• Published 2nd Jun 2016
  • 2,849 Views, 58 Comments

Something Cosmic - DannyJ



Twilight and Discord are a long way from home, and have to journey through a chaotic realm to get back to Equestria. Fortunately, this is Discord's speciality, so Twilight is in safe hands. Less fortunately, all the local gods want him dead.

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Chapter 5: Chaos Theory 101

Discord's magic felt nothing like Twilight's own. Her body seemed to buzz with it, an angry, itchy sensation that ran through her, like the magic was restless and ill at home in an alicorn.

Still, it was a warm feeling, at least. With all the time she'd spent in the cold since waking up in the Great Abyss, she hadn't noticed how her lack of magic was a cold void of its own, a chill that never left even in the comfort of Wulfred's castle or Discord's magically heated cave. Now that she felt magic in her again, she couldn't believe how long she'd managed without it. It was insane to think that unicorns before Celestia used to live most of their lives like that.

Twilight's legs trembled as she took a few steps forward, fresh snow crunching underhoof. In the morning light, Discord leaned against a nearby boulder, watching her with a slight smirk as his breath misted before him.

"So... So do I just...?" Twilight tried to channel the magic through her horn, but felt it shoot down her foreleg instead. "Waaaah!"

Something like electricity crackled around her hoof, and she leapt back as the earth cracked and an enormous beanstalk burst from the ground, only growing dozens of little plantpots instead of beans. Once the beanstalk reached three times Twilight's height, one of the plantpots near the tip grew a disturbingly equine mouth, complete with full lips and visible teeth. Another below did the same, and the rest all followed.

One by one, they opened their mouths, and let out a chorus of blood-curdling screams. Twilight flinched and covered her ears, but they were too loud to block out. Each mouth screamed in its own distinct voice, following no particular rhythm or logic, blending into a meaningless cacophony of crying and wailing. Then, just as quickly as it began, it was over. The screams died off, fading into pained and fearful whimpers.

As they went quiet, Twilight uncurled her ears and looked up at the beanstalk, and the whole thing gradually withered, crumpled, and died right before her eyes. The plant itself burst into ash, blowing away on the frigid Jotunheim winds, while the now-silent plantpots thudded into the snow, their mouths petrified.

Twilight blinked.

"Mmm." Discord leaned over her shoulder, scratching his chin. "A little existential for my tastes, but the tiny plantpots were a nice touch."

He picked up one of them and held it up to his eye.

"I... I didn't mean to do that!" Twilight shouted.

"Of course you didn't." The plantpot filled with green ice cream in Discord's hand, and he took a lick between speaking. "But chaos magic rarely factors in intent if it's undirected. If you don't keep a lid on it, it'll do whatever it wants. Within a certain range of possibilities, of course. It's probably not a coincidence that you channelled it through your hooves like an earth pony and grew a plant. That's your alicorn physiology at work."

"But I was trying to use my horn."

"Accidents happen." Discord shrugged. "We're pumping chaos magic through a body designed for its diametric opposite here. Some wires are bound to get crossed. Just keep the magic use to a minimum and try to direct it better next time, and you should be fine."

"Designed for its opposite?" said Twilight. "What does that mean?"

"What do you think it means?" Discord leaned over while floating midair. "Ponies aren't built for chaos, and alicorns especially aren't."

"You mean because we're designed for harmony?"

"Goodness, no!" Discord laughed, wiping away a joyful tear which froze on his talon. "Chaos isn't the opposite of harmony! Disharmony is the opposite of harmony!"

Twilight paused.

"That's... true," she allowed. "But aren't you the spirit of both? So isn't your chaos magic still the opposite of the friendship magic the Elements of Harmony use?"

"You flatter me, Twilight Sparkle, but no." Discord waved a claw, reclining in the air as he floated in circles around her. "I am the Spirit of Disharmony because that's what I choose to be. I am the Tree of Harmony's ideological enemy, and define myself as such. But there's no such thing as disharmony magic. If you've imagined me and old Yiggsy as two halves of a cosmic duo, then I'm sorry to say that it's nowhere near that simple."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "'Yiggsy?'"

"Yggdrasil." Discord stopped circling and turned upside down. "That's her name."

She mentally filed that information away for later, and asked the more immediate question on her mind.

"So if you and the Tree of Harmony aren't opposites, what are you? And what does this have to with alicorns?"

"Nothing!" Discord said with a cheerful grin, slowly rotating in place. "You just made an incorrect assumption and led us on a tangent!"

"Wha—" Twilight spluttered. "I didn't lead us on a tangent! You're the one who— Agghhh!"

Discord laughed while she stomped a hoof, causing sparks to fly from the ground, which fortunately didn't create any new life this time.

"Okay," she huffed. "Fine. So chaos isn't the opposite of harmony. How are alicorns designed for its opposite then?"

Suddenly, something shot up beneath her hooves, jolting Twilight into the air. When she landed again, she was sitting behind a school desk, one in a square of nine, the others all occupied by copies of Discord. One lounged next to her blowing a bubble with chewing gum, while another folded a paper aeroplane. In front, another Discord in professor's robes pointed a stick at a blackboard from behind a lectern.

"Pop quiz, class!" he announced, tapping the board as a floating piece of chalk scribbled out a question. "What is the opposite of chaos?"

The chalk underlined his words for emphasis.

"Ooh! Ooh ooh!" A Discord slightly behind Twilight with buck teeth, square glasses, and a propeller hat raised his hand. "Pick me! Pick me!"

"Yes, Discord!"

"It's order, sir!"

The class booed and jeered. Twilight cringed as they threw wads of paper and fruit and school supplies up at the blackboard, all of which bounced harmlessly off of Professor Discord. One of the Discords even threw a burning bottle of spirits. Twilight shrieked as it exploded against the blackboard and engulfed the front of the classroom in flames.

"Yes, yes, I know, settle down," Professor Discord said wearily, making placating gestures to the class even as he stood in the midst of the fire. "I know, we all hate it, but he's correct. The opposite of chaos is order. So! Which beings best embody order?

Discord aimed his still burning pointer at Twilight, and the other Discords all turned to stare at her.

"...Uh... Ponies?" she guessed.

A loud, electronic buzz suddenly sounded from every direction, startling her.

"Wrong! The answer is alicorns!"

The other Discords in the class all burst into laughter, pointing at Twilight mockingly.

"Alicorns are ponies!" Twilight protested, glaring at Professor Discord.

Another pair of Discords dressed as fireponies kicked down a door that hadn't been there a second ago and blasted Professor Discord with a firehose, extinguishing the flames. He didn't acknowledge them any more than he had the fire, instead wagging his pointer at Twilight.

"No credit for partial answers!"

"But you said there's a difference between chaos and disharmony. Ergo there's a difference between harmony and order as well, and alicorns represent harmony, not order."

Professor Discord gave her a smug smile.

"No they don't."

"Yes, we do!"

Discord crossed his arms. "Nope."

"Yes!"

"Nah."

"I became an alicorn through the Elements of Harmony!" Twilight slammed a hoof on her schooldesk. "That's what we represent! That's why friendship and harmony are the founding principles of Equestria!"

As she glowered, a sinkhole emerged in Twilight's desk, and she yelped before catching herself to avoid falling into it. Two pieces of wood emerged from the sides of the desk and met to form an arch, which then also grew a small roof, as well as a bucket and winch.

Discord shrugged off his professor's clothes and walked out in front of the blackboard, waving a hand and banishing the rest of the classroom and his clones, though Twilight's desk and the new wishing well upon it remained.

"Maybe that's what alicorns became by Sunny and Moon-Moon's time, but the first alicorns weren't nearly so peaceful or pleasant."

He flipped the fire-damaged blackboard over, and on the other side was a projector screen. Twilight's chair and the desk/wishing well in front of her morphed into more comfortable seats, which quickly multiplied into several rows as walls grew out of the snow around them and met to form a ceiling overhead. Discord leapt into a seat beside her as the newly created movie theatre went dark and a projector came to life behind them.

On the screen flickered a silent black and white montage of armoured alicorn stallions drilling with spears and hammers, shooting spells at training dummies, or flying in formation. Apart from their size and stature, they reminded her very much of the modern Royal Guard.

"The first alicorns were soldiers, bred for battle," Discord said, leaning over to Twilight while pointing up at the screen. "Alicorn biology isn't a product of evolution, or a spontaneous manifestation of harmony; it was intentionally designed with a specific purpose. There's a reason why your kind grow bigger and stronger than regular ponies, Twilight, and it's not because you're swelling up from all that friendship."

Twilight frowned, looking back at her own wings, and then down at her hooves. She fidgeted in place as she inspected them.

"...In fact, it's precisely the opposite," Discord said ominously.

The images of ancient alicorns flickered away, replaced by a recording of Twilight herself, standing with her friends and Zecora in a Ponyville overrun with Plundervines.

Zecora's voice now came through unseen speakers.

"...The results would be tragic... It only responds to alicorn magic."

"Discord, what is this?" Twilight asked, talking over the rest of Zecora's explanation of the potion.

"Watch."

She looked back to the screen, and blinked in surprise as she watched the recording of herself mustering up the same bubbling black, green, and purple magic that Celestia had taught her, the same magic that Sombra had used.

Dark magic.

She remembered that now, using dark magic on the potion. Zecora had just said "alicorn magic." Why had her first instinct been dark magic?

Twilight shivered.

"Alicorn magic. Dark magic. Order magic." Discord clapped his hands, leaning back in his theatre seat. "Ponies like to think of alicorns as creatures of harmony because that's what you became, but it wasn't always that way. You don't have strength, flight, and magic because you're an abstract representation of tribal unity. Alicorns didn't just come into being when ponies stopped fighting. You have these attributes because alicorns were intended to be a 'master race.'"

Discord made air quotes and gagged, to show what he thought of the idea.

"But that's not what we are!" said Twilight, turning back to him. "I don't think I'm better than anypony else! The princesses don't think that!"

"I know you don't Twilight," Discord chuckled, patting her head. "But that was the original idea, nonetheless. And that's why alicorns have an affinity for dark magic, because dark magic is all about that superiority complex. It's about control, efficiency, running roughshod over the little complications like free will and empathy for others. It's why Sombra took so well to it. And it's also the core of the problem you're having right now."

He illustrated his words by summoning a clear glass of water and pouring a canister of engine oil into it. The oil sat on the surface of the water, refusing to mix, as Discord held it up for her to see.

"Dark and harmonic magic are similar enough that a user of one can generally accommodate the other, but chaos is primal, unshackled, undirected. They require diametrically opposed personalities to master."

Twilight considered his words. It wasn't often that Discord spoke sense, so these last few days had been insightful.

"...Wait." Twilight held up a hoof. "How is harmony more similar to dark magic than chaos is? If anything, chaos and dark magic have more in common with each other than either do with harmony."

Discord laughed.

"Oh Twilight. You might as well be asking how purple is more similar to red than blue is. Magic, like colour, is a spectrum, and Harmony sits smack bang in the middle of it."

Just because he could, Discord swirled his finger in the glass of oil and water and actually did somehow mix it into a single dark liquid.

"The Tree of Harmony is compromise incarnate. Me? I'm more of a free radical." Discord grinned, downing the glass in a single gulp. "Chaos is the extreme end of the spectrum. And dark magic is the opposite extreme, its antithesis. Remember what I said before? Alicorn magic, dark magic..."

"...Order magic," Twilight finished. "And Harmony is a... a synthesis of the two..."

"Bingo," said Discord, turning his empty glass into soap bubbles.

Twilight blinked. Discord's words rapidly ran through her head over and over again as it all came together.

A light clicked on in her mind.

"...There's a third, isn't there?"

Twilight looked up at Discord again, who was staring at something just above her head. His eyes flicked down to meet hers.

"Hmm?"

"Like you and the Tree of Harmony!" Twilight smiled. "There's a third spirit for Order, isn't there? And he's the one who created the ancient alicorns!"

A ringing bell noise sounded from every direction at once, causing even Discord to look around for its source. When he turned back to Twilight, it was with a wide grin on his face.

"Correct!" He applauded, and a burst of streamers and confetti appeared to rain down on them, Pinkie Pie-style, as the lights came on in the theatre to reveal a congratulations banner. "One point to Twilight Sparkle for the answer, and two for the follow-up gag!"

He reached down and snatched something above Twilight's head. When he pulled his hand away, he was clutching a glowing lightbulb.

"Did I make that happen?"

"You did!" said Discord, sounding pleased. "And the bell, too! You're actually taking quite well to chaos. Colour me impressed."

For a moment, Twilight was pleased. But her joy soon dissipated as she considered what she had just learned.

"...What happened to him?" she asked, staring back up at the movie screen, which had since looped back to the footage of the alicorn soldiers.

"Who?"

"This... entity of Order? The creator of alicorns? Did he get turned to stone too?"

She looked back up at Discord, who stared blankly at her.

"That's... a very long story," he said with a sigh. "Suffice to say, he left these realms a long, long time ago, and I don't expect him to ever return."

Twilight thought for a moment.

"When you rescued me, you said that the Abyss was one of the Realms of Order. Was that something to do with him? Could he have taken me?"

Discord laughed, shaking his head, but it sounded strangely subdued for him, almost bitter.

"Trust me, Twilight, the self-proclaimed 'Emperor of the Universe' has better things to do than scare nerdy purple alicorns."

But what if it's not about me? What if I was just a lure for you? You came running as soon as I called...

Twilight took a breath.

"...You're probably right," she said with a sigh.

"Of course I'm right," Discord said indignantly. "I'm always right."

Twilight smiled again, though her brow creased slightly with the niggling feeling that she was forgetting something important.

Discord gave an exaggerated yawn.

"Anyway, I'm bored of ancient Equestrian history. Put on your snowshoes, because it's time we get back to our adventure."

In a flash of light, he clad them both in thick winter clothes, including goggles and wooly hats. Twilight had a saddle on her back, and Discord stuck a pair of ski sticks into the snow as the theatre melted away and the walls collapsed outwards into the snow, revealing the desolate white landscape of Jotunheim once again. With a joyful whoop, he skied away, snow churning behind him as he disappeared into the distance.

Before she took off after him, Twilight stopped and thought. Something was wrong about that conversation. There was something she had missed. If she could only determine what...

She shook her head. Another problem for another time.

With a sigh, she spread her wings as best she could in her thick winter coat, feeling the unfamiliar buzzing magic course through them, and took off flying at long last. Her flight field was shaky at first, distributing her weight unevenly, as if it were her first time flying again, but she recalled her early lessons with Rainbow Dash, and soon she found her rhythm again and managed to stabilise it.

From there, the winds of Jotunheim carried her on, and for the first time in days, she felt truly free again.

Author's Note:

One day I will have my vengeance upon Posh.

Very short chapter this time. Only a single scene, really. But I wanted to update the story at least once this year and keep things moving.

Something Cosmic has actually been much more of a challenge than I ever thought it would be. Writing the characters comes naturally to me, and once I know what I'm doing, the dialogue flows quite easily. It's the plotting that gives me trouble, planning out the actual scenes, and determining how much exposition to drop at once. This is one of the few stories I'm still updating which I didn't fully plan out from start to finish before I started writing it, and it probably shows. Hopefully I'll fix that before chapter six drops.

Comments ( 5 )

So Twilight figured out she was bait for Discord, and something just made her forget without Discord noticing? That's pretty insidious. I wonder how something could effect her so quickly but also not be noticed; it would have to be something already inside or enchanting her, right?

Also glad to see an update!

Chaos isn't the opposite of harmony! Disharmony is the opposite of harmony!

A point so many people fail to appreciate.

In any case, always neat to get more information on the local cosmology and thaumology. And I do look forward to seeing Twilight's further use of chaos magic. You can't be friends with Pinkie Pie and not develop some capacity for handling chaos.

Alicorns being designed for...less than nice reasons is definetly intresting. I like how it, plus the previous chapter, makes Discord's fight against Celestia less of a 'good vs evil' thing, and much for of a morally grey issue. Because even if alicorns have become something else after their origin, they're still ruling everything, dictating how all the 'lesser' ponies should act.

I kept meaning to ask, are you a fan of Monster Magnet? Every time I see the title of this story, the line "I've got something more cosmic in mind" from the song Dopes to Infinity runs through my head.

10995769

Never heard of them, sorry. I'm fairly sure I based the story's title off something I said about Discord in a FimFiction group thread once, though I can't find it now for the life of me.

Also, good to hear from you again, Alara. I hope your own writing is going well.

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