The Music of Harmony

They walked in silence until they made it to the forest. Standing outside of it, as she promised, was Princess Luna. Also there was The Doctor, waiting patiently for them to arrive. As soon as they all did, Luna addressed them.

"Hello, everypony. I'm glad we could all meet face to face. I chose you all for a good reason. Whether you know it or not, you are some of the most important ponies in Equestria. Of course, it will take more than just talent to unlock your full inner potential. You need some training, and it begins today. It will not be easy, but I need you to put everything you have into it. Time is limited."

She gestured towards a tree in the distance.

"The first test is speed. Which one of you can outrun the rest? There is no substitute for it, and the fastest runner is often rewarded. The race begins here, and ends at that tree."

The six ponies lined up with determined expressions on their faces.

"Go!" Said Luna.

They started off even, but they gradually fell into their places. Derpy was in last, then The Doctor, Octavia, Bon-Bon, Lyra, and Vinyl Scratch, who held a short lead in first. Eventually, that lead grew, and she was confident that she could coast to victory.

Suddenly, she tripped and landed hard. The other ponies passed her, and Vinyl got up fuming in anger.

"Alright, who did that?" She yelled. "I was about to win! That was so cheap!"

"Nopony tripped you, Vinyl Scratch," Luna said calmly. "You have only yourself to blame. Can you forgive your friends?"

"I'm only friends with Octavia," she said. "The rest can go take a hike."

"I see."

Luna sounded disappointed.

The rest of the training continued the same way. They went through typical athletic challenges, but found a way to argue and fight every single time. They couldn't work together, and that made them fail and argue even more. It was all a big mess. After a particularly bad fight, even Luna had enough.

"Stop. All of you," she said. "Training is over. You can go home now."

Octavia began to realize their error. "But, Luna..."

"Please. Just go."

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry. We shouldn't have acted like that."

"No, Octavia," she said sadly. "I'm the one who is sorry. It was foolish of me to believe that you could all come together and be friends so quickly. These things take time; something I don't have. By tomorrow it will be too late. I thank you for trying, but there is nothing left to do."

"No! You can't give up, Luna."

"If you have ideas, I'm open to suggestions."

"Well, you could..."

She stopped. She couldn't think of anything.

"I thought not. It's over, Octavia. Please, just go home. I don't want you to get hurt."

Luna flew off into the forest before Octavia could protest. She sighed and turned around to go home. All this time, she never thought they would fail. Luna was going to die, and it was just because they couldn't get along. She had trusted them, and they let her down. Octavia walked alone and in silence. There was nothing left to say.

Lyra and Bon-Bon felt the same way. They made it home and sat on the couch. After a minute or so of silent thinking, Lyra got up and went to the kitchen. She opened the cupboard and began searching for something inside it.

"What are you looking for?" asked Bon-Bon.

"The bottle of whiskey I bought. Do we have any left?" Lyra asked in return.

Bon-Bon got up and shut the cupboard.

"Lyra, you can't do that. You already drank way too much last night. You're going to get yourself sick."

"Well I'm not drinking for my health."

"No, Lyra. Maybe we should just talk about this. Getting drunk won't solve anything."

Lyra went back to the couch and sat down. She started to cry. Bon-Bon patted her on the back reassuringly.

"It's okay. You don't need to worry," she said softly.

"But it's not okay. Luna's going to die. I know I can be a bit cold-hearted sometimes, but I don't want her to die. Now it's way too late to change anything," she sobbed.

A bright idea then crossed Bon-Bon's mind.

"Maybe it's not."

"What?"

"We're friends, aren't we?"

Lyra stopped crying. "We've been together for years now. We're more than just friends." she said.

"Luna said something about friendship a minute ago. Something about how it takes time."

"Yeah. She did say that. So?"

"So I can only assume that her plan had something to do with friendship. We need to be friends for it to work."

"Why wouldn't she just tell us that?"

"I'm not sure, but maybe it wouldn't have been genuine if she forced us. It has to be real."

"It's kind of late to do anything about it now."

"No, not necessarily," Bon-Bon said. "We all share a common interest. We care about Princess Luna and will do what it takes to help her. If we take that into account, we might be able to set aside our differences and work together."

Lyra was now quite interested. "So it's not over? We actually have a chance?"

"Yes, I think we do. But we still need to get the other four to believe it by tomorrow morning, before Celestia comes. Then we can find Luna and still have a chance to help her."

Lyra got up and hugged her friend. "Thanks Bon-Bon. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"I'll always be there for you, Lyra," she said affectionately. "Always."

Octavia stormed in through the front door of her house, looking for Vinyl Scratch.

"Vinyl! Where are you?" she shouted. "Do you realize what you've done? We need to talk. Right now."

"I'm over here," she called.

Octavia found her lying on the living room couch. She had her sunglasses off, and looked rather depressed. This was not about to stop her from getting yelled at though.

"How could you be so selfish? Luna's going to die now. I hope you're happy, because you just ruined all of Equestria. And only because you couldn't deal with a few ponies. You're absolutely unbelievable."

Vinyl Scratch mumbled something unintelligible.

"I can't hear you. Speak up."

"I said I'm sorry," she said, on the verge of tears. "I know what I did wrong. I got carried away. I didn't want this to happen."

Octavia stared at her in silence. Her anger started to subside. She couldn't stay mad at her best friend for too long.

"Please, Octavia," she said. "I'm really sorry."

She sighed. "Okay, I accept your apology. But now what? What can we do to fix this?"

They thought about it for a while, before Octavia finally came up with an idea.

"I know what to do. We don't have to quit just yet."

Vinyl looked up.

"Huh?"

"I think I'm beginning to understand Luna's plan. On the first day of the dream, I was wondering how she thought I could save the world. And I can't. Not by myself anyway. Obviously, none of us can do this alone. The most important part of her plan is us as a team, not what we can do individually. We need to try again. We have to get together and fight for her one last time."

Vinyl sat up and looked her straight in the eye.

"Will we get hurt?" she asked.

"Most likely, yes."

"I'll do it. You have my word. I won't let myself be so careless again. I will never let Luna down when she needs my help," she said with determination.

"Then we need to start tomorrow morning. That's when Celestia will come, and we have to be right with Luna the entire time."

Vinyl was almost never emotional, but she started crying again.

"I don't know how to thank you sometimes," she said.

"You don't have to, Vinyl," Octavia said softly. "I already understand."

Meanwhile, in the streets of Ponyville, Derpy Hooves was walking towards the blue police box known as the TARDIS. It was where she would be sleeping for the night. Although it looked small, the TARDIS was inexplicably bigger on the inside, so there would be plenty of room. She never was much of a deep thinker, but there was a lot on her mind. She sighed and pushed open the door. The Doctor was inside, frantically pulling levers and adjusting dials. This was not surprising for Derpy; The Doctor was always wound up about something.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

The Doctor looked up from the machine for a second, and then went back to work.

"Hello, Derpy," he finally said. "I was just about to come get you. We're leaving. There's nothing left for us here."

"Well, okay," she said passively.

"Good. I'm glad you understand. Now, could you calibrate the-"

Derpy cut him off. "No, actually it's not okay. I don't think you understand."

"Derpy, we don't have time for this. Please just-"

"You think I'm stupid, don't you?"

"What?"

"I asked," she said slowly. "If you thought I was stupid."

"Of course not."

"Then quit messing around and listen to me."

The Doctor stopped and turned to face her.

"There you go. What is it?" he asked.

"We're not leaving. Not yet."

"Derpy, it's too late. Luna already said it was over. We need to get out of here while we can."

"And you're just going to end it at that?" She was about ready to start screaming. "After all we've been through, you want to run away and let her die? Is that what you want?"

"No! I just..." his voice trailed off.

"You just what?" She yelled angrily. "On that first night, I made a promise to her. I never break my promises. Not ever. I may not be as smart as you, but I do have something that you don't. Loyalty."

She turned around and headed for the door.

"I'm not leaving. I may not make it out of this alive, but I'd rather die fighting than run like a coward. If you can't accept that, you can go and find a new assistant."

She opened the door and stepped out.

"If you decide to make the right decision, you know where to find me."

She shut the door and began walking to Octavia's house. She knew that she would offer her a place to stay for the night.

Derpy's ears perked up, as she heard the sound of the TARDIS door opening. She turned around to see what was going on. It was The Doctor, running to catch up with her.

"Wait!" he called.

They both smiled brightly. He had made the right choice.

"Where can we find these friends of yours?" he asked.

They walked together through the cold night, laughing and talking happily as good friends would do. After a short while, they came upon the house of Octavia Melody. Derpy knocked on the door and waited patiently. Octavia opened it a moment later. She looked quite surprised to see them there.

"Doctor! Derpy!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad you came. We have a lot to talk about."

She held the door and waved them inside.

"Please, come in."

They all went inside and sat around the living room. Vinyl Scratch still occupied the entire couch, but Derpy and The Doctor found other chairs to relax in.

"I made some tea a while ago. Would you guys like some?" She asked.

They both nodded. Octavia went into the kitchen to get the cups. She came out a few minutes later with hot tea for each of them. After giving it to them, she went to the couch and nudged her sleepy roommate.

"Wake up, Vinyl," she said. "We have guests here and they want to talk to you."

Vinyl yawned and sat up slowly. She rubbed her eyes and squinted to see who was there.

"Oh, it's you two," she said when she could see clearly. "What's up?"

"I think there's something you need to say to them, Vinyl," Octavia said.

"Yeah. Listen, I'm really sorry about how I acted today," she said sincerely. "I totally screwed up and I shouldn't have been such a jerk. But I think we need to try this again. You know, do it for the Princess and all. I promise I'll be better this time."

She avoided their eyes. Vinyl hated apologizing. It made her feel uncomfortable.

"So, is that alright?"

Derpy answered by giving her a bone-crushing hug.

"The Doctor and I were just thinking the same thing!" She said emotionally. "Of course we will."

Vinyl tried to answer, but she couldn't breathe under the strength of the hug.

"I agree," The Doctor said. "We need to team up if we want to help the Princess."

Derpy finally let Vinyl go, and they all spent some time chatting and enjoying themselves.

"Oh no!" Octavia said suddenly. "I forgot. We need Lyra and Bon-Bon to be here too."

"Don't worry about it," Vinyl said. "I'll go get them."

She opened the door and left to get the final two ponies. She couldn't help but feel extremely happy at how well things had gone up to this point. Octavia was right; apologizing did work.

Don't get ahead of yourself, she thought. You still have a few more to make.

She came upon Lyra and Bon-Bon's house and knocked on the door. A few seconds later, it swung open.

"Vinyl Scratch!" said Bon-Bon, who had answered the door. "What are you doing here?"

"Don't close the door on me just yet. I came here to say sorry. I really acted awful and I wish I could take it back. But we need to get back together and try one more time," she said in full seriousness.

Bon-Bon stared at her curiously. She did not answer.

"Please. You don't have to do it for me. It's for the Princess. She needs us."

"Hey, Lyra!" Bon-Bon called. "Come over here. It's important."

A few seconds later, a light green unicorn came to the door. She stopped and looked at her in silent confusion.

"Vinyl! What's going on? I didn't think you would be here," she said.

"I'm here to apologize to you both. I know things didn't go so well, but this is about more than just me and you. We need to try to help Luna again."

They continued to stare. Vinyl became very nervous; maybe the apology didn't work. If they couldn't get Lyra and Bon-Bon to come back, the whole plan would be worthless.

Suddenly, they both broke out into wide smiles.

"Of course!" Lyra said. "You were being awful, but I think we can let it go for now. What's really important is that we save Princess Luna."

Vinyl smiled with the rest of them.

"I couldn't agree more," she said.

"So, where do you want us to go?" asked Bon-Bon.

"We've got the rest of the group at Octavia's house right now. I can take you there if you want."

"Alright. Let's go then."

They stepped out the door and into the cold streets of Ponyville. It was getting late at night, but they were happy nonetheless. Now that they were all back together, Luna would not have to die. They were all quite sure about that.

Vinyl came to her house and stepped inside.

"Hey, Octavia! We're here."

Octavia ran up to greet them. A look of relief washed over her face when she saw Lyra and Bon-Bon.

"Are these two good with the plan?" She asked.

"Yep. Everything's cool."

"Thank goodness. You were gone for a long time. I was afraid you couldn't convince them."

She looked at her two new guests.

"How are you? I suppose we didn't really get a chance to meet before. My name is Octavia Melody."

She stuck out her hoof to offer a hoofshake. Lyra accepted it first.

"My name is Lyra Heartstrings. It's nice to meet you," she said.

Bon-Bon took it next. "My name's Bon-Bon. Thanks for getting us all back together again."

"Oh, it was nothing. I'm just glad to see that we're finally getting along," she said happily.

Octavia called in Derpy and The Doctor so they could all introduce themselves. This time, there were no arguments or fights. They stayed up very late, talking and laughing while drinking Octavia's tea. It had taken a while, but things were finally going right for them. Eventually, after a long night, they all fell asleep from exhaustion. Octavia set her alarm clock bright and early; tomorrow was an important day.