//------------------------------// // The End? // Story: Princess Celestia did WHAT? // by Compass The Pegasus //------------------------------// The knocking continued, growing more impatient and erratic as the two princesses made their way to the front door. Soon, the knocking had devolved into banging and screeching until Luna had enough. “I have had ENOUGH!” she said, storming over to the front door, and ripping it open enough for her to stick her head out and give this buffoon a piece of her mind. “Have you no patience!?” she boomed into the face of yet another princess of Equestria. The sheer force from her royal canterlot voice threw Cadence’s mane back. Her cheeks wobbled as if she were staring into an industrial sized fan, and her eyes watered. “Luna, have you heard of mouthwash?” she managed to choke out as Luna realized who she just screamed at. Cadance gagged as she hastily fixed her mane. “When’s the last time you went to the dentist, before banishment?” “Why, my dental care is none of your business!” “Lulu, who is it?” called Celestia from down the hall. She still approached the front door at a leisurely pace. Luna realized that he only had the door cracked open enough for herself to look outside, so she took a step back and swung open the double Prench doors to reveal Cadence. “The enemy hath arrived at our doorstep, sister. What shall we do?” Luna asked. Looking back at the previous chapter, Celestia noted that Cadence wanted to use the element of surprise, but royally failed to do so. “Hmm, well, such incompetence must be met by tea. Invite her inside, Lulu, it’s about time for tea anyways,” she replied, turning tail and heading back toward the kitchen. “Go ahead and set up in the dining hall, I will prepare us some tea.” “Mmmm,” Luna furled her brow. “Very well… please, make yourself at home Cadence,” she said before leaning in close to her ear. “But I will be watching you closely. Tread carefully.” To her surprise, Cadence smiled back ominously. “I wouldn’t expect anything less. Come on now, I am CRAVING some crackers with my tea.” Cadence walked past Luna, dragging her single large suitcase behind her, and headed down the hall after Celestia. Luna took a moment to pop her head out the front door once more to check if anything seemed awry, but found nothing out of the ordinary. After teatime and a short conversation about how awful Twilight’s castle looked and how they needed to stage an intervention to teach her about royal cleanliness, they decided to retire to the sunroom to ‘catch some z’s’ as Celestia put so elegantly, forgetting that her sister was up way past her bedtime and would soon get extremely cranky. And that is exactly what happened. Cadence waited for her moment. Luna awoke suddenly from her sleep. Daylight still streamed from the edges of her blackout curtains, but something felt off. She felt like she was being watched, but she couldn’t place what. This was a feeling she had grown accustomed to as she treaded the dreams of her subjects at night, but those were dreams. This time she was awake. Cautiously, she stepped off of her bed and stalked around her room. She checked the wardrobe that sat against the wall and all the corners. She even checked under the bed, but found nothing. She did notice something odd, however. A lone pineapple sat on the dresser across from her bed. She didn’t recall bringing this pineapple into the room before, perhaps her sister had left it here for her to eat when she had awoken? An awfully nice gesture.  After finding no danger, she decided to retire once again into her bed and eat the pineapple when the night rose once again. And she slept… until that feeling violently woke her again. The sun still streamed through the edges of her curtains. “What is this? What is happening?” she said to herself, frantically looking around the room again. As she looked around, she noticed that another pineapple had appeared on the dresser. As she looked at the two spiky fruits, she felt her stomach twist in knots. “What sorcery is this?” She decided the best course of action was to discard both pineapples and try to get back to sleep. She was already feeling immensely cranky. Once more she crawled into her bed and fell back into a slumber. “Yes! That’s a double on the twelve!” cried Cadence as she danced in place. The dart she had just thrown had landed just on the edge of the twelve and nine on the dartboard. Close enough for Celestia to try and argue that it landed in the nine, and that Candence was cheating. As they argued, a scream split the calm evening. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Cadence smiled, but Celestia didn’t notice as she sighed and started walking toward her sister’s room. As they arrived at Luna's temporary quarters, they found her barricading the outside of her door in an attempt to stop something from breaking out of her room. “Luna, what’s the matter?” Cadence asked, doing her best to hide her smirk. “Cursed! The pineapple! I am being watched! They keep coming!” she whispered as she pushed a couch in front of the door.  “Lulu, what are you talking about?” Celestia asked with some genuine concern. “PINEAPPLE!” “Pineapple?” “PINEAPPLE!” Any legitimate concern that Celestia had was now all but gone, and she facehoofed hard enough to give herself a migraine. Cadence stifled her laughing well enough that neither of the sisters noticed. “Okay, Lulu, why don’t you tell us what’s wrong. Calmly?” “I woke up, and… and… there was a pineapple!” “Okay?” “And… and I went back to sleep and I woke up again and there were two pineapples!” “So…” “And then I went to sleep AGAIN and I woke up, and you’ll never guess what?” “Were there three pineapples?” Cadence asked. “The room is FILLED with pineapples! They are watching me sister! I can hear them speak! They are saying things to me! Vile things!” Celestia groaned. “What are the pineapples saying to you, Lulu?” “They’re telling me to join them! All is pineapple!” Now it was time for Cadence to be confused. That wasn’t part of the prank. “They what?” Suddenly, the barricade exploded, letting thousands of pineapples flow out of Luna’s room, and sure enough, they were speaking and chanting “Pineapple! Pineapple!” Upon closer inspection, they also had four hooves on which they started to stumble and walk towards them. The three princesses screamed and bolted down the hallway back to the main hall. The giant mass of living pineapples grew and then commenced their chase. The pineapples multiplied every few seconds, and the smell of pineapple was nearly unbearable now. They managed to reach the main hall where Cadence’s suitcase sat by itself in the middle of the room. “Wait! That’s right! I have a plan!” Cadence cheered as she ran over to the suitcase. “Oh, I HATE when she has a plan!” Luna whined. Cadence unzipped her suitcase to reveal a large metal device with a screen on it and two buttons labeled “Arm” and “Disarm.” “You better hold onto your crowns, ladies. This is gonna be explosive.” She then smacked the “Arm” button and the numbers 3:00 popped up on the screen and immediately started counting down to :59. “CADENCE! YOU BROUGHT A… NUCLEAR HOOFBALL? TO THE CASTLE?” Celestia screamed, clutching her face with her hooves. Cadence just shrugged. “I thought it’d be funny.” she admitted. “No time for talking. We’ve got two minutes and fifty seconds to get out of here or get blown to smithereens!” Without another word, the three princesses bolted out the front door leaving the bomb in the main hall. As soon as they exited the door, Luna slammed it shut with her magic and trusted the metal lock, so it would be impossible to open from the other side. Their hooves clobbered the dirt as they sprinted away from the castle. Very soon it was just a speck on the horizon. They didn’t hear it explode, but they were flung hundreds of feet away into a grassy knoll. Once they regained their bearings, Cadence looked back at what remained of Ponyville. A titanic mushroom cloud jutted into the sky where the town had once been.  “Twilight is gonna kill us.” They said in unison. The End.