Controlled Chaos

It was when the sun began to set over Equestria that Rainbow Dash located the human again.

He was sitting outside Fluttershy’s house, reaching out to the creatures that were lightly sniffing at his fingers to determine whether he was a threat or not. Fluttershy was nowhere to be seen, however, and that meant he could only be there without her knowing or even letting him.

With an angry growl, she shot towards him, eager to give him a piece of her mind for everything that he had done today and everything that he was doing now. She spun around in the air, ready to deliver a strong kick to his arm to keep those defenceless and unknowing animals safe.

He didn’t even look at her as a large, kite-shaped shield appeared on his arm and blocked the kick that she was ready to deliver. Rainbow felt something snap out of place at the impact with the shield, but tried as hard as she could to not let it show on her face.

“Hello, feisty,” he said indifferently, not even glancing at her. “Before you shoot first and ask later, maybe you should remind yourself who you’re dealing with.”

“What are you doing here?” she spat at him, trying to keep her leg stable so it wouldn’t hurt as much. “You better hope Fluttershy’s okay with this, or I’m gonna kick the hide off you.”

“You mean you’ll try,” the human sighed, looking up at her at last. He regarded her leg for a moment before his uncaring expression shifted to one of concern. “That looks painful. Would you like me to help with that?”

“It’s f-fine!” she replied angrily, but her strained voice betrayed her.

“No, it’s not,” he stated surely, standing up and turning to her. “By the looks of it, your leg is broken. The longer we leave it, the more painful it will be. Now come on and let me help you.”

“Why would you want to help me?” she asked, moving away from him as he approached. “You tried to hurt my friend today and just made chaos for everybody! What’s different now?”

“Nothing’s different now,” he said, teleporting to behind her and taking hold of her leg firmly. She yelped as it moved out of place, but didn’t try to get away. “Me helping you now will create chaos; you’re thinking that I don’t care but I’m helping, causing conflicting opinions and, therefore, chaos.”

“Well… now that you’ve told me that, it won’t,” Rainbow replied, letting the human wrap the leg in a magical bandage that appeared from nowhere.

“I know, I just made that up,” he said humourlessly. “I’m just helping you because I want to help you. I hate letting people stay in trouble when I can do something to help.”

“You sure didn’t care about that earlier,” she replied crossly, crossing her forelegs disappointedly.

“That was a problem I caused,” he answered. “When I am causing the problem intentionally, I usually have good reason and I wouldn’t really care too much. When I haven’t caused it or indirectly caused it and can help resolve it, I will usually try to do something about it. Now hold still, you have something in your ear.”

He reached up to her ear and began to pull warm, wet plaster out to cast the leg with, much to her disapproval and amusement at the same time.

“Indirect, my flank,” she said as he wrapped it around the bandage. “You knew what would happen when you put that shield up.”

“And you knew what would happen when you tried to kick my arm in half,” he added, giving her a serious look. “I was defending myself. You should have expected that.”

“Whatever,” she waved it away as a hair dryer appeared in his hand, which he used to dry the cast with.

“That should be alright for now,” he said once he was sure the cast was dried. “Make sure you head to the hospital as soon as you can though. I may be a spirit of chaos in training, but I’m no doctor.”

“Thanks, I guess,” she muttered, looking away from him.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, nodding. “I’m going to assume this won’t help you see me as a friend though, unless you’re considering it right now.”

“Like heck I am,” she spat, snarling at him angrily. “You nearly killed my friend today and then you tell me you’re happy to help somepony who needs it. That’s just messed up on so many levels.”

“Chaos is a strange thing, feisty,” he replied calmly, leaning back and crossing his arms sombrely.

“My name’s Rainbow Dash, featherbrain,” she snarled.

“Oh, I know,” he said simply, “I just prefer using nicknames.”

The door to Fluttershy’s house opened up and out stepped Fluttershy, carrying a tray with a bowl of soup and some bread on it in her mouth. She staggered when she saw Rainbow Dash and the tray slipped from her grip. Before anything could drop or spill, the human lunged towards it with his hand outstretched. He was too far away to actually catch it, or so Rainbow Dash thought.

His whole arm stretched to reach the tray and his hand widened to support the tray as he caught it.

He stood there for a moment in stunned silence before speaking. “Whoa,” he breathed. “He was right when he said I could do all kinds of things.”

“I’m sorry,” whispered Fluttershy, taking the tray back from him. As soon as she did, his hand returned to normal.

“It’s okay,” he replied, moving forward to put a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. “Everyone makes mistakes sometimes.” He took the tray from her and nodded appreciatively. “Thank you for this.”

Rainbow Dash stared at the tray in shock. “You’re feeding him now?” she yelled angrily. “Why? Why are you trying to be nice to him after what he did today?!”

“Take it out on me, feisty,” the human snarled, dipping a slice of bread into the soup and taking a bite. He didn’t even look at her as he ate. “I’m the one that deserves it, not her.”

“What happened to your leg?” Fluttershy asked, noticing the cast for the first time.

“He broke it!” she snapped, pointing at the human aggressively. “I thought he was going to hurt your animal friends and I tried to stop him, but he stopped me by breaking my leg!”

“It was a natural response,” the human explained. “She would’ve kicked my arm in half and I merely defended myself. I did cast it for her though.”

His eyelid twitched as he chewed his food.

“Yeah, he helped me out with it, but he still broke it!” Rainbow yelled, spreading her wings out angrily.

“If it helps, I’m sorry,” he said seriously. “As I’ve already said, it was a natural response.” He tipped the soup bowl up to his mouth to finish it off and put it back on the tray. “You’d do the same.”

“Well, at least you’ve said sorry, I guess,” Fluttershy muttered, looking down at the ground.

“That won’t fix my leg, Fluttershy!” Rainbow shouted, rounding on her friend aggressively. “Why are you standing up for him even after that?!”

The human growled quietly and shuddered suddenly, but said nothing.

“Because he’s my friend,” Fluttershy answered quietly, rubbing her leg anxiously.

“I’m a better friend than him!” Rainbow snapped, flapping closer to Fluttershy. “Yeah, he’s got to be evil, but that doesn’t excuse him from what he’s doing!”

“I would suggest you stopped talking to her in that way, Rainbow Dash,” the human spat, putting a hand on her shoulder to pull her back.

She shrugged him off. “I’m getting to you,” she snarled, giving him a quick glance of hate. “Fluttershy, who do you want to help more? Your closest friends or some jerk that wants to make chaos?!”

Fluttershy whimpered and shrank down in fear, eyes welling up. Rainbow suddenly felt something cold behind her; not touching her, but giving off a cold air. She turned quickly to face the human, but the sight that greeted her made her gasp.

The human was surrounded by a pale blue aura, like flames, and his eyes had turned bright red. In his hand, there was a flaming sword, which he gripped so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. Two of his teeth had lengthened into sharp fangs, which protruded from his snarling mouth.

“Whoa,” Rainbow breathed, backing away slowly.

“James, no!” Fluttershy yelled, stepping towards the raging human quickly. She didn’t enter the blue flames around him.

“James?” Rainbow asked blankly, looking between the human and Fluttershy anxiously.

The human twitched in place for a second, and then the flames began to fade. His teeth shrank back and his eyes returned to their natural colour. He stood still as a statue for a moment before he spun and slammed the sword into the floor.

“WHY?!” he roared, hurling it up into the sky, where it vanished. “WHY AM I HERE?! WHY ME?!”

Rainbow Dash backed away from him quickly as he collapsed onto the ground and sobbed. Fluttershy looked ready to start crying too, but she kept her emotions in check and marched towards him slowly. She put her hoof on his shoulder, but he snapped up at her with a snarl, knocking her hoof away.

His look of anger quickly turned to one of sadness. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, drooping back to the floor. “I’m sorry. He’s… he’s angry too. He’s upset. He doesn’t want to go.”

“Discord?” Fluttershy asked in surprise, anxiously leaning down to him.

“He wants out,” the human breathed, grabbing hold of his head with both hands. “He wants back out and I can’t let him!” He jumped back up and stomped away from her. “STAY IN MY HEAD!! YOU COME BACK AND I CAN’T TAKE CONTROL AND THEN WE ALL DIE!!”

He shuddered violently and collapsed suddenly. Fluttershy ran over to help him back up, but he held a hand up to stop her.

“I can handle this!” he shouted at her, slowly climbing back to his feet. “He just doesn’t want to go! He wants to stay but I can’t let him or we all die!”

“Fluttershy, are you okay?” yelled Twilight Sparkle from not too far away. “We heard someone shouting!”

“I’m going,” the human barked, tears rolling down his cheeks as he shuddered again.

And just like that, he was gone.

As Twilight Sparkle and her friends approached, Fluttershy let out a quiet, little whimper. Rainbow Dash flew to meet her friends, but Fluttershy merely stared at the place the human had vanished.

Her friends began to chatter about what had happened and she knew she would have to get in on the conversation to counter Rainbow’s biased opinion of things.

In the distance, there was a scream of rage. She stared in its direction before heading over to join her friends sombrely.

-=-=-=-=-

The shout of anger was heard by a patrolling princess Luna.

Her sister had received a message from Twilight Sparkle about what had happened today, concerning Discord and... this human. Luna had volunteered to check it out for herself, of course, and had promised that she would find this human and talk to him about his chaotic ways.

That shout seemed to be her best lead.

She soared in its direction quickly, thinking up all the different ways she could word her first meeting with him. If what Twilight had said was true, and it most probably was, he wasn’t a very difficult individual to reason with, but all of this would still have to go smoothly for things to work out well anyway.

After a minute, she spotted what could only be the human up by the edge of the Everfree forest, surrounded by punching bags hanging from rods of metal that defied the laws of physics. He looked to be lashing out wildly at every one of them, and when his blows connected, they would fly off the rods and puff out of existence before being replaced by another.

She landed not too far away from where he was viciously striking the punching bags and slowly trotted over to meet him. Before she could reach him, he swung his leg in a wide arc at a punching bag. The kick was either well or badly aimed, as it flew straight at Luna’s head. She ducked just in time to avoid it.

“What do you want?” the human spat at her, turning to glare at her.

“Um… greetings!” she said unsurely. This was already going wrong. “I am pr –“

“Princess Luna,” he interrupted, marching off into the forest. “I know who you are.”

“Excuse me, I wasn’t finished!” she called after him.

“Then walk and talk!” he yelled back, not even turning back to look at her.

She kept her annoyed comments to herself and hurried after him. She lit up her horn to give some light for them to see, but it looked like the human didn’t need it.

“Now get to the point,” he growled after she’d caught up with him.

“I just wanted to talk to you about... how should I put it…?” she trailed off, looking to the top of her head in thought.

“Me being evil?” he supplied darkly, making a cutting motion at a tree in his path. It was severed at the stump and he pushed it over with ease before stepping over the stump. “What’s there to say about it?”

“Well… quite a lot actually,” she stated politely, not willing to get on the wrong side of him. “You see, if what princess Twilight says is true, you can’t stop making chaos. All I want you to do is to create it somewhere it won’t hurt or scare ponies.”

“Chaos that nobody experiences isn’t chaos, moony,” he replied. “That’s what Discord told me; I have to make chaos for people so I can break the harmony of everyday life.”

“Hmm… princess Twilight failed to mention that in her letter…” Luna remarked.

“She didn’t, I just never told her.”

“So… you didn’t give her the whole story?” Luna stepped in front of the human to stop him. “Then I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you for all the details. This is something we’ll need to know.”

“You don’t need to know if I know it, moony.” He vanished and reappeared behind her before marching deeper into the forest. “I get that you don’t trust me, but telling you is just going to give you power over me. I’m not letting that happen.”

She grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “I’m sorry, but you don’t have a choice in the matter!” she yelled angrily, infuriated that he hadn’t even given her a single shred of care.

“I’m in a bad enough mood already, moony,” he snapped, yanking his arm away sharply. “Don’t make it worse for me.”

“I am putting the lives of many ponies in priority!” she yelled, stepping closer dominantly. “If there are parts of that story that we need to know to help keep them safe, then I will have to get those details out of you by any means necessary!”

“Are you threatening me?” the human growled, taking a step closer. “Because that’s a stupid thing to do when I’m not thinking straight, princess.”

She put a hoof on his chest and pushed him backwards a step. “You’re new to all this power you have,” she snapped. “I doubt you could do anything to a princess of Equestria.”

“Really?” he asked quietly. His eyes flashed and he shuddered. “Thank you, Discord.” He grabbed Luna by the horn so suddenly that she couldn’t even react. “At least SOMEONE cares about the situation I’m in.”

There was a sensation of being dragged through the air all of a sudden, and Luna realised he had teleported the two of them to somewhere else in the forest.

“What are you doing?!” she shouted, shaking him off of her horn. “Are you aiming to anger a princess of Equestria?!”

“Oh, you’re all bark and no bite,” he said with a cruel laugh. “The real question is; were you aiming to anger a spirit of chaos with all the knowledge of a chaotic veteran in his head?”

Luna snarled and ignited her horn as he flicked something up into the air in front of her. She regarded it for a second before she realised something horrible.

Her horn was still in the human’s hand.

“To be honest, I didn’t think that would work,” he said as he noticed her expression change, spinning her horn around his finger deftly. “I guess anger can really give you super strength.”

He vanished suddenly and there was a tap on Luna’s back. She spun to face it and found that her wings were missing too. Her horror only grew as the light from her horn went out at last.

“Have fun getting home, ‘princess’ Luna,” the human spat at her.

He let the words hang in the air for a minute before vanishing again, leaving her alone who knew where in the Everfree forest.