The Elements of Chaos: The Insanity

by WovenTwigs

Thornbloods Mansion

Golden Oak Library - Ponyville

Jackal woke up in cold sweat breathing uncontrollably. This was the 5th nightmare he had this week since the day helped defeat Nightmare Moon and it has been the same one every time. The dreams always start out like one of his regular dreams, but it slowly loses reality and morphs itself in an empty void. He can't move, he cants make a sound, the only thing that he can hear is his own voice in the distance whispering harshly, "I am in control now."

He decided to shake it off and went to get a warm glass of milk to get back to sleep. As he opened the door he noticed Twilight outside looking at him worriedly "I could hear you yelling from my room, is everything ok?"

"Yeah it's fine I'm just going to get a drink," he said as he passed by Twilight towards the kitchen.

We went towards the fridge and took out a carton of milk and placed it on the counter. He rummaged through the cupboards until he found a mug that said Celestias' #1 Student. "Jackal you know that you just can't just brush this off it's been days since you've been having these nightmares they can't be healthy. Also, I can't sleep at all with all of your screamings," she said

"Well don't worry I'll soon have a place of my own and you don't have to worry about me anymore"

She then got even more worried "But still you're not even sleeping properly it can greatly affect you if you don't get any sleep....Jackal?"

She was responded by Jackal snoring as he was overfilling the mug with milk.

She sighed "I'll send a letter to Celestia and I hope she knows what to do."

Mayor Mare's Office

Jackal was sitting in the waiting room waiting for his turn when he noticed... a paper airplane? It landed right in front of him and it just started to unfold by itself. He wondered how was this even possible and who would have written this so he got up and picked up the letter.

It was from Little Betty, he hasn't heard from her since the Nightmare Moon incident. "Hey, Jackal, it's me Little Betty and I know this is sudden but I need you to meet me at the entrance of the Everfree Forest at night for some training, test thingy that you would need if you are planning to stay alive. Great danger looms around the corner and it's better to be safe than sorry. Be there or be square from your pal Lil Betty.

"What the...."

"Jackal your up next," said Mayor Mares secretary

He walked in her office and he saw Mayor Mare sitting in her office filing stacks of papers mumbling to herself. "There is too much work today I really need a vacation. Oh hello Jackal are you ready to sign the final of the paperwork"

"Yeah so where do I sign"

She rummaged through the paperwork until she found it "Just sign the parts that are labeled with an X."

Once he was done Mayor Mare searched through one of the cabinets and got out a key and passed it to him. "There you go I hope that you feel welcomed in your new home and if you ever need anything you know when my office hours are opened if you have any questions."

"I'll be sure to ask," he said as he placed the key in a pouch in his bag.

He walked out of the office and decided to go back to Golden Oaks and pick up his things.

Jackal's New Home

His new home was a little rundown and it only has one floor, one bedroom and bathroom, and a basement. The outside of his house looks like it needs a new fresh coat of paint and the lawn was overgrown but he didn't mind it though. He opened the door and looked around. It looks exactly the same as the last time he was here when they gave him a tour of the available houses for sale. There were two couches and a coffee table in the middle of the living room, the kitchen had a working stove, however, the fridge didn't seem to work so he has to either get it fixed or just throw it out and get a new one.

He walked towards to the bedroom where he started to unpack his things but he didn't go too far before he collapsed on his bed. He couldn't move his body at all and slowly fell out of consciousness.

9:07 PM

When he finally woke up he noticed that it was already night time. He groaned in pain as he got up from his position he felt intense back pain; Lil Betty may have healed him however it seemed that she was able to only heal his spine but there seemed to be still a bit of damage left. He sometimes wakes up like this and usually, he would drink up a pain killer but he finished them all last night.

He grabbed his satchel which just contained some bits, wood carving tools, small metal pieces for some of his puppets, and twine. He realized that he seemed to have skipped lunch so he decided to go and pay Applejack a visit on her apple farm to get something to eat on the way to the Everfree Forest.

As he walked out the front door and locked his house up he noticed his next door neighbor was out watering his lawn. He seemed happy, really happy for some reason "Howdy diddly doo neighbor, you must be new to this neighborhood" he was a gray stallion with light blue hair.

Jackal suddenly frowned "Yeah look I would really love to stay and have a nice chat but I got somewhere to be." he said sarcastically.

"Alright, my name is Buckley by that way if you need anything neighbor my doors are open."

"Yeah sure" Jackal added one more sarcastic tone in his voice right before he left towards Sweet Apple Acres.

Sweet Apple Acres

He found Applejack starting to put away her apple stand for the day and decided to quickly rush towards her before it was too late "Applejack! Don't put them away I need some apples."

"Well sure sugar cube how many do you need"

"How many would this buy me?" He took out some bits and placed them in front of Applejack

"How about this one on the house," she said as she gave the bits back to him "I already met my sales mark for today and you really need it more since you poured mostly every bit just to buy that place of yours. Maybe you can invite me over there some time."

"Sure thanks for the apples though, but I can't just accept them like this maybe i could help out around the place if you like."

"Then how about tomorrow early in the morning you can help me pick some apples."

"Uhh sure I really don't mind I'll be here tomorrow"

He placed the apples in his satchel and started to eat one of them as he walked towards his destination.

Everfree Forest

Lil Betty was sitting on a stump near the entrance when Jackal got there. He took out an apple and tossed it towards her "An apple for my teacher, I hope this will help me pass this test of yours?"

She grinned as she took a bite out of it "Well this test is pretty simple but before you start you will need to learn a bit of history" she got up from her spot and stood at the entrance of the forest "There was once a wealthy family that helped found Ponyville and decided to build a mansion in the Everfree Forest. The stallions name was Thornblood who lost his family to a curse due to his greed and was transformed into a Timberwolf. So I need you to find this mansion and try to get past all of the Timberwolves defeat Thornblood and free him from his curse and you will retrieve a gift inside."

"So you want me to go into a Timberwolf den?"

"Yep I'm rooting for yah" she started to go back to the stump and continued to eat her apple "Don't worry you'll survive"

Jackal stood there shocked but he knew that he must complete this test and possibly get that supposed reward at the end of the challenge. He started to walk into the forest feeling eyes staring at him as he found the path towards the mansion.

Mansion entrance

Jackal was on a tree branch carving out a puppet half his size and started to tie up some string on it. He wanted to be prepared before he would go in there. "Well it's now or never"

He jumped out of the tree and ran towards one of the doors until a pack of Timberwolves started to circle him "Ah crud!"

Some time later

*crash* Jackal broke in through one of the windows and started to run down the hall way with two Timberwolves behind him *crash* three Timberwolves stood right in front of him. He started to back up but then bolted towards the three of them and produced some vitae on his back legs and bucked one of them and broke it to pieces; one of them decided to attack him and bit him on his right front leg.

Jackal howled in pain and reached into his satchel and retired his wooden cross and pulled it out with his puppet. He produced enough vitae to be able to control the puppets movements better than what he could have before. He then made it spin like a top and hit the Timberwolf that was biting him down and broke it into pieces. Two down three to go.

The other one bit down and swallowed the puppet but then exploded due to the mass amounts of vitae that were built in the puppet. Make that three down.

He kept on going down the hallway with the two trailing right behind him until he saw what seemed to be a study room. He sprinted in there and locked the door and pushed over the nearest bookcase in front of the door to reinforce it. He could hear the Timberwolves trying to scratch their way in.

He was safe for now but he was a pain at the moment and produced enough vitae to numb the pain for now and decided to go towards the bathroom off the side of the study room to look for medical supplies.

He found a medicine cabinet but they seemed to be mostly expired but thank Celestia there were some bandages in there.

It took at least a good 10 minutes to pull out splinters from his wound and clean in before he tied it up. He wasn't sure if there would be more Timberwolves reinforcements on their way but he knows that if he could just take out their leader they might fall back.

Unfortunately, he has no idea where would Thornblood would be but he needs to be prepared before he could attack. He saw the large wooden desk in the middle of the study and decided to take out his carving knife and got to work.

It took nearly 2 hours to produce two similar looking puppets like the previous one he had but this wood was a bit more durable.

The door started to break down more violently and it sounds like there are more Timberwolves out there. Well, it was time to execute his plan so he went to the bathroom and opened up the window and stepped on the short ledge and shimmied his way towards another room that seems to be the master bedroom and opened up the window and got in.

"That will buy me some time, for now, I need to figure out where I'm heading."

He searched through the drawers until he found what seemed to be a diary. It seemed to contain the day to day life of Thornblood himself; he went to the last diary entry "My family is gone and I'm alone now. I feel that I am losing control of myself and soon I will become into a Timberwolf permanently. I wish I could just say goodbye one last time to my family...." the rest of the pages are written illegibly to the point it's just scribbles.

"Well that was useless" sighed Jackal "If I were a Timberwolf where would I be?" he looked outside the window and then he saw on the other side of the house where the kitchen was at.

He saw that there was a Timber wolf that seemed larger in comparison to the others that was mostly covered in thorns. "I'm going to take a guess that's him. Great the place is on the other side if I jump out the window and make a run for it ill get ambushed."

There are Timberwolves right next door and if I get out of this one they will track me down there aren't many places to hide in here. His best choice was to create a diversion. He searched around the room for anything he could throw out until he searched in the closet the closet and found a mannequin.

He grabbed it and tossed it towards the window making a loud enough noise and hid in the closet. It only took a few seconds before the room was flooded with them. Once they looked outside they noticed the strange figure if the mannequin and they decided to go down and investigate but one stayed behind. It seems to have gotten his scent.

He was screwed so he bolted out and attacked him by giving a strong enough blow to the head and ran down the hallway. It took nearly 5 minutes to get to his destination trying to avoid his pursuers until he got it the kitchen. There he stood exhausted sweat dripping and stinging his wound as the Timberwolves circled him; there's no way out of this one.

Until he heard a deep growl of Thornblood as he got closer which caused all of the Timberwolves to back off. Thornblood wanted jackal for himself.

"Looks like I made it here" he started to take out the two puppets "you seemed to call back the others, you really want me for yourself huh"

The beast growled more furiously "Well then, come and get me!" this caused the Thornblood to get more aggravated and attacked.

Jackal jumped out of the way and called in one of his puppets to spin and attack. This attack was in vain because once it made contact with him the legs shattered and only left the head and a bit of the body. So he transferred enough vitae to cause a large explosion however that still didn't do any damage either. He was down to one puppet.

Thornbloods speed was way out of jackals league and he managed to get behind him; jackal had no time to respond as Thornblood slashed him with his claws and made a deep wound on his right side.

Jackal screeched in pain but pushed himself to his limit and took this chance and kicked Thornblood in the jaw. Thornblood's mouth was open and now jackal took his chance. He jumped right into the mouth and was swallowed whole.

<TO BE CONTINUED=

Author's Note:

Sorry if this took long but I've been going to college for the first time and I haven't gotten used to it yet. I promise that I will get to work on the chapters as fast as I can and the time I get.