Two Background Ponies Quickie: "My Little Pony: The Movie" Aftermath · 5:14pm Oct 8th, 2017
As the last of Songbird Serenade's performance concluded and oddly plasma-shaped fireworks thundered over Canterlot, the crowd of Equestrian denizens applauded loudly with hoof stamps. Among them were a green stallion with a find-the-difference picture for a Cutie Mark and a blue stallion with an unidentified curio for a Cutie Mark, the former of which kept rubbing his overdeveloped cheeks every once in a while.
"Well, that was a great concert!" The blue stallion said at the end.
"Yeah, sure was, Sam." The green stallion hurriedly said, looking around. "By the way, have you seen Princess Twilight Sparkle?"
"Uh, no Carl, why?"
"Because I want to smack her upside the head with a horseshoe for creating this mandatory-attendance festival that ended up with me being stuck under an iron muzzle and yoke treading out grain after getting a savage beating from some big white...gorilla...wendigo..." He frowned, shaking his head, and finally scowled. "What the hell were those things that attacked us, anyway? Monkeys? Bears? Wolves? What?!"
Sam groaned and patted him with a reassuring hoof while looking around nervously. "Dude, just calm down...especially now. You know security got heightened around here after that..."
He frowned and looked around with a grumble, then suddenly froze. His eyes turned wide as saucers. Not only him, but several other ponies who had been looking about also gasped at what they saw: namely Twilight Sparkle and her friends walking back to the fairgrounds with a certain dark purple hornless unicorn among them.
"YOU!" He shouted in rage.
"There she is!" Another pony screamed. "Don't let her get away!"
"Cut her tendons so she can't kick us with those freakishly powerful hind legs of hers!"
"Somepony get some peanut butter and baby oil so she can't use that death beam attached to her face!"
"Put out her eye-ses!"
In seconds, an angry crowd of ponies began to swarm toward the edge of the fairgrounds with nothing but unicorn blood on their minds; stopping only by ponies with torches and pitchforks for Cutie Marks to supply themselves. The hornless unicorn naturally looked shocked before the rest of the girls quickly jumped in front of her.
"Wait, wait! Everypony stop! It's not like that! Fizzlepop is good now!"
The bloodthirsty mob ground to a halt, looking rather confused.
"...Who the Tartarus is 'Fizzlepop'?" Carl called out.
The dark purple unicorn grimaced and began to lower her head. "That...was kind of supposed to be a secret just between us..."
"She conquered Equestria!" One of the other ponies in the crowd protested.
"She tried to kill us!" Another shouted.
"And she razed every city to the ground!"
"Yeah!"
"But that's ok now!" Twilight protested. "We fixed all the damage!"
The ponies stared back at her blankly, and began to frown.
"One of her minions fractured my skull during the blitzkrieg!" A stallion with a head dressing shouted.
"80 ponies got infections from those unsanitary iron bits and yokes she forced us to wear!" Another mare shouted, before showing off deep scars on her back. "And they dug into our flesh because they weren't padded!"
"Another 56 got killed by that tornado her boss made!" Another stallion snorted.
"One of the parapets her airship broke hit my foal!" A sobbing mother cried. "She's paralyzed from the waist down!"
"And part of her aggressive 'total war' campaign destroyed our agricultural infrastructure! We have no harvest this year!" An earth pony cried nearly hysterically. "Thousands will starve this winter!"
By now, the girls were looking rather horrified and uneasy. The rainbow-maned one among them swallowed. "Uh, well...we pegasi will just hold off winter this year..."
"How?!" A pegasus sporting dressings for third-degree burns cried. "She blew up Cloudsdale as soon as she was done with Canterlot! It'll take us forever to rebuild the factory and get it into production again! We're already planning for a three month drought at minimum!"
The girls were speechless. The dark purple unicorn began to look progressively more uncomfortable. Finally, Twilight swallowed and began to assert herself again.
"Look, I know what she did was bad, but part of being the princess of friendship and embracing it means-"
The sound of magic blasting rang out behind her. She wheeled around and, to her shock, saw Fizzlepop immobilized in a giant crystal. She looked to the side...seeing a grinning, triumphant Starlight Glimmer with her horn still aimed at her, as well as Trixie, King Thorax, and Discord behind her looking bold and daring.
"Ha! How do you like it?" She shouted before blowing on the end of her horn, smiling smugly before walking up. "Sorry we're late, princess. I had to go about getting 'the league' back together and it wasn't easy with her bigfoot things running around. I won't get into the details of the airship battle we went through yesterday... Everypony can relax! Equestria is saved!"
The draconnequis soon slid forward and popped up around Twilight's shoulder, surprising her. "Tell me truly, Twilight?" He rapped his knuckles on Fizzlepop's prison. "What do you think she'd look better as? Cupcake, candy, or pudding?"
Frowning, Twilight cast another spell to shatter her prison, leaving her dazed and confused. "Would everypony stop for a moment and let me explain? What happened was-"
She was drowned out by the sound of stampeding hoofbeats. Looking up in confusion, she turned around...just in time to see an armed legion of crystal ponies fully suited for war stampeding into the fairgrounds.
"Save the queen!" They chanted in unison. "We mean, uh...princess!"
A white unicorn in the lead with a rather wild and furious look in his eyes lunged out and tackled Fizzlepop to the ground as soon as he was in range, furiously beginning to bash her in the face with his armored hooves.
"This...is for...my wife...and sister...you heartless...bitch!" He grunted with each slam of his hooves into her, eventually causing blood to start flying up.
Grimacing, Twilight quickly used her own horn to grab him and pull him off of her while her friends drug her, her face now bleeding and bruised, out from where he had been. Even immobilized, he struggled to break free to keep smashing into her. "Shining Armor, would you please-"
"When a cruel, wicked pony shrouds Equestria in smoke..."
The alicorn princess groaned, recognizing that voice. She turned to the side, seeing a local militia of all the ponies who weren't able to make it to Canterlot being led by a zebra in war paint hefting whatever hand-made weapons they had on hand.
"We will rise from the ashes, and have all her ribs broke!"
They began to charge as well.
By now, the princess of friendship was sweating, until she heard a loud whistle from the sky. Nervously looking upward, she saw a swarm of rainbow-colored Changelings being led by a dark-colored one looking down below. She gaped, then looked up to the King Changeling.
"Uh," He said nervously, rubbing the back of his horns. "Well, I am the King of the Changelings and an ally to Equestria, so I figured I should summon our armed forces to lend a hand."
"And I finally get to kill something again." Pharynx grinned. "Ok everyone, you know the drill. It's liquefy their insides first then suck them out. Let's start with the one wearing a carapace down there."
A thunderous crack suddenly rang through all of the fairgrounds, causing everypony to look in shock to one side and see a herd of extremely ill-tempered and irate yaks smashing their way through the city's open gates...in spite of the fact they were wide open...and approaching the fairgrounds.
"Mean purple pony threaten to conquer Yakyakistan along with Equestria! YAKS SMASH!"
The sky suddenly lit up in a fiery glow. Sweating and on the brink of passing out now, Twilight looked to the sky...and her pupils shrank as she saw a force of elder wyrms hovering over Canterlot with murderous glares in their eyes. Slowly, a small blue dragon descended and alit right next to Twilight, scowling.
"Hi. I just got word that there's some sort of lackey for some 'Storm King' or something around here who thinks she's going to conquer the Dragonlands along with Equestria. Dragons don't 'do' being threatened. We get threatened; we start turning folks into ash. So..." She flicked out her claws and began to study them. "Who's the unlucky victim?"
Twilight swallowed a sizable lump in her throat, and looked out to a certain group in the audience. "Uh...guys? New friends? Little help here?"
Queen Novo's eyes narrowed. "Isn't she the one who tried to steal our pearl and razed our kingdom to begin with?"
"She did try to kill me back on the captain's airship..." Capper shrugged.
"Which was custom-made by my grandmother, by the way." Captain Celeano, who, along with her crew, was now eating popcorn and casually observing. "I think I'd like to 'enjoy the show'."
As Twilight, her friends, and especially Fizzlepop began to look increasingly nervous at the ever-growing list of enemies around them, suddenly a blast of magic light went out that attracted everyone's attention. All looked back to the palace of Canterlot, just in time to see the three other alicorn princesses walk out from it and up toward Twilight and her group.
The princess of friendship sighed in relief. "Princess Celestia, thank goodness you're here! Everyone's out for Fizzlepop's hide! You need to say something!"
"And indeed I shall, Twilight Sparkle." She said with a smile, taking her position in front of her with the other two princesses. After that, she called out in a loud voice. "Citizens of Equestria, in light of the recent events to befall our nation, I have had a special session with Princess Luna and Princess Cadance, and we have agreed that from this day forth...Equestria will now be taking a militarily active role in world affairs."
Twilight's jaw dropped. "What?!"
"What?!" Sam echoed in the audience.
Carl looked uneasy, but shrugged. "Well, when you think about it, Sam, being militarily inactive isn't doing us much good. We all lost in ten minutes to an army that got beaten three days later by thirteen people. It's time to face facts that we aren't exactly fighters."
"I'll be taking charge of shifting the Wonderbolts into an offensive role while commissioning our first Equestrian-built War Airships." Luna chimed in. "I'm thinking we'll call them...dreadnoughts. I just like that word..."dreadnought"."
"And I'll be in charge of new weapons development." Cadance added. "I'm going to start by reverse engineering those gem bombs that were able to cut through magic shields. Then I got an idea looking at how Spike the Brave and Glorious helped out during the battle on a new armament to increase the battle capability of the common earth pony. I call it...an 'incinerator'."
"And to all male Equestrians over 18 years of age..." Celestia announced. "You need to report to your local barracks one week out of every month from now on for basic training." She smiled and leaned back. "Well, now that that's settled, one more thing..."
With her same normally-innocent smile on her face, she very, very slowly turned and looked at Fizzlepop.
"I think a change in my own demeanor is in order."
Her eyes slowly closed.
"There are, after all, certain consequences to angering a god."
They opened again...now transformed into burning flames. In an instant, the rest of her began to light up in fire as a golden aura enveloped Fizzlepop, yanked her off of the ground, and made her hover right in front of her.
As Celestia's teeth grew long and sharp, she grinned. Holding the dark purple unicorn right in front of her and never taking her burning eyes off of her for a second, her aura levitated another gem bomb in front of her. She held it a moment--then simply smashed it against her own body. The green mist came out and began to crystallize around her...only to instantly be melted away by the searing heat now radiating off of her before it even reached her neck. Fizzlepop began to shake nervously.
"I made a mistake on going 'easy' on you earlier because you were a unicorn. Now that I know better...hmm..." She tapped a hoof against her jaw. "What was that you said earlier about me not using my magic to its full potential? Why, I think that's an excellent idea!"
Luna gave Fizzlepop a cold look of her own. "What shall we do with her, sister? Do you think the moon needs a new mare? Or would she look lovely in the Canterlot Gardens?"
Celestia let out a laugh. "Oh, Luna..." She grinned even wider at the dark purple unicorn. "You know those kind of punishments are only reserved for individuals I want to show mercy."
She hovered her in closer to her face.
"Three weeks from now you'll be wishing your horn is the only thing you're missing. Let's get started, shall we?"
Hovering her alongside, she turned to begin to walk back to Canterlot Palace. Swallowing again, Twilight raised a hoof toward her. "P-Princess Celestia...?"
In a snap so fast she didn't even look like she moved, she had wheeled around and aimed her flaming eyes and sharp-toothed grin at the youngest alicorn.
"What is it, Twilight Sparkle?"
All the color drained from the alicorn as she began to cringe. "N...nothing..."
From the audience, both Sam and Carl looked far more afraid than they had caged and muzzled days earlier. They stood there in stunned silence momentarily.
"...You know, I hear Griffonstone has affordable housing."
I nearly included a bit where the reason Sweetie Belle wasn't in the movie was because Fizzlepop enacted a series of anti-unicorn internment camps designed to surgically remove all filly unicorn horns and chemically sterilize them to keep them from breeding, but...that was a bit too dark.
I've classified them as a species of yeti.
You need to write a full story starring Pharynx. I found myself reading his lines aloud in his voice; always a good sign.
Given the timescale involved, I like to think the invaders were still consolidating a power base in Canterlot. But yeah, there's probably going to be quite a few confused armies converging on the capital in the next few days.
(Also, definitely a good call on leaving out the Sweetie Belle scene. Yeesh.)
I'm going by the scene I saw briefly at the end of "Open Up Your Eyes". There's smoke clouds arising from small parts of Equestria in addition to Canterlot, indicating that the rest of the towns were sacked as well. We wouldn't know either way thanks to the Cosmic Reset staff.
And I'm still a little surprised they threw in a "Heroic Derpy" moment. I keep reminding myself this movie was written shortly after "Twilight's Kingdom" came out, so it has the feel of being in the same vein as the show prior to that (It's almost amusing to see the show's deuteroagonist reduced to the role of a silent background character in a couple scenes). I feel there would have been a much greater reaction if the film came out then.
Just on a personal note, I think I was the only "obvious brony" in the theater both times I saw it. The first time I went with my (pega)sister and her daughter, so it looked less obvious then; but the second time I went with another friend my age and I got a lot more stares for my Fluttershy's Yay shirt. I noticed the film is another "Rotten Tomatoes" splitter. It's Certified Rotten by critics, some of whom went so far as to call it worse than "The Emoji Movie", but audiences are liking it a lot.
Just one other note...I never refer to her as "Tempest Shadow" now.
I did the same thing after I saw "Tangled". I never call him "Flynn"; I always call him Eugene.
Then Twilight and co. Spine up, go full rainbow power and tell everyone to cool the eef off and give tempfizz a proper trial or take a rainbow laser to the face.
Congratulations, you just earned yourself a follower. I hate to be in Fizzlepop's shoes right now.
Poor Tempest.