The ‘physical’, and if used it should be used fairly conservatively, battle on the strikingly two dimensional arena continued as Discord and Q faced off, trading minor blows with energy attacks and extremely awkward teleportation maneuvers to feign hand to hand strikes that seemingly always failed to connect. “Please, why are we even bothering with this?” Discord inquired to the Q, to which he replied, perhaps unknowing himself. “Well, it threw you off your game, did it not?”
Discord shrugged, glanced backwards, and retorted once more, “True enough, but aren’t you, too?” Q offered a facial expression that vaguely hinted at conceding the point. The fight continued uncomfortably. So much so, in fact, that the spectators gathered on the side had all but lost interest in giving it much attention. Twilight, at least, had been keeping track of the bars hanging above them, always suspicious of that which had not seemed completely explained. “There’s something fishy going on, Spike. But I don’t know exactly what it is.”
Discord’s red bar was tracing Q’s, seemingly an even handed match. Q managed to maintain a slightly stronger offense, but Discord’s nature gave him a better speed boost and maneuverability. Glancing down it seemed too natural to him, and instinctively he slithered off the battlefield to the sidelines, and a Changeling appeared in his stead. The confused creature glanced around at the gathering, and flinched momentarily. Q clapped briefly, intrigued by the tag team motion. “Learned to switch out? I’m impressed.”
He continued, “Then, I suppose that I should probably make it fair as well.” Q snapped his fingers in classic Q fashion, and instantly he and Rainbow Dash had traded places. Discord made a comment about the move being ‘unfair’, but didn’t pursue the point when the others stared sternly. Rainbow flew up high, and darted down towards the Changeling, who had panicked, and was attempting to simply stay away and prevent any damage to itself.
Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie stood close together, while Twilight spoke to Captain Picard, “It’s almost sad.” Dash’s sub-meter below the red bar, which had returned to full after the switch out, began raising up. After it had filled itself all the way once, Dash flew up high. “Just like Canterlot!” She shouted, remembering the fight against the Changeling invasion. A colossal image of Rainbow’s face flashed before the gathering momentarily, and the pegasus began figuratively screaming through the air.
As she neared the Changeling who’s red bar was nearly gone, a Sonic Rainboom exploded with vivid light, sending the Changeling flying off into the distance. Fluttershy, like the others, stood eyes wide at the strange incident. Even Rainbow Dash stood somewhat surprised at the Rainboom special attack she had somehow pulled off so quickly and with so little room.
Discord stressed that he had no interest in rejoining the fray, and instead, a Timberwolf appeared before Dash. “Hah! A Timberwolf? Bring it on!” She challenged with cockiness. Before either side could move, however, Applejack had bounded onto the arena, and stood facing the wooden beast. “Nah uh, Dash. This one’s aaaaalll mine!” Dash shrugged, and flapped her wings to the sidelines. The fight was far more intense than the last two, but nearly as one sided. The beast bounded towards the farm pony, who was well prepared, and slipped underneath the splintering belly of the creature. AJ kicked off the ground, and leaped onto the shoulders of the thing.
Bucking downward, shards of red meter chipped away, as bits of wood and twigs chipped away from the Timberwolf. It managed to throw AJ off its shoulders, and proceeded to make a couple quick swipes of its paws to knock her back even further. The conflict raised the bar up again, and as the Timberwolf charged pony, AJ spun around, waiting for the wooden wolf to reach her legs. The head was just out of reach, when she hollered out a healthy “Yee Haw!”, and barraged the wooden thing’s head with dozens of rapid kicks, before ending in one final and massive double leg buck. The thing splintered apart, and AJ stood, curtseying. “And that’s how Apples take care o’ business.”
Discord roared a shout of frustration. “Jeez, if you want to do something right, you have to do it yourself.” Appearing back on the battlefield, Discord leapt down, walking grumpily towards AJ. “I should’ve been a little smarter with my choices of partners, I guess. I won’t make that mistake again.” Pinkie Pie glanced over her shoulder, raising her eyebrows as though she knew something. “Um. Pinkie? Who are you looking at, and why are you looking at them that way?”
Pinkie replied, “What? Me? It’s just ironic! Because sooner or later he’s gon-“ this time Pinkie got cut off by Rarity, who was pointing a hoof at the arena. “Pinkie, please, not now, darling! We really need to focus our attention on the matter at hand!”
“I agree, Rarity.” Twilight said. “This is way outside what even we’re used to dealing with.” Captain Picard crouched down, observing the face off from a lower elevation. Spike, resting on Twilight’s shoulders, raised a claw and questioned the human.
“Hey, Captain? This won’t end too badly… will it?” The little dragon mused. Picard rubbed his chin briefly, and let out a short breath. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve dealt with Q many times, and the encounters have ranged from extremely irritable to devastating.” From several steps away, the omnipotent being retorted, “I heard that, Picard.” The Captain stood up, and patted the scaly shoulder of the young dragon. “At any rate, with just one of these beings, it would be dangerous enough, but with these two squaring off against one another… well I’m afraid even I can’t accurately predict what the outcome might be.” Picard finalized. Spike sighed and lowed his hand.
“Time to wrap this up, shall we?” Q added, glancing between Captain Jean-Luc and the arena before them. Snapping once more, Q and Applejack swapped places, the red bars returning to the state they were, more or less, when the two had initially traded out. They immediately charged into a more intense, if not still somewhat awkward combat. As the bars slowly whittled down to above the empty mark, Q smiled at Discord.
“You’re good, Discord, but my mind is just far more adaptable and sharper than yours is. Nothing against you, of course, but when you’re up against me you’re about as dangerous as any of these ponies, or people.” He even nodded to Spike for a moment, to acknowledge the little dragon, who he knew felt left out when he wasn’t referred to sometimes. “You have the power, but without the Q mind, you’re only dangerous to yourself and lesser creatures of the universe.”
Discord ran at Q with a large energy accumulating in his hands, which he gathered and sent flying, spiraling all sorts of bizarre things in its wake. Candy chunks, chocolate milk, glitter, grapes, and a drum or two were among a few of the things spitting out of the strange energy mixture. The blast collided with Q, who managed to block enough, before retaliating with a phaser blast. Glancing down, Picard realized that Q had teleported his phaser whilst battling. He shot the being a very stern and exasperated look, before having the weapon returned.
The bar emptied, and with the phaser strike, Discord was flung backwards to the ground. Fluttershy ran up, highly concerned despite the fact that at this point in their history, Discord was still considered an enemy to ponies. “Is… is he?” She started, to which Q laughed, most amused. “Ha! You wish.” The other ponies looked gravely at the omnipotent Q. Irritated at the quip, but unwilling to speak out. Q understood, though. “Oh, come now. You know what I mean. He’s fine. I set the thing to stun, Picard. I know how these ponies detest significant violence.”
Discord coughed, and sat up. “Well, that was just unfair, Q!” The Q shrugged and smiled. “Well, then. I suppose we should move on, yes?” Discord ported to his feet, and walked in front of Q. “I’m tired of these pointless games!” He huffed. Q raised an eyebrow, and offered a response. “Well, then. Let’s make a deal. You wish to stop now, yes?” The Draconequus nodded in frustration. “So here’s the deal. This next game is the last, as you want. But it’s a game of MY choosing. I’ll even let you study it before we have our last little showdown. What do you say?”
Discord walked around in circles for a moment, thinking. It was true, their powers were indeed comparable, despite Q seeming to have a sort of perpetual upper hand. Perhaps the Q was indeed more powerful than he? Whatever the case, if he wanted to come out ahead, he would have his best chance via winning a game against the Q. “Fine.” Discord replied. “We have a deal. One last showdown. What’s your game, Q?” Q smiled, holding up a hand with a small, rectangular device in it. Resting inside a slot was a tiny, white chip. “No X or Y variable here, Discord. It’s all black and white. This last game will decide it all.”