He had no idea how long he spent straining at the bars. They were stronger this time; Tirek must have reinforced them, but Tirek had too little experience with this type of magic to have replaced them entirely or conjured braces for them, so they were still weak in the same direction as they'd been... just not as weak. At one point they got the opening wide enough that he was able to slip his head through the bars. He bent his head around to grasp the bar in his jaws -- pony jaws were actually among the most powerful muscles in their bodies, and his head was more or less a pony head, if exotically elongated -- and pushed from the outside inward, using the strength of his body itself rather than his significantly weaker limbs. The bar responded, bending inward under the pressure much less slowly than before.
"Um, Discord?"
He glanced at Fluttershy. She'd stopped crying, but there were tear streaks matting the light coat of her face. "Nnn?" With the bar in his mouth he couldn't actually do more than make an inquisitive noise.
"If, um, if Tirek is going to let us go if Twilight wins, but he's going to imprison you... and if he's going to kill you along with us otherwise... um, don't you think it would be a good idea if you escaped? You're, I mean, you have a lot of knowledge you could use to find ways to fight him, and, um, if you're really back on our side now I think maybe it would be better for us if you were free to fight back too than if you were in prison?"
For a moment he extricated the bar from his mouth. "Don't be silly, Fluttershy, how could I escape without the rest of you?"
"Because you've just gotten your head and neck through the bars," Fluttershy pointed out. "You could squeeze through there and run. It's not big enough for any of the rest of us yet."
"Fluttershy!" Rainbow Dash snapped. "What're you doing telling him to run off for? He's the last one who deserves to get away!"
"But right now he's the only one who can. And, um, if Tirek's going to let the rest of us go but keep him a prisoner... this would be his only chance..."
For a moment the possibility dazzled him. Yes! Fluttershy didn't know that his magic would regenerate, but she was more right than she knew. If he escaped and fled into the Everfree, his magic would build back up, and he could come back after Tirek as soon as he was strong enough. Maybe recruit a horde of magicless dragonslayers from other universes to wear Tirek down until he was weak enough for Discord to deliver the coup de grace and save everyone from the consequences of his own terrible decision. He could be a hero and make up for what he'd done. He could live.
But... if he wasn't here when Tirek came back, then Tirek would have no reason to keep to the terms of his wager. He could drain Twilight's power, and then kill the six of them (seven if you counted Spike, who Tirek had no reason to kill, but Tirek didn't seem to need much in the way of reasons), just to spite Discord. It wasn't as if he could be trusted to keep his promises. Discord felt that he would honor the wager because it was a game, not a battle... and maybe Discord could lie to him and claim that the death of the Element Bearers would restore him enough power to escape Tirek, give Tirek a good reason to not want to kill them. But if Discord wasn't here...
No. Any other day, any other ponies, yes, he'd leave anyone else behind in a heartbeat to save himself. But not after he'd caused all this. Not after his blind desire to do whatever he wanted and live unrestrained had led them to this place.
If he got the cage open and they could all escape, well and good. But he wasn't going to leave them behind to save himself, not when doing so would probably ensure that Tirek would kill them.
"I'm afraid it's not that simple, Fluttershy," he said. "Tirek will only be bound by his wager if he feels as if I'm bound by my side of it. If Twilight surrenders and I'm not there to claim my win, Tirek may just kill you all once he has Twilight's magic. I'm..." He swallowed. "I'm not going to let that happen if I can help it."
"Yeah? Where was your concern when you were helping him, huh? You weren't worried about us then!" Rainbow Dash snarked.
"For your information, I saved your precious Wonderbolts," Discord snarled. "Tirek wanted to kill them. I convinced him that that would be a show of weakness. So he got their magic but they all lived. I've never wanted ponies to die during any of this, but I thought... I thought I'd always be powerful enough to keep Tirek under control so he wouldn't kill anypony."
Rainbow Dash drew back, blinking. "Huh."
"How about you quit jawing at each other and let Discord get back to work?" Applejack snapped. "That bar ain't gonna bend itself!"
"I think... the hole's almost... big enough," Spike said, panting. "Just... a little... more..."
"PULL!" Pinkie shouted, and she and Spike both yanked on their bar at the same time, with all their strength. "1, 2, 3, PULL!"
Discord ignored their chanting; he didn't do anything to anyone's rhythm, and using his mouth and body as he was doing meant that he was applying steady strong pressure, not bursts of it. His teeth ached, badly, and he felt like if he kept this up he might break them. His jaw might be a pony jaw, but his teeth weren't pony teeth; he was an omnivore, half his teeth designed for cutting rather than grinding, and grinding teeth were the kind that would help him here. Also, being the avatar of chaos, his teeth were mixed up throughout his mouth, rather than a sensible omnivore arrangement like having the grinding molars all together in the back.
And then he felt a sudden horrible sense of disorientation, and vertigo. He heard pony screams, and a little dragon yelling, "No! So close--", and then he found himself floating in a bubble of magic, suspended high in the air above Tirek.
The others -- the five mares and Spike -- were arrayed all around him in bubbles of their own, hovering above Tirek, who was faced off against a quite living and unbowed Twilight Sparkle. For a moment Discord felt a thrill of hope. She was alive, unhurt, and obviously still capable of fighting.
Then Tirek said, "Their release for all the Alicorn magic in Equestria!", obviously as a continuation of a conversation he was having with Twilight, and Discord's heart sank. This was the part he had arranged for, the part he had set up for Tirek and had bargained as hard as he could to get Tirek to follow through on, in order to keep Tirek from killing any of them. He'd won his wager, or he'd win it when Twilight inevitably took the deal. But it still meant Twilight would be powerless, Tirek would rule Equestria, and he himself... He swallowed. No, he wasn't going to think about that. It was what he deserved anyway.
The others erupted into shouts of protest. "No, Twilight!" "Don't do it!" "You can't!" They could save their breath, Discord thought. There was no chance at all that Twilight would abandon them to Tirek.
He had done his very best, years ago, to destroy Twilight Sparkle's faith in friendship, to turn her friends against her and make her feel hopeless and alone. He'd been sure it would work, because he knew Twilight; he'd felt her magical surge, he'd felt her practicing her magic right nearby at Celestia's school, and he'd known from the beginning she would be the next Element of Magic. He'd listened for her, extending his senses as far as he possibly could; when he'd slept in stone and his consciousness had drifted free to walk in dreams, he'd focused on hers, studying his opponent. Learning her weaknesses, in anticipation for the day when the Elements finally left Celestia's control for good and went to this young filly, the day when his primary binding would break and he'd be able to start collecting and focusing disharmony and turning it against his prison... and eventually, the day when he'd succeed and break free, when he'd fight her. He'd learned that she was practically Star Swirl Mark II, that she had no time for or patience for friendship, and deep down, no belief that anypony would ever share it with her because she was too weird and bright and nerdy and nopony cared about the things she cared about and what did she need friends for anyway when she had Spike and her BBBFF and her mentor Princess Celestia? Discord had known that if Twilight's friends turned on her and rejected her, her faith in friendship couldn't survive the experience. Friendship was too new to her, and he knew well (a little too well) how someone who was more powerful than the average pony, someone who didn't have the same interests, someone who most ponies would reject and fear or dislike or simply push away, would never be able to quite believe in friendship if they had it. He knew Twilight would break, and the bonds between the Elements of Harmony would shatter.
He'd known wrong.
She'd defeated him. Her belief in her friends, in the power of friendship itself, her love for them and her desire to have back the life that included them in it, was so powerful, she was able to overcome the worst he'd thrown at her. A targeted attack, aimed precisely at the weakness he'd been seeing in her for over a decade as he'd studied her, and she'd overcome it within a day.
Nothing would get between Twilight Sparkle and the love she had for her friends. Nothing at all. He'd given this plan to Tirek because he'd known it would work.
"What's it going to be, Princess?" Tirek shouted at her, a cruel, fierce grin in his voice. Discord couldn't actually see his face, but he knew Tirek. He'd heard him gloat at his enemies often enough over the past several days. He could hear the expression Tirek was wearing.
"Don't do it, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash shouted.
"We aren't worth it!" Fluttershy pleaded.
Discord's heart twisted. How could she possibly believe that? "Oh, but you are, Fluttershy," he said softly, knowing she could hear him, since she was floating next to him. "You're the pony that taught me that friendship is magic." He spread his paws. "I had magic, and friendship..." The shame and guilt boiled over. He shook his head, covering his eyes with his paws, as if he could negate this reality if he just denied it, if he just refused to look. "...and now I don't have either."
"Enough!" Tirek snarled. "I want an answer, and I want it now!"
There was a long pause, long enough for Discord to feel an entirely unwelcome unease. He'd been certain he knew what Twilight would do. But he'd been certain he had known what Twilight would do, when he'd fought her the first time and lost. What if he was wrong this time too? What if she felt that her loyalty to Equestria and the Princesses had to trump her loyalty to her friends, and she refused the deal? Tirek would kill Fluttershy, and all the others. Please, Twilight. Please save them. Please don't let my stupidity and selfishness get Fluttershy killed, please. Or the others, but especially Fluttershy. His paws clenched with anxiety. Please...
Finally, Twilight said, "I will give you my magic, in exchange for my friends."
The others gasped, or shouted "No!" Discord's eyes snapped wide, and he drew in a ragged, shaky breath, staring down at her. He'd been right. His faith in her had been justified all along.
Of course, now all the magic in Equestria would be lost, and Tirek would have won forever. But at least Fluttershy would live, and Twilight herself, and the others, and maybe they'd find some way to reverse it, one of these days. Maybe Twilight would teach someone a lesson in friendship and win the last key to that box; he was fairly certain the Tree was prepared to give the six of them an unprecedented level of access to the power of pure Harmony, a power Tirek wouldn't be able to touch. Maybe eventually they'd find a way to defeat Tirek.
It would be too late for him by then, of course, but he accepted that. His greatest regret, at this point, was that he wasn't going to be able to help them fight, and that he was never going to have an opportunity to tell Fluttershy how horribly sorry he was for what he'd done.
"As you wish," Tirek said, snapping the fingers of his paw, and all the bubbles broke but Discord's. He saw the six of them drop to the ground, alive and unhurt, and swallowed, turning his face away so they couldn't see him. The fear was starting to well up, despite his resignation and his belief that he deserved this, and grief as well. He'd been part of them, not exactly a well-beloved part, not a vital part, but someone they'd cared about at least enough to take care of him when he was sick (well, most of them, with the exception of Rainbow Dash)... and he'd thrown that away, and he'd never be part of anything ever again. Even if he somehow managed to trick Tirek into letting him live, he'd still never be part of anything ever again. One chance at friendship, and he'd blown it just as badly as he'd blown his relationships with Celestia and Luna. He'd had a love, and he threw her away. He'd had a little sister, and he threw her away. And he'd had a friend, with friends of her own who'd accepted him at least provisionally... and he'd thrown her away too.
"All of my friends," Twilight said.
Discord opened his eyes in shock, and sudden hope, before the despair claimed him again. Tirek wasn't going to accept that. He closed his eyes again. Twilight had just called him a friend? Asked for his release? It wasn't possible. And it wasn't even a good idea. It might ruin the deal, because Tirek had reasons why he felt he had to kill Discord, and if Twilight wouldn't surrender without him... no, she had to back down. For Fluttershy's sake. No matter how hard Discord's heart was pounding, how much part of him was desperately clinging to her words. She shouldn't demand his freedom. It could ruin everything and he didn't even deserve it.
He wanted to say so, but he couldn't. His voice was going to break if he tried to speak.
"After the way he has betrayed you, you still call him a 'friend'?" Tirek sneered.
Again Discord opened his eyes, hope trembling within him, and again closed them. Tirek was right, of course. He was no kind of friend. Twilight shouldn't save him.
"Release him!" Twilight shouted.
"If that's what you want," Tirek said.
He couldn't look. This was a trick, this was a setup, Tirek was never going to let him go. He felt himself falling, but couldn't bring himself to believe he was actually being set free until he landed, hard.
Discord opened his eyes, finally. He was on the ground, unfettered, none of the ponies (or the dragon) around him hurt beyond what he'd seen from above. Tirek had actually let him go, because Twilight had demanded it and Tirek wanted the alicorn magic more than he wanted Discord dead.
"Thank you, Twilight," Discord said. Part of him wanted to be histrionic about it, to fawn all over her with relief and gratitude, that she could even contemplate still calling him a friend, that she had just saved his life. But he was so tired, so broken, and he knew that from Twilight's perspective the worst was yet to come. Besides. Tirek would probably betray Twilight as well, and kill Discord after Tirek claimed her magic and she could no longer stop him. Discord could only hope that he'd stick to the terms of the wager and not kill the six ponies afterward. He himself had probably only gained a few minutes, and the opportunity to spend them with the ones he'd betrayed, the ones he'd thought he'd never have a chance to apologize to.
He turned to Fluttershy, who was lying a short distance from him. "I'm sorry," he whispered to her, not quite trusting his voice for anything louder. At least now if Tirek killed him, he'd had a chance to say it.
"I know," she murmured back, but she wouldn't look at him.
"Your turn," Tirek growled at Twilight.
Discord didn't want to look, but felt like he had to. This was his fault. Twilight had just saved his life, after doing what he'd been silently begging her to do by bargaining her magic for the life of her friends -- his friends, even if they wouldn't call him theirs anymore, the ponies he'd been prepared to gamble his own life away to save before Tirek had let him know that wasn't an option. He'd put her in this situation, where she had to give up her magic, betray the Princesses' trust, to save her friends, and she'd still saved his life, and called him a friend. He owed it to her to make himself watch.
She screamed as Tirek sucked away her magic. The sensation of guilt and shame twisted inside him again. She sounded as if she was actually in pain -- and she might be; the magic of four alicorns wasn't actually hers, and she was already unbalanced by it. Maybe tearing it back out of her was causing her physical pain. And then she dropped limp to the ground, and Tirek roared, the magic surging through him, his body expanding.
Abruptly Discord realized something. Tirek would have to release the magic -- this was more than he'd ever absorbed before. He'd need to vent it by blowing things up, and a small group of ponies, a dragon and a draconequus would actually be too small and close a target. It would be a few minutes before Tirek could actually focus on coming back and killing Discord, or taking them prisoner so they couldn't form some kind of resistance, or whatever it was Tirek planned to do.
Which meant that Discord had a few minutes to act. Maybe the only minutes he'd get. His paw clenched around the stupid amulet Tirek had given him, the only physical object in his possession. Remembering giving Twilight a silly amulet of a similar nature when she'd passed his "friendship test". That one had been made of chaos magic, and dissipated the moment the Tatzlwurm goo had made him ill and disrupted his powers. But this one was solid, not something of his creation, not a transient object of chaos that the Harmony Tree might not even be able to work with.
Over the sound of Tirek bellowing, "Yes! YES!", and the roar and crackle of the magic he'd absorbed, Discord could still hear the ponies around him murmuring in shock. He saw Spike run up to Twilight. "Twilight, what were you thinking?!"
She was thinking she was saving your life, little dragon, Discord thought, and got up onto two feet, aching. Physically he'd probably feel better if he stayed on four, but emotionally he needed the familiarity of his full height now. He approached the group, looking directly at Twilight.
"Tirek tricked me into believing that he could offer me something more valuable than friendship. But there is nothing worth more. I see that now," he said, not entirely willing to admit that what he'd thought he was getting from Tirek was friendship, beceause even composing the thought to himself in the privacy of his own head made him feel unbearably stupid. "He lied when he said that this medallion was given as a sign of gratitude and loyalty." He pulled the amulet off, and reached down to lower it around Twilight's neck, willing her to understand. To recognize what he was doing. He was afraid that if he admitted it out loud, the magic wouldn't work. The Tree wouldn't appreciate being gamed, but then again, it wasn't as if he hadn't learned an important lesson about friendship, either. Tirek had taught him he was an idiot for trusting Tirek, Fluttershy had shown him, viscerally, how much it hurt to betray a friend. But Twilight had taught him that he'd been wrong in the first place. He'd pulled his silly "friendship test" stunt on Twilight because she was always exasperated around him and he'd felt certain she actually couldn't stand him and he'd wanted her friendship, or something, after spending so many years studying her to fight her and she'd defeated him anyway. Also he'd been jealous of Cadance. He'd gotten the results he'd wanted -- she'd gone to the ends of Equestria for him, and then she'd gone out of her way to solve the riddle of his illness and cure him -- but he hadn't believed it, really. He'd thought the whole time that Twilight wasn't really his friend, that Twilight was lying to try to control him. That Fluttershy was his only friend, that he was trading one for one when he betrayed the ponies for Tirek. And it wasn't true. Because when Twilight had had the opportunity to leave him in the bed he'd made, to abandon him to Tirek, she'd called him a friend and insisted on his release.
"But when I say that it is a sign of our true friendship," he said, "I am telling the truth." And meant it. Even though he knew he wasn't giving her a mere token of friendship. She deserved far more than a silly medallion anyway. As did Fluttershy. He was giving them all the key to power, by giving it to Twilight. Please figure it out. Please. I can't say it out loud, I don't dare.
The medallion shone in the colors of the rainbow. Apparently the Tree itself was not beyond giving hints.
He saw her eyes clear, saw the realization hit her. It must have struck some of the others at the same time, because Applejack said, "You think that might be the last one we need?"
"We have to get to the chest," Twilight said.
They ran. In the distance Tirek was roaring, firing random blasts of destructive magic at the landscape. Discord stayed on two legs for the first few minutes of the trip, but dropped to four to match them. It was hard for him to run, either way -- normally, his mismatched limbs synchronized to each other magically when he needed them to, but that magic was gone as well, so he was off balance, forced to live with the physical consequences of his own asymmetry for the first time since he was a small child. His tail still worked, though, so when Spike fell behind, he picked up the little dragon, put on a burst of speed, and deposited him on Applejack's back -- she was still the strongest without magic, and therefore the best able to carry a rider. He didn't ask, but the look Applejack threw him was understanding, not exasperated. Neither he nor Spike needed to be with the six of them when they got to the chest, but he desperately wanted to, and assumed Spike felt the same way, judging from how hard the small dragon had been trying to run.
It was possibly the longest trip he'd made in his existence. Not literally, he'd flown or even run much greater distances before, but never with such a keen awareness that the difference between victory or death rested so precariously on whether or not they could get to their destination before Tirek remembered he wanted to kill Discord. If Tirek did come back for them, he resolved, he would run off in another direction and lure the centaur away. He was the one Tirek wanted to kill, because Tirek didn't know about the Harmony Tree or the chest. Tirek knew Discord would get his powers back eventually, he didn't know the mares were on their way to get power back immediately. But the resignation he'd felt before was gone. He had hope now, and that meant he desperately wanted to live through this. At least long enough to see Tirek defeated, if that was all he could get. But there were three princesses in Tartarus that didn't deserve to be there, and if the chest could defeat Tirek and restore the balance of magic -- if he got his own magic back, he could rescue Celestia and Luna and Cadance. It wouldn't make up for having stood by and done nothing as they were sent there, for having helped Tirek get to the point where he could send them there, but it would be something at least.
By the time they reached the cave, he was panting, out of breath. Oddly, the presence of the Harmony Tree didn't bother him the way it had the last time. Without all the chaos magic roiling within him, there was nothing for Harmony to try to control or organize, so he couldn't feel it impinging on him as it had when he'd been here a few days ago. He still had his connection to chaos, so possibly it would eventually start to harm him, and it would probably block him from recovering power, but it wasn't making his skin crawl or his extremities start to feel numb.
Discord came back up to two legs in time to see Twilight put the amulet against the chest. It spun, twisted, transformed into a key, and slid into place.
Then there was a violent rumble above, and the cavern shook. Discord looked up, and froze in fear. Tirek was very, very close. Still firing off his blasts of magic, venting, but at this range, if he saw them, he could fry them all with a single blast.
"Together!" Twilight said. "I think we have to do this together!"
The six mares stepped forward, each placing a hoof on a key, and turned them simultaneously. The box opened, and the blinding, glowing light of a rainbow soared out of the box. Discord, who had had far too many negative experiences with that rainbow, backed away, putting distance between himself and the Tree. He didn't think it would turn him to stone after he'd just given Twilight the last key... but détente or not, he didn't trust the Tree. In his current condition, it might be able to use the energies of Harmony to sever the connection between himself and Chaos entirely, turning him back into a mere draconequus with Chaos-focused magic rather than Chaos' avatar, and even think it was doing him a favor by doing so.
From what was probably not a safe distance, but without his magic he couldn't shift his eyes into eagle mode and he really wanted to see what was happening, he watched as the rainbow shot into the Tree, lit up the various Elements, then made the Tree itself sparkle so brightly he had to shield his eyes. Rays in six different colors shot out from the sparkling Tree and struck the six mares, making them float into the air, and when the rays dissipated enough that he could see the ponies themselves, each one had been transformed into a riotous mess of different sparkling colors, their manes (and wings, in the case of the three who had wings) noticeably grown.
He grinned to himself. The Tree liked sparkly, bright colors, like the kind a filly would color her artwork in. But normally the Tree's taste in color patterns was much more subdued. The wild riot of mismatched color would probably appall Rarity once she stopped being high on magic and started to see her surroundings properly again, but it delighted Discord. Is this me? Did you give them such chaotic colors because the last key was mine? Or did you always have this sort of chaos buried under your crystal bark someplace, old enemy, and you were just never willing to show that to me until we ended up on the same side?
A long, long time ago, when he and Celestia were barely out of their teens and Luna didn't even have her cutie mark yet, the three of them had found this cavern, with the Tree inside, and the Tree had spoken inside his head, without words. It had made him an offer, then, presenting him a choice. Give up Disharmony -- he hadn't been the chaos avatar then, but even then, he'd known Disharmony was part of his power as much as Chaos was -- and take up an Element. Or two. It had offered him Laughter and Loyalty -- which was funny now, considering all the betrayals he'd committed in his life, but at the time it had been appropriate enough. But he'd felt the effects of the Tree on his magic, making his Chaos sluggish and unresponsive, and he'd had visions he didn't understand of the Tree keeping ponies in a hazy dream of perfection where there was no conflict and nothing ever changed, and he'd been terrified. He'd tried to rescue Celestia and Luna from the Tree by dragging them away, which had irritated the two of them immensely because neither of them had seen anything but beauty and joy.
If he'd known the Tree was capable of embracing such chaos even in the midst of its harmony, maybe he would have made a different choice.
The six mares rose into the air within a ball of brilliant multicolored light, going up out of the cavern. Toward Tirek.
Discord saw Spike gazing upward longingly. "Hey, Spike. You want to go up and see what's going on?"
Spike nodded, but gestured at the wall. "I could climb that, but by the time I got to the top, it'd be all over."
"Yes, your legs are a trifle small. Perhaps you need someone taller to help you out with that."
He grabbed Spike with his tail, seated the dragon on his shoulders, and began to scale the wall rapidly. His hoof was almost completely useless on a straight vertical like this -- goats might be well-suited to climbing very steep inclines, but a vertical face was something else entirely -- but three of his limbs ended in claws and articulated digits. With those, plus his tail to grab onto outcroppings and haul himself up like the ropes that ponies used in their own mountaineering, he was able to scale the face very rapidly, even with Spike's arms wrapped so tightly around his neck that he had to keep telling the young dragon to ease up or he'd choke. It would have been better if Spike had been just a little taller, and could easily reach Discord's horns while sitting on his shoulder, but Discord's neck was almost as long as Spike was tall, so Spike couldn't reach the horns without Discord bending his neck, and on a cliff face, without his powers, Discord really preferred not to do that.
They got to the top in time to see Tirek trying, and failing, to blast the bubble of magic that the mares were in.
"How is this possible?!" Tirek screamed. "You have no magic!"
"You're wrong, Tirek!" Twilight shouted. "I may have given you my Alicorn magic, but I carry within me the most powerful magic of all!"
"Peanut butter," Discord whispered to Spike. "The most magical substance in the universe!"
Spike scowled at him. "She means friendship."
Discord rolled his eyes. "How silly of me. I could never have possibly figured that out."
Then the six blasted Tirek with the harmonic rainbow. Tirek screamed, his magic dispersing and his body shrinking.
Like a switch had been thrown, Discord suddenly felt energy bubbling and laughing and seething inside him. He took a deep breath, got to his feet, and grinned down at Spike. "Well, I'm back!" he said gleefully. "And I believe I have a trio of Princesses to rescue, now that I have the power to. Ta-ta!"
"Wait--" Spike started to shout, but Discord didn't hear the rest of it, because he'd already snapped his talon and teleported into Tartarus.