//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6: No One Dies, I Swear 
// Story: Friendship is a Quantum Infinite 
// by angelicoreXX 
//------------------------------//

	To the appreciation of many of Ponyville’s loyal citizens, whether they had noticed anything or not, the night had finally arrived. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and Princess Luna’s beautiful full moon lit up the night basking in a sea of twinkling stars.

Twilight Sparkle was otherwise dead to the world. She slumbered, peacefully it was assumed, under an array of devices monitoring every synapse and spark inside that little head of hers. The only indication that the little unicorn was even with us at all were the rapid eye movements underneath her eye lids, flickering back and forth as if she were desperately searching for an escape out of some twisted labyrinth.
Rainbow Dash faithfully sat by the unicorn’s side within the dimly lit room. It was probably well past midnight already, but that hadn’t stopped the little Pegasus from carrying on with Twilight’s books. Dash read aloud each and every monotonous fact regarding the Elements of Harmony as well as many other alchemic and magical marvels conceived by ponies of long past.
It certainly wasn’t the latest chapter in the saga of ‘Daring Doo and the quest for Fuchstagiff’, but Dash just wasn’t sure how else she could help with Twilight’s recovery. She figured that reading to Twilight might help her get better, seeing as it was one of the unicorn’s favorite pastimes. At the very least Dash thought, Twilight might have been trotting through the most egg headed dream imaginable filled with science, history, and a boring old lecture on String Theory.
Although as boring as it may have been, it was all the motivation the little blue pony needed. She turned a page and continued reading to her dear friend with an unbreakable smile.

The stars, although as sensational as ever in the eyes of such a geek, seemed all but meaningless that night. Although Twyla had spent the evening excavating through her emotions, she felt as if the world was still resting on her shoulders, and she couldn’t help but tremble in her slippers. 
Twyla leaned over against railing on the hospital rooftop. The only spotlight she really had was the gorgeous moon and those twinkling stars watching closely from above.
Raine threw an arm around Twyla’s shoulder and ruffled her dark hair, “Come clean, you’re just jerking us around right?”
Twyla smirked and pulled away, “You know I wouldn’t lie about something like that. I don’t know how else to put the pieces together, but I know what I saw and the only reason I’d even mention something so awful is because I’m still worried. My entire day’s been one thing after another. You have no idea the kind of nightmare Twilight and I went through just to get back from Canterlot in one piece!”
“You sure it wasn’t just that, Twyla? A nightmare?”
“For our sakes, I hope it was.” Twyla quivered.
“Yeah…” To be honest, Twyla was the smartest gal Raine had ever known. If Twyla ever had a ‘hunch’ about anything at all, it was more than likely true. Raine didn’t need any convincing of the egghead’s story, she had believed every word Twyla had told her, no matter how fanciful it may have seemed.
She had lost complete control of her fighter jet that day and would’ve easily flown it into the Dam, killing both her and Rainbow Dash, not to mention demolishing all of Ponyville.
It wasn’t quite regret she felt shame over however. It was the fact that her stupid pride had led her to fall into such an obvious trap in the first place and the fact that it had succeeded in killing her, apparently anyway.
Raine had a lot to be grateful for that night and she was well aware of it. Not many people got second chances like that, and even if they did most only got to become vegetables for the rest of their lives. Yet there she was with all of her fingers and toes, her heart still thumping away in her chest. The thought killed her inside, absolutely filled her with terror, though what was left of her ego would never admit it. More than anything though, Raine wanted to know who was behind it all and beat the living daylights out of them; A good swift elbow for every single pony that had perished that day in another fracture of time.
“So, uh, you said you heard some kind of weird laughing on your way back from Canterlot, right Twyla?”
The school teacher cringed and nodded silently.
Rain’e heart skipped a beat, “And, uh, did you guys ever find out who exactly was doing all the ‘laughing’?”
The lingering mystery was the worst part of it all. Twyla just didn’t have a real answer to give her friend.
“You know what? F-Forget it. We’ve both had a long day, Twyla. You and I should get some rest.” Twyla’s hair was really going to need a comb after all of Raine’s teasing, “Tomorrow will be better, you’ll see.”
Twyla sighed, “I hope you’re right.”

The door to Twilight’s room opened with a hesitant creak, not that waking the unicorn would’ve been an issue but it was simply consideration on Twyla’s part.
Dash hushed the intruder, “She’s trying to rest…!”
Instinctively if by anything else, Twyla silenced her step and stealthily crept into the room, “I’m going… Hey! Were you reading to her? Why should I shush if you’re reading out loud?”
“Because you’re disturbing the mood!” Dash stamped her hoof down on the book before her, “Now pipe down. I still have to cover this last chapter on ancient alchemic party pranks...!”
Twyla smiled, humbled by Dash’s devoted care, and gently closed the book, “You’ve been here for a while Rainbow Dash. I’m going to stay the night with Twilight, so you should go get some rest. It’s already after midnight.”
The blue Pegasus wasn’t exactly ready to leave the bedridden unicorn, but she knew deep down that things were going to be okay and reluctantly gave a nod, handing Twyla the latest tome she had been illustrating, “You better keep an eye on her, got it?”
Twyla hid a giggle under her breathe, “You have my word, Dash.”
Rainbow spent one more glance on her dear friend and forced a smile before finally leaving the room.
Twyla sat down in the tiniest chair she’d ever fit her butt into and with a yawn she grabbed a book.

Rainbow Dash would’ve sulked her hooves into her pockets if she had any and slunk down the hallway, too betrayed in thought to concentrate on even flying at the moment.
She knew Twilight was better than that. If that nerd was going to pull of anything so reckless then she would’ve had a good reason behind it. She already knew the story Twyla had given them but part of her didn’t want to believe it. How could she? Such a terrifying and morbid disaster having murdered every pony she knew was simply too much to bear. The thought was enough to make her sick to her stomach. Nearly on the verge of vomiting, she winced and shook away the nightmare.
“Hey, do they sell cigarettes in Equestria?” Raine called out, leaning against a wall with a shrugging grin.
That dirty human was one of the last people Dash wanted to see, “That’s a disgusting habit for someone who’s supposedly as ‘cool’ as I am.”
“Relax, I wasn’t actually expecting you to know what I was talking about. It’s just been a scary day and I could just totally use a-“
“Why wouldn’t I know what you were babbling on about? Because I’m just some kind of weird looking ‘pony’ to you?  What? Don’t the ponies in your world do anything else besides eat hay all day?”
Raine wasn’t exactly ready for a confrontation, but it didn’t surprise her all the same, “Look, I don’t blame you for being angry with me…”
“You’re darn right you shouldn’t! It was your stupid machine and your stupid pride that just about got us all killed. If it wasn’t for Twilight in there, we’d all be dead!” Dash cried.
Raine’s heart sank into her pocket, she wasn’t even able to look the Pegasus in the eye, “Y-You’re right, I just can’t argue with that, pipsqueak. Whether I accept that I’m a walking ghost right now or not, it really is all my fault.” She sighed hesitantly, “But look, I-I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I-It was just a friendly race, heh. You saw what happened back there, right? There’s something we’re missing-”
“I don’t want to hear any of your lame excuses!” Dash fluttered into the air, “You should’ve never come to Equestria in the first place. I want you out of here! Got it? I don’t want to see that ‘poser’ face of yours ever again!” and with that Dash flew off down the hall.
Raine huffed, trying to fumble the dead heart out of her pant leg. The last punk that made her feel so low was sent to the dentist the next day, but she just couldn’t bring herself to disagree with the little flight captain. She was right whether Raine liked it or not, and she slammed her fist into the wall behind her.
Even a single tear was unacceptable, at least in front of any pony there, and so she gathered herself as best she could and wandered out of the hospital with the worst poker face she’d ever put on. 	Raine wasn’t exactly sure where she’d spend the night. A spot under the farthest little tree from town seemed pretty welcoming at the moment, and so she let a band of Empire Ants lead her to wherever she might call home that night.

Although she may have still felt a tad bewildered, Princess Celestia still managed to bring about the beautiful morning sun. A flock of colorful birds chirped and glided under the puffy blue sky. You would never have guessed that Ponyville had only just yesterday found itself drowned at the bottom of a barren sea.

The brilliant daylight shined through the colorful kitchen of Sugar Cube Corner, to which Mr. and Mrs. Cake shook their heads at the almost unbelievable sight.
The Mango Chiffon Mousse cake was far from the very last guilty pleasure Piper and Pinkie Pie had gorged over that previous night, if not by anything else but the pudding proof daubed all over the two wood be bakers.
Sprawled against a stove sat a napping Piper splattered in frosting mix with a slumbering pink little pony plastered in batter over the human’s lap. The snores could’ve been heard from the Twins’ room upstairs. The kitchen had been left literally bombarded in dirty bowls, dried mix, diced delights and probably a few jars worth of scattered sprinkles. One thing was for certain, the shopping trip the Cakes had sent their workers on had been utterly fruitless.
Mr. Cake had gotten used to surprises long ago but this was getting out of hand, “It’s been like double the trouble ever since she’s arrived here…! I don’t know what I’m going to do with them.”
“Oh, come now, sweetie. They were just enjoying themselves, and it’s not like we have any big orders today.” Mrs. Cake reassured, “I’ll have them clean the kitchen as soon as they wake up.”
Although confounded, Mr. Cake couldn’t help but crack a smile at the two pink creampuffs, “I guess it isn’t that big of a deal. Besides, how could I say ‘no’ to faces like those?”
As adorable as those snoozing faces were, they were definitely going to need some napkins.

“What a beautiful day!” Ditzy just barely avoided crashing into Ponyville’s town hall and zipped down onto the Pony Express Station, “Gee, I hope today’s work load is a little easier. My wings are still beat from yesterday.”
Ditzy sailed flawlessly into the Pony Express lobby, though she did knock over a glass portrait, “Hey everypony! Good morning!”
Her scruffy supervisor covered his face, “Oh dear Celestia, not today.”
“Hiya’ Boss! What have you got for me?” The supervisor was nearly blinded by Ditzy’s glaring smile.
There wasn’t exactly a lot of mail volume that morning and the last thing the poor guy needed was a disruption to such an easy day, “Oh hey, Derpy. Y-You know what? You did such a… good job yesterday that now we’ve caught up on the entire week. Why don’t you just enjoy the day off…?”
Ditzy gasped and for a second her eyes almost corrected themselves in a wide glow, “Woohoo~!”
The supervisor hooved the back of his mane in relief. For once he might not need an Aspirin by noon, though a potted plant did shatter against the floor after Ditzy darted out of the Pony Express in a surge of excitement. The boss’s lovely day was slowly beginning to stagger. 

Ditzy was off to find herself the biggest muffin in Ponyville. She had done a terrific job after all! And so a reward was clearly due.
The gray little Pegasus skipped out of a mildly quarantined Sugar Cube Corner with the largest Muffin she had ever seen, at least in the last week anyway. Ditzy’s mouth watered over the cream filled raspberry topped and cinnamon scented treat. The thing would’ve lasted the typical pony at least a few days, but Ditzy was as far as you could get from typical. She chomped maybe a third of muffin with a single bite, getting cinnamon freckles all over her muzzle. She would’ve taken another mouthful but a scream nearly fumbled the muffin out of her hooves.
A large crowd of multi-cultural ponies had gathered by the reassembled statue of Princess Celestia in the towns square. A tanned pony with a mane of cherried indigo stood at the front of the herd in utter disbelief.
“Bonbon! What’s wrong?” Lyra had galloped through the crowds to gather up her good friend, and then it finally hit her.
Ditzy swooped in just in time to witness what had happened, or more to the point, what was missing.
“Wasn’t that where the Karaoke bar used to be…?” Lyra examined the vacant lot as she helped Bonbon up to her hooves.
The entire building had completely vanished. All that was left were the stilts and pipes that had sat underneath its foundation and even that same groundwork had been cut completely clean. It was as if the bar had simply fallen out of time space.
“I saw it!” Lyra cried, utterly frantic, “It was just there not even a second ago, and then it just… d-disappeared!”
The Mayor of Ponyville trotted over, “Disappeared? But how?”
“I-I don’t know! The whole thing just kind of flickered and faded away!” the incident had clearly traumatized the poor pony.
Lyra collected the apples her best friend had dropped with her unicorn magic, “Come on, Bonbon, let’s go grab a bite to eat. Y-You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Although of countless support, the pale Lyra was just as baffled.
The crowds began to whisper back and forth, wondering if anyone had been inside when the building had disappeared.
“Everypony! There is no need to panic! I’m sure there is a… reasonable explanation to all this!” the Mayor did her best to pacify the citizens, but all her efforts really did was send the crowd into an even greater uproar.
“How could this have happened?!”
“What if it happens again?! What if we start disappearing too!”
“It must be Discord! Discord’s back again!!”
The mayor stomped her hooves as hard as she could, which didn’t really change the atmosphere at all, “May I remind you that Discord has been defeated! And that there is nothing to worry about! I’ll get to the bottom of this one way or another, I assure you all!”
Her normally ‘brilliant’ speeches just weren’t getting the job done today. The Mayor sighed and turned to a little gray Pegasus standing beside her, “What is it, Derpy…?”
“Want some of my muffin?” Ditzy beamed an offer.
The mayor pressed a hoof to her temple and finally took a bite.

“Well, at least those Bridesmaids dresses are done. Thanks to your help we have a bit of leeway in between orders.” Rarity took a sip out of her cherry sundae, “I vote for a day off. What say you?”
Regina would’ve kindly agreed had she not been burdened with the consignment of bags and parcels filled with fabrics freshly bought from the bazaar, “D-Do we have time for a day off?” the materials hanging from her hands and wrists suggested otherwise.
“Of course we do, darling! We’ll just drop off all of these goodies and finally get a chance to relax. You simply must tell me more of life in the human world.” Rarity took another sip of her beverage as they approached a street corner.
“Well, uh, could you at least help take some of the baggage with your magic…?”
“Now, now, I can’t very well hold any bags and enjoy my sundae at the same time now can I?” The dull bumper of an oil tanker truck caught Rarity by surprise and knocked over her excuse, “Oh dear!”
Regina had to put her bags down just so she could clear the clouds from her eyes, she couldn’t believe the sight. She ran over and inspected the truck, point by point, as if she was a DEA officer. She was utterly dumbfounded.
Rarity meanwhile was still busy sulking over the spilled sundae. It was probably the worst possible thing ever, probably.
“What in the world is this doing here?” An oil truck of all things, a fairly familiar token of the human civilization, was just plainly sitting there practically stuck between the cottages of Ponyville. What would’ve normally been an unremarkable slice of background stuck out like a filthy sore thumb in this Technicolor world. A few ponies had already taken notice and trotted over to examine the enormous machine.
“Rarity, uh, please tell me you ponies drive these here in Equestria.” Regina pardoned.
The unicorn finally took her attention away from the tragedy spilled before her, “Oh,what now?” Rarity had to adjust her vision a bit in an attempt to grasp what was as far from a simple wagon as you could get. The vehicle towered over the unicorn. She was no taller than one of the truck’s tires, “Just what is this… thing? Some sort of locomotive?”
“It’s an oil truck… from my world!” Regina couldn’t help but chuckle over something so inconsequential, “This is simply beyond bizarre.” Even the driver’s door was unlocked and out of curiosity she climbed right in.
“A-Are you sure you should be going in there?”
“It’s only a truck, Rarity. I can’t imagine this thing being very convenient for the ponies here, I’ll see if I can move it out of the way.” She searched throughout the console, the glove compartment, and finally found the keys in the sun visor pocket. As cliché as it was Regina figured she should’ve searched there in the first place. She plugged the keys into the ignition and the vulgar engine awoke with a puff of black smoke regurgitating out of its silver stacks.
The loud gargle was fairly intimidating for Rarity as well as the half dozen other ponies watching.
“Don’t worry, Rarity, I’ll have this big rig out of the way in no time at all, I think.” It had been years since Regina had ever had to drive herself anywhere, let alone a massive semi, “Darnit, where’s the ‘D’ on this thing? And what’s with all these little numbers?” she fumbled with the gear stick until somehow the transmission caught the claw of a cog, which she was only able to tell by the truck budging forward.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, darling?” Rarity asked just in time for the truck to bend over a light post, “Oh for Celestia’s sake!”
“Yeah, I don’t think you have enough room around here to drive that thing about.” Ditzy had just flown in from the affair across Ponyville. She zipped back and forth over the tanker, inspecting its clearance with what little depth perception that she actually had. The truck was in an awkward squeeze, far too close to the neighboring cottages to navigate. There was a bit of room ahead but it would’ve costed the town more than a few bits at this rate, “Yup, looks like you’re boxed in.”
“I think we figured that part out, Ditzy.” Sighed Rarity.
The Pegasus clanked her hooves against the quite bloated tank of fuel, “What’s in this thing anyway? Ooh! It’s making wavy noises inside! Sounds like lots of tea, but it feels kind of cold. Maybe we should light some matches underneath to make the tea warm?”
“That’s not tea, you obtuse albatross!” Regina squawked.
“Alba-what? Albacore? Albacore!” It was a very funny word and Ditzy very much enjoyed repeating it as she swooped down with goofiest of smiles, “Oh! I still got some of my muffin left. Want some, Rarity?”
“Oh, why yes!” with Rarity’s sundae gone, she couldn’t exactly resist, “I’ll just take a teeny tiny lady-like piece.”
“Oh Rarity, don’t be so modest!” The Pegasus giggled and stuffed a giant chunk of muffin down the unicorn’s petite yap, which she nearly popped a blood vessel out of her eye as the cinnamon delight was stuffed down her throat.
From a very close yet very well concealed position, a giddy Discord watched on and chuckled to himself over the new opportunity before his harlequin eyes.

There was a very good reason kick boxers wore shin guards. Anyone could tell you they were important to protect, well, your shins, as well as many of the important muscles and tendons within your legs. Although her cold determination was always her best asset, Aprile would’ve gladly accepted some extra padding at this point.
Yet another Muay Thai kick racked the side of the apple tree before her. She was far from even an amateur mixed martial artist next to someone like Raine, but Aprile had bet on enough fights to know the maneuver well enough, so she thought anyway.
Sweet Apple Acres had gotten up extra early that morning. Normally, at least an eyelash of sunshine had peeked over the horizon by the time they began their day, but there had been no time to wait for Princess Celestia that morning.
Aprile had probably worked an entire day’s shift by now and it was barely noon, and those stubborn apples still weren’t dropping nearly as fast as she’d hoped. As much as she hated that old crotchety tractor of hers, she could’ve really used it at the moment. She had seen every other farm pony picking apples down the hard way, with vicious kicks of their hooves. Clearly being at an evolutionary disadvantage, kickboxing was the next best thing for Aprile.
The last batch of apples came tumbling down into a wooden barrel, which Aprile had strapped over herself like a backpack. The routine consisted of an awkward series of five to seven kicks all separated between clumsy shuffles to catch each and every apple that fell before hobbling over to the next tree. Although she was beginning to really feel the kicks, Aprile was at least thankful that cartoon trees weren’t nearly as tough as real trees. Normally she’d laugh over the irony but the boat was sinking fast. Sweet Apple Acres needed a get rich quick scheme more than anything else if the farm was going to survive its latest trial.
Applejack and every other apple dipped sibling on the entire farm had gotten far ahead of the human. Even the commendable Granny Smith Apple had caught up to Aprile. The old timer wasn’t much for bucking, but she could still swing that measly tennis ball tipped walker madder than a bobcat in a piss fire. Hell, she even knocked a few apples off of the tree.
Grunt by grunt, all the farm girl could do was envision that somehow she could even compare to Buakaw Banchamek himself and that the hard rows of apple trees ahead of her were nothing but slightly less dense banana trees instead. Either way, these bananas were coming down one way or another, whether her splitting shins liked it or not.
She groaned as she began another assault upon the next apple tree. As colorful and as screwy as Equestria was in appearance, nothing had really changed in Aprile’s mind. It was the same old one horse show, just like back home on the farm. There was always some corporate conglomerate obsessed with efficiency and profit over quality trying to muscle in on their little slice of the industry. They didn’t even have to be as close as the Flim Flam brothers were, they could affect Aprile’s farm from across the state. Juicy crisp apples picked with care and a keen eye meant nothing if the price could be undercut by a company that sold in bulk or just treated apples as if they were vegetables. In such a slanted economy, the Dollar meant everything.
Her kicks gained in power, Aprile felt as if the next kick was going to snap her poor foot clear across the field, but her simmering frustration simply wouldn’t allow her to breathe.
“You doing okay there, Sugarcube? You look like you’re as mad as a mule chewing on bumblebees. Erm, no offense.”
“None taken.” A donkey carrying a bushel of apples was quite used to the comparisons by now, especially ones from Applejack.
Aprile finally gave herself a breather, leaning her arms against the battered tree in front of her. A canal of sweat ran down her brow and she brooked the brook with her hat, “I’m doin’ fine, kiddo… J-Just needa’ give ma’ legs a minute and I’ll be at it again.” Her shins were already starting to bruise, but she’d sooner break them off than submit to being a burden.
Applejack clearly saw the girl’s passion, but she knew what a terrible pride could do to a pony, “Sweetie, I-I don’t think humans were meant for that kinda-”
Aprile swung her leg and with a grunt and gave that tree the hardest roundhouse kick the poor thing had ever taken. The last few apples fell right into the girl’s basket and with a huff she continued onto the next subject.
“Aprile, this ain’t your fight. You don’t have to kill yourself over it.” Pleaded Applejack.
“Now don’t you even start with that again. I ain’t gonna let this farm get bought out by a bunch of a fancy city slickers.”
“B-But-!”
Aprile darted a glare back at the little orange pony and sighed, “You said I was part of this farm wasn’t I? Well, ain’t I?!”
Applejack could never skip out on her word, especially to Aprile, “You know you gotta’ place here as long as you’re in Equestria, I ain’t gotta make that any clearer… I-I just don’t want ya’ to get hurt is all. You humans ain’t built like us ponyfolk. I appreciate all the hard work you’re putting in for us, but I’d rather give up the whole farm than give up one of the family!” AJ reassured with a smile.
Aprile was still busy catching her breath, but made time to return the gesture, “I’d feel the same way about ya’… but it ain’t that simple.” She turned her eyes away from the pony, “As dumb as it may sound, this is a matter of pride for me. When I left my home, we might as well have already been done for. Far worse people than them Flim-Flam’s were barking up our apple trees. We were giving it all we had, but I think we all knew that the farm was due for its last roundup…” Aprile pulled her leg up in a stretch that it desperately needed, “I can’t even go back to see it get bought out in the courts, part of me doesn’t even wanna’ go back to that. I couldn’t bear to sign that document. That orchard’s been operating in my family for generations, and yet it’s gonna’ end with me, so don’t take this away from me Applejack. This is all I can do to fight back. I don’t care if they gotta’ saw off both my legs after this, I don’t wanna’ give up. I can’t give up!” the poor girl toughed up a tear drop and went back to work against her next kickboxing bag.
The pony couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but either way she admired the girl’s valiant spirit. Although it may have been ill-timed, Applejack let out a chuckle under her breath, “You really are the spittin’ image of me, ain’t ya’?”
Aprile threw up a laugh, “Get back to work already would ya’?”
“Just don’t kill yourself now, Aprile.” Applejack couldn’t ask for a better hand on that farm. She lifted the dual set of barrels over her back and led the attack, “Come on, everypony! Almost done with tha’ west field, then onto the east field!” 
An apple bucking job that would’ve normally lasted a week or more had been shrunken into that of a single day and the very next day would’ve called for a liquidation sale that not even the sharkiest of car salesmen could’ve kept up with. Sweet Apple Acres couldn’t afford not to cut corners this time if they were going to survive against the greediest of Capitalism’s tentacles. Fortunately enough, the farm had some of the hardest workers Equestria had ever seen.

Little Applebloom had to catch her breath every now and then, but there was no stopping the indomitable filly. More and more apples tumbled into baskets bellow with every tiny buck of her hooves. She paused once more, and caught an eye full of the massively mutated trees beyond the rim of the apple orchard.
‘Flim Flam Fields’ had been hastily drawn out on a sign in the distance, clearly conceived with the tricky magic of those rotten brothers. A good chunk of the surrounding Timberwolf forest had all but been replaced with freakishly enormous apple trees and seemingly overnight the oversized orchard had quite literally sprouted up out of the soil. Curious ponies could already be seen lining up for a taste of the fattened apples. Plenty of questions were to be expected, but the average pony wouldn’t have left without a giant apple to take home for themselves.
Applebloom could’ve sworn she saw a few familiar faces and colors. The nerve of those ponies! Betraying the best apple farm in all of Equestria!
“No time fer’ gawkin’, Applebloom!” Big Macintosh galloped by with a set of filled barrels hung by his sides.
Applebloom huffed and glared up at the very last apple hanging from the tree in front of her. The hoof kick she gave it was almost hard enough to earn her that darn cutie mark right there and then.

Yet another incredibly satisfied pony had just left the gates of Flim Flam Fields with an entire sack full of one apple. It was certainly awkward purchasing from a new distributor rather than Ponyville’s good old Sweet Apple Acres, especially seeing these new kids on the block had parked themselves right beside their competitor, but who could possibly pass up such a deal? Sure, the Cider may have been lacking the last time around, but these were just harmless apples, apples large enough to feed an entire family, and boy did they taste good. That crisp chipper snap had been magnified tenfold, Mother Nature be damned.
The makeshift safe they had set up had already been filled with easy bits and the day was only half over.
“Ah, the beauty of the Free Market! Isn’t this grand, old brother of mine?” Flam whisked a tuft of his moustache.
Flim had been lounging for most of the day already, leisurely picking apples with his horn’s magic as patrons stopped in for a look, “It sure is, brother!” he let out a whicked chuckle, “We’ll be able to ‘expand’ in no time at all!”
They let out a stereotypically villainous laugh just as Flam accidently stepped his hoof over an unsuspecting beetle, which he had barely even noticed.
The tiny tank of an insect had only been minding its own business, simply curious over the alluring scent in the air. For what might’ve been a lifetime or maybe months anyway, he had frolicked through Applejack’s orchard, sifting through all the juicy apples he could ever eat. Even one of these genetic abominations was too tempting to pass up. Just one alone would’ve lasted him another lifetime. The insect had pondered poking a few holes in one of the fruits and making a small retirement home for himself, but all of those hopes had been dashed away, crunched under the hoof of Capitalism.
The beetle’s shell had been compromised beyond repair. An ooze of white goo had leaked onto the soil below. The humble little bug struggled to maintain consciousness, far too many of his limbs fractured to say the least. If only his last moments could’ve been spent in the crisp suite of an apple core, he didn’t care how big or small it might’ve been, he wasn’t prejudiced, but it looked like he’d be going to that cider saloon in the, whatever respective afterlife insect spirits wandered off to after they died.

(Sorry I guess I lied about no one dying this time. Deal with it.)

Spike barged into the hospital room, “Twilight! Oh gosh, I came as soon as I heard! What happened?!”
Twyla had woken up maybe ten minutes before, at best. She had been up for most of the night cramming through Princess Celestia’s homework. It wasn’t exactly like her to sleep in but she figured she deserved it after yesterday, “Oh, hey Spike. Uhm, sorry about not telling you guys sooner, we just got back yesterday, and-”
“Why didn’t you say anything?! I was worried sick!” the little dragon waddled over to Twilight’s bedside and ran his harmless claw through her navy blue mane, “What happened to her?”
There it was again, that guilt in the pit of Twyla’s stomach. For a second time she had to reach down and grasp at whatever lengths of courage she had left “She’s doing fine, the nurse said she’d be up and about by tomorrow. She’s just going through a case of… Magic Overload.” She said with a gulp.
Spike raised a brow, “Magic Overload? B-But how? Twilight’s the most powerful unicorn I know! There’s no way she would’ve let herself get hit with something like that! That makes no sense!” he turned his suspecting eye towards the girl, “I bet she was forced to put her life at risk to get you out of trouble, didn’t she? You were supposed to take care of her! I knew you humans were nothing but trouble…”
Spike had no idea just how right he was, and Twyla knew it. She couldn’t even bear to meet him eye to eye. If only she was in Twilight’s hooves instead, that unicorn deserved far better than a dreary old hospital room.
“Gonna’ keep quiet, huh? I thought so. Well then that does it! As soon as Twilight wakes up, I’m taking her back to the library, and you can forget about staying at our place!”
His disputes stabbed into Twyla’s heart, but she simply didn’t have strength to do a thing about it. It was pointless to explain. It may not have been her fault, but if only she could’ve done more to help, maybe then Twilight wouldn’t be laying there in a coma.	
“In fact, you can find your way back home by yourself!” Spike suddenly took a hard blow to the back of his skull, “Gah! What in the-!”
“Don’t you ever talk to her like that again, Spike! Get the heck out of here!!”
A trembling Spike quivered and scampered out of the room in a stream of exaggerated cries.
“I’m sorry, Twyla. He was just being protective. You know how baby dragons can be.”
Twyla’s eyes watered over, “Twilight! Y-You’re alright!” she nearly tackled the little unicorn off of her bed with a tight hug.
An alarm rang due to the cables and sensors popping off of Twilight’s forehead and a nurse ran into the room, “What’s going on in here?!”
“Oh nothing, just suddenly feeling a whole lot better, nurse.” Twilight cheerfully explained. She turned to her good friend, “You and I have a lot to talk about.”

Normally, Twilight herself would’ve easily led the charge, but without her Ponyville would’ve needed every unicorn on hand. Rarity, Lyra, Minuette, Lemon Hearts, Amethyst Star, Clockwork, Graphite, Ponet, and Vinyl Scratch amongst many others corralled an enormous magical cloud hovering over Ponyville. Even the local fillies gave it their all including Sweetie Belle and even the bumbling Snips and Snails tossed up whatever sparks they could conjure.
Regina paced herself ahead of the garrison of unicorns waving her arms forward with her eyes in the sky. She still hadn’t gotten over the fact that such small creatures could levitate such an enormous oil tanker truck into the air, but at least this beat driving, or rather, smashing into any more cottages with it. To her relief, they were nearly at the edge of Ponyville, “Almost there, everyone! Just a bit further…!”

A chaotic chuckle came from a tiny shadow spot high up on a light post. As if some sort of security camera, Discord watched the trailer glide through the air covered in a rainbow made out of the magic of a few dozen unicorns. The spirit pondered each and every possibility. He could easily just turn on the tanker’s ignition, start it, toss it in the air and have it crash down against each and every pony below in a horrible gas ignited explosion. It would certainly prove an interesting contrast from the events beforehand. If the town couldn’t be drowned out, then maybe he could just burn it to the ground.
But they were already too far gone, practically outside Ponyville by now. At least he’d get to watch plenty of ponies scurrying for help as they slowly burned to death. Not a single one of them would’ve been able to escape the flames.
Although a tad dark, it was as close as you could get to real unrelenting chaos, but something was off about the whole thing, “It’s just… too obvious, like something out of a terrible narrative some fat clod wrote at two in the morning. There’s no substance to it! Too played out, too cliché. Hmmm… Oh, I know, where’s that adorable boggle eyed Pegasus? Bah! This stick is terrible.”
Discord whacked the game cabinet in front of him. It might’ve been the only working cabinet left at the entire arcade, “Those fat Cheeto-fingered ‘Bronies’ must’ve fouled the darn thing up!”
The arcade cabinet had been painted in a beautiful deep pink hue covered in vanilla swirls, flowers, and generally girly innuendo, along with a clever assortment of colorful characters, all of them ponies, ponies all of which Discord knew all too well.
“Oh confound this idiotic machine! The stupid camera won’t shift to the right angle. Where’s the damned manager? Oh, right…” The arcade had essentially been purified to put it lightly. A few oversized corpses lay in between the row of burnt cabinets wearing what might’ve been colorful little girly t-shirts. They may have sought refuge in their tiny slice of Equestria when the bombs fell, but not even Princess Celestia herself could’ve saved them, or the rest of the city block, or the city itself, not to mention the state or even half the country.
“I probably shouldn’t have played ‘Fourth of July’ with the army so soon. I mean, it’s only May for Pete’s sake! Whatever was I thinking?” although to be honest, it was the humans who had sent their biggest bombs against the demon first in some hope of containing the madness. Discord only wanted to make sure that everyone got a fun filled sparkler. Boy was he generous! Perhaps naïve, but definitely generous.
A hopeless ray of sunshine broke through the city’s fog. New York was completely silent. You could probably hear a pin drop in the next block over. At least the terrorist attacks of September Eleventh had citizens left to grief over the dead. This time things had simply gone too far this time. This wasn’t chaos, this was assisted genocide. One could pose that things may have gone sour around the time the National Guard and Raptors arrived. The NYPD just didn’t know how to combat giant twenty foot tall pigeons, a subway system that had been filled with knots of spaghetti, the city’s tallest buildings having been transformed into massive éclairs, lunar and solar fallacies and Discord himself riding through Time’s Square in a Statue of Liberty doing her best impression of the ‘Berney’, just to name a few.
Discord sighed. What good was his chaos if there was no one left to prank? He was forced to torment the very home he had fled from to begin with, to think humans with all of their ‘technology’ might have only lasted a couple of days at best. He pitied and even resented their lack of humor, how any civilization could’ve lasted this long without a real laugh was beyond him.
He shrugged and huffed another miserable sigh before returning back to his fanciful game. There was no way he was going to burn so many ponies alive at this rate, not after seeing so many humans  bomb themselves with nuclear warheads in a similar fashion. There simply wasn’t anything to be gained, no power, no adoring fans, not even a punch line.
Discord wanged the already well dented side of the arcade cabinet with his flamboyant claw, “Just where is-Oh! There she is! About blasted time.”

The unicorns hooted and hollered over finally reaching their goal. Gently they had set down the oil tanker at the farthest reach of town. Regina had been careful not to panic the ponies with the danger the tanker actually presented, and left them with their original grievances over how much of a traffic inconvenient the enormous truck had become.
“There isn’t actually anything dangerous about it is there?” Rarity whispered to her human counterpart.
“Don’t worry, dear. I’ll make sure to drive it to a safe distance when I get the chance.”
Rarity nervously laughed, “W-Whatever for?”
“It’s filled with gasoline! Why do you think?”
Rarity’s brow sank, “You know, we aren’t stupid, Regina. We know that, oooh~! Fuel lights up when it burns~! We aren’t going to stupidly kill ourselves with it.”
Regina giggled innocently, the offense wasn’t intended, “Oh, I know, I’m sorry. It just made me nervous seeing it there. I’ve been watching far too many action flicks lately.”
Rarity laughed, “That’s alright dear. Come now, the day isn’t over yet! We still have plenty of lounging and chatting to do. I still want to hear all about your career.”
“Oh, Certainly! But I’ll only talk if you help carry some of these aching bags and boxes.” Regina tossed a good amount of them onto the unicorn without even a glance, “It’s all cameras, glamor and beautiful people! Although I do wish-” Regina suddenly heard the mumbling curses and gasps for air under the pile of fabrics, “Oh, uh, sorry about that, dear. I thought you were going to catch those with that magic of yours.”

Ditzy Doo happily flew over Ponyville, continuing to enjoy her surprise day off with the cheekiest of grins and the aerial navigational skills of a sea cucumber. That giant muffin, although she had shared a good portion of it with her friends, should probably have filled her tummy but it just hadn’t hit the spot. 	Ditzy was down for seconds, and possibly thirds after that. She raised a hoof over her brow and scouted the area. Although she may as well have been starring directing into the sole of that very hoof, she had always been told it was better to be ‘normal’ than special.
Out of the corner of her eye, which was anywhere other than where it was supposed to be, she caught a muffin stand and with a “Woohoo~!” she zipped in for a second helping.

There had been quite a line but it was well worth it. It was a fairly simple recipe; Cinnamon swirl and vanilla frosting dazzled over a blueberry muffin delight, simple yet exquisite. Ditzy nearly melted over the first delectable bite. She would’ve eaten an entire dozen no matter how expensive the deductible would’ve been on the stomach pump. Regardless, this was turning into the perfect day, which was exactly what anypony else would’ve thought in her hooves.
Suddenly, a “Psst~!” lured Ditzy to a nearby alleyway.
“Huh?” curiously she fluttered over and entered the passage. Her eyes darted about in more directions than they were normally used to, but all the Pegasus could see were a few trash bins and a wheel cart, “That’s weird. Maybe I’m hearing things again?”
A lanky human stepped into the background and blocked her only exit out of the alley, “Yatta, yatta, you aren’t, etcetera.”
Ditzy turned to face the intruder, “What?” It was one of the strangest sensations Ditzy had ever experienced, though most of us would’ve simply called it Déjà vu, “Don’t I know you from somewhere, mister?”
“I’ve already run through this once before, and I’ve spent far too much time and effort to make it amusing, and so I won’t bother with the formalities, Derpy.”
“Say what now…?”
The slenderman cleared his throat, “I’m actually Discord and all of your friends think you’re an idiot.” He regurgitated in the most monotone of fashions before tapping a green finger against her forehead.
Her eyes showered in a rainbow made of used highlighters and the Hypertropia condition in her eyes even managed to correct. The world seemed to wash over Ditzy and she nearly toppled over as her gray coat turned grayer than it had ever looked before.
Discord yawned, “Now go my minion, yatta, yatta, yatta, go do something terrible I guess to all of those friends who hate you so much. Just give me some yummy chaos already!” If it wasn’t subtle, it probably wasn’t worth doing. He could’ve easily conjured up a storm of chaos on a grand scale but Discord’s style involved a simple tough that led up to a masterful display of grandeur.
Somewhere in the human world however, Discord had grown bored of his old tricks. The pranks of last season just weren’t enough for the spirit anymore. The punch lines no longer felt organic unless he could engineer some sort of convoluted plot which even he knew the blueprints too were beginning to slack.
“Just who the heck are you supposed to be? Some sort of posh Scarecrow?” Ditzy questioned.
“I just told you I’m-!”
“You know what? I don’t even care who you are. You’re probably some try-hard Plebeian anyway. How freaking pointless.” Ditzy took another bite out of her unremarkable muffin before swooping back off into the sky.
“Why that little-! No, no, no, calm down Discord old buddy…” he completed a short breathing exercise, though it had only just barely helped, “This is all part of the plan…” a plan that was only half thought of anyway, “W-We’ll definitely get some good old fashioned chaos with that one!” Discord had to force a laugh before desperately disintegrating into the deepest shadows of the alleyway.

Raine had overslept, which wasn’t exactly uncommon for her, though waking up in a green pasture for almost a week now had begun to take its toll. Sure, it was peaceful and the cartoony grass did provide a soft comforter, but it didn’t have the intimate privacy of a real bed with pillows and sheets.	She rubbed the stardust out of her eyelids, and thought about her old one room efficiency. One of the only valuable things she had there besides her outdated Ipod was that very bed in question. It was a single cot, nothing too impressive, but it was hers and so was that crumby efficiency.
Raine folded up her legs and curled up against the tree root she was using as a pillow. As welcoming as her little apartment was, she couldn’t help but think of how pointless it would’ve been to return to.
Why even bother going back home? Her Mig-15, at least the real one anyway, was still sitting at the bottom of the Hudson River and as far as her sponsors were concerned she was dead anyway. As much as she loved flying ironically enough, she was terrible at it. There was no way she’d ever be able to pay for a legitimate flight course and no bank in their right mind would ever give her a loan. All those air show managers really cared about were selling energy drinks. As long as you could at least land the birds, they’d hand you a pair of goggles which was the very least a college dropout like Raine could ask for.
The very best she had ever placed in those air shows was a hair short of third position but at least she was able to spread her wings, and it felt good while it lasted.
She sighed, and thought about the most vivid nightmare she’d ever flown through the day before as well as the theory Twyla had explained to her. The evidence was overwhelming and the more she thought about it, the more she realized just how right Rainbow Dash really was. The realization had begun to hit her like a brick to the face, she really was just a screw-up obsessed with her ego, and ironically enough it was exactly that which had cost her everything at every turn. She was a failed test pilot that couldn’t even keep her plane in the air and a mediocre mixed martial artist who was only decent at a few submissions because she had never put in the time and dedication to ever get any better. All she had to her name was a high school diploma and half an Associate’s degree in some nonsensical business school as well as an empty wallet on top of it all. Was there really any point in going back home? At least in Equestria she could escape her debt’s interest rate and live in blissful ignorance.
She promised herself that she wouldn’t cry, but that didn’t stop a single tear from escaping the corner of her eye.

It was around that moment that a flying contradiction just happened to be soaring by overhead. The griffon was just barely familiar with the nearby Ponyville, a place that filled her with anger, but more than anything, filled her heart with shame and regret. Though if given the opportunity, she’d visit the humble little town just so she could see a particular Pegasus one last time. There was something she needed to say to that pony, something that had been tugging at her heart for what quite some time now.
As luck would have it, she noticed a clump of familiar colors down below and without a single thought she flew in to investigate. “Oh, that Dash. Always lounging around under a tree without a care in the world.” She chuckled to herself.
The griffon landed just beside the tree, the tuft of rainbow colored hair peeking out from behind the tree couldn’t have belonged to any other pony.
She approached cautiously. The griffon remembered just how foolishly she had ended her friendship with Rainbow Dash. She had made herself look like such an idiot in front of her best friend and so many of the other ponies, ponies who innocently enough had thrown a party just for her, and yet the only way she was able to thank them all was by insulting them. She had come to hate what she once was, some tough bully obsessed with being ‘cool’ and utterly insecure and terrified of being anything else.
She opened her beak, and slowly the words came out, “…H-Hey there, Rainbow Dash! Been a while huh? Hope you haven’t forgotten about your best buddy, Gilda!” Her introduction was actually far more awkward than it read.
Raine had just barely been awake enough to hear the greeting, and figured it was just one of the pegasus’ old friends or something. The misunderstanding was understandable, seeing as she was a clone at best of the pony in question, but before she could correct the mix-up, the griffon continued.
“Look Dash, I’m gonna’ cut right down to the chase here because I’m sure I’m the last person you want to see right now…” There was no easy way to put it, nor was there an easy way to hold back her emotions, “I-I know I was a total jerk to you the last time we hung out, no, I was even worse than a jerk. I acted like some kind of played out school house bully… I know it’s been a while, probably too long for it to matter, but I-I… I wanted to apologize to you for the way I acted. I was just so obsessed with looking good in front of you that I totally forgot what really mattered, our friendship.” Gilda could hardly hold back her tears. No matter how long she had rehearsed the lines, none of it seemed to come out the way she wanted, “Y-You don’t have to be friends with me again, heck, you don’t even have to accept my apology. I-It doesn’t matter to me anymore. I just want you to know how sorry I am for destroying what you and I had. We were such best buddies and like an idiot I blew it! I insulted you and all of your friends… at a party they had made just for me…”
Dash’s past had certainly moved the human. Gilda itself was a pretty familiar name, at least it had a ring to it. All too conveniently, Raine remembered an old friend she had in high school, a hardass named Gigi, who had always stuck by her side, but by a similar series of events, Raine stopped talking to the girl. The comparison was so close it was almost laughable, but the girl knew better than to laugh into the face of someone so vulnerable.
If it was anything Gilda had expected, it was the cold shoulder. The griffon thought her heart had grown accustomed to feeling so battered, but she knew that she deserved it. She had been a rotten friend to someone so close, and deserved every bit of humiliation she could suffer through. She couldn’t even bear to even face the little Pegasus, even though she was apparently sitting behind a tall tree, “I-I can understand if you have nothing to say to me. That’s fine, I just needed to let you know how I felt… I’m going to head into town. I won’t feel any better about this until I’ve apologized to all of your friends too. So long, d-dude…”
If it was anyone that was familiar with being a failure and a reject, it was Raine, and there was no way she was going to let whoever was behind that tree get away without at least a hug, “W-Wait!”
It was the only word Gilda could’ve possibly hoped for, though not at all the sight she had expected, “What?! Y-You’re not Dash!”
Raine did her best to think of an explanation as she came around the tree, though it was fairly hard to get over the fact that an actual griffon was standing before her, “Whoa, you’re a real griffon!”
“Well, of course I’m a griffon!” utterly flabbergasted and beyond embarrassed, Gilda was ready to claw just whatever it was standing before her into the ground, “Y-You look like Dash but you’re, you’re-! Y-You better tell me who you are right now before I-!”
“Look! Calm down!” Raine had never tamed a lion before, let alone a lion that was half eagle, “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your apology to Rainbow Dash like that, and I-”
“You know Dash? B-But how?! What are you even supposed to be?”
“I’m a human, I was apparently brought here from another world… Apparently I’m supposed to be a…” She didn’t even want to compare herself to the Pegasus as she awkwardly explained her back story, there was no way such a blundering failure could be anything like Dash herself.
“A human, huh? I’ve only ever heard about you guys, never actually never seen one before.” Gilda flew over to get a better look at the girl, “Weird, no wonder I mistook you for Dash, you look just like her. What are you? Some kind of sick fangirl?”
“My name’s Raine! And I-”
“You don’t even have wings!” the griffon chuckled, “And yet you even dyed your hair just like Dash’s. Are you for real?”
Raine’s concern for the poor creature’s feelings had turned into an annoyance. No wonder the Pegasus had ditched such a bothersome featherbrain, “Listen up! I’m not some lame poser and I couldn’t care less for that douchebag! If you have some blubbering apology to give her then why are you wasting your time with me?”
“B-Blubbering?!”
“You heard me hairball! What? You gonna’ cry about it again?”
“That does it! I hope you’re ready for a fight!” Gilda brought out her talons. Humans might not have had fur worth skinning, but that wasn’t going to stop this griffon.
“Come at me, beaky!” Raine tossed aside her aviator’s jacket and cracked her knuckles as ‘Galvanize’ began to play in the back of her mind, “ You better not hold back unless you wanna’ get your feathers rustled.”
“Go buck yourself!” Gilda snarled and made a mad dash for the human’s jugular with her razor sharp claws.
It was a typical plan of attack that Raine had seen time and time again, nothing remarkable at all and easily countered.  She didn’t even have to put much effort into the preparation though she did have to remind herself for a moment that this creature was an actual honest to god ‘Griffon’ and not just some punk outside of a nightclub.
The beast made a sharp swipe that nearly slashed Raine’s blue tank top right off of her chest. Raine immediately caught the talon in her grasp, swept it off to her side and with the help of her other arm twisted the griffon’s arm.
Gilda gave a sharp grunt and arched her back in a jolt as her elbow was stressed into a position it was never meant to bend into.
As she held out the claw, Raine took the opportunity to quickly side step herself behind the griffon and wrapped her elbow around Gilda’s neck. As quick as lightning, Raine released the talon and placed it behind the buzzard’s head in a tight rear naked choke hold. For good measure Raine wrapped her legs around the beast’s waist in an attempt to clamp down on her wings as well as throwing her balance off completely. It was an ingenious maneuver and the best part was how little effort it took.
Gilda gasped for air as she wildly clawed about, but she just couldn’t reach her assailant. In a desperate bid to escape, she slammed her back against the tree, nearly snapping one of Raine’s ribs. The moment the hold was broken, Gilda took the girl by her arm and swung her into the patch of grass ahead of her, “What kind of bull was that? Y-You call that fighting?!”
Raine had to work a violent cough out of her chest, but managed to get back onto her feet just in time for the griffon’s next assault. She would’ve thought this oversized turkey would’ve learned her lesson by now.
Gilda went in for another slash, which was easily avoided by the skin of Raine’s nose. She had years of training and beatings to thank for such quick reflexes and boy had she been grateful.
In one big pull, the girl wrapped her hands behind the pigeon’s skull, leaned back, and introduced Gilda to a brutal knee uppercut that nearly smashed that beak into splinters.
The blow sent the poor flyer for a couple of flips overhead, nearly breaking the buzzard’s neck before she finally made her crash landing.
Instinct would’ve told Raine to immediately get up, run over, and finish the job with a kick or two followed by a series of bludgeoning fists to every vital area of the eagle’s head, and Raine would’ve carried out that exact plan of attack, but she managed to stop herself just in time. There she stood with a shin parked against the griffon’s temple. Raine needed a good second to catch her breath as she gazed down at the pitiful mess below.
Gilda was a trembling mess, bawling her eyes out as she clasped her beak with her talons. Tears streamed muddied the bird’s indigo eye shadow and she whimpered and cried out in pain like a little kid. Luckily, nothing was actually broken but the poor griffon had felt every bit of it anyway.
Raine removed her halted kick and took pity on the feeble bird. She could tell the griffon was made of far tougher stuff but just wasn’t a very good fighter. In fact, no one in Equestria seemed to be oddly enough. Raine rolled her eyes and got down to a knee, “Oh, move it ya’ big baby.” She threw away Gilda’s talons, “Calm down, let me take a look at you.”
Gilda sniffed away a few of her tears with a cringe-worthy frown. She was certainly in no position to fight back and wouldn’t have risked a single feather on her noggin at this point.
Fiona would’ve probably been of great assistance at this point, seeing as Raine was anything but a veterinarian, but the griffon appeared to be alright, at least in the comparison she drew between bird-like lions and humans anyway. She worked the bird’s beak to which Gilda winced and checked the edges of her eyes for any popped blood vessels, “Doesn’t look like they teach you ponies how to fight in Equestria do they?”
“I-I’m a griffon, not a pony…! Ouch!”
“Yeah, ‘griffon’, my bad. Well, you look alright for now but don’t be too surprised if you get a little bruise on your... That area at the top of your beak.”
“That’s my Lacrimal!”
“Yeah that part, sorry. Come on, don’t cry, dude. You’ll be okay! If you want I’ll even let you get a free shot on me.”
The griffon snuffled up another tear, “N-No, it’s okay. You got me fair and square. You’re not bad at all for someone who can’t fly.”
Raine laughed away the cruel truth and sat down next to her opponent, “Yeah, and you’re pretty quick yourself. Almost had me there a couple of times, heh.”
Gilda gave her beak one more twitch and sat up, “I-I’m sorry about being such a jerk. I was just kind of embarrassed about earlier… We got off on the wrong foot you and I. My name’s Gilda. What was your name again?”
“It’s Raine.” She smiled, “Hell of a way to introduce ourselves.”
Gilda couldn’t help but cough up a laugh, and after a second Raine joined her with a chuckle.

Pinkie Pie brought out a warm pan of freshly baked sugar cookies into the lobby of Sugar Cube Corner, “They’re ready!”
“Oh gosh, these look delicious!” Fluttershy drooled over the golden sweet riches.
Fiona couldn’t resist and quickly took a bite. With a satisfying moan, her eyes almost rolled into the back of her head, “These are so good~! Try one Fluttershy.”
The Pegasus tried one for herself, and soon enough a second as well as a third.
Pinkie snorted a laugh, “Take as many as you guys want! They’re free samples.”
Piper cleared the top of the staircase just in time to spoil the fun, “Pinkie! I think I’m going to need your help up here! I don’t really know how to take care of baby ponies. Pumpkin Cake keeps tying diapers around my head with her magic and Pound Cake won’t come down from the ceiling!”
Pinkie sighed, “Not again, okay, I’ll be right up!” she quickly tossed a few of the cookies into a gift bag and handed it to Fiona, “Sorry girls, the twins are calling. We’ll catch up with you two later alright?”
“Oh, that’s fine. We have to get going anyway. Fiona and I have the yearly bunny census to take care of today.”
“Thanks again for the treats!” Fiona stuffed another cookie into her mouth as they left the bakery. The bag probably wasn’t going to last very long in her tempting hands.
“Bye girls! Have fun!”

The two animal lovers had strolled to the edge of Ponyville where a small stream met a forest filled with dozens of loveable little creatures.
“Please? Just one more time?” Fiona begged.
“Are you still on about that? Haven’t you had enough yet?”
“B-But it’s just that, well…”
Fluttershy still couldn’t believe it, but she may as well have gratified the human if this census was ever going to get finished, “Alright, fine...!” The little yellow Pegasus reluctantly fluttered over to the girl and plopped into her eagerly awaiting arms.
With a squeal only the sweatiest of fangirls could give, Fiona gave Fluttershy an embarrassing cuddle as if the pony were some kind of giant plushie, digging a cheek into her pink mane.
“This is mortifying, Fiona.” If this is what all of her animals went through every time she hugged one of them, then Fluttershy was just about ready to quit the animal business forever, “Are you done yet? This is getting kind of creepy.”
Fiona giggled softly, “I’m sorry, you ponies are just too adorable!”
The Pegasus did her best to pretend she didn’t hear that last bit and finally escaped the crazy lady’s clutches, “Alright, look, we have to complete this census of all the new baby bunnies born this year. We have to do it every year for all the animals in the forest and this month call’s for a bunny count.” She handed Fiona a clipboard, “We’ll work as a team. I’ll gather all of the bunnies and you count them, okay?”
“Gotcha’. I’m ready when you are, Ma’m!” Fiona saluted idiotically with the clipboard by her side.
“Right.” Fluttershy turned her attention to the already gathering horde of rabbits, “Okay little bunnies, I need all of you to gather up. We’re just going to do a little head count, alright? Fiona, are you even counting them?”
They hadn’t even started yet and girl had already become completely distracted, “Hiya Ditzy! How are you?” she waved up to a rather disconcerted Pegasus above the tree line.
Fluttershy gazed up at the silhouette in the sky,“Oh hey, Ditzy! Cool glasses by the way! We’re counting bunnies for the town census. Want to help?”
Ditzy had picked up a pair of black thick rimmed glasses off of some nobody named Apple Cobbler. Whether she had actually needed the glasses or not was of no importance. The only thing that just barely mattered to Ditzy was that her new snobby indifferent demeanor was accented by a pointless accessory. The point was to care as much as she could about not caring at all, “Why would I waste my time helping two animal hoarders like yourselves? What? You couldn’t find a psychologist for your type of crazy?”
For a second they thought Ditzy had actually said something so cruel. It took a minute for those words to really register and Fiona wasn’t sure how to react at all, “I-Is something wrong, Ditzy?”
“Yeah, your census doesn’t take into account the sharp population decline of Bees affecting our environment!”
“What did she mean by that?” Fluttershy was puzzled.
Fiona had seen plenty of documentaries pertaining to how pollution and pesticide were causing Bee populations around the world to suffer, but she wasn’t exactly sure how the topic related to bunnies, but she was about to find out!
Ditzy picked a swarming Bee hive from the arm of a tree, smacked it around a bit, and tossed it like a live grenade at the two unsuspecting census volunteers, “How about you two just buzz off!”
The honey comb hive hadn’t even splattered against the ground yet before an angry swarm had organized its war campaign.
Fluttershy and Fiona screamed and ran for their hapless little lives, doing their best to keep up with the fleeing bunnies as the humming horde sharped its stingers.
Fiona shrieked as a seemingly perverted Bee found its mark right into the side of her butt cheek. Through usually dumb luck, she had been stung by Bees before, as well as all manner of other insects, but this was simply ridiculous. Another Bee made a mad dash for the girl’s arm, but before the stinger could pierce her flesh a purple mist closed in and blockaded the golden crusade.
The magical bubble shrank around the cloud of angry Bees, digesting the crumpled hive in the process, and it shriveled some more before finally vanishing in a sparkle of light.

The intent was to teleport the livid swarm to a random tree on the other side of Equestria. Unfortunately, due to an error in calculations that we’ll imagine anyway, the hive found itself tossed into the fancy traveling coach of a particular show stopping blue unicorn, which later erupted into a shriek of desperate screams and cries for help.

“That’s enough, Ditzy!” radiating with intense magic stood Twilight Sparkle and her partner Twyla by her side.
Fluttershy zipped behind the unicorn just as Fiona managed to toss herself at Twyla’s feet, still mending the sore stab wound to her rump.
“You alright, Fiona?” Twyla helped the frightened environmentalist to her feet, “Nice duds, by the way. Where’d you get them?”
Fiona didn’t even give herself enough time to muster up a ‘thank you’ before she nearly choked out her close friend with a hug, “Oh thank goodness you arrived! I missed you so much! It really hasn’t been the same without you, Twyla!”
The teacher attempted to get an arm in edge wise, not to mention a breath of air, “D-Don’t worry, I know…!”
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the eggheads?” It certainly felt nice being some sort of ironic villain and not a wall-eyed pushover for once, “You two gonna’ bore me to death with your autistic reading rainbows?”
Twyla wasn’t going to stand there and let such nonsense go unchecked, “Hey! There’s nothing funny about mental disorders! Autism is a serious condition that needs to be treated with love and compassion!”
The corrupted Pegasus laughed, “Aw! Is that why Twilight Sparkle needs your help so much? How considerate of you!”
“Okay that was just uncalled for.” The unicorn huffed.
“And the poke at autism wasn’t already?!” countered Twyla.
“We don’t have time for this Twyla!” Twilight charged the horn over her head with a static white light, a familiar spell that she had hoped she’d never have to use on any of her friends ever again, “Now stand back, girls! I’m about to give this toppy-nosed Pegasus a taste of friendship!”