//------------------------------// // Plan X Part 6 // Story: Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship(Season 1) // by Barrobroadcaster //------------------------------// It was surprisingly easy to get the Ponyvillers to evacuate. They may have been silly, but they were by no means idiots. Okay, SOME of them were idiots but most of them were... they're not all idiots. I can't exactly prove that right now, but they are NOT ALL idiots. Wait, what's Dan doing? "What? I'm rescuing the town. BY MYSELF, thank you. Would be a lot easier if they'd gotten out BEFORE the avalanche and I wouldn't have to wade through all this water and-" Dan, that's not the town- that's the static backdrop. Dan looked up at the massive crowd landscape panel. "Hmmm... are you sure about that? Hey! DERPY! Are you in there?" he yelled at it. And seriously, that's not helping anyone. "I bet if we just used this more often, no one would even know the difference." DAN, GO SAVE THE TOWN NOW. "Fine. But I'm taking this with me." Great, whatever. As I was saying, it was surprisingly easy for Dan to get the Ponyvillers to evacuate. All he had to do was get their attention and tell them they needed to leave. "RUN! RUN, YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIE, RUN!!!" Dan kicked through the door of the local polling office. Usually, it had been used for elections deciding what the new surprise flavor of ice cream, muffin or cake would be at Sugar Cube Corner. Other times, ponies used it to vote on which fashions they liked the best, where to put new shops, plan events, parties. The only thing ponies didn't vote on were politicians- all governmental decisions were actually made by the ponies themselves. No, it still wasn't perfect. "EEP! EEP! EEP!" "Oh, fiddlesticks!" "What?" "Oh, uh, nothing. It's just good to see you again, Fiddlesticks." "Yeah, everypony keeps confusing me with Shucks." "Aw, drat." "No, he's in Phillydelphia." "Oh, right." "You mean Phoenix?" "RUN FASTER, MORONS!" Dan scooped them up with the static backdrop, the slower ones, anyway, and rushed them as the Ponyville Dam began to break. Twilight and Chrys used their magic to hold the dam together for a few precious seconds longer, while Applejack and Phoenix directed the ponies into the Everfree as they came running. Pinkie Pie set up a camera to take a picture of the devastation for some reason. Dan came running with the last of the ponies. "PLAN XXXXXXXX!! INTO THE TREES! Everypony, run into the trees! The branches and leaves will protect us from destruction!" "Huddle up if you can! Unicorns, be ready to make a shield!" Phoenix warned. They hunkered behind the trunks and awaited the end of Ponyville. Twilight and Chrys were the last to join them. Rather than flying, they instantly teleported to Dan's position. Two hooves found their way onto Dan's shoulders, followed by a hand, then a claw, then more hooves. "Dan..." Chrys said. She could've said a lot of things, could've said how much she loved him, how much she cared for and needed him, how much they all loved each other. Instead, she summed it all up by saying, "It's been great." "I know." Dan activated a small remote control switch. The dam finally broke. A tidal wave swept over the remains of buildings in Ponyville, casting a shadow over the land before it came crashing down. The water smashed through windows and doors, swept away the remaining houses and caused their pretty thatched roofs to become thatched rafts. The tidal wave continued rolling until Ponyville became a pool complete with its own pool toys. The water crashed into the walls surrounding Ponyville and knocked them over like they were static backdrops. Finally, Electric Avenue's electric generators exploded, electrifying the water. Somewhere amid the submerged Mane Street, Rice Puddinghead was electrified. Dan and the others couldn't see him and had no way of knowing if the seemingly-invincible face from the past was affected by it, but they hoped it at least pissed him off. And it did. It really, really did. The water hit the river that runs through Ponyville and caused it to overflow. A few inflatable sea pony toys flopped about on the waves but other than that, they seemed to have vanished. High overhead, Gust Grasp's airships and the Plasma Frigate departed to rendezvous with Dan and the others. The ponies watched their home as it was destroyed from behind the protection of the static backdrop. They each poked their adorable pony heads through their own places, so it actually looked like the expressions on the backdrop had kind of changed from 'generic hapcited(happy and excited, courtesy of Pinkie) crowd scene' to 'shockappointed(again, Pinkie) crowd scene.' "Dear... sweet Celestia, Twilight," Dan muttered. "What have I done?" "What you always do," Twilight answered. "Turn defeat into a fighting chance to get revenge." "Oh yeah, that. I guess we do that now. REVEEEENNNGE!!" he shouted. But the others weren't really ready for the thought of reprisal yet. They slowly turned and made their way into Everfree Forest, most with heads held low. Even the normally-jovial hippies weren't in the mood to do their hippy crap, but they did stop to pick poison joke for some reason. Probably had something to do with herbs. Hey, it's legal in Canada now. "It is?" Not for ponies, George. "Aw, Shucks." "He's in Phillydelphia." "Oh... drat." "Also Phillydelphia." Dan walked through the Everfree Forest. Once again, things had come full circle and he was retracing the very steps he'd taken when he'd first landed in Equestria, only in reverse this time. And among a lot of other ponies. Part of him felt completely alone, even though he was among all his friends. But another part of him felt the exact opposite; he felt happy that he was with Twilight, Phoenix, Chrys and Fluffle and the others. Wherever they were going, it felt good to be together. More than a few of them spared the glance back to Ponyville. A few wispy smoke trails were that spiraled to the sky spoke of the destruction as they delved deeper into the forest. Some of them were frightened to be there but more than a few of them had explored the Everfree before. The airships overhead kept a close eye on things. "I still can't believe we had to do that," Spike said. "After everything that's happened... I mean, I know we prepared for it..." "You're never quite prepared enough," Chrys finished for him. Dan sighed. "That's the downside of planning. A lot of times, they involve what you don't want to do instead of what you want to do. Paradoxical, even when necessary." "Necessary paradox..." Twilight said, thinking aloud. "Vice... and Rice..." "Whatcha thinking, Twi?" AJ asked. She shook her head. "I'm not sure. Just that Rice Puddinghead shouldn't have been as powerful as he was." "Well, he was," Dan affirmed. "Like with Zen Zeal, we've bought ourselves some time." And then Dan's eyes went wide. "Hey, wait a minute-" "Zen Zeal! The zebra general- he was invincible, too!" Phoenix exclaimed. "And we beat him! After a few battles. That we lost horribly. But we beat him in the end!" "That's right, Phoenix, we did," Chrys said, patting him on the head. "Good boy." "Remember how we beat him, though," Phoenix said. "Zen Zeal was invincible because he because he believed he was." "No," Twilight shook her head, "Zen Zeal was invincible because he believed he wasn't." "Wait... how does that make sense?" Dan asked. "Zen Zeal didn't believe he was invincible," Twilight explained. "He believed he was the best general in Equestria, that his army was unbeatable. He didn't believe in the legends around him- he only believed he was better than everyone else. We convinced him that his legend was right, his belief crumbled and he lost because of that. We changed his mind... and beat him because of it." Dan stared blankly for almost a minute. "I hit him with a stick. But I see what you're saying," Dan said, grinning. "Yes, in order to beat Rice-" "-we have to hit him with a stick!" Dan broke off a branch. "Everypony! Arm yourselves with sticks!" "No, I get what you're saying, Twilight," Chrys said. "Magic can empower convictions at times, turn beliefs into realities. But when the conviction disappears, so does the magic." "Elemental magic... elemental magic!" Twilight exclaimed. She took off, nearly hitting a branch as she flew. "I know what this is! I know the spell Rice is using- it's in a book back at..." she trailed off. And then flew back down to the ground again. "...back at the library." "Which burned down, blew up and is underwater," Phoenix said. Everypony glared at him. "What?! Uh... objection?" (Worth a try.) "Not quite," Dan said. And from glaring at Phoenix, everypony turned to him. And suddenly, the man's hands were on his hips, he was beaming with pride and had his trademark grin on his face. "What have I always told you is the most important rule of revenge?" "Uhhh..." they all went. Fluffle raised her hoof. "Thpppth?" It's best served immediately? "No, the other thing." "Drawing a blank on this one," Chrys said. "Rule number-one: never give the enemy what they want!" Dan declared. "And what did Rice/Vice want?" "To rule Ponyville?" "Something future robots?" "Vice Grip's primary goal is to destroy the population of Earth and build a new technocratic pony empire on the remains in a realm that exists without magic and is ruled by his hand," Knight explained. "Ex-chancellor Rice Puddinghead's goal is unknown." "Right, err, that," Dan said. "And his second goal is he wanted to destroy all of us because we're in the way. Right? Including..." "Including...?" "Including the library," Dan said, grinning. "So... that's the last thing I'd destroy if I were me. Right?" "But you DID destroy the Golden Oaks Library, Dan," Spike countered. And Dan winked at him. "Did I?" "Uh, yeah?" He winked harder. "Did I?" Finally, he pointed his thumb upwards. Between the three of Gust Grasp's airships, suspended on a massive amount of grappling hooks was the Golden Oaks Library, completely unharmed, with its roots intact and still clutching most of the ground attached to it. Even the mailbox and the tiny scostman were perfectly fine. On the bridge of the All of My Rage, Gust high-fived Clutch. "I told ya I'd steal that library, didn't I?" She smiled at him. "Nnnope."