In the caves, where Kion and Rani’s throne was, Cadence was giving Shining Armor a good talking to. She was still not happy with the way he yelled at Flurry Heart and the way he has been treating her ever since she started growing up.
And boy, was Shining afraid of Cadence’s anger. You can tell he was scared of his wife’s angry expression due to the scared look on his face and the sweat pouring down his face to his hooves.
“I can’t believe you would yell at her like that!” Cadence said crossly, “Especially after one simple mistake!”
“She caused an avalanche to happen!” Shining said.
“Which she didn’t know it was gonna happen!” The princess shouted, “You even admitted that she was a baby that destroyed the Crystal Heart and nearly doomed everypony in the Crystal Empire!”
“Well it did cause a big snow storm!”
“And how was Flurry Heart suppose to know that was going to happen?! She was just a baby when it happened!”
“A baby that was born an alicorn and couldn’t control her magic!”
“She couldn’t help it!” Cadence shouted, “Babies do things that they didn’t mean to do! She was a hoofful of mischief during her Crystalling! Sure I was not happy with her destroying the Heart, but I still love her!”
“I love her too!” Shouted Shining.
“Didn’t stopped you from hiding your disappointment of her “dooming” the Crystal Empire and trying using her magic properly when she became a filly! And for those times when she used her magic for good, she was just trying to help! But you still had a go at her when most of them wasn’t her fault!”
“She could have hurt somepony!” Shining said crossly, “I couldn’t just let her off the hook by being pleased with her showing she was trying to help!”
“Well you should have! She was just showing how much she’s trying to prove on her magic!”
“And all she does for me to shout me back when I tell her off!”
“You are very hard on her.”
“I’m her father. It’s my job.”
“Oh, so your job is to yell at our daughter for the things she was trying to help with, the mistakes she didn’t mean to do and all because she destroyed the Crystal Heart which was MOONS AGO?! How is she suppose to become a princess now?!”
“By not destroying things that protect us or shouting back at me.”
“Well you had that coming from her!” Said Cadence crossly, “And not only that, but you’re doing exactly what you did to Twilight during that rehearsal!”
“Are you seriously bringing that up?!”
“Yes, I am! Because the way you’re treating Flurry Heart is exactly how you treated Twilight when she was just trying to save you! And since Flurry Heart was only trying to help and didn’t mean cause an avalanche to happen, are you going to tell her she can forget being your daughter and to not show up at our anniversary day?”
“No!” Shining answered, “I love her, and every family member deserves to attend our anniversary day!”
“Didn’t stop you from kicking Twilight out of the wedding and telling her she was no longer your best mare.”
“Cadence!”
“No, I am seriously going there!” Cadence said angrily, “Because Flurry Heart is supposed to become the new princess to rule the Crystal Empire! But now, thanks to your father type behaviour, she thinks she’s not worthy to take the throne after me, even if something happens to me! And if she continues to believe that, the Crystal Empire will be in great danger by the time an evil king or something vanishes us to the unknown leaving no pony to protect our ponies from that threat! And I don’t have a faithful student! I don’t plan to run a school since Twilight and Aunt Celestia are better teachers than I am!”
“You can always go and look for anypony that could be worthy to become the next princess,” said Shining Armor.
“Easy for you to say, you don’t have anypony that’s worthy to become the next captain!”
Shining knew that Cadence was right about that. Cadence doesn’t have a faithful student since she doesn’t plan to open a school of her own and Shining Armor doesn’t have a guard that’s worthy to become the next captain after he retires.
“I really want Flurry Heart to become a good princess and to take the throne when I give it to her! But I can’t now, because of what you did! You better find a way to make things right with her, because if she runs away or finds a way to remove her wings, that’s on you! Do I make myself clear?!”
Shining sadly and guiltily nodded his head.
“Yes, Cadence,” he replied in a guilt tone, “I’ll find a way to make things right with Flurry Heart.”
“Yeah, you better. I refuse to see my daughter believe she isn’t worthy to rule the Crystal Empire after me.”
“Mom! Dad!” Shouted the voice of Oliver.
Cadence and Shining turned to the entrance of the cave and saw Oliver and everyone else running into the throne cave. Shining saw Flurry Heart next to Twilight. He was about to say something to her, but she looked away as she was still upset with him after being shouted at. This made Shining even more sad and guilty as he hung his head down in shame.
“What is it, Oliver?” Cadence asked with interest, “Did you find a way to stop Ardyn already?”
“Well, not quite,” answered Oliver, “But we did managed to find something that could help us figure out how Ardyn got into Equestria.”
Constantine showed Cadence the rubber clothing piece which Cadence look at it in confusion.
“A piece of clothing?”
“It may not seem much,” said John, “But we’ve found it behind Roni’s ear. We figured this could belong to Ardyn and may show us how he got to Lightning.”
Cadence’s confusion turned into a happy smile.
“In that case then, let’s have a look, shall we?”
“Uhh…maybe it’s best we shouldn’t,” said Discord nervously.
“And why?” Rainbow asked with her hooves crossed and raising an eyebrow.
“Well, uhh…because uhh…it would be rude to invade someone’s past,” said Discord nervously while shrugging his shoulders.
Rainbow was not amused by Discord’s dumb excuse to not see if the piece of clothing was Ardyn and see how he got into Equestria in the first place.
“Discord, we literally look into every villain’s past every time we face them,” said Rainbow, “And doing that is the only way to know why they’re doing all of it, to understand how they became a villain and how we can get them to turn good again.”
“And looking into this clothing piece is the only way to see if it does belong to Ardyn so we can see how he got into Equestria and the Tree of Life,” added Sunset.
“I’m sure we can find some other way to see how he got here and Equestria,” said Discord.
“There isn’t another way, Discord,” said Princess Luna, “And we haven’t got all day.”
“Luna’s right. It has to be done.” Celestia turns to Constantine. “Whenever you’re ready, John.”
Discord gulped nervously as Constantine gave Celestia a nod. He placed the clothing piece in his hand and closes it. He then whispered a magical spell in a different language as his hand started to glow in a dark golden grasp.
Constantine opened his hand and let the piece fly in mid air. It zoomed towards a rocky wall of the cave and started to glowing in a dark golden grasp. Next, a big dark golden grasp screen appeared with the clothing piece on top and in the middle of the line.
“Ooooohh,” said Sora, Donald and Goofy in unison.
The screen then showed a flashback of when it was nighttime at the Tree of Life and Kion, Rani and Roni were fast asleep in their throne cave with Roni under Rani’s paw with his head on his mother’s chest. Twilight and Fluttershy found it really cute, especially since Lightning does it to Fluttershy as well. Rani blushed while smiling.
Back to the screen, they saw a dark corridor appear and disappear to reveal Ardyn Izunia as he approached the cub.
“There you are,” said Constantine, “Now then, let’s see how you really got here, shall we?”
Discord started to sweat nervously as John waved his hand around to make the screen rewind back to the beginning to when Ardyn began his nightmare mayhem. Once it was back to the beginning, they saw a dark corridor appear and disappear to reveal Ardyn as he was in a area with a purple sky. This made Fluttershy concerned since she once saw a purple sky like that before.
“Why does that purple sky look familiar?” She asked.
Discord gulped nervously again as he started to sweat even more.
Back to the screen, they suddenly saw Discord floating towards Ardyn with a piece of paper and a black coat in his paw and claw.
“What the?” Terra said in concern.
“Discord, what are you doing?” Asked Rarity.
On the screen, Discord gave Ardyn the black coat before handing him the piece of paper with had a picture of Lightning Twister on with information about him on as well. The video ended as the dark golden grasp screen fades away with the clothing piece falling to the ground.
Everyone, including Cosmos but except for Discord, was now in complete shock to what they have just saw. They now know how Ardyn got into Equestria in the first place, and possibly figured how he got into the Tree of Life as well. It was all because of Discord.
“You brought Ardyn Izunia to make our sons suffer in nightmares?!” Fluttershy shouted angrily with everyone else, including Cosmos in secret, glare angrily at the lord of chaos.
Discord was now scared and nervous to what will happen next for him. So he decided to make a fake excuse to leave before he can get told off again.
“Oh, look at the time. Gotta go to my piano lessons.”
Discord tiptoed out of the throne cave with tippy toe sounds going on. Rani was so angry with Discord that she chased after him.
Cadence was also very angry with Discord as she looked at her son and said, “Get him.”
Oliver angrily chased after Discord while turning into his ink demon form to help him catch the idiot of chaos. That proves Cadence wasn’t joking about hurting Discord if he messed up big time again and doomed everything.
Discord was flying away as fast as he could, knowing that they would be after him. He looked from behind and saw Rani and the Ink Demon angrily running after him. “Hold it right there!” Rani shouted angrily. Discord screamed in fear as he flew a bit faster.
Discord made his way out of the cave and headed towards the area where the snow was. He turned round and saw Rani and the Ink Demon slid on the ground for a stop as they glared at him with the Ink Demon letting out an angry growl.
“DISCORD! GET BACK HERE!” Rani yelled angrily as she and the Ink Demon started to run towards him again.
Discord panicky looked around to find something to help him get away from the lioness and demon. He shrugged and snapped his eagle fingers to create an invisible shield which stopped the two from coming close to him. He grinned proudly at them.
“Remove this thing at once, you creep!” Rani shouted angrily while banging on the invisible shield with her paw.
“Oh sorry. Can’t hear you,” teased Discord before laughing. He then started dancing as he shook his tail at the lioness.
But little does Discord know that Oliver can actually get through the shield without even having to break it. The Ink Demon slid through under the shield as he was now an inky puddle going under. Rani saw what he was doing and grinned at Discord who was still dancing and not knowing that the Ink Demon was appearing behind him.
When he saw Rani grinning, he stopped dancing and looked at her in confusion. The lioness pointed at him to tell him to look behind him. Discord turned round and saw the Ink Demon standing near him with his fists on his hips.
Discord screamed in fear as the Ink Demon roared at him while reaching his hand out towards him making everything go into pitch black.