Chocolate rain precipitates from pink cotton candy clouds in the sky. With the obnoxious smell of chocolate and sugar distilling the air, Shade has trouble focusing on the spell to locate the missing Elements of Harmony. Her horns ignite and fizzle out. The sweetness chokes her and clogs her sense. She shuts herself down to reset her system.

“The Elements... they’re gone!” Twilight exclaims.

The seven mares stand around the empty chest as they watch Princess Celestia pace back and forth in front of them.

“That chamber is protected by a powerful spell that only I can break! This doesn't make sense!” Princess Celestia’s train of thought derails as laughter erupts around the group.

“‘Make sense’?” A masculine voice repeats, the words echoInt through the hall. “Oh, what fun is there in making sense?”

Recognition and anger pull down on Princess Celestia’s face. “Discord, show yourself!”

More of Discord’s laughter echoes around them. “Did you miss me, Celestia? I missed you.” As he talks, they eventually locate the source of his voice emanating from the mural depicting his downfall. The stain glass version of himself moves about and slinks over to the stain glass window of the newest heroes of Equestria. “It's quite lonely being encased in stone, but you wouldn't know that, would you, because I don't turn ponies into stone.“

With her patience at its end, she steps up to the window to raise her voice, “Enough! What have you done with the Elements of Harmony?”

“Well, I just borrowed them for a teensy little while.” A snap follows his nonchalant statement. The Elements on the window disappear with the snap.

As if ready to charge at the visage of Discord in the window, Princess Celestia stamps her hoof, “You’ll never get away with this, Discord.”

Discord reclines in the portion of the window nw bereft of Elements. His claws hold his attention as he rebuffs at the white alicorn’s challenge. “Oh, I’d forgotten how grim you can be, Celestia. It’s really quite boring.”

Rainbow Dash shoots up to the air to defend her princess. “Hey! Nopony insults the Princess!” She charges at the window aiming for Discord. He blinks away in a flash of light as the pegasus face plants against the window. A groan of pain escapes her muzzle. She implants her face with a pop and her eyes rattle around as she shakes off the impact.

Discord reappears in the window, this time taking up most of the space. “Oh, you must be Rainbow Dash, famed for her loyalty—the Element of Harmony you represent.”

“That’s right! I’ll always be loyal to the Princess!”

Discord teleports away again leaving only a sardonic, “We’ll see about that.”

“I can't believe we're wasting our time talking to a tacky window,” Rarity comments.

“The beautiful Rarity,” Discord says as he pops up into the window Rarity is standing next to, “representing the element of generosity, if I'm not mistaken?”

Applejack walks up to the window to confront Discord, “So you know who we are, big deal.”

“Oh, I know much more than that, honest Applejack,” he says as he grows to the full size of the window.

“You seem to know our strengths too,” Twilight inputs.

Discord shrinks down to rest his chimeric body across the circle encasing Fluttershy in the window. “Yes, Twilight Sparkle, and yours is the most powerful and elusive element, magic. Fluttershy's is kindness and Pinkie Pie's is a personal favorite of mine—laughter.” He grows and soon the window becomes his eyes. “And last, but certainly no least, Shade—Element of Courage. Being uncharacteristically quiet.”

The white tricorn has her eyes hidden behind tinted goggles. The group quickly share questioning looks at the tricorn standing behind them.

“Shadey-wadey?” Pinkie nudges the mare. A faint huff of a snore exhausts from her white nostrils.

“Is she sleeping?” Rainbow Dash inquires.

Shade smacks her lips and stretches her limbs. “Is it time for me to kick his ass?”

A low growl resonates through the hall. “Don’t write me off so easily!” Discord growls.

“We can do this the easy way or we can do this the fun way. I will let you choose, Discord,” Shade states,

“The fun way is the easy way!” He laughs.

“Alright. It is decided then,” Shade nods. She turns to Princess Celestia, “He chooses to run his own amusement park or parks and not to cause chaos out of those designated areas.”

Silence hangs in the air for a long moment.

All the ponies and the draconequus, “What?”

“It is a win-win-win situation,” Shade states matter-of-factory. Seeing everyone’s blank expressions Shade explains. “Without discord, harmony has no meaning. With him having amusement parks or his own area to operate in Discord would be free to do his chaos, he would be in a place where Celestia could keep an eye on him, and every creature will be able to have fun which in turn generates money.”

“That’s crazy...” Twilight says still trying to process what Shade had said.

The ponies shift on their hooves as they think. Discord returns to taking up the window with his frame. He tugs on his goatee as he thinks.

Princess Celestia wears a stiff expression. Her hard eyes shift from the white tricorn to the stain glass window. Discord and Harmony, contrary to popular belief, are not evil and good, respectively, which Celestia had learned a long time ago. Which is why the Elements of Harmony only had sealed him away and not destroy him entirely. On a small scale, Discord and his chaos do make the world interesting and spontaneous.

“What do you think of the idea, Discord?” Princess Celestia asks after her moment of reflection.

His crimson irises scan the white alicorn before him and the seven other mares behind her. “I think you all are stalling.” With a snap of his hand the seven bearers and him teleport to the palace labyrinth.

“Now, my little ponies,” Discord tries his best Celestia impression, “we are going to play a game in order for you all to reclaim your elements.”