Harmony Through Chaos - Book One: Emberdawn

“We don’t have time for this,” a blonde woman in a desert MARPAT utility uniform quietly stated.

“If we rush things, there’s a good chance he’ll figure out what it is we’re looking for. Seth is a lot brighter than you give him credit for, Sam,” an older man in a labcoat answered, looking annoyed.

“I don’t doubt that, but we’re running out of time. I’ve been sitting in on every single one of your little ‘sessions’, and I’ve yet to hear any of them drop so much as a hint as to—”

“Settle down. Things aren’t quite that desperate yet. If they were, they'd all be in torture rooms, rather than interrogation rooms.”

“Are you sure things aren’t that desperate? You spend all your time down here, Doctor. When was the last time you’ve checked the news?”

“I—”

“No, don’t answer that, I know you haven’t been keeping up to date like you’re supposed to. I’ll tell you now, though; the UN is getting antsy. I think they know something’s up, and they’re actively looking for the source. And you’d better hope they don’t find it before we do, or we’ll be in no better shape than we were a few decades ago.”

“I know! I— I know... It’s us or them. And we’re going to make damn sure it’s not us. But that’s why we need to go about this carefully; If Seth catches on— if any of them catch on, we’re done. Trust me on this one... please.”

“Fine. But if you fuck this up, it’s on your head. ... Actually, if you fuck this up, we’re all dead anyway, so I guess you have nothing to worry about.”

The woman left the room, and another man entered immediately after. The man in the labcoat looked up at him from his seat with no small amount of worry. “Mr. Florence.”

“Please,” the second man responded with an almost predatory grin, “call me Derrick.”

Hurry it up, eh? Jeez you guys are pushy... Fine then.

Jackson Florence watched through the bars of the window on the east wall of his cell in the Canterlot Castle dungeons as a large portion of the city slipped from its perch upon the mountain and crumbled into flaming ruin down the cliff-face—

What? Too far? ‘Kay, lemme just go back a bit.

One grey and dreary day, some poor sod named Jackson Florence was not a happy—

Huh? Too far back!? Make up your mind, you damn egghead!

...

Yeah, yeah...

...

I am calm!

...

Just skip the tour? Why didn’t you just say so!?

“Please, call me Jackie!”

The gryphon punched him in the face. “Silence, Flamebringer!”

“I tink you ‘ave me confoosed wit’ summon ewse,” Jackson mumbled in response as he clutched at his bleeding muzzle, trying to stop the blood from flowing into his eyes since he was—no big surprise here—once again hanging upside down.

Another gryphon entered the room, causing the others to immediately stand at attention. “Are you not the one named Jackson Florence?”

“Pwease, caw me— Ah! Fuck! My face! Why!?”

“Does he actually think that’ll work?”

“He knows we can see him, right?”

“The— The net’s just hanging right there!”

“I... have no response.”

Those were just a few of the comments made by Jackson’s companions as they looked at the blatantly obvious trap that had been set up in the middle of the narrow road in front of them. Jackson turned to Gilda, who had been ushering them along ahead of her. “I’m not touching that shit.”

“What do you mean?” Gilda asked, despite knowing full well what he meant.

“That,” Jackson answered, pointing ahead of them.

“I don’t see anything,” Gilda lied horribly.

“...”

“...”

“You go first.” And with those three words, Gilda’s fate was sealed; she could either admit to trying to walk them into a trap, or walk into the trap herself. With a sigh of resignation, she stepped forward until she was standing just before the hanging net’s drop-zone. She looked back for a second with a strange smile that somehow simultaneously said, ‘It’s perfectly fine, see?’ and ‘I AM GOING TO MURDER YOU ONCE I GET OUT OF THIS!’, and then took another step, allowing the weighted net to fall and pin her to the ground.

Jackson laughed his ass off.

No one else did.

“Come on! You can’t seriously tell me that wasn’t funny!” It was then he realized that the others were all too busy watching something behind him. He slowly turned around and saw that the release of the net had triggered a secondary mechanism. He followed the movements of said secondary mechanism’s rope as it tightened until his gaze ended directly beneath his hooves. “Well, shit.”

Next thing he knew, the back of his head was saying hi to a brick wall, and the blurry outline of a few dozen armored gryphons swiftly converged on his position.

“Pwease, caw me— Ah! Fuck! My face! Why!?”

“Why? BECAUSE YOU MURDERED MY FATHER, THAT’S WHY!”

After a moment of confusion and blood-wiping, Jackson responded, “Oh, you mean—? Oh right, him. He was kind of a dick, though...”

“Yeeaaah, he was, wasn’t he?”

“...”

“...”

“So. What now? You gonna kill me?”

“No. I have plans for you—”

“Before you finish that sentence; I’m not American.”

“...”

“...”

“AH! WHY IS IT ALWAYS MY BEAUTIFUL FACE!?”

A few hours, and a lot of face punching later, Rorik had calmed down enough to talk like a civilized being. I guess he didn’t like being interrupted or something. By this point, Jackson’s face was so swollen from the beating he had taken that it was completely impossible for him to speak. That’s a bonus, I guess...

As it was, Rorik was the one who did all the talking from then on. Not sure if that’s any better though. “I apologize for my outburst,” he said, wiping his claws off on a nearby towel that one of the guards had brought for him. Apparently they were used to that kind of thing. “I tend to... lose my temper at times.”

Jackson didn’t say anything.

“Ah, not so talkative now, are you?”

Jackson had a few choice words he would have liked to use in response, but he settled for simply trying his hardest to mentally project them into the room. It didn’t work.

“Now that you’ve... ‘given me the floor’ so to speak, I feel it’s about time I fill you in on what’s going to happen next. You see, I have a friend named Wilhelm who’s very interested in meeting you, as it seems you have some... abilities that he is in need of. I assume you’ve heard of him?”

Jackson shook his head ‘no’.

“Perfect,” Rorik responded with a grin, “that makes things much easier, as I intend to leave the big reveal for the end.”

At that moment, Gilda peeked her head through the door and encountered the sight of Rorik with his head suspiciously close to that of our self-proclaimed protagonist. “Woah. Did you guys need some privacy? ‘Cause I can lock the door if you want.”

Rorik quickly backed away from Jackson and gave her a blank stare. “What?”

“You weren’t about to make out?”

That question earned a quiet snerk from one of the guards, and a horrified look from Rorik. “Oh... Oh fucking Tartarus no! I was just explaining the situation to our esteemed guest here,” he informed her, gesturing to Jackson with one wing.

This brought Gilda’s gaze to the human-turned-pony. “Oh, damn, you totally owned his face.” She turned her attention back to Rorik before returning to the previous subject. “So you’re not gay then? Sucks for you I guess, because I am, so you’re still not getting any of this once we’re married.”

“How... unfortunate.”

Meanwhile, Jackson promptly shipped Gilda and Felicia, and that was that.

Gilda pulled her head back out the door, having finished the discussion. During the few moments of awkward silence afterwards, she peeked her head in again and added, “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention; there’s a platoon of Imperial Guards on their way. Guess one of your dudes must’ve squawked or somethin’.”

Rorik’s eyes widened in response. “Now? They’re coming now?”

“Yep, sure looks that way. We can take ‘em though, right?”

Rorik took a moment to collect himself before completely ignoring the question to address the guards. “All of you, get out there and find the rest of the ponies! If they’re not dead or captured before the Imperials get here, we’re fucked!” He then shoved his way past Gilda and out of the room, pausing only to yell, “Lebewohl, kamerad!” back at Jackson.

Gilda looked back and forth between the mostly empty room, and Rorik as he led the guards down to the bottom floor. She blinked a few times. “ ... ‘Kay.”

The Emperor of Gryphus was not known for his kindness. He had been in charge of the nation for a long time, but none knew how immensely long it had actually been. To everyone else, it seemed that the past Emperor’s son became the new Emperor, and the old one would just disappear. There was a lot of speculation around the whole thing—a lot of which could get a gryphon beheaded—but that was the best guess anyone could make.

The truth was actually a lot simpler, and also a lot more terrifying. The Emperor had been The Emperor forever. He was the first, and he would be the last. That second part might be foreshadowing, or it might not. Just sayin’. In any case, it was easy enough for him to dye his feathers a different color and then pass the rest off a family resemblance. That still didn’t explain how the ‘new Emperor’ was always younger than he predecessor. What explains that part is the fact that The Emperor had a fondness for Chaos Artifacts, and he also made good use of the ones he acquired.

Eternal youth. How exciting.

With that bit of exposition out of the way, it’s fairly obvious that his reaction to a lone guard showing up and telling him that a human had been sighted would be... spectacular. That was probably the reason why he had ordered an entire platoon of soldiers to the town. Oh, and it was probably also the reason why he was leading that platoon himself too.

Dozens of gryphons flew about, packing supplies as quickly as possible. High above them all, The Emperor watched from his tower with no small amount of glee. Finally, after all these years, another human had arrived. The prophecy was already coming true. Now, it was only a matter of time before the human joined him in his conquest.

He sacrificed us all for her. I should have seen it coming.

Without even thinking, Luna teleported herself and her remaining companions to safety, backtracking to a memorable section of the town; the back alley that Light Gear and Rorik had their... altercation... in. She quickly cast an enchantment to hide them from prying eyes.

Meanwhile, it took a few seconds for the others to realize what happened. Due to her heritage, Felicia was the first to recover, but she did nothing but stare at Luna. Phoenix recovered next. “Good idea,” he said, “we can think of a way to rescue him from here.” Twilight remained silent, keeping her thoughts to herself. Said thoughts included a certain white unicorn.

Luna didn’t acknowledge Phoenix’s statement, and entered a similar state of deep thought to that of Twilight’s. Felicia continued to watch the alicorn with interest before responding to Phoenix, “We’re not going back.”

The pegasus looked up in surprise. “What? Why not?”

Felicia ignored his question, instead speaking to Luna. “Do you really think this is going to work?” she asked, surprising everyone with her unusually serious tone.

The surprise was enough to gain Luna’s attention, though it took a few seconds for her to process the question. “What do you mean?”

“Please, that was barely more believable than when the gryphon said it. I’m a changeling, remember? I can feel your emotions right now.”

“I have no choice! The gryphons have him now, so we should just keep moving before they come for us next!”

Twilight and Phoenix had been looking back and forth between them the entire time, not entirely following the argument. When Luna said those words, they both appeared at least a small bit displeased with the alicorn. Neither of them though, looked nearly as angry as Felicia herself. “Just like when the slavers had us!?” she demanded.

Luna looked ready to start yelling at the changeling, but she did her best to keep her voice down. “That was different! It wasn’t just him in danger then!”

Felicia’s glare softened into a look of pity. “Why are you lying to yourself?”

“W— What?”

“Do you think you can change it just by getting rid of him? If anything, that’ll only make matters worse!”

“I have no choice!” Luna yelled again, momentarily losing her self-control.

“You always have a choice!” Felicia responded in kind, her anger returning. Phoenix and Twilight were both once again lost, but neither of the arguing mares took any notice, as they were too busy staring each other down to notice. Eventually, Felicia gave up. “Fine, Go. I’m not going to leave him though. If you recall, it was him who I was travelling with, not you.”

“Very well then,” Luna responded, “The rest of us shall move on without you.”

“No we won’t,” Phoenix spoke up suddenly, surprising all of them, “There’s not a whole lot a single changeling can do, even if she can blend in. Now I know I haven’t been part of your little group for very long, but I’m not about to let a potential friend get killed if I can help it.”

Unsurprisingly, Twilight immediately spoke after him. “I might not have my magic, but that doesn’t mean I’m useless. Felicia and I might have our differences, but I’m with Phoenix on this one. I’m sorry Princess, but I won’t abandon my friends.”

Luna’s expression shifted rapidly through several different moods before she finally settled on confusion.

“Very well then,” she said after a few moments, “We shall stay.”

“Oh, good! I was worried I’d be left here all by myself!” said Light Gear.

...

Wait a minute...

With a burst of cobalt, the white unicorn was suddenly—and quite forcefully—pinned to a nearby wall. “You!” Luna yelled in recognition.

Light Gear waved gleefully at her. “Hi!”

Paying no mind to his antics, she lowered the unicorn and floated him closer. He made swimming motions the entire way. She stopped him, inches from her face, and gave him the most deadliest death glare ever glared. “Where did you take him!?”

“...”

“...”

“Beep.”

LUNA.EXE HAS STOPPED WORKING

RESTART, Y/N?

y_

PLEASE WAIT.

CALCULATING...

CALCULATING...

CALCULATING...

WRONG!

“HOW DARE THEE TOUCH OUR ROYAL MUZZLE!”

“Like this. Beep.”

Realizing that she wouldn’t be gaining any information from the unicorn, she briefly considered snapping his neck, but remembered that Twilight was watching. Despite her wishes to acclimate the mare to the true nature of the world, that might be taking it a little far. While she was thinking, it was only the concerned cries of her companions that made her realize she had just used the Royal Caps-Lock and likely alerted every gryphon in the vicinity to their presence.

While maintaining her magical grip on the suspiciously happy unicorn, she turned around to find that a gryphon had walked into the alley. The gryphon stared the travellers down for a moment before grinning. “Omigosh! New people! I love meeting new people! I’m Elisabeth! What’re your names!? I heard yelling and I was like, ‘yelling isn’t a very happy thing to do’ and then I was like, ‘I know, I’ll go make whoever’s yelling happy! Which one of you was yelling!?” Elisabeth was suddenly in front of Twilight. “You have an inhibitor ring on! That’d probably make a unicorn pretty unhappy. Does that mean you were the one yelling!?”

Twilight grimaced at the gryphon in pained recognition, and the others simply stared in shock. It was Pinkie Pie... but as a gryphon... “Dear Celestia,” said Twilight, “three of them. All my worst nightmares at once...”

There was a short moment where Luna was a little irked at having heard her sister’s name used as though she were a Goddess. Then she remembered that they had spent thousands of years indoctrinating ponies to believe that to be true. Then she remembered that there was now a gryphon standing directly in front of one of her friends. With another cobalt flash—which would be a good name for a blue pegasus—she added Elisabeth to her collection of hovering lifeforms.

Light Gear and Elisabeth immediately took to their new companionship like a fish to a scantily-clad lady-fish. “Hi, I’m Light Gear, and you’re Elisabeth! I know that because you said so! Why is your name spelt with an ‘S’ instead of a ‘Z’!?”

“Hi, I’m not Light Gear, and you’re not Elisabeth! I know that because I’m Elisabeth! My name is spelt with an ‘S’ instead of a ‘Z’ because it’s actually German!” Elisabeth responded.

“German!?” Light gear questioned. “How’s that possible!? Germany doesn’t exist in this universe!”

“Oh yeah! Haha, silly me!”

Noticing the pained expressions on the faces of her companions, Luna gave both of her prisoners a violent shake. She would at a much later date grudgingly admit to finding the way their eyes rolled around as though independent from their optic nerves slightly amusing. As it was, she was unwilling to risk her intimidation factor by giggling like a little filly. “Enough!” she shouted at them, “what have thee done with Our companion!?”

Light Gear made a puzzled expression and examined the sky. Elisabeth grinned and raised a talon. “Ooh! Ooh! Me! Pick me!”

Luna facehoofed and then nodded to her. “Aye?”

“Didn’t you read the last chapter!? Rorik has him tied up on the second floor of an unidentified structure—most likely the tavern—while he’s out looking for all of you with a group of guards! Meanwhile, the rest of the guards are getting ready for The Emperor’s biiig welcoming party! Yay!”

“The Emperor?” Luna asked with more fear than any pony had heard come from her for a very long time, “he’s coming here?”

“Yeppers!”

Luna turned to address her companions. “We need to be quick about this. Twilight, I know you’re far from useless, but we need everypony at their best. You’re going to have to wait here.”

“Wait,” answered Twilight, a contemplative expression on her face, “Elisabeth mentioned the ring earlier. I’m most likely going to regret asking, but...” She looked to the aforementioned gryphon. “Elisabeth—”

“Hi!” the gryphon yelled, causing Twilight to flinch slightly.

“Hi. Do you know how to get the ring off of me?”

“I sure do!”

“...”

“...”

“Can you tell us?” Twilight asked with a sigh.

“Oh, sure! It’s super-duper easy! All you have to do is heat it up until it starts glowing, then it’ll slide right off!” She squinted and rubbed her chin with a talon, then added, “Of course, it’ll also be really hot, so you might get an ouchie...”

“Of course!” Twilight smacked her forehead with a hoof. “Metal expands when heated! They must have forged the ring too small to fit, then heated it before placing it on my horn!”

Luna nodded at her hypothesis, then stated, “Be that as it may, We do not have any way of removing the ring with harming yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

Luna shook her head, slightly disappointed that the unicorn hadn’t realized the answer herself. “I can heat the ring with a simple fire spell, but there is no way to knock you unconscious aside from blunt force trauma to the head.”

“Can’t you just cast a sleeping spell? That shouldn’t be very hard for a—”

“Twilight!” Luna interrupted before the mare could say the next word, “please remember that we aren’t alone here.” She gestured to Light Gear and Elisabeth to emphasize her point.

“Right. Sorry. But as I was saying, shouldn’t you be able to cast a sleeping spell?”

Luna’s anxiety spiked sharply as she realized that Twilight was coming uncomfortably close to discovering the truth about her ‘Goddesses’. “I apologize, but I’m unfamiliar with the spell itself. Proficiency is not the problem here. If I could cast a sleeping spell, do you really think there would even be a single gryphon awake in the village?”

Twilight slowly nodded her head in understanding. “I suppose that makes sense. You were...” She glanced at the two outsiders and paused to choose her words carefully. “Away... when quite a few breakthroughs were made in the field of magic.

Luna released a barely noticeable breath of relief. “Then as you can see, there is no way for you to go about this unharmed.”

There was nearly a full minute of silence while everyone considered their options before Twilight spoke again. “Then do it with me awake.”

“No!” yelled Phoenix, placing a hoof on her shoulder, “don’t get yourself hurt over something so trivial. I’m sure you could help, but you’re not needed for this.”

Twilight knocked his hoof away with annoyance, turning to glare at him. “‘Not needed’, am I? My friend is in danger, and I can help. That’s ‘needed’ enough for me.”

“Twilight, that’s not what I meant!”

“...”

“...”

She sighed and her gaze softened. “I know. I’m sorry. I just... I am who I am today because of my friends. Just because Jackie’s a new friend doesn’t mean I care for him any less. I want to do this.”

“ ... Okay.”

Luna stepped forward. “Prepare yourself, Twilight Sparkle.” With those words, the screaming started.

Jackson stumbled as he was shoved by a guard, falling to side in front of an empty field and wishing he didn’t have a cloth shoved into his mouth so that she could shout some form of expletive. Storm clouds circled overhead in unnatural patterns. It looked as though they were standing under the eye of a hurricane, but there wasn’t even the slightest breeze. The air was too still.

Jackson felt his hairs begin to raise, and the grass in the field began to bend away from the center, arcs of electricity jumping between the blades. Jackson’s power began to increase exponentially in the presence of such raw energy, but he waited to see what would happen. He didn’t need to wait long.

With a clap of thunder and a flash brighter than any lightning strike, over sixty gryphons, clad in gold plating, appeared in the field. The Emperor was at the head of the platoon, larger than any of the other gryphons, and possibly rivaling Celestia herself. His ash grey feathers transitioned smoothly into a dark sorrel coat. In contrast to the rest of him, each individual feather on his wings looked almost as though they were made of solid gold.

Rorik moved towards him from where he had been waiting to Jackson’s right. “Hello, Emperor. I’m pleased to say that we’ve caught the Chaos Mage, but we were unable to find his companions. I apologize profusely for this, and—”

His words were cut off as The Emperor decapitated him cleanly with a single swift strike of his wing, flicking the blood off his feathers afterwards. He continued towards Jackson without batting an eye. Seconds later, the Chaos Mage was looking up into the emotionless gaze of The Immortal Emperor of Gryphus. The Emperor suddenly gave him a warm, genuine smile. “Hello, Jackson Florence. It’s an honor to finally meet you. My name is Emperor Wilhelm.”