My Little Pony:
Versus Equestria

[Welcome to Canterlot]
Interval 3.3: Chaos Games

“Oh, that’s not good.” Rabbit’s complaint was probably the under-statement of the century.

Nothing ruined days quite like an explosion of pure chaos. And what does an explosion of chaos look like, you ask? Very, very... bright.

It was like a light had turned on inside Rabbit’s eyeballs, washing out his vision and leaving just a clean white surface for him to stare at mindlessly. Then there was of course the force of it. A rushing wind tore at him for a second, before the breeze picked up by several gales and lifted the human clean off his feet. With a pronounced thud he landed uncomfortably on his backpack, the corner of a lunchbox jabbing into his spine.

Three successive thuds told him the same had happened to Trixie, Luna and even Princess Celestia.

Blinking hard, Rabbit felt the grass bristle in his ear. When the light finally faded, he realised he was resting his head back, looking sideways at where his left hand rested on the ground beside him. The weave-gem latched to his wrist was glowing a sort of silvery light. Strands of what could only be described as a magical mist hovered over the surface as the golden seals holding the stone in place seemed to suddenly click loose. The straps holding the gem tight against Rabbit’s skin seemed to unfasten and crumble away into a fine golden dust.

And before Rabbit could even consider catching it, the weave-gem flew loose, taking off into the air like it was rocket-propelled. His hand followed it up, but only snatched at air.

His eyes followed the smooth little stone fly up through the air before a lion’s paw closed its fingers around the weave-gem. With a gulp, Rabbit followed the fuzzy wrist across the arm to the serpentine body, then up the slender neck to a rather disfigured pony-head. And right there, staring right at him Rabbit saw those eyes for the first time. Those freakishly unevenly sized yellow eyes with crimson pupils.

“A-hahaha-hah! I love the smell of chaos in the morning!” the creature floating – oddly enough without flapping his wings – above them cried with De-Lancien delight. “It looks like you’re pretty good at throwing smashing parties without me, Celestia.” He added with a low sinister tone, pressing his fingertips together. “Maybe you’re not so boring after all.

Noticing a hollow pounding noise, Rabbit sat up and tore his eyes off the giggling Frankenstein jigsaw puzzle of creatures. Looking over his shoulder he saw Celestia was laying on her side beside him shaking off her daze. Behind her was some sort of wall. Trixie and Luna had climbed to their feet already and were pressing their hands against a glistening barrier of pinkish light that had erected between them and the teenager and Equestia’s princess. The forcefield stretch up into the infinite sky and seemed to span out beyond the borders of the royal gardens, quite literally cutting through everything in its path. Trixie was desperately pounding a fist against the field, her fist glowing with faint magic as she tried to make a dent. A few ripples of energy wavered through the shield, but nothing more happened.

Sitting up on one knee, Rabbit’s hand hovered over his climbing-axe’s handle as he looked up to see the floating creature – that had once been a statue – was drifting smoothly down to where the girls stood helplessly.

“Aww.” he continued, floating over to where Luna pouted angrily. “Does widdle Woona wish she weren’t so powerless to help the puny human? How precious. Gag.” He added, mockingly sticking a finger down his throat.

Still coming to terms what exactly was happening, Rabbit pointed directly at the monster, his hands visibly trembling. “What... the fuck!” the teenager yelled slowly, being sure to annunciate his expletives properly. He was a good boy that way.

“Discord!” Princess Celestia cried out, identifying the Frankenstein patchwork draconian. She had rolled to her hooves and stood over Rabbit, tall and enduring. “I weakened your prison as a kindness so you could roam Equestria without interfering. Do not mistake my kindness as weakness. Now get back in your statue before I lose my patience!”

Ignoring her half-heartedly with a sigh, Discord curled his back and rolled his eyes “Aaaaaaaand you’re boring again.” He grumbled before holding out his hands. “At least this time you won’t be able to run to your precious Elements of Harmony.”

The lion’s paw opened up to reveal the weave-gem perched neatly on the palm of his hand. The eagle’s claw froze poised to snap his fingers.

With a distinct ‘click’ of his talons, a flash of light erupted from between Discord’s fingers. The weave-gem vanished from the creature’s paw before flashing back into existence right beside Rabbit’s face. Instinctively the teenager threw himself out of range, landing face down in the dirt. Looking back he saw the weave-gem burst open.

Bars of light extended out from where the weave gem hovered just a few feet from Celestia’s chest. They curved and formed four corners, circling the princess before joining at her tail. Several dozen bars spawned from the perimeter frame forming a box shaped cage of light that encased the flustered alicorn.

“Well, that’s not good.” Rabbit noted seeing Celestia’s wide-eyed expression.

The princess charged her magic, forming a ball of golden light at the tip of her horn before unleashing the energy in a destructive beam... it simply dissipated into the glow of her cage. It was at that point the ancient being resorted to more primal, instinctual methods. She kicked like a mule, but her hooves bounced off the bars like they were made of tempered steel. She lashed out with her wings and threw her shoulders against the bars. Again, to no effect.

Catching her breath, the princess quickly convinced herself not to lose her head. Eventually she looked up, locking her glare to Discord who watched in amusement.

“What does every Saturday morning cartoon villain want?” Discord retorted with a question, throwing his arms up. “Money. Fame. World domination!” strafing over to where Rabbit was climbing to his feet, the creature nudged the teenager in the arm with an elbow. “And thanks to bunny-boy here bringing the weave-gem and all that natural chaos of his right to my front-door, I get all of that!”

Celestia turned her head to Rabbit looking very seriously at the teenager. “Rabbit, whatever happens, no matter what he says, do not listen! He is a liar and a tr-...” she was suddenly cut off as Discord darted closer.

Reaching through the bars, he zipped up her lips, leaving the immortal goddess of the sun completely flustered. And completely helpless of course, through lack of fingers and thus incapable of operating the zipper-technology preventing her from articulating vocal noises beyond ‘hrmph,’ ‘hmph’ and ‘mmmmmhph!’

“Hold that thought, princess.” Discord chuckled before turning back to the human and clasping is mis-matched hands together. “Tell me young man; do you know who I am?” he inquired with a big grin.

“A liar and a tr-...?” Rabbit ended his sentence right there since he didn’t know what else Celestia was going to say.

That made Discord chuckle loudly, rolling back into an invisible lounger. Wiping away a non-existent tear the creature smiled. “How rude of me. Allow me to introduce myself.” Landing lightly, Discord gave a very deep bow, his goatee brushing the floor. “Quentin C. Discord, Spirit of Chaos and last of the Draconiquus! At your service.” In a flash of light a business card appeared in Rabbit’s hand.

He read it, bold letters spelling Discord simply printed across the grey card. With a roll of his eyes, the teenager chucked it over his shoulder.

“Rabbit, patron saint of lairs and scoundrels, particularly impatient human.” Rabbit introduced. “Ready to start swinging heavy objects in the general direction of your face.”

Discord clapped his hands against the sides of his face as he pretended to look shocked before the ‘O’-expression was replaced with a wide, malevolent grin. “Casual attitude and shallow threats? How delightfully rebellious.” Giggling, Discord swooped in close, draping a claw over the boy’s shoulder. “I know exactly who you are, Rabbit.”

Rabbit hurriedly turned and swatted the mish-mash of creatures away. But Discord had already disappeared into a puff of cotton-candy smoke, leaving a stack of rather un-flattering pictures fluttering to the ground. Rabbit stared at them, realising they were pictures of him, recently taken from varying locations and angles, immortalising some of his less moral Equestria exploits.

The pictures disappeared in a poof of smoke before the draconiquus reappeared in the line of fire of Rabbit’s glare. “Why have you been watching me?” the boy mirrored Celestia’s earlier demand.

“Phphphffffff!” with a lazy roll of his eyes, Discord blew a sarcastic raspberry. “Why-why-why-why!? Why does everypony always ask why? I don’t know why, I just do things!”

“Pfah! My reasoning is something mere mortals wouldn’t even be able to comprehend!” He tapped his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “Well, that is unless humans have an understanding of the pie of the fourth dimension.”

“Oh, what does it matter? With Celestia out of my hair and the elements none the wiser, I should be relishing these fleeting moments of sweet freedom!” Discord announced with a jolly laugh. “I’m missing some quality chaos here!”

Things escalated quickly from there. Rabbit watched rather dumbfounded as Discord proceeded to ignore the trapped princess and the three human figures. With waves of his arms he started throwing bolts of light, zapping the surrounding region.

Clouds flashed multiple colours and started spitting neatly moulded cubes of chocolate. The grass turned varying shades of purple and pink. The trees even grew wings, uprooting themselves and fluttering off into the air.

Rabbit was at a loss for words. This was chaos? Or at least, it was what Discord thought chaos was? Where were the pipe bombs? Where was the incoherent noise? Where were the riots? What Rabbit was looking at wasn’t really chaos. It was just... random!

It started somewhere in the cockles of his heart, at the base of his rib-cage. A light convulsion, not a gag-reflex or a cough. Not even a heave in preparation to vomit. A tingling sensation, like he’d inhaled a bunch of feathers. It worked its way up his air-piped and nearly caused a sneeze. A sneeze laced with laughter.

Rabbit snorted into his hands, attempting to muffle the sound and stifle the laughter that followed. What resulted was the kind of noise heard when some dumbass thinks he’s being more quiet while trying to hold in a sneeze, failing to realise the resulting sound was far more jarring than an actually sneeze.

Picking up on the sound, Discord looked down inquisitively, drifting closer with a grin. “Ah, enjoying the chaos, are we? See, isn’t it a great thing?”

“I’m not laughing at your antics, buddy. I’m laughing at you.” Rabbit assured, stifling another snort with both hands.

“Hee-hee. Purple grass? Winged trees? Chocolate rain? C’mon, that’s not chaos.” Rabbit shook his head, still trying not to laugh blatantly in the draconiquus’ face.

“It’s not, actually!” Rabbit said in a matter-of-factly tone before bringing in the jeering again. “Those are party-tricks, dumbass. What are you, the most powerful clown in Equestria?”

The spirit of ‘chaos’ leered. “I am not a clown! Don’t call me that.”

“Ooooh. Struck a nerve have I, spirit of CLOWNING!?” – Discord fumed while the teenager continued taunting – “C’mon, man. Even I could do better than that.”

“So what if I did?” Rabbit laughed, waving his hands in front of his face, working his knees as he swayed from side to side in the ancient, time-tempered ritualistic dance of ‘bring it bee-atch!’ “Come at me, bro! What’s the worst you’d do to me? Oh, no! Don’t make it rain chocolate on me!”

“Grrrrrrr!” Discord’s face had turned beet-red. Rabbit could even make out the steam shooting from his ears. “You talk pretty big for a little bipedal naked mole-rat!”

Rabbit held out his arms, provoking some drastic, unbridled action. “Bring it!”

“Oh, I’m bringing it! I’m bringing it all and then some!” Discord assured without much more physical confrontation than a single pointed jab to the teenager’s chest.

“Boy!?” Both Discord and Rabbit had been dancing around the actual confrontation stage of their altercation, but that was the straw that broke the pony’s back. Mushroom clouds erupted in Discord’s eyes. A haze of potentially deadly radioactive air framed the draconiquus. The tufts of waxy hair in his ears smouldered. His eyebrows caught fire outright. “You are ON! CHAOS GAMES! I, DISCORD, SPIRIT OF CHAOS HEREBY DECLARE THE CHAOS GAMES IN EFFECT!” Rabbit nearly had to cover his ears as the draconiquus squared right up to him. For dramatic effect there was even a bolt of lightning cracking through the sky behind Discord, shattering the air with a deafening BOOM!

Meanwhile on the far end of Discord’s forcefield, Luna cringed. “Oh, that’s not good.”

Trixie stopped trying to smash the shield and looked sideways at the pointy eared girl. “What’s not good?” she asked suspiciously.

“Chaos games.” Luna answered dryly, cringing again as she said the words herself. “Ancient duels for the throne of chaos. Discord came up with it so anypony could challenge him if they got sick of his chaos. But over the millennia he remains the undefeated champion. The winner takes Discord’s title.”

Luna gulped. “He or she is banished to oblivion. It is true what he says. He’d never turn a pony to stone.” The princess added.

“Yeah!” Rabbit whooped excitedly. “Chaos games! Bring it on! I’m gonna rule these games! Games of chaos. They’ll be ruled... conquered, these... chaos...” the teenager lost momentum and sort of cluelessly trailed off from there. “Uh...”

Eventually he turned to the perimeter of the force field where Trixie stood helplessly, before cupping his hands to either side of his mouth. “Yo, Trix!” he hollered. “What the fuck are chaos games!?”

Outside the pink bubble of energy, the traveling magician and loyal companion tiredly said hello to her face with the palm of her hand.

***[]***

Thus the games were afoot. The battlefield had been prepared – Discord had lowered his forcefield when Luna and Trixie had agreed not to interfere. Not that they could, mind you, since in human form they were both still pretty much powerless. Celestia was locked in her weave-cage and really had no say in the matter.

The royal gardens would be their coliseum. Discord was standing by the ruined remains of what had once been his reliquary performing all sorts of complicated stretches. Rabbit stood by Trixie trying his best not to look worried. On the whole he was confident enough he could make better chaos than Discord, but on the off-chance he couldn’t... spending any amount of time in oblivion didn’t sound at all inviting to him.

“This is a really bad idea, Rabbit.” Trixie reminded for the third time in the space of five minutes.

Rabbit just managed to scoff, shrugging up the straps of his backpack. “I’m full of bad ideas, remember?”

The girl grinned. She should have known he’d say that. She knew him so well, after all. She knew him well enough to figure he stood a chance versus Discord. But once again – on the off chance he didn’t...

“Well, here’s another one.” Trixie sighed, figuring that she too was full of terrible ideas. “Rabbit?”

“Yeah?” the teenager mumbled absently watching as Discord snapped his fingers a few times to warm up.

Trixie was rubbing her arm shyly as she looked down at the ground. “You heard me right the first time.”

“Saywhat?” Rabbit asked, still absently tuned in to the actual conversation.

The teenager very slowly tuned his gaze until he met hers. “I don’t follow.” Rabbit shrugged.

“It’s time, bunny-boy!” Discord’s voice very suddenly rang out, cutting right across what the girl was about to say.

It wasn’t so much his friend getting cut off that pissed him off. It was the name bunny-boy that got Rabbit fuming to the point his fists were trembling beyond control. “Take a deep breath and prepare to choke on my balls, asshole!” Rabbit yelled, pointing Discord out. Calming himself a little he glanced to his companion. “We’ll talk later, Trix. First, I’m gonna flush this fucker.”

Trixie risked a little giggle, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She’d prefer if they could put all this madness to their rudder, but unfortunately that wasn’t really an option. Not anymore anyway.

“You know me.” Rabbit returned with a smirk before marching to meet Discord on the battlefield.

Rabbit walked alone for what felt like a mile. There was always the chance of failure, and that would lead to an eternity in oblivion. He considered that about as bad as death... now he understood why they called the few dozen meters from the holding cells to the electric chair the green mile.

Hiding a grimace, the human walked up to the waiting draconiquus and stared up at his unevenly sized eyes. “Okay, so how are we doing this? Unless you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly a magic user.”

It took Rabbit a moment to realise Discord was talking about until he reached back. His hand bushed the handle of his climbing-axe before Rabbit yanked it from the holster and gave it a twirl. “What? This?”

Discord answered with a light flick of the wrist. A bust of static electricity connected the axe to his fingers as several pulses of energy entered Rabbit’s weapon-of-choice. When the static faded and Discord extinguished his smouldering fingers, Rabbit found his climbing-axe was glowing and buzzing in his hand. It was so energised, Rabbit had to resist the urge to raise the climbing-axe above his head and yell out about ‘having the power.’

“My powers are now linked to that little implement of larceny you have there.” Discord explained simply. “You have three uses, and only three.”

“That’s a little Arabian Nights isn’t it? Shouldn’t you give me an unlimited amount of tricks just to be sure?” Rabbit tried giving the climbing-axe an experimental swing. It felt no different, other than giving a distinct ‘swishing’ noise as he swung.

“Nice try.” Discord chuckled. “Three is part of the rules of our duel. I cause some chaos, and you try to upstage me. Winner leads the next round. Best out of three rounds wins. Loser spends an eternity in oblivion, yadda-yadda-yadda.”

Meanwhile, on the side-lines Trixie gave an offhanded comment to Luna. “See? Their duel has a set of ground rules.” An aggravated groan was drawn from the princess.

Back on the battlefield however, Rabbit was nodding. “Fine. So how do I use this thing?”

“Just point and imagine. I’ll begin.” Discord snapped his fingers and Chaos Games commenced.

In a flash of light erupting from his hands, he turned the clouds above their heads into hot-pink puffs of cotton candy. Swooping up he scraped a chunk off on his finger and licked it up, humming contentedly.

“Pow! Cotton candy clouds! Good ol’ faithful!” Discord cheered before bowing to Rabbit to take a shot.

He pointed his climbing-axe up at the clouds and imagined what he thought was chaos.

With a flash of light the clouds turned into a black mess of... well... it was a riot. At first it seemed like a stormy cloud had appeared, but the wisps of heavy vapour took humanoid forms and started picking up whatever rubble shaped clouds they could. On the other end were cloud figures cowering behind their shields as a full-on riot broke out. Lightning bolt molotov-cocktails exploded across riot shields. Soft and fluffy batons caved in equally soft and fluffy skulls...

How this was all physically possible, I’ll let your imagination figure that one out.

Rabbit smirked. What’s more chaotic than a riot? Even the spirit of chaos couldn’t deny that one.

Huffing begrudgingly, Discord averted his eyes. “Fine. Point to the mortal.”

That meant Rabbit was leading, and led round two... but to his dismay the teenager discovered he was out of ideas. What else could he cause that was chaos? How about a bunny-riot? No, he’d covered riots already. A war? No, he imagined the locals wouldn’t take kindly to him plunging their whole world in darkness and death. Rabid Man-U fans? Damascus traffic?

Scratching his head with his climbing-axe, Rabbit aimed to the sky again and imagined... rain.

The heavens unleashed a mighty barrage of liquid, that swirled around them and blistered them with lashings of ice cold... cola? Rabbit had to open his mouth and taste to be sure, but that was cola raining from the sky. A strange side-effect to be sure, but it was pretty... chaotic if not anything else. maybe a little too ‘Discord region’ random and clownish, but chaotic enough.

Rabbit had to cup his hands around his mouth and shout over the howling wind to be heard. “Soda-pop-monsoon! Beat that!”

Waving his hand, the draconiquus calmed the downpour and got rid of the gale-force winds. Conjuring up a glass, he filled it with the cola rain before tipping it back into his mouth. But instead of drinking the cola inside, the bubbly liquid remained solid while the glass turned to liquid. Guzzling the glass down, Discord smacked his lips with a refreshing ‘aaaaaah’ before tossing the block of cola over his shoulder.

It exploded on impact leaving Rabbit completely baffled. Crossing his arms the human sighed. Not only was that chaotically random, it was pretty damn awesome to boot. “Point to Discord.” Rabbit deadpanned.

Discord’s hands raised as the quartet of violins opened their first screeching notes. The trumpets built with the rising crescendo as the heavens darkened. The very earth shook as static energy gathered around the draconiquus, and as the invisible brass band led a mighty musical charge, Discord unleashed his pent up powers to produce an orchestra of chaos.

What Discord conjured into existence is a little difficult to explain in detail, so just bear with me. He spawned into existence a stage and flanking stands for the symphony orchestra. Said orchestra was comprised of dogs, varying in breed and a mess of ‘regurgitated-fruit-pastilles’ colours. The hounds had their heads raised to the sky, howling out like cats at midnight, screeching out the rolling thrum of ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ by composer Richard Wagner. The stage itself was populated by heavy set buffalo standing on their hind legs and performing a delicate looking dance while outfitted in swan-costumes. Standing before the stage were a rabble of insane looking ponies – criminally inside judging by the ill-fitted strait-jackets and frizzy manes, not to mention the wall-eyes. They were hurling pies at the ballet-buffalo, at the same time arguing among themselves about what sounded like the intricacies of corporate ethics.

Rabbit was stunned beyond words. The climbing-axe slipped from his grip and hit the ground with a thud. How the hell was he supposed to top that!? He’d barely come up with something for round two! The teenager’s mind drew blank. He may as well start packing his bags for oblivion.

Gulping, the boy faked a grin as he glanced to Discord. The spirit of chaos gave a confident chuckle, knowing full well the human couldn’t top that. Mimicking the chuckle, Rabbit quickly dropped to his knees to retrieve his climbing-axe. Already he was compiling an escape plan. Dash for the city walls, lose discord in the sewers and escape Canterlot by way of one of those cascading waterfalls. From there it was a straight run to Ponyville where he’d beg – on hands and fucking knees if he had to – for Twilight Sparkle and her friendship squad to lend a hand... hoof.

As he scraped up the climbing-axe in preparation for his half-brained attempt at escaping his fate, Rabbit noticed something. A glistening little black creature perched in the cropped grass beside his knee.

The slug’s eyes lifted and gave the teenager a casual salute. “Hey.” The slug greeted plainly.

Rabbit gave a small grin. “Hey. I was wondering when you’d show up to help.” He admitted softly.

“Yeah, you’re kind of getting your butt handed to you again, so I figured I might lend my time to give some input.”

The slug gave the boy a look as if to say ‘Really? I have to go into this now?’

Giving a sigh, Rabbit rubbed his eyes. “Okay, fine. I get my ass kicked a lot, but this time I’m up against the spirit of fucking chaos. What chance do I stand?”

Rabbit stared at the slug before looking at his climbing-axe. “Magic climbing-axe to the face? I can do that?” he asked looking back at his slimy guardian angel.

“You are sharing Discords powers!” the slug cried. “The power to do anything you will! What do you think!?”

Clearing his throat and throwing in the best Yoda-impression he could, the slug said: “His undoing, his confidence is.”

Rabbit’s eyes rolled. “Are you sure that’s not just dramatic convenience?”

The little slug sighed explosively, rubbing his temples as a migraine came on. How that’s physically possible is beyond me – I’m just the narrator. “Just get it done.”

Rabbit glanced over his shoulder to where Discord drifted high out of reach. Looking back to the slug, Rabbit was about to asked how he’d bring the draconiquus down to his level, but the creature was gone. Faded out / withdrawn into the shadows / no longer among us. He guessed he had to figure that one out for himself. And as per usual it didn’t take him long to come up with an incredibly bad idea.

“What’s the matter, bunny-boy?” Discord chortled, watching the boy squirm on the ground below.

Finishing what he was doing, the teenager gave Discord a quick glance. “I am, actually.”

“Yup.” Rabbit straightened up and faced his foe, swinging his climbing-axe by his side. He’d tied one end of his climbing rope to the wrist strap and was swinging the device like a grappling hook. “Course, that ain’t exactly plan-A!”

“W-wha-...” Discord had held out his hands as if to say ‘don’t you dare,’ but it made no difference.

Rabbit wasn’t one to stop when others told him to. On the next up-swing of his climbing-axe, Rabbit released the rope. His makeshift grappling hook flew straight and true. Discord dove to avoid, but he was too slow. The rope whipped around his neck and the hooked pick of the climbing-axe locked on its own tether. Secure, Rabbit gave the makeshift noose a sharp pull, eliciting a gag from the draconiquus before he was yanked right out of the sky.

Without hesitating, Rabbit jumped on top of the spirit of chaos, pinning him in the dirt.

“Say uncle!” Rabbit yelled as he unhooked his climbing-axe from the rope and held it high as if he was about to mine out Discord’s brains. “Say – motherfucking – uncle, bitch!”

Discord held up his hands, eyes wide with panic. His fingers poised to generate some magic to throw off the human, but with one arm pinning his throat down the other raised high, Rabbit brought the climbing-axe down. As it swished, he flicked it through is fingers, twisting the implement down so the dull back-end flew straight at the draconiquus’ face.

On impact the climbing-axe seemed to let out a pop and the two were consumed by a white light. When it faded, Trixie, Luna and Celestia blinked with surprise to see the draconiquus and the human had disappeared completely.

Meanwhile, far across time and space the teenager and the spirit of chaos locked in their epic slap-battle winked back into existence in dim, dank cave. They hit the hard uneven floor in a clumsy jumble. Rabbit drove a knee into Discord’s gut before pushing the serpentine creature off him and pinning the shaft of the climbing-axe across the throat, his free hand curled into a fist as he rapped his knuckles against the dazed draconiquus’ face a few times.

Punch – “Settle...” – punch – “The...” – punch – “Fuck...” – punch – “Down!”

So caught up in trying to keep the spirit of chaos zapping him into oblivion, the teenager barely noticed his surroundings.

It took him a moment of blinking and focusing to realise they weren’t scuffling on the floor of any old cave... it was the bat-cave, the caped crusader himself – Batman – standing by and staring at them with bafflement.

Rabbit stared right back at Batman, right hand pinning Discord down, left hand half-cocked for another punch. Blinking a few times, Rabbit eventually threw one last punch in the draconiquus’ face, not taking his eyes off the vigilante. The realisation that hitting Discord with his climbing-axe caused them to leap through dimensions came to him very slowly.

Lowering his voice into a barely coherent, gravely, marble-gargling growl, Rabbit said: “Sorry.”

Figuring they’d best move on before they both ended up on the receiving end of the dark knight’s wrath, Rabbit bashed Discord in the face with the climbing-axe again and they flashed out of existence.

At the same time they flashed back into existence in a smaller room. It was a bedroom, the walls adorned with movie and video-game posters. In front of them was a computer-screen perched on a low cabinet along with a stark white X-Box 360 and a controller with a tangled wire splayed out on the carpeted floor in front of it. Off to the left was the unmade bunk-bed with a cluttered desk underneath beside a rickety looking wardrobe. The desk was adorned with modelling paints, shreds of grip-tape, electronics and a crumpled tangle of cut-out templates. Clothes were scattered over the desk chair and the bed’s railings, as well as half hanging out of the pantry beside the bolted door.

It took him a full thirty seconds to realise they were sitting in his own bedroom. Not too keen on explaining to his mom why he was fighting a technicolour Frankenstein monster in his bedroom, Rabbit quickly bashed the draconiquus in the face again.

The next flash brought them to another strangely familiar setting. Not somewhere he’d ever been before, but something more like the bat-cave. Something he’d seen on television...

“Ah, right.” Rabbit deadpanned, identifying a particular figure leaned over a nearby railing and staring at them. “The TARDIS!”

“Sorry.” Rabbit flashed the Doctor a grin as he mimicked the ‘Doctor Who’ typical English accent. “Just passing through.”

“Oh, and by the way,” Rabbit added as he raised his climbing-axe. “A fez is not as cool as a bush-hat. I’m just sayin’.”

When they landed, Rabbit fell off discord and landed uncomfortably on his side. the burgundy carpet burned his cheek as his face slammed into the deck. Blinking hard a few times, he had to sit up to check where they had landed.

Much to his surprise he found himself on the command deck of a vessel of some sort. There was a soft thrum of electronics in the background. To the front there were two comfortable looking leather loungers with beige computer consoles erected at their front.

The young looking helmsman glanced to his particularly pale side-seat comrade before they resumed staring confused at Rabbit and Discord.

Looking towards the rear of the room Rabbit saw three chairs – each occupied – and to their back a long curved wooden balustrade. Behind that was a curved wall home to various brightly lit computer consoles, each and every one manned. One particular man standing at the consoles looked like he was made up and ready to go to a sci-fi-con.

The centrally seated figure, and older bald gentleman clad in a tight fitted black and red uniform pressed his hands into the armrests of his chair and very slowly rose to his feet. He had a look about him that demanded respect. The authority behind the man literally caused the air to waver in a blur around him.

Looking very slowly to one of the room’s flanks, Rabbit noted a christening plaque erected beside several compartments hiding advanced electronics within.

The man in red, quite obviously the captain of the enterprise pointed directly at Discord. From his mouth was uttered a single constenant: “Q!?”

“Ah, not today, mon-capitein!” Discord announced with a respectful little bow.

Rabbit rolled his eyes. “Well, I’ve had quite enough of this!” rolling over, Rabbit swung the dull end of his climbing-axe while closing his eyes and thinking of home.

In a flash of white light they re-appeared in the royal gardens. What resulted was another explosion of chaos, complete with all prior discomforts. As Rabbit was thrown clear of the ground, he tumbled head over heels several rotations before smacking into the dirt. He quite literally bounced on his first landing before hitting the deck face down and sliding to a halt. With a distinct thud his climbing-axe thudded into the dirt right beside him, erected in the ground by the hooked pick like Excalibur would have been lodged in a rock.

Slowly blinking away the multi-coloured spots in his field of vision, Rabbit turned his head to where Discord had landed. The spirit of chaos didn’t even bother rising to his feet. by his glare, Rabbit judged the draconiquus just wanted to be rid of Rabbit. So he formed a pistol shape with his hawk-hand and aimed directly at the teenager.

There was no avoiding it anymore. Rabbit shut his eyes, bracing himself for eternal exile to what he could only imagine was hell. The draconiquus’ thumb snapped forward, un-cocking in an indication of shooting. Any second now, Rabbit expected to be propelled upon the winds of magic into his miserable new abode in oblivion...

Opening his eyes after a while, Rabbit looked back at Discord as the spirit of chaos rapidly snapped his fingers in frustration. Powerless, absolutely nothing happened. All of Discord’s power was gone. Rabbit looked back at the climbing axe where it sat embedded in the lawn. It was glowing and buzzing brighter than it had before when Discord shared his powers to it.

Rabbit’s climbing-axe must have absorbed the rest of Discord’s powers! Well, Rabbit had been imagining how easy the chaos games would be if Rabbit drained all of Discord’s powers. He just didn’t expect that to work. How convenient.

Rabbit wasn’t going to bother figuring out whether he had actually won the Chaos Games or not. Happy enough, he was just going to go with it. Reaching out, the teenager picked up the climbing-axe out of the dirt and stared at it.

“Well that was pretty fucking ninja.” Holding his axe tight, he climbed to his feet, dusting himself down. “Does this mean I win?”

Discord kept snapping his fingers, barely believing what he was witnessing. “But... but... you can’t win! That wasn’t even chaos! I’m supposed to win! You... you cheated!”

“Well, duh! I was losing. ‘Course I’m gonna cheat. So you’re powerless now and I’m holding a climbing-axe that can do most anything in the universe. That’s pretty cool. What should I do first...?” Rabbit rubbed his chin thoughtfully before perking up when enlightenment hit him. “Ooh, I know!”

Turning, Rabbit aimed the implement directly at Celestia. After a moment to imagine something, a bolt of lightning struck the princess’s cage. The bars grew in intensity catching Celestia by surprise. For a moment she though the unthinkable... well, power does corrupt. The thing about Rabbit though, he thought that while corruption could be fun, ultimate power took the fun right out of it. What’s the fun in breaking the rules if it’s too easy?

That was when the weave-gem burst apart into a million little shimmering shards of stone. Celestia’s cage started to warp and lose shape, fading very slowly out of existence. Cracks of black light formed over the now brittle bars containing the princess of Equestria as she bucked at them.

Meanwhile, the spirit slug took flight. Drifting on a ghostly wind, he floated up around Celestia’s fading cage and flew off into the sky. As he did so, the little creature flipped the draconiquus the bird. Though, how this was done without hands – or fingers even – was a mystery to all. Like I said, I’m just the narrator.

As the slug faded away, Rabbit and Discord looked at each other. The spirit of chaos looked down at the climbing-axe in the teenager’s hand then up to his face again...

And without warning the draconiquus launched himself closer. Rabbit immediately threw up his arms to defend himself before Discord collided with him.

While the two of them were struggling for control over the artefact of ultimate chaotic power, Trixie and Luna looked at each other. If there was ever a sign to indicate Chaos Games were over, that was it. And their promise not to interfere no longer applied.

Kicking off, the two girls dashed past Celestia’s still fading cage to help Rabbit.

Seeing them come in the corner of his eye, Discord pulled at the climbing-axe. Punching Rabbit in the gut, causing him to bulge his eyes and cough out a lung-full of air, the draconiquus managed to point the climbing-axe at the two humanised ponies. A bolt of lightning shot from the axe and slammed into the dirt at their feet, producing a tear in the earth. Trixie and Luna immediately slid to a halt at the edge of a massive gaping chasm that formed between them and Rabbit.

“Aww, crap.” Trixie sighed looking down in the dark void below. It was a good few metres to leap across, and from what she could see no way around. Also, it was a disconcerting infinity straight down.

Luna wasn’t looking down, she was watching where Rabbit twisted at the climbing-axe and smacked his elbow in Discord’s face. He was kicking at the back of the knees and trying to throw the powerless spirit of chaos off-balance. But being serpentine and distinctly bigger than Rabbit, it was easier said than done. Discord would snake from one side to the other, sometimes even balancing on his tail to prevent being thrown to the ground.

Remembering what he’d been taught what felt like a lifetime ago, Rabbit locked his forearm around the weapon they fought for and punched Discord in the relative position of his kidneys. As the draconiquus gasped, Rabbit twisted around, stepped in close with his own stance as low as possible and he whipped Discord right over one shoulder. He may have been big, but he was lean, and very light.

For a moment it looked like Rabbit was about to throw Discord into the ground and stomp him out... but the stubborn son of a bitch twisted in the air and landed neatly on his feet again.

“C’mon!” Rabbit growled angrily through gritted teeth, leaning back as Discord clawed for the teenager’s face.

Standing helplessly by the side lines, Luna cupped her hands around her mouth and cried out to the teenager. “Stand fast, my love. Know of my affection for thee and thy shall prevail.”

Trixie scoffed when she heard that. “If you love him so much, jump across this chasm and help him!”

Throwing her arms up in defeat, Trixie’s loud reply went along the lines of: “What bucking planet are you from!?”

They were interrupted and looked back at the fight when Rabbit let out a “Whoa!”

Discord pushed, letting go of the climbing-axe. As Rabbit stumbled back in surprise, Discord launched himself in close again, clawing at the axe. Rabbit pulled away, twisting and leaning from side to side in an attempt to keep the draconiquus from it. As a result though, he only had one arm to protect himself and was getting pummelled.

Hands and fists smacked him upside the head, punched him in the gut, that ram’s leg bucked him painfully in the shin. Rabbit eventually dropped to one knee, holding up the glowing climbing-axe in both hands to block another kick. That was when Discord quickly recoiled and snatched the ‘totem of chaos’ clean out of Rabbit’s hands.

As he held up the climbing-axe in victory, Celestia head-butted the edge of her cage. A corner broke away and faded into a shower of pixels leaving a gaping hole in her cage. In an instant she charged her horn and unleashed a searing beam of light in Discord’s direction. It cut through the air by his ear, singing his fur and causing the draconiquus to duck for cover.

“Whoa, now! Take it easy, princess!” Discord chuckled as he grabbed Rabbit by the scruff of his neck. With a heave he lifted the teenager to his feet and held the human between him and the escaping princess like a meat-shield, the sharp pick of the climbing-axe hooked around his throat. “Wouldn’t want to do something stupid!”

Celestia threw her shoulder against the crumbling cage as more portions started breaking away. but she wasn’t breaking free quickly enough. Seeing this, Trixie glanced between the princess and where Discord was holding her best friend in all of Equestria hostage. She glanced down at the abyss at her feet... but she didn’t care anymore.

Taking a breath, the girl hopped backwards a few paces, then sprinted right at the chasm. Luna gaped as if Trixie had gone completely mad. Maybe she had gone completely mad. She was risking her life for a human.

On her last pace she teetered precariously over the chasm torn into the royal gardens before leaping into the air. Her legs kicked for balance as she was launched across the gaping crevasse and landed simultaneously on both feet, just about on the other side.

“Trix, holy shit!” Rabbit yelled trying to run to her side as the girl wind-milled her arms, looking like she was about to fall backwards into the ravine. Discord tightened his grip though, and the human was held in place.

Regaining her balance though, Trixie leaned forward and took a step closer to the draconiquus holding her friend with a relieved sigh. Steeling herself, the girl took a low stance and curled her hands into fists. Still magically exhausted, she couldn’t start levitating heavy objects to throw at the spirit of chaos, nor conjure up so much as a fire-ball. But if push came to shove she’d resort to doing what Rabbit usually did.

Pick up something heavy and start swinging. She learned from the best, it seemed.

Discord huffed, lifting his head over Rabbit’s shoulder. “How touching!” he jeered. Turning his eyes back to Rabbit, Discord’s eyes flared nervously. “I don’t have enough power fight everypony looking to be a hero, but I have enough to punish you. It’s time for your little holiday to come to an end, bunny-boy! Arrivederci!”

Discord raised the climbing-axe high as Trixie reached out as if to catch the draconiquus’ arm. “No, don’t!” she yelled dashing closer.

She was powerless to stop it. Discord twisted the axe around and brought it down sharply, smashing the backend against Rabbit’s head. Discord’s final, definitive blow felt kind of like a firework had gone off inside Rabbit’s head.

Through Rabbit’s eyes the world seemed to explode into blinding white light. The trauma of the impact left an audible ringing in the teenager’s ears. And after a long time came silence, before the light gave way to an endless void of nothingness.

A carefully calculated copious amount of nothing filled the space all around him. There was so much nothing filling up the amount of nothing to be had that there was – in fact – nothing there to be had. Yes, this description of the nothing Rabbit drifted through was gratuitously pointless. And no, I don’t care.

***[Time – Hans Zimmer]***

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who’s read my stories. I’d like to especially thank everyone who left a thumbs up or a favourite. And I’d like to doubly thank everyone who left a comment. All the words of encouragement, reviews, corrections and critiques have been a massive help. Versus Equestria is my first fanfic, so I need all the help I can get. I know I don’t address all the great comments I get, so here’s an answer to all of them so far.

Thank you! Thankyou-thankyou-thankyou! Without the support I don’t think I’d ever have gotten this far.

Also, very important, I need to thank Andrew Joshua Talon for – and this is a long list of stuff so it’s literally going to have to be a list:

2: Helping me with getting Andrew Shepherd right so he wouldn’t be too far off-character.

5: Helping develop Interval 2 in general. Seriously, the original idea I had for Interval 2 was crap ‘till Andrew came along and straightened me out. :)

Rabbit’s gonna be back in Interval 4 along with a bunch of cool new ideas I wanna share with you guys. Catch you on the flip-side.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Original Characters, Settings, Designs and Themes © to Hasbro and the Respective Owners. Please support the official release.

My Little Pony: Versus Equestria

by PseudoFiction

Interval 3.3: Chaos Games