Harmony Through Chaos - Book One: Emberdawn

Three gryphons walked into a bar. No, they didn’t say ‘ouch’, they sat down and ordered some drinks, you asshat. One of the gryphons was male, and the other two were female. Normally I’d say the guy was lucky, but one of the females was refusing to look at him, and the other wouldn’t shut up about magical ponycorns.

Meanwhile, on the outer edge of the town, a guard was circling the town from the air, and spotted three ponies, a changeling, and a human walking in the distance. The human matched the description given to him by his informant—plus there was only one human in existence in the universe at that moment—so he began a swift descent in the direction of the local tavern.

The guard landed on the cobblestone road with practiced ease, and proceeded to enter the tavern, seeking out his superior... Who just so happened to be the son of an infamous slaver, but the other guards didn’t need to know that as long as he kept getting paid. He spotted said superior at a table with two other gryphons. Yes, those are the same ones from earlier, very observant of you.

He gave a salute before speaking. “Sir! I’ve just spotted the human approaching from the jungle.”

The gryphon he was addressing looked up from his drink and broke into a grin. “Sehr good!” He then proceeded to grab the guard’s head and smash it onto the table, then held it there while he plunged an excessively large knife through his neck and into the wood beneath it.

One of the female gryphons fell over backwards in her chair with a shriek before scrambling out the door, while the other yelled, “Oh scheiße! What the fuck, Rorik!?”

The gryphon named Rorik shrugged. “He was still a guard. Just because I was bribing him doesn’t mean he wasn’t going to relay a message to the capitol. Better safe than sorry.”

“What about all these witnesses!?”

“What witnesses?”

The female looked around, and found to her confusion not a single one of the other patrons had so much as batted an eyelash at the display. “Er... Okay...?”

Rorik unpinned the dead guard from the table and began to wipe his knife on a napkin, then waved a claw in the air to catch the attention of one of the waiters. He gestured at the body, prompting the waiter to drag it off to an unknown destination. “I have a... reputation.”

“Yeah, a fucked up one... Whatever, I shouldn’t be surprised. So what are we gonna do with the human?”

“Well, my dear Gilda, we are going to go catch him.” Rorik answered with a grin.

Gilda blinked. “What?”

“Think of what we could do if we had the power of a Chaos Mage at our disposal. The Imperials won’t stand a chance!”

“Wait... You’re planning a coup!? You couldn’t have had time to— Wait. You knew he was coming. All of my friends are dead because of your retarded ambitions!?”

“Yes, Gilda. And I’m very sorry that happened, but I intend to make it up to you.”

“How!? What could you possibly do to make up for this!?”

“Well when I have my new kingdom, I’m going to need a Queen, if you’re picking up what I’m laying down...” ‘Ew. Just saying it out loud leaves a bad taste in my mouth...’

Gilda’s glare slowly transformed into a grin. “Oh yeah, I’m most definitely picking up what you’re laying down.”

“I’m glad we’re all on the same page now.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“There’s a travelling unicorn in town named ‘Light Gear’. I hear he’s fairly capable at making traps. I believe he may be willing to lend us a... helping hoof, as it were.”

“Let’s get to it then.”

A group of four ponies and a gryphon gleefully approached the small town of Kleindorf, happy to be out of the humid heat of the nearby jungle, as well as the opportunity to rest. They were all so happy in fact, they somehow didn’t notice that it was now cold enough for small patches of snow to remain on the ground from the area’s last spring snowfall. I suppose there would be some benefit from having a fur coat...

The village itself was a relatively new community, sitting smack-dab in the center of a flat grassland, with some steeper hills further to the east. Oh, I guess I should mention that those ponies I was talking about were approaching from the west... Not that they knew that; they were friggin’ lost. Thus their joy at finding civilization.

Little did they know the horrors that awaited them within the quaint little town... Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I assure you that there were really bad people in there. Then again, you probably already knew that from when you read the intro section of the chapter. Fourth wall be damned.

One member of this group of previously lost ponies was a unicorn named Jackson Florence. He was once again complaining about the need for a disguise. Because apparently there would be absolutely nothing wrong with walking into a town inhabited by people that view your entire species as malevolent gods with no disguise whatsoever.

"Didn't you hear the part where I said that my power level would drop below nine-thousand if you turned me into a pony again!?"

"There's no reason that you'd need that much power unless you're intending to start something. And you aren't trying to start something, are you?" Luna replied with a glare. She still had her wings hidden and her mane in its basic form, but had taken to wearing a coat to cover her cutie mark, the one thing magic couldn’t disguise.

"Well no, but—"

"And stop making references to things we won't understand. Yes, I can tell when you do it."

Jackson grumbled something inaudible, but didn't argue further. Closer to the back of the group, the level of awkward was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Actually, you'd more realistically need an industrial strength chemical laser. The reason: Twilight and Phoenix had somehow ended up walking beside each other.

"So..." Twilight started, "You're a Professor of Archaeology at the Royal Canterlot University?"

"Mhm..."

"Oh... that's good."

Throughout the entire conversation—if it could even be called that—neither one of them moved looked anywhere but straight ahead. After another bout of silence, Phoenix began, "So... You're Princess Celestia's student?"

"Mhm..."

"Well... that's good."

They glanced at each other and inadvertently made eye contact. They both blushed and quickly looked forward again. Felicia—disguised as a gryphon—was trailing behind them, slowly shaking her head in amusement.

Back at the front, the topic had shifted to the history of Jackson's precursor. "So who came up with the name 'Lord Infernus' anyway?"

Luna looked thoughtful. "You know, I'm not certain. What does 'Infernus' even mean?"

"Ooh! I know that one! It's Latin. Means 'Hellfire'. Actually, how don't you know what that means? I saw some inscriptions in the castle written in Latin. Though I doubt you call it Latin."

"I'm not familiar with the term 'hellfire' either, so I expect it's a word exclusive to humans."

"Yeah. You guys have Tartarus, not Hell. I guess that answers my question. He must have come up with it himself."

"Well from what I'm able to infer, the name is definitely appropriate."

"Yeah, it is that. Can you imagine if he had done something stupid like decided, 'I'm the first chaos mage to exist here, so I'll take the name Lord First!'"

They both had a good laugh at that. "Yes, even if you were given the name by someone else, one would have to have some sort of mental condition to accept something as unimaginative as that."

They laughed again, and in a distant universe, one author gave this humble narrator a smoldering death glare.

"Beep beep! Comin' through!" A white unicorn with a broken horn and a missing ear-tip weaved his way down Main Street, his grey-striped black mane blowing slightly from the speed at which he dodged around the numerous gryphons that were going about their business.

He glanced behind him, as though checking for a pursuer. Naturally, this caused him to run headfirst into a gryphon. Said gryphon just so happened to be his pursuer. After a moment’s thought, he came to the conclusion that taking three right turns in a row might not have been the best idea. “Whoops.”

The gryphon grabbed him by the throat with one claw. “You’re coming with me.” The unicorn made a split-second decision that he would not let himself be captured so easily. Concentrating, he cast a fireball at the gryphon from almost point-blank.

It immediately exploded backwards in his face, leaving a thick layer of soot over his features. He coughed once, producing a small puff of smoke. The gryphon laughed hysterically at his plight before knocking him unconscious with a swift punch to the side of the head.

Another gryphon landed beside the first, having been tracking their prey from the air. “Wow. He just ran right into you.”

The first gryphon laughed again. “I know. And did you see when his spell backfired? Priceless!”

“What the blazes does Rorik want this guy for anyway?”

A new voice answered him, its cold tone enough to send shivers down his spine. “That’s none of your concern.”

Both gryphons quickly bowed to the newcomer. “Verzeih mir, My Lord.”

The newcomer of course turned out to be none other than Rorik himself. “Get him back to the tavern. There’s already a room prepared.”

With two simultaneous shots of, “Yes Sir!” both gryphons took to the air, unicorn in tow.

As they departed, Gilda glided down to join Rorik. “So that’s what you’re going to be doing. What about me?” He opened his mouth to answer, but Gilda preemptively interrupted, “And it’d better not be something retarded.”

Rorik held back a glare and answered, “You’re going to go and welcome them to town and lead them into our trap.”

“Yay. Dunno if you noticed, but we don’t exactly have a trap yet.”

“I’ll get it done. You just have to keep them occupied until then, and I’ll get a message to you.”

“If you say so. You’re the egghead, so I’ll leave the planning up to you.”

“Egghead. Right. Just do your job.”

“Fine, jeez, no need to be a dick about it.” As she left, Rorik paused to consider if it was really worth keeping her around. He decided he’d think about it more later and went to go see if a certain unicorn was feeling any more cooperative. It was a short flight back to his temporary residence, and he arrived just in time for his newest asset to awaken.

He approached the unicorn, who was now sitting on a chair with a guard on either side and looking very confused.  “You.” Rorik said, trying to be as intimidating as possible. The unicorn pointed to himself with a hoof and gave a questioning expression. Rorik gave him a deadpan look. “No, the other unicorn.”

The unicorn sighed in relief. “Oh, that’s good. You guys had me worried there. I’ll just be going then...” He started to get up, but one of the two guards held him down by putting a claw on his shoulder. He very slowly reached up with one hoof, and pressed it to the tip of the gryphon’s beak. “Beep.”

The guard raised an eyebrow, but didn’t react aside from that. Rorik facetalon’d—Yes, that’s a thing. Shut up—and mumbled, “This may take a while...” He pulled out his knife and pressed it to the unicorn’s throat. “Let’s make this simple. You answer my questions, or I kill you.” The unicorn’s ears splayed back and he nodded very slightly, careful not run into the knife. “Good. Now are you, or are you not the pony known as Light Gear?”

“I... Am?”

“Good. Now, will you, or will you not assist myself in capturing something?”

Light Gear’s ears perked up. “You mean like, building a trap?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“Well why didn’t you just ask!” He shouted, shoving the knife away from himself with a burst of telekinesis. He jumped up and gave Rorik a wide grin. “What are we catching?”

“A chaos mage.”

“Oh. ... Oh! Uh... I think I might need to gather some info on this one...” He gave a nervous grin.

“That’s fine. As long as you can have something set up before he leaves, you get to live.”

“And... If I leave?”

Rorik leaned in so that his beak was nearly touching Light Gear’s muzzle. He then very calmly stated, “Then I will hunt you down and slice your head from your shoulders.”

“...”

“...”

*poke* “Beep.”

Jackson and company finally made their way to the gated entrance to Kleindorf. They were let in immediately, the gate being mostly for keeping predators out. Ponies were fairly common in gryphon border towns, due to the allure of the ancient treasures in the nearby jungles. Of course, only one of the group had actually been there for that purpose, but they weren’t about to go telling everyone that.

While the majority of them were looking around at the gryphon architecture, Jackson and Luna had both become occupied with something else. “See that gryphon walking towards us?” Jackson asked in a whisper, “The one with the obviously faked grin? That’s Gilda. She’s got a history with Twilight. This could be a problem.”

“More than you know.” Luna answered, equally quiet. “I know all about that incident. We keep track of anyone who ever caused problems for The Elements. After returning to Gryphus, she got desperate for money and joined up with a group of slavers. Probably the ones we...” She paused to choose her phrasing carefully. “... ‘Dealt with’ earlier.”

“Some of them must have gotten away. We’re gonna be on thin ice for a while then... What do we do about Twilight? She still doesn’t have magic.”

“We let her reaction to Gilda play out on its own, and only intervene if one of them gets aggressive. We are going to need to find a way to remove the inhibitor as quickly as possible if they know we’re here though.”

Gilda finally navigated through the crowded street and greeted them. “Hello travellers! My name’s Gilda Graustein, the—”

“YOU!” Twilight interrupted, rushing forward to confront her. “I remember you.”

Gilda somehow managed to keep the grin going, though it looked extremely strained now. “Oh yeah, hello there, uh... Sparky?”

“It’s ‘Sparkle’. Twilight. Sparkle.”

“Heheh, right. Sparkle. Got it.” She backed away slightly. “Anyways... As I was saying, I’m the town greeter, And I—”

“Town greeters still exist here?”

Gilda’s eyelid twitched. “Ohhh just in little towns like wonderful Kleindorf here!”

“Hm... I didn’t read about that in any of my books...”

“Well it’s true! And I’m pleased to have the privilege to give you a tour of our wonderful town!”

“Oh. Okay then.”

As Gilda led them further into town, Jackson and Luna were once again conversing in hushed tones. “None of the guards reacted when she started flaunting a position that doesn’t even exist.”

“You think they’re paid off? All of them?” Luna asked in reply.

“Yep. I’ve spent enough time around Riften to know what bribed guards look like.”

“Right. ... Where’s Riften?”

“Not important. What is important is that if things go downhill, we’re on our own.”

Gilda led the group to the middle of town, pointing out locations along the way. She honestly made a pretty convincing greeter and tour guide. She stopped in front of the town hall. “I’ve got to go talk to someone,” she explained, “but I’ll be back to continue the tour in  a couple minutes.” With that, she flew off, leaving her charges to examine the town square in the meantime.

Casually looking around, Jackson spotted a unicorn farther down the road. The only reason it drew his attention was because it was the first non-gryphon he had seen in so far. The unicorn noticed him looking, and quickly ducked into an alleyway. ‘Well... That’s not suspicious at all.’

“I said, He’s not with them.” Gilda explained to Rorik in an exasperated tone.

“How can he not be— How many ponies are there?”

“What do I look like, an encyclopedia!?”

Rorik facetalon’d. Again. He had the distinct feeling that he would be doing a lot of that in the coming days. In the meantime... “I meant, how many ponies are there in their group?”

“Oh... I totally knew that. There’s four.”

“And is one of them a brown unicorn stallion?”

“Yep.”

“That’s him. He was still human when the scout saw him, but he must be able to change at will, because he was also a pony when we captured him the first time.”

“Ohhh... Well why didn’t you say so?”

She turned and left the room. Rorik decided that he was definitely getting rid of her as soon as possible.

“That was really brave of you when we first arrived.” Phoenix told Twilight nervously. “Not many ponies would be willing to yell at a gryphon like that. Especially a unicorn with no magic.”

“Oh... Well, I don’t like it when ponies are mean to my friends.”

“That’s very admirable. ... Uh, am I your friend?”

“Did you... want to be?”

“Um... Yeah, I would.”

”OH MY GOD!” Screamed a voice nearby. Both of them looked around and found Jackson glaring at them. “Just stop with the Fluttershy impersonations and fuck already!”

The two ponies both quickly found the ground extremely fascinating to look at. While that was going on, none of them had noticed Gilda’s return. “Uh...” She said, giving the three of them an odd look, “Am I... interrupting something?”

Jackson quickly turned to face her. “Nope. We’re good.”

Felicia sidled up beside Gilda, giving her a seductive grin. “Speaking of fucking though... We’ll bang, okay?”

Gilda quickly shoved her away with a slightly disturbed expression. “No. No, I don’t think we will. She backed away so that she could take in the group as a whole. “Whaaat is wrong with you guys?”

Jackson approached her and gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder. “You know, I ask myself that very question every day. I have never once come anywhere close to figuring out the answer.”

Gilda shook her head to clear it. “Alright. Well, let’s get on with the tour then, shall we?” She was doing the fake grin again.

Everyone followed her as she lead them down another street. As they went, Jackson noticed the unicorn from earlier watching them from around a corner. ‘On second thought, that’s so suspicious, I can’t even be sarcastic about it.’ The unicorn hid once more.

Light Gear watched his target move down the street towards him with incredible stealth, never once giving away his— ‘Oh buck he’s looking at me!’ He scrambled madly in an attempt to get out of sight as fast as possible. Once he had done so, he allowed himself to breathe again. ‘Phew! Aw well, that’s still only three times he’s seen me so far. If I keep this up, I might break my previous record!’

He was shaken from his thoughts—literally—by a gryphon’s claw grabbing him and giving him a shake. No, not a milkshake. ‘Though...’ he mused, ‘I really could go for a milkshake right now...’ He was shaken again, this time causing him to look for whoever was doing it. Not doing it like sex, by the way. ‘But seriously, when was the last time I got laid?’ He was hit with a slap hard enough to send him to the ground. He looked up and saw Rorik standing over him. “You know, this wasn’t what I had in mind at all.”

Rorik slapped Light Gear again before forcing the unicorn to look at him. “Pay. Attention.”

“Mmhm?”

“Gilda just came to me with a rather important question. Turns out the chaos mage is actually the brown unicorn.”

Light Gear rolled his eyes. “Well duh.” Rorik looked confused, so proceeded to explain, “They’re all female except for him and the pegasus, and the pegasus is a well-known equestrian professor, so it couldn’t be him. That just left the unicorn!”

Rorik blinked. “How can someone so incredibly stupid be so smart?”

“Talent.” He beeped Rorik’s beak once more before sliding out from under him. He turned to go check on his target’s progress again, only to find that the entire group had stopped to browse the wares at a street vendor that was positioned at the entrance to the alley. He quickly turned around and hid behind Rorik. “Don’t let him see me!” He whispered.

Understanding, Rorik repositioned himself so that there wasn’t any parts of Light Gear visible from the street. He waited for the group to move on. He growled. “They’re not moving.”

Deciding that it would be necessary to find a way to pass the time, Light Gear began to do his favorite pastime. “Beep.”

“...”

“Beep.”

“Stop that.”

“Beep.”

“Stop.”

“Beep.”

“Stop it!”

“...”

“...”

“Beep.”

With a roar of pure anger, Rorik grabbed the annoying unicorn, and threw him straight through the vendor’s stand. He froze in that position, taking a moment to realize what he had done. Everyone in the street was staring at him. He very slowly lowered his forelegs to the ground again. Gilda gave him an awkward wave, which he briefly returned before jumping into the air and flying away.

Jackson’s group moved on, their source of entertainment having been destroyed by a flying unicorn. Speaking of which, Jackson had finally decided that it would be smart to mention the unicorn to Luna. “You know that unicorn back there?”

“You mean the one that came flying through that stall? Yes, he was fairly hard to miss.”

“Well aside from that, I’ve noticed him following us around, and he’s been staring at me the entire time.”

“You think he might know who you are?”

“Either that or he’s checking me out. ... Friggin’ stalker.”