Princesses of Equestria

Chapter 38: The Greatest Magic of All

Discord blew himself up.

Oh, not into smoking chunks, like when he'd tricked those royal nitwits into thinking they'd accidentally gone too far. Tia and Lulu had been shooting that ridiculous Harmony laser at him again. It was the only attack they ever used; since he'd escaped to Equestria from Tartarus's hellish depths, it was Elements of Harmony this, taste the rainbow that, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Narrow-minded fillystines. Did they not know any other combat spells?

Still, Discord hadn't complained. Open minded foes might have realized he'd just temporarily disassembled his corporeal vessel into chunk-sized motile fragments while popping a really big firecracker, instead of actually being blown to messy bits.

As it was, Discord's explosive performance had put them off the scent for a solid week, and he possessed enough cunning to evade the Princesses' detection for months. But Equinox Greens had proved too tempting. An enchanted wonderland forged by the Heartstone of Queen Eponia herself, home and personal playground to a third alicorn Princess with more magical potential than Celestia and Luna? Combined? He couldn't resist.

So he didn't.

A single industrial strength fingersnap, and Canterlot palace cantered right off its mountain, headed due east on its new rampart-legs. Tia and Lulu, predictable as ever, sped due east in pursuit, desperate to rescue everypony taken along for the ride.

As if they needed rescuing. Discord's industrial strength fingersnap had secured all of Canterlot's passengers in industrial strength safety harnesses. Not that the Princesses knew of course. If they had, they'd probably be heading west instead, for that tantalizing blueish-gold dome which loomed over the horizon.

Discord appraised its ward. Ugh. Sphinx-forged. He stifled a yawn. No doubt the dreary thing would try to test him with three riddles the second he approached its barrier. Discord felt a grin coming on. He wouldn't need a second to get through. Not even close.

The Prince of Pandemonium opened the floodgates. Unleashed the chaos within. And blew himself up, literally, like a balloon, his dashing patchwork body inflating tenfold, twentyfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold!

In exactly zero point three seconds, the maestro of mayhem had inflated to mountainous proportions. In the next point three, he'd pulled a hammer twice that size from behind his ear.

"Special delivery for Equinox Greens!" Discord boomed, and lined up the shot just so.

"Great hairballs of fire," a tiny sphinx swore from behind the ward, shielding an alicorn at its side. "Take cover, Miss Nox!"

"One king sized draconequus with ward-busting mallet action?" Discord swung. "CHECK!"

KA-SMASH!

The ward-busting mallet lived up to its namesake. Sort of. Equinox Greens' ward did indeed bust under Discord's colossal strike ... and so did the mallet, blown to splinters from surging feedback. A pity. Discord had nothing to hit the pride of sphinxes with.

"Question:" they snarled. "These chains are unbreakable. How do you break them?"

Chink.

Conjured shackles sprayed Discord like silly string, and mountainous though he was, the sphinxes bound him antler to tail tuft before his finger was halfway snapped. The full, monotonous force of the sphinx's will pressed upon Discord's. He rolled his eyes.

"Answer: By breaking what's inside the chains instead." Discord imagined a huge red button labelled 'do not push'. "INITIATE KING SIZED SELF-DESTRUCT!" He pushed it. And blasted ninety-nine point nine nine percent of himself to messy smithereens. The remaining percentile (his original handsome self) watched the show.