“Seriously? Are we down to parental clichés?”

Frankly, I was pissed. I really didn’t need this right now. Parents are terrible to have during a life-or-death crisis. Especially mine. Not to sound like a hormonal teenager, but they just never got me. Especially when I came back to Equestria with the ability to pass the salt to myself at the dinner table. I understand why they were unnerved, but they could have handled it better. Except the skeletal arm. There was no good way to deal with that.

“Happy to see us?” Ben asked cheerfully. Too cheerfully, especially for the Grim Reaper. But honesty is the best policy, right?

“No!” I screamed at them. “What the hell are you all doing here?! Especially with my parents!! There is no reason on Celestia’s green Equestria that they should be here!! This is way, way too dangerous for them!! Get them out now!!”

At this point, I had almost forgotten that Discord was still standing there, waiting for me to get my act together. I only remembered him when he began to chuckle. Well, it started as a chuckle. It quickly grew into a full on break down, though. “This is terrific! I can’t believe that you morons actually brought his family here to watch him fail!” he sobbed through the laughter. “There is nothing I can think of that could hurt better than this!”

Ignoring the boisterous laughter from the creature next to him, John just smiled. “Ben here figured that ya’ll could use some loving support from the people who love you. Ah tagged along so that ah could meet some more of mah descendants. It’s nice talkin’ to you young folks.”

I sighed. Nice as he is, he’s just kind of… dull. “Dude, look. I know that meeting your descendants must be great. I know meeting my ancestors is, but this isn’t a game. Despite all appearances,” I muttered under my breath. I really hoped the flying cats didn’t show us right at that second. “What I need right now is for you to get them to safety. Take them to the Crossroads for all I care. Just get them out.”

Discord opened his mouth to say something, but Dad cut him off before he could. I guess chaos has manners sometimes too. “S-son, we weren’t sure about coming here either. We were, uh, unclear a-as to the details of the… situation…” he stuttered as he talked. I almost had him sit down before he went into shock. Mom didn’t look much better. “We just want to help you… deal with… whatever this is…” He didn’t say anything else, just looked around the field in a moderate panic.

“Dad, we are not debating this. This is not like when I was a kid and you were trying to talk me out of sliding down the driveway and into traffic in the winter. This is different because that was a much better idea and I had a much better chance of survival that time. This is a much worse idea. This will almost undoubtedly kill me again.”

“Again?!” Mom spoke for the first time. Then she quickly degraded into mostly hyperventilating. “What… you… how… died?”

I was lucky she was a strong woman. She should have passed out like Dad was. “First, catch him please.” Ben caught him, John being unable to. “Thanks. And second, I’m going to guess you didn’t tell her?”

Ben shook his head. “I figured that since you hadn’t, it wasn’t our place.” He put my dad down and stood up before saying any more. “So no. And there is a lot of explaining that needs to happen sometime. But we don’t have the time to do that right now. You have to get to work, don’t you?” His hand glowed softly and Dad woke back up. “Give your parents the kiddie explanation and go to it.”

I dove right in as Dad picked himself up out of the dirt. “Ok, so Discord, the alleged Lord of Chaos, is trying to take over Equestria. I have no idea where Princess Celestia is, and I don’t know if anyone else does. Do you?” I turned back to the others long enough to see a lot of heads shaking no. “So, we don’t know where Celestia is, I tunneled through a mountain in a day, my spirit was torn away from my body because Discord cheated, but I pulled myself back together, literally, with the help of Ben and John and everypony standing behind me, and now I need to go back to saving Equestria by doing things without thinking of the consequences, ok?” I took their silent, gaping faces as yeses. “Good. Now, as for you,” I said, finally turning my attention back on Discord, who was only just now gathering himself and floating back up to his feet. “Think you can out-chaos me and defend your title?”

“Oh, you little nimrod, you couldn’t beat me even if you had the exact same powers as I do!” he giggled.

“All right, I’ll take your bet.” That’s exactly what I had hoped he would say. “We’ll evenly match up, powers for powers, and go off. I win, you leave Equestria alone and release Celestia from whatever prison she’s in. What do you want for your wager?”

“Oh, I think you’re just expecting me to give you a cop out just like that? Winning will be reward enough for me, because if I win, then that means I’ve killed you, or found a suitable replacement, and I can continue doing whatever I want.” He was wrong on one count. I knew that that was exactly what he was going to say too.

“Good. That just leaves giving me the same powers you have.”

He began to laugh again. “You really think I’d do that? What kind of idiot are you?!”

“I’m no idiot,” I said, shrugging and flashing another arrogant smile. “But it sounds like your chicken.”

His mirth stopped just as quickly as it had begun. “What?”

“Oh, I just pointed out that you happen to be a coward who can’t put his money where his mouth is. To phrase it so you can understand: bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk!”

“You little brat!!” Lightning suddenly shot from his hands and I felt the same thing I had felt when Nightmare Moon had given me her magic. Discords own magic filled me and I felt rejuvenated, especially by the fact that I had succeeded in forcing him into this. Rage filled his eyes as he continued to give me magic identical to his own, and as he saw I was enjoying the victory.

When he finally stopped, I stood up, no changed on the outside, but much more powerful. “Sweet,” I said. “Thanks for that.”

“You have five minutes to say your final goodbyes before I pulverize you,” he growled.

I turned back to the girls. They actually didn’t seem afraid, which was a good thing. I think that the thought of me dying was commonplace enough that it didn’t frighten them anymore. Except Luna, who was beginning to tear up again. I put my good hand to her muzzle. “Hey, I’ll be fine, you know that.”

She sniffled and looked at me sadly. “I know, but I just want to say… *sniff*… I want the same thing you do. To just rest without having to think about Equestria rebuilding or being destroyed again. This is all so much for just two years. I’m just tired too. Please promise that you will come back safe?”

I smiled at her and just said, “I promise. I love you, Luna.” I gave her muzzle a quick rub, a kiss, and then I turned back to Discord. “Well, come on. I don’t have all day. I’m planning on making dinner for and love to my wife. Both are going to be time consuming.” I ignored the sound of my mother finally passing out and Luna giggling cutely.

“Well, if you’re so cocky,” Discord started, but had to stop for a second while I snorted in laughter. “Oh, come on! You use that word too!” he cried, throwing his hands in the air.

“Yeah, but not after making a sex joke!” I corrected. “Though it wasn’t entirely a joke,” I added, throwing a look back to a blushing Luna.

“Ugh, whatever,” Discord spat, rolling his eyes. “If you’re so confident, then let’s get to work.” He threw up his hands, but I think that that was mostly a theatrical effect. Either way, the ground around us shattered and lifted us into the air, each of us standing on his own platform. “Hit me with your best shot!” he cried.

With a snap of my fingers, I allowed Pat Benatars rendition of that same song to start playing. As the music filled the air, I urged each individual note to come into physical existence, and soon I had a swirling cloud of little black music notes swirling around me, effectively making my lower half look like a tornado.

Discord laughed arrogantly. “Ha! Is that really your best?” Conjuring a large fork, he aimed at me and began firing spear sized spoons at me. Reaching down into the swirling music around me, I grabbed a handful of notes and threw them in the direction of the spoons, making little bowls of soup out of them as they flew. Each bowl intercepted a spoon, and pretty soon I had paired up every spoon fired with a bowl. Unfortunately that used up every note that was twirling around me.

“Dude, I’m just getting warmed up!” Without really thinking about it, I started to summon flowers. Flowers just started to fly out of my fingertips. Not any specific kind of flower, just lots of them. Tulips, roses, snapdragons, posies, and other kinds that I don’t even know. Red, blue, green, gold, teal, all the colors of the rainbow and others that just weren’t natural. Each stem spun itself into the next, and they made a very colorful wall in front of me. The wall began to spin, really pretty rapidly. The spinning array of colors was enough to give someone a seizure if they looked at it long enough. As it spun, I began to focus again. I focused on each individual flower, every stem, every petal, every bit of pollen.

And set them on fire.

Focusing on the pollen, I began to shoot it at Discord, some of it leaving little fiery trails behind as it flew. Rather than letting it fly in a straight line, I had it spin in circles. Admittedly I was working blindly, but I knew everything I did. I was acutely aware of everything that I was involved in. every bit of pollen was exactly where it needed to be, swirling around Discord. Everything was going how I wanted it.

That was why I was losing. Discord began to laugh. Long and loud, he laughed. It was… Curiously unsettling. “Really? Really? Flaming flowers? That’s the best you can do?!? As much as you have made interesting choices in your weapons, that’s exactly what they are! Choices! A planned idea! This isn’t chaos! This is a confused child!” he screamed. “You think you can defeat me with parlor tricks? Think again!!!” My flowers disintegrated, but the flaming pollen kept swirling around him. But as I watched, the single spores began to turn into bees. And they grew. They were very big, very angry bees. With scary stingers. That glowed purple and dripped venom. Or ketchup, I’m not sure. I never will be sure either. As they began to come after me, I turned my chunk of land around and ran. I flew as fast as I could in no specific direction. I let the land fly wherever it wanted.

Unfortunately, it began flying in circles. Great big twirly whirly wanna-throw-up-and-the-worker-won’t-stop-the-ride circles. The center of every circle was Discord. He just spun on his own little island and tried to keep track of me, even though I couldn’t keep track of me. I stopped trying to make certain objects and just threw whatever came to hand. Staplers, bacon, woodpeckers, I think there was even a few palm trees. Anything and everything that I could have created with magic was launched at Discord at blinding speeds. He threw up whatever in return he could to try and protect himself from my barrage, but things began to slowly slip through.

As things began to hit him, he grew more and more frustrated. Just little things, but they were effective. Never tell me that a stegosaurus jaw in the eye doesn’t hurt, because it really looked painful. That may have been the breaking point, now that I think about it. Shortly after that, his bees exploded in icy clouds of fake leather. Which is weird. But I realized he was right. He was outdoing everything I did. And without even trying. Without figuring out something to give me a leading edge, I was in trouble.

“Oh! I remember! I was actually going to tell you something!” Ben suddenly called out. “You apparently, by breaking the laws of Death twice, are now capable of interacting with things on both planes of existence. Just, you know, a fun fact. It might help at some point.”

“Seriously? A helpful bit of information like that, and you forgot?” I couldn’t see him from my perch, just make out a black blur on the ground. “Man, you really got to work on giving me the details that may help me out in a case of not dying slash coming back to life sooner!”

“Sorry!” he was shouting in a way that told me he wasn’t really concerned.

“Dude! I’m not kidding! Anything else you feel the need to tell me while I’m in an incredible amount of peril and spinning uncontrollably?” I took his silence as a no. “When I get down from here, I am going to kill you! Well, make you deader. Wait.” I threw some honey flavored confetti to throw the bees off and slowed to a stop. “Is it possible to kill the persona of Death?” I directed my question at Discord.

“I don’t know…” He stopped his maniac ranting for a moment and thought. “It might be. Not actual death, but something more…” I took my chance. I turned my plot of land at him and flew at him as fast as I could. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw me and turned with an evil grin. “Not this time,” he practically whispered. Laughing without moving his mouth, he reached up and unscrewed his head. Well, the top of his skull, really. And the impossible happened again. A hole about the size of a watermelon, that was missing a brain, reached out and encompassed me.

I was taken into the darkness.

Author's Note

So, apparently chaos battles are ridiculously difficult to write. The more you learn, right?