Family time ✓
Twilight Sparkle hugged her foals close with the revelation that she barely knew them. They had hatched from their eggs as little yearlings, flush with personality and love. They clung to her, nuzzling her pelt, bonding with their other mother. All of them together were quite a soothing balm to everything that had just taken place.
There was an ominous crackle and a rumble, and a bright flash shone through the windows, illuminating the library. The foals squealed, scared, terrified, clinging to their parents, knowing they would be alright if they just held on to their mothers, the instincts of foals everywhere.
Twilight loved them. She couldn’t tell if the love was magical in nature or not, and she didn’t care. Right now, love was all that was keeping her together. She locked eyes with Trixie for a moment, and felt an odd sensation, a weird tingle in the marrow of her horn, a feeling similar to what she had experienced just before turning into an ash pile and then becoming an alicorn.
A feeling of something coming. Whatever happened, after this, things would never be the same. She hugged little Rocky closer, wishing her brother was here with her. She wished that her foals could meet their grandparents. She wished for a lot of things.
One thing she did not wish for was Discord suddenly appearing in her library. He did so quite suddenly, and there were five Fluttershies with him.
“You gotta help me!” Discord cried. “You are the only one I trust Twilight Sparkle, to look after my Fluttershies. I need to stop this somehow, I think I might be the only one who can!” Discord looked panicked, frantic, and afraid.
Twilight shivered.
“Hi!” Quadrashy said, seeing potential new playmates, giving them a shy smile, hiding behind her long bangs. They moved and spoke as one.
Fluttershy looked sad and confused, and she clung to her four identical foals.
“Discord, do you really think you can fix this?” Twilight asked, her voice low, and wavering slightly.
“I dunno!” Discord shrugged, his eyes wide. “I’ve never seen anything like this before!”
Several very confusing events proceeded to happen all at once. The itch in Twilight’s horn vanished, sunlight shone through the windows, the feeling of dread disappeared, and there was an insistent knocking at the door.
“Somepony want to get that?” Trixie asked in a hesitant voice.
Go and answer the door ✓
Twilight crossed the room, noticing how quiet it had become. She felt cold chills running up and down her spine. She stood before the door and slowly pulled it open…
Before her stood an alicorn. Only, something felt off. Something was different about her. And beside her stood Frank N. Furter. He was full grown. Twilight Sparkle would recognise that tentacle anywhere.
... ✓
“What the noodle?” Discord quipped, saying what everypony was thinking.
“Who are you?” Twilight asked the alicorn. “What are you and what are you doing here?”
Twilight looked around. The mustard was gone. Ponyville looked mostly normal. Pinkie Pie stood nearby, her usual size, still sucking on a pacifier, also normal size. The diaper was gone. This was the very worst sort of confusion, the kind that Twilight could not stand.
“What just happened here?” Twilight Sparkle demanded, placing as much authority into her voice as possible. “I demand to know who and what you are! I want to know what has taken place here! I demand to know why suddenly, everything is normal.”
“I am Concordia,” the strange alicorn announced, “and I am a harmonequus, just like you. Well, you have the potential to be someday. But I am a special harmonequus, just like Frank N. Furter is a special draconequus.”
“What?” Discord asked.
“Hi dad!” Frank N. Furter said sheepishly. “I thought I’d drop by and let you meet the missus!”
“What?” Trixie queried, her jaw hanging open.
“A miracle has taken place,” explained Concordia, “and everything is slowly being restored. I am fixing all of this confusion.”
“Speak plainly!” Twilight demanded.
“Twilight Sparkle, Frank N. Furter and I are going to settle down and create a new reality. What you have witnessed is a convergence. I am Concordia, and I come from a chaos realm, a realm populated with draconequus civilisation, if one could call it that. I was hatched there, and I was forced to survive. All of my sisters died, one by one, hunted down by the draconequus mobs because we brought order and understanding everywhere we went. We calmed the planet, stopped wars, made the oceans stop boiling, we stemmed the tide of chaos and very nearly destroyed their way of life. And the draconequus were right to hunt us down… only the strongest sense of order could survive. And I outlasted my sisters. Just as Frank N. Furter has outlasted his brothers. We are both prime examples of our kind. With each death of my sisters, I became stronger, absorbing their essence and what they had learned during their brief existence. Frank N. Furter did much the same, absorbing the essence and the life experience of every draconequus he encountered. Do you understand?”
“No!” Twilight shouted, flabberghasted.
“I helped to father a new reality?” Discord asked. “We helped to make a new reality Twilight!” Discord poked Twilight in the side.
Concordia nodded.
“Sorry about the mess. It had to happen. Concordia is cleaning up here. I uh, didn’t mean to be such a pain.” Frank N. Furter leaned on Concordia, a lovesick smile on his face.
“You are a harmonequus?” Twilight asked.
“Yes,” replied Concordia, “just as you are, or you will become, time and learning permitting. You were ascended into the equus race, you are capable of mothering all types of equus foals. Females of our race are the harmonequus species, while the males are the draconequus species. We exist to keep balance. Eventually, a state of stasis is achieved, where both sides are in true balance with one another, and the breeding season begins. You have witnessed this miraculous event. The breeding is a trying time, full of heartache and testing, and chaos runs rampant to allow for the process of creation. Eventually, order is restored. A new reality spawns, and the cycle continues. One day, this process will repeat itself in the reality that Frank N. Furter and I will create.”
“I am still so confused.” Twilight closed her eyes, trying to take everything in.
“You are without experience and unable to see everything. One day, I promise, all of this will make sense, should you seek understanding. You have the potential to ascend into something even greater.” Concordia touched Twilight with her wing, lifting her head up so they could look one another in the eye.
“This is starting to make sense.” Twilight opened her eyes and gazed into Concordia’s… she saw universes, new realities, endless realms of potential. Twilight suddenly felt very small and full of wonder.
Frank N. Furter looked down apologetically at his equine siblings, a sad look of regret upon his face. “I know you won’t understand, but I was compelled by forces beyond my control. I had to do what was done. I had to play my part.” Frank N. Furter slumped, looking guilty, and wrapped his tentacle around Concordia’s neck.
“Wait,” Twilight snapped, “was this all coercion? Did we have any choice in this matter at all? Do I actually love Trixie or am I forced into this, forced to play a role in all of this just to bring this about?”
Concordia smiled. “Be at peace Twilight Sparkle. While you can force lust and a mimicry of love, you cannot force actual love. All that can be done is to manipulate the universe to present you with your perfect soul mate and then give you the perfect conditions for that love to blossom.”
“What of the eggs?” Twilight demanded.
“What about them?” Frank N. Furter replied.
“I loved them!” Twilight retorted. “I felt compelled to watch over them.”
“That is a little different.” Concordia answered. “A whole new reality was at stake.”
“So Trixie is my soul mate?” Twilight inquired.
“Is that so difficult to comprehend? We often love those most like us.” Concordia smiled broadly, looking at the two mares now standing together.
“Trixie is very confused. But Trixie does not deny that she loves Twilight Sparkle.”
“Trixie and I are not at all alike…” Twilight trailed off.
Trixie snorted loudly and rolled her eyes.
“Both of you are the different versions of each other, had circumstances been slightly different. Trixie is what you might have been had you not hatched Spike’s egg, and you Twilight, you are what Trixie might have been had her circumstances been different. Both of you are so much alike.”
Twilight and Trixie both turned and stared at Fluttershy, who was looking at them serenely, Quadrashy pressing in all around her. Fluttershy’s words had a painful ring of truth to them.
“This is why I love her.” Discord grinned.
“So everything is being restored?” Twilight Sparkle asked.
“Even as we speak.” Concordia replied.
“And what of every mother’s loss?” Twilight inquired.
“I do believe there are four precious gifts offered by the universe to compensate for that.” Concordia answered. “Everything comes at a price. Sacrifices must be made. There must be suffering. But everything balances out. If four perfect foals are not enough, take consolation in the knowledge that you had a part in the creation of a new reality, a new realm, a realm that will one day have millions, maybe billions of lives, and every soul that had a part in this convergence will have countless numbers of offspring they will never know.”
“We have to be born in a mass.” Frank N. Furter offered. “If there was only one of us, it would take thousands of years to learn what we need to know. But when there are thousands and thousands of us all at once, we all can all learn things, different things, new magics, new skills, new abilities, and then we absorb that knowledge as we absorb one another. It is a way of rapidly learning a lifetime of knowledge in a very short period of time.”
“That almost makes sense.” Twilight muttered, looking at her draconequus son sourly.
“We gotta go. I have strong biological and cosmological urges that I can barely contain.” Frank N. Furter announced.
Concordia giggled. “We have foals to make, a new reality to construct, lives to live, there is so little to do and so much time.”
“Look what we did Twilight.” Discord said. “Our son is all grown up and is settling down with a fine mare.”
Resent Discord for the subtle implications that somehow we had coitus ✓
“Will we ever see you again?” Trixie asked, her voice full of emotion.
“Maybe. I suppose we could stop by with the grandfoals.” Frank N. Furter replied. Concordia nodded as he spoke.
“This is quite a revelation. So every now and then, a new reality has to spawn, and this is how it happens.” Twilight said, thinking aloud.
Frank N. Furter kissed his mother, still looking apologetic. “Something has to continue all of this confusion.” He stroked Twilight’s ear with his tentacle as he spoke.
“This confusion is all an illusion. It really is a perfect sense of order.” Concordia offered. “Chaos is the only constant. It is the only real order there is. Understanding that is to know harmony.”
“I should ground you and forbid you from leaving the library for what you’ve done.” Twilight said, scowling, staring up at the draconequus that had just kissed her and touched her with one sucker covered tentacle.
Frank N. Furter kissed each one of his siblings on their heads, pausing to give Magenta a tight squeeze. Magenta resisted for a moment, and then squeezed back.
And then, Frank N. Furter and Concordia were gone.
Just gone. Vanished without a trace.
Begin to gather thoughts to explain all of this to Celestia ✓
“What just happened?” Pinkie Pie asked.
“I am still not totally sure.” Twilight answered honestly.
As her mind swirled with the recent events, Twilight had one terrible thought: What if Discord, Celestia, and Luna are related?
Twilight thought about the eggs…
Eew!
Begin great work to determine the nature of the relationship between Discord, Celestia, and Luna ✓
“Come on soul mate. I need private time alone with you and my family. Everypony else, scram. I need time to make sense of things.” Twilight said as she herded her family back indoors.
What just happened
Okay, but Quadrashy is still seriously weird.
All I can say is, "Huh?"
Almost as confusing as Hard Reset: 2.
Almost.
~Dash The Stampede
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4278168
4278139
Give me ambiguity, or give me something else.
Erisian proverb.
Huh. Well, that happened. Neat! I wonder what the view was like from the TARDIS...
4278139 4278168
Spoiled for those who might be reading this on the story's front page. Seriously, read the story first, hypothetical guys.
Okay, you know the yin-yang? It's something like that, with each half of the circle a universe. Equestria is the order that contains chaos, spawning thousands of draconequui to learn and grow and comprehend until they're all gathered together into a single enlightened being of chaos. Meanwhile, there's another universe, a chaos that contains order, where draconequui are the dominant lifeform, alicorns are the aberration, and thousands of foals lived brief lives before aggregating into an enlightened being of order. Now the pair of enlightened beings are off to have cosmic babies. Any questions?
4278238
Discordians call it Hodge Podge.
4278238
About the Tardis... That's another story.
O.O
Discord, Celestia, and Luna might be related?
Hmmm.
You sir might just have created the first Concordia and Frank N. Furter fan
Well. That made about as much sense as everything else, I suppose.
So, I know what you MEAN. Yet it sounds as if Twilight is just now wondering if Luna and Cake Flank are related.
Also, we need a Quadrashy spinoff. Serious 'Village of the Damned' vibe going on there. Place your bets now! One mind, four bodies? Hive mind? Telepathic bond? Are they the heads of some sort of interdimensional hydra? Would killing one cause two more to spring into place?
4278543
Twilight is wondering if Discord committed incest with Celestia and Luna
So is Quadrashy one mind with four brains? Or four individuals that are just really into the weird twin thing?
4278593
Quadrashy is the embodiment of Discord's love. He just can't get enough Fluttershy.
Four times the shy, four times the RAGE!
Okay...
Well, that just happened...
Anyway, this was a great story, and I'm happy to see that it's not marked as complete yet so there's more to go! :D
Can't wait to see what happens next. :)
Well, that was convoluted, and I still find the sacrifices must be made thing unsatisfying...
Have a nice day.
A Following Edit:
On second thought, I have more to rant about.
I... am a chaotic good alignment individual. I'm up for chaos and fun, but also for the good of others...
If I was in Twilight's place, I wouldn't care about some "honor" of helping create a new reality. I wouldn't care about four supposedly-perfect children replacing thousands, if not millions, let alone one, of robbed lives for some so-called destiny. Yes, bitch of harmony, four foals fitting your views of perfection are not enough at all. Cop out or not, I would have preferred the revival of all the little demon-children over knowing I would be some cosmic pawn.
Let me rephrase: children's lives are not fucking quantitative. Just because I have four more kids doesn't mean I'm going to accept that my fifth child had to die for some cosmic destiny bull-shit!!
Oh, sure, Twilight Sparkle might accept it, but guess what? HER CHILD wasn't one of the ones eaten alive! SHE didn't lose a damn thing! Hey, Concordia, bitch, try giving your bull-shit speech to someone other than Twilight Sparkle. See how THAT works out.
4278147 Your lost. I bet they will be all kinds of fun in the bed when they grow up. After all, they do everything together, including marrying one lucky stud/mare
4278614 *cough*. You sir have angered me, though I know it wasn't intentional. Previous post was edited.
4278614
So...Theoretically it is possible that Equestria may have to deal with a PentaFlutterRage at some point in the future?
I don't think Equestria has much of a chance against that let alone the existence of PentaShy in the first place.
4278807 see my thoughts. I can't contain them. Basically, Twilight is told that all these child-deaths are okay because each couple has four more kids...
... No. Just no.
4278684
The consciousness of each draconequus was moved to another body. Nothing is really lost. Concordia suffered a similar fate, although it was not her siblings killing each other, but other draconequus, potentially parents clubbing their own children to death. Now that would be a dark story.
Think of it as a distributed network of computers all being uploaded to a central location.
It is a means of rapidly taking in vast information and then rapidly condensing the data.
And, if it is any consolation, I am thoroughly chaotic neutral. Mwhahah-huh? What was that? Shiny!
Frank N. Furter was a singular sperm, Concordia was an egg. Not every sperm survives. Millions of them die during sex. Make peace with that thought before you have sex.
Survival of the fittest. Unpleasant concept, but hey, even realities stick to it when creating new baby realities.
4278823
And not really OK, just more of a consolation over what was lost.
4278882 And it's a piss-poor one. -_-
So, no, I hate this. So much. The whole 'sperm' process does not go on outside the womb. So, I'm not buying Concordia's excuses at all.
So, again, the bitch should try giving her words to a parent whose little hellspawn DIDN'T survive. Also, when you eat something, it does not get to join you some mind-hive shit.
You goofed, sir. Badly.
4278888
I didn't goof. I created the story the way I did intentionally. There was no mistake made there.
It had the desired result. You and I are now discussing somewhat meaningful philosophical concepts. An exchange of dialogue has been opened. You've clearly been thinking and examining your own values, holding them out for study and seeing how they compare to others.
This bothers you on some deep fundamental level and that is good. That is how it should be. It was intended to bother people. To make them think. To cause them to squirm, to feel uncomfortable, to think about the meaning of life and what life means to them. You are clearly responding exactly as I had hoped that some people would, so no, no mistake was made.
You should feel flustered. You should feel bothered. You should feel that there is something just not quite right about everything that has taken place.
It means you are not a cabbage.
And you should probably google up "discordian cabbage test" if you want to understand that last thought.
I think I would actually be upset if I wrote this story and people didn't challenge the concepts or the ending. I'd rather have a chit-chat about right and wrong and morally ambiguous subjects than have a well defined super-happy storybook ending that spoon feeds pablum into the willing psyche of the drooling masses.
4278920 It bothers me and makes me squirm, yes, but you know what? The more you defend this pile-of-shit deus ex machina, the more pissed off I'm going to be.
I don't care about philosophy or arguments thereof. I wouldn't care about the birth of some new universe. To me, this cosmic bull-crap was mass murder, not multiple parts of a whole becoming one again.
I cant believe, of all things, this story is utimately Discordian parable.
Old man Wilson would laugh, I hope.
Of all the places...
The entire fic I thought you were just writing randomly and that it was all stupid.
But this is actually a really satisfying conclusion to everything. It all makes sense. This fic has gone from "eh randumb" to "holy shit" in the blink of an eye.
4278888 "Also, when you eat something, it does not get to join you some mind-hive shit".
what position are you in to claim that. The author wrote a story about magical animals created out of mix and match body parts, if he says that the creations in his story can absorb consciousness by eating the other members of their race they can that just something that the author decided they should have the power to do not really a point for argument.
" The whole 'sperm' process does not go on outside the womb. "
You have never heard of the natural selection and survival of the fittest then ? It's this thing and I heard it happens not in a womb
4279269 Okay, pick one. First you say that I should accept it based on these being magical animals, and then you say I should consider natural selection, something not magical in any way.
Yeah, natural selection is not this cut-and-dry. I took a class.
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It could've been worse. Each child could've been a Draconequus, which means every child but one would've died.
Would you have preferred that? I mean, personally, I would've loved that happening, because I'm chaotic evil and I read grimdark as bedtime stories.
But it can always be worse. Don't complain about what is. Complain about what could be.
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4279277
I am lunch meat in a very confusing sammich!
Stop touching me...
There is no real good nor evil. Just two sides to the same coin. I prefer to stand on edge.
4279287 Too late, already complained. It's out there, and I'm not taking it back.
4279316
I don't want you taking it back. The complaint was good.
4279319 ... *blink*
... If I ever make a story in which the world becomes overrun with all the adorable hellspawn... it will likely suck.
... I do so hope that the little ones, when they grow up, have little draconequi children that DON'T kill each other.
The guarantee of 0 character death in the chapter before last kind of ruined the ending. It was still funny, but no real excitement. Part of any good story is the suspense as things get worse and worse, the reader can enjoy it more if they don’t know everyone’s going to make it out okay. By taking that away, it just kills the mood you were establishing in the previous chapters with Frank popping out and then all the problems that started coming about because of it.
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There was an immense amount of plot-hurt coming from the masses about the scale of the coming death. You'd think a couple of foals were up past their bedtime.
4279337 Oh, but there IS character death... all the little hellspawns...
4279357
Actually, one ran around headless, pantomiming panic. They don't die from having a body part ripped off. They just get absorbed.
Think about all the time that Discord had dropped his body parts, used his eyes for dice, etc.
4279363 They are not Discord. They were children, inexperienced with their powers and potential. They were absorbed into a single being, one whom formed his own identity before even absorbing a single one.
They were murdered. No other way of interpretation. You put all that information into one computer, it's still a single computer with its own settings and limitations. It's not a bunch of them linked together.
4279277 I don't have to pick only 1 both points are very much valid. The first point is saying that if the author gives the character a power and more over states outside of the text that the character does in fact have that power, I see it as pretty dumb to just deny that they have that power.
The second point is merely pointing out that whilst you say that the process of a sperm and an egg has no equal outside that situation the process of natural selection does in fact resemble it quite closely. For every fit animal that breeds there are the unfit who die without breeding in the same way that for every sperm that fertilises an egg many do not and die
4279383 This isn't 'breeding'. This is self-genocide. This is not natural. It is artificial.
4279378
I understand that you are upset about murder... I get that.
Nopony seems to be all that bothered that Discord, Celestia, and Luna just committed incest though, which is awesome. Let's talk about that.
4279395 Oh, incest is wrong, too... at least from a moral standpoint. I understand that certain creatures and beings still practice it.
And it is murder, and I refuse to view it as anything else or to hear anyone trying to convince me otherwise.
4279393
Man, I want the totally discordian-esque bragging rights of committing self genocide.
4279393 in the story it was described as their method of breeding
4279408 No, it is plot-convenience that doesn't pan out, much like the whole thing with females being alicorns...
... Yeah, flaw there. *points to preceding fic* Eris... not an alicorn.
4279416
Celestia was also a stallion for a time.
What's your point?
That is only gender in a broad sense, it doesn't change what they really were.
Discord is a lone draconequus on a planet full of ponies. He adapted to his environement. Certain frogs for example can change sex. Plus, magic. **snap!**
In the other reality, there was a single alicorn left in a planet full of draconequus douchebags.
4279434 And that still does not justify this ass-pull to me. Sorry.
You have the loss of millions of children's lives swept under a rug for the sake of resolution, and for me, that just doesn't work.