When her idea for 'Equestria Girls' gets rejected, Lyra takes matters into her own hooves.
After all her hard work, Lyra finds that her idea for 'My Little Pony: Equestria Girls' was unanimously rejected. Discouraged, Lyra makes a realization. If she can't get 'Equestria Girls' approved, she'd make it herself! However, things get complicated for Lyra and the Mane 6 when the finished movie winds up in the wrong hands.
"As you can see, this design is a happy medium to get a unique look for 'Equestria Girls'. It’s just human enough, yet at the same time retaining many of the pony-like qualities that will set it apart from your average everyday human figurines. It is important that these designs be as distinct as possible if we want Equestria Girls to be a success."
Lyra pointed the wooden stand displaying the design one final time to end her presentation. She finally got a chance to exhale. She must have gone over the presentation over a thousand times this past week, much to Bon-Bon's chagrin. However it was necessary to get the presentation just right. Lyra was overjoyed when Twilight, Pinkie and the others gave her the opportunity to develop a story based around a humanized version of Equestria for a possible movie for Hasbro. Even though she had always been a fan of humans and humanity, a different idea popped into Lyra's head about how to handle this opportunity. She didn't just want to settle on a straight up humanized versions of the Mane 6. She wanted to do something... different. Something unique and distinctive that would catch everyone's eye, especially if Hasbro wanted to create toys based around the movie. So Lyra went to work to create a different kind of human for the movie, and she had a perfect name for her project, 'Equestria Girls'.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard she tried with every one of the designs, she still couldn't come up with a design that she was happy with. Things got even more complicated with Twilight's coronation. With all the hoopla and ultimate success surrounding Princess Twilight Sparkle, the need to make a movie in the first place kept on decreasing. And now, with the deadline to submit the movie to HQ just weeks away, it was now or never for Lyra to get an idea approved. She worked around the clock on the project, particularly in these past few days. Most of her time was spent trying to get the design just right. It took her several sleepless nights but she finally came up with a design that she was proud of. And so, after all her hard work, here she was now in the middle of the library, just her and the six bearers of the Elements of Harmony and the stars of the show in a board room type meeting going over the final details Lyra drew up for Twilight's Equestria Girls' counterpart (she was still working on the other five at that moment, but at least Twilight's was done). She had discussed some of the details before, but this meeting was the grand reveal, giving the six friends their first up close look at the details of the idea. Lyra took another breath to relax herself. The fate of 'Equestria Girls' rested on this moment.
"So… what do you think?" the green unicorn asked.
The six ponies in the audience took another silent look at the display, which featured Lyra's idea of what a human Twilight would look like in the movie. Lyra's heartbeat increased as the stress of the silence got to her.
"Ah’ll be honest, it certainly is… interesting," Applejack finally noted.
"Interesting in a good way, or interesting in a bad way?" Lyra asked impatiently.
Applejack took another look at the display. She shrugged nervously. "Just… interesting. Really interesting."
None of the others could muster up the courage to say anything to Lyra about her project right there. They all smiled nervously, hoping that somepony else would say something at that moment. Pinkie broke the awkward pause by clearing her throat.
"At the very least, thanks for all your hard work Lyra. We really appreciate you trying to do this for us." Pinkie said.
Lyra blushed. "Thanks Pinkie. I... really wanted to be a bigger part of the show. And I worked so hard to prove to you guys that I can pitch in too."
"Well, I’ll tell you what Lyra. Me and the girls are going to talk this over some more and we’ll get back to you with our thoughts once we get a chance to take this all in."
"Ok! I’ll be waiting to hear from you!" Lyra smiled as she heads out the library door. She never noticed the nervous smiles on the six ponies' faces as she left. After Lyra shuts the front door, everypony in the library sighed in relief.
"Ugh, that was brutal," Rainbow Dash commented.
Rarity simply shook her head. "I’ve never felt so awkward in my entire life."
"Are you girls thinking what Ah’m thinking?" Applejack asked.
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "I know I am. Lyra's idea blows."
Twilight frowned a bit at Rainbow Dash's bluntness. "I wouldn't have put it that way, but I sadly have to agree too. Lyra’s idea still has merit, but this execution leaves a bit to be desired."
"That’s putting it mildly," Rarity nodded emphatically. "The idea for this anthropomorphic design here is... off. This takes out all the adorable and cute aspects of a pony and replaces it with all the awkward aspects of a human. Needless to say, it’s not a fair trade."
Rainbow Dash got to the head of the table. "I don’t know about you guys, but I’m voting a big fat no on this whole thing."
Applejack raised her hoof. "That goes double for me."
"I’ll concur as well," Rarity added.
Fluttershy shook her head for the green unicorn who hatched the idea. "Poor Lyra. She worked so hard on this. I want to vote yes for her. But… I just can’t."
Twilight sighed. "Four no’s out of six. Guess that makes it official. And sadly, I was voting no too. Making a movie based off of this would be a mistake. What do you say Pinkie?"
"I would have put a stop to this even if you five voted yes. I mean, seriously, this has the potential to be even WORSE than Newborn Cuties!"
Rarity cringed at that analogy. "That bad?"
Pinkie went on to offer her two cents. "The problem is that a premise like this is full of so many possibilities that you just can’t settle for the first idea that pops in your head. It needs time to simmer so the story and the designs can get just right. Even if Lyra spent all that time over 'Equestria Girls', this… isn’t quite ready yet."
"Ah think that you could say that about us making a movie in the first place!" Applejack added. "If you ask me, maybe we’re not ready to do a movie as we thought. At least not yet."
Pinkie nodded sadly. "I’m starting to see that too. Thankfully, making a movie is not required from us. It was just an option that Hasbro gave us when we got green lit for season 4. So we don’t have to lose sleep over this. We’ll just tell Hasbro that we’re not doing a movie and that's that. They’ll understand."
"That’s good. I mean, could you actually imagine what the fans would think if we actually went through with this 'Equestria Girls' idea?" Rainbow Dash laughed.
Pinkie groaned. "Ugh, don’t remind me. It’s bad enough the fanbase went nuts after Twilight became an alicorn!"
"Don't remind me," Twilight groaned. "I'd rather not go through that again!"
"Even if we made Equestria Girls non-cannon to “Friendship is Magic”, it’ll still make the fans really angry," Pinkie continued. "There’s just no way we can ever do a project like this. Long story short, it's simply not good enough."
"So, how are we going to break it to Lyra that we’ve rejected her idea?" Fluttershy wondered.
Raimbow Dash shrugged. "That’s easy. We’ll just tell her ‘We really loved your idea Lyra, but sadly we've decided to go in a different direction.’"
"We can’t just lie to her!" Applejack shouted in alarm.
"Oh, so what do you want to say to her? ‘Sorry Lyra but your idea was the worst idea in the history of the My Little Pony franchise?’ Do you think that'll be better?"
"That’s just being mean, Rainbow! Of course Ah ain’t saying that! But we just can’t lie to her and pretend that her idea is ok when it’s obviously not."
"Applejack is right." Rarity spoke up. "Lyra needs to be aware that her idea needs a lot of work."
Fluttershy decided to volunteer herself. "I'll go over later and have a talk with her."
"Thanks Fluttershy" Pinkie said. "So it’s unanimous then. We’re not doing 'Equestria Girls' and we’ll put off doing a movie until further notice. Agreed?"
Everypony in the room raised their hoof in agreement, sealing the fate of the project.
"Well I guess that’s that then. What’s next on our agenda?" Twilight asked.
Pinkie smiled. "Well, I figured we might still be a bit worn out over the finale, so I was wondering how you girls would feel about taking a vacation to Las Pegasus next month. What do you say?"
"I’m in!!! Golden Horseshoe, here I come!!!" Rainbow Dash shouted in excitement.
"Oh, I simply can't resist the opportunity to do all that shopping." Rarity began to daydream about her conquering the famous malls Las Pegasus has to offer.
"Oh, well I... uh... I.. maybe... for a little while..." Fluttershy started to stammer. "I mean I'm not really a kind of pony who would..."
"Fluttershy says yes!" Rainbow Dash finished for her, making the yellow pegasus blush.
"Oh what the hay. Count me in too!" Applejack smiled.
Twilight chuckled. "Well it's unanimous again!"
"Ha! Two unanimous votes! This is the most productive meeting in history!" Rainbow Dash laughed.
Lyra had heard enough. She had her ear pressed against the library's front door ever since she left. She had been too impatient to wait for the verdict so she listened into the debate. Now she wished she hadn't. They hated it. No, they didn't just hate it. They thought it was the worst idea anypony had ever thought up. Lyra slowly troted away from the library towards her home. Her head hung low as the words from the meeting echoed in her head.
"Lyra's idea blows." "Worst idea in My Little Pony history..." "Even worse than Newborn Cuties!" "We can't just lie to her and tell her that it's ok when it's obviously not!" "Poor Lyra. She worked so hard on this." "Long story short, it's simply not good enough." "Not good enough..." "Not good enough..."
The words kept repeating in her head. All that time she spent, all the passion and sacrifice she put into the project, all the ambition she had to have a more active role on the show. And after all that, all her efforts were simply wasn't good enough.
"I guess it wasn’t meant to be." Lyra sighed.
Lyra kept on her slow, mournful trip back home, not particularly caring about the world around her. Everypony around her seemed to have been enjoying the day, and she didn't want to project her sad state of affairs on their bright day. She would just wallow in her own self pity for however long ponies were supposed to wallow in it. So Lyra paid no attention to anypony around her. She even almost missed a bubbly voice from overhead calling her name. the voice got louder until Lyra noticed the distinctive cross-eyes of a grey pegasus landing in front of her. It was of course Derpy Hooves. However, Lyra wasn't even sure if Derpy's bright smile could lift her spirits right now.
"Lyra!!! How are you doing?" Derpy asked.
"Hey Derpy," Lyra frowned sadly. She kept her head hanging low in her depressed state. Derpy was quick to notice that Lyra wasn't feeling happy. Lyra was normally a very excitable pony who sported a grin that could be found in a crowd of thousands of ponies. So seeing the green unicorn like this was a bit unnerving for Derpy.
"Lyra? Are you ok?" Derpy asked in concern.
Lyra sighed. "No I’m not," she admitted.
"Oh no! What happened?"
"Well, remember that movie that Pinkie wanted me to help her with?"
"You mean 'Equestria Girls'?" Derpy was familiar with the project with the number of times Lyra brought it up over the past few months.
"Well I had a meeting to present it to Pinkie and her friends.... and they didn’t like it. In fact, they flat out hated it."
Derpy's expression saddened a bit for Lyra. "Oh. I’m sorry."
"It’s not your fault. It’s just, this was my big chance to show that I could contribute too, you know. I guess I’m just not good enough." Lyra had to fight back the tears forming in her eyes.
Derpy just couldn't stand to see one of her friends so sad like this. "Well you shouldn’t give up, Lyra! If it really means that much to you, you should keep trying until it gets made. You never know."
Lyra shrugged. "I guess, maybe..."
Derpy frowned. She was determined to get that grin back on Lyra's face. And she knew a way to do it. "Hey, you know? I was just on my way to meet Chrysalis for our muffin exchange. Why don’t you join me? A warm muffin might be just the right medicine you need to make you feel better. Come on, please?"
Lyra wanted to say no, even though it was nearly impossible to resist Derpy's muffins. But she just wanted to be left alone for now. Besides, she never even met Queen Chrysalis after her reformation. Her only other encounter was when she was disguised as Cadence during the wedding.
If only she paid attention to the attitude back then, then she would have been indistinguishable from the... real... thing...
Lyra stood stunned as realization hit her hard. An idea started forming in her head.
"Derpy? Do you know if Chrysalis has a spare camera?" Lyra asked urgently.
Derpy stood confused at Lyra's sudden change in moods. "Uh, yes. They still had it from when they stood in for everypony back when we were still doing the reruns live. Why do you ask?"
Lyra flashed her big grin in response. "I'm going to get Octavia and Vinyl! I’m gonna need some help with the music! Derpy, find Time Turner and meet us at the train station! I’ll be right back!"
Lyra dashed off away from a very confused Derpy.
"I don't know what that was about, but at least I got her to smile again." Derpy said to herself.
Derpy went back to fetch Time Turner like Lyra wanted. Meanwhile, Lyra galloped full speed down the streets of Ponyville with a big grin on her face. Derpy was right. She shouldn't give up her dreams even if they said no. She should keep going forward. She should be the master of her own destiny. And with the help of the changelings, she'll show Pinkie and the others too. She worked too hard to let it all end now. No, this idea has to be made a reality. 'Equestria Girls' needed to be made. And if nopony will give her the chance to do it, then she's just going to have to do it herself! A part of her felt guilty for going behind everypony's backs like this, but she quickly shrugged it aside.
Everything's going to be just fine, she thought to herself. After all, I'll be the master of my own destiny! 'Equestria Girls' is a good idea. I just need to show them myself. I'll shoot the movie, then I'll show it to Pinkie, and then she'll see just for herself what a great idea this is!
"Ok everypony, the next stop is ours. Don't worry, we're almost there!" Derpy told her travel companions.
Lyra sighed impatiently. It had been a longer train ride than she realized and she was just itching to get to the next part of her project. On the other hoof, Lyra was glad she managed to get Octavia, Vinyl Scratch, and even Time Turner to join her on this trip and this project. However, it was evident that some participants were more willing than others.
"I still can't believe you're dragging us all the way out here for this," Octavia complained.
"Come on, Octy! This could be that big collaboration project we said we were going to do!"
"But Vinyl, what about Pinkie and the others? I'm not comfortable doing something like this behind their backs."
"It’ll be fine, Octavia," Lyra reassured the musician. "Just think of this as a movie-length pilot. They need more proof that ‘Equestria Girls’ could work, and this is the way to do it. All we need is Chrysalis' help."
"And speaking of changelings, are we there yet?!?" Time Turner shouted impatiently. "Honestly, it's like we've been traveling for hours to get there!!!"
"Yeah, I never realized how far it was to get to Chrysalis’ place," Lyra agreed.
"It used to be a lot farther from here," Derpy explained. "She was banished to the edge of Equestria for a while, remember? Celestia let the changelings build a whole new village for themselves around here after they stopped being evil."
Time Turner sat with his hooves crossed as he grumbled to himself. "It would have been a lot shorter if we used my ride. But do they ever listen? Nooo…"
"And that's another thing about this crazy idea," Octavia continued on from her previous point. "Are you sure we should be reaching out to the changelings like this? I mean, I heard all those stories about what she did during the wedding."
Derpy smiled. "Don’t worry. She’s not evil anymore. She’s actually a great pony to get along with once you get to know her."
"It also helps that she's got all those muffins," Vinyl laughed. "I just don't understand how muffins were enough to tame the Changelings."
"Serotonin." Time Turner stated matter-of-factly.
"Uh, Sara-two-what?" Lyra asked confused.
Time Turner couldn't help himself from explaining. "It's a chemical related to general well-being and happiness. It just so happens that whenever warm flour-based baked goods interact with the Changeling's unique biological makeup, it gets digested into pure serotonin, thereby making the changelings exponentially happy."
"Um... I just make my muffins with a lot of love." Derpy simply stated..
Time Turner shrugged. "Well, if you want to explain it like that...."
It was at that moment the train's conductor made an announcement on the loudspeaker. "Attention passengers! We are now approaching Anahive. Please watch your step while you're exiting the train."
The name struck Vinyl as kind of odd. "Anahive? Is it just me or are some of these names getting sillier?"
"If you ask me, it sounds like the perfect place to make a movie." Lyra shrugged.
"Come on everypony, this is our stop!" Derpy shouted.
The five travelers gathered their belongings as the train began to pull into the station. Looking out the window, they were all surprised to notice that the Changeling Queen was on the train platform, waving excitedly at the newcomers. Derpy was the first one off the train as it came to a stop. She quickly made her way over to Chrysalis and embraced her.
"Chrysalis!" Derpy shouted.
"Derpy!" Chrysalis shouted.
"Secret Muffin Handshake!!!" They shouted in unison.
Standing on their rear hooves and holding their front hooves together, the two began their ritual dance. They kicked their back hooves in unison four times. Then Chrysalis jumped up and down. Then Derpy jumped up and down. Then Chrysalis jumped up again. And then Derpy jumped straight up into Chrysalis arms, the changeling winding up holding Derpy in one arm while holding out her other in a grand finishing pose. The two muffin buddies then laughed at their silly dance.
The other four travelers looked at the silly ritual with much confusion.
"That's Chrysalis? That's the same mare who nearly defeated and overthrew Celestia?" Octavia asked in disbelief.
"I guess so." Vinyl replied.
"She's not as menacing as I remember." Lyra observed.
Derpy waved the other four over. "Hey guys! Come over and meet Queen Chrysalis!"
"You brought company!" Chrysalis smiled.
"Yes I did! These are some of my friends from Ponyville I told you about!" Derpy began to point out each of them to Chrysalis.
"This is Time Turner..."
Turner bowed his head in respect. "Enchante, madmoiselle!"
"Oh, Fancy! I like this one already!" Chrysalis whispered to Derpy, making the pegasus giggle.
"This is Vinyl Scratch, and her roommate Octavia..."
"You can call me 'DJ-Pon3', Chrissy! Come on Octy, don't be shy. Say hi!" Vinyl nudged Octavia over to meet Chrysalis.
"It’s a… pleasure to meet you..." Octavia chuckled nervously.
"You don't have to be frightened. I won't bite," Chrysalis smiled.
"I don't think that should even be an issue!" Vinyl laughed.
"How come?"
The DJ smirked. "Trust me when I say that Octavia can be quite the biter when she... mmph!!!"
Vinyl was forced to stop as Octavia forcibly shut her muzzle silent. She then got straight into the face of her roommate.
"One more word out of you and I'm shoving those glasses straight down your throat, Vinyl. GOT IT?"
Vinyl Scratch nodded quickly in compliance.
Derpy hesitated a bit from that scene before she continued her introductions. "And finally, this is Lyra. But I think you two had already met before."
It took Chrysalis a few seconds before she could place where she had seen the green unicorn before. "Oh right, you were one of my bridesmaids, weren’t you?"
"Well I was Cadence’s bridesmaid, but yeah, that was me."
"Well needless to say, I think we got off on the wrong hoof."
"You brainwashed me!!!" Lyra reminded Chrysalis.
Chrysalis cringed. "I did do that, didn't I?"
Lyra sighed. "Look, it doesn't matter anymore. We've both moved on from that. Besides, there's another big reason why we're all here anyway. I'm working on a huge project and I really, really need your help Chrysalis."
"Really? How so, Lyra?"
"Well, you can change into any form, can you Chrysalis?"
Chrysalis smirked. In an instant, a flash surrounded her form. When the flash faded, Chrysalis had changed her form into that of Applejack's brother, Big Macintosh.
"Eeyup!" The Big Macintosh-shaped pony replied in a deep voice.
Another flash and Chrysalis changed back to her normal form.
"Cute," Lyra snarked. She quickly got back down to business. She reached into her travel bag, searching to bring out her Equestria Girls design. "Now I was wondering, is there anyway you can change yourself into… this?"
Chrysalis took good look at the drawing. It resembled Twilight Sparkle, with the hair and the purple color scheme. However, this Twilight was a human. A purple-skinned human, granted, but a human nonetheless.
"Hmm, a challenge...." Chrysalis pondered. "It's a lot easier to transform into another pony, but I've never tried transforming into another species. Nevermind trying to emulate a drawing before."
"So you can't do it?"
"It'll be tricky, but I can give it a shot. Hold on, let me see that picture again."
Lyra handed the picture over to Chrysalis. The changeling queen began to scrutinize this figure, from head to toe. She then began to visualize how to change her form into what Lyra wanted in this picture. After a few minutes, she handed the picture back to Lyra. "Ok, I think I'm ready to try this. Here goes!"
Chrysalis shut her eyes in deep concentration. Normally a transformation took little effort on her part, but something like this required much concentration. This was not just posing around as another pony. This was an entire species swap. A species that she had never encountered before. However, with Lyra's image fresh in her mind, she began to will the transformation to make that image a reality. A few moments later, a blinding flash surrounded Chrysalis' form, forcing everypony to look away for a moment. As the light faded, the travelers were all stunned to see that Chrysalis had succeeded in becoming a human Twilight Sparkle, dressed in the purple skirt from Lyra's picture. Everypony gasped in awe.
"Wow, it really worked!" Octavia said in disbelief.
Chrysalis stood on her two feet, stunned that she was able to pull it off. She was especially taken aback from her new hands. Lyra approached her in silent fascination, amazed that not only was she standing next to a human, but that her idea was now being fleshed out before her eyes.
"Chrysalis? How do you feel?" Derpy asked.
Chrysalis cleared her throat and replied using Twilight's voice. "Honestly Derpy, this feels really... strange," she said while taking stock of her new body. She was especially curious as to why her chest seemed to be sticking out so much.
"Can the other changelings do that too?" Derpy asked.
"It might take some effort, but if I can do it, then the others defiantly can too!" Chrysalis replied.
That bit of news brought a big cheer from Lyra. "YES! We’re in business!"
The now-human Chrysalis looked on confused. "Uh, would anypony mind telling me what’s going on?"
"Chrysalis? How would you like to be the star in my movie?"
Stars lit up in Chrysalis' eyes. "Me... a star?"
"Well technically 'Twilight' is the star, but it's going to be you on the screen and... OOF!!" Lyra suddenly found herself being bear hugged by the human-shaped changeling.
"Oh of course I will!!! Oh thank you for giving me this!!!" Chrysalis gushed, clutching Lyra tightly. The unicorn's face being buried in her chest.
Derpy reached out in concern. "Uh, Chrysalis! I think you choking her!!!"
"Huh?" Chrysalis loosened her hug and held Lyra out. She was gasping for air and seemed to be blushing slightly at the sudden hug attack. "Oh, sorry Lyra. Guess I got a bit too excited back there."
"You're forgiven... I think..." Lyra gasped.
Vinyl Scratch tentatively raised a hoof "By any chance, could I get one of those next?"
"VINYL!!!" Octavia frowned.
Seeking to regain some order, Time Turner spoke up with a suggestion. "Listen, why don't we get into town right now and iron out the details of this production."
"I like that idea!" Derpy shouted. "We can have a meeting at my place!"
"You have a place here?" Octavia asked.
Derpy nodded. "Chrysalis built it for me when I started making these muffin trips."
"Well what are we waiting for? Let's get going!" Lyra shouted.
Later that day, the visitors all had a chance to settle in Chrysalis' guest house. The town itself didn't seem to be much larger than Ponyville on the surface, but Chrysalis was quick to remind them of the large, underground cave where most of the changelings lived. However, with a movie to shoot, there was no time for sightseeing. Everything needed to be coordinated to make sure the production ran smoothly. Lyra had remembered that Pinkie said that it took about two to three days to shoot a new episode of 'Friendship is Magic', so Lyra had figured that filming 'Equestria Girls' would probably take about a week or so. After a chance to talk over some of the logistics about filming such a project, Lyra handed out her story outlines to everypony. At the moment, she was just beginning to wrap up her lengthy synopsis.
"...And so, after that, we roll the credits and that's the end."
The travelers, turned movie staff, sat silently as Lyra laid out her idea in full.
"Well, there are a couple of issues here and there," Octavia spoke up. "But I overall I think it's a job very well done."
"I think Pinkie will be very pleasantly surprised when she sees the finished product," Time Turner smiled.
"So... you guys liked it?" Lyra asked.
"Of course we do!" Derpy giggled.
"I'll make sure my subjects are all available to stand in whenever necessary, and I'll reach out to Discord to help us with the props and sets too." Chrysalis announced.
Lyra's smile could barely be contained. It was all coming together! "Well in that case, we’re all set! We have our actors with the Changelings, we have Octavia and Vinyl with the music, Derpy can handle the camera, and Time Turner?"
"Yes?" the brown stallion asked.
"You know more about humans and human culture than anypony else in Equestria, so I need you to let me my consultant on all things human."
"I think I can manage that," Time Turner grinned knowingly.
Lyra decided to get up on the table to speak out to the crew. "Well it looks like this is it. We're about to set off and make our own destiny. And I know with our ambitions and our talents, we can make something the fans will never forget! Fillies and Gentlecolts? Let’s make a movie!"
"YEAH!!!" Everypony cheered. They began to scramble to accomplish their movie-related tasks. Vinyl and Octavia made their way to the nearby piano and began to work on the music. Derpy and Time Turner, meanwhile, went with Chrysalis to round up as many changelings as possible to star in the movie. Lyra meanwhile, went back to her sketchbook to finish drawing up the designs for the other 5 human stars.
"This is your time, Lyra!" the green unicorn told herself. "You're not just going to be some random background pony anymore. You're finally making your own dreams come true!" Lyra looked out a nearby window as Celestia's sun was beginning to set, making it's way for Luna's night.
"This is going to be the best week of my life!" Lyra smiled.
~~Three Weeks Later~~
"That was the worst three weeks of my life." Lyra groaned as she got off the late night train and onto Ponyville's train station.
"Well at least you got it done the way you wanted right?" Derpy asked.
Lyra exhaled. "Yeah I did, but man! I never realized how hard it was to put something like this together."
It didn't take very long into the shooting of the movie for Lyra to realize that she was over her head. Little errors, big errors, cast screw ups, plot holes, continuity errors, and the presence of Discord pulling innocent, yet frustrating pranks every once in a while turned the one week project into a three week adventure. It also didn't help that the perfectionist in Lyra forced several reshoots and reedits over what seemed like he simplest little thing. However, Lyra shot for the stars. She wanted to match the high quality that Pinkie and her friends seemed to create almost effortlessly. And after several sleepless nights, she felt like she had achieved a final cut that was worthy to show to the Mane 6. Lyra looked down at the tape she was holding, marked 'Equestria Girls - Final Cut'.
"Look on the bright side Lyra," Derpy smiled. "You finally managed to make your dreams come true. You're the master of own destiny!"
"Yeah, but making your own destiny is exhausting," Lyra yawned. "I need to get back home. Bon Bon's probably wondering why I've been spending so much time with the changelings."
Looking at how the production had worn Lyra out, Derpy offered a small suggestion. "I’ll tell you what, I’ll go a drop this over at Twilight’s place for you, ok?"
Lyra shrugged and handed the tape over to Derpy. "Sure go ahead. I don't think they'll be back from that vacation of their's next week, though."
"Not a problem. I'll just leave a note for when they come back. Just go relax now. You've earned a break from all that stress."
Letting off another yawn, Lyra began to make her way back home. "Thanks for all your help Derpy. I couldn't have done this without you."
Derpy took a last look at Lyra before she took off to make her way over to the library. It was getting fairly late at the moment, so she made sure to stay quiet for all the sleeping ponies of Ponyville. When she landed at the library front, the first thing she noticed was that the library's light's were on and the front door was unlocked, despite the fact the librarian was supposed to be on vacation with her friends.
"Huh, that's weird," Derpy thought to herself. "Did Twilight forget to turn the lights off?"
The gray pegasus opened the door and entered, expecting to find somepony taking care of it. However, the library seemed to be unoccupied at that moment.
"I really should just set this tape down," she decided.
Derpy went over to where Twilight kept her parchment and quills and scribbled a quick message on it.
We made a movie! Tell us what you think! :-)
"I think they'll get the message," she thought as she attached the message to the tape. She then turned to head back out when she noticed a half opened door off to her left. Upon closer inspection, it looked like that door led to the library's basement.
"Hmm... I've never seen the library this empty before. I don't think anypony will mind if I just explore a bit." Derpy took a few steps before she came across a realization. "Wow, this is starting to sound like one of those stories Rainbow Dash told me about!"
Shrugging her doubts aside, Derpy made her way to the door and slowly walked down the steps towards the basement. She was fascinated to see all the high-tech machines and computers stored down here. Most of these were random contraptions Twilight had used before, but there were also a few cameras, microphones, and other miscellaneous props from the show.
"I guess this must be where they store everything from the show.... whoa..." Derpy's eyes lit up when she made her way to the back of the basement, which held a machine almost three times her height and spanning several feet long. She then noticed the big Hasbro logo on the side as well as a display reading 'Hasbro Video Transmitter - Insert Tape'
"This must be what they use to send the finished episodes to Hasbro!" she realized. "I wonder how it works. Is it like one of those trans-mat things Time Turner told me about? But then again, how else are they able to get the tapes over to them."
She then took another look at the tape she was holding, and then she took another look at the machine. There was a glass opening big enough to put the tape in near the main console. She also noticed the big green button on the console that simply said 'Send.'
"I wonder if…"
Shaking a bit in anticipation, Derpy slowly put the tape inside the glass door and quietly pressed it shut. She then placed her hoof on the send button. She hesitated mightily as her hoof hovered over the button. She didn't get any permission to do this and she really should have asked. But on the other hoof, she was almost as excited as Lyra on the movie and she really wanted everyone to see it. After fighting with herself, she sighed and retracted her hoof away from the button.
"I really shouldn’t. I'll just wait for Twilight and the others to come back," Derpy decided. She started to open the glass door back up when...
"Whose down here?" a voice shouted from behind her.
"EEP!!!"
The shock of the mysterious voice made Derpy scramble onto the machine. She turned around, pressing her forehooves behind her and on the console, in fear of whoever had found her snooping in the basement. From the faint lighting, she was able to recognize the form of one of Pinkie Pie's older friends. It was Cheery Blossom, or Cheerilee as she used to be called in another Ponyville.
"Derpy? Is that you?" Cheery Blossom asked.
Derpy sighed in relief seeing a familiar face. "Oh, hi Cheery Blossom. What are you doing here?"
"I should be asking you that same question," the pig-tailed earth pony said. "I’m watching the library a bit until Twilight gets back from Las Pegasus. I was just upstairs reading a book when I heard some noises downstairs. What are you doing down here anyway?"
Derpy stammered as she tried to cover up her intrusion. "Oh, I was... just dropping off an... old prop form 'The Last Roundup' that I still had. I was just putting it in the basement for her! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare anypony!"
Cheery Blossom sighed. "It's ok Derpy. You're fine. I just thought you were a robber or a monster or something."
Derpy laughed. "Yeah, it was silly of me to just barge in like that. I'll be on my way out in a bit."
"Ok, just be careful around some of these machines Derpy. They're very important."
"I will! Goodnight Cheery Blossom!"
"Goodnight Derpy," Cheery Blossom waved as she turned around to exit the basement. After she went back up the stairs, Derpy finally allowed herself a moment to breath a huge sigh of relief.
"That was close. That could have turned out to be a huge disas...ter?" Derpy's body almost froze when she noticed that she had her hoof down on the send button during Cheery Blossom's unexpected visit.
"Oh no!!!" she shrieked in fear.
She turned around to the glass door and found that the tape was missing! She then notices the machine’s display now read ‘Tape Submission Sucessful!’ Her wall-eyed pupils shrunk in fear as she read the display. She had accidentally sent Lyra's movie to HQ. 'Equestria Girls' was now in the hands of Hasbro.
Derpy's eyes took another look at the glass door. The she slowly turned her eyes at the console. Then she slowly turned her eyes to the display. Taking a mental stock of the entire situation, there was only one thing she could say.
"It was an accident," Derpy tried to explain. "I didn't mean for it to happen."
The green unicorn was beside herself. Just barely an hour ago, she had let Derpy deliver the finished 'Equestria Girls' movie to the library. And now, she has an unexpected visit from the googly-eyed pegasus at her place telling her that the movie had been delivered straight to Hasbro instead.
"I can't believe this! How could you even think about playing with that machine in the first place? Why weren't you thinking down there?!?" Lyra yelled.
Derpy cowered in fear. "I'm... I'm sorry!"
"You.... YOU...."
Lyra's expression tensed up, ready to berate Derpy for the blunder. However, as much as Lyra wanted to yell at the pegasus, she could only just sigh. It was just an unfortunate turn of events, she decided, and it looked as if Derpy was already beating herself up hard for her error, so it wouldn't be worth it to pile on the pegasus' misery by being angry at her too. Besides, Derpy wasn't the biggest thing on her mind after all. It was the simple fact that Hasbro had her movie.
"It's all right Derpy. I understand. I'm sorry I almost lost my temper," Lyra said.
"You mean, you're not mad?" Derpy asked in disbelief.
"Actually right now, I'm more nervous than mad," Lyra admitted.
"You are?"
"Derpy, Hasbro has my movie! HASBRO!!! I'm not ready to handle Hasbro! I was barely ready to handle Pinkie and her friends!"
"Well, maybe they'll like it. You never know, Lyra." Derpy tried to smile to make Lyra feel better.
"And what if they don't like it! Actually, scratch that. I KNOW they won't like it!"
"And how do you know that?"
"Because there's still a million things wrong with the movie! That's why I wanted Pinkie's opinion first! I wanted this to be absolutely perfect before I went to Hasbro, just like the actual show."
Lyra's reasoning got Derpy thinking. "You know Lyra, the show might be good but it's definitely not perfect."
Lyra gasped at the blasphemous thought. "How can you say that?"
"Well if you really think about it, there are a lot of problems that still exist in the finished episodes," Derpy explained herself.
"Name one!"
"Ok. Uh... so remember when Twilight went crazy trying to get a friendship report in on time?"
"Yeah, I think everyone remembers that!"
"Well, couldn't she have just wrote a report saying that there was nothing to report that week? Or just summarized her other reports like she did in 'Baby Cakes'?"
"Well uh... she wasn't really thinking clearly, remember? She must not have considered those options." Lyra replied.
"Ok then..." Derpy continued. "Remember when Fluttershy asked Spike to take care of Angel? Well, who was watching all her other animals?"
"Erm... she probably asked for extra help for the cottage, or something."
"And how come nopony went to the Rodeo to cheer for Applejack in 'The Last Roundup' while everypony made it to Cloudsdale to cheer Rainbow Dash in the Best Young Flyers competition?"
Lyra hesitated. "Well, they probably just..."
"And how did the Equestria Games went to the Crystal Empire anyway? The inspector's own experience was miserable and she just gave it to them anyway after talking to ONE PONY!!!"
"When you put it that way..."
"And how come Bon-Bon said she never heard of Rarity in 'Green Isn't Your Color'? Hadn't she ever been to Carousel Boutique before?"
"I... never really thought of that...."
"And did Celestia REALLY need Twilight and the others to liven up the Gala in the first place? If she knew that it was always boring, wouldn't she have tried to liven it up herself a long time ago?"
"Maybe she did, but..."
"And does anypony find it unfair that Applejack and Apple Bloom are allowed to compete in the Sisterhooves Social race in the first place when the whole thing is pretty much doing the chores they do every single day?"
"Ok Derpy, I think you made your point..."
"And how come Cheerilee didn't have better oversight on the Free Foal Press when it was starting to be distributed OUTSIDE of Ponyville?"
"Derpy, you can stop now..."
"Oh and don't even get me started about the Mare-Do-Well thing!"
"DERPY!!!"
Lyra's shout was enough to bring Derpy's rant to a premature end.
"Ok, I get it. The show's not perfect. But it's still very good despite all that. Trust me, it was very hard to try to emulate what they do week in and week out for 'Equestria Girls'."
"I saw the whole thing, remember? I think you did a very good job. And I'm sure everypony else who helped you thought so too!"
"Thanks Derpy," Lyra smiled. "I just hope Hasbro thinks the same way too, and I really hope Pinkie and the others understand that this was an accident."
"I'll explain everything to her when they get back from their vacation. It was my fault it got submitted like that... after all." Derpy wasn't able to hold in her yawn. She began to make her way to the door. "I need to get back home soon. It's getting kinda late."
"Ok Derpy. Goodnight." Lyra waved to the departing pegasus.
"Goodnight Lyra, and don't worry. Everything's going to be just fine!" Derpy said as she left the room.
Lyra fell backwards onto her bed in exhaustion. She laid in bed for a few seconds before Derpy flew her door open again.
"Wait! I have one more!" Derpy suddenly announced.
Lyra sighed. "Go ahead."
Derpy inhaled. "If Applejack is supposed to be the 'loyalest of friends and the most dependable of ponies', shouldn't she be the element of loyalty instead of Rainbow Dash?"
"All done?" Lyra asked.
"All done! Goodnight!" Derpy smiled and slammed the door shut.
Lyra breathed deeply as she was once again alone in her room. She stared up at the ceiling as her mind raced with several thoughts simultaneously. What does Hasbro think of the movie? How soon will it take them to get back to them? Is the movie really that good enough? Was she sure everything got handled in a way that would meet everyone's expectations? What would Pinkie say/do if she found out that all this happened behind their backs? Could Derpy really explain everything to them? Lyra had so many questions at the moment but sadly had no answers to ease her mind. She was past the point of no return with the movie being submitted.
Eventually, Lyra realized that she had no control over what Hasbro might do, so it wouldn't make sense to worry herself about it. Besides, Derpy had a point. Despite a few hiccups here and there, she was satisfied with the way 'Equestria Girls' came out overall. The question now was will others think that when they see the movie themselves.
~~Two Weeks Later...~~
"Ah! Home sweet home!" Pinkie shouted as she trotted into Sugarcube Corner, relieved that the long trek back from Las Pegasus was over. Her other five friends, with the addition of a tag-along baby dragon, were quick to follow Pinkie into the candy shop.
"Hey Pinkie, do you mind if we rest our hooves up here for a bit?" Twilight asked.
"I got dibs on the ice cream!!!" Spike shouted, making a beeline towards the kitchen.
Pinkie laughed at Spike and his sweet tooth. "You know, I wasn’t really planning a We’re-Back-From-Our-Vacation party, but what do you girls say we just go on ahead and have it anyway?"
"Sweet!" Rainbow Dash cheered. "I could squeeze in one more party from this trip!"
Applejack arched an eyebrow in confusion. "You sure 'bout that, Rainbow? Ah would think you would have been worn out back there in Las Pegasus when ya..."
"HEY!" Rainbow Dash cut her off. "What happens in Las Pegasus, stays in Las Pegasus!"
"That may be so, but I think you have to reconsider any event that winds up involving the police," Rarity pointed out.
"That slot machine had it coming!" Rainbow Dash argued. "Besides, that was child's play considering what Fluttershy was doing with..."
"A-HEM!!!" Fluttershy cleared her throat to catch Rainbow's attention. The cyan pegasus turned her head and was met with the Stare.
"Uh... then again what happens in Las Pegasus, stays in Las Pegasus." Rainbow Dash smiled nervously, which prompted a defiant nod from Fluttershy.
"Well, at any rate, I think that vacation was just what the doctor ordered for all of us, especially after what happened during the finale," Rarity said. "We really should take another vacation sooner rather than later!"
"As much as I would like to, I really need to get back with Princess Celestia soon," Twilight said apologetically. "I've still got some princess lessons I need to get done."
"And speaking of that, we also need to start gearing up to make new episodes too," Pinkie reminded everyone. "We're going to be super busy with the show this year, so we need to rest up so we'll be ready to go this winter!"
"That reminds me Pinkie," Applejack spoke up. "Do you know why Hasbro sent us that letter yesterday saying that the show's delayed until the winter? Don't we usually start up in the fall?"
Pinkie shrugged. "I honestly don't know why, but it gives us more time to get the show done, so I'm not complaining!" Pinkie did find it odd that letter Spike burped up from HQ said that the premiere of season 4 would be delayed.
"I wonder why Hasbro did that anyway," Fluttershy thought out loud. "Are we being pushed aside for something else?"
"Why would Hasbro do that?" Rarity argued. "We're one of Hasbro's hottest properties, and we're one of the highest rated shows on the Hub!"
"It still seems kinda fishy that they would just bump us like that on such short notice," Applejack said. "Ah hope they tell us whats going on at least."
"Uhh… Oh...." The six ponies were quick to notice a groaning voice coming from the kitchen. They all went over to find the voice belonged to Spike, and he was clutching his stomach in pain.
"Are you all right Spike?" Fluttershy asked in concern.
"My... stomach…" the baby dragon grunted in pain.
"I told you not to eat too much ice cream Spike!" Twilight frowned.
Spike shook his head. "It’s not that… I think it’s a…"
Without any further warning, Spike let out a burp that rattled through the entire building. The six ponies had to protect themselves as a brilliant green fire emerged from the small dragon. A few short moments later, that fire materialized into a large brown package.
"Whoa! Spike, are you ok?" Rainbow Dash asked the exhausted dragon assistant.
"I'm fine. But Twilight... promise me you'll send your Hearth's Warming Eve gifts the old fashioned way." Spike groaned, getting back to his feet after being floored by the magical delivery.
The six ponies proceeded to inspect the unexpected delivery.
"Were you expecting a package Twilight?" Applejack asked.
Twilight shook her head. "No. I never even ordered anything."
Rainbow Dash was quick to see the box had a familiar corporate logo on its side. "Hey guys! It’s from Hasbro!"
The announcement left Pinkie terribly confused. "What? But we weren’t expecting anything from HQ. At least not like this!"
"Maybe they sent us new designs for the upcoming season," Rarity guessed.
"Hey look! There's a letter on the top of the box," Fluttershy noticed the attached envelope on the package.
Twilight took the envelope with her magic and opened it. She proceeded to read the letter out lout to everypony.
"From Hasbro, This package that we sent you contains all the elements, treatments, posters, and other promotional materials related to your upcoming... movie?" Twilight's face twisted in confusion, as did everyone else in the room.
"Wait. Movie? What movie?!?" Rainbow Dash shouted.
"I don’t know, but that’s what it says in the letter!" Twilight replied.
"But, we never did a movie!" Fluttershy noted.
"Spike, you sent the letter to Hasbro telling them we weren't doing the movie, right?" Pinkie asked urgently.
Spike quickly nodded. "I did! And Twilight was there to double check that it got sent!"
"So how in tarnation did they think we were doin’ a movie?" Applejack asked.
"There’s more to the letter, girls." Twilight said. She continued reading the letter. "We are thrilled that you changed your mind over the prospect of doing a movie and we promise that we will do our best on our end to ensure the success of the new 'Equestria Girls' line."
"Equestria Girls?!?" Rarity shouted in alarm.
"Oh no…" Fluttershy uncharacteristically groaned.
"How did Hasbro find out about that?!?" Pinkie shrieked in fear.
"Probably from the one pony who thought this was a good idea," Applejack hypothesized.
Rainbow Dash facehoofed as she realized who Applejack was alluding to. "Lyra, you idiot!"
"Spike, get a parchment and quill ready!" Pinkie urgently instructed. "We have to write Hasbro back right now and tell them that we’re not doing this!!!"
"Girls…" Twilight interjected. "If I’m reading this letter right, I think the movie is already finished."
Pinkie did a double take. "WHAT?!? HOW?!?"
Twilight responded by reading more of the letter. "Enclosed in the package is the final submitted copy of the “My Little Pony: Equestria Girls” movie. We will give it a special release in theaters before the full release on home video later this summer."
"Hey! Maybe we can win an Oscar!" Spike grinned. He was immediately surrounded by six frowning ponies.
"Or not," Spike corrected himself.
Pinkie shook her head in disbelief as she tried to figure out just how this turn of events could have happened. "This doesn't make any sense. We haven’t done any filming since Twilight’s Coronation. How did they even get this done without us anyway?"
"Well, maybe the movie doesn’t star us," Fluttershy tried to explain.
"You mean Lyra just went ahead a made the movie with other ponies instead of us?" Applejack theorized.
Rarity scratched her chin in deep thought. "That would make sense, but then why would she submit it directly to Hasbro then? Why not show us the movie first?"
"Maybe she was too afraid after we said no the first time," Fluttershy guessed.
"More importantly, who the heck did Lyra get to star in this train wreck?" Rainbow Dash wondered.
Twilight began using her magic to open the package. "Well it seems like there's a lot of stuff in here, so we can find out what Lyra came up with. I'm just curious to know exactly who she picked to star in..."
Twilight froze as she took her first peak inside the package.
"What is it, Twilight?" Pinkie asked as she noticed the purple alicorn's expression tensed significantly.
"Girls? I think you all need to take a look at this," Twilight said, her eyes locked on the contents of the package in shock.
Curious, the others slowly approached Twilight to take a peek inside the box. They all let out a shocked gasp when they took a gander at what Twilight was looking at. At the very top of the box was a purple poster which read 'My Little Pony: Equestria Girls! Coming Soon!', the familiar pink franchise logo now rendered in purple. However, what really caught everyone's eyes were the six human figures with surprisingly varied skin colors. Everypony was quick to recognize the purple-skinned human as Twilight from Lyra's earlier presentation. They were also quick to recognize who the other five girls in the picture were supposed to represent.
"That’s us!!!" Fluttershy shrieked.
"It looks like us, but dear heavens! What did they DO to us?!?" Rarity stood stunned.
"THAT’S supposed to be me?!?" Applejack shouted, pointing straight the orange-skinned cowgirl in the picture. "Ah look like Ah’ve never even SEEN a farm before, never mind working on one!!!"
"How could this have happened? We never approved any of this!" Pinkie's head was lost in confusion. How could anypony do any of this without them noticing? And how could anypony turn her and her friends into this? Pinkie found herself getting angrier the longer she stared at the promotional poster.
Rainbow Dash cringed as she took a look at her Equestria Girls counterpart. "Why am I wearing lipstick? Did anyone get the memo that I don’t do makeup if I can help it? And what is that supposed to be on our cheeks?"
Rainbow did a double take when she confirmed that the tattoo marks on the human's cheeks were indeed their cutie marks. "Seriously? My war face in “Dragonshy” was a better ‘Cutie Mark’!!! I can’t believe this. That… thing is not Rainbow Dash. Heck, Lady Rainbow was a closer Rainbow Dash than this!!!!"
"Well, can somepony explain to me why all of our hair is going all the way to the floor?" Rarity spoke up. "Did they really have to incorporate our manes AND tails here? I'm fairly certain human hair does not work that way. It would take forever to wash that thing anyway..."
Spike was still utterly confused. "I don't get it. We were in Las Pegasus this whole time, right? How can you guys be in this if we never filmed it?" the dragon asked.
Twilight was quick to come up with an answer. "Lyra must have gotten Chrysalis and the Changelings help for this!"
"But how did she get this over to Hasbro then?" Rainbow Dash wondered.
"Does it even matter how, RD?" Applejack sighed in defeat. "The fact of the matter is she got it made, she somehow got it to Hasbro, and now Hasbro gonna release it."
"Not if I can help it!" Pinkie Pie shouted angrily. She grabbed the poster and started to make her way towards her room. "I'm putting a stop to this! None of this can ever get out! I need to get in touch with Hasbro. It’s an emergency! I’m sure they'll…"
"Pinkie!!!" Twilight shouted, stunning the angry earth pony quiet. "The letter says that production is already underway on the DVDs and the release dates are finalized."
"Well then we'll go straight to Celestia! Maybe she can still reach out to Lauren and..."
"You know just as well as I do that not even Princess Celestia can overturn a decision by Hasbro," Twilight pointed out.
"In that case we're just going to have to stop this ourselves!"
"You want us to go over Hasbro's head?" Twilight asked. "I'm sorry Pinkie, but there's nothing we can do."
Pinkie Pie stared at her friends in stunned disbelief as they all silently agreed with Twilight. "I can't believe this! You mean to say that you girls are just going to sit there and let this... thing get released."
Twilight sighed. "Pinkie, we're not thrilled about this either, but Hasbro made their decision. This is out of our hooves now."
"Out of our hooves? Out of our hooves!?!" Pinkie shouted, holding the accursed poster in her arm. The girls were stunned to see that Pinkie's colors began to dull as she got increasingly angry. "So will it be out of our hooves when the fans blame us for this mess? Will it be out of our hooves when this 'movie' destroys everything we built for the past three years? Will it be out of our hooves if this is the reason why the fans leave us and our entire world disappears?!?"
"Hold on Pinkie, you're jumping to conclusions!" Rarity warned. "You can't get so worked up over pure speculation!"
Fluttershy try to speak up. "Besides, Lauren said that the fans love us so much that we'll never vanish like that."
"Oh don't be so naive, Fluttershy!" Pinkie snarled, making the shy pegasus cower in fear. "You think the fans would want to have anything to do with us after this? You haven't seen how mean they can get."
"I thought you said that fans will be fans, Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash shouted.
"That's still no excuse to give them mindless crap like this!"
"All right Pinkie, that's enough!" Applejack shouted, trying to calm the furious earth pony down. "You really can't get yourself this worked up about it!"
"It's not just that," Pinkie leered. "There's something else much worse that happened here. It's bad enough that Lyra created this abomination, but that pales in comparison to the bigger crime."
"And just what was that?" the cowpony asked.
Pinkie's voice reached a low menacing tone. "I trusted Lyra. And she broke that trust."
Everypony cringed. They all remembered what Pinkie always said about violating a friend's trust.
Pinkie turned around and began to trot out of Sugarcube Corner in silent fury. "Excuse me everypony. I need to have a little one-on-one with Lyra about this."
The remaining ponies plus one dragon turned to each other in silence, desperately trying to find a way to stop Pinkie.
"Um... maybe we should go with you too, Pinkie." Twilight said nervously.
"You girls stay here. I'll be fine." Pinkie never broke stride. She didn't even bother turning back to reply.
Twilight shook her head. "I'm sorry, but we can't let you go alone if you're going to be this..."
"I SAID I'LL BE FINE!!!"
Everyone recoiled in horror as Pinkie screamed back to them. Her mane flattened in anger as she lashed out. Her voice seemed to have taken on a demonic pitch as well. Still fuming and gritting her teeth, Pinkie stormed out of Sugarcube Corner, slamming the door behind her so hard that it jolted several wall-mounted pictures to fall onto the floor. The remaining friends stood stunned frozen for several moments at what they had just witnessed. Fluttershy in particular was cowering on the floor, covering her eyes.
"Did... that just happen?" Spike asked.
"It happened," Applejack replied.
"Just for the record, if Pinkie starts serving mint green cupcakes tomorrow, I'm outta here!" Rainbow Dash commented.
"I... think Pinkie Pie needs some space right now," Twilight observed. "I don't think it will be wise for us to intervene with her acting like that."
"Yeah... good idea..." Rarity smiled nervously.
"Is it over?" Fluttershy squeaked.
Applejack picked Fluttershy up from the ground. "Yeah, it's all over now."
Fluttershy breathed a huge sigh of relief. "I'm sorry everypony, but that was just too scary."
Twilight laughed nervously. "Trust me Fluttershy. You weren't alone."
"Well, so much for a stress-free hiatus," Rainbow Dash groaned.
"At the very least, we didn't have to go through the stress of making the movie," Rarity pointed out.
"That's true," Applejack nodded. "But now we have this 'Equestria Girls' thing on our hooves, what are we supposed to make of it?"
"Well we still have the package, so let's see what else Hasbro sent us," Twilight suggested.
"Would it even matter?" Rainbow Dash said. "It's gonna take a miracle to save this train wreck!"
Rarity rolled her eyes. "Even if you despise this, the movie still depicts us, Rainbow. The least we could do is see exactly what it entails."
"Rarity's right. We should give it a fair chance," Fluttershy chimed in.
Applejack shrugged. "Ah'm still not convinced mahself, but we might as well take a look to see what's up with all this."
Twilight nodded. "I agree, too. Spike, can you check what else is in the box?"
"Hold on, let me see," Spike said. He went over to the package and began to unpack some of its contents.
"Hmm... packing peanuts... more posters... hey, here's a movie guide book Twilight!" Spike shouted. He tossed the manual over to the alicorn. Twilight took a good look at the purple book and it's cover image. Her eyebrow arched in confusion as she scrutinized the image.
"Huh, this design is actually different than the poster," Twilight noticed. "Look, we don't have wings like we did in the other one."
Everyone gathered to see the image Twilight was talking about. Indeed, this cover image featured a humanized version of the Mane 6 as before, but this design didn't have the wings, cheek marks, and long hair like the other version. This design seemed to mirror their own normal looks more faithfully than the last one.
"I guess it's a little bit better," Rainbow Dash conceded. "At least we don't have our cutie marks on our cheeks in this one."
Applejack scratched the back of her head. "All right, Ah'm confused. Which design are they using again?"
"I guess the poster was just promotional," Twilight hypothesized. "This is the what the movie will really look like."
"How come the promo stuff never matches the real thing?" Spike wondered to himself.
"Well, it is a closer match to our pony selves than the other one," Rarity opined. "I could actually live with this."
"Even with the skin colors?" Rainbow Dash argued. "I don't think humans are supposed to have purple skin."
"Well I don't think horses in the human world are supposed to have purple fur. What's your point?" Twilight countered.
"Point taken."
Fluttershy meanwhile couldn't take her eyes off the picture's setting. "Are we supposed to be in high school in this?" she asked.
"I guess so," Applejack replied.
Rainbow Dash groaned. "Now I KNOW this is gonna suck!"
"How is that supposed to work?" Rarity wondered. "We're full grown mares who have adult responsibilities."
"That's because we're ponies who grew up in Equestria," Applejack pointed out. "Wherever this thing takes place, its pretty obvious that it works differently from Equestria."
Fluttershy decided to speak up. "You also need to remember who our target audience is. Even though the bronies are our biggest fans, we're still mainly aimed for little girls, and little girls wouldn't be able to relate to us as full grown human adults. We ourselves may be grown up, but we're still trying to figure things out. Human adults don't have that excuse in their society, so we'd come across as incredibly weak characters in a true human adult situations. Us being in high school makes us just young enough to make mistakes and learn from them, but just old enough to be responsible for our actions."
"Heh, adult situations..." Rainbow Dash snickered to herself. She was quickly silenced by an annoyed Applejack, smacking her head in disgust. Fluttershy blushed.
"Well," the yellow pegasus continued, "I'm just trying to say that we shouldn't just go ahead and dismiss the whole thing if we haven't seen it. We should really give this a chance."
"Lyra did produce this behind our backs," Rarity reminded her.
"But it looks like she poured all her energy into this," Fluttershy argued.
"You have a point there," Applejack agreed. "Ya gotta admire her effort. Even when we all said no, Lyra just turned around and did all this. Ah'm honestly impressed. She at least deserves our respect for that. Ya know what, Ah'll give this a chance!" she decided.
Rarity simply shrugged. "I'm just curious as to how in Equestria this all pans out, and how she tries to fit this into the main show, if at all."
"Me too," Twilight nodded. "Besides, I'm the main character in this. How can I not give this a chance?"
Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, didn't join in on her friend's good will. "Well... I still think this is gonna suck. I mean, doing the high school thing is so cliched."
"So... you're not going to give it a chance?" Fluttershy asked sadly.
Rainbow Dash sighed. "I'll watch it, but I'm definitely NOT looking forward to this. This is just so way out there from what we normally do."
"I don't know about you, but I’m just glad I’m not a part of this," Spike smiled.
"I guess you lucked out, Spike," Twilight said as she continued to leaf through the manual. "I don’t even know you would fit in to this…" Twilight froze as she noticed something in the book.
"Oh," she said in stunned realization.
"Twilight? What is that?" Spike asked curiously.
"Nothing!!!" Twilight smiled innocently as she slammed the book shut.
A sense of dread began to wash over the dragon assistant. "It has something to do with me, doesn’t it?"
"I have no idea what you’re talking about!" Twilight lied. Her face scrunched up as she tried desperately to cover up her lie. Her eyes shifted a couple of times as she wondered if they knew she was lying. Applejack sighed. She knew what that look meant.
"How bad is it Twi?" the farmer asked.
Twilight sighed in defeat and opened the book to the offending page. "See for yourself."
The ponies gathered to see what Twilight was talking about. Rarity and Fluttershy's eyes shrunk in shock when they saw it. Applejack facehoofed in embarrassment. Rainbow Dash snickered and then doubled over in laughter.
The anticipation was starting to get to Spike. "What did they do to me?"
"Um, maybe you shouldn’t see this Spike," Rarity suggested.
"Tell me!" Spike insisted.
Fluttershy tried to put it nicely. "You’re… small..."
"What? I’m Twilight’s little brother?" the young dragon asked.
"No you’re not," Rainbow Dash laughed. "But you are her... best friend!!!" the laughter only grew louder, prompting another quick slap from a certain orange earth pony.
"Remember Spike," Twilight warned, "Dragons don't exist in the human world, and it looks like they still wanted you on board as my companion. So they had to re-imagine you in a human setting which..."
"Quit stalling and show me!!!" Spike yelled.
Twilight closed her eyes, preparing for the worst, and turned the book over to Spike, revealing to the baby dragon his Equestria Girls counterpart. A green and purple puppy.
Spike blinked. "I’m a dog? I’m a DOG?!?!?"
He grabbed the book and stared at the picture in shock. "SHE MADE ME A DOG?!?" he shouted angrily.
"You're a cute dog," Fluttershy tried to offer.
Spike continued to stare at the picture in disbelief. He started to shake as his rage began to boil over.
"Uh Spike, you ok?" Twilight tried to ask.
"GrrrRRRRRR..." Spike growled. Everypony began to step back as his anger was increasing like a tea kettle screaming at a higher and higher pitch.
"Twilight?" Rarity asked. "Is Spike about to do what Pinkie just did back there?"
"DUCK AND COVER!!!" Twilight shouted, sending the five ponies scrambling for safety from the steaming dragon.
Outside, random ponies nearby were stunned to see Sugarcube Corner explode in a fit of dragon rage.
Derpy Hooves trotted across Ponyville's Main Square lost in thought. Ever since she had brought it up to Lyra a couple of weeks ago, she couldn't stop thinking about some of the show's plot holes. She had always noticed some of these errors before, but she brushed her concerns aside without much thought just like everypony else. However, the more she thought about things, the more questions popped up in her head.
"And come to think of it, our technology is completely all over the place. I know were supposed to be more old fashioned, but how does that explain that high powered hair drier, or that computer Twilight likes to use? Moreover, is Equestria the name of the country or the name of the planet? We never really explained that part very well in the show." Derpy scratched the back of her head as she tried to figure everything out. "Maybe I'm just over-thinking things," she finally decided.
Derpy continued down the street when she noticed a group of three ponies coming her way in full gallop. She recognized the three as the flower trio of Daisy, Lily, and Roseluck, and she also quick to notice that the three of them looked as if they were running away from something in horror.
"Everypony run for your lives!" Daisy warned.
"She's cursed! She's possessed! She'll destroy us all!" Lily yelled in horror.
"She's on her way! We don't have much time!" Roseluck shouted.
Derpy looked on in confusion. She didn't know what could have caused the trio to panic like this. Then again these three have been known to lose their heads over spilled milk, so it could have been any number of things that spooked the flower girls. Still, she had to know what in the world was going on with the three.
"That's just it. She's not acting like her normal self. She's angry!" Daisy elaborated.
"Even so, it's still not like Pinkie Pie to be so angry that she's scaring everypony. Just how angry is she?" Derpy asked.
Before Daisy had a chance to respond, she was suddenly shoved from behind and she and Derpy both fell to the ground. The pegasus recovered just in time to see Pinkie Pie walk past them. Well, it looked like Pinkie Pie at least. The cutie mark was definitely Pinkie's, but her mane and tail were flat, her colors were noticeably duller than usual, and her face... her face was beyond mad. This was the type of anger that would make Fluttershy at the gala cringe. It would make Twilight's rage explosion in 'Feeling Pinkie Keen' look like a candle. Speaking of 'Feeling Pinkie Keen', how could Twilight learning her lesson be a bigger 'doozy' than a scary Hydra anyway? Wait! Now wasn't the time for that! There was a rampaging Pinkie Pie storming down the street that needed her attention.
"What’s gotten into her?" Derpy wondered.
Lily shrugged. "How are we suppose to know? She kept muttering something about ‘Equestria Girls’. Do you have any idea what that's supposed to mean, Derpy?"
Derpy froze.
"Uh... Derpy? Anypony home?" Roseluck waved her hoof in front of the pegasus' face.
"Sorry, but I gotta go!" Derpy apologized.
She wasted not time to launch herself into the air, flying at full speed to get ahead of the rampaging pony. If the source of Pinkie's extreme anger was related to 'Equestria Girls', that meant only one thing; Lyra was in very deep trouble. The grey pegasus flew faster than she ever remembered to get to Lyra and Bon Bon's house before Pinkie. She arrived at their house and pounded on their front door. The sudden loud knocking was met fairly quickly as Bon Bon opened the door.
"Derpy! What brings you over?" she asked.
"I need to talk to Lyra now! It’s an emergency!" Derpy shouted.
"Emergency? Did something bad happen?"
Derpy shook her head. "Not yet, but it might if we don’t hurry!"
"Calm down Derpy, just tell me what's going on!"
The sudden noise at the entryway stirred Lyra from her room upstairs. "Bon Bon? I heard shouting. Is everything all right?" The green unicorn walked down the stairs to see what all the commotion was all about. She was quick to notice their visitor. "Derpy? What brings you over here?"
The pegasus flew straight to to her. "Lyra! Pinkie’s on her way over here!!! You have to run!!!" she shouted.
Lyra arched her eyebrow in confusion. "Run from Pinkie? Why?"
Derpy held Lyra by her shoulders as she broke the news. "Lyra, she knows! And she's not happy!"
Lyra's pupils shrunk in fear. "She isn't?!?"
"She knows? She knows what?" Bon Bon asked, trying to get a handle on what the two were worried about.
Lyra gulped. "I never told you what I was doing with Derpy and the Changelings a few weeks ago, did I Bon Bon?"
That question was more than enough for her to figure out that Lyra must have done something that got out of hoof. "Lyra…. What did you do?" she asked.
Lyra and Derpy began to laugh nervously.
"Well you see, I kinda shot a movie behind Pinkie’s back."
"And I kinda sent it to Hasbro by accident."
Bon Bon's jaw dropped. "WHAT?"
"I didn't mean for things to get this out of hoof, I swear!" Lyra explained. "When they all rejected 'Equestria Girls', I decided to shot it anyway as a surprise for Pinkie and her friends, and no one else."
"Lyra..." The earth pony groaned.
"I wasn't ready to give up on my project," Lyra continued. "I figured that they needed more evidence to see that this idea could work, so I shot the full movie so they could see for themselves just what I had planned. It just wound up in the wrong hooves at the end."
"And that part was all my fault!" Derpy added. "I tried to deliver it to the library, but I got curious, I explored the basement, and the next thing I knew, I accidentally sent the movie through the submission machine. Trust me, Lyra wouldn't have gone to Hasbro herself if she could help it!"
Bon Bon sighed as she finished hearing the story. "So that's whats been going on this past month. I knew there was something odd with all those random trips you took."
"Well, you said that you didn't want anything to do with it Bon Bon. So that's why I never said anything."
"Well I did say that, but it still would have been nice to know what exactly my roommate and best friend was up to this past month," Bon Bon pointed out.
Lyra's head lowered a bit. "You're not mad?"
Surprisingly to her, Bon Bon giggled. "Why should I be mad? This was your dream after all, wasn't it?"
"Thanks for understanding, Bon Bon" Lyra smiled.
Derpy suddenly spoke up, breaking the moment between the two roommates. "We don't have time for this right now! Pinkie's on her way over here! We have to run!"
"Calm down Derpy," Bon Bon replied calmly. "We'll just calmly explain everything to her the same way you explained it to me. Pinkie's a reasonable pony. I'm sure she'll understand."
SLAM!!!
The three ponies were interrupted as the front door slammed open. They all quickly turned to see that Pinkie Pie had barged right in, knocking the door completely over. Her flat mane came as a shock to Lyra and Bon Bon, as did the angry scowl that was currently pointed directly at Lyra.
"Then again, I could be wrong!" Bon Bon corrected herself.
Lyra laughed nervously, hoping desperately to lighten the mood as she talked to the ticked off newcomer. "Pinkie! You’re back! So how was Las Pegasus?"
"Funny you should mention that," Pinkie spoke in an eerily calm tone. "It was fine, up until I got back to Ponyville and got a message from Hasbro. Apparently they got a hold of a movie that we never approved."
Lyra began to sweat bullets under Pinkie's glare. "Oh yeah, that. Heh... well you see…"
"Pinkie, it was all my fault!" Derpy suddenly blurted out. "She didn’t mean to go to Hasbro like that! She meant to show it just to you first as a surprise but I accidentally sent it!"
"Don’t cover for this traitor!!!" Pinkie snapped. The three were taken aback at how the insult seemed to have come out of nowhere.
Bon Bon was quick to reply to Pinkie. "It’s true. Lyra and Derpy told me everything!"
"And you can even ask Octavia, Vinyl, Time Turner, or even Chrysalis & Discord!" Derpy added. "They were there with us too, and they all know what Lyra really wanted to do with ‘Equestria Girls’ when it was finished!"
Pinkie took a look at the two, taking in their rebuttals. She eventually shook her head. "Even if all that was true, it doesn’t matter anymore. Hasbro already made their decision."
"They did?" Lyra asked.
In response, Pinkie threw the copy of the poster over to Lyra. The unicorn took a hold of of the paper and laid it out so that Derpy and Bon Bon can see it as well. The three all gasped when they saw the big 'Coming Soon' line underneath the main logo, as well as the official Hasbro logo on the bottom corner. Those two details could mean two thing. Not only was 'Equestria Girls' approved, but it was actually getting an official release! Lyra was at a complete loss for words as she continued to look at the promo poster for her own work.
"Hasbro said yes!" Derpy cheered.
"What do you know, they actually liked it after all," Bon Bon thought out loud.
After getting over the initial shock, Lyra smiled in astonishment. "I did it! I DID IT!!!"
Derpy hugged Lyra in celebration of her accomplishment. "I knew you could do it Lyra!"
"Derpy, Hasbro liked it! They really liked it!" Lyra shouted. "Do you know what this means?"
"I’ll tell you exactly what it means," Pinkie shouted, her harsh tone putting an abrupt end to the celebration. "It means you killed ‘Friendship is Magic'!"
The statement took the three by surprise. "What? What do you mean by that?" Derpy asked.
"When this ‘movie’ gets released," Pinkie explained. "We’re going to have a major backlash on our hooves from the fans, and a huge chunk of them could go as far as stop watching us all together!"
"Huh? But how could Hasbro say yes even with all that?" Bon Bon asked.
Pinkie frowned. "Do you really think that Hasbro would say no to a new chance to sell some more toys?"
Bon-Bon took another look at the poster. "I don’t understand. How do you know that they'll be a huge backlash?"
Pinkie grabbed the poster and shoved it into Bon Bon's face. "JUST LOOK AT IT!!! This thing does not represent what the show is about. It's an insult to Lauren's vision for the show!"
"Wait, you’re not being fair!" Lyra shouted back, hoping to defend her project. "I think if you give it a chance, then you’ll see that the message of friendship is still..."
"Speaking of friendships, Lyra..." Pinkie interrupted as she began to approach the green unicorn, "There’s something I need to tell you."
Lyra tried to back away from the angry Pinkie until she bumped into the nearby wall. She shuddered in fear and discomfort as Pinkie got right into her face, their noses touching during the tense faceoff.
"You knew," Pinkie simply said.
"I knew what?" Lyra stammered.
"You knew just how much the show means to me, and I trusted that you would keep that in mind when you started this project. But you went and did this when any number of things could have gone wrong." Pinkie backed away from Lyra and began to pace back and forth as she went on. "It didn’t have to be submitting the tape by accident. It could have been anything. What if you used the live cameras instead and it went straight to the Hub? Or what if Hasbro came to visit and saw a production being made without internal permission? How do you think they would see us then, huh?"
Lyra felt more and more foolish while Pinkie laid out her points. "I never realized that…"
Pinkie scoffed. "Of course you didn’t realize. You never think, do you?"
Up until that point, Lyra had managed to maintain a brave face. However, she found herself teetering on the verge of breaking down as Pinkie chewed her out. Her lips trembled as she tried to hold back her tears.
"Pinkie, you’re being too harsh!" Bon Bon shouted in defense of her roommate.
"For something this important, I don’t think I’m being harsh enough." Pinkie argued back. "Didn’t you realize in all of this that there was a chance you could have ruined everything, Lyra? Not just for the show, but for all of Equestria?!?"
"I’m sorry…" Lyra said in a small voice..
"Well, congratulations," Pinkie said sarcastically. "You have you’re movie. Now take your poster and get out of Ponyville. You’re no longer welcome on the show."
Lyra's tear-filled eyes shrunk. "No…"
"Pinkie, you can’t do that!" Derpy shouted.
"I can, and I did!" Pinkie then turned around to exit the house. "Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to poof my mane back up."
Lyra tried to speak up one more time to reach out in vain to the departing pony. "I was only trying to help."
Pinkie stopped at the door as she heard Lyra's words. "If you really wanted to help, you should have just stayed in the background where you belong." With that, Pinkie left the house, slamming the door shut.
Lyra couldn't speak. She could barely even think. She just stood there as Pinkie's final words sunk in. The tears she was desperately trying to hold back during Pinkie's rant started to flow freely down her face. All of her accomplishments didn't matter. She had lost everything. The banishment from the show was bad enough, but that paled in comparison to Pinkie's parting shot. It was clear now. She didn't belong. She had no place on the show. She didn't even deserve to be a background pony. Yes, Pinkie made it clear. She was nothing.
Lyra abruptly ran up to her room crying. Bon Bon chased her friend in order to try the impossible task of cheering her up. Derpy didn't follow her, though. While she was deeply concerned for Lyra now more than ever, she couldn't help to be stunned at how Pinkie Pie was acting back there. Anger boiled inside the grey pegasus. There was no way the so-called Element of Laughter could be left off the hook for her behavior.
Derpy flew out of the house and down the streets, looking to track Pinkie down. It didn't take her long to catch up to the still furious earth pony fuming down the streets a few blocks away.
"PINKAMENA DIANE PIE!!!" she shouted as she got within earshot of her.
The sudden shouting of her full name caught her by surprise. Pinkie turned around to see an angry Derpy hovering just behind her. "What do you want, Derpy?" she groaned.
"You go back and apologize to Lyra right now!" Derpy shouted, pointing back towards Lyra's house.
Pinkie wasn't in the mood to argue. She turned back and continued walking. "I have nothing to apologize for."
Derpy frowned. Pinkie wasn't going to get out of this that easy. She continued following her down the street. "What about all those mean things you said to Lyra!"
"She deserved every second of that."
"No she didn’t! She never meant for anything bad to happen. She just wanted to surprise you."
"Well, it was a terrible surprise."
"But it still doesn’t give you the right to be this mad!"
"You saw the poster, Derpy. You saw how bad it was!"
Derpy landed in front of Pinkie, going face to face with the pink pony. Her own anger was slowly starting to match Pinkie's. "For your information, I was Lyra’s main camerapony for this. So yes, I saw every second of ‘Equestria Girls’. And I thought it was fine! How much of it have you seen, anyway?"
Pinkie hesitated before responding. "OK, I’ll admit I’ve only seen that one poster so far."
The revelation left Derpy slack-jawed in disbelief. "How can you just barge right in and say all these things about Lyra and ‘Equestria Girls’ when you only looked at that promo poster?"
"Ugh… I don’t have time for this. You know how much work we put into the show, Derpy."
"Well do you know how much work Lyra put into ‘Equestria Girls’? Do you know how exhausted she was while we made it? Do you know how much she stressed over the littlest things? She tried so hard to try to recreate what you girls do every week, and I think she did a good job."
Pinkie scoffed. "I find that hard to believe. She doesn’t understand the show like I do."
"Pinkie, listen to yourself, you’re starting to sound worse than the fans you… YOU HYPOCRITE!!!"
Pinkie eyes narrowed. "What did you say?"
"Weren’t you the one who said that we shouldn’t worry about the fans’ reactions anymore? And now here you are overreacting over something you haven’t even seen yet just like a fan who has nothing better to do than to nitpick every single aspect of the show! What do you think your friends would say if they saw you like this? What would Lauren say?"
"Don’t you dare bring her into this!"
Derpy ignored the warning. "The way I see it right now, ‘Equestria Girls’ isn’t the insult to Lauren’s vision. It’s YOU!!!"
The next thing the grey pegasus knew was that a pink blur was lunging towards her in rage. Her instincts kicked in, thankfully and she flew upwards beyond the earth pony's reach before any harm came to her. Pinkie kept leaping to the air in pure rage, trying to get the insubordinate pegasus down.
"TAKE THAT BACK!!!" she screamed to the airborne Derpy.
"Only if you take back what you said to Lyra. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go check up on my friend."
Pinkie could not believe Derpy. "How can you still stick up for her? You know what happens if you lose a friend's trust!"
Derpy sighed sadly. "Pinkie, if losing a friend’s trust is the fastest way to lose a friend, not forgiving a friend is the fastest way to stay alone forever."
Pinkie opened her mouth to counter that point, but nothing came out. Having had her say and with Pinkie unable to respond, Derpy took off. Pinkie stood alone for a few seconds before letting off an annoyed groan and continuing back to Sugarcube Corner.
Flying not to far from the ground, Derpy headed back to Lyra and Bon Bon. She was still angry overall, but she felt a bit better after she let off some steam from that argument with Pinkie. It might have been foolish to stand up to an angry, straight-maned Pinkie Pie, but somepony needed to let her know her behavior was crossing a line. At any rate, Pinkie wasn't a concern for her anymore. It was Lyra. It was going to take more than muffins to make Lyra feel better this time. As a good friend, Derpy was ready to do everything in her power to help.
On her way back, however, Derpy noticed the familiar form of Twilight Sparkle walking down the street. As she got closer, she noticed that Twilight seemed to have been through a war zone. Her mane and tail were unkempt. Her wings looked to have been battered, and she was sporting several bandages from various cuts and scrapes. Despite all that, she kept walking down the street levitating a clipboard and quill in front of her.
"Ok, so the restoration spell at Sugarcube Corner is done," the purple alicorn said to herself, seemingly worn out from a major ordeal. "Now we have to figure out a way to calm him down before we try to deal with Pinkie."
"Twilight?" Derpy asked from the air. Turning around, Twilight noticed the grey pegasus landing besides her.
"Oh, hi Derpy." she said, not bothering to hide the exasperation she was going through.
"What happened to you? You look awful!"
"Well, long story short, we found out about 'Equestria Girls'," Twilight explained.
"I figured that much. I ran into Pinkie just a while ago." Derpy replied looking fairly annoyed as her recent argument replayed in her head. "You girls won't believe what she just did. She went over to Lyra's and..."
"One thing at a time Derpy!" Twilight suddenly interrupted. "We've got a bigger problem."
"What could be a bigger problem right now than Pinkie?"
"Spike," Twilight replied. "He found out about his role in the movie."
"Uh oh..." Derpy cringed as she connected the dots. She remembered the conversation about making Spike a dog vs something else, and she remembered Lyra deciding that the canine Spike would be a placeholder before she got a chance to retool it after consulting with Pinkie like she originally planned. However, now that the movie was being released as is, Spike the dog was here to stay.
"Sooo... how did he take it, Twilight?"
At that moment, Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Rarity slowly passed by, trying to drag a wooden crate down the street. The crate was jerking left and right as its occupant continued to react violently. Fluttershy floated just overhead to make sure the crate was handled as gently as possible. A warning label was placed on the crate's side. 'Caution! Angry baby dragon inside! Handle with care!' it read. Derpy was quick to notice that all of them looked about as torn up and worn out as Twilight.
"I’LL GET HER!!! LET ME OUT OF HERE!!! I’LL SEND HER TO OBEDIENCE SCHOOL MYSELF!!! I'LL TEACH HER TO SIT DOWN AND BEG FOR MERCY!!!" a voice rampaged from inside the crate.
"We’re sorry we had to do this Spike, but this is for your own safety," Fluttershy apologized to the rampaging occupant.
"How much longer until we get to the library? I don't think I can take anymore of this!" Rarity complained as she struggled with the crate.
"If you stopped complaining we would have been there by now!" Rainbow Dash grunted.
"Quit your belly-aching, both of you, and push!" Applejack shouted.
Derpy watched stunned frozen as the four ponies continued to move the crate to the library.
"Overall, I think Spike is taking it pretty well," Twilight observed.
"And she had the nerve to call me a hypocrite! Can you believe her, Gummy?"
Pinkie Pie paced back and forth in her bedroom, ranting to her pet baby alligator. She was still fuming over the events that had just transpired with Lyra and Derpy, and she let it all out in a long rant to the pet reptile over the past hour or so. Throughout her tirade, she tried to curl her mane back to normal, but her angry disposition left her unable to unflatten her hair. Gummy, meanwhile, stood through it all with his blank stare.
"And that's not all. She even said I was an insult to Lauren's vision! How could she even say something like that? I worked with her! I know what she wanted to do with this show!"
Gummy blinked.
Pinkie hesitated before she spoke up again. "Well ok, she didn't tell me every single thing she had planned, and I have no clue what she would think of this, but that's beside the point. Lyra shouldn't have gone over my head like that. But I take my eyes off her for a bit and the next thing I know, she ruins everything!"
Gummy blinked.
"Come on, Gummy! I don’t need to see the whole thing to know what’s going to happen. Just look at the poster! This is the first thing anyone will ever see of this movie, and it has failure written all over it. This is the worst first impression ever! I mean, how in Equestria can anyone think something like this could be any good?"
Gummy blinked, and then scurried across the floor. Pinkie was confused over what could have caused the sudden movement from the pet. She watched as Gummy went over to her picture shelf, chomped on a picture, and carried it in his mouth back besides her. Pinkie quickly recognized the photo was the one of her and the Mane 6 from the intro.
Pinkie sighed in exasperation. "I know Gummy, that's how we're supposed to look. What's this have to do with anything?"
Gummy blinked.
Pinkie groaned at her pet's random action. She took another look at the picture. There must have been a few thousand copies of that photo floating around. It was in their intro. It was on all their promo materials. It was the more than likely the very first "Friendship is Magic" thing the fans ever saw. This bright, happy, admittedly girly picture of six smiling, colorful ponies. Looking back at it, it was hard to believe that anyone would think the show connected to this picture would be any good at first glance...
In fact, they might have just thought it was the worst thing ever.
A sudden thought came to Pinkie that made her heart sink. "Gummy? Are you trying to tell me that our first impression might not have been as good as I thought it was?"
Gummy blinked.
"And that despite whatever the fans first thought of 'Friendship is Magic', they all gave us a chance anyway and were all surprised by what they saw. And that it really isn't fair to jump to conclusions about 'Equestria Girls' like I did, especially if I never saw it."
Gummy blinked.
Pinkie sat on her haunches in silent horror. It began to dawn on her what she had just done. "I don't even know what happens in the movie, but I still got so mad about it. And I... I said all those awful things. Oh Gummy, what have I done? Lyra didn't deserve any of that! Derpy was right. I am a hypocrite."
Gummy blinked.
"I have to make things right. I have to fix things with Lyra. But... I don’t know if I should even get the chance to. Not after what I've done. Saying the things that I said is unforgivable."
Gummy blinked.
"I guess you’re right, Gummy. I’m just going to have to trust her. I just hope I’m not too late!"
Pinkie made her way out of her room as quickly as possible. A few moments later, Gummy turned to a nearby window and watched her run down the street, en route back to Lyra's house. The toothless reptile shook his head in exasperation.
"Seriously, it’s like I’m talking to a brick wall sometimes!" Gummy groaned.
~~~~~
The past couple of hours had been pretty rough for Derpy since her one-on-one encounter with Pinkie. She had spent the good part of that time back at the house, trying anything to help lift the broken unicorn's spirits. Unfortunately, all of her visits up to Lyra's room was met with the sight of an emotionally crippled pony, silently packing her belongings in preparation of her banishment. Derpy and Bon Bon had taken turns every few minutes to go up to Lyra's room to check up on her and cheer her up to no avail. Now, Derpy was pacing back and forth in the main foyer as Bon Bon tried her luck with Lyra. After an excruciating wait, Derpy finally noticed Bon Bon coming down the stairs, looking emotionally exhausted.
"Any luck?" she asked.
The earth pony sighed. "Nothing's changed. She still won't talk to me. She's just packing her things in silence. I don't even know if she knows where she's going."
"At least we can help out there," Derpy sadly replied. "I'm sure Chrysalis has some extra room. If Lyra needs a place to stay, she could stay over by her."
The frustration of the whole situation finally got to Bon Bon. She slammed her hooves to the floor in anger. "This is ridiculous! I don't see why Lyra had to have been banned just because of one mistake!"
"I don't know either, but we can't do anything about it."
"Well, I know there's something I can do. I have a thing or two to say to Pinkie the next time I see her!" Bon Bon frowned.
Derpy cringed a bit. She could understand Bon Bon being angry, but at the same time she started to wonder if staying angry like this would really accomplish anything. Derpy wasn't the type of pony to hold grudges like some others might. In fact, she had been regretting some of the things she said to Pinkie back there.
"Hey, how about I make us a cool glass of lemonade? That should help us calm down." Derpy suggested.
"Sure, why not?" Bon Bon shrugged.
Derpy started to make her way to the kitchen when she and Bon Bon heard a loud, urgent banging at the front door.
"Lyra! Lyra! Please come out! I need to talk to you!" the voice shouted from the other side.
It didn't take much effort to recognize that voice as belonging to Pinkie Pie. Bon Bon's face twisted in rage as she recognized the voice of the pony responsible for taking her best friend away. Derpy watched as the earth pony stormed to the front door and opened it. Pinkie stood at the entryway. Her mane and tail were still flat, but Derpy was quick to notice the look of remorse and shame on the visitor.
"Bon Bon! I need to talk to Lyra! It’s important!"
"Stay away from her, Pinkie!" Bon Bon shouted. "Hasn’t Lyra had enough from you already?"
"Please, Bon Bon. I’m begging you!" Pinkie pleaded. "I messed up big time, and I need to make things right! I have to talk to her!"
Bon Bon couldn't contain her anger anymore. "You yelled at my best friend! You insulted her very reason for being! You kicked her off the show! Why should I even let you into my home? You're not welcome around here you... YOU DIRTY GLUESTICK!"
Derpy gasped in horror. "She said the G word!"
Pinkie recoiled at the slur. However, she could only hang her head in shame. Tears began to form in her eyes.
"Yell at me all you want. I deserve it. I’ve been a horrible friend," Pinkie lamented.
Bon Bon's eyes narrowed as she glared at her. "That's the least you deserve for hurting my friend."
Reeling from the sting of the icy rejection, Pinkie turned around to make her way back home. However, before Bon Bon could slam the door on the pink pony, she was suddenly stopped by Derpy.
"Let her in, Bon Bon," the pegasus said.
The two ponies stood frozen at the sudden change of heart.
"Are you crazy?" Bon Bon shouted to Derpy in disbelief.
"Staying mad at each other will only make things worse," Derpy said. "Besides, look at Pinkie. Does it look like she's still mad? She really wants to make things right now, so we should give her the chance. It’ll be ok, Bon Bon. Trust me."
Bon Bon kept her eyes on Derpy for a few seconds. She then turned to Pinkie, finally taking note of her remorseful expression. She sighed in defeat. "Lyra's upstairs in her room right now. You can come in, Pinkie."
After a quiet thank you from Pinkie, Bon Bon and Derpy led her up the staircase to Lyra's room. She was a bit surprised to see that Lyra's bedroom door was cracked open from the hallway. Bon Bon went to the door and carefully pushed it open for all of them to enter. Inside, the green unicorn was sadly packing away her belongings. Her suitcase was laid out open on her bed and was nearly packed to the limit. However, what made Pinkie's heart sink was Lyra herself. Her steps were slow, her head was hanging low, and her eyes... her eyes were dull and glazed over. It was clear that Lyra had given up hope. Pinkie felt the full guilt of being the pony responsible for reducing Lyra to such a hopeless state.
Derpy spoke up to the depressed unicorn. "Lyra? We have a visitor."
Lyra turned her head slowly in response and noticed that she and Bon Bon were accompanied this time by Pinkie. Her depression didn't allow her to react to seeing Pinkie again.
"You came back to yell at me some more?" Lyra said in a sad voice.
Pinkie took a deep breath. "I... I came to apologize."
Lyra looked away. "You don’t have to do that. You were right to be mad at me for what I did."
Pinkie approached the sad pony. "No I wasn’t! I had no right to react that way. What I did was the cruelest thing anypony could ever do."
"So why did you do it?" Bon Bon asked bitterly.
Tears started flowing down Pinkie's face as she tried to explain herself. "I wasn’t thinking. I let my responsibilities running the show take over my judgment again. Despite my feelings on the movie itself, I never should have let that affect the way I treat my friends. I know that’s not an excuse for what I did, but it’s the truth. You deserve an apology from me at the very least. I just hope you could forgive me for what I did… I know I won’t."
"You won't. Why?" Derpy asked.
Pinkie sighed and sat on the floor. "Because I did it again. I picked the show over my friends. After the rerun incident, I told myself I would never do that again. I guess you can tell that I failed that badly. I can’t be forgiven for what I said to you Lyra. How can I be forgiven for treating my friend that way when she just wanted to help?" Overcome with grief and remorse, Pinkie buried her head in her hooves and sobbed. "What kind of friend am I?"
Everypony remained quiet as Pinkie continued to sob. Bon Bon in particular was feeling a twinge of regret for her use of the slur earlier. Unfortunately, what was said could not be taken back. At any case, now wasn't the time to worry about the things that couldn't be changed. Instead, now was the time to try to move forward. Thankfully, Derpy knew just where to start.
"You know, you're not the only one this room that made a huge mistake, Pinkie. After all, it was my fault the movie got to Hasbro in the first place. And Lyra could have as mad at me like you were because of that. Or because of my other goof-ups here and there. But despite all that, Lyra still managed to forgive me."
Bon Bon nodded in agreement. "Same with me. No matter what, Lyra and I always forgive Derpy because despite it all, she never means any real harm. Her heart was always in the right place."
"Mine wasn’t," Pinkie sadly pointed out.
"It is now, isn’t it?" Bon Bon smiled. "Everypony makes mistakes after all. Nopony's perfect. But you realized you were wrong and you’re willing to make up for your mistakes... just like I need to." She looked down to the floor in shame. "I’m sorry I called you the G word, Pinkie."
Pinkie shook her head. "Don’t apologize, Bon Bon. Like I said, I deserved that. But I promise from the bottom of my heart I’ll do anything to make up for everything I've done."
A light poking then came from Pinkie's side. She turned to see Lyra, poking the ground with her hoof.
"Well, for starters... can I stay?" the green unicorn asked.
Without anymore words, Pinkie grabbed Lyra into a big hug. "Of course you can, Lyra! I’m so sorry I said those things! Please forgive me!" Tears continued to roll down her cheeks as she continued to apologize. Lyra was shocked by the sudden embrace. With some hesitation, Lyra returned the hug.
"It’s ok. I understand. I forgive you, but it still doesn't change anything." Lyra broke away from the hug and sat down, her head still hanging low. "You were right about one thing, Pinkie. What I did was stupid. I never thought anything seriously wrong could have happened like you said. I could have ruined everything, all because I was selfish and wanted to stand out. I promise I won’t do that anymore. I’ll be a good background pony and stay quiet from now on."
"Lyra, you’re not a background pony," Derpy argued.
"Yes I am!" Lyra suddenly shouted through tear-filled eyes. "That's what I am in the show, right? I’m just some random nopony! That's all I'll ever be!"
Pinkie's heart fell as Lyra cried again. She finally understood the root of the problem, which was only made worse by her own words not to long ago. However, unlike a few moments ago, Pinkie was ready to help the unicorn.
"Answer this question, Lyra," Pinkie said. "Do you think Bon Bon feels you’re just a ‘background pony’? Or Derpy? Or anypony else for that matter?"
The question made Lyra blink in confusion. She hesitated an answer. "Well... no I guess..."
It was now Bon Bon's turn to hug Lyra tightly. "That's because you're not a nopony to us! You're Lyra Heartstrings! You're my roommate and my best friend. You're the most important pony in the world to me, Lyra!"
"Bon Bon..." Lyra's tears flowed down her face as she returned the hug.
Derpy quickly went over to join in on the hug. "Never forget that you have friends that love and care about you no matter what, Lyra. Don’t ever think that you’re worthless because you’re 'just a background pony' on the show."
Pinkie didn't join in on the group hug, this hug was really just for the three of them anyway she decided, but she continued to make her point. "Trust me when I say that it isn't worth it to completely wrap yourself in the show like that. Because when you do, you wind up forgetting what really matters. You don't really need the show to tell you that you matter in sompony else's life, do you?"
For the first time in the last few hours, Lyra smiled. "Of course not, Pinkie. Not when you have friends like these... or friends like you."
With a smile, Pinkie went over and joined the group hug. The four embraced for nice long moment. After a while, Bon Boon spoke up.
"Are you feeling better, Lyra?"
Lyra nodded. "Yes, I'm feeling a lot better now. What about you, Pinkie?"
"I think I'll be fine" Pinkie replied.
Derpy breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Thank Celestia! Everything's back to normal!"
"Well not everything..." Pinkie replied nervously. "We still need to talk about ‘Equestria Girls’."
"But I thought you got over that," Derpy said.
Pinkie shook her head. "I’m not angry anymore, trust me. But I’m still really concerned about it."
"Oh. I see," Lyra's head drooped a bit.
"You have to understand that I'm pretty much going into this blind," Pinkie explained. "I have like a gazillion questions over everything. What happens in the movie? How does this human dimension work? Will Hasbro want to see more of ‘Equestria Girls’ in the future? What is this going to mean for ‘Friendship is Magic’? Do we make this cannon, a spinoff, or just a one-shot adventure? And then there’s all the concerns I have about the production details. I just have so many questions, and I just need answers!"
Lyra smiled. Pinkie might not have known where to find the answers she was looking for, but she did. "Well if you need answers, why don't you just watch the movie and see for yourself. Hasbro sent my tape back after all, right?"
"I think so, they sent us a bunch of stuff in that package."
"Well then let's watch it together!" Lyra suggested. "I did my very best to emulate the show in a brand new setting. Just give it a chance, and I think that you'll enjoy it!"
Pinkie nodded. "I'm looking forward to it, Lyra."
"Me too!" Bon Bon spoke up. "I was out of the loop throughout all of this!"
"Don't worry, we'll explain everything as the movie goes along," Derpy reassured the earth ponies.
"Thanks Derpy." Pinkie said. "You know, when it's all said and done, it's kinda impressive that you guys managed to get an entire movie done and approved without our help!"
"Actually..." Lyra spoke up, nervously scratching the back of her head. "I think you should know that I had some issues with it still and I was hoping to talk to you about this, Pinkie."
This revelation made Pinkie curious. "What kind of issues are you talking about?"
"Well, I couldn’t figure out what to do with Spike in the human universe for starters," Lyra admitted.
Pinkie put her chin to her hoof deep in though as she contemplated the issue. "Well, Twilight and Spike tend to act like siblings, so I would think they would probably be brother-sister in that universe."
"But Spike is still Twilight’s assistant and main companion, right?" Lyra argued. "Besides, he's a dragon and she's a pony. And there was only one way I could think about translating that in human terms."
Bon Bon wasn't liking where this was going, but she had to ask. "So what did you do?"
Lyra sighed. "I made Spike a dog."
Pinkie's jaw dropped. Bon Bon simply facehoofed in exasperation. Derpy nervously nodded in agreement.
"It was all we could think of at the time," Derpy explained.
"Well on the one hand I guess it kinda makes sense, but still… yikes!" Pinkie thought out loud.
"It wasn’t even my final idea, either! I wanted to talk to you before I retooled it later!" Lyra elaborated.
Pinkie shrugged. "Unfortunately it’s too late for that now. I just hope Spike doesn’t find out."
Derpy cringed at that last thought. "Actually... Spike found out about it."
"He did?" Lyra's eyes lit up in horror. "How did he take it?"
Before Derpy had a chance to respond, the ground began to shake under everypony's hooves. As the rumbling began to grow deeper, they could hear a sound of something getting closer to the bedroom door. Or rather, someone. No one had a chance to prepare themselves as the bedroom door burst open, revealing a very angry Spike. His eyes had turned red in rage and they were pointed at a particular green unicorn.
"LYRA!!!"
"Uh oh!" Pinkie observed in horror as Spike slowly made his way towards Lyra, who was backing away to a corner in fear. A few seconds later, Pinkie's five other friends, all extremely torn up, had finally caught up to the rampaging dragon.
"Oh no! We’re too late!" Twilight shrieked.
"Girls? What's going on?" Pinkie asked.
"Spike completely flipped out after he found out about Equestria Girls!" Rainbow Dash reported. "We tried to contain him but he got loose thanks to Rarity."
Rarity gasped. "Oh, so now all of this is my fault? Well I never…"
Applejack broke the two up. "Need I remind both of y'all we've got a angry dragon on the loose right now?"
Fluttershy turned to Twilight. "We have to save Lyra! What are we going to do?"
Twilight panicked as she went through her checklist. "I don’t know! I didn’t have time to create any contingencies for this. I’ve got nothing!"
Everypony watched helpless as Spike closed in on the cowering Lyra.
"So you like dogs, huh?" Spike said in a dangerous tone. "Well this dog’s gonna teach you to play DEAD!!!"
"HELP ME!!!" Lyra shouted.
Derpy covered her eyes. "I can't watch!"
Everypony else agreed with Derpy. They all cringed as they prepared themselves to witness what Spike was going to do. Rarity, however, did not cringe. She simply closed her eyes in silent realization.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures," she said to her self. With that, Rarity walked over to the dragon.
"Excuse me, Spike?" Rarity asked.
Spike frowned. "I’m kinda busy right now, Rarity. What do you want… mmmph!?!"
Before he knew it, Spike was grabbed by the white unicorn and in one swift motion, she twirled him around, held him in one arm and placed a long, deep kiss on his lips. Everypony watched stunned as Rarity held the kiss for a very long time. Applejack instinctively took off her hat and placed over the head of a nearby pony to block the kiss from their view. In this case, that pony was Rainbow Dash, who quickly fought the hat away.
After what seemed like several minutes, Rarity finally broke the kiss, panting as she tried to catch her breath. Spike, meanwhile was left frozen stiff like a statue, his eyes wide and unblinking in absolute shock.
"Sorry you had to witness that, everypony." Rarity apologized.
"Don’t apologize, you saved me!" Lyra said.
"That was... quite a performance Rarity." Twilight said, amazed at what she just saw.
Applejack shook her head in bewilderment. "Ah take back everything Ah ever said about you! Ah've gotta know your secrets, girl!"
Rarity smirked. "I think I will have to decline that offer, Applejack darling."
Pinkie knew what was coming. She handed a pair of sunglasses over to Rarity.
"After all, a lady must never..."
Rarity put the shades on.
"Kiss and tell."
"YEAH!!!" Fluttershy yelled loudly. The uncharacteristic shout prompted confused glares from everypony else in the room.
"I mean... yay!" Fluttershy grinned nervously.
"OK then," Twilight said, going back to her checklist. "Now that we neutralized Spike, we can finally concentrate on calming Pinkie down."
"Well actually, Lyra and I took care of everything," Pinkie informed her friends. "I'm not mad anymore."
"But your mane's still flat," Rarity pointed out.
Pinkie ran a hoof to her head and realized she had yet to poof her mane back. "Oh yeah, I forgot! Hold on..."
She began to shake her head and back furiously, letting her hair and tail swoosh back and forth. After a few seconds of shaking, her mane and tail curled back to it's normal state with one big 'poof'.
"There! Much better!" Pinkie smiled.
Going back to her checklist, Twilight marked off the last two blank items; Stop Pinkie from being angry, and Poof Pinkie's mane back to normal.
"Well, that’s the end of that checklist!" Twilight announced.
"Actually Twilight," Derpy spoke up, "You might want to add 'Snapping Spike out of it' to the checklist." She pointed to the still-frozen baby dragon.
"Um Spike? Are you ok?" Fluttershy asked.
"Earth to Spike? Come in Spike!" Rainbow Dash waved a hoof in front of Spike's face to no avail.
Applejack took a closer look at the now living statue of a baby dragon. "Ah think you broke his brain, Rarity."
"Can't say I'm too surprised by this, considering Spike's crush on Rarity and all." Twilight observed.
"Didn't you Pinkie Promise that you won't tell anypony that?" Bon Bon asked.
Pinkie laughed. "It’s ok, I think the secret’s out by now."
Twilight grinned. "Yeah! It’s not like I told everypony that Rainbow Dash sleeps with a plushie of Zoe Trent from Littlest Pet Shop!"
Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped. "Twilight! You promised!!!" she shouted in disbelief.
Twilight cringed as she realized what she had just done. She had just told everypony a secret Rainbow Dash trusted her to keep. She also noticed all the stares that were now being cast on Rainbow Dash from all the other ponies in the room who now know about the pegasus' secret sleeping companion. .
"Um.. Oops?" Twilight squeaked a smile in apology
Pinkie shook her head in disappointment. "Twilight, did you really have to say that? That’s almost as bad as me telling everypony about Dash’s secret love letter to Soain’ she wrote during..." Pinkie suddenly gasped in horror and quickly covered her mouth as she realized she made a huge mistake. More shocked stares were cast Rainbow Dash's way.
Rainbow Dash blushed in embarrassment. "Pinkie..."
Pinkie stammered her apology. "Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry Dashie! I didn't mean to! It just came out!"
Rainbow Dash couldn't contain her anger. She hovered over Pinkie and Twilight as her rage built inside of her. "I trusted both of you to keep that a secret! How could two be so…"
Derpy quickly decided to interrupt everything before it got out of hoof. "Hold on Rainbow! They didn’t mean it and they’re really sorry. Just look at them!"
Rainbow Dash took another look at both Twilight and Pinkie. Both of them looked back at her with wide, pleading, puppy dog eyes. As much as she wanted to stay mad at them, Rainbow just couldn't. Especially if they both resorted to using that facial expression.
"All right, fine! I forgive you!" Rainbow Dash groaned.
Derpy smiled. "There you go! All better now!"
Pinkie and Twilight breathed a big sigh of relief. However, Pinkie was still a bit shocked at what she had just done.
"I can’t believe I did that! I actually broke a Pinkie Promise!" she said.
"Nopony’s perfect," Fluttershy shrugged.
Pinkie nodded. "I know. Trust me, Fluttershy, I know."
Rainbow Dash meanwhile continued to grumble. Applejack turned to the her. "You OK, Rainbow?"
"I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life!" Rainbow muttered.
Applejack smiled. "Hey, it could have been worse! Everypony could have found out that Scootaloo was the one who told those scary stories from our camping trip and you were the one who stayed up all night scared like a little…"
Applejack stopped as she noticed the slack-jawed reaction from Rainbow herself. She also noticed the stares of disbelief, and a few snickers, coming from the others in the room. Rarity in particular covered her mouth to hide her laughter, nodding in agreement to the events of the camping trip that she, Applejack, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders had witnessed.
"Ah, ponyfeathers!" Applejack cursed.
Rainbow Dash sighed in defeat. "I give up."
~~~~~
The Ponyville movie theater was buzzing with excitement. Several ponies were finding their seats in advance of screening of the surprise movie. Among the crowd was the movie's crew, which comprised of Lyra's friends, who were sitting near the front of the theater. Also near the front were Queen Chrysalis and several of her Changeling minions who served as the cast. They were all munching on special movie premiere muffins that Derpy baked that morning. In the middle of the group was Lyra herself, who seemed to be on the verge of a panic attack. Everyone was here to see her movie! It was almost too much to comprehend.
"You ok, Lyra?" Bon Bon asked her roommate.
"I think I'm gonna throw up, I'm so nervous!" Lyra admitted.
Vinyl Scratch overheard Lyra's statement. She also noticed that she was sitting right in front of the green pony. She turned to her musical colleague sitting next to her.
"Hey, Octy! Wanna trade seats?" she asked.
"No!" Octavia shouted, leaving the DJ to worry about Lyra's nervousness.
Thankfully, Derpy did her best to calm Lyra down. "Don't worry about it, Lyra. You did your best, remember?"
Lyra nodded. "I did, but I'm still not sure what the reaction to this is going to be."
Bon Bon placed a hoof on Lyra's shoulder in reassurance. "Whatever happens, we'll have your back, Lyra. We promise!"
The several nods from her friends mad Lyra feel a bit better.
Meanwhile, Pinkie was with Discord in the projector room setting up the projector. Looking out, she could make out her Mane 6 and Core 7 friends making their way into the theater. She giggled as she saw Rarity and Lady Rainbow escort the still frozen form of Spike into the theater. He hadn't move a muscle since the shock of Rarity's kiss a few days ago.
"Everything is almost ready, Pinkie!" Discord announced.
"Perfect! I'll go tell everypony." Pinkie quickly made her way out of the projector room and into the seating area. Twilight waved Pinkie over from her spot at the entrance.
"Twilight! Is everypony here yet?"
The purple alicorn nodded. "It looks like everypony is accounted for!"
"Not quite everypony," a voice suddenly said from the hallway. Pinkie and Twilight turned to see the voice belonged to Princess Celestia, who entered into the theater accompanied as always by her sister, Luna.
"Your highness? What are you doing here?" Twilight asked.
"We heard that there was a new movie premiering today, so we thought we would go see it," Celestia explained.
Luna nodded in agreement. "Yes, we heard it caused quite a stir."
"We’ll explain later. It's a long story," Pinkie laughed nervously. "Why don't you take a seat, you're highness? We're just about ready to start."
"We would love to," Celestia smiled. She and Luna followed Twilight to their seats. Pinkie continued to make her way down the aisle to the front where Lyra was sitting.
"Lyra, it's time. Are you ready?" Pinkie asked the nervous unicorn.
Lyra got up from her seat. "As ready as I'll ever be."
"Then let's go!"
Pinkie and Lyra both made their way to the stage of the theater. Upon seeing this, Discord turned the room's houselights down, making everypony hush their conversations. They offered a round of applause as they saw the two ponies make their way on stage to address the crowd.
Pinkie spoke out first. "Thanks for coming out to this special screening everypony! What you’re about to see is the final submitted version of ‘My Little Pony: Equestria Girls’. Even though no one outside of the production of this movie has seen any of it yet, the movie still managed to get a green light for a full Hasbro release. So before we start the movie, how about we give a big round or applause to everypony who worked on the movie."
The audience responded by giving the cast and crew of Equestria Girls a round of applause.
Pinkie continued. "And a very special round of applause to the pony in charge of the whole production, Lyra Heartstrings!!!"
A larger round of applause came from the audience, making Lyra blush. She stepped forward to address the crowd herself.
"Thank you everypony. I just want to say that I wouldn’t have been able to make it this far without my friends good friends Derpy, Octavia, Vinyl, Turner, and of course my roommate Bon Bon. I also have to thank Queen Chrysalis and the changelings for all the effort they put in as well in front of the cameras. And I have to especially thank Pinkie Pie and her friends for their understanding of the… unique circumstances surrounding this project. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for all of you. Thank you all, and I hope you enjoy the movie!"
The audience cheered as Pinkie and Lyra stepped off the stage and settled back into their seats.
"It's showtime!" Discord grinned from the projector room. Once everypony got settled in their seats, he turned the house lights off and turned the projector on to start the movie.
Lyra didn't know what to think as the movie began playing. After all, she knew what happens in the movie, but she couldn't even begin to guess how everypony will react to seeing the whole movie, not even considering what everybrony might think. However, it was too late to second guess herself now. This was her movie now for better or for worse, and she was satisfied overall with the final results. All she could do now is to brace herself for whatever reaction might be coming her way.
However, Lyra wasn't the only one who was a bundle of nerves at that moment. Pinkie was completely besides herself. On the one hand she was excited to see an actual movie based off the show, and was excited to see what Lyra came up with. However, she was still incredibly nervous over the tons of unanswered questions surrounding 'Equestria Girls'. Overall, she couldn't decide if she was more nervous, or more excited right now.
Twilight noticed Pinkie looked a bit tense. "How are you feeling, Pinkie?" she asked.
"Honestly, I’m… nervicited!" Pinkie blurted out.
Applejack leaned into Pinkie's ear and whispered. "You do realize that’s not a real word, right?"
Lyra chuckled a bit as she overheard the exchange.
Lyra paced back and forth in the theater hall. It was now empty save for herself, Derpy, Bon Bon and the Mane six. She was waiting for the final verdict to come down on the movie from the Mane 6. Everypony had long since filed out of the screening a while back. From the initial reaction, it seemed like 'Equestria Girls' went over well with the audience. However, Lyra was too busy fretting over some of the errors and plot holes that still existed in the final product to notice how the audience was reacting. Her worries still lingered on at this point, well past the end of the movie. As she looked at the opposite corner of the hall where the Mane 6 were huddling up, Derpy and Bon Bon tried their best to calm their friend down.
"I blew it! I just know that they're gonna say I blew it," Lyra fretted.
Derpy got up and nudged Lyra back to her seat. "Calm down Lyra. Don't be so hard on yourself."
Bon Bon nodded. "Besides, it sounded like everypony loved the movie."
Lyra shook her head. "They were all being polite because I was here. I just know it. They didn’t want to hurt my feelings. In fact, Pinkie and the others are probably trying to figure out the best way to tell me they hated it."
"Why are you so worried about what the six of them think?" Bon Bon asked.
"At the very least, they're the stars of the movie, and I don't know if they'll be satisfied with the way they were portrayed, especially considering that I had them hating each other for a while. It's not just that though, I just have to know if they think 'Equestria Girls' was as good as the show itself."
"Whatever they think though, Hasbro's still releasing it," Derpy reminded her.
Lyra took another look at the huddle occurring at the opposite end of the room. "That won't matter at all if they all hate it."
Bon Bon and Derpy could only watch on nervously as Lyra continued to pace back and forth. After several excruciating minutes for the three, they noticed the Mane 6 break away from the huddle. Bon Bon tapped the nervous Lyra on her shoulder.
"Lyra, they're coming this way!"
Lyra turned to see the six ponies heading her way. She gulped. "Well, this is it."
Lyra slowly trotted to meet them halfway. Bon Bon and Derpy followed close behind, anxious themselves for what the final verdict of Equestria Girls would be from its stars.
"We came to a consensus, Lyra," Twilight reported.
Lyra gulped again. "So… what did you think?"
Twilight shot a glance over to Rainbow Dash. The pegasus sighed as she began. "Lyra? I’ll be frank. I never liked this whole Equestria Girls thing since we first found out about it. The idea was weird, the premise sounded weak, and I thought the designs were… if I could put it as nicely as possible, complete garbage."
Lyra cringed. That was nicely? she thought.
Rainbow Dash continued. "Long story short, I thought it was going to suck big time going into today. And after actually seeing the whole thing, well… me and the girls talked about it and… they all agreed with me on this."
Lyra ears dropped. "They did?"
The other five ponies looked down in shame in response. Lyra fell to her haunches in disbelief. No... It can't be...
"I’m sorry Lyra," Rainbow Dash said. "but this is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you."
Bon Bon looked away before the tears came to her eyes. She couldn't stand to see her roommate like this, especially if this was how everything was going to end. Derpy was on the ground, her hooves clasped in front of her face, silently pleading for a positive resolution for her best friend. Lyra's head hung in resigned defeat. She was ready to hear the verdict, no matter how harsh she knew it would be.
"That movie was…"
Bad, awful, terrible, dreadful, atrocious, heck I'd take mediocre right now. Just tell me! Lyra screamed internally.
"So awesome!" Rainbow Dash squealed, her hooves pressed to her cheeks in delight.
Lyra looked up surprised. Did she just get the Rainbow Dash seal of approval? A quick glance at the smiles and nods from Rainbow's five friends confirmed that she wasn't hallucinating. Lyra was left bewildered. Bon Bon and Derpy looked at each other in shock.
"You liked it?" Lyra shouted.
"Lyra, we loved it!" Twilight smiled.
"It definitely was a pleasant surprise. I never thought I would have enjoyed it that much." Rarity added.
"I can’t believe I was ANGRY because this was coming out," Pinkie shook her head, still haunted over her previous actions. "I have to apologize to you all over again Lyra. ‘Equestria Girls’ was absolutely worth it."
"I give it two thumbs up!" Fluttershy smiled. "I mean if I had thumbs…"
"You did a bang-up job with everything," Applejack winked. "Although we better rein you in with how good you were were with this, otherwise the six of us would be out of a job!"
Lyra refused to believe what she was seeing. "You’re all not just saying that all that, right? You really, really liked it? Even with its flaws?"
Applejack went over to put a hoof around Lyra's shoulder. "Try not to sweat the small stuff, you know? If you spend too much time bucking one tree, you’ll never make it through to harvest the whole orchard."
"Besides," Pinkie added. "From a production standpoint, this was as good as anything we can come up with. The story, the music, the setting, and especially the characters. All the important aspects were in top form, including the most important aspect of all."
"What’s that?" Lyra asked.
"The magic of friendship," Twilight answered. "That’s the heart of everything we do in the show. And ‘Equestria Girls’ shows us that while some things change, the magic of friendship is always there."
"That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you girls this whole time!" Derpy spoke out.
Pinkie nodded in shame. "We know. We should have listened before. Actually, I should have listened. I was just so caught up about how different the human thing was that I never really wanted to give it a chance. And not only did that decision almost robbed us of a really great movie, it almost cost me a dear friend. From now on, I promise that I won’t judge a book by its cover and give everything a fair chance."
"Thanks Pinkie," Lyra blushed.
Pinkie smiled back to Lyra in response. She then turned around to her friends. "I think it’s time we have a vote girls. All in favor of giving ‘Equestria Girls’ our full support?"
One by one, they raised their hoof in show of support. First Fluttershy, then Twilight, then Applejack, Rarity, & Rainbow Dash. After a short pause, Pinkie raised her hoof as well.
"It’s unanimous!" Derpy shouted.
Twilight shook her head. "Not quite yet."
"What do you mean?" Lyra asked.
Fluttershy handled the explanation herself. "Equestria Girls is your idea Lyra, so it’s only fair that you have the final vote."
The smile on Lyra's face grew even wider. "Really?"
Rainbow Dash nodded. "What do you say, boss?"
The show of support overwhelmed Lyra. With her eyes watering with tears of joy, she raised her hoof.
Derpy couldn't take it anymore, she rushed over to Lyra and smothered her in a big victory hug.
"I'm so happy for you, Lyra!" the pegasus yelled.
It wasn't long before Bon Bon joined in too. The Mane 6 happily stayed back and let the three mares enjoy their moment. After a while, Bon Bon broke away from the hug.
"I have to tell Vinyl, Octavia, and Turner about this right now! I'll see you back at the house, Lyra!" Bon Bon waved a quick goodbye and galloped out of the theater to spread the good news.
A thought ran across Pinkie's mind over the mention of Lyra's other friends. "You know, we have to throw a party for you guys. You never really had a wrap-up party for the movie, did you?"
Lyra simple shrugged. "No, I guess we didn't. It would be nice to thank them all like that. I couldn't have done any of this without my friends."
"Speaking of friends," Twilight said, breaking into the conversation. "It sounded like you had a friendship report to deliver back there."
Pinkie giggled. "Yeah I do. Spike take a letter... wait, where's Spike?"
"He’s still in his seat." Fluttershy pointed over to where all of them were sitting during the screening. Spike was indeed sitting down in the seat, his face still frozen with the same shocked expression from the past few days.
"Geez Rarity. What did you do to him?" Rainbow Dash asked, prompting an unsure shrug from the white unicorn.
"Ok, we really need to snap him out of this now." Twilight observed.
Applejack scratched her head. "Hmm… lemme try something…" The cowpony slowly inhaled. "FREE GEMSTONE BUFFET!!!" she shouted.
The announcement snapped Spike back to consciousness. "Where? Where? I call dibs on the rubies!" He blinked as he became aware of his surroundings. "Wait... what am I doing in the movie theater?"
Twilight approached her little assistant. "Spike? What was the last thing you remember?"
Spike scratched his head. "I don't know, it's all kinda fuzzy. I remember that package being delivered though. Something about ‘Equestria Girls’ and humans and… oh I remember." He frowned as his memory focused on one particular image from the movie's guidebook.
"YOU TURNED ME INTO A DOG!!!" Spike pointed to Lyra in rage, making the green unicorn scramble back a bit.
Pinkie quickly went to calm Spike down. "It’s ok, Spike. We saw the whole thing already. And you know what, the whole thing isn't that big a deal anyway. I actually loved the movie."
Spike arched an eyebrow in confusion. "You did? Weren't you the one who went on a roaring rampage over the movie in the first place?"
"I got better..." Pinkie giggled nervously.
Rainbow Dash patted Spike on the back. "Trust me. This movie even won me over. I think You’ll love it."
"But… I’m a dog," Spike meekly protest.
"And I'm an alicorn," Twilight countered. "However, I'm still Twilight Sparkle, and you're still Spike. You might have been a dog, but you were still the same old Spike I know and love."
"Besides," Rarity smirked, "I just absolutely loved puppy Spike myself. Do you even know how popular cute puppies are among ladies?"
Spike blushed. "I guess there are a few perks to being a dog."
Twilight laughed. "Tell you what, how about we play the movie again just for you, Spike? That way you can see for yourself."
"I wouldn't mind seeing it again myself!" Pinkie concurred. "I really want to know about some of the specifics that went into..."
WHAM! CRASH!
Pinkie Pie didn't get a chance to finish her thoughts as loud noises came from the theater's back entrance. Evenrypony turned to notice what looked like an amber colored unicorn, with what looked like a red and yellow mane and tail and a sun shaped cutie mark, struggling to levitate several suitcases in front of her.
"Lyra! I made it! I’m here!" the new pony shouted.
Everypony stood frozen as the new pony made her entrance. After watching the movie, they all know who this mysterious newcomer was.
"Sunset Shimmer?" Twilight shouted in confusion.
"Uh oh..." Lyra bit her lip. She quickly went over to help Sunset Shimmer with her luggage.
"Sunset Shimmer is real? We thought you made her up!" Applejack said to Derpy.
Derpy nervously shook her head. "She's really a friend of Lyra's from Fillydelphia."
"Is she mean like in the movie?" Fluttershy began to back away in fear, memories of Sunset's more vile moments playing in her head.
Derpy nervously scratched the back of her head. This would need quite a bit of explanation. "No, not at all! She's really nice. Lyra really wrote her in the movie as an inside joke more than anything."
"But why would Lyra do something like that?" Twilight asked.
Derpy shrugged. "Well, you see..."
While Derpy tried to explain everything to the confused six, Lyra caught up with Sunset Shimmer and helped her with her luggage.
"Sunset? What the heck are you doing here?" Lyra asked her cousin.
"I heard you needed help with your project, so I came as soon as I could from Fillydelphia."
"Uh, thanks for coming Sunset, but the movie is finished now. I’m don't need help anymore."
Sunset frowned in disappointment. "Lyra! I told you I wanted to help."
"I'm sorry Sunset. But there wasn't any time to wait. Trust me, if I had enough time, I would have called you."
"It's ok, I forgive you." Sunset smiled. "So how did everything go?"
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but everything turned out more than fine. In fact, Hasbro's actually going to release it!" Lyra grinned.
Sunset got up from the floor and gasped in amazement. "Really? That’s great! Congratulations Lyra! When can I see it?"
Lyra shrugged nervously. There was one minor detail that she never told Sunset, and that was that she had made her friend the movie's antagonist. The inside joke seemed funny at the time, but now Lyra was starting to regret that decision. "Well I can screen it for you later. I just finished watching it myself with Twilight and her friends and…"
Sunset froze. "Wait… Twilight Sparkle? You mean she’s here?"
"Yeah, she’s over there with Derpy. So are her friends." Lyra pointed over to the other side of the room where the seven ponies were. Sunset's pupils shrunk as she laid her eyes on the purple alicorn. It was her! It was really her! She never thought she would live to see the day, but Sunset Shimmer had finally found Twilight Sparkle.
"Are you ok, Sunset?" Lyra asked.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" Sunset screamed in delight. She ran full gallop towards the group, gaining their attention as she quickly grew closer. Twilight didn't have anytime to teleport herself out of the way before she was glomped by an over-ecstatic Sunset Shimmer.
Sunset began to violently and over-enthusiastically shake Twilight's hoof. "It’s an honor to finally meet you! I’m your biggest fan! Oh my gosh, I’m shaking hooves with Twilight Sparkle!"
"Its… nice to… meet you too… Sunset…" Twilight said while being comically shaken up and down.
Applejack quickly broke the two up, trying to spare Twilight anymore of Sunset's eagerness. "All right, Ah think that’s enough."
"APPLEJACK!!!"
"OOOF!"
Before she knew it, Applejack was caught in a bone-crushing embrace.
"Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! You’re really her! You’re really her!" Sunset's smile had encompassed half her face by this point.
"Need… Oxygen…" the cowpony strained.
Sunset reluctantly let her go, giving Applejack a moment to catch her breath. The newcomer began to notice the rest of the group.
"You’re Pinkie Pie! And you're Rarity! And Spike! *gasp* And Fluttershy!!! Could you cheer for me Fluttershy? Couldyoucouldyoupleeease?"
"Um, yay?"
Sunset jumped up and down and squeed. "EEEEEEEEEE!!! She did it! She did it!" Sunset finally noticed the cyan pegasus of the group, whose mouth was locked open in shock.
"Rainbow Dash! 20% cooler in 10 seconds flat. I salute your awesomeness, you wonderful mare you!" Sunset gave her a salute. Rainbow Dash remained shocked.
"Something wrong?" Sunset asked.
"You're Sunset Shimmer?!?" Rainbow Dash yelled in disbelief.
Sunset Shimmer gasped. "Wait. You know who I am? Did Lyra tell you guys about me?"
"Not everything," Lyra chuckled nervously. "I never mentioned that she's a really big fan of the show."
Sunset nodded proudly. "I really am! I’ve seen all of your adventures, and I absolutely love them! I love everything that you and your friends do, from saving Equestria to just singing a song! And I especially love it when you sing, Twilight. You have such a beautiful singing voice."
Twilight blushed. "Well, gee. Thank you!"
"And your songs just have so much heart to them." Sunset cleared her throat and closed her eyes as she began to sing.
"I was prepared to do my best Thought I could handle any test For I can do so many tricks But I wasn't prepared for this. Levitation would have been a..."
Sunset opened her eyes and noticed nine sets of jaws dropped from eight shocked ponies and one shocked dragon.
"Did I do something wrong?" she asked.
Rainbow Dash shook her head. "That was… freakishly good."
"It was like Twilight herself was singing." Fluttershy noted.
Twilight put a hoof to her forehead, trying to figure out how Sunset was able to pull off such a spot on impression. "How is this even possible? Sing another song, Sunset."
Sunset cleared her throat again.
"The time has come to welcome spring and all things warm and green…"
Before Sunset could sing the next line, Twilight cut in. "But it’s also time to say goodbye, it’s winter we must clean…
"How can I help, I’m new you see. What does everypony do?"
"How do I fit in without magic?"
"I haven't got a clue!" Sunset and Twilight finished the last line in unison.
The impromptu duet stunned everyone speechless. All except Derpy, who had her eyes closed and singing to herself.
"Winter wrap up, Winter wrap up!. Let’s finish up our…" The grey pegasus stopped as she became aware that her little sing-along had garnered everypony's attention. "What? It’s catchy!" she protested.
"Sunset, how did you do that?" Spike asked.
"It just came naturally, I guess," Sunset shrugged.
"I don’t know whether to be impressed or scared right now," Twilight muttered to herself.
Pinkie smiled awkwardly. "So... it’s nice to meet you, Sunset."
Sunset grinned. "The honor’s all mine! How did you hear about me, anyway?"
"Let’s just say that Lyra made you a major character in her movie," Rainbow Dash answered.
Sunset did a double take. "She did?!? What do I do, Lyra?" She gasped as she drew what she thought was the only logical conclusion. "You wrote me in as the seventh Element of Harmony did you? I can picture it now. Twilight Sparkle and her new best friend Sunset Shimmer saving the day from the forces of evil!"
The large room suddenly became uncomfortably small for the ponies who had seen the movie. They all smiled a nervous grin.
"Uh, you ain't exactly Twilight’s friend in the movie, sugarcube." Applejack pointed out.
The news caught Sunset off guard. "I’m not? Then what am I?"
Sunset Shimmer was bowing profusely at Twilight's hooves begging for forgiveness for her despicable actions on the screen. Rainbow Dash had her watch out as she was timing how long she had been repenting.
"How long has it been, Rainbow?" Rarity wondered.
Rainbow Dash took a look at her watch. "She just broke Fluttershy's apology record. That's actually impressive!"
After several previously unsuccessful attempts, Twilight was finally able to stop Sunset from apologizing. "It’s ok, Sunset. That wasn’t really you up there, remember? You never did any of that."
"I know," Sunset sniffed. "Lyra, how could you make me do all those things?"
"I’m really, really sorry, Sunset." Lyra said carefully. "It was an inside joke for me. I thought it would have been funny if I made you the antagonist in this movie."
"But... I was so mean..."
Applejack smiled. "The good news is that you got better at the end of the movie, and you also become our friend too! That counts for something, right?"
"I guess..." Sunset smiled a sad smile.
"Besides, you looked awesome as the bad guy." Rainbow Dash added.
"But that’s not really me."
"It's ok," Rarity reassured the unicorn. "You should see how Diamond Tiara really acts with the Cutie Mark Crusaders. She's actually really sweet."
"I hope I get a chance to meet them."
"You know," Twilight started to suggest, "We might as well introduce you to everypony at this point. After all, you are a part of the show now."
Sunset Shimmer's heart nearly stopped when she heard Twilight say those words. "I am?"
Fluttershy nodded. "It’s only fair. After all, you are in the movie and it is getting released."
Pinkie could only shrug. "This is probably the weirdest way we've ever brought anypony onto the show. But still, welcome to the ‘Friendship is Magic’ family, Sunset Shimmer."
Sunset squeed. "I’m a real part of the show! This is a dream come true! I used to wonder what friendship could be! Until you…"
Sunset could not continue as a purple hoof covered her mouth.
Lyra looked around nervously. "Well, how about I show you around Ponyville, Sunset?"
"I’d love to!" Sunset gleamed. The two cousins began to walk out of the theater. "Do you think we could meet Cheerilee? Or how about Mayor Mare? Or Big MacIntosh! Oh, I have such a crush on him!"
"You and everypony else in Equestria" Lyra muttered under her breath
Everypony else watched as Lyra and Sunset left the theater hall.
"Well, ain’t that something?" Applejack chuckled.
Spike was still dumbfounded by the unexpected visit. "Who knew that Sunset Shimmer was that big a fan girl."
"I could only imagine what Flash Sentry would be like." Rarity wondered.
"He’s a very nice royal guard," Derpy noted. "I get to see him sometimes whenever Cadence comes over to visit Chrysalis."
"And what was Lyra’s special reason why she wrote him in the movie?" Spike asked.
Derpy smiled sheepishly. "Well, I kinda owed him 50 bits from a poker game. Lyra wrote him in the script to make up for it."
Twilight arched an eyebrow "Really? Well that answers that question I guess."
"At least that sideplot didn’t take too much away from the main story," Pinkie shrugged.
"Or the one about me being a dog," Spike added.
Rainbow Dash turned to Spike, "So what did you think of the movie?"
"You guys were right," Spike chuckled. "The dog thing wasn't really a big deal after all. Besides, that movie rocked!"
Twilight giggled. "It really did, Spike. And it's made me very curious about inter-dimensional travels. I have to see if I can borrow any books from Celestia about that."
"Well, you could always just step through the mirror and find out for yourself," Derpy suggested.
Twilight laughed. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that really doesn't exist."
"Besides," Rarity elaborated, "we were all over the Crystal Empire this past year, and we never saw it."
"The mirror isn’t in the Crystal Empire," Derpy explained. "It’s still in Canterlot."
That bit of information grabbed everypony's attention.
"You see, Derpy began. "Lyra had originally planned for Twilight to miscast a spell to send her to the human world in the movie. But then Chrysalis told us about the mirror and how it works, so we used that instead. But we added that 30 moons bit to create a bit of urgency for the movie. The mirror is really active every full moon."
"So the mirror is real after all?" Twilight asked.
"Yep!"
Twilight put a hoof to her chin. "Hmm…"
~~~~~
It wasn't long before the next full moon shone over Equestria, activating the mirror's magical pathway. Twilight Sparkle found herself face to face with the mirror. She was surrounded in the castle's mirror room by her five friends, the two royal sisters, and her number one assistant.
"Are you sure about this, Twilight?" Princess Celestia asked. "Nopony has stepped through the mirror in ages, and I’m fairly certain that the world that lies at the other end is not the same one from Lyra’s movie. This could be dangerous."
Twilight sighed. "I’m sorry your highness, but I just need to know. If it looks too dangerous, I promise I’ll come right back. But there’s a whole world on the other side of that mirror and I need to know just what it is."
"Just remember the homing spell," Luna said. "Should you get lost along your way, you can use it to find your way back to the mirror on your side."
Twilight nodded. "Trust me, I will."
Twilight turned to her friends. Much like the events of the movie, that had all argued to go along with her, but the issue of keeping the worlds balanced forced them to stay behind and to leave the traveling to just herself and Spike. Everypony had agreed that Spike would more than likely run in after her like he did in 'Equestria Girls', so they simply allowed Spike to join Twilight from the outset.
"Well, I’m just about set, girls," Twilight informed her friends.
"There’s absolutely no way we can talk you out of this, huh?" Pinkie asked.
Twilight smiled an apologetic smile. "It's ok. It’s just for a little while. I promise I’ll be fine."
With a few tears in everypony's eyes, the six friends shared a loving group hug.
"Good luck, Twilight." "Be strong, Twi." "Be safe." "We’ll be here waiting." "We love you, Twilight."
"Thanks girls." Twilight wiped a tear from her eye. Taking a deep breath, she broke away from the group hug and trotted right in front of the mirror, her number one assistant right by her side.
"Ready, Spike?"
Spike smiled. "Even if I turn into a dog, I'm ready."
Twilight exhaled. "Ok then, here we go."
Without any hesitation, Twilight and Spike stepped into the mirror. Almost instantaneously, the mirror's magic pulled on the two of them as they spiraled into a whole new dimension.
<><><><><>
"Ugh… my head…"
Consciousness was slowly returning to Twilight. She slowly opened her eyes, mentally preparing herself for whatever this new strange universe would throw at her. She absolutely did not expect what she got when she opened her eyes. The same exact room she left from. She took a quick glance at her hooves. Yep, still hooves. She was still a pony.
Well, I guess it didn't work. I'm right back where I started. she thought. Her voice did sounded a bit off, it seemed much lower than normal actually, but she brushed that concern aside as a side effect from her waking back up.
"You’re back already? Geez, what kind of a lame trip was that anyway?" a deep voice shouted from the other side of the room. Twilight blinked. She didn't recognize that voice. It was rough, edgy, and most telling of all, it was undoubtedly male.
Twilight turned to see that she was face to face with a blue cyan pegasus with a multi-hued mane, hovering just above from her. She would have labeled this pony as Rainbow Dash. The cutie mark was right, but Rainbow Dash wasn't as big as this pony, or had as sharp a muzzle, or had her mane up in spikes, or had her eyebrows made up as lightning bolts. And the last time she checked, Rainbow Dash definitely never had a p... Sweet Celestia! Rainbow Dash was a stallion!
"Rainbow Dash?!?" Twilight shouted in alarm.
The pegasus arched an eyebrow in confusion. "Rainbow Dash? What the… Have you been reading that fanfic again, Dusk?"
Twilight slowly turned her head around to where her other four friends and the two royal sisters were standing when she stepped through the mirror. And there they all were, all six of them. All six stallions.
Twilight recoiled in horror at the sight of her friends and mentors as stallions. She backpedaled away from them, much to their confusion. Wha... what happened to everypony?
"Ugh… no more ice cream please." Spike muttered as he stirred awake. He immediately noticed his dragon claws. "Hey sweet! I’m not a dog!"
Twilight did a double take. It looked like Spike, but this baby dragon looked more feminine than normal.
"Spike?"
Spike didn't recognize the deep voice at first. He turned around to see who called his name. His jaw dropped as he realized that voice belonged to a young purple alicorn stallion.
"Twilight? Wha... What happened to you?"
"What do you mean what happened to…" Twilight grabbed her throat in alarm. It wasn't a hallucination. It really was deeper. "My voice!" Twilight scrambled as she finally took notice of the changes that had occured to her body. "My mane! My muzzle!" Twilight blanched as she felt another change down below. "My… my…"
"Your pride?" Spike suggested.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Twilight screamed. She then began to hyperventilate, unable to cope with the shock of being turned into a stallion.
Spike on the other hand, was finally noticing that he was now a girl. This is probably the second worse thing that could happen to me. At least it can't get any worse, he thought.
"Uh, could somepony please explain to us just what in Solaris’ name is going on here?" the white unicorn stallion asked.
Spike froze as he recognized the stallion's color scheme, and his cutie mark.
"Rarity?" he squeaked. Overwhelmed, Spike fainted unconscious to the ground.
"Rarity? Why did Barb say that?" the yellow pegasus stallion asked.
The orange stallion scratched his head. "That mirror must have done something to their brains."
"Brother, do you know what might have caused Dusk to act this way?" the blue prince asked.
"I think I have a hunch, Artemis." He stepped forward and addressed Twilight. "Do not be alarmed. I am Prince Solaris, ruler of Equestria. And that is my brother, Prince Artemis. I understand that you’re distressed right now but I must ask you a question. Do anyone of us look familiar to you?"
Twilight stammered. "No! I mean, Yes! I mean… I don’t know anymore."
The orange earth stallion quickly grabbed Twilight in alarm. "Dusk, it’s us! We’re you’re friends remember? That’s Bubble Berry, Butterscotch, Elusive, Rainbow Blitz, and Ah’m Applejack." He pointed to the pink, yellow, white and cyan stallions respectively before pointing to himself.
Twilight shook her head. "But you can’t be Applejack! You look like her but, you’re not…"
Applejack blinked. "Hold on, Ah look like her?"
Butterscotch's eyes went wide as he started to realize what was going on. "Wait a minute… It is just like that fanfic! The one where we accidentally wind up in an alternate dimension where we meet our genderswapped selves!"
Bubble Berry gasped. "The rule 63 universe! The fans really were onto something!"
"Rule 63?" Rainbow Blitz shouted. "You mean to tell me there’s a universe where that filly-faker actually exists?"
Elusive rolled his eyes. "We just saw Harpsy’s movie where we were all humans. You shouldn’t be that surprised."
"Besides, judging from the fanart Hasbro sent us, ya make for a cute filly RB," Applejack smirked, which prompted a very audible annoyed growl from Rainbow Blitz.
Bubble Berry, meanwhile, finished connecting the dots. "So if we are dealing with the rule 63 universe, then that means you’re not Dusk Shine. You’re… Twilight Sparkle?"
Twilight nodded. She then fell on her now-male haunches and began to sob. "I want to go home. I don’t want to be a stallion."
Applejack put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "It’s ok, it’ll be all right… er… sugarcube? Is that what Ah say over there?"
"I guess so," Bubble Berry shrugged.
Elusive was lost deep in his thoughts. "So the other side of the mirror is the genderswapped universe. Interesting…"
"Hmph.. I’ll show that Rainbow Dash a thing or two…" Rainbow Blitz crossed his hooves as he grumbled.
Solaris sighed. "Well, we better make miss Twilight Sparkle and Spike as comfortable as possible before they are able to return home."
Butterscotch froze as a chilling realization came to him. "Wait guys. If Twilight is here, that means Dusk is…"
Everypony in the room froze as the came across the same thought.
Elsewhere...
A purple alicorn stallion-turned-mare sat on the floor in the fetal position, stroking his tail in comfort, tears streaking from his eyes. The pony's baby dragon companion had passed out cold upon seeing a completely different version of her beloved Elusive. The seven other mares in the room look on nervously.
"I’m a proud stallion! I’m a proud stallion! I’m a proud stallion!" The alicorn repeated that mantra again and again.
"We might want to consider locking that mirror up when Twilight gets back." Pinkie suggested.
In the couple of weeks since the premiere screening of Equestria Girls, Lyra felt on top of the world. It seemed like everyday somepony was flagging her down on the street just to rave to her about how much they had enjoyed the movie. Sure there were a couple of ponies with some harsher criticisms, but after what she went through with Pinkie, she was able to take it all in stride. It didn't take away from what was a very positive reception, and Lyra enjoyed every second of praise she got.
However, things had changed very drastically over the past couple of days. Not only did the adulation stopped, everypony was actively avoiding contact with her. She couldn't even manage to get a simple 'How are you' or 'Nice weather today, huh?' from anypony. Even the Mane Six were giving her the silent treatment. Lyra couldn't understand what might have happened to make everypony react to her this way. She tried talking to Bon Bon and Derpy about all this, but the two of them assured her that it was all in her head. That wasn't enough to convince Lyra that something fishy wasn't going on. So in order to ease her mind, Lyra had agreed to take up Derpy's offer to join her and Chrysalis on one of their muffin outings.
"Thanks for inviting me again, you two," Lyra told the two muffin buddies as they walked down the streets of Ponyville, heading towards the train station.
"No problem! The more the merrier, I always say!" Derpy smiled.
"Besides, Discord refuses to wear the muffin costume anymore, so we need a replacement," Chrysalis added.
"Muffin costume?" Lyra asked. "Just what do you guys do with these muffin parties anyway, Derpy?"
Derpy laughed nervously. "I’ll explain later. Anyway, before we leave, do you mind if we stop at Sweet Apple Acres first? I need to pick up some apples for my new muffin recipe I wanted to try."
Lyra shrugged. "I don’t mind. Maybe I’ll be able to get an actual conversation with Applejack this time."
"It is strange how everypony seemed to stop talking to you," Chrysalis noticed.
"I don’t get it though," Lyra sighed. "I thought everypony liked Equestria Girls. Why is everypony acting like this?"
"Well at the very least, let’s straighten things out with Applejack while we have the chance," Derpy suggested.
The three continued their way towards the train station until Derpy suddenly stopped in her tracks.
"Oh no!" she shouted. "I forgot my recipe book at home! I gotta go back!"
"I’ll help you find it. I think I know where you left it," Chrysalis volunteered. "We have to hurry though or else we’ll miss the train."
"Lyra? Could you do us a huge favor and get the apples from Applejack? We’ll meet you at the train station!"
Before Lyra had a chance to answer her pegasus friend, Derpy and Chrysalis ran off at full speed back towards the house.
"Guess I have no choice," Lyra said to herself. With a sigh, she continued down the road towards Sweet Apple Acres by herself.
Meanwhile down the road, Derpy and Chrysalis looked back to see Lyra trotting away. The plan had been working perfectly thus far. The both snickered at the thought of what Lyra was about to experience at the farm. Instead of continuing to the house, they ducked in between two buildings, where Princess Luna was waiting for them.
"She’s on her way! I don't think she's caught on yet," Chrysalis informed the princess.
Luna smiled. "Excellent. Now we need to hurry and teleport quickly if we want time to get ourselves ready. Now hold still..."
Derpy squealed. "This is gonna be great!"
Luna began to concentrate on casting the spell, creating a bright flash which came from her horn. When the light faded, the three ponies were gone.
~~~~~
Usually, Sweet Apple Acres was a busy farm. There was always some sort of chore Applejack, Big MacIntosh, or anypony else were doing around the farm, even during the later stages of the day. But this particular evening, the apple orchard was quiet. Nopony bucking. Nopony farming. Nothing. This was it for Lyra. Something fishy was going on.
Ok, this is getting ridiculous. They couldn't have known I was coming. Where is everypony? she wondered.
Lyra made her way over to the main farmhouse to knock on the door. Before she could she noticed a sign taped to the front door. Curious, Lyra took the sign and read it.
'Currently busy in the main storage barn. Come find me there. -Applejack.'
"Well, I guess that explains where she is, then."
Lyra continued to make her way through Sweet Apple Acres until she made it to the storage barn. The front door was opened slightly, so it looked like somepony was inside. But the inside of the barn looked dark from where she stood. Lyra gulped. She started to get a horrifying vibe from the situation. She slowly made her way to the door and carefully creaked it open. The inside of the barn was pitch black. She couldn't even make out any silhouettes at first.
"Hello? Applejack? Is anypony in here?"
Lyra heard Applejack's voice respond to her. "Sorry! There’s no pony in here, sugarcube!"
"What? How can there be nopony in…"
The lights switched on.
"SURPRISE!!!"
Lyra shrieked as she came face to face with the surprise party. The interior of the barn was remade to resemble the Fall Formal, just like the way it was in her movie. A large banner reading "Canterlot High School Fall Formal" hung from the ceiling. However impressive the work was to recreate the dance hall, Lyra was left stupefied by the party goers themselves. The Mane Six, The Cutie Mark Crusaders, Trixie, Big Mac, Vinyl & Octavia, Sunset Shimmer, and even Derpy & Chrysalis! Everypony was here, but... everypony wasn't a pony. Everypony was human! Not just human, they had all become their Equestria Girls counterpart! Even Chrysalis looked like her default form than somepony, or someone else. Lyra couldn't process it, but Equestria Girls had been brought to life!
"Welcome to the Canterlot High Fall Formal, Lyra!" Twilight shouted. "We’ve been waiting for you!"
To say that Lyra was shocked would have been an understatement. "Twilight?!? What… How… When… what’s going on!?!"
"We’re having a party to celebrate Equestria Girls," Pinkie explianed. "You said you never had a wrap up party, remember?"
"How… how the hay did you guys change like that? This isn't a changeling trick, right?" Lyra asked.
A voice from just outside the barn answered Lyra's question. "No, this isn't a changeling trick."
The green unicorn turned to see the voice belonged to Princess Luna. She was joined by Princess Celestia and by Discord. Unlike everyone else, the three still looked like their normal selves.
"They needed a little help from us," Discord told Lyra.
"It’s a complex transformation spell," Celestia answered. "It was a bit tricky, but as you can see it can be pulled off."
"At any rate, the party’s almost ready!" Pinkie announced. "We’re just missing one minor detail."
"What is that?" Lyra wondered.
Luna smirked. "You might want to hold still for a little bit, Lyra."
Before Lyra could react, Celestia, Luna and Discord all focus their magic energy on Lyra, enveloping the four in a brilliant ball of magic. When the magic surge faded, the unicorn, the draconequus, and the two royal alicorns had all transformed. Celestia and Luna had taken up their Principal/Vice-Principal forms from the movie, and Discord now looked the part of an older school administrator, with a sharp business suit to match. Lyra, meanwhile, had transformed into a form she never really had time to imagine, herself in Equestria Girls. She was now wearing a yellow top and a light green skirt with her lyre cutie mark stitched on its side. As nice as the outfit was, it never really caught her eye. What Lyra immediately fixed in on were her new appendages at the ends of her now human arms. She wiggled her new fingers in front of her face.
"Hands… I have hands!" Lyra couldn't contain her tears of joy from temporarily blurring her vision. Before she was able to explore her new body further, she was suddenly embraced by a blonde-haired girl who bore a very strong resemblance to Derpy. She also noticed another girl bearing a strong resemblance to her roommate Bon Bon coming her way too.
"Lyra, you look amazing!" Derpy shouted.
Bon Bon chuckled. "I hope this means you’ll stop bugging me about hands now."
Lyra nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. I can't believe this! This is a dream come true! I… don’t know what to think right now."
"Enjoy it, Lyra. You earned it!" Pinkie smiled.
"I have to know, though. What made you guys do all this?" Lyra asked.
Rarity decided to answer. "If you want specifics, this all came about from the latest letter we received from Hasbro a few days ago."
"What did it say?"
"Well, Spike has the letter. How about I let him deliver the letter to you, Lyra." Twilight turned towards the stage behind her. "Come on out, Spike!" she shouted.
Lyra laughed in disbelief as a small purple and green dog emerged from behind the stage. Spike scurried towards Lyra with a parchment in his mouth. He then sat down in front of her, eagerly wagging his tail.
"You actually agreed to be a dog, Spike?" Lyra asked as she took the parchment from his mouth.
"Rarity’s paying me in back rubs and ear scratches. Totally worth it!" Spike grinned. "Besides, I'd take this over what we really went through on the other side of that mirror."
The very mention of the alternate universe made Twilight blush. Rainbow Dash crossed her arms, still annoyed at the universe's existance. "I bet that copycolt doesn't even know the meaning of the word awesome," she grumbled.
Pinkie cleared her throat. "Read the letter, Lyra."
Lyra looked at the parchment and read out loud. "From Hasbro: We would like to offer our congratulations on the success of your movie. Despite initial backlash from the consumers and the fans, ‘My Little Pony: Equestria Girls’ was well received by its audience. To our surprise, several within the brony community have even come to embrace it alongside the main ‘Friendship is Magic’ show. We look forward to working with you to further explore ‘Equestria Girls’ in the future. To everypony in Equestria, congratulations on yet another job well done and keep up the good work. Signed Hasbro HQ. Hold on. Does this mean…"
Fluttershy nodded. "Equestria Girls was a hit! And it sounds like Hasbro might want more of Equestria Girls down the road!"
"There’s a problem though," Rainbow Dash pointed out. "The six of us are going to be busy with Friendship is Magic to worry about doing anything related to Equestria Girls."
"Besides, none of us were really in it, so we really wouldn’t know what to do," Rarity shrugged.
"So we need someone else we can turn to that can handle this," Applejack said.
Derpy grinned. "I think I know somepony who might be up for that job." She grabbed one of Lyra's arms and raised it high, 'volunteering' Lyra for the job.
Twilight looked at her pink friend. "I don't know, Pinkie. Do you think we can trust her?"
Pinkie smiled. "I think she'll be perfect. From now on, Lyra, whenever we need something related to Equestria Girls, it goes straight to you. How does that sound?"
"I think I can handle that" Lyra chuckled.
Pinkie held out her hand. "This is my first handshake," she realized.
"Mine too!" Lyra laughed as she shook Pinkie's hand. "I can't believe you guys went through all this trouble."
"We wanted to go all out for this party. In fact, we're even crowning our own Fall Formal Princess later tonight!" Derpy said.
"Speaking of which, why don't we get this party started?" Twilight suggested.
"That sounds like an excellent idea," Celestia replied. The princess-turned-principal started to make her way to the main stage along with Twilight and the rest of her friends. Applejack grabbed Lyra by her arm.
"You're coming with us!" the cowgirl said. Lyra yelped as Applejack dragged her onto the stage.
Bon Bon smiled as she watched Lyra head towards the stage. "You were right, Derpy. This party was a great idea."
"It was a bit tricky to pull off, but it came together wonderfully so far," Luna said, pouring herself a glass of fruit punch.
Chrysalis turned to Discord. "By the way, who are you supposed to be?"
Discord smirked. "Isn’t it obvious? I’m Counselor Discord!"
Discord mock title for himself made Derpy groan. "Why didn’t we think of that?"
Meanwhile, Celestia, the Mane 6 and Lyra had all made their way to the main stage. Celestia grabbed the microphone that was set up. She cleared her throat to grab the attention of everyone in the room before she began her official welcome.
"Greetings fillies and… pardon me... Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fall Formal! Before we begin, I would like to remind you to cast your vote for the princess of the Fall Formal for later tonight. So with that said, as “Principal” of Canterlot High School, I declare the Fall Formal officially open!" Celestia's announcement brought a huge cheer from the crowd.
"Hit it, Vinyl!" Pinkie shouted.
From her DJ stand, Vinyl Scratch was busy twirling a record on one of her fingers. "Heh, I could get used to this." She set the record down on the turntable. "LET’S ROCK!"
A familiar beat began to play through the speakers, the song from the movie's Fall Formal, 'This is Our Big Night'. On the stage, Rarity nudged Lyra front and center as the music started to play. With smiles and nods of encouragements from the six friends, and with everyone on the floor dancing, Lyra started to sing.
"This is our big night! We made it happen, now let's party all night! We're here now and we worked so hard to make it come around, To tonight so let's try to make it last forever, Cool lights so bright, beat is pumping through the night, Party's starting, DJ's got the music just right!"
Everyone else on stage joined in.
"Six friends on their way up now, Six friends here to show you how, This is our big night! This is our big night! This is our big night!"
Everyone cheered as the song came to a close.
Later that night...
After several hours of singing and dancing, most of the party-goers were now simply engaging in small talk, many of them still raving about their new human forms. It was a dream come true for mare/girl of the hour. Lyra had always been fascinated by those mysterious humans who watched the show, and she came up with Equestria Girls as an extension of her fantasy. Never in a million moons would she have guessed that her fantasy would be realized like this. As far as Lyra was concerned, this was the greatest night of her life. For everyone else, this night was going to go down as one of Ponyville's biggest and best party ever.
At the moment, Lyra, Derpy, Sunset Shimmer, and Chrysalis were talking to the Mane Six. Twilight quickly excused herself to get some more punch. As she reached out to get a new cup, she accidentally bumped into someone. Twilight gasped as she recognized this person from the movie, spiked blue hair, black jacket and all.
"Flash Sentry?" Twilight shouted.
"Twilight?" Flash shouted.
Twilight blinked.
Flash Sentry blinked.
They both blushed.
"Bye!" They quickly said in unison before dashing off in opposite directions. Twilight sighed in relief as she got away from Flash Sentry. She made her way back to her friends and their conversation about the movie with its cast and crew.
"So you were Twilight for the entire movie, weren’t you Chrysalis?" Fluttershy asked.
Chrysalis shrugged. "For the most part, there were a few scenes where I was playing someone else though. Like remember when ‘Pinkie’ figured out where you really came from?"
Applejack's eyes widened. "That was you?"
Chrysalis nodded. "Do you even know how hard it was to play Pinkie Pie? I took me like ten takes before I nailed that line!"
"Honestly, sometimes even I don't know how I do it. Even I can’t be completely hyperactive all the time. I save the ‘crazy’ stuff for the show." Pinkie smiled nervously. In reality, her crazy on-screen persona was thanks in large part of her living with the spirit of a hyperactive white pegasus.
"You wanna talk crazy?" Rainbow Dash cut in. "How about the climax of that movie! I mean demon transformations? Zombie teenagers? That’s awesomeness on a level I can’t even figure out!"
"I said I was sorry!" Sunset Shimmer apologized.
"We know, Sunset. We know." Twilight said, taking a sip of her punch. "I have to say that I kinda liked how the antagonist played out in the story. It worked for a high school story, especially having 'Sunset' break everyone apart like she did. It was a great contrast to regular everyday Equestria."
"Well," Lyra started to explain, "I figured the best way to illustrate friendship in the movie as opposed to the show was to break you guys up. That way, it would show the difference between driving friends apart, and bringing them together. I thought it was a brilliant stroke of storytelling myself. I was proud to come up with that plotline!" Lyra posed proudly over her brilliance.
Derpy scratched her head. "Wait, isn’t that essentially the plotline for ‘Return to Harmony' though?"
Lyra froze as she realized Derpy was right.
"Well, so much for originality," Rainbow Dash shrugged.
Twin streaks of tears flowed from Lyra's eyes. "I thought I was being a genius," she sniffed.
Pinkie patted Lyra on her shoulder. "It's ok. We recycled a few plotlines ourselves."
Meanwhile, Celestia and Luna took to the main stage, with Luna carrying Twilight's crown on an ornate purple pillow. It was Twilight's idea to use her crown for the party for this one time, and with Celestia and Luna's care. Celestia took the microphone and cleared her throat, garnering everyone's attention.
"Could I have everyone's attention please? It’s almost time to announce the princess of the Fall Formal! Now before we announce the winner, we have to thank Twilight Sparkle for lending her crown...."
While Celestia continued her speech, Applejack leaned in and whispered to Twilight. "Who do you think is going to win?"
Twilight smiled. "Well, I don’t want to brag, but I did win in it fair and square in the movie, and that is my crown. So, I think it should only be appropriate that I win here."
Sunset Shimmer shook her head. "I don’t know. I think they’ll feel sorry for ‘me’ at the end and make me princess instead! Everyone loves a good comeback story."
Lyra frowned. "Excuse me, but we’re celebrating my movie, so naturally I should win!"
Sunset laughed. "Not to sound like my jerky movie self, but you don’t stand a chance! I'm going to win!"
Twilight growled. "Whose crown is that anyway? It's mine! I'm the princess!"
The three began to argue for a few moments before Fluttershy and Rarity broke them up.
"STOP! Don’t fight! Remember what happened to us in the movie?" Fluttershy reminded everyone. The three girls looked down embarrased.
"Fluttershy’s right," Rarity went on. "This isn’t some life or death scenario. It’s just a temporary honor spurned by a popularity contest. It’s unhealthy to start a fight or ruin a friendship over this."
Twilight slowly nodded. "You’re right Rarity."
Rarity smiled. "Good, now if one of you do win, just remember not to rub it in anyone’s face. Be humble. After all, humility is an important trait for a princess."
Everyone turned their attention back towards the stage as Celestia announced the winner.
"... And so, the princess of the Fall Formal is…. Rarity!"
Everyone cheered. Twilight, Sunset Shimmer, and Lyra's jaw dropped. Rarity's pupils shrank as she heard her name.
"All right! Way to go, Rarity!!!" Spike shouted, his tail wagging in delight.
"I won?" Rarity asked in disbelief.
Despite the unexpected results, Twilight smiled. "Congratulations Rarity."
Rarity stood frozen in shock. Applejack waved her hand in front of her.
"You ok there, Rarity?"
"MINE!!!"
Rarity shoved her friends aside and ran up to the stage. She unceremoniously yanked the crown from Luna's hand, bumping her to the floor in the process. She held the crown in her hand, a manic smile on her face.
"At long last, it’s mine. It’s Mine! THE CROWN IS MIIIINE! BOW DOWN BEFORE BEST PONY! HAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Rarity laughed maniacally as she placed the crown on her head. Her laughing suddenly stopped as she noticed the nervous stares pointed towards her from every part of the room. Rarity shifted her eyes awkwardly a few times before she gathered her senses, speaking again in a calm, ladylike manner.
"I mean, thank you ever so much for the honor, everyone. I really appreciate it." With that, Rarity stepped off the stage as gracefully as she could despite the embarrassing display.
"I think the comics were onto something," Rainbow Dash whispered into Pinke's ear.
Pinkie nodded slowly. "So, how about we end the party right now?"
Lyra objected. "Wait! I have something I want to say first." She then made her way onto the stage and to the microphone.
"Excuse me everyone?" Lyra began, catching everyone's attention, "Before we all go home tonight, I just want to say thank you! I’m still a bit shocked over everything right now. I never thought when I started putting Equestria Girls together that I would ever see anything like this. It was one thing to have everypony like it, but to see you all embrace it like this is… it’s more than I could have ever imagined. Being a so-called background pony, I used to think that no one would ever appreciate anything I come up with. Thanks to my friends, I don’t think that way anymore. But still, I never expected to see all this happen. I don't think I can say it enough, but thank you for giving Equestria Girls a chance, and thank you all for this party."
Everyone cheered as Lyra finished, a few started chanting Lyra's name. She simply bowed before she walked off the stage, rejoining her friends. Derpy had to wipe a few tears from her eyes.
"That was beautiful, Lyra!" Derpy sniffed.
Bon Bon hugged Lyra. "I just have to say thank you, too. Thanks for being my roommate, and my best friend."
"Thanks Bon Bon. Thanks Derpy." Lyra had to fight back her own tears. "Hey, what do you say we get back home now? I'm getting a bit sleepy."
Bon Bon smiled. "I don't have a problem with that."
Lyra turned to Pinkie Pie. "So how do we change back, Pinkie?"
"Oh, that’s easy! You see we… uh… um…." Pinkie hesitated as she was unable to answer that question. She turned to Twilight. "Hey Twilight? How do we change back?"
"That’s a very good question!" Twilight grinned. She immediately turned to Celestia. "Princess Celestia? How do we change back?"
Princess Celestia froze.
Luna's jaw dropped. "Don't tell me..."
"Um… oops?" Celestia squeaked an apology smile.
The entire room hushed silent as they realized that they were all stuck as humans. Pinkie facepalmed and walked out of the dance hall.
