A few minutes later, both the Ghost team and their pony allies managed to regroup at Canterlot Castle, where they saw Celestia and Luna waiting for them. Both alicorn sisters turned to face the team.
“Thank you for getting my message,” Celestia told them. “I suppose you were wondering why I called you all here.”
“Uh, yeah we are,” Kanan answered, kind of surprised.
“Yeah,” Sabine added. “Why the impromptu visit?”
“Because we have something to tell you,” Luna said. “It appears that we are forced to call in someone else to help us in this fight.” She got an eyeful of a passed out Zeb. “Is everything okay with him?”
“He is,” Rarity responded, “but just barely.”
“What happened?” Hera asked her.
“He got into a fight with an Imperial agent,” Applejack clarified.
“Will he be okay?” Hera continued.
“Yeah,” the Lasat groaned weakly, managing to get up. “But what . . . what just happened?”
“You want the long version or the short version, sugarcube?” Applejack asked.
“Short, please,” he grunted.
“That Imperial officer was about to finish you off when Pinkie Pie somehow managed to push him away without bein’ near him,” Applejack turned to Kanan. “Ah don’ suppose yah know wha’ this means, do yah?”
The news appeared to have taken Kanan off guard. “She learned how to Force push,” he mumbled to himself.
“’Scuse me?”
“She learned the Force push,” Kanan repeated, a bit louder. “Master Yoda said that the Force was strong with you girls. I’m guessing this is what he meant.”
This was enough to get Pinkie Pie riled up. “Ooh! Ooh! I wonder what else I can do!” She extended her hooves at Rarity, obviously trying the Force push again, but this time, nothing happened. “Aww!” she complained. “How come it’s not working this time?”
Kanan let out a hearty chuckle. “I think you need some more practice with that. You’ll learn more tricks that the younglings at the Jedi temple learned a long time ago, such as-“
“While I would really look forward to hearing everything you would have to say on the subject,” Celestia interrupted, “I’m afraid that time is of the essence here. Follow us, please.”
Once again, they all went through the corridor, which remained relatively unchanged from their last visit. Ezra looked around, and something new caught his eye. Etched in the stained-steel glass window was a picture of a creature he had never seen before: the head was horse-like, but was much different from the head styles of Twilight and her friends, and had a deer antler and goat antler; the creature’s body had the right front paw of a lion and a left claw of an eagle, as well as a lizard’s right leg and the left leg of a buffalo; its mouth had a single long fang coming out of it; and it had two very different wings coming out of it: a bat wing and a pegasus wing. The body ended in a dragon-like snake tail with a white tuft. He nudged Twilight.
“What is that?” he asked the unicorn, who turned around and bared her teeth at the mere sight of the picture, as if the picture itself were causing her distress.
“It’s called a draconequus,” Twilight growled.
“Say what now?” Sabine asked.
“A draconequus,” Luna answered, as if she had heard them. “A creature of chaos and disharmony. We know, we hath fought one almost a thousand years ago with our sister.”
“And it is that same draconequus that we are now forced to call on for help,” Celestia sighed resignedly. She stopped in front of a statue, which appeared to frozen in a state of shock. Looking closer, Ezra realized that the statue looked exactly like its stained-glass counterpart. “We’re calling on a statue for help?” he snarked in an unimpressed manner. “I suppose he could just make that same face and the Empire would just flee in terror from its expression.”
“Not just any statue, Ezra Bridger,” Celestia said. “We’re going to call on Discord to defeat the Imperial invasion.”
“Wait a second,” Sabine interrupted, trying to get the facts straight. “Discord?”
“As in the Discord-who-turned-Twilight’s-friends-against-her-and-made-Ponyville-the-chaos-capital-of-the-world Discord?” Hera asked, a sinking feeling approaching her gut.
“You’re joking, right, Princess?” Rainbow Dash asked, fuming. “He’s just going to betray us and turn us against each other like last time!” For once, Chopper voiced his agreement with her.
“I knew you were going to say that,” the sun princess smirked. “Which is why I put a spell on the statue so that as soon as he does what he’s supposed to do, he goes back to his stony prison. That way, he won’t cause any more trouble ever again.”
“Um . . . Princess . . .” Fluttershy spoke up softly, “I hope you don’t mind, but, um, . . . don’t you think that that would be a little too . . . um, cruel?”
“After what he did to you? Hardly,” came Twilight’s response.
“Enough,” Celestia said. She turned to Luna. “Are you ready?”
Luna nodded, and both alicorns touched their horns to the statue, which started to glow with a radiant light as it started to crack. A few seconds later, the entire thing shattered, revealing a creature that looked exactly like its stained-steel glass counterpart. The creature stretched its limbs and cast a disapproving look to everyone.
“Well, it’s about time somepony got me out of that awful prison!” he remarked. “What a relief!” He stretched some more, then turned to Princess Celestia. “Did you miss me again, Princess Celestia? It was quite lonely being stuck as a statue, but of course you wouldn’t know that, because I don’t turn ponies to stone!”
“No, Discord, but you use them as your playthings and turn them against each other for your sick kicks!” Twilight remarked waspishly.
Discord turned to Twilight. “Well, well, if it isn’t my little ponies!” He teleported next to Twilight and started scratching her cheek.“Tell me, Twilight, did you and your friends miss me while I was away?”
“Like we missed the Parasprite infestation,” Rainbow Dash snarled.
“I was talking to Twilight,” Discord said, turning his head around completely, “but oh well. I couldn’t help but overhear that you girls need my help driving off an entire invasion!”
“How did you know that, if I may ask?” Rarity asked.
“Being turned to stone doesn’t stop from hearing every word you say,” Discord told the unicorn. “Although I must admit, it does have me rolling my eyeballs.” He took his eyeballs out of their sockets and rolled them across the floor into two holes, which then materialized into his body. “And I see you’ve met some new friends as well!” He got up and motioned his chicken claw over to the Ghost team.
None of the rebels appeared to be very happy to see the draconequus; indeed, all of them had drawn their weapons out upon being addressed by the chaos spirit.
“Yeah, right,” Kanan snapped. “We’re not here to be friends with you!”
“Oh come now, Kanan Jarrus.” Discord snapped his fingers and a teacup materialized in front of him. He sipped it while Kanan looked back blankly, surprised that he already knew who he was. “Ah yes, I know all about you and your ragtag band of rebels. I also know that you have recently taken in a new apprentice. Ezra Bridger, am I correct?”
Ezra pointed his lightsaber at Discord. “You’re not coming near us!”
Discord snapped his fingers and disappeared in a flash of white light. Everyone looked around, confused, wondering where he was, when Discord’s voice said softly in his right ear, “I believe I am.” Alarmed, Ezra swung his saber around to the back, but by then Discord had already disappeared to the front.
Zeb sighed. “I figured it was a bad idea to release you.”
Discord smirked mischievously and snapped his fingers. Instantly, in a flash of white light, Ezra’s lightsaber morphed into a rubber chicken. Ezra, taken aback, growled at him and advanced to finish him off, but was restrained by Hera, while the rubber chicken turned back into his blade. “Let me go, Hera!” he growled.
“Relax, Ezra,” Hera calmly started.
“No I won’t!”
“Hera,” Sabine said. “Maybe I should have a talk with him.”
An explosion rocked the castle. Hera turned to Sabine. “Fine, but please make it quick.”
Ezra and Sabine made their way down the stairs until they were well out of earshot of the others. As soon as she was certain that no one else could hear them, Sabine turned to face him. “Everything okay, kid?”
Ezra sighed. “I guess.”
“You sure? You don’t look so.”
He sighed again. “It’s just . . . I’m not really sure if we can trust this guy. I mean, he has been known to tear friendships apart just because he can. He already did it to the ponies. Who’s to say that he won’t do the same to us as soon as he finishes what he is supposed to finish?”
Sabine smiled at him. “Ezra, you’ve been on our team for quite some time now. And yes, you can be a bit annoying at times, but we have come to accept you as one of us. And that should be strong enough to withstand the powers of a friendship-breaking, world-destroying draconequus.”
Ezra smiled back at her a little. “Okay. But we need to discuss with the others first, see what they think we should do.”
The two of them made their way back up the stairs. Sabine turned to Kanan. “Kanan, Zeb, Twilight, Fluttershy, meet us in the closet.” The six of them made their way to the room where Zeb and Ezra first discovered the Journal of the Two Sisters. Discord attempted to follow, but Zeb stopped him in his tracks. “Make sure he stays put here,” he instructed the astromech. “If he tries anything funny, sound the alarm.” The droid beeped affirmatively. Zeb pointed his fingers to his eyes, then to Discord’s. He turned around and went straight into the room. Discord stared at the door, then at Chopper. He stroked his white beard, thinking.
-break--
In the dark room, all six members were huddled together in a circle. They were furiously debating what to do with the draconequus that the royal sisters had just freed. Zeb turned to Kanan. “Well, chief, what should we do with him?”
Kanan considered. “I don’t really know. Twilight, what do you think we should do?”
“He can’t be trusted,” Twilight responded. “I say we convince Celestia and Luna to turn him back to stone immediately.”
“But let’s not forget,” Ezra pointed out, “we still need him to get the Star Destroyers out of here.”
“And it would really be cruel of us to repay him that way after he would do Equestria a big service,” Fluttershy meekly added.
Sabine raised an eyebrow. “What makes you say that, Fluttershy?”
“Sometimes, we all need to shown a little kindness,” Fluttershy defended herself.
Silence. Nobody said anything. Then Kanan spoke up.
“Fine. I guess that after he getsrid of the Empire, we can-“
But he never got to finish his sentence, because a loud thumping sounded. Confused, he opened the door to reveal Discord, who was obviously trying to listen in on the conversation they were having. The draconequus grinned weakly, then tried to make a run for it. But Zeb was having none of it. He grabbed Disocrd by the tail and flung him into the pedestal. “I ordered Chopper to keep watch!”
Right on cue, the astromech rolled in making protesting noises. Zeb growled at the chaos spirit. “Can we please turn him back to stone?”
“No, let’s not,” Sabine said. “He already knows too much.”
“Let’s not forget, we still need him to get rid of the Empire,” Ezra added. “Then we can decide what to do to him afterwards.”
“Yes!” Discord flew into the air.
Sabine shook her head. “Ugh, this has to be the stupidest idea I’ve followed up on.”
“Just hope he doesn’t make it any worse,” Twilight remarked.
“I’m standing right here,” Discord said, suddenly annoyed.
“We know,” the two girls replied nonchalantly.
“All right,” Kanan sighed. “There’s no point in waiting here anymore. Let’s leave!”
And with that, the entire group had found themselves transported to the foyer. Discord took a look at the Star Destroyers ,
unimpressed. “What am I looking at here?”
“Those are Imperial Star Destroyers,” Sabine informed him, exasperated. “Unless you can do something that will stop them from destroying the city, there won’t even be a city to plunge in eternal chaos! Think you can do something?”
Discord yawned, then snapped his fingers lazily. Just like that, all the destroyers vanished. Everyone was taken aback, stunned. Ezra and Kanan looked at each other, confusion dawning in their faces. What just happened? Where did they all go?
“Discord,” Twilight said slowly, “where did they all go?” Discord smiled to himself.
-break—
The Star Destroyers and TIE fighters had crashed in a barren desert . The Inquisitor got out of the rubble, groaning. What was going on? One second his men were wrecking the city like nobody’s business, and the next- POOF! They were in this wasteland of a location. The Inquisitor surveyed his surroundings. A tall, dark, spire-like structure rose in the distance. The Inquisitor’s eyes narrowed. Where was he?
All of a sudden, he heard footsteps. He turned around to see a black bug-like creature with wings, blue eyes, and fangs, with holes all over its body staring curiously back at him. The creature reminded him vaguely of the Geonosians during the Clone Wars. Before he could draw his lightsaber, the creature erupted in a volume of green fire, and before he knew it, he was looking at . . . himself?
“What the-“ he muttered, quickly igniting his blade. Whatever- or whoever- this was, it was clearly trying to screw him over. Before he knew it, his double had also ignited his weapon, and had charged forward. As the two started to brawl, he heard more flamelike eruptions behind him, and stopped fighting to turn around.
A dozen or so Stormtroopers all had their rifles trained on him. The Inquisitor stared back, surprise trickling in his throat. He did not know whether they really were stormtroopers or those buglike impostors, but either way, this was not going to go well for him.
-break—
“So,” Discord said, “now that I upheld my end of the bargain, it means that I can go now, right?”
Luna and Celestia faced each other. “Not exactly,” Celestia said.
Discord frowned. “Whatever do you mean?”
“We didn’t know if you would go back to causing more mayhem for Ponyville once you did what we asked you to do, so we decided to turn you back to stone once you did what you had to,” the sun princess continued.
“WHAT?!?” Discord spat out some water which he obviously summoned out of hyperspace. He could already feel his body start to harden. “You . . .you can’t do that! I mean,what makes you think you can do?”
“’Cause,” Zeb added, “they have put up with up you for far too long. Besides, it’s not like we’ll be needing you for anything more. Surely you must have heard that in your stone prison and all, eh?” He chuckled to himself.
Fluttershy had had enough. She pointed an accusing hoof at Zeb. “You think you can get away with saying things like that?” she snarled, flying up to him. “You best take back what you said, buster, or I’ll give you . . . “ –pause for dramatic effect-“THE STARE!”
“Oh no, not the Stare! Anything but those disapproving eyeballs!” Zeb said, pretending to be scared. He fell down and let loose wild laughter.
But Fluttershy clearly was not going to stand this any longer. She gave Zeb a glare so powerful that he stopped mid-laugh. Ezra and Sabine snickered to themselves. Clearly, they never expected to see the day where Garazeb Orrelios would be intimidated by a sweet-tempered,
timid yellow pegasus.
“Okay, okay, I give!” He put his hands up in surrender. “Princess, please remove the spell you cast on him!”
A roar of protest met these words, especially from Twilight.
“Sister,” Luna started, “please don’t.”
Celestia sighed. “Sorry, but now that Fluttershy said it, it doesn’t seem fair to him.’’ Her horn glowed a powerful white, and when the light
faded, Discord was free. She turned sternly to him. “I hope you can be on your best behavior, Discord. If not-“
“Oh don’t worry.” Discord turned to Fluttershy, apparently grateful for her sticking up to him. “I’ll promise to be on my best behavior from now on. Thank you, Fluttershy.” He teleported in between Ezra and Sabine, pinching their cheeks. “Besides, I think I know who else should experience the full Discord treatment!”
Oh sweet Celestia, Sabine thought to herself, rolling her eyes. Chopper laughed. At long last, here was someone who shared his sense of humor.
“There’s just one more thing we need you to take care of,” Zeb added, getting back onto his feet.
“And what would that be, Garazeb?” Discord said.
A mischievous grin broke across the Lasat’s face.
-break—
Kallus was astounded. He searched the sky all around, as though expecting the Star Destroyers to suddenly pop out of thin air. He waited, but nothing happened.
“What has happened?” he asked the stormtroopers accompanying him.
“It appears that your Empire has overextended itself,” said a sly, mischievous voice. Kallus turned around to see the entire Ghost team and their pony allies assembled, along with three creatures Kallus had never seen before in his life. The pink one with curly hair suddenly appeared in front of him. “You might wanna look down,” she whispered.
Kallus did so, and was astounded to find out that he had his legs stuck in the barrel of what appeared to be a cannon.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
“Four words, agent: The magic of friendship,” the pegasus with the rainbow-colored mane smirked.
“Bye bye, little butterfly,” the pink one said. She lit the cannon and, seconds later, the ISB agent was blasted out of the cannon out of the city, screaming all the way. The two stormtroopers looked at their opponents, preparing to fire.
“Boo,” said a voice behind them. The stormtroopers panicked and fled, dropping their weapons as they did so.
Rainbow Dash chuckled. “Man, I almost feel sorry for those guys,” she said, kicking a blaster with her hoof. “Almost.”
“I don’t believe it,” Kanan said, amazed. “We’ve successfully defeated the invasion of Equestria.”
“Woohoo!” Discord leapt into the air in victory. “And I know just how we all are going to celebrate!”
Twilight sighed. “Here we go again!”