//------------------------------// // Something Big Is About To Go Down // Story: Familial Ties // by CircuitChaser //------------------------------// It had been two weeks since their coronation, and the newly-crowned family found itself in the main hall of the palace. They wondered why. There were no events scheduled. None they were aware of, anyway. "Why in the wide, wide world of Equestria are we here?" asked Applejack. She looked to Mac, who just shrugged almost imperceptibly. Twilight coughed. "I think they'll tell us when they are ready." Twilight then turned around to find herself muzzle to golden neckwear with Celestia, who was smiling warmly. She looked up. "H-Hi, Grandma." Celestia brought her up to eye level, then gave her a hug. "We'll explain everything after dinner," Celestia said to our motley little group. Then she left. Pinkie shuddered, then jumped in place, then her tail went in twenty different directions while her mane turned into a 'fro. "Whoa! Talk about a doozy! I wonder what it means." The others were justifiably frightened, considering the last time a doozy came along, a hydra was involved. ----------------------- Around 5 o'clock that evening... ----------------------- "This spread is ab-so-lute-ly amazin'!" Applejack said with glee. And she was not kidding. Twenty trays, piled high with everything from roasted carrots drizzled with honey, to fruit salad with chunks of sweet rolls for croutons. Anything a vegetarian with a sweet tooth could ask for. Plus two barrels of Apple Family Cider, a barrel of mead, and two dozen bottles of assorted wines, sodas, and juices. "Do enjoy yourselves. You'll need the energy for what happens afterwards," Celestia said to the group. "W-what happens afterwards?" Fluttershy asked from behind Mac. Apparently, Mac is a good pony to take shelter behind. "A surprise, dear Fluttershy. A good surprise. A wonderful surprise." Luna was doing her best to calm down her niece. "I promise, you will not be injured in any way." "You're sure?" Luna nodded, and mimed the Pinkie Promise. "Okay." Fluttershy stepped out from behind Mac. Twilight then showed her a trick she'd learned from Cadance. That seemed to help even more. By the time the clocks struck six, the entire hall had been scoured clean of food and drink. This left eight sluggish, groaning, nearly comatose ponies. Scratch that. They're in food comas now. ------------------------------- Oh, let's just say midnight. IT'S MORE DRAMATIC! AND HAMMY!! ------------------------------- The ponies were led by the Princesses into a large, oval-shaped room with a two pronged diagram situated in the center, under a skylight. There appeared to be a large stack of mattresses in one corner. Our heroes thought to themselves 'What would we need those for?' In the other corner was a large wall of sandbags. "Now you may be wondering what the surprise is," Celestia said. The group nodded in unison. "We want to apply a very special sort spell to you. It is meant to awaken some traits and abilities. Namely those inherited from Us." Several eyebrows shot upwards. "I promise it will not harm you, but it does require a great deal of energy to get it going." Celestia thought for a moment. "This will probably be easier to show, rather than tell. Do we have any volunteers?" Twilight stepped forward; primarily because she trusted Celestia, and a little bit because she was curious. "To start, We would like Twilight to stand in the center of the diagram." Twilight did as she was told. "Next, could somepony please open the skylight?" Shining opened the (oddly large) skylight. "Everypony else, please step behind the sandbags. If we tell you to drop to the floor, do so." The group sans Twilight moved to behind the sandbags. "Twily's gonna be okay, right?" asked Shining from behind the wall of sand. "So long as we are not disturbed, yes," the Princesses replied in unison. It is not a good idea to disturb somepony in the middle of a spell. Especially one this powerful. The two alicorns started an arcane-sounding chant: Bring to bear the powers of creation by our wills to the one between Our work begun, we ask the elements to grant our blood its right to eight new beings, unseen BRING THEIR ASCENSION TO LIGHT! A flash of light, and all that was left of Twilight was a scorch mark. Celestia threw a mattress down where the scorch mark was. Luna tapped her left hoof, like she was timing something. A scream was heard, as though from far away. It continued to grow louder. Eventually the source of the scream was sighted: Twilight, who was heading straight for the mattress. Direct hit. Twilight got up, and dusted herself off. Something felt off. She felt taller than before. She also felt a tickle at the end of her muzzle. Like... feathers. She opened her eyes. Purple feathers were tickling her nose. 'Wait a second. PURPLE!?' She looked down the length of the wing. It terminated just behind her shoulder... Her family was looking at her like they couldn't believe their eyes, mouths agape. Somehow, Pinkie was actually holding her eyes like glasses, and after she'd cleaned them, she put them back on. "Those wings are indeed yours. Your birthright," Luna said as she helped Twilight to steady herself. "Now if you could stand at the third point of the formation..." Twilight confusedly walked to a new point on the diagram. "Thank you. Now," -Luna clapped her hooves together- "that spell was good for ten of our descendants. Who is next?" It was decided by Mac that Shining Armor was next. "Hey, quit pushing! I'm going!" Shining looked down, then back up. "Uh oh." He waved goodbye. Then flying into the sky on a beam of light he went. Another mattress was put down, due to Twilight crushing the springs of the first one. Luckily, they bought in bulk for this occasion. He crashed very hard, screaming all the way down. Cadance was drawn by the screaming, and the eventual *crash*. She opened the door. She could not believe her eyes. Twilight and Shining both had wings. "Are they..." A nod from Celestia and Luna. Cadance pointed to the others. "And they'll be..." Another nod. "Eeeeeee!" Cadance tackled/hugged Twilight and Shining. "Eeeeeeee!" She got back up, heart overflowing with joy. She took a breath. "I'll be quiet now. Just, just tell me what to do." She was relegated to mattress detail: Pulling out the crushed mattress and replacing it with an undamaged one. This practice continued until only Fluttershy was left. Mac's great amount of mass meant they'd needed to double the crash pad's depth with a second mattress. A request was sent down for another mattress so Fluttershy could land safely. By sheer coincidence, it was dropped off by the guards who'd originally seen the Celestia-fied Shining. They were suitably intimidated when they saw his new wings, and proven their reality. 'The company is gonna....' Thankfully they were out of earshot when they finished that statement. Fluttershy stepped into the diagram's center. She was propelled upwards on a beam of light. She came down completely silently, but didn't crash (fortunately for her, her wings had locked in a fashion that was passable for a parachute). While now an alicorn, her wings were different from before. The outsides were covered in golden scales, with bones spread like fingers between the internal membranes. They looked almost draconic in origin. "Oh dear," she said to herself. Luckily for her, they were big enough to hide behind. 'Could it be?' Luna thought. She decided to humor herself, and gently brushed one of Fluttershy's new wings aside. "Your wings remind me of a friend I had. A dragon, called Sharpclaw the Gold-Plated. He, Dusky and I would go to taverns together. Very shy, but friendly by all accounts. He would down entire pints of this odd drink called scumble." Luna started to flashback, when Fluttershy spoke up. "You're Lulu? Grandpa was talking about you the entire time?" Fluttershy asked. For the longest time, she'd thought he'd been talking about some other pony he'd met those 1200 years ago. Meanwhile, the girls were flashing back to the wedding, and the pint Fluttershy had consumed. Celestia was floored. 'How can a dragon and a pony.... ' Celestia immediately cursed herself as her mind flooded with images of... yeah... 'By Celestia! Wait, I'm Celestia. BY ME! WHY?!?!' Thankfully for Celestia, she was very good at affecting calm even with her mind in disarray. Twilight thought, 'This probably explains the hoard of animals she keeps at her cottage. As well as my inability to find record of her maternal grandfather, and her breakdown at the Gala.' "Haha! Oh, how is he? Does he still eat all of the gold he finds?" Fluttershy nodded. "Oh, I had wondered if he was still around. My heart is gladdened to hear he is alive and well." She put a wing around Fluttershy. "When next you see him, could you please invite him and your grandmother to the castle? Wait, he is still roughly pony sized, correct?" Fluttershy nooded. "Splendid, then we will not have to knock out a wall for him to enter." 'Well, that makes the whole dragon-pony thing slightly less squick-y. Emphasis slightly.' Celestia decided to speak up, before more unsettling images came unbidden to her mind. "Congratulations! You are now alicorns. Meaning you now have access to all three basic types of magic. Now, If you'll excuse me, I must attend to something..." Celestia teleported away, having thought of something that could save them hassle in the long run. _____________________ Meanwhile, outside the gates of Tartaros....... _____________________ 'Now to plug this hole for good,' Celestia thought. The doors were shrunk, then beset upon by large wooden planks, chains, glue, locking bars, a kitchen sink (any good list of barriers includes the kitchen sink.), and then two massive pieces of steel, which were then welded to the doors' rivets, then each other. A small padlock was then placed on the latch. After all of that, the gates were buried by a rock-slide, then a lava floe. The doors, melted rock and all, were then relocated to a sea with over ten thousand monsters swimmng in it. The doors were then rigged with a ward to keep the prisoners from leaking out, then they were sealed in a clam-shell package, labeled Gateway to Tartaros (Collector's Edition!). After all of that, she teleported a large box, forged of nigh-unbreakable, magic-resistant Thunderbolt Iron, around the mass, even below the earth, leaving a hole for the tunnel to Tartaros. Celestia landed upon the box, and clapped the dust off of her hooves. "If that doesn't keep those doors shut, nothing will. Amazing what a little unintentional trauma can inspire." Celestia laughed. 'Good thing there's two of Kerberos to guard these gates.' She then teleported back home. 'Who knows what horrors could have been released?' ______________________ Back at the castle......... ______________________ "I didn't miss anything, did I?" Celestia asked. "Nothing at all. They seem to be admiring Fluttershy's new wings." As Luna spoke, Twilight organized the Newly-Awakened into a line. "Okay. I'm going to teach you basic telekinesis. Rarity and Shining will be helping me. We'll start with something light." Twilight took some springs from the broken mattresses, then said, "Try to imagine the spring coated in a field of energy. Then imagine it moving to where you want it to." Fluttershy got the hang of it first. "Good job Fluttershy." What Mac was doing caught Twilight's eye. "Oh, Mac, that's beautiful." Mac had taken his spring, and bent it into a crude wire flower. He then hovered it over to Celestia. He quickly made another one for Luna, and hovered it over to her. "A gift t'both of you. Fer all you've done fer all of us fer the past fifteen hundred years." The gesture was sweet. The others quickly followed suit, making little wire sculptures of their own. From animals, to plants, even the Royal Sisters themselves. Fluttershy did something different from the others. Hers was a model of Celestia, which was connected to a small wire globe. She brought the globe to life when she exhaled, releasing a small puff of fire which was then captured in its wiry receptacle. It emitted very little heat, but a fair amount of light. "These are beautiful. Especially yours, Fluttershy. Lovely use of your new abilities, dear. I shall have a shelf installed in my office for these works." "Um, actually, I've always been able to do that." She rubbed the back of her head nervously. "I just don't use it around other ponies. Mommy said it scares them." "Do you use your fire when you're alone?" Twilight asked. "I use it to make tea. I used to use a stove, and but the temperature was too hard to control. It burnt the leaves, making it too bitter to drink." Fluttershy grimaced. "I tried using sugar and honey, but they just masked the burnt taste. Grandpa also taught me how send letters to my family. And a few other things." "It's still a marvelous use of your abilities, dear." Celestia turned to face everypony. "I've had some suites set up for you. They're on the south side of the castle, under my tower. You'll find your names on the doors. Feel free to roam around, however. The gardens are especially lovely this time of night." "Tomorrow, we announce to the world your ascension," Luna said. She muttered, "Not like the eight beams of light and the screaming have not already done that for us..." Twilight tapped Celestia on the shoulder. "I'm still your faithful student, right?" asked Twilight. "Of course dear. But you're also much more now." She pulled her in for a hug. (What is with these two and hugs?) "You're one of my grandfoals, for one." They nuzzled each other. Alright, enough with the sap. "And tutor for your family, for two." Regretting his current assignment, Shining broke up the treacle-y scene before him. "I'd better get back to my post," he said to the group. "Nonsense. I hereby give you the next two weeks as vacation," said Luna. She could do that, too, since she foots half of the bill for the guard. "In that case, can I drop off my armor to be resized? I have a feeling it's gonna be a little small now," Shining said to Luna. She nodded. "Thank you. I'll take care of that right now." "Well. I'm bushed. I'm hittin' the sack. Y'all should, too," said a sleepy Applejack. The rest of the group soon followed suit. Having an Awakening Spell applied to you can really drain your energy reserves. "Um, i-if I have trouble falling asleep, may I, um, take a walk in the gardens?" Fluttershy asked Celestia. "Of course, dear. Just be careful. I've heard some noises coming from some of Posey's favorite spots in there. Like two ponies were talking to each other," she said to Fluttershy.