//------------------------------// // Power Failure // Story: The Witch of the Everfree // by MagnetBolt //------------------------------// I triple-checked my spells. I’d used a combination of several methods to try and avoid detection. First, I had an area-of-effect Background Pony spell running, which would divert attention away from me and everything around me. Eyes would just pass over me like I was the least interesting thing in the world. It did have the unfortunate side effect of making the crowd seem to repeat as eyes skipped over details and the back few rows nearest me were entirely lacking detail. Second, I was invisible. I was going to have to stay fairly still for that to stay up, but I needed to avoid sudden motions to keep the Background Pony spell working anyway, so it wasn’t a problem. Third, I was hiding. There was a nice shadowy corner behind a banner and I was using it. It might not seem like it, but it was actually a very important step to take. A lot of unicorns relied entirely on illusions to disguise themselves, and were only one dispel or true seeing effect from being exposed. So ponies shouldn’t have noticed me, shouldn’t have been able to see me, and I was hiding well enough that a casual observer wouldn’t have discovered me. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Pinkie Pie had found me in seconds. “Hey Sunset, do you want another cup of punch?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Sure,” I sighed, taking the cup from Pinkie. “Thanks, Pinkie.” “You’d have more fun if you came out here with the rest of us,” Pinkie teased. “I’m only sticking around until the Princess shows up,” I said. “After that, I’m going to make myself scarce.” Pinkie’s eyes widened and she gave me a sorrowful look. “If you can avoid blowing my cover, I’ll even tell you when my birthday is.” “Really?!” Pinkie gasped. “Then we can have a real birthday party for you!” Unlike the ones she threw once a month or so based on guesses about when my birthday might be. She'd nearly gotten it right at one point. I think she enjoyed it. It was the only time a party planner could be surprised herself at a party she threw, after all. “Just make sure the Princess doesn’t notice me,” I said. Pinkie nodded quickly and skipped away. I could already tell she was planning things for my party, despite not knowing when it was. I'd have to prepare myself for cake and balloons soon. Music started, and I glanced towards the stage. Mayor Mare walked out, the lights dimming as a spotlight was focused on her. “Fillies and gentlecolts, as mayor of Ponyville, it is my great pleasure to announce the beginning of the Summer Sun Celebration!” The crowd cheered. Twilight was busy looking out the window, obviously worried. “In just a few moments, our town will witness the magic of the sunrise, and celebrate this, the longest day of the year!” I took a deep breath, preparing my teleportation spell. If I was careful about it, I could teleport without a big, flashy display, and get away without anypony noticing. And if I waited for Celestia to start raising the sun, I’d have at least a minute or two as a head start, more than enough time to teleport a few times and cover my tracks. “And now, it is my great honor to introduce you to the ruler of our land, the very pony who gives us the sun and the moon each and every day, the good, the wise, the bringer of harmony to all of Equestria…” I braced myself. “...Princess Celestia!” Rarity pulled open the curtains, revealing… Nothing. I blinked. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On the one hoof, Celestia was missing. On the other hoof, I hadn’t been looking forward to seeing her anyway. Mayor Mare bit her lip, smiling and wiping sweat from her brow. Rarity ran backstage, obviously looking for her. Maybe the Princess had just missed her cue. It would be amusing to see her stumble all over herself. “Remain calm, everypony. There must be a reasonable explanation!” Pinkie Pie hopped up. “Oh! I love guessing games! Is she hiding?” Rarity ran back out onto the balcony. “She’s gone!” Pinkie Pie nodded. “She’s good at hide-and-seek.” A tornado of sparkling indigo magic erupted in the balcony. Twilight looked back towards where I was hiding, and I met her gaze. Part of me distantly realized that I had definitely lost that little wager of ours, and now I was kicking myself for not researching the Elements of Harmony like she’d wanted. A dark shape took form as the mist cleared, an ebon counterpart to Celestia, with the same astounding size and radiant power, pressing against my magical senses like ocean waves washing over me. Where Celestia was warmth and light, this dark horse was cold and glared down at us with barely contained anger. Maybe Celestia showing up wasn't the worst thing that could have happened today. “Oh, my beloved subjects. It’s been so long since I’ve seen your precious little sun-loving faces.” She smiled with thin lips, the amusement not reaching her eyes, which looked more like a dragon’s eyes than a pony’s. “What did you do with our Princess?!” Dash demanded, flying up before Applejack grabbed her tail and dragged her down. The dark mare laughed. “Why, am I not royal enough for you? Don’t you know who I am?” “Oh! Oh! More guessing games!” Pinkie waved her hoof in the air excitedly. “Um… Hokey Smokes! No? How about… Queen Meanie! No, wait! Black Snooty! Black Sno-” She was, thankfully, cut off by Applejack shoving some fruit into her mouth. I was going to have to thank her later for keeping my least-intelligent friends from getting atomized by an angry goddess. “Does my crown no longer count now that I have been imprisoned for a thousand years?” She asked, pacing around the room, changing shape and flitting from place to place like a ghost. “Did you not recall the legend? Did you not see the signs?” “I did,” Twilight said, stepping forwards with at least some of the bravado I’d tried to instill in her. “And I know who you are. You’re the Mare in the Moon - Nightmare Moon!” I was really going to have to apologize to Twilight after this. I was making a bad habit of being wrong with really important things. “Well, well, well…” Nightmare Moon hissed, smiling and showing fangs. “Somepony who remembers me! Then you also know why I’m here.” “You’re here to… to…” Twilight lost her nerve, shaking and shivering. “Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last! From this moment forth, the night will-” And that was when Twilight Sparkle shot Nightmare Moon in the face. The dark princess sputtered, taken completely by surprise. I’d taught her well, and the moment she was busy monologuing, Twilight had thrown a forcebolt at her. I threw the banner I’d been hiding behind aside and followed up Twilight’s blast with one of my own, a beam of radiant heat that sliced through Nightmare Moon’s hair and played across her body with a hissing sound like water on a hot griddle. “Twilight!” I yelled. “Cross the streams!” “But crossing the streams is bad!” Twilight yelled, even as she tilted her horn. Her beam of force hit my red beam of fire, and the magical auras twisted and started to fuse, a ball of unstable mana forming. “Bad is good!” I yelled, grinning madly. When two spells intersected like this, the results were typically pretty unpredictable except for one thing - there was always collateral damage. The windows shattered as a shockwave tore through the room, knocking ponies over as the wiser few bolted for the doors. There was a flash of light, and Nightmare Moon stumbled back, stunned. Twilight stepped forwards, and I pushed her back with a hoof. “Get out of here,” I said. “I got something ready in case Sunbutt showed up and tried something.” “...Were you planning on assassinating Celestia?!” Twilight gasped. “What?” I was taken aback by that. “No! No. I wouldn’t do that!” I was pretty sure it was impossible anyway. Besides, I didn’t hate her. I just had very complicated emotions that I had never addressed, and hopefully would never need to. “I just have an exit strategy.” I glanced around the building. “But it would be better if they weren’t in the blast radius.” “Exit strategies don’t have a blast radius!” Twilight hissed. Her expression changed in an instant to deep worry. “Just… be careful.” I nodded, and she ran off, escaping with the rest of the crowd, some pegasai fleeing through the broken windows as the rest poured out of the doors. “Hoping to face your defeat and humiliation alone?” Nightmare Moon asked, calmly watching the ponies leave. “It’s what my sister did as well. She couldn’t face being bested by my power. She even sent her guards away and refused to fight me.” “She probably thought she could reason with you,” I said, turning to look. “But I’m not as nice as she is.” I let my cloak flutter around me. “In case you hadn’t heard, I’m the strongest unicorn in Equestria, and I’m villain enough for this town. I’m going to send you back to the moon in pieces.” “And how are you planning on doing that?” Nightmare Moon asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re somewhat amusing, I admit, but hardly a threat.” “I didn’t believe Twilight when she said you were returning, but I was pretty sure Celestia was going to show up.” I smiled. “And with Rarity keeping everypony out and dragging Twilight away, I had hours to prep a few surprises here.” “So what is it? A bucket of water to pour over my head? Are you going to throw a cake at me? Or are you just going to stall for time while your friends cower in fear?” “I’m going to do this,” I said, and clapped my hooves twice. At the command, the lingering spells I’d put on all of the decorations snapped into focus. What had looked like slight discolorations or odd waves in the fabric weave tightened into letters and sigils. Nightmare Moon’s eye was drawn to the nearest, and she started muttering as she read it aloud. “I prepared explosive runes this mor-” I teleported out as everything went white. Town Hall was lit up like a bonfire, fireballs and crackling arcane energy reaching for the sky as the chained spells triggered each other. I’d mixed in explosive runes, snake sigils, symbols of fire, more explosive runes, and something I’d put together on the fly that would create blinding light and sound. One of those went off as I appeared next to Dash, light shining through the smoke like a camera flash. “Woah!” Dash gasped. “Overkill much, Sunset?” The entire upper half of the Town Hall was gone, reduced to ashes. There was no sign of the Mare in the Moon. “Overkill?” I snorted. “This isn’t a game of kick-the-parasprite, Dash.” I nodded towards the flames. “Go and grab those storm clouds I had you stash, and let’s put the fire out before it spreads.” “What was it you said?” Twilight asked, giving me a look. “Fight fire with fire, because you should fight everything with fire?” “In this case I’d rather use rain, but it works, doesn’t it?” I shrugged. “Occasionally,” said a voice from behind us. My hair stood on end as I spun around, only to see a swirl of sparkling mist condense into the shape of Nightmare Moon. “But not every time, I’m afraid.” “Buck,” I said, succinctly summarizing the situation. “You caught me off-guard with that,” Nightmare Moon admitted. “I hadn’t expected you would be practical enough to sacrifice the building to try and stop me. You’re a very dangerous pony, Sunset Shimmer.” And she knew my name. I was bucked. More bucked than Applejack’s trees. More bucked than Cloud Kicker. “Oh yes, I know all about your dreams, your aspirations, and your fears.” She hissed the last word. “You’ve made two critical mistakes, Sunset Shimmer. You stood against me, and you failed to strike me down when you had the chance.” Nightmare Moon paused, looking thoughtful. “Not that you had a chance to begin with, but you still wasted a prime opportunity.” This was the time when I really needed to come up with some kind of clever quip, to really let her know that I was still on top of things. “Well… Forgive me for underestimating you,” I said, flipping my mane with a hoof and trying to disguise my fear. “It seems like I’ll have to make an actual effort to get rid of you.” “Are you sure that’s what you want?” Nightmare Moon asked. “After all, you fear Celestia even more than you fear me.” “Maybe,” I said, looking at the other ponies. The ones who hadn’t fled, anyway. There was still a respectable crowd around us. Nothing brings ponies together like watching a building burn down. “But you know what? I’m pretty sure all these ponies want her back, and foiling your scheme seems like the perfect way to remind them that I’m the strongest unicorn in all of Equestria!” I only had one real chance. My first strike had been a critical mistake, but I hadn’t missed. I’d totally underestimated her natural magical presence. Every creature had a certain amount of magic inherent in them, just from being alive, and the more powerful a creature’s magic was, the more easily it would resist spells. Nightmare Moon was surrounded with an aura of magic so powerful that my spells weren’t even reaching her, just quenched by her might like throwing a torch into a river. Against something like that, I had to do something stupid and put enough mana into one spell to break through to her. My normal fireballs would never reach her, no matter how many of them I overlapped on her at once. I was going to have to take Clover’s Compression to its theoretical limit and put so much mana into a spell that something was sure to explode. If I was really lucky, it wouldn’t be me. I compressed every bit of free mana I had and threw it at Nightmare Moon. I didn’t hold anything back - I could feel my horn burn red-hot as the feedback started to overwhelm even my own protective enchantments. A bolt of white and gold plasma flew at her, and I saw her eyes widen with surprise just before it hit. There was blinding light, and I heard Nightmare Moon scream. “There! How do you like that?” I panted. “That’d be enough to… to…” “To burn my mane,” Nightmare Moon hissed. As my eyes cleared from the flare, I could see that she was seething with anger, and that I’d managed to shorten her mane considerably. It was way less damage than I’d expected to do. I had a sinking feeling that maybe, just maybe, trying to fight something that could beat Celestia was out of my league. “I think it might be time for my other secret technique,” I said. I looked at the others and smiled weakly before turning and running. I made it almost across the street before Nightmare Moon grabbed me with the ragged remnants of her mane, lifting me off of the ground and dragging me back towards her. I didn’t even have enough magic left to pretend to put up a resistance. “Well I think I’m going to make an example out of you,” Nightmare Moon growled. I felt something like ice crawl up my horn, a terrible cold numbness. It was like having a magic restraining ring on, but dirty and awful feeling. I tried to look up towards it. She grabbed my head and forced me to look into her eyes. “I know just the place to put you,” Nightmare Moon said. The ground dropped out from under me. Even with my horn feeling deadened, I could tell that she’d opened a portal. I met Twilight’s eyes as I sank into the black pit below me, like falling into a pool of tar. I’d never seen fear like that on a pony’s face. I think she was even more afraid than I was. I tried to reach out to her, but the shadows overtook me before I could do more than raise my hoof. I groaned as I woke up with the biggest headache I’d had in years. This was good news. I wasn’t dead yet, and I swore a promise to Harmony itself that I was never going to complain about a hangover again if it meant I’d get out of this mess alive. I opened my eyes and looked around. I was in a cell. Wonderful. There was barely any light, and I could only just see my hooves in front of my face. I reached up and touched my horn. It was still there. With the cold and the feeling of wrongness, I’d been afraid Nightmare Moon had simply torn if off. It still being there was good. The crystals growing out of it, however, were distinctly bad. There was only one way to find out how bad it was. I took a deep breath. I’d start with a simple light spell. If it worked, I’d know I could still do magic, and I’d be able to see my cell. “Casting spells will only make it worse,” warned a voice said from the shadows behind me. I froze up at the familiar, calm tones. “Celestia?” I whispered, almost paralyzed with fear. No wonder Nightmare Moon had thrown here here. If she really knew my fears, she’d hit the big one. The one that had dominated my whole life for a decade. A mote of golden light appeared, and there she was, reclining in the darkness with apparent calm and ease, despite the black crystals growing from her horn and the cell we were both trapped in. “This isn’t- I didn’t-” I backed away from her as she stood up to her full, imposing height, looming over me, big enough that her horn almost scraped the roof of our shared cell. I didn’t get far before she was on me, and I closed my eyes in terror, not wanting to see. “Oh Sunset, I’m so sorry…” Celestia sighed, as she held me. Warm wings wrapped around me, and I felt her chin rest on the top of my head, the Princess nuzzling into my mane. “She didn’t hurt you, did she?” This was the moment I’d been dreading for years. The time when all of my sins were going to come back to haunt me. Part of me had been preparing for this for as long as I could remember. There were a million things I wanted to say. Thousands of conversations I’d had with myself in the dark. Hundreds of justifications for what I’d done. All of it shattered along with my composure. “I-I’m s-s-sorrryyy…” I sobbed, bawling my eyes out and hiding my face in my hooves. Celestia held me tighter to her chest and rocked me like a foal. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Celestia said. “I’m proud of you. You’ve become the type of mare I always wanted you to be.” “I-I didn’t listen to you, a-and I was an awful student, and I-I ran away and hid instead of admitting that I’d done anything wrong!” I sniffled. “You’ve grown up a lot since then,” Celestia said, almost whispering. “The hardest thing was not being there with you to see it, but you needed to find your own path, and I am very, very proud of you for doing just that.” I sniffled and rubbed my nose so it wouldn’t smear all over my former teacher’s coat. “I… I missed you a lot, too,” I admitted. It was a difficult thing to say. “But I couldn’t face you after I failed you…” “When a pony doesn’t learn, it’s the teacher’s fault just as much as the student’s,” Celestia said. “I wasn’t able to help you understand why having friends was so important, and the way you were treating other ponies, you were turning out just like…” “Like Luna?” I guessed. “Or Nightmare Moon, I guess, now.” I’d learned a lot about her from the books in the castle, though not about what they’d actually fought about. The castle had been abandoned before those books had been written, I suppose. “No,” Celestia shook her head. “Luna valued friendship and love far more than I did. She was close to her subjects. You were turning out the way I used to be. Self-centered, arrogant, paranoid, and caring more about numbers and statistics than ponies. I had to lose the most important pony in my life before I realized how far I’d fallen, and then spend almost a thousand years alone, trying to make up for my mistakes.” “B-but…” I couldn’t imagine Celestia like that. “I’m glad you were able to make friends, Sunset. I didn’t want you to end up as lonely as I was.” Her voice caught, just a little. Other ponies might have missed it. Only a hoofful had spent enough time with her to tell how she felt when she was trying to hide it. “We should focus on how to get out of here,” I said, trying to pull away. I wasn’t sure I could handle her getting emotional. I wasn’t sure I could handle her at all. “Escape is close to impossible,” Celestia sighed, taking a deep breath and putting her calm mask back on securely. “Unfortunately, this prison was built to contain an alicorn.” The mote of light she’d created brightened, and I could see we were in a spherical chamber, roughly hewn out of some dark stone. “I’m not even sure where we are,” I muttered. “I’ve never seen stone like this.” “We’re on the dark side of the moon,” Celestia said. It took me a few moments to process that. “T-the-” That was bad. So bad I was finding it difficult to articulate the sheer badness of it. Even if I had all of my magic, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get back on my own. “We’re doomed!” Celestia laughed lightly. “We’re not doomed.” “We’re stuck in a prison on the dark side of the moon, our magic is almost entirely sealed away, and your evil, all-powerful sister is trying to destroy the world. In what way are we not doomed?!” “Don’t you trust that your friends will find a way to save you?” Celestia raised an eyebrow. “With what? The Elements of Harmony? Nopony even knows where they are! ...Except you.” I hesitated. “But that doesn’t help Twilight either. It’s not like she can pop up here and ask.” “Well, I left them somewhere out of the way,” Celestia coughed. “You might have seen them before.” “What?” Now I was confused. She leaned down and whispered into my ear, as if afraid others would overhear. “MY FOYER?!” “Technically my foyer, though property law might disagree since you’ve been living there for so long.” Celestia laughed gently. “And you just left them there?! What if she went and smashed them?” I huffed and lowered my head to rest it on the floor. “You need to stop leaving ancient artifacts lying around where anypony could stumble across them.” “It does get to be a bad habit,” Celestia admitted. “But the Elements are special. They can’t be so easily destroyed or misused. I’ve had a thousand years of experience with them that she lacks, and I learned just enough to know to trust them.” “I guess,” I groaned. Celestia pulled me into another hug, squeezing me like I was a soft toy instead of a full-grown mare. “You know, I was convinced you were dead for the longest time,” Celestia said. “And then I saw your journal buzzing, and I almost dropped the sun right into the ocean, which would have been quite embarrassing.” “Have you ever…?” I trailed off. “Once. It was after Luna left, and I was a little… tipsy. I’d been drinking with Emperor Zephyranthes to try and forget, and I dropped it into a valley. It took two days to find it again and two more to dig it out of the rock that it had melted into. It was the final straw in ending the solar cycle for measuring the day, and when clocks started to become more popular than sundials.” “You’re kidding,” I snorted. “There’s no way that happened.” “It’s true!” Celestia said. “Ever since then, I’ve hired maids who were sworn to make sure I woke up on time. The first century was the most difficult. I’d been raising and setting the sun whenever I wanted, and to suddenly be expected to follow a schedule, well, I didn’t like it very much at all.” “You made me get up at five in the morning every day!” “If I have to get up early to raise the sun, so does everypony else,” Celestia huffed. I couldn’t help but start laughing again. For just a little while, it was like all those years hadn’t happened. The air was starting to get stuffy. I wasn’t sure how long we’d been trapped. A few hours, maybe? It couldn’t have been more than half a day. My head was pounding, and it was getting hard to concentrate. Celestia just held me, and I wasn’t sure if she was even breathing. Did an alicorn need to breathe? Nightmare Moon had been banished here for a thousand years, and she was obviously still alive. Then again, Nightmare Moon had presumably had her magic. If I had access to my magic, running out of air wouldn’t have been an issue. I could have created air - a pyromancer had to make sure her flames could burn, after all, and I’d only made the mistake of using fire magic in an enclosed room once. I started coughing, choking on the stale air. Celestia rubbed my back until the fit passed. “P-princess…” I gasped. “Shh.” She put a hoof on my snout, silencing me. “Don’t speak. Save your strength.” “N-no,” I said, trying to focus through the pain and haze. “I n-need to say this, in case I don’t get out of here.” “We’ll be fine,” Celestia said, holding me tighter. “I’m prolly gonna pass out soon, and then…” I shivered. “I just… I love you, a-and I wish you were my real mom.” I sniffled and wiped my eyes. “I’m sorry I messed things up a-and that I didn’t listen to you! If I’d tried making friends with Cadance a-and other ponies like you told me, none of this would have happened!” “You’re right. None of it would have happened,” Celestia said, running a hoof through my mane and trying to calm me down. “But you’re not just the product of your successes, Sunset. The mistakes we make turn us into better ponies, as long as we learn from them. If you hadn’t left Canterlot, you might not have ever met your friends.” “But I messed things up with you…” “And as soon as we’re back, we can start fixing that.” “In another hour-” “No worrying about that,” Celestia said, firmly. “You’re going to be fine, Sunset. Harmony wouldn’t bring us together like this just to play a cruel trick.” I bit back a response to that and curled up, trying to relax. I knew if I went to sleep, I’d use less air and, well, maybe I’d just fade away instead of struggling. It would be easier on both of us. It wouldn’t be so bad, and at least in the end I’d made peace with the problems I’d caused. That was when the bright, shining light almost blinded me, and I felt the cold crawling sensation along my horn fizzle out with a static pop. There should have been some kind of fanfare or warning. Instead I found myself falling face first into a stone floor. It looked familiar, though my vision was still blurry and everything was painfully bright. Then I got to see it up close. Thankfully I hadn’t fallen far, and my pride was wounded worse than my nose. “Ow,” I mumbled, rubbing at my snout. “Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia sighed with relief. “I knew you could do it.” I rubbed my eyes and looked around. We were in the old court room, in one of the more ruined parts of the castle. “At least I got a free ride home,” I muttered. “Sunset! Princess Celestia!” I turned and had no time at all to prepare myself before Twilight threw her hooves around me and tackled me in a hug. “You’re okay!” Behind her were five other ponies, kneeling to the Princess. I was shocked to see all of my friends there. Even Fluttershy, who I never thought would go into the Everfree. “Of course I am,” I said, my voice cracking. “It takes more than an evil goddess to take me down for good.” I decided not to tell her how close it had been. “Both of you told me it was only an old ponytale,” Twilight frowned. “I’m willing to admit I was wrong,” I shrugged. “About a lot of things.” “Twilight, I didn’t say you were wrong,” Celestia smirked. “I just said you needed to make some friends. I saw the signs of Nightmare Moon’s return, and I knew you had the magic inside you to make the Elements of Harmony whole again. However, you would never be able to unleash it unless you let the magic of friendship into your heart.” Twilight looked back to our friends. I must have been more out of it than I thought, because I only just noticed then that she had a tiara, and that the others all had rather elaborate necklaces. “I don’t remember those hanging around the castle,” I said, raising an eyebrow and looking at my old teacher. “The Elements have taken on a new form, now that their magic has been rekindled,” Celestia explained. “I’m sure Twilight will want to do quite a bit of research on the significance of that, and on the magic of friendship.” She looked towards the throne, where the dust of some massive magical blast was still clearing. “And there’s another pony here who needs a hoof of friendship extended to her more than anypony.” Surprisingly, she didn’t mean me. “Princess Luna,” Celestia said, flapping her wings to clear away the sparkling dust. “It’s time we put our differences aside.” Among shattered bits of armor and fading embers of magical debris, a pony cowered from Celestia. She didn’t look like the strong equal that the tapestries and books depicted. Luna seemed like little more than a terrified foal. A terrified, powerful, immortal foal, mind you. But still a foal. “We were meant to rule together,” Celestia said, stepping towards her. "Wait!" I yelled. "That's one of the places I-" Celestia's hoof came down, and a circle of runes lit up. Her eyes went wide. I wish I had a picture of her expression at that moment, her defenses totally down as she stepped into a trap she hadn't expected. I'd never once surprised her like that as her student. "GET TO COVER!" I screamed, diving behind an overturned table. Twilight put up a magical shield, something she was better at than I was. Of course, I was a lot better with explosive spells. We were about to see just which talent was stronger. The runes exploded under Celestia, and the roof caved in above her. A wave of fire and broken rock slammed into the table I was hiding behind, the ancient wood shattering. I did the only thing I could think of, and threw a fireball down at my own hooves, blasting debris away from me. I wasn't kidding when I said that you had to fight fire with fire sometimes. "What I was saying was, that was one of the places I trapped in case you came looking for me," I coughed, rubbing with a hoof to try and clear the dust and ash from my face. Sunlight poured into the room through the broken walls and roof, the explosion having reduced a significant part of this wing to rubble. "So much for my castle..." "I'm okay!" Twilight yelled, as she pushed rubble away. Celestia pulled herself out of the rubble from where she'd thrown herself on top of Nightmare Moon. Or Princess Luna. Whatever she was, now. Celestia was scorched and disheveled. "Well," Celestia said, adjusting her crown. I'd managed to actually dent it. "I think perhaps we should continue this somewhere else? Perhaps in town? I remember a festival being prepared before these rather interesting events." "Assumin' Sunset didn't blow all of it up along with Town Hall," Applejack muttered. Dash snickered behind her, patting her on the back. "Maybe a little too honest, AJ," Dash said. "I bet I know somepony who can put a party together with what ponies will donate and what we can salvage," Rarity said, smiling at Pinkie. Pinkie gasped. "Is it me?!" Rarity nodded. Pinkie bounced up, grinning. "I'm gonna make it the best party ever!"