Twilight and Luna Kill Celestia

Our young would-be hero sat alone, in the rearmost train car; or rather he was alone for a moment, until the two cloaked mares sat in the seat in front of him wordlessly. The other three sat in the seat behind him. Time passed slowly in the somewhat cramped little train car, each group wordlessly waiting for something to happen.

Eventually, the final call for passengers was shouted and the other train cars were filled, yet everypony seemed to ignore that rearmost car. The doors began to close, and the young colt finally spoke up.

"You know, the next time you are following somepony, I highly suggest not speaking of them while they might still be within earshot."

The shorter of the two cloaked suddenly became flush red and opened her mouth to speak, only to have a hoof shoved into it by her companion, who motioned for silence.

"And also, when disguising yourself, do try and suppress your aura some. I caught a whiff of it at your coronation, and here it is again, and you with it. My dear princess Sparkle, you are really new to the whole ‘stealth’ thing aren’t you?”

A hoof in the mouth was no longer able to silence the shorter of the two cloaked mares. She rose out of her seat and joined the colt in the seat next to his. Her reply was surprisingly calm, considering the insult.

“One- my aura IS suppressed.

Two- How in the hay are you ‘smelling’ my aura?

Three-You should at least pretend to respect royalty!

Four- Me and my friend need to have a  word with you.”

The ghost of a smile made it’s way unto the lips of the foal’s mouth as he replied.

“One- You’re still not used to your wings, my dear. The suppressed aura is flowing from there instead.

Two- Magic.

Three- I’m only going to respect somepony who earns it, which you have yet to do.

Four- I would be honored to meet with Princess Luna

Five- My friend and I*”

The taller mare saw this as a fitting time to chime in, with a hint of anger in her voice. She was angry that she had been found out, despite having not slipped up as her companion did.

“How do know who we are, foal?”

“Who would be travelling with Princess Sparkle, that speaks in such a manner? Logic only serves that it was you, Princess Luna.”

“Very well then, I suppose such mannerisms are to be expected of such ignorant youth.”

The aforementioned ignorant youth blushed a bit at this statement, which he hid by looking away, out the window of the now-moving train.

‘Odd, I know nothing about the three that are following the two following me… they came prepared, but for what?'

It did not take an astute observer to hear a light, haughty chuckle come from one of the three sitting behind the foal.

“Well, we shall cut to the chase.” Luna stated, as she removed her hood and let her mane flow freely.

“And what might said chase be?”

“Er… Did we misuse the expression, Sparkle? We are unsure what to say.”

The foal had at this point fallen to the floor trying to stop his laughter. Twilight facehoofed.  Luna looked down to find her hooves to be incredibly interesting all of a sudden. The Three mares looked to one another curiously, until the earth pony in the middle shook her head.

“Ahhh oh that was funny. Ah- let me catch my breath real fast. Whoo okay, I’m good. You were saying?” The foal managed to chuckle out a response after a time. Rising from the floor, he turned to face the two mares who were standing in the walkway between seats and staring at him with annoyed glares.

“We were saying… That we…” Luna blushed nervously as she cut herself off from her statement.

“We are saying that we need help.” Twilight decided to take the wheel, since her companion was obviously incapable of remaining serious. A long moment of silence followed as the foal looked at the two taller mares, wondering what they could possibly need from the likes of him.

“Huh?” Was all the foal could say, even after nearly five minutes of everypony listening to the train tumble along towards Ponyville.

“How should we explain… You see, my sister has been so proud of her guards lately. She has convinced herself that no crimes could ever possibly happen in any place that is being properly guarded. Twilight and I have made a bet with her that we could stage an assassination attempt, while obviously not wanting to succeed, we want to prove to her somepony could do it if they so desired to. Obviously neither of us have any of the experience you do in the fields of . . . less ethical activities.”

“You want me, to pretend to kill Celestia?”

“. . . Yes, you see, her side of the bet was that any determined assassin could eventually kill anypony. We believe she has already found her assassin and sent it after us. We need your criminal mind to help us learn how to avoid such a thing from-“

“Let me cut you off there Sparkle, if your assassins were being serious, you would already be dead right now.”

Both mares looked to one another in surprise, before Luna spoke up

“Uhhm, what? You mean you are who she-“

“Not I, no. Those three, they have been following you since before you were following me. And if you were as attentive as you should be, you would have noticed that all three of them are armed, and simply waiting for you to let your guards down.  I suppose that they are under instruction to not attack you until you have found your assassin and sent them to attack her. The three of them look like impressive fighters, subtle yet powerful. I want to see if I can’t beat them, and just because of that I might just consider your offer; but first, what do I get for helping you win this bet?”

Twilight levitated a few scrolls out of her bags. “Full pardons for every act of theft, espionage, blackmail, vandalism, destruction of public property, and impersonation of royalty… as well as thirty thousand bits.”

The foal’s eyes widened to saucers as he thought about the offer. “And if we don’t win?”

“You’ll be arrested on the spot for every crime you have ever been caught committing, including the one involving Prince Blueblood’s garbage disposal.”

“OH BUCK I THOUGHT NOONE KNEW ABOUT THAT ONE. ILL DO IT, JUST PLEASE MAKE THAT ONE DISSAPPEAR!”

“I have all the paperwork needed to do so, as soon as I sign these, you are legally an innocent colt, free to do as you wish.” She returned the scrolls to her saddlebags. Luna looked as lost and confused as ever. Twilight had a faint smile on her face. The foal was almost in tears, burning red with embarrassment.

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The three mares chose this as their time to rise from their seats and officially initiate the bet.

“Good evening Princesses, we will be the ones killing you this evening.” The earth pony in the middle said. Twilight reflexively tensed as her horn began to glow. Luna’s wings spread wide and her mane and tail began to envelop the train car in darkness.

“No, princesses, let me. I want this to be fun. You two go into the next car and get some tea or something.” The foal said, jumping in front of his new employers.

“Are you sure you do not need our help? You are rather young.”

“Tch, I’m older than I look. Just sit and relax, but stay behind me.”

“Very well then, be that way.” Luna finally spoke, tired of letting Twilight hog all of the fun. She stormed off dramatically into one of the seats facing the four that were about to fight, soon to be joined by her shorter friend.

The foal levitated a pale blue and gray scarf from his bag in his seat, and wrapped it around his neck. His eyes shrunk to pinpoints for just a moment, before returning to normal. He had acquired a rather intense air about him. The energy in the room was damn near palpable.

The two unicorns dropped defensively in front of the earth pony in the middle, as they each opened their cases. The unicorn on the left withdrew a small lyre, holding it in a pale green glow. The unicorn on the right withdrew several dozen records, which spun furiously in the air around her in a deep blue glow. The earth pony withdrew a cello and a bow.

The energy around the foal settled itself as a confused look found his face.

“Huh? I thought you three were trying to KILL the princess, not perform for her.”

The two unicorns looked to the earth pony and she said “We are.”

The song began.

The unicorn on the right looked to the cello and the same deep blue found it’s strings. The earth pony drew her bow across the string and a low G sounded deeper and louder than one would think possible of a single instrument, it reverberated with such force that the bones in The Foal's legs seemed to turn to jelly.

‘Enchanting the strings to create more powerful sound with less effort, clever girl… wait whoa what? OH SHI-’

Another low G was played, but this one was backed by a small chord coming from the lyre. A forceful wave of blue and green seemed to emanate from the three mares. And then the records began to turn into a vertical position, parallel with one another and mere lines from the foal’s perspective. The spinning accelerated into a high pitched whir, the magic that coated the records began flinging off in short blades from it.

“So that’s your game, is it? Enchanted sound waves to paralyze and disable your opponent as you slice them to ribbons. Impressive, but you’ll have to be a tad bit more creative than that."

The foal’s horn sparked and opened every window in the train car, letting in a forceful amount of wind. A smile again fell upon his face, followed by a pale glowing from his eyes and horn. “This is why pegasi HATE me.” With the emphasis on the word hate, a thick fog rapidly filled the train car, pouring into the windows and blinding all within. As the foal silently slid away from his previous location, the mares struck out at where they thought he was, leaving deep gashes in the floor and seats in the area.

A grunt of frustration sounded from the unicorn with the lyre as the earth pony nodded to her. A green light shone brightly through the fog, searching for the seemingly vanished foal. All that they managed to find were two slightly amused alicorns sitting in a seat at one end of the car. The three mares looked incredibly frustrated and Luna chimed in.

“Shouldn’t you be looking for somepony?”

Twilight pointed her hoof past the unicorns and to the cellist. The unicorns turned around and looked, only to see that the fog around the earth pony had condensed into an icy prison around her joints, with thick vines of frost preventing any movement. The cello was nowhere to be seen.

“Ahh, too easy girls, come now, three trained killers should be able to dispel a little fog!”

Two face hooves were the only response as a pale green flooded the car and the fog was gone.  “Don’t just stand there like mindless mouth breathers, get me out of this ice damn it!”

The two unicorns both attempted to simply shatter the ice with magic, only to find that they could not.

“It’s magic ice, you really think I wouldn’t block it against your magic?”

The foal’s voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once, while Twilight stifled a laugh. The unicorn with the green glow and the lyre again groaned in frustration and dropped the lyre. She took a chisel from one of her pockets and began to chip at the ice by hoof. The other unicorn stood guard defensively while here companion worked, making sure to keep her records spinning rapidly in a circle around the three to prevent any surprises.

“Surprise!” The foal shouted as he fell from a trap door in the roof, landing right on the unicorn spinning the records, knocking her unconscious from the impact. The records fell to the floor with a clatter; the other unicorn dropped the chisel and grabbed her lyre with her magic.

“No! Damn it, you are going to die for this foal!”

“If I had a bit for every time I heard that, I wouldn't need to take the risks that make me hear it.”

An emerald green began to surround the lyre as it floated just above the mare’s head. A string was plucked by her magic, and then another string, and then another.  Haunting notes began to reverberate through the air, as the glow brightened. A magic orb formed around the mare, with small bolts of electricity jumping between the orb and the lyre.

“Ohhh buck, this isn't good…”

A large bolt of green lightning fired from the lyre and towards the foal, missing by mere hoof lengths and causing the seat next to him to explode into a shower of splinters, each burning with a green flame.

Twilight looked to Luna and held up a small, striped box full of a tasty, buttery treat.

“Popcorn?” she offered.

“Why thank you, Twilight.”

“I always love a good show, at least, not when I’m the one in danger. Perhaps we should make a sport of this?”

“We do not think that that is an opinion shared by the mass of the public Twilight, maybe someday though.”

The Foal was busy sprinting around the train car and doing his best to avoid the deadly bolts as they destroyed the furniture and floor.

‘Think, think, think! How can I get her through that orb without getting fried by that damn lyre?’

‘Use the floors, foal, use the floors.’ Luna’s voice found it’s way into the foals mind, sending him spiraling into a distracting confusion, and nearly causing him to get zapped when lightning frayed the edge of his mane.

‘Luna, what the buck are you doing in my head?’

‘I got tired of watching you run, you are not very good at it.’

The foal decided against complaining, the advice was helpful after all. He magicked together some of the steel rods that had supported the various crushed chairs together and braced them through a hole in the floor, toward the ground speeding past below the train.

When the next bolt of lightning struck, it was attracted to the steel rods, and through them, into the ground below, which resulting a complete circuit into the ground.(That's all that lightning really wants after all, even magic lightning) A rather larger than normal flash of light followed the trail left from the unicorn mare’s horn and straight into the ground as she short circuited her magic. Exhausted, she fell into a heap on the floor and passed out.

By this time the earth pony had managed to crack loose of some of the icy tendrils wrapped around her limbs and was slowly making her way over to the foal. He looked to her with a smile.

“I win, your cello is gone,  your friends are unconscious, and you are weakened and tired.” The earth pony roared with a burst of last ditch strength and effort, shattering the ice, sending chunks of it flying through the air as she fell to the floor from exhaustion.

One particular chunk of ice happened to find the foal’s head. It also happened to have enough force to knock the foal clean out. He fell to the floor, still wearing that proud smile he had gained after realizing he managed to knock out three trained and hardened killers.

“Twilight, we believe you have found the perfect candidate, if he is a tad clumsy. Do tell, where might you have learned of such a youth?”

“Oh, eh, that’s a bit of a long story.” Both of the alicorns mares looked around at the half-destroyed cabin they sat in. Chunks of wood were hanging loosely in the wind, some were beginning to fall off onto the tracks as the train sped along.

“And perhaps we should restrain those three and move to another car before this one completely falls apart.”

“You make an excellent point, Twilight.”

The next time the foal woke, it was in a seat in a first class train car. He looked about himself, seeing the princesses re-cloaked and seated next to him on either side. Twilight snored lightly with her head against a window, while Luna was reading a small book.

“Uh, Princess Luna?” he whispered, not wanting to wake the sleeping mare to his left.

“Yes?”

“Where are those other three?”

“Oh, they have been placed under a simple sleep spell, they are all huddled together in another seat, until I let them wake.”

“Oh, useful.”

“Quite.”

The train went around a small left turn, causing Twilight’s weight to shift onto the foal.

“She doesn't drool, does she?” he complained as her head landed on top of the foal's.

The princess let out a small laugh “No, she does not, though she does sometimes talk in her sleep.”

Almost as if on cue, Twilight’s mouth opened and found the foal’s horn. “Oh Rarity… your horn is so dense.”

“I’m waking her up. Right now, I am waking her up.” The foal said as he shuddered.

“No, she has not slept in several days. Let her sleep.” The train rounded a right turn and Twilight shifted back to leaning on the window.

“So, Princess, do you have any plans about what to do with your sister?”

“No, that is what you are here for. We do not expect you to do anything personally, simply to aid in the planning of the actions which were to be taken on by one of my night guardsmen.”

“What? That sounds too boring.” The foal started pouting and looked away from Luna.

“You have much to learn young one.”

“I’m not young.”

“Oh?”

“I just look it.”

“Oh?”

“You are at least a thousand years old, but you look no older than thirty, how is it that my appearance comes as strange to you?”

“Oh.”

“What, did I break you?” he said, the princess looked as if lost in thought, about a thousand miles away lost. All he got in return was a silence. He grunted and got from his seat. “Well, I am going to the restroom.”

Luna did not bat an eye towards him as he walked away.

‘What a weird old mare.’

‘You are one to talk.’ The response startled him; he nearly slipped on the carpet.

‘Oh sure, now you respond.’

‘What, it’s not my fault you are a weird young colt.’

‘Whatever.’

The foal forced his mind to shut up, so as not to give away the fact that he was not in fact heading for the restroom, but the rear train car that he had fought in. Walking between the cars carefully, he saw that much of the car had already fallen apart and scattered bits of scrap along the track. Hopefully, his targets were still on board the collapsing train car.

After several minutes of searching, he found them. The instruments used by the other three in combat. The cello was where he had hid it, underneath the seat Twilight was originally sitting in; the lyre was thrown aside carelessly and in one of the walkways towards the back of the car. Records were everywhere, some stuck into the floor, some had flown wildly into walls, and the rest were in a circle near the patch of frost that still was on the carpet.

Smiling, he lifted the instruments into their discarded cases, and levitated them behind him as he walked back to the first class car. He stashed them in one of the luggage shelves near his seat and sat back down between the princesses.

Twilight was snoring moving about restlessly in her sleep. She would not be waking soon. Luna simply glared daggers towards the foal as he took his seat.

“What?”

“What do you mean what? You just stole those mare’s instruments!”

“I stole nothing, they left them behind and I collected a few trophies to celebrate my victory.”

“Trophies? Those instruments were crafted by highly skilled masters! They are each worth a small fortune of bits! You are just a common thief!” Luna’s angry whispers were slowly growing into a shout. Twilight was again shifting her weight to her right, and towards the foal’s head. He had an idea.

“You are correct Princess; I am just a common thief. I am just a common thief who just stole the weapons that three trained killers were trying to kill you with.”

“IT IS STILL STEALING!”

The Royal Canterlot Voice had awoken Twilight, as she was just about to land on the foal’s head once more.

“What’s with all the noise?” she said lazily.

"You hired a criminal, and Luna is upset that it is just a common thief."

"You are not a common thief, I read your file. Liar."

"Tell Luna that."

"Luna, he is not a common thief."

"He is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"SHUT UP, BOTH OF YOU! I'm starting to get a migraine from this!" The foal was fuming, arguments always pushed his buttons.

Luna responded calmly, "We apologize foal, we have not yet been properly introduced. I am PRINCESS LUNA, ruler of the night, the moon, and Equestria! Show your respect, before we make you."

An awkward silence passed, during which, Luna's face changed from calm, to furious, to thoughtful, and finally her face rested on one of realization.

"We haven't even been introduced properly!" Luna sounded less angry. "I, am Princess Luna, it is a pleasure to meet you. What is your name?"

The foal's eyes widened at the last question."Uh... "

"Your name is 'Uh'?"

"No, it's uh... umm"

"Out with it already!"

"Oh buck..."

Luna looked confused, The Foal looked frightened, Twilight just facehooved.