My Little Pony: Friendship is Absurd

by Lord Seth

The End - Part 2

“Okay,” said Sunset, “so there are windigos. However, I’m not sure if they matter that much. If the plan Trixie doesn’t want us to talk about works, they won’t be an issue; if we end up losing, we’ll have bigger problems; and if this whole ‘get all of us together and hope everything somehow works out as usual’ plan actually works, it would probably solve them somehow also.”

“Brilliant logic!” said Trixie.

“So, let’s head back to Canterlot,” said Sunset, “and try to find the others if they’re still there. It might not end up mattering, but might as well give it a try. What’s the fastest non-magic way to get there?”

“The trains are fast, but due to the carnivorous noodles, they’re not really working right now,” said Trixie. “Actually, how did you get here?” she asked Flim and Flam.

“Oh, we had a very good car,” said Flam. “A plane would be faster, but they’re all magic-powered, which makes them a bit unreliable right now. The good news is the car is quite fast and able to go through rough terrain like snow. We can use that.”

“Sounds like a plan!” said Lightning Dust. “Let Operation: Head Back to Canterlot begin!”

---

“Okay, I say we stop listening to Discord,” said the Storm King. “This is taking too long. We already had to spend a while making sure we completely subdued Canterlot—made easier by the fact that like Discord said, the Bewitching Bell did seem to be draining the magic from everything else—before we left to go after them. I wanted to have Sunset and the rest completely defeated already! And our progress is more slow given that we have to drag these guys around as possible hostages and to make sure they don’t do something while we’re away.” He gestured to the heavily-tied-up forms of Chrysalis, Suri, and Gilda.

“We already know that,” said Tirek.

“I’m venting! It makes me say things we all know!” said the Storm King.

“I can’t help it if they’re far away!” said Discord. “It makes sense if they went to the Crystal Empire! It’s a fair ways away from you and it at least has some level of protection!”

“He actually does have a point,” said Tirek. “Honestly, we were going to head there anyway to squash its defenses, so it’s not really out of our way.”

“Uh… guys?” said Cozy Glow as she pointed upwards. “I think we may have a problem.”

They all looked up. “Oh, huh, windigos,” said Tirek. “Meh, not really an issue. We can just blast them away after we finish our conquest.”

“Besides, they show up due to disagreements, right?” said the Storm King. “Once we absolutely and fully take over, the ponies will be perfectly in agreement… on how bad they feel! Problem solved!”

“Hey, wait a minute!” said Discord. “According to this, they’re getting a lot closer now. Maybe they’re heading this way.”

The car Sunset and the others were in suddenly sped past the group.

“See?” said Discord. “The thing was tracking them! I was telling the truth!”

Tirek shrugged and fired a blast at the car, sending Sunset and the others flying out of it.

“It’s a good thing that giant explosions don’t do anything more than cause mild comedic harm in cases like that,” said Flim as they got up.

“Well, we probably won’t be able to get away from them, so I guess it’s time for a confrontation,” said Sunset. “It’s been about three days since Discord came to warn us. You all remember the plan we came up on the way with if we ran into them, right?”

“Absolutely!” declared Lightning Dust. “CHARGE!” Lightning Dust ran at them.

“Huh,” said Tirek. “Kind of surprised she’s not flying. Oh well. Probably makes it easier to hit her.” He aimed some blasts at Lightning Dust, but she managed to dodge them.

Meanwhile, some of the others charged from different directions. Cozy Glow and the Storm King also tried to blast them but missed.

“Did they gain super speed or something?” mused the Storm King. “My aim shouldn’t be that bad.”

With the Storm King and Tirek trying to blast the others, they didn’t observe Flam sneaking over to the Bewitching Bell. Unfortunately, Cozy Glow did notice, and she blasted him away.

“That hurt, and not in the comical way like what happened with the car exploding,” muttered Flam.

“Ha!” said Cozy Glow. “Now that I know what you’re up to, there’s no way you can take the Bell!”

“Hey!” said Tirek. “Stop them from freeing them already!”

Cozy Glow turned around and saw that while all of this was going on, Flim had sneaked over and was trying to untie Gilda, Suri, Chrysalis, and Discord. “Do I have to do everything?” she asked rhetorically before speeding towards them.

“Eep!” said Flim as he took the opportunity to run away, leaving only Gilda untied, who also took the opportunity to run away screaming, except without any actual screaming, making the usage of the word “screaming” unnecessary in this sentence.

Cozy Glow took a moment to assess which to head after, then sped for Gilda.

“Well, this is irritating,” said the Storm King as he continued blasting. This time he did manage to hit Trixie, however.

Meanwhile, Tirek had gone back to the still-tied-up Chrysalis, Discord, and Suri. He held Suri up. “Listen!” he announced. “Surrender now or I will execute this acquaintance of yours.”

There was a pause in the fight. “Uh, why didn’t we threaten that to begin with?” said the Storm King.

“Because they weren’t close enough to hear,” said Tirek. “Well? I’m waiting for an answer!”

“Is ‘execute’ really the right word?” asked Trixie as she barely was able to get herself up. “That would seem to imply some kind of judicial system was being used.”

“Oh, easy,” said the Storm King. “We’re judge, jury, and executioner.”

“Which one of you three is which?” asked Trixie. She got blasted by the Storm King in response. “Yeah… that was about what I thought…” she muttered before collapsing.

“ENOUGH,” said Tirek. “I’m going to count, and if you haven’t surrendered by the time I reach three, I kill her. One–”

“Wait!” said Lightning Dust. “What–”

“Two,” continued Tirek as if Lightning Dust hadn’t interrupted. “Thr–”

“We surrender!” announced Sunset abruptly. Tirek stopped his count.

“We do?” said Flim. “It seems like a bad idea to risk everyone’s lives in exchange for just one, especially considering my life is part of that ‘everyone’s lives’ rather than the ‘just one’!”

“This isn’t the time for a philosophical argument!” snapped Sunset. “Just do it!”

“Oh, fine!” said Flim. “Just know that if we all die horribly anyway, I’ll… well, I’ll think of something.”

“All right,” said Tirek. “Now I want all of you to get together in a group, as you’re all scattered around.”

“Oh, just blast her already,” said the Storm King.

“Yes, I think you’re right,” said Tirek. There was a pause.

“Are you going to do it already?” said the Storm King.

“Um… it’s not firing,” said Tirek. “Darn it, did I use up too much? That would explain my difficulty in zapping them earlier. Cozy Glow, get me that Bewitching Bell so I can have a recharge.”

“Hang on,” said Cozy Glow as her alicorn features abruptly disappeared, “I need it first.” She tried to use it. Nothing happened.

“Fine, I guess I have to do everything,” muttered the Storm King. He threw a few blasts from his staff, which then also stopped working. “Hrm.”

“Well, wow,” said Lightning Dust. “It worked after all.”

“What worked?” demanded Tirek. He suddenly noticed that he had fallen back into his much more lanky form. “Oh, come on!”

“Uh-oh,” said the Storm King. “Did they have some kind of secret plan for de-powering us?” He clutched his head. “Why am I even asking? Of course they did.”

“Exactly!” declared Chrysalis as she got up. “And by the way, I’m glad these were magical ropes, because once their magic was gone I was able to get out of them quite easily.”

“What did you do, then?” demanded the Storm King.

“And why do you look totally different?” asked Cozy Glow. “More colorful, no holes in hooves…”

“Oh, quite simple, really,” said Chrysalis. “We just permanently removed all magic from the entire world.”

Chrysalis was met with blank stares by the three. There was a pause.

“Come again?” said Tirek.

“Oh, that’s why you told me to tell them that the Bewitching Bell would take away others’ magic automatically, and that using it too much would make it get temporarily weakened?” said Discord.

“Right!” said Chrysalis. “It was so they wouldn’t think it was weird if everyone else was losing their magic, and also so that they wouldn’t question if the Bewitching Bell started to weaken. It’s not even technically false, actually; but under normal circumstances the draining from the rest of the world would work so slowly it wouldn’t actually matter for at least a few thousand years, and you’d have to really overuse the Bewitching Bell for it to temporarily run out of power.”

“You could’ve told me that was the plan,” said Discord grouchily.

“Except you might have slipped up and accidentally revealed it,” said Chrysalis. “I mean, you’re the one who was dumb enough to get these guys freed to begin with. That’s why I just told you to tell them that and to, if possible, find something to distract them with so they didn’t head to Ponyville where everything was happening. Or more specifically, I told you to send them somewhere to the north, because if I specified Ponyville you probably would’ve figured it out.”

“And just to be clear, that’s why I brought them to the Crystal Empire,” said Discord. “I was honest in telling them where the others were because if I made things up they might catch on. It wasn’t actually any kind of betrayal! The fact it helped me prevent them from destroying me was a nice bonus, though.”

“Back to the question about my looks,” said Chrysalis. “The way I and other changelings typically look—being black with the holes in the legs and the rest—isn’t the actual normal changeling form, which is much more colorful. But we keep looking like this because it looks way better than our regular forms. But that’s a transformation, so without any magic, we’ve all reverted into the normal, more colorful forms.”

Chrysalis’s explanation helpfully said what the prose had neglected to mention up until this point. She pulled out a mirror and looked at herself. “Bleh, I look terrible.This’ll take a little getting used to. Kind of like if one day you wake up and find out that you had a growth on your head, but then the growth separated from you, turned into a moose, and went on to become a world-championship wrestler.”

“I never thought of it like that before,” said Trixie.

“I do see that Sunset is still her regular unicorn self,” said Chrysalis, “though magic removal shouldn’t actually completely undo an ascension. Maybe if the magic is removed for an ‘ascended’ changeling, it just keeps them in whatever state they were in before? Oh well, the point is if you were wondering how all that shook out, she still looks like regular Sunset.”

“I’m fully aware of that,” said Sunset, “as is everyone else here who has functioning eyes.”

“Don’t discriminate against the blind!” said Chrysalis. She turned back to Cozy Glow, Tirek, and the Storm King. “Anyway! I know you’re all in awe of the brilliance of my plan. Well, okay, I wasn’t the one who suggested it, and these other guys—minus Discord—did play a major role in figuring out the specifics, but I still participated in and approved of it. Like everything else I approve, it was absolutely brilliant!”

“What about ‘Nightmare Night 3: Night Harder’?” asked Suri.

“That doesn’t count,” said Chrysalis.

“Why shouldn’t it–”

“Can you get back to the no magic part?” said Cozy Glow, interrupting Suri.

“Well, we have you to thank for that!” said Chrysalis as she walked over and patted Cozy Glow on the head. “All we did was the same thing you did, setting up those artifacts to take out all of the magic from Equestria over a few days! The removal of magic, of course, includes removing the magic from that Bewitching Bell of yours! Now instead of an alicorn, you’re just your garden-variety sociopathic megalomaniacal toddler pegasus.”

“Hey!” said Cozy Glow. “I’m not a toddler!”

“Keep telling yourself that,” said Chrysalis idly. “And get an actual backstory while you’re at it. Anyway, all we had to do was prevent you from figuring out what was going on while directing you to someplace other than Ponyville, where we were doing all of it. Well, Starlight and Sunburst were the main ones in charge of it.”

---

“Well,” said Sunburst, “I guess that’s that. It worked. All the magic is gone.”

“I guess it’s a pretty promising sign they thought we were the ones trustworthy enough to set up the process and guard it to make sure it worked right,” said Starlight.

“Yep,” said Sunburst.

“And the fact I’m sitting here telling you things we both already know isn’t some kind of coping mechanism for the fact we basically wiped out what was effectively a branch of science that both of us had done a lot of studying of, making the knowledge totally useless.”

“Though thanks to being in charge of developing it, the two of us probably know more about all of the new technology than just about anyone else in the world,” said Sunburst.

“That’s nice,” said Starlight. “But really, this just makes you stop and think about things, doesn’t it?”

“Agreed,” said Sunburst.

There was a lengthy pause as the two just stared in silence. Then one finally spoke up again.

“So, want to play some video games?”

---

“That all really came down to the wire, too,” said Lightning Dust.

“Honestly, in retrospect we could’ve just stayed back in the Crystal Empire,” said Trixie, “and the magic would’ve gone away. But we didn’t know if it would work at that point, hence us heading back to Canterlot.”

“It’s a good thing they didn’t head to Ponvyille, or else we would’ve had to go into one of those more dubious backup plans,” said Chrysalis. “As much as I like the name, things like Operation: Broccoli Assault probably wouldn’t have worked. Granted, it would’ve been preferable to try out all of those things first, and only if they fail go with removing the magic, but because that takes three days to happen, we had to start on that right away.”

“That isn’t fair!” said Cozy Glow. “You got all angry and punished me for something you ended up doing yourself later!”

“I could point out you were doing it for megalomaniacal reasons that didn’t really make that much sense in contrast to how I was trying to save the world,” said Chrysalis. “I could also point out that it’ll be much less of an issue now that we developed all of that magic-less technology. Would’ve been kind of dumb if we hadn’t funneled research into magic-less technology after that event. But there’s a far more important reason as to why you got punished, but it’s fine that I did it.”

“What?”

“You didn’t fill out the proper paperwork to remove all the magic in the world,” explained Chrysalis.

“Paperwork?!”

“You have no idea how many forms I had to sign,” said Chrysalis with a sigh. “It made it harder to keep the whole thing a secret.”

“Oh,” said Trixie, “and in case you’re wondering, no, this didn’t cause massive death of all magical creatures or anything, because if that was the case, they would’ve all died back when Cozy Glow enacted her plan earlier. If they were dependent on having magic to survive, they would’ve died back then, even if magic came back later. So they’re still around, they just have no magic power. Just wanted to make sure that was understood. Even the windigos are still around, they’re just rendered completely impotent. It would be kind of bad if there was presumably mass death of magical creatures and it was just brushed under the rug and never really acknowledged, but rest assured, that didn’t happen.”

“Why did you feel the need to say all of that?” said Sunset.

“Just pre-empting the potential criticism,” said Trixie with a shrug.

“Well!” said the Storm King. “It’s good all this worked out fine, you know? I mean, I was starting to really worry that this whole thing was going a bit far, you know?”

“Wait, what are you talking about?” said Tirek.

“Oh,” said the Storm King, “well, I realized how awesome Chrysalis was and was thinking I should find a girlfriend anyway, so this whole thing was actually just one giant prank on my part to try to impress her before I asked her out. I was actually about to reveal it and defeat the two of you and reveal the plan, but then all of this happened anyway. Hey, Chrysalis, you still interested?”

Chrysalis stared at him. “You know I’m not going to fall for something that incredibly stupid, right?”

“Hey!” said the Storm King. “It wasn’t incredibly stupid. Just regular stupid.”

“Wait a minute,” said Cozy Glow. “Wouldn’t losing all of the magic only aggravate the already strained relationships between the different races of ponies that we caused?”

“That’s right!” said Tirek. “Ha! Sure, you might have beaten us with this, but think about what it’ll do to you!”

“Oh, sure, it would absolutely increase tensions over this,” said Chrysalis. “But in my genius, I have a perfect plan on how to deal with that!”

There was a pause.

“What did you do?” asked Cozy Glow impatiently. “Are you going to tell us?”

“I was going to,” said Chrysalis, “but then I remembered something important. I don’t like you three very much. So you’ll just have to wait for the answer.”

“I don’t know,” said Gilda, “wouldn’t it be more of a punishment to deliberately rub the plan in their faces?”

“Hrm…” mused Chrysalis.

“Hey!” said the Storm King. “What’s stopping us from, even without magic, just taking all of you out?”

“The fact that there’s only three of you, one of which is a lethargic minotaur without magic and the other is a kid?” said Sunset.

“Hey!” said the Storm King. “I’ll have you know I have the strength of five ponies! Or was it more than the square root of five? I always get those mixed up.”

“Either way, there’s more than that many ponies here,” said Suri.

“Let’s see… Trixie, Flim, Flam, Sunset, Suri, and Lightning Dust,” said the Storm King. “Darn it, you’re right! There’s eight ponies here, and that’s more than five. Foiled again by my biggest weakness: Basic arithmetic!”

“Are we done with all of this yet?” asked Sunset in an exhausted tone. “This has been a very long last few days. And it’ll probably be exhausting in the future too due to the fallout from all of this.”

“Oh, that reminds me!” said Chrysalis. She turned to Flim and Flam. “So, how did things go?”

“It went about as well as it probably could have gone,” said Flam.

“That vague response is good enough for me!” said Chrysalis. “Well, time to head back! Oh, right. We should probably tie these three idiots up or something.” She paused briefly, then added, “Just to be clear, by ‘these three idiots’ I’m referring to the Storm King, Cozy Glow, and Tirek.”

“Phew!” said Lightning Dust. “That’s a load off my mind. I thought you were insulting poor Suri.”

While Suri tried to work out whether Lightning Dust’s statement was a compliment or an insult, the Storm King decided to stealthily escape from the area by running away screaming. Unfortunately for him, this cunning plan didn’t work and he got caught, subdued, and tied up. After some further protests by the three, Sunset and the others covered their mouths with tape to keep them quiet.

“Now to head back to Canterlot!” declared Lightning Dust.

“The car got crashed, though,” said Flam. “We’ll have to walk.”

“Uh… well, exercise is good for the body!” said Lightning Dust.

“We’re much closer to the Crystal Empire,” said Sunset. “We should just go there and take the train back, even if we have to wait a while for it. That can work without magic.”

“Great idea!” said Chrysalis. “Oh, hang on, I should put this mirror away.” Chrysalis put away the mirror that she had previously brought out. “I can’t believe I’ve just been holding it out this whole time without noticing. I just forgot to put it away.”

And so they (only somewhat literally) dragged Cozy Glow, Tirek, and the Storm King back to the Crystal Empire castle.

“I kind of feel like that battle was a bit of a letdown,” said Trixie. “I don’t think we got enough of a chance to do things. Felt a bit anticlimactic, even by the usual standards of our big battles. Still better than if we had just waited it all out, I suppose.”

“As long as it’s over, I’m not complaining,” said Sunset.

“Well!” said Chrysalis. “I’m be out… somewhere. You all find Shining Armor and Cadence and get everything worked out!”

“Why aren’t you coming with us?” asked Flim.

“It’s too awkward to be around them after that whole wedding thing,” said Chrysalis. “It means I can’t do my usual fun persona. And no one wants to see that, right? You all want my sparkling personality, right?”

“‘Sparkling’ personality?” asked Suri.

“The kind of personality that lets me do things like this!” She pointed behind them. “What in the world can that be?”

None of them turned around.

“Exactly!” said Chrysalis. “There wasn’t anything at all there! That’s the kind of great comedy my sparkling personality gives! I’ll be here all day, folks! Except maybe I won’t, because I’m out of here for now!”

Chrysalis ran off. There was a pause.

“I’m confused,” said Lightning Dust.

“It’s irritating that even with the magic gone, Chrysalis isn’t any better,” said Gilda. “Well, let’s find Shining Armor.”

One short search later, they found Shining Armor.

“Hi!” said Lightning Dust. “How goes the battle against the carnivorous noodles?”

“Well, they were magically animated, so after the magic went away they weren’t a threat anymore,” said Shining Armor.

Sunset briefly thought about asking whether they ate the noodles, but decided against it. “Well, anyway,” said Sunset, “we kind of need a ride back to Canterlot. Are the trains working better now?”

“They should be,” said Shining Armor.

“You know,” said Discord, “I just realized I haven’t talked for a while.”

There was a pause. “And?” said Gilda.

“No, that was it,” said Discord. “Carry on.”

“Uh, anyway,” said Sunset, “I guess that all works out well enough. Can you get a train ready for us?”

“No problem!” said Shining Armor. He left.

Somewhere between 2 and 38,373 seconds later, Chrysalis waltzed in. “Oh, good!” she said. “I thought he’d never leave.”

“Where have you been anyway?” asked Flam.

“Just walking around and seeing what’s going on!” said Chrysalis. “And I’m pleased to admit that our plan worked perfectly!”

“Okay, now we should tell them the plan,” said Gilda as she gestured to the still-tied-up and still-mouths-taped-shut Cozy Glow, Tirek, and Storm King. “The timing seems right.”

“Ow!” said Cozy Glow after the tape got taken off. “That hurts you know.”

“It seems to me that’s a problem more on your end,” said Gilda. “Anyway! We actually did catch onto the fact the different pony races seemed to have increased friction with each other, though we didn’t know you were the ones behind it at that point. So we did want to try to solve that problem, which would only be exacerbated by the removal of magic. So, we came up with the perfect solution!”

“What?” asked Tirek.

“Oh, we just made really polarizing and divisive plot developments on the shows in the minivision, or ‘television’ as I think is becoming the more popular term,” said Trixie. “Also the Mare Do Well issues; it was some work to get them out quickly enough, but we managed it. The divisive plot developments were achieved mostly by making canonical pairings that some of the fandom really really likes and some of the fandom really really dislikes.”

There was a pause. “And how would that solve anything?” said Cozy Glow.

“Because,” said Trixie, “if there’s one thing that manages to bypass race, gender, or just about any other demographic line you can think of, and also is a great distraction from actual problems, it’s arguing about stupid stuff that happens in fiction.”

“Right!” said Lightning Dust. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a unicorn, pegasus, or earth pony; you can take any side in things like shipping debates! It turns out that you can absolutely cure divisions by creating entirely different divisions.”

“It was really more to distract from the loss of magic, but it managed to simultaneously counteract your plan,” said Chrysalis. “My genius is so great that it defeats plans I didn’t even know about! And while it’s possible it’s only a temporary distraction from the loss of the magic, we’ve got a bunch of new inventions coming down the pipeline soon enough and that will help keep the edge off. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from reading about technology in that alternate world, it’s that to keep people happy, you usually just have to release a slightly updated version of an invention with a new number at the end of it to keep them excited.”

“Ha!” said Tirek. “At least until you all get invaded by angry neighboring nations for what you did.”

“Ha!” said Flim. “Shows what you know! Our country has the highest technology anyway, so that shouldn’t be an issue. But more importantly, my brother and I, with our surprisingly good negotiation skills and power of persuasion, got in contact with them to smooth things over.”

“Which, admittedly, mostly consisted of blaming it on you three,” said Flam. “You might, um, not want to leave the country anytime soon, or ever. You’ll have a lot of people angry at you. Granted, none of them were as reliant on magic as Equestria was, but… still, it’d be an annoyance for them.”

“The good news,” said Flim, “is that Cozy Glow’s previous attempt to wipe out all of the magic prompted them, like us, to start research into technology that does not require magic. So adaptation shouldn’t be incredibly difficult. At most regular difficult.”

“The worst thing is how much this is going to kill my approval rating,” said Chrysalis.

“Of course that’s what you’d consider the worst thing,” muttered Sunset.

“I’m glad we’re in agreement, then!” said Chrysalis.

“Well, what about–” started the Storm King.

“I’m not going to just stand here and explain every single possible objection you can come up with!” said Chrysalis. “Having to give all these explanations is annoying, and I don’t get to show off my sparkling personality as much when I’m doing it!I have more important things to do, like coming up with a punishment for you three for your actions! Which I should probably do now, honestly.”

“Darn it,” said Discord. “Too bad we got rid of all of the magic. It would’ve been cool to turn them to stone as punishment.”

“What would be so ‘cool’ about that?” asked Chrysalis in confusion.

“Because it would force them to be together forever!” declared Discord. “That would be a great punishment! It’d be all ironic, or something like that.”

“Uh… but they’d be statues,” said Chrysalis. “I mean, if I were turned into a statue, it wouldn’t make much of a difference to me what other statues were next to me. It’s not as if we could communicate or anything. Or can they mentally communicate? If they can, you need to specify that.”

“I think sending them all back to Tartarus and forcing them to deal with each other would be a much funnier punishment, honestly,” said Trixie. “Wouldn’t that be a great way to end it if this was a movie? Just cut to them bickering with each other? That would be way more amusing than this goofy statue idea, where you wouldn’t have any idea if that’s what they were doing. Plus, it’d at least leave open the possibility of some kind of future redemption.”

“Okay, fine!” said Discord. “Maybe it wasn’t that good of an idea. What’s your brilliant plan, then?”

“Hrm…” mused Chrysalis as she looked at the three of them. “Well, forcing them to be together would be amusing, but it’s not like we need to lock them up into Tartarus now that the magic’s gone. I’ve got a better idea! Community service, to be served jointly, while remaining under house arrest together. I was thinking of a hundred thousand hours of community service, a minimum of twelve hours to serve each day!”

“What?!” exclaimed the three of them.

“Don’t worry,” said Chrysalis, “I can always make it longer. However, while we’re on the subject of punishments, I should give one to you, Discord.”

“Eh?” asked Discord.

“I mean, you did kind of put all of us into extreme danger with your half-baked idea of releasing them,” she said.

“But it was to try to help you out! And I was important to helping you beat them by distracting them!”

“Still against the law and a really stupid idea,” said Chrysalis. “Still, your actions were motivated more through stupidity than actual malice, and as you say, you did help us out in defeating them. Which is why I, the brilliant ruler that I am, devised what’s simultaneously a punishment and a reward.”

“What?” asked Discord.

“You’ll be supervising most of their community service,” said Chrysalis.

Discord considered this briefly. “Darn it,” he said. “You got me there. That’s both really annoying to do but also a lot of fun. On one hand, that’s a whole lot of my time that’ll be used up. On the other hand, I get to do all sorts of crazy things to them as their supervisor!” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“Um,” said Cozy Glow nervously as she glanced at Discord, “can we get turned to stone instead? Please?”

“Hey, just look on the bright side!” said the Storm King. “That’s what I did when I was a rock. Namely, because I was a rock, I didn’t have to take showers anymore!”

“Then what’s the bright side of this?” demanded Tirek.

“Because I don’t have to keep up appearances as king, it means I still don’t have to take showers anymore!”

There was a pause. “Can we please get turned to stone instead?” asked Tirek desperately.

“Sorry, the magic’s gone,” said Chrysalis. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you went on this crazy attempt to take over the world. And before you say ‘how could I have thought about that?’ my answer to that question is ‘I don’t care.’ Anyway, let’s get back to Canterlot, where hopefully all of the citizens will be too busy arguing about dumb stuff to be upset enough to do something extreme.”

“Like overthrowing you?” said Lightning Dust.

“I was thinking more on the lines of them sending some strongly worded letters of complaint, but that would be bad too,” said Chrysalis.

And so they all went back to Canterlot. Fortunately for them, the plan of making them all get distracted by arguing about fictional developments while also being appeased by new technology worked, so there wasn’t any violent overthrow, though to her disappointment Chrysalis did still receive many strongly worded letters of complaint. Thus, after some sorting out of things, things returned to normal, or at least the new normal without magic.

---

“Hooray!” declared Chrysalis. “My approval rating is going back up. The good news is that it wasn’t quite as low as I was worried about. It turns out I have my core base that would approve of me even if I were to do something like remove all magic! Which is exactly what happened, so that worked out.”

“Did you call us here just to tell us your approval rating is going back up?” asked Sunset.

“Of course not!” said Chrysalis. “I could just tell you that from anywhere.”

“Okay,” said Lightning Dust, “so why did you call the seven of us here? You wouldn’t say over the phone.”

“Oh, that?” said Chrysalis. “Uh… I forgot.”

There was a pause.

“You forgot?” asked Sunset incredulously.

“Yes, it’s kinda like if my life was a screenplay, and the screenwriter took a break from writing, and then came back, but forgot what it was I was supposed to say,” said Chrysalis.

“I know the feeling!” said Trixie. “It’s why it’s important to make notes on that sort of thing.”

“Oh, wait!” said Chrysalis. “Now I remember. Actually, I didn’t forget it after all. I just forgot that I remembered it. Happens to the best of us!”

“How does that even…” started Sunset before thinking better of it. “Never mind. Just tell us.”

“Right!” said Chrysalis. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that when the seven of you get together, problems tend to get solved.”

“That’s more in regards to dealing with potentially world-ending threats,” said Gilda. “When it comes to more everyday things, it’s about a fifty-fifty chance as to whether stuff gets solved or exacerbated when all of us are present. Remember that whole mess with the tickets?”

“Uh, technically, that whole mess didn’t happen when all seven of us were simultaneously around,” said Lightning Dust. “Didn’t you only show up later?”

“There was also the gala,” said Suri.

“We were all in different places there, though,” said Flim.

“Now is not the time to analyze all of our past exploits to see which ones involved all of us together simultaneously or just some of us!” said Trixie. “We can do all of that later on.”

“Are you all done with your requisite blather?” asked Chrysalis. “I mean, I don’t really mind it that much, but it’s important I know when you’re actually done with it, so I can move on.”

There was another pause.

“Okay!” said Chrysalis. “So anyway, I want you lot to help work on the whole technology development and distribution stuff.”

“We don’t really have much training on that,” said Suri.

“Who cares?” said Chrysalis. “As was just established, you lot all being together makes stuff work. So just, I don’t know, hang out in the general area of research and development. I’m sure you have your own skills to contribute, as has been seen in the various previous adventures.”

“You know,” said Suri, “it actually occurs to me that if this hypothesis of us being together producing good results was true, isn’t it possible that was just a result of some kind of magic, and therefore wouldn’t work?”

“I’ll pay you really well,” said Chrysalis.

“Let’s do it!” declared Suri.

“So what’s the next big invention anyway?” said Sunset.

“Hrm…” mused Chrysalis. She riffled through several pieces of paper with different technologies on them until she came to one with an airplane on it. “I think it’s time to try defying gravity.”

A substantial period of time later…

“I just flew in from Canterlot, and boy, are my wings tired!” declared Chrysalis.

There was a pause. “I don’t get it,” said Lightning Dust. “I thought we couldn’t fly with the wings anymore? That’s why we invented the magic-less airplanes for fast air travel?”

“That was supposed to be the… you know what?” said Chrysalis. “Never mind. It’s not funny if I have to explain it.”

“I don’t know,” said Trixie, “sometimes that can accentuate the joke. You know, like if the joke is that the joke isn’t actually that funny, but then someone tries to awkwardly explain it to save it, and the awkwardness is the comedy.”

“Ugh,” said Sunset. “Can we just get this over with? I need to make a bunch of phone calls to try to help resolve the phone outages.”

“That makes total sense!” said Chrysalis.

“I mean, I know it sounds dumb when I say it out loud, but it makes sense because–”

“Hey!” said Chrysalis. “As I previously established, it’s funner if it isn’t explained. Anyway, lots of things have happened since the whole magic disappearance thing! As you know, we… well, you already know, so never mind. But since you’ve all contributed in your own ways, I felt you deserved a reward.”

“Is it going to be something dumb, like a sandwich?” asked Suri.

“Of course not!” said Chrysalis. “It’s going to be something smart, like a sandwich!”

“Well, I’ll admit your sandwiches are pretty good,” said Flim, “but maybe we could get something other than that?”

“Oh, of course!” said Chrysalis. “You didn’t think I’d just give you a sandwich, did you? That might be what I would’ve done 10-20 seconds ago, but I’ve changed since then! I’ll give you a sandwich and some popcorn.”

“Woohoo!” said Lightning Dust. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

“You’re actually satisfied with this?” said Sunset incredulously.

“Look, if accepting it means Chrysalis and I aren’t going to be in the same room much longer, I’ll take it,” whispered Lightning Dust to Sunset.

“That makes more sense than it should,” said Sunset.

“What makes more sense than it should?” said Chrysalis. “Lightning Dust whispered something, so I didn’t hear anything besides ‘Look, if accepting it means Chrysalis and I aren’t going to be in the same room much longer, I’ll take it,’ so I think I might have missed some context.”

“Just give us the sandwiches and popcorn, and we’ll go,” said Gilda.

“And thus everyone is happy!” said Chrysalis. “And it’s this kind of brilliant leadership that’s the reason my approval rating has been going back up, clearing 60% last time it was checked. I have to say, I was kind of worried after Mayor Mare got 45% of the vote in the last election, both because that was closer than I’d like, but also because I was confused how that happened given that we don’t have elections for the position of queen.”

“Please just give us the sandwiches and popcorn, and we’ll go,” said Gilda.

“Righto!” declared Chrysalis.

---

“And she’s still no different after all this time,” muttered Sunset.

“The popcorn was nice, though,” said Suri.

“Okay, the popcorn was nice,” admitted Sunset. “Chrysalis is actually really good at making popcorn.”

“She did manage to lead the country through the loss of magic quite effectively,” said Gilda. “But that doesn’t mean she’s any less irritating to actually interact with.”

“Well, anyway,” said Flim, “given that we’re all here together again, maybe we can all find something to do? When was the last time we were all together?”

“Last week?” said Gilda.

“Together in person,” clarified Flam. “Group calls don’t count.”

“That was longer, yeah,” said Gilda.

And so they had a fairly good time hanging out with each other outside of the incident with the the cream puffs. Eventually it was time for them to all split up again.

“Well, this was a decent enough day,” said Trixie. “I’d suggest we use the opportunity to talk about what we’ve all been up to, but we all already know that from our previous conversations! It’s not like our lives are a movie, after all.”

“Right!” said Lightning Dust. “Our lives are too complicated to be a movie. We’d need at least a trilogy. Or maybe a straight up television series!”

“If it's a movie trilogy, at least one of which has to be devoted entirely to me,” said Gilda. “Who wouldn’t think I’m the best character?”

“Hey!” said Suri. “I think I’d be more popular. Your gun motif would get pretty old pretty fast, I think.”

And so an argument erupted as to who would be the most popular character in a hypothetical movie or television series about their adventures. This argument lasted a full 94.2477796 seconds before they all had to reluctantly agree that the clear answer would be Chrysalis.

Them talking about nonsense like this has become weirdly endearing over the years, mused Sunset to herself.

“More important idea!” said Trixie. “What would it be called?”

They all thought about it briefly. “I mean, our friendship—or whatever you’d want to call it—is kinda weird,” said Lightning Dust. “How about ‘Friendship is Weird’?”

“The basic idea isn’t bad, but I’m not sure the rhythm of that works so well,” said Flim. “It’d work better if ‘Weird’ was two syllables instead.”

“Friendship is Quirky?” said Trixie.

“Friendship is Crazy?” suggested Gilda.

“Friendship is Absurd?” offered Sunset.

“I’ve got it!” said Suri. “Let’s call it Friendship Is Wacky!”

“I guess that works,” said Sunset.

“Oh, by the way,” said Gilda, “since we’re all getting along great right now, I figured I might as well admit that I was kind of responsible for all of the toilets flushing that time at the Gala that caused that whole mess.”

“Wait, what?” said Sunset.

Comments

[Streakofscarlet]

I think by this point, Sunset, Lightning Dust, and Trixie wouldn't be too mad about the gala incident because they've since either stopped pursuing those goals after finding out how undesirable they really are, or learned they were barking up the wrong tree, or both. Suri, Flim and Flam have definitely been made to suffer though :P

[Razzy]

So that's how G5 happened.

Now the changelings will hand to apply goth makeup and clothing like other people.

Work that approval rating up, Chryssie!

At least this time Discord didn't only get rewarded for being a plotting moron.