Stumble and Save the World

"I miss you, I miss you so faaar," A sharply dressed mare sang in tune to a the blaring of the guitar and drums behind her, "And the collision of your kiss that made it so haaard!"

Paper Pen, Rock Note, and Canvas Brush sat in metal seats high up within the stadium, they weren't great but considering that even these nosebleed seats cost like four hundred bits each, the trio were more than happy to even be there. In a rare turn of events Pen and Note had even managed to show up sober, both stallions loving 'My Alchemical Friendship' enough to actually want to remember the show afterwards.

"Way down, way down-" Vampyre Nightsong, the suited bat pony mare on stage, began the ending verse of the song before being cut off by a sudden and eerie interruption. Every single light in the stadium had gone dark alongside the band's equipment suddenly silencing; a power outage had occurred.

At first nopony spoke a word, though the combined chattering of some two thousand ponies filled the pitch black room. Note took his lighter from his bandana, striking it and holding the light in his wing.

"What the buck!" Pen semi-quietly emo-raged, "I finally get to see 'MAF' live and the power goes? I've never seen the power go out at a concert!"

"To be fair, this is only like your third concert ever," Canvas spoke, "But yeah, this is weird, usually venues as big as this have systems and magic in place to stop outages."

"Maybe it's theatrical?" Note suggested, "Y'know, like when Colty Coltborn pretended to bite the head off a bat on stage."

"Didn't that start a riot?" Asked Canvas, all three ponies paused for a moment, "Should we leave?"

"Nah, they'll get this fixed. Besides, a riot might be fun!" Note half-jokingly suggested.

"Easy for you to say, you have wings, I'll just get trampled to death!" Pen explained.

"Eh, teleport out of it." Canvas suggested.

"That's more the type of spell for somepony who doesn't use his magical encyclopedia as a stepping stool… I'm gonna hang just outside the door, if I hear music I'll come back." Pen began to get up from his seat before a bright red light suddenly lit up the stadium. At first he'd thought the power had come back, but upon looking back that dream was shattered.

An alicorn stallion hovered in the middle of the stadium for all to see, his coat a shade of black and his hair a mess of red streaks on a similarly black base. His wings were not the normal pair associated with alicorns, instead he possessed two batlike wings which scaled as a normal alicorn's wings should. The red light came from not only an aura of crimson magic enveloping his horn, but from the glow of his fiery eyes.

"Ponies of Manehattan!" He began, "I am Prince Dark Blade, or, as you may soon call me, your master!"

In any other situation Pen would have laughed his flank off at how ridiculous this pony looked, he'd looked back on his own decision to dye a red streak in his hair as a colt with regret, but this? This was just obsenely dumb. However, as stupid as this stallion looked, he was still an alicorn… somehow. When a being of that much power interrupted a public event to monologue it never meant anything good.

Note, however, seemed unintimidated as he proceeded to laugh loud enough for the suddenly interrupting villain to hear.

"What's so funny?!" Dark Blade asked with anger, shooting a gaze in Note's direction.

"You look like somepony bled on an ashtray, seriously, it's like a clown going through an emo phase!" Note managed to say between laughing, "C'mon, dude, what are you doing crashing a My Alchemical Friendship concert looking like that?"

"Everypony thought it was terrifying when Nightmare Moon did it!" The enraged alicorn defended.

"To be fair, we all knew her motivation." Canvas explained, "You? You might just be a levitating unicorn with bad fake wings!"

"They are not fake," Dark Blade got offended, "I'm literally flying with them!"

"You're some rich colt then, used mommy's money to get fancy animatronics." Canvas suggested.

"Listen here!" Dark Blade shouted, flying down towards the trio, growling in Canvas' face as he landed with a loud stomp, "I am an honest to Celes- erm, Nightmare Moon alicorn!"

"Ha!" Canvas laughed in the stallions face, "You almost said Celestia! Let me guess, you're new to being evil?"

"I'm super evil!" The stallion stomped in offense. The wannabe tyrant rose his hoof as if to strike, threatening the mare.
"Hey, buck off from my marefriend!" Note shouted, charging at Dark Blade. Note managed to swing his hoof and land a punch on his cheek, causing him to recoil.

"Insolent!" Dark Blade hissed at Note. His horn again lit up with an aura of crimson, the light growing until finally bursting forth in a beam striking the stallion. The pegasus was grounded, but still conscious. "My followers will take care of you, I've already taken Manehattan, you won't leave this city alive!"

"And when I do?" Note challenged, slowly rising his head from the ground.

"Should you survive? Unikely, but in that case I suppose you could deliver your heads to Canterlot Castle, they'll make good decor!"

And with that, Dark Blade dissipated into a puff of smoke. The lights came back to life and ponies rushed from the stadium in a panic, cries of fear escaping en masse.

Canvas rushed to Note's side, Pen leering at his injured best friend from behind.

"Note, are you okay?!" She frantically asked, tears of nerve on her eyes.

"I'm fine!" Note huffed, standing up. Contrasting everyone else, he held an intense anger rather than desperate fear. Even still, he held his marefriend close to comfort her.

"The one day I don't have cider on me…" Pen mumbled, still shocked. Maybe the joke was in poor taste, but it wasn't like comedy was the unicorn's only poor coping mechanism, "So, what do we do now?"

"Well, he said he'd be in Canterlot, so I'm going to finish this!" Note exclaimed, "I don't lose fights, I end them!"

"That's insane!" Pen pointed out, "He just floored you with a thought and you want to go and hit him in the face again?"

"Correction, I'm planning to dropkick him this time, then I'm gonna smash a guitar on his throat!" Note was clearly dead set on his revenge, "You guys don't have to come, this is between me and him…"

"Buck that noise!" Canvas interjected, "He threatened me and hurt my special somepony, I want blood!"

"Well, if all my friends are doing it!" Pen joined in.