Discord's Apprentice

by Architect Ironturtle

Lesson 1: Focus

Pinkie Pie, having finished with work for the day, was busily practicing her balloon blowing technique while Discord fiddled with a door he had installed on the side of the building. He had The Cakes permission, of course (on the condition that he Pinkie swore to never step inside Sugarcube Corner again during business hours). It didn't lead anywhere except a gingerbread wall when Pinkie tried to open it, but Discord told her it wasn't finished yet.

"And, done." Discord opened the door, which now led to a room in the palace that looked out over the hedge maze. "Right this way, my dear." Discord said, wearing a tux while holding the door open for her.

"WOW! That door goes all the way to Canterlot? That's super duper!" She stowed the balloon (which now resembled her pet, Gummy) in her mane, bounced through the opening, and promptly fell sideways, onto the wall the other end of the door was placed in. "Waugh!" Apparently Discord didn't abide by little things like the laws of gravity while in his own quarters. Pinkie saw a hot-tub on the ceiling, a massage chair on the wall opposite her, a fish tank in every corner except the lower left, which held a trampoline, two windows on the walls to the left and right of her that shared the same view, a cube falling in an endless loop through two wormholes in the center of the room, a completely normal looking sofa, coffee table, and pair of cushy chairs on the floor, rugs of every color and sometimes all the colors on every conceivable surface except a random half of the floor and ceiling, a mirror on the wall she was standing on directly to her left, and absolutely no bed. Pinkie Pie was trying to decide where she should look first when she noticed something off about the place. "Um, Discord? Where do you sleep?"

Discord appeared in the hot tub. "In here, of course. I find it so much more comfortable than those feather mattresses you ponies use. I can't even conceive of why you would want sleep in a bed when there are so many nicer options out there. It's mind boggling."

"I don't know, beds are pretty comfy. Anyway, aren't you supposed to be teaching me?"

"Oh, that's right." he snapped his fingers and appeared in one of the chairs, with his feet in the air, and his head lying on the ground. "Come have a seat." Normal gravity reasserted itself for Pinkie, and after she picked herself up off the floor and shot Discord a glare, she sat in the chair opposite him. Her mane may have still been puffy, but her face was serious. Pinkie Pie was curious about just what Discord was planning to teach her, and while she tried to remain optimistic, her past experiences with him weren't helping.

"To start with, how do you usually channel your magic? Unicorns use their horns, Zebras have their potions, and I snap my fingers." Discord snapped his paw, and conjured up a notebook and mechanical pencil. "Every magic user has a focus of some kind or other, and knowing what yours is is the first step towards being to able to use your magic effectively."

"Hmm." Pinkie scrunched up her face in concentration. She'd never really considered how she used her gifts before, she just did! But, if she had to pick a focus, then- "It's my movements." Discord started to scribble. "Whenever I move my body, it channels one of my abilities. Different twitches utilize my Pinkie sense, but mostly I think I use magic when I gesture. I wonder..." Pinkie swung her right hoof around jerkily and pointed it at the couch, which was suddenly holding a rubber chicken. "That's new."

"I think that might be my fault." Discord chuckled, tearing out the page he'd been writing and crumpling it into an origami frog. "Chaos tends to multiply when it's introduced to more of itself, and this is the first time we've interacted one on one like this."

"It is?" Pinkie Pie asked, then answered herself. "No it isn't! What about that time in the hedge?"

"Oh, that. I'd completely forgotten about that." A mini Discord popped out of his ear and held up a sign that said LIAR. Discord swatted at him, and he disappeared. "Anyway, most magic has to follow rules, a code that was hashed out by the first unicorn Mages, and has been passed down ever since. Do you happen to know it?"

Pinkie nodded absently, her face contorted in thought. "I think so. The first rule is-"

"Good," Discord interrupted her. "Throw it out." He tossed a copy of Your Magic and You over his shoulder. "Chaos magic doesn't abide by any rule except this: your only limit is your concentration." He pulled out a magnifying lens and held it out in the sun, causing rainbow light to diffuse itself over the floor. "If you can't picture what you want to happen, you won't be able to make it happen, no matter how much you want to. Conceptualization is the key." The lens adjusted itself, and the sun's wrath landed on a fly on the floor, one that started crying "help me!" in a tine voice before it burned to a crisp. Pinkie turned her head away and ignored it as best she could so she wouldn't toss her cookies. Those took a long time to bake! "Now, turn this piece of paper into a flower." Discord levitated a page he'd torn out of a notebook between them.

Pinkie cleared the death of the fly from her mind with the it probably wasn't real anyway, and focused on the scrap, repeating the gesture she'd used earlier. The paper turned into a potato. Confused, she tried again, and produced a toy train instead. She attempted the challenge a few more times, her motions becoming quicker and more erratic as her frustration grew.

Discord smiled knowingly. "Did you think of what kind of flower you wanted?" he asked. Pinkie stopped, and looked at him. "How many leaves does it have? What color are the petals? Where does the pollen go?"

Pinkie thought for a bit, then tried one last time. With a pop, the paper transformed into a perfect lilac. Pinkie beamed, her whole face lighting up.

Discord nodded approvingly, inwardly impressed at her rapid gain in skill. "Good. Do you understand why you failed before?"

Pinkie nodded, still grinning. "Yes, I do. I didn't think hard enough about it, and without that, my magic didn't know what to do. That's why it kept changing it into something I didn't want."

"Excellent," Discord was pleased. The concepts were almost always the hard part of learning any subject for the first time, and after that the field would get considerably easier. "If you're making this much progress when we've barely even started, than I think I know what you should do for practice first."

"Really? What's That?" Pinkie bobbed her head in curiosity, with a slight hint of nervousness.

"The best part of chaos, of course. Pranks!" Discord flew out of his chair, grabbed Pinkie Pie, and went sailing through the door they'd entered by, only now it opened into a hallway. Pinkie Pie started to get a sinking feeling that she had no idea what she'd signed herself up for.

Back on the floor where they'd dropped it in their haste to leave the room, the lilac turned back into a piece of paper, then a flower again, then both at once before disintegrating into a pile of ash, before it disappeared a second later.

88888888

"Ok, Pinkie, remember: picture what you want to do, then use your focus to make it happen."

Pinkie thought of the trick she had in mind, inhaled, exhaled, brought her hoof up to her chest, and extended it. *pop*

"Very good, Pinkie!" said Discord, "Now, we wait."

88888888

Prince Blueblood was walking to the throne room on important business. He'd noticed that his bathwater just wasn't as warm as it should be, and was going to ask his Aunt to fix it. He knew she cared about all his problems because of the way her left eye twitched as he explained them to her. He'd been walking for 15 minutes or so now, which was weird, because the throne room was only 5 minutes away, even when he felt like being slow. Also, there didn't seem to be any servants running about, which was stranger because there was always somepony or other keeping the palace clean, no matter the time of day.

He stopped, and looked around. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen any doors at all in a while, and he didn't seem to know where he was. This set off several alarms, as his special talent was being able to get from anywhere to anywhere else without getting lost. His Cutie Mark was a compass for a reason after all. He slowly turned in a circle, trying to get a bearing. He was standing on a hardwood floor, in the middle of a corridor that stretched 100 feet in both directions before it turned off into another part of the palace. Wait, thought Blueblood. There aren't any hardwood floors in the palace. Then, finally, he looked up.

"DISCORD!"

The Lord of Chaos himself appeared before him, holding a box of peanuts like he was watching the circus. "Oh, hey, there, Blu-blu, how's it hanging?"

"Discord." huffed Blueblood. "I must request that you undo your magic and remove me from the ceiling this instant!"

"Oh, I'm so, so sorry." Discord said, his voice dripping with sympathy. "But I'm afraid it's not my magic that put you up here in the first place. I wish I could help, but-" he shrugged, then snapped his fingers and disappeared. Prince Blueblood turned red.

"Aunt Celly, Discord's messing with me again!"

88888888

"Excellent job, Pinkie," said Discord. "Very subtle."

"Thanks!" Pinkie Pie beamed. "It was easy once I thought of inverting the hallway so he wouldn't notice when he ended up upside down."

Pinkie Pie and Discord gazed at their work through the visor in the suit of armor they were hiding in, nodded once in satisfaction, then cracked up.

Author's Note:

I think I'll just stop this here.

If you watch a series of clips of Discord, you'll notice an interesting pattern. Instead of being pure random, he tailors his antics to whatever he is saying. Example: upon being freed in season 3, he mentions being encased in stone makes rolling his eyes a challenge, then literally rolls them like a pair of dice. In truth, he's not really random. His thoughts just spill over into reality a lot more often than most ponies.

Comments

[Tundric Spirit]

5653832 i havn't even read it once yet...... im waiting for it to be done or at least half way

[Christs Disciple]

Ah. It's great to see Blueblood get pranked.

[Frantic Starz]

he snapped his fingers his fingers and appeared in one of the chairs

he snapped his fingers and appeared in one of the chairs

[Frantic Starz]

If you watch a series of clips of Discord, you'll notice an interesting pattern. Instead of being pure random, he tailors his antics to whatever he is saying. Example: upon being freed in season 3, he mentions being encased in stone makes rolling his eyes a challenge, then literally rolls them like a pair of dice. In truth, he's not really random. His thoughts just spill over into reality a lot more often than most ponies.

Very perceptive of you to notice, I used to think I was the only one.

[treegrowth]

LOL, that was hilarious!

[the other sans]

He pulled out a magnifying lens. holding it out in the sun., causing light to diffuse over the floor

1. He pulled out a magnifying lens holding it out to the sun and caused the light to diffuse over the floor.

Careful there Blu-blu, yell anymore and your face will turn blue. Hmm, maybe hanging him upside down will do the same.

[dawn seeker]

ahhhhh snotty,over the top, egotistical, "high and mighty", rude, selfish, bratty, self-serving, rotten, no good, yellow-bellied, under-hoofed, stuck up, moronic, foolish, dimwitted, numb nutted, plot sniffing, numbskulled, clay-brained, warthog-faced, wretched, pig-nutted, ill-nurtured, ignorant, impudent, plot-fed, filthy, cowardly, shallow, pig-headed, beef-witted, vain, flea-faced, loathsome, hoof-licking, self-centered, foul, abominable, beetle-headed, cockered, ill-breeding, venomed, boil-brained, sheep-biting, lumpish, fool-born, brazen-faced, wimpled, weedy, unwashed, slimy, dankish, pribbling, odoriferous, ruttish, greasy,whiny, beslubbering, bat-fowling, toad-spotted, flea-bitten BlueBlood got what he deserved

[rainbowscratch27]

Portal reference for the win

[psychosis]

6258600
Yeah, nothing like tossing Companion Cubes into eternal free all when you're bored.

[DiscountDiscord]

Prince Blueblood was walking to the throne room on important business. He'd noticed that his bathwater just wasn't as warm as it should be, and was going to ask his Aunt to fix it.

... Yeah I could see him doing that.

[iloveportalz0r]

"Really? What's That?"

*that

[King_crozillan2021]

6198215
Not even