Just How Many More Times?

The Heart and the chest with all the keys stood ready. Just in case, the friends left Spike in Cadance’s rooms to wait till it was all over - this battle wasn’t for children. The dragon wasn’t too happy about this decision, but had to obey. When Ranhorn approached, Twilight and her friends were ready to activate the chest by turning all keys at once, and Shining Armor and Cadance were going to start the Heart with their combined spell of love. But Ranhorn, apparently, guessed their plan and with a powerful blast of magical wind scattered the artifacts. The crystal ponies skeltered away chased by Sombra, while five Twilight’s friends rushed after him, and Daring Do, as usual, had to deal with Ahuizotl. These two used swords for their fight and obviously concentrated on their past conflicts and mutual longing for revenge. They paid little attention to the all-important events taking place around them.

Ranhorn, in his black storm-cloud form, acted as an observer, certain of a quick victory. He has completed his most important quest - to find the missing alicorns. Now it was just a matter of time.

Five brave ponies spun around Sombra on land and in the air doing their best to confuse him while he threw black crystals around him. From time to time Shining Armor joined this group, but then he would again leave to help his wife and sister.

Twilight and Cadance fought against Crysalis. Discord pretended to be everywhere in turn, but Twilight, who knew him in-and-out, knew that he was just amusing himself. What was his game now? She couldn’t afford to think about it much: Crysalis had almost hit her at least twice by now, and only her brother’s perfect timing in creating a protective field had saved her from being seriously crippled.

The battle lingered. Two hours had passed, and Ranhorn decided to take a nap and interfere only if there were no change within another hour or two. After all, they all had complained so many times about the absence of good entertainment, and he was exhausted having destroyed most of Equestria. Shining no longer wanted to observe the stalemate situation and made an attempt at grabbing the Crystal Heart, but there was nopony to run for the chest. Then Twilight remembered Spike. Leaving Cadance to repel her ex-double’s attacks alone, she surreptitiously retrieved her bronze bell and rang it, hoping to summon the baby dragon. But someone much larger answered her summons, and he was holding something under his arm.

‘You’ve called me, so here I am,’ said Discord, laughing. ‘You didn’t believe that I had betrayed our friendship again, did you? I joined Ranhorn as a blind, just so when it gets critical...’

‘Gimme this!’ Twilight pulled the chest away from him. Now they needed to bring everypony together, but her friends were still busy fighting. And then, suddenly, Discord snapped his clawed fingers, and Crysalis and Sombra stopped their attacks.

‘They were waiting for my signal,’ explained Discord looking self-satisfied. ‘Ranhorn was a bad boss. No sense of humor at all!’

Now Shining Armor could easily grab the Heart, unhindered. Ranhorn, asleep in the sky, didn’t even stir. To avoid another scattering of the artifacts, Twilight decided to put the Heart inside the chest, which behaved as if it had been waiting for it and acquired the heart shape too, thus accommodating the friendly subject. Eight ponies took their positions and started both magical things at once. And then, at last, the short-legged Spike came running.

Such bright radiance emitted by two magical artifacts at once had never been seen in Equestria before. Northern lights merged with rainbow formed an all-triumphant beam and the black cloud named Ranhorn, yelling, disappeared inside a huge swirl. Crysalis and Sombra, awkwardly standing by, mumbled, ‘Don’t hit us, we’ll go now,’ and then Crysalis flew away and became a momentary spark at the horizon, while Sombra turned, like his boss, into a black shadow, crawled into a crack in the ice. Discord without changing his usual gate or his sarcastic voice produced a tray of sandwiches out of nowhere and invited everypony to tea. ‘Party!’ yelled Pinkie Pie… and then they all laughed, and just Daring Do at some distance continued to thrash her adversary with a sword until it was clear that he was quite prepared to give up and skedaddle.