20| The Final Ingredient
3pm the following day...
Celestia strode through the dampened stone corridors underneath Canterlot, accompanied by a Solar guard leading the way. She knew her castle like the back of her hoof, although the guard was a precautionary measure. Celestia knew how to handle herself if the need were to arise, but the less-than-model citizens that resided within these halls wouldn't hesitate at an opportunity to maim a lonesome princess if given the chance. With a guard by her side, the prisoners only gave sneering glances or shouted vulgarities in her direction.
Arriving at her destination, Celestia turned to face the occupant of this particular cell. The guard stood off to her left with a ring of various keys floating in his magic.
Joseph was reclined on the fold-down cot in the room, hooves crossed behind his head. His pose suggested he was resting rather comfortably on the mattress. "Well if it isn't God Almighty herself," Joseph taunted.
Ignoring his attempt to get a raise out of her, Celestia wordlessly motioned to the guard with a nod of her head to open the cell door.
"Woah woah, hold up there," Joseph began, sitting up. "You planning on letting me out?"
"That is the idea, yes," Celestia said.
He smirked. "Little Celly scared that Chrysalis might actually go through you to get me?" Joseph taunted, his smirk widening. "You're only letting me out to save your own ass; you're just scared of her as much as anyone else is."
Dismissing Joseph again, Celestia said; "I shall be releasing you conditionally."
"Under what pretence?"
The corner of her nose curled as she suppressed a desire to mouth off at him in the same manner befitting of someone so contemptuous. "You would do well to remember whose company you are in."
"Is that it? You expect me to kowtow to you?"
"You fail to understand that I can keep you here for as long as I see fit. Outside of a hoof-ful of ponies, nopony else knows you're here."
Joseph’s eyes flickered as if deciding to tell her something he did but otherwise shouldn’t have. His smirk vanished at Celestia's statement, but returned just as quickly for what he had in mind.
The keys clinked as they came into contact with the cold steel of the cell door at the behest of Celestia, but once again, Joseph stopped the guard.
"Do you wish to remain in here?" Celestia queried, somewhat agitated by his stalling. "Twilight wrote me saying she's expecting you at the Nightmare Night festival in Ponyville this evening. Would you disappoint her?"
"Oh, by no means do I intend on staying here longer than necessary. I'm just savouring this moment."
"Pray tell... why?"
"Well... I can see you're a bit agitated... Annoyed... Uptight... At what I couldn't care less, but something you said yesterday when you put me in here made me think." Celestia simply raised a curious eyebrow. “You said: "Your level of magic is no hope in getting out of there", which is quite true, I certainly couldn't, but Nightmare Moon has the capabilities." Celestia visibly stiffened, looking down her muzzle through narrowed eyes at Joseph. "You said I'm free to go, right?"
"...Yes," she said with an air of caution.
"Then I bid you farewell. I'm off to a festival!" And with that, Joseph's horn charged with magic, and in a brilliant white flash, he disappeared, leaving lingering particles of magic that glittered in mid air which soon dissipated.
Celestia just stood, dumbfounded, bemused, and thoroughly angry, staring at where Joseph once laid.
2pm, Ponyville, an hour prior...
Twilight Sparkle was walking through the streets of Ponyville, excitedly taking in all the festivities the town had to offer. A lot of the stores had put up 'spooky' decorations; jack-o-lanterns, fake spiderwebs, and tomb stones to name but a few.
Rarity had offered to help make Twilight a costume for the night, but she’d respectfully turned it down. Twilight had her own vision of how she wanted her costume to look, and seeing some of the costumes Rarity had made earlier dissuaded Twilight from the offer.
Rarity had been prettying up otherwise scary costumes. A werewolf costume with groomed and conditioned fur, and a mummy with sparkling wrappings. Twilight couldn't help but wonder why she was doing that. After all, it was a night meant for freaks and ghouls, not sparkly mummies that could've passed themselves off as walking disco balls.
She had her own costume ready to put together back at the treehouse, but she just needed some help sewing a few things together. Put off from Rarity's help for fearing she'd embellish it unnecessarily, Twilight opted to recruit Fluttershy's uncanny sewing abilities to finish the outfit.
On her way home from having gone shopping for some treats for any trick-or-treaters, she offloaded the candy to Spike to carry. Rather predictably, he'd not so covertly opened one of the bags and was snacking on it when he thought Twilight wasn't looking.
For some of the store owners, they closed their shops a little earlier than normal to set up stalls selling Nightmare Night themed trinkets and snacks where the bigger crowd would be gathered tonight: Town Square.
Twilight was too busy drinking in all the sights that she didn't notice when she bumped into an oncoming pony!
"Oh, sorry!" she exclaimed, but on looking at the pony in question, quickly saw it was Applejack.
"Twilight!" Applejack beamed. "Checkin' out the festivities are ya?"
"Mmhmm! Everything looks amazing." Her gaze turned to the cart the farm pony was hauling. "What are all the barrels for?"
"They're for the festival. Settin' up some fun games for all the colts and fillies!" Applejack said, continuing to walk through town as Twilight followed. "Pumpkin tossin', spider throwin', and apple bobbin', which is what the barrels are for."
"Pumpkin tossing? Wouldn't that be a waste of food?"
"Naw, these pumpkins are old. We scrape up what we can and feed 'em to the pigs. No wasted vegetables here!"
"Technically, Applejack, pumpkins are a fruit..."
"Say what now?"
"Pumpkins, tomatoes, anything with seeds inside of it is a fruit."
"Uh huh..." Having arrived at her chosen destination for the evening, Applejack gruffly unhitched the cart. "Well, Ah've got work to do. Catapults to set up, barrels to fill..." Going off the mare's current attitude, Twilight wasn't sure if Applejack was being discreetly callous, or if there was a lot of weight in the cart she was hauling.
"Alright then, Applejack, I'll go finish my costume. I'll see you soon!" As Applejack got to work, Twilight and Spike set off towards the library.
As they passed back through Town Square, they saw the main stage being set up, something the town assembled when a show was going to be put on. Keeping an eye out for Mayor Mare, Twilight spied her over by the stage looking through a scroll.
"Mayor Mare!" she called out. The mare in question glanced up from her scroll through the top of her glasses, her expression lightening up.
"Twilight Sparkle! What can I help you with?"
"I was... just wondering if you had a spare list of the performances tonight. I just want to plan my time between each one so I can see them all," she said, although a bit sheepishly.
"I don't have a spare copy, sorry, but I can tell you there's only two scheduled performances: Trixie Lulamoon the magician, and music for the festivities by Vinyl Scratch." The mayor ran the tip of her hoof a bit down the list. "Trixie should be here in a few hours, and Vinyl is on her way back with some more of her equipment. Ah, there she is!" Over Twilight's shoulder, Mayor Mare caught sight of Vinyl pulling a cart with the remainder of her equipment loaded in the tray.
"Thank you, Mayor."
"Have a spooky nightmare night!"
Twilight made her way over to Vinyl to ask; "Excuse me, I was just wondering what time you'll be playing tonight..."
"Oh hey there! I just need to connect these speakers with the rest of the stuff, make sure everything else is properly connected, run a couple tests with the sound and speakers, than I should be ready to go in... about an hour or so?"
"Thanks, I'll be back once I've got my costume organised."
"That reminds me, I've got somepony joining me later! I tell ya, she blew the club away I was at in Canterlot the other week!"
"Then I should really get my costume finished so I can be back on time to catch the two of you. By the way, who is it?"
"It's a secret," Vinyl said with a wink.
Twilight just grinned, bade Vinyl farewell, located Spike—who ran off to check out a couple of the stalls—and made her way back to the library to finish her costume. She had everything she needed, so she just needed to take it over to Fluttershy's so she could help fix it up in time. Spike already made his costume, so it was just a matter of putting it on, something Twilight could help with later.
By the time Twilight was finished at Fluttershy's, they had just enough time to get home and put everything on. Arriving home, the two of them went into the kitchen, Twilight for a drink and Spike so he could offload the candy onto the counter. He hurried out the kitchen and headed upstairs, much to Twilight's confusion.
"You're supposed to put the candy in a bowl, not on the counter, Spike!"
"Bathroom!" he called back down, shutting the door behind him.
Twilight went upstairs to her room to change, but stopped when she stood in the doorway. Her bedroom window was wide open, the closet door ajar, and something was moving around in it.
"Did you put your costume in my closet, Spike?" she asked, gaze flicking between the open window and the closet.
Suddenly, the rustling stopped. "Spike..." Twilight said cautiously.
"This isn't funny." All of a sudden, the closet doors slammed shut, startling her.
"What are you doing in there, Spike?!" She took hold of the handles with her magic, yanking them open. Just clothes hanging on hangers and a couple boxes of miscellaneous items.
But what caught her eye was half of the hangars were pushed forward from the back of the closet.
Something was hiding behind the clothes.
Having finished up his ‘business’, Spike went downstairs to keep an eye on the door for trick-or-treaters, taking the opportunity to put on his costume. And helping himself to more candy, of course. A couple minutes later, he heard something fall over in Twilight's room, so he hurried up to her.
"Twilight, are you ok? I heard something fall!"
"I'm—uhn!—fine, Spike! This... costume—" something smashes "—is just a bit difficult—oof!— to put on!"
More shuffling, the sound of whatever broke being put into the rubbish bin, something slamming shut, and then Twilight opened the door. She stood proud—although a little flustered—adorned in a blue robe with moons and stars patterned all over, and hat that also had bells around its edges.
"Uh... Are you supposed to be that one creepy grandpa from Ponyville Retirement Village?" Spike ventured.
"I'm Starswirl the Bearded!" she dryly shot back. "Did you read that book I gave you about obscure unicorn history?"
"Isn't it a bit early to go walking through Ponyville wearing a costume? It's almost three. Everything should be set up by four at the earliest. Why not just wait for a bit?"
"Not a chance, Spike, I want to make sure I can see and do everything. Now, let me help you into your costume so we don’t miss anything." She was half way through helping Spike into his costume when a flick of something in the middle of the room out of the corner of Spike’s eye caught his attention.
He nudged Twilight with an elbow, saying; “What’s that?” Two sets of eyes narrowed at it, trying to figure out what it was, and in that instant, a field of magic materialised with a thunderous crack. As the magical field dissolved, it unceremoniously deposited its target in the middle of the room with a thud, and an “oof” from the one in question.
Joseph took a moment to right himself, supporting his head as he stood up to try and deal with the wave of nausea coursing through him. With a lurch of his stomach, Joseph clambered for the stairs and ran for the toilet, ignoring Twilight and Spike’s confused and alarmed stares.
“Joseph?!” she exclaimed, hurrying after him with Spike running after the two of them. They both stopped as they both found Joseph with his head buried in the ceramic bowl, depositing his breakfast of porridge and toast into the once white basin.
"How did you... What did you... Huh?" Twilight balked.
"I'm never going to get used to that..." Joseph said groggily, pulling off a length of toilet paper to clean what caught around his mouth.
Twilight looked at Joseph, her expression a mixture of surprise and disbelief. Mostly disbelief. "How... How did you manage to teleport?"
"Ugh... I didn't. I had Moonie do it for me."
"You had Nightmare Moon cast a spell for you!?” she hissed “That's dangerous!"
"Where else is she gonna send me? Back to Earth? Oh no, please don't send me home!" He punctuated his sarcasm with a roll of his eyes, then promptly flushed the loo. "I need some food after that. And a drink. Got anything good?"
"First you're telling me exactly how you ended up here!"
"Can you go get me some food while Twilight gives me the third degree?" Joseph asked, craning his neck to look at the drake behind Twilight. He nodded his head and fled down the stairs. Despite Twilight's scathing glare, Joseph recounted the last week, leading up to the last twenty-four hours or so. "Well lets see... I've been reeking for a week; kept getting hit on; then Celestia 'summoned' me; called her a cunt; got arrested after the fact; got tossed in jail overnight, and while I was on the inside, I asked Nightmare Moon to teleport me here after Celestia said I was free to go, just so I could wipe that smarmy little grin off her face."
"You can't talk to Celestia like that!" Twilight exclaimed, the corner of her eye beginning to twitch in exasperation of having to deal with Joseph. "Won't she be looking for you?"
"Twilight, understand that she said I was free to go. I told her not to open the cell so I could stick it to her after I teleported out. Just me being an asshole. What's she gonna do if she finds me? Send me to the moon? Pfft. Anyway, since I'm here, I should get cleaned up for the festival tonight." With all that out of the way, he finally gave Twilight enough attention to see what she was wearing. He squinted at the outfit, trying to figure out what she was supposed to be. "...Merlin?"
"Ugh!" Her frustration was punctuated by glowering at Joseph. After all, having somebody teleport into your house will tend to leave a sour taste in your mouth. Especially if that someone was Nightmare Moon incarnate.
In that moment, Spike came back up the stairs with two apples and a banana in one hand, and a glass of milk in the other. Joseph grinned a bit at seeing the fruit, but Twilight was less than reluctant to let Spike past, so Joseph just levitated it through the door. He just sat on the floor, looking at Twilight, who was still behaving like a mother would.
"So... You gonna move or what? Neither you nor I want to miss out on this, do we?"
Twilight trotted back down the stairs with a huff, leaving Joseph and Spike snickering in her wake.
"Girls, am I right?" Joseph said with a grin. That just made Spike giggle harder. "What?" he inquired.
"Uhm, dude..."
"What?" Spike bit his lip to keep from laughing too loud. "What!?" Joseph demanded. And then it dawned on him. "Oh... OH! Shut up!" Spike couldn't help but laugh on his way downstairs.
An hour or so later, after Twilight had an opportunity to calm herself down properly and readjust her costume, and after Joseph properly cleaned up and ate, the trio made their way into Ponyville a little after four.
"So what's the haps around here tonight?" Joseph said to break the silence during their walk into town.
"Ex…cuse me? Twilight asked in confusion.
"I think he wants to know what's going on tonight," Spike amended.
"Us guys understand each other." Joseph gave Spike a grin as if to say 'yeah bro', which he returned.
"...Right. There's two performances tonight: a magic show in a few hours by one Trixie Lulamoon, and Vinyl Scratch is going to be playing some music. She's a musician."
"Oh, I know who she is. Ran into her in a club in Canterlot. She's cool."
Twilight's eyes widened as her brain put together the pieces that Vinyl told her a couple hours ago. "Wait... You DJ'd with her at a club in Canterlot?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"She said she was expecting a guest to show up tonight. That wouldn't happen to be you, would it?"
“I don’t remember. I was too busy up on stage with Vinyl mixing music and the crowd roaring,” he said with a grin.
Twilight growled in annoyance towards Joseph, giving him a scathing glare before sighing in resignation. "Let’s... Let’s just get to the stage so we can see Vinyl perform," Twilight finished with an exasperated sigh.
Joseph, Twilight, and Spike arrived at the main stage in due time, on which Vinyl had her stereo equipment setup. Another pony, a lighter blue unicorn stallion, stood next to her over the mixing board, and each had one half of the cups of the headphones, twisting them to fit over their ears while they rocked their hooves with indecisiveness at whatever they were listening to.
Joseph saw Vinyl suddenly perk up and tugged her hoof down as if to say "Aw yes!", and then the other pony high-fived them. Or... whatever these ponies did.
'What do you call high-fiving here?'
Nightmare rolled her eyes internally. Hoof bump, I suppose, or whatever those kids call it these days.
'Foreign customs are about as funny as they are weird.'
Joseph watched as Vinyl’s eyes scanned out over the crowd, and she pushed her glasses down the bridge of her nose to look over the top at them more clearly, trying to spy someone in particular. Eventually she spied Joseph, or as she knew him, Eclipse. She smiled broadly and frantically gestured while mouthing "come here!" to him. He eventually saw what she was doing and double checked around him to make sure she wasn't gesturing to someone next to him.
Joseph grinned widely at Twilight as he made his way over to the stage, and up the stairs on the left. Joseph kept looking sideways at Twilight, giving her a sense of unease. She’d mentioned she knew about his exploits at the club, although not all of them, so messing with her was a bit of fun. Joseph made his way back through the crowd, noticing Rarity and Rainbow Dash walking up from behind Twilight to her.
As Joseph turned away from Vinyl, she put her headphones on, flicked a few more switches and twiddled a few more knobs, then took the headphones off to hang around her neck. When he turned back, he gestured for her to come over to the four of them. Rarity and Rainbow watched with baited anticipation.
"Hey everypony!” Vinyl said as she cantered over. “Eclipse and I have one heck of a show planned in a little bit!"
"So tell me, Vinyl, what exactly did you two do in the club in Canterlot?" Twilight queried.
"All I can say is wow! I hired somepony to dress up as Nightmare Moon—" Twilight visibly stiffened and her eyes glued themselves to Vinyls words henceforth "—but she showed up late. It wasn't until I went out on stage dressed up as Nightmare Moon in the outfit I supplied that Eclipse here literally stole the show with her costume of her! I tell ya, it looked so real!"
All eyes were drawn to Joseph after that, and he just smugly huffed a breath onto a hoof and mockingly polished it against his chest. "Yeah, I know a thing or two..."
"Well," Vinyl said excitedly, "can you show us what else you can do?"
"Yeah! Ba-bawk! Show us!" Pinkie inexplicably appeared next to Joseph, her uncannily accurate chicken's crow startling him.
"Where the hell did you come from?!" Joseph exclaimed, jumping back a step.
"My mom, silly!"
"Just..." He sighed in exasperation and looked Pinkie up and down. "What are you supposed to be? A giant cock?"
"No, I'm a chicken. Ba-kawk!" She lept up and drill-pecked at Joseph's mane, and he responded by furiously batting the mare out of his personal space.
"What the hell?!"
Pinkie planted all four hooves back on the ground, the twisty end of several pieces of candy in her 'beak'. "You had these in your mane!"
"No, Pinkie, I didn't, I can tell you that for a fact." He turned to Twilight, Rarity, and Rainbow, all while Vinyl was stifling a laugh behind a hoof. "Is she always like this?"
"I've lived in Ponyville most of my life, and I still don't know how Pinkie does what she does," Rarity said admittedly, giving Pinkie a confused glance as she scarfed the candy.
"Yeah," Rainbow added, "she's weird like that."
"That is not..." Joseph looked around for the aforementioned mare, but she had already run off to who-knows-where. "...natural?" he finished awkwardly.
"Look at it like this, dear: don't think about it too hard," Rarity amended, trying to make Joseph more at ease with a soft pat on the back.
"Anyway," Vinyl piped up, "I'll start my show at five when most of the ponies will have started to explore the festival a bit more. That shouldn't take until a little after five, so come back before then so you can put on your costume, alright?" she directed at Joseph.
"Sounds good to me."
"Awesome! See you fillies in half an hour."
As Vinyl made her way back to the stage, Rarity turned to Twilight and asked; "You wouldn't have happened to see Sweetie Belle and her friends around, have you?"
Before she could get two words out, Rainbow said; "I saw them hauling a cart towards Sweet Apple Acres."
"She could at least tell me what she's doing! She's been behaving rather strangely recently..." Rarity groaned with frustration and concern. "I can't look after her and put on my outfit at the same time!"
"I still haven't put mine on yet either!" Rainbow added.
"Well, what are you supposed to be going as then?"
"Shhh, it's a secret," Pinkie's voice said. Despite three heads looking every which way, she was nowhere to be found.
"She's probably the most scary person here," Joseph said, his voice taking on a frightened edge.
"Twilight," Rarity practically begged, "Would you mind making sure she's not in any trouble for me, please?"
Joseph could just tell that Twilight was torn between wanting to make sure her friend's sister is alright, and wanting to peruse everything the stalls and games had to offer.
"I got time to kill, I'll go. Just point me in the right direction," Joseph said.
She glanced around and stuck her hoof down a large street ponies were beginning to file out from, some dressed up while others weren't. "Head west to the school and take the road south, you should get there soon enough. I just need to know she's alright, so after you do that come by my boutique and let me know."
"Alright, see you in a bit." With a curt nod of goodbye, Joseph began to follow Rarity's directions. He headed down the main street, trying not to get lost as he made his way to the school. He hadn't seen it before, but he doubted a school would be hard to miss. Rarity's directions were a bit off, as when Joseph reached the outskirts of town, he came to a small river a hundred or so metres away from the edge of town, but no school. He asked a pony at random where it was, and they pointed out across the river and down some three hundred metres.
"It looks like a barn and has a belfry," they said.
"Cheers," Joseph replied, continuing on his path. The school itself was quaint and out of the way of a lot of the town's traffic, so he began following the dirt road towards the farm, hoping he'd conveniently run into the three fillies. As he was coming up to the main entrance to the farm, he thankfully saw the fillies sitting on the ground fiddling with a bunch of dowel rods sharpened at one end, three rolls of tape, and a cart loaded with fireworks sitting behind them.
"Nuh uh, it goes like this!" Scootaloo exclaimed, taking one of the dowel rods, holding a firework against it, wrapping it with tape, and plunging the sharpened end into the dirt.
Joseph cringed as he saw this. The firework was only loosely attached and fell off when Scootaloo stabbed the rod into the ground.
"Awww," she groaned. "Why won't it stay on?"
"You're not wrapping it tight enough is why," Joseph said, catching the three of them off guard. They spun around to look at him as he walked up to them.
"I know you, you're that mare from school the other week!" Apple Bloom exclaimed. "What're you doing here?"
"I volunteered, at the behest of Rarity, to come see if you three were alright. Glad I did, 'cause it looks like you're liable to blow yourselves to kingdom come. Are you trying to set up a fireworks display?"
“Yeah, but it ain’t going so well as you can see…” Apple Bloom said with a wave of her hoof over the pitiful attempt at a fireworks display.
"Shoot!" Sweetie Belle immediately exclaimed, drawing the attention of the other three, tossing dowel rods and tape to the ground.
"Can't get them to stick apparently. Here, let me show you." Joseph took one of the rockets, a rod, and one of the three rolls of tape. He held the rod parallel with the firework, firmly wrapping it in tape all up and down the body, leaving the fuse exposed, then sinking the sharpened end into the ground. "That's how you do it. Just hold it tight and be liberal with the tape. Don't half-ass it and expect it to work."
Wide-eyed, and looking like they had just re-discovered the wheel, they each grabbed a rocket, a rod, tape, and easily replicated what Joseph showed them. He supposed someone just needed to show them how to properly do it.
"Cool!" Apple Bloom exclaimed.
"We'll have these done in no time!" Scootaloo added.
"Do you just plan on sticking them into the ground to let them off?"
"Uh huh..." Sweetie Belle added nonchalantly, making up her third rocket.
"I got an idea for you. If you've got the time, build a frame that holds all of them in tubes, in rows and columns. That way none of them will fall over."
"Neat idea!" Scootaloo beamed.
Hold on a moment, Nightmare Moon interjected. Joseph’s mention of the frame caused her to recall a memory of what he called a ‘television’.
Upon hearing what she had to say, the idea bulb went off in Joseph's head. ’Do you want to use it against Chrysalis? Wouldn’t that be considered overkill?’
She's going to show up with an army of her changelings. Call it crowd control.
Grinning widely, much to the confusion of the crusaders, Joseph said; "Scratch that, here's a different idea. Still make the frame to hold the rockets, but mount it on the cart. Then you can adjust the angle so the whole town can see the display!" It was the truth, but at the same time it wasn't. He was feeling slightly conflicted at having these little fillies build such a thing, but if worse came to worse...
'Are you sure Chrysalis is going to show up tonight?'
Changelings are highly proficient at disguises. Costumes are an integral part of this festival, so she could likely waltz through town like you will be in ten minutes and nobody will be the wiser. Everyone will be in town, so what better place to initiate her plans in a place where she can keep everyone corralled?
'I still don't get why she'd come to this place. As much of a backwater town as this is, it doesn't make much sense.'
Taking care of threats such as you and the Elements is a priority.
'You've thought about this way too much, haven't you?'
When you've been on the moon for a thousand years there's not much else to do.
'You need to get out more.'
Easier said than done, she replied irately.
"Now I need to go tell Rarity the three of you are fine and making a fireworks display," Joseph said candidly.
"I'll see you in town later when we're done here!" Scootaloo said as Joseph turned to walk back to town.
Halfway there, he could see a couple spotlights waving their radiant beams from what he could only assume to be the main stage. The hustle and bustle had picked up a lot during the trip to the farm, but if Earth was anything to go by, people had a tendency to show up closer to the time to events which would result in the huge influx. He had a hard time and a half making his way to the stage over the cacophony of noise the crowd was making, and the music Vinyl had begun playing to pass the time. When she finally caught sight of him, she locked eyes with Joseph and mouthed "go around the back," with the flick of her head to the curtain.
"Alright everypony," she hollered into the microphone. "My special guest has arrived, so if you’ll excuse me momentarily while I go see to her, we'll be right out!"
Joseph quickly went up the stairs to backstage as Vinyl put on some music to mollify the agitated crowd. Not two seconds later, she came through the curtain. "Where've you been?" she asked impatiently.
"Had to take care of something. I'm here now."
"Great, just put your disguise on and then we can do a repeat performance from the club."
"Repeat? Why not something new?"
"You try writing new songs each time you hold a show!"
"Ok, ok,” Joseph acquiesced. “You do your thing and I'll do mine."
Joseph watched as Vinyl took a much needed calming breath and stepped towards the curtain. "Just be ready for their reactions." She smirked. “After all, it’s not everyday somepony like Nightmare Moon is seen DJ-ing,” she said flippantly, making her way back through the curtain and to the microphone.
"Alright everypony," Vinyl began as Joseph took off the disguise, "for tonight only, I give you the Mare in the Moon herself, Nightmare Moon!"
As Joseph walked through the curtain, Nightmare Moon said; If you want to stay true to my likeness, do and say what I tell you to make it as authentic as possible.
Much like the club in Canterlot, Joseph was greeted with a mixture of shocked gasps, worried murmurs, and general unease in the crowd as everyone whispered to each other. He noticed Vinyl awkwardly rub the back of her neck, not exactly getting the uproarious greeting she had hoped for.
Suddenly, Pinkie Pie jumped up from the back of the crowd and screamed; "It's Nightmare Moon! She's gonna eat us all!"
The hush-hush murmurs of the crowd became louder, more panicked screams as the ponies began backing away from Joseph and the stage as the whole crowd began to reel in alarm at Pinkie's statement.
"Quiet!" Joseph bellowed at Nightmare Moon's suggestion, the crowd doing so out of fear, awkwardly shuffling around as they tried to locate their loved ones. "Pinkie, you're a giant cock. I have no interest in eating you, or any of you for that matter,” he indicated with a wave of a foreleg over the crowd. “And besides," he continued, "if it really was Nightmare Moon, don't you think she would have tried doing something stupid by now?"
Joseph saw that the crowd was taken aback by what he said, looking to each other with confusion, almost like they expected Nightmare Moon to pull a fast one over them.
"No, I am someone Vinyl hired in Canterlot to DJ for her at a club, and asked me here tonight." It wasn't really the truth. Joseph was praying on the notion that Vinyl had hired someone to DJ originally, deceiving her into thinking it was the same person, and thus reinforcing to Vinyl and the crowd that it was just a costume. Vinyl seemed to relax a bit, as did the crowd. Speaking of the pony Vinyl originally hired, if she didn't arrive for whatever reason, what did ever happen to her? Lucky for Joseph, Vinyl wasn't attentive enough to realise that.
Joseph watched as Pinkie took her sweet time processing the information. "Oh, it's you! Hi Josie!"
He scowled at being called Josie, having already told Pinkie off for that. He turned his attention to Vinyl, nodding to tell her to ready the music and turned to address the crowd.
'Can you amplify my voice like a microphone?' Joseph asked Nightmare.
An easy spell. I'll cast it through you like the teleport, then just tell me when to turn it off, as it were.
"We've selected some appropriate music to kick this night off," Joseph said, his voice carrying over the crowd magnificently, as if Nightmare Moon herself were addressing her subjects in a slightly condescending manner. "Miss Scratch, if you could..."
She put on a display by flipping a few records out from underneath the turntable and slamming them onto the table. With Joseph grinning widely, Vinyl brought up her forehoof, on which was a button attached to a bracelet with an antenna.
As the first beat dropped, the entire stage gave a hiss as dry ice smoke began to pour and waft out from the gaps in Vinyl's setup. As the tempo picked up, so did the transformation of the soundstage, gears and mechanisms whirring in time with the music. The platform on which Joseph and Vinyl stood raised up from the floor on two pistons, connected to two panels magically weighted to the floor. Once raised fully, it descended on an angle to hang over the crowd, the serendipity clearly showing on all faces.
Minus the two speakers at either end of the main stage, the ends of the sound stage tilted down on an axis as two speakers began radiating hues of colourful, harmless beams of energy as they drifted over and dissipated when they hit the crowd.
“Alright everypony,” Vinyl shouted into the microphone over the music, let’s get this party started! she finished in tandem with Joseph, their voices carried above the music as the crown finally got into the spirit of the festivities, instead of letting the shock of the uncannily eerie look-alike of Nightmare Moon get to them.
For the good part of two hours, everyone began to enjoy the music and the festivities.
Towards the end of the performance, the full weight of the night’s atmosphere began to set in on the entire town. Fatigue in Joseph and Vinyl’s muscles finally made itself present. After the current song ended, Joseph waved his hoof over his neck, telling Vinyl to stop for a while. She pulled up the needles from the records and turned the volume down on everything.
“Alright everypony, now that all of you have had your fill of entertainment, Nightmare Moon and I are going to take an opportunity to check out what you guys have got going on tonight!” The crowd cheered in unanimous approval. “We’ll start back up a little bit after the magic show further down the track, so make sure you’re all back before then!” With the volume turned down, there was no residual feedback from the speakers as Vinyl cut the connection to the speakers and microphone with the flip of a few switches. She thumped the button mounted on her foreleg, and the soundstage returned to its original state before wheeling itself back behind the curtain to make room for Trixie’s performance.
The crowd began to dissipate as Joseph and Vinyl made their way behind the curtain.
“Wicked performance yet again!” Vinyl beamed as she and Joseph hoof-bumped.
"You know it!"
"I’m gonna go have some fun for a while, so I’ll see you back here in an hour for the magic show. After that finishes, we get to go on again!”
“We’ll see what happens,” Joseph said, discreetly indicating that he might change his mind.
Vinyl bade him farewell to go and enjoy the next couple hours on her own. With nobody else around that he could see, Joseph slipped the disguise back on. He went down the stairs and around the side, hoping nobody saw him put on the ring. He glanced both ways to confirm this and merged with the crowd on the street.
He made a brief stop at the Apples’ stand to pick up a toffee apple; having done his share of traveling before, he knew that walking along the streets with a snack or drink in hand helped tourists to blend in better with the locals.
He saw Pinkie zipping back and forth across the streets. She was taking the likeness of her costume too far by pecking at random places along the road. She was a strange one, that’s for sure, and Joseph found himself watching to see how long she’d carry on with the charade. He continued to follow Pinkie down one of the back alley streets. He had a time and a half keeping up with her; by the time he had entered the alley, she was already on the other side! And when he got to the exit of the street, he saw her hopping off into another alley!
How is she so fast? Joseph wondered as he followed the pink pony. It was peculiar to say the least, but then again so was he.
Finally arriving at the end of that alley, Joseph saw Pinkie on the opposite end of the street, walking into Sugarcube Corner. Something about this seemed off to Joseph; what could Pinkie want in a bakery that couldn’t possibly be for sale in the festival? He decided to wait outside to ask her, but by the time Joseph finished his apple Pinkie still hadn’t come out of the building.
As he debated saying “eh, fuck it” and going back to the festival, a weird slurping noise caught his attention. Rounding the corner, he saw the shadowy lump of one pony sitting on its haunches above another. The second pony was laying on their side, gasping with shallow, spasmodic breaths.
Joseph pressed himself against the wall and cautiously snuck up behind the two ponies, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. The assailant was levitating something resembling an erlenmeyer flask and deposited something liquid into it. This close to the figure, Joseph was able to make out a blackened, sectioned carapace glinting with streaks of moonlight.
A gasp from the injured pony drew Joseph’s attention away from the Changeling. He must have spotted Joseph approaching, because he was flailing his hooves in a vain attempt to call for help. The Changeling quickly took note of its unwanted visitor and hissed angrily, a thin, viscous liquid smearing both of its hooves.
Panicking, Joseph backpedaled away from the insectoid creature, but the Changeling didn’t leap at him or attack. Instead, it hastily grabbed the strange bottle, swapped its disguise for a black pegasus, and immediately took to the sky. Soon it had disappeared into the night without a trace.
It took a moment for Joseph’s nerves to calm down, but once they did, he instantly looked back to the stallion. He had several puncture wounds in his neck, and a thick, heavy gauge syringe lay off to the side, still half full. Beside him were the tattered remains of an oddly familiar hat and vest. The stallion’s eyes were wide with shock, his neck coated in rivulets of crimson as the wounds continued to bled.
“H-hel-he,” he gurgled pitifully. Hearing his voice finally jogged Joseph’s memory; this was the same stallion who’d found him passed out in an alleyway his first week in Equestria.
Joseph quickly ran to the opposite end of the alley to grab the help of anyone walking by. “HEL—” he began to shout, but was abruptly cut off by a massive thunderclap and a lightning bolt obscuring his vision. The sudden shock to him, only made worse by his already pounding heart, made him nearly leap out of his skin.
Craning his head skyward, he saw a pegasus bursting into a fit of laugher and rolling around a thundercloud.
“You should have seen your face!” the familiar voice of Rainbow Dash guffawed.
Between abstract confusion, bewilderment, and shock, Joseph’s eyes narrowed like poisoned daggers at Rainbow.
“What the hell!?” he shouted.
“Calm down dude, it’s only a prank!”
“Fuck off and get Twilight, someone’s dying back in there!” he screamed, pointing down the alley.
That seemed to get Rainbow’s attention. “What!?”
Joseph was seething mad at this point. “Go and get her before I kick you so hard you’ll get there faster than flying!”
Ditching her cloud, Rainbow disappeared in the blink of an eye. Joseph magically grabbed a “Happy Nightmare Night!” banner hanging over one of the doors and ran back to the end of the alley to staunch the stallion’s bleeding neck.
“C’mon, stay with me!” Joseph encouraged. He pressed the cloth over the five or so weeping holes, holding it there while trying not to crush the stallion’s windpipe.
Without his hat and vest, Joseph caught sight of something completely unexpected. A foul scar with stretches of skin bridging a nub of bone sat where his horn would be, and on his upper back, missing patches of fur gave way to what looked like concave areas of skin that had been cut and burned.
He balked, saying to Nightmare; ’Did you know about this?!’
Only through mythos. I thought he was just a story.
’Most people thought you were a story too, yet here you both are!’
Ten seconds went by before Twilight materialised at the end of the alley. “What happened? Rainbow to—” she gasped heavily at seeing the wounded stallion.
“Hospital, now!” Joseph bellowed. Twilight stood, wide-eyed at the sight before her. “What are you doing!? Quit gawking and—” Joseph was cut off as Twilight charged her magic and teleported the dying pony away, leaving him stunned as the weight of the last two minutes came crashing around him. Just what was that changeling thinking, and why was it using a syringe to… He shook that thought out of his head, trying to regain his composure and slow the heart hammering away within his chest.
Even so, he thought it might be safer to put the needle in his ‘pocket’ so nobody else has any… unfortunate accidents with it. It could also double as evidence if the need for it were to arise.
Thoughts of the stallion and why his horn and wings were removed plagued Joseph’s mind as he tried to calm himself, taking his time to walk up and down the streets on the long way back to Town Square. By the time he got back to the main stage, the initial shock had worn off, but worry and concern still littered his mind. He needed a drink to calm his nerves.
A solid portion of the vendors were within arms reach, so Joseph went to find someone that looked like they had something a bit on the strong side. He spied Big Macintosh with several barrels next to him, one of which was on a table with a tap protruding out the bottom. He watched as the massive red stallion took a wooden mug and filled it to the brim.
’Oohhh, is that cider?!’ he thought to himself. He took his place fourth in line behind three others. He watched as the stallion served each of them a drink. One of the patrons put three coins on the table, and Big Mac swept them into a sack hanging off the table’s edge. The next two put five bits on the table, and Big Mac wordlessly filled their mugs from a different barrel. Joseph, intrigued, wondered what the difference between paying three bits and five bits could be.
When Joseph got up to the stand, he put eight bits on the table. Big Mac raised a questioning eyebrow while Joseph stood, staring, seeing if he could figure it out. Mac wordlessly filled up a mug from the barrel off to his side, but the second he poured from a barrel in the middle of the stack behind him, then put both on the table.
Joseph levitated both mugs up, took a tentative sip from the first, and nodded with approval. The second mug, however, proved to be what Joseph was after. He let out a long, drawn out sigh of relief as the strength of the drink danced on his tongue. He swallowed with what could only be the look of someone stuck in a desert and only just found water. He raised the latter mug in a ‘thank you’ gesture to the red stallion, who nodded in kind, before Joseph turned his attention to the crowd until he spotted Twilight. Waving his hoof to her, she caught sight and cantered over to Joseph.
“Here, I got you a drink,” Joseph said as he thrust the almost untouched mug of cider to Twilight while downing his own. He figured a little selective disinformation wouldn’t hurt her, but he didn’t want to tell her what he was drinking.
Both to Joseph’s amusement and surprise, Twilight resigned to taking the mug and downing half of it, visibly relaxing considering recent events. “Thanks,” she said, wiping a fetlock over her mouth to clear any lingering cider.
“So,” Joseph began, looking down to Twilight, “mind telling me what the deal is with that other fella?”
She took another swig of her drink. “Huh? Oh, uhm, the doctors said they needed to run some tests first. Other than severe blood loss, with some transfusions he should recover.”
Joseph’s brow furrowed in anger. To avoid making a scene, he gently, yet firmly, lead the purple mare to the opening of an alley. “Twilight, I’ve been in this weird-ass place for over a month, and at every turn people have been jerking me around. Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis, Celestia… I’ve got zero fucking idea what the hell is going on half the time, and now this shit?” He magicked the still half-full syringe and waved it in front of Twilight’s face.
“Perhaps I should have elaborated,” he continued. “What. The fuck. Happened? His wings and horn were cut off, and by the looks of it were cauterised afterwards. And most importantly, why the hell would anyone want—of all people—his blood?”
“Whatever happened to him, happened hundreds of years ago!” she defended. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin to research!”
“Woah woah woah, he’s how old!?” Joseph balked. He could see the ‘uh oh’ look on Twilight’s face as she only just realised her faux-pas.
“Look,” she acquiesced, “I’m not going to deny you what you just saw. All I can tell you is it happened a long time ago. We need to wait until the doctors are finished treating him so we can ask him questions. Alright?” Twilight sighed with exhaustion.
She did make a point, so, despite his elevated anger, Joseph decided to give her the benefit of the doubt for the time being. Not really the ideal situation, but something like that isn’t likely to be forgotten, so it’s easy enough to bring it up later on in the night or tomorrow morning.
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Well done like always.
Poor Luna and Zecora, left out.
7317956 I can't write Zecora and her rhyming for shit, and Luna is in Canterlot because AU reasons.
Don't worry, you'll find out what's happening to them meanwhile
7317952 Thank you!
7317971 yeah Zecora is a pain to write for.
7317975
The events of last chapter took place between morning and noon, and it's mid afternoon when Joe gets let out the following day, so about 27hrs to say the absolute least, and 30 at most, and that's entirely dependant on the literal time of day at that point
You still seem to have some sort of difficulty understanding this. He needed to get somewhere safe to discuss things with Nightmare where Chrysalis and her changelings couldn't physically get at him. That's it. No ulterior motive. When that time was up, he wanted to pull the wool over Celestia's eyes when she let him go, effectively saying; "I could have gotten out of here earlier but I'm gonna be a dick to you by teleporting out right in front of you." The analogous equivalent of giving someone a slice of cake then swiping it off their plate.
It does get difficult maintaining multiple POVs to build the a clearer picture of what's happening. In retrospect, I could've just cut straight to Joseph's POV after his run-in with Celly in the cell, and then built the ambience of the town given the festivities from his POV, but that would require a complete re-write of the whole chapter. What matters is that it's clear enough (at least I hope so) whose perspective it is.
Also, I was admittedly worried that you might let slip spoilers from the discussions we had while editing
7318053
I completely understand.
7318167 To be honest, I was going to use Phobetor and say that was who NMM actually is, but the conflicting gender roles convinced me otherwise. That said, that much has the possibility of cementing the greek gods from which Phobetor is from into the story, so i was purposefully ambiguous about names and more specific details.
Regardless, NMM is her own entity for arguments sake.
7421285 The amount of people that pick up on the subtleties are few and far between. Glad you got it.
I'm confused as to who that stallion is at the end, it sounds like he's a alicorn but I don't know of any stallion alicorn's so I could wait and see what the next chapter brings, but I'm just wondering if I missed something from a previous chapter of the story as its been a while since I last read this story.
7429831 Re-read chapter nine.
She's fast as fuck boi!!!
The cmc are making a hwacha... You fool! What have you done
?! They'll get tree sap all over it 
And Celestia fails to understand that this would only confirm him in his view of her.
Wait, how has he not seen the school? Wasn't he there for show and tell or something at one point? you know, around the same time he saw SB's reflection?
Edit: oh, right, they made him forget didn't they? Ironically, I forgot that he forgot
WTF! i'm gonna read this story to the end (chapter 23), then i'm out of here.
Sorry for that, but it's too much strange/weird/different things that make this story not fun for me to read.
( including that after 1 week they have done nothing about the changelings )
9610243
If that happened wouldn't he have asked what Apple Bloom was talking about?
Edit: and didn't he "forget" before going to school?
Opinions are like assholes.
Everyone has one - but some just smell worse than others.
Only one left?
Alicorn blood ritual?