Beer and a Knife Fight 3: Beer Hard With a Vengeance
by Present Perfect
Chapter 6: The Big Uh-Oh
Twilight did actually fall to her death.
Or, to be more precise, she fell to her would-have-been-a-death-if-she-weren't-an-alicorn, but that's way harder to say, so we'll just call it 'death'.
Either way, an impact with the cobblestone street after a fifty-foot fall was enough to shake her from her drunken stupor. Oh boy, did she have the mother of all headaches now.
She stood and shook off the dust of pulverized cobbles before turning her gaze skyward. There, she beheld a sight that ancient bards would have sung epic poems about, and that modern big-name movie studios would never, ever, ever get the films rights for.
Princess Luna, half-transformed into Nightmare Moon, wielded a sword of pure darkness against Celestia's sword of pure light, and Luna seemed to be winning. To say the battle was awe-inspiring would have been an understatement. Not only were their martial forms perfection beyond that attainable by mortal pony, the energies they threw around were almost too great for Twilight to comprehend. Celestia wielded a literal tower shield, using the rampart to block the occasional lightning bolt or entire building flung at her by her sister.
Twilight was so turned on right now.
She also found herself in the odd position of not knowing who to root for. She herself had been trying to end Celestia just a few minutes ago, but on reflection, was that what she really wanted? Yes, Celestia deserved to be punished for mind-raping her; she maybe even deserved a little suffering. But fighting her had been a spur-of-the-moment decision made on two bottles of celebratory wine, and not, in hindsight, the best of responses to have made to that situation.
No, she thought. She did not want to see her mentor, friend, former lover and possible progenitor dead, and certainly not by the hoof of said progenitor's own sister. After all, by revealing the truth, Celestia had saved Twilight from a life of experiencing that "non-forbidden" spell and possibly mothering weird incest babies. Granted, it was a life Celestia would have orchestrated herself, but wasn't a last-minute change of heart worth at least a little forgiveness?
Celestia's tower crumbled, showering Canterlot in yet more fragments of stone and mortar, not to mention screaming ponies. Twilight winced as a large rock smashed a hole in the roof of the club above Rarity's boutique. Had they really not moved any further away from it the whole time they were fighting?
Whatever. That club had been dumb anyway.
As the Royal Sisters squared off against each other, Twilight saw her opening. She spread her wings and launched herself into the air, arriving in the gap between the princesses a moment later.
"Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, please stop!" She spread her hooves in what she hoped was a placating gesture. Her head really did hurt, and her own shouting wasn't making her feel any better.
"You never appreciated Mister Bingus!" Luna bellowed, waving her dark blade.
"It's a stupid name for a sword," Celestia said calmly, wiping her forehead. "And I say this as the mare who wields Sunkillswordbutt."
"I will destroy you!" Luna roared.
Celestia narrowed her eyes. "Settle down, Bingus."
"Celestia, please," Twilight wheedled. Clasping her hooves to her chest, she turned to the other princess. "Princess Luna, I don't know what my spell did to you, but this isn't the way."
"Move, Twilight Sparkle, lest thou be destroyed also!" shouted Luna. "Our beef is with our sister alone! Revenge has been far too long in coming!"
As Twilight tried not to think too hard about the implications of "our beef is with our sister", Luna pressed her advantage. Mister Bingus threw sparks both bright and darkling as it clashed against Sunkillswordbutt. Boy, those names were not helping her headache either. She really wanted to laugh, to revel in the absurdity of everything that was happening at that moment, no matter how worried she was for the safety of the other princesses.
Thankfully for her poor, abused mind, that was the moment when the skies above Canterlot were rent by a voice nopony had dreamt of in millennia.
"SOMEPONY NEEDS A SPAAAANKIIIING!"
"Sweet Celestia," Twilight whispered, hot redness creeping into her cheeks, "I hope it's me."
The voice rolled across the planet like thunder. It was deep-throated and masculine, if oddly playful. Nightmare Luna gawked as a colossal black hoof, the size of the entirety of Canterlot Mountain, reached down from the clouds and wagged disapprovingly at them. The gargantuan leg connected to the hoof swirled with unfathomable non-colors and formless ideas, driving mad all those who laid eyes upon it who weren't alicorns. Celestia merely crossed her forelegs over her chest and turned her back to it.
"What are you doing here, Dad?" she asked petulantly.
Luna snickered, trying to hide it with a hoof. "Ooh, you're gonna get it now."
"I KNOW IT'S BEEN A FEW AEONS, CELLIE, BUT I FELT A VIOLENT UPRISING IN YOUR VICINITY AND WANTED TO SEE HOW YOU WERE GETTING ALONG." The titanic hoof turned toward Luna, as though it were some sort of periscope for the gods. "WHY LU-LU, JUST LOOK AT YOU! GROWN UP INTO THE WORLD-SHATTERING CONQUEROR I ALWAYS KNEW YOU COULD BE!"
"Just taking after you, Dad!" Luna said sweetly, sticking her tongue out at Celestia.
"Ugh!" Celestia threw her hooves up. "Why do you always have to poke your nose into my business? Luna and I were just having a little argument, nothing worth pulling your 'big voice in the sky' routine for! Just leave me alone!"
"NOW, NOW, CELLIE, YOU SHOULD BE MORE LIKE YOUR SISTER."
Celestia's eye-roll was audible. "You know I banished her to the moon for a thousand years, right?"
The big voice in the sky laughed with such intensity that Twilight had to remember that she needed to breathe regularly, let alone that she could.
"THAT'S MY CELLIE-BELLY, ALWAYS WITH THE FUNNY JOKES!"
"You know I have a kid now, right?" Celestia pointed to Twilight, who wanted nothing more at that moment than to turn invisible, teleport a million miles away, and die.
"REALLY? I'M A GRANDPA? D'AWW, JUST LOOK AT YOU!" There was a tremendous movement of air all around Twilight, as though she had just gotten caught in the midst of a confused hurricane. "HMM, SMELLS A BIT MORTAL. ARE YOU SURE IT'S YOURS?"
Celestia face-hoofed. "Yes."
"WELL." The voice cleared its throat, shattering windows in all directions. "HEY THERE, CHAMP! SORRY I CAN'T STICK AROUND AND GET TO KNOW YOU BETTER, BUT IF YOU EVER NEED THE STRENGTH TO CONQUER GALAXIES OR REND THE MINDS OF YOUR ENEMIES INTO TINY, SCREAMING BRAIN-NUGGETS, BE SURE TO USE THE RITUAL OF--"
Twilight couldn't be sure what the voice had said next. All she knew was that all of her orifices started bleeding at once and a five-block portion of North Canterlot was liquified. It was a shame; her favorite donut shop had been there.
"--AND YOU CAN SUMMON YOUR OL' GRANDPAP UP LICKETY-SPLIT!
"ANYWAY, CELLIE, LU-LU, I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT WE'RE PROUD OF YOU. OR, AT LEAST, YOUR MOTHER WOULD BE IF SHE WEREN'T BUSY CAUSING MILLENNIUM PLAGUES IN THREE DIFFERENT STAR SYSTEMS. THE FICKLE TART." This last part was added in a murmur that was still loud enough to send rocks tumbling from the mountain into the city. There were no survivors.
Celestia ground her teeth. "Whatever, Dad."
The hoof retracted into the sky. "BYE-BYE, GIRLS, YOU TWO PLAY NICE NOW!" As the clouds closed up behind it, it chuckled, "A THOUSAND YEARS ON THE MOON. GOOD ONE!"
An eerie silence stretched over Canterlot as the sky returned to something like normalcy. It was broken only by the wailing and gnashing of mortal pony teeth in the streets below, and Luna's uproarious laughter.
"Sister, please," Celestia whined. Luna only laughed harder.
Now that the mind-melting chaos had subsided and she'd gotten a moment to think, Twilight remembered what she'd been doing here. This was her chance; it was now or never. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"Okay. Since you two have stopped fighting for a minute, I have something I want to say. First, I have the coolest grandpa ever."
Celestia face-hoofed again. "Please don't summon him. He'll never let me hear the end of it."
Twilight grinned. "Second, if there's one thing I've learned today, it's that families are really, really, really weird sometimes. But it's okay. No matter how strange your relationship--" she gave Celestia a pointed look-- "they're still your family. And families forgive."
Luna snorted. "Let me guess. She mind-controlled you into saying that."
"W-what?" Twilight was taken aback. "No! I... I shook off her mind-control when I hit my head!"
"Oh, Twilight." Celestia shook her head sadly. "It's not so simple, I'm afraid. I mind-controlled everyone: Discord, Luna, even myself! Such spells are not easy to remove."
Luna surprised them both by loosing a peal of maniacal laughter. She curled in on herself, shaking, as Twilight and Celestia looked on in mutual confusion.
"That was me!" Luna guffawed. "I mind-controlled you into doing that! Everything you did, Celestia, it was my will all along!"
"Gasp!" said Twilight.
Celestia could only stare, open-mouthed.
"Yes!" Luna caught her breath. "I mind-controlled you into mind-controlling both of us--"
"And Discord," Celestia added.
Nightmare Luna rolled her eyes. "Both of us and Discord so that when the secret of your mind control was revealed, you and Twilight would break up!" A fang-filled grin crept over her face. "And then I could have her all to myself!"
Twilight drew in a sharp breath, one hoof to her mouth and tears in her eyes.
"You... You mind-controlled your own sister? For me?"
Somewhere in the frozen waste of space that is actually Northern Equestria, a pretty pink pony princess was awakened by a disturbance in the Love Force.
"Shiny," she said, shaking her bedmate. "Shiny, wake up! I feel as though thousands of voices cried out in shipping anguish and were silenced!"
Her partner groaned into his pillow.
"It's your turn to deal with the baby tonight, Cadey." He rolled over, pulling all the covers with him.
But it wasn't the horrendous, frigid cold that kept Princess Cadence shivering all that long night.
From Twilight's perspective, it seemed as though Princess Luna had changed. Sure, she was still undergoing a constant metamorphosis that caused the mortal mind to rebel against itself, but despite this, she had taken on something of an otherworldly glow. Yes, she was most definitely glowing. It was like tiny angels were singing her graces.
"You are so hot right now," Twilight breathed. Her wings locked up and she started falling to her death again, but this time she had the presence of mind to cast her student's weird self-levitation spell before she got too far.
Luna grinned. She gave Twilight a knowing wink before regaining her usual form.
"Yes," said Twilight, moving closer to Luna. "I am most definitely attracted to you in ways I had never before realized I could be."
"Oh, Twilight, my darling," Luna breathed in a much more normal voice, wrapping her beloved in wings of night. "I have loved you ever since my sister birthed you from her loins."
"Does that make you my aunt?" Twilight asked. "Not that I really care, I suppose... I guess I'm more into incest than I thought!"
"It's the alicorn wings talking, Twilight," said Luna, escorting her back to the Palace. "Come, let us 'do it', as they say in the modern parlance. And I shall show you my abacus."
"Oh, Luna!" Twilight cried, swooning all over her.
And thus, Celestia was left alone in Canterlot sovereign airspace with no company other than her stupidly named glowy sword.
"Well, chessbutt," she said.