The Snap that Changed Everything
As the titan named Thanos placed the mind stone in the final empty space on the gauntlet, the power of the universe coursed through his body before being struck with an insane blast of electricity – lightning from a flying man with an axe. And this man had a score to settle with Thanos. This man was Thor.
Thanos launched a beam of all six stones at Thor simultaneously, power, space, reality, soul, time and mind but Thor’s axe was too powerful, cutting through and destroying the beam like a hot knife through ice. The axe impacted Thanos’ chest, and as Thor met Thanos on the ground he spoke words that fate had willed for him to speak. “I told you,” said Thor, referencing the murder of his brother Loki. “You’d die for that!” And as Thor pushed Stormbreaker deeper into Thanos’ chest, Thanos attempted to speak, but was too disoriented to get it out properly the first time.
As Thor looked on, Thanos simply stated “You should have gone for the head.” Thor’s stomach dropped as he looked on in abject horror; Thanos snapping his fingers and achieving his life’s goal of bringing balance to the universe.
Galaxies away, a chimera had only one thing to say: “Oh, poo.”
Princess Twilight Sparkle was no stranger to thunder in Ponyville, at least when it was scheduled. She looked around for any signs of her close friend Rainbow Dash, a Pegasus with a penchant for startling ponies with a lightning strike nearby. Immediately, she saw Rainbow, but something was wrong. Was it the sudden strong breeze that picked up? Was it that all her friends were with her? Was it that suddenly she was in her throne room despite being on the other side of town not a moment earlier? Or was it the fact that not only were her closest friends there, but a pony – or rather draconnequus she would rather not see at that moment was with them.
“Discord, I– “
“No, Twilight,” he said in a rather uncharacteristic tone. The Lord - or even God of Chaos was usually happy, upbeat and fun. Here he sounded deadly serious…and was that a hint of sadness? “I have made a terrible, terrible error in judgement and I fear that many of us may die because of it. The odds are high that at least one of us will die – there’s a 50% chance for every individual in this room, nay, universe.”
“Discord, hold on,” said his close friend Fluttershy. “Walk us through the issue and we’ll get to the bottom of it for you. I doubt it needed everyone in this-” Fluttershy was cut off by a bloodcurdling scream from down the hall.
“It has begun,” Discord said, growing solemn. As they rushed over to the source of the noise, they caught the tail end of the most gruesome sight any of them had ever seen: Starlight’s body turning into ash and disappearing.
“DISCORD! Ya’ll better explain everythin’ right now!” Yelled Applejack at the top of her lungs.
“In a far away galaxy, an insane being named Thanos had a goal of wiping out 50% of all life to bring absolute balance to the universe. I had the opportunity to interfere with a battle in a place called Wakanda, to stop Thanos from taking the final piece needed to do it in a literal snap…the same kind of snap I use to cast magic.” Discord took a deep breath. “I didn’t, because it would mean I would never see you again, Fluttershy. Our worlds are only close enough for me to teleport once every 600 million years for a very brief time, like a 3-month window. I cannot regain the amount of power needed to get back after such a short period of time in such a magic deprived wasteland of the universe. I could view the event and hope, but I’m just no match for a commander of not only reality, but space and time too. Now because of my inaction half of Equestria is going to-” everypony gasped.
“Discord!” Shouted a tear-filled Fluttershy as she rushed over to embrace him. “Please, don’t go!”
“Oh, this is bad, this is very, very bad.” Discord contemplated. “Without an avatar to keep it in check, my chaos will spread across the galaxy, further even. Thankfully it won’t reach any other planet systems for another 10 years, but the universe is doomed in more ways than one. I’m so sorry everypony.” Discord was fully crying now, genuine tears. “Please, forgive-” he never got to finish his sentence as he crumpled into dust. Physical, tangible, magicless dust.
“Wow.” Was all Applejack could say as she took her hat off in respect. Suddenly, the castle doors opened in a wild manner as Sweetie Belle rushed in crying.
“RARITY! RARITY!” The filly yelled, trying to escape the horror of the situation. “Help, you gotta help. Scootaloo and App…” she collapsed into tears. “They’re g-g-g-gone! Vanished! As well as little Pip!” She hiccupped. “Dust! Please, you gotta believe me…” she sobbed as she hugged her sister’s leg tight. Applejack staggered.
“Ah believe ya Sugarcube. Oh, sweet Celestia. My little sis is gone!” Applejack exclaimed before suffering the same fate. Rarity disintegrated immediately after, causing Fluttershy to puke heavily before fainting. To everypony’s only mild relief, she didn’t disintegrate like the others.
“Spike, you get Fluttershy to a bed, stat. Rainbow, you go check on the Everfree Forest. Zecora knows nothing of this, and Sandbar, Yona, Gallus and what have you are in the Treehouse. Pinkie, you check on Ponyville. I’m going to Canterlot. Got it?” Ordered Twilight.
“Yes, ma’am, Twilight ma’am!” everypony chorused.
Flying over the Everfree Forest was an eye-opener for Rainbow Dash. Everywhere she looked, trees disintegrated. Timberwolves almost looked like they were burning. She could have sworn that a hydra even flaked away. Rainbow made it to Zecora’s house with little issue, however, only her home was nowhere to be seen. “Zecora!” Rainbow yelled.
“Rainbow Dash! Am I glad to see you! I-just have no idea what to do! My house evaporated in a cloud of smoke. Tell me, does it have anything to do with this Discord bloke?” She rhymed using her traditional speaking patterns.
“Kinda.” Rainbow replied. “It wasn’t entirely out of his control but I sympathise with his reason…ing. Zecora?” But Zecora was nowhere to be found. There was a pile of ash where she was standing a moment ago and that was when it hit her: Rainbow was never going to see Scootaloo again. And so, she cried.
After a solid ten minutes, Rainbow set off to complete her final task. Then she could grieve. Dash made it to the treehouse just as it started turning grey, a sinking feeling in Rainbow’s stomach as it toppled over and six screams emanated from inside. She watched in horror as despite this fact, only Ocellus and Sandbar hit the ground, the rest becoming indistinguishable from the tree dust. Sandbar and Ocellus explained that the Tree talked to them about the end of life, and the unleashing of chaos. Now without the Tree to keep it in check, Discord’s raw chaos would spread throughout the galaxy at light speed, the only universal law it obeys. Equestria was doomed, and in 13.7 billion years, so too would the universe be. As she headed to Ponyville with her students in tow, she wept. For her friends, for her nation, for her world, for her universe. One thing was certain, Thanos would die for this.
As Dashie and Twilight took off for their respective tasks, Pinkie felt a pang in her stomach. Pound – no, Pumpkin was fading. She walked slowly through town, her mane deflating with each step. Matilda hung onto Cranky as she vanished, before he, too disappeared. By the time she made it to Sugarcube Corner, she couldn’t bring herself to go in. Would Mr. And Mrs. Cake be gone, too? Would Pound also disintegrate? As she braved the threshold and stepped inside both Mr and Mrs. Cake hugged her tight. Pumpkin was gone, but at least they and Pound were safe.
As Pinkie broke away from the hug, eyes and coat wet, she saw Bulk Biceps drop his dumbbell, never to pick it up again. She saw Bon Bon hug a sobbing Lyra as the cracks flaked up her body before she disintegrated, Lyra to be gone before she even hit the ground. A streak of orange that could only be Spitfire collided with Spoiled Milk, of whom both were destroyed on impact. Diamond Tiara and Filthy Rich stood there in shock. This was unprejudiced. Pinkie noticed the alien pony, what was he again? Oh yes, the “Time Lord” disintegrate in the hooves of a distraught Derpy. His reappearance from behind a corner in which they ran back to together did admittedly shock her at first, before his space-time machine came back into the forefront of her mind. This gave her hope. Maybe she could see all her friends again. One thing was certain, Thanos was uninvited from all her parties FOREVERRRrrr…!
Canterlot was in shambles. The first thing Twilight did on arrival was to go home. Only Night Light answered the door, which was enough to make Twilight break down already. As he informed her of the state of Canterlot Castle, she wept for her friend and mentor Celestia, and even more for Luna, who now had to live an eternity without her. She cried for Prince Blueblood, her only friend during her early years at Celestia’s School. Nothing made her cry harder than when Flash Magnus arrived at the door informing her of her brother Shining Armour and the rest of the Crystal Empire. One thing was certain, Thanos had changed everything.
And that’s when the chaos became uncontrollable.
Author's Note
I hope you enjoyed this first, shorter, intro, prologue type thing. This won’t be too long a story, but this will hopefully be the shortest chapter. I don’t know when the next chapter will be out, but I promise you all that I’ll start writing more again. Not that I ever did much in the first place, but hey. It’s the thought that counts. This story will contain some endgame spoilers, but very minor ones and likely in the last part only. By the time I get around to that, I’m 99% sure you - yes, you Steve. I see you procrastinating about seeing it - will have watched the film. And what a film. Geez, it’s awesome.
See you in a month or so! (Hopefully not that long, of course.)
The Snap that Changed Everything
It was chaos. Pure, unbridled, chaos. The last year had been nothing short of Tartarus for the ponies of Equestria, and soon every being on every planet in every galaxy would be suffering the same fate. Normally, when one thinks of Discord’s chaos, they imagine houses floating upside down, checkerboard ground, cotton candy clouds and animals proportions being comically extended. They do not imagine the dictionary definition of chaos, that is complete randomness and confusion. Not even the paradoxical consistency of chaos reigned true, as there was a short period of time where ten ponies gained the ability to nullify any and all chaos in the area. And then the ability was gone. Retroactively.
Twilight had to rule at Princess Luna’s side during this time. Not that there was much point to it, for at any time either of them could turn into a turkey, or worse - a green pan made of cotton wool, fully sentient of course. Maybe. The respect Twilight had for Discord, keeping this all in check and ensuring a stable balance to the universe only grew with each and every passing day. Princess Luna, on the other hand, respected him less.
“If and when Discord comes back, he is to be banished from this galaxy,” she stated, pure and simple. “There is no way that I will let him get away with his crimes against the universe.”
Twilight wasn’t having any of it. “Discord is nigh-omnipotent. He can see the past, present, and the possible futures. I’m sure, certain that he knew what he was doing. Sure, Equestria is in the pits, but at least no monsters have been released from their prisons.”
Right on cue, a cloaked figure walked, flew and bounced into the grass simultaneously, and he wasn’t happy about it. “Princesses…” he began, menacingly lowering his hood to unmask his face. “I have a proposition for you.” As Lord Tirek finished, Luna and Twilight stood with a brief look of shock before lowering their horns menacingly at the grown centaur.
“Speak now, Tirek, at to why we shouldn't unleash all our fury upon you right this instant!” Luna spoke, the fury of a thousand moons behind her voice.
“Queen Chrysalis and another died right before my eyes last year. The remains were magicless, powerless. I have been biding my time and strength since then to come speak with you.” Tirek looked around. “This happened a year ago, today. The same day that the fool Discord finally broke free of his chains of what you call “friendship.” Honestly, I almost pity him if it weren’t for how much he reminded me of my brother.”
“Why are you here, Tirek?” Twilight asked, charging up for an extremely powerful spell to blast him to Tartarus - both literally and figuratively.
“I want to stop this chaos. Point me in Discord’s direction and I’ll clean him up for you. In exchange, I will not harm you, Princesses.” Twilight saw through this immediately. Tirek couldn’t dodge the blast.
The next two years passed without incident. Fluttershy had finally gotten accustomed to the spell preventing the chaos from reaching her despite her complaints, Rainbow Dash finally got a handle on the oil falling from the sky at the scalding temperature of 50 degrees centaurgrade, Twilight managed to invent two new spells to help guide the chaos, and Pinkie was, well, Pinkie. It was during one of her baking sessions when she had the most superrific epiphany in the history of super-magical superrific epiphanies. “One more year!” she yelled, her screams echoing through the chasm Ponyville was simultaneously in and not, defying all known laws on how Euclidean geometry should effect 3 dimensional spaces. One shouldn't be surprised, however. This was Pinkie Pie and Discord’s chaos together in the same room; an explosive combination of weird if there ever was one.
The ponies around Pinkie stared at her for a few moments before one trotted over. “One more year until what, Pinkie?” asked Vinyl Scratch. Of all the ponies affected by the mass vanishings, she was relatively lucky. While she lost many acquaintances - some she’d even call friends - none of her immediate family were affected, and quite a few of her extended family survived too.
“I dunno. But it’s a doozy! Do you remember when Twilight first came to town and then I saw her and I was all like gasp and then rushed off to plan her Welcome to Ponyville party and then she came and then I told her about it and how I went gasp and then the Summer Sun Celebration happened and then Nightmare Moon came back from the moon but we blasted her with the elements of harmony and we all became superiffic bestest friends with Princess Luna and then Twilight was trying to figure out my Pinkie Sense and then I sensed a doozy about to happen at Froggy Bottom Bog and we were attacked by a huuuuuuge hydra but that wasn’t the doozy; the doozy being Twilight just accepting my weird ability?”
“Well, yes but-” started Vinyl, slightly confused about what this had to do with anything.
“This doozy is about…” Pinkie began to stretch her hooves as wide as the road. “This many times bigger.”
Vinyl backed away slowly, intending to visit Berry Punch to forget this encounter. “Well, good luck,” she said before dashing off for a hard drink.
Fluttershy’s cottage was everything you wouldn’t expect from a landscape ravaged by...whatever the landscape was ravaged by. It was as if that the chaos couldn’t touch her, which was exactly the case. After Sweetie Belle dropped her off at home, Fluttershy awoke to find the poor filly snuggling up beside her. It was only after Sweetie had found out that both her parents and Opal were dead that she asked Fluttershy to take her in.
Fluttershy also found that not even her animal friends were spared from the vanishing as just over half - her darling Angel Bunny included - were nowhere to be seen. With nothing to indicate otherwise, it was only assumed that they were killed at the fingers of Thanos. Even now, that name made her blood boil. “Sweetie Belle!” she called from the kitchen. “I’m going to the market. We’re nearly out of lettuce.”
“Sure thing...mom.” Sweetie replied from the stairwell, causing Fluttershy to do a double-take.
“Are you sure you want to call me mom? I could never replace all she did for you,” replied Fluttershy, unsure of the implications.
“It’s not like she’s coming back, is it?” Asked Sweetie Belle, leaning in for a hug. “I’ve accepted it. I no longer have a blood family, and over these past three years you’ve taken me in, saved me and done so much more for me that you didn’t have to. It’s hard to think of you as anything other than a mom now. I just - for all you’ve done for me, I love you.” Sweetie’s confession shook Fluttershy to the core. It’s true, she’d always loved spending time with the filly, even before she and the other crusaders had their cutie marks. These past three and a half years had only tightened that bond. It was practically unbreakable.
But she couldn’t have just turned Sweetie away, Fluttershy tried to justify to herself. Again, like so many other times, her mind drifted back to the incident with the breezies. Yes, she could, and she wouldn’t have been any less of a mare for it. She chose to accept Sweetie into her home, chose to care for her, feed her, and help her get through these difficult times. She earned that title. It was a shame that Rarity would never see this. As Fluttershy stepped off of her cottage property and into the chaos for the lettuce, she smiled. At least there’s a head of lettuce growing from that tree, she thought. Maybe this pure chaos isn’t all bad.
One year to the second after Pinkie’s outburst in the middle of town, the entire planet of Equus stopped what they were doing and gazed outside. It was normal as far as the eye could see, just like it was 4 years and 7 months ago. Half of the creatures on the planet went back to whatever they were doing, assuming this was temporary. The others held their bated breath to see if this was permanent. To Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Spike, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, the answer was immediately apparent. They were in Twilight’s throne room and not where they were moments ago. Oh, and the draconequus in the room with them hugging Fluttershy like a reverse stuffed bear and bawling his eyes out was a big clue, too.
“Oh, I missed you guys so much!” He wailed, tears flowing freely from their ducts as his arms pulled them into a great big hug. “They did it! The madmen did it!”
For most of the ponies in the room, thinking was required to connect the dots. “Those people fighting Thanos?” asked Twilight. “But how? Didn’t they lose?”
“Yes and yes. Apparently they used time travel to find the stones themselves and bring everyone snapped five years forward in time. In fact, I think you should all have a look outside.” He responded, glee in his voice. “It isn’t over yet, though. I can’t intervene, but they have a pretty good shot at defeating another version that made his way into this universe. I’ll keep you posted. Ciao!” And with that, he was gone in a flash.
Twilight barged out of the door, her feeling of dread vanishing at the sight of Rarity and Applejack. “Girls! Sweet faust! You’re alive!”
“Yea, we are, Twi. What in tarnation are you so frazzled abou -” she was cut off by a pony pile as citizens of Equestria, both snapped and not alike, rushed in to alert the Princess of Friendship. Starlight Glimmer emerged from the kitchen, looking visibly scarred from flaking away. Twilight beamed as Sweetie Belle walked in before spying Rarity and glomping her. Her grin split her face in two as she noticed a white dot in the distance from the direction of Canterlot before she flew out to meet it.
“I thought I’d lost you forever!” Twilight beamed.
“Nopony’s ever really gone, Twilight. Not as long as their memory is alive. And with you and Luna here for oblivion? No matter what happens, Equestria is in safe hands. Remind me to give Discord a medal of honour when I next see him; Luna’s told me everything,” said Celestia. Each word was like gold to the younger princess, who beamed with every single syllable. This was real.
Everyone was alive.
“It’s time for a victory party!” Discord said, re-emerging from the realm of impossibility. The universe is saved!
And that night, parties happened all over Equestria. All over Equus. All over the universe.
Nothing could ruin this. According to Discord, it was simply not possible. But then, when has anything been truly impossible when Discord is involved?
Author's Note
Thank you for the attention my first serious attempt at a story has gotten.
I had no idea it would grow like this with a reception this positive. I'm almost certain I've made some gramattical errors/typos and would truly appreciate it if these were reported so I could weed them out, but other than that I'd like to thank all who stuck by me throughout this, even if it's only been a few weeks. You're all awesome.
