The Other Purple Alicorn

by QueenMoriarty

1 - The Princess Twilight Cometh

Star Catcher peered through the telescope, admiring the intricate beauties of the night sky. There was hardly any point in coming to the observatory these days; the stars had changed by perhaps the smallest fraction in Star Catcher's lifetime, and the scholar's scientific measurements had long ago concluded they were at least a thousand years away from any celestial game-changers. Astronomy almost seemed pointless, but it was that word, 'almost', that kept Star Catcher asleep all day and at the telescope until dawn. There was always the possibility that something would change, something that no measurements of science or magic could possibly have predicted. So she watched the sky, and waited to see if something would happen.

Star Catcher fanned herself with her wings, trying to blow off the last of the summer day's lingering heat. She flapped her wings a little harder, and in a different direction, and giggled to herself as the faintest of breezes was wafted over her neck. There wouldn't be much cause for her to stretch as the evening wore on, but it was a silly pegasus who did not at least keep her wings limber. Star Catcher looked back over her shoulder to admire her own wings for a moment, getting lost in the way that the pure white feathers reflected the all-consuming purple light...

"Wait, what?" She turned and stared at the sky, or what little of it she could see around the telescope. The dark blues and blacks of the night sky were missing, replaced with rays of purple that dominated every inch of the sky. Star Catcher peered through the telescope, and was nearly blinded at first glance.

There was a new star in the sky. Unlike other stars, which were enormous balls of flaming gas far away in the depths of space, this star was the sort of star one would find in storybooks; abstract, a simple six points of light like the markers on a compass. And where other stars all held the same color of fiery orange, this one spewed forth an abundance of purple light that outshone every other star in the sky. Perhaps the most striking difference, though, was that this star was getting closer by the second.

"The sky is falling!" Star Catcher shouted as loud as she could, turning and flying away from the telescope. "The sky is falling!"

On any other day, her sudden panic would have been treated as paranoid delusions, and Star Catcher would have been quietly escorted into a padded room for the rest of her life. But with the purple light washing over everything that was close to a window, her panic was taken up by the other ponies, and as Star Catcher flew through the observatory and out onto the front lawn, her terrified screams were echoed by everypony around her.

The screams of the panicked pegasus rose by a whole octave as she saw the star, now so close that she did not need her telescope to see her world's approaching doom. It was falling fast, and Star Catcher could see that the star would fall right into the middle of the town square.

"Get them out of there!" she heard someone shout, and the pegasus didn't have to be told twice. A few hurried flaps of her wings, and Star Catcher was flying as fast as she could towards the town square. There were crowds of ponies surging up the hill towards her, no thoughts in their mind beside trying not to die. But from the top of the hill, Star Catcher could see that not everypony had the presence of mind to flee. There were so many just standing in the town square, frozen to the spot with fear as the star's light washed over them.

Star Catcher couldn't fly fast enough. In those few moments before the star struck ground, she pushed herself to fly faster than she had ever thought possible. Her wings screamed at her to stop, her every muscle stretched like a taut rope and threatened to snap with every desperate wingbeat. But it didn't matter. Being pushed to the limit didn't let Star Catcher reach any of the ponies before the star hit, it didn't let her get any of them out of there, and it most definitely didn't let her save anyone. The only thing she accomplished was planting herself five feet to the left of Ground Zero.

---

Twilight Sparkle had no idea what was going on. One second, she was sketching the final sigil of the great mage Moondancer's immortality spell, and the next, she was floating in the sky as her entire life flashed before her eyes. There had been a calming presence, one that her mind could not help but fight against in all the confusion.

At last, there had been the familiar sensation of magic playing over and through her body, but there was something different here. Twilight had never felt such powerful magic in her life, and as it threaded through her bones and muscles she felt something change. There was a new weight pressing down on her back, one that felt as foreign as the Veiled Isles and yet somehow an integral part of her very being. A light the color of her cutie mark radiated out from her body like a glorious sun, and even looking at her own hoof threatened to blind Twilight for life. She shut her eyes to the glare, and for the first time became aware of falling.

No, not falling; falling would mean she was careening out of control, head over hooves, tumbling down to the ground. But she was hanging in the air, and being lowered to the ground as though on a string. Despite how strange and unknown her situation was, Twilight felt serene, at peace, protected.

She should have known it was too good a feeling to last.

At last, Twilight's hooves touched the earth again. She gave a little gasp, as the earth seemed to stir beneath her, and an invisible magic spread up through her hooves and told her the land was healthy. She opened her eyes, and her heart soared to see she was safe in the familiar town square. There were ponies there, as there always were, but something seemed different. The spots left by the purple light began to clear from Twilight's vision, and she once again felt the weight on her back.

"What am I carrying?" she muttered aloud, turning her neck and adjusting the muscles of her back to better bear the weight. As she did so, she felt the twitch and response of unfamiliar muscles, and her vision was filled with purple yet again. But rather than another surge of that pervasive light, this time Twilight saw wings.

Purple wings.

Her purple wings.

It took a moment for it to sink in, but when it did, Twilight Sparkle overflowed with wonder. She had wings! And that weird feeling when she touched the ground, that was earth pony magic! Speaking of magic...

The familiar crackle of magic across her skull confirmed it. She still had her horn! Twilight was an alicorn! Wait, did this make her a princess? Or was she something more? Was there something more powerful than a princess? What was that purple light? And where was...

"T-Twilight? Is that you?"

The familiar voice shook Twilight out of her geeky reverie, and the twinge of fear in it made her concerned. She tried to put her wings away as she turned, but only found them spreading wider.

"Um, hi, Rainbow Dash." A blush crept across the unic- across the alicorn's face, and her wings fluttered subconsciously as she took a few uncertain steps forward. "Yeah, it's me."

The fashionista's face was a mask of horror, staring with incomprehension at the combination of wings and horn. Twilight frowned. "Look, I don't know what's going on any more than you do. I was just working on perfecting an ancient immortality spell, and..."

"Immortality?" This voice came from above, and Twilight looked up to see the pegasus Surprise. "Isn't that the spell for never ever dying, like, to anything?" Surprise seemed more curious than afraid, something Twilight took as a good sign.

"Yes. It's one of Moondancer's unfinished spells, and I made a breakthrough with the seventh-"

"And you cast it on yourself?" Again, nothing but curiosity, though the pearly white pegasus was raising her eyebrow so much it threatened to fly off her head.

"I didn't know completing the spell would activate it! For Megan's sake, the scroll didn't even mention a trigger!"

"Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight." Surprise plopped down right in front of Twilight, and as if unaware of the massive crowd gathering around them, leaned in close and whispered as loudly as she could.

"So, how long until the world ends?"

And it was all downhill from there.

Comments

[Ri2]

And of COURSE G3 gets destroyed. Screw them.

[Cracked Egg]

6346478

G3 GETS DESTROYED WOOOOOOOOO!!!

[Zocarik]

Well. We know which ponies have their souls turned into Windigoes.

[MustacheMerlin]

Well fiddlesticks.

[QueenMoriarty]

6346720 Good for you! You get a cookie!

[Zocarik]

6346807 I read the comments section of the previous story. I had a heads-up and an idea of where this is going as a result. Nonetheless, I am interested in seeing just how this plays out.

[Zocarik]

Do Alicorns in this setting include the likes of hippocampus and crystal pony in the mix? Do they adapt those traits when brought into the environments that those other races naturally inhabit?

[QueenMoriarty]

6347734 In this setting, an alicorn is essentially a genetic melting pot of every pony species. The traits of earth pony, unicorn and pegasus are all persistent and cannot be turned off, while hippocampus, crystal, thestral or other traits are activated by a conscious choice and use of alicorn magic. That way, you don't automatically become a seapony whenever you take a bath.