Original cover art by JazzieQ.
Discord sighed in relief as he watched the Mane Six fly away to annihilate Tirek once and for all. This gambit of his had been extremely difficult to pull off, more so than anything he'd ever attempted in the past. The trick, as always, had been in the blinders (mental, not physical). He would have summoned a pair to help make his point, but no magic, remember? Anyway, the key was that he intentionally didn't see that Tirek would betray him, carefully playing a trick on his own mind so that when he gave Twilight the final token, it would be recognized as genuine.
"Three," he said to himself, his eyes focused on what little of the sky he could see from his vantage point near the mouth of the cave, "Two, One."
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!"
Discord smiled, "There we go," he said as the rainbow halo of magic spread out across the stratosphere. He spread his arms wide and welcomed his magic home with a slap on the back and a pie in the face. However, just as the last of magical surge washed over him, he... sensed... something... something that sent his body wiggling like a noodle in the grasp of a toddler more interested in playing than eating. That can't possibly be right, He thought, his previous mood shattered by the information coursing through his Ali-sight, I'm one of a kind: aren't I?
88888888
After a quick apology to everypony for his part in the whole Tirek disaster (the parts they knew about, anyway), Discord blinked back to his suite in the palace and got to work spying on various ponies and other creatures through a mirror. He'd felt a chaotic dissonance in the rainbow field, one that hadn't been caused by his magic, or least, not his alone, and he was trying to figure out where it had come from. So far, he'd had no luck despite staying up all night searching, and it was starting to wear on his patience.
"No." Swipe. "No." Swipe. "No." Swipe. "Ugh, pretending I never saw that." Swipe. "Argh, how hard is it to find one chaotic source when I'm the Master of Chaos himself!? How hard?" Swipe. "That's just Pinkie Pie." Swipe. "No." Swipe. "No" Swipe. "Wait a second." Back swipe, back swipe, back swipe. "YOU. What are you hiding?"
A lot, as it turned out. Discord observed her covertly as she went through an average day, and what he was made him want to hit himself in the face for being so blind. Repeatedly. With a sledgehammer. Pinkamena Diane Pie, former wielder Element of Laughter and part of the magical force of all things orderly, appeared to know the future, was capable of squeezing into places she shouldn't be able to fit, pulled objects out of thin air with aplomb and alarming frequency, and occasionally disappeared from the universe entirely for short periods of time.
"Hey, Discord shouted as she pulled a glass of chocolate milk out of her mane, "That's my shitck! You can't have it!"
"Ok, Discord," he said to himself, after taking a few breaths to reign in his temper, "The first step is to figure out how she's doing all that stuff. I'll just peak into the magical Spectrum and-WOAH." His eyes fell out, and got caught inside his jaw, which had just hit the floor. His eyebrows grew arms, grabbed his jaw, and snapped it shut. He swallowed, and his eyes rolled back into their sockets.
Discord was rarely surprised, so this little development threw him for a loop. When he'd looked at Pinkie Pie, he'd seen something he would never have expected, even as the Master of Chaos: Pinkie Pie was a budding user of Chaos magic. There hadn't been one of those in Equestria since, well, him. "I'm not alone anymore," he whispered, a single tear coming to his eye. Now that was a joyful thought. "And to think I was going to destroy her for trying to copy me. But still, how could I possibly have missed her!? She appears to do this all the time! Wait, wait, wait." He slapped his forehead, causing his horns to fall off. "I know why." They regrew. "It was her Element, Laughter! It hid her signature, buried it so in deep in Order that I'd never have found it. But now that the Elements are gone..."
"Hmm. Maybe I was going off a bit half-cocked." His head tilted to one side and a smoking bullet fell out of his ear. "You know what, if I'm not to crush her I might as well teach her. It's not like it's a good idea to leave an amateur chaos user to their own devices. I mean, look at how I turned out! Also, I've never had someone to share my pranks with before, or someone who really understood the intricacies of magic the same way I do. I tried with dear Tia, but-" He sighed, gazing longingly at a picture of the Solar Princess stuffing her face in her private quarters. "She always had a stick up her rear when it came to stuff like that." He reached for his lower half, then thought better of it. "I'm crazy, not stupid." He swapped a dunce's cap for a straitjacket for emphasis. "And Fluttershy, bless her heart, just wouldn't comprehend it. It takes a special mind to Understand Chaos." The devil and angel on his shoulders both twirled their fingers beside their ears. "Anyway," Discord dismissed his props. "I might as well make my offer."
He snapped his fingers, and teleported from his palace suite to inside Sugarcube Corner. He started to head for the kitchens, but then turned around and realized everypony in the store was staring at him. "Don't mind me, I'm just here to have a chat with my good friend Pinkie." He blinked, and the shop was empty, except for Mr. and Mrs. Cake, who were both giving him the evil eye. Discord could hear screams of terror spreading wildly outside. "What? That's all I'm here for, I swear."
Mr. and Mrs. Cake glanced at each other before saying simultaneously, "Pinkie Promise."
He groaned. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." He went through the motions. "There, happy?"
They nodded. "She's in the back," said Mr Cake. "I suppose she could spare a few minutes since you just chased off all our customers."
Discord groaned. "You make one kingdom of eternal Chaos and they never let you live it down, do they?" He slouched. "Don't worry, this won't take long."
Discord walked behind the counter and into the kitchen. He considered slithering in on his belly, but then thought better of it because first, even he had standards, and second, while he may be a Chaos Lord, he didn't have to be random every second of every day.
Discord spotted Pinkie Pie with her face in the oven, busily pulling out and putting in pies. If not for her tail, it would have been a pretty interesting view. Then it moved. "Oh." Discord coughed and looked away.
"Hiya, Dissy!" Pinkie Pie turned around and smiled at him. "Did you just make a Pinkie Promise that you wanted to talk to me?"
"Yes, yes I did. How did you know?"
Pinkie waggled her ears. "I used these, silly! The shopfront isn't that far away."
"Ah. Well, I've got an offer for you."
"An offer? Wowie, what is it, what, what?"
"I think I should start with a few questions." Discord slouched against the counter, staring at the wall. "Have you ever considered the idea that you might see the world differently from everypony else?" He put on a pair glasses with the words, "X-ray specs," written on the frame.], carefully watching her reaction out of the corner of his eye.
"Well, not really. Sure, I've never seen anypony else use the world-holes like I do, but that doesn't mean they don't know they're there." Pinkie said, getting some flour out of a over-sized container at the bottom of the walk-in pantry.
"That's only part of it. Are there things that to you are the most obvious facts in the world, but nopony else understands, or even sees them?" Discord poured through a physics textbook, dumping the liquid remains down the sink.
"Sure, I've pointed out some things and had everypony look at me funny, but doesn't everypony have that happen at some point? Just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't happen." Pinkie grabbed a sack of sugar in her teeth and carried it over to the counter.
"I suppose. Moving on, are you constantly thought of as weird, or inexplicable?" Discord said, holding up an impossible cube.
Pinkie Pie stopped baking, and turned to face him, her smile fading. "How did you know? I never talk about that, even to my closest friends."
"I'll get to that in a moment. Finally," Discord turned to face her, his face devoid of humor. "Do you ever feel, that despite how much you love your friends, and they love you, that they don't really understand you, never could, and never will?" Discord felt Pinkie radiate a small chaotic pulse, and a single phrase echoed through the kitchen. It's Pinkie Pie, don't question it. Don't question it, don't question it...
"M-maybe sometimes..?" She stammered out, some signs of nervousness starting to show through the cracks in her demeanor.
"I thought so." Discord straightened and took his weight off the counter, which now had 7.5 impressions of the letter "W" pressed into the surface.
Pinkie's smile was completely gone now, and her hair was drooping. "Why? Why did you do that? Did you walk in here just to remind me about everything that's not happy in my life? To take everything I try to ignore because it would only make me sad and shove it in my face? Is this some kind of joke to you?"
"No no, not at all!" Discord reassured her. "I came because I think I have the answer. I have recently spied with my little eye," Discord's left eye shrank to a pinprick, "That you, Pinkamena Diane Pie," He put a talon on his chest, "Are like me." She stared at him, skeptical, but curious.
"You see the world not as it is, not as the rest of ponykind sees it, but as it could be, in all its glorious random splendor. And while you have learned to manipulate a small portion of that wondrous chaos through your Pinkie sense and other abilities," He pulled a screen out of his wing that was displaying her various tricks. "You have only scratched the surface of your potential." He ran a claw across the counter top, drawing a thin line behind it. "I can show you the depths of your power," The screen encircled the room, changing to a view of a deep sea vent, "and introduce you to creatures that no other mortal could even look at without going insane." Pinkie got a glimpse of something huge with too many mouths and too many tentacles before Discord snapped his fingers and the image vanished. "I could teach you the intricacies of time travel." The most beautiful, brilliant white tree Pinkie had ever seen appeared in Discord's hand, then disappeared just as quickly. "and help you unlock the inner secrets of the paradox." 4 more Discords walked out of holes in the air and he did a synchronized dance routine, then four left, including the original, leaving only one behind. Pinkie Pie was gaping in open awe now. She'd never seen Discord do something like this, even when he'd first broken free.
Careful now, Discord thought. The bait is set, now the hook. You don't want to lose her, if you lose her there's no getting her back, there'll never beanotherchancelikethis-
"You live in a small, impoverished subset of reality, but you also have the power to leave that subset, and gaze upon the universe as a whole." A snap of his fingers changed the screen to a picture of the stars, not as seen from the ground, but as seen from orbit, in all their cold bright beauty. "There'll be no more confusion about who you are, or why you're special. It won't just be 'Pinkie being Pinkie' anymore, as that phrase will no longer make sense. All you have to do,"He conjured a quill and scroll and offered them to her, "Is become my apprentice in the chaotic arts. What do you say?"
Pinkie Pie, with her eyes full of wonder, looked at the contract, looked at Discord, turned in a full circle to take in the stars, then picked up the quill, and signed. "When do we start?"
????????
In a distant cave far below the surface of the world, a being stirred, lifting its head and sniffing the air. It sensed something had shifted in the Spectrum, something that affected the bargain it had struck with Discord eons ago. That shift was not welcome. For now, it would be content to wait, and watch, but if the Compromise was broken, it would act, and this time, no meddling, foreign, spirit of Chaos would interfere with its goals. With that thought, System rolled over and went back to sleep.