A Story In Which Twilight Sparkle Does Not Fight Discord

by Catullus Sedecim

Part One: ...Despite Her Best Efforts

Author's Note:

This is one of the weirdest things I've ever been asked to write, so I figured I'd at least try to explain what you're going to read here. The best way I can describe what my buyer requested is that it's a sort of ryona-by-way-of-Looney-Tunes. I had to label it as a comedy* because it's full of silly slapstick and jokes, but it's got violence and fetish tags for a reason, too.

This is a mix of two things, and it's really only going to work if you like the idea of both at once. If you're looking for a pure slapstick laugh-fest, you might find it a bit too intense, while if you're looking for a pure beatdown, it may be a bit too silly and light. Obviously, I can't tell you what to think of it, all I can do is ask you go in with an understanding of what this is meant to be. If you understand, great, and I hope you like it. Otherwise, well, that's the best explanation, so if you're still unsure on it, there's only one way to find out.

*Though not necessarily a good one

The whole world was white. It was hard to describe what it was like. There had to be a floor, of course, because something was keeping Twilight’s feet on the ground, but she couldn’t quite make out any shadows and, strangely, couldn’t quite see her own shadow. In fact, she couldn’t quite see any sort of light source, but when she raised her hoofs in front of her face, she could see them clearly enough. The world here didn’t make sense. Of course, the person she was here to see - More accurately, to fight - Was hardly famous for making too much sense himself. It added up to a frustrating situation for the purple princess pony, as she felt her hooves lightly clop against whatever the floor was made of. It sounded like marble, but didn’t feel like it. Didn’t feel like anything. It should probably disturb her, but she had way too many important things on her mind for the moment.

“Listen, Discord!” She called out to the nothing that surrounded her, “I know you’re in here, and I know you know why I’m here. Stop hiding, and come out and fight me like a... Uh...” She paused, “Like a draconequus!” She finally concluded.

“I am!” The honeysweet voice replied, “I’m fighting you EXACTLY like a draconequus. Hiding in a pocket dimension and not fighting. That’s what we draconequuses do!”

“Okay, then!” Twilight responded, “Fight me not like a draconequus! Fight me like a... Like a fighter!” she paused, and added “The type that fights!”

“Ohhhh, very well,” the voice responded, sounding almost bored as it did.

Suddenly, the world around them changed in a flash. Now it was suddenly an arena, like the great Maredison Square Garden. Discord stood before her, wearing a long robe, and heavy boxing gloves. Twilight narrowed her eyes.

“Okay, Discord,” She said, “If this is how you want to p-”

“WAIT!” The draconequus responded, holding up his glove, then looking at it, and a single finger was drawn in the middle, “Wait, I have to check something.” He raised his other hand, peering at a small piece of paper.

“DDR section. Environment changes frequently... Indirect attacks... Oh, here, arena setting, NOT boxing. Sorry, that was my mistake, we can’t do this.”

“What do you mean we can’t do this! You can’t just invite me here and say we can’t do it now!”

“Customer’s always right, Twilight!” He responded, “I’m still annoyed by the ‘No Penetration’ part myself.”

She glared at the strange trickster beast, “You’re starting to get piss me off, Discord..”

“That’s fine,” he answered, “I’m allowed to do that. Encouraged even. Just not box you. Now, THIS,” he said, and the world around them morphed in a section, from the hub of Canterlot combat today, to that of a thousand years ago, a massive marble Colosseum, with the two standing on coarse sand, “THIS I can do.”

He was dressed now in some sort of ancient form of bronze armor, though nothing that covered much of his body. She wore the same. It looked more like costume versions of Romane gladiators than the real ones, and they were notably unarmed, but she was ready to get to the battle itself, and she didn’t particularly care where they would do it.

“Okay, Discord, however you like. I don’t care where I have to fight you, I just care that I’m about to fight you, now stand up a-”

“Hold on!” Discord raised a clawed hand again, palm out, “Pardon me, Twilight, fight ME?! Oh, nononono. You’re mistaken. You don’t fight ME. I don’t like getting my claws dirty. Especially not when I just had them manicured.”

He vanished from her sight, then appeared behind her, holding his claw in front of her face. The ancient Equestrian sun shined off the filed-sharp point. “I mean, just look at that” He asked, “The Lotus twins were working on it for DAYS. Well, they were working on it for a few minutes, but I made it SEEM like days. I think they deserved to really appreciate how hard they were working, don’t you?” There was sinister joy in his voice.

“No, Twilight,” he continued, placing the other hand on her shoulder in a manner that could have been comforting from someone else but from him made her blood run cold, “No, you aren’t going to be fighting me. You’re going to be fighting HIM!” He declared, and pointed an outstretched claw across the arena.

Twilight nearly fainted when she saw what he was talking about. The ‘Him’ in question was a massive beast of a Diamond Dog. Standing well over a foot if not two above Twilight, even with the horn, he had a head nearly the size of her chest, and shoulders as broad as two mares standing side by side. His pitch-black arms looked to be the size of the great columns of Cloudsdale architecture, with the marks of bulging muscle along them enhancing the illusion of intricately carved black marble.

If it weren’t for the obvious striations in his pecs, his chest could easily have been the envy of any silicone-injected pageant pony. Only the signs of rock-hard muscle along them changed the illusion. His abdominal muscles stood out in his flesh and made his whole midsection look like some sort of canyon carved from black volcanic rock by a strangely criss-crossing river.

His thighs below had long since passed the point that the ever popular tree-trunk comparison could work. Boulders were more like it, along the upper leg and the lower. Twilight, for all her confidence and pride, couldn’t help being impressed as she followed the unending mass of rocky muscle down the legs to his feet.

“DING DING DING!” The voice of her true opponent interrupted her, and she turned her head to follow as she saw Discord run across her vision, carrying a piece of posterboard labeled “Round One.” What made it so strange, of course, wasn’t just that he was carrying the board, but that he seemed to have put on a far-too-tight bikini that was raising unwanted questions about where he kept parts of his anatomy.

“Discord, why in Equestria are y-AGHHH!” Her question was interrupted with what felt like a cinderblock or lead weight slamming across her cheek and sending her collapsing to the ground in front of the cheering arena crowd. All sorts of rules could change in Discord’s world, but there was one that wouldn’t: Always keep your eye on your opponent.

The impact of the monstrous thing’s fist against her cheek was as heavy as any of the combats she’d been in. She’d been punched through mountains and been in less pain afterwards. She collapsed to the ground, eyes already somewhat unfocused, knees wobbling, and arms flailing out. She tried to catch herself so she could stay on her feet, but no luck. The impact sent her collapsing to the ground like she had somehow forgotten how to control every limb in her body at the same time.

She couldn’t move her limbs. Well, she could, she just couldn’t remember how to move which one. Her attempts to stand lead to random flailings of her arms, tensing of her flank. The punch had knocked her silly - Fitting considering Discord’s involvement in this contest - And she was just trying to remember how her body worked.

Before she got a chance to, she felt a heavy hand in her mane, and fingers wrap around it and pull. She hadn’t had time to collect her senses and be ready for the fight to continue, but it didn’t matter. If she couldn’t figure out how to get back to her feet, her opponent would figure it out for her. She was lifted in the air, and, completely beyond her control, she felt her body dragged along the old-fashioned sandy ring. She weakly raised her hands to try to pull the beast’s fingers out of her hair, but that couldn’t help and couldn’t spare her. Her opponent was larger, stronger, and most importantly at this point, not reeling from a blow that could have knocked out a full-grown dragon.

Her hooves dragged scores in the sand, as the monstrous creature pulled her along by her mane. It was bad enough to have been taken by surprise like this, but the beast was pulling her the worst possible place - Face to face with Discord. There was a cruel and chilling smile on the face of the Draconequess as he met her gaze. He knew he was in control. She knew it too, even though she hated to admit it. She would find a way out of it, of course, but for now, he had control. Or, rather, his doggy creation had control.

“What’s wrong, Discord?” She asked through gritted teeth, glaring in his eyes, hoping to goad him into getting involved himself, “Afraid to handle things on your own?”

“Afraid?” Discord asked, shaking his head rapidly as he responded to her taunt, “Oh, no no NO, Twilight. I’m not afraid. I have no reason to be afraid. I control everything here, after all. How could I be scared? You couldn’t touch me if you tried~”

Twilight kept her eyes on his, “You don’t control me.”

“I don’t?” Discord asked, “Oh, goodness gracious me, what a mistake. What an error. I forgot!” He laughed, “Or, perhaps, it was you who forgot. Who forgot EXACTLY who you are dealing with here. You foolish little unicorn. In my dimension, my rules apply. This is my world, and you are just part of it. I can do anything I want to you, I could end this fight right now if I wanted. It’s only continuing because I like to watch weak, stupid, arrogant little ponies like you suffer. You are only still able to fight while I find the idea of your struggles amusing. After that, this all ends. For now, I’m enjoying the battle... But not the conversation. Fido? AWAY WITH HER!”

The Diamond Dog, or whatever twisted version of those creatures Discord had summoned, answered with a growl and clutched his fingers tighter in Twilight’s mane, until the purple pony began to feel like he was about to tear her mane out by the roots. She reached up to try to pull on the creature’s wrist, but her efforts were ended when the other hand threw a hard punch against her back, right against the spine. For a moment, her nervous system went wild, agony accompanied by ‘funnybone’ tingles rolled through her, and her whole body went limp.

It was followed by a yank on her mane, and her whole body was pulled along with it. It felt like her scalp was on fire, and she wished desperately that the beast would release her... Not realizing then just what would happen when it did. The diamond dog twisted and threw her backwards with one arm, and the purple pony felt the ground completely fall away from her as she was thrown at full force across the arena.

Her body traveled like a cannonball shot from a pirate ship, as she flew over the sand and her back crashed against the stone wall of the arena. The impact was as bad, no, worse than the monster’s punch. The world seemed to go completely black accompanied by a mind-shattering ‘crunch’ sound, one she could only hope was a product of Discord’s Taunts and tricks as opposed to the result of her body being slammed against the stone.

Twilight’s arms and legs were limp by her sides as she fell to the ground. Whether a product of Discord’s tricks or simply the fact that she had been thrown at full-force by a giant beast against the wall, the whole arena seemed to be spinning. Her back ached, her head ached, her shoulders, left leg, and right calf ached. The rest of her - Her chest, her stomach, her arms - Didn’t ache yet, but only because her body had not yet figured out they were part of it yet. Stunned, even drooling, she looked up.

Three of the beasts... No, five, no, wait, only two, now seven... Her eyes wouldn’t focus enough for her to count accurately at first - Were coming towards her. Giant arms at their sides, hungry, monstrous drool falling from their lips, fists clenched, they moved in unison towards her. She shook her head, trying to shake off the stun. There had to be only one of them, she just had to figure out which one it was so she could fight it off!

It took a few precious seconds, a commodity too rare for her to comfortably waste in a fight, for her to remember how to move her arms and legs enough to stand up. It wasn’t easy, but in time, it came to her, and stand up she did. She raised her hands as the monster approached, trying to figure out which one was the one she was tasked with defeating.

Wait... She knew how this worked. She was seeing more than one because her eyes couldn’t focus. They weren’t looking in the same place. They were crossed, or just unfocused, but whichever one was the middle would be the real one! Magic senses allowed unicorns to keep that much even without the visual input.

Twilight’s horn glowed, gathering the magic within her body that she could. Many unicorns would have had to gather the magic from the world around them, but she was always special. In facT, she was the elemennt of friendship, and as any schoolcolt would be able to tell you, friendship was, in fact, magic. As long as she had any memory of her connection to the others in ponyville, no level of magical interference or even simply being sucked into another world could truly sever her connection to the magic of Equestria. Not even Discord’s bizarre arena-world. She felt Equestria’s magical energies flowing through her, empowering her, and gathering at the tip of her horn. That was a wonderful thing about unicorns, a thing few other species would ever be able to experience, the joy of unleashing a truly poowerful spell. And this one was going to be one of the best yet.

With all the force that she could muster, allt he magic that she had in her body, she bent her head down and blasted a beam of pure energy at the draconequus’s bizarre, monstrous sidekick. It hit him square in the chest, causing the diamond dog (or, well, psuedo-diamond-dog, it was clear that it wasn’t the real thing, just one of Discord’s bizarre, monstrous creations) square in the chest. It was the knowledge that this was, in fact, one of his strange monsters that allowed her to put so much force in it, causing the creature to start to glow like a lightbulb, fill with magic, and then, ultimately, burst into confetti like a blast from Pinkie’s party-cannon. That result assuaged whatever last bits of concern Twilight might have had that that thing had been another creature trapped in his world like her. She wasn’t entirely sure what diamond dogs WERE made of, but she was fairly certain that whatever it was, it wasn’t confetti, balloons, cupcakes, or any of the other things that now littered the area, covering her, not coincidentally, in cupcake frosting. At least it was a SWEETER smell than whatever the normal result would have been. And much more delicious.

Not that that mattered. What mattered now was the fact that she had a clear view of Discord. With his beast out of the way, it would be down to just her and him. He was a powerful trickster, but, as she had discovered, a coward as well. She just had to get TO him, and he would be hers. She narrowed her eyes, glaring at him, and could feel the residual magical energy of the blast she had just fired floating around her.

“Discord!” She called out, and he gave a shocked look, looking around, as if pretending to have no idea who it was she would be so angry at. Eventually, he pointed a finger at himself, and looked at her questioningly, as if to ask if she really meant HIM, of all people.

“Discord, your bodyguard is gone, and you’re going to be following him soon. It’s time to end this!”

She growled, and charged at him at a speed that would have made Rainbow Dash proud. Her feet pounded at the hard sand, propelling her forward, as Discord leaned back, cowering in fear. She ran, her feet slamming against the sand. Slam, slam, slam... Blomf!

She felt her hoof sink into something, and looked down to see the ground had turned to the giant air-filled tubes of a bouncy castle. She didn’t have time to stop her run or adjust, she was already in the act of putting her other hoof on the no-longer-ground. It sank in as well, and she was propelled upward as a result, bouncing into the air. She overbalanced, and fell forward, even as she bounced in the air.

It was a bouncy castle, but momentum was still momentum and a spine was still a spine, she couldn’t afford to land on her neck. She tucked her head and rolled, feeling her back land and bounce against the round, air-filled surface. It propelled her into the air, and she tumbled again, head-over-hoof, landing on her front this time, sinking into the air, and being propelled out as if being slung by a rubber-band sling shot.

This time she didn’t land on the ground, but only because there wasn’t any more room in the arena. Fortuantely, rather than being pitched clean out and into the stands, the area had completed its transformation into a full-on bouncing castle by now, and she twisted, her back slammIng into an air-filled wall, and bouncing her off again.

She was sent careening away from the wall, feeling more like a pinball in a machine than a mare at this point. Honestly she’d never had time for things like this, even as a filly, she was too invested in her work, but she was FAIRLY certain even bouncy castles didn’t bring enough bounce for a wall to pitch her six feet away, and send her sinking into the ground on her back again, bounce up, tumble, and roll forward.

She twisted in the air to roll to her side, making sure she wouldn’t bounce quite as high on each impact as a result, and then when she did go up managed to twist and get her feet under her, solving at least ONE of the problems she was facing as a result of the arena switch. She was still bouncing, you couldn’t stand on something like this, but at least she was able to bounce in place, giving her something of a stable position to try to solve the second problem: Her opponent for the fight.

That problem popped into existence beside her with a sudden rush of air, lying on his back and letting the castle bounce him easily up and down. He was showing off and in complete control, while what she was doing was little more than treading water, trying to avoid being careened around too far one way or another by the unnaturally elastic arena.

“Having FUN yet, Sparkle?” The Draconequues taunted in his low, smooth voice.

She glared at him, “I’ll be having fun when I have a fight,” she answered simply.

‘A fight?” Discord asked, feigning shock at her comment, “Oh, you wanted a FIGHT? I’m so sorry, I must have been confused, I thought you came here to be beaten to a pulp by someone far more powerful than you could ever imagine being, but if it’s a FIGHT you want, well... A fight you can have!”

There was another rush of air, and more draconequuses appeared around here. They weren’t additional people, though, not even in the way that the diamond dog had been. They were made of rubber, or elastic, or whatever this arena was made of. Long torsos with painted-fur textures replaced the main body of her oppponent in these little replicas of him, the subtlety of the arching neck lost as well in favor of a simple extension of the torso to make the main body of the creatures look like one single oblong sausage-shape, like a bendy balloon. Their arms and legs were long, but noodly, with the legs ending in broad, flat, similarly fake feet, and the arms ending in simple square-shaped imitations of boxing gloves. They looked a little bit like the standing bag things that fillies and colts sometimes got, filled with sand at the bottom to ensure that whenever you hit them, they would pop right back up. That was, honestly, a rather good description of dealing with Discord, too, now that she thought of it.

“Okay, Twilight,” Discord said, interrupting her minor moment of thinking about his nature, “Since you were so insistant and asked so VERY nicely, you can have your fight. Are you ready for it?” He laughed, not even giving her the time she would need to answer the question, “Well, ready or not... FIGHT!”

The gloves the things wore may have been fake, but the impact was real. If anything, it felt like it was harder than a normal boxing glove, like the latex cubes had been inflated with lead instead of air. It sent her tumbling, completely upsetting the small amount of balance she had managed and sending her falling to the ground. Her body landed in the latex, and bounced up easily, presenting, unfortunately enough, an absolutely perfect target for the second balloon-discord to capitalize on.

Once again, she felt the psuedo-balloon fist smash into her body, a glove like pure rock pounding her. This one didn’t just hit her, either, it sent her flying up high in the air, an uppercut that launched her even higher than the balloon castle itself had. She felt like she was being celebrated in one of those old time cartoons, bounced up, almost gravityless before she started back on her way down.

The third of air-filled Discord clones was not looking for the same level of show-off in his attack, he was interested only in how hard he could hit a helpless pony who was in freefal after a gravity-defying uppercut. It turned out, in fact, that the answer was “Quite hard indeed,” as the glove’s impact into her chest sent her careening towards the fourth of the group like a fastball pitch. She practically sailed through the air...

And felt his ‘fist’ smash into her with home-run quality power, sending her collapsing right down to the ground. Whether it was a result of her body being more exhausted and thus just that little bit heavier since she wasn’t really able to try to balance, the fact that the impact of the blow had managed to stop her momentum short and she had very little to bounce with, or, quite frankly, it was Discord himself making sure her collapse would be as pitiful as possible and ensuring her momentum stopped, she couldn’t say. She was just knocked to the ground, and felt the air-filled rubber shift a little under her as she fought her way to all fours.

“Come on, Discord,” she glared up at him, “You know this isn’t why I’m here. Get rid of this castle and let’s just fight.”

“Get rid of it?” Discord asked, looking around. The balloon imitations wobbled their torsos around a little as well, since they had no necks to do the same with “Get rid of what, this?” His voice was smooth, soft, and had the same calm he did when he was preparing a new prank to pull on the other ponies. The other discords vanished away as he spoke.

“Get rid of this castle?” He repeated, “This castle, right here? The one that you’re standing on? The one supporting your weight? That’s the castle you want me to get rid of?” Discord laughed a disturbingly excited laugh. She shivered as she realized what he was planning.

“Oh, very well,” He said, “If you INSIST, Twilight. I’ll take it away.”

With a snap of his fingers, he did exactly that, and to a far greater extent than she could have expected as well. Suddenly the castle was simply not there, and she was falling. Back in the white void, but this time without a floor, she was falling. Discord reclined on his hand behind him, holding one leg out straight and propping the other up on top of it.

“I admit I’ve never been entirely sure on how to deal with fighting in mid-air but, well, it was your choice, and I hate to turn a lady down” The wicked draconequus laughed, then rolled on his ‘belly’ and clasped his hands against his cheek, “I guess I’m just a romantic. Tell me, Twilight, is it all that you’d hoped for and more?”

She looked down, but there was nothing to see. Nothing to feel, either, except the rush of the wind through her mane and even that she was pretty sure was only a result of the fact that she was moving quickly, not that there were many air particles to actually blow through her hair. She looked back to Discord with desperation in her eyes, but as she could have expected, there wasn’t much in the way of kindness, gentleness, or mercy in Discord’s eyes.

“This isn’t what I wanted, and you know it, Discord,” she answered, glaring at him still, even though it was a little harder with her eye just barely starting to swell shut from the way it had been bashed with those gloves, “You know what I wanted. A proper fight. A battle. So stop our falling a-”

“Stop our falling?” He asked brightly.

“I didn’t say th-”

“Oh, I know what I heard. YOU said you wanted to stop falling, and get to battle. And who would I be if to deny a direct command from royalty? Very well, your will be done, your princessliness!”

With a click of his fingers, she suddenly stopped falling. Hard. There was no bouncy castle this time. Admittedly she thought she felt SOME amount of movement, but that might have just been how hard she had been bashed around so far.

She was on wood, now. That was something she could at least determine with a fair amount of certainty. Tile and slate didn’t tend to give you splinters for one. She raised her head weakly, and saw Discord standing in front of her, wearing a long, dark, old-fashioned coat. A three-pointed hat with a feather the size of her arm extended from the band of the hat. More of the ballon-clones stood around him, wielding balloon cutlasses and with red-and-white bandanas around their ‘heads.’ The former boxing glove hands were gone, one now held a weapon and the other was completely bare.

“AHOY, YE LILY LIVERED LANDLUBBER!” Discord proclaimed in a terrible imitation of the traditional cornish ‘Pirate’ accent, “Ye wanted to not fall and come to battle, well better battle could there be than a PIRATE battle, aye lads?!”

“AYE!” “AYE!” “AYE!” The psuedo-Discords all yelled out in agreement.

“JAY!” Yelled a final one after a pause.

“Oooh, breaking the rules, I like him!” Discord said, “He’s my new first mate. As for you, well... You’re my new prisoner. LASH HER TO THE MAST, LADS!”

In an instant, she was seized by the creatures. They dragged her by her arm, pulling her to the massive wood mast. Long, thick, red licorice candies seemed to appear magically in the hands of the psuedo discords, and they pulled her arms behind the wood, and tied them together. She was forced to stand, now, and stare at the collection of cannon that had been turned and aimed right at her. Crews of clones stood by each one.

“Okay, crew! She may be a landlubber wench, but she’s fought hard today. I say we give her the ol’ 21 gun salute, AYE?!”

“KAY!” Yelled the first mate immediately, and Discord patted it on the head, “isn’t he adorable?” He asked, “Alright, Draconequi!” He proclaimed, “Ready! Aim! And... FIRE!”

It was a blessing, if a somewhat small one, that the cannon seemed to be loaded with gumballs instead of cannonballs. It meant that while the impact of three thick balls against her body certainly hurt, it wasn’t going to kill her. Of course, it was hardly going to save her, either. She looekd up at Discord.

“How much longer do you plan on doing this, Discord?”

“That’s CAPN’ Discord to you, missy!” He responded, “And until I get bored. Which I’m not yet. Now, three down, 18 to go. READY! AIM! FIRE!”

The gumballs came at her again, smashing into her body. Once again it hurt like hell, but once again, at least she could say that the pain was nowhere near as bad as it could be. She had to take the small advantages when they came to her, here, there hadn’t been many big ones lately. She tried to shake off the pain, and the frustration, and glare up at Discord once more.

“You know, Discord, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to fight you from a disadvantage, and I won that time too. So if you think that I-OOOF!”

A blueberry gumball smashed into her head, and landed on the ground, rolling over to Discord’s feet. Discord looked down at it with mild interest.

“I’m so sorry about that one, Twilight, I really am. I’m afraid that one never good keep his gun from going off early.”

He lifted the gumball in the air, and turned it around in his claw. It was about the size of a bowling ball, though deformed somewhat already from how Discord’s clones had been using it to fire straight at Twilight.

“Of course,” Discord continued, “I suppose that IS what happens when you have blue balls!”

The entire crew laughed uproariously at the joke, and Twilight blushed, looking down at the ground beneath her. This was going too far. When she looked back, Discord had taken a giant bite out of the gumball when it was an apple.

“Oh, I’m tho thowwy aboud dat,” Discord began, and then shook his head, “Sorry, shouldn’t talk with my mouth full. Very rude of me. Anyway, please, what were you saying?”

Twilight began to flex and try to pull the ‘ropes’ apart, feeling them stretch and weaken at the middle as she spoke.

“What I was saying, Discord,” she answered, “Is that you can do whatever you want to try to intimidate me, or my friends, or, well, whatever else it is you feel like doing or saying, but you don’t scare me, you don’t intimidate me, and you certainly d-” She blinked as she felt something against her cheek, and turned her head. A giant blue blueberry gum bubble was pushing up and flattening against Twilight’s cheek, as Discord inflated it further and further. Soon it was covering almost half her face. It was hardly a fitting position to be in for nobility, but that seemed to be what he wanted. What she wanted was for the ‘ropes’ to break. Both of them seemed to be getting their way at the moment, too, the little ropes were stretching out, and if she could keep this up, soon she would be free.

“What I’m thaying!” She said as the bubble continued to expand against her face. As she said it, she felt the ‘rope’ fall away, and smiled, “Ith that thith has gone on long enough. Thtop with the games!” She commanded, and stepped away from the mast, and the bubble, turning to face him. The other Discords made an attempt to interrupt, but she interrupted them first, a glow of magic surrounding her horn and then blasting away to send the other Discords flying away from her and splashing into the ocean.

“I’ve taken part in your little stupid... Whatever,” she continued, “For long enough. You accepted the challenge, you agreed to fight me, and I’m not going to just stand here and have you make joke after joke. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of being toyed with. If you want to fight me, Discord, just Draconequus up and FIGHT me. Because I’m putting my foot down a-”

There was a dark chuckle. A worrying sound to come from Discord, she had learned.

“Putting your foot down, Twilight?” He asked, “Well... So am I.”

No sooner had the words left his lips than she was driven down to the wooden deck of the ship once more. A weight like a mountain suddenly crushed down on her. It was sticky, too. Sticky, slimey, it felt like the worst parts of the inside of a humid cave in summer. She swore it smelled too, and it was soft. She didn’ know what exactly this new arena of his was, but it was her least favorite yet. Slimey, muggy, and with a completely rancid smell. Even flat on the ground, she could tell she was sticking to it somehow, like gum to the underside of a desk. Even the slightest movements, pulses of some sort of underground (or overground?) liquid through the massive form of the thing, pulled on the hair at the back of her body as if something was trying to rip her coat clean off. The weight increased, and shifted, as if she was feeling centuries of tectonic motion on her back. It was not a pleasant sensation, even without the smell.

The thing pulled up, and she could see what was going on, largely because it pulled her with it. Whatever sticky liquid was coating this... She had assumed it was a normal bit of ground, but it seemed like it was some bizarre flying machine or something... Turned out to be sticky enough to lift her whole body off the ground. It wasn’t a fact she found particularly pleasing, this... This whatever was not something she wanted to be attached to too much longer. She would have been honestly perfectly fine with it if at that very moment she were to completely lose traction and fall to the ground in an instant. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant thought, the idea of crashing to the ground like an anvil or other weight in an old cartoon, but it would be nicer than being... Wherever she was. She honestly didn’t want to think about it, if she could avoid it.

After all, she had already been crushed. Being flattened down to the ground without some horrific foul-smelling weight on her back would have to be a much more pleasant experience than having that happen with the bonus of a stink so bad she wanted to wretch and some mysterious, horrific, sticky slime.

She tried to get what could be called a ‘lay of the land,’ so to speak. Land may have been a generous term, but she didn’t have a better one. She herself was standing on top of a hill. The hill’s incline was slight, almost imperceptible, but it was there. It rolled down, and then back up again on the far side of the valley. She couldn’t see over the top of the hill across from her, but judging by the area closer to her, it probably ended with a quick drop-off ravine, just like this part did. Beyond that, hard to tell how far beyond, stood a great wall, an almost sheer cliff face covered with what she could only assume was some strange carpetting of thick and matted brown moss.

So, she had at least the beginnings of a set of answers about where she was. She could physically describe it, and maybe understand parts of it, though not where in Equestria someone would find emerald-green soaking wet deserts. She would have to table that for now. She could consider that later, right now she just had to think. Specifically, she had to think about the problem of the day. This fight had not been going her way so far, but at least she’d kind of comprehended Discord’s sense of humor, and as a result, figure out what he was doing and, most likely, or at least probably and sometimes, what she could do to end the ‘gag.’ And in this place, she couldn’t help reflecting, gag was a very appropriate term indeed. Why HERE, though? What was this place that Discord would find it worth taking her? Everything else had been ridiculously themed like the pirate or gladiator, or just plain ridiculous like the bouncey castle. When it came to Discord’s disturbing place creations, this hardly felt in line. He seemed to like ‘funny,’ or his twisted version of it, and whatever the slippery humid hellscape was, comedy it wasn’t.

By Celestia’s hips, the place did stink, though, didn’t it. Whatever it was, it certainly was never going to top anypony’s list of greatest vacation destinations. In the back of her mind she had a feeling there was something she was missing, some obvious answer to this riddle. The problem with things that you’re missing, though, is that you’re missing them.

‘Another great quote from the princess,’ Twilight thought to herself, and struggled up to stand on her hind hooves.

Her legs were a bit shaky in the attempt, from all the punishment she’d taken over the course of their bout, but she was eventually able to manage it. Her hooves sunk a little bit into the strange ground, but only slightly. It was like walking on a sandy beach. There’s give, your feet go down a bit, but never too far even if you can never be sure WHERE the solidity came from. She adjsuted her weight, leaning back and forth from one hoof to another to make sure that she would be able to walk along the surface. After all, she could speculate all she wanted, but the only way she was going to be able to get a straight answer and figure out what was happening and where she was, was to find discord and ask him.

That was, in fact, another strange thing about the place she’d ended up. Where WAS Discord? He had shown up almost instantaneously for all his other unpleasant little surprise trips, but right now it seemed like she was alone on the muggy alien landscape. Well, whatever it was, she’d get her answer when she found him.

She tested her weight a little more, then started taking a few small steps. Strangely, despite the wetness on the ground, the stickness made it a simple task to walk across. She looked around as she made her steps, trying to see if there was any feature like a tree or a rock or SOMETHING that would break up the bizarre monotony. There didn’t seem to be anything. Including a draconequus.

All other options expended, she did the only thing she still could. She cried out.

“DISCORD!” She yelled out, trying to sound intimidating but probably coming off more like pleading and desperate, “Discord, where in Equestria are you?!”

There was a heavy, deep, dark chuckle that sounded like the rumblings of thunder.

“Twilight... I’m up here~” He answered. She looked upwards, up above the mossy wall to see...

To see his face. His neck and his face exactly, in fact. He had, through his bizarre mystical tricks, found a way to grow to the size of a giant. When it had felt like she was being crushed under a mountain, it had been mostly the correct instinct. She had been crushed under a mountain, but the mountain was her opponent, grown hundreds of feet tall, miles possibly, and pushing down on her with all his weight.

Which of course meant that if Discord was the mountain that had crushed her, than the bizarre emerald land formation that had born his wait had been... Had been...

“EEEEEEEWWWWW!” She couldn’t hide her disgust at the thought of where she was.

“Discord,” she called out to him in the stern tones of an exapserated teacher. It may not have been wise, but her intimidation in the moment had been chased away by disgust, “Discord. Tell me something.”

“Tell you what?” He asked.

“Discord... Am I STANDING on your FOOT?!” She demanded.

“NO!” Discord answered quickly, “Oh, nononono! Never! You’d n... Okay, a little.” He answered, “Teeny bit,” He held up a hand, fingers pinched close together, “Smidgeon.”

He then paused, “Yes. You are on my foot.”

“DISCORD!” Twilight’s fury was growing, “I came here to fight YOU! I came here for the fight that YOU accepted because you SAID we could fight. That’s why we’re both here. So I want to fight YOU. Here. In an arena. I don’t want to fight your clones, I don’t want to fight your pet dog, and I CERTAINLY do NOT want to be STANDING on your FOOT!”

“Oh, you don’t?” Discord asked, and he laughed again. This time, at least, Twilight was able to realize the mistake she’d made before Discord used it against her. Not that that was too helpful, to tell the truth, knowing the REASON that you’re about to be made a fool of didn’t mean you weren’t about to be made a fool of, it just meant you got to regret whatever it was that put you in a situation for it to happen.

“That was not what I meant to say,” she tried to object, but Discord leaned in, his face now taking up the whole horizon as if she was standing in front of a massive Discord-carving skyscraper.

“Oh, but Twilight,” he answered, “It’s what you SAID.”

He brought his fingers up in front of her. A good ten feet, honestly, but on this scale he might as well have been caressing her cheeks. The center finger curled under the sides, and she watched his fingers shake with the tension of a coiled spring.

“And would NEVER go against what you say~”

Saying that, he released his finger and flicked her from his hand. The full finger, larger than her entire body and too thick around for her to even contemplate hugging it, caught her in the midsection and launched her hard, far, and fast off the Draconequus’s foot. She was at least glad to be getting OFF his foot, she wouldn’t want to spend any more time on there than she had to, but the force it took to propel her like that, a little purple rocket launching from an emerald-green island, was enough to set her body bouncing and shaking. She flailed as she sailed through the air, reaching out for anything that could stop her seemingly unending flight.

She found something. Just not the way she wanted to. Her back hit a wall the same way it had in the arena, crashing full force and flattening her so she felt like a pancake, or perhaps that gooey toy that you could throw at walls and watch it slide down. The impact certainly left her feeling like her brains and body had a similar consistency to the silly putty, thick and together but jellied and useless. She felt like she was a character in the cartoons he watched, prepared to peel off the wall and collapse.

...Actually, considering that, why WASN’T she falling? It wasn’t as if she had any particular adhesive power or anything, the only thing she had sticky on her was...

Was his foot sweat.

“EWWWWWWWW!” She repeated as she felt her body start to slowly pitch forward, not sure if she was terrified or thrilled to know that there wasn’t enough of his sweat on her back to keep her stuck to the wall.

Being stuck was bad. On the other hand, not being stuck would be worse. She might be trapped on the wall, but for now, she was, at least, on the wall, which, for all its flaws, was at least not tumbling in a rapid free fall towards whatever sort of twisted game Discord had planned for her next. As much as she hated the fact that she was stuck purely due to Discord’s viscious sweat, she would take disgusting and pungent over a wild freefall plunge anyday.

She tried to hold perfectly still, tensing every muscle and holding her breath, in part to prevent herself from making any unwanted movements that might make her free herself and start a plunge to the ground, and in part to keep from having to inhale the horrid scent of the sweat that covered her body.

She heard an unpleasant squeaking sound as she slid down the wall, the wet and sticky coating of her back sliding along it. A tiny rational part of the back of her mind reminded her that this didn’t make sense, but of course, nothing that Discord had done so far had made sense, so this was hardly an exception. Despite all her best efforts, she could feel bits of her fur slowly starting to peel away. She pressed her head back, biting her lower lip and concentrating as if she could will herself to just STICK, she knew better than to think that any magic she tried might work.

Then she heard the familiar deep voice of Discord beside her, “Oh, deary me...” The draconequus murmured, his voice sickly-sweet like spoiled honey, “It looks like you’re stuck. Well, that won’t do at all. Here, why don’t I give you a hand.”

She turned her head to see he was still massively oversized, not as far as he had been when she’d stood on his foot, but huge nonetheless. He reached out and grasped her head where it was stuck to the wall, pulling it slightly away. She felt like a sticker being carefully peeled off, and bit her lip, not wanting to look down as she felt her body slowly unstick from the wall.

Sooner rather than later (and certainly sooner than she was happy about) she was freed from the wall, and now there was nothing to stop yet another seemingly unending descent to whatever the next torment Discord had in store for her would be.

Although there wasn’t actually any wind to rush past her, she could still hear it. She hazarded a brief moment of opening her eyes to see what she would be in for, but it was hard to make anything out with the way that the simulated wind of Discord’s world seemed to batter and slap at her face. Still, she could see down below that there was some sort of array of bright lights, it was difficult to make out any details, and quite frankly she knew she would find out soon enough. As it rushed up towards her, she instinctively closed her eyes to protected herself against the oncoming... Well, whatever it was.

After longer than she would have liked (and certainly long enough that she was quite certain she shouldn’t have survived the fall) she landed with a heavy thunk, in a heap on the ground. She didn’t dare open her eyes, but she heard loud sounds, various plinking and beeping noises, as if Pinkie had had a misadventure in the mirror pool and every one of the replicas was trying to win a whacky-sound contest on the idea that only the real pinkie would be the loudest. She shook her head a little, trying to make sure she would be ready for whatever strange sights she would see when she opened her eyes.

What she saw when she did did little to change her initial impression. She was in a room that was somehow dark and bright at the same time, black walls and a seemingly black floor, though one with bright shapes of stars and moons and all manner of objects in shocking pink and green. She herself was on some sort of elevated platform, metallic with black pads, arranged in some sort of square. She’d had her eyes shut long enough that she was needing a moment to deal with the glare and sounds around her.

She looked around, and then up, to see Discord on a similar platform. As her eyes got used to the strange lighting that surrounded her, she realized they were in some sort of video arcade. Canterlot had been full of them when she was a filly, and while she had never exactly been eager to waste her time with flashing lights and robotic musicians, she could recognize where she was well enough.

With that context, she was able to figure out where exactly she was. The video monitor behind Discord was so bright that it took her some time to adjust and make it out, but she wasn’t interested in it anyway, she just wanted to deal with the draconequus. She glared at him, planting her feet and staring him down as he reclined against the bar at the Prance Prance Resurrection beside her.

“Enough of this nonsense, Discord!” She glared at him, “I’m not here for your chaos jokes, I’m here for a fair f-”

“FAIR?!” Discord responded brightly, not letting her finish, “Oh, but Twilight, this IS fair! Perfectly fair competition, just like you want. I’ve never been one for physical violence, of course, but we’re as fair as can be, here. You have a machine, I have a machine. We’ll play a little game, and if you win, I concede.”

“And if you win?” Twilight asked, “What happens if you win, before I agree to anything?”

Discord chuckled, “Oh, poor Twilight, I’m afraid you misunderstand. There’s not an agreement to be made. You’re part of this, whether you agree to it or not. But for what it’s worth, I promise, if I win, you can keep up your useless struggles to defeat me. Do we have a deal?”

Twilight considered his answer, as if she had a choice. Discord held all the cards here, metaphorically speaking, she was just trying to see if there was something about this place that she could use to force him into a more conventional confrontation. He had things sewn up, though, his faux-arcade didn’t seem to have any exits, and even the roof she’d fallen through was covered up. There was no way out, and there was no way up. That meant that, ultimately, the only option would be to play whatever games he had in store for her. At least this time there weren’t any gumball cannons or ballon-discords, so there were limits on what sort of tricks and magic he could pull out against her.

As she stared at him, she suddenly felt a heat under her hooves. It was a mild warmth at first, but it gradually increased, until she was wincing from it.

“Oh, by the way, Twilight,” Discord chuckled, “You might want to be a little bit careful there. PPR can be a VERY unforgiving game, you know.”

“What are you talking ab-”

“Okay, warm-up time over, time to get started!” Discord interrupted her, and instantly, the already somewhat painful heat on her hooves turned searing.

“AHHH, WHAT ARE Y-”

“Play the GAME!” Discord responded quickly, pre-empting the question and already beginning to dance. She looked down to the pad, seeing the agonizing flashes, then up and realized that the parts that were hurting her hooves were matching up to the arrows on the screen that would have been ‘wrong.’

“OH SHOOT!” She responded, trying to match her hooves and movements to the game’s approved points. She wasn’t the most graceful and dextrous of mares even at the best of times, she didn’t get any better when she had been bashed around time after time, and her abilities CERTAINLY didn’t improve when the punishment for losing a superheated blast that made it that much harder for her to keep up, now that she had to deal with the agony at the bottom of her hooves along with the rapidfire changes of direction and movement necessary to keep up with the machine. The result, of course, was a continuous, heavy pulse of failure sounds.

“You really aren’t very good at this, are you?” Discord asked, resting himself on the top of the machine, casually sipping from a large paper cup with a Dairy Princess logo across the front. Twilight glared at him, trying to keep up with the motions, but dividing her attention between the screen and the draconequus lying on top of it just made her task that much harder, and put her hooves through that much more pain.

“Don’t you have to! Ah! Ow! Shoot! Yowch!” The repeated failures felt like spikes into her hooves, and her fury at Discord’s behavior growing as the draconequus refused to take even his own challenge seriously, not even standing at his own machine for the competition “Ahhh! Darnit! Don’t you have to play... Ow! Play as well? I thought this... Ooof, this was a contest!”

“Oh, but Twilight!” Discord responded, laughing at her impotent fury, “But I AM playing, see?” He asked, and gestured with his tail towards the machine beside hers, where she saw a pair of disembodied draconequus legs dancing to the beat, hitting every point perfectly. Her heart sank at the sight, she hadn been frustrated by the events so far, of course, but she had at least been able to take comfort in the fact that she was making progress towards her ultimate goal of getting through Discord’s seemingly interminable series of tricks and toys and defeating him once and for all. Now, though, that seemed hopeless, and to make matters worse, her moment of frustration turned brought down her focus, and not coincidentally, her movement speed, making her feet hurt even more. It was bad enough that she was going to lose... Whatever this competition that Discord was putting her through was, but on top of that, she didn’t even get to stop dancing. If she did that for even a moment, her feet would be further singed by the red-hot dance pad underneath her.

Normally she closed her eyes when she really needed to concentrate, but right now, that wasn’t exactly an option. She had to keep her eyes on the machine, focus completely on the scrolling arrows, to ensure that her day wasn’t going to have to become any more painful and frustrating than it already had. Not that her attempts to keep her focus were going to do too much, of course. The thing about having one’s hooves repeatedly singed is that it makes it a lot harder to use them for... Well, really, anything. While the music played on, she began to lose control of her legs, panting from exhaustion and even starting to slip on the platform, struggling to keep to her feet, much less match the notes.

The rhythm of the music increased, and the heat seemed to as well. It had already been agonizingly hot, achinng with every step, but soon she was barely capable of thinking about where she was trying to put her feet at all, as every step seemed to be placing a hoof on a hot stove. Indeed, she looked down to see that wasn’t far from the case, the pad had grown so hot that the neon lights were no longer visible beyond the glow of white, and every time the safe zone changed, it turned back to black for almost a tenth of a second before becoming safe again.

Now it wasn’t merely the exertion that was making sweat poor down her body, it was the heat coming from below as well. Her sensible (and nitpicky) half wondered why she was even still able to feel in her foot after spending so long having it practically burned off, since surely her nerves sould have singed by now, but this was Discord’s world, after all, and her biology, like everything else present, was completely under his control. The answer, of course, was simply that he wanted her to keep feeling pain, and as long as he wanted that, she would feel it. With the way her muscles ached, her heart beat in her chest, and her lungs felt like they’d been slashed with razorblades with every breath, that was going to be for quite some time even if the torture stopped right now. Which of course, it...

Did.

Discord may have been a sadistic and twisted being, but he also seemed to have a certain sense of honor to his games, or at the very least, he didn’t want to keep up with one forever. Eventually, the song had to end, and when it did, she collapsed down to her knees in exhaustion, covered in sweat and panting from the effort she’d had to go through. She wanted to get up angrily and yell at him, but she didn’t have the strength to. She didn’t even have the strength to look at him, even though she felt his tail drag across her back and he floated back to reattach himself to his legs.

“Ooooh, time to see who won!” He intoned, sounding as eager as he would if... Well, if he DIDN’T already know the answer for sure. She didn’t have the energy left in her to respond, and she heard a low, frightening growl of frustration at her lack of playing along. A small part of her was glad to have done something to at least sort of hurt or upset him, although a much larger part was worried about just what he would have been capable of if he was genuinely angry and wanting to destroy her, not just have some fun. Maybe she was lucky he wasn’t really fighting. Then again, maybe a quick beating would have been more comforting.

She felt his hand grip her mane and yank upwards, her back arching a bit and making her look up at the machine above her.

“Come on, Twilight... Don’t you want to SEE?” He asked, yanking again, her neck cranking and back bending backwards under the force. Her vision was obscured, stained with sweat and tears, and now her back, neck, and shoulders were in agony as he forced her to look up at the scoreboard. Through the blur of her tears and sweat, she saw the score counters go up. Or, rather, she saw his go up, while hers remained at a frustrating 0. She’d done her best, but she didn’t need the machine to let her know that Discord hadn’t cheated. She really had failed to score even a point, and the Draconequus laughed.

“Oh, dear, poor Twilight,” he taunted her, “Guess you really didn’t do so well, did you? You really got...” He chuckled, “Hammered!” He announced. She didn’t need to see what was happening to know that the comment was going to be the start of some painful pun, and her presumption was proven when a heavy weight smashed on her back, driving her to a completely prone-position on the still wildly hot dance pad. It seared into her body, seeming to singe the hairs on her chest and underbelly, and she could only groan as the weight was lifted, but her back and body stayed in agony from the crushing blow.

“You really shouldn’ttake challenges you can’t win, you know, Twilight,” he scolded her, “It’s not a very good plan. It won’t well for you. I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’ll always be better at these games than you.”

She groaned, looking up at him in exhaustion and fury, glaring at the chimeric creature standing above her.

“Not here for games... Fighting...”

“What was that?” Discord laughed, “You’re here for FIGHTING?” He laughed harder, floating off the ground and turning circles, “Oh, Twilight, don’t you understand? Fighting’s a type of game... And I’m very, VERY good at it. I’m just doing this because you don’t stand a chance at that game~”

“I want...” Twilight panted, trying to bring herself back to her hands and knees, “I want... That.”

“You want that?” Discord asked, “You really want to fight?” He chuckled, “Well... I suppose if you insist...” His smile got wider, “Time to fight...”

Rather than actually attacking her, though, he pulled a lever, and she felt the pad beneath her suddenly rise, propelling her on a spring off of it and across the room. She was about to hit one of the machines she was sure of it, but to her shock, she didn’t. Instead, right when she was sure she would hit it, the world gave way, becoming brightly colored, the arcade fading until she was in some sort of strange, underground factory world.

To her surprise, she suddenly felt a lot better... She was still feeling the agony and coated in sweat, still exhausted, but most of the pain seemed to fade. She felt she could move and fight. For a moment, anyway, before she landed hard on the ground. Metal, in fact, as became clear as she rolled against an already damaged guardrail.

She raised her head, and saw her own name floating above her. Floating beside a picture of herself, in fact, and a yellow bar framed by silver. It even had her name helpfully labeled. There was another beside it, but she didn’t have time for that... She had to get up and figure out where she was.

She stood, and shuddered at what she saw. Standing a few feet away from her was a giant man, well over seven feet tall. He was a human, like the characters Lyra so adored from her silly shows or the world she had once visited. Well, he at least seemed to be. His skin, though, was a bright red, his hair black, and he wore an almost comically tiny pair of glasses. On his hands were massive, pitch-black gauntlets that she shuddered at the thought of being struck by.

He didn’t approach her, though. He just stood, looking at her, unmoving. She looked at him, waiting for an attack that didn’t come. Maybe he was friendly?

“Hello?” She asked. No response. She tried again, “Er... Excuse me, but why are we here?”

Was that too rude? “Er, could you please answer, Mr...” It occurred to her that his name might be seen in the bar above like hers, “Mr. Tager?” She asked.

She got a response, but not from the man. Instead, she heard Discord’s voice laughing.

“Alright, Twilight, time you got what you wanted, just you and me, one-on-one... Like I said, I am VERY good at fighting games!” He began to laugh. As he laughed, another voice interrupted, an excited sounding female, and as she spoke, the words appeared in mirror to Twilight’s right in a huge, gothic text.

“The wheel of fate is turning. Rebel one. ACTION!”

Twilight didn’t get much chance to do anything after that, as the giant man began his approach.

Comments

[-Pinkamena_Pie-]

Port Twilight... ;-;

[Zapper Frost]

A little surprised Discord hasn't literally slapped Twilight with a stick yet