The Snap that Changed Everything

by Skittlebug


The Victory

It was chaos. Pure, unbridled, chaos. The last year had been nothing short of Tartarus for the ponies of Equestria, and soon every being on every planet in every galaxy would be suffering the same fate. Normally, when one thinks of Discord’s chaos, they imagine houses floating upside down, checkerboard ground, cotton candy clouds and animals proportions being comically extended. They do not imagine the dictionary definition of chaos, that is complete randomness and confusion. Not even the paradoxical consistency of chaos reigned true, as there was a short period of time where ten ponies gained the ability to nullify any and all chaos in the area. And then the ability was gone. Retroactively.

Twilight had to rule at Princess Luna’s side during this time. Not that there was much point to it, for at any time either of them could turn into a turkey, or worse - a green pan made of cotton wool, fully sentient of course. Maybe. The respect Twilight had for Discord, keeping this all in check and ensuring a stable balance to the universe only grew with each and every passing day. Princess Luna, on the other hand, respected him less.

“If and when Discord comes back, he is to be banished from this galaxy,” she stated, pure and simple. “There is no way that I will let him get away with his crimes against the universe.”

Twilight wasn’t having any of it. “Discord is nigh-omnipotent. He can see the past, present, and the possible futures. I’m sure, certain that he knew what he was doing. Sure, Equestria is in the pits, but at least no monsters have been released from their prisons.”

Right on cue, a cloaked figure walked, flew and bounced into the grass simultaneously, and he wasn’t happy about it. “Princesses…” he began, menacingly lowering his hood to unmask his face. “I have a proposition for you.” As Lord Tirek finished, Luna and Twilight stood with a brief look of shock before lowering their horns menacingly at the grown centaur.

“Speak now, Tirek, at to why we shouldn't unleash all our fury upon you right this instant!” Luna spoke, the fury of a thousand moons behind her voice.

“Queen Chrysalis and another died right before my eyes last year. The remains were magicless, powerless. I have been biding my time and strength since then to come speak with you.” Tirek looked around. “This happened a year ago, today. The same day that the fool Discord finally broke free of his chains of what you call “friendship.” Honestly, I almost pity him if it weren’t for how much he reminded me of my brother.”

“Why are you here, Tirek?” Twilight asked, charging up for an extremely powerful spell to blast him to Tartarus - both literally and figuratively.

“I want to stop this chaos. Point me in Discord’s direction and I’ll clean him up for you. In exchange, I will not harm you, Princesses.” Twilight saw through this immediately. Tirek couldn’t dodge the blast.


The next two years passed without incident. Fluttershy had finally gotten accustomed to the spell preventing the chaos from reaching her despite her complaints, Rainbow Dash finally got a handle on the oil falling from the sky at the scalding temperature of 50 degrees centaurgrade, Twilight managed to invent two new spells to help guide the chaos, and Pinkie was, well, Pinkie. It was during one of her baking sessions when she had the most superrific epiphany in the history of super-magical superrific epiphanies. “One more year!” she yelled, her screams echoing through the chasm Ponyville was simultaneously in and not, defying all known laws on how Euclidean geometry should effect 3 dimensional spaces. One shouldn't be surprised, however. This was Pinkie Pie and Discord’s chaos together in the same room; an explosive combination of weird if there ever was one.

The ponies around Pinkie stared at her for a few moments before one trotted over. “One more year until what, Pinkie?” asked Vinyl Scratch. Of all the ponies affected by the mass vanishings, she was relatively lucky. While she lost many acquaintances - some she’d even call friends - none of her immediate family were affected, and quite a few of her extended family survived too.

“I dunno. But it’s a doozy! Do you remember when Twilight first came to town and then I saw her and I was all like gasp and then rushed off to plan her Welcome to Ponyville party and then she came and then I told her about it and how I went gasp and then the Summer Sun Celebration happened and then Nightmare Moon came back from the moon but we blasted her with the elements of harmony and we all became superiffic bestest friends with Princess Luna and then Twilight was trying to figure out my Pinkie Sense and then I sensed a doozy about to happen at Froggy Bottom Bog and we were attacked by a huuuuuuge hydra but that wasn’t the doozy; the doozy being Twilight just accepting my weird ability?”

“Well, yes but-” started Vinyl, slightly confused about what this had to do with anything.

“This doozy is about…” Pinkie began to stretch her hooves as wide as the road. “This many times bigger.”

Vinyl backed away slowly, intending to visit Berry Punch to forget this encounter. “Well, good luck,” she said before dashing off for a hard drink.


Fluttershy’s cottage was everything you wouldn’t expect from a landscape ravaged by...whatever the landscape was ravaged by. It was as if that the chaos couldn’t touch her, which was exactly the case. After Sweetie Belle dropped her off at home, Fluttershy awoke to find the poor filly snuggling up beside her. It was only after Sweetie had found out that both her parents and Opal were dead that she asked Fluttershy to take her in.

Fluttershy also found that not even her animal friends were spared from the vanishing as just over half - her darling Angel Bunny included - were nowhere to be seen. With nothing to indicate otherwise, it was only assumed that they were killed at the fingers of Thanos. Even now, that name made her blood boil. “Sweetie Belle!” she called from the kitchen. “I’m going to the market. We’re nearly out of lettuce.”

“Sure thing...mom.” Sweetie replied from the stairwell, causing Fluttershy to do a double-take.

“Are you sure you want to call me mom? I could never replace all she did for you,” replied Fluttershy, unsure of the implications.

“It’s not like she’s coming back, is it?” Asked Sweetie Belle, leaning in for a hug. “I’ve accepted it. I no longer have a blood family, and over these past three years you’ve taken me in, saved me and done so much more for me that you didn’t have to. It’s hard to think of you as anything other than a mom now. I just - for all you’ve done for me, I love you.” Sweetie’s confession shook Fluttershy to the core. It’s true, she’d always loved spending time with the filly, even before she and the other crusaders had their cutie marks. These past three and a half years had only tightened that bond. It was practically unbreakable.

But she couldn’t have just turned Sweetie away, Fluttershy tried to justify to herself. Again, like so many other times, her mind drifted back to the incident with the breezies. Yes, she could, and she wouldn’t have been any less of a mare for it. She chose to accept Sweetie into her home, chose to care for her, feed her, and help her get through these difficult times. She earned that title. It was a shame that Rarity would never see this. As Fluttershy stepped off of her cottage property and into the chaos for the lettuce, she smiled. At least there’s a head of lettuce growing from that tree, she thought. Maybe this pure chaos isn’t all bad.


One year to the second after Pinkie’s outburst in the middle of town, the entire planet of Equus stopped what they were doing and gazed outside. It was normal as far as the eye could see, just like it was 4 years and 7 months ago. Half of the creatures on the planet went back to whatever they were doing, assuming this was temporary. The others held their bated breath to see if this was permanent. To Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Spike, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, the answer was immediately apparent. They were in Twilight’s throne room and not where they were moments ago. Oh, and the draconequus in the room with them hugging Fluttershy like a reverse stuffed bear and bawling his eyes out was a big clue, too.

“Oh, I missed you guys so much!” He wailed, tears flowing freely from their ducts as his arms pulled them into a great big hug. “They did it! The madmen did it!”

For most of the ponies in the room, thinking was required to connect the dots. “Those people fighting Thanos?” asked Twilight. “But how? Didn’t they lose?”

“Yes and yes. Apparently they used time travel to find the stones themselves and bring everyone snapped five years forward in time. In fact, I think you should all have a look outside.” He responded, glee in his voice. “It isn’t over yet, though. I can’t intervene, but they have a pretty good shot at defeating another version that made his way into this universe. I’ll keep you posted. Ciao!” And with that, he was gone in a flash.

Twilight barged out of the door, her feeling of dread vanishing at the sight of Rarity and Applejack. “Girls! Sweet faust! You’re alive!”

“Yea, we are, Twi. What in tarnation are you so frazzled abou -” she was cut off by a pony pile as citizens of Equestria, both snapped and not alike, rushed in to alert the Princess of Friendship. Starlight Glimmer emerged from the kitchen, looking visibly scarred from flaking away. Twilight beamed as Sweetie Belle walked in before spying Rarity and glomping her. Her grin split her face in two as she noticed a white dot in the distance from the direction of Canterlot before she flew out to meet it.

“I thought I’d lost you forever!” Twilight beamed.

“Nopony’s ever really gone, Twilight. Not as long as their memory is alive. And with you and Luna here for oblivion? No matter what happens, Equestria is in safe hands. Remind me to give Discord a medal of honour when I next see him; Luna’s told me everything,” said Celestia. Each word was like gold to the younger princess, who beamed with every single syllable. This was real.

Everyone was alive.

“It’s time for a victory party!” Discord said, re-emerging from the realm of impossibility. The universe is saved!

And that night, parties happened all over Equestria. All over Equus. All over the universe.

Nothing could ruin this. According to Discord, it was simply not possible. But then, when has anything been truly impossible when Discord is involved?