The Fall of the Sun & Moon

by Maxes Altho

The Return of Twilight

Princess Celestia, Diarch of Equestria and Bringer of the Sun, sat upon her throne and sighed.

Day Court had, so far, gone as one might expect, with nobles bringing her pleas to lower their taxes, allow them to build even fancier structures, and general nonsense such as who ticked off whom at last night’s fancy dinner party, and how the “guilty” party should be punished. The commoners, those wonderful little ponies of hers, were of a much gentler sort. They would bring her requests for aid for the various charities and orphanages, blessings for their newborn foals, and, unfortunately, their business gripes. They always came in pairs; one who felt he or she was wronged by the other party, and instead of going to their local court (which, by the way, had numerous ponies whose jobs were to solve petty disputes such as this), went all the way up the line to her to say that their stake was bigger and more important than the others, so to speak.

It was after one such harrowing experience that Celestia demanded a brief recess. She had already sent off some of her servants for refreshments, and took the time to reread the latest letter sent to her by her dearest pupil, Twilight Sparkle.

Dear Princess Celestia,

To be honest, not much has happened the past few days, not that any of us are complaining. As such, the girls and I have opted to take a few weeks off for a vacation of sorts. Given recent events, I am sure you will be able to handle anything that comes up without us. We will be venturing outside of Equestria, and I will not be bringing along Spike, so he can watch Fluttershy’s animals and keep the library in order. We will hopefully be back within two weeks, relaxed, refreshed, and ready for whatever fate decides to throw at us next.

Your dearest student,

Twilight Sparkle

That was three months ago.

Celestia could not deny they deserved it. In the few years Twilight since she and her friends discovered they were the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, they had brought back Luna, refrozen Discord, defeated Sombra and brought back the Crystal Empire, reformed Discord, and stopped a changeling invasion the day of Twilight’s brother’s wedding.
When Twilight did not return within her specified timeframe, Celestia began to worry. Her student was almost never late, and would do anything to keep her mentor of sound mind. Celestia hid a smirk from the gathered nobles as she remembered the day Twilight forgot about her friendship letter, and instead of writing to her teacher about it, she attempted to make a problem to be solved. This involved a small stuffed animal, a Want-it-Need-it spell, and the entirety of Ponyville descending into chaos until Celestia herself had to step in and take control.

Celestia had sent guards, scouts, and anypony who could be spared out to look for the wayward bearers. However, after almost three weeks of searching, and many, many dead ends, she eventually called the search off. She knew that the bearers could get themselves out of pretty much any situation, especially since Twilight had also taken the Elements with them, and that Twilight could send her a note if they were really in danger… but to go two months without even telling the Princess she was okay? Twilight had better have one impressive friendship letter before this was over.
As Celestia was musing, one of her servants returned from the kitchens with water and sandwiches for her. She thanked her servant, and was about to call the Day Court back to order when-

WHUMP.

Startled, the Princess dropped her sandwich and looked to the main doors, where the sound came from. Over the cacophony of her little ponies muttering amongst themselves, she heard one of her guards.

“Halt! Who goes there? Wait, what are you doing? Stop now or I’ll – AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

The entire courtroom fell silent. One of her other guards uneasily sidled over to the doors to see what the fuss was about. However, before he could so much as touch them, the doors flew inward, sending the guard across the room to impact against one of the pillars. At that instant, the room was filled with a wave of blackness from which no sights or sounds could be found. As the wave washed over Celestia, she braced herself for whatever new evil had shown its face. When she opened her eyes, she found nothing but a void. A void from which rose a voice, sweet, sultry, and with just a taste of venom.

“Hello, Princess. Did you miss us?” Celestia gasped. That voice. It couldn’t be!

Celestia immediately powered up her horn, and a wash of golden light dissipated the fog. She glanced about the room, seeing that nopony was injured, until her gaze fell upon the six new figures in the center of her court.

Twilight Sparkle. Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy. Pinkie Pie. Rarity. Applejack. All stood arrayed with Twilight at the head, their eyes all boring holes directly into her. And each and every one of them were alicorns. Celestia could only stare, her jaw having nearly touched the dais upon which she stood. She kept staring, and staring, and staring, her brain refusing to complete any thought. How did-? They can’t really be-? What could this-? Why-?

Her train of thought, and the oppressing silence, was shattered by laughter. Celestia didn’t even need to look to know who was laughing.

“Oh, man! You should see your faces! You’re all like ‘Whaaaaaaaaat?’ and we’re all like ‘Grrr!’ and you’re still like ‘Whaaaaaaat?’ and you have these really droopy funny faces like this-“ Pinkie, the mare in question, then proceeded to do a pretty good imitation of all the ponies around the room. This only lasted for a second before she burst out again, “And you guys are STILL like that, and soon we can talk about why we’re here, how we came back, and then everyone’s gonna be happy and playing as we all talk about the adventures we’ve had on account of us being gone for like, FOREVER! and then we have a really huge part-“

“Pinkie!” Twilight snapped. Pinkie immediately drooped a bit, only to resume bouncing a moment later. Twilight turned to look at her, grimaced, then said, “We can do that later. Now is NOT the right time.”

Celestia, by this point, had collected enough of her jaw off the floor to put a coherent thought together. However, before voicing said thought out loud, she gave the six another look over to make sure she wasn't hallucinating or this wasn’t another of Luna’s tricks. She noticed a few things immediately. First off, Pinkie’s hair wasn’t in it’s usual poof. She may be bouncing around like Pinkie usually would, but her hair was as flat as Fluttershy’s. According to one of Twilight’s earlier letters, Pinkie’s hair was the true indicator of her personality. When she thought her friends would not want to spend time with her, her hair went flat and Pinkie went into a deep depression. However, here she was just as happy as usual, and Celestia could feel the positive energy Pinkie was giving off.

Speaking of Fluttershy, she was not living up to her name. Instead of cowering behind Rainbow Dash as she usually would, she was standing confidently right next to Twilight. In fact, it was actually kind of intimidating. Applejack was the one who was cowering behind Rarity, like she wants to say something, but can’t work up the courage to do so. Rarity, on the other hoof, looked around with extreme disinterest. Celestia mused that she could don a polka-dotted shirt with plaid horseshoes right now and Rarity wouldn’t react at all. Rainbow Dash—

Celestia suppressed a shiver. Rainbow Dash was floating just above the rest, to Twilight’s immediate left, and looked at Celestia with such loathing. It was as if she could rip Celestia limb from limb at any moment, and gladly would, but something was holding her back. That something, Celestia surmised, being Twilight.

Her faithful student. Celestia was shocked to find, she could not discern anything about Twilight’s current feelings. She just stood there, wings partially flared out, as if holding the other five back, with the barest hint of a smile creeping up her face. Not a “Thank Celestia, we’re back” smile, but an “I know something you don’t” smile, one that, in this case, would give an Ursa Major pause.

Celestia also noted that the six were now quite a bit taller, coming up to her’s and Luna’s full height. One horn, two wings each, all matching the respective bearer’s coat, except now, Fluttershy’s and Rainbow Dash’s wings were more eagle- than sparrow-like, like her little pegasi usually were, and Twilight’s and Rarity’s horns were at least a good half-foot longer than the others. Celestia, never having seen another alicorn in more than two thousand years, besides her sister, could only gander that, because those four had been either pegasi or unicorns before the change, the wings or horn, respectively, were still very much the focus of their abilities.

Ah yes, the change. That’s what Celestia was going to ask first, wasn’t it? How, exactly, did two unicorns, two pegasi, and two Earth ponies somehow gain the means of ascension? Not even Star Swirl the Bearded, the greatest mind of his time, and arguably, even more knowledgeable than Twilight, could unlock the secrets. However, before she could bring forth her voice, Celestia was stopped by Twilight.

“I assume you are wondering a few things right now, Princess,” Twilight said that last word almost disdainfully. “Such as, how did this happen? Who gave us this knowledge? And the ever present, why? Why? Why would six of your most loyal subjects find a way to bring themselves to your level of power?” Celestia had to admit, those were her thoughts exactly. “Well, this is why:” her smile grows into a full blown sneer as Celestia’s heart drops to her hooves.

“We, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, are here to overthrow your rule.”

Author's Note:

Hello all, and welcome to my first story. Don't be afraid to say what you think. If there are any errors, please say so. My editor will most likely catch them, but I put this up before she got a chance to read it.

Also, this will go a lot deeper than you think, or not as deep, if you are a shallow person.

Comments

[Perteks]

I started reading because of cover art but uhh you have my attention

[Appl3dashie]

Now gimmie more! >:( MORE CHAPTERS!

[garfan]

the placement of the cliffhanger is far more of a turnoff than something that piques my interest

[Maxes Altho]

5377336 just wait. I have raisins behind my apparent madness.
But yeah, I can never resist a good/decent cliffhanger. Nothing brings people in more than wanting to know what's next. I had two choices in my mind for cliffhangers this chapter, either the alicorn reveal or the one I currently have.

[Midna Diane Pie]

Hi my brother! I'm really glad to be the editor here and I hope this story'll be epic!!!

[Maxes Altho]

5382032 Okay, that's enough. Now get back into your Editor's Cage, You very well can't be doing work if you're not in there!

[Katnine]

Ooooooh this looks good~

[Arnyx]

I remembered this fix from when I just started reading on here and occasionally thought back to it. Now I've finally found it again.