It was a familiar scene to Storm Vine, marching through the chaos-infected land with rogue cotton candy clouds and buffalo in tutus all over. The feelings were even the same; cautious optimism that everything would turn out alright and grim determination if it didn’t. What had changed was the reason for it all.
Before, they had come to try and talk a friend down from doing something disastrous with the unpleasant reality that they’d have to fight him if they couldn’t.
Now, they were marching on an enemy with a weapon Vine could only hope would work against him, knowing that if it didn’t this would likely be the final battle for them all. The only question at that point would be just what kind of fate would await them at Discord’s miss-matched claws.
Another difference was that this time they weren’t being assaulted by his various chaotic creations as they marched on his throne. Last time they had been under attack by candy clouds, flying fish, and prancing pachyderms. This time… was eerily calm. Maybe it was because Discord wanted to unnerve them before they got close, maybe it was because he was planning something and wanted to make a big spectacle when they got close, or maybe it was because their approaching group was significantly smaller this time, many either having been caught by or fallen to the chaos or simply not wanting to face him again. Storm Vine couldn’t blame those from the later group; if plan A failed then plan B was just as hopeless. She could understand wanting to be with one’s family when the world came crumbing down around you.
The kirin looked at the saddlebags of the two archmages where their last hope currently resided. It had taken them all the better part of two years to find them, chasing trail after trail, rumor after rumor, and tome after tome of old legends to track them down. Many times the search had led them back into the chaotic lands where, thanks to the corruption, landmarks they were after had become warped to the point of being unrecognizable or were just not there anymore. There had been plenty of close calls during those excursions, including nearly running into Discord himself on a number of occasions. They’d still be looking if it hadn’t been for a group of harpies that had decided to race over the corrupted lands to see if anything stood out from the normal amount of crazy they’d been accustomed to seeing after all these years.
Miracle of miracles, one of them had actually seen something and it had made all their jaws drop when they heard it. In what had been the Everfree Forest, right near where Discord had set up his throne, was a ravine that was just… normal. The chaos corruption had just seemingly left it alone. Steel Spark had proclaimed it was a trap as there was no way Discord would have ever left even an inch of Equestria as it had been. Others pointed out that it probably meant nothing, that leaving something alone in a sea of chaotic corruption just added to the chaos, fitting its definition and thus was in line with his actions. Storm Vine and Celestia knew the chaos creature well enough to disagree with both assertions.
Discord liked to think himself clever and nearly five years of him ruling the corrupted lands had only exasperated that idea but this would be too obvious of a trap if it was one. They’d be practically crawling into his lap where as all the other times had been him nearly stumbling over them as they searched. Yes, he knew they were desperate but even after the catastrophe of the alicorn regalia they had still kept cool heads, so it was doubtful he’d think they’d be reckless now. On top of that the ravine could only be seen from the air and no flyer from their resistance had flown over that particular ground since right after that first route. He’d be relying on them making a wild stunt like the harpies did to even see it and he didn’t have that kind of patience. He also wouldn’t have just left it alone for chaos’ sake. He wanted to corrupt all of Equestria, so he would. A small bit of land so near the epicenter wouldn’t have been left alone just because.
Celestia, Luna, and Storm Vine all left to see the anomaly for themselves after finally arguing down the others, mostly a very vocal Steel Spark, that this could not be ignored nor could they leave it to others to investigate. Like all their previous trips, it had been nerve-racking as they used every ounce of magic and skill to avoid being caught by the many chaotic creatures between them and their destination. Besides them, they had to also sneak past those that had been corrupted by Discord’s magic, grayed-out and acting horrible to each other. All three prayed that once he was defeated, those affected by him could go back to leading normal, happy lives. Even when they finally reached the ravine they didn’t let their guard down; the idea that this was indeed a trap, no matter how unlikely, still kept their senses on edge. Their investigating quickly led them to a cave along the bottom with a faint light coming out of it and when they cautiously looked in they found a sight to behold.
At the back of the cave was a tree or, at least, what looked like a tree. It was made of a blue crystal that sprouted up from the floor with branches that reached out in five directions, each of which ended with a colorful gem with other, smaller diamond-like gems hanging down from the branches like those of a weeping willow. In the center was a large, six-pointed star shape, while underneath that were two more distinct symbols, one of a sun and the other of a crescent moon. The aura it gave off was like a gentle spring breeze, calming and gave one the impression that everything would be fine. Before they knew it they were all inside and staring up at the tree, Celestia and Luna standing closer than Storm Vine.
“It… is the Tree of Harmony,” Luna said softly, as if she was understanding something.
“And those are the Elements,” Celestia said in the same tone, as if something was explaining this to them. Storm Vine didn’t feel like she was being told anything, just a feeling of being calmed, but she trusted her friends and whatever this tree and these elements were, there was no way they were something created by Discord. Whatever they were, they were beyond his power.
Her look of awe becoming one of determination, Celestia flew up to the tree, her horn alight. “Are you sure?” Luna asked as Celestia plucked an Element from a branch. “It almost feels like they are tied to the tree. What if without them…?”
“This is possibly the only means of stopping Discord and returning peace to Equestria,” Celestia said as she eyed the Element. “Even without them, this tree has great power. If the Elements and the tree are truly that closely linked, we can return them after defeating Discord.”
Nodding, Luna flew closer and began gathering Elements herself. Celestia pulled off a second one, then the center shape of the tree glowed and opened up, revealing a second, smaller, magenta six-pointed star. This sixth Element floated over to Celestia, who took it with a nod to the tree as Luna finished picking her third one.
“You want to explain all that?” Storm Vine asked when they landed again by her.
“We don’t know how to explain it but these Elements… they are what we need to defeat Discord,” Celestia said.
“It spoke to us, though that’s not the best way to describe it,” Luna tried to explain, “but we are certain it is the truth.”
Strom Vine looked past them to the tree, giving it another hard once over. “Well, whatever it is, Discord has nothing to do with it and I trust you two, so let’s get out of here with them and put an end to this nightmare.”
As they had made their way back across the corrupted lands, hoping and praying Discord hadn’t noticed anything, Storm Vine couldn’t help but feel twin tinges of hope and apprehension pull at her heart. From what she could sense from her two friends, there was a feeling that, with this discovery, the final battle was upon them. Whatever had “spoke” to them hadn’t done so to her, so she didn’t have the same confidence in these Elements as they did but their confidence in them, a confidence she hadn’t sensed since before Discord took over, made her believe they knew what they were doing. That had sustained her through the trip back, arguing and forming of the final battle plan, and the march back into Discord’s domain.
Now here they were, approaching the small hill where his throne sat, ready to take him on again.
The throne was facing away from them at first but spun around as they reached the base of the small hill, revealing a chuckling Discord and another creature with him. It looked just like a pony but its eyes lacked pupils and instead had swirling circles in their place. She, for it was clearly a mare, was also floating near Discord’s head without any wings or a horn. Storm Vine had heard a few reports of a strange pony assistant helping the draconequus but had dismissed it. Now she wondered if she should have read those particular reports more carefully and if there were more of them lurking about.
“Well, well, well, back again I see. It’s been a while; how about a few rounds of five-pony stud so we can all get caught up?” He produced a deck of cards then bent them until they popped from his eagle claw, fluttering down onto the front row of the group below. Everyone stayed silent, only returning his antics with glares.
“Maybe they’d prefer Pegasus Hold’em, boss,” the strange mare suggested, tossing her own deck of cards at them. Storm Vine kept an eye on the cards scattered on the ground in case the draconequus planted them there deliberately.
“Nah, I’ve got a better idea! How about a game of pin the tail on the pony?” He lifted up his lion paw to reveal a pink, wavy tail. This time there was a reaction as Celestia reflexively looked at her backside and saw he’d indeed stolen her tail. Both he and the strange pony laughed and Discord threw the tail back towards them, the wavy pink mass taking off on its own and reattaching itself to Celestia with a rude noise, which only made the two laugh louder.
Above them, Firestorm snorted in disgust. “Five years of being the “Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony” and you still act like a child.”
Celestia and Storm Vine stepped forward and spread their wings, stopping anyone else from adding to the comment. They wanted to get this over with and comments and arguments would just drag things out. “Play time is over for you, Discord,” Celestia said.
“This farce is done with,” Storm Vine added.
Once they were done laughing, Discord pulled out a sack of… some kind of seed and began eating. He was making a heck of a mess, too, dropping clawfuls everywhere as he dug in, his pony assistant spilling quite a lot as well when he offered the sack to her. “I seriously doubt that,” he said, throwing a loose handful into his mouth, “you lot haven’t been able to even touch me in all these years and now you stroll up unannounced and claim I’m done for? And here I thought you were all too stuffy for jokes.”
Celestia and Luna looked at each other, nodded, then turned and nodded to the others. They all nodded in return and braced themselves, not knowing exactly what they’d be bracing for. They’d never tried to test the Elements out of fear they’d be tipping the chaos creature off. The saddle bags of the two alicorns opened and the six Elements, three apiece, came floating out, the sisters arraying them in front of themselves at the ready.
Discord’s eyebrows went up and he let out a surprised “Oh!” at the sight of them, tossing the seed bag away as he leaned into get a better look at what they’d just produced. “And what have you got there?”
“Looks like those candy rings without the rings!” The mare said, pulling a hoof out from behind her back and showing off a plastic ring on it topped with a ridiculously sized gem-shaped candy on it. “And it looks like they want to taste the rainbow!”
“These are the Elements of Harmony,” Celestia explained as the Elements began to swiftly spin around the two. Storm Vine and a few others had to back away or risk getting hit. As the Elements started to lift the two alicorns off the ground, Storm Vine unconsciously brought a hoof up to her pendant and prayed they’d work.
“With them we shall finally defeat you and return Equestria to the peaceful land it once was!” Luna added.
Discord and the mare just looked at each other and began laughing again. “You should hear and see yourselves right now!” he wheezed out, “those serious expressions while rainbow gems fly around your heads, everyone backing up so they don’t take friendly fire! And you’re all calling me insane!?”
The Elements spun even faster, then a ribbon of rainbow shot up from them and arced up then down towards the laughing pair, neither one seeming to worry about being hit by it.
“Hilarious!” Discord shouted, his lion paw hold his stomach while his eagle claw reached out for the mare, who grabbed it as she nearly fell out of the sky laughing.
The rainbow ribbon hit them mid-guffaw. There was no flinching, no cry of pain to replace the laughter, both Discord and the mare simply became white gray and froze in place. There was a flash of light and a pulse that made them all close their eyes. When they opened them again, they all blinked several times at the scene around them.
It was all back to normal.
Green grass, blue skies, average trees with normal leaves, ponds and rivers flowing with clear water; it was all back to how it had been before. In front of them, instead of a small hill and throne, was a life-like statute of Discord and the mare, frozen in mid-laugh.
“Is… is it over?” Storm Vine asked, hardly able to believe there really was grass under her hooves and not the checkered pattern of the chaos corruption.
“It can’t have been that easy,” General Steel Spark said, also looked around, “all this time fighting for our lives and he folds just like that? There’s still something going on.”
“I can’t sense his magic anymore, general,” Celestia said, walking up to the statue and examining it more closely, then letting out a deep sigh that seemed to come from the deepest part of her soul. She looked over at Luna, who nodded in agreement, then turned back fully to look at them all. “The Elements did it; Discord is finally defeated.”
There was a pause, then a hysteric cheer went up, quickly gaining voices as it echoed all the way to the Canterlot mountains. Storm Vine let out a deep sigh of her own and her back legs slid out from under her. Firestorm made to hold her up with a wing but she waved him off. “I just need a minute,” she said, looking back at the alicorns and then the statue behind them. The nightmare was over, the chaos defeated, and they could all go back to their normal lives, what pieces of them were left. There’d be a bumpy road ahead, putting Equestria back together, but the future was bright again and if they could endure the previous five years, however many were ahead would seem like a cake walk in comparison.
Tears rolled down the kirins face. “It’s over.”
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“And you’re sure you don’t want to be in Canterlot Castle?” Storm Vine asked as she watched several workers apply more mortar to the wall they were constructing.
“As we told you and the others, it would be better to keep the Elements as close to the tree as possible, just in case,” Celestia told the kirin, glancing in the direction of the nearby ravine. “And since we are their bearers, we should stay close as well.”
“Not to mention it lets us distance ourselves from the shadows of the previous queens, which all will appreciate, not to mention letting Queen Platinum XVI live out the rest of her days in peace,” Luna added with a snort.
“All but the unicorns, anyway,” Vine muttered, remembering the fit Steel Spark threw when he was told the newly elected rulers of Equestria were moving the capital away from the seat of power that had existed for more than half a millennia.
With Discord defeated, it had been hoped things would return to how they had been before he took over. However, the “games” he had put Queen Platinum XVI and most of her court through for the past five years had broke them all mentally and none were fit to serve, nor had the queen produced an heir before Discord’s take over to take her place. With it being Celestia and Luna and their powerful Elements that were the ones to ultimately stop him, as well as their leadership of the resistance against him and their ranks as archmages before the time of chaos that was now being called “Discord’s Folly”, it had been decided by the few remaining beings in power that the alicorn sisters should be the next rulers of Equestria.
Even that decision had hit a snag as soon as it was agreed upon.
As Celestia was the older sister, some had proposed that she become queen while Luna, the younger sister, be the new princess. Others, including Storm Vine, had argued that since it had taken both sisters with both their Elements to defeat Discord, they were equally responsible and should rule equally. The ones in favor of Celestia being queen pointed out that there could only be one queen, not two, so ONE of the sisters had to take the title of princess. Celestia herself tried to compromise by saying they could both take the title of princess, however this was also shot down as they argued that only a king or queen could rule a kingdom, not a princess.
One of the nobles in agreement for both becoming princesses then stated that since Queen Platinum XVI still held the title, even if only as a courtesy, that meant that declaring either of the alicorns as queen would technically be treason, making the opposite side mutter nervously. It was further pointed out that since the queen had no heir, the decision that was being made was actually about who her successor would be, meaning that the title of princess going to both Element bearers made more sense and a discussion of succession could be held when the current queen finally passed. In the meantime, both alicorns would rule in her stead in order to get the country back on its hooves. THAT had finally gotten everyone on the same page again.
“Don’t get worked up about General Steel Spark; you know he always comes around in the end,” Celestia told her friend, laying an ivory wing across her back.
Vine sighed and rolled her eyes. “Before Discord went rogue, he was just annoying sometimes. Even now after Discord’s defeat, he’s become practically insufferable. All he does anymore is just argue and argue!” Vine snorted and two small jets of fire flared out. Catching herself and taking a deep breath, Vine reached into her saddlebags and took out a ruby, popping it into her mouth. “Tempest and Bright are moving into the temporary shelters for the new castle town today, so I think I’ll go help them move in.” Both alicorns nodded as she took off and flew off away from the build site back towards the large plains on the edge of the forest. As she did so two wyverns, clearly Marble and Quartz Stone, flew overhead in the same direction, playfully nipping at each other as they went. All the kirins were moving into the castle town, just as they all had originally been living in Canterlot. As they, as a group, had always had been seen as mediators for inter-species issues, it was considered that the best place for them to be was near to where the most complaints would come to. Storm Vine was also essentially the leader of their species and wherever she went, so did they. As she still held the rank of Platinum Knight, her place was by the ruler(s) of Equestria, and so they followed. At least Vine could take comfort knowing that the sisters wouldn’t complain to her about wyvern fly-bys.
“She’s not wrong, you know,” Luna said when they turned back to the construction. “Steel Spark has grown an attitude; understandable while Discord ran wild but now it is becoming a problem.”
“He agreed to us being princesses and moving the capitol,” Celestia pointed out.
“After intense arguing and then only begrudgingly,” Luna countered. “I have also seen him giving non-ponies rather disturbing glares when he thinks no-one is looking. That is both new and worrying.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying he’s developed some sort of grudge against non-ponies?”
“Quite a few sided with Discord when he first took over,” Luna reminded her, “many sighting they did so because they felt Queen Platinum was speciesist, which, let us be fair.” They both raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Steel Spark is also one of the few outside of the ones born around that time that knows Discord was born from his harpy mother’s egg, hatched while his lamia father tended the nest. He might worry what will happen if another draconequus is born.”
“I would like to think that we’ll treat the next one to be born, if that happens, with much more kindness than any of the queens showed Discord,” Celestia said, a note of anger in her voice which she also dispelled with a long, deep breath. “We will not make the same mistakes.”
“No we will not,” Luna agreed, but was still worried. “Should we keep an eye on Steel Spark, just in case?”
“He’s still adjusting to how everything is changing; many are. Once things settle down into a peaceful normal, he’ll become the old Steel Spark again. Leave him be for now.”
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“You’re sure?”
The doctor sighed and nodded. “As I’ve told you several times, her highness is fine physically but not mentally and isn’t showing any signs of recovering, nor is it likely she ever will. If you will excuse me, general.” With that the doctor picked up his bag and left the office.
General Steel Spark grimaced at the door as it closed behind the doctor. He’d been hoping there’d be some hint of recovery, some hope that the queen would recover and put an end to the farce taking shape in the Everfree Forest. He couldn’t trust the sisters, not while they still held the kirins in high esteem and treated the other species as equals. It was the other species’ fault that damn chaos monster had been born, after all! All the interbreeding that had produced Discord in the first place, at least that’s what the mages and wizards who studied him when he was still a foal hypothesized. He’d stumbled across the notebooks on the matter when he had to police the library’s archives long before he’d been made general.
And if one could be born, there was no reason to think another one couldn’t and they’d be right back to fighting for their lives all over again before too long. Those Elements probably wouldn’t work either since the new draconequus would know about them and take care of the archma- the princesses first, leaving Equestria at their mercy.
He could not let another draconequus terrorize the land again.
But what could he really do? Move against even a single group to try and prevent enough hybridization and that damn Storm Vine and her kirins would stop him, with the backing of both the wyvern clans and the new princesses to boot.
The kirins, the Kirins, those Damn KIRINS! No matter what idea he came up with they’d always be an obstacle he just couldn’t overcome! There was even a rumor that some had voiced that they would have joined Discord like so many others did! If only there was a way to take them out of the equation, then he could…
He stopped, staring blankly at the far wall as an idea came to him and grabbed hold of his thoughts like a drowning pony would a life preserver. It was all so simple, so simple that, in one swift act, all of Equestria’s problems could be solved, possibly forever!
He chuckled as he wrote a series of letters to those he trusted had the same outlook on the current situation as he did. When he called in a private to take and deliver the letters, the young pony couldn’t help but feel a shiver down his spine at the glint in the general’s eyes and the uncharacteristic smile on his face.
“Do hurry private,” he’d told him as he left with the letters, “Equestria’s future is at stake.”