It was a completely normal day when everything went to shit.

Twilight Sparkle awoke from her beauty sleep, took out the curlers Rarity suggested she use, used a hair straightener to fix the damage the curlers did. Spike was still asleep, so Twilight very quietly crept to the kitchen to make herself breakfast.

She poured herself a bowl of oats, enjoyed it thoroughly, and set about reading the book she had left out last night, The Mating Habits of Dragons. She was in the middle of a particularly saucy part when she heard a cough come from outside.

Heading over, she cautiously opened the door, and had to suppress a scream. Sitting on her front porch, eyes slightly glazed over, was King Sombra.

“Oh, finally!” he said, perking out when he saw Twilight quaking in fear. “I thought you’d never show up!” Twilight tried to scamper away, but Sombra used his superior dark magic to levitate her back in place.

“Why can’t I teleport away?” Twilight asked frantically, flaining around in the aura of dark magic, her own magic powerless.

“My magic overpowers yours! Granted, it wasn’t easy for me to do so, you’re quite powerful. No need to escape though...” he said in his growling, low voice. “I just want to talk...”

“What could you possibly say to redeem yourself?” Twilight spat at him, turning around so she could look at Sombra’s smug face.

“Oh, I’m not trying to redeem myself. I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to take over Equestria and destroy the Elements of Harmony so nopony can stop me!”

Twilight Sparkle gave him a confused look. “Wait, it was the crystal heart that stopped you last time, not the Elements of Harmony!”

Sombra rolled his eyes. “Yes, but I’m taking precautions. I’ve got an amulet to guard against the stupid crystals. I’ve also enrolled in a rehabilitation center to overcome my crystal addiction,” Sombra explained. “I already killed your other five friends, so now I’m here to finish the job!”

Twilight took a moment to register this before her eyes began to fill with tears. “Y-you... KILLED them?”

Sombra nodded, a cruel smile gracing his features. “What did you expect? You guys blew me up! It was a pain in the ass to reform back together. But, my horn lived on, so I slowly re-solidified. Now, I’ve just got to kill you and finish the job...”

Twilight sniffled, everything moving too fast for her to feel the full pain. All five friends, gone... there was hollow, buzzing sound in her head, and her body felt completely numb. “E-even if you kill me, the Elements can be carried on by some other ponies!”

Sombra’s smile became wider and crueler at these words. “Ah yes, but I will also destroy the Elements of Harmony themselves! I’ve studied dark magic long enough to destroy all manner of magical artifacts!”

“They’re all the way back in Canterlot, guarded by the royal guard and the Princesses! It’s hopeless!”

Sombra smiled. “You really think I believe that? I know where you stupid ponies really hid the Elements of Harmony...”

Twilight’s eyes widened in fear.

“You’ll never get away with—” she started to say, but was cut off when Sombra used his magic to snap her neck. He dropped the body of the dead unicorn on the ground, and walked over to the the bookcase.

“Yes, I know where you hid the Elements of Harmony... where no one would ever dare to look!” He perused the shelves until reaching the “A” section, and levitated out a copy of Atlas Shrugged. Sure enough, when he opened it, the book was hollow and contained the Elements of Harmony.

After acquiring the Elements of Harmony, Sombra took to the streets and began announcing his new title as the King of Equestria. His minions, wispy pony-shaped creatures made of shadows that were creatively named “Shadowlings” went about hanging banners and passing out pamphlets about Sombre’s new reign.

Vinyl Scratch had been playing a gig in Ponyville the night before, when she got completely fucked up on pills. After tripping balls and smashing her DJ equipment, she woke up seven to ten hours later in an alleyway behind Ponyville’s only night/strip club, “The Plot Hole”.

“Dammit, what happened...” Vinyl rubbed her pounding head, then looked over at her DJ equipment, which had a Vinyl-Scratch-shaped indent in it. Her glasses lay next to it, one of the lenses shattered.

“Oh shit!” Vinyl Scratch caressed her damaged turntables. “I guess I should have listened when that weird dude in glasses told me about taking which color of pills.”

After giving her equipment a 21 wub salute with her pocket electronica-generator, Vinyl Scratch left the alleyway to find out when the next train to Canterlot was leaving. She needed to buy new turntables with some of her roommate Octavia’s money.

However, when she walked onto the streets of Ponyville, she found that the walls had been plastered with propaganda posters, most of which showed pictures of a dark colored unicorn wearing a thong and displaying his flanks to the world with the words “Serve the sexy shadow!” inscribed on the top. Another look around also revealed weird shadow ponies wandering around putting these posters up, and in the center of town was a large bonfire with six pony corpses burning in the center of it.

“Did the pills not wear off yet or something? Am I having that weird ‘sexy dictator’ dream again?” Vinyl Scratch wondered aloud.

Wandering out into the town square, the DJ saw many grieving ponies all staring mournfully at the bonfire. She took a good look inside, and recognized the cutie marks of the ones burning inside.

“Wait... those are the ponies who always end up saving Equestria!” Vinyl’s eyes widened. “But with them dead... who will solve our problems for us?” Vinyl fell to the ground, staring into the merrily crackling fire that was incinerating the former heroes of Equestria. Small droplets of rain began to fall upon Ponyville, because even a hostile takeover was not an excuse for the pegasi to neglect their jobs.

“WHO WILL SAVE US‽” she shouted up into the sky. As if the pegasi had heard her, the clouds cleared right above the square, and a beam of light shone over the town square. However, what descended was not a group of pegasi, or even one pegasi; instead it was two upright beings that were covered in far too much light and chrome for anypony below to get a good look at what they truly were. Their arrival was accompanied by sick electronic beats that Vinyl Scratch recognized. Could it be...?

They touched down on the ground right before Vinyl Scratch, and the light died down. Everypony could now get a proper look at the beings that had touched down. They stood upright, like Diamond Dogs and dragon whelps, but they were thinner and considerably less hairy. Not that anypony could tell that, they were covered in white suits from the neck down. The due wore helmets: the one of the left wore a helmet that was mostly chrome, with an eye vizor that stuck out a few inches from the rest of the hemet; the one on the right wore a gold helmet with a vizor that covered the entirety of its face.

The one of the left began to speak. It was fuzzy and glitchy, a weird babble of electronic words and noises. It lifted a hand up, and began to fiddle with the nobs on the side of its helmet, the pitch changing and odd static sounds filtering in as well. The gold-helmeted one banged its fist on the helmet, and words came out fluidly.

“Ah! Got the damn thing working. Hello, ponies from a children’s cartoon! We’re the French duo Daft Punk, and since we’ve recently been dubbed galactic heroes for our works on our latest album ‘Random Access Memories’, we’re here to save you from certain death!”

Vinyl Scratch fell to the ground, spasming in bliss.

“I came.”