The Ancient Prophecy of the Ancient Prophets
"An ancient prophecy has come to fruition!"
Bon Bon looked up from the tray of butterscotch she had been preparing, her eyes fixing on the mint green unicorn standing in the doorway, hooves raised dramatically.
"That's nice, dear," she told Lyra, giving her what she hoped was a calming smile.
Lyra, for her part, didn't seem the least bit calmed. "A battle is coming! One foretold of old by the sages of is that butterscotch?"
"Yes, it is. And no, you can't have any." Bon Bon tried not to smile as Lyra's face fell. "I told you these were for the shop. Now, why don't you tell me about this prophecy thing?"
Lyra looked sulky, eyeing the candy. "Oh, it's just some stupid thing about the end of ponykind. I'm supposed to battle to return balance or something. I dunno. Can't I have just one?"
"No," Bon Bon chided, preparing to grab the candy in case Lyra tried to use magic.
"The prophecy says I can have one," the unicorn said, seriously.
"It does not!"
"Well, it should! Why can't ancient prophecies ever be about stuff like getting candy?" Lyra stepped inside the house and closed the door behind her. "Anyway, I have to go fight Octavia."
Bon Bon blinked in surprise. "Octavia? Are you sure?"
Lyra tapped her chin with her hoof thoughtfully. "Well..." she began, "It doesn't mention her by name... it just says that the one I must face will be an earth pony who plays a large stringed instrument and frowns a lot."
Bon Bon frowned a little herself, "Well, that does sound like..."
"And she'll wear a pink bowtie," Lyra interrupted.
This time, Bon Bon didn't blink. She just stared, "That's... oddly specific. Who did you say made this prophecy?"
Lyra waved a hoof dismissively, "It's been in my family for generations. Surely I've told you about it?"
Bon Bon shook her head.
"Well... it has. There are signs and everything, too!" The unicorn's enthusiasm seemed to be returning, and Bon Bon braced herself.
"Three signs!" her love and constant headache proclaimed, holding up her hoof and counting off, for some reason Bon Bon couldn't even begin to fathom.
"First! A dark stranger shall cross my path! Second! A messenger shall appear with tidings of woe! And third! A hole will open in reality, and countless ships shall come through it into our world!"
By now, Bon Bon had returned her attention to her butterscotch. "And these things have happened?"
Lyra seemed to lose just a bit of her ebullience at that. "Well... I did cross paths with a black and red alicorn."
Bon Bon shook her head dismissively, "That's hardly uncommon, you know."
The unicorn nodded in agreement, "True... oh! But I ALSO met Derpy, and she told me she'd set fire to Cloudsdale! So that's a tiding of woe, and she IS a messenger."
"That's hardly uncommon, either," said the candy maker, not unkindly. "Although..." she added, after thinking for a moment, "How she managed to set fire to a city made of clouds is beyond me..."
Lyra shook her head, as though trying not to think about it. "Maybe you're right," she said, "But the third sign could come at any moment. We need to be..."
Her ranting was interrupted by a feverish knock at the door. The two ponies looked at one another in surprise. With a shrug, Bon Bon walked over to it and opened it slightly, to see a frantic Twilight Sparkle on the other side. The lavender unicorn forced her way in, slamming the door behind her, locking it, and then leaning on it heavily.
“You guys have got to hide me!” she said, desperately.
Lyra and Bon Bon both regarded her with wide-eyed curiosity, but it was Lyra who spoke first, “What's wrong?”
“Well, it's-” the other unicorn began, but she was interrupted by more knocking on the door. Twilight fumbled with the handle, making sure that it was locked.
A voice spoke from the other side of the door. “We know ya'll are in there, sugarcube. C'mon out and we can settle this all civil-like.”
“Indeed, darling!” came another voice, “Come out here and tell these barbarians that you long only for the hooves of Rarity! Then, we can be-”
“Put a lid on it, princess!” came a third voice, “Twilight doesn't need talk. She needs action! And I'm all about action!”
"Excuse me? 'Princess'? Perhaps you'll reconsider using that word as an insult while you're sitting on the moon!"
The rest of the words were lost as the voices outside the door fell to petty squabbling, although the odd phrase, like “take her to the rodeo”, “just want to cuddle...”, and “so I told her, 'Oatmeal?! How kinky!'” could still be heard now and again.
Twilight turned to Lyra, a note of panic in her voice as she explained, “All of my friends, and some ponies I barely know, suddenly confessed their love for me! And now I'm in the awkward but enviable position of having to pick one of them!”
Before either Lyra or Bon Bon could speak, there was a puff of smoke and a sound like a firework going off. As all three ponies coughed, they heard a new voice coming from right beside the lavender unicorn.
“At last I have you, Twilight Sparkle! Now come! Run away from this backwater village with the Great and Powerful Trixie!”
As the smoke cleared, Lyra and Bon Bon could make out a familiar azure unicorn, clinging tightly to Twilight Sparkle.
“Trixie...” said Twilight, struggling for breath, “How did you...? When did you...? Where did you learn to teleport?!”
“Oh, Twilight Sparkle!” Trixie replied, “Trixie will do anything to be with you!” Her voice dropped to a low purr that sent a chill up Lyra's spine, “And Trixie does mean... anything.”
Twilight let out a high-pitched squeak and turned her eyes imploringly back to Lyra.
The mint green unicorn smiled back coldly. “Well, I'm glad to see everything worked out for you, Twilight. Now, we'd love to stick around and celebrate with you, but we've got somewhere to be.”
She stepped over to the door that Twilight had been leaning against, opened it, and stepped aside. Half a dozen pairs of hooves, one set of which appeared to be clad in golden shoes, reached in and seized hold of Twilight.
“No!” shrieked the purple unicorn, as the hooves dragged her out the door like something from a horror movie, “Help me! Help meeeeeeee!” And with that, she was gone, along with Trixie, who had still been clinging to her.
Lyra closed the door forcefully before turning back to Bon Bon, her expression still cold. “Sometimes, I really hate that unicorn.”
“Twilight or Trixie?” asked Bon Bon, curiously.
“Yes.” Lyra replied, as she set about packing her saddlebags for the trip.
* * *
"Have you given any thought as to how we'll get to Manehatten in time to stop this 'terrible prophecy'?" Bon Bon asked, as they trotted through the streets of Ponyville.
"I have," said Lyra, seriously. "And I have no idea."
“Oh! Oh! I have an idea! Pick me!” suggested a voice from above them, with obvious enthusiasm.
Both ponies looked up in time to see an excited pink earth pony with curly hair drop from... somewhere, and land right in front of them. Best not to think about it, they both thought. Just Pinkie being Pinkie.
The earth pony's already frighteningly large smile seemed to grow even larger as she looked from Lyra to Bon Bon.
"You can use my plothole!" she told the pair happily.
“Pinkie!” replied Bon Bon, indignantly, “Watch your language!”
"Hold on, Bons," said Lyra, looking the bouncy pink pony up and down, "Let's not just turn her away..."
Bon Bon glared daggers at her companion.
Pinkie Pie just blinked at them in confusion for a second, before breaking into laughter, “Oh, you silly fillies! This isn't that kind of fic! The plothole I'm talking about is just something I use to get around without people asking too many questions!”
She thought about this for a moment, before adding, “Or at least, asking questions that aren't answered by 'It's just Pinkie being Pinkie.'”
Bon Bon looked skeptical, “This doesn't sound very reliable...”
"It isn't! But it's super-fun!" Pinkie beamed even more unnervingly. "I was even using it earlier today when I suddenly realized I had deep and longstanding feelings for Twilight! Stuff like that seems to be a side-effect of using plotholes."
“We'll do it!” broke in Lyra.
Bon Bon gave her an are-you-sure-I-mean-this-is-Pinkie-Pie-we're-talking-about-here-and-her-ideas-aren't-always-viable-or-even-safe-and-if-I-end-up-exploding-you-are-going-to-be-in-SO-much-trouble sort of look. Despite her normally demure nature, Bon Bon could be very expressive when she wished.
Of course, Lyra could easily match Bon Bon's expressiveness with her own cluelessness. “Just tell us how!”
A few minutes later, Pinkie watched as Lyra, with her giant lyre on her back, and Bon Bon, with her saddlebags, walked behind a lamppost and were gone.
Blinking, a very confused looking Applejack wandered over. “What in tarnation just happened here? One sec, they're here, an' the next they're gone like... like...” for only the second time in her life, Applejack was at a loss for a quaint country aphorism.
“Oh,” said Pinkie Pie, with a little giggle, “It's just Lyra being Lyra.”
“Ah see...” said Applejack, uncertainly. “An' Bon Bon bein' Bon Bon, I guess?”
“Of course!” said Pinkie, her smile growing wider, “Who else would she be?”
* * *
“So is this how Pinkie Pie gets around?” wondered Bon Bon uncertainly, as she and Lyra looked around themselves at the inner machinations of the plothole.
There were no walls, and no obvious source of light, but the whole thing was infused with a dull, beige-ish color. Reality flowed like a river through here, fed by myriad tributaries of thought, but never growing any larger. Up and down the flow, reality was polluted by formless and vague ideas. Self-inserts drifted eerily past them through streams of bad dialogue and chunky bits of overly contrived puns.
“Although...” she went on, watching as cracked shipping pairs leaped up and over them like large and poorly-conceived fish, “It is quite... incredible. Or maybe 'fantastic' would be a better word.”
“It's rubbish,” said Lyra, who had closed her eyes to avoid looking at the detritus of the plothole. “And I hate it,” she added, hoping fervently that they would be washed up somewhere soon.
As it happened, they were washed up somewhere a very short time later.
This somewhere was gray instead of beige-ish, and nothing flowed through it. It was reassuringly solid, or it would have been had they not been going so fast when they washed up on it. As it was, it simply seemed very, very hard. And gray.
It was, in fact, a concrete sidewalk.
“I think,” said Bon Bon as she stood up and looked around at the huge buildings towering over them, “That we're here.”
“Of course,” said Lyra, rubbing her aching backside, “Where else would we be?”
* * *
It was a typical morning in Manehatten. The sun was shining, the streets were crowded, and the ponies in the tenth-story flat were arguing loudly. Normally, this is a problem in apartment buildings, but in this case... well, it was still a problem. But it was a manageable problem, given that both ponies in question were reasonably famous, and, more importantly, could afford to spring for soundproofing their entire flat.
The ponies in question happened to be Octavia, a celebrated cellist well-known amongst the cultural aristocracy of Equestria, and Vinyl Scratch, better known as DJ P0N-3 to her fans, who was liked by everypony else.
This morning, the topic of their argument was music... again. It wasn't a true argument, though. Merely Scratch's usual mid-morning baiting. She sat across the dining table from Octavia, grinning like a maniac as the gray earth pony pounded the table with her hoof and ranted about the purity of musical creation.
Vinyl's smile widened. Octavia was getting to her favorite part. She would reeeeally hate it if she were interrupted right... now.
“But obviously,” Vinyl interrupted, barely controlling her mirth at the furious look on Octavia's face, “The enjoyment of the audience is the most important thing, right? So, in that sense, as long as they enjoy it, the actual way you create the music is... inconsequential.”
Vinyl Scratch didn't typically throw out words like 'inconsequential'. It wasn't her style. But after some careful thought, she had decided that it would be just the sort of word that Tavi couldn't ignore.
Octavia's left eye twitched. Vinyl started to grin again, but before she could finish doing so, Octavia had grabbed her elbow and then almost immediately smacked her head into the table.
Vinyl stared at her, not sure whether or not to laugh. Then she made up her mind, and laughed as she asked, “Tavi, you alright there?”
Octavia slowly lifted her head from the table, “Yeah... I mean, yes. I am quite alright.” She glanced nervously from side to side, as though expecting something to happen. For a second, nothing happened.
Then nothing kept happening, and she relaxed slightly. Taking a deep breath, she started to speak again, “Anyway, as I was saying, the cultural context of musical crea-” Her speech was interrupted as her eye twitched, her elbow gave a spasm, and her head once again smacked the table, harder this time.
This time, Vinyl didn't laugh. She just stared. “Seriously, Tavi, are you going to be okay?”
At these words, Octavia stood up from the table and stared at the door. Vinyl looked at the door, too.
It was a door.
Suddenly, a light went on in the unicorn's head.
“Hey! Is this one of those prediction things? Like where certain combinations mean certain things are going to happen? I heard about how those sometimes happen to your fami-”
Her words were cut short as Octavia turned to glare at her, her nostrils flaring. The DJ pony wilted under the look. “I mean... to one of Rainbow Dash's friends.” She smiled weakly. Vinyl Scratch was brave, some might say even say reckless, but there were certain of Octavia's buttons that even she dared not push.
Octavia looked away, back towards the door, and muttered something.
“What's that?” Vinyl asked, regaining her composure now that the glare was no longer upon her.
Octavia was quiet for a moment before she said, quite clearly, “Eye twitch, pinchy elbow, head smack.”
Vinyl looked quizzically at her. “And that means...?”
“A rival approaches, seeking battle.”
“Ah,” said Vinyl, looking down and realizing that her cereal had gone soggy, “Horseapples.”
Just then, there was a light tapping at the window. Octavia walked over to see a small rock, surrounded by a mint-green glow, tapping itself lightly but insistently on her window. With some trepidation, she looked out of the apartment, down towards the street. There, looking up at her from the sidewalk ten stories below, was Lyra. And she had her lyre with her. Octavia narrowed her eyes. This could mean only one thing.
* * *
“Do you really have to do this?” Bon Bon asked nervously, glancing at Lyra's unusually serious expression.
“This is the way it has to be,” the unicorn responded.
Suddenly, there was a crash from above, as Octavia and her cello smashed through the window of the flat. Both sailed through the air until they landed a dozen feet in front of Lyra and Bon Bon. The pavement cracked, but both the cellist and her instrument appeared unharmed. Things were getting serious.
“Lyra.” said Octavia.
“Octavia.” said Lyra.
“Lyra...” said Bon Bon.
“DJ P0N-3!” said Vinyl Scratch, from the broken window.
Octavia glared. Not at Vinyl, as anypony who knew her would imagine, but at her opponent's lyre. From ten stories up, Lyra's instrument had looked fairly small. Here on ground level though, she could see it was far bigger than her normal lyre: roughly the size of her own cello, in fact. Truth be told, Octavia wasn't sure it even qualified as a lyre, but it hardly mattered. What mattered was that Lyra was pulling out the big guns.
Without another word, Octavia pulled out her bow like a gladiator unsheathing a sword. “I'm going to fugue you so hard you'll be sore in the morning.”
“Hey!” said Bon Bon.
“Yeah, but it's going to be the good kind of sore." returned Lyra, "The kind that comes with pounding your...”
“Hey!” said Bon Bon again, this time to Lyra.
* * *
The musical battle was intense, with Octavia working her bow feverishly across the strings, while Lyra filled her instrument with all the magic at her command. Chord met chord as both musicians battled furiously.
Bon Bon looked on with a nervous expression, while Vinyl, who had taken the elevator rather than the window, simply looked confused.
Eventually, it became clear that Lyra was outmatched, though just barely. She gritted her teeth as she desperately tried to repel the furious barrage coming from Octavia's cello. The lyrist knew then that the earth pony wasn't known as Hell's Cellist for nothing. For that matter, she wasn't entirely sure she was called that at all... but she ought to be.
The momentary lapse in concentration cost her, as Octavia's three-chord progression broke through her guard, sending her flying backwards. The unicorn landed in a heap on the ground, and Octavia smiled, “Looks like this is over.”
Lyra did not respond. Instead, she picked herself up off the ground, waving aside Bon Bon's assistance, and approached her instrument. Octavia was shocked to see that she seemed to be... smiling?
When Lyra was beside her instrument, she spoke, “This is far from over.” And then she stood up on her hind legs.
“No! Lyra, you mustn't!” cried Bon Bon, but Lyra took no notice.
As Octavia watched in fascination, Lyra reached out and... it couldn't be! But it was... she had placed her hooves on the strings. She was going to play with her hooves!
Tears ran down Bon Bon's eyes as she watched Lyra. It was insane, she knew. Lyra had trained all her life to play using magic, and besides, hooves were terribly unsuited for plucking strings. She wondered briefly why the instrument was created in the first place, but stopped wondering as Lyra begin to glow.
Waves of green energy seemed to radiate outward from the unicorn, her mane flaring out as though she were in the middle of a tornado. Octavia didn't know what she was about to do, but whatever it was, it was BIG.
A dull roaring sound, not unlike a tidal wave bearing down on the shore, emanated from her opponent's lyre as she readied her hooves by the strings. “These hooves of mine cry out for me to defeat you!” Lyra shouted above the noise, “Hyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...!”
* * *
The sun was creeping along slowly as the afternoon drew on. Bon Bon, Octavia, and Vinyl all sat around a small table covered by a checkered cloth. All three ponies were enjoying the sandwiches Bon Bon had brought along as they chatted with one another.
“Mmm. 'ese are really 'ood, Bon Bon!” commented Vinyl, her mouth half full of sandwich. She swallowed, smiling, “Especially the dandelion ones!”
Bon Bon waved away the compliment, but looked pleased all the same, “Oh, it's nothing, really!”
Octavia chimed in, “Heh. Living with Vinyl, we mostly eat cereal and toaster pastries. Real food is a welcome change.”
The DJ gave her a mock glare, her mouth full of food, “No'un stoffin' you fr'm cookin', Tavi.” She swallowed again. “Well, except me. Your cooking is terrible.”
Octavia gave her a playful swat, as Bon Bon and Vinyl laughed. Even Octavia chuckled a little.
“...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...” said Lyra, still charging her attack.
* * *
At last, the sandwiches were done, and Octavia stood once again facing her opponent.
Briefly, she wondered why she was letting Lyra charge up this attack at all, but that thought fled as the mint-green unicorn finally finished.
"...aaaaaaaaaaaaakenmuriolyramagicalsparklebeam TIMES TWO!"
The force of Lyra's music hit Octavia like a tidal wave. It wasn't as precise as her magic had been; the notes were less distinct under her hooves, but there was something... primal, about the sound that made Octavia's knees buckle. She could barely stand under the onslaught. Just a moment ago, she had been so close to victory, but this new onslaught of sound seemed likely to bury her.
Vinyl Scratch had no clue what was going on as she watched Lyra and Octavia take it in turns to play some ridiculously complex music while the other staggered about, as if being hit from all sides by tiny, invisible hammers. But it looked like fun, and she liked fun things.
“Don't give up, Tavi! Hit her with your ultimate attack!” She had no idea if Octavia had an ultimate attack, but it seemed like an appropriate thing to say anyway, given the circumstances. “Remember the colonel!” she added cheerfully.
Hearing Vinyl's voice seemed to give new life to Octavia. With a cry, she straightened up, throwing off the oppressive sounds of the lyre. There was fire in her eyes as she raised her bow once more. “This is it!” she cried, her bow held dramatically in the air.
Lyra hesitated for a mere moment, but it was enough for Octavia. She brought her bow down on the strings as she cried, “Ultimate Technique: Fifth Octave! Burniiiiing Cellooooo Overdriiiiive!” And with that, her instrument exploded.
Literally.
* * *
“I admit, that was a great performance,” Lyra said as she prepared to haul away the partially-melted remains of her lyre, “But I'll get you next time.”
Octavia smiled back and held out a blackened hoof, “I look forward to it.”
The two musicians shook hooves, and then Lyra and Bon Bon left, leaving Octavia standing amid the splintered remains of her cello and covered from head to hoof in black soot. She had already dusted most of it off when she collapsed unceremoniously on the sidewalk.
Vinyl rushed over at once to make sure that she was alright. A quick examination assured her that her roommate was uninjured, but probably exhausted.
The DJ gently lifted her friend up with her magic until she could support her and get her inside. As she did, the unicorn smiled to herself. She could think of a lot of ways to have fun with an unconscious Octavia... the smile became wicked, and she picked up her pace as she began to chuckle wickedly.
* * *
When Octavia woke up about fifteen minutes later, it took her a second to realize where she was. This was Scratch's side of the flat, the unicorn's turntables were right in front of her. Had Scratch brought her here? It must have been her... but why?
A growing sense of horror filled Octavia as she tried to move and realized she was tied to her chair... with glowing ropes?
Yes, they were filled with the same stuff as those glow sticks Scratch seemed so fond of. But why was she tied to a chair? And why was she wearing a DJ P0N-3 t-shirt?
As she pondered this, Vinyl came back through the door to her bedroom holding a pair of sunglasses, numerous socks, and what appeared to be a bottle of hair gel.
“Oh,” said the DJ, looking at her, “I see my number one fanfilly is awake. Are you ready for the most rocking evening of your life?”
Octavia just stared. It was then that she noticed the unusually large stack of records resting on the turntables, and realization hit her.
“Oh yes,” Vinyl said, smiling, “We're going to have a nice long evening, you and I. You'll get to hear all my new mixes. Every. Last. One. That is, after I'm done making you look a little less... reputable.”
The DJ approached her, a wicked smile on her face as she removed the top from the bottle of hair gel.
Octavia screamed, but with all the soundproofing around the flat, nopony but Vinyl could hear her...