Author's Notes:

The Usual Disclaimer:

The following is a work of parody, and is protected as Fair Use under section 17 U.S. Code § 107 of US Copyright Law. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all affiliated characters are property of Hasbro Inc.

I own nothing. All characters, settings and other belong to their respective owners. This is purely a fan-work with no intent towards profit, slander or harm towards the characters, settings or other, or their respective owners. If the respective owners feel that this fan-work in any way, shape or form threatens or besmirches their property, please let me know so that it be can be removed asap.

Please support the show.

All Ponies involved in sexual shenanigans are considered of legal age in Equestria. Filly-fooling is one thing, actually fooling a filly will land you in Horseshoe Bay prison for a very long time ...

....

I'M NOT SORRY!

And more world-building while we're at it. The colouration involved is intentional ...

CHAPTER 41

“I can’t believe you talked us into this!”

“Ah can’t believe you’re STILL whinin’ ‘bout it!”

“Open! Up! Dammit!”

Sweetie Belle tried not to scowl at Applebloom, fighting down the surge of reckless irriration that seemed to be gripping all of them as Scootaloo bashed at the lock with a rock, tail lashing in the air with each strike.

Something was wrong, and it wasn’t the theft of the box. Applejack had gone from smotheringly over-protective to all but demanding the Crusaders go and have a sleep-over in their tree-fort, and Big Mac had shut himself up in his room right after dinner and refused to come out. Even Rainbow Dash had become distant and awkward …

She wasn’t entire sure what the problem was. Sure, Applejack had been more than hard on Applebloom today, possibly cruel even, but then again the Crusaders had accidentally set the entire city hall on fire, though Sweetie Belle was certain that nopony but themselves knew about that … and Princess Celestia herself had come to town and fought some sort of evil pony that had almost hurt Twilight and Applejack …

Why was everything so damn hot … and itchy! It made thinking so hard!

“Stupid ... thing!” Scootaloo cursed, slamming the rock down hard on the lock and flinching back as the stone broke in half … and the padlock remained stubbornly intact, not even scratched or scuffed. “What if this scroll is the answer to our crusades? Why does Twilight have to have such a strong protection spell on the box if it’s just a stupid spell-scroll?”

“Cause it’s Twilight’s spell-scroll, you goof!” Sweetiebelle snapped, turning away from Applebloom and telekinetically snatching the pieces of rock away from her Pegasus friend, and then levitated the locked box up into the air and towards herself, tugging heavily on the padlock that was the source of the argument. “This is the same mare that has tracking runes on every single book in her library, the same unicorn who levitated an Ursa Minor out of Ponyville on her own! I hardly think that a rock is going to …”

Click

All three young ponies looked in shock at the box, and the lock that had just popped off latching mechanism, the loop at the top of the padlock still hooked through the latch.

“Apparently Twilight can make mistakes!” Scootaloo yelled triumphantly, shooting Sweetiebelle a look of smug victory. “Like using a cheap gryphon-made padlock!”

“That was a fluke!” Sweetie Belle shot back, levitating the chest just outside of Scootaloo’s reach for several seconds before, apparently overcome by the same strange sense of frustration that Sweetie Belle was feeling so strongly, the Pegasus tried to tacke the Unicorn to the ground.

Jumping in surprise at the attack, Sweetie Belle scrambled to the side and narrowly missed the clumsy tackle, although the same could not be said for the seated Applebloom, the two fillies tumbling to the ground, grappling and insulting each other loudly as the Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes and focused her efforts on tugging the lid of the chest open.

“What the hay, you idjit?”

“I wasn’t aiming for you, you twit!”

“Well’n your aim’s as bad as your flying!”

“S-shut up, you apple-headed dummy!”

“Overgrown chicken!”

“Fat-flank!”

“Feather-butt!”

“Girls!” Sweetie Belle snapped, groaning as the two struggling fillies completely ignored her and started rolling around vigorously, reduced to muffled grunts and strained noises. What is with everypony today?

Ignoring the other two and knowing full well they’d stop fighting well short of doing anything other than a few bruises and sore manes, Sweetie Belle sighed and turned her attention back to the chest, finally managing to get the lid open and to pry this mysterious ‘spell-scroll’ out of the velvet-lined interior.

Almost a foot thick when rolled up, the spell-scroll smelled like dust, books and, of all things, cinnamon as Sweetie Belle levitated it out of the box and started to open up the scoll, eyes flashing with excitement as she gazed upon the first few words …

I, Twilight Sparkle, have attempted a translation of Weeaboo the Sage’s original Spell-Scrolls, with the intent of preserving the work of a much-overlooked Pony whose grasp of transmutation and transmogrification spells should have earned him a much larger, and grander, place in the history of the world.

Whatever you may feel about the nature of the spells contained within, I believe we should all be in awe of the grasp of magical theory that is behind his work, an understanding of the laws of magical conservation and the principles of matter-conversion and creation that was many centuries ahead of other ‘experts’ whom came later on and proclaimed themselves the front-runners in the race to understand such arts.

Dear Twin-Stars, Dazzling Brook and Goldenlocks … you weren’t the first to discover such magical theories, you just had better press than the Sage did.

That said, Weeaboo the Sage was isolated to his island home for a reason, and while I personally feel this was an act of cruelty, history has shown that …

“Bor-ring!” Sweetie Belle muttered, unrolling the scroll faster and ignoring the preface as the grunting and wrestling from behind her became louder and more energetic. “Girls, keep it down, I’m trying to read here!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Applebloom wasn’t entirely sure why she felt the need to pin Scootaloo to the floor, but the hot, itchy feeling crawling under her skin seemed to subside slightly when she was in full-contact with Scootaloo’s squirming body, and she knew she was stronger than the Pegasi.

Of course, that didn’t mean she was trying to hurt Scootaloo, but she had to make the other filly stop fighting, stop trying to hurt Sweetie Belle … but for some reason, Applebloom found herself locked with Scootaloo in a wrestling hold, yet unable to finish the lock and force her irate friend to tap out.

“Get … mrrrrfff … off!” Scootaloo hissed, twisting left and right under Applebloom, grappling with the slightly larger Earth Pony, ineffectively trying to either roll Applebloom over or buck her off, the fuzzy-headed filly wasn’t entirely sure.

When Scootaloo’s hips bucked up, however, Applebloom found herself giving a short grunt of surprise as the Pegasi’s hips smacked into her own, and something incredible happened, like lightning shooting through her crotch, all the way up her spine and into her brain.

Scootaloo let out a similar noise, going rigid under Applebloom before giving a startled squeak of surprise.

Arching her back to try and see what had happened, guiltily without removing herself from whatever conjunction had happened and finding Scootaloo doing the same, both Fillies craned their necks to stare between their bodies, foreheads pressed together with their eyes bulging in shock, where they had become joined at the junction of soft fur between their hind legs.

And faintly visible were two small, flared ‘beads’ that were squashed against each other in the middle two damp patches of said fur, the source of the pleasurable shock both crusaders had just felt.

“What the …” Applebloom hissed softly, eyes going wide as she realized that somehow the ‘tuck’ spell that all Ponies were taught shortly after learning how to walk and talk must have come undone, and with her mind consumed with that itchy, hot feeling, she hadn’t noticed!

Scootaloo muttered something under her breath, whimpered and jerked her hips again, the two small beads grinding against one another before both crusaders flinched and pulled back, eyeing each other nervously.

A line had been crossed here. A pair of furtive glances towards Sweetie Belle confirmed she was engrossed in the scroll, and then they looked at each other, biting their bottom lips in nervousness and confusion.

“Wha’ … wha’ was that?” Applebloom hissed softly, blushing as she saw Scootaloo’s small wings extended under the prone Pegasi.

“I think we just became … what does Rainbow Dash call it? Friends with bonafides? Breakfast? I don’t remember.”

“Does this mean ah have to make you breakfast?”

“Well, you did make me dinner … sort of.”

“S-s-so what do we do next then?” Applebloom whispered, stammering in her nervousness.

“Well, we could … you know?” Scootaloo whispered back, wiggling underneath Applebloom and making both Crusaders flinch and whimper at the strange sensations assaulting them.

“Bu-but Sweetie is right th-uuuhn, Faust!” Applebloom’s quiet protests were lost as something down-south moved in a very interesting way, her hips moving on instinct as she rolled them against Scootaloo’s own hesitant thrusts, the two barely able to keep their voices down as they awkwardly, eagerly moved against each other, new to the experience they were sharing.

Thre were butterflies in her stomach, a pleasant tenseness in her spine and tingles of pleasure she’d never felt before, not even on the rare occasions she’d experimented with her own hooves, rushing through Applebloom as she rubbed herself against Scootaloo, who was biting one hoof and using the other to hold Applebloom’s hind-quarters firmly against her own, the knowledge that there was another Pony in the room just a few paces away and that they needed to be quiet slowly becoming less and less of an issue as the hot, itchy feeling began to spread through-out her body, the urge to drop her face closer to Scootaloo’s and …

“What in the hay are you two doing?”

Applebloom jerked her head away from the prone, whimpering Pegasi under her, staring at Sweetie Belle, who sat with one hoof pressed to her mouth … and the other rubbing furiously between her hind-legs.

“What in the hay are you doing?” Applebloom shot back, blushing furiously as the shock cleared her head a little. Ah was pressin’ mah coochie ‘gainst Scoot’s … Sweetie’s diddlin’ herself …

“I … I was just trying to …”

“H-hey. Why’d you sto-ooooooh buck me! Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo squeaked in alarm, her face going from a saucy, half-lidded mask of pleasure to a pale-faced one of shock and horror.

“I WAS TRYING TO DO JUST THAT, BUT APPLEBLOOM WOULDN’T GET OFF YOU!” Sweetie Belle shouted back, then shoved both hooves into her mouth in horror, then her eyes bulged and she spat the one that had just been incredibly intimate with her loins back out and started to retch.

Trying desperately to kick her brain out of the tangle of thoughts that seemed to always circle back to somehow rutting one or both of her friends, not helped by the squirming Scootaloo underneath her who was loudly trying to tell Sweetie Belle it was okay, they had all night while simultaneously rubbing her flared nub against Applebloom’s own, nor by Sweetie Belle who was now licking the ‘offending’ hoof with a curious expression on her face, Applebloom did the only thing she could think of.

“So … uhm … did’ja find anythin’ in the scroll that we can use?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Is there truly no sane Pony in this town?” Luna spluttered, closing the ‘door’ on the next dream, the cackling of the new and profoundly insane absolute-monarch of Carrot-topia oversaw the breeding of her new Apple-Clan servants atop a mound of lewdly-vibrated orange vegetables from which her kingdom’s name sprung ringing in the two Alicorns’ ears.

“I am fairly certain that, no matter how hard they try, Big Mac can’t get Braeburn pregnant.” Twilight muttered, blushing furiously as the two Alicorns left that dreamscape and floating up and away into the ethereal sky.

“Although it was fun to watch for a while, no?” Luna teased, nudging the much-smaller astral form of Twilight with a thick strand of her mane. “Up until Carrot Top decided carrots needed to be inserted into every possible orifice?”

“Nnnngh. I am never eating carrots again … or at least not Ponyville carrots. Faust only knows what she does to them …” The smaller Alicorn sighed in respond, grabbing onto the blazing strands of astral mane and pulling herself closer to Luna’s larger form. “Well, we’ve been to Mayor Mare’s dream and found out she lives in terror of me not assuming full and total control of the town, Filthy Rich has fantasies about being a potato-farmer and nightmares about Diamond Tiara becoming a Princess, and I don’t even want to think about what we saw in Derpy’s mind.”

“I don’t know, living in an phone-booth that’s bigger on the inside than the outside that can also time-travel, with a husband who keeps getting kidnapped by giant, sentient pears wearing what looks like armored salt-and-pepper shakers, and said husband needs me to rescue him by throwing muffins and sticks of butter at his enemies seems a pleasant enough fantasy to me.”

“The other dreams at least made sense! Derpy’s just … I don’t … I can’t ...”

“Twilight, dreams are not supposed to make sense. They are reflections of our conscious thoughts, warped parodies of our desires, half-understood impulses and needs. The conscious mind cannot handle everything that it encounters and experiences, and thus the sub-conscious mind takes it all and turns it into dreams, allowing the dreamer to work through their stress in a safe place.” The Lunar Princess explained as the two Alicorns followed their silver cords back to their bodies at the library, to check on themselves before heading out for ‘dream-watching’ again. “Most of the time, this is all a Pony needs to help maintain a healthy mind, but sometimes, situations occur in which this natural method does not work. Magic, extra-planar entities like the Nightmare Spirits or even just hormonal imbalances can cause this natural method of resolving the complexities of the mind to twist upon itself, causing nightmares, or worse, madness.”

“It was for this reason that I was called to Ascend, Twilight.” Luna continued as the silvery air around them parted like waves before the bow of a ship. “I do not know exactly how Celestia or Cadence Ascended, but I can tell you that because of my ability to enter the Astral Plane and fight against the Nightmares, to help bring peace and comfort to the dreamers of all races, that I was taken by the Powers and given the opportunity to Ascend.”

“I … wasn’t given a choice.” Twilight said softly after several moments of silence. “I was just pulled into a strange place, a little like this but … brighter? Less surreal? And Celestia pulled something out of my chest, then changed it and pushed it back in …”

“As was I, but it was another who helped mold my spirit for the Ascension, not Celestia … but before then, you weren’t given a choice? Between yourself and others?” Luna asked, smiling cheekily at her lover. “No split-second decision, with no time to think on your options?”

“I …” The purple princess began, words dying off in her mouth as she recalled the moment of her ‘death’.

Finally, the girls are okay. I’ve put things to right!

Then the panic as the Elements had ‘turned’ on her, activating of their own accord, bathing her in the energies of Harmony, a sensation not unlike being teleported, but somehow both grander and more terrifying …

Looking around in shock, seeing the horrified looks on her friends’ faces, and then …

I accepted it. My friends would be okay, the power was all flowing towards me, not them, and the clash of power would be driven away from them, judging from the angles the beams were hitting me at. They’d live, they’d be okay, and that was all I wanted.

“I made a choice between my friends and myself. I … had fixed the mistake I’d made, and I thought the Elements were punishing me for my sins.” Twilight finally managed to say, shaking softly as more and more of Luna’s flaming mane wrapped around her, holding her tightly, keeping her safe. “I knew somehow all the power was being funnelled into me, and I knew, somehow, if I tried to get away, the girls would bear the brunt of the blast.”

“Cruel as it may sound to you now, Twilight, that was the final test, a gamble to see if you could Ascend or not. Celestia had to force you into making a choice between them and yourself, you see, since every adventure you’d been on since you purified myself, you were able to beat without real incident, and to be considered worthy to Ascend by the Powers, you must make a choice, between protecting yourself by sacrificing others or to protect others by sacrificing yourself.” The Lunar Princess explained slowly as they drifted down, closer towards the earth, closer towards where their sleeping bodies lay. “After you purged the Nightmare Spirit from my flesh, from my mind and spirit, Celestia has been in quiet awe of you. Normally, it takes centuries at the very least for a race to manifest multiple Ascendants, yet here you were, just a few years younger than the last Ascended of our Tribes, raised and trained under her very wing, and she’d never even realized it. No doubt Celestia’s head was spinning at the implications, such a thing is completely unprecedented, even the other Immortals were stunned by the revelation.”

“OTHER IMMORTALS?”

“I will discuss them another time, and yes, dearest Twilight, it shall require many belly-rubs! Back onto our topic, however. Your role in matters, as far as Celestia could understand from the Prophecies, was to help bring me back into balance. My return from her hasty banishment spell was nigh, and Celestia, my dear, foolish, sentimental sister, was determined that she would not only release me from the vile possession I suffered, but do so without having to destroy me and put me back on the cycle of reincarnation and lose me again until I could reconstitute my physical form.”

“However, consider that the Elements should simply have separated the Nightmare Spirit from my mind and body, and then Celestia would have swooped in to battle it, or did you think her timely arrival after the Rainbow of Harmony was unleashed was just luck? No, instead you completely derailed her plans when you were able to utilize the powers of Harmony to purify the Nightmare Spirit, Twilight, and were crowned by the Powers as a result. The signs were there, the Element of Magic itself became your tiara, your crown, and Celestia told me later on that when she communed with the Powers over how this could be, she was chided and told to stop trying to think an Immortal a mere five thousand years old could know how things were ‘supposed’ to be.”

“So, you mean the Elements of Harmony aren’t normally that powerful?” The purple princess whispered, staring at the distant mountain where Canterlot perched, a gleaming collection of spires and white marble.

“They are incredibly powerful, Twilight, they are fragments of the Powers themselves, capable of moving mountains or boiling seas if they were so inclined, but they are passive and more inclined to heal than harm. You will note that you alone received a crown, while your comrades received torcs instead, when you wielded them against Nightmare Moon? Celestia had known you bore the physical traits of one who possessed the ability to Ascend, but with Cadence’s own Ascension so recently finished, she believed it was just a random chance that such a potent Pony appeared before her.”

“Traits?” The youngest Alicorn repeated, blinking as she tried to absorb the flow of information. Celestia was throwing me and my friends into danger to try and get me to sacrifice myself for them? That … cannot be right! Luna must have misunderstood, she must be mistaken! But it does explain why we were sent out, rather than the Royal Guard …

“Did you never notice? Or was it, I wonder, because you never had any friends until later in life that you never even considered the situation?” Luna chuckled again, a strand of her luminous hair poking Twilight’s cheek playfully. “Did the absurdity of a bookish librarian who did no physical exercise except climb ladders and stairs and go shopping somehow manage to keep up with an extremely physical group of ponies that include Applejack and Rainbow Dash, two of the most physically-capable Ponies I have seen outside of the Royal Guard?”

“…I … just thought it was normal!” Twilight stammered in response, eyes going wide as her mind slowly put the pieces into place. “I mean the average Earth Pony will always be physically stronger than the average Unicorn, and the average Pegasi will be faster than either, but I just thought that we all were just … average.”

“The great secret of the Alicorns, Twilight, is that we are all hybrids. I was born a Thestral, but a mutation caused my wings to be covered with feathers, like the distant Pegasi whom had, at that time, not crossed the Dragonspine Mountains to the north, yet I was not the only Thestral who had been born so … ‘cursed’. Cadence was born a Pegasi, but shortly before puberty developed the horn of a Unicorn, or at least that is what we tell the media, but in truth she had been born with a horn, it just remained dormant until she started to Ascend, and only came out fully when she proved herself worth to the Powers and became a full Ascendant, yet history is rife with ‘Pegicorns’, so-called ‘Lesser’ Princesses and Princes whom have tried to claim a link to the Royal Thrones, for good or ill.”

“You, Twilight Sparkle, are a hybrid of Earth Pony and Unicorn. I suspect that if you hadn’t become such an avid bookworm and played with the other students as a youth, you would have been the star of many a sport that required physical stamina and strength. Or did you never wonder why it was so easy for you to keep up with other Ponies who were so much more physically active than yourself.”

“But … my mother’s side of the family is pure Unicorn, and my father’s side of the family is almost all Unicorns with maybe a few Pegasi and Earth Pony ancestors!” Twilight protested weakly, feeling utterly confused and lost by the flow of information she had received. And the knowledge that Princess Celestia, the paragon of all she had considered ‘good’, and been willingly throwing six ponies and one baby dragon into potentially lethal encounters just to force an Ascension was throwing Twilight’s thought-process off the deep end.

“Those who may Ascend can be of the purest bloodlines, Twilight, and still be hybrids. The Powers are annoyingly stubborn like that, in that they either don’t give a damn about, or cannot comprehend, the social customs or theological beliefs or whatever other constraints Mortals are wont to put upon themselves. If something needs to be done to bring balance, they will make it so, and too bad for anything that gets in the way of their work or that may be derailed in the process.”

“One does not ‘become’ an Immortal unless the Powers will it be so, Twilight.” Luna said firmly, a sad note to her voice as they hovered over another house, this one belonging to a white coated, blue-maned Unicorn that Twilight remembered was called ‘Vinyl Scratch’. “One is ‘chosen’ for the role by the Powers, by primal forces not even the greatest of Immortals would dare challenge, and it is a role of sacrifice for the greater good for which we are chosen. We are not called upon as a reward for our service, but to give service, to rise up and be both example for those we Ascended from, and the shield to protect our people from harm, both within their own ranks and without.”

“You make it sound like a burden …” Twilight murmured as Luna’s mane wrapped around them, preparing to take the two Alicorns into the next dream-scape.

“It can be, Twilight, but the Powers are not merciless or uncaring. The Immortals have each other, and we have our people, our Ponies, to love, to care for and protect.” Luna whispered back, nuzzling the top of Twilight’s head affectionately as the last of the strands of her flaming mane cocooned them, slowly starting to spin around the pair of Alicorns. “We may be chosen for the role of guardians and protectors, but the Powers also make sure those chosen are prepared for their role, and rewarded for their sacrifices, although they are so far removed from our level of reality, and our way of thinking, such rewards can take a very, very long time to arrive, and may be something we never knew we needed.”

In the glow of Luna’s ethereally-blazing mane, the Lunar Princess’s muzzle split with a wicked grin as she shifted her head slightly to whisper saucily into Twilight’s ear. “Perhaps my reward for fighting the horrors of the Nightmares and their corruption on my own for so long was waking up with my horn welded to the one belonging to my sister’s adorable apprentice and sparking each other silly by accident.”

“LUNAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

“Oh hush, you loved it too.”