2 Months Later...
*BOOM!*
Gilda jumped as the sudden explosion shook the cabin, knocking a lamp over and a couple of pointy objects off the wall, turning the floor into a pincushion. Rapid hoofsteps approached, and the back door slammed open, revealing a panicked Jack, with a welding mask still on top of his head and a leather apron around his barrel. He paused to breath a sigh of relief to see her on the couch, apparently unharmed. Frowning, he turned to the front door and wrenched it open before dropping his jaw in surprise.
"Might have put too much oomph in the land mines..."
Gilda got up from the couch and joined him in awe at the door. A big crater took up about a quarter of the yard, and there was still some dust raining down from the sky. Jack reached out and caught a falling scroll with a royal seal on it. He paused and then swallowed hard.
"Oh shite! Gilda, quick! Get a shovel, we need to hide the body!"
"Urrgh..."
Jack paused to note the bedraggled guard scrabbling weakly out of the crater.
"Oh... Nevermind then."
Gilda smacked the back of his head as she moved to help the struggling royal guard out of the crater. Miraculously, the armor had absorbed all of the damage, leaving the pony inside shellshocked, and with a few scrapes and cuts, but none the worse for wear. Seeing she was perfectly fine, Gilda abruptly dropped her like a sack of refuse and went back inside, claiming she, "knew just what she needed."
Jack leaned down to listen to whatever the guard was saying.
"Th... let... s... livered... our.... m.. jesty..."
"Wot? Speak up ya twat."
"The... tter was... livered, your majes..."
*SMACK!*
The guard jerked up and saluted sluggishly from the ground.
"WHA! Buh!? THE LETTER WAS DELIVERED YOur... majesty?"
The mare seemed to stare up at Jack in wonder.
"Are you an angel?"
Jack blinked once, twice, and then promptly lost his shit. Gilda rushed back outside with a box in her talons to find Jack literally screaming with laughter and rolling around on the porch helplessly with a confused guard watching him. Eventually he managed to stagger back to his hooves, still chuckling, and face the guard.
"If I, of all people, am an angel, God is a fucking psychopath."
Gilda turned on the guard, glaring suspiciously and practically crushing the box she held.
"Did you bucking call him an angel? Choose your next words wisely."
The mare raised her hooves in surrender and backed away in terror. Typical pony xenophobe.
"I didn't mean anything by it, I swear! I was just ordered to deliver the letter from the Princess!"
Gilda leaned in close, staring deep into the scared mare's eyes for any sign of deceit. After a full minute of the guard squirming under her gaze, she snorted and dug around in the half crushed box she was still holding. The guard yelled as Gilda suddenly slashed her talons over her face, Jack still chuckling maniacally in the background.
The mare went cross-eyed to stare at the little patch of color that lay crookedly over her snout.
A band-aid.
==============================================================================================
"Urgent matter... yadayadayada... come at once... skills could be useful... signed, Princess Celestiass. Why does she think I'm coming?"
Gilda peeked over his shoulder at the royal summons and pointed a single talon at the bottom of the page. Jack read the short sentence.
"P.S.- The Elements of Harmony are attending... if anything that just makes me less likely to go. Does she really think I'm friends with them?"
Gilda just shrugged and leaned on him more.
Jack looked back at Gilda with lazy eyes, nuzzling into her neck a bit and eliciting a soft croon from her.
"Do you think I should go? I could stay instead~!"
Gilda resisted the urge to give in as he slowly got more and more adventurous: nuzzling soon turning to nibbling. Soon she bodily grabbed his head and shoved him away as he stuck out his tongue playfully.
"Get out of here you Irish tease! You don't ignore the pony who controls the sun!"
"I'll grab the sun if you keep denying me Gilda! See if I won't~!"
Gilda pursed her lips in confusion, turning over his words as he unhooked the sliver axe from the wall. Soon a lightbulb switched on. She turned bright red in anger and embarrassment.
"YOU WOULDN'T DARE!"
Jack chuckled and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively as he backed toward the door.
"Aw yeah~ a great big handful of sun! I'll give it a nice squeeze too!"
He threw open the door and made to prance out of it, only for his tail to be caught. He took a peek behind him to see a flustered griffin dragging him back and spinning him around. He found himself pinned against the wall, with talons planted on either side of him. He smirked up at the overheating Griffin. Despite Jack usually standing taller than her because of his biped walk, when she did the same, she was actually much larger than him by mass and height. But even with the intimidation factor, she found herself being the more embarrassed one as only a dusting of red came up to Jack's face.
"Jealous, are we?"
"Shut up, Jack."
As beak met lips, Gilda quickly found herself getting dragged down to his level, with the force of his tongue lashing bringing her down with ease. She found herself giving in entirely as Jack sabotaged her defenses with his mere presence. Right as it was about to get more heated, Gilda felt Jack flinch, and found herself kissing air and trailing saliva. She blinked and found Jack had somehow slipped down and out of the trap and was already sprinting out the door. She scrambled back to her paws and flew after him.
"GET YOUR SORRY IRISH FLANK BACK HERE!"
"Have t' catch me first!"
Jack waved a hoof and an arc of red lightning jumped to General Lee, goading it to life and flooring the accelerator. Jack threw himself forward and hooked the tip of the axe on the tail end of the bumper as the car sped off toward Canterlot, taking him with it. As it quickly pulled ahead of Gilda's top speed, she dropped to the ground and caught her breath.
"What the hell are you doing to me, Jack Marley?"
Jack heaved himself onto the bumper of the racing car and ran a hoof over his chest, feeling a dull rumbling deep within, as it should be. He had left somewhat unintentionally. Gilda, though he would never admit it, had scared him.
"Jesus, Gilda. To get this heart to beat... You're a dangerous lass, and frankly-"
He raised his eyes to the Griffin shaking a talon at him angrily. He smiled and fluttered a hoof cheekily as she faded out of sight.
"-I really like that."
==============================================================================================
The metal beast tore across a distorted countryside, heading towards Canterlot on a corkscrewed, shifting highway without faltering once. It approached the city and disembarked the road with a flawless dismount, landing squarely on all four wheels before zooming off toward Canterlot City.
==============================================================================================
Jack came up to the open doors to the unguarded royal trophy window/very conspicuous vault room... place. Whatever the room was called.
Celestia spotted him instantly and called out to him, prompting the others in the room, who were currently underestimating a god because he happened to be a male, to notice him.
"Jack! I'm glad you-"
*click*
She was cut off as Jack suddenly pulled the doors shut, vanishing from view. A long moment of confusion passed over her face. A low roar soon approached the door from the other side, and the bitch brigade quickly scattered off to the sides and behind Celestia herself.
*SLAM!*
The Sun Goddess she may be, but even Celestia jumped as General Lee busted through the doors before power-drifting to a halt, ejecting Jack up into a backflip and down into a powerslide before he popped back up to his hooves and casually trotted forward, clearing his throat as he stopped about two ponylengths away.
"Celestia! I've come to bargain."
Celestia uttered possibly one of the least regal things she had ever said in her immortal life.
"I... uh... what?"
"Money. Sunbutt give Jack bits, Jack fight villain of week, capiche? Two step process."
She stared at the grinning stallion a moment longer before shaking her head and getting back into "prophecy mode."
"Discord, the Embodiment of Chaos has returned to disrupt all Harmony across Equestria, and you want to be paid? How shamef-"
"Yes, I do. Thank ye for shortening a 1 minute, 26 second prophecy to a single sentence, by the way."
"Do you feel no sha-"
"None at all!" he repliead quite cheerily, "The only reason I have to care is that worldwide chaos will disrupt my badass, carefree lifestyle."
Celestia facehooved and nodded even as she thought to herself, "A cutthroat business-stallion, just what I need right now." She cleared her throat and went back to business.
"Ahem, As I was saying, only you six can defeat Discord-"
"Orbital Friendship Cannon, got it."
Celestia glared at him for a moment and continued, ignoring Jack's gagging sounds as he fake threw up at the rest of the sappy exposition.
"- with the Elements of Harmony. With the power of your friendship you vanquished a great evil, leaving my sister and I no longer connected with the Elements. You will need them again, I have kept them safe in this magically-secured vault since you used them to vanquish Nightmare Moon."
"You mean this vault I broke into in 1.8 seconds?"
Celestia spun around, finding Jack sitting on the little podium, kicking his legs idly and wearing the small chest like a hat.
She quickly seized the box from his head and flicked it open to find the Elements not safely inside. Her heart sank in her chest.
"Oh no."
They all stared into the chest for a moment before Jack sighed and shook his head.
"Thought it t'was too straightforward. Of course there's a fockin' plot twist... Wait a second..."
Celestia paced back and forth with frenzied steps.
"How can this be? That case was guarded by a spell only I can break."
Jack raised a hoof as she passed by.
"Technically speaking, a personal security spell is half actual magic, half bluffing. It has jest enough actual power innit to make the average person-"
"Pony," Half the room instantly responded. He glowered at the offenders for a moment before continuing.
"-person back off. And the idea of a spell that can only be broken by the caster makes the more magically advanced back off without testing the proverbial waters. This guy is a literal God, so my best guess is he didn't even know it was a "personal security spell" and just busted right through it without blinking."
Twilight gaped at Jack's casual lecture and found herself salivating.
"How do you know more about a spell than me? I've read every legal spellbook I have access to. That doesn't make any sense!"
"Keyword: legal. Also, sense?"
"What fun is there in making sense?" He said in unison with a louder, much more sinister voice
Celestia frowned as familiar laughter filled the room.
"Discord! Show Yourself!"
"Aw~ did you miss me?"
Discord soon manifested in his stained glass image and did some casual power flexing, taunting the ponies and whatnot.
"HEY! NOPONY INSULTS THE PRINCESS!"
*SMACK!*
"BAHAHAHAHAAA!" (Laughs in Irish)
"Ah, Rainbow Dash. Famous for her loyalty..."
The taunting draconequus named off the element bearers and their respective talents in the classic "All-knowing villain" cliche until he got around to Jack and paused to stretch a hand of chaotic commendation.
"Ah! Jack Marley, the "rogue element for hire" and a fellow pursuer of chaos, though not on a scale such as myself. Lovely entrance earlier- and such senseless wordplay. Took the words right out of my mouth," he said, pulling a binder of paper labeled "Script" out of his mouth before eating it again like a paper shredder, sounds and all.
Even as mental gears spun violently at the impossible feats of chaos, Jack tipped an imaginary hat in turn, and was pleasantly surprised to find a cowboy hat already in place for tipping.
Discord laughed and went around telling his riddles, which Jack had solved in a matter of seconds but was perfectly willing to charge extra for. Celestia sent them off after Twilight figured out the first half of the riddle and her royal pompousness decided to knight her or something rather than just hurry them along. They finally found themselves outside of the labyrinth's entrance, and Jack was sitting on General Lee's hood, waiting for Discord to show up again.
Rainbow Dash tried to fly over the maze and promptly had her wings removed, the others soon turning into earth ponies as well.
"Yeah I saw that coming from a mile away."
Jack suddenly found himself lying on his back on the ground as his car suddenly vanished. He shot up with murder in his eyes and a dark aura spilling off him.
"That MOTHERFUCKER."
Discord popped in at that exact moment and had to cut his maniacal laugh short as he ducked under a viciously thrown boulder with intent to kill.
"No wings, no magic, and no tools, Mr. Marley. That's rule number one."
But as Jack, frothing at the mouth, rabidly jumped at Discord's face, Discord sighed and snapped his fingers, vanishing Jack on the spot.
"Then again, an earth pony that powerful would still make this too easy. Next Rule!"
==============================================================================================
Twilight and the rest of the corrupted mane six (minus Rainbow Dash) sat in the crater left by Discord's magic, drenched in a downpour of chocolate rain, and shocked that yet another guy had bested them. (Still ignoring the fact that he was a god and all, that is.) Once Rainbow Dash had left the maze, Discord had eagerly leveled the field and delivered a classic triumphant villain laugh before leaving on a chaotic rampage.
A loud roar heralded Jack's return. General Lee soon burst into view, Jack standing on the hood swinging his newly returned axe and spewing Irish gibberish so thick it could hardly be counted as actual words other than the occasional swear. He jumped off the still moving car and swung the axe around in a blind rage for another ten seconds before the sweet torrent of rain seemed break him out of his rage state. He turned to see a bedraggled, grayed out group of ponies staring at him in surprise and waved awkwardly as he walked back to the car and drove it by them.
"Yeah... Which way did the soon-to-be-gutted-chaos-god go?"
A collection of hooves pointed toward Ponyville, with a single orange one pointing the opposite direction.
"Thank ye' kindly."
==============================================================================================
"WOOOOOAAAAAAHHHH- OOF! I, uh... meant to do that..."
Twilight staggered to her hooves only to slip and fall again as the sun rose and fell erratically, revealing the road had been turned to soap. She groaned in disgust at the ridiculousness of it all even as Jack and Fluttershy snickered evilly behind her. Jack passed her by as he pushed General Lee forward steadily despite the slippery floor. She looked closer and found that his hooves were digging into the ground rather violently with each step until he had enough purchase to move forward. He had been quite... agitated when the "engine," as he called it, had been replaced by a half-dozen hamster wheels with oranges sitting in them instead of actual hamsters, and made up his mind to get the car back to Ponyville just so he could beat Discord's face in with it.
Twilight whined loudly as Night and Day jumped around again.
"Discord's turned our dirt roads into SOAP! UGH!"
Discord came skating by nonchalantly, just to taunt them again.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
A roar of rage echoed across the chaotic hills as Jack realized Discord was in chopping distance.
"NOTHING ON THIS WORLD OR BELOW IT TOUCHES MY CAR!!! GET YER SCALY-ARSE PENCIL-NECK ON MY AXE YE HELL-DAMNED COCKSLEEVE TWAT!!!
==========================================================================================
It was sometime later that they finally made it back to the Golden Oaks Library, Jack once again pushing General Lee along out of spite. He kicked it forward a few more feet, slamming it into the side of the building, before pacing back and forth murderously while waiting for Discord to show his long neck again.
He paused to propel "Tom" through the side of the house when it momentarily blocked his path and continued his circling warpath while Twilight did some plot development or something.
Five minutes later, Tom and the rest soon busted back out of the house in award winning style- If the award was for being evil, destructive, and a rock- to find Jack radically changed than when they had left him. He was standing nonchalantly with his halberd propped over his shoulder, the sun glinting off the enchanted steel, and seemed to be calmly speaking into thin air.
"Yeah, yeah, get yer sexy feathers down here already, and bring my backup axe... No, the red one... What do you mean there's no red one!? ...Ugh, fine, just get down here... I can assure you, I literally have nothing else to love, so I love you more... Yeah, I'm hanging up now..."
He clapped his hooves twice and small crackle of energy dispersed as he turned to face them.
"You lot ready with the O.F.C.? He's due for a dramatic reveal any minute no-"
Jack cut himself off as he suddenly whirled the axe behind him, dispersing the chaos magic hurtling towards them with a burst of static. He smirked at Discord's surprised expression as the axe hummed ominously.
"Ye' like that? Harmonically Blessed Silver, toxic stuff for a chaotic bein'. Ya got lucky last time when you sent it away before I could activate it ye' cocky bastard!"
With that, Jack sprinted toward Discord with startling speed and made to slice him in two, only for Discord to teleport backwards and send him flying with a wave of magic. Jack slammed the steel axe-pole into the ground and halted his slide before running back in from the side with the axe-blade kicking up sparks in his wake. He slung the weapon across Discord's stomach but was foiled again when the god split into two smaller versions of himself and danced around Jack's follow-up slashes before reforming farther away from the berserk earth pony. Discord cast rapid, raw-chaos magic blasts at Jack as he circled him, trying to overwhelm Jack's flawless axe-play. Jack deftly deflected, cleaved, and dodged his way through the volley of magic even as the ground around him randomly exploded into glass, pies, rapidly sprouting poison joke, or playing cards with Discord's face on them.
Far from the action, Twilight and the others marveled at the surprisingly combat prowess Jack held with an axe, but Twilight managed to snap her gaze away and order the other girls into their "Elements of Harmony: Friendship Formation"(patent pending) and waited for their opportunity to use the elements. They found that opportunity when Jack made a surprise bullrush through the never-ending volley of chaos and jumped right up into Discord's startled face. Discord caught the axe-handle instinctively before it could separate his head from his shoulders and found himself staring into Jack's grinning face.
"Gotcha."
Discord heard the whistle of air behind him and whirled to catch a blood-red axe before it could split his head in half. He went to smile in relief before a yell interrupted him.
"THIS IS BUCKING NUTS BUT I'M DOING IT ANYWAAAAYYYY!!!"
A gold and white blur slammed into the red axe and forced Discord to the ground. He was pinned.
Jack grinned over at the breathless griffin straining to press her own axe down onto Discord's neck as he did the same, though Discord was slowly pushing them back.
" 'ey, Gilda! You -mmgh- doin' alright?"
Gilda snorted and grinned as some sweat dripped off her beak from the strain.
"Well -urrgh- I just tackled the literal -stay down damn it- GOD of Chaos for the stallion I -strong bastard- live with, so I'm bucking fine and dandy! You?"
" 'M doin' alright, other than the fact that THE FOCKING BITCH BRIGADE HASN'T BLASTED THIS OVERGROWN SHITESTAIN INTO STATUE HELL!!! HURRY THE FUCK UP! but other than that, I'm doing fine."
Twilight yelled at the cowering Spike wearing the element of loyalty.
"Spike! Get in formation!"
"U-uh... you sure!?"
Jack growled angrily and roared at the young drake across the field.
"SPIKE! ARE YOU A DRAGON, OR ARE YOU A SCAREDY-PONY!? ANSWER ME DAMN IT!"
"A-A Dragon!"
"THEN START ACTING LIKE ONE!"
Spike puffed out his small scaly chest and ran screaming "masculinely" into the line up as Twilight floated them all into the air. He was a bit disappointed when he didn't end up floating after he had gotten so excited for his role. Inevitably, without the real element of loyalty, the spell failed, and they all fell back to the ground. Twilight jumped up and looked on in dismay as Jack and Gilda were slowly pushed back.
"Oh no."
Discord glared up at the two of them with cold eyes, his humor long gone by how close he had come to defeat.
"Checkmate, Jack Marley."
Discord's tail whipped up between Jack and Gilda, a condensed ball of chaos held at the tip.
"Oh shi-"
Jack was not prepared when the world suddenly went white.
==========================================================================================
GASP!
Jack snapped awake as someone shook him vigorously. The first thing he was aware of was that Twilight and the rest of the mane six were usually not upside down, the second thing was that he couldn't move his body below the neck. Craning his head painfully, he managed to figure out he was stuck against the side of a house encased in crystallized rock candy. He went limp again and glared at the smiling group, taking note that their colors all seemed to be back.
"Care to explain what the hell 'appened while I was out?"
Twilight went into such a detailed explanation of how she saved each one of her friends with friendship and shit that Jack was slamming his head into the rock candy until it cracked enough that he could escape the infinite rays of happiness and rainbows and other such saccharine emotions.
He dropped to the ground and quickly scrambled off, pausing to pull his axe from the wall, before going to find Gilda. Twilight and the others followed close behind, still spouting rays of sunshine. Jack ignored them as his mind was set on finding the one he had unconsciously claimed as his and only his.
Ten minutes later, on the other side of the raw crater left by the explosion, he finally found her, and the others crowded around in worry as he worked to free her from the wall. He sighed as he set her down at last and stepped back to see what the chaos magic had done to her. She had been turned solid gold, "gilded" if you will.
Twilight came up and put a hoof on his shoulder as his grip tightened on his axe.
"Hey, we can fix her, Jack. We can beat Discord now."
"OH! I know we're gonna beat him."
Twilight raised an eyebrow in confusion as Jack turned toward her with a furious glint in his eye that made her back away in fear.
"I was just angry before, Twilight. Now? Now I'm fucking pissed."
==========================================================================================
"Ah! Wonderful, wonderful Chaos!"
"Not as wonderful as friendsh-"
"CHOPPING YOU TO PIECES AND SHITTING ON YOUR CORPSE!!!"
Both Twilight and Discord were momentarily taken aback by Jack's incredibly morbid threat, but Discord soon groaned in boredom.
"Ugh, this again?"
He drained the glass out of his glass of chocolate milk and threw what was left over his shoulder to explode. He grabbed the mane six by their elements and dragged them up into the air.
"Will you ever learn?"
"Don't plan to!"
Discord had to teleport out of the way as his throne was destroyed by a single vicious swing from Jack.
"You especially! You must know you can't hit me with your little axe by now."
"Who said I was really trying to hit you? You hadn't made me mad until now."
Discord scratched his head in confusion.
"Are you sure? You seemed pretty mad."
"You turned my girlfriend into a fucking statue."
Discord's eyes shrank and he pulled at his neck fur nervously like he was trying to loosen a tight collar.
"Well, uh... you see... oh dear."
"Twilight. I'm prepared to put aside our past troubles for the foreseeable future, if you would do me the honor of letting me hit this motherfucker with a rainbow axe."
Twilight looked confident as she nodded to her friends and they powered up the elements and Jack raised his axe to the heavens.
"Come on, Girls! Let's show him what friendship-"
"And A PISSED lover-"
"-CAN DO!"
Twilight blasted the already shimmering axe-head with the raw magic of Harmony, and grinned in unison with Jack as it burst into a brilliant rainbow.
Jack leveled the shining axe with Discord's worried face and dove forward with blinding speed. The overhead strike connected with his head before Discord could hope to react.
"CHAOS THIS, BITCH!"
A massive, rainbow-colored mushroom cloud erupted from the impact, and spread high into the sky.
A few minutes later, when Twilight could see properly, she could make out the new statue of Discord, with a stone axe planted an inch into his skull.
"Damn. That was my favorite axe."
"Jack? You're okay? I was worried for a minute there."
"Eh, I'll be fine, Harmonious Magic can't really do much to ponies."
"Girls?"
A chorus of "Here!" sounded off, and that was another burden off of Twilight's mind. She looked down and noticed the floor wasn't a checkerboard anymore.
"OH! Look Everypony! The Chaos Magic is gone! When we defeated Discord all the damage undid itself!"
"ARE ALL MY LITTLE PONIES SAFE?"
In a burst of sunlight that dispersed the rest of the rainbow-clouds, Celestia herself came floating down majestically. She nodded approvingly at Jack and decided to herself that perhaps he did deserve to be paid for his efforts.
"Princess Celestia! We did it! We defeated Discord! All the Chaos Magic has been banished!"
"Then I consider it a job well done, Twilight. Thank you all for your services to Equestria!"
"Wait, if all the magic's gone, does that mean... GILDA! WHERE ARE YOU!?"
Jack ran off to find his sexy bird as Celestia smiled after the strange stallion that she ruled over. She couldn't help but be reminded of the strong stallions from thousands of years ago, before the Nightmare Moon wars that had severely reduced the already small male population, and before stallions were mostly turned into the polar opposite of their ancestors.
...
"Gilda! Answer me, please!"
Jack finally made it back to where he had left her, and thankfully found her picking herself up off the ground. She looked up at him blearily and raised an eyebrow when he embraced her.
"Jack? Why do I feel like I got run over by like, fifteen chariots?"
"Heh, being turned into a statue does that."
"So... we won then?"
Jack gave her a quick kiss on the forehead and cupped her head in his hooves.
"Hell yeah we won, you were focking awesome, Gilda. Reminded me why I love you so much."
"You aren't usually sappy, Jack. You miss me that much?"
Jack's eyes seemed hazy as he blinked slowly.
"...Maybe? I don't... know... I'm not feeling too good, now that the adrenal-"
Gilda had to rush to catch him as he suddenly slumped over. She screwed up her face as she heard him spit up a lot of fluid at once.
"Ugh... really Jack? You don't rush to save people only to... puke...?"
Gilda leaned around Jack's limp form and felt the color drain from her face. Jack didn't puke- a large splatter of blood was spilled down his chin and across the stone street. He wasn't responding either. Gilda began shaking him in panic.
"Jack! Jack!? JACK! Wake up!"
He suddenly gasped and spluttered, only to cough up more blood in a worryingly large puddle. His eyes swam around before locking onto her.
"G-Gilda! I m-m-messed up! I -f-fuck this hurts- f-f-forgot I'm n-not a pony!"
"What!? Jack you are a pony! What happened!?"
He clutched at her chest fluff, bloodying it as he pulled himself up.
"N-No t-t-ttime! Get m-me home! H-hospital c-c-can't h-help!"
Gilda hesitated, knowing that Ponyville Central was closer, but she trusted Jack, and another bloody coughing fit convinced her that something was very wrong. She hefted him in her talons and took off, speeding towards his cabin as fast as she could.
==========================================================================================
3 Days Later...
Jack, Gilda, and the Mane Six gathered outside the throne room and waited as the huge doors creaked open to fanfare and applause and they all walked forward as cameras flashed and Princess Celestia waited for them at the end of the room. They strode down the aisle with a certain level of reverence expected of the situation and took positions in front of the Princess with smiles and nods. The Princess cleared her throat and said her piece.
"We are gathered here today to once again honor the heroism of these six friends-"
Ahem.
"And two great Mercenaries who stood up to the villain Discord, and save Equestria from eternal chaos!"
She motioned to the curtained window amid the applause and uncovered it with her magic. The curtain parted to reveal Discord being struck by a silver axe held by Jack as he jumped through the air. Gilda flew parallel to Jack, and held a red axe to Discord's throat. The Mane six were below, directing their magic toward's Jack's axe, lighting it up with the rainbow.
Everybody in attendance applauded, stomping and clapping their hooves, while Jack just turned back to Celestia with a predatory grin. She noticed after a moment and rolled her eyes. With a flick of her horn, a large sack of bits appeared, twice what he had asked and then some, and floated down to his greedy hooves. Celestia leaned in and whispered.
"I doubled it for your mate's assistance and grievance."
"Oi! She's not my mate... yet."