A Changing Holiday
"Explain yourself." Celestia demanded of Twilight.
"Well, It happened like this..." She gave a white potion to Celestia who took it with a little hesitation. "What is this and where did you get it?"
"I've been calling it, history juice. I got the original potion from Zecora, then used my magic to complete it."
"What does it do?"
"Sends your mind back in time so you can see for yourself what really went down."
"How long have you had this?"
"I've had it since the Everfree Forest invaded."
"And you never thought I'd like to know about it?"
"Oh, I actually assumed you knew! Oh I saw you and Luna from before you banished her! I even saw you banish her! She almost killed you! I mean, being shown only that I can see how many would see banishment for a thousand years a bit harsh, but we know it had been going on a while."
"And there was the assault with a deadly weapon, destruction of government property... Yeah, it could seem harsh, but wasn't in the long run."
Spike sighed as he yelled. "Alright! I'll stop posting comments about it being harsh!"
Twilight looked at him with an eyebrow raised.
"And I'll rewrite that bit of my historical fanfiction..."
"Good. Now Princess, if you would?"
Celestia apprehensively sipped a bit of the potion and slipped into the past...
***
Twilight laughed at Pinkies antics as they sat in Sugar Cube Corner, celebrating yet another wonderful Hearths Warming Eve. She was reenacting one of the old fairy tales they had all grown up on. "Santa Hooves!"
"Ho Ho Ho! Happy Hearths Warming Eve everypony! I making a checklist about who's been good this year and everypony who has been gets a present! I check it twice and Twilight over there checks it a minimum of eight times every day for me! I don't ask her to, she just does!" Pinkie winked at Twilight who chuckled, a little embarrassed to have everypony staring at her. She covered her face with a wing and sipped some holiday cider.
Pinkie kept on going until the story ended with the red nosed pony seeing Santa fly away with his Sleigh of goodies before making it snow in South Town. Twilight suppressed a yawn as she flew back home and, after crashing into a wall, teleported inside and went to sleep.
***
"Twilight wake up!" Spike yelled from down the staircase. "Somepony broke in!"
"What!?" Twilight screamed as she bolted out of bed. She jumped down and ran to Spike. "Where are they? Are you okay?"
"Okay? Are you kidding?" Spike smiled. "I couldn't be better!"
"What are you talking about? Somepony broke in!"
"They're gone now."
"Then how do you know somepony was here?"
"You know that book on hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia you wanted?"
"Of course!"
"And you know how I've been just dying to get my hands on one of those Late Season Sapphires?"
"You only bring it up every time we go shopping."
Spike smirked and stuck a sapphire in his mouth.
"Where did you get the money for that!? I told you that just because I'm princess, doesn't mean we can just dip into taxes whenever we want!"
"I didn't! The pony who broke in left five whole sapphires in a sack by the fireplace! As well as this!" He pulled out a book and Twilight read the cover aloud,
"Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia and how to overcome it, By Discord. Wait... They just left it here!?"
"Well they left it with this!" Spike held up a note. It read, To: Twilight and Spike, From: Santa Hooves."
"Huh... must've been Pinkie then. I appreciate the gesture, but I think we need to talk about breaking and entering into a Princesses house. Or anypony's house for that matter." She went to open the door and was immediately hit with a sound wave that knocked her back.
"WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH VWIP VWIP WECKA WECKA WUB WUB SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" The Bass Dubstepped.
***
"Well, that was odd, and it didn't answer my question!" Celestia complained.
"Perhaps farther back still. Take another sip. Please." Twilight assured her.
"Alright..." Celestia chugged a bunch more. "Whew, kinda coconutty."
"I know! It's weird right?" Celestia didn't answer as her eyes went white.
"Is it weird her eyes just look closed now?" Spike asked.
"A bit yeah."
"It's because she's soooo pale! She needs a bit more..."
"Don't say it!"
"SUN!" They both fell back laughing.
***
"Sorry Ponyville! I was just testin' out my new Subwoofer Santa Hooves gave me! Probably shoulda checked the volume first!" Vinyl Pon 3 (make up your mind Hathporo) shouted out.
"................." Spike said.
"What?" Twilight asked.
"...."
"What?" Twilight shook her head.
"..at?"
"What?" She asked again.
"What?" Spike shook his head.
"What did you say right after the wub attack?"
"I said "Pinkie must've broken in there too.""
"Yeah, we are gonna need to have a serious conversation with her." And as if on cue, a pink form shot out from nowhere and tackled Twilight up in a hug.
"Oh Thank you Thank you Thank you!" Pinkie squeeked. "I love my new compact party canon sooooooooooooooo much!"
"What are you talking about Pinkie?"
"You gave me a new party cannon last night right? You used the name Santa Hooves like the old stories and everything!"
"Wait... You didn't do that!?" Twilight gasped.
"You didn't!?" Pinkie's mouth dropped. "Well, if it wasn't you, and it wasn't Rarity... I checked on her first because she's the Element of generosity... then it must be... hmm... Applejack doesn't have that kind of money... Fluttershy spends all her money on animals... It must've been Rainbowdash!" Pinkie reached behind a pole and pulled out a full sized hot air balloon and floated away. "See you later Twi!"
"Spike... we need to find out who did this... it looks like everypony got a gift! We need to get back inside and search for clues!"
"Maybe Celestia would kno*belch*..." A letter floated out of the fire. "Oh... it's from Celestia! Ehem! My Dearest Twilight, How ever did you know? I had just ran out of my scented candles and bubble bath soap! Nice use of old pony folk lore... I... Haven't... heard about Santa Hooves... in a... oh... I guess she doesn't know. I'll send her a letter saying you didn't send those."
"No! I mean... um... we should look for clues first so we have something to tell Celestia!" Twilight pulled Spike into the tree house and began looking around. After casting a spell that revealed recent spell casts and sorting through all her spells she said. "Hmm... it couldn't have been Rainbow... the pony who came in teleported. It must've been a Unicorn!"
"Gee, what Unicorns do we know who both can teleport into everypony's houses and is crazy enough to leave gifts?" They stared at each other for two seconds before saying together, "Flash."
"Can you send him a letter asking him to come here so we can thank him and tell him not to do it again?" Spike nodded and sent the letter away. A few moments later they heard a poof outside. "That must be him."
Spike answered the door after a frantic knocking erupted. Flashburn in his usual neon green cloak, boots, and purple hat came bursting in. "Heya Flash, how are you doing?"
"Just great! We got your gifts and wow are they awesome! I mean look at this!" Flash lit his hat on fire and it turned to ash in only a few seconds. "Wait for it... wait for it..." The ashes swirled up and reformed into a hat! "I can't believe I never thought of a phoenix feather hat! I'm glad you sent your letter, or I'd spend all day wondering who this "Santa Hooves" is!"
"So it wasn't you?"
"Whatever it was that burnt down, I can pay for it. Funny though, I haven't had an incident in a long while..."
"We meant it wasn't you who gave all these gifts to everypony." Twilight explained.
"Oh... it wasn't you? Well then... now I need to figure out who broke into my house..."
"That's what we're doing, maybe you could help? Got any ideas?" Spike asked.
"Well, If the culprit broke in at night... What time is it here?"
"Around Six AM."
"I know why I was awake, but why in the name of Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Rogue, and you, were you?"
"A lot of house alarms went off, and I smelled gems." Spike answered.
"Okay back to my original statement, the culprit breaks in at night, and my alarm says it went off at midnight. Well, It is midnight still over in TrottingHam! Luckily I still have the medallion so I can take us, unless... you have a better hunch?"
"Give me a moment." Twilight went outside and using the clouds, spelled out. "Come AJ, Pink, FS, RD, Rarity. "Alright, now we wait." A few minutes later Pinkie and Rainbowdash showed up,
"Nice job on the clouds. Told you you'd get better!" Rainbowdash smirked.
"Thanks!" Twilight smiled, as Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy trotted up. "Alright, so as you may know, somepony broke into our houses last night and left gifts."
"Woohoo!" Pinkie yelled.
"We intend to find out who and are going to TrottingHam to try and catch them in the act so we can both thank them and ask them to just maybe mail the gifts instead. If you want to come help, you can." Twilight told them.
They all nodded. "Looks like we're all in Twi!" Applejack summed up.
"Thank you! I knew I could count on my friends! Flash, If you would be so kind?"
"Welcome to Air Flash, you may experience a slight tingling sensation as well as upset stomach during takeoff. If you are hungry too bad, we don't have peanuts and the safety exits don't exist. Thank you for choosing Air Flash and I hope you enjoy your teleportation today!" He pulled out the medallion and channeled the spell that landed them right in the main street of TrottingHam. "Oh wow... been awhile... with so many... I gotta catch my breath..."
"Take these..." Pinkie whispered as she passed out night vision goggles. They began patrolling the streets. Applejack went towards some of the shops with upstairs houses with Pinkie and began launching her into the air to look inside. Rainbowdash and Fluttershy flew around the third and second stories while Rarity peered through windows. Twilight was just beginning to mark which houses were already checked on a map, when suddenly Pinkie saw a green flash of light in a window. "Over there!" They climbed up to the roof of the house and waited.
A few seconds later a green flash put a "heavy" unicorn wearing a red suit with white trimming and a full white beard looking straight at them. "Ho Ho oh no..." He spun aroud and sprinted away.
"Wait Santa! We just want to talk to you!" Twilight called after him. Santa turned and stared at them before charging his horn to teleport away. He spun around to buy some time. "Oh no you don't!" She shot a stunning laser that caught him square in the back.
"Oh my Celestia, Twilight. You just shot Santa." Flash sighed in disappointment. "Guess who's on the naughty list forever now..."
"I had to! Besides he's only stunned!" They trotted up to the prone form. The clothes were a bit baggier than before... "Excuse me, Santa, please turn around so we can see who you are."
The figure shot a green ray up into the air before spinning around and hissing. It was a Changeling! They all screamed except Pinkie who went "Oooooh..." Both Twilight and Flash charged up their horns on instinct and were knocked on their sides by a stunning laser.
"You leave him alone." A familiar voice echoed as Queen Chrysalis herself landed on the roof top.
"What are you doing Chrissy!?" Flash asked astonished.
"Why are the Changelings doing this!? What do you want!? To drain our love and take over!?" Twilight accused.
Chrysalis bowed her head. "I'm too weak to beat all of you, and once word gets out, it won't matter anyways." She sobbed.
Fluttershy walked slowly up to her and patted her shoulder. "What's wrong?"
"Ever since we were banished back to the badlands we've been forced to live off scraps! My people are starving! Love is our food, not just a power source!"
"Then what are you doing breaking into our houses and leaving gifts?" Rarity inquired.
"I was doing some searching when I came across a book of pony legends and I read about Santa Hooves... How everypony loved him... I thought... If we can't take love, we'd earn it. So we disguised ourselves like the pictures and set about doing just that. After making or buying what everypony wanted that is."
"Why the secrecy and disguises?" Applejack asked, puzzled.
"Well, two reasons, one, our last meeting would make that impossible and two," She buzzed her wings and pointed towards her fangs.
"Oh... yeah... that."
"How'd you know what we wanted?" Twilight asked.
Chrysalis transformed into Spike. "So, next time we're out book hunting, what do you want to pick up? Another Daring Do?" She then turned into Twilight, "What are you going to spend your allowance on this time? More treats?" Then Granny Smith, "I reckon we're gonna have a big harvest this year, why don't we get y'all somthin' special? Comon' whatcha want?" Then she turned back to herself. "It wasn't that hard with thousands of Changelings and all the time we had."
"How'd you know I wanted a Wonderbolts poster?"
"You don't have to be a genius to figure that one out." Chrysalis sighed. "Princess, please just let him go and allow us to depart in peace, our food problems are not your worry. Now you have your answers. Let us leave without a fight."
Twilight looked at Chrysalis for a moment and noticed how thin she was, far thinner than the average Alicorn thin. There must've been some truth to the story. "That we do. We pursued Santa Hooves, only to find out he was a spirit conjured by the Hearth Warming, and will continue what he did all those years ago." They all gasped at Twilight.
"Re-really? Twi, you'd want Changelings running rampant in Equestria?" Applejack guffawed.
"This seems a little foolish Twilight." Rarity pointed out.
"What's to stop them from taking over!?" Rainbowdash snorted.
Twilight laughed, "Girls and Flash, they can't. We know about them, and Flash lives far away. They can't reach him before we contact him telling him they took over and he can get a message to Shining Armor and Princess Cadence! I know it's risky but I cannot as a Princess allow an entire race to die out when we can save it at no cost to us. Queen, you have your answer. But if you step out of line... even once... We will expel your kind for good."
"Thank you Twilight! Thank you!" Chrysalis cried in joy.
"I'll write up a treaty for Celestia and Luna to approve and then you may resume this... Business. Spike! Take a letter! Oh and thank you for the copy of Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia and how to overcome it by Discord. It was a truly invigorating read! Even if it did drift from topic to topic randomly... It was written by Discord after all. But it still had a lot of good points! If you want to you can borrow it! I mean, you don't have to suffer from Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia to read it!" A very quiet "Egg head" could be heard from behind her.
"You are very welcome Twilight, oh, and we couldn't find some houses, could you make sure they receive their gifts?"
"I'd love to." They smiled at each other.
"PARTY TIME!" Pinkie yelled as she fired her compact party cannon.
"The pink one does realize it's midnight right? And we are on somepony's house..." Chrysalis pointed out.
"Yes, Yes she does. Now, before we ruin your whole operation... We had best be going back to Ponyville... Oh and then I guess Canterlot... Twi, I'm gonna take you there after we drop off the others! Bye Chrissy!" And Flashburn teleported them away.
***
"That's enough. This liquid is truly marvelous." Celestia shook her head. "I see the mercy of your decision, if not the wisdom..."
"Remember how helpful Discord was during the Frozen War?"
"Of course."
"Now Chrysalis is a loyal friend to us. We have shown her our strength by defeating her and our kindness by saving her. Imagine what a single Changeling could have done in that war, now we have a kingdom to call upon. Besides... I can't use tax payer's money to buy books and that's the only way I get paid! DO you know how many Daring Do novels have come out since I became Princess! Rainbowdash has more than me now! And she won't let me borrow them... She says she still rereading them, but I know she can't be reading all of them at the same time!" Twilight saw a bit of disapproval in Celestia's eyes. "Oh... and it's really good for the economy..."
"I guess I can't blame you. I agree with the treaty, it is fair and allows us the upper hoof. I will send it to Luna so she can have a look and, if she agrees as well, we will ratify it. Which I think she will, she above all of us believes in second chances. I would like to point one thing out though. Ponies will ask. You know that. And if it goes south from here and they find out you were responsible for it... The backlash would be terrible."
"It is inevitable, sooner or later a pony will figure it out, but by then, how many lives would they have brightened? How many gifts given? How many arguments cut short, because they needed to fall asleep before Santa Hooves gets there? They will be transformed in the public eye, in a good way! We just need to believe that Santa Hooves will work. I plan on revealing it myself sooner or later. When you get down to it, I really had only two options and the other was terrible. Seriously? Let an entire nation, no an entire species, starve? I'm not Sombra... This may be a bit risky, and it may go really bad, but I can honestly say, "I believe in Santa Hooves!"
A hole appeared out of nowhere and Pinkie jumped out, "Now is it time for a Party!?"
The two alicorns stared in amazement. Celestia quickly regained her composure and affirmed, "Why yes, I do believe celebrations are in order!" Pinkie pulled out her two party canons and fired garland and tinsel all along the walls as Sweetie Belle Rock played from her sub woofer.
Author's Note
So... what do you think? Thanks for reading and please shoot me a comment or critique!