//------------------------------//
// Unrest and Resentment 
// Story: Legends Never Die: The Beginning of Harmony 
// by bookhorse125 
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All across Equestria, and through the lands beyond it, every pony, changeling, dragon, hippogriff, buffalo, kirin, griffon, yak, and every other creature in existence was getting restless and resentful of each other.

Isolating themselves from the world would no longer protect any of them.

Word spread quickly, even despite the fact that several creatures had few known ways in and out of their kingdoms. News on the street was, there were other creatures out there - creatures who wouldn’t hesitate to completely annihilate them.

The other creatures, of course, had heard from Cozy Glow that ponies wanted to rule the world and would stop at nothing to achieve it. They hardly knew about the other creatures in the world other than themselves, but some, like the changelings, would see these new creatures as a threat, just like the ponies, while others would see them as potential allies, as they were all against the same foe. Still, no matter where you lived in or outside of Equestria, you knew about the ponies and Sunny Starscout’s supposed quest for power.

The ponies believed that these strange new creatures were dangerous and wanted to destroy them, which was true, but only because they had been told lies, which none of them knew were lies. It was easier to believe the lies than accept that you were wrong. Ponies all across Equestria were told that Sunny Starscout had intentionally provoked the other creatures and wanted to use their attack on Equestria to rise to power and take control of the land, all part of an elaborate story that Termite had concocted.

The changeling was still in Zephyr Heights and was still very much in power. He had the entire pony population hanging on to his every word and believing every lie that came out of his mouth. Though his original assumption that ponies were going to attack the changelings was wrong, he still saw Sunny Starscout as a massive threat, and as long as the rest of the world saw it like that, too, he would keep up the rumors.

The pegasus who had told him about the queen interacting with traitors - Glimmer - had become his constant companion, and he had managed to get it out of her that Sunny Starscout was working with different creatures from multiple different tribes, and had her give witness testimony in front of the entire city that these creatures were dangerous and could not be trusted in any circumstance, further solidifying his claims that they were all in danger.

Further discussions with Glimmer revealed that Sunny Starscout and her friends were hiding out in the Crystal Empire, and Termite was working on getting public approval for an expedition to the northern city (which he had never heard of before, but the earth ponies’ technology said that something magical had once been happening up there).

He always dreamt of exacting his revenge on that pony for getting by him, for getting so much power and being so pathetic that she didn’t even use it for her own gain, who could so easily win over the hearts of every pony in Equestria without breaking a sweat. His daydreams consisted of the different ways he would do that - publicly force her to confess, make her watch while he destroyed everything she had helped create and destroy her world, and her friends… Personally, he was leaning towards the last option. It would seem the most satisfying.

Unicorns, being very protective of their magic, were absolutely outraged to hear that the pony that had brought back magic was using it to her advantage, and most of them in Bridlewood, the least developed of the three pony cities with the fewest visitors from other tribes, bought the story dishearteningly quickly, and while there were one or two ponies who had doubts, they never voiced them.

The pegasi in Zephyr Heights were also decently easily convinced. Having Termite right in front of them, seeing the fake evidence he produced first hoof, was useful in convincing them faster. A few ponies, mainly in the royal guard, such as Thunder and Zoom, were still unsure or completely convinced that Termite was lying, and Thunder continued to send information to Pipp as secretly as he could. The other guards who agreed that Sunny Starscout would never do something like that were secretly plotting their own plan - that they would remain loyal to their queen and do as she would like them to do.

In Maretime Bay, yet more ponies were doubtful. The farthest from Zephyr Heights of the three cities, full of a mix of unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi, and as the place where Sunny Starscout had spent most of her life, the residents confided in each other that they just didn’t think that the earth pony turned alicorn was capable of such a thing. She had never wanted power, she wanted magic and friendship. Everything Termite was planting into their minds combated with what they already knew about the last descendent of Twilight Sparkle.

And more ponies there than anywhere in Equestria thought that, perhaps, they should put aside all the rules and laws that they had been restricted by for the past few months and pool their efforts together to save the Equestria they longed for and the magic that coursed through it.

Thunder and Zoom occasionally visited Maretime Bay with a few other members of the royal guard who thought that there was more going on here than meets the eye to meet with Toots and Sweets, the unofficial heads of the group of ponies in Maretime Bay that thought the same thing, and they discussed what to do.

“We have to put the law aside,” Sweets eventually suggested at one meeting. “It’s keeping us bound, and we can’t do as much as we might be able to do. We’ll work it all out later, but if we don’t do something now, there won’t be an Equestria to come back to. For me, it’d be worth it.”

Zoom shrugged, not sure how she felt about that. Then she thought of her queen, up north, and of Sunny Starscout and her friends, and how hard they were working to save Equestria when it was falling apart around them, and her inner guard suddenly relented, allowing her to make, not the logical or rational decision, but the right decision.

“We need to convince everypony otherwise,” Toots began, but Zoom interrupted.

“No, that won’t work. We can try, but Helios-” she hesitated as she said the name, still unsure who the pony in charge of Zephyr Heights really was, because it wasn’t the nervous secretary she used to know, “-is pretty convincing. No, our best bet is to be there when Sunny Starscout needs us.”

Sweets gave a small chuckle. “Because if there’s one thing that Sunny Starscout will try to do, it’s try to save the world even when all hope is lost.”

There was a beeping noise, and the four ponies looked over at the computers - they were meeting in the room with the magic-tracking device. In the southeast of the map, in a particularly swampy area, there was a blinking red light while the computers went crazy with a million different frequencies.

“And I think,” Toots spoke into silence, “that might be right now.”

Thunder pulled out his cell and texted a message to Pipp: We’re on our way.





Elsewhere, in the changeling kingdom, Queen Monarch was slowly losing control over her subjects, who longed for fighting and the downfall of ponykind. She tried to suggest a peaceful solution, but the changelings were hearing none of it, especially since Termite had gone missing on an expedition to the ponies. Everyone was convinced that he had been kidnapped, and they swore that he would be avenged. They also wanted to show the ponies who they were dealing with - that the changeling hive was not going to lie down and accept their fate. They were going to show the ponies that, if they tried to annihilate them, they would fight back - and win.

The seeds of rage and resentment against ponies that Cozy Glow had planted there were starting to grow, and not only that, but with Termite’s help, they were thriving.

In the Dragon Lands, dragons that had previously lived in the Everfree Forest had returned to live with the rest of their kind, bringing news of everything that had happened and was happening in Equestria, and the dragons were furious. They were gathered together now, planning what they were going to do about this looming problem of ponies on their borders. Many of the dragons, who were larger than dozens of ponies, were upset by the idea that these tiny ponies thought they could pose any threat, and decided to bring the fight to them - give them a taste of their own medicine.

And every other dragon, excited at the prospect of a potential fight, quickly gave in and agreed.

At Mount Aris, the hippogriffs and seaponies were torn between two lines of thinking - either hide and wait it out without getting involved, or going out and fighting. Eventually, one of the soldiers in the army pointed out that, hiding from the Storm King in the past (everyone knew the story - it was the history of the hippogriffs in five minutes) had never worked - they had still had to face him. Hiding from the problem wouldn’t solve anything, and his speech inspired the others to get ready above the waves, preparing to strike.

The worst part about it was, they were fighting for the wrong cause - and they had no idea.

The buffalo camp was in an uproar - poor Ash had stammered when she had told her story of how she and her friends had come to the camp, and the buffalo chief had believed that ponies, especially Sunny Starscout, had really wanted to hurt the buffalo, and when they had escaped with Sunny’s crazy powers, that had only reinforced that idea. So when spies had gone past the borders of their camp and snuck around the pony settlements and come back with news that the ponies were rallying, the buffalo were furious - and were planning a vicious counterattack.

Obviously, the kirin in the Peaks of Peril were cut off from the rest of the world, but a kirin who had been on their way to the shortcut through the Peaks (they had devised a system to keep other creatures from sneaking in or out, and they had been on a shift-change when Brooks had led his friends out) had overheard their conversation and misheard about how ponies were supposedly dangerous creatures who wanted to take over the world, carrying the news back to the rest of the village.

Conflicting emotions turned kirin to nirik, and losing all sense of rationality, they prepared to fight back.

To the northeast, in the tumble-down city of Griffonstone, the griffons were angrier than ever. Some of them had seen the massive zeppelin in the sky above them, had seen the pony at the railing, and had told everyone in town. Now, they wanted to fight back. They were done with the ponies stealing all the riches and shoving it in their faces - the griffons might really start breathing fire, they were so angry. Crowds gathered in the streets, mobs with torches and pitchforks, ready to fight their hardest to get what they felt was theirs.

With nothing left to lose, they weren’t going home empty clawed.

Further to the north, in Yakyakistan, Prince Sujeed, ruler of the northern village, felt the cold still in the air and growled in frustration. The yaks had all seen Sunny Starscout the other day, and they were ready to show these ponies that they were done with them acting like they were the bosses of the world, strutting into their own town and walking around like they owned the place. And Prince Sujeed, who was eager to fight someone and was looking for someone to blame for this sudden shift in the weather, went along with it.

With each angry cry, with each hatred-fueled act, with each shout, with each lie and rumor spread, the howling storm on the horizon grew worse and worse.