"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

The black alicorn's villainous glee froze the ponies for what felt like months. Literally. Twilight would later go on record as saying she felt as though the moments when she first appeared and when someone next spoke happened in entirely different seasons, and if they were to exit the town hall they would find the leaves had long since turned red, and needed rattled from the trees. That the air would have gone cold, Cloudsdale's pegasi would have dumped snow upon them all, and they were in fact trapped inside by six hooves of fallen frost. An entire half a year of ponies waiting with bated breath -- likely dread -- to see what would happen next. It had perhaps felt to be so long that a new alicorn had been born unto the world, and it had obnoxiously large eyes and mammoth wings. But that would just be silly. Almost as silly as a mirror portal that lead to an alternate universe where everypony was the same except they were hairless magic-inert monkeys attending a high school, all drawn up entirely to sell more toys.

Of course it hadn't actually been that long, but the Dark Mare seemed to bask in the fear of the congregated ponies for an unusually long time. Perhaps she couldn't really be blamed; it had been a thousand years. Then again she was a mythical evil from ancient times that had attempted to bring ruin to Equestria, and should not be given such kindness.

To the surprise of everyone, the first to move would be Pinkie Pie.

"Pinkie Pie's Patented Delayed Self-defense Pocket Cake Toss Attack yAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

The freak mare rapidly pulled and threw a veritable rainbow of cakes of all shapes, sizes, flavors and intended occasions out of her mane and in the general direction of the alicorn. Wedding cakes, birthday cakes, carrot cakes, "You've Beaten Cancer Like It Was a Punching Bag and You Were An Angsty Griffon Teenager" cakes -- if it could be conceived, it was thrown at impossible speeds. They would all miss, instead finding purchase on Shining Armor and Princess Cadence, several hooves higher up and away. The lovebirds were splattered with frosting and their dress clothes utterly ruined. In Twilight's private opinion, coating Shining's garish red coat in a coating of tasty coat... coat... made this action a net justice.

Unfortunately, not only did this assault completely miss its mark, had it actually hit its intended target, it would have done absolutely nothing. Eventually, the pink mare ran out of spongey confections to misuse, and the noticeably unamused alicorn stood tall and frightening, emanating violent disapproval. And the Dark Mare did the same, simply with less cake on her face.

"...Are you finished?"

Pinkie nodded in response. "Yeah. It wouldn't be funny to keep going."

"I concur."

Shining Armor's voice drifted down from the balcony. "So do I!!"

"In that case, perhaps we can get right to business." Sunset stepped forward with her head held high, looking the Dark Mare directly in her eyes. Challenging her. Defying her.

"Erwait hold on."

Sunset stopped, confused.

The alicorn pulled a packet of oddly modern paper out of the ether. "I forgot my line."

"What!?"

"I am under pressure, I'm sorry! It's like I have been anticipating this moment for a millennium!"

Sunset became angry now, "And you didn't rehearse!?"

"Well I thought after year 419 I had it down! You know, that it would be muscle memory by then? I think it's a reasonable thing to assume!" The black mare put her crescent moon-shaped reading glasses on and flipped through the incredible technicolor packet of big words, contrived events and overly cutesy dialogue until she found the scene, and studied it hard for a few minutes. Sunset sighed and impatiently tapped her hoof, and the aura of terror that had once permeated the hall had diluted to confusion.

Pinkie Pie leaned over to whisper in Twilight's ear. "The paper is all sorts of different colors because a new color page means they changed the script there today."

Twilight snapped her head to look at the pink offense. Who wore yet another toothy grin as she continued:

"The joke is this story sucks."

The false pony facehooved. Spike chuckled a bit in comprehension.

Pinkie then adopted a thoughtful look. "Or maybe there weren't enough commas..."

Deciding to ignore the random mare and simply pretend what was happening right now made sense, Twilight returned her focus to her substitute mentor and the not-so-frightening-in-the-flesh creature of her nightmares.

She's kinda hot actually, an errant voice in her head commented, unbidden.

Hmmmmmnot quite as good looking as Celestia, she responded.

Well at least the Dark Mare is more honest.

I suppose that's true...

And frankly, a mane and tail made out of constellations is a lot cooler than that pastel rainbow crap.

Well that depends on who you ask.

And who am I asking?

Yourself, I guess.

So... yes?

Yeah-- wait why am I even thinking about this??? Twilight shook her head and tuned back into current events, where the objectively attractive Dark Mare was apparently in the middle of an evil monologue.

"...to the stars above! Nightmare Moon, blasting off at the speed of light! Bow down to me now, or prepare to fight!!"

Sunset was now checking the script herself. "Yep, girl, that's right." She zapped the offending document with a fire spell and tossed the burning pulp behind her. "Would have been better if you had remembered it, but great delivery nonetheless."

"Well, as a good interdimensional friend would say, 'maximum effort~!'"

Sunset shrugged in response, before returning to her former pose. "Cute name, Dark Mare. But cuteness won't help you now."

"I WOULD LIKE TO STOP EVERYTHING RIGHT THIS SECOND," All eyes turned upward to Cadence, who finally found her voice in all the seething rage, "AND DEMAND A CHANGE OF CLOTHES AND A BATH BEFORE WE CONTINUE, PLEASE!!"

"Hush up dramacorn, this is serious business." Sunset coiled up, ready to pounce.

Dramacorn affixed her furious gaze on the fiery-maned mare. "FIRST OF ALL, I AM PRETTY SURE ME BEING PELTED WITH A MILLION CAKES WAS NOT IN THE SCRIPT. SECOND OF ALL, IN THE LAST TWELVE-HUNDRED OR SO WORDS I DON'T THINK ANY ONE OF YOU HAS BEEN SERIOUS ONCE!! SO I HEREBY DECREE WE ARE TAKING A TWENTY-MINUTE PEE BREAK, BECAUSE CONTINUING WITHOUT MAKEUP OR PRODUCT, AND EVEN NO CLOTHES WOULD BE FAR BETTER THAN STANDING HERE -- WHERE THERE IS A DRAFT, FOR SOME REASON BY THE WAY-- IN COLD DRYING CAKE ICING, WITH A BRIDAL FIGURE DANGLING FROM MY HORN!!"

A random stallion in the crowd of background ponies raised his hoof, "I'd actually like ten more minutes to make it a full lunch break as well, if it means anything."

"IT DOESN'T."

"Okay, princess."

The Dark Mare had her neck craned to look at the other alicorn. She turned back to face the crowd of ponies obviously important to the plot and facially shrugged. "I am not going to argue. I would like to rewrite the scene from the top when everyone is here again, honestly. I don't know if this is going to work as is."

Sunset sighed and relaxed herself from being battle-ready. "Okay guys, break-time," she shouted. "We'll reconvene in twenty minutes, and if you're not here in twenty-five..." her muzzle stretched into a smirk.

"You're fired."

The unusually threatening pun was not lost on any of the ponies present, who rather hurriedly scattered to do some quick business. Rainbow Dash zipped toward the catering tables to chomp down as much apple pie as she could, before being chased off with a comically large broom by Applejack.

Twilight however, stood still, stunned by the inane events. Even Spike had vacated his place on her back to go flirt with Rarity.

"How you doin', Smokey?"

Twilight snapped from the stupefied reverie to see that Sunset had walked back to her side. The purple pony looked at her, positively perplexed. "Wh-- what even??? What just happened??? Is this some sort of pony thing that I was just never clued in on??? What script?????? Why did she call herself Nightmare Moon?????????????????????"

"Yeah, I don't get why that name's in there either." Sunset grabbed a new copy of the script and tore out the offending pages. Scratching out the words and turning over the paper, she began to pen a new progression of events. "Fun fact -- an older version of the story called her Black Snooty. Fun to say, but not a name to be feared, as I'm sure you'll agree."

Twilight simply sputtered in response.

"Oh, and this is just an April Fools thing. Don't ask me what that is, but apparently once we restart the scene in the next chapter, none of this will be canon, and nopony will ever remember it."

Cannons? "I am still extremely confused."

"Sometimes you just gotta roll with it."

"That is not something you'd normally say."

"For the sake of humour I can act as out-of-character as I want."

"Well this isn't funny!"

"No it's not. I'm honestly looking forward to forgetting all of this."

Twilight opened her mouth to continue fisking apart the last few minutes, but she was quite tired already, and so resolved to say nothing more on the matter. Apparently everypony agreed to play a big prank on her while at the party.

Instead, the false unicorn hung her head in resignation and trudged over to the catering tables, resting her head on the cool surface. She eyed a few flowers in front of her face and lazily licked them into her mouth. That's supposed to be healthy for a pony, right? She sighed.

This is utterly asinine.

Spike shuffled back across the room, his romantic advances rejected rather pointedly. The morose drakeling hopped up into a chair that was far too uncomfortable for a pony and rested an elbow on the adjacent table. He was not alone at the seating.

"Very meta." The draconequus swirled his wine glass filled with liquid plastic around with a gentle shake of his claw.

Spike scoffed. "You're one to talk; you probably set all this up."

"Ha! Please -- this is far too themed for my tastes. I prefer my randomness to have no underlying logic." Discord poured the wine glass into his antler, leaving the pants formerly contained within (for they were always pants) suspended in midair, neatly folded.

"I guess that explains why you're here in the first place though." The whelp looked to his patchwork companion. "You're not even scheduled to show up until Sunset Shimmer's story is--"

"Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah, no spoilers, Spikey-wikey." The spirit of chaos then snorted. "We don't even know if the author will have the patience to get that far yet. I mean, look at the state of the tale we're in! Half-finished since October 15th, 2015? Now that's negligent." Discord brought his paw up to his forehead, feigning melodramatic resignation. "I suspect he's abandoned us all for a shiny new idea."

"Eh. I have faith in the guy."

Discord literally deflated into his chair. "We'll see."

The two sat in comfortable silence for a while, watching ponies trot past and shout at each other, moving props around the room. None seemed to notice or care that Discord was there, which didn't bother the normally egotistical chimera.

It was several minutes before Spike piped up once more. "D'you think I'll ever get even one serious date with Rarity?"

Discord gave a wry smile, "Please, my friend. There are countless universes in existence where the two of you have loved and lost, or are even happily married already."

"And an equal amount where I struck out." The baby dragon dug his claw into the table and began carving out a crude picture of the mare in question.

"Well, then it's a solid 50/50 chance! You can't even pray for odds like that."

"Iunno. I'm no gambling man."

"I am. And I'm telling you that if it's what you want in your heart, then it's worth it to pursue even if you don't get it. You'll inevitably learn something about yourself along the way, and you'll probably stumble into something you never knew you'd be happy with."

"This is shockingly philanthropic for you."

"I can be supportive when I feel like it." Discord apparated a trucker hat into existence with a snap of his fingers and put it on backwards as he stood up. "Honestly, you're my favorite character in the show aside from dear Fluttershy and it's a crime you don't get more attention."

"Wait, what?"

Discord yawned and stretched, his bones emitting the sound of metal bending. "Well, Spokes, it's been real, but we have four minutes until everything gets back on track and I have to stand in place for the next who knows how long. Take my advice to heart, if you would. Oh and, give my regards to Pinkie Pie; she's probably my finest work, if I were to toot my own horn."

"Uh..."

The draconequus poofed away in a cloud of Poofs, leaving Spike alone at the table. Sunset walked by and shouted at the drake to get back in the saddle, and so he did, returning to his still confused purple mobile throne as ponies returned to their places. Cadence and Shining Armor reappeared at the balcony looking unusually refreshed with dopey smiles on their faces, and Rainbow Dash was sporting some very obvious makeup to conceal a new broomstick-related bruise she technically wasn't supposed to have.

As the Dark Mare and Sunset returned to where they were nearly twenty minutes ago, Spike couldn't help but think one thing as the events were cast into the non-canon void within a non-canon void:

Well, that was an irritatingly self-indulgent waste of time.

Author's Notes:

For those of you coming to this story just now, as you can probably tell this was a joke chapter. It existed mostly to poke fun at myself, as is no doubt apparent. I left it in for the sake of humor, and well... for something I came up with on the spot it's not the worst thing I could have done.

Most of this shenaniganery will cease with the next part of the tale.

-N