What The Ancients Have Forgotten...
Author's Note
Well, it's good to see you all again. I'm sorry for the wait between Discord Rules and this story, but... eh, I'll just say it. I've been watching way too much anime.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this story as well as the first, and that you like, comment, and subscri... er... this isn't Youtube. Nevermind.
What The Ancients Have Forgotten...
Absolute Harmony
Chapter One
What the Ancients Have Forgotten...
Harmonia Proelio was frustrated. Understandable, really, considering her job. The forces of chaos were quickly growing in strength, no matter what she did to stave them off. All living things were becoming quicker to anger, to frighten, to startle. Birthrates were climbing dramatically, but so were death counts. Diseases were spreading and causing massive destruction, before dying out, leaving no clue how to combat them. Tensions were rising, the Princesses had split apart and taken half of Equestria each, and war with every other race was looking more likely with every passing day.
Isolated from the forces of chaos and order, Harmonia could only watch, helpless, as the very ponies she had watched over for the past several decades descended into madness. She was becoming desperate. Desperate enough to try something that every unicorn was taught to never do. Casting magic based on instincts.
She gathered all of her power into her horn, and shaped it however she felt she should. The shapes were abstract, complex, and completely unpredictable. They reshaped themselves autonomously, disappeared and reappeared in even more nonsensical patterns. When she felt it had stabilized enough, she let it out and cast the spell.
Light shone out of her horn, so bright that everyone within miles could have seen it. They could not have told you what color it was, nor where it came from, for it did not seem to have color or shape.
When the light disappeared, Harmonia was gone, and the area she had previously occupied was filled with complete blackness, a void so dark that it discouraged even the sun’s light from venturing near it.
Harmonia appeared in a void. Near her was the only other thing that she could see, a massive floating continent that gave off enough sheer magical energy that it felt like it blinded her. Like the world she had just left the continent gave off a distinctly chaotic signature, but there was a powerful force of order as well.
She focused on the island, and was surprised to find herself suddenly standing in the direct center of it. To her right, there was a vibrant jungle filled with all kinds of life, probably dangerous. To her left was a complete graveyard, filled with skeletons and almost rotted corpses. To the left of the jungle was a land that was completely on fire. There was not a single square inch that Harmonia could see that was untouched by the flames. To the left of the graveyard was a frozen wasteland. To the right of the jungle, right next to the frozen wastes, was a completely normal looking plain. Next to the burning fires and the graveyard was a land that looked like it was slowly being eaten away by some disease.
Harmonia took one step into the normal-looking plain, and was filled with an overwhelming sense of order. It overloaded her senses and forced her to her knees.
After a few seconds, she regained use of her senses, and looked around the plain. It appeared normal, but when she looked down, none of the grass had even been disturbed by her presence. In fact, she was standing on the tips of the grass, as if it were a solid floor. It’s perfection disturbed her, and she quickly turned her attention away from it and to a lone figure approaching from the distance.
She cautiously made her way toward it, until she could make out just what it was. It was a massive, bipedal… thing. Harmonia couldn’t tell what it was made out of, but it appeared to be some kind of metal. The thing began to speed up, as if it could sense her fear from as far away as it was.
Before she could make a move, the thing was suddenly standing before her. It was made out of a steel-like metal, and it was more than a hundred times as tall as Harmonia herself. “Identify yourself,” it said, “You are an intruder upon my eternal peace.”
Harmonia could feel it, the thing was the source of the order that sustained this place. It’s sheer power exceeded Harmonia’s by so much that she couldn’t understand how it could even exist, let alone think coherently. She decided to answer the creature’s question. “I am Harmonia Proelio,” she said, “I am the balance between order and chaos in my world.”
The creature snorted, obviously upset by her answer. “You are a servant of chaos!? I will not tolerate your presence within my land.” Harmonia barely had time to register what it had said before a massive spike made out of the same material as the giant ripped itself out of the ground and speared her through her hind leg.
The spike retreated, and Harmonia took flight, soaring as fast as she could toward the nearest place outside of the strange land. When she landed, she immediately shivered; she had flown into the frozen wasteland.
Before she could rest, a massive giant made out of ice and snow appeared before her. It seemed to already know her, as it immediately attacked her with thousands of ice shards that peeled away from its body. Harmonia barely managed to dodge them, and, before the giant could attack again, she teleported as far away as she could.
The sharp contrast in temperature was the first thing she noticed. The second thing she noticed was the trees, vines, bushes, insects, and all other kinds of life around her. The third thing was a third giant, made out of the life that surrounded the two of them.
Silence reigned. Harmonia had given up; the wound on her leg caused her too much pain for her to cast any more magic, and she had lost too much blood to run for it. She laid down, ready to accept whatever fate the colossal collection of raw magic before her decided.
Vines wrapped around her like tentacles, lifting her up. Branches bent to imprison her within them. Strange animals climbed onto her, pressing themselves against her wounds. The pain increased dramatically, and then she fell unconscious.
Harmonia slowly started to come back to consciousness. She blinked, feeling rather strange. Then she realized it. There was no pain, her wounds were healed. She sat up, wondering where she was. There were all sorts of plants twisted together into strange shapes. Insects crawled up and down the plants, but Harmonia was grateful that they stayed away from her. She shakily stood up, and took a single step.
The entire collection of plants shifted. It was then that she realized that she had been laying upon one of the giants from before. Terror filled her, irrational, burning terror. She began backing up, before she realized that it could have killed her at any time. Still could, in fact. What made this one different from the others? She cast around with her magic, searching for something out of the ordinary. Then she realized it. Of course. How could she have not seen it before?
This continent was seperated into six sections. Each section represented an elementus of magic. To clarify, magic has six seperate elementa that make it up. Order, chaos, life, death, heat, and cold. The first golem must have represented order, which explained why it had been upset about her role in chaos. The cold giant must have noticed her internal body temperature and immediately attacked. And this one represented life, which is why it attempted to heal her.
The more Harmonia thought about it, the more convinced she became that she was right. The graveyard must have a golem of death, the diseased land a chaotic one, and the burning land a heat-based one. Then she thought about the giants themselves. What were they? Could they be–
“We are Colossi,” interrupted a strange voice. It sounded like thousands of voices at once, as well as tree creaks, vague rustlings, and the cries of various strange and foreign animals. Harmonia quickly realized that it was the strange giant talking. It continued, “We are the guardians of this land. I am the Living Colossus. We were once many, but our numbers have fallen. We each represented an aspect of magic, but gradually, the weaker ones died off. It is now only us six. The others cannot understand that life magic is clearly superior, but no matter. They will see when it is only me standing upon this continent. After all, I was the first of our kind to come into existence; it is only fitting that I am the last to leave it.”
Harmonia stared for a second, before starting to ask, “Can you‒”
“Yes, I can read your mind,” it interrupted again, “You are infused with my magic, after all. There are hints of the others within you, but Life Magic is the greatest power within you. However, I’ve found that living things tend to find it difficult to call upon their own life force, so you use chaos and order more.”
Harmonia closed her jaw, which she hadn’t even noticed was hanging open until that moment. The Colossus had just answered most of her questions without her even asking them.
“You were brought here because you are a balancing force between order and chaos, yet chaos is currently much more powerful. Your presence on this island will stabilize the balance of the two for a short time, but chaos will eventually defeat and destroy order. And anything that happens here reflects in reality. All of your civilizations will crumble, and chaos will wipe as much as it can from existence, including itself, leaving just me behind, sustaining the magic that keeps the little amount of life left alive. I will then shape the world into the shape I wish it, and there will not be a single opposing force left. And I know you will try to stop me. It is, after all, in your nature. It is the way you were made. I will not hold it against you. However, I will not allow you to interfere.”
And with that ominous pronouncement, Harmonia realized the predicament she was in. The six forces here would not let her interfere. And all of them would be many times stronger than her. She sighed and facehoofed. Things were not going as well as she would have liked.