//------------------------------//
// Chaos and Cutie Marks 
// Story: Visiting Chaos 
// by Ink Well Inks Well 
//------------------------------//

	The walk through Ponyville was eventful, to say the least, and involved a lot of terrified looking ponies, Pinkie explaining over three dozen times what was going on to various groups of ponies, and Screwball looking in confusion and annoyance as ponies fled from her father- she really didn’t understand why they were doing that.
That was, except for three fillies. Screwball’s face lit up as she saw them approaching, and grinned. “Hiya, guys!”
Applebloom and Scootaloo waved, albeit cautiously, and approached, but Sweetie Belle just sighed and looked at the ground.
“I- I’m not supposed to talk to you anymore... Rarity said since you were ‘the spawn of the enemy’ I’m not allowed to play with you...” she watched sadly as Screwball deflated a bit, and Discord rolled his eyes. Pinkie grit her teeth- she loved Rarity with all her heart, but the fashionista was being unfair! She’d have to talk to her about this...
“Ah ain’t sure if we can hang out anymore, either. Applejack an’ Big Mac are gonna talk about it t’night. I’ll bet I will, but I just thought I should warn ya, just in case...” Applebloom looked up a Screwball bashfully, shrinking away a bit under the gaze of the chimera and his daughter. 
The filly looked pretty upset, and Discord frowned down at the orange pegasus. “Let me guess, you aren’t allowed to play with my daughter either?”
The foal looked startled, at the least, to have the spirit of chaos addressing her, but she covered it up with a bit of false bravado. “Pffft, nah,” Scoots shrugged, looking at her hooves disinterestedly, just as she’d seen Rainbow Dash do. “Guardian Angel already has her hooves full with the other foals, so as long as I don’t hurt myself too badly, hurt anypony else, or make her pay a lot in property damage, I can basically do what I want!” she shrugged again, smiling at Screwball. “I can still hang with you.”
The deranged foal brightened quite a bit. 
“We’re still going to try to play with you, though!” Sweetie Belle chirped, giving the earth pony a small smile. “We’ll just sneak around our sisters if we have to. We do it all the time while we’re crusading, it shouldn’t be too different.” she shrugged. 
“Yeah! We ain’t gonna leave ya behind. After all, once yer a Crusader, yer a Crusader fer life! We’ll still help ya figure out what yer mark means, not t’worry,” Applebloom beamed up at Screwball.
“We just wanted to tell you it might be a bit harder for all four of us to get together,” Scootaloo clarified. “We’re not abandoning you.”
Discord had to admit- he was surprised to hear the fillies saying this. He’d expected them to leave his little monster completely once they discovered who her father was, but instead they were sticking around. He smiled a bit as he saw the look on his daughter’s face- completely and utterly thrilled. Pinkie was beaming as well, the gears in her head already turning as she thought of different ways to help the girls hang out together.
“Thanks, guys!”
“Aw, don’t mention it,” Applebloom grinned. “Like Ah said, Crusaders gotta stick t’gether!” 
With that, Scootaloo and Applebloom started off where they’d come from, only stopping once they realized Sweetie Belle wasn’t behind them. She was still staring up at Discord, who looked very, very confused as to why she was still there. He looked at Pinkie for an explanation, but she just shrugged.
“Discord?” the foal said finally, after a long time of debating inside her head whether or not she should even ask. “Was... was it really our fault you got free last time?”
The other two foals came rushing back, hardly believing she’d actually asked. They’d come to an agreement long ago that they wouldn’t mention the possible part they may have played in Discord’s most recent reign of terror, that they’d never speak of it, and now Sweetie was just... asking?
“Sweetie Belle, what’re you doin’?” Applebloom hissed, eyes wide. “I thought we were gonna pretend that didn’t happen!”
She looked down at her hooves. “I know we said that, but I’m curious!” then she glanced at her friends. “Aren’t you?”
“Nuh-uh!” Applebloom frowned and shook her head. “I don’ wanna know! I don’ wanna feel worse about it then I already do...”
Screwball cocked her head to the side, looking at her friend innocently. “Why would you feel bad about it?”
“Well, ‘cause, uh...” Applebloom shifted awkwardly, clearing her throat. “Y’see...” 
“Ponies aren’t creatures of chaos like us,” Discord supplied, finding the pony’s stuttered explanations annoying. “They don’t like me or my creations much.”
Applebloom looked up at him, surprised. “Uh, yeah, what he said!”
Screwball blinked once. Twice. “If they don’t like your creations... does that mean they don’t like me?”
“No!” Pinkie had been keeping quiet, figuring it was probably best to let Discord have a conversation- ponies were watching from inside their homes, and seeing the draconequus talking to fillies without too much conflict might warm them up to him, at least a bit. But when she saw the look on the filly’s face, she couldn’t help but say something. “Ponies like you! I mean, you have friends at school, and ponies say hi to you on the street, and they all liked you in your play, and-” the filly was brightening a little bit as she spoke, and Discord couldn’t help but feel grateful for that.
“Plus you didn’t hurt anypony!” Sweetie Belle squeaked. The draconequus felt his eye twitch at the sudden shrillness of her voice- this squeaky little thing was supposed to have a good voice? 
“And I did?” he frowned, stroking his beard. “I don’t seem to recall that...”
“Y’turned my whole family gray!” Applebloom protested.
“I did?” his mismatched eyes lit up. “Ah, yes, I did! But it didn’t hurt them, did it? If anything, I helped.”
“Uh huh.”
Discord crouched down, looking offended. “What? You don’t believe me? Think of it this way- your granny, if I remember, was dancing, as if she’d never had a bad hip? And your brother... well, to be honest, I’m not sure why he was doing what he was doing, but he seemed happy doing it, didn’t he?”
Applebloom sat down, thinking.
“Ya- ya tried t’ruin our crops!”
“Ruin? I did no such thing!” he smiled. “In fact, I think I improved them. Popcorn sells much better than regular corn, I’ll bet, and you can sell it for more money- and bigger apples mean bigger profits, don’t they?”
She frowned. “Ya made my sister a horrible liar- ya can’t excuse that!”
He shrugged. “She and the other element bearers started it.” Pinkie frowned a bit at that, and the three fillies glared. Scootaloo’s wings started buzzing in anger, and she was just about to speak when-
“Did not!” Sweetie Belle squeaked.
“Did too,” he crossed his arms defiantly, looking down at her.
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
“Did not!”
The two glared at each other- a child, and a couple thousand year old chaos god, squaring off. The other three looked on in interest.
“You blinked!” Sweetie Belle laughed.
Discord looked wounded. “I did not!”
“Yeah, you did, Daddy.”
Discord looked at his daughter, arms crossed. “Traitor...”
Throughout this whole exchange, Scoots had been thinking. Then she grinned. “So, did we do it?”
Even Pinkie looked confused. “Do what?”
She pointed to Discord. “Did we free you or what?”
Applebloom’s eyes widened. “Scootaloo! I already told ya, I don’t wanna know!”
Scootaloo motioned the fillies closer, whispering. Discord could still hear them, but he pretended he couldn’t, just to listen in. “Girls, think about it! If we freed him, that means we did something nice for him!”
“And that’s a  good thing?” Sweetie looked completely lost.
“Uh huh!” Scootaloo beamed. “Look, he’s trying to be ‘reformed,’ right?”
“Yeah...”
“And decent ponies repay others for favors!” Scoots, looked at her friends, beaming.
“And?”
“So if we let him out, he owes us a favor! And if he’s trying to prove he’s reformed, he’s gonna have to let us cash it in! So...”
“... So we get t’have th’God of Chaos do somethin’ fer us!”
“And we saw his powers last time, he could do anything!”
Discord raised a brow. Were they actually going to try to blackmail him? Were these simple foals actually going to try and manipulate the God of Chaos?
He grinned despite himself. They had guts, he couldn’t deny that.
“Alright, so let’s say you did free me,” he said, interrupting them. “What would you want?”
The fillies looked at him, eyes wide.
“Well, uh...” Scootaloo, looked around. trying to think of something. The three girls now had the entire world in their hooves, and they had no idea what to do with it.
“Maybe we could...”
“Our cutie marks!” Sweetie Belle beamed.
Discord sighed. “Really? Cosmic, god-like powers at your disposal, everything you could want and more, and you want your butt pictures?”
“Yeah!” the other two nodded rapidly. 
Pinkie stepped in front of them. “Oh, no you don’t!” 
“But... why not?”
“Because the last time you used magic to try and get a cutie mark, you brought back a disease that everypony thought was gone forever! And there was panicking and hazmat suits and everypony was really scared and I had to tell Mrs. Cake about the corn cakes I ate and it was horrible!”
“Well, technically it was a potion...” Applebloom said, but she shrank a little.
“What disease?” Discord asked, curious.
“... Cutie Pox...”
He grinned and crouched down again. “Could I trouble you for the recipe you used for your little potion?”
“No!” Applebloom glared at him. “Ah ain’t lettin’ you get yer grubby little...” she looked down at his limbs. He had four different ones, not including his tail, so, unable to come up with a name that described all of them, she spat, “claws an’ paws an’ whatever else ya got on it! Yeh’ll just use it to cause trouble.”
“What, me? Never!” 
“Ah ain’t arguin’ with you, ‘cause Ah know I’m right! Now, give us our cutie marks!”
“Please?” Sweetie offered.
“Hmmmph,” the draconequus was looking at the fillies indignantly. “A few minutes ago I might have, but you’ve been so angry with me, and so unfair, now I don’t really feel like it.”
Scootaloo looked at him, brows furrowed. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Discord smirked. 
“But that’s not fair!” Sweetie Belle whined shrilly. Discord felt as if his head was about to burst, and his eye twitched even more.
“Well, I think I’m doing you a favor! If I gave you your marks, then you’d be no better off,” he motioned to his daughter. “I gave Screwball a mark, and she has no idea what it means. She’s been trying to figure out her talent, just like you.”
Scootaloo drooped. “I hadn’t thought of it that way...”
“And besides, as the spirit of chaos, I could not, in good conscience, give you your marks. It would decrease the trouble around here exponentially, and I simply couldn’t do that.”
The girls frowned at that, but they knew they couldn’t argue with him. It was like arguing with a child- there was just no point to it.
“Fine, then. We’ll get back to you- we’re getting that favor!”
“Yes, yes, of course you will,” he was hovering on his back now, looking pretty disinterested. He waved his paw, his eyes half closed. “Now go on, unleash Hell.”
“We don’t unleash Hell!”
He smirked. “Oh, you don’t? Screwball?”
“Yes, Daddy?” Screwball had moved from on top of her father’s head to being flopped on his chest, on her back, upside-down. Somehow, her beanie stayed on.
“What was the last crusade you four went on?”
“Well...” she thought for a second. “Oh! We put Scoots in a cannon and tried to get her to fly, then we all made fake wings and tried it ourselves! And we only crashed into three houses! And the cannon kinda blew through a few apple trees, too, but only seven!”
He smiled. “My mistake, girls, you’re perfect angels.” he snapped his talons, giving each a halo.
The fillies scowled up at the halos, but they couldn’t deny that he had a point.
Screwball looked at her own halo in puzzlement. “I’m not an angel!”
“No, you certainly aren’t! I’m sorry, my dear, what was I thinking?” he snapped again, and the halo was replaced with little red tipped horns. The filly nodded approvingly.
Discord looked down at the other three. “Weren’t you three going somewhere?”
Scoots nodded, waving her halo away. “You wanna come with us, Screwy? We were gonna try ghost hunting! We’ll stay away from the Boutique, so nopony sees us.”
Screwball brightened, and was about to nod until she realized who she was on top of. Her dad. Her dad, who she’d finally been reunited with after months. Who was still not completely and utterly free, and could be taken away again at any minute.
“... I should stay with Daddy,” she said, shaking her head. “I haven’t seen him in a really long time, and I don’t wanna leave him again!”
Pinkie smiled. “You wouldn’t be leaving him, you silly filly! I’ll bet he’d love you to stay, but if you wanna go, you can go! He’ll be here when you come back!”
The foal looked at her adopted mother, then at her dad, worry and a bit of fear in her pupiless eyes. “... You promise?”
The draconequus was a bit taken off guard. Was she really that worried? Despite himself, he softened a little. “I promise.”
“Pinkie Promise?”
He laughed. “Of course. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” he did all the movements as well. 
Screwy nodded, relieved. If she knew anything about her mom, it was that she’d never allow anyone to break a Pinkie Promise. “Okay. Since you promised.” She hugged her dad tightly, nestling into his fur. Discord was very much aware that ponies were watching from inside their homes, and he was a very conscious not to seem too soft in front of them- he had a reputation to maintain, after all. But he allowed himself to hug her back briefly and tap her muzzle. “Go on then. Like I said before- go unleash Hell.”
She hopped off, then looked up at him and saluted. “Can do, Daddy! I’ll make sure it’s even more than usual!” she grinned and joined the other girls, and the set off on their mission to become Ponyville’s first ghostbusters.
“Y’know, you’re a really good daddy!” Pinkie smiled, watching the four fillies go. 
He raised a brow. “Well of course I am. I’m the god of chaos, and children are some of the most chaotic beings to exist. Why shouldn’t I be good with them?”
Pinkie shrugged. “Well, it was still really sweet!”
And there was that word again.
	Sweet.
“Pinkie, I’m not sweet.”
She shrugged, continuing to bounce down the street. “Whatever you say!” she called back in a sing-song voice.
He grumbled a bit, but didn’t press the issue any further, following as she hopped towards the bakery.
Once he saw the building he would be living in, he grinned. It was, of course, just a regular building, but it looked so... chaotic. Fake gingerbread panels and plaster frosting, with gumdrops and candy buttons added for decoration. It was a bit lopsided and had an enormous pink cupcake on top, which, Pinkie explained, she lived in.
Was it perfect? No. Was it even great? Well, no. It wasn’t even edible! But compared to the rest of the boring buildings in Ponyville, this lopsided, colorful, sugar high five-year old’s paradise was amazing.
“I should have known you lived in a house that looks made of of sugar,” he laughed, watching as Pinkie made her way up to the door.
“Well, duh, it’s the best house around! Plus it’s a bakery, so it smells great, too!” she opened the front door. “Mr. and Mrs. Cake!” she called out. “I got a visitor! We need to talk!” Discord shrunk himself slightly to fit in the door better, and entered behind Pinkie. The Cakes, who had been working in the kitchen, popped their heads out when Pinkie called for them.
When their eyes fell on Discord, however, the smiles on their faces drooped and Mr. Cake felt himself getting woozy. 
Pinkie looked at the pair, a nervous smile on her face, and simply went, “... I can explain.”