"Okay guys, are you gonna be quiet and listen to me from here on out?"
A half-dead chorus of 'yes's filled the room. Nightmare Moon beamed and clapped her hooves. "Oh my gosh, this is going to be so much fun! Right guys?" Her cheerful countenance did not relax for a second.
"We don't even know what you want us to do," Chrysalis monotoned, idly rolling a pencil back and forth on the table.
The sable alicorn giggled. "That's what makes it so fun, Chrysalis! It's a surprise." Ignoring the uncomfortable silence, Nightmare Moon continued. "Well, do ya wanna know what we're doing? What the surprise is?"
"Sure."
"Okay. This is so awesome!" Nightmare giggled again. "Ready for it?"
Silence.
"We're going to make a list of all the bad things we're gonna do! I think we should put mooning at the very top. That's sure to get us into the big leagues really quick!" She gazed into each of the E.F.A. member's eyes, expecting to see sparks of inspiration. All she got though, were unamused stares.
"Seriously?"
Nightmare Moon frowned at the red and charcoal gray offender. "What do you mean, 'seriously?'"
Tirek crossed his arms. "We all walk around pretty much naked everywhere. We can do much better than that. Destroying trees would be way better." Chrysalis rolled her eyes.
"You guys are being stupid. Obviously, what we should do first is morph into someone else and follow them around the whole day telling them that we're their identical twin. That's really evil!"
Nightmare Moon sighed. "You're the only one capable of doing that, genius."
"Well, aren't I supposed to be looking out for my best interests?" came the narcissistic retort.
Nightmare let out an exasperated groan. "Let's just move on. Discord?"
The draconequus in question piped up. "We need to do something that's super hardcore. Like . . . replacing every single jellybean on the planet with a tamarind candy! That would cause tons of chaos."
Tirek looked up to the ceiling in consideration. "You know, I think Discord might be onto something."
"But I love tamarind candies!" Nightmare Moon bore a look of confusion under the incredulous stares thrown her way. "What? Those things are good."
"Guys?" a rough but quiet voice started. "I think—"
"Okay, we're doing my idea!" Discord glared at Sombra, causing him to shrink back. "Your's is problem something stupid anyway, so it's not worth our time." The others suddenly found the ground very interesting, with the exception of Nightmare Moon who was just confused.
She inched towards Chrysalis and whispered, "Alright, what did I miss?"
"Sombra and Discord had a bit of an argument yesterday," the changeling whispered back.
Nightmare rolled her eyes. "No, really? I never would have guessed." The girls watched Sombra mumble a quiet apology, to which the draconequus snorted. "What about, though?"
Discord angrily began to berate Sombra. "You know how Sombra's been reading a lot lately?" Chrysalis said.
"Yeah, it's his latest hobby, right?" Nightmare responded, aqua irises glued to the scene that played out in front of them. What was that look in Sombra's crimson eyes? Fear? No, that wasn't quite right. Helplessness? That wasn't it either.
Contempt? She was getting warmer.
"Yup. But Discord thinks that he's keeping secrets from us."
"Idiot," Nightmare muttered. She strutted up to Discord and promptly said in a loud, demanding voice, "Shut up, Discord. We don't have time for petty arguing, so let's get back to the meeting." He shot the unicorn one last glare before turning away.
The alicorn filly trotted back to her chair and held up a notepad. "I'm gonna record everyone's ideas here now, so keep them coming." She jotted down 'mooning' and looked up expectantly.
"Aren't you gonna write down what the rest of us said?" Tirek asked with a frown.
"They were all undoable, so no."
Every member of the club wore a glower now, but Nightmare stood firm. "I'm only gonna write your suggestions down if they are actually something we can do." Her tone grew aggressive. "Anyone got a problem with that?" she growled.
The ebony pony gained no response; no one wanted to deal with an angry Nightmare Moon at the moment. "Good," she huffed.
"Chrysalis, for the hundredth time, you're the only shapeshifter here! So stop telling me to put down things like that!" Nightmare yelled. Half an hour later, the group sat there, discussing their future exploits. On the notepad, 'mooning' was still the only item listed. "Don't you have even a teaspoon's worth of creativity?!"
Chrysalis buried her face beneath her hooves and gave a shuddering sigh, nearly ready to burst into tears. Everyone was tired and irritable from the nonstop criticism and little progress. Discord held a blank gaze, Tirek was more than a little agitated, Sombra just looked worn out, and Nightmare Moon's blood was boiling from frustration.
The alicorn barked, "Come on, idiots! THINK!" Chrysalis abruptly brought her hooves away from her face and got up, knocking the chair over and revealing her watery eyes.
"This just isn't working out, Nightmare!" she yelled, a slight tremor in her voice. "If this is how you're going to treat me, then I don't want any part of being in this club!" The alicorn stared up at her, feeling a pang of guilt from bringing her to tears. "Let me know when you're ready to be a real friend." The changeling's voice cracked on the last syllable, and she flew out of the clubhouse swiftly, finally letting her tears flow freely.
Her sobs were audible to the quartet inside the tiny wooden structure, but they slowly faded away as she fluttered back to her home. If looks could kill, Nightmare Moon would not be dead, but clinging onto one last string of life when she'd probably much rather be across Rainbow Bridge as the pain would be too much to bare, judging by the livid scowls the centaur, draconequus, and unicorn gave her.
Tirek got up quickly. "I'm outta here." Discord nodded in agreement and the duo left the clubhouse. Nightmare stared at Sombra pleadingly, but he gulped uneasily and shook his head.
The gray unicorn silently left the room, leaving the temperamental alicorn alone with her thoughts.
All was still in the clubhouse until Nightmare Moon began to shake. She felt her eyes grow wet and her vision blurred. Crumpling onto the ground and hitting a hoof against the floor, she wailed.
"Why am I so awful at this friend business? Why don't ponies like me?!" She looked up at the ceiling, where a curious rabbit-shaped crack stared back down at her. Her eyes following the lines, she pondered her problem for a few minutes, but quickly gave up, as she couldn't think of a reasonable solution. "I—I wasn't even being mean to them! I'm just . . . blunt!"
She wiped her eyes with a hoof and sighed. "Chrysalis is just overly sensitive. They'll come around eventually." Nightmare glanced back up at the rabbit and tried to force a smile, but none came. She slowly got up into a sitting position and studied the wooden floor for a moment, gazing at the various shades of brown the wooden strips were. "Maybe I should consult an expert."
Solar Flare absolutely hated it when ponies suspected something about her. I am and forever will be innocent. She sighed in exasperation as she resumed writing in her diary about how much she hated her family's doubt in her. I don't get why Mom has to be so nosy all the time. She always thinks I'm "up to something." What she doesn't understand is that I'm a relatively good kid compared to some other teenagers out there. She held the quill in her mouth for a moment and continued writing again.
Sure, I might be a bit of a rebel, but it's not like I'm failing classes and have secret coltfriends or anything! Mom just doesn't trust—
"SOLAR FLARE!" The crimson alicorn quickly snapped her diary shut and groaned; it was her little sister, Nightmare Moon. She turned to the doorway and found the black filly holding a scroll in her indigo magic.
"What do you want, Nightmare?" she said, the annoyance in her voice clear as day.
The filly trotted up to Solar's desk and unfurled the scroll onto it, revealing it to be some kind of contract riddled with blank spaces. "What's this?" she asked, inspecting the paper.
"You have lots of friends, right? I need you to teach me how to be a real friend." Chrysalis's words from earlier still stung.
"Uh, what?"
Nightmare Moon sighed. "I said I need you to teach me how to be a real friend. My friends hate me because apparently I'm a . . . a fake one."
"Oh. Well, what's in it for me?"
"I don't know, what do you want?"
"Hmm. How about you get me some of those cotton candy clouds of Discord's?"
"Wha—how did you know about that?"
"You're kidding, right? He became pretty popular for it like two days ago. Don't you remember when it was raining liquid chocolate?" Solar sighed happily, recalling the day it rained sweet, sticky, goodness all over town. "Best thing ever. So yeah, ponies love them. I want you to get me one of those."
"Discord's one of the friends I need to make amends with, though!"
"Yeah, so?"
Nightmare Moon groaned. "You're not gonna make this any easier for me, are you?"
Solar Flare grinned a grin full of malice. "Nope."
The younger filly smacked a hoof against her forehead.