Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship(Season 1)

by Barrobroadcaster

Broke: The Great Equestrian Depression

Gust's carriers landed on the ground around Ponyville. Many of the griffons that had been on them, many of them towing lines that kept the ships airborne, collapsed on the ground the moment the ships sat down. Exhausted, wounded, battered and bruised, not their wings nor their legs could keep them up any more. The three carriers were damaged nearly beyond recognition; their hulls were peppered with scorch marks and holes, flight decks littered with debris from explosives.

But the worst of their troubles and their wounded was still being unloaded.

"Where's the hospital? Which way?! Which way to the hospital?!"

"It's this way- follow me!"

"What the hell is this? What's going on?!" Dan demanded. Two of the carriers lowered what ramps they could. One of them, the ramps fell off completely. Griffons carried their wounded out, many in stretchers. The small infirmaries on the airships could not treat all of the wounded so they were offloading as many as they could. The only place that would hopefully get them help was Ponyville General Hospital.

Ponies helped the griffons. In large groups, the pirates made their way to the hospital. Twilight, Phoenix and Spike followed Dan, but it was clear Dan was looking for only one person.

"CHRYS! Where's Chrys- hey!" He grabbed a griffon. "Where is Chrys?"

"I think she was... she was on the bridge. With the-the marshal."

"Which bridge?!" Dan nearly shook him. He looked at each vessel. The command deck of the airships, of each airship, had been destroyed. "Which ship?!" He shook the griffon.

"Th-the Yes, she's on the Yes. All of My Yes, that one!"

Dan dropped him. He ran for the ship.

The once-proud carrier was in bad shape. Several of the decks had collapsed, the bulkheads failing. But Dan made his way through the debris and to the infirmary. That was where he found Chrys.

"Hi honey," she said weakly upon seeing him. Dan did not speak at first.

"Haaa... hi," Dan finally managed. He kept looking between her and the medical officer.

"She's going to be alright," the griffon medic said.

"Hooooohh..." Dan exhaled. He didn't realize he'd been holding his breath.

"It's pretty bad. She's lost a lot of blood, got some broken bones but we've got her stable now. I don't want to move her just yet, but I expect a full recovery."

Chrys was hooked up to half a dozen machines that Dan didn't know the names of. An oxygen mask was over her muzzle and her lower legs were in slings. Her wings were also broken, bent at horribly off angles than they should've been. She kept smiling at Dan, eyelids half-open, just happy to see him.

Dan nodded. Something brushed against his side and at first, he was expecting Twilight or one of the others. But it was Fluffle Puff.

"Hi sweetie," Chrys said. The fluffy pony made no noise. She simply approached the bedside and sat down. Chrys petted her on the head.

"You hear that? You're gonna be fine," Dan said. He rubbed the back of his neck. "They don't wanna move you yet, because uh, they're not quite uh-"

"I know, hon. I heard him just now."

"Right, uh... so you're gonna be okay. Uhh..." Dan looked around nervously. His neck strangely felt tight, and it wasn't from the smoke venting from the ship; the infirmary was well-ventilated.

"Do... do you need anything?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine, Dan. Thank you. I'm just going to get some rest now. We can talk later."

"Right," Dan nodded, "right." He felt like he was suddenly in a fog. Then, he felt like he might be getting sick. But the thought that she was going to make it, the medic's words that she'd be okay filled him. A mixture of shock, worry and relief all hit him so hard, building up within him like a liquid storm. He needed to steady himself and for a moment, felt like he might vomit.

And then, he steadied himself. Dan's muscles suddenly tightened. His breath became hot, dry and seething. The medic was turning around when Dan grabbed his shoulder hard enough to shock him.

"I-excuse me, I need to-"

"Who did this?"

The medic opened his beak, but mouthed confusion. "I... I don't know. I need to attend to the others now. Excuse me."

Dan did not release him. "Who DOES know?"

The curtain separating the next bed pulled back. "Hey Dan."

"Hey... bro."

Gust looked as bad as Chrys. "Yeah... I've been better, I can say."

"Who did this, Gust? Who or what?"

"The Shadowbolts, Dan. The Shadowbolts ambushed us. They definitely had some heavy firepower. We barely made it out intact," Gust said.

"The hell are the Shadowbolts? Wait," Dan remembered back. He'd been doing some reading lately. "The Wonderbolt knockoffs? From the pilot?"

Gust nodded. "Yah, those'd be the ones. They took out Star Wolf too, though, so-"

"Where are they now?" Dan asked.

The wounded griffon stared back at him quizzically. "You realize we've spent the last twelve hours trying to get our asses back home intact, right?"

Dan pinched his eyes closed, breathed through his nose a long inhale, then a long exhale. His breath was nearly steam. Another group of enemies, domestic ones this time, had made themselves known. Just now, of all times. They attacked without warning or provocation and were still at large. They were fast, dangerous and well-armed.

They had attacked his girlfriend. They had attacked Chrys.

He had to control himself. He had to. Too many unknowns, too many variables, not enough resources, not enough options. Too many wounded.

"Do you have any working weapons?"

"Uhh-"

"Anything on these toilet seats that's salvageable? We might not be out of danger, Gust, we might need guns."

"What happened to the guns on the library?" Gust asked.

"I don't wanna talk about it. Look, security over here... EVERYTHING in this town, this COUNTRY, has gone south and I mean like yesterday. We found out how bad it was yesterday. We are screwed. You were screwed."

"The Crystal Empire is screwed."

"The Crystal Empire is..." Dan stopped and turned. "What?"

"I guess I should explain."

---

Chrys was transferred to Ponyville General a few days later. She stayed there for a little over a week to recover. After that, she was returned to the Golden Oakes Library until she was fully healed. It was going to take a while until she was able to walk and/or fly again and Dr. Heartful told them it would be better for her recovery if she didn't use magic. So that meant she was largely bedridden and everyone else had to do stuff for her. Which would've been fine except one person wouldn't let them.

"No. NO," Dan yelled. "Nicer than that."

"How do you scramble eggs 'nicely'?"

Dan grabbed the whisk. "Like this, purple lizard. Like this. See?"

"I got it."

"Good," Dan nearly shoved the bowl of eggs and wire whisk back to Spike. "You're lucky we're not using dragon eggs."

"We can't afford dragon eggs," Spike retorted. "We're lucky we can afford these eggs."

It was a couple weeks now into the economic disaster. Already, newspapers were calling it the Great Equestrian Depression. Called the Great "Equestrian" Depression because like media sources on Earth, the media in Equestria acted like the Kingdom of Equestria was the only country that mattered/existed. Apparently, none of the idiots took their heads out of their asses for the five seconds needed to realize how asinine that notion was.

"Dan, uhh..."

"Bacon's burning," Spike said, not looking up from his task.

"NICKY!!" Dan rushed to the oven. "Nicky, you KNOW you have to watch bacon."

"Okay, to be fair, this is HAYbacon. I'm not exactly used to cooking bacon made of... hay." (HBLTs though, those are pretty tasty.)

Dan looked at the pan of bacon. Burnt beyond recognition, as black as the frying pan it was in. "Well, that's going in the garbage disposal." He dumped the pan of blackened crisps into Fluffle's mouth. She was having a big breakfast today.

"That was our last bit of bacon," Spike said. His voice held a note of slight lamentation behind it, the kind of lamenting one does when they're down to the last cookie in the box and mourn for the fact there's not more.

That was the state of every civilization on the planet, unfortunately. They were all tightening their belts. The collapse of the economy meant the collapse of infrastructure. Markets and stores were shut down, factories stopped working, crop farmers and mineral farmers alike stopped producing. Everything was scaled back to the bare minimum of production and that meant less luxury items like haybacon and more canned spahm, the hay-equivalent of spam.

"We still have plenty of canned food, thankfully," Phoenix said. "And I saved some of the bacon."

Dan looked at the pan. Some small burnt bits still clung to it. Fluffle rose up

"That's not bacon. That's not anything remotely near what bacon is supposed to be," Dan said.

"Something smells good," Twilight said as she walked in. Still in her dark form.

Spike stopped and turned around. "Uhh, I don't think you'll like it."

"Nah, I'll eat it." She levitated the pan to her, yanked the burnt bacon right out and ate it. "It's not bad. Good job, Nick."

"Tha... thanks."

Dan approached her, examining her dark form yet again. "So are you... stuck like that now?"

Twilight shrugged. "No... well, kinda. There's just, so much going on right now that it's hard for me to control my emotions. And my magic. And everything." She crunched the bacon. "This is actually easier to eat with the fangs."

"Wow, that's... not creepy at all.""

"Something smells good," Chrys announced upon entering the kitchen. Now, she and Twilight were the same height and roughly the same build. "Sup guys. What's cookin'?"

"Chrys!" Dan shouted, "You're supposed to be in bed! Sweetie, please, you're gonna make your condition worse!"

"Babe, it's fine. I need to get up and walk a bit anyway. Besides, I think I've rested long enough."

Dan rubbed his chin. "Well... wouldn't be the first time I've gone against a doctor's instructions. They say the human body doesn't need every bone it has anyway."

"You're missing BONES?"

"Wasn't talking about me," Dan said. "Long story short, that was the fourth time I was detained in Mexico."

"You get detained in Mexico a lot," Phoenix said.

"Mexico's a great place to find cheap explosives."

"You get detained in Mexico a lot for buying cheap explosives, then."

Dan turned around. "I said FIND cheap explosives. I didn't say anything about buying."

Phoenix nodded. "Ahh, so that's where that little-"

"Yeah, yeah that's where the fireworks stand idea came from. I may have been reusing an older plan. Less military-grade plastic explosives this time, though. Also I wasn't blown up last time, just you know, detained in Mexico," Dan said.

"So how are we going to get back our money?" Spike asked. "Fix the economy, also... get back the Crystal Empire from the griffons?"

Things had gotten worse for Equestria. But not the griffons. Aside from Gust and his battered crew, who were now outcasts and branded as traitors to the griffon kingdom, the rest of the griffons were living the high life. They melted down all the gold and jewels they had and transformed Lavertica into a gilded city of lavish luxury. The other races flocked to the outskirts of Lavertica, swelling the griffon kingdom with plenty of servants and therefore plenty of food and laborers.

"I uh... I don't know," Dan admitted. "I'm sorry, I got nothing for this one, gang. I'm just completely out of ideas." His shoulders sagged and he sulked. "I never was good with money. Not good enough to keep any for very long anyway!" He kicked the table leg. His foot hurt. "Ow."

"Well, maybe we should devote some time to it," Twilight said. "We could come up with a plan to get back at them. Together." In her dark form, Twilight was noticeably more sinister and upfront about things, lacking the restraint her regular form has.

"That's a great idea," said Phoenix. (And one we've had before, but optimism is a good thing.) "Let's just take some time to workshop this thing. I'm sure we can figure something out."

"I do like your enthusiasm. But first, I'm going out and get some more bacon."

"We can't afford any more haybacon, though."

"I said 'bacon,' not 'haybacon.' I'll be back in a bit. Also, the eggs are burning."

Comments

[TheUltimateBrony-Class-S]

IT'S SUNDAY! Also, first.

[Booster Spice]

Where to get mountains of resources and turn them into seperable piles of materials that if tried to make a monetary economy with would make it worthless?

But Brain, where are we going to find a planet of gold treasure at this time of night?

[LadyLeomon]

A new chapter means it’s ~Sunday~ now let me see n’ere *dons reading glasses*

Oh wow, I knew Chryssy got in a scrap but I was hoping that exoskeleton was more durable than I thought! But it’ll be okay, Equestria’a Angriest Noble shall avenge his Lady’s sensibilitie! ... Also I never understood why they called times like this “Great Depression”, like what exactly is so great about them?

Now for my Favourite Quotes:

"You're missing BONES?"

"Wasn't talking about me," Dan said. "Long story short, that was the fourth time I was detained in Mexico."

"You get detained in Mexico a lot," Phoenix said.

"Mexico's a great place to find cheap explosives."

"You get detained in Mexico a lot for buying cheap explosives, then."

Dan turned around. "I said FIND cheap explosives. I didn't say anything about buying."

Nice to know the banter is still flowing naturally ... but seriously this leaves me scratching my head, like is Dam finding these explosives so he can catalogue all his options or was he finding them for someone else (like Umbrella)?

Phew and that’s everything I love (most) about this week’s chapter and I’ll eagerly await the next!

Awesome as alwats and I’ll see you ~next time~

Your Eternal Fan ^_^