Joshua 1: Discorded Introductions
Joshua’s POV
I groaned as I laid down on whatever I had landed on. “Ooooohh. My back.” Whatever that gelatin was had splattered under my head when I landed, freeing my head. I had decided right then that it was best not to move for a moment from how much my back hurt.
That was about five minutes ago. I grunted as I sat up and rubbed my head. “What in the name of God was that?” I looked around and froze for a moment at what I saw. I was sitting in the middle of a road and there was... white buildings everywhere. White to the point it would fit inside an insane asylum. Most of the buildings were old english in design, including the thatched roofs and wooden doors. The only problem was that they looked more like someone had draw the edges of the structures with a ruler and pen rather than having the rounded wood edge that the supports should have had. I ran a hand over one of the edges and it felt incredibly sharp. “How is this even possible?”
“I don’t know, you tell me.” I spun around and backed into the wall. There was this.... thing, floating in front of me. I think it was called a draconequus in the book I was reading. “Hello, young human. Mind telling me your name? No wait! I got it!” It pulled out a stethoscope and placed it on my forehead. It moved the stethoscope around and started to hum. “Hmm.... Likes laughing at myths..... Thinks one Michelle Akerman is hot.... OOOOHHHHH That’s a juicy one, believes science is pure fact! HA, when haven’t I proved that wrong!? Oh, and your name is Joshua Landel. A small detail, but noteworthy nonetheless.”
I swatted the stethoscope away and glared at him. I was pretty sure my cheeks were burning right then from both being pissed at the thing for diving into my mind and... well you just don’t dive into private thoughts about who you do and don’t like romantically. “Now now, no need to be feisty. I’m just making sure your mind is what I need it to be, and I couldn’t ask for a better brain.”
I jabbed a finger at him as I felt my eye twitch. “Okay, just who... and... WHAT are you!?”
It laughed and reclined in the air. “Oh I’m pretty sure you know what I am Mr. Landel, and possibly who as well. Your race has been watching all of us here in Equestria for years now and a friend of mine and I find it quite amusing to stare back.” I blinked a couple times in confusion.
“Wait.... Equestria?” I thought over the name. It was... the setting for that show my brother was watching lately. We stared at eachother before it clicked in my brain. This amalgamation of animal parts was Discord. That.... stupid, reality warping villain from that show Tobias would obsess over and had declared his favorite character right behind.... what was it, Linkie Bye?.. No that wasn’t it. It’s not like I care at the moment though! I had just been told that everything I knew was reality was actually FUCK NOTHING by a CARTOON VILLAIN!
My mind started to break as I looked around at the whited out buildings. “No... No. No no no no. I am not in that stupid little girl show that Tobias won’t stop watching! I am not in some alternate dimension, or other planet, or whatever the hell those stupid fan-fictions Tobias reads say this is! T-this is a crazy nightmare and nothing more! Yes, that’s it! A nightmare that I will wake up from right now.” I closed my eyes and slapped myself across the face. It stung like heck and I started rubbing the point of impact. “Ow...”
I opened my eyes to see the draconequus was rolling in the air laughing at me. “Sorry to burst your little bubble there,” He warped behind me and popped a thought bubble over my head, causing a shower of words and pictures of me in really sissy pink pajamas to fall onto me, “but this is the real deal. You and your friends were brought here by your’s truly.”
I shook the lingering debris off of my head and glared at him. “Then send us back! I don’t care why you brought us here or WHO you brought here with me, send us back now!” I was panting and I could feel my eye twitching again. My glasses were even knocked askew slightly from my yelling.
The draconequus chuckled and I could feel a shiver up my spine. “Now why would I do that? If I did, then it would have been pointless bringing you here.” He landed on the ground in front of me and a few mismatched flowers sprouted. “As much as I love fun and games, let’s cut to the chase. I, along with the rest of this world, need you and your friends help.” I was about to retort when a piece of duct tape formed on my mouth. “No interrupting, now I know how much you seem to loathe Equestria in general, but until it’s back in balance not only am I in danger, but you and your friends are also out of a way home. So here is my deal.”
He turned me to face what looked like a large mass of black. “Help restore balance, and I will send you where you truly want to go and even give you a preview of what it’s currently like. Deal?”
I looked at the claw he had offered me and scowled. “You, a god of Chaos and Darkness, want to make a deal?” I laughed a little, “I might as well be dealing with the Devil himself! Not that you or him even really exist.”
Discord smirked. “Ah, but here in Equestria, I am the 'devil' as you put it. And I very much exist.” He offered to shake his claw as several more claws surrounded me. “So what do you say? Help me and get a free ride home, or wander this boring expanse of white for the rest of your life?”
I clenched my fists and tried not to scream at how freaking... Impossible, it was that he was multiplying his hand, that I was in some children’s cartoon, and that this... this... abomination to nature and the laws of physics was trying to make a deal with me. “Fine. But if you do anything that harms my friends, I swear-”
“-That you will come for me, lop off my head, pierce my heart with some magic sword, banish me for eternity, imprison me in stone, etcetera etcetera,” Discord interrupted, “I’ve heard it all before my dear boy and it’s only worked with one of those. Now since you agreed,” he grabbed my right hand and it felt like lightning was shooting up my arm. I fell back with a scream and clutched my shoulder in agony. “That just now was a gift from me to you, how you use it is entirely up to your imagination. Your friends will get some things as well, but theirs will be more suited to their problems, personalities, and such.” Discord vanished and reappeared towards an intersection down the road.
I started to walk over to him and held my arm. It’s pain was now a numb sensation that traveled up the back of my neck and into my skull. “What the hell did your gift do to me!?”
Discord smirked and pointed to my arm. “Why not look and find out? Unless your eyes are as useful as mine.” He then... took out his eyeballs and rolled them at me. I wanted to scream so much as they bounced off of the ground and landed on my arm, both from the absurdity of the situation and, well eyeballs just landed on me. What would you do? When they did, the eyes popped and a faint light was coming off of my arm in a tribal pattern.
Discord put a paw on my shoulder and leaned in, eyes intact. “And that’s just the aesthetics, you can do so much more than any human back on your ‘Earth’ ever could now. What you can do... I don’t feel like telling. You can figure it out on your own when you solve this riddle.” He vanished with a laugh and I could hear him echoing in the back of my head.
If you wish to seek your boon
Begin your search under the sun and moon
In the center of a maze
She sits with her craze
Waiting for her savior soon.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts and began to muse over the riddle that just played in my mind. “Okay.... most riddles are just gibberish at the beginning... so, the last few lines should be what I focus on. But.... I don’t see a maze anywhere.” I started to walk down the streets of the town and laughed a little. “Man this is one weird dream. Maybe it’s one of those lucid ones that Zachariah told me about. What was it about them? That if you knew that you were asleep you could control the dreamscape? HA, if that was the case, where’s my library of infinite knowledge?”
I turned left from a fountain and saw another massive black sphere. It looked like shadows were melding around something in the center that sort of looked like a tree... with windows.... I had to take a few deep breaths to stop my eye’s twitching. “It’s just a dream Josh....It’s... Just a dream.” I walked over to the bubble of shadows and stood next to it. “So what now? Just jump in?”
“That would be ideal.” I jumped in surprise and turned to look around. I didn’t see Discord anywhere before I felt something bop my head. “Up here!” I looked up to see Discord standing upside down above me. “This here, is something you need to take care of. Because the world can’t exist without chaos, it’s bunching it up into pockets. This is what I brought you and your friends here for. Your kind are like me, beings of chaos, but are also more like the native Equestrians, beings of light. You can exist in almost any dimension and manipulate almost anything in them so long as it’s physical.”
He turned me to face the black sphere and pressed my face inches away from the surface. “In there, is a physical item that will help you manipulate more.... ethereal aspects, such as my Chaos and the Order you’re standing in. I need you to get it and start fixing everything.”
I shook his paw off of my head and looked at him. “Why not get it yourself?”
Discord groaned and made himself a chocolate milk. “You sure are full of questions. By the time I’m done talking to you, your friends probably will have stumbled into one of these on accident.” He drank the milk and burped a brown bubble while leaning against the barrier. “I guess that's more the reason for you to take this specific one. The reason I can’t get the item is because all of the chaos that should be spread out is condensed into a barrier of sorts. As a being of chaos, I can’t pass through it as much as you can pass through a brick wall.”
I looked back to the black barrier and poked at it. My hand fazed right through and I pulled it back reflexively. I looked at it to see if anything changed, but my hand was fine. I looked up and saw that Discord had vanished.
With a sigh, I waded my way through the dark miasma. There wasn’t much I could do otherwise. I was on my own right now, dream or no. And going against chaos gods is not something you do in a dream. Unless you’re Tobias. Then again.... I’m not really sure what he does in his dreams. The only hints I get are random shouting and mumbling when he’s asleep. He even shouted ‘tuna salad’ once.
That was a weird day. Today’s not much better though.
When I broke through the black, I could see that the white road from earlier had been replaced with normal brown dirt. “Finally, an improvement. All that white was getting....” I looked back up and saw that the tree silhouette from earlier did not do the actual building justice. No matter how... STUPID, the idea of making a house out of a tree by carving into it sounded, I had to admit I was impressed by the sheer size of it. The tree had to rival the great sequoias in height and was as wide as a skyscraper. The ominous clouds full of lightning didn't help with seeing the top of the thing either. “Annoying.....fuck all kinds of duck, I’m supposed to find a single trinket in THAT!?”
Yes, but I did give you a hint at where it is already though. I jumped a little before I recognised Discord’s voice. While I can’t go inside with you, I can still talk through that little gift I gave you. I can’t right now though. I have to help the rest of you little trouble makers. So long for now! Bwahahahaha! I felt a small twitch in the back of my head. It felt like someone plugged something into my brain and started to pump energy into it. It faded shortly after and I shook my head.
“The hell was that?” I deadpanned before tossing my arms into the air. “THE HELL IS ANYTHING ANYMORE!? JUST WHAT IS THIS MADNESS!?” I walked up to the swinging door that was on the front of the tree and pushed it open. There was a small lobby like area made from the inside of the tree. Just a small desk, a couch, nothing much for decoration. What caught my eye was the massive staircase that shot up the middle of the room and the bookshelves lining the walls. If I didn’t know better I’d say it was a giant library in a tree.
That’s because it was a library.... in a tree..... The infamous Tree Library... That thing most intellectuals like myself made fun of for the sheer irony of its existence... I could feel my eyes twitching at the fact that I was standing in it. “FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-”
After what I could only assume was hours of screaming at everything and banging my head into a desk, I had come to a few conclusions. One: This was most definitely NOT a dream. The fresh knot on my head proved so to the utmost degree along side the throbbing pain it was producing.
Two: It was very possible that I have gone insane and this is just my school seen through the demented lenses of madness. In all honesty I kinda hope that it’s not the case. I’d rather be in a world of new knowledge in a giant tree than locked up in a padded room having my brain poked with various needles.
and Three: I needed to find out what Discord had done to me. He said it made me different from any human in the world. I need to know what that difference is. I could be just a little taller, or he could have turned me into a super weapon of some kind that will answer to his beck and call whether I wanted to or not.
I’m really hoping it’s not the last one. Looking between my arm and the books in the immediate area, I decided to see if I could find anything on my arms new tattoos. “Well. When in Rome.” I got up and began to browse through the books for anything that could help. It was rather hard to find anything on the strange marks at all though. It seemed that every book in this section of the tree only covered mundane and silly things like ‘The Best Way To Cook Carrots’ or ‘How Not To Look Stupid At A Fancy Party’. In simpler words, “ALL THESE BOOKS ARE USELESS!”
I tossed the books that I had picked up onto the table that was in the room and decided to leave them there. The staircase seemed to catch my eye every time I glanced at it, so I was starting to get curious. “I wonder what’s up there?” I walked over to the stairway and noted that there was purple carpet running up the steps.
I started up the steps and was about halfway when the other end shot up to the opening and the carpet shot up, launching me into the air. “Whoa!” I landed back down and bounced off of the carpeting, landing next to it on the hard floor. I moaned in agony as I rolled off of my back. “Ow....” I looked up and saw more stairs branching off of the room I had landed in. Only difference from before was that these stairs looked like they belonged in a piece of a modern sculpture, What with the LACK OF WALLS, ALONG WITH MOVING UPSIDE DOWN AND SIDEWAYS! Cause that was completely legit right now! Why bother Logic and Reason at the moment? They seem to be having a great time doing FUCK, NOTHING, but sitting on their asses and playing poker! .... damn it, I sounded like Tobias with how weird that was.
I got up and looked at the immediate area (because looking at the stairs again was going to drive me insane) and saw that the floor was about twenty feet wide in diameter, and had small paths about five feet wide going between it and about four others. I cautiously moved over to the edge and looked down. “Oh.... fuck me.....” There was nothing...... just..... nothing. Your classic black bottomless abyss of fuck all that spread up the walls and covered the area above. Not even a trace of the room I was just in was below me and as it turns out, the floor was about as thick as a piece of paper. I backed away from the edge and turned to look at the other paths. Most of them had doors that sat between them randomly and seemed pointless if you dared to shimmy around them onto the path’s other side. THAT strategy was made impossible because the doors were two hole feet wider than the path.
I looked around the doors and saw more doors sitting on the paths that connected the other platforms as well. “These doors better not be freaking locked, or I’m going to beat the shit out of that fucking dragon thing.” I walked towards the one that was directly in front of the stairs, I’ll dub it north in this cacophony of mess, and pressed on the door. It swung open and a wave of black and white flooded out before pulling me in, I almost blacked out until it faded away and I was standing in the first room again. Only this time, there wasn’t a staircase and the door seemed to float behind me. I turned back to the room and saw that there was a... purple unicorn with wings reading a book. “This entire scene has all of my NO!”
It didn’t seem like she(?) didn’t hear me... I’m assuming it’s a girl from what I’ve heard Tobias rant about. She looked up for a minute as the book floated away and landed on a shelf. “Spike? Did that letter from Celestia show up?”
I grumbled a little. “At least I know that it’s a she now... no male being can have a voice like that.”
A small, purple, bipedal lizard, Spike if I assume correctly, ran into the room holding several books in a stack before placing them on the table at the center of the room. “Not yet Twilight. But it should be here any moment.” He turned around to leave before letting out a belch of green flame. The flame formed a scroll and was brought before ‘Twilight’ where it unraveled and she began to read.
As she read, her face contorted from one of calm to confusion and concern. “That’s odd... and rather alarming.” She turned towards some books on the far side of the room and they hovered in front of her.
Spike ran up and looked at her. “Is something wrong Twilight?”
Twilight kept looking through the books at a speed that I could only envy. “Celestia sent a letter stating that there seems to be an ‘imbalance’. She didn’t specify what was imbalanced though.” She stopped for a moment and looked at the tiara on her head. “Could it have something to do with Discord?” She shook her head and smiled. “No, that’s silly. Fluttershy reformed him almost a year ago. He couldn’t have turned evil again... could he?” I small twinge of doubt could be heard in her voice as she frowned.
Spike was looking at her nervously. “Twi? Should I go get the girls?”
Twilight nodded her head. “Yes, Celestia also said that she wanted to see us at the palace as soon as possible.” A pair of bags floated over to her and landed on her back. “I’ll be back soon Spike.”
He followed her to the door with a look of confusion. “Wait! What about me!?”
She looked back and nuzzled him. I had to admit.... it was a little heartwarming. “The letter said that it would be best if it was just me and the girls that came over Spike. So I need you to watch over the library while I’m gone.” Spike looked saddened by this but sighed. “I know you don’t like being left behind Spike, but I’m sure Celestia has her reasons.”
He waved a claw lazily. “Ah, it’s fine Twilight. You go on your adventure and I’ll hold down the fort.”
I looked at the act and couldn’t help but chuckle. “Kinda reminds me of when Tobias doesn’t want me to be concerned about something.” I frowned in concern and looked up in thought. “I sure hope he’s okay back home.... It would be a nightmare for mom if we both vanished, especially at the same time.”
Twilight smiled before nuzzling him again. “Thank you Spike. Be sure to take care of Owlowiscious and keep everything organized.” He gave her a salute and she cantered off out the door.
When she was gone and the door had closed, Spike slumped over with a sigh before moving over to the couch and flopping onto it. “I wish she’d take me on some adventures more often.... It’s pretty boring being stuck here in the library.”
I was about to say something when the room and lizard faded to white. The area shattered and I was on the other side of the door I had opened. Or I would have been if there still was a door. Now the path had a small diamond with a picture of that ‘Twilight’ character leaving her home. Looking back, I noticed that the other doors that connected the first room with the rest also had been replaced, probably with the same image.
I turned around and looked back at the room I was now in. It had a bed and a small basket that lead to what was supposed to be a balcony, only... yeah, the whole nothingness issue. I looked over to the bed and let out a large yawn. “Whoa.... didn’t realize I was so tired...” I walked over and sat down on the extremely plush bed. “A few minutes wouldn’t hurt.”
The moment my head touched the pillow, I started to drift into sleep. “I wonder....who else.... got dragged in....?”
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Tobias
Still wanting to see Tobias.
Tobias
I know the chapter was probably already decided on but I want to vote anyway :3 Tobias :3
3021674 I continue to tally votes as I write. If one starts getting ahead of the others I start to work on it. So all your vote really did is solidify Tobias' spot as next chapter.
Still, Thank you for voting and I'm glad I captured your interests.
3021861 oh ok and this really has a whole lot of potential AS LONG AS YOU PACE I have seen so many stories that had a ton of potential but it was ruined because they didn't pace it (I just finished reading one like that) it's a sad thing that happens :(. Also are the ponies like ponies? Or not ponies? I didn't see the anthro tag but I've read a few that were anthro or humanized that didn't have a tag
3021933 If I don't say that they are anthromorfic then they ain't. Josh saw in chapter 1 and I quote 'a unicorn.... with wings'. That says he saw Twilight Sparkle the Alicorn, not Twilight Sparkle 'the freaky purple woman with wings and a horn in her head'.
3022020 ok I'm just making sure :3