Into the shadow of the beastby TwiwnBChaptersWhere it’s once again all Twilight’s faultThe Leliels, Lielle and LeilelGive peace a chance...One last chanceThe shadow of a solutionWhere it’s once again all Twilight’s faultAuthor's Note Here, last of the thirty stories... Can't believe how much time I spent to write that one and how hard it was. It might not be a great story, it might not even be a good story, but I like how it turned out and I really tried to make it appealing to more than just myself. Where it’s once again all Twilight’s fault Twilight was standing in the middle of the room, frustrated, her frowny face on, just looking at the floor in the hope it would help her cut any link with reality and save her from the feeling of stupidity and shame. “Well, at least it’s a beautiful day in Equestria…” said Spike, who had just entered the room and quickly understood why he had heard an explosion. Twilight didn’t move. It was true that the sun was beautiful in the sky, and its sun rays were warm on her fur. It didn’t change, nonetheless, how frustrated she was feeling. “You know, the more time I pass in this castle, the better I find the view from up here.” Spike added, while looking over the edge of the room’s floor onto Ponyville below. Twilight remained still, but frowned a little more. She didn’t like at all Spike’s remark, but couldn’t, at the same time, say he was wrong to make it. She would have just wished nothing had happened and that she wouldn’t have had to bear such a situation. “You aren’t hurt, are you?” Spike asked, worried by the alicorn’s silence. She made a sign with her head to tell that she had nothing, not even a scratch, if it were to ignore the guilt and shame she was feeling and that violent will to blame destiny for such a stupid event. “I’ll tell the servants to repair the ceiling and the walls. Don’t worry, the lab’ will be ready for you to waste your time with in the blink of an eye.” the dragon tried to comfort the pony. It worked a little. Mostly because it was showing Twilight that her assistant wanted to help her more than he wanted to make fun of her for what had happened. He was a brave dragon and a very good friend. Other in his place would have just spent an hour rolling on the floor laughing. By chance, Rainbow Dash wasn’t anywhere near, but Twilight knew she would have to go through the hilarity of the pegasus once she would have heard the news. It didn’t matter. Finally accepting her fate and ready to go forward, Twilight chased away her frown and found a smile from deep within, then stood up. “Thanks Spike. I know I can rely on you.” she told the dragon. She began to walk away, to go to bed and sulk a bit as Spike deduced, knowing the mare very well after all those years. The thing was, she couldn’t get used to failing spells that badly. It had even become sort of a curse in her mind. A good curse when considering all those great adventures that failing a spell had triggered, but a curse nonetheless that she would have lived very happily without. Spike looked at her slowly going away and hesitated for a little moment, but finally decided to ask: “Hum… just to know, by pure curiosity… what were you working on this time?” Twilight turned back and sighed. There were still little parts of the ceiling falling down, the whole room was a mess and the hole created by the ball of magical energy could have made her believe there had been a war going on there. She hesitated to give the dragon an answer, as her assistant had well deserved an answer, but she was, at the same time, feeling sort of aggressed by the question, as it reminded her of the event itself. She sighed again, and, with a smile, simply replied: “Ice cream.” She then left the room, letting for Spike to determine if she was serious or joking… The dragon thought about it, saw no way he could know the truth and decided to wait until Twilight would be ready to take it less seriously. He looked outside once again. It was clear a magical projectile had made the hole in the laboratory. It was also relieving that the projectile had flown away in the direction of the everfree forest. He could see a little trail of smoke coming out of the middle of the trees, probably from where the projectile had finished its course. Spike smiled. It was nowhere near where Zecora was living and away from anypony, so, in the end, he could be certain that nopony had been harmed whatsoever. The dragon laughed and left the room too, in order to go seek the servants and make the repairs he had promised to Twilight, until the next time she would blow everything up. He shut what was left of the door behind him, ignoring that problems were just beginning. The Leliels, Lielle and Leilel“Give it back!” shouted Applebloom with anger. She was referring to a piece of paper Sweetie Belle had written on and that both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were playing with, holding it away from the three cutie mark crusaders and making fun of them. “If you want it, just come and get it!” provoked Diamond Tiara with a grin. Applebloom would have loved to, Scootaloo too. But not only was there Sweetie Belle’s look to make them remember that violence was not an answer: both Applejack and Rainbow Dash had made it clear that there should be no resorting to fighting unless they were attacked first. So the three fillies were pretty much stuck with only observing and, but they wouldn’t do that, begging. Diamond Tiara knew that fact very well and was taking every advantage of it. She was having a great pleasure in taunting the three friends. And in some way, she couldn’t believe that they were really not reacting to her taunting and wanted to see how far she could go with it. Just like a child. That she actually was. “Give it back…” Applebloom repeated, knowing it was useless, but to have the feeling she wasn’t completely powerless. Her request got completely ignored with a laugh for all reply, and, after a few more taunts, Diamond Tiara ripped the piece of paper apart and threw it into a garbage can. Then, hiding how incredible she was finding that nothing had happened to her, she just walked away with Silver Spoon, adding some more insults and even throwing a bit of mud at the three fillies who just stood there, completely stuck between their peaceful minds, their loyalty to their big sisters and that strong and deep envy to just go and beat the hell out of those they were considering their enemies. “Let’s go home…” just said Sweetie Belle, while trying to hide that she was crying. “They aren’t worth it anyway.” It was another way of saying that she wanted to go find her family and the comfort that was going with it. So they all parted ways and Applebloom saw her two friends going away, as she herself began her journey back to the farm. “Give it back!” shouted a tiny shrieking voice around the filly. “No way, it’s mine, take your paws out of it!” shouted a second tiny shrieking voice. Applebloom looked around, but saw nopony. She was about to ask herself if she was hearing voices before she suddenly felt something running along her body, quickly followed by something else. The filly immediately screamed out of panic and began rolling on the floor to get rid of whatever had been climbing her. After a few rolls, she felt nothing anymore and simmered down. She took back the control of her breath and sighed out of relief. “You see what you did?” said one of the little voices, startling the filly once again. “It’s all your fault.” “Hey!” said the other voice. “I’m not the one to blame here. You are the one trying to steal from me!” This time, Applebloom saw, just aside from her, two squirrels that weren’t giving her much attention anymore as they were quarreling once more. The filly also saw a sort of white sphere that both squirrels were holding and that was clearly the core of their dispute. “Hum… excuse me.” asked the filly, not sure how to handle the situation, but very curious about what was going on and even more, why she could suddenly speak squirrel. The two pets stopped fighting and turned to the filly, not without still assuring a firm grasp onto the white sphere. “Who are you?” asked Applebloom, who thought at first that it was the best question to ask. But then she decided there was more important information to get and she began asking other questions before the first one could be answered: “And why are you fighting over that thing? Why did you jump on me like that? What are you doing in Ponyville? How come we can speak together? Do you understand me like I understand you?” “Yes!” replied one of the squirrels to make the flow of questions stop. “Yes we can understand you, why wouldn’t we?” “Well…” began Applebloom, who was asking herself if it wasn’t supposed to be common sense and if she wasn’t missing something there. “It’s kind of not normal for squirrels to talk like ponies. You usually just make some squeaking noises.” Both pets looked at each other and then looked back at Applebloom with a sorry smile. “That’s because we are not squirrels.” one of them said. “We happen to be Leliels.” the other explained. “What is a Leliel?” naturally asked Applebloom, more confused than before. The two squirrel looking creatures showed the white sphere between their paws and that they were fighting for. “That’s a Leliel.” they both said in unison. “Okay… so you are two squirrels holding a white sphere called a Leliel...?” Applebloom asked, in the hope she might understand. The two creatures laughed. “No. We are two Leliels holding one of us.” one of them said. But it was clear the filly had no idea what they were talking about. So they decided to explain more clearly, at least as clearly as they could, as Leliels happened to be very good, polite and gentle creatures as long as treated nicely and politely too. “I’m Lielle.” said one of the creatures. “And I’m Leilel.” said the other one. “We are Leliels. What you call a white sphere is actually us. It’s a Leliel.” began Lielle “You see us as squirrels, but those are merely…” the creature tried to think of the best way to explain how they were emotional reflects of the internal subconscious of alterdimentional beings in the simplest manner without being too complicated for the filly to understand: “…our shadows.” she said as an analogy, “Each Leliel has a shadow that reflects the Leliel.” Applebloom was nodding with her muzzle, but had actually not understood one bit of what had been said. Nonetheless, the word shadow made her realize that none of the two squirrel actually had any shadow whatsoever, which was incredibly creepy, but was also comforting in that the two creatures were definitely no normal squirrels. So there was something the filly could tell herself she had understood after all. “So… why are you fighting? For your shadow?” the filly asked, still very curious. “Sort of.” replied Leilel. “You see…” The creature thought about how to make it easy to understand, but Lielle took upon herself to say: “It’s very simple actually. You have a shadow, haven’t you?” she asked Applebloom. “Yes, of course I do.” the filly replied. “Now what would happen to your shadow if you were to disappear?” Lielle asked. “I’m not going to disappear.” responded Applebloom, who was trying to figure out if she was being threatened or what could possibly make her suddenly disappear. “What Lielle is trying to tell you…” Leilel said, coming to the rescue, “…is that without you, there would be no shadow, the same way that without our Leliel, we wouldn’t exist.” One day, long, very long ago, Celestia tried to explain the theory of general relativity to a pony that was, like every other pony back in the time, living in a cave and afraid of fire. But even that particular pony was less confused by Celestia’s explanations than Applebloom was by what the two creatures were saying. Mostly because the filly was feeling she could understand it and therefore, contrarily to her ancient ancestor, was genuinely trying to figure out what was said to her. “Without the white sphere, we cease to exist.” said Lielle, out of despair, going for the biggest simplification of the situation she was able to make. Now that was something the filly could understand. And it was also was easier to see why those two had been fighting for the white sphere. Survival is kind of a good reason if there had to be one. Seeing that the filly’s curiosity was sort of satisfied, at least enough so that it wouldn’t be impolite anymore to let her wonder about the rest, Leilel said: “Now, if you would please excuse us, I have to teach that thief not to steal what doesn’t belong to him.” “You’re a thief, you big apophtegme !” replied Lielle, using an insult from the Leliels’ culture which meaning I prefer not to unveil here, as it was very rude. They immediately began to fight each other like before, completely ignoring Applebloom and trying by any mean possible to take the white sphere out of the other’s paws. “Hey, wait!” shouted Applebloom, worried about the two Leliels. Being the very kind and polite beings that they were, they stopped fighting once again and listened to what the filly had to say. “You shouldn’t be fighting like that. It’s not good. My sister always says that there is no conflict that can’t be solved by talking around an apple pie. Why don’t you come to the farm with me and maybe you’ll be able to solve your problem without hurting each other.” The Leliels looked at each other and agreed that they should try to resolve their problem peacefully if there was a chance to do it so, even if they doubted there was any peaceful solution at all. It was in their nature to at least give a chance to a good proposition. “I just don’t know how much more time we can hold it.” commented Lielle. Applebloom assured them it would be all okay, figuring out the squirrel was probably referencing to their precious sphere. So both Lielle and Leilel followed Applebloom on her way back to the farm, as quietly as they could but making sure that they wouldn’t let loose of the white sphere. Give peace a chance...“…I see.” said Twilight, as Applebloom was taking her back to the farm. “But if they were willing to solve their quarrel peacefully, why do you need my help for again?” “Well, it’s just that none of us found a good solution, so Applejack said I should go find you, because she said you’re very smart and it’s true you’re very smart so I agreed and I came to your new castle and I asked you to come.” Applebloom was having fun at that point, even if she didn’t really know why. For her, it didn’t really matter. Having fun was satisfying enough to not search for a cause or an explanation. Happy people who try to figure out why they are happy usually aren’t to begin with. “How come you didn’t find any solution?” Twilight asked, curious to know more before arriving on the scene. Applebloom look down. Not because she was sad, as she wasn’t, but because she was trying to remember what had happened three hours ago when she had come back, showed the creatures to her family, and when they had all sat down around the table with a good apple pie in the middle. It hadn’t gone so smoothly to be honest, mostly because Applejack had corrected Applebloom on the famous quote the filly had used. The real quote originally came from Braeburn and it said that there is no conflict that cannot be solved with an apple pie, which was quite a different philosophy altogether. Nonetheless, the farm pony had accepted to host those “negociations” as she wasn’t the kind not to lend a hoof if she had the possibility to. Then stuff became very boring and Applebloom lost a lot of her focus. She could still remember things. Applejack was sitting at her right. Lielle and Leilel were sitting in front of them, still holding their precious sphere. The pie in the middle was still too hot to eat yet. “So…” Lielle began that conversation. “The easiest way to solve all this is for you to convince Leilel to stop trying to steal my body and I will forget everything about that incident.” “What?” rhetorically asked back Leilel. “If we want all this to be peacefully resolved, you should begin by stopping to try to lure people into lies. And when you’ll be done doing that, you will only have to give me back my body, apologize for trying to steal it and I’ll forget everything about the incident.” “Huluberlu!” Lielle insulted Leilel. “Ecornifleur!” Leilel insulted back Lielle. The pie was cooling down slower than the atmosphere was heating up, but there was something funny to see those two little squirrels looking creatures argue and threaten each other with their tiny shrieking voices. They were sort of cute. Applejack internally noted that maybe she had understood a part of why Fluttershy loved taking care of animals so much. “Wait just a moment.” the orange earth pony told the two Leliels. “Couldn’t you share that white sphere of yours?” Both creatures looked at her with surprised eyes. “What do you mean share? How could we share a body?” asked Lielle. “Well, one of you could take it for a week and then the other one could take it the next week and so on… that way you would both have it and the problem is solved!” joyfully said Applejack with a great smile, certain to have made a very reasonable and sound proposition. Lielle looked at Leilel and Leilel looked at Lielle, both communicating through their looks how stupid they were judging the orange pony, but also their disarray to reply as they were too polite to say it directly. “I don’t think you understand the problem.” tried to say Leilel with a compassionate tone. “Here, take a piece of pie.” said Lielle, with the same tone one would use to comfort a little child. That moment was etched in Applebloom’s mind for some reason. She didn’t know which one because she was just too young to understand what had happened, but had enough instinct to subconsciously understand that Applejack, who was supposed to be the mediator in the quarrel, had lost every bit of credibility with that very single proposition. The rest of the conversation was more blurred. It was always following the same path again and again. The two Leliels would argue and threaten each other, demanding for the other to back down, then Applejack would come up with a proposition and both creatures would reject it, usually in a very condescending way. And quickly, Applejack came to panic. She was out of ideas. Sharing the sphere hadn’t worked. Splitting the sphere hadn’t worked. Locking the sphere somewhere hadn’t worked. Creating a new sphere had only created some harsh laughter and the Leliels didn’t even responded when she proposed that they both give up on the white sphere. At that point, she had woken Applebloom up from her daydreaming and had asked for Twilight’s help, as it had become clear to her that she wasn’t fit to help those two creatures. Even more, she was getting worried as both Leliels were getting angrier and angrier by the minute, treating each other of all sorts of bird’s names and showing some strong signs of agressivity. “Don’t worry.” Twilight told Applebloom, as they arrived near the farm’s door. “I’m sure everything is going to be just fine.” She opened the door and immediately reevaluated her statement as a cat and a dog jumped right in front of her, clearly pursuing each other in a very loud and chaotic way. All around them, the room was a gigantic mess. They had clearly run and jumped everywhere, breaking the furniture, the lamps, the everything. And in a corner, barricaded behind the table, were Applejack, Big Mac and Granny Smith who had preferred to stand back in order to not get hurt and, also, not to hurt anypony, hoping for the two creatures to simmer down out of exhaustion. “Twilight!” happily shouted Applejack. “Quick, do something, those two are unmanageable.” The alicorn focused her magic and stop both animals in their pursuit, lifting them into the air. “Hey! Let me go!” shouted the dog to Twilight’s surprise. “I have to take it back, there isn’t much more time!” “Could somepony explain to me what is going on? Where are the two squirrels?” she asked, before quickly realizing that her questions were kind of useless as it was pretty easy to figure out who those two animals were and how the negotiations had ended up. Nonetheless, Applejack decided to reply: “I’m not sure to know. We were still talking, well, they were pretty much just arguing with each other, when I finally came up with another idea. So I proposed that if they didn’t want to let go of the white sphere, they should just accept to live together.” Twilight was about to make a comment about that proposition, mostly that there should be a better solution, as being forced to live with someone else can be very difficult, but decided not to as she knew she should better not say anything before being certain she was understanding the situation completely. “Never!” shouted Lielle, who was the dog. “I would rather live with a skunk than to spend one day in that kanak!” “And I would rather bath everyday into a giant’s worm saliva than to have to put up with that pignouf’s existence!” shouted Leilel who was the cat and holding the white sphere into one of her paws. And then, very naturally, in order to get the information she needed, Twilight asked the one question she shouldn’t have, just as Applejack had done before her, before the same Applejack could prevent her to. “No, don’t!” shouted Applejack, in vain, as Twilight just asked the words: “But why?” It sounded like an explosion. Both Lielle and Leilel were shouting at each other, enraged at each other and told what they had on their hearts in a very honest way: “Because he is nothing but a bloody lying, stealing, good for nothing, dangerous, betraying and stinking monster that wants me dead!” shouted Leilel on his side. “Because he is nothing but a thief, a liar, a traitor, a parasite and the worst kind of Leliel there can be and I’m going to make sure she will never threaten me anymore!” shouted Lielle with a deadly look and a loud barking, certain to be bigger and stronger than the cat in front of her. “Is that so?” replied Leilel with a grin. And suddenly, the cat he was began to grow very quickly and became a big monstrous bear. Surprised, Twilight lost her focus and her spell broke, freeing both animals who immediately attacked each other, as the dog grew into a giant wolf. Both Twilight and Applebloom jumped behind the table with the rest of the apple family, but then heard a loud noise, felt the vibration of the flour and the walls around them and, when they looked over the table, saw a giant hole where the door previously was, as both Leliels were gone. “It’s bad…Those two are really going to hurt each other.” stated Applejack. But Twilight had another worry in head, seeing how those creatures were growing and how aggressive they were. She told the apple family to stay indoors, knowing only too well both Applejack and Applebloom would follow her anyway, and then rushed outside in the hope she could act before the matter would get any more serious. One last chanceSomehow, the presence of a giant bear and a giant wolf fighting in the middle of the streets of Ponyville wasn’t making a very good impression on the ponies who were running everywhere for cover, screaming in terror and asking for help. Twilight easily followed the trail of destruction left behind by the two Leliels and, when the destruction became too big to really follow, oriented herself on the sounds of stuff breaking and ponies screaming to find out the location of the two creatures. She caught up with them near the town hall where a lot of ponies had found refuge. But Lielle wasn’t a wolf anymore. He had grown into a giant two headed ogre, as tall as a house, and Leilel had changed from a bear to a giant lizard with teeth and claws. Twilight saw the white sphere in the ogre’s hand and decided that she had only one way to stop those two before they would crush the whole town. As both Leliels charged onto each other under the horrified looks of the ponies in the town hall, Twilight teleported right on the ogre’s hand, forced it open with her magic and took the white sphere away with her as she took some distance from the two monsters. “Hey, give it back!” shouted Lielle, ready to attack Twilight and growing some spikes onto his back. Leilel also turned into Twilight’s direction with the clear intention to reduce the little pony into smithereens in order to retrieve the sphere. “If you come any closer, I’ll destroy your precious… thing!” threatened Twilight, realizing she still wasn’t sure to know what it was she was holding. He threat worked and both creatures stopped their advance. “What do you want?” they asked the alicorn. “This doesn’t concern you.” The tone was harsh, but there were still some traces of care and gentleness in it. “You are going to hurt each other if you keep on fighting.” told them Twilight. “Even more, you’re going to destroy our town if you don’t stop.” The ogre and the lizard looked at each other and at the buildings around them and realized what was going on. “I’m sorry.” said Leilel in a sudden last fit of goodness that broke under the monster’s rage. “I really am. I don’t want to do any harm, I assure you that I never would if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.” Lielle was feeling the same way. They were clearly pained by the idea of involving other creatures into their fight, even after having transformed into such beasts. “Can you help us, please?” implored both Leliels. “We really need help, this has gone way too far already and I can’t stop anymore. Maybe it’s not too late already.” added Leilel while feeling it actually was. Twilight thought about everything she knew about those creatures, but found nothing that could help her. Still, she persevered and began asking questions about the Leliels and forced them to explain everything all over again. Which still wasn’t helping much and made both creatures even more nervous, but helped Twilight understand that there was no way a Leliel could live without his body, and therefore no way a Leliel would leave without his body. “How come there is only one white sphere for the both of you?” asked Twilight, having ignored that detail until then. “The same way you can have two shadows.” replied Lielle. “We are shadows, so as long as there is a Leliel near us, we exist.” “Okay, right.” said Twilight, who could have guessed that part, “But you each had a body before you began fighting, right?” And having said that, she immediately caught on what had made the second white sphere disappear, and she bit her lips for having asked the question. “Leilel sure had a body somewhere too.” replied Lielle, losing his last piece of sanity. “But that ophicleide lost it in an explosion in the forest. I was there, I saw it.” “It’s false! All lies!” responded Leilel with fury. “It’s Lielle who lost his body to that explosion and now he wants mine to replace it.” They were way too far gone to even care anymore and certainly wouldn’t admit that they were both napping near each other when the ball of energy Twilight had launched by mistake had come upon them and that, after they had recovered from the blast, shadows being really hard to hurt, they could only find one of the white sphere back no matter how hard they looked and therefore had concluded the second one had been destroyed by the magical blast. Had Twilight known that, she could have gone there and searched the whole perimeter. Had she then used a magical detection spell to search onto another dimension, she could have detected the being from the lost sphere and, with another complicated spell, could have maybe made the second sphere come back to that dimension. But she would never know that, probably wouldn’t have thought to search into another dimension, didn’t know that spell anyway and maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have worked anyway. In other words, this wasn’t helping and both Lielle and Leilel were losing their internal fight against the inner violent wrath that was devouring them. “Why don’t we go outside of the town and try to solve the whole thing peacefully?” asked Twilight. “At least if it doesn’t work, you won’t involve anypony else.” “I fear it’s useless.” replied Lielle with despair in his voice. “And why is that?” asked back Twilight, afraid of what could possibly make the situation worse. “What that low life moricaud is saying…” began Leilel unable to restrain his agressivity for his peer anymore, “…is that unless one of us defeats the other, we will keep on growing and you’ll get involved eventually. But if you can convince Lielle to give up on his claim onto my body, everything is going to be fine for everybody.” he finished with hope. “No.” said Lielle. “The only way to make everything fine is to explain to that imbecile that he should stop being stupid and just accept that it is my body to begin with, that it has always been my body and always will be!” the Leliel roared without any trace of goodness left in his voice. Twilight was stuck with two violent monsters and no way to calm them down as they had a very good reason to keep on fighting. She sighed. She could see the bestiality had taken over in the creatures’ eyes and understood it wouldn’t be long until even the threat of the white sphere destruction wouldn’t hold them back anymore. Also, she didn’t want to destroy the white sphere at all. Killing them had never been an option: it was all just some bluff. She had another plan in head, but it wasn’t much better, so she had to keep it as a last resort. She had to try one last thing beforehand. Not that it had much chance to work, but she had to try it. “I am Twilight Sparkle.” the alicorn decided to tell the two monsters with the most imperial voice she could find in her and trying to look as impressive as possible. “I am a royal princess of Equestria and it is my duty to protect the ponies and creatures living in that land.” Neither of the two monsters made any sign of backing down. “I am giving you one last chance.” Twilight shouted almost as an order to comply. “Please, just please stop this madness. Stop fighting, learn to tolerate each other, to live with each other. Even if it’s not easy. Even if you don’t want to. For your sake and for everypony’s sake.” She could see that her words meant nothing to the two beasts in front of her. Even more, they grew bigger, becoming literally monstrous, to the size of dragons, with multiple tentacles legs, multiple heteroclite heads and claws. Two chaotic monsters with no other purpose but to destroy. Still, Twilight finished: “If you don’t back down right now, come back to your normal size and stop threatening each other and everypony around you, then be warned that I’ll make sure you won’t be able to make any threat anymore, forever.” She barely evaded the acid thrown at her for all response, flew between the claws and heads that were trying to tear her into pieces and threw the white sphere at the two beasts so that they would fight each other instead of her. She then flew to the town hall, ordered Ponyville to be evacuated and prepared herself to find all of her friends. She didn’t have to go very far as they were all here, had seen everything and heard everything. “Alright Twilight…” said Rainbow Dash who had every confidence in the ability of the alicorn to solve everything. “What do we do now?” she asked. “Now we give up.” replied Twilight. “And we retaliate.” she added with a firm resolution. The shadow of a solution“Hum…Isn’t there any other way?” asked Fluttershy who was against pitying the two monsters. “I’m afraid there isn’t. We can’t let them threaten us any further.” replied Twilight. “So what are we waiting for?” asked Rainbow Dash, who was more than willing to act. The six friends focused and called the power of the rainbow to transform them, which it did. Twilight felt the huge power under her control and knew she was ready to do what had to be done. “Let’s finish it.” she told her friends. They approached the two beasts that had transformed Ponyville into a field of ruins and ashes, then caught their attention and unleashed the power of the rainbow on them into one powerful blast, as Twilight was focusing to master the effect of the miracle tool at their disposal. When the rainbow disappeared, all the six ponies set hoof on the ground again and looked at the two tiny shrew mice standing before them and fighting for the white sphere that was as big as they were. “So… what now?” asked Applejack. “Won’t they just grow huge and threaten everything once again?” “No, they won’t.” replied Twilight. “I’m deeply sorry.” she added at the intention of the two tiny creatures. They never replied. They only began to fade away and both the two shrew mice and the white sphere disappeared, replaced by a single crystal. “What is it?” asked Applebloom, who had come along with pretty much every pony else from Ponyville. “A prison. A dimension filled with only void for them to fight as much as they want for all eternity.” explained Twilight. “I have no idea what is going to happen to them. Maybe they will happen to learn to live together. Maybe not… I wish I could have helped them. In the end I couldn’t.” She wasn’t really mourning the loss of the two Leliels. She hadn’t known the creatures for long enough to mourn them. She was, however, feeling very guilty not only for having been the cause of the whole fight, but for not having found any other solution than throwing the problem away like that. It was feeling like a great failure. At least for the alicorn, as well as for her close friends who understood her thoughts. The other ponies, however, were cheering for the fact the two monsters were gone and even if they would have gladly passed on having to rebuild Ponyville, they were feeling everything was for the best and even began singing, both praising the princess and her friends who had protected the town and to give themselves encouragements to work hard. Applebloom came to her big sister, followed by Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo who had learned about everything too. “I guess I couldn’t help them after all.” she said. “Well…” replied the big sister. “Sometimes, things do not go the way you want. They had decided to solve their problem with violence and that path can only end into a disaster anyway as it implies someone has to lose in the end, and usually everpony loses in the end.” “Is that why you told us not to fight at school?” asked Applebloom. “Yes.” answered Applejack. “That’s exactly the reason why. Fighting never solves anything, it just creates more problem in the long run.” Applebloom and her two filly friends nodded in silence, trying to learn the lesson. The rest of the week was used by the whole town to rebuild everything and in the end the town looked even more beautiful than before, the sun was shining high and strong, providing what was quite a beautiful day in Equestria. In her laboratory, Twilight successfully created the new ice cream flavor she had been working on and somewhere near the school, Diamond Tiara was taunting the three cutie mark crusaders. “You know.” said the little brat, “Perseverance is a quality, but there is a point where even the dumbest of dumb pony should see that it is time to give up. I mean, how many years had it been that you are still trying to get those cutie marks of yours? You should know by now that you are destined to be blank flanks forever.” Scootaloo just clenched her teeth together and Sweetie Belle just breathed as best as she could to ignore the insults. As for Applebloom, she was just looking down on the ground to focus on the little rocks and the dust. “Just admit you have no special talent.” said Diamond Tiara. “It will make you life easier.” Those rocks were highly interesting by the way. So many different shapes. “Because you aren’t special. That is, if you don’t take how prone to failure you are.” the filly kept on taunting. Legend says Luna had only rocks as companions during her exile. Applebloom was discovering why rock observation can occupy a thousand years of solitude. “You know, if you need more ideas to make yourself look ridicule, I’ve got quite a few that would fit you just right.” The existence of rocks is also something Applebloom had never thought about. Who had created them? Why were they created the way they were? Could a rock be sentient? Could a rock feel something? Have emotions? “You have never tried to be clowns for example, when you are very good at making ponies laugh at you.” How would a rock who could feel emotion live with itself? Being a rock means you can’t interact with the world around you. A sentient rock would just be like being thrown into a cell and being ripped from all freedom, ripped from the right to exist. “Or you could try to be statues. You would be very ugly statues, but it would be hard to fail at that, even for you…” Being free is important. Free to move around, free to speak, free to exist, and free to act when it is necessary to act. Applebloom certainly didn’t want to become a simple sentient rock. “Why don’t you try to make a flying balloon? It wouldn’t probably leave the ground, but all three of you are all already used to that, aren’t you?” She actually never got to say those last words, because of a violent pain that had appeared into her jaw. And then another violent pain into her forehead and another violent pain into her chest. Applebloom was hitting as hard and violently as she could, unleashing all the rage and frustration she had accumulated against Diamond Tiara in every single blow she was able to make. By chance, both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, as well as Silver Spoon, intervened to separate the two fillies and Diamond Tiara and her accomplice ran away as fast as they could to go complain to their parents about what had happened and find the comfort of a loving family they needed. “What has gotten into you?” asked Scootaloo. “Don’t you remember what your big sister said? Haven’t we learned anything at all?” “I’m sorry…” replied Applebloom. A little silence ensued, and then she added: “But no, I didn’t.” THE END Author's Note I guess I shouldn't write about politic at all. On the other hand, it wasn't supposed to have a political interpretation to begin with, and can still be seen at a more individual level. Even took away the whole ambassador's ark. It was very hard to make a good ending with that story. It was originally supposed to end pretty well, as the elements of harmony (well, here the rainbow power as it appeared in between) would help the two creatures to learn how to live with each other. I guess I just can't envision a good ending right now and, also, it seemed too simple of a solution and asked way more questions (like isn't using magic to make people like each other taking away their freedom not to like each other...?) Oh well, wasted a lot of time writing that story, probably was worth it anyway no matter what happen when I push the submit button. At least I've reached my thirty complete stories goal now.
Where it’s once again all Twilight’s faultAuthor's Note Here, last of the thirty stories... Can't believe how much time I spent to write that one and how hard it was. It might not be a great story, it might not even be a good story, but I like how it turned out and I really tried to make it appealing to more than just myself. Where it’s once again all Twilight’s fault Twilight was standing in the middle of the room, frustrated, her frowny face on, just looking at the floor in the hope it would help her cut any link with reality and save her from the feeling of stupidity and shame. “Well, at least it’s a beautiful day in Equestria…” said Spike, who had just entered the room and quickly understood why he had heard an explosion. Twilight didn’t move. It was true that the sun was beautiful in the sky, and its sun rays were warm on her fur. It didn’t change, nonetheless, how frustrated she was feeling. “You know, the more time I pass in this castle, the better I find the view from up here.” Spike added, while looking over the edge of the room’s floor onto Ponyville below. Twilight remained still, but frowned a little more. She didn’t like at all Spike’s remark, but couldn’t, at the same time, say he was wrong to make it. She would have just wished nothing had happened and that she wouldn’t have had to bear such a situation. “You aren’t hurt, are you?” Spike asked, worried by the alicorn’s silence. She made a sign with her head to tell that she had nothing, not even a scratch, if it were to ignore the guilt and shame she was feeling and that violent will to blame destiny for such a stupid event. “I’ll tell the servants to repair the ceiling and the walls. Don’t worry, the lab’ will be ready for you to waste your time with in the blink of an eye.” the dragon tried to comfort the pony. It worked a little. Mostly because it was showing Twilight that her assistant wanted to help her more than he wanted to make fun of her for what had happened. He was a brave dragon and a very good friend. Other in his place would have just spent an hour rolling on the floor laughing. By chance, Rainbow Dash wasn’t anywhere near, but Twilight knew she would have to go through the hilarity of the pegasus once she would have heard the news. It didn’t matter. Finally accepting her fate and ready to go forward, Twilight chased away her frown and found a smile from deep within, then stood up. “Thanks Spike. I know I can rely on you.” she told the dragon. She began to walk away, to go to bed and sulk a bit as Spike deduced, knowing the mare very well after all those years. The thing was, she couldn’t get used to failing spells that badly. It had even become sort of a curse in her mind. A good curse when considering all those great adventures that failing a spell had triggered, but a curse nonetheless that she would have lived very happily without. Spike looked at her slowly going away and hesitated for a little moment, but finally decided to ask: “Hum… just to know, by pure curiosity… what were you working on this time?” Twilight turned back and sighed. There were still little parts of the ceiling falling down, the whole room was a mess and the hole created by the ball of magical energy could have made her believe there had been a war going on there. She hesitated to give the dragon an answer, as her assistant had well deserved an answer, but she was, at the same time, feeling sort of aggressed by the question, as it reminded her of the event itself. She sighed again, and, with a smile, simply replied: “Ice cream.” She then left the room, letting for Spike to determine if she was serious or joking… The dragon thought about it, saw no way he could know the truth and decided to wait until Twilight would be ready to take it less seriously. He looked outside once again. It was clear a magical projectile had made the hole in the laboratory. It was also relieving that the projectile had flown away in the direction of the everfree forest. He could see a little trail of smoke coming out of the middle of the trees, probably from where the projectile had finished its course. Spike smiled. It was nowhere near where Zecora was living and away from anypony, so, in the end, he could be certain that nopony had been harmed whatsoever. The dragon laughed and left the room too, in order to go seek the servants and make the repairs he had promised to Twilight, until the next time she would blow everything up. He shut what was left of the door behind him, ignoring that problems were just beginning.
The Leliels, Lielle and Leilel“Give it back!” shouted Applebloom with anger. She was referring to a piece of paper Sweetie Belle had written on and that both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were playing with, holding it away from the three cutie mark crusaders and making fun of them. “If you want it, just come and get it!” provoked Diamond Tiara with a grin. Applebloom would have loved to, Scootaloo too. But not only was there Sweetie Belle’s look to make them remember that violence was not an answer: both Applejack and Rainbow Dash had made it clear that there should be no resorting to fighting unless they were attacked first. So the three fillies were pretty much stuck with only observing and, but they wouldn’t do that, begging. Diamond Tiara knew that fact very well and was taking every advantage of it. She was having a great pleasure in taunting the three friends. And in some way, she couldn’t believe that they were really not reacting to her taunting and wanted to see how far she could go with it. Just like a child. That she actually was. “Give it back…” Applebloom repeated, knowing it was useless, but to have the feeling she wasn’t completely powerless. Her request got completely ignored with a laugh for all reply, and, after a few more taunts, Diamond Tiara ripped the piece of paper apart and threw it into a garbage can. Then, hiding how incredible she was finding that nothing had happened to her, she just walked away with Silver Spoon, adding some more insults and even throwing a bit of mud at the three fillies who just stood there, completely stuck between their peaceful minds, their loyalty to their big sisters and that strong and deep envy to just go and beat the hell out of those they were considering their enemies. “Let’s go home…” just said Sweetie Belle, while trying to hide that she was crying. “They aren’t worth it anyway.” It was another way of saying that she wanted to go find her family and the comfort that was going with it. So they all parted ways and Applebloom saw her two friends going away, as she herself began her journey back to the farm. “Give it back!” shouted a tiny shrieking voice around the filly. “No way, it’s mine, take your paws out of it!” shouted a second tiny shrieking voice. Applebloom looked around, but saw nopony. She was about to ask herself if she was hearing voices before she suddenly felt something running along her body, quickly followed by something else. The filly immediately screamed out of panic and began rolling on the floor to get rid of whatever had been climbing her. After a few rolls, she felt nothing anymore and simmered down. She took back the control of her breath and sighed out of relief. “You see what you did?” said one of the little voices, startling the filly once again. “It’s all your fault.” “Hey!” said the other voice. “I’m not the one to blame here. You are the one trying to steal from me!” This time, Applebloom saw, just aside from her, two squirrels that weren’t giving her much attention anymore as they were quarreling once more. The filly also saw a sort of white sphere that both squirrels were holding and that was clearly the core of their dispute. “Hum… excuse me.” asked the filly, not sure how to handle the situation, but very curious about what was going on and even more, why she could suddenly speak squirrel. The two pets stopped fighting and turned to the filly, not without still assuring a firm grasp onto the white sphere. “Who are you?” asked Applebloom, who thought at first that it was the best question to ask. But then she decided there was more important information to get and she began asking other questions before the first one could be answered: “And why are you fighting over that thing? Why did you jump on me like that? What are you doing in Ponyville? How come we can speak together? Do you understand me like I understand you?” “Yes!” replied one of the squirrels to make the flow of questions stop. “Yes we can understand you, why wouldn’t we?” “Well…” began Applebloom, who was asking herself if it wasn’t supposed to be common sense and if she wasn’t missing something there. “It’s kind of not normal for squirrels to talk like ponies. You usually just make some squeaking noises.” Both pets looked at each other and then looked back at Applebloom with a sorry smile. “That’s because we are not squirrels.” one of them said. “We happen to be Leliels.” the other explained. “What is a Leliel?” naturally asked Applebloom, more confused than before. The two squirrel looking creatures showed the white sphere between their paws and that they were fighting for. “That’s a Leliel.” they both said in unison. “Okay… so you are two squirrels holding a white sphere called a Leliel...?” Applebloom asked, in the hope she might understand. The two creatures laughed. “No. We are two Leliels holding one of us.” one of them said. But it was clear the filly had no idea what they were talking about. So they decided to explain more clearly, at least as clearly as they could, as Leliels happened to be very good, polite and gentle creatures as long as treated nicely and politely too. “I’m Lielle.” said one of the creatures. “And I’m Leilel.” said the other one. “We are Leliels. What you call a white sphere is actually us. It’s a Leliel.” began Lielle “You see us as squirrels, but those are merely…” the creature tried to think of the best way to explain how they were emotional reflects of the internal subconscious of alterdimentional beings in the simplest manner without being too complicated for the filly to understand: “…our shadows.” she said as an analogy, “Each Leliel has a shadow that reflects the Leliel.” Applebloom was nodding with her muzzle, but had actually not understood one bit of what had been said. Nonetheless, the word shadow made her realize that none of the two squirrel actually had any shadow whatsoever, which was incredibly creepy, but was also comforting in that the two creatures were definitely no normal squirrels. So there was something the filly could tell herself she had understood after all. “So… why are you fighting? For your shadow?” the filly asked, still very curious. “Sort of.” replied Leilel. “You see…” The creature thought about how to make it easy to understand, but Lielle took upon herself to say: “It’s very simple actually. You have a shadow, haven’t you?” she asked Applebloom. “Yes, of course I do.” the filly replied. “Now what would happen to your shadow if you were to disappear?” Lielle asked. “I’m not going to disappear.” responded Applebloom, who was trying to figure out if she was being threatened or what could possibly make her suddenly disappear. “What Lielle is trying to tell you…” Leilel said, coming to the rescue, “…is that without you, there would be no shadow, the same way that without our Leliel, we wouldn’t exist.” One day, long, very long ago, Celestia tried to explain the theory of general relativity to a pony that was, like every other pony back in the time, living in a cave and afraid of fire. But even that particular pony was less confused by Celestia’s explanations than Applebloom was by what the two creatures were saying. Mostly because the filly was feeling she could understand it and therefore, contrarily to her ancient ancestor, was genuinely trying to figure out what was said to her. “Without the white sphere, we cease to exist.” said Lielle, out of despair, going for the biggest simplification of the situation she was able to make. Now that was something the filly could understand. And it was also was easier to see why those two had been fighting for the white sphere. Survival is kind of a good reason if there had to be one. Seeing that the filly’s curiosity was sort of satisfied, at least enough so that it wouldn’t be impolite anymore to let her wonder about the rest, Leilel said: “Now, if you would please excuse us, I have to teach that thief not to steal what doesn’t belong to him.” “You’re a thief, you big apophtegme !” replied Lielle, using an insult from the Leliels’ culture which meaning I prefer not to unveil here, as it was very rude. They immediately began to fight each other like before, completely ignoring Applebloom and trying by any mean possible to take the white sphere out of the other’s paws. “Hey, wait!” shouted Applebloom, worried about the two Leliels. Being the very kind and polite beings that they were, they stopped fighting once again and listened to what the filly had to say. “You shouldn’t be fighting like that. It’s not good. My sister always says that there is no conflict that can’t be solved by talking around an apple pie. Why don’t you come to the farm with me and maybe you’ll be able to solve your problem without hurting each other.” The Leliels looked at each other and agreed that they should try to resolve their problem peacefully if there was a chance to do it so, even if they doubted there was any peaceful solution at all. It was in their nature to at least give a chance to a good proposition. “I just don’t know how much more time we can hold it.” commented Lielle. Applebloom assured them it would be all okay, figuring out the squirrel was probably referencing to their precious sphere. So both Lielle and Leilel followed Applebloom on her way back to the farm, as quietly as they could but making sure that they wouldn’t let loose of the white sphere.
Give peace a chance...“…I see.” said Twilight, as Applebloom was taking her back to the farm. “But if they were willing to solve their quarrel peacefully, why do you need my help for again?” “Well, it’s just that none of us found a good solution, so Applejack said I should go find you, because she said you’re very smart and it’s true you’re very smart so I agreed and I came to your new castle and I asked you to come.” Applebloom was having fun at that point, even if she didn’t really know why. For her, it didn’t really matter. Having fun was satisfying enough to not search for a cause or an explanation. Happy people who try to figure out why they are happy usually aren’t to begin with. “How come you didn’t find any solution?” Twilight asked, curious to know more before arriving on the scene. Applebloom look down. Not because she was sad, as she wasn’t, but because she was trying to remember what had happened three hours ago when she had come back, showed the creatures to her family, and when they had all sat down around the table with a good apple pie in the middle. It hadn’t gone so smoothly to be honest, mostly because Applejack had corrected Applebloom on the famous quote the filly had used. The real quote originally came from Braeburn and it said that there is no conflict that cannot be solved with an apple pie, which was quite a different philosophy altogether. Nonetheless, the farm pony had accepted to host those “negociations” as she wasn’t the kind not to lend a hoof if she had the possibility to. Then stuff became very boring and Applebloom lost a lot of her focus. She could still remember things. Applejack was sitting at her right. Lielle and Leilel were sitting in front of them, still holding their precious sphere. The pie in the middle was still too hot to eat yet. “So…” Lielle began that conversation. “The easiest way to solve all this is for you to convince Leilel to stop trying to steal my body and I will forget everything about that incident.” “What?” rhetorically asked back Leilel. “If we want all this to be peacefully resolved, you should begin by stopping to try to lure people into lies. And when you’ll be done doing that, you will only have to give me back my body, apologize for trying to steal it and I’ll forget everything about the incident.” “Huluberlu!” Lielle insulted Leilel. “Ecornifleur!” Leilel insulted back Lielle. The pie was cooling down slower than the atmosphere was heating up, but there was something funny to see those two little squirrels looking creatures argue and threaten each other with their tiny shrieking voices. They were sort of cute. Applejack internally noted that maybe she had understood a part of why Fluttershy loved taking care of animals so much. “Wait just a moment.” the orange earth pony told the two Leliels. “Couldn’t you share that white sphere of yours?” Both creatures looked at her with surprised eyes. “What do you mean share? How could we share a body?” asked Lielle. “Well, one of you could take it for a week and then the other one could take it the next week and so on… that way you would both have it and the problem is solved!” joyfully said Applejack with a great smile, certain to have made a very reasonable and sound proposition. Lielle looked at Leilel and Leilel looked at Lielle, both communicating through their looks how stupid they were judging the orange pony, but also their disarray to reply as they were too polite to say it directly. “I don’t think you understand the problem.” tried to say Leilel with a compassionate tone. “Here, take a piece of pie.” said Lielle, with the same tone one would use to comfort a little child. That moment was etched in Applebloom’s mind for some reason. She didn’t know which one because she was just too young to understand what had happened, but had enough instinct to subconsciously understand that Applejack, who was supposed to be the mediator in the quarrel, had lost every bit of credibility with that very single proposition. The rest of the conversation was more blurred. It was always following the same path again and again. The two Leliels would argue and threaten each other, demanding for the other to back down, then Applejack would come up with a proposition and both creatures would reject it, usually in a very condescending way. And quickly, Applejack came to panic. She was out of ideas. Sharing the sphere hadn’t worked. Splitting the sphere hadn’t worked. Locking the sphere somewhere hadn’t worked. Creating a new sphere had only created some harsh laughter and the Leliels didn’t even responded when she proposed that they both give up on the white sphere. At that point, she had woken Applebloom up from her daydreaming and had asked for Twilight’s help, as it had become clear to her that she wasn’t fit to help those two creatures. Even more, she was getting worried as both Leliels were getting angrier and angrier by the minute, treating each other of all sorts of bird’s names and showing some strong signs of agressivity. “Don’t worry.” Twilight told Applebloom, as they arrived near the farm’s door. “I’m sure everything is going to be just fine.” She opened the door and immediately reevaluated her statement as a cat and a dog jumped right in front of her, clearly pursuing each other in a very loud and chaotic way. All around them, the room was a gigantic mess. They had clearly run and jumped everywhere, breaking the furniture, the lamps, the everything. And in a corner, barricaded behind the table, were Applejack, Big Mac and Granny Smith who had preferred to stand back in order to not get hurt and, also, not to hurt anypony, hoping for the two creatures to simmer down out of exhaustion. “Twilight!” happily shouted Applejack. “Quick, do something, those two are unmanageable.” The alicorn focused her magic and stop both animals in their pursuit, lifting them into the air. “Hey! Let me go!” shouted the dog to Twilight’s surprise. “I have to take it back, there isn’t much more time!” “Could somepony explain to me what is going on? Where are the two squirrels?” she asked, before quickly realizing that her questions were kind of useless as it was pretty easy to figure out who those two animals were and how the negotiations had ended up. Nonetheless, Applejack decided to reply: “I’m not sure to know. We were still talking, well, they were pretty much just arguing with each other, when I finally came up with another idea. So I proposed that if they didn’t want to let go of the white sphere, they should just accept to live together.” Twilight was about to make a comment about that proposition, mostly that there should be a better solution, as being forced to live with someone else can be very difficult, but decided not to as she knew she should better not say anything before being certain she was understanding the situation completely. “Never!” shouted Lielle, who was the dog. “I would rather live with a skunk than to spend one day in that kanak!” “And I would rather bath everyday into a giant’s worm saliva than to have to put up with that pignouf’s existence!” shouted Leilel who was the cat and holding the white sphere into one of her paws. And then, very naturally, in order to get the information she needed, Twilight asked the one question she shouldn’t have, just as Applejack had done before her, before the same Applejack could prevent her to. “No, don’t!” shouted Applejack, in vain, as Twilight just asked the words: “But why?” It sounded like an explosion. Both Lielle and Leilel were shouting at each other, enraged at each other and told what they had on their hearts in a very honest way: “Because he is nothing but a bloody lying, stealing, good for nothing, dangerous, betraying and stinking monster that wants me dead!” shouted Leilel on his side. “Because he is nothing but a thief, a liar, a traitor, a parasite and the worst kind of Leliel there can be and I’m going to make sure she will never threaten me anymore!” shouted Lielle with a deadly look and a loud barking, certain to be bigger and stronger than the cat in front of her. “Is that so?” replied Leilel with a grin. And suddenly, the cat he was began to grow very quickly and became a big monstrous bear. Surprised, Twilight lost her focus and her spell broke, freeing both animals who immediately attacked each other, as the dog grew into a giant wolf. Both Twilight and Applebloom jumped behind the table with the rest of the apple family, but then heard a loud noise, felt the vibration of the flour and the walls around them and, when they looked over the table, saw a giant hole where the door previously was, as both Leliels were gone. “It’s bad…Those two are really going to hurt each other.” stated Applejack. But Twilight had another worry in head, seeing how those creatures were growing and how aggressive they were. She told the apple family to stay indoors, knowing only too well both Applejack and Applebloom would follow her anyway, and then rushed outside in the hope she could act before the matter would get any more serious.
One last chanceSomehow, the presence of a giant bear and a giant wolf fighting in the middle of the streets of Ponyville wasn’t making a very good impression on the ponies who were running everywhere for cover, screaming in terror and asking for help. Twilight easily followed the trail of destruction left behind by the two Leliels and, when the destruction became too big to really follow, oriented herself on the sounds of stuff breaking and ponies screaming to find out the location of the two creatures. She caught up with them near the town hall where a lot of ponies had found refuge. But Lielle wasn’t a wolf anymore. He had grown into a giant two headed ogre, as tall as a house, and Leilel had changed from a bear to a giant lizard with teeth and claws. Twilight saw the white sphere in the ogre’s hand and decided that she had only one way to stop those two before they would crush the whole town. As both Leliels charged onto each other under the horrified looks of the ponies in the town hall, Twilight teleported right on the ogre’s hand, forced it open with her magic and took the white sphere away with her as she took some distance from the two monsters. “Hey, give it back!” shouted Lielle, ready to attack Twilight and growing some spikes onto his back. Leilel also turned into Twilight’s direction with the clear intention to reduce the little pony into smithereens in order to retrieve the sphere. “If you come any closer, I’ll destroy your precious… thing!” threatened Twilight, realizing she still wasn’t sure to know what it was she was holding. He threat worked and both creatures stopped their advance. “What do you want?” they asked the alicorn. “This doesn’t concern you.” The tone was harsh, but there were still some traces of care and gentleness in it. “You are going to hurt each other if you keep on fighting.” told them Twilight. “Even more, you’re going to destroy our town if you don’t stop.” The ogre and the lizard looked at each other and at the buildings around them and realized what was going on. “I’m sorry.” said Leilel in a sudden last fit of goodness that broke under the monster’s rage. “I really am. I don’t want to do any harm, I assure you that I never would if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.” Lielle was feeling the same way. They were clearly pained by the idea of involving other creatures into their fight, even after having transformed into such beasts. “Can you help us, please?” implored both Leliels. “We really need help, this has gone way too far already and I can’t stop anymore. Maybe it’s not too late already.” added Leilel while feeling it actually was. Twilight thought about everything she knew about those creatures, but found nothing that could help her. Still, she persevered and began asking questions about the Leliels and forced them to explain everything all over again. Which still wasn’t helping much and made both creatures even more nervous, but helped Twilight understand that there was no way a Leliel could live without his body, and therefore no way a Leliel would leave without his body. “How come there is only one white sphere for the both of you?” asked Twilight, having ignored that detail until then. “The same way you can have two shadows.” replied Lielle. “We are shadows, so as long as there is a Leliel near us, we exist.” “Okay, right.” said Twilight, who could have guessed that part, “But you each had a body before you began fighting, right?” And having said that, she immediately caught on what had made the second white sphere disappear, and she bit her lips for having asked the question. “Leilel sure had a body somewhere too.” replied Lielle, losing his last piece of sanity. “But that ophicleide lost it in an explosion in the forest. I was there, I saw it.” “It’s false! All lies!” responded Leilel with fury. “It’s Lielle who lost his body to that explosion and now he wants mine to replace it.” They were way too far gone to even care anymore and certainly wouldn’t admit that they were both napping near each other when the ball of energy Twilight had launched by mistake had come upon them and that, after they had recovered from the blast, shadows being really hard to hurt, they could only find one of the white sphere back no matter how hard they looked and therefore had concluded the second one had been destroyed by the magical blast. Had Twilight known that, she could have gone there and searched the whole perimeter. Had she then used a magical detection spell to search onto another dimension, she could have detected the being from the lost sphere and, with another complicated spell, could have maybe made the second sphere come back to that dimension. But she would never know that, probably wouldn’t have thought to search into another dimension, didn’t know that spell anyway and maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have worked anyway. In other words, this wasn’t helping and both Lielle and Leilel were losing their internal fight against the inner violent wrath that was devouring them. “Why don’t we go outside of the town and try to solve the whole thing peacefully?” asked Twilight. “At least if it doesn’t work, you won’t involve anypony else.” “I fear it’s useless.” replied Lielle with despair in his voice. “And why is that?” asked back Twilight, afraid of what could possibly make the situation worse. “What that low life moricaud is saying…” began Leilel unable to restrain his agressivity for his peer anymore, “…is that unless one of us defeats the other, we will keep on growing and you’ll get involved eventually. But if you can convince Lielle to give up on his claim onto my body, everything is going to be fine for everybody.” he finished with hope. “No.” said Lielle. “The only way to make everything fine is to explain to that imbecile that he should stop being stupid and just accept that it is my body to begin with, that it has always been my body and always will be!” the Leliel roared without any trace of goodness left in his voice. Twilight was stuck with two violent monsters and no way to calm them down as they had a very good reason to keep on fighting. She sighed. She could see the bestiality had taken over in the creatures’ eyes and understood it wouldn’t be long until even the threat of the white sphere destruction wouldn’t hold them back anymore. Also, she didn’t want to destroy the white sphere at all. Killing them had never been an option: it was all just some bluff. She had another plan in head, but it wasn’t much better, so she had to keep it as a last resort. She had to try one last thing beforehand. Not that it had much chance to work, but she had to try it. “I am Twilight Sparkle.” the alicorn decided to tell the two monsters with the most imperial voice she could find in her and trying to look as impressive as possible. “I am a royal princess of Equestria and it is my duty to protect the ponies and creatures living in that land.” Neither of the two monsters made any sign of backing down. “I am giving you one last chance.” Twilight shouted almost as an order to comply. “Please, just please stop this madness. Stop fighting, learn to tolerate each other, to live with each other. Even if it’s not easy. Even if you don’t want to. For your sake and for everypony’s sake.” She could see that her words meant nothing to the two beasts in front of her. Even more, they grew bigger, becoming literally monstrous, to the size of dragons, with multiple tentacles legs, multiple heteroclite heads and claws. Two chaotic monsters with no other purpose but to destroy. Still, Twilight finished: “If you don’t back down right now, come back to your normal size and stop threatening each other and everypony around you, then be warned that I’ll make sure you won’t be able to make any threat anymore, forever.” She barely evaded the acid thrown at her for all response, flew between the claws and heads that were trying to tear her into pieces and threw the white sphere at the two beasts so that they would fight each other instead of her. She then flew to the town hall, ordered Ponyville to be evacuated and prepared herself to find all of her friends. She didn’t have to go very far as they were all here, had seen everything and heard everything. “Alright Twilight…” said Rainbow Dash who had every confidence in the ability of the alicorn to solve everything. “What do we do now?” she asked. “Now we give up.” replied Twilight. “And we retaliate.” she added with a firm resolution.
The shadow of a solution“Hum…Isn’t there any other way?” asked Fluttershy who was against pitying the two monsters. “I’m afraid there isn’t. We can’t let them threaten us any further.” replied Twilight. “So what are we waiting for?” asked Rainbow Dash, who was more than willing to act. The six friends focused and called the power of the rainbow to transform them, which it did. Twilight felt the huge power under her control and knew she was ready to do what had to be done. “Let’s finish it.” she told her friends. They approached the two beasts that had transformed Ponyville into a field of ruins and ashes, then caught their attention and unleashed the power of the rainbow on them into one powerful blast, as Twilight was focusing to master the effect of the miracle tool at their disposal. When the rainbow disappeared, all the six ponies set hoof on the ground again and looked at the two tiny shrew mice standing before them and fighting for the white sphere that was as big as they were. “So… what now?” asked Applejack. “Won’t they just grow huge and threaten everything once again?” “No, they won’t.” replied Twilight. “I’m deeply sorry.” she added at the intention of the two tiny creatures. They never replied. They only began to fade away and both the two shrew mice and the white sphere disappeared, replaced by a single crystal. “What is it?” asked Applebloom, who had come along with pretty much every pony else from Ponyville. “A prison. A dimension filled with only void for them to fight as much as they want for all eternity.” explained Twilight. “I have no idea what is going to happen to them. Maybe they will happen to learn to live together. Maybe not… I wish I could have helped them. In the end I couldn’t.” She wasn’t really mourning the loss of the two Leliels. She hadn’t known the creatures for long enough to mourn them. She was, however, feeling very guilty not only for having been the cause of the whole fight, but for not having found any other solution than throwing the problem away like that. It was feeling like a great failure. At least for the alicorn, as well as for her close friends who understood her thoughts. The other ponies, however, were cheering for the fact the two monsters were gone and even if they would have gladly passed on having to rebuild Ponyville, they were feeling everything was for the best and even began singing, both praising the princess and her friends who had protected the town and to give themselves encouragements to work hard. Applebloom came to her big sister, followed by Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo who had learned about everything too. “I guess I couldn’t help them after all.” she said. “Well…” replied the big sister. “Sometimes, things do not go the way you want. They had decided to solve their problem with violence and that path can only end into a disaster anyway as it implies someone has to lose in the end, and usually everpony loses in the end.” “Is that why you told us not to fight at school?” asked Applebloom. “Yes.” answered Applejack. “That’s exactly the reason why. Fighting never solves anything, it just creates more problem in the long run.” Applebloom and her two filly friends nodded in silence, trying to learn the lesson. The rest of the week was used by the whole town to rebuild everything and in the end the town looked even more beautiful than before, the sun was shining high and strong, providing what was quite a beautiful day in Equestria. In her laboratory, Twilight successfully created the new ice cream flavor she had been working on and somewhere near the school, Diamond Tiara was taunting the three cutie mark crusaders. “You know.” said the little brat, “Perseverance is a quality, but there is a point where even the dumbest of dumb pony should see that it is time to give up. I mean, how many years had it been that you are still trying to get those cutie marks of yours? You should know by now that you are destined to be blank flanks forever.” Scootaloo just clenched her teeth together and Sweetie Belle just breathed as best as she could to ignore the insults. As for Applebloom, she was just looking down on the ground to focus on the little rocks and the dust. “Just admit you have no special talent.” said Diamond Tiara. “It will make you life easier.” Those rocks were highly interesting by the way. So many different shapes. “Because you aren’t special. That is, if you don’t take how prone to failure you are.” the filly kept on taunting. Legend says Luna had only rocks as companions during her exile. Applebloom was discovering why rock observation can occupy a thousand years of solitude. “You know, if you need more ideas to make yourself look ridicule, I’ve got quite a few that would fit you just right.” The existence of rocks is also something Applebloom had never thought about. Who had created them? Why were they created the way they were? Could a rock be sentient? Could a rock feel something? Have emotions? “You have never tried to be clowns for example, when you are very good at making ponies laugh at you.” How would a rock who could feel emotion live with itself? Being a rock means you can’t interact with the world around you. A sentient rock would just be like being thrown into a cell and being ripped from all freedom, ripped from the right to exist. “Or you could try to be statues. You would be very ugly statues, but it would be hard to fail at that, even for you…” Being free is important. Free to move around, free to speak, free to exist, and free to act when it is necessary to act. Applebloom certainly didn’t want to become a simple sentient rock. “Why don’t you try to make a flying balloon? It wouldn’t probably leave the ground, but all three of you are all already used to that, aren’t you?” She actually never got to say those last words, because of a violent pain that had appeared into her jaw. And then another violent pain into her forehead and another violent pain into her chest. Applebloom was hitting as hard and violently as she could, unleashing all the rage and frustration she had accumulated against Diamond Tiara in every single blow she was able to make. By chance, both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, as well as Silver Spoon, intervened to separate the two fillies and Diamond Tiara and her accomplice ran away as fast as they could to go complain to their parents about what had happened and find the comfort of a loving family they needed. “What has gotten into you?” asked Scootaloo. “Don’t you remember what your big sister said? Haven’t we learned anything at all?” “I’m sorry…” replied Applebloom. A little silence ensued, and then she added: “But no, I didn’t.” THE END Author's Note I guess I shouldn't write about politic at all. On the other hand, it wasn't supposed to have a political interpretation to begin with, and can still be seen at a more individual level. Even took away the whole ambassador's ark. It was very hard to make a good ending with that story. It was originally supposed to end pretty well, as the elements of harmony (well, here the rainbow power as it appeared in between) would help the two creatures to learn how to live with each other. I guess I just can't envision a good ending right now and, also, it seemed too simple of a solution and asked way more questions (like isn't using magic to make people like each other taking away their freedom not to like each other...?) Oh well, wasted a lot of time writing that story, probably was worth it anyway no matter what happen when I push the submit button. At least I've reached my thirty complete stories goal now.
