This had gone far enough. Even if Luna had initially relished the extra peace and quiet, by the time she’d gotten caught up with her studies, her sister’s newfound solemnity had begun to grate on her nerves. Thus, Luna had decided to confront Celestia on the matter.

Celestia, unfortunately, didn’t seem willing to acknowledge her concerns. “I cannot see why thou wouldst harbor misgivings towards any additional reflectiveness on my part, Sister. Hast thou not often insisted that self-evaluation is important for efficient mental improvement?”

Luna sighed at her sister’s obstinacy. “I merely wish to point out, dearest Celestia, that ever since the defeat of Sombra, thy countenance has been much subdued. I had thought ’twas my function to avoid smiling at all costs. Indeed, I would have thee return that role to me, as I find it rather draining to be the ‘joyful’ one. Besides, art thou not the Element of Laughter?”

It was this question that at last stirred Celestia from her spot on the balcony overlooking the Canterlot market. “Dost thou believe me to be depressed?”

“Nay,” Luna said, “but thou art surely not as vivacious as in times past. Why, thou hast not suggested that we amuse ourselves with Quigley for three months.”

Celestia wrinkled her eyebrows in puzzlement. “Quigley? Who is this ‘Quigley’ thou speakest of?”

Luna was taken aback by this question. She stared quizzically at her sister as she replied, “Thou art jesting; thou couldst not simply forget the hours we spent with him in fantastical adventures. Nor couldst thou be ignorant of the time thou spent creating our draconequus friend.”

“Draconequus?”

“A shapeshifting creature of thine own design!” Luna exclaimed. “Celestia, I am now truly beginning to worry that something has happened to thy mind. Dost thou remember nothing of his disregard for rules? His distinctive voice? His seemingly exhaustive knowledge of the myriad uses of eggnog?”

Celestia blinked repeatedly as her memories sparked back to life. “Oh... of course. Our imaginary friend. Yes, it has been a while, has it not?”

Luna let out a sigh of relief. “It seems that this potential crisis is not as severe as I had feared.”

“That is most certainly true, and yet the surrounding circumstances are most odd,” Celestia said. “How could I have forgotten about Quigley?”

“Oh, that’s simple: You didn’t think about me because I wasn’t inside your head anymore.” The sudden intrusion of a broad, somewhat nasal tenor into the conversation took both sisters by surprise; they whirled around to see a tall creature with a twisting, snakelike body, an odd assortment of limbs and horns, and a rakish grin on his equine head. The creature chuckled softly. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for a suitably dramatic moment to show myself, but the looks on your faces...” The creature’s sentence gave way to a delighted cackle. “Oh, that was worth the wait.”

It was then that Celestia finally managed to shake off her bewilderment and address the newcomer: “Quigley?!”

If there was one thing that Twilight Sparkle didn’t like, it was not having a clue what was going on. “None of this makes any sense!” she shouted as she paced around the partially demolished great hall. “Not the Ursa, not Discord, and especially not Trixie! It shouldn’t be possible, which means it couldn’t have happened, but it did happen, which means there must be an explanation, but there isn’t an explanation, because it shouldn’t be possible!”

Her friends were scattered around the room, watching her anxiously. So far, they’d been quiet and watched as Twilight “reasoned” herself in circles for nearly five minutes, mostly because they wanted to avoid setting her off. Eventually, it was Pinkie Pie who broke into Twilight’s fruitless monologuing. “Okay, Twilight, I know you’re upset, but I don’t really think that being all panicky will help us figure out what to do next.”

Twilight did not respond to this as well as Pinkie had hoped. “Upset?! Pinkie, Trixie just defeated Celestia and Luna in a matter of minutes, and now they’ve both disappeared, and there’s no logical explanation for that, either!”

Penumbra sighed. “As I’ve already explained, Twilight, Trixie used a spell that created an extremely bright light and loud noise, most likely adapted from her repertoire of stagecraft and fireworks magic. The shock to the senses was enough to disorient both Princess Cadance and me for at least thirty seconds, and possibly longer. When the light and noise faded away, neither Celestia nor Luna was present. The most likely explanation is that Trixie used the momentary distraction to take them captive and spirit them away.”

“Like I said,” Twilight resumed with a glare, “there is no logical explanation for the princess’ disappearance.”

Penumbra’s voice remained neutral as she said, “Well, if it’s any consolation, I got the impression that Trixie would have agreed with you.”

This, finally, managed to pull Twilight out of her feedback loop. “Excuse me?”

“Trixie looked absolutely stunned when Celestia went down; she just stood there for a few seconds, as if she had no idea what to do next. Unfortunately, I wasted my free shot; otherwise, you could have asked her yourself when she recovered from the lightning.”

“You only got one lightning bolt off?” Rainbow Dash asked skeptically.

“I supposed I could have used a large scattering of smaller bolts, but I didn’t want to hit Celestia,” Penumbra replied. “In any case, that was enough to shock her out of her stupor and initiate her getaway plan—assuming, of course, that she had actually planned it.”

Twilight Sparkle still looked stunned, but apparently, this new information was enough to restart her cognitive abilities. When she resumed her pacing, most of the panic had left her voice. “Okay, so there might actually be a logical reason for this mess that doesn’t involve Trixie spontaneously developing into the world’s most devious chessmaster, but still, how could she have pulled this off? I mean, I might have been able to accept that Trixie just got really lucky, if it wasn’t for the way that Ursa was taking orders from her.”

“Actually, I was wondering about that myself,” Cadance said. “How did you manage to handle the Ursa Major?”

Twilight sighed. “Well, after the initial attempt at an ill-advised direct approach—”

“I still say it could have worked if you’d all been trying,” Rainbow Dash interjected grumpily as she massaged a large bump on her head.

“—Fluttershy managed to calm the Ursa down and find out what was going on.”

“Let me guess,” Penumbra said. “Momma was angry over something that happened to her cub.”

“Actually, that was a male Ursa,” Fluttershy replied. “They aren’t particularly concerned about their offspring.”

“Okay, fine,” Penumbra said. “So why was Mr. Ursa teaming up with Trixie?”

“Um, well, he didn’t know.”

“He had amnesia?” Cadance asked.

“No, I mean that he hadn’t really thought about why he was taking orders from Trixie until I brought it up. Apparently, she just marched into his cave and... um... intimidated him.”

Penumbra’s face showed her typical expression of stony skepticism. “Are you seriously claiming that Trixie bullied an Ursa Major into doing what she wanted?”

Fluttershy nervously dragged a hoof across the floor before answering. “Well, that’s what Mr. Ursa said, and I can’t think of a reason why he would claim that he’d been intimidated by a pony if it wasn’t true.”

“Ooh!” Pinkie shouted. “Do you think maybe Trixie managed to learn how to do The Stare?”

“Uh, well, I suppose that’s possible,” Fluttershy said, “but I don’t really know how I do it myself, and I haven’t met anypony else who can. How could she learn it?”

“I think y’all are forgettin’ somethin’ important here,” Applejack replied. “An’ that somethin’s name is Discord. For all we know, he’s the one who got the Ursa involved.”

“Those are definitely plausible theories,” Twilight said, now firmly back in her accustomed role as a relatively dispassionate analyst. “But they aren’t without their own weaknesses. For one thing—”

Twilight Sparkle did not have the luxury of completing that thought, however, because at that moment Shining Armor burst into the room, still in the dress uniform he’d been wearing all evening. “Your Majesties! We have a problem.”

It took Twilight a second or two to process the fact that her brother had addressed her using the formal style before she could come up with a response. “Yes, Shining, we’re trying to figure out what happened to Celestia and Luna right now.”

Apparently, Shining Armor had been unaware that anything had happened his employers. “Were they injured?”

“We don’t know for certain,” Twilight replied. “Penumbra and Cadance didn’t really get a chance to look at their conditions before Trixie took them away.”

Shining Armor’s eyes widened. “What?! They’ve been captured?!” His eyes darted around the room, looking for evidence of the royal sisters to prove his statement wrong.

Sadly, that evidence was not to be. “It looks that way,” Twilight said. “That’s not what you’re here about?”

“No! It’s about the armories,” Shining Armor continued, clearly shaken up by the new revelation, but pressing on with his duty. “They’ve been completely emptied!”

“What?” Cadance asked. “How many of them?”

“Every single one in Canterlot,” her husband replied. “Right now, the Royal Guard has no armor or weapons, except for the dozen or so ponies who were on guard duty when the Ursa attacked, and a few who own their own weapons. All the rest of us have is our innate unicorn, pegasus, or earth pony magic.”

“Something tells me that we have just discovered the intended goal of Trixie’s venture,” Rarity said. “It was probably a distraction—essentially a large-scale piece of stagecraft.”

“Well, regardless of why it happened, the fact remains that mobilizing a military response to Discord—and I suppose we’d better add Trixie to the list of threats—is going to be a lot more complicated than expected,” Shining Armor said. The Captain of the Royal Guard seemed ready to take on as much blame for the mess as possible. “Damn it, Celestia even told me to draw up contingency plans for something like this.”

“Now isn’t the time to worry about prevention, dear,” Cadance told her husband. She turned to Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie. “Your Majesties, as Equestria’s ranking princesses, it falls on you to decide what to do next.”

“Um, excuse me,” Fluttershy said meekly. “Why only Twilight and Pinkie? Aren’t you a princess, too?”

“Our titles may be the same, but I don’t have the same level of political authority. I only rule over the autonomous Crystal Mountain province; that’s why I’m called the Princess of the North.”

This explanation didn’t seem convincing to Rainbow Dash. “Uh, no offense, but why would the Crystal Mountains need their own princess? Hardly anypony lives there.”

Cadance sighed. “It wasn’t always like that,” she said in voice so distant and forlorn that it completely snuffed out that particular topic.

“Well,” Penumbra said in an effort to break up the resulting silence, “it seems to me that finding and returning Celestia and Luna should be one of our top priorities, and as it happens, I have an idea on to do that.”

“Let’s hear it,” Twilight said.

“Locating them should not prove too much trouble, since I use lightning to correspond with Luna.” Penumbra located some paper, dashed off a quick note, and zapped it with electricity, causing the paper to streak out of the great hall in jagged bolt.

“Wow, that’s really neat,” Pinkie Pie said, “but do you really think that Luna will be able to respond to you, though?”

“Probably not,” Penumbra admitted, “but she doesn’t have to. Based on the direction that bolt was traveling, I know that she’s currently somewhere south of here, which is enough for me to begin my search. I am assuming, of course, that finding Luna will make the task of finding Celestia a relatively simple matter.”

“But what if they’re being guarded?” Fluttershy asked. “Won’t it be dangerous for you to try to free them if you’re all by yourself?”

“Oh, it most certainly would be. Luckily for me, Luna made sure that I would never have to worry about doing anything by myself.”

Fluttershy looked confused. “I don’t understand,” she said, and from the looks on everypony else’s faces, she wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

“Do you remember why Pinkie Pie is able to treat the normal rules of logic as though they were optional?”

“Ooh! I know! I know! It’s because Twilight gave me that ability when she created Surprise,” Pinkie answered. “She thought it made me more fun and interesting.”

“That is correct. Twilight wanted a friend who didn’t necessarily have to follow all the rules of the real world, and here you are. However, Luna did not create me to be an imaginary friend. I began my existence as a paranoid contingency plan.”

“That’s true,” Twilight said, “but you don’t have all the powers of a rogue version of Celestia anymore; you’re restricted to pegasus magic.”

“Ah, but you’re forgetting that Luna thought that her sister had acquired a new ability when Discord appeared: one that was completely unrelated to normal alicorn magic.”

Pinkie Pie gasped. “That’s right! Luna thought Celestia might be able to create more real-life imaginary friends. And she created you because she thought Celestia might be able to use that ability to take over....” The pink pony trailed off for a second, only to come back in full force as the realization hit her. “You can create golems!”

“Huh? Gollum?” Rainbow Dash said as she scratched her head.

“Golems,” Penumbra corrected. “Autonomous puppets created from nothing, though I prefer to use cloud as a sort of glue to provide extra stability. With them, there is no reason for me to find myself outnumbered by any opposing force.”

“Uh, no offense, Penny, but that sounds a little far-fetched to me,” Rainbow Dash said.

“First of all, don’t call me Penny. Secondly, you of all ponies should have no trouble believing me, since you’re the only one here who’s seen me do it before.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Penumbra smirked knowingly before saying, “Perhaps a demonstration is in order.” She rose from the ground and hovered in the middle of the hall with a look of extreme concentration on on her face. She closed her eyes, slowing down her wingbeats while increasing the power of their upward force. As she did so, she seemed to draw every cloud in the night sky inside the room, merging them into an amorphous blob of vapor. Minutes later, the clouds began to congeal and settle onto the floor where they slowly shifted into pony-shaped forms, eventually solidifying into a half-dozen bluish-grey pegasi with blue manes and purple-and-black jumpsuits. Penumbra smiled as she viewed her work. Turning to her friends, she waved a hoof dramatically and said, “Allow me to reintroduce the Shadowbolts!”

Applejack let out a low whistle. “Mighty impressive.”

“Wow... are they for real?” Pinkie said, moving one of her hooves towards a nearby stallion.

“Don’t touch me,” the stallion said tersely in what sounded like a masculine version of Penumbra’s voice before returning to standing at attention. Pinkie obligingly retracted her hoof and scurried to the opposite side of the room.

“As you can see,” Penumbra explained, “my Shadowbolts are capable of independent action and communication, though in the end, they are still golems, and I am quite capable of fully controlling all of them at once. I should think that the martial applications of this talent are obvious.”

“Yeah, they are,” Rainbow Dash said brusquely. “So, why didn’t you create a bunch when you were fighting Trixie?”

Penumbra let out a noise that sounded like mix of a groan and a sigh. “As I’ve just demonstrated, actually creating them requires quite a bit of time and concentration, and I rather doubt Trixie would have been polite enough to wait for me to finish. Besides, who immediately tries to use their most powerful abilities when they can’t be sure of what’s actually happening? Surely you didn’t react to the Ursa Major by performing a Sonic Rainboom.”

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds as everypony stared at Rainbow Dash, who eventually managed to squeak out, “It could have worked...”

Penumbra sighed. “In any case, I think that it is best if I begin my search for Celestia and Luna immediately. Do you agree?” she asked Twilight and Pinkie.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Twilight said.

“Then, I shall take my leave. My Shadowbolts will serve as couriers for progress reports.” After her friends wished her good luck, Penumbra and the Shadowbolts flew out of the gaping hole in the wall and into the night sky.

“Okay,” Twilight said, “while Penumbra looks for Celestia and Luna, we need to figure out just what happened to Trixie. Therefore, I think we should all head to the Royal Library—”

“Hang on there, Sugarcube,” Applejack said. “Ain’t you forgettin’ something?”

Twilight wrinkled her brow as she said, “I’m not sure what you mean, Applejack.”

“We can’t just shut everything down while we’re lookin’ for answers.”

“She’s right,” Cadance said. “You and Pinkie have to be seen serving the public, or they might lose faith in you.”

“Actually,” Applejack said, “I’m thinkin’ in more practical terms. No matter what happens, the sun and moon still gotta rise and set, and seein’ as how Twilight’s the most powerful unicorn ever, she should probably be the one to handle that.”

“But...” Twilight said as mild panic began creeping back into her voice, “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“But darling,” Rarity said, “surely you asked Celestia how she did it during your years as her student.”

“Well, yes, but she only went over the theory behind the spells, and a few demonstrations. I’ve never had any practice at it.”

“Maybe not, but if anypony can pull it off without any practice, it’s you,” Rarity said confidently.

“That’s right,” Applejack agreed, “and given what Spike’s note said about our sisters, you know me and Rarity wouldn’t tell you that if we didn’t think it was the best way to handle it.”

“I still wish I could think of a way to help them now...”

“Yes,” Rarity said with a sympathetic nod, “and as we told you before, we believe that taking care of this crisis takes priority over our personal worries.”

“That, an’ solvin’ the first problem will more than likely take care of the second,” Applejack added.

Twilight let out a deep breath. “All right,” she said, “I’ll handle the sky. Shining Armor, you try to find a way to get the Royal Guard back in action, and Cadance can help keep the public calm. But the rest of you should still start figuring out what happened to Trixie. Once we’ve figured out how to deal with her, we’ll be able to figure out our next step. I’m sure you can handle it.”

“You bet we can,” Rainbow Dash said confidently. “After all we’ve still got one super-genius to help us out. You up for this, Pinkie?”

Pinkie Pie chewed her bottom lip for a second or two before answering. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“Oh, come on, don’t sell yourself short. I know that you don’t usually do the whole book-smart thing, but you should be able to handle this, right?”

“It’s not about being confident,” Pinkie Pie replied. “It’s about keeping Equestria safe. In case you forgot, on top of everything Trixie’s done, we still need to deal with Discord.”

“Pinkie,” Rarity said, “are you suggesting that we use the Elements on him now?”

“No, I’m not,” the pink princess said with a shake of her mane. “If we do that, Canterlot will be left open to whatever else Trixie has in store. I’m just saying that somepony needs to limit the damage he does until we know enough about what’s going on to come up with a real plan, and, well, I’m the only pony here who can do that.”

“Pinkie,” Twilight said, “are you planning to use your imaginary friend magic against him?”

Pinkie nodded slowly in response.

Applejack looked concerned. “But Pinkie Pie... didn’t you say that that’s probably what he wants?”

“Yeah... and it wouldn’t surprise me if that turned out to be one of the reasons he joined up with Trixie in the first place. But I’m a princess now, and if giving Discord what he wants for a little while will do the most good in the end, then I’ll do it.” Pinkie Pie’s eyes turned unusually steely as she continued: “I’ll do whatever I have to to keep my little ponies safe. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Great and Powerful though she was, Trixie was nevertheless breathing heavily as she teleported into her throne room. After meeting up with the Diamond Dogs to apply the most powerful sleeping spells she could think of to the princesses, she’d separated from them so they could deliver the two to her headquarters while she made sure that they wouldn’t be followed. After using some unusually powerful stagecraft spells to cloak her minions, the Great and Powerful Trixie spent the better part of an hour zipping all around the network of caves beneath Equestria, erecting magical barriers to thwart any pursuers at each stop. She couldn’t remember the last time her teleportation skills had been tested to this degree—in fact, should couldn’t quite remember having done much teleporting at all before tonight, but she didn’t have time to dwell on such minor details. After all, she needed to restrain her captives before they could awaken.

This, of course, was a fairly simple matter. After all, she’d already used a very effective force field to keep Twilight out of Ponyville; it probably would have worked if she hadn’t forgotten to make a plane on the ground, resulting in an imperfect five-sided cube. The Great and Powerful Trixie wouldn’t make that mistake again. Soon enough, Celestia and Luna were encased in a six-sided translucent box with a volume of precisely eight cubic trots. She was quite confident that this would hold the pair, as she’d based the spell on the one that had been used to protect Canterlot during the Changeling incident. True, the Changelings had managed to break that force field, but The Great and Powerful Trixie was fairly certain that this had been a direct result of its spherical shape, and she’d already fixed that problem.

With her captives secure, The Great and Powerful Trixie finally had the luxury of attempting to figure out how she’d actually managed to defeat two of the most powerful ponies in Equestria in a matter of minutes and actually escape from Canterlot completely unscathed, aside from a small bruise from where that pegasus had smashed her into a punch bowl.

This had not been part of the plan. The plan had been to incapacitate the Royal Guard until Discord had so overwhelmed the countryside that the ponies of Equestria started demanding that their princesses begin negotiation—and to be fair, the Diamond Dogs had done an exceptional job of clearing out the armories. It had been planned out perfectly—but defeating the princesses had not been part of the plan. Capturing the princesses had not been part of the plan. The Great and Powerful Trixie had failed—completely and utterly failed.

No, that wasn’t true. She’d accomplished all her objectives, hadn’t she?

You deviated from the plan.

But why should it matter? She’d done all she’d intended to do, hadn’t she? In fact, with Celestia and Luna as hostages, she could very well be in an even more advantageous position than she could have hoped for.

The plan was perfect. If it was advantageous to capture the princesses, you would have planned to capture the princesses.

But the Great and Powerful Trixie would have planned it if she had known that it was feasible. The plan must have been based on faulty information.

If the information was flawed, the plan would have been imperfect, and the plan was perfect! You should never have had the opportunity to take anypony of value hostage, which means that something unpredictable happened, and unpredictable things are always bad.

But that couldn’t be true. Discord’s unpredictability was a key part of the overall strategy.

Yes... perhaps that explains it. No doubt that blasted draconequus had something to do with this. Joining forces with him was a mistake, and it will have to be rectified as soon as possible.

The Great and Powerful Trixie shook her head vigorously. Why was she wasting time dwelling on why her planning had failed to anticipate reality? The simplest, and therefore most likely explanation was that she had simply underestimated her own Greatness and Power. Such introspection could wait until later; in the meantime, she needed to figure out how best to adjust her plans to accommodate the most fortunate windfall of two valuable bargaining chips.

The unicorn glanced over to where the alicorns were sleeping soundlessly. There was no time to dither: the next act of her performance could begin at any moment, and she needed to be prepared.

Freed from the necessity of behaving in a logical, coherent manner, Pinkie Pie was able to gallop to Ponyville in record time by simply skipping past all the sections where nopony was around to hear her hoofbeats pound against the ground in a suitably dramatic fashion. Those of her subjects who did witness her travel noted that her hooves sounded unusually heavy, especially since Pinkie had shifted back to her standard “earth pony” form, which certainly didn’t look like it had enough mass to generate the force needed to cause minor tremors in the ground.

Upon her arrival, it didn’t take very long for Pinkie to find Discord, mostly because he’d somehow managed to pave a road of yellow (and eggnog-flavored) bricks behind him as he meandered away from Sweet Apple Acres (the fact that an unknown light source had made the entire area as bright as daytime helped, too). She eventually found the draconequus inside an emerald racquetball court, wearing a teal polo shirt and playing a game with a chinchilla. This, in itself, wouldn’t have been so bad, were in not for the fact that the chinchilla was Discord’s ball, rather than his opponent.

Wasting no time, Pinkie pulled an oversized pencil out of her tangled, curly mane, flipped it around, and promptly erased one of the walls of the court, causing Discord to serve the chinchilla into the relative safety of a nearby grove of trees.

Not surprisingly, he wasn’t pleased with this intrusion. “Hey! I was using that!”

“Yeah, and you were being a big fat meanypants.”

“Yes, and if you hadn’t destroyed my racquetball court, I might have been able get rid of some of that fat, Pinkie Pie. Wait... Pinkie Pie?!” Apparently, Discord had only just realized whom he was talking to. His gaze traveled back and forth between pony and pencil for a few seconds as a broad smile oozed onto his face. “Why, Pinkie Pie, my dear, have you finally decided to cut loose from those silly arbitrary rules of yours and have some real fun for once?”

“Turning innocent fillies into statues, using chinchillas as racquetballs, and turning mountains into mashed potatoes aren’t my idea of fun.”

“Ooh! Mashed potato mountains—I like that one. Mind if I use it?”

“Yes!”

“C’mon, I’ll give you credit!”

“No! I only said it because I thought one of the mountains in the distance looked like mashed potatoes!”

“Oh, good, then you already thought it was my idea. Well, since there’s no intellectual property issues, then, I might as well go through with it.” Discord snapped his talons, causing the range of mountains in the distance to become noticeably off-white and lumpy. “There we go. So, what shall we do next?”

Pinkie stamped her hoof into the ground, causing the rest of Discord’s racquetball court to shatter.

“You know,” Discord mused as he appraised the pink pony princess, “I’m beginning to think that you might be a bit miffed about something.”

“Of course I am! After all the trouble Penny went to to help you reform—”

“Hmph! Don’t make me laugh, because I already know there was no way Penumbra was going to. One of those ‘innocent fillies’ you were talking about already let slip that I never had a chance to win her ‘game.’ All that talk of being fair, and she was holding back her laughter the whole time!”

Pinkie sighed; she had actually been hoping that all the time spent with Penumbra would have forged some sort of emotional connection she could use, but now it seemed like the entire plan had turned out to be a dud. There was nothing left to do but leave the whole mess behind. “Discord, I’m giving you one chance to surrender or I’ll—”

“You’ll what? Throw a party at me? Face it, Pinkie Pie, you don’t have what it takes to be malicious.”

“That’s Princess Pinkie Pie to you!”

“Ugh, less than a day and you’re already acting self-important. You’re worse than Celestia.”

Pinkie, however, was in no mood to be goaded by insults. She stamped her forehoof against that ground and shouted, “Conversation over! Fighting now!”

Discord sighed wearily and rolled his eyes. “If you insist. En garde!”

The two of them did nothing at first; they simply stared each other down, looking for any sign of weakness. Then, the two nigh-omnipotent beings charged towards each other simultaneously, each letting out a fearsome shout as they clashed, signaling the beginning of an epic confrontation that would change the course of Equestrian history.

“Ugh!”

“Stop it!”

“No, you stop it!”

“You big meanie!”

Pinkie and Discord flailed their limbs wildly, hoping that a few of their strikes would connect with their opponent’s face, which wasn’t easy, as both of them had turned their heads away from from the fight in order minimize the chances of getting hit with a wayward slap. In fact, both of them had their eyes squeezed as tightly as possible in order to protect them from anything pokey that might come in their direction, which was probably why neither one seemed to notice that they were really only close enough to nick each other’s appendages.

“You suck!”

“No, you suck!”

“I hate you!”

“I hate you more!”

“Well, I hated you first!”

“Nuh-uh!”

It was very fortunate that there were no bystanders to see this battle of wills, as those bystanders probably would have tired of the high-pitched whining rather quickly, which would have made the next five minutes or so almost unbearable. Mercifully, this came to an end when Discord turned his head to get a look at what was going on and earned a smack on the muzzle for his trouble.

“Ouch!”

Pinkie Pie smiled as Discord withdrew his arms to clutch his nose. “Give up?”

“Oh, please. I was only going along with the slap-fight because it was amusing, and you know it.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t just give up, though.”

Discord grinned evilly. “And miss the chance to see you really let loose? I don’t think so.” He snapped his talons again, and the chinchilla emerged into the open once again. However, it no longer looked like an adorable fuzzy pseudo-racquetball, but rather an absurdly muscular monstrosity that was nearly as tall as Pinkie Pie. As the bizarre rodent began walking towards Pinkie with a menacing gleam in its eye, it was joined by other transformed creatures: mice, rabbits, chipmunks and squirrels, all looking like overzealous bodybuilders with an axe to grind against a certain pink pony princess.

That pink pony princess, however, didn’t seem particularly fazed; she simply rolled her eyes as her would-be assailants closed in. Pinkie Pie yawned as she pulled a needle out of her mane and poked each of her attackers as soon as they came within hoof’s reach, causing them to deflate back to their normal sizes. When the final bunny had been de-bulked, Pinkie looked at Discord with an expression that was equal parts boredom and frustration. “Is that all you’ve got?”

“I have not yet begun to fight!” Discord shouted as a steaming pan of some unknown pastry appeared in his paw, which he chucked directly at Pinkie Pie’s head causing flaky crust and bits of orange-yellow fruit to splatter across her coat and mane.

Undeterred, Pinkie Pie slurped the fruity residue off of her face, and after a few seconds, gave her appraisal. “I have to admit, that’s not a bad peach cobbler. Do you use lemon juice in your recipe?”

Apparently, Discord was in no mood to discuss the finer points of cobblery, as his mouth twisted into a sneer and he started chucking pan after pan of the dessert at his opponent. Pinkie, however, took this all in stride—after all, she already knew of an adequate defense against culinary assault. She simply unhinged her jaw, opened her mouth as wide as possible, and swallowed all of the incoming foodstuffs whole, pans and all.

“Mmm... I’ve gotta admit, the parasprite method is really effective, especially when you can digest metal baking pans. Still, would you mind including some whipped cream next time?”

“Grrr... throw something back at me already! I thought you wanted a food fight at that party of yours.”

“I did, until you mentioned that you thought it was a good idea.”

“My affinity for an idea doesn’t necessarily make it bad. For example, I like gravity well enough, but if that means you’re against it...”

Pinkie suddenly noticed that there didn’t seem to be anything underneath her hooves. She looked down and saw the ground... then the sky... then the ground... then the sky. After a lot of flailing about she finally managed to counteract her momentum enough to return herself to a roughly upright position. “Are you finished?” she asked indignantly.

“Goodness, no!” Discord said as his chinchilla “friend” floated by. “Say, are you up for a game of racquetball?”

“No!”

“How about squash, then? C’mon, you should hear the sounds this little guy makes when he gets slammed against a wall.” Discord looked expectantly at Pinkie Pie, clearly believing that his blatant disregard for physics, combined with an equally blatant disregard for animal cruelty regulations, would finally get her to do something worthy of the massive amount of power at her disposal.

Instead, Pinkie calmly pulled a scroll from her mane, unwound it, and read aloud, “I, Pinkamena Diane Pie, Princess of Equestria, do hereby reinstate the law of gravity.” She and Discord flopped to the ground with audible thuds. This time, however, Pinkie nabbed the chinchilla and used her imaginary friend magic to teleport it to a little pet shop in Manehattan.

“Ugh! Why won’t you fight back?!” Discord shouted as Pinkie stuffed the scroll back into her mane.

“Probably because you haven’t given me a reason to,” Pinkie Pie said nonchalantly. In retrospect, this probably wasn’t the most prescient answer that she could have provided.

Discord’s eyes lit up as he came to a sudden realization. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t like to use your imaginary friend power at all unless you have a ‘good reason,’ don’t you? I keep forgetting that you’ve turned into a goody-four-shoes royal twit.”

“Using imaginary friend magic makes life difficult for others if you’re not careful. Maybe if you’d actually tried to reform, you’d learn that selfishness isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Discord smirked. “Is that so? Well, then, what say we find some ‘volunteers’ to see how selflessness works out for you?” The draconequus didn’t wait for Pinkie Pie’s answer—instead, he bolted off as fast as he could towards Ponyville.

Pinkie wasn’t sure what her opponent was up to, but she had no intention of waiting to find out: she was on Discord’s tail in less than a minute, which turned out to be a tactical mistake, as Discord snapped his tail like a whip, sending Pinkie flying into the distance. “That’s what you get for grabbing body parts without permission!” he called out before he continued his journey into town.

Pinkie reached Ponyville just in time to hear the screams starting. It didn’t take long for her to realize why: the moment she put her weight onto the grass in the town square, it sucked her in and formed a seal around her as it pulled her downwards, much like quicksand—and a quick glance around revealed that she wasn’t the first pony to fall into this trap; several bystanders, including the Mayor and Pinkie’s mailmare, had sunken into the ground, with a few of them at neck level. Thinking quickly, Pinkie Pie reached into her mane once again with her free hoof and pulled out a sack of quick-drying cement, tearing it open with her teeth and pouring the contents into the ground. This had the desired effect of preventing any further sinking, but it didn’t exactly help extract anypony from the ground.

Pinkie used the extra strength that came with alicorn-level earth pony magic to pull herself out and shake off some of the dust before looking around. “Um, I’m sorry, everypony, but I can’t really stick around to chip you all out while Discord’s on the loose. Did anypony see where he went?”

“He mumbled something about the desert,” said the Mayor, who was trying (unsuccessfully) to extract her hooves from where they were rooted to the ground. “I’d guess the Appleloosa region would be a good place to start looking.”

“Thanks!” Pinkie said. “You totally have my endorsement in the next election. Don’t worry, everything will be alright!” she called out as she galloped southwards.

Discord was nowhere to be found when Pinkie arrived in Appleloosa, either, though it was even easier to figure out how he’d decided to make life miserable for the locals—she was willing to bet that none of them were happy that their desert home was covered in enough snow to bury Celestia up to her horn. Still, the pink pony was undeterred: as she’d had fairly good luck with her “pulling stuff out of my mane” strategy so far, Pinkie saw no reason to change tactics here. This time, she pulled out a hair dryer, turned the setting up to “volcano,” and within seconds, the snow had melted.

The Appleloosans seemed quite grateful for her help, though it was a while before any of them could get close enough to have a decent conversation, due to the massive amount of mud that the melting snow had created. Eventually, an extremely filthy Braeburn managed to get close enough to shake her hoof in gratitude.

“Um, sorry for making everything soggy...” Pinkie said as she wiped her hoof off on her tail, which seemed to absorb the mud before returning to its usual bright pink hue.

“Don’t you worry about that,” Braeburn said. “We had a bit of drought goin’ on anyway. You know, labor dispute with the local pegasus union, that sort of thing. But never you mind; you just get that arrogant varmint. Last I saw, he’d hopped on the train to Vanhoover.”

“Really? I wouldn’t have expected him to buy a ticket.”

“Oh, he didn’t buy a ticket. He just hopped on top of the train.”

“Oh... yeah, that makes more sense.”

Braeburn looked confused. “Um, actually, it doesn’t.”

“I know it doesn’t. That’s why it does.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. I need to get to Vanhoover!” Pinkie galloped to the train station, hopped on a pushcart and began traveling north as fast as she could, which, as has been noted, was quite fast indeed, since she could very easily skip the vast stretches of desert where there was nopony to see her traveling.

Following the directions from an old joke, Pinkie Pie went north until it started raining, and sure enough, when she got off of the pushcart, she was on the outskirts of the northwestern city. A small explosion in a nearby warehouse tipped her off to her quarry’s likely location. She burst through the entrance to see Discord, who had rather unimaginatively knocked out the security guards and was dumping bags of brown flakes into a large vat.

Pinkie Pie gasped. “Instant coffee?! You monster!”

If Discord was annoyed by this interruption, he had an odd way of showing it: he raised an eyebrow quizzically and issued a correction. “It’s not just instant coffee, it’s non-organic decaffeinated instant coffee, and I’ve just finished replacing all the regular coffee in the entire city with it. Let’s see if anypony notices, shall we?”

About this time, sirens began blaring as several dozen riots spontaneously broke out throughout Vanhoover. A nearby dumpster spontaneously erupted into flame, and several ponies broke into a plate glass window factory to throw trash cans through everything they could see.

“Huh... I suppose they can tell the difference,” Discord mused. He looked at Pinkie Pie who was glaring at him angrily. “Well? What are you waiting for? Do that stupid princess thing where you drop everything to help your little ponies already.”

“Oh, I don’t have to. It’s become abundantly clear that the best way to help them out is to stop you.”

“Hah! You don’t have the g—” Discord’s comment was cut off when Pinkie Pie bucked him as hard as she could, sending him through the concrete wall of the warehouse and leaving a draconequus-shaped hole in his wake.

However, when she poked her head through the hole, Pinkie didn’t see Discord lying on the ground, or even getting up to make a counterattack. Instead, he was flying northeast through the air. “Hey! Get back here!”

Pinkie Pie wasn’t about to let Discord out of her sight again, so, with faith the the local authorities could straighten out the coffee riots without her help, she once again took off in hot pursuit. She wasn’t certain how long she had chased him (just being around Discord tended to make estimation of any sort a sketchy proposition), but when he finally landed, it appeared to be somewhere close to the Crystal Mountains.

Pinkie Pie had never actually been to this part of Equestria before, and it wasn’t hard to see why it wasn’t a huge tourist attraction. At this time of year, the foothills of the Crystal Mountains looked like a more rugged version of Equestria's central plains: grass covered the hilly ground as far as the eye could see, but there were hardly any trees to speak of. In fact, the only things that stood out were the chilly winds and the occasional gleam of an odd bit of crystal dust in the soil. At somewhat regular intervals, an isolated crystal shard could be seen poking through the ground, giving the vague impression that it was once part of an immeasurably grander whole.

For his part, Discord seemed equally disappointed with the surroundings. “Huh... there’s hardly anypony up here. I would have thought that someone would have moved in by now. Oh, well. I guess I’ll have to head back down south. Maybe Cloudsdale will prove more interesting.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Pinkie shouted. “You leave those ponies alone.”

Discord smirked yet again. “Make me.”

“Okay... I will,” Pinkie replied as she lifted one of her forehooves over her head.

Discord looked genuinely confused. “Um, what are you doing?”

Pinkie didn’t answer; instead, she kept her hoof raised over her head as she shut her eyes as tightly as possible. Within seconds, a glowing ball formed and began hovering directly over her. As her opponent scratched his head in confusion, Pinkie Pie began to sweat profusely. Her muscles began to shake as the glowing ball grew bigger and bigger. A sustained groan began to escape her lips as the ball began sprouting hairy appendages that looked remarkably like crepe paper.

By the time the glowing orb had reached a size that was as big as Discord himself, the draconequus had begun nervously backing away, and would have no doubt run off again had Pinkie Pie not suddenly opened her eyes and shouted, “Ataque Piñata!” With as much force as she could muster, she hurled the ball at Discord, who barely had a chance to turn his head before taking the full force of the object, which split open on impact, sending peppermint candies, lollipops, and root beer barrels flying across the landscape and sending Discord crashing to the ground.

“In Crystal Mountains, piñata hits you.” Not the cleverest quip, perhaps, but Pinkie felt totally awesome saying it, and that was what really mattered.

“Ow...” Discord said as he sat up, rubbing several large bumps on his head. “That piñata was filled with nothing but hard candy! That really hurt.”

“Well, that was basically the idea,” Pinkie Pie admitted.

“Okay, fine,” the draconequus said as he rose to his feet. “In that case, I have a question for you: Do you like eggnog?”

“Does it matter whether I answer yes or no?”

“Not really,” Discord said as he snapped his fingers. In less than a second, Pinkie had all the wind knocked out of her as a wet, sticky substance erupted from the ground beneath her and hit her squarely in the barrel. Discord was positively delighted: “Oh, it looks like the real fun is finally ready to begin!”

As Pinkie slammed into the ground, she noted two things: first, her fight with Discord looked like it was going to last for quite a while, and second, that no matter how much imaginary friend magic you had to protect you, getting hit in the stomach with a geyser of eggnog hurt.

Consciousness returned gradually for Celestia, as though a thick mental fog was stubbornly refusing to dissipate in spite of all her efforts to regain clarity. Her body still ached all over from the spell Trixie had managed to cast on her, but that turned out to be a good thing, as ultimately that discomfort gave Celestia something to focus on, and eventually she was able to open her eyes and look around.

She recognized the old cave immediately, even through the translucent blue force field that surrounded her. She was surprised to find herself here, though in retrospect, she probably shouldn’t have been. After all, it seemed fairly certain that Trixie was in league with Discord, so there was no reason to assume that he wouldn’t have mentioned such a potentially valuable asset to her. They were in the “throne room.” The magnificent seat was still there, as were all of the columns, but something still seemed... off. It took several more seconds for the memories to kick in and inform Celestia that her sister’s beautiful, flowing works of art had been removed and replaced with enormous gemstones in the shape of regular solids.

“So, you’ve noticed the artistic achievements of The Great and Powerful Trixie,” came an eerily confident voice which startled Celestia. She looked over at one of the entrances to the chamber and saw Trixie standing there, still wearing her hat and cloak.

Celestia immediately let loose a bolt of magic, but it only ricocheted around her cell before striking her in the wing.

“That’s not a very good idea, your Majesty,” Trixie noted, injecting as much sarcasm as possible into the sentence’s final word. “Those are the strongest force fields ever known to ponykind.”

“You think too highly of yourself. The Captain of the Royal Guard—”

“Yes, yes, The Great and Powerful Trixie is aware of his talents,” Trixie interrupted dismissively. “She was in Canterlot for the Changeling Invasion, and his shield was impressive... for an ordinary unicorn. Naturally, The Great and Powerful Trixie is no ordinary unicorn, and she has therefore created a far superior means of containment. For example, he foolishly chose to form his barrier into a sphere, that most deceptive of shapes, whereas The Great and Powerful Trixie has contained you and your sister inside perfectly formed cubes.”

Celestia glanced around and saw Luna lying in a cubical force field on the opposite side of the chamber, still unconscious. She could also see immediately why the force field which held her was so strong, and it had nothing to do with its shape: Trixie had just concentrated her magic over a much smaller surface area than Shining Armor had during the invasion. All the talk of perfect shapes also seemed strangely familiar, but she couldn’t quite put her horn on the reason. Unfortunately, this realization did little to help her find a way out of her predicament, as it probably meant that teleporting through the barrier would be all but impossible.

In a way, though, this was quite comforting, as Celestia hated being in a position where she could easily threaten somepony with brute force. Negotiating her way out of a problem might have been less visually impressive, but in her experience, it tended to lead to more long-term successes. Of course, the first step to successful negotiation was to get a proper sense of the pony she was dealing with. Fortunately, this was a simple matter of getting the aforementioned pony to start talking. “Why are you doing this, Trixie?”

“Isn’t it obvious? The Great and Powerful Trixie intends to gain political power equal in magnitude to her magical power.”

“But do you really want that? Have you actually thought through the implications?”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie does not see any negative implications from her plan. If Twilight Sparkle can do it, then she can do it better. And why should she be so selfish as to deprive the ponies of Equestria of her talents?”

Celestia noted the certainty with which Trixie claimed to be “better” than somepony else; from what she could remember of Twilight’s letters, that had been a theme of her original stage show. She mentally filed this information away and continued with her conversation. “And you believe that forming an alliance with Discord is the best way to accomplish this?”

Trixie rolled her eyes, as if Celestia had asked a question that she was tired of answering. “The Great and Powerful Trixie sees no need to discuss such matters with her adversaries.”

“But are you truly aware of what you have done? Discord is on the loose, causing who knows what sort of chaos! Do you seriously think you can control him?”

The blue unicorn glared at the princess. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is not an idiot; she knows perfectly well that attempting to control Discord is all but impossible. However, this issue is ultimately meaningless, as it has been factored into her calculus. Indeed, she is quite certain that it is the chimera’s very unpredictability which will sweep the ponies of Equestria into the protecting, secure embrace of The Great and Powerful Trixie.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s a very simple matter,” Trixie said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. The distinct note of contempt in her voice made it clear that she didn’t think that what she had said actually required an explanation. “Discord and Trixie have agreed to divide Equestria into separate spheres of influence. Once everything has settled down, we shall let the citizens of Equestria decide for themselves whose rule they wish to live under, which should be acceptable to all but the most unreasonable ponies.”

Celestia didn’t argue this point, mostly because it was abundantly clear that Trixie had completely lost sight of how the thought processes of “reasonable” ponies actually worked. Instead, she tried to find another potential flaw: “And have the two of you actually figured out how you will carve up Equestria? Given that so many of its resources are located in its interior, it couldn’t be easy coming up with an agreement that won’t lead to further disputes down the road.”

“Oh, we haven’t discussed how we’re actually going to split up the kingdom in much detail; this plan came together far too quickly for us to think that far ahead, and besides, Discord seemed to like the uncertainty. But one thing is certain: the dividing line has to be something more substantial than an imaginary line on a map, or else we’ll end up bickering and creating openings for counter-revolutions. No, it needs to be something solid and undisputable; something that unequivocally acts as a barrier; something like... the surface.”

“Excuse me?” Celestia asked. She had no idea what the wistful look that appeared in “The Great and Powerful” Trixie’s eyes meant, but she was fairly certain that it wasn’t positive.

“Yes, the chimera can hold claim to the world above the surface. After all, there’s so many more variables to deal with there; so many more ways to be infected by imperfection. Underground, however, everything can be controlled. The Great and Powerful Trixie can build a new, better society, where the ever-present order will allow all ponies to strive for perfection unencumbered by the unpredictable whims of the surface. Why not let Discord do as he pleases there?”

Perhaps it was due to a subtle shift in the unicorn’s tone of voice, Celestia couldn’t shake the odd feeling that, despite her claims that she’d already planned everything out, Trixie was not revealing those plans so much as she was talking out an idea that had just come to her. However, if that was the case, Trixie must have concluded that this was indeed a splendid idea, because she had a very smug and extremely satisfied smile on her face as she turned towards a particularly large crystalline pillar and placed a hoof on it.

“Yes... it should be here,” Trixie continued as her voice became lower and more guttural, “where all ponykind can be inspired by these wondrous sights of unchanging constancy....”

As Trixie trailed off, Celestia noticed that the whites of the unicorn’s red eyes had taken on a pale green tint—and it was only then, as Trixie’s breath began seething through the clenched teeth of her grin, that Celestia remembered, to her horror, why all of the rhetoric about perfection and precision had sounded so familiar.

“Perfect... silent... unmoving... crystalsssss....”

Author's Notes:

I think a few clarifications are in order, in case they don't get fully covered in the story proper: First, the events of "The Crystal Empire" Parts 1 and 2 did not occur in this AU. Second, both Pinkie and Discord could probably replicate Penumbra's ability to create golems, but neither has the ability to control large numbers of them with the efficiency Penny is capable of.