A Tale of Shadows and Chaos

by cuddlyluna

Rating: everyone
Tags: Main 6, Pony of Shadows, Princess Luna, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Mystery, Adventure, Discord, Princess Celestia
Length: 4572

A post series finale adventure where the characters are thrust into action to stop time itself from falling apart.

Discord frequently enjoys looking ahead in time just to see what comes next. Though one day when he looks too far into the future, he sees what he believes to be certain destruction for everything he knows and loves. Will our heroes be able to win against impossible odds? Join the cast for an adventure that will both reveal the past and save the future from a villain who has thus far gone unheard of.

This story takes place just after Twilight Sparkle's coronation in the season 9 finale. Fair warning, this story will include references and material from the IDW comics. You do not have to have read the comics to understand the story, it would mostly just give you an understanding of who some characters are. I will, however, try to introduce the important comic characters as if it was their first appearance.

Published 2018-09-26 12:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-04-12 04:06:40 UTC

Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Opening

Night by night, Discords sleep was riddled with nothing but nightmares of the past.

He had cut off Luna's ability to see his dreams early into the first night, and luckily for him she has yet to interrogate him about what little she might have seen. On the 4th day, he decided to just stop sleeping all together. Discord didn't have to sleep anyway, it was just something he got in the habit of early on. Even when he discovered that he had almost limitless endurance, it was just an easy way to pass a few hours.

Discord stood up and looked out the window of his relatively normal house, compared to the outside realm of chaos. He could manipulate anything he wanted with his mind alone, so why was dreaming so special? He couldn't put his claw on it. He brought forth some wild creatures of his imagination, normally they would make him feel better, but today it just wasn't doing the trick. He just stared blankly at them through his little square window as they eventually floated off to join the rest of his insane creations.

Falling upwards onto an upside down couch. He let memories of the distant past play over and over in his head. If dreaming about it wasn't helping, might as well just lay and think about it. Discord has had years on top of years in both stone and Tartarus collectively to ponder his existence, but even now, it sometimes manages to sneak back into his head. He tossed and turned for a couple of hours until his future vision kicked in. Some pony was going to come to his door.

Two knocks, and Discord was on his feet opening the door to see who it was.

"Hi Discord!" Pinkie Pie said, smiling away as she looked up at him.

"I remember telling you and your friends to give me a warning before barging into my dimension." Discord replied, looking down at her. He heavily lacked the levels of enthusiasm he normally has.

Pinkie started to bounce through the open doorway. "You seem to see and hear us all the time anyway, sometimes I'm amazed we can even surprise you." She grinned as she playfully nudged him. "We guess that you just know when any pony comes in."

Discord watched her and hesitated to answer. "It's Complicated." He took a deep breath. "Why are you here Pinkie?"

"Fluttershy is curious why you didn't show up for tea yesterday. When you didn't come this morning she was scared that you got sick again and sent me to check on you."

She pulled a thermometer from her mane and hopped up to place it into his mouth. She landed and brought a clipboard around from behind her.

"If you could tell me what number that says please?"

"Pinkie, I'm not sick." Discord said pulling the thermometer out.

Pinkie would start to make a big gasp.

"I'm just... busy."

Pinkie looked up at him, saddened. "Too busy to spend time with your friends?"

Discord had a hard time brute forcing pinkie's sad puppy dog face, he knelt down and put his hand on her front leg.

"I'm sorry, the truth is.. I've been having nightmares."

Pinkie's expression swapped back over to her regular joyful self.

"Princess Luna can help!"

Discord just looked at her thinking of how he's been shutting her out of his recent dreams.

"I'll go get her right now!" Pinkie exclaimed before making a dash out the door and back to where she normally enters the chaos realm from.

"Pinkie Wait!" But she was too far gone. He knew catching her would just make her more suspicious, she wasn't the brightest pony, but she can be clever when she wants to be.

He sighed again, walked back to the center of the living room, dropped the couch from the ceiling to the floor, and plopped down on it laying on its underside.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Consultation

It was early afternoon, and Pinkie was on her way to the Canterlot Castle.

She galloped all the way to the front gate, making a quick stop and turning to smile at one of the guards. The town hall meetings haven't started yet, so regular ponies weren't allowed inside quite yet. The guard however recognized Pinkie and nodded with out a word, having the gate opened for her to go on inside.

She made her way to the throne room to find Luna sitting on the main throne, Pinkie guessed that Celestia was off doing something, leaving Luna to once again try her hoof at the town hall.

Luna smiled at Pinkie as she entered. "Greetings Pinkie Pie, Why have you come to us on this afternoon?"

Pinkie pranced her way to the throne and looked up at her. "It's about Discord, he says he's been having nightmares."

Luna nodded in acknowledgement. "It has been a while since I have consulted Discord about his dreams.." She said, Putting her hoof on her chin.

"Where is he right now?" Luna asked.

"He's at home, he apparently hasn't left his house for a few days." Pinkie responded.

Luna looked a little concerned. "That doesn't sound like Discord." She quietly said to herself.

She stepped down from her throne and began to think on where exactly she would have to open a portal too. Luna has yet to be in the chaos realm before, and wasn't too eager to visit. She thought Discord's dreams where disorganized enough. But she counted Discord as her friend in some regard, and dealing with nightmares was her specialty.

Luna opened a portal to the chaos realm, and it's destination began to fly around as it searched around for where Discord might live. Pinkie watched next to her in awe. Luna continued to search until a question came to her mind, she turned to Pinkie and asked.

"How do you get to the chaos realm?"

"A magical pool in the Everfree Forest, I just assumed everyone knew about it." Pinkie answered.

Luna considered just going using Pinkies method until the portal guided itself right to Discord's house, as if it did the job for her. Pinkie pointed at the house through the portal.

"Yep, that's it! I'll talk to Celestia for you when she gets back."

"Thank you Pinkie, I shouldn't be gone long." Luna flew on through the portal into the chaos realm, gravity there was a little weird but she adjusted to it and landed at Discords front door. Before she knocked, she heard a voice come from inside the home.

"Come in Princess Luna."

Luna slowly opened the door to see Discord, slumped over onto the bottom side of a couch, facing away from her. She stepped inside, closed the door behind her, and then approached him.

"Are you alright Discord?"

"Barely." He responded, as he continued to stare off in front of him. She waited a bit before sitting down near him.

"Pinkie told me that you have been having nightmares. Do you know what has caused them?"

Discord remained silent and still.

"... Can you tell me what they are about?"

Discord shifted a little, but didn't speak.

"It would be helpful if you told me something about them... I would already have an idea but I didn't see your dreams for the past few nights."

"And you aren't going to interrogate me about that?" He said, turning his head to look at her. Luna hesitated to respond.

"Discord, we trust you now. We know that you won't make a mistake like what you did with Tirek again. I just want to help you, not because I have to, but because I count you as a friend."

Discord looked at her for a few seconds, he sighed and spoke up. "None of you ever asked where I came from, I would have at least expected one of you to get Fluttershy to force it out of me. Why is that?"

Luna had to think of a good answer to his question. "Celestia has been telling us to hold off on asking you until the time is right. She was scared that.." The two exchanged a look for a few seconds before Luna finished.

"It.. wouldn't be the happiest story ever told."

Discord looked down and turned away from her, Luna came closer to him and sat next to him trying to comfort him.

"Discord, we have never met a being even close to your levels of power and magic. The only reason we can refer to you as a Draconequus is because you told us that's what you are. Celestia is still trying to figure out some things about you, like how in Equestria Twilight was able to beat Tirek when he stole your magic, even with the combined power of four alicorns. That throne that Chrysalis had, we have had ponies looking over the pieces of that thing for more than a year now, every pony agrees that it only absorbed pony magic."

"I faked it." Discord admitted, watching the ground.

Luna stopped for a moment. "... We thought that you where all about having the spotlight to yourself."

"In most circumstances, you would be right. But I care about my friends more. Every pony knows they worked harder for it then I ever have." Luna sat there next to him, she put her hoof on his neck as if it was his shoulder.

"I respect what you did."

"Don't tell Twilight or the others, I don't think they would take it well."

"My lips are sealed." Luna said, giving a slight smile at him.

He looked at her momentary before shutting his eyes again. "You wanted to know what my nightmares were?"

"Discord, I can guess that you did some things you regret, but-" He cut her off before she could finish.

"The damage you did as Nightmare Moon was minuscule, the only real creature you hurt was your sister. Even then, emotionally, it was Celestia hurting herself, she wished she could have used the elements better to release you straight away, or helped you before you even turned into Nightmare Moon..." Discord opened his eyes and looked out infront of him.

"What I did... was far worse."

The room was quiet for a minute, Discord eventually stood up and faced her. "Twilight told you about Zecora's Potion that allows you to see fragments of the past, correct?"

Luna responded. "She saw Celestia and I turn you to stone, and my banishment to the moon."

A flask would appear in his hand. "This will let you see one fragment of the past per day, you will know you have seen all there is too see on the day it stops working."

Luna would levitate it over to her, examining it. "Others can drink from it too if you want them to see the past as well." Discord continued. "After that... Maybe we can sort out my nightmare problem."

Luna stared at the flask, curious as to what she might see in the coming days. She looked up to ask Discord something, but he was gone. In his place was a portal back to Canterlot. Luna stepped back into the throne room as the portal closed behind her. Pinkie pranced up to her.

"You still got a few minutes before the town hall meetings start. So, did you help him out?"

Luna was silent, she turned and walked up to the royal throne and sat down, levitating the flask next to her. She spoke to the nearest guard.

"The town hall is canceled for today."

The guard nodded and went to inform the other guards throughout the castle. Pinkie looked up at Luna curiously, she finally caught the familiarity of the flask she was levitating.

Before Pinkie could intervene anymore, Luna closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and took a sip from the flask.

Chapter 3

First Fragment: Origins

These fragments will be told as if they are isolated from the main story. The specified characters are witnessing them as the story is told, but what they do and think as they witness the distant past won't be elaborated on until the following chapter.

A great palace above the clouds would be seen. made up of tall pillars and many individual temples. Sitting upon a throne in the largest temple, was a tall humanoid figure with long hair coming from his head and face. He sat with his eyes shut in silence, interlocking his fingers as if he was contemplating something.

A winged figure flew into the palace throne room and land near him. She held a shield and spear, and wore a helmet with red fur coming out of the top. She had a an saddened look on her face as she made her weapons vanish allowing her to fold her hands over her white robe.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Father, the war is over. We are victorious."

The figure on the throne didn't open his eyes, he was silent for a few moments before he spoke, sitting motionless as he did.

"Athena, find the surviving gods and tell them to come to Olympus."

She lowered her head for a moment, spread her wings out wide, and took off out of the palace. As she dove through the layer of clouds. they dispersed to reveal that the earth had been heavily ravaged and nearly destroyed.

The man eventually stood up from his throne and began to walk through the temple, leading to a poorly lit room filled with statues of many different people, each with a name carved in at the base. As he walked forward, he stopped at the three largest statues. In the statues where these names engraved "Hades", "Poseidon", and "Zeus".

The resemblance between the man and the statue of Zeus made it clear that he was in fact Zeus, but he was focusing more attention to the statues at each side of his own, presumably in deep thought about the two of them.

He quietly walked around the room quietly examining other statues, eventually coming to glass-less window which had a statue reading "Apollo" standing beside it. Outside the sunset was visible, but the sun was was noticeably still. Only now was there enough light to fully see Zeus's face, He had a large scar on the side that was just shy of hitting his eye, the color of it was a bright blue instead of the typical red.

He closed his eyes tightly, and turned to begin walking back to his throne room, knowing his daughter would be back soon.

"Long have I thought we would live forever. Yet here we are, with so few left alive." He quietly spoke, as he returned to his throne.

Chapter 4

Chapter 3: Recollection

When Luna awoke from the vision, Celestia had already returned, and was facing her sister with a concerned look.

Luna had to think for a moment on how too explain the situation to Celestia. She took a deep breath and started talking. "I was asked to go check up on Discord and find out if he's been having any dream problems. When I got there he seemed a lot sadder than the usual Discord. After we talked some, he gave me this to allow me to see the past, which he called fragment of the past, so I would know why he is upset."

She levitated the flask to Celestia, which was not emptied in the slightest despite Luna taking a drink from it.

Celestia was quiet for a moment. Taking the flask in her own levitation to look it over. She then looks up at Luna.

"What did you see sister?"

"... Not any creature I recognize, it almost seemed like a different planet entirely."

This made Celestia very curious. But before either of them could continue, Twilight teleported into the throne room.

"What happened? What did you See? Who gave you the potion? Did you witness a huge event that you had never before seen?" Twilight asked right after the other with no time in-between to respond.

"How did you.." Luna was about to ask, before being cut off by Celestia.

"Pinkie told me that the flask was similar to one that Twilight drank once, and how her eyes glowed white just as yours did. So I sent Pinkie home and got a message to Twilight so we could have her input."

The little purple alicorn stood there eagerly awaiting answers to what happened. Luna hesitated not knowing how Twilight would react, but spoke up anyway.

"Discord gave us this to allow us to see his pas-"

Twilight suddenly appeared right in front of her snout. "Tell me everything!"

The royal sisters grinned a bit as Celestia magically scooted Twilight back a bit. Luna then had to think on how to explain herself.

".. Twilight, you said that you thought where actually there, correct?"

Twilight responded. "I could walk around and such but, I don't remember being able to touch anything other than the floor."

".. with the one I used, I was just kind of floating, I didn't even feel like a pony. I couldn't speak, I couldn't see my own hooves, I could only listen and witness.." Luna answered.

"Perhaps it would be easier if we viewed your memory of the past sister?" Celestia said as she leaned into the conversation.

Celestia's horn glowed and suddenly, the three of them where in a space like realm with a white square in front of them ready to be viewed.

Twilight looked around frantically. "Wait, This is the place you took me when you transformed me into an alicorn."

"She takes us here at times so we can see your adventures first hoof Twilight, we call it the Plain of Memories." Luna said.

"I accidentally discovered it during the millennium that I watched over equestria alone." Celestia added.

Luna blinked a few times and turned to Celestia. ".. You never told me that, you know that its risky opening portals to unknown dimensions sister."

Celestia was quiet for a moment. "I wanted to see if there was help out there.. I wanted you back, I wanted Star Swirl back, I wanted things to be like old times."

Luna lightened the mood and bumped against Celestia. "Well thanks to your student here you have us both back."

Celestia smiled and turned her head to Twilight, who smiled back at her.

The white alicorn took a deep breath preparing her magic. "Alright, let's us view the distant past."

They saw the great palace above the clouds, with temples all about and very large pillars in neat rows leading to the center of the palace.

"It seems similar to ancient pegasi architecture, only it's grounded on a tall mountain." Twilight began.

"You are about to see that it's not being ruled by pegasi, Twilight.." Luna said.

When the man on the throne appeared, Twilight gasped as she saw a figure that was very similar to the inhabitants of the dimension where Sunset Shimmer lives. It was even more surprising when one with wings appeared. After the two briefly spoke to each other and the winged one took off, they took a long look at the destroyed earth bellow the clouds. When it became quiet, Twilight began to speak what she knew.

"Those creatures.. are called humans, they are similar to the beings I found in Sunsets world. Only they don't normally have wings, they only have them when magic from our world is involved.."

Celestia was thinking long and hard about the far distant past. "Not even the alicorns that looked after us told us anything about this.."

"... Do you think they knew about it, but didn't want to tell us?" Luna added.

"That is a possibility.." Celestia answered.

Twilight looked at the two and coughed some, unsure if she wanted to ask the questions she had.

Celestia slowed down the fragment and looked over at her faithful student. "Did you want to ask something Twilight?"

Twilight had to take a moment to get the energy to speak up. ".. I read your Journal that I found in the old castle.. It talked a little bit about some other alicorns and canterlot castle.."

The sisters remained quiet allowing twilight to ask whatever she desired.

"I.. never wanted to have to ask you this, but now seems like the time if ever.. What happened to your parents, and how did you become alicorns?"

Celestia was silent, she stood still with her eyes closed for what seemed like forever. Long suppressed emotions eventually filled Celestia, and she had to sit down for a moment to collect herself. Twilight rushed to her side. "No Wait! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked!"

"No, I should have told you sooner, Twilight.." Celestia reassured her as Luna joined in on the other side, It was obvious that she doesn't remember that far back as well as Celestia does.

Celestia took a deep breath. "After we finish witnessing this, I will tell you all about it, and we will figure out what to do from here. Twilight, you may have to close your school for a few days, I know it's everything to you-"

Twilight put her wing around her and smiled up at her. "It's alright princess, I know how important it is to figure out what this means."

"As of right now it's just helping out Discord who will probably be better in a few days anyway. This is just about you two nerds not stopping until you know everything." She said with a straight face, before shifting into a chuckle. Celestia and Twilight joined in.

"at the very least, it will be easier to sympathize with him for now on after we know how he came to be."

Celestia felt better now, she stood up and and resumed the fragment.

They saw the man walk from statue to statue, and Celestia and Twilight spotted the resemblance of the "Zeus" statue to the man. He eventually finished his walk around, observed the still sun, and then returned to his throne room.

"Long have I thought we would live forever. Yet here we are, with so few left alive." was the last they heard before the square just showed Celestia looking straight on back at them with a confused look on her face.

Celestia made the square fizzle away as she teleported the three of them back to Canterlot Castle, right inside Celestia's bedroom where Kibitz was tapping his hoof impatiently looking at the three. He suspected that wherever Celestia was, she would return to her bedroom first after returning, and in this case he was correct.

Celestia spun around to face him. "Kibitz, can you please tell Raven that we will have to make some schedule adjustments for the next few days."

"How generous of you to tell me now after we have already missed several events." Kibitz said, very cross.

"Kibitz we're sorry but this is important.. ish.." Luna responded looking away as she finished with the "ish".

He had a very stern look on his face. Kibitz inhaled and took a big long sigh. "All of Canterlot will be at my doorstep but.. I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks Kibitz." Celestia said as he left through the door.

"I'll take it he is the same as always?" Twilight asked Celestia.

Celestia magically closed the door with a smirk on her face. "You don't know the start of it, Poor Luna gets PTSD every time he enters the room with a list."

Luna glared at Celestia and coughed some into her hoof. "Alright, back on topic. Did any of those names sound familiar to you?"

"It is the first time I have heard of any of them..." Celestia said as she slowly approached her window to look out at the Equestrian hills and mountains. "From what I picked up on, there was some large scale war, and many of the people represented by those statues lost their lives, including some human that possibly ruled over the sun before I did.

"Would Star Swirl know who controlled the sun before him and the other unicorns did?" Twilight asked.

"Equine history only goes back so far, i'm afraid. From what he told us, unicorns have been raising the sun and moon since recorded history."

"... So, we're stuck?" Luna said, laying down on her sisters bed.

Celestia turned around to face the two. "We hardly have any information on them at the moment, we should wait until tomorrow before we fly all over Equestria looking for answers. Until then.."

Twilight inhaled eagerly. The restricted section?

Celestia smiled and nodded. Twilight squealed and ran out the door and around the corner, Celestia walked after Twilight as Luna groaned and rolled over.

"It always goes back to book skimming doesn't it."

"You can take the pillow, just help us a little bit and in return I'll help you with dream duty tonight." Celestia replied at her.

Luna muttered. "Fine." Levitating one of Celestias pillows and herself out the door and into the hallway. Celestia following after her, sort of enjoying seeing her sisters lazy side again.

It was late in the evening, and books where pilling up into different towers across the floor. Twilight was barley awake as she skimmed one book after the other for anything about the people she saw in the vision. Celestia walked through a portal with a large amount of books in her levitation, setting them down near Twilight.

"I just finished helping Luna deal with tonight's nightmares, and thought I would pick up some other restricted books while I was out."

Luna would start snoring from off in the corner, laying down with a pillow under her head and a book resting ontop of it.

Twilight smiled over at her and then looked up at Celestia. "I was wondering, how does Luna visit dreams but remain in the physical world?"

"It's just a technique she picked up on, if you are ever dreaming and see that Luna looks a bit ghost like, then you will know that she is... sleeping on the job."

Both of them laughed as Twilight set the book she just went through aside. "You know, Luna told us once that you couldn't go into the dream realm normally."

"I just let her say that so she feels special and can say she is the only pony that can do something. The truth is I've been able to dream walk for quite a while."

Twilight thought about it for a moment and then nodded in acknowledgement. "You didn't happen to see Discord's dream while you where there, did you?"

Celestia shook her head. "I paid a visit to his house but he didn't answer, I wish that he would let me talk to him about this directly instead of him setting up a day-by-day reveal of events long in the past."

Twilight opened her mouth, but then closed it and looked away. Celestia saw her do this and walked over to sit beside her, putting her wing around her.

"You've been waiting all night to hear my story haven't you."

Twilight looked down and quietly replied. "... Yes."

Celestia took a deep breath. "Alright, this story begins a long, long, -long time ago..."

Chapter 5

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Chapter 6

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Chapter 7

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Chapter 8

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Chapter 9

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Chapter 10

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Chapter 11

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Chapter 12

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Chapter 13

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Chapter 14

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