McPoodle Kibble #6: Planet High School! · 8:06am Dec 20th, 2015
I had a pretty strong dislike to the first Equestria Girls movie from the moment I first heard about the concept, and actually seeing the thing didn’t do much to improve my negative opinion. Eventually seeing the sequels lightened my mood considerably, but in the immediate aftermath of the first movie, I decided that the next story in my Vinyl Scratch saga of fanfics (after I had finished the Thought Experiments series) would be that universe’s take on not only Equestria Girls, but also “A Royal Wedding”, which I also had some strong disagreements with. My idea was to shove both stories in a blender to create an alternate universe fic that managed to do both stories right.
I have since learned from bitter experience that “fix fics” are very rarely any good. (Also, it’s becoming increasingly clear that I’ll never be able to finish that Thought Experiments series due to an utter inability to write using Fluttershy’s voice.) But the first chapter of what I started out calling “Planet High School!” and which later morphed into “What Mad Universe” has a few nice ideas in it, so here it is:
Prologue: Room 1137
Canterlot Castle, on the day before the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration.
It was breakfast time at the Royal Guard Canteen. Tomorrow would be the Summer Sun Celebration and being a national holiday, that meant that the castle would soon be swarming with too-curious civilians, making today the calm before the storm.
Just then, the boisterous chatter of a Royal Guard breakfast was broken up, as it frequently was, by an official announcement.
“Attention!” the sergeant in the doorway declared. “Private Flash Sentry is to relieve Private Pie Sky for a guard duty shift outside Room 1137, starting at 1030.”
The time was currently 10:20. The pale orange pegasus jumped up and made his way out of the room, hastily putting on his golden helmet as he went.
He hadn’t quite reached the door when the sergeant made a second announcement: “In addition, Lieutenant Shining Armor is to report to the Princess inside Room 1137 as soon as possible.”
The guards had quieted themselves somewhat to hear that first announcement. But on hearing the second, a complete silence settled upon the room, and all eyes turned to the almost-certainly doomed white unicorn.
Despite this fact—or perhaps because of it—Lieutenant Shining Armor showed utter professionalism as he rose, donned his helm, and walked out of the canteen at the proper and safe speed specified by regulations. He stopped briefly to salute the sergeant on the way out.
The two privates who had been sitting on either side of Shining Armor before he had left looked at each other. “See,” one of them told the other, “I told you that the Princess never forgets.”
“Dibs on the orange,” the other said, stealing the partially peeled fruit from Shining Armor’s tray with his magic.
# # #
“Lieutenant?” Flash said to Shining as they were both walking through the halls of the castle.
“Yes, Private?” Shining replied, his eyes facing forwards.
“Would you happen to know what exactly happens in Room 1137?” the private asked. “I mean, it’s in a wing of the castle where nopony ever goes, mostly because that’s where the griffon delegations always stay and eat and the smell...” Flash nearly made himself sick at this point. “So why does that room have to be guarded day and night, and only for three days every ten seasons? What exactly are we guarding?”
Shining’s eyes narrowed briefly. “It is not good for a guard to show curiosity,” he instructed the private. “If the Princess does not wish us to know, then it would be disrespectful if she were to learn that one of her guards was asking questions.”
“I...I’m sorry, Lieutenant!” Flash exclaimed, stopping briefly before trotting to catch up with the unicorn, who had not broken his stride, even as he began to ascend a narrow and rarely used spiral stone staircase. “I’m trying to become the best guard possible, and well...everypony says you’re the best!”
Shining stopped and smiled indulgently down at the private. “I like you, colt,” he addressed him. “If you want to get ahead, you need to pay attention—not all of the lessons on how to be a good guard come from your drill instructor. Stick with me and you could go far; I reward loyalty above all else.” He waited for Flash Sentry to catch up with him on the stairs before continuing. “Now as to curiosity: just because you should not appear curious does not mean that curiosity itself is not a valuable and potentially life-saving trait.” He stopped and looked around to make sure the two of them were alone on the staircase before continuing: “For example, through casual conversation with the Head Housekeeper, I have learned that Room 1137 only came under guard relatively recently. Before that it was a regular guest bedroom, too small for the griffons, and therefore never used to anypony’s recollection. The heavy-duty lock the room sports today was installed thirteen years ago, on the night when a mysterious cloth-covered object was installed within. Nopony who happened to witness that move was able to tell me what precisely the object was, just that it was narrow, as tall as the Princess, and moved on squeaky wheels. None of the furniture in the room was removed, and when the bedding inside needs to be changed, it is done by the Princess herself.”
“And the only window in the room is bricked over,” Flash Sentry volunteered.
“Ah,” said Shining Armor, “not being a pegasus, I hadn’t thought to check on that, but it makes sense.” He resumed climbing, and soon left the staircase with Flash on the next floor. “And the only ponies who are known to have ever entered Room 1137 after it was locked off are the princesses—”
“And Sunset Shimmer,” Flash said, finishing the lieutenant’s sentence.
Shining Armor flinched. “Yes,” he said darkly. “Her.”
Turning a corner, the pair saw the door to Room 1137 with its two guards at the end of the hall. The smell of meat, both cooked and rotting, was faint but unmistakable.
“So why do you think the Princess asked you in?” Flash asked after fighting down his ingrained reaction to the smell.
Shining Armor frowned. “Surely you’ve heard the story by now,” he muttered. “It’s time for my punishment.”
“But you were just a foal at the time, right? I don’t think it fair—”
“Our Princess is the one who decides what is fair or not,” Lieutenant Shining Armor replied, perhaps louder than he might have wished, as the two guards were now looking right at him.
Flash stepped up to a gray pegasus holding a long spear. “Private Flash Sentry, here to relieve Private Pie Sky.”
“You forgot your spear,” Pie Sky said with a scowl.
Flash Sentry grimaced. “Oops. I’ll go back and—”
“No,” Pie interrupted, passing over the spear he was holding. “Use mine. But you better replace it at the end of your shift.”
“Yes, Sir!” Flash said with a smart salute.
“Well at least you’ve got that part down,” Shining said to himself with a smile.
Private Sky sighed and took Private Sentry aside to instruct him on what the particular duties of “Guard of Room 1137” entailed.
“Lieutenant Shining Armor, reporting to the Princess,” the unicorn said to the others, loud enough perhaps to penetrate the thick wooden door.
“Ooh, Shiny, is that you?” a very familiar voice emerged from the other side of the door.
“Princess Cadance?” Shining Armor replied, clearly relieved. “Are you the princess who summoned me?”
The door swung open just far enough for the stern face of Princess Celestia to emerge. “No, but you are here at her request,” she said.
Every pony in the hall fell into a deep bow. “Your Royal Highness!” they all cried out at once. Shining Armor’s rendition of the phrase was more than a little fearful.
Princess Celestia rolled her eyes when she knew they weren’t looking. “Come in, Lieutenant,” she instructed. To the departing Private Sky she added, “Please inform Captain Sentinel that the lieutenant will not be available for the next three days. You are dismissed.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Private Sky said fearfully with a short bow before turning and heading back the way that Shining Armor and Flash Sentry had just come from.
“Privates, eyes front!” Princess Celestia ordered, before opening the door wide for Shining Armor to enter.
# # #
The lieutenant entered Room 1137. His magical senses told him that a spell was activated as soon as the door was closed, but he was unable to learn anything else about it. He looked around him. As his interview with Housekeeper Sheets had revealed, this was just an ordinary castle bedroom, complete with a feather bed, a rug for sitting on, and a writing desk supported by four wooden legs. The only window in the room was not actually bricked up, but a reddish shimmer revealed the existence of a one-way illusion of a brick wall that kept the curious from looking in. It was a tall but extremely narrow window, too narrow for anypony older than a colt to be able to stick his head out of. Additional illumination for the room was provided by a magical light globe hanging from the ceiling.
Shining instantly perceived that there was a permanent anti-magic field on the door, which fit in with his observation that Princess Celestia had opened the door by hoof instead of using her magic. Beside the globe and the door, there was a third enchanted object in the room, one that was narrow and as tall as Celestia: a double-height portable mirror with an inverted horseshoe-shaped border. Attached to the top of the mirror was a pair of flat circles, each supplied with a rotating divider like the minute talon of a clock. The first circle had thirty divisions around its perimeter in ten groups of three, and its divider pointed straight up, while the second circle had sixty divisions on it in three groups of twenty, and its divider was halfway between the tenth and eleventh divider.
“Lieutenant,” Princess Celestia said sharply to get his attention. She was standing behind the desk, which appeared to have had its wooden legs extended to be more comfortable for her to use. There was an unrolled message scroll held in place upon the table by her magic, and a second scroll containing her partially composed reply sitting beside it. A feather pen and inkwell rested at the top of the desk, awaiting further use.
“Yes, Your Highness?” Shining Armor replied. One ear flicked as he caught the echoing sound of their words. He figured there must be some sort of sound containment spell in place. Since he couldn’t detect it directly, it must be embedded within the walls and behind the anti-magic spell on the surface of the door—not an easy feat for a unicorn to accomplish. It was almost certainly the spell that he had felt being activated when he entered the room—whatever was about to happen here was not for the eyes or ears of the outside world.
He allowed his own eyes to meet those of the pink alicorn Cadance as she sat on top of the bed. She wasn’t wearing her royal regalia, or anything else, for that matter. The inviting way she smiled back at him caused him to look away with a slight blush to his cheeks. The Alicorn of Love was in fine form.
He was pulled out of his daze by the other princess in the room. “You are to accompany Princess Cadenza on a three-day expedition,” Celestia informed him. She had noticed the little scene between him and Cadance, and she clearly did not approve. “You will leave your armor here. All of the supplies you will require have been provided.” She pointed one hoof at an empty pair of pale blue saddlebags. “Do you have any questions?”
Shining Armor succeeded in not rolling his eyes—as if any sane pony would fail to question this setup given the ridiculously scant amount of information he had been provided. As he was removing his armor he asked, “Where exactly are we going?” He surreptitiously opened the flap of one of the saddlebags with a hind hoof to confirm that it was in fact empty.
“We’re going to—” Princess Cadance began before being interrupted when her adoptive aunt raised one hoof into the air.
“We can’t tell him everything, because he’ll never believe us until he sees it himself,” Celestia said. “Why don’t you tell me where you think you will be going?” Celestia challenged Shining Armor with a slight smile. “Princess Cadenza insists that you’re the right guard for this mission, and that means being able to react correctly to the unexpected.”
Shining Armor put a hoof to his chin for a few moments, in order to be absolutely certain that his gut feeling was supported by the facts at his command. “We shall be going through that portal,” he said, pointing at the mirror. That part was obvious: it was a magic mirror big enough to walk through, and such objects only had one use. He stalled for a bit by stating some more obvious facts: “It’s only open every ten seasons, for exactly three days.” He looked up at the two clocks. “Or to put it another way...” He pointed at the second clock. “...Three Equestrian days of twenty hours each...” Then he pointed at the first clock. “...Repeated every ten Equestrian seasons of three moons each.” Tie that to the fact that those three days were always the three days of the full moon, and Shining suddenly reached a very uncomfortable conclusion: “Nightmare Moon created this, didn’t she?”
“Excellent deduction, Lieutenant,” Celestia said, allowing a hint of warmness into her voice. “And also proof that you were paying attention to the post-promotion briefing that informed you that she was more than just a superstition. Yes, this portal was created by Nightmare Moon at least two decades ago, and discovered and brought here by Princess Cadenza while returning from the Griffon Kingdom on a diplomatic mission. It was found just this side of the border, guarded by a tribe of primitive griffons that were most reluctant to part with it.”
Shining pointed a panicked hoof at the magical artifact. “Well, why is it still allowed to operate? Nightmare Moon could come through and—”
“Nightmare Moon could do nothing of the sort,” Princess Celestia scornfully interrupted, “which you would know if you managed to pay attention to the other part of your post-promotion briefing. Part of the terms of her banishment spell was that any spell she attempted to cast to free herself would be twisted to no longer help her. I have recovered dozens of artifacts that she has sent to Equestria over the past millennium, and none of them have helped her in the slightest. Princess Cadenza here has been to the realm on the other side of that mirror, twice, and the one location it most definitely is not is the Moon. Now I ask you again: what do you think your destination will be?”
Shining Armor blinked a couple of times as he thought furiously. “It’s outside the boundaries of Equestria, and a sovereign nation of its own,” he declared.
“Very good,” said Celestia with a tilt of her head. “Now tell me how you reached this conclusion.”
“Because your former student Sunset Shimmer disappeared into this room ten years ago,” Shining Armor replied, “and hasn’t been seen since. Since she is a wanted criminal, you would not have allowed her to remain on the other side of that portal unless she reached a realm where she was able to claim sanctuary from the laws of Equestria. She must have learned of this when she accompanied Princess Cadenza on her first trip through the mirror. The second trip would have been either ten years ago or on the next opening, seven and a half years ago, to try in vain to convince her to return.”
Celestia nodded to herself in satisfaction. “Alright, you’ll do,” she said. “The pair of you are meant for each other in any case.” This sentence was pronounced without a hint of positivity.
“You won’t be sorry, Aunty,” Cadance said, putting on a pair of empty saddlebags a similar color to Shining Armor’s. She hopped down from the bed and put on a set of white rubber wrap-around horseshoes. She pointed at a second set that were under where Shining Armor’s saddlebags had been located on the floor. “You better put those on as well.”
Shining Armor did as he was told. “Is there a reason why we can’t bring anything else with us?” he asked.
“The portal rejects most material objects,” Cadance told him. “Trust me though when I say that the saddlebags and shoes are essential.”
Princess Celestia took the opportunity of Cadance and Shining Armor’s conversation to finish the scroll that she was working on. She used her magic to embed a thread the colors of her mane into the material of the paper at the top of the scroll, and a green-colored thread similarly into the bottom of the scroll. The scroll was then rolled up and bound with a strip of silk.
“Your Highness,” Shining Armor asked Celestia, “am I correct in assuming that Princess Cadenza shall be appealing once again to Sunset Shimmer to surrender herself during our trip?”
“You are indeed correct,” Princess Celestia replied. She used her magic to cause the scroll to be converted into a sparkling green cloud, which then flew of its own accord out the window. “Cadance, please wait for Shining Armor on the other side of the portal.” She said this in a tone that could not be denied. “I wish to speak with him alone.”
Princess Cadance sighed. She had the look of one who was resigned to having her wishes squashed by the elder princess on a regular basis. She stepped up to the mirror, closed her eyes, and stepped into it. With a blinding swirl of magic, she was gone.
Celestia waited for Shining Armor to recover from the glare, then walked around the desk to look down on him with her own kind of glare. “You are to be Princess Mi Amore Cadenza’s protector on this trip, not her co-councilor,” she ordered him. “Do not attempt to sway Sunset Shimmer yourself. She and the Princess used to be quite close, so if there’s anypony who’s going to be able to convince her to return and stand trial for her crimes, it will be her.”
Shining Armor slumped his head in defeat in hearing this.
“Keep track of where in the Other Land you arrive, as the other side of the portal is invisible,” Celestia continued. “You are to keep a strict accounting of the time while you are gone, and you are to return to Equestria in the final hour before the portal closes, and not any sooner. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Shining said with a grim salute.
“Now I do not expect that you will have anything to fear on your return,” Celestia said, stepping over to look out the window. “But there is a very small chance nevertheless that you must be prepared for. When you return, I want you to look out this window before going through the door. Do you see that flag?”
Lieutenant Armor joined his princess at the window, to look out at the Equestrian flag flapping sluggishly from a tall pole in the mid-day doldrums. “Yes, Your Highness?”
“If that flag is not there, that will mean that Equestria will be in a crisis. I imagine you might also notice some other anomalies.” She glanced up at her sun as she said this. “In that case, Princess Cadenza will be the ranking head of state.”
“What?!” Shining Armor cried out in shock. He imagined Canterlot in flames as griffon or dragon armies roamed the streets. And, in a devastated throne room, lay the limp body of his monarch. It was almost more than he could take.
“I have foreseen this crisis for quite some time,” Celestia said, “and I assure you that there is a plan in motion as we speak to handle it. I am confident that everything will work out, but I owe it to my ponies to cover every eventuality. There is even a backup plan to this one, although heaven help Equestria if he ends up running the country. Princess Cadenza’s security will be in your hooves and, in the worst case scenario, you will be the core of the Resistance.”
“Resistance against what?” Shining Armor asked with some degree of trepidation.
“I’ve given you enough to dwell on during this trip without adding that tidbit,” Celestia said in reply, before turning her attention from the window to the mirror. “After all,” she continued, “I need you at your most diplomatic. Suffice it to say that if you come through that portal and the flag is not present, you’ll know who you’re up against. While you are in the Other Land, however, it is essential that you keep Cadenza and yourself out of trouble. Defend yourself only if necessary to preserve your lives. Oh, and try not to draw attention to yourselves—most of the residents are unaware of the existence of Equestria, and I think it best if it continues that way. Is there anything else you wish to know before your departure?”
He looked sadly at Celestia’s reflection in the magic mirror for a few seconds, before summoning the courage to say what he needed to say: “I just wish I knew what I could do to earn your forgiveness for the mistake of my younger years.”
The princess turned to look down at her subject, all weakness banished from her features. “You know what you need to do,” she told him.
Shining Armor looked up at her. “No, I do not,” he said firmly.
Celestia raised an eyebrow in surprise at the amount of backbone he was showing. “How could you not?” she asked.
“Because it is the past,” he replied. “My foalish mistake allowed Sunset Shimmer to escape, and as you prohibited me from convincing her to return—”
“Wait, what do you mean, you allowed Sunset Shimmer to escape?” Celestia asked in confusion.
“Ten years ago, I was the foal who convinced the guards outside this door to abandon their posts, because I was convinced that a dragon was attacking your School for Gifted Unicorns. Sunset Shimmer would never been able to use the portal if not for that.”
“Oh, that was you?” Celestia asked with a laugh. “You don’t need to worry yourself—my ex-student would have easily been able to get past those guards, so your actions had absolutely no effect on what happened that day. You do realize that their primary purpose is to alert me whenever anypony uses that portal in either direction, right? Asking them to actually defend the door would be suicide.”
“Oh,” said Shining Armor, now thoroughly confused. “Well if that wasn’t it, why do you always look so disappointed every time you see me?”
“You don’t know?” Celestia asked in equal parts disbelief and disgust. “You honestly don’t know?”
Shining Armor lowered himself onto his foreknees. “Princess, I have served you loyally in every way that I know how. I would give up everything I have in service to you and to Equestria. What could I have possibly missed to have disappointed you so?”
“There is more to life than loyalty,” she replied coldly. “And more ponies in your life than myself—I am not the one you have wronged.”
“I don’t...” Shining began, as he tried to figure out the meaning behind his monarch’s words. Then he remembered the message that Princess Celestia had just sent via the dragon sending spell. “My sister!” he exclaimed.
Celestia smiled.
“If you anticipate a crisis timed to occur on the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration,” Shining Armor continued in an accusing tone, “what are you doing to keep your current student safe?”
This wasn’t what Celestia was expecting, and she was suddenly confronted with somepony who would be most affected by her actions. She looked away with a guilty expression, saying “I just sent her to Ponyville.”
“To...Ponyville?” Shining asked. It was the central location of the celebration this year, and the place where Celestia herself would be, but it wasn’t Canterlot, the almost-certain target of any invasion scheme. “Thank you, Princess. Thank you!” he exclaimed with tears in his eyes.
“I don’t—?” the Princess began to ask.
“You’re sending her to Ponyville,” Shining Armor explained as he prepared to walk through the portal to who knows where. “Everypony knows that nothing ever happens in Ponyville!”
He failed to see the dumbstruck expression on her face as he stepped through the mirror into another dimension.
Two days and nine hours later.
Princess Mi Amore Cadenza emerged from the magic mirror, and immediately fell on her face. She had to quickly scoot out of the way as a much more sure-on-his-hooves Shining Armor followed her.
“Hey, could you give me a—?” the Princess began, hoof upraised for lifting, before seeing that the lieutenant was too busy scanning the world outside the room’s window to pay any attention to her.
“I see it! I see it!” the white unicorn cried out in glee. “Come over here and tell me you see it!” He turned to see Cadance splayed out on the floor. “Are you alright?” he asked.
Cadance flailed about for a bit, getting her hind legs under her, but falling back down once she tried to bring her fore legs into play. “A little help? I’m having some trouble adjusting back to being a quadruped.”
“Why don’t you use your magic?” Shining Armor asked. “I mean, I’ll help you too, but...”
“Oh, right. I’ve got this.” She scrunched up her features, but to no avail, until Shining started to levitate her up. At that moment her magic suddenly kicked in and she nearly hit the ceiling. She levitated down gently under her own power and landed on her hooves. She had to bring her magic back into play a couple of times to help her walk from the mirror to the window. “What am I supposed to be looking for?” she finally asked.
“The Equestrian flag,” Shining Armor said, pointing.
Cadance looked in the direction indicated. “Yup, that’s it,” she said instantly. “Definitely the Equestrian flag.”
“Oh, thank Celestia!” Shining Armor cried out. “I’ve got to go find out what happened...or didn’t happen. Am I excused?”
The Princess raised her eyebrow for a moment in confusion as she processed this. “Oh!” she finally said. “Yes, of course you are excused, Lieutenant.” She waved one hoof in the air vaguely. “You’ll have to file a report or something, so let me look at it first when it’s done so we can get our stories straight.”
“Sure!” Shining Armor said, before opening the door. He was immediately confronted by a pair of spears.
“He’s alright, boys,” Princess Cadance called out to them cheekily. “But I suppose some...somepony needs to report our return to Princess Celestina.”
Shining Armor looked back curiously at her.
“Princess Celestia, that’s what I said,” Cadance said quickly. “Now go. I want to collect myself for a bit.”
“Very well,” Shining Armor said, standing at attention before smiling seductively for a moment and walking out the door.
# # #
Princess Cadance staggered back for a moment under the power of that smile. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “That one was good!” She walked up to the door and tapped at it with a forehoof. “Hello!” she cried out. “Is this soundproof spell still in place? If you can hear me, you privates may come in and do whatever you want with me!” She waited in vain for the door to be burst open. “All right then,” she said with a wicked grin. “Time to get a little more comfortable.”
With a flash of green magic, the form of Princess Cadance was replaced by that of a black insectoid equine, with a ragged horn and wings resembling those of a dragonfly. Her limbs, wings, and even her stringy green mane were pierced through in several places with Swiss cheese-like holes. The saddlebag and shoes were apparently part of her disguise, as they were not retained in her transformation.
She looked down at herself. “Really?” she asked nopony in particular with a strangely resonating voice. “I’m stuck on four hooves now even in my ‘natural’ form? Whatever.” The being walked around the room slowly, getting the feel for her hooves. She stopped at the window, which she spent some time looking through. “It just goes on forever, doesn’t it?” she asked herself. “I’ve never been in a universe this big!” Turning her head, she saw a pile of Princess Cadance’s regalia, which she levitated over to put on. “And I’m a princess now, so they have to do everything I say!” She turned her head slowly, her eyes unfocused as she traveled through the mental landscape of memories stolen from the pony she was impersonating. “A herbivorous nation, at peace with its neighbors for a thousand years, with only a single ruler standing between it and complete conquest! Fall to your knees and tremble, Equestrians!” the alicorn bellowed at the soundproofed window. “For the mighty Infiltrator Chrysalis has come to consume you all!”
She waited in vain for some kind of response.
“Nothing?” she asked the world. “No darkened skies? No thunder or lightning?” She slumped over in disappointment. “How boring.” With another flash of green magic, Chrysalis resumed her disguise as Cadance. “Well,” she said to herself as she approached the door, “it appears that I have much to learn about this world before I attempt to add it to my numerous conquests.”
She allowed herself one final evil laugh before she left.
Alright, so I had a lot of ideas for this one besides a general rant of how soul-destroying my high school was. The actual plot would begin in the present day, with Vinyl Scratch informing Princess Luna of increasingly irrational behavior in the patrons of her nightclub. She had concluded that the ponies were showing the out-of-control emotions of (exaggerated) adolescents, and that these changes were tied to the phases of the moon. She plays a song for Luna that she claims she picked up from the moon itself, and this unlocks a memory of Luna’s from when she was Nightmare Moon: She had once attempted to escape from her prison by use of a portal she discovered on the moon, but the portal led to a parallel dimension instead of directly to Equestria. She had constructed the mirror to access the same dimension and sent it down to Equestria, hoping to use the parallel dimension to escape her prison, but the lunar portal had been closed (presumably by Sunset and Cadance on their first trip through the mirror), foiling the scheme. Now it appears that the portal is open, and somebody is using it to alter pony minds for some nefarious purpose.
After learning from her sister what is going on, Celestia summons the Bearers to Canterlot as insurance. Infiltrator Chrysalis (still in her guise of Princess Cadance), hearing from Celestia how close she is supposed to be to Twilight, charms her way into the Royal Database and crams Twilight’s file like it’s the subject of a final exam with her life on the line.
Luna takes Vinyl with her up to the moon to find the portal—Vinyl’s magic is essential for actually finding the portal. Something goes very wrong, and Celestia only just manages to teleport Vinyl back to Equestria before she can die of asphyxiation. Luna has been snatched through the lunar portal, which has been destroyed.
Celestia orders Cadance to lead an expedition through the mirror to rescue Luna, with the two alicorns combining their power to force the mirror open. The expedition includes Shining Armor, his lieutenant Flash Sentry, a bunch of royal guards who are unsurprisingly all actually changelings, Vinyl Scratch, Twilight and Spike. I’m going to say that the rest of the Bearers are going, except then I run into having not enough stuff for everypony to do, so let’s say that it’s just Applejack and Rarity for whatever reason, because I know I have lines for them. In this story, the reason Spike is included is not because he runs through the mirror at the last second, but because Twilight learned her lesson during Thought Experiments about how useful Spike can be—that, and there was supposed to be a story I never wrote where I addressed his personal character development while the Bearers and Vinyl Scratch were all in the dream trap.
One of the central ideas of this story was addressing and breaking Twilight’s abnormal obsession with Princess Celestia, which I trace to her asking Cadance to use love magic to bind her to Celestia, as the scared foal’s desperate solution to how to stop herself from using her runaway magic to destroy Equestria—yeah, not one of my better ideas. Hearing of this, Shining Armor then arranged for a similar spell to be used to bind his sister to him. You see, my warped version of Shining Armor is the sort of older brother who can’t stand the idea of his younger sibling ever stopping in her childish adoration of him as her protector, and is perfectly willing to resort to mind control to guarantee that sort of adoration lasts for the rest of her life. This is the reason why Twilight had nothing to do with her older brother since moving to Ponyville, because of her unconscious realization that she would once again become his virtual slave if she ever set eyes on him again.
Celestia is aware of these bonds, and is infuriated that Cadance refuses to lift them (mostly because, as Chrysalis, she doesn’t know how). So she deliberately puts Twilight on a collision course with the two love spells she’s under by ordering her to break up the impending marriage of Cadance and Shining Armor during the course of the mission.
Part of the briefing prior to entering the mirror would cover the subject of Sunset Shimmer, who is the primary suspect behind everything that has been happening. This would reveal that Sunset was meant to be the Bearer of the Element of Friendship, because she was so very good at making friends of any group she encountered, including enemies of Equestria. She became a student of Celestia and was trained in diplomacy. She was also allowed to settle in Hoofington (the town on the other side of the Everfree, which acts as a sort of dark mirror to Ponyville in my fics), with the goal of attracting the future Bearers of the other five elements. Instead, she used her powers of psychological manipulation to turn Hoofington into the core of a potential rebellion against Celestia’s rule. The discovery of this conspiracy to overthrow the rightful government of Equestria is why Sunset fled to the human world. Whichever Bearers end up in the human world during the story spend a lot of their time speculating about how they are essentially the #2 choices for their elements, and what this means to their self esteem.
So, I’ve got all this development leading to everypony going through that mirror. And after that moment? I’ve got nothing. Just that the world on the other side of the portal is this mad place that’s forced to follow “high school movie” logic, so that any logical attempt to rescue Luna or get back the Elements of Harmony that Sunset Shimmer effortlessly confiscates fails, until they start doing stupid things like stealing the rival school’s team mascot, or joining the talent show. The fact that there are duplicates of course is played for wacky hijincks. Classes last less than five minutes, while the time between classes stretches endlessly so that students can conspire against each other or engage in tepid romance subplots, and all adults only exist to be punchlines. Oh, and I did plan to have an epic rant from Vinyl Scratch about how the similar atmosphere of her music school was enough to drive her into an insane asylum. Cadance/Chrysalis ends up being the one to run against Sunset, and it’s dirty tricks on all sides until Twilight finally has her meltdown over the mind control spells she’s saddled with, thereby leveling the school and liberating everybody from its mad control over them.
So yeah, this story was a big fat mess. But I just loved writing an evil Shining Armor.
That's...that's a LOT of content for a fix fic!
There are definitely some interesting ideas in there.
Wow. This underpinning forcibly stereotypical high school bullshit screams to be written.
Not gonna lie, yeah, that does sound like a mess. Especially when you think about issues of tone. I mean, it's a complex, dramatic story where the fate of Equestria is under threat from multiple factions, and characters are interpretted in a much darker light... but a central component of the plot is a world that literally runs on nonsensical high school clichés where the characters lampshade how maddening and stupid it all is?
Say what you will about the first Equestria Girls (and one could say a lot of about it), but it knew exactly what it was and what it wanted to do.