FimFiction Link - Short ID: 552/the-eversleep
Published: Aug '11
Celestia dies of being an alicorn. Her plan for this entirely foreseeable event is to put the privy council in charge of Equestria with just one job: leave a poster of Luna up in the throneroom. The unicorns immediately declare a civil war, then try to use the poster for crossbow target practice, so Red Shirt takes the big dive.
The Royal Guard, the last apparent bastion of loyalty among Celestia's Canterlot insiders, teleport themselves, Red Shirt, and the poster to Twilight's house.
Twilight, being purple, understands that first aid for 20 crossbow bolts to the torso is to wait the ten additional seconds required for Red Shirt to die, then organizes a funeral for him. Dash crashes in, because. Twilight, overwhelmed by the devastatingly stupid mare, almost turns her to polychromatic pegasus paste when... idea! Nopony else is stupid enough to figurehead the unicorn opposition. Rainbow is declared the Princess of Cloudsdale.
At the end of the day, she remembers to check the back of the poster that the guards left behind for any message from Celestia and lo! The poster has a map to a library in the Everfree that could have been in the Castle of the Two Sisters but isn't. Twilight finds the library. It's locked! Fortunately, Twiggles has been watching LPL and knows how to fold up the poster and shim the lock. In the meantime, all ponies in Equestria agree to be drafted into the civil war to unify Equestria.
The library has a journal by Celestia which explains she isn't dead, she's just tuckered out and needs a 1000.0 year nap. But! Her little ponies can help by sleeping in her stead. Each one who helps decreases the amount geometrically and Twilight knows her shapes. The only obstacle to her one true love is to cast Equestria-wide multithreaded sleep().
The unicorns correctly assume that pegasi will perfectly scout their feint on Manehattan and fail to scout their ambush on stationary Cloudsdale. In response, Princess Rainbow pulls her signature move, completing the city's obliteration 20% faster than the unicorns would have on their own. Rainbow breaks her wing, fulfilling the mandatory requirement of this era's fics.
After celebrating the Dashtastrophe, the unicorn army goes on to Manehattan. To their chagrin, the Manehattanites have some of their own unicorns and 0 Dashes. Despite the struggle, unicorn baddie topdecks Dark Ritual and the opponent concedes.
Twilight unnecessarily casts sleep() from Ponyville for psychological effect, so unicorn baddie shows up in 15 minutes to capture her. Fortunately, 35 million sleepers makes a big nap fast so Celestia wakes up the next day.
Unicorn baddie understands that the EoH can't be used to banish him unless they're gathered, so he does that them in order to execute them. He only gets Twilight, though, so Celestia shows up only in the nick of time to execute unicorn baddie and Dash gets away scott free so the story can have a Tragedy tag.