//------------------------------// // The Punch Line // Story: One Punch Mare // by Komponist //------------------------------// For the spectators on the ground, not only in Canterlot but also for a thousand miles around, the final showdown lasted for only an instant. Most of the ponies weren’t able to look directly at the spectacle anyway. In the blink of an eye, there was suddenly a new Sun in the sky, it flashed even brighter for a fraction of a second and then, just like that,it was gone. Everypony on the ground questioned if anything had actually happened at all. However, since this is a written story, we can just rewind the clock and look at the events in slow motion: (sbp = seconds before the punch) 0.000021 sbp Daybreaker fires her hyper charged, planet destroying beam down towards Celestia. 0.000009 sbp Celestia thinks one more time about different solutions to this problem. Twilight’s letters come to her mind. 0.000004 sbp Daybreaker’s beam is about two feet away from Celestia. She can feel her face getting warmer. 0.000001 sbp Celestia decides that she really has no other choice and throws her punch, deflecting Daybreaker’s beam. 0.00000001 sbp Daybreaker has Celestia’s hoof in front of her and mildly regrets her life decisions …but only a little. 0.00003 seconds after the punch The concentrated force of the princess’ punch has disintegrated most of Daybreaker’s body. Back to normal speed. If anyone had been able to perceive it, they’d have noticed the gravitational wave that expanded into all directions. It was perceived eventually, a few million years later by an advanced civilization countless light years away. Just after the punch, it was calm again. The ponies on the ground, including Luna, Starswirl and Tempest, blinked. Then they looked at each other with facial expressions that unanimously said “What the buck…?” and “Did I miss something?”. *** A few moments later, on Mount Canterhorn, high above Canterlot City. If most of the clouds hadn’t been blown away, as per custom, Celestia would have placed what was left of Daybreaker on one. Instead, the princess put her evil counterpart’s still living ‘body’ on the mountain’s summit. Celestia stood over the evil alicorn in a non-threatening manner and Daybreaker, now reduced to a scorched skeleton without limbs, weakly looked at her slayer with two orange glowing dots in her eye sockets. When she spoke, it was with an unreal, demonic voice, even though a meek one. “Heh… I knew you had it in you.” Celestia tried to show no emotions. “I’m sorry it had to be like this.” “Don’t be! That’s how it all started!” Daybreaker responded with a hint of mirth. Celestia looked slightly away. “Yes… you’re right about that. I shouldn’t be.” “It took a lot of effort… but I finally got you to really fight. It was worth it! I had fun!” “Yeah, it really was a hard fight and--” “Lies.” the smitten evil alicorn interrupted her. “Not a single time did you bare your fangs! All I could steal from you, was a tiny fraction of your power!” Celestia did not respond outright. She was caught being insincere and there was no point in denying it. If Daybreaker had  been able to, she would have smiled. Instead, she chuckled. Not an evil chuckle. More of a proud one. “You’ve finally shown them all! Should’ve done it a thousand years ago... Better late than never, right?” “I guess you might be right about that too…” The scorched skeleton started to crumble and the orange glowing eye-dots started to dim. “Stay hot, Celly! Heh heh heh…” Daybreaker fizzled away, her mind destroyed, but her basic essence, some might call a soul, went back into the Princess of the Sun. The diarch silently kept standing on the summit for a while. Even if Daybreaker was a monster, she was still part of her. Celestia felt sorrow …but no guilt. *** During the following days, everything returned back to normal (‘normal’ for Equestrian standards). After all, the damage Daybreaker had caused to the infrastructure was mostly restricted to Canterlot Plaza and a few roofs around it. Aside from that, the citizens were more than used to monster attacks and the like. The whole story, how Daybreaker came to be and how she was eventually stopped, was made public. Celestia had no intentions of hiding anything regarding her power problems anymore. As before, instead of frightening the ponies of Equestria, the princess’ display of power (or rather: easy neutralization of Daybreaker’s power) caused another wave of popularity and merchandise sales. There were still critics who believed that it had all been “for plot-convinience”, but for the most part the citizens felt proud of and protected by their beloved Sun Princess. There were however some ponies who missed the (literally) smoking hot mare they’d witnessed lolling on the Canterlot Plaza’s fountain. There were also obviously some requests addressed to Princess Luna for some steamy dreams involving the evil alicorn. Rejected requests! As for the other three heroes, Fizzlepop Berrytwist, Starswirl the Bearded and Princess Luna, they were awarded for their courage the following day. The latter protested vehemently, but Celestia wouldn’t hear a ‘no’ for an answer. The trio was honored by the Sun Princess in a huge (some might say pompous) ceremony in the throne room. The three heroes walked, awkwardly, along the red carpet towards the dais, hundreds of saluting royal guards to their sides. When they stopped in front of Celestia, the white alicorn smiled warmly and hung medals of honor around their necks (Luna gave her a wink, when it was her turn). The whole event was musically accompanied by the ending theme of the first Star Horse movie. Starswirl apologized in private for not believing her when she’d told him as a filly that Rockhoof ate her homework. She didn’t know why he came up with this now, but was grateful anyway and gladly forgave him... again, since she was never one to hold a grudge for longer than a few days. But what about the fourth hero? What about Discord? Of course, Celestia wanted to honor him the same way as the other three, but the poor Spirit of Chaos was still far from recovering and once he was able to move again, he seemed to be afraid of meeting the princess and avoided any sort of encounter. What could be the reason?, Celestia wondered. And what about the helpful royal guard? The wielder of the plunger? The plunger that saved them all? Well, he was also to be honored, but was way too humble to take part in the ceremony. However, the princess insisted on knighting him ...with said plunger. Celestia felt really bad for not knowing his name, since that had never happened before with any other guard, for goodness sake! She corrected the oversight discreetly by looking his name up in the castle’s employee files. His name was Royal... Royal Guard. A ‘royal facehoof’ followed. In the following days, a number of other events unfolded: -To everypony’s surprise, former Dragonlord Torch showed up at Canterlot Castle’s doorstep to apologize for his earlier actions. He avoided eye-contact and rubbed his arm while doing so, like a little boy caught stealing a cookie. Celestia later learnt that after the beating she had given him, Torch ran to his daughter Ember (crying) and told her everything, but instead of getting her support, the new Dragonlord chewed him out for his bratty behavior and forced him to go to Canterlot and rectify their otherwise good relationship with the ponies. -After closer investigation, the strange shooting star that had recently fallen down from the sky turned out to be the former Queen of the Changelings. Incapacitated, she was taken into custody in the nearby hospital’s emergency ward. -Since the second Moon trench was not Celestia’s doing, the issue never came up between the royal sisters. At least, not until a fitting asteroid was unlucky enough to show up a bit too close to the satellite. -Secret Intelligence Service reports revealed to the princesses that the legendary demon Grogar had risen again, after millennia following his defeat by Gusty the Great. He had assembled a terrifying army of giant monsters and was ready to attack Equestria, but then he witnessed the titanic fight between Celestia and Daybreaker in his crystal orb and suffice to say, had many a second thought about the whole endeavour. Just like him, his assembled monstrosities also had doubts about attacking the alicorn head on, and one by one sneaked away, never to be seen again. -The only monsters dumb enough to attack Equestria at the time, were Rodan and Ghidorah (they apparently had a bet running with Mothra). The duo quickly regretted their decision to confront Celestia, after regaining consciousness a few kilometres underground, next to the shell of a former Reaper spaceship. Celestia still felt bad about what she had to do and her guts responded accordingly, but it was a lot less of a problem than before. After all, they did threaten her ponies in one way or another. The princess was clearly on the right path to work her bowel problem out. A little more than a week after the Daybreaker-incident, Twilight returned from her vacation, which she had spent on a tropical island in perfect isolation. Unfortunately, Celestia was not fast enough to intercept her and explain everything that had happened in her absence in a calm, soothing and delicate manner. Twilight learnt what happened from a newspaper she had bought at the first train station ...and froze into a vegetative state. The perfectly still purple alicorn was brought to the castle, causing great worry among its inhabitants. When Celestia saw the purple mare, she just sighed and reassured everypony that Twilight would eventually snap out of it. The Sun Princess had experience with the matter, since it had already happened twelve times before. “Just wrap her in a safety blanket and prepare some empathy cocoa when she wakes up.” *** Two weeks after the incident Princess Celestia and Twilight Sparkle were sitting in the same cozy room where the younger princess had confronted her mentor about the whole power-issue a few months back. The older princess sipped her tea, smiling calmly. “You know, Twilight, even though this laxative tea seems to have no effect on me, it still tastes delicious! It’s unfortunate that you can’t try it without causing an... ‘avalanche’…” Twilight, who had recently awoken from her coma just to have mistaken the special tea with her empathy cocoa, was still a bit shaky and had a forced, squiggly smile on her face. “Y-Yeah, what a... pity... A-And how are you doing, Princess? Is everything really all right...?” Celestia nodded with a warm smile. “Don’t you worry about me, my faithful student! I’m fine and very grateful for the experience you have provided. It was a bit bumpy here and there, but the realm seems to have benefitted from it greatly” “W-What about the world almost ending?!” “Nothing of what happened in the past few weeks is your fault, Twilight…” the older princess lied. “If it weren’t for all the trouble I went through, I wouldn’t have learned anything! Pretty much like you when I sent you on all of your friendship missions!” Celestia winked, Twilight blinked. The older alicorn continued. “I can tackle my problem now, at least somewhat, and be the protector Equestria needs. However, I still have a long way ahead of me... Handling recent monster attacks still causes me to... um... tighten up, but gladly it’s now down to a few days! Thanks to my friends, I’ve learnt that I have to let go of my feelings of guilt. It’s easier said than done, though I will approach the issue in any way I can. For example, a very calm and friendly pony named Treehugger is giving me lessons in relaxation! I admit though… she might be a little too calm… and absent minded… and creeping me out... *Sigh*... Baby steps... Baby steps...” Twilight felt a bit more relieved, realizing her mentor apparently really had things under control. “Okay, Princess! Phew... Well, actually, I am pretty sure I’ve come across a way to solve your constipation-issues much faster!” Celestia’s eyes went wide with hope. “Are you sure? For realsies?” “Yes. I did some medical research during my vacation--” “Twilight!”" Celestia interrupted. “I told you to relax, young lady!” Twilight shook her head. “Nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh no! It really wasn’t an effort. In fact, researching IS relaxing for me!” Celestia blinked. “Oh... how could I forget...? Tell me then, Twilight, what did you find?” she asked eagerly. Twilight smirked. “Well, there is a tiny side note in chapter seven of this ‘Encyclopedia of Gastric Grudges’...” The young alicorn levitated said book over to her mentor. “...l could just tell you, but I figured you might want to read it yourself.” Twilight’s magic flipped the book open on the relevant page. “It’s the footnote at the bottom, Princess.” Celestia smiled at her former student. “Thank you, Twilight! Now let’s see what you’ve found...” The footnote read: ‘Constipation in ponies is often caused by excessive consumption of pastries. Therefore, in order to guarantee a complete recovery, it is recommended to cease the consumption of cake or other baked goods altogether.’ Celestia’s stared at the book, expression dead and empty. “Ok.” In the next 0.02 seconds, the book was obliterated into free-floating atoms, which in turn were now well on their way out of the Solar System. Silence. Staring student. Huffing mentor. And all of that with just one punch. THE END