Epilogue: Know They Did1,309 words

Wrath: The Unforgiveable Act of Forgiveness

For all the time it had taken Dan and friends to finally reach the moon, to finally reach their friends, the return to Equestria was quite quick. Perhaps, after all they had endured, fate deigned to show them a mercy. It took a few hours to free all of their friends and everyone that had been held captive by Chancellor Rice, but they made sure to get everyone and everypony. Thankfully, none of them were missing nor worse for wear.

Well, almost none of them.

Dan remained quiet. The princesses were exhausted- Twilight from having used so much of her magic just getting there and Luna, Celestia and Cadence from being drained. Rice had siphoned a lot of magic from the princesses in their frozen state to power his time portal. In the end, he had almost succeeded in creating a new Equestria. Almost.

Imperial shuttles, courtesy of Grand Admiral Thrawn, helped to ferry the freed ponies back to Ponyville. Many of them were eager to resume their lives right where they'd left off. Another clear mercy: Equestria was waiting for them, just as they had left it. Every shop, every building, every blade of grass and grain of sand and wisp of cloud from pole to pole was waiting for the ponies and indeed others to return. Return, they did.

Doctor Whooves was happy to show off his TARDIS. With the last ponies on their way back via shuttle, he treated Twilight, princesses and friends- and his faithful companion Derpy, to a Whovian-style return to Equestria.

"Ahh, there we are. Excellent work, Derpy- everything good on your end?"

"Yup! All the chronometer doohickery-thingies are-" Derpy banged her hoof on a gauge. The needle righted itself. "-right where they should be!"

The TARDIS disappeared from the moon and reappeared over Equestria.

"That should do it. Home again, as they say."

"Great. Because after ALL this horseshit, you should all be thankful I haven't tried t-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!"

Literally over Equestria; the TARDIS appeared in the sky severl-thousand feet above the clouds.

"I thought you said it was WORKING, Derpy?" Doctor asked.

Derpy, fluttering above one of the all-important chronometers, flipped upside down. "Ohh, sorry. I was reading it upside down."

"But you're upside down now."

"I know. Because I thought the doohickey was."

"Ahh. Yes. The doohickeys do seem like that sometimes."

"I got it," Rainbow Dash said. She bolted out the door and down to reach Dan before he reached the surface. Doctor Whooves, meanwhile, shut the door behind her and the TARDIS disappeared again.

"WHY
DOES THIS KEEP
HAPPENING TO ME?!?!"
Dan asked as he fell.

Rainbow Dash sped towards him at her usual lighting speed. She yawned a bit and had to shake off some jetlag; being trapped in a blister pack for so long took a lot out of a mare, even a speed demon like her. So Dan fell through the cloud layer before Rainbow finally caught him.

Dan even fell through Cloudsdale. Pegasi were already starting to celebrate- some were throwing around and bucking giant beach balls and frisbees. It was always a sunny day in Cloudsdale, so there was a big beach vibe most of the time. Finally, Rainbow Dash caught Dan and let him down right on the ground in Ponyville, coincidentally near the street lamp he twirled on the first time he came to town.

"You doing okay, Dan?"

"No... yes... physically fine, everything else, no, no, no, no, NO!" Dan yelled. The TARDIS appeared right behind him as he did and out stepped Twilight, Phoenix, Chrys and friends.

"Dan, what's wrong?"

"EVERYTHING!! EVERYTHING IS WRONG!!" He exclaimed.

"COMEBACK PARTAYYYYYYY!" Pinkie Pie yelled. Somehow, despite not having anything with her when she'd entered the TARDIS, Pinkie Pie stepped out of the TARDIS in full party gear.

"SHUT UPPPP!!" Dan yelled back at her. This was in the middle of another one of her

"COMEBACK PARTAAAAYY-" so she corrected herself mid-cheer and said, "is postponed until later this evening. Everypony's invited!"

Dan huffed, standing, panting, his arms slack, as if a thousand-pound weight was on his back. "Everything... this wasn't-"

"And everybody else, too!"

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Dan said. He looked around. It was a beautiful day in Ponyville. The sun was shining brightly, the temperature was perfect, everyone was opening up stores and shops and getting back to their lives. Many were just enjoying the chance to be outside in the fresh air and sunshine. Families and couples and groups of friends talked and laughed and trotted and played more enthusiastically and happier than usual, which was saying something for this town.

All except Dan.

Twilight knew what was going on. As did Phoenix and Chrys, Dan's closest friends. They had been with him through most of it and had a good idea of what he was thinking.

"You're not... you're not at least a little happy that things are back to normal?"

"NO!" Dan quickly yelled. But then followed up with, "I mean... this isn't right. THIS ISN'T RIGHT!!"

"What's wrong?" Fluttershy made the mistake of asking directly. To her credit, she acted instinctively when animals were in distress and her instinct was to help said animal. Dan kind-of looked like a smaller, less-hairy upset bear, to her at least. And he actually smelled like a bear at times as well, whether it was because of a revenge plot involving honey

"WHICH THE LAST ONE DID!"

-Yes, which the last one did, or some other reason. But back to Fluttershy's question, Dan answered with,

"What's wrong? WHAT'S WRONG??!!" Dan stomped up to her, filling the yellow pegasus with instant-regret. Like instant coffee only disappointing. "EVERYTHING is wrong. I was SUPPOSED to BEAT VICE GRIP. TO A PULP."

"Well," Applejack piped up. Mane Six are not making great decisions here today. Give 'em a break, folks, they just got done being kidnapped by an idiot.

"AND THAT IDIOT IS STILL AT LARGE AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED."

"You DID kinda beat Vice Grip, though," Applejack said. "He woulda still had all of us trapped if y'all hadn't risked life and limb and... EVERYTHING to save us! Dan, you saved everypony in Equestria!"

"Most of them, anyway," Rarity said. A few chiding glares prevented her from commenting further.

"He did save everypony," Chrys said. "All of us. Multiple times. She wrapped her hooves around her boyfriend's shoulders, hugging him as only loving marefriend bughorse could.

"He did," Phoenix nodded. "I was there for most of it. We all had a hand in saving Equestria but none more so than Dan. I wouldn't be much of a lawyer at all if I didn't defend that fact- Dan's sacrifices outweigh all of ours. Without him, we would not have Equestria or all our friends back."

Dan's gaze was firmly fixed on the ground, but even then, it's like his eyes were shaking. He couldn't focus on any one thing because it made him angry. And the fact he could not focus on things made him angry. And the fact that he couldn't do anything about it made him angry. And the fact that he hadn't brought Rice Prick to justice made him angry. And the fact that he was angry made him angry. And the narrator spouting redundancies made him-

"AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! AAA! AAA! AAAAAAAA! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHAAAAAA. HAAAAA!!!" Dan shouted. It was like he was stuck, unable to fully move on from this point or even in this position. So he flailed. He grabbed the street lamp and nearly broke it in half.

"EVERY. THING. IS. WRONG. NOW." When he started biting it, Twilight thought that a good time to pry him off.

"We just fixed the planet. Now, just as we've got everything back together, he's trying to break it again," Rainbow said.

"AND. I. WILL. WITH. ENOUGH. TIME. RRRRRRRRR."

Twilight levitated Dan off the lamp post. "Dan, I'm sorry." But he didn't get up right away; he sat on his knees where she put him down. "I know things didn't go..."

"You... you were there, Twilight. You know this isn't right- how could you... how could we..."

"I..." Twilight realized something. She hadn't fully agreed with the Princesses' decision, nor disagreed with it. She hadn't known what to do and when she didn't know what to do, she asked a question, she sought knowledge, but Princess Celestia had been one of her greatest sources of knowledge. What do you do when knowledge doesn't give you an answer?

Phoenix sighed. "We were all there, Dan. I told the princesses... well, it wasn't justice what they were doing."

"Twilight, why didn't you say anything?" Dan asked her. His eyes were full of tears. A pang of regret hit Twilight.

"I... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Dan I-"

"It would not have done any good." A different voice, but one they knew, appeared behind them. One not normally seen in the daytime- Princess Luna. Her expression was usually stern, towards others or something in particular, especially when she was acting in her official regard as a Princess of Equestria, but there was just a hint of contemplation about her, a hint of consideration in her eyes. It was as close as she had ever come to sympathy for Dan.

"My sister's mind was made-up before you arrived. She feared that our actions with Chancellor Rice, if measure improperly, if they were in any way-"

"Oh, get off it, sister," Dan suddenly lashed out. "She's felt guilty ever since zapping your blue ass to the moon. Even when she came back, I mean- when you did, when you got back, she's still weepy and sad-eyed whenever you enter the damn room! You were afraid of making the same mistake, and you made an even bigger one!"

The gasps could not be understated. That Dan would talk to a princess, that he would talk that way to Princess Luna in public, was unprecedented. Unthinkable. It could've merited punishment, it could've merited banishment, it was simply NOT done to speak to royalty that way and yet he had. It was expected Luna would be even more severe at the very least but

Luna's eyes were saddened. So were Chrys's.

"Now, you and Rice, and the princesses... you all share a similar pain," Twilight said. "Something has happened. Something wrong. It has created a wound in the past, in your past. In the very fabric of your history itself. And there is nothing we can do about it."

"NO," Dan declared. "There IS something we can do about. Rice, he's out there. And he still-"

"There's something you don't know," Luna said. She still sounded saddened. "Rice was not just trying to get back his son. He was trying-"

"To avenge him," Phoenix said. They were all silenced. They looked, ponies and humans and otherwise, to Dan, to Luna, between them both.

"I KNOW!" Dan yelled. "That doesn't give him an excuse to do all the shit he did! He threatened the planet-"

"He was trying to get revenge on us because of a cover-up."

"BUT! You weren't even involved! You were still out doing... whatever it was-"

"We knew about the cover-up," Luna finally said.

Dan stopped. Even Twilight gasped at that statement. Luna's head sunk low. She was ashamed.

"We... we found out shortly after Vice Grip returned. We did not know who he was exactly-we, we didn't do anything. We dispatched Discord to apprehend him after the Christmas incident," Luna explained. "I looked into his dreams. He was using the identity of his dead son to throw me off, to confuse me. To obfuscate his true goals, because he knew we would find out about him. We never deduced he was truly Rice Puddinghead, but we did discover the cover-up. And we didn't do anything about it."

Dan was done. He silently turned around and walked away. A shuttle carrying the Golden Oakes Library flew overhead, returning the library back to its rightful place in the ground. The roots took hold almost immediately, the tree back to its happy place in comfortable soil. Dan entered and slammed the door. They should've been thankful he didn't arm the security system.

"Why?" Phoenix finally asked.

Luna sighed and shook her head. "I do not know."

"When you have such power... making a decision, or not making one, can have a more profound impact than you realize," Twilight said. "Sometimes not doing something makes you feel safer. Removing yourself from the situation so that you don't make the wrong choice."

"You could have APOLOGIZED to him a LONG time ago," Phoenix Wright said. "Would it have made a difference? Probably not, but by doing nothing you made yourselves an easier target. You put the entire planet into jeopardy and that man," he said, pointing to the treehouse, "is the only one who dared to do anything about it."

"What's she saying?"
"I dunno. Something about a cover-up."
"The princesses were in some kind-of cover up!"
"Dan was the one who saved us."
"The princesses betrayed Dan!!"

Other ponies were beginning to talk. Luna's eyes darted from pony to pony- pegasi flying, unicorns and earth ponies whispering, a griffon looking over her shoulder as she loaded a cart, probably Gabby.

Twilight turned around. "Enough. Now is not the time to place blame- on ANYpony. We've ALL suffered here and we are not going to perpetuate that suffering. Now is the time to rebuild."

"And PARTAAAAAAYYY!!" Pinkie exclaimed. "I'm sorry. I was just at Sugar Cube Corner- had to make sure it was still there. Whaddid I miss?"

"We will do our best to make this right for Dan. For all of us," Luna said.

"That's right, we will!" Twilight declared. "So please, all of you... let us work together to rebuild Equestria. Together, we can do anything!"

"What's to rebuild? Everything's already fixed."

That was the only comment that was made. Everypony quietly resumed their activities.

"Party?" Pinkie asked.

"Alright, fine. I could use a chance to unwind anyway- let's have a party!" AJ shouted. This was followed by the other Mane SIx, and Chrys, and Luna went after them. Although they barely had the energy for dancing, singing or other forms of merriment, they all went to Sugar Cube Corner anyway, just happy to be together.

Twilight and Phoenix fell back from the group as they walked.

"It is nice that we're all together again. At least there's that."

Twilight sighed. "For how long, though? The next big disaster might be... just around the corner, waiting to break everything apart again."

Phoenix nodded. "I know. Things are uncertain like that, on Earth and Equestria. We have to savor the moments we have together. And when uncertainty happens, we face it together."

"Indeed, Nick. I suppose... do you think Dan is going to be okay?" She looked back to the library. The lights were off, even though Dan was still there. "Do you think Dan will accept the princesses' decision? To forgive Rice?"

Phoenix folded his arms and sighed. "I don't know. But... in a way, problems are like bombs. We can try to distance ourselves from them, we can try our best to diffuse them, but if we ignore them, they usually go off. The most dangerous kind, however, are that get buried. You never know when they're going to go off."

Pinkie Pie's party cannon exploded. Twilight knew that whatever else she had to say, whatever else she thought at that moment, about Dan, the princesses or the future, she would have to bury it. It would have to be buried... for now.

Next Saturday on Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship... things go back to normal.

"I'd like to order a palette of TNT."

"TNT doesn't come in palettes."

"No- I know, just put a bunch of TNT on a palette."

Normal*
*for this crazy bunch of idiots

"Everything is under control. Everything is also on fire, BUT under control."

As life in Ponyville returns to the way things were, some people have difficulty adjusting.

"I WILL GIVE YOU MY TWO-CENTS!!"

By someone, we mean Dan.

"You're suffering from PTSD."

"That's... weird. I usually make other people suffer from that."

"We've noticed."

Next time, insanity comes home.

"I've got it! We'll just redo EVERYTHING!!"

"Please start with that thought."

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled program.

"I'M NOT CRAZY- I'M JUST A GUY WITH TWO CHAINSAWS! THAT'S NOT CRAZY!!!"

Episode 21: Dan Vs. Errands. Next Saturday, the greatest challenge for Dan IS Next Saturday. Old-fashioned crazy makes a comeback in Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship!

"We had to sell the security system."

"What?"

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