A Series of Chaotic Events

by Cadiefly

Fallacious Reasoning

We find ourselves where we last left Tim, who now stands at the precipice of a metaphorical cliff. With the last shreds of his sanity hanging in the balance, he is at a loss as to what to do. Because of the recent events which violate every iota of his understanding of the world, he faces the tough decision between acceptance and denial. Both choices seem equally likely to lead him over the edge.

Should he deny this chaotic world’s existence, then he has only his imagination to thank for hoodwinking him into believing otherwise. Worse yet is its lingering presence which mockingly contradicts him. And wishing for escape has so far proven a fruitless endeavor.

Accepting it at face value, however, can be just as dangerous. According to the testimony of others, he possessed unimaginable power, however brief that may be. Everypony had beared witness to the utter annihilation of Equestria by his very own hooves. He must abandon his sense on the limitations of his faculties to believe that which seems impossible. For how could he use someone else’s power and not even realize it?

The mind is truly remarkable, equipped with the ability to fill in gaps and reshape events in order to make sense of the world. Though when something astounding occurs the likes of which is nigh incomprehensible, its limitations are challenged. And, as Tim is only now discovering, what happens when it fails to do so.

---

Equestria was exactly in the state that Tim remembered. Everything seemed untouched by the hooves that sowed the seeds of disaster, but in spite of this, nothing was in its rightful place for Twilight and her companions. None of that mattered to him, though, for he was detached from it all. If none of it was real, then why should he concern himself with the problems of a non-existent world? There was no proof to justify his reasons, but he was nevertheless unable to shake his beliefs.

Some time had passed, he wasn’t sure how much, before he was broken out of his stupor. Ponies came to greet her like close companions one after another until at last she was surrounded. Princess Celestia was nearby and managed to remain composed in their presence, but Twilight’s less than regal face gave away that something was wrong.

The purple mare kept quiet for the most part as they pried her for information, but it didn’t take long for one of them, a pegasus with a prismatic mane, to jump to the wrong conclusion. Tim remained aloof as best as he could, but he couldn’t escape the mare’s accusing stare when she turned on him. The ensuing physical confrontation had him nearly a crumpling mess on the ground. She pressed her forehead and snout against his, and with those distrusting eyes peering into his soul, he was forced to lean back on his hindquarters.

“Did you have something to do with this? If I found out you hurt Twilight or Fluttershy, I’m gonna...” She let the threat sit idly for a moment, the words not quite forming upon her lips. The hesitation made him wonder how far she was willing to go for her friends. Perhaps she wasn’t even aware of her limits.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight’s concerned voice came all of a sudden. “He had nothing to do with this–well, he did, but it wasn’t precisely his fault. I think.”

The pegasus spun around, revealing a distraught Twilight to Tim in the process, to address the princess. The explanation had done nothing to assuage Rainbow’s distrust of him. It actually made things worse by solidifying her suspicions of his involvement. There was almost nothing left to keep her from enacting upon her threat.

“You’re not making any sense, Twi. Did he have something to do with it or not?” Rainbow, after turning back to him with a menacing glare, lifted him off the ground.

She couldn’t hurt him, he told himself, for she wasn’t real. He was back in his room, safe and sound...

The reassurances did nothing to take away the very real sensation of her hoof firmly grappling the hairs of his coat. Maybe it was real after all. Was he wrong to question it? Surely not, for it wouldn’t be a convincing fantasy if he could distinguish whether or not it was real. He might very well find it persisting even if he tried to go home.

No, there was no other explanation for this twisted world to exist. It served only to imprison him. He should be lashing out at every turn rather than trying to reason with every preposterous notion it presented to him. Everything about this fantasy is to blame for his misery. Most of all, they were to blame.

Tim returned Rainbow Dash’s stare with equal ferocity. He smacked her foreleg without sympathy, eliciting gasps from the other ponies. His captor hissed before unceremoniously dropping him to nurse the newly formed bruise.

A lasso had tightened around him before he could land. He went from airborne one moment to an agonizing chokehold the next. He was then treated to an orange pony’s scowl. She briefly adjusted a stetson hat atop her head, which amplified her already intimidating expression.

“I don’t rightly know what you have or haven’t done, but that don’t mean you can hurt my friends. Anypony who goes around disrespecting others ain’t the right way to go about things,” said the mare.

“Oh my.” Fluttershy was clearly torn between helping him get home and standing by her friend’s side, so she made herself scarce.

Twilight, on the other hoof, appeared to remain adamant to his defense. “Applejack, he’s just as confused as you are. If you’ll allow me to–”

Her words fell on deaf ears as a gray-white unicorn with an elegantly styled mane approached them. With a flippant brush of her mane, she said, “Darling, being confused does not give one the right to participate in such barbaric acts. Quite frankly, if this is how he treats a lady, then he is undeserving of your help.”

He rolled his eyes, disgusted by the unicorn’s pretentious demeanor. His fantasies had a funny way of being cruel to him. How dare it judge him when it did the very same thing to him.

“But he is just trying to–” Twilight replied.

Tim bashed his head into the false pony holding him in place, eliciting a groan from her. No more following along with the fantasy’s shenanigans, he told himself. Since it was only his imagination, he wasn’t actually hurting anyone.

“Hey!” Applejack stared at him with unbridled fury. “Why I oughta–”

Rainbow Dash flew in from behind and restrained him. “Let me at him!”

Then, a pink pony he hadn’t even seen before abruptly jumping into the fray. “I wanna get in on the fun, too! Whee!”

All hell broke loose as Tim was pulled back, forward, left, and right. Try as he might, he couldn’t break free from their merciless grasp. His limbs begged for respite, but as it continued unabated, a small voice grew in his mind with every ache he felt. Something about his realization must have been very, very wrong. But how could that be, when nothing in this world made any sense?

“Enough!”

Twilight’s cry stunned everyone into stillness. When she noticed all eyes were on her, she chuckled nervously and scratched her withers. The moment was made even more awkward by the silence which ensued.

Eventually, she spoke up. “That’s better. Tim, please, stop hitting my friends! We’re here to help you. Everypony else, there isn’t any time to lose. He is a long way from home, and we need Discord’s magic to help him get there. Now, where was he?”

“Uhm... Twilight?” Fluttershy trotted up to stand next to her. “Discord left a little while ago.”

“What?” The purple mare’s wings spread, and her hooves parted into a defensive posture. “But what about the rift? He promised us! Oh, how could I take my eyes off of him? If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with Princess...”

Twilight stopped herself short and study her company. “duties.”

The pink pony snortled in response. “She said ‘doodees’.”

Ignoring the comment, Twilight abruptly teleported next to Tim. One of his captors became disgruntled as a result. “Now wait a cotton-picking minute, Twi–What the hay?”

Tim didn’t get the chance to see her facial expression, or how anypony else reacted to Twilight’s rushed explanation, before he was whisked away with her through teleportation. The entire world instantly exploded into a series of blurring images. He found himself pulled into a new area every few seconds, and before he could orient himself, he was taken again.

He wanted to scream, beg for it to end, but he scarcely he had the time to catch Twilight’s attention. He could hear the urgency in her voice whenever she spoke, but he couldn’t catch any of it. Her distress mounted with Discord’s continued absence.

Then, as he turned mid transport to urge her to stop, his head was lodged into a hole of a tree.

“Are you okay?” She asked when she noticed his predicament.

Twilight’s attention was on him at last. The only problem was that he was now stuck in place. He couldn’t even see what was going on around him.

He dug his hooves into the bark of the tree and pulled. No matter how hard he tried, though, he didn’t feel any give in the bark in his efforts to free himself. Because of that, the lack of light and cramped space began to make him anxious.

“Hold on. I’ll get you out in just one second.” He then heard the chime of Twilight’s magic, and felt something tug on him from the other side.

The tree remained adamant.

“Come on...” Twilight audibly groaned and strained.

All of the muscles in his neck began to ache under the pressure. Helpful as she tried to be, it was only making things worse. Again he found himself pleading for her to stop, and he wondered if he was only moments away his certain demise at her hoof.

Then, he heard skittering from somewhere inside. He couldn’t see what it was, but he unexpectedly felt something brush against his chin, and finally a stabbing pain on his face.

Work faster, he thought, For the love of God, work faster!

His pressed his hooves against the tree once more and pushed in tandem with Twilight’s pulls. The intense sensations all over him were too much to bear that he wished for the swift release from its grasp.

But the tree had nothing in store for him except a slow and torturous end.

All at once his hooves gave out and his neck grew slack. Defeated and on the brink of passing out, he shut his eyes and waited for it to exact its retribution upon him.

Everything ceased abruptly, giving him the respite he desired. He reopened his eyes and stared around in bewilderment; Twilight mimicked his actions a moment later. It was so startling that it took them a moment to discover what had happened.

The tree had utterly vanished without rhyme or reason.

How was that possible? Trees couldn’t just get up and walk away. They didn’t have minds of their own either, even if this one seemed to have a vendetta against him. So there was no reason for it to be gone. Unless...

“Why hello, dear old friend. Did you miss me?”

It was Discord, of course.

“And here I thought we were becoming the best of pals.” Discord feigned sadness with his paw covering his mouth. Then, a disembodied claw came with a tissue, which he promptly used to blow his nose. “The thanks I get for helping out a stumped friend.” He dropped his facade with a chortle. “Get it? Because you were stuck in its trunk. I crack myself up sometimes.”

“That’s not funny.” Twilight snapped right before having to evade a discarded tissue. “Tim could have been seriously hurt.”

“Speak for yourself. That was hilarious! Oh, don’t give me that face. Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear before. I would never allow any real danger to come to our mutual friend over there. A promise is a promise, after all.” With a slight wave of his paw, Tim was encased in an nearly imperceivable bubble.

No sooner than the protective energy had formed, a series of blows struck out at Tim. It wasn’t apparent where they came from, but a barrage of arrows bounced away from him, the sharpened blade of a giant ax bent perfectly to the magic’s shape, and a roaring blaze failed to so much as singe Tim’s coat. He was impervious.

“See?” Discord gestured to his construct and the aftermath it caused. The grass had been charred near his hooves, arrows were lodged into nearby trees and bushes, and the ax clattered against the ground. Tim, however, was unaffected. After Discord dispelled the barrier, he declared, “Not a hair out of place.”

Tim shook violently and stared at the carnage in every which direction. Everything had happened so fast that he scarcely had time to react. And in a flash it was made to seem as if it hadn’t even happened at all.

“But where’s the harm in a small hazard now and again?” Discord continued. “It’s no fun when you know what comes next. What was it that Peppermint H. K. Swirl used to say? ‘Life’s either a daring adventure or nothing at all.’”

Tim blinked, dazed at the sight of their now unbesmirched surroundings. It all seemed so surreal. Was any of that real? Was that truly Discord’s magic at play, or could he have imagined it? Maybe nothing was real after all, and he mistook some stimulus from the real world for the pummelling he received from Twilight’s friends.

“And what of Equestria’s destruction.” Twilight’s nose flared, and her eyes furled. “Would you call that a small hazard?”

There was nothing more satisfactory to Tim than watching somepony else chew out Discord. The draconequus sweated and looked anywhere but at Twilight. “Oh, would you look at the time. We-need-to-send-little-Timmy-here-home-while-we-still-can!”

“You can’t just ignore–”

Twilight couldn’t finish what she was saying before Discord, Tim, and her were all transported somewhere far away. The world around them suddenly appeared to be a lot smaller. They found themselves standing in front of a single house on a small, floating island. Beyond every corner of the island seemingly endless expanse of purplish, swirling vortexes.

The mare seemed keen to continue her statement until she finally sighed. “You and I will save this discussion for later. Don’t think for a second I’ll let you off the hook so easily.”

Tim stepped toward the outer boundaries of the island, mesmerized and unable to make heads or tails of what he was seeing. There was no way Discord could have conceived anything like this. The things he did were cheap parlor tricks by comparison. It was so breathtakingly magnificent that this must be some kind of dream-like fantasy. He wondered what it was made of, so he reached a curious hoof to touch it.

Over by the house, Discord acted as if he didn’t hear Twilight’s threat. “Welcome to my abode! You’ll have to excuse the mess, but It’s been a millennia since I’ve entertained guests. Oh, Goody, I can’t wait to show off my limited collector’s edition of Buckball cards. Most of the sports your kind take part in are dreadfully boring, but I find Buckball to be–”

Discord stopped to warn Tim, but only when his hoof touched the colorful mass did he hear it. By then it had been too late, and he was mercilessly absorbed by the unknown.

Everything was a distorted mess straight away. His whole body was subjected to immense forces that ebbed and waned in uneven spreads. It was never enough that his muscles began to ache, but he was very quickly overcome with nautiousness.

The way in which his appendages appeared drastically changed in size with each passing moment didn’t help matters. One second his hoof was twice the size of a bowling ball, and then it was as small as a mouse not long after.

As Tim floated there in the abyss, He recounted every experience since coming to Equestria that led up to that point. He had gone through far worse pains than this, some of which he thought he’d die from. But nothing compared to that indescribable torment inflicted upon him. He’d wish for death to save him from this hell, but he was terrified he’d instead meet a fate far worse before his eternal rest.

At some point, he wasn’t sure whether minutes had passed or hours, he could see the outlines of a figure up ahead. Its shape was like nothing he had ever seen, an unsightly disfigurement which vaguely resembled a face.

And then, something grabbed him.

Alarm bells went off in his head. Whether this was a real world or not, his indecisiveness would now lead to him being devoured in both flesh and spirit.

I’m doomed! he thought.

It pulled. It pulled hard and fast, and then pulled some more. Together, he and the creature swam through the substance. His body met resistance along the way, forces directing him this way and that. A raging torrent of forces flowed around him, and he could feel more than one leg dislocate under the stress. He clenched his eyes shut and tried to scream in pain, but it took him until now to realize he couldn’t breathe. This was it. This was the end.

Then, nothing.

...

...

...

...

...

“The Discordant Pool of Chaos sure did a number on that tiny body of yours. A Being of Chaos in Training you may be, but perhaps you should hold off becoming one with the Pool for a few eons.”

Oh. He lived.

“What a mess.” Twilight paled after galloping over to them. “You don’t look so good. Are you alright?”

Tim would have liked to answer that, but he too weak. And in agony. And a lot of other indistinguishable feelings. A dual emotion played inside of him, one being tremendous relief that it was over, and the other being apprehension that it could he could just as easily go through it again.

He eyed the Pool with the urge to crawl away.

Then, it winked at him.

The Pool was the stuff legends were made of. It made the supernatural seem tame by comparison. And it winked at him.

He scurried all the way to the front door of Discord’s house with renewed energy, and he wished he could get farther away from it still. Unfortunately, the door had other plans in mind, for it remained shut in his collision against it.

“What’s gotten into you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Twilight asked.

Discord, on the other hoof, wasn’t bothered by Tim’s uncharacteristic behavior. He chuckled and said, “So you’ve discovered the Pool’s life essence. You truly are a prodigy of the arcane arts of Chaos Magic; it took me a millenia do the same. It opened my eyes to the wonders of magic!”

Tim had no interest in becoming a being of chaos. He shook his head fervently, refusing to so much as acknowledge he saw anything at all. That he had any such potential. He was just seeing things. Yeah, that’s all.

Twilight perked up, however, and she clapped her forehooves in glee. “That sounds so exciting! I wonder what all the Pool could teach me in the ways of magic and harmony!” She stopped herself to pull out a quill and scroll. With her mouth still full, she asked, “What can you tell me about its life essence?”

Discord shook his head disappointedly. “Twilight, Twilight, Twilight. You’re a Princess of Friendship, one of the Elements of Harmony. You couldn’t possibly become one with the Discordant Pool of Chaos.”

Twilight deflated a bit, knowing there would forever be some unattainable knowledge out there.

“As for its life essence, it’s really quite complicated and hard to explain without creating numerous contrivances to Tim’s tale.” The draconequus began floating over to Tim and his home as he carried on their conversation.

“What do you mean, ‘contrivances to Tim’s tale’?” She asked as soon as she began following him. Then she perked up as she realized what he’d meant. “You mean we’re all just some part of story being controlled by the machinations of a much larger entity? This explains so many questions, like why Equestria is flat, and how anything can be explained away by simple explanations. And it raises so many new questions, like what the true meaning of life is and–”

Discord’s response was immediate. “‘42.’”

“Really? The complex reason for our entire existence can be summed up by a number?” Twilight scratched her chin in contemplation. “That’s not a very satisfying answer.”

“Sadly, Twilight, not even I have the power to set the rules of the universe.” The disappointment in Discord’s body language seemed genuine. He threw his whole body forward as if in frustration, his arms now dangling as if he’d draped his body over something. He was now close enough for Tim to see the weariness in his eyes.

“...If it’s a number, though, that means there’s a formulation which results in said number. If I can work backwards from the result, I might equate it to the purpose of life! I can’t wait to get back to my lab to start running some–”

“It’s not as if you’re going to remember any of this after you leave here,” Discord muttered.

By this point, both of them had rejoined Tim at the door. Still, he could barely hear what the Lord of Chaos had said, and he doubted Twilight could either.

“What?” The princess asked.

“Nothing.”

After opening the front door, Discord brought his guests inside. There was too much for poor Tim to look at. Everything was in disarray; there was no rhyme or reason to where the furniture was placed, or why all of his animated possessions acted as if they had a life of their own. All of it made him dizzy, so he had to look away.

“And we’re here,” Discord said, “This is the one spot in all of our lands where I can send you back to your own dimension. Do you have any last words before you embark on your journey? The pain you’ll have to endure is sure to be excruciating. You might not make it back.”

Tim didn’t know why the madman even bothered asking him. It’s not as if he could talk, and the guy had already been inside his head once before, so shouldn’t he have known that he wouldn’t?

Wait, what did Discord say? No, wait, he hadn’t prepared himself yet! After what he had just experienced, that last thing Tim wanted was to–

“No? Well, in that case, bon voyage!”

“Discord, did you really have to scare...”

As Twilight spoke, she seemed to grow quieter. At first Tim didn’t know what to make of it, but it had to have been Discord’s work. It was as if he suddenly saw the whole world through tunnel vision that steadily became darker and darker. The transition was surprisingly gradual and calming, and before long he could no longer see Twilight or Discord at all. Instead, he saw stars in every direction, and all was still.

Then, some force propelled him forward at tremendous speeds through space unknown. Entire galaxies whizzed past him as streaks of light until he started feeling his body being torn apart molecule by molecule.

Time seemed to slow to an agonizing halt. Or perhaps it was going by faster. He couldn’t really tell. He must have passed out a dozen times or more from the pain as he felt himself disassemble and then reassemble. Over and over again like a record on loop.

At some point, a harrowing thought came to mind: Was he even the same person anymore?

He’d ponder this question to himself in the times where it hadn’t become so unbearable it left him devoid of thought. Perhaps he’d never find the answer, or that it really even mattered. And it was just one question floating along in an unending sea of questions.

The most frustrating part about all of it was that he couldn’t even tell anyone. How could he when it all sounded utterly insane? People could mistake him for being one of those loonies. He very well could be, but that's besides the point.

Was he supposed pretend none of this ever happened and go on with his life? That may have been for the best, but the real question was, could he? Would he even want that? He may have not been there for long, and it may have been the wildest, most violent experience he’d ever had. But now that it was all over, he thought he’d might miss it, strange as that may seem.

It wasn’t all that bad, after all. Twilight and Fluttershy both seemed really nice. If there was some way for him to stay connected, and go back and forth as he pleased, then he might have even enjoyed his stay there. He unexpectedly found himself wishing...

...

...

...

...

The crash landing onto his bed was both soft and rough, and his entire room violently shook from the impact of his body into the mattress. Still feeling the intense force of multi-dimensional travel, he flailed about and rolled off the bed.

His face struck the ground, and he groaned internally as he tried to nurse his growing headache. He brought his hand up to his temple, and but something felt off about it. Something which he didn’t think he’d ever be confronted with again.

Then someone barged into his room. “Timothy?”

It was his mother. He was home at last. Everything would finally go back to the way things were before.

His mother continued, “Is that you? Where have you be– ahhhh!!!”

That was the moment Tim realized he was still a pony, despite returning to his home world, and that a whole new journey of mayhem was waiting for him.

---

This journey ends as it began, with us lamenting over one individual’s unfortunate circumstance. Having been witness to a series of chaotic events, each one more absurd than the last, Tim has been irrevocably scarred to the point of insanity and back. When one has been plucked from his own reality and displaced in a world so vastly different from his own, though, one could hardly expect there to be another outcome. Alack, he has forever become trapped within the confounds of the chaos that Discord sowed.

One might ask whatever became of Tim. Because Discord unwittingly schooled him to the chaotic nature of magic, and it undoubtedly would follow him everywhere he went for the rest of his life, the young stallion eventually learned how to control his newfound powers and somewhat shape the events of his everyday life. That’s not to say he had total control, for there was never truly any freedom from chaos for him. He was like a puppet, and it was his master who pulled on his strings. Still, he had some measures of success to go along with his sacrifices, and he would eventually find himself once more in the Everfree Forest under much different circumstances. But that is a story for another time.

Author's Note:

And thus, we have come to the end of A Series of Chaotic Events. I had a ton of fun writing it, and I will most certainly miss this project. However, I have other projects which I must attend to as well, and this has been good practice for me. I think I was pretty bad at comedy when I first started this, and this may just be my own wishful thinking, but I may have learned something from this. Maybe instead of being awful, I could be mediocre in the future.

And even when I started to become super critical of my writing in general, sometimes to the point of not posting things, this always provided a nice break away from my own harsh criticisms.

Comments

[Even Evil Has Standards]

And...the Mane 6?

[Cadiefly]

9430671

Thanks! the tag has now been removed. I must have forgotten to do that before when I made adjustments to my plot. Although perhaps I should still tag Twilight since she's featured more heavily in the later chapters. Hm. What do you think?

[Even Evil Has Standards]

9430698
That's not what I meant.