I have a WHAT?!
Twilight fluttered her new wings. "So, I'm a princess now?"
"Yes." Princess Celestia bowed her head, followed by every creature both living and dead within a five-mile radius. "Princess Twilight Sparkle, you are now expelled from my school."
"Wait, what?"
"Nothing!" Celestia popped back up. "Now then, Twilight, what do you think of your new appendages?"
"Wait, appendages?" Rainbow blurted, her eyes trailing down to Twilight's thicc, absolutely swole, and in no way lacking in length... legs. "I don't see any more legs down there!"
Twilight raised a brow. "Why would I have another leg?"
"'Dunno. I read about you growing one in this weird book stuck inside a Daring Do cover."
Rainbow Dash was promptly turned into a table leg for the rest of the day for her crimes against rated-E fanfiction. A conveniently placed black-and-red alicorn proceeded to use her as their weapon of choice.
"Well..." Twilight unfolded a wing and ignored the screaming edgicorn beside her. "They're nice, I guess. I'll have to find somepony besides Rainbow to teach me how to fly, though."
"Oh, no no no," Celestia tutted. "No need for us alicorns to fly. We have slingshots for that. But your wings aren't what I'm talking about."
Twilight raised her other brow as Shanky Shanky the red-and-black alicorn of doom was loaded into a giant slingshot and banished to the moon. "They're not? What else did I gain when I ascended?"
"A button."
"A... button."
"Yup!" Celestia lifted her wing to show off her button. "I am unaware of this device's functions, but I do believe it exists on all alicorns."
Twilight's eyebrows lifted off her head and began to hover in the air on their own, because this is a cartoon dangit. "You've never tried pressing the button?"
Celestia proceeded to "nope" in a way that would make Big Mac proud.
"Huh. Strange. What do you think it does, then?"
A distant explosion burst from the moon far above them. Celestia stared up at it for a few seconds before turning back to Twilight.
"It makes ice cream, I believe. Either that or it causes us to produce rainbows from our hindquarters uncontrollably."
Twilight raised her own wing and looked beneath it. "I don't see anything there."
"That's because, my dear stude--" Celestia caught herself. "--excuse me, my former and disgracefully expelled due to medical reasons student, the button is--"
"Medical reasons?" Twilight scoffed. "How does ascending to what is essentially godhood a medical reaso--"
"Being an alicorn causes you to slowly lose your will to give a f
ck. You have at most a decade before you will need to find a protege of your own to do everything that your lazy behind refuses to do."
"Oh."
"Anyway," Celestia spun around quick enough to give Twilight a good slap across the face with her magic rainbow sparkle tail. "The button is apparently located at a random location on every alicorn. My sister's button is inside her left nostril, for example."
"Left... nostri--"
"She unfortunately is unable to blow her nose, let alone breathe. It is why she remains shorter than I am."
"That doesn't even make any sense!"
Celestia shrugged. "We're talking small pastel horses in magic land. Do you think sense and logic is a thing that exists here?"
"...Ye--"
"No!" Celestia tapped Twilight on the cheek despite still being turned away from her. "And I refuse to cease my interrupting of your words!"
"Princess!" Raven's voice echoed down the hall that they were suddenly in. "Must you be so loud at this time of day?"
The Princess of the Day finally shut up after that, mouthing a quiet "sorry" in Raven's direction.
"Didyoujust..." Twilight facehoofed with a groan. "Celestia. Do you not respect me at least as much as your own personal assistant?"
Celestia's eyes shifted about. She turned around again to face Twilight, lowering her head to the mare's height. "Raven is infinite. It's a long story."
Twilight made a face. "Fine. So what about the buttons, then? Has anypony ever pressed one?"
Celestia rubbed her chin. "My father, I believe. He said something about going to the store for milk, and never came back. Perhaps the button causes its owners to become trapped within the supermarket?"
"Have you... maybe checked the supermarket to see if he's still there?" Twilight's eyebrows by this point were quite literally through the roof of Canterlot Castle. "I'm pretty sure that he just abandoned the fa--"
"The fax machine, right!" Celestia gasped. "I broke the fax machine that morning, so he said that he was gonna buy a new one after he bought some milk!"
"How does that even relate to pressing buttons? And a fax machine? Is he really that ancient?"
"'Dunno. But it's what I like to think. Are we going to continue this enlightening discussion of my family history, or will we return to our original topic now?"
"Original topic, please."
"Right. Button." Celestia finally lowered her wing that she'd been holding up the entire time, paying special care not to even so much as touch her button. "Before you ask again, no, none of us know what happens if one presses it."
"Do we know where it comes from, at least?" Twilight cocked her head. "Or do we only know that it comes with ascending to alicornhood?"
"I do faintly recall a voice of a pharmacist talking about some sort of '-inator' coming to me in my dreams. I find it strange that the word that preceded 'inator' was 'explode', however."
"Strange."
"Yes. Strange indeed. I am unable to decipher this dream due to my lack of giving a care, so I do not give it any thought."
"I... guess that works. Ignore things until they become a problem."
"There we go!" Celestia pat Twilight's back with a wing. "Now you're getting it! You'll be running Equestria as your own in no time!"
Twilight Sparkle's eyes sparkled like the Twilight sky. "Really?"
"Yes, really!"
Twilight's stomach grumbled. "Wow, uh... gee, I didn't think that it'd be that simple! And you said that you offload your work onto assistants and proteges?"
Celestia nodded. "You will receive a Raven of your own in due time."
"Oh, but I already have a pet bir--"
Celestia lit her horn and teleported Raven Inkwell in front of her former student that she'd expelled disgracefully for health reasons. "You will receive a Raven of your own in due time and by that I mean today."
Raven facehoofed. "I'm taking the rest of the day off, Princess. Goodnight."
The two alicorns watched Raven walk back down the hall again.
"Wow, I feel lazier already!" Twilight exclaimed. Her stomach grumbled again. "Before we come back to the discussion of the alicorn button thing, I think I might've eaten one too many tacos at Taco Bell. Excuse me for a bit."
Twilight teleported away.
"Girls, I'm home!" Chonk Beeficus, father of Celestia and Luna and the most s w o l e alicorn to exist, tore a hole through the wall with two jugs of milk and a fax machine in tow.
"Celly?" He paced down the hallway, looking around. A lone light shone from beneath the restroom door.
"Press butt to flush?" Twilight's voice faintly echoed from behind said door. "If you say so..."
A quiet click came immediately after, followed by an explosion that rocked the castle and blew away Chonk Beeficus despite his swole-guard. This is because he accidentally looked at the explosion and became uncool.
"Father?" Celestia opened the door, walking into the now-incinerated room. Her eyes landed on the jugs of milk and fax machine as she gasped. "You bought milk! Though..." she looked round. "I suppose it makes sense that you leave once more to acquire internet services for the castle. Fax machines are far from cutting-edge these days if I recall."
She picked up the milk jugs in her magic and began walking to the kitchen. She paused in front of the missing restroom door. "Wait, my successor? Gone?" Celestia threw the milk jugs aside, causing them to pop like water balloons from the force. "Nonono--Twilight can't be leaving with dad! She's supposed to take over tomorrow morning!"
"...Celestia?" A quiet voice in the darkness growled. "I believe I am the one most fitting to succeed you."
Celestia watched Sunset Shimmer step out of the darkness.
"You said I was unprepared to become a Princess. You didn't believe I was a fitting ruler. I fled, years ago, to build my strength and influence in a realm foreign to our own. Every waking day of my life was ruled by my training to become this ideal image you sought ultimately within Twilight Sparkle." Sunset spat the name like it was an unexpectedly bitter candy. "But now, after all the studying I have done--economics, law, sociology--I have returned to claim my throne."
"Ehhhh..." Celestia cringed at the thought of such a leader. "Not really what I had in mind, but sure, you're in charge now. Toodles!"
She lit her horn and vanished, leaving Sunset with a pair of wings...
...and a button.