The Element of Chaos

“So you five are, essentially, the elements of harmony?” Discord asked once Pinkie was done.

“Basically yeah,” Applejack answered.

“I hold the element of generosity,” Rarity supplied.

Rainbow Dash folded her arms and gave him a smug smile. “I’m loyalty!”

Applejack gave a modest nod. “Honesty.”

“K-k-kindness,” Fluttershy whispered bashfully from behind a curtain of pale pink hair.

“And I’m laughter!” Pinkie giggled.

Discord grinned. The bearers of the elements were five teenage girls. That made things a lot easier. It was hard to manipulate stone, but people could be easily turned. “What element did Twilight hold?” he asked.

“Magic! The magic of friendship!” Pinkie answered eagerly. The element of magic, huh? That made sense. The crown must hold the power needed to activate the girls’ latent magical abilities. “So what happened to the crown?” he asked.

“Oh Twilight took it with her into the portal,” Pinkie answered.

Hmm…that made things a tad bit difficult. “Do you girls know how the portal works?” he asked.

“The portal Twilight went through? Not really,” Rainbow Dash shrugged.

“OOOH!” Pinkie squealed bouncing up and down excitedly. “Sunset shimmer would know. She came from the same dimension as Twilight. She goes to a different school now (couldn’t handle the guilt of turning everyone into zombies, poor girl) but I e-mail her every week to see how she’s doing. She could tell you about the portal. Let me give you her e-mail address.” She pulled a piece of paper and a pencil out of her hair and wrote down the address. She was about to give it to Discord when Applejack snatched it out of her hands.

“Why are you so curious about the portal and the elements?” she asked suspiciously.

Discord put on his best ‘I bear the element of innocence’ face. “No particular reason. I’m just curious. It’s not everyday that you hear about magical portals and demon fighting teenagers – er, well, outside of television that is.”

“I suppose,” Applejack conceded. Just then, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. Discord used the distraction to snatch the address out of Applejack’s hand.

“Well this has been fun girls, but I really must be getting to class,” Discord said with a grin. “Ta ta!”

“Wait Dizzy!” Pinkie bounced up to him. “I was wondering if you could help me bake cupcakes after school today. I wouldn’t ask but I pinkie promised the Cakes last week that I would come up with a new recipe for the bakery and I was so focused on the fall formal that I haven’t had time to come up with anything! And I thought, that maybe since your” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “magic is often food related you might have some good ideas.”

Discord scrunched his nose up in distaste. “Cupcakes? My dear Pinkie, why would I help bake cupcakes when I can just poof them into existence?”

“Because baking is fun!” Pinkie answered simply. “And besides, these aren’t just any cupcakes, they’re Pinkie Pie special flavor of deliciousness cupcakes which means no shortcuts.” She narrowed her eyes dangerously at him. “I hope you’re not suggesting that I compromise the integrity of a Pinkie Pie cupcake.”

“And what if I were?” Discord raised an eyebrow.

Pinkie smiled in a slightly unhinged way. “Then your body will never be found.”

Discord laughed nervously, not sure if she was joking or not. Pinkie began to laugh along with him, quickly drowning out his small chuckle with a dark, twisted slightly insane cackle that made chills run down his spine. He wasn’t sure if he should be scared or horribly attracted. “I’ll help,” he said quickly. Best to appease her, he thought. “Who knows? Maybe baking really will be fun!”

Pinkie immediately went back to her normal self. “Really? Oh thank you Discord! I pinkie promise that baking experimental cupcakes will be super-duper fun! Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” She shoved a cupcake in her eye and giggled before skipping off to class while licking the frosting off her face with an absurdly long tongue.

Discord watched her retreating figure for a moment, pondering the decisions he had made that had led him to being intimidated by a little pink girl, and then quickly shooed the thoughts away. He had work to do. Time to find this Sunset Shimmer person. He made his way to the library and went to the nearest computer. He wrote up a quick e-mail with an enchanted picture attached to it of his face sporting shades and an ‘I’m too cool for school’ look. As soon as Sunset Shimmer opened the e-mail, the picture would alert him and he would be able to use it to travel through cyberspace to the exact location of Sunset Shimmer’s computer. All he had to do was send the e-mail and wait for her to open it. He tapped the send button, leaned back in his chair, and waited…and waited….and waited.

He tapped a finger in impatience. Then a foot. Resituated himself in the small chair. Made some paper ducks and then some paper pterodactyls which then preceded to eat the ducks. After watching the carnage with a bored look on his face, he glanced at the clock on the wall. Only ten minutes had passed. He sighed. This was going to be a long wait.

Meanwhile, in Cloudsdale, Sunset Shimmer’s phone vibrated in her pocket. As inconspicuously as possible, she slowly pulled the device out. While her teacher was turned away, she quickly unlocked the phone and looked at the new e-mail notification. Don’t wait! Open now! read the subject line. From chaosisfun@equestria.com. Sunset rolled her eyes and quickly deleted the message without bothering to open it. She hated spam.