Blooming Talent

by Griffin Productions

Discord vs Sapphic

Thunder; that's at least what Octavia thought she heard coming from outside. It was a booming crash which reverbed off the very air itself, it seemed. The gray earth pony put away her bow and cello, and as she did so, she felt it; the ground trebling beneath her very hooves. An earthquake? Canterlot was not known for having many of those, even though the city was up in the mountains.

It stopped, and almost three seconds later, it shook again. And again. And again.

"What in all of Equestria--?" She mumbled, not even sure what to make of this strange occurrence.

She did notice however, that just before every shake was one of those massive booms in the sky. If these two phenomena were lined, it could not be simple thunder.

A chilling thought wormed it's way into her mind; what if it was Vinyl?

What if her special somepony was causing this somehow; fighting for her very life against that horrifying brute?

"Please let these shakes just be her bass!" She nearly whimpered, trying not to picture the massive blows of the creature smashing Vinyl's beautiful face into brain matter and bone splinters.

She nearly gagged at her imagination's description; she thought she was trying not to think about it.

As she galloped outside to join the other technical rubberneckers looking to the sky at the sound, a snapping sound suddenly filled the air, and a bright light flashed in the middle of the street. When the cellist's eyes readjusted, she saw hundreds of wounded and dead ponies laying in the cobblestone streets of the royal city.

Several feminine screams were heard from the nobles as they cowered at the sight, not all of them belonging to mares.

Octavia, however, only recognized the five ponies at the front of the group. The Elements of Harmony; but judging by the state the others were in all around Pinkie Pie, she felt the term "Element of Harmony", singular, was more appropriate.

The powered up party pony, looking much more over-the-top than usual, hastily motioned for someof the nearby royal soldiers to come transport the wounded.

One of the unicorn guards stopped dead in his tracks and gasped when he saw the body of Shining Armor, ripped up and mangled, laying in a heap with Princess Twilight still shaking next to it.

"It's...it's Prince Shining Armor..." He muttered, causing several of the others to gasp or take their helmets off in respect to the deceased former captain of the guard.

"No time to mourn now!" Pinkie cried out frantically while her legs waved manically around in the air. "The live ponies need medics right now!"

Octavia never ever thought she'd see the day when Pinkie Pie would be shouting out orders to the royal guard and have them obey; let alone have her shout the seriously.

As she looked around the heaps of broken bodies and moaning ponies, her heart rate started to quicken; nowhere in the mess did she see her beloved Vinyl Scratch. Surely she was here; she had to be. Maybe she was wounded and laying under one of the other ponies. Maybe...maybe the guards had evacuated her already without her notice. Maybe she was still fighting Sapphic?

Octavia needed to have answers; she needed to know if her lover was alive, even if the DJ was not well.

Preparing to hear the worst and hoping for the best, she cantered up to Pinkie, looking very uncomfortable.

"Ex-excuse me, Miss Pinkie Pie?" She said after clearing her throat. "Do...do you know...possibly...where DJ Pon3 is? I know she went off to fight, and--"

Pinkie didn't turn around before speaking. "The only way she wouldn't be here is if she was totally destroyed and had no remains left."

She smacked her hooves into her mouth and her eyes went wide as she finally turned to see just who she ha said that too. Pinkie knew both Octavia and Vinyl personally, and knew about their relationship. Pinkie mentally beat herself in the head as she saw Octavia's ears just about became one with her skull and her strong, earth pony legs give out form under her.

"No--no remains...?" she repeated more to herself than anypony else. "Nothing...nothing at all of y beautiful Vinyl...?"

There was no holding back the floodgates for the poor cellist, and tears poured down her face in near torrents as her breathes started to turn to gasps, and in few seconds, her gasps turned to choked cries.

Pinkie had done the one thing she'd never wanted to ever do in the timeline of forever; she had caused somepony to become sad.

She wished she had been more gentle with the news, but there was nothing to do about it now. The pink pony took the blubbering Octavia into a gentle embrace, hoping o provide some comfort, if any at all.

After a few moments, Octavia realized she still hadn't received the answer she'd come out for firstly.

"What--what is that noise, then?" She managed through heavy sobs.

Pinkie looked worriedly into the direction of Ponyville while she held the gray earth pony. "Discord's fighting to save us all."

* * *

The sky exploded again as the two powerhouses, one fueled by will and magic, the other fueled by rage and raw power, collided blows once more high above the ghost town of Ponyville. Each time the combatants attacked, they were evenly powered; both not yet gaining an advantage.

One wouldn't know it by looking at him, but Discord was extremely strong in not just magic, but physical strength as well. Sapphic was quite impressed that the lanky and slender creature could match his blows.

The two paused their fight for a moment, backing away from a each other a bit. The changelings watched eagerly from the ground as the two began another staredown.

"You know more about combat than I thought, Discord." Sapphic praised, clapping his glowing hands together; it didn't make as loud a sound as it should have due to his lack of flesh as the muscles slapped against each other.

"I'm just full of surprises, I'm sure you figured." The draconequis smirked. "They don't call me the master of chaos for nothing, you know. I'm unpredictable."

Sapphic chuckled a bit. "Well, I don't know about that. You're unorthodox, sure, but I feel like a bit of your former glory has left you."

"How do you mean?"

"Look at yourself; you're sweating. That's a sign of either being hot in temperature, or nervousness. Since the air seems to be rather chilled today, I'd say its the latter."

Discord raised an eyebrow, and wiped his brow with a hanky that popped into and out of existence.

"Which begs the question;" The changeling biped continued. "what's making you so uneasy?"

Discord gritted his teeth slightly. The monster was right; he was uneasy. Sapphic's power was extremely high, and growing with each blow they traded. The longer this conflict went on, the greater the changeling prince's power would become.

He needed to end this before it got too far out of hand, and not even the Princesses could stop his rampage. The only trouble was, how?

Teleporting him anywhere was a no go because of his displacement counterspell. Physical combat would just continue to make him stronger until his power surpassed the draconequis' own. Maybe some of his more destructive magic could win the day, but the question if he did that was how destructive did those attacks need to be to take the tyrant out.

Discord's power, at the moment at least, was greater than Sapphic's; the only problem was if he unleashed too much of his true power to beat him, Equestria could suffer such awful destruction of the reality warping kind that not even Discord himself would be able to stop it. The ponies had only seen fractions of his power before; he wondered what they would think if they could detect his true potential. So the choice was go all out and watch Equestria unravel at the seams...or hold out until--

No, that wasn't how this would end. He was a god; Discord could beat this little mortal insect beneath his cloven hoof.

"Maybe I'm uneasy, or maybe you're just bluffing to make me that way." He finally spoke, a fake smile of confidence spreading on his face. "Either way, I'm probably just not as spry as I was a thousand years ago. Being trapped as a stone statue for that long can give you such a crick in the neck."

Sapphic closed his eyes and smiled pityingly. "Very well, then, Discord. But I'll have you know that even though you're an elder, I won't go easy on you."

"I resent being called old like that." He huffed indignantly.

Sapphic disappeared in a flash, and reappeared behind the former villain; his leg poised to kick his head off. Discord caught the attack just barely, and spun the biped around before flicking him away with his tail. The changeling prince stopped himself, and launched a couple high intensity ki blasts Discord's way. Using his supernatural agility, and disconnecting parts of his body only to reattach them, the chaos god dodged every one of them, and caught his follow up attack which was a rapid fire series of punches.

The fists were starting to hurt Discord's hands, so he slithered around Sapphic like a boa constrictor and squeezed down tightly. Before the monster could use his immense strength the break out, Discord once again spun him around by unraveling around him like thread off a spool.

This time, though, instead of simply smacking him away, the draconequis shot forth a beam of purple energy that was not ki, but magic in nature.

The blast hit him square in the chest, exploding and causing a plume of smoke to spread out from the area. Looking at the cloud, Discord could still sense the evil beast's power level within it. At least now he knew that amount of power was not enough; he needed to go up at least another level. He prayed silently to whomever would listen that he wouldn't need to go too high.

The grotesque self-proclaimed king shot out through the top of the smoke cloud, and wore a slightly disturbing grin on his beaten face. Discord fired off another magical shot, which Sapphic deflected with a side chop and a laugh.

"It's gonna take much more to beat m--"

His statement was cut off abruptly as a house came falling down from the sky atop him. Discord had only thrown the blast as distraction while he teleported the many vacant building that were still somewhat intact above them. Once the one that had initially hit Sapphic landed, Discord moved his paw and claw in a downward motion as if tossing a ball from over his head, and the housings rained down, homing in on that one spot like heat seeking magic missiles.

The symphony of wood splintering and stone crumbling apart was loud and satisfying to Discord. Several changelings tried to stop the falling houses, but were smashed like the bugs they were underneath the god of chaos' power.

After all of the twenty-four houses had been smashed atop Sapphic, the draconequis breathed a bit, slightly wore out from his exertion there. Maybe he had gotten lucky and the debris had crushed what little of his body remained.

Discord's hopes were dashed, but not unexpectedly, as the glowing arm of the tyrant changeling broke up through the rubble, searching for something to grab. When it found nothing, it clenched the hand into a fist and the remains of the homes flew out in all directions.

This was going to be very difficult.

Comments

[HB_DS2013]

Y'know, a Kamehameha to the Sun from Apple Bloom would be a fitting punishment for Sapphic.

[lordofchaos14]

5804022

I agree with your choice in punishment. good choice sir.

[HB_DS2013]

5804884 I was thinking of Cooler's demise.

[lordofchaos14]

5804892
Interesting. I haven't seen that one in a long time

[HB_DS2013]

5805794 It's much better than how Broly died the second time...

[lordofchaos14]

5805799
Oh my god. I really need to rewatch all of this crap it's been like 3 years

[HB_DS2013]

5805835 You should.

[lordofchaos14]

5805842
Totally going to this week, even if it takes up over 9'000% of my social life

[Philosophysics]

I'm going to blame Nappa.

DAMN IT NAPPA!

[Unit 26-Fe]

5806064