Harmony Through Chaos - Book One: Emberdawn

A small white lizard-like creature flicked its five long tongues at the air, each microscopic pore lining the appendages absorbing some of what little moisture was in the desert air. At the same time, the bright green fan on its back unfolded, catching the sunlight on its corrugated surface. The lizard closed its twin sets of eyelids in pleasure.

Meanwhile, another creature watched the lizard with hunger in its eyes. At least, it would have if it had eyes, or had existed at all. As it was, the creature that didn’t exist had no choice but to watch and wait. It was almost midnight by the time the lizard finished feeding from the giant red sun that was still high in the sky, finally drawing in its tongues and re-folding its fan. As its eyes opened, the second creature existed where it formerly did not.

Wasting not a second of time, the new creature darted forwards, its prey frozen in terror. At the last second, the lizard closed its eyes out of reflex as a mote of dust was blown into its face. The second creature no longer existed, so the lizard took the chance to flee.

Soundlessly, the second creature gave a scream of rage, losing yet another meal to the drifting sands. Just as it was about to give up its hunt for the night, a sound reached the ears it didn’t have. There was a new arrival. Maybe more than one. Within seconds, it had taken off in the direction of the sounds, its two-legged strides propelling it quickly across the sand-covered concrete. It needed to get there first, or the others would get all of the food again.

The sounds clarified as the distance shrunk, resolving themselves into voices. One voice in particular stood out amid the squabbling.

“Oh my God, this is fucking hilarious!”

“Oh Celestia, no!” the amber unicorn screamed when he saw Light Gear, “there’s two of ‘em! Someone kill me now!”

While Jackson contemplated how much he was going enjoy messing with so many odd ponies, said ponies were already in the process of creating more entertainment for him. The light grey unicorn stepped forward aggressively, an array of sharpened metal appearing in the air before him. “Say the tyrant’s name again, Suncat!”

The amber unicorn jumped backwards, igniting his own horn aggressively. “Dude, the buck’s yer problem!?”

The green pegasus flung himself between the two with his wings flared. “Let’s not be hasty now!”

“Out of my way!” the grey unicorn yelled in response, “I am the highest authority here, and what I do with traitors is none of your business!” When the pegasus remained in place, the unicorn gave a yell of anger and punched him in the face.

The bat-pony responded to that by dashing forwards and giving the unicorn a punch of her own. “Hooves off the goods, mate!”

The amber unicorn launched a firebolt at him while he was down, which was swiftly deflected by a spherical shield. Finding himself outnumbered in a confined space, the grey unicorn resorted to other means. With a brief flash of teleportation, Light Gear was now standing beside the grey unicorn with a blade to his neck. He promptly began laughing.

“And what’s so funny?” the grey unicorn asked.

“You got the wrong me,” Light Gear answered.

The other Light Gear, unable to keep a straight face, began laughing as well. “We switched when no one was looking! Oh Celestia, this is great! We can’t believe it worked!”

“I’m surrounded by traitors!” the grey unicorn yelled as he attempted to swap Light Gears. Jackson snapped his fingers at the same time, coming to the defence of his companion. At least, he thought that one was his...

The grey unicorn, realizing that something had happened when his teleport failed, turned to Jackson. The human gave an innocent shrug. The bat-pony flashed the human a smile, thinking him to be on their side. The grey unicorn noticed this and faced her in a defensive stance. “Don’t even think about it. I’m not above striking a mare.”

“Good,” the bat-pony answered with a smirk, “me neither.”

And that was when all hell broke loose.

“You’ll never take me alive, Imperials!”

“I don’t intend to!”

“Don’t you dare!”

“I thought you were on our side!”

“Beep!”

“You’re next!”

“Oh my God, this is fucking hilarious!”

The alicorn gave Jackson a disapproving look. Jackson grinned. The alicorn rolled his eyes and looked at the floor, giving an exasperated sigh. He looked up again and spoke.

“Cease.”

An invisible wave of power seemed to sweep the room, rendering everyone present silent and still. The sensation increased to the point where it seemed as though the air itself was weighing down on them, and Jackson felt his ears pop. A few of the ponies slowly began to retreat to their original positions.

“Now, are we ready to try that again like civilized beings?”

The grey unicorn stepped away from the group, speaking with reluctance through gritted teeth, “Yes, Lord Marshal.”

“Why don’t we start with some introductions?”

Silence.

“You know, telling each other our names and such?”

The green pegasus boldly stepped forward. “Verdant Aurora of Equestria, head of the ERCWS.”

“That’s a fake acronym!” Jackson butted in.

“It’s real!”

Jackson stood there with his arms crossed for a few moments before he realized that everyone was now looking at him expectantly. “Okay, I get it, everyone wants to know what the big two-legged thing is!”

“Not really,” answered the alicorn.

“Been to Earth. Got shot a few times,” his unicorn companion added.

The amber unicorn chuckled. “Dude, everypony knows what humans are.”

Jackson threw his arms up. “Well fine, fuck you guys then!”

The bat-pony raised a hoof, as though attempting to ask a question in a classroom.

“What!?”

“I don’t know what a human is.”

Verdant looked at her. “You’re from the moon.”

Not missing a beat, Jackson pointed at the mare and stated, “That pony came from the moon.”

“Yes,” answered Verdant, “I think I already established that.”

The alicorn raised a hoof. “I understood that reference.”

Jackson responded by pointing at the alicorn. “You are my new favorite pony.”

The alicorn just shrugged.

There were a few moments of silence in which everypony stared at the human expectantly.

“What?”

‘I think,” the alicorn began, “that it might be wise to lay a few requirements. Let’s say... each of us must give at least a name, who you represent, and a random fact about yourself.”

“Jesus Christ, it’s like being in elementary school all over again! Fine, Mister Alicorn, please don’t tell my mommy I was bad!” The human waved his hands in the air in mock despair. After settling down, he began again, “My name’s Jackson Florence, but please, call me Jackie.” He accentuated this with a small bow. “I represent the country of Me. It’s the best one, because I live there. Oh, and I’m apparently the living embodiment of Chaos.”

The amber unicorn didn’t look very pleased. “An’ what about Discord? What happened teh him?”

“Him? I guess he’s still a statue. I honestly never really thought about it. Anyway, it’s someone else’s turn now. You don’t want to be given detention, do you?”

With a roll of her eyes, Verdant’s companion stepped forward. “My name’s Violet. I represent the Ponies of Masconia, and yes, I am from the moon.”

Jackson snickered, but managed remain in control. Mostly.

Next up was the amber unicorn. “My name’s Ignis Mars. Can’t really say ah represent anything, but ah live in Ponyville. I spend most’a my time writing. Also, yuh might wanna cover yer ears for this next part.”

While almost everyone else was looking at him with confused expressions, he and Jackson did exactly that. Just in time too, as Light Gear was next. “Hello everypony! My name’s Light Gear!” began Light Gear.

“And my name’s Light Gear too!” said Light Gear. “That’s ‘too’ as in ‘as well’, not ‘two’ as in ‘more than one’, though I guess both kind of apply!”

“You should be able to tell the difference because of how it was spelled just there!” Light Gear added helpfully.

“We’re from Ponyville too!” Light Gear and Light Gear said together.

“Though I was on a year-long vacation in Gryphus,” Light Gear clarified.

When everyone had recovered from whatever the hell that was, they looked to the last two ponies who had yet to give their identities. “Well,” said Jackson, “don’t leave us in suspense.”

The grey unicorn deigned to go first. “I am Prince Noctus of the Lunar Republic, the highest skilled bladecaster in West Equus.”

Now everyone turned to the alicorn, eager to learn his identity. Why? probably because he’s a fucking alicorn!

“Lord Marshal Dusk Star of the Lunar Republic, highest skilled battlemage in West Equus.”

Silence.

“You sound like a bad OC.” This of course, came from everyone’s favorite human.

With a scoff, Noctus answered for Dusk, “Like ‘Ignis’ over there is any better.”

This drew an indignant “Hey!” from the aforementioned.

The arguing began once again. Dusk looked at Jackson. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

Jackson instantly put on his best ‘Liarjack’ face. “Nooooo...”

Dusk facehoofed.

Meanwhile, in another part of the infinite desert that most cultures called ‘The Dumping Grounds’, a small team of humans in advanced EVA suits exited a circular portal that was ringed by twelve floating spheres. The lead human held a device in her left hand, examining it closely. “Alright boys,” she said to the others as the last of them arrived, “scanner says the air’s breathable. Suits off, combat gear on. No telling what we’ll find out here.”

The scanner gave a loud crackle before a voice came out of it. “Good, you finally got the right one.”

The woman jumped, nearly dropping the device. “The fuck!? I thought this thing was just for reading the environment, not for communication!”

“Yes, that is what you thought. But then, you’re just a soldier, so how would you know?”

“Well I’ll just defer your your oh so intellectual judgement and assume it makes sense,” the woman responded sarcastically.

“What on earth are you talking about? That makes no sense whatsoever! This thing doesn’t even have a speaker in it!”

“Wait, what—”

“But you don’t need to worry your pretty little head about that. What you need to worry about is finding your objective.”

The woman gave the device an exasperated look. It probably had a camera in it too for all she knew. Although, he’d probably still see her even if it didn’t. “And how exactly am I supposed to do that? In case you hadn’t noticed, this desert goes on for miles!”

“Oh yes, miles and miles. In fact, it goes on forever. Literally. Like, it is actually infinite.”

By this point, the woman probably would have been pulling at her hair if she were capable of doing so. Instead, she had to settle for violently bashing the scanner into the faceplate of her suit exactly five times. “Holy shit, why — and actually — how are you such a dick!?”

The voice chuckled happily. “How? Maybe it’s just my special talent. Why? Because you’re cute when you’re mad.”

Accompanied by a scream of frustration, the voice found his means of communication quite suddenly thrown far into the desert sands. The woman’s earpiece crackled. She froze. “Nice throw.”

“No! No no no!”

“Yes. And you’re lucky you didn’t need that.”

“Okay, ignoring the fact that you just hijacked a private comms frequency from across realities, what do you want?”

“Me? I want a lot of things; a new car, a big house, a million dollars! Yeah, I want a lot of things. But most of all? I WANT MY FUCKING SWORD!”

“Yeah. I got that, NO NEED TO FUCKING YELL!”

“You know,” the voice began with barely contained anger, “It’s stuff like this that’s the reason you didn’t last very long in the Marines.”

“Rule number one,” the woman held up a finger as though her partner in the conversation were standing directly in front of her, “we don’t discuss that. ‘Kay?”

“Rule number one of what?” the voice asked.

The voice waited patiently for a response as the woman threw her arms into the air and trudged back to the others, removing the suit and donning a more reasonable Coyote MARPAT IBA. Because that’s totally reasonable in any situation. “Alright, you bipolar maniac, what next?”

“Would you believe me if I told you that the device you just chucked away had an arrow on it that pointed straight to your objective?”

The woman froze, then ran in the direction she had thrown the scanner. Most of the other humans raised their weapons, expecting her to be reacting to some unseen threat. Nope. She scrambled around in the sand for a bit before recovering the scanner. Giving it a quick dusting, she took a long look at the screen before throwing it again. “That’s a compass, you moron!”

“Would you believe me if I told you that your objective is directly north of you?” The woman wordlessly began in the direction of the scanner. Again. Nearly halfway there, a strange feeling came over her. She stopped briefly before spinning around to check behind her. The rest of the humans were in the process of setting up camp some distance away. She turned around again to keep going, but froze when a bit of sand to her left moved. “Major?” He wouldn’t use her rank unless it was important.

“Yes?” the woman hesitantly asked in response.

“You’re too far from the others. Turn back.”

“What about—”

The sand was moving.

“Go back now!” He was panicking.

The sand opened its eyes.

“Run!”

She ran. The sand followed. Years of training paid off, and soon saw the woman making keeping a good distance. The creature that had given chase jumped out of the sand, revealing itself to be a matte black wolf with a row of spines down either side of its body. The spines flared to throw off the last bit of sand before laying flat to decrease drag. Now the wolf had a speed advantage once again, and was quickly closing the distance.

“Gun!” Was all the woman yelled as she neared the camp. Upon seeing the wolf chasing her, one of the men grabbed an M39 off the team’s BigDog and ran a little ways before tossing it in her direction. It was a shitty throw, but a great catch.

Just as the wolf lunged, the woman spun around mid-stride, flipped the safety, and kicked backwards. Combined with her prior momentum, the action sent the woman sliding backwards through the sand. As the wolf passed over her, she raised the rifle’s sights and proceeded to feed it sixty rounds-per-minute of hot lead. An important part of any balanced meal.

Both the woman and the now-deceased wolf slid another few feet before coming to a stop. The woman glanced to her side, saw the the black and red of the wolf contrasting the yellow color of the sand. She looked straight up at the sky, and gave a breath of relief.

“I think I’m still alive,” she said breathlessly.

The voice in her earpiece took a while before responding, “Be more careful in the future, ‘kay Sam?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“And what have we learned?”

“Alicorns are OP?”

“That too.” Dusk was giving the entire room a smug grin, while the rest of the group — Jackson in particular — were sporting shiny new bruises. “Now if we’re all quite finished, perhaps we might attempt to figure out what we’re all doing here?”

The assorted ponied shot nervous glances at each other, displaying their unease at the thought of revealing that kind of ‘privileged’ information. Jackson picked up a small piece of something up off the floor and began fiddling with it as he leaned against the nearest wall. “You know, my last experience with friendship ended with me being impaled. What exactly makes you think I’d want to be all buddy-buddy with you and give away all my secrets?”

Dusk gave him an odd look at the sudden change, but simply shook his head. “I won’t pry.” He then addressed the entire room. “But, I should clarify. I’m not asking for friendship; I’ve been betrayed myself one too many times for that. I am however, suggesting an alliance. It’s too much of a coincidence that we all arrived in the same place at the same time, so someone must have intended for us to be here.”

“Like tha’ Gods ‘emselves brought us ‘ere,” Ignis piped up sarcastically.

“Exactly, but they’re not usually this direct,” Dusk responded, earning a few skeptical looks. Could this guy seriously be suggesting that Gods actually exist? What a joke...

A new speaker cut in, his voice sounding like it were both within inches and a hundred miles away, the pitches distorting at random intervals. “Indeed not.” A grey alicorn was standing in the doorway with a neutral expression, causing Ignis and Light Gear — previously with their backs to the door — to jump away. And with good reason, too. The alicorn had the appearance of a colt for a moment, and then that of an elderly stallion. In fact, he was constantly shifting ages in no apparent order. “This was not our doing.”

Surprise, he’s a God!

While most of the room’s lovely residents were either mesmerized or utterly horrified by the strangely fluid transformation that was going on before them, Dusk only took a step forwards with a conflicted look on his face. “Tempus? What’s going on?”

Tempus gave a rather ungodlike roll of his eyes — which unfortunately chose that moment to shift to those of a blind stallion, providing the disturbing impression of a possessed pony — before stating, “You disappeared quite suddenly from literally all of existence. Your mother was worried.”

“Wait a minute!” Light Gear, either oblivious to the fact that he was addressing a God or simply not caring, asked in his usual tone, “If this place isn’t in existence, then where are we!?”

Ignis raised an eyebrow. “That was a surprisingly... coherent question.”

“I have a better question!” Yelled Jackson, prompting all eyes to turn to him. He pointed a finger at Tempus. “What the fuck have I been smoking?” Tempus disappeared and everyone else was suddenly standing in slightly different locations in the room, all staring at the lone human, who was now pointed confusedly at a wall. He slowly lowered his arm. “What just happened?”

Dusk answered with a smirk, “It seems my father would rather freeze you in time than have to deal with you.”

“That guy’s your dad?”

“Long story, which I’m not going to be telling. We’ve got more important things to do.”

“Like what?” Jackson asked him in response, gesturing around the room they were in, “This place is deserted.”

“Different desert!” Ignis preemptively said to both Light Gears on the other side of the room. He got a double nose-beep in return.

After watching their antics for a brief moment with a slight smile, Dusk turned back to Jackson. “You were having a time-out when we had that discussion. Everyone in this room is here in search of something to help them in their home realities. We believe that whatever forces brought us together will also lead us to what we need.”

Jackson chuckled. “I don’t believe in fate.”

“Well that’s unfortunate, because fate obviously believes in you. So why would it have chosen you to come here?”

All eyes were on Jackson, wondering if they would get an answer as the why the human was there when the rest of them were ponies. “Me?” Jackson asked nervously, glancing at all the others watching him, “I’m just on vacation.”

Dusk wasn’t buying it.

“Well I was told that there might have been something to do while I’m on vacation.”

Still not impressed.

“Fine, I’m attempting to free an evil Chaos Lord from his six thousand year imprisonment in a pocket dimension after his failed, but nearly successful attempt to conquer the planet.”

“You what!?” Dusk yelled in a panicked voice.

Jackson chose that moment to bolt out the door, giving the alicorn his middle finger in gratitude for his attentiveness. At the same moment he rapidly blurted out, “Welcome to the multiverse, bitch!”