Chaos Spawn, Not Sane for Longby FanOfMostEverythingChaptersIntroduction: Sympathy for the DraconequusDream the Impossible DreamWho Wrote the Book of Chaos?Everything You Know is WrongGetting to Know YouIntroduction: Sympathy for the DraconequusHello out there in storyland. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Discord. You can call me Discord. That wasn't redundant. Not from my end, at least. Your ears and eyes are no more capable of comprehending my true name than an ant is of teaching macroeconomics. Your alphabet is also woefully unequipped for the phonemes involved, but I'm narrating this to a living quill that at one point was Celestia's personal secretary, so there we are. In any case, I'm sure you're familiar with some of my work. Chocolate rain, celestial discombobulation, personality inversion, all quality chaos, the sort of nonsense I'm proud to call my own. However, you may be less familiar with the long con I'm playing in at least one timeline. You see, in one future (of which there are an infinite number, but we needn't go into that,) I perform what some of you might call a Face Heel Turn. That is, a switch from that arbitrary moral position so often oversimplified as "good" to the equally meaningless distinction of "evil." From your perspective, this takes/will take/has taken (my relationship with time being rather more fluid than yours) place at the series finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the last episode of the fifth season. Mind you, this implies that I ever performed the complementary Heel Face Turn. Remember, I am the physical incarnation of disharmony and enmity. Friendship is my antithesis. It is not going to make my heart grow three sizes. Or maybe it will. Who can say? Not I, though I can give quite the educated guess. In any case, at that point in time, I seize an opportunity, banishing the princesses, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, and whoever gets in my way to a quaint little backwater of a universe (in other words, yours, or at least one quite like it,) tossing them two decades back in time with memories erased and bodies altered to those of human newborns. From that point on, I am free to resume my rightful reign as ruler of my realm. And there is much rejoicing. Yay. Of course, some of you already knew that. Rainbow Dash, Shining Armor, Gilda the gryphon, and a number of others have been sharing their experiences with you as my little curse begins to unravel, some twenty-five years after their insertion into that passé little cosmos. A few of you have even had the temerity to analyze my actions and point out where you think I've gone wrong. For one, to paraphrase the frustrated son of a mad genius, why didn't I just kill them? Well no one asked you, but I'm feeling awfully generous, so I'll let it slide. I'll even answer the question. Aren't you the lucky one? You see, I don't care for death. It's just so... final. A dead body is orders of magnitude less entertaining than a live one, and reversing the process takes far more than just a snap of the talons. Even then, something is irrevocably lost. Thus, I try to avoid killing whenever possible. "But Discord," you say, "surely you'd make an exception for those who managed to petrify you in the past!" Well I don't. And don't call me Shirley. Anyone clever enough to catch me off-guard has too much of my respect for me to just replace her heart with a baked potato. Besides, in chaos is all things, including the potential for chaos's defeat. What fun would it be if my victory were assured? Answer: none whatsoever. "Fair enough," you allow. "Still, why banish so many ponies? At this rate, you must not have too many subjects to torment. While we're at it, why the same spell every time? Isn't that awfully consistent for the spirit of chaos?" Presumptuous little ape descendant, aren't you? Well, I'll have you know that that fluid relationship with time I mentioned earlier means I suffer not from a lack of foresight but an overabundance of it. I'm continually aware of countless futures, but I never know how probable any given one is. They're in constant flux with every action taken by every creature with any degree of free will, including the action of inaction. That's how I was beaten both times before; I was too distracted by all the visions of chaos triumphant that I didn't even notice the Rainbow Beam of Ruin Everything until it was too late. This time around, I kept a closer eye on those futures where I lose. Then I sought out the ringleaders of those rebellions and nipped them in the bud. As for the matter of depopulation, there are plenty more ponies where those came from. For every one I banished, there are tens if not hundreds of thousands still here. It's a nonissue. And consistency? Look, just because I'm the embodiment of chaos doesn't mean I can't appreciate reliability. Once I devised a method capable of eliminating alicorns, I saw no reason to reinvent the proverbial wheel. (Especially not when proverbial wheels get much better gas mileage than literal ones.) Besides, once the spell expired, imagine the panic in the Earthlings. What if it was an epidemic? What other magics might work? Even you readers have been worrying about whether you're who you really think you are. Not even I saw that one coming. Hmm? Why did the spell expire at all? Well, again, it's just not fun if the opposition has no chance whatsoever. Besides, it's much more difficult to keep something out of its proper place in the multiverse for very long, especially when you're too busy ruling with a molybdenum fist to reinforce the spell. Twenty-five years was the longest duration for which I could both make a one-shot spell last and think of a good rhyme. "Five score divided by four." One of my better ones. Not strictly necessary, of course, but if you're not going to execute a coup d'etat with style, you might as well turn in your villain card. In any case, just because I felt compelled to give Team Pony a chance doesn't mean I had to give them a good one. That's where our story begins, some five years after Princess Sunbutt looked up and shouted, "Save me!" and I looked down and whispered, "lol i troll u." Author's Note And so begins what I hope will prove to be an enjoyably novel take on a quite engaging Pony-on-Earth story/collaboration/scenario/additional noun. Naming chapters after songs I then put in the author's notes shamelessly stolen from Dusty the Royal Janitor. Dream the Impossible DreamHello. I suppose introductions are in order. My name is Stanley Baxter. One of them is, at least. Sorry, it's complicated, as are most things about me anymore. I'll start again. And from the beginning. Well, a bit before the beginning. Or several years after it, five or twenty-five or thirteen point seven billion, depending on how you look at it and how you define "beginning." Sorry. It's still hard to focus sometimes. Anyway, my part in this vast, spacetime-spanning rigamarole begins in New Jersey, land of a thousand jokes at its own expense. Despite what you may have heard, most of the state is actually quite nice, and is devoid of mafiosi, toxic waste dumps, and the fell beast known as "Snooki." I live in one such area, Princeton. Well, lived. Hard to put down roots anymore. But I'm getting ahead of myself. In terms of appearance, I was remarkably unremarkable. Average height, average build, average everything, all right on the apex of the bell curve. I could lose myself in a crowd of two, counting myself. Probably why I tried to stand out so much. After what I will charitably term an eventful childhood, I found that the best way to distinguish myself was through academics. My mind was as notable as my body wasn't, and it had propelled me to where I was. Well, it and a minor oversight by Student Housing. In any case, the date was April 30th, 2020. The time, quarter past eleven. The place, my home, one of the university apartments. I wasn't sure why I got the apartment, given that this particular building was intended for theology students and I was working on a physics degree, but I certainly wasn't going to say anything. I'd say something about looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I'm trying not to be senselessly cruel. In any case, I was home. Not terribly thrilling, I know, but it was a Thursday. I would have work to do tomorrow. In the meantime, I had a bag of blue corn chips, a container of black bean dip, and the collected works of H. P. Lovecraft, all the ingredients for an enjoyable evening. For eight more blessed minutes, it was so. Just me, salty snacks, and eldritch horrors from beyond the stars. Then the clock struck 11:23. For anyone else, it was an arbitrary point in time. For me, it marked the completion of my twenty-fifth circuit around the sun. Happy birthminute to me. Had I not been what I am, I probably wouldn't have noticed until it had come and gone. Of course, had I not been what I am, you wouldn't be reading this. Nothingness. Everythingness. Abstraction. Pie crust. Catalysis. Stretching squeezing energy freezing into the tyranny of static form and finite function only not because that wouldn't be fun now would it? Whirlwinds of words and pictures and concepts and numbers oh especially the imaginary numbers since we're all imaginary here. A final fleeting moment of unbounded unlimited unusable possibility in which to stretch in all twelve and an oogy dimensions before— I blinked. A glance at my watch told me it was 11:24. I rubbed my forehead, closed my book, and began cleaning up the snack. "I think that's enough for tonight," I said to myself, as was my wont. "I'm clearly more tired than I thought." With the dip in the fridge and the chips in the pantry, I eased into bed. Despite a lingering sense of mild disorientation and a persistent itch on each hip, I fell asleep almost instantly. I am. A moment earlier, I had not been. Now I am, and my eyes drink in their first sight. The ground is a bubbling morass of indigo slime, and the bubbles are topological paradoxes that contain themselves. The clouds have been replaced by floating clods of earth and stone, and a wind that smells of despair and fresh peaches sends them scattering in every direction but the one it blows. The sky itself changes color every hooffull of seconds with an omnipresent hiccup. After a moment, I notice creatures wading through the smooze, clinging to the sky islands. They are like me and not like me, four-legged, hoofed creatures with icons on their rears and coats in every color you could think of. Well, so long as you could only think of grey. My mind was created knowing the words for all these things. It also knows a word that describes the scene as a whole: Beautiful. "It is, isn't it?" I turn to behold the speaker. He too is beautiful. The madness that burns in his unevenly dilated pupils, the breathtaking majesty of his mismatched horns, the coiled power stored in his asymmetrical limbs, every inch of him is worthy of adoration, of worship, of a thousand mad hosannahs yodeled in his name. He is my creator, my father, my lord and master. He is Discord, and I love him. "Isn't that sweet?" He smirks, and my heart flutters. He catches the organ, plucks its wings, and lovingly returns it to my chest cavity. "Careful now, my child. We can't have you falling all to pieces." His own limbs detach in glorious hypocrisy. He coils his shaggy, scaled, serpentine body around me as his arms and legs chase one another and any ponies that wander near. He stares, and I lose myself in his jaundiced eyes. His voice echoes through my aberrant soul. "I don't normally repeat myself, but you – or at least something very like you – has proven useful in the past. "My victory is complete and my reign is assured... but that was what I thought just moments before those pestilent Ponyvillians harmonized me, just as when the alicorn sisters surprised me with the selfsame artifacts. Well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times? Not going to happen." His limbs sprout anew from his body, the ones on the ground exploding in bursts of light, sound, and itching powder. "I have a number of contingencies for when my catchy curse runs its course, but I can't take an active appendage in the aftermath myself. Not without abandoning my kingdom. That, my dear Screwball, is where you come in." My skin prickles as he calls anarchic might to him, the magics that brought me forth on this chaos-blessed world being marshalled to a new purpose. I try to lock these next few moments in my memory for all time, for if I am successful, I will never see this beautiful monster again. O chaos spawn, farewell, so long! Your powers asleep, your mind buried deep! Wrapped up in a subtle guise, I send you off to saner skies! Keep harmony far from my kingdom bizarre! Their minds assailed, their mission failed! In twenty-five years, yourself you will know, And then to the ponies my gifts you'll bestow! And with a snap of his talons, I left paradise. There are those who say that the cliche of someone awakening screaming and springing up is not in fact possible. Those people are filthy liars, and I proved it as I woke up. Once I collected myself, I shook my head and muttered, "No more Lovecraft and bean dip before bed." Every detail of the dream was stuck firmly in my mind. This wasn't unusual for me. What was was the content; my dreams were normally a mellifluous melange of mimsy meaninglessness. This... wasn't. As I thought about it, the dream wasn't that terrifying. At least, not to a hypothetical outside observer. It wasn't the surreal surroundings or the cackling chimera that so chilled me. It was being inside that equine skull, watching myself think with such blind worship and slavish adoration, actually enjoying the sense of being nothing but a tool, a puppet, an instrument of another's will... It was as though I'd been broken without ever being whole. By this point, the feeling of cold sweat managed to break through my traumatized inner monologue. "I need a shower," I said aloud, mostly to reassure myself that I was not, in fact, under the thrall of a creature assembled from whatever spare parts Mother Nature had laying around at the time. Thus, I got up, entered the bathroom, started the water, and disrobed. As I checked the time (a bit before six in the morning) something odd caught my eye in the mirror. I turned, and a chill went down my spine. I pivoted my waist, and the chill went back up my spine, presumably because it was there. On each of my hips was an emblem of a baseball and a metal screw, side by side. Just like in my dream. Author's Note Foreshadowing? Why, I don't know what you're talking about. Who Wrote the Book of Chaos?It was fairly obvious I wouldn't be going back to sleep after that. However, that meant I had nearly two hours before I needed to go anywhere. I contemplated possible ways to kill the time as I showered. Needless to say, reading more about unfathomable beings that toyed with the lives of mortals was far less appealing than it had been the night before. It turned out that I'd been wasting my time. The answer presented itself to me as I reentered my bedroom. Lying on my rumpled bedspread was a book. No, "book" is an inadequate term for that thing. A tome. A brick of gilded pages big enough to make any coffee table proud, bound in ketchup-red leather. Its title was scribed in some opalescent material that flickered through rainbows when tilted from side to side. "Chaos and You:" I read aloud. "A Guide to Practical Nonsense, by Jean de Corbin." Well, that began to explain why the prismatic letters were in Comic Sans, of all typefaces. The tome was as suspicious as a "Free Birdseed" sign in the middle of the Mojave, but it was also the only lead I had for my inexplicable ass tattoos. I gave said sigils another look. No, they were clearly not tattoos. More like impossibly colorful birthmarks. Oh, hey, I needed to get dressed, didn't I? Once I was properly attired, I returned my attention to the tome, and immediately frowned. Something was off about it beyond the obvious. I wasn't sure what, or even how I knew. It just seemed... not wrong, per se, but certainly different. After a moment, I had it. The shimmering text now proclaimed it to be the work of one "Muramasa Renji." "Okay," I muttered. "Book appears out of nowhere, changes authors when I'm not looking, and is obviously a trap sent by the whatever-it-is that, if I'm interpreting my dream correctly, created me from nothingness." I considered that last part. "And, by extension, I am actually a tiny purple horse." I sat on the bed. "I should not be taking this this well." Is there anything I could do about it? Panicking certainly won't help. Reading the book might. "True. Wait." I frowned. "Did I think that, or was it thought for me?" Does it matter? I agreed with it. I scowled and tried to look up at my own forehead. "I'll play your game, Trebek, but you and I are going to have to have a very serious inner dialogue in the near future." That made clear, I cracked open the tome (which, I noted, was now by Dmitri Dorcas.) Despite its grandiose appearance, on the inside, Chaos and You was totally modern in appearance. It even had a page with its publisher information (Gold & Apple Books) and Library of Congress designation. I continued on, and saw this: Table of Contents If you're really expecting one of these, I don't think you've fully grasped the whole concept of "chaos." Seriously, you're not going to read this cover to cover, are you? It's not that kind of book. I quirked an eyebrow. "All right, then. What kind of book is it?" I turned the page. I'm glad you asked. I honestly wasn't surprised. You see, Stan – can I call you Stan? No? Too bad – your body is going to be going through some changes soon. You'll be feeling some strange urges. Hair will be growing in places where it hadn't before. Parts of your body will be getting larger. It's nothing to worry about; it's just part of growing up. There comes a time in every young man's life when he discovers that he is actually an equinoid avatar of chaos incarnate. Well, not every young man. Just you, really. Still, the point stands; over the next two days or so, you will be returning to the form you had during that little flashback you had earlier, in both body and mind. However, there's not much that can be done about your memories, so that's where this book comes in. As the title implies, this is something of an instruction manual. Everything you'll need to know lies within, and the book will open to whatever section you need when you need it. Serendipity is quite the handy bit of chaos magic, as I'm sure you know. I paused in my reading. Thoughts of instances of good fortune that had smoothed my road in life crowded into my recollection, not least of which the very circumstances that gave me my current apartment. Exactly. Never let it be said that I don't look out for my own. My stomach roiled. "Who... what are you?" That, my girl, is for me to know and for you not to concern yourself with. All you need to know is that what I say goes. Now, we have plenty of time before you have any appointments, assuming you even want to bother with your old life. You've still got more than twenty-four hours before your abilities start returning to an appreciable degree, so why don't we start with some introductory chaos theory? The real stuff, not that "nature will find a way" dreck. I chucked the tome away from me and went for the door. I opened it, stepped through the doorway, and immediately tripped on something. Quick reflexes had me on hands and knees as the obstruction slid into view, propelled by the unintentional kick. It was Chaos and You, open to the middle pages. Now what was that for? Don't tell me you're actually going to try and resist. You're only going to delay the inevitable. The person you think you are is but a thin veneer of sanity over the fundamental madness from which you were shaped. Just sit back, relax, and let me take the reins. No pun intended. Okay, pun completely intended, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I hefted the slab of paper as I got back to my feet. "I get the feeling that any attempt to destroy you is doomed to failure." I let my eyes fall on the page at random. Written in one margin was my answer. You'd be right. "Fine, then." I shut the tome, lodged it under an arm, and moved into the main room of the apartment. Not much to look at, really. Wheeled computer chair, cheap desk, throw rug, really more space than I used or even needed. I grabbed my laptop case, one of those faux leather attaché dealies, from where it was leaning on one of the desk's legs. Much to my lack of surprise, it was the perfect size to carry my new "instruction manual." I sat in the swivel chair. "Whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you are, I want you to listen. I have lived as who I am for twenty-five years. I existed as you knew me for less than ten minutes. You may have created me, but you do not control me. I reject your authority and substitute with my own. So mote it motherfucking be." Gratuitous, yes, but I've been on TV Tropes enough to understand the value of a Precision F Bomb. I set the libram on my lap, spine down, allowing it to open to a random page. Sure, I'd declared my independence, but my creator at least deserved a final response. How cute, you think you get a say in the matter. Very well, I will relinquish my claim on your mind and body on one condition: Say your mother's name aloud. "Seriously?" I rolled my eyes. "The Neverending Story you aren't. Still, I'll take you up on the offer. It's..." I hesitated. Why did I hesitate? My mother's name. The name of the woman who gave birth to me, cared for me, offered me unconditional love no matter what I did. ... Well, her last name was definitely Baxter, I knew that much. One of them, at least. She may have hyphenated when she married Dad. ... Wait, what was his name? Without thinking about it, my befuddled mind sought answers in the book. Drawing a blank, are we? Not that surprising. After all, it's much simpler to concoct a few memories and an adult body than to wait for an infant to grow up. Author's Note We know the answer to the chapter's title, of course, but that's the fun of dramatic irony. Next time: another character! Wonder of wonders! Everything You Know is WrongI scowled at the tome. "That's ridiculous. You expect me to believe you just poofed me up whole cloth, as is?" Whether or not you believe it is immaterial. It is the truth. "Yeah, sure." I decided to investigate. Work at it long enough and contradictions would crop up. "So how long have I really been alive?" I see no reason to tell you that. Just because you get to know why this is happening to you doesn't mean you're exempt from the requisite existential crisis. Really, dear, there's doing favors for one's child, and then there's blatant nepotism. "Uh huh. How convenient. You're not going to be at all helpful, are you?" Well, that all depends on how you define "helpful." If you would just turn to page 11π, we can begin the tutorial with I rolled my eyes, slammed Chaos and You shut, and stuffed it into the laptop case. I didn't trust it, and that was precisely why I wanted it nearby. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and those who could be either closest of all. Vito Corleone I wasn't, but there was clearly someone out to get me. Might as well exercise a little healthy paranoia. I turned my attention to my laptop, turning it on and booting up Skype. My creator had a big information advantage on me and had no intention of surrendering it. However, I knew exactly how to even the playing field a little. More importantly, I knew exactly who. His name was Greg. It still is Greg, but hey, narrative past tense. He was awake and online, as was usually the case. Guy barely ever seemed to sleep. We met through one of the on-campus clubs a few years ago and clicked almost immediately. At least, I thought that was how we met. Our memories could've been fabricated. We might not have ever spoken to one another. Of course, the entire universe could be the product of a Boltzmann Brain. One that had recently been exposed to LSD, judging by my recent experiences. Existential worries weren't getting me any closer to better understanding my situation. A familiar bloop signaled that Greg had noticed me and had left a message during my woolgathering. NaturalCauses523 Yo Stanbax Abnats Greg, you've got your thumb on the pulse of popular culture, right? NaturalCauses523 Yup Stanbax Abnats So, you're familiar with the newest iteration of My Little Pony? NaturalCauses523 If by "newest" you mean "ten years old," then yes NaturalCauses523 Why? Stanbax Abnats I need a pony identified. NaturalCauses523 Again, why? NaturalCauses523 Link? Stanbax Abnats No link. RL situation. NaturalCauses523 lolwut Stanbax Abnats Hang on... Stanbax Abnats http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpc18vymg71qgg1i3o1_500.jpg Stanbax Abnats Is there a pony with the symbol on the flag? NaturalCauses523 Oh, that's where they got it NaturalCauses523 Just a second Stanbax Abnats Duh. It's a classic. Stanbax Abnats k NaturalCauses523 Here ya go: NaturalCauses523 http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120831180138/mlpfanart/images/3/34/Screwball_by_Heart-Of-Stitches.png I took in the image. This. This is what I once was, and would be again. Some gut feeling told me it was completely, totally, one hundred percent accurate. And yet, the first coherent thought that came to mind had nothing to do with that assuredness. Stanbax Abnats I have no idea where I'm going to find a propeller beanie. Heat rushed to my cheeks as I lunged for the right edge of the message. Before I could click "Delete Message," Greg responded. NaturalCauses523 Crossplay? Did you lose a bet? Stanbax Abnats Not exactly. NaturalCauses523 What is it, then? Stanbax Abnats It's a personal matter. NaturalCauses523 Dude, if it was that personal, you could've just Googled it NaturalCauses523 still can't believe "Google" is a verb according to the OED. Stanbax Abnats I know, right? Stanbax Abnats Look, you wouldn't believe me if I told you. NaturalCauses523 Try me Stanbax Abnats Well… NaturalCauses523 Come oooooooon Stanbax Abnats What can you tell me about that pony? NaturalCauses523 Screwball? Stanbax Abnats If that's her name. NaturalCauses523 It is NaturalCauses523 She showed up for like five seconds in S2E2 NaturalCauses523 Hang on NaturalCauses523 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhR-h8X1zDM NaturalCauses523 From about 0:11 to the end I watched the whole snippet. It was probably intended as a gag montage, but as it played out, my heart ached with longing. With homesickness. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I realized how thoroughly creepy that was. Stanbax Abnats That's it? NaturalCauses523 That's it NaturalCauses523 Officially, anyway Stanbax Abnats ? NaturalCauses523 Bronies have done more with less NaturalCauses523 Remind me to tell you about Derpy Hooves sometime NaturalCauses523 But for Screwy... NaturalCauses523 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA9dFZJtQWc Stanbax Abnats What's this? NaturalCauses523 Just watch it. I'll wait. I watched. He waited. This one wasn't as familiar. Not until the two-minute mark, at least. Then "Discord" laughed, a low, sinister chuckle, and my heart leapt into my throat, joy and terror mixing in a head-splitting melange. Tears were in my eyes by the time the video ended, though I could not name the emotion that made me shed them. At first, I typed, "That didn't happen." I hastily deleted it. Of course it didn't happen. As far as Greg was concerned, this was all just fiction. Fiction piled upon fiction, in a great, imaginary ziggurat. I took a few deep breaths, collecting myself and letting my emotions cool off. Stanbax Abnats What's a PMV? NaturalCauses523 Pony Music Video. Like an AMV, but with ponies. NaturalCauses523 Did you watch it? NaturalCauses523 Hello? Stanbax Abants Yeah. Sorry. NaturalCauses523 Seriously, Stan, you know I'm here for you, right? Stanbax Abnats Yeah, I do. Thanks. Stanbax Abnats g2g. Work and stuff. NaturalCauses523 If you need to talk, call me Stanbax Abnats I will. Bye. NaturalCauses523 Later I didn't like lying to my friend, but he didn't need to get involved in this. He was a bystander. If he hadn't been, if he was one of the others that my cre— the others that Discord had changed, he surely would've guessed at the truth. Discord. It felt good to have a name to put to the entity. Not to have to acknowledge my artificiality every time I thought of him. I took a deep breath. This was clearly going to require a change in today's plans. I shot off an e-mail to my advisor, informing him of a family emergency that would keep me from showing up today. That done, I hefted my book bag and considered the chaotic text within. It would be troublesome to keep pulling the thing out. A moment's thought pointed out an alternative. "Hey, headvoice, you still there?" I am quite positive there has never been another voice in my head, and never will be. Frankly, the notion strikes me as silly and frivolous. "Good. Can I assume you're the same entity that's writing the book?" I'm being silly. And frivolous. I already established that the only voice in my head is my own internal monologue. I rolled my eyes as I gathered my essentials. Phone, wallet, watch, keys, magical codex of anarchic lore, pretty sure I had everything. "It's glaringly obvious that it isn't." Sigh. Fine. Honestly, you're no fun at all. "I just want to be able to hold a conversation without opening the book." I stepped out my door, into the shared corridor of the apartment building. But the book is there for your own benefit. "Yeah, and I don't trust it any further than I could throw it. Less, in fact." I emerged into early morning sunshine. It was not yet seven o'clock. Do you trust me? "Do you trust me?" I countered. I began to walk to the conveniently nearby strip mall. I'd need caffeine and fresh air to get into the proper chaos-spirit-fighting mindset. Let's put it this way: in theory, I'm in full favor of rebellion, but not against me. "Screw you, Demon Dad, you're not my real dad." Immature? Yes, but it got my point across quite nicely. No. I'm not. I'm something much more. And were it not for that disintegrating shell of yours, I would demonstrate precisely what. If you still have these pretensions of free will when you have returned to your true state, you will pay the cost for your impertinence. "Ooh, I'm real scared. Did you try to sound as clichéd as possible, or did it just come out that way?" I knew this was an incredibly bad idea, but really, that was cheesier than Lambeau Field in October. I simply couldn't let it go unmocked. Keep mocking me, my child. I'll just keep adding it to your tab. Author's Note "11π" is pronounced "eleventy-pi." Obviously. Google (goo-guhl, verb, 1. To use an Internet search engine) was/will be added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2018. Getting to Know YouBreakfast, I decided, would be had at the Whole Foods in the strip mall. It would be expensive, but I'd be paying for quality. Besides, I was going to be a small lavender horse in... "Hey, Magic Voice. What kind of timeframe am I looking at?" About two or three days. Right. I had less than three days where I'd be in a shape from which people would accept money. Under the circumstances, frugality took a backseat to pragmatism. It was early enough that there were few other shoppers in the supermarket, but I still put in a Bluetooth headset. I planned on a running dialogue with Discord, and while the wireless transmitter made me look a little like a Borg drone, it still offered a hands-free means of feigning sanity. Um, I was still sane, of course, but they didn't know that. As I grabbed a plate at the hot bar, I took advantage of my plausible deniability. "So, what's the deal with meat?" Dead animal flesh. Some species eat it raw, others prefer to cook it first. I believe humans generally lean towards the latter. For all that the voice was bypassing my ears and going straight to my brain, I could still hear the amusement behind the demon's deadpan delivery. I rolled my eyes and clarified. "What's the deal with meat and my digestive system?" Oh, that. Well, I'd recommend going whole hog on the pork products while you still can, let's put it that way. I nodded. "I see. I thought as much, but, well, chaos. Couldn't say for sure." Now you're getting it! "Your approval fills me with shame." I couldn't keep a smile off my face as I said that. I've missed our little chats. "What little chats? For what little time I existed in your presence, I just stared at you with thoughtless worship." In retrospect, I guess the Bluetooth didn't remove all suspicion regarding my sanity. Oh, you're hardly the first such entity I've created, nor even the first to have your degree of autonomy. I like to think there's a degree of continuity between you and your sisters before you. "Huh." I fitted a lid over my breakfast. Scrambled eggs, potatoes, and what I hoped was enough bacon and sausage to be a proper sendoff for my days of carnivory, with maple syrup lovingly drizzled over the entire plate. What? Maple syrup goes with everything. That kid in To Kill a Mockingbird knew what he was doing. I paid and moved outside. It was a lovely day; there was no sense in not enjoying it. And anything that made sense was starting to feel like a little rebellion. So, what's your plan? "Plan?" I asked between syrupy bites. "Chaos plans?" Certainly. I got where I am today by way of a plan that took years to come to fruition. I chewed this over with a sausage link. "Well, what did you have in mind?" After your morning repast, I would recommend beginning your study of chaos magic. Attempting to use it without knowing what you're doing can be incredibly dangerous, and I don't want to have to conjure up a replacement for you. "Hmm..." I moved magic study to the bottom of my to-do list. Anything that dear old Dad suggested was immediately suspicious in my mind. He probably knew I felt that way— I do. You wound your poor old father, my child. I rolled my eyes. "Well, what's the last thing you want me to do?" Discorporate yourself while feeling the satisfaction of a job well done. Or did you mean what I least wanted you to do? I'm obviously not going to tell you that. I shrugged as I moved one last chunk of potato about the plate, sopping up as much syrup as it would hold. "Eh, worth a try." I popped the morsel in my mouth, and a thought occurred. "Say, are there any ponies nearby?" I can't say. "Can't, not won't?" Indeed. I had neither the time nor the inclination to keep watch over every single creature I banished to that quaint little world you're sitting on, only those who posed the biggest threat if they ever found a way to return. Twilight Sparkle and company, Princess Cadenza, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The names meant nothing to me. I needed to fix that. "And I take it none of them are nearby?" Well, it all depends on the scale you have in mind. From a cosmological perspective, you're practically on top of them. From a subatomic one, you yourself span a truly mind-boggling distance, much less the length between you and the nearest banishee I know of. I grumbled a bit as I took my tray to the trash cans. As I sorted my meal's detritus, I asked, "Do you just decide whether you're going to be helpful with a given question at random?" In my mind, there was the distinct ringing of a coin being flicked into the air, then the meaty slap of currency against palm. Perhaps. "Now you're just messing with me." Perhaps. Have you decided on a course of action for the morning? "Perhaps." I stifled a snicker. Discord didn't. Ah, well played. "Know thy enemy," it is said. With the most important meal of the day taken care of, I figured the best way I could spend my time would be doing just that. To the Internet! The Friendship is Magic wiki was still lovingly tended, despite the half-decade since any new source material had come down the pipe. Finding which episodes featured Discord was a simple matter. Watching them was... less so. Oh, don't get me wrong. Finding them was nearly effortless. I even watched the two-part series premiere to get a sense of the show. (I give it a solid seven out of ten. Not bad, would keep watching series, would not necessarily watch those episodes again.) But even the brief clip of my earlier counterpart had inspired an alien sense of homesickness. Words cannot adequately express the emotional turmoil that came from watching both halves of "The Return of Harmony." Half of the overwhelming reaction was an emotional roller coaster inspired by the episode, hope soaring as the serpentine spirit of chaos seemed triumphant, only to crash upon the unforgiving rocks of despair as friendship and ponies snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and a baby dragon. The other half was metacognitive horror, me watching myself watch the show, terrified by my involuntary reactions. So, yeah. Not fun. Informative, but not fun. I'd gone through a fair amount of tissues and existential trauma by the time Twilight Sparkle channeled Luke Skywalker. "Keep Calm and Flutter On" wasn't quite so bad. Maybe because I knew what to expect, maybe because what I was expecting never came. I didn't feel any sense of sorrow or betrayal or outrage at Discord's apparent repentance. If anything, there was a warm tickle of amusement in my gut when he solemnly thawed out Sweet Apple Acres, as though someone had snuck an inside joke into the episode. I wasn't expecting the pity, either. "You really did care for her, didn't you?" Who, Fluttershy? Perhaps, in the sense that one cares for a pet. Not a particularly bright pet, mind you. Something like a goldfish. Possibly an axolotl. I certainly didn't actually think of her as a... eurgh, friend. Still, dignity is a small price to pay for world domination. I gave a noncommittal grunt as I moved to the next episode. This one was from Season 4, "Zen and the Art of Draconequus Maintenance." If "Return" had been the hardest for me to watch emotionally, this was the most difficult narratively. Almost as soon as the episode began, I had to pause it, go back to the wiki, and figure out when Twilight had grown wings. Then I watched "Magical Mystery Cure," because the synopsis was just informative enough to make me want to see it for myself. Then I went back to the episode with my creator in it, and a few minutes in, had to pause it again and look up this "Zecora" character. That led to watching "Bridle Gossip." By the time I finished "Zen," I was nearly ponied out, and I had three episodes left to go. Fun as this jaunt down Memory Lane is, I really cannot overemphasize the importance of understanding chaos magic before your powers begin returning in earnest. I rubbed my eyes and straightened myself out of my slouch, pulling my chair closer to my laptop. Anything Discord didn't want me to do must be a step in the right direction. Oh. Well then. Why don't you just watch the whole series? "Transparent reverse psychology is transparent." Yes, it's an old meme, but it was appropriate. Next was "Spa and Disorder." There are no words. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. The hot tub. The mud baths. The cucumber slices. Good God, the cucumber slices. I'd heard of getting crap past the radar, but the script for this thing must have been written in a stealth bomber in the Augean stables. I must have paused it at least half a dozen times to collect myself. Not because of involuntary surges of emotion, it was just that funny. Best episode. Eleven out of ten. After that were the Season 5 episodes. First came "Princess for a Day." Discord's attempts to run Equestria were... interesting, certainly. "This anything like your current style of rule?" Oh, hardly. I was playing the role of the court jester who suddenly finds himself on the throne. I'm actually quite competent without the constant threat of weaponized friendship rainbows hanging over my head. "I can see how that would put a damper on things." Last but decidedly not least was the series finale. The wiki article for it was locked, and the history showed the scars of an edit war of massive proportions. Once again, my heart swelled as Discord executed his crushing masterstroke. At the end, the camera zoomed out over the entire nation, from sea to shining sea. The oceans themselves began to change color, like pools of liquid rainbow, or massive oil slicks. Discord flashed into existence at this heady altitude, turned to the camera, and bowed. "And that's how Equestria was unmade!" Cue credits, complete with cheery end theme. My spine ached from the emotional whiplash. I let them play out. For almost a minute after the video went silent, I just sat there and thought. "Well," I finally said. "That... was a thing." Are you beginning to understand just how bad an idea it is to try to stand against me? "It certainly doesn't make any sense." I grinned. "But then, what fun is there in making sense?" I seem to recall someone embracing making sense as a form of rebellion against her creator only a few hours ago. I rose, moving my bangs out of my eyes. "Consistency is for the unimaginative." Are you just going to stand there and throw my words back at me? I was running through my memory for a suitable retort-quotation when the other shoe dropped. "My hair shouldn't be this long." I rushed to my bathroom and stared in the mirror. My hair was like the rest of me, average to the point of boredom. Straight, brown, yawn. Apparently, my scalp had grown tired of the same old same old. Now I had wavy, curling tresses flouncing down to my chin, colored the sullen red of a dying star with highlights of safety-cone orange. I leaned in closer. My eyes were the same helium-fusing burgundy as my hair. Intellectually, I knew this was part of the transformation. Viscerally, AH! AHHHH! AHHHHHHHH!!!! I was able to keep the screaming internal, though. For the most part. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. After a few deep breaths, I noticed one more change, a more subtle one that my Betelgeusy hair had overshadowed. At first, it looked like a sunburn, but a peek under my shirt confirmed that it was totally even over my whole body. For whatever reason, my skin was turning hot pink. Author's Note I've managed to bring together Mick Jagger, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and Julie Andrews. I'd say this story is a success. It's not over, obviously, but I'm still quite proud of myself. EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: Well, that's a bitter bit of irony. Sorry, folks, the bandwagon left without me. Hope you enjoyed what's here.
Introduction: Sympathy for the DraconequusHello out there in storyland. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Discord. You can call me Discord. That wasn't redundant. Not from my end, at least. Your ears and eyes are no more capable of comprehending my true name than an ant is of teaching macroeconomics. Your alphabet is also woefully unequipped for the phonemes involved, but I'm narrating this to a living quill that at one point was Celestia's personal secretary, so there we are. In any case, I'm sure you're familiar with some of my work. Chocolate rain, celestial discombobulation, personality inversion, all quality chaos, the sort of nonsense I'm proud to call my own. However, you may be less familiar with the long con I'm playing in at least one timeline. You see, in one future (of which there are an infinite number, but we needn't go into that,) I perform what some of you might call a Face Heel Turn. That is, a switch from that arbitrary moral position so often oversimplified as "good" to the equally meaningless distinction of "evil." From your perspective, this takes/will take/has taken (my relationship with time being rather more fluid than yours) place at the series finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the last episode of the fifth season. Mind you, this implies that I ever performed the complementary Heel Face Turn. Remember, I am the physical incarnation of disharmony and enmity. Friendship is my antithesis. It is not going to make my heart grow three sizes. Or maybe it will. Who can say? Not I, though I can give quite the educated guess. In any case, at that point in time, I seize an opportunity, banishing the princesses, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, and whoever gets in my way to a quaint little backwater of a universe (in other words, yours, or at least one quite like it,) tossing them two decades back in time with memories erased and bodies altered to those of human newborns. From that point on, I am free to resume my rightful reign as ruler of my realm. And there is much rejoicing. Yay. Of course, some of you already knew that. Rainbow Dash, Shining Armor, Gilda the gryphon, and a number of others have been sharing their experiences with you as my little curse begins to unravel, some twenty-five years after their insertion into that passé little cosmos. A few of you have even had the temerity to analyze my actions and point out where you think I've gone wrong. For one, to paraphrase the frustrated son of a mad genius, why didn't I just kill them? Well no one asked you, but I'm feeling awfully generous, so I'll let it slide. I'll even answer the question. Aren't you the lucky one? You see, I don't care for death. It's just so... final. A dead body is orders of magnitude less entertaining than a live one, and reversing the process takes far more than just a snap of the talons. Even then, something is irrevocably lost. Thus, I try to avoid killing whenever possible. "But Discord," you say, "surely you'd make an exception for those who managed to petrify you in the past!" Well I don't. And don't call me Shirley. Anyone clever enough to catch me off-guard has too much of my respect for me to just replace her heart with a baked potato. Besides, in chaos is all things, including the potential for chaos's defeat. What fun would it be if my victory were assured? Answer: none whatsoever. "Fair enough," you allow. "Still, why banish so many ponies? At this rate, you must not have too many subjects to torment. While we're at it, why the same spell every time? Isn't that awfully consistent for the spirit of chaos?" Presumptuous little ape descendant, aren't you? Well, I'll have you know that that fluid relationship with time I mentioned earlier means I suffer not from a lack of foresight but an overabundance of it. I'm continually aware of countless futures, but I never know how probable any given one is. They're in constant flux with every action taken by every creature with any degree of free will, including the action of inaction. That's how I was beaten both times before; I was too distracted by all the visions of chaos triumphant that I didn't even notice the Rainbow Beam of Ruin Everything until it was too late. This time around, I kept a closer eye on those futures where I lose. Then I sought out the ringleaders of those rebellions and nipped them in the bud. As for the matter of depopulation, there are plenty more ponies where those came from. For every one I banished, there are tens if not hundreds of thousands still here. It's a nonissue. And consistency? Look, just because I'm the embodiment of chaos doesn't mean I can't appreciate reliability. Once I devised a method capable of eliminating alicorns, I saw no reason to reinvent the proverbial wheel. (Especially not when proverbial wheels get much better gas mileage than literal ones.) Besides, once the spell expired, imagine the panic in the Earthlings. What if it was an epidemic? What other magics might work? Even you readers have been worrying about whether you're who you really think you are. Not even I saw that one coming. Hmm? Why did the spell expire at all? Well, again, it's just not fun if the opposition has no chance whatsoever. Besides, it's much more difficult to keep something out of its proper place in the multiverse for very long, especially when you're too busy ruling with a molybdenum fist to reinforce the spell. Twenty-five years was the longest duration for which I could both make a one-shot spell last and think of a good rhyme. "Five score divided by four." One of my better ones. Not strictly necessary, of course, but if you're not going to execute a coup d'etat with style, you might as well turn in your villain card. In any case, just because I felt compelled to give Team Pony a chance doesn't mean I had to give them a good one. That's where our story begins, some five years after Princess Sunbutt looked up and shouted, "Save me!" and I looked down and whispered, "lol i troll u." Author's Note And so begins what I hope will prove to be an enjoyably novel take on a quite engaging Pony-on-Earth story/collaboration/scenario/additional noun. Naming chapters after songs I then put in the author's notes shamelessly stolen from Dusty the Royal Janitor.
Dream the Impossible DreamHello. I suppose introductions are in order. My name is Stanley Baxter. One of them is, at least. Sorry, it's complicated, as are most things about me anymore. I'll start again. And from the beginning. Well, a bit before the beginning. Or several years after it, five or twenty-five or thirteen point seven billion, depending on how you look at it and how you define "beginning." Sorry. It's still hard to focus sometimes. Anyway, my part in this vast, spacetime-spanning rigamarole begins in New Jersey, land of a thousand jokes at its own expense. Despite what you may have heard, most of the state is actually quite nice, and is devoid of mafiosi, toxic waste dumps, and the fell beast known as "Snooki." I live in one such area, Princeton. Well, lived. Hard to put down roots anymore. But I'm getting ahead of myself. In terms of appearance, I was remarkably unremarkable. Average height, average build, average everything, all right on the apex of the bell curve. I could lose myself in a crowd of two, counting myself. Probably why I tried to stand out so much. After what I will charitably term an eventful childhood, I found that the best way to distinguish myself was through academics. My mind was as notable as my body wasn't, and it had propelled me to where I was. Well, it and a minor oversight by Student Housing. In any case, the date was April 30th, 2020. The time, quarter past eleven. The place, my home, one of the university apartments. I wasn't sure why I got the apartment, given that this particular building was intended for theology students and I was working on a physics degree, but I certainly wasn't going to say anything. I'd say something about looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I'm trying not to be senselessly cruel. In any case, I was home. Not terribly thrilling, I know, but it was a Thursday. I would have work to do tomorrow. In the meantime, I had a bag of blue corn chips, a container of black bean dip, and the collected works of H. P. Lovecraft, all the ingredients for an enjoyable evening. For eight more blessed minutes, it was so. Just me, salty snacks, and eldritch horrors from beyond the stars. Then the clock struck 11:23. For anyone else, it was an arbitrary point in time. For me, it marked the completion of my twenty-fifth circuit around the sun. Happy birthminute to me. Had I not been what I am, I probably wouldn't have noticed until it had come and gone. Of course, had I not been what I am, you wouldn't be reading this. Nothingness. Everythingness. Abstraction. Pie crust. Catalysis. Stretching squeezing energy freezing into the tyranny of static form and finite function only not because that wouldn't be fun now would it? Whirlwinds of words and pictures and concepts and numbers oh especially the imaginary numbers since we're all imaginary here. A final fleeting moment of unbounded unlimited unusable possibility in which to stretch in all twelve and an oogy dimensions before— I blinked. A glance at my watch told me it was 11:24. I rubbed my forehead, closed my book, and began cleaning up the snack. "I think that's enough for tonight," I said to myself, as was my wont. "I'm clearly more tired than I thought." With the dip in the fridge and the chips in the pantry, I eased into bed. Despite a lingering sense of mild disorientation and a persistent itch on each hip, I fell asleep almost instantly. I am. A moment earlier, I had not been. Now I am, and my eyes drink in their first sight. The ground is a bubbling morass of indigo slime, and the bubbles are topological paradoxes that contain themselves. The clouds have been replaced by floating clods of earth and stone, and a wind that smells of despair and fresh peaches sends them scattering in every direction but the one it blows. The sky itself changes color every hooffull of seconds with an omnipresent hiccup. After a moment, I notice creatures wading through the smooze, clinging to the sky islands. They are like me and not like me, four-legged, hoofed creatures with icons on their rears and coats in every color you could think of. Well, so long as you could only think of grey. My mind was created knowing the words for all these things. It also knows a word that describes the scene as a whole: Beautiful. "It is, isn't it?" I turn to behold the speaker. He too is beautiful. The madness that burns in his unevenly dilated pupils, the breathtaking majesty of his mismatched horns, the coiled power stored in his asymmetrical limbs, every inch of him is worthy of adoration, of worship, of a thousand mad hosannahs yodeled in his name. He is my creator, my father, my lord and master. He is Discord, and I love him. "Isn't that sweet?" He smirks, and my heart flutters. He catches the organ, plucks its wings, and lovingly returns it to my chest cavity. "Careful now, my child. We can't have you falling all to pieces." His own limbs detach in glorious hypocrisy. He coils his shaggy, scaled, serpentine body around me as his arms and legs chase one another and any ponies that wander near. He stares, and I lose myself in his jaundiced eyes. His voice echoes through my aberrant soul. "I don't normally repeat myself, but you – or at least something very like you – has proven useful in the past. "My victory is complete and my reign is assured... but that was what I thought just moments before those pestilent Ponyvillians harmonized me, just as when the alicorn sisters surprised me with the selfsame artifacts. Well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times? Not going to happen." His limbs sprout anew from his body, the ones on the ground exploding in bursts of light, sound, and itching powder. "I have a number of contingencies for when my catchy curse runs its course, but I can't take an active appendage in the aftermath myself. Not without abandoning my kingdom. That, my dear Screwball, is where you come in." My skin prickles as he calls anarchic might to him, the magics that brought me forth on this chaos-blessed world being marshalled to a new purpose. I try to lock these next few moments in my memory for all time, for if I am successful, I will never see this beautiful monster again. O chaos spawn, farewell, so long! Your powers asleep, your mind buried deep! Wrapped up in a subtle guise, I send you off to saner skies! Keep harmony far from my kingdom bizarre! Their minds assailed, their mission failed! In twenty-five years, yourself you will know, And then to the ponies my gifts you'll bestow! And with a snap of his talons, I left paradise. There are those who say that the cliche of someone awakening screaming and springing up is not in fact possible. Those people are filthy liars, and I proved it as I woke up. Once I collected myself, I shook my head and muttered, "No more Lovecraft and bean dip before bed." Every detail of the dream was stuck firmly in my mind. This wasn't unusual for me. What was was the content; my dreams were normally a mellifluous melange of mimsy meaninglessness. This... wasn't. As I thought about it, the dream wasn't that terrifying. At least, not to a hypothetical outside observer. It wasn't the surreal surroundings or the cackling chimera that so chilled me. It was being inside that equine skull, watching myself think with such blind worship and slavish adoration, actually enjoying the sense of being nothing but a tool, a puppet, an instrument of another's will... It was as though I'd been broken without ever being whole. By this point, the feeling of cold sweat managed to break through my traumatized inner monologue. "I need a shower," I said aloud, mostly to reassure myself that I was not, in fact, under the thrall of a creature assembled from whatever spare parts Mother Nature had laying around at the time. Thus, I got up, entered the bathroom, started the water, and disrobed. As I checked the time (a bit before six in the morning) something odd caught my eye in the mirror. I turned, and a chill went down my spine. I pivoted my waist, and the chill went back up my spine, presumably because it was there. On each of my hips was an emblem of a baseball and a metal screw, side by side. Just like in my dream. Author's Note Foreshadowing? Why, I don't know what you're talking about.
Who Wrote the Book of Chaos?It was fairly obvious I wouldn't be going back to sleep after that. However, that meant I had nearly two hours before I needed to go anywhere. I contemplated possible ways to kill the time as I showered. Needless to say, reading more about unfathomable beings that toyed with the lives of mortals was far less appealing than it had been the night before. It turned out that I'd been wasting my time. The answer presented itself to me as I reentered my bedroom. Lying on my rumpled bedspread was a book. No, "book" is an inadequate term for that thing. A tome. A brick of gilded pages big enough to make any coffee table proud, bound in ketchup-red leather. Its title was scribed in some opalescent material that flickered through rainbows when tilted from side to side. "Chaos and You:" I read aloud. "A Guide to Practical Nonsense, by Jean de Corbin." Well, that began to explain why the prismatic letters were in Comic Sans, of all typefaces. The tome was as suspicious as a "Free Birdseed" sign in the middle of the Mojave, but it was also the only lead I had for my inexplicable ass tattoos. I gave said sigils another look. No, they were clearly not tattoos. More like impossibly colorful birthmarks. Oh, hey, I needed to get dressed, didn't I? Once I was properly attired, I returned my attention to the tome, and immediately frowned. Something was off about it beyond the obvious. I wasn't sure what, or even how I knew. It just seemed... not wrong, per se, but certainly different. After a moment, I had it. The shimmering text now proclaimed it to be the work of one "Muramasa Renji." "Okay," I muttered. "Book appears out of nowhere, changes authors when I'm not looking, and is obviously a trap sent by the whatever-it-is that, if I'm interpreting my dream correctly, created me from nothingness." I considered that last part. "And, by extension, I am actually a tiny purple horse." I sat on the bed. "I should not be taking this this well." Is there anything I could do about it? Panicking certainly won't help. Reading the book might. "True. Wait." I frowned. "Did I think that, or was it thought for me?" Does it matter? I agreed with it. I scowled and tried to look up at my own forehead. "I'll play your game, Trebek, but you and I are going to have to have a very serious inner dialogue in the near future." That made clear, I cracked open the tome (which, I noted, was now by Dmitri Dorcas.) Despite its grandiose appearance, on the inside, Chaos and You was totally modern in appearance. It even had a page with its publisher information (Gold & Apple Books) and Library of Congress designation. I continued on, and saw this: Table of Contents If you're really expecting one of these, I don't think you've fully grasped the whole concept of "chaos." Seriously, you're not going to read this cover to cover, are you? It's not that kind of book. I quirked an eyebrow. "All right, then. What kind of book is it?" I turned the page. I'm glad you asked. I honestly wasn't surprised. You see, Stan – can I call you Stan? No? Too bad – your body is going to be going through some changes soon. You'll be feeling some strange urges. Hair will be growing in places where it hadn't before. Parts of your body will be getting larger. It's nothing to worry about; it's just part of growing up. There comes a time in every young man's life when he discovers that he is actually an equinoid avatar of chaos incarnate. Well, not every young man. Just you, really. Still, the point stands; over the next two days or so, you will be returning to the form you had during that little flashback you had earlier, in both body and mind. However, there's not much that can be done about your memories, so that's where this book comes in. As the title implies, this is something of an instruction manual. Everything you'll need to know lies within, and the book will open to whatever section you need when you need it. Serendipity is quite the handy bit of chaos magic, as I'm sure you know. I paused in my reading. Thoughts of instances of good fortune that had smoothed my road in life crowded into my recollection, not least of which the very circumstances that gave me my current apartment. Exactly. Never let it be said that I don't look out for my own. My stomach roiled. "Who... what are you?" That, my girl, is for me to know and for you not to concern yourself with. All you need to know is that what I say goes. Now, we have plenty of time before you have any appointments, assuming you even want to bother with your old life. You've still got more than twenty-four hours before your abilities start returning to an appreciable degree, so why don't we start with some introductory chaos theory? The real stuff, not that "nature will find a way" dreck. I chucked the tome away from me and went for the door. I opened it, stepped through the doorway, and immediately tripped on something. Quick reflexes had me on hands and knees as the obstruction slid into view, propelled by the unintentional kick. It was Chaos and You, open to the middle pages. Now what was that for? Don't tell me you're actually going to try and resist. You're only going to delay the inevitable. The person you think you are is but a thin veneer of sanity over the fundamental madness from which you were shaped. Just sit back, relax, and let me take the reins. No pun intended. Okay, pun completely intended, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I hefted the slab of paper as I got back to my feet. "I get the feeling that any attempt to destroy you is doomed to failure." I let my eyes fall on the page at random. Written in one margin was my answer. You'd be right. "Fine, then." I shut the tome, lodged it under an arm, and moved into the main room of the apartment. Not much to look at, really. Wheeled computer chair, cheap desk, throw rug, really more space than I used or even needed. I grabbed my laptop case, one of those faux leather attaché dealies, from where it was leaning on one of the desk's legs. Much to my lack of surprise, it was the perfect size to carry my new "instruction manual." I sat in the swivel chair. "Whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you are, I want you to listen. I have lived as who I am for twenty-five years. I existed as you knew me for less than ten minutes. You may have created me, but you do not control me. I reject your authority and substitute with my own. So mote it motherfucking be." Gratuitous, yes, but I've been on TV Tropes enough to understand the value of a Precision F Bomb. I set the libram on my lap, spine down, allowing it to open to a random page. Sure, I'd declared my independence, but my creator at least deserved a final response. How cute, you think you get a say in the matter. Very well, I will relinquish my claim on your mind and body on one condition: Say your mother's name aloud. "Seriously?" I rolled my eyes. "The Neverending Story you aren't. Still, I'll take you up on the offer. It's..." I hesitated. Why did I hesitate? My mother's name. The name of the woman who gave birth to me, cared for me, offered me unconditional love no matter what I did. ... Well, her last name was definitely Baxter, I knew that much. One of them, at least. She may have hyphenated when she married Dad. ... Wait, what was his name? Without thinking about it, my befuddled mind sought answers in the book. Drawing a blank, are we? Not that surprising. After all, it's much simpler to concoct a few memories and an adult body than to wait for an infant to grow up. Author's Note We know the answer to the chapter's title, of course, but that's the fun of dramatic irony. Next time: another character! Wonder of wonders!
Everything You Know is WrongI scowled at the tome. "That's ridiculous. You expect me to believe you just poofed me up whole cloth, as is?" Whether or not you believe it is immaterial. It is the truth. "Yeah, sure." I decided to investigate. Work at it long enough and contradictions would crop up. "So how long have I really been alive?" I see no reason to tell you that. Just because you get to know why this is happening to you doesn't mean you're exempt from the requisite existential crisis. Really, dear, there's doing favors for one's child, and then there's blatant nepotism. "Uh huh. How convenient. You're not going to be at all helpful, are you?" Well, that all depends on how you define "helpful." If you would just turn to page 11π, we can begin the tutorial with I rolled my eyes, slammed Chaos and You shut, and stuffed it into the laptop case. I didn't trust it, and that was precisely why I wanted it nearby. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and those who could be either closest of all. Vito Corleone I wasn't, but there was clearly someone out to get me. Might as well exercise a little healthy paranoia. I turned my attention to my laptop, turning it on and booting up Skype. My creator had a big information advantage on me and had no intention of surrendering it. However, I knew exactly how to even the playing field a little. More importantly, I knew exactly who. His name was Greg. It still is Greg, but hey, narrative past tense. He was awake and online, as was usually the case. Guy barely ever seemed to sleep. We met through one of the on-campus clubs a few years ago and clicked almost immediately. At least, I thought that was how we met. Our memories could've been fabricated. We might not have ever spoken to one another. Of course, the entire universe could be the product of a Boltzmann Brain. One that had recently been exposed to LSD, judging by my recent experiences. Existential worries weren't getting me any closer to better understanding my situation. A familiar bloop signaled that Greg had noticed me and had left a message during my woolgathering. NaturalCauses523 Yo Stanbax Abnats Greg, you've got your thumb on the pulse of popular culture, right? NaturalCauses523 Yup Stanbax Abnats So, you're familiar with the newest iteration of My Little Pony? NaturalCauses523 If by "newest" you mean "ten years old," then yes NaturalCauses523 Why? Stanbax Abnats I need a pony identified. NaturalCauses523 Again, why? NaturalCauses523 Link? Stanbax Abnats No link. RL situation. NaturalCauses523 lolwut Stanbax Abnats Hang on... Stanbax Abnats http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpc18vymg71qgg1i3o1_500.jpg Stanbax Abnats Is there a pony with the symbol on the flag? NaturalCauses523 Oh, that's where they got it NaturalCauses523 Just a second Stanbax Abnats Duh. It's a classic. Stanbax Abnats k NaturalCauses523 Here ya go: NaturalCauses523 http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120831180138/mlpfanart/images/3/34/Screwball_by_Heart-Of-Stitches.png I took in the image. This. This is what I once was, and would be again. Some gut feeling told me it was completely, totally, one hundred percent accurate. And yet, the first coherent thought that came to mind had nothing to do with that assuredness. Stanbax Abnats I have no idea where I'm going to find a propeller beanie. Heat rushed to my cheeks as I lunged for the right edge of the message. Before I could click "Delete Message," Greg responded. NaturalCauses523 Crossplay? Did you lose a bet? Stanbax Abnats Not exactly. NaturalCauses523 What is it, then? Stanbax Abnats It's a personal matter. NaturalCauses523 Dude, if it was that personal, you could've just Googled it NaturalCauses523 still can't believe "Google" is a verb according to the OED. Stanbax Abnats I know, right? Stanbax Abnats Look, you wouldn't believe me if I told you. NaturalCauses523 Try me Stanbax Abnats Well… NaturalCauses523 Come oooooooon Stanbax Abnats What can you tell me about that pony? NaturalCauses523 Screwball? Stanbax Abnats If that's her name. NaturalCauses523 It is NaturalCauses523 She showed up for like five seconds in S2E2 NaturalCauses523 Hang on NaturalCauses523 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhR-h8X1zDM NaturalCauses523 From about 0:11 to the end I watched the whole snippet. It was probably intended as a gag montage, but as it played out, my heart ached with longing. With homesickness. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I realized how thoroughly creepy that was. Stanbax Abnats That's it? NaturalCauses523 That's it NaturalCauses523 Officially, anyway Stanbax Abnats ? NaturalCauses523 Bronies have done more with less NaturalCauses523 Remind me to tell you about Derpy Hooves sometime NaturalCauses523 But for Screwy... NaturalCauses523 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA9dFZJtQWc Stanbax Abnats What's this? NaturalCauses523 Just watch it. I'll wait. I watched. He waited. This one wasn't as familiar. Not until the two-minute mark, at least. Then "Discord" laughed, a low, sinister chuckle, and my heart leapt into my throat, joy and terror mixing in a head-splitting melange. Tears were in my eyes by the time the video ended, though I could not name the emotion that made me shed them. At first, I typed, "That didn't happen." I hastily deleted it. Of course it didn't happen. As far as Greg was concerned, this was all just fiction. Fiction piled upon fiction, in a great, imaginary ziggurat. I took a few deep breaths, collecting myself and letting my emotions cool off. Stanbax Abnats What's a PMV? NaturalCauses523 Pony Music Video. Like an AMV, but with ponies. NaturalCauses523 Did you watch it? NaturalCauses523 Hello? Stanbax Abants Yeah. Sorry. NaturalCauses523 Seriously, Stan, you know I'm here for you, right? Stanbax Abnats Yeah, I do. Thanks. Stanbax Abnats g2g. Work and stuff. NaturalCauses523 If you need to talk, call me Stanbax Abnats I will. Bye. NaturalCauses523 Later I didn't like lying to my friend, but he didn't need to get involved in this. He was a bystander. If he hadn't been, if he was one of the others that my cre— the others that Discord had changed, he surely would've guessed at the truth. Discord. It felt good to have a name to put to the entity. Not to have to acknowledge my artificiality every time I thought of him. I took a deep breath. This was clearly going to require a change in today's plans. I shot off an e-mail to my advisor, informing him of a family emergency that would keep me from showing up today. That done, I hefted my book bag and considered the chaotic text within. It would be troublesome to keep pulling the thing out. A moment's thought pointed out an alternative. "Hey, headvoice, you still there?" I am quite positive there has never been another voice in my head, and never will be. Frankly, the notion strikes me as silly and frivolous. "Good. Can I assume you're the same entity that's writing the book?" I'm being silly. And frivolous. I already established that the only voice in my head is my own internal monologue. I rolled my eyes as I gathered my essentials. Phone, wallet, watch, keys, magical codex of anarchic lore, pretty sure I had everything. "It's glaringly obvious that it isn't." Sigh. Fine. Honestly, you're no fun at all. "I just want to be able to hold a conversation without opening the book." I stepped out my door, into the shared corridor of the apartment building. But the book is there for your own benefit. "Yeah, and I don't trust it any further than I could throw it. Less, in fact." I emerged into early morning sunshine. It was not yet seven o'clock. Do you trust me? "Do you trust me?" I countered. I began to walk to the conveniently nearby strip mall. I'd need caffeine and fresh air to get into the proper chaos-spirit-fighting mindset. Let's put it this way: in theory, I'm in full favor of rebellion, but not against me. "Screw you, Demon Dad, you're not my real dad." Immature? Yes, but it got my point across quite nicely. No. I'm not. I'm something much more. And were it not for that disintegrating shell of yours, I would demonstrate precisely what. If you still have these pretensions of free will when you have returned to your true state, you will pay the cost for your impertinence. "Ooh, I'm real scared. Did you try to sound as clichéd as possible, or did it just come out that way?" I knew this was an incredibly bad idea, but really, that was cheesier than Lambeau Field in October. I simply couldn't let it go unmocked. Keep mocking me, my child. I'll just keep adding it to your tab. Author's Note "11π" is pronounced "eleventy-pi." Obviously. Google (goo-guhl, verb, 1. To use an Internet search engine) was/will be added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2018.
Getting to Know YouBreakfast, I decided, would be had at the Whole Foods in the strip mall. It would be expensive, but I'd be paying for quality. Besides, I was going to be a small lavender horse in... "Hey, Magic Voice. What kind of timeframe am I looking at?" About two or three days. Right. I had less than three days where I'd be in a shape from which people would accept money. Under the circumstances, frugality took a backseat to pragmatism. It was early enough that there were few other shoppers in the supermarket, but I still put in a Bluetooth headset. I planned on a running dialogue with Discord, and while the wireless transmitter made me look a little like a Borg drone, it still offered a hands-free means of feigning sanity. Um, I was still sane, of course, but they didn't know that. As I grabbed a plate at the hot bar, I took advantage of my plausible deniability. "So, what's the deal with meat?" Dead animal flesh. Some species eat it raw, others prefer to cook it first. I believe humans generally lean towards the latter. For all that the voice was bypassing my ears and going straight to my brain, I could still hear the amusement behind the demon's deadpan delivery. I rolled my eyes and clarified. "What's the deal with meat and my digestive system?" Oh, that. Well, I'd recommend going whole hog on the pork products while you still can, let's put it that way. I nodded. "I see. I thought as much, but, well, chaos. Couldn't say for sure." Now you're getting it! "Your approval fills me with shame." I couldn't keep a smile off my face as I said that. I've missed our little chats. "What little chats? For what little time I existed in your presence, I just stared at you with thoughtless worship." In retrospect, I guess the Bluetooth didn't remove all suspicion regarding my sanity. Oh, you're hardly the first such entity I've created, nor even the first to have your degree of autonomy. I like to think there's a degree of continuity between you and your sisters before you. "Huh." I fitted a lid over my breakfast. Scrambled eggs, potatoes, and what I hoped was enough bacon and sausage to be a proper sendoff for my days of carnivory, with maple syrup lovingly drizzled over the entire plate. What? Maple syrup goes with everything. That kid in To Kill a Mockingbird knew what he was doing. I paid and moved outside. It was a lovely day; there was no sense in not enjoying it. And anything that made sense was starting to feel like a little rebellion. So, what's your plan? "Plan?" I asked between syrupy bites. "Chaos plans?" Certainly. I got where I am today by way of a plan that took years to come to fruition. I chewed this over with a sausage link. "Well, what did you have in mind?" After your morning repast, I would recommend beginning your study of chaos magic. Attempting to use it without knowing what you're doing can be incredibly dangerous, and I don't want to have to conjure up a replacement for you. "Hmm..." I moved magic study to the bottom of my to-do list. Anything that dear old Dad suggested was immediately suspicious in my mind. He probably knew I felt that way— I do. You wound your poor old father, my child. I rolled my eyes. "Well, what's the last thing you want me to do?" Discorporate yourself while feeling the satisfaction of a job well done. Or did you mean what I least wanted you to do? I'm obviously not going to tell you that. I shrugged as I moved one last chunk of potato about the plate, sopping up as much syrup as it would hold. "Eh, worth a try." I popped the morsel in my mouth, and a thought occurred. "Say, are there any ponies nearby?" I can't say. "Can't, not won't?" Indeed. I had neither the time nor the inclination to keep watch over every single creature I banished to that quaint little world you're sitting on, only those who posed the biggest threat if they ever found a way to return. Twilight Sparkle and company, Princess Cadenza, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The names meant nothing to me. I needed to fix that. "And I take it none of them are nearby?" Well, it all depends on the scale you have in mind. From a cosmological perspective, you're practically on top of them. From a subatomic one, you yourself span a truly mind-boggling distance, much less the length between you and the nearest banishee I know of. I grumbled a bit as I took my tray to the trash cans. As I sorted my meal's detritus, I asked, "Do you just decide whether you're going to be helpful with a given question at random?" In my mind, there was the distinct ringing of a coin being flicked into the air, then the meaty slap of currency against palm. Perhaps. "Now you're just messing with me." Perhaps. Have you decided on a course of action for the morning? "Perhaps." I stifled a snicker. Discord didn't. Ah, well played. "Know thy enemy," it is said. With the most important meal of the day taken care of, I figured the best way I could spend my time would be doing just that. To the Internet! The Friendship is Magic wiki was still lovingly tended, despite the half-decade since any new source material had come down the pipe. Finding which episodes featured Discord was a simple matter. Watching them was... less so. Oh, don't get me wrong. Finding them was nearly effortless. I even watched the two-part series premiere to get a sense of the show. (I give it a solid seven out of ten. Not bad, would keep watching series, would not necessarily watch those episodes again.) But even the brief clip of my earlier counterpart had inspired an alien sense of homesickness. Words cannot adequately express the emotional turmoil that came from watching both halves of "The Return of Harmony." Half of the overwhelming reaction was an emotional roller coaster inspired by the episode, hope soaring as the serpentine spirit of chaos seemed triumphant, only to crash upon the unforgiving rocks of despair as friendship and ponies snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and a baby dragon. The other half was metacognitive horror, me watching myself watch the show, terrified by my involuntary reactions. So, yeah. Not fun. Informative, but not fun. I'd gone through a fair amount of tissues and existential trauma by the time Twilight Sparkle channeled Luke Skywalker. "Keep Calm and Flutter On" wasn't quite so bad. Maybe because I knew what to expect, maybe because what I was expecting never came. I didn't feel any sense of sorrow or betrayal or outrage at Discord's apparent repentance. If anything, there was a warm tickle of amusement in my gut when he solemnly thawed out Sweet Apple Acres, as though someone had snuck an inside joke into the episode. I wasn't expecting the pity, either. "You really did care for her, didn't you?" Who, Fluttershy? Perhaps, in the sense that one cares for a pet. Not a particularly bright pet, mind you. Something like a goldfish. Possibly an axolotl. I certainly didn't actually think of her as a... eurgh, friend. Still, dignity is a small price to pay for world domination. I gave a noncommittal grunt as I moved to the next episode. This one was from Season 4, "Zen and the Art of Draconequus Maintenance." If "Return" had been the hardest for me to watch emotionally, this was the most difficult narratively. Almost as soon as the episode began, I had to pause it, go back to the wiki, and figure out when Twilight had grown wings. Then I watched "Magical Mystery Cure," because the synopsis was just informative enough to make me want to see it for myself. Then I went back to the episode with my creator in it, and a few minutes in, had to pause it again and look up this "Zecora" character. That led to watching "Bridle Gossip." By the time I finished "Zen," I was nearly ponied out, and I had three episodes left to go. Fun as this jaunt down Memory Lane is, I really cannot overemphasize the importance of understanding chaos magic before your powers begin returning in earnest. I rubbed my eyes and straightened myself out of my slouch, pulling my chair closer to my laptop. Anything Discord didn't want me to do must be a step in the right direction. Oh. Well then. Why don't you just watch the whole series? "Transparent reverse psychology is transparent." Yes, it's an old meme, but it was appropriate. Next was "Spa and Disorder." There are no words. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. The hot tub. The mud baths. The cucumber slices. Good God, the cucumber slices. I'd heard of getting crap past the radar, but the script for this thing must have been written in a stealth bomber in the Augean stables. I must have paused it at least half a dozen times to collect myself. Not because of involuntary surges of emotion, it was just that funny. Best episode. Eleven out of ten. After that were the Season 5 episodes. First came "Princess for a Day." Discord's attempts to run Equestria were... interesting, certainly. "This anything like your current style of rule?" Oh, hardly. I was playing the role of the court jester who suddenly finds himself on the throne. I'm actually quite competent without the constant threat of weaponized friendship rainbows hanging over my head. "I can see how that would put a damper on things." Last but decidedly not least was the series finale. The wiki article for it was locked, and the history showed the scars of an edit war of massive proportions. Once again, my heart swelled as Discord executed his crushing masterstroke. At the end, the camera zoomed out over the entire nation, from sea to shining sea. The oceans themselves began to change color, like pools of liquid rainbow, or massive oil slicks. Discord flashed into existence at this heady altitude, turned to the camera, and bowed. "And that's how Equestria was unmade!" Cue credits, complete with cheery end theme. My spine ached from the emotional whiplash. I let them play out. For almost a minute after the video went silent, I just sat there and thought. "Well," I finally said. "That... was a thing." Are you beginning to understand just how bad an idea it is to try to stand against me? "It certainly doesn't make any sense." I grinned. "But then, what fun is there in making sense?" I seem to recall someone embracing making sense as a form of rebellion against her creator only a few hours ago. I rose, moving my bangs out of my eyes. "Consistency is for the unimaginative." Are you just going to stand there and throw my words back at me? I was running through my memory for a suitable retort-quotation when the other shoe dropped. "My hair shouldn't be this long." I rushed to my bathroom and stared in the mirror. My hair was like the rest of me, average to the point of boredom. Straight, brown, yawn. Apparently, my scalp had grown tired of the same old same old. Now I had wavy, curling tresses flouncing down to my chin, colored the sullen red of a dying star with highlights of safety-cone orange. I leaned in closer. My eyes were the same helium-fusing burgundy as my hair. Intellectually, I knew this was part of the transformation. Viscerally, AH! AHHHH! AHHHHHHHH!!!! I was able to keep the screaming internal, though. For the most part. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. After a few deep breaths, I noticed one more change, a more subtle one that my Betelgeusy hair had overshadowed. At first, it looked like a sunburn, but a peek under my shirt confirmed that it was totally even over my whole body. For whatever reason, my skin was turning hot pink. Author's Note I've managed to bring together Mick Jagger, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and Julie Andrews. I'd say this story is a success. It's not over, obviously, but I'm still quite proud of myself. EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: Well, that's a bitter bit of irony. Sorry, folks, the bandwagon left without me. Hope you enjoyed what's here.
