Chapter One - Exposition Galore
"Alright, I think that's the last of the fires put out," panted Applejack, as she walked into the throne room of Twilight's castle.
"We were lucky those rain clouds happened to be nearby and ready to go," said Rainbow Dash, then shot a look at the head of the table. "Of course, we wouldn't have needed them if someone hadn't been shooting beams of sunfire all over Ponyville."
"'Oh, by the way Princess, not only did we accidentally turn the ponies you love most to stone, but your worst enemy—one you still have nightmares about—has been given physical form,'" mocked Celestia, waving her hooves. "'But don't worry, she apparently doesn't want to bring about eternal night anymore, so there's no reason to attack her.'"
She looked around the room with narrowed eyes, glaring at Shining Armor and the five ponies still glowing with Rainbow Power. "Would that have been so hard to say?"
"'Dear Twilight Sparkle, my most faithful student, Queen Chrysalis also apparently isn't evil anymore, and she likes to make kissy-faces with my sister,'" shot back Rainbow Dash. "Would that have been a hard letter to write?!"
"Okay, listen here—!"
"You both have good points," said an echoing voice.
"You don't get a say in anything that's happening!" snapped Celestia, glaring at the other end of the table.
Nightmare Moon, still sans armor as she had been since her reappearance, looked back with an expression of hurt. "What did I ever do to you?"
"Pbbbltffftft!" Celestia's efforts to talk turned to sputtering, before she finally managed to get some words out. "Existing was enough! And now you're existing again, but physically this time! How did that even happen?!"
"I don't know!" Nightmare Moon smiled cheerfully, exposing her pointed teeth, and shrugged. "One moment I'm sitting in the back of Luna's head, plotting my revenge, and the next I get blasted by a bunch of rainbows—again—and I'm standing there actually looking at her instead."
She looked around at the worried and confused ponies, smile widening. "And, I have to say, feeling awfully... happy about it."
"Do you know how that happened, Rarity?" Pinkie Pie turned to the fashion pony, who began sputtering in a decent impression of Celestia.
"How should I know?!"
"Well, it's magic, and you're a unicorn..."
"That doesn't... I am not that kind of unicorn. For a question like that, you need to ask—" Rarity stopped, and the mood around the table suddenly went cold.
"We'd need to ask Twilight," finished Fluttershy sadly.
"Ahem." Despite the pain the mention of Twilight had put on her face, Celestia still looked insulted. "Did you forget who taught Twilight?"
"Ooh! So then, what happened?" asked Pinkie expectantly.
"Oh. Um. Well..." She looked over at Nightmare Moon, murder not in her eyes for once while considering the midnight black pony. "If she really is different from Luna—somepony Luna created to act out her dark thoughts—then technically, I suppose, the Rainbow Power that turned Luna to stone wouldn't affect Nightmare Moon. Since it couldn't affect one without affecting the other, it must have... separated them, giving her a real body."
Celestia's expression of neutrality dropped as she kept staring at Nightmare Moon, and her voice turned bitter. "Of course, a far more reasonable hypothesis would be that the Tree of Harmony simply couldn't stand to touch the Nightmare for a third time, so it just booted her away."
"You always were able to come up with such good explanations for these kinds of things," said Nightmare Moon, clapping her hooves excitedly. "Remember when I was trying to kill you, and you figured out right away that I'd been born of Luna's anger and jealousy?"
Once again the mood around the table hit arctic levels.
"So, um, why aren't you trying to kill her now?" asked Fluttershy meekly.
"Trying to kill me yet," muttered Celestia.
"I don't know," mused Nightmare Moon, a smile creeping across her face. "Maybe I'm just... biding my time. Or maybe that was all Luna."
Everyone looked to Celestia again, who sighed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, there's a pretty good chance a lot of that was Luna. She tends to be... brooding. It comes with being the Princess of the Night. I've always suspected that the Nightmare was more than a mere extension of Luna. Nightmare Moon is somepony she created who could channel her darker thoughts, the ones she would never acknowledge or act on. Which means that technically, without the... er, 'evil' from Luna, she should be harmless. Unless this is just a ruse to get us to lower our guards."
"Oh, come now, sister, don't be that way—"
"We are not sisters!"
The other ponies around the table cringed back from the explosion of fury as Celestia slammed her hooves down on the table, nearly cracking the crystal. She looked around at their fearful faces, and for once, that sight wasn't enough to calm her seething rage.
"Okay, touchy subject." Nightmare Moon nodded, almost to herself. "Anypony have something else they want to talk about?"
"Um..." Shining Armor, off to one side of the table, raised a hoof. "I'm a bit concerned about the fact that my wife, sister, and two aunt-in-laws were turned to stone."
That took the wind out of Celestia's wings, and she collapsed onto the table.
"That's my family..." she looked up, face miserable. "That's my entire family... Please, can you give me any more details about what happened?"
Nightmare Moon just shrugged, and the five friends looked uncomfortable and nervous, so it was Shining Armor who finally sighed and leaned forward on the table.
"There's not a lot more to tell you. When we teleported here and Twily came out of the castle, she was... not happy to see Queen Chrysalis. Which is unsurprising; we really should have warned her in advance. But, well, I don't think any of us thought she would immediately call up the Rainbow Power and summon all her friends.
"Luna and Cadance were keeping them calm—well, calm to the point where all they were doing was yelling and screaming. But I guess Twilight finally had enough and tried to take Chrysalis out, and, well... apparently Rainbow Power splashes a bit."
Celestia stared at him, eyes narrowed. "And where were you during all this, my Captain?"
He snorted, not intimidated or ashamed. "While being in the middle of four Princesses and/or Queens sounds like every stallion's fantasy, that would be both pointless and hazardous to my health when they're all pissed-off alicorns."
Celestia continued to glare, but finally dropped her gaze. "Okay, fair point."
She then turned to the other ponies. "And you five? What were you doing? Aside from helping turn all my loved ones to stone, that is."
Without looking, Pinkie Pie slapped her hoof across Rainbow Dash's mouth, turning the string of curses into mere muffled grunts.
"With all due respect, Princess, what did y'all expect us to do when Queen Chrysalis showed up out of nowhere?" asked Applejack crossly. "And you're talking about someone we know can use mind-control. We couldn't exactly trust either of the Princesses or Shining Armor."
"You could have at least—"
"At least what, let her hypnotize all of us and stick us in cocoons?!" cried Rainbow Dash, finally breaking free of Pinkie.
"I hate to say it, but attacking her was the safest option, dear," said Rarity apologetically. "Once we had her under control, we could decide if she actually was a threat or not."
"That's not—"
"We're soooo sorry!" wailed Pinkie from Celestia's side, throwing her forelegs around the monarch. "We didn't mean for all this to happen!"
"I—"
"It was a terrible accident," sniffled Fluttershy, hugging her from the other side. "C-can you ever forgive us?"
"I... you all..." Celestia looked around the table, then dropped her head with a sigh and a smile.
Even when you aren't around, your friends keeping spreading the magic of friendship, she thought, a small tear leaking from the corner of one eye.
"You are all correct," she said, wrapping her wings around the two ponies on her sides and smiling at the others. "What happened was no one's fault. You did everything right, and your reactions were perfectly natural. It was just... an accident."
She gave one last squeeze to the ponies under her wings, then stood up, radiating confidence and serenity once again as she began to walk around the table. "So, the question is... what are we going to do about it? Despite my many years of experience, I have to admit to being in the dark about how to proceed. Luckily, we have both my library and Twilight's at our disposal. With a bit of assistance in researching the matter, I believe—"
Celestia paused as a thought struck her. "Has anyone seen Spike lately? Oh, I hope the little dear isn't taking this too hard."
"No worries about that, Princess," Applejack said with a grin. "When he found out, he just sighed and said 'again?'. Then he went to get what he called his 'Twilight got herself turned to stone again' cart, and he and Big Mac wheeled them all into the castle for protection. From what he was sayin', this definitely ain't the first time this has happened. Or the fourth or fifth."
"Ah. Yes, Twilight does tend to have… accidents when it comes to her experiments. I'm not surprised she and Spike set up contingencies for these kinds of situations. That takes a weight off my shoulders, at least."
She peered around at the gathered ponies. "But back to the matter at hand. I see you all still have your Rainbow Power active, even without Twilight. Can you use it to reverse this?"
"I don't think the Rainbow Power is going to help, as much as I enjoy this mane," said Rarity.
"Speak for yourself," snorted Rainbow Dash. "I should be faster than ever like this, but my mane is such an aerodynamic drag now that I can't even get close to the required velocity for a Sonic Rainboom."
She looked around as she realized everypony in the room was staring at her. "What? Twilight taught me some flying terms."
"Well, I agree with Rarity! I like being like this too!" cried Pinkie, bouncing up and down around the table. "I've already thrown three parties today, one in Appleloosa, one in Canterlot, and one in Manehattan."
"How'd you do that?! Even I can't fly between all those cities that fast!" objected Rainbow Dash.
"And y'all were here the whole time, helping us get the two Princesses—"
"AHEM!"
"—the Princess and Nightmare Moon—"
"Sister, please—"
"What did I say about that?!"
"—to stop fightin', and then helped us put out the fires," said Applejack, despite numerous interruptions. "How could y'all have been doin' all that and throwing three parties in random parts of Equestria at the same time?"
"Like I said, I really like having Rainbow Power!"
"Um, I like it too," said Fluttershy. "With my mane so much bigger, I'll be able to carry even more of my animal friends around with me."
"Well, I'm sorry, but I have to say I'm in the 'not liking it' camp too," said Applejack. "I tried to buck a tree earlier, and I'm still not sure where it landed." She winced, and cast an apologetic glance at Celestia. "Y'all might be getting an angry letter from the Griffon Kingdom at some point. It looked like the tree was headin' in that direction when it went over the horizon."
"You are all truly trapped like that?" asked Celestia. "But at the same time you can't actually access the full Rainbow Power?"
"We're faster and stronger, and our natural talents seem to be more powerful, but that's it," said Rarity. "And yes, we can't seem to, um, 'turn it off' either."
"It must require all six of you to wield the power. And, for whatever reason, to shed it as well." Celestia sighed and frowned. "Without Twilight, you may be stuck this way the rest of your lives."
"That would be awful!" cried Rainbow Dash, then coughed. "I mean, relatively. Obviously the whole... being turned to stone thing would be, uh, worse."
"Can you do anything for Twilight and the others?" asked Rarity, turning to Celestia. "Heaven knows you are quite powerful."
"Yes, that's right!" cried Pinkie Pie, leaping out of nowhere to bounce up and down next to the Solar Monarch. "Use your alicorn powers and be all like 'Vooom! Bzzaaap! Ka-pwing!' and turn them all back!"
Celestia let out a chuckle. "I'm sorry, but while I may be strong in certain areas of magic, even an alicorn cannot turn stone to flesh, or vice versa. If we could, we would not have needed the Elements to deal with Discord."
"Speakin' of which..." said Applejack, raising hopeful eyebrows at Fluttershy.
"Sorry, but he went off on a vacation yesterday," replied the yellow pegasus. "He said something like 'that would be cheating' and left."
"What can we do, then?" said Shining Armor dismally. "We have all this magical power at our hoofs, and it's all useless."
"Then we need to find something else," declared Celestia. "Luna and I found the Elements once, long ago. We just have to find some similar artifact, some new magical power."
"Like what? Where do we even start looking for something like that?"
"I... I don't know." Celestia's ears folded back, her head dropping. "We've always kept an eye out for even rumors of powerful artifacts like the Elements—especially during the time between when they were returned to the Tree and when you six unlocked that box—but there hasn't been a hint of anything else. Even the Royal Library is useless; I know every book in there, and we tracked down every lead they have and found nothing long ago. I have no idea where to start looking."
"I do."
All eyes turned to the doors, as they cracked open and an aqua-colored pony came stumbling in, wobbling as she moved towards the table.
"Lyra?" said Rarity, blinking in confusion. "Why—"
Before she could finish, green fire swept across the mare's body, revealing black chitin, translucent wings and green eyes.
Shining Armor stayed neutral, and the other five ponies recoiled back, but Celestia ran forward.
"Ka-klack! What are you doing here?"
"S-sorry it took me so long," said the changeling, swaying in place. "I was still in Canterlot, but I came as soon as we got the message."
"What message? From whom?"
In response, green fire crossed the changeling's body again. But rather than the usual smooth flames, these were sick and dull, nearly sputtering out in some places and momentarily flaring up in others.
His body was trying to grow, but something was holding it back, leaving his limbs long and brittle-looking. His horn became longer as well, stretching rather than actually growing in size, making it to look as though it were going to break into pieces from how crooked it became. Long turquoise hair grew, but just from one side of his head, leaving an eye covered—even as both eyes changed, becoming more like pony eyes except for their double irises.
"From me," said the stunted, twisted Chrysalis.
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Never thought I would actually do that....
FIRST!!!
Also thanks for actually writing this long-awaited chapter. It's always appreciated.
Parts of the set-up sound familiar, but parts don't. Is this a sequel to a specific one of your other stories?
Edited: Never mind.
It should be noted that I favorited this story before I even started reading it.
At first I read the chapter title as, “Explosions Galore”. Maybe “Explosition Galore”?
Thought this was what you were teasing from that little picture on your blog. Glad to see this.
It returns!
lmao what kinda summary is that? This sounds like some good shit though.
Definitely gonna need to reread Trials and Tribulations, I don't remember any of it...
well... this is going to be a shitshow, going to read the previous story to catch up.
It's better than she ever dreamed.
Two years, but I still remembered the insane story that came before it!
Cool
Other than yours for not writing ahead. Though, again, there's the question of believing anything positive with regards to Chrysalis...
In any case, great to see this continue. Definitely looking forward to more. And I don't suppose Dash can just cut off some of that drag chute growing out of her scalp?
Hmmmmm
Guessing that it's technically not Chrysalis, but a changeling connected to her hive mind.
9151786
The scissors would probably break.
They're off to a great start!
... I now imagine a very grumpy janitor pony having to always mop up Rainbow Power puddles after use, grumbling at those ungrateful brats.
I think this Nightmare fits better than your initial idea.
... You know, dude, you could've just used Chryssie's voice, without trying to change into her.
Oh boy, it's finally here! I waited for soooo long.
That last bit can not be healthy.
I love Dash's sass. Nice beginning.
Nice