//------------------------------// // It Hits the Fan // Story: The Cutie Mark Crusaders Bring About the Apocalypse // by BronyWriter //------------------------------// The chariot touched down right in front of the royal palace at 800 miles an hour, leaving a significant crater where it had landed and causing the very foundations of the castle to shake ever so slightly. However, Celestia's magic prevented any damage to anything except the ground and one or two support beams in the palace, but at least the ponies inside the chariot were safe. Instantly the seven ponies jumped out of the chariot, pausing only to flip the keys to a bewildered valet, before they all limped towards the Canterlot Library "Are you sure that a way to stop them can be found in the Canterlot Library?" asked Twilight. Celestia dramatically turned back to Twilight. "Of course!" said Princess Celestia. "And do you know what kind of stuff we're looking for?" asked Applejack. Celestia dramatically turned back to Applejack. "Of course!" "And do you know where to begin looking for it?" asked Rarity. "Of course...not," finished Celestia lamely. "What do you mean!?" asked Twilight as the group turned towards the corridor that led to the library with Twilight taking the lead. "Well, how often does something like this really come up?" asked Celestia. "Besides, you know how gigantic the library is!" "Well yeah," said Twilight. "But haven't you memorized the entire library yet? You're thousands of years old!" Celestia rolled her eyes. "Twilight, have you memorized the title and location of every book in the Ponyville library?" asked Celestia. Twilight dramatically turned back to Celestia. "Of course!" Celestia rolled her eyes and in a few moments, the seven ponies walked into the Canterlot Library. Immediately Twilight felt at home and a large mount of stress faded away as the familiar smell of the thousands of books hit her. The library was an simple affair on the whole. There were hundreds of rows of old books on every subject that one could possibly imagine. The sea of shelves seemed to stretch on forever, something that Twilight always found relaxing. In terms of decor, the library was rather sparsely decorated. The walls were a dark green with very little in terms of actual decoration on them. There was an occasional poster about reading but on the whole, the walls were rather bare. "Okay," said Celestia. "We need to find books that could possibly contain any information on stopping the three of them! Pinkie Pie and Rarity, you should--" "Shhh!" The seven ponies looked to the source of the noise to see an irate looking gray mare looking at them with a hoof over her lips. Celestia gave the librarian a perplexed look before turning back to the group. "As I was saying, Pinkie and Rarity, check the section on dark magic, Applejack and Rainbow, check the section on evil deities, Fluttershy, Twilight, and I will check the section on evil books." "Uh, beggin' your pardon Princess, but shouldn't we just be lookin' in that section?" asked Applejack. "Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it has the most relevant information," said Rainbow. "Wouldn't it be better if we--" "SHHH!" said the librarian once more Rainbow glared at her before she continued. "Wouldn't it be better if we all just checked that section first?" Celestia sighed and nodded. "I suppose so," she said. "Alright, follow me." With one last irritated glance at the librarian, something she gladly returned, the seven ponies walked over to the 'evil books' section of the Canterlot Library. "So quick question," said Rarity. "Why does the library have a whole section devoted to evil books?" "So we have somewhere concrete to go when we are looking for books like the one we are looking for," said Celestia. Rarity's mouth opened but promptly closed again. "No, I have nothing for that," she mumbled. Despite the vastness of the library, the seven ponies arrived in the evil books section in only a minute or so. The evil books section was comprised of only three shelves, each packed with books. The paint on the walls was somehow darker in this section as if the nature of the books reflected and tainted the area where they sat. Twilight felt a small feeling of dread settle into her stomach as if the books didn't want them to be there. However, she pressed onwards and began scanning the titles. 101 Ways to Start a Fight. No. Transformers: The Movie Novelization. No. Why PG-13 Remakes of Popular 80s Slashers are a Good Thing. No. The Origin of the Pinkie Promise. Uh... Why Oscar Choices are Always Right. Who organized these things? The Old Man and the Sea as Presented by the Characters of To Kill a Mockingbird. Wha...? Insert Title Here. Twilight looked up from the book covers with a perplexed look on her face. "What the heck!?" she mumbled to herself. Celestia looked up from the books she was looking at and saw where Twilight was. "I take it that you haven't found anything," she said. "No, not really," admitted Twilight. "How about How to Stop a Book of Evil?" asked Pinkie Pie. The other six ponies gasped loudly. "SHHH!" said the librarian, popping out from the other side of a bookcase. "Pinkie, where did you find that?" asked Twilight. "It was under 'H'!" said Pinkie in a sing-song voice. Twilight shook her head, there was just no explaining Pinkie Pie, and used her magic to bring the book over to herself. She flipped it open and scanned the pages, hoping for information on how to stop the evil book that currently resided in Twilight's saddlebag. The other six ponies looked at her nervously. "Are you finding anything useful, darling?" asked Rarity. "I'm not sure yet," said Twilight. "I think that this book has us on the right track, but I'm not sure where..." All of a sudden, Twilight's jaw dropped. "Oh no," she whispered. "What is it?" asked Rainbow Dash. "If this book is right, I just found out who can destroy the book and banish the demons back to their world," said Twilight. "Why is that a bad thing?" asked Fluttershy. "Well...the book says that the only ponies who can destroy the book are the ones who opened it in the first place!" "I take it that means us, right?" said Scootaloo. Twilight and her friends all jumped back a few feet at the sight of the Crusaders. Princess Celestia, on the other hoof, slowly got to her hooves and took an aggressive stance. "Would you three please stop popping up like that?" said Rainbow irritatedly. "It's getting on my nerves!" "I'll bet it is," said Apple Bloom. "But you know what gets on my nerves? What gets on my nerves is that my friends and I come all the way to Canterlot to release Discord but when we--" "SHHH!!!," said the librarian once more as she pushed a cart of books past the group. Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. "--but when we actually get to the gardens, we find out that somepony moved his statue!" "Of course I did," said Celestia with a hint of smugness in her voice. "Did you think that I would be so foolish as to keep his statue out in the open after what happened last time?" "Well...yeah," said Sweetie Belle. "I am not so foolish as to do that!" said Celestia angrily. "His statue is safe from the likes of you forever!" "We'll see," said Scootaloo. "We've got Nightmare Moon looking for it right now." "And if any of Luna's memories are still in there, then she knows where you hid Discord and what you used to keep him there," said Apple Bloom. Celestia's eyes widened but she quickly regained her composure. "Maybe so," she said. "But I think I have a few tricks left to defeat you three!" Instantly Celestia fired up her horn and the box containing the Elements of Harmony instantly appeared out of nowhere. Before the Crusaders could respond to this new development, Celestia quickly opened the box and put the necklaces on each of the ponies before putting the tiara on Twilight's head. "Why didn't she do that earlier again?" asked Apple Bloom quizzically. "Oh yeah, the Elements of Harmony. I wondered when they would come into play," said Scootaloo. "Right now it seems," said Apple Bloom. "And now they will be used to bring about your downfall!" said Celestia. She nodded to Twilight who fired up her horn, ready to power up the Elements to defeat the Cutie Mark Crusaders. The Crusaders fired up their horns in response, ready to block whatever attack the Elements could throw at them. However, before the battle could begin, a certain gray distraction popped up between the fighters. "SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Instantly, everything powered down and the combatants looked confusedly at the very angry librarian. "Seriously?" mumbled Twilight. "If you're going to have a battle of this nature, do it outside!" yelled the librarian. "Otherwise I need you to simply read quietly so as to not disturb anypony else who may be reading!" The Crusaders looked at each other before Scootaloo fired up her horn and shot a beam at the librarian that obliterated her instantly. Twilight's jaw hit the floor. "What did you do that for!?" "Well she was annoying!" said Scootaloo. "Ya didn't have to kill her though!" said Applejack. "We didn't," said Sweetie Belle. "We just sent her to an alternate dimension where all librarians who try to stop battles like this go." "She'll have at least twelve other librarians to talk to," said Apple Bloom. Twilight looked at the scorch mark on the floor where the librarian used to be before she shook her head and fired up the Elements once more. The Crusaders followed suit and Celestia used some of her partially recharged strength to put up a shield. Twilight felt the magic of the Elements of Harmony surge through her and she began focusing on the power of the Elements towards the Crusaders. She felt hope course through her veins as the Elements became more and more powerful. She began to get the feeling that everything was going to be alright, that the elements would stop the Crusaders and they could go back to the way things were before this whole mess had started. In the second that Twilight felt the power of the Elements reach its peak, she fired the raw power that the Elements produced at the Cutie Mark Crusaders. The Crusaders tensed up a bit as the rainbow shot towards them and for good reason. The power of the Elements instantly broke through their defensive spell and engulfed them in its pure cleansing power. To Twilight's delight and horror, she heard the Crusaders give cries of pain and terror as the Elements of Harmony did their job. She gave a grim smile at the realization that they had defeated the Crusaders. After a few more seconds, Twilight powered down the Elements and the six ponies stopped levitating and Celestia powered down her shield too. They all looked at the Cutie Mark Crusaders, hoping that they had won. To their delight and sadness, the alicorn Crusaders were lying on the ground, their battered bodies lying still except for the occasional twitch. Applejack looked at them worriedly. "Are they..." Celestia shook her head. "I don't think so," she said solemnly. "However, I think they are in a great deal of pain. Being stripped of that much power does that to a pony." Twilight walked up to the defeated Crusaders and placed a hoof gently on Apple Bloom's head. "I know this hurts, but we need you to do something if you want to make the pain go away," said Twilight. "We need you to destroy the book." Apple Bloom looked up at Twilight, pain etched across her face. "H...how?" she asked weakly. Twilight walked up to the book she had been reading and leafed through it. "It says here that you just need to burn it if you want to destroy it," said Twilight. She pulled the book out of her saddlebag and held it up. The Crusaders slowly got to their hooves and looked at the book. "Why would we want to destroy it?" asked Apple Bloom. Twilight's eyes widened. "But..." "We have power if the book is still around, we have our cutie marks!" said Sweetie Belle. "Why would we give that up?" "But..." "I mean, what can you do to make us destroy the book?" asked Scootaloo. "Particularly when it's not gonna be hard to get it away from you." Twilight's eyes widened some more but she didn't react fast enough to Apple Bloom's spell. Apple Bloom used the last of her strength to rip the book out of the air and pull it towards the Crusaders who instantly placed a hoof on it. Immediately, they were surrounded by a black glow once more. Twilight desperately tried to fire up the Elements before the book could do any more damage, but it was far too late for that. The black glow faded to reveal three clearly recharged Crusaders. They looked like they hadn't taken any damage at all over the course of the day as each of them looked fresh and ready for battle once more. Twilight tried to power up the Elements faster but Sweetie Belle shot a spell out of her horn and the Elements promptly vanished. Twilight gasped and felt around her head, hoping that the Element of Magic had merely become invisible, but it was no use. Sweetie Belle had made them disappear. "Where are the Elements!?" asked Twilight. "How could you have destroyed them!?" "They didn't," said Celestia. "They can't, nopony can, it's impossible." "Yep," said Apple Bloom. "But it is possible to teleport them somewhere else." "Where did you take them?" growled Twilight. "Calm down Twilight, we didn't put them that far away and we didn't separate them either." "I think that's another thing that's impossible," said Scootaloo. "Still, we'd love to stay and chat, but there's a certain god of chaos that we want to meet for real!" said Apple Bloom. "So if you'll excuse us," said Sweetie Belle, tipping her head slightly in a mocking bow. The three fired up their horns and vanished into thin air. The seven ponies stood in place for a few moments, each desperately trying to think of what to do next. "Princess Celestia, what do we do?" asked Twilight worriedly. Celestia racked her brains, desperately trying to think of something to do, some new way out of the mess that they had fallen into. The Crusaders had the book, almost unlimited power, the Elements of Harmony could stop them, but they had been transported who knows where, Nightmare Moon had returned, and the only ponies that could destroy the book were the Crusaders themselves. "I don't...I don't..." "Hey," said Pinkie Pie, looking out the window. "Since when are clouds made out of cotton candy?"