Friendship is magic…
“Yeah right.”
Somepony underground still doubted this truth, even after it had been made clear to them.
“Had he not been there to help them, that would’ve been my victory for certain. I was clearly the stronger one, I only lost because I had to hold back. Yet...that is what bothers me. I wasn’t merely following orders, I was out to fulfill my own desire of proving myself as the strongest being in Equestria...yet in that moment, I felt...happy when I gave them a fair shot at beating me instead of killing them. Could it be...that their friendship has-hmmm?”
The thoughts of this mysterious figure musing in the darkness were interrupted by the sound of a shifting in the ground above.
“He’s calling me again?! So soon? For what?”
“For both you and them to learn your final lesson…” a figure with a familiar voice answered ominously.
Some time later…
Sandbar, Yona, Silverstream, Ocellus, Smolder, and Gallus were sitting in Starlight Glimmer’s office at the School of Friendship, all of them giving their school’s headmaster a look of bemusement.
“Heh heh heh heh…” Silverstream laughed nervously. “Sorry if I misheard something, but who is going to be our substitute teacher for today again?”
“Discord!” Starlight exclaimed happily. “Who better to give you your last lesson before your final exam of the semester?”
“You sure you don’t mean who better not to?” Gallus retorted sarcastically.
“Have you forgotten that Discord’s the one who-” Smolder spoke before being cut off.
“Oh, I know what happened last time!” Starlight responded, maintaining a strange level of enthusiasm for Discord’s return to the school in spite of the trouble he had previously caused them. “But you should know from your lessons that a big part of friendship is forgiveness!”
“Yona get forgiveness.” Yona chimed in. “But Yona not like Discord.”
“Yeah,” said a frustrated Ocellus, “it’s not just that incident we hold a grudge against him for, he also hasn’t apologized or even explained to us why he had to commit his more serious crime…”
“I do empathize with your frustration over losing the Tree of Harmony…” Starlight replied. “But you must understand, Discord had nothing to do with it. It was obviously just King Sombra acting alone. I mean, really, Discord destroying the Tree of Harmony. How ridiculous is that?”
A green light briefly glowed in Starlight’s eyes. Sandbar took note.
“Yeah...sounds pretty out there…” Sandbar muttered facetiously, unconvinced and suspicious.
The students later convened outside in the hall once the conversation was over, unsatisfied with their headmaster’s telling of events.
“Yona smell something and it not Yona’s back hair.” Yona said.
“Do you think Discord may have something to do with this?” Silverstream suggested.
“As if he wouldn’t.” Smolder answered. “That creep always brings trouble with him wherever he goes. Call me horrible, but I’d honestly rather see Sombra’s ugly face again so that we could pound it in without getting in trouble.”
“Now that you mention it…” Sandbar replied. “I noticed something weird about Headmare Starlight’s eyes...didn’t former Headmare Twilight once teach a lesson on how creatures possessed by King Sombra’s magic have their eyes glow all weird, green, and evil-like?”
“I don’t know.” Gallus responded nonchalantly. “My eyes were probably all tired, red, and sleepy-like for that lesson.”
Everyone else rolled their eyes.
“First Discord, then Sombra…” Ocellus mused. “Say, you guys don’t think that maybe, just maybe...The Tree could have something to do with this?”
“Huh?!” everyone else went in surprise.
“What makes you say that?” Silverstream asked as everyone else turned their attention to Ocellus, astonished. “You’re not trying to suggest that the Tree of Harmony is evil, are you?”
“No, no!” Ocellus denied. “I’m just hypothesizing. Let’s just say for sake of argument that Discord had the best intentions in what he did.”
Everyone else collectively groaned.
“Just bear with me.” Ocellus reassured. “The Tree told us that its spirit would’ve perished without our help. If Discord’s best intentions are to be assumed, and he was just testing Headmare Twilight and her friends, isn’t it possible that even if he did know that Sombra was going to destroy the Tree...he only allowed it to happen to test us too?”
“Oh, now that’s rich.” Gallus jeered. “Discord, at his best, is selfish and stupid to the extreme. He doesn’t actually care or think deeply about his actions like that. He’s just an a-”
“ATTENTION, EVERY CREATURE!” the familiar voice of Discord was abruptly heard blaring on the school intercom. “It’s time for class! Get there fast! Don’t be caught in the hall without a pass! Because I’m teaching your final lesson this semester and you better not be crass or give me any sass!”
“You get the idea.” Gallus finished as the disgruntled students walked to their homeroom, failing to notice that a creeping shadow with familiar green, glowing eyes was stalking them from behind...
Later, inside the homeroom where Discord was teaching…
“And they all lived happily ever after, thanks to me!” he declared gleefully as he showed off a miniature model of Cozy Glow, Tirek, and Chrysalis encased in stone on his desk. “The end! Any questions?”
A blue hippy pony with a mustache, a white shirt with a peace sign on it, and black hair styled in strings like Tree Hugger’s raised a hoof.
“Yes?”
“Isn’t stoning Cozy Glow, like, child abuse, man?” the hippy asked. “I know she tried to kill ponies and take over Equestria...again, but she’s still just a kid, bro.”
Discord groaned as he changed into a black pastor’s robe and flipped through a black book.
“Bah humbug, these bleeding hearts!” Discord bemoaned. “You can’t even stone kids these days for disrespecting their elders!”
“I don’t even think ponies whose minds are still stuck in the Stone Age would want that…” Sandbar, who was sitting with his friends in the front row, whispered, getting them to chuckle.
“But you can still publicly humiliate them without there being a fuss…” Discord abruptly broke up the group’s laugh by sliding onto their desks and clicking his fingers, magically teleporting Sandbar to a chair by the blackboard with a dunce cap on his head.
“Pop quiz, Sandbar!” Discord exclaimed with a menacing smirk on his face, now wearing glasses and a white button-up shirt. “Who is Grogar?”
“Um...you?” Sandbar answered with uncertainty.
“Wrong!” Discord cried jeeringly, ready to rub it in. “The answer is the Father of Monsters. If you had paid attention, you would know that Grogar was a real figure I merely impersonated! Seriously, do I look like the father type to you?”
“Come on, you know what I meant!” Sandbar complained. “This is stupid!”
“Stupid is as stupid does…” Discord shifted Sandbar’s dunce cap back and forth slightly to taunt him even further, pushing Sandbar close to his limit as his eyes began to turn green…
“Hoo hoo…” Discord snickered quietly to himself, taking notice.
“Just one more question, Sandbar…” he said menacingly. “...Who killed the Tree of Harmony?”
Sandbar angrily slammed his hooves down on the floor as he got off the chair.
“YOU!” he yelled, pointing a foreleg at Discord.
Discord winced in response as the rest of the class began to murmur amongst themselves.
“Yona worried…” Yona said uncomfortably, feeling the most concerned out of Sandbar’s five friends who were staring at him nervously. “Yona feel evil in Sandbar…”
“I know the answer would be “King Sombra” and I don’t care!” Sandbar continued to raise his voice. “You’re supposed to be one of the good guys, yet you brought him back and let him destroy someone we loved! That makes you worse than him, and you have the gall to give us a lecture about how you’re some noble hero who saved Equestria for our final lesson?! You’re nothing but a narcissistic lowlife! I wish you were dead!”
“...!” Gallus scowled, sensing great darkness. Sandbar returned the scowl, noticing that all of his friends looked deeply upset with him.
“Don’t you dare try to guilt me for saying what’s on your minds too!” he proclaimed. “I’m done sitting here taking abuse like a little bir-”
“SANDBAR, GET OUT OF THERE!” Gallus abruptly cried as he flew toward Sandbar and grabbed him by the foreleg, pulling him away just before a dark crystal erupted from the ground below him. A black cloud of smoke poured out from the crystal, covering the entire teacher’s area, and when it lifted, the whole class gasped as they saw that Discord had been turned to stone.
“Alone forever…” these were the last words spoken in a familiar, sinister voice before another dark crystal erupted below Discord and broke the statue that he now was into pieces, pieces that destroyed the model of the three villains on his desk. A familiar shadow then appeared over the desk and manifested itself into King Sombra, who stood triumphant, laughing wickedly.
“MWA HA HA HA HA HA!”
Many students in the class shrieked and trembled in terror. Even Sandbar and his friends were aghast, especially Sandbar himself, as the dark despot gave him an evil glare.
“The powers that be smile on you today, Sandbar…” Sombra taunted. “Your wish has been granted! Mwua ha ha ha ha ha!”