Well, I guess it was inevitable.

The battle raged on for hours, one versus many. It was a magic clash that surpassed all previous ones in centuries. Not even Nightmare Moon's battle against Celestia 1000 years ago could compare.

As Equestria shifted and turned, Discord looked around him. Hundreds of soldiers lay down on the ground, their armors' parts fused together and with the earth and stone below them. Even those who were still conscious didn't have the strength left to break free.

Ripping yet another spear from his back, Discord threw it to the side, glad for must have been like the millionth time in his life that Spirits didn't bleed.

The weapon rolled and stopped in front of a wingless Rainbow. Her belly was so big she could only flail her hooves around, incapable of moving and buck him in the face as he could see in her eyes she so wished to do. She was insulting him nonstop, though.

Behind her, a healty apple tree grew in the middle of the torned battlefield, out of place with the warlike appearance of the landscape. Applejack's new form wasn't original at all, but he honestly was too occupied blocking dozens of magic beams at that moment to think of something better.

He walked forward, passing a mouse that used to be Rarity and the small dragon that held her gently in his claws while trapped in a cage of ultra durable concrete. It was too strong for him to break free, and (thanks to Nidhogg's curiosity) he knew that dragons couldn't digest concrete, so devouring it wasn't an option for Spike.

He glanced to the sky as he sumoned an ice pack for his aching head, seeing the moon floating on the horizon and dragging with it the night. Pinkie Pie was up there. Not even her chaos magic could bring her back, so he could relax and not worry about that pony for a few hours.

The Elements were floating somewhere inside the sun; the heat, pressure and humongous amounts of magic in the celestial orb would eventually destroy the blasted artifacts.

He kept walking while the rubble of Canterlot's castle floated and circled over his head. The Princesses that called it home were almost in front of him, hurt and exhausted with their armors broken. Luna was on the ground, her mane and tail no longer a starry sky, but a light blue. Her glare was a mix of anger and resignation; she knew victory was his, and couldn't do anything to change that. Celesia was trying to stand up and muster the courage to see beyond her pink mane and to the Spirit in front of her.

Discord looked way worse: covered in burns and wounds from which magic shone as the energy fixed his body at a snail's pace. He could do it in an instant, but he was so exhausted he let that function in automatic. It was pretty slow by itself.

That's why he was missing both his bat wing and his tail, among other things.

A burst of fire at their right caught their attention.

A prison of books burned as flames consumed the paper, and with it the spell on them, freeing their only prisoner.

In a flash, Twilight was in front of him, covered in ashes and glaring at him while tears trickled down her face.

"Hah! Told you she would destroy the books, Meridian! I win!"

"Damn! I was so sure that she loved books to much to do that." the crocodile lamented.

"Let that teach you to never bet against me! Now I get to choose dinner, and we'll enjoy that cheese and ham stuffed chicken I like so much." Chryssie gloated, dreaming about her favourite food... that wasn't an emotion.

"Chicken?! Bless you, Chryssie! I love you!" Nidhogg said, crying and showering her with kisses. While the others laughed at Chryssie's attempts to get him off of her, Discord just sighed in annoyance.

"I'll say this once, Sparky: please step aside," were his tired words. Both of them knew she wouldn't, but he still asked her; his problem wasn't with the unicorn.

Twilight gritted her teeth and summoned a barrier around her and the princesses with all the magic she had left.

Discord's tail materialized and shot underground; a few seconds later it erupted between Twilight's hooves and coiled around her. The unicorn found herself lifted in the air but before she could do something about it... and started to laugh as the puff of white hair tickled her mercilessly.

Her concentration broken, the shield fell and in an instant Discord was in front of her, holding Twilight's horn.

"Sleep."

And so she did.

Gently letting her on the ground, Discord walked around until reaching the alicorns, who were back on their hooves and glaring at him.

The three were exhausted and hurt, but Discord wasn't going to stop until he had his revenge.

He growled... no, they growled, eight voices as one, ready to impart justice and exact revenge. The ice pack melted so suddenly it went straight to plasma.

And then something tackled the Spirits and threw them to the ground.

Looking up, and now back in full control, Discord noticed that everything around him was frozen. But not in ice.

In time.

Annoyed, Discord shifted his gaze to the newcomer.

Discord knew that the creature in front of him didn't have a physical body. They (because male or female weren't terms that could be applied to the newcomer) just used the armor to move comfortably in this plane of existence.

"Oh, no; not him!" Meridian groaned.

The Spirit of Chaos stood up as tall as he was, all twelve feet, more than twice the size of the white metal vessel in front of him.

"Long time no see, Guardian of the Timeline."

[b"]Discord," Their voice echoed, like they were talking from a deep cavern. "I cannot let you do this." The draconequus groaned while the spirits in his head protested and threw insults at the Guardian.

"And why, for the love of Chaos, can't you? This is just a simple revenge."

"Killing the alicorns will change everything for the worse, Discord," they said, their voice so calm it was almost monotone.

He stared at them with a dumbstruck expression, blinking several times before talking again.

"Killing? I was just going to ruin their lives."

"WHAT?!" The other seven Spirits roared. The draconequus's world went white for an instant due to the psychic scream. More than enough for the Guardian to disappear from his sight.

Gee, thanks guys. That's exactly what I needed.

"Are you kidding me, Discord?!" Kevin shouted, ignoring him.

Dead people don't suffer, Kevin.

"... Hes got a point, you know." Silver admitted.

"You have lost most of your self-control." Came their voice from behind him.

"Oh, really? I wonder why," he deadpanned as he turned around and threw a snowball at the time being.

It impacted their helmet and left it with a funny looking snow beard. The Guardian ignored it and walked towards him, undeterred.

Discord summoned the coldness of space, trapping them in an ice so cold, oxygen itself was solid; but the creature walked through it, undeterred.

Discord bent space between them, up and down and sideways and making shortcuts and longcuts throught the smaller, subatomic dimensions that ended up even before the beginning; but they walked through them undeterred, unfolding reality and putting it back together.

Discord pulled a lever, and the Guardian was on an elevator that shot up at incredible speeds, ending up in front of the unbelievably hot sun. He wasn't surprised (but was definitively annoyed) when the hot red box came back and the door melted apart, revealing the undeterred time being walking forward like it was nothing.

Getting tired of this, Discord glued their feet to the ground with hyper-strong, hyper-durable glue capable of keeping tectonic plates together. The Guardian simply took off the armor's feet and summoned new ones.

"... You have to admit, that was a bit funny." Kevin chuckled.

With a groan, Discord fell back into a comfortable couch, calling forth his patented cup filled with an ocean of frutal mix juice. With so many fruits in it, the flavor changed as you sipped it.

"Ok, I'll listen to you only because I'm too tired to try and stop you."

The Guardian walked until he was standing in front of Discord. The yellow particles filtering through the helmet's holes (Discord betted to a Spirit of Harmony that they were simply too lazy to make a decent one, and won, to Chryssie's delight) stared at the draconequus.

"The damage they had caused to you goes deeper than you believe, Spirit of Chaos."

"More reason for me to make them pay." He said dully, taking a long sip.

"You are but a mere, pathetic shadow of what you once were."

Ohh... bad move. If Discord was anything, it was prideful.

"EXCUSE ME?! I'm still the most skilled wizard in the entire planet, and probably in all of the world's history!" The Spirit snarled, greatly offended. Good thing the cup was as close to indestructible as he could make things be, or there would be a new ocean in the planet.

"Perhaps..." Oh, Discord wanted to make him swallow those words so much "...but I meant that your mind is so damaged, you're barely the person you were before. With a simple, harmless comment, I can bring you to anger; that's how vulnerable you are now emotionally."

"Like I said: more reason for me to make them pay!" This day was going from bad to worse, and Discord's mood along with it. The juice helped to distract himself from all that, though.

"You know it is my job to-"

"Yeah, yeah, the timeline and the flow and everything; I haven't forgotten that," he snapped.

"Keep walking this road, and you would doom this world like some of your predecessors did. Nowhere near as that foolish, blasted excuse of a Spirit that Meridian, though." They said, expressing emotion for the first time in this conversation:

Annoyance.

As everyone else laughed at a grumbling Meridian, Discord chuckled and took a deep breath. As he exhaled, screams and threats came out through his nostrils, fading in the frozen air.

"If (and it's a huge 'if', mind you) I listen to you, what do you want me to do?" The Guardian turned around and looked at the princesses as they answered.

"They are still needed; they have been the greatest reason for Equestria to become what it is today, and are the best choice to repair what Meridian broke. They are still putting the foundations, but one day their legacy will create something that you've been wishing for."

Discord was silent, wondering which of his many wishes the Guardian was talking about.

Everything around them blurred; alarmed, Discord conjured an hourglass and looked at the sand.

it was going from the bottom to the top.

Reality became clear again, and things were back to their usual, dull way before he flipped his lid.

"This time, choose another way. Because you'll have to face me if you repeat what you did."

The Spirits were the most powerful beings on the planet, and the Spirits of Chaos were probably the only ones that could face beings like the Guardian and have good chances of winning... but Discord knew they would kick his tail to the ends of the galaxy before he managed to simply scratch that armor. So it wasn't an encouraging prospect.

"This thirst for revenge won't sate that easily, you know," he mumbled, looking at the castle with such intensity that all of Canterlot trembled briefly under the power of his gaze.

"Then do what you had planned before; annoy them for the rest of their lives. Be that thorn in their side that they can't get rid of."

"...I could live with that," he admitted. 'What about you, guys?'

His tenants huddled together and discussed something in such a low voice that he couldn't made out the words before they split and Silver took a step forward. "We have reached a consensus," the gargoyle said; " as much as we'd love to enact revenge on the alicorns, we are in no condition to fight and beat the Guardian. So, we reluctantly agree to his terms... for now."

'Good enough for me.'

"Fine, you win," he told... to the air. The Guardian was gone.

'Huh, not even a goodbye? How rude.'

After stretching, he teleported to Fluttershy's cottage.

He had made sure to trap her there during the battle, trying to get out only making her enter the building again from the other side. And it was definitely not because it was heartbreaking to see her betrayed face and hear her desperate cries for him to stop.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but that Guardian was right. You've been friends for a day! It shouldn't have hurt you so much; you are not that desperate..." grumbled Nidhogg.

"Hey, Flutters."

She turned around with a surprised smile that promptly fell when she saw him. That was followed with a scream that hurt Discord's battered sense of hearing.

"Owowow, my ears!"

"DISCORD! What happened to you?!" she whisper-yelled -that was new for the draconequus- before flying to him, her hooves checking his arm.

"What are you... oh."

He was still wounded.

"You know, the Guardian could have healed you. The least it could do for stopping our revenge," Chryssie complained.

"Right, forgot to fix that." With a red, light blue and purple glow (Fluttershy could swore she saw the shadows of another seven dimensions then; though she had no idea how she could even tell that), Discord was back to normal, if still looking like he had had a long, long day.

"What happened?"

"A little incident that ended with some time travel. Nothing that should worry you, it's all fixed now," he answered rather vaguely, taking her couch and stretching it to use as a bed. "Do you mind if I sleep here?"

It took her a while to calm down. For the most part it was at how exhausted Discord looked, and how fast he fell asleep. Still, she couldn't help but worry, and the next day she greeted him with a great, delicious breakfast.

Which both made his day and make him feel guiltier at what he'd done in that moment that no longer existed. Not that he was ever going to tell her.

Author's Note

Wasn't sure how to start this story, but I think I finally had it right. What do you think?

The Guardian is gonna be something of a recurring character, appearing to make sure the timeline doesn't change for worse, and generally making sure Discord doesn't screw things up while he recovers. We may not see him, but he's always watching.

Always.