//------------------------------//
// Chapter 17: Super crazy meeting 
// Story: In Equestria 
// by ARandomLonelyDude 
//------------------------------//

"Hey, Anya, what are you doing?" asked Twilight as she peered over my shoulder to see what I was reading.

"Reading," I replied, not paying much attention to her as I continued reading the book on shadowmancy.

"Shadowmancy? I thought that dark magic is prohibited," she said, a lot more suspicious of me after realising that I was reading about shadowmancy.

"It's not dark magic. Plus, most dark magic is only prohibited if you are using it to hurt someone or something like an animal, except if you are part of the military," I clarified the legality in a slightly harsh tone, trying to make it obvious I wanted her to not disturb me. Immediately after that, I pretended to clear my throat to make it seem like that tone wasn't on purpose since I wasn't really planning on being mean.

"Still, it's very suspicious that you're reading on that, or that you know that law," Twilight said, continuing to pester me.

"Aw man, looks like detective Twinkle Sprinkle has caught on to my true motives of learning shadow magic to uhh... to uh scare children and steal their candy like a uh totally evil person," I said out loud with extremely heavy sarcasm and even an over the top villain voice. I then proceeded to berate myself mentally over how cringe that was.

"Hmph, has anypony ever told you how annoying you are?" Twilight huffed as she looked away.

"Yup, the voices in my head tell me that all the time."

"...I'll ignore that," she said, finally letting me read in peace, or so I thought. "By the way, that meeting you told me to remind you about is in half an hour."

"Thanks for the reminder, Twilight," I said, mildly annoyed that it was already time. I had just got to the part with all the spells and runes, and I wanted that fun stuff after the long ass explanations about shadows in a magical sense. I put the shadowmancy book in the saddlebag I had bought since the drawstring bag looked goofy as hell and I didn't want to carry it around. The bag was a plain but spacious thing that could fulfill my needs now that I couldn't wear a jacket all the time.

I left the library without saying bye or anything and headed straight for the town hall. 





I arrived at the town hall ten minutes before the meeting started and quickly found the room where the meeting was. The room was not particularly well decorated with it only having a long rectangle table with chairs, and some framed pictures and newspapers on the walls. There was a small group of ponies as well, among whom was Cheerilee.

"Hey, Anya," Cheerilee greeted, "Come take a seat."

I took a seat left of her and the chatter in the room quieted down and I was very suddenly in the spotlight. There were three other ponies in the room and they seemed interested at the new face among them. There was an old green stallion with brown hair sitting next to me. He wore a black stetson, and a brown vest on which there was a gold star badge that read 'sheriff'. He was the first to speak to me.

"It's mighty nice ta see a new face here. What's yer name, pretty lady?" he asked in a friendly voice with a smile.

"My name's Anya Khan; I'm the uh head librarian. It's nice to meet you as well," I replied shyly.

"An' I'm Sheriff Steel, head o' the Ponyville police," the sheriff introduced himself. A few moments of awkward silence followed and the sheriff turned to speak to the two other ponies on the other side of the table, "C'mon guys, don' be shy an' introduce yerselves."

At the sheriff's encouragement, the next pony, a light purple bat pony with dark purple hair introduced herself, "I'm Wind, owner of Wind's convenience."

"And I'm Bolt, captain of Ponyville's weather team until the end of next week," said the old looking yellow pegasus with red hair as he leaned back in his chair, not seeming to be happy to be here.

After the introductions, everyone broke off into their own little conversations about their work and previous week while I just sat there and waited. The door to the room opened and Mayor Mare walked in, followed by Spoiled Rich, and... the yellow pegasus that was one of the element bearers, I think her name had 'shy' in it. The mayor took a seat at the head of the table while Spoiled Rich took the one on the other end. Shy took a seat next to the sheriff.

"Good afternoon everypony," started Mayor Mare as she took a seat at the head of table, "I'm sure you're all wondering why this meeting is taking place earlier than usual but I assure you that the matter is important.

To put it simply, Ponyville is expecting quite a lot of ponies to settle here in the next few months thanks to Princess Luna's positive words about our town and so, I propose a renovation of the eastern side of the town where most of the immigrants are expected to move to."

I had been to the area that the mayor was talking about and I can tell you that that place felt like an entirely different town with how few people lived there and how bad it seemed. Even without the whole 'people will live there', it needed a fixing.

"However, we'll have to redirect funds from certain places to do so," the mayor added. Almost everyone in here seemed cool with the idea. Everyone except Spoiled Rich.

"And where will the funds be pulled from?" she asked in that annoying voice of hers that made me want to cave her skull in.

"I'm thinking that we could pull some funds from the amount that is spent to maintain other parts of the town, especially the northern parts, temporarily of course," the mayor answered.

"So, you're suggesting that we deprive the orderly parts of our town of funds so that we may direct them to ponies who will increase the crime rate?"

"Wha-"

"I know that most of these ponies are coming from Canterlot's lower districts, the place famous for its crime rate! If we welcome them in our town then they'll ruin it completely!" Spoiled Rich cut off the mayor as she started going off on a rant that I did not pay attention to as I opted to tune her out. The rest of the ponies looked like they were done with her with the exception of Wind who looked hurt at those words.

"Yo, Cheerilee, what's she going crazy about?" I whispered to Cheerilee.

"She doesn't like anybody who isn't stuck up like her and gets very argumentative if somebody disagrees with her," Cheerilee whispered back to me, "And now she's going to tell us about how Ponyville will be improved if they dumped more money in the richer part of town where she lives."

Unfortunately, Spoiled Rich saw us and maybe a heard a small part about what Cheerilee said. She glared at us before asking obnoxiously, "And what are you two talking about?"

Cheerilee looked scared and avoided eye contact with the mare, probably since Spoiled Rich was her boss or something. I was more annoyed than scared and decided to try taking Spoiled Rich down a notch or a hundred.

"Nothing much, she was telling me some basic points of your plan," I began with a lie. She of course doubted me but didn't say anything about that.

"Well, I'd rather not be interrupted when I just get to explaining it," she huffed before she opened her mouth to tell us about said plan.

"Could you summarise your plan by the way," I requested, interrupting her, "It'd be great if you did since we can come to an agreement quickly if you did that."

The whole 'end this quickly' was a half truth since I did want this to end quickly but not because I cared about speed or anything, but rather, I didn't want to be around that mare for any longer. The other ponies in the room seem to have their spirits lifted at my interruption and subsequent request for Miss RIch to hurry up and that was enough evidence for me to conclude that no one liked her.

"Hmph, if you say so," Spoiled Rich said with a slight grimace before she composed herself ans spoke, "I do not support the wastage of money on outsiders who will reduce the quality of life of this town, and instead support putting money where it should go, the northern part of town."


"Okay, cool," I said, almost doing a thumbs up before remembering that I had a hoof. Unfortunately for her, I continued, "By the way, what are the benefits of 'putting the money where it should go' as you put it?"

She gasped a little, probably at my audacity to ask that question, but answered it quickly, "To use the money as the needs of the older residents of the town dictate!"

She clearly expected that that would be the end of the argument but little did she know, it was not.

"Don't the old people get a pension or something to help them out? Why'd they need more money?" I asked pretending to be curious when I was actually undermining her point and also potentially insulting her by refering to her as 'old'. The sheriff meanwhile, who was probably the oldest in the room, looked like he was having a hard time not laughing. I continued, making an actual point this time, "Plus, shouldn't the money be put in like uh town square or something and not that specific area since most people are going to go to the town square more often?"

I didn't stop with my argument.

"And if we go by the mayor's plan, wouldn't it increase property values or something? Like, I might not be the most knowledgeable on economics but that seems pretty obvious."

"And since that area is close to the town square and all the businesses of Ponyville, ponies moving in would boost the local economy," Mayor Mare added.

Clearly, this was too much facts and logic for Spoiled Rich as she then said angrily, "It still does not change the fact that those ponies are criminals!"

She realised what she said and covered her mouth immediately but it was too late. No one in the room was happy to hear her, myself included. She had opened a can of worms and she knew it.

"Ah, uh, sorry about my outbu-", she tried saying to salvage what she could but I cut her off, more than happy to make her eat the can of worms she opened.

"I guess you have some reservations about the whole 'outsider' thing but let me clear it up for you using some basic logic. So, as you said earlier, the lower districts of Canterlot where most of these people will come from are crime infested and shitty places filled with shitty people, and I guess that might be true," I started, earning a mean look from Wind. I guess she was from said place.

"However, most normal people wouldn't want to live in a place full of crime, and will try to move out, and that basically means that most people coming over will be normal people, but if that doesn't convince you, we could look at it from the perspective of money.

You see, most poor people can't really move away from their bad situations because they don't have enough money and they're the same poor people that you assume to be criminals and such. Now, if the property values here are boosted due to a renovation then most of those properties won't be bought by those people," I continued. Rich's argument was thoroughly destroyed, in my eyes at least.

Unfortunately, she had a trick up her sleeve. "Most of those ponies are bat ponies! Freaks who stay awake at night! They could break into someone's house easily when everyone's asleep!"

Ah yes, good ol' racism, the ender of all civilised arguments.

This time, the sheriff spoke up with thinly veiled anger, "Well, that's what me an' mah deputies are there for, an' if them bat ponies are awake an' out at night then we can hire bat ponies to keep the law durin' that time o' the day."

He drove the final nail in the coffin that held Spoiled Rich's argument and damn was it satisfying.

"...You think you can lecture me?!" Spoiled Rich shouted all of a sudden as she got off her chair. "I won't be talked down to by a mud pony or a terrorist freak!"

She stormed out of the room, leaving us all in silence. Everyone was shocked at what she had said at the end but were overall relieved that she was gone. Except Mayor Mare, she was holding her head in her hooves and silently mumbling something to herself.

"Mayor, are you fine?" asked Bolt.

"Oh no, I'm not fine at all!" the mayor shouted, making us all confused. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad she's gone but she also has a lot of friends from the rich part of town, and knowing how she'll spin this whole tale- oh, this is not going to be good if they do something in protest."

Even when we won, we lost. 

I couldn't stand that.

"We're in the right, though," I pointed out.

"That's true, but it still won't stop some ponies from being how they are," Mayor Mare said as she started to get off her chair, "Whatever, I'll deal with th-"

The door to the room opened and a old and tired looking stallion came in. He was brown with dark hair that was starting to gray. He wore a suit collar thing with a tie and he looked rather annoyed.

"A-ah, Mister Rich! What a surprise seeing you here!" the mayor tried greeting as she put on a smile.

"There's no need to sugarcoat anything; I'd like to know what happened here," Mister Rich said in a tired voice as he took the seat where Spoiled Rich was sitting earlier.

"Yer wife called me a mudpony, and miss Khan a terrorist," the sheriff said immediately, not trying to be hostile to the stallion. Mister Rich looked disappointed upon hearing that and sighed before he spoke again.

"I apologise for my wife's words and behaviour," he said as he sat up straight, "It won't be happening again. You can expect me to be present in all the meetings from now on instead of sending her.

And for your policy, I'll be supporting it."

With that, he left, probably to go talk to Spoiled Rich. Mayor Mare calmed down somewhat and continued the meeting for another five or so minutes, mostly discussing how she'll pull some money from the library for extra security expenditure. I was fine with that since it was temporary.

The meeting ended after that and I went back home to go eat dinner and sleep. Pretty anticlimatic if you ask me but such is life.