Celestia was looking forward to a relatively relaxed day after she put the issue of the genitals on her desk away for another time. The princess felt it would be best to approach that matter with a fresh state of mind, and a full stomach. So she asked a maid to fetch her sister and informed the kitchens that they were to start preparing lunch. Her butt had barely hit the seat of her chair when Luna came prancing through the dining room doors, smile wide on her face and tail flagging in way that she would no doubt be mortified by if she was aware. Celestia couldn't help but smile as well in the face of her sisters happiness.

"Hmm, I wonder what could have possibly put you in such a good mood? Surely nothing romantic, given you were so sure that you had ruined your chances with Elfilis?" Evidently, Celestia's sarcasm was not appreciated if the head of lettuce suddenly stabbed onto her horn and blocking her sight was anything to go by. "Why is it alway lettuce? Are you trying to tell me something?"

"I'm trying to tell you that your behind is not nearly as much muscle as you would have me believe."

"Well I never-"

"Also, it is a cabbage. But you would know that if you would eat more than cake." At this, Celestia shook the vegetable off of her head and studied it closely.

"... This isn't a cabbage."

"Yes Tia. That is a winter cabbage." Aha! But it wasn't winter yet, and Celestia delighted in telling her sister so. "No it is not. I made it with Dream Matter."

"... No comment." That got Luna to laugh, breaking the false stern expression she had adopted.

"Treating me as if I was one of those noisy newsponies you're always complaining about? I'm hurt, truly." The mirth clear in her voice spoke otherwise, and Luna allowed the subject to drop comfortably. "Well, if you must know, Elfilis did in fact reciprocate my feelings last night." Celestia hummed around the leafy greens she had begun peeling into her mouth.

"As I suspected of course. What was more surprising was that you didn't meet me for breakfast, or to help me in my study. Too busy celebrating in private to let your dear sister in on the good news?"

"... Shut up and eat your vegetables." Celestia chuckled around her unexpected meal as Luna blushed.

"I don't know why you are so flustered about it, masturbation is completely normal-"

"Ugh!"

"And you are so open about your beauty, with that portrait of your nethers in your own study-" Luna ducked her head down as her older sister continued to tease her.

"Tia, be quiet-"

"Though I suppose you are the younger sister-"

"Tia!"

"I shouldn't complain if-"

"Shut the fuck up Tia!" Celestia choked on her cabbage as Luna threw her hooves down and smashed the dining room table for the second time since she came back. There was also the sound of food carts crashing in the halls, as the kitchen staff no doubt tripped up on themselves trying to get away from the pissed princess. The older sister spat out torn greens to apologize, thinking she had taken her teasing too far but the words died on her tongue when Luna continued to yell. "I thought I was free of you, you manipulative-!" Whatever she said next was lost to Celestia, as her volume became so magically enhanced that it blew out the older alicorns unprepared eardrums. Luna disappeared in a flash of blue light and magic, and Celestia then did several things in succession. First, she healed her eardrums and reinforced them just in case. Then, she tried to piggy-back off of her sisters teleportation spell, but her magic was too hurried and rushed and simply tore the connection apart instead of latching on. Next, she racked her brain for a way to find her sister and quickly settled on Elfilis and his ever convenient portals. Finally, she teleported herself to Ponyville while ignoring the panicked questions of Shining Armor as he hurried to reach her.

All that mattered was Luna. Celestia didn't know if her teasing had set her off, if she had been spontaneously repossessed while she was right there or if it was some other third thing unrelated to anything she could think of, but she needed to see her sister safe regardless of what the problem was. The flash of light as she appeared in the sky vanished as the sister of the sun pushed herself to the ground so fast her fur combusted against the air. The ground under her hooves cracked and splintered and burned as she landed, but that was unimportant. There was a sea vessel crashed in front of her and a large crowd of her ponies, but that was unimportant. She found Elfilis, with Carina in his arms, and that meant she was one step closer to finding Luna. She opened her mouth, to say what she didn't know, only for her words to die a second time.

I watched Celestia move to say something to me, anticipating a great number of questions about what was happening, only-

"CUNT!"

The sound of Luna cursing came down from Canterlot and blasted her and everyone else's fur and manes back. Magolor and Susie had to stop arguing and ignoring everything around them to keep themselves stable as the force nearly knocked their floating bodies off of the ramp into the crashed Starcutter. My whole body tilted over as my levitation kept me grounded by my ankles, and Rainbow vanished in a blur of colors as her wings were tilted just enough to screw with her balance. As the shock, both literal and figurative, disappeared and left everything in even more disarray than it had been before, I decided that I needed to get everyone in one place and consolidate as much crazy as I could so it wouldn't spread. Portals opened up and swallowed all of Twilight and her friends that I could see, Celestia, Magolor and Susie, Star Vision, and myself. I was the only one to avoid stumbling or jumping in confusion as all of appeared back in the old cave. I tossed Carina lightly onto the abandoned bed as she transformed back to full size and turned to the forced gathering of ponies and whatever-the-fuck-Susie-and-Magolor-were and screamed.

"HEY!" Everyone's eyes snapped towards me, and I trapped the mouths of several of them as she started to yell back. "No! Order of importance! Celestia!" The princess began stretching her jaw as I let the portal holding it disappear. "What made Luna so angry we could hear her from Canterlot?"

"I don't know! We were waiting for lunch when she suddenly started screaming and teleported away!" I put the portal back over her muzzle before she continued and I looked away as she began glaring at me.

"She can handle it then, she knows how to ask for help. You two!" Susie was trying to hide a laser gun behind her back despite being too thin and Magolor was very much not hiding the magic circles he was aiming at me. "Why did you show up looking ready to fight? You crashed a children's race!" It was Magolor who put his weapon away first as he pantomimed clearing his throat.

"It was a misunderstanding, really. Perhaps we should start with introductions-"

"Magolor the false Halcondryan and Susanna Haltmann. Welcome, what the fuck were you two doing crashing the Lor-Starcutter?" This time it was Susie who pushed the shocked wizard away to answer.

"How do you know who we are?" I narrowed my eyes and I felt the Dream go dimmer.

"I'm a mind reader. Answer, the question."

"If you were a mind reader you wouldn't need to ask." Darker...

"Oh, would you look at that, little miss master of technology is suddenly master of magic as well. You should have let Magolor keep talking if you wanted to argue about the supernatural, but let me fill you educate you for a sec." I hijacked their Dream Matter directly, forcing their bodies to still as I leaned down to come eye to eye with the girl who doesn't even come up to my waist. Everything was Dark. "I am psychic. I am the psychic. My mind is my everything, my body my soul and my heart. The power my thoughts hold force the rest of the world to conform should I wish it. You will give me a good excuse as to why you almost crushed my love my friends and my family, or you be excused after I rip the answers from your bodies myself." I dropped control of their bodies abruptly, letting them fall to the floor.

C̷o̵u̶l̷d̴ ̸F̶e̶c̵t̶o̷ ̷E̶l̶f̸i̸l̸i̸s̸ ̴d̶o̵ ̴t̷h̴a̵t̸?̴ ̴I̵ ̷d̵o̸n̶'̸t̵ ̶t̸h̴i̵n̵k̵ ̴h̶e̸ ̴e̶v̶e̵r̴ ̶d̵i̴d̴ ̸t̵h̴a̴t̸.̶..

Magolor wasted no time pushing himself up with his hands as words began pouring out of him.

"It was an accident because we were fleeing for our lives because Susie ignored my brilliant advice-"

"You-!" I opened a portal over Susie's head but merely left it there as a threat.

"And didn't stop her ship from entering Hiddenstar's orbit and then it was possessed and it was trying to kill us and destroy the Lor so we couldn't escape and space was weird so we couldn't go as far as we wanted which meant we had no choice but to escape here to Hiddenstar-" I let most of the portals disappear as Magolor rambled on. This was, as I hoped, an accident. "But now we're here and you are very scary and you really hit upon all of my repressed trauma and you are threatening us as well even though it seems like being scary might be specific to you but I am now going to distract you by telling you that the possessed ship that tried to kill us is actually planet sized and kept bragging about plans to eat the moon- Mercy!" I ignored the growing Dark as I sunk my fingers into the hood of Magolor's robes and used my other hand to capture Susie by her wrists. I turned to Celestia and ignored the look of concern and conflict on her face.

"Luna is on the moon fighting a planet and she is an idiot and a hypocrite for going to fight it on her own without asking for help." I opened a portal and threw the four of us into it, ignoring the shouts and questions of the rest of the ignored ponies around us.

Star Vision kept his grip tight on Twilight's hooves as she shook him hard enough to rattle his brains.

"You can make a portal right?! Theoretically you you can open a portal?! Why won't you open a portal!?"

"B-Because y-you w-won't let-t m-me c-conc-centrate!" Applejack intervened and pulled Twilight off of the poor kirin, letting him release a breath of relief.

"Hold on now sugarcube! Now maybe you already figured out wha's goin' on, but the rest of us are more lost than an orange tree in an apple orchard!"

"And I'm still all muddy..." Star idly flicked his tail with a SNAP and deleted all the dirt and mud from Rarity's coat, which got him one grateful smile from the mare, and a wide-eyed glare from the unicorn Applejack was bear hugging at this point. Rainbow Dash subtly stepped in front of Star to get Twilight's attention, and maybe he was reading into it too much, but it felt a little like she was trying to shield him. Carina finally spoke up from her spot on the bed, tense gossamer wings the only sign of her nervousness.

"So, correct me if I'm wrong, but that Magazine thing said that the space boat was attacking a moon of a hiding star? Why would that be Princess Luna's problem?" Wait, was Carina not aware of what Hiddenstar was? Twilight was quick to blurt out an explanation.

"We are Hiddenstar! It's an extremely old name for the planet that faded away after the Acolytes of the Ancients disappeared!" Which, while everypony else tensed up upon realizing that it was their moon that was being attacked by an unknown something-or-other, Star tensed upon hearing that-

"The Acolytes of the Ancients disappeared?" Great, now everypony was looking at Star Vision. "I was around back then remember? They weren't the biggest group out there, but they were a pretty prominent religious sect that was pretty outspoken about the dangers of dark magic while simultaneously being the most prominent dark magic practitioners. They were very odd though, and most pony's just knew them for their insistence on calling Equis 'Hiddenstar.' Which, I guess they were right about huh?" Star Vision was trying his best to move on, he knew there was no way to get his old life and friends back but, it was still disturbing to think that some of his Acolyte friends just vanished one day...

"Who cares?!" Star's ears flattened as Twilight yelled. "The point is that the princesses are fighting a planet by themselves!"

"And Elfilis..." Rainbow looked away and pretended to whistle as the twitching unicorn turned her glare in her direction.

"Is no one else worried!? Planet! Fighting!" At this point Applejack was laying her full earth pony weight onto Twilight to keep her from rushing off or pacing the room.

"Of course we're scared Twi, but what do you spose' will happen if we just went and hopped to the moon after the princess? You got that crazy magic attack you used at the gala but that tuckered you out good. And we still haven't found the Elements of Harmony." That had Star Vision scratching his head in confusion.

"I could've swore I- Discord, hid them in the Canterlot library but I helped Tia- Celly- the princess search the shelves myself and it wasn't..." Wait a minute. Something just stuck out to Star. He remembered Swaddle-Dee spending most of his time at Elfilis's house reading a very familiar book... "I feel like an idiot, I might actually know where the Elements are. We need to get Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy first though."

Celestia was barely able to snap her wings out in time to stop herself from falling as Elfilis removed her from solid ground. She looked down to see... not the moon. She had to look up to see the moon, mere feet above her head, and far below her was a giant metal ball with four vaguely drill-like legs. Said pointed legs were attempting to smash their way through a series of blue shields to, presumably, dig them into the surface of her sister's satellite.

"Tia!" Celestia suddenly found herself eating moon-dirt as a gravity spell suddenly pulled her headfirst into the gray ground. "Sorry!" The solar alicorn gave her wings a flap and pulled her horn from the earth- from the moon and let herself fall onto her legs, nausea attempting to conquer her senses.

"I'm fine. I'll just be down here, rearranging my organs." Luna was not entertaining any brevity though, stepping up to her sister until she could see the sweat drenching the darker sister's scowl and coat of fur.

"You will have to do that later, when Nightmare Moon isn't attempting to bore holes into my moon." Because of course it was Nightmare Moon. Who else would Luna hold so much disdain for that it could be heard for miles? Tia puffed out her cheeks and blew air out into her sister's face.

"She's Nightmare Planetoid now. Any ideas?" The mentally worn mare yelped as she felt Elfilis's distinct fingers pull her onto her hooves. He didn't give her much time either to shore up any energy as he interjected.

"The moon is pretty damn important and I imagine very hard to replace, not to mention what it's destruction might mean for Luna or the meteor showers Hiddenstar, Equis, whatever, would need protection from afterwards. Celestia, how long could you and Luna keep those shields up?" It made Celestia very uncomfortable to see Elfilis channel his anger in such a... practiced way, but she swallowed any protests. He could have just run off to deal with things by himself with no plan again after all.

"This is about as far away as you can get me from my sun, but I should still be able to tap into it enough to power the shields for a good week. I would be stuck here with Luna though." She looked up at the machine attempting to grab them in it's legs. Her heart shuddered as she realized it was big enough to crush half of Equis in it's grip. "I don't... How do you fight a planet?"

"If it was Earth- Equis, you would need to destroy it's forests and jungles, the lungs, and then you would likely run into a series of new obstacles as the planet adapted and stubbornly held on to life. Nightmare Moon is a spaceship right now, and I would argue that a machine will be far less adaptable. Susie, Magolor!" Celestia forgot about the strange creatures that had apparently brought the apocalypse to them, albeit accidentally, and found herself wondering what she was going to do with them when this was all over. If it even ended in a way that didn't end with Equis floated through space in pieces... Fuck, Celestia needed a vacation. "I'm going to give attacking the shell a try, but if I can't hurt it then you two are leading me to all of the important parts inside. Structural, mechanical, if you think breaking the toilets will prove a nuisance then we do it." The taller pink-haired one, Susie, shouted over Elfilis before he could fly off.

"Wait! My crew is still on board, we can't just destroy the Ark! You'll scatter them everywhere!" Which, was definitely true, but Celestia couldn't tell if she was avoiding talking about how exploding could be fatal or if the dangers of combustion and shrapnel just hadn't occurred to her yet. They would most likely end up far more than scattered. "We have to exorcise this Nightmare!" The air, as little as there was, grew heavier as Elfilis glared up at a sky of polished metal.

"... Do you know how to do that? Because I'm not willing to put faith in the idea that you'll figure it out before the week is done." It was actually the little blue and yellow one that spoke up.

"I propose a compromise! Possessed or not, the Ark would be disabled if we took out enough systems! I say we destroy it like Kirby did the first time!" Oh, oh shit. Celestia had to stop herself from asking a million questions when she realized how Elfilis knew who the aliens where. They were from Popstar, or at least well enough acquainted with the original Kirby that Elfilis's spotty memories about Popstar included them. "If it had no legs-" The bipedal psychic interrupted.

"Then it could just smash the main body against us instead, which could be worse. We're destroying propulsion and anything the Ark can use to move or gain momentum first. It will likely push itself off the shields by that point and drift out of range, getting rid of our time limit. Any objections?" He made sure to look all four of his fellow moonwalkers in the eyes, silently waiting for any more complaints, but his eyes wavered as he looked at Luna and saw the sad smile on her tired face. "... Alright. Keep that shield up then. We'll be as quick as I can." And with the sound of a portal cutting through the air, they were gone.

"...Fuck! We didn't bring Toby!" Tia groaned into her hooves as she opened her connection to the sun.

Magolor blinked and found himself back in the belly of the ship that tried to kill him not ten minutes ago. He thought it had been less than ten minutes anyway, time had kind of been outpacing him since he first found the message Susie left for him at Kirby's house. Of all the planets to discover, honestly. He shook his head as he began to follow this Elfilis creature, who was in turn following Susie as she looked for a map or a directory of the ship. They seemed to be in one of the many empty maintenance halls that crosses the Access Ark, which meant minimum security lasers.

"So... That's a pretty powerful ability you have. Being able to open dimensional portals at will and all, without an obvious connection to a relic or artifact." Elfilis ignored him, which Magolor wasn't entirely surprised by, but he just looked over his shoulder to watch his back and continued to talk. Magolor liked talking. "I mean, I could do it too, I'm an all powerful magician you know! The Lor helps but it's not like it does all the work."

"Magolor, if you distraact m-mmeey I...I... Whagggggh?" Magolor turned back just in time to see the massive wing that made up his captor's right ear melt off his body and splash against the floor. He could only stare, wide eyed in shock as Elfilis brought an arm to reach for his missing appendage only for his digits to liquify and wet the floor as well. "W-whaa- " And then static took over his moist muttering. "T̷h̵e̸ ̴A̴n̸c̷i̸e̶n̸t̴s̸ ̶w̶e̵r̴e̷ ̵p̸a̸r̴a̷n̷o̵i̶d̶ ̸p̸r̴i̶c̵k̸s̴ ̷w̸e̶r̵e̸n̴'̷t̸ ̴t̸h̸e̸y̶?̴ ̸S̵o̶r̵r̷y̴,̸ ̷y̵o̸u̷ ̶t̷w̶o̸ ̸a̸r̴e̷ ̵o̸n̶ ̸y̵o̸u̵r̸ ̸o̵w̵n̵.̸" And then his legs fell apart into so much liquid as his body dropped into a portal. Magolor could only stare into Susie's horrified optics as his mind numbly played one thought on repeat.

What could scare the Ancients so much that they would make something with the sole purpose of destroying it?

Hmm. That was interesting but I'm a little disappointed it only killed the tall one.

Oh boo hoo! I told you that device didn't do anything!

You say that about everything worm, have you not heard of the colt who cried wolf?

No. Explain it to me in excruciatingly specific detail.

Oh. Well, if you insist- No wait, you're trying to distract me.

You are an imbecile.

You forget who has all the power here!

And you lost track of Susie and her friend.

No I have- Fuck! Stop distracting me worm!

Make me! Lalalalalalalalalalalalala!

Ugh, how do I turn you off!?

Author's Note

Longest chapter so far. I knew where I wanted to end it but underestimated how much it would take to make what I wanted to write flow in a way I was happy about. And I didn't want to split the chapter in two because then I would have had a relatively boring chapter lead directly into another expository chapter that ended on a cliffhanger.

Also, Nightmare Moon is 100% an idiot.

"You still don't have the sixth element! So i will stand here and do nothing until my fragile overconfidence becomes my undoing!"

"But that's where... You would be right actually?"