Prologue

“Ugh! Gag! Fine! Go ahead! Try to use your little elements, 'frienamies'. Just make it quick,” Discord said as he teleported with a flash of light onto his throne on the hill. He brought his right limb, a lion's paw, to his chest, and proclaimed proudly, “I'm missing some excellent chaos here.”

Twilight looked on with a smile as the God of Chaos, Discord, taunted her and her five friends. Until this very moment, Discord had held the upper hoof, or paw in his case, in their day long battle. The battle was was not one of physical combat, but one of the mind, that took the two parties all across the region, from the streets and hedge mazes of the metropolis of Canterlot, to the sprawling hills of a chaotically changed Ponyville. The entire time, with only one exception, Twilight was always on his tail, doing her best to keep up with his every move.

However, even with livelong training that Celestia herself gave Twilight, as well as the dedication of all of her friends, the mad draconequus had held all the cards for the majority of the day. It all started with Discord stealing of the Elements of Harmony right from under Celestia's muzzle, a monumentous feat that left even the sun princess gawking in silence. Throwing themselves into the conflict, the six bearers attempted to not only take back the artifacts, but send Discord back into his stone prison once and for all.

But instead of the simple victory Twilight was hoping for, the majority of the day had instead been a series of the ponies being subjected to one disaster after another. The first was obviously losing the Elements of Harmony, ensuring that their quick victory that the six mares were praying for could not be attained. The second, and probably the most startling, disaster was when Discord took away the wings and horns of her and her friends, leaving every single one of her friends an earth pony. Sure, they had the appendages returned, but the trauma was still there.

Twilight still looked up at her horn adorning her head to make sure the magical focus was still there.

Most disastrous of anything that the monster did to them was the third catastrophe, the complete corruption of each of them. As the mares traveled through the hedge maze that Twilight suspected contained the elements, the mares were separated from each other. From there, it was apparently simple for the draconequus to corrupt the mares, turning Applejack into a compulsive liar, Pinkie into a jerk, Rarity into a greedy hoarder, and Fluttershy into... well... a jerk as well. As for Rainbow, she abandoned her friends, and Ponyville in general, to 'protect' Cloudsdale.

Not only that, but in Twilight's desperation, she tried to use the elements on the chaotic being while her friends were corrupted, replacing Rainbow Dash with the dragon under her care, Spike. Of course, with only herself being 'in tune' with her element, let alone the fact that Spike wasn't even the bearer of Loyalty, the attempted failed spectacularly, and almost led to their demise as they were left helpless to Discord. Unable to use the elements, there was nothing stopping him from destroying them, and completely taking over.

But, to Twilight's infinite confusion, Discord didn't turn them into pudding or anything like that, as she suspected he would. Instead, he spared the ponies, and just laughed as he skated away on an endless trail of bubbles, leaving the ponies behind him to return to their feuding. Each placing blame on the others, her friends followed Rainbow Dash's lead from before and abandoned her, and Equestria as a whole. Twilight thought that all was lost, and that she would have to live in a world where flying houses, checkerboard hills, and dancing buffalo were not only expected, but the norm. Lost in her grief, she was currupted herself, and as she wallowed in her despair at the apparent loss of her friends, she threw away her element, and prepared to leave forever.

Except Princess Celestia saved her.

Twilight's smile grew wider at the warm memory. Celestia, a second mother to Twilight, in their time of crisis, had sent her every single friendship report that Twilight had ever sent to the Princess, much to the displeasure of her sickened dragon. Reading each and every one of them, the memories of everything that she and her friends had gone thorugh, from Nightmare Moon to parasprite infestations, reminded her why they were her best of friends. From there, Twilight, using the same idea that Celestia had, created a spell that would force each of her friends to remember the past year in a few seconds, the only spell she imagined that could fight off Discord's corruption. Some, like Applejack, were easy to find, restrain, and use the spell on. Some, Twilight stole a quick glance at a certain speedy pegasus to her right, were much more complicated.

And now here the six were, Twilight and her best friends that she would trust to take her to the end of the earth and back, stood before the God of Chaos as he smugly gestured on his throne.

“Alright Ladies!” Twilight shouted to her five friends, her confidence in her words infectious, “Lets show him what friendship can do!”

“Wait wait wait!”

Twilight stopped, looked over, and saw her random and spastic friend, Pinkie Pie, under a cloud that matched her bright pink coat. She had planted her flank on the ground and held her forelegs in the air as she tilted her head up, and with her mouth wide open towards the sky above, she drank up as much of the precipitation that the cloud gave off. However, the rain was not a normal rain, a fact that Twilight's sugary sticky coat reminded her constantly. Instead, chocolate milk cascaded down onto Pinkie, the mare doing her best to catch as much of it in her mouth as ponily possible.

Either blissfully unaware or completely uncaring of her friend's disapproving faces, she continued to drink her fill of the chocolate brown liquid. Face filled with glee, she sat upright under the rain with her mouth open, more of the chocolate falling on her mane and coat than falling into her mouth. After nearly a minute of slurping, she wiped her mouth, let out a content sigh, then jumped over to the rest of the elements, and stood against Discord once more with a wolf-like growl.

Rolling her eyes, Twilight once again faced Discord, and started to power up the Elements of Harmony for the second time that day. As a soft pink glow of magic started to emanate from the group, Discord calmly yawned and sat in his throne with a smirk as he watched the six mares attempt at, once again, trapping him in stone. However, after a few moments of watching the ponies, he started to realize that the Elements' power was not faltering in their magic as had happened earlier that day, and as he was expecting. Instead, the magic that the artifacts gave off continued to grow in harmonious power.

“Hmm...” Discord thought out loud as the ponies charged their weapon. Suddenly, instead of a face of worry or painic, a devilish smile grew across his face as a completely marvelous idea passed through his mind. Soon, he was powering his own spell, a bright green glow building up in his right paw as he focused all of his power into the appendage. It quickly became a race against time to see who would pull off their respective spell first: The friends bearing the Elements of Harmony, or Discord. Through it all, his smile continued to grow, until it took up the width of his entire face.

Unfortunately for the ponies, their head-start was not enough for them to get their spell off.

“So!” Discord laughed in a eerily comical way. “You want to send me back to my stone prison? But I have so much more fun to have! Why don't we all have fun together and see how YOU like a stone prison!”

Discord pointed his finger at the growing ball of power surrounding the Elements, and a miniscule green ray rocketed towards the ponies. Upon impact, the sickening green glow quickly encircled the girls, and started to disrupt the spell that the mares were attempting to cast. Sparks danced off of the pink and green orb as the two incantations began to intertwine and disrupt each other. However, before anything more could happen, the Elements of Harmony finally unleashed their charged power.

Curiously enough, instead of attacking Discord as both parties suspected would happen, the ancient magic took on a mind of their own, and instead of sending Discord back into the stony prison as the Princesses had millennia before, began to work to disrupt the spell that Discord had cast upon the ponies. The two ancient magics weaved onto each other, as if locked in a battle for supremacy of control. The pair of spells soon merged together, blending into one much more powerful and uncontrollable entity. Twilight's eyes grew wide a look of shock, and with a flash, the blended spell exploded from the two powerful magics, blinding anypony who would look at it directly. Discord looked on with a pair of sunglasses, and when the flash disappeared, all that was left of where the girls stood were the six pieces of jewelry that represented the Elements of Harmony clattering to the cobblestone road.

For just a brief second, even the God of Chaos seemed surprised at the result.

“Well that's not what I wanted to happen.” Discord seemingly pouted at first. A second later, a massive smile formed on his face, “Oh this is simply marvelous! I love it when I surprise myself! Not every day that I get to cause chaos and mischief against me! I should tell my favorite Princesses of my wondrous discovery. I'm sure they would love to hear it. Though the only question now is what color accordion I need.” Discord grinned madly, and with that, he snapped his fingers, and teleported away.

The world was still for a time, with the exception of the random earth pony floating around in his or her insanity. However, once it became apparent that the draconequus was gone, a small purple and green baby dragon peeked around the corner of a nearby building to see what had just happened to his friends.

“Tw... Twilight?” he softly stuttered. He slowly approached where the girls were previously standing, not finding any of the six ponies.

“Twilight?” he again said, looking to the left and right in a frantic fashion; the panic starting to seep into his voice as his growing concern over his caretaker. It was then that his eyes looked down, noticing the unmistakable six pieces of jewelry that embodied the Elements of Harmony. His eyes grew wide, pupils constricting as his vision fell on the headpiece that previously adorned a certain lavender unicorn. He fell to his knees, and trembled heavily as he picked up the tiara.

“TWLIGHT!?”