KAGURA'S INTERVENTION

KAGOME'S FEET SLAPPED AT THE COBBLESTONE ROAD AS SHE RAN. THE RAIN made the road slick, which didn't help her much. She kept slipping as she ran; her shoes were not meant to go through this kind of abuse.

She glanced over her shoulders, saw the Changelings still after her. She, Rainbow Dash, and Shining Armor had encountered them as they made their way to the tower. In the ensuing fight, she had gotten separated from them and had used up all but one of her arrows. She couldn't use it, not right now.

Her breathing had become labored. Since she got pulled down the old well on the family shrine, she had gotten used to running from demons and bandits, but these creatures were testing her endurance. She hadn't run this much since she first arrived in the Feudal Era, not since she was being chased by Mistress Centipede. She was running as fast as she could, and yet she could still feel the hot breath of the Changelings directly behind her hitting her bare legs.

Something hit her in the back, hard, knocking her down. Her face slammed into the ground; water went up her nose and into her mouth. She coughed, trying to clear her nose and throat of the water.

There was the distinct sound of hooves clip-clopping on the ground around her. She looked up, saw the Changelings gathering. Saliva dripped from their open maws, and their translucent wings flapped rapidly with anticipation.

Crap, Crap, CRAP!

She climbed to her feet and took off running again, ignoring the pain in her back, ignoring the Changelings snapping at her arms and legs.

She slipped and fell again, but managed to catch herself this time. She turned around, took the arrow out of her quiver, notched it in her bowstring, and took aim at the nearest Changeling.

It was so close that she couldn't miss.

She let the arrow fly.

Because Kagome had poured her spiritual powers into the arrow, it began to glow before it left the bow. The glow just got brighter in the split second it flew, until it hit the closest Changeling in the head.

The arrow hit. The Changeling's head exploded in a shower of blood and bone.

She had seen this sort of thing so many times over the past several months, and yet, no matter how many times she saw it, it still made her stomach queasy.

You can worry about hurling later, Kagome! You're out of arrows, and there's who knows how many Changelings in front of you! You'd need a miracle to get out of this one.

A Changeling leaped at her. She put her bow between them. The Changeling's jaws clamped down on the bow. The force was enough to throw Kagome to the ground. She held on to the bow as tight as she could, but with the Changeling chewing on it, its teeth digging into the wood of the bow, it was very difficult. She could feel her grip slipping.

She was too focused on keeping the Changeling from getting to her that she never noticed the other Changelings suddenly disappearing, barely noticed the Changeling she was wrestling with moving backwards, until it was lifted into the air by the tail, held by, by….

It was, by far, the strangest creature she had ever seen. It stood on two legs, standing nearly nine feet tall. As for its body….That was where the strangeness began. Its head was that of a horse, with the horns of a stag and an antelope on top, the beard of a goat growing off its chin, and a single fang coming from the corner of its mouth. Its body was long and serpentine, ending in a lizard-like tail, which was tipped with a small tuft of fur. One of its legs was that of a lizard, the other a deer's leg. Its arms were just as mish-mashed, with its left arm being a lion's paw and the right arm being an eagle's talon. One wing was a bird's wing, the other a bat's wing. Its yellow and red eyes were asymmetrical, with the right eye being slightly larger and more rounded than its left eye.

Kagome could only stare, wide-eyed and confused, at the creature as the Changeling started snapping at it, but the creature was just out of its reach.

The creature spoke, its voice smooth and smug.

It almost reminded her of Naraku, but a bit more playful.

"That's not very nice," the creature said. It held its free hand, the eagle talon, out, one finger pointed at the Changeling. The Changeling's body began to grow, getting more and more bloated, until –

BOOM!

The Changeling's body exploded. Blood, bone, and gore rained down on them. Or, it would have, had an umbrella not suddenly materialized in the creature's hand. The canopy was turned upside down, catching the disgusting bits as they rained down from the sky.

"Ooh. Nasty." The creature tossed the umbrella away; it began to spin around like a helicopter's rotors and lifted off into the air. "Well, that's a few less Changelings to worry about."

Kagome climbed to her feet, never taking her eyes off of this, this….The only word she could think of was "freak", maybe "abomination". She had seen a lot of strange creatures in the last few months, but this thing – it had her completely mystified.

"Well, don't thank me right away," the creature said. "Or, maybe, you're so impressed that you're at a loss for words." It began speaking in a mock high-pitched girly voice. "Oh, Discord, I could never have beaten those Changelings by myself! Thank you so much!"

"Discord?" Kagome managed to get out.

"That's me," Discord said. "And who might you be, pretty eyes? No, no, wait, don't tell me – let me guess: Your name is…Kagome Higurashi. Wow. That's a mouthful."

"How do you know my name?" Kagome asked. She was now more confused than ever.

Discord put an arm around her shoulders. He was so close that she could see the hairs on his snout. "I'm omnipotent. I know everyone, I know everything. For instance, I know why you and your little friends are here in Equestria – you're after that Jurorenmaru fellow. He's got something you're looking for. Or rather, he did; Prince Carapace has it now. And then you've got those other two demons, Kagura and Kanna – that Kanna gives me the creeps. Should I mention Kohaku? Or how they attacked this city earlier? Oh heck, I'm sure you've already seen that damage."

Kagome pushed away from him. "If you know what happened, then why didn't you do anything to stop it? You blew up that Changeling and did who knows what to all those others that were after me – "

"I'm a creature of chaos. I can do what I want. So I simply made them nonexistent."

"Okay, so you've got powers. Why didn't you stop the attack earlier? You could have saved a lot of innocent ponies! You could have kept Twilight's brother from getting hurt! Heck, you could have taken out Carapace yourself, not to mention Jurorenmaru, Kagura, and Kanna. So why didn't you? Why did you let them attack? Why did you let so many ponies die? What is wrong with you, you freak?"

"I was…preoccupied," Discord said. "Okay, that's a lame excuse, but it's the best I've got. What would you expect me to say – I didn't want to make things easy for you?"

Kagome just glared at him, her nostrils flaring in frustration. If he was so powerful, then why didn't he do anything? She didn't accept his excuse of being preoccupied.

But she could worry about that later.

"Forget it. I need to find an armory and restock on arrows."

"The armory? I love that place. The guardstallions in there have some funny stories to tell. But it's all the way on the other side of the city."

"And I doubt I've got time to get there."

Discord put his arm around Kagome's shoulders again. He was starting to make her feel uncomfortable. "Oh, we've got time. Like zero-point-two-five seconds." He snapped his fingers, and they were no longer on the city streets. Instead, they were in the middle of an armory – spears and swords lined the walls; there were bows and quivers on a rack in the corner.

And in the basket next to the rack were some arrows. More than enough to fill an entire quiver.

She slung her empty quiver off of her shoulder and began to fill it with arrows, putting them in point down.

"I've got a question," Discord said. "Why don't you use a sword or a spear? Why do you insist on using arrows?"

"I'm more comfortable with a bow than I am any sword or spear."

"You sure? You sure it's not because you want to live up to your ancestor's reputation?"

Kagome stopped. She turned around to face Discord, her face stoic, her eyes showing sadness.

"How do you know about Kikyo?" she asked.

Kikyo was the priestess who once guarded the Shikon Jewel. Fifty years before Kagome entered the Feudal Era, Kikyo and Inuyasha had developed a deep friendship. Their friendship eventually developed into a romance, but thanks to Naraku's manipulations, they were turned against each other. Naraku, disguised as Inuyasha, had struck Kikyo down, and then, he disguised himself as Kikyo and attempted to kill Inuyasha. This action prompted Inuyasha to try to steal the Shikon Jewel, only to be sealed to a tree by Kikyo, who died of her wounds a moment later.

A few months ago, a witch named Urasue violated Kikyo's grave, stealing her ashes and mixing them with a clay doll and a portion of Kagome's soul to revive Kikyo. Kikyo now lived essentially as a zombie, using creatues known as Soul Collectors to gather the souls of the dead to power her artificial body.

"Oh, wait, I forgot. That's a touchy subject," Discord said. "You know what, forget I said anything. And as for the boy, let's not mention that to Sango. I hear she gets pretty upset."

"That would be a good idea," Kagome said. "If you bring that up around Sango, she could, well…."

"I know, I know. She could beat the tar out of me, or even kill me. Wouldn't be the first time. I've been dead before, and let me tell you, it really stings."

Kagome shook her head. She wanted to forget this conversation, and besides, they had things to do.

"Can we just get going?" she asked.

"Actually, you might want to duck."

"What? Why?"

"Just get down!" Discord grabbed her arm and threw her to the ground. He placed himself on top of her, shielding her as the roof of the armory was blown away, shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. Rubble rained down on top of them.

They stood up and looked up into the sky. There, hovering above them on that giant feather of hers, was Kagura.

"Oh. Wonderful," Kagome hissed.

"There you – " Kagura started to say, before setting her eyes on Discord. "Just what is that…that THING?"

"I am a draconequus," Discord said. "Geez. Why are humans so racist against my kind? Now, you want a draconequus to hate, look at my brother. Hoo boy, Havok is a JERK!"

Kagura waved her fan. "DANCE OF BLADES!"

The wind blades flew at them, so fast Kagome could barely track them. She got ready to run, but stopped when Discord held out a hand, halting the blades in mid-air.

"What the – "

With a twirl of his finger, the blades turned around to face Kagura, and after a quick flick of the wrist, they flew at her.

"WHAT THE HELL!" Kagura screamed. She dodged left and right, barely managing to avoid the blades. "How the hell did he do that?"

Discord flew up to Kagura. "Hi. How're you doing? Y'know, you're nowhere near as pretty as Kagome is." He blew into his thumb, blowing his hand up like a balloon, and with a hard swing of his arm, hit Kagura in the face, sending her flying away, all the way to the other side of the city. "Consider that your first beauty treatment, ya whore!"

Kagome just stared in wide-eyed shock. Just what WAS this creature? It had called itself a creature of chaos, but by all rights, it shouldn't even have existed!

Discord landed softly, patting himself on the back – one of his arms had been detached and was now being held in his free hand to literally pat himself on the back. He put his detached arm back where it belonged. "That was easy. Maybe a little too easy. So, what's next on our agenda, Kagome?"

"Wait, just give me a minute to wrap my head around all this."

"You want some help? I'll be happy to oblige."

"No! No, I don't want help with it! I don't know what you'd do! I don't WANT to know what you'd do! I just want to find Rainbow Dash and Shining Armor. I don't know if they're okay, or if they're even still alive. I want to help Inuyasha. I want to help Twilight. They need me. They need their friends. So why don't you use your freaky cosmic powers to help me do that."

"Okay, okay, fine," Discord huffed. "Sheesh. Ya help someone out and they treat you like, like, oh, I don't know, the back end of a hydra."

"So tell me something, Discord," Kagome said as she put her hands on her hips. "If you know my name, if you know about Inuyasha and Kikyo and all of our friends, then do you know where my friends are now?"

"What part of 'omnipotent' did you not catch?" Discord asked. "One order of Rainbow Dash and Shining Armor coming right up."

With a snap of his fingers, they were transported into an alleyway. Rainbow Dash and Shining Armor were huddled against a hay cart; they were both soaked from the rain and covered in sweat, and Rainbow Dash's legs and face were covered in cuts – none of the cuts looked too serious.

Rainbow Dash was just finishing tying a makeshift bandage around Shining Armor's leg when they arrived.

"Well, look who you found," Rainbow Dash said. "Figures Discord would be hanging around."

"And get this, Shining Armor," Kagome said. "Discord knew about the initial attack, but didn't do anything about it."

"You what!"

"I was busy, what can I say?" Discord smugly asked. "Besides, right now, I think there's more important things to worry about." He coughed, spitting up a piece of paper. "Oh, look at that. A map of Canterlot." He snapped his fingers, materializing a table, and he lay the map out. "Okay, let's take a look. Inuyasha and Jurorenmaru are having their little spat right here on Horseshoe Avenue. Twilight's in the tower with Carapace and the other three princesses, and Kanna – that kid is CREEPY! Anyway, we're here in the alley between Saddle Boulevard and Bridle Circle. Looks like Sango, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and the kitty cat are here at Stallion Drive. Miroku, Rarity, and Fluttershy are over…here, at Bit Street." As he talked and pointed at the map, small images of everyone he named off appeared. "And the entire city is full of Changelings." The streets on the map turned black as they were filled with small images of the Changelings. "Doesn't look like any of them have transformed yet."

"What do you mean, transformed?" Kagome asked.

"Don't you know anything about Changelings?" Rainbow Dash demanded. "They can turn into whatever creature they want! They can turn into you, they can turn into me, and who knows what else!"

"And there's some coming this way," Discord said.

No sooner did he say that did a horde of Changelings come around the corner. They huddled into the alley, saliva dripping from their jaws.

"Ah. Good," Discord said. He poked the map and table with his finger, deflating them like a balloon. "This is going to be fun."

Kagome put up a hand, stopping him from doing anything. "Wait a minute, Discord. They're doing something."

The Changelings' bodies were surrounded by a light green glow. Their bodies began to vibrate.

And then the changes began.

Some of the Changelings stood up on their hind legs. Their bodies got longer, until they were now standing at close to eight feet tall. Instead of resembling horses, they now resembled bipedal goats, each one armed with a lance and adorned with black armor. Their coats were no longer black; they were now dark brown and covered in shaggy fur.

Some more Changelings were much taller and much more bulky. Their coats were replaced with gray, pebbly skin that was covered in warts. Their front hooves turned into three-fingered hands; some of them were carrying various types of clubs – made out of trees or the lower jaw bones of some large creature, probably a dragon. A single eye sat in the center of their foreheads.

"Oh you've got to be bucking kidding me," Rainbow Dash breathed. "They can turn into satyrs and cyclopes?!"

"That's not good, that's NOT GOOD!" Discord screamed. "Wait, wait, what am I saying? Of course it's good. Everyone ready to have some fun?"

"Forget it," Kagome said. "Everybody RUN!"

She, Rainbow Dash, and Shining Armor turned and started running the other way. Shining Armor could hardly keep up; his bad leg was slowing him down.

Discord didn't move; he was too busy laughing.

"Oh boy, this is going to be fun," he said. He raised an arm. "Here's some refreshing chocolate milk for you guys!" With a wave of his hand, the rain changed; it was no longer water, but rather, it was now chocolate milk, and the clouds had changed from normal clouds to cotton candy clouds. "Drink up, boys and girls."

A cyclops stomped over to him, stepping on a satyr as it did. It roared at Discord.

"Wow. When was the last time you brushed your teeth?" The cyclops roared again. "Hoo boy. I'd have to say never. And are you really turning this into a roaring contest? Okay." He took a deep breath and let out a loud lion-like roar. The force of the roar was so powerful that it ripped the cyclops's skin off, leaving nothing but muscle dripping with blood. The cyclops fell to the ground, dead before it even hit. "Now that's a roar."

Kagome started pulling on his arm. "Come on, you idiot!" She pulled him away, just a second before a cyclops's club came down, shattering the road.

A satyr charged at them, its lance ready. Kagome took aim with an arrow and fired. The arrow hit, blowing the satyr's top half completely off. Its lower half was crushed beneath a cyclops's massive foot.

Rainbow Dash charged forward. She barreled into the horde, moving so fast that the sonic wave she left in her wake threw the creatures to the ground and shattered some nearby windows. She turned in mid-air and charged again, only to get slapped away by a cyclops's club. She slammed into a nearby wall, leaving a pony-sized indent in the marble.

"Rainbow!"

"I'm fine," Rainbow Dash said. She shook her head. "Gonna have a headache after this, though."

"Rainbow Dash, get out of there!" Kagome cried.

Too late; a cyclops snatched Rainbow Dash up before she could move. She struggled to get free of its tight grip, smacking its hand with her hooves and biting it with her teeth.

"Let me down, ya big lummox!" The cyclops opened its mouth. "Oh, pony feathers, this is gonna be bad."

"DANCE OF BLADES!"

The cyclops's arm fell from its body. Rainbow Dash wriggled free and hovered in mid-air for a minute, catching her breath, before bucking the cyclops in the knee, knocking it to the ground.

And then she noticed that its arm hadn't fallen off; it had been cut off!

"What in Equestria?" She looked up. "Hey, who is that?"

"Kagura!" Kagome yelled.

"Wait, she's back?" Discord asked. "Last time I checked, I bitch slapped her to the other side of the city."

"You really think I'm so easily defeated?" Kagura sneered. She jumped down from her giant feather, landing gracefully on the ground in front of the horde of monsters. "Well, I'm not."

Discord made a mouth motion with his mouth. "Blah blah blah, that's all I'm hearing out of you."

"Are you mocking me?" Kagura asked, her voice dripping with anger.

"That would be a big fat…yes," Discord replied.

Kagura's eyes shone with a sort of rage and anger that Kagome had never seen before. She bared her teeth and let out a small, angry growl.

"You….You freak of nature. You fool." She folded her fan up. "You fool! I'll cripple you! DANCE OF THE DRAGON!"

She waved her fan. The wind began to furiously blow. The corpses of the satyr and the two cyclopes were blown away. Shining Armor dug his hooves into the ground as much as he could, trying to keep from getting blown off of them. Rainbow Dash flapped hard against he wind. Discord held onto Kagome, who herself was holding on to a hay cart.

"Oh no."

Her eyes were glued to the three gray cyclones that had formed. The cyclones were tearing apart the buildings on either side of the alley. And they were getting closer by the second.

"Have fun getting torn to shreds, you fools!"

"Not on my watch," Rainbow Dash said. She flew at the cyclones.

"Rainbow, don't!" Kagome yelled. "Those cyclones will tear you apart!"

"They're just tornadoes," Rainbow Dash said. "How bad can it be?" She started flying around the first cyclone, spinning in the opposite direction. It was something she learned during Summer Flight Camp in Cloudsdale, back when she was still a filly – the best way to stop a tornado or any other type of cyclone is to spin around it in the opposite direction. That will cancel the cyclone out.

That foolish horse, Kagura thought. She can't possibly think that she can – WHAT!

The first cyclone dissipated. Rainbow Dash flew over to the other cyclone and began flying around it.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Kagura yelled. "Fine." She opened her fan again. "You die first, you damn horse! DANCE OF – "

Shining Armor pushed his way past Discord and Kagome and fired up his horn. He took aim, and fired his magic blast. The blast hit Kagura square in the chest, knocking her flat.

"Don't even think about it." He turned to face everyone else. "You guys get out of here. I'll hold them off."

"Forget it, Shining Armor," Kagome said. "You're still hurt. You won't last long."

"I don't care."

"Your sister does. She'd throw a fit if anything bad happened to you."

Discord reached out, his arm elongating, and he grabbed Shining Armor by the tail. He pulled him back, and the four of them huddled together. "Girl's got a point. Time to bail." He snapped his fingers.

One second they were in the alley, cornered by Kagura and the transformed Changelings. The next, they were on the roof of what looked like a coffee shop. For a while, no one said anything; all they did was try to catch their breath.

Except for Discord, who had materialized a small glass that was now being filled with the chocolate milk still falling from the sky.