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The Strike

“Y-You got how many ponies?”

Grinning smugly, Carl answered, “Fifty five. Is that impressive or what?”

Twig wagged his tail. “How many did you get, Stan?”

Stan growled to himself, very jealous at how his brothers managed to get help while he couldn’t. “The siblings were too...uh...afraid to join in our job to-”

“They didn’t want to work with ponies, didn’t they?” Carl guessed, knowing his brothers can be a pain when they want to.

Stan sighed. “Yup...they don’t wanna help, bunch of ungrateful-”

“Wait!” The three changelings turned around, seeing a small crowd of ponies waiting for them while they sat in Mike’s bar. “Where’s the other bugs?” One called out.

Stan, Carl, and Twig looked at each other before smiling nervously. “Um...t-they decided not to uh...uh…” Stan tapped his chin, trying his hardest to word this out. “Um...t-they didn’t want to be brave!”

“Brave?” One mare said. “Are you saying the changelings aren’t gonna help us?”

Carl shrugged. “Guess not, seems like you proved us right, didn’t you ponies.”

“Right?” A stalling said with a tilt of his head. “Right about what?”

Stan stepped forward. “Right about you guys having the bravery, courage, and determination to take this guy down, more than us even.”

The ponies looked at one another, shrugging in agreement. “I guess you’re right.” One stallion said. “I mean, usually we stay in the background and watch more important ponies take action, but maybe it’s our time to shine!”

“Yeah!” A few ponies shouted. “Now’s our turn to play hero.”

“Now’s our chance to show we’re more than random mares and stallion.”

“Now’s our time to fight!”

One pony had to ask. “So...uh, where is he?”

Realizing this, the trio of changelings looked at each other. “Um...uh..." Stan started fidgeting, thinking that he should've thought this part of the plan through. "W-well, last we saw him, he was walking around the street by the vendors.”

The ponies turned to the others, hoping they had answers. A mare raised her hoof. “Um, I think I heard him saying that he was trying to find more vendors in town.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go!” Stan ran up to the door and kicked it open. “Come on! We have an Equestria to save!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So...if I can understand this correctly; you don’t have any soup either?”

The flower mare rubbed her temples, having to answer this question several times. “Listen, Discord, was it? We have a great selection of flowers for sale, but soup? What in the HAY makes you think we have that?”

Discord looked around, seeing that there wasn’t many other vendors in this side of town. “Listen, pony, I’ve had a rough day today, and I’m just trying to find-”

“And I’ve had a rough time explaining a customer that he should try looking to the east side of Canterlot for what he’s trying to find, but noooo, he doesn’t listen to me.”

Knowing exactly who she was talking about, Discord decided to explain. “But that side of town is closed, apparently that place just ran away screaming and closed their shops six hours early.”

The pony didn’t buy it. “Suuure they did, and I actually survive on minimum wage.” She ended sarcastically.

“All I’m trying to do is find something to help a friend, isn’t that what you ponies do on a regular basis anyway.”

“Last I checked, you aren’t much of a friend to ponies.”

Discord’s jaw dropped. “I-I am too!”

“Maybe you should trying doing what the changelings do." The mare continued. "learning a lesson from them might help.”

Discord turned away. “Yeah, well, those bugs decided to just run away and scream than help me.”

The mare thought that was just some excuse. “Really? You expect me to believe a monster scared of other monsters that are just as bad at being evil?”

“Hey! They did far worse things than I did!”

The mare slumped on the counter. “Will you just leave already, I’d rather not talk about what you did to us, my colt is still scared about you, ya know.”

Discord rolled his eyes. “Oh please, who could be scared of a creature like me?”

“THERE HE IS!”

Discord and the mare turned toward the street, seeing a changeling pointing at them. “H-He’s over there trying to take control of a helpless mare!”

Discord groaned. “Not this again.” He snapped a megaphone into his claws and turned it on. “Hey, bug! Can you leave me alone, you’re not helping.”

“Take control?” The mare turned back to Discord. “What’s he talking about?”

Discord dropped the megaphone and put his paw and claw to his hip. “You think I know?”

“PONY!” Another changeling called out. “Run while you still can! He’s gonna kill us all!”

The mare couldn’t take it anymore, just put her hooves up and said, “Nope, I’m out, not havin’ any of this anymore.” He grabbed the handle on the roof of the vendor, ready to close shop early.

“H-Hey!” Discord put his paw on the counter. “you can’t just-”

*SLAM*

Discord cried out in pain as the metal grate that locked ponies out of the shop his his fingers, making him pull them out and cradle them in hopes to make the pain go away. “Tah..That dirty little-"

“TAAALAAANIIILOOO!”

Discord looked up, seeing that a crowd had now formed in the center of the street, all the ponies were looking at him in anger, fear, or confusion. “Oh for goodness sake…” Discord face-clawed and said. “My names Discord.”

“Shu...S-Shut it!” One changeling yelled .”Ya-You know wha...w-what you’re..y-you’re…” The bug voice dropped lower and lower with every word until he stopped entirely, one of his brothers nudged him.

“Uh, Stan, you okay?”

Stan pushed him away. “I-I’m fine, Carl...j-just trying to...y-ya know, figure out what to say.”

“How about you just leave me alone, LiTtLe BuG!” Discord said, getting really sick of how these bugs were acting.

“W-We’re not gonna stop until you’ve...stopped...doing, stuff…” Stan gulped, still completely terrified by just seeing him.

“Listen, bug, even if you wanted to face me, what makes you think A mOnStEr LiKe Me can be taken down?”

“U-Uh...u-uhh…” Stan turned to the ponies, hoping they would have his back ,but some of them were having the same amount of doubt. “I-I believe...t-that…” Stan took a deep breath. “I-I believe that we can take on a monster like you!” He turned around and faced the other ponies around the area. “We are not gonna let this guy take us down! We have to do this! For the good of Equestria…” He faced him. “We must strike him down!”

Discord took a step back, seeing that some of the ponies were starting to get out of their shops and joining into the crowd. “P-Ponies, come on now. I-I’m not a monster...I-I mean, sure I almost took over Equestria, but it’s not like that’s a bad thing.”

“Y-Your reign of terror ends now, Talantilo!” Stan shouted, fear still in his voice.

“For the last time...My names Dis-”

“SPONGE STAMPED!” An oversized changeling raised his hoof in the air, which had his comic in one of the holes. “Aim for his horn” He shouted, turning to one of the last few pages to see an entire army of creatures pulling off his horns with magic made ropes. “They’re the source of his power!”

Discord found that ridiculous. “W-What? You ponies can’t be se-”

“GET HIM!”

Before he could finish, the crowd of ponies started charging at him, Discord didn’t have time to react as a pegasus dive bombed him and tackled him to the ground.

“Rip his horns off!” They yelled as all of them dogpiled on him, finding bravery that they never thought they would’ve had.

Stan and Carl looked at each other and smiled, seeing that this plan was going great. “Looks like we got em’ now, there’s no way he can-”

Within seconds, Discord teleported away from the ponies and was now a few yards away from the changelings “THAT’S IT!” Discord stomped the floor and pointed at Stan. “You!”

Stan’s heart skipped a beat. “M-M-Me?”

Discord didn’t answer. He just glared at him and lit up his claw, surrounding his arm and Stan with a yellow aura. Realizing this, Stan screamed in horror and held onto Carl, only for Discord to yank him out of their grip and pull him closer. “STAN! NO!” Carl was about to run at him, but Twig held him back.

“It’s too late, Carl.” Twig whispered, turning to page 42, showing a picture of Talantilo holding the hero of the comic with his glowing claws to Carl. “He has him in his magic grip. h-h-he’s a gonner.”

“O-Oh no...oh no. ohnoohnoohnoohnoOHNOOHNOHONO!” Was all Stan could think of as he was lifted in the air, his wings flapping helplessly to get away and his arms trying to run on ground that wasn’t there.

Stan flailed around aimlessly as Discord pulled him closer and closer. “I-I...I can’t look!” Carl shielded his eyes while Twig buried his face in the comic book, only to scream as he saw an illustration of Talantilo ripping appart several creatures with his teeth, one of them being a changeling.

The crowd of ponies did the same; shielding their eyes or looking at the act in shock. Even Mike watched in horror as the bug that ruined his night all those months ago was about to be chewed to bits. “A-Ah jeez, Stan…” He whispered, looking away and trying his hardest not to feel bad.

As for Discord, he was getting sick of this, but he knew this was the only way to end it. Once the changeling was closed enough, he spun him around so his face was facing his. Discord was expressionless while Stan hyperventilated. “Changeling, we need to talk. About this little stunt you pulled, about this plan of yours, and about trying to DeFeAt Me!? ThE mAsTeR oF cHaOs!?”

Stan wanted to run, he wanted to cry, he wanted to surrender on the spot as Discord’s shadow casted right over him, but deep down, he knew he couldn’t give up, he couldn’t surender, not when the entire land of Equestria was counting on him to take down this beast. He closed his eyes and prepared himself for what he had to do.

Discord just shook his head, still thinking this was some stupid trick the entire town decided to pull on him. “So, changeling, for the LAST TIME My names not-”

Stan opened his eyes, a flash of red coming out. “FOR THE HIVE!” He screamed as he flew right at his face, forcing Discord to stagger and almost lose his balance.

“STAN!” Carl and Twig yelled as Stan started wrapping his hooves around his horns. His brothers and the entire crowd could only watch in horror

“YRRGH! Y-You!” Stan put his back legs on the back of his neck and pulled, clenching his eyes and teeth harder than ever before. “Y-You are NOT g-gonna drrgh, do this again!”

Discord tried grabbing him, but with every tug, he tensed up. “Grrrh! Get off me you WoRtHlEsS iNsEcT!”

Stan didn’t listen, he just kept pulling and pulling, not stopping for anything. “T-This is...grrrhh..T-This is the LAAAAst time yRRRAAH! You hurt anyOONE!” putting all his strength into it, Stan pulled as hard as he could. “YOU ARE NOT GONNA KILL-”

*pop pop*

“Me?”

Discord fell to the floor while Stan fell into the crowd, some of them managed to catch him before he hit the hard pavement. “S-Stan?” Carl and Twig ran up to him, getting his brother back on all fours. “D-Did you just…”

Stan looked at his hooves, seeing that both of them were holding the horns of Discord in the holes. He chuckled and held up his right one. “Heh...g-guess this hole has saved me more than once, huh?”

Twig poked Stan and pointed at Discord, seeing him groaning on the ground and holding his head. “What the hay is wrong with creatures today?” He turned to the crowd, seeing that one changeling was holding a pair of things that belonged to him. “H-Hey! Give me back my horns!”

Stan wasn’t scared by him anymore, he stood up and held them in the air. “Then come over here and get them!”

Discord just rolled his eyes and snapped his claw at him. He paused for a few seconds before doing it again, and again, and again. “W-What the heck is going on? Why isn’t it-”

“He’s defenceless!” Twig yelled. “His powers are ours now! Take him down!”

Discord realized this wasn’t a prank, this was something far worse: a riot. So, he stood up and did the only logical thing he could do at a time like this: run. “I-I gotta get the princess, t-these ponies are crazy!”

Stan pointed the horns at him. “Don’t let him get away!”

“Especially the bugs…”

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