A Story starring Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon, but not in the way you think
It was a perfectly normal day in Ponyville, just like every time an author has trouble starting a story.
The only particularity of that day, which ensured that it wasn't boring to death, was the celebration being prepared. And, for once, it wasn't a celebration organised by Pinkie on a whim, so maybe that day wasn't all that normal after all.
No, it was an event that the highest dignitaries of Equestrian's society were going to take part in. More precisely, the ex-princesses Celestia and Luna who were coming to celebrate the first anniversary of Twilight sparkle's crowning, and thereby their step down from the throne.
Many of the discussions in the small town were about that, with some "Oh really? They've been gone for a year?" and some "Frankly, it's not like we can tell the difference."
It is in all that buzzing, reminiscent of a bugbear, that princess Twilight was hovering over. Walking around in Ponyville's street, she was making sure that each pony was ready, that every shop was perfect. It would be unthinkable to present to the ex-princesses cupcakes with a crease or a badly cooked sofa. It was the occasion to expose all of Ponyville's wealth. The toys at the effigy of the princess and her castle weren't going to sell themselves.
Sat down on a bench, she found Fluttershy, next to a foal in the middle of talking. To Fluttershy, not the bench.
"Shouldn't you be busy making your birds rehearse Fluttershy?" asked the alicorn, coming close to them, but not fighting nor herds.
"Oh you know, Twilight, with the time, they know how to read a partition."
The pegasus displayed one of those kind smiles that only she knew how to do. The princess, her, rolled her eyes:
"I suppose your birds are more competent than Spike then. What are you doing?"
"I'm helping this young foal with the troubles of his heart."
The never-named Chipcutter looked at the princess of friendship with some apprehension. She gave him back a look of incomprehension, unaware about the cardiologist competence of her friend, before getting her gaze back on the other pegasus on this bench.
"Well then hurry up. You still need to be there in case one of them is out of tune, at least do some practice."
Fluttershy gently nodded, looking at the alicorn going away. She turned back her attention on the little worried pegasus, sadly lacking his millennium eye.
"Great, so, what's holding you back?"
Chipcutter, who could more explicitly be called that-one-sculptor-pegasus-that-Apple-Bloom-and-her-friends-helped-once, nervously rubbed his hooves.
"I fear that she might not listen to me. She's always cold and hard, with a true heart of stone."
Fluttershy gently laid a hoof on his shoulder, addressing him – without any stamps or envelope – a smile.
"And what do you have to lose trying?"
After realising that this line didn't contain the letter e, the young pegasus went from one surprise to another when noticing that the narration had just made him look back for something false. After a brief moment of confusion, he answered:
"Nothing... But what if she doesn't answer me?"
"Then, you don't insist and you respect her choice," wisely said the yellow and pink tree.
"Alright."
"But then, if you know her tastes, you can try to give her a surprise that she'll enjoy."
Chipcutter rubbed his cheek with the back of his hoof. Thoughtful.
"Hmmm... I think I have an idea! Thanks Fluttershy!"
The foal hurriedly stood up, going away, under the watch of the pegasus. The latter waited a few instants, before saying to herself:
"Well, I'm all alone now. Might as well go see the birds."
Twilight was dubious. What was the most shocking: the fact that Trixie looked even more stupid than usual with that big crescent moon made out of cardboard around her face, or the fact that she had convinced Starlight to wear a sun of the same kind?
"You are aware that you're the headmare, right?" she still asked, as she was starting to regret giving up the reins of her school.
"Yes, why?" said Starlight, suddenly turning her head towards her, a sunray hitting Trixie's moon, but not the one she had around her face.
"Hey!"
"I know you're hungry, but I'm talking with Twilight right now," hushed Starlight.
"Don't you think the students could find you ridiculous?"
The headmare waved a nonchalant hoof.
"Oh no, they're going to find me radiant, on the contrary! Beaming, even! Daz-"
"I get the idea," cut Twilight, not in the mood for puns, "What are you planning to do?"
Starlight was shaking from impatience and enthusiasm, dancing on the tip of her hooves.
"It's simple, we're going to make a show in the honour of the ex-princesses."
Twilight raised an eyebrow, doubting they'll have time for a whole season. Starlight kept going:
"A show which will remind them of their old roles and everything they've done for Equestria, like raising the sun and the moon, hence our costumes."
"Yeah, well, for a millennia it was mostly Celestia's job..."
Trixie intervened, disdaining Twilight's word and adding with confidence:
"Starlight assured that they were over this little detail. And even then, when they'll see the realism of our night sky, they will be flabbergasted."
"How so?"
"Well," confided in the Friendship School's director, even though it takes longer to write that than Starlight, "I placed stasis runes in the room where the representation is going to take place. Trixie will set her fireworks off and their explosion will be frozen for the duration of the spectacle, like a great starry sky."
"What!?" shouted the alicorn.
"Don't worry, I warned everyone. No one will touch them."
Twilight was only half-convinced. Or rather a quarter. But, for all that, her old student didn't stopped, very impatient to share her project:
"And after a quick reminder of everything they've done, I'll use the extraction staff to do a mental projection of your memories and remind them of this as well."
The princess couldn't get over what she was hearing. Despite the fact she could fly.
"You're going to use the most powerful artefact from Mindblow-the-nutty, just for a show!?"
"Yes, well, you need that at least to get a sufficient level of detail."
"Thank you for warning me!"
"You're welcome," said Trixie with utmost seriousness, "It's precisely why we called you."
"You better make sure everything goes right!" warned Twilight, wary. "And by that, I mean, Starlight, I hope you have plans for all of your partner's idiocies!"
"You're saying this as if I was some kind of travelling disaster," observed the magician mare with a vague glimmer of introspection.
"Don't worry, Maud will help me watch over her!" reassured Starlight.
"And where is she?"
"Oh, probably in her cave. Could you get her, Twilight, please?"
The alicorn made a very audible sigh, tired of being taken as a mail deliverer. Come on, she wasn't a dragon. But, anyway, she had to see Maud. She was the one taking care of sculpting the two-seated throne for the two sisters. Twilight had to get it and put it in place.
As odd as it may seem, Maud's cave wasn't, and far from it, the weirdest place in Ponyville. In part because it wasn't located in Ponyville, but also and mostly because, in Ponyville, there was Pinkie Pie. And people that appreciated Snip and Snails. That alone made the cave of the rock specialist a pretty normal place in comparison. Even when weird sounds were coming out of it.
Twilight stopped at the entrance, trying to identify the origin of this cacophony. It sounded like cries of agony, coming from the bottom of the cave.
"Oh don't tell me her and Mudbriar are busy, it's really not the time."
Preparing for the worst, the alicorn sank in this moist cave. Despite the weird sounds, it was easy to penetrate.
But the doubts of the princess quickly went out the window – she didn't know Maud had dug some in the rock. As she was walking, she understood that the noises weren't coming from a pony. Not directly. The shooting sounds that echoed on the cave's walls had a tone which seemed... melodious? It was hard for Twilight to qualify them as such, but she didn't know any word weak enough to describe that semblance of harmony. Even though it was her element.
When arriving at Maud's dwelling, she started to understand. She recognised that wind instrument. Even if it was the first time she had the impression of hearing an accordion suffer.
The greyish mare wasn't in her sort of encampment, but a little further. Below, near the water, sat down on a chair, playing.
"What has gotten into her!?"
This comment, made out loud, got to Maud's ears, who immediately stopped playing. She turned her head towards the alicorn.
"What has gotten into me...?" she said slowly. "It's pretty rude of you to speak of Mudbriar like that..."
"No, not that!" Twilight answered, exasperated.
Maud lowered her eyes to her accordion, lifting it.
"You were talking about him then? Well he doesn't really fit in-"
"Maud, it's an expression!"
"Oh..." she said with a quite disappointed tone, lowering her head and hooves.
"Why are you doing this? Aren't you supposed to be helping Starlight and Trixie with their rehearsal?"
The grey mare looked up at the princess, lifting her instrument again.
"I was rehearsing," she announced with a sober incomprehension.
Twilight froze, horrified. She was going to play that thing for the old princesses!? She pressed a hoof on her own eyes, as if she was trying to chase away that thought. Even if it was impossible. She nonetheless still managed to say, almost begging:
"Go join the others. Starlight asked for you."
"Oh. I guess she wants to synchronise the music with the show."
"Say no more!" issued Twilight, trying her hardest to forget all that. "D-Don't spoil everything!"
The alicorn didn't really wait for an answer from Maud and hurried to turn around. Deploying her pair of wings, she was however interrupted. By the mare, not the pair of wings.
"Did you like it?"
"About as much as ponies liked my book about friendship."
While in her own mind, the alicorn was thinking she should have said "our" instead of "my", Maud put up a smile so light that no muscle really got into action.
"You must be a great writer, seeing all the books you've read."
Twilight erased from her mind the redness and Nordic music that had invaded it and answered to the earth pony, a bit in a hurry:
"Yes, ha ha. Exactly! Now, see you in two thousand nine hundred and sixty words! And don't forget to bring the throne!"
"Okay. Tell Starlight I'm coming."
Out of the blue – or purple – she flew off, out of the cave. She wasn't going to warn Starlight. This comedy had run its course. There was still much to do.
As soon as she got out, a violent explosion resounded, coming from Ponyville. Twilight rolled her eyes.
"What now, what did Spike do this time?"
Taking off like the price of an overhyped cryptocurrency, the alicorn hasten to go towards the epicentre of the detonation.
"Well in fact, technically, it's more of a deflagration because, clearly, the shock wave wasn't going faster than the speed of sound and-"
As she was losing her mind talking to herself, Twilight stopped her monologue, noticing that the explosion had taken place in Ponyville's park. So Pinkie was the culprit?
Yet, she couldn't see her in the crowd of ponies on the scene. What were they looking at anyway? The alicorn dropped down to get a closer look.
"What's going on?" she asked while arriving.
"A statue imploded," explained background pony n°167, pointing at one of the stony edifice of the park.
"Oh no..." sighed Twilight when seeing which statue it was.
A piece was missing. An important piece. Or not? To be honest, the alicorn wasn't even sure of what was originally there.
"Er, they were three, no?" she supposed.
"The pegasus is missing!" yelled a nearby mare, desperately trying to keep some suspense in this situation by being vague.
"Ah, yes," noted Twilight, lacking any drop of turmoil, "Oh well, too bad she exploded. The spell was made to last an eternity, more or less, but I guess that even stone couldn't bear her."
A curious mind and the script still forced the alicorn to look at the statue in more detail. The two other imprisoned were still intact and the princesses was able to notice, where the pegasus was before, a clear crack in the rock as well as a pronounced cavity resulting from the impact with a blunt object.
Weird. Nothing could have broken a prison made by the Elements of Harmony, and yet. But more importantly, it indicated to Twilight that the foal didn't simply explode. She was alive. And free. Hence the cover, surely.
"Great timing!"
As if to confirm her words, a great horn – not the one on the princesses face, the instrument – suddenly resounds in the distance, from the castle.
"What!? But they weren't supposed to arrive for several hours!"
"Who, princess?" asked a stallion next to her.
"Them, in fact."
Without explaining herself anymore, Twilight immediately went back towards her castle. She had better things to do than deal with another end of the world, so she was planning on stopping it before it even happened.
As soon as she laid a hoof on the top of the steps, she heard a cry of terror coming from the inside.
"Already?"
While the few guards on duty were going inside with her, the alicorn noticed a slightly worried crescent moon going in the same direction as them.
"Trixie?"
"Twilight?"
Narrator?
"What's going on?" asked the unicorn. "I heard people screaming, but the show hasn't even started yet."
"You're planning on making people scream?" said Twilight, raising an eyebrow.
"Of wonder. You didn't answer my question."
"Because I'd rather not think about it."
The alicorn hurried, joining the guards, arriving into the great hall where the reception was set to take place. And what she saw was even worse than what she had expected.
The princesses were there, frozen, immobilised in the middle of the room with a look of surprise engraved on their face. The helpers for the preparations stood in fear next to the walls, shocked and terrified by the two foals in the centre. A few metres away from them, the sun was down, around a unicorn lying on the floor.
"Starlight!" yelled Trixie, rushing towards her, before abruptly stopping when Cozy Glow pointed her staff at her.
"Ah ah ah!" she warned with a devilish smile. "Be careful!"
"You killed her!"
The observation threw the little pegasus a bit off, as she answered, stunned:
"Er well no... She's just knocked out."
"Oh," said Trixie, calming immediately.
"Why didn't you kill her?" asked Twilight.
"Seriously!?" replied Cozy, baffled. "That's your first question!?"
"Fine," admitted Twilight, "Chipcutter, why did you do this?"
The little colt standing by the filly with despotic desires' side seemed a little ashamed of having to answer this question. Cozy did it for him:
"Oh, the kind Chipcutter fell for me. He got me out of my prison at the right moment, just to please me."
The foal's cheek turned a little pink, a bright smile gaining his face.
"And the moment was perfect, with the princesses in town," continued Cozy, with mischievousness.
"How did you know?" growled Twilight.
"Even statues can hear the news if you blast them with a megaphone, princess. And ponies often talk in the gardens."
"And what's preventing us from stopping you?"
Following the words of the princess, the guards got in position, ready to jump on the filly – in a legal way – or to use their magic.
Cozy raised the great staff she was holding in her hoof, displaying a smug face. The artefact had a strange shape, made out of roots entangled with each other, ending with two menacing thorns.
"I have the princesses at my disposal and the w-"
"That was a diversion! Charge!"
Twilight and the guards rushed as one, Cozy Glow rolling her eyes before aiming the staff on the group, triggering a blinding uncapitalized sparkle of light.
When Twilight got her vision back, she was on the floor, her body feeling heavy and awkward.
"I knew it wouldn't work..." she mumbled before noticing that something wasn't right. "Why is my voice deep?"
A glance at her legs gave the answer. An answer a little too white to her liking.
Cozy brought back the staff to her with a satisfied smile.
"I should have thought about stealing those artefacts sooner. Things would have been way easier if I could have switched your minds."
Twilight got back on her guard's hooves, giving a dark look at the filly, not enjoying her way of doing exposition, as the others were slowly regaining their senses. Well, mixed-up senses.
"Oh, look at you princess!" Cozy burst out laughing, flying up. "I got rid of your wings, isn't it what all your fans wanted?"
"First, they only wanted to blow air in peace! Second, I still have a horn!"
Twilight had to focus a little more than usual to wield that stallion magic, much less refined by practice than hers. But she managed to grab a prop box nearby and throw it at the filly.
Cozy barely dodge, commenting when looking at her staff:
"Oh, you're not even trying to get it off my hooves. It really is enchanted to immunise against magic then."
"I told you so!" said Chipcutter, coming to her side, very much happy.
"Indeed," answered Cozy with her adorable face, "thanks for all your help."
From the corner of her vision, she saw the guards preparing a new assault.
"Enough, boomers!" thundered the filly, brandishing her staff. The latter lit up and spawned a barrier right in front of Cozy Glow.
"Stop!" immediately ordered Twilight. "If you go through this force field, your body and mind will be splitted"
"Ah, so that's what it does," noticed the filly. "Thanks."
The princesses internally cursed. If she had her own magic, she could have teleported behind the barrier.
"Good, now, let's get back to our business."
Cozy Glow turned to the two frozen alicorns. Well, their body wasn't made out of stone, but they weren't moving.
"What are you going to do to them!?"
"This."
The filly raised her staff again, closing her eyes and focusing. Two translucent filaments came out of each end of the staff, going straight for the princesses, plunging in their heads.
"There we go!"
Cozy suddenly changed her grip and pulled on the staff as if it was a fishing rod and she was hooking a pike. That being said, it wasn't too far off.
Pulled out by the strings, two transparent shapes came out of the princesses. Starting without any clear form, boundaries nonetheless started to appear quickly, as Twilight and the guards couldn't believe their eyes, since eyes don't talk.
Both spectral entities took on the shape of great alicorns. They suddenly opened their eyes, looking around with stupefaction and distrust.
"Oh, it was much easier than expected," noticed the filly, impressed. "Who'd have thought the old ponies could make good junk."
Twilight took a step back and so did the guards. Everypony here knew at least one of the two alicorns.
"N-Nightmare Moon!" stuttered in terror one of the guards.
The mare in question turned her slit pupils to the one that had just spoken. But her eyes quickly went to the guard trapped in Twilight's body.
"You!" shouted the cold, but spectral, voice of the nightmarish mare.
"Yes, yes, a touching reunion," cut Cozzy Glow, "but I didn't summoned you t-"
The filly's sentence drowned in a torrent of flames. The mare that had come out of Celestia's mind growled:
"No one summons us, stupid creature! We only deign to present ourselves!"
She punctuated her sentence by stamping her hoof, the echo being weirdly present.
"If that were the case, you would have gotten out way sooner," replied Cozy Glow in the midst of the flames, which didn't touch her, since they weren't tangible.
Nightmare Moon looked down on the poor Twilight-guard then put back her attention on the strange filly, who seemed to be able to talk to them in such a disrespectful way with impunity. She continued:
"Before beginning the negotiations, I would like to know how you should be called. Nightmare Moon, everypony knows her, but we were sadly never blessed with the best part of Celestia among us."
"Sus," commented Rainbow.
"Call me Daybreaker, your queen," announced the alicorn, creating a sigh of relief amongst all her fans who took that name for canon.
"Why did you summon us in such a degrading state?" immediately asked Nightmare Moon, while giving a hateful look at her sister.
"World conquest," simply answered the pegasus. "Your minds and powers are imprisoned in bodies way too mentally healthy. And, on my part, I don't have enough power alone to face all of Equestria."
"Are you saying we are a mental illness?" growled Daybreaker, uncovering her fangs.
"Alright so," Twilight intervened, "we would like to avoid that kind of debate in a comedic one-shot, thanks."
"What an ambitious filly," remarked Nightmare Moon. "And sufficiently full of herself to think she can negotiate with us on equal terms."
"Well, I do love equations, but."
Cozy pointed her staff on the mare of the night, warning her:
"I took me one action to get you out, it would take me as much to make you go back to where you come from. Or making you disappear. And you can't do anything tangible. So, no, we're not on an equal hoofing."
The two alicorns stared at the filly silently, as Twilight and the guards could only watch.
Finally, Daybreaker had a little devious laugh, declaring:
"She has some nerves, that little pest. What do you propose then, so that we can ally and dominate the world?"
"I transfer your consciousness in my brain," simply said Cozy. "This should bring a good part of your power and be enough."
"At last, freed from those prisons," Nightmare Moon said with a grin. "That sounds like an interesting deal."
"So be it," followed Daybreaker. "Hurry, then, before those idiots resort to using their Elements of Harmony."
"Technically, we don't have them since the last season anymore," corrected Twilight, before coming back to her senses. "What am I even saying? Call reinforcements!"
"We are here, Twilight!"
All turned their head towards the entrance, where Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie had just come.
"Ooh," mumbled Nightmare Moon. "Those little nuisances again. Let's settle this arrangement quickly before another turnaround."
"Oh no!" teamspeaked Rainbow Dash, immediately flying straight at Cozy Glow.
The filly displayed a bored face, as the pegasus crossed the barrier, her body crashing down right after. Her spirit went through Cozy Glow, without affecting her, leaving a semi-transparent Rainbow Dash to turn around, confused.
"Well, any other volunteers?" asked the filly, still baffled by the fact she once lost to this.
Rainbow Dash was only blowing hot air, trying to hit Cozy Glow, her hooves going through her.
"Um, Twilight?" worried Applejack. "What's that?"
"A barrier," explained Twilight, coming by their side. "Who splits body and spirit."
Fluttershy took a bunch of steps back, while Rarity looked at Twilight with revulsion, declaring:
"Who are you?"
"Twilight," said the princess imprisoned inside the colt's body. "It's one of the power of the staff that Cozy is holding."
"To transform princesses into ugly stallions?" guessed the unicorn.
"What can we do?" asked Applejack, ignoring Rarity.
"Nothing," cut Cozy Glow. "Now, if you'll excuse me."
She pointed her staff at Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker, energy beginning to flow out of it, linking itself to the two semi-transparent silhouettes.
"Hey, maybe that Rainbow can attack Nightmare Moon like that," suggested Applejack.
"Of course, she's a spirit just like them!" realised Twilight. "Rainbow, did you hea-"
A blue laser flung the spirit of Rainbow Dash through the wall of the room, Nightmare Moon blowing on her still smoking horn right after, before looking at Twilight, a devious smile on her face:
"Thanks for the suggestion."
"It's true that it was a better one than what the algorithm usually do-" started Pinkie, before getting interrupted by a bright and violent flash.
Cozy Glow finally deserved the second part of her name, as all the room was blinded for a long moment, in a rumbling of magic that shook the walls.
When everyone was able to open their eyes again, Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker's spirits had vanished, as well as the barrier. And all were devastated to see that Cozy Glow was now an alicorn, which normally should have happened only after her third season. But it wasn't the only modification her body had undergone. Her coat was sprinkled with dark blue and white volutes, with some orange and purple spots.
The other effects of staff had also dissipated. Rainbow Dash and Twilight had returned to their original body, not without a feeling of disturbance.
An oxymoron tripped and a deafening silence fell in the room, for a brief moment which lasted an eternity. The calm was progressively ruptured by a rising laugh. Coming from the filly, who tried her best to contain herself, but ended up laughing out loud.
"I did it!"
"The barrier has fallen! Cease her!" yelled Twilight, noticing that she had let go of the staff.
The guards jumped again on her, in a way more orderly manner. Cozy displayed a smile larger than Sunset Shimmer's fanbase, pivoting on herself suddenly, a wave of magic sending all the guards to get pinned on the nearest wall.
The filly ended her spinning on a stylised pose, a hoof in the air and the other in front of her face, pointing the same direction.
She opened both her eyes, showing her turquoise and golden pupils, filled with malicious intent and ambition. Addressing a smile and a perfidious stare at Twilight.
"I won, princess," she said with delight.
Her horn glowed and a jet of purple flames swooped down on the remaining group of six heroines, but Twilight brandished a shield made out of her own magic. The shot was stopped, but the magic exploded, shattering Twilight's defence and throwing her away.
"Shots fired!"
The filly fully exulted seeing the body of the princess lying on the floor. And her two inner demons – well, the two most recent ones, not the ones she was born with – accompanied her in her laugh.
Ha! Who's the hatched egg now!?
"What?" interrupted Cozy, angry that she was ruining her moment. "I don't have that reference."
I was referring to Spike's hatching. The trial she took to enter Me-lestia's service.
Cozy stayed silent, severely judging the alicorn in her.
It was funnier in my head...
"False, it's not funny in mine. Now hush, this one-shot has already gone for long enough!"
She fully spread her wings, stealing the show from the mane six, flying off slowly, declaring with a sadistic joy:
"It's time to put one last full stop to Equestria."
"Those are not Cozy Glow's canonical motivations!" yelled the distant voice of a beta-reader.
Cozy Glow struck the fourth wall with a sheaf of purple flames, mumbling while getting her attention back on Twilight, which her friends struggled to put back up.
"The trumpets of the last judgement resound for you all!"
"Those ain't trumpets I'm hearing..." noted Applejack, listening carefully.
"It was a metaphor," said the filly with tiredness.
"Ain't that either," continued Applejack. "It's... an accordion?"
"A suffering accordion..." added Fluttershy, who was now visibly an instrument whisperer.
Although, indeed, the approaching sound was clearly one of suffering. As well as a scraping sound.
It was in this moment, when all hope had faded, that a huge stone showed up. No, by looking closer, it was something sculpted. A chair. Well, a tall throne, with two seats. Encrusted with gems, correctly polished like an eastern european, shining with a thousand shards once under the right angle of light.
And, back against it, busy pushing it around nonchalantly, Maud Pie kept on torturing her instrument, but less than before. Her arrival created a moment of uncertainty for all the people present on the scene. Except for Cozy, completely disillusioned.
"Maud!"
"Hey Twilight."
The earth mare looks at the alicorn getting back on her hooves, nodding towards the sculpture she had brought here without any real struggle.
"I have the throne."
She raised her forelegs holding her instrument.
"And my accordion."
"It's er... very well Maud. But we have a coup on the stove."
"Ah?"
"Yes," cut Cozy Glow. "And I would like t-"
"What a coincidence," counter-cut Maud, "I just learned a military march. Even if it's three months too late."
"Oh no..." said Twilight, suddenly regretting that the scenario wasn't continuing on the takeover from a megalomaniac filly, to instead focus on this auditive massacre.
Maud grabbed her weapon and drew out her prettiest notes. But barely had she touched the keys on the keyboard that the suffering started for all the beings, living or not, present.
A diabolical grating, as if coming from the edges of hell where lost souls throw themselves away to escape the monsters chasing them, overlapped by what could only be the sound of a failed big bang spell, sprinkled by G5 hater's screams. Here's what the ponies on the scene felt.
"Shut her up!" bawled Cozy while covering her ears with her hooves and her magic.
"But I'm not even talking?" wondered Maud. "However, I can sing. But I didn't practise."
The mare began to take a deep breath, which the filly took immediately as a threat, casting a redundant magical spell straight on her. But, distracted by the cacophony, the magical missile missed its target, ricocheting on one of the thrones' gems and came right back towards the alicorn who had cast it.
Cozy Glow was knocked to the floor, grimacing.
"I can't believe it... Do something you two!"
Make that horrible sound stop first!
We can't do anything like this!
"The staff!" yelled Twilight, seeing an opportunity.
Opportunity which she took herself, since she was the one with the best magic here. Thankfully, after her transformation, Cozy had let go of the staff and Twilight grabbed it after teleporting herself.
"Perfect!"
With a skillful movement, she sent a translucent projectile on the filly's forehead, before doing a pumping gesture on the shaft to suck the consciousness and powers of Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon stored inside up. She then tugged firmly, pulling the magical link out of the filly, which provoked a blinding explosion. Not that the filly exploded, that wouldn't fit in a story with such a light tone. But the magic blinded everyone in the room.
When everyone was able to open their eyes again, Celestia and Luna had regained their consciousness and their temporality. Shaking her head, seeing all the mess in the room, Celestia asked:
"What happened?"
"Long story," answered Twilight.
"Ouch..." said Cozy, trying to stand back up, massaging her forehead.
She had recovered her normal colours and her original kind. Twilight hit her on the head with the shaft to knock her out, declaring:
"We'll need a highly secured cell."
"Good job Maud!" congratulated Pinkie.
"Thanks. I trained a lot to play correctly."
Twilight decided to let those details slide off. She went to see the guards and her friends, putting everything back together, waking up Starlight, Trixie acting like she had just arrived at this moment. The situation was explained to the ex-princesses.
"Well, I'm glad to not have that kind of problem to take care of anymore," exhaled Celestia.
Twilight nearly choked because she was implying that she had once taken care of a problem by herself before.
"But I must admit, I feel lighter," said Luna while feeling her own torso with a hoof. "The obscurity in me seems calmer than usual."
"The gothic phase is definitely over," summed up Rainbow.
"Nightmare Moon is probably more silent after this new loss," reasoned Twilight.
"Hm, your highness?" allowed himself one of the guards, the one that Rarity had qualified as being ugly. "Where is the culprit?"
Twilight turned around where Cozy had been left knocked out. She wasn't there anymore. And Chippcuter, whom the scenario had forgotten about up until now, was also gone. And gone from everybody's mind as well.
"We have to find her quickly!" thundered Twilight. "Guards, search her!"
"Yes, princess!"
All the guards went out to look for the missing pilosity.
"We're going to find her, Twilight!" said Fluttershy with confidence, proof that it really was about time to end this story.
The princess of friendship looked at her friends going out. And Maud. Leaving her alone.
A smile slowly crept on her face, as one of her eyes turned a dark turquoise and the other orange, her pupils becoming slits.
"Ruling over Equestria is going to be way easier, now..." she said to herself.
Her smile gained little fangs.
Author's Note
Written in March.
Was a lot of fun actually.
And I finally got to feature my favorite evil filly in a story.
