//------------------------------// // 9-3: Rise of the planet of the chimps // Story: The Worst Villain Ever! // by Battlecrank //------------------------------// Chapter 9-3:Rise of the planet of the chimps Or How not to escape from a castle: vol. 2       “Are you kidding me?” Xeno taunted his opposite. “I bet that even with that disguise, you still wouldn’t be able to get a date!”   “Excuse me?!” Celestia responded with outrage. “I’ll have you know that King Sombra himself once desired to court me!”   “Oh, spare me! Even if you were old enough to have done as you claim, everypony knew he had a thing for wings. Looking at you, I’m honestly surprised that you managed to fit that flank of yours into that disguise.”   Celestia turned a rather interesting shade of red and made to retort, but was interrupted by one of the guards interposing themselves between the two princesses.   “Your highness!...es,” he began. “I understand that you both feel that you’re the real Princess Celestia, but this arguing is only going to result in Discord getting set free once again.”   Celestia flinched, and quickly calmed herself, as ‘Celestia’ nodded ‘her’ head slowly in agreement with the guard. After a moment of silence, the guard continued.   “Now, to circumvent the release of the chaos spirit, I propose a simple test to prove which one of you is the real one.”   The Celestias looked at each other, before returning their attentions to the guard.   “What sort of test?” One of the two asked.   “Oh, nothing too complicated,” The guard assured. “Just a set of questions. The one who answers the most correctly, is obviously the real Celestia.”   Again, the diarchs looked at each other, before seemingly coming to a conclusion.   “Proceed,” they both spoke at once, creating a stereo effect.   “Right… First question!” The guard seemed to think for a moment, before holding up a hoof. “What is Princess Celestia’s favorite story?”   Princess Celestia smiled. “Th--”   “The Wonderful World of Worldly Cakes from Around the World,” the ‘Princess’ interrupted at high speed, silently thanking his quick memory and a certain purple pony’s diary.   “Correct!” The guard chimed as the real Princess blinked in shock. “Next question: how much cake does Princess Celestia eat each morning?”   “Well, all things in mod--”   “Fourteen slices each of whatever’s available in the kitchens.”   “Correct again! What’s Celestia’s Birthday?”   “It’s rather rude to--”   “The first of July.”   “Correct! Who was Celestia’s first romantic interest?”   “How do you even--”   “Starswirl the Bearded.”   “Correct! What’s Celestia’s favorite flavor of tea?”   “I DON'T LIKE TEA!”   The room was silent for a moment after Celestia’s outburst, but the guards quickly pointed their spears at her with various yells of ‘imposter.’   “Wha--”   “Foolish imposter!” The lead guard smirked in victory at his ploy having worked so easily. “Everypony knows that Princess Celestia loves tea! She drinks it every day, for goodness sake!”   “That doesn’t mean--”   “SEIZE HER!”   A split second later, and the Diarch of the sun was under attack from her own guards. The masculine duplicate stood for a moment, staring at the dog pile in shock for a moment, before muttering a near silent ‘huh’ under his breath. A moment’s hesitation later, and he was running down the corridors, using the distraction to escape before the mixup was inevitably discovered.   “What is all the--Oh, Auntie!”   ’Oh, this should be fun’ Xeno thought to himself as he found himself suddenly being escorted by a white unicorn, who was scrambling to keep up with his rapid pace down the hall. ’If even half of the stuff in that book on his genealogy is true, then this should be easy.’   “I’m quite busy at the moment, Blueblood. Is there something I can help you with?”   “I was just hoping you would reconsider my earlier proposal about throwing that horrid mare from the Gala in the dungeons. Such a barbaric nag should have no place--”   “I’m sure I’ve already told you that’s not going to happen, Blue,” Xeno said with fake exasperation. “The commoners would never stand for such an ‘abuse of power’ from any of the nobles, and there isn’t much either you or I can do about that.”   The white unicorn--now identified as Blueblood--seemed to wilt as he was once again denied what he felt was his rightful vengeance.   “Instead,” the ‘mare in white’ continued, “I have a different idea for you.”   Xeno stopped, and faced the unicorn directly.   “In the same town as that mare you love so much, there is a certain creature who seems to be tormenting my faithful student. Normally, I’d just throw her at the problem and hope for the best, but there are other things that currently require her attention. I’ve placed you in charge of the task force to apprehend it.”   In a lower volume, Xeno continued. “And if you happen to spot a certain mare whom just happened to wrong you in the past, I’m sure you’ll be well within your rights to question her thoroughly about her possible involvement with the creature at large, hmm?”   Blueblood gave a beaming smile, and bowed at Xeno’s feet while spewing all manner of praises to ‘her’ glorious rule. After a short while of this, the unicorn then ran back the way he had come.   ’Well,’ Xeno thought to himself. ’That went well…’   Just as the unicorn reached the corner back to the throne room, the first of many explosions rocked the castle, throwing him against the wall.   ”I am Princess Celestia! I have seen more centuries pass than years you have existed! Remove thy hooves from me now, or suffer my wrath!”   ’And that’s my cue to leave!’     Luna, Princess of the moon, and Diarch of Equestria was well known among the land. She guarded the dreams of foals, protected her subjects from the creatures of the night. There were songs written of her proficiency in battle, and poems to the beauty of her night sky.   There were also innumerous jokes about her ability to sleep through everything. Much to her continued annoyance, the changeling invasion did nothing to help in this regard. Just last night, she had even caught the captain of her night guard making a joke about her, commenting that nothing short of the moon crashing into her bedroom window would wake her.   Needless to say, that particular guard was now serving in a more… Pleasurable fashion.   “Oh, yes!”   A groan was heard in the bedroom of the Lunar Diarch. The curtains had been drawn, and incense filled the room with the scent of burning Cedar from an ash catcher atop Luna’s blue vanity.   “Lower…. Lower!”   Only a small swarm of candles, dispersed throughout the room at random, provided any light for the two figures on the lavish four poster bed. A cart stood next to the bed, covered in all manner of bottles and a large bowl filled with grapes.   “Oh, it’s been too long since I’ve done this!”   “Your highness, must you make this sound so...Vulgar?”   “Oh hush.” Luna responded chastising. “It has been over a thousand years! I am entitled to this!”   “And I have no qualms with that,” the guard captain responded, “but must it be ME who gives you a massage? I’m sure there are ponies who are much better at this than I.”   “Ah, but they didn’t jest about their glorious princess, did they?”   The guard sighed, and pressed his hooves into a particularly tangled knot in Luna’s back. Simultaneously, a grape was levitated to the royal mouth with a deep blue glow, matching one similar around the royal horn.   “And once you are done with this, then perhaps I--”   Luna wasn’t able to finish her thought, as the room was shaken in time to the sound of an explosion downstairs. Muffled yelling was heard, and distantly an alarm from the barracks had begun wailing outside.   The princess and the guard captain looked at each other, a silent conversation passed between them with a raised eyebrow and a shrug. A moment of silent conversation is all that it took for the guard to sigh, and move off the princess’s bed.   “I’ll go check it out.”   Carefully extracting himself from the spider silk linens and pillows, the guard finally leveraged himself off the bed, causing it to roll a bit on unseen castors. Luna watched him long enough to ensure that he would not tangle amongst the linens, before laying her head back down on a convenient pillow.   ‘We really need to do this more often’, the lunar diarch thought to herself. ‘We are especially impressed with how controlled his technique is! From what we have learned, we expected much more… enthusiastic motions.’   The mare hummed in contentment as the guard pushed a catering cart out of his way on his quest to the door. ‘Come to think of it, perhaps Tia would also wish to partake--’   Just as the guard with cart in tow reached the door, it burst open, sending both flying with one atop the other. Luna looked away from the spreading pool of oils and other sented fluids just in time to see aforementioned sister running at her full tilt and take a flying leap.   “Wait! NoNO!”   ‘Celestia’ landed on the bed, imparting most of her momentum to it. It wheeled itself out the nearby door and onto the balcony, where it stopped against the railing.   “Tia! What doth--you’re not Tia.”   “HALT RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!”   Luna looked away from the now revealed villain in white, to the hallway. She was just in time to see her real sister cast a spell, uncaring for the surroundings of her target. A split second later, and all was obscured in smoke and ash.   Luna screamed.     “How the hell do you steer this thing?!”   Xeno attempted to steer the bed down the road, dodging carts and lampposts. His efforts were not entirely successful, as evidenced by the unconscious changeling and large amount of dead plant matter now covering the footboard. He glanced at the princess of the night, and quickly decided that she would’nt be of any help.   “Watch out!!”   Xeno quickly returned his attention to the streets in front of the mobile bed, just in time to swerve it out of the way of a cabbage vendor.   ‘Okay, maybe SOME help…’   The bed’s speed accelerated as they took a curve in the street, and started going downhill at a steep angle. This only increased the frequency at which Xeno found himself being yelled at by the lunar diarch.   “Left! LEFT!”   “I see it!”   “HALT! IN THE NAME OF THE PRINCESS!”   Xeno spared a quick glance upwards to see a pegasi guard flying just above the bed.   “No thanks, already have one!   “Wha-OMPH!”   A quick toss of of a pillow, and one conveniently placed shop sign later, and the guard was no longer a problem.   “CLIF!”   Two seconds later, the bed flew out over the abyss of Canter Mountain.     Two hours later, one human, changeling, and princess of the night sat at the edge of a forest. A smoldering camp fire was between them, and the human had a stick with a foamed surger substance at the end suspended above. Crickets chirped as the calm of night surrounded the group, the princess’s moon suspended overhead.   “Well, that went well.”   “We would like to disagree.”   “Oh relax. The clones will be here quickly enough--with the exception of the one taking your place, of course--and then you can start your vacation.”   The Princess gave the villain in white a scathing look. “We wish you had told us of your plans before your actions had destroyed our bedroom. It will take us forever to put everything back the way it was, to say nothing of our sister worrying.”   The villain sighed. “Look, you paid for a distraction, I provided the distraction. You get some time away from the nobles, I got to get some bills paid off and temporarily take over Equestria.”   “Wait, thou didst what?!”   “And! And we got a free changeling out of the arrangement!”   Xeno gestured to the still unconscious changeling while ignoring the mare’s icy glare. The silence continued for a few moments more, before the villain’s marshmallow caught fire.       A group of six mares stood at the exit of the train station. Guards were swarming everywhere, and a trail of destruction made a path from the palace to the city’s edge. Panic reigned as the solar diarch flew to and fro, looking for her missing sister and tearing the city apart doing so.   “Dang it! We missed him!”   Twilight began stomping in the direction of the castle, nearly turning the air blue with muttered curses and threats to the general well being of a specific humanoid mammal. The other mares from the group looked at each other a moment, before Pinkie yelled out in joy and ran over to join a group of ponies looting a store.   “...So,” finally came a hesitant question from a buttery colored mare. “Should we… Should we follow them, or… Or what?”