The Rise and Fall of Chaos

Chapter 2: The First to Fall

“Be careful now, that nearly drained our reserves.” “You worry too much.” “And you are far too rash for your own good sometimes. We can't let them hit us again, it would mean our doom!” “I have it all under control...”

The sound of laughter could be heard echoing for miles. Anyone hearing it might have thought there was some kind of party or celebration taking place in Canterlot, but if they took the time to listen closer they would realize that the laughter had a sinister sound to it. It was the cruel, cackling laughter of a madman that has found twisted delight in someone else's misfortune. Even stranger still, the laughter was coming from a pony with the head of a goat and a cutie mark to make even Discord himself blush.

“Oh my dear ponies,” Goatroth managed to choke out between laughs, “I haven't had this much fun in such a long time!” He sat down on his new throne and took a few deep breaths. “There, that's better. Honestly, you all got me so worked up with your horrible failure that I nearly died from the laughter!” He took a moment to think. “Just kidding. Don't get any ideas.”

Twilight looked in disbelief at the evil pony that was somehow still there despite her best efforts to banish him. “How? I don't understand! We used the Elements of Harmony to their full potential but nothing happened!”

“Your arrogance is nothing short of amazing, my dear Twilight. I've already told you, those 'elements' are useless against my power. There is one bit of good news, however. I have decided, out of the goodness of my heart, to give you one last chance to begone from my sight. Now be a good little girl and shove off before I decide to do something nasty. I won't give you another chance.”

The others looked at Twilight with shocked expressions. They all knew that the Elements of Harmony could never be beaten, so why had they failed? Was it somehow her fault? Maybe theirs? Surely this pony couldn't be so powerful as to negate them outright, could he? Whatever the answer might have been, they sure as hell weren't going to ask. Twilight had a look of pure determination and anger on her face. The other ponies knew that she was getting ready for another assault, and the last thing any of them should do at this point was distract her.

“Come on girls, let's hit him again! We can beat him!”

“Yeah!” they all chimed in unison.

“You're seriously going to try again?” sighed an exasperated Goatroth. “Fine, since you seem so intent on challenging me, then I suppose the least I can do is attempt to fight back this time.”

With that, he reared his head back and two green wisps shot out of his horns. They snaked towards the girls, dividing into six separate beams of green light. Each one disappeared into the heads of the girls, freezing them in place. To the outside world, they might have appeared as statues. None of them appeared to be breathing at this point as they were all fighting a secret battle within their own minds.

Goatroth sat back in his throne and relaxed a little.

“Now the real fun begins.”

***

Rainbow Dash awoke with a scream, her mane drenched with sweat. She looked around and realized she was sitting atop a cloud. Had the whole thing been nothing more than a dream?

Before she had a chance to ponder that thought, the sound of explosions and screams pierced through the air, nearly making her fall off her cloud. She peeked over the side and couldn’t believe what she saw. Ponies from all over Equestria were fighting against each other! She immediately thought of her friends being caught up in the fighting and set out to find them. If anything happened to them, she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself!

She zipped through the skies, dodging all sorts of magical spells, huge boulders, and other potentially fatal forms of ammunition, desperately looking for the smallest sign of one of her friends. Finally she thought she spotted one of them. It was Fluttershy! She seemed... different somehow. Rainbow had never seen such a fierce look of pure raw anger on the shy pony's face before. She seemed possessed! Rocks were flying left and right, seemingly propelled by the very hatred in Fluttershy's eyes as she threw them.

“Fluttershy, what are you doing?!” screamed a confused Rainbow. “What's all this fighting about anyway?”

“Back off! Don't come any closer!” snarled Fluttershy.

“What's gotten into you?” Rainbow flew in close to her friend and grabbed her by the shoulders. “You're acting crazy!”

Fluttershy shoved Rainbow away, looking at her with pure hatred.

“I said back off!” screamed a crazed Fluttershy as she pulled out a bazooka, of all things, and aimed squarely at Rainbow Dash.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” started Rainbow, “watch where you're pointing that thing, will ya?”

Fluttershy shot a rocket directly at her, giving her very little time to react. She dodged it just in time as it whizzed by her head. It slammed into a building off the distance, and Rainbow could've sworn she heard the cries of at least a dozen ponies as their lives were tragically cut short.

“Yesssss! A direct hit!”

Rainbow Dash looked in disbelief at what was going on. She had just witnessed the kindest, most gentlest pony in all of Equestria gloating over the fact that she had just murdered a bunch of innocent ponies. This couldn't be happening, it shouldn't be happening! Worst of all, she knew that had the rocket not missed her, Fluttershy would now be gloating similarly over her own death. She shook her head, trying desperately to get the image out of her mind.

“I gotta get out of here, there's gotta be somepony that knows what's going on. Hopefully they haven't all gone insane.”

Before Fluttershy could reload the bazooka to take another shot, Rainbow took off at lightning speed in hopes of finding another one of her friends. It wasn't too long before she spotted two unicorns that looked very familiar. One of them was purple, the other white. Both of them were using their magic to kill scores of earth ponies, the look of pure homicidal glee on their faces.

“It's everypony for herself!” cried an obviously deranged Rarity. “Don't forget Twilight Sparkle, once we're done with these distractions it's you and me!”

“Oh I haven't forgotten, not at all!” screamed Twilight as she reduced another ten earth pony soldiers to dust with a tiny zap from her horn.

Rainbow Dash couldn't believe it! Another two of her friends, happily killing people, and even threatening one another! At the very least, she expected to be able to talk to Twilight about what was going on, maybe even getting some kind of explanation. Instead, here she is willingly participating in what could only be called mass slaughter! It was too much for her to take!

“What's going on?!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Instantly, the two unicorns turned to the confused pegasus and stared with wide eyes. They then looked at each other, shooting each other agreeing glances. Their horns started to glow with magical energy as they were getting ready to zap Rainbow Dash into oblivion.

She gasped at her two friends in disbelief. First Fluttershy, and now them? She didn't even give them the chance to charge their horns to full power. She shot past them, momentarily confusing them and giving her a chance to escape.

“This is crazy!” Rainbow commented out loud as she flew towards the town. “There's got to be at least one pony that hasn't gone completely insane!”

She found Pinkie Pie outside of Sugarcube Corner, happily jumping around and singing about a party. She knew how easy it was for the pink pony to snap, remembering back to the day of her birthday party and how she found her talking to a sack of flour and a pile of rocks, among other things. Still, she had to try. She landed next to her and was immediately knocked over by the excited pink pony.

“Dashie, you're here!” gasped Pinkie as she looked down at Rainbow.

“Uhh, yep, I'm here.”

“I was afraid you weren't going to make it to the party! Come inside, we have cakes and pies and balloons and music and candy and...”

“Alright alright, I get it!”

“So you wanna join the party?” asked a hopeful Pinkie.

“Yes, fine, I’ll join the party. But Pinkie, there’s something I really need to...”

“Yay!!!” Pinkie shouted enthusiastically. “Let’s go inside!”

Rainbow reluctantly walked into the bakery, having temporarily given up trying to ask Pinkie if she knew what was going on. As she walked in, she immediately knew something was wrong. For one thing, all the lights were off. For another, there was a strange smell in the air. It was the stench of rotten meat. She quickly turned around and was about to leave when the door slammed and the lights turned on. Pinkie was standing at the door with a bloodied meat cleaver in her mouth.

“And just wheeeeeere do you think you're going?”

“Uhh, nowhere, nowhere at all.” Rainbow said, looking very nervous.

“Good, we wouldn't want to ruin the surprise, now would we?”

“Surprise? What surprise?” Rainbow was feeling very uncertain at this point.

“Why, the surprise ingredient in my next cake, silly!”

With a shaky voice, Rainbow said “W...what's the surprise ingredient?”

By this point, Pinkie had cornered her in the back of the room. Rainbow wasn't even aware that she had been slowly backing away from the psychotic pony until her back hit the wall.

“You!” screamed Pinkie as she threw the cleaver at Rainbow's head.

Rainbow narrowly ducked out of the way as the cleaver hit the wall behind her. It was only then that she realized she was standing in a huge puddle of blood. Around her were the hacked up bodies of at least twenty ponies. Pinkie was baking them into the cakes! Rainbow screamed and flew past the deranged pink pony, bursting through the door. She quickly took off in the direction of Applejack's apple farm.

“If anyone's going to be calm and level-headed, it's Applejack.” thought the bewildered pegasus pony. “At least, I hope.”

She could feel her sanity slowly melting away. The images of her best friends turning on her were hard to shake from her mind. Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty... being betrayed by the friends she's known and loved for years. The mere thought of it was almost enough to bring a tear to her eye. She resisted, however. She was too tough for that, right? Right? Before she could answer her own question, she spotted Applejack's apple farm in the distance.

“Finally, maybe now I can get some answers!” she spoke aloud to herself.

She swooped down and landed in front of the barn. Images of the party they threw for Pinkie Pie started swirling through her head. Everyone was so happy back then, so cheerful. Well, ok, Pinkie Pie wasn't exactly cheerful at first. More like, menacingly pissed off. But she came around.

Rainbow walked inside the barn and started calling out for Applejack. She was met with a small grunt as Applejack pulled herself up from a bed made out of hay.

“Hey there sugarcube, what brings you here?” spoke a groggy Applejack.

“Oh thank Celestia! Finally, somepony who hasn't gone completely insane!”

Hope started to fill the darkened corners of Rainbow Dash's mind. Maybe there was still some way to fix all of this. Maybe, with Applejack's help, they could get the other ponies to come around, to stop their meaningless bloodshed, and to put a stop to the war with the Elements of Harmony!

Before Applejack could ask her friend what she meant, a strange green cloud enveloped her head. Her eyes started to stare off into the distance, it was as if she was in a trance. Rainbow had no idea what the cloud was or what it was doing to her friend, but she somehow knew it was bad. Very bad. She tried frantically to shoo it away, but no matter what she did, it clung to Applejack like a thick morning fog clinging to the ground on a spring day.

After what seemed like an eternity, she spoke. “If'n you know what's good fer ya, you'll get out of my barn and off my farm, right now.”

“You can't be serious” grumbled Rainbow.

The cloud had disappeared, and with it went Rainbow’s memory of it even existing in the first place. All she could focus on was the fact that the last pony she thought she could depend on had now turned on her, just like all the rest. She had been able to control herself pretty well up to this point. Sure, she had a reputation for being a hothead, but she just didn't want to hurt her friends, and it was the only thing keeping her from fighting back. She just couldn't take it anymore!

“Fine, you want to fight, then let's fight!” she growled at her once best friend.

Applejack reached behind a bale of hay and produced a shotgun.

“Crap.”

Rainbow quickly took off and started heading towards the Everfree Forest. There was no way she could contend with a gun. She was fast, but not that fast! Applejack chased her all the way off the property and quickly rolled out of the way as a stray rocket flew straight into the barn she had just left. Fluttershy's mad laughter could be heard echoing in the distance.

Rainbow landed in a remote part of the forest, far far away from the insanity of Ponyville and all of her friends that wanted to kill her. She was seething with anger. How could they do this to her? How could her best friends suddenly turn on her without so much as the tiniest reason? Soon, her anger turned to sadness. She struggled to hold back the tears as she remembered all the good times she had with her friends. How they came to cheer for her during the Best Young Flyer competition. How she saved Rarity's life that day and created an awesome sonic rainboom. How proud all of her friends were. How they had cared for her enough to put on a huge masquerade, acting like a superhero to attempt to stop her from becoming lost in her own arrogance.

It was all too much to take. She had always been there for her friends, and now they were all intent on killing her and each other. Her eyes were burning as she tried to keep the tears from flowing. How could they do this to her after all they had been through together? After all she had done for them? She couldn’t hold back anymore, and the tears began to roll down her cheeks. She could feel the last frayed bits of her sanity wash away more and more with each tear. If her friends wanted her dead, then why should she care? Why should she remain loyal to a bunch of murdering cutthroats?! She had reached the point of no return, she had finally snapped.

“They want to kill me? Kill me?! I'll tear them limb from limb!” shrieked Rainbow Dash, her eyes filled with a murderous rage.

And thus, the Element of Loyalty was shattered.

***

Goatroth smiled as he felt the loyalty oozing out of Rainbow Dash. Better yet, she was intent on killing all of her friends. It was more than he could have ever hoped for! There was still so much work to be done, so much work. After all, it wouldn't take much for them to stop her if they still had all of their faculties, now would it?

“One down, five to go.”