The Equestrian Grifball League

by Wind Shear

Chapter 1: With New Sports... Come New Beginnings

Equestria Grifball League

Chapter 1: With New Sports... Come New Beginnings.

Years ago in the darker times of Equestria, the nation was more violent than that of the peaceful years under Princess Celestia’s rule, Chaos itself threatened everyone, pony and zebra alike were under the tyranny of Discord, Element Of Disharmony.

Discord sat atop his distorted throne, city buildings hovering in mid air, chocolate rain clouds soaking any pony in delicious goodness, shrunken manticores ran in fear from rabbits and squirrels which had grown far beyond nature’s limits. Equestria itself was in chaos, and in the midst of all this, the Lord of Chaos looked discouraged, some might even dare to say bored.

“Chaos, is a truly wonderful thing,” Discord said to no pony in particular,
“Although the very same chaos grows stale quickly.” He finished with a tone of spite. As if angry at his own actions.

Discord quickly crossed the land of his Chaos-Kingdom looking for new forms of entertainment, while arriving at a small settlement at the edge of the Everfree Forest, Discord spotted a blacksmith toiling away at some sort of iron-work, with a snap of his fingers the hammer exploded in a burst of energy upon the next swing, sending the stallion flying across his workshop, he rubbed his temple in pain as he rose from a fallen bookcase.

Discord rolled in laughter, revelling in this new form of altering gravity itself through the use of simple job tools! He tried it again on other ponies working their pointless jobs but none had the same effect as the blacksmith, no matter which helpless pony Discord targeted next he always found himself returning to the blacksmith and his hammer, laughing in fits at every explosive result.

“Hey!” the stallion called, red anger flared in his eyes, his charcoal coat and emerald green mane literally pushing to the point of bursting into flame due to his anger. Sparks shooting from his cutie mark of a pair of blacksmiths tongs.

“You like hammers so much how about you take ‘em and shove ‘em up your flank!”
His anger menially subsided Tongs returned to work at his forge, pounding at the ironwork that his life and family were depending on him to create.

Discord smirked at the irksome earth pony and snapped his fingers again, re-enchanting the hammer for the gravitational explosion to ripple out on the next blow.
Tongs however was ready for the Lord of Chaos this time, quick as a flash Tongs flipped the hammer out of his mouth and bucked it with his rear-hooves, sending it flying toward Discord, the enchanted blow taking out its effect on its master.

Discord felt the full power of the gravity hammer as it struck him in the chest, the explosion sending the Element of Disharmony across a field or two, leaving him sprawling on the ground.
Tongs face lit up in a mixture of surprise and fear, he hadn’t expected it to work, oh boy he was in for it now.
Discord returned to the pony, laughing away tears. Tongs’ fear was replaced with more surprise... and a hint of confusion.

“Oh times are surely chaotic if some pony thinks he could best me!” he chuckled, wiping away a tear that turned into a butterfly as it made contact with the air.
“That gives me an idea!” Discord beamed with a bolt of twisted inspiration, “Stay right here my rebellious little blacksmith.”
Discord poked the top of Tongs’ head, leaving him suspended in place there, eyes rolling in suspended-animation, Tongs watched the Element of Disharmony disappear over a ridge in search of his next instrument of Chaos.

* * *

Discord drifted to the outskirts of Manehattan, hoping to find another piece of the chaotic puzzle already beginning to form in his mind, his gaze shifted towards a nearby tailors, looking at the young mare toiling away at a selection of suits and dresses with accuracy and precision in the pair of scissors she was holding.
Discord drummed his eagle talons against his lion paw fingers with a smirk of evil, he snapped his fingers at the young tailor and the scissors extended, enchanted with pure electrified energy. The ruby and sapphire dress she was working on burst into a blaze, ruining the dress in a spectacular show of fire.

The unicorn stomped a hoof and blew steam out of her nostrils in anger, near enough to rival her destroyed dress, she shot Discord a warning glance and took up her scissors, snipping them at the dress to salvage remains and to make the destroyed scrap fit for the waste bin.

Discord took a step back from his perch to admire the mare’s place of work;
“Tailor’s Tailors”
Tailor by name, Tailor by profession!
‘Tailor would be a fine addition to the plan,’ Discord thought to himself.

Tailor moved about her shop with hurry and grace, snipping away at fine works of high-established clothing, her scarlet mane bobbing about, as if hurrying to catch up with the busy mare, her eyes matched her mane in both colour and activity, dashing around her head to keep track of her actions within her shop, Tailor glanced at the shreds of her dress still caught in her white fur after what seemed like an eternity of brushing to the stylist. With a wince she looked down toward her cutie mark; it matched the scissors in her hand and both scissors and cutie mark alike sported new looks of scorched dress.

Discord examined Tailor’s scissors again and considered his options of the new, yet not the last tool of his mental, chaotic plan. With a snap of his fingers the scissors were enchanted again, growing and glowing, transforming into a two-pronged blade with a handle designed for the mouth of a pony, electrified burning energy resonating within the blade itself. If anything, the scissors now looked more like a sword instead of Tailor’s most trusted tool.

“Perfect!” Discord said with a clap, delight clearly present within his voice.
“This couldn't be anymore perfect!”

Tailor’s latest masterpiece, a ladies hat encircled with multi-coloured rainbow-ribbon, burst into flame at the point of the sword, Tailor was fuming. She spun on her back hooves, energy sword still in her mouth swinging the potent blade at its creator, gaining momentum with her swing before being frozen by an eagle’s claw poke to the head.

“Excellent my dear, keep that anger, you’ll need it soon enough but not yet, and the way you handled my little instrument... simply the way I imagined. Full of anger, yet so precise in your swing.”

Tailor’s eyes still sparked with anger at the Draconequus, just watching him prancing and dancing with glee at her misfortune simply angered the mare to the point of blind fury and rage. Yet, no amount of anger could free her from her frozen stance, drawing her fore hooves up with the momentum of her swing, head angled backward over her shoulder to give her swing force. Stuck like this for only Discord-knows-how-long Tailor wondered, what was the Lord of Chaos planning, and why did have to include her at a time like this?

* * *

Discord flew from one end of Manehattan to the other, searching for the final piece of his chaotic puzzle, for something that could give his pieces on the chess-board purpose to his game... yet chaotic all the same. His eyes fell upon a small cupcake shop and smiled, the owner had laid out bowls, buckets, jugs and pretty much everything that stored liquid that she could spare, catching the downpour of chocolate rain for use in her baked goods.
‘Productivity through chaos?’ Discord thought to himself. He wouldn’t put it past these ponies to simply roll over and take the chaos as it came.
The mare of this shop simply had to be in his plan.

Sweet Treat hurried about her own shop, baking her delicious goods one batch after another, her golden eyes sparkled as her oven performed the musical of ‘Ding!’ she just loved to hear. A bright pink and yellow blur sped over to the oven and opened it with speed that rivalled a Wonderbolt. Sweet Treat beamed at her latest creation of delicious treats, the locals called them ChaosCakes, a normal cupcake, except the inside of the cupcake was filled with Discord’s chocolate milk rain, the clever mare even managed to mix and whip it into a form of icing to top her specialty creation. To the earth pony however, the creation held extra specialty, for a trio of ChaosCakes was the mare’s cutie mark.

Discord teleported into the middle of Sweet Treat’s chaotic kitchen, with both hands behind his back he began to swivel on the heels of his feet, following Sweet Treat around as she worked, taking in and admiring her chaotic creations and style of work.
Sweet Treat was in her baking zone as she beamed at the next batch of delicious baked-treats, she ignored Discord as she dashed about her kitchen, mixing cupcake batter and icing in different bowls scattered around the shop. Pausing every now again due to an orchestra of ‘Ding!’ echoing throughout her shop; at this interval she bounced around to the various ovens, collecting cakes, cupcakes, cookies, brownies along the way as she went.

Discord saw his prize, the latest batch of ChaosCakes, he grinned as Sweet Treat took out the baked goods, placing them each on their own individual plates.
After the second last ChaosCake was placed on its plate, Discord snapped his fingers and the final cupcake of the batch was enchanted, Sweet Treat placed the final cupcake among its plate and a thundering explosion was heard all throughout Manehattan, in the epicenter of the explosion Sweet Treat was covered in cupcake icing and mixture, her bright pink fur covered in the chocolate milk rain icing, her bright yellow mane matched her coat. However her golden eyes refused to show anger at the Lord of Chaos, instead she smiled brightly, and doubled over in laughter.

Now it was Discord’s turn to look confused, the other two ponies reaction’s added fuel to his laughter as much as the initial prank did, but this mare was different. She near-enough enjoyed the chaos, Discord was too busy pondering to notice the cupcake flying towards his face.

SPLAT!



Discord’s face was covered in the icing and now his face and coat matched Sweet Treat, now however the mare looked disappointed, sad even.
“Awww, no kaboom this time, that’s no fun if you wanna make a mess,” Sweet Treat said with a frown.
“Oh but my dear,” Discord replied with a finger snap, now all the cupcakes had a rich blue glow, sporting the same explosive enchantment as the one ChaosCake had done so earlier, “There’s plenty more mess to be made.” Another finger snap divided the cupcakes evenly amongst the Draconequus and the mare, cover conjuring in front of their eyes to make an improvised battleground.

SPLAT! BOOM!... SPLAT! BOOM!... SPLAT! BOOM!

Before too long Sweet Treat’s entire store was covered in ChaosCake icing, Discord and Sweet Treat covered head-to-hoof (or head-to-toe in Discord’s case) in the delicious mixture.
“Wonderful my dear! Now the plan is complete... come along now.”
With yet another snap of his fingers, Discord and Sweet Treat disappeared from the shop,
At the other end of Manehattan, Tailor also disappeared with a teleporting twinkle.
At the Everfree Forest settlement, Tongs did the same.

* * *

The four ended up in a grassland, not too far away from the major cities of Canterlot and Fillydelphia, the three ponies watched Discord, focus brewed across his face as he channeled energy into the palms of his multi-animal hands; with beads of sweat coming from his face and a grunt or two escaping his mouth, Discord released an incredible amount of chaotic magic creating a gigantic stadium before him and the three ponies. The three ponies watched in awe as entrances, seats, a playing field and even foot and carriage paths were created before them by the Draconequus.
Discord turned to his three subjects, the three harbingers of his plan, the three harbingers of Equestria’s latest and greatest sport to date!
“This, my little ponies,” Discord said, turning towards his subjects with a grin, “Is the first National Grifball Stadium.”

Discord summoned a group of nine random ponies to accompany the Grifball forefathers, five from the Everfree Forest settlement to accompany Tongs, and four from Manehattan to accompany Tailor and Sweet Treat. When all ponies were before Discord, he used his magic to summon the chaotic tools he used to antagonize the ponies of Everfree and Manehattan; the Gravity Hammer, which sent Tongs flying throughout his smith, the Energy Sword, an enchanted pair of scissors grotesquely grown and sharpened to form a two-pronged heat-bearing blade, and finally, the ChaosCake, A cupcake infused with more than one dosage of Discord’s magic, causing it to explode upon placement of a certain pedestal.

Tongs stared down at his old tool, the hammer had grown nearly as much as the scissors, it had a long sleek handle ending in a club covered in glowing glyphs and marks, the other end wielded spikes, the hammer’s handle now sported a mouth brace, large enough to fit a pony’s mouth for use, while still keeping the user comfortable.”

“Uh, excuse me your chaoticness,” Tongs began, “How exactly are we supposed to use these? If they are what I think they are,”

“Oh well that’s simple” Discord started, taking up one of the hammers in the mouth brace, “You take the hammer and swing it like this,” Discord swung the hammer around in a horizontal line, when the hammer reached the maximum length of its arc, the effect triggered, the gravitational explosion sent two of the Manehattan ponies flying, leaving Tongs in awe.
“Or you make contact with a surface to create a shock wave of the same effect,” he continued
“Oh horseap-” one the remaining Everfree pony’s amber eyes went wide as Discord struck the ground with the gravity hammer, the effect triggering quite close to Tongs and the amber-eyed pony sending them flying further than the other two.
“Easy as pie really,” Discord finished, leaning on one leg against the upturned Gravity Hammer, turning his gaze towards Tailor and the Manehattan ponies who were eyeing the Energy Swords “any more... demonstrations” he said with a smirk.

Tailor snatched up Manehattan’s share of swords and passed them amongst her companions, she took one sword in her mouth and bit hard on the handle, extending the blade, the sword springing into its destructive form, as it had done so in her tailors not too long ago.

“Now watch closely...”

* * *

Soon both groups of ponies were practising their sword-wielding and hammer strikes, trying to avoid the painful effects from both if they were struck by a blow during practise, soon everypony was dodging like a pro and delivering attacks to their companions, dodging ones given in return.

“Now waith shust a sheckond” Tongs said, spitting the Gravity Hammer out of his mouth,
“Ya still haven’t fully explained the meaning of all this, why are we here? why are we using these things? and what in the hay is Grifball anyway?”
All the other ponies agreed in murmurs and nods.

“Oh isn’t it obvious?” Discord said with a eagle-taloned facepalm, he snapped his fingers conjuring two dummies and a pedestal in front of him.
“You take these,” he started picking up a Gravity Hammer and deactivated Energy Sword, clipping it to his coat.

“And you do this to the other team,” He swung the hammer at one dummy sending it hurdling back before equipping the energy sword, activating it with a wicked sound of crackled magic energy and thrust toward the other dummy in an upward swing delivering the same effect.

“To put this,” he continued, his voice sounding incredibly annoyed,
“Onto this.” he finished, picking up the ChaosCake and dropping it onto the pedestal with a splat.
“Uh oh,” Sweet Treat managed to say before...

BOOM!

The thundering explosion from the ChaosCake coated everypony in delicious chocolate milk rain icing and cupcake mix, everypony looked annoyed and disgusted apart from Sweet Treat who was bouncing and grinning with glee.

“It’s a game, a sport,” Discord said, “Now get yourselves clean and armoured in the locker rooms, Equestria’s first Grifball match will be starting soon.”

“Armoured?” everypony said in unison.

* * *

It turns out Equestrian Grifball had three different armour classes, for those who favoured attacking the enemy team while in possession of the ChaosCake, light armour made them more maneuverable to weave around and over defenders and tanks, pegasi often favoured the quick movements and freedom from the light armour.

While those who favoured a strong defence line, heavy armour gave them the ability to take more hits, at the cost of hindered movement when compared to their light armoured team-mates, earth ponies often favoured heavy armour due to their capability of physical damage when compared to their earth pony labour.

Finally, medium armour was a hybrid of the two, equal movement speed and equal damage threshold left these ponies as the support of both armour types, they could move up to assist an attacking light armoured pony, and retreat just as easily to help their heavy armoured team-mates in defence, Unicorns often favoured medium armour for the reliability and stability it adds to a team.

Discord had one final rule to play upon the ponies of Grifball, no wings, no magic.

Tongs picked up his heavy armour, ‘Everfree Executioners” was engraved into the side of his red helmet, the engraving was small and in onyx black. His team-mates looked at their armours respectively, each armour type had the same logo as well as colour style; a background of a black forest landscape over the red armour, with a white pair of two crossed manticore tails in the foreground.
“Y’know...” Tongs began,

Tailor and Sweet Treat turned to each other before deciding armours, Tailor had decided on the medium armour, thinking of equal advantages to both speed and protection, Sweet Treat had favoured the light armour, mainly due to her hyperactive attitude. The armours of the Manehattan team were deep blue, the engraving ‘Manehattan Maulers’ glistened in the dim light of the locker room against the helmet in its frost colouring.
The emblem; a background of onyx black coloured towering skyscrapers covered in glittering silver windows, with a trio of each pony race in the lower foreground, each with hooves held high as they seemed to look amongst the tallest of skyscrapers and stars.
“Y’know...” the mares began,

“...this could actually be fun.” the Equestrian Grifball forefathers said with a grin in unison.

The Everfree Executioners and Manehattan Maulers stepped out into the glow of stadium lights, thousands upon thousands applauding hoofbeats echoing throughout the stadium halls, chants of ‘Ev-Er-Free! Ev-Er-Free!’ were rivalled with chants of “Mane-Hat-Tan! Mane-Hat-Tan!” at the same volume. The two teams lined up across their respective goals waiting for the starting whistle.

A familiar voice echoed through the stadium as the lights dropped everypony into darkness.

“Fillies and Gentlecolts! I your ruler and the King of Chaos, present to you the very first match in the history of Equestria, Grifball!”

Spotlights flicked into life as they shone across Discord and his throne of announcement at the the top of the stadium.

“Tonight! We see the dawn of Equestria’s latest and greatest sport, as the forefathers of Grifball pit it out in the very-first match to date! So everypony, put your hooves together for the founders of your new sport, The Everfree Executioners and The Manehattan Maulers!”

A spotlight shined down upon both teams at the mention of their names, each team was met with thundering applause as the six members of each team, lined up at their starting position.

“Grifballers! On your marks...” and the stadium quietened again in preparation for the first Grifball game in Equestrian history.

“3!...2!...1!...”

* * *

Twilight Sparkle shut the book of Darker Sports From Darker Times, blowing out her reading candle, how much time had she taken up through Grifball’s chapter alone?

“You gotta hand it to Discord,” Twilight said to herself,
“He sure knows how to play a great game.”

Comments

[cs95]

lol sounds good

[Syn3rgy]

Hay bud!

So I've finally gotten around to taking a peek at your story, as I promised. So far, it's sounding good!

I'll try to read the other two chapters tomorrow.

And now, onto my comment:

And thus Griffball was born!

I actually really liked the concept here! It was cool how you got discord to change the tools!

Ready for more...

~Syn3rgy

[Hellpony]

So Rooster teeth is Discord.

[Darkness21]

The best game since griffball