It was a… day in Canterlot. At least, the denizens of the city assumed it was day. The sky above was so dark that when Luna awoke in the city's regal castle, she had asked Celestia if she was giving her the day off.
This was due to the fact that the sky above had been blotted out by thick clouds of ash, which also rained down on and coated everything in enough of the substance to make a miniaturized version of the prestigious city, with just enough leftover to convince someone they had just smoked an entire factory of cigarettes.
Within the walls of the castle, however, was someone who wished she had a factory's worth of cancer-rewarding sticks. That someone was Princess Celestia, who stared out at what was the city she ruled from. She sighed and turned her attention from the morbid sight that was the outside world and looked down at Twilight Sparkle, who shook like an earthquake she couldn't feel was going that Celestia was incapable of feeling.
Or maybe it was just the residual effects of what had happened not too long before. It wouldn't surprise her if she was oblivious to the ground shaking. All she could think about was how awful Canterlot looked, let alone everything between it and Wymareing, which she knew also had the slight issue of having had enough lava blown out onto its land to fill a dozen grand canyons.
That's not even counting the surrounding provinces which would have to deal with any and all fires that spread to them thanks to the fact that the source of that lava was still spewing ash and didn't seem to have any desire to stop.
Kind of like Twilight, who continued to shake like someone who decided to stick a fork in an electric outlet.
Celestia cleared her throat after she found it in herself to stop thinking about the cataclysmic event that had just happened. “So, Twilight,” she began, visibly upset. “Would you mind telling me what happened?”
Twilight gulped. Her eyes were filled with pure terror. Alas, she knew she had to explain to Celestia why the world had basically turned into a giant ashtray. “Well…”
It was the previous day. The sky was free of clouds, something that, in hindsight, Twilight greatly missed. That was besides the point though. In Twilight's eyes, it was the perfect day to head to Yellowstone national park and admire the geysers that made it so famous.
And so she did. For several hours, she went from geyser to geyser and… sorta watched them. She had decided that geysers, in the long run, weren't enough. So, she brought a book and read while she waited for the plumes of hot water to go off—something she only knew when she heard the collective oooh’s and ahhh’s of the other tourists.
Towards the end of her trip, Twilight made her way the most famous of them all: Old Faithful, all the while she held her book out in front of her.
“Cataclysmicus… destructionmus…”
And just like that, a red flash of light shot off from Twilight's horn. She dropped the book and looked around with a terrified look on her face.
And like anyone who knew they had just said two words that would herald in thousands upon thousands of days of darkness, famine, and death, Twilight could only say the right thing.
“Oops…”
And just like that, the land beneath her started to quake, causing the tourists and animals to run like there was tomorrow. Though for the vast majority of the visitors, there wouldn't be a tomorrow, let alone a ‘hey, honey, look at these awesome pictures I took!’. Before Twilight knew it, plumes of lava shot out of the ground like the geysers she had come to see.
Without hesitation, Twilight shot off into the sky and flew as a monster awakened behind her.
One which, in the blink of an eye, created an explosion that sent hundreds of thousands of cubic kilometers of ash into the air.
Twilight shielded herself from the blast wave. Despite the power of the shield, the force of the wave still managed to cause her to falter. She continued to flee the hail of ash, volcanic rock, and lava, something that proved to be far harder than she expected. The sheer size of the rock that rained down was as large as a small house and crashed into the ground below her like an asteroid; creating a crater and sending up dirt every which way.
Eventually, Twilight reached a sufficient distance. She made a mental note to thank Rainbow Dash for the lessons on how to break the sound barrier.
Mainly due to the fact she heard a familiar voice as she landed. One that made her heart sink like the Titanic.
“Twilight…”
Princess Celestia. She looked like she herself was about to erupt and whether or not it'd dwarf the eruption that continued to go on off in the distance was something Twilight wasn't too keen to learn.
“Where are Starswirl’s reports on improvised flammable spells and conjurations?”
Twilight remained dead silent for a solid minute. Eventually, with every ounce of courage inside of her, she gestured to the gigantic cloud of ash and other things that one would expect to find when it came to a volcano.
Let alone a super volcano.
Celestia's eye twitched. A strand of her mane popped out like the lava did mere moments ago, but without the whole ‘burning anything and everything in sight’ aspect. Which was a great thing, because the stand of hair landed on Celestia's flank.
Unluckily for Celestia was the fact that those reports were now gone. They were one-of-a-kind! And now they were ash. Nay, they were less than ash! They were super ash!
It took Celestia several minutes for her to come to terms with the fact that the reports were now lost, something that made Twilight feel all the worse.
And that's saying something considering she was now responsible for the deaths of countless ponies.
As for Celestia, she eventually regained her composure. She rested a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. “Come now,” she said as calmly as she could. “Let's… let's discuss this back at the castle.”
Twilight followed Celestia with a look of shame. Though in her mind, she could only think the correct thing.
I'm screwed.
“I see…” Celestia sat back and stared up at the ceiling. Perhaps, deep down, she had given up. Totally capitulated beneath the stress of knowing her former student; her protogé, the one she anointed as the Princess of Friendship had just doomed the entire planet to an unfathomably cruel fate.
Or perhaps it was because she couldn't believe Twilight had included details that Celestia already knew. Either way, she found the ceiling to be strangely soothing.
“Um… Princess?”
Then Twilight decided to fly in front of her face.
“Are you okay?”
Then Twilight decided to ask a remarkably stupid question.
“O-Or should I-”
Celestia broke her normally motherly and sweet demeanor and shoved a hoof into Twilight's mouth; an action that got across to Twilight very quickly. She fluttered down to the ground and looked at Celestia with watery eyes.
“I-I swear I didn't mean to set off the volcano! I swear!” Twilight said. “I was only reading about Starswirl’s advanced schools of dangerous magic!”
“Twilight.” Celestia leaned forward until her muzzle touched Twilight's. “You realize the consequences of your actions, right?”
“Well, yes, of course!” Twilight replied. “With the amount of ash in the atmosphere, our planet's temperature will drop drastically and we will suffer from massive famine. It could take over a century for the ash to leave out atmosphere and so, there is a chance that we may suffer a mass extinction event!”
As slowly as the ash would fall from the sky for the next century, the reality dawned on Twilight. Her facial expression slowly turned from one of horror for what Celestia may do to her and into one of horror as she realized she had just sentenced everyone on Equus to damnation.
“I've messed up big time, haven't I?”
“Oh, yeah,” Celestia deadpanned. “You're lucky I have an idea to get rid of some of the ash.”
Twilight's eyes shot open. “Y-You do!?”
Celestia nodded. “I'm going to have Discord take some of it and, in exchange, I'll pardon him for some of what he's done in the past.”
Twilight's eyes lit up with happiness. “C-Can I help!?”
Celestia shook her head. “No. I'm sorry, Twilight, but you can't.”
“Why not!?”
“Because you're under arrest for ponyslaughter in the first degree, destruction of private property, and endangering the entire planet,” Celestia said. “I'll see if I can bail you out for this, but I make no promises.”
Twilight made a beeline for the throne room door, but was quickly apprehended by two blue-coated earth pony stallions who were hidden behind a column.
“You can't do this!” Twilight yelled as she cuffed. “I'm a princess!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” one of the stallions said as he lifted Twilight up. “And our planet's most likely doomed despite what Sunshine over there said.”
Celestia watched as Twilight was escorted out of the room. She let out a sigh and turned her head to the window. Indeed, ash continued to fall; like an ugly, grey snowfall that, rather than being something one would enjoy playing in, one would instead die as they choked on it.
It was truly a sight a magical sight if your address ended in Hell.
Whether or not that was a good thing in Celestia's case was up for debate. Alas, it was a question that wouldn't be answered as she had other business to attend to.
Namely, finding a book that she used to learn about negotiation with Draconequus’—something she bought when Discord first threatened to take over. Despite her best efforts when it came to studying the intricacies of negotiating with Discord’s kind, she failed.
Although she could raise and set the sun, Celestia just couldn't make good graham crackers and a decent milk shake.
Lucky for Celestia, she eventually learned that one doesn't use year-old soy milk to make milk shakes. This was because, after Luna had been reformed, she gave her sister a nice welcome home gift.
Well, if your definition of a gift is having your head in a toilet for five minutes.
Regardless, Celestia confidently stood up and walked towards the throne room door. After a short walk, she got to her destination.
Her bedroom.
She entered it and looked through a small book collection, which primarily consisted of private journals and books on governing.
It was a whole lot of nothing to the layman.
“Come on, it has to be around here somewhere..” Celestia rummaged through a chest full of books until she found it.
How to Negotiate With Draconequus’: A Guide To Becoming A Diplomatic Master
It was still in pristine condition—and still had the autograph from the author; someone who Celestia had never heard of. In hindsight, she wondered if Discord wrote the book. She made a mental note to ask him once there was less ash clouding the planet.
Book in her magical aura, Celestia hopped onto her bed and flipped it open, hoping with every bit of her being to find a page on how to get Discord to accept enough ash to build several hundred thousand ashponies with.
That's when the princess noticed something. Something that she was almost certain hadn't been there when she purchased the book.
“Hmm… now what is this?” Celestia raised an eyebrow as she looked at a piece of paper that had been taped to the book. From the looks of it, whoever had put it there had attempted to erase what was on it at some point in time as some of the letters were barely visible. However, Celestia could still make them out enough to do the only thing that seemed logical.
Read them aloud.
“Eruptionus… calamitus…” Celestia raised an eyebrow and squinted at the last word, which was strangely familiar to her—as though it was something that had a reputation for having a notoriously bad temper. “V… Vesuvius?”
Without warning, the ground beneath Celestia shook, and the ceiling cracked. She also heard Luna scream from her bedroom. Before she could laugh at her sister's misfortune though, Celestia saw a cone-shaped mountain rise out of the ground off in the distance. Then she heard something.
Something she knew she was responsible for.
BOOM!
Off in the distance, the volcano exploded.
Violently.
Celestia's cheeks flared up and she let out a nervous giggle. Ever so slowly, she placed the book down wiped a few beads of sweat from her forehead away. As she made her way to her door, Luna burst in.
“Sister!” Luna said; visibly panicked. “What in the world was that sound!?”
Celestia stared; clearly as panic-stricken as her sister, though for a much different reason.
Luckily, she knew just what to say.
“Oops…”