Breaking Habits

by Gosky3

Harmonious Chaos

Twilight must’ve run a hole into the ground pacing back and forth around the throne room. She’d sent the rest of the Elements out hours ago to try and find Discord, and none of them had come back yet with any sort of news. From his display earlier that day, the idea of whatever trouble he could cause out there nearly gave her a panic attack. Thankfully, nothing had happened so far but a complaint about extremely poor service at Sugarcube Corner. It seemed as though nothing major would be happening anytime soon.

Of course, she very soon ate her words when Spike came running into the room in a panicky manner. "T-Twilight!" he stuttered.

Her head spun around. "Spike?" In a blast of magic, she teleported in front of him. "What is it? Wait, don't tell me. Equestria's all on fire? Or in an anarchy? Or both? Did Celestia find out? Oh no, what will she think...? All I had to do was keep Discord in check and - "

"Twilight!" Spike snapped.

Immediately, the princess snapped out of her panic-induced trance. Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself together. "Sorry. I'm overreacting again. What is it?"

Spike shuffled awkwardly in place a little bit, hesitating to deliver the news. "Uh...well, actually, you were pretty spot on."

Twilight’s face fell instantaneously.

"Except everypony’s an alicorn."

Her eye began twitching as her breathing picked up.

"On the bright side, Celestia hasn't found out!"

Another flash of light later, and Twilight was out of the throne room and standing in front of the castle. In front of her was a complete disaster. It was true: every pony had a pair of wings and a horn, and was running amok wildly in either fear or thrill. Some screamed and let out bursts of magic, while others tried to cast advanced spells that only created more trouble. And, unfortunately, a small part of the town was on fire.

After getting over that one dangerous detail, she also noticed that the entire town (or, at least the part not consumed by flames) was...arranged somehow. Every house was the exact same, from the color to the shape, to the position of the door and windows. Every trunk and leaf on every tree matched. Even the very dirt itself seemed placed in some pattern somehow. It was as if it were straight out of a geometry book. Every single part of it was...immaculate. Aside from the town being thrown into some sort of anarchy, at least.

“What...what…?” Twilight seemed to be broken as she gazed off into...she didn’t even know what to call it. Was it harmony? Chaos? Some sort of demented mix between the two?

Spike hurried out of the castle, out of breath from having run all the way from the throne room to come to her aid. “Di-did…” He gasped for breath before finishing, “Did Discord do this?”

Upon hearing his voice, she came to and snapped out of her trance. “It must be him. Do you have any idea where he is?”

“I haven't seen him since earlier.”

The princess used the breathing technique she learned from Cadence to calm herself down, before coming to a conclusion. “Then we’d better go find him before this gets any worse.” She unfolded her wings and knelt down so that her assistant could get on top of her. Once he was safely holding on, the two took off into the air.

---

“See anything?” asked Twilight.

“Just more cookie-cutter trees and houses,” said Spike as he looked through his claws like a telescope, peering down at the anarchy-driven Ponyville below. Suddenly, his eyes locked on a pony down below and he leaned in closer. “Hey, why isn’t that pony an alicorn? Wait...is that Fluttershy?”

“Where?” Twilight’s head darted in the direction he was looking. Surely enough, Fluttershy was down below, clearly terrified from the craziness erupting around her. A crowd of ponies were surrounding her, for whatever given reason, all frantic and panicked about the situation. Without thinking twice, the princess dove in after her friend.

“Why don’t you have a horn?” asked one of the ponies.

“What’s going on?”

“Can’t you Elements do something about this?”

“So, now that being an alicorn is normal, does that mean that pegasi are princesses?”

“Uh...um...well…” Fluttershy had no idea how to answer any of these questions, and was honestly as confused as they were. She cowered as low to the ground as possible, as if trying to shrink or disappear, when out of nowhere Twilight landed next to her, along with Spike.

“Everypony, leave her out of this! We’re not sure what’s happening right now, but we’re working on it,” she exclaimed.

Even the words of a princess couldn’t calm any of the citizens down, however, and they quickly fired back up, bombarding her with questions and panicked exclamations. Grabbing her friend’s hoof, Twilight flew up into the air with Fluttershy and all three soared away from the angry crowd. Once they were at a safe distance, they stopped for a moment.

“Fluttershy, where’s Discord?”

“I don’t know. I think I saw him earlier but he ran away from me,” she replied still shaking. “He wouldn’t have done this, though...would he?”

“We’re finding that out now.”

On that note, they all continued on their small quest. But it wasn’t long until the three of them were stopped by a rainbow of colors flying past them. Following the trail, they saw Rainbow Dash attacking a group of clouds, which had become victim to this chaos-harmony as well: they were all congruent, rectangular blocks. But no matter how much she punched, kicked, and rammed into them, they reverted back to their geometrical shape seconds later. “Ugh! What’s up with these things? How does this even work?”

“Rainbow!” Twilight flew up to her side. “Have you seen Discord?”

The pegasus continued attacking one of the clouds furiously, altering its shape. “No, and he better be glad I haven’t, ‘cause when I do - ” All at once, the cloud reverted back its rectangular form, knocking Rainbow back a few feet. “Aw, I almost had it that time!”

Twilight sighed, right before Fluttershy floated up to her side to give her opinion on the matter. “Maybe you should come with us and help.”

Rainbow looked back at the cloud one more time, with hatred in her eyes, before nodding and joining the other three. “At this rate, we might as well get everypony. We're gonna our Rainbow Power to teach Discord a lesson or two!”

Fluttershy eeped. “We’re not gonna have to do that!” she squeaked before turning to her other friend. “...Are we?”

Right before Twilight was about to reply, a shrill scream reached all of their ears. The three Elements looked around in confusion, but Spike knew instantly who it was. “That was Rarity!” He spurred Twilight with the claws on his foot, as though she were a racing horse. Rather than move, she whipped her head back and glared at him. “Sorry,” he gave a weak apologetic smile. Ignoring him, she then flew as fast as she could toward the source of the cry.

---

Knock knock!

“Rarity? It’s not that bad,” Sweetie Belle exclaimed from the other side of her sister’s door.

“Yes it is! It’s horrible!” she whined between her cries within her room. “My shop is ruined!"

Sweetie sighed and plopped next to the door, not bothering to argue anymore. Her sister was absolutely impossible to talk to when she was like this.

Moments later, Twilight teleported right next to Sweetie, with Spike on her back, and nearly gave the little filly a heart attack. “Sweetie Belle! Where’s Rarity? Is she alright?”

Once she had calmed down a bit from the princess' sudden appearance, she replied. “She’s right in there,” Sweetie pointed at the door, “She came back an hour ago asking if I’d seen Discord, and then she ran in her room after seeing what had happened to her dresses.”

“What about her dresses - ?” It didn’t take but a moment for Twilight to answer her own question. Behind Sweetie Belle were a bunch of mannequins that had been apparently thrown out of Rarity's room. Each one had a plain beige dress on, with generic flowers and a brown sash. And, of course, they were impeccably similar in every single way. It was clear that Rarity’s own original and unique designs had been swapped out for these. And these replacements didn’t look very nice at all. Not even Twilight would have considered wearing them. “Oh...dear…”

The bell above the boutique door rang, and Rainbow Dash floated in followed by Fluttershy. “What’s going on?” asked Rainbow. “Is Rarity - ?” The two simultaneously looked at all the crude dresses that must have broken Rarity’s heart and sanity all in one, and immediately understood the situation.

After taking a deep breath, Twilight knocked on the door. “Rarity?”

“Go away!" she shrieked. “Leave me here to rot. My life is ruined!”

“This is worse than I thought…” The princess nervously ruffled her feathers as she tried to think of a solution. “But we need her to use our Rainbow Power...” Behind her, Fluttershy saddened and whimpered a little at the sound of those words. “Eh...if necessary, that is.”

Without saying anything, Spike hopped off Twilight and walked up to the door. “Rarity?”

“Spike?"

“You can’t stay in there forever.”

“I’m sorry, but I simply won’t come out and see those...those.... My work, ruined!”

Spike played around with his claws nervously as he spoke. “...We need your help if we want to fix all this. Besides, you could always make even better dresses if your old ones don’t get fixed. But all of Equestria will be a mess if you don’t help. So, please…”

There was a long period of silence, leaving everypony to wait awkwardly, wondering whether she would respond or not. Finally, she opened the door, her mane a slight mess and her mascara running from implied tears. “Fine, but this is only for Equestria.” As she looked past Spike, her eyes nervously darted to look away from the bland dresses throughout her shop. “But...could we please leave now?”

"Oh, uh, yeah."

---

Applejack took off her hat and scratched her head as she overlooked her apple field, which had also been a victim of this harmoniously chaotic attack. Her barn and house looked like generic cubes morseo than the home she'd lived in and helped repair for all these years. Out in the field, all of the trees’ leaves, for acres and acres, were cut into perfect spheres. But worst of all, the apples...were square. “What in the hay happened? Big Mac, do you see this?”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac curtly said. He bucked one of trees, and a flurry of cubical apples came down all at once, falling in a nice even pile on top of him. “Ugh…” he groaned from underneath them all.

She put back on her hat to go help her older brother, until she heard some of her friends. Looking over downhill, she could see them running up to see her, all apparently worried about something. “Hey, ya’ll, what’s going on?”

“We’re pretty sure it’s Discord,” Rainbow answered as she landed on the ground.

“But we’re not sure yet,” muttered Fluttershy, still trying to defend him.

“Have you seen him?” asked Twilight.

“Last time I saw him was at the castle,” said Applejack. “I couldn’t find him anywhere before I came back here searchin'.” By now, all of them were standing atop a hill, looking at the ongoing madness erupting in their town. It wouldn’t be so bad, the square clouds and the round trees and the organized grass, if Ponyville hadn’t gone crazy with their sudden alicorn status. But even living like this, anypony would go crazy with nature itself being so...orderly.

“Perhaps it’d be better if we went to the princesses - ” Rarity began to suggest, but Twilight shut down the idea before her friend could even finish the sentence.

“No! We can fix this. We just need Discord. Maybe Pinkie would know…” She held her chin in her hoof. “Coming to think of it, where is Pinkie?”

Right at the mentioning of the name, a pink blur crashed right on top of Twilight, and the two tumbled downhill in a purple and pink swirl until a tree obstructed them. She moaned and rubbed her head, trying to figure out what in Equestria just happened, while her friends chased her down. Suddenly, an eruption of laughter came from the pony next to her, who looked an awful like Pinkie. Except…. “Pinkie?!” Twilight shouted. “When - how...you’re an alicorn, too?”

“I know, right?” Pinkie tried to suppress her fit of giggles and snorts to talk to her friend. “Sorry, I’m not used to my wings yet.” She stretched her wings out so that her friend could see them and their every detail.

“But...none of us were affected by it. How come you were?”

“Because I asked Discord to make me an alicorn, too!" She tapped on her new long, elegant horn playfully. "I thought I was the only one who wasn't one, and I didn’t want to be left out on such awesome fun. Did you see the rest of Ponyville? It’s nothing but crazy partying over there!”

“Wait, so you’ve seen Discord?”

“Yeah, I caught him right when he was changing everypony. The two of us have been having a ball together! I tried to stop him once the fire started, because as far as I’m concerned that’s not very fun, but he kept saying he was just trying to help. I was going to tell you guys, but I never got a chance, until I saw you all here, and that’s when I tried flying to you and bumped into you and now we’re here!”

Still processing all of the information that had been thrown at her, Twilight started to piece together all the details, right as the rest of the crew had reached them. “So, is Discord nearby?”

“Of course, he should be getting here right…” She paused the second the draconequus flew overhead.

“Pinkie? Where’ve you gone now?” Discord called as he flew overhead. Suddenly, he looked down to see the pony he was looking for - as well as the other five who he was trying to avoid.

He gasped and started to snap away, when Rainbow flew at full speed into his chest and tackled him . “Oh, no you don’t!” The two fell to the ground, Rainbow with her hooves on top. Discord looked almost terrified, as he whimpered at the furious pegasus glaring down at him. He was about to try to make an escape, but realized it would probably be in vain, if the rest of the Elements were already here. Besides, he couldn’t avoid them all forever.

“Alright. Might I start by saying that I know things have gone a...bit out of hand?”

“A bit?” she sneered.

“Rainbow, that’s enough,” said Applejack, pulling the pegasus off him in one tug. Immediately, the draconequus sat back up but, as he'd resolved in his mind, decided to stay rather than flee.

“Discord, why did you do all this?” asked a very hurt Fluttershy, sounding as if she had been betrayed. “You didn’t, right?”

A lump started to form in Discord's throat as he tried to find an answer. He fiddled with his talon and paw. “Uh...I...it wasn’t supposed to get so complicated. I was just trying to help, I swear!”

His friend was on the verge of tears. “How does making all the trees round help?”

“Well, I admit I stretched the ‘harmony’ concept a bit much. It’s hard to tell what ponies want - ”

Fluttershy was getting more frustrated now than distressed. “Help? What about making everypony an alicorn? How does that 'help'?”

“I was thinking, if everypony were the same, wouldn’t it be easier to get along?” He forced a smile to lighten the mood, but according to all the ponies angrily staring him down, it didn't really help.

“Why not just make them all earth ponies?” Spike chimed in.

There was a moment of awkward silence as he thought about it. “I suppose that’d’ve been less chaotic, ironically...huh....”

“Could you just please change it all back?” His pegasi companion continued pressing him.

He jumped up and held out his paw. “No, wait, I can fix this without undoing it all. This will all be fine, I promise. Just give me a moment to think.” Now he was starting to become a little overwhelmed among all these ponies. But he wanted to find a solution to this. He could still make it work, right?

Hardly noticing her, Fluttershy flew up to his side. “It’s just that I don’t understand why you’re doing this!”

Discord began tugging at his ears, as if to balance out the stress, while everypony else stepped back due to the two’s argument getting a little heated. “I thought this was what you ponies liked! Maybe the opposite of chaos would be better, I thought. Anything’d be better than big, scary Discord. I did it because you all are always saving ponies and helping and spreading all this harmony-friendship-goodness and then I’m the mean old villain you all beat every time. I’m trying to change that all!”

“You’re not doing a very good job,” muttered Rainbow.

“It’d help if you would all just let me think!” With a snap, he angrily disappeared in a puff of black smoke. Everypony sat admist all the confusion, slightly fearful of what they'd do now. Some of the group glared at Rainbow for her unnecessary comment. Fluttershy started regretting the way they all went about this, and held her hoof to her mouth, ready to cry.

“Um. On the bright side, I still have these awesome wings?” Pinkie exclaimed with a weak smile.

Author's Note:

RISING ACTION IS RISING.
And also, Spike being a boss.
And the feels!

---

Bare with me for the next chapter where things are due to get even crazier - these should be the last couple chapters, for any of those crazy nutjobs wonderful people who are actually reading this, unfortunately.

And, after analyzing this story a little more, I've decided it's best to change this from "Slice of Life" to "Adventure". At first I thought adventure implied more of like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter stuff, but I especially from this chapter on it's moving more toward an epic story than an every-day-occurrence thing (Even though within the show this kind of stuff does happen on a regular basis. :P)

Comments

[Spiritofchaos227]

Oh boy... Let's just hope that Discord doesn't go back on his word about not turning ponies into stone. Statues are very orderly... And where is his chaotic part?

I can't wait for the next part!