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// How Am I Gonna Be An Optimist About This 
// Story: The Fire is so Delightful 
// by hawthornbunny 
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"I win! I am the Fire Alicorn! I am power!"

With more preparation I could have probably come up with a slightly better victory speech, but it all happened so fast that it was a bit of a blur. Besides, I was feeling so energized in the heat of that moment that I didn't care at all. I'd already won, after all.

Or at least, so I'd thought. I'm sure you know how the rest of this goes, but I don't, because I was busy being tangled up in a rainbow pretzel. Thus, I hope you don't mind if I take some artistic license here.

"Opaline!" Sunny Starscout dribbled. "You'll never succeed in your plan for perfectly-reasonable domination of ponykind! And you know why?"

I didn't answer, partly because the question was obviously rhetorical, and also because a rainbow was trying to climb down my throat.

"Because," she continued, "We have the unholy power of Frerfship! And it's stronger than anything ever in the history of ever! I now sentence you to a punishment of one million years!"

"But how," I gargled. "How did you do this? I have all of the power, and all of the magic, and all of your cutie marks! All you have are a bunch of carollers and a thrift store necklace!"

"Isn't it obvious?" she replied infuriatingly.

"Well, no, otherwise I wouldn't have asked," I replied with an annoyed glare. "I mean, I had a song and a necklace too, doesn't that count for anything?"

"By cheating!" yelled Sunny triumphantly.

"Yeah, Sunny! You're the best at stuff!"

"I'm getting all this on my camcorder!"

"Glitter!"

"I was always going to betray you, Opaline!"

"Noooooooooo!" I cried, as my castle rumbled around me and my traitorous tree snared me with sickly green vines and began pulling me toward a gaping maw in its bark.

It wasn't really going to end like this, was it? Betrayed by a tree? Treeson! I flailed, and growled, and bit, and struggled bodily, blasting the wooden vines with what little fire I had left, but the thing was a hydra, exponentiating its hold on me with each second.

My eyes widened as I felt an impossibly-strong pull on my flank, then an electric snap that left a numbness in my system. The fire flickered from my eyes as a tentacle carried away the regal crest that made me me. "No! My cutie mark! I earned that mark! You can't..."

I ceased my protest as vines wound around my muzzle, my neck, my basically everything, weaving themselves into a full-body straitjacket. The last sight of the outside world was the crumbling walls of my dungeon before the bark sealed around me, and it was just me and the glowing green vines. Vines which, as far as I could tell, hated me. I didn't know trees could get so personal.

Oh, this was not pleasant at all. Vines multiplied around me, pressing and crushing and doubling up until I couldn't twitch so much as a hooftip. As the magic faded from them, they turned solid again, becoming an inescapable cage of living wood.





It's Hearth's Warming again. Or Wishmas, or whatever they call it now. I know, because the sap I'm drenched in always gains a sickly sweetness this time of year, and I can hear the tedious drone of festive singing around my tree. Perhaps it thinks it can reform me with enough festive cheer. Well, good luck with that. I'm not done yet.

I admit it, I was beaten. Again. It never hurts any less, each time. There's probably a lesson I should have learned in there somewhere.

But I'm making progress! I have Equestria back again. And when I'm out of here, not one inch of this land is going to escape my wrath, I promise you that!