Cozy Glow was shoved harshly into the cage. It was cold and wet and she shivered. The door was promptly shut behind her with such force that it struck her rump and tipped her forward.
“Ow! Why are you being so mean!”
“I think you know why indeed,” said Luna, darkly, her magic igniting and closing the door. Celestia lowered her horn, locking it with a magical spell that no living pony could ever break.
“Wait—you’re locking it—but how am I going to get out?!”
“You’re not. Agent, if you would?”
Agent Sweetie Drops finished performing the shipping label and produced a vial of pony glue, affixing the sticker to the crate. With a flick of a blue quill, Celestia signed the order.
“There. In accordance with Equestrian law and with the true pillars of justice, you—Cozy Maurice Glow IV—are hereby consigned to Tartarus. Eternally.
Cozy winced. “Okay. I can explain. That’s not actually my middle name—”
“I see. Then by royal decree, your name is now Maurice.”
“You can’t just change my name!”
Celestia waggled the quill in Cozy’s face, causing her to sneeze. “I am Celestia. I indeed can. And your crimes are simply unforgivable, Maurice. You know as well as I do that you deserve this.”
Luna eyed the quill, then her sister. “Dearest sister...is that...one of mine?”
Celestia looked down at it, then at Luna. “Um...no?”
“Yes it is! That’s one of my feathers! That is disgusting! Unless--” Luna gasped. “SISTER! Hath thou plucked me in mine sleep?!”
“Well, you do sleep a lot—”
“It is LITERALLY my job!”
“Yes. And how nice it must be to get paid to sleep—”
“I don’t get paid!”
“That’s what taxes are, Luna! Taxes that fund me making quills out of you!” She waggled the quill at her sister, and then pointed it at Cozy Glow. “Taxes that fund putting the absolute worst scum of Equestria in eternal torment! Guards! Take her away!”
The guards moved to grab Cozy Glow and begin her relocation. As they moved, though, space suddenly erupted with a surge of magical energy and Cherenkov radiation. The powerful blast immediately upset and upturned the guards, sending them flying outward in every direction as Starlight emerged, smiling and holding a folder.
“Starlight Glimmer?! How in the name of mine own rump did you get in here?!”
“Teleportation.” Starlight looked at the molten marble below her. “I thought that was obvious.”
“You can’t teleport in here!”
“I just did. Also, you’re going to want to check for neutrons. That’s been happening lately, they just kind of sneak out. As in over...there...and there...and, well, everywhere. So, yeah. Radiation. But hey, I figured since neither of you had children after a thousand years you weren’t going to anyway.”
Celestia glowered.
“I was stuck on the moon for one thousand years,” grumbled Luna. “And courtship is so troublesome now. We used to simply find stallions and assemble them into heaps.”
“Piles, Luna. We assembled them into piles.” Celestia stepped forward. “But it is impossible you can be here, because the entire castle is protected by a seal that I myself designed. Unless you exhibit the proper targeting signature—”
“I’ll get liquefied. That happened the first three times. But now I got the right password from Twilight.”
Celestia gasped. “She just—she just told you?! That’s top secret! It defends against filthy THIEVES!”
“For the last time, sister, there are no ‘thieves’, you ate it in your sleep—”
“I DO NOT SLEEP-EAT CAKE, AND I DID NOT EAT FOUR OF THEM IN ONE SITTING!"
“She didn’t tell me,” said Starlight. “I read her mind. Telepathy spells. Like a teleportation spell but not. Don’t mix the two up. It’s messy.”
Celestia gasped. “Starlight! After everything my dear beloved little purple Twilight taught to you about friendship, you ought to know that friends need their privacy—”
“And yet she always gets what she wants for her birthday and I always pick up the exact flavor ice cream she's craving on the way home. That’s why I don’t pay rent and why she loves me more than you.”
“How dare you—”
“And I don’t do it to everypony. I don’t like reading Trixie’s mind, it’s filthy in there. And Fluttershy...” Starlight’s gaze grew distant. “Some things...some things were not meant to be witnessed by mortal ponies...” She looked up at Celestia. “Which wouldn’t be a problem if you’d just finally give me my wings.”
“Starlight, we discussed this—”
“I know. It’s fine. I’m sure they’ll grow in eventually.” Starlight stepped past the princesses, holding out her folder. “Besides, I’m not hear for wings today, I’m here for Cozy. As her guidance counselor, I came here to make sure she properly learned her lesson about trying to take over the...world...” She looked at Cozy Glow, then at Celestia. “Why is she in a cage?”
“We are preparing to send her to Tartarus.”
Starlight frowned. “Wait. What? Are you joking, insane, stupid or all three?”
“I am none of the three, and my dearest sister is exempted from at least two.”
Celestia frowned. “Wait, what?”
“So, wait.” Starlight stepped forward, brandishing her folder. “You put a child—who is at most, what, eleven?—n a magic box, and you’re going to send her to literal pony-hell. It’s not even a big box. She can’t even turn around all the way. Where’s she supposed to go to the bathroom?”
Cozy Glow looked down. “Ohhhhh…didn’t think of that. My assessment of the situation just got much, much worse...”
“Ponies do not go to the bathroom,” said Luna.
“Well, clearly you’ve never seen Pinkie after a long trainride, she pees like a racehorse.”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “You watch your pink friend urinate?”
Starlight shivered. “I sure hope not, but with Pinkie, you never know.”
“The box is scaled appropriately,” said Celestia. “Based on my own specifications. If it’s too large, she won’t be punished properly.”
“Yes, again. Why are you sending her to Tartarus?! She’s a child! I would ask you if you talked to her parents, but I already know she’s an orphan! I checked! You’re abusing a little orphan! What is wrong with you?!”
“In our defense,” said Luna, “most children in Equestria are orphans. We do not have modern medicine and monsters are rampant. Applebloom, that blue griffon fellow, Scootaloo until a few days ago, that school of orphans that hate me, Flurry Heart—”
“Wait. Flurry’s not an orphan.”
“Well, no, not yet. Her magic is not yet fully developed.”
“That’s not the point!” Celestia huffed. “She tried to take over the world, and nearly succeed! She nearly ended you, and all your students! It would be irresponsible NOT to punish her!”
“By sending her to pony-hell?!”
“If that’s what it takes! She’s evil!”
“It’s true,” sighed Cozy Glow. “Golly, I just like hearing their screams so much...”
“That’s not the point!” Starlight put her hoof on the bridge of her nose. “You do realize that I enslaved a village, right? And that I then destroyed the timeline, like, twelve times that Twilight knows about? As in, I didn’t even conquer it, I DESTROYED it! And now I live in Twilight’s house and eat her food without paying any rent at all!”
“Well, you surely had a good reason to do so—”
“My childhood friend went to boarding school and I never wrote him a letter or went to visit him so I swore vengeance against the entire pony race.”
Celestia and Luna looked at each other and then took a step back.
“We did not realize until now just how nervous you make us.”
“And it’s not just me! Discord conquered the planet, what, twice? And that one time I had to completely redo the timeline? And now look at him, he’s basically Fluttershy’s live-in coltfriend even if nopony will admit it.”
Celestia grumbled. “Stupid Discord...If I was still that soft...”
“And what about you?” Starlight pointed at Luna. “You went evil and got super hot and tried to conquer Equestria!”
Luna looked away. “Admittedly, true. I reacted poorly to a lifetime of neglect and poor communication. Although also admittedly, I was imprisoned alone on the moon for a thousand years."
“Yes, I did that,” said Celestia, raising her hoof.
Luna frowned. “Yes, dear sister, I was there.”
“And Sunset Shimmer? I have drinks with her every Thursday, she was reformed I guess, but I'm pretty sure you exiled her...”
“She was banished to a land utterly devoid of stallions, with only ugly bipeds so she will never possibly ever have any sort of romantic satisfaction.”
“Um, no,” said Cozy.
“Excuse me? Are you implying my not-so-purple FORMER best student is some sort of human-snuggler?”
“No. Not that part, that's gross. The other part. I read Twilight’s reports. There’s definitely stallions over there.”
“Impossible!”
“There are! And they’re apparently enormous, six or seven times the size of these nubs.” She pointed at the guards.
Celestia and Luna looked back at their tiny guards, and then at each other.
“Stallions that are not...tiny?”
“We shall consider this. Later, sister."
“And what about Stygian?" continued Starlight, ignoring thoughts of giant stallions. "As in, the Pony of Shadows, literal embodiment of evil? Or Tempest Shadow, who took out three quarters of the alicorn race in one shot? Or Flim and Flam, they’re mostly legit now, or even Trixie...well, she’s still a jerk, but a sexy one now...”
“That is true,” mused Luna.
“Ugh, you and the blue ones,” muttered Celestia. “Everypony knows purple is best purple.”
“Sister, if you would please keep your fetishes to yourself? It is bad enough I have to peer into the depravity of your dreams each night—”
“It’s not depravity, there was cake! CAKE! It's not my fault Twilight was naked and slathered with smooth, creamy, silky smooth buttercream frosting inside of it!” She turned to Starlight, “and you’re only mentioning the good ones! What about Sombra?”
“Yeah...you had Twilight murder him.”
“We prefer the term ‘myrtle’,” corrected Luna. “It sounds more funny and innocent.”
“And the Storm King?”
“Also myrtled,” said Luna. “After he broke into our castle.”
“And Tirek?”
“Oh! I know him!” said Cozy. “He’s a huge ugly JERK!”
“Exactly. Tartarus. Along with all the animals I don’t like looking at. The weird ones with body parts that don’t belong on them.” Celestia shivered, involuntarily extending her enormous fluffy wings. “So unnatural...”
Starlight shuddered. “And what about Chrysalis?”
“Soon to be myrtled?” suggested Luna. “She did break into our castle.”
Starlight frowned. “That does happen a lot. You’re guards aren’t very good.”
Celestia and Luna laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Starlight, of course they’re ineffective! We are divine beings, the literal incarnation of the uberpferd. We are quite literally Equestria’s master race. Anyone or anything that could challenge us would cut down the guards in an instant!”
“Then...why do you have them?”
“Why, aesthetics, of course! To have the walls lined with delicious, succulent, girthy, quivering stallions...”
“It is also why we dress them in adorable little uniforms,” added Luna.
“You aren’t kidding,” said Cozy, reaching though the bars of her cage and slapping one of the guards squarely on his flank, causing him to make a realistic horse noise.
“Cozy! You’re too young for that!”
“Golly, you’re right, I’m just a little girl after all, who definitely shouldn't be sent to pony-hell—”
“Stop calling it that! It’s ‘Tartarus’!”
“And, for the record, you’re just starting to hit puberty,” said Starlight. “I don’t read student thoughts, but yours are really, REALLY strong.”
“Oh?” Cozy tilted her head. “About what?”
“About a Cozy Glow sandwich with Sandbar and Gallus as the bread.”
Cozy Glow darkened. “I—never—that—no! NO!”
“How uncouth!” gasped Luna.
“We only have the guards because they’re cute,” continued Celestia, her mind having blanked at that particular vision. “I mean, why did you think Shining Armor became captain? He’s like, what, twenty eight? If there were a real position it would take decades of hard work to rise through the ranks. But it’s not real so we just picked the cutest one.”
“Yes, until we heard his voice.” Luna shivered.
Celestia sighed. “Yes. He is also...not smart.”
“Yes. As the earth-ponies say, dumb as a sack of rocks. Rocks that are preternaturally dense and yet somehow still soft and pliable in the center.”
“Which is why we gave him to Cadence. She has a soft spot for the dullards. Also, after the whole ‘war-crimes’ trial, nopony will touch her with a ten-foot pole.”
“And we also were sure that left to his own devices, Twilight’s own desires would eventually lead her down a path with him that I would rather not imagine—”
“Luna! For the last time, this is NOT one of your fanfictions—”
“Sister, I will imagine what I like!”
“You just said you WOULDN'T! And you can't think thoughts like that here! Not in my castle you won’t!”
“It’s not yours, I LIVE HERE TOO!”
“Wow, and they say I’m evil?" Cozy Glow had sat down like a loaf of adorable evil. "You two really hate each other, don’t you?”
“I think it’s a kind of tension,” said Starlight.
Cozy Glow raised an eyebrow. “Tension? What kind of tension?”
“I will tell you when you’re older.”
Celestia and Luna turned back to Starlight. “Regardless!” exclaimed Celestia. “This child is EVIL! And she will be punished in accordance with the LAW!”
“Where does the law say anything about sending children to Tartarus? Where?”
“It just said it! This isn’t a democracy, I’m the princess, I AM THE LAW!”
“You’re also being ridiculous. You’re supposed to be loving and caring and soft and adorable, there’s no way you’d put a child in a box and send her to pony-hell when she made one mistake. That's ridiculously out of character. Aren’t we supposed to reform her or something?”
“Yes. We will reform her by containing her in a box next to Tirek. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Nothing, obviously.” Starlight sighed. “But it’s a moot point, because she’s not going. I’m not going to let her.”
“Um, Starlight?” Cozy moved to the rear of her cage. “You’re literally challenging a god.”
“Step aside, Starlight,” said Celestia, towering. “I tolerate you because you are the sexiest color, and because your power keeps my dear Twilight relatively unstolen, but I will not hesitate to make you move by divine force.”
“And I don’t have Twilight’s weird infatuation with you. So, no. I don't have to do what you say. Not moving.”
Celestia blushed. “She has an infatuation—no! Not right now! Move, Starlight, before I make you move!”
“Nope.”
“Fine. Then you’ve forced my horn!”
Celestia lowered her head and let an intense burst of solar light. The tip of Starlight’s horn sparkled and a tiny portal opened up, sending the beam elsewhere.
“Don’t know where that went, don’t care,” she said. “I didn’t want to do this, but guess I have to.” She extended her magic, and suddenly Celestia was lifted off the ground and turned over.
“GAH!” She began flailing her legs wildly. “Sister, help! I have been inverted!”
Starlight then cast a blue glowing hand and suddenly buried it in the thick fluff of Celestia’s chest.
“NO! MY FLOOF! My precious FLOOF! It has been...been...”
As Starlight stroked her sternum, Celestia’s eyes went glassy and she stopped moving. She assumed a semi-fetal position and began to purr.
“EGADS! What have you done to my dearest sister?!”
“She’s just hypnotized. It’s what Fluttershy does to calm down Elizabeak when she has the nugget dreams, and what Rainbow Dash does to Scootaloo when she, and I quote, ‘wants her to just shut the buck up for once’.”
“You have given my sister the stroke! How impudent! How UNCOUTH! When my nightguard clocks in, you will pay dearly, with your JUICES!”
“She’s hitting on you,” whispered Cozy Glow.
Starlight raised an eyebrow. “Yeah I know. Also, clock in?”
“My guards have a very strong union! But they are also marginally more competent than Celestia’s!”
Starlight looked at the day guards. Most of them were just staring, some with very blank expressions and a few drooling. Most were still tipped over from her entry, unable to right themselves.
“Yeah...”
Eventually, Luna’s guards did show up. They were profoundly handsome thestral fellows, and they immediately surrounded their princess, growling threateningly at Starlight.
“Quick, Starlight, give her the poke! THE POKE!”
Cozy gestured toward Celestia’s horn. Starlight just sighed.
“A wound inflicted by an alicorn horn can’t heal, even by magic. Witcher rules. It’s why Twilight doesn’t date anymore. No. I have something much, much worse.”
Suddenly, form her side and with incredible speed, Starlight drew a weapon of terrible might, one that was barely perceptible to soft, innocent pony minds. They could simply not comprehend that such a device could exist, that some depraved and sick mind had ever conceived of such an instrument of destruction.
Luna gasped and cried out. “How DARE YOU! Starlight, you have—you have—”
“And I’ll use it too.” Starlight held out the banana, pointing it squarely at Luna’s chest. Her guards’ eyes had grown wide, fixed on the yellow fruit, their mouths suddenly filling with ponderous quantities of saliva as they drooled upon the floor.
“No, Starlight, don’t!” cried Cozy. “It’s not worth it! I may be evil, but even I’m not THAT evil!”
“Stand down!” said Starlight, brandishing the fruit. “Or I’ll do it."
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I? I think we’ve firmly established I’m quite insane.”
Luna glared, and then ignited her horn, lunging forward with a terrifying battle-scream, aiming to give Starlight the poke.
Starlight, her face expressionless, raised the banana and fired. She squeezed the end, causing it to burst from the antipodean end with a resounding “SPLOIT”. The gooey fruit within struck Luna squarely in the chest, stopping her in her tracks.
Upon seeing it, the thestral guards completely lost control over their own perverse instincts and leapt upon their princess, bearing their fangs.
“Bannaner! BANANER!”
“GOTTA HAVE BANANER!”
With a cry, Luna was tackled to the ground as her own guards, driven mad by their despicable instincts, were driven to lick her relentlessly to devour the semi-liquid remnants of the tasty fruit.
“NO!” squealed Luna. “My virgin princess body is being licked by strong, muscular, girthy, incredibly sexy stallions! My velveteen surface is being set upon without relent! My chastity! Help, I’m being turned on!”
Cozy Glow, being a child, was forced to avert her eyes.
“Well, that’s done,” said Starlight. She turned to face Cozy Glow and vaporized the cage around her. “Now let’s get you back to Ponyville.”
“But...but I almost sent you to the void, with the rest of the magic in all Equestria!. Why are you helping me?”
“Um, no. I read your mind, remember? I knew what you were doing. If I went through, I’d just pull the magic back.”
“But that’s impossible! There was no magic in all of Equestria!”
“But there was, seeing as I was trapped in it. I would have just absorbed all of it and become a god. Or more of one than I already am. Maybe I’d have even GROWN MY WINGS.” Starlight took a deep breath. “Regardless, the point was for the other students to learn the power of friendship, and that's they did. If it had gotten bad, I would have just stepped in at the last second. Duh.”
“Don’t ‘duh’ me, I don’t think you could have done that.”
Starlight shrugged. “We’ll never know, because you don't have access to that particular timeline."
Cozy Glow looked around. Celestia was still drooling and glassy, while Luna was on the floor becoming quite aroused. “So, what? You’re not going to adopt me now, are you?”
Starlight laughed. “No, no, of course not. I’m quite insane. Also busy. I have to track down Chrysalis and reform her.” She pounded one hoof into another. “By force. I was thinking of building a giant light to attract her, it works great on Thorax. Maybe with electricity, and maybe not. And then after I do that, I’ll probably join the Corps.”
“Then...what about me?”
“I already set up your adoption.”
“When?”
“Right now,” said a second Starlight, coming through a door, holding a binder of paper.
Cozy Glow cried out in shock. “Celestia's rear! Starlight, there’s another YOU!”
“Of course there is. It’s a duplication spell. There’s, like, thirty seven of me at any given time, and sometimes six or seven additional Starlight from alternate realities. They’re fun. Sometimes we get together and form a large, throbbing heap. Or we fly kites together.”
Cozy Glow’s eyes widened, and her wings stood on end. “Throbbing... heaps...”
“Focus. While we were talking, my other mes got all the paperwork done, I just need a government signature...” She turned her head and saw Celestia, still being stroked. She grasped Clestia’s hoof and used it to stamp the paperwork as the other Starlight held it out, and then stuck Celestia’s horn into the ground like a javelin, leaving her like that.
“There. Finalized. You’re going to get a probationary period with a new family.”
“And if I refuse?”
“There are worse places than Tartarus I can send you. I could put you in a hole. Or a dimension of pure ichiness. Or one of Twilight's marathon eight-hour friendship lectures. Or send you to the fun place. Do you know who Satin Veil is?”
“No. And I'm pretty sure I can escape from any of those places really easy. From a foster home? Even easier. I'm adorable. I can snuggle my way out if it comes down to it.”
“But I picked such an excellent candidate. Had to negotiate a LOT of tax breaks, but I write all Twilight’s tax law anyway so I can do whatever I want, hence why nopony's caught on to Trixie's extensive tax fraud yet. I figured that you’re inherently evil. Irremediably so. Powerful, strong-willed, vicious, narsasistic, devoid of empathy, cunning, adorable--all the basic traits of a proper evil pony. You’ll never be good, so I needed to set you with somepony who can set an example of how to apply that in normal pony society despite being an utter sociopath. Sort of. You need somepony who matches you very, very closely.”
Other Starlight gave Cozy the binder. Cozy looked at it, her enormous eyes darting from side to side as she read the document. Then she frowned and looked up, confused by what she had just read.
“Who the buck is Spoiled Rich?”