A Better Equestria - Part 2
An Equestria torn asunder by an ongoing battle “working horse” revolution between the Earth ponies and the unicorns, there is not a winning side; it’s a fight for ideals. The ideals that all ponies, Earth ponies, unicorn, and pegasi, can stand together on equal footing and provide their equal share to Equestria; despite their differences.
An Equestria where it is ruled by the ponies for the ponies, and the only remnants of their passed oppressive monarchy lies in a pony of a forgotten race that embodies all three races. She has been relegated as nothing more than a figurehead, a symbol at best, that the three races came together and proven with cooperation nothing was out of place. The Sun was in its rightful place as Equestria revolved around it, and the Moon revolving around Equestria as it should.
The shifting of the heavenly bodies to their scientifically correct orbits, one thing the Alicorns had above their subject s was no more, the most tangible symbol that a new Equestria had been born and the old government had been dissolved.
In this Equestria, the clouds are respected as they are left to their own devices to provide the weather accordingly. Hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis do not happen here as it is not necessary now that a natural cleansing cycle has been established.
Checkpoints are setup to keep competency at a successfully high rate and reducing the inhibition of rage. Through humor and slapstick, ponies learn that what doesn’t kill them will make them stronger.
An Equestria where even animals are treated with respect and understanding as all species work together to maintain peace in Equestria.
Is this the steps to a better Equestria? Are the sacrifices worth the peace and even ground in Equestria? Could the Elements of Harmony be wrong?
“It’s already begun, just look at what they have done to the castle.”
Twilight looks around her as Applejack comes up behind her and holds her hat to her chest for a moment.
“No, sugarcube, they didn’t do this, our own ponies did. Guess if you chafe a pony’s haunch about something enough, they’re bound to wanna push back. All they had to do was to point them in a direction, the Earth ponies did the rest.”
Twilight and the others quickly made their way up the stairs to the throne room only to find Shining Armor straining to maintain a force bubble around the Crystal Palace while Princess Cadance was sprawled across the throne as if she had been drained of magic, which she had.
“Cadance, Shining Armor, what’s going on?”
Cadance gave a weak response as Shining Armor could barely even allow himself a moment of reprieve to speak a word.
“Twilight, the ponies, the Earth ponies stormed the castle and I didn’t have nearly enough magic to make them love again. Sadly, it was not enough to stop them from raiding the castle.”
It was then that Shining Armor’s magic began to wane as the ponies bucked the force bubble. Twilight had to act fast as she teleported them out of the castle and away from the crystal ponies.
Once Twilight teleported herself and the others some distance away from the castle, she could do nothing as she watched as it was seized by the Earth ponies. Buzzeroff, who had traveled with the others, spoke out loud to nopony in particular.
“And so the cycle begins, a strong mare whose actions speak louder than her very sparse words inspires the entire Earth pony population and opens their eyes to a veiled oppression by the unicorns who force them to produce in exchange for nothing more than a false sense of purpose and illusions of grandeur that they too may be among them. Sadly their rage came to a boil and revolution was the only solution to satisfy them. I had hoped you study the history of our Equestria, Elements, otherwise it will repeat itself, and this time the casualty will be your Equestria.”
They ignored the extra dimensional mare’s words, whether it was out of disbelief or having their focus elsewhere, as they tried to think of a way to stop their Equestria from befalling the same fate as Equestria 2.
“What exactly do you plan on doing, Twilight? I mean we aren’t exactly in the best of positions here. Perhaps we should begin with finding those other dreadful Elements?”
Rarity attempted to keep her composure during the whole situation, but in reality she was so panicked and distressed that being calm was all she could do.
“We need to go to Canterlot, if they plan on taking over Equestria and making it ‘better’ then they would need to start at the most powerful position. Since they’ve already turned the crystal ponies against Princess Cadance’s crown, I’m sure they would move on to the next alicorn; Princess Luna and Princess Celestia.”
“There you go, Twilight! Looks like we’ll be flying there by way of the FlutterDash Ship, er, express, come on, Fluttershy, grab some ponies and let’s get out of here!”
With that order, the two pegasi grab hold of those without wings as they make the trek to Canterlot.
Meanwhile, Buzzeroff takes her leave from the group as she heads to Ponyville. As she gets within airspace, she lands and trots to a familiar location, where a very unfamiliar castle lies and walks toward it.
“Well this isn’t here in our Equestria. Nonetheless, I’m sure they turned this into the ‘Resolution Center’, it is the logical choice for Dawn.”
Buzzeroff puts a hoof up and is about to touch the door. She stops and begins to look around. She spots a rock and kicks it at the door. The sound of a disappointed pony is heard after the rock hits the door.
“Minty, the door, NOW.”
The door slowly opens as the mint green mare pokes her head out with a stifled laugh.
“H-Hey there, Buzz, I see you made it through the mirror. Wait, if you’re here then what does that mean for the Elements of Harmony?”
Minty inhales deeply and gasps as a million theories run through her head.
“Oh no, did they take over our Equestria? Did you let them go? Did they get eaten by dragons? Did they get turned into dragons? Did the dragons come and set them free and then eat them? Did we actually capture dragons?”
Before the mare could spout off another dozen theories, a wine red blur zooms out of the doors and then there are two pegasi hugging outside the doors.
“Minty, show some respect and stop giving her the third degree. Are you okay; you’re not hurt are you? If they so much as laid a hoof on you…”
Buzzeroff, with a hoof, gently shoves Greyscale Flash out of their embrace.
“I’m fine, Flashy, do you think they could do anything to me? Now I assume that Dawn wants to see me.”
“Yea, she won’t be exactly happy to see you, but you probably have good reason, so that’s good enough for me.”
Buzzeroff casually walks into the Friendship Palace as Greyscale zooms ahead of her. The Thrones of the Elements have been shattered to a more suitable height, which also resulted in the cutie mark markings to be destroyed. Buzzeroff casually moves to sit in an empty throne and then clears her throat. Minty smiles as she clears the throne of any prank she may have setup. Dawn Flicker has several digital screens up as she flicks them off her user interface and opens new windows.
“I can assume the reason you are here is that you let them through the mirror. The probability of anything else happening is less than 10% so I won’t even entertain them as being a possible outcome. I assume they were heading for Canterlot, predictably, to save their heads of government?”
Buzzeroff scrunches her nose as she realizes that Dawn had been testing the other Elements through and through, even having calculated the actions they have taken.
“Yes, they know that our Equestria was different, but they didn’t learn the history of how it became that way. It was almost as if they disregarded the past and rather put faith that they could stop you or…”
Buzzeroff stopped talking as she looked at her reflection in the crystal table. Dawn, still looking at her charts and other statistics, addressed her pause.
“Or what, Buzzeroff? Are you suggesting that they are going to try to change us? That they are going to show us that our methods are wrong, even though they have been tested through and through, to the point of ad nauseam, and been shown to resolve 99.99% of all conflicts?”
Buzzeroff looks up as she sympathizes with the Elements of Harmony.
“Yes, that is what I’m suggesting they are trying to do. I never said that it would be successful or that they were right, I was just suggesting that they might try. On that note, though, for their Equestria, where magic is still deeply rooted, perhaps our methods aren’t going to solve their troubles.”
Suddenly a black unicorn puts a hoof on Buzzeroff’s forehead.
“Oh my, dear, are you feeling alright? Of course our methods will solve all of their problems, I mean look at what wonders it did for our own Equestria? Especially when we were able to show everypony how working as community and sharing everything makes everypony happy. Of course, that wasn’t too concerning when we showed them that even giving up their happiness meant living in a safe and conflict free Equestria, one of peace and tranquility.”
Buzzeroff gently removes the hoof of her forehead. She keeps her deadpan expression as if she does not care about their concerns.
“I’m feeling fine, Precious; remember that we all had to learn a hard lesson to get where we are. They’ve been lucky that they haven’t benefit from learning that lesson. However, this doesn’t mean we won’t have to confront them; they won’t just let us continue or leave without proving they are right. It’s what we were doing, isn’t that right, OJ?”
The blue Earth mare stomps her fore hooves in front of her as if to practice stomping.
“E’yup.”
Dawn quickly closed all of the screens as her horn began to glow brighter neon green.
“Well, we should move forward with the next phase then. Precious, were you able to gather the unicorns of Ponyville?”
“Why, yes, dear, but it wasn’t easy, somehow there were still a few that still didn’t believe that potentially giving up there magic to make it so that nopony was above any other pony would be better for their future. However, I was able to inspire enough of them that we can confront the Elements of Harmony at Canterlot.”
“Good, then we leave for Canterlot immediately.”
They embark on their mission to Canterlot. When they got there, the Earth Pony Revolt was in full force and the Canterlot unicorns looked as if they were on the edge of surrender.
The Elements of Tranquility walked towards the palace with their heads held high as they watched the unicorn aristocracy resistance dwindle. They had set their eyes on the castle and moved forward.
As they made their way through the castle, it was eerily quiet, almost as if it had been evacuated. There wasn’t a trace that anypony had left though; it was beginning to feel more like they had vanished.
Greyscale zoomed around the palace to see any signs of activity and then rendezvous with the rest landing in the throne room.
“I don’t get it; I mean its one thing to abandon your castle after the first signs of trouble, but just disappearing? I mean what kind of self respecting pony just disappears like they were never here?”
“It’s moot; especially since they won’t have any line of defense once we have the unicorns put the Sun and Moon in proper scientific orbit. We’ll move forward, and that means that we need to eliminate the one threat that could potentially jeopardize the entire strategy.”
Buzzeroff knew all too well who Dawn was referring to when she mentioned a threat. Buzzeroff looked around and also noticed that not only had the ponies disappeared, but as they exited to the back courtyard, the animals were nowhere to be found either.
“Dawn, you realize we are walking into a trap, right?”
“Yes, I do know that Buzzeroff, especially since it’s not logical to leave their head of government building abandoned without a trace for anypony to follow, unless it was to spring a trap. Except they don’t have the element of surprise since we know that they may be lying in ambush, besides, once OJ smashes the statue, then we can quickly disperse and their ambush will fail.”
They stopped in front of the statue of Discord, and Dawn nodded to Orange Jill to stomp on it. Orange Jill nodded back and then gave it a mighty stomp, except nothing happened, it didn’t crack or even chip. Suddenly sounds came out of the statue.
“Oh, ouch, you got me, I think I might just turn to dust or be shattered into a thousand pieces. It’s all over, whatever did I do to deserve such a fate.”
Dawn looked at the “statue” as it mocked them with its terrible acting display. Dawn quickly reassessed the situation.
“I was not expecting this tactic, surprising what some would do in desperation, even going as far as making deals with a megalomaniac, tyrannical villain.”
Discord smiled as he poofed off the pedestal in his normal form.
“Oh boy, it looks like we have some kind of ‘negative’ Twilight Sparkle who hasn’t been keeping up with the episodes. Let me guess, you’re from another Equestria, right?”
“That’s right, the perfect Equestria to be exact. Just because they released you from your petrifaction, this doesn’t mean that you have a chance of stopping our plans to make this Equestria perfect as well.”
“Oh quite the contrary, Nega-Twilight Sparkle, I simply want to watch as you try to ‘fix’ what I undo with this Equestria.”
Buzzeroff wasn’t going to allow Discord to try to “undo” anything, as it wouldn’t be good for anypony.
“Oh no you don’t I’m not letting you perform any of your selfish little mind games. Not this time!”
“Selfish? Oh, why, Angry Fluttershy, it would only be selfish if I were alone.”
Discord begins to smile as he snaps his fingers and displaces himself elsewhere. In his place is a flying net that ensnares Buzzeroff. She tries to struggle to get out, but to no avail. Spike appears and taunts the pegasus.
“This is for your own good. We don’t want you to get hurt.”
Twilight makes her appearance as Discord waits for the Elements of Tranquility to make their move. Dawn simply observes the two as she reassesses the situation to change her strategy.
“You do realize what kind of damage this draconequus can do, don’t you, Twilight Sparkle? Why would you even release something that you can’t even trust, let alone expect it to help you? It is fact that draconequus have caused nothing but chaos and pandemonium, have you become that desperate that you would unleash such danger to your Equestria?”
Twilight tenses up as she is ready for anything.
“I trust him, because Discord is our friend, and he offered to help ensure Equestria doesn’t become the emotionless Equestria you created in your own Equestria. And friends don’t just sit around when their friends are in a corner.”
Dawn laughs as the remaining Elements of Tranquility convene on her to prepare for a fight.
“My calculations were right about you and your ‘friends’, Twilight Sparkle. You make decisions based on what your emotions tell you, what you believe are the best answers and that everypony just needs understanding and to be ‘loved’. That is a childish fantasy and I realized that that is something that is illogical; sometimes someponies cannot be ‘reformed’ and the only way to fix a problem is to get rid of it.”
Greyscale gets altitude as she prepares to drop a Sonochrome Boom on the Elements of Harmony.
“It’s about time somepony teaches you mares to respect those who know better than you. Just because you don’t agree with it, doesn’t mean it isn’t right!”
Just before Greyscale hits max velocity, she’s intercepted by a rainbow blur. She’s forced to the ground as Rainbow Dash stands over her.
“That’s for my friends, nopony messes with my friends!”
“You are thick headed, how can you blindly remain loyal when they barely even respect your wishes? You know who the Captain of the Uber Strikes is back in our Equestria? I am, and that’s because I respected them enough that I knew I wouldn’t be giving my all if I didn’t take the opportunity and when they saw how important it was, they respected me enough to let me go and pursue my dream for a while even if it meant being away from them. Your friends, though, they give you nothing in return for your unconditional loyalty, except for things that can never truly fill that emptiness inside of you. I pity you.”
Rainbow Dash started becoming insecure as she looked at her friends and began second guessing herself. Were they just holding her back because they were selfishly afraid that she wouldn’t return?
“N-No, that’s not it at all, you don’t know what you’re talking about! MY FRIENDS ARE ALWAYS THERE FOR ME AND EVEN IF I WANTED TO BE A WONDERBOLT THEY WOULD SUPPORT ME, EVEN IF IT MEANT I HAD TO BE AWAY FROM THEM FOR A WHILE! THAT’S WHY I STICK BY THEM, BECAUSE, BECAUSE…”
Applejack shouted as Rainbow Dash struggled with her words.
“…cause that’s what friends do, sugar cube! Don’t let them get in your head like that! Their tryin’ to make you feel bad about yourself! Just stay true to yourself!”
Orange Jill tackled Applejack to the ground.
“Speak for yourself.”
OJ didn’t tackle AJ that hard, physically, but her shove ran deeper than a tree’s roots. Applejack got up with a snort as she scrapped the ground with her hoof.
“Are you calling me a liar there, filly?”
“If the horseshoe fits.”
“I ain’t gonna argue with some backwards mare from some other Ponyville, telling me who I am. I’m the most honest pony in Equestria, and like hay am I gonna stand here as you say such horseapples.”
“Big words for a mare of contradicting actions, they speak loud and clear.”
“I don’t know what kind of gibberish you’re trying to put in my head, but it ain’t gonna work! Now why don’t y’all ponies just go back to your rotten Equestria before we change our minds?”
The two began circling each other as they looked for an opening. It seemed the fight that was inevitable was quickly underway. Pinkie Pie began to panic a little as she watched her friends fighting, and then she pulled out her party cannon to take aim.
“Oh, I get it! You ponies want to party! Well how about your just desserts?!”
Pinkie pulled the cord expecting dozens of pies to fly out, but instead her party cannon blew up in her face. Minty Cake had quickly stuffed it with a giant chocolate truffle and was laughing hard at the mare now covered in pie filling. Pinkie licked the pie bits off of her and yelled at Minty.
“HEY! That wasn’t very nice at all!”
Minty just continued to laugh as she heard the pink mare try to tell her that what she did wasn’t very funny, or kind.
“HAHA, I don’t know what’s funnier, the fact that you got ‘creamed’ or that you think everything should be nice, because guess what, sometimes things are going to be bad, and instead of just pretending that it’s not there by thinking of something happy, you have to learn to deal with it and still be a happy person! The world isn’t always nice, but it is always funny! Like your face!”
Pinkie Pie’s mane quickly deflated as Minty began her barrage of insults at the mare. The more Minty laughed the more Pinkie grew upset, even when Pinkie tried to make her stop, that only made things worse as Minty made fun of her actions.
The Elements of Harmony were being destroyed and the Elements of Tranquility had barely even laid a finger on them. Things were out of hand, and were getting messy, something that was going to need to be tidied up. Rarity was just the unicorn to clean it up and turn this battle around.
“You ponies should all be ashamed of yourselves, acting like such heathens! No peace can be made through violence!”
“Oh and I imagine that it can be solved with fashion and grace, darling? Please tell me how you propose to do that when your indulgence is what prevents peace from being.”
“I beg your pardon? For your information, I give generously to those who provide me with the things I need to stay fashionable; it isn’t a one way street, I provide them with fulfillment and they provide me with beauty, it’s that simple.”
“You know what else is simple, darling? Not becoming a consumer and giving your whole self to those ponies in need. They wouldn’t need fulfillment if you didn’t need to fulfill your petty wants. So tell me again, darling, how are you going to give peace to ponies when you can’t even find peace within yourself without material rubbish?”
“You don’t understand, these material rubbish, as you call them, is what makes me who I am and confident in myself to be able to give back to other less fortunate ponies.”
“Yes, darling, but you wouldn’t need that confidence if you had already found yourself inside of you. It’s perfectly okay that you are afraid and shelter yourself in such frivolous things, not everypony can feel comfortable in their own mane. Until you can shed yourself of that vapid shell, though, you aren’t giving all that you can to anypony. That’s as good as giving nothing to everypony when you get down to it.”
Rarity fainted in your couch and began to have a conniptions since fashion had been her talent for most of her life, she was paralyzed by fear and doubt as she could only try to think if all fashion really was nothing more than a way to shield herself from others.
Dawn Flicker smiled as she looked at Discord and Twilight Sparkle. Dawn began to press a button on her necklace and several screens came up, which she began to look at, completely unconcerned with the Elements of Harmony as she considers them defeated.
“You know, Twilight Sparkle, I did research on your Equestria once we got here and strategy proved successful with each tactic that went into motion without error. Too bad you didn’t do your research and had faith you could win by showing us the ‘error’ of our ways. Not even your Rainbow powers could stop us with you divided over such petty fears and worries. Then again, who needs Rainbow powers when you have Science and Strategy?”
Twilight Sparkle was at a loss as she looked around and saw her friends be defeated by their own despair. Discord nervously waited for Twilight to say something.
“Twilight, what are we going to do, should I rain upon them chaos that they’ve never seen the likes of? Oh, I know, I can transport them to Tartarus and give ol’ Cereberus some new playmates?”
“No, Discord, they’ll just find a way to escape, and it won’t even matter because they already turned the ponies against us.”
“Oh, come now, Twilight Sparkle, where’s that faith in the heart of friendship that everything will turn out right? The annoying faith that had turned me into stone a second time, the annoying faith in the magic of friendship and love that stopped even Tirek from destroying Equestria! Equestria needs to find that faith right now!”
“Discord, she’s right, though, I was given a short lesson of the history of their Equestria by a mare in the resistance, and they were able to do things that we couldn’t do. They provide the changelings integration with ponies by showing them that they could feed off of the nurturing feeling somepony gets when they are taking care of each other. They eliminated the Nightmare Forces by disposing of their host, and even though they had lost their Princess of the Night, they had made their Equestria safe from ever being terrorized by the Nightmare Forces. I mean they even got rid of their version of you, avoiding the rise of Tirek entirely.”
“Well, gee, you make it kind of grim for anyone that wants to cause a bit of mayhem. It can’t be that great, right? I mean, didn’t you say they don’t have any fun there?”
Twilight quickly sprung back from her short bout of despair as she remembered that’s why it was worth believing in the magic of friendship over the facts of science.
“You’re right, Discord, and sure they may have avoided a lot of things running their Equestria like they did, but they never got to learn important lessons in friendship by doing it the way that we did! And they don’t know how strong the power of friendship really is!”
Dawn Flicker nonchalantly responds to Twilight’s speech as she still looks over her data.
“I’m sorry, but friendship has nothing to do with success, Ms. Sparkle. It has to do with how well you work as a team, and Teamwork is Science, not magic. I wish you experience what I had experienced so that you would understand that. We didn’t want this fight, we never want any fight, but sometimes certain things are necessary to tear down the old ways of thinking. Sometimes they are unavoidable, especially when you have stubborn pony that see no other way.”
Twilight fired a beam at Dawn, to which she easily dodged.
“That’s not how I see it, Dawn Flicker, what I see is that you are the ones that are stubborn ponies. When you see a problem you only think of how you can solve it your way, and if it doesn’t work that way, then it must be wrong and eliminated. Even worse, you see handling problems as simply just things that need to be resolved and handled. You don’t see them for what they are, something everypony needs to understand and be able to learn from. To put it frank, you don’t know how friendship works because you’ve never truly had any friends!”
Dawn Flicker quickly grinds her teeth as she presses on her necklace again.
“I’ve never had friends, how can you come off saying that? My friends have incapacitated your friends!”
“No, the other Elements aren’t even your friends, they’re just ponies that you use to solve your problems, and you don’t know anything about them or care. That’s what makes us strong and the Elements of Harmony, our friendship, the one thing we have that will make it so you will never win.”
“Look around you, we have won! Soon the unicorns will be follow our command and place the Sun and Moon in scientific orbit and magic will disappear!”
“Do you even know what happened to Buzzeroff’s parents?”
“Of course I do, they, um…”
“Difficult question, well let’s try an easier one, what’s her favorite thing to do?”
Dawn Flicker stomped in rage as Twilight asked what seemed to be trivial questions.
“Okay, you’ve proven your point, I don’t know them as well as you might know your Elements, but that doesn’t have any bearing on making Equestria better!”
Buzzeroff simply sighs as she sits in the net. Fluttershy smiles as she walks up to the mare and sits beside her.
“So what is your favorite thing to do?”
“Are you really asking me that question?”
“W-Well I mean if you want to tell me.”
“It’s sitting at home with some tea and honey, relaxing. Something I haven’t done a lot of since this whole ‘change Equestria’ campaign.”
“Oh, well I love having others over for tea and just relaxing! If you want, we can do that sometime.”
Buzzeroff was confused, but then looked at the fighting ponies all around her.
“I would like that, Fluttershy.”
Dawn Flicker laughed, almost in a now hysteric state, as Twilight Sparkle stood unwavering as she was what was assumed to be defeated.
“You are defeated, yet you still are trying to lecture me and argue? For once, I don’t understand your reasoning, I mean that beam didn’t even hit me, so if you were trying to take me down, that failed like everything else!”
Twilight smiled as the beam had ricocheted off the wall and hit Rainbow Dash.
“I wasn’t aiming for you exactly.”
“Then what was even the point? Are you showing your friends mercy by taking them out of the fight?”
As soon as Rainbow Dash was hit by the beam, she teleported right in of Precious. Rainbow Dash stopped thinking about herself the minute she saw as Rarity in distress.
“HEY! I don’t know who you think you are, but you are no Rarity! You’re nothing but a jerk that would no sooner give up her friends then know what it means to give TO her friends! Come on, Rarity, I know you’re better than this unicorn in anything!”
Rarity slowly got up as Rainbow Dash gave her a little pep talk. She gave one look to Precious and realized that she wasn’t able to get through to her because she was attacking herself rather than her enemy.
“Rainbow Dash, I am certain that I won’t get through this thick headed mare, but perhaps I can teach some manners to that Earth pony friend of ours.”
“Friend, Rarity you sure have an interesting way of seeing things. Heh, but that’s why we’re friends. Now just leave it to me and I’ll show this unicorn an important lesson you taught me, generosity isn’t just about giving things to other ponies, but knowing just exactly what to give and giving what’s in your heart to those ponies in need.”
Rarity hugged Rainbow Dash and left her to deal with Precious. Meanwhile, she tapped Orange Jill’s shoulder. To which Orange Jill gave her a confused look.
“Excuse me, dear, but tell me, does being true to one self mean you must be a bully to other pony?”
“Er, E’yup?”
“Oh well, you certainly do have a way with words. So intimidating other pony is the right thing to do so long as it means that it will be better for them, is that what I am to understand?”
“Uh, E’yup?”
“Oh, well I suppose that even if you don’t tell others of your intentions they understand because they know exactly what you are doing. Yes, because nopony needs communication, right. Let me guess, how did you put it, E’yup?”
Applejack had a large grin as she had utterly stumped OJ. She couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Well I see you really have a way with words, Rarity. I’d better go rescue Pinkie though, otherwise I head might start to spin listenin’ to more of yer jibber jabbing. Thanks for the helping hoof.”
“I beg your pardon? I am not ‘jibber jabbing’ I’ll have you know!”
Rarity gives Applejack a wink.
“I’m simply telling this mare the truth of what her actions really mean. Honestly, as the Element of Honesty, you should recognize a lesson you taught me, friend.”
Applejack winked back to Rarity as she ran over to confront Minty Cake. Quickly AJ bucked Minty Cake into a castle wall.
“Alright there, partner, I dunno how they do things in your Equestria, and frankly I don’t give a hoot. Around here, though, we don’t go pickin’ on other pony for our own amusement!”
Minty Cake got up and quickly stood up.
“I’m not doing this for my own amusement! She needs to know that things can be gloomy and sometimes we can’t avoid them! No matter how much fun we have!”
“Well as long as we are all having fun, it doesn’t matter that there are gloomy things, because we have somethin’ to look forward too. So we work through the tough times so that the fun times are even better. And that, pony, is somethin’ I would never have known if it weren’t for my friend you’re tryin’ to hurt, so why don’t you go back where ya came from and pick on somepony your own size?”
Pinkie’s mane quickly poofed up again as she wiped away her tears with a smile.
“Thanks, Applejack, I almost forgot that that’s why we need to laugh and have parties, not to avoid our problems or forget them, but to remember that with the bad we do have good times.”
“Ah, come on, sugarcube; don’t get mushy on me now. Why don’t you just show that darn stubborn pegasus a good time?”
Pinkie had a giant grin on her face.
“Oh I’ll show her a good time all right, and that nopony messes with my friends.”
Pinkie Pie almost immediately began bouncing around Greyscale Dash, which annoyed her to no end.
“What are on Equestria are you doing?! You are so annoying!”
“You know, you ponies really should try to lighten up and have more fun, I mean what to do you ponies do besides work anyway?”
“We keep Equestria safe and tranquil, what else is there? WILL YOU STOP JUMPING AROUND, IT’S ANNOYING!”
“I’m sorry, is it hurting you?”
“NO, BUT IT’S DISRESPECTFUL AND ANNOYING!”
“Uh oh, you’re not going to hurt me are you?”
“Maybe I will! You obviously don’t have any respect!”
“Really, you would just hurt somepony because they are annoying?”
“No, but, JUST STOP BOUNCING, ALRIGHT?!”
“Well since you asked nicely, I will. Really, though, just because you don’t want to have fun, isn’t it disrespectful to think every other pony doesn’t want to have fun?”
Greyscale was about to say something, but then realized that Pinkie might have been speaking some truth.
Dawn Flicker was angry that Twilight Sparkle had effectively diffused every problem that she had thought the Elements had. Dawn Flicker still laughed hysterically though.
“You think you won don’t you? So you made so everypony our friends, well I don’t care! You’re still living in a broken Equestria, an Equestria that needs to be fixed!”
Buzzeroff approached Dawn and looked at her with a glare. Dawn was unaffected by the pegasus.
“Are you going to tell me that we have been defeated and that we lost? I already told you, even without anypony, our methods still hold true to fixing Equestria and make it better 99.99% of the time.”
Buzzeroff stood beside Dawn Flicker as she looked at Twilight Sparkle.
“I wasn’t going to tell you that at all, Dawn Flicker. However, Twilight Sparkle, I am going to tell you one thing, Dawn Flicker does have a friend.”
“Thank you Buzzeroff…”
“I didn’t say it was me.”
“What?”
Twilight Sparkle gave her a confused look, and Buzzeroff turned and hugged Dawn Flicker, an action that was rare for the pegasus.
“No, even though at times I try to be her friend, it’s something we need to work on. She has a friend that was a friend to us all and will always be a friend in our hearts.”
Spike gasped as he stood next to Twilight Sparkle. Twilight knew exactly who she was talking about.
“You mean Dawn Flicker’s faithful assistant.”
Dawn remembered Flats for the first time in a long time when Twilight Sparkle had said that. She looked around as the Elements befriended each other and she finally let her guard down and returned Buzzeroff’s embrace.
“Flats was more than just my faith assistant, he was my best friend, and though I hate to admit it, my only friend. I thought this is what he would have wanted me to do to honor his sacrifice, but now I see that I might have been wrong. I did accomplish fixing Equestria, but it was at the cost of losing every single friend I had.”
Twilight Sparkle gave a big huge to Spike and then trotted over to Dawn Flicker as both ponies shared an embrace.
“I apologize for leaving you with the unresolved issues of this Equestria, but I have faith that you know just how to resolve it in your own way that doesn’t compromise your friendship.”
“Well, maybe there are some things we need to address in Equestria, but now we know that we might just have some friends in very far places that can give us some advice.”
And just like that, the Elements of Tranquility eventually saw that they still have some fixing to do in their own Equestria, but at least they learned important lessons of the friendship they almost ill forgot.
Both groups of Elements, after somewhat returning Equestria Prime back to normal, went to the mirror in the Crystal Palace. As they made departed and said their farewells, Dawn Flicker and Twilight Sparkle shared one last embrace.
“Thank you, Twilight Sparkle, for showing me that friendship and love is something we need to embrace and understand, rather than discard, to resolve our issues instead of just preventing them.”
“Well, I guess I should be the one that is giving thanks, I mean if it weren’t for you, we probably wouldn’t understand that we shouldn’t just wait for a problem to show up, but be able to find it before it escalates.”
“Heh, well maybe we learned something from each other. I’ll try to take it back to our Equestria and next time you visit, on your own volition, it will be a bit more cheery. I mean if you even think you’ll make a visit.”
“Well there are some things I want to discuss with you still, so you can count on a visit. I mean it’s the least we can do for our friends from another dimension.”
“I like the sound of that, goodbye, Twilight Sparkle.”
Dawn Flicker begins walking through the mirror and stops for a moment to turn around and wave.
“Until we meet again, friend.”
