Author's Note

'Italics'= thought
Bold= exclamation
i own nothing except this story and a few oc's
Welcome to the edited version. Thanks to Thestral Music for their hard work

Prologue - Choice

Prologue: Choice

Canterlot Royal Gardens – Statue of Discord

Sun shining, skies clear, not even a hint of clouds. A gentle and pleasant warmth sat in the air – another idyllic day which a lone being within the Royal Gardens was pondering over.

‘I have never been more bored.’ Discord thought, his ponderings weren’t particularly profound at present, but boredom led to something quite unusual for a being of chaos: Planning.

‘Boredom’s been a bit too close a friend for my tastes recently, things need spicing up. Not like I haven’t tried to do that already, but trigger-happy children with mega-rainbow lasers that get fired directly upon my tushy are quite the problem. Blasted Elements…’ The chaos spirit grouched, as effectively as one could whilst petrified. This state also meant that the mischievous twinkle in his eyes and large smirk on his face were not actually visible, as he experienced a mismatched piece falling into place within his equally mismatched brain.

‘There’s an idea… Oh-ho-ho! Now there’s a glorious idea!’ Discord mentally laughed, plans solidifying in his mind. ‘Righto, first things first…’ He mused, before flexing his power just so, shattering the once imprisoning stone statue and appearing with a stretching yawn.

“Ahhh, freedom of movement! Ouch, it’ll take years to work out these kinks.” Examining how an arm was bent somewhere it really shouldn’t be, Discord looked thoughtful before giving a small shrug. “Eh, or not I guess.”

A snap of the chaos spirit’s fingers saw all apparent bodily harm vanish, while something new appeared: An ever-shifting chart that would likely frazzle the mind of any lesser individual, listing every sentient being in the multiverse. Discord examined the chart in what may have been the first moment of seriousness in his life.

“Now, immediately exclude the likes of the Equestria Girls universe on the basis that those are, for all intents and purposes, just another Equestria – far too harmonious. Also, scratch out any excessively violent dimensions, I want this to last after all.” Sticking his tongue out from the corner of his mouth, Discord stared intently at the remaining information for a moment before reaching a decision.

“Well then, Universe C-132, aren’t you such a delightfully tight ball of chaos? Now, who lives in this little paradise? Greys… No, too logical. Reptilian folk? Bah, far too aggressive. Ah, Humanity, how I’ve missed the chaotic little monkeys. A human would do brilliantly, but the choice must be perfect, so which one?”

With what an onlooker might dare call a look of concentration upon his face, Discord examined the now much smaller chart further before developing a rather pleased smile. “C***** N***, male, aged 19, and quite the interesting chaotic philosophy. He’s perfect.” Having reached a decision, the draconequus disappeared in a flash of teleportation that left him in the centre of the Everfree Forest, completely isolated from prying eyes.

Not even sparing a glance at the new surroundings, Discord snapped his fingers, summoning the phenomenal amount of power that allowed rapid inter-dimensional travel, and watched as a hairless ape-like creature fell from the resulting portal.

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P.O.V. – C**** N***

“-and that’s whAT THE FU-oof!”

Following his rather hard landing, the human groaned and rubbed at his sore everything before slowly lifting his head to examine an unknown environment. The interruption of what he was doing prior to going splat was left forgotten to make room for rapidly growing confusion.

“Where the hell am I..?” The human asked aloud, his voice began to waver towards the end of his sentence; fear was setting in. ‘Starting to freak out, starting to freak out, and now I’m freaking ou-’

*Ahem*

A throat being cleared cut short what likely would have been a glorious freak-out on the human’s part, and he turned so sharply that he almost lost his balance, then sort of wished he hadn’t turned at all. It was certainly a sight to see, what the man would describe as ‘the most fucked-up animal ever’, gazing with uneven eyes into those of the human. Of course, everything was uneven; legs, arms, antlers, teeth, wings.

‘Human slack-jawed stare mode’ lasted for several seconds, his brain believing that the metaphorical car crash was now as ugly as it could be.

Then the circus-freak creature opened its mouth, and talked.

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P.O.V. – Discord

Discord spent the short span of time in which the human fell, from portal to floor, mentally debating how to best use the freedom of movement having an heir to his chaos granted. The whole point of this undertaking wasn’t to just give up the chaos game after all, it just wasn’t going so well in Equestria. As per usual, the not entirely consistent genius of the draconequus mind provided an idea which was suitable.

‘How more widespread could chaos possibly be, than across the entire multiverse? So, Discord old chap, you go a-wandering throughout the multiverse and cause chaos everywhere you go, while the good man takes care of business here. Perfect!’ This deliberation was cut slightly short by the evident confusion of Equestria’s newest human resident, who was being quite vocal about such. Upon seeing confusion start devolving into panic, Discord gave a loud clearing of his throat, in order to garner the attention of his desired heir. This was quite effective, if the crack heard from the man’s neck as it was turned a bit too fast was any indication.

“Hello there C****, how are you doing? Well, I suppose you look rather confused, which is fair, so I shall explain!” Discord opened, flourishing an avian hand against his chest. “You see, I am Discord, the god of chaos within this universe… Well, for the next few minutes at least, I’m retiring from this particular corner of existence. That’s the part where you come in, you’re going to carry on my work here, congratulations!” He cheered, throwing a small bunch of confetti in the human’s face, making him splutter slightly and shake his head.

Despite being broken from his state of shock, the man had no time to vocalise the many problems he was starting to develop with the scenario.

“Now given your lack of knowledge in the ways of true, artistique chaos, I’ve compiled a series of references for you in book form, convenient right? Well, as good as that is for teaching you about the world you’re in and how best to get around, you’ll need a proper starting point, so…”

After summoning the aforementioned literature before the human who looked about ready to pop, Discord’s words trailed off as he approached the man.

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P.O.V. – C**** N***

Before he could protest, a lion paw was placed on the man’s forehead, shortly followed by an unnatural and decidedly searing pain. His brain flip-flopped in his skull, exploding several times most likely, whilst a mouth that wanted badly to scream but couldn’t hung slightly open below wide eyes.

Now, it’s extensively debatable what having masses of information gathered over dozens of lifetimes forced into the human brain would do, not least due to the question of just how one would do so. In this case though, chaos magic was at play, so it worked. There weren’t zero side-effects however.

With humans having no innate magic to speak of, such an abrupt introduction to large amounts of chaos magic of all things, already caused… damage. Then again, with chaos magic fuelling the process and a plethora of concepts being introduced to the man’s mind, it was irrevocably changed to allow it to handle the almost entirely new mentality he had developed in a normally impossible time frame. This odd patchwork of damage and indirect repair left behind what can be considered a being of true chaos – where even their own psyche doesn’t really make sense to them, but will still do things if asked.

It also left behind a very unbalanced human.

“Mrglflrbplefwahahoi…”

Following that contribution, the man was brought back slightly unto coherence, when the mismatched creature now identified to him as Discord opened a deep red portal to God-knows-where. Looking back at the new local artisan of chaos (who had just enough of his sensibilities to feel a chill run down his spine), Discord spoke a rather simple line before going of on his merry way.

“Good luck.”

And then he was gone.

…

…

“Huh.” The man observed simply, before glancing at the mound of reading material still untouched before him. With the gears of a freshly discombobulated mind swiftly gaining speed, he bent to pick up a book at the top of the pile, before beginning to read ‘So you just became a chaos god…’

The first page of the hard-backed tome (which was fairly small next to its fellows) was a simple affair titled ‘Rules that even you must follow’, which gave the human pause.

‘Chaos? Following rules? Surely that’s completely redundant… Fine, right, what are the rules to being something that shouldn’t damn-well follow any?’ With brow raised, he read on.

Rule 1: This rule covers the concept of death, where there are two crucial considerations to make: A – You may not directly take a life; lethal traps of both yours and the target’s making are acceptable, as is leading them into a dangerous scenario through trickery. B – While reviving others from death is allowed, it is not recommended in any frequency, as doing so while quickly anger Death herself (which is something you really don’t want).

Rule 2: Any child brought into the world by you will inherit a degree of chaos magic, plus any magic possessed by the mother.

Rule 3: You may not lie. Once again, this refers to doing so directly; double, even triple negatives, are allowed along with convoluted wordplay. Otherwise, the spirit or letter of any agreement must be followed, manipulating a poor choice of words in said agreements is fine, on the other hand.

With the three basic rules of chaos now mentally ingested, the human hummed thoughtfully.

“Well, I suppose those are kind of fair, in the spirit of chaos as I now understand it.” He said with a miniscule sigh.

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P.O.V. – Celestia, Royal Gardens

Celestia, The Daylight Herald, Princess of the Sun and co-ruler of Equestria, had her gaze settled on the former site of the statue of Discord. Her tone was one of bewilderment and no small amount of worry as she turned from the leftover rubble to address her sister.

“Where could he have gone that would not be readily apparent considering his nature? In fact, how could he possibly escape to begin with?”

Luna, Warden of the Night, Princess of the Moon and also co-ruler of Equestria, wore an expression which matched her sister’s tone of voice. Her brow furrowed somewhat in thought at the queries.

“Your questions hold merit sister, it is far from the chaos menace’s typical behaviour to go both unheard and unseen for any length of time… But as for how he escaped, I would speculate an upsettingly long list of possibilities given the nature of the individual.” The dark blue alicorn replied, leaving Celestia to nod solemnly.

‘This is a situation that could prove disastrous very quickly.’ The sun princess thought to herself. She opened her mouth to discuss a course of action, but was rather spectacularly interrupted. Giant waves of magical energy that spread in rapidly expanding circles from the Everfree Forest will do that, it would seem.

‘Ah… Sometimes I quite dislike the realisation that I am more than likely right about things.’