Discord's Apprentice

by Architect Ironturtle

Lesson 2, Part Two: Preparation leads to Pranking

System grunted. It had felt another ping, much weaker than the last one, and from a different source. In addition, the previous signal had solidified and was growing steadily stronger. These pings didn't actually affect its deal, but they could break it if they signified what it thought they did. It stretched, and began the slow process of waking up. It still wouldn't act until the Compromise was broken, but it could, and would, observe, making sure it had all the information it needed. Then, it would move.

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Discord chortled as he watched Pinkie on the portable screen. He personally would have made that guard a little more forward, but Pinkie's trick had had the desired affect, so it didn't really matter. He was reaching for more popcorn when an alert came in on Celestia. Those had been rare ever since his reform, except for the odd request she gave her guards to watch out for his latest antics. He switched away from Pinkie digging her way across Ponyille to Fluttershy's and brought up his view of Celestia. She was in the Royal academy, speaking with the head researcher, a grey unicorn with an atom for a cutie mark.

"-and I have to be able to access the magic without having them all present," she was saying, in a tone that hinted her words were the most important single order she had ever spoken.

"I don't know, Princess, that's a tall order," the unicorn replied, scratching his head in thought. "I could see maybe modifying one the elements to change the aspect it represented, but creating an entirely new one? And making it capable of using their full power by itself? We're talking magical theory so advanced we don't understand all of it yet."

"I have a baseline here." Celestia pulled a grey gem out of the saddlebag she was wearing. "It was built to replace an Element in case one of them was destroyed."

The Unicorn accepted the gem, and put on a pair of goggles to analyze it. "mono-fractal energy lines, dual harmonic resonators, yes, this will do nicely. We'll let you know as soon as it's finished."

"Very well." Celestia nodded once and turned to leave, but stopped giving one last piece of advice over her shoulder. "By the way, make this a top priority project, I don't know if, or when I'll need it." The unicorn quirked an eyebrow under his goggles, then shrugged and starting calling out orders as Celestia exited the lab and the feed cut out.

"Oh dear," Discord said to himself. "It seems Tia isn't happy with my little apprentice. Well, I can't blame her for wanting a backup plan. Oh, wait, yes I can!" He snapped his fingers.

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"Hi, Fluttershy!" Pinkie said as she bounced in front of Fluttershy's front door. She'd decided to tone down the craziness around her more jumpy and jittery friend, and wasn't doing anything particularly strange. At least, not by Pinkie standards.

"Hello, Pinkie, do come in, if-if you like." Fluttershy said, stepping aside to allow Pinkie to enter, which she did, hopping over the threshold. Angel bunny took one look at Pinkie from his favorite spot on the couch, screamed in terror and fled out the back door.

"Angel!" Fluttershy scolded "That is no way to treat a guest! Um, if you'll excuse me for a moment," she said to Pinkie, "just have a seat, if you want to." She ran out the door after him, and Pinkie heard what sounded like a lecture crossed with a wrestling match as she sat down.

"I don't care if she feels just like Discord! You are going to apologize, and that's final!" Fluttershy mumbled between her teeth, carrying a struggling Angel Bunny back into the house. "Now say you're sorry."

Angel started to comply, but then saw Pinkie's face. When she'd heard him coming back in, she'd found the temptation irresistible, and had carefully inverted all of her features, causing her eyes nose, and mouth to be upside-down without moving from their proper spot on her face. Angel shrieked again, and squirmed out of Fluttershy's mouth before hightailing it into the woods.

Pinkie cackled until she caught Fluttershy glaring at her. "Pinkie, that was mean," she intoned, every bit the imposing mother.

Pinkie grinned sheepishly. "Sorry."

Fluttershy accepted the apology with a nod. "It's ok, you just apologize to Angel before you go. Got it?" She growled this last sentence, causing Pinkie Pie to shrink back in her seat. She nodded rapidly, her head almost falling off.

"Good. Now, would you like some tea?" Pinkie did, so Fluttershy went to brew some. Once it was finished, she poured them both a cup, then settled back into her chair.

"So how's Sugarcube Corner doing? If you don't mind my asking." Fluttershy opened.

"Oh, it's great!" Pinkie replied, taking a sip. "The Cakes got this big order from the palace earlier today. I spent all afternoon whipping up a ton of carrot cakes. Are your animal friends getting along?"

"Oh, splendidly," Fluttershy cooed. taking the aroma of her brew. "I had to set a few wings after a manticore knocked a tree over and dislodged a passing migration, but nothing serious. However, why would the Princess want so many cakes all of a sudden?"

Pinkie grinned conspiratorially. "I think it might have something to do with Princess Celestia's date yesterday."

Fluttershy gasped. "A date? With who?" Pinkie proceeded to fill her in on the previous night's activities, lavishing on the details. "I even hired that up and coming cello master to play for them, and she did great!"

"That's wonderful." Fluttershy said. "I'm glad Discord is getting some love, especially if it makes the Princess happy as well."

Pinkie opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Discord appearing in the middle of the room. "Oh do pardon me, Fluttershy, but I need to borrow my apprentice for a bit."

"It's not a problem at all." Fluttershy answered, torn between happiness at seeing a friend, and slight annoyance at his lack of knocking. "May I ask what you need her for?"

"Just a little tutoring, nothing major." Discord replied smoothly, although both mares could tell he was hiding something. Before Fluttershy could ask any questions, though, Discord grabbed Pinkie and teleported away, leaving Fluttershy to ponder a question that had been bugging her since Pinkie arrived. Since when do I have to look up to meet Pinkie's eyes?

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PInkie flew into the couch with a plop as they landed, somehow ending up perfectly situated in the corner. Discord sat across form her, pondering his opening statement. He started to speak, but Pinkie beat him too it. "Discord, even I know it's rude to run off with someone without letting them say goodbye," said, holding her head in her hoof.

"Well, this was important," Discord said snippishly. Folding his arms over his chest.

Pinkie just quirked an eyebrow. "Oh, really?" she said, her voice dripping with skepticism.

Discord then informed her just what Princess Celestia was up too. Pinkie expression changed from shocked to angry, before it finally settled on hurt. "I thought she trusted me," she said, her mane starting to deflate.

"Apparently not," Discord said non-nonchalantly, not realizing what an impact this revelation was having on Pinkie. "You'd think she would by now, what with you saving Equestria so many times, but nope. Say, how would you feel about getting back at her?"

"Huh?" Pinkie said, her mane stopping just short of going flat. "What do you mean?"

"The prank of the century." Discord pitched, "This one will be entirely your work. If you impress me, we'll move on to the next section in your training tomorrow. Here's what I want you to do..."

As he spoke, Pinkie began to smile, her expression becoming more and more villainous as the words poured over her.

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Celestia let out a mental sigh as the latest petitioner of the day stalked out of the throne room, his request for a tax cut that turned out to affect only him having been denied. Honestly, she'd been dealing with ponies like him for centuries, did he actually believe he could fool her?

"Excuse me, Princess," whispered a courier into Celestia's ear as she sat on her throne holding court, resisting to urge to rub her eyes at yet another long, boring speech that would ultimately mean nothing, "I have a message for you." He dropped a scroll at her feet and disappeared back into the shadows.

She nodded and stood. "I'll be back in a moment, my little ponies." Celestia walked behind the throne into the antechamber where she prepared for the day's hearings, and unfurled the scroll.

Relocation Report, Captain Flash Sentry

We arrived at Princess Twilight's Castle on time, and proceeded to secure the area. However, due to unknown causes, the Princess screamed upon seeing us and slammed the door in our faces, before coming back, letting us in, and falling unconscious to the floor. She is fine, and currently recuperating in her quarters, but this unit requests to know whether such behavior is normal as part of being able to serve our Princess to the best of our abilities.

The rest of the report was just the usual paperwork surrounding any type of government change, and Celestia only skimmed it before handing it to a nearby accountant for processing. She was just about to write a response when the sounds of mayhem in the court finally reached her. She galloped into the room, where she stopped dead in surprise. To say the place had turned inside out and upside down while she was away would have been a massive understatement.

To start with, gravity seemed to have stopped working, as everypony (excluding Celestia) was floating around bumping into each other. Whenever they did, they would swap a body part, leaving one poor stallion with 8 left-rear-legs. However, everything that wasn't a pony was still very firmly attached to least some surface. Living paint brushes painted and repainted the walls, while a trio of greyskinned, bipedal bug-eyed creatures and a pair of changelings were dancing in a conga line on the ceiling. A 5 foot tall yodeling cucumber in a doctor's uniform was hopping all over the room chased by a bear caught in no less than three separate bear traps, while a group of foal-sized peas in guard helmets tossed slushies everywhere. It was, in a word, mayhem. Celestia's eyes's jumped all over the room, and she became more and more angry as the spectacular view settled in.

DISCORD! She bellowed in the Royal Canterlot Voice, causing everypony in the room to cover their ears and stare at her. A cordless phone and charger appeared in front of her, with the phone shaped like Discord. "I'm sorry," said Discord's voice, "I can't answer your summons right now, please leave a message after the beep."

"BEEP!" shouted Pinkie.

"Discord," Celestia all but growled, "If you don't come and fix this right now, you can consider our date this Friday canceled." She hadn't even finished speaking before Discord appeared and started snapping his fingers. Within three seconds everything was back to normal, and Discord was on his knees in front of her, "Please don't cancel, pleasepleaseplease!"

Celestia looked down at him in surprise, then smirked. "Very well, then. It's still on."

"YES!" Discord whooped, and teleported away. Celestia sighed with a chuckle and turned to face the oncoming storm.

"Princess, surely you're going not to let that heathen get away with this!.."

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Pinkie Pie was busy laughing her head off as Discord appeared in his room. She rolled on the floor, her noggin a good 6 feet away. "Yeah, yeah, yuck it up." Discord pouted. "We're done here. Tomorrow you we'll be working with Ali-Sight."

Pinkie managed to get herself under control long enough to ask, "Ali-Sight? What's that?"

"You'll see." Discord opened the door for her. "If you get bored, go practice on your friends. I need some time to think."

"Okie-dokie-lokie!" Pinkie Pie hopped through the doorway, which then shut behind her. Discord groaned and sank into his hot tub. "The things I do for love," he sighed, and curled up to take a nap.

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"Ok, now you two apologize to each other." Fluttershy said, giving Pinkie and Angel the stink-eye.

"I'm sorry," Pinkie said. Angel mimed something similar, and they shook hooves. Fluttershy nodded in approval, and trotted off, Angel hopping behind her. Pinkie meanwhile went upstairs to bed. Using chaos magic really took a lot out of her, she reflected. As she climbed under the sheets, she failed to notice that tip of her tail had grown slightly longer, and split in two.

Author's Note:

Next chapter. If you think my story is good, please leave a like, those are what sort stories by rating.

Comments

[Votederpycausemufins]

is pinkie becoming a dracone- draconiqu- ... how ever the hay you say/spell it?

[Borderline Valley]

while a group of foal-sized peas in guard helmets tossed slushies everywhere.

... I should know this one. I know I should know this one. Can't quite put my finger on it though.

[Tangerine Blast]

5736610 Veggietales.

Oh man. Things are getting intense up in here.

[Philosophysics]

DUN! DUN! DUN!

[Christs Disciple]

I was laughing so hard. The references to Vegietales, the aliens and changelings making a conga line, Discord getting on his knees and begging for the date to not be cancelled. It was all so funny. But...What's happening to Pinkie?

[SgtFrog]

5737071

She is learning how to become more like Chaos...maybe Chaos is becoming more like her? (Yeah, it seems like she's slowly transforming into a draconequus).

[Raven]

5737071 Her extended use of Chaos Magic is changing her.

[Tennis Match Fan]

So, Pinkie is becoming a draconequus like Twilight became an alicorn?

[Messiah Complex]

5736601
Draconequus

[Frantic Starz]

from their proper shot on her

from their proper spot on her

[Ugly-Duckling123]

Angel bunny took one look at Pinkie from his favorite spot on the couch, screamed in terror and fled out the back door.

It's cause animals can sense things more than ponies isn't it?

[the other sans]

Since when do I have to look up to meet Pinkie eyes
His started to speak, but Pinkie beat him too it

1. Pinkie's.
2. He.

Loving the Courage the Cowardly Dog reference. Ahh, such childhood memories...

[CreateEquestria]

the castle throne room

The Castle Throne Room

[FallenFromGlory]

This is a soooooooong! For your poor sick penguin! He's got feveeeeeer! And his toes are blueeeeeeee!

Oh my god. I haven't even thought about that in well over a decade. Thank you for that. Made me laugh a bit too much.

[Caldoric]

A 5 foot tall yodeling cucumber in a doctor's uniform was hopping all over the room chased by a bear caught in no less than three separate bear traps, while a group of foal-sized peas in guard helmets tossed slushies everywhere.

Hah, veggietales. Nice. "And now it's time for silly songs with Larry, the part of the chapter where Larry comes out and helps with a Chaos prank."

[emeraldhuskydragon0]

A 5 foot tall yodeling cucumber in a doctor's uniform was hopping all over the room chased by a bear caught in no less than three separate bear traps, while a group of foal-sized peas in guard helmets tossed slushies everywhere.

Veggietales, huh?