//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: War, What Is It Good For? The Answer May Surprise You! // Story: Chaos Vs. Order // by Justice3442 //------------------------------// Chaos Vs. Order Chapter 4: War, What Is It Good For? The Answer May Surprise You! -ooooooo- … Well, of course I offered them refreshments! I didn’t want to be rude to my guests! They’d obviously traveled a long, long way! You don’t open the door to formless beings of pure energy and just offer them nothing! There’s a word for entities who don’t great their guests with smiles and slime, and that word is ‘rude’. I am nothing if not a good host! Anyhow, one of my guests responded by blinking several times before speaking. “We did not come here to partake of your delicacies, Lord of Chaos.” “Oh-hoho… Well… I’m not sure if my ‘slime’ is quite that good.” I raised a glass and sucked a large mass of the green stuff, smiling as the viscous ooze slowly poured down my throat. “Now the Smooze… There’s some slime that’ll suck the energy right out of you.” Blinky continued, “We have come to parley with you.” “Oh my, so formal!” I said as a suit complete with top hat and monocle appeared on my personage. I quickly spruced up my empty castle to have all kinds of lovely red and purple drapes and tapestries, paintings of my favorite entities from history looking heroic… In this case just me… and also added an exquisite floor of marble as the mud and rocks did little to match my new hoity-toidy surroundings. I opened my castle doors wide and motioned for my cloudy guests to come inside. “Come in! Come in! It’s so rare I get guests that don’t want to kill me… Excluding brutally insane ponies who want to worship me as a god.” I chuckled darkly as my guests floated in. “Those ones are banana shoes.” One, two, three, four of these cloudy entities floated in and turned so their eyes faced me, and then… …nothing. Not a one spoke up. I saw that I would have to be the one who drove the conversation. “Sooooo… What brings you fine… gentlemen? Ladies? … Gendies to my castle?”  One of the clouds with a slightly darker, inky look to it spoke up, “We have come to ask that you cease taking energy as it journeys from your planet into the vast cosmos.” Well… That was a surprise. To think anything would know of my activities that happened far, far above the surface of this planet, let alone would feel my actions warranted attention. Still, I had a rather serious conflict on my paw and talon regarding my current arch-nemesis who was clearly out for blood… or rather erasure from existence. As boring and tedious as the collection process was, I wasn’t about to surrender my newfound ability to absorb energy just because four boring strangers showed up and started throwing their non-weight around. “I beg your pardon?” I replied to Inky. “That energy was just flowing out into the vast expanse of space… I wasn’t aware anyone or anything could claim ownership of it!” I chuckled as my body went horizontal and my limbs folded closer to my body changing into a bread that cradled my belly and sides leaving only my back, head, and tail exposed, all which had turned to a delicious smoking brown color as the rest of me plumped out into a cylindrical shape with rounded ends. “That’s like finding a perfectly cooked hotdog in the middle of a sprawling desert with not another soul nearby to claim it!” I exclaimed as a giant version of myself appeared and wordless loomed over me, drooling and eyeing my new hotdog form hungrily. My guests… continued to not say much. I sighed. “Analogy wasted…” I said before screaming as the giant version of myself ate me then shrank down to become me. “Your perceived notions of the energies location and your claim on it are meaningless to us,” another being said. I named this one Clyde. Clearly his attitude meant he was the life at parties. Clyde continued, “You will cease your siphoning of energy at once!” I leaned my head forward and smirked at the threatening tone. “Or you’ll what? You’ll make all my days cloudy? You’ll rain on my parades? Hmmmm? I watched this planet form from dust and the first creatures emerge from its primordial soup. It’ll take more than a few beings made out of magic showing up out of the blue to have a chat to get me to do anything.” I parted my lips wide showing off glistening white teeth and razor sharp fang. “Besides, I recently learned how to absorb magic. Do you really think you’re in a position to tell me what to do?” Seems these beings weren’t beyond making expressions. Clyde narrowed his eyes. “You are sadly mistaken if you think your age or the things you’ve seen are anything to be proud of. You have no idea the powers you are trifling with. This is your final warning. Stop now or you will be undone.” “Undone?” I hissed. The empty air above us changed to fire and lightning and roared out thunder. “And here I thought I was hosting guests who didn’t come to make threats and attempt to harm me. I’d be sad if there weren’t something about you all that I’m starting to despise with every fiber of my being.” Finally the last one, the one I had dubbed Pinky… … Oh, sit down! This one is spelled with a ‘y’. Anyhow, Pinky, clearly the diplomat of the group, spoke up, “Perhaps the Lord of Chaos will listen to reason.” The roiling indoor storm above us dissipated as I felt a crawling sensation deep in my throat. “Hack! COUGH! HACCHCHCHK! COUCHCHCHGH…!” I hit my chest hard a couple times with my Lion’s paw. “I’m cough, hack sorry… my lungs just tried to flee up and out my esophagus for… reasons unrelated to anything you just said… Continue please.” Blinky blunk and… … IS TOO A WORD! … As I was saying, Blinky blunk and it was if the swirling mass of blue darkness that composed my guest flooded out to swallow me and the room we occupied. Soon we were in a vast, empty space composed of a barren wasteland at our… well my feet… Above us was a scene of blue colored clouds and dimly lit stars off in the distance. “Behold,” Pinky said, “the Nexus.” “Hmmm… Can use a touch more color…” I mused. “A touch more of all the colors I dare say.” Pinky continued, a chatterbox that one, “This is the inevitable fate of the cosmos, of all universes in all dimensions. Stillness and silence.” I felt the corners of my lips instinctively drop like anchors plummeting towards the ocean floor. Or more accurately, real anchors that fell to the barren wastes with a loud thud. “You don’t say,” I answered simply. “The Nexus is the heart of all dimensions and all magical ley lines. The energy that flows in and out of your planet is one such ley line.” “Is this going to be on the test?” I asked as I created a desk complete with chair to sit in. “Because I learn much faster through talon-and-paw-on experience rather than lecture.” Pinky ignored me. Obviously he or she would not be nominated for the much coveted ‘Teacher of the Eon’ award. “The energy of these ley lines flows throw all of existence, flooding many worlds with magic as those farther from the lines only receive the merest hints of energy. Eventually it is collected at the Nexus. The realm where we reside, the Order Keepers.” I yawned. “Fascinating… Are all Order Keepers as found of exposition as you?” Blinky did what Blinky did best then answered. “We are beings who have learned the value of watching, listening, and waiting. Many eons before the creation of your planet we had temporary physical forms much like the beings of this planet.” Blinky seemed to give me a perplexed look. “Much like the imperfect form you have chosen for yourself.” I stuck my tongue out at Blinky. “Everyone’s a critic! I could choose something shapeless and boring as you all have! But bodies of pure energy are so dull and dreary.” I waved my paw about dismissively. “Been there, done that, and I didn’t even get a lousy energy t-shirt for my troubles.” I smiled and sat up as my desk fell apart into thousands of small skittering insects, arachnids, and other small animals that crawled and scurried about. I motioned to them. “There’s always something happening with physical forms, inside if not out.” I shook my head. “A pity you all would abandon that.” “Our bipedal forms where awkward and of no use,” Inky proclaimed. “Were able to be rid ourselves of them the more we harnessed the latent energy of the Nexus. Becoming one with it as we, in turn, drew more of its power to us. Furthermore, we were able to will the Nexus’s form into something far more predictable and less chaotic. The place of order and peace you see before you.” I leaned forward and slumped my shoulders. “Well, let’s all just agree to disagree. We can agree that I’m right and disagree that you are all not wrong.” The Order Keepers wordlessly looked at me. Crickets… I mean, literal crickets in this case, I had created some from the desk. Pinky continued his or her or whatever’s boring explanation. “We Order Keepers track the existence and countdown to the time when all worlds will end. A usually simple and fulfilling task.” This is where all the blank looks suddenly turned mean. Clyde seemed happy to translate that feeling into tone. “Unless some being meddles with the flow of the cosmos itself.”   I pondered the Order Keeper’s words and accusatory tone briefly. A light bulb suddenly went off above my head before cracking in an electrical explosion that shot glass off in all directions. “I see… by taking energy as it flows from Equestria, I’m somehow throwing off your—cough, cough boring! cough— hobby of floating around and counting down the time until everything turns to…” I frowned and looked at the vast void around us. “… Into this.” “The end of all things is inevitable,” Pinky said. “In time all will become one with the Nexus and we will forever watch over the peace the remains. If you do not tamper further with the flow of energy, you may continue to rule over this planet as you see fit. Refuse and you will be banished from this land and rendered unable to interfere.” Pinky paused, no doubt for dramatic effect. “What say you, god of chaos?” “What say I? How about ‘no’, okay? You come to demand that I stop doing something so you will have an easier time waiting for your empty world to become the end all and be all of all there ever is?! You can’t be serious!” Almost involuntarily, I felt my brow pull forward and my lips pull into a grimace as my eyes flashed red. I motioned out to the blue blackness that surrounded us. “I do not accept this world. To it, I will always say ‘no’.” For a moment, none of the Order Keepers spoke. Not Blinky, nor Pinky, Inky, or Clyde. Finally Pinky spoke up. “Your response is predictable but no less disappointing.” If blood could boil, which mine can, and did, then you’d see red colored steam fire out of my pores, which is exactly what happened. I had been called many things in my long, long time before time, but never once had any being had the sheer audacity to call me ‘predictable’. “Leave my domain,” I commanded in a voice that shook the very foundation of the heavens, or at least the reasonable facsimile of it we were in. “You came in peace, and I will grant you exit the same, but you and your ilk are unwelcome in Equestria.” My eye narrowed to tiny, bright glowing slits of red. “If any of you Order Keepers set so much as a shadowy tendril in this world I will devour your essence and keep it for myself.” The four sets of eyes remained focused on me, seemingly unfazed by my words, but the blackness that surrounded us dissipated until my luxurious and massive welcoming room returned into view. With a snap of my talon, my castle doors slammed open, and by that I of course meant I exploded them into a fiery mass of pebbles that flew out in all directions. “I trust you can all find the door?” I said. “Can’t miss it really, it’s scattered all over the floor.” My unwelcome guests all narrowed their eyes. “No little demi-god of chaos,” Clyde said. “It is you who shall leave.” The shifted clouds of energy that composed the four Order Keepers suddenly began to roil and spark with blue blots of energy. Inky spoke up. “If you will not cooperate willingly, then it is war.” In that moment, the ponies of Equestria suddenly knew peace as I called all the scattered bits of my energy back to myself, smiling wide as I felt power and strength surge through my body. “Well, if its war you want,” I growled as my body itself began to glow with a burning red light, “I’m your huckleberry.”