A/N Alright, after a long break I'm back on track. Let's hope I don't lose any more ears.
Canterlot, city of currently broken spires.
"What do you MEAN we can't see the Princess?!" Roared Gold Hoof, stamping his famous golden hoof on the floor in rage.
The guard blocking the gateway remained unfazed. "I'm sorry, sir, but the Princess is not present at this moment. You will have to try again later.
Gold Hoof practically frothed at the mouth at this point, a sentiment shared by many other frazzled nobleponies standing behind him and cluttering up the castle gates. And the stairs. And the streets. It was basically a very long, very angry line, kept at bay by a single guard with a very pointy spear.
"I DEMAND YOU LET ME SPEAK TO THE PRINCESS!" Gold Hoof screamed.
"I would, but considering the Princess is not physically present, I cannot let you do that." Snarked Wise Sword, the Guard. "You could go and mill about in the empty throne room if you wish, but I don't trust you enough not to break something."
The incredibly irate white unicorn stared in blatant shock at the Solar Guard's disrespect. As did most of the ponies behind him.
"Sir, you shouldn't do that. You could eat a fly." Wise Sword advised.
"Are you...are you MOCKING ME?!" Gold Hoof screeched. His hoof was becoming damaged from all his tantrum-throwing.
"No, sir. I'm advising you to go away before I start mocking you."
Gold Hoof screamed incoherently.
"Oh, would you look at the time. It's my lunch break. Flowers, could you take post?" Wise Sword called, never taking an eye off the crowd.
"Coming!" Yelled Sunny Flowers, the sound of pounding hooves announcing said ponies imminent arrival.
Gold Hoof snorted. If the guard was being taken over by someone called 'Sunny Flowers', he could surely get past her.
And then Sunny Flowers rounded the corner. Well, rounded is a bit of an inaccurate term. More like 'Demolished'. A massive white-and-gold blur broke more than a few bricks on it's way to the gates. The ground shook...
And an utterly MASSIVE unicorn screeched to a halt in front of Wise Sword, dwarfing anything that wasn't the castle in size.
"Hey, Sword. Ya' needed me for something?" Rumbled the five-and-a-half foot tall unicorn, looming over Wise.
"You keep them from getting in the castle-I'm on my lunch break for now." Wise Hoof said, walking in, automatically homing in on the kitchen. Maybe if he was lucky, Lemon Grass would make something edible this time.
"Okay, got it. Who wants to try and get past me, then?" Rumbled Sunny Flowers. A particularly stupid pony with a monocle raised his hoof. Sunny flung him into the mass of ponies with a burst of magic. No one else raised their hoof.
"Good. I'd hate to have...problems." Sunny grinned sadistically.
So, we have a ridiculously large unicorn pressuring puny ponies into running away, and also vaguely offensive alliteration. Let's go check up on the rest of Canterlot, shall we? It can't be that baa....oh. Oh. I should really stop tempting fate, shouldn't I?
In case you were wondering, what was once the golden crown of pony architecture was now the kind of rusty, old, corroded crown you keep in the storage shelf in the room you never really go to and forget to clean often my metaphor is slipping, damn.
Anyway, to put it bluntly, it sucked. Most of the really pointy spires on the towers had gone and blown off. Some of them had landed on the streets below, crushing many buildings. Others had been flung straight into the mountain, like a giant game of drunken darts.More than a few buildings hanging precariously off the cliffside were no longer hanging precariously, because they had smashed into the ground many feet below. The foundations of both the castle and many other, smaller buildings, had been cracked or weakened. The large fountain-y pond below had gone kersplat as well, and was dumping a lot of water down the mountainside. Eventually the water would form a small river and a few more towns would spring up alongside that river, but it was still scary to look at now.
Oh, and Blueblood Manor had exploded, but no one really gave a damn.
You might think: Wow, that's a lot of damage! I thought the Princesses set up a shield before it hit, though, so why is there so much?
Well, here's the thing: They didn't really have much time to set one up. They had literally less than four seconds before a wave of city-smashing death hit them, so what could have been a shield was more like a pulse of magic heading in the opposite direction, with some crappy wooden fences thrown in here and there. It certainly did prevent one thing, though, which was landslides. The explosion would have certainly triggered a lot of rockfalls, and rockfalls when you are on a city in a mountain is a very, very bad thing. Ponies would be pancakes, if it wasn't for that.
Oh, and there was the giant red swirly cloud shooting lightning into the ground above Canterlot, too, so that might be a problem.
So Canterlot's gone all smashy then. Let's take a look at Cloudsdale!
Cloudsdale
Oh. It's on fire. Well, back to Canterlot then!
"My house is on fire!" Screamed a random Earth Pony, frantically throwing buckets of water on his burning house. Moments later, a squad of red Unicorns teleported in, and started spraying large streams of water at the burning posh home. It was like this everywhere, really. Fires, fires, fires. There were many injuries and more than a few deaths all over the city.
And then there was a horrible cracking noise.
As ponies and the occasional zebra froze all over Canterlot, hoping to death that wasn't what they thought it was, a massive crack ripped down out of the sky, and hit Canterlot dead on. And it kept going.
It spread from the impact point. The cracks divided Canterlot into four equal square parts, before flaring up with very dark-blue magic.
Before the terrified citizens could even react, the entire city rose up into the air. It spit apart, and began revolving around itself like some sort of demonic Merry-Go-Round.
Meanwhile, at the castle, Sunny Flowers, Gold Hoof, and many many more ponies watched Canterlot spin around and around in silent horror.
Sunny broke the silence. "Okay, everyone, in the castle. One at a time, orderly. There's no point in panicking: If this thing falls we all die no matter what we do." He barked. The terrified nobles surged forward, rushing into the castle en-masse.
Sunny stared after them, shrugged, and ran inside.
Moments later, a loud siren sound began blaring across Canterlot.
"CITIZENS OF CANTERLOT. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY WARNING." Came the voice of a Guard, magnified far beyond normal proportions. "AN UNKNOWN PHENOMENON HAS CAUSED LARGE AMOUNTS OF DESTRUCTION ACROSS CANTERLOT. WE ARE CURRENTLY LEVITATING IN THE AIR AND ROTATING AT VERY HIGH SPEEDS. IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU RETURN TO YOUR HOMES AND WAIT UNTIL IT IS DESIGNATED SAFE TO VENTURE OUTSIDE. THANK YOU." The alert spell cut off with an audible *snap*.
Inside the tallest tower, a guard wiped some sweat off his head. "That ought to keep everyone mostly unhurt. Now to panic and scream until someone above me in rank shows up." Said Blunt Spear, the Pegasus fluttering his wings. Then he began panicking and screaming.
Ah, ponies. How funny it can be to see them panic.
Where were we? Ah yes, to Ponyville!
Ponyville
Princess Celestia, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, the Doctor, Lyra, Derpy, Bon Bon, and a bunch of other ponies that would take up an entire page if I named them all ran towards the site of the crash. Large pillars of greenish smoke drifted upwards from Town Hall, and the horrible gurgling was getting louder. Also, everything near it was on fire.
As you can imagine, this told everypony in radius that something was up.
The large mob screeched to a collective halt in front of the Town Hall. The Town Square was utterly ruined, though if this was the result of the crash or the giant explosion from before was unclear. What WAS clear was that there was a giant smoking hole in the building.
"The Town Hall!" Mayor Mare cried in horror. Then she resisted the urge to cry.
Celestia spread her wings, and rose into the air. "Show yourself, whatever is in there! I will not ask again!" She growled. 'I wouldn't normally do something like this,' she admitted mentally, 'But these are extenuating circumstances. I will take no chances, especially if it poses harm to my little ponies.'
The thing that may or may not have posed harm to her little ponies made another horrible noise. Something shifted in the ruins of the building, and began slowly moving towards them, haltingly.
More than a few ponies began backing away, and Celestia tensed herself.
The horrible abomination took a few more steps...before it tripped, fell on it's stomach and revealed it's face.
Or her face, in this case. Princess Luna moaned in pain, dragging herself forward.
Celestia's mouth opened a little bit, and her eyes widened. She certainly wasn't expecting her sister to be here. 'Luna, what are you doing here?!' She thought furiously.
The source of the horrid gurgling was also revealed to be Luna, as she managed to steady herself, stand upright...and then violently upchuck into the wreckage, before collapsing back onto her knees. She moaned again.
With that, Celestia lost all regard for her own safety. She ran forward. "Luna! Are you okay?" She worried over her sister's nauseous body.
"Never...again..." Luna moaned. "Destroy...it..."
Celestia tensed. 'So there IS something else there. I suspected as much. Luna doesn't crash into buildings. Much.'
"Destroy...it...avenge...my...stomach..." Luna gurgled, and rolled onto her back.
A mad cackle burst from within the ruins. No, literally. The words 'Mad cackle' leapt out of the ruins of the Town Hall, accompanied by the actual vocal noise.
"Gahahahah! Oh, that was PRICELESS!" You-know-who laughed.
No, not Voldermort, you dolt. Discord.
"Discord!" Celestia growled. "Where are you! What did you do to my sister!"
"Turns out, Luny-woony gets airsick when you travel at twenty thousand miles an hour." Discord laughed, materializing out of the ruins. He was leaning on a scratched-up glass box.
"You should know better, Discord." Celestia scolded him.
"Ugh. You're such a fuddy duddy, Celestia. You won't even let me call you by that nickname!" Discord complained.
"I hate that nickname." Celestia growled.
"Nickname? What nickname?" Rarity asked, arriving late to the party. "Why is Princess Luna throwing up on the floor?"
"Discord happened." Celestia said flatly.
"Oh." Said nearly everyone who was confused, accepting this as a decent answer.
"Well, Celly-belly-chelly-nelly-felly-deli-helli-gelly-jelly, what's the problem?" Discord said, flying in circles around her head. Celestia jolted him briefly with a bolt of magic. Discord yelped, holding his singed tail.
"I hate that nickname. Stop calling me that." Celestia growled. I mean, literally growled. Like an angry manticore. More than a few ponies backed away.
"Ugh. You're boring. I'm going to talk to someone more interesting. Buh-bye!" Discord said, skipping into the air...
And then flashing green before falling to the ground.
"Ow! What? How did...Celestia, did you cancel my teleportation, you clever cake-eating Alicorn?" Discord asked quizzically. Celestia gritted her teeth, took a deep breath and resisted the urge to beat him with a rock.
"No, that was me." Said The Doctor, walking forwards. "Hello...Discord. It's been a long time, at least from your perspective." The Doctor said. There was no humor in his voice.
"Hello crazy old brown pony who stopped me from teleporting." Discord babbled at a Pinkie-pie esque rate. "What are you blathering on about now?"
"Discord, unless you want a repeat of the chandelier incident, I suggest you stop goofing around and answer. our. questions." The Doctor practically spat out the last few words. Discord's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
"Doctor?" Discord questioned in utter disbelief.
"Yes, yes. I'm the Doctor, you're the insane pipe cleaner who keeps trying to drive people insane and gets locked in stone. Speaking of that, Celestia, why is Discord out?" The Doctor questioned.
"Discord was redeemed, Doctor. You have nothing to worry about now." Celestia reassured.
The Doctor narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but said nothing.
"So! Celly! I got told by Ms. Barfsalot to come to Ponyville, so here I am!" Discord sang, confetti erupting behind him. "That reminds me? Where's Flutters? Or Twilight? Twilight never misses a chance to gripe at me." Discord asked, somewhat confused.
"O-oh. Hi Discord..." Fluttershy whispered, peeking out of the crowd. Discord's face lit up in a ridiculous grin. He grabbed her and hugged her really tight to his chest. "Flutters! I'm so glad you could make it! I'm honored, I really am!" Discord pranced around. Fluttershy was turning blue from air loss.
"Discord...I...can't...breathe...." Fluttershy choked. Discord turned into a giant fan with arms and kept hugging her. After a moment, Fan-cord let her go.
"So! What's the rush?" Discord asked.
"Yeah, I was wondering that too." Said a green earth pony.
Celestia recomposed herself. "As you can imagine, whatever caused such destruction here," She guestured to the many ruined buildings around the Town Hall "Reached our ears in Canterlot. I came to investigate, and requested that my sister retrieve Discord to assist if it was necessary." She frowned. "However, I am in the dark about what caused this." The unspoken question hung in the air. 'Do you know what happened?'
Applejack stepped forward. "Ah'm sorry, Princess, we're all in the dark as you are, yer majesty. All we know is that whatever that thing was, it came from Twah's Library." She stated, with some uncharacteristic nervousness.
The unspoken implications did not pass Celestia by. "Is my student alright?" She questioned.
Suddenly, Discord popped out of nowhere in front of her face. "Hey, Celestia. Why did your student blow up her own library?" Discord asked, swinging back and forth on air.
"What?!" Celestia was understandably astonished. She teleported to the library...
Or where it was. As the group ran to her, and Discord rode a motorcycle made of bubblegum around Lyra's head, they found Celestia staring dumbfounded at the crater where the library was.
"Um, Princess? Are you alright?" Asked Rarity, rather nervously.
She turned her head with ominous slowness. "Where. Is. Twilight." Celestia intoned.
A couple ponies passed out, and the rest started shaking.
Well, except for Pinkie, who was oblivious as always. "Well, Twilight and Rainbow and Me were all in the library and she was working on this really big super spell, but it blew up like WHOOSH!" She said, pantomiming her words. "And then everyone went flying and there was a lot of yelling and then Salad Fork hurt Bon Bon which isn't very nice and I was going to tell her so but then I figured out what happened and then the Doctor knocked her out and we put her in the hospital and then Rainbow Dash fell unconscious again and by the way Twilight's in another world." Pinkie finished. She said all this without taking a single breath. Everyone stared at her blankly. Even Discord was a fair bit stunned.
"What she means, Princess," Rarity said, shoving Pinkie out of the way, "Was that Twilight somehow caused all of this- by accident-" She quickly said, not wanting to get her friend in trouble, "And she somehow ended up in another world. I don't really understand it myself." She chuckled nervously.
Celestia stared at her. "My student did this." She gestured to everything. "And is now in another world?"
"Universe, actually." The Doctor interrupted yet again. "Twilight was casting a Long-range teleportation spell. When it went haywire, she teleported, but into another world. Brilliant girl, er, mare, Twilight, but bad luck follows her everywhere." Commented The Doctor.
"Like you?" Discord interrupted. Everyone glared at him and he shut up.
"But even with an Alicorn as powerful as her, Twilight couldn't do this on her own. Something already started the process, and Twilight was just the unwitting pawn in it's plans. Always with the unwitting pawns, reality-bending monstrosities." The Doctor complained.
"Something did this on purpose?!" Celestia asked incredulously.
"Yes, and it'll only get worse from here. Time itself is stopping, and it's spreading. That's the grey you're seeing. We can't fix it because we're not at the wound itself. It's up to Twilight to fix it."
"So my student is alive?" Celestia dared to hope.
"Yes, but if we don't deal with this it won't matter. We can't stop it directly, but we can slow it down." The Doctor said. "We'd have a better chance of that if you didn't hurt my TARDIS!" He complained, causing everyone to facehoof. "Now I need to go and apologise to the old girl. Do you know how many 'I told you so's' I'll need to deal with?"
"Why are we even listening to him again?" Bon Bon whispered to Lyra.
"Because he's really smart, even if he's kooky." Lyra explained. "Besides, the only other one we could listen to is Pinkie."
Bon Bon winced and accepted the point.
Discord juggled trees in his arms.
Celestia frowned, unhappy with how things were going. "So we can't do anything at all?"
"We have to wait until the wound gets worse before we can intervene at all. Other than that, the best thing we can do is keep an eye out for Salad Fork, and make sure she doesn't hurt herself." Explained the Doctor.
"Who is this Salad Fork?" Celestia questioned, confused.
"Salad Fork was a pegasus who lived down the street from us." Lyra explained. "She was really nice, too."
Celestia felt a sudden sense of dread. "Was a pegasus?"
The town grumbled and murmured collectively.
"Ya might want ta' see this..." Applejack trailed off ominously.
Discord juggled arms in his trees.