**Chapter 4**
Luna straightened on her throne as three pegasi trotted briskly into the throne room, looking more serious than Luna'd ever seen them. When they reached the moon princess' throne, the three ponies she'd come to care for looked like they had zoomed full-speed on those turbo-fast wings they had, and each one of them was hyperventilating.
"Luna, we need to talk privately." Solarflare puffed, looking a bit gittery.
Her sisters (who wore equally nervous faces) nodded. Without a word, Luna got up and led them out of the regal throne room and into the smaller, simpler space of the room where Rainbow Dash, Rainstorm and Solarflare had last conversed with her.
"Why have you called me to meet with you, exactly? I demand an explanation."
The lack of sleep had been hard on Luna, even as the princess of the night. Her mood hadn't really improved because of that either.
"While we were coming out of some restaurant near the outskirts of Canterlot, we saw this strange-" Rainstorm cut off Rainbow Dash to add, "And suspicious!" "-pony in an alley, then we followed it, took our eyes of them for ONE SECOND, and they disappeared!"
Luna's eyes widened as she realized that who they were dealing with had grown -or still was growing- stronger. Yet they still had the same objective. A shake of her head cleared it of those thoughts temporarily to deal with the task at hoof. Luna had thought she could postpone this for at least for a little while, but this new information brought to light had changed her opinion.
"Okay, girls, thank you for telling me." Luna said, deciding to tell them the future's plan for all four ponies. "Now, I'm afraid you three need to stay here for about an hour so I can explain to you what we're going to do."
*~~~~~~~~~~~*
"...so then we save Celestia, hopefully?" Solarflare was going over the plan Luna had given them.
"Wait, but does Twilight take care of Equestria while we're gone?" Rainstorm said, clearing up a question she had.
"Yes, she and Princess Cadence will take my place in everything but the duty of raising and lowering the moon while we are away, and Shining Armor will take care of the Crystal Empire in Cadence's absence." Luna answered.
"Wow, this whole plan was a lot of information to process, can we sleep on it?" Rainbow Dash finally said, not having said too much earlier.
"No! I-I'm sorry, but my sister is missing and you're coming with me to find her since you care for her and she cared for you!" The princess surprised herself and the trio with a loud outburst, which let out some of her pent-up worry and anger at Celestia's disappearance.
Rainstorm and Solarflare filled in for their still-shocked sister with an, "Okay, calm down, we'll come. What Dash MEANT was that we need some time to think about the plan, not about coming."
"I'm so sorry, Rainbow Dash. I-I guess I needed to let out s-some anger..." Luna apologized. "I shouldn't of let it out on you, though."
She walked around the counter to give out a rare hug to Rainbow Dash, which became a group hug as the as two ponies joined in to help comfort the slightly overwhelmed Alicorn. All four pulled away and they decided, completely silently and ominously, that they wouldn't mention any of it.
"Awww, c'mon, now you got me acting all sappy!" It was Rainbow Dash's way of accepting apologies, and Solarflare, Rainstorm and Luna knew her well enough to know that.
The Sonic trio were soon being pretty much bored out of their minds as Luna went on and on about little details, such as the packing list, which wasn't too important to memorize since they'd be given a printed copy.
"...and then, we bring in the flying pig."
The Sonic trio abruptly stopped rolling pencils on the small tables in between the sofas and anxiously biting their hooves. They looked up at a smiling Luna and realized that she had been doing it to get their attention.
"Okay, now that I hopefully have your full attention, I will proceed to tell you that we will be having a companion aiding us along the trip." Luna gave an annoyed pause before waving her hooves in the air with sarcasm and saying with matching sarcasm, "The amazing... Discord."
Suddenly, a book appeared out of nowhere and the strangely familiar bookmark wedged between two pages popped out simultaneously. It then expanded, and proceeded to take the shape of an also-familiar draconiquis.
"What?!" Rainbow Dash pointed a shocked hoof at Discord. "HE'S coming with us?! But why?!"
Her eyes widened, and she went on. "He tried to take over Equestria, break up everypony's friendship, PLUS, he planted a bunch of creepy vine-like things to try to ...hmm... Let me see, again, TAKE OVER EQUESTRIA!" She yelled, obviously not taking the news very well. "We had to give up our Elements because the horrible state the Tree of Harmony was in!"
"Ooh, poo. Come on, did I really do THAT much damage?"
"Yes!" All four ponies replied.
"Well, you got me there, but I didn't have anything else planned this week, so why not join your little party to save my good old serious pal, Sun-butt?"
A long list sprung into his mismatched paws and, by some crazy magic, when he tapped part of it, a crossbreed of a flamingo and a bear popped out. It then started to act like a chicken, and Discord fed it tiny red...where those...soccer balls?
"See, I've done everything already! I even dove into an active volcano!" Suddenly, they were all plummeting into the mouth of a boiling volcano. "No more fun around these parts... If only I could snap my fingers and make it rain some more chocolate rain..."
Luna clenched her teeth to keep from throwing him to the other side of Equestria. She was fuming at the mention of the mention of her sister's old nickname from before Luna got banished to the moon. Also, the sudden change from palace to volcano was...disorienting.
Spreading their wings, everypony but Discord was hovering in midair. As he fell, Discord moved into the diving position, and with a bigger splash than he should've made, he was gone. Then, Discord came flying down out of nowhere on the flamingo/bear hybrid, startling the ponies, and with a click of his claws, they were back in the palace.
"See, no fun there, I've already done it all." Discord said with a groan and a frown. "Now, let's get to that portal!"
Once again, he snapped his talons and was gone.
"Follow me. We will get there by teleportation." Luna explained as her horn began to glow. "Then, I will provide a spell so that we may breathe underwater."
A flash lit up the room and the Sonic trio, who had a bit too bad of a feeling of dread to speak, along with Luna, were gone.