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// Memory Loss - (01) The Sisters 
// Story: Twilight Abuses the Cutie Map 
// by Cxcd 
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She was staring down The beast himself.
The duo were always known for their plans. Around every corner, the sisters planned everything to the drop of a dime. In their home village, they were known for sneaking money from the cash registers, tricking the local colts into snowball fights, and ending school-house drama in heartbreaks. It was what they did.
Right now, they had no plan.
They were the last layer of protection. The Pillars of Equestria had fallen months ago under mysterious circumstances. Along with them, the world’s last line of defense against The Beast. He began invading country by country, single-pawd’ly toppling countries that had long thought impossible to topple.
The Griffon Empire, The Changeling Hivelands, Cloudopolis, Harvest, Dragon Country. All of them disappeared off the map in under a month. It seemed every new day there was a new red X mark over another country on the map of Equus. Equestria itself had been having a hard time for a while now, dealing with corrupt rulers and famine. Now, it was all or nothing. The best military strategists from all across the country had convened outside the Midland Pine Forest in a small tent.
From a rural town outside The Badlands, two sisters signed up for military service. It wasn’t long until The Beast set his sights on the corrupt nation, tearing down building after building. For a while, it seemed the ponies would fall too.
The ponies were tricky, however. It was a matter of misdirection and cornering. Soon, a massive force field around the entire forest had erected itself. The Beast clawed and expelled chaos magic, hurling it harder than the then-laws of magic conservation would even allow.
The barrier held.
The barrier held into the night and into the next day. The Unicorns powering the barrier began thinning, some collapsing from exhaustion, others dying from depletion. It was just the fact that there wasn’t enough enlisted into the military to fight against such a creature.
And that’s where the sisters came.
Two sisters from nowhere had managed to find and locate artifacts planted by The Pillars thought lost to time.
The eldest sister, Celestia, had barged into the tent confident, with a cocky grin on her face. The youngest sister, Luna, followed with a small smile on her face as she watched her sister wipe the floor with the stallion’s in charge. After getting promptly kicked out of the tent, they had managed to sneak into the barrier without alerting any of the Unicorns on patrol.
Now, as Celestia stared down The Beast, she realized she never planned to get this far.
The Beast was composed of a mis-match of parts. His body was brown and serpent-like. He had one lion paw, a chicken claw, a dragon wing, and a face full of unmanned chaos.
The world below their hooves were, much like The Beast himself, a patchwork of a thousand different materials. The trees looked similar to a sinister cotton candy, and the sky was entirely devoid of Equestria’s protection, instead taking up what looked like a thick smog of pink clouds.
The Beast sat upon a golden throne, sitting on what appeared to be a hundred floating tufts of grass. He sipped a golden goblet at the tips of his lips, closing his eyes as the liquid pooled around his mouth and dripped all over his fur. He let out a content sigh as he turned his eyes to the two ponies making their way up the path.
“Bwahahaha!” He laughed cyclically. “What do we have here? Two more ponies for me to play with?” He asked coyly, turning around in his throne until it appeared he was laying down. “Dear fillies, I do say your defense is quite impressive, I must admit.” He became liquid as he turned around, staring at the sisters upside-down. “I underestimated your kind. Even the dragons fell quicker than a bag of flour!” He vanished suddenly.
Celestia and Luna stared around blankly. For all of the chaos around, it seemed this ambient quietness was overwhelming.
“What shall we do first?” He suddenly cut through the air. Luna jumped at the sudden voice, letting the saddlebags full of metal clunk to the ground. Celestia gave her a reaffirming pat on her wings, taking the time to pick back up the saddlebags with her mouth, tightening the strap around Luna’s barrel.
“How charming.” The Beast said dreadfully dull. “Sisterly love. How it sickens me. But it does give me an idea.” A huge claw materialized out of a nearby cotton-candy tree. It’s sharp talons wrapped themselves around Luna suddenly, hoisting her into the air. She let out a loud shriek as she was taken away. She stopped a few stories above.
“What if I force your sister here to watch you be eaten from the inside-out?” He charmed. “Watch you get gutted. What then? Doesn’t that sound fun?”
“Beast, put my sister down!” Celestia shouted. “You don’t want her!”
“Of course I don’t!” He said, almost offended. “Did you not hear what I say? She will watch you get gutted. Then, I might serve her a plate of you!I would be glad to let her go after that. PTSD, anypony? The funnest type of trauma.”
“Beast!” Celestia shouted.
“Beast this, Beast that. Ugh, fine. You two are no fun.” The Beast let Luna drop. It took her a moment or two before she realized she still had wings, gliding the rest of the way to the ground. Luna stuck herself to her sister’s side like glue. Celestia laid a protective hoof around her neck.
“Fine.” He sighed. “What do you two knuckleheads want? Obviously Commander Firestorm didn’t send you two in here. He would never send you two in. How old are you, anyways? Looks like ten years old and twenty?”
“We have something to show you.” Celestia said. Discord materialized himself a good few yards away, holding a bucket of what looked like bloody hearts. He began snacking on them like popcorn.
“Do continue. I would love to see what the Yin and Yang of sisters has to show me.”
“I-If this doesn’t work- I give you my word- You can do anything you want to- to me, not my sister.” She gulped. “If this does work, then Equestria will be freed from your horror forever more.”
“What stops me from killing you now?” He asked, genuinely curious. “This deal makes me gain nothing. I accept, of course. What’s a little chaos?” The Beast suddenly got very close, leaning towards the two cowering ponies. “You don’t sound very confident, however. Am I getting through to you? Getting through to your thick little skull that I-” He poked her on the forehead. “-am-” He poked her again, harder this time. “-invincible?” He poked her forehead so hard a small trickle of blood fell down her head. The Beast laughed as he watched Luna quake beneath her sister.
“Fine. Show me.” He said, teleporting back to his throne, lounging like a late Sunday. “I don’t care whatever you do. It takes me less than a finger snap to crush you under the gravity of the sun.”
“You were right.” Celestia admitted. The Beast looked up, in surprise. “You underestimated us.” His face fell into one of boredom again.
“Sure I do.”
“All you spread is chaos and agony. But you did one thing wrong. You forgot the most important thing.” In her saddlebags, she felt a slight vibration. A glimmer of hope brewed in her chest. Luna must’ve felt it too as she shuffled out from under her sister. They locked eyes for a moment, perhaps less than two seconds. In those two seconds, she was the unbridled fear in her sister’s eyes. She felt for her. Felt for her promise. She swallowed her spit, looking back towards The Beast on his throne. “Why does good always win out in the universe? Why doesn’t evil always prevail? I have an answer. The purifying forces of Friendship.”
“Oh, blah, blah.” The Beast yawned. “Get to the point.”
“Kindness.” Out of Luna’s saddlebag, a pink crystal levitated out.
“What?”
“Laughter.” Now, a blue one came out of Celestia’s bag. Their hair began flowing in an invisible force of air, suddenly finding themselves no longer touching the ground. For Luna, it was normal, as she was a Pegasus. For an Earth-pony, it was a little concerning. For The Beast, it was most concerning.
“What?!” He shouted. “I- I destroyed them!”
“Generosity.” A purple one joined a row starting to form.
“Stop!” He screamed, suddenly lunging. The crystals seemed to zap him, getting flung backwards a hundred yards like he was nothing more than a commoner.
“Honesty, Loyalty.” Two more joined the fray. The Beast tried flinging nothing but everything at the two sisters. Luna flinched as an entire tree came flying towards her, but it bounced off like nothing. “And Magic.”
“No!” He yelled. He tried dividing himself into a hundred copies, but found himself unable to perform basic magic. “Stop this!”
“And together, they form the Elements of Harmony!” In one large blast, a sudden rainbow found itself hurtling towards The Beast. It wrapped its tendrils around The Beast like a snake around a prey. He squirmed, throwing out his limbs, bolts of magic, anything to stop it. Instead, he only found it tightening further and further.
It started in his toes. A sudden coldness gripped him as he felt his legs began to solidify. The sisters watched as he screamed, squirming and screaming. Soon, his pelvis began to solidify, finding himself unable to feel anything.
He stared for a moment in absolute terror. But, slowly, his face slipped away into one of content. Then, he looked up, staring at the sisters. Celestia raised a cocky eyebrow as Luna turned away, too scared to watch. The Beast, in a terrifyingly calm manner, turned a smile. A toothy, terrifying smile that neither would forget in four thousand years.
“Sisters of Harmony.” He started. Celestia gulped and Luna tried shying away. “One day, I will return. One day, I shall get my revenge.” He placed his paw on his chest, raising the other into the air. “Everypony you hold dear will become a toxic, sentient sludge as I melt everything they ever were. One day I will return, and on that day, you will wish you forgot the name Discord. Until then, Celestia and Luna. Farewell.” He leaned further back, letting out one last sickening high note as his jaw became a solid, his vocal cords turning into concrete.
And then Celestia hit the floor.
It was like her senses turned off for half a second. An infinite black void of nothingness. Devoid of all thought. Then, like the world flicked a light switch, she fell half a hoof towards the ground.
Her head bounced off the ground like a basketball. She grunted, squeezing her eyes as she lifted the sore spot off the ground. Her legs were twisted weirdly as she laid, blinking back the pain. Her eyes became wide as she stared at her surroundings.
The air changed. It no longer smelled of a thousand different types of food, and the ever present stench of burning leaves, but rather the sterile, unwelcoming smell of nothingness. Like nothing had ever happened, and the scars of time had immediately forgiven the area.
Celestia’s first thought was that the Elements were so powerful, it had reverted the area back to even before The Beast had been trapped there, and before the Forest was there. That would be the only logical explanation as to why she suddenly found herself in a majestic throne room.
The walls were cold and calculating, yet still shone an uncomfortable amount of welcoming energy. She laid on a deep red carpet in the middle of this area. In front of her appeared to be pedestals and steps leading up to two massive thrones. One with a sun behind it, the other throne a moon behind it.
Sunlight shone through stain glass windows in a heavenly fashion. Had she- died? Was this the afterlife? It certainly seemed holy, and eerily similar to the Pegasi’s Religious beliefs. A castle in the clouds. Well- here it was. The castle in the clouds, dark blue walls and all.Celestia herself was an Earth-pony, therefore believing in a separate set of religious morals from her Pegasus sister, Luna. Maybe Luna was right, though, seeing as where she had ended up.
But she had to remember what had just happened. She had to remember that she had just defeated The Beast. Could’ve this been one of his tricks? Lets see how a pony reacts when they believe they had just died, right? It was all a game to him. This very well might have been another one of his games.
And then, right on cue, some pony painfully turned on her hearing with a screech.
“-incess Celestia?” An unfamiliar voice spoke mere inches away from her ear. To say she was startled would’ve been an understatement. To say she was sloppy, having just woken up where ever ‘here’ was, would’ve been defamation.
In an instant, Celestia was no longer laying on the ground. She swung a heavy hoof full of earth-pony might as she spun, making contact with the jaw of a purple unicorn as she stood up. The purple unicorn fell to the ground, holding her jaw with a hoof, with all the fashion of a bag of bones.
Celestia reared up onto her hind hooves, ready to finish the filly. Out of the corner of her eye, she suddenly saw a huge burst of blue light dashing towards her. She didn’t have enough time to react, only slightly turning her body towards the light. It blasted her chest. It didn’t hurt, and it probably wasn’t supposed to. Instead, she found herself skidding backwards across the ground. The carpet bunched under her hooves as she maintained a defensive stance.
“Tia?” A very familiar voice shrieked. “Oh Faust, what have we done?” Celestia hadn’t, for some reason, noticed the second of the two ponies in the room with her. Familiar was a word that didn’t begin to describe this new voice.
Everything was still a little bit blurry, but from a distance, she looked just like Luna. Her coat was the same dark blue, maybe just a tinge darker. She was standing with her own defensive position, her wings splayed to the side, her right wing covering the purple unicorn who was now shaking on the ground. On her flank was the same scar her Luna had, black splotches, only with what appeared to be a Cutiemark of the moon in the darkness.
Although her mane and tail were flowing with a radiant magical energy, completely unidentifiable to Celestia, and although she seemed quite a bit taller than her Luna, her eyes till held the exact same fear she had seen with her mere moments before defeating The Beast. Something in the deepest parts of Celestia’s soul told her that yes, this was her sister. This was her sister.
One big difference, however, was the fact she had a horn.
Wait- no. That wasn’t right. She had wings. She had wings, and a horn. Luna only had wings. Was this some kind of hybrid? Some sick joke that The Beast had put together?
“Twilight, are you okay?” The hybrid said, leaning down to the purple Unicorn. Celestia noticed that the Unicorn was leaking tears from her eyes, still shut tightly. She was repeating a phrase, over and over she said ‘she hit me.’
Celestia didn’t wait another second. In the time the hybrid looked down to check on the Unicorn, Celestia had launched herself towards the duo again. She had defeated Unicorns before, all she had to do was be quick-
It seemed the hybrid was one step ahead of her, however. Without even looking, Celestia was encased in a blue aura. She gasped at the power she felt radiating off of the hybrid. It was almost comparable to The Beast’s own power, only much more sequenced and much less random and chaotic.
“Let me go, you bitch!” Celestia yelled, trying her hardest to break the spell that held her. But- it was much, much stronger than anything she had ever dealt with in the past. The spell wasn’t even bending. It was the strongest Unicorn she had ever seen. Even stronger than Starswirl himself. And even she could barely escape from his aura.
The hybrid looked up. She looked fearful, and sympathetic. She sucked air through her teeth as she watched Celestia punch, twist, and contort against the aura. Then, she let out the air.
“I’m sorry.” She said solemnly. “Sleep.” She commanded.
And the world went black.