Chapter 4
The throne room in Canterlot Castle is barred to visitors tonight; the large double doors locked and barred with a double guard outside to reinforce the matter. The fact that Night Court rarely gets any petitioners means the guards are reduced to playing “I spy with my little eye”, but they’re professionals, so they do it very, very quietly and their lips barely move, something which tends to freak out the janitorial night staff. After the evening the nation has already had however, nopony can blame the occasional freak out.
Inside the throne room, the princesses of the day and night hold council with Princess Cadance, her husband and captain of the royal guard Shining Armor, and six residents of Ponyville. It’s not going terribly well. They’d forgone traditional seating arrangements and were sitting or standing or resting on cushions artfully placed in a loose circle in the middle of the throne room, but the informal setting couldn’t eliminate all of the tension in the room. The fact that one of those six ponies has spontaneously ascended to princess-hood might have a teeeensy bit to do with that.
“…I’m sorry Twilight, but I simply don’t have an answer for why this has happened, just yet.”
If Twilight heard her mentor’s soothing tones, she didn’t show it. She was wearing a rut into an ancient ornamental rug as she paced around and around Pinkie Pie. “Maybe I could get the guard to bring my laboratory equipment here from my library? I should have run tests before we came! I could have compared them to the baseline readings I took when I was trying to figure out her Pinkie sense!”
“hahaha! That stuff tickled! All those wires and sparks and squiggly lines were funny!”
Twilight raised an eyebrow at Pinkie but was quickly distracted by the party princess’s ruffling of her outrageously shock-pink feathers. Her eye twitched slightly in response. Luna sighed, and took control once more. It was her night court, after all. “The most we can determine is that the spectacular release of magic witnessed earlier was directly related to Pinkie’s rebirth as an Alicorn.”
Celestia nodded proudly. Mostly at Luna’s pronouncement avoiding any falling into archaic speech patterns, now that her earlier panic had worn off. “The magical disturbance does not appear to have had any lasting effects beyond Pinkie Pie.”
Shining leaned forward, adding, “Reports from guard units in the major cities such as Fillydelphia and Manehatten indicate that most ponies have settled down for the night, now that the excitement has passed.”
“But that still doesn’t answer, why?” Twilight argued again. “Why has she turned into an Alicorn? What could possibly do that to a.. a pony?” She almost said ‘normal pony’, but normal never seemed to apply to Pinkie, so best to leave that out of the equation.
“I really could not tell you, Twilight. Luna, Cadence and I were all born this way. I’ve never seen a mortal pony make this kind of transcension before.”
Luna tapped her hoof to her cheek as she thought. “Well… is it possible that this transformation could be due to the influence of the elements of harmony?”
Celestia considered the proposition for a moment. “They’re a powerful magical talisman to be certain, but remember, the elements use a precise thautological matrix to enhance the power of the magic of friendship generated by the bearers , before unleashing it via an amplified wave delivery mechanism on external targets.“
Rarity and Fluttershy passed a quick blank look and shrugged shoulders between themselves, but Applejack beat them to the question. “Say what?”
“Friendship Rainbow cannon?” Twilight clarified flatly. She shook her head slightly at all the “Oh!”s of comprehension around her.
“More like a rail gun, with all that swirly magic going SWOOOSH!” Pinkie zoomed a hoof out at an imaginary distant target, following it up with a loud “KaBOOOM!”
“ANYway, as the princess said, it’s only supposed to affect external targets, not us as the bearers. Has anything like this happened to previous bearers?”
“Celestia and I used the elements against Discord, with no ill effect afterwards beyond a certain weariness.” Luna offered.
“And I used them alone when I sealed... well, you know.” Celestia finished lamely. “I was exhausted afterwards and it took weeks to replenish my magical reserves.”
“So would it be safe to say that the elements use the bearers as, like, fuel for the process?” Cadence queried. “If that was the case, it’s a one way magical reaction and not likely to be the cause of Pinkie’s evolution.”
“I do tend to feel tired after using the elements.” Twilight admitted.
“Do you? That’s weird! I feel revved up and ready to take on the world after usin’ em!” Rainbow Dash grinned. “Which is funny, because we usually just have taken on the world and won after hitting ‘em with the friendship cannon!”
Fluttershy and Rarity giggled quietly in agreement, while Pinkie looked at Twilight sympathetically. “You never told us, Twilight! If you had, we could have thrown a ‘pick-you-up Pinkie Party’ special each time we use the elements, so you feel better afterwards!”
Applejack pushed her hat back and looked at her purple friend curiously. “You gotta admit that’s kind of weird, Twi. Why should you be affected differently from th’ rest of us?”
Rainbow Dash lightly drifted over her friends heads and playfully tagged the purple pony on the shoulder. “Yeah, that kind of stuff normally happens to Twilight first." She stuck her tongue out at Twilight's scowl. "What? It’s true! Anything weird happens with magic, there you are!“
Celestia joined the giggling. “Very true, my faithful student.” The Princess of the day draped a graceful wing over Twilight, stifling her stammering objections. “The most powerful unicorn seen in centuries, attuned to the element of magic itself… if the elements were responsible, shouldn’t it have affected you first?”
Luna smiled in agreement. “Very well. We are not getting very far tonight, and you all look quite tired after the day’s events. Shall we call it a night?” Twilight looked ready to push forward, but Luna held up a hoof to stop her immediately. “I pledge to you fair Twilight, we will place all our resources towards investigating any other possibilities. We shall not leave this unresolved.”
Celestia nudged the nonplussed unicorn out from under her wing. “And tomorrow, you and I shall begin Pinkie Pie’s magical education.”
The next morning Twilight was up early, rummaging through her old desk in her old tower bedroom that was permanently reserved for whenever she visited Canterlot. Spike groaned and tried to roll over in his old basket, but it was plenty evident that he’d outgrown it in the year or two they’d been living in Ponyville. He grumbled and stretched and put on a great show of popping his joints back into place, but Twilight wasn’t buying it.
“You came up here early last night while the rest of us had our meeting with the princesses, you should have had plenty of rest on the bed! It’s not my fault you stayed up too late reading comic books!”
“But they were my back issues, Twi! I haven’t read these since we moved! I just had to read them again!”
Twilight muttered something the small dragon could barely make out as “rot your brain!” before she suddenly straightened up and brandished her discovery proudly in her telekinetic grip: “Aha! Checklists!”
The young dragon could only groan.
“Look alive mister, I've got twenty minutes to get these lists finalised and then we’re meeting the others for breakfast!”
There are several dining rooms in Canterlot Castle. There is the large extravagant hall used for entertaining dignitaries and foreign heads of state. There’s the long barracks mess hall for the guards. There’s a smaller, less formal dining room usually frequented by the staff and servants of the castle. And there’s a much smaller, more private room just off the main kitchen where Celestia and Luna usually take their meals, before launching into the business of running the kingdom.
Out of respect for Chef Ram Sea*, Celestia and Luna have decided against using this last room, at least for the time being. The reason being that it was entirely too close to the kitchen, so the Diarchs made the pre-emptive decision to remove a too-big-by-far temptation for Pinkie Pie to invade the cook’s domain. So for breakfast this fine new day, the princesses and the elements of harmony have commandeered a corner of the staff dining room.
Pinkie of course thought this was a marvellous idea, and went around introducing herself to all of the staff present. “It was my job to make every pony in Ponyville happy and welcome! Sure, Canterlot’s a lot bigger than Ponyville, but I’m a princess now so I’ll just have to lift my game! And once I’ve met everypony, I’ll have to throw them a PARTY! A special super-duper inaugural ‘Pinkie’s met everypony in Canterlot’ party!”
Up at the main table, Rarity looked over at Twilight in horror. “Can she even do that? A city this size, there’ll be ponies coming and going all the time!”
Twilight turned to Celestia questioningly. “I suppose if she learnt to teleport?”
“Then NOpony will be safe!” Dash interrupted. “Next Nightmare Night, we’re working together! It’s gonna be AWESOME! Mwuhhh-hahahahaaa!”
Applejack buried her face in her bowl. “We’re doomed.”
“Agreed.” Celestia closed her eyes in commiseration, although there was a small hint of a smile at the thought.
Twilight shook her head and went back to her checklists. “Pinkie will have to learn about her responsibilities as a princess, plus basic magical instruction, and find out what her princess domain is going to be. “ The studious little mage looked up at her mentor. “I don’t think it could be parties, there’s no way the economy and the ecosystem alike could sustain a permanent pinkie-sized party. So what could it be?“
Celestia and Luna looked at each other and shrugged as Pinkie finished her rounds of the dining room and rejoined her friends. All of a sudden, the pink pony jittered to a stop in the middle of the room, causing Luna to raise an eyebrow. “Art thou… are you alright, Pinkie?”
“Twitchy twitch!” exclaimed Pinkie.
“Eep!” Fluttershy sank under the table, her eyes just visible at table height as she scanned the ceiling and room around them.
The night princess looked around as well, trying but failing to grasp the significance. “Twitchy?”
“Twitch.” Twilight urgently reminded Luna. “Friendship Report number fifteen; when Pinkie gets her twitches, something’s about to happen!”
“Buzzy horn! Shaky feathers! This is just like last time, only I didn’t have a horn or feathers so I didn’t know where the feeling was coming from!” Pinkie explained to general looks of confusion.
“Now hold on there a second sugarcube! What do you mean, just like last---“ Applejack didn’t get to finish her question. Her eyes widened as every hair in the fur in her coat stood on end. Every pony in the room stiffened as the pressure in the air dropped, and then froze into absolute stillness for an infintessimally small moment in time that seemed to stretch out forever. Celestia and Luna’s eyes locked in urgent realisation, but before they could say anything…
The room exploded.
It was ground zero in an arcane eruption, an immense invisible blast that only those with the magical eyes to see could witness as a technicolour tidal wave that somehow didn’t touch the furniture, but instead sent earth ponies bouncing off walls, pegasi off the ceiling and turned unicorns into mobile fireworks factories. Rarity glowed like a 20-carat diamond. Shining Armor was buried under an avalanche of miniature force field bubbles, resembling being dunked in a bubble bath. Fluttershy and Rainbow dash looked like they were pulling tornado duty upside down and in reverse. Twilight Sparkle unwillingly screamed and unleashed a massive beam of pure energy straight through the ceiling, bright as a golden beacon and visible above Canterlot for miles around.
As for the alicorns: Luna dug her hooves into the stonework to resist being pushed around by the mystical blastwave, Celestia struggled to keep herself upright, Cadance grabbed Spike and upended a table for cover, and Pinkie raised her forelegs and yelled “WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” as if she was being thrown around in a magical waterslide instead of spinning out the dining room doors on her rump.
Gradually, the backwash from the giant rippling magical explosion subsided, and everything returned to normal. Ponies began picking themselves up from where they’d come to rest, strewn around the dining room. Celestia tried picking her way through the living debris to the woozy Twilight, as Luna took stock of the situation. Remembering not to use the full Canterlot Voice in an enclosed space, she raised her voice enough to be heard over the moans and panicked questioning. “Is everypony all right?”
A couple of servants near the doors gasped and pointed. There was one pony who hadn’t been knocked around, who stood stock still in the middle of the room, staring in wonder up the length of her new horn at her new wings.
Applejack gulped. “Oh, ponyfeathers.”
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Bwahhh-hahahahah! Oh, the joys of posting from another time-zone... Chapter 4 had been up for all of 10 minutes, and I made the "Featured" box! I do NOT expect it to stay there for any real length of time, especially with the weekend coming up and the big stories updating like they normally (and regularly... confound you ponies!) do.
I should take a screen shot, just to say "I WAS THERE!" and laugh to myself some more!
Pft, Ok, I think I already she where this is going, and I think I'm gonna love it. Can't wait to see more.
poor poor twilight, the only one not gonna be an alicorn.
Just to troll people, I want to see Twilight finally start a transformation - get all excited about it, and end up as a Bicorn. "Where's my wings? What about my horn...? WHY DO I HAVE TWO HORNS?!"
This is quite the fun little story here, but somehow I don't see it being wrapped up in two more chapters without feeling more rushed than a term paper you forgot was due tomorrow.
3459668
Or maybe some sort of pseudo-alacorn thing, where she's able to switch between wings and horn (and neither, I guess) at will, but unable to have both at once.
Close, but no
cigarcrownThis is a great story thus far, and I can't wait for the next chapter!
acceptable
Well, this is amusing. Definitely looking forward to more. I hope Twilight does get something out of all these shenanigans. Maybe Pinkie can use her alicorn-tier fourth wall powers and change the title of the story?
Until eventually they are ALL alicorns!!!!.....Except Twilight. As it turns out the element of magic isn't so much a power source like the others as it is a focusing device to direct the elements power, which is why she feels bad while they feel amazing after every usage.
Cadence was born as a pegasus
I think I've seen Ram Sea pop up in at least 10 different fics by now.
This is not a bad thing
3459668
Twilight Sparkle: Magical rhinoceros?
She IS kind of a magical powerhouse......
3469301 Where did this happen? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just aint seen it. Plus, for the purposes of this story, it's not overly important.... unless... * cue machievellian gloating *
3472496 A book was released in which her back story is told
3473492 3472496 In Magical Mystery Cure, Celestia said that what Twilight did had never been done before. At the very least, that implies pretty strongly that she's the first regular pony ever to become an alicorn. Personally, I'll believe the show over the book.
=====
On a different note, chapter four has some verb tense problems. The first paragraph describes everything in present tense, then the story quickly switches to past tense. And it jumps back and forth a few more times through the rest of the chapter. Everything really should be in past tense.
3494940 Celestia meant she created new magic, not the Alicorn becoming thing
3495986 I see no reason to believe that.
3497354 "But today, Twilight Sparkle did something extraordinary. She created new magic, proving without a doubt that she is ready to be crowned Equestria's newest princess."
3497576 ...and at no point in that monologue did Celestia say it had never been done before. It was earlier, when the two of them were in the psychedelic void together, that Celestia told Twilight that she had accomplished something new, and at that time she did not specify that it was Twilight's magic.
So again, I see no reason to believe your interpretation.
3498078
3498227 Unless and until you can provide a reply with actual substance, kindly don't waste my time.
Please update this awesome story!
3469301
I am ignoring those novels. I consider the IDW comics more canon than those.
I really could not tell you, Twilight. Luna, Cadence and I were all born this way.
I was oh so tempted to break the fourth wall there and yell at them "cadence was turned!! not born!!
" but I couldn't as I fell to the ground laughing upon finishing to read the story 
Continue this story seriosuly, it's awesome!!! XD