Twilight Tries...

by Peni Parker

Damage Control

Hi, everypony, and welcome to another episode of Twilight Tries!

Today’s episode is a very exciting one, and not just because it happens to be the 60^th episode of this vlog.

I mean that’s still a pretty exciting reason, it’s just not the main reason.

No, today’s episode is so exciting because it’s also doubling as my official announcement of a new agency within the Equestrian government! So please allow me to introduce this new agency of bureaucracy and the thing that I’ll be trying today…Damage Control!

Now what exactly is Damage Control you may ask? Well basically, it’s going to be a department that will handle all of the clean-up and repair work after a major catastrophe within Equestria. Because as I’m sure many of you are aware, Equestria tends to suffer through a large number of catastrophes each year, including but not limited to floods, invasions, and bunny stampedes. And before you say anything, yes, bunny stampedes are considered a catastrophe by the Equestrian Emergency Management Agency, or EEMA.

Much to my surprise, research has shown that bunny stampedes are typically the second leading cause of commercial property damage in Ponyville every year. Right behind party cannon misfires.

So now that you know what Damage Control is you may be wondering how it is I’ll be trying it today. The answer to that question is that I’ll be the pony leading the pilot program for this new agency - because apparently a pilot program is something that’s needed before a new government agency can be fully implemented.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know that beforehoof.

But anywhoo, since Damage Control is starting off as a pilot program we weren’t given much in terms of funding. In fact, we were given so little money that I had to call out for volunteers to make up the crew. When I did that I was a little worried that I wasn’t going to get enough responses for this to actually work, but thankfully I got plenty of replies from a number of great and capable ponies.

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*SIGH*

Yes, Trixie, including one pony who’s great, capable, and powerful.

Oy vey.

Okay, everypony, so why don’t I show you who all volunteered to be a part of this pilot program? As you’ve probably already noticed, Trixie is here. And over here we have Applejack, and next to her are Roseluck and Lily Valley. Over there you’ll see the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Bulk Biceps, and right next to me you’ll see Derpy.

Hold on.

Derpy?

Um, hello there. Can I help you with something?

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You’re here to volunteer for the Damage Control pilot program?

Oh, um, I’m sorry. I don’t remember seeing your name on the list of volunteers.

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Oh no, it’s not a problem. I’ll just need you to fill out and sign a few forms before you get started.

Where did I put those forms?

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Okay, if you could just fill out this emergency contact sheet.

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And sign this liability waiver here.

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And lastly sign this form full of legal jargon that no pony understands.

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Great! Thank you for all of that.

If you’ll just wait over there with the other volunteers we’ll be getting started shortly.

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All right, everypony, so now that you know who’s all here let me explain just what it is we’ll be doing.

If you just look over there, you’ll see that a few of these buildings and landscaping areas on the outskirts of Ponyville have been damaged as the result of a rogue storm cloud that accidentally got released from the Cloudsdale Weather Factory. The extent of damage is pretty much just cosmetic and superficial, so thankfully it’s something that we can address without needing any professional construction and repair ponies. It’s still going to be a lot of hard work though, but I know our volunteers are up to the task! So let’s get to it!

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Attention please, volunteers!

Before we get started, I just want to thank you all for being here. Because of you generously sharing your time today I’m sure that this pilot program will be a great success and lead to Damage Control becoming a full-fledged agency dedicated to helping ponies affected by catastrophes.

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*SIGH*

Yes, Trixie, I promise that this will count towards your court-ordered community service.

Honestly, you'd think that pony would've stop selling untested magic fireworks in a back alley at midnight after being convicted for doing so the first time.

Okay, so to start things off let’s have Applejack, Bulk, and Derpy remove the damaged boards from the buildings. Trixie and the crusaders, you can break down all of the damaged boards and take them to the disposal bin. Rose and Lily, you two can work on getting the landscaping areas cleaned up and replanted.

All right, team, Damage Control on three. One…two…three!

DAMAGE CONTROL!

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How come no pony else shouted with me?

Ahem.

L-Let’s just get started.

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Phew.

Okay, so we’ve been at this for a little over two hours now, and so far things have been going pretty smoothly. Everypony’s been doing a great job, and at this rate I thank we’ll be done in another couple of hours.

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*SIGH*

Yes, Trixie, you’ve been doing a great and powerful job.

I really need to stop saying the word ‘great’ around that pony.

*CRACK*

Wait, what was that noise just now?

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Oh dear.

Um, Derpy, Bulk? I don’t think that damaged panel can be removed whole.

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Well I mean it’s only damaged on the one end and it’s a pretty long panel, so maybe just put it back for now. we can see if Applejack has a saw or something that we can use to –

*CRACK*

Okay, that sounded worse than the last one.

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*CRACK*

It’s not going to hold! Everypony, clear the area!

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*CRASH*

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Aaaand now there’s a giant hole in the side of this building. But at least everypony seems to be okay.

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Oh, d-don’t worry about it, you two. It’s…not that bad. It was only the majority of the east-facing wall that collapsed, so I think the building as a whole can still be saved.

Hopefully.

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Yeah, we’re all fine, Rose. We just had a, um…little mishap with getting one of the damaged panels off of this building.

But let’s not focus on that right now. How are you and Lily coming along with the landscaping area over by the other building?

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Great! Let me come take a look.

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Um, Rose? How come there’s so much dirt missing from right up against the foundation of this building?

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Because of the roots, huh?

I’m not quite sure what kind of roots you’re referring to, but all right.

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Well, yes, I am a bit concerned. This is a multi-story building and I just think that removing such a large amount of dirt from its foundation is going to make it structurally unstable.

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You do this sort of thing all the time so it should be fine?

Well, okay. If this is something you do regularly and it’s never been a problem before than I suppose I have nothing to –

*CRACK*

Oh no. Not again.

Everypony, clear the area!

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*CRASH*

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Okay, so now we’ve lost an entire building.

*DEEP BREATH*

I think I’m just going to pop on over to where Trixie and the CMCs are working real quick and see how things are going with them.

Please let everything be going fine with them, please let everything be going fine with them.

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Oh thank Celestia, everything seems to be going fine with them.

Hi there, girls. Just wanted to come and see how everything was going over here and – um, girls? Where’s the disposal bin? And where did this big hole in the ground come from?

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Huh?

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No, no, I heard you the first time. It’s just…I didn’t even know it was possible to overfill a disposal bin so much that it could sink Celestia-knows-how-far down into the Earth, but here we are.

And of course we have Trixie to thank for that.

By the way, where is Trixie?

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She ran off, huh?

Well then, I guess that means I won’t be signing her community service paperwork.

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Yeah, just…give me a minute or two to figure all of this out, girls. In the meantime, you should probably stay away from this hole just in case it gets bigger. And stay away from any of the damaged buildings too.

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Well, everypony, it would appear that this whole Damage Control thing is doing the exact opposite of what I intended it to do. Instead of cleaning up damage we seem to be causing damage, and a lot of it.

Far more than your average bunny stampede or party cannon misfire.

I suppose in hindsight asking random volunteers to do all of this probably wasn’t the best idea.

Actually, in further hindsight, the volunteers wouldn’t have offered much of an accurate portrayal of what Damage Control would be all about on a massive scale anyways. I mean, this proposed agency was to address serious damage caused by catastrophic events, and all we tried addressing today was some superficial damage caused by a single storm cloud.

Plus, in even further hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have allowed fillies to volunteer for such potentially dangerous work either.

Boy, this pilot program was pretty much doomed to fail right from the start.

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You know what though? I’m not going to be deterred. I still believe that Damage Control is a good idea, and I think I just need to lobby a bit harder for enough funding to hire professional construction and repair ponies for it.

Assuming what’s happened here today hasn’t kiboshed the idea with the EEMA.

But anyways, I think it’s about time to wrap up this episode. So as always, thanks for watching, everypony, and I’ll see you next time on Twilight Tries!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I'll go help all of the volunteers clean up the messes we made while doing our clean-up.

Well, that certainly felt weird to say.

Author's Note:

Special thanks to MLPMekarm for suggesting this chapter!

If there's something you'd like to see Twilight try, please let me know in the comments!

Comments

[Twilight Kiki Sparkle]

Have Twilight play some Star Wars games.

[Twilight Kiki Sparkle]

Also FIRST!!!

[singing steel]

Twilight tries halo

[Skyblazer9]

Twilight tries to join the Royal Guard and undergoes very mental and physical straining exercises.

[Animak]

twilight tries cutting out all added sugar from her diet heh heh

[Onyx Quill]

Twilight tries watching G5.

"Just how bad DID I eff things up??"

[penguincascadia]

Idea: You obviously can't make episodes about doing something bow that you've done before, but how about making "A Look Back" episodes about your historical first times doing something? For example, you could look back at your first vacation without your family as an adult, or your first laboratory. You would have to do the Ken Burns style of zooming in and out of photos and videos because going back in time just to film yourself for a video would be unwise, bit it would significantly expand the amount of topics available to you!