Chapter 10: Infinite Implausibility
I fell through the infinite, yet tiny, void separating the physical world from my own little mental mindscape. Well, truthfully, it wasn’t the physical world I was leaving, but the half mental, half physical, prison that kept Discord sealed. After all, what better prison could there be for an all-powerful god of chaos than one as unpredictable as he was? It was rather unfortunate Canterlot had been sucked in with him, but then I would have been raised by my mad uncle alone. I shudder to think what it would have been like going through training and not having friends. I’d probably be more messed up than my mad mentor by now.
I fell farther and farther into the void, which was odd. Normally, I fell for what felt like only a couple seconds. It was a glorious couple of seconds that allowed me a moment of peace from the chaos that was my life, but this was different. It stretched on. I fell farther into the void, and without warning I hit a wall. This wasn’t the fragile wall that led to my little mindscape. It was rubbery, stretchy, and it stuck to me like tar. I tried to tear myself away, but it wouldn’t let go.
As the wall of nothingness encompassed me completely, I could taste it as it forced its way into my lungs. It was then that I knew what it was. I felt every emotion, motivation, and thought I ever had course through me in a brilliant moment of illumination that was too fast for me to process. This was the wall to a side of me I had never seen, a side I was not supposed to see.
I had seen some of what I could be. I had seen my potential.
Now, it seemed, it was time to meet what I was, but refused to acknowledge.
It was time to meet my subconscious.
…..
I woke to the most beautiful sight I’d ever scene. It was a garden unlike any other. It was filled with lush, green brush and trees that towered high into the sky. A tall hedge surrounded me, and it stretched quite far into the distance. I could see it rise on the horizon. It curved around, completing what I could only assume was the inner shell of my subconscious. Above me, at the highest point of the curve, I saw a magnificent manor. It dangled like a massive stalactite, formed of wood the color of the richest amber one could imagine. Its walls were so smooth light seemed to flow in waves over it. It took me a second to realize that the building was actually shifting. Sections of it constantly rotated, moved, or collapsed in a perfect picture of both order and chaos. It was a paradox. I could not see a pattern to the madness, but it moved quietly along like clockwork.
Speaking of clockwork, I noticed what was at the top of the manor, or the bottom from my perspective. A massive clock adorned the wall. Each of its hands spun wildly, but that wasn’t what struck me as odd. What struck me as odd was that there were thousands of hands. Each was unique in their own little way, but it was almost painful to try and view them individually. They were just fragments, pieces of a greater whole.
They were pieces of me.
A soft wind rustling the leaves brought my attention back to my immediate surroundings. Suddenly, I felt very vulnerable. It wasn’t the wind that scared me. It was what the wind had broken. It had broken the silence. If there was one thing I knew about my uncle, it was he was never silent.
For the first time ever, I was alone.
A twig snapped to the side of me.
Okay, I wasn’t alone. I merely was trapped in an obscure part of my own mind and lacked the support of my all-powerful uncle. Granted, he was the cause of almost everything that went wrong in my life, but he also seemed to be equally good at getting me out before things went too far.
“What’s he doing here?” rumbled a voice in the brush. I ignored it. There’s no telling what it would do if I acknowledged its existence.
“Shush! Don’t let him hear you!” whispered another frantically. I felt myself tensing. It was now two of them to one of me, and I had no idea who they were. They could be manifestations of my deepest darkest fears for all I knew.
“Why not?” rumbled the first, “It’s dishonorable to hide in the bushes. That’s what backstabbers and thieves do. We should face him out in the open!” I prepared to beat a hasty retreat.
“I fail to see what’s wrong with tabbing backs.”
“I fail to see what’s wrong with stabbing one’s back.”
These last two spoke simultaneously. One spoke almost in a chirp, while the other had a voice way too smooth to trust. I felt myself getting ready to jump.
“Actually, I fail to see the any point at all to tabbing somepony’s back. Why would you want to stick a label on their back? Is it like that one time Humor glued that sign to me that told ponies to kick my flank? I never did thank him for that. It kept that horrible rash I had covered quite nicely.”
I stopped mid-jump. I had no freaking idea what the chirpy one was talking about, but she was either incredibly dense or remarkably naïve.
“Shush, Naivety! If he hears us, there’s no telling what he’ll do! What if he sets the bushes on fire? I might be allergic to fire for all I know! What if the smoke sets off my asthma?” whispered the second. At least, I think he tried to whisper. It started off that way, but sort of ended in a screech. The sense of danger I had started to fade at that. Now my curiosity was peaked.
“Don’t worry, Panic. He would have to lack any sense of righteousness to do something like that. If he was anything like that, do you think I’d exist?” soothed the rumbly voice. Panic still continued to moan in the bushes.
“You have asthma?” chirped Naivety. I started edging towards the bushes.
“No, Naivety, he doesn’t. I swear; sometimes you’re worse than Drama, Panic. At least he mixes it up.” There was that oily voice again. I felt every nerve in my body scream to run away from it, but I needed to see who I was dealing with. I crept closer as the oily voice continued. “I don’t know why you try to help him, Honor. He’s a lost cause. You’re also forgetting something very important. It’s very possible he’ll try to kill us.”
“Why do you think that?” Honor asked in reply. I finally reached the bushes and peaked through to see that it was in fact four ponies talking.
One was a sickly yellow pegasus with a vomit green mane that looked like it had exploded under massive pressure. I couldn’t see his face because he was curled in a fetal position that looked away from me. That was probably Panic.
One was a magenta earth pony with the biggest violet eyes you could ever imagine. The mare’s head was cocked to one side as if she was currently audience to a joke, but was the only pony that didn’t get it. Her deep purple mane was long and straight. It covered just enough of her face that you couldn’t see all of it. I assumed this was Naivety.
One was a sturdy-looking, golden earth pony. Unlike the others who were hiding in the bushes, he was behind a bush standing tall. The only reason I hadn’t seen him was because he had been standing behind a bush tall enough to hide him without him realizing it. He had wavy locks of amber hair that framed the face of what a pony could only call that of a classic storybook hero. It was the kind of face a pony was supposed to instinctively like. This was probably Honor.
The final one could only be described as adorable, but, then again, little colts generally are adorable. He had big puppy dog eyes, and the type of mane you couldn’t help but want to ruffle. There was the perfect amount of pout to his lips, and his scruffy tail curved around to hide his blank flank in that adorable little subconscious habit some fillies and colts had. It looked like it was completely forced. This was the one with that awful oily voice. The colt’s little pout had turned into a grin at Honor’s question. It was the exact grin my uncle gave me before we began my first night of training.
“I’m Betrayal.”
Then, quicker than the eye could see, his white coat flashed black. He drove his hoof forward, grabbing me before I could react, and pulled me forward. Unfortunately, his other hoof was darting forward at the same, and punched me with way more strength than a little colt should have. Before the others could react, Betrayal kicked up a cloud of dust. Dragging me behind him, he dashed off. I was way too disoriented from that punch to fight back, so he just dragged me along like a rag doll.
After what felt like hours of running, he stopped. The world was sort of spinning like a top, and I had a massive headache. I tried to orient myself, but then the little earth pony decided to grow a pair of wings like it was nothing. Needless to say, that sent my mind reeling again. I had specifically told Fancypants that it was impossible to grow wings. Apparently the subconscious can cheat the rules of the world.
Desperate to get away from Betrayal, I tried to bend the will of the universe and send myself somewhere else. Imagine my surprise when Betrayal teleported with me. He looked down at me with that horrible grin.
“Couldn’t you just die when your powers betray you when you need them most?” The colt sneered.
I figured I’d try the standard teleportation spell instead. It was one of the few actual unicorn spells I knew. I didn’t use it often. Unlike my willpower, my boring old unicorn magic tended to backfire on me, but it was all I had left. I gathered all my focus and cast the spell. Surprisingly, I didn’t come out on the other side smoking. Betrayal, however, did.
I looked at him, flabbergasted. A little horn that was now poking out of his head retreated back inside. That was not natural.
Betrayal snickered at me. “Of course it’s not natural.” The colt’s awful voice responded to my unvoiced thoughts. “What did you expect when you’re the most unnatural thing to ever be created? I’m you. You’re me. We’re all one big happy family.” He sprouted wings again and launched himself in the air. He let me stew in the implications of that as we flew upwards. When we reached about a mile in altitude he resumed taunting. “That’s not to say you’ll ever be able to sprout wings.” He let go of me as if to prove his point. My willpower failed me yet again as my unique method of flying simply decided to shut off after about five seconds of hovering. I fell screaming bloody murder for about three seconds before that backstabbing bastard caught me. “It’s funny how you think you have any sort of control here. This is your subconscious. You can’t control your subconscious, at least not directly. Didn’t you wonder why we happened to be there when you appeared? You were afraid of this strange new place. You were naïve enough to believe we were harmless, despite the feelings Mistrust was trying to give from within the tree he was warily watching you from. You probably didn’t even notice him since he mistrusts himself so much that he never even talks. You were honorable enough not to strike out at us when you realized we weren’t an immediate threat, but you were ready to backstab us if it turned out we were crazy. If you want to blame anypony for being kidnapped, you should blame yourself.”
“J’accuse!” yelled a voice from somewhere down below.
“Right on cue,” said Betrayal, “That’s Blame, by the way. I’m guessing I don’t need to explain what that little outburst meant, right?”
I had no control here, how wonderful. Actually, he said I had no direct control. That implies I have some control, just not the type of control I normally do. I settled down in my captor’s clutch to think. How do I get myself out of this one?
“Hey Muse! What are you doing outside your little hermit hole?” Betrayal called to a pegasus sitting on a cloud we passed. “You never leave that place.”
Betrayal was too busy flying to notice the grin on my face.
…..
My flight was interesting to say the least. I was curious about how I might influence my surroundings, and had nothing but time to think as I was dragged who knows where. This, of course, let me meet Curiosity. She was a bright orange pegasus with sparkling eyes and an unkempt mane. As one would expect, she did nothing but stream an endless amount of questions. It was sort of charming at first, but distracting.
“Hey! Who are you? I’ve never seen you before! Are you new around here? What do you do? You look just like the boss, but you can’t be him. He’s not allowed to visit us lowly fragments. I’m a part of him, and he’s much more than me! What does it mean that I’m me though? I’m a mare, but he’s a stallion. Why would some pieces of the boss be mares if he’s a stallion? Are you not really a stallion Mister Boss Look-a-like?” This massive stream of words was followed by an extremely awkward session of being poked, prodded, and harassed. I now had a marvelous insight into why my friends found me so annoying during some of my speculative rants.
“Hey, listen! I hear wings flapping. Do you hear wings flapping? I mean more wings than before.” I pleaded to Celestia’s grave that it would be somepony to end my misery. I just wanted this little nuisance to go away. That bubbly little voice would just not shut up. “Annoyance, Misery, is that you? I hope it’s you! It looks like it, but what if I’m delusional again? The last time I saw you was when I asked Madness what it was like to be mad.”
Two more pegasi flew up to us. One was an obnoxious shade of yellowish green. He had a spikey mane and wild eyes. The other was a dull greyish blue. His mane was hung limply about his face, and his eyes had the glassy look of one who has given up.
“You really do seem to like making things worse for yourself, don’t you, Baffle?” Betrayal was chuckling. “There’s nothing worse than somepony who sabotages their own plans. It is a truly heinous form of betrayal if you ask me.” I shared a look with Misery. It was pretty obvious what was going to happen next.
Annoyance flew right up to me, putting his face the perfect distance from mine to maximize the effect of invading my space without being too close for a complaint to sound reasonable. “Hey! Are you feeling lucky, punk?” One of his eyes rolled to the left as he said this. I don’t think he had a lazy eye. It just made his comment seem more invasive, so it happened. That was why Betrayal could move with me when I teleported. I effectively sabotaged, or betrayed, myself by putting myself into a situation with no escape. At least, I think that’s what it was. I was trying to avoid thinking about it right now. It would probably just set curiosity off on another rant.
“What do you think?” I asked sarcastically. “I have a lovely view of a fall big enough to kill me, a lovely companion who kidnapped me because it fills his sadistic desire to betray everypony he comes in contact with, and two block heads I accidentally summoned that are distracting me from doing what needs to be done.”
“You could just ask me to let you go, Baffle.” Betrayal smiled slyly as he spoke. “I’m sure you can figure out something I want to give me in return.”
“Yes, I could,” I drawled, “The problem is you would probably betray yourself by ignoring what was in your best interests rather than accepting.”
“Darn it. You failed to fall for my ruse.” I don’t think I can express how much I hated that voice. “Please tell me, Baffle. Did I construct it poorly to betray my attempt to fool you, or did you jump to a hasty conclusion? Did you sabotage yourself, yet again, by assuming you cannot reason with somepony that is a slave to their nature? If you want to reason with somepony they must be able to change. Isn’t betrayal the epitome of change? I take everything I am and turn it around to hurt others. I must change. There is nothing to me but change.”
“How would I know?” I snorted. “I’d have to run so many experiments to even understand what you guys are. I’d have to-“ I stopped at the grin on Betrayal’s face. “You just said all that to make me curious again, didn’t you?”
“Yes, yes I did,” he replied.
“I hate you so much right now,” I muttered, preparing for the inevitable onslaught.
“That’s an awesome idea!” Curiosity was circling me again. “Are we slaves to what we represent, or do we evolve over time like any other pony?” I immediately tried to tune her out, but it was annoying enough to start Annoyance again.
It started with simply being poked. After five minutes of no response, he switched tactics. “Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself…” This went on for twenty minutes. In the end, it was only annoying because he refused to mix it up. Finally, I could take it no more.
“Shut up! All of you just shut up!” I had heard that some unicorns can actually set themselves on fire when they get mad. It was apparently the way they subconsciously let others know to back off. I’d never done it before, but I was close. I really didn’t want to know what happened when a spell that was cast subconsciously was cast inside your own subconscious. Thankfully, I didn’t have to find out.
“Oi! Annoyance, you owe me five bits!” Out of the blue shot a flame red stallion with a brilliant orange mane. What surprised me was that he wasn’t a pegasus. He was a unicorn. He barreled past us at about a hundred miles an hour. I was about to ask how he was up here when I got my answer. After overshooting us, he turned around in midair, and shot himself like a cannon right back at us using magic.
“Book it!” yelled Annoyance as he dashed away. Misery and Curiosity turned to follow him and the new comer as they raced away. I guess Misery has nothing better to do than make himself miserable by hanging out with the worst pieces of me. Curiosity probably wanted to know why there were bits in my subconscious.
Betrayal chuckled again. “That’s Rage for you. Do you have a way to escape yet?” I shook my head. “You might want to hurry on one. Carrying you around is starting to lose its charm. I would just drop you, but I have no idea if it would destroy this place. I suggest figuring out a way to get out before my need to betray everypony, including myself, compels me to kill you to find out.”
“Why do you care?” I spat.
“I don’t,” he retorted, “I am merely betraying myself by telling you the full extent to which I’ll betray another.” He paused for a second in contemplation. “Irony would love that. I’m actually sort of surprised he hasn’t shown up, especially now. It would be very ironic if Irony appeared as we were talking about irony, but I suppose it ruins the irony to talk about why something is ironic. I never got that. Did I just betray Irony by denying him access to an ironic situation?”
I silently begged Discord to pop out and say this was all just one of his overelaborate pranks.
“Perhaps Irony decided not to come because it would be ironic for him to miss a conversation about how it would be ironic for him to appear just as a conversation on irony started,” I drawled, “That contains at least three levels of irony, not counting the added level of irony that we probably aren’t even talking about truly ironic situations any more.”
Betrayal was about to respond, but I interrupted him. “Will you please just shut up now? I thought you wanted me to escape so you could go betray somepony else.”
Betrayal shook his head. “I would shut up, but I think betraying myself made you consider me an uncontrollable ally. If you haven’t picked up on it, we sort of thrive on your thoughts. You just thought I could help you if you could convince me to betray another, thus I’m a temporary ally. I am now obligated to betray you until you think otherwise.”
I wondered if the fact that I currently had a migraine meant all these fragments of my mind were forced to suffer one too. Irony, at least, would have one.
“I am going to make you pay for this,” I whispered.
“Aha! I found you, you scum!” A blue pegasus shot past us. “You will pay for your crimes! Justice demands it!”
Betrayal had barely dodged out of the way from the newcomer’s assault. “Well, it seems my business is done here. Have a nice fall.” I had about one second to glare at him before he was gone, leaving me in the middle of the sky. I really hoped Justice did a number on him. He deserved every bit of it.
I’d been so busy trying to escape that I forgot to keep track of my surroundings. I was currently falling upwards towards the mansion’s courtyard with about two miles between me and the ground. Considering how I couldn’t exactly save myself, I simply braced for impact. A quick calculation gave me about twenty-six and a half seconds to live, provided I hadn’t made an error in my math under pressure, so I decided to count them down. It’s not like there was anything else for me to do right now.
At about sixteen, Curiosity showed up. “What are you doing?” she asked. I was already past her, but I heard another pegasus reply.
“He’s trying to get us to help,” said the newcomer.
“Should we do that, Common Sense?” asked Curiosity.
“Do I really have to answer that?” he retorted. I thanked Celestia I finally found somepony who was sane here. “He’s too far away from us to do that now.” That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
At about ten, two more newcomers showed up.
“You know, I find it absolutely refreshing that you’re taking this so well,” said the first, matching my speed as I plummeted. “I would simply fall head over heels for you if you weren’t already doing that.”
“Oh, stop that Humor. We don’t know that he’s going to die,” said the second as she swooped away, “You just got to believe!”
“Oh, Hope, I’m just dying to see the day being optimistic gets you killed.” Humor turned to me, chuckling, before he flew off. “Nice to meet you, boss. I’d love to stay and chat, but I hear that you’ll be meeting the ground soon.”
It wasn’t until I had one second to go that I was saved, by an iron grey pegasus.
“Don’t tell me,” I bristled. “It’s ironic for the damsel in distress to be saved at the last second.”
“No,” said Irony, “That’s just cliché. It’s ironic because I’m showing up for something you’re mistakenly assuming is ironic after I missed the earlier conversation on irony. I think that puts it at a five levels of irony, but I suppose irony is subjective. Does that make it ironic, if I, Irony, mistakenly mislabel something as ironic? I’d love for that to mean I’ve now achieved six levels of irony.”
“I’m starting to wish you had let me fall,” I mumbled as he let me to the ground. “Please tell me you know a way for me to get out of here, or at least a way to contact my uncle to get me out.”
“Sorry,” Irony rumbled, “Everypony in your subconscious has orders to keep you away from Discord. We’re currently having Deception lead him on a wild goose chase. If you want to get out of here you’re going to have to talk to Madness.”
“Who the hay gave everypony orders to keep Discord away?” I barked.
“What do you mean who gave the orders?” Irony seemed bewildered. “You did! You’ve wanted to get away from him for such a long time that Madness came up with the brilliant idea of bringing you here to help teach you how to escape him. She said it fit perfectly with the masters’ designs.”
“That’s mad!” I yelled.
“Aha! I knew I could make you say that,” said Irony, smiling, “I’m on a roll.”
“Sweet Celestia!” I screamed, “You are all driving me insane.” This was of course the moment Panic showed up again leading a group of ponies to meet me.
“Did you all hear that? He’s trying to make Madness stronger! Run for your lives!” shouted Panic.
“I knew he couldn’t be trusted!” yelled another, “You all said I was paranoid, but I was right! Don’t you see? Mistrust agrees with me!” Mistrust was nodding his head, probably not trusting himself to speak.
“That’s because you are paranoid, Paranoia,” somepony said, “It’s in your name.”
“You’re part of the conspiracy!” shouted Paranoia. “You speak in lies!”
“That’s highly unlikely Mister Paranoia,” droned yet another. “It isn’t logical that Honesty would lie.”
“I can’t trust you!” rambled Paranoia. “You’re Logic! We all know you’d lie if it was the most logical thing to do. That’s what a white lie is, isn’t it? It’s a lie you’ve used logic to rid yourself the guilt of telling.”
“I didn’t do it!” yelled who I could only assume was Guilt. “It was him. It was always him, right Blame?”
“J’accuse!” barked Blame.
“I can’t believe it!” said Disbelief.
“This is an outrage!” Righteousness bristled.
“Maybe we should reason with him,” murmured Timidness shyly.
“No!” shouted Justice. “We must bring him down!”
“What do we do? What do we do?” said a panicked Doubt.
“What honor demands we do,” said Honor. “If he wishes to harm all of us by making Madness even stronger, we are obligated to stop him. Forgive me, Baffle.”
I had almost stopped paying attention at that point. Instead, I had been backing away from them towards the door to the mansion. What refocused my attention on them was that they had pitchforks and torches. “Don’t tell me,” I muttered, “Cliché is in there, and he always packs torches and pitchforks for emergency mobs.” Irony nodded at me. I took that as a sign to make a full on bolt for the mansion’s door. There was no point in seeing if they followed. I just ran inside and bolted the door. Leaning against the door with my eyes closed, I caught my breath.
“You are just too easy. You know that, don’t you,” said an oily voice from behind me.
“Hello, Betrayal.” I sighed. “Care to tell me if it was you who led Panic here?”
“Oh, it most certainly was.” Betrayal snickered.
“I take it you’re about to let them all in here.” I really didn’t care anymore.
“Maybe I am,” said the mischievous colt, “maybe I’m not.”
…..
It turned out Betrayal wasn’t going to let the mob in after me. Instead, he was leading me somewhere through the giant funhouse I was now in.
“Will you just tell me who ordered you to do all this already?” I asked for the umpteenth time.
“I would if I could, but that would be a betrayal of trust,” he responded.
“Tell me how you can possibly say that!” I was fuming. “You are Betrayal. You are supposed to betray others. It’s your nature. How can you use that as an excuse?”
“I’m not using it as an excuse. It would be impractical to betray everypony all the time.” His voice was serious and business-like. “It’s a matter of quality over quantity. I find it better to maximize how deep the blade sinks into a pony’s back. I could betray somepony every chance I get, but nothing feels as good as the elaborate traps that a long term betrayal is made of.” There was clearly no reasoning with him right now, so I fell silent and observed our surroundings.
The mansion we were in was odd enough to give the Dwair a run for its money. There were stairs that led nowhere, or to sliding walls that moved only under certain conditions. Sometimes there were multiple switches scattered throughout different rooms on a floor that ended up granting access to a location on the other side of the mansion on a different floor. Staircases, halls, walls, and rooms were prone to moving about. Sometimes they collapsed. Sometimes they expanded. Sometimes they rotated. The most annoying feature by far was the gravity. It was completely unpredictable. We ran into a couple hallways that would slowly spiral until you were supposed to be on the ceiling. Sometimes gravity curved with the hall, sometimes it simply kept itself relatively downwards to us, and still other times it randomly shifted in the middle. Gravity could be different for every room you walked into. Somepony could walk through a door, and fall sideways through a window that was actually a door in disguise. Then they would fall upwards into yet another room where gravity seemed perfectly fine, and tumble through it with their remaining momentum into the chimney which launched them upwards. This chimney doesn’t launch you out of the house though. It turned out the room was upside down, and this unfortunate pony was actually falling back through a hole in the roof of the room they started in. That actually happened to us, twice.
Not even counting the bizarre behavior of the rooms themselves, every room just felt off somehow. For example, the foyer we started our trek in had a swimming pool. Other than that it looked completely normal. After the third time we somehow circled right back to it I asked Betrayal, “Why is there a swimming pool in the foyer?”
Betrayal simply looked at me quizzically. “You think this is a foyer? Why would you possibly think that? This is clearly the bathroom. Don’t you see the toilet?” He pointed to the swimming pool.
“You use the swimming pool as a toilet?” I asked, aghast.
“You use the toilet as a swimming pool?” he asked, aghast in his own right. After about a minute of increasingly awkward misinterpretations I realized what was going on.
“Wait!” I yelled, as my backstabbing little host started to say something, “Explain what you mean when you call that a toilet. It’s way too big, has no flush mechanism, and there’s a diving board.”
“That’s no diving board,” he scoffed, “That’s the flush mechanism.” To prove his point he climbed up and jumped on it. There was a clearly recognizable, if much deeper than usual, flushing sound as the pool emptied.
I think my jaw hit the floor. “Why is the first room you walk into in this house the bathroom?”
“Oh, that’s why you thought it was a foyer.” Betrayal grinned. “There are no true entrances to this house, only exits. You may exit the garden outside by coming inside, and you may exit the house within the walls by going outside, but you cannot enter them without an invitation. Foyers are meant for entrances, not exits.”
“That doesn’t make any sense! How can you exit one place without entering another? Why wouldn’t I have an invitation? This is my subconscious! You wouldn’t exist without me!” My voice was getting so hoarse from all frustrated yelling I’d done today that I could barely understand myself.
“The masters of the house would disagree with that statement.” Betrayal’s voice was flat. The oily sound I hated so much was gone. “Do you want to know why I can’t betray them to you, Baffle? It’s because they’re the ones who made me. They made all the little fragments of your mind you’ll find here. They made me, and they made you too. I can’t betray them, because they’re the two things I was made not to betray.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I inquired. “Nopony wants to be betrayed.”
As the little colt spoke, a spark of rage entered his voice. “I don’t think you can understand what it’s like. They made me to betray anything and everything, but I cannot betray them. How do you think a colt would feel if his parents told him to use his special talent anywhere except in front of them? That colt would be crushed. That is what it’s like for me. When you discover who and what you are, all you want to do is share it with those you care about. My very nature denies me the ability to have friends. The only ones I had any reason to love were the masters. They were the ones who gave me life. They deserved to experience my talents first hand, to see the beauty they themselves created, but I was forbidden. They laughed with Humor, and they talked with Intelligence. They embraced everypony’s talents, except for mine.”
I honestly didn’t know how to react. I could understand what he said, but it was almost impossible to wrap my head around the idea of being proud of betraying others. I could grasp the idea of wanting to prove yourself, but not like that. Who would make a creature like that?
Was it me? Did I create this mass of madness in my head, or am I just as much a tool as the rest of the ponies I’d met today?
“That’s enough, Betrayal.” Another pony had entered the room. “It’s appeared, darling,” she said, smiling at me. “There are no entrances here, only exits. I only appeared.” I tried to object, but her airy smile suddenly turned into a glare. After making sure I was quiet, she turned to Betrayal. “You had better learn to still your tongue, lest I cut it out for the masters. We can’t have you betraying us after all.”
“I can’t betray you, Madness.” Betrayal’s voice was a hollow whisper. “I never can, and I never will.”
“Now, now, Betrayal, you should buck up! You may not be able to betray the masters directly, but that doesn’t mean your nature doesn’t make you slip up accidentally every so often.” Betrayal perked up at this.
“I can betray them?” he asked, almost like a puppy.
Madness demurely descended from the alcove she was on. “No, my little pony, you can’t.” Betrayal’s head drooped towards the ground, but Madness lifted it so the little colt gazed into her eyes. “I’m afraid they wouldn’t allow it, and then I’d have to kill you. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t have the ability to betray them.” For a second, I swore something broke in his eyes. I thought he had cracked in his own little twisted despair, and then they filled with a burning determination.
“Yes, mistress, I understand.” After saying this, the little colt got to his feet, and he began to walk away. “Baffle,” he said, right before the exit, “Madness is a fickle creature. It is made of mass illusions, grand delusions, and great confusions, but it can also be lucid and clear. You must take care to figure out which kind you’re dealing with.” The door slammed darkly behind him.
“Ah, it is truly wonderful to be touched by Madness.” The mare sighed contentedly as she turned to me, finally letting me get my first good look at her. She had a dark violet coat and wavy magenta mane. Her tail was also wavy, and her eyes were lavender with icy blue cracks spreading through the iris. Her smile couldn’t help but warm my soul and send bone-chilling tingles down my spine. “Hello there, Baffle. I think you’ll find I’ll lead you along much better than Betrayal. I am the steward of this manor after all.” Was she implying what I thought she was implying? “Come! I have a room all set up for us in the room to the right. It’s actually on the eighty-third floor right now, but it’s due to shift downwards in about five seconds.”
There was a deafening thump as the room in question plummeted eighty-three floors and hit the ground like a meteor.
“It was actually forty-two, darling,” said Madness nonchalantly. “Before it was released from the floor it was on, the entire floor it was on shifted down about twenty floors downward. Meanwhile, our own floor shifted upwards about twenty-two floors.”
“Why is it only the insane ponies in my life can read my thoughts?” I muttered.
“I didn’t actually read your thoughts, Baffle,” she purred sweetly, “I simply knew what you would assume, and I decided to correct you. I am nothing, if not an excellent host. I always consider my guests.”
“Are you sure?” I asked sourly.
“Yes, most of the other fragments can read your conscious thoughts when they try, but I’m much too busy to listen to whatever mundane thoughts you have.” I felt so honored by that statement. “Besides, it’s much more fun to simply change your thoughts to what I want them to be. I wish the masters let me do it more often, but that would violate that silly bargain they made with your uncle.”
I tried not to let the idea that my thoughts weren’t my own make me fall flat on my face as I entered a spacious living room. It was surprisingly normal in appearance. In fact, the only oddity the room had was the potato clock on the coffee table.
“Please, sit.” Madness reclined in one chair and gestured to the couch beside her. It was the kind psychiatrists let their patients use. After I took my seat, Madness sat quietly for a while. Finally, she turned to me. “What I am about to tell you violates everything the bargain stands for. I would not be telling you this, except for the fact that both masters accept it as a necessary sacrifice in their game. Each one stands to gain something from it.”
“How do you know anything about the bargain?” I asked. “If you’re a part of me, you know just as little as I do.”
“Madness doesn’t always come from delusions, Baffle.” Madness shook her head like she was lecturing a child. “Sometimes it’s the rest of the world that’s deluded. I hear that which others refuse to hear. I see that which others blind themselves to. The universe works in mysterious ways, and some, like us, are the conductors of its music. I hear that music. I see the instruments that weave it.”
“You do know how crazy and egotistical that sounds, right?” I muttered. I needed to think of a way out of here. “Doesn’t Discord get a say in this? It was his bargain after all.”
Madness grinned again. “Is that what he told you? The father of chaos wasn’t the one who was bargaining. He was a neutral third party they agreed upon, more of a referee than anything else. Your uncle was only there to help settle the differences between the masters.”
Who in their right minds would ever think of Discord as a neutral third party?
“Tell me who your masters are.” I wanted to escape, but I needed to know. I had apparently been created by somepony, and I had to find out why. I might as well play along until I figured out how to escape.
Madness shook her head. “I can’t tell you yet. You need to understand what you are dealing with first. I told you before that I hear the music of the universe, and see the instruments that play it. Some instruments are so disjointed and small that you would never suspect them to be in tandem. You would never think to listen and see if your hoofstep falls in time with another stallion halfway across the world. That would be mad. Other instruments, like your uncle, are obvious to anyone with eyes, but without hearing the complete orchestra they are impossible to truly understand.”
“What are you talking about?” I snorted.
Madness glared at me. “I am saying there is a certain order to the universe, a method to the madness. I prefer to think of it as music, but perhaps you might prefer to think of it as a series of systems meant to create balance.” I smiled slightly at having annoyed Madness. “Discord is a part of one such system. He was created not as an entity of chaos, but as an entity of change. His counterpart, Nightmare Moon, represented order. Both of them were created to help govern and control the development of this planet, but a complication arose. Discord changed too much. His ability to open a pony’s mind to new things became a way to turn them into the very thing they hated. Nightmare Moon changed too little. Her ability to possess others and walk among their dreams was supposed to help her still the chaos of a pony’s mind. It became a tool to silence ponies, and set them on the path she deemed wisest. They became creatures of chaos and tyranny, embodying the worst extremes their purpose had to offer.” I yawned. I’d heard variants of this from the scholars in the Dwair. Madness just continued.
“The system was unbalanced, so the universe sought to correct it. It nudged events in Equestria to set up a meeting. The universe decided to send two sisters on a quest of enlightenment. At the end of their quest, they were to confront Discord and Nightmare Moon. I take it you know the story of Celestia and Luna’s quest to forge the Elements of Harmony, so I’ll skip that and head to what you need to learn from it.”
“Not so fast, missy, I think you forgot something.” The room shimmered, leaving a pony who looked exactly like me and my uncle standing nearby. I should have known he was too smart to fall for whatever ruse Deception had played.
“It’s about time you showed up,” I grumbled, gesturing to the pony beside him, “I take it that’s Deception. How long did you actually fall for their wild goose chase?”
The draconequis gave his usual cocky grin. “Oh, I knew all along. I just let the little guy have his fun so I could drop in on you like this.”
There was an audible smack of my hoof meeting my face.
“Please tell me you weren’t able to find me anytime you please.”
“Oh, I most certainly could have. I just wanted to see what brought us here in the first place, and I must say I’m pleasantly surprised.” He turned to Madness. “Before you put me back to sleep with your lecture, I’m afraid he needs to really know what happened when I faced Celestia and her sister. You see, I let her win.”
“You did what?” I nearly shouted.
“I let her win. What else could I do after they convinced me to create the Elements of Harmony?” I think my brain was officially on meltdown. Discord just stepped forward and picked my mouth off the floor. “Their so-called confrontation was an attempt at negotiation. They thought they knew the one thing that might restrain me, and they were right. You see, as a creature of change, I accept that anything is possible. There is always some chain of events that I could change in such a way as to make whatever outcome I desired occur. Their method of reasoning with me was simple. What if I one day changed something in such a way that I couldn’t change it back? I knew I could do that, and that terrified me.” Discord could get scared? I didn’t know if I should believe him, but why would he make a lie like this? You wouldn’t expect a god to lie to try and make himself seem weaker. “They showed me that I could make a different kind of change. They argued that creating a cycle would be best. I would never be left with a world I couldn’t change, because I would create an artifact to balance the world before events spiraled out of control. Unfortunately, what they proposed meant both Nightmare Moon and I would need to be sealed away. I agreed on one condition. The seal created by the Elements would contain a leak. This would allow Nightmare Moon and I to affect a limited amount of control over things while we were sealed away, and it would allow us to escape once in a while. We wouldn’t permanently escape. We would just take a little breather. Think of it as a vacation where we get to unwind and let loose like the good old days. They accepted, and everypony but Nightmare Moon the control freak was happy.”
Madness grimaced. “I was trying to avoid that. It approaches sensitive information.”
Discord stuck out his tongue. “I know. That’s why I jumped in.”
“Will you two please not start bickering?” I pleaded. “All I want is to leave, and I can’t do that if the only two ponies who have the power to let me out of here are arguing.” I turned to my uncle. “Why are we even still here?”
“We are here because you need to learn of Hymn, and I am obligated to tell you nothing.”
“Who are you talking about?” I asked.
“Hymn,” my uncle answered.
“Him, who?” I asked again.
“Hymn.” Was the draconequis smirking for some reason? I really wished it was easier
to read his many different cocky grins.
Madness snorted in exasperation. “If you don’t mind, Discord, I can’t tell him if you continue being cryptic.”
“You’re such a spoilsport,” the draconequis muttered before looking at me. “Can’t you tell her not to ruin my fun?” Before I could open my mouth to respond he continued. “Nevermind, you spoil my fun just as much as her. You’ll probably just side with her.”
“Anyways,” Madness grumbled, gritting her teeth in annoyance, “the point I was
trying to make before was that to balance the system a third tool was created, the Elements of Harmony. They act as a neutral agent capable of good or evil, despite what the history books claim. Their sole purpose is to bring the world to a state of balance determined by the mortals who use them. This is how a proper system normally works.”
Madness took a breath. “Baffle, you and I are part of a system that is not so clean or efficient. The first problem is the entity involved in our system. Its name is Hymn, and it fancies itself as the creator of everything.”
I was not going to buy that drivel. It seemed almost like something Cliché would come up with.
“You’ll notice that the system governing just our one planet was pretty screwed up before the Elements. Imagine that problem with a pair of deities that are supposed to rule multiple universes. Luckily, we don’t have to deal with all of reality. The rules of their system operate a little differently. The two halves of the entity known as Hymn simply jump from one world to another playing a number of games. The exact rules of each game vary from world to world, but much of it is the same. If the half of Hymn that represents creation wins, then the system governing that world stays in place. If the half of Hymn representing destruction wins, then the system is destroyed along with the world and everypony in it.”
That sounded a bit more reasonable. There was no way I was going to deal with multiple universes. It would be way too messy. It did seem a bit much to ask me to save the world though.
Madness wasn’t done talking. “The main problem with these games, however, is the proxy. A proper system needs a neutral third element. Hymn’s games don’t work like that. It creates a living, breathing, proxy capable of being manipulated. The point of the game is to drive the proxy to a critical point, or points, in a historical moment, and have it either save or doom the world. The proxy is not neutral, and that is the problem. Creation is passive. It seeks to preserve what exists to make sure whatever it creates will not come into an unbalanced system and destroy it. Destruction is aggressive. It has no need to preserve, and can act however it needs to. Thus, most of these games are stalling wars in favor of Destruction. All it takes is one carefully planned move to drive the proxy past the point of no return.”
I was almost missing being chased by the mob. Did I really sound that bad when I lectured my friends on something? It was incredibly hard to listen to her voice drone on, but I needed to learn what she was saying.
“Your first critical point,” Madness continued, “was supposed to be helping defeat Discord when he was freed. There were complications.”
“You mean somepony cheated,” Discord droned.
“Actually,” Madness replied, “it was a perfectly legal tactic according to the rules Hymn follows. The half of Hymn representing destruction made a side bargain with Nightmare Moon.”
“Can we please give them separate names?” I asked, trying to rub away my headache. “It’s really annoying to keep trying to keep track of them when they’re all Hymn. How about we call them Crea for creation and Desi for destruction?”
Madness sighed. “I’d tell you that they’ll hate those names, but you’re probably dead set on them.” I nodded. “Fine, but it’s your funeral when they find out.” Discord and I shared a grin, knowing much mocking was to come from this. “Anyways, Desi had a hidden deal with Nightmare Moon. Desi would interfere with the Elements of Harmony resealing Nightmare Moon, and she would trap you and Discord in limbo to return the favor. You would be trapped with no way to escape without destroying the system. The only thing that stopped this from happening completely is that Crea was able to make a side bargain with Discord to have the draconequis use his power to shift the focus of the critical point from defeating himself to defeating Nightmare Moon.”
“He was a charming fellow when I talked to him. A bit full of himself, but he was lovely nonetheless.” Discord turned to me with a yawn. “I do believe that’s enough for now, however. I’m about ready to fall asleep!” I wasn’t about to complain. Uncle picked up the potato clock on the coffee table. “Do you mind if we take this? I’ve always loved these things. I never understood how a potato had the capacity to tell time.”
“Sure,” said Madness, smiling that really creepy smile. “It’s not much of a gift, but I would be a horrible host if I didn’t give you something. It doesn’t tell time or work as an alarm that well anyways. The bell never goes off at the right time.”
That smile was getting really creepy. I wanted out.
“Come on, Discord. We really need to get going.” I scurried over to my uncle, nearly tripping in my haste.
“Hold on a second, Baffle. Something seems off about this clock.” He turned to Madness. “Is it broken?”
“No time!” I yelled. I could almost feel that smile trying to peel my skin off.
“Alright!” the draconequis barked. “I’m going. I’m going. I was just going to ask Madness if we could come back here for training, but I guess we’ll just come back unannounced.”
I had about a second to process this and try to convince him otherwise, but Madness beat me to the punch. She shouted something about being able to come back any time before we vanished. When we landed back in my room I was about to chew him out, but somepony, or rather something, interrupted me.
“Finally, I’m free from that hellhole where sanity is sent to die.”
The potato was talking.
“You would not believe what I’ve been through in there because of you idiots. I’m lucky I caught what you were doing before I completely fried.”
I looked down at the potato in dread. I really, really, hoped that potato was not talking with the voice I thought I was hearing.
“I can’t believe I ended up looking like a potato clock. What kind of imbecile cares about the ridiculously small amount of voltage a potato can produce? All I wanted was to try my emergency download function, and I ended up trapped in a potato.”
I looked up at Discord. He looked back at me. He dropped the potato.
“Ouch! Why did you do that?” The sadistic voice was slightly muffled. “Oh, yeah, you’re probably still hung up on the whole failed murder attempt. Let’s try things again, shall we? I am the Bio-Electronic Little Learning Emulator, BELLE for short. How would you like me to kill you for trapping me in this asinine body today?”