Author's Note
Listen to this when the chase starts. Don't forget to put it on a loop. You know what else is a loop? A circle! It's so round it reminds me of my step-mother! And...Darn. I forgot the lines. Play me off, Johhny! *dances*
CAN'T ESCAPE!
The royal gardens were just as calm as ever. Sure, Discord caused a ruckus a year of somesuch in the past, but he preferred to remain outside of that place for various reasons; One of them being the most obvious. He wasn't the only statue, however. Many of the statues represented ponies that the princesses had met before, but some of them had long been forgotten. One such particular statue had been covered by the foliage of the hedge maze. The roots of many vines had also dug into the granite construct, rendering the surface fragile and degraded. All it would take would be one...small...tap to make it break.
"Ooof. I'm stuffed," a passing guard commented. "I can't eat another apple."
"Then toss it," his comrade suggested.
"Isn't that literring?"
The mare wanted to slam her head against something hard, like a statue or the intertwined branches of a hedge, and she...refrained from doing so.
"It's food. It'll just decompose INto the ground."
The filled guard's mouth opened widely. Perhaps it was preparing for a ship to dock? "Ooooooh. Okay. Well then."
With a little bounce of his foreleg, the guard's apple found itself flying gently through the air and rolling after hitting the ground rather heavily. Its rolls, unfortunately, did not hit the statue, leaving the stone to remain covered for the rest of the day. Not much happened aside from the usual things in the garden: A few bugs buzzing around, some ponies going there on their lunch break, and a whole portion of the castle suddenly crashing onto the maze, flattening it completely. You know. The usual. Nothing exceptional here. Nope nope nopity nopenopenope.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" a blue pegasus yelled in horror. He clutched his head in terror.
A bigger, rather large pegasus with a blood-orange coat and a lighter, orange mane and tail, slowly peeked around the corner of what remained of the tower. "I...I just removed a brick to see the interior of the walls and then replace this one," he sheepishly replied.
While the two bickered and several guards, castle servants, and other masons appeared, a bit of the broken stone jittered a bit, but went unnoticed. The more each second passed, the more the stones jittered until they exploded outwards in a bright flash of light, blinding the ponies briefly and attracting their attention.
"Gah!" the blue pegasus shouted.
With a great deal of effort, the pegasus managed to stabilize himself, but not before hitting the hanging floors a few times in a bid to balance himself. There was a pony with a pale-gray coat, a white mane and tail, and eyes with black iris and white pupils was clinging onto the pony and staring him dead in the eyes. His body seemed somehow...unstable and was often blurring out of view or distorting like an ancient televison frequency.
"WHeRE'S LunA?!" he asked with varying tones.
"Who are you? What do you want with the princess?"
"Is she HERE?! She IS isn't She?" The stallion looked around with narrowed eyes of suspicion.
Despite being several feet above the ground at the fourth floor's level, the stallion still let go of the pegasus who, by instinct, tried to catch the stallion. His hoof phased through this gray pony when he fizzed out of stability again, forcing everypony to watch him fall to his would-be doom. Instead, he landed on his forelegs and his body fell off to his right before blurring as though he were behind a waterfall and returning him to 'normal'.
"What the?" the pegasus gasped.
"Princess LunA!" he roared at the last letter of Luna's name. "Ah'm gon' get you, Luna! AH'M GON' GET YOU!" He stood on his two hind legs, took out two halves of a coconut, then started galloping full speed into the wall and blasting through it effortlessly.
Luna sat on her round bed covered in night blue covers decorated with many white stars. Her room followed the same decorum with a spherical shape. All the closest stellar constellations were painted all over the walls as sparkling, white dots. A few desks were dotted around her room, such as the two messy, wooden ones next to her bed. They were overflowing with parchments, paint brushes, coloring pencils, and books. Several angled windows were built into the rounded ceiling, although one would be unable to see them due to the covers placed over them. Several stellar observation equipment sat against the wall opposite her bed. It looked like a giant tube playground for many a happy hamster. Seriously. Just look at all those telescopes and weird floaty tube things with all the colors. Oh, it would be silly if you actually couldn't see them, but you certainly can. It's not like this is a book full of words or anything. Huehuehue.
"I seem to be in a rut today." She rolled onto her back and heaved a loud sigh. "No ideas for new stars, and I still don't have any new telescope to gaze into the regions of space I have no control over. Hm?"
Luna lifted a brow when she started to hear an inaudible commotion in the castle. The commotion started rising higher and higher in volume with the sounds of guards shouting orders at each other and somepony else.
"Must be Discord doing something in the castle again. Ugh. I don't want to move from he--"
Luna's outward thoughts were interrupted by at least ten guards being thrown through her wall and landing haphazardly all over her room, knocking everything over in the process. She coughed a bit from the dust and felt a pressure on her chest. Straining her neck, she looked at the source with an irritated face. A guard looked up, somewhat dazed, then saw her and nervously chuckled.
"Eheheh...Sorry..."
"Get off me," Luna complained as she pushed the guard off of her and the bed with one leg movement to the left.
The loud thud was followed by a brief buzzing next to her ear. Then the breathing came. They became louder and louder, the warmth of a muzzle being felt as it approached Luna's right ear ever so slowly. Her apathetic composure slowly made its way to stress as sweat started beading down the flicks of fur on her head. The whole world suddenly went quiet as the lips of this unknown individual smacked open and whispered:
"I's gon' get you, yeh? Yeh."
Luna screamed louder than she ever done before and blasted a cone of pure, star magic to her right. The blast punched through the castle and went quite a ways further than the castle, let alone the mountain. It is magic made to paint the night sky, after all. The blue alicorn jumped off what was left of her smoldering bed and galloped screaming out of her room and into the maze-like castle, leaving everypony else behind her.
The gray stallion poked his head out of the rubble and frowned the started yelling at Luna: "Hey! No magiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIC!" He buzzed. "That's cheating! We agreed not to use magic!" He rose out of the rubble and started wiping himself off, then his right foreleg fell off. "Huh. I need to get a tuning up at the mechanic's. Let's see." He reached down and grabbed his foreleg then immediately sat on his haunches. "Let's see. Put it in at this angle...No, that's backwards. No. That's upside down. Wait...this can't be right."
"Woof!"
"WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO FIGURE OUT WHICH END OF A FORELEG IS WHICH?!" He finally plopped it back on then tested its connection by raising it into the air. "Ah. THat's bettER. Now where was I? Ah, yes. Anyways, THAT'S CHEATING! I'M GONNA SUE! Is that how it's pronounced? Soo, sew? Ech." He shrugged.
"TIA! TIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Luna screamed as loud as she could as she ran through the castle.
The moon princess eventually ran to the throne entrance. The enormous wooden doors usually leading to it were wide open, and a line of ponies, griffons, and other, were standing in a line, on the red carpet floor, and watched over by several guards standing behind red line rope held aloft by several, tiny iron pillars. Luna barreled towards everyone, causing even the guard to be taken aback in fear of being run into. Naturally, the body contact never happened, and Luna flew over the crowd and into the Cathedral-sized throne room of white marble and as high as four floors. Its sides were lined with four pillars each with a design similar to the Grecians of the ancient times. Several windows of immense size lined the highest portion of the walls so as to bring in the most amount of light. At the end of the long path to take sat a short rising reachable by two very small steps. It was circular in shape and covered in a red carpet with golden trimmings. On it sat a large, wooden throne painted in gold. Celestia currently occupied it, and a minotaur wearing a black tuxedo was currently occupying it.
"Luna, I'm in a meeting right now."
"Yes. I don't mean to show any offense, but this is important right no-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Luna picked up the minotaur in the air with her forelegs and threw him far away towards the entrance. He barreled into everyone like a bowling ball. This was all followed by Luna slamming the doors shut with magic and locking everypony outside.
"Why did you do that?!" Celestia exclaimed while throwing her forelegs forward in shock.
"You have to help me! There's this weird pony who throw ten guards through the walls of my room and then whispered creepily into my ear."
The white alicorn rolled her eyes and looked at her sister with eyes barren of anything but anger and disappointment. "Are you serious? You can't take care of a simple stalker-Did you just say he threw ten guards through your wall?"
"Yes! I blasted a cone of destruction magic at him through a panic and galloped away, so I don't know if anypony was hurt or not."
The two alicorns' heads turned in unison to see the door being kicked open by a stallion wearing a black leather jacket, black sunglasses, and was holding an crossbow.
"I came back," he said in a strange accent.
Celestia looked at him and narrowed her eyes to get a better look, then laughed. "That's your problem?" She pointed at him. "Listen, you need to leave this castle, or I will have you detai--" Celestia stopped when she saw the stallion's body buzz out and jolt several times, then her eyes locked onto the crossbow he had slung over his right shoulder. He dropped it down and aimed it at the mares, revealing a strange, tall, wooden block sitting on the apparatus. "Is that a chu-ko-nu?" Celestia wondered.
"Dun-dun-dun da-dun. Dun-dun-dun da-dun," the stallion chanted.
He opened fire at the alicorns, the subtle 'shlink' noise made by the projectiles reaching only the stallion's ears. Celestia sat in place and raised a bubble shield whilst looking rather bemused of this whole thing. Luna preferred to hide behind a pillar and cower. Looking closer at the projectiles, Celestia noticed that they were actual bolts. They had suction cups at their ends instead of arrow heads.
"What the-GAH!" Celestia screamed.
The stallion had poked his head through the shield and was looking at her with one eye while his other stared at Luna and was following her. "Oy. Yer usin' magic. Dat's cheatin' dat is!"
The stallion ripped the cloth from the floor and wrapped Celestia's head in it, cutting her off from her much needed oxygen supply and making her mumble through the fabric whilst trying to remove it. She stood on her hind legs and ended up falling backwards and onto the floor.
"Come with me if you want to be 'got'," he said to Luna. His left eyeball fell out and rolled on the ground, prompting the pony to blush and chuckle. "Well, isn't that embarrassing." He reached for his eyeball and picked it off the ground. "You get turned to stone for about a millenium or so, and then you start to fall to pieces. I think I need to buy myself some spare parts." He coughed on the eyeball then jammed it back into his socket. Luna's cheeks became green upon seeing the action. The gray pony looked down to the floor momentarily and pondered with a hoof tapping his chin. "Hmmm. Maybe I SHOULD have gotten that life insurance."
By the time he looked back up, Celestia and Luna were already long gone, and he was mad. "Dangit. I almost had her! To the Get Cave!" he shouted with a foreleg in the air.
*Batm-pony transition*
One of the griffons who managed to wrestle through the pile of dazed creatures had seen the whole event and just stared blankly at the empty throne room with a twitching eye. "Wat...?"
The two princesses were now hiding out in one of the many bathrooms of the castle, this one having walls and floors covered in white tiles and holding an excessively huge jacuzzi with a white, polished interior and an exterior covered with wooden planks. A single window stood above the tub, but nopony would be able to see through it as a thin film had been placed onto it. Light could come and go, but it would be next to impossible to see through it on either side.
"There. We should be safe now," Luna said. She was hiding behind the door with a pipe composed of magic between her two hooves.
"Luna, we have great magical abilities let almone spells that nopony else knows. How does it come top you that we can't defend ourselves against this pony...And let go of me."
Celestia had a few chains of stellar magic surrounding her body which Luna used to drag her out of the throne room. Needless to say, in Luna's panic, the white alicorn found her head smacking against the walls and floor during the flight.
The chains evaporated and Luna's squeed slightly when she smiled nervously. "Sorry."
The moment was interrupted by what sounded like an axe cutting through the door. The tip of the blade broke through the wooden door, but a sudden buzzing cut the chopping short.
"Doh! I'm just falling apart."
Celestia and Luna looked at each other with befuddlement the stared at the axe chopping it's way back through the door until a large sliver of a hole was made, allowing the stallion to poke his head through slightly...revealing it to be an elderly griffin.
"Huh? What are you two doing here?" the elderly worker asked.
"Why are you chopping down the door with an axe?!" Luna exclaimed.
"Y-y-you said you wanted this door changed, and an elderly griffin like me can't participate in the games like I used to, so I have fun chopping doors down."
"But what about the 'falling apart' thing?"
"My beak eroded a long time ago. This is just a beakture." The griffin took off his beak and showed it to the two princesses who turned green. Celestia put a hoof to her mouth while her cheeks bulged. " 'I'm ol' Patty's beakture, and I just love to bite his tongue!' " the griffin mimed with his fake beak. "Aha! I still got it." The griffin smiled proudly.
Large drops of water falling on the ground, inciting the curiosity of Celestia.
"What is that? It's red, and looks like blood."
"It's ink. The ink looks like ketchup. I like ketchup very much."
Celestia and Luna looked up to see the stallion attached to the ceiling using plungers, then they yelled.
"What? What is it? I can't see," the elderly griffin spoke.
Luna and Celestia blasted through the door and fled further into the castle. The griffin found himself with an unhinged door stuck onto his false beak. He started to panic and flailed his claws around.
"How do I get this off! How do I get this off!" he mumbled. "Oh. Wait." He popped his beak off and sighed in relief. "I forgot."
While galloping, Luna came to a sudden realization. "I think I know who that is."
"Really? Who?"
"Persephone. I made him when I was a filly so he could be my playmate."
"What? You MADE a living being?"
"He's not really 'alive'. I just made him to be a playmate...I can't explain it."
They both stopped at a corner and Celestia peaked around the corner to see if Persephone was there.
"Coast is clear. So he's made of pure magic?" Celestia asked as the two continued forth.
"Not really...I guess that would explain why his body is discolored and buzzing."
"Seems more like he's extremely unstable due to spending so much of his magic. How is he still...well...'active'?"
"I'm not sure, but I think he came up to me when I was Nightmare Moon. He was annoying me, so I might've turned him to stone."
"Really? Are you serious? How did we never notice him?"
"How should I know? You were here for a thousand years. You tell me."
"Hey! I was busy helping my little ponies strive."
"More like helping your stomach gorge on honey foods," Luna pseudo-whispered behind a wing.
"What was that?"
"Oh nothing, bubble butt."
Celestia's face puffed up in embarrassment and anger while Luna chuckled. Looking behind them, Persephone was chasing after them in a giant wooden chariot being pulled by several tiny puppies. He stood with a foreleg on the front of a colosseum chariot and held an outstretched sword in his other hoof.
"Taiaut!" he shouted.
"Luna, why is he chasing after you?"
"I don't know!"
"Think! What did he want before you froze him?"
"I...I...I think he wanted to play 'tag' or something. I'm...not sure."
"Gon' getchoo, Luna!" Persephone roared.
"Then the only way you can stop this is if you let him catch you!"
"But he'll die!"
"He isn't alive, Luna! He's just an eroded spell! He needs to fade or he could become a potential threat!"
"But--"
"Luna!"
The lunar princess dropped her head in defeat and slowed her pace under the guise of fatigue. Persephone jumped out of the chariot and tackled her. The two rolled several times until finally coming to a halt, with Persephone on top of Luna and a glare of extreme violence and fury on his face.
"FINALLY! After so long, I've FINALLY CAUGHT YOU! Not that I have, I'M GONNA GET YOU!" He pulled his foreleg back as far as it could go, then thrust it forward like a punch. Luna closed her eyes, expecting the struck to crush her muzzle, but it never came. She mustered up the courage to see that the hoof had just stopped in front of her muzzle. "Boop," Persephone said.
"Boop?!" Celestia exclaimed.
Persephone collapsed on the floor and started breathing heavily. "Finally. The goal you gave has finally passed and I am free to sleep at last."
The lunar princess held the pony next to her as he started to buzz out of existence. Celestia waited behind, sitting on her haunches. This day was rushed, as were the events, but she knew Luna's pain. After a few minutes and yelling from Persephone, Luna watched the spell fade into sparks, then stood up and walked towards her sister with her head held down.
"So?"
"He's gone, sister."
"You can always recreate him."
"Not without the toy I had originally bound to him."
"I see..."
There was a long moment of silence which was broken by Luna saying: "He did have a request, though. He always wanted to do one thing with me that I couldn't when I was little."
"And what would that be? I would very much like to honor his memory."
Luna looked up to her sister with a glean of joy in her eyes. Celestia suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Later that day, everybody was doing the conga under the pretext of it being an ex servant's final wishes. CONGA CONGA! I LOVE THE CONGA! THIS STORY ENDS IN CONGA! I could do it for money. I don't, but I could. KEEP DANCING, BABIES! Oh, and something about Persephone not actually dying because he's magic, but who cares about that?! IZ CONGA TIME, BABY! All this was just to end in conga. Time well spent. Doodoo doo doo doo.
