//------------------------------//
// The end of one of the worst years ever 
// Story: Goodbye 2020, and Good Riddance!!! 
// by ThePinkedWonder 
//------------------------------//

“...3...2...1...HAPPY NEW YEAR!!”

There were bad years. There were really bad years. There were horrible years that threatened to tear Equestria apart from the seams.

And then there was last year.

Between one disaster after another and deadly pandemics forcing everycreature to wear masks, it was one of Equestria’s worst years in recent history. Not even the Legion of Doom, who only caused a tiny fraction of the problems, were evil enough to desire such an awful year. They despised it with every fiber of their being too.

However, the nightmarish year was finally, mercifully, over. Equestria and beyond would celebrate. It was party time!

Over the grand city of Canterlot, Equestria’s ruler, Princess Twilight Sparkle, and her Royal Advisor, Spike, performed aerial loops while releasing ecstatic whoops as they sang.  Their masks partially muffled their voices and hid their grins, but not the duo's happiness. One-half of the sky was clear blue with the sun shining like a gentle guardian. With the moon proudly glowing, a dark-blue, star-ridden sight covered the sky’s other half.

Below the elated alicorn and dragon, the citizens of Canterlot, each maintaining a short but safe distance from one another, engaged in joyful singing and stomping their hooves in applause. Balloons and confetti littered the air, and parades marched through the streets. In front of the Royal Castle’s front doors, ex-Princess Celestia and ex-Princess Luna, wearing dresses, performed the can-can dance.



The quaint town of Ponyville showed a similar sight of balloons raising, raining of confetti, and ponies celebrating. Or, mostly ponies.

Outside the School of Friendship, Starlight Glimmer and the ex-Queen of the changelings, Chrysalis, entertained the school's cheering and singing students with frontflips and backflips. Surprisingly, their movements were in sync, despite how they were both winging it. 

Trixie, Sunburst, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders gave out bags of popcorn to the students. Discord, the school’s Head Draconequus for a day (It was Twilight Sparkle’s idea!) lay in a hammock while chowing down on popcorn.

In Ponyville’s town square, Pinkie Pie and her fiance, Cheese Sandwich, teamed up to throw the largest party that Ponyville had ever been graced with. A colossal pink cake, as tall as the Royal Castle in Canterlot, towered behind the two masked pony ponies, seemingly oozing in the delight from the singing and dancing ponies nearby. 

Maud Pie and Limestone Pie chose not to sing. Instead, the two earth ponies yelled ecstatically while doing cartwheels, wearing massive grins to rival Pinkie Pie's.

The Wonderbolts soared through the sky in a salute to the new year. Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust led the way. 

Yes, Lightning Dust. Everypony was so happy, Spitfire permitted Lightning to re-join the Wonderbolts for one day only; Lightning promised to keep her prior recklessness in check.

At the farm known as Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack, Apple Bloom, Big Mac, and Granny Smith poured bottle after bottle of cider, selling it to joy-stricken ponies at half its normal price. The Flim Flam brothers provided assistance by pouring bottles as well, so the cider could be given out faster.

In Carousel Boutique, a beaming Rarity threw one apparel after another into a singing crowd surrounding the Boutique. Even for her, Rarity was extra-generous by designing a mountain of dresses, shoes, hats, etc., and tossed them to the crowd. Diamond dogs were on paw to help the unicorn work more quickly, such as by holding and keeping sheets still as she worked on them. More dogs carried the finished apparel to those at the back of the crowd.

In her animal sanctuary, Fluttershy flew overhead and sang blissfully. Her animals – including a bear, butterflies, birds, and raccoons – ran, hopped, or flew about. Fluttershy’s pet bunny, Angel, and a squirrel locked arms and danced in circles. Their masks hid their grins.



Meanwhile, in the Crystal Empire, ponies also celebrated with parades, balloons, and confetti. Resemblant to Princess Twilight’s and Spike’s loops, Princess Cadance and Flurry Heart gleefully rolled in mid-air; Princess Cadance switched between singing and laughing while Flurry just laughed in coos. Shining Armor and the crystal ponies on the ground sang and stomped hooves to pump up the mother-daughter alicorn duo.

Even the serious Tempest, the newest Royal Guard, cheered on.

Whether it was Fillydelphia, Las Pegasus, Manehattan, or other cities, the scene was the same.

However, it wasn’t solely pony-populated cities that whooped it up.

The dragons residing in the Dragon Lands roared in jubilation. Some high-dived into lava. Others did barrel rolls overhead. Garble led the fun as Dragon Lord for the day. Following Twilight’s lead when she suggested for Starlight to let Discord run the School of Friendship temporarily, Ember, as a one-time thing, decided to grant every dragon a day to be the Dragon Lord. However, all the dragons made a dragon promise to not exploit their status to order attacks on the other races.

In the snow-covered Yakyakistan, harmless pieces of wood shattered as the Yaks stomped on and smashed wooden boxes in unison.

Princess Cozy Glow unleashed a playful howl. She swept upward, tucked her wings, and dived and slammed down on a box twice her size. It shattered under her hooves and the Yaks roared in approval. Earlier, after Princess Twilight freed her, as well as Chrysalis and Tirek, from stone, Discord bestowed Princess Cozy some of his chaos magic, so she could regain her alicorn form and be a princess, but just for a day. Tirek, young and buff again thanks to more of Discord’s magic, complimented the filly with a thumbs up. A small genuine smile curled under his mask.

For the first time, all of the griffons threw parties while laughing in Griffonstone. 

The changelings partied in pure joy in their hive. Even Pharynx cut loose and laughed...while also running a combat drill, but for fun this time.

In Seaquestria, seaponies swam in tight circles while cheering. Two of them stayed still and held a limbo bar as Queen Nova swam toward the bar. She bent herself backward and barely passed under it. This was the seaponies' first try playing underwater limbo. First, they were freed from the Storm King's grasp two years ago, now this. The aquatic ponies had never been happier.

The bowels of Tartarus weren’t exempt from the fun either. Cerberus wore a black hat on each of his three heads and tap-danced. Newly freed dangerous creatures, such as a bugbear, cockatrices, and a manticore, rooted Cerberus on with deep roars, shrieks, etc. Princess Twilight had cast a timed spell that unlocked the forementioned creatures’ cages at midnight, and they would only be out of their cages for today.



In all, it was a wonderful, wonderful day for Equestria and the lands beyond it. After all they had endured, saying that every creature was optimistic that this year would be better is an extreme understatement.

If she had anything to say about it, the benevolent alicorn ruling Equestria would do all in her vast power to ensure that such a year would NEVER happen again. For starters, thanks to her and the other Equestrian leaders’ intense efforts, even Prince Blueblood, a new vaccine was poised to help free the land of its agonizing pandemic.