I don't know how long it's been now. Master Discord sometimes messes with my perception of time. Sometimes it feels like eons, and others -if I didn't have clear memories of LiarJack's little sister growing up and dying of old age (after Scootaloo died as an adult mare defying master) I'd think it all happened yesterday. The Elements of Chaos seem to have rendered us immortal.

I'm informed by My Master that some foalish ponies in Ponyville are trying to practice magic. Duty calls. Time to show these little ponies that Magic Is Tragedy.

=======================

My Little Pony
My Little Pony

Evil laughter

(My Little Pony)

Their friendship was bright as can be

(My Little Pony)

That is until they met me.

Traitor Dash: Loyalties broken apart
Angry Pie : Anger has it's start
Rarigreed: A greedy heart so cold
Liarjack: Lying out loud and bold
Fluttercruel: Spreading cruelty all around
Twilight Tragedy: Hope no longer can be found...
Discord: Harmony can accept its defeat
Tragedy makes my victory complete!

Do you know, my Little Pony: Magic Is Tragedy

I have you My Little Pony
Don't you know? You're no longer very best friends.

==========================

Howdy! Ah ain't seen ya 'round these parts before! Ah'm Apple Pie! Welcome to Ponyville! We call it the 'Chaos Capital of Equestria.' It ain't nothin' fancy, just means Lord-Master-Conductor-Banana-Boss Discord likes to have fun here da most since it's right in view of his castle. He even has a big old throne set up in Town Square for when he comes ta town.

They say ya gotta be suicidal, crazy, or crazy like a fox to live here. It's big risk but big pay-off, on account of Discord's being' just as likely to turn ya into a dragon as turn the air in yer lungs inta cement.

Me? Naw! I live a bit yonder in Sweet Rock Acres over yonder. We can farm our rocks no matter what LMCBB Discord throws at us! Be it desert, mud, ice-cream storms or vampire kinkajous, but we manage.

I'm here smack dab in the middle of the town square right now to sell this year's harvest along with the rest of the rock farmers. Oh and um, maybe learn a little magic on the side maybe.

Just don't be confusing me with that mean ol' Angry Pie! Sure, we have the same last name, but Ah ain't no maniac! If she's any part of mah family, she's the red sheep! The Apples and Pies are proud and we ain't gonna change our names to spite some Discordiac!

Angry Pie... she and those other five ain't got no proper fancy-like title, like 'Duchess' or 'Baroness' or 'Ultrazord' that Lord-Master-Conductor-Banana-Boss Discord is always bestowing' on every street sweeper and interestin'-shaped rock he happens upon. They're his six. The Elements of Chaos.

And... speak o' the devil... oh crud! It's THEM! They're HERE!

Puella, Caster, yer Virgacorns! They'll be after ya! Run for it!

A few yards away from where Ah stand... Rarigreed rips rocks outta the ground and forms 'em inta pony shapes. "Go collect tithes for mommy, dears!" She shouts at them like they're alive. Her big fancy puppets then start takin' everypony's crops, right from our all marketplace stalls!

OH NO SHE AIN'T! HI-YA!

Ah give one of 'em stone ponies a good kick to the head, them head goes ka-shatter! Ah'm an Earth Pony, after all, born and raised on a rock farm! Knowin' just where to hit 'em's as natural ta me as breathin'!

"No pony hurts mommy's babies!" Then the headless rock pony kicks me back. Dang, Ah think it busted a rib.

A purple glow surrounds the rock pony as it comes to give me a smack down. It just falls apart like the dumb pile of rocks it is.

"My baby!"

A Virgacorn filly with purple stripes jumps on top of the pile. It's Magica! "Don't worry Apple Pie, I'll protect you."

Fluttercruel dove right at her, Magica fired a beam of purple light that went right through the pegasus who then crashed. Ha!

"Run fer it!" I shouted.

"No! I'm not bowing down to these monsters again!" Magica shouted. It's then Ah realize all our neighbors are watching us! Some of them DO run for it. Others, decide, like Magica, that they've plum had ENOUGH!

Dang! That monster Angry Pie is smashin' anythin' that bleeds red! Ah see Puella and Caster pushin' with there magic against her while Magica is dealin' with the rock ponies, but that hot-house o' fury ain't stoppin'! And that Wicked Fluttercruel is already gettin' back up!

I sigh. Fluttercruel just has to jump into the middle of things, like always. I hadn't even gotten to read my formal declaration. Angry Pie follows right behind her. This is why I dislike working with the others. Too unpredictable. But with Master, unpredictable is the order of the day and even that is not all that trustworthy.

Oh well, might as well read it, no one listens to it anyway. I speak over the screams of pain and battle cries from our purge. "Ahem. Attention Ponies of Ponyville. You have been discovered to be practicing magic, which is formally forbidden by Discord, Humble Servant of Equestria. Please cease immediately and your punishment shall be minimal. Resistance shall result in greater violence. The precise list of your infractions is as follows-" A stray piece of debris smacks me in the face, breaking my reading glasses. I just sigh again.

"Hey Twili, Ah'm real sure everypony is listin' to ya flapping yer gums in the middle of a fight, but how 'bout some help here?"

"This is not a fight, Liarjack. Just leave it to Fluttercruel and Angry Pie; they are perfectly capable of squelching this dissent entirely on their own. The moment those two stepped onto the battlefield, all these ponies were as good as vulture meat."

"Yeah, and that is SOOOOO a good thing."

"NO! Don't run and don't fight back either! It'll just encourage them!" Traitor Dash shouted at a pair of parents who were trying to hide in an alleyway.

Liarjack looked at me. "Why are most of us even here?"

I brought up a barrier between us and the havoc so we can discuss in peace. "Fluttercruel is here because she thinks it's fun. Angry Pie saw a chance to let steam off the volcano. Rarigreed thinks it was a chance to add to her collection. Traitor Dash is here thinking she can save lives. I was ordered to be here, and I'm trying to give a sense of order to this mess."

"'Order?' Ta somethin' Master wants done?"

"Chaos cannot exist without order. I am merely providing a service to Master. But what about you? Why are you here then?"

"'Cause."

"I see."

Angry Pie and Fluttercruel were massacring anything on four legs whether they had been practicing magic or not, idiots. Traitor Dash was dive-bombing targets, knocking them out of the deadly duo's path. Rarigreed and her rock golems were collecting more rocks and crushing anypony that got in their way. I was sure my ever-omniscient Master was getting a kick out of watching this...

"Would ya mind kindly lettin' me out?" LJ asked.

I gave a shrug and dropped the barrier, LJ instantly chased after some foals who had hidden in one of Ponyville's upside down buildings.

"Die monster! You don't belong in this world!" A purple stripped Virgacorn filly teleported in front of me and unleashed a powerful blast of raw magic at my face. I stare at her coldly as I waited for my eyes and facial muscles to regenerate.

"Attacking an enemy with raw offense when you are outgunned is reckless and foolish, filly," I tell her, magically grabbing her shoulder and hip joints and methodically began to dislocate them.

"S-Somepony has to stand up to you!"

"Doing it in such a way that will only get you killed is a waste of lives and resources, especially when you personally have no means of harming the enemy. You should have known better." I magically toss her away where she lands on the checkered ground so hard she bounces. Angry Pie and Fluttercruel are on her before the dust settles.

"Remember Queen Cadence!"

I look up to see the sun momentarily in the sky before it shifted to the moon. I saw a small group of white equines with butterfly wings and feelers. Pure blue eyes with pupils stare back at me with grim determination.

Fluttercruel sees them too and forgets all about the foals she was supposed to be bringing her and Master's wrath down upon. She grinned. "Oh goodie! Changelings!"

She flies up to fight them, Traitor Dash follows, creating a Sonic Dark Boom that scatters the butterfly like ponies like insects in the wind.

Yellow flames burst around the changelings for a second as they change into more brightly colored copies of Fluttercruel and Traitor Dash and swarm us, the darkness making it more difficult to tell who is who. I still haven't figured out what magic Queen Cadence gave them that made it so Master couldn't just turn them into parasprites with a wave of his paw. Master now regards them with a mix of amusement and annoyance. Oh well, just meant having to do things the old fashioned way.

Poor Magica was all forgotten 'bout once the cavalry arrived. They weren't gonna last long. Ah love them changelings, and they're badflank fighters and they're some pony Banana Boss Discord can't beat with the snap of his fingers. But they ain't no match for the Elements of Chaos.

"Magica, ya can hear me right?" She was bleedin' all over. Them animals. They had cut up her star cutie mark like nothin' else. Oh Cadence! Her horn! Them freaks they, they-

"I'm sorry Apple... I wasn't... I didn't have the power. None of us did."

I looked around, so many of Virgacorns, not movin', all of 'em so small...Puella and Caster...This ain't right. Ah'm tearin' up. This here is wrong!

"Who ratted us out?"

"Could be anypony... could be no pony... Discord's ears are... everywhere."

Paranoia spun in mah head, Was it Cream Pie? She'd been sayin' how Magica learin' magic was dangerous. Banana Pie? She'd said how it might be better to let the Virgacorns get hurt than help'em. Poison Apple? She was taken to the castle and never came back a few weeks back... for the sake of Fluttercruel's 'fun.' By now we didn't know if she ever would come back, sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't...sometimes the ones that didn't come back were the lucky ones.

"Apple...I'm sorry...I should never have brought you into this."

"Heh! Don't be silly! Ah was the one who wanted to learn Earth Pony magic like ya wanted to learn Virgacorn magic! Ah choose to be here." Ah smiled at'er.

"You always... just go with the flow."

"Ah'll steer the rapids how Ah choose." Why were mah hooves shakin'?

"Silly pony... you should have been a poet..." She nuzzled me... like a weak old grandmother.

"C-Come on!... These monsters are gonna lose. This nightmare is gonna end and we'll all wake up back on mah family's rock farm! Let's have a party there! I bet Puella and Caster are already there!... T-that sounds fun don't it?"

"Sounds lovely. I think...I'll go ahead of you." She gave me a little laugh... then just... stopped.

I snipe the changelings out of the air one by one.

Rarigreed was finally forced to look up from her rock hoarding when a changeling tackled her. "YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM! THEY'RE MINE YOU HEAR ME? MINE! MINE! MINE!" The rest kept their distance after she had him trampled.

I noticed several small Virgacorns were fleeing the scene. So that was it. I calmly brought up a force field to stop their escape. It got shattered a minute later by Traitor Dash's Sonic Dark Boom.

"Oops, sorry Twilight." She looked sheepish as a changeling's broken body crashed to the ground from her sonic attack.

I didn't respond. I merely finished off the changeling before it could get back in the air. Several more surround me, dive-bomb me, surround me in a yellow aura, and kick up dust all at once so I can't concentrate on the Virgacorns. A short electrical storm gives them more to worry about.

The sun rose in an instant, and I noticed a flock of hippogriffs were now zooming in at top speed from all directions. These troublemakers were more organized then they should have been. We've killed rebel leaders time and again, why didn't they just give up already?

Angry Pie leapt up off the floor-tops and tore wings off hippogriffs before smashing in their faces. She's so focused on the one she's beating on that she doesn't notice the one behind her until it hits her so fast it shattered her spine and sent her flying clear out of Ponyville. Perfect, until she regenerates and finds her way back, we're a pony down.

"YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM!" Rarigreed shouted madly as she floated pieces of debris and fired them in all directions at the new comers in a hail of pain. "MINE!"

LJ is still playing hide and seek with foals. TD and Fluttercruel have to fight the changelings and the hippogriffs and dodge Rarigreed's reckless attacks. I redirect my shield's magic all forward to keep from being impaled from Rarigreed's recklessness.

"This isn't a spectator's sport!" A hippogriff flies behind me low to the ground, I turn an eye and burn him to black bones in seconds. I roll my eyes.

This was going to be a loooong assignment.

++++

Too long later the changelings and hippogriffs retreated after taking heavy losses. I began reanimating the corpses one by one and sending them to hunt down the survivors. Waste not, want not. Too bad they'd figured out a long time ago undead aren't their family members anymore. It makes them far less effective.

Fluttercruel grunted in annoyance she pulled out the broken plank from Rarigreed's indiscriminate attack. "Will you watch it next time loser?"

Rarigreed hug a rock puppet and stuck her tongue out, "Mine."

Angry Pie trotted into Ponyville on her three good legs, her expression smoldering. She assaults one of my reanimated Hippogriffs, probably thinking it was the one who sent her flying.

Traitor Dash just huddled in a corner.

Liarjack trotted out of the upside down house she had gone into. "Done and done! Completely spared."

"Not quite," Fluttercruel said. She was eyeing an Earth Pony filly holding the broken body of the Virgacorn who had attacked me. The Earth pony's cutie mark was a slice of apple, and an orange slice. Something seemed familiar about her, but I couldn't remember...that happens from time to time.

"Back off, I need this," Angry Pie snapped as she trotted to the filly, leaving the doubly-killed Hippogriff laying in a heap.

The filly didn't run. She didn't look scared either, just, sad. Most ponies know there are clearer ways to go if she wanted to die.

Angry Pie raised a hoof right above the filly's head before Fluttercruel rammed her into a wall with her flanks. "Finders keepers." Fluttercruel grinned as she raised her blade weapon.

Master teleports in among us, floating above the floor-tops. "Well! Looks like you ladies certainly cleaned house!"

The filly... laughed?

Angry Pie's eyes narrowed in murderous intent. Fluttercruel brought the blade down before Angry Pie could steal her score.

"STOP AT ONCE!"

The blade weapon stopped just as it cut the first millimeter of flesh on the filly's forehead. A vertical red line bled on the filly's head and slowly dripped down her face.

LJ, Traitor Dash, Rarigreed and I barely held Angry Pie back as she hissed and snarled, she made us lose teeth a couple times trying to break free.

"Master?" Fluttercruel looked up at Master with honest confusion in her eyes.

"LET ME AT HER!" Angry Pie hissed.

"I SAID STOP!" Master boomed, finally succeeding in cowing Angry Pie.

Fluttercruel bowed so low her face touched the ground. "Yes Master."

Master teleported face to face with the filly, upside down, his feet and tail acting like they were standing on solid ground despite all logic. "You laughed?"

"Yeah."

"Why?" I asked before Master could. Curiosity bubbled inside me, for the first time in a long time.

"Hey, even in the darkest of times you hav'ta find something to laugh about!"

"Heh." Master made a small laugh himself, triggering another tantrum from Angry Pie. Master looked at Angry Pie, and I swear I heard him sigh.

"Your job is done. Go back to the castle."

"But Master I think she was one of the fillies practicing magic, wasn't the whole-"

Discord shut Fluttercruel up. "I said go back to the castle, young mare! Or didn't you hear me?"

"No, Master. Of course I heard you." Fluttercruel bowed again.

Master rubbed his eyebrows. "And make sure Angry Pie doesn't do anything stupid, again."

"Yes Master," we all echoed.

"You, dear, remind me of a mare I knew who was very fun to have around," Master glanced at Angry Pie, then back at the filly. "Just keep on smilin', girlie!" Master grinned and gave the filly a thumbs-up. "What's your name?"

"... Apple Pie."

"Apple Pie?" Master burst out laughing as LJ's jaw drops, "Oh that's rich! So rich! Kiddo, you've made my day! Live and be happy and all that tripe!" Master snapped his fingers and her injured ribs were healed but the thin cut on her forehead remained. Apple Pie dared reach up and feel it. "Consider that little nip there from Fluttercruel a reminder of when you made the king of chaos laugh!" Master clapped, echoing into an entire audience's worth of applauds.

He then looked at us, "Excuse me, did I or did I not-" I telekinetically grab the others and pulled them in close before teleporting us all back just outside the castle gates. I didn't know what the Master was up too...he didn't do anything unless it was fun for him in some way...