Chapter 1: The Day it All Began
“Okay, wait for it...” Sweetie Bell said, levitating a pair of binoculars to her eyes as she watched a very particular spot. Applebloom sat in their cart right behind her, looking at a watch strapped around her forehoof. Scootaloo braced herself at the back of the cart, wings ready to launch the trio forward.
“Any second now,” Applebloom said quietly, glancing from her watch towards Sweetie Bell. There was a sound of wind rushing just beyond the edge of the bush.
“Now!” Sweetie Bell whispered, her horn glowing. Scootaloo's wings beat furiously, and their cart shot out of the bush, Sweetie Bell doing her best to muffle the noise. They rolled quickly down the hill toward the source of the wind: a strangely floating tear in the fabric of reality. Fluttershy and Discord had just stepped through it, and remained blissfully unaware of the cart careening down the hill behind them, just as the CMC had hoped.
Unlike a door which only had one way in and one way out, Discord's portals could be entered from any direction. The CMC had sat in this bush multiple times over the last few weeks, observing carefully that Discord and Fluttershy tended to exit in the same spot going in the same direction each time they met up to go to his dimension. They had also observed that thee portal was noisy, possibly just noisy enough to cover up the sound of a cart with three fillies racing down the hill towards it.
Discord and Fluttershy did not notice the three zip into the portal behind them. After walking a few more meters, Discord snapped his fingers to close thee portal behind him.
…
“”Woah, so this is the chaos dimension?” Sweetie Bell said, looking around in aw. The colors of the world did not match the objects at all. It was as if someone had carefully sketched out a realistic drawing in pen, then splattered multiple shades of paint all over it. She took a step forward and felt a bit unbalanced, as her sense of equilibrium seemed to need to re-calibrate to this world.
“Aw yeah, Dimension Traveling Cutie Marks!” Scootaloo cheered. All three of the CMC looked back at their flanks, and then groaned. Pink cotton candy clouds floated overhead in the generally green (though with a bit of purple) sky.
“Darn it, still no cutie mark. All that work fer nothin'” Applebloom said, frowning, as she kicked a pink rock off a blue cliff. It seemed to glitch out of existence before it reappeared as a banana as it fell into nothing above a river of orange bubbling water.
“Well, we're stuck here for another few hours until Discord comes back. I want to take a look around,” Scootaloo said, glancing at the surrounding area.
“Hey, you think that's Discord's house up there?” Sweetie Bell asked, gesturing her hoof towards a floating green island in the sky. It looked much more...normal than the rest of the dimension. It was a plain red brick house with a dirt path leading up to it, surrounded by a white picket fence.
“Huh, maybe Fluttershy had a bit o' an influenza on his house,” Applebloom commented.
“Do you mean influence?” Sweetie Bell asked.
“Huh?” Applebloom looked back at her.
“You said influenza. Did you mean influence?”
“Eh, close enough,” Applebloom shrugged. Sweetie Bell frowned, and her eyebrows came together in concern.
“No, they're not -”
“Hey, if you ladies are done, we have a house to check out!” Scootaloo shouted to them, already standing near the white picket fence. Sweetie Bell and Applebloom ran up walkway to the floating island as Scootaloo turned with excitement towards the door. She reached up to knock as the other two fillies joined her, but at the first touch the wooden door melt into a pile of mud. Scootaloo jumped over it, flappping her wings to give her a bit more air time. Applebloom just snorted and walked through it, but Sweetie Bell looked at the large mud puddle with disgust.
“Do I have to?” She groaned, looking past it to her two best friends. Scootaloo nodded, trying to look solemn but failing to keep herself from snickering. Applebloom rolled her eyes.
“It's just mud Sweetie, you can wash it off later,” she said. Sweetie Bell sighed and jumped as far as she could to try and get over the puddle, but ended up with her back hooves landing in it anyway. The splash ended up covering her entire back half in mud that was strangely warm and smelled like chocolate.
Sweetie made a face as she shook her hooves to try and get it all off. Scootaloo broke down laughing. Applebloom sighed.
“Well, at least mud is better than sap,” she said. All three of the fillies shivered in remembrance, then giggled as they began to look around the house. All-in-all, the house seemed fairly normal. The floor was covered in a soft green carpet with an orange and purple sofa was positioned against the side of a staircase. Just ahead, a doorless entryway opened up to a kitchen consisting of a currently running sink and a pile of clean dishes. A donut shaped coffee table sat in the center of the room just in front of the couch, with a glass flower vase, a globe, and a few other various nicknacks.
“Why would Discord leave his sink running?” Applebloom asked, walking towards the kitchen.
“This...isn't what I would have expected Discord's house to look like,” Sweetie Bell commented, looking down at the swirling pattern of various shades of green in the carpet.
“Ugh, this is so boring! Where's all the awesome chaos stuff?!” Scootaloo asked, dropping herself onto the couch. A small head popped out of the cushion and looked at her.
“Ah!” She screamed, jumping up and landing on the table. She accidentally knocked the glass vase off the table, sending it crashing to the floor.
“Scootaloo! Are you alright?” Sweetie Bell asked, running over to her.
“What in tarnation was that about?” Apple Bloom asked, looking over at the pair. Scootaloo shook her head, and reached over towards the couch to pull out what had scared her. A dust bunny. A literal dust bunny. It was a bunny made of dust.
“hilarious,” Scootaloo said dryly.
“Well, I certainly thought so,” A deep voice cut it from above the three fillies. All three jumped and turned around to see Discord standing over them with his arms crossed, frowning.
“Now, just what are you three doing here?” He asked.
“Um, Cutie Mark Crusaders House Invaders?” Scootaloo said with a nervous grin. Discord's eyes narrowed, as a fearsome aura pervaded their surroundings. The three fillies moved closer together in fear.
“I love it!” Discord announced joyfully. “Oh, whose house will we invade next?” He asked, changing his shape in a whirlwind to take on the form of a young colt to match the Crusaders. Of course, his version of being a pony still had different wings, and the various random animal limbs, and only resembled a colt in the loosest of terms.
“Wait, before we can invade another house, you should show us around yours!” Sweetie Bell said.
“Yeah, Ah'm really curious about why ya left the water running while ya were gone,” Applebloom said.
“And I want to know where you keep all the reality breaking crazy awesome things!” Scootaloo said.
“Oh, very well, if you insist,” Discord said. He snapped his fingers and was back to normal, though now he wore a suit with a name tag and carried a small flag with his face on it.
“If you look to your left, you can see my kitchen. It is a very nice kitchen. You can see the clean pile of dishes there, but don't worry, those will all be dirtied as soon as I have time. The kitchen sink stays running at all times so that no one can ever catch it. See? This way, if thieves break into my house, they can take everything but the kitchen sink,” Discord explained.
“Ah'm confused,” Applebloom commented.
“No need to worry, it'll all make much more cents soon,” Discord said, as he snapped his fingers and a small pile of coins fell from the ceiling onto the fillies.
“Ow! Hey!” Sweetie Bell protested. Discord rolled his eyes, and a moment later the coins swept up under the fillies to lift them into a small cart similar to the one they had arrived on. However, this one also had a rope that Discord held, and it was floating with all three fillies inside it.
“Come along, our tour isn't finished. Now, if you follow me upstairs, you will see the observatory,” Discord said, as the stairs led them up into a large room with a glass dome for a ceiling.
“Wait, but wouldn't this have been noticeable from the outside?” Scootaloo asked.
“Oh, yes, if I cared to make it so, but my house obeys only the rules I want it to. Right now, it has nearly a thousand rooms, for example, because I wish it to. The main room downstairs and this one are Fluttershy's favorites, so they are the ones I usually use.”
“Nearly a thousand rooms,” Sweetie Bell said in wonder. Scootaloo grinned.
“Tag! You're it!” She said, slapping Applebloom out of the cart and gliding out of the cart towards the door on the far side of the observatory.
“Scootaloo!” Applebloom shouted, annoyed through her pain at being knocked to the ground from more than a meter up. She quickly stood up and charged after her friend.
“Wait for me!” Sweetie Bell shouted, jumping out of the cart and following after.
“Oh dear,” Discord said, watching the three fillies run off into his house. “I wonder if I should stop them.” There was an incredibly loud banging sound that echoed through the house.
“That'd be the gong room.” Then a loud crashing sound as Discord flinched.
“Oh! And there went my time turners. I guess that plot device is off limits now.” A whirring sound.
“That must be my TARDIS. I wonder if they launched her or just knocked her over?” A reptilian roar and the sound of screaming fillies filled the hallway.
“Ah, they found my Jurassic Room. I should probably make sure they don't get eaten,” Discord said to himself. He snapped his fingers and teleported into a jungle wilderness, but didn't see the three fillies anywhere. He frowned, and reached out with his senses. They were...uh oh. Discord teleported out, and landed on top of a large silver disk. They were in his Artifact room, which was where he had stored various artifacts that he had created to help spread chaos. Applebloom was chasing Scootaloo around a pillar which held a reality marble, a curious item he had stolen from Iskander the Conquerer. However, he had...altered it, in several ways for his own uses.
Suddenly, Applebloom stopped on her front hooves, spun around, and bucked the pillar to knock it over onto Scootaloo. The reality marble was sent flying from the force of her buck, to crash into the Raiment of...something not appropriate for kids. The point of it was to change somecreature's species for various purposes. The Raiment tore, and the marble shattered. Had this event happened out in the normal world, not much would have come of it. But, here in the chaos dimension? The entire universe would do everything it could to make the consequences as catastrophic as possible.
“Oops,” Discord muttered. As a crack formed across the room, he couldn't help but think that he probably should have stopped the shenanigans of the CMC earlier. All well, there was only one thing he could do at this point.
Discord looked at the crack with a grin, and snapped his fingers. The world shattered. In the next dimension over, where the most recent portal to the Chaos Dimension had formed, a bubble of swirling vortex energy consumed the surrounding area of Ponyville. When investigators arrived the next day, the town was empty.
…
Spitefire felt the usual neasea from the dizzitron as she fell a short distance. She reacted before thinking and flipped herself over to crash onto a table in a way that didn't cause any permanent injuries. Had Rainbow just bucked her?! She knew she was a bit drunk from hanging out with Rainbow and Soarin at a Ponyville bar, but she didn't think she was out of it enough to start having blackouts.
However, she couldn't draw another conclusion as she looked around the room she was in. It was a table just a bit too large for a normal pony, and the kitchen tools and cabinets looked much more suited to hands or claws than pony hooves. It was generally clean, but the furnishings were heavily aged. Had she woken up in a Minotaur home? She'd done some crazy things while drunk before, but she'd never woken up in someone else's house before. That was Soarin's thing, she had to maintain higher standards.
Wherever she was, it definitely wasn't the bar.
“Rainbow? Soarin?” She called out, turning to see if anyone was there. There was a quiet shuffling noise. Quiet enough that if Spitfire hadn't been a trained soldier, she probably wouldn't have noticed. Her eyes moved to the door, and a messy monkey-like creature stood there with dark eyes and hair, pointing a wooden stick at her.
…
Twilight woke up by being knocked in the face by a branch, flipped over, and forced to land painfully on her back.
“Ow...” She moaned, laying on the ground for a moment in confusion. “Where am I? How did I get here? The last thing I remember was giving Celestia and Luna a tour of my castle...” She stood up and quickly performed a diagnostic spell on herself. Bruises, but no serious injuries. That was good. Everything else, not so much. A minute ago she had been giving Celestia and Luna a tour, with Cadence and Shining Armor in the main atrium keeping Flurry Heart happy and a major meeting planned with all the Princesses. How did she go from there to here?!
“Hello? Celestia? Luna? Spike?” She called out, circling her landing area as she looked around with wide eyes. She looked up at the sun, and reached out with her Alicorn magic to examine it, but she found she couldn't reach it. She couldn't control it since returning Celestia and Luna's magic to them, but she could sense it since borrowing their magic. It was far, so much farther away that it was impossible for it to be the same sun she was used to. She was in another world.
“Breath in 1, 2, 3...Breath out 1, 2, 3...” Twilight said to herself, carefully measuring her breath to make sure she didn't have a freak out.
“Who am I kidding, I'M SO LOST IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY!” She shouted. Twilight began pacing in place again.
“What am I going to do? No Spike, no Princesses, no friends, just me on a world that I know nothing about. What if there's things here that eat ponies? No, don't be ridiculous, I'm an Alicorn, I fought Tirek, I can defend myself-” a bush rustled nearby.
“Don't eat me!” Twilight shrieked, backing away from the bush as a squirrel crawled out from it. Twilight sighed.
“Hey, are you alright?” A girls voice asked from behind Twilight. Twilight shrieked and jumped, letting loose a small blast of concussive magic. Thankfully the girl dodged around it. Twilight blinked, recognizing the species in front of her. It was human. She was in a human world. The girl was looking at her with curiosity and concern in her green eyes. Her red hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she wore a tight fitting black shirt with green cargo pants.
“Ow. I'm alright! No, don't worry, no need for questions. It's all good!” A boy's voice called from behind the girl. Twilight leaned over to see a blond boy following behind, his hair slightly singed with the purple fire that was characteristic of Twilight's magic.
…
Derpy Hooves woke up to find that she was stuck under something really large and soft. She pushed it off gently to find that it was a monstrously big blanket. As she blinked her eyes and looked around, she found she was laying down outside in some dirt. There was a tent pitched nearby, and a large furry creature sat near a fire roasting a small animal of some kind. She cocked her head and observed the large creature. It was several times her height, and was clearly bipedal with a few straps over it's shoulders for carrying small items. She shuffled the blanket off her to try to get a better look, and it seemed to get the creature's attention. It looked at her and let out a gentle rumble sound.
“I'm sorry, I don't understand you,” Derpy said, tilting her head and trying to see the creature better with her good eye. It let out a slightly lighter rumbling sound, mixed with a kind of mute roaring sound.
“Chewie! Quit making all that racket! You'll get us found!” A voice shouted as another new creature stuck his head out from the tent. “I see our guest is awake.”
…
“Woah, nelly!” Applejack shouted, as she tumbled down a hill as a gangly mess of limbs. She tried to get control over herself, but nothing seemed to be working quite right. Finally, she collapsed on the ground and groaned. She shook her head to shake out some of the pain, and tried to stand up, only to fall over again staring at her front hooves.
“Ah have hands?! Why do ah have hands?!” She shouted, looking at where her hooves used to be. Indeed, she did have distinctly hand shaped appendages rather than her normal hooves. She flexed her fingers in wonder for a moment, before reaching up to her head. She thought for a moment she had become a Minotaur since she had hands, but that was clearly not the case as her head definitely was lacking any sort of horns. Her ears had even shrunk, and it felt like so had most of her facial features.
“What the hay happened?” She wondered, turning over her hands in front of her.
“That's what we'd like to know,” A voice said. Applejack turned to see a human, or what seemed like one based one Twilight's descriptions, looking at her and level a gun towards her. She recognized the Minotaur weapon, some of her cousins had pony-adapted versions of them, but she'd never used one herself. The human holding it was probably about as tall as Applejack was with a short cropped dark brown mane and a green jacket. He stared at her seriously, while another human standing behind him was blushing and trying not to meet her eyes. The other one was tall with longer dirty blond hair and a t-shirt on, though he also held a gun in his hands. Their features were similar enough that Applejack felt safe assuming they were brothers.
…
“What do you have for me Dinozzo?” Jethro Gibbs asked, looking over the body. Anthony Dinozzo scratched his head.
“Honestly? It looks like some kind of freak accident to me. Something freaked out the elderly officer, badly, and so he grabbed his gun and, due to his age and whithering sight, grabbed the wrong cartridge for it. It blew up in his hand, and the shrapnel caught his artery, causing him to bleed out in minutes.” Gibbs frowned, looking over the scene quietly as his radio cackled.
“Gibbs? There's a blue horse unicorn thing out here doing magic,” McGee's voice said over the radio. Gibbs brought the radio up to his face.
“Can you repeat that?”
“I swear on my life, there is a blue unicorn out here. It built a stage in the middle of the street and is stopping traffic.” McGee held down the button on his side just long enough to hear a female voice calling out “-for I am the Great and Powerful-”. Gibbs turned to look at Dinozzo with a raised eyebrow.
“I think a unicorn might startle an old man, yeah,” the detective said with a shrug.
“Some prank,” Gibbs said shortly, as the two detectives began to leave the scene.
…
Ocellus looked up at the enormous trees above her with awe. She flapped her wings and quickly flew up to them, amazed at how tall they were. Her pale blue chitin and iridescent pink wings sparkled in the beautiful morning dew. She sat down on the tree and took in the sight before beginning to wonder at where her friends were. The six of them had been hanging out at the lake near the Friendship School, when a bright light had blinded them all nearly instantly.
Somehow, she figured, she had been teleported here. But how? And by who? A steady rumble of hooves echoed through the forest, followed by a distant large thudding. Ocellus perked up, but hid behind the tree as best she could until she could determine if it was safe to go out. Soon, a series of horses with monkeys riding them rode under her tree, with several of the monkeys flying through the air. They were shouting at each other, but they were moving far too quickly for Ocellus to hear what was being said. Suddenly, whatever was chasing them was visible.
It was an incredibly large skinless creature, taller than the School of Friendship, with a short blond mane, and determined blue eyes. It reached out towards one of the tree hopping monkeys, and slammed it into a bloody smear across a tree.
…
Flurry Heart found herself sitting on a dining room table. Now, this table was no different than any other table as far as the baby could tell, but there, in a high chair much like her own, was a naked monkey baby with a rattler in it's hand and food smeared across it's face. It shook the rattler at her with a grin, and she smiled back. There was a scream of some girl nearby, and Flurry Heart and the baby across from her winced at the loud noise and simultaneously began crying. Flurry Heart, absent from the reach of the Crystal Heart to help minimize her power usage, unleashed a screaming wail that immediately shattered all the glass in the house she was in.
“What is that noise?!”
“Violet, are you okay?!”
Flurry Heart found herself being picked up by a pair of hands that held her out away from a body.
“Ow! I think it's gonna blow my eardrums!”
“Give it here!” New hands wrapped around Flurry Heart as she saw that the other baby had been picked up by a woman. She looked up at the face above her to see a strange man looking down at her. She began sniffling again, and the man had a panicked look for a moment before he reached past her to pick up a rattler.
“What is that thing?”
“Shut up, Dash!” a girl's voice whispered.
“Violet, it's not human,” The boy whispered back.
“But it is a baby. See, it's got a diaper!”
Flurry Heart grabbed the rattler from the man and quieted to begin biting it.
…
Chrysalis found herself standing in the middle of a street, surrounded by terribly strange creatures. They began pointing at her immediately and whispering, several of them pulling out strange devices. However, the way they held them and the flash of light made it clear they were miniaturized cameras. Chrysalis quickly observed the general appearance of the creatures around her, and transformed.
She stood before the crowd with the same peach colored and furless skin they had, with her long green hair hanging down and her horn missing. She wore a black dress with elegant holes cleverly placed on it. She bowed before the crowd.
“Thank you, thank you! If you appreciated the show, give a little tip!” She said, reaching out and grabbing a random passerby's hat to pass around to the crowd. They chuckled a bit and several put some coins in. After collecting the hat once more, she took the coins out and returned the hat to the man who walked away disgruntled. After a moment, she let her smile drop and walked out of the way of the main walking path.
She would need to learn a lot more about the people around her to blend into the society long enough to get home. She took her small handful of coins and walked into the first bookshop she could find, walking over to the magazines. If you want to know about a society, know about what they publicize, because it demonstrates what sells. She picked up the first one and glanced at its title:
'Who is Kira?' She shuffled through it and set it down before taking a look at another one.
Author's Note
Well, here's the first chapter. Let me know what you think! I already have several ideas for where they are going, but submit more if you have any!
