The griffon approached the Treehouse of Harmony. He appeared to be the last one back, though not by much, since Yona still wore her sturdier gray traveling shawl instead of her normal green one, and she had a large ornamental helm on her head. “Nice crown, Gallus!” Smolder said. The dragon clearly had a good eye for quality jewelry, though Gallus suspected that was just so she could eat the most expensive things first.
Sandbar turned and looked at his friend. The pony smiled slowly as he approached. “Should we start calling you Prince Gallus, then?” He raised one hoof to his head. “Start saluting? As long as you don’t want us all bowing.” The earth pony made a mock bow, leaning down on his withers, and his mane brushed Gallus’ side.
Not that the view from below is all that bad. I wouldn’t mind-
Gallus jumped back as if burned, and he felt his cheeks flush with heat. He stared down at his friend in shock. Was there attraction in those eyes behind the teasing glint? He knew Sandbar and Yona were a thing. Or he thought they were. He flinched as he remembered all those friendly cuddles he and the pony had shared as the weather got cooler. ‘Just a way of showing your friends you care,’ Sandbar had claimed.
Oh no, he’d cuddled the rest of his friends, too, individually and in groups. Did they all have those sorts of thoughts about him? Another part of the griffon’s mind wondered if that was really such a bad thing.
“J-just-“ he shook his head, irritated at the squeaky sound of his nerves, “just Gallus is fine.”
“Okay, ‘Just Gallus,’” Ocellus teased. Gallus felt his face twitch. Was she teasing him because that’s what friends did, or was she flirting? Was there any difference with a changeling?
“Yay!” Silverstream cheered. “We’ve all got out artifact things!”
“And they’re apparently re-powered!” Sandbar agreed happily, pulling an apple from the billowing cloak that draped over his backside. “Here,” he said, reaching back into the cloak, “I brought enough to share.” He pulled out five other large, red apples and tossed them to his friends.
“So what Pony cloak do?” Yona asked. “Make apples?” she ventured.
Gallus laughed, glad for the distraction from his thoughts. “Professor Applejack would be so jealous.”
Sandbar grinned. “No, watch!” He reached his hoof back inside the cloak. As he pulled his hoof back out, it was accompanied by a large flat object. He set the front end on the floor and kept pulling, until the length of the colorful board was clearly longer than the pony’s body.
“How…?” Ocellus asked quietly.
“Hidden pockets!” Sandbar said. His tail wagged in excitement. “They’re big enough I can keep my surfboard in there! I never have to travel without it again.”
“How practical,” Smolder snarked.
Ocellus giggled. “You say that. Imagine being able to carry your entire hoard of gemstones and frilly things around.”
“Frilly things?” Silverstream asked Gallus quietly.
“Don’t ask,” the griffon advised
Smolder, meanwhile, had apparently changed her assessment of the pony’s artifact. “Can I see?” she asked.
Sandbar smiled at her. “Of course!” He pulled the edge of the cloak aside, revealing a small, thin-lined pocket. “I’ve got some cupcakes in there.”
Smolder reached a claw in eagerly but frowned as her claw hit the back of a very normally-sized pocket. “Is this a joke?” she asked as she glared and stepped away.
Gallus could see Sandbar begin to panic. “W-what? No!” he said, reaching a hoof down to the offending pocket. His hoof slid in past the cannon and returned bearing a large, pink frosted cupcake.
Gallus frowned. “How…?”
He was interrupted by a burst of colorful light all around them. As he yelped and covered his eyes, Silverstream laughed over the chorus of complaints from her friends. “Sorry! Sorry, I thought maybe we were all showing off!”
As the light faded, Smolder gasped loudly. “Guys. We should go inside. Now!” She took flight and ushered the other creatures through the front door of the Treehouse. “Come on!” she urged, “go go go!”
Gallus flew inside the doorway and rolled his eyes. “There,” he said, “happy now?” He landed just as the ground started shaking. He cursed and took flight again. There was an awful, deep groaning sound as a large section of ground in front of the Treehouse suddenly gave way and collapsed into the grotto below.
Sandbar shivered. “W-we were standing right there.”
Gallus turned slowly to Smolder. “Did you know?” he asked. “How?”
Smolder held up the teal-colored shell she had been carrying. “I think I know what my artifact does now,” she explained sheepishly. “Once we were all together, I somehow saw the ground falling.”
Yona stared out at the sinkhole, a worried look on her brow below the large yak helm. “Yak think maybe friends go unlock chest now… before ground quakes swallow Treehouse.”
Silverstream’s heart was racing. That wasn’t a new or different phenomenon, but the reason behind it was. She and her friends were going to unlock the Treehouse chest! She couldn’t wait to see the Magic of Harmony up close again. She loved being in its rainbow light and the tingly feel it left in her feathers as it passed through her. “Come on!” she encouraged, flapping her large wings as her friends followed behind. She was the fastest flyer of the group, and sometimes it was so hard for her to go slowly enough that she didn’t totally out-pace everyone.
She swooped into the room with the Harmony chest and landed beside it. It had a beautiful design: the interlocking stems and flower petals reminded her of some of the dense foliage in Harmonizing Heights, except the plants back home didn’t glow. As her friends (finally) arrived and took their places around the chest, the air above them shimmered, and a sparkling purple alicorn appeared in the air. Her form shook slightly, and Silverstream could see all the way through parts of her. She looked hazy and incomplete.
“Friends!” the projection of the Tree said. It sounded as if she were at the bottom of an underwater cave, speaking through great distance. “I am besieged.”
“Who besieges a tree?” Smolder asked skeptically.
Silverstream could think of several good reasons to assault a tree, but most of those involved getting fruit from them. She silently thanked Professor Applejack for those lessons.
“At my roots,” the Tree continued, ignoring the question. “A dark force prowls.” Her form shivered, and her already thin projection wavered before vanishing altogether. The light from the Harmony chest went dark.
Her friends stood still, shocked to silence. Silverstream treated the silence as any good Hippogriff would. By screeching at it. “Let’s go find whatever’s hurting the Tree and whoop its butt!” She pondered for a second. “Assuming it has a butt.”
Gallus pointed at the chest between them. “Maybe we should open the powerful pony-magic box first?”
Silverstream laughed. “Ooh, good thinking ‘Mr. Wisdom!’” She giggled again as the griffon rolled his eyes dramatically.
“So what do we do?” Smolder asked.
Sandbar pulled the cloak off his shoulders. “It said in the Professors’ book that they just held their items up to the locks.” He touched the cloak against his lock. “Like this.”
Silverstream pulled the Amulet of Aurora off her chest and pushed it against the chest. She watched her friends do the same with their artifacts. “This is so exciting!” she squealed.
And then…
“Nothing’s happening,” Ocellus observed.
Yona put the large, horned helmet back on her head. “If Tree hurt…”
“Maybe there’s no magic left to unseal the chest.” Sandbar finished.
“Back to butt-kicking again?” Silverstream suggested.
Smolder rubbed her claws together. “I like the way you think, Silver.”
Smolder kicked at a stalactite to clear a path wide enough for Yona. The sound echoed through the tunnels in which they found themselves.
“Which way do you think now?” Sandbar asked nervously. Asked her. Ugh, she never signed up to be a leader. Her friends had flown down the sinkhole to the grotto, and then found several small, roughly circular-shaped tunnels leading down past the base of the Treehouse. It felt like home to Smolder, but she knew most of her friends were uncomfortable being this far underground.
“Hey, Silver? Maybe a little more light?” Not that Smolder needed it. But the extra light seemed to comfort the others as Silverstream twisted a small part of the amulet open. The path branched ahead. “Left,” she announced decisively. She had nothing to base the decision on, but that wouldn’t slow her down.
They worked their way down the left branch on foot. Or hoof, she supposed, given most of her friends’ anatomies. Not a lot of room to fly.
The ground beneath her shook violently, dropping the dragon to her claws.
“Earthquake!” she heard Gallus yell in fear. Loose bits of dirt rained down on them in increasing volume. “We’re going to be buried in here!”
“Down!” Yona bellowed. “Under yak!” Smolder dove underneath Yona and felt others bump into her as they did the same.
An incredibly loud crumbling sound told Smolder that an especially large piece of earth had given way above them. Yona gave a short laugh and a twist of her head. Smolder heard the falling debris disintegrate; tiny particles of dust floated around where the larger rocks had been. The shaking slowed, then stopped.
As the friends stood back up, Yona tapped the Helm on her head. “Yksler Yak once crush entire mountain with only head and hooves. Make room for Yakyakistan. Helm of Yksler still share his yak magic.”
“An artifact about crushing things. I’m shocked,” Gallus said sarcastically.
Yona grinned. “Crushing and not crushing! Nothing smash yak wearing Helm! That why griffon safe from falling boulder.”
“Okay,” Gallus agreed. “Valid point and suddenly much more interesting.”
Whatever rebuttal Yona was going to make was swallowed by an otherworldly howl, at a pitch so low it shook the tunnel around them. Smolder was thankful when the tunnel held firm that they hadn’t needed to test Yona’s helm again so quickly. Knuckerbocker’s Shell shivered at her waist, where she had tied it to herself with rope.
A monster twice the size of Yona roars as it sees intruders in its tunnels. The enormous, sharp horn on its nose tilts towards the friends, and it charges, its body roaring with searing flames, hot enough to melt scales.
Smolder shivered. “Silverstream, kill the light! We can’t let this thing see us.”
“Uh, we can’t see in the dark like you, Smolder,” Sandbar argued.
Crap. She kept forgetting her friends had terrible eyesight. Well, terrible compared to a dragon.
“Let me try something,” Ocellus offered. She raised the small staff she carried in one slim hoof. “Everyone but Smolder come touch me.”
“Is this some excuse for you to get physical affection?” Smolder asked, “I thought you ate before coming down here.”
Ocellus glared. “Hush.” The changeling raised the Talisman of Mirage and suddenly she, Silverstream, Yona, Gallus, and Sandbar vanished. The light provided by Silverstream’s amulet winked out in an instant.
“Uh,” Smolder muttered. “Guys? Where’d you go?”
The dragon heard a small, familiar laugh. “Nowhere!” Ocellus explained. “I wrapped the light around us. Basically making us invisible! It’s a pretty complicated glamour, but the talisman makes it so much easier. You see,” she said, going into full professor mode, “what we see is solely dependent on the light reflecting back into our eyes. That’s what makes it impossible to see in complete darkness, and-”
“Thanks, professor,” Gallus interrupted. “Can we hurry this up so we can get the Tartarus out of these tiny tunnels?”
Smolder had forgotten about the griffon’s claustrophobia. The griff earned himself a few more points in her book. She wasn’t sure she’d be so cool facing down a roc as he was facing his biggest fear. “Come on,” she said, “if the shell is right, we’re close now.”
Yona was not a yak that scared easily. Which was to say, she was a yak. But the sight of the huge, spiked creature in front of her gave her the smallest bit of trepidation. The creature’s red form pressed into a glowing vein of rock with a familiar magical hue.
“That must be a root of the Tree,” Sandbar whispered. Yona nodded in agreement.
The creature opened its gaping maw of a mouth and bit down on the root. The ground immediately shook and trembled. Yona felt Gallus dart underneath her. For all his teasing, the griffon clearly understood the value of the Helm of Yksler now.
“What do we do?” Silverstream asked quietly. Her amulet glowed with the same diffuse light that filled the little pocket of hidden space that Ocellus maintained.
“We have to get it away from the Tree,” Smolder said. She had joined them inside the mirage. All five of her friends were pressed close around her. If it had been in other circumstances, Yona would have very much enjoyed the attention.
“Yak smash,” she offered.
“I know you’re strong,” Gallus said as he crawled out from under her. “Maybe crazy strong with that helmet, but that thing’s huge!”
“Yona not scared. Yona sure friends will figure out answer. Then yak will smash.”
“I don’t think smashing is on the menu at all,” Ocellus said. “We can’t risk hurting the Tree.”
“Then why did we even come down here?” Sandbar whispered. “To just sit here in the dark and stare at it?”
The creature let out another deep, earth-rattling moan.
“Why is it even eating the Tree?” the pony whined. “That can’t be good for it.”
Yona noticed Gallus go stiff. He touched the pointed crown on his head nervously. “I mean… I guess I could find out?”
“How griffon do that?” Yona asked.
Gallus cleared his throat quietly and pointed to his artifact with one talon. “The crown, uh, lets me hear a creature’s thoughts when I touch them.”
“It WHAT?” Sandbar yelped.
Yona gaped. “Griffon been touching friends THE WHOLE TIME in Ocellus’ mirage!”
Gallus laughed nervously, and his blue face flushed a deep red.
“SHH!” Smolder commanded sternly.
The creature by the Tree root turned and its skin burst into flames. Its head swung away from the Tree’s root as it searched for the disturbance. It roared, more feeling than sound at this distance, but otherwise made no other aggressive move. It slowly turned its attention back to the Tree, the flames fading from its body. Yona inched away from Gallus and thanked the great Mountains for their luck.
“Okay!” Smolder said as she leaned in close to the group. “I’ve got an idea. Here’s the plan…”
Yona led her friends forward slowly. She pushed down the worry she felt as she neared the giant creature. She was a yak. She was strong. Yksler’s Helm would protect her. And her friends’ plan would work. Her eyes darted to Gallus as the griffon sped toward the side of the creature. Right as the griffon made contact with the beast, Yona leapt out of the shimmering edge of the mirage. The beast rumbled a low warning and Gallus scrambled away from it.
“GIANT CREATURE! YAK WANT TO TALK!”
Yona tried to keep her eyes on Gallus, to be sure her friend had escaped the searing flames that burst into shape around the creature as it howled, but her attention was quickly drawn back as the monstrosity reared up towards her. Its eyes were milky white, and the horn on its snout was like nothing the yak had seen. It was jagged and twice the size of her head. And it was hurtling towards her. She winced as the horn connected with her Helm. The blow drove her to her knees, the sheer staggering force pushing her down. But her head remained intact.
From what sounded like a great distance, she heard Gallus yell, surprise evident in his tone. “It’s lost! It’s… just a child? The Tree’s warmth and magic reminds it of its mother and siblings…”
Anything else the griffon said was lost as the creature smashed down atop her again. Yona suddenly had a different appreciation for the objects smashed in Snildar Fest. Especially those that resisted a yak’s initial smashing weight.
“It… she just wants to go home!” Gallus cried.
“Down that path!” Smolder screamed after a moment, gesturing down a forked path with the blue shell she had been cradling against her scales.
Yona pulled herself to her hooves.
“CREATURE! FOLLOW YONA HOME!” She knew it almost certainly didn’t understand her, but she thought maybe it wouldn’t hurt to try to explain her intent. The skull-ringing impact of the creature’s horn on her helm a moment later only dulled her enthusiasm slightly.
So Yona led the creature, little by little, down a winding labyrinth of tunnels. The creature seethed and roared and pounded away at the much smaller yak every few steps. Despite the helm’s protections, Yona’s brain felt like pony pudding by the time Smolder gave a start and yelled behind her. The dragon had to yell three times before Yona could understand.
“They’re right down that tunnel! We’ve gotta go!” Smolder yelled. The creature smashed Yona’s head again, and the yak groaned. “Sandbar! Silverstream! You’re up!”
Yona heard a small popping sound below her hooves, and the air around her suddenly filled with pink smoke. Yona took the briefest moment to try and orient herself, and felt a rising panic when she couldn’t make up from down in the cloud of rosy smoke. Then a claw grabbed her and pulled at her coat urgently. She followed the claw until she bumped headfirst into her friends. She could just barely see them through the smoke, even within the changeling’s mirage.
The creature roared in confusion and anger.
Silverstream fiddled with the amulet around her neck, and a series of bright, multihued lights flashed down the tunnel which Smolder had mentioned, the tunnel where the creature’s family hopefully was waiting for it. Silverstream’s lightshow was bright and garish even through the slowly fading pink smoke.
The creature again howled, the sound shaking the walls around them, and it lumbered off in pursuit of the lights. Yona sighed in relief. Despite the ringing in her skull, the yak found herself hoping the creature found her family. Every creature deserved a chance at happiness.
“I can’t believe that worked!” Gallus crowed as the smoke began to clean and the six friends were left standing together inside the shimmering mirage. “Why in the world did you have a smoke bomb anyway, Sandbar?”
The earth pony smiled smugly. “An earth pony is always prepared for any situation.”
Yona chortled. “Sandbar buy whole bunch of strange things from new counselor pony ‘in case of big adventure.’”
The earth pony gave her a sour look. “Well, I was right about them being useful, wasn’t I?” He harrumphed. “Lucky thing I stashed a few in the Cloak.”
“Speaking of that,” Silverstream said as she closed off the Amulet of Aurora, “do you still have cupcakes in there? I’m famished.”
Silverstream flew ahead of her friends towards the Treehouse. It was good to be out of the tunnels and back in the air. She banked, enjoying the way the air flowed past her feathers and through her mane. As she neared the front doors, she was greeted by the shimmering projection of her now Ex-Headmare.
“Greetings, Friends!” the Twilight Sparkle doppelganger said as Silverstream landed and was joined by her friends. “Thank you for freeing me. To manage to do such a thing without malice or anger… you have proven yourselves champions of Harmony time and time again.” The phantom Twilight gestured down the hall. “I would be honored to share my gifts with you.” She vanished into a fine mist.
Silverstream squeed in excitement. “Let’s go open that chest, guys!”
The pink hippogriff flapped her wings eagerly, flying into the Treehouse and speeding towards the room housing the locked chest. Rainbow light once again shined from the box, the beautiful hues spilling out onto the walls and the creatures that gathered around it.
Remembering what Sandbar had said before, Silverstream took off The Amulet of Aurora. She felt a moment of regret in removing the Amulet. She had only had it for a few days, but she felt a strange kinship towards it. It had looked after her, helped her and her friends. She hoped whatever magic the Tree used with the Amulet wouldn’t hurt it. She pushed the artifact towards the lock bearing its symbol. Her friends did the same with theirs.
A burst of rainbow magic shot up into the air from the center of the chest, forming a luminescent orb that hung for a fraction of a moment before splitting into six beams. Silverstream squealed in delight (and perhaps a bit of shock) as the pink beam found the amulet in her claws. The rosy, magical light shone like the sun, but she could not bear to look away.
The Amulet of Aurora glowed in the light. The eye at the heart of the piece opened, adding its own magic to the sparkling effect. Silverstream blinked tears from her eyes but watched as best she could through the overwhelming amount of light. The blue gem at the center of the Amulet shifted, growing larger and changing shape. It moved like living clay, stretching until a large, pink garnet in the shape of a heart sat where the original blue gem had been.
The pink light shifted, dulled somewhat, and the Amulet spun slowly in the air in front of Silverstream. “Ooh,” she cooed, “it’s beautiful!” The rosy magic lifted the artifact up into the air, over the hippogriff’s head, and gently lowered it back around her neck.
Silverstream touched the Amulet gently with one claw. The artifact radiated a low, warm heat. It reminded her of the first time she had felt direct sunlight on her head after the fall of the Storm King, when the hippogriffs had returned to Mount Aris.
She heard gasps and joyful murmurs, and she looked up at her friends. Each of them wore an artifact that was similarly transformed, each bearing a jewel in the color of their Element.
As the magic faded, it was replaced with a projection of the Tree, again taking the form of Princess Twilight Sparkle.
“You six represent the future of Harmony: Unity, Wisdom, Conviction, Enthusiasm, Grace, and Leadership. With these Elements you serve not only Equestria, but our entire world.”
Silverstream reached out her arms and pulled the nearest creature into a tight hug. Smolder hugged her back, and her other best friends piled on less than a second later. She knew that with her friends, her fellow Bearers of Harmony, by her side, they could face whatever the world threw at them. She couldn’t wait to get started.