• Published 12th Aug 2013
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Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship(Season 1) - Barrobroadcaster



The story of a man named Dan and all his friends in Equestria.

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What We Leave Behind

The Director watched as the vortex swallowed up Dan and disappeared. She stared into the space where it had been, into the dense haze beyond for a long time. The fog surrounded the Paradise Estate all the time, every day. Magic had ways of making strong emotions and feelings affect the environment but sometimes, it was difficult to tell where they came from or what they represented. She wasn't sure if the fog was supposed to represent memories or time or some other concept. But she could tell it was magic causing the mists to gather, to condense them around her home and refuse to let them disperse. She could tell it was magic trying to tell her something.

And she liked to stare right back at it. Right at Equestria itself. For a long time, she stared into the thick fog because she had her own message to send.

It's all going to burn.

She took the teacups, plates and kettle into the kitchen and proceeded to wash them. She did so by hand, enjoying the feeling of the water and the smooth surfaces. It was soothing, in a way to just perform this simple act with her own power, without magic.

With her own hands. As she washed, she occasionally glanced up at the wall above the sink, just below the window looking out. A group of pictures hung there, more memories within her forgotten museum. She tried to focus on scrubbing but the pictures wouldn't let her. The Director found her eyes constantly looking up at them, drawn to them and the faces of those who had been left behind. One of them had been hers.

The photos were a lot like the Paradise Estate- somewhere in a limbo between remembered and forgotten. But the ponies in them... and the others, they were not like Paradise Estate. Wherever they were, they were not here. They had gone on, that was one thing they all had in common but some of them, she knew, still looked back. On rare nights, they looked to the Paradise Estate, to the Kingdom of days past. To Enchantria, the place they all once called home. The place that every pony, that everyone once called home.

She knew the names of every single subject in the pictures. There was a picture of Star Swirl before he grew his beard next to Tia and Luna's parents. Her parents... and all their friends. The Grundles, the Bushwoolies, the Flutter Ponies and even Gary Busey all hung next to each other, mementos of a lost, simpler and happier time.

Her time.

She reached out with her hand to touch one in particular, a special one. But her fingers never touched it. Instead, a hoof tapped the inside of the picture, her own hoof. She recoiled quickly and waited for her hoof to change back into a hand. Her digits returned quickly, as they always did and she flexed her hand, as she always did. She turned back to the picture and stood, hands propped against her sink, staring at it with teary eyes.

Megan... why did you do it, Megan? Why did you want me to stay?

The picture, the single faded photo of a young blonde-haired girl and a white mare, hung in silence. She stood there, tears in her eyes, staring at it for a long time, asking it over and over and over the same question: why?

The picture never said anything back.


Halberd Base, Equestria

The portal tumbled Dan out onto the floor of the base's sub level, just as it had the ground in front of Paradise Estate. He got to his feet slowly, making sure everything was okay on his person first. And when he got up, it was clear he wasn't in the same part of the base he'd been in. Directly in front of him was a cart, like a medical gurney and strapped to it was none other than General Sharp Winter. He was unconscious and restrained, tied to the cart with the same twine Dan had bound his hooves with in the kitchen. But they weren't in the kitchen.

They were in a small room, like a storage closet of some sort. High ceiling like the rest of the base and the room glowed red. There was a single light above him... but the light wasn't red. In fact, it wasn't even on. The light was coming from a trio of objects to his side, slotted into indentations in the room's side. Each one was big, large enough to accommodate the objects inside of them and rowed up right next to each other, yet still separated. The moment he saw them, Dan stopped examining the room. The glow came from them.

Sword Spells. Or... what looked like them, at least. They were each different: the one closest to the doorway looked like a regular Sword Spell, the massive, glowing red horn of a Magic Gear but the other two were different. The one in the middle had a split down the center, like two horns growing growing out of one. And the last one was even stranger. Furthest from the door, in the largest indentation was what looked like a glowing statue. Unlike the other two, it was not translucent. It was some kind of double helix statue of two horn or talon-like objects that began to wrap around each other and intertwined but never touched tips.

Dan decided that whatever he was seeing was too important to dismiss right away. "Hey, doofus," he slapped Winter's cheek. "Wake up."

"Errarr? Uhhrrr..." the general muttered, still not fully conscious.

"Okay, fine. If you're not going to be helpful," Dan approached the last one, determined to investigate. At the base of the alcove, he noticed a plaque that read: Aegis VII Relic, recovered by Dr. Yearling, reconstructed by Dr. Bandwidth.

"Yearling..." Dan said, remembering the name. "Daring." Archaeo Knowledge Yearling was Daring Do's real name, though most in Equestria were unaware that A.K Yearling and Daring Do were the same pony. The fact that her name was mentioned on the label made it clear to Dan that Daring had been in contact with the Enclave for at least some time, if not as Daring then as her alter-ego.

He continued looking around until he located a terminal at the back of the room. The screen was covered in a fine layer of dust and looked oddly similar to the terminal he had installed for the security system at the library. And fortunately, he was able to turn it on the same way. The moment he did, it began to display his image looking back at the terminal. The terminal was some kind of recording station. It didn't take Dan long to find the previous recorded logs and begin playing them.

The first log took a moment to start but when it did, it showed the face of a green-maned white pegasus. It seemed the Enclave had a thing for green, if Dan had to guess. At first, he spoke but there was no sound until the pony reached up and tapped something near the edge of the screen.

"Heh... sorry about that. Um, as I was saying, this is Science Team's log, Dr. Bandwidth reporting. Or, maybe I should say Colonel Bandwidth, now, heheh. I, uh, just wanted to say it's an honor... working with the Enclave and finally getting to actually meet Professor Vice Grip. I mean, I've read all his work on bio-magical utilization methods but to actually meet him face-to-face is... well, it's exhilarating." The pony in the image looked like he could barely contain himself. Another typical trait of the Enclave, Dan thought.

"He says we're working on big things and everypony around here is just so brilliant. I feel like... like I finally have some place where I can belong. I didn't think a place like this could exist in Equestria; it's just so amazing!" the pony exclaimed. He turned his head down for a moment. "I didn't really know what to do when I found out the princesses were lying to me. Lying to all of us. I just... I feel so betrayed. Equestria was meant to stand for something better. Isn't that what the Elements of Harmony are all about?"

The image broke into static and took a moment to recover. "-worried about some of these guys. But, I guess if I'm getting a second chance, they deserve one, too. I'm excited to show Vice-err, I mean, the professor, all my ideas about magical wavelengths! This could be a whole new field of research!"


"Colonel... Hngggg, Colonel... Bandwidth..." Sharp muttered behind Dan. The human looked over his shoulder at him.

"Somepony you know?" Dan asked. But the general didn't respond. Dan played the second log.

"-not being told about a lot of things. And now members of the team are being shifted around. I don't like this," Bandwidth said, sounding less excited than he had been. "Captain Springer's demands for some kind of "portable nuke" are not something I can condone after what happened to Major Summer and Lieutenant Major Midsummer. He looked down again, as if holding something in his hooves.

"I tried talking to Vice about this... about these experiments. I don't... I don't think the DNA experiments are going very well. Lightning Claw and his brothers are... unstable. And I'm beginning to wonder where we're getting all of this "elemental energy" in the first place. Vice says this is for the good of all Equestria and that nopony is getting hurt." The pony looked right at the screen. "I don't think what we're doing is right anymore. I... I wish they'd just talk to me."

There was only one other log. Dan clicked it twice and it started automatically. In this log, the pony called Bandwidth began by looking right at the screen. And it was clear something wasn't right about him.

"They were lying to me. I knew it- I KNEW IT! THEY WERE ALL LYING TO ME AND I KNEW IT!!" he screamed, causing the screen to vibrate. There were bags under Bandwidth's eyes and he appeared to be wearing a tinfoil hat. "They were all behind it. The whole time, they used my program, my Signal Transceiver to monitor another world! The Marker we found, they're using it to build these things called Sword Spells, preparing for an invasion! But they'll never be able to launch them without someone from that world who could harness the magic- that's the key, that's what they're looking for! Somehow, I have to stop this-ave to stop this-ave to stop this-ave to stop-" the video repeated, skipping several times before finally shutting off.

"Well, that wasn't weird at all," Dan remarked. He turned around and slapped Sharp Winter again. "I guess you can help me make some sense of it after your nap, sound good?"

"Grrrguh... errr..."

"Excellent. Let's go introduce you to the rest of the team," Dan said, wheeling Sharp out on the cart. And the moment he stepped into the next room, he began to slow to a stop. "Okay... this does not look right to me."

The room adjacent to the "warhead closet" was much larger, a laboratory of some kind. But everything had been cleared out; there were no chairs and only four tables occupying the middle of the room. The thing that disturbed Dan the most, however, was the fact that the words THEY LIED was scrawled on every available space. The floor, the ceiling, the walls, the tops and even the undersides of the tables all had the same words written on them. And they appeared to be written in blood.

Sharp started to wake up at just that moment. "Err, uhh..." And immediately noticed the decor. "Oh... woah."

"You didn't know about this?"

"I'm... pretty sure I'd remember blood-soaked walls," Sharp said. "Wait, this looks like Bandy's lab, why are we-"

"I don't think I need to ask about this place," Dan said, wheeling Sharp faster. "Let's just get out of here." He wheeled him out of the room, down the corner and didn't stop until he reached the elevator out of the base.

The moment the doors opened, Phoenix and the rest of Dan's crew from the attack were waiting for him. He pushed the cart out and was immediately greeted by his friends.

"Nicky!"

"Dan-o!" The two were so ecstatic to see each other, they bro-hugged.

"Uh-ah-AAAHHH!" And Dan let go of the cart holding Sharp Winter, causing it to keep going and crash into the side of the base's outer wall. *Cranggd!*

"Dan, we were so worried about you!"

"I know, Nicky, I know," Dan said, hugging the taller human. "Next time I do a vendetta op, you're coming with me."

"That sounds great, we'll do it together," Phoenix said, nodding while hugging him tight.

The Blast Sisters, witnessing this display of bromance, could not contain themselves. They began dancing around the two chanting: "Foursome! Foursome! We're gonna have a foursome~!"

"Foursome?" Dan asked, breaking the hug. "Meaning...?"

The two immediately paired up and stood side-by-side, innocently. "Golf. We'll have a... golf foursome."

"Yes, we play golf," Powdy said.

"With exploding balls."

"Hmm," Dan remarked. "I like that idea. Anyway, Nicky, we struck gold," he said, leading the other human to Sharp Winter. Gust Grasp was busy peeling him off the wall. "This is the leader of the Enclave. We're working our way up the chain!"

"Very nice. He should be able to tell us a lot about Vice Grip's operations," Phoenix said. "And we have news, too."

"Lemme have it."

"Well, we rescued the prisoners of the Enclave. We found the missing pegasi."

"That's great news!" Dan exclaimed. "Where are they?"

Phoenix rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, uh, they're right around the corner here." And inside another hangar, Phoenix showed Dan the Enclave's prisoners.

"This can't be all of them," Dan said. "There's only like... twelve pegasi here!"

"Fourteen," Phoenix said. "It turns out, most of the pegasi were in the Enclave."

Dan looked into the hangar. He recognized most of them as pegasi who lived in Ponyville. A couple of the tower operators and one of the managers were there but no others.

"Where's the rest of the Enclave?"

"Other side." Phoenix led Dan to the other side where Derpy and Rogue Squadron were treating the injured.

"Wow..."

"Yeah..."

There were hundreds. Dozens of pegasi were in groups, none of them armored. They were all different colored, all had cutie marks and all were in different states of distress. Dan recognized a few: Thunderlane, Cloud Burst, Pure Path and her brother Right Way. There was Soothing Sound, Easy Beats, Rhythm Rider and Tune Up from the all-mare, all-pegasus rock band Wynd Chymez, which Dan had actually seen on t.v. during a PH1 "Behind the Band" special. Even Bulk Bicep aka Snowflake aka Roid Rage was there, after apparently having been taken down by Derpy Hooves.

"They're all the pegasi from Cloudsdale," Dan said.

"Yeah..." Phoenix said. "Pretty much all of them. All the ones involved in weather management. The Enclave WAS Cloudsdale and Sharp Winter was kind of the General Manager."

Dan suddenly found it very difficult to hate them. Underneath the armor, the anger and the arrogance, they were the same pegasi he'd seen flying in the skies, the same ponies he'd praised for actually delivering accurate forecasts. In a way, he had been fighting Cloudsdale itself.

He walked up to Thunderlane, who had a black eye. Dan had given him that black eye. "Oh... hey, Dan." He was lying on his back on a makeshift bed, being treated for three broken legs. Dan had given him at least two of those broken legs.

"TH."

"Sorry about... what happened," Thunderlane said, pained. "I just signed up for the pegasettes, bro. I had no idea we'd actually be... y'know, going to war."

"I guess you know now," Dan said, and walked away. He went over to where Flitter and Cloudchaser were sitting, each of them holding ice packs on each others' shoulders. "And what's your story?"

"I... I actually joined up for my sister."

"Did not! I joined up because you joined up!"

"That is SUCH a lie, Flitter! You know it was your idea to-"

Dan walked away, leaving the two to bicker and heal. He headed back over to Phoenix and the taller human patted him on the back. They both knew how hard this was. "So, what's your news?" the lawyer asked.

"You know that creepy pony I told you abducted me?"

"The Director, right?"

"Yeah," Dan rubbed the back of his own neck, mirroring the taller human's usual gesture. "Turns out, she's got Earth's nukes pointed back at us. So, when Vice tries to launch the Sword Spells at Earth, she's going to have Earth launch back."

"That is... terrible," the lawyer said. "Did you find Daring?"

"And did you happen to find our car?" Tuxley asked, as the t-rex carried more wounded to the makeshift triage center, Reginald in tow.

"That's a negative, Rex Racer. Don't worry; it's on my list," Dan said. He tapped his headset to signal Twilight. "Twilight? You there?" Only static answered him.

"We haven't been able to get a signal," Phoenix explained. "I was just about to send Gust back to check on things at the library."

The griffon saluted in response. "I'm here to help, brommander! I promise I won't steal anything!"

Dan smiled, a little less uncomfortable with the pirate than usual. "They'll be plenty of souvenirs in the base when we're done with it."

"Heheh, I think I'll like being in this outfit," the griffon said before taking flight.

Just as soon as he was out of distance, the ground beneath them begin to shake. It wasn't enough to shake the base but it definitely made balance a bit difficult for all of them for a few moments. The injured Enclave warriors held each other and onto anything they could to steady themselves.

"How long has... this been going on?" Dan asked, arms up and nearly flailing.

"Since about the time you left," Phoenix replied. "We kinda thought you were causing it. Kinda hoping you were causing it."

"Wish I was," Dan said. Unlike before, the ground did not stop shaking.

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