//------------------------------//
// Goodbye 2014 
// Story: Hello 2015 
// by Ferhog 
//------------------------------//

As the car behind her drove off into the distance, Sunset Shimmer picked up her bag and approached the house.

Although she had been to this particular house before, she still thought it was strange that this house could look so unwelcoming, yet belong to quite possibly the happiest person in the universe. It was a two story building with dark grey walls, topped with a roof of maroon colored tiles. The front door was made of unpainted smooth wood, and the windows were just square panes of glass within square wooden frames. The house looked like it was designed to look bleak and boring. In fact, it looked almost like a giant rock.

How could someone like Pinkie Pie stand to live in a place like that.

Sunset made her way up the small steps and rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, the door opened to reveal a girl with navy coloured skin and light grey hair that looked like it was made purely of dust. She face gave little hint of any emotion.

"Hi Limestone." Sunset said awkwardly. She always found it hard to talk to Pinkie's family.

"Hello Miss Shimmer." She answered, her voice sounding so emotionless it was almost robotic. "The girls are in Pinkie's room. Please, let yourself in."

The interior of the house looked a lot better than the exterior, and it didn't even need that much assistance from Pinkie Pie. The walls of the hallway were painted completely brown, and covered with pictures of the Pie family. While some photographs showed an emotionless family minus the little pink dynamo of joy also featured in them, others showed the family with actual smiles while Pinkie Pie herself looked like she would burst with pure happiness. But strangest and even creepiest of all, some older looking photographs showed a bleak looking family, including Pinkie Pie. The Pinkie in these pictures had completely flat hair like the rest of the Pie's. Nothing like her current hair which could almost be mistaken for cotton candy. And the facial expression on the young Pinkie Pie's face looked like she would one day break down and become a serial killer.

It was weird how much people change over time. Sunset could understand, having been a wicked wielder of dark magic little more than two years ago.

Suddenly, a grey skinned girl with dark grey hair jogged down the hallway and over to Limestone.

"Limestone." Said Marble Pie, in a voice that had actual traces of emotion in it. "Come quick, You're going to miss The Fascinating World Of Rocks."

Pinkie's two sisters ran off into another room, leaving Sunset alone in the hallway.

She made her way up the stairs and walked down the upper floor hallway towards Pinkie's room. Upon approaching the pink door, she knocked three times.

The door instantly slammed open, and out ran Pinkie Pie, who grabbed Sunset by the collar of her shirt and brought them face to face, staring deep into her eyes.

"Sunset Shimmer." She said, speaking in an almost serious tone. "Are you ready for your first official New Years Eve Pinkie Pie super slumber party of unspeakable fun?"

Sunset was caught completely off guard. "Um...maybe?"

Pinkie Pie let go of Sunset's collar and continued to stare at her with that serious look, before breaking into a smile and opening the door. "Then come on in."

As Sunset entered Pinkie's room, she was greeted by waving hands from all her friends. "Hi Sunset!" They called in unison.

Sunset placed her bag with all the other bags and joined the rest of the group.

Applejack was sitting on the edge of the bed, helping herself to a bottle of apple cider, while Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie stared at the television screen. Two chairs were set before the T.V. set, and on them sat Rainbow Dash and Rarity, who were engaged in a tense game of Super Smash Bros for the Wii U.

"Taste my blade you italian ruffian!" Rarity shouted while tapping and waving her wii remote like a lunatic.

Rainbow Dash looked like she was under a lot more pressure than Rarity, sweating as she did similar actions with her remote.

"Uh, Rarity..." Said Applejack. "You do realise that shaking the remote does nothing right?"

Rarity gave Applejack a fierce look that shut the farmer up, before returning her attention to the screen.

Within seconds, a deep masculine digital voice declared Rarity the winner as she jumped up and down in victory.

"Dang it!" Cried Pinkie, who turned to face Fluttershy. "Thats ten bucks I owe you."

Fluttershy smiled as she accepted the ten dollars.

"Oh come on!" Rainbow Dash cried. "You picked Meta Knight! That shouldn't even be legal."

"Accept your defeat Rainbow Dash." Replied Rarity, helping herself to a bowl of marshmallows. "Some of us are just talented in other fields." 

Rainbow Dash pouted as she buried her head in the game manual, mumbling to herself.

"...picked Meta Knight...unfair...should'a done that..."

"So." Said Rarity, lifting up the spare remote. "Who's next?"


***


The rest of the night was like any other one of Pinkie Pie's parties, only with a bit more of a holiday feel to it. By the end of their Smash Bros tournament Rarity was unbeaten until her encounter with Fluttershy, which left the fashionista defeated in under two minutes by the quiet girl's skills as Jigglypuff. Following the tournament they moved on to a game of Monopoly which started with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie fighting over ownership of the car figure, and ended with Sunset Shimmer proving to be the greatest businesswoman of them all. After that they did some general partying, helping themselves to snacks like Haribos, Doritos and sodas while Pinkie Pie cranked up the tunes.

A while later, the stereo started to play Blank Space by Taylor Swift, which caught Rarity's attention.

"Ah yes, Blank Space. This my just be the greatest song to come out of 2014. If you ask me, Taylor swift has truly returned."

Fluttershy looked like she was taken aback by this. "When was Taylor Swift ever gone?"

"Are you kidding me?" Responded Rarity. "Who in the world liked any of her work from before 2011? We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together was a dreadful tune for immature teenagers, Trouble tried to incorporate the satanic art known as Dub-step into her music, and Shake It Off, good lord that song..."

"Don't you dare undermine Shake It Off." Said Fluttershy, who was starting to look angry. "That song is catchy, upbeat, and fun! The most fun song of 2014!"

"Its just Taylor Swift trying to be cool." Uttered Rarity, making quotation marks with her fingers. "Oh look at me Im Taylor Swift, I stay up too late, I go through too many boyfriends, haters gonna hate, Im just gonna shake my butt! Do you call that music?! I call that Garbage!"

Fluttershy balled her hand into a pathetic shaking fist. "Well Blank Space is just her being an immature over emotional teenager!"

"Blank Space is a work of art! Taylor Swift is best when she's emotional!"

"Well.."

Pinkie Pie jumped in between the two girls, holding her hands out in a gesture of asking them to stop. "Girls! Girls! Save your heated discussions for the recap of the year!"

They both gave each other hard looks before speaking in unison. "Fine."

After the argument was broken up, Sunset walked over to Pinkie Pie. "Um, Pinkie. Whats the recap of the year?"

Pinkie Pie looked baffled. "You mean no one told you? For shame! The recap of the year is when we gather round the table and discuss our opinions on how the year went. We did it every year until you destroyed our friendships a while back and blah blah blah no offence, none taken, that joke's already been driven into the ground. We did it last year as well before we fully accepted you as our friend."

"Sounds fun."

"Trust me." Pinkie replied, with a grin. "It is."


***


Pretty soon after, the event began. Pinkie Pie placed a round table in the centre of her room, with six chairs surrounding it. Upon the sable sat six glasses of lemonade and more bowls of snacks. The six girls sat on their individual seats, and prepared themselves for discussions and arguments.

Pinkie Pie sat herself down on the biggest chair, holding up a sheet of paper. "First and foremost, are you all comfortable?"

Everyone shook their head.

"Are the snacks and beverages satisfactory?"

There was another round of shaking heads.

"Does anyone need to go potty?"

Everyone sat completely still except Fluttershy, who was still shaking her head. She then noticed everyone staring at her and stopped.

"Wait what was the question?" She asked.

"Never mind." Said Pinkie Pie. "The first category is..." She zoomed over to her drum kit and played a little drum roll before returning to her chair. "...movies!"

"Oh please!" Said Rainbow Dash. "Thats easy! Guardians Of The Galaxy was awesome, Ninja Turtles was a huge disappointment, we all cried during The Fault In Our Stars and Legend Of Hercules was the worst thing to come out of the movie industry since The Room."

"You forgot to mention Mockingjay." Said Rarity. "They more or less brought the book to life."

"Well I mentioned The Fault In Our Stars, I don't really need to mention another book movie."

"What about Divergent?" Fluttershy whispered.

"What?" Cried Rarity. "First you praise Shake It Off and now you praise that atrocity of a movie. Have you no taste?! Have you no shame?!"

"I have opinions!" Fluttershy cried back.

"Well they clearly aren't good opinions!" Rarity replied. "The Divergent series is just a rip off of every other teen book series in history!"

"Have you ever read the books?" Fluttershy asked.

Rarity was silent for a moment. "I...read...a bit of the first book. But I couldn't finish it because of how terrible it was!"

Fluttershy smiled smugly. "Well if you haven't read the books you can't go criticising them."

Rarity found herself at a loss for words.

"Point to Fluttershy!" Pinkie shouted.

"Wait, does this have a scoring system?" Sunset asked.

"Nope." Pinkie replied. "Hey Sunset, since this is your first New Years Eve Pinkie Pie slumber party of unspeakable fun, why don't you give us your own opinions on the movies of 2014."

Sunset was taken by surprise. She was fine just watching everyone discuss their topics. But she wasn't going to just deny an offer Pinkie made.

"Okay." She said, struggling for words. "I...agree with Rainbow Dash. Guardians Of The Galaxy was pretty awesome."

Fluttershy sniffed, "We are Groot.". She said in a sad voice.

Applejack covered her face and seemed to genuinely start weeping. "It was too soon!"

Leave it to Applejack to start crying over the death of a tree.

"Y'know, that movie just shows how good Marvel is at making movies." Said Rainbow Dash. "Two of the main characters were a talking racoon and a living tree. How did they make that good?!"

"Well to be fair the movie didn't take itself too seriously." Said Sunset. "It was funny and had awesome actions, but did it really have the best characters?"

"Heck yeah!" Replied Rainbow. "Star Lord, Rocket, and Drax were hilarious, Gamora was awesome, and Groot is said to be the greatest movie hero of 2014."

"He really was!" Applejack said, rubbing the last of her tears out of her eyes.

"Yeah, but can anyone say that Ronan and Thanos were good villains?"

"No." Replied Applejack. "Not really. Its pretty minor though, compared to the rest of the movie."

"Very well then." Said Pinkie. "Do we all agree that Guardians Of The Galaxy was the best movie of 2014?"

"Yes!" Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy shouted.

"I preferred How To Train Your Dragon 2" Said Rarity.

"I'd say it was Godzilla." Uttered Sunset.

"Oh come on!" Applejack shouted. "The trailers made it look like a showdown between Bryan Cranston and Godzilla, but in the actual movie Cranston's character died in the first act and Godzilla wasn't even in it for ten minutes. Why in tarnation was it even called Godzilla?!"

"To be fair Applejack, we still got plenty of other monsters and it was all so that they could build up suspense. The original Godzilla movie didn't have any Godzilla until the end."

"Well this ain't the 50's no more. Movies are entertaining now."

"You have to admit though, every second Godzilla was on screen it was awesome."

"Yes, of course I'll admit that. I just wish they showed more of him instead of slightly underdeveloped human characters."

"But by giving us more of a human perspective we got a sense of scale and terror. We saw the monsters from a more realistic point of view. They felt like natural disasters as well as living creatures."

"I...I get your point." Applejack said reluctantly.

Pinkie Pie hit the table with a small wooden mallet. "Point goes to Sunset in our non existent scoring system. And since Applejack was so disappointed by Godzilla, what does everyone else say is the most disappointing movie of 2014?"

"Ninja Turtles." Was Rainbow Dash's answer.

"Age Of Extinction." Said Sunset. "I hoped Michael Bay would improved. I was wrong."

"Annie." Said Rarity and Fluttershy.

"Moving on." Pinkie called. "What was the worst movie of 2014?"

"Same answer as before." Said Sunset.

"Legend Of Hercules." Answered Rainbow Dash.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Was Applejack's answer.

"Devils Due." Said Rarity. "Most generic horror ever."

"A Million Ways To Die In The West." Answered Fluttershy.

"Seriously?" Rainbow cried. "That movie was hilarious! And it had Django in it!"

"Wait, Django?" Asked Applejack. "As in Jamie Foxx, Django Unchained Django?"

"Yep, in the post credit scene."

Applejack slammed her head into the table, laughing hysterically.

"And we are...done with movies." Said Pinkie. "Next Category, Music."

"NO!" Everyone cried, looking at the stares Fluttershy and Rarity were giving each other.

Sunset tried to get it over and done with. "#Selfie was annoying, Anaconda was a horrible sampling of Baby Got Back, Meghan Trainor has talent, Ariana Grande is in too many songs, and Taylor Swift is doing good songs again! Oh, and there are way too many songs about butts."

There were a few seconds of Awkward silence.

"All in favour?" Pinkie called out.

"Ai!" Everyone responded, raising their hands.

"Next Category...T.V!"

"Well..." Said Applejack. "Nothing much more needs to be said other than the fact that Korrasami is canon!"

"Oh please." Rarity responded. "When they held hands it was completely platonic. Theres no way they'd put a bisexual couple in a kids T.V. show."

"That is where you're wrong Rarity. Mike and Bryan confirmed that it was meant to be romantic and that they are a couple, making them the first bisexual couple in a western regions children's cartoon."

"Really?" Rarity looked surprised. "Well, chalk one up for the LGBT community."

"Speaking of Nickelodean shows, did anyone else see the season two finale of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?" Pinkie asked.

"Heck yeah!" Rainbow Dash cried. "Michael Bay should have produced a movie about that rather than some dumb plot about aprils dad or whatever that piece of garbages plot was."

"I don't really watch children's cartoons." Said Fluttershy. "They're called Children's cartoons for a reason."

"Well that doesn't mean anything!" Responded Pinkie. "I knew this one grown man who watched a show about cartoon horses for little girls and there was nothing wrong with him. You should try watching Gravity Falls."

"Oh my gosh, that is like the best thing on Disney Channel." Said Sunset.

"Especially the episode The Love God." Rainbow Dash replied.

"Mommy, is he going to eat us?!"

"Yes Charlie! Yes he will!"

Both of them started rolling on the floor in laughter.

"So Fluttershy." Said Pinkie. "What do you watch on T.V.?"

"The Walking Dead and Game Of Thrones."

Everyone in the room tried to comprehend what she just said.

"Prove it." Rainbow Dash challenged.

Three minutes later, they wished they hadn't asked that question. Fluttershy described an episode in such detail that was very evident she watched Game Of Thrones.

Pinkie Pie was still shuddering after Fluttershy was done. "Next...category...video games..."

"Terrible!" Cried Rainbow Dash. "Just Terrible. We were promised great games like Watchdogs and Destiny and we got nothing but really bad games."

"Come on Rainbow, you're being too harsh. Those too games were good. They were just overhyped."

"Well if a game is hyped up, it should deliver, not dissapoint."

"Shadow Of Mordor and Alien Isolation were good."

"Those are movie games! They shouldn't be the best games of the year, they should be the worst! 2014 was a broken year for gamers."

"Plants Vs Zombies Garden Warfare was good." Said Pinkie Pie.

"I agree." Followed Sunset. "The idea of an online PVZ shooter sounds stupid, but they did it really well."

Their statement was followed by silence. While Rarity and Applejack were pretty good at video games they weren't really gamers, and neither was Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash insisted that 2014 was a bad year for games, and Sunset hadn't bought any other games besides the ones she had already discussed with Pinkie Pie.

"Okay." Pinkie said awkwardly. "I guess that concludes the subject of video games. Next Topic..."

She stopped talking and looked up at her clock. Sunset did the same to saw what time it was.

11:59

"Girls quick!" Pinkie called. "Look out the window!"

The six friends ran over to the window so that they could get a good look outside. A few seconds later, they saw the first colorful explosion in the distance. Followed by another one. And then another one. The whole sky started to light up with fireworks.

"Happy New Year girls." Said Pinkie Pie.

"I hope it comes with good games." Said Rainbow Dash.

"And movies." Said Applejack. "Star Wars looks good."

"And hopefully we can get a variety of good quality music." Said Rarity, sharing a smile with Fluttershy. "So that we can enjoy our own tastes."

Sunset just stared at the fireworks in silence.

Goodbye 2014. Hello 2015.