The metal ship rocked with an explosion so loud it hurt to breathe. Rainbow Dash darted into the cargo bay, her main a colorful shock of anxiety, her eyes wide. Everything was breaking at the exact same time! She scanned the room for her friends, hoping to find a bright color in a sea of green, while Orks hurled guns at each other and fired up choppas and mechs. Twilight, meanwhile had her nose in a book of childishly-drawn pictures. Cellestia help them all, the princess of friendship had found a library.
Rainbow Dash spotted a speck of white. “This way,” she said. “I think found Rarity.”
“Did you know—”
“This way!”
Unlike their previous journey through the cargo bay, which consisted of fights and accidental stabbings, this one passed without incident. The war—waahg—had found the land ship. Or rather, the Orks had found the war. Tyranids infested everything, blanketing the barren planet and crawling over the hull of the moving fortress like ants at a picnic. They were outnumbered ten thousand to one.
“This way!” Rainbow Dash begged.
She almost fell over when Applejack jumped out of the biggest mech in the cargo bay and wiped a line of grease from her brow. Weapons covered the metal monster from top to bottom, as did buckets of sloppy paint, mostly red, blue, and yellow. A haphazard rainbow puddled at the thing’s feet.
“It’s done,” Applejack said. “Ready to party.”
“Not my choice of words,” Rarity said. “But it does look … Orkish.”
Applejack laughed. “Blame Pinkie Pie.”
“You guys!” Rainbow Dash barreled her friends to the ground in a half-hug, half tackle. “What is going on!”
Rarity wore a strained smile. “Well, it’s a bit of a story, but the long and short is I made them repaint the mech.”
“That is not the long and short of it,” Applejack said. She looked at the mech and let out a whistle. “Well, maybe it is.”
Rarity nodded. “They worked together.”
“Finally.”
“Guys!” Rainbow Dash yelled. “We’re under attack!”
Applejack watched Orks storm out of the cargo bay. Bursts of gunfire worked their way through the metal hull, muffled but still loud enough to make her teeth chatter. Rainbow Dash ducked, and Twilight turned the page in her book. Rarity tossed a jewel-like shield around them.
“Have you seen Fluttershy?” she asked.
Rainbow Dash shook her head. “No. I haven’t seen Pinkie Pie either.”
"Pinkie’s with Doomer,” Applejack said. “But I haven’t seen Fluttershy. I thought she was with you.”
“Great.”
Rainbow Dash shoved a piece of what she hoped was paper to Rarity. “I wrote everything the weirdboyz said about getting us home, but I don’t know if it makes any sense.”
Twilight looked up from her book. Her mouth split into a wide smile, and her eyes drifted in different directions. “We can’t get home until we solve the friendship problem.”
“That’ll never—” Rainbow Dash began, but Applejack cut her off.
“We did!” She gestured to the Orks. “See. They’re working together now. The magic of friendship wins again, so can ya take us home sugarcube? I’m homesick.” She grimaced. “And regular sick. No one eat the food.”
“I need six baths and then a seventh for luck,” Rarity mumbled. She sniffed and made a face.
Twilight looked at her flank. Her cutie mark did not glow. She pulled the tin bucket from her bag and stuck her head inside, but whatever broken magic had taken them to this world did not fix itself. Rainbow Dash yanked it away.
“Twilight!”
“Hmm,” she said. She opened her book and flipped to a picture of a green monster. Rarity gagged. Unlike the Orks, this one was huge, a sloppy mound of flesh and bones with a leaking hole for a stomach. It looked like it might be bigger than the entire planet. “I think this is the real friendship problem.”
Rarity’s eyes narrowed into daggers. “Twilight Sparkle!” she hissed. “I don’t know what’s gotten into that neurotic thing you call a head, but you will—”
“Excuse me,” a soft whisper broke in. Everypony stopped. Fluttershy tiptoed between Rarity and Twilight, blushing from nose to tail and avoiding eye contact with her friends. Four Snakebite Orks stood guard behind her, their arms crossed. “But I think I know what we need to do.”
The yellow Pegasus wore her mane in a state of distress. Bleached-yellow skulls acted as decoration, and a black belt wound around her torso, the buckle ending with a snake’s head. Red paint covered her body in awkward splashes.
“Great,” Rarity said. “Now we’re adopting Ork fashion.” She forced her mouth into a grin. “I … love … it.”
“Fluttershy!” Applejack said. “Are you okay?”
The yellow Pegasus nodded. “Oh yes. Gore and Gar are simply sweethearts when you get to know them.”
“Right,” Rarity said. “Of course.”
Fluttershy turned to Twilight, who was in a constant state of falling asleep. She yawned. Little clouds of magic burst from her horn, the color a bruised purple. “I think we—” the princess of friendship began.
“Twilight,” Fluttershy said. “I know this is alarming, but we need to help our Ork friends. If we don’t, the bugs will destroy everything. Not just the Orks, but everything.”
Twilight nodded. “Yes. Everything!” She jumped into the air. “The warp was right, everypony! I looked inside, and it taught me all the rules!” She picked up her book and flipped to another page. A pale, naked creature with blades for arms grinned at them, her tongue a blood-red slug. “This is Slanaash. She thinks we can solve every friendship problem in the galaxy if we—”
The picture winked from its page, and everypony screamed. Twilight shoved her face deeper into the book.
“Nope!” Rainbow Dash said. She grabbed the moldy book and hurled it across the room. It struck an Ork, who stomped on it and then shoved it into his mouth before returning to his weapons.
“Rainbow Dash,” Applejack whispered. “What exactly happened with them magic Orks?”
"You don’t want to know.”
“We told you not to let her do anything crazy!”
Rainbow Dash flew into the air and gestured at Twilight, who was digging out another book. “Well it’s not my fault she reads as fast as I can fly!”
“Well,” Rarity said. She performed a sad burst of magic to bring the bucket back to the group. “If it helps, I think I understand this spell. Well, it’s not much of a spell, but I think I understand it.”
“So you can get us home?” Applejack asked.
“We’re supposed to avoid … Nurgle.”
“But he loves us!” Twilight said.
Rarity shrugged. “The rest isn’t difficult.”
“Excuse me,” Fluttershy said. She took a deep breath, winced, and looked to her group of Snakebite Orks for encouragement. They all grinned. Gar gave her a thumbs up. “I don’t know what Twilight is talking about, but we can’t leave until the Tyranids are stopped.”
“Uh,” Rainbow Dash said.
Twilight nodded. “Of course. We have to show them friendship!”
“No.” Fluttershy stomped her hoof and glared at the four ponies. Twilight flinched, and Rarity almost fell over. “They don’t want to be friends. They want to eat everything in the galaxy, including Ponyville. We have to stop them for good. And I know how.”
“Well that’s good,” Pinkie Pie said, hopping beside Doomer, who supported an old, beat-up Deathskull Ork with a metal arm. A group of Bloodaxe Orks followed close behind. Everyone wore dozens of weapons and wild looks in their eyes. “Because my friends here want to party, and this is the only way they know how!”
“Oh boy,” Rainbow Dash sighed.
“Oh no,” Rarity moaned.
“Great,” Applejack said. “Just great.”
*
The perk to being a weirdboy grot, other than bossing Orks into something resembling sophistication, was that Rarity now owned the Deff Dread. She still didn’t know why. Applejack had done all the heavy lifting and really deserved to sit in the pilot seat, but the Orks insisted with a manic belief that forced Rarity inside. Now she stared out a skull-shaped windshield and puzzled over a dozen levers. None were labeled, and half didn’t seem to connect or do anything. The magic bucket rested on her lap.
“Oh my,” she said. She flicked a lever, and the mech stomp forward. A Tyranid popped under its foot. “Oh my.”
“It’s not fair!” Rainbow Dash moaned from overhead. She lined up a shot and sent a torrent of bullets into a lumbering monster with a fleshy gun for arms. “I wanted to drive it!”
The Tyranid collapsed, and Doomer drove over it in his boostah shootah, waving both arms and steering with his knees. Pinkie Pie manned her party cannon. While she fired pulses of angry, green energy, Applejack sat in the passenger seat, launching her own flames. Both reduced bugs into dark scorch marks.
“You didn’t help build it,” Rarity said. She pushed another button and fired a rainstorm of missiles into the sky. They flew up, up, up, and then plummeted to the ground in massive explosions. Tyranids fell by the dozens.
“Yeah but I’m the cool one!”
“Darling, I don’t think the cool one says they’re the cool one.”
“Ugh.” Rainbow Dash dodged a globe of fire and responded in kind. The weapon’s kick sent her spinning through the air.
“Big bug, up ahead,” Applejack called. Doomer roared, and instead of driving away from the four-legged creature the size of a house, sent them on a collision course with it. Pinkie Pie turned it into a flaming crater before they could hit it at full speed and explode.
“That was close,” she said.
Another monster took its place. Applejack turned it into a fire pit, and yet another bug stepped into the fray, ready to sting and bite. The Tyranids outnumbered them ten thousand to one.
The entire planet had become one large colony of the angry monsters, distorted and broken from their weapons only to be rebuilt with their fallen brethren. Spires of purple and grey jutted from the ground like horns. Black tentacles hovered in the air, covered in hairs and looking down at the battlefield with the desire to annihilate everything. Fluttershy was right: The bugs wanted to eat the entire universe.
Thankfully, the Orks weren’t bothered. They stormed out as a single unit, working together for the first time in their lives and tearing into the Tyranid army like Applejack to her orchards back home. When the land ship opened fire, the entire planet rocked with an earthquake. A twisted spire fell in slow motion, blue and orange flames consuming it from the inside.
“This way,” Fluttershy called. She weaved her way to Rarity. “Gore found a brood lord.”
Rarity gave a nervous laugh. “Of course that’s what it’s called.”
“I don’t think they know nice words here,” Fluttershy said. “I tried telling Gore about Angel, but he didn’t understand.”
“Probably for the best, dear.”
A four-armed bug thicker than an Ork mech burst from the ground, each hand ending in a massive stinger. It stomped Gar’s choppah into pieces and spied Rarity as its next target. The white unicorn screamed. The monster prepared to charge, but stopped when Fluttershy poked it in the chest. The yellow Pegasus looked it square in the eyes.
“Stop!” she ordered.
The monster stopped. It cocked its head, scratched at its chin with a stinger, and nodded. It then rounded on its closest friends and began stabbing. When it was done turning bugs into bug pieces, it looked to Fluttershy for more orders.
“Go,” Fluttershy said. “Help the Orks as best you can.”
The monster left.
“You really do have a way with animals,” Rarity said.
Fluttershy shuddered. “They’re just … they’re just so bad! But we can stop them.”
Rarity sighed. “To the … brood lord.”
Fluttershy’s plan, backed by her Snakebite friends who didn’t understand it but liked the yellow Pegasus which mattered more, was to find the bug most connected to the hive and ask it nicely to stop. Because the hive worked in sections: The queen controlled her lords, who controlled her generals, who controlled her soldiers. Breaking a soldier’s connection to the hive made it stop, but if they could break a lord’s connection, it would take all of the Tyranids under it. They could end the war in one sentence!
It wasn’t friendship exactly, but in a way, it was diplomacy. Everypony preferred that to war.
With another earthquake, the land ship opened fire, this time not at any particular target. Storms of metal and fire rained onto the battlefield, all finding bugs because the two had become one. The hair-covered tentacles in the sky grew larger.
“Guys,” Applejack called from Doomer’s truck, “I think we gotta hurry this along. I don’t trust them clouds.”
“Agreed,” Pinkie Pie said. “Also, this is the worst party ever.”
“Waahg,” Doomer corrected.
“Have ya seen Twilight?”
Rainbow Dash dodged a pair of flying bugs. Rarity turned one into body parts with a quick burst of fire, and the blue Pegasus shot the wings off another. It crashed into the ground, where Doomer drove over it, his boostah shootah rocking up and down.
“She’s just up ahead,” Rainbow Dash called. She winced as Twilight rendered a dozen bugs into purple vapor. “Casting some really scary spells.”
“Uh oh,” Fluttershy said.
“Yeah,” Applejack agreed. She dropped her spent flame thrower and grabbed another one, this one bigger and painted red. “Uh oh.”
The five ponies sped towards their friend, rolling and stomping over bugs. Bullets and fire preceded them. It was as if the entire planet were becoming one giant hive decorated with teeth and bones. Every crevice, every strange jut of living rock, looked like a Tyranid waiting in ambush. When one exploded from the ground, the ponies almost screamed in relief before sending it to its doom. The bugs though, were getting bigger. The closer they got to the brood lord, the more legs their enemies possessed, and each leg always ended in a stinger. Those that weren’t bigger were now stranger, twisting around like snakes with giant hoods or dragging themselves over the ground with poison tentacles.
Fluttershy stared one down, and everypony watched it tear dozens of its friends limb from limb until something meaner returned the favor. Pinkie Pie opened fire with her party cannon and melted the legs off the new monster, and Rainbow Dash flew in close and blew its face apart with a spray of bullets.
They found Twilight Sparkle standing atop a broken battle wagon, her jaw clenched, purple smoke pouring from her horn. Bugs fell all around her. Ger and Gerk stood back to back, shooting and stabbing and bleeding.
“Oh no!” Fluttershy cried. She rushed for her friends.
“Fluttershy wait!” Rarity called. “We need to go together!”
“So go faster!” Rainbow Dash called, already putting on a burst of speed. She zoomed past Fluttershy and opened fire.
Twilight staggered. She closed her eyes and fell limp into the air, magic twisting and turning around her horn. Purple smoke blanketed the battlefield. Dark shadows moved within.
“Stop!” Applejack shouted.
Doomer did not. He sped towards Twilight, and Rarity heard Pinkie Pie say, “I have a bad feeling about this,” before they became another shadow inside the purple smoke. Blasts of party-cannon energy flashed within, followed by the muffled cries of dying bugs.
The smoke formed a wall. It tumbled and shook with a physicality that made it seem almost like goo, and Rarity stopped her mech in front of it. She looked around. She was alone.
Rarity waited, begging her friends to come out. She fumbled with her mane. Sweat caked it to her face. Despite the tears and dents, the Deff Dread retained its paint job: red, blue, and yellow. The Orks were fighting together. But from her vantage point, Rarity could see that they were losing. There were too many bugs. All the friendship in Equestria couldn’t stop them.
A distorted wail tore a hole in the sky. Where clouds and smoke once swirled now throbbed a bleeding scar, and for a moment, Rarity understood the warp. Creatures flew within, so horrible her eyes refused to see them. Orks screamed. The floating tentacle pulsed with red energy. And above them all, Slaanesh grinned. The chaos god was gorgeous, every beautiful thing put together yet twisted in terrifying ways. Her naked spikes dripped with perfect blood. She turned her gaze upon Rarity, and her smile was so radiant that the white unicorn could only yearn to be that pretty. And she could too, if she simply waited and let her friends die. They weren’t good enough for her. No, Rarity was a pony of decadence, of gorgeous dresses and smells and perfect hair. She was—
The scar closed.
The tentacle fired its weapons.
Rarity fled into the purple smoke. She had to save her friends.
*
The brood lord stood atop a chitin pillar, dark smoke billowing from the vents in its back. Wrinkles covered its bald face, and red crevices bruised its arms and body. It looked shriveled, the smallest bug in a planet filled with monsters, yet it tore Ger apart like the Ork weighed nothing. Fluttershy howled. She took to the air, her eyes weapons, an order on her lips.
The brood lord howled back. It sounded like someone tearing a piece of metal in half, and it pierced the battlefield with a physicality that sent the Orks scattering and the purple haze into a flurry of small tornadoes. Doomer’s boostah shootah split in two. Pinkie Pie put her hooves to her ears, and Applejack dropped her weapon. Rarity felt the Deff Dread go limp. Bugs leapt onto the mech as she pulled at levers and twisted knobs, but the machine refused to move.
Meanwhile, Twilight continued to float.
Unphased, Rainbow Dash flew in a wide arc, peppering the battlefield with lead. The bugs swiped and shot, but to the Wonderbolt, they moved in slow motion. She put on another burst of speed, and mini rainbooms appeared in her wake, the blasts of color staggering the bugs. Even the brood lord stopped his screech. Everyone got back to their feet to resume the party.
“No you don’t!” Fluttershy roared as she zoomed for the brood lord. The monster swung a claw, missed, and the yellow Pegasus stared it down. “I’ve got you!”
“Look out!” Rainbow Dash bellowed. She barreled into Fluttershy just as a spear of dark magic pierced by the two ponies and took Gore’s arm from his body. The Ork howled; the brood lord waved more bugs into the fray.
A new creature emerged, this one blood-red and more mouth than body. It arched up on a slender tail and grinned. Pinkie Pie fired at it with her party cannon but missed while Applejack took aim with her flame thrower. The monster made a slight twitch with its tail, and Applejack flew through the air as if struck by a battering ram. She landed hard. Bugs swarmed her.
“Applejack!” Rarity screamed, but her mech still wouldn’t move. There were too many bugs on it.
“Twilight, help!” Rainbow Dash bellowed. She fumbled with her gun, finding the trigger Doomer had told her not to push when they had first met. The monster turned its gaze to her. Power surged behind its eyes. Rainbow Dash fired.
The rocket whistled as it traveled, and the creature had just enough time to roar before it exploded. A dozen more bugs popped in its wake. The rest of the Tyranid army shivered, distracted long enough for the Orks to beat them back with axe and fist alike. With Gerk’s help, Applejack stood and the two cleared Rarity’s mech of swarming monsters with a few precision bursts of fire.
Rarity put a shield around all of them.
Then Twilight was there, floating above the two ponies. Black lighting sparked from her horn. She was both awake yet not, her eyes open yet unseeing. Lightning traveled from bug to bug, popping them into chunks of bone confetti.
“Go!” Rainbow Dash said to Fluttershy. The yellow Pegasus took off for the brood lord.
“Nurgle,” Twilight said in a voice that was not hers, “You festering wound. Don’t you see I’ve won here?”
Before Fluttershy could stare the brood lord down and make her request, the creature expanded with green light. Fluttershy screamed. The brood lord vanished.
It appeared in front of Twilight.
“Child,” it gurgled. “I never lose.”
“The bugs fit you.” Twilight’s head lolled to one side. “They’re revolting, as are you.”
The brood lord laughed. “And you team with Orks! Finally you realize your inner beauty.”
Twilight let out a burst of angry magic, and another group of Tyranids exploded. “Wrong, fool! I team with these creatures! They are,” Twilight blinked, shook her head. She seemed confused, and then she was gone again. “Cute.”
“What is goin’ on?” Applejack begged. Even the Orks shrugged. Doomer let his weapon drop.
“I don’t know,” Pinkie Pie said. “But I don’t like it.”
With a groan and a hiss, the top of the Deff Dread broke off, and Rarity jumped out. She breathed hard, her horn glowing bright blue in a struggle to keep her barriers held.
“They’re,” she stumbled, and Pinkie Pie helped her up. “Chaos monsters.”
“Like Discord?” Applejack asked.
Rarity shook her head. The draconequus was chaos, but he was not evil. “I saw her,” she pointed to Twilight Sparkle. “In the sky. She promised me things if I didn’t help.”
With a wet, slopping sound, the brood lord’s arm decayed and fell. The creature didn’t seem to notice. “I outnumber you ten thousand to one, child. This planet will decay and die, as will your army.”
Twilight laughed. “Ah, but in desire, I outnumber you. And I live in the desperate. Free your creature, and watch them all fall.”
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flew over. The battlefield had simmered to a standstill, the Tyranids waiting on their lord for directions, the Orks walking from stalled monster to stalled monster and yanking their teeth out.
“Are they …” Rainbow Dash looked back and forth between Twilight and the Tyranid lord. “Are they arguing?”
“It’s a game,” Rarity said. “That’s what this is. Just a silly game.” She sniffed, and tears welled in her eyes. “All of this dreadful fighting because these two don’t like each other.”
“Oh!” Pinkie Pie said. She jumped at Twilight’s floating body and wrapped her in a hug. “Well that makes this easy, doesn’t it?”
“Unhand me!” Twilight said in a voice that wasn’t hers. “Pinkie Pie?” she asked in one that was.
“Twilight, silly,” Pinkie said with a laugh. “I wish you would have told us sooner that this was a friendship problem!”
Twilight brushed herself off with her wings. She yawned, frowned, and then tilted her head as if she was listening to someone whisper into her ear. “No.” She made a face. “No that’s wrong. See, this is why I wanted to make a list.”
With sighs of relief, the five ponies pounced on their friend in a group hug so tight it bordered on dangerous.
“How dare you!” Twilight roared in a voice that was not hers.
The brood lord laughed. “Having problems, my dear Slanaash?”
“Now what’s going on?” Applejack asked.
“Twilight, please wake up,” Fluttershy said. “We miss you.”
“I cannot—”
“Slanaash,” Rarity said. She ran a hoof through her mane. “You’ve really misunderstood us.”
“Yeah,” Twilight said, back in control “Once I read that book, I knew what the real friendship problem was. You and Nurgle. Now, I think if we just sit down and talk, we can—”
The brood lord burst into a fit of wet, gurgling laughter. A spark of black rage simmered behind Twilight’s eyes, and her horn lit up, but the five ponies hugged her all the tighter. Slanaash could no longer take control.
“The most decadent thing in the world, darling,” Rarity said. She tried not to sound smug and failed. “Is friendship.”
“I hear it’s magic,” Applejack said. She grinned at Doomer, who took his axe to a stunned bug. Applejack waved, and the Ork waved back. “Er. Well, something like that.”
“Exactly!” Twilight said. She yawned. “Now—” her voice cracked back into Slanaash’s. “Never!” The chaos god sighed with Twilight’s body. “Nurgle, I concede. This time.”
“The desperate always lose,” Nurgle said through the brood lord. “The hungry always win.”
“I think those two things are kind of the same,” Pinkie Pie said. She hopped around the five ponies. “Especially if you’re desperate for food. But then, I could just bake you two a cake.”
With a slimy green pop, the brood lord returned to itself. It shook its head and then screamed at its missing arm. All around them, the Tyranids regained their senses.
“Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash said, pushing the yellow Pegasus forward. “You’re up.”
“Yeah,” Applejack agreed. “Let’s show these two how we solve problems in Ponyville.
“My pleasure.” Fluttershy fluttered to the brood lord and stared it down. The creature tried to look away, but she forced its gaze. Its yellow eyes drooped, and every bug on the planet lulled into a stupor.
“Mr. Monster,” Fluttershy whispered. “Could you please stop?”
The brood lord nodded.
“It would be awfully nice of you,” Fluttershy continued. “If you went back to your home and told your queen that war really isn’t the answer. We could accomplish so much more with a little kindness.”
The brood lord nodded again.
The war was over.
*
To the Orks, the Tyranids left the same way they came: as an uncontrollable wave of skittering shell and bone. To the ponies, it was like watching the land itself fly away. The bugs took the clouds with them, and for a moment, a small, red sun gazed upon the planet. And then the bugs blocked it out. Night fell as they flew into space, towards a bleeding red scar that was the warp. Twilight frowned and yawned and shook her head. The warp had left her eyes and replaced its promises of power with exhaustion.
“I don’t understand,” she said. She swayed on unsteady hooves, and Fluttershy leaned against her for support. “We could have helped them.”
“Twi,” Applejack said. “Ya can’t solve every problem with friendship.”
“Yeah but—”
“The important thing,” Rarity said. “Is that you tried.”
Rainbow Dash took to the air. She looked around for stray bursts of magic that might burn her to a crisp, but other than a group of Orks celebrating by shooting at the ground, had nothing to worry about. “The next important thing is that you take us home!”
“I dunno,” Pinkie Pie said. Five sets of eyes rounded on her in an equally-divided mix of shock and outrage. “I think the Orks are getting ready to party.”
“Let them party without us,” Applejack said. “I don’t think you’d like their cake.”
“Agreed,” Fluttershy said.
With a flourish of her mane and a sway in her hips, Rarity dragged out the magic bucket. The theatrics were lost, both because she was filthy and because the bucket was nothing more than a twisted hunk of tin. Its handle dangled from one end, barely attached and just as tired as Twilight.
“Here,” Rarity said. “I kept it safe.”
“Hmm?” Twilight levitated the item. “Oh. I don’t need it. Getting us back to Ponyville should actually be pretty easy now that I—”
“Are! You! Kidding me!” Rarity roared. She got into Twilight’s face, huffed, and then deflated. “Oh never mind. Just take us home. I need about six baths.”
“Make that seven,” Rainbow Dash snickered.
“Or eight,” Applejack offered.
Rarity’s mouth fell open in horror. “I do not!”
“Um, excuse me,” Fluttershy whispered. She was still decorated with Ork jewelry. “But have you seen yourself lately?”
The six ponies shared their first laugh in what felt like a very long time. Tired, bruised, filthy, and in need of a proper meal, they huddled together while the princess of friendship prepared their ticket home. It only took her a few seconds, and even less for them to vanish. The last words the alien planet would ever hear from an Equestrian creature came from Pinkie Pie:
"Wait, shouldn’t say goodbye to Doomer?”
Then they were back in Twilight’s little castle, sitting around a map of Equestria that no longer pulsed with a friendship crisis.
“We did it!” Twilight beamed. “We actually did it! I was a bit …” she yawned. “Worried there, for a second.”
“You and everyone else,” Applejack said.
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Not me. We had that under control. We—”
The door opened, and Spike wandered in. He no longer wore paint, and the stubby spikes on his head were back in their proper shape and place. He paused, sniffed, and cocked an eyebrow.
“Uh … I have so many questions,” he said.
“Spike, darling!” Rarity smiled. “I’m so happy to see you!”
“And to be back,” Fluttershy said. She pulled a small skull ornament from her mane. “I hope Angel is okay.”
“Do I even want to know?” Spike asked. The six ponies shook their heads. “Well, in that case, I fixed the friendship map while you were gone.”
Twilight’s mouth fell open. Pinkie Pie giggled. Rainbow Dash took to the air once more, and Applejack offered a, “Ya what now?”
Spike nodded. “Yeah. It was broken. Turns out we needed to unplug it and plug it back in. There’s a cable underneath.”
“Ya buckin’ what now!” Applejack demanded.
“I cannot believe!” Twilight shouted.
And then she collapsed to the floor, fast asleep.