...Is Someone's Friend, Surely
"Ahh, foolish ponies," Grogar taunted, standing over the fallen forms of Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash, who was snoring. "Those rocks are worthless without their wielders, and with no magic rainbow laser, you have no chance against me!"
Twilight struggled back to her hooves, putting on a brave show for her friends. "Come on, girls, we can't give up now!" Wings flared in defiance, she levitated Pinkie and Fluttershy upright. Pinkie Pie snorted at the old goat, shaking some confetti from her tail; Fluttershy very bravely failed to collapse again. A thrum of magic pulsed within Twilight, urging her to try once again, so she lit her horn, rose into the air with the inert Elements of Harmony, and started up her speech once more. "That's where you're wrong, Grogar! What gives the Elements their power isn't just the pony who wields them..."
Unbeknownst to the ponies and their foe, they were being watched by a conveniently-placed bush nearby. More specifically, by a certain changeling queen and red centaur hiding behind said bush. Queen Chrysalis was the first to speak up. "I hate to admit it, but we need them to win."
"I agree, unfortunately. That whole bell thing was utterly useless, which means that goat is still stronger than us." Tirek stomped in frustration, crossed his arms, and growled, "and worse, the ponies will probably pull something out of their flanks and win anyway, so the smart thing to do is, regrettably, to stay put and wait for our turn."
Back in the clearing, the purple pony princess's speech was building to a climax, and a trail of rainbow light connected her to all five of her friends. "...not just a pony, but an IDEA! And ideas are bu-" A sickly yellow glow surrounded the three unconscious ponies and hurled them over the horizon. Twilight huffed and glared at Grogar, who simply smirked. "Well," she continued, "let's see what we get anyway. Pinkie Pie, who remains lighthearted even in the face of peril, represents the Element of Laughter!"
Chrysalis looked at Tirek, then at the ponies. Then back to Tirek. "Well, if the smart thing has us lose to Grogar or hope that whatever saves then from him can't save them from us..." A pale green glow wrapped around Tirek and launched him, screaming, towards the retreating ribbon of rainbow, with the buglike changeling galloping behind, shouting out, "then we'll make like ponies and do the stupid thing instead!"
"...Element of Kindness! And when together, these elements bring forth a- okay, what?!" Twilight's eyes stopped glowing as she did a double-take. Tirek, who was supposed to be in Tartarus, was holding one end of the rainbow magic, and letting it flow through him instead of eating it. Even weirder, he was face-down on the ground, his rear hooves in the air, and a few feet of grass behind him had been plowed through, leaving a dirt trail. However, before she could cut the spell to blast him, or put up a shield, or any other sort of anything, things got even less probable.
Four hole-ridden legs thundered across the ground, the sound barely overcome by the changeling's two-tone voice, "Tirek, who is blunt and straightforward in his planning, feedback, and observation represents the Element of Honesty!"
"He what?!"
"I what?"
"Just roll with it! Now we're just down Generosity and, uh..." Chrysalis faltered as she joined Tirek's side, the rainbow now flowing through her as well. "Ooh, tingly!"
Twilight rolled her eyes and glared at her. "And Loyalty. And, with all due offense, I can't see YOU-"
Tirek spoke quickly, interrupting the princess yet again, "Chrysalis, who selflessly let me drain her magic with only the word of a villain she'd get it back, represents the Element of Generosity!"
Grogar pawed at the ground impatiently. “Look,” he said, “even if this were actually going to work, you still need a Loyalty, and Miss Cozy Glow certainly wouldn’t fit, even if she were here. So how about you all stop this silly charade so we can get back to me kicking all your sorry flanks into the shadow realm?”
Tirek opened his mouth again, his mind working quickly to come up with something for Cozy Glow... and then realized that the goat was right, she had somehow gotten separated from the rest of the traitorous, treacherous triad. He and Chrysalis shared a confused look, then glanced around, searching for the missing filly.
Smolder let out a loud belch, spewing an impressive river of flame safely over the heads of her classmates. Grinning proudly with a mouth full of sharp teeth, she looked over at her griffon friend, who was running his tongue over his beak. Ocellus lay behind them on her back, hiccupping from time to time, but she looked quite satisfied, too.
“Alright, everycreature, let’s give a big thanks to Ocellus, Smolder, and Gallus for their demonstration of nonherbivorous eating habits!” Starlight Glimmer said, sporting her usual, cheerful expression, “in the past, Equestria had to rely on the hard-to-verify accounts of explorers, but our expanding friendships have made sharing knowledge across species much easier.”
In the classroom seats, students had varied reactions. Most, like Yona, wore shocked or horrified expressions. Silverstream and several others eagerly scribbled notes in their books, with the occasional quick sketch of a griffon beak, changeling fangs, or Smolder’s belly. And only a small few, like Sandbar, stared in rapt attention at their classmates, tantalized by the demonstration. Many seats were vacant, their occupants having fled the room to make retching sounds in the bathrooms.
“And also a thank-you to Cozy Glow, who really short-circuited the morality stuff around this,” Gallus added.
Smolder shot him a confused look. “You know she can’t hear us, right?”
Ocellus stopped hiccupping long enough to pipe up, chiming in with, “the third facet of reciprocal generosity is to show thanks for any given gift, even if it will most likely go unnoticed; it not only fosters good friendship between you and the recipient, but also keeps the mind in good practice in the case that they are unaware of the gratitude.” Having said her part, the changeling yawned, fighting against falling asleep in the classroom.
The class thanked the three non-ponies, and then thanked Cozy Glow. The couple of blue and white curls of the pegasus’s mane, her signature bow, and a few pink feathers left on the floor didn’t respond.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Chrysalis asserted, “she’s a smart filly. I’m sure she’s just waiting for us to return victorious so she can tell us more about fff-f- f-fff... fffriendship, or at least how to manipulate ponies without mind control. And threats. Mostly threats.”
Twilight stomped her hoof, an impressive feat given that she was still hovering from the impending friendship laser. “That’s great and all, and don’t get me wrong, I’m super glad you two have learned the magic of friendship,” Twilight said, ignoring Chrysalis gagging on the word, “but Grogar’s right: we’re missing one element, and Rainbow looked VERY asleep when he threw her away. At best, this won’t be a fully-charged atta-”
A blade of grass suddenly grew several meters tall, curving into an S shape, sprouting six limbs, and rapidly changing colors, until Discord finished manifesting in the middle of the string of magic. Once the prismatic ribbon reemerged from his long, noodly body to join back up with Fluttershy, he began to shift in hue through all the colors of the rainbow. “Hel-lo fellow friendly friends of friendship! Discord here, representing the Element of Loyalty by always staying by his dearest friend, Fluttershy’s, side through thick,” his body widened three times its size, “and thin,” he continued, growing nearly two-dimensional, “except for that one time with Tirek, but that doesn’t count because I thought he was my friend. So it’s really all friendship and loyalty with dear old Discord!”
Twilight fumed. “Argh, stop interru-”
“C’mon, Twilight, let’s blast Grogar with a rainbow!” Pinkie cheered, “and then I can throw Chrysalis and Tirek a ‘Welcome to Friendship and Reformation’ party!”
The purple alicorn growled, but focused back into the spell. All six creatures were lifted gently into the air by the power of the Elements, and Twilight's eyes began to glow a brilliant white once more. Five identical beams of rainbow shot out of the creatures' chests, plus one with jumbled-up colors from Discord, and coalesced at the tip of Twilight's horn. Grogar took a step back when magic exploded upwards, forming a wide, multicolored ribbon of light. It turned downwards, encircling the blue goat with blinding speed. There was a great, big flash, and Grogar changed, his magical signature rearranged. When they next saw him, they realized he had been turned to stone, from tail to eyes.
Discord poked the stone with a claw, regarding it with a lopsided smirk. "My streak continues. I still don't turn ponies into stone. Now, for the fun part!" With a snap, he summoned a can of spray paint labeled "Al Borland."
While Chrysalis checked herself in a mirror held in Pinkie’s mane for signs of becoming a pastel moosebug, Twilight approached Tirek. Despite every previous encounter with the centaur going... less-than-swimmingly, the Princess of Friendship gave him a bright smile. “So!” she started, “I’m glad you and Queen Chrysalis have finally learned the value of friendship. Much like Discord, I’m sure that we can learn exciting and valuable things from each other’s ways of thinking, and I look forward to continu-”
“Look, Twilight Sparkle, let me clear something up. Chrysalis and I are friends. Friendship has been very useful in... ways I won’t tell you,” Tirek drawled, crossing his incredibly buff arms, “but I’m not friends with you, I will not be friends with you, and the moment Chrysalis is assured she doesn’t look like a technicolor abomination, we’ll get back to plotting your inevitable downfall at our hands and hooves!”
Twilight stepped back, confused and speechless. She turned to Pinkie and Fluttershy for support, only to find Chrysalis drinking in some pale mist from a quickly-weakening Pinkie Pie, with Fluttershy already collapsed behind her, drained. The alicorn shot off a quick burst of magic, but, while it shattered the queen’s magical shield, the changeling remained unharmed. With a smug smirk, Chrysalis offered a hole-filled hoof to Tirek, who took it in his hand. Green flame rose up around the pair before they sunk out of sight, transported elsewhere. Twilight leapt at them, but they were gone before she hit the ground. Resigned, she walked over to her friends, first helping Fluttershy rest across her back.
Pinkie Pie looked tiredly up at her friend, looking more confused than sad or upset. “Does this mean... no redemption party?”
“I’m afraid that’s right, Pinkie,” Twilight replied, pulling the poofy, pink, party pony to her hooves, “it never occurred to me that friendship could be used for... for evi-”
“I’m just dandy, too, thank you for asking!” Discord shouted from his lounge atop the statue of Grogar, now painted like what looked like a bearded lumberjack, “the third of the Element replacements is still here, and still reformed!”
Twilight let out a wordless groan of frustration, then teleported them all back to the Friendship Castle before heading out to search for Rainbow, Rarity, and Applejack.