//------------------------------// // Enhanced Combat // Story: My Little Caboose: Blue is Magic! // by DarkWing //------------------------------// "Blue. Think about what you're doing." Sarge said cautiously, eyes narrowing to small slits as he watched the wrathful stallion. "I've been thinking about it for the past few years." Church growled, eyes continuing their harsh glow. "I've thought about it for long enough." "Hey, we thought about deleting you but we haven't done anything..." Sarge grunted. "Well maybe you should have." Church yelled as he released the beam from his eyes, to everyone's surprise it went straight for it's target. Sarge rolled out of the way of the oncoming beam and glanced behind him to witness the destruction. But the beam didn't pass him. Looking back, he saw Celestia standing in front of all of them, beam mere inches from her face as she blocked his beam with her magic. Church snarled and narrowed his eyes, concentrating to make the beam stronger and slimmer. But Celestia did not bat an eyelash. Instead, she used her magic to grab Church's head and forced him to look out the window and into the sky until he stopped. "Enough." Celestia said flatly. "I'm not going to allow you to harm anyone." "Right, because that would make me so much worse than you." Church snapped, flying straight at her, but again, Celestia flicked her horn, making Church drop to the ground. "Church, I don't want to do something I'm going to regret." "Everything I've seen you do so far has been something you regret!" Church yelled, jumping at her again, this time ramming himself into her, knocking her off balance. "I've never seen you do something you shouldn't regret." "I do what I think is best for the ponies I watch over." Celestia said quietly as she quickly stabilized to focus on Church. "Really?" Church growled, slamming into her again. "Like when you brought me to the garden and made that douche-bag come back to life?" Celestia tried to get her balance, but got tackled again, this time knocking her to the floor. As she tried to get up, Church stomped on her stomach, knocking the breath out of her. The guys looked at each other and nodded, sprinting towards them, only to be repelled by a small sphere that surrounded them. As they looked at Church they noticed his eyes were now purple. "Or how about when you lost to that Changeling Queen, huh?" Church muttered, grabbing Celestia with his magic just to throw her at the side of the shield, making her grunt. "You showed everyone how fucking powerless you are!" "She was feeding on the love of others-" "Right, she was feeding on the love of others and love is the most powerful magic of all. Shut. The fuck. Up." Church muttered, slamming her into the shield with each pause. "How about when you put us, aliens that you actually knew were the Elements of Chaos, with the girls, knowing full well that we would corrupt them?" "It could have gone either way." Celestia said quietly. "There was just as much of a chance of the Elements of Chaos being harmonized as there was the Elements of Harmony being corrupted." "You left the safety of the ponies you trust most with the toss of a fucking coin?" Church asked, trembling with fury as he dropped her to the ground. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" "I thought that the Elements of Harmony were stronger." Celestia sighed. "I've seen them grow with the girls, I saw what they overcome. Every time I wanted them to do something was to build them up, make them grow closer as friends. I was hoping by doing that, if something were to happen to me they would be ready for anything. I guess I trusted in them so much that I entrusted them with watching you, that way if they changed you I would know they were prepared for the worst." "You wanted the worst?" Church asked, raising his hoof above Celestia's throat. "You fucking got it." "Get away from her!" Church snapped his head to his right to see who called out, but found himself tumbling across the floor of the throne room. Shaking his head, Church looked back to the bubble shield that was now broken to see a furious draconequus. "Leave. Her. Alone." Discord said flatly, eyes burning into Church. Church shrugged off his demand and galloped towards Celestia, only to be knocked to the floor again by Discord's magic. "What? You wanted chaos!" Church complained, getting off the floor. "Not this kind of chaos. This isn't the chaos I want." Discord growled, waving his claw at Celestia, who was shakily getting up with the help of her sister. "This isn't fun." "It is for me." Church grunted. "Well, it seems we're at a crossroads then." Discord said contemplatively, scratching his chin. "You want to kill her, but I want her to stay alive to toy with her. How do you suppose we settle this?" "I could kill you." Church suggested as icily as he could. "You could try." Discord chuckled. "Or I could try picking you back apart so you can do what you were told to do." "I did what you wanted me to do!" Church snapped, jumping towards him, but phased right through the slippery devil. Church glanced back to see the real Discord sitting on the throne once again. "Why do you keep assuming I wanted you to become the Alpha?" Discord asked curiously, looking over the alicorn. "Because you told me to!" "No, I didn't. I told you to be yourself, not whatever this is now." Discord said disdainfully, now eyeing Church with a small amount of contempt. "I think you heard what you wanted to hear." "You think I wanted to be the Alpha?" Church growled, eyes glowing a soft red. "Please, you've used that a few times already, now it's easy to stop." Discord sighed. "Seriously, try something new." "You got it." Church muttered in a deeper voice, eye color changing to red before vanishing from Discord's sight. "Well. That is new." Discord admitted, floating to where Church was. "I would have never guessed you him to be a cowa-" Discord let out a pained grunt when something hit him in the chest. Looking around hastily, Discord saw that the Princesses looked just as concerned as him, and the other ponies were on the other side of the room, watching in silence. Discord thought his mind was slipping, so he opened his mouth to question if anybody saw anything, only to have been hit in the jaw, slamming his mouth shut. With a yelp, Discord swatted the air around him, clipping an invisible Church in the face. As Church tumbled on the ground, his red colored eyes changed back to normal and the cloaking spell he was using stopped working. "Interesting. I have not seen somepony use a properly working cloaking spell in years, especially by one who has no experience with magic beyond messing up." Discord said bemusedly. "Though I suppose you have the Element of magic to thank for that, no?" "Yeah, I guess I do!" Church muttered, launching himself off the ground, kicking Discord in the face before he could react. "And now I'm stronger than you are, and I'm not going to hold back." "Enough of this fighting! I told you I could play dirty, and I will." Discord sputtered, rubbing his nose viciously. "You aren't right now?" Church asked. "Hah, no. Your mind is full of chaos, Church. Sweet, sweet chaos. And do you know what I do with chaos?" Discord asked in a low toned voice. "I manipulate it." Church gasped as Discord vanished from the air and turned into a brownish mist before shooting into Church. Church rolled around on the ground screaming as Discord worked his way through Church's body and to his brain. Church let out a pained shudder as he floated off the floor like a puppet. "It would have been so much simpler had I done this before." Church's mouth moved with Discord's voice coming out. "Then that would have ruined the fun, right?" Church asked in his own voice. "Now you're getting it." Discord nodded within Church's mind. "Yeah, and you're about to too." Church laughed roughly, clenching his eyes shut as tightly as he could. "What do you mean by that?" "You fell for the oldest trick in the book." Sarge said, seeing what Church had done by the small smirk that sat at the corner of Church's mouth. "Wait, what are you talking about?" Discord asked quickly, seeing a sad but satisfying smile on the red stallion's face. "It's the reverse Trojan horse." Church said tightly, giving Sarge a quick nod. "I've been trapped in my own head for years, what made you think you could waltz in and just leave whenever you wanted?" "What?" Discord asked again, this time with frustration over confusion. "Do it." Church said to Twilight and the others, gritting his teeth as Discord slammed against the inside of Church's brain, threatening to drive him mad within the next minute.. "Do what?" Twilight asked, nervous now, seeing a strange intent in Church's eyes. "You of all ponies should know, Twilight. It's really fucking obvious what I want you to do." Church said hurriedly, making it clear that what he wanted needed to be done fast. "I need you girls to take the Elements back and use them on me."