The wardrobe chimed. Twilight listened; the chimes were for a general call-- everypony to the mirrors, please. She stepped up and popped the cabinet open.

The other five were already at their mirrors, some of them looking drowsy and frazzled from rising early. "What's up, Twi?" Rainbow Dash asked, yawning.

"I didn't call; I think it was Celestia," Twilight said, looking over at the center mirror, which currently showed...nopony. Where was she? "I think Celestia called us for something--" Twilight looked back at Rainbow Dash. "Dash, is that a black eye?"

Rainbow Dash gave a half-apologetic grin. "Heh. You should see the other pony. Don't worry about it, it's handled. Professor Quibble's probably gonna have me spend the morning practicing minor healing magic, though." She dabbed at her eye carefully. "So what's the five-alarm fire?"

"I don't know, Celestia is--" Twilight started to say, when Celestia herself suddenly popped back into view. She looked a bit... dishevelled, for lack of a better word. Though it almost felt blasphemous to even think it, Twilight reflected.

"Hello, my little ponies!" Celestia said cheerfully. "I'm in the Castle of the Royal Sisters. We seem to be having a bit of trouble here, it's brought up a bit of an issue..."

There was a scream. A moment later, Discord went running past in the background, a look of absolute panic on his face. He was being pursued by what looked like several thick, thorny black vines. "Ahem," Celestia continued. "It seems that one of Discord's old pet projects from back before he was petrified--" there was the sound of something smashing; Discord came running the other way, looking over his shoulder as several vines gave chase.

"-- has gotten out of hand. Fortunately he remembered it before it got past the borders of the Everfree, and--" There was a roar and a gout of flame. Several unicorns came back the other way, jetting flame from the tips of their horns as the vines reluctantly retreated. Screams and shouts and several naughty words echoed from offscreen. "Oh blast it, I'm in no condition to deal with this--- look, we need to call the Elements back."

"But... we just got here," Dash protested.

Celestia rolled her eyes. "No no, not the bearers. We just need the Elements." Discord crabbed across backward in the background, wearing an unbuttoned shirt and waving a chainsaw at several thorny tendrils.

"Listen up, you primeval screwheads. This is my BROOMSTICK!" He yelled, waving a janitor's broom at the enroaching vines. The vines, unimpressed, snatched it away and snapped it in half. Discord let out a "yeep" and retreated faster.

Celestia groaned and shook her head. "You see we oooOOOP!" Celestia was cut off in mid sentence as several loops of vine dropped around her and yanked her out of sight. There was a tremendous rumpus.

"Agh, not that way!"

"Leggo!"

"Yeeek!"

Several armored guards retreated across the mirror view, waving swords.

"Stand your ground, men, stand your ground!"

"No way, man. I've seen enough Neighpon cartoons to know where this is going!"

"Shuddup Henderson or I'll dress you in a schoolgirl outfit and THROW you to them! Now charge!"

"For the Princesses!"

"Oh grand, for the Princesses," Celestia could be heard saying. "In that case would you mind cutting your Princess loose??"

There was the sound of clashing arms. Celestia reappeared, severel loops of severed vine hanging off her mane. "Look it's complicated so I'll give you the Cliff's Notes version," she said. "The Elements of Harmony came from an ancient magical tree called the Tree of Harmony." The glass frosted over and a ghostly image of a crystalline tree appeared. "It sits in a cavern below the Castle of the Sisters, and its magic keeps the Everfree in check. The tree has weakened without them, though, and one of Discord's old booby traps-- these vines-- have finally broken loose and started growing everywhere. We need to restore the Elements to the Tree in order to keep the vines, and then the Everfree, from taking over Equestria."

The mane six looked down at the gems hanging around their necks. "But what about..." Fluttershy said. "Well. Everything? Our mission, and the alicorns..."

"Yeah, how will we cast the ascension spell without them?" Rainbow Dash said.

Celestia tsked. "You shouldn't need the Elements of Harmony, you're the alicorns of Harmony now, you're more than powerful enough to cast the spell without them. Now please hurry-- these vines are getting impertinent!"

"Of course, Celestia," Twilight said. "What do we do?"

Several minutes of hasty instruction (interspersed on Celestia's side of the mirror with fire, explosions, and Discord screaming like a schoolfilly), and they had readied a teleportation spell. The six bearers each knelt in a chalk diagram sketched out on their cabin floors. Their horns glowed, their Elements shining in response. With a sixfold flash of light, the gems disappeared from their settings and reappeared in a pile at Celestia's hooves. "Oh thank heaven," she said, snatching them up in her magic. "Everypony! To the Chamber of the Tree!" she shouted. There was a rousing cheer, and a score of guards and unicorn scholars followed her as she galloped from the room. The stampede was tailed by Discord, who was bound head to toe in thorny vines and hopping along on tiptoe in pursuit.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow..."

Several long anxious minutes passed. The girls remained riveted to their mirrors, gnawing their lips anxiously, watching the vines creeping back and forth across the empty room. Finally, there was a faint octarine flash of light, and without preamble or ceremony the vines shriveled to dust. Several more minutes passed, and Celestia finally reappeared in front of the mirror. "It's done," she said, smiling beatifically as she brushed her mane out of her face. "The tree is restored and the vines are destroyed."

The girls sighed in relief. "Thank goodness," Twilight said. "I'm sorry we couldn't be there. I would have liked to see this Tree of Harmony..."

"Oh, you'll get the chance eventually," Celestia said. "It's still there after all. And now that the Tree is replenished, the Everfree should actually be a great deal safer, so you'll be able to visit the old castle whenever you wish." She huffed. "I cannot believe how many books and things I just left here. It's embarrassing. I'm going to start a restoration project as soon as I can..." she smiled impishly. "Get ready for a fresh shipment of books sometime soon, Twilight. The library in this old place is stacked with out of print volumes."

"Oh! Well that's... nice." Twilight picked her next words carefully. "And... the Elements?"

By way of answer, Celestia held up a strange, six sided box with six locks. "It seems the Tree has given us... a substitute of some sort," Celestia said. "And it appears we have a bit of a fetch-quest on hand, because I have no idea where the keys are to this thing." Celestia sighed. "Oh well. That's a concern for another time. Don't worry about it, my little ponies. I have a few other ponies working on getting this thing unlocked. For now... I have to go oversee cleanup from the vines..." she winced. "And help Discord remove some, er, seriously embedded vine thorns."

"You owe me big time Celestia" Discord shouted in the distance.

"Take care, my little alicorns," Celestia said. The mirror went dark.

The six alicorn princesses sat there for a moment, looking at one another. "Well... that happened," Pinkie finally said.

Next Chapter: Chapter 18 Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 33 Minutes