The Saga of the Tennyson Empire: The Downfall of Equestria

The Saga of the Tennyson Empire: The Downfall of Equestria

By: VunderGuy

Chapter 2: Arrival

The stars are out in full force tonight. Like twinkling little diamonds in the sky, they shimmered in all their radiant splendor. Twilight Sparkle’s time of waiting was over.  For now, un-obscured by the light of Luna’s moon, she could gaze upon a rare site that could only be viewed on the one night of the month when the Alicorn of the Night decided that her celestial namesake need not be visible to the all but the most trained of pony eyes. The one night of the month where a special constellation of her design, added into the velvet quilt of the heavens as a request to the Princess, could be viewed via telescope.

That is, if she could get the darned thing to work right!

“Spike!” She yelled out from the balcony on the second floor, into the wooden interior of her home. “I thought I told you to go and get me a new lens for my Star-Searcher 10000 while I was away!”

Earlier in the day, after returning home from some light grocery shopping, her number one assistant had suddenly belched forth in that fiery manner of his, a letter addressed for her. However, it was not, as she expected, from Princess Celestia. Nor was it from Princess Luna. Heck, it wasn’t even from the Canterlot or Ponyville area. Rather, it was from a fellow…colleague in matters of the arcane that Twilight had trusted enough to take her words of grave and dire urgency seriously and drop whatever plans she had for the day to go visit.

“All for a bunch of hooey and nonsense.” She thought to herself. “Now I’ll have to find someway to schedule in octuple-checking my checklist for the list of ingredients I’ll need for the lab soon for Tuesday instead of earlier which will cut into my—“

Before she can continue her mental rambling, she stopped herself, shakes her head, and once again yells out, “Spike!” into her home, only to, once again, receive no answer back. “Oh for the love of…” She grumbles, trotting back inside. “Spike!”

Looking down towards the foyer of the first floor where all her books were kept, she found neither scale nor tail of the baby dragon anywhere. “Where could he—“ She thought before her mind came to the sudden and very likely conclusion that it did. With a disappointed frown, she made her way towards her room and, in particular, to a small wicker basket lying at the foot of her bed. Her horn glowed with the magic of a levitation spell as she ripped away the blanket there. “Spike! Don’t tell me you’ve been sleeping since this afternoon and didn’t even bother to do this one, little, thi—“

She paused mid-sentence, seeing that Spike was not in fact in his own bed, dozing off, as she suspected. “Hmmm…Now just where is he now?” She asked out loud to herself, putting a hoof to her chin. She spent the next ten or so minutes searching every nook and cranny of her home for him, calling his name all the while. Doubling back towards the center of the foyer after investigating her lab, she began pacing around her couch with her face scrunched up in thought. “Hrmmm…it’s not like him to be out this late…where is he?”

As she made her dozen concentric circle or so, she stopped when she heard a sound that was not at all like keratin clanging against wood. Looking down, she found a small cardboard box, about the same size as the kind a bar of soap would come in, pressed beneath her right fore-hoof. Stepping off of it and using her magic, she levitated it up in front of her face and discerned the small print lettering adorning it:

STAR SEARCHER-10000 Space Magnification 6 inch diameter Convex Telescopic Magnification Lens.

Smiling widely to herself, she tore the box open, tossed it into the nearby trashcan with pinpoint accuracy, and levitated the glass right next to her as she skedaddled back up the second floor and towards her awaiting telescope on the balcony. She had forgotten her concern for Spike’s location. She reasoned that he probably just decided to sleep over at Rarity’s after being talked by her into being an impromptu model for some new grand experiment in fashion that had gone on longer than he had expected after he had come back with the lens. It wouldn’t have been the first time and it certainly wasn’t likely to be the last.

After an expedient replacement of the old, fractured lens, with the new one, Twilight tossed the former over the railings and quickly put her eye into the eyepiece. Or rather, she realized that she had been looking through the new convex lens she had just put in and, sheepishly, twirled the telescope around to its proper place. Now, certain that what was in front of her was, in fact, the eyepiece, Twilight looked into it and finally managed to see the constellation she was so anticipated to gaze upon. Despite herself, she couldn’t help but give a big goofy grin and let a few heartfelt tears streak down her cheeks at the site.

“Beautiful. Just, simply, beautiful…” She said under her breath.

Her admiration for whatever modern masterpiece layed on the cosmological canvas, however, did not last long beyond this. For soon, and for a brief few seconds, the night sky was stabbed by light an odd and sickly color that made the minds of anypony who stared at it too closely for too long feel nauseous, dizzy, and hurt at the same time. Right before the set of stars Twilight was peering through with her STAR SEARCHER-10000, the greatest commercially available optical telescope in all of Equestria…

Groggily, slowly, as though the light had burned her usual late night insomniac tendencies out of her, her eyelids began to droop. She backed away from the telescopic and began moving haphazardly about in a manner that, to everypony else but her at least, would have made her form of dancing look dignified in comparison.

“Uhhh…” She moaned, both out of way she felt and her stunningly reduced sense of motor control.

Eventually, she found herself drawn back next to the telescope, on her hind legs, and tried to lean on it with her fore-hooves in an attempt to stop herself from losing balance. Instead, she found herself hitting the side of it with more force than she had anticipated and found the mechanism swiveling around to knock her over the edge of the railing and right into the ground below, back first. She let out a short, “Ahhh!” before she hit and briefly saw stars of the imaginary variety.

*************************************************

Inside of her room within the confides of the Sugar Cube Corner, a pink coated and even darker-pink haired mare’s eyes opened suddenly and abruptly as though they were mechanical. For a while, she just lay there, beneath the quilted blanket of her bed, and stared at the ceiling with eyes as wide as cake pans. She did not blink. Her eyes did not wander elsewhere. Not a single lock of her curly mane was shuffled out of place. She didn’t even breathe. All that could be heard was a sound, not unlike that of a kettle in use, rising to the point where the steam inside would no longer be able to be contained without fear of bursting through the sides in an unintended manner. A sound that, as it neared its ultimate crescendo, was accompanied by the mare’s coat taking on a reddish complexion that grew deeper and deeper with the rising sound.

Then, with what ponies all across town heard to be like a train whistle, she rocketed forth through the roof as though she had suddenly become a Pegasus instead of an earth pony and was gone.

For a few moments, she stayed up in the dark sky, casting a shadow on an adjacent dwelling…right before reaching the apex of her ascendant and crashing down with tremendous force like she was a boulder hurled by some giant monster (or she was an Alicorn princess, in some circles).

*************************************************

Her eyes fluttering open haltingly at what sounded like the sound of snapping wood, Twilight Sparkle turned on her side to see a house, once standing completely and perfectly, if her memory served her right (which it usually did), now lying as nothing but a pile of splintered boards not half as tall as it used to be. It’s lone owner, an earth pony stallion with an hourglass cutie mark rose up from the wreckage of his home, put a hoof to his chin, and said, “Oh dear. I’m afraid this problem is a bit too much for duck tape to fix” right before his eyes rolled over in his head and he fell backwards into the land of dreams he was no doubt already experiencing before his rude awakening in a much more violent manner.

Not a split second was wasted before the form of another pony exited the pile of scrap lumber, albeit by shooting up about a hundred feet (or two) into the air like a loaded cannon. This pony, somehow seemingly and miraculously unharmed by the house that surely must have collapsed around its head, then suddenly crashed down into the ground between the stallion’s house and Twilight’s present position. Though the stars were not as adept at illuminating what lay beneath in the stead of their milky smooth neighbor, Twilight could make out just whom this pony was. As well she should. She only ever saw her nearly everyday since arriving to this town and hung out with her what must have been nearing a hundred times by now.

“Pinkie…?” She asked, dazedly.

Pinkie Pie, however, was far too busy to answer the question or voice any concern for her friend lying on the ground. Instead, she did so while shooting into the sky once more. “TWWWIIILLLIIIGGGHHHT!? WHHHAAATTT HAPPPENNNENED TOOO YOUUU!?”

She landed amidst Twilight’s house, creating an ensuing shockwave that had a different effect on it than the other one. For where the stallions had collapsed inwardly, Twilight’s tree did so in the opposite direction. Exploded in a crescendo of fragments and splinters is more like it. The force was so strong, that she found herself lifted into the air, performing cartwheels that would have made the kingdom’s greatest acrobats jealous (especially given her status as the town’s resident egghead), and crashing head first through a window on the second floor of a boutique designed like a carousel. Her momentum came to a sudden halt when her horn embedded itself in the wall facing the mirror on the other side of the room. A bedroom. One as fashionably and lavishly décored as the building’s owner, would have it. An owner whose head snapped up from beneath her blanket upon hearing Twilight’s rather dramatic and unanticipated entrance.

“WHOSE THERE!?” Rarity panicked, receiving a rather pained groan in response. Lifting the sleeping mask off of her eyes, revealing that to be the single area on her face that was covered in another, greener mask of mud, she put her fore-hooves to her mouth in shock at Twilight’s battered form. “Twilight!? Goodness gracious! Whatever happened to you darling!?”

She tossed her cover aside in a rather rushed and un-lady like fashion and made for her brainy friend. Halfway there though, the sound of more destruction heralded in and the floor began to rumble and she tripped, face smearing it with her green mask. As she sluggishly made her way back up, the mud now more evenly distributed, she heard the distant cry of, “My oven! How will I make my muffins!? NOOOOOOOO!” from elsewhere inside Ponyville.

In the meantime, Twilight’s eyes rolled around in her sockets, counting all of the various stars she had only caught a glimpse of when she had fallen off her balcony. Now, they were orbiting around her cranium. In perfectly precise corresponding heliocentric order no less!

Regaining her balance, Rarity managed to hoof it to the rest of the way and, using a bit of the ol’ telekinetic grease, pulled Twilight’s horn free and placed her gently on the floor (as gently as she could, given that another tremor passed through the moment she did). Talking over the following cry of, “My leg!” Rarity asked, “Twilight? Are you alright dear?”

The brainy mare gave her a glazed over look as her eyes continued moving in ways they shouldn’t have, her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth. “F plus V minus E always equals two where F equals the number of faces, V equals the number of Vertices, and E equals the number of edges.” She drawled.

Rarity’s eyes widened for a bit before she struck Twilight with her nose raised in confusion. “I’m not sure if that’s just gibberish from whatever bump to the noggin that ghastly entrance you made or whether that is actually some mathematical fact.” Putting a hoof to her head to assuage the aching in her own cranium after hearing what Twilight had said, she said, “Frankly, I’m afraid of the answer to that.”

“The square root of banana is fish!”

“Ah! Gibberish it is then.” Rarity said, with a satisfied smile on her face.

Said satisfaction was immediately replaced by a look of abject terror on her face when a pink projectile crashed through her ceiling, the floorboards beneath her hooves, and the floorboards on the first floor beneath that. A look of abject horror at the implications as to what this meant for her and her shop replaced that.

She could only respond accordingly.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Her constant, unimpeded shrieking snapped Twilight out of her funk and she shook out what mental cobwebs she had gathered, asking, “Rarity? Where am I?”

Putting a hoof up to assuage her head, Twilight’s answer came in the form of intensified shrieking from her as Pinkie Pie made a series of holes parallel to the ones she made coming in as she jetted out.

“Oh my gosh! Pinkie!”

Jumping to her hooves, Twilight ran over to the window to see her friend make a wreck out of City Hall before turning to a still shrieking fashionista. She put her fore-hooves on her shoulders and tried shaking her into quieting down and being calmed. It didn’t seem to be working all that effectively, so she then said, “Rarity! Pinkie’s gone crazy! Crazier than normal! I need you to calm down so that you can help me stop her! DO. YOU. UNDER. STAND. ME!?”

Twilight’s methods eventually got through to Rarity, and the unicorn managed to ask (albeit frantically), “But how? Why? WHY!? Why would Pinkie do this to my life’s work!? MY LIFE’S WORK!”

The two of them turned to the sound of their more-manic-than-usual friend totaling another property. “My carrots!”

“No time for that!” Twilight said, turning to face Rarity and then galloping out the door leading to the stairs. She though she heard the unicorn call out, “Wait, I can’t go out with my curlers on” as she made her way to the front door and, rather than let the fashionista use up precious seconds that could safe somepony else from the headache of a massive repair bill, she teleported back next to her and levitated her next to her as she made for the front door again, ignoring the shouts of protest she was given in response.

Just in time too. For a good, crater sized chunk of the road in front of the boutique disappeared into a cloud of dust beneath the back of a sullen Pinkie Pie. Letting Rarity drop to the ground rather uncouthly, Twilight shouted, “Pinkie! What in Celestia’s name do you think you’re—“ The opportunity to complete the sentence did not arise, for, soon, Twilight found herself using her levitation spell to keep Pinkie from bouncing away again. The veins sprouting along her forehead and Ms. Pie steadily rising and rising by the volitions of some unseen force was a testament to how much it was taking to accomplish such a feat. “Rarity! Help!” She called out between gritted teeth.

Forgetting about her own woes for a moment, Rarity’s horn glowed with the aura of her magic as she came to Twilight’s aid, her levitation spell mixing with Twilight’s like oil and vinegar around Pinkie. The veins and the chomped together teeth appeared on Rarity’s person much earlier than on Twilight, for her magic was not as potent or as refined as her sense of style or her personal beauty (well…during that day at least for that last one).

“I’m so sorry-sorry-sorry-sorry-sorry-sorry-sorry!” Pinkie went on and on as the two unicorn’s combined attempt at stopping her showed the first signs of growing lax, the sounds of a train whistle reaching greater and greater heights. “With whipped cream, and sprinkles, and chocolate chips, and caramel, and marshmallows, and pretzels, and gummy bears, and peanut butter, and those little lentil things that I can never tell if they’re made from mint or just covered in mint but still taste like dark chocolate anyways, on—“

A bursting dam. That was comparable to what happened when Twilight’s magic gave out, swiftly followed by Rarity’s. A bursting dam that had built up to the point where the small cracks running through it could no longer keep the building pressure at bay. Pinkie skyrocketed again, climbing more hastily to untapped heights than before. It was as though all her friends had really done was turn Pinkie into an even more dangerous shot, their magic providing the tension for the unseen sling that had taken a hold of her.

As she lay on the ground for what must have been the third time tonight, Twilight saw as Pinkie disappeared through the cloud layer…and came back down through it not long later. Though her mind was as weary as her body, she still managed to calculate that the pink pony’s angle of descent would take her…straight…amidst…the crowd of ponies…who had been awaken by the noise…and had gathered…to see…what all the hubbub was all about…

“Oh no.” She squeaked.

She tried to erect a barrier that would protect them, all of the stallions, and mares, and fouls, but trying to keep Pinkie earthbound had drained her of most of her arcane reserves. She tried to teleport all of them away to a safer distance, but the most she could ever do with the spell was three mares and Spike, and that was under life-threatening duress. Even if she could perform one that could zip away that many ponies, she ran into the first problem as her first choice. She tried to just use a simpler teleportation spell that would take her amidst the crowd so that she could hopefully push them away, but she had not the magic even to perform even that. Plus, she doubted she would be able to get them out of the way in time anyways with that option.

All she and Rarity could do was look on, helplessly, as their friend dove towards the unsuspecting crowd. All too soon, they would have been very suspected and very something else…if not for a shadow dropping down from the night sky and intercepting her about ten feet above their heads.

Twilight and Rarity gasped out, “PRINCESS LUNA!” in unison.

The crowd heard their astonishment. It was not long before they took note of the struggle going on right above them and parroted those words, along with, “PINKIE PIE!”

The Sovereign of the night forced out a grin as she struggled to hold the pink mare in her fore-hooves. “Greetings and glad tidings my subjects.”  She said, a bead of sweat forming on her forehead. “A most resplendent night, is it not?”

Jerkily, the two of them darted across the air with no sense of direction, knocking over street lamps and such and causing the crowd to scatter for their own safety (as rightfully they should). After the fifth or so time they crashed through a wall, Luna asked, “Ms. Pie, I don’t mean to be rude or frighten you, but, WHAT IN EQUESTRIA IS THE MATTER!?”

The two careened out the hole in the building they had created when entering and cratered a small chunk of the road in front of Twilight and Rarity’s heads (off by a hair). The two crawled backwards with the appropriate looks s Pinkie answered, “I don’t know Princess Luna! Honest! One moment, I was in my bed, dreaming of a land filled with candy cane forests and gum drop and truffle boulders and mint grass and licorice vines hanging from the candy cane forests and marshmallow clouds and lots of other stuff that’d make it heaven for someone with my kind of sweet tooth when all of a sudden my tail started twitchin’, my ears started floppin’, my fur started standing on end, and a bunch of other things without me moving at all! Well, except for a rumbling in my tummy, but at the time, I wasn’t sure if I just wanted a mid-night snack or had to go to the little filly’s room. I mean, what silly pony would think that their stomach growling at the middle of the night would make their bodies go on a crazy out of control rampage across town? Not me! That’s for—“

Pinkie shot up into the air again, Luna holding on tight, landing inside the town’s nearby river. “—sssssuuuuurrrrreeeee…” She bubbled beneath the water.

At first glance, one might think that this was a turn for the worse. After being educated with the fact that breath (among other things) was not a concern for Alicorns as it was for ponies that were mortals, one would realize this turn for the boon that it could be, and was for Luna. After about a minute, the bubbles stopped spitting forth from Pinkie’s gaping maw, and her eyes fluttered shut. Luckily for the Sovereign of the night, this simple earth pony, though possessing some strange power great enough to move her around against her immense will, was still just that. An earth pony. One who, like all others, needed air in order live.

Remembering this, though she hoped she didn’t too late, Luna flew out of the river and landed back in front of Twilight and Rarity. Quickly, she stomped on Pinkie’s stomach. Though a small stream shot out from her muzzle and got her in face, the pink mare began to resume normal breathing as she lay there, no doubt back in whatever fantasyland she had envisioned when last she slept.

Letting out a sigh of relief, and wiping her face clean of excess water, Luna turned her head towards the two and said, “Now then Twilight, Ms. Rarity, perhaps you would like to—“

When she opened her eyes however, she found the two of them lying on the road, every bit as unconscious as their pink friend. Her mind then recalled that, when she had landed in front of them while holding onto Pinkie before, the impact may have, sort of, kind of, knocked them into the trunk of a nearby tree.

“Oh dear…” She said aloud, hoof pressed firmly against her face as she shook it from side to side.

*************************************************

With a groan, Twilight felt a dagger of sunshine stab her in the eyes. With premeditation and practice, she rolled over onto her other side to ease this annoyance keeping her from her fitful slumber and found, thankfully, much less ample lighting. She took a sigh of contentment.

“Wait a minute…” She said, raising a mental eyebrow. “Sunshine?”

Rolling back over, she bared with the annoyance as she opened her eyelids to find that she was back home, in her bed, and that it was morning. With a groan, she stretched and her hooves touched the wooden floor. She made her way to the bathroom mirror in a bit of a daze, recalling, bit-by-bit, the events of last night. Finally, after checking that her hygiene was in order and her mane properly combed, she made her way down the stairs in that usual way she did and stopped when she heard what sounded like two familiar voices in the middle of a conversation and…the kettle on?

“How do you take it?” Asked what sounded like Rarity, coming from the kitchen.

“Just plain tea would more than suffice Ms. Rarity.” Responded what sounded like…Luna?

“Are you absolutely positive? I mean, I wouldn’t want to disappoint royalty, not would I?”

“Well…I suppose one…NO! Seven sugars! And three….No! Five teaspoons of cream! And jimmies!”

“Uh, jimmies? Princess?”

“Oh…what was that word you modern ponies use more commonly for them now? SPRINKLES! YES! A dash of sprinkles!”

“Errr…I’ll see what I can scrounge up here.”

It was then that Twilight stopped in the open threshold between the kitchen and elsewhere inside the tree and asked, “Rarity? Luna? What are you two doing here?”

“Ah! Twilight! How—“ The other unicorn and the alicorn said as they turned to greet her, only to stop mid-sentence as though they had just seen a ghost move past them riding a tricycle and honking the horn. One that had sprouted an extra head for each honk too,

“What?” Asked the brainy mare.

“Uhmmm…Twilight…why don’t we head on towards the couch, hmmm? I believe it’d be best if you sat down for this. I’d know I’d certainly wish to.” Rarity said, ushering Twilight towards the living room.

At the behest of the other unicorn, Twilight planted her rump onto the sofa as per instructed and Rarity soon followed.

“Now…uhmmm…how to say this nicely?”

“Say what nicely Rarity?” Asked Twilight, confused.

“Well…errr…” Rarity just sighed a levitated a hoof mirror in-between herself and Twilight, the back end towards the latter. “Here, I think it’s best if I just show you.”

Levitating the mirror around, the sight that greeted Twilight caused her eyes to almost fall out of their socket. “Wh—wh—whhhaaa…?” Was all she could manage to stammer out.

“It’s not…that bad Twiligh—“

“Not that bad!? I look…I look….I look like even more of a deranged maniac than that time I cast that spell on my smarty-pants doll!”

This was true. Where once, she thought she had made her teeth sparkling white and her hair as kept as it usually was, she saw that her mane was now like a tangled thicket and that the toothpaste she had used now served to make it seem like she was frothing at the mouth.

“Hmmmph.” Rarity said, sticking her nose up into the air. “Well, that’s certainly no reason to yell like an even more deranged maniac. Really dear! All you need is to spend a little time in front of the mirror, and you should look good as new. There’s no need to be a drama queen about these sort of things.”

“But I did spend time—“ Twilight said before huffing. “Uhhh…never mind. Is Spike here?”

“Why wouldn’t he be darling?”

Twilight fixed Rarity with a quizzical look. “Wait…wasn’t he with you?”

*************************************************

“Max! Max! Maximillius Yamamoto Tennyson! Junior!”

What racks my body as I awake is not entirely pleasant, but not entirely unfamiliar either. It is comparable to all those times I spent sparring when I was a younger lad as a normal human or a weaker than human alien. Unlike those times though, I am a bit more certain that whatever bruises I may have sustained, however unlikely that it is I have received them, will heal faster. Uncle Kevin wasn’t here to deliver them, after all.

I find my head leaned at an uncomfortable angel against one of my arm rests, a small puddle of drool gathered there from when my mind skipped however many beats it did looking at the ugly rift. Cautiously, I try to return my cranium back to its normal position but wince and find myself back on the armrest. I am tempted to find an easy solution to this dilemma, of which, I can think of quite a few. Instead, I grit my teeth and, like a proud Prince of the Tennyson line, crack my neck as fast as I can. I feel some sense of pride well up in the pits of my stomach. I only yell out in agony a little at this course of action. Just a little.

Stretching out my shoulders, legs, and other parts of mine that need stretching, I find the owner of the voice standing in front of m. Arms crossed over his chest, Tetrax asked, “So, how did you sleep Junior? I wouldn’t know since I looked away and used my arms to shield myself unlike some others I could name.” He says, flashing a cheeky smile towards me and a scowl towards some of the bridge crew, who were also recovering just as I was.

“Uhhh….of course you did.” I say, closing my eyes to try and relieve the migraine I’m undergoing. They open with a start. “Though, now that I think about it, call me junior once more, I and I will personally see to it that you know exactly how I slept.”

My ensuing grin is cheekier.

“Maybe later. Right now though, we have a bit of a…situation…”

“What kind? The Vreedle brothers? Are they still—?”

“No. A couple of cooks managed to jump them in one of the pantries in the middle deck. The kind of situation I’m referring to—“ He pauses, taking a few steps to the side and pointing somewhere in front of us. “—involves that.”

I follow his finger outside of the porthole and notice something outside that I hadn’t before. The unmistakable sight of viewing a world, verdant and blue, from somewhere in its orbit.

“Ah.” I respond simply. “I can see that.”