Prologue: One is Many, Many is One
Prologue: One is Many, Many are One
"All the problems of the world could be settled if people were only willing to think. The trouble is that people very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work."
-Thomas J. Watson
It has been three years since the defeat of the changelings, and all of Equestria is at peace. At a whole mind you. There still is all those bad things happening in the world: greed, revenge, hate, murder, theft, but they were few and far between. Ponies are very friendly and trusting to others, sometimes to a fault. But nothing really has brought the world to a halt like Discord, Nightmare Moon or even Queen Chrysalis did. Even so, there were the Elements of Harmony to stop them. If anything like that were to happen again, they would step in and beat it, encasing it in stone or sending it TO THE MOON! The world was at peace and everything was fine at the moment.
One of Elements of Harmony, Twilight Sparkle, was at her house in Ponyville at 1 o’clock in the morning. The others, mind you, were also at their homes but we’re going to focus on this particular moment right now. Twilight was busy reading the next issue of Daring Doo (before Rainbow Dash ‘borrows it’ and is never seen again) when Spike, her dragon roommate/assistant/pet, walked up the stairs into the room.
“Hey Twilight,” Spike said exhausted, “I’m done sorting the card sorting system for the books. Can I go to bed now?”
“Not yet Spike,” the unicorn answered, “we still have to sort all the books now alphabetically.” Spike groaned, having to do more work this late. He then remembered this was Twilight, and if she didn’t have the place completely organized, she would turn into what the other ponies call, “Psycho Twilight”, obsessing over every last detail, and he REALLY didn’t want to deal with that this late. So they went downstairs into the library and started sorting the books, from A to B to C and so on and so on.
When to the E’s Twilight grabbed book with her telekinesis and started lifting it up to the shelf, but suddenly stops.“Hey Twilight, what are you doing?” Spike asked.
“Nothing Spike,” she replies, "Just feeling up on the nostalgia. I can’t believe that without this book, Equestria would have been covered in night, chaos, and changlings forever.”
“What are you talking about?” Spike walks up to Twilight to see what she’s talking about. It was Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide. “How did this book help you do that?!” he asked confused.
“Don’t you remember Spike,” she tells him, “this was the book that told us about the Elements of Harmony and told us how to beat Nightmare Moon. It was also where the Elements were when Discord took them.”
“Oh yeah! You know, I never understood one thing about Discord.”
“One thing? Even after he broke the laws of physics and Celestia knows what?”
“Okay besides that. You know how Discord represents the spirit of Chaos?”
“Of course.”
“Well, why is it that there is one Element of Chaos, and six Elements of Harmony? And also remember that Discord represents the spirit of Chaos, not the element.”
“Spike, you’re overthinking it. The spirit of Chaos is the same thing as the Element of Disharmony.”
“No Twilight. The spirit would represent the whole physical embodiment of it, whereas an element would only be a piece of it. Like, per se, wouldn’t the spirit of Harmony be Celestia? Because she is the embodiment of it, wouldn’t-”
“Spike, you’re too young to understand. Trust me, when you’re older, you’ll realise that no pony would ever want to or could be an Element of Chaos and therefore there wouldn’t be the Elements of Chaos. It’s very late, we should get to bed.”
They both were going upstairs to go to bed, but Spike was still thinking about it. If no pony would ever do something like that, what about something that’s not a pony. “Twilight... could something that’s not a pony be one?” the young dragon asked.
Twilight sighed, either out of tiredness or frustration, “ Theoretically... yes a non-pony could be an ‘Element of Disharmony’, but that would be near impossible.”
Spike, wondering why, then asks, “How so?”
“Well, a dragon couldn’t do it because of its greed. Yes, greed is a part of disharmony, but a dragon would be too self-obsessed with itself to care whether or not he would do it. Besides, it could always say no and that would be that because no pony would stand up against a dragon unless they were Screwball crazy. An animal like a sheep or a cow wouldn’t do it because its too weak/soft. Almost anything could easily beat it. A griffon wouldn’t because its not loyal enough. It wouldn’t care what you said and it would just do whatever it wanted to do. And if you tried enforcing it’d probably kick your flank and leave. A manticore or any monster in the Everfree wouldn’t do its too barbaric, cruel, and quite instinctive. It wouldn’t understand what you said and would probably just rip you apart and eat you as a solution for all of its problems. And a diamond dog wouldn’t do it because its too dumb. You could tell it something, it would understand it, but it would be too dumb to come up with an idea to do it.” Spike started to say something but Twilight interrupted him, her tiredness getting to her, “And if you can name a creature that is weak enough to be told what to do, strong enough to fight, and smart enough to understand and complete the problem or situation, we would have probably turned it to stone.”
Spike seemed shocked at this. “But why would you turn it to stone?!”
“Because it would be too much of a threat to Equestria and therefore would be turned to stone.” Twilight said. She then gave a full five-second yawned. “Spike it's one in the morning at night lets go to bed.”
“Alright Twilight,” Spike said walking up the stairs, still speculating that there could be a ‘Elements of Chaos’.
But what Twilight and Spike don’t know, and what nopony else knew, and what Princess Celestia and Luna had forgotten, is that there IS a creature like that. Everypony, that is, except Discord. After all, they are his Elements of Chaos.
Six Statues from the Darkness of the Mind
The Six Statues from the Darkness of the Mind
"Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle."
-Mahatma Gandhi
Between Ponyville and Canterlot, there is a hill. Its not like anypony will go to the hill anyway, its no where near the train tracks or any of the roads. And on top of that hill, there is a hole in the ground. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that meant comfort. Of course, he had gotten evicted 1965 years ago due to security reasons, but still. Now, in what used to be his house, there is a door that leads underground. Not a wooden door, but a heavy iron door, 3 feet thick. On its hinges, are a very rare type of metal: steel. But the elements had taken to it, and now it is just a rusty, thick door with the word that originally said something: “By ord-r of Pr--cess C---es-ia a-d Prin--ss Lu-a, th-- door is to re--ined closed forever u----l fu--her no--ce. If you --en the ---r you shall be p-n---ed to the fu---st extent of -he la-. DO N-T O-EN TH-- D-OR!”
Inside the door is something that should have never been there, while living or inanimate. It has been there for so long everypony but Discord has forgotten it. In the room, there were six statues. Those six statues were originally meant to be put in the castle gardens, but were never put there out of fear and spite, and were instead rotting in this room. They all looked rather odd. First off, the stood upright on their back hooves. They looked like monkeys but much larger. It also looked like, even though it was stone, that they had almost no fur or mane, it mostly being on the top of their heads and little strips of it above the eyes. They were also wearing clothes all over their bodies. They had a weird bump right above their mouth with two holes in it, which most ponies would assume is their nose. But the downright weirdest thing about them were their hooves. Their arms ended in a sort of thing that looked like the claws from a griffon or a dragon, but their claws were not sharpened and smooth tipped. There were five of those claw-like things on the ends of their hooves.
There were six of these statues, all in various poses. Each of their eyes told a different story. The first one was in a pose of... umm... you know what. It was quite tall, and had a massive bulge coming from its pants. So in other words it was a male. He was in sort of position that looked like when a young colt’s parents walk into to his room at the WORST possible time. Worse than the whole: ‘Mom, Dad, I watch a show about these creatures called humans.’ conversation, just subtract the awkwardness and multiply the bad feeling you if they’re mad or ashamed or disgusted by about 30. He was skinny and appeared at a glance to have innocent eyes. But if you look closer you’ll see his eyes told that he was staring straight at you, and your, erm, you know, and conveyed feelings of desire and sex. His smile was one of a pony that was peeping at a mare in the shower. It was disturbingly creepy, with his lips dry curled up in a Cheshire grin. His clothes were, for a creature like that, was quite fashionable and hip per se. He looked like one of those stallions at night clubs looking for flank. In one of his hands, cleverly concealed, was a taser and it appeared that some rope was sticking out of his pocket. On its pedestal, etched into the ancient rock read the word, ‘Lust’.
On the second one was in a pose of rage. He looked like a pony that was mid-rant on something where he was VERY mad. His face was depicted in a emotion of annoyance, rage, and hate. His eyes told of a man that was extremely pissed off and conveyed feelings of said emotions towards anypony and everypony. He was very stocky and short and looked like the veins of itself was showing due to how mad it was. He was dressed up like a construction stallion, with a once-shiny hardhat and a tool belt. He also had a massive sledgehammer with something splattered on it. On its pedestal, cracked, like someone punched it multiple times, was the word, ‘Wrath’.
On the third one it was different. His body was VERY fat. But he was also short, and his legs appeared to be very weak and flabby, as if he always did nothing but eat and sleep. His face was very chubby, his eyes looking very tired, but like the tired you get from oversleeping. Its entire body looked out of shape, like he never ran a day in his life. His eyes conveyed of laziness and hunger, like he was looking for his next meal, but didn’t want to walk the 5 feet to get the food. It showed that it didn’t care what you wanted, so long as he got food and barely anything to do he was fine. He was wearing a stained, horribly putrid T-shirt with sweat pants, emphasis on sweat. It looked like he slept in those. On its poorly and lazily built pedestal was the word, ‘Sloth and Gluttony’.
The rest were a lot more darker than the first few. In the third one, there was a woman. The woman was quite beautiful, albeit she had one hand on her wallet and the other on a metal L with a tube on the end, but still beautiful. She had very long arms and slender fingers, like a pickpocket. She was also very well-muscled, and looked like she could kick your ass three ways from Jesus. Her eyes were that of a dragon: always hungry and wanting. They spoke of extreme wanting, but at the same time they were distrustful and violent. She looked as if she would do anything just to make a buck. She was dressed up like a thief: ski mask, night vision goggles, you name a thing a cat burglar would you, she had it. On its pedestal, with what looked to be gems and precious metals turned to stone, was the word, ‘Greed’.
The fifth was very... jealous in its pose. He was of a medium-build and with a neat and orderly haircut. His eyes showed of above average intelligence, but mixed with jealous desires and envy. He stared daggers at you through the stone, mainly because it was jealous of you not being turned to stone. The statute spoke of wanting whatever you had, because it was jealous that you had it. Whatever you had, it was pissed that you had it and not him. He was dressed like somepony that worked at an office: dress shirt, tie, slacks, but they were all wrinkled and messed up, like he was in a fit on rage. He On its pedestal read the word ‘Envy’.
The sixth was probably the one that called for the most attention, its mere presence screaming to be noticed. He was in a standing position, as if it were a guard at attention. His hair was in a military crew cut style. His mouth was open mid-rant, like he was yelling at somepony, but unlike the other yelling statute, where it was just yelling at you for yelling’s sake, this one was like it was yelling at you for being an incompetent idiot and not worshipping the ground it walked on. He was dressed like a soldier: combat fatigues, boots, massive shotgun. In other words, a pissed off drill Sargent His eyes spoke of it not giving a damn on what you said, and taking whatever itself said as fact, no matter the contrary. On its shined and polished, even after 2000 years, read ‘Pride’. They are the Elements of Chaos, or the ‘seven deadly sins’ as others call it. The statues just stood there with their poses that nopony would ever see.
When the Elements of Harmony defeated Discord, most ponies believe that Discord did not do much during so, just scramble around and become stone. But they were wrong. Right as he was being turned to stone, he activated a spell, nopony noticed as they were too busy focusing on Discord being turned to stone, drinking chocolate rain, or being the bat-shit opposite beings that they were. That spell was to activate his own Elements: The Elements of Chaos.
Now Twilight said when talking on how the Elements work she said they needed a ‘spark’ in order for them Elements to work. Now Discord’s spell worked, it would activate them but they needed a spark, and unfortunately/fortunately Discord’s spell wasn’t strong enough to activate them all at once when the ‘spark’ happened. They would need a spark for each Element. All that would be needed was a little spark...
and the inferno would engulf everypony it pain....
