//------------------------------//
// The Final Battle 
// Story: Twilight's NEW Friends 
// by BelleofdaBall 
//------------------------------//

"Well, well, well, what have we here?" Eris asked, her eyes shifting over each of the ponies standing in the doorway. "It seems our little Twilight has turned traitor." 

"Such a shame," Maleficent agreed. "Such magical talent wasted on helping these wretched creatures."

"Shut up!" Twilight barked. "You're the ones who turned me traitor! I should NEVER have listened to you! Because of you, I betrayed my friends, betrayed my brother..." The lavender unicorn started to tear up. "Betrayed Princess Celestia!" 

"Sweet, simple little Twilight," Eris clicked her tongue, her tone still rather soft and motherly. She shifted into her mist form, then re-solidified in front of Twilight. "You were NEVER going to reach your full magical potential under that old mule's tutelage. With the League of Extraordinary Misfits, you could have learned to control the sun, the moon, the planets. You could have the power to move mountains, to turn the seas into jelly."

"Ooh, that DOES sound tasty," Pinkie Pie noted. Applejack responded by bonking her pink friend lightly on the back of the head. "What? I'm not saying she should DO it!" 

"But, just because I'm a reasonable goddess, I'll give you one more chance." Eris rested her hand under Twilight's chin, tilting her head up gently. "Join us again. Turn your back on these weak little ponies and be the mage you were born to be."

Twilight responded by slapping Eris' hand off of her chin with her hoof. "I'd sooner DIE than be one of you again."

Eris arched an eyebrow. "Very well." She smirked at the other members of the League. "You heard her, everyone. Time for Twilight Sparkle and her friends to..."

POW! 

Before Eris could finish her sentence, a magical blast broke through a nearby wall. Standing in the hole her magic created was a young pink alicorn with a tricolored mane and tail and purple eyes narrowed in anger. "Get away from them!"

"CADENCE!" Twilight, Shining Armor and Luna all cried out in unison. 

Cadence smiled as she flew up into the air and landed next to Twilight. "Hello, everypony. Sorry I'm late to the party." She jumped in front of Twilight. "Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake."

"Clap your hooves and do a little shake," Twilight finished the rhyme with her. 

Maleficent sneered at the alicorn. "WHAT?! How did you break free from my spell?"

"Spell?" Shining repeated. "What spell?"

"The spell that Maleficent cast on me when Queen Chrysalis replaced me," Cadence explained. "She put me in a death-sleep, and the League then placed my body in the abandoned mines underneath Canterlot, where nopony could find me and they hoped I'd wither and decay while their ally took over my life."

"Ally?" Twilight gasped, looking at the League in shock. "Chrysalis was a member of the League?"

"Yes," Eris admitted, smiling wickedly. "We knew that Chrysalis could be a powerful magical being, but she needed to feed on love to power herself and her horde of Changelings to do any REAL magic. Sure, she could use her powers to drain people of their love, but really, what magical being CAN'T do something that simple?"

"I was sucking emotions out of beings by the time I was three," Ursula chuckled.

"So we agreed to help Chrysalis intercept Canterlot," Eris continued. "She would take over Princess Mi Amore Cadenza's life and marry Shining Armor to weaponize his love for her, as well as use the continuous streams of love from every pony in this mind-numbingly sweet world."

"I know, five minutes here and I could feel my blood sugar levels rising," Ratigan snarked. 

"But then, through Chrysalis reporting back to me her knowledge of Canterlot and its ponies, trying to find the weak spots to take it over, she kept mentioning the name Twilight Sparkle, Celestia's prized pupil, one of the most powerful unicorns ever in Equestria history." Eris smiled at Twilight, who glared back at her. "Twilight had raw talent that DIDN'T need to be fueled by an outside source, UNLIKE Chrysalis. I realized that it would be more beneficial for me to have HER on my side than Chrysalis."

"So you betrayed Chrysalis in favor for Twilight," Applejack figured. "You really ARE a lowdown bitch!"

Eris grinned. "I may be, but I'm not the ONLY one who betrayed their friend, now am I?" The five Ponyville ponies and Shining Armor all looked guiltily amongst themselves, understanding what the goddess was referring to. "I was trying to find the perfect way to persuade Twilight to join the League, but you all turning your backs on her provided me with a singular opportunity. I decided to fuel Twilight's anguish and heartbreak over seemingly losing your friendship and helped her morph it into anger and hatred."

Cadence gave her fiancé a rather angry look before continuing. "And when Twilight killed Chrysalis, the spell on me began to fade. Because there was no Changeling to pretend to be me, the spell was rendered moot somehow. It took several days for it to fully be broken, but once I was awake, I used my magic to break out of the caves and get here to help you all."

"That all makes sense, I guess," Twilight figured. "But what I DON'T get is, why would you want to take over Equestria in the FIRST place."

"For revenge, for what your "friendship" did to Discord," Eris replied, her tone becoming angrier.

Twilight was now quite confused. "But you said you didn't have any connection to Discord."

"She lied," Cadence replied. "Eris is Discord's mother."

"WHAT?!" the other ponies all yelled in unison. 

Eris sneered. "That's right. Discord was my son. And you stupid ponies took him away from me! First this lunar bitch and her sister, then you and your little friends!"

"And that's why you had me turn Celestia into stone!" Twilight realized. "Because the Elements turned Discord into stone!"

"Yes, and once you had mastered celestial magic, I was going to have you turn Luna into stone as well, then shatter their statues!" Eris' tone was now practically screaming. "YOU ROTTEN PONIES RIPPED MY HEART OUT THE DAY YOU TURNED MY BABY TO STONE! NOW I'M GOING TO RIP YOU ALL APART LIMB FROM LIMB! LEAGUE, ATTACK!"

The League of Extraordinary Misfits began to charge at the ponies. However, this time, the ponies had two alicorns and Twilight on their side, and they were all prepared to fight back.

Ursula began to use her seashell magic to blast golden beams at the ponies, who kept dodging them. However, she was met by a levitating bottle of massage oil aimed for her face, that soon squirted into her eyes, temporarily blinding her. As she was distracted, Rarity then bonked her on the head with the bucket of bathing products. "Massage your own filthy tentacles from now on, you witch!"

Pinkie Pie somehow was able to find her party cannon, so she started blasting it at Ratigan and Waul. Soon the rodent and cat were tangled up in streamers and confetti. "How's THAT for a "tired joke," jerks?!" Applejack then stuck two apples into their mouths for added insult. 

The three hyenas started chasing Fluttershy, who immediately started to run. "Come back here, Flutters, we're not gonna hurt ya, we just wanna play," Banzai snickered as the chase continued. After a minute, though, Fluttershy ran towards a stone wall, then flew upwards. Before the hyenas could realize what was going on, they smacked headfirst into the wall, knocking themselves out. "THAT was for Angel Bunny," the yellow pegasus growled.

Kaa started to coil around Shining again, his eyes turning different colors again. Shining tried to look away, but a coil forced his head in place so he was soon hypnotized again. However, the snake's spell was broken when a flying Shere Khan collided with him, causing both he and the tiger to get tangled up together. Shining shook his head to see that his savior was Cadence, who had blasted Khan back. "No one makes eyes at my Shining but me!" the alicorn announced confidently.

Rainbow Dash flew around Maleficent, who kept shooting green beams at her. "Yeah, not so distressed now, am I?" she taunted the fairy. She swooped down and grabbed Maleficent's staff away from her to keep her from shooting more magic. "Hey AJ, catch!" She tossed the staff to Applejack, who bucked it towards Rarity, who caught it with her magic and darted away from Maleficent, who started to chase after her. 

Eris growled as her cohorts were being beaten. "You idiots! You're being bested by a bunch of ponies!"

"Not just by ponies, Eris," Twilight assured her, standing before the goddess. "You and your "friends" are being beaten by REAL friendship!" Eris snarled and lunged for Twilight, but the unicorn used her teleportation spell to move right before she could be snagged. She then reappeared on top of a nearby pedestal. "The friendship that helps beings who have seemingly nothing in common come together for unselfish purposes. The friendship that inspires the magic of Equestria. The friendship that you and your son know nothing about."

Eris screamed as she blasted black fire magic towards Twilight, burning the pedestal into ash. The ponies gasped in shock as it appeared Twilight was burned up along with it, but then noticed the unicorn reappear in between Applejack and Pinkie. "Maybe under your tutelage, I COULD have learned to control planets and all of that, but no amount of celestial magic could really ever compare to the magic of friendship!" 

Once Twilight uttered those words, the jewels on the Elements of Harmony began to light up. The six ponies were slowly lifted into the air, the light of the Elements surrounding them. As they were levitated, Twilight's eyes glowed white as a rainbow-colored beam shot up from her horn and arched in the air, eventually hitting Eris. 

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The goddess screamed as the magic of the Elements began to overtake her. The League of Extraordinary Misfits couldn't do anything but watch as their leader was being defeated by the ponies. 

Suddenly, a giant white magical aura began to surround the Elements and their bearers. Cadence, Shining, Luna and the other League members all ducked underneath various items to protect themselves just as the aura formed a giant explosion of magic, followed by a loud KABOOM! 

Once the white magic had dissipated, the six ponies controlling the Elements safely sank back down to the ground. The beings hiding poked their heads out and gasped. Standing in the wake of the Elements' path, where Eris had once stood, there was a black obsidian statue in the shape of the goddess, its face a mask of anger and torment, with small tears streaming down its face. 

The door to the grand hall then opened, revealing the wedding guests coming back into Equestria from Eris' chaos dimension, led by the Cutie Mark Crusaders, back in pony form. Last in was Spike, his tuxedo and hat a mess, looking like he had seen some serious shit. "That was one crazy place."

"SPIKE!" Twilight ran over to her number one assistant, throwing her forelegs around him in a hug. 

"Twilight?" Spike moaned. "Is that really you? I missed you."

"I missed you too, little buddy," Twilight told him.

"I see things have turned out well once again," a familiar warm voice noted. Twilight gasped happily and turned around to see Celestia standing behind her, alive again. "I must say, it IS nice to be able to move again. Stone body suits are NOT very comfortable."

Twilight couldn't help herself, running over to Celestia and glomping her, tears of joy and repent streaming down her face. "Princess Celestia, I am so, so, so, so, so sorry."

Celestia smiled and nuzzled her student. "Twilight Sparkle, I have already forgiven you. I knew you would find your way back onto your path eventually." 

"I'm glad YOU did, because I wasn't too sure for a while."

"We knew you'd come back to us, Twilie," Shining assured her, noogieing his little sister's mane. 

"Yeah, no evil League can stand a chance against Twilight Sparkle," Rainbow agreed. 

Twilight smiled at her friends surrounding her, then at her brother and Cadence embracing. "I don't know about you guys, but I think we need to start planning a REAL wedding."