“It’s a shame, really. Now that you know, the game’s lost all of its fun!”
Discord laughed darkly as he circled the disgruntled earthlings. They each stood dumbfounded and disheartened as the serpentine monster reveled in his apparent victory. Without the use of Foaly’s machines or Twilight’s friends, they knew, they had no hope of possibly defeating Discord. And the odds of him simply letting them gather the Elements of Harmony were practically nonexistent.
Artemis brooded in his defeat, outsmarted by a creature that barely seemed capable of rationality, let alone logic. Whatever logic he did have came at the expense of the laws of the pony world and any semblance of natural order. So the boy stood with clenched fists, his mind sifting through all possible outcomes of their situation and trying to decide which inevitable loss he’d rather have.
The beast stopped his flight just in front of his original puppet, a single long fang shining in the sunlight. “What’s wrong little Arty, did mister genius lose a game of wits?” he chuckled, a child’s propeller hat materializing in the air and landing on the boy’s head.
The boy didn’t respond despite the fire raging in his gut.
Several other earthlings looked at him with concern, pleading and pity in their eyes. They needed his help to have a chance at beating Discord; he needed to beat Discord to right his wrongs. He met their eyes with anger, knowing he was beaten but unwilling to accept it. He scanned each of his companions, running them through his mind.
He started with the one person he was capable of calling friend. Butler: strong, critical thinker, trained in martial arts and weaponry, mostly loyal. From there he proceeded in a logical progression, jumping from side to side of the makeshift circle. Juliet: charismatic, unsuspectingly strong, nimble, unorthodox fighting styles. Twilight: intelligent by Equestrian standards, capable of more potent magic than most other unicorns due to the Element, powerless without her friends. He winced at the thought of the five missing Elements of Harmony, knowing that under the right circumstances they could stop Discord’s game.
Celestia: powerful magician, if not practical; still no proof of sun-raising power, easily subdued by Chaos, useless. Foaly: intelligence rivalling my own. Not strong in any sense, but capable of formulating plans. He picked up on my generator-converter plan impressively quick. The two machines he had thought saved them sat at the front of his mind, a crowning achievement in failure. Commander Root: angry, blunt; a good soldier, but nothing I need. Captain Short: feisty, fast on her feet, perceptive; without wings and a gun she is no help. So his gaze finally fell on Discord. None of them held any chance of defeating the beast. Perhaps the beast could defeat himself for us? Something in that sarcastic thought clicked.
Artemis briefly noted the absence of Mulch Diggums, but quickly dismissed it as the usual quick-to-flee nature of thieves and criminals. After all, it was hardly the first time the dwarf had vanished on them, only to show up with some sort of solution to their problems. Dwarf ex Machina, he found himself chuckling.
Discord’s patience wore thin as his enemies continued to ignore him. He growled, “No need to be sore losers, everyone! We can still make your defeat fun, can’t we?” Snapping his fingers, a large pink cloud appeared overhead. Still saying nothing, Twilight instinctively braced herself for the inevitable.
“You win!” Artemis shouted, relaxing his hands and placing them in what remained of his coat’s pockets. With a grin he continued, “You’ve bested us, Discord, with your lawless powers and mental manipulations. Of course, you knew all along you would win.”
“Did I?” the beast gasped in faux-shock, a claw covering his muzzle.
The boy stepped forward, the breaking of the circle drawing everyone back to attention. It was as if they were released from some hypnotic spell, their thoughts shattering as they returned to reality. “Deep down,” Artemis sighed, “I think I knew it too.”
The pink cloud overhead began to roar with some distorted thunder. A single brown drop fell to the ground in front of Artemis; it reeked of chocolate.
“Out of everything I’ve learned over the past few days, one thing still makes no sense.”
“Really?”
“Why didn’t Mother come with us?” the boy’s grin fell, his eyes cold and determined with a voice full of hatred.
Kicking back in the air and manifesting a cup in his hands, Discord considered the question for a long while. “Would you have preferred she did?” Several large waves of brown fell from the pink cloud, landing nowhere but the cup in Discord’s claw. “If you must know, it’s because she’s already insane!”
Artemis and the Butlers cocked their eyebrows in unanimous confusion.
“It isn’t rocket science, Arty! Simple math, actually. If you multiply a negative with a negative, what do you get?”
“A positive?” Artemis spoke slowly and uncertainly, almost afraid it was some mocking trick of a question.
“Correct!” Discord dumped the contents of the glass into his throat like a brick, despite its liquid state. He tossed the glass over Butler’s head and continued, “If my magic had brought her here or infected her in any way, the two bouts of insanity would’ve cancelled one another out! And it defeats the purpose of Chaos to cure Chaos!”
Artemis smiled warmly; he was bizarrely thankful for his mother’s illness. If not for it, she would’ve suffered the same trials as them. He spoke with less malice in his voice, “So she’s safe? You can’t hurt her.” He removed the remains of his jacket and dropped it on the ground, taking a deep breath. He sat.
Cocking his entire head to the side, Discord chuckled, “What is this? Doing yoga in Equestria’s last minutes?”
“You win.”
“Of course I win! But you can’t simply stop playing!” the monster’s voice spiked, impatience flooding the tone of the conversation. “Take your defeat with dignity, Arty!”
Twilight Sparkle dropped to the ground, sitting peacefully on the paved brick of Canterlot’s central plaza. Princess Celestia followed suit.
Discord spun to face them, a cocky grin on his face. “Yes, you go ahead and rest. It must be tough being turned to stone, huh?” He dropped to the ground on his legs, standing for the first time since meeting the earthlings.
Captain Short sat quietly, following the example. Foaly was next, though he made quite a groaning noise as his hind landed on a few stray pebbles from his box’s crash. Juliet sat in turn, a giddy smile on her face; she liked mocking bad guys, even on her wrestling shows.
“Stop this at once!” Discord roared. Even after crushing their hopes for victory, he still found the earthlings to be nuisances. He hadn’t had his fill of fun but was forced to play his trump card to bring them back to Equestria. “I’m not finished until you’re begging for mercy!”
Snapping his claws, the pink cloud exploded with chocolate downpour. The droplets soaked into their clothes as Butler and Root joined their companions on the ground. They all sat motionless, defiant against the chaotic desires of their enemy. A bizarre sense of peace filled them, each in harmony with one another. No words were exchanged, but they all sat in similar circumstance.
As they refused to acknowledge Discord, the beast grew even angrier. The paved bricks turned to rough stone as he stomped his goat hoof. The temperature of the chocolate drops increased as he began to bounce in a childish tantrum.
Artemis smiled, The master of Chaos reduced to nothing more than a child. Fitting for such games.
“This is unacceptable!” Discord snarled, the ground underneath them vanishing completely. Gravity kicked in instantly, dragging them all down into the depths of Canterlot, panic flooding them as they continued to ignore the childish beast.
They screamed, though not for help or in protest. They screamed in excitement and fear, death or victory awaiting them at the bottom of the drop. If logic were to take root and the impact end their lives, so be it; they’d already lost, and how much worse could it be than suffering Discord’s tantrums? If they survived unbroken by Discord’s influence, perhaps he would surrender to them.
In the instant they began to fall, that unspoken logical progression filled their minds, harmonizing with one another to stay strong against Discord’s taunts.
So they fell far, deeper into Canterlot than even their original chasm. Crystals greeted them from time to time to illuminate their descent, less uniform than those in the corrupted Canterlot. A few grazed by and cut, but most were just far enough to not be threats. It felt like they had fallen for hours before they finally reached the end, a pool of chilled water glistening in the light of the crystals.
Discord landed in the center of them, the water washing away the chocolate coating from the pink clouds above. The downpour seemed to have stopped at some point.
“How can you remain so composed?! You should be terrified! I could’ve killed you all!” Discord burst from the water with clenched fists, his eyes bulging wide in anger. He bellowed, “Why aren’t you terrified!”
For the first time since their silent circle formed, Artemis spoke with cocky understanding. “You won’t harm us, not really. We’re your toys, puppets you spent so long whittling away with your own claws. If you dispose of us, what’s left for you? Equestria, that never-changing, boring land of sameness.” Artemis understood why Discord refused to kill them. He understood why Discord was so full of rage at their defiance. “You feel entitled to our lives, having brought us here!”
Foaly laughed, “You play your games because you desire control in the midst of Chaos, order so long as it suits your disorder. You’re a child at a party, crying when he can’t have another kid’s toy!” He gripped the wall of the pool with one arm, using his thumb and index finger to form an ‘L’ in the air with the other. “You’re losing control of us, and you can’t stand it!”
Celestia giggled knowingly, “You never were one to accept defeat easily. Now you’ve won so much that you can’t help but lose. Your games are playing you now!” Her horn shined bright with a small symbol, mimicking Foaly’s hand gesture.
“Such childish gestures are certainly above you, Celestia!” Discord grumbled, realizing that they were right. Somewhere, somehow, he had lost control of his own games, the Chaos he controlled manipulating him into an immature tantrum. But he had still come too far to lose! “You can mock me all you want, it won’t get you home!”
Butler grunted, “So what? If you win, we stay here. At least this is more entertaining to watch!” It was a struggle to mimic Foaly; all of his years of training and conditioning left him with this odd sense that his mentor was glaring down on his unprofessional display.
Juliet cheered, “What’s it say about you to be so upset about these ‘childish gestures?’” She followed her brother with a cocky grin on her face. Perhaps the gravity of the circumstance escaped her, but she still understood they were fighting without fighting.
Artemis watched as the fairy officers joined in, each offering their own snide remarks toward the chaotic beast. He thought long and hard about the disgraceful hand gesture, how simple it was and how it seemed to disturb the monster to no end. He couldn’t handle losing so vehemently; it was breaking him.
As he lifted his hand from the water to join his companions, Artemis sighed, “Our fight may be pointless, but at least we’re fighting. It’s my fault we’re here; my greed gave you power over me. I couldn’t stop you, but I can still mock you!” They each held steady, their symbols eating into the beast’s resolve.
Twilight was the last to join, her mind churning with witty things to say to the beast. Artemis’s speech shattered her thoughts, putting the pieces together to create a different picture altogether.
“This is nice,” she began, “floating in the face of defeat and joining together to stand against our enemy. Even in the presence of Chaos, we’re acting together to protest his power! And it’s working!” Her horn sparked to life, mimicking her princess’s symbol with as much energy as she could spare. “You’re afraid of us Discord! You’re afraid because you understand what this is!”
Everyone’s eyes turned to her, symbols still waving freely in the air. Discord shook his head in protest and growled, “If you think for one second that this counts, you must be an imbecile!”
“Counts for what?” Captain Short asked before anyone else could. Curiosity seemed to bloom inside of them.
Twilight giggled, “It’s not graceful, for sure. It’s quite vulgar, really. They may not have magic, or be possessed by kindness or generosity or even honesty, but the earthlings can work together to achieve their goals. They don’t need magic when they have complimenting strengths! And it’s those compliments that give them the power to fight you!” Two purple streams of magic pulled away from her symbol, beginning to flow in a circuit around the rest of their hands.
“Don’t you dare!” Discord roared, thrashing at the purple pony with a violent claw. A spark of purple energy sent the claw back to its owner, rebuking the attack with a force comparable to Chaos. “This literally isn’t possible!”
He started to burst from the water, started to flee from the pool with all his might. He realized all too late what was happening, and was guaranteed of its dominance over him when his ascent was stopped by a purple barrier.
The others stood still as the warm magic wrapped their hands. They welcomed its peaceful intrusion into their excited hearts. Only Twilight truly understood what was happening; it had happened to her twice before, after all.
She smiled widely as the magical circuits finished their round, connecting back to her own symbol. Her eyes began to glow a faint white color, reminiscent of but not quite as powerful as before. She laughed, “The earthlings have their Harmony, just like we do! And no one ever said it had to be the Elements to overpower you!” From the tips of their index fingers exploded magical energy.
So powerful were the blasts that the humans actually flew back against the wall of the pool, Foaly already braced and the fairies only slightly unsettled by the explosion. They’d never felt so much energy leave at once, but it lifted a weight from all of their shoulders. Butler struggled to hold his hand high, the intrusive warmth of magic ripping from him with an eerily familiar feeling.
The magic took on a solid white appearance, warmer than the void of the compressed Equestria but colder than the rainbow waves of the Elements of Harmony. The beam swallowed Discord in seconds, shattering the purple barrier above them and sending the contents of the pool skyward like a geyser. As they lifted the ground beneath them materialized, the chaotic influence of the swallowed demon fading just as fast as it had grown.
Through the pink clouds they ripped, the scent of cotton candy filling their nostrils as they flew ever further into the air. Finally, the magic scattered, and once again they fell, faster and heavier than ever toward the ground. Below them sat a fountain, and off to its side sat Foaly’s workstation.
As far as any of them could care at that moment, they’d won. Whether they would survive or not was another story!
When they finally crashed—for hopefully the last time ever—they found themselves standing upright around the edges of the fountain. The waves of crystal clear water poured over them as the magical circuit released them. Twilight’s symbol was the last to vanish.
A loud crashing sound sent them sprawling to the ground, dust and pebbles spraying them like buckshot. A few feet from them, between the fountain and the box, sat the stone image of Discord, a terrified expression swallowing his features as his hands attempted to protect him. Foaly chuckled silently, realizing it was the exact same position he had originally seen.
The warmth of victory faded fast as a large golden light burst from Foaly’s box. It reached out with violent tentacles and ripped the earthlings from their positions; they hadn’t even been able to cheer.
Inside the golden light they were greeted by a large, dirty, toothy grin.
“How’s it going? Take the sucker down, then?” The putrid dwarf was still munching away at the bugs he had accumulated in his beard. “I gotta say, it was pretty dicey for a while!”
“What?!” Commander Root snarled as he gripped his Neutrino without hesitation.
Captain Short yanked his arm from the gun and snapped, “Where the hell have you been, Diggums! Didn’t think to maybe help us?”
Mulch burped once violently and plopped to the ground. “Oh yeah, ‘cause there’s so many doors to choose from here!” he laughed mockingly. “I only knew about your little bout because of some weird ghost images over there!” He pointed to some indeterminate location within the white void, nothing left of whatever ghosts he was talking about.
Artemis took a few steps away from the group, scanning the void. He smiled smugly as he muttered, “I figured as much.”
The argument stopped as everyone turned to him. The smile on his face was warm and thankful.
“Discord likes to think our machines didn’t do anything, but they happened to do just enough.”
“Huh?” rang the harmonious confusion.
“This box was still full of his chaotic magic when he made it vanish, courtesy of the black hole generator. Since he mixed controlled Chaos and raw Chaos, it created this limbo. This place is what my device was supposed to create back in Sweet Apple Acres, before Discord was set free. And because he didn’t consciously choose to leave Mulch with us, the dwarf ended up here. And now that Discord’s returned to his origin point, the rest of the Chaos wants to do the same.”
Holding his arm in the air, everyone watched as his jacket returned to his body entirely intact. The small metallic device that had caused all of their problems manifested itself on his wrist. Turning toward Butler, Artemis watched as the brute’s equipment returned in blasts of ammo and weaponry. The mechanical wing packs burst to life on the fairies’ backs.
“So we’re going home?” Foaly sighed in relief, wiping sweat from his brow. Then his mind locked onto a single thought and he snapped, “What about our memories?”
“I’m afraid they’ll most likely be gone as well. Of course, we won’t actually be forgetting these past few days. It’ll be more like having never experienced them at all. Literally speaking, our adventure in Equestria will have never happened.” He took a moment to consider the implications of this reversal of time. He added solemnly, “I most likely will return to the point just before I opened the Nordic tome for the first time. That’s what released Discord’s magic into our world.”
Foaly all but dragged Holly to the side, away from everyone else as conversations and protests erupted. He hurriedly unloaded all of the information he could muster into her. “Listen to me; bad things are about to happen in Haven! When we get back to our normal lives, things are going to get crazy!”
Holly pulled her arm from Foaly’s grip and scoffed, “What are you talking about?”
“You get kidnapped by Artemis, the Goblins start a rebellion and it all ends with Opal killing Julius!” His eyes began to tear up as the memories from his future began to fade. He could feel the emotions and thoughts clouding, fading along with any mention of Equestria.
Holly didn’t even have time to react to the shocking news of her commander’s death before that memory faded. In an instant, everyone’s minds were being wiped clean, the Chaos returning to where it began, taking all those in its grip with it. Though most of those present didn’t seem to mind, it was Artemis and Foaly that were taking the loss of memory hard.
Artemis was losing so much more than anyone could imagine. He was losing his kindness and conscience; the fairy people were leaving his reach. The gold he needed to fund the searches for his father was now out of his reach for good; the fairies and ponies were no longer in his list of options. Foaly was losing the ability to save a dear friend. Sure, they fought a lot, but they respected one another as comrades.
And before it was all said and done, they couldn’t even remember that they forgot anything. The golden curls of chaotic magic wrapped them each gently, ripping them from the void at specific points of time and space, undoing all the corruption of Chaos’s hold.
Just like that, Equestria didn’t exist. As far as Artemis was concerned, the fairies didn’t exist.
As far as anyone knew, it was just another ordinary night.
As their minds faded from the void of Chaos, a single word echoed silently.
Arrivederci!