Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship(Season 1)

by Barrobroadcaster

Plan X Part 4

Twilight couldn't focus her eyes. It was like she wasn't even able to stare at something, to look beyond an object in deep contemplation because of the reality of what was revealed to her. It was so close, so overwhelming that it was locking her in the present. She was unable to lose herself in thought because the thought of the princesses being complicit in murder was anchoring her mind to reality. It was like being in an emotional haze, the record of the mind constantly scratching over the same unpleasant note.

Spike tugged at her mane. "Twilight?"

"I'm... fine," Twilight uttered. "I'm fine. I just... is the room spinning? I feel like it should be spinning."

"Could probably add that to the floor plans of the next treehouse," Phoenix commented. (And if I know Dan, Golden Oaks 2.0 will be even more... Dan-ier than the current one.)

Chrys applied a comfort hoof to Twilight's shoulder. "Umm..." The changeling queen was at a loss of what to do for a moment. She quickly changed into Celestia, then Luna, then back to herself. "Sorry! I'm uh, nervous. I mean- what I mean is... err..." she looked around the room. "Things could get worse?"

"Ponyville is about to be destroyed. And WE'RE going to destroy it," Twilight stated. "I have no idea where we're going or how we're going to get settled when we do. The bad guy we've been fighting might ACTUALLY be right about stuff, Princess Bucking Celestia AND PRINCESS LUNA MIGHT HAVE TRIED TO COVER UP A MURDER. Equestria may have been built on a LIE. How can things POSSIBLY get any worse?!"

Dan smashed through the hallway door. "AAAHHH! GET IT OFF ME!!" The vacuum cleaner he'd used to suck up the Director was now trying to suck off his face.

"Holy crap!"
"She's still in the vacuum!"

"IT'S NOT EVEN PLUGGED IN! HOW IS IT STILL SUCKING?!!" Dan yelled, grappling with the cleaner. "GET IT OFF MY FACE!!"

Fun fact about magic: disabling an opponent was a common tactic in magical combat. Most spells had counters, there were offensive and defensive spells and fights often flowed from one attack to the next, with good spellcasters being able to put out lots of combinations and turn a block into a counterattack with grace. So, one of the easiest ways to eliminate your opponent was to make it so they could not use spells. Disabling, incapacitating, confining them, all were effective because magic usually required a physical conduit to be effective. If your opponent was unable to snap their fingers, use a wand or horn or recite an incantation, you had the upper hoof. This is why sucking up Cleo into a vacuum was incredibly effective; in a compacted nebulous state, it was harder for her to use magic, despite that her magic was some of the most potent in Equestria.

And for the fact that the vacuum had sucked up a lot of Fluffle Puff's loose fluff and it was counteracting her attempts to break out with pure love.

"Get back!" Twilight 'bubbled' Dan, meaning surrounding him in a basic bubble shield. This cut off the vacuum's suction and detached it from his face. The vacuum lunged at Twilight next, but she quickly used her magic to tie its neck into a knot, then blasted it out the window. Well, a hole in the wall next to the window, probably with a little bit more power than was necessary.

Dan rubbed his neck as he got up. "That... could've gone better. And quicker."

Phoenix looked at the hole in the wall. The new one. "At least we won't have to worry about patching that up any time soon."

Dan ignored the comment; fixing up the house was something he enjoyed doing. "It won't take long for the Director to get out of that bag and when she does, she'll probably team up with Rice. We're doing this now, let's go."

They entered the command center/control room. It alternated names to confuse invaders. The control room was built into the core of the tree itself, which the housing for the ion cannon encased. But the self-destruct mechanism hadn't originally been built into the library- it was in the power plant nearby. Dan had just modified things after learning about it so that it could be activated from the tree house.

"Ponyville Command to Cloudsdale, you there Rainbow?"

"We're here, Dan. We're all ready." Rainbow Dash, Daring Do, Fluttershy, Derpy and Lightning Claw, all were steely determined. They knew what they had to do, even if they weren't happy about it. Cloudsdale would be the easiest to rebuild, but the gravity of what they were about to do weighed heavy on them.

Lightning Claw had volunteered to stay behind, ensure that the process worked. He was still remorseful over having worked with Vice in the first place. His new friends, however, refused to let him go through with it. They would evacuate together and watch the city come down to make sure it worked.

"Ponyville to Canterlot, you ready?"

"The grrrrreat and POWERFUL Trixie... seriously regrets she was unable to give a final performance here."

Dan smirked. "The way your performances are getting, won't be long before they cause city-wide destruction on their own." A light chuckle from all involved, Trixie included. They all needed a laugh.

Trixie, Blueblood, Aegis Ally, Octavia and Vinyl were at Canterlot to trigger that part of the self-destruct program. It felt almost profane to be in the throne room of Canterlot Castle without the princesses there. The halls of the great castle were empty and it felt oddly hollow. White light filtered in through the stained glass windows, the few guards remaining including Aegis stood with their helmets removed. Blueblood, Trixie and Vinyl input the code on the side of the throne's golden dais. The fountains on either side, representing harmony and the flow of time, stopped pouring.

"Ponyville to Sugar Cube Corner, you set to go?"

"Ready as we'll ever be, Dan."
"HI TWILIGHT! YOU LOOK SO SMALL ON T.V!!"

"Hi, Pinkie, you guys got everything, right?" Twilight asked.

"And then some," Applejack said. Behind her was an overloaded cart full of every baked item Sugar Cube Corner had available. It looked like a giant cupcake itself with all the colorful bags of frosting and sprinkles on top.

"Well, at least we'll have something to eat where we're going," Twilight said.

Applejack nodded on-screen. "Eeyup. Because we've got as much food and crops as we could loaded onto the airships."

"Good thinking."

"Okay... it's time," Dan said. He took one last look around the tree house, brushed his hand around the elegant wood. Even now, it still teemed with life, with hope. And they would need that hope. "Plan X- execute."

Twilight stepped forward first. "Computer, this is Twilight Sparkle. Request security access." The screen faded to black for a moment, then returned with the symbol of the six elements. They pulsed in unison.

"Computer, destruct sequence one: code one, one yay."

Dan was next. "Computer, Captain Dan, chief security officer. Destruct sequence two: code one, one yay, two squee."

Spike stepped forward. "Computer, this is Spike, counselor to the princess. Destruct sequence three: code one squee, two squee, three."

Twilight leaned closer. Her heart was heavy. She took a deep breath. "Code: zero-zero-zero... destruct... zero."

"Thank you," they all went. And then, they bolted for the door.

"RUN! EVERYBODY RUN!!" Fluffle Puff detached from the ceiling and into Dan's arms. He kicked open the backdoor and sprinted for the Everfree Forest with the pile of fluffy pony in his arms, Phoenix and the others right behind him. They just reached the edge of the canopy by the time the first explosives went off.

You might think that the activation switch to destroy Ponyville would be something overly complicated, like a giant Rube Goldberg machine. But it wasn't; the trigger to start the self-destruct sequence was just three separate codes that had to be put in at the same time. Once entered, the process could not be reversed, and these three codes activated the self-destruct mechanism. And that self-destruct mechanism was a giant Rube Goldberg machine.

The wind began to blow strong through Ponyville. The weathermane atop Sugar Cube Corner spun rapidly, like a top. The bird's egg that was atop the corner's roof fell from its nest, rolled off the support beam jutting out of the roof and landed on the hanging sign on the front. The sign rebounded, shot the egg back up into the air and landed it on one of the candle sticks on the corner's very top. The weathermane, wound sufficiently, snapped sharply, lighting the fuse to the candles.

The candles on top of the building shot off like rockets. The one with the bird egg came down softly, landing the egg in an identical-looking nest at a safe distance from town. Probably just a coincidence. But the second candle landed on the sloped roof of the Ponyville Bowl-o-rama, setting its grass material on fire. The bowling balls then dislodged from the alley and rolled down the street in opposite directions.

The first bowling ball went down a conveniently-open manhole into the sewer. The second rolled down the street and up into an upended hoof cart that seemed to have been there forever. It flipped over onto its wheels, rolled down the street when suddenly, the candle stick landed on top of it and stuck straight up. It rolled conveniently down Mane Street, gently tapping the stakes holding the tents up, which immediately flattened at fell over one at a time, like dominoes.

Speaking of dominoes, the bowling ball that went into the sewer shot up from the sewer and landed on top of Photo Finish's photo hut. It knocked over a display of photo reels, which fell over like dominoes, criss-crossing down the outside of the hut until it knocked a loose can over, which spilled its film into the street. The film unrolled all the way back across the street, just in time for it to cross the path of the wagon with the candle on it, tripping the wagon and causing the candle to fall off and touch the film. The film ignited immediately.

The fire ran along the film and back to the photo hut, igniting all of the reels that were on display and causing them to fly off like rockets. The rocket reels each landed on one of the thatched-roof houses nearby, setting them ablaze. This alone would not have been enough to burn down Ponyville, however; the last candle had still yet to fall. Just as the last of the film rolls burst into flames, the final one landed... in Berry Punch's wine cellar.

Berry Punch's wine cellar exploded in flames of brilliant blues, greens, oranges, yellows and radiant purples and pinks. Barrels of wine shot up into the air and landed, exploding and destroying buildings from Garden Street to Garden Avenue across town. There were a lot of gardens, so two streets. WubWay exploded again, making a strangely death metal-esque sound as it did. Pone Depot collapsed in on itself. The McDonald's Dustchu goes to in West Virginia randomly exploded for no reason at all, but no one was in it at the time so it's all good. It was the most violent event Equestria had ever seen and it wasn't even halfway over.

High above the self-destructing Ponyville, Cloudsdale was heading towards Canterlot.