“My my, you’re still at it? I’d’ve thought you would have this all wrapped up by now, being a big, powerful dragon and all.”
“Discord!” Spike shouted at the miniature draconequus that had just appeared on his shoulder, his eyes and claws still on the griffons attacking him, “What are you doing out here?! You know you’ve been barred from—”
“I’m not fighting,” Discord snapped, casually glancing at his talons as his legs and paw stuck to Spike’s neck and shoulder by suction cups. “Do you see me fighting? I don’t see me fighting.”
“Then what are you doing out here?!”
“I just thought I’d give you a little moral support. And I figured you’d like to know that Cotton is very happy to see you and Tia over there doing so well.”
“What?! How does she… you,” Spike deadpanned, smacking another griffon with his wing.
Discord smirked. “Gracious, you’re learning. Oh my, we can’t have that.”
As Spike slashed at two separate griffons with his claws, Discord pointed his own claw at a third griffon rushing into Spike’s unguarded side with his sword drawn. With a snap of his talons, Discord turned the sword into a bouquet of dandelions, and the griffon instead just thumped right into Spike’s scales, dazed. Spike quickly turned and slammed the griffon to the ground with a clenched fist.
“Discord…I’m warning you,” Spike growled.
“Yes, sir,” Discord responded, holding his tail up to his forehead in a salute before snapping his claw at another griffon down below.
Getting a quick glance at where Discord had pointed, Spike saw a drenched griffon running around with a bucket on its head. “I still consider dumping a bucket of water on their heads an unprovoked attack.”
“Oh please, you know he was going to come after you anyway. Consider it a premeditated defensive maneuver.”
With a huff, Spike responded, “Yes, yes, no nation ever attacks another nation. We all just defend ourselves. Vigorously.”
“I appreciate the distinction,” Discord said, whacking another approaching griffon with a pillow full of quacking ducks.
“Discord!”
“What? It was a down pillow!”
Spike couldn’t help but chuckle. “Only you would use a loophole like that. I’ll have to ask Luna and Celestia if they approve.”
“Oh please, like they would approve anything. They were no fun when I fought them over a millennium ago, either. I had to beat them the dull way.”
“What are you talking about?” Spike snorted, kicking a griffon into the stratosphere. “You lost to them, y’old drac.”
“I held my ground, thank you very much,” Discord retorted, forcefully breathing out a huge cloud of laughing gas at some approaching griffons, causing them to stop in midair and laugh uncontrollably before they started falling to the ground. “Even if said ground was five miles in the air and rotating on its w-axis.” Rolling his eyes, he conjured a little pond underneath them for the griffons to fall into so he could avoid a beratement.
Hearing the splash, Spike said, “Gave ‘em a little cushion, eh? I’d say you’ve gone soft in your old age, but you did spend a thousand years of them in stone.”
“You’re one to talk,” Discord scoffed. “You spent your first twenty years wearing frilly aprons and serving tea and cakes for your princess friends.” After watching Spike slam another griffon with his wing, he conjured an exact replica of the wing and ricocheted the griffon off to Trottingham.
“Like you never put on an apron and used a feather duster to the benefit of those princesses. Besides, those aprons were very slimming!” In the middle of their banter, Spike managed to get a look below them on the field. “Discord, as much fun as this is, if you really want to be useful, then go help them.” He pointed down at two armored unicorns with red crosses on their crests galloping toward the castle, each of them with two groaning soldiers hovering next to them.
Discord scowled. “Now why would I want to help cowards retreating from battle? If anything—”
“Those are the medics, Discord.”
Discord’s muzzle hung open in the middle of his sentence for a moment, then he pushed his jaw back upward to meet the rest of his face. After crossing his arms and grumbling for a moment, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Okay, I guess I could do that.”
“Good. Get on it.” Spike took another quick look at the battlefield below, still slashing at griffons as they approached. “There are plenty of soldiers who need help.”
After scratching his chin a moment, Discord said, “Well then, time for a bit of a mass evacuation.”
After the suction cups on his legs and paw vanished, Discord floated in midair for a moment before he snapped both his claw and paw, releasing a blinding light. After all the remaining griffons and battling ponies rubbed the light out of their eyes and continued fighting, Spike looked down and saw that all the injured pony soldiers had teleported off the field.
Ж
“Discord, not again!” Tasty Twist huffed as Discord popped into the kitchen for the second time, reaching for Cotton’s platter of cookies.
“I did not take them, it’s not true! It’s horseapples, I did not take them! I did not. Oh hi, Cotton,” Discord said before he grabbed an armload of cookies and vanished in a flash.
Cotton lifted herself from her forearms just in time to see the flash. “W-was that Uncle Discord?” she asked with a sniffle.
“Yes, it’s the second time he’s made off with some of your cookies,” Tasty Twist grumbled, pointing at the table-bowl the draconequus had created, which held a substantially smaller number of cookies than it did previously. “He just did it about three minutes ago.”
After a low growl, Cotton mumbled, “Dammit, Unc.” After wiping her nose with her hoof, she groaned. “Crap.” She walked back over to the sink and washed her hooves before she got ready to make more dough. Turning from the sink, she finished drying her hooves when Discord appeared again. “Unc, what’re you—”
She cut herself off as he reached for the cookies again.
“Unc! Don’t—”
“Cotton!” Discord gasped, holding his paw to his chest. As a frilly dress and a long, curly blond wig appeared on him, he put the back of his claw to his forehead. “What a dreadful thing to say!”
Cotton cocked a brow. “What—”
“I am not taking these cookies and imbuing them with healing spells for the medics to give to the injured soldiers in the repurposed ballroom! How dare you accuse me of such a terrible deed!” He then grabbed another armload of cookies and vanished.
Cotton stood with her bloodshot eyes glazed over, staring at the cookie bowl. “…Oh.” After a moment, she shook her head and let out a single chuckle. “That’s actually a really good idea. C’mon, Twist, let’s keep going.”
Tasty Twist nodded. “I feel bad for yelling at him now.”
Just then, they heard a terrifying roar from outside.
Ж
Putting up a shield in her aura to protect herself from the advancing griffons, Celestia turned around to see Spike plummeting to the ground, a harpoon sticking out of his left side between two thick armored plates.
“Spike!”
That single moment made her accidentally drop her shield, giving her griffon opponents an opportunity to strike. Wincing as she took a sword slice to her foreleg, she managed to put up another barrier spell and get a look back at Spike, but she found his descent had stopped just before he hit the ground; he had been caught by a giant stretcher made of taffy and bat wings. Celestia then found herself teleported down next to said stretcher, Discord hovering right above the ground in front of her.
“Discord! What are you doing out here?! We—”
“Take him,” Discord said sternly, pointing at Spike, who lay atop the stretcher. “Now. He’s not responding. You tend to him, I’ll take care of the rest. This is going to be the shortest war in Equestrian history.”
Celestia huffed. “Discord, we’ve told you—”
“I don’t care what you’ve told me,” Discord retorted, his brows furrowed. Celestia had no time to react before he continued, “Those birdbrains do not.
Hurt.
MY!
Celestia blanched as Discord planted his feet to the ground, literally fuming as he began rapidly growing in size and fearsome countenance, knocking aside griffons as he went, some of them bursting into flames as he pointed his talons at them before they fell to the ground in large plastic casings held closed by labels reading ‘Freshly Roasted, 10 bits.’ He then proceeded across the field, attacking any other griffon in sight. Before grasping Spike’s stretcher in her aura and rushing him to the castle, she flew up above the castle’s highest point as fast as she could and shouted in the Royal Canterlot Voice.
“All forces, Protocol Pandemonium! I repeat, Protocol Pandemonium!”