Chapter One
PAST
“No, no, no!” Discord screamed in his thoughts. This wasn’t supposed to happen! He ruined these ponies’ friendship. How could they unite after all the work he put into corrupting them? It shouldn’t have been possible!
How exciting!
Being turned into stone? Less exciting. He would rather die. There was only a couple of seconds left to decide on a course of action or else he’d be stuck in that prison until all the Bearers of the Elements died off!
If only the Elements didn’t exist. If only he had been able to destroy them, then he’d be free to roam forever. How unfair!
The rainbow light was getting closer.
Elements of Harmony, how disgusting. How unnatural! Chaos and Order… There should not be anything to tip the scales! The Elements favored Order even though Harmony could not exist without Chaos and he should be punished for thinking Chaos was more fun?! He needed to level the playing field, he needed to get rid of them. Go back in time? Possible, but not advised since changing the past ruins the Harmony and the Elements wouldn’t allow it, especially when at this very moment, their power was coming toward him…
The future, however…
Surely the Elements couldn’t last forever?
There must be some point in the future where they were destroyed or stopped existing or… or…
Oh but it was so risky.
Teleport to the future… well, he had done it before, and he could do it again! He knew how to recover this time. His future self would not be happy with him, they never were, but he just needed to switch places and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. It was every Draconequus for himself! Even if that Draconequus was himself.
Seconds ticking down, Discord summoned all the magic he could. He needed a future… where the Elements were no more. His magic locked on to something and he snared it like a hook. He gave it an experimental tug. It would be a solid transfer.
The six ponies ahead of him were still glowing and floating in the air. So, so sure of themselves. They were completely unaware of what he was planning.
How utterly hilarious.
He couldn’t help but laugh as he teleported across time and everything flashed white.
PRESENT
“I must say, you’re a wonderful host, Fluttershy! Smooze here has never felt so welcome,” Discord said, patting his globby green friend on what could be called a head. Slime dribbled off his talon and he discretely wiped it on Angel bunny and frowned. “Perhaps I should have hosted it, seeing as it seems to have made itself quite at home here…”
“Oh, it’s no problem at all!” Fluttershy said. “I’m honored to host the Smooze’s first tea party. It certainly seems to be enjoying my teacups.” She looked at a few of her teacups floating inside of Smooze with a hint of concern, though the Smooze gave her a goopy smile. She gave it a smile in return but it was quickly wiped away when the Smooze proceeded to suck her teacup away from her and into itself.
Discord raised an eyebrow and snapped his fingers, summoning a new teacup for Fluttershy into her hooves. She smiled at him gratefully and poured herself another serving. Discord took it upon himself to float two sugar cubes into her cup. A smaller Discord, a copy, slid up her teacup with a spoon and began to stir it for her. When Fluttershy thanked him, he saluted her and used the spoon to catapult himself into the larger Discord’s cup, splashing his face.
“Really,” Discord scoffed when his smaller incarnation settled himself inside as if in a hot tub, donning sunglasses and holding a small iced tea complete with an umbrella. He dumped him out and onto the floor. The smaller Discord blew a raspberry at him and disappeared in a flash of light just before the Smooze could absorb him.
“If you don’t mind me asking, where does Smooze live?” Fluttershy asked.
Discord clapped his hands together. “Oh! Now that’s an interesting story! You see, Smoozy here was causing a brouhaha out in Maris and Celestia had me reign him in!” He leaned forward and wrapped an arm around Fluttershy, nuzzling her cheek. “I had the brilliant idea to take a page from your book and attempt to reform it! Of course, all our viscous friend needed was a proper place to stretch itself so I invited it to live in my realm!” He left out the part where Smooze did not quite have the mental capacity to know it was doing evil and therefore a reformation was not required. All he did was the equivalent of sweeping Smooze under the rug in his house.
“You’re roommates? I had no idea!”
Discord withdrew and pursed his lips. “Ah, well, ‘roomies’ isn’t quite right.” In a flash, he was wearing a red sweater and black tie and was kneeling to tie the laces on his new shoes. “We’re more like friendly neighbors.”
Smooze jiggled, clearly pleased to be the topic of discussion. Fluttershy couldn’t help but giggle when the Smooze gave Discord a big sloppy kiss. Discord laughed loudly and wrapped his mismatched limbs around his friend in a hug, coating his new outfit in slime. When Smooze oozed out of his grip, Discord turned towards Fluttershy, a mischievous glint in his eye. Her eyes widened and she flapped her wings to lift herself off her cushioned chair but it was too late, Discord already tackled her, flipping her in the air as she squealed and hugging her tightly to him, making sure to get as much goop as he could on her.
“Discord! Stop!”
Still laughing, he ruffled her mane as she pawed at his face with a hoof, trying halfheartedly to push him away. Below them, Smooze absorbed Fluttershy’s tea set and table, growing so it could reach them and envelop them both.
Discord, however, decided that Fluttershy more than likely reached her limit in this nonsense. He released her and wiped some goop off her face. She gazed at him for a minute, an expression of amusement with a touch of exasperation on her face, then looked down and stroked the Smooze with her hoof, smiling at it sweetly.
“We simply must invite Smoozy to future tea parties!” Discord said, delighted with how their little gettogether was going. Fluttershy looked around her cottage at the slime coated walls and Discord followed her gaze. Smiling sheepishly, he snapped his fingers to vanish his outfit and the goob he left on Fluttershy and left the cottage sparkling clean. “Perhaps not our next one.”
“Perhaps not,” Fluttershy agreed.
“I believe now is the time for teacakes?” Discord asked, materializing a plate from air. His eyes bulged when Smooze engulfed them. He jerked the plate out of Smooze with a growl, baring his teeth when he realized that the teacakes had been devoured by his soon-to-be-dead-ex-friend.
Fluttershy waved a hoof. “Now, now, there’s no need to worry. I have some extra snacks in storage.”
“Dear Fluttershy, so patient, so kind! Unlike somepony…” When Fluttershy turned away to pull something from her food storage, Discord elbowed the Smooze as hard as he could, but the Smooze remained oblivious as the elbow went straight through it. Discord pulled his elbow out, covered in goo with a pout.
Fluttershy turned back toward him, two plates in her hooves. “Ok, Discord, I have carrot-lime teacakes or ginger-“
What else Fluttershy had, Discord wasn’t able to find out because in that moment the world tilted in front of his eyes and he felt his own magic begin to drain from him as though Tirek had returned and had decided to feast on him from behind. His vision blurred and he lurched forward, unable to keep himself floating anymore. His face smacked into the ground and everything flashed white and tasted like plaid.
Just as quickly as his magic had been drained, it was returned.
Embarrassed and confused, Discord lifted his face from the ground, sprouting several heads to look around at his surroundings for how Smooze and Fluttershy responded to his tumble. Smooze was jiggling in place, for once no smile on its face and Fluttershy… was nowhere to be seen.
“Fluttershy?”
Discord floated into the air. Smooze slid to the side next to the wall but Discord paid him no mind. The state of the cottage had his full attention.
It looked wonderfully… chaotic. His mouth turned up into a grin. The floor was checkered and the furniture was alive, jumping around and chasing each other. There were a few animals still inside, giant mice and tiny cats. Bunnies with grotesquely long legs and tortoises that zipped around at high speeds. Outside he could see day and night switching back and forth, chocolate rain was falling from pink cotton candy clouds.
Discord opened the window and stuck his head out to take a better look outside, chuckling. He wondered if that feeling of power draining was actually more of a chaotic outburst. The resulting chaos would explain why he was able to recover his power so quickly. Since he was a Spirit of Chaos, that meant the more chaos there was around him, the more powerful he became to create even more chaos. He was his own battery. But… as wonderful as Ponyville’s revamp was, he had something more important to deal with.
“Well, Smoozy, we have a problem on our hooves,” Discord said, slamming the window shut. He closed the blinds that hadn’t been there a second ago and the room was bathed in a black and white palette. The Smooze just stared at him (as well as it could without eyeballs), ignorant of the large hat with a fancy feather on its head and fluffy boa around its nonexistent shoulders. “You are here, and she is not. There’s a world of Chaos out there and somepony should be blaming me for it and there is not. Since Fluttershy is one of Princess Twilight Sparkle’s friends, she could be in danger.” He bared his teeth and lowered a detective hat to shade his eyes so his glowing red irises were more obvious. “That simply will not do.”
Discord snapped his talon and the cottage was returned to normal. “Just like Fluttershy likes it,” Discord thought. Another snap and he shrunk the Smooze and had it placed in a jar attached to a rope wrapped around his own neck. He pat the jar with his lion paw.
“Comfy?”
Of course, he got no verbal answer and he didn’t wait for one. Instead, Discord locked onto Fluttershy’s magical signature (the one all creatures had, Unicorn or not) and teleported to her location in a flash of light.
Crack!
“I don’t understand how the Elements of Harmony could fail. This doesn’t make sense,” Twilight Sparkle said. She paced back and forth in front of her friends, obviously worried. Discord’s laugh echoed in her mind and she shook it away.
“Maybe somethin’ busted them,” Applejack said, tapping her element with her hoof.
“Or maybe Discord corrupted us more than I thought,” Twilight said, stopping and looking at all of them. “Maybe our friendship wasn’t… maybe it wasn’t powerful enough…”
“That’s pafooey!” Pinkie said. She grabbed Fluttershy and held her close. “We’re the bestest best friends there is! I don’t feel like a grumpy pants anymore and you are all acting like my best friends, just like you always do!”
“This is probably some kind of Discord trick,” Rainbow Dash growled, stomping her hoof and snorting. “We gotta find Discord and take him down! I say we do it the old fashion way!”
“We know he’s around somewhere,” Rarity said, narrowing her eyes and glaring up at the pink cotton candy clouds. “His chaos is still afoot and I will not stand by and allow him to make a fool of us again!”
Twilight frowned and resumed her pacing. “This might be more difficult than we imagined. Discord knows we have the Elements. If he escaped so easily this time, it might be because this was all part of some big master plan for all of Equestria. For all we know this could be the start of something worse! Whatever we do, we must hold onto the Elements and we need to stick together! Discord could pop up at any momen-“
Crack!
“Hello, everypony!” Discord cried, limbs outstretched as he popped in front of them in a flash.
Fluttershy shrieked and hid behind Pinkie Pie who was grabbed by Rarity in horror. Applejack and Rainbow Dash jumped ahead, chests puffed out and displaying their Elements. Twilight leaped into a better position in front of her friends, horn charged with magic and pointed straight at Discord’s chest.
Discord didn’t even seem to notice as he put his arms on his hips and peered down at them, grinning.
“And here I thought my friends were in trouble again!” Discord said. He wasn’t surprised that they appeared to be angry at him. He noticed this side of Ponyville was also transformed into a chaotic paradise and clearly these ponies weren’t happy about it. He stretched his neck out to the side to peer at Fluttershy. “My dear, you really shouldn’t pull that vanishing act, you know.”
She squeaked and covered her eyes. The other ponies took a better position in front of her to shield her from view.
Discord raised an eyebrow. Had he looked angry when he said that? That hadn’t been his intention…
“Discord!” Twilight shouted. “You shouldn’t have shown up again! This time we’ll put you in stone forever! We won’t miss!”
This caused him to laugh. “Oh, Twilight, you are a hoot! Put me in stone? Quite the threat you make to a friend. Tell me, how in Equestria are you going to put me in stone when the Elements of Harmony were used to… to….” Discord’s eyes bulged as they landed on the crown that laid upon Twilight’s head. He quickly leaned back, baffled. He couldn’t find the words to convey his thoughts, all he managed was a weak, “Twilight?”
She seemed to gain some confidence in his fear and stomped both hooves in front of her, bracing herself. “Come on girls!”
Her friends scrambled into position, Elements displayed proudly around their necks.
‘Betrayal,’ Discord thought frantically, eyes wide as he backed away. His heart was thudding in his chest and his mind spun, trying to find a reason for this. It didn’t make sense and for once he didn’t like it. Of course this would happen. Why did he think otherwise? They just used him, they didn’t want to be friends, not really. They just wanted his magic to… to…
‘Fluttershy wouldn’t let them betray me…’
He winced and looked at the ponies in front of him again, though his vision blurred. Magic of Friendship. GAG! If that magic existed they wouldn’t have needed the Elements, they wouldn’t have needed him. It was all a lie.
‘Something’s not right…’
He tried to focus. His eyes landed first on Twilight Sparkle. More specifically, her back.
‘No wings... Wait… No wings!’
Discord’s mouth dropped.
These ponies weren’t his friends! At least, not yet.
He almost sagged in relief. There was no time, however, since Twilight was now charging her Element.
Discord wasted no time and he teleported as far away as he could.
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Past Discord might think he's safe but the girls have the Rainbow Power in the future he just crashed, and it works almost exactly like the elements. Though future Discord is going to have a hard time getting anypony to believe him.
Oh my gosh this fanfic is great! I actually had a concept similar to this that I wanted to do but I could never fully flush it out. Please oh please let there be more chapters! I'm itching to see what happens next with past Discord and Present Fluttershy.
I love this fanfic already!!! Great job!
Dammit make another chapter ;-;
I wonder how past Discord will react to finding out his "future" self is friends with Fluttershy.
You write a wonderful Discord! I love it! He can be tricky to write, especially with his magic, but you've done a great job!
Definitely following this - poor future Discord has a tough time ahead of him, and I'm looking forward to see how he deals. Past Discord, on the other hand, is screwed. I just hope he doesn't wreck future Discord's reputation too much. :P
more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! please?
Wow.
I didn't know just how much I've wanted this until just now. I'm really curious about how future Discord will react to this situation. Keep up the amazing work!
Now we just need to figure out how in Equestria they can reconcile the impending Butterfly Effect so that the resulting paradox of a future self altering the past and vice versa doesn't destroy the universe as we know it.
Or you know, chaos magic. *shrug*
Now I wonder if the Elements would even do anything to a reformed Discord?
Inb4 elements stop working on discord
Más más más está historia me encanta y tiene mucho potencial 💖
Huh, that's starting out fairly interesting. I think this'll be much more fun than the average "time-travelling Discord" story. It's about characters I actually want to read about, for one, not random OCs from the ass-end of time.
I read the premise, terrified it was going to be done poorly. It has not, so far, and for that I am liking and fave'ing so I can enjoy the ride with everyone else. Thanks, and looking forward to your next chapter!
8416947
I doubt it. Discord will just create a new timeline separate from the current one, probably. I mean the alternate timelines Starlight created still exist, so that means the MLP timeline branches rather than overwrites itself.
A strong start and interesting premise. Consider me hooked.
Just one niggle, though:
The sentence structure's a bit odd in this bit. As it is, it sounds like "with a pout" is a modifier for the description of Discord's elbow, rather than Discord himself. It probably would work better as
or
Or something along those lines.
8417417
Well, it is a sentient pile of goop. For all we know, the goo was pouting. It would certainly be fitting.
With him teleporting away at the end, I am reminded of this particular story.
So far, so good. I'm curious to see where you're going to take this. Tracking.
Oooh~ I like this~!
I think it would have been more interesting if you didn't teleport away and instead got hit by the blast. However the blast had no effect because you know he wasn't all chaotic evil anymore, but rather amusingly chaotic. That confuses the mane 6 and The Story Goes On from there.
8418016
Yeah - the Elements recognise there's actually nothing to purge, nothing to justify re-petrification (or, as I like to joke, 'getting stoned again'), and thus does absolutely nothing.
Ponies get confused, Discord wonders for a bit until he realises the Elements realised he's reformed, story continues.
Though I am looking forward to seeing how reformed!Discord deals with the mess evil!Discord left behind, and whether he'll realise evil!Discord is now corrupting his future, and if that future-corruption will affect the present in any way...oh Celestia my mind hurts.
This is amazing. A great idea, executed wonderfully.
Can't wait for the next chapter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVoE1syitK4&list=PLq7JnVtvfZsXizd3OIL02JKkwJ_jmNKbW&index=11
Oooooh. Yes. This ought to be very interesting.
8418016
In that case, I guess the mane six would probably have deduced that the Elements "cured" Discord like they did for Luna. I'm sure Discord suddenly being friendly is way more confusing.
Oh my God I want more.
This is an interesting concept. I wonder how Discord plans to deal with the paradox which would result if the self he's sent to the past does befriend the ponies earlier and alter the timeline.
He may destroy the universe via temporal chaos unintentionally.
8415730 Where is this idea that everyone has that the Mane 6 can now release Rainbow Power at will coming from? They only have the Rainbow Power when they are releasing a magical box/seed from the Tree of Harmony. In 3 seasons we've seen them fight many foes, but never since the S4 finale have they used Rainbow Power again, even when it would save the world.
Now this is a good example of a first chapter. Hook, exposition and then end with a cliffhanger. Awaiting more!
8419333
Alternatively, it's not so much timetravelling back in time in his *own* timeline, so much as it is jumping into *another* timeline in an alternate universe where time hadn't progressed quite as far as his own. Or some crap like that, it's magic!
If yesterday discord doesnt go back then tomorrow discord is in an endless time loop of being constantly making friends with the six, over and over again.
Also I did this before I read so im probably wrong about what im thinking about
8419333
This
8420197
Changing he past does absolutly nothing because instead of changing it you cause it or do nothing to it, because you already did it
8419922
"Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep", the opening. I realize yes " it's a dream" but how could Luna know what the rainbow forms looked like? None of the other princesses actually saw them. That is a strong implication they used them at some other point Luna saw. And I say Implication here so you can't "correct" me, because neither the show or comic has said if the powers where a 1 shot or still usable.
Hmmm. Ah hope there's moar. :D
oh shit im hooked I hav over 250 chapter im beind on andi just got hooked on another story god damnit
8418016
Would've probably short-circuited the story a bit, I think. This was, if nothing else, a reasonable way for him to react and it allows for some character conflict as they track him down. Having everyone go "oh well, guess he's nice now!" after shooting a blank at him would've been a bit anticlimactic.
8420089 Alternate timelines are the only way to get around the paradoxes. But in this case, it seems it's just regular time travel.
Harmony isn't order. It's Chaos and Order working together toward BALANCE. That's how living things work. Too much order, you have lifeless crystals which can't carry out any processes. Too much chaos, the thing is dead and decaying.
Only in perfect homeostasis does life carry on.
Interesting premise. Let's see where this goes.
8420729 If the Discords truly swapped places, then future Discord SHOULD have ended up getting hit by the Rainbow Ex Machina laser, which was firing at the time. See, due to point displacement and celestial motion, if the cosmic spatial locales of the two parties swapping temporal locales were bound only by relative temporal locations, then each party would end up floating about in space as the planet or other body they were on in each moment would have moved out of the positions upon which the other was standing upon. But, if they swapped fixed locations WITHIN their relative temporal locations, then they would remain on the planet exactly in the position the other Discord left from.
It's timey-whimy. (steps into his Tardis and turns on the flux capacitor)
8420872
Clearly, the complexities of chaos mathemagics applied a transformative vector to his spatial positions and relative velocities along an inertial system aligned to absolute space. No issue here at all.
8420884 Ooo, now that brings up the nature of the Equestrian universe... what if they are in a completely fixed system with a motionless Equestria at its center? What if their world IS as the ancients believed our universe to be? Then that would explain why their time travel always drops them in the same places. Now, that wouldn't hold for the Moon or any other body in their universe, since those DO move, but so long as they're on the planet they won't move an inch from their locations no matter how far into the future or past they travel.
But what a lonely universe it would be... no other worlds at all... And it would be a very small universe, no bigger than perhaps the Trappist-1 system.
OMG... what if their world is an artificial microverse being used as a zero-point energy production system! And an evil space cockroach is trying to steal it from the Men in Black!
8420345 The first night after Tirek was defeated and Rainbow Power was unleashed by the Tree of Harmony through the Mane 6, what do you think every single pony in Equestria dreamed of? Almost certainly the Rainbowed-up version of the Mane 6 they just a few hours ago, returning their magic to them. The Mane 6 themselves probably dreamed about their cool magical blast that defeated Tirek. And who saw a huge sampling of those dreams? Luna, walking among everyone's dreams.
Luna probably knows exactly what the Rainbow forms of the Mane 6, just as she knows exactly what Chrysalis looks like from the dreams of citizens of Canterlot, even though she's never seen Chrysalis in person (before the S6 Finale).
Why do you think the Mane 6 didn't unleash Rainbow Power when Starlight locked them up all night in the propaganda hut? They had lost their cutie marks and magic of course, but they had also lost their cutie marks and magic when Tirek drained it from them, and that didn't stop them from unleashing Rainbow Power then. The only controlling variable is that in Twilight's Kingdom they could pull power from the Tree of Harmony and the Magic Box/Seed, and they didn't have those in Our Town.
This reminds me of that one Ben 10: Omniverse episode entitled Ben Again, where due to the meddlings of Eon, the 11-Year Old Ben & the 16-Year Old Ben ended up switching Minds with each other, resulting in 16-Year Old Ben being stuck in his 11-Year Old Body in the Past, while 11-Year Old Ben was stuck in his 16-Year Old Body in the Present.
8421381
You asked where the idea came from. I explained why it could be so, it's still valid. Your version is just a valid, you don't have to use mine, but I had a decent reason. The power could be tied to their cutie marks specifically, meaning when Starlight took their marks the powers couldn't be used but Terik only took their magic. See perfectly reasonable alternative to just not having the powers anymore. There has been not situation where it's been proven they do or don't still have the rainbow powers. Chrysalis kidnapping them, she got them one at a time. After being set free, for what purpose? Chrysalis was already beaten, no reason to blast her.
Look this isn't an attack, I am just explaining that my idea didn't come outta thin air and is just as possible.
8421415
Ok, I can see why you would see it that way.
8420784
Paradoxes dont happen.
They just can't.
changeing the past is impossible because you already did it. You already went in the past. You already tried. And failed as soon as you tried it.
Tell me a paradox, ill tell you why it can't happen.