Chrysalis soon broke their long standing eye contact "We have to warn her!" Tirek never agreed with her more.
"Let's not waste any time we have no idea when that blue goat will strike"
"I am a ram for your information" Grogar appeared by the doorway. Quickly Tirek hid the book under the Table.
"Is there even a difference between the two?" Chrysalis said that for two reasons the first was because she genuinly didn't see much of a distinction and the second was so she would take the attention away from her teammate it worked.
"Maybe a creature with your sanity status just wouldn't understand it and you won't need to, you only need to do it"
"Yes, Grogar" She bared her fangs, her voice was deeper than normal.
"Good now i would like to know what you two were talking about?" they exchanged a few quick glances, each hoping the other would find a good enough excuse.
Grogar tried to suppress a satisfied grin. Hearing the pure horror in theyre voices was enjoyable enough, but seeing them now desperatly searching for some sort of explanation was ten times better. However he should probably think about a way to stop them from warning that filly, his plan was going to good just to be ruined by them of all creatures. Wait, wasn't there this weird pony festival The Brand Falloping Nala or something like that? From what he remembered it would take place tonight, perfect!
"Well it doesn't matter anyway, because i have an assignment for you" chrysalis ears perked up, seeming alarmed. Tirek also straigthened himself, probably to evoke fear, which would work if Grogar wasn't the Father of Monsters. "Tonight there's a special event in canterlot"
"Do you mean The Grand Galloping Gala?"
"Yes, i want you two to mess a little with the Festival destroy some stands, cause fights among the guests, just try to ruin the evening as much as possible"His two minions looked at him like he was mad, which he probably was by equestrian standards.
"By all due respect, how would this help our goal to destroy the Elements of harmony!" Tirek raised his voice at him, something that would normally end in a one way Ticket to the after Life.
"It's simple really somecreatures are planning to announce something that could endanger our plan, so by ruining the event you will stop the announcment from happening" Grogar techhnically already ruined the whole Gala thing by ponynapping the princess, but the two didn't now that.
Chrysalis didn't believe him, every cell in her body screamed this was a Trap. From how tense Tirek looked he felt the exact same way. All of a sudden Tirek relaxed.
"Fine we will do it, if we can take Cozy with us" She was surprised by his smarts, so was Grogar.
"I thougt you hated having her along for the ride?"
"Well it's like you said, we work better as a unit" Chrysalis jumped in grinning like a devil at Tirek.
Grogar was considering using a mind control spell, but he knew that they're minds were incredibly resistant, it would take too long to break trough and killing them wasn't an option, yet. He wasn't even planning on using the spell right now, first he needed to get rid of the mane six, but if he forbid it they would warn Cozy of his plans, eventough grogar knew that he could still win the fight even if the filly fought back, fighting against Cozy and the other two would be a waste of needed energy. And saying yes would also lead to them warning her. After spending a few minutes a plan formed in his head.
"You do make a good point, so you might take her with you if you so wish" Both of them seemed as confused as they were relieved.
"Well then we will go to canterlot when the sun goes down"
"No need i will teleport you there now do whatever you want to i need to attend to some important business, goodbye" with that Grogar left the room, he actually needed to do something very, very important.
"HE DID WHAT!" Zecora expected this kind of reaction from the spirit of harmony, after all she just told her that Grogar managed to break trough the magical barrier and captured the Element of Magic herself. Still it was hard to stand up straight, when the entire underground is shaking. After Harmony calmed down enough to internalize the situation, Zecora noticed how sick her friend looked. Her light purple coat was slowly turning grey, her mane had some strong white accents mixed within, her eyes gave the impression of somepony who hadn't slept in a week, she was clearly using all her power to keep the barrier up, maybe that was why Grogar got in so easily.
"It's like i said without sleep you're weak"
"Zecora it's not just a lack of rest, i lost so much of my power the Elements were destroyed alongside my old form, the rest of my elemental power currently resides within six ponies, those copies from chrysalis almost managed to corrupt me, i needed to give my magic artifacts to a bunch of children so they would at least stand a chance against grogar" Harmonys voice got lower "i do not think i will be able to sustain my physical form much longer" Zecora froze her own voice began to tremble
"I understand dear, however i don't wish for them to live in fear"
"They won't, the moment i regained enough of my power i will return to normal, now you should head to canterlot the others will need your help preparing that Big dance thing, i will try to find a solution for Twilights dissapearance, Faerwell"
"Good luck"
Cozy paced around. Grogar said he had a special surprise for her, what it was he didn't say, which only meant good things of course. Besides that there was something else that was strange, her two allies seemed to want to tell her something, before they were cut off by Grogar calling for her and when she followed him to his room, she could swear Tirek looked concerened, just imagining his fearful eyes made her skin crawl. Normally Cozy was the scared one hiding behind Tireks legs.
"Cozy come in"
"Coming!" She gulped down all her anxiety and fears and went inside. This was the first time Cozy ever saw the inside of Grogars chamber. It looked like the room of an alchemist in the old tales Twilight would sometimes read to them before a big holiday. There were potions everywhere, glasses filled with eyes or dead rats were spread out before a big round cauldron and in the middle of the room Grogar sat by a table, taking a few steps closer she soon realized what he was doing, he was trying to fix the broken vase, the shards lied infront of him. He barely noticed her going in.
"You wanted to see me?" Cozy couldn't stop her eyes from looking at what was left of the vase. Grogar always complained at how ugly that vase was, yet he snapped at her for breaking it and now he was actually using his magic to fix it. This made her remember back when she was still living with her parents she would spend her freetime on drawings, none of them were any good, her parents reminded Cozy of that fact whenever she showed them her work, so in a fit of Frustration she often tore her drawings into pieces. Then one night she caught her mother in the act of glueing one of her many art works back together. It should have probably made her feel better, but it just angered her even more, if her mother found the drawing good enough to stay in one piece, then why didn't she say so?
"Ah yes, Cozy i wanted to talk with you about last night" her heart started to beat faster than it probably should.
"R-Really what about it?"
"Well it's about what i did and said, you remember it right" How could she forget. Cozy was threatened a lot growing up ponies at school, Tirek, Chrysalis, her parents did it sometimes after long shifts, but never had any of them ever made their threats become reality. Then comes Grogar she still saw the way he stood there the pure hatred in his eyes, as he started to pull on her wing harder and harder with every passing second, a few feathers even fell out, there was no doubt in her mind that if he hadn't stopped he would've pulled out her wing.
"I do remember"
"Good, well i wanted to... explain my sudden outburst to you. Come i'll show you something" Grogar led her to a very dark hallway, this was the moment cozy looked for a possible way to get out without getting caught. They continued walking, until they reached a big glass window, that closely resembled the once in canterlot castle. The window depicted a earth mare with a light yellow coat and a green mane, holding up Grogars Bell.
"What is this?"
"Hm i thought you were the Expert on gusty the great"
"W-what?"
"You can't fool me, i know you have been reading up on those silly books. I even stole a few pages out of it" He held up the missing pages from the sixth book, for a short moment Cozy could see a bitter expression on his face, at reading a few lines from one of the pages. "As if i really transformed into a giant blue dragon, oh and naturally Gusty just immediatly knew how to use the magic of friendship, not like she had to practice weeks because of her earth pony heritage." His face relaxed "But i don't want to argue about the accuracy of fairytales with a filly, instead i wanted to tell you a little secret of mine, you see that pony ist Gusty, the real Gusty! Most creatures know her as my defeater and enemy, however that is not the whole truth, as you see she was also my adopted daughter"
"What!" Cozy couldn' tell if she found the news shocking, hilarious or both, it probably was both.
"Yes" The intensity in his voice silenced her instantly. "She was a lot like you as a child loud, annoying, constantly trying to be artsy, eventough she definetly wasn't, she also broke many things, which must have been the reason i snapped at you, it reminded me of her too much. In the end she found herself a few new 'friends' and overthrowed me" Why did it feel like Grogar also meant the last part as a comparison, but for that he needed to know about her and her teammates plans and he didn't knew that, right? "Cozy you know what happened at the end of Gustys story"
"No" She surpressed the urge to say "How was i supposed to? you ripped out the final chapter"
"Well Gusty was celebrating her victory, without making sure that i was dealt with, how foolish. That was when i realized how much magic i had, so i used all of my remaining powers to disintregate Gusty and her allies, sadly this action cost me my physicall form, forcing me to wait thousands of mooons, but now i have enough power for four Disintergration" Suddenly Cozy realized the purpose of the comparisons, it was a Threat.
"I haven't heard anything in a long time"
"For the last Time Tirek she will be alright"
"Maybe i should just check for a quick second"
"Tirek sit back down!" With a loud grunt he flopped back into the chair. "Do you still want to claim that you don't care for the filly"
"You're not any better. Just look what i happened to find in your room" He waved with the drawing, chrysalis had stolen from Cozys childhood home earlier. She took it back with a hiss.
"HOW DARE YOU INVADE MY PRIVACY!" The third roommate entered the living room, in which they had resigned in, followed by grogar himself.
grogar began speaking "After much concideration i had the brilliant idea to give you something, so i can watch over you during your mission" He summoned a small necklace "Here one of you put this on how about you Tirek?" Without saying anything Tirek obeyed, something he fought he would never do. "Good now i better summon that portal the sun is already going down"
"But it was just-" Chrysalis stared in disbelief at the setting sun.
"Well i guess Twilight just couldn't wait" With a malicious grin the ramp looked back at his room, he really was lucky to have caught her first.
Meanwhile at Canterlot:
"What in tarnation!"
"Why is the sun going down!"
"Discord!"
"I'm not doing this"
"Celestia! Luna!"
"We do not have our powers anymore remember?" six ponies, two alicorns, a dragon and a draconequs collectively watched the sun slowly sink over the everfree forest, only Zecora continued to decorate the castle, she was already aware that grogar wasn't a patient creature.
"And what are we going to do now? Twilight hasn't returned yet and the guests could come any minute now!" Rainbow dash never thougth she was ever going to experience twilighting first of hoof, she also never thougth that this situation was ever going to happen, but here they were.
"Maybe we could tell them to leave?" Fluttershy tried to keep calm and flutter on "we could move it to a later date"
"Aren't you all forgetting something? Twilight is missing! And considering the sun is moving, somepony must have stolen her powers!" Applejack justified her being the Element of Honesty.
"Do you think she needs help the chimeras?" Princess Celestia, Twilights proud teacher and former ruler of Equestria never felt so stressed. Not just because her best student was missing, but she also decided to invite all the other leaders from the other parts of the land even the Pillars were coming.
"Do not worry my dear sister, the guards just informed me that the chimeras have been taken care of, however they did say that the two monsters seemed scared of something, they didn't even put up a fight"
"What if she's hurt? What if she got lost somewhere?" Spike was pacing around constantly imagining the worst case scenario.
"There's no need to worry darling i'm sure Twilights doing fine, maybe she just accidentaly let the sun go down sooner she is still getting used to it after all"
"i hope you're right rarity" Spike really tried to believe her, but he just couldn't help this feling that something was very wrong. Two creatures stayed surprisingly quiet. Discord and Zecora didn't need to exchange any words, both knew very well what was happening. They slowly seperated themselves from the rest of the group. It was after they were out of hearing range, that discord started to speak.
"So is he-"
"Yes he's back, keep track"
"Well that explains the weird feeling i had yesterday night, so when exactly did you plan on telling me this"
"When the Time was right"
"Do you always have to be so ominous?" Discord was growing more and more annoyed "Besides don't you think as the only one of his monsters who was able to rebell against Grogars magic, should be aware of him coming back"
"I was afraid you could tell"
"Do you really think i don't know how risky that would be? I've been a reformed villain since season three! And i know i betrayed you for tirek, but that was five seasons ago! Okay, i might have acted a little bit villainous with Starlight, but i had good reason too!"
"You are right i'm sorry for causing you fright"
"Thank you! By celestia most ponies act like i freed four criminals to test Twilights ability to rule or something, anyway what is the plan"
"We will let the gala go on, she won't let us wait for too long"
"Great now say that same sentence in english please" Instead of explaining herself zecora walked right up to the rest of the group.
"Do not worry my dears i have an answer for your fears"
"You do?" Everycreatures attention was directed to Zecora
"Continue with the Gala as planned, i swear i have a Plan" If their former experiences, have taught the Element bearers anything, then it was that Zecora can be trusted, no matter how absurd it sounds.
"Alright if you say so Zecora, let's finish the decorations before the guests turn up" With that Applejack started to work, soon the others joined in, even the princesses and Discord helped out. All hoping that Zecora was right once again, however ironically the one must uncertain about the Zebras promise was she herself.
When the three villains arrived at Canterlot the gala had already begun. Ponies, Yaks, griffons, reformed changelings, Kirins, seaponies and so many more were filling Canterlot castle and it's surrounding eras. The moon started to rise at an amazing speed, over none of the guests seemed disturbed by this, everycreature was laughing and just having a great time overall, eventough it was quite curious that earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns were avoiding each other. The trio seemingly talked about their plans, but they're eyes said something completely different. All i will say is that Grogar, who was observing there every move, thougt that they were having a stroke.
"So i'm going to cause chaos between the guests" Chrysalsis pupils fixated on the necklace, trying to find a way to get rid of it, without alerting a certain ram.
"And i will try to destroy their food" Tirek blinked rapidly, signaling that he had no idea.
"I guess i can't really help much, but maybe i could try to get a few banners to fall onto the guests" Cozy also shared Grogars believe that her two older teammates are having a stroke.
"Okay just don't get caught" Now the two were having an intense staring contest, bouncing off ideas, just to come to the realization that they need to wait the night out, so they all broke off into different directions.
From then on the night went exactly as planned... for the villains. Cozy managed to blind a few yaks, causing them to run into tables, chrysalis managed to cause many fights between the races and Tirek robbed everycreature of cake. The mane six spend most of theyre time trying to keep the peace, of course with the help of Discord, the princesses, the young six, (who were constantly whispering to each other about some artifacts which is nothing to worry about i'm sure) the pillars, spike and even the other rulers, but for every solved problem a new one popped up. And Zecora? She was just watching this all unfold, waiting for her friends 'Plan' to arrive. Meanwhile Grogar was having the most fun he had in years, verything was going exactly as planned soon the Time for Twilights speech would come and pass, without thefuture ruler appearing the Harmony of the Land would be weakened even more, then he will finally be able to enter the lands.
However just two minutes before the planned speech, something happened that wasn't supposed to happen. It began with the ochestra stopping.
"Oh by Celestia what is wrong now!" Discord felt something he never felt Tiredness. In a snap he was beside the conducter, who wasn't moving. "Ah hello, would you so kindly continue doing what you do" The conductor just stared of into the distance his eyes were white as a sheet, he also wasn't breathing. "Hello? Don't you know it's rude to ignore somepony?Hello!" A seperate Talon appeared in front of the pony waving aggresively. "Are you dead?" Discord summoned himself a stethoscope and felt for a pulse, thankfully there was one. He then noticed that not just the conducter was stuck in a comatose state the whole ochestra were staring into the distance with white eyes. Discord shoved them, moved their bodies around, even when he held a cupcake under they're noses they didn't even blink. He was just about to get the mane six to help, when suddenly the ochestra started again, but instead of the light melody from before the music sounded threatening, like something was coming.
The next Thing that happened was it started to rain a lot, also the banners caught fire. Everycreature that was outside ran as fast as they could inside. Cozy almost exposed herself, by screaming as the banner she was about to throw on a pair of unicorns started to burn. What terrified her even more was this sudden voice telling her to go inside, why did it sound so familiar? So she did what she always did, find Tirek and dart behind his forelegs.
"Cozy, what did you do?"
"Me! I know i am a manipulative genius but i'm not good enough to cause this!" Chrysalis flew to her comrades
"What did you two do! We did not plan this!"
"We didn't do any of this!"
"Then who else?" Suddenly Tirek felt something tucking on his leg.
"Uh Tirek?"
"What?"
"Somepony is behind us" The two immortals turned there heads around, just in Time to observe the Princess of Friendship herself emerge from the shadows, however something was off about her. Chrysalis immediatly readied herself to fight, she hissed aggresively and charged her horn. Twilight only stared at her before releasing an annoyed sigh and pinning the three villains to the ground.
"HOW DARE YOU ATTACK THE QUEEN OF THE CHANGELINGS!"
"Go Home" Twilights tone was a mix of resentment and pity.
"What do you mean by that?" Tirek would be lying if he said that seeing his most hated foe act in such a unfamiliar way didn't make him feel unnerved.
"I mean that if you truly believe that you could beat Grogar, the father of monsters himself, and make it out victourious, then i deeply overestimated your inteligence. Even if you do manage to beat Grogar, somecreature will eventually best you, so just give up. I know that you three will never reedem , but that doesn't mean you could not have your happy ending. In fact i am under the impression you already have found a possible better way to be bad in each other"
"And i am under the impression you should mind your own business"
"Your defensivness is really testing my nerves Queen Chrysalis. So i will give you two options either you go back to the swamp you originated from or i will send you right back into Tartarus" It wasn't particullary hard for the villains to decide what was the better option. Just as they were about to answer a yellow portal appearednext to them. "Seems like Grogar already decided for you now go! I have some really important business to attend to" Without any other option the trio stepped trough the portal, while Twilight spread her wings and flew of towards the castle.
The insides of canterlot where filled to the brim. While the mane six and the leaders tried to keep everycreature calm, the young six heard the voice of Harmony talk to them. "Hello again children i hope you were able to have a little fun. I'm deeply sorry for the disaster that was this night so far, but don't worry i know how we can still fix this night and make it memerable. All you have to do is go on stage and announce that Twilight Sparkle has returned"
"But Twilight hasn't returned yet?" Silverstream was taught since a very young age to always ask for further information if something seemed sketchy.
"Trust me" Considering that they really didn't have anything to loose they decided to trust a tree who gave a bunch of students magical super weapons.
"Ok and who's going to go on stage in front of all these creatures?"
"Sandbar" They all said in unison
"Thanks guys"
"Come on you know you are the best at public speaking"
"Alright, wish me luck" He anxisouly walked onto the big stage "Uh Everycreature listen up!" Thousands of eyes including the ones of his teachers stared at him "uh The future ruler of Equestria has returned" The moment the words left his mouth. The lights started to flicker and little stars appeared on stage. They danced around for a few minutes, before transforming into Twilight or at least somepony who looked very similar to her, however the students knew almost immediatly that this was Harmony. The Audience started to cheer and clap, Celestia looked relieved so did the mane six.
"Thank you Sandbar. Please excuse my lateness, i ran into some problems on my way back. But that is all in the past now. It seems to me that the Gala has been a little bit of a disaster, that's okay i am here now and the night is still young." With one hoof gesture the raining outside stopped, all the broken furniture was fixed, the cake stood on a round table, the burning banners returned to normal and the room was filled with beautiful music "Great now that that's settled i also have a few special announcments to make"