It was such a wonderful day in Ponyville. Just so so wonderful. Well, that is if you excuse all the horrors that occur when the mane six aren’t in town.
Bugbear bites, Changeling chaos, Cockatrice complaints, Parasprite plagues, Timberwolf troubles, and Ursa Major mauling. These were all happening simultaneously, in the otherwise wonderfully quiet little town.
Meanwhile the main characters (and Spike) were just about to exit the Crystal Empire train, which was unsurprisingly headed towards the Crystal Empire. Unlike the last time that the team (also Spike) arrived, there was no blizzard or evil-crystal-smoke-king waiting to kill them. So that was nice.
It was just unfortunate that they were going to arrive at the Crystal Empire exactly five minutes later than expected. Those extra five minutes of the journey had caused complete disarray amongst Equestria’s mightiest heroes (Spike too).
Pinkie Pie was on a snack fuelled sugar rush, due to her extra candy consumption in the last five minutes. She was telling anypony who would listen, and many who rather wouldn't, her entire life story.
Applejack was threatening to sue nopony in specific over the time she was wasting waiting on ‘this here train’. She reasoned, as some of the keen eared travellers that were very near her could tell you, that she should be spending her time working at Sweet Apple Acres. That work would prevent her most beloved farm, from becoming a desolate wasteland. Just like it nearly had in the previous episode.
Rarity was literally talking about ‘getting your beauty sleep’. She had woken up from her own beauty sleep by Pinkie and AJ’s chattering. Now this was just terrible.
The terrors of this reality did not stop there, as within the debatably miss-titled ‘interesting pony’ car of the train, Twilight Sparkle was hurriedly trying to stop time again! She wanted to avoid the immense embarrassment of being tardy, and tardy for an audience with her favourite princess no less. Thus she was looking through a book (the very same book that had helped turn her into an Alicorn in the first place) for a timely solution.
Fluttershy was crying loudly over the fact that a stupid bug had splattered against the intelligent window and was fighting for its little life.
Rainbow Dash was acting like a true true friend by trying to comfort and reason with both of them, at the same time. But they were far apart in the car so Dash had to fly from one to the other when it was time for her to help, and it was always time for her to help.
Spike was there, errrr, somewhere? Probably stored away with the luggage, trying hard not to start a fire by breathing too hard or something.
Eventually, or five minutes later depending on whether you're Spike or not, the train arrived at the station. So everypony could just calm down. However Twilight Sparkle was quick to point out that it would also be correct, due to relativity, to say that the station had arrived at the train. Applejack, being the dependable one was equally quick to call her a 'Nerd'.
Spike was relieved once he leaned that all of his pony friends' character traits and quirks had been thoroughly explained in the last minutes of the train ride. At least that was over and done with, for all the new viewers of the movie they were in.
Ah yes the movie, Spike smiled to himself at the thought. It had only taken 3 seasons and it was really happening! Hopefully this meant he would get his own character arc. Very exciting. Then he would finally achieve respect from fans and friends alike, and become the one true go-
Wait, what was that?
They were doing character introductions again?
Without him! He wouldn’t stand for this, so he scurried over to them on all fours like a dog (ooooooh foreshadowing!!) towards them.
“Hooweee, you’re very first princess summit, you must be over the moon Twilight,” Applejack stated her honest assumption.
“I am excited but to be honest I’m a little nervous as well,” Twilight explained magically through the power of a pony talking.
“You’re nervouscited!! It’s like you want to jump up and down and yell 'yay me!' But you also want to curl into a teeny tiny ball and hide at the same time. We’ve all been there,” Pinkie laughed.
“I’m there almost every day,” Fluttershy kindly added her vital input to the conversation.
“You've got no reason to fret Twilight everything's gonna be just—”
“TWILIGHT!” With a generous dose of decibels Rarity shrieked; then continued at a more appropriate volume, “Oh pardon me darling, but I just realised you're not wearing your crown. You haven't left it back in Ponyville have you?”
“It's in my bag. You all brought along your own elements right?”
There was a brief silence as her friends who were rather more nervous, than nervouscited as they glanced at each other.
After the momentary hesitation Fluttershy stepped forward. “Well maybe we'll only need the crown to defeat whatever evil we're forced to confront, via a ridiculous plot contrivance,” She suggested hopefully.
“You said it Shy!” Rainbow Dash cheered, her loyalty to her friend shining brightly. ”We have such an awesome track record when it comes to defeating evil that I bet pretty soon we won’t ever need the elements ever again.”
Twilight remained initially unconvinced. But then again, she mused, when had Rainbow ever been anything other than one hundred percent right about absolutely anything. But Twilight was more than a statistician, so that knowledge didn’t stop her from looking towards her non-owl assistant for reassurance.
Twilight saw him patting a bag of hers. She counted the pats. One. Two. Three. Yup that was their secret code of friendship for friendship emergencies. Three pats meant 'trust your friends and all will be well'. Twilight felt a bit silly for needing to be reminded to have faith in the five (six if you include Spike which she certainly didn’t) that had been through so much with her.
It was their vibrant history together that had strengthened the bonds of friendship. Twilight was sure it would be the end of any evil that the lot of them came across this time, and the next, and the next after that. Her life might be one fight after another but at least she had her completely irreplaceable adult friends, who were certainly not bickering teenagers, to rely on at all times (or a mercifully quiet baby dragon).
“You’re late,” Celestia spoke, looking at her tardy student and the other current bearers of the elements of harmony (Spike kind of tried to use an element once, does that count?). “Five whole minutes late; time doesn’t grow on trees you know, we have to mine that shit.”
“Erm, what?” Twilight was quick to fail to articulate her complete bewilderment, at the multitude of things that confused her from her former mentor’s brief chiding.
The sun princess let out a ridiculously long sigh. How had her most faithful student not delved into the restricted sections of the libraries, then learnt of the secret workings of this world, and really just got on Celestia's level for once? Why it seemed like only yestermoon that her previous former student had started reading books not meant for her. Hmm, now if those two ponies were ever to meet that would solve everything, right?.
Finally done sighing, Celestia turned to yawning. Many would expect Celestia to know the exact time at any point in her magically brought about day. But as with many things, the knowledge of the many underweights the knowledge of the few. So Celestia just guessed the time to be exactly bed time, therefore she loudly declared, “BED TIIIIME!!” in her royal Canterlot voice.
Twilight was alone in the crystal bedroom she had for the night. She looked around, but in every reflection she saw, that familiar purple pony with two very unfamiliar appendages at her side. She decided, in an effort to embrace them, to give her wings a hug.
Let's see now, Twilight thought, if I twist round like this. No. If I go upside down. No. If I stand on my hind legs. Yes.
The newest alicorn had done it, she was at her maximum height with her wings crossed around her belly and her forelegs overlapping them. She considered that as she had wrapped her wings around herself before ‘hugging’ them, that it was like they were hugging her hugging them. Like a big group hug of two. Instead of a big group hug with her five friends.
On a completely unfriendship related note Spike walked in. “I call dibs on the world’s smallest crystal bed!” He said with childlike enthusiasm.
“No, you sleep on the floor. Below me, where you rightfully belong.”
Spike looked hurt for some reason, like a kicked canine. His sad puppy dog eyes cast to the ground as he began to sleep on the floor, not unlike a guard dog.
Author's Note
I've been asked to leave this area where text can go, 'blank'. However I happened to respond with "Yeah, well... yo moma's blank!".
And as I remember he cried.
"Sorry Ma'am, but I'm only anly allowed to let element of harmony bearers pass beyond this point of the crystal castle." A pony spoke. The pony sounded like a pony and looked and acted like one to. The other was of two worlds. Little did speaky pony know this was the begining paragraph of chapter 2 of a fanfiction on a website being written by a *********************************.
"You know," a patient voice responded with a heightened performance of nonchalance, "I bet I could improve upon your technology there. Hmmm. What is that, an 'element of harmony bearer detector 600'? Why, I could upgrade it's effectiveness for you by quite a lot." An arrogant pause of a villain. "Perhaps even tenfold! Yes tenfold my little pony!! Tenfold!!!"
"Whoa, really? Just yesterday I had a dream where someone used the word tenfold. It was mid ya know?"
The mare smiled. Oh she knew, yes she knew that her foot. No, her hoof was in the door now. "It would just be oh so simple, and for someone on my talents and position to not help. But alas, you probably have all kind of regulations against a meer civilian inventor modifying your quaint little technology thing. A small almost inaudible but very visible sign escaped the mare. "So I should just be on my way, I guess and good day my pony for I shall be adhering to all law today and very regulation met with a smile."
"No regulations actually. The last guy in charge, now he was super big on regulations. But the new management system. Well they mostly just eat stuff, I think." The pony looked around now rather concerned,. It was as if management would suddenly eat them both. An odd creature this one. Or perhaps it had always been an odd world.
"Oh my," the mare said, trying to sound appropriately shocked at the news.
"Yeah so if you wanna change anything, tech or non-tech, that's fine. Great even. Please change a bling, make it Chang-a-ling!"
The mare didn't need to listen to what was probably more nonsense. They always went into nonsense after a while. Annoying. But there was a brilliant distraction afoot. She took ahold of the primitive detector, while assessing it's design she extended her magical aura to the nearby crystal walls. She found herself quickly engrossed in her work. She needed to be fast, yet precise with these materials.
It was well known, that every crystal in Equestria and beyond was made of salt. Yummy yummy, in my tummy, salt. What was much less well know, was that in the last two decades, leading scientists made a shocking discovery. There were at least six different kinds of salt!
The mare, who was creating a horrible light show with her green coloured magic, knew far far more than those 'leading scientists'. She knew that there are at least seven different kinds of salt.
With this knowledge she could crumble the very foundations of the planet. But why should she be so dramatic. After all she was a scholar of sorts, not a destroyer of salts.
The other pony seemed to not care for the distinction between the scholar and destroyer. Watching a wall tuned to tech activated a peer pressure response. So trying to coping the process just made sense.
"Yeah, forget the walls!"
"Please," the mare insisted harshly, "could you keep it down?"
The other pony was lost in a world of new potential, never before had the idea of hitting a wall come to mind. Right now though, that was the only though in the only tiny brain present.
Long after the 'element of harmony bearer detector 600' had been successful updated, the other pony would continue wall destroying. And enjoying it too. Regardless the small device would now acknowledge one very specific, non-element bearer, as an element bearer.
More importantly nopony knew the name (and threat level) of the mare now walking towards her goal.
She of course didn't need the device in this exact moment. Now that the pony who had been blocking her path, had found a much less 'blocking her path' way of being annoying. She kept the tool on her person regardless. To someone like herself the device could be of amazing use in the future.
And what a future it was looking to be. If the other ponies in this crystal castle, were anything like the one she had just got passed, then she'd won already. She almost felt like letting her guard down a little.
Almost.
A large brick flew across the hallway. Missing the mare entirely by several meters in each spacial dimension.
The mare turned fast to see nothing but shadows.
"Fuck!" A confident voice swore for some reason. Maybe they had lost a large brick recently? The mare trotted back the way she had come. Trying to find the mysterious cussing creature.
"Shitty shit-shit!" The voice continued.
"Ahem," the mare said to the sweary someone, "this is a swear free zone, so I'm going to politely ask you to-"
"To continue swearing right? Because it's FREE to swear here, as you just said." There was a brief pause then, "Gosh I'm so smart."
"You're deluded. Why, if you think you can sneak up on a element of harmony with that potty mouth, then you're dumber than you sound." The mare hoped that the profanity person that the voice belonged to couldn't read minds. She actually thought, the voice sounded rather smart, after all the mare knew smart when she heard it.
"Potty mouth? Just how old are you?"
"I'm er... 68. And you?"
"Oh, my dear pony. I'm so old, why I've lost count. Over 400, I suppose."
The mare knew of only two ponies, the royal pony sisters, who could be over 400 years old. "W- who are you?"
"My name is Sunset Shimmer, and this is my large brick." The brick from earlier zoomed back across the hallway. "And now that I've gracefully answered your question, your going to tell me everything about this newest alicorn."
The mare saw another mare step out from the shadows. She was like a campfire if it was less camp. A bonfire without the bon. The big star in the sky when obstructed by the earth. But perhaps most strikingly of all she carried a large brick in a magical green aura. An aura not unlike the mare's own green hued aura. It was quite the intimidating look.
"Mommy?" The intimidated mare whimpered.
"No, not mommy. I'm just your absolute greatest fear. And from here on this large brick is your second greatest fear, got it?"
The mare stared. Planned of vengeance completely forgotten. Now she was far more than just scared for her safety and future at this point. She had no real choice. She nodded, "Okay-"
"Hey girls you'll never believe it, but behind that wall back there, was, well it was another wall! Did we just build a bunch of walls one day or what? Like, why do that huh? Hey nice brick, looks a little large though. I wouldn't bother building anything wall-like with it, I'm feeling mighty trail blazing with my new anti-walls stance."
The pony from meer minutes ago had intruded their private conversation.
"Go away." Commanded Sunset Shimmer.
The pony left.
"Now if no one else is going to interrupt, I'm gonna interrogate you now, using just my large brick. So tell me, what is your name?"
"There are those who call me Chrysalis. But err you don't have to, unless you kinda want to, maybe?" The disguised changeling queen squeaked out.
"Well Chrysalis, your going to help make me a princess!" Sunset stated. She found it so funny that she smiled, grinned, chucked, then just full blown evil laughed in the face of the prey she had so easily caught tonight.
The face of Chrysalis was not a laughing one. Within the confines of her mind she was screaming, but she dared not make a sound right now. A new player had entered the game. And this player had a large brick. Perhaps the most dangerous brick in this world! No she was not going to laugh, she would have to try to survive this laughing unicorn.
Sunset was in complete control.
But her large brick was still kinda cool.
