The Anti-Friendship Lesson

by Ezekiel Namuh

What an expected surprise...

"Hey Bon Bon!" The mare jumped as a unicorn appeared behind her, attracting unwanted attention.

"Hello, Lyra," Bon Bon said unenthusiastically.

"What're you looking at?" Bon Bon quickly shoved the suitcase out of view.

"This," she showed Lyra the poster. "I'm fairly certain it's that pony back there."

Lyra looked back at the pony she was pointing at. A completely white earth pony mare with a strange choice of hat. "Why her?"

"She's been lashing out for the last few minutes, she's a near-exact copy of Pinkie Pie, only white with a different cutie mark, and I've only noticed her here today."

"You sure she's only been here today? I saw Rainbow Dash carrying somepony who looked a lot like her last night."

"Why was... You know what, I don't care." Bon Bon turned back to Lyra, who was scanning over the poster.

"Were you interested in the reward?" Lyra looked up expectantly.

"Why?"

"Because there isn't one." Bon Bon quickly scanned over the reward section which was indeed empty.

"Who made it?" Bon Bon tried to find any identification for who wanted this changeling.

"Spoiled Rich," Lyra bluntly answered. Bon Bon face-hoofed at this act of greed before turning back to her suspect.

Her eyes widened as she viewed the scene. "Nevermind. Guess the princess's got 'em."

"What!?" Lyra's head popped out of the alleyway. She saw the "pony" staring up at Princess Celestia, who was talking to Twilight. Bon Bon started to think something was wrong as everypony's heads slowly turned to Twilight. Everypony's except one-the supposed changeling's, who was starting to slink behind a building.

"We've got to go do something!" Lyra said. Bon Bon nodded in agreement as they dashed out. Two inches out and they were slammed back into the alleyway by a very familiar pegasus.

"What're you guys doing this morning?"

Bon Bon sat up and dashed out the alley's entrance. "It's the middle of the afternoon and we're trying to stop that-" she stopped as she saw them lunge into the Everfree when the main six and Celestia were all focused on Twilight. "-Pony..."

"It's fine Bon Bon," she said while turning over to the mare who had bowled into them, "Hello, Derpy. Did you need something?"

"Not that I can remember," the wall-eyed mare said while scratching her head. "Who were you talking about? Celestia?" Derpy continued, pointing her hoof at a certain cream-colored mare.

Bon Bon simply replied, "No, it was a white earth pony mare that we think is this changeling," the confectioner showed Derpy the wanted poster.

Derpy got visually excited, "Ooh! Can I help?"

Lyra was going to say 'sure' when Bon Bon cut her off. "No thanks. I can handle it."

Lyra looked back confused. "You mean 'we', right?"

Bon Bon contemplated it a bit before reluctantly agreeing, "Fine, you can help, Lyra."

Derpy looked slightly disappointed, "Why her?"

"I still remember when I was in Canterlot during the changeling invasion. I learned the spell to un-disguise and stun them in case I ran into one again."

Bon Bon was relieved to hear Lyra had more magic in her arsenal than she first thought. "Exactly. Now come on Lyra, she went into the Everfree." Bon Bon strolled out as Lyra followed. Derpy waited a few seconds before shrugging and following them anyway.

---

Ty was walking through the dense trees, still complaining about his situation. "How am I even gonna' survive this? I guess I could just find a river and eat the grass that grows near it. Ponies still eat grass, right? It's not much different from hay." He leaned down and took a bite out of the long grass growing near a gnarled tree. Or attempted, as he was so weak even grass seemed to best him. "Well, let's hope eating isn't a requirement here."

He started to look for anything slightly more edible when a bush began to rustle behind him. He instinctively looked around for something to either defend himself with or make himself look more intimidating. Finding only a rock the size of his head, he reluctantly walked behind it, facing toward the bush

"Stop! I've got a rock and I can throw things so hard!" The bush stopped moving directly after his desperate shout. Ty could make out three figures hiding in the bush. The bush shot out several leaves as a flash of purple shot out and stopped... several feet below him.

"Freeze!"

"You can't be serious," Ty groaned as he looked down at the pony in front of him. The other figures began to step out. A unicorn popped out of the bush, glaring at the scene before her.

"Scootaloo!" She complained. "You blew our cover!"

Scootaloo turned and argued, "Applebloom's the one who made the bush rustle." This was answered by a small, yellow filly wearing an oversized, pink bow practically teleporting in front of her.

"Ah did not!"

Before the arbitrary lightning could form between their eyes, they were cut off by a disbelieving voice. "Aren't you the fillies who drugged your teacher? Great! Now I've got children that want me dead," Ty quietly complained. Of all the ponies to find him in here, the CMC would be extremely annoying.

"Dead!?" Sweetie Belle said in confusion. "We were just interested in this!"

---

Earlier, as Derpy was flying after Lyra and Sweetie Drops Bon Bon, the CMC watched on the road. "Ah wonder where they're going." They walked past the alley the mares came out of as they went into the Everfree.

"Wait, crusaders!" Scootaloo spotted something drifting around in the alley. The fillies walked up to the object the pegasus had seen. "It's a poster."

Completely ignoring the suitcase jammed against the wall, Sweetie Belle floated the parchment up to them. "So that's why they went into the forest. They must be after the changeling!"

"That's jus' gotta be worth a cutie mark!" Applebloom exclaimed before the fillies inhaled.

---

"You seriously wanted to get your cutie marks in bounty hunting?" Ty asked, interrupting the fillies's tale.

"Maybe?" Scootaloo answered. If anypony would be able to, it's them. Or a pony from a certain series about a nuclear fallout.

Ty squinted at the torn paper Sweetie Belle levitated before him. "There's no reward on that. And that's a changeling. Albeit a weird looking one." There! Nobody but me would insult themselves so casually. No changeling would replicate that.

"That reward's gonna be our cutie marks! Now as we were saying..."

"Applebloom here thought it was you," Sweetie Belle bluntly admitted.

"Why me?" Ty was actually confused by this.

"When Derpy flew in that alley, we heard Bon Bon say something about a white, earth pony mare. We figured that was you." Sweetie Belle said casually before Ty startled her.

"PFFFT-HahaHA! I-I'm sorry. It's j-just that description is insane. I'm a stallion, you know that right?" They think I'm an earth pony? I might be able to use that.

"Well, yeah," Applebloom confirmed.

"That's understandable. The round chin, the smaller stature, the pronounced eyelashes. That all must mean I'm a mare. It doesn't matter that you all barely know who I am and you've never seen me before, right?"

"We did not say that!"

Ty looked down at Sweetie Belle. "Of course you didn't. That would be rude."

Scootaloo whispered softly to Applebloom, "I don't like the way this pony's acting. It doesn't feel normal."

Applebloom was about to answer. "Of course it doesn't," Ty leaned down and interrupted them, causing them to shout.

"After all..." he said while chuckling creepily, closing his eyes as the area around him started to glow a mix of cyan and purple. Dust began to rise around him in a swirling, almost dust devil-like typhoon.

"I'm not a normal pony." Ty's eyes pulled open as he leaned toward the crusaders, sporting a near-malicious grin and a stare that felt more powerful than Fluttershy's. As hard as that is to believe.

"O-Okay then, it was nice to m-meet you, but I think we better g-go!" Sweetie Belle hurriedly said, pushing Scootaloo back in the direction of Ponyville. Applebloom quickly scurried after them, not wanting to get left behind. Ty stayed staring at the bushes they'd exited through for a few seconds, before exhaling a large amount of air and letting the dust settle around him.

Well, that happened. I used a whole lot of concentration to nearly scare a bunch of children senseless. Am I supposed to feel bad about that, or do I feel proud of any magical ability? Ty questioned, leaning more into the first option. He didn't need to do that. They were a couple of years younger than him, and he could've just ran.

Feeling guilty and not entirely sure why, Ty just kept moving forward. Wanting to avoid letting the previous events fester, he hummed a tune he remembered from earth. He even started softly singing the words to the song, unaware of his quiet musical accompaniment.

He was also unaware of a gray shadow hidden behind several trees. It looked like the basic outline of an earth pony before Ty froze as the song concluded. The pony darted away before Ty muttered to himself.

"Wait, why did I choose to hum that? The whole point was to distract myself from feeling guilty, not just make me depressed about being here," Ty wondered, probably not taking into account he hadn't chosen that song.

Ty, currently lost in a state somewhere between confusion and anger directed toward Lauren Faust, walked partway out from the trees in front of him, looking out at a very familiar waterfall.

Author's Note:

I couldn't think of a better way to end it. Also not sure how Hasbro would've gotten the rights to that song.

Comments

[Theresa]

Boy is she going to be surprised when guess what he not a changeling and is just someone who doesn't want people chasing after him all the time. Although I was hoping to hear twilight and company get chewed out by Celestia for their behavior. How stupid do you have to be not get that you can't just capture and interrogate people not suspected of a crime.

[Khanathara]

Well, I'm eager for more.

[Theresa]

They kinda deserve getting scared out of their nonexistent pants considering how many times they been told not to go into the everfree alone. The adults in charge of them might want to do a better job of watching them. And accusing someone of something without the slightest bit proof is rude and stupid and mean.

[Theresa]

11201598
Hey you're not doing bad. In fact before you took it down I liked it. It was different from anything else that I have seen and I was looking forward to the girls learning a lesson about their behavior. The new version to me isn't as good as the old one.

[SUPERETHAN2]

11201611
It seems to be exactly the same to me or any differences at all are minor at best, so I don't know what you mean by that. Not like he completely changed the plot or anything which I wished he would have done.

[SUPERETHAN2]

11201598
You could have during the time it was down done that and perhaps rewrite it with our criticism in mind. If you want the girls to pull this crap fine but actually have Celestia properly ream into them and them actually realizing the error of their ways and actually get somewhere in the plot instead of multiple chapters of padding this basic plot point that should only take two to three chapters at most to move on from to more exciting events.

[Theresa]

11202005
That we can agree on. It was taking too long for her to get to scolding for kidnapping and harassment. They were supposed have learn by this point that harassment in the name of friendship isn't a good thing. Plus don't judge others because they are different.

[White seal]

I like how you delete comments who criticize you, nobody will want to read this after they see graveyard in you're comments, also deleting mine comments who weren't even criticizing you, doing damage control hmmm?

[White seal]

11202005
Be ready for you're comment being deleted

[GleamingKyler111]

11357318
Don't forget the... Weird Almighty Living Line A.K.A the Adventure Line™

(Nice Star Wars reference, here's a The Stanley Parable reference)

[Ezekiel Namuh]

11201611
11210854
11202000
It's a good thing you guys are here. People that don't put up with any of the complete crap I do and tell me what I'm doing wrong. I'd like to apologize for the crap I did with the comments. The short story on that is, "I'm a massive TWAT who didn't think I was going to start writing again". I'm planning on making it up to you guys by actually figuring out what I'm trying to do with this story, and I do have an idea for the final layout. But before I do that, I'm doing some rewriting. Another apology in advance for when I inevitably screw it up.

[Daniels6323]

"Maybe?" Scootaloo answered. If anypony would be able to, it's them. Or a pony from a certain series about a nuclear fallout.

The first pony that comes to mind is Blackjack

[JadeFox]

Why tf was that song in my likes? I know I have the donkey rule song but I have zero memory of this one?

[Ziper Ace]

I never new that Song Existed
I'm Nobody's Hero (HD REMASTERED EDITION)
I really like it a lot!