest already!” she said, pulling Spike away from the tortuous jewel.

“No, Twilight – you don’t understand!” the baby dragon said, leaping from her grip back to the jewel. “I need this.”

“Discord!” Twilight said through gritted teeth. “Fix. Spike.”

“I’m teaching him a lesson,” Discord snapped back, glaring down at the unicorn.

“And just what lesson would that be?”

“A lesson in obsession. Perhaps you’d be interested in a lesson of your own?” he suggested, pulling a book into existence. It was thick – easily thousands of pages long. The smell of old parchment was enough to get the unicorn practically drooling. He handed her the book, letting her magical grip take it.

Twilight opened the book with excitement, finding a language she’d never seen before. None of the symbols were familiar, she couldn’t tell if it was written horizontally or vertically – already she could feel the demand to know more burying into her mind. Squinting, she took a step back, shaking her head.

“As much as I would love to take this book apart word for word,” she said, closing her eyes. “It’s not me or Spike that need this so-called lesson,” she continued, shoving the book back to Discord. “But if you’d rather obsess on this machine only you can see, maybe you’d like a more interesting lesson?”

“You? Teach me? Ha!” Discord laughed, wiping a tear from his eye. “Me, the master of chaos – of reality itself – learn something from a purple pony princess who spends her time reading rather than experiencing?” he scoffed, feeling something inside him start to crack. “And what, dare I ask, would you presume to teach me about?”

“Petrology,” she said firmly.

“Well played, Sparkle,” he said, slowly clapping is paw and claw together. “As you well know, I’m quite learned in that field already.” He sighed, snapping his fingers. The book and jewel disappeared back into the realm of nothing that they had been summoned from. “Done,” he said, returning to his original task of staring at the machine in the sky.

“Thank you,” Twilight said, collecting the still confused Spike.

Dismissing the rest of the unicorn’s ramblings from his concern, Discord focused instead on trying to decipher the machine.

“Where did it go?” he asked, leaping to Twilight’s telescope. “Where, where, where?!” he asked frantically, searching the sky. Peeling back from the apparatus, he wrapped his arms around his torso, shivering slightly. He looked back up to the sky, an unfamiliar weight sneaking down into his mind. “If we’re going to play this game, we’re going to play on my terms,” he growled.

Last Edit: 01/10/2019 12:03 CST