“Twilight.”
Twilight glanced up from her milkshake, acknowledged Celestia with a vacant stare, and went right back to staring at the sludgy depths of her homogenized beverage.
“Twilight.” Celestia repeated. “What exactly happened to you?”
“Yes.” Cadance nodded. “We’re always happy when you join us, but… showing up with half of your mane scorched, smelling like a rugby team… it deserves some explanation.”
“I recognize her look.” Luna pursed her lips. “It’s the ‘I just kicked a villain’s ass but got my own ass kicked first’ look. Of course, not that I would be familiar with such a look—”
“Oh, don’t even, Luna,” Celestia sighed. “Well, Twilight?”
Twilight Sparkle was silent for several moments… silence in which Luna plucked a cherry from her milkshake and munched on it triumphantly.
“Well… Luna is right,” Twilight said eventually. “I mean… it was kinda my fault. I made her feel inadequate and jealous and she sort of retaliated.”
“What a strange thing to do.” Luna cocked her head.
“Yeah. Remember that unicorn I told you about? Starlight Glimmer? Well, she kind of broke into the Starswirl the Bearded wing of the library and stole a priceless chronomagical scroll.”
“Huh,” Celestia said thoughtfully. “I was wondering why my guards were acting so funny today. As though they were deliberately trying to steer me away from that area. I’ll have to speak to them about honesty-following-mistakes.”
“So… wait… chronomagical…” Cadance blinked. “You mean time magic?”
“Yep. She kept changing the past and I kept having to fix it.”
“Geez. Sounds intense.” Luna seemed offended. “Thanks for involving us.”
“Seriously.” Celestia agreed. “We could’ve helped, you know.”
“I didn’t exactly have all the time in the world.”
“Is that what you said when you beat her?” Luna grinned. “That would’ve been great. Or you could’ve said ‘your time’s up, fiend—”’
Cadance facehoofed. “Can we stay on topic, please?”
“Well, anyways… I ended doing battle with her for, like, a really long time. I couldn’t get a leg up on her no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Did you try friendship?” Celestia offered.
“Yeah. It was my last resort.”
“Huh. You should try moving that option up a bit. It works more often than it doesn’t.”
“I know, I know,” Twilight waved a hoof. “The point is… I couldn’t beat her with my magic. It’s like… all my prowess and skill just suddenly disappeared as if to appeal to some cosmic convenience.”
“Welcome to our world.” Luna took a hefty swig of coffee.
Celestia and Cadance groaned their agreement.
“Wait… so you three have noticed it, too?”
Celestia let out a long breath through her nose. “Yes. Whenever I don’t need to use my magic extensively, guess what I have in spades. And whenever I desperately need it… guess when it fails me.”
“We’ve tried training. Honing our skills…” Luna added. “We know about every magic trick in the book and we can suplex entire mountains with ease. So long as there aren’t any stakes.”
“We’ve given up trying to explain it,” Celestia said. “So far as we’re concerned, there is none. We simply need to accept the fact that our magic won’t be useful when we go into combat. Some greater force is at play.”
“But… but how do you just accept that?” Twilight was dumbfounded. “Just, accept that you’re going to fail?”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Celestia replied calmly. “There’s a difference between accepting you failed, and convincing yourself you will fail.”
“Besides,” Cadance added. “You said you beat her, right?”
“Well… kinda.”
“So there you go,” Cadance leaned back. “Don’t just throw in the towel because you failed in one means. Try again. Try something else.”
“Do you know how many times it took me and Celestia before we beat Discord?” Luna asked. “Pick up a history book some time. See how many alicorns ‘died’ facing Discord.”
“Me and Luna started calling ourselves the Opposum Sisters because of how many times we escaped… ah, final defeat… by playing dead.”
“Wow.” Twilight blinked.
“Yep.” Luna nodded. “I won’t lie and say we weren’t tempted to simply bug out and call it even. It was always an option on the table, even if we both pretended it wasn’t.”
“But we didn't give up. We kept trying, and we kept supporting each other. Similar to how the four of us will always support each other. Don’t be mistaken and think strength is defined by besting a foe in combat, Twilight,” Celestia said. “Imagine you did. You defeated her. Hauled her off to Tartarus. Victory would be yours. But that didn’t happen. Instead, you made a mistaken yet skilled unicorn your friend and had her change her ways.”
“Sounds like you kicked her ass to me,” Cadance shrugged. “Just in a better way.”
“Wow,” Twilight said again. “That… that changes a lot, actually. T… thank you, girls.”
“Don’t mention it,” Cadance waved a hoof.
Silence, for several seconds. Twilight reached the bottom of her milkshake and stuck her straw into the metal cylinder thing instead.
More silence.
“Seriously though,” Luna spoke eventually. “Call us next time you’re roughing up a baddie. I haven’t let loose with my magic in awhile.”
Riot:Alicorns are too OP. We have to nerf them.
This, shockingly, answers all the issues with the finale in a satisfactory way.
The lampshade hanging is pure gold.
Admittedly, Starlight Glimmer did a lot better against Twilight than I think she really had any right to, considering that she's an Alicorn now. Still, being constantly pulled back in time after performing a complex time spell again and again would probably have drained Twilight more than she would have simply by normal combat. On that note, because of the way the spell worked, Starlight Glimmer was automatically pulled back in time with each try and thus didn't need to worry about draining her own magic to perform the time spell.
That.....actually covers quite alot of questions and thoughts. Very interesting.
7074769 Don't forget, Starlight spent months watching Twiight and planning for this. Twilight was basically winging it the whole time. That counts for a lot too.
This actually make a lot of sense. I'm totally going to steal this.
7074807 This I actually agree with. Starlight probably spent months honing specific tactics to counter Twilight-if Luna took Twilight's position, I highly doubt Starlight would have been as effective.
Still, an amusing somewhat meta chapter.
7074835 It's pretty much the only way I can justify Starlight's succes in fighting Twilight to a standstill.
They have limiters built in. And there are gremlins pushing red buttons to turn them on or off whenever they want to.
And yep, Luna definitely wants to get into the scrum!
I know what prompted this chapter. Thief.
7074906 I actually meant to include an excerpt of the skype log into the A/N. But I forgot cause I'm dum.
Since I already gave this story a like, consider this comment to be an additional like for this particular chapter. It is so very true, and it made me laugh.
This idea was conceived on my birthday! March 26th!
7075099 Well, Happy Birthday!
7075107 Thank you!
Oh gosh, i remember this conversation. Got me fired up and complaining about the premiere, it did.
7074769
I agree with you that Twilight was the one repeating the spell and dragging Starlight back with her. Also I read some blog a while back and others where talking about this topic as well. And in that blog someone brought up the point that boils down to this.
All Starlight had to do was avoid Twilight and just change the past using very little magic. While on her end Twilight was reusing the time spell over and over again(like you said) while trying to stop and restrain Star at the same time. Bottom line Twilight was using a lot more Magic then Star.
So while Twilight being an Alicorn should make it so that she has more magic and stamina then Starlight, Twilight was Also using a lot more of her magic and stamina at the same time relative to Starlight thus making it an even match in the end. Meaning Twilight had to find another way.
Or we can go with what this chapter says and say that their power fails them in combat situations so that a better way can be found.
This part pretty much hits it on the proverbial(is that right?) nail.
This make a lot of sense dose it not?
--------------------
Well great chapter and some nice food for thought as well. Thanks for the chapter man.
-BFBL
(I apologize for defending it, but it's a mental exercise to deal with my temper) ABOUT THE CHANGELING INVASION!
1. The weird thing is that I consider that Celestia never has used her full power in the show. I considered that If she went all-out on Chrysalis she would have reduced Canterlot to a scorching crater. And do to the limits of her eyesight, due to her being in a closed room she probably could not risk teleporting her and Crysalis to the middle of the San Palomino Desert without being fazed into a wall or a rock.
2. Luna was probably on the other side of the Equestrian continent, and didn't find out about the Changeling invasion until the wedding. And even if she wasnt, she was probably gathering a some soldiers form other parts of Equestria in the chance that Celestia failed and she would have to fight a long term war against the Changelings.
Now about the Discord Era.
3. Celestia and Luna where probably not even Princesses and/or rulers of Equestria when they confronted Discord the first time around. It's probably the first thing they did the moment they stepped into the shores of the continent. And also they probably took months to find Discord without any trains or maps existing back then. And the amount of Fairy Monsters and isolated chiefdom's that could have formed during that time as a result of nothing making sense with Discord around, (not to mention a cult of Discord, that he himself probably never wanted) would have made it suicide to just attack head on. They probably concentrated on finding The Tree of Harmony after their first scrape with Discord and then went ahead to defeat him.
About Starlight vs. Twilight
4. Starlight Glimmer probably spent months planing for when she confronted Twilight. Also I have a belief that Starlight is older and probably more experienced and skilled at the use of "Magical Martial Arts" (as I call them) than Twilight, and was better equipped in a fight than a Highly Powerful yet inexperienced Unicorn that only managed to win against the villains due to the Elements of Harmony, (And probably by the skin of her teeth because my headcanon is that Luna was fighting for control in defiance of Nightmare Moon the whole time she was In Equestria), having the additional power of her fellow Alicorns and the Tree of Harmony, and finally always having good backup.
This is still hilarious though!
Title = 9*10^3 +
=9*(10*10*10)
=9*1000
=9000
Title = 9000+
7075686 And that's just from the caffeine intake!
it took me 10 minutes cleaning my desk of coffee, after reading that line.
7074744 Pls nerf
7083891 maybe, but i still want to know.
7083899 Ja, das ist sehr gut!
7085752 It's not a coincidence.
All four DKC games are masterpieces in my book, and David Wise is an absolute genius.
Thanks for reading!
EDIT: DoloresThePhony. I love you.
Love the new cover art.
7075385
There's literally zero evidence that Celestia and Luna are even close to that strong, or that even if they were that strong, they have such bad control over their powers that they'd sooner vaporize a city than defeat a foe. If she was holding back, what stops her from pushing just a little more power when she saw that Chrysalis was overpowering her, or from her just taking the blast and being unharmed? People who assume that the princesses are so powerful have to:
1: Arbitrarily believe that they're that powerful even though literally nothing in-story implies it in the least
2: Assume that they either are colossally stupid, or colossally inept at controlling their own power (neither of which look good for them)
3: Assume that if they fought each other, their attack power is so much higher than their durability that they'd easily oneshot each other (which Celestia vs NMM and Twilight vs Tirek show isn't true)
4: Assume that Starlight beating Twilight is either a plot hole, or takes a huge amount of justification
Even then, Twilight, with the magic of all four princesses and minimal control, was not creating city destroying blasts against Tirek. At most, those explosions were in the several-city block range, which isn't even on the same order of magnitude of blowing up a city.
All evidence points towards them being more powerful than non-alicorns, but not to the extent of them being hundreds of times as strong as the strongest non-alicorns can be. Twilight's tie with Starlight (and no, Starlight didn't actually beat her in a fight) is only hard to explain if you believe that alicorns are demi-goddesses (or even goddesses); Starlight could be much older than Twilight and more experienced, or maybe Twilight just never truly practiced combat magic, or perhaps she was just tired and Starlight wasn't.
As for Discord, Celestia and Luna had their Equestrian regalia when they defeated him, and The Journal of the Two Sisters shows that they already were Equestria's rulers before Discord took over, and already knew where the Tree of Harmony was.
7075686 Remember what Celestia said about Jokes and worms? You're doing it now.
Situational power leveling is the bane of many characters.
hehe
7140797 It's Java. You can't expect it to do what's expected of it~
Fics about the alicorns being powerless when it counts may never cease to amuse me.
reminds me of a story, i think it was called "we could be doing this forever", where Starlight never got a chance to rest between fights, but Twilight, being an alicorn, never seemed to get tired...but that turned out to be a dream Starlight was having afterward.
and there's this:
As others have pointed out, there are perfectly logical reasons for why Starlight was able to beat Twilight, despite everything saying she couldn't.
Heck, I'm one of the few people who actually LIKES the fact that an ordinary unicorn managed to hold her own against Twilight. That, and the fact that, for once, the method to taking down the bad guy wasn't just "blast them with a magical beam", are the big reasons as to why I consider the season 5 finale to be the best one yet.
Well, those reasons, and this:
My only other nitpick with this chapter is Twilight's appearance.
She looked exactly the same at the end of The Cutie Re-Mark as she did at the beginning.
However, also as others have said, this was still amusing despite those.
Hmm... interesting way to handle the power thing... I approve, hehehe.
Nice job!
Also.
ITS OVER 9000!
... What metal cylinder thing?
7749432 This
c2.staticflickr.com/4/3055/2766623494_ba0ec1e38c_z.jpg
ALL HAIL PLOT CONVENIENCE!!
Ladies; it happens. They just need to milkshake it off.
It's a shaker.
This is legitimately impressive to be honest, if only I could know such levels of writing prowess
i wasn't even aware milkshakes came with a metal cylinder thing? in any case, it is annoying having to explain away why the other alicorn Princesses are conveniently not helpful so that Twilight can do everything