//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 - Welcome to PonyVille, The Most Uneventful Town Ever!. . . Not Anymore(Episode 1) Part 2 (Edited) // Story: An Editorial Tale // by Awkward Elipsis //------------------------------// All was still in the Canterlot castle that morning, the royal ponies deep in their velvet beds, and the royal guards had switched shifts already. Celestia had just risen to lower the moon and lift the sun, bringing warmth and daylight to all her little ponies. Celestia then headed through the castle, not missing a turn. For what kind of monarch would she be if she got lost in her own castle? She decided to quickly head down to her private dining room to get a breakfast in before all of her royal duties had to be done. Celestia went into the castle kitchen to find her head chef, Crème Brûlée. Crème was a cream coloured mare with a gold-brown hair that was wrapped up in a bun, as to not get in the way while cooking. Crème was a pastry chef back in Prance, working at a small pastry store when Celestia had visited. After tasting her famous crème brûlée, Celestia asked her to come back to Canterlot to work in the castle. Crème Brûlée graciously accepted and thanked the owners of the dessert store for letting her work there. When Crème arrived at Canterlot she had a rough start. She still had her Prench accent and she also was a pastry chef. But after a while she adapted, learned to control her accent as well as learning to cook more than just deserts. Soon she had risen to head chef. You could also guess from her name that her cutie mark is indeed, a crème brûlée. "Ah Princess, good morning." Crème said as she bowed. "What can I get for you today?" "Nothing big Crème, I need to finish fast," Celestia replied, "and didn't I already tell you about not calling me by my title?" "Ha ha, the tenth time this week, Princess. How about a cup of coffee and a daisy sandwich?" "That's perfect Crème, thank you." Celestia then dismissed herself, walked out into the dining and sat down on one of the comfortable cushions. As she waited there her mind drifted to her past. "*Sigh* I missed it back a thousand years ago when I didn't have as many duties to fulfill. Now every single minute has me listening to the complaints of another uptight noble," she recalled to herself. "I mean really, a restaurant getting your order wrong is no reason to come to bother the strongest being in Equestria." Her eyes wandered around the empty dining room. "*Sigh* It is sure quiet here now, with Cadence studying abroad, Shining Armour busy with his Captain duties, Twilight and Spike having already left to Ponyville, and…" she pauses to wipe a tear from her eye, "oh Luna, I miss you." ~~~~~~~~###~~~~~~~~ "Come on Twilight, cheer up!" Persuaded Spike. Leaving Canterlot early, Twilight and Spike headed to Ponyville on the Princess's orders. For the entire flight Twilight had not been in a good mood… At least in Spike's eyes. Inside her head, Twilight had been pondering the same problem for the entire morning; 'just who could have sent me that letter?' From what she knew, the only pony that could send a letter through Spike was Celestia. "Now that I think about it, wasn't the fire that sent the letter blue?" she muttered to herself. "Twilight!" "Huh, what?" "Twilight, what's wrong?" Spike asked. "You've been in a grouchy mood the entire morning." "I'm not in a grouchy mood Spike, I just had something on my mind." "Well, ok, but I was going to tell you that the Princess arranged for us to stay at the local library in Ponyville. I thought that knowing that, would lighten your spirits." Instantly Twilight shot up looking very motivated, "Wow, I guess it did more than just lighten your spirits." "Yes, yes it did. But do you know why?" Twilight questioned, "because I'm right! I'll check up on the preparations as fast as I can, then go back to the library to find proof of Nightmare Moon's return." "But when will you have time to make friends?" "Celestia said to check on the preparations, and as her loyal student I will do my royal duty, but the fate of Equestria does not rest on me making friends!" Twilight informed Spike as the two royal guards landed in the middle of town, "Thank you sirs," she said politely. "Well," began Spike as a pink earth pony mare began trotting towards them, “maybe the ponies of Ponyville have interesting things to talk about. Come on Twilight, just try." Giving in, Twilight decided to greet to mare, 'I mean, what could possibly go wrong?' she thought. Neither Spike nor Twilight knew what they would begin. "Um, hello?" *GAAAASSSSSPPPPP* "Well, that was . . . interesting alright," retorted Twilight after the pink mare zipped through the air. "Come on Spike, let’s go to check the first thing on the list." After walking out of the town for a bit, they come across a large apple orchard. The trees stretched all the way to the horizon, every apple glistening in the late morning sun. They continued down the dirt path until they came across a farm. "Ok," Spike said as he looked at a scroll, "Summer Sun Celebration Official Overseer's Checklist, number one: Banquet preparations, Sweet Apple Acres." "Yeehah!" They heard somepony yell. Twilight and Spike turned to see an orange earth pony mare with blonde hair, wearing a cowboy Stetson. The mare ran towards a tree with buckets below it and bucked the tree with an enormous amount of force, every single apple falling from the tree, into the buckets. The she then stood proudly with one of her front legs in front of the other. "*Sigh* Well, let’s get this over with." Twilight said unenthusiastically as she began walking in the direction of the mare. "Good afternoon. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and-" Twilight stopped as the mare took both of her hooves and shook one of Twilight's. "Well howdy do Miss Twilight, a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Ah'm Applejack, and we here at Sweet Apple Acres sure do like making new friends," said the mare as she introduced herself. "Friends?" Twilight responded, however because of the hoofshake, it came out a bit shaky, "actually, I-" Taking her hooves away from Twilight, Applejack asked "So, what can ah do ya for?" Twilight didn't answer back, for her hoof was still shaking from the hoofshake. Spike quickly reached over and stopped her leg and giggled. "Ahem, well I am, in fact, here to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration. And you're in charge of the food?" "We sure as sugar are! Would you care to sample some?" "Well," Twilight said, "as long as it doesn't take too long, I guess we can-" Without letting Twilight finish, Applejack left and began ringing a triangle summoning every Apple family member nearby. Because of the amount of Apples, they created a mini-stampede and the next thing they knew, Twilight and Spike were whisked away to a table. "Now, why don't ah introduce ya'll to the Apple family?" Applejack began. "Oh thanks, but that's not really necessary, and I really need to hurry." replied Twilight. Ignoring her, Applejack began listing of each member of her family as they each brought one apple based treat to the table. Nearing the end Applejack took a deep breath and named the last few. "Big Macintosh, Applebloom, and Granny Smith. Up and at em' Granny Smith, we got guests." "Huh, wah?" Granny Smith awoke with a snort and muttered, "ah, soups up!, ah'ma comin’, ah'ma comin’." "Why, ah'd say you're already a part of the family." Applejack continued. As Applejack said this, Twilight quickly spat out the apple she had shoved in her mouth in the middle of the commotion. "Oh, um, well, it looks like you have the food situation under control here, so we'll just be on our way." "Aww," whined a tiny voice. Twilight turned to see a little filly in front of her with the cutest puppy dog eyes. "Aren't you goin'ah stay for brunch?" "Sorry, but we've got an awful lot to do," apologized Twilight. In response, every Apple member there put their heads down in disappointment. Feeling the guilt well up within her, she gave in with a "fine." Twilight and Spike then proceeded to eat and ‘sample’ all the food that was given to them, unaware as a black raven watched from the darkness of a nearby barn, with eyes of pure white. Soon the bird turned and took off to the untamed Everfree Forest. ~~~~~~~~###~~~~~~~~ Flying as fast as a pegasus, the raven flew above the trees of the Everfree until it saw a dimly lit clearing. It stopped its flight and landed without a sound in the clearing. It walked into the shadow of a tree and transformed to the black hooded figure. "Well, everything said, that was very entertaining to watch," said the hooded man. "Ok, now that I've checked on our little protagonist there, I should go over the steps for the next phase. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a scroll. "What?! Oh Celestia damn it, it changed when I entered Equuis." He then focused and shadows then began to move and cover the scroll. The scroll then hardened and melded into a rectangular shape. As the shadows dissipated from the scroll in his hand, it was obvious that it was no longer a piece of paper. "Ah, there we go, back to normal. IPads are so much more efficient than scrolls." He used his finger to then find a folder on the screen that was titled; My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. "I always thought that was a weird name... oh well." Tapping the icon, the folder expanded into multiple smaller folders. "Let's see here, season 4, fan fictions, fan-made videos, season 3, season 2, ah! Here it is, season 1. They're so much easier to find when it's all in chronological order." He then opened the 'Season 1' folder. Finally, he got to what he was looking for and tapped the Episode 1: Script folder. "Ok, finally, let’s see here. Hmm, Twilight reads book on the banishment of Nightmare Moon, sends a letter to Celestia, gets sent to Ponyville, meets Pinkie Pie, goes to meet future friends and goes to the Summer Sun Celebration to find that Nightmare Moon is back. Seems like everything is going to script." He slid the iPad back into his cloak and takes a look around to find that the sun was just setting. Deciding to just take a rest, he laid down in the clearing as the moon, complete with the mare in the moon, rose into the sky, and with it the stars. "Ah, so beautiful. I'm so glad I don't have to sleep, the night is much more interesting than the day." As time passed, the man began to wonder if the four star constellations would be able to help her off the moon. Looking at the moon again, he noticed 4 stars, brighter than all the others, begin to circle the moon. "Alright, break time’s over," he announced to nobody in general as the four stars converged on the moon, "time to meet the first antagonist of this series.” After a while of searching, he sensed a dark presence nearby. Melting into the shadows, he zoomed through to the location of the dark aura. Reaching another clearing, he saw a tall, dark alicorn looking around the clearing, seeming lost. 'Well, I should go and give her a push then.' he thought. Readying his voice and lining it with an echo he greeted the dark alicorn. "Well, well, well, what have we here? It seems that an alicorn has gotten lost in my forest." Surprised at the sudden voice Nightmare Moon scanned the darkness for the source of the voice. "Who goes there? Is that thou, Discord, spirit of chaos?" she asked. "Discord? HA! Oh no no no, he is still quite… held up at the moment." 'For about a couple more episodes if I remember,' he recalled. "You and I have never met before, however I do wish to help you with your problem." "Problem? What is this problem that thou speakest of? We have no ‘problem’." "Oh really? Then I guess you wouldn't want to hear my proposition on what to do then." "No, we only said that we did not have a problem. We did not say that we would not listen to thine proposition." She answered. "Very well then, if I was in your situation, I would first set up a set of obstacles to slow down anypony that would follow me, probably around six. Then I would go and wait at the place I was defeated." "Why would we-… thou, do that?" She asked. "Why? Why to make it so that when I have my victory, historians will write about this moment as the place I enacted my revenge on the pony who shamed me." "We see, well thine plan seems to be a very well-thought-out plan. We must be off now." Before he could question her further, she disappeared in a trail of starry smoke. He then exited the shadow he was residing in and stood alone in the clearing. "And off to the ruined castle of the princess sisters she goes," he reported. "Looks like that's finished, episode one should be finished, and the beginning of the next is set up," he said as he pulled out the script to episode one. "Yup, that's it," he said as he returned the iPad to his cloak, "I better go and find the girls, wouldn't want them to botch one of Nightmare Moon's trials and mess up the story." He then began to call the surrounding shadows to him and slowly transformed into an owl. Lifting his new wings he took off, pointed himself towards Ponyville, and set off to prepare the next episode.