Flurry Heart’s carriage arrived at Ponyville carrying only her. It landed in front of the Castle of Friendship. Cadance and Shining were busy this morning; and though he denies fearing a filly, Sunburst wouldn’t dare be in the same room as Cozy.
Wait, did Twilight even ask Luster’s parents about that whole conservatorship thing? Neither would touch Cozy even with a ten-foot pole being controlled telekinetically from the other side of Equestria.
Surely, somepony must’ve approved, Flurry thought as she knocked on the doors of the castle, Luster’s house. There was only one other incentive besides seeing Cozy smile: a thousand bits of monthly allowance from Canterlot. But who would let a supervillain filly stay out of her restraints and hoof the responsibility of her reformation over to a foal just for a moderate sum of bits?
“Trixie, is that you?” Starlight asked. She used a spell to peek through the wall and noticed the young Alicorn dressed in her standard silver horseshoes and solid tiara. After she twisted her stained apron around, wearing it on her back like a saddle or quarter sheet, she magicked open the doors and greeted, “Oh, good morning, Flurry! Sorry, Trixie didn’t come home last night. Or actually I haven’t seen her for the past week. Her wagon’s empty…”
Flurry walked inside whilst Starlight continued, “If you’re looking for Lustie she’s just in her room. I’ve barely seen her in a week too. I don’t even know if she open her doors to go to the bathroom or at least grab her kitchen.”
“Aren’t you supposed to check up on her?” Flurry asked.
“Phff!” Starlight waved away the notion. “She’s entitled to a bit of space and privacy. My dad was out and about all the time when I was a filly, and I turned out… Well… I did start a… Oh.”
As Starlight contemplated her parenting methods, Flurry went further up the hallway. After a trek, she stood in front of her friend’s bedroom doors and knocked. No response. With her horn, she shined a spotlight underneath the doors. There weren’t even any hooves standing on the other side.
“Luster?” Flurry called.
Nothing.
Flurry was outside of the Crystal Empire’s jurisdiction. She had no legal right to plow through her friend’s doors, especially when even her mother didn’t seem to be all that concerned.
But I mean, a Princess is a Princess no matter where she goes, and really, I’m just concerned about my friend, Flurry thought. This isn’t Manehattan. I’m allowed to care about ponies.
Her horn produced a laser beam, as wide as the average pointer, but powerful enough to cut through thick walls of magical crystal. She rotated head and flew around to slice out a jagged circle around Luster’s doors.
“Can’t you just teleport?” Starlight asked, appearing behind her.
Flurry turned around, and Starlight had to drop to the ground holding her mane as the young Alicorn forgot to stop casting her beam. The mare nearly got decapitated, a horn-otomy, or worst of all: a magically incurable bad haircut.
“Sorry,” Flurry said as the cutout of the wall fell on top of her. But it failed to even lower her hover even by an inch. Instead, the young Alicorn’s body shattered a filly-sized hole into the broken off slab of wall.
Starlight was nowhere to be seen—she’d rather not be cut in half—so Flurry shrugged and went into Luster’s room. Her laser didn’t only cut out the unicorn’s doors; it also made a new balcony further up on the wall ahead. That piece fell backwards, outside, and made a loud thud.
Ideally, it wouldn't have had to come to this, but Luster had no excuse for not answering the Princess’ calls. Cozy used an antique rotary telephone—somehow her cave had a landline—but Luster had her own cellphone. You used to be able to message her at 3 AM and she’d answer within a second; she should’ve gotten a cutie mark for stenography, not whatever cryptic symbol she had instead.
Both holes Flurry made only lit up half of Luster’s room. The rest stayed shrouded under a thick shadow. Flurry hovered, Cozy style. After she noticed the filth, she wouldn’t dare to tap Luster’s floor. She turned on her horn’s torchlight again.
Luster’s room had stacks of empty noodle cups, ten or so mugs of coffee on her bedside table; a knocked-over few dripped their contents onto the floor, and a few were shattered because of the beam earlier.
Luster had two pillows on her bed—or beds, now sliced in two. One was placed normally on the top; the other, vertically under her sheets. Cozy had accused Luster before of hugging her pillow when she slept; she wasn’t such a loudmouth after her cutie mark disappeared.
There were bottles filled with who-knows-what rolling back and forth under the breeze from the wall holes. One had glowing mushrooms poking out of the cap and sat upon a graveyard of ants and a rat skeleton.
Piles of clothes and papers turned the filly’s room into a maze, pathed by a path of empty wrappers and used tissues. Flurry sniffed the air; somecreature must’ve died in here. She’d throw up but Luster’s bin was overflowing.
It wasn’t usually this bad.
Luster’s organization skills rivaled Twilight’s and caused many arguments with Cozy, usually because a vote of two to one meant the supervillain got tasked with carrying them out. If she didn’t want to be chosen, she shouldn’t be so competent.
Flurry covered her nostrils and crept deeper into the hoarder’s den. There had to be laws forbidding this level of—
“Augh!” Flurry felt something tap the back of her ear. She tilted her head back, and spun between twenty different spells, casting each one aimlessly. Each spell had a different color. Some traveled in straight lines, some curved, a few of them twisted, or zigzagged, or had no visible aura at all.
One of them was supposed to home towards its target. It made a U-turn and nearly hit Flurry; instead, it struck a pile of clothes behind her, which the spell turned into green jelly.
Flurry felt around her ears. When she looked back at her hooves saw a long-legged spider. That must’ve been what startled her. Just a little spider. Her horn glowed; the spider exploded into flames. She scraped her hoof excessively.
On the other side, a familiar head fell into the semisolid mountain. Luster’s fiery ponytail became soaked in jelly, yet she didn’t seem to be bothered. The unicorn always managed to cast the perfect spell during dire situations. Cozy had remarked that her magic was more impressive when she wasn’t thinking properly. An example of this was now.
Luster had instinctively cast a bubble around her head to breathe, a pocket of air large enough to include her shimmering horn.
“Luster,” Flurry said. “There you are! I nearly thought you died in here.”
Luster didn’t respond.
“Hello? Equestria to Luster? Why’s your room such a mess? If Cozy had come here instead of me, she would’ve killed you!” A ceiling light fell on Flurry’s head; she didn’t notice because it bounced off her unbreakable skull and onto the floor. “Also about the holes in your wall, you have to clean up your room anyways. I’m sure you have a spell for that.”
No response.
“I have a spell for that,” Flurry added.
Luster said nothing.
“I can teach it to you if you want.”
Flurry noticed a rectangular light inside of Luster’s bubble. Luster had her eyes glued on something. The Princess telekinetically grabbed onto her friend’s mane and pulled her through the jelly pile to the other side. And after all that, Luster finally—blinked.
“Ugh!” Flurry groaned. Then she noticed the problem.
Luster was on her Neighntendo Switch. She had it levitating in front of her face as she controlled the buttons and joysticks through magic.
“Luster, get off of that thing right now!” Flurry scolded, but the unicorn didn’t listen. “I’m serious! You need to get out of your cave and go outside—into the movie theatre so that you can decide whether me or Cozy must see the other’s movie!”
Still nothing. The Princess’ eyebrows furrowed downwards, her face boiled red, and her horn started to ignite. She made a very pony-ish sigh through her nose and tried to grab onto Luster’s Switch, but Luster resisted and held on tighter. That was it. Flurry flew back, squinted her eyes, and shot an energy beam at the hoofheld. The castle shook under her might. Smoke filled the room. But the Switch remained intact. Luster had placed an energy shield around herself without looking.
Oh no, Flurry thought. Luster’s horn is acting completely autonomous from her actual conscious self! Seems she isn’t very interested in coming with me to the movies.
Guess there’s not much else I can do but…
“You are going to love this movie!” Flurry said, dragging Luster across her stomach by her tail. “And you’re going to shove that love right into Cozy’s fat face! I will not let you get away!”
As she used her wings to help drag Luster’s body past the castle’s front door and over the steps, the unicorn’s chin thumping on each one, Starlight waved. “Bye, you two. Have fun!”
The mother slowly closed the doors. Then she cast a protective bubble around the entire castle and teleported the Cutie Map to use as a barrier for the entrance. She triple-checked that the anti-teleportation charms were active, and that Flurry’s magical signature wasn’t part of the whitelist.
The young Princess didn’t notice. She was too busy stomping on a cloud a few meters above Luster. The filly’s bubble umbrellaed a torrential downpour of rain released from under the cloud, as well as ricocheted its lightning bolts. They bounced off and instead struck houses on the outskirts of Ponyville and parts of the School of Friendship. A few creatures had to evacuate the lake after one struck the water.
Oblivious Flurry bounced up and down on the cloud whilst shouting, “Open—your shield—Luster—Dawn! You can’t—be smelly—on this—very important—day!”
Flurry stopped and peeked over the edge of the cloud. Luster still had an amber bubble around her body.
The Princess had had it.
She kicked the bottles of coat wash and shampoo off the shriveled-up cloud and ascended into the atmosphere. With her eyes sharper than a Wonderbolt’s, she her sights locked against the laid-back filly, and tilted her horn upwards.
A sphere of energy formed near her horn’s tip. It grew larger. And larger. Parkgoers: couples, the elderly, families, critters, and loners all ran away screaming. Pegasi pushed hot air balloons out of the Alicorn’s way. Soon her ball of destruction extended to the diameter of her Crystal Castle. If nocreature stops her, all of Ponyville will be obliterated!
The Legion of Doom watched from a bench.
Who does Luster think she is? Flurry thought, breathing through her nostrils. I’m Princess Flurry Heart of the Crystal Empire! I’m an Alicorn. I’m a God of Harmony born to ensure peace across Equestria, and she thinks she can get in my way?! Let’s see her block this.
The ball of energy enlarged further.
In Canterlot, crowds of thousands gathered at the railings and watched as a second sun lit up the sky. Twilight’s Castle was quiet with panic. Rushed flaps grew louder; Gallus flung open the roof-reaching doors of the Throne Room.
“Twilight, Twilight,” Gallus said out of breath.
The Princess got up. Spike too. Celestia and Luna were also there for a visit. They all turned their heads.
“What is it?” Twilight asked with concern.
“There’s a massive ball of energy hovering above Ponyville,” Gallus said, “likely larger than the town itself at this point.”
The Sisters looked at each other; Celestia held a hoof over her mouth.
“And do you know who’s causing it?” Twilight asked. “Tirek? Chrysalis? Discord? Somb—”
“We believe it’s Flurry Heart!” Gallus answered.
The three Alicorns and Dragons paused, staring at Gallus.
“Oh.” Twilight rolled her eyes so hard that her whole head moved around in a circle. “Nevermind.”
Spike went back to this comic book, whilst the Sisters started at Twilight. A chessboard stood between Twilight and Luna, with Celestia sitting at the side.
“Uh, Twilight,” whispered Celestia, “shouldn’t you be doing something about that?” She pointed at a light piercing through the stained glass.
“I would agree,” Luna added. “I can sense here the energy myself. Your captain’s concerns seem to be legitimate.”
Twilight stared down at the board and sighed. “Spike—or somecreature else, please pen a letter to Shining.”
Luna voiced, “Surely you should perform an action a bit more… immediate.”
Twilight lifted one of her rook pieces from the board and twisted it around to inspect, saying, “Dear brother, ever since your daughter released Cozy Glow eight months ago, I’ve gotten new complaints everyday about how, ‘Oh no! Somepony has petrified our twin brother CEOs!’ ‘Please help! All the Hive’s stockpiles have been turned into jelly!’ ‘Twilight, won’t you please do something about these three fillies burning down all of Griffonstone?’ I’m sick of it!” She slammed her hooves, knocking over all the chess pieces on the board.
Twilight needed a moment to calm herself. She continued, “It’s not my job to control your daughter. Luster’s responsible for Cozy, and Starlight’s responsible for Luster. Since all my other methods of remedying the collective behavior of those three have failed, I’ve decided to try something new: doing absolutely nothing!”
After Twilight signed the letter written by the scribing guard, she hoofed it over to Spike and tried to recall the last positions of the chess pieces.
“I know it’s a difficult job to do alone,” Celestia said, “but the amount of energy Flurry is channeling into that attack is more than what I remembered Tirek used during his rampages.”
“This happens a lot more often than you think,” Spike said.
Twilight added, “You probably didn’t notice it before because these situations mostly resolve on their own, which is why I’m confident in my new approach!”
The Sisters still seemed unconvinced.
Luna said, “What I wish to know are the events that caused young Flurry to act this way.”
“Maybe somecreature didn’t want to see a movie with her?” Twilight joked.
“Hah, yeah,” Spike said. “Or maybe one of her friends smelt bad.”
“Regardless,” Twilight said, “I’m sure there’ll be at least one brave creature that’ll stand up to Flurry and whoever she’s with and bring an end to this whole situation!”
A mare walked opposite to the evacuating crowds. Her star-spangled cape waved through the winds. Flurry’s enormous spell had increased the temperature of the surroundings and caused cool air to rush in. Yet the mare continued. She wasn’t braving her fears because she had none. The Princess’ energy sphere had painted the area ten miles outwards in the color of her aura.
The mare stood next to the oblivious device-zombie, looked up at the sky, and shouted, “Will Princess Flurry Heart please cut that out! You have scared away Trixie’s crowd!”
Flurry looked down, eyes glowing. She shouted back, “But Luster’s keeps ignoring me. It’s like she doesn’t even wanna be my friend anymore…”
With the Princess still holding her attack, Trixie turned to Luster and slammed her hoof on the shield. “Luster Dawn!”
Trixie shouted loud enough that even though she stood on the outside, she managed to pop Luster’s bubble; the unicorn’s Switch fell on her face.
Trixie looked up at the petulant Princess and asked, “Happy?”
Flurry descended. The Princess’ horn funneled all of the sphere’s energy back inside of her. Ponyville was saved! Again.
But Flurry still had one more thing left to do. She grabbed a new cloud on her way down, levitated up the bottles of coat wash and shampoo she kicked off earlier, squeezed their contents into her new cloud, and shook it.
“Wait, so you weren’t out of town?” Luster asked.
“Trixie would never leave you and Starlight without a signed note,” Trixie said. “She had simply—”
Both of the ponies below got drenched in bubbly water as Flurry jumped up and down on the cloud.
“Now that you’re clean, we can finally go see Oponeheimer,” said Flurry as she landed in front of Luster.
“Hold on for one moment Princess,” Trixie said, wringing her pointy hat. “You mean to tell Trixie and the rest of Ponyville that all this drama happened over a shower?”
“…Umm,” Luster murmured. “I’m not really sure what’s happening, but Pikmare 4 is about to be available for download and I haven’t really slept for the past… what day is it today?”
“It’s premiere day! Now let’s go,” said Flurry before she dragged Luster by the hoof towards the cinema.
After the two fillies left, Trixie sighed. It would take at least a few hours for all the creatures to return after the evacuations. Until then, Ponyville will mostly be Pegasusville.
Her belly rumbled. “Well, Trixie did save all of Ponyville. She should be entitled to a Hero’s discount at the nearby Hayburger joint!”
But as the hero stepped into the air-conditioned fast-food restaurant, she gasped. Three supervillains blocked the counter; they had been there since Trixie peeked through the window seven whole minutes ago.
The cashier colt, a yellow earth pony known as Fry, one of Luster’s four other friends, stood on a stool and leaned against the register as the Legion took an eternity to order.
“I’ll have a…” Cozy rubbed her chin. “What’s in your Hayburgers again?”
“Hay,” Fry answered in a dead voice.
“What about the ‘burger’ part?” Cozy asked.
Trixie stomped her hoof and walked in between the Legion members. She pointed at hovering Cozy. “Trixie knows you know what goes inside of a Hayburger! You three are clogging up the line!”
Chrysalis looked around. “There isn’t a single other creature here.”
“Precisely!” Trixie said. “You three are ruining an otherwise perfect breakfast experience for the Brave and Heroic Trixie!” She kept pointing at Cozy and looked at Fry. “The supervillain filly will be having the Harmony meal.”
“D'aww, but I don’t want a foal’s meal,” Cozy whined. “Flurry never gets the foal’s meal. She gets to order from the grownup's menu.”
“Trixie did not save Ponyville to wait in lines!”
“Don’t rush her,” spat Chrysalis. She and Trixie glared at each other, an inch between their faces.
Tirek checked the time on a wall-mounted clock. “We only have an hour left before the movie starts.”
“Then both of you—” She looked at Tirek and Chrysalis. “—will order a double hayburger to go!” Trixie said.
Chrysalis angrily sighed. “Fine! But only because we’re short on time.”
The villains grabbed their takeout paper bags.
Before the trio left, Chrysalis said to Trixie, “When you get home, please tell your… whatever it is you are to each other with consideration of that useless specimen of a crystaller—Starlight, to stop rejecting our calls to your home telephone! That mare’s only purpose is to either facilitate Cozy’s communication with her loser of a daughter or face me in combat!”
Trixie turned away. “Whatever.”
Chrysalis growled as Cozy pulled her out of the Hayburger.
The Legion of Doom headed towards the Cinema with their takeouts. There was less than an hour left before they’ll start rolling the commercials.