Freedom Incarnate, or the Redemption of Chaos

by Spirit Wind

Discord

"Congratulations! and welcome back. I've been wanting to deal with you." Discord coldly mocked.

This throne room was indescribable, true chaos existed here and it doesn't like anything to be recognized. Even with the protection of chaos, I could feel my own sanity slipping. Whispers of the past and future taunted every single movement I made, and the silver made a cold stream circling my body. My senses were beginning to merge, I swore I could taste color and see sound.

"Discord! Finally. Unraveling, polishing the end!" I managed to write, my meaning was clear to both of us even though it made no sense elsewhere.

"SIGGHH, very well, you know how this will end." Discord spoke. Beams of glass light weaved around the two of us, giving form to our chaos energy. There really was no contest, and I would've been overwhelmed, if he wasn't toying with me. Patterns of sound weaved back and forth, a mess of color that made a sonic rainboom look like a filly.

Worlds formed and ended before the greater and lesser forces of chaos, reality slipped in and out as I tried to unweave his chaos. Discord allowed me to nearly unweave his creations before he reinforced them and shoved me back, taunting me every time.

"Maybe next time! Maybe next time! Hahahaha! Almost, just maybe!" Discord cackled. His power seemed unlimited, nearly throwing me out of everywhere. I kept up what I could, but my power was draining fast, and I struggled to do anything but deflect what he threw. Just when my power seemed to reach its limit, I felt someone else appear.

"Here I'm, Spirit!" An unforgettable voice entered my sight.

I shifted my hearing to the... right?... where I saw my favorite pony of chaos shining in a glass light vortex. Screwball had power that I didn't even know she had, very close to three quarters of Discord himself. This was the first time I truly recognized her as Discord's daughter.

"Ah... child of mine. So glad you could join us, did you pick a side?" Discord asked, a murderous grin on his ever-shifting face. "How silly, of course you have, you're still in that boring pony body. Such a tragedy, you could've been a wonderful replacement spirit. Oh well."

Discord changed his attention to her, and began to begin the chaos weaving contest with her, giving me a chance to rest for a time. I was absolutely grateful that Screwball showed up, she would give Discord some challenge at least.

"Psst, Spirit, over here..." A voice popped up out of nowhere. I turned and noticed a pair of amber eyes trained on me. Ditzy was somehow... standing?.... unharmed in this mess. Not only that, but she also had a vortex of glass light, it was an extremely tiny vortex, but it was definitely there.

"Ditzy? How do?" I wrote to her.

"Shhh! Take my energy, muffins abound." She replied simply. Both of us focused on a stream of energy, allowing me to pull her vortex into my own, after which, she vanished. While it wasn't much, the sentiment was worth it, as well as the idea.

I didn't get far before I was shocked by three new ponies appearing, each with small vortexes of their own. Somehow, each of the ponies who I called in favors for had chaos energy all their own, still not much, but some. This new energy wasn't ignored by Discord, and he split his focus; another mistake.

"Hey, more toys! How fun. Get over here." Discord cheered. Screwball took this opportunity to put in a cheap shot. The spirit of chaos cracked, and howled in rage. "AGH! How dare you!"

"Discord, me is target your!" Screwball taunted, and bowling full force into Discord's energy. I could've sworn Screwball's mane flashed yellow before impact, but this chaos made any type of study impossible. Anyway, I ... ran?... over to the three mares.

"Idea! Borrow your chaos?" I scripted. They only nodded. 'Seeing' them nodding, I started to pull the energy to myself. That's when I confirmed something; After I had drained everything from each of them, I looked back and noticed each of them unconsciously pulling the chaos energy out of the 'environment'.

Something new to add to the journal on how chaos energy works, when chaos energy is completely absent from something, the empty space is filled with chaos energy from the atmosphere, like water filling an empty glass when the glass is put under water. Normally, a glass is limited in the amount it can hold making it unavailable for use by any normal pony, but the chaos gem I ate 'overfilled' my glass, allowing me to use that overflow to affect the world around me.

This is where I got my idea: what if I tricked the world around me into thinking my glass was empty? I thought that it would have a black hole effect, making me pull in a large amount of chaos energy really, really quickly. So instead of using chaos to unweave chaos, I would just rip out the energy keeping the chaos effect up.

And so I began to obliterate the world.... or not. Screwball was fading on energy at this point, and Discord was beginning to injure her badly. Without chewing, I charged at Discord physically, even if I knew it'd be useless. Luckily, I was able to steal his attention as my energy flared after passing through him. What he didn't notice is that my energy only flared because I drained a little bit of his energy.

"Pest, I let you rest too long. My mistake." Discord coldly stated, he seemed completely consumed by his anger, acting unlike his usual cruel-jolly self. "Time to end you." His energy lashed out at me, cutting my mind, and breaking my leg. When I shook off the pain, I used my own energy to mend my leg up and set up a defense until I could perform my trick.

Discord kept pounding away at my defense, unknowingly giving me all the energy from his attacks.

After a moment to breathe, I began squashing all of my chaos energy into the core inside me. I was left completely defenseless to whatever Discord was up to, he could've easily ended me right there, but I put on a brave face so he still thought I was defending myself. Once I cut off all feeling in my body, so I wouldn't be distracted, I began to crush my chaos core.

This would've been painful if I had any feeling, luckily I shut that off. Soon, I crushed the core down to a single point, where I began to crush it further.

Suddenly, I heard a pop, along with the sound of a vacuum. A torrent of chaos energy started flooding into me, draining directly into that single space, never increasing the size. A literal chaos black hole, as far as I knew. I had been swept away with the ever increasing flood of chaos, into the very center of this mass.

I woke up in a field of black, void as far as I could see. Once I stood up, I noticed shards of glass lying on the ground, reflecting nothing. For a good while, I thought I had killed myself, until three shards of glass started floating in front of me.

"You won't survive if you keep this energy and stay as you are, ahead of you there are three options, each one has its perks and flaws" A voice that was my own stated. I nearly jumped out of my skin. When I tried to reply, I found that I couldn't speak, as this other thing had my voice. One of the mirror fragments floated in front of my face.

The fragment showed me... only a different me, taller, more impressive, and with a sharp horn joining my wings... an Alicorn me.

"This first option is the path of power, and responsiblity. You would join the ranks of the Alicorns, becoming the Alicorn of Change and taking up the role Discord once fulfilled, before his corruption. You would become immortal and a prince in your own right, with extraordinary magic . However, everyone here; Vinyl Scratch, Octavia, Golden Harvest, Ditzy Do, Discord, and Screwball would all die, because you would keep all of the chaos energy that exists, removing their bodies ability to act on its own."

Before I could do anything, another fragment floated up, revealing a letter, written by me. The words were blurred so that I couldn't read them.

"The next option is the path of the letter. You would release the chaos energy back into Equestria, saving everyone here except for Discord, because he cannot live without all of the released energy, and he does not regenerate chaos energy like any normal creature. This would return Equestria to a state resembling Everfree Forest's weather, where nature would take care of itself. You and Screwball would become regular ponies instead of ponies of chaos. A letter would be written by you to Princess Celestia explaining why you chose this path and why Equestria should take care of itself."

Another fragment followed, the last one. A beam of chaos energy was shown launching into space, and Screwball and I were standing on a cliff overlooking the beam.

"The final option is the path of the destruction of chaos. You would release the chaos energy and send it off into space, never to reach Equestria again. This path is the darkest of the three paths, as it eventually leads to the end of all life, as life cannot exist without chaos. However, it is still a path open to you."

I thought about all of this, and each option well... sucked in its own way. Truly, I hated choosing at all, I would run away if I could without dying. Since each path did offer something good, I would've liked to take all of those pieces and stuck them together and left the bad to rot in a corner...

so I did.