• Published 11th Dec 2014
  • 1,709 Views, 113 Comments

Chaotic Emergence - Gambit Prawn



No one was prepared when Discord started transforming a "lucky" minority of humans into Earth's first ponies. While some were poised to ward off humanity's greatest crisis, others were forced to take their destinies into their own shiny new hooves

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1: Portents

It was a quiet, windless night in Sicily. Most honest folk had long since gone to bed. For Giovanni, however, it was another night at the office.

Usually that did not actually involve endless rows of beige cubicles, but the past three nights had been an exception. All it had taken was a graveyard shift security guard eager to return a favor, and the Mafioso now found himself the owner of the world's least interesting and least practical timeshare.

Fortunately, he could put the soul-sucking monotony of the dormant corporate scene behind him as he patiently surveyed the empty street street below with his weapon in hand. The third floor balcony had all the makings of a perfect assassin's perch: the railing provided natural support for his weapon while completely obscuring view of him from below. Giovanni would have preferred it a bit higher, but its proximity to the target's rendezvous point could not be beat.

Time nearly stood still as he passed the hours sweeping the rifle's muzzle between a narrow corner and a warehouse halfway down the road.

After a few hours of this, boredom began gnawing relentlessly at him.

It had not taken long at all for him to become more familiar with the commercial block than he ever wanted to be. Every crack in the sidewalk was known to him. The shadows of neighboring office buildings proved just as uninteresting upon seventieth inspection. And the half-assed landscaping was no better at raising morale than the occasional family photo or child’s drawing on the desks behind him.

With nothing else to do, he once more took to calculating the time he would have to make his shot. Moon Young stands at about 175 cm—somewhat tall for an Asian. Assuming his group of 6 matches their walking speed to the boss's stride length, I'll have at least 30 seconds to take him out—longer if he doesn't take the lead.

Satisfied with his estimate yet again, he resumed spinning a cigarette in his right hand while keeping a careful watch on the road. Had he not had the sense to leave his lighter in the car, he would have given into temptation long ago subtlety be damned.

Three nights of nothing. He thought.

I suppose in this case, it would kill him to show up on time, but that’s no reason to excuse to keep a guy waiting. Even the boss is ready to give up on this lead.

And if it didn’t mean losing my chance to kill the organ-thieving bastard myself, I’d have agreed with him.

After half an hour more of fruitless waiting, he sighed and put the cigarette away, replacing it with a striped, piggy bank-shaped stress ball he had “borrowed” from the office suite. The stupid things were everywhere. He thought while beginning to compress and twist it with his free hand. It was a poorly made thing, yielding under pressure far too easily to bring any kind of satisfaction.

"For the record: you’ve been lousy company,” he said to Guardian Financial’s juvenile mascot after a short torture session. “Maybe this tip really is a bust.”

However, to poor Quarteroy’s relief, the triad boss’s entourage chose that moment to round the corner and prove Giovanni happily wrong. The two largest members took the lead with a shorter, more savvy-looking man directly following them. Moon was the fourth to come into sight. Giovanni had yet to see the man in person, but his gaudy crescent spectacles, portly figure and awkward comb-over made him the least discreet of the group.

The Mafioso did not even examine the remainder of the group as he honed in on his mark.

He readied his aim, hovered over the trigger and primed his legs to make his escape only for his perfect shot to be foiled by a passing truck.

Cursing, he wasted no time in drawing a bead on his target once more.

His left index finger began to tighten around the trigger. It was an even better shot than the first—Moon had briefly paused to inspect his shoelaces. He couldn't miss!

However this time, an enormous, tattooed thug from the head of the group interposed himself while gesturing excitedly at his employer.

From what Giovanni could gather through his annoyance, the man had beaten up some stupid-looking punk with a Mohawk and had then broken a beer bottle on his oversized nose.

Losing only a little patience, Giovanni waited for the man to finish his hilarious anecdote. It had eaten up half the remaining distance, but the boss eventually acquiesced a pity chuckle, and, satisfied, the dumb-muscle retook his place at the head of the group while imitating his victim's awkward retreating gait.

The luckless hitman rapidly checked his aim again. He couldn’t afford to be hasty, but his window of opportunity was fast closing.

Almost predictably, a provocatively-dressed woman jumped on the boss and started showering him with affection.

Giovanni considered pulling the trigger out of spite for the briefest of moments. Despite quickly snuffing out his blind rage, he briefly entertained the self-indulgent debate of where he would put such a bullet were he to act on that violent impulse, but spotted something that derailed the thought entirely:

“Are those…. horse ears?!” he said aloud, completely baffled.

“And they’re….. purple!?”

Through the scope, he could swear they looked almost real in spite of the unnatural color. Try as he might, he could find no visible seam to nor any protrusion of the woman's actual ears underneath. A streetlamp then shone on her directly, leaving the would-be assassin with an even better view of the ears' exquisite detail.

With the raise of an eyebrow, he shoved aside his nascent attempts of an explanation and prepared himself to fire the moment the escort removed herself from the boss’s shoulders.

Unfortunately, the impromptu makeout session did not abate until well after the group had ducked inside the warehouse.

Giovanni stepped back from the scope and sat silently. He could almost be mistaken for calm, carefully calculating his next move.

Quarteroy, for one, was certainly not fooled.

Goddamned whore! Can you not wait two fucking minutes? Oh, I’m sure what you have is love—real love. I’m sure he doesn’t love you just for your body. I'm sure he doesn't say those things to all the other girls. And I’m especially sure your “love” for him has absolutely nothing to do with the premium rate you collect for the furry funtime package!

They say It’s bad practice to know your target’s hobbies, family, children, anything that can remind you they are human. But I would read a book on the son of a bitch if I could unlearn his fetish!

As soon as he had collected himself, he fished an energy drink out of his backpack. I really hate these things, but I can’t deny they work. After a long sip, Giovanni was turning his eyes back on the aging commercial warehouse when something strange caught his eye.

What… what the hell is that?

The massive descending brown cloud seemed to glide along a fixed course in spite of—or perhaps because of—the lack of wind that night.

Giovanni was faster to recover from this second dumbfounding sight: I don’t know what that is, but I sure as hell don’t want to breathe it in. He praised himself for his diligent packing as he found his gas mask in its dedicated pocket and strapped it on.

I didn’t think I’d be using this tonight.

Then, as if to further laud the hitman’s prudence, the entire mass exploded into visible fumes. He could see them trace lines in every direction before the smog completely blinded him.

Panic was a rare emotion for one that regularly entered into—and won— firefights, but as the haze cleared, Giovanni had been disoriented enough to wonder if it had been one minute or ten he had spent cloaked in brown smoke. Dissipating nervousness aside, he otherwise felt no different. It was easily the most surprising event of the evening, but he had thankfully built up somewhat of a tolerance after a quarter-dozen of them and went through through a mental checklist.

Am I all right? Looks like it.

I’m not even coughing which is a good sign. My skin doesn’t appear irritated either.

And no dizziness. It looks like the mask did its job, but I’m definitely going to see the family doctor after this. No need to take chances.

After that precaution, Giovanni looked back out towards the street. It appeared that a large quantity of gas had found its way into the open window of the very warehouse he was now staking out.

It's strange that it chose here to explode. Is it also after Moon?

No, that's ridiculous. It's just a random bit of pollution...... is what I want to believe, but natural smog clouds don't just explode into thick gas. Can’t be a dust cloud either; this whole area’s urban.

Is it a new type of chemical weapon? Organ trafficking won’t make you very many friends, but none of the triad's many enemies fit as culprits. If a rival syndicate had such tech, we’re in the business of being the first ones to know. The feds would make more sense in having access to it, but this is just not their M.O.

Is it random? No, there’s no way this wasn’t planned. This can’t all be a coincidence. That cloud was huge, and as superstitious as it may be, I can't stop thinking it's here for the same reason as I am. Assuming it's controlled, there's nothing else here at this time of night. Could it have to do with that furry bitch? Someone destroying the evidence of an experiment gone horribly wrong? Seems like overkill. None of this makes any sense dammit!

Solving the mystery would have to wait, however, as Giovanni heard screams coming from the warehouse. After enough of a pause to allow for doubt, the sound began to come in more clearly:

Fanatic chanting. Cries of sadistic pleasure. A lone woman’s scream.

The first two rose dramatically in volume as the latter cracked before being silenced for good.

All of his senses briefly deadened before Giovanni managed to force his mind into motion once more. He started reviewing the possibilities from before but had no better luck with a hypothesis.

Fifteen minutes of uneasy silence passed before the Chinese-Italian gangsters started filing out of the warehouse. Many were covered in crude, ritualistic markings made with whatever was available—paint, blood and charcoal. The giant from earlier even seemed to have a new tattoo.

It was then that this ominous evening took its final, nauseating twist: the boss exited, wearing a stump of a purple tail as a makeshift necklace—the original color nigh-indistinguishable from the blackish-red stains. One of his bodyguards followed, threading an ear of the same color through a string to create a matching accoutrement.

It took but a mere glance at the trailing goon's blood-leaking trash bag to seal the fate of the now absent woman beyond a shadow of a doubt.

And they continued to chant and cheer, throwing any criminal subtlety to the winds.

This could be big.

The boss needs to know about this.

But first…

Giovanni effortlessly dropped the triad boss with his first and only shot. It had almost been worth all the trouble to see the frenzied crime lord go finally go down.

However, the reaction of Moon’s subordinates unnerved him. It was an icy touch to his core that would likely haunt him until end of his days:

Total indifference.


]

Taylor sat transfixed by his laptop screen, awkwardly leaning forward on his chair. His exhaustion was painted on his face, but the queen bed behind him sat in the same pristine condition as it was upon his arrival yesterday. His curly blond hair was a matted mess, complementing his ratty choice of a t-shirt and dirty jeans. Had his acne not thankfully cleared up years ago, nobody would be able to tell him from the scrawny teen that had proven to be veritable catnip for bullies back in high school.

After misclicking the same dead-end folder for the third time in a row, he finally happened upon the cut footage he was looking for.

If this had happened any later, it might have already been gone. I'll probably never delete footage from old videos ever again.

I’m fairly sure it was the second day of filming. But even if I do find it what can I expect? It's not like I'll find some magic… no! Any clue can help at this point. Anything is better than the alternative. If there’s even the smallest chance of reversing these changes, I have to grab it.

Taylor awkwardly pawed at the fuzz on his ears. I’m not just going to give up and become some sort of dumb animal!

The Twitter icon then lit up.

Please! Breaking News! This can’t stay hidden any longer! I know there others! The drama surrounding France's missing president can wait!

@ImLarryOak
Clay’s Excadrill recks me again!
RIP Frodo, Kaa and Bert :(
Pokemon Black 2 Hard Mode Second City Nuzlocke:
Status: Failed

Dammit! Haven’t you given up on that by now! God knows how your channel maintains 50,000 subscribers!

Taylor's addled mind wasted 15 valuable minutes trying to convince himself he wasn't just envious of his friend's larger viewership. Sure Larry's charismatic, but it's just not fair that he can hold an interest of even a tenth of that through three failed attempts of what amounts to dull gameplay. His livestream even regularly tops most of my videos. When it's that easy for him, I have to wonder why I even bother.

Taylor snapped out of that unproductive trance and, with only a hint of reluctance, swiftly unfollowed his best friend and everyone else save for a few major news outlets and a dozen chatty celebrities.

Maybe they’ll tweet it first. Happened with Bin Laden.

Taylor’s browser still showed the evidence of several hours of desperate web searches. He had found nothing more than a few quickly moderated threads from people claiming to have sprouted ears and tails. He had called it quits when an hour of digging yielded a promisingly detailed description of a condition similar to his only for it to be deluged with comments along the lines of “die furfag” and “try harder 0/photoshop”.

Shaking himself awake, he clicked open the beginning of the movie file:

“Welcome everyone. I’m the Rogue Mouseketeer. Your guide to all things Disney. When the magic of commercialism loses its dazzling veneer, I'm the one to call to scrape up the mess. This week, Disneyland Paris saw the opening of its long-awaited companion park, and I’ll be among the first to check it out. Let's go."

That was awkward. I’m glad I cut it; I sounded too stiff there.

Now, it should be near the end here. It was at FairyTale Falls.

“Fairytale Falls draws inspiration from Disney’s most beloved classics and newest hits alike. Although the bright colors and gift shop theming suggest pandering towards your daughters and nieces...”

Taylor dragged the scroll bar forward as his recorded self posed behind a Cinderella gown.

“And that’s why I think its worth checking out for everyone. A reminder that Disney succeeds when it puts storytelling first. Tell them I sent you and they’ll refund your man card. Yes, even you, ladies.”

THERE!

In the background, a young woman yanked on what appeared to be cyan horse ears while chatting with friends.

Yes, this morning they showed up while I…” “Until next time, I’m the Rogue Mouseketeer. And…”

“DAMMIT! Why won’t I SHUT UP!?" Taylor tried desperately to hear anything at all over himself, but sunk when the group of girls left the shot.

Larry’s another matter; the real question is how I make any money at all doing this. It’s not like I’m saying anything insightful—or witty. I'm just some loser on the internet who somehow got popular by riffing on his sister's Disney tweencoms. I could have just patted myself on the back and got on with my life, but no, I got it into my head that I could make a living off this.

Half an hour crept by and Taylor’s depression and reduced attention span left him idly clicking the start menu. To his irritation, Audacity had accidentally opened, and he moved to close it before freezing.

Wait... that’s it! I can re-record my outro and then subtract it from the audio at the park.

It was flimsy chance of getting any useful information, but to Taylor, it was a tantalizingly close brass ring. He grabbed his unopened suitcase, dumped the contents on the floor and sifted through them to find his professional-grade, external microphone.

He then plugged it into his aging laptop and made his first attempt: “Until next time, I’m the Rogue Mouseketeer, and as long as there’s a dollar to be made, I’ll be there helping Disney earn it like the sucker I am.”


That’s strange. I rehearsed that line dozens of times. Why is the frequency so erratic? What are these spikes?

Three more tries yielded the same result before Taylor decided to stop questioning it and deepened his voice to compensate for the spikes.

That did it.

Taylor performed the subtraction and immediately played back the edited audio.

Yes, this morning they showed up while I…
“J'ai besoin! L'achète pour moi! L'achète pour moi!”

“Well that’s rather odd, Lynne. Wouldn’t you say so, Becky?”

Taylor tasted utter defeat for the second time that evening. I just had to film that shot in front of the princess goods, didn’t I? Taylor thought as he glared at the toddler dragging her feet in defiance of her grandmother’s attempts to pry her away from a cheap, plastic tiara.

If your brat has to steal all the hope I have left, why not shoplift the damn tiara too! Taylor thought as he shattered his favorite microphone on the desk.

“I don’t suppose I can get a pair. Now really, where did you find those cute animal ears?”

With that, the trio exited the frame.

“Well, time for plan G,” Taylor said with a defeated sigh. He stood, shook off a dizzy spell and jumped face-first onto the bed. Pushing himself up, he then clapped his hands together in supplication.

Hey, God, it’s me, Taylor Goldstein. You probably know that since you probably know everything, which would make asking you this pointless because you’ll know exactly what I am going to ask and have decided to leave me here, apparently morphing into some bizarrely-colored creature because I did... something. That’s kind of a dick move actually—straight out of the Old Testament. I don't suppose there's any chance I could talk to the New Testament God? I’ve heard he’s nicer. No? All right here goes:

I know I haven’t exactly been a faithful Jew. All I’ve ever really done is light those candles to honor… what was it again? Or sometimes I used go to that… place where grandma would make me wear that silly hat and slap me when I dozed off. I mean, I was honored to wear that hat; it must be pretty important. After all, Catholics leave that honor to the head of their whole religion, so it really was wasted on me.

Look: what I’m trying to say is that I suck at religion—I'm a bad Jew. You know that; I don’t need to be you to know that. We both know that. I could promise to be newly faithful to you, my lord, but that would be fickle. I’ll instead ask for your forgiveness. I know I haven’t been the best at the “honor thine parents” commandment, and the first few years out of college weren’t the best, but do I really deserve this? If you can spare me from this strange, unknown disease I promise I can do better.

Taylor let his head fall back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the growing itching sensation on his legs. He didn’t know what he was expecting to happen, and perhaps sensing his lack of faith, the almighty one gave no sign of acknowledgement.

The slender, bespectacled youth dragged himself to his feet, briefly wincing in pain from an unfamiliar appendage being pinned under his weight. He then threw his laptop and whatever could be useful into a travel bag and abandoned the remaining mess of his upturned suitcase.

Taking one glance back, he decided against leaving that weird book behind—unhelpful as it may have been. Daring Do and the Mirage Beneath the Oasis featured a hat-wearing mare about to pounce on a pair of identical-looking jackals that just screamed "evil henchmen".

Well, if an adventure novel starring a talking horse can't help me, I don't know what will. The handwritten note in the front says you 'might come in handy', so make my day, you piece of travel trash. Taylor thought as the threw the book into his bag with far more force than was needed.

He slipped on a hooded jacket, sighed and reached for the handwritten note in its left pocket.

“Well, time to see if the Devil can make me a better offer.”


"Yes."

"I know."

"Feel free to call me if you need anything."

"Uh-huh."

"Good night. Oh, and, Bernadette, get some rest.”

“Please.”

“I know you get tired of your nurse of a big sister telling you to watch your health but please.”

“For me.”

“I know you are worried about her, but it won't do either of you any good for you to stay up all night worrying."

"I love you too. Get some rest. Please. I'll be here any time you want to talk."

As she hung up, Maria lit up her first cigarette in over a decade. Some role model I am. Telling her to watch her health when I'm choosing to start poisoning myself again

I don't think I'd be able to calm down in her position either. I'm terrible for thinking this, but as much as I love Lily, having my own daughter taken away would devastate me a lot more.

Maria flipped her phone on and found the photo she was looking for. Her niece was posed in front of her father's house in Texas, her hands emphasizing the yellow horse ears in place of her own while bearing a complexion of profound unease. I had thought this was a silly prank, but her face tells the truth; I just didn't want to believe it.

The next photo showed her with a full horse's tail and patches of darker yellow covering her arms and legs. She appeared to be struggling to stand up and in clear pain.

They wanted me to know something—anything. But I couldn't tell them a thing. What good is all my training if I can't do anything to help the ones closest to me—even if they are an ocean away.

No, that’s no excuse at all: even when it was in front of me, I couldn't do anything. That American boy—he was so scared, and I couldn't do anything for him either. He came to us for help, and I turned him away— made it clear he wasn’t welcome at any hospital with that preposterous “condition”.

Was it the right decision?

Traveling alone with no one to turn to while losing his humanity. Poor thing.

I may have saved him from Lilian's fate, spirited away by the government, but was it really a kindness?

God forbid what might have happened to him if someone else had seen him, but was it right for me to make that call?

I could have told him the truth, but I can’t whisper a thing while the gossip harpies I call coworkers are around. If they had taken an interest, they would have certainly spotted the tail. As it is, they probably won’t stop pestering me about my staged outburst for some time to come, but at least I can lie my way out of that one.

Maria let her mind drift as she continued to smoke, leaning against the door to her modest apartment.

It's the sad nature of the job: you can't save everyone. Still, these are trying times—strange times. A meteor supposed to destroy the world amounts to nothing, a young woman about to start her life becomes a miniature yellow stallion, a tattooed, two-meter tall, red-skinned demon attacks a defenseless woman while screaming at her to submit to his masters. After all that's happened I'm almost ready to believe that last one. Poor thing. She’s so shaken up—demon or no demon. But I can’t heal the mind. Another thing I can't do

My heart goes out to Lilian. To that boy. It breaks it to know that there might be more out there—some even less fortunate.


"Hey, Alain!" a stocky seventeen-year-old says, entering an abandoned stable.

"We found another one. Another female."

He pulled firmly on the chain and a gagged cyan unicorn hesitantly followed him in.

"Shame," said the other man.

"If they're as rare as we think, a breeding pair would worth a ton more." "Oh well. Try not to rough it up too much. My cousin's friend will be coming to take a look at them tomorrow. He knows some people who won't ask too many questions."

"You're gonna make us a lot of money, little horsey," Lynne's handler cooed as he slowly ran his fingers through the unicorn's deep-blue mane. The gag muffled her cries of indignity as he yanked the chain forward.

“Get going!” he ordered with a slap to her flank.

The captive unicorn winced but refused to move.

The burly youth just shrugged and easily lifted the unicorn from the back, exposing her underside to the other man. Lynne’s furred face boiled into a blush as the realization of her nudity hit her hard. She was carried past past a couple of rotting stalls before they stopped at one of the few usable ones.

“This here’s yer new friend. Be sure to get along now.”

Author's Note:

I'm not entirely happy with how this jumps around, but I couldn't come up with a fix without giving probability the middle finger and sticking all my ponies together at the start.

Next time: actual human interaction.