And the Winner Is...
A single teacup sat on Luna’s prank book, it’s very presence demanding the attention of everybody in the room.
Luna slowly turned to look at Celestia. “It... It wasn’t you...?”
“Oh my, oh my,” cackled Discord. “What an entirely unexpected and random turn of events. Now, let me check my ledger.”
A book popped into his hand, followed by reading glasses on his face. He slowly flipped through the book, using tassels on Shining’s chestpiece to do addition. “Now then, by my records, there were eleven rounds of items sent through your book. Based on your own rules set at the beginning of your game, Luna, you hit the wrong pony.”
“Hold on!” Cadence shouted. “Why were Shining or myself never informed of this turn of events?”
“I wanted to see how it would play out, and neither of you could keep your big mouths shut. Don’t interrupt.” Discord coughed, then dramatically refound his place in the book. “You will be docked five points, per missed prank. That’s fifty-five in total.”
He waved a hand, and Luna’s score on the board plummeted to zero, leaving the facsimile a pouty mess.
“I object!” Shining stood from his seat, and pointed a hoof at Discord. “This has gotten ridiculous. Us three are judges, remember? You can’t just go around dishing out all of the points in this stupid system of yours!”
Luna stared at the burgeoning argument, head whipping back and forth between Discord and Shining. Cadence watched as well, biting her own lip. The only pony not involved in some was Celestia. She had the teacup held in a golden glow, examining it intently. After all, it was a very familiar pattern, one she had picked out herself.
Celestia caught Luna’s eye across the table during one of her sister’s frantic turns. “Twilight?” she mouthed, careful not to let the judges see.
Luna’s eyes widened a fraction, and she hesitantly nodded in understanding. She could see it now: she rigged the book, Celestia must have lent it to Twilight during her visit. It all made sense.
“Boys, boys, let’s just calm down.” Cadence spoke, barely raising her voice, and the room fell silent. “Discord, I do agree there should be a penalty--”
“Ha!” Discord blew a raspberry at Shining. “I win!”
“Hun...”
“I’m not finished,” Cadence continued. “There should be a penalty for the first one. I would argue that anything after that constitutes agreement to the game. I say we find the third pony, and add her in, giving her a score, as appropriate.”
The smallest alicorn looked at the Royal Sisters, who nodded. “I see no reason why not,” Celestia said. “Shining?”
“Seems fair to me,” he shrugged. “It’s only, what, ten pranks? Eleven?”
Discord sighed and snapped his fingers. On the scoreboard, the two sister’s faces momentarially shifted in surprise as they were pushed apart. A third picture appeared, just a generic pony head with a big question mark, and a zero for score. Luna’s score then shot back up to thirty-eight, removing the pout, though she remained sad.
“This is all well and good,” he said, stashing his ledger back in an oversized pocket. “But who is the pony? We can get a name, then retire to discuss points while you sleep, and attend to court,” he finished, pointing to each sister in turn.
Celestia’s face cracked into a grin. “Who better to join us in our game? The new pony is none other than Twilight Sparkle.”
“Let us reconvene after the day, before Night Court. I shall instruct the chefs to send dinner here, instead.”
With a round of nods, the room cleared out. In under twelve hours, the war would be over, and right now, nopony knew who would win.
_--_--_--_--_--_
The breakfast ended in silence as each pony, and incarnation of Chaos, split up to being their tasks for the day. Celestia headed straight for court, concerned that the first appointment was now going to be late. Luna headed to her room, then sent back the empty teacup, with a small white flag. The judges climbed to the tower room shared by Cadence and Shining, now cleared out of personal effects.
It was a long day.
Try as she might, Luna just couldn’t sleep. She took to pacing her room, terrified that Celestia’s final prank was waiting to burst forth from the shadows, and demolish any chance that her book prank could put her back in the lead. She considered writing a letter to Twilight to explain what was going on, as it was unlikely that Celestia said anything to her. Plus, she would have to speak to Celestia or leave her room to send the missive, and the risk wasn’t worth it.
As the day wound down, she walked with her entourage to the breakfast nook, to see the final results.
Celestia’s day in court was almost exactly like the last. Nothing stood out, no crisis occured, nothing happened that would demand special attention, and it made the day drag on. She also worried about Luna and Twilight. Even with her sister’s points docked, she still had ten pranks that could be scored, which could easily put her up above Celestia. She had to think of something, fast, something just enough to put her back up over the edge to victory.
When her last appointment ended, she practically bolted from the ready room back to her chambers to begin preparations of her final chance.
Servants learned fast to avoid the judge’s room. The one poor mare who tired to provide refreshment was shouted out of the tower. Their heated debate echoed down the stairs, and carried on until almost the deadline. The three who left the tower were not the same as those who entered. They were beaten, ragged. At some point, both Cadence and Shining took off their ceremonial garb, and went to dinner unclothed.
Their somber line was the last to arrive to dinner, though they were the most important attendees.
_--_--_--_--_--_
Everybody decided unanimously that dinner should come first. They dined over the castle’s best food, with the three ponies on the scoreboard, headed by the confused face of Twilight, stared down at the party. As dinner wrapped up and the food was taken away, tension slowly built. The princesses turned to the pony judges, who turned to look at Discord. He floated from his chair with a nervous chuckle and donned a tie, just so he could loosen it.
“Now, it was a tough debate. Many good points were raised and shot down. At the end of the day, it came down to good old fashioned diplomacy which we used to assign scores based on--”
“Discord,” Cadence growled, “we talked about this.”
He winced, then sighed. “After much deliberation, we decided to award Luna a total of one point for each prank sent through the book after her initial missed hit. It was a good idea, and caused many good laughs, but in essence you just reused the same prank, and therefore we decided to award you the minimum,” he deadpanned.
Luna’s score shot up to forty-eight, slightly higher than her sister’s forty-six. “Congratulations,” Celestia began, but stopped when Discord raised a hand.
“Before giving the final score, I just wanted to point out that I had no pat in this. It is shameless nepotism and I will not--”
Shining cleared his throat loudly, then stood and pushed Discord out of the way. “We decided, due to the unplanned nature of Twilight’s pranks, and the way that they avoided breaking the rules she had no knowledge of over the course of an entire week, that all of Twilight’s pranks would be rated at the highest possible score.”
The numbers under Twilight’s picture quickly shot up to fifty-five, blowing past the two royal sisters. A silence fell over the room, thick enough to be bucked by a pegasus.
“We also based this judgement off of prior rulings, where reversed pranks were always rated highly, for ingenuity,” Cadence added, trying to relieve the tension. When there was still no response, she tried again. “Celestia, Luna...?”
Both royal sisters looked to the scoreboard, where the confused Twilight now sported a shiny golden crown. They then turned to each other. Luna broke first, one corner of her mouth quirked up in a half smile, followed by a small snort of laughter. Celestia then broke into a full teeth-baring grin and she let out a free laugh. “After all that,” the Alicorn of the Sun said, “we both lost to a surprise newcomer.”
“Ridiculous, isn't’ it?” Discord said, crossing his arms. “Personally, I say we demand a recount. There is still one more day.”
“It certainly is ridiculous,” Luna echoed. “But... fitting, I think.”
“Back when we were fillies, our mother would do the scoring for us,” Celestia explained, “in completely random numbers, and once in colors. We learned fast that we wouldn’t get a normal winner, and so victory wasn’t really ever a priority. This has probably been the most competitive, and stressful war we’ve ever had.”
“Huh.” Shining leaned back in his chair. “You know, I don’t think I ever considered that.”
The whole time, Cadence had been studying the faces of the two sisters. As they finally broke down into laughter, she smiled as well. “So, all's well that ends well?”
“So it would seem,” Luna replied, rising from her chair.
“How disappointing,” Discord mutered.
“Now then, I must leave to attend to court. Cadence, Shining, if I don’t see you before your departure, have a safe trip, and we shall see you on your return. Sister, until tomorrow.”
As she turned to walk away, everyone looked at Celestia, who was busy staring at her sister, in an almost foalish glee. The blue alicorn pushed open the door, and stepped into an empty hallway. She looked around for a moment, looking for her escort to dismiss them, then gasped in surprise as a bucket of ice water fell onto her head and back. She turned around, eyes murderous, and locked gazes with her sister.
“Oops,” Celestia said, playfully bonking her head with a hoof. “That’s where I left that.”
The world stood still. Every single ear within fifteen miles swiveled towards the palace. Guards bolted from their station, weapons drawn and magic primed to fight off whatever unspeakable evil had befallen their beloved princesses. Every single thought was lost on the bellow still echoing off of the side of the Canterlot Mountain.
“CELESTIA!!!”