Twilight looked at the lava she had summoned.
"Huh. Well, that's weird."
"What's weird, Twilight?" asked Pinkie from her spot off-screen.
"I'm standing right next to this lava, and, not only is my wooden library not in flames, neither am I." The scientific mare pondered this convective conundrum. "I must be in some sort of fiction."
"Well, duh! We're a cartoon!" answered Pinkie.
"No, I don't think so." Twilight turned around to face her pink friend. "Look at how contrived that thing with the lava was. Why would I even summon lava? There is no way that would have passed any sort of editor. We must be in a fanfic."
Pinkie sighed. "Twilight, we live in a cartoon. Look!"
Twilight shook her head. "Pinkie, just because there's a screen edge to hang from doesn't mean anything." Twilight blinked. "Wow, that was a horrible sentence. This is definitely a fanfic."
"Twilight…"
"Look, if there's any way to find out, it'll be in Canterlot Castle."
"Why would it be in Canterlot Castle?"
Twilight paused. "I have no idea. Probably some sort of plot convenience. It's probably not even there. There's probably something else there that we have to encounter to move the plot forward!"
"Twilight?"
"Yes, Pinkie?"
"How do you know all this stuff?"
"I read a lot of books, Pinkie. Some are better than others. Now, off to Canterlot!"
"But—"
The two ponies disappeared in a ruddy flash of light.
Over in Canterlot Castle, a ruckus was ahoof. Like most Canterlot ruckuses these days, this one involved Princess Luna's student, an androgynous, perpetually armor-clad stallion named Imagination (nicknamed Madge). Imagination's special talent was thinking, although some contended that his thought bubble of a cutie mark actually stood for the cloud of dust he left in his wake.
"GALLOP FOR YOUR LIFE! CELESTIA'S HORNY!!!" Madge scrambled down the hall, screaming like a little filly.
An impossibly seductive voice snaked down the hallway behind the armor-clad stallion. "Mmm, you know how momma likes."
"BUCK!"
Over in her room, Princess Luna strained against herself.
"When this is over, I'm going to kill Madge. Via sex. NO NO NO, Bad Luna, no sex, remember last time?" The Alicorn was tired. This fighting against her own libido thing was quite exhausting, especially as it had her up in the middle of the day. Thinking of which, Madge was nocturnal, too. Luna wondered how he was holding up. She really hoped Celly hadn't gotten to him. She kinda liked having her student in one piece. Rather hard to fornicate when one of you is missing limbs. NO, BAD LUNA.
How would that even work? He /never/ takes his armor off. Luna hadn't been able to find anypony who had ever seen any portion of the stallion's coat. Even his eyes were covered. It was a visor made out of...what was it—plastic! That was it, the visor was made out of plastic, and it seemed to suck all the color out of him. Even his magic was colorless. She wanted to strip all that armor off him and find out what was underneath. If she knew her student, it was a whole lot of muscle. She liked muscle. GAH, BAD LUNA!
Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie appeared in front of the bridge to Canterlot Castle.
"Twilight, I thought the MacGuffin was inside the castle?"
The purple mare looked at the pink pony. "You can't teleport into or out of the castle; this is as close as you can get."
The mares crossed the bridge in silence.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Sparkle, but nopony's allowed in today." The guard at the door was impassive.
"Why not?" Twilight didn't like not knowing things. It bothered her.
The guard looked at his partner, who shrugged her wings. "She's Princess Celestia's personal student. I think we can tell her."
"You sure?"
"Hey, if anypony can help, it'd be her."
"Right." The first guard turned back to the pupil in question. "Both the princesses are in heat."
Twilight's eye twitched. She ran through the calculations in her head—Celestia's heat occurred when the sun was at the nadir of its electromagnetic cycle of activity (or, as the princess would say, when it got boring). Luna had informed her that the heat of the Night Princess occurred every time the Moon's perigee completed a revolution. Neither of those two events were occurring today. What was going on?
"Guards, something's gone horribly wrong. Neither of them should be in heat any time soon. You have to let us in."
"You, we understand." Responded the stallion. "But we'd rather have as few ponies in the castle as possible, so if you could—"
"No." Twilight spat.
The guards looked at each other. "Good enough for me." The doors were opened, and the pair admitted.
"When this is over, I am murdering the author of this tripe." Twilight was not in a good mood. "I had to endure one of Princess Celestia's heats nearly a decade ago and I'd rather not repeat the experience." Twilight continued her expounding. "The only reason I am here is to organize the search for stallions and mares like last time. Then, we wait it out."
"Geeze, somepony's a grouchy grump. Wait here, Twilight, I'll go get the party."
"NO!" Twilight's tackle was caught on tape and sent to the Hoofball Film Archives. "With Celestia in this state..." Twilight sighed. "Pinkie, do you know why the castle in the Everfree Forest is in ruins?"
"Because it's old?"
"No. It's because of an orgy Princess Celestia had after a party. I'd rather my hometown not fall off its mountain today, so no parties. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Twilight." Pinkie squeaked.
"Now, let's get to work."
Princess Celestia was gaining on her sister's pupil.
"Luna, forgive me," Madge muttered. He took a deep breath, and turned on his magically-powered rocketboots. Stone glowed and scorched, centuries of pressed dust filled the air, and the armor-clad androgynous pony flew down the grey hallway.
"Mmm, I love a chase." Celestia picked herself up with her telekinesis and followed him.
"OH, COME ON!"
"I—"
"NO!"
Luna decided to read some poetry to keep herself busy by reading some poetry. She plucked a book from the shelf, and dropped it on it on its spine, opening it up to a random page. On it was a poem scrawled in pencil across the paper.
I have been devoted, faithful
To teacher and teachings graceful
I hope someday, she will see
The impact she has made on me.
I wanted to do something with my life,
Ease some other pony's strife.
She has given me the tools I need,
She has planted the living seed.
I am still learning, I always will be.
I just hope she's rubbed off on me.
~Imagination
Leave it to Madge to figure out how to make everything worse via poetry.
Celestia had Imagination cornered.
"So, my little pony, anything you'd like to say?"
Madge didn't have any other options—he'd have to tell her. "Celestia, I'm not interested."
Celly fell onto her haunches. "You're not?"
Madge's brain, as was its wont, reached several conclusions at once without having to do the work for any of them. Several of them brought an immense amount of concern, but there was just one that pushed itself to the forefront of his mind. "You mean, you /honestly/ thought I was being a tease this whole time?"
"Yes."
Imagination's hoof made a very interesting sound against his visor.
"You're worried about upsetting Luna, aren't you."
Oh thank Luna she understood. "Yes."
"Well, then. There is only one thing we can do." Uh-oh. "Madge, this is your lucky day; you're about to be the first pony in all of time to do both me and Luna—and the first to do it at the same time."
HOBIJOOBYWHA—
A familiar scent filtered into the room, making Luna wonder what her sister was doing outside her door. She took another whiff of the air. That was Tia, all right. And...Madge? What was he doing here? /No/. They didn't.
"Lunaaaaa~ guess who I've done!"
The door flew open, bringing an abend to Luna's imagine spot.
"Luna~ guess who I've got!"
"Padding, padding, padding, and more padding!" Twilight let loose a scream of frustration that was fortunately caught on tape, which was then sent to Foalywood to be used as a standard soundbite whene—"GET ON WITH IT!"
"Twilight, you don't look so good." Pinkie had seen Twilight like this before. Princess Celestia had had to come and bail the town out then.
"Of course not! Every last applicant that has showed up has been a certifiable nutcase!"
"Twilight, there's only been two applicants."
Twilight's head turned to face Pinkie. "My patience is wearing thin, Pinkie Pie, now BRING ME PONIES!"
Pinkie fell onto her bottom. She sprang back onto her hooves, then snapped one to her forehead. "Yes, ma'am!" Pinkie wasn't going to argue with a crazy Twilight Sparkle. She felt like remaining in one piece today.
Ekrixie heard a knock at her door.
"Eh-krIXie?" Asked the pony on the other side.
Ekrixie sighed, and opened it with her magic. "My name is pronounced AY-krixie."
"Oh!" Exclaimed the pink pony on the other side of the threshold. "So sorry!" She looked back at the clipboard she hadn't been holding. "Hello, my name is Pinkie Pie and I am conducting a survey. What is your special talent?"
The blue mare on the other side of the door sighed. "Explosions."
Pinkie broke into a huge grin and grabbed the tow-headed blue mare. "That'll do!"
"What'll do?"
"You!"
"What?"
"Does that even count?" Twilight stared at the pony with the mushroom cloud for a cutie mark. The purple pony's canted visage was contorted in a frown.
"Count for what?" Ekrixie had been hearing that question ever since she had made it to Canterlot Castle. The mares before her continued to hem and haw over the matter, not even bothering to include her in the discussion. She bet her sister didn't have to deal with this.
"Back! Back ye demons, back!" Trixie yelled around the whip in her mouth as she cracked it at the horde in front of her.
"Ok, these scene changes are getting ridiculous." Twilight was about to turn around and inform Ekrixie of what was going on, but she was cut off by Pinkie.
"Twilight, how in Equestria did you notice that scene change? All you did was realize we were in a fanfic. How does that grant you the ability to see what the audience does?"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Oh, great. The author's fixing a plot hole."
"But I thought we were supposed to have holes in our plots?"
"No, Pinkie, you see..."
Celestia opened up the door to her sister's room and trotted inside, a placid pony placed perfectly in her telekinesis.
Madge had long given up attempting to escape Celestia's telekinetic grasp. To he honest, it was kinda nice. It felt like a comfy patch of sun. He was having a very hard time staying awake. His head was nodding; he, nearly napping, when suddenly, there came a crashing—Celestia had fallen over, fallen, onto the castle floor.
"Oh COME ON! That was just awkward!"
Wow. I didn't know Twilight could hear the narration from here. Ok, then.
Madge tumbled across the stone floor of Luna's room. He...smelled something in the air. It smelled like...Luna? But why in Equestria would her scent be so powerful? And so alluring? The poor stallion was overcome by a large number of urges at once, several of which he was sure were physically impossible.
The waves of pheromones pouring off of Luna were trapped by the barrier at the door, preventing those outside from falling prey to the scent, but that meant the smell had nowhere to go. To make a long explanation short, the air in the room was saturated with the infernal chemicals, all of them yelling at Madge's brain to have sex and have it now.
"Hnnng! Harbarble, glarble? Glarble! Forzooken plah! Zhoo? Wah!" Imagination's ability to make words come out of his mouth seemed to have left him hanging there to dry. And, if his fears were correct, die. He really hoped his fears weren't correct.
"Celestia! Ist thou ok?" Luna rushed over to her fallen sister, reverting to antiquated verbiage in her duress.
Twilight refused to say anything, choosing only to glare at the speech tag. I don't know why she hates me so, I really don't.
Anyway, continued the narrator, oblivious to his own obliviousness, back to the story.
Celestia's response came with a grin. "I'm fine, Luna. Your pupil just pulled my hooves out from under me." She licked her lips. "He's fun."
Something in her voice made Luna pause. "Tia, what were you planning to do with my student?"
The white alicorn's smile only grew bigger.
The frantic unicorn's panic only grew as he galloped down the hall.
"Hey, does anypony else hear galloping?" Ekrixie asked. Neither Twilight nor Pinkie Pie responded to her, both lost in their discussion. Ekrixie cocked her head in order to get a fix on the noise. "You know, I really do think I hear gallo—"
The blue mare was bowled over by a stallion in a suit of armor.
"Oh, Cadance, they got you too?" Was what came out of Madge's mouth. Not "Hi", not "Hello", not even a "OhI'msosorryma'ampleasedon'tblowmetobitsIhaveafamily!". She had never blown a pony to bits, nor was she the kind of mare who would do so, but ponies tend to assume things when your cutie mark is a mushroom cloud. Also, Imagination knew her better than that. But still.
"Hello. Hi. Greetings. Salutations. All acceptable—"
"Shut up, and gallop." Madge hauled his best friend to her hooves and the pair set off, galloping down the hall like madponies. Ekrixie had known Madge for a very long time, and she knew the secret to staying alive when you were around him: when he tells you to shut up and gallop, you shut your snout and book it out, 'cause Nightmare knows what's behind you.
Celestia trotted out of her room to see a stallion, holding a mare in his magic, rocket past. "Imagination! What has Luna told you about using your jetboots in the castle?"
A small strand of lightning appeared beside the princess's head. "I'm sorry, Celestia, but we've got your libido chasing after us." It was a lightning speaker. Most speakers use a cone attached to an electromagnet to vibrate and reproduce sounds, but Madge could use a strand of lightning to do the--wait, what?
Celestia grabbed Imagination with her magic and levitated him back over to her. For the first time Madge could remember, Celly's eyes weren't warm and welcoming. "Explain."
****
And now for some words from our sponsor:
"Get back to the story already!"
Er, ok then.
****
"You see, Princess Celestia, um...I umm...separatedyourlibidoandmadeitacorporealbeing." Madge was not all that good at speaking when he was fearing for his life.
Princess Celestia put a hoof to her face. For the first time in a very long time, she wanted to curl up and cry in a corner, only this time it was some other pony's stupidity, not hers. "...Why."
"I don't know! I created a spell last night that would force a mare into heat and Luna said to try it on you and it made another you and I told Luna and she wondered why it did that and asked me to do it to her and she came into heat and was having great difficulty controlling herself and then you arrived only it was the other you and you started chasing me and please please please don't kill me!" Madge had started crying some time during his speech; by this point, his face had fully dissolved into a blubbering mass of tears and snot.
Celestia sighed. This kind of thing never happened with Twilight.
The other Celestia came across a contingent of guards.
"Mmm, guards."
"Oh, buck."
"Hey, Twilight?" Asked Pinkie.
"Yes?"
"Where'd Ekrixie go?"
"I don't kn—
——"Hey! Where are you going with that scene ch—"——
Ekrixie had flattened herself against the wall opposite the upset Princess Celestia and was now trying to surreptitiously get away.
Celestia cocked an eyebrow and enveloped the blue pony in yellow Sun magic.
Ekrixie, master of explosions and explosives, was not that good at being surreptitious.
"Well, Hello, Princess!" The funny thing about having your special talent lie in explosions and explosives was that it came with an eerie ability to stay preternaturally calm in the most trying and verbose of situations. "How are you?" Sadly, Ekrixie's bizarre calmness did not help her with small talk.
If Celestia's eyebrow could get any higher, it would have. Instead, she sighed. "For the first time in a very long time, I am ...exasperated. This...was not what I expected to happen on my day off." Celestia, forgetting to disengage the relative on her levitation, shook her head, bringing Imagination and Ekrixie along for the ride. "Madge, I have a question to ask of you."
"Yes, Celly?"
"Were you thinking?"
"No, not really."
"You should start doing that now."
"Yes ma'am."
"Dried horseapples," exclaimed a Royal Guard, "they're still going!"
"The Princess won't let him stop."
"Well, he /did/ agree to it."
"Yeah, but, if she were anypony else..."
"Yeah."
"Yeah—waaaaiiit..." It was at this point that both guards tilted their heads. Unfortunately, they both tilted their heads inwards."Ow—wait—what is she—can that even go there?"
"Apparently, it can."
"I did not know that was possible."
"Now I kinda wish I didn't."
"You and me both, brother, you and me both."
Twilight Sparkle was keeping herself busy by seeing just how much torque she could generate with her neck.
"Twilight—" Clunk. "I really don't think—" Clunk. "that's going to help." Clunk. Pinkie Clunk. paused, Clunk., and then Clunk. continued talking to her friend Clunk. "Twilight, are you ok?"
"Yes," Clunk. "and I'm trying not to be, so if you'd /please/ let me give myself a concussion, I'd be much happier. Thank you." Twilight drew her head back once more, only to be stopped by an azure glow.
"Twilight Sparkle!"
"Yes, Princess Luna?"
"Kindly stop banging thine—your head against the wall. It would be a shame to break such a pretty thing."
"Ummm, thanks?" Twilight was filled with unease by Luna's voice.
"It is nothing, Dearest Sparkle; a compliment well deserved."
"Ooh, a semicolon! Swag!" Sadly, Pinkie's attempt to derail the conversation to spare Twilight the awkward that was sure to follow did not work, and Luna plowed on, continuing on her path.
"Twilight Sparkle, it has come to my attention that you are in Canterlot Castle."
Twilight lidded her eyes. "You don't say."
"Yes, and, furthermore, that I would like to, as it is said in today's vernacular, 'do you'."
Twilight fell over.
Luna's jaw fell open. The alicorn picked it back up with her magic, and rushed over to the fallen unicorn. "Mistress Sparkle!" Luna was panicking; not only was she the one who told Madge to cast the spell, now she had killed her sister's prized student by being too forward! This, to put it mildly, was bad. Celestia loved her pupil, and—
"Princess Luna, could you please stop worrying? I'm not dead."
"Princess, could you please stop with the death hug, please?"
Celestia looked at the exhausted guards in front of her.
"Lovely. Just when I'm getting all warmed up, they all collapse." She sighed. "Oh whatever shall I do? If only there was a whole city full of ponies who revere and worship me that I could ravage—oh wait, there is!" The manifestation of Celestia's sexual hunger giggled and skipped down the hall. The exit was, in fact, the other way, but she had spotted more guards.
Madge raised his head. "Ok, I think I know what went wrong."
Celestia, who had been conversing with Ekrixie on explosions and how to cook with them, turned her head to find Madge examining her rear. "My little pony, what are you doing?"
"I...am not sure. You have a very nice plot, by the way, Celestia."
"Thank you." Celestia was touched; never before had a pony complemented her flanks. She knew there were several reasons behind that, but still.
"Now, as to what went wrong; I do believe I forgot to compensate for the spell you cast on yourself each night before you go to bed."
Celestia blinked. Nopony knew she did that. Nopony knew that ever since the first appearance of Nightmare Moon, Celestia had never quite felt safe when she was asleep. That Madge had figured it out was a little bit disturbing, but that was nothing compared to the revelation that he could get around it. Inside her head, the alicorn shuddered, and told herself that this was why he needed to be kept under watch. Outside, she just blinked.
It was Ekrixie who asked. "Aaand, that's it? The spell Princess Celestia casts on herself each night messed with your spell and that made..." Ekrixie looked up as she trailed off; she was trying to think of something.
"Celustia?" Offered Madge.
The Princess of the Sun had a sudden urge to strangle her sister's pupil, and she wasn't quite sure why.
The newly-christened Celustia trotted out a forgotten door and shook her head in the sunlight. She thought back to the collapsed guards she had left in her wake. They certainly had strength and stamina, but they lacked finesse, creativity. She spread her wings, and a thought occurred to her: now that she was freed from the confines of the cramped hallways of Canterlot Castle, she could use her wings to their full extent. The white alicorn flapped her feathered appendages, and flew towards Canterlot proper.
Somewhere, an ominous chord played.
"Lyra, that is not how you respond when I announce my family's coming over!"
