The Birth of Chaos

It had been a week since Quilldance had seen Starswirl. To her, what seemed like a simple experiment had turned all of Canterlot upside down. While the princesses did their best to keep it hidden, word got out that Equestria was left without it's greatest defense. The ponies grew uneasy and fearful, especially with the Crystal War still fresh in their minds. Parties had gone out to bring Ban and Pallanen to the city to try to straiten out the situation, yet none have since returned.

What her master was up to over the past week was unknown though. He merely told her to not come in for a week while he did research alone. Well the week was up and she was anxiously going to her master's tower to try to solve this.

When the gray unicorn entered her master's tower it looked like it had been robbed. Tables and chairs were overturned, pots and pans scattered on the floor. Most noticeable were the crumpled up pieces of paper covering the first floor and the bookshelf around the staircase had been emptied, the books scattered everywhere. She picked up one of the papers and found it contained a crossed out phrase

~~All for one~~
~~The deed is done~~
~~The ponies here~~
~~The morning sun~~

She looked at another to find it too had some lines.

~~To make to break~~
~~this small mistake undone~~
~~All the ones here returned~~
~~To the order correct~~.

Many of the papers had similar writings, while some were unreadable scribbles. As she climbed the stairs she began calling for her master. When she rounded the last spiral up to the top floor she saw the laboratory in the worst condition of all. The wads of paper practically pouring down the stairs, and the tables stacked high to the ceiling with books. The windows had the blinds bulled tight, letting no light in. The rooms was barely lit by candles burned down to the nubs. Sitting next to the main desk, the only clean thing in the room, were the Elements of Harmony in a glass case. And lying face first in papers was the mage of the tower himself. Quilldance approached him, and with a gentle nudge tried to wake her sleeping master. "Uh, Starswirl?"

"AND ALL LIKE THE OTTERS!" Starswirl shouted, being awoken so suddenly. After realizing who was there he turned to his assistant and said, occasionally being broken by yawns, "Oh, Quilldance, what are you doing here at this late hour? Shouldn't you be off to bed?"

"What, no. Starswirl, it's morning." The gray unicorn puled back the blinds covering the windows letting the early morning light into the dark room. Its owner clearly had gone days without seeing the sun as he pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes to shield him from the brightness. "How long have you been a this exactly?" she asked.

"Three days!" the old unicorn replied back in an oddly cheery manner. "And I'll have you know that I have in fact made progress. yes yes yes yes, I have created a new spell in the spoken magic. Ahem. 'Of the trees and of the vines, of the sweetened up divines, to this wrongs do a right, old and new and blue and bright'"

A small magical crackle was heard when the robed pony held up his hoof. Out of nowhere magical energy began cracking the air, as what appeared as a vortex appeared under his control. It flashed out leaving in its place a single blueberry. Happy it worked Starswirl simply ate the berry, leaving Quilldance speechless.

Taking a moment just to take in what was going on she eventually confronted her maser "Okay, clearly it looks like, whatever it is you've been doing for the past three days hasn't worked. Surely you figured something else out. You know, something useful."

Initially taken back that his assistant would be so assertive with him, Starswirl realized he had gotten awful silly, something he was most clearly not. He straitened his robe, and began organizing his desk. And in a much more serious tone he began speaking "Well, unfortunately you are wrong. I did come up with a solution to fix the Elements. Despite my numerous failures at creating counter-spells, I have discovered something that would be effective" He took a long pause before revealing what he knew. "I would have to cast the spell, the original spell, over and over and over again until the Elements of Harmony were back in their correct order. Now there are obvious risks, there's the Doctors mind, the threat that I would be changed, the implications of such a massive use of unknown magics could be horrible. But, I suppose no worse than Equestria being left without the Elements."

Quilldance understood her master's desperation. He would not have spent three days doing, whatever it was he'd been doing, if it was not necessary. "There's really no other way?" She asked, hoping something might jog his memory. With but a nod he responded, sending the two of them into silence.

Quilldance was the first to move. She looked up in a determined way, gathered a couple of peices of blank paper and a quill from her bag. She looked to Starswirl, levitating the writing tools overhead and said "Well then, let's do some research."

With a new found breath of life he picked himself up and exclaimed "That's the mare I hired." Starswirl once again stood at his desk with his notebook open to it's last page. He kept one eye of the encased Elements as he began reading the spell "From one to another, another to one, a mark of ones destiny, singled out alone fulfilled." For the first time he got a good look at the spell's effect on the Elements. The elements glowed bright as the spell came to life. The Element of magic shone brightest of all and then cast its light on the five necklaces, who's colors jumbled randomly until they finally came to a stop. "Hrmm, no, not right. Again. From one to another, another to one, a mark of ones destiny, singled out alone fulfilled." And once again the Elements randomized, and still in a different arrangement.

Realizing this was going to take longer than he hoped, the mage sat down to ready himself for however long this would take. He again repeated "From one to another. Another to one. A mark of ones destiny. Singled out alone fulfilled" this time slower, pausing in between each line taking breaths. Just glancing a the scrambled Elements he began again, practically gasping for air with each line "From one... to another... Another to one... A mark... of ones destiny... Singled out alone.... Fulfilled."

After that final repetition he collapsed on the floor.

Starswirl awoke in his bed many hours later, dizzy and disoriented. He looked up to see two faces looking back at him wearing worried expressions. He immediately recognized one of them as his assistant, the other was hidden slightly under a cloak. As he came to, he saw the second face was actually just a skull. The skeletal pony began speaking "Oh, look who's all rested up. See QD, nothing a little R and R can't fix"

As his mind returned to him, Starswirl began to realize who it was staring back at him, it was Surprise. He practically shot up from his bed and ran to the corner of the room upon this realization. "No no no no no no no. It cant' be my time. No yet, Please not yet!" he yelled knowing who Surprise is. Frantically he raced around the bedroom trying to show his well being. "See, I'm healthy as a horse, no reason to take me now!"

Taken back by this unusual display, the skeletal pony walked over to the nervous unicorn and tried to calm him down. "The only 'time' it is for you is time to get out of bed. You've been asleep for a whole day. We were starting to worry that Pallanen might be coming for you, heh heh."

Starswirl began to calm down, still confused, but now with more questions than anything else. From Surprise's kind demeanor, to his mention of Pallanen, nothing really made any sense. With all of his vocabulary at the tip of his tongue all he could get out was "What?"

The gray pony chimed in to try to tame her master's inquiry. "You blacked out after saying that spell of yours so many times. I didn't know what to do. A some point I must began saying aloud how I needed to find a doctor, when... he showed up."

"Yes siree, That's me, best doctor in the universe." Surprise interrupted.

"Yes..." Quilldance continued her train of thought, "I thought the same thing when he arrived, that you were done for. But as it is, your spell switching up the elements, he thinks he's the Doctor." She looked to Starswirl trying to see if he completely understood what was going on. After a moment of thinking, the brown unicorn did the most unusual thing. He began laughing hysterically. "Really! That's your response to all of this? Laughing?"

After a good minute of laughter, Starswirl calmed himself down enough to get back to his assistant. "It's just the irony of it all. Surprise, Surprise was the one to nurse me back to health. Ha ha ha ha. Oh Quilldance, you know how he was, who he is. To think that HE was to one to help me in my time of need. Priceless"

Taking the serious stance in the room Surprise began to lecture Starswirl on his condition. "I really shouldn't have to teach you about magic, but it seems to forgot. Magic is like a muscle. You use it, you exercise it. You push yourself too hard, and you get exhausted. Even without your three days awake, casting that spell so many times in a row like that is dangerous."

Calmed down, and back to his usual self Starswirl considered his situation. He trot back and forth across the room pondering what to do next. "Surprise, how many times do you think I could cast the spell in a day?"

"Over a whole day? Oh, i'd say probably say four"

"Four, Four" he repeated to himself, thinking. "Well then looks this is going to take a while to get sorted out. Best we get started. From one to another, another to one, a mark of ones destiny, singled out alone fulfilled."