Chapter 20: Confrontation
Dan slowly rolled of Discord's body and splashed into the mud puddle that they had formed on impact. Dan coughed out some blood as he stood up, his legs shaking. He smiled to himself, looking down at Discord's broken body.
Discord had been the one to land on his back, and Dan's impact was cushioned.
Dan spit on the deity's body and leaned over, still panting and coughing from the battle he was just in. "Where's your tough talk now, Discord? Can't kill a God, my pony a-GARGH!"
Suddenly, Discord sprang up and grabbing Dan by the throat, lifting him high up into the air so that he was face to face with the Equestrian God of Chaos.
"THAT'S IT!" Discord bellowed as thunder and lightning blasted through the sky. "THERE IS NO WAY ANYPONY COULD'VE BEATEN ME LIKE THIS!"
As Dan gurgled, he moved his hooves up to his throat to give himself more room to breath. "What happened...to your bad sense of humor...Discord? Haha...ha..." Dan managed to squeeze out while being choked.
"I'M GOING TO SQUEEZE THE LIFE OUT OF YOU, YOU PATHETIC PONY!" Discord roared as he squeezed Dan's throat even harder.
Dan gasped and kept trying to pry Discord's claws from his throat. It was becoming too much. Dan started to see blackness surrounding his field of vision.
His eyes were darting around, trying to find something he could use to escape. A faint glimmer caught his eye. He grunted as he turned his head to look at it.
It was his remaining sword, embedded in the ground.
Discord looked over and saw the blade and turned back to Dan squeezing harder. "Ohhhh. Too BAD!" He threw Dan in the opposite direction. Dan hit the ground hard, landing on his cut wing. He stumbled to his hooves, his remaining armor clinking around. He jumped in the air to fly over to the sword, but his crippled wing wouldn't allow it. Dan face-planted it in the mud. "Poor little pony can't fly huh?" Discord mocked Dan as he walked up and back-handed Dan even further away. This time, Dan's wounds got the better of him.
As he landed in the blood-ridden mud again, he couldn't get up. The wounds in his legs wouldn't let him.
Discord laughed evilly as he picked up his battleaxe and approached the stallion. "Well, it's been fun, Ace. Any last words?" He raised the axe above his head and smirked, looking down.
Dan snarled up at Discord and said, "Do your worst..."
"Gladly..."Discord chuckled as he raised the axe even higher. But right when he was about to slam it down for the killing blow, a blast of strange magic hit the God of Chaos from behind, causing his to yell in pain and fall over, dropping his axe.
"AAAACE!" He heard Rainbow Dash yell.
Dan again tried his best to stand up and gasped when he saw Twilight Sparkle and her friends flying down towards him from the castle. Even the ponies who couldn't fly were flying, as they were surrounded by a magical aura.
And they all had necklaces, with the exception of Twilight Sparkle, who wore a head-dress.
"The Elements!" Dan smiled and raised a hoof up in the air. "THE ELEMENTS! YOU GOT THEM!"
As they flew down, Rainbow Dash, despite the fact her wing was injured as well, flew down and picked up Dan's sword. As the 6 landed around him, Dash dropped the sword into Dan's raised hoof before landing next to him.
"When you saved us from Discord up there I..." She looked down off to the side. "I thought you were a goner..."
Dan smiled and shook some rain out of his mane, "Well, I'm not that easy to kill..." With that, he turned his attention back to Discord, who was getting up and picking up his axe.
He gasped when he saw the elements around the mares' necks, and that Dan had reclaimed his sword.
"No..." he started backing away. "NO! This can't be... THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!"
"It is, Discord!" Twilight barked, taking on a charging stance. "You will pay for what you did!"
"Darn-tootin'!" Applejack snorted, standing up and her hind legs and uttering a neighing sound.
Discord snarled and readied his axe. "You can't win, Twilight Sparkle!" He looked at Dan. "You can't win Ace! No pony can kill me!"
Dan smirked as he said, "Take 'um down, girls..."
"With pleasure!" Rainbow Dash said as the six floated up in the air as Dan rushed forward with his sword.
"DIE!" Discord bellowed, thunder crashing overhead again as stallion and God ran towards each other.
The moment seemed to go by in slow-motion, as the two combatants leaped up and prepared to again slam into each other in gruesome combat.
Behind Dan, the Elements were rising into the air as they had done when they sealed him away before. They floated bi-pedal style, their necklaces glowing fiercely as they powered up. Twilight, who was in the middle, took in all the beams of energy coming from the other elements, and concentrated them into her head-dress. She then roared and shot the beam of energy.
It shot right over Dan's shoulder and into Discord while they were still in the air, leaping at each other. The beam hit Discord and caused him to falter and lose balance in the air, the magic surrounding him. This caused him to drop his axe. Dan roared and angled himself so that he landed, all-fours, on the God's chest, knocking the deity in the other direction. Still both in the air, Dan roared and lifted his sword up high in the air before plunging it down through Discord's chest.
The sword instantly started glowing and so did the wound with which it was in.
"NO! NOOOOOO!" Discord screamed as they flew through the air.
The glowing spread from the wound, to the other wounds Dan had given him that he didn't regenerate, to his face, emanating from his mouth, snout, and eyes.
They eventually hit the ground and Dan withdrew the sword from Discord, jumping off the crippled God's body.
"How? How can you defeat me?" Discord said as the glowing got more intense. "No pony can kill me... Only seal me away!"
As Discord struggled to stay tethered to the mortal world, Dan trotted up and raised his sword again. "Maybe because I'm not a pony..." He said coarsely to Discord at a volume so the ponies couldn't hear him.
Discord slowly turned and looked at him, "W-what?"
"Good-bye Discord!" Dan roared before plunging the sword through Discord's forehead. Discord screamed in pain one last time, and in a brilliant flash of golden light, the Equestrian God of Chaos was no more.
Dan, realizing what he had just done, collapsed on the ground with a heavy thud, his armor clanging as he hit the ground. He sighed and looked up at the castle. "So, Celestia..." He thought out loud. "This is why you brought me here... To save your world..."
"ACE!"
He turned and looked at the six mares galloping towards him, big smiles on their faces and tears falling from their eyes. Pinkie Pie was bouncing up and down for joy. Rarity wasn't even caring that her mane was filthy. Applejack threw her hat up in the air and caught it. Twilight and Fluttershy were high-hoofing, laughing in joy. And Rainbow Dash just had her eyes on him as she galloped forward.
He could feel himself losing consciousness. He smiled and tilted his head off to the side, fainting from exhaustion, the rain running over his body as he lay there in the mud.