//------------------------------// // Chapter NEIN!! // Story: How I Screwed Up Equestria // by Quicksear //------------------------------// Fix. FixFixFixFixFix. Gotta fix this. Gotta move my lazy Irish arse and FIX EVERYTHING. Fluttershy. Of all the fucked-up-ness in this town, fixing the problem pertaining to her skills should be the easiest, right? She likes animals, animals like her; add one Fluttershy to the bowl of angry animals to avert the animal kingdom’s version of Chernobyl going off and obliterating everything on the face of existence like that violently expensive foreign blemish cream on the face of a zitty high-schooler. Fluttershy was the counter to this biological zit cream, and I was one zit that wanted to annoy our pizza-gobbling sarcasm-spewing teen-aged Existence every time the bastard looked in the mirror his parents Time and Matter had bought him to keep him occupied while they laboured under the cruel employ of Irony. Yes, I am rambling, just like I was rambling through the bushes trying to find the damn door to Fluttershy’s tree. Because if I didn’t start putting their stupid little cartoony-perfect world back together, I’d never be getting back to mine. Where the hell is Fluttershy’s front door?! ***** “Um, w-what are you doing?” Dale spun around, gasping in relief, “Fluttershy! Oh, I finally found yer place, thank the lord!” He looked like he’d either been mauled by a pack of weasels or gone through a seriously social upheaval of some sort. Not that Fluttershy was an expert, and she didn’t mean to pry… The butter yellow mare pointed sadly over at another clump of foliage further down the stream by her little bridge and flower patch. “But…I live over there?” The human blinked dumbly at the cottage nestled comfortably in the bosom of Fluttershy’s tree. “Oh.” “Do you, um,” Fluttershy mumbled as she backed away towards her house, “Do you need anything?” “Yes!” Fluttershy squeaked as he jumped out of the clinging branches and grabbed desperately onto her forehooves, “I need ya to get yer critters under control an’ back into the damn forest!” “Oh!” Fluttershy gasped, trying to flap away, “No, I can’t interfere! I see now, animals can take care of themselves, and I was selfish to try and mother them when what they really needed was their own freedom.” She nodded to punctuate her words. She’d practised. “God, girl,” Dale said, aghast, “Ya sound like yer readin’ that out a book! Listen, I was wrong! You do ‘ave a very important purpose. More than I figgered!” “O-oh?” Fluttershy eeped. She fell to the ground, ears perked. Dale took a deep breath, and then, “You keep the animals o’ a forest, in the forest. You do it wi’out any fences or boundaries ye’d need otherwise, you jus’ make ‘em happy ‘nuff where they are, y’see? You an’ Dash both; you keep the Everfree forest, which is clearly dangerous fer you ponies, away from the pony places! With Dash, the weather would jus’ move right on over! And without you, the animals stampeded through town and generally cause havoc. You ARE needed!” Fluttershy gasped and dashed into the air so fast Dale couldn’t hold on. She had heard only one thing during Dales bumbling speech; “There’s been a stampede?! Oh, what if one of the critters got hurt! I…I need to go help them!” Dale sat blinking in the dirt. “Yer worried if one of the critters bein’ hurt?” But Fluttershy was well on her way to town, silently panicking to herself about her little friends. Dale stood up and shrugged. Either way, his goal was achieved. Now, onto the next pony… ***** Rarity was having the worst possible day. Her mane was an absolute mess, her boutique was being surrounded by grubby little animals and Twilight was making an awful racket with…whatever it was she was doing. Why did she have to make the force field imprisoning the entirety of Ponyville violet? The light did not complement the town at all. The weather was not making it any better either. The damp was doing her complexion an awfully bad turn. Not that she showed it, though. It had been brought to her attention that she was not as guarded as she thought. A proper lady always remained mysterious. Even now, as a shrew popped up out of her main and squealed high murder, while Rarity’s inner instinct was bucking the inside of her skull trying to make her do something, anything to get the filthy little rodent out, She did nothing. She did nothing til that instinct gave up and went home, and only then did she slowly brush the little creature away with a hoof. She would have smiled at her personal victory, but, y’know, emotionless robo-Rare. Where did humans come up with such interesting names anyway? “Fer tha love o’ God, will you stop zonin’ off on yer own little trip an’ stay with me fer at least five minutes ya cyborg!” There, another one! He’d been shouting on and off for the last few minutes. Rarity didn’t listen. If she listened, she had to react, and if she reacted, she might slip. It would be unacceptable to break form in the Screamer’s presence; he’d brought her situation to her attention to begin with. She decided to rather look around her, lose herself in the…interesting aesthetic Ponyville seemed to have nowadays. Pegasi lined the rooftops around her, Earth ponies and unicorns sitting rapt amidst the beasts, staring proudly up at Twilight as she raged on and on… This is a great meeting!” Twilight called out from the pinnacle of Carousel Boutique, “and it augurs well for our cause. A cause for which many of you have gathered, so many as to burst the walls of our own town hall! So many, in fact, that we may see it boding well for our cause.” A pony in the background blinked and looked around, “Wait...what’s going on…?” “We meet together to take a decision which will be judged by the whole country.” Twilight said solemnly, “You will have many votes to cast in your lives hence should we succeed, but I think it is quite superfluous to say that the vote which you will cast today will be probably the most important vote which as citizens of Ponyville, and all Equestria will have the honour casting, ever. We must do this, for great justice! Don't let it be wasted. Don't let it be misapplied." A pegasus got bored somewhere on a rooftop and asked a familiar pink unicorn on the ground beneath him, “Hey, what’s this about, seriously?” “I’m not sure,” Lyra glumly responded as the pink ran out of her fur, leaving her looking like a mint and strawberry icecream disaster with a horn, “But she mentioned something about getting the weather and animals back in their right places. I didn’t hear the rest.” Twilight overrode them, too lost in her own misguided politics to care, “Let it go to support the good and revolutionary cause and strengthen the weak hooves of the Government now doing good work. Let it be a solid vote! A vote that decides, no! We will not sit by idly and live day to day, trusting in other’s judgement!” The pegasus from earlier scratched an ear confusedly, “But…why not?” Twilight, though, continued towards a massive trainwreck she could not foresee, “We will begin community of property, organize currency- and capital-free trade! We will abolish racial and sexual tensions!” “Sounds like someone sure needs ‘er sexual tensions relieved,” Dale muttered in the dust. He stood up and grabbed Rarity by the shoulders, shouting, “I know where this speech is going! You have to stop her forming the PRL! There will be bombings!” Rarity, meanwhile, kept passively watching. Inside, the shrew climbing into her mane again was starting to bug her. Rightfully, so was the weather…and the human…and the whole situation, She wished she could just…but no, she couldn’t, that would…grrrrr… “We will end divisions of labour, and all forms of class systems! All forms of elitism!” Rarity’s eyes widened imperceptibly, but Dale was too busy scratching his head to notice; “Wait, when did she become Twilight Stalin?!” Then he heard a faint rumble coming from down the street. His eyes widened as well, “Oh…shit…” “We must be equal to be united!” Twilight crowed, ‘And to start, to cast your ballot, to rid our town of its pestilences, we begin with removing the blight against our cause this building embodies! Tear it down! Dale tore his eyes from the on-coming terror to where Rarity had been, saying, “Okay Ice-Queen we really gotta- Oh…” Only to see Rarity clawing her way up the side of her own boutique, rage in her eyes. “TWILIGHT DON’T YOU DARE!!!” Containing one’s emotions is not wise. It has come out sometime. The emotions of the most dramatic mare Ponydom had ever spawned were about to be unleashed upon one unsuspecting alicorn. Dale blinked. “Huh. Does that mean she’s back to normal…?” Then he once again caught a glimpse of another pony down the street, yellow and pink and laughing in the midst of a vast chittering tidal wave of nature pouring through the town. Fluttershy was certainly happy to be with her little friends again. Dale, and every confused pony in the streets, bailed from the FlutterTyphoon as fast as their limbs could carry them as the voice of their fear cut through the air: “…yay…” ***** Dale blinked. Well, that was unexpected… Shaking the image of Fluttershy being borne through the streets on the back of a bear from his mind, he turned and started striping with purpose, “Time to find Pin-Whoa!” Dale pushed himself up from the dirt and spat out a pebble. Then he turned and looked spitefully at the pink lump that had tripped him up. “….Oooooohhh….” PinkieCrash. Hard. “…Oooooouuuhh…” She moaned pitifully as she rolled over, mane trampled flat about her, “Blue sounds so soft, but the aftertaste is icky…” “Oh, Pinkie!” Dale gasped, falling to his knees beside her. He brushed a lock of mane from her face, “Are...are ya okay, darlin’?” She grinned hopefully, “Do you have coffee?” “Uh, no. Not on yer life, girl. Never ever ever ever ever!” Her eyes widened, “Four…” And then she cried. “Uh…” Dale sat down, hovered, then settled on patting Pinkie’s shoulder, “Coffee…coffee aint that great, now is it, lass? Just gotta…get back up and trooper on, eh?” He said in a faux-cheerful voice. “I can’t purple without cheescake!” Pinkie cried. Dale looked about wildly in search of a solution. He latched onto the first thing he spotted: the café they were crouching beside. With a very Irish level of thought to property damage, he punched open the window beside him and pulled out a cupcake. The syrupy sugariness of the confection was the light that drew the Pink moth from the earth. Pinkie was barely sniffing out the treat, her lips forming a hopeful smile, when Dale destroyed that smile by gracelessly shoving the food down her throat and holding her jaw shut. An injection of sugar so concentrated, the effects were near-instantaneous. *POP* “Hmm, double triple fudge chocolate chip layered vanilla toffee surprise! My favourite!” And Pinkie Pie was back. She beamed a grateful smile at the confused human crouching in the dirt and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, before bouncing out into the street. There, she stopped, gazing upwards, eyes wide. “Ooooooh, no…That won’t end well.”