Time's Up

by Tibbles


Prologue (or Background Knowledge)

Time is nothing. Memory is nothing. All that we know could have been placed in our heads moments ago, yet we wouldn't know of having been before. What if life is a veil, just waiting to show what lies beneath, but it is never pulled on due to the falsehood of our so-called reality? All that we know may have happened just a moment ago. What you are reading right now is now in the past. By the time you understand that you are seeing anything, the image your eyes put in your mind is now in the past. That image is now in your memory, in your history.

Doesn't that help put things into perspective? We could be seeing wondrous things every day, but we never remember them. Go ahead, think of something that can't exist. Are you sure it doesn't? Your memory tells you that it cannot be, yes, but that is based on what you have seen before. All that you know of all things may be an illusion. Maybe what you are reading right now is just your falsified memory TELLING you you read this.

In the history of things, there has been countless tales of incredible exploits, and there are also the things in history we aren't so proud of. Some of these things are lies. What is a lie? The opposite of truth? If so, then what's truth? Exactly, nothing. How can you be sure that time itself wasn't just a lie? Or was it truth? All in all, it doesn't really matter unless it's now. What is now? There is no answer except one; history.

Does this not rattle your bones or shiver your spine? It should, as no one truly understands what is being said here. No one can say what goes on in the mind; the beautiful thing. It doesn't really matter. Actually, nothing matters. If time and memory are nothing, then what's to say life is? What does it matter to exist? What does it matter to not exist? That's right, NOTHING. Joy is nothing more than an illusion. Pain is an illusion. Existence. Time. History. ALL OF IT.

I can tell you are getting bored with a philosophical rant like that, so how about we get to some juicier content, hmm? By the looks on you faces I can tell I've captured your attention like a adolescent boy to a bag of barbeque chips; so let's get down to business and tell the crap out of this story. Are you with me? Of course you are, otherwise you can't read what's in front of your face, so let's go.


Stone. Stone has always been here. Stone has been in existence for as long as anything can say. No one knows why it was created, but it's here anyway. Many say that it doesn't do anything, and they are wrong. Stone knows all, and sees all. It could tell you boundless tales of incredible scenes and sights it has gone through in it's existence, if it could speak, that is. Every chunk of rock has something it could say to anyone, but one specimen, could tell us so much more.
The Statue has seen all that we have not. It has heard all we have not. It knows more than anything in the current universe does right now, and it's knowledge exceeds them by eons of age. It has seen the first planet being born, as it was the one who birthed it. It has smashed through stars, and invented magnetism. Why did the Statue do this? Simple.

It was bored.

The Statue isn't even a true statue, no, it's a stone prison for a being so powerful, that it created the first black hole as a prank. The name of this being is Discord. However, where is this prison that is so strong that it holds back the most powerful thing in the universe? Is it perhaps in an exotic temple, hidden in a far-away jungle? Is it under guard by the greatest secret of all? Or is it in a museum, where it has long been forgotten about what the Statue truly is? No.

It's in the Canterlot Gardens awaiting punishment by hail, vandalism, and bird poop.

Discord was known as one of the greatest villains in Equestria, easily dwarfing the black-heart of Nightmare Moon, the stealthy Changeling Queen Chrysalis, and the incarnation of darkness King Sombra. However, no pony knows his true origins. They all believe that he was the ruler of Equestria and tortured his subjects for laughs until the now divine sisters Celestia and Luna struck him from his throne. While this story is true, there is no fact to what happened before he rose to power.

In actuality, Discord created four organisms, the Parasprite, the poison-joke plant, and most notably, the phoenix and the changeling. He crafted the Bermareda Triangle in the southeastern Gulf of Buffalo and the Mirror Pool. Discord was truly a mystery, as no pony knew he had created these things. Some say that he was insane, and his chaotic nature only added to the craziness he so desired; but this was not true.

All in all, Discord was turned to stone, and he is still trapped in the statue.

Or was he? The Statue of Discord is still there in Equestria, shouldn't he be trapped in there waiting out his 1,000-year time-out like a good boy? Of course not. He was out and about the multiverse, fiddling with this world and that. In actuality the stone spell emitted by the Elements of Harmony was not a trapping one, instead, it forced poor Discord to stay away from Equestria for a while. Discord could do whatever he wanted, as he was one of the mightiest beings in the entirety of existence. In fact, this used to be one of his favorite pastimes, to mess around with as many physics as he could and adding new organisms to barren planets just to see what they do.

Discord, sometimes, if he had found a relatively lively planet, he'd find some way to eradicate most of the life found there. Other times he helped budding civilizations to see what they came up with technology-wise. And still others.. he just blew up the planet to give himself a firework show. It was always a good way to vent his anger, or just to give him a good laugh to watch them create mistakes. But there was still something he never had done before, and even with his massive amounts of energy, he wasn't sure if it could work.

He just needed to find the right creatures to try it on.

Discord quickly wracked his brain to see if he could remember any worthwhile creatures that could work through what he would do to them... He could only remember three species, a small variety of plant creatures only about a half-fang tall and came in red, blue and yellow, the ponies, and a somewhat creepy race of organisms that were surprisingly good at philosophical conversation. He was about to give up when he had an epiphany. The humans! He forgot about them! They were perfect, and a quite intelligent design for nature to give them. Maybe they would work... Oh wait, he sent a chaos drone down there. Their world should be demolished.

A chaos drone is actually a concept created by his Discord's brother, Demolition, for the sake of complete destruction. They take the form of whatever chaos incarnate would look like (basically what Discord would look like anywhere) on the planet, dimension, or universe they reside in, and do things to destroy everything. It was actually quite fun to watch them go at obliterating a planet every once in a while. Discord had never actually tried summoning a chaos drone before, and his first attempt he sent to the planet of humans.

Come to think of it, he never did go to see the aftermath of what the drone did... maybe he should check. Discord quickly jumped to the universe the humans lived in, and went on the search for their so-called "Earth". Why would they name their planet after dirt? Anyway, he immediately noticed something was different as he came upon the spinning hunk of stone... There was still green on the planet, and the continents had un-flooded. One area was even stranger, as it was covered in ice even though it was nowhere near the poles. One area was completely in flames. What did the drone actually do to this world? How could all of THIS happen? It should be covered in smoke and lava and stuff. Well, only one way to find out.

Discord steeled himself and opened the portal to the dilapidated planet below him, and sauntered on inside, feeling the sensation of interspacial cheat-travel, as he liked to call it. Cheat-travel was an idea he had come up with when he was incredibly young, at the age of eleven millennia. 11,000 years for Discord is ridiculously short, and when he was that young he would still be growing his singular fang if he retained his draconnequus form while in spatial travel. Cheat-travel in itself was nearly exactly what it sounded like, he would cheat the laws of physics, and open a doorway most sentient species (after translation of course) called a 'wormhole'. It would take a very chaotic mind to be able to even comprehend how he does this... There was also that Pinkie Pie Bearer character back on Equestria that seemed to have a minor form of cheat-travel down pat... Oh whatever. She was obviously insane anyway, and Discord did not like dealing with insane beings, they made him uncomfortable, as they made him feel less chaotic because of the way their mind processed things. Oh well.

Discord exited the tunnel into a freakishly bright sunlight, landing on a bed of weird, oblong stalks of grass, and into a fwoosh of air as he came directly out of the vacuum of space. Discord righted himself as he remembered the annoying presence of gravity. He had always hated gravity, that's why as an adolescent he created magnetism and a distinction between weak and strong nuclear force. Anyway, as he righted himself up on the planet, he seemed to be much heavier than he usually was. Perhaps gravity is stronger here than it is in other universes. If that's the case, then that will just make his plan all that funnier to watch. He conjured himself up a mirror and begun to do his work of "fitting in" to the world.

Holy crap.

He looked disgusting. He was dressed in a weird mis-mash of blue, gray, and black cloth, while his hands were skeletal and unlike the human's. His face was probably the worst part however, as it was a unhealthy blue-gray. His eyes were sunken quite far into his head and the pupils glowed a unnerving neon green. The vitreous humor surrounding his non-existent irises was a spine-chilling, soul-sucking pitch-black. The worst part was there was two horns growing out of his head. This normally wouldn't have bothered the spirit, but the horns weren't asymmetrical by design. The right horn looked to have been broken off by something large and unfriendly, and the other was striped along it's length with blue and a sickly yellow while curving into a sharp point. His teeth were always visible behind a non-existent mouth. Taking this whole image into consideration, if he was still on Equestria, his appearance would have comically made the mirror crack, although this world abode by different physics, so he'd have to work differently in this world. This was what chaos, mayhem, havoc, mania, and disharmony looked like incarnated into this world. That cheat drone must've hated life if he looked like this all the time.

... What was this? He felt a strange pull toward an unknown destination behind him, and he turned around.

Discord took his first step in his new body towards what looked to be a large well.