The sky darkened to a deep, rich red, like wine. Cosmic energy crackled across Ponyville, and bolts of lightning carved through the town, slashing furrows into lawns and blasting holes in homes. Pandemonium reigned as townsponies screamed, flocking to predesignated shelters to hold their loved ones close and wait for the end.
Octavia Melody watched the chaos unfold from the patio table outside Tea-Totaler, and sipped placidly from her cup of darjeeling.
"Octy!" Vinyl Scratch raced to the table and skidded to a stop, throwing her forelegs around her roommate. Her voice was thick, and her face tear-stained, with thin, dark lines trailing down from behind her sunglasses. "Thank Celestia I found you. We need to go. Right now!"
"Must we?" Octavia murmured. "Why?"
Vinyl's jaw dropped. "Why? Why?!"
She grabbed Octavia's face between her hooves and wrenched it toward the sky, where a head the size of a meteorite plunged toward Ponyville, laughing maniacally. Strands of dark-streaked blue hair fluttered behind it, and tears of madness, caught in its own gravitic pull, orbited its cyan face.
"Calamity Sonata Dusk is why, Octy! We need to get to a shelter and—"
"And what?" Octavia pulled her face free, and reached for her teacup again.
Vinyl flung her forelegs open incredulously. "And survive! I mean, hopefully!"
From Twilight's castle, two spheres of blue and yellow interposed themselves in Calamity Sonata's path. A circle written with arcane symbols stopped the head in midair. Calamity Sonata screamed.
"Sorry," Octavia sighed, "but I don't really see a point. Don't let that stop you from going, though."
Vinyl lifted her shades and narrowed her eyes at Octavia. "You off your meds again, Octy?"
"You can stuff your insinuations; I'll have you know I've been keeping up just fine, thank you very much." She circled the rim of her teacup with a well-pedi'd hoof, flashes of light catching in the surface of her drink. "I've just been thinking about things, is all, and I've concluded that there's no point in getting worked up whenever things like this happen."
"When do things like this ever happen?!" Vinyl jerked her hoof at Calamity Sonata. "This is a little bit out of the ordinary, Octy! Just a smidge!"
Octavia sighed. "Yes. So was Nightmare Moon plunging Equestria into eternal darkness. And Discord turning the main road into a soapy slip-'n-slide. Tirek eating everypony's magic. Parasprites eating everypony's houses. That time everypony fell unaccountably in love with a rag doll. Cerberus. And I seem to recall some brouhaha about a bugbear once—"
"Nopony cared about the bugbear, Octy!"
"Hmm, yes, well." Octavia shrugged and sipped her tea. "Regardless, my point stands."
Five more points of light, pink and orange, yellow, blue, and white, joined the first two; the circle grew wider, glowed brighter. Fire gnashed inside Calamity Sonata's mouth, and tongues of liquid fire, and also profanities, lashed against the lights holding her back.
Vinyl watched anxiously, her hooves dancing fretfully against the ground. "Octy, this is stupid; we gotta get out of the open, now!"
"My dearest Vinyl, you're missing my point entirely," Octavia said as she spooned a tiny lump of sugar into her tea. "This is just another crest in the ongoing tides of madness which sweep over our fair burg every now and again. It's like clockwork. Some sort of crisis occurs, the town goes mad, and the problem is resolved promptly and neatly, rendering all that panic and all that terror moot. So I just figure..."
A lance of pink and purple shot from the castle, pierced the circle, and collided with Calamity Sonata's upper lip, knocking teeth from her mouth and sending them caroming in all directions.
"...why get worked up over it, mm?"
Calamity Sonata wailed as she tumbled, end over end, high into the heavens, vowing enmity everlasting. Her teeth hammered the ground like hailstones, adding to the palpable destruction she'd left in her wake. Yet so, too, did the storms and winds she'd brought with her ebb and vanish. The lights which struck her down faded, and lowered to the earth.
Vinyl doffed her sunglasses, a smile breaking across her face.
"They did it," she whispered. "I can't believe they actually did it!"
"I can." Octavia finished the rest of her tea. "I told you; it happens all the time. Once, maybe twice, a year. It's usually over and done with by lunch, and we all get back to our lives like nothing happened."
"What are you saying?" Vinyl glared at Octavia. "That we should just ignore stuff like this when it happens? Hope it goes away?"
"I said nothing about hope." Octavia's posh tones became lecturing, and faintly patronizing. "Live your life as you would otherwise, with the certainty that it will go away. But ignore it, yes, by all means, rather than running about like chickens with your heads—"
A fragment of a tooth crashed sideways onto Octavia from above, crushing the table and shattering her cup of tea. Vinyl leaped backward just before its crown, encrusted with sauce and well-chewed tortilla matter, could come down over her head.
Vinyl dropped to her knees – Octavia's head was still visible underneath the crown, her face contorted with pain. "Octy! You okay?"
"...Yes," Octavia lied. "All the same, I wouldn't say no to a hospital."
Vinyl levitated the tooth high enough to pull Octavia free. Looping her foreleg around her neck, she raised Octavia to her hooves, and began the trip to the hospital. Around them, townsponies emerged from their shelters, into the bright light of day.
"Gosh," said Vinyl. "If only there were some way we could have avoided this."
"...Just shut up and get me to a morphine drip."
Author's Note
Appearances to the contrary, this story has nothing to do with either Friendship is Witchcraft or Final Fantasy VII.
Sorry for misleading you.
