Lord Tirek siphoned the last ounce of magic in all of Equestria. The ponies of Ponyville thought to evade his wrath by hiding indoors, but he was far too savvy for that. With his immense power, he wrapped every structure and building within sight with his fiery red power and drained the ponies of their magic straight through the walls. It just a drop, meager in comparison to all else that he'd consumed, but symbolically it was important. It was the last vestige of pony power. Now, his victory was absolute.
Tirek swirled the magic around in his mouth. He wanted to savor this one last morsel. It tasted like mud, as this was a town of earth ponies. Mud that was accented with the airy wisps of pegasus flight and the tinny metallic undertone of unicorn magic, that is. He swallowed and let the magic seep inside him. He felt no different, but that to be expected since he already felt all-powerful.
“Bow before your new master, for I am Lord Tirek, and I control your entire world!” Tirek's words echoed across the landscape. He could see entire forests sway as trees bowed to his message. His voice was like gale that swept across the land. He smiled. The air was his to command. The powers of the pegasus ruled over them.
Lord Tirek roared. He held his arms out and flexed his bulging muscles. With the help of his absolute magic, he waved his arms and the sky tilted with them. The power of the alicorns was his to command. The sky best to his will and his will alone. He had achieved supremacy, and supremacy was Lord Tirek.
As an afterthought, he shrugged and entire mountains lifted off the ground. Ah yes, unicorn magic. It was the most malleable magic of all, if he ever bothered to learn the nuances of it. Such a thing was pointless, though. He'd already achieved everything he'd ever dreamed of and more through raw power and dirty tricks.
Lord Tirek smiled again. He could hardly believe that Princess Twilight Sparkle had been willing to trade away her powers for a bunch of nearly lifeless husks. It had been kind of fun hiding those ponies away with Discord's magic only to reveal them when the time was right. Perhaps he'd do more of that in the future once he felt like playing with the ponies again. Right now though, he was having way too much fun playing with his new toy: the entire world.
Tirek looked down at the land beneath him. Hmm, he hadn't tried earth pony magic yet. How did that work, anyway? Their talents were plants, right? He should be able to do something with all of those trees. He knelt down to place his hand flat on the ground, but before he could begin a strange knot twisted his stomach. He felt a sense of dread wash over him. His entire body shook and wobbled like jello. Earth pony magic wasn't just about tending to the land. It could be unpredictable at times, and if the magic that washed over him had a name, it'd be called Pinkie Sense. He'd had a doozy.
“A... premonition?” Lork Tirek, the master of everything except trees, looked down at the traitorous forest. “No! This can't be possible. You're just trees! You don't have the power to usurp me! That's absurd!”
Tirek shook again. He couldn't control himself. He wobbled and wavered like a flag in the wind. The magic was very clear on its warning: he would be brought low, by a tree.
“Noo!” Lord Tirek screamed with rage. “I'll show you who's boss! No mere tree will make a fool of Lord Tirek!”
Tirek slammed his hooves on the ground creating cracks that widened into crevasses and chasms. He swung his arm low and flattened every tree in his reach. He drew on his full power and blasted the forest with raw magic. “DIE, TREES!” Each blast created a black and charred crater. Smoke rose from the ashes. He ran and stomped as he went, kicking down dozens at a time and blasting even more into oblivion.
Despite his seething rage, he found it to be fun. It was cathartic in a way. He'd spent so much time hiding away and biding his time that it was almost euphoria to cut loose like this. Tirek carved his way through the sprawling woods and they seemed to change around him. They no longer looked tidy. They looked wild, as if no pony had ever bothered to tend to them. It made no difference. They fell to his blasts of magic just as easily as the rest.
Tirek smiled. That premonition must have been a fluke, indigestion of a sort. There was no way that a simple tree could ever–
Tirek clutched at his side. The premonition suddenly came back in full force. He wobbled and shook and fell to his knees. This time, it was mixed with Discord's magic. He felt a disturbance in the magical world. He was already too late. Somehow, a tree would be his doom.
“This is absurd!” Tirek reared back up and roared with fury. “I have already won! I have all of the power! The magic must be playing tricks on me. Yes, that's it. It's just a fluke.”
Lord Tirek looked around him. He was surrounded on all sides by trees. There were hundreds, no, thousands of them. And they all stood there, mocking him by simply existing. No longer amused, Tirek let his rage overtake him. He blasted at the trees again, this time with fury. His skin prickled and he turned around. His jaw dropped.
There, in the sky, was a glowing ball of ponies. He blasted it with his power, but they withstood his assault unscathed. “How is this possible?! You have no magic!”
“You're wrong, Tirek! I may have given you my Alicorn magic, but I carry within me the most powerful magic of all!”
Beams of light arced towards him and latched onto him like chains. Tirek barely had a chance to register what was happening before an overwhelming flood of power washed over him and started peeling away the layers of his stolen magic like an onion. As he shrank against this terrifying assault, Twilight Sparkle's unspoken words reverberated in his mind.
I carry within me the most powerful magic of all: the magic of trees.
I am the Princess of Trees.
Feel the fury of trees.
Trees.
“Nooooo!” Tirek screamed, but it was futile. He was striped of his stolen powers, emasculated, chained, caged, and blasted straight back to his old prison in Tartarus. And it was all because of trees. He grabbed the bars to his cage and looked out at the desolate landscape. He was beaten, broken, and despondent but at least he could take comfort in the fact that no trees grew here.
“Gloomy, isn't it?”
Tirek recognized that voice. “Discord! Did those foolish ponies come to their senses and send you here for your crimes?”
“Oh, no. My friends would never do that to me. I came here to gloat, obviously.” Discord reached for a bowl that appeared from thin air and messily ate from it. Most of his food wound up on the ground.
“I might be the one in chains, but at least I stood by my principles! You're a traitor to yourself and–”
“This again? So trite. Your despair puts me on air. Watch as I tap dance with happiness.” Discord summoned a skirt and a cane and started tapping around Tirek's prison.
“You still can't deny that you've gone against your true nature, Discord. You can't be happy with yourself. In time, you'll come to see that.”
Discord suddenly stopped and rapped his cane on a stone tile. It sounded hollow. “Hmm, what's this?”
“No! Leave that be!” Tirek lunged forward, but he was too feeble to stop the draconequus from prying it up and removing the concealed items. Discord twirled them in the air. One item was a hook-shaped rock that looked suspiciously like a lockpick and the other was a whistle that was also carved from rock.
“For shame, Tirek. Is this how you escaped? I get the lockpick, but the whistle...” Discord blew it. No nose came out, but Cerberus howled. “Ah, I see. That would be maddening enough to force him to abandon his post. Celestia will be very interested in these.”
“So you are their errand boy. Mark my words, Discord. You're a nobody now. No illusion of freedom is worth abandoning your better nature.”
“It's funny how that works out, isn't it? I'm the spirit of chaos and disharmony and yet I'm friends with Princess Twilight Sparkle, the living embodiment of friendship itself. I'm not abandoning my nature. Chaos and disharmony will always be needed in this world. After all, how can friendship grow if it's never challenged? It's like a tree, and I'm the water. I know now that disharmony was never meant to win, but for you, I think I can make an exception.” Discord flicked something from his bowl into Tirek's cage. “Ta-ta.” He vanished.
Tirek's eyes rolled down to look at the round object that Discord had left behind. It was a seed. “No.”
Tirek looked up out of his cage and watched with horror as the scattered seeds sprouted and started to grow. The seedlings were just out of reach. “No!”
Tirek shrank back as the growth accelerated and he was surrounded on all sides by trees. They were pale white trees with crystalline leaves. Beaded vines hung down from the branches. Here in Equestria, harmony literally grew on trees, and Tirek hated trees.
“Noooooooo!”
