Thunder and Lightning screamed as darkness suddenly overtook them. The strange being finally let go of them and put hooves to their mouths to silence them.
"Sssshhhhh. Be quite you guys, you don't want to ruin the surprise!"
The boys calmed down, taking a few seconds to recognize the mare's voice.
"Pinkie Pie?" asked Lightning, panic turning to surprise in a heartbeat. "What's going on?"
"I,m throwing a surprise party for the new pony in town. I saw you guys just hanging around outside and thought you might want to join in on it."
"And you couldn't have just told us about this because?" Thunder asked, placing emphasis on the last word and raising an eyebrow which couldn't be seen in the darkness.
"Because it wouldn't have been as fun as dragging you guys in here silly!" the pink party pony replied happily.
Before Thunder could respond, the sound of voices suddenly picked up out side. Pinkie Pie uttered an unusually loud gasp and stuck something inside Thunder and Lightning's mouths.
"Here she comes. When the lights come on blow on these as hard as you can." she said, revealing the objects as party blowers.
"Pinkie, you are so random." Lightning said, repeating the worn out line that best described the pink mare.
"Hush!" Pinkie said angrily, then no more was heard.
As they waited, the heroic pegasi became aware of the presence of other ponies around them. Sudden light lit up the room as the door was opened and disappeared just as fast as the door was closed. Now the voices could be heard clearly in the main room.
"Well, rude much?"
"Sorry spike. but I have to convince the princess that Night Mare Moon is coming and we're running out of time.I just need to be alone so I can study without a bunch of crazy ponies trying to make friends all the time."
At the end of that last sentence, the lights suddenly came on, revealing Twilight Sparkle, Spike and the dozens of ponies that surrounded them.
"Surprise!" everypony in the room cried out.
On cue, Thunder and Lightning blew on their party blowers as hard as they could, sounding to all the world like a comical fanfare. Twilight looked around in surprise then groaned loudly, taking on a look of annoyance. Pinkie Pie appeared suddenly in front of the purple unicorn. eager to talk with her. She eagerly explained about her reasoning for the party, most of it being spoken too fast to be comprehended. After Pinkie played a prank on Twilight with hot sauce, the unicorn whisked away toward the stairs. Before she could go up them however, Thunder step in front of her blocking her path.
"Hey, it's me Thunder, we met earlier this afternoon."
"Oh yeah, right." Twilight's face took on a more irritated look as she talked, which Thunder ignored.
"I just wanted to apologize on behalf of pinkie pie. She just gets really excited for new visitors to town."
"Yeah, I can see that."
Thunder chuckled "Yeah that's our pinkie alright. So how'd your inspectio-" Thunder didn't get to finish as a purple aura engulfed him and moved him out of Twilight's path.
"Look I have something to do upstairs, so...bye." Twilight went up the stairs before Thunder could say anything.
"OK, well if you need anything, let me know!" Thunder shouted up the stairs. He turned and saw the face of his brother Lightning, who was staring at him with a raised eyebrow.
"What?" Thunder asked, his face converting to anger.
"Nothing, Romeo." Lightning said with a smirk and went back to the party. Thunder uttered a few shocked grunts, then followed him, his ears flat against his head.
As the night wore on, the brothers preceded to talk with old acquaintances they had made over the years. The one Lightning was currently talking to at the moment was none other then Ponyville's very own Applejack.
"You had a family reunion! And you didn't invite me!?"
"I would have sent y'all an invitation, but everything got so hectic during the preparations that I forgot to." Applejack said apologetically. "I did manage to save these for you though."
with that, she procured two apple pies from seemingly nowhere, and handed them to Lightning. Lightning, with a big grin on his face, ate one of them in one bite and handed the other to Thunder, who was talking to everypony's favorite fashion diva Rarity.
"So how's the fashion world been treating you, milady?" Thunder asked as he ate his pie in one gulp.
"Quite kindly, thank you." Rarity responded. "Oh, I almost forgot to thank you for trying one some of the tuxedos I had designed last Tuesday. I,m going to corner the market with those suits!." she shook with excitement as she spoke the words.
"It was an honor and a privilege, madam." Thunder said, bowing low and speaking with an eloquence which was absent when he wasn't talking to Rarity.
When Rainbow Dash came over, Lightning began to sweat profusely. "Rainbow, I'm so sorry, somepony else cleared the skies before me..." the rest became jumbled and incoherent as he began to slip into a panic attack.
"Huh? Oh that." Rainbow said as she realized what Lightning was talking about. "Don't sweat it. I did it after all. You see, Twilight was saying I couldn't do it and whatever and I just happened to prove her wrong." she said the last words with a confident smirk.
"Oh, OK." Lightning said, calming down by a huge margin.
Meanwhile, Thunder struck up a conversation with the shy little yellow pegasus Fluttershy.
"Hey Fluttershy! How's Angel?"
He's fine. Um... about that." Fluttershy looked up a little shyly at Thunder. "Did you talk to Lightning about that. I mean it was nice of him to save Angel and all, but he didn't have to hit the fox so hard with the rake..."
"Don't worry about it. I've already spoken to him about it. He won't do it again. Promise." Thunder said, grimacing a little as he remembered that incident.
"Oh, that's a relief." Fluttershy said with a smile.
Pinkie Pie appeared suddenly in between the brothers. "So, what have you guy's been up to!?" she asked out of nowhere. Before Thunder could speak Lightning intervened.
"Well, since you asked, we were busy with saving a little filly from a vicious lion! Yes, it was huge too. With giant claws and teeth and-"
"Oh really, I heard you got mauled by a cat you were saving!" Pinkie Pie interrupted, a big grin on her face. "Yeah, you see, Thunder and Lightning were like 'Never fear, Thunder and Lightning are here!' and this filly was like-"
Before she could continue, Lightning covered her mouth with his hoof. "Oh, isn't Pinkie just a kidder? So who wants more punch?"
The party lasted until it was time to see the sunrise. Everypony was now gathered in town hall. The room was abuzz with excitement, Especially Thunder and Lightning. They had never before seen Princess Celestia in person and, Frankly, They wanted the whole thing to start already. Thunder looked over at Twilight, who had joined them from the library. She was looking worriedly at the moon for some reason.
Thunder was about to go over to see what was the matter, but Lightning grabbed him in anticipation.
"Here She comes." he said, barely controlling himself. Thunder nodded his agreement, turning his attention to the balcony. The mayor, who was giving a short speech, finally said.
"So, without further ado, please welcome Princess Celestia!" with that, the curtain upon the balcony, amid the fanfare of birdsong, pulled away to reveal...Empty space. Everypony gasped at this shocking revelation.
"Now calm down everypony. I'm sure there's an explanation for this." the Mayor said, trying to maintain control over the situation.
"She's gone!" Rarity said upon further inspection of the balcony.
"Oh no." Twilight said under her breath.
Thunder and Lightning, who had looks of disappointment, changed their expression's to one's of opened mouth wonder. for in the balcony, bluish mist was converging in the empty space meant for Princess Celestia. The mist converged into a solid being, a great black Alicorn with the look of pure malice in her eyes.