//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6: FRIENDSHIP IS...Magic? 
// Story: The Secret of Harmony 
// by Brassboy212 
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Footnotes are numbers inside parentheses.  Example: (1)

After an hour or so of much conflict and violence, the fighting finally slowed down. However, when the dust settled, the results were nothing like anypony had expected.

Each one of Tirek's 'friends' were standing tall over Equestria's protectors.

The Four Princesses, Discord, and Twilight's friends were all battered and completely exhausted. Each of their opponents made the finishing touches for their final attacks.

Twivine had Twilight wrapped up to her neck in plunder vines, Searing Nova's ring of fire was slowly closing in around the weakened Celestia, Starless Night had Luna tied down with her dark tendrils, Shattered Heart had encased Cadance's horn with her crystals rendering the source of magic completely useless, and Havoc had Discord hogtied on a silver platter complete with all the trimmings and an apple in his mouth. All the duplicates had one final spell charged up, ready to unleash on the heroes and have  them ready for Tirek.

Tirek's mouth watered with anticipation knowing the post powerful magic in Equestria would soon be his.

Twivine was the most excited of the bunch. She slowly walked up to Twilight until she was mere feet away from her face. Her horn was glowing with her thorn-aqua magic. The dark alicorn giggled and lowered her horn so it pointed right at her captive's face.

"Well, Twilight, I'd say you put up a good fight, but I know how you are with fudged details." 

Twilight shut her eyes tight. She could have easily gotten out of her restraints, but her magic was nearly drained and she couldn't muster enough strength to do so. Tears leaked out from her squinted eyes as she mentally lamented her defeat. "I failed." She thought. "How could this happen? I've failed Celestia. I've failed my friends. I've failed Equestria...Please forgive me everypony."

Twivine was sure she had victory in her hooves, but just as she was about the discharge her spell, she felt a hoof tap on her back. The princess was furious

"WHAT?!?! How DARE you interrupt my moment of triumph?!?"

Twilight opened one of her eyes as Twivine started to turn around. Both of them were stunned at who the 'distraction' turned out to be.

It was Captain of the Guard, Flash Sentry dressed in his gold armor, orange-yellow wings out, a spear strapped on his belt, and inches away from Twivine's face. He looked at Twivine in the eyes with a fearless glare and snarled:


"Get away from my princess!"


Finally, with one quick motion, Flash Sentry punched Twivine hard with his left hoof across her face, flinging her several feet to the side, and knocking her out. Without any hesitation, he pulled the spear out of his belt, raised it to the sky, and shouted: 

"ATTACK!!!"

Just then, a massive hoard of soldiers poured over the hills and toward the battlefield like a tide. Armored ponies by the hundreds armed with spears, swords, daggers, hoof blades, and other weapons charged in and began engaging the duplicates to aid their weakened rulers.

Flash Sentry ran up to Twilight, pulled out serrated dagger from his war bag and began sawing away at the plunder vines. "I have got to find better ways of running into you."

Twilight blushed. "After saving me at the last second, I'm certainly not complaining." She was too overwhelmed by adrenaline to remember being nervous around her crush. "Flash, where did all these guards come from? Did you have anything to do with this?"

"Yeah. Tirek defeated the eastern ground forces just before you and the others came down. Knowing that we were in a bind, I snuck off, rounded up the other troops around the castle, and we called in for backup."

"Well, you certainly got it."

"Exactly. Every one of our military factions are here with their leaders. Along with the Solar Empire guard and myself, we also got Capt. Midnight Blossom with the New Lunar Republic guard as well as her stealth force, and Gen. Diamond Shield with the Crystal Guard. We would have been here sooner, but the general and the others had to take one of the airships to Canterlot, which was already busy evacuating the ponies." 

Flash sawed through the last of the vines and helped Twilight step out of the coils. "There we go. Are you alright?" 

"Yeah. A little tired and banged up, but I'll be fine."

Flash noticed that Twivine was beginning to stir. "SQUAD 5, OVER HERE!! My troops and I will hold off that imposter. Meanwhile, you go try to find your friends."

"Okay, once I reach them, we'll all come back here to help you."

"No way! You should be focusing on beating Tirek! After all, you six are the only ones with the magic to stop him! It's time we defend you for once."

"But she's just as strong as me. How are you going to stand up to her?"

Flash looked Twilight in the face with his blue eyes. "We'll do everything we can, and if nothing works, I'll let you know."

Twilight was so touched by the captain's loyalty that she wanted to kiss him right there on the spot. Unfortunately, her moment of passion was cut short by the sound of Twivine grunting as she started getting onto her hooves.

Flash shoved Twilight in the opposite direction. "GO! NOW! HURRY BEFORE SHE GETS UP!!!"

Twilight obeyed Flash's command and flew off to find her friends.

When Twivine finally collected herself, she looked around to find that Twilight was gone, only leaving a pegasus captain and his troops in her place. Suffice it to say, Twivine was not happy with this. 

"You...You stole my PREY!!!"

Flash smirked. "Prey, huh? That's a new one. Usually I get teased for stealing 'waifus', whatever those are." (1)

The squad behind him snickered at the joke.

Two short plunder vines sprang out from Twivine's sides and thorn-aqua fumes began to seep out from between her clenched teeth. "You're going to regret that, peasant!" 

Flash gripped the spear in his hoof and turned to his squad. "Back me up boys, this ain't gonna be pretty!"





Tirek was furious at the interruption. Everything was going according to plan, and now he had an army of equine soldiers to deal with.

"Master Tirek!" called Spine. "These pests are everywhere! What are your orders?"

Tirek scowled. "You're orders are to keep those five ponies and that dragon in place...or at least those were your orders until YOU LET THEM ESCAPE!!!"

"What are you talking about? They should still be right here." He turned to where the other three dragons were.

They were busy fighting off the other guards, but the six were nowhere to be seen.

"GARBLE!!!" roared Spine. "Why are those six not with you anymore?!"

"Gronkle was supposed to keep them in place!" protested Garble as he fought off the guards.

"No, that's Malik's job!" replied Gronkle.

"You're both wrong!" said Malik. "Gronkle blocks their path, I drive them into the middle, and Garble keeps them crowded. It's easy!"

"Zip it, Malik! If keeping them in the middle was your job, THEN WHY ARE THEY NOT IN THE FREAKING MIDDLE?!?"

The bickering was getting on Spine's last nerve. "HOW COULD YOU THREE MESS THIS UP?!? Why I put TEENAGERS in charge of my elite guard, I'll never know!"

Tirek, at this point, had no time to listen to arguing. "SHUT UP!!! ALL OF YOU JUST SHUT UP!!! Spine, tell your other forces to move in and deal with the soldiers!"

"But, what about the other six, master? Shouldn't we go after them?"

"Forget those brats! I have something else planned for them."

Spine looked down at the exhausted Shining Armor who was being protected by the reinforcements. "What about the prince?"

"You four bring him to me. I could use a little snack."

"Of course, master. Dragons, attack!" 

On command, the adult dragons who were standing with Tirek took to the air and began raining fire down on the soldiers, severely burning anypony who was unlucky enough to get caught in the blaze.
Spine grew annoyed from being reminded of the soldiers trying to hold him off. He felt like he was surrounded by bugs. He raised one of his fists in the air and slammed it on the ground creating a shockwave of dark green energy that knocked back all the soldiers standing between him and the prince. Shining Armor couldn't believe what he just saw. It looked as though a dragon used some sort of magic, but he thought that was impossible considering that dragons have never been seen using magic before; not even the most legendary ones were believed to use it.  He tried to get up, but his exhaustion and injuries made him too weak to stand.
Spine slowly took a deep breath. The prince realized he was about to breath fire and frantically tried to get away. However, his current state only allowed him to slowly drag himself a foot or two at a time. The dragon ordered the teenagers to grab him once he was done with his attack.
Shining Armor shut his eyes. Spine lowered his head and exhaled a massive stream of dark green fire at the unicorn. However, after a few seconds of this, Spine began to sense something amiss. He felt as though his attack was making contact, not with his target, but with something else. He lowered his head a little more and saw a crystal-blue wall of magic in the shape of a shield blocking the fire with another pony behind it. 

"Somepony is stopping the attack!" Spine roared. "Boys, grab the prince, now!"

But, just as the dragons started moving in, they were stopped in their tracks by something dark blue and blurry rapidly striking them from all directions. In their attempts to catch it, they were hit with punches, slashes, and, oddly enough, small electrical shocks. Shining Armor opened his eyes to see who had saved him from capture.
Standing behind the magical barrier was a purple crystal-unicorn stallion wearing a more elite version of the Crystal Empire's armor. He had a slightly elderly appearance with his short grayish mane, a small goatee, and some light wrinkles around his face and legs. Next to him floated a cavalry sabre made entirely of hardened and sharpened blue crystal. 
The pony was Diamond Shield, general of the Crystal Guard, and one of the strongest crystal-unicorns in the Crystal Empire. He was a legend when it came to defensive magic. Shining Armor had heard stories from his soldiers about his famous shield spell, but never actually saw it up-close until now. It was just as amazing as they said it was and looked even more powerful than the shield spells Twilight could use. At his age, he was the eldest serving military leader in Equestria.
Facing the three dragons was a young mare dressed in the armor of Princess Luna's guard. Her short, messy, purplish-blue hair and yellow slit-pupil eyes  complimented her grey coat. She had wings, but instead of normal pegasi wings, they were purple bat wings. On both of her front hooves, she had two dark blue hoof blades which gave off small bolts of electricity.
This bat-pony was Capt. Midnight Blossom (2), the leader of the New Lunar Republic Guard and the Lunar Stealth Force. The speed she and her troops could achieve in combat flying surpassed even the Wonderbolts. Rainbow Dash would have been left speechless if she saw her in action.

"My prince." said the general. "Are you alright, sir?"

"I'm fine, general." replied Shinning Armor. He tried to stand, his legs gave way from their condition and he collapsed back onto the ground.

"Don't move, sir. My medics will be here soon to tend to you. In the meantime, I'll handle this beast."

"Thank you, general."

The two leaders began to fight the dragons. Midnight Blossom easily avoided the teenagers' attacks. So easily that she started taunting them before dodging just in time to land a few more attacks. As for Diamond Shield, he was holding his own rather well against Spine. His shield magic was an excellent defense and he succeeded in a few attacks. One of them being a beam of magic that was only inches away from the dragon's eye.

As the two continued to fight, they began exchanging words between each other.

"Didn't know you still had it in you, general." Midnight Blossom teased.

"Well, I didn't think you'd do so well fighting in broad daylight, captain. Usually you just stay in the dark and let Celestia's troops handle things."

"Nah, I could be at my a-game anytime I want. I just prefer to fight at night. It's such a pain that we have to do this when it's so bright out."

"Save you fickle attitude for when we're not in the middle of a battle, maggot!"

Blossom laughed. "Maggot? Oh, when I'm done with these scale-brains, I'll show you who's the maggot!"

Diamond Shield chuckled. "I'll be looking forward to it."





By this point, the soldiers had only made things worse for Tirek and his forces. Because of them, Twilight and her friends had escaped their captors, the medical troops were able to get a hold of Shining Armor and the princesses and escort them to safety, and even Discord was able to get free with their help. Though the duplicates and the dragons were easily able to injure the enemy forces, the soldiers still had plenty of fight left in them. Now fed up with this sudden turning of the tables, the centaur decided to take matters into his own hands. He stomped into the battlefield and began absorbing the magic from the weakened troops. Anypony who tried to stop his absorption were hit by his energy blast and stripped of their magic shortly after. Each time he finished a chunk of soldiers, he would trample them beneath his hooves as he moved on to find his next victims. Too weak to get out of the way, the ponies were either severely injured or killed. With Tirek in play, the soldiers were starting to wane and realized that their lead ahead of the enemy was becoming smaller and smaller.
While Tirek continued his feeding frenzy, slowly growing larger and stronger with each bit of magic consumed, he constantly scanned the battlefield for either Twilight or her friends.

"As soon as those six are together, I'll unleash my secret weapon and put an end to their friendship game! he thought.





Twilight flew over the armies of soldiers searching for her friends until she saw a small group of six familiar colors. She happily swooped down towards them and they all cheered as they joined in a quick group hug. 

Spike held Twilight for a second longer. "We're so happy you're okay, Twilight."

"Yeah!" said Pinkie Pie. "We were afraid meanie-Twilight had our Twilight all tied up. We were on our way to surprise you with a 'Super-Special-Awesome-Surprise Rescue Mission'! I even baked a cake for it!" 

Pinkie reached behind her back and pulled out a cake designed like an orange lifesaver ring with the words 'To the Rescue!' written in icing.

"Thanks, Pinkie." replied Twilight. "You're right, I was tied up for a moment, but Flash Sentry came in and knocked her out long enough to set me free." She blushed as she remembered how brave the pegasi looked when he saved her.

"Are you blushing, dear?" asked Rarity amusingly.

"What, no...it's...it's not important. Now that we're together again, we have to stop Tirek fast! I'm not sure how much longer these soldiers can last. They've been through so much for us already."

"Awesome!" said Rainbow Dash. "Let's fire up that rainbow power and send these jerks packing!"

"What should I do, Twilight?" asked Spike.

Twilight saw two medical troops close to where they were standing. "Follow those two medic ponies. See if there's anything you can do to help them."

"Sure thing." Spike ran off to catch up with the soldiers. "Hey, medics! Wait up a sec!"

"Alright girls, let's remind Tirek of what our friendship can do!"

The six friends began charging their energy and in a huge flash of light, they transformed into their rainbow-fied forms. The magic was so strong that it even restored Twilight's strength. Their whole bodies glowed with vibrant colors as they lifted off the ground inside their orb of magic that looked like the sun splashed with color. Everypony, even Tirek's forces stopped what they were doing when they saw this feat of magic at work.

Tirek grinned. "Now is the time!" He made a tremendous leap off the ground to where he was standing at the start of the battle. "TO ME, MY FRIENDS!!!"

One by one, the duplicates left their battles and made their way back to Tirek.

"SPINE!"

"Yes, master. Dragons, return to me!" Spine took to the air and led his dragons back behind Tirek. 

With the opposing sides separated, the fighting came to a stop. All soon became quiet as the Mane 6 floated above the center of the battlefield looking down on their enemy.

"Tirek!" shouted Twilight. "You have once again brought pain and destruction to Equestria, but it will all be over once we destroy your duplicates and send you back to Tartarus!"

Tirek bellowed with laughter. "You weak-minded equines. If only you could have known the unparalleled doom your interference was about to bring upon Equestria, maybe you would have stayed out of my way, but you couldn't, and you didn't, and now you will all suffer!"

He ordered Spine to step forward.

Spine held up one of his claws. "Flesh from the servant to forever defend its master." 

In an instant, the dragon shoved the finger into his mouth and bit it off. Blood dripped from both his hand and his mouth. He took the mutilated chunk out of his mouth, placed it in front of Tirek, and used a small stream of his dark green fire breath to ignite the finger and create a ring around the six.  As the finger disintegrated, the flames went from dark green to black. With Spine's job complete, Tirek and the duplicates assembled themselves into a formation similar the Mane 6. The ring of black fire floated up to Tirek's middle, still retaining it's shape, and they were lifted off the ground, bringing them to the same height as Twilight and her friends.

"What are we waiting for?!" yelled Rainbow Dash. "Let's take him down!"

"Right." replied the remaining five.

The Mane 6 fired their six streaks of color at their target, but instead of hurting them, a translucent black orb appeared around them which blocked the attack. Everypony was speechless. They had never seen anything like this before.

Tirek and the duplicates laughed. "Fools! Once the offering is complete, nothing can stop its, return!"

Tirek charged up the magical sphere between his horns and gave a nod to his 'friends'. One by one, each of the duplicates fired a continuous beam of their magic at the sphere. The various colors swirled around and flashed violently until they slowly mixed together. Soon, the sphere had transformed into a mass of purple and black magic accented by small sparks of blue light.

Discord and the Princesses looked on with fear and confusion.

"What is Tirek doing? How could he have blocked the power of the elements?" Cadance asked.

"I don't know. There's no spell in existence that can match them." replied Celestia.

Discord looked at the dark colored magic and made an expression of pure terror "Wait a minute...the offering, the ring of fire, the six sources of magic...Oh no....It can't be...There's now way he could have done it!"

"Could have done what? What in Equestria is that thing, Discord?" Celestia asked.

Discord shuddered. "One of the oldest and most powerful dark magic spells in the history of magic...so powerful that it was believed to be in the class of the Elements of Harmony......The Rainbow of Darkness."

"I've heard stories about such a thing existing before our time, but they all said it was permanently destroyed." said Luna.

"It was, and that's what everypony thought. However, legend says that the spell can be revived when six creatures of darkness join their magic together; similar to how the Elements work, but I thought the legend was just that."

"And you're saying that Tirek has used that ritual to bring this Rainbow of Darkness back?" asked Cadance.

Discord nodded. "This clash will be the ultimate test for the Elements."

Tirek held the Rainbow of Darkness in his hands and looked at the six nervous equines across from him.

"Now, my little ponies, your downfall begins now!" he held out the Rainbow in front of him and shouted at the top of his lungs:

"BEHOLD, THE POWER OF DARKNESS!!!"

A continuous streak of magic burst out from the sphere toward the Mane 6; howling like a gale, rumbling like thunder, and flashing like lightning. Twilight and her friends responded by firing their rainbow at the oncoming attack. The two forces clashed and appeared to be perfectly even with each other. The mane 6 strained hard trying to overpower their enemy.

"Keep pushing everypony! We can do it! As long as we're together, nothing can stop us!" encouraged Twilight.

Applejack noticed something that made her feel a sharp pain in her chest. "Uh, girls, y'all are gonna think ahm crazy, but ah think that thing just got a bit closer ta us."

Unfortunately, Applejack was right. Despite their unrelenting efforts, their rainbow was resisting the Rainbow of Darkness less and less. Soon, the darkness had devoured the last of the attack and began infecting the orb of magic around the ponies. Tirek and his 'friends' watched with amusement as the harmony magic grew unstable from its dark invader until all the magic was blown away with a loud explosion. The mane 6 were turned back into their normal selves as their unconscious bodies began plummeting to the ground. Luckily, they were all saved by six pegasi soldiers. 

Tirek pulled out a small, black pull-string sack and held it open. The Rainbow of Darkness retracted back to him and fed itself into the bag. It glowed with a purple aura and throbbed with the rhythm of a heartbeat as if it were alive.

"I was hoping my friends would stop you themselves, but I was prepared to have the Rainbow of Darkness revived if something were to happen. You ponies were doomed no matter what the outcome of your battles were! And the best part is, I planned it that way all along!!"

He held the bag up so that all the ponies below could see. "Your saviors have failed you, the ultimate darkness has returned, and there is nothing you can do to stop its power! YOUR LAND BELONGS TO ME!!!"

Tirek released the Rainbow of Darkness and it struck the ground with an immeasurable force.

The soldiers scattered in terror trying to figure out what to do.

"We have to get everypony out of here!" exclaimed Celestia.

"But, what about Canterlot?" Cadance asked.

"The city should be fully evacuated by now. Besides, we don't have anything left to use against Tirek. We'd only lose more ponies if we stayed around any longer. We'll retreat to our old castle in the Everfree Forest. We should be safe there."

"But the place is in ruins. We can't send them there." protested Luna.

"It's the biggest location that's closest to us. We have no other choice."

The princesses flew over the soldiers. "FALL BACK!!!" they cried. "FOLLOW US AND WE'LL TAKE YOU TO SAFETY!!!"

Tirek watched the hoard of soldiers begin to move in a general direction. "It appears they are retreating. Havoc, take some of the dragons with you. Chase them down until you can no longer see them."

"Yes, Lord Tirek." answered Havoc.

"The rest of you stay in the area and capture anypony that's foolish enough to stay behind."

Havoc and the dragons remained incredibly close on the ponies' tails. His blasts of chaotic magic and the dragons' fire breaths from the sky rushed the army to a great extent; bringing any stragglers to Tirek. Eventually, they followed the army to the Everfree Forest. With the trees too dense to see through, thus not knowing which direction the ponies were going, the pursuers turned around and headed back to Canterlot.

Tirek unleashed the Rainbow of Darkness again, this time on Canterlot. With it's power, the pristine capital of Equestria and the home of the Two Sisters, had turned into a huge, menacing, black palace. For Canterlot had now become Tirek's new home, The Midnight Castle.

Spine flew up to the palace balcony where Tirek stood overlooking the land. "The ponies have avoided our attempt to steal their magic, master...we have failed."

"No, Spine, this...is only the beginning! Today has been a major victory! Now that I have driven the princesses into a corner and made them unable to stop me, I'll force them to watch as I terrorize this land and claim it as my own, saving them for last!"

"So, when do you plan on going after the rest of Equestria's magic?"

Tirek stroked his beard thoughtfully. "In the position we're in, that can wait a little while. First, I'm going to take Searing Nova and Starless Night with me back to Tartarus tonight."

"After just breaking out, you want to go back there?"

"Yes. There's one prisoner in particular that could prove very useful to me, should he join my side. Once all the pieces are in place, I will unleash my might upon Equestria, and then rest of the world!"

"You have my full support, master Tirek."

Spine looked at the sun, now orange-red and setting over the horizon. To him, it was a perfect compliment to what had been achieved today.

"After thousands of years, Canterlot is now ours."

As Tirek entered the castle and approached the large double doors to his throne room, two teenaged dragons pushed the doors open. Inside revealed a long red carpet running all the way to his massive throne. The duplicates and the dragons stood on opposite sides of the carpet kneeling and bowing before him as he stood in the doorway.

Spine held out his hand into the chamber.

"Welcome home!"





The war-torn princesses and their armies continued to make their way through the Everfree Forest.

Luna, crushed with grief from what happened, tried to talk with her sister for comfort.

"Celestia?" she asked. "Please tell me there's still hope for us."

Celestia held her head low with an equal amount of grief.

"I don't know, dear sister....I just don't know."