//------------------------------// // I Face A Part of my Past I Thought I Left behind… which fails to Understand how Chaos Magic Works, clearly // Story: It's A Screwed Up Life // by Autum Breeze //------------------------------// I Face A Part of my Past I Thought I Left behind… which fails to Understand how Chaos Magic Works, clearly ___________________________________________________________ We drop onto The Map, myself taking notice of the orange colour it now sports. The sound of exploding trees draws our attention up and we all freeze. It’s Tirek. He’s huge and using his magic to blast the Everfree apart, just like last time. “And how exactly are we meant to stop that?!” Spike cries as he clutches onto Twilight’s leg. “With all the Alicorn Magic in Equestria, plus Discord’s magic, only the Elements can stop him!” I blink, before a smirk comes to my face. “One moment.” I disappear and reappear several seconds later, now hovering behind the giant red centaur. “Yo, Horn Head!” He pauses in his mindless destruction and turns around, blinking in confusion at the sight of an Earth Pony filly floating in front of him. “What in the world…?” he cocks an eyebrow. “Sorry, your payment is overdue,” I say, my right hoof turning into a hand. “I’m gonna have to repossess all that magic.” Before he can respond I sink my hand into his chest. He screams as I pull it back out, a massive orb of multi-coloured magic held in my grasp, which I punch with my other hoof, causing it to explode, scattering the magic across Equestria, returning it to those it was taken from. Tirek wails as he body wobbles, before I snap my fingers, returning him to Tartarus, bound in his cage with chains holding his legs down, his form returned to what it was before he got all the magic. I pop back over to the Map, where Twilight and Spike are just staring at where the centaur used to be, their mouths hanging wide open. “What?” I shrug. “In this timeline, the CMC never fought in front of Discord’s statue, thus setting him free, so there was no Chaos Magic for Tirek to steal.” It takes a few moments, but they snap out of it, shaking their heads. Twilight gives me a sad look. “I’m sorry we failed again, Screwball, especially after you worked so hard to try get Rainbow to do the Rainboom, even if it was too late to get the timeline exactly right.” She looks down. “I just wish I could know Sunset was okay.” I cock an eyebrow. “Okay, guessing that’s to do with the timeline you both got pulled to before this one, while I was stuck in the past again, trying to stop Starbutt from screwing up the timeline any more than she already had before we both got yanked back to the earlier past. What’s up?” Spike looks up at the purple mare, then back to me. “The future we ended up in was… nice. The difference was that Sunset Shimmer was the Princess of Friendship.” I blink, before cocking an eyebrow. “So, Starlight causing a cloud to block Dash and Hoops, causing Dash to have to avoid it whole Hoops collided with it, so Dash won without doing the Rainboom … resulted in Sunset not leaving Celestia’s studies and actually learned friendship without having to be blasted by the Elements first?” They nod. “And Derpy was the Element of Kindness.” I just stare for a moment. I’m not sure how to respond to that last one. Shaking my head, I cock my eyebrow again. “Then… why does Twi think she might not be okay?” “We don’t know if her timeline remained after we left, or if it was replaced with this one,” the Alicorn indicates around us. I blink and just stare at her for several moments… before I realize she’s serious. My right eye twitches and I close my eyes, taking a breath to try and calm myself, before I leap into the air and whack her over the head with a mallet, causing her to comically look like an accordion for a moment, sounds effects included, before returning to her original form. “Are you fucking serious?!” I give her a very annoyed frown as she shakes her head to clear it, before looking to me. “Twilight, you have had a being who visits alternate timelines almost every freaking day living in the same town as you for over a year now, yet you don’t think an alternate timeline can still remain?! Seriously?!” I reach into the air and pull a zip down, opening a hole in the fabric of realty, pulling out a clear rectangle covered in countless stars. I look it over, before flipping it around, tapping on one star in particular. The image zooms in, revealing a world where Sunset is an Alicorn, slowing walking around in the Golden Oaks Library, looking around wistfully. Twilight’s eyes light up. “Her world still exists?” I groan, facehoofing, before tossing the board back through the rip and zipping it back up. “Yes. I already explained all this back in that Sombra timeline. Yeesh. You really were hit with an idiot stick before all this, weren’t you?” She frowns at me. “Um, shouldn’t we go now?” Spike asks before we can continue. “With Tirek gone, everypony’s gonna be wondering who beat him and got all their magic back. Do we really wanna have to explain that?” “Well, I can play it off on my own, easy,” I shrug, before looking to the two of them, specifically the winged one. “But… I guess explaining how Twi’s an Alicorn when she isn’t in this timeline would preferably be avoided.” Twilight sighs, her horn glowing, levitating the scroll. “Then let’s go.” She frowns. “Be ready.” I nod. No mistakes this time. ___________________________________________________________ As the portal opens, I’m still caught by what just happened. When the portal had opened, we’d flown out, Twilight using the crystalizing spell from a couple jumps ago. To our horror, the unicorn had easily dodged it, the spell zapping Rainbow Dash instead, encasing her in crystal that started to sink into the clouds. Before I could do more than register that and try to prepare to free her, we’d been sucked back through the time portal. Now, we’ll find out what a world where Rainbow Dash likely died is like. We drop down… into a pile of rubber chickens? Popping up out of the pile, my eyes are drawn to a flow of colour that went by… and see Celestia and Luna with afros, wearing red rubber clown noses and a vest like those you see monkey’s wearing in front of those guys that play music… being chased by Discord, wearing a red royal’s cape while riding a unicycle. I facehoof. “Should’ve guessed this would happen eventually.” “Well, this is certainly unexpected.” We all freeze. That… that was my voice, but I didn’t say anything. My senses suddenly go crazy and I grab Twilight and Spike in my magic and jump, tumbling forward as the rubber chicken pile is incinerated by a DBZ Spirit Bomb. Landing, we all whirl around to see another me… but she’s older. She looks like a grown mare… and that smile on her face is very unsettling. Behind and all around us is pretty much how you’d think a world ruled by Discord would look. Houses floating upside down in the sky, animals altered in weird and amusing ways, cotton candy clouds spilling chocolate rain and so on. “Time travellers?” the other me asks in confusion, before snickering. “Well, that’s not expected at all.” Her eyes fall on Twilight and she leers. “And I’ll now get to rip off the wings of the Princess of Friendship.” She shifts into a human shape, her face a manic grin as her hands turn into scissors. “I can’t wait to turn you into a hollow shell of your former self.” I blink, my brain screeching to a halt. Why does what she just said suddenly seem familiar? “Who are you?” I yell, erecting a shield around the Alicorn and dragon. She suddenly snarls. “Who am I isn’t who I was. I lost my life to this retched world when that clown,” she indicates to Discord, “turned this body into a magnate for my mind. As if this place didn’t ruin enough for me before.” She fires a blast of electricity at me, which I redirect at the sky by doing the lightning redirection technique from the Avatar cartoons series. “And just what did it ruin, huh?” She just glares at me. “I met someone at my workplace I thought I could be great friends with. I even was getting him to understand my reasons for hating this place… then he became a hollow shell of his former self, just like I intend to make you and that blasted Alicorn!” She creates a Distructo Disc like Krillian’s in DBZ and throws it at me. I do a Matrix dodge, before grabbing it and bite into it like a cookie. Finishing it off, I look to her in shock. Those words… I know this being. The mind that inhabits that body… I know who it is. “You got pulled into this timeline’s Screwball instead of me?” She pauses, frowning at me. “Do I know you?” I stand up straight and glare. “Yeah. I’m the one who became a hollow shell of my former self. Remember?” She stares for several moments, before her eyes widen. “You?! How?” Alternate timeline,” I say firmly, shifting to my anthro form. “Seems, somehow, what Starlight did to this one caused you to be pulled into Screwball’s body insteadnot me.” I may have broken my memories of my human life, but I do remember parts of it. One part I remember is that, in the place I worked, there was a guy I used to be friends with, but, after he learned I was Brony, shut me out and started judging me more and more by my liking MLP, until he told me blanking that, after he left the workplace for good, he’d only remember the me from before I started liking the show, because the me who did like the show was apparently a hollow shell of my former self, despite how much better a person I’d actually become because of the show. That was the day I lost any hope of pulling him out of his dark view of the world… a view she has now brought to this timeline. She blinks, before snarling, her eyes glowing red. “So you escaped from this one?! I’ll make you pay for stranding me in this hell hole!” She fires several Cyclop energy beams at me and I move my body lazily from side to side, easily avoiding them. She yells, throwing her hands up, a massive Spirit Bomb quickly forming above her. “I’ll make you suffer worse than your darkest nightmares! I’ll force you to relive your worst memories over and over, until you’re begging me for merc— GAHH!” Her monologue is cut off by a gut-retching scream as her magic pours out of her mouth, the purplish black mass pooling in my right hand, before tapering out, the magic turning into a sphere in my grasp. “That’s just pathetic,” I shake my head as she collapses to the ground. “You were the more genre savvy of the two of us when we were human, yet you somehow forget that villains could easily be beaten by the hero during the time it takes for them to finish their long winded monologue?” The shield around Twilight and Spike dissipates and the two hurry over. “What in Equestria was that all about?” Spike asks, looking from me to the other me. I just give the human a cold glare. “She was a human I used to know in my old life. She got pulled into that body instead of me in this timeline. But, she failed to realize something very important. I have Chaos Magic too and I actually know how to work it. So, while she was giving her villainous monologue, I simply took her Chaos Magic right out of her.” Twilight just stares at me in shock. “You can do that?” I shrug. “Hey, just cuz I can do something, doesn’t mean I will.” “So, what’re you gonna do with that?” Spike points to the writhing mass over magic in my hand. I smirk. “Simple.” I toss the sphere into the air, open my mouth and it drops down my throat and I swallow. The shocked expressions on Spike and Twilight’s faces only deepens when my body suddenly morphs, becoming that of an adult, just like the other me’s. “Huh?” I look down at my now very well developed body. “What the heck?” The other me gives a weak sneer. “Really? You didn’t know? Even I knew the pony we both ended as was originally an adult.” I frown, scratching my chin. So, that means our timeline was already an alternate one from the show’s original timeline. I snap my fingers, a holographic screen appearing before me and I look it over. Huh, so originally, Screwball was actually Spoiled’s sister, not daughter. Makes some sense, I guess. Though, I’m not sure which is more insulting, being the daughter of that bitch or her sister. “Well, whatever the case,” I snap my fingers, reverting to my younger self. “I came to Equestria as a child and I’ll grow up like one. There’s plenty of time to be an adult when you’re immortal. Besides,” I smirk, “being a kid’s way more fun.” “What was that screen about, Screwball?” Twilight asks, the screen having vanished when I returned to my proper age, before she’d gotten a good look at it. “What does this other you mean you should be an adult?” The other me blinks, before she cackles cruelly. “They don’t know? You didn’t tell them? Oh, this is rich. Purple Bitch, you’re from a—MMFFF?!” Her words are cut off as her body is bound in chains, a metal plate covering her mouth. I glare coldly at her. “You really are warped in the mind. I can’t believe, you get given such amazing power… and turned into a petty super villain. Pathetic.” “So… what do we do now?” Spike asks, looking from my double, to me, the world around us. I step forward, placing a finger on my double’s forehead, a once seeing all her memories of Equestria… and being disgusted by what she’s done. I step back from her, the darkest snarl I’ve ever worn on my face. “You’re disgusting. Tartarus isn’t good enough for you.” I snap my fingers, my snarl turning into a twisted sneer. “But I have an idea how to make it worse.” Flames erupt around her, her screams muffled by the metal plate over her mouth as she sinks into the pits. After a few moments, Twilight and Spike look to me with worry. “What… what’s gonna happen to her in Tartarus?” I don’t meet their eyes, turning towards where Discord is still chasing the clowned princesses, oblivious to what had transpired. “Let’s just say, she shouldn’t have gotten on the bad side of someone who knows as much about the deep web as I do… especially now she’s female.” They both look to each other uncertainly. “Gimme a bit,” I say, getting ready to snap my fingers. “This may take a while.” ___________________________________________________________ “That ungrateful little wretch,” Discord pouts as Twilight, Spike and I step onto the Map, myself back to my normal pony form. “I give her Chaos Magic and she goes behind my back like that. I’m a lover of chaos, not cruelty.” I roll my eyes. “DD, we went over this. She’s paying for her crimes, tenfold, in Tartarus.” His pout just deepens. “It’s still not fair.” “Says the Lord of Chaos who threw friendship back in our faces,” Rainbow Dash shot back as she stood next to Fluttershy. Turns out Dash didn’t die, after all. Fluttershy helped her get out of the crystal before she sank through the clouds and the two became closer friends than even the ones in our own timeline. They’re not together, if that’s what you’re thinking, but they’ve a much stronger and more understanding friendship than ours. The reason Discord got out this time is because, in this timeline, Dash and Flutters had helped convinced Luna and Celestia to forgive each other when Nightmare Moon returned and, having experienced this, Celestia was convinced she could do the same with Discord… and it’s clear where that went. It hadn’t been easy, but I’d gotten Discord to listen to reason and realize he wanted friendship more than utter chaos and how he almost lost it. As for where Dash and Shy were during his reign? My double had locked them in a pocket dimension, separated by a thin layer of energy so neither could comfort the other, forcing them to watch as Equestria suffered both Discord and her wrath. Though hers was more traumatizing a thing for them. Neither have family anymore, my double saw to that, so they only have each other and what few of their friends from Ponyville and Cloudsdale remain, plus the princesses and Discord, though Dash is understandably giving him a probationary limit. “Again, I’m so sorry for what my former friend did with the magic she had,” I sigh, shaking my head. “I still can’t believe she fell so far. I knew she hated this world… but that…” I feel a hoof on my shoulder and look up to see Luna. “Do not blame yourself, young one. You could not have known she’d go so far.” Twilight clears her throat. “Either way, now, more than ever, we have to stop Starlight Glimmer from altering the past again.” Celestia nods. “And, rest assured, the version of her here will be stopped before she gets as far as yours.” “I’ll be glad to see to it personally,” Discord nods, before chuckling. “Should be quite the amusing sight.” “Just don’t go overboard, DD,” I say, before looking to Twilight. “Okay, let’s do this.” She nods, lifting the scroll and casting the spell.