//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 
// Story: Embracing Chaos 
// by Smjames 
//------------------------------//


Embracing Chaos Chapter 6


When Twilight stepped into the new gymnasium, build out of the previously unused far east wing of the castle, she hadn’t known what exactly to expect. She had never been much of an athletic student during any part of her school career and what few memories she had of mandatory P.E. were old and faded. So when she had to duck her head as soon as she entered the room to avoid a rogue dodgeball flying straight at her, she was somewhat nonplussed.
“Sorry about that!”
Twilight looked up to see Rainbow’s familiar profile zooming towards her, an apologetic look on her face.
“I’m not interrupting anything am I?” Twilight asked as she picked up the formerly dangerous ball and passed it to Rainbow with her magic.
“Nah, Twi. I was just testing… stuff.”
Twilight lifted an eyebrow. “Stuff?”
“Yeah, lots of stuff.” Rainbow waved her arm around the gym, prompting Twilight to look around the room without distractions of dodging fast-moving rubber. The hall, just as large as the others spread out around the castle, had dramatically changed since Twilight last saw it. The previously stone floor had been smoothed over with slick wood paneling, while the walls was covered by thick and plush-looking padding stretching all the way to the ceiling. Stacked up against the walls were lines of folded up stands, racks of sports gear and equipment, and piles of various kinds of balls.
“Wow,” Twilight said. “Impressive work Rainbow, you got this place set up really quickly.”
“Yeah, but I had some help.” Rainbow settled on the floor next to Twilight, moving the ball she was carrying onto her back and rolling it back and forth across her wings. “Turns out a lot of those construction guys you used to fix up the castle are still around as some of the students, so they provided a lot of the pony-power I needed. They also built some locker rooms over on the other side of the hall.” She pointed to the far end of the gym, where Twilight could see a pair of doors marked with a stallion on one and a mare on the other. “Pretty lucky for me, cause I don’t know squat about plumbing.”
“I do actually, but for reasons I’d prefer not to go into…” Twilight said to herself, ignoring Rainbow’s confused glance her way. “Still, very well done Rainbow. Everything’s all set for the first set of classes then?”
Rainbow nodded, flicking her wing so that the ball flew upward then catching it in her outstretched hoof as it came back down. “Totally! Like I said, I was just testing stuff against the walls, making sure the padding was working.” She tossed the ball into the air just high enough for her to turn around and buck it at full power towards the wall. The ball hurtled towards the surface at blazing speed, yet when it hit the padding all momentum was lost in an instant and it collapsed peacefully to the floor.
“Absorbent,” Twilight observed.
“Very,” Rainbow agreed. “That stuff’s cushiony enough to take most of my crashes without even bruising a feather. I was tempted to cover the floor in the same stuff buuuut it kinda makes it hard to walk sooo…”
“I can see why that would be problematic,” Twilight allowed. “So that covers safety concerns, but what about sports availability? Do we have enough equipment for everything that students would want to play?”
“Yep.” Rainbow stuck her wing out to count on her primary feathers. “We’ve covered hoofball, dodgeball, cloudball, and that weird kicking sport the minotaurs do. I think it’s called ‘football’ or something? I don’t know, it’s weird.”
“I’ve been told that the translated term in Equish is soccer,” Twilight supplied helpfully. “And that’s great! Very nice work Rainbow.”
Rainbow rubbed the back of her mane with one hoof. “Eh, I can’t take all the credit. Those construction ponies really know what they are doing. I just had to tell them where to put everything and they got it done in ten hours flat. But, uh, don’t be afraid to give me some credit. Cause I am awesome enough to deserve it…”
With a roll of her eyes Twilight smiled at Rainbow graciously. “I think you’ve garnered enough praise already Rainbow. That said, you might be able to earn a bit more if you help me out with something.”
“Sure, anything you need Twi,” Rainbow said immediately.
Twilight grinned broadly. “Wonderful. So, what advice would you give me on pranking Discord then?”
Rainbow stared blankly at her for a second and then burst out laughing. “That’s hilarious Twilight. Good one! You’re getting better at fooling me. You sounded so serious about that one. Now really, what did you want my help with?”
Twilight did not respond, merely stared right back at Rainbow with a slight smile.
3… 2… 1…
“Oh my Celestia, you’re serious.”
“As serious I can be about planning pranks,” Twilight snarked, “but yes. So… any ideas?”
Rainbow sputtered for several seconds, then forced herself to take a breath and knead her temples with her hooves. “Twilight, let me be clear here. I am a great pranker. Not good, great. I’ve gotten one over on pretty much everypony in Ponyville at least once. Heck, I even got the entire Wonderbolt team once, minus Soarin and Spitfire.”
“Oh, what did you do?” Twilight interrupted.
Rainbow smirked. “Got them to spend an extra two days training for a really tough and complicated routine that we weren’t actually gonna be doing in the next show. Did it by tricking the training scheduler that I had orders from Spitfire and I was exempt because I had to play messenger back and forth to her while she was at Canterlot. They hated me for days about it, but they couldn’t prove I did anything so I got off completely clean.”
Rainbow’s face hardened as she continued. “But all that pales in comparison to what Discord can do. Not only can he just alter reality with a snap of his fingers, I’m pretty sure he’s got some kind of sense that lets him know everything that’s going on around him that’s related to him in some way.”
Twilight’s eyes widened at that and she mentally readied her notes. “What makes you say that?”
“Because I actually tried to prank him once,” Rainbow admitted. “This was a long time ago, mind you. Back when I was young and foolish-”
Twilight lifted an eyebrow at her.
“Okay, more young and foolish. I wanted to get back at him for causing my mane to strobe with all its colors while I was out night-flying, so I went and got some rainbow mix from the cloud factories and went to dump it on him while he was napping.”
Rainbow got an annoyed expression on her face as she hugged her tail.
“Next thing I know ALL of my hair was rainbow colored except for my tail, which was completely blank. And… curly…”
“How did he know you were coming? I assume you were quiet.”
“I was SILENT!” Rainbow roared. “More than that, I knew for a FACT he was asleep, and had been for half an hour. And yet no sooner did I try to tip the bucket then he woke up and did his magic to make me look like the fool. I’m telling you right now Twilight, any attempt to prank Discord directly is NOT going to work.”
Twilight hummed in thought, tapping her hoof as she did. “I suppose that’s something to consider carefully…”
“Why do you even want to prank him anyway?” Rainbow asked in a shrewd tone. “I’ve never known you to prank anypony unless you felt they had a lesson to learn.”
Smiling, Twilight simply shrugged in answer. “I just felt it was the right thing to do. He’s been making a habit in the since school started of pushing my buttons in every tiny way he can, and I think it’s time for me to push back in a way he’ll understand and appreciate. For too long I’ve tried to stand on the high ground and not play into his games, and it’s gotten me nowhere.”
The alicorn smiled, smiled in a way Rainbow had not seen from her in a very long time. It sent a shiver of fear down the flyer’s back, but also a hint of anticipation. Anticipation borne of her prankster’s experience, mimicked in Twilight’s look of playful malice.
“Discord has had control of the board for too long. Time for him to face an opposing force. And while he’s here at this school, I will be the one to control the board.”
Rainbow still felt that bit of worry about the mere idea of going up against Discord, but seeing Twilight’s expression sent those last warning pleas fleeing for cover. She smiled at Twilight with her usual brash zeel, chuckling darkly.
“Now that, Twilight… THAT is the prankster’s spirit! And if you have that, I think we’ll be able to prank Discord just fine. So, did you have anything in mind?”
“A few half formed ideas,” Twilight answered, “but nothing solid. I was gonna wait until I could hear your advice first.”
Rainbow nodded understandingly. “Not a bad idea. Best to have an experienced prankster on hoof when going after the big targets. And I’m pretty sure Discord is the biggest target that ever existed, like, ever! So… what were your first ideas?”
With a flash of her horn Twilight poofed a parchment into existence, allowing it to unfold. To Rainbow’s surprise the thing only stretched down to the floor instead of rolling out behind Twilight for several feet like usual.
“Well my first idea was to reorganize his classroom while he wasn’t there, but I figured that he’d barely notice something like that since it’s different every time I visit him. I have no idea how he keeps track of everything.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Everypony’s got their own ways of stashing their stuff. What else you got?”
Twilight shifted the scroll upward a bit. “Next was the idea of forcing him to take over another class for a day, math for example, so that he’d be bored. I think you can guess why I dropped that idea very quickly.”
The pegasus shuddered at the thought of Discord being in charge of a P.E. class. “Yeah… let’s just keep moving from that.”
“Okay, my third idea was just to take tea with him and do nothing interesting at all while not letting him leave.”
Rainbow blinked. “That… doesn’t sound like a bad idea actually. For someone like Discord who is… um spatic?”
“Spastic I think you mean.”
“Yeah, spastic. Heck, that sounds like a great idea, why not just go with that?”
Twilight huffed in annoyance. “Because he already does exactly that with Fluttershy once a week! And enjoys it! A lot!”
“Maybe that’s just because it’s Fluttershy?” Rainbow offered. “I mean, their whole friendship is kinda weird anyway. In a good way but still.”
“No, I’m pretty sure he finds me ‘interesting’ as well for some reason. Celestia knows why. So yes, that plan is out.” Another rotation of the scroll. “My next idea was to mess with him when he’s disguised as Chaos Theory and continually obliquely reference the fact that he’s, well, Discord, while he’s unable to admit to it. I dropped that for two reasons. One, I’m pretty sure he’d find a way to turn that around on me very quickly. I’m smart and all, but I’m not all that clever at manipulating ponies by trickery.”
“You really don’t need to be. You can just manipulate ponies with friendship!”
Twilight glared in Rainbow’s direction, then ignored her so she could continue.
“The second reason I decided not to go by that method was that I remembered Discord can apparently just make copies of himself, so the moment I start invoking him he’d show up and be in two places at once as two different people. So no, that one won’t work either.” Twilight groaned and tossed the scroll off behind her. “Gah, why is this so hard?!”
Rainbow fluttered over and drapped a calming wing over Twilight’s shoulders. “Hey, relax. It’s really not that bad, Twi. Think of it this way: working hard to make up a good prank for a friend just shows them how much you care about them by messing with them the right way.”
Twilight stared sidelong at Rainbow suspiciously. “I find that logic a bit suspect.”
“Hey, who’s the pranking expert here? Trust me, once he gets over being annoyed, he’ll love that you went through all the effort. And… probably go through a bunch of his own effort to get you back for it, but that’s all just part of the experience.”
Twilight got a faraway look in her eye as she said, “I am suddenly questioning my reasoning for this endeavor.”
Rainbow facewinged then jumped around so she was facing Twilight directly. “Look, Twilight, let’s refocus here. You want to prank Discord to show him that you can have fun at his expense and to remind him that you are in charge around here right? Well if that’s the case, then you have to do something that takes away his fun somehow.”
“Take away his fun?” Twilight asked. “How do you take away the fun from a reality warper?”
Rainbow was quiet for a bit, sitting back on her haunch as she pondered. Twilight let her think, quietly retrieve her scroll and rolling it back up, knowing that the remaining 15 ideas she’d written down probably wouldn’t be worth much at this point. Instead, she started analyzing Rainbow’s advice for herself, looking at Discord in a critical light.
If there was one constant about Discord - for a given value of ‘constant’ in a chaos creature - it was that he used his powers all the time, often as an extension of his expressions and emotions, when he wasn’t just trying to mess around. At any given moment he was using his abilities to alter something around him, or on him, to suit his impulses. Temporarily removing that ability from him would be potent, but a bit too cruel in Twilight’s opinion. It was core to who he was, she couldn’t just take that away from him for the sake of a joke. Then she hit upon something.
“But what if I altered it?” she muttered to herself.
Rainbow looked up at the sound. “What’s that Twi?”
“What if I altered Discord’s power to change reality?” Twilight repeated more loudly. “Not change his ability to affect change, but alter how it changes!”
Rainbow looked at her in bemusement. “I think ‘change’ is starting to lose meaning for me here. What do you mean exactly?”
Twilight excitedly flapped her wings as she teleported a blank sheet of parchment in front of her, immediately starting to jot down notes even as her mouth kept moving. “Discord is always using abilities whenever he does much of anything, usually to make things cooky or weird for the sake of his amusement. So, what if I change his power so that when he changes things, things don’t get weird or crazy! What if they did the opposite?”
Rainbow was quiet for a moment as she digested that, then her eyes widened in shock. “That’s… that’s awesome! Can you do it?”
Twilight waved her off with a hoof. “Pfft, can I? Should be the simplest thing in the world. All I have to do is… actually, I think I’ll keep the mechanism to myself in this case. I want it to be a surprise to more than just Discord.”
Rainbow just smiled and said, “Now you’re getting it, Twi! And I say go for it. You’ve got a great idea, now go and make it happen! Oh, and let me know when you go and do it. I wanna see the look on Discord’s face when he realizes.”
“Oh trust me Rainbow,” Twilight said, a menacing smile gracing her face. “You’ll get plenty of opportunity to see my prank in action. After all, the way I have it planned, who says I need to only do it once?”





Professor Chaos Theory walked into his room in the teacher’s dorms with a proud smile on his face, content with another day of educating his students on the finer points of how magic was perfectly chaotic when it wanted to be. And when he wanted it to be, but that went without saying. Once he’d locked the door behind him he flashed out of his assumed form and lounged in the air with his hands behind his head, staring up at the floor filled with happy thoughts.
“So, how do I want to customize my room tonight, hmm?” he asked himself.
“My vote would be for an underwater fire temple,” he answered himself.
“No no, that won’t do,” he argued with himself. “We did that last week after all.”
“How about the garden in the sky made of metal ferns plan?” he suggested to himself. “It’s been some time since we did that, and I found some remarkable plants in Everfree recently that have inspired me!”
“All good options,” he congratulated himself, “but for today I think we go for the old, gold standby.”
“General Chaos?” his selfs all asked.
“Exactly and positively!”
All the Discords snapped their claws all at once, and the room… remained exactly the same.
Discords immediately froze in place and flung his gazes around the still blandly normal room in utter shock. Stroking his beards, he experimentally snapped again, focusing solely on the bed this time, with an aim for making it suitably comedic for his tastes. Instead, the bed, if anything, somehow became more bland, transforming into a mere mattress and frame in the most muted flash of light he’d ever seen.
“What in the blazes is going on here?” Discords asked in tandem. Sufficiently frustrated the parts reformed into a whole again, allowing Discord to stroke his beard in the singular. Curious, he attempted to summon an artifact into the room, anything at all, not even concentrating on what he wanted. A pop and a blink of light appeared, as expected, but all that came out was a rush of wind. Another snap, this time intended to mimic the previous effect, much as it goaded him to copy something without alteration. This time though something solid did appear. A simple, plain, completely ordinary rock, which fell to the group with a limp thud.
“Seriously? A rock? Not even a crystal filled rock? Or rock candy? Or rock crab? Just a rock!”
Discord stared at the offending rock in silence for a bit before deciding enough was enough. Instead of snapping, Discord wound his leg up for a kick, winding and winding until his leg was coiled over itself like a spring. When he released, he imbued his foot with a idea of causing the rock to fly about like a bouncy ball. Instead, and almost entirely expected at this point, when his foot collided with the piece of stone, it merely flipped over on the ground a few times before falling still, leaving Discord fuming both from his failed ploy and a bruised foot.
For several long minutes he tried everything he could think of to subvert this strange effect that was limiting his powers, but all of them fell short in some way. Trying to convert the floor into cheese? Became an even harder kind of granite that was rougher than before. Make thirteen copies of his bed stand and stack them like a tower of cards? The stand just rotated in place a few times before coming to a stop. Create an aurora borealis at that time of day, at that time of year, in this part of Equestria localized entirely in his room. All he got were a few sparkles.
Purple and pink ones.
Discord narrowed his eyes at the sight, but with the ghost of a smile on his lips. Thinking quickly, Discord summoned a portal to his home dimension and slipped through, testing his powers out there. One fall-water made of breadsticks later, and he had a reasonable idea of what was going on.
“Well, well, well,” Discord muttered to himself as he stepped back into Equestria. “Seems somepony has gotten it into their pretty purple head that they think they can mess with me. And I must say, well played indeed for an opening move, but the hand has now been set. The ball is in my court now.”
Suddenly, a flash of purple light appeared in front of him, allowing a thin sheet of parchment to float out of its depths. Discord promptly snagged the note and held it up to read, his eyes narrowing as he did.
Bring it on, Discord. Let the games begin. Oh, and if you ever want to call it quits, just say the magic word. You know the one.
Discord scoffed, moving quickly into unabashed laughter. “Oh please, Twilight. As if I would e-”
A second note appeared, cutting him off by swishing through the air right into his face. Prying it off, he read through it.
Sorry, but you’re gonna have to mean it if you want it to count. Nice try though. See you tomorrow~
P.S. This is only between us, nobody else. Remember that.
The note disappeared in another flash of light, leaving Discord hovering in his room with an eager grin on his face.
“Oh my dear, sweet Twilight… I wouldn’t have it any other way.”