Ascendant Friendship
Sunset in Canterlot had become quite the sight over the last few years, the royal sisters making a show of it as Luna regained her strength. As the day gave way to night, stars came into visibility, promising bright days to come even as the sun sank beneath the horizon.
Well, it usually sank. This night, it staggered a bit. Celestia told herself nopony would notice; it wasn't like they'd be looking directly at it.
"What is it, sister?" Well, nopony but Luna.
Celestia smiled. "Didn't you feel it just now? Something wonderful has happened."
Luna tilted her head. Her eyes widened after a moment. "Ah! Focused as I was on tonight's canvas, I hadn't noticed." She smiled. "Go on, then. She's your student."
"Not anymore. I have nothing more to teach her."
Luna smirked. "Then go attend the graduation. I can handle everything from here."
Celestia dipped her head. "Thank you." She shut her eyes and willed herself upward, to that supernal realm unknowable to mundane creatures. And Twilight Sparkle had just become anything but mundane.
"Congratulations, Twilight. I knew you could do it."
"See? The Princess is here, we'll be fine."
Celestia's eyes snapped open. Rainbow Dash was a mare of many fine qualities, but for her to—
The "we" registered just as Celestia took in the half-dozen ponies before her. Each had the right cutie mark, each wore her Element of Harmony, and each was practically humming with magic.
Twilight trotted to her. "Princess!" She gazed up at Celestia, eyes shining. "What is this place? When I completed Star Swirl's spell, the Elements had some kind of cascade reaction. I thought we were..." She trailed off.
"You are not," said Celestia, silently grateful for the millennium of solo politicking she'd had to endure. It allowed her mouth to run on automatic as her mind scrambled to make sense of this. "You are here because you were able to reaffirm the bond that has existed between you even before you met." Yes, the Sonic Rainboom letter, brilliant! "By coming together as one, you have not only demonstrated your virtue as Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. You have proven that you are all ready."
"Uh..." Applejack adjusted her hat, which had apparently followed her to the Astral Realm. "Ready fer what?"
Celestia opened her mouth to reply, then froze. Her jaw dropped further as the implications sunk in. "Oh dear."
Most of the mares all started looking around for threats, Fluttershy most frantically of all. Pinkie Pie simply smiled. And Rarity asked, "What seems to be the problem, Your Highness?"
"You're... you're all—"
Six flashes of light interrupted Celestia. She shut her eyes and put a hoof over them. Before now, all alicorns had been born, not made. The magical output of ascendance would be blinding for anypony else. Half a dozen of them at once would be too much even for her.
"You can look now, Tia."
Celestia shook as she lowered her leg. That voice didn't belong to any of the Bearers. It was almost wholly unfamiliar, but it tickled faint memories. Celestia opened her eyes and beheld only one alicorn, standing between her and the Bearers. The newcomer's coat was even whiter than hers, the red mane and tail naught but mundane hair. Yet the quiet power coming off of that mare drove all present to silence.
"Lauren!"
Except Pinkie Pie.
"Lauren" wrapped the party pony in a winged embrace. "Hi, Mom."
"Mom?" cried all the Bearers but Twilight.
The word clicked, and Celestia blinked. "Mother?"
Lauren nodded. "Hello, Tia. It's been a while."
Celestia turned to Pinkie. "Grandmother?"
Pinkie nodded, drawing attention to her unadorned neck.
"What happened to the Element of Laughter?" said Celestia.
"Back where it belongs." Discord materialized and landed at Lauren's side. "It's good to have you back, sister."
"Sister!?" Celestia looked from her mother to Discord. "Uncle!?"
He smirked. "Niece."
"Y'know," Applejack said to nopony in particular, "Granny always told me hangin' around with Pinkie Pie'd drive me nuts. Didn't think she'd take everypony else with 'er."
Pinkie giggled. "I'm very efficient when I want to be."
"I... but..." Celestia sputtered. "What?"
"The Bearers and I had a nice feedback loop going," said Lauren. "They used my comatose form, boosting my magic with their own and vice versa. That destiny spell Twilight modified brought us straight to the endgame."
Rainbow Dash glared at Discord. "So what's he doing here?"
Rarity nodded. "Indeed. It was my understanding that we'd scattered him to the four winds."
Lauren shrugged her wings. "He's my brother. As spirit of order and harmony, it's well within my power to reassemble him."
"It rather stung." Discord rubbed his midsection.
Celestia fell back on her haunches. "So, the Bearers aren't going to become alicorns?"
Lauren shook her head. "Oh no, that's still going to happen."
"We're what!?" chorused the ponies in question. As if in response, they began to float, light shining from their chests.
And indeed, even Celestia found it blinding.
The drama of sunset was coming to a close, the last reds of the sky giving way to cool blues and blacks. Earlier, many Ponyvillians had gone out to inspect the light show at the library, but all they found were oddly shaped scorch marks and a very confused baby dragon. Ditzy Doo hadn't found anything at all, still dazzled by the mana flash, even with almost a mile and several intervening buildings between her and the event.
As such, when space twisted itself about the library tree, nopony but Lyra noticed.
"Woohoo!" Pinkie bounced into the air, then opened her wings and spiralled back down. "I'm immortal again! I'm omnipotent again!"
"Alicorns aren't omnipotent, Pinkie," said Twilight. She turned to Celestia. "We aren't omnipotent, are we?"
"Not that I've noticed." Celestia looked around. Eight. Counting herself, there were eight alicorns here. There had never been eight alicorns in one place. "Would anypony else like a drink? I may need to drink this town dry, so you should take the opportunity while you can."
"Um, Princess Celestia?"
Celestia turned and smiled. "Fluttershy, you have not needed to use titles with me for a long time, and now you are my equal even in ways you weren't before."
"That's kinda th' problem, Yer, uh, Celestia." Applejack strode to Fluttershy's side, her orange wings twitching. "Are we gonna have t' be princesses ourselves?"
"Yes, are we?" Rarity sidled next to Applejack, lashes fluttering.
"I don't want to be a princess," said Fluttershy. "I don't even know if I want to be an alicorn."
Celestia looked among them. "Uh, well..." No amount of politicking could have prepared her for this.
"Yes, Celestia, what will you do now that your brilliant little plan doubled the alicorn population?"
She turned to Discord. He seemed entirely too pleased with himself. She glared at him. "This is a dream, isn't it? One of your tricks."
Everything but Celestia and Discord froze in place. "A sort of dream," he said, "but not a very tricky one. I tapped into that delightfully unpredictable prophetic ability of yours, both to lend some credence and to fill in some gaps."
"How much of this was true?"
Discord chuckled. "Really, now. You're asking me that, o Bearer of Cunning? It doesn't matter if I say it was the unvarnished truth, nothing but varnish, or anything in between. We both know you won't trust me. Indeed, I might tell the truth precisely because you won't trust me!"
Celestia glared at him. She wasn't Luna; there was little else she could do in a dream. "Then this was all some pointless joke?"
"Oh, far from pointless," said Discord. "This was a warning. Remember, Celestia, plans can go horribly right, especially when you're toying with forces far beyond your understanding."
Celestia sighed. She was already getting the familiar headache that only seemed to come when dealing with the draconequus. "At least tell me what will happen."
Discord shrugged. "I have no idea."
"Discord..."
He smiled and shook his head. "You see? We're back at the question of trust. I truly do not know. You have inconsistent but accurate flickers of future knowledge. I have constant but approximate future knowledge. I don't use it much; it usually makes life far less interesting. But the ripples thrown up by a spell that manipulates destiny itself..." A genuine smile crossed Discord's lips. "Oh, I wish you could see time as I do, Celestia. It really is quite beautiful. It'd drive you mad, but still.
"Ah, but I ramble. The point to take away from this is that the probable outcomes of this little experiment of yours—not just possible but probable—are almost without number. If you're going to prepare at all, prepare for every result you can think of, from complete and total failure to everything I just showed you, including the bits that were just wishful thinking on my part."
"Which were—" Celestia shook her head. "Never mind."
Discord grinned and patted her on the head. "Good, you're learning!"
"Why are you doing this?"
He sighed. "Or maybe you aren't."
"If you expect me to follow this advice, I'd like to know why." Celestia frowned. "Assuming I even remember it."
"Another fun bit of uncertainty that. And really, uncertainty is why. The collective consciousness may be a nicer prison than petrification, but it still gets boring. This business with Star Swirl's Unfinished Synergy splits off in so many directions, and the ones where I deliver this message seem even more interesting than those where I don't. And the more cryptic, the better." Discord stroked his chin. "Really, I may have said too much already. Best you wake up now."
And Celestia did.
Surreal Insight 3U
Instant
Look at the top four cards of your library. Put one of those cards into your hand, one on top of your library, one on the bottom of your library, and one into your graveyard.
No sane creature can fathom how Discord sees the world
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I know how Discord sees the world. It's just like telling time, for 33% longer.
He would.
Ah, but there's the thing....it's exactly the ones that DON'T want to become alicorns that need to become them.
Up to Eleven - 9UR
Instant
Look at the top eleven cards of your library. Put one of those cards in your hand. Put one of those cards on top of your library. Put one of those cards on the bottom of your library. Put one of those cards in your graveyard. Exile one of the cards. Ante one of the cards. Put one of the cards in your command zone. Manifest one of the cards. Exile one of the cards; until end of turn, you may play that card without paying its mana cost. Exile one of the cards; if it is a nonland card, put a time counter on it, and it gains suspend. You may exchange one of those cards with a card you own from outside the game; if you do, put the card from outside the game in your hand.
"You disappoint me, FanOfMostEverything. You should be turning your card designs up to eleven." --Discord
Pinkie is the alicorn equestria deserves, but not the one it needs right now.
5810017
Officially, ante doesn't exist anymore. Also, outside of the game is mass-errata'd to exile + sideboard (except on cards that have been reprinted since exile, where it is now simply exile).
5813099
Not true. Ante cards are simply removed from your deck before the game begins if you're playing for ante (and after removing those cards, you still need a legal deck), all ante cards are banned in all tournament formats, and in some locations ante games break local gambling laws.
But ante still exists. You just can't use it, except in casual games held somewhere like Vegas or Atlantic City. Now interrupts, mono artifacts, and poly artifacts, those don't exist.
Also not true. There are no such erratas for cards which mention "outside the game". However, in tournament settings, they may only grab cards from your sideboard. (Prior to exile becoming a game zone, "outside the game" could get cards which had been "removed from the game", an action which has been errataed to "exile". But now that exile is a zone, it's not longer outside the game.)
5810017
Up to Eleven 7RRGG
Enchantment
All instances of numbers greater than 0 on permanents, spells, and cards in any zone are 11, and all instances less than 0 are -11. (This does not change number words to eleven, but does include creatures' power and toughness and planeswalkers' starting loyalty and loyalty ability costs.)
"If I'm going to go full Spinal Tap, it's going to be memorable."
—FanOfMostEverything
5813099
Alaborn actually forgot a few cards that can access cards from outside the game. Most notable is Spawnsire of Ulamog, which can do it as the most expensive activated ability in the game.
Aww. I was actually kinda disappointed to find out this was a joke.
This chapter in a single word: Yoink.
Hmm... I wonder how much of this is a joke... Given that you've gotten past Alicornification in at least the Oversaturation Timeline...
So what I'm getting from this is that alicorn ascension would cause a planeswalker to attain a pre-Mending level of power.
In other words, a silly pink pony from a backwater, little-known plane has the distinct possibility of just kinda stumbling into attaining something that Nicol Bolas, in his probably-centuries of planning with Alara and its shards, could not. (Presumably. I'm not an MtG lore expert, so I'm not entirely sure.)
God, the look on Bolas' face would be priceless if he found out.
7494041
Oldwalkers are still a few steps above alicorns. I mostly did that for the Star Trek reference.