Not another Twilight Alicorn story.

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4

Chapter 1

Twilight Sparkle and Spike enjoyed a rare quiet late afternoon relaxing in the huge tree that was both the Ponyville town library and their home. It was a strange tree, hollow and yet still alive, with a cheerful little balcony from the second level upon which the two friends were relaxing with cool drinks at hoof and claw, enjoying a light summer breeze .

“This is the life!” sighed the little purple dragon lazily, shifting a little beach umbrella to one side of his sarsaparilla as he took another sip.

“You’re right Spike, this is nice.” The lavender unicorn held her matching drink in the light purple glow of her magical telekinesis field. “We got the library shelves resorted, helped Fluttershy wrangle those rampaging racoons ripping off rhodadendrons down by the river, and our latest friendship report is complete and ready to send off to the princesses! All finished early for a change!” She smiled proudly at her number one assistant. “Being able to sit back once in a while is a good reward for a job well do--”

The light glow surrounding the floating drink suddenly shorted out, and the glass shattered on the balcony floor as gravity reasserted its rights with a vengeance.

“Aughhh! “ Spike fell out of his chair in surprise. “Why’d you do that Twilight?”. It was then that he noticed his unicorn sister wasn’t moving, her eyes crossed confusedly as she stared at her horn. Spike could feel his spines starting to buzz from a surge of energy in the air around them. “Twi? What’s going on?”

Before she could answer, her horn started jetting sparks loudly, then she yelped as her eyes glowed brilliantly with a sudden outpouring of arcane power, so brilliant it appeared pink instead of lavender when Spike could bear to look at it at all. When he did he noticed Twilight was levitating several feet straight above her chair. The baby dragon scrambled to grab at her hooves before she floated away, but just as suddenly as it appeared, the strange phenomenon vanished and Twilight collapsed back down onto her chair.

“Twilight!”

In the majestic throne room of Canterlot Castle, perched elegantly on the mountainside gazing far and wide over the bountiful lands of Equestria, court was still in session and the monarch was on her throne. Princess Celestia, goddess of the sun, fair and beloved ruler of all her little ponies, was desperately wishing she was anywhere or anyone else as the droning grey noble before her sincerely stretched her benevolence with his incessant babbling.

It had started off as a short hour-long primer on the benefits of a proposed aquaduct that would tap the fresh mountain springs and travel through the noble quarter of the city before gracing the lower orders, and then the whole mess devolved into some kind of diatribe urging a tax on scruffiness or something. Celestia wasn’t sure if the picture of a leaky faucet emblazoned on the pony’s flank was related to his affinity for water or for his ability to dribble on with absolute rubbish.

At some point in the presentation she’d stopped recognising the sound of his voice, and watched the hypnotic grey movement of his poufy grey moustache instead. When her hoof slipped off the throne breaking the fugue state she’d unwittingly been lulled into, she was able to catch herself almost instantly and reapply the graceful knowing smile she usually bestowed upon petitioners. Somehow the noble took this sudden movement as encouragement and redoubled his efforts, or at least his words. Celestia wouldn’t be able to disguise the yawns for very much longer.

Fortunately, the solar princess was provided a timely distraction as her horn registered a huge influx of magical energy. Well, not timely; why not two hours ago? Those are eons I’ll never get back… wait, what?

The courtiers and petitioners in the great hall couldn’t see it, but they felt the effects as the magical wave crested the castle like a tsunami and continued flowing past; shrieks of panic filled the hall as unicorn horns sparked out of control, earth ponies staggered drunkenly from the overwhelming wall of magic overloading their senses, and Pegasii started floating uncontrollably about the room as if they were dandelion seeds on a breeze. A small storm cloud formed over the wizened old Cloudsdale representative, Fairfeather. Several attendants were inadvertently turned into bunnies as Clover Keene, the current headmistress of Canterlot’s School for Gifted Unicorns, outright fainted from the surge of power blasting past them all.

Celestia clamped her eyes shut and grit her teeth as she rode out the discomfort, and reached out with her own magic to try and track where it had come from. She wasn’t fast enough however; as suddenly as it appeared, whatever it was, it was gone. Opening her eyes again, she quickly studied the aftermath as everything reverted back to normal and ponies started picking themselves off the floor and reassuring themselves they were okay.

Oddly enough, Leaky Faucet still stood before the throne, a befuddled expression now plastered on his face. He fumbled about with his papers for a bit, and then with dawning horror, Celestia realised he was intending to continue straight on from where he’d left off, as if nothing had happened.

“I’m sorry my little ponies, but Court is now closed! Guards, please check that there are no injuries and help everypony out in their own time. I need to consult with my sister.”

With that, princess Celestia unfurled her wings and rocketed out the doors in a very un-princess-ly fashion.

Sugarcube corner. Upstairs. The nursery room in the living quarters above the bakery, occupied by the Cake’s twin foals, and their current babysitter, Pinkie Pie. The pink party pony is, for one of the very few times in her life, completely frozen after dumping a bag of flour over her head in an effort to entertain her charges. The Cake twins are likewise entirely out of character, locked in a breathless moment of eternity, staring at Pinkie in astonishment.

“Wow! That was different!”

With apologies to xscaralienx for abusing your artwork... check out the original here! ~ http://xscaralienx.deviantart.com/art/Twilight-the-Alicorn-220256566 . I'll replace it with something of my own soon, promise!

Chapter 2

Sweet Apple Acres, out in the west orchard: the late afternoon sun and the grass stopped switching places, to the point where Applejack could make out that the grass was a lot closer than it would normally be. After blinking a few times to clear the last lingering sparks away and then blowing her mane out of her eyes, the orange pony realised she was sprawled flat out on the ground. A few trees over, her brother Big Macintosh was in a similar position, and a few trees further again, still uncomfortably hooked to a cart, was cousin Caramel.

At least all of them were groaning and moving, so it looked like nopony was badly injured. Staggering to her hooves, the farm pony tried to take stock of what had just happened. “I don’t get it,” she mumbled. “One minute we’re tending our trees just fine and then Whoosh! Tornado in a teacup!”

The act of retrieving her hat from where it had fallen lightly next to her caused Applejack to pause a moment. “Only there weren’t no tornado. Everything’s right here, instead of blown all over.”

Big Mac stoically heaved himself off the turf and looked around, confirming his sister’s observations. “Yeeeeup.” He grinned self-consciously at his sister’s raised eyebrow. He was famous for being a stallion of few words, but when it was just family he didn’t normally hold back. “Everything looks normal.” He stopped and shook his hooves slowly. “Only, I’m feelin’ an after drunk buzz coming on, and neither of us have been anywhere near the cider all day.”

Applejack let that thought muster about in her head a bit, and then nodded in agreement. “Whatever just hit us was a doozy! And no Pinkie Pie warning it was coming, either.”

Big Mac snorted good naturedly. “Reckon you’ll be off to Miss Twilight’s, then. We’ll go check on Granny and Apple Bloom.” With that, he lumbered over to help Caramel and his cart back upright.

“You know me too well! Thanks big brother!” Applejack smiled and set off through the orchard towards town.

Back in Canterlot castle, in one of the highest towers, a tall midnight blue pony with wings and horn and floating star-lit mane took some deep breaths and steadied herself after the magical onslaught. Gingerly Princess Luna tested her own magic by reaching out and retrieving the paintbrush she’d dropped to the floor, and then worked her way up to setting her easel back in its upright position. The landscape she’d been delicately touching up was now marred with a massive brush stroke straight down the middle, ruining her recreation of the sculpture garden below her balcony.

‘Discord never looked better’ she thought ruefully to herself. Carefully she retrieved her paints and brushes and moved everything to a corner as she prepared for her sister’s undoubted arrival "in three… two… one…"

CRASH! The study doors flew open as the day princess zoomed into the room. However, instead of the elegant stop she would normally make, Celestia’s eyes widened as she felt the floor carpets lift and ripple under her hooves and she surfed wildly out of control across the room towards Luna and her easel. Backpedalling and beating her wings madly wasn’t going to stop her in time; it took Luna’s strategic telekinetic placement of several large seat cushions as an emergency mid-air safety barrier to bring Celestia to a safe halt.

Luna couldn’t help herself, she started giggling as she lost her sister in a cloud of white cushion feathers. Celestia breathed a sigh of relief and removed the cushion impaled on her horn before all sense of urgency and her cloud cover failed her.

“Luuuuuuuna! Did you feel that?”

The night princess composed herself as best she could on short notice. “Yes! What could have caused such an arcane disturbance? “

“I’m not sure! It felt so familiar, but at the same time it was so overpowering, I couldn’t determine what it was.”

Luna absentmindedly walked the circuit of the room and the new feather carpeting as she marshalled her own thoughts. “There was certainly something auspicious about it… as if it meant us no harm, beyond being unsettled by its dramatic appearance.”

Celestia nodded. “I did not detect any maliciousness either. But where have we felt that before?”

A small nervous cough from the door interrupted the princesses. A green earth pony with some scrolls hooked in her tail stood at the door, warily eying Luna’s guards staggering out in the hallway after being accidently knocked aside like tenpins in Celestia’s mad dash to the study.

“A-are we starting the prank wars again?”

Celestia had the good grace to blush, trying to blow an incriminating feather out of her ethereal mane, causing Luna to raise a smirking eyebrow. “No miss Sugar Heart, the truce still holds, I was in rather a rush to visit my sister.” she replied apologetically as the guards resumed their station.

Luna moved over to her assistant and levitated the scrolls from her care. “What wouldst these be?”

“They’ve just started appearing, right after that... whatever it was that just happened!”

Luna inspected one of the scrolls, noting the hastily scrawled address to the royal court, and the haphazardly applied seal of the Mayor of Manehattan. “It appears the effects of the disturbance are being felt further afield than Canterlot, sister.”

Celestia looked up as a purple wisp of smoke blew in the window and magically reverted into a scroll that she instantly recognised as coming from her protege, Twilight Sparkle.

She was momentarily taken aback as she opened it and found Twilight’s latest friendship report inside, but then found the second slip of paper stashed inside in Spike’s script. Frowning, she read:

Help! Something big happened! Twilight blew up!

Remembering Spike’s penchant for melodramatic messages, and the effects of the passing magical wave on the unicorns in her own castle reception hall, Celestia could guess what had happened. “We should consult with the mage council, and I’ll need to check on my student.”

“Agreed”. Luna motioned to Sugar Heart, and went to her desk to retrieve quills, ink and paper. “We shall draft a declaration, to reassure the populace that all remains well.”

The cheeky green pony grinned. “How about a big red flashing sign, saying DON’T PANIC ?”

Celestia smiled. “That sounds just about perfect.”

When Applejack arrived at the Ponyville library tree entrance, she discovered her good friends Fluttershy and Rarity already inside. The shy yellow-and-pink Pegasus and the normally-fashionable white-and-purple unicorn were almost indistinguishable with their matching bathrobes, manes still wrapped in matching towels, and traces of mudpacks inexpertly removed in a rush.

“Oh, it was DREADFUL! Fluttershy and I were at our weekly spa session when we were ASSAULTED by that unbearable blast of energy! Poor Fluttershy was left bouncing around the ceiling, and I may have inadvertently caused darling Aloe and Vera to swap colors! And such a terrible faux pas I must have made too, in my confused state I couldn’t tell the difference! Oh the horror! What if they never allow us to go back? What will I dooooo?” the unicorn fashionista wailed as she collapsed on her conjured fainting couch. “I don’t even know a spell to swap two ponies’ coloring!”

Fluttershy meekly tapped her sobbing friend’s shoulder comfortingly. “There there. Um, it was very frightening. But it’s over now, and I’m sure no damage was done.”

“So everything returned to normal afterwards?” Twilight asked as she entered from a back room, a bunch of books floating behind her in the glowing grip of her magic. “Oh! Hi Applejack!”

Before Applejack could return the greeting, they were interrupted by a high-pitched noise which quickly evolved into a garbled warning “LOOK OUT BELOW!” as a rainbow streak spun into the library via the second story balcony, slalomed off a wall and a support beam, and crashed into the fantasy section on the ground floor, depositing all the books in a large pile at the foot of the bookshelves.

“Rainbow Dash, you crazy filly! Are you alright?” Applejack started digging through the pile, casting books aside several at a time until a purple glow abruptly surrounded them all and lifted the entire mess off the ground at once.

At the bottom of it all was a bedraggled blue Pegasus with a wild multi-colored mane. Rainbow took a few moments to shake off the impact, then smiled sheepishly up at her friends. “uhh, sorry ‘bout that!"

Twilight grimaced, but held her tongue as she carefully stacked the books in a corner. “If that’s the worst thing that’s happened today, then we’ve done alright.”

“Yeah, Twi already smashed a chair upstairs!” Spike added cheerfully as he came out of the kitchen with a quick dragon-fire-boiled tea kettle and cups for all the girls.

“Spike!” the lavender librarian admonished. “They didn’t need to know that!”

“So, you all felt that too?” Applejack asked carefully. “A great big blast of tingly energy that knocked you all around and left you feeling tipsy afterwards?”

“Did I EVER!” Dash carefully got to her hooves and stretched her wings. “I was napping on my favourite cloud when WHAM! Something smashed into me and sent me clear into the cumulonimbus!” At the farmer’s confused look, Rainbow sighed. “The big fluffy clouds way up higher than all the others? Never mind! I thought I’d never get back down here, and my wings are still buzzing!”

“Really? I’m feeling a bit drained now that I’m back on my hooves, but that’s about it.” Twilight mused. “Spike! Take a letter! We need to ask the Princesses if they know what’s going on!”

Spike thrust his chest out proudly. “Already taken care of, Twilight! That was the first thing I did after we got you back down off the balcony.”

The purple unicorn desperately tried to ignore a vague feeling of impending doom from that statement. “Spiiiiiike? What did you say to the princess?”

“Oh, nothing really! Just that you blew up and… urrrp!” Spike grasped at his stomach as he received a dragon-smoke delivered message and belched it up, before hesitatingly handing it over to Twilight. For her part, Twilight clamped an eye shut as she opened the scroll with her own magic and peered at it out of the other eye apprehensively. Then curiosity got the better of her and she reread it properly.

To my faithful student Twilight Sparkle,

I hope you are not feeling any lasting ill-effects from the mystical event that washed over Equestria a short time ago. While we do not believe it to have been dangerous, we do not yet know the cause or its point of origin, and have made its discovery our highest priority. To this end we may call upon you and your friends soon to aid in the investigation---

“Us? Aid the princess? All right! Let me at it!” Rainbow interrupted.

“But how? When we don’t even know what we’re looking for or where to look for it?” Applejack countered.

The voice of their sixth friend joined them from the doorway. “You know what this calls for girls? ROAD TRIP!”

Rarity turned to welcome her in. “Pinkie Pie, so glad you could join us darling, but I hardly think this is the tii-yi-yi-yi-yi!”

Fluttershy’s look of shock was mirrored by the others. “Oh my.”

Eventually, Twilight picked her jaw up off the floor, and turned to her dragon assistant. “Time for that letter, Spike.”

Dear Princess Celestia,

Found the problem. Pinkie Pie is an alicorn.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle.

*Huuuuuuuuge shout-out to Shotoman’s story “A Friend of the Night” (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/22193/A-Friend-of-the-Night) and his brilliant work with Sugar Heart and Luna’s relationship. This pony is now Canon in my head-fiction.

Chapter 3

”Dear Princess Celestia,

Found the problem. Pinkie Pie is an alicorn.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight’s short, succinct message fell from Celestia’s telekinetic grasp and fluttered to the ground forlornly. Celestia herself was frozen in place, mid-stride in the middle of the hallway leading to the mage council chambers, her pupils shrinking as all rational thought came to a screeching halt and she stared slackjawed at nothing at all. Her guards looked nervously at each other for a couple of moments, then one bravely abandoned decorum and tentatively waved his hoof in front of his monarch’s face.

“Y-your Majesty?”

The two guards shared another apprehensive glance and were about to raise the alarm, when Luna and her assistant Sugar Heart chose that moment to come up the corridor. The two of them were arguing over the composition of their general proclamation to be sent out to the various towns and cities of Equestria.

“…I wouldst still believe that the presence of flashing red letters on the scroll itself will cause ponies to worry unnecessarily.”

“Yes, but that’s why they say ‘DON’T PANIC’, see? To catch their attention immediately and…”

One of the guards called out, “Your royal highness! Something’s happened to your sister!”

Luna’s eyes widened in shock. “Sister?”

Discussion forgotten, Luna bolted to Celestia’s side. Fortunately these guards saw her coming and avoided being flattened like tenpins. “SISTER! What is the meaning of this?”

Celestia didn’t respond at all until Luna started shaking her shoulders, by which stage the brave guard had retrieved Twilight’s scroll from the ground and tentatively held it out at length, in case its strange power caused him to explode or make his brain melt out his ears.

“P-p-princess? She was reading this n-note when this happened!”

Celestia chose that moment to drag in a huge, wheezing breath, her eyes locking once more on the message, and her mental faculties engaged drive and shoving the pedal to the metal.

Nopony was ready for the Royal Canterlot Voice from a crazed alicorn at close quarters.

“EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS!”

There was a blazing flash of light, and then the Princess of the day vanished. Luna shook her head to clear her ears, and then retrieved the note with her magic as the other dazed ponies in the hall pulled themselves together.
It took several readings for the message to sink in.

“Great googly moogly!”

The dastardly weapon of papyrus destruction burst into flame and disintegrated into ashes in Luna’s grip, much to the relief of the guards. Her horn remained lit as she cast her head about, like a timber wolf tasting the air.

“Princess? What are you---“

“Following.”

The Princess of the Night disappeared in a dark burst of shadow, leaving her erstwhile assistant in the hall with the guards and all three wondering what the buck just happened.

Pinkie Pie stood in the doorway to Twilight’s library. For all intents and purposes, she was the same Pinkie Pie: same taffy mane and tail, same dazzling smile and brilliantly piercing blue eyes that nevertheless held no clue to what was going on behind them. A pony could almost ignore the wings and horn, except for the fact that she was inexplicably covered in flour everywhere else save for her new shockingly pink appendages, and that she was considerably taller than she had been the day before. She didn’t quite have the supermodel slimness of the other three members of her new sorority, but the sheer overwhelming bubbly force of personality that was Pinkie made up for that easily.

Pinkie gave herself a vigorous shake that dislodged the remaining flour into a large cloud, which she stepped out of before bucking it out the door like a seasoned weathermare.

“Girls! I need your help! I need to learn how to fly and use magic in about, oh, 20 minutes flat so that I can put on a ‘Pinkie has wings and magic’ Party for everypony TONIGHT! But we’ll probably need to go to Canterlot first because it wouldn’t be fair to hold a wings and magic party without the Princesses, they’ve got wings and magic too after all and wouldn’t it be sad if nopony ever threw them a wings and magic party? So we need to make a road trip while you teach me!”

“Oooooooookayyyyyyy.” Twilight started hesitantly. “We’ll probably be summoned to Canterlot anyway when the Princesses see my note. But—“

“YAYYYY!” Pinkie stretched her forelegs around the entire group and roped them together in the middle of the room in a big group hug. “Lets go!”

“Now just WAIT a consarn darn minute!” Applejack interrupted. “We aint going anywhere until you tell us what is goin’ on! Like, why are you an aliwhatsit, a princess? How’d that happen anyhow?”

Pinkie shrugged her shoulders, causing her new wings to flutter. “Dunno! It just did! One minute I’m playing peekaboo with the twins and then…” she leapt up on the coffee table dramatically and reared up on her hind legs, flaring her new feathers impressively, “Blammo! Instant superhero! We should break out the Mare-do-well costume again, I bet I’d totally rock that now!”

The weight of her new wings caused Pinkie to lose her balance, frantically churning at the air with her front hooves before giving up the fight and tipping over backwards flat on her back.

“Bwahhh-hahahaha! *snort* Sure Pinkie Pie!”

Pinkie looked up from the ground with all four hooves in the air, and started giggling along with Rainbow Dash. “C’mon Dashie! Teach me to fly!”

Rainbow blew a raspberry and looped the loop just below the ceiling. “Even someone as awesome as me didn’t learn to fly in a single day, Pinkie! It’s gonna take time and hard work and—“

“Pleeeeeeeeease, Dashie! Pleeeeease!” Pinkie was back on her hooves in one fluid motion, and now hopping up and down in anticipation, her wings buzzing at her side.

“Rainbow, darling.” Rarity brought her friend’s attention from her acrobatics back down to the floor. The same floor that Pinkie was no longer touching, hovering several inches above.

Rainbow’s eyes bugged out of her head and she zipped over Pinkie’s head to study her wings up close. “How are you DOING that? You just got those things! You shouldn’t have any muscle tone or coordination or… or anything!”

Pinkie looked down, just as surprised as Rainbow, then looked up at her Pegasus friend again. “But Pound Cake was flying at only a month old! It can’t be that hard?”

Fluttershy hovered at a more leisurely pace on Pinkie’s other side, speaking in the same quiet motherly tone she’d use with an injured animal impatient to run again. “You need to remember Pinkie, newborn foals have a lot less weight to hold them down. As they get bigger they can’t fly, it’s not until they’re much older when their wings develop enough that they start learning how properly. “

Pinkie eased down to the ground with a noise like a leaky balloon. “I guess you’re right.”

“Do cheer up darling! I mean, look at you!” soothed Rarity. “You’re the same height as Princesses Luna or Cadance now! Those wings will look magnificent when you do learn to fly!”

“It’s going to be fine, Pinkie.” added Twilight reassuringly. “I’m sure the princesses are thinking up ways to help you right now!”

Luna found Celestia in the lowest basement archives deep below the royal Canterlot library, so far beyond the restricted section that not even Twilight Sparkle knew these sub-levels existed, and wouldn’t be able to access without spelunking gear even if she did. Celestia was madly opening and discarding boxes of old parchments, stirring up the dust of bygone millenia with a distinct lack of reverence or care as she shone her horn at their contents and then fretfully moved on to the next container.

Luna lit her own horn and carefully made her way around the shifting columns of boxes and paper. “Tia? What are you doing? We shouldst…. *achoo!* should be travelling to Ponyville post haste!”

“Can’t talk, busy!”

“Tia…”

“Must find!”

“Must find wha—aaaah-- *aaachoo*! Dammit! Celestia, What. Are. You. Looking for??”

Celestia pulled her muzzle and front hooves out of her current mouldy old crate and blinked in the additional light cast by her sister, as if really noticing her for the first time. “The emergency protocols, of course!”

“What emergency protocols?” Luna stared at her sister blankly. The sneeze she felt coming was quashed by extending a wing tip over her nose, keeping the dust onslaught at bay. “We dost not… gah! I don’t recall any emergency protocols?”

Celestia looked at her sister with a momentary flash of panic, before diving back into the box, her wings straining to counterbalance so that she didn’t tip entirely in. “I don’t know!” the muffled wail echoed from the box. “There must be emergency protocols! We don’t know everything… the ancients or mother or somepony must have left SOME kind of guide for situations like this?”

“How could mother have forseen something like an earth pony spontaneously becoming an alicorn?” Luna asked dubiously.

Celestia’s tail drooped at the question, then suddenly perked up again and the solar princess reefed herself back onto her hind legs, proudly holding an immensely old tome aloft. “Aha!” she proclaimed. Then her eyes went wild and she threw the book to one side. “Nononono!”. And dived into another box.

Luna caught the Elements of Harmony: Installation Manual and Reference Guide in her magic before it hit the floor and set it down safely.

“All right, Celestia, enough! Tell me what possesses you to act like this?”

All the energy seemed to seep out of the inverted dusty white princess and she slowly stopped scrambling about before slumping out of her box, head hung low and the sparkle fading from her mane. Eventually Celestia composed herself and lifted her head again to look at her sister.

“Do you remember when we were going through Twilight Sparkle’s friendship reports? Specifically, the one about their adventures at Froggy Bottom bog?”

The midnight blue pony’s brow furrowed behind her feathery dust inhibiter as she cast her mind back. “Yeeeess?”

“Remember how we couldn’t decide if Pinkie Pie’s apparent powers were the result of a genetic throwback to the mage pony cuirassiers of Prust? Or that she was secretly a Shugakain grand master?”

Luna smiled as she recalled a whimsical evening laughing with her sister, nodding as she went.

“Or she was bitten by a dyslexic werepony, and bestowed with fantastic abilities during the normal daytime.”

“Sent to us as a filly from a distant dying planet, growing up on Equestria with powers and abilities far beyond those of normal ponies.”

“She might be the descendant of pirates, living with a curse from vengeful seaponies.”

“Or, she could be the secret lovechild of Discord, hidden away in stone until discovered and freed by a lonely rock-farming family...”

“Twas no wonder that Twilight was thwarted in her investigation over the source of Pinkie’s peculiar eccentricities.” Luna laughed, but it died half-chuckle at the look of consternation writ large on Celestia’s face.

“Now imagine the worst of those possibilities, with Alicorn powers.”
.
.
.
.
“… pass me a box, Tia.”

It was several hours later that two identical, dust-covered princess ponies teleported themselves back to the throne room of the palace, with a decidedly dejected air about them. This was soon smothered in confusion as they realised the entire place appeared to be under siege: guards were scrambling in full combat equipment, palace staff were securing everything that wasn’t tied down, and the darkness of the night outside the throne room’s ornamental windows was tinged with the glow of Shining Armor’s massive castle-covering energy shield. Air raid sirens could be heard out over Canterlot itself. Unicorns on battlements were using their horns to cast piercing spotlights into the night air in hopes of detecting any enemy attack.

All activity in the great hall ground quickly to a stop at the appearance of the princesses. A small green pony picked her jaw up off the ground and dashed over to them. “LUNA! You’re back!” she shouted in clear relief, which was echoed by a resounding cheer from the others.

The smaller of the two dusty deities dragged her eyes away from the scene and addressed her assistant. “Sugar Heart, forgive my ancient prench, but what the sorrel hells is going on?”

“Both you and Princess Celestia vanished after yelling about emergency protocols and hadn’t been seen since so the guards got the Captain and put everypony on high alert and when the sun went down an hour late the entire city started panicking and the castle was put in lockdown and nopony knows if we’re under attack or no---“ Sugar Heart raised her eyes over the royal hoof now blocking her mouth.

“And you thought nopony would notice when we forgot to lower the sun and raise the moon.” Luna chided her elder.

Celestia stamped in frustration. “We had other things on our minds!”

“Well, now we needst deal with…” Luna waved a front hoof around the room theatrically, “with all of this! On top of everything else.” Sugar Heart took the opportunity afforded by the removal of said hoof to scrunch up her face and attempt to wipe a thick coating of dust off of her tongue.

Guard Captain Shining Armor chose that moment to gallop into the throne room, clearly having been alerted by his subordinates that his Commanders-in-Chief had returned. He dropped into an impeccable three-point bow at their hooves and rose again almost instantly, ready for orders. “Your Majesties!”

Celestia gracefully moved to stand at the foot of her throne. “You may stand down, Captain. The situation is not quite as dire as we may have… accidently, led you to believe.” She shot her sister a quick glance. “We think.”

Luna rolled her eyes.

Shining looked from one regent to the other, nodded, then turned and stared out the window, his horn glowing brightly as he dispelled the huge bubble around the castle and cancelled the air raid alert. Confused guards around the city breathed a huge sigh of relief and families cautiously poked their heads out of basements and shelters and began making their way back to their homes. Even from the castle, the princesses could sense the growing tide of murmuring and questioning.

Guardsponies started reporting back to Shining Armor as the state of alert was dropped. One aide looked up from a rather impressive checklist and brought it to his captain’s attention. “Sir, what about the elements?”

Celestia immediately stiffened. “What about the elements, Captain?”

“After the changeling incident your majesties, it’s been established protocol to secure the elements immediately in the event of a national emergency. When we didn’t hear from you, we sent out an armed escort for the element bearers. They… ahhh…” he noticed the wild looks passing between the two royal pony sisters, “… they should be arriving by pagasus-drawn chariot any minute now.”

Somehow, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the sisters looked at that moment to be less than the physical embodiments of the sun and moon, and rather more like two embarrassed fillies caught playing dressup in their mother’s underwear drawer.

“Oh, Ponyfeathers.” They mouthed in unison.

Chapter 4

The throne room in Canterlot Castle is barred to visitors tonight; the large double doors locked and barred with a double guard outside to reinforce the matter. The fact that Night Court rarely gets any petitioners means the guards are reduced to playing “I spy with my little eye”, but they’re professionals, so they do it very, very quietly and their lips barely move, something which tends to freak out the janitorial night staff. After the evening the nation has already had however, nopony can blame the occasional freak out.

Inside the throne room, the princesses of the day and night hold council with Princess Cadance, her husband and captain of the royal guard Shining Armor, and six residents of Ponyville. It’s not going terribly well. They’d forgone traditional seating arrangements and were sitting or standing or resting on cushions artfully placed in a loose circle in the middle of the throne room, but the informal setting couldn’t eliminate all of the tension in the room. The fact that one of those six ponies has spontaneously ascended to princess-hood might have a teeeensy bit to do with that.

“…I’m sorry Twilight, but I simply don’t have an answer for why this has happened, just yet.”

If Twilight heard her mentor’s soothing tones, she didn’t show it. She was wearing a rut into an ancient ornamental rug as she paced around and around Pinkie Pie. “Maybe I could get the guard to bring my laboratory equipment here from my library? I should have run tests before we came! I could have compared them to the baseline readings I took when I was trying to figure out her Pinkie sense!”

“hahaha! That stuff tickled! All those wires and sparks and squiggly lines were funny!”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at Pinkie but was quickly distracted by the party princess’s ruffling of her outrageously shock-pink feathers. Her eye twitched slightly in response. Luna sighed, and took control once more. It was her night court, after all. “The most we can determine is that the spectacular release of magic witnessed earlier was directly related to Pinkie’s rebirth as an Alicorn.”

Celestia nodded proudly. Mostly at Luna’s pronouncement avoiding any falling into archaic speech patterns, now that her earlier panic had worn off. “The magical disturbance does not appear to have had any lasting effects beyond Pinkie Pie.”

Shining leaned forward, adding, “Reports from guard units in the major cities such as Fillydelphia and Manehatten indicate that most ponies have settled down for the night, now that the excitement has passed.”

“But that still doesn’t answer, why?” Twilight argued again. “Why has she turned into an Alicorn? What could possibly do that to a.. a pony?” She almost said ‘normal pony’, but normal never seemed to apply to Pinkie, so best to leave that out of the equation.

“I really could not tell you, Twilight. Luna, Cadence and I were all born this way. I’ve never seen a mortal pony make this kind of transcension before.”

Luna tapped her hoof to her cheek as she thought. “Well… is it possible that this transformation could be due to the influence of the elements of harmony?”

Celestia considered the proposition for a moment. “They’re a powerful magical talisman to be certain, but remember, the elements use a precise thautological matrix to enhance the power of the magic of friendship generated by the bearers , before unleashing it via an amplified wave delivery mechanism on external targets.“

Rarity and Fluttershy passed a quick blank look and shrugged shoulders between themselves, but Applejack beat them to the question. “Say what?”

“Friendship Rainbow cannon?” Twilight clarified flatly. She shook her head slightly at all the “Oh!”s of comprehension around her.

“More like a rail gun, with all that swirly magic going SWOOOSH!” Pinkie zoomed a hoof out at an imaginary distant target, following it up with a loud “KaBOOOM!”

“ANYway, as the princess said, it’s only supposed to affect external targets, not us as the bearers. Has anything like this happened to previous bearers?”

“Celestia and I used the elements against Discord, with no ill effect afterwards beyond a certain weariness.” Luna offered.

“And I used them alone when I sealed... well, you know.” Celestia finished lamely. “I was exhausted afterwards and it took weeks to replenish my magical reserves.”

“So would it be safe to say that the elements use the bearers as, like, fuel for the process?” Cadence queried. “If that was the case, it’s a one way magical reaction and not likely to be the cause of Pinkie’s evolution.”

“I do tend to feel tired after using the elements.” Twilight admitted.

“Do you? That’s weird! I feel revved up and ready to take on the world after usin’ em!” Rainbow Dash grinned. “Which is funny, because we usually just have taken on the world and won after hitting ‘em with the friendship cannon!”

Fluttershy and Rarity giggled quietly in agreement, while Pinkie looked at Twilight sympathetically. “You never told us, Twilight! If you had, we could have thrown a ‘pick-you-up Pinkie Party’ special each time we use the elements, so you feel better afterwards!”

Applejack pushed her hat back and looked at her purple friend curiously. “You gotta admit that’s kind of weird, Twi. Why should you be affected differently from th’ rest of us?”

Rainbow Dash lightly drifted over her friends heads and playfully tagged the purple pony on the shoulder. “Yeah, that kind of stuff normally happens to Twilight first." She stuck her tongue out at Twilight's scowl. "What? It’s true! Anything weird happens with magic, there you are!“

Celestia joined the giggling. “Very true, my faithful student.” The Princess of the day draped a graceful wing over Twilight, stifling her stammering objections. “The most powerful unicorn seen in centuries, attuned to the element of magic itself… if the elements were responsible, shouldn’t it have affected you first?”

Luna smiled in agreement. “Very well. We are not getting very far tonight, and you all look quite tired after the day’s events. Shall we call it a night?” Twilight looked ready to push forward, but Luna held up a hoof to stop her immediately. “I pledge to you fair Twilight, we will place all our resources towards investigating any other possibilities. We shall not leave this unresolved.”

Celestia nudged the nonplussed unicorn out from under her wing. “And tomorrow, you and I shall begin Pinkie Pie’s magical education.”

The next morning Twilight was up early, rummaging through her old desk in her old tower bedroom that was permanently reserved for whenever she visited Canterlot. Spike groaned and tried to roll over in his old basket, but it was plenty evident that he’d outgrown it in the year or two they’d been living in Ponyville. He grumbled and stretched and put on a great show of popping his joints back into place, but Twilight wasn’t buying it.

“You came up here early last night while the rest of us had our meeting with the princesses, you should have had plenty of rest on the bed! It’s not my fault you stayed up too late reading comic books!”

“But they were my back issues, Twi! I haven’t read these since we moved! I just had to read them again!”

Twilight muttered something the small dragon could barely make out as “rot your brain!” before she suddenly straightened up and brandished her discovery proudly in her telekinetic grip: “Aha! Checklists!”

The young dragon could only groan.

“Look alive mister, I've got twenty minutes to get these lists finalised and then we’re meeting the others for breakfast!”

There are several dining rooms in Canterlot Castle. There is the large extravagant hall used for entertaining dignitaries and foreign heads of state. There’s the long barracks mess hall for the guards. There’s a smaller, less formal dining room usually frequented by the staff and servants of the castle. And there’s a much smaller, more private room just off the main kitchen where Celestia and Luna usually take their meals, before launching into the business of running the kingdom.

Out of respect for Chef Ram Sea*, Celestia and Luna have decided against using this last room, at least for the time being. The reason being that it was entirely too close to the kitchen, so the Diarchs made the pre-emptive decision to remove a too-big-by-far temptation for Pinkie Pie to invade the cook’s domain. So for breakfast this fine new day, the princesses and the elements of harmony have commandeered a corner of the staff dining room.

Pinkie of course thought this was a marvellous idea, and went around introducing herself to all of the staff present. “It was my job to make every pony in Ponyville happy and welcome! Sure, Canterlot’s a lot bigger than Ponyville, but I’m a princess now so I’ll just have to lift my game! And once I’ve met everypony, I’ll have to throw them a PARTY! A special super-duper inaugural ‘Pinkie’s met everypony in Canterlot’ party!”

Up at the main table, Rarity looked over at Twilight in horror. “Can she even do that? A city this size, there’ll be ponies coming and going all the time!”

Twilight turned to Celestia questioningly. “I suppose if she learnt to teleport?”

“Then NOpony will be safe!” Dash interrupted. “Next Nightmare Night, we’re working together! It’s gonna be AWESOME! Mwuhhh-hahahahaaa!”

Applejack buried her face in her bowl. “We’re doomed.”

“Agreed.” Celestia closed her eyes in commiseration, although there was a small hint of a smile at the thought.

Twilight shook her head and went back to her checklists. “Pinkie will have to learn about her responsibilities as a princess, plus basic magical instruction, and find out what her princess domain is going to be. “ The studious little mage looked up at her mentor. “I don’t think it could be parties, there’s no way the economy and the ecosystem alike could sustain a permanent pinkie-sized party. So what could it be?“

Celestia and Luna looked at each other and shrugged as Pinkie finished her rounds of the dining room and rejoined her friends. All of a sudden, the pink pony jittered to a stop in the middle of the room, causing Luna to raise an eyebrow. “Art thou… are you alright, Pinkie?”

“Twitchy twitch!” exclaimed Pinkie.

“Eep!” Fluttershy sank under the table, her eyes just visible at table height as she scanned the ceiling and room around them.

The night princess looked around as well, trying but failing to grasp the significance. “Twitchy?”

“Twitch.” Twilight urgently reminded Luna. “Friendship Report number fifteen; when Pinkie gets her twitches, something’s about to happen!”

“Buzzy horn! Shaky feathers! This is just like last time, only I didn’t have a horn or feathers so I didn’t know where the feeling was coming from!” Pinkie explained to general looks of confusion.

“Now hold on there a second sugarcube! What do you mean, just like last---“ Applejack didn’t get to finish her question. Her eyes widened as every hair in the fur in her coat stood on end. Every pony in the room stiffened as the pressure in the air dropped, and then froze into absolute stillness for an infintessimally small moment in time that seemed to stretch out forever. Celestia and Luna’s eyes locked in urgent realisation, but before they could say anything…

The room exploded.

It was ground zero in an arcane eruption, an immense invisible blast that only those with the magical eyes to see could witness as a technicolour tidal wave that somehow didn’t touch the furniture, but instead sent earth ponies bouncing off walls, pegasi off the ceiling and turned unicorns into mobile fireworks factories. Rarity glowed like a 20-carat diamond. Shining Armor was buried under an avalanche of miniature force field bubbles, resembling being dunked in a bubble bath. Fluttershy and Rainbow dash looked like they were pulling tornado duty upside down and in reverse. Twilight Sparkle unwillingly screamed and unleashed a massive beam of pure energy straight through the ceiling, bright as a golden beacon and visible above Canterlot for miles around.

As for the alicorns: Luna dug her hooves into the stonework to resist being pushed around by the mystical blastwave, Celestia struggled to keep herself upright, Cadance grabbed Spike and upended a table for cover, and Pinkie raised her forelegs and yelled “WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” as if she was being thrown around in a magical waterslide instead of spinning out the dining room doors on her rump.

Gradually, the backwash from the giant rippling magical explosion subsided, and everything returned to normal. Ponies began picking themselves up from where they’d come to rest, strewn around the dining room. Celestia tried picking her way through the living debris to the woozy Twilight, as Luna took stock of the situation. Remembering not to use the full Canterlot Voice in an enclosed space, she raised her voice enough to be heard over the moans and panicked questioning. “Is everypony all right?”

A couple of servants near the doors gasped and pointed. There was one pony who hadn’t been knocked around, who stood stock still in the middle of the room, staring in wonder up the length of her new horn at her new wings.

Applejack gulped. “Oh, ponyfeathers.”

Author's Note

*Another shout-out to Dawnscroll’s story “A Slice of Life” (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/9135/A-Slice-of-Life) . If Head Chef Ram Sea isn’t permanently infused into everpony’s head-canon, you need a blast from the orbital harmony laser. Just sayin’.

Annnnd a huge "Sorry!" for ignoring this for over a year. It was never a serious project but enough folk thought it was decent enough to add it to their follow lists, that I should have appreciated their enthusiasm for my little piece of fluff more than I did, and put some effort into giving them a complete story. At the very least.

I'm going to try to wrap it up in another two chapters. For those who keep track of these things, this is clearly an alternate universe, branching off from the main MLP show sometime just before Fluttershy's reforming Discord and Twilight's ascension.

Because clearly, Twilight is NOT an alicorn. It says so in the title! But the Princess roster continues to grow...