Six ponies stand in front of Discord. Six blotches of Harmony upon his beautiful canvas of Chaos. Their colors, normal. Their personality, normal. Everything about them is normal, and thus abnormal. Discord loves abnormality, but not when that abnormality is because of normality. So, he is thrown into a infinite loop of neutrality, seeing the six as only enemies.
He looks down upon the ponies with amused disdain, “Ugh, you six again? Did you not learn from your last attempt? I won, you lost! Game over, man, game over!”
Pinkie takes a firm stance, “Game not over, girl, game not over!”
Discord shoots back, “Game questionable, attack helicopter, game questionable!”
Pinkie takes in another breath, but Twilight interrupts her, “Discord, we are here to stop you!”
Discord glares at her, “Ugh, then there is you. Where is your sense of fun or humor? At least Pinkie Pie tries to funny.”
She stomps a hoof on the ground, “Enough games, Discord!”
Discord gasps, and falls over in his chair, “Enough games?! Oh, Twilight Sparkle, have you no shame? Need I introduce myself again? Discord, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony? And you say enough games?” He shakes his head, “Tut, tut, Sparkle, bad pony. Don’t make me get a newspaper.”
Twilight shakes her head, “Stop distracting! Girls, come on!”
The six of them start to float in the air, with their Elements glowing. Discord’s eyes widen on sight of this. As the Elements connect themselves Discord switches his opinion and smiles.
He laughs as they all connect, “Oh no, the Elements of Harmony. Whatever is a Spirit of Chaos like myself to do? Oh wait, I know!”
The rainbow beam gets closer to him, and he snaps. Within a blink, he is standing next to his throne. He leans against it, and smiles as the Elements turn it to stone. Twilight gasps, “What- but- that isn’t possible!”
Discord throws his throne away, and creates an even bigger one that is white and red all over. He lounges in it again, “Oh yes, something isn’t possible. Real great thing to say in front of me, you know, the Spirit of doing stuff seen as impossible?” He holds up a nail file, and starts rubbing his talons, “Honestly, I don’t know why others haven’t thought of it. Not like you put any urgency behind it anyway.”
Twilight looks at her friends, “Then we’ll do it once more!”
Discord snaps, and holds her crown in his paw. He smiles, “Sorry, Sparkle, but no.” He crushes the crown in his paw, and holds up the purple gem in the air, “I tried so hard to make you happy with my Chaos. I give you food, I give you fun, I tell jokes, and the entire world is one giant party. Yet you ponies just cannot give up your indoctrination for Harmony. Eh, I suppose that’s my own fault, should’ve led your ancestors better. Should’ve been King, not Ordirus. But, that’s the past.” He throws the gem up in the air, “This is the present.” He catches it back in his paw, “And it soon will be a new chaotic future.”
Twilight growls, “We will never submit to you, Discord.”
He smiles, “Oh, I know, I know. That’s why I will make you see from my perspective. You need to see a world that failed in trying for Harmony to understand my Chaos. To see the horror of them, and realize why you have it so good under me.”
Rainbow flies up, “Yeah, go ahead and try it! We’ll never fall like you!”
Discord laughs, “Oh, idea! What if you, weren’t you?” He smiles, “Oh, yes, I can make a time paradox and make you understand!”
Twilight shakes her head, “A time paradox? You wouldn’t. You can’t!”
Discord smirks, “Oh, poor Twilight, thinking I would decide not to do something. Let’s just say that those who should protect time are not available to do so. They can’t stop me, so who will?”
Twilight takes a step back, “Discord, please, time is not to be messed around with! That’s too much, you’d destroy everything!”
He looks at his talons, “Will I? I really don’t know. Now that’s a first, I don’t know something.”
Twilight rushes at him, “Discord, please, stop! You might die!”
He smiles, “If anything goes wrong, the Time Stone will fix it.”
———
Thanos kneels there, a magical axe shoved through his chest by a very angry Thor. Thor shoves it further in, “You feel that, Thanos? That feeling of your death approaching? Good, now we have something in common. But don’t worry, that feeling will overwhelm you soon enough.”
Thanos coughs roughly, and looks at Thor, “You... you should... you should’ve gone for the head!”
With that proclamation, Thanos raises the Gauntlet.
———
Discord laughs as he says that last sentence, and brings his talons together, with Twilight hopelessly charging him.
———
*Snap!*
The two snaps carry power all across the galaxy. One snap wipes out half of all living beings on a planet, and another falls for a time change and for a body swap.
The power of the two clash with one another, until they start to mingle and mix. The Time Stone senses the presence of a time altering power, and decides to latch upon that. The Mind and Soul Stones see parts of the spell that change their respective categories. The Reality Stone sees the fact that this would alter reality, and stabilizes it. The Power Stone decides to lend it’s own stability to the spell, as to give it a better effect. And the Space Stone decides to expand the effects of the spell.
The spell from Discord also latches onto the minds of those who had been near Thanos and had given him trouble.
———
The sun rises in Equestria, the ponies rise to greet the day. They all smile and prepare, knowing of the Summer Sun Celebration that would occur in Ponyville tomorrow. All, except for six.
Twilight Sparkle is shocked awake within her room, and she starts to feel all around herself, “I’m fine? But, Thanos... we lost! How am I here?” She then looks at her body, “A pony? Oh boy, Wong would love to see me now.” He looks to his left, and sees a cloak and pendent waiting there, waiting for him. She smiles, “Well, at least I still have you two.”
Far away, in Ponyville, a pink pony starts to gasp for air. After a few seconds of gasping, she gingerly touches her throat, “I- I can breathe? I can breathe!” She looks around, “Wait... this isn’t the Statesman.” She then looks down at her body, “And I’m a pony. A pink pony.” She sighs, and seems to create a helmet on her head out of nowhere. Golden, green, and with two horns rising up. She smiles, “Much better.”
Down the road, a white pony wakes from her sleep as well. She looks around, “Oh no, big guy, not again.” She then looks down at her body, “I don’t care how long I was out, you have got some explaining to do.” She sighs, “Couldn’t fight Thanos, but you can take control long enough for me to forget. Wonderful, real wonderful.” He looks to a bedside table, and smiles as he sees his glasses there. He smiles, and slips them onto his unfamiliar face, “At least I can see now.”
On the outskirts of the town, a yellow pony quickly awakes. She looks around her cottage, “Mister Stark? Mister Stark, please, are you there?” She looks down at her hooves, with spider webbing at the end of them, “Mister Stark, I still am not feeling that good.” She then looks back to see wings, shoved against the bed, “Oh, that would make sense.” She then looks out the window, and starts shouting, “Mister Stark, please, I could use some help!”
On another outskirt of the town, is a barn. In this barn, is a orange pony that slowly opens her eyes, “What? Bucky, that you?” She then opens her eyes, and sees her vision obscured by a hat. She takes it off, and looks at it, “But... Thanos won, how am I here? Why do I sound Southern?” She then follows his hoof to his body, “A horse? Is this punishment for something, God?” She then sees the sun catch something shiny. She then faces the shiny object, being greeted by a blue shield with a star in the center, “If that’s here... Tony, what have you done?”
And far in the sky is a cloud shaped like a house. Within wakes a blue pegasus, “No!” She then looks around, “No?” She then takes a look around some more, “This doesn’t look like any of the Realms.” She then looks at herself, “A colorful horse?” She looks all around, until her eyes land upon an axe in the corner of the room, right next to some armor with a red cape. She smiles, “Brother, I feel this is your doing.”
———
Twilight awakes in an empty void, with a bright entity looking at her. She looks at the incandescent orange light as it takes a form like hers. She asks, “Where am I?”
The Soul Stone forms a smile, “Welcome, Twilight Sparkle. This is the Soul Stone. You and your friends shall inhabit this space with me. That is, until you have bodies that are empty.”
———
Twilight gets out of her bed, and her cloak levitates over to her, “Let’s get out of here.”
You know, for once I'd love for one of this stories to be crossing over with the original Infinity Gauntlet story and not the MCU every single time.
9633908
I would, but I’m not familiar with the comics.
9633915
The trade paperback is like 20 bucks max on amazon.
This feels like a story that will get featured.
9633915
Biggest difference is Thanos' motivation. In the comics Death is embodied by the entity Mistress Death and Thanos is hopelessly in love with her. Thanos kills half the universe in the comics just to show Death is devolution to her not his delusion of Balance.
The MCU snap didn't balance the universe, as Thanos killed half of ALL LIFE not just sentient beings. That means plants and animals, reducing the universe's food resources. The death was also indiscriminate, removing people no matter what they where doing and no matter how important they where. That means pilots flying airplanes, soldiers in the middle of battles, doctors performing risky surgery. That means people died in the aftermath and infrastructure was disrupted. Thanos erased half of life which indirectly cause trillions of more deaths seconds later plunging the universe into chaos. That's why he's the villain he intended to bring balance and order but really made things much worse.
9634032
Damn, just thinking about all of the different things that people must have been going through during the snap is really harrowing. Imagine a mother being given their baby for the first time, only for it to fade into ashes in her arms, or the doctor as he’s handing the baby to her. The thought chills my soul, man.
9634032
9633915
1. Actually, The Snap did NOT kill any animals or plant-life, only sapient (@Doctor Disco: corrected from "sentient") beings. If half of animal / plant life had also been eradicated, that would have negated the point and goal of (MCU-)Thanos' trying to "save" the universe of its Overpopulation-drain of resources.
Example: A town (or nation) is starving due to limited (or failing) farmland and animals. You kill off -50% of the town inhabitants (sapient beings), but also destroy -50% of the farmland crops and animals. Result? Half of the town inhabitants remain, yet are >still< starving because of the equally halved resources.
2. But yes, The Snap also did result in far greater casualties than "50%" due to the indiscriminate, and more importantly sudden, disintegrations.
3. As another Thanos-hypocritical point, both in the comics and the MCU, The Snap also was not nearly as indiscriminate as Thanos claimed it would be. The Snap disintegrated primarily good- &/or neutrally-aligned sapient beings. Almost every criminal, Super-Villain, and even basic trooper of HYDRA, made it through The Snap un-molested.
9634202
Sapient. Sapient beings. Animals are sentient. They have established thought processes that are understandable to us. Sapient beings, on the other hand, have higher forms of thinking to the point where we’ve become the highest evolved species. We can reason. We are sapient. Your neighbour’s dog is sentient.
You are basically shooting yourself in the foot by saying Thanos didnt kill any animals or plant life, and proceeding to mention sentient beings as opposed to sapient in the same sentence.
Sorry, it’s a nitpick of mine. I was corrected on it once, and now I want to spread the love.
I’ve also read elsewhere that the Snap did take into account the casualties that would come from the disintegration of others, thus balancing the need for disintegration with the actual deaths of people needed to balance the universe.
Edit: Now that I’ve read the actual story before reading the comments, I am smiling widely with only two words in mind.
Oh sht!
9634358
4. I often confuse (or forget) that terminology difference. Corrected my previous comment.
5. It is not hard-confirmed whether the MCU-Snap was impartially indiscriminate, but generally accepted that it was not; especially given how Clint Barton became the ruthless vigilante Ronin in order to cull the rampant number of criminals that still existed post-Snap globally.
6. Comics-wise, The Snap definitely left most Evil-aligned sapients un-disintegrated, whether sub-consciously or deliberate on Thanos' part (since comics-Thanos is as black-hearted as they come) is not clarified. Comics-wise, it was to give the myriad comic-lines amid the CrossOver event of The Infinity Gauntlet tie-in comics something to struggle against; the few existing heroes against overwhelming villains' presence.
I heard Russo brothers confirmed that the snap took out half of all life including non-sentient ones. I don't accept this however. Just imagine half of all plants dying, Earth would get ecolocigally annahilated. And then imagine half of all microscobic beings dying... yeah, if that was true then all order in the universe would be broken.
Strange sentences.......
9634202
Kevin Feigie said it was all life, and Antman confirmed the reverse work by the reappearance of birds, non-sapients.
As to the quality of people, it's not more bad people survived it's that those bad people who did where inclined to take advantage of the chaos. They are the bad guys, so clearly opportunists. They murder good people.
We must also consider how places that had excess resources still had excess after the snap, they took care of themselves. World powers like the US survived while 3rd world nations got utterly wrecked. A lot and I mean a lot of the consequences of the snap and the reverse happened off screen, like 90% of what happened was not part of the story. We got to see the world 5 years after the snap, those 5 years where utter hell on earth and every other civilized planet in the universe.
*steeples front hooves, a stern expression on her face*
...continue.
9634675
It was only now that I realize I messed up the he/she pronouns here. However, with what happened, it makes sense.
This exchange right here fucking sold me on the story.
Oh fuck this is going to be a trip.
Also, would it be too much trouble or rude to ask you put something in either the long description or in the author's notes of next chapter asking for no spoilers for Endgame to be left in the comments? Some people (myself included) have yet to see it, and wish not to have any pivotal moments ruined in advance. I think there might already be a couple comments that spoiled parts of it...
9635355
No, I got that it was Dr. Steven Strange. I was making a pun, or at least trying.
9635493
Oi, yeah, I’ll get to doing that. I haven’t seen it either.
9635499
Oh shit... it took me longer than it should’ve to see that pun.
9635502
oof
Ugh, an "attack helicopter" joke? Within the first five paragraphs? Really?
Are there gender inconsistencies?