The Elements of Chaos

Joshua yawned as he woke up in his new house, with the help of Twilight and company his house could be built in a few hours, he gazed to his new house, in the middle of the construction time they found out that Applejack had an old slide that Applebloom used to play with, so with a little of magic Joshua managed to build and install a new slide to his house, a water toboggan!

He went to his fridge and took out a piece of apple pie, thanks to the girls he managed to get all the ‘left overs’ they had in their fridges.

‘Left overs my flank’ thought Joshua as he looked at his still full fridge, after finishing his pie slice he was about to wash the dish he used when he heard some loud knocks in the door.

“Joshua! Come quickly!” said Twilight while taking Joshua’s hoof and dragging him all the way to her house leaving him only time to close his door. When they entered the house they saw the whole mane 6 alongside the CMC inside of the house alongside the house, what surprised Joshua even more was the fact that Celestia and Luna were also there, all the looks were set in Zecora who was sleeping in the couch.

“What happened?” asked Joshua a little nervous and confused from the presence of so many ponies in a house.

“Yesterday we had found Zecora laying in the grass sleeping, for some reason she seemed to be struggling very hard as if having some kind of nightmare” answered Luna, Celestia was about to say something but was interrupted because Zecora finally woke up.

“If you can please tell me, what is happening here?” asked Zecora still dizzy from all the involuntary sleeping she had
“We found you lying in the grass outside the Everfree Forest, would you mind telling us what happened?” asked Celestia, Zecora proceeded to sit down as she tried to remember the events she had passed yesterday.

“I was in a search for some mushrooms and roots, I needed them for a potion and a soup; but when I picked the last of the roods, I saw a figure of a girl in a hood; she didn’t spoke for all I could tell but she had a black smoke that surrounded her, I saw a poor bird passing through the smoke and in mere seconds it was shacking to the bones; the girl suddenly disappeared from the place and I then ran to the path to the end, when I found her I tried to make her stop, but it was worthless as I was attacked with the smoke; I can’t remember where the girl went, but I now know the black dust effects, it caused me to sleep but it was restless, I was attacked with nightmares that seemed to be endless; the smoke causes fear at the very touch, it shows you what scares you deep down in your soul, it is a danger and for what I can see, we don’t have much time until she reaches Ponyville” said Zecora, the other ponies could simply listen at her tale, if such danger was indeed approaching to Ponyville then they had to move quickly.

“Applejack, I need you to take Applebloom to your house and tell your family to don’t go outside” said Twilight while informing each of the mane six her instructions, Applejack nodded and ran her way to Sweet Apple Acres, Rarity told everypony from Central Ponyville, Pinkie Pie would inform everypony in the other district, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash would inform everypony in Clouds Dale as it remained unknowing if the dust could reach the hovering city or not; before parting Twilight told them to reunite with them at the center of Ponyville, if the girl was supposed to be searching something or somepony the most obvious place would be the center.

After making sure everypony was safe in their houses, the mares ran to the center of Ponyville only to find that the princesses and Joshua were already seeing the black hooded girl, the girl’s eyes acquired a spark when she saw Joshua.

“I’ve been waiting for you Joshua” said the girl as she took off the cap of the hood, Celestia’s eyes widened at the sight, the girl looked exactly like the human vision Joshua projected that time.

“Who are you?” asked Joshua as he advanced to the girl “What do you want from me?”

“You might not remember it, but I’ve been with you since the mere day you became to existence” spoke the girl, as the dust started to surround the group of mares “As for your other question, I only ask, no, demand you to confront me, you’ve been running away for a long time, and I’m starting to grow tired of this” the girl gave the mares a sinister grin “As for you allow me to present myself, I am the physical representation of the most ancient feeling any thinking being had felt since the beginning of the creation” as her words continued she lifted a hand and the dust moved abruptly and engulfed everypony into its deeps, inside the dust the mares saw and lived their most horrible nightmares and fears coming true right in front of their eyes, after 10 long minutes that seemed eternal to the suffering mares the dust faded away a little just for them to remain conscious, since the girl was far from finishing.

“I am the fear” After said words the black dust surrounded completely both the girl and Joshua.

In front of Joshua stood the figure of a man, it wasn’t very clear for the black numb allowed only a small sight of the man, he started to walk to Joshua, the mares and Joshua stood silently as the man suddenly started laughing, it wasn’t a normal laugh although, it was a sinister devilish laugh, the man’s voice was dark, hard and heavy it entered the ponies ears like a river of poison leaving an unpleasant feeling with every word, in matter of seconds the figure revealed itself, Celestia’s eyes widened at the sight, in front them was a young teen, he looked EXACTLY like the vision she had of Joshua, but the difference between him and Joshua was that this teen had his skin pigmented with ashes, also the color in his eyes seemed to had the intensity at 100% his eyes were now bloody red and the other one was shinny emerald, but everypony could see a faint sight of darkness inside of them.

“Who is this?” asked Joshua deeply disturbed by the presence of the teen; his head started burning in a terrible headache, the girl simply laughed at Joshua’s pain.

“Isn’t it quite obvious? He is you” said the girl earning a loud gasp from everypony “He is the you from inside of your soul, your anger, your power, your bad and hurtful memories, he’s the representation of your suffering since before your memory loss, and If you ask me he’s angry, VERY angry” the shadow teen started walking towards Joshua with a psychotic smile forming in his face with every step, Joshua stood frozen in fear as the shadow continued walking, the girl continued to look at Joshua with anger at his frozen state.

“So that’s it? You’ll just freeze until your fears tear you apart? You disgust me Joshua, I guess you don’t actually care for anypony besides you” the girl’s comment caused Joshua to snap and turn his gaze to the mares beside him.

The girl was right; Luna, Celestia and everypony else laid in the floor barely conscious “It is my fault” said Joshua while hitting his hoofs on the floor in anger. “Don’t worry much, this suffering shall end anyway, once you’re engulfed by this numb it’ll all end.” The shadow teen started to slowly approach Joshua; he stood only 10 cm or so from his body slowly approaching his shadowing hand that morphed into a black blade “Ready to feel fear?” asked the teen while launching his sword at him.

“No.” the teen was pushed down and landed in the floor due to a powerful hit he received, Joshua’s body started glowing in a golden light as he felt his entire body change, his arms and legs grew longer, his head changed its form, in no more than 5 seconds the light faded away and revealed a new scenery, Joshua the alicorn turned into the figure Celestia saw with her spell; the shadow teen let another laugh escape from his mouth but this time it was different, Celestia and practically everypony could feel a hidden feeling behind his psychotic laugh, was it… happiness?

“Finally! Finally! This is what I was waiting for! Come on! Come at me! Let’s stop running away and end it here!” the teen launched himself to Joshua’s direction and lift his arm/blade, however the hit was deflected as Joshua punched him in the face while grabbing the nudged sized of the sword and throwing him to the floor again “You’ll wish you never did that” said the teen as he brushed off the dirt in his face “Make me” was Joshua’s answer as he quickly ran into the teen to continue the fight, the fight was during longer than what Joshua thought as the teen practically copied every single movement Joshua made, the two teens were on the floor painting hardly and sweating a lot, Joshua felt the little energy he still had and tried to stand up, he was starting to think that this fight was worthless, if the girl’s words were true he was practically fighting with himself, how to fight someone like you? How do you fight you? How do you fight the fear?

Joshua’s eyes widened in realization, the answer had been in front of him all the time! The only way to fight fear was feeling the opposite thing; this didn’t pass unnoticed by the girl as she smiled earning a confused expression from the mares, why was she smiling? Was she happy that Joshua would win? Didn’t she want to finish his existence?

The shadow teen charged at Joshua with a psychotic smile and attacked Joshua with his hand/blade, in that moment Joshua did what nopony except for the hooded girl knew he would do, he did nothing, he simply let the black sword pass through it and it did, it passed right through him as if he was made of numb, the shadow teen found himself embraced by Joshua with his sword still through him and it was when something weird happened, the shadow teen’s skin started to emit a warm white glow, the black numb started to fade away as the mares could feel their energy being refilled and strangely they didn’t feel the fear anymore, it was as if with Joshua’s brave action the ‘curse’ that made the black dust disappeared instantly, Joshua’s hand started to emit a strange golden glow and suddenly a wave of gold energy stood in his hand like a flame, it’s light caused a warm sensation to every living thing as all the ponies in Ponyville slowly went out, the hooded girl walked to Joshua with a huge smile on her face, with her hood now gone she stood in front of the mares as Joshua continued to stare the golden energy in his hand.

“Do not fear Joshua, you have just proven your worthy by defeating your own fears, the result of going in a hell of true terror it’s the maximum sense of courage, fear isn’t a bad thing, it’s something that exist since the beginning of the consent beings, the fear serves as a method of protection as courage couldn’t exist without the fear, remember the fear and use it as an ally not a foe, that energy you have in your hand is but a tiny peck of the power you now hold; also I forgot to introduce me, I am the guardian or representation of fear, I lack of a name but you can call me Mai” Mai introduced herself by bowing at the mares and Joshua, who in matter of seconds turned back into his pony form.

“Don’t you think is time to cut your little ‘movie’ Discord?” asked Mai to apparently nopony receiving a wicked laugh from… the air? “You need to relax a little young one, I wanted to appreciate that wonderful act a little more” with a loud snap of fingers, appeared the Spirit of Disharmony and self-proclaimed Master of Chaos, Discord.

“Good now that you’re here, I need all of you to listen to me, this ‘attack’ that you saw will repeat itself in the near future” said Mai causing some of the mares to gasp and gathered the attention of the habitants of Ponyville, which were already out and had presence the ‘little act’.

“What do you mean?” asked one of the ponies from the crowd, the mane 6, Joshua and the princesses remained silent expecting Mai’s answer, even Discord seemed interested as he had not done anything in over one minute.

“In the near future, there will be 7 more ‘invasions’ to Ponyville, as I already told you I am the representation of one of the called ‘Elements of chaos’” by now Discord had a confused grin in his face at the mention of those ‘Elements of chaos’, being the master of chaos he knew practically everything about it, but the ‘Elements of chaos’ he believed them to be nothing but a mere theory.

“Fear, madness, envy, hate, pride, sorrow, loneliness and finally void; the eight united are the representation of the true and original chaos, a dark chaos, the kind of chaos that existed before the creation of everything” Mai then looked at Discord “Discord, being the master of the ‘new chaos’ you might have an idea of what I’m talking about, can you explain the rest?”

Discord snickered before a floating in a sit like position observing everypony “What you speak is true Mai, before my wonderful innovation became, there was still chaos in the universe but I dare say, what a disgusting chaos it was!” everypony gasped as the representation of chaos cursed the chaos itself! It was as if Celestia said that she was tired of the sun. “Don’t misunderstand me, the old chaos was what it is, total and absolute chaos, a chaos that messed up entirely with everypony and didn’t respect anything, it was a serious, evil chaos; that chaos had 8 principal basis, the 8 laws or principles of the ‘old chaos’; personally, when I found out that kind of chaos I took it apart and modified it into my new type of ‘funny chaos’, I mean what fun is there when chaos exist to hurt?” asked the draconequus to nopony in particular, the ponies were always kind of freaked out when Discord showed a little bit of concern of his ‘chaotic playmates’, it was his twisted version of concern but it was concern in the end.

“If you are here as the element of fear, then it’ll be very chaotic days to Ponyville” informed Discord receiving a thoughtful look from both princesses.

“My dear student” spoke Celestia while turning to Twilight but it was obvious that the message was for everypony “Seeing the danger that shall fall upon Ponyville it’ll be necessary for me to suspend some of my royal tasks and protect the city directly” after receiving a nod from her sister she turned to Discord as if expecting an answer, the draconequus laughed at the serious atmosphere “You know I’m in, I’m still curious of how this situation will develop, it’ll be refreshing to see the old styled chaos, although…” his face acquired a very serious grin, something fairly unusual for the goofy spirit “If it goes out of control then I’ll personally make sure to end it once and for all, I suppose it won’t be an inconvenient for me to stay in your cottage, right Fluttershy?” Fluttershy nodded and walked upon Discord.

“You’ll always be welcome to my humble cottage Discord” she said while giving the spirit a warm smile.

“And where will you stay?” asked Joshua to Mai, who simply laughed making Joshua freak out “Didn’t I tell you? I already have a home, haven’t you noticed that your shadow has being gone for a couple of minutes?” Joshua looked at his hoofs before noticing that Mai was right! His shadow was gone! “B-but-” Joshua couldn’t finish his sentence as Mai merged into a shadow and stacked herself as Joshua’s shadow “Don’t worry we’ll get along in no time buddy!” spoke Mai from Joshua’s shadow before materializing again and giving Joshua a peck in the cheek “That’s for making such a dumb brave act” Mai disappeared in the shadow again leaving a blushing Joshua, an angry and VERY jealous Luna and a laughing Discord; Celestia sighed as she remembered Discord’s words and looking at the situation, indeed there will be very chaotic days in Ponyville, very long and chaotic days for the sun goddess.