Despite the townspeople’s best efforts to put out the fires, all that remained of the schoolhouse and the post office were two piles of smoldering ruins.
“Oh, no,” the children all cried.
“Who could have done this?” Pinkie exclaimed as her hair deflated a little. “Who would do something like this? In the middle of a party too?”
“I have an idea,” Twilight muttered. “Unfortunately, we have no way of proving it.”
“Oh my, what in the world is this?” Lady Chrysalis exclaimed with artificial concern as she stepped forward with her small entourage. “How could something like this have possibly happened? Nothing like this ever happened while we were all feuding.”
“Darn right, it didn’t!” Lord Tirek agreed, also followed by his own entourage. “And if we were still feuding nothing like this would have happened either! Who could have been stupid enough to try to end the feud?”
All eyes turned to Flash and Pinkie Pie.
“Wait, you’re pinning the blame on us?” Flash cried.
“But, but, but we didn’t do this! Someone else did,” Pinkie exclaimed, near tears.
“Did anything like this every happen while the feud was going on?” Chrysalis shouted accusingly.
“Well, no, not that I know of anyway.”
“And this happened just as everyone else stopped keeping the feud going,” Tirek added. “I think it’s clear what we need to do.”
“WAIT!” Shining Armor interrupted, stepping forward.
“Who here actually thinks that ending the feud caused this?” he demanded, addressing the crowd. No one but the clan heads and their entourages raised their hands. “And who here actually thinks that life was better back when the feud was going on?” Again, only the clan heads and their entourages kept their hands raised. “Whoever did this obviously took advantage of the festivities to try to stir up trouble. Thankfully, I’ve been working on a solution to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, but for now, let’s all just focus on working together to fix the damages. Who is with me?”
To everyone’s surprise, Gloriosa stepped forward, declaring, “I am.”
“Here, here!” Granny Smith agreed.
“Well, if Granny is in, then I am too,” said Applejack. The rest of the Apples and several other Wood clan members soon followed.
“If the Apples are in, then so are we,” declared Filthy Rich. Other members of the Stone clan voiced their agreements.
Lady Chrysalis and Lord Tirek scowled, seeing that their attempts to turn their clans against the outsiders have failed.
“Alright, fine,” Chrysalis huffed. “Keep working together and having your parties. Mark my words. You’re going to wish things were back the way they were before!”
As she angrily stomped away with her entourage, Lord Tirek stood giving everyone an angry glare and a massive scowl before leaving with his entourage as well.
After they were a distance away from the crowd, Tirek grumbled to Chrysalis, “Well, that plan backfired spectacularly.”
“I thought for sure a little trouble would have turned everyone against each other and those outsiders just like that,” Chrysalis hissed back. “We’ll have to take more drastic measures.”
“At least without the school, that schoolteacher won’t be able to brainwash our youth,” Tirek noted, “and having the post office gone means the children won’t be able to get gifts and letters from the pink mountain girl.”
Lady Chrysalis scowled as she shook her head. “All we’ve caused are a few minor inconveniences. We need to cut those outsiders off from the rest of the town for good, starting with that boy and his pink friend.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?”
Then, Chrysalis smirked, her green eyes gleaming wickedly. “I have always believed that people will always put themselves and their own before anyone else whenever they’ve been made truly desperate.”
As the clan heads plotted and schemed, the townspeople along with the Pies, the postman’s family, Flash, First Base, and their friends were hard at work rebuilding the post office and the schoolhouse, starting with the schoolhouse.
“So,” Flash said to Twilight, “Shining Armor said that he’s been working on a solution to prevent all this from happening again. Would you by any chance know what it is?”
“He’s been working on it ever since our family moved here, but he hasn’t been able to get it off the ground in all that time,” Twilight explained. “He’s been writing to the queen and to parliament about setting up a Royal Police Department here, but so far, he keeps getting rejected. They all keep saying that Griepsburg is a lost cause when it comes to establishing some form of law and order.”
“I’m guessing that he’s hoping that with the townspeople actually getting along now, he’ll have a better chance of getting the queen and parliament’s approval.”
Twilight nodded before turning towards Pinkie’s direction. The normally exuberant girl had sat down on the snow, hugging her knees to her chest. Her bouncy, curly hair had deflated into a mess of limp strings, and she had a look of profound sadness on her face.
“Pinkie, what’s wrong?” Twilight asked as she and Flash approached her.
“Limestone told me actual bad people existed in the world,” Pinkie replied despondently. “I knew she was right, but I didn’t think any of them actually lived here.”
“You can find bad people anywhere, Pinkie,” Flash pointed out, “but that doesn’t mean you should stop trying to be good or that you should give up inspiring people to be good. I mean, those clan heads were pretty close to getting the townspeople to lynch us, but they chose to listen to Shining Armor instead.”
“But what if they keep trying to make things go back the way they used to be?” Pinkie whined.
“Then, we’ll keep trying to stop them. Besides, don’t forget that Shining Armor is working on a solution to that, and I personally think that it’s got a good chance of working.”
“You mean, assuming that he can actually implement it,” Twilight noted, earning her a stern glare from Flash. “I’m just saying.” She turned to Pinkie and continued, “Anyway, Flash is right. If we stop trying to do good just because we get pushed back from bad people, then the bad people win.”
Pinkie sat up and looked at Twilight quizzically. Her hair began to curl slightly as Twilight’s words provided fresh sparks to the dying embers of her determination.
“What would your granny do if she was still here?”
Pinkie’s hair sprang to its full springy, cottony glory as she leapt to her feet with a smile on her face and a fire in her eyes.
“You’re right!” Pinkie exclaimed with renewed excitement. “Granny Pie would never give up spreading smiles, especially to people who really need it, and it would have taken a lot more than some seriously bad people to stop her, and it’ll take a lot more than that to stop me.”
“That’s the spirit!” Flash cheered.
“Come on. Let’s get to work,” Twilight agreed.