Pain wracks my body as I slam into the unyielding rock. I hear gasps of shock and sympathetic pain from the others.

My horn cracks. Precognition blossoms, telling me the one way I can shape my power through it to not blow it up completely.

No matter. It hurts, but I'm used to that. Even if I weren't before, I am now.

Another attack, this time the very air itself solidifying into a knife. I already saw it coming, and dodge as well as I can. I block, but not as well as I could, and my hastily raised shield lets through some of the magic and cuts my flank.

Discord has been devastating the entire world we know for... it feels like forever, though with how much damage he does it must be only a few days.

I have no chance of beating him. I know that. I can see the entire fight before me, and only one path leads to victory-and it assumes the arrival of alicorns, more than there are in an entire world.

That it even appeared to me is probably because of the twisting nature of time around this embodiment of disharmony. His reactions so hair-trigger that a million paths open up every second.

But I can still read him, and I have a plan.

I'm letting myself die a death of a thousand cuts. It keeps him interested, makes him let me survive longer. He's been taunting me, goading me, telling me that I couldn't make a scratch. And as I expend another precious month's worth of stored power to deflect a rock the size of a house, my thoughts wander.

First to the shattered remnants of the Rainbow. They're visible from here, though barely-the amount of dust in the air is almost like fog, or the mist that plays around the base of a waterfall.

I wonder, was my name meant for this? All my life, all the lives of my forebears, intended for this, this... battle with a god?

My inattention costs me, and his claw shears off a good portion of my left flank.

A quick application of magic sears the nerves that connect to that part of my body.

My mark is gone, but... no matter. I don't have time to mourn. If I stop this frantic pace for a moment, then it was all for nothing. And if I let myself really think about all we've lost, I'll just start crying and never stop.

Another burst of power, turning a deathblow to the head into a slash along the cheek.

Another-

And my magic cuts out halfway through. I slump, dry, barely caring about the high speed tail swipe that took off part of my mane and destroyed my left hip joint.

My eyes slide closed, and I feel myself lifted. He's decided to gloat.

Something about how he was impressed, and I can almost feel the cocky grin he's sporting. We're barely ants to him.

"H'y, D'scr'd," I mumble. "Wht's my n'me?"

He laughs. It's amusing to him that I might not remember.

All the paths of the future converge down to one. Time to die.

Sorry, everyone. Megan, Danny, Molly, Magic Star... Twilight, Firefly, Posey, Sparkler, Applejack... and Surprise. Heh. Bet you'll love this.

"It's Mimic."

This time, my voice is strong and clear. He stops, shocked.

"My final act is, someone who hasn't enough power left to do THIS."

I used decades of stored energy, of my entire line, fighting him.

But I have centuries.

Three hundred and fifty years of magic, concentrated down into a single burst of overwhelming force.

I'm not very violent. None of us are. But maybe there's something in everything the humans told us.

Because nothing is so satisfying as kicking that bastard's teeth in one thousand, five hundred and eighty three times in a single second.

Something sparkles with a faint purple light over in the distance, by the ruins of the Rainbow, and I see Celestia and Luna take surprised notice.

Discord's in shock. One of his fangs actually broke, and he's bleeding. He's not perfect, and I feel the two alicorns by the Rainbow take heart in that.

My horseshoes dissolve silently. Nothing left, for real now.

A grin forces its way through my lips.

"You lose."