"Well, really, what I'm saying is that what he did, didn't make sense--- even for him," I said over my cards. "Just mountains and mountains of power, and he completely let it go to waste. It makes no sense. Raise you two." I tossed a couple more jelly beans on the pot.

"He seemed to do a fair enough job by me," General Airstrike said, edging some beans in with his hoof.

It was Friday night; poker night for me and the boys.... "the boys" being the leaders of the Equestrian military. General Airstrike, pegasus leader of the Equestrian Airforce; General Long Strides of the Equestrian ground forces, AKA the Army by any other name; Shining Armor, the Captain of the Royal Guard, who I had come to think of as the somewhere between the Army Reserve and the National Guard; And Admiral Cresting Wave, the sea pony who led the Equestrian Navy.

Our little get-together had come about due to my own continued suspicions about my change in luck. I had been roaming about the castle after discussing probability curves with some of the pony researchers, and had been pondering how to test some of my more.... exotic theories, when I happened to spot a steel grey, white maned, military looking pegasus in the Princess' waiting room, grumbling to himself and playing a hand of solitaire. I had asked if he would mind playing a few quick rounds of five-card draw for a change of pace, and to my surprise he complied. Within 2 or 3 hands we had a casual audience of others waiting on Her Majesty's pleasure, then a full group of five playing the devil's pasteboards and shooting the breeze. We had agreed to reconvene that week in more amenable surroundings, and it had quickly become a routine for all of us.

It was obvious from the start that they had their nation's and their Princesses' safety in mind, and had leapt at the chance to brain-pick the Monkey from Space and scrutinize me at their convenience. I didn't mind, and in fact tipped my hat to their conscientiousness. Despite this we became, if not fast friends, then at least amiable associates.

Of course while they were evaluating me, I was doing some testing of my own--- namely of my strange streak of luck. I was trying to determine if there was any objective evidence that my "luckiness" had changed since arriving in Equestria. Random hands of cards seemed to be one possible avenue of investigation. Results were ambiguous though.... I insisted that we did not play for money, and provided the tokens: generally jelly beans or other sweets from my own personal stash. You see, I had been gifted with a lifetime supply of sweets by a generous local candy maker. (a long story involving a recipe for non-melting chocolate.) My covert objective was to try and dispense with as much of my ill-gotten goodies as possible without actually eating them myself. However, I seemed to be winning the pot far more often than losing it.... so was my luck good, or bad?

"I have to agree with the General," Cresting Wave said, leaning forward in her barrel and nudging her ante into the pot with a hoof. her mermaid-like tail appeared briefly then submerged with a splash. "He basically turned all of Equestria inside out in a matter of hours."

"Well that's just the thing... hours," I said. "Thousands of years of waiting and planning, and his reign of terror didn't even last as long as an all-day sucker."

"He didn't exactly strike me as particularly sane," Shining Armor chuckled, looking up from his cards with a cocked eyebrow. "Was he really up to serious planning?"

I shook my head. "Crazy and stupid aren't the same thing," I said.

To my surprise Long Strides nodded, agreeing with me. His shaggy mane drooped over one eye, but his gaze was sharp. "Don't mistake the floor show for what's going on behind the stage," he said to Shining. "Discord may have acted like he spent all his time adding two and two and getting banana, but from what my intel tells me he came dang close to winning the whole game without even trying."

"Exactly," I said. "He had information, deep personal information, on all six of the Bearers. He didn't even have to directly use force on them; he just head-gamed them into defeating themselves. He had the intel, he had the high ground, he had the firepower...."

Air Strike chuckled dryly. "Weren't you arguing that he was a hack just a minute ago?" The others at the table chuckled.

I had to pause; he was right. I'd ended up arguing against myself without realizing it. "Meh," I grumbled.

"Well, which is it, then, dear?" Cresting Wave teased, picking up her cards. "Was Discord competent, or incompetent?"

I found my mental traction again. "Neither. He was obviously sharp, very intelligent, very informed, and despite all the wacky antics, he was capable of cunning. Just putting Rainbow Dash in a double bind like he did... putting her in conflict with her own Element.... shows he was a competent gamester. But the whole of it, He wasn't even trying.

"It's like he wasn't even interested in winning this round."

"...This round?" Shining Armor queried.

I shot him a stone cold sober look. "He's immortal, he's still as powerful as ever, he's sitting outside right this very minute, and he's already escaped once after several thousands years imprisonment, and he's perfectly capable of living another several thousand as a statue-- or until someone slips up and he escapes again. Yeah, 'this round.' Sooner or later he'll get back out, and it'll be 'round two.'" I shook my head. "I get the feeling that he and Celestia have a lot more in common than we think. They play games laid out over eons."

I laid down my cards. "Three of a kind." There were groans round the table, and I scooped my winnings into a bowl. Darn, I was never gonna get rid of these things. Long Strides gathered up the cards and started shuffling.

       Shining suddenly gave a half-laugh. "Okay, before we go on, I want to know...." he looked at me. " His 'A' game. Okay, Mister Ape from Dimension X.... you don't think he was bringing his 'A' game. I wanna know what YOU think a real 'A' game would have been?"

I didn't even look up from the cards gliding across the table to me. "Turning your sister to stone," I said in a deliberate monotone. I glanced up; the smile had slid off Shining Armor's face like it was greased. "Or, granted that he seemed to take pride in the fact that he never turned anypony to stone--- teleported her to the far side of the globe. Or done the same to all six Bearers; scatter them around the world in places so far flung they'd spend years just getting back to Equestria. Or he could have erased their memories. Turned them into infants. Or into rabbits. Or potted plants. Or fish lost in the depths of the ocean.

"Or assuming that he didn't WANT to mess with the Bearers, he do the same with the Elements. Scatter them across the globe. Send them to the Moon. Leave them floating in orbit. Drop them in an active volcano. Heck, even I could have taken the Elements out of the equation, no magic involved.... a boat to the middle of the nearest ocean and toss the Elements over the rail.... problem solved, forever, or as close to it for us mortals as it doesn't matter.

"Keep in mind, this is all just off the cuff," I said, gathering up my cards. "Face the facts, Discord could have won easily, with just a snap of his fingers." I snapped my own for emphasis.

"Fortunately for us he does have one fatal weakness," Airstrike said in his gravelly voice. "He's obsessed with games. Pathologically obsessed, even. My own intel division has been digging back through the books ever since he made his appearance; same story in all the legends. No matter the stakes, he has a compulsion to make everything a game or a gamble. Gimme one." Another card coasted across the table to him.

"I wouldn't count on that," I said. . " I mean, let's consider the 'game' he played, this time. The rules he set up...."

"No flying, no magic," Shining Armor said. "Twily told me about it."

"And don't forget the rules he set for himself," I added. Shining Armor looked puzzled. I counted them off. "Other than taking their wings and horns, he didn't use any magic on them directly. He didn't interfere with them when they got ahold of the elements. He only mesmerized them once he'd head-gamed them first..."

"Didn't he just up and brain-zap the little yaller one?" Long Strides said.

I shrugged. "I never said he didn't give in and cheat a little," I said. "the important part is that he actually set rules for himself, and more or less stuck to them. Even when it put him at a dangerous disadvantage. And he set a goal for himself, as well. Twilight's goal in the game was to get the Elements of Harmony. Discord's goal was to render the Elements useless, without doing it the easy way. And even despite his lackadaisical approach, he almost did it."

"That's the thing, though. (I'm in for ten.) Even given the limits he put on himself, he wasn't really trying all that hard. It was almost like all the ruckus he raised and trouble he caused was an idle pastime. Like it didn't matter if this round was lost...."

Cresting Wave looked up from her cards. " I saw the statue," she said. "He didn't look all too happy about losing."

"Well yeah, but he didn't look too UNhappy before he was released, either," I said. "Makes me wonder just how good his poker face really is."

Cresting Wave "hmphed." "Point made," she admitted. "And let me guess," she added dryly, "this is all a lead up to you telling us what you think his 'A' game would have been...."

"Ah, dear lady," I said, tipping my hat, "You wound me,  and you know me so well. Even within the limitations he set on himself, a clean victory should have been easy. Not that the headgames he played on the Bearers weren't good, but again, they obviously weren't his A-game. Getting Applejack to lie? Appealing to Rarity's greed? Making Fluttershy cruel?" I went "pfft." "Play school tactics. Not the stuff he would have done if he really wanted to mess them up."

"And if he did--?" Shining Armor queried.

I set my cards down and looked at them all. "Turned the weaknesses of the Elements against them. What I don't think you or most ponies realize about the Elements is that the virtues they represent--- Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity, Kindness, Laughter, Friendship--- all can be turned into vices. Honesty can become tactlessness, indiscreetly blurting out information that can get others hurt or killed. Loyalty can become blind, marching you off a cliff-- or divided, leaving you with no choice but to betray one side or the other. Generosity can be perverted into demanding you bleed yourself dry, giving and giving even when it's killing you. Kindness can smother. And laughter can leave you incapable of taking anything seriously,.... or make you heartless about other people's suffering.

"And Friendship? That can become the turned back into which all those knives are driven."

"It's so much easier to pull than to push. I wouldn't have made Applejack lie; I would have made her incapable of keeping her mouth shut, constantly blabbing everything that popped into her head. I would have filled Rarity with self-flogging guilt over her own desires, till she was headed right to the poorhouse from giving so much to try and compensate. Making Fluttershy cruel? No, I would have cranked her compassion up to eleven, till she was completely unable to say so much as an unkind word to even her worst enemy, and she drove all her friends away with her smothering, treacly affection. Cruelty I would have saved for Pinkie Pie, leaving her laughing merrily at everyone else's suffering. Rainbow Dash's Loyalty I would have inflamed to mindless fanaticism--- and then let her pick her own banner to follow to destruction. And Friendship, assuming it lasted through all that, I would have amplified till its bearer was a shivering codependent wreck, torn to pieces between her self-destructing friends and unable to even think or breathe without their support."

"Then, once the bearers had rejected their elements in emotional burnout, I would have taken possession of the Elements and put them someplace secure. Game, Set, Match."

The expressions on their faces was heartbreaking. It was like watching children learn about death for the first time. "For such ruthlessness to come so easily....You truly do come from a dark and terrible world, don't you," Cresting Wave said. She sounded almost sympathetic.

"And don't ever forget it," I said solemnly.

"So you think he was just... toying with us," Shining Armor said. "That he wasn't really even trying to win. Okay, you've convinced me of that." He shuddered; he was most likely picturing his baby sister frozen in stone..... " Well then, why? What does he get out of being so sloppy?"

I picked through the cards in my hand. "That's the question for the ages," I said. "What does Discord actually want? What are his goals? What is he really after?"

"All of us here have people noodlin' on that one," Long Strides said. "Scholars at the School for Gifted Unicorns, historians, philosophers, researchers. Best anyone can figure is 'Chaos.' "

 

"Though as for that--- " I anted another fistful of jelly beans-- "he wasn't very good at it, was he. Which sort of brings me back to my first point; he was kind of a hack. Whether incompetent or lazy, still a hack."

"Hit me," Air Strike said. He swept up his card. "Granted, he threw around a lot of power to very little long-term effect."

"I'm speaking more, well, artistically," I said. Air Strike cocked an eyebrow at me. "I saw pictures and footage," I hedged. "He obviously fancies himself some sort of artiste, the ultimate performance artist. But his work, all his little tricks and set pieces, they were so...." I waved a hand vaguely. "Derivative. And not derivative of great art, either; it was all cheap back-lot stuff, random visual gags ripped off of cheap album covers and low-budget Saturday morning cartoons." I shook my head. "It was a nightmare to deal with, I'm sure.... but for an avatar of Chaos, the guy was really unoriginal. No style at all. Draconequi must be absolutely pathetic when it comes to creativity."

Shining Armor chuckled. "Hey Long Strides... what would you have done with Discord's powers?"

The earth pony General gave a slow grin. I had learned to my surprise that the slow-talking, laconic pony had earned a reputation for being a startlingly clever practical joker... all the more effective because you never expected it out of the laid-back fellow. His pranks were rare, but epic. "Oh, the possibilities," he said. "'Smore like what I wouldn't do.... I really don't know. Probably something with sovereign glue and the Rear Echelon desk jockeys..... how about you, Ma'am?"

Cresting Wave put a hoof to her chin and smiled. "I suppose I'd do the cliche', and make all the fish in the ocean fly," she said. "tropical fish swimming down main street in Canterlot, dolphins leaping through Cloudsdale airspace..."

"That's actually rather picturesque," I said. "Any particular reason?"

Cresting Wave smiled. "Sometimes it's a little tiresome having to be wheeled about in a rain barrel," she said, flapping her tailfin.

Air Strike started to chuckle into his cards. This was going to be interesting; when it came to humor Air Strike had a mean streak that went all the way up. "I know one thing I'd have done," he said.

"What?" Cresting Wave asked.

"That chocolate rain thing? I woulda given 'em a couple of hours of that. Then... after everyone was used to running round guzzling out of puddles...." he paused.

"....well?" Cresting Wave pressed.

His grin was all shark. "Switched it out for a couple hours of fertilizer."

I joined in the vocalizations of disgust around the table. The crusty old airpony just chortled at our discomfiture. "Always with the potty humor," I said, giving the chuckling pegasus the gimlet eye. "I'm starting to develop my suspicions about what really caused the conflict before the first hearthwarming day.... and it hinges on how your Cloudsdale plumbers dealt with their blackwater."

That shut him up. The general scowled at me. "Hey, now, we're no bunch of dirty birds..."

A puzzled look crossed Cresting Wave's face. "How do they deal with it, anyway?" she said. A momentary lull struck as everyone present got a thoughtful look on their face, then turned to the lone pegasus at the table.

Shining Armor gazed off in the distance in horror. "I'm never going walking in a spring shower ever again," he said dismally.

"I said HEY now---!"

"Well, defend yerself, already," Long Strides said. "How DO they deal with it in Cloudsdale?"

"You know darn well how we deal with it, Ground Pounder," Air Strike snapped, clearly irritated that the joke had turned on him. "We dessicate it."

"You mean dry it out?"

Air Strike nodded curtly. "Dry it out, sterilize it--- you'd be amazed how sanitary something is after you run it through a few lightning bolts--- break it down, box it up and sell it as fertilizer." He shrugged his wings. "By the time they're done processing it, it's this white, granulated powder, so nobody gets squicked out by it."

"So that's what that 'Pegasus Quality' plant food is mah sister raves about," Long Strides said, bemused. "Seriously.... you take it and sell it as..."

"Fertilizer." Air Strike said. He shrugged again. "Or chemicals for fireworks." He looked up as I facepalmed. "What?"

I looked at him between my fingers. "I just had this horrible mental image of a pegasus tearing across the sky with multicolored flames coming out of his---"

"HEY now!" Air Strike barked. "There's a lady present at the table---!" Of course the lady in question was now laughing so hard she was in danger of sloshing all the water out of her barrel. She wiped her eyes (Sea ponies had tear ducts, who knew). "Now I'm never going to be able to watch a Wonderbolts show again without that image in my mind..." she giggled.

 

It only took a moment for each of us to remember the last airshow we'd seen... with the titular Pegasi tearing through the sky.... trailing pyrotechnic clouds behind them.... and the rest of us were doubled over as well, racked between laughing our plots off and being horrified that we found it so funny. Shining Armor had it the worst. "I'm too young and innocent to be associating with you horrible ponies," he whined, covering his eyes with his pastern. "I need a grownup!"

"We ARE grownups!" I said in my deepest voice.

"Argh!"

When we finally simmered down, Air Strike was still scowling at the rest of us. Pegasi really did have issues with cultural pride. Sometimes it was like being surrounded by Angry Young Black Men in pony suits. "So this is pick on the Pegasi day?" he groused.

"Hey, friend, you went there, we just followed the trail you blazed," Long Strides drawled.

"Well how do you all deal with it?" Air Strike said. He pointed an accusing hoof at Cresting Wave. "I especially want to hear from you, Miss Admiral of the Waves."

Long Strides shrugged. "Modern Plumbing, o' course.... failin' that, dig a hole an' bury it."

"More or less the same here," Cresting Wave said.

I was puzzled. "How does that possibly work underwater?" I asked.

Cresting Wave looked up and blushed a bit. "Oh, well, there are differences, obviously," she said. "For one thing, we, um, don't--- " her blush deepened.

"You don't urinate?" I hazarded a guess. She gestured to me in the affirmative, regaining her composure. "You have no idea how perplexing that was," she said. "I have a granddaughter who's a land pony.... Son married an earth pony girl, quite the stir, that was..... I was foalsitting her one day and couldn't for the life of me figure out what she meant about 'needing to go Number One or Number Two....'" She shook her head and chuckled. "Any way, our, ah, waste is solid, and far heavier than water. Comes out like little hard pebbles." Everyone else at the table, myself included, flinched. "We more or less bury it in deep holes."

"How did we get on this topic?" Shining Armor said, rolling his eyes.

"What, afraid we'll start querying about unicorn biological functions next?" Air Strike snarked. Shining Armor glared at him.

"I could crack a joke about unicorns and rainbows, but you don't have the cultural references to get it," I said. This earned me a glare of my own. Pegasi weren't the only ones sensitive about their pony ethnicity; Unicorns, regardless of how powerful or weak their manipulation of the morphic resonance field was, were physically the least strong of the pony races. The absolute difference was fairly small, but it was enough that they got typecast as, well, pansies. (The behavior of certain pony aristocracy didn't help matters much.) They were very very touchy about it, which of course only made matters worse.

"Oh you gotta figure they have some fancy magical whup de do to take care of things when nature calls..." Long Strides grinned.

"Assuming they 'go' at all," Air Strike said.

"And how do you suppose they would manage that?" Cresting Wave said dryly.

I didn't even pause. "Teleport spell."

I was instantly assaulted on four fronts by a volley of cards, jelly beans, and vocal remonstrations and demands for brain bleach. What can I say? I had a reputation to uphold. I shielded myself as best I could with my hat and weathered the onslaught.

"I have an idea!" I said once the barrage let up. "Let's change the subject! Now where were we before we got to this point?"

"Talking about what each of us would do if we were Discord," Shining Armor sighed, while I gathered up the scattered cards and sloppily shuffled them together. "We never got your answer, by the way..."

I shrugged as I began dealing cards. "I'm a fiddler, I guess," I said. "I wouldn't go making random wacky changes all over the place, like he did. I like to push ONE button and see what it does before I go mashing all of them.

"Besides which, I learned long ago that real Chaos doesn't come about from running around making everything go smash. It's always...." I held my thumb and forefinger an inch apart... "Always that one, tiny, teeny little mistake, that one loose screw, that one horseshoe nail, that one flap of a butterfly's wing at just the wrong time, that unleashes a big ol' storm of Chaos. If my goal was to create the most chaos with the least effort? I'd change just one thing. One, singular, tiny thing.... then sit back and watch everything spiral out of control." I realized I was leaning a bit and shifted in my seat.

Come to think of it, everyone else seemed to be leaning askance a bit too; very odd for career military types. "One thing, huh?" Air Strike said. "Like what?" His 'chips' had slid over; he took one hoof and patiently scooted them back into a pile.

"Like a single constant. Like..." there was a click. A single jellybean fell out of the bowl in the middle of the table and rolled its merry way to Air Strike's side of the table and off into his lap. Slowly, as if that were a signal, all the loose candies piled on the table began to roll across the circular tabletop to where the Pegasus general sat. "....like gravity," I finished, befuddled. We all watched, mesmerized, as a cascade of jellybeans poured off the table. The cards began to slide across the slick surface as well. At this point were all leaning at roughly fifteen degree angles off plumb. Salt water sloshed out of Cresting Wave's wheeled barrel; the chairs and table began to slide---

"What the blazes--? Hang on everyone!" Air Strike shouted. All around us everything was suddenly askew. Pictures on the walls swung loose. The chandelier overhead, chiming and creaking ominously, swung towards the South wall and pointed there as fixed in its gravity defying angle as a compass needle. As for us, well, every loose object, including our furniture, our jellybeans, our cards, and ourselves went sliding on the suddenly sloped floor to the far end of the room.

Air Strike managed to get aloft and dragged Long Strides aloft by the forehooves as well, getting both of them out of the way of the tumbling furniture and bric a brac before it squashed them against the wall. Cresting Wave tumbled from her barrel, water and all; Shining Armor, clever boy, caught her and most of her water supply in a force field bubble moments before the barrel smashed against the wall.

He and I were not so fortunate; I landed on, and in, most of the shattered furniture and fixtures, and subsequently he landed on top of me. We both were knocked windless by the impact. Still, even after being smashed into a pile of broken furniture the Captain of the Guard's control over the Sea Pony's life-saving bubble never wavered. Shining Armor's tenacity was something to admire.

Of course we weren't exactly in any mood to be patting each other on the back. By divine providence we'd avoided major injury, but we were both hurting quite severely. Shining Armor and I groaned and dug our way out of the mess to stand, wobbly-legged, one foot on the floor, the other on the wall. "What the heck happened?" Shining Armor groaned.

"The castle fell over!" Long Strides said as he and Air Strike set down.

Cresting Wave rapped against the wall of her bubble and pointed. "No it didn't," she said. We all looked; the French doors on the East wall had been left open to let a bit of breeze in. Through them we could see the balcony that overlooked the scenic vista of Equestria. The balcony, like the room, was tilted at a twenty or thirty degree angle from horizontal. But so was the horizon beyond it.  "The Castle didn't tilt," Shining Armor gulped. "Gravity did."

Now that we were settled against a stable wall ourselves, I could hear sounds of mayhem throughout the palace. Sounds of things breaking, furniture sliding and smashing.... ponies screaming in panic. Basically the entire castle, every single floor, was a meticulously polished Southward-facing slope some twenty or so degrees steep. Anything that wasn't nailed down was now illustrating that fact empirically.

I retrieved my cane and edged over to the door in the Western side of the room, the one that opened onto the hallway. I stuck my head out into the hallway. I was just in time to see a hapless earth pony chambermaid 'up slope' lose her precarious perch in a doorframe and come sliding down.... with a dislodged grand piano and a tumbling china cabinet in close pursuit. The poor girl was sure to be crushed!

With a burst of pure adrenaline-induced reflexes, I reached out and snagged her by the hoof with my cane as she slid past. I yanked her in through the doorway, and out of the path of the plummeting piano by mere inches. She clung to me with all four hooves as the runaway grand piano smashed and bonged its way down the hall past us. The smashup when it reached the end far below sounded spectacular.

I looked down at the periwinkle mare clinging to me, her eyes squeezed shut. "Are you all right?" I asked.

She looked up at me with wide indigo eyes. "Vous avez sauvé ma vie, M'sieu...Merci, merci beaucoup--- ah??" she blinked in surprise... and what seemed obvious disappointment...  to see her rescuer wasn't, after all, a pony. Ah me. That cut to the quick, it did. And French, no less; right down to the little french maid outfit---

"Ah, le singe parle d'un autre monde! Merci Beaucoup, M'sieu Singe..." and she gave me a peck on the cheek.

I'm sure it was a moment or two before my brain finished derailing. I just stared at the filly in my lap, my eyebrows climbing off the top of my head. Fortunately my mental vapor-lock was broken when Air Strike began bellowing. "Cannonball! Shooting Star! Where the---" several exceedingly non-children's-show-friendly perjoratives followed-- "are you two??"

Two pegasi came flying into the room, hovering in midair. They saluted sharply. "Sorry, sir, we had to come to the aid of a couple of civilians who, er, fell past us," one said. The general grunted, seeming to accept the excuse. "All right soldier. Get to the barracks, get everypony aloft who isn't already. I mean everyone, I don't care if they're riding a desk or in the brig! I want them airborne and airlifting civilians to safety. Get the Princess's zeppelin aloft while you're at it, and commandeer anything that's airworthy too. There's probably hundreds of ponies hanging from rafters and windowsills out there. Get them down. No broken eggs on my watch, you hear?" Cannonball saluted and shot out of the window. "Shooting Star, convey any orders General Long Strides here has to his staff. What you got for 'em, Strides?"

Long Strider looked up at the hovering pegasus. "Get down to Ground Pounder HQ, get Sergeant Hillbilly and tell him I said he's in charge of evacuation. He is to start with the South side of town, below the castle. He is to drag his sorry mountain-bred plot and all his cliff-climbing friends out, secure whatever climbing gear he deems necessary for the job and start getting the population evacuated to the East or West as fast as he can."

"The east or west, sir?"

"This castle wasn't designed to hang sideways, flypony," Long Strides said. "I want the civilians to safety before this overgrown chunk of architecture decides to pull up roots and move south." Perhaps I imagined it, but at that moment the stone and marble walls around us seemed to give off a deep, almost subsonic groan. Shooting star saluted and was gone like his namesake.

Shining Armor was using his own means of communication; he'd produced a small pocket mirror and was shouting instructions into it. "---Send Alpha and Beta teams to locate the Princesses," he said. " Anypony else with wings I want in the air, helping the Air Force rescue the stranded. Put all our unicorns to work reinforcing the castle. ---- With cohesion spells, guardsman! Cohesion spells, magic webbing, chewing gum, anything they can think of! And send some pegasi here--- northwest tower, fourth floor. We need to evacuate Counselor Arcturus. ----To somewhere outside the range of this, this gravity warp, whatever it is! And get me word on how far that range IS." Almost as an afterthought he added "And while you're at it, send someone to haul OUR plots out of here." He tucked the mirror back in his uniform.

"Handy," I noted, referring to the mirror.

"Junk," Shining Armor said irritably. "Magic Mirrors only work in pairs. I'd have to carry one for every person I wanted to talk to. I only had two--- and the one to Celestia is broken."

"Haven't they gotten those Earth-style radios to you yet?" I said, trying to distract myself from.... well, take a list: the tilting gravity, the faint sounds of distress and panic echoing through the halls, the rather bemusing issue of the french maid sitting in my lap....  I had pushed consistently for Celestia and Luna to upgrade their forces' communication technology to at least mid twentieth century, and it was frustrating that they hadn't adopted them yet.

Shining Armor shook his head. "They're still fiddling about," he said. "Deciding who in the chain of command needs one first, how the protocols for their use will go, which political friend-of-a-friend gets the contract to make them..." his eyes rolled. "Right now it's spinning in a circle in committee while everypony tries to figure out how to get all of the credit if it goes right and none of the blame if it goes wrong."

Cresting Wave chuckled cynically. "And while a few dozen gravy-train ponies try and figure out how to stick their hoof in the pie..... I hear there's at least one pony insisting that it has to have a working translation spell in every language, including Fancy, Gryphon, and Native Bison, as well as be able to work underwater!" At my look, she noted, "I lead ponies who work on board boats, Arcturus. If those radios are working underwater, I've done something wrong. Besides which, I know enough to know that water and electricity don't play nice." she splashed a bit for emphasis. "and noone can get it through the wonks' heads that radio waves don't propagate well underwater, no matter what you do."

"So rather than give us something now, that does what we need, we're sitting on our hooves waiting for them to give us something  that costs ten times as much that they couldn't make work with a genie and three wishes," Air Strike snorted. "I can only imagine what all this REMFO incompetence looks like to a war-ready race like your own," he said.

I sighed. "It looks incredibly familiar. Remind me to tell you a little story about the Sergeant York anti-aircraft weapon sometime. or the Bradley fighting vehicle. or the M-16......" I casually wondered whether a copy of "The Pentagon Wars" or  the book it was based on had been pulled through the gate yet. "Wait, what about your dragonflame lighter?" I knew for a fact that higher ranking officers carried a small cigarette-lighter-like bottle filled with dragonflame for emergency messages to Celestia.

They all shook their heads. "Got broken in the Changeling invasion," Shining Armor said. "Still waiting for a replacement."

"Mine's empty," Long Strides said. "Used it up ages ago. They only carry about three or four squirts."

"I don't carry one," Cresting Wave said. "For obvious reasons."

"Sat on mine," Air Strike grumbled. "Burns right up my--- anyway, waste of time. Messages only go one-way. They're more for last resort situations."

I sighed. Thousands of years, and they still hadn't managed to organize a reliable communications system faster or more advanced than hoof-delivered, written messages.

"Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?" the pony in my lap asked. I looked at her. "I sincerely wish I understood a word you were saying, Ma'am," I said. There you go. Communications failures all around.

There was an almost inaudible groaning. The world's center of gravity shifted another few degrees.

There was a thunder of wings outside the balcony window. One of Celestia's enormous flying carriages pulled up alongside the balcony--- on an even keel with gravity, unlike the castle itself. A pair of guard ponies flew in. "We arrived as soon as we could, Sirs, Ladies," one said. "Who all do we have to evacuate here?"

"Just the six of us here," Shining Armor said. "The generals, the Admiral and I, Counselor Arcturus, and Miss, ah...."

"Violette," the mare in my arms said.

The guards cocked their eyebrows at the sight of me holding the damsel in distress but said nothing; I'm positive one of them winked and gave me the pony equivalent of a thumbs up, though. "Yes sir. The Princesses have set up a base of operations on a cloud over the city-- er, next to the city---" he gave up. "Nearby. We have instructions to bring you to them, Mr. Arcturus included." He paused. "Shall the lady be accompanying you, Mr. Arcturus, or should we drop her off..."

She seemed to get the gist. She threw her forehooves around my neck and widened her dewy eyes at the soldiers. "Messieurs, s'il vous plaît, laissez-moi rester avec le Singe, je me sentirais beaucoup plus sûr!"

This time the guards DID grin and wink. I couldn't even manage to roll my eyes, having to settle for a "oh dear lord help' bewildered basset-hound look. "Come with us, sirs and ladies. We'll get you to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna right away."

After a few minutes' precarious clambering over the canted balcony, we were all ensconced in the royal chariot and speeding on our way. My card-playing partners' subordinates were out in force; though I could hear noises of panic everywhere, at the same time everywhere I looked I saw ponies in uniform swinging into action--- pegasi were busy plucking ponies from precarious perches, while unicorns methodically cast what had to be cloud-walking spells on the rescuees so they could be transferred to countless clouds now floating around the tilted city. Earth ponies were down amongst the tilted streets, hanging on grappling hooks or dangling from ropes as they freed other civilians trapped by debris. Still more unicorns were down there as well, casting reinforcement spells on the dangerously tilted buildings or anchoring loose property (carts, wagons, loose furniture) with sovereign glue.

Celestia and Luna had set up base on a large cumulus cloud floating just beyond the city limits. There was a full triage hospital already set up there, ponies with medical cutie marks tending to the injured. It seemed to be mostly minor injuries, thank goodness; ponies are a sturdy lot. Celestia was in the center of a cluster of armored pegasi, issuing orders, messengers coming and going like darting arrows; Luna was flying back and forth over the city, pulling ponies to safety a dozen at a time with her magic. Her bat-winged Night Guard were in attendance as well, diving to the rescue again and again. In spite of the circumstances, it brought a smile to my face to hear the cheers greeting the heroics of the Court of the Night and their Princess; Luna would be walking on cloud nine for days.

We landed (docked?) on Celestia's cloud-base; unicorns hastily cast the cloudwalking spell on each of us as we disembarked, whether we needed it or not. I kept a tight grip on my cane all the same. After my last visit to Cloudsdale I'd made the mistake of dropping my cane..... it fell right through the cloud cover and plummeted to the Earth, never to be seen again. I'd gained a new cane, this time taking the precaution of having a few extra spells on it--- including a permanent cloud-walking enchantment. It had become my security blanket whenever I visited Cloudsdale. Especially after an incident where I fell through a thin patch of cloud and found myself dangling over the Everfree by the handle.

We made our way hastily to Celestia's side. The Bearers of the Elements were there, of course, doing their best to help. Rarity and Fluttershy were tending to the injured; Pinkie Pie seemed to be cheering up some colts and fillies who were discomfited by the turn of events. Rainbow Dash and Twilight seemed to be overseeing the forming and placement of more emergency-platform clouds. "Nice work," I noted. "How do you get 'em to stay level?"

The unicorn looked up from the cloud she was enchanting. "Oh, hi, Arthur," she said. "Thanks. The hard part was unfixing their balance centers so they would move like a  universal-joint pendulum--"

"Yeah yeah yeah," Rainbow Dash said, swooping in to push the cloud away to a new quadrant. "Less nerd words, more cloud platforms, Twi!"

Twilight just shot a glare after the departing pegasus and turned back to us. "It's been a nuthouse up here," she said. "We were on our way here for a little shopping trip when we suddenly noticed the train was going up a lot steeper grade than it used to." She noticed the wide-eyed chambermaid pressed to my side. "Oh, and who's this?"

I gestured at the awkwardly close-pressing castle maid. "A filly I hooked up with after our card game-- literally. She was taking an unscheduled downhill skiing break in the castle; I snagged her with my cane before she ended up flattened in a hallway sconce. Twilight, Violette. Violette, Twilight Sparkle."

At the mention of Twilight's name, Violette's eyes lit up. She beamed at Twilight and shook her hoof demurely. "Mademoiselle Sparkle? vous devez être les porteurs des éléments d'harmonie! Bonjour, c'est une bonne chose d'avoir enfin l'occasion de vous rencontrer."  She gestured to me. "Êtes-vous amis avec M'sieu le Singe? Il a sauvé ma vie plus tôt." She blushed a bit and glanced up at me.  "Il a été très courageux...."

Twilight gave her the classic Sparkle awkward grin. "Aaaand I don't understand a word you're saying," she said. "Sorry..."

"I can!" from behind the cloudmaker came a familiar little yellow filly with an enormous bow. She hopped over to us and gave a pony curtsey to Violette. "Bonjour, Mademoiselle Violette, mon nom est L'Fleur d'Pomme.  Comment allez-vous?"

"Ah, Bonjour, Bonjour petite fille. Je suis en train de faire ainsi. Merci," Violette said with a smile.

Twilight stared at Applebloom. "You can speak Fancy?"

"R'member when I got the Cutie Pox?" Applebloom grinned and rapped on her own noggin with one hoof. "Guess some of it stuck."

I looked at Violette. "Ah, tell you what. Why don't you--" I pointed at her "go with Applebloom here?" I waved in a general Bloom-ish direction.

"Venez avec moi, s'il vous plaît." Applebloom said

Violette bit her lip.  "...Certainement." She followed after the Apple filly, casting one last look over her shoulder at me.

I kept my poker face till she was out of earshot. Soon she was chattering happily in "Fancy" with Applebloom. I sighed in relief and turned back to the others.

Who were, of course, all watching and grinning. "Who's yer new friend, Artie?" Pinkie Pie said with a very uncharacteristic smirk. Applejack and Twilight were grinning as well.

"Just a young lady who I got out of a pinch earlier," I said smoothly, carefully setting my hat(1) back upon my head. Applejack made an appraising sound and grinned even wider. "Made an impression, looks like," she said.

Pinkie Pie giggled. "Yeah. It looks like Miss Fancy has taken a fancy to you!"

I scowled at them. "Not funny, Pinkie."

"Who's jokin'? Anyone can see you got yore hoof in the door," Applejack said. "At least take a chance and tip yore hat to 'er."

"Go on," Air Strike urged as well, chuckling. "Why not try to make a little time...?"

I found myself growing irritated. "It's not nice to tease someone about..... a ridiculous impossibility like that," I said dourly. Honestly. The very notion--

Before anyone else could say anything else silly, Celestia made her way over to us. "Greetings, Generals, Admiral, Counselor," she said. "I am relieved to see you all unharmed."

Air Strike was the first to speak up. "Can you tell us what's happening here, Princess?"

"Not much more than you already obviously know," she said. "About half an hour ago, the direction of gravity began to shift, all over the city." she shook her head. "The entire city, and everything a mile outside it, is acting as if it were on a forty five degree slope. The Unicorn University has been going mad trying to figure out why..."

I had a flashback to our conversation over the card table and felt a finger of frost slide down my spine.

" If my goal was to create the most chaos with the least effort? I'd change just one thing. One, singular, tiny thing.... then sit back and watch everything spiral out of control."

"One thing, huh?" Air Strike said. "Like what?" His 'chips' had slid over; he took one hoof and patiently scooted them back into a pile.

"Like a single constant. Like... Gravity...."

"It has to be a coincidence," I muttered.

Long Strides overheard me. "Has to be," he agreed.

Celestia frowned at us in puzzlement. "Our card game," Cresting Wave volunteered. "We were all discussing what sort of things Discord could have done."

"And this came up?" Celestia asked.

Cresting Wave nodded. "Just as the whole world started to tip sideways." She gave Celestia a sidelong glance. "Just be thankful it wasn't Air Strike's version of Chocolate Rain instead...."

"What--" Celestia started.

         I held up a hand. "You don't wanna know," I said. "Trust me on this one, Princess. I wanted to know. He told me, and now I'm telling you, you don't wanna know."

Celestia held up a hoof. "...I don't want to know."

"Good to know."

There was a sudden rumble of noise from the city below. We all looked down. Ponies were suddenly rushing about in a panic; I couldn't see what it was at first, but then I saw the still loose wagons and trash bins and junk in the streets, and no too few ponies, start to slowly slide. At the same moment I noticed that the cloud we were standing on--- in fact all the clouds--- were changing their orientation to the horizon. Below us the loose objects in the street began sliding Northward. The climbing ponies were now dangling from their climbing ropes in whole new directions; the hovering airships had to reorient to avoid the tilting buildings suddenly swaying back towards them. "Blast, the center must be shifting again!" Air Strike shouted.

Soon, every loose object in the city had tumbled to the Northern wall. There were shouts and groans and quite a bit of pungent language from the ponies still below. Luna flew in for a landing next to us. "Discord, it has to be, Sister."

Celestia shook her head again. "That was the first thing we checked, Luna. Discord is still trapped within his statue."

"Hey Everypony!" Everyone looked up. It was Applebloom. She was dangerously near the edge of the cloud, pointing down. "It's changing directions again," she said. We all looked; the cascade of loose debris to the North slowed, stopped....reversed..... then slowed to a halt again ; battered ponies still trapped on the ground shakily got to their feet. I looked up; the horizon was level once again.

        "Is it over?" Somepony asked.

I didn't venture an opinion.

Slowly, gravity began shifting to the West. Then, after a brief eternity, it shifted just as slowly to the East.... slowly, the horizon began to roll continuously, like the rim of a bowl spinning and wobbling on a tabletop. It was like watching a bored child shake an ant farm, I reflected.

This was not a happy thought.

Just then a pair of pegasi ponies came gliding in, bearing a rather battered looking pony in a lab coat between them. I recognized him as one of the researchers from the Gate laboratory. Celestia quickly cast the cloudwalking spell on him; the soldiers set him down at her feet. "Majesty!" he gulped. "We have an incident at the lab!"

Celestia looked at him. "Does it have any bearing on... this?" She pointed to the rolling horizon.

The scientist swallowed hard. "Indubitably," he said. "We had another gate eruption, just before all this started. It--- it looked like a small one---" He gulped again. "I was only able to escape just a short while ago--"

"Did something come through?" Celestia demanded.

The scientist shook his head.   "Some... SomeONE." He swallowed nervously. "He came through in a gate-bubble.... He's still there in the room, last I saw, just-- floating there."

Celestia's face was a thundercloud. "WHO?"

The researcher's voice was nearly a whisper. "A Draconequus," he said. "A new one."

There was a split second of utter silence. "Guards! Elements! To our side!" Celestia barked. The Bearers and every soldier on the cloud clustered in close to Celestia and Luna. "Together now, Luna-- follow my lead--"  Luna nodded grimly. Their horns met, flared with light. There was a blinding flash of light---

---and the world disappeared.

When I finally shook off my disorientation, I found myself standing in the chamber of the World Mirror. I stumbled slightly, a bit shellshocked. Why had the Princesses brought me along....? I must have been standing too close, I realized; I was certainly singed in a few spots--- the sort of thing one saw with an accidental teleport.

The room was a mess. All the equipment in the enormous stone cavern was swept to the north wall in a heap. There were a few guards and researchers still there, scattered among the wreckage, imprisoned in forcefield bubbles, rolling about like hamster balls. The Mirror was still in the center of the room, but that was not what drew the eye. I had just enough time to make out a  silvery bubble hovering above the Mirror, and strange, distorted figure within.

I had apparently missed the traditional "By the Power of the Elements" Heroic Speech... assuming there had been one. The girls were already in formation and powering up the Elements. Luna and Celestia had teleported to opposite sides of the room, triangulating on the target still hovering in the center, their horns blazing up.  The guards were scattered around the room as well; everything with a bow, spear, or horn was leveling on the figure hovering in the center of the room. The full power of the sun, the moon, and the elements of Harmony struck at the same time, with a twenty-unicorn spell volley and a few hundred arrows and spears for seasoning.

All Hell broke loose.

I can't even describe the experience coherently. It was an... eruption of light and sound, light so intense I could feel it pressing against my skin, sound so primal my bones rattled. It was a sensation so powerful it blotted itself out; It struck me blind, mute, insensate, incapable of feeling or thought.

The first sensation that gelled for me was the sensation of my own feeble skull bouncing against the floor. My first thought, compressed into a tiny seed, was how peculiar, I can actually feel my head bouncing on something. I never would have thought it would bounce so many times, either....  From there consciousness bloomed outward in disorientation, confusion, and yes, pain.

I opened my eyes. Yes, this was the floor. It was cold and flat and made of stone, just like I remembered it. I lifted my head, groaning. Oversized men such as myself do not respond well to going splat on the floor.

The Princesses, the mane six, all the guards--- they were all imprisoned, each in their own glowing bubble. They rolled on the floor, sprawled helplessly inside them, apparently unable to keep their footing on the slippery insides of their spherical prisons.

Peculiar. Why wasn't I inside one, myself?

I groaned and slowly levered myself to a sitting position with my cane, clutching my battered head and reflecting that I could use a few extra hands to clutch here and there, and got my first good look at our adversary. he was right where we left him, hovering inside a silvery, rippling gate-bubble just above the World Mirror, somehow sitting crosslegged inside its spherical chamber. He was holding what looked like an overlarge snow globe in one hand; a closer glimpse would reveal it to be a perfect model of the city of Canterlot. Gravity dipped and swayed as he rolled the glass globe in his talons.

Yes. He was a draconequus. Just not the one we expected.

Oh the jigsaw-piece body was there, as was the long snakelike form, and certainly the smug smirk was familiar enough. But it took a second glance to see that this mix-and-match monster was made from pieces out of a different box. the head was less like a pony's and more like a dragon, and the grin was full of sharp fangs. Two tusks jutted upward from the lower lip. One horn was a bull's horn, the other curled like a ram's horn over his ear. Instead of a mane he had a long, ribbed dorsal fin, like a sea serpent. his wings were larger than Discord's, probably because one belonged to a dragon and the other to a vulture. One forelimb was an eagle's claw, like Discord's, but the other was the claw of a reptile. His back legs were from a rhino and a duck, and his tail was long and segmented and tipped with a scorpion's barb. And his eyes were blood red and slit like a serpent's. Altogether he looked bigger, and far, far more dangerous than Discord did.

Celestia was sitting up and attempting to assert herself. Her voice was muffled slightly by her bubble prison. "Who are you, creature? Name yourself!"

The draconequus didn't speak. His poisonous grin merely spread wider. He took the snow globe in his claws and rolled it suddenly to the left. All the ponies suddenly went tumbling across the room like hamsters in runaway play-balls, yelling in alarm, and piled up in a heap against the wall. I fell to my knees as my friends went tumbling past.

The villain chuckled in amusement; The bone-chilling sound seemed to echo from everywhere. His bubble slowly floated down to the floor and across the room so he could admire his catch.

I blame it on instinct. I don't know whether it was the leer on his face or the sight of dozens of cute, helpless pastel colored ponies moaning in pain, and I definitely attribute my own croggled state to my inability to rethink my choices. But I succumbed to my first knee-jerk reaction, which was when one is struck, lash out. I stumbled to my feet and, aided by the slope of the floor, flung my immense frame at him.

He must have heard me coming. To be fair, four hundred pounds of wheezing couch-whale thundering towards you is rather hard to miss. He turned and looked back at me with an expression of absolutely epic surprise, just as I brought my cane down in a two-handed, stabbing blow.

To both our astonishment my cane pierced his bubble like it was made of water, and with the full force of the blow and all my weight behind it, I rammed the foot of my walking stick right into his eye. He had just enough time to distort his face in a shriek of pain---

Then his ruptured container exploded. It burst with a flash of light and a report that knocked me once again flat on my back, and sprayed liquidy bubble glimmer all over the room that splattered and then shimmered to nothingness. The gate-bubble and its villainous passenger were gone.

As I lay there stunned, something roundish and weighty struck me in the breadbasket, winding me and making me kick my feet up in the air. By instinct I grasped at it; it was the Canterlot snow-globe. By God's grace it had landed right side up on my ponderous belly and now sloshed gently in my grip.

I panicked momentarily; I literally had the fate of the city in my clumsy hands. But then I had an epiphany. Carefully, so as not to send the city careening again, I lifted up the globe till I could see the underside. There it was, a tiny rubber stopper holding the water... or what I suspected was anything but water.... inside. I carefully pulled the stopper out with my thumbnail and let the globe drain out.

As I suspected, the "Water" drained out, fading into glimmery ripples and then into nothingness right in midair.... just like the Draconequus' bubble. Liquified time-space of some sort? Everyone present could feel it as much-harried Gravity settled with a cosmic sigh of relief back to its normal, unidirectional nature. I let my head fall back and let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding.

The bubble-prisons all flickered and vanished. The ponies crowded around my prostrate form. "Well DONE, Sir Artur!" the Night Princess laughed, clapping her forehooves.

"Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for the dumb sucker is downhill of me," I muttered.

"Stand ready, everyone, we're not clear yet," Celestia warned. She cast her gaze around the room, wary. The guardsmen and soldiers stood at the alert.

"Hold, Sister," Luna said. "I have devised a spell for detecting the presence of Discord. 'Twill work on this knave as well, methinks." Her horn began to glow.

We all waited for a brief eternity. "Luna?" Celestia finally inquired. Luna's horn faded and she shook her head. "Naught but traces of chaos magic," she said. "Our foe is gone from this realm--- and methinks even from this reality."

The soldiers were busy being chivalrous and helping the Bearers and the battered lab workers to their hooves. "Y'mean.... we beat 'im?" Applejack said in disbelief.

"With a walking cane?" Twilight asked her sarcastically.

"Yeah, that's a bit too good to be true, innit," Applejack muttered.

"You mean he just.... left?" one of the guards said, baffled, as he and a friend offered a hoof to me and pulled me to my feet. I retrieved my cane, noting that the rubber ferrule on the end was missing. I hoped he had fun fishing that chunk of rubber out of his eye.

"Thus it would seem," Luna said."They said he came through the World Mirror. We have long suspected that Discord came from a realm outside time and space, someplace between the true universes. He must have returned there, whence he came. Mayhap the wretched creature saw the portal and was drawn here by idle curiosity... ?"

"Heh, well, getting a poke in the eye probably cured him of that," Rainbow Dash snickered.

There was a rumbling sound from the Mirror. Everyone tensed, magic flared. The surface of the mirror rippled like an agitated bowl of gelatin. It gave a sound like a bronx cheer and spat a small gatebubble into the room, then went still, a seemingly solid mirror yet again. The gate bubble burst with a wet pop, and four small cards fluttered to the floor---landing right at my feet. Warily, I picked them up and examined them.

"What is it, Arthur?" Twilight asked, curious. She stepped closer, peering at the cards.

"It's a warning," I said. "Or a threat. Or a challenge, depending on how you look at it." I could almost feel the facts tumbling into place in my head. "Our visitor wasn't here by accident. He already knows about Equestria, and has been doing the cosmic equivalent of listening at doors and peeping through keyholes." I turned the cards over in my hands. "He was apparently listening in at our card game today, and probably took offense when I disparaged Discord as an unoriginal hack. So he decided to take one of my off-the-cuff thoughts about what a clever Draconequus could do, and run with it... and mucked about with Canterlot's gravity."

"This is a little parting message from him to me. One he knew only a human-- one who played cards--- would get. It's a reference to an old bit of human folklore." I fanned the cards out so that everyone could see them. "Ace of Spades and Clubs, Eight of Spades and Clubs. Aces and Eights.

"....the Dead Man's Hand."

Celestia's face was stony. "Gather the mages and the researchers, all of them who are still on their hooves," she said. "I want them working round the clock to shut the World Mirror down. I want that Gate closed!"

 

---

 

1)I had taken some time ago to wearing a panama hat wherever I went. It was sharp, stylish, and protected my bald spot from Equestrian sunburn.