IN WHICH TWILIGHT IS EMPOWERED AND CURB-STOMPS PRECURES

Go Princess Precure - Episode 18: Secret Behind the Story
Or
The one where Twilight curb-stomps the Princess Cures!!!

Once upon a time and a very good time it was, in a land not that different from the Hope Kingdom, the Princess of Flowers lived at ease with all her animal friends. Born at the castle in the heart of the realm, she made flowers bloom with her sincere smile:

However, during her quest for the prince of her dreams, she was betrayed by a songbird jealous of her popularity, who told her that the prince of the neighboring kingdom had arranged a rendezvous with her in the local Lost Woods. However, those lands were the stomping grounds of the most wicked witch (into whose domains the Princess of Flowers had been tricked to intrude), and thus, the Princess was imprisoned in a cocoon of tendrils, without a chance of escape.  Still, she didn't fear the witches of the woods, or reprimand the songbird for lying.

However, impressed by her resilience, the birdie regretted such a betrayal and freed the Princess of Flowers himself. She thanked and forgave her new feathered friend, as the dreary Lost Woods turned into the most beautiful meadow, and, together with her other friends, they continued their journey together to find her prince...

The fairytale "The Princess of Flowers" was left unfinished bt its author and illustrator, Yume Mochizuki, so generations of readers have grown up not knowing if the heroine ever met her prince.

However, Yume, who wrote the story for her daughter, is still alive and well, though she has spent decades away from the public eye.

Yume Mochizuki, then and now. The beautiful young stunner has become a clever old lady, reminiscent of a flapper Olenna Tyrell.

Yume's daughter, giving her mother some Princess of Flowers fanart in happier days.

YUME: I first wrote "The Princess of Flowers" for my own daughter, since I wanted her to grow up to be like a princess. 

Of course, I wanted to write an ending at first, but after reading feedback my young readers wrote to me, I changed my mind. Everyone imagined the princess's future in their own way. The future my daughter imagined was a splendid happy ever after. 

Stories are born from imagination, so I felt it best to let my book nurture that. I'm certain that you have a future you'd like to see for the Princess as well, no? That "Princess of Flowers" belongs to nobody but you.

(HEADCANON ALERT: Can Dyspear be Yume's daughter as an adult? Which Freudian excuse [fatherlessness, a broken pedestal, death or betrayal of a loved one...] turned her attention towards the Dark Arts and a quest for power, as well as having a keyhole in her heart and ceasing completely to believe in dreams?)

Until now, when she gives a book signing at the Yumegahama Storybook Museum. And the Princess Cures are there:

Yume Mochizuki. Don't forget her, for this ain't the last time we see her!

Twilight has also been given new powers, a more powerful Black Key and a Black Rod to unleash its full potential:

Shut and Lock are kneeling before Dyspear on her throne, as Twilight plays her mournful leitmotif:

DYSPEAR (To Shut and Lock): So you let yet another Key fall into the hands of the Princess Cures...

SHUT: Yes, ma'am!

DYSPEAR: And how do you explain this? Considering that Twilight accompanied you...

Suddenly, a string of Twilight's violin snaps.

SHUT: (Gasp!)

TWILIGHT: It seems I've let these games continue for too long. But worry not, Lady Mother. 

TWILIGHT: The Precures shall face defeat at my own hands the next time we meet.

SHUT (shocked): Princess Twilight, will you go alone?

DYSPEAR: If so it be, then take this (takes a more ornate Black Key out of the keyhole on her heart).

I look forward to your battle.

TWILIGHT: Very well.

Dyspear took the Black Key out of the keyhole on her heart.

So that is what the keyhole is for... For hiding Black Dress-Up Keys...

and for anything more?

Twilight standing on the dome of the Storybook Museum, her new weapon held in hand.

TWILIGHT (Noblewoman's laugh): No matter how beautiful it may be, fiction is but fiction.

To a true princess such as I, it is but vacuous nonsense.

Oh, pitiful peasants parading as princesses... I shall put you in your place.

(She inserts her new Key into her Rod, then targets the Cures as the Key glows purple. Yui and Yume step in between. Twilight's Rod emits an X of blue flame that entraps all the muggles in the museum parking lot. Twilight waves her Rod as if she were giving strokes with a brush and the muggles are all, adults and children, trapped inside mirrors.

Anyone else noticed that Twilight, like Arya Stark and like me, is a southpaw?

During the book signing, she trapped everyone except the Cures (and including Yume Mochizuki) inside glass mirrors (a reference to evil magic mirrors in fairytale?):

TWILIGHT: Now... Let the banquet begin.

The mirror prisons emit energy in the form of purple flames, that Twilight and her Rod, perched on the museum dome, rapidly absorb.

TWILIGHT: Despair born from sealing these commoners' dreams provides energy of despair. 

Being of use to me is far more fulfilling for them than being stuck in those frames.

You should watch your tongue. 

During the subsequent battle, the Princess Cures had a painful taste of Twilight's new powers:

TWILIGHT (still standing on the dome): If you fools know not how to behave in the presence of nobility, then I shall teach you the errors of your ways by force! (She twirls her Rod like a majorette's bâton, forming a circle of blue fire that turns purple and forms the shape of a cross-like four-pointed star, which becomes an expansive wave, whose scattered shards become giant shurikens of crimson crystallized despair energy, slightly larger than the Cures, that fall from the night sky all around them.)

TWILIGHT: Play the melody of despair! (She swoops down to the ground and lands among her three oponents, whom she then takes on one by one...)

TWILIGHT: You are first, Cure Mermaid. Your elegance and decorum are above par...

TWILIGHT: ...but you can't surpass me! (twirls and kicks Cure Mermaid onto one of the crimson shurikens, as if she were pinned to a Saint Andrew's cross (think Theon Greyjoy). Then, she sends a shock of mauve despair energy and blue fire through her crucified opponent.)

CURE MERMAID: (screams in agony, then falls unconscious off the cross)

OTHER TWO CURES: Cure Mermaid!

Then, Cure Twinkle (badass, yet only second badass), attempts to take on the Twilight juggernaut.

They're as evenly matched as Oberyn and Gregor, until Twilight turns upside down, seizes her opponent with her legs, then throws Cure Twinkle with those iron legs of hers (of Twilight's) onto one of the crosses. And she shares Cure Mermaid's fate.

CURE TWINKLE: (screams in agony, then falls off the cross.)

TWILIGHT: Even such radiant talent is but stardust in my wake, Cure Twinkle.

(Twilight, IMOHO, is abso-freaking-lutely right.)

TWILIGHT: Do the flames of despair burn? I'm certain you all regret playing princess by now.

TWILIGHT: Especially you, Cure Flora.

(And now you, frigging peasant... I'll sear your pretty face!)

TWILIGHT: Especially you, Cure Flora.

Peasants like you who lack both faculty and finesse tarnish the title of "princess."

(She shoots Cure Flora to the end of the dimensional battleground just with the palm of her hand.)

For R'hllor's sake, those moves are worth gold, especially the one Twilight does upside down to bring Kirara to the ground!!! Only Twilight can do this!!! And it sure must hurt the poor Cures!

Curb-stomped like no time before!!!

TWILIGHT: Those of nobility are bestowed with it upon birth. 

I am the daughter of the Ruler of Woe, Dyspear. I am the Princess in Black of the Dysdarks.

And you are nothing. 

(She begins to glow with a lilac aura, whose brightness and power gradually increase.)

It's all over. Your dreams shall vanish into ether.

CURE MERMAID: We won't let you! We shall defend our dreams!

CURE TWINKLE: Yeah! That despair energy of yours won't work on us!

CURE FLORA: Yeah! No matter what you say, we're the Princess Precures!

(All three attack with their Rods at once, "all their powers combined", but to no avail.)

.

Twilight rises about 5 m up in the air, glowing with an aura of a shade between light lilac and light grey, and wraps herself in a shield of blue flames for a protective cocoon, shielding her from the Cures' attacks. And, from inside her cocoon, she roars to her opponents...

TWILIGHT: You impostors!

TWILIGHT: Princesses are one of a kind, like me! 

Struggle to become one all you like... but you never will!!!!!

Twilight glows with this redoubtable silver aura as she defends herself from the Cures with a counterattack of blue flame... Her cocoon expands, engulfing the Cures and burning them, filling up two thirds, three fourths, four fifths of the dimensional battleground, then rising toward the sky and becoming a thin bolt of lightning.

As the Cures are lying prostrate, Twilight snatches the "Princess of Flowers" storybook Ruka has had signed by Yume Mochizuki.

PUFF: Give that back!

TWILIGHT (to Cure Flora): Yet I pity you. You'd had never encountered your futile dream if not for this drivel. 

Allow me to open your eyes. (She shoots dark purple and blue flames from the Key on her Rod, then puts the book to the flames)

CURE FLORA: No!!!

The book turned out to be quite inflammable... and to mean the world to Cure Flora/Ruka...

Cure Flora performs a diving save and snatches the storybook from Twilight.

CURE FLORA: Twilight, you may be the better princess. I knew from the day we met that you fit the definition of real princess to the letter. But, after listening to Yume Mochizuki, I feel there's something more. Princesses may share a title, but we all have our own princess inside! I do too! I learned that I have my own princess to become!

TWILIGHT (gasps, saying not a word)

CURE TWINKLE (gasps, saying not a word)

CURE MERMAID: Cure Flora...

TWILIGHT: Your own princess? What nonsense! (The top of her Rod begins to glow with dark blue and purple despair fire once more, creating a whip of despair energy that coils quickly around Cure Flora's left forearm.)

CURE FLORA (standing up): That's my ideal! The strength not to fear wicked witches! The grace to have mercy on others! And the inner beauty to make the world bloom! Like the Princess of Flowers whom I have always admired! That's the princess I want to be! (Upon saying these words, she breaks free of the despair energy whip, and the top of Twilight's Rod begins to crack, as if it were going to shatter.)

TWILIGHT (surprised): (Gasp!) (Looks at her rod, then at the bright pink light glowing in Cure Flora's hand, that quickly becomes a new Miracle Dress-Up Key.)

TWILIGHT (enraged): Another new Key?! (Commanding, firing blue flames from her Rod): Forfeit it at once!

DRACARYS!!!!

Twilight and Cure Flora fired blasts of dark purple despair energy and white lily petals, which gave, as a result, a Priori Incantatem, until, in the end, Twilight was dragged back against her will. When the Dysdark princess stopped, her Rod flew from her hand and shattered, as the Black Key was forced to twirl in the air not far from Twilight.

AROMA: You can beat Twilight!

TWILIGHT: Do you think you've won? (Two huge blue flames, like wings, rise from her hands.) Your dreams shall fade to dust!

CURES (inserting the Miracle Keys into their Rods): Exchange! Mode Elegant! Lily! Bubbles! Shooting Star!

In the nick of time, the Princess Cures inserted their Miracle Keys together (Ruka included) and unleashed a new, more powerful purifying attack: Trinity Explosion!

Since she tried to resist as hardily as she could,

Twilight landed on her knees, exhausted, after spending all her strength in shattering the Trinity Explosion. Yet all the prisoner muggles had been freed by the Cures.

 Her elaborate bow hairstyle was undone, all of her silver locks now rumpled, cascading on her back.

She saw, in a mirror, how pathetic she looked... and swore revenge on the Cures.

And revenge plus Twilight equals serious business...

TWILIGHT: I... lost? Me?!

Peering from the mirror...
No, that isn’t me!
A stranger getting nearer...
Who can this person be?

You wouldn't know me at all... 

today...
From the fading light I fly!

Rise like a phoenix
Out of the ashes

You were warned
Once I'm transformed
Once I’m reborn...

TWILIGHT: Cure Flora, I shall never accept you!

TWILIGHT: I am the only princess! (She disappears into the keyhole.)

PUFF (to the Cures): I can't believe you beat Twilight!

In the end, Yume Mochizuki (who will never write an ending to the story, and leave it up to imagine for every reader to imagine new adventures for the Princess of Flowers and/or whether she meets her prince) was revealed to be someone whose face was always unknown to us (drum rolls):

THE HEADMISTRESS OF NOBLE ACADEMY!

(In the headmistress's office)

MRS. SHIROGANE: Headmistress... why did you choose to hold an exhibit now?

YUME: I wanted to use my paintbrush to nurture the future of our children. I thought the fiftieth anniversary of Noble Academy was a fitting date. Our first-years are all such splendid students too.

So this day was also the golden/fiftieth anniversary of Noble Academy (which means that the boarding school has existed since 1965...). Founded 50 years ago... and this anniversary coincides with the first mano a mano engagement between Twilight and the Cures. Serendipity?

Anyway, Yume is a nice headmistress, like a female Dumbledore of sorts.

Just hope she doesn't share Dumbledore's fate!

And does all of this mean that the connection between the Hope Kingdom and Noble Academy runs far deeper than we thought?

The number of Dress-Up Keys now adds up to nine.

THE BAD NEWS: Twilight's Keys will not be counted among the remaining six.

I'D LIKE TO SEE TWILIGHT'S ROD AND KEYS INSTEAD...

THE BEST OF:

There's Yume, her reveal as the enigmatic headmistress of Noble Academy (whose identity had hitherto been a mystery), and her connection with the Hope Kingdom. Though we haven't received much background and we'll have to wait until around Christmas to have the whole backstory episode when everything about the magical land's history comes together.

We were also given an in-universe summary of the Princess of Flowers tale. The coat-turning songbird appears to stand in for Twilight, the sorcerous villainess for Dyspear. Is this some foreshadowing of Twilight's coat turn?

Yume's purpose to leave the tale unfinished is reminiscent of why Michelangelo left some of his sculptures unfinished as well: to leave the ending to each individual's imagination. Much like the status of the Westeros canon today, with Martin still delaying the release of The Winds of Winter and thus, the lives of Jaime, Brienne, Arya, Sansa, Tyrion, and many other fan favourites left up to us fans until the whole saga comes to an end. However, unlike Mochizuki and Michelangelo, Martin has actually intended to finish his magnum opus someday...

But mostly, this episode is a high-octane Twilight concentrate. No cronies (Shut or Lock) or Desporgs to ruin the feast of badassery that the battle of this week is. We see her receive a power-up in the form of a new Black Key with matching Rod, and that, being left-handed like me (and like Arya), she can do really impressive stuff with fire, despair energy, and her short-lived new weaponry. We see her trap a lot of muggles inside mirrors with her new powers and absorb their despair energy, then take on the Cures mano a mano, sear their skin and singe their hair, and stop their most powerful attacks so far. Kicking Precure arse like only Twilight can do, with those powerful attacks full of acrobatics and blue fire and purple lightning. The peak is reached when she threatens to burn the storybook and gives us some of her very best gloating. (Which confirms my absurd headcanon that her father is Aerys II). This battle is the BEST ONE in the series so far.

The highlight of the episode was without a doubt, was simply the epic fight scene. I loved how agile Twilight was, the way she fought was so badass to watch, it was actually exciting to watch her single-handily kick their ass all on her own. She even took on a 3 VS 1 attack (before the Trinity Upgrade: Trinity Explosion). And damn, that moment when she literally punched Haruka in the face, that was nuts! The girls all had their share of pain, but still put up a fight, but even then Twilight was not done with them. Twilight was so irritated, she was determined to put them in their place, to get it through their heads how they are not and cannot be princesses. Only she is a legitimate princess, only she has the official title. But unfortunately it didn’t do her any favours.

When you have a dark princess who is absolutely livid, either the defeat will destroy her from the inside or it might even make her stronger.

Dyspear entrusted her daughter their own Miracle Key and provided her a badass rod to go with it. In a way, I am glad they have not truly explained the origins of the Dark Keys because it keeps it unexpected and shrouded in mystery. I am itching to find out whether or not they are counterparts or simply a corrupted edition of the existing keys.

The coda, with Twilight forced to bend the knee and her perfect coif ruined by that Trinity Explosion (a convenient deus ex machina for the Cures, yet diabolus ex machina for me as a Twilight fan), showed us that she intends to get revenge on the Princess Cures... So which path will she follow? Revenge or a convenient heel-face turn?

This episode, by the way, is über-convenient for a Twilight-centric drinking game. Down a swig for every time the princess in black uses first-person pronouns ("watakushi"), defends her own rights as royalty, or performs an amazing move during the battle. And a shot for her realization at the end of the episode.

We leave you with Twilight's house words:

Kedakaku. Tootoku. Uruwashiku.

Sublime. Noble. Beautiful.

With refinement, majesty, and elegance.

IN NEXT EPISODE (19):

During a rainy day, Seira Azuma (my favourite Student Council member) organizes a scavenger hunt or treasure hunt with riddles around the female dorm of Noble Academy, as, in the Hope Kingdom, Kanata confronts dementor-like shadows... and Twilight's Key is tingling once more...

What's more, within a fortnight, in Episode 20, the Cures and us will get to visit the Hope Kingdom!

Anyone else excited?