You're Not Better Than Your Friends
We were thieves, cons, and jerks.
We weren't friends, after, it's every pony for herself.
But we'd come to this little town.
Why? A new place to con. A new place to use and manipulate (and I wasn't black listed), a new place away from 'dweebs' that knew you.
We came together because we had a similar goal. We didn't get along. We didn't bond. We just all wanted something, and together we'd get it.
We'd been in the middle of nowhere, finding this town was a stroke of luck, I mean careful planning!
We met the leader. She just smiled at us. Five minutes after we opened our mouths every single pony in the town was frowning at us.
They drag us to that stupid cave, only Gilda really resisted, the rest of us . . . weren't exactly physical types. Gilda put up quite a fight, trying to get away. But for being all identical, when one fell, another just took its place.
Flim and Flam had experience running from mob of angry towns . . . but this town had experience in taking care of ponies trying to get away . . . a lot of them had tried to get away after all.
So . . .maybe I only couldn't really resist.
She magically removed Flim and Flam's cutie marks and put them in that vault of hers.
THEN THAT BUCKING NAG TORE OFF MY CUTIE MARK!!! HOW DARE SHE?! THIEF!!!
Oh, and they put the Equal Mark on Gilda in spite of her not being a pony. How did that work? Who cares? It didn't happen to me, so why should I?
She locked us in a tiny room like we were criminals (which to be fair, we were: fraud, plagiarization, and stealing an apple.)
The same message playing over and over, how cutie marks were bad, how being the same was for the best, how we'd all be happy and we'd all be friends once we accepted we were no better than everypony else.
What a total lie! Of course I'm better than everypony else!
But the message played over and over.
Gilda clawed and bit at the impossible symbol on her butt, but to no avail.
"I'm not a bucking pony! Oh buck now I'm using pony swears?! Oh Celestia! I want out of this horseapples!"
We were in there for days. Those messages never stopped.
Flam broke first. Saying how conning ponies had been wrong, and they should do their equal share for the community.
Flim . . . without his brother, broke much faster . . . apparently the two were practically two halves of a whole, they had relied on each other all their lives, looked out for each other, cared for each other, even when it was just them against the world they never stopped helping carry the other's weight. Pathetic. It's every pony for herself, blood or mud.
Gilda and I lasted weeks. I should have known the dumb griffin would break eventually though.
Finally she screamed. "I GET IT! I'M NOT BETTER THAN DASH'S NEW FRIENDS! I DIDN'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO KEEP HER FOR MYSELF!"
Geeze, drama much?
So Gilda became just another little brainwashed sheep.
I wouldn't go. I wouldn't break. I'd get out of here and that would be that. Even being black listed in Manehatten is better than this.
Better . . . where I had no friends, no family, no home, no bits, no job, no trust, the victim of a five minute scandal than forgotten about except for the 'do not hire this mare, she is a thief' black listing that reduced me to being a factory grunt at best. I would not lower myself to doing the work of scum!
Better than here where everypony would accept me, love me, not judge me, treat me like one of their own, never try to back stab me, always trust me, never use me, always be there for me . . .
I was the last to go, holding my hooves to my head screaming the truth Manehatten had carved into my soul. "I't s everypony for herself! It's every pony for herself!"
And finally one morning, seeing all those smiling faces, just wanting me to join them, offering no reward or treasure except themselves, not want anything from me except myself . . . I snapped!
"It's all for one, and one for all!" I declared, donning that maniac grin. Having finally seen the truth: Yes, friendship was magic, and friendship was equality!
We all hugged together, and sang a happy song.
We lived happily in Our Town with our new family, our new friends, our new selves, everything was perfect, everything was normal, everything was Equal!
Then . . . we had some unexpected guests! New friends to share true friendship with!
And we recognized so many of them! What a chance for redemption we'd truly been offered!
Flim and Flam apologized to Applejack for being so unfair to her in their cider deal before, then selling fake medicine and pressuring her into endorsing it.
I apologized to Rarity for using our friendship to plagiarizing from her, and asked her to apologize to Coco for me for mistreating her and teaching her such unEqual things.
And Gilda apologized, for selfishly wanting Rainbow Dash all to herself, instead of Equally sharing her with her friends.
This was a chance to make up for everything we'd done!
So when Glimmer ~~ordered~~ asked us to put them in the education hut, we knew we were doing the right thing. It was to help them experience true friendship after all, and look at how we turned out?
Glimmer and Gilda even used how selfish Gilda had acted had destroyed hers and Rainbow Dash's friendship as the ultimate object lesson, how their different opinions and views on what made something 'cool' or 'lame' had destroyed the beautiful friendship they once had. Wasn't that proof how even without cutie marks, differences were poison to even the longest and strongest friendship?
And how I had let Manehatten change me from the mare with similar views as Rarity, into one whose view was opposite of hers. I pleaded with Rarity, practically crying. Wasn't that proof how Our Town was for the best if it turned around a selfish and self-serving mare like me?
As Glimmer said, "Differences that can't be reconciled exist, and must be eliminated."
Fluttershy was the first to see the light.
Gilda apologized over and over for what she did to Fluttershy before, and by proxy to Rainbow Dash. She hugged and squeezed her (but not too hard, that would be unEqual), Fluttershy made such cute squeaks when she was hugged. Gilda said how now she, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy could all be friends, with none of them envying or hoarding the other. All were Equal.
Did Fluttershy look guilty?
Was Fluttershy faking it?
Should I tell Starlight Glimmer our ~~supreme leader~~ founder?
. . .
Naw! Why would she be faking it?! HAHAHAH! This was true friendship! This was true freedom! I was free of everything I'd done before, my friends/family/townmates all accepted me without any judgements, this place was great! Once you actually gave it a try, anypony could see it was the best!
I had been so wrong before. Using and discarding others like tools. Flim and Flam only seeing ponies as walking wallets. Gilda thinking Rainbow Dash only needed her as a friend.
We were bad ponies before (and one bad griffin), but Sameness had made us good ponies (and griffin). We were the ultimate proof that Glimmer had been right, our selfish differences had driven a wedge between us and ponies who just wanted to be our friends.
We'd all been so selfish, but Starlight Glimmer had shown us the way to the light.
We now knew true friendship, and it was wonderful.
Then Starlight Glimmer was revealed to be a hypocrite. She had kept her cutie mark. Saying how she needed it to remove our cutie marks and how the Staff of Sameness was just a piece of wood. She said how the other things she said weren't a lie.
Then the entire town, from the oldest to the youngest, from the earliest new comers to those who had been with her before Our Town was even founded, all turned on her at once, and all instantly wanted their cutie marks back.
Including us.
So we got our cutie marks back. And Gilda finally got that mark off her flank thanks to a no face random unicorn who now had their talent back for cleaning things up.
And we took what little of value she had in her house (she wasn't coming back for it) which turned out to be, not very much at all. Weren't cult leaders should be have huge bags of bits hidden in a safe somewhere? But we didn't find any vault or hidden giant stash of bits! We tore the house apart. Nothing better than had been in the other houses. What a waste of time. We knew better than to waste time going through the other houses. These losers didn't even use money.
If one thing she said was false, then therefore everything she said was false.
If the messenger didn't practice what she preached, then therefore the message itself must be false.
And if every pony (including foals who had known no other social structure their entire lives) rejected everything she had ever said and we had utterly embraced before after a sixty-second reveal and exchange, why shouldn't we?
If everything Starlight Glimmer said was a lie: then equality and friendship are a lie, and therefore greed and selfishness must be true. I can't believe I let myself fall for her transparent lies.
We then left the stupid no-horse town, not waiting for Rarity and her friends to get back.
We then went our separate ways. After all, it wasn't like we were friends, and it was every pony for herself.
