A twisted statue stood in the middle of a courtyard. After the princesses had properly sealed Discord they had also re-located the god of chaos to a compound located about two kilometers outside of ponyville on Twilight's request. The compound itself had been constructed on the princess of friendship's orders as she needed a place to house her newly created Dusk Guard. The Canterlot nobility had gotten excited about that fact and had been aggressively lobbying for their sons and daughters to be instated into the position of Captian...
...Right up to the point where Twilight had not so politely told them they should all go fuck themselves and she would decide the position via competency instead of lineage much like had happened with Shining.
After that, the nobility had done everything it could to block any funding for the new guard, which in the had slowed Twilight down a bit but the standard funding a new guard could get was enough to make a decent start. The base she was now standing in had a couple of workshops and laboratories as the alicorn had been helping the few ponies in her service to build the new types of armor for when she got to recruiting.
But right now she had other things on her mind as she was joined by the other girls, Scootaloo, and two squads of Night and Day guards along with a couple Wonderbolts.
"Ya think this is a good Idea Twilight?" Applejack asked, Rarity nodding in agreement with the farmer.
"I'm sure you know what you're doing darling but is it really a good idea to let Discord out?" The fashionista asked skeptically as Twilight was passing the six girls their necklaces.
Twilight sighed as she put on her own tiara, "Not really but I've been wanting answers for a while now that only he can provide." She answered as she looked at Scootaloo who nodded and loaded live rounds into her SMG. Twilight picked up her sniper and similarly inserted a clip of ammo, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack flinching as she cycled the weapon.
"Here goes nothing!" Twilight said as the elements started glowing and shot a rainbow beam at the statue, cracks slowly forming until the statue until the outer layer blew off and the chimera of parts stretched its back.
"Ugh, do you have any clue how boring it is to be trapped with nothing but your own thoughts!" Discord complained as a few sharp pops came from his back, "How long has it been since Tia and Lulu properly sealed me in anyway?"
"About three weeks," Twilight answered, keeping her sniper rifle firmly pointed at the god of chaos.
"Three weeks?! Think of all the fun stuff I've missed!" Discord shouted as he quickly rose into the air and took a look at the surrounding area, his pupils dilating as he saw where the location he was at. Quickly dropping down back to Twilight he coiled around her in a bearhug. "Oh Twilight you wonderful princess, you're making a military unit!"
A flash of purple light came from within the draconequus' coiled body as Twilight teleported out, "The only reason you're out right now is that you seem to have helped us out when we were stuck in UNSC space, don't start screwing with me now or I won't hesitate to turn you back into my base's central monument." The princess immediately threatened.
"Oh must certainly, my princess." Discord bowed deeply while holding his claw out and was about to snap his fingers.
BANG
The entire claw exploded into confetti as smoke trailed from Twilight's rifle, "No chaos until we are done with our conversation." She warned as she looked around at her friends. Scootaloo was completely unfazed and was holding her weapon at the ready. Rainbow, Pinkie, Rarity, and Applejack seemed to have only been startled by the loud sound as they had never heard the rifle fire but Fluttershy was nowhere to be seen.
"Shy?" Rainbow asked as she flew up to a cloud that had pink hair sticking out of it.
"I'm not here!" The usually soft-spoken mare said out loud, Rainbow rolling her eyes and bucked the cloud away revealing the element of kindness.
"Come on Shy, Twilight needs us," Rainbow said as she carried the shivering pegasus back down to the group.
Twilight meanwhile had been leading Discord to a building where she led him, Scootaloo and the other elements inside while the guards made a perimeter around the building. The room they were led to held a large rectangular table, which had the ODST insignia carved into it, and a magical projector at the room which could be used for briefings and presentations when necessary. The walls had several maps of Equestria, the Griffin Kingdoms, and Minotaur tribes hanging from the walls which could be used for tactical planning. The group of ponies silently took place at the table while Discord hung back on the chair that had been set down for him.
"I want to know why you got us stuck in Human space," Twilight stated as she put down her rifle on its bipod next to her.
Discord displayed a savage grin, "Why the rush, we've got time! Just look at all these maps, if I didn't know better I'd say you were planning on taking over the planet! I hope when you do you don't forget to fill me in, right? I'd love to help you out!"
Twilight groaned loudly, "No Discord I'm not. Get back on topic, you claimed that you couldn't plan long term due to the nature of chaos magic but that tear had been plaguing the dream world for a thousand years. I want to know your motivation for opening it in the first place, not the convenient excuse of us stopping Halo because we both know it was a long shot that we'd end up anywhere near the damn things." Discord opened his mouth to say something but no words escaped as he seemed to be stuck in thought.
"Look, I've not been the best princess of friendship over the year," Twilight said, the other elements fiddling with their hooves but couldn't not agree with the statement. "I'm giving you the chance to come clean, if you tell us why you opened the rift in the first place. If your intentions were pure and are willing to limit chaos around Equis and the galaxy in general I won't turn you back to stone."
"Whoa Twilight, you know this is Discord you're talking about, right?" Dash exclaimed as her wings shot out, "I don't even see him agreeing to this in the first place!" The others except for Fluttershy, who eeped and hid behind her hair, agreed with Dash.
"I'll do it."
"What?" Dash was lost for words as the god of chaos sat straight up in his chair with a very serious face.
"Believe it or not, I have no intention to get sealed back into stone. Before I still had my window out into the dream world but since that was closed..." Discord looked almost sad as he said his piece, "Anyway, you wanted to know why I opened the rift?"
A couple of hairs sprung up from Twilights mane as a notebook and a pen appeared next to her, "Go ahead." She smiled.
Discord sighed and cleared his throat, two small figurines of ponies appearing on the table along with a small figurine of Discord himself. "A thousand years ago when I was still ruling Equestria without much opposition two alicorn sisters appeared and started collecting artifacts known as the elements of harmony. One of the two sisters had the peculiar ability to go into the dream realm and fight my influence there, which she was extremely successful in."
"So Luna was able to remove your presence from the dream world?" Twilight asked as she looked up from her notepad while the others were listening intently.
"Completely."
Rainbow almost immediately burst out into laughter, "Princess Luna kicked out the god of chaos from the dreamworld at the height of his power, that must have pissed you off."
Discord huffed but didn't disagree with Dash, "Yes at the time it did, but they really didn't give me the time to retaliate as the next thing I knew they were standing in front of me and firing that rainbow deathray at my face." He grumbled as the two figurines on the table hit the small Discord with a rainbow beam, turning him into stone. "Anyway, just before they petrified me I, among other things, fired a burst of Chaos magic into the dream world, throwing it into disarray once again though this time there was a difference..." A maniacal grin formed on Discord's face, making Fluttershy eep and duck below the table.
"...I had accidentally opened a crack into the dreamworld of the Humans, a species which naturally are so wonderfully chaotic in comparison to ponies it's just baffling. Also, having acces to the collective dreamworld of an entire species was a wonderfull distraction away from the prdicament of being encased in stone."
Twilight raised an eyebrow as another question formed within her mind, "The humans are a lot more chaotic than we ponies but nowhere near as bad as they used to be, so if they were so chaotic what happened to them to make them less so?"
Discord's grin only faltered for a bit before he continued, "Ponies did. At first chaos from the humans was spreading onto Equis but that was before Lulu interfered. Even with her weakening connection to the elements due to the fact the nightmare was starting to form inside her already, which I had nothing to do with, she was able to repair enough damage to reverse the flow of magic."
"So harmony magic started to flow towards the humans?" Twilight inquired, Discord nodded which prompted the alicorn to write a couple of things down on her notepad before continuing. "So why do you want to spread chaos in the first place?"
"Because order is boring," Discord deadpanned, "Just look around Equestria, the most exciting thing around here is the Everfree and that's because it's a chaos infested forest!"
"Ah'm pretty sure that's not somethin' ponies are too unhappy about." Applejack mumbled to Rarity who nodded in agreement.
Discord huffed offendedly, "If chaos is so bad then how do you explain all the progress the humans made? They're a chaotic bunch but with the little bit of harmony from Equestria thrown into the mix they were able to go from combatting each other with swords to using spaceships!" The draconequis snared at Applejack who reared back in surprise, after which the chimera immediately switched its focus back onto Twilight. "You wanted to know why I sent you to the human world? It was because this world needs a lot more chaos to have ANY progression and that it also helped with the Halo predicament was just a bonus, I'm sure the Humans would have figured out a way to stop them regardless."
The room stayed momentarily stayed silent until Dash spoke up once again, "We're going to turn him back to stone, right?" a sentiment everyone except Twilight and Fluttershy immediately agreed to.
"No, we're not." Twilight casually said as she closed her notebook, Pinkie beating Dash to being the first to speak up this time.
"But he was such a big meany last time, Twilight, how can we be sure he isn't going to be that this time?" The pink pony blurted out, Dash chiming in immediately after.
"Yeah, I'd say we don't risk it. He's already done immense damage before and we have no idea how much he'll cause in the future!"
"Just for the record, I'm with Twilight on this one." Discord said innocently from the sideline as he was watching the exchange with interest. Twilight Ignored Discord for the moment and spoke to her friends as a whole,
"Me and the other princesses will manage the chaos while somepony keeps a close eye on him" She stated as Applejack followed up with the next logical question,
"So who in tarnation would be up fer keepin' an eye on that varmin?!" Twilight allowed a small smile to appear on her face as she turned to look at a yellow pegasus hiding behind her pink mane.
"Fluttershy, would you be able to accommodate Discord and help him adapt to pony society for the time being?" The alicorn asked to which the shy mare whispered an answer so soft no-one really understood it.
"Ya'll are gonna have to speak up a bit louder Shy," Applejack encouraged, prompting Fluttershy to speak up louder.
"I-I think I can do it." She said to the others who in turn looked between Twilight and Discord.
"I've got one more proposal you're going to like if you agree to stay with Fluttershy and limit your chaos to places me and the other princesses designate," Twilight told the god of Chaos who leaned in forward.
"Consider it done." He told the alicorn who had a now fully formed grin on her face.
"How would you like to design the assault courses and live-fire exercises for the Dusk guard?"
Scootaloo was standing beside the ever-adapting obstacle course, she had tested it multiple times herself before approving it for use in training, grudgingly admitting Discord had done a pretty decent job at making it unpredictable while also remaining entirely possible to complete. Right now she was sitting beside the obstacle course while watching the first group of trainees being dragged through the final week of their training by the instructors similarly as to how she had been.
There were a couple of the notable recruits among the ones who were now taking the obstacle course. The first two being Arctic Breeze and Moonlight Spectre, the two batponies who were former Lunar guard and had worked with Dash in ponyville had immediately applied the moment the Dusk guard had opened up for recruitment, the reason being was that they had seen me train with Dash and beating her consistently in ways they had not thought possible.
The Third notable pony was Lightning Dust, after her encounter with Scootaloo at the Wonderbolt academy she had taken to the advice the little filly had given and had been working on her attitude. She like the two bat ponies had also signed up immediately after the position became available, wanting to become part of a unit that did 'real' work.
The the last notable recruit who, despite the fact she was the oldest recruit by far, leading the group of trainees over the obstacle course... motherbucking Captain Spitfire herself. The Captain hadn't immediately applied for a function in the Dusk guard but had gone through official channels to get an audience with Twilight, who after a conversation with the pegasus had offered her the job of Captain of the Dusk guard if she could manage to get through basic. The now-former bolt had, similarly to Lightning, wanted to get a more exciting job and the since Dusk guard was going to replace the Bolts as a quick reaction force in the Equestrian military it had been an easy decision for her to switch service branches.
The sun was setting by the time Scootaloo got up from her relaxing position on top of the hill overlooking the obstacle course and walked down to the now puffing recruits who had flopped onto the floor after finishing the course, Discord appearing next to the filly as she was about halfway to the group.
"I actually tried making it hard on them this time, yet they still made it." He mused as Scootaloo didn't stop moving to the group of recruits.
"That's kind of the point, Discord. We're trying to make them harder, not to kill them." Scootaloo said while rolling her eyes, discord could be a pain but she had to admit that he had made himself exceptionally useful in the training of the new recruits and had behaved admirably ever since being released from his stone prison.
"I know, I know... hmm I could simulate death in the live-fire exercises... I've got to go my little friend, ta taa!" Discord said as he poofed into nothing just before they reached the recruits, leaving Scootaloo alone with the drill sergeants Twilight had borrowed from the Day guard.
"Ma'am." One of them acknowledged as she arrived due to Twilight having made her a sergeant major, not that it meant much since the guard consisted of less than fifty ponies and no active frontline personnel, but it still meant than that she was essentially the highest-ranking member of the Dusk guard barring Twilight herself.
"Sergeant are they ready for a loaded march?" Scootaloo asked as she picked up her own set of saddlebags and strapped them on.
"RECRUITS, GET YOUR SADDLEBAGS AND GET READY FOR THE MARCH! ONE MINUTE!" The drill sergeant shouted before turning to Scootaloo once more "They will be, I take it you'll be leading the final exercise?" He asked as the recruits were hurrying to get their saddlebags strapped on and helping each other to get ready.
"Yes, I only need two of you with me, the others can go prepare for the final ceremony at the barracks once I get there." She told the sergeant who nodded and Instructed two of the other drill sergeants to accompany the group before taking the others back to the base, leaving Scootaloo with the remaining recruits. They had been going for almost five days straight and were all looking like they were just going to drop over asleep but somehow still found the energy to continue, this was something that made a smile appear on Scootaloo's face as she spoke up.
"RECRUITS! ON ME!" She shouted through the speakers of her helmet as the group started following the little pegasus as fast as they could as she bolted forwards.
Looking back at the group behind her Scootaloo couldn't help but smile, knowing that soon they'd be done and receiving their berets.
We'll make the UNSC proud the moment those diplomats Twilight has been talking about arrive.
She thought as she continued to march the designated track with the recruits while glancing at the moon which started rising on the horizon, this was going to be an awesome night to remember.