Epilogue
Canterlot Castle, one day later
“I see.” said Celestia, calmly. “And then what happened?”
“Why, we went for milkshakes, of course!” said Discord. He draped an unwelcome eagle claw over Twilight's neck. “Twilight was paying, after all, so why not?”
“And that notebook?” asked Celestia.
“Oh, three little fillies have it.” said Discord. “Incidentally, if anyone takes it away from them, it'll find its way back within a day or two. I intended that to be used, and as frequently as possible.”
“Have you got any idea,” said Twilight, crossly, “of the economic ramifications of such a notebook existing?”
“Oh, of course I do.” grinned Discord. “If abused, it could send the economy into total chaos. Isn't it marvellous? Besides, after those delightful fillies persuaded me to shelve Celestia's cake plans, I had to do something.”
Twilight sighed, and mentally catalogued the Crusaders' Notebook in her 'to deal with later' list. “Anyway,” she said to Celestia, “we talked a bit over the milkshakes, and I think we've got a plan to prevent Discord from getting bored. We'd need to talk it over with you before we start on it -”
“No, we don't.” said Discord, lazily swimming(1) through the air. “I can do all the heavy lifting, you've got the princessly authority... we could set this up ourselves. Hey, if I take your shape for, oh, say, half an hour, I could probably do it all myself.”
“Discord! We talked about this! We are running this by the Princess before we do anything! I mean, Celestia! We are running this by Princess Celestia! And you are not going to take my shape?”
With a pop, Discord changed to an exact clone of Twilight. “Eh, you're right.” he said, looking over his new body. “It's not very flattering, is it?”
“DISCORD!” yelled Twilight.
“That's my name, yes.” asked Discord, reverting to his more usual shape.
Celestia cleared her throat. “Twilight?” she said. “You had an idea to prevent Discord getting bored?”
“Oh, yes, Princess. See, I thought about this last week, and this is what I came up with...”
* * *
Two weeks later
“Ah, good morning.” said Rarity, stepping into the small, cramped Manehatten office. “Principal... Black Board, was it?”
“Yes, ma'am?” asked the earth pony behind the desk.
“I'm here as a representative of the Academy for Creative Thought.” said Rarity. “You may not have heard about it, the Academy only opens next month. It's a brand-new initiative by Princess Sparkle.”
Black Board's eyes narrowed. No doubt, they were about to try to skim off the cream of his students – the ones who sat quietly in class, caused no trouble, and consistently scored high marks. He quietly swore that he would not be left with only the troublemakers again, royal charter or not.
“In short,” said Rarity, “we're looking for troublesome students. The sort of students who leave their teachers awake at night, wondering what they'll do next. The sort of student who would build a trebuchet in their spare time, and then use it near, or possibly in, the school buildings. The sort who will cheat in a test, regardless of what actual scores they achieve.”
Black Board stared at Rarity for a long moment, then asked “You... want the troublemakers?”
“Only the imaginative ones, dear. Not mindless bullies. But yes, we want to extend our offer to attend the Academy to certain... troublesome students. Students with – unusual minds. Strange logics. Perhaps you would be willing to help us find a few to fit our criteria?”
* * *
Canterlot, one month later
“Good morning everypony! My name is DiScOrD, and I will be your teacher at this Academy.”
Discord looked over his classroom, with a wide grin. The Cutie Mark Crusaders sat in the front, surrounded by a number of other colts and fillies; pegasi, unicorns, earth ponies, crystal ponies, negasi, griffins, a buffalo, even a single nervous changeling sat at the desks scattered(2) around the room.
“And I,” continued Discord, “will be teaching you the most important lessons you will ever learn – how to get what you want.” He placed lion paw and eagle claw on the table, and leaned over it. “Ponies want for all sorts of things.” he said. “Money. Power. Fame. Food. Friends. Whatever you want, I am going to teach you how to find it.(3)”
He stepped out from behind the desk. “At this point, it's sort of traditional for me to provide a list of rules. But you know what? There aren't any. Class starts when I say it does, and you will be in your seats when it does. Class finishes when I say it does.”
Sweetie Belle raised a hoof.
“If you ever want to ask a question,” continued Discord, “just interrupt me. I'm not going to stop for just a raised hoof. Now, on to -”
“Mister Discord sir!” said Sweetie Belle. “How are we s'posed to get to class in time if we don't know when class starts?”
“Excellent question! And the answer is, that's my problem.” Discord snapped his fingers, and suddenly all the colts and fillies were in different seats. “Trust me,” he said, “you'll be here. Now, on to gold stars!”
Discord opened a drawer in his desk, and pulled out a small, brightly glowing object. “This,” he said, “is a gold star. And today may very well be the last day that any of you ever see one. You can earn a gold star, by surprising me.” He leaned his lion paw on the desk and tossed the star up and down in his eagle claw. “You can't steal them, you can't trade them, you can't take them. The only way to get one of these is to do something that I genuinely don't expect. I'm warning you, it's not easy. Now, why would you want a star? There are various reasons.”
He used his tail to tug down a picture of the Element-Bearers, standing together with the Princesses. “You can trade in one Star,” he said, “for a day with any one of these ponies, and you can spend it wherever you want. Ever wanted to go bowling with Princess Celestia? With one star, you can.”
“Ooooh!” said Sweetie Belle, softly. “If I get a star I can get my sister to go ice skating with me!”
“For two stars,” said Discord, tugging down a second image, this one of his own smiling face, “you can trade them in for – a gift. The exact nature of the gift is different for everypony, but go ahead and ask these three about their notebook if you don't think it's worthwhile. And if you manage, somehow, to get hold of three stars, which is impossible...”
He tugged at the cord under the image of his face, which rolled up, revealing a third image; of Discord and four ponies, seated around a table.
“...then you get to make one request of the Panel.” he said. “Including myself, of course -” he tapped the central figure - “and four other ponies -” he moved from left to right - “Princess Sparkle, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Cadance. You can ask for anything you want, and as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, the Panel has to fulfil your request. You're not allowed to ask for more requests, or for more gold stars. Aside from that, you're allowed to ask for anything you want. Such as, say... Canterlot Castle. Though I'm sure someone capable of obtaining three gold stars can think of a better idea.”
Discord tapped the image, and it vanished; then he snapped his claw, and the classroom changed, with the students sitting around larger tables, and a pack of cards on each table.
“Now,” said Discord, “the first step to getting what you want is knowing what's going on. And the first part of that, is knowing when someone's lying to you. Some of you may already be familiar with something called 'poker'...”
* * *
Canterlot Castle, the same day
“Art thou certain that this is a good idea, dear sister?” asked Luna.
“Not at all, Luna.” said Celestia. “I fear that what has been wrought this day will lead to great upheaval in years to come.”
“Surely thou dost not fear that Discord shall do any harm to the foals under his care?” asked Luna.
“Nay, sister. However, when those that have been taught by Discord grow up... we may be in for some interesting times.”
(1) Backstroke
(2) No self-respecting avatar of chaos would ever allow his desks to be in rows. Nor would he ever allow the desks to be in the same arrangement two days running.
(3) Discord's syllabus(4) included basic psychology, information retrieval techniques, financial management, advanced probability and enough maths and science to get into any university in Canterlot.
(4) The written syllabus consisted only of three pages of smiley faces. Discord wasn't very good at paperwork.
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Best...ending...EVER! Well, for me, at least.
Teacher Discord is best Discord.
Before the addition of the need for repeated surprises, my idea was that Twilight would come up with the idea to just give up. It might be surprising for Twilight to fail a task entrusted to her, especially one with someone's (and possibly Equestria's) fate at stake, but to activly choose to abandon it entirely would be completly unexpected. And to add to the chaotic fun, by giving up she would simultaneously both fail and succeed at the same time!
I really like this idea though, for the life of me I couldn't come up with anything that could work over time. If anyone can surprise the spirit of chaos its little mischeif makers.
Great story!
Wow! That ending was awesome!
And oh indeed, Princess Celestia. Future times are going to be very interesting indeed.
Great story CCC, thanks for creating this story for us to read and enjoy.
~ Super-Brony12
The idea of Discord as a teacher its my favorite use for his reformed self :D
This story was pretty cool and you earned a fave for it :)
(I normally just fave incomplete stories that I want to keep track on but there are some who are good enough to stay there even when they are completed :D)
This was a fantastic story.
The truth is, the Mane 6 are pretty predictable, as mainstream heroes tend to be. It doesn't surprise me that it took the CMC to deliver a surprise. The only thing you can predict about those three is that they're going to do something wacky and possibly fairly chaotic... it's not a coincidence they were the ones that let Discord out the first time.
I do have a quibble with Discord's tone. He is entirely too world-weary, too Dr. Manhattan, to seem quite IC for the manic Lord of Chaos. But I can handwave this as the result of depression. If when Discord says "I'll go insane if I have to live this way, and then ponies will end up dead" he literally means "I'll become psychotically depressed, lose any sense that any lives have value including my own, and start doing things that kill ponies because I'll be too far gone with depression to remember why I care about not doing that", that makes sense with who he is and how he's been living since reforming, and it can explain why he seems so tired and emotionally detached and not like his usual hyper self during the fic. You might want to hang a lampshade on that, though, and have Fluttershy or Pinkie or someone actually *notice* this.
The eventual long-term solution to the problem is awesome. I wish I had had a chance to go to that school. I was *capable* of playing by the rules, but only by multitasking to avoid boredom. Discord's school would have been awesome... though I learn better from written material so his three pages of smiley faces would have annoyed me. :-)
Discord as a teacher of particularly interesting, intelligent and creative students who don't play by the rules fits very well. It's a role I frequently give Q in my Star Trek fanfics and, well, they're basically the same guy. :-)
Oh, and one other thing. Have you ever listened to the GMS song "No Rules?" There's a line at the beginning that fits Discord's school perfectly, when a man who sounds like a headmaster or something says "I know you want to break the rules. There aren't any." (Or possibly he's saying "I know you won't break the rules", but I always heard it as "want to" and I think that is 20% cooler. :-))
3427443
Thanks! I kind of liked it, too.
3427913
(We don't have a Discord smiley. Why don't we have a Discord smilie...)
3428150
Ooooh, a quantum-interminate state of failure/success! I think Discord would have approved.
3429097
3429107
It is my pleasure. I greatly enjoyed writing it.
3429344
3429354
Yes, that makes perfect sense.
He's definitely depressed, and doesn't know what to do with himself...
It might make sense to have somepony notice that, but I'm not entirely sure what they'd try to do about it. Aside from what they were already doing, I mean.
I don't believe I've ever heard it. But those lyrics would make a great motto for Discord's school. Perhaps shortened a bit... "There's no rules." According to Google translate, that comes out in Latin as "nulla praecepta".
Hmmm... the school emblem would be a stylised version of Discord's face, of course. He's got a big enough ego to push for that.
3429569
"It might make sense to have somepony notice that, but I'm not entirely sure what they'd try to do about it. Aside from what they were already doing, I mean."
I don't think they'd *do* anything because you're right, they're trying to do what they can do already. But they're doing it because Celestia told them to and because Discord said, calmly, using words, "I'm going to turn evil again if you don't do this, because I don't have a choice." Having either Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie make the connection between Discord's reduced affect and this statement on his part adds an emotional driver. They're not just doing this for a cake or Celestia's praise or the abstract sense that this is what they need to do to stop a villain; this is what they need to do to save a friend from himself and keep him from going to the dark side for reasons they can *see*. Flutters wouldn't emotionally comprehend why mundane life is destroying Discord, but she would very much empathize with his pain even if she can't quite emotionally understand the mechanism causing it, and she'd feel driven to help him because he's a suffering friend, above and beyond the fact that he's going to turn villainous again if she doesn't. Pinkie might actually fully empathize with what's wrong with Discord; if the thing I keep seeing in fics is actual canon history for her, that she really did have a boring, driven, fun-less life on her parents' rock farm until the day she got her cutie mark, then Pinkie knows exactly what it's like to crave chaos and change and fun and instead to live someplace where every day is exactly the same. She doesn't need the *degree* of chaos Discord does but she knows what it's like to live without the degree of chaos that *she* needs. So even beyond "Princess Celestia says so" and "It'll stop a villain" and maybe even beyond "My friend is suffering", Pinkie might be motivated by "I know exactly what that feels like and I wouldn't wish it on anypony."
The entire fic is a little bit emotionally detached. It feels like the whole thing's written from Twilight's perspective even though there are numerous scenes she's not in, because Twilight is clinical, dry, and processes her emotions through her cerebrum. (I identify a lot with Twilight, even though Discord's my favorite, because I do exactly the same thing, personally.) It's not like anyone is OOC (except Discord and like I said, he's probably depressed), it's just that there's no *feeling* of emotional urgency in any of the ponies who would probably feel it. Pinkie's appropriately manic and maybe doesn't talk so much about the feels so much as she tries to *do* stuff about them, but it seems to me like Fluttershy would *feel* a sense of urgency and a desire to help, if she's able to perceive that Discord's acting much lower-energy than he usually does, and what that means.
On a different topic... screw Hogwarts. I want to see the adventures of children of various species going to *Discord's* school to learn magic. :-)
3429873
I think Fluttershy is already driven to do all she can to help Discord, simply because he says that he needs help; I don't think it makes too much difference, whether she finds a reason she can describe for that or not. (And I'm not sure she'd mention it if she did spot it - she might think it's obvious enough that surely everyone else noticed it already, and so there's no reason for her to step out of her nice comfortable background to draw attention to what must be obvious and surely everyone else has spotted it already).
You have an excellent point with regard to Pinkie, though. I hadn't realised quite how far the parallel between Discord's situation and Pinkie's past went, but you're right that there's a lot of similarity in there. I'll think about it; I don't much like editing a fic after it's done, but it might be justified in this case.
Yeah, that'd probably be because it's me writing it. There's a lot of (mental) similarity between me and pre-ponyville Twilight.
Except, instead of doing magic, I write software, and I don't have a royal patron. And I don't make so many checklists.
I probably need to practice doing less emotionally detached writing a bit. (This story certainly wasn't intended to be emotionally detached. It just happened).
I agree - that would be a lot of fun. To read or to write. It's definitely on my list of 'settings to use once I find a suitable storyline'.
Brilliant. I love how you portrayed Discord. Very well written as well!
3431339 I would TOTALLY love a sequel!
3866027
So would I!
I'd love to write sequels to so many of the stories I've written...
I wasn't sure about this in the early chapters, but the ending was hilarious!
4060972
I think that parts of it, particularly Pinkie's chapter, suffered from a slight problem; in that I wanted to show all seven of the main characters failing first, before the final plot resolution.
With the result that it ended up rather drawn-out and slow at times.
A nice story, and I like the payoff at the end. I'd been worried that it might disappoint, because you pitch it in a way that almost makes the reader root for you to fail, but I thought the execution and the foreshadowing (both of the proximal solution and of the ultimate one) were strong. Also, this is my absolute favorite kind of Discord. I'd been thinking of working with him in a context like this at some point, but it's nice to see someone else has already run with it!
On the critical side, I think some of the character voicing is weak throughout—and here I'm talking specifically about voicing in dialogue. I thought the characters felt natural in their portrayal, but their dialogue often sounded like any one of them could have been saying the lines. Also, you've got a few misused words floating around in the ninth chapter: pariah and deprivation with Chief Thunderhooves, which I assume are supposed to be anathema and depredation (or potentially depravation, but I don't think that's actually a proper word).
Brilliant story. Fun to read. Sweetie's comment in the last chapter regarding Rarity? Yeah I cried a little
I want a sequel... This was awesome!
This story was completely and totally brilliant.
A couple things made me laugh, though altogether too much of the story was kind of boring; the day to day events kind of dragged on a bit, and while it was necessary to set up the ending, none of the particular daily events were that funny apart from Applejack's and maybe Spike's.
EDIT: From the thing that directed me here, repeated for posterity:
NOW I recognize this voice! It's Q, from the Star Trek episode where he was forced to become human. Well done!
...wow. 49 new favourites in the last twenty-four hours?
What just happened?
...
Also! I am behind on responding to comments. I will get to that directly!
4678896 magic happened
4299679
I know what you mean - sometimes I have a thing that needs to be said, and I don't quite know who should be saying it, so I give the line to pretty much whichever pony's nearest at the time.
That's... probably a bad habit.
You are perfectly right, and I have suitably reworded that section. (I... may have got a teensy bit carried away when writing it).
4508366
Excellent. That means the hints are just about exactly hard enough to notice.
4520405
Yes, I see what you mean... but it worked, didn't it?
4653347
Yes, they really don't have the best relationship, do they?
Rarity seems to assume that Sweetie just magically knows how much she cares all the time, and Sweetie doesn't.
4673463
Maybe. Or maybe he read Twilight's mind before the game.
(I actually have thought of an explanation for Discord's amazing predictive ability, and if I ever write a sequel, it'll be a plot point. There's just so many other stories I want to write first...)
4673563
I clearly need more pony-writing time.
4673698
That would be a surprise, yes.
4674011
4674452
Yes, that's the great weakness of this story. Short of physically removing half the Element-Bearers from Ponyville by contrived coincidence for the duration of the story, however, I'm really not sure how to fix it.
(I hadn't thought of the contrived coincidence before, but I think it would be worse).
4674872
Maybe. Maybe not. He occasionally disappears (blue box and all) for weeks at a time.
He may be carefully avoiding Discord for reasons of his own.
4675925
I fully agree with you.
Though I'm not sure Applejack quite sees things the way we do.
4676464
To be completely honest, that was coincidental. I was just going for 'bored Discord'. But if I happened to hit on 'bored Q', then I must have got it right, right?
4679009 Indeed!
I conservatively rate this 5 out of 5 moustaches.
4678921
Ah, yes, so I see.
4679023
I love 'five out of five' ratings.
Ok, I laughed. I don't like paperwork either...
Here's a 'stache and a thumbs up.
Oh, and a fave too, I suppose...
I give it a thumbs up and
out of 3.14159265... moustaches.
I'm expecting the cutie mark crusaders to have a million gold stars by the end of their first school year.
4678962
I imagine he has this little grid with each character's traits and sets of activities and just goes across and down to get a little synopsis of how each character reacts to the game in question. Either that or a really screwed up Venn Diagram.
This story was AWSOME!
Your portrayal of Discord was really funny. I will concede that it was a little slow in the middle, but I loved the ending. I wish I was in that school... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make a sequel! 
I didn't expect the ending, and the solution was ingenious. Also, was anyone else expecting pinkie on day 4? Sorry, I'm rambling. Overall, great job! You deserve my thumbs-up.
Sequal...
You will make a sequel...
...please?
4680755
I think it's pretty clear that he's one of the most intelligent characters in the show.
He just has his own way of doing things...
4681598
I have a more explicitly Discord vs. paperwork story over here, as well.
4683707
But, you see, Discord didn't need to consider the entire googol of possible chess games. He only really needed to consider one possible chess game, which was the game Twilight played against him.
4683922
Well, that's certainly a suitably discordant rating... I shall assume it's positive!
4683934
That would require more than one gold star a minute. I somehow doubt they'll obtain a full million.
Mind you, they could obtain quite a few...
4684815
That's nowhere near what I had in mind. It is far too sensible.
4685297
Wow, a 1800% rating? That's a *lot*!
4687222
...maybe.
I have lots of stories I want to write. A sequel is possible (and I have some ideas that might lead to one) but it's nowhere near the top of my list just yet...
Good point.
4691035
I had a feeling the CMC were going to play into the resolution once Scootaloo popped up in Dash's chapter, but I did not put together all the disappearances. I love the idea of the school, it's definitely a good way to keep him out of trouble and sane.
4687230
EXACTLY! Because nopony would EVER expect Discord to make sense!
4693026
Kindof, except the outside is also bigger...
4694971
4695302
So.... you're saying that it makes sense... because it doesn't make sense?
That's... wonderfully Discordic reasoning, really.
4701670 Thank you. While I doubt this is necessarily canon, I feel that there is a problem with Discord being All Chaos, All The Time: its predictable. He's predictably chaotic. He's consistently chaotic. You might not be able to predict the exact action he will take, but you can always count on it to be chaotic. My personal view is that, every once in a blue moon, Discord will do something that makes sense and/or is predictable for no other reason than to screw with people. Then he'll sit back and watch the fun as people freak out wondering why he's doing what he's doing. Thus, the occasional act of order will cause as much, if not more, chaos than regular chaos can.
This was a marvellous story.
Best ending ever.
-Spirit
I was expecting Twilight to fail... and then Discord is surprised that she failed after how much Celestia said Twilight succeeded at everything she puts her mind to.
I like your portrayal of Discord and the build up, though I'll admit the ending kind of fell flat for me, ending-wise.
Very interesting story and premise. I do hope you have a sequel planned for these "troublesome" students, if only for how one of them gets a star from Discord (because no matter how well Discord might be able to predict things I can be 99.999...% certain that he'd be surprised at least once.
4704551
Yes, but that doesn't allow for him to be predictable all the time about one thing.
4714603
4720662
I could have done it that way... but it would have fallen flat for me, then, because I'd seen Discord as expecting Twilight to fail (but hoping she didn't).
4805282
I don't have a plot worked out for a sequel yet (though I do have some ideas for scenes that would appear in a sequel - but nothing substantial enough to build up an entire sequel around just yet)
4968743
Hmmmm. So noted.
Thinking back on things I've read... this one lacks a sequel, and that disappoints me.
HUMMMMM... I have some ideas. If I was Discord, here's what I'd do:
- Create a clone of myself (paradoxal intelect!)
- Take away my foreseeing skills. (duh.)
- Or just limit his other senses.
- Go live in the dream world. (the most unpredictable of all places, even for a master predictor.)
That's all I can thing of, but these are sure to create much needed unpredictability for poor Discord. If only he was a creative as he was random.
Also, how come we see Discord complaining that everything is unpredictable? I mean, he sure can see far in the future, but he isn't omniscient. Obviously if he tried predicting too far in the future, or something too complex to predict with not enough info on it, he would be unable predicting it.
The Butterfly Effect is the obvious answer to his predicament: for example, if he were to see a running stallion, could he guess his destination? Probably yes, judging by his movements, body language, clothing and such. But! Could he predict the location a goldfish, 25 years after it disappeared from his view? What about the type of government of every country, 2000 years from now on? The evolution of every species?
The story clearly stated that wasn't the case.
Anyway, I really liked this story, even though the premise breaks apart when you think about it too much.