What would happen if Twilight Sparkle, instead of learning the magic of friendship, just had a gun?
Everyone knows that making friends is hard. Keeping them long enough to defeat several evil villains bent on world domination, and a few ponies who are just jerks, with nothing but the sheer power of friendship and good feelings is even harder.
Wouldn't everything be easier if you just had a gun?
Let's find out.
Coverart and the concept as a whole is from that guy named tjpones, go look at his stuff.
Nightmare Moon cackled loudly as she turned into a blue mist and faded away, as ponies beneath her former position started to panic.
And then there were a pair of loud BANGs, as two rounds passed harmlessly through the mist.
"Shit, I missed," Twilight grumbled, her gun held firm in her telekinesis.
"No, silly, she's mist!" Pinkie helpfully added.
"Pinkie I swear to all that is holy if you do not stop I'll shoot you too."
"Don't worry, Twilight," Applejack said, "we should be able to find her nearby."
"Wait, hold the phone!" Rainbow Dash said. "How do we know 'Twilight' here isn't working for Nightmare Moon?!"
"Rainbow Dash, I just shot at her with a fucking gun," Twilight deadpanned. "If I was working for her, I'd be the worst employee ever."
"She has a point," Applejack backed her up.
"Applejack, darling," Rarity started, "is there a reason you're so okay with this?"
"Rarity, Ah'm the group's token redneck farmer stereotype. 'Course I'm gonna like guns."
"Ah. Fair enough."
"Enough talk, we gotta find her at that old castle full of plot convenience," Twilight said. With that, she left the town hall, gun hovering in front and the other ponies who could tentatively be called friends following behind her.
After enduring some traps that went exactly like you remember but with more profanity, the six ponies had reached the old castle.
"So, do we have a plan?" Rarity asked.
"Go in, shoot the bitch, and go home," Twilight said simply.
"Well, points for being simple," Rainbow chimed in.
Soon after they entered the castle, they found Nightmare Moon herself standing at the far end of the hall, giving an evil smile, surrounded by odd spherical things.
"So, you finally made it here. Not that it will matter, because without these," she said, gesturing to the stones around her, which they just noticed had various symbols on them, "you'll be powerless!"
Before any of them could do anything, she reared up and smashed them all, the light of dying magic filling the air as they shattered.
Nightmare let out a long evil laugh. "Now, what will you do, I wonder? Maybe if you start begging, I won't-"
Her threat was cut off as Twilight started firing at her, each bullet meeting its mark as Nightmare Moon screamed, and then lie still.
"Well, that was easy."
"Oh, uh... huh." Rainbow Dash, for the first time in her life, was at a loss for words. "You know, I didn't think that would actually work."
"Yeah, I thought for sure she'd do some fancy magic mumbo jumbo to keep from getting shot!" Pinkie spoke up.
Fluttershy said something, but was too quiet to be heard clearly.
"A- Are you sure... there wasn't another way...?" Fluttershy said clearly but slowly, wilting under Twilight's glare.
"Why look for other ways when this works?" Twilight asked simply, still hovering her gun nearby.
At that moment, the darkness outside gave way to sunlight, and Princess Celestia entered the castle behind them. She had an air of elegant poise, but that was shattered in favor of shocked bewilderment when she saw not the reformed figure of her sister, but rather the still-warm corpse of the same.
"Oh... I see you've... already dealt with it, Twilight," she said, hiding a sad undercurrent in her voice.
"You're welcome."
Celestia trotted up to the body, holding it sadly. "And although I understand why you... handled it this way, she was still my sister."
"You're welcome."
With that, Twilight turned to leave. "Come on, let's go before Spike burns down the tree, the dumbass."
Hesitantly, the other five ponies followed, leaving behind the monarch grieving for her sister's demise.
Ponyville was bustling with gossip about a new performer in town. Apparently, she had simply rolled her wagon into the middle of the town, and simply left it there while she set things up.
Apparently, part of that setup was hiring a pair of dumb colts to act as advertisers, because of course.
Twilight had ignored their stupid voices all day, but when she actually arrived to the stage, she was just in time to hear the mare herself announcing her own show loudly, and shortly after a blue unicorn mare in purple wizard clothes suddenly appeared in a puff of smoke. According to her own self-inflated ego and the prior announcing, she was called "The Great and Powerful Trixie".
Twilight held the perpetual frown on her face, unimpressed. The crowd around her let out "Ooh"s and "Aah"s, which made her frown even harder.
"Watch in awe," Trixie began to say to the crowd, "as the Great and Powerful Trixie performs the most spectacular feats of magic ever witnessed by ponykind!"
As fireworks went off behind Trixie, Twilight intensified her frown. She already had a lock on magic in this part of the country, and this uppity showmare was moving in on her turf.
She was considering busting a cap in her blue ass, but eventually decided not to, since Celestia made it a point to tell her "Shooting ponies isn't nice".
"My, my, my," Rarity began next to Twilight, "what boasting!"
"Rarity get that title drop shit out of here," Twilight scolded.
"Oh come on!" Spike started, next to them "Everypony knows-"
"Spike, shut up and go to your room until I tell you."
"B- But Twilight, this is the first time I've been out of my room for weeks!"
Twilight gave a glare that would reduce many lesser ponies into averting their gaze.
Spike looked away. "Fine." He slunk off, as Twilight's "friends" watched him leave, unsure exactly how to react.
Soon, they turned their attention back to the stage, where Trixie was poofing some flowers into existence because magic tricks are clearly impressive in a world where a third of the population can use it at will.
At some point, Rarity and Applehorse started having a small argument over some bullshit about ability and bragging, but Twilight did not care at all, so she tuned them out.
She did hear Rainbow's addition to the end of the argument, though. "It's certainly why you got me around being better than the rest of us!"
"Rainbow, you are so far stuck up your own ass I could punch you in the throat and make you lose teeth," Twilight deadpanned.
Sheepishly, Rainbow looked around, before her eyes settled on the stage. "Well, I mean-" She collected herself and gave the most halfhearted "Boo!" one has ever heard.
"Well, well, well," Trixie said on stage, "it seems we have some NEIGHsayers in the audience, who-"
"No, that's it, we're fucking done here," Twilight said, drawing her gun and firing into the air, making the crowd start screaming and running away. "I draw the line at horse puns."
The pink pony's attempt at comedy was interrupted by a gun barrel shoved in her mouth and a glaring Twilight getting right up to her eyes. "One more word of that sentence, and I will end you."
Pinkie only gave a nod in response.
Meanwhile, Trixie was flabbergasted. "W- Why did you scare off my audience?!" she shouted, more than a little peeved. "I was about to tell them about the time I vanquished an ursa major!"
Twilight didn't give an answer as she started walking off, her friends, again, reluctantly following.
"Come back here!" Trixie shouted, now positively enraged. "Don't ignore me!"
When it was clear she was being ignored, she let out a strangled scream and went back into her wagon, the stage folding back in place behind her.
Underneath where the stage used to be, Snips and Snails looked at each other, and in that moment, the dumbest idea of all time was formed.
It should be expected, of course, that those two colts proceeded to lure an ursa minor to Ponyville that night, and came running to Trixie to kill it dead like she claimed to have done to a major.
Naturally, Trixie was unable to actually do anything despite her best efforts, but thankfully, just before she had finished having her life flash before her eyes and had to listen to the two dumbest ponies ever next to her, Twilight arrived on the scene, gun in her telekinetic grasp. Sadly, it was too late to save her wagon home, since that was literally the first thing the giant bear had stepped on.
The bear roared at her, as it had been doing for the past 10 minutes, and Twilight answered with a much shorter, much sharper roar of her own.
BANG
The first shot only made the ursa pause in its roar, so Twilight continued.
BANG BANG BANG BANG
Each shot impacted the bear's cosmic coat, and despite its size, the shots still had an impact as the bear kept flinching away, until eventually the ursa minor fell.
Because it was dead.
With the threat dealt with, Twilight turned to the three ponies who were cowering from it. "There, problem solved."
Before any of them could say anything, she got right up in Trixie's face. "You are a bragging piece of shit."
She then went to Snips and Snails. "And you two are the fucking dumbest ponies I have ever seen, I mean holy shit."
And with that, she left, leaving behind a giant bear corpse, three crying ponies, and a town full of confused ponies.
The next morning, Celestia found a letter waiting for her.
Twilight had long since learned to not get involved in any stupid bullshit that her so-called friends got up to, so Pinkie had no one to blame but herself when she kept asking around about where Rainbow Dash was and Twilight's response was "Do I look like I give a shit, now fuck off."
Pinkie found Dash shortly after, anyway, but Twilight did not care. She was enjoying being left alone, as most of the townsponies had learned by now, but for some reason those other five ponies kept trying to rope her into things.
So when she was trying to do something sciency at her library house, and she found out her ink was replaced with disappearing ink, she was not only unhappy, she also knew exactly who was responsible.
That's why, moments later, Ponyville witnessed a very irate unicorn slam open the door of the library, with a look that could kill and a gun that could also kill but more literally. "Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, you get the fuck over here!"
The ponies in question ran/flew off, laughing their asses off, unaware how close they came to being dead.
The rest of the day was spent with Twilight angrily cleaning the mess that resulted, and Spike getting beat a little bit harder than usual.
At least, until word got back to Twilight about how apparently there was now a griffon in town that was one of Dash's old friends, and was keeping Pinkie from hanging out with the pegasus.
Of course, Twilight learned this from Pinkie herself, which is why she was currently being held at gun point.
"First, tell me why I shouldn't shoot you for what you did earlier," Twilight asked, fuming.
Pinkie giggled. "Because then you'd derail the plot too much!"
"...shit, you're right."
Twilight released Pinkie from the hold, but didn't put the gun away. "Second, why is this my problem?"
"Because that griffon is mean!"
Twilight just stared at her.
"Yeah, no, fuck off."
And then Pinkie was unceremoniously booted from the library.
Later, Twilight heard that Pinkie was throwing yet another party because why not, and that the griffon would be there. Deciding she still hadn't met her anger quota for the day, Twilight decided to pay a visit.
The party was pretty typical for a Pinkie party, as in painfully PG. Twilight hoped that one of these days, Pinkie would start throwing real parties, with some combination of booze, coke, and maybe strippers, she'd have to think about that one.
Until that day came, she instead settled for watching the various pranks Pinkie enacted on the griffon, who she learned was named Gilda. She had to admit, seeing someone else in pain almost got her to smile.
The latest prank involved a cake with candles that wouldn't go out, but what was far more interesting to Twilight was how when Gilda rushed over to blow the candles out, she body-checked Spike across the room.
She agreed that the lizard deserved it, probably, but she never saw anyone else act so callously towards him, besides herself.
Maybe this griffon wasn't so bad after all.
Of course, everyone started laughing at Gilda when she failed to blow out the candles, because all ponies are actually jerks.
"Relighting birthday candles, a classic!" Spike chimed in from his seat in a hole in the wall.
"I wonder who could've done that," Pinkie said, a smug as shit smile on her face.
"Yeah, I wonder..." Gilda added, glaring at Pinkie.
"Who cares!" Spike said, literally digging into the cake to eat it from within. "This cake is amazing!"
"Spike you fat fuck get out of the cake," Twilight said, pulling Spike out with her magic and throwing him back into his hole in the wall.
After that, Applejack suggested playing "pin the tail on the pony." Despite a few choice words about how stupid both the game itself and the name was from Twilight, the rest of the partygoers participated, with Gilda insisting that she go first because she is not a smart griffon who can recognize patterns.
However, somehow, Pinkie managed to pull some reverse psychology on Gilda and got her to walk opposite of the way she was supposed to go, resulting in Gilda slipping and falling and making herself look like an idiot. Of course, this got the ponies to all laugh at her again, which resulted in Gilda metaphorically exploding.
Twilight had her gun drawn, just in case, but simply watched to see what would happen.
"This is your idea of a good time?!" Gilda asked, understandably upset. "I've never met a bunch of dweebs in all my life! And you, Pinkie Pie! You are being a lameo with your weak little party pranks! Did you really think you could make me lose my cool?!" She went over to Dash and put a claw around her shoulders. "Dash and I have ten times as much fun as you dweebs! Come on, Dash, we're bailing on this pathetic party."
Gilda started leaving the building, but Dash stayed put. What followed was a heartful message about friendship and how everything was actually Dash's fault, because she's the biggest cunt on the show she's good at taking credit for other ponies' work. It ended with Dash saying Gilda should go and find other friends, which honestly would probably be for the best because god damn ponies are dicks.
Gilda then accused Dash of being a piece of footwear, before storming out and leaving. Twilight, having spent the whole confrontation honestly confused, made up her mind what to do then.
"Wow, talk about a party pooper!" Spike chimed in.
"Shut the fuck up Spike," Twilight said, following after Gilda and putting her gun away.
She found the griffon just about to fly off. "Hey, Gilda, hold on."
Confused, Gilda looked at Twilight. "What, are you here to convince me to try and 'change my ways for the betterment of friendship'?" she asked, putting a fake happy voice on.
That piqued Gilda's curiosity. "So why are you here?"
"Because you're the first person I've seen who can recognize all this bullshit for what it is." Twilight slipped a business card to the griffon. "Here, let's keep in touch."
Gilda looked at the card, confused, before nodding and putting it away. "You know, maybe ponies aren't so bad."
"No, they suck," Twilight countered. "But they at least know how to mind their business, usually."
After that, the two unlikely friends said their farewells, and Twilight decided to go home.
Once again, Celestia found a letter waiting for her just before she went to bed.
Twilight fired one last shot into the air, knocking the final parasprite to the ground. Once that was done, she turned to Fluttershy, who was looking at the ground like a scolded puppy.
"Fluttershy what the fuck did you do?"
"I... fed some parasprites..."
"Well, fucking don't, okay?"
"Okay, Twilight..." Fluttershy kicked a hoof on the ground, looking away.
Suddenly, Pinkie appeared from behind a building, playing a random assortment of musical instruments at the same time. She immediately stopped upon seeing the ground littered with parasprite corpses, though.
"Aw, Twilight, why'd you do that?" she asked. "I already had a plan and everything!"
Twilight just glared at her. "Pinkie, what is this shit."
"My plan!" She started playing all her instruments again as she walked off, but was interrupted by Twilight shooting out the drum, accordion, and whatever else she had that could be shot (spoilers: it was everything).
"Get the fuck out of here," Twilight said simply, still hovering her gun near Pinkie.
"Okie dokie!" Pinkie then began bouncing home, the destroyed instruments making a racket as she did so.
Twilight's eye twitched, and she put her gun away. "I need a fucking drink."
She started walking home, leaving behind a mildly traumatized Fluttershy to clean up all the bodies. It wouldn't be the first time, after all.
While she ignored the occasional stare from other ponies, Twilight couldn't help but feel like something was... off. Like she wasn't quite done dealing with random bullshit for the day.
Just when she was tempted to preemptively shoot into the air, in the hopes of scaring said bullshit away, there was a rustling from a nearby bush, and a strange creature fell out.
It quickly got back up, and Twilight saw that it stood on two legs, wore clothes, and had practically no hair on its body, save for a patch on top of its head.
"Uh, hello," the thing said, showing that it was most likely male. "I think I'm a bit lost. Do you think you could-"
The creature was cut off as Twilight started screaming. "WHAT THE FUCK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"
She then started shooting the creature, whose eyes flashed in recognition at the sight of the gun before he recoiled from the fact that he was kinda getting shot.
"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK-"
Every curse Twilight shouted out was punctuated with another shot, despite the fact that the creature had fallen down from the force of only the first two shots.
Eventually, the gun clicked dry, but Twilight continued screaming as she reloaded, and then she started shooting again.
When the gun ran out the second time, she slowly wound down her screaming. Once she finally stopped, she carefully prodded the corpse with the gun, ready to continue shooting if it moved.
When it didn't, she spoke again. "WHAT THE FUCK."
"Twilight, are you okay?" Fluttershy asked, flying in from off screen. She looked between her friend and the corpse, her face torn between worry and confusion. "Oh my, what is this thing?"
"I don't fucking know, but fucking shit, I can't deal with this," Twilight said, quickly starting to trot away. "It's your problem now!"
With another corpse disposal job tossed on top of her, Fluttershy just sighed and got to work. She was a good friend, after all.
Meanwhile, across the street, a certain green unicorn had watched the events unfold, drinking a fizzy beverage the whole time.
As Fluttershy started to cautiously prod what used to be an unknown creature, Lyra... neither did nor said nothing in particular.
She looked up. "What, were you expecting me to do something?"
Fluttershy started dragging the corpse with her mouth, grabbing it by what was probably a piece of clothing.
"Oh, I see how it is," Lyra continued addressing the sky. "I have more than one fucking character trait, you know."
And so, she left, still sipping on her drink.
Not before she quickly ran back and took a deep sniff of the corpse, of course.
