//------------------------------//
// The Power of Chaos 
// Story: Days in the Mind of One that is Great and Powerful 
// by The REAL Mister Pkmn 
//------------------------------//

Last night had been great. The date with Gearbox had gone well. They had dinner, and did a bit of karaoke. She even got to sing Tricks Up My Sleeve! Albeit, a slightly extended version with an extra verse, but still! It had gone well enough that he’d agreed to another one later. 

Trixie felt like she was on top of the world. However, when she opened the door, Maestro was there. He then dragged her along, explaining that he’d seen a glow of red magic. Trixie gulped. There were others following them -namely Janice, Servo, Gearbox, and Sarah- to the place where he’d seen said flash. They soon reached the scene, and saw that Chessmaster had once again forced somebody to anthrofy. The magic was rolling like a cloud, and it looked almost like… cotton candy? Chessmaster chuckled. “As much as I’d like to stick around, I’ve got to get back to Lady Starlight. See ya!” And in a flash of red, he was gone.

The group turned their attention to the dissipating cloud. Maestro lit his horn. “Alright guys. We’ve got to hold off this anthro Discord until the Mane 6 can get here. We can do this.”

A familiar jovial voice spoke up as the cloud finally parted. “Are you certain about that, Maestro?” The anthro Discord had a cheshire grin. “After all, Chaos is quite unpredictable.” The Anthrocord summoned blue cotton candy clouds, which were rather more volatile than their pink cousins. The “rain” was a different kind of delicious. Instead of chocolate milk, it was strawberry milk.  But, they let off random bursts of lightning! 

Sarah took to the air, flicking her tail, turning it violet. She sped up high after clicking her hooves together. She started leaving behind a stream of violet clouds, but the Anthrocord was having none of that. He grabbed the clouds and suddenly they changed into a giant flying serpent, which chased Sarah across the sky, keeping her rather occupied. 

Trixie lit her horn, and called upon her multiplication illusion. She summoned her duplicates, intent on siccing them on the Anthrocord. However, he yawned, waving his lion’s paw in front of his mouth. With a flick of his tail, the Trixie clones became darker in color, turning on their creator. Trixie was well and truly occupied now. 

Gearbox pulled out a strange metallic hat with a horn-like structure on it. He strapped it to his head, and focused. The metal horn lit up in orange light, as if charging a spell. The Anthrocord simply touched the “hat” with his paw, and it suddenly became made of gummy worms. To add insult to injury, he also took a bite out of it. Before Gearbox could try and use his makeshift wings he’d also pulled out, the Anthrocord snapped his talon, causing the “wings” to contract around Gearbox, and interlock, neutralizing him. 

Janice morphed to become more dragon-like, as was her true state as a kirin, and charged in, claws blazing. The Anthrocord, on the other hand, disappeared as he was about to be hit, and appeared behind her, then hit her with his tail, causing her to be encased in a block of ice. 

Servo saw Janice’s frozen state, and lost it. Tufts of white smoke came out of her nostrils as she lit her horn. She summoned a barrage of 1s and 0s made of indigo light, and launched them at the Anthrocord. However, the Anthrocord sent in a wave of strange, bubbly brown liquid towards her barrage. 

Oddly enough, it actually fizzled the 1s and 0s out, as if they were shorted out. Servo barely managed to get out of the way as the Anthrocord was surfing on a palm tree on the wave of what she now identified as root beer. Servo covered her form in indigo magic, and let it soak in. She then stomped on the ground causing it to shake rather violently. If that didn’t get the Main 6 here sooner, she didn’t know what would. 

However, the Anthrocord simply snapped his lion’s paw, and Servo was encased almost to her head in bubblegum. There was only one opponent left: Maestro. 

When the Anthrocord turned, he was caught off guard by a red beam of light hitting him square in the face. He stumbled, but could hardly recover as an orange beam of light caught him from behind, followed by a yellow one from above and to his left. But, before he could be hit by another, he grabbed Maestro from the air, and snarled. “I’ve had just about enough of you. Let’s see what you’re like Discorded!”

Maestro, on the other hand, was having none of that. He summoned a blast of green light that blasted him out of the Anthrocord’s grip. Maestro waggled a finger at the Anthrocord. “Ah-ah-ah! I don’t think that’s very sporting of you! Let’s have a bit more fun!” He summoned a beam of blue light and attacked the Anthrocord who had snuck behind him, sending him sprawling back.

However, as the Anthrocord was flung away, he spoke. “Fine! Let’s see how you react when one of your friends is Discorded!” As he made a move to go to Sarah, Maestro used a spell to sprout ethereal bat wings. As the Anthrocord was about to touch Sarah with his chaos magic, Maestro pushed her out of the way, taking the hit instead. Maestro screamed out as he fought the fading of his colors.

Just at that moment, the Mane 6 arrived on the scene, and gasped. Sarah was being chased by a giant violet flying serpent, Trixie was busy fighting off darker colored clones of herself, Gearbox was struggling to get out of a iron-grip wing hug, Janice was in her kirin state (her eyes were draconic, she was covered half in scales and half in fur, hands were claws, and she had a snout full of fangs, as well as a scaly tail with spines, but the rest of her was still pony-like) and frozen in a block of ice, Servo was covered in bubblegum, and- they gasped harder when Maestro hit the ground. The wings on his back dissipated into magic æther, and they panicked. He was gray, an extremely dark grayscale version of himself. He lifted his head, and leveled his gaze at them. Twilight spoke, stuttering. “M-maestro… wh-what happened to you?”

He huffed bitterly at them. “Do you pay attention to literally nothing? I’m freakin’ gray for pete’s sake! Bah, whatever. Go screw yourselves for all I care. You can’t win this. Not that I care what happens to this hellhole of a world. Let it burn. It deserves to wallow in despair.”

Rainbow flapped her wings impatiently. “Where is your loyalty to this world? Where has it gone?”

Maestro rolled his eyes, crossing his arms in the process. “What should I care for loyalty in a world where it doesn’t exist? For fostering nothing but betrayal, this world must suffer.”

Ashley raised an eyebrow. “Surely ya can’t mean that! Ya hafta be lyin’!”

Maestro scoffed indignantly. “What use is truth in a world that doesn’t care for it? For creating the illusion of truth, this world deserves to die, a fitting punishment for the ultimate lie.”

Flora shuddered. “What about your kind heart? Surely you care for something in this world!”

Maestro shook his head, chuckling darkly. “You don’t get it, do you? Kindness is an illusion. In a world like this, there is no room for anything but cruelty in its cold heart.”

Rarity cleared her throat. “What about generosity? Surely you can still give selflessly?”

Maestro barked a harsh laugh. “Ha! As if that even exists! In this cold world, there is only greed.”

Pinkie was frowning. “What about a good laugh? Surely you can still laugh with others?”

Maestro shook a finger in her direction. “No. Nobody really ’laughs with you’- their hearts are too full of spite for that!”

Excalibur came in at that moment, and tried to talk sense into him. “What of your big schtick, hope? Have you tossed that aside as well?”

Maestro nodded, smiling cruelly. “Of course. Why hope for a better future when despair will only shatter it with reality? It is better to accept despair than to fool yourself with false hope.”

Twilight tried to reason with him. “What about connections, friendship? Does that matter to you?”

Maestro grabbed her in his magic, and hefted her into the air. “Do you really want to know my thoughts on that virus? It can go and die for all I care! It’s a poison to this world- it is a false happiness that is bound to be shattered eventually. It always dies in the end, leaving you alone and bitter. Do yourself a favor, and toss your friends aside like the garbage they are. They’ll only drag you down.”

As he set her down, the Anthrocord spoke. “Oh, goody! You’re finally here! Do you like what I’ve done?”  He motioned to Maestro with his lion’s paw. “I’m especially proud of my work on this guy- he became a full opposite of everything he cherishes! Isn’t Discordification fun?”

Twilight looked to the others. “Girls, let’s take care of this!” Their Elements started to glow, and they lifted into the air slightly.

Maestro then spoke venomously. “Oh I don’t think so!” He then pulled out a strange crystalline object made of paragon diamonds. It looked somewhat like a pickaxe, and was about the size of his arm. He also summoned an alicorn amulet, and strapped it to his neck. Then, the magic of the Paragon Pickaxe was made known, as Maestro’s form became like that of hard diamond. He then channeled his magic into the pickaxe, and swung with all his might. A mighty wall of crystal was raised from the ground, an impenetrable wall. If one was to look closely at Maestro just before that moment one would see small cracks starting to form on his body.

The rainbow light from the Elements hit the Crystal wall, and was held at bay. Each force was equal, but Maestro was a single anthro wielding two artifacts, which wasn’t exactly healthy. The cracks on his “mask” were starting to get out of control. 

He wasn’t ready for them to find out the full truth just yet. 

He turned to the Anthrocord, and spoke with malice. “You’re on your own now, bub.” He then let go of the magic of the Alicorn Amulet, and sent it back to where he’d torn it from, while stopping the focus of magic through his Paragon Pickaxe as he put it away. 

The rainbow light encompassed the area, removing the chaos magic influence, and turning the Anthrocord back to his human self. After the light died down, they saw the others elated, and Maestro smiling, the cracks having vanished. “Thanks for what you did. Sorry if I gave you trouble there. You stared down a twisted version of myself with valor. For that, I thank you. It’s good to be back to myself.” They were surprised however, when they saw him lift his right hand. They saw an electric blue spark run up and down it. 

He chuckled. “It seems a portion of the Chaos Magic refused to let go. Oh, well. As long as it doesn’t mess with me, it should be fine. After all, all it’s doing is bolstering enchantments.”

Twilight seemed concerned. “But now you have both Nightmare Magic and Chaos magic running around in your system. Shouldn’t you be worried?”

Maestro seemed to ponder this for a good while, but then shrugged. “I’ll look into seeing it removed if it starts to cause me trouble. Until then, I’ll let it stick around, for now.” Without another word, he teleported away in the fancy way he did at the end of the talent show.

The others that Maestro dragged there also left, until Trixie was one of the last ones still there. She turned to Twilight, grinning. “Well, I might not have been too useful, but at least I can say I held my own against one of Discord’s spells.”  Then, Trixie walked off, trying to clear her head of the day’s excitement.

Ashley looked over at the other girls, “So, we fought the anthro version o’ Nightmare Moon an’ Discord.  Didn’t Maestro mention his brother wanted th’ dark powers or somethin’?”

Sensing her father's magic, Ayumi teleported to Twilight. 

“Will somepony tell me why I sensed Dad's magic and that it wasn't coming from him? ‘Cause I was just with him and he wasn't using his duplicates to mess around. I’d have known he was teaching me that spell just now.” she asked the girls.

Ashley shrugged, “Ah dunno, sugarcube.  Another human was transformed into an anthro version of Discord when we arrived.  Twilight’s the magic expert here.” She truthfully told Ayumi.

Twilight seemed deep in thought for a while, but then realized something. “Well, you did tell us earlier that there was another Nightmare Moon around that wasn’t a villain after we defeated the other one. Perhaps the forced anthrofication spell just ignores the fact that an anthro of the target anthro already exists. Then again, the Discord we know isn’t exactly an anthro either.”

Servo was helping Janice dry off from all the ice that had melted, and overheard the conversation. She decided to voice her concerns. “If that’s true, then what’s stopping them from anthrofying multiple people into the same anthro?”

Twilight rolled her eyes, sighing. “There’s probably a limitation on the spell itself that only allows it to anthrofy one person into each forced anthro. It’s probably woven so deep into the spell itself that removing it would be near impossible. We won’t have to worry about them doing that.”

Servo nodded, and turned to Janice. “Let’s get you home and warm you up.” She then carefully guided Janice back home.



Later, at Star Mansion...

Servo came through the door with Janice to hear Maestro muttering something. She set Janice down with a warm blanket, and drew close enough to hear Maestro speak. “Two down; Nightmare Magic and Chaos Magic. If things go the way I saw... But, I mustn’t panic. My unique enchantment matrix that siphons off magic was a design flaw that only the enchantments that seal my extra magic possess. The girls were in no danger of accidentally siphoning off magic any time soon. However, should all four great powers be gathered into my being… Then, it is time to worry. For if time runs out... *sigh* I just hope that we get this over with before it’s too late.”

Servo was uncertain what to think of that, so she decided to go upstairs. Maybe mess with a bit of coding. That always calmed her down.



Elsewhere, with Trixie...

Trixie had found herself with her little circle of friends again. They had finally all accepted her (Regina was the most stubborn, of course) and were having a little down time at the mall. They were adjusting to the fact that Tyler had now anthrofied, now calling herself Tyra Hearfield. They were chatting together when they bumped into somebody. He snapped at them. “Watch where you’re goin’! Freak!”

The man before them was an extremely pale fellow, and he stood at 5’11’’. His anger-filled eyes were blue, and his hair was platinum blonde. He wore a gray t-shirt and sweatpants, as well as some white sneakers. Trixie was livid at being called a freak, but tried to calm herself before speaking to the fellow. “I’m sorry I wasn’t looking where I was going. I was distracted. I’m Trixie. What’s your name?” She extended a hand out to the strange man.

However, he slapped it away in agitation. “Keep your ‘friendship’ to yourself! I don’t need that nonsense! As for my name, you don’t need to know it. It’s not like we’ll ever meet again. And on the off chance that we do meet again… I expect you and your little friends to stay out of my way!” 

As the stranger walked off, Trixie wondered what his problem was, and wondered if she could fix it.

The stranger looked to see if anyone had followed him. Nobody had. Good. He took out a strange object covered in periwinkle crystal that was somewhat shaped like a gravestone. He had no clue what it was, but he’d found it years ago when he was on the run after… the incident. The strange object had called to him, and often seemed to “speak” to him. He wasn’t sure why. It wanted him to put it near his heart- but he never did. After all, why should he trust a strange whispering object? And yet… he couldn’t bear to get rid of it. He sighed as he put it away again. Bah. I thought I’d actually manage to man up and toss the thing at this point, but no dice. Oh well. It’s not like it’s actually hurting anything. He straightened his red blazer and walked off once again.

However, had he been looking up before taking it out, he would have seen a crystal unicorn anthro of brilliant white in almost all aspects, save for his crystalline blue eyes. He looked at the running man, and pondered aloud. “So one of my artifacts I brought here was found… Interesting. I wonder what he’ll use it for? After all, it has morphed to be in the shape of something dealing with his anthro self, so I wonder if he’ll use it soon…? Then again, perhaps not. He might just continue to ignore it…” The crystal unicorn anthro adjusted his royal blue robe, which was embroidered with three clear gems under the neck area. “I’ll continue to watch him later.” He then turned his attention to the people that had first attempted to reach out to the boy. “Hmm… those six… I wonder…” A smile appeared on his face. “Let’s have a little experiment with them and the Mane 6 anthros, shall we?” He then pulled out a laptop, to write a few special e-mails...