There was really only one place that Shining Armor's friends, the royal sisters and Tempest Shadow and Discord could go after their friend chose to fight Grogar alone. It was the one place that had been the safest in recent history, having avoided the high profile attacks in Canterlot and Ponyville for the most part. Shielded in part by the Frozen North it was believed that the Crystal Empire would be as good a safe haven as any for the time being.
Princess Cadence was not surprised to see any of them there, or to hear that her husband had basically opted to sacrifice his life in the hopes of saving Equestria. "He always seems to have this desire to protect others no matter what. And I think a part of him still hasn't fully gotten over Cozy Glow's death and what he feels he could've done to stop it from happening." She lamented and sighed.
Soarin angrily pounded a hoof into one of the crystal castle's walls. "I for one think it's foolish and reckless of him! At least he should let us join him! Maybe our friendship alone can't save Equestria, but I'd say we stand a much better chance together than he does on his own."
"I think he's tryin' to spare us the agony of havin' to say goodbye to him. Or the agony of him havin' to say goodbye to any of us," Braeburn remarked. "If he really does still blame himself for Cozy Glow, he probably doesn't want to lose another friend or ally if he can help it."
But Fancy Pants only hung his head as he declared. "There's no point debating it. He's out there now, and the best we can do is figure out what our next move is. With Shining inevitably dying or possibly even just being captured we'll have no way to draw on those incredible powers we used against King Sombra."
"I guess that means it's time for those kids you passed the torch to to step up and do their part," Tempest commented. "And if you need someone to lead the charge for them, I'm your pony."
Princess Celestia wasn't convinced. "It's highly unlikely they would be able to tap into the Elements of Harmony as easily as Shining Armor and his friends did, or as easily as the pillars were able to draw on their own virtues to defend the land long ago. Grogar is a threat ten times worse than Nightmare Moon or the Pony of Shadows."
Discord chimed in. "He makes even me during my worst days look like child's play. Besides, how are we supposed to motivate the children to defeat a threat their elders couldn't? You're really asking a lot of them on short notice."
"I reckon we'll have to do our part to motivate them," Big Macintosh concluded. "Which means the five of us are gonna have to board a train back to Ponyville, assumin' Grogar hasn't already set his sights on there."
"No need for that," The familiar voice of Twilight Sparkle declared as she came trotting into view. "The school's been on lockdown ever since the warning. I teleported here once Starlight and I concluded Chrysalis wasn't gonna be coming back," Then she sighed. "I heard everything you've said. A part of me always feared this would happen when Shining left to join the royal guard, but to know it's actually happening now..." She started to trail off as tears started to form in her eyes. "...I'll find some way to move on eventually. I know he wouldn't want me to throw my life away in a vain attempt to avenge him. But it doesn't make his inevitable fate any easier to deal with."
Princess Luna then pondered. "Where exactly is Starlight Glimmer? If she is no longer fighting against the forces of evil she'll surely know how to reach Trixie," And she added while looking at Tempest. "I just need to figure out how to reach Capper, wherever he is."
Twilight answered. "Still in Ponyville. I ordered her not to leave the school just in case Chrysalis or anyone else showed up again. I'm not sure how much help your little group will be, Princess Luna. But if you want I can try to convince Starlight to let you talk with Trixie while I work on getting in touch with Capper and Stygian."
Thunderlane lamented. "It feels so off to be making all these plans without Shining Armor. It all feels so hopeless. If he were still here now..." He shook his head. "Well, considering what he's up against maybe it wouldn't matter anyway. I just wish we knew what we could do. This can't be how it all ends for us, can it?"
All of a sudden, a blinding and dazzling flash of light from far away drew everyone's attention! But there was no way it could actually mean what they thought it meant, could it?!
With a sense of hope suddenly filling the hearts of all, everyone rushed to where the flash had come from. And when Cadence pushed open the door she found her husband on the floor of their private bedroom adjacent to Flurry Heart's nursery (miraculously, Flurry had not been awakened by the flash).
"SHINING ARMOR!" A chorus of happy voices all cried out at once, even the normally stoic Tempest and the distant at best Discord found themselves overjoyed to see the prince again!
Shining slowly stumbled to his hooves, his body bruised and battered as he slowly caught his breath. "Okay..." He panted. "Maybe that wasn't the smartest move on my part."
Soarin frowned as he ended the hug with his friend. "I'll say. What made you think you could hold off Grogar for more than a few minutes?"
But Princess Celestia and many others had far more pressing concerns. Celestia spoke up as she asked. "How is it that you're here? What exactly happened to you out there?"
The young prince answered as the hearts of everyone sank. "My most powerful attack was the only thing that caused any injury at all to him. And it made him so mad that he decided to use the chaos magic within his bell, turning himself into an even more powerful draconequus."
Discord was the first to gasp upon hearing that! "He's using my magic now too?! It wasn't enough that he bested me and drained my magic, now he's using it against you?! I must've really made him mad when I abandoned him all those years ago."
"Well, he used it and he was prepared to kill me right where I stood. But the spirit of Cozy Glow reached out to me, she brought me here," Shining continued to explain. "She must've figured this would be the hardest place for him to reach even with his chaotic powers."
"Oh, I'm just so glad you're still okay!" Twilight continued to hug her brother, hesitant to let it end. "Even if things look bad, with you still alive we have a chance. You and your friends can win again, like you always do in the end."
But Shining shook his head in protest. "I don't want to give up hope. I want to believe more than anything that this is no different from any of the other situations I've been in with my friends," The next words left his lips very slowly. "But if I said I believed in that I'd be a liar. Even if we still could readily access the Elements of Harmony I fear it wouldn't be enough. If not for Grogar using the bell to harness Discord's chaos magic I would think we could pull this off," He hung his head. "Sorry guys. I wish I had better news."
"No! That... that can't be!" Braeburn gasped! "There's always a chance, no matter how bad it may seem!"
The prince shook his head again. "Not this time. Unless we could successfully wrestle the bell away from Grogar and reverse its effects the best we could hope for is to sacrifice ourselves to contain Grogar, allowing others to raise up and defeat him for good."
Big Macintosh was not pleased to hear such a statement coming out of the mouth of his closest friend. He trotted forward and grabbed him by the neck. The stallions locked eyes with each other as the farm stallion sternly declared. "You listen to me, Shinin' Armor! You're not actin' like yourself and I don't like it! After all we've been through together, I refuse to believe that this is how you think it should all end! If things look as bad as you say they do then we need to look deeper within ourselves and make use of every connection we've got, every friendship we've made and every alliance we've forged. Grogar won't stop with just Equestria. And the Shinin' Armor I know would do everythin' he possibly could and then some to defend not only his world but every world."
Tempest chimed in. "It's not over. We can still continue to fight. You of all ponies convinced me that there's always a chance to turn things around. And I know I'm not the only one you touched with that inspiration," She gestured a hoof. "Look all around. Look at everything that's brought us to this point. We've come too far and have too much at stake to even think of losing. One way or another, we're going to fight to our last breath to defend all life as we know it. So the question now is, are with us or not?"
Cadence then commented. "I know you still haven't gotten over what happened with Cozy Glow. But you have to let it go. She's in a better place because you fought so hard to free her from her creator. That wasn't something she could've done if not for you. And you don't know for sure if she would've been able to live a full life independent of Tirek if she owed her existence to magic from him," And she pleaded with her husband. "Think of Flurry Heart, think of the world she's going to inherit and the example she'll have to live up to. Do you want her to be able to look back and say she was proud of the fact that you never gave up? Because if so then you know what you must do. Stand up and stand with us, all of us. And together we'll find a way to win!"
The words sank in slowly, Shining Armor didn't respond to them for several minutes as he continued to pace back and forth in silent contemplation. At last, however, he seemed to come to a conclusion. For the first time since this had all begun something began to stir deep inside of him. "You're right, all of you," He declared at last. "The only way Grogar truly wins is if we all give up and don't try to fight him. Darkness prevails most often when the light doesn't try to fight back against it or hold it in check. Grogar may be all powerful, but there's still many things we haven't begun to consider."
"Now that sounds like the pony I know!" Big Macintosh cheered! "Great to have ya back, old buddy."
Soarin smiled. "About time too if you ask me."
Shining smiled back before throwing up a hoof. "It's too early for us to celebrate now. We're not beaten yet but we need to have a solid plan if we're going to pull this off. Grogar is going to be the hardest challenge yet."
Cadence, however, beamed with confidence. "I know you'll all find a way to win. Heck, I'll be joining in too. This truly affects all of us. Every contribution matters, regardless of how much of a difference it may make. Anything that could tip the scales in our favor is worth considering."
Yet at that very moment, a familiar masculine voice protested. "It's not going to be enough. Even if you all press every advantage at your disposal, none of you will stand a chance in the end."
Everyone spun around, surprised to see none other than Tirek, Chrysalis and the Storm King all standing in the doorway. They no longer wore the collars Grogar had given them, and Tirek had clearly weakened back to his regular state of appearance (without any muscles and with his horns only two small black stubs). Yet there was the terrible trio in all their unwelcome glory.
Naturally, the three alicorn princesses lit up their horns as they surrounded the three. Twilight and Tempest joined in, and several others in the room prepared to take up a fighting stance. "You dare to show your faces in our presence now, after all of this," Princess Luna bitterly remarked. "Are you mad, or do you all just have a death wish?"
The Storm King protested in a whimper. "Please, you gotta hear us out. You need us!"
"Yeah right, how dumb do you think we are?" Tempest rolled her eyes. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't rip you all apart right here and now. Give one good reason why I should spare your sorry excuses for existence."
Chrysalis was the only one of the trio brave enough to give an answer. "If you're really planning to go after Grogar, your only chance is to take away his bell and drain him of all the magic he housed within it. The magic he stole from each of us and used to make his servants."
Tirek snorted. "The only reason he released us is because once he used the chaos magic, he was more powerful than any of us could ever hope to be either on our own or together. He wisely realizes that we can't backstab now even if we wanted to."
"And you think we'll just give it back to you assuming we can gain possession of the bewitching bell?" Princess Celestia angrily questioned the three with eyes narrowed in anger. "You aided and abetted him. And even before he came along your list of crimes was enough to have two of you condemned to Tartarus, and it was by bad luck that one of you suffered a fate worse than that. We have plenty of allies that don't include the likes of you three."
"Yet you can't deny we share a common enemy now," The Storm King protested. "Look, none of us actually likes the idea of an alliance or an agreement. And make no mistake, once old tall, dark and ugly's gone we're almost certainly gonna come for what we believe is rightfully ours. I mean, we're bad guys, it'd be pretty strange of us not to do bad guy things. Until then though, if we work together we could probably succeed in getting what we both want most right now: To see Grogar fall! Even you guys want him dead now."
To everyone's surprise, Shining Armor stepped forward as he declared to the Legion of Doom. "Much as I hate to admit it, you three make fine points. It's far better to have you on our side rather than have to deal with you all on top of dealing with Grogar. You're the ones who think the most like him and the ones who actually knew him the best. So it would seem our interests temporarily align with each other."
Chrysalis couldn't help but smirk upon hearing such confirmation. "See, Shining Armor? After all this time you still have something in your heart even for a bad girl like myself."
"Don't flatter yourself, any of you," Shining frowned. "This is nothing but a truce until Grogar has been defeated. You're right that we want him dead, but that's only if harmony allows it. The most likely outcome is that he'll be stripped of his power and banished, probably to the moon or even the sun. And we'll make sure he stays there forever. Once that's done, the truce is over and you three would be wise to make yourselves scarce. If not... well, you probably know what will happen."
Tirek just sighed and shook his head. "As would be expected from a pony. But I shouldn't be surprised, I know full well you can't stomach the idea of ever working with us. And it's not like we're going to magically change just because we take down someone even more awful than us. I guess we'll cross the bridge of who gives orders to whom about what they can and can't do when we come to it."
The prince then pointed out. "It's only fair to warn you, you're the ones I'm most likely to send out onto the front lines. You're the ones who Grogar won't expect to see fighting on our side. You'll have little in the way of support, because you'll be drawing that monster of a draconequus out into the open. That way my friends and I will have a chance to sneak up and steal his bell. Discord will get his powers back first though."
The Storm King couldn't help but ponder. "Why tell us this? It's not like we need motivation to give our former boss a piece of our minds and more than that. You could obviously throw us because we're the most disposable to you. If the roles were reversed you know we'd be asking you and your friends to do the same."
The young alicorn nodded his head. "Yes. But unlike the lot of you I intend to give you a choice. You can choose not to risk your lives for our sake if you really don't want to. You can just stay on the sidelines and wait to pick off whoever wins between the rest of us and Grogar," He appeared to grin as he added. "However, the three of you said it yourselves, you don't think we're gonna win without your help. And Grogar already knows he can beat you three if you go at it alone. Maybe one of you's okay with dying since you already experienced it before," He looked to the Storm King and then to Chrysalis and Tirek. "But two of you have never experienced it before, and would rather live in the hopes of achieving your revenge. I'm only giving you this option of backing out to prove that I'm not like any of you."
"So, what's gonna be?" Twilight questioned the Legion of Doom. "My brother hasn't gotten your hopes up with false promises. The choice rests with you and you alone."
However, there wasn't any hesitation as the three former baddies declared all at once. "We're in!"
Shining's grin started to grow wider. "Excellent," Then he turned to the others. "Now, as for the rest of you, here's what we're gonna do."