---Ponyville shortly following speaking with Zekora---
Twilight looked around in confusion after feeling the magic leave her body and considered what she had seen. Five ponies following the two princesses to defeat Discord and lock him away along with the crystals. There was nothing like her at the time, which led her to believe that she was a stabilizer to explosions of Harmony. She hummed when she noticed her friends were watching before Rainbow was quick to speak. "So, any information on what we are supposed to be doing, Twilight?"
Twilight nodded while thinking about the information she was given from the strange brew that let her view the past. She started explaining to the girls about how the two princesses came to the tree of Harmony, which was pretty much the opposite of Discord, and how they took the weapon/crystals that the tree naturally generated, to give to the elements at the time to attack Discord. Discord hummed and quickly was able to see why his seeds were attacking the tree and could only shake his head with worry. Discord promptly spoke up, reminding the girls and Zekora that he was there. "If my seeds are attacking the tree, then this is really bad."
The girls turned in surprise and looked at Discord questionably. He sighed and started explaining what the tree of Harmony was and why it was essential for their continent. "So, the tree you must understand is one of Harmonies nexus on the planet, there is one on every continent. For you see, there used to be 5 continents, but Harmonies nexus on that continent was destroyed, and the continent quickly died and sank beneath the ocean waves."
The girls slowly opened their mouths, looking extremely shocked that this was a lot worse than they were expecting. Discord hummed and took one of the elements into his hand, looked it over, and spun it around, wondering what the crystal could really be. Twilight was shocked that one of Discord's hands was falling apart and rotting apart. She quickly opened her mouth and called out in worry. "Discord, you need to let the weapon go; it's destroying your body!"
Discord blinked and was surprised that she was genuinely worried about him and quickly tossed the element back to Fluttershy, who was quick to catch but looked at Discord's rotting hand with worry. Before they could recommend a course of action, Discord flayed the rotted skin and quickly regenerated back to full strength, shocking the girls immensely. He snorted at their reaction because he was amused at how shocked they were that people like him were working at a level where damage like that was something to move on from. Twilight looked at the madness with astonished eyes and looked at his face trying to understand how that genuinely worked. Discord sighed and looked at the forest. "Because of the plant, I cannot enter the forest because my Chaos magic will not work like normal because the plant is pretty much generating its own Chaos aura."
Discord teleported next to Twilight and looked down at her, and spoke up because he needed Twilight to understand. "Twilight, you are one of the only beings that can move in the forest with any level of understanding. The girls will be able to make it to the tree, but they will need you to be able to save the princesses. The plants will do anything they can do to stop you from moving into the lands, even attacking you physically."
Before Twilight could begin to understand Discord's words, she watched a spear made from the weed shoot out the ground made of spears. It quickly attempted to spear Discord's body, but he only snorted before covering the weed in ice and breaking it apart, leaving iced mulch on the ground. Discord slowly hummed a tune to himself when he watched the plant launch its attack on Ponyville and the girls around him. He did nothing to stop it before watching the rocks around their necks smack the plant down like a child. Twilight and the girls looked at the necklaces and crown with slight worry. Discord could only sigh. "I would love to take them apart so I could figure out what they are, they have been hiding themselves well, but these things are not foci for you girls."
Twilight could only nod in agreement with Discord because this is not how foci act when their wielder is in danger, maybe they will give a protective aura, but the weapons are actively fighting the plants that come near them. She and the girls started walking towards the entrance of the Everfree forest, leaving Discord alone in Ponyville; he hummed while looking around at the various scared and worried ponies.
He summoned his throne, which slowly exited the very earth itself. As he sat down, he felt his aura gradually extend and covered ponyville and surrounded the Everfree forest. For the first time since Discord had been unsealed, he is fighting an opponent that he cannot just bully with his superior magic. The ponies watched in awe as the being they knew to fear but never understood why dealt with a threat that was beyond anything they had ever seen before. They overlooked as every weed that tried to attack them was destroyed, and any root that attempted to escape the cordon was mulched and stripped and ripped apart, but if you looked into Discord's eyes, you could see the very reason that Celestia and Luna needed the Weapons and Elements themselves to throw down with Discord. This was a being that had killed and destroyed entire civilizations for the good of the world.
Discord was falling back into that mindset of needing to wage war for the very survival of all, even though he hates it. Before he could fall deeply, he heard what sounded like heavy footsteps behind him, which caused his head to turn 180 degrees. What he saw there was another pony with alicorn wings, specifically the Alicorn of Defense Shining Armor. He spoke the bubbling question in his mind. His tone of voice was much different compared to his standard baritone. It was almost aristocrat sounding. "What on earth are you doing here, Shining?"
Shining hummed and looked at the plants that were attacking the cordon and quickly threw out a completely different spell than the one that made him an alicorn. It was almost like a wall made of golden magic. Which quickly buffed Discord's cordon and locked the plants pretty much into the Everfree forest. Shining looked amused and created his own throne out of the earth next to Discords before speaking up as he took a seat next to him. "Onyx called me home from Candance's side so I could be here to assist you in keeping this locked up and not allowing anything else out, and to remind you that we are also here, and we can fight for ourselves."
Discord hummed and allowed the cordon to fall and went full offensive against the plants to make sure they did not even touch the walls surrounding the Everfree forest. Discord looked over at Shining and could not help but admit that Onyx made the right call, the one thing Discord could not understand was when Onyx made the call because his copy is still sitting next to him to protect one of his friends from this plant. He blinked and looked north while using his magic to fight and used a Chaos spell to look at Candance and saw that she was fine. He mused to himself allowed. "How on earth is she fine up there, and why is the plant not attacking the land to the north."
"The plant cannot even get close to the tower where she resides, and the empire literally only built in the aura of the tower," Shining answered the metaphorical question quite seriously, which made Discord let out a snicker. He could feel it there was no discomfort from Shining working with Discord, which made him realize that Shining had no problems with Discord himself. He peered at Shining Armor which Shining was quick to spot. Shining knew what Discord was wondering and trying to map out how to ask. Onyx had informed Shining that Discord hated false words, and so Onyx had informed him to his face to speak with 100 percent honesty. Which was just fine in Shining's humble opinion, if you do not like someone say it to their face and do not even attempt to lie.
---Canterlot Throne Room---
Onyx sat on the steps leading up to the thrones themselves and spoke and comforted the panicked ponies of Equestria. Not once did he yell or raise his voice, he listened to every single one of them that were worried from the smallest to the oldest. When a child saw what should have been their prince sitting on the ground and speaking with everyone showing up and listening to their worries, he could not help but wonder why he was not sitting on the throne or why one was not prepared for him. He looked up at his mother and asked her in a not so quiet voice. "Why is Prince Onyx sitting on the ground, mom?"
The mother was quick to explain that Onyx himself had decided that he was not a prince and was simply an advisor for the princesses and was only leading in an emergency situation. Still, the child's words would not leave Rose's mind, and she looked for an attendant and told them to bring a chair. Her exact words were, "It does not need to be fancy or ornate, but a leader must not sit on the ground, he needs to be seen as larger than life itself."
While speaking with a young group of colts who looked like they had been crying earlier, Onyx could only sigh in his mind at the way Rose was acting before he felt a little Chaos magic go off behind him and saw a throne covered in Rune's from his language. He could only sigh and looked over at Discord with sharp eyes because now they will want him to sit in the damn thing. Rose was staring at Onyx with Disproval because he had made no move to get into the conjured throne. Discord hummed and teleported next to Onyx and was surprised when the colts called him something with not an ounce of worry in their tone. "Greetings, Lord Cord."
Onyx could only smirk and looked at the flabbergasted Discord and spoke with a teasing lit to his voice as if he had gotten some supreme blackmail, using it to attack Discord with. "Yes, greetings Lord Core, what can I do to help you?"
Discord looked at Onyx and saw an easy way to get back at him from the joke that he was attacking him with. He bowed low and spoke with his deep baritone, his words echoing around the hall, causing Onyx's eyebrow to twitch. "Your throne has arrived, Royal Advisor Onyx, you can be seated at any time."
The ponies looked at the throne and the way the two were acting and could only cheer because what Onyx was not getting was the throne was more important to ponies than he was thinking. It was less ornate than Celestia's and Luna's, but it was important for an Alicorn to sit in one of them. Onyx was surprised and sighed, rubbed the kid's head, started climbing the stairs, and sat down with a grumble in what could only be called the thrown of runic might. What he did not realize that every Alicorn has one. No, it might be more accurate to say every being of power has a throne. Onyx felt his magic connecting to the throne itself and felt Equestria's natural magic slowly settling back down and looked at Discord with a question in his eyes. Discord only looked smug right back, not explaining a damn thing.
---Ethereal Realm---
Harmony watched the interaction of two of her agents with Discord in two different locations and could not help but admit that seeing her boys accept him as friends was beautiful to her. She looked at the throne, started settling her Harmony into it, looked at the two empty thrones beside it, and sighed.
Discord could only grumble about his agent crowning a technical enemy before sighing and was happy to see Discord getting some friends for the first time in a while. He slowly sat down with Harmony, looked at the massive cordon, and could not help but admit it was getting back to settled, but this was going to be close. 'Do you think your elements are going to be able to save the tree Harmony?'
Harmony let out a low deep, bellyful laugh and looked at her friend/brother/other and smile at him. 'Of course, I do Discord because if I give up on them, how am I supposed to give them the will to go on. I have seen them overcome much harder trials than this.'
Discord was just happy to see Harmony back into such fine form.