July 20th is Comedy's birthday, so like every year I write a text based on the fanfiction "Unexpected", from GrammarNaziGirl.
This is basically a crossover between Unexpected and "Twilight from the Future". I wanted to talk about possible worlds but that proved tedious, and I wanted to do some horror but it's no fun. So it's just a story about monsters.
"There you are!" Twilight happily shouted after the ball of thunder finished roaring behind her.
All more or less was left clean white.
"I've been looking for you in pretty much every possible world there is, Comedy! You wouldn't believe the time it took!" And she beamed: "Almost none!"
"Who are you?" Comedy asked.
And the filly raised her head, raised her sorrowful eyes on Twilight. There she was, the mare that had stolen her parents, or so Comedy thought. That was Twilight, yet she was different, the mane ruffled, black suit torn on her coat, an eyepatch added to the cut on her face.
That Twilight was smiling like there was tomorrow.
There sort of litterally wasn't.
"I'm Twilight! Twilight Sparkle! We met so many times, with you destroying me, me destroying you… It has been a lot of fun, really!" The purple mare kind of hopped with glee. "But let's not talk about me. Let's talk about you!"
Twilight pressed her hoof on the filly's muzzle, making her startle. Comedy had been cold and hungry, and also very lonely. She wasn't sure she wanted to play with that mare. She wasn't even sure to really like her.
Yet she didn't care much. After all she thought, looking all around, the world had been reduced to nothingness. She was where Ponyville stood and even the ruins had been swept. Soon there wouldn't even remain the light. So really, she had barely anything better to do than listen.
"Today is your birthday, Comedy!" Twilight bounced around the filly. "Make a wish and I'll make it come true!"
"You can't." The filly pouted.
And she curled up again, hooves pressed on her face, waiting for all to disappear.
Twilight stopped and looked oddly at the filly, tilted her head, poked her a bit then looked around. It was as if for the first time the mare noticed something was missing. All she could see was the fractured ground where the filly had ambled before laying down to wait. The cracks were slowly fading too.
"Oh." She calmed. "So you wish to be left alone."
"Is that too much to ask, too?" Comedy groaned.
Twilight paced away a little, just enough to feel the void making her shiver. She frowned, looked at the filly again and she pondered for a few seconds.
Comedy gave it no thought. The filly felt too old already, with her white mane looking kind of grey in the pure light around. Her own coat was losing colours, from brown to grey too and she thought, soon all would be black and white. There was nothing wrong with black and white. Especially if only white remained. But then, white wouldn't have much sense.
What fun was there in making sense.
"I thought you wished to find your parents?" Twilight asked, coming back.
Comedy gave a glare. "They abandoned me."
"Abandoned, fled, disappeared, we are not sure are we? You don't want to know what happened?"
"No."
"Oh come on now!" Twilight insisted.
She poked the filly some more until the little pony reacted and tried to bite her hoof. That made her smile and the filly pout.
The filly had a savage eye, yellow and sick, and two beastly horns on her head. She was a monster if anything, unnatural, and a maelström of magic slowly devouring the universe. Twilight Sparkle's smile widened.
"Are you really giving up so easily? Giving up finding your parents? Giving up saving them?"
"I tried." Comedy grumbled. "I tried everything."
"Well lying here and being sad won't help!" The mare scolded. "The filly I know would better annihilate a few universes before ever thinking of giving up!"
The beastly filly blinked.
"Are you asking me to be a monster?"
"That's up to you!" Twilight smiled.
Around them all was white. The cracks had waned. All that remained was the light and the light was fading too. There remained only a tiny pocket of reality, closing slowly. The filly had stopped feeling, had stopped caring. But now that mare was waking up all of her emotions. That of anger, that of despair, that of past joy and hope.
She growled, frowned her tiny muzzle: "You're not Twilight! Twilight would never ask me to hurt others for my own gain!"
"Oh I met a lot of Twilights…" Twilight grimaced. "Between the two of us? Most of them are crazy! Most would tell you to be selfish beyond measure! As for me?" She sighed. "I would tell you to deal with it. Accept Discord is gone. Accept Pinkie Pie is too. Turn the page, keep living. Become a good filly, become a good mare. Go to work, build a house, have a family why not. Don't disappear when you have foals."
She laid down before the filly and rubbed the white mane. She had lain mostly because the pocket of reality was becoming really narrow. Comedy pushed her hoof back with a frown.
"You can give up on your parents and live. You don't have to give up on yourself too. There is a future for you, Comedy. No matter what others think."
"And just… just accept it?" Comedy stammered. "That they are gone? Without rhyme or reason? That it can happen to everypony, at any time? I tried."
"You might not have tried hard enough."
"What do you know about it."
"Oh I know." Twilight sighed. "I call myself names in the mirror every morning, and I have to pretend it's morning because I don't have mornings, I don't seem to deserve mornings! Oh eh, here is Twilight, she seems grumpy today! Well maybe because 'today' is something I miss!"
She noticed she had shouted a bit, in anger, and even though the filly didn't care Twilight felt ashamed. She apologized with a blushy face and offered another smile.
"What I mean is, even if that doesn't sound fair… be brave and try some more?"
"Leave me alone." The filly groaned. Her voice was trembling. "I want disappear. Go where my parents are."
"So that's how it is…" Twilight muttered for herself.
Her horn glowed of a faint glow, black and white in the narrow pocket of light. It was warmth and life erupting suddenly, giving a last glimmer in the fading universe. She felt her lungs breathing again. She felt what wasn't a shield but magic itself breaking under the collapse of a world.
"Come with me!" Twilight jumped up on her hooves and beamed. "I'll bring you to your parents!"
"You can't." Comedy repeated.
"Actually I do." She replied, almost offended. "I can travel through space and time, remember? So I just went back to your home, before they disappeared, and I watched. Then I went back in time again and this time I took them away, in safety. To be honest? I wanted hostages at first, because you know, our little war… but then I thought eh! If I am to screw the universe, let's at least make it a happy ending for one of us! So here you go! You win!"
"I… win?" The filly blinked, without belief.
"You, Discord, Pinkie Pie, all together and happy. I don't have much choice really… if you aren't going to give up on them" Twilight scholarly explained, "then I would be abandoning you here. And a certain Twilight Sparkle did promise to protect you…"
The filly blinked again, her beastly eye on Twilight, trying to pierce through her mind. But then, Comedy thought, she had nothing to lose. At worst she would only feel the pain of her hope crushed, and she would have a toy to calm her nerves on.
Somehow the purple mare caught that thought, because she began to sweat.
"So… are we going?" She asked.
The filly hesitated. She didn't care that the pocket was collapsing, the magic vaporizing into nothingness. She stopped asking herself if her parents would be there, and began asking herself if she could trust Twilight.
Something in her told her yes.
"Okay." The filly nodded.
In a spark of light and a flash both were gone, taken away and brought into yet another time, another world, in a cozy home filled with the smell of muffins.
Comedy got up, surprised. That wasn't her old home, that didn't even look like it, but more like the manor her father used to have, with swirling stairs and furniture on the ceiling. She liked it, it looked so familiar, so reassuring.
But then she got worried. There was some rumor from the kitchen, a familiar hum as eggs were broken and thrown in full inside the oven.
Comedy turned to Twilight Sparkle, but the mare in her leather suit had jumped on a couch and was rubbing against the cushions, trying to nap. She only gave a smile to the filly, and seemed a bit ashamed, but didn't do anything else, as if one too much. So Comedy turned back and approached the kitchen door, which had changed place in the meantime, a little to the right and to the side, forcing the little pony to walk on the wall to reach it.
Before she could the door opened and Pinkie Pie froze.
The plate of muffins fell on the wall.
Then Pinkie Pie shrieked for a good three seconds and leapt on the filly, cuddling her without restraint. And Comedy, taken aback, recognized this energy, this warmth and care. It was her mother she thought, this time it was really her.
"Comedy where were you I was panicked I thought we would never see each other what have you done with your mane!?" Pinkie Pie rushed, brushing the filly's hair with her hoof.
"Mom?" The filly said, slowly hoping. "It's real-"
She got almost crushed against Pinkie's belly as she cuddled her again so tight.
"I'm never letting you go anymore!" Pinkie sobbed.
And Comedy felt her own eyes fill with tears. She stretched her tiny legs, hugged her mother. She suddenly felt as if all this time and despair had never happened. As if she had just come back from school. As if she had been the one missing.
Also she was hugged from behind, by a certain draconequus.
Discord had gone out of the kitchen too, seen them and silently crawled behind his daughter. his tail was now holding both her and Pinkie pie so that he could cuddle them both.
"Something is missing." Pinkie softly say, her cheek on Comedy's cheek, so happy. She gave a quick glance on top of her daughter's mane, so the alligator holding a streak with its mouth. "Nevermind!" She squealed.
"You two take care," Discord whispered at their ears, "I'll join you in a minute."
Then the draconequus released them, putting them down on the fifth wall before flying before Twilight Sparkle. The mare was still stretching, lazily lain on the couch.
"Thank you, Twilight." Discord said with a voice he didn't want to rude. "Even though we are enemies, you did bring my daughter back. I suppose I can forgive you. Maybe."
"Oh it's fine." The purple mare dismissed. "You wouldn't mind me staying for a bit? I can't remember the last time I slept."
"I… hoped to have some family time…" Discord noted. "In family. Without you."
Twilight purred in response, her cheek deep into a cushion.
"Suit yourself" the draconequus didn't fret.
He turned back to fly and join the two ponies, Pinkie Pie still busy brushing that impossible mane, happy to see it resist her attempts and flow back into a mess of hair. She was still crying, still too happy to be with the little Comedy and Comedy was feeling happy too, too happy to be with her mother.
"But where were you?" The filly asked, suddenly worrying. "I looked for you everywhere."
"Twilight took us!" Pinkie said, not even glancing at the purple mare on the other side of the room. She had eyes only for Comedy. "She said something about the end of the world then zapped us here! I told her she was mean but she said it was for the good of the universe and I said okay but I want my daughter back! And she said no and I said yes and she said no and…"
"Pinkie dear, I think she got the idea." Discord patted the pink mane of his wife. "And would you please leave her mane alone? She's adorable that way."
"Then maybe a bath?" Pinkie Pie got excited. "I would brush you and rub you and oh Comedy I won't let you go anymore! Never never never never never!"
"Ahem." Discord politely intervened.
He kindly grabbed Comedy to put her on his belly, making her laugh a bit. How long she thought, since she had been laughing, of pure joy. It was just like her father had done so many times when she had been a foal. She almost felt a bit ashamed, being treated like she was still one.
"Now, my dear dear Comedy, let's not spoil the moment." Discord touched her muzzle, making her giggle. "We have a big party ahead of us, but for now all I want is to make sure you are alright."
He touched her forefront, touched her hooves then touched her horns.
"Do you feel alright?" He asked.
She nodded with strength, cuddled against him. "Yes dad!" She grinned.
"Good."
He grabbed one horn, and broke it.
The little filly screamed, the pain making her shudder. She struggled to escape but the draconequus was clutching her, the broken horn still in his lion paw. She couldn't stop shuddering, tears flowing on her tears. He dropped the horn, reached for the second one. She squirmed but her magic was crushed. She was helpless.
Her eyes fell on Pinkie Pie, who was grinning wide.
"Why…" she swallowed, the pain wiping the rest of her sentence.
"You wouldn't let go." Twilight Sparkle answered, from her couch. "You just couldn't let go, and so you kept destroying world after world."
Why had she thought that was her mother. Why had she thought that was her father. Why had she hoped again, knowing it would be all false. It had all been a foal's dream to begin with.
Suddenly the filly felt anger, against those frauds, against Twilight Sparkle. She shrieked, but more of pain when the lion's paw grabbed her second horn, trying to tear it apart. It resisted. It held and she felt the pressure, the stress put on it, the nerves like chords about to snap. Her vision blurred. She focused, trying desperately to free herself.
Discord frowned, opened his eagle paw and approached it close to the filly's face. She saw the talons near her beastly eye, screamed and shut her lids, struggled to turn the head away. He was holding her by the horn, holding her with his tail. He began pressing against the lid with one talon.
"The more you resist," he whispered to her, "the more it will hurt."
He pressed the talon against her eye until it pierced. She yelled, she kept yelling even after he was finished, as blood streamed from the wound. She couldn't open that eye anymore, she could barely see with the other, filled with tears and blurred by the suffering.
"I couldn't defeat you, so I devised a trap." Twilight kept explaining. "So I told Discord there was a toy he would never grow tired of."
She winced, choking, her heartbeat too fast and without control. She wanted to escape but every move was hurting her more. The draconequus's grave tightened, crushing her a bit. Discord let out a little whistle of delight.
On the side, Pinkie Pie was still grinning, unmoving.
"I told you." Twilight added. "I went back in time and watched. And I concluded that you were the culprit. Your power made your parents vanish. From the moment you were conceived, they were condemned. The only way of saving them is getting rid of you."
"You lie!" The filly wanted to scream, but her voice was lost way before the throat, in her empty lungs. The draconequus was crushing her, applying all of his strength to break the remaining horn. She felt it about to cede. She wanted to give up. She wanted to fight.
She could do neither.
The horn broke. Immediately she felt the agony, shrieked but a faint shriek as Discord's tail cracked her ribs. He was smiling, licking his lips.
"Finally." He observed. "The party can begin. Thank you Comedy."
"No, she's Comedy!" Pinkie Pie replied with her grin. "I'm Pinkie Pie!"
The voice was broken, young and painful. In a second the spell was broken. Comedy saw herself were Pinkie had stood, a filly stained with blood, both horns broken, covered with wounds and stitches.
There was no horror in the filly's heart, because she didn't get it. All she saw was a broken puppet that couldn't be her, and she felt only disgust.
"I told you you were destroying worlds. There are a lot of you, Comedy." Twilight Sparkle was watching, trying to look unaffected. "So I told Discord he could have a thousand of those toys." And she turned her attention to him: "How many do we have yet?"
"I stopped counting." Discord offered a devilish smile.
He waved with his lion paw, changing the room's walls with walls of wood covered with nails, and hanging on those nails more than a hundred little fillies, all broken and bleeding.
"They are funny," Discord then whispered to Comedy, "they keep wanting to play! They can't stop, they simply can't stop! I've never been so entertained!"
"I'll go now." Twilight said, getting up.
"Leaving us so soon?" Discord raised an eyebrow. "You never stayed to watch. I thought you wanted to enjoy."
The mare in her leather suit ambled towards them, along the walls, her eyes sliding along the many fillies hung. She was now wincing, unable to hide her feelings. That made Discord smile all the more. Twilight stopped before the filly still crying, in agony, as the draconequus clutched her tight, so tight.
"I'm sorry, Comedy." She said. "I'm sorry." She repeated for the Comedy that was playing Pinkie Pie. "I really am." She told the room. "But you must be stopped."
"Certainly." Discord approved, playing with the filly's mane. "Now, you said you were leaving?"
"I have a lot more Comedies to bring here. A lot."
"Well get to work!" The draconequus wildly smiled. "We wouldn't want to make them wait!"
Twilight groaned and made her horn glow. In a blinding light and a flash she was gone, leaving the little filly in agony. Comedy was reduced to whimpers. Discord looked at her with a sad expression, cuddled her a bit and whispered:
"Don't worry. Next time you'll play Pinkie Pie…"