Family of Chaos (8) (Patreon)

Hurricane followed Twilight from the machine, slinging her saddlebags back over her shoulders as she went. It wasn't the small sum of bits inside that mattered anymore—but those possessions all came from ponies she once cared for. If she lost them, they would be gone forever.

"Now we wait. It should only take a few minutes for the image to develop. Then we can figure out how to remove the spell."

It's not a spell. Discord hadn't given her those memories. She knew it with total confidence, though her vision came through only in fragments. She had done all those things, been in all those places. How?

She followed Twilight through the lab anyway. Right or wrong, this unicorn was the closest thing to a way out she could possibly find. They passed through another door, into a small room lit only with a faint red glow. Magic radiated from an apparatus on the wall, carrying a thin slice of paper out of a narrow fluid bath and onto a tray.

"You've done more than I could ask for a stranger," Hurricane said. "Dropping everything for me like this... I don't know how I could ever repay you."

The mare waved a dismissive hoof behind her. "Don't worry about it. I don't expect a thing. Now, let's see what we can do for you." She approached the photo carefully, still looking back at Hurricane. "Discord's chaos magic threatens all Equestria. If you saw what he did when he escaped, you'd do anything to stop it from happening again too." 

She pinned the photo in place, leaving the last few drops of fluid to dribble back into the pan. An image was already forming there, showing the test chamber and the pile of cushions. Her own outline was there, albeit dim and out of focus.

"Readings with this equipment can be quite difficult," Twilight said, lifting a magnifying lens from the desk in front of them. "I may need to take a few more images. The math can get a little complicated, but that's what makes it fun. I'll have to make measurements, chart the distance between field lines..." She lifted something else in her magic, a drafting compass, and a set of fine calipers.

She trailed off abruptly, staring open-mouthed at the image before her. Hurricane stared too, until abruptly she saw what had attracted Twilight's attention.

Her own outline remained fuzzy and indistinct in the image, as though she'd been moving too quickly when the photo was taken. But there was something else overlapping her, a pattern of dark lines in monochrome. They joined together into a single outline, a shape so much larger than a pony it barely even fit in the frame.

Hurricane Force had seen illustrations of Discord before. She'd seen his face on every newspaper and poster since leaving Wingapore.

She saw a similar creature before her now, spindly body of mismatched limbs. One leg had a hoof, another a reptilian claw. Even the wings were mismatched, one feathery and the other dark-skinned. A draconequus—familiar, but distinct. Not Discord.

Twilight Sparkle dropped her calipers and compass to the table with a clatter. She glanced back at Hurricane, then the photograph, and back again. "What is this?" she whispered. Twilight ripped the photo down in her magic, dunking it in a second shallow tray of liquid. She lifted it, returning it to the line.

Nothing changed, at least not where Hurricane Force could see. The image slowly came into focus. Her own body was barely there, a cloud of ash and smoke struggling and failing to contain the force of a hurricane within.

"I... have no idea how this is possible," Twilight Sparkle said, spinning slowly in place. "More chaos magic in one place than anypony ever saw. But if you asked me what it meant..."

"Dreams don't repeat over and over, never changing. But maybe memories do." She stumbled backward through the darkroom door, back into Twilight's lab. She saw it clearly now, without needing to wait for night. "I ran... just wanted to get away. Didn't want to hurt anypony."

Part of her expected the mare to run too. Instead, Twilight followed, removing a pencil from somewhere, along with a little notebook. Hurricane Force barely noticed. "Wanted to get away. Discord... deserved what he got. Tried to take Equestria for himself, of course the Alicorns had to stop him! I tried to... make him stop. But you met him! Discord never does what others tell him."

Twilight set the pencil aside. "You were here when he escaped?" she asked. "I didn't see you, but there were so many. Maybe I... how did I miss you?

"I wasn't there when Discord escaped. I was there when he was captured. And before that... a long time before." She slumped heavily onto her haunches, staring off into nothing. Those memories were still before her, an eternity beyond any hope of comprehension. Yet somehow, impossibly, she had been there.

Twilight retreated into the darkroom, returning seconds later with the photograph hovering in her magic. She held it up, then looked at Hurricane Force again, eyes flicking rapidly between the two images. "It isn't a spell. Discord didn't do anything to you."

There was no point trying to deny it—and no possibility Twilight Sparkle would believe her if she tried. If Hurricane Force had been trying to hide, she'd come to the wrong place. "He was never the only one. Just the one who attacked you. The one everypony remembers."

Twilight lowered the photo to the ground, taking a single step back from her. "I think I should... write to the princess," she said.

"She did this..." Hurricane whispered. She could see the cave now, as clearly as it had ever appeared in her mind. The smoke in the air, moss under her feet, and the distant squeaking of the bats. She looked out from the shadows there, desperate and afraid. "I didn't want this! I didn't help him!"

Princess Celestia wore her armor then, radiant with the light of full sun even at midnight. The Elements of Harmony floated behind her and her sister, always just within reach. The magic had already grown to a terrible crescendo, poised seconds from detonation. Even if she wanted to fight back, she stood no chance. Resistance was death.

Somehow, Twilight now stood beside her in that memory, watchful and silent. She must've done this somehow, though she couldn't imagine how. Some strange new use of magic she'd long since forgotten. Because of course, pegasi only had weather magic. How could she remember something she could never use anyway?

"We know," said another voice, the same one she'd heard only a few days ago. Denying her, refusing her, just like she always did. "We recognize your desire for... peaceful coexistence."

"But we cannot allow your magic to threaten Equestria. Your brother showed us what you're capable of. We will not bury more dead because of you."

"He isn't my brother! I wanted him to stop! I don't want to hurt anypony!" she yelled, retreating further into the cave. But there was nowhere else to go—nowhere to run. 

"This is the mercy we have to offer, Bedlam," Princess Celestia said, without a trace of that mercy in her voice. "We can give nothing more." Then came the light, the overwhelming pain that seared at her, burned her from an infinity of possibilities down to one.

The dream ended, and the memory faded to nothing. Twilight and Hurricane Force stood a few feet apart in her lonely basement. The unicorn closed her mouth, retreating from Hurricane. "Did that really happen?"

She nodded weakly.

"This is... very serious. I think I need to get my friends."

Hurricane whimpered, wiping the tears from her eyes. "So you can turn me to stone?"

"No!" Twilight wrapped one foreleg around her shoulder. Not tight—this wasn't the intimate friendship of a lifetime. But considering how terrifying those Alicorns had been in her memory, maybe that was enough. "I need to ask for their advice." 

She sniffed, then let go. "Why don't you go upstairs? You can clean up in my house. Spike will make some lunch. After that, we can talk about what we saw. And how to tell the princess about it."

Hurricane stood, adjusting the saddlebags on her shoulders. "You saw what happened last time! If they find out I'm still alive, they'll hunt me down again, and this time they'll make sure I'm dead!"

"No." Twilight caught her shoulder, pushing her firmly back into a sitting position. "Equestria was a different place back then. Even princesses can be wrong. Besides, they don't have the Elements of Harmony anymore." She let go, gesturing back up the steps. "You came to me, worried about hurting others. That isn't what an evil chaos god does. We know so little about your kind. Maybe Discord was just a special case. It's okay to take it slow."

Hurricane nodded along with her, turning over her options in her head. She could fly off when Twilight turned her back, get as far away from here as possible. But if she did, the unicorn would probably have to go directly to her princess. That would end the same as last time, just with extra steps. 

This is what makes ponies different. They want to help.

Twilight Sparkle had already seen what Discord was capable of, but even that didn't scare her away. Maybe Hurricane wasn't doomed after all.

Besides, she didn't have anywhere to go, exactly. Wingapore wouldn't welcome her back, assuming there was even a town left after the disaster at her weather factory. Hurricane had been living somewhere before Discord ruined everything, hadn't she? Where was that?

For the next few hours, Hurricane took advantage of Twilight's hospitality. The unicorn might be sneaking off to call the princess and get her blasted with magic—but that was probably what would happen if she tried to escape. In those memories she still had all her power, still had magic like Hurricane Force couldn't even imagine. If that creature could still lose, if Discord in all his might was still defeated, Hurricane was doomed.

She felt a bit better with clean feathers and a full belly. Even when the door downstairs opened and closed several times, and hushed voices conversed in the library below. She made out bits and pieces, whispers ranging from curiosity, excitement, to barely-contained terror. Her own name came through several times, along with Discord's. 

This is all your fault, she thought, bitter. A very old bitterness, one that had been with her even before she realized what she was feeling. Now that she remembered, it transformed to true resentment. Most of their history was still a blur—but the only event that mattered was clear.

They tolerated me before. Equestria was home. The creature she remembered was not all that different from Hurricane Force, really. She wandered from place to place, dwelling longer in some and shorter in others. Sometimes she built, sometimes she didn't. Sometimes she got attached to creatures—and always, in time, they died.

Then she heard hoof steps, and looked up from her spot on the couch. A group of six ponies made their way up, moving close together. Except for Twilight, all kept their distance from her, glancing fearfully between each other with every step.

Until Twilight walked right past them all, and stood beside her. "Hurricane Force, these are my friends. I think you said you heard about them. These are the new Elements of Harmony. Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack."

She introduced each in turn. With every new name, the ponies grew a little less nervous, a little more confident. The blue pegasus and the yellow earth pony both seemed to realize the way they were acting at the same moment, and practically raced over to her. 

"You're the chaos monster, right?" asked Pinkie Pie, before either of them could speak. "I mean you look like a pony. But inside, you're all..." She made a few sound effects, as energetic as they were enthusiastic. "Kinda like that?" 

"I guess?" She tilted her head to the side. "If I'm a monster, it's by accident. I'm not like him."

"Well that's good," Rainbow Dash declared. "Because Discord was a jerk. Basically the worst."

"Yeah," she agreed, laughing nervously. "That sounds like him."