//------------------------------// // The Fall of Gibraltar // Story: The Day of Discord // by GJT_Productions //------------------------------// "Come on, let's see what you got!" Discord taunts Captain Gibraltar and Lieutenant Captain Shining Armor again in the half-ruined statue garden. Shining Armor obliges with the first move, casting a glowing, magenta-colored bubble around the floating draconequus. Discord is a bit surprised by the "opening move" at first, but it only takes a moment before he recovers, giving a confident smile as he extends out an eagle-claw "finger" to try to pop the bubble from inside. He is surprised again when the bubble does not immediately pop as expected, but instead deforms like thick plastic around the "finger". Gibraltar, watching from beside Shining, notices a grimace flash on Shining's face when Discord made contact with the bubble. This suggested, once again, Discord was a very dangerous foe. Shining kept the bubble up, and again Discord tries to pop it, this time giving a more determined push. When contact was made for the second time, Shining's grimace appears again, and Gibraltar can see him gritting his teeth as he "pushes" back against the effort of the draconequus. Discord now changes his expression to determination as he pushes against the bubble harder still, using both the eagle and lion "arms" now against the glowing barrier. Shining Armor squeezes his eyes shut and begins snorting as his resistance continues, but Gibraltar suspects the barrier won't last much longer. It only takes a few more moments before the barrier is indeed finally breached - the bubble shatters and the broken pieces dissipate into magenta-colored vapor. Gibraltar looks over at Shining, who is wincing with his eyes still screwed shut. The Guard Captain knows that, like Fidelitas, Shining could get the "migraine" headaches when his magic was pushed too hard, and he was alarmed that he saw the same signs of an oncoming headache in Shining. "You alright?" the Captain naturally asks his subordinate. "Yes, I am now." Shining Armor answers, his eyes opening again into a cross-eyed expression that he shakes off quickly, resuming his defiant look in the direction of the floating Discord. "I'll admit I underestimated that, but let's see what else you have to entertain Discord." the draconequus taunts one more time, a smug expression on his face as he crosses the lion and eagle "forearms" over what would be his chest. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Captain Gibraltar now knew he was the pony that had to step up and make the next "move" against Discord, even though he was out of practice with his own special talent - part of the reason for it being that way was because it could compromise the foundations of the city of the Canterlot, built as it was onto a mountainside. However, he certainly believed Princess Celestia would forgive him later for trying to use it against this very serious foe. Gibraltar's light brown horn begins glowing with a magic that is a darker shade of brown. A few moments later, cracking and rumbling sounds are heard filling the air throughout the statue garden, prompting the floating draconequus to look around for the source of the noise. Gibraltar grits his teeth, and a pillar of rock shoots up from underneath Discord! The draconequus, again taken by surprise by the move, only saved himself from getting knocked out of his floating position by a quick teleport. When he reappeared, he looked around again in confusion, and Gibraltar had another pillar shoot up from the ground, this one missing Discord by mere inches and prompting a startled yelp out of him. The draconequus turned to look at the pair of unicorn opponents, now slowly marching toward him in sync with growling expressions, and responds with an amused expression of his own. With a poof of magic, a black 10-gallon hat, like what would be seen in human western-themed movies, appears being held in his eagle-claw "hand". Discord then puts it on his head, and as he adjusts its position both Shining Armor and Gibraltar notice an eight-headed arrow symbol on it, rendered as a silvery ornament centered on the front of the hat. In retrospect, they recognized it as a vital clue that Discord was indeed the "chaotic one" the Agents of Chaos had been trying so hard to summon. "Wee-haw! Now we got ourselves a real showdown! Come on you two, let me see what ya got! Discord's gonna have real fun with you two!" Discord taunts one more time, this time adding a "western twang" to his voice, similar to the one Twilight would recognize with Applejack and her relatives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MEANWHILE, IN CANTERLOT CASTLE... Princess Celestia's heart was in her throat as she all but skidded into her private office. She was dreading seeing Luna and/or Cadance already waiting there, or at the very least a bunch of ponies wanting her to give some explanation for what was going on. The fact that the office was instead empty was probably the biggest relief she would get for a while. She stations herself in front of the desk normally used by Raven, her secretary, and uses unicorn magic to place a sheet of parchment and inkwell on the desk. She then manipulates a quillpen to dip the tip into the inkwell, but does not pull it out yet. "Screen on." the alicorn princess says to what seems like nothing in particular, and moments later a rectangle of yellow magic appears in front of Celestia's sightline, powered by her own unicorn magic. An image appears in the yellow rectangle, showing the half-destroyed statue garden with Discord floating around being chased by Captain Gibraltar and Lieutenant Captain Shining Armor. The two guard officers were alternately using their powers trying to get a hit on the floating draconequus. "I suppose I'll have to write off the whole statue garden when all this is said and done..." Celestia sighs out as on the "screen" Discord dodges a shield "wall" Shining Armor tried to put in his path, followed by a boulder hurled in the same general direction by Gibraltar's magic, which in turn rebounds off the wall and pulverizes a statue that happened to end up in the way of the rebound trajectory. She now uses the magic to lift the tip of the quillpen out of the ink, and as the battle continues on the floating screen between Discord and the two high-ranking Royal Guard members Princess Celestia scratches out her message: a short, to-the-point, "get here as fast as you can" summons addressed to Twilight Sparkle and her fellow Element Bearers over in Ponyville. Celestia rolls up the scroll, but decides not to send it yet. She continues watching the ruination of the statue garden on the screen, as rough pillars of stone shoot up among the statues, provoked by Gibraltar's special "earthbending" talent. Shining Armor, in addition to trying to lay barriers in Discord's path (mostly in vain), had to pay attention to deflect away boulders Discord would break off the pillars and hurl at the unicorn opponents. The distraction performance was clearly nearly reaching its end, and Celestia debated on whether to send the message right away or only after it was obvious all containment efforts had failed. The sun princess was interrupted by hearing Discord through the "screen": "I'm getting quite tired of this! Celestia and Luna, I know you can hear me somehow, why don't you show your chicken-feathered hides and fight me yourself?!" "Chicken...!" Celestia replies indignantly, her feathers ruffling and shaking her head with an irritated snort. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mere moments later, the unicorns finally score a "hit" on the distracted Discord as the draconequus slams headlong into a shield barrier after having to dodge a pillar that shot up directly in his path. He rubs his head, observing the statue garden had turned into an obstacle course of stone pillars that Shining Armor and Gibraltar were darting around as they closed on Discord's position. "Alright, that's enough, playtime's over!" Discord shouted, once again having reached the state of irritated impatience. He dives down to a lower hovering altitude, now zooming headlong at the converging unicorns. Gibraltar and Shining Armor pull alongside each other at full gallop, intending to ram into the draconequus at full speed and hopefully deliver a nasty blow. Instead, the chaos being extends his eagle-claw and lion-paw "hands" forward, and they suddenly grow to much larger sizes. The two unicorns hit the oversized hands, sending both of them back staggering, and while still dazed Discord zooms up to them, using his now normal-sized again hands to casually pluck the horns off their heads as easily as an apple could be picked off a tree! The still watching Princess Celestia realized that both Gibraltar and Shining Armor were in serious trouble, confirmed on the screen by the flabbergasted looks and patting foreheads with hooves where the horns should have been. She debated whether to try to send a message to them herself, but she feared Discord would use that to trace back to her current location, so did not follow through that idea. "Looking for these?" Discord smugly asks, holding the detached horns up as he floated just in front of a partly-destroyed statue. "CHEATER! GIVE THOSE BACK!" Gibraltar shouts at the top of his lungs, too worked up in the heat of war to ask questions of how Discord had managed to do exactly what he just did. "If you want them back, you'll have to come get them!" Discord taunts yet again, holding them out toward his opponents in a teasing manner. Shining Armor had enough presence of mind to realize that Discord was trying to bait them into breaking one of his rules, but could not stop the worked-up Gibraltar from spontaneously starting a charge. Horror filled his face as Shining realized that Discord was about to "win" the game because of that charge. "CAPTAIN, NO!" Shining Armor shouts as Gibraltar charges into a leap in Discord's direction. As she watches, Princess Celestia gasps in horror as Discord teleports away from his current position and Gibraltar to slam his forelegs into the base of the statue, a sickening crack heard through the screen. The Guard Captain falls on his side, crying and shouting in incredible pain, as Shining Armor races up beside him. He looks back and forth between the pained Captain and smugly smiling Discord. "I'm afraid that Rule 3 was broken with that charging attack. That means Rule 4 takes effect and I win the game!" Discord states with gleeful maliciousness. "If the alicorns won't face me themselves, then I am going to have tons of fun all across the city! Oh, and you can have these back, I don't need them any more." Discord does a snap with his lion paw "hand", and the horns held in the eagle claw "hand" disappear in a flash to reappear on the heads of the unicorns they came from, as if they had never been removed in the first place. Shining confirms the return of his horn by feel, and can see the same for the agonized Gibraltar. "There's two old acquaintances I still have yet to meet. Maybe in the city I can draw them out into battle. Ta-ta, it's been fun but I really must be going. See you in the City of Chaos!" Discord mocks one last time before disappearing completely in a poof, leaving the ruins of the statue garden to more broadly spread his chaos in Canterlot... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Certainly the watching Celestia was quite concerned about the failure of the containment effort, and the possibility of having to battle Discord in the city itself, but she was also concerned about the condition of her Guard Captain, so she did not immediately try to find where Discord had poofed himself off to. Instead, she continued focusing the images on the screen on Gibraltar. "Sir! Sir! Talk to me, sir, what's wrong?!" Shining Armor was pleading, trying to get Gibraltar to speak through his intense pain. "My... front legs... broken... both..." Gibraltar gasps out, and quickly Shining can see that the older officer can put no weight on either foreleg as he tries in vain to stand back up. "Sir, I'll carry you on my back!" Shining offers, with the need being obvious to get Gibraltar to medical attention. "My time... is over... You are... in charge... Captain." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gibraltar's words landed with a heavy thud on both Shining Armor and the watching Princess Celestia. Celestia knew that with that kind of injury, Gibraltar's career as Captain of the Guard was certainly over. For a long time, Celestia had wanted Shining as Captain of the Guard, but didn't want him earning it this way. Still, the emergency nature of the situation meant she dared not consider objecting to it. She used a pulse of magic to switch the image to an overview of Canterlot, where clouds of cotton candy raining chocolate milk were starting to appear over the houses and businesses of the city. Whatever illusion she had of control of the situation were now gone, but she dared not play the card of summoning the Element Bearers until she was absolutely sure all other options for fighting him had been exhausted...