The Only chapter
The Only chapter
"I can't believe it's actually Celestias birthday!" Twilight said happily, with a small bounce on her step, while carrying a present with her, heading towards Celestias room in the castle.
"Actually it's officially tomorrow, but I'm sure she appreciates us giving a gift in a more private setting, just with us grown-up princessess." Cadance commented, carrying her present.
Both of the gift's where cakes: Strawberry and chocolate ones. The VERY expensive and fancy like, that actually tastes good.
"Yes! And I bet that we can also talk about... WHAT THE BUCK IS THAT!!??" Twilight suddenly screamed, pointing something on the floor, almost making Cadence drop her gift-cake.
Right there on the floor, was laying some kind of a white...Thingy that was bleeding yellowish-greenish goob.
Slowly Cadance proceeded to pick the thing up with magic, to have better look at it.
"It...It looks like a pony-ear..." she said, sounding like she could almost puke, while turning the ear in her magic a bit. "And it seems to be... Disintegrating?"
After she had said that, the yellow-green goob bleeding ear literally broke apart into a puddle on the floor.
"But where? Who's ear was it?! Wait... I think there's a trail there." Twilight pointed along the hallway, while trying to compose herself. It's not everyday you just happen to fin someponys ear on the floor.
And so the two alicorns began to follow the thin goob-trail at a brisk pace, due to some of the goob seemingly beginning to dry up and disappearing.
By the time they finally stopped, the trail had dried up completely near Celestia's quarters.
"Whatever dropper that ear is probably somewhere nearby... Somepony's coming." Cadance said, suddenly pulling Twilight aside after hearing hoof steps approaching. Peering around the corner, they saw Princess Luna arriving , looking worried about something and clearly in a hurry, not even bothering to knock on her sisters room door, which got left slightly ajar.
And being very curious, the younger princesses sneaked closer to hear what they might talk.
"I came as soon as I got your note. How bad is it?" they heard Luna ask, sounding calm yet worried.
"Pretty bad. Ear is already gone, left hind-leg is getting pretty wobbly and I think jaw is feeling like it's going to be coming loose at any second now." came Celestia's answer, sounding a little slurred, like she had an strong anaesthesia in effect on her mouth.
"Yes, I think I can see a slight tear in there. We should hurry before anything more important falls off." Luna said, followed by of something moving and hoof steps leaving somewhere with an slight echo.
After it had become silent, younger princesses where slightly confused what where the Two sisters speaking about.
"Should we go check on them Twi?" Cadance asked, while purple alicorn was already pushing the door open. "... Never mind."
"Look! There's another goo trail, going to that bookshelf." Twilight pointed out, soon looking at the shelfcarefully, quickly noticing it being a little off in it's position. And one rather forceful telekinesis pull later, she found a stairway going down behind it.
"Twilight, maybe we should not disrupt them..." Cadance tried to suggest, but Twilight was already going down the stairs. " Oh, for..." pink princess muttered before following after purple one.
And so the two alicorns went down, down, down the stairs.
"Ugh, this is almost as bad as Sombras staiiirs..." Twilight was about complain,before noticing something further down the stairs.
"I-is that... A jaw???"
"Looks like it... And it's also bleeding that goo stuff." Cadance said while carefullt poking it a little. After getting past it, they continued downwards, until they reached a very sturdy looking door, which conveniently was a little ajar. And soon they could hear talking once more.
"All right Tia, the new one is ready. Everything ready on your end?" they heard Luna saying.
"Ihhm rhehy hihher." was the very messy answer, that sounded like Celestia.
"Ok, I just check them again, just in case. Can't have another case of 'five-day-expiration' right?"
"...Oh ahhrihht hihher."
After listening this exchange, both of the younger princessess entered the room behind the door, careful not to make too much noise and hid behind a conveniently placed box. And what they saw, almost made their jaws drop.
There was Luna, wearing a labcoat, checking some manner of contraption, with a lot of wires, on Celestia's head, who was missing her lower jaw AND an ear, while laying calmly on a table. It was not a pretty sight.
And next to the table was a strange looking machine, connected to the head contraption and a cylindrical tank, with greenish liquid and another Princess Celestia with wires attached to her head floating within it... This confused the two spying princesses even more, especially Twilight. They did manage to stay quiet.
"There. All systems are ready to go. See on the other side soon sister." Luna said while putting sciency-looking goggles on, before pulling down the switch on the strange device. The device sparked to life, with plenty of light's and humming. This resulted Celestias eyes to roll back, leaving only whites visible, followed by a visible spark of energy going down the wires from the head-contraption to the device and finally into the tank held Celestia's head. Luna followed the process in a very attentive manner. Twilight and Cadance followed the happenings too from their hiding place.
After all this was done, the tank-held Celestia began to move reflexively, like somepony waking up would. Before movements could get too erratic due to being submerged, Luna pulled another lever, which caused the green liquid to drain away from the tank. Very soon this Celestia was laying on the bottom of the tank, clearly waking up.
Few more lever pulls later, the tank opened up with an audible hiss, letting air in, while Luna approached, and had the goggles and the labcoat still on.
"All righty, let's get this over with then." she said, while pulling out a pen-light to shine some light in Celestias, now sitting up, eyes like a doctor does in eye-reaction checking.
"Eyesight seems fine. No visible misscoloration anywhere on your fur. Magic-readings are normal. What did you eat this morning?" Luna muttered, adding question at the end.
"I ate some nice pancakes, with plenty of maple-syrup and a tall glass of orange-juice. I then was going to go to the Morning court early, until my ear fell off and sent you the note, then headed back to my room and here we are. And you still look a little silly with those goggles on you." was white alicorns answer, while removing the wires on her head.
"Good. The operation was a success." Luna said with a smile, that Celestia joined in.
"Indeed. Let's hope this body last's longer than the last one."
"WHAT THE BUCK JUST HAPPENED???!!" Twilight suddenly yelled out, startling every wake alicorn present in the room.
"What? Twilight? Cadance? How did you get here?" Celestia asked, sounding surprised.
"W-we... Followed some green goo on the floor?" purple alicorn sheepishly answered. Cadance only nodded, while looking the jaw-less Celestia on the table, still having it's eyes rolled back.
"Sooo... What is going on here? And... Who or what is the one on the table?" the pink princess asked.
"Weeell..." Celestia began, before Luna cut in.
"Oh we just transferred Tia's mind and magic in to a new clone body, due to old one expiring earlier than expected. And it's still laying there on the table. I'd give it less than a minute before it dissolves completely, after passing some gass."
And barely finishing saying that, the body on the table literally did exactly that. It let out a rather loud fart and just suddenly dissolved into some green goo with plenty of white and some rainbow in it.
"Yes, in the simplest terms, it's pretty much that." Celestia concluded. Seeing that the both of the younger princesses where clearly still confused about all that they had seen, Celestia decided to just tell them.
"So, you may have already know that I have lived over a thousand years. Well, there's more to it than just alicorn physiology. Being an alicorn merely grants significantly longer lifespan than average pony, meaning that we still eventually die." Celestia began telling.
"However, some thing's can disrupt our normal aging, such as a repeated use of powerful magical items... And I may have used the Elements of Harmony a bit too much... Which in turn, after the Nightmare indcident, started to age me at a rapid phase. And at the time my early death would have spelled a complete disaster to Equestria, and most likely the world, due to me having to upkeep the day-night-cycle alone, with nopony else knowing how to do it properly."
"Luckily, I found the answer in some books of older alchemy, about creating a empty-body, or a 'homonculus', or a clone if you like. After many trials and errors, and a lot of illusions, I managed to create working host body. Only for it to eventually decay, and you can probably guess the rest of the cycle my body hopping." Celestia concluded.
"And she let me in on this to help with the procedure, and maybe eventually make a more permanent version, so she doesn't have to fear her current body to decay anymore." Luna added.
"o...k... Is there anything weird in here?" Twilight managed to ask.
"Weeeell..." Celestia started, only to be interrupted.
"Hi Cellery! Did ya get new boddy now?" came another voice from the side-room. In walked another Celestia. Only this one looked a bit weird; her jaw was a bit off, eyes looked even more derped than ponyville's mailmare, different sized wings and some other small things.
"Ooooh. Is this the Twinkle Sprinkle you told about Lunna?" other Celestia asked, sounding like an excited filly, while pointing at Twilight.
"Yes, she is. Now can you go clean the extra-tanks?"
"A-Kay!"
And with that the odd looking 'Celestia' walked elsewhere, leaving all four princesses, two of them looking very confused.
"Who was that?" Cadance asked.
"Oh, that was BitchCelly. She helps around here in small things." Luna answered.
"She's an abnormality among the clones, having a low level of sentience. Equal to a excitable foal. She's harmless." Celestia added.
"Are there anymore of these... Clones in here?" Twilight asked carefully.
"Not at the moment. We usually create a backup for me, just in case if my current body starts to fall apart again." Celestia answered.
"Ok. Good luck with that..."
Having her weirdness meter overloaded, Twilight started to walk back to the door. Cadance looked after her a little while, before following after Twi.
"I better go with her, just to make sure she doesn't start twilighting too much."
With that the two sisters where left alone in the room, waving after Cadence.
"So are the back-ups still stable?" Celestia asked Luna, after checking they where alone.
"During the last chek-up, yes. But now that we're here better check them anyway." Luna said, while walking to a wall and proceeded to press few stones on it. This opened a section of the wall, revealing six more tanks, holding more of the green liquid. And also the clones of Twilight and her friends.
"Good, they look like they're still stable..." Celestia started to say, only to be interrupted by a movement among the six clones. Soon some of them began to visibly mutate into some horrid things.
"Oh, great... Luna... Fetch me the 'Ol'painless' and you can have 'Sasha' this time. We have some cleaning up to do."
"Yay!".
One clean-up session later...
"Well that was less messier than last time." Celestia said, while cleaning up a study looking baseball bat with large nails stuck to it from whatever fluid the clones were made out of.
"Maybe it was due to 'Orc-be-Gone' was in maintenance this time?" said Luna, holding a minigun, with still smoking barrels, in her magic.
"Maybe... Well, back to the drawing board with these then. We have few hours to spare from our daily schedule." Celestia concluded, while giving a one more smack with the bat to one pile of clone-goob.