//------------------------------//
// Challenges and Hope 
// Story: Equestria Girls: A Fairly Odd Friendship 
// by redandready45 
//------------------------------//

Trixie Tang sat on her bed, thinking over certain things.

The past week had been crazy. For some reason, she inexplicably spent time with Timmy Turner of all people. Timmy was...complicated. Like all the other unpopular boys, Turner could be creepy, weird, and treat her like a possession a lot. But...there was another side to him. He could really care about his friends sometimes, even standing up to her to protect them.  And though she hate to admit it, a small part of her did enjoy her time with him.

But then, while she was being driven around in her limo, she fell unconscious, and then woke up in her bed, her parents telling her that someone tried to kidnap her.

Which was...

Awesome! Being kidnapped meant her fame and glory were known far and wide. It meant she was important enough for someone to abduct. She wasn't fretting over the kidnapped. 

But something else had been bothering her.

In the nights after her kidnapping, she had this weird dream she couldn't explain. 

What concerned was how real she felt.







Trixie found herself bound, gagged, and placed inside a cauldron with some kind of soup. In a panic, the popular girl looked around the room and saw she wasn't alone.

That weird rich girl with cheese puff like hair who interrogated her was right in front of her, dressed in some witch's robe. She was surrounded by two other girls who were also clad in the same robe. One had purple pigtails and the other had a blue ponytail.

"Shall we boil her alive girls!" Cheese Puff said dramatically.

"Slice and dice her!" Pigtails hissed with a sadistic smile.

"Make her into a taco!" Ponytail chirped.

The three let out a nasty cackle.

"NO!" The three witches and Trixie cocked their heads to the corner. Timmy was in the corner, dressed in rages, chained to the ground around his ankle, and had tears in his eyes. "Bake me into a stew and leave her alone!" He begged.

The three witches gave him a mocking smile. "It's because we hate you so much that we're gonna make you watch as we boil your crush alive!" Adagio declared.

Trixie and Timmy let out a cry of terror as Cheese Poof prepared the fire...

Only for something to pick Trixie up and fly her to safety.

She couldn't really see the face of the person. All she saw were big yellow wings and long pink hair.

Sometimes whoever it was had blue wings and rainbow hair instead.

But when Pink showed up, Trixie would feel a hand softly patting her on the head. 

"Don't worry Trixie, I got you."

The voice was so soft, so comforting, so reassuring, it sounded almost like an angel was coming to save her.






Trixie never considered herself a superstitious person. She didn't believe in things like the Loch Ness Monster, the Tooth Fairy, and the existence of South Carolina. She especially didn't believe that lunatic Crocker, who thought fairies were real and that Turner had them. If fairies were real, and Turner had them, couldn't he just wish himself into becoming rich and famous?

But still...there was something about that dream that made her think. What did it mean? Was there some kind of message about it? Was it telling her that Timmy Turner was her destiny? Was it-

Trixie broke out of her self-reflection when a knock came on the door to her room. 

"Trixie, I'm both respecting your privacy by knocking but asserting my authority as your mother by coming in anyway!" A battering ram knocked her door down. Her mom came into the room with a pretentious smile. "Trixie Darling," her mother gushed in her pretentious voice. "You must try on these new dresses for the ball tonight."

Trixie let out a tired sigh. When her mom always said she "must" do something, it meant "you're doing this or no allowance."

"Yes mother," the raven-haired girl muttered with a tired and defeated expression. 





"FILE NOT RECOVERABLE!"

"Dang it," Crocker screeched, banging his good fist on the lab table in rage, only to accidentially hurt his own fist. "Note to self," Crocker hissed in pain, "don't bang fist on metal tables. Despite hours and hours of work, I couldn't recover any of the footage I had taken of those magic blasts and that massive reptillian monster. All of that would've proven the existence of....FAIRY GOD PARENTS!"

Despite the loss of the footage, the whole endeavor wasn't a complete failure. He glanced over to the wall, which showed an interesting article from the Canterlot Chronicler that he placed on his conspiracy flow chart. 

"CANTERLOT HIGH RECREATES JAPANESE MONSTER MOVIE," the headline read. "ONLOOKER CLAIMS 'SPECIAL EFFECTS WERE SO GOOD, MY CAR ACTUALLY LOOKED DESTROYED". The picture showed what look like a school in ruins, and what was described as a digitally created three-headed monster attacking it. Crocker sneered. While the sheep were fooled, he wasn't. He had seen the monster, the magical battle, and the destruction with his own bespectacled eyes. Special effects wouldn't have left him skin grafts, but sadly skin grafts were not enough evidence.

Crocker looked into that school's history, and found a pattern of strange happenstances going on: magical light shows during school contests, students somehow growing wings and horns, cafeteria food that was edible. His first guess would've been FAIRY GODPARENTS, but he realized there was another common link uniting these events. With enough work, he connected the dots and found the origin of all these events.

Crocker glanced at a newspaper article from last fall that was at the center of the chart. The article began with the headline "SCHOOL BULLY CAUSES GAS LEAK, DESTROYS PART OF THE SCHOOL". The picture showed a pathetic little girl in tattered clothing, weeping in defeat and self-pity, condemned to detention and hard labor for an act of vandalism, while police officers stood over her with dirty looks.

She seemed so different from the girl who had the nerve to defy her and foil her scheme. She had a background in delinquency which seemed to show a history of deceit and cruelty, so perhaps she this was a sad act meant to fool others. The following months of strange happenings always seemed connected to her, which proved the girl was good at covering her tracks. So Crocker dug into her background, hoping to find something about her. Something he could use.

To Crocker's astonishment, while her official birthdate said she was born roughly seventeen years ago, her records only went back to at most three years. In his search for answers, he had only found more questions surrounding the girl.

Whatever the case, she had somehow come to be in Turner's life and was now standing in the way of Crocker and his FAIRY GODPARENTS! Why was she guarding Turner. Was she a fairy somehow diguised as a human? An agent of some magical government agency that was on a need-to-now basis? An archmage who had come in Turner's employ?

Who ever she was, her very presence meant he no longer had the luxury of coveting Timmy's fairies openly. Crocker glanced at his still broken arm and leg. If the dark-haired teacher tried again, Turner would contact her, and Shimmer and her goons could send him right back to the hospital.

He also had to think about his job. It was clear Waxelplax's patience for him had run out. For the most part, his ex-girlfriend had barely tolerated his presence out of respect of their old relationship, but it was obvious if Crocker tried to capture the fairies and failed again, Waxelplax might finally fire him. It was only thanks to tenure that he had only been temporarily suspended and demoted, but it was clear even tenure might not save him next time. 

Still Crocker would not give in. Trying to capture Turner's fairies might have become harder than ever, but necessity was the mother of all invention. Perhaps in finding out the secret of Sunset Shimmer, he might not only take revenge on this girl, but perhaps find the means of defeating Turner once and for all.

"Rest well Turner," Crocker hissed, glaring at the picture of his most hated rival, "you may think you are well protected, but once I-,"

"Denzel!" To his frustration, his own mother showed up with that condescending smile. "Would you like to help mommy clean the garage?"

"Mother!" Crocker yelled in exasperation. "I am plotting the downfall of my nemesis!"

"But-," Dolores began, only for her son to stubbornly turn away from  her and toward the screen. Normally Dolores would walk away in defeat. But then she remembered when a buck-toothed boy who wasn't even her own child offered to clean her house for free. A stranger had shown her more kindness than her own son. 

No, she wasn't letting that slide anymore. This time, a cold grimace formed on her face. "Very well," the 80-year old woman said in a sharp tone, "if you won't clean my garage, perhaps I can find another young man who will. One who will pay me for rent and food."

This got Denzel's attention. "What?"

"Pity, I'd hate to have you serve a notice to quit," the woman mused a stern, but soft tone as she walked out of the room. "But I suppose you-,"

"WAIT MOTHER!" Denzel said, chasing after his mom, "THIS IS SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA! I can't afford rent on a teacher's salary." 

Dolores turned back to her son with a smug smile. "I knew you were a kind son who would help mommy clean the garage. And while you're at it, you can also scrub the basement floors and vaccum the roof."

Crocker clenched his fists, remembering again why he despised Turner.

"When I'm ruler of the world Turner, you will be the cleaning the garage!





It was Tad's first day at Crystal Prep Junior, the elementary school adjacent to Crystal Prep Academy, and already, he had been sent to the Dean's Office for trying to buy his way out of homework. He would normally be annoyed with getting in trouble on his first day, but the Dean was such a babe. She had a pretty face and long pink hair that flowed out of her head like a waterfall.

"Tad," Dean Cadence said in a soft, understanding tone. "I know the work is hard, but you can't bribe the teacher out of it." She extended her hand with a friendly expression. "Just try your best, and eventually you'll know how to do it yourself."

Tad pulled out an envelope and placed on the desk. "How we..." he paused, subtly turning the envelope to the side that was open, revealing the money inside," forget this ever happened." Tad took off his sunglasses, gave the woman his most charming smile, and winked.





Tad growled at he stood in detention and was made to write, "I will not bribe the Dean" on the chalkboard 100 times. If this wasn't bad enough, he had to do it under the watchful eye of the most scary woman he ever met.

"Young man," Principal Cinch said in a voice that could make a thousand babies cry at once, "you may get away with that kind of behavior in that rathole Dimmsdale. But here in Crystral Prep, we do not allow bribery as a substitute for hard work. Our reputation is built by our achievements! Not by allowing ourselves to be seen as stooping to such lows."





Dean Cadence was going over some attendance sheets when the phone rang.

"Hello this Doug Dimmadome."

"Owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome."

"That's right," the Texan said over the phone. "I'm wondering if for a small donation, you can build the Doug Dimmadome, Owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome Statue."

The pink-haired Dean rolled her eyes. "Mr. Dimmadome, we can't just build a statue for you."

In his office, the billionaire frowned in disappointment. "That's a pity," the Texan muttered. "I was gonna offer Crystal Prep 5 million Dimmadollars but-,"

"Where would you like the statue?" Doug Dimmadome, Owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome, looked up and saw the Dean of Crystal Prep suddenly in his office, dollar signs in her eyes. "What would be the perfect location?" The woman said in a sycophantic tone while bending down to polish the businessman's boots. "Next to the The Doug Dimmadome Owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome Dorm, or the Doug Dimmadome Owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome Library?"





Tad grumbled angrily, only for the woman to suddenly be glaring down at him. "Perhaps you wish to spend the entire year in detention?" The woman threatened in a cold tone of voice. The blond kid dropped the attitude and started drawing much more calmly, albeit still miserably. "There are three things we expect at Crystal Prep," the dour woman ordered. "Hard work, tenacity, and above all, manners."

"Mr. Cinch," a butler said while carrying a trey. "I have your tea."

The principal politely picked the tea up, drank it, only to spit it out angrily. "Fool," the irate principal shrieked. "I demanded spiced herbal tea, not herbal spiced tea! One more transgression and you will be fired." Cinch turned back to Tad. "You get to work!" The woman then confiscated his sunglasses. "These sunglasses are also against the dress code."

Tad let out a tired and scared sigh.





Chad was used to being adored and beloved by all the students at Dimmsdale Elementary. He imagined it would be the case at Crystal Prep Junior, CPA's sister elementary school, where the richest kids of the Canterlot-Dimmsdale area congregated. It was an incredible shock when he was being told to scram when he tried to sit at the popular table.

"Why?" Chad asked in shock, furiously gripping his cafeteria tray. "Don't you know who I am?"

The popular kid, who had rich blue hair, sneered at him. "I don't sit with losers!"

Being called "loser" was not just impossible, it was supposed to be against the laws of physics. "Why am I a loser?"

"We saw you and your buddy get your butt handed to you by some buck-toothed nobody," another kid snarked, holding out his phone. Chad felt his blood turn cold when he saw the viral video. It not only showed Tad and Chad get beat up by Turner but showed how they pranked him first with the garbage. It didn't just make him and Tad look like wimps. They both looked like fools for starting a fight and then not having the fighting skills to back it up, on top of losing a two-to-one fight with some brat like Turner.

Chad defaulted to his usual strategy: holding out a wad of cash. "Why don't we pretend this never happened?" He took off his sunglasses, only to remember the dress code didn't allow them. With a sigh, he winked at a girl who wore a diamond tiara.

She did not look impressed with the flirting. "Please," the girl said in a pathetic roll of her eyes. "My daddy gives me that as an allowance."

"So why don't you go sit over there in the loser corner?!" Her bespectacled companion mocked, before letting out mocking laughter that the other kids joined in on. Fuming with rage, Chad walked over to the table in the corner. The way that everyone else was sneering at him showed they all saw him as a complete loser, which increased his anger even more. 

"Quite a predicament you're in!" Chad stopped and saw some kid smirking at him. His hair was even blonder than Tad's and was even better styled, not that he would say that out loud. "Your first day, and you've found yourself at the bottom of the food chain."

Chad looked at the boy with narrowed eyes. "What's it to you?" the African-American boy growled. The kid was arrogant, and based on his clothes, tone, and that obnoxious smile, he had the money and reputation to back it up.

The boy became more amused, even as his green eyes narrowed into nasty slits. "Because you and I have a common adversary. Timmy Turner."

Chad was confused. This kid seemed to be as upper-class as any kid could get. How could he possibly know a nobody like Turner?

"How do you-,"

"Let's just say that boy has crossed me numerous times." The boy paused to pet an oddly colored ferret in his lap. "And I see he's unfairly ruined you." A sinister smile formed on his face. "Let's work together, and you and I can crush him. Do that for me, and I can ensure you'll be among the creme de la creme here."

Crushing Turner and rebuilding his reputation. Chad felt an excited smile form on his face, as he imagined putting that bucktoothed brat in his place. Tad extended his hand. "You've got yourself a deal..."

"Buxaplenty," the boy said, slowly petting his ferret again, "Remy Buxaplenty."





A few blocks away, at Crystal Prep Academy, a studious young girl sat in front of her laptop in the library, excited over her new findings. Only for a manicured hand to suddenly slam it shut.  Twilight Sparkle was about to protest, only to see who was standing over her.

"Hey Sparkle," Suri Polomare said in that sweet tone that put Twilight on edge. "Where's my geometry paper?"

"Suri," Twilight said with a nervous smile. "I'm sorry, but I've been really busy-,"

"Well, you're about to be very busy," Suri gushed, putting a seemingly kind hand on her skittish classmate's shoulder. "Me failing math would be really...terrible for the both of us, mmm kay?"

"What's going on?" A librarian asked with a concerned voice.

"Just hanging out with my best buddy," Suri said, putting on her friendly smile, and pulling Twilight into a seemingly friendly noogie. The librarian smiled, gently warned them about not talking in the library, and stormed away. 

Twilight let out a tired sigh. Suri got away with it again, as usual. 





Twilight returned to the safety of her home lab, staring at her computer screen, or she would've had it not been for another distraction.

"Badminton."

"Not now".

"Badminton."

"No."

"Badminton."

"Spike," Twilight said in a stern tone, turning to look at her adoptive brother, "I'm busy."

"You're always busy!" The green-haired boy whined. "Can you stop being a nerd for once in your life?"

"I can't," Twilight said excitedly, "that weird energy from CHS is acting up, along with some weird new energy coming from Dimmsdale. And," Twilight paused as she looked at more readings, "it looks like these two energies initially met one another antagonistically, but now they were interacting. This Dimmsdale energy seems quite adaptable in a lot of situations."

"Whatever," Spike said, walking out of the room with a tired. "I'm gonna do something that's actually fun."

Twilight rolled her eyes. Spike didn't know what he was talking about. Working and discovery were the greatest fun of all. Learning new things always got her excited.

And she was definitely gonna learn about this new Dimmsdale energy.





"Here at Abracatraz," Jorgen said to his new prisoners, "we teach repentence through pain! So great ready and...."

Jorgen picked up a piece of paper and started folding it. He was in charge of Abracatraz's Prisoner Arts and Crafts program, and was teaching the convicts origami. "Fold the paper, cut the paper, show it whose boss, bend to your will and you will create anything!"

The magical beings in prison sat at their workstations, folding the paper into all different shapes.

"Look Aria," Sonata chirped to her grumpy older sister, "I made you a taco!" She showed off her origami, only for Aria to angrily swatted it, to Sonata's annoyance. "Jorgen," Sonata whined, "Aria's being a meanie-mean pants again."

"No I'm not!" The pig-tailed siren denied.

"And she ruined my origima taco!"

"OH REALLY!" The big fairy grumbled, suddenly looming over Aria with a menacing tone, spooking the second oldest siren. "If you don't like arts and crafts," Jorgen threatened. "Perhaps you would like to try...."

"The prison ballet!"

"NO!" Aria begged with tears in her eyes. "NOT THE BALLET! ANYTHING BUT THAT!"

A merciless gaze appeared on the Toughest Fairy in the Newspaper. "Then start folding!"

Aria fearfully began folding paper with a forced smile on her face.

"You must sing like an elf at Santa's workshop!" Jorgen ordered.

"La la la la la la," Aria sang in a wooden tone, trying to sound like an elf, and failing due to her broken vocal cords.

"LOUDER!" Jorgen ordered. "While I play polka in the background!" Jorgen pulled out an accordion and started playing it while Aria worked.

Sonata was ecstatic. Her older sister was finally smiling.

Aria certainly smiled, but if one looked in her horrified eyes, they could see that Aria would almost prefer being a worm to this nightmare.





Adagio sat in her cell. She was devoid of luxury, devoid of the grandeur she sought. All she had in her cell was a mattress, a bare bulb, and a sink. She never imagined her life would turn out this way; imprisoned, powerless, and destitute.

But still, a smile stood on her face. It wasn't the smile of a woman driven to surrender and insanity. No it was the same confident smile she always wore when she had a plan.

They think she'd go mad in here. They thought she was a weak spoiled princess would never survive without luxury to her name. On the contrary, she welcomed being in prison. It was a challenge, and the siren princess always did better when under pressure. 

She had been challenged after losing her powers the first time, but she worked hard to find another power source, and she came across power greater than what Equestria produced: the magic of these weak little fairies. Her mistake had been to go into battle without having properly mastered it first. That's how the boy beat her: by using the rules of that magic against. It was a good strategy, but then again, Adagio had once considered the boy worthy enough to one day lead her armies to conquere the human scum world.

But Adagio was nothing but adaptable. There were no such things as mistakes, as long as you learned from them. And Adagio would learn from them. She would adapt to this world, learn the strengths and weaknesses of fairy magic, and when the opportunity arise, she would master it. Then she would escape from this prison, conquer the world, and give her vengeance against those Canterlot brats who dared lay a finger on her and that ungrateful, bucktoothed brat who rejected her generosity.

But for now, she would play the model prisoner. She would act nice, reformed, and kind so that these stupid fairies would let their guards down. 

"They're probably watching me," the siren hissed to herself. "Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am." A fly landed on her hand. Normally, she would extirpate such a pathetic creature, but this time, she held back. "I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, 'Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly'." She felt a woodpecker land on top of her head and started pecking at her scalp. "I'm not even got swat away the dumb bird." She saw a scorpion crawl on her leg. "I'm not even gonna get rid of the poisonous-AHH! SCORPION!" Adagio swatted it away, shrieking like a scared housewife who saw a mouse, and then stomped on it. "DIE YOU EVIL MONSTER! RETURN FROM WHENCE YOU CAME!" Adagio took a deep breath, but calmed down once the scorpion was good and dead. 

"OK, not gonna tolerate poisonous death bugs," Adagio said heavily. "But I'll act like the good girl."





"I want my bathroom so clean, you can eat off it!" Jorgen ordered the siren, leaving her a cart full of cleaning implements to clean his private bathroom. The bathroom was three times the size of the normal bathroom, much to Adagio's quiet annoyance.

"Well that makes sense," Adagio muttered under her breath, "your wife's cooking could only taste like-,"

"What was that?"

"I said of course Jorgen," Adagio said with a bright smile, "I'd be glad to do it, you handsome devil you." Jorgen walked out of the bathroom with a roll of his eyes, not fooled for a minute by Adagio's brown-nosing. Once the musclehead was gone, Adagio set about cleaning, grumbling all the way once she thought she was alone. It was when she reached Jorgen's sink she noticed some strange knick-knack.

A lava lamp.




Norm the Genie was polishing the inside of his lamp when he saw some movement outside of his lamp.

"Hmm," the Genie said, "either there's an earthquake or Jorgen's wife made him the usual-," Norm paused when he saw who was outside. "I've never seen a girl with a cheese puff for a do. Either that, or it's an orangutan that had a bad hair day," The girl was tall, easy on the eyes, and had purple irises. Norm had seen all kinds of humans, most of them dumb, desperate losers. This girl was in a black and white striped prison jumpsuit, and that was often as desperate as it got. But there was something else in this girl's eyes: a deep hunger and hatred he rarely saw on anybody who had the hilarious misfortune of grabbing the lamp.

The girl walked over and picked up the lamp, much to Norm's joy.

"YES!" Norm yelled. happy to be free from the lamp again. "Even though I lack legs, I must do a victory dance."  

"Eww!" The girl muttered. "This thing is covered in dust." Norm's smile became wider. "Gross, I got to throw it out." Norm's eyes widened as Cheese Puff was refusing to rub the lamp at all. 

"What?! Darn it!" Norm muttered, before regaining. "So what, I end up in landfill. What could be worse than that."

"If I can't enslave Jarhead," Fuzzy McFuzzhead said with a voice laden with spite, "I can at least inconvience that moron by destroying his stupid little lamp."

Norm was confused. "Destroy? Wh-," Norm's eyes widened with horror.

Adagio opened the nearby incinerator, smoke and flames bursting out, "WHAT?!" Norm yelled with terror, but it was in vain, since the girl couldn't hear him. "AHHHHHH!" Norm screamed in pain as the lamp was tossed. "It's a good thing smoof is fire proof, otherwise I'd be worse off, but still.....OOOWWWW!"







For her next chore, Adagio had to dig a foundation for a new barrack. She was escorted to her work station by an orange haired male fairy named Buzzle. Unlike Jorgen, this loser proved easy to manipulate.

"I have to say Buzzle," Adagio said with fake kindness, "you look like you've been losing some weight."

Buzzle gave her a stupid, naive smile. "Well, even though I am magical creature who is weightless and doesn't need to worry about calories, I am still touched by your kindness. Have a wonderful day!"

"You too," Adagio said politely. Once the dumb fairy was gone, Adagio muttered "fairy scum" under her breath. Just as she started digging, she heard someone behind her. "I must say," the British-sounding voice said, "your hair has the appearance and texture of a cheese puff."

Adagio turned to face the wise guy with an irate look. "My hair is not a cheese-," Adagio paused and her eyes narrowed with rage. "Cosmo? What are you doing here?"

"I am not Cosmo," the fairy-like being denied. "The fact that I have any resemblence to that ignorant boob is a grave insult to my character."

Yes, the being wasn't Cosmo. While he was shaped like Cosmo, there were key differences; blue coloration, bat wings instead of fly-like fairy wings, a bowler hat in place of a crown, a fancier outfit, and fangs. But there was also something different in dispotion: the Cosmo she knew and loathed was a goofy moron like Sonata. This Cosmo didn't just have a more sophisticated speech, but a vicious and judging look.

"Then who are you?" Adagio asked with a suspicious voice.

"I'm Anti-Cosmo," the fairy-like being declared. "Leader of the anti-fairies!"

"What's an anti-fairy?" 

"Unlike regular fairies, who use their magic to help little human brats," Anti-Cosmo exposited, "anti-fairies gain our power from bad luck!"

Adagio's eyes widened in interest. "Bad luck you say?"

"How do you know Cosmo?" Anti-Cosmo asked with narrowed eyes. "Let me guess," the anti-fairy began before Adagio could answer. "You attempted to seize control of the magic of my dimwitted double and his nag of a wife, only to lose when you fatally underestimated their lovable tot, Timmy Turner.

Adagio's jaw dropped in shock. "How-,"

"-did I know?" The anti-fairy replied with a smug smile. "Well you appear to be human. I can't think of any other reason why Jorgen would lock you up besides coveting magic, when he usually erases the mind of humans."

"I wasn't always human," Adagio muttered in anger, "I'm from a different world, where I had it as the heir apparent of a kingdom destined to rule the seas...until some busybody wizard got in my way, and banished me to Earth. I still had some of my magic left, but a bunch of goody-toe-shoes brat took it from me either. I almost had it all again-,"

"But then Timothy swiped it from you," Anti-Cosmo added in a teasing voice. "It's amazing isn't it: he's like every other child, obsessed with sugar and cartoons, but then you take his fairies away, and he becomes more dangerous than any adult twice his size."

"Yeah," Adagio agreed. This anti-fairy disliked the bucktoothed brat, but seemed to have a gruding respect for him, something Adagio also had. "Although he didn't exactly fight alone, he had friends, those other brats I was telling you about." Adagio added not trying to sound like a sore loser. "So you fought him before?" Adagio asked, her curiousity invested in this blue being. He repliednodded. "I never thought a kid that young could have...a reputation."

"Oh he does," Anti-Cosmo uttered in annoyance. "He's gotten in my way. If I could get my hands on brat-,"

"Good luck," Adagio said with a wry smile, "he's got a whole crew of magical brats guarding him. They're so lame, they talk about the 'power of friendship.' "

Anti-Cosmo chuckled at that with mockery in his cackles. "I would love to give those brats a taste of bad luck." The anti-fairy returned to his work. But then his eyes widened, and he turned his head back to Adagio, who was also turning his head to him. He looked into the eyes of the siren princess, and it appeared they both came up with the same idea.

"Perhaps," Anti-Cosmo mused with a calculating smile on his face, "we can work together in order to achieve our nefarious goals?"

Before Adagio could answer Buzzle flew back with a stern expression.

"Adagio," the fairy guard said in a scolding tone," Anti-Cosmo, are you two working together to achieve your nefarious goals?"

"Not at all," Anti-Cosmo lied with insincere charm in his voice. "I must say Buzzle, you have become significantly less corpulent since we last gazed at each other."

Buzzle blushed. "Oh you!"

Adagio grinned maliciously. An opportunity had been dropped into her lap.





Timmy sat at home, awaiting the arrival of the usual bane of his existence. For most of his life, he dreaded Vicky's appearance. Now, he only saw the mean teenager as a nuisance, if only because he learned there were worse things out there.

As the door opened, he expected the ponytailed girl to begin her usual torments.

What he didn't expect was for Vicky to pick him up and pull him into a bone-crushing hug. To say that Timmy was stunned was putting it mildly. The only time Vicky hugged him was when she was putting on an act before his parents. His mind lingered in a daze for a moment, only for Vicky to do something even more shocking.

"My precious little angel!" Vicky gushed. "How would you like for me to bake you a cake?"

"OK, sure," Timmy said slowly and clearly as he broke from his daze. "But before you do, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure?"

"WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH VICKY?!" The brown-haired boy shrieked in horror.

"What are you talking about silly-billy!" Vicky gushed with a chuckle that sounded almost nervous. "Can't I be happy to see you after a month. In fact, I'm gonna back you a cake." 

Timmy wasn't convinced. The way Vicky spoke and acted, it was almost too saccharine, too forced, to scripted. Like she was quoting pages out of some cheesy book. But then again, his parents were gone, so Vicky didn't have her usual reason to be nice.


Two Hours Earlier

Vicky grumbled as she drove through the streets of Canterlot. "Worst Vacation Ever!" The angry teen yelled. She plowed into several mailboxs, a couple of garbage cans, and the occassional girl scout stand. 

The vacation to Cancun had been a disaster: the food was too spicy, the weather was too hot, and the hotel didn't give her the complementary chocolate under a pillow. When she dared make a complaint to the manager, and by complaint, a fist to the face, she got kicked out of the hotel. Wimps.

And there were her worthless parents and bratty little sister ruining things like they always did. "Don't wander off!" They whined. "Don't steal the credit card!" They dared complain.

She never thought she'd say this, but she was glad to be back in Dimmsdale. At least there, she had her sweet, adorable, dumb little twerp to take her frustrations out. Vicky smiled nastily, imagining all the new ways she could cause the brat some pain. She even got some new business too in Canterlot of all places: some brat named "Rebecca" according to what the E-mail said. Normally, she wouldn't take appointments without a few days notice, but the price they were offering was too much to refuse. Hopefully, her parents were the clueless type too: then she'd have another punching bag once she played the good girl in front of them.

"New clients, new meet, and my precious little twerp," Vicky gushed. "Today's going to be a wonderful day." Vicky pulled into the apartment, took the elevator, and went to the right door, and turned the knob.

"Where is the little gumdrop?" Vicky said in her rehearsed, cutesy voice, walking in while closing her eyes. 

"Right here, my little sugar blossom!" Vicky opened her eyes in surprise, the voice sounding a little older.To her confusion the redheaded babysitter didn't find a clueless couple and a little brat. She found a teenaged girl around her age. She had red and yellow hair and she wore a biker's jacket, a purple vest with a sun picture on it, an orange skirt with a yellow and purple line running through it, and black and purple boots. The girl looked familiar, but she couldn't quite place her name.

"Uh," Vicky said in confusion, "do you have...a little sister or something...whatever your name is?"

"Sunset Shimmer," A weird smirk formed on the Canterlot teen's face. "Nope, just wanted to lure you here for a...ta-."

"Oh my gosh! Sunset Shimmer!" To Sunset's confusion, the girl was suddenly looking at her with a fangirl expression. "I've heard so much about you!" 

The fire-haired girl cocked her head in confusion. Before she could respond, Vicky started bowing before her. 

"I am not worthy! I am not worthy!" 

Sunset was speechless. "Why are you bowing to-,"

"I heard about how you put an entire school under your thumb, sabotaged and tore everyone apart, and got away with blowing up a chunk of the school!"

Sunset was taken aback for a bit, but remembered that some of her antics were made public. I mean, when you blow something up, a lot of dirty secrets would come out into the open, and it contributed to her pariah status. But gradually, the news of her actions faded from memory as she proved herself to her peers and people distracted themselves with other news stories. 

But no one ever praised her for her misdeeds, let alone put her on a pedestal over them.

"I took so many notes!" Vicky continued to gloat. "And used them in my business!"

"You have..." Sunset said, trying to keep an even face. But she could barely contain the nausea she felt over the fact that she may have inspired other bullies, let alone gained the admiration of one.

"And you've brought me here because you want my aid to help you rise back to power," Vicky happily inferred.

"Actually," Sunset said, the chilly calm returning to her voice, "I actually have a...different reason for bringing you here."

"What is it, new best friend!" Vicky gushed. 

"We're not friends," Sunset said a low stern tone. Vicky looked confused the sudden contempt from someone she admired. "Personally...you only have one use to me." Sunset smirked, remembering the dialogue from her bullying days. A bit of confusion flashed on the green-shirted girl's face.

"Then what-," Sunset held out her phone, and showed Sunset the footage she had collected of Vicky spray painting a bus stop with the words "Rules Are For Fools!"

"Imagine if this...incident ended up on the Internet," Sunset mused in a seemingly conversational tone that set Vicky on edge. "I bet you could never find work again." 

Vicky felt sweat pour down her face and chuckled nervously as Sunset eyed her the way a vulture looked at a meal. "I see. You want your...cut of the profits!" Vicky went into her back pocket, fishing for something. "I guess I can give you five-HYAHHH!" Vicky suddenly pulled out a crowbar and charged toward Sunset, ready to knock this girl out. "Nobody blackmails Vicky Valentine-," Vicky paused as she felt someone grab onto her arm. The shock from realizing there was someone else in the apartment allowed Vicky's assailant to twist Vicky's arm behind her back and send her to her knees. The fire-haired girl let out a grunt of pain and dropped the crowbar.

"Ahh," Vicky wailed. "Who are you!"

"Ahm you're worst nightmare," the hillbilly like voice uttered ominously, before let out an amused chuckle. "I've always wanted to say that!" Vicky looked in the mirror and saw some blond country girl in a stetson was brutalizing her. The girl then knocked Vicky to the floor before stomping onto Vicky and painfully tugging on the girl's arms while standing on her back.

"OK! OK!" Vicky screamed, under extreme pain, "I'll give you all the money you want! Just get her off me! And please don't tell!"

Sunset bent down so she could look at the incapacitated teenager in the eye, a cruel grin on her face. "I don't want money, I have plenty of that," the fire-haired purred. "I just want to watch you squirm and quiver in my grasp." Vicky whimpered, never feeling so vulnerable in her life.

Sunset snapped her fingers, and AJ painfully yanked Vicky up. "If you would, clean my floor."

"But the floor's already clean," Vicky whined like a sad little girl. 

Applejack silently went over to Sunset's fridge, took a bottle of grape juice, and spilled it all over the floor.

"Whoopsie," Applejack said with a toothy smirk, "I had a lil' accident."

"Now get mopping." Sunset hissed to the trembling teenager. "You have more chores to do."

For an hour, Sunset gave Vicky chores to do, usually by cruelly creating a mess Vicky had to clean up. Whenever Vicky complained, the fire-haired girl silently held up her evidence, while Applejack simply gave the redhead a glare. When it was over, Vicky has been reduced a timid mess. 

"Well that was fun!" Sunset gushed with a vicious smile. "We should do it again, sometime."

"Please no more," Vicky whimpered.

"Nothing personal, Vic," Sunset while giving herself a manicure. Not just because she needed one, but by not looking Vicky in the eye, it underscored how little she thought of her, "but as a businesswoman, I have to crush the competition before it can grow to a level that can rival me." Sunset put down the file and looked at Vicky like she was a worthless pile of trash. "Today, I've proven you are a just a little girl playing a big girl game," Sunset paused to give Vicky a nasty flick on the nose. Vicky looked like she was about to cry. Sunset almost felt pity for her. Almost. "My advice: go straight, clean up your act. Because it's obvious you are in way over your head." Sunset turned to her blond friend. "Would you kindly show Vicky the door."

Applejack escorted Vicky to the door.

Or more specifically, tossed Vicky into a pile of trash cans outside. Vicky fell to the ground, the garbage cans making a loud, metallic clatter. 


"NOW GIT!" Applejack ordered. Vicky pulled herself up off the ground and ran away like a chicken, never feeling more terrified in her life.






"I'm here because I wub you!" Vicky declared rather forcefully as she went over to the pantry to get baking ingredients. "Let's see, we got sugar, butter, and-," Vicky glanced out the window and let out a sob of terror. 

"What now?" Timmy asked in concern and suspicion. The 16-year old shut the window in terror with a very loud slam, before turning back to face Timmy with a fake smile. "Uh....it's chilly out there," Vicky lied, "brrr. I don't want you getting a fever." Her expression almost became panicked. "C'mon, let's go bake the cake." Timmy had just been outside, and the weather was pretty normal.

"What is Vicky planning?" Timmy asked Wanda, currently disguised as a ladle on the kitchen counter.

"No idea, sport," Wanda said with a shrug.

"Besides, cake!" Cosmo uttered while disguised as a bag of flower.

Timmy couldn't argue with that.





Outside the Turner residence, a girl on a bike watched through the window with a stern glare. Seeing it slammed shut filled her with incredible amounts of amusement. If Sunset was being honest were herself, dealing with the witch was not just done out of heroism or her care for the boy. The Elements of Harmony, despite what one assumed, didn't change her personality, but merely gave her perspective. Her sadistic tendencies still had lingered under the surface, and were only held down by guilt, the fear of punishment, and scorn of her classmates.

But her lingering rage over the Dazzlings, and how they left her relationship with Timmy shattered, had brought them back to the surface. And for many obvious reasons, Vicky was particularly enticing target.

But Sunset wandered what kind of pain she would enact on the little gnat. Sunset had all kinds of ideas: Exposing her to Mr. and Mrs. Turner, exposing her to the authorities, or simply siccing Rainbow or Gilda or any one of her classmates on the girl who had tormented their favorite little kid, and warning her to stay from the boy.

The two athletes were very eager for that kind of plan.

But Sunset settled for putting the girl under her thumb. She had several reasons for that.

Again, Sunset liked having the ability to blackmail someone. It gave her a great thrill.

But she also had a selfless reason for doing it; While Sunset's sadistic side wanted to make Vicky suffer, Princess Twilight reminded her that once upon a time, she'd been just as bad as Vicky. Twilight was personally disgusted with Vicky, but the pony princess strongly believed in second chances, and that motto didn't stop applying just because you disliked someone. Reluctanly, Sunset had agreed with her : if Sunset could turn her life around, maybe Vicky could.

All Sunset needed was a little push.

As well as tons of Rainbow Magic plowing her into the ground. But Vicky, for her cruelty, was less troublesome than Sunset, so perhaps reforming her could be easy.

Twilight also told her that if Vicky could reform, she would make a good ally, just as she had become to the Princess of Friendship herself. 

So Sunset decided to give the girl a reality check, and hoped that showing her the consequences of being a bully could be the push she needed. 

If she learned, than Sunset could gloat about having changed someone for the better. If she didn't learn, it was no skin off her nose.

But Sunset also believed it should be Timmy's decision to tell Vicky to scram. As much as Sunset wanted to do it, she felt Timmy wouldn't be able to grow unless he learned to stand up for himself. She stressed this to both Rainbow and Gilda, and they both agreed that the ball had to be in Timmy's court.

And if the girl got violent, Sunset had no shortage of friends who would defend the boy who had defended them.

Timmy, deep down, was still scared of the world. That's why he wanted to keep Vicky around, even if he wouldn't say it: so he would still have Cosmo and Wanda to look out for him, since he still didn't believe anyone else would, at least without magic. 

The thought pained Sunset, as did the fact that Timmy was pushing her and her friends away, but Sunset wasn't completely beyond hope.

Sunset never imagined she would ever be accepted by Canterlot High, but with hope, she managed to earn their love and trust back. That meant there was hope Timmy would trust her once again. 

With that Sunset put on her helmet and drove away on her motorbike.

Sunset wondered what she was meant to do in this world, if she couldn't be a conquerer. She glanced at the picture in her locket, of her and the bucktoothed boy at the mall, and knew what it was.

Helping a small boy realize that the world was a beautiful place in spite of its imperfections.

In other words, helping him find hope. 

She drove off into the sunset, not knowing the future, but knowing the past didn't have to drag either of them down.

FIN