//------------------------------//
// 4-8 
// Story: Heroes Never Die 
// by Shimmerist Ari 
//------------------------------//

Thankfully, nobody shot Ari when she made her rounds later. It seemed she’d manage to humanize herself among the other charities and the downtrodden enough that they were only somewhat scandalized by the revelation she was a Shimmerist.

Some people called her a nazi and vowed never to speak with her again. But most let her explain herself. She said time and time again that she had no intention of ever forcing everyone to become ponies. Just that she thought it was reasonable to give everyone the option.

And despite all the demonization from the news, a lot of them begrudgingly conceded that point.

More importantly, they all still wanted Ari’s help. She already had a reputation for being a loveable maverick and to some people, this only made them more interested in her next stunt. And Ari did repeatedly promise another stunt was coming.

Today was the day!

Technically yesterday was the day. That is, the day the Food Relief Act was passed. That was the pivotal bill Ari had been waiting for, listening to the news of day after day for months since she first got back from the Shimmerist Conference.

This was the law that would change everything.

The first truck showed up just after dawn. Ari stayed up just about all night waiting for it. The eighteen-wheeler pulled up, Ari signed and they began unloading a small mountain of boxes.

Around the time the others began waking up, two more trucks were unloading and a fourth would be arriving later.

Pamela and Dresden came out to look over the cargo being piled up on their lawn. The tower was higher than their heads and covered a good portion of the lawn.

“What’s all this?” Pamela rubbed her eyes and walked up to the stack. “This isn’t guns, is it?”

“Today is another good day!” Ari announced to her followers. “They passed the Food Relief Act! We won!”

“Won what?” Dresden, always the most skeptical read the label on the boxes.

As if the name of the act didn’t make it obvious, his eyes widened upon seeing that this was all food.

“I never thought I’d see this much food again!” Pamela opened a stray box, revealing bags of flour.

“Where did you get all of this?” Dresden asked. “Did the SSP really pay for this much?!”

“Food is practically free now, remember? Earth ponies and pegasi can just output it infinitely. They mostly only have to pay for the transportation costs.”

Ari tapped against the black label on all the packages that read ‘unnaturally generated’ in red letters and a symbol that looked similar to the radioactive one. Despite the warning, it was probably healthier than whatever you’d get at the grocery store.

But that label was new enough that nobody else here knew what exactly it meant. Food was quickly becoming unaffordable. Damn near every human was on food stamps. The government couldn’t win this battle nor did they want to continue subsidizing the poor when that money could go to a proper billionaire.

At the same time, they didn’t want to go all the way. This was their compromise.

“You see,” Ari announced. “They’ve finally legalized food grown with magic. Sort of. Don’t worry about those labels. That was just a compromise with the people worried about the ‘economic damage’ of food prices plummeting.”

“Sort of?” Dresden asked. “You said it was ‘sort of’ legal?”

“You see.” Ari slowly walked past them, hands deep in her pockets as she explained. “If you’re a member of a pony community, and I am, and you’re a pony or partial, which I am, and you’re on ground that was owned by said pony community before this act was passed, like we’re at now, then you can distribute magically-grown food to humans so long as it has been marked as ‘unnatural’ and you’re not shipping it more than five miles from your property.”

“So free food for all of us?!” Pamela took a bag of nuts the size of her torso out and hugged it dearly. “I’m spending so much money on food! This would change everything!”

“Yep.” Ari nodded to the delight of all present. “You can all take as much as you want.”

There was a short scramble for it all. But the few people present could hardly take even one percent of what was here. And that fourth truck was already rolling up.

“Of course, this is bigger than just us,” said Ari. “The government wasn’t thinking about pony communities in areas like this that they were hoping to ‘protect’. So we can give food to everybody.”

“Who’s everybody?” Dresden asked.

“Everyone willing to come within five miles of us,” said Ari. “The SSP is going to give us bonkers amount of food. There’s no end to this. Multiple trucks every day forever.”

“But we get first dibs, right?” asked Pamela.

Ari nodded. Dresden held his bag, still processing it.

“Hold on, this can’t.” He paused. “This can’t be that easy. When you say we can give it to people ‘within five miles’ do you mean they have to live within five miles? Or that they just have to come within five miles of us?”

“Oh, I have no idea.” Ari shrugged and laughed. That was the fun part. “The people who passed that weren’t expecting there to be any pony communities in human areas capable of pulling off a stunt like this. They thought it would only affect pony areas that were already a write-off. So it’s for some lawyer to decide if I’m breaking the law.”

“So you don’t know if this plan is… legal.”

“No, but that’s the point.” Ari put an arm around Dresden. “Think about it! They’ll have two options. Shut down the unlimited food glitch we’ve given to everybody or let most of the town become dependent on us for food propelling me into the defacto crime boss of Nassau County.”

The rest of them paused to process the implications of this move. The situation was unwinnable for the town.

“Oh, you can stop people from getting things like free food or social security or health care or affordable housing. People will be total cucks and accept that’s the way things are. But taking it away from them? Then you got a problem.”

“And… okay. If they do shut this down, which they probably will, what’s your plan then?” Dresden asked. “If you just want everybody to hate the government then. I mean that was already the case even before ETS.”

“No need to worry about that. We have plans for the next move no matter what happens. There’s no way out of this for the humans.” When she got looks she amended that statement. “Those other humans.”









Day one of the food drive went middling at best.

Ari sent her people out to come gather whoever they knew and inform them that this was for everyone, not just the poor or homeless. They could have handed out food to nearly a hundred people, all of them ecstatic at the thought of getting a free food ration from now on, but a hundred wasn’t nearly enough for this plan to work.

This wasn’t something that could ramp up slowly either. Despite her boast, there was no way to lose with this, there was. Had the cops shown up on day one things would go bust. Nobody would care about the prospect of free food until it became concrete and real right in front of them.

Sleep didn’t come easy that night. Or much at all.

With seemingly no need to sleep any longer, Ari found herself waking up much earlier than normal to pace around the still-dark center. Nobody else was awake yet and the house was dead silent.

Yet just as the first signs of sunrise were coming so too did a glimmer of hope. There were already people waiting outside the gates. A sight that would have inspired fear in her just a few days ago but no. They were camping out like this was Black Friday or something!

Ari woke her reluctant crew up a bit too early to start. They went to the gates and confirmed the rumors were true. They would hand out a week’s supply of food to anybody who came looking. No, you didn’t need to be homeless, poor or unemployed. Perhaps indefinitely.

And despite going as fast as they could possibly work the line only got bigger. And bigger. It stretched far down the road and out of sight, clogging everything to the point no cars could approach. Eventually, one could stand on the roof and still not see the end of things. Without the gate, the place would have been overwhelmed.

They’d gone viral sooner than she’d even hoped! Ari’s worry now was that she really would run out of food.

They had to reduce the amount of food they were giving out initially to two or three days' worth but assured everybody that larger shipments would be coming soon.

Any doubt that people would be too picky to try this ‘unnatural’ food was gone now. Ari supposed that in an age of mass food insecurity, people weren’t so picky.

In the end, it was a neighbor who couldn’t get out of their driveway that called the police on them. Ari couldn’t be angry at them, exactly. For one they were merely activating her trap. For another, the crowd was growing too restless for Ari and her five guys to control.

Even the cops had trouble getting there. Ari had to listen to the sirens blaring for a good while before one of them showed up.

The first police officer was relatively reasonable, though not at all happy to see that it was Ari Webber behind this. He asked what was happening and Ari explained. She could tell he hadn’t been updated on the law, which to be fair had only changed two days ago, insisting at first that handing this stuff out to humans was illegal as it had been for the past several months.

Eventually, a growing cluster of police officers were standing around, googling things on their phones and calling people to check. Only when it was beginning to look like Ari might have been right did they change tactics.

“Well even if it is legal now,” he said. “You still can’t just gather a crowd like this wherever you want. You’d need some kind of permit if you’re going to be having this many people coming to you.”

“Is there somewhere I can distribute it?” Ari asked.

“That’s not really up to me. You’ll have to call the town and ask about the proper way to go about that,” said the officer. “And because I’m still not sure if this is legal, I’ll have to confiscate all this food for now.”

There was enough animosity around that statement that he had to stay everyone within earshot. But somebody in the crowd heard. Word of that decision quickly moved along the line.

“You’re seriously going to take this away?!” Somebody shouted.

“When the hell is the town going to do something about the food crisis then?!”

“Look, that wasn’t my decision,” he added quickly. “You’re going to have to talk to the mayor about this sort of thing. You’ll get it back as soon as everything is cleared up.”

Ari had to pretend to be upset with this decision but perhaps one or two people caught her smiling.

People were shouting. A few of them just grabbed things from the pile and ran. Ari was worried that they’d storm the property. The next order of business was clearing out the increasingly riotous crowd. Even the police were starting to look nervous, formed a line by Ari’s gate, and started calling for backup.

“Everyone disperse!” The officer shouted out to them.

“I could talk to them,” Ari offered.

“I’d rather you not be rilling them up, thanks.”

“It might be better for it to be me,” said Ari. “If you all show up and tell them you’re taking away their free rations there might be a riot. If I’m the one to do it, they’ll be more understanding. I’ll tell them it’s not you’re fault. That it’s the mayor who’s going to decide.”

The officer reluctantly considered the offer. The prospect of passing the buck to somebody not immediately present was too tempting to pass up. Ari was right that the crowd might turn violently against the police if they made themselves a target.

They agreed on exactly what Ari would say before one of them gave her a loudspeaker and Ari got on top of a police car to address them all.

“Listen up!” Ari called out to them. “I’m the leader of the center handing out this food! Now, I want to stress this isn’t the decision of me or the police or anybody here. But the mayor hasn’t decided if I’m allowed to keep this up.”

Already things were growing uncomfortably loud.

“Quiet down!” Ari had to shout over them now. “We have a Facebook group where you can get updates on this. SCCLI. Again, go to the SCCLI group on Facebook. We’ll let you know when the mayor has made a decision. But unfortunately, for today, we can’t give out any more–”

Ari wasn’t able to get any more out to them. Somebody threw a rock at her and she quickly retreated behind police lines before anything worse could be aimed. She was glad she remembered to mention the Facebook group before this part. She’d done what she could to calm them all down. Now it was the police’s job to stop what could quickly turn into a riot.

How well they succeeded was hard to tell. There was quite a bit of fighting against the police but nothing more intense than the frequent breakups of homeless encampments and protests before. Everyone was used to this by now and realized the futility of it all to varying degrees.

More and more police showed up. The crowd cleared out. The food was taken. But the trap was set. Now Ari could just sit back while her soon-to-be nemesis made his agonizing decision.









As hoped the Facebook group exploded in terms of views. The numbers seemed unreal, dwarfed even her old Twitter handle, long since banned by Musk along with most other Shimmerists. This one story was all that anybody in town talked about anymore. Nothing else seemed to matter, not compared to food. This was a decision that would make or break their lives.

Even people far from the wolf of starvation started showing up to the scattered homeless camps and charity groups Ari frequented to try and get more information. The media did their best to suppress the story and it didn’t make the actual news but there wasn’t a single person within fifty miles who hadn’t heard of that stunt.

Nobody seemed to care Ari was a Shimmerist. She openly introduced herself as one to everyone now, even reasonably well-off humans, and the response now was ‘That’s cool. Can you really get us free food?’

Things were going perfectly! The moment the town announced they’d be banning Ari’s charity she could announce a protest to people eagerly awaiting news.

Pieces were falling into place. The SSP had somepony monitoring the situation for her so that Ari would beat the local news to the punch and deliver the news long before anyone else. They were getting ready for the trigger to be pulled, for things to swing around, and for Ari to at last become a national curiosity.

And that moment came.

After refreshing the SSP forum page until her mouse broke down from wear, the news finally came. Her phone got the notification meaning all that time watching was wasted to begin with. But it came.

The town released a statement explaining why they wouldn’t be allowing Ari to distribute free food.

They claimed to be worried about the health of the people. They pretended to care about the grocery store workers who would lose their jobs. And of course inflation. They said that Ari was stretching the law too much and there would be a lawsuit.

None of that mattered.

She posted the prewritten response to her group immediately, one that promised an important announcement from the Social Shimmerists of Long Island to fight back against this decision soon, knowing plenty of other people would be refreshing it just as fervently as Ari had.

It was a screed on how little the mayor cared about them and called for a protest outside city hall tomorrow. People were already signing up for it within minutes.

“Alright!” Ari emerged from the computer room, throwing open the door to the rest of the center, all on edge. “It happened. The protest is tomorrow.”

“I still don’t understand,” said Dresden. “You’re always saying protests are useless.”

“They are! But the point of this protest isn’t to change anything. It’s to make an announcement.”

Another riot broke out that night, obviously. But when did they, not these days?

More important was the crowd Ari managed to assemble in front of city hall. It was almost as big as the one who had gathered for free food a week earlier. People were standing out with all kinds of signs, reminding Ari of her college days.

But this time things would be different.

She looked back at town hall. The mayor was nowhere to be seen just yet, hiding away.

Ari took out her megaphone to address the crowd, eager to hear her response.

“The local government, no everyone in power, has proven time and time again that they simply don’t care about working people!” Ari announced into the crowd. “if they had done nothing to stem the tide of rising costs pushing people like you and me to the edge of poverty that’d be one thing. But they just went one step further and made it worse instead!”

They all cheered for that.

“I want to remind all of you that this isn’t a one-off action. I had my rent doubled when Blackrock moved in. How many of you had a similar experience? And what has the government done to help? Do you remember all the garbage piled up? He refused to clean up the town until I got involved and forced him to do it! The fact that it happened so fast shows he could have done it any time he wanted but refused. Why? Because he doesn’t care about any of us. The only thing he cares about is Blackrock.”

Many people held up their signs targeted at Blackrock specifically. They weren’t exactly popular around here either.

“And hear me now! The fact that they don’t care… is exactly why this protest is pointless.”

They didn’t like that. Boos and shouts overtook the crowd. Thankfully, Ari couldn’t make any words out.

“Calm down. The protest won’t work because he doesn’t care. No one cares. Not the local, state, or federal government cares about any of you because you’re not a corporation forking over lobby money. They’ll have a good laugh about this and carry on with the same bullshit they’ve always been doing. Letting you starve for the sake of corporations like Blackrock. There is only one thing we can do to change that. Only one thing that will work to even the slightest degree.”

She paused for a moment, both to let the idea settle in the crowd and in a final hesitation, knowing this was the point of no return.

“And that’s why… I’m announcing that I will be running for mayor.”

End of part 4