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Chapters

p
d
Confrontation
Normalization
Trapped/Lost
dumb, error-ridden piece of flummery
What Happens in Tartarus
e
d
j
h
d
d
n
d
h
d
7
7
7
I'm out of letters to use as chapter titles
A story that I submitted on an alt that got rejected
don't read this it sucks
Sassy Saddles does bad stuff omg
Balloons
A Dashing Rainbow
Smart Cookie
The End of The Wonderbolts
Starlight Glimmer Sees a Psychologist
some trollfic thing

p

Gilda the griffon is so fabulous, you burst in to flame just by looking at her. Like, seriously. Flames. How cool is that?

One day, Fluttershy really wanted to burst into flames, so she secretly devised a very secret plan.

She ate a potato, and nothing happened. Fluttershy is terrible at making plans.

d

“Thank you, dear Spike, for helping me clean. There is no longer a speck of dust to be seen.” Zecora smiled at the young dragon from her spot on her sofa. She would've cleaned by herself, of course, but she couldn't walk without pain. She'd injured her hoof the previous day when she tripped over a tree root that some nasty Everfree creature had thrown in her path.

Spike finished dusting off a shelf and leaned against the wall of Zecora's hut, using his claw to wipe sweat off of his brow. “Yeah, no problem. Cleaning is my specialty, after all. Would you believe me when I said the great Princess of Friendship is a royal slob?”

“Well, I’ve never thought that Twilight could be such a thing, but I know that in your voice truth does ring. I think you’re a very trustworthy dragon, you see, so if I said I didn’t believe you then the liar would be me,” Zecora said.

“Ha, if only Twilight agreed with you on that. Every time something goes missing, she immediately blames me.” Spike rolled his eyes. “It’s only actually been me, like, five percent of the time.”

One last thing, organize closet blah

“Sure.” Spike looked around. “Wait… what closet? Only ones I see are ones I’ve already cleaned.”

it’s a seeeeeeeecret closet, idk

“Oh, yeah, Twilight has a secret closet too. It’s where she hides her ma—actually, no, I’m not supposed to be telling anypony that.” Spike chuckled nervously. “Er, don’t mention to her that I said anything.

Zecora raised an eyebrow but nodded in agreement anyway. “[something about being curious or something and your secret is safe with me]”

“Yeah, cool. Thanks. So where’s this secret closet of yours?”

“Ah, yes, that closet you seek. The door’s under my cauldron—go ahead, take a peek.” Zecora waved with a hoof towards the bubbling green cauldron in the center of her hut.

Spike walked over to the cauldron and stared at it for a few seconds, scratching his head. A giant cauldron of thick steel that was well more than twice as large as him, complete with some boiling green liquid inside? Yep. No chance of lifting that.

“Uh, Zecora, how am I supposed to get under here?” Spike asked. “It's all hot coals underneath.”

“Ah, my young drake, I must admit that it's fake. You must climb into the pot—I promise it's not hot.”

“Yeah, right. I'm not falling for that.”

Zecora looked annoyed at first, but then that expression was replaced by a mischievous smile. [You really think I'd gobble you up?]

“Scared? Ha! I'm not scared! In fact, I don't even know what the word ‘scared’ means because I've never been scared in my entire life.

[Then surely you're not scared to go into the pot?]

“Of course I'm not scared!” Spike laughed and walked to a corner of the room. “Watch and learn.” With a deep breath, he sprinted the distance to the cauldron and leaped in. Two things were immediately apparent: the water wasn't, in fact, hot, and instead of there being a bottom to the pot, there was simply a magical barrier holding the bubbling liquid up. Spike fell right through it.

Spike yelped—and it was a yelp of surprise, mind you, not of fear—as he dropped a short distance into a dark room. He landed on his butt and gulped. Was this his prison cell where he’d be stuck until Zecora got hungry? An oven? No… that would be silly. It was just a weird secret closet under a cauldron. A really dark closet.

“Where’s the light switch?” he demanded.

[words]

Spike blinked in surprise when the room flooded with light and he could see everything. It certainly was no oven or prison cell. It was definitely some sort of storage room, it was larger than the upper floors of Zecora’s house, and it was an absolute mess. There were wooden crates with various labels in some foreign language, some stacked on top of each other but mostly placed randomly around the room. Some were still nailed shut, and others were open and some even were lying on their sides, contents spilling out onto the floor. There were odd spices and herbs, roots of magical plants, ancient masks and cauldrons and potions and everything that Spike had never seen before.

“Woah, Zecora, what is all this stuff?” Spike called up, walking around to examine bits and pieces strewn across the floor that caught his eye.

“[something about rare zebrican things and potion whatnots]”

“I bet Twi would love this,” Spike chuckled. While Twilight had experimented with just about everything, he doubted she’d been able to get her hooves on rare Zebrican whatnots before. He started walking around the room, gathering clawfuls of materials that looked alike and putting them in their corresponding containers, after setting them right side up, of course. Well, he hoped they were the correct corresponding containers, anyway.

Eventually, the room started to look less disastrous, although it was still nowhere near tidy yet.

-finds gems, resists temptation to eat

-finishes cleaning, not detailed, but thinking about gem

-eats gem

-can’t resist and takes more

Confrontation

I wake up to an obnoxious beeping noise and the smell of cleaning products. There's a dull pain in my head that seems to get worse as time passes. I open my eyes to bright lights and immediately squeeze them shut again. Seriously, what is it with ponies around here? It's like they go out of their way to cause me discomfort by making lights as blindingly bright as possible.

I slowly open my eyes again, only to find that my blonde mane is hanging in my face, obstructing my view of anything. I'm really starting to feel bad for girls, especially the ones that style their hair so it's covering have of there face. Seriously, how do they go about their day like this? No wonder they're so crabby all the time! At least, I think they're crabby... I can't really remember clearly, which is weird given the amount of time I spend checking out all the girls in my school.

Once I manage to look past the hair, my eyes focus on five concerned faces. Well, two of them looked concerned. The other three looked almost… guilty. No, wait, I miscalculated. One pony is bored, three are guilty, and one is asleep. All five faces are turned away from me, so I’m not really able to get a good look at them. None of them look happy, but I can’t place my metaphorical finger on exactly why. Why do they look guilty? Wait, where am I? Okay, what is going on here?

Ugh… I can’t think and my mind is all foggy… c’mon Nick, let’s start with the basics here. I’m in a… bed, I think. Yes, that sounds about right. A bed. Although come to think of it, it’s not a very comfortable bed. It’s very hard and the pillows are like rocks. Nevertheless, it is definitely a bed. And I… wait, why was there a mane in my face? And ponies making lights unnecessarily bright? Oh right, I forgot about that. How could I forget about that? I groan and start to roll over onto my side, only to stop when the slight movement causes a sharp pain to jolt through my head.

“Oh good, she’s finally awake,” a young girl’s voice says, sounding relieved. “Mommy, she’s awaaaaake. Maybe you should wake up too… Mommy! Wakey time!”

“Shut up an’ let her sleep, Ah’m sure she feels guilty enough for what she did. Ah know Ah feel guilty, and Ah barely did anything,” a second voice declares. That accent… I know that accent… I rack through my brain, trying to think of where I’ve heard it before. Then I realize.

“Oh no, not you,” I mumble, my eyes finally fully focusing on the ponies standing by the foot of my bed. Except it isn’t my bed, it is a hospital bed, which probably means I am in a hospital. If I weren’t in a hospital, then I have no idea why there’s a hospital bed outside of a hospital. “Okay, can someone tell me what happened?” Apple Bloom opens her mouth to speak, but I stop her. “No, someone else. Preferably not any of you crusaders.”

“Guess that leaves me,” the fourth filly lazily drawls. She is a purple unicorn who looks remarkably like Derpy. “So these three morons over here were spying on you through our kitchen window. From what I heard, you saw them, panicked, and ran around like a wild buffalo until you ran until a table and knocked yourself out. My mom came in ‘bout a minute later, and she tried to fly you to the hospital. She flew high over Ponyville, and she dropped you from really high up. Isn’t that right, mommy?” she finishes, nudging her mother hard in the side.

“Hmmph? What?” Derpy asks, confused and still muddled from sleep. “Oh yes, absolutely correct. And what is beeping?” she demands, still not quite realizing where she was. “Dinky, did you leave the muffins in again? I told you… oh. Oh Celestia, Berry, are you okay? I’m sorry so, I mean so sorry, I’m so clumsy and I should never have tried to move you, oh I’m such an idiot, I should be burned at the stake for this!” she cries.

“Um, I’m fine… aside from a headache and some other things I’ll probably discover later. None of this is your fault, don’t blame yourself.” Technically, it was partially her fault, but I don’t really think right now is an appropriate time to bring that up.

“No, it is definitely her fault,” Dinky corrects, earning herself a whack on the head from Apple Bloom. “Ow! What was that for? I’m telling!”

“Telling who? I’m pretty sure your mom saw that,” Sweetie Belle says.

“So? I’m still telling,” Dinky fumes, massaging the part of her head that had been hit by Apple Bloom.

“Ah know yer younger than me and all, but Ah’m pretty sure Ah wasn’t that dumb when Ah was yer age,” Apple Bloom mutters.

“Um, s’cuse me? I’m pretty sure you’re the dumb one, ‘cause I’m in the same class as you in school. And I’m a month older than you, not to mention I have the highest grades in the class,” Dinky brags.

“Liar,” Apple Bloom says smugly, “there’s no way you’re in our class. Ah never see ya, and none of us get graded on stuff. So obviously, you’re not in our class. Right girls?” She turns to the other two crusaders for backup, but they exchange looks and says nothing. “Right girls?” she repeats. Sweetie Belle sighs and paws the ground.

“Well, she actually is in our class… she sits next to me,” she admits.

“Yeah, it’s true, I’ve seen her,” Scootaloo adds. “And Apple Bloom? Try not to insult Dinky in front of her mom. I don’t think she needs anything more upsetting her, and I really don’t want to get in trouble.”

All four fillies suddenly remembers where they are and why they are here, and they all stop arguing and apologizing profusely to me. Except for Dinky.

“Well, I’m not sorry about anything,” she declares, but when her mom shoots her a death glare, she retreats to a corner of the room and resumes her pouting.

“Um, wait,” I manage to get out before another argument breaks out, ”let me see if I have all my facts straight. So basically, you three,” I point to the crusaders, “were spying on me, and I got startled when I saw you, and then I… broke my face?” Actually, I’m not really sure how I was injured. Luckily, Scootaloo filled me in on the blanks.

“Concussion. That’s why your head feels stupid,” she explained. I’m not sure what she means by that, but I don’t want to sound like an idiot so I just nod my head like I completely understand what a concussion is. Bad idea. I wince as my head throbs painfully from the movement.

Normalization

"So Twilight, whatcha doin'? You've been stuck inside all day and I thought you might want some company and I made you chocolate cupcakes! I couldn't make you vanilla cupcakes because Pound Cake was-"

Twilight Sparkle grit her teeth and leaned closer to her book. If she was going to pass this exam, she had to study as much as she could, but with Pinkie Pie bouncing around the room, she was having trouble concentrating.

"-And then Mr. Cake had to buy some more sugar but he accidentally bought SALT! So then Mrs. Cake went to Fluttershy's house to borrow some but she wasn't home so she went to Rarity's house but Rarity somehow got her flank embedded in this huge diamond and-"

"Pinkie Pie, I'm sure that's a lovely story, but maybe you could tell me another time when I'm less busy."

"Busy?! But you're not even doing anything! You're just staring at a dusty old book! Wouldn't you rather have a party?"

"No Pinkie, not really. This is very important and I can't have any distractions. I need to study for a huge test the princess is giving me next week. I'm studying out of a very old, valuable book. In fact, I own the only copy in existence." But Pinkie Pie had already fired up her party cannon, and before she could shut it down, it blasted confetti and balloons right into Twilight's face.

"Agh! Pinkie! I said no party and OH CELESTIA YOU BLASTED A HOLE RIGHT THROUGH MY TEXTBOOK!" Twilight jumped up and waved the ruined book in front of her friend's face. "Pinkie Pie... You have RUINED my chances of EVER passing my test! Do you even understand what you've done?! No of course you don't, you never do. You think life is all fun and games! UGH! Why can't you just be NORMAL like everypony else!"

"N-n-normal?" Pinkie Pie asked, cringing away from the angry unicorn. Her main deflated ever so slightly.

"Yes, Pinkie Pie, normal. N-O-R-M-A-L. If you were a normal pony, then my book wouldn't be destroyed! Just leave, please. Go do something a NORMAL pony would do, like read a book or go shopping." Pinkie Pie reluctantly backed away from her and took a book off of one of the bookshelves before exiting the library.

"Finally, some peace and quiet," Twilight muttered as she repaired the damaged book. She sighed and continued studying the fascinating topic of quantum mechanics.

*****

Pinkie Pie trudged along the dirt paths of Ponyville, keeping her head down. Ponies cheerfully called her name and waved, but their smiles fell and they grew sad when Pinkie didn't respond. Pinkie's moods were contagious. Just as she could spread joy just by having a smile on her face, she could spread misery by not having one.

When she arrived at Sugarcube Corner, she went straight to her room, not even stopping to greet Pumpkin Cake and Pound Cake. She didn't want to upset them when they saw her not-so-poofy mane. Laying on her bed, she examined the book she had taken from Twilight's Library. How To Be Normal: A Filly's Guide To Normalization. She felt a bit guilty for stealing, but it would be all worth it if the book could help her become less of a nuisance to her friend.

Opening the book, she smoothed out the pages and began reading.

Are you always getting on your friends' nerves? Do you get yelled at? Do people think of you in a different way than other ponies? Do you sometimes think that you don't fit in?

"Yes, yes, yes, and... yes," Pinkie whispered.

If you answered yes to any of these questions, keep reading. The solution to all of this lies within this book. In this book, you will learn how to become normal. Normalization is a very delicate process. Once achieved, you shall go on to live a satisfying and successful life.

Pinkie Pie leaned forward, absorbing the words of the book.

However, before we can begin, you must complete the first and most crucial part of becoming normal: Admitting that you are not normal and are unhappy with who you are.

Pinkie Pie read that line a couple times to fully comprehend the words. Then she fell over.

"This book is silly!" Pinkie exclaimed, rolling off the side of her bed in a fit of giggles. "Admitting I'm not normal and saying I'm not happy with who I am?" she snorted. "I'm totally super-duper happy with who I am. Why am I reading this dusty old book anyway?"

She bounced out of her room with her head held high. The book, which in fact was very new and not dusty at all, lay forgotten on her bed.

Life was great.

*****

Trapped/Lost

I’ve been trapped in a cave for a couple days, but honestly, I don’t mind that much.

There’s plenty of plants in the cave, and there’s even a stream of fresh water. Sometimes I’m tempted to swim in it, but I don’t want to soil it.

When the entrance to the cave caved in on me, I panicked. I cried for hours, sure that I was going to die in there. I calmed down after I found food, but I quickly became bored with nothing to do for hours on end. It was pretty dark and I couldn’t see much either, but after a few days my eyes adjusted and I realized that the cave wasn’t boring at all.

The walls of the cave had many sparkling gemstones embedded in them. I’m a geologist, so naturally I was immediately captivated by them. Instead of spending my days sitting in the dark wishing I had something to do, I started using my waking hours studying the cave and exploring it. The cave isn’t large, but it is filled from top to bottom with amazing stalactites and minerals.

It’s a geologist’s dream.

I’ve never been much of a social pony, so I never felt lonely. I felt content in my little prison, and I felt no urgency to leave. So when a hyperactive pony gets trapped in the cave with me, I am less than pleased.

*****

I’m crunching on some leaves when a small glimmer of light catches my eye. Small beams of light shining in from cracks in the rocks are normal, but this one is new, so I notice it right away. It seems to be expanding. Normal light filtering through doesn’t do that.

Also, cracks in the rock don’t usually talk.

“C’mon, you stupid rocks. Move so I can see what’s behind you!” the voice demands.

I carefully creep towards the voice.

“Lemme in this cave! I want to exploooooooooore!” Some more rocks fell away, letting in more light. I squint my eyes against it; being in almost complete darkness for almost a week made light quite painful to my eyes.

Thankfully, it only lasts a second. A head pops through the hole in the rocks and cuts off the light burning my eyes.

“Heya there! Are you a rock farmer too? ‘Cause I am and I was going to explore this cave because caves are super-duper cool. Do you live in here? It’s a strange place to live. I mean, who would live in a cave? I live in a bakery and I probably eat too much sugar, but I don’t care. I feel bad for you. Why would you live in a cave? There’s no sugar here! I brought cupcakes, do you want any?” She tilts her head to the side as much as she can in the tight space, expecting an answer.

I don’t give her one. Instead of disappointing her and going away like I was hoping she would, she shrugs and says, “Okie dokie lokie, I’ll just come inside and we can split the whole batch!”

“Nonono, wait!” I shout, but I’m too late. After lifting the cupcakes into the cave, the pony shoves herself through the hole she made, wiggling around to get herself completely through.

Surprisingly, the cave wall didn't collapse right away. The pink pony dusted herself off and stood up, all the while smiling like an idiot. "Hey, that was actually kind of fun! I should do that again!" she exclaims. I get the feeling that I can't stop her from doing anything, so I just watch her silently as she tries to dive back through the hole again. That’s when the wall caves in.

The pony squeals and dashes towards where I’m sitting faster than should be possible. I give her my best ‘see, I told you so’ look as she stares in disbelief at the crumbling wall. The cave-in results in the size of my living space decreasing a significant amount. Great, now I’m trapped in a small area with an annoying blob of pink fur. “This is horrible!” she cries.

I glare at her. “Well, you did this. This is all your fault. You could have just left me alone, but noooooooo. You just had to go digging around my cave. Do you have anything to say for yourself?” I demand.

She sniffles. “Y-yes, I do. I’m sorry,” she says, tears dripping down her face and her poofy hair deflating a little. Wow, somepony is a little sensitive. At least she’s apologizing. I mean, it could be worse. She could be celebrating the fact that we’re now stuck in a claustrophobic area together. The cave in could have blocked off my access to the water, but I got lucky. Maybe this wouldn’t be that unbearable after all. Maybe the pony will prove to be a good companion. “I’m so sorry that you’ll never be able to eat those cupcakes because I left them behind and now they’re all smushed from the rocks,” she says. I groan facehoof. Suddenly shifting moods from despair to happiness, she says “But look on the bright side. Now that the cave is smaller, we can’t get lost! We can spend our time having parties in this little room. Of course, it won’t be the same without cupcakes, but I’m sure we can manage. Maybe we can- hey, why do you keep hitting your face like that?”

*****

"No, don't jump! Stop! Oh for Celestia's sake! Why do I even bother? It's not like you were going to listen to me anyway," I groan in defeat. Pinkie Pie - she told me her name earlier sometime during an explanation about how chocolate was invented - pops her head out of my stream of fresh water.

"What? Is something wrong? Are we getting invaded by seaponies? Or maybe...zombies?!" She shrieks, jumping as high up into the air as the cave ceiling allows, which is still pretty high. I don't think I want to know how she managed to jump almost ten feet into the air. "Zombies! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

"Pinkie Pie!" I shout, silencing her. "There are no zombies."

"Oh, okay. I guess there's nothing wrong then," she declares happily, diving back into what was once my source of drinking water, leaving me to my frustrated thoughts.

*****

"No, Pinkie, we cannot invite your sister over for a bachelor party."

"Why not?" she whines.

"Stop whining," I whine.

"No, you stop!" she protests.

"Pinkie, do you even know what a bachelor party is?" I ask. She shakes her head and I facehoof. "Exactly. Besides, how would we hold a party in this tiny area?" Pinkie snorts at that.

"I always manage. You're no fun, miss... Um... What's your name again?"

"Gathering Dust."

"Gathering Dust, I'm getting out of here." Pinkie pulls a giant gun-thing out of her mane while I stare wide-eyed at her. Squinting one eye, she aims at a wall and blasts right through it.

"But how..." I start, than shake my head. It's better not to question it. "Whatever. If you're leaving, I'm leaving," I say. We walk out of the cave together...

And find ourselves in the middle of the Everfree forest. Terrified, Pinkie jumps on me and clings to my leg. "I changed my mind. The Everfree forest is a scary place and I don't feel like singing the laughter song right now. If I have to go through it, I'm going with you."

I roll my eyes. Great, now I'm lost in the Everfree with this crazy pony. I really hope I can get home soon and never have to see her again.

Walking through the Everfree Forest is annoying. I would fly, but I have this annoying pink earth pony following me. If I so much as flap my wings, she freaks out and starts bawling. I always feel guilty when I make her sad, because she's just so... Happy.

Which really sucks, because I really want to stretch my wings out after being stuck in a cave for a week.

At least being lost in the Everfree forest is an improvement over being trapped in a cave. Not really, but it's what I tell myself to feel better about my current situation.

Pinkie Pie actually isn't that bad. Once you get used to her, she's actually almost likable. Almost.

"And so then I was all like 'hey Apple Fritter, want to try one of my apple fritters? Baking apple fritters isn’t really my forte but I promise you that they’re edible,'" Pinkie Pie laughs. I give her a forced smile. "Then, I took a pink poodle over to her house, but it had a serious case of dandruff so then I had to walk aaaaall the way to the store to buy that special shampoo. Then I washed it with the shampoo, but then I discovered that the poodle was not a natural pink when the shampoo washed away the fur dye!" Pinkie shakes her head. "Dogs these days," she says in a disapproving voice.

Starting to get a headache, I say "how about we set up camp here for the night?"

"But it's not even night yet," Pinkie protests.

"Yes, well..." I pause, trying to think up a good excuse. "Well, timberwolves like to eat ponies that set up camp during nightfall. We should do it now," I say. "Why don't you go look for food while I build us a lean-to?" Anything to get her out of my mane for a bit. I don’t actually know how to build a lean-to, but I’m sure I can figure it out. My father always built us a lean-to when he took me camping in the effort to get me interested in something other than rocks.

"Okie dokie lokie!" she says and bounces off to find food. Once she's gone, I glance over at my wings and sigh, fluttering them a little. My wings are my favorite part about myself. They're beige like the rest of my body, but they're tipped with white. They make me feel unique and special. First make a shelter, then you can fly, I remind myself.

I hurriedly build the makeshift lean-to and the campfire, eager to spread my wings and soar. Flying has always been a passion of mine, even though I'm not very good at it. I love the feeling of the wind combing through my mane and my feathers.

The lean-to collapses and I groan. Apparently, watching my dad put up lean-tos did not teach me anything. See, this is why I wanted to stay in the cave. You don't need to build a shelter inside it, seeing as the cave itself is one. The only reason I left was because there was no food left for me. That, and I wanted to make sure Pinkie Pie didn't accidently burn the Everfree forest down.

By the time I finally manage to set up a half decent lean-to, Pinkie Pie returns from her scavenging with a large variety of food for us. It's a lot of food, so I can't use sending her out to find more as an excuse to go flying.

"That's our camp? No offense, Dusty, but it's not very good," Pinkie says, sounding slightly disappointed.

"Sorry," I apologize, "I've never done this before. I expected you to be gone for longer finding food, which would've given me longer to figure this out."

"Here, let me help you," she offers. Before I can even open my mouth to thank her, she's sped off to fix the campsite. Starting with demolishing my pathetic attempt at a lean-to, she begins to build- wait no, she's done already. How... Sweet Luna, how did she do that? She's built an entire two-story log cabin and a cozy looking campfire area.

When I'm finally able to speak again, I ask "where did you learn to do that? This is amazing!" Pinkie Pie shrugs.

"Oh, on the rock farm where I grew up, sometimes we had to work on fields far from our home. Often, it was too late to make the walk home before dark, so we would build ourselves temporary shelters to last the night, like the one I just built," she explains.

Temporary? This thing is bigger than my own house! Then again, I live in a run down old apartment in Fillydelphia.

"Well thanks, Pinkie, this is too amazing for me to even comprehend," I say, truly grateful. Pinkie Pie's face suddenly appears very, very close to mine and I jump back with a small yelp of surprise. “Woah, back off a little. You’re in my space bubble.”

“Ooh, you have a space bubble? I’ve always wanted one! Is it made out of cheese or bubble? Wait, that must mean you have a bubble bush! Dusty Diane Shelf, why didn’t you tell me this before?” Pinkie Pie gasped, grabbing my face and shaking me so hard I almost felt sick.

“That’s not my name, you know,” I say, shaking my head to clear the dizziness. “My name is just Dusty. Nothing else.”

dumb, error-ridden piece of flummery

The prompt: A human finds a young pony abandoned in a cardboard box, and decides to raise them as their own.

The sky is a gloomy shade of gray, and it dumps gallons upon gallons of rain on my head as I trudge through the mud. It'll ruin my sneakers, but I don't care. After all, they're already ruined. What difference will a little bit of mud make?

When I reach my house, I hesitate outside of the front door. The woman waiting inside for me is not someone I want to face right now. She's clingy, acts like she's my boss, and fusses over me way too much. However, I have to admit I like the attention. Don't get me wrong, I still wish she'd learn that I'm an independent being and that she's not in charge of me. The attention is nice, though.

I push open the door and step inside, dripping water and mud onto the floor as I shut it behind me. "I'm home!" I call out into the hallway. A second later, I hear footsteps from above me and I see feet quickly descend the staircase and rush over to me. I'm swept up in a hug, then quickly deposited indignantly onto my butt on the floor, the woman realizing how soaking wet and dirty I am.

"Alexander Jonathan Wescott, you're dripping all over the wooden floor! Get back onto the doormat!" she demanded.

I grin sheepishly and take a step back to stand on the mat. "Sorry mom."

"Sorry is right. Why are you so wet? Where's the new umbrella and raincoat I got you?"

"I don't know..."

"Yes you do."

"No I don't."

"I'll count to three..."

"Fine. I put them on a bench at the playground because it stopped raining so hard, but it started raining when I was walking home, right after Matt started being mean. I didn't want to go back to his house."

"So you left them there?"

"...yeah. I forgot them."

My mom sighed and shook her head. "All right. Once the rain dies down a little, you can go back up to the playground and get them, okay?"

"But mom, I don't wanna. Why can't you do that?" I whine.

"Alex..." she warns.

"Fine," I grumble. Stupid rain, stupid umbrella, stupid woman. One day, I'll get rich and famous and I won't have to listen to anybody. I'll just hire people to fetch my umbrella.

"Good. Anyway, I don't want you getting our house all dirty, and there's no point in making you dry off and change if you're just going back out later, so stay in this area. Got it?" I nod. "Okay. I'll go grab some towels to lay on the floor, and then- wait a second, I think the rain is slowing down."

I look out the window, and sure enough, the rain had slowed to a light drizzle. "So should I go now?"

"Yes, you should, but you're not going anywhere until you put your rain boots on, understand?"

I groan at this. Those things? I hate those things. My sneakers are so much better. "Why?" I ask.

"Because I say so. Put them on."

"Ugh," I groan. I do put them on, just not on my feet. After all, she never specified where I had to where them. "Now can I go?"

"Alex, put them on your feet. Don't be smart with me."

I roll my eyes, something I'd seen the older kids at school do a lot, and tilted my head so that the boots fell the the floor. As slowly as I could, I pulled the boots onto my feet, making a face all the while.

"Now hurry up," mom says when I finish, "you don't want to be out there when the rain starts up again. Trust me. I'll make some Mac n' cheese when you get back, okay?"

What Happens in Tartarus

King Sombra growled angrily and kicked the toilet.

The toilet was clogged again.

“I, the majestic King Sobra, ruler and conqueror of the Crystal Empire, command you to flush!” he shouted.

Tirek raised an eyebrow. "Well what did you expect, luxury high-tech toilets? We're in Tartarus, for Celestia's sake."

Sombra whirled around angrily to face Tirek. "And YOU! Why are you in the bathroom with me? Get out!" he growled. He fired up his horn and blasted the toilet with a ball of fire. "Stupid toilet!" he shrieked. Tirek rolled his eyes and stayed standing in the bathroom.

"What the hell?" said Queen Chrysalis, marching in to see what the commotion was all about. "What are- Luna's tits, what did you do?!" she demanded, rushing over to the shattered toilet. "Great, just great. Congratulations, you have officially destroyed the only toilet in Tartarus. You win NOTHING. Where am I supposed to go to the bathroom now?"

The Toilet gurgled its death song that sounds like a bubbling word, “Avenge thee.”

“Mr. Toilet has spoken,” came a voice, and in that moment, Sombra burst into flames, causing him to roll in the flood on the floor.

“The Bee’s no not the Bee’s!” Sombra screamed.

Discord chuckled. “Well Chrissie my dear perhaps we can just teleport it away.” He snapped his fingers.

Chrysalis felt lighter suddenly. “Ahh much better,” she exclaimed. "But where did it all go?"

Tirek smacked his lips, making a face. “I taste brownies.”

Sombra soon stood covered in hot fudge. “I hate you all.”

Chrissy rolled her eyes; Tirek picked up a piece of toilet and ate it while Discord turned Chrysalis into a Scootaloo.

That exploded… “Oh how I love this place…”

Tirek growled, “We are here to be punished, Discord! Not enjoy ourselves!”

“Oh perhaps you are, my fine Centaur! But I was hired as a guard for my expertise.” Discord snapped his fingers again, turning the one large Tirek into a multitude of smaller ones with Sombra heads. Sombra now had one normal sized Tirek head; the toilet reappearing, but now black and filled with holes. Gargles from the toilet came out in Chrissy’s voice.

“Discord, I will kill you,” the voice snarled. “Well, at least I no longer will need to use the toilet.”

"No but I do," Tirek’s head said.

“You better not!” the holy toilet replied.

“Your waste must go somewhere,” Tirek's head pointed out.

“Not back into me!” gurgled the screaming voice of the changeling Queen.

Bunches of Mini Tirek-bodied, Sombra-headed Centaur ants ran around the floor, swimming in marshmallow fluff.

Discord floated around, amused, drinking Fluffy pink unicorns dancing on rainbow Twilights from a mug shaped like Luna's plot. "Oh, I so do love chaos!" he exclaimed. Everyone ignored him.

“Too bad," Tirek’s head on Sombra’s body replied before moving over to the holy toilet. There was a muffled sound from Chrissy as Sombra sat down. There was a sound of a car alarm before a multitude of bubbles were blown out of the holes in the toilet floating out and picking up the Centaur ants with Sombra heads and floating them away into a lake of liquid Cantaloupe. Mini screams of drowning cantaloupe ants could be heard as they died horribly in a sea of fruity death.

Discord grinned. This was turning out to be a pretty good day.

***

Dear Princess Celestia,

Can I stay in Tartarus for longer than you sentenced me to? It is just so wonderfully chaotic here and I'm really spending some quality time with my new friends. Besides, I don't have to  see any of that awful fireball you insist on raising every morning. I can't seem to convince Moonyface here to bring eternal night upon Equestria again. Ever since I've asked, she's been avoiding me. Oh well. Oh, I do wish Fluttershy was here with me.

     Your best pal,

     Discord

     P.S. I left little Lu-lu a gift in her closet.

Princess Celestia read over the letter once again to make sure she hadn't misread it. Moonyface? Oh, that must be Nightmare Moon. Wait a second, how was he able to send her a letter from Tartarus? She took his magic away; she remembered clearly. Wait... Did she?

"Horsefeathers," she muttered. This was not good. Turning to a member of the royal guard, she said, "Wake my sister at once. We have a dire emergency on our hands." The guard member started to tremble and Celestia sighed and fired up her horn. "Here," she said as she cast the spell on the terrified guard, "I put a protection spell on you. Princess Luna can’t impale you with shooting stars." The guard stayed where he was. "Or banish you to the moon," Celestia added.

The guard bowed low before running off in the direction of Luna's day chambers. Celestia waited and listened for the outburst that was sure to come.

One minute... Two minutes... Three minu-

"WHO DARES INTERRUPT US DURING OUR ROYAL BEAUTY SLEEP?!"

The entire castle fell silent.

Celestia sat down with a cup of tea and a cake as her younger sister stormed into the kitchen.

"Tia, what is the meaning of this?" she demanded, reaching for the cake. Before she could grab a slice, Celestia whisked the cake away in her magical grasp and shoved the entire thing down her throat while Luna stared at her with wide eyes. "But sister, your diet!"

Celestia shrugged and licked the chocolate frosting off of the corners of her mouth. "I'm an alicorn, I can always do some fancy magicking to get rid of this," she said, pinching the fat on her stomach. "Luna, we have a problem."

Luna nodded. "I agree. You've gone crazy and I need to take you to the Royal Physiatrist immediately!" she declared, standing up and quickly downing the rest of Celestia's tea.

Celestia shook her head. "No, that's not it. Discord has his magic in Tartarus."

Luna spat the tea all over Celestia's pristine white fur. "WHAT."

Celestia nodded grimly. "Let's go sister. We must fix this before things get too bad down there."

"No," Luna protested. "It's the middle of the day. Let's do this late afternoon when I will be less likely to fall asleep in the middle of Tartarus."

"Okay," Celestia agreed, "meet me back here in late afternoon."

***

"Stop it!" shouted Chrysalis, now back in changeling form.

"How about youstop it! You're the one strangling me!" rasped Tirek.

"Only because you pushed me into the boiling purple mustard lake!" Chrysalis shot back, but she released him anyway,

"Actually, that was me," admitted Sombra.

"Oh-" Tirek stopped for a moment to catch his breath. "For the love of evil, look at us! We're fighting over nonsense. I mean, how do you think a boiling purple mustard lake got in here in the first place?"

Everybody's eyes slowly turned upwards to see Discord floating on the ceiling with a pineapple on his head. "What, why is everyone looking at me?" he asked innocently. The pineapple turned into a halo and exploded, causing a truckload of confetti and spaghetti noodles to rain down on Sombra's head.

Sombra stared straight ahead, his mouth in a tight line as noodles slid off of his head and onto the ground. Discord burst into laughter. "Oh my, you should see your face right now. BWAHAHAHAHA- wait a second, why am I laughing like Rainbow Dash? Oh dear, maybe the element of loyalty is starting to rub off on me."

"Oh no, how terrible," Sombra deadpanned, using his hoof to push some of the noodles off of his head. They landed on the floor with a loud plop. "I'm just stuck in Tartarus with a crazy freako, a bug, a tyrant, and a monkey."

Everybody turned to glare at him.

"Excuse me?!" said Chrysalis, insulted.

"I am NOT a monkey, you fool," hissed Tirek.

"Ape, whatever," says Sombra, dismissing it with a wave of his hoof.

"More like jerk," countered Discord. "This guy here betrayed me. We were friends; a good friend does not betray their friends. A friend must remain loyal," he said with a sniff of disdain.

Chrysalis smirked. "Well well, looks like the element of loyalty is rubbing off on you. You know, I really hope the element of kindness rubs off on you next; it would benefit us all. After all, you spent so much time with that little yellow bi- AH! Hey, stop that!" Chrysalis found herself thankfully still in the form of a changeling queen, but now hot pink and having no legs. "Discord, when we get out of here, I'm going to change into a muscular stallion. Then, right in front of your pretty pony friend, I'm going to kill you and fu-"

Discord snapped his fingers and Chrysalis's mouth hopped off of her face and turned into a tree, which promptly grew five thousand feet tall and sprouted fruit that looked suspiciously like Discord. "Ahh, much better," Discord said, picking one of the fruits.

"I'm awesome!" declared the fruit right before Discord bit into it. Then it started screaming in agony.

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-”

"WHAT ARE YOU IMPUDENT DIPSHITS DOING THAT COULD POSSIBLY BE WORTH WAKING ME FROM MY BEAUTY SLEEP?!" a voice boomed.

"Hehe, you're in deep shit now, Discord," muttered Tirek. Discord hurriedly got rid of the tree and returned Chrysalis's mouth to her face.

Nightmare Moon stormed into sight, positively livid. "I think that I should take all of your heads off and-What in Equestria? Okay, who is responsible for this mess?"

All hooves and a single hand pointed to Discord. Nightmare Moon sighed. "I should have known. It's always you.

"Now, I have recently sensed a large amount of power realizing that we have access to magic, and I have no doubt that it's the royal sisters themselves," she said, spitting out the word royal as if it were the dirtiest word in existence.

Discord laughed. “Now why would Lu-lu and Tia ever want to come here?” he scoffs. "They're too prissy and proper to set a hoof in here. Well, I guess they've been banished here before but that's different." He shrugged, indifferent.

"Well, it seems that someone decided to send them a letter," Nightmare Moon seethed, glaring daggers at the offending draconequus. "Either way, we have a huge mess on our hooves. Literally. It's a garbage dump in here. I managed to retrieve a small storage of magic for you all to access down here, but it is now at risk because of your actions. Do you want to go millennia without magic? No? I thought not. Go clean up this mess before the Princesses arrive," she demanded, walking away.

"What about you?" Sombra called out.

"I'm taking a nap."

*****

"Luna, wake up," Celestia said to the lump of blankets.

"Mmph nthnksmd," the lump replied, rolling over and telekinetically chucking a pillow at Celestia. Celestia sighed, looking down at her younger sister. Ever since her return from the moon, Luna had been awfully lazy.

Celesta let out a sigh, “Luna, if you don’t get up this instant I’m going to ban fun for all eternity…”

“THOU WOULD NOT DARE!” Luna bolted up in her bed, screaming in her Royal Canterlot Voice.

“No I won't, considering you are now awake. We have to go. Get out of bed, we need to go find Discord and strip him of his powers.”

Luna just sat there on her bed, smacking her lips together trying to get the morning mouth to go away. Her hair ragged and eyes drooping, she looked over at Celestia with a deadpan glare. “I thought you took away his powers before you sent him to Tartarus…”

Celestia looked at her sister for a long moment, “Well, I thought I did too, but apparently I got distracted and... forgot...” She looked away with a blush.

“Sister…”

“Yes Luna?” Celestia looked up at her sister with a soft smile.

“I don’t care….” Luna then flopped back down onto her bed and rolled up in her blanket.

“Luna… ”

Luna sat back up looking Celestia dead in the eyes with a look that could kill, causing Celestia to pause. “Tia….” Luna hesitated for a moment. “We should just give it back….”

Celestia blinked. “G-give it back?”

Luna nodded. “All of it. I need a vacation. You need a break, and it would not hurt, the nobles are beyond annoying and it could not hurt to have a bit of excitement around here again. Just give him his reign back for a year, have him leave us alone and let us have a vacation.”

“B-but Luna, that… Do you really think that will work?”

Luna gave a sharp nod to Celestia.

Celestia looked at her sister for a long moment before nodding. “Okay, I’ll go, do that then…..”

Several hours later….

Discord appeared in the throne room in Canterlot. He was taking a bath in glass, but he seemed to be fine. After a moment Celestia walked up to him and placed something on his head. “Good luck.” And with a pop, she was gone.

Discord blinked, not even able to get out a reply after arriving he removes Celestia's crown from his head, frowning at it. “B-but I don’t want to rule; it's too much work,”

Celestia popped back in. “Too bad… Don’t destroy the world. Luna and I will be back in a few years. Also, Luna wanted me to thank you for her ‘gift.’ She'd also like to inform you that she's no longer afraid of spiders, and that she actually finds them quite adorable. In other words, your prank failed. Oh, and…” she kissed him on the cheek. “Take care.” With that, she disappeared once more, leaving Discord with a frown on his face.

“B-but ruling is boring! That's why I gave you the jobs in the first place!” he wailed.

The Day Guard appeared next to Discord coughing, “Um, King Discord, you have meetings to attend to now…."

“NNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”

And for the next fifty years Discord ruled over the kingdom of Equestria, and he was bored, so bored he transformed himself into a two-by-four for an entire year just to show it. The royal sisters never returned and Discord was stuck with ruling over the empire. After three years he broke his friends out of Tartarus to be his advisers and Equestria was prosperous for eons to come. Sort of. It was prosperous by Discord's, Tirek's, Queen Chrysalis', King Sombra's, and Nightmare Moon's standards.

The End.

e

"No bamboo for you!" Scootaloo declared, jumping up and yanking the bamboo away from the panda. The panda sniffled, then flopped on the ground and bawled.

"Scootaloo, give the panda its bamboo back," Sweetie Belle said, coughing from the dust cloud that had risen from the panda's impact with the ground.

Scootaloo shook her head. "No," she said, looking defiantly over at her friend as she dropped the plant on the ground and stomped on it with her hooves. The panda screamed even louder as she heard the sound of her stolen food being smashed into pieces.

"Scootaloo!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed. "What did you do that for? That was really mean!"

"It wasn't answering my question," pouted Scootaloo.

"Of course not! Pandas can't talk, you dummy!"

"That's not true. This one can," Scootaloo argued. "I gave her a lesson on speaking. Then when I was done, I told her to take the bamboo from me if she could understand me and speak now. And she did! But now she's not answering my questions."

"And did you ever consider that maybe that's because she can't understand you?" Sweetie Belle deadpanned.

"Of course not. She's just misbehaving and refusing to take the pop quiz."

Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. "I doubt that."

Scootaloo gave the unicorn a pointed look, then booped the panda on the nose.

"Get your hooves off of me, filly!" it shrieked. Then it stood up and kicked Scootaloo into the air.

"I'm flyyyyyyying!" Scootaloo yelled as she soared through the air. Sweetie Belle watched her friend until she was no more than an orange speck in the distant sky.

"...Oh," she finally said. She shrugged and walked home.

d

Pinkie Pie stared at the huge pile of garbage in front of her in disbelief. "But you never mentioned that this was part of the job!" she protested. "I thought that I would just be baking and helping out."

"This is part of helping out, Pinkie," Mrs. Cake explained. "You're helping out by emptying all the garbage bins into the dumpster."

"No, I never agreed to this!" Pinkie wailed, pressing herself against a wall in an effort to get as far away from the smelly waste as possible.

"Actually, you did," Mr. Cake corrected her. "It's in your contract."

Pinkie sighed and stopped crying, then she trudged across the room to dispose of her garbage. One day, she would have her own bakery/party story, and she would be sure to hire other ponies to take out the trash for her, because this was absolutely disgusting.

Work wasn't all fun and games, it seemed.

j

"I like pie!" Apple Bloom declared. Sweetie Belle stared at her for a while, her mouth gaping open, then exploded. Scootaloo farted.

h

My name is Diamond Tiara, and I'm confused. Do ponies like me or hate me? I've always thought of myself as more popular and cooler than the other ponies. But am I wrong? What makes a pony popular and cool?

I have a bunch of people that do whatever I say. I have a best friend, and she sticks by me no matter what's obviously something good about me. I used to think I was perfect. I'm rich, beautiful, mature, popular, and flawless. But then I stopped to think about what I was doing one day. I saw the tears in Sweetie Belle's eyes, and I remembered what it felt like to cry: awful.

Why do I do this to my classmates? What did they do to deserve this? Sure, they're blank flanks, but that's only because they're too dumb to realize their special talents. Even I've figured it out, and yet they never even consider the possibility of what's right underneath their noses being their special talents. My talent? It's not that special, really. Sure, I love it, and I wouldn't dream of ever having anything else, but it's nothing spectacular.

I pause at the door, debating whether or not I should just go home. No harm done if I don't do anything, right? But then I picture her face once more, and I know I have to do this.

I raise my hoof and knock unsurely - once, twice, three times. And I wait, shivering, even though it's not cold. I should've gone home, because now there's no going back.

The door opens, and I let out a little squeak, trembling as I shrink back and cower in fear from the figure in the doorway.

d

Many millions of years ago, maybe even billions of years ago, there were no ponies. There were simply potatoes. Other creatures weren’t very evolved yet, so at the time, the potatoes were the most advanced form of life on the planet.

But nobody cares about potatoes. They’re boring.

So let’s fast forward another couple million years or so to the point where they’ve evolved into something a little more interesting: a race known as the derptatoes. This generation was slightly more intelligent than the previous, and had several new traits to better help them survive in the empty world. They started to grow limbs to enable transportation and, although not quite capable of individual thought, had some sense of self-awareness and took comfort in the presence of other derptatoes. They would separate into groups and live in different areas of the world.

When the first predators appeared, the derptatoes started developing defensive traits. Different groups of derptatoes began to develop unique colors to blend in with their surroundings and avoid detection. Some groups of derptatoes living in harsher environments developed traits such as fin-like protrusions on their sides to enable them to jump off of high places and glide safely down, spikes to defend themselves against attackers, and a furry outer layer to protect themselves from the cold. Sometimes, derptatoes would be separated from their group and be forced to find a different one. Their special group traits would then be passed into the next generation of their new group, giving them multiple special features.

At one point in time, the world suddenly had a dramatic decrease in temperature. All derptatoes without fur died out, and the remaining derptatoes needed to find a new way to reproduce because the ground was frozen solid. So they evolved into mammals.

They started producing children by giving birth, but they still had another problem. The unusual weather was very cloudy, and they could no longer receive energy from the sun. So they began to eat unintelligent plants.

d

Snakes ate amelies face, her screams echoing in the deep cavern. Blood spurted from her nostrils as her nose disappeared. Then she died and the sanake got fat. THE END

n

“And you’re absolutely sure that you’ll be able to handle her?” Rarity asked for what must have been the fifth time now, biting her lip as she tried to think of any other pony who could foalsit Sweetie Belle. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust June, of course, but June staying here meant that she couldn’t come with Rarity to the annual Fillydelphia high-fashion exhibition.

“Absolutely positive, Miss Rarity,” June assured her. “She’s a sweet filly and it’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing. I may be a pet, but I can take care of others. I took a foalsitting course when I was younger, remember?”

“Yes, yes, I’m aware, but that was a long time ago, and Sweetie Belle can be rather… destructive,” Rarity countered.

“Really, it’s fine. I got this.” June beamed confidently at her owner, smile widening as the fashionista visibly relaxed, letting out a breath she’d been holding and standing still for the first time in the last twenty minutes or so. She’d been pacing around the room, tidying up and fretting over every possible danger that Sweetie Belle could encounter.

Rarity walked over to her marefriend and gently kissed her forehead. “I won’t be gone for long. You’re in charge until then—I know, it’s a really sudden change of position for you, but you’ll do just fine.” She smiled as June nodded at her. Finally over her worries and ready to leave, Rarity trotted over to the bottom of the boutique’s staircase and called out to her sister. “Sweetie Belle! It’s time for me to leave. Come down here for a bit so that we can go over the rules again.”

“Do you want to… play cards?” June offered with a hopeful smile, holding out the deck to the unicorn filly. The smile slid off of her face as Sweetie Belle shook her head and went back to poking the floor with her hoof. “Oh come on, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to play stupid cards,” Sweetie grumbled.

“Well you haven’t wanted to do anything else either,” June tried to point out, but her statement was rejected immediately.

“You’ve offered to play cards, war, cards, laminated paper game, cards, cards, your favourite game aka cards, and cards. I can’t tell if you’re just stupid or if you have some sort of serious card obsession. I want to do something else.”

June sighed. “Okay, fine. What do you want to do?” Reluctantly, she placed her beloved deck of cards back onto the game shelf.

Sweetie Belle instantly perked up, swiveling herself around to face the pegasus and staring curiously at her for a few seconds. “I wanna talk about the thing you said the other day about Diamond Tiara being kinda like you. A kitty. What the heck did you mean by that?”

Junie raised an eyebrow. “You want to talk about that?” she asked. Sweetie Belle hadn’t seemed that interested when she’d first brought up the idea at dinner.

“Yeah. I mean, I sort of understand the whole kitty and owner thing, but you’re nice and Diamond Tiara is a whiny, stuck-up, snot-faced—” Sweetie started, but June cut her off.

“Okay, no name-calling. I get the point. You don’t like her and she doesn’t seem like me at all, therefore there’s no way that she’d ever be submissive, right?” Sweetie Belle nodded, so June continued on. “Well, that might not entirely be true. You’ve only seen me when with Rarity, so there’s a side of me that you’ve never had the chance to see before. I’m kinda like Diamond Tiara in a way, normally.”

Sweetie Belle shuddered. “I sure hope not. She’s horrible.”

“Mhmm,” June replied. There was an awkward pause, and then she reached back over to the game shelf. “Want to play cards now?”

“Ugh, no. I’ll just go find my friends and hang with them,” Sweetie decided.

“Fine. Be back before dark.” June sighed as the filly left her all alone. Sitting in silence, she shuffled and set up the cards to sit in solitude and play a simple game or solitaire.

Sweetie Belle peeked through the bushes at the two other fillies, swallowing nervously. Normally this wouldn’t wrack her nerves like this, but normally she was staring at her friends and not the two classmates she hated the most: Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. She only really wanted to look at the one filly, though. She had no use for Silver Spoon.

Concentrating, Sweetie Belle furrowed her brow and cast a certain spell. A rock surrounded by a pale green aura slowly lifted off of the ground and floated above the gray pony’s head. She hesitated, thinking about what she was doing, but then shrugged and released her aura, remembering that she didn’t like Silver Spoon anyway.

Silver Spoon yelped and burst into tears. “Silver? Snap out of it! What happened?” Diamond Tiara demanded, rushing over to her friend. However, as soon as she saw the tiny spot of blood on Silver Spoon’s forehead, she wrinkled her nose and stepped back. “Ew… you should go see a doctor and get that cleaned up.”

Silver Spoon nodded and picked up her glasses from the ground, crying even harder as she put them on and noticed a crack in the lense.

“Wanna be my kitty?” Sweetie Belle asked, attempting a seductive smile.

d

Hi. My name is Natalie. Natalie Potter.

You’ve probably never heard of me, but that’s because people aren’t supposed to know of my existence. I’m Harry Potter’s illegitimate daughter. My mother is some vampire chick that got murdered when I was four years old. I can’t remember much about her.

Anyway, I’m nine years old, almost ten. I’ll be starting Hogwarts next week. Because I have a much higher IQ than most people and learn really quickly, I get to start a year early. I could’ve handled it last year, but school regulations and all that meant that I couldn’t start at age nine. Whatever. It’s stupid.

h

I can't remember my mother's voice.

I can remember my father's voice, but not my mother's. She died giving birth to me, leaving me in the "care" of my father.

My father's voice is a voice that I know well. However, I know not what it sounds like when he speaks in a normal tone, for all I have ever heard from him is shouting.

I don't think my father remembers my voice. Ever since a very early age, I've barely been speaking to him. It's better for us both for us that way. My father is a big believer in the phrase "children should be seen and not heard" and I don't want to talk to him anyway. Why would I? Anything I say he'd respond with an insult shouted in my face, maybe accompanied by a slap to the arm if he felt like it.

I sit here in the living room of my neighbor, kicking my feet and fidgeting in the plush armchair. It squeaks a bit as I shift my weight back and forth.

I haven't heard my voice in a long time, save for quiet conversations at school. For me to be talking to someone outside of school is very rare, yet here I am, sitting across from the woman who always hands out the largest candy bars at Halloween. I never learned her name, but I know her face.

"Whenever you're ready, sweetheart," she coaxes. I look up from the floor and make eye contact with her. Her warm brown eyes are the same color as my father's, yet so different. While my father's are cold and dull, hers sparkle with kindness and comfort me. I decide right there and then that those are eyes I can trust.

I take a deep breath and start talking. My voice is raspy at first, but as I go on, it becomes clearer and my confidence in my words grow. I tell the kind woman about my father, and she listens, never pausing to interrupt me.

When I finish, I'm out of breath, so I just sit there and keep on looking at her. We stay like that for a while, then without a word, she stands up, crosses the few feet of carpet between us, and embraces me in a hug. I'm hesitant at first, but after after a second, I accept the gesture and wrap my arms around her too.

"It's okay," she murmurs. "We'll get this sorted out."

I nod numbly into her shoulder. She continues softly speaking to me, soothing me with her words, but I'm only partially paying attention to what she's saying. Instead, I'm just listening to the sound of her voice.

If my mother was still alive, I think that's what her voice would sound like. For a second, a surge of happiness goes through me. For a second, I think that I've remembered the sound of my mother's voice. Then, a second later, I remember that I'm imagining things again.

Because I can't remember my mother's voice.

d

I wake up in Tartarus. How did I know it’s Tartarus? I honestly have no idea. I’m lying on the cold floor, my ankles and wrists bound in chains. Wait… ankles? Wrists? I’m human again! I-

“Niiiiiiick,” a voice growls. I quickly scramble to my feet and turn around to face the voice.

Tirek is standing there. We stare at each other for a moment, then he slowly pulls out a remote from… somewhere. The only thing on it is a large red button.

“You’re not immortal,” Tirek helpfully reminds me. WIth much drama, he pushes the button. Then Tartarus explodes and I die. My soul goes back in time and I am reincarnated as either Barack Obama or Lyra Heartstrings, but it’s a bit unclear because I’m starting to forget everything.

THE END.

7

She used to be my friend. Well, I suppose she still is, in a way. I can’t really accept that a friend as good as her was lying all along about everything. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to accept that.

We met on a playground. At fourteen, I was a little old for playgrounds, but it’s not like I was playing on the slides or anything. I was only there because I was babysitting my little sis and she was getting antsy stuck at home. I didn’t really want to leave the coolness of my air-conditioned house, but given the choice between being a little warm and a grumpy, whiny eight-year-old wreaking havoc in the house, I’d much prefer the former option.

As I was watching her from my shady spot on the bench underneath a large oak tree, a small, slim girl with long blonde hair quietly sat down next to me. She seemed a few years younger than me, and she looked to be a whole head shorter than me. She said nothing, just gave me a small nod of her head in greeting. I was perfectly content to just sit in silence but apparently she had other ideas.

“Hey there,” she said softly after a few minutes. She still wasn’t looking at me, but given that I was the only one within earshot of her, it was pretty obvious that it was to me she was speaking.

“Uh… hi,” I replied, shifting around uncomfortably. My movements must have caught her eye, because she stopped observing the kids playing on the playground and turned her head to watch me instead. I, on the other hand, deliberately kept staring at the play area, only looking at the girl with my peripheral vision.

“I’m Lucy. Turned twelve a few weeks ago.” A long pause. I guess she was expecting me to respond or something. “So… what’s your name?”

“Emma Rose.”

“Hmm, pretty. Wait, is Rose your last name or middle name?”

I sighed. I should just start introducing myself as Emma; I’ve had to explain how my name works way too many times. “No, both names are part of my first name. Emma Rose is one name.”

“Oh, okay.” More silence. This was just getting weird. Although I guess if she wasn’t going to leave and saying nothing just makes things awkward, I might as well keep the conversation going, right? Yeah. Might as well. Maybe I can convince her to run off and bother someone else.

I took a deep breath and turned to face her, momentarily taken aback by the vividness of her brilliant green eyes. “Not gonna play with the other kids?” I asked. She shook her head.

“I don’t really know any of them. I just moved here last month from across the state,” she explained.

“Oh, okay. No friends yet?” Another shake of the head. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll make plenty of friends once school starts.” I gave her a small reassuring smile, but it didn’t seem to reassure her at all.

“I guess.” She shrugged, and that dreaded awkward silence returned yet again. Luckily, she broke it before it got too unbearable. “I just don’t want to be lonely until then. There’s a lot of time between now and when school starts,” she added.

7

Just run, and don’t look back. That’s what she told to do, and I ran. But I made a mistake, and I looked back just in time to see her being ripped to pieces by the creature. She didn’t even have time to scream. But I did. I stopped running and let out a shriek that could probably be heard all over Equestria. Even if it wasn’t, it was certainly heard by the terrifying beasts a couple feet behind me.

The leader of the pack snarled at me, dropping what seemed to be the remainder of my idol’s wings and baring its teeth at me. The dripping fangs were all the persuasion I needed to turn around and run. Run away faster than I’ve ever run before. Run for my life, or what was left of it. What type of life would it even be without Rainbow Dash? Without my parents? Without my friends? Not much of a life, that’s for sure. But at least I would be alive.

I wanted to run even faster, but my body was already beyond its limit. My muscles ached as I ran, panting and sweating. Tears streamed down my face as I mourned the loss of the greatest pegasus to ever live. Oh, why did I have to look back? I would have that sickening image imprinted in my brain for the rest of my life, which actually might not be that very long if those creatures caught up to me. My legs felt horrible by this point, and what’s stopping me from just giving up and dying? It’s not like there’s anything left to live for. I can’t even fly.

That doesn’t mean my wings are totally useless, though. If I flap them hard enough, they help propel me forward as I run.

7

“I’m Discord, and I’m sooooooooooo bad! I’m all chaotic and evil and I have weird wings! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Sweetie Belle giggled at Pipsqueak’s Discord imitation. His costume was good, but his imitation… not so much. His accent kind of ruined the effect.

“Pfft, I can do much better,” Button Mash bragged.”

“How would you know?” Pipsqueak demanded, scowling as one of his fake horns fell off. “You had your eyes glued to your stupid machine the whole time!”

“It’s not stupid!” Button protested, still pressing furiously away at the buttons. “I’m about to beat Mega-lord WuggaWurm! It’s the final boss battle!”

Sweetie Belle swiped the device away from her friend, and it played a sad little tune. “You lose!” it declared. Button Mash wailed and furiously grabbed his game back.

“N-No! NO! Sweetie Belle, you made me die! I worked so hard… I’ve been playing for five hours straight…” Button Mash sniffled, burying his face into Pipsqueak’s back.

“Yuck! Get this creep away from me!” Pipsqueak yelped, shoving the sobbing colt off of his back. “Why’d you have to invite him?”

“Um, I dunno. He’s cute?” Sweetie Belle decided.

“Um… no. C’mon Sweets, let’s go to Sugarcube Corner,” Pipsqueak suggested.

“Don’t call me that! And what’re we supposed to do with this guy?” Sweetie Belle asked, pointing a hoof at the mess of a colt on the ground.

“I dunno, drag him with us? We can have Pinkie take care of him.”

“Sounds good,” Sweetie Belle agreed.

“All right. Here, you grab the forelegs and I’ll-”

“No, no need,” Sweetie Belle cut him off. “I’ve been working on my magic lately, so I should be able to levitate him… I think,” she said, slightly uncertainly.

“Really? That’s awesome! Makes me wish I was still a unicorn sometimes,” Pipsqueak lamented.

“Still a unicorn? What’s that supposed to mean?” Sweetie Belle inquired.

“Oh, when I was really little, I made a birthday wish that I wouldn’t be a unicorn when I woke up the next day. Apparently Luna granted my wish, because that’s exactly what happened.”

“Really?”

“No, of course not. I was never a unicorn.”

“Oh.”

I'm out of letters to use as chapter titles

"I think Twilight looks much better as a tree, personally." said Luna.

"Yes, quite," Cleesyia agreed.

Luna strokes the stove with the spatula right next to the once-twiglight tree. "This is excellent!" She shouted.”These hot dogs are cooking perfectly.”

“YOU’re VEGETTARIAN!” CLESTIA SCREAMED.

“YOU’re a BUTT FACE!” Lun a replied. Cesletia began crying safly.

This is the part where everythig burned. Because Celestias tears were highly flammable.Some of them fell on to the stove, and well... yeah. EXPLOSIONS! The fire spred from the tree to luna’s mane. Luna’s mane hissed and recoiked in shock, then laeped forwards and bit luna’s mussile. “Ow! You suck!” Said Luna to her rebeliouse mane. The mane snarled at here. “Nuuu, your face suucks!”Luna then rememberedd that her hair was on fire. “Oh, I’m sorry. Poor thing. No wonder you’re so cranky. I should go put you out, baby.” She then dumped applesauce on her mane to douse the flame n’ stuff. “HEY! I JUST took a bath. Jerk.”

“Uh… we take bathse togetherm, remember?” Lina sid,.

Then the rest of luna set on fire.

Celestia laughed and died. luna died too.

A story that I submitted on an alt that got rejected

The sun slowly ascended above the horizon, bathing Griffonstone in warm, golden light. As the world woke up, so did Gilda. She yawned and stretched, working out the kinks in her neck, limbs, and wings.

Or she tried to, at least. Nothing happened.

Gilda's eyes snapped open, realizing that something felt terribly wrong. She couldn't move. She was hungry. The sunlight was hurting her eyes. She felt square.

No, not square. She felt like a cube.

"What?" Gilda squawked. Hmm, her beak seemed to still be beak-shaped, and not cubed. Odd, but not important, because the rest of her was still cubed, and that was bad. Really bad. "Someone help me!"

A window slammed shut in a nearby house. Gilda groaned and was about to accept her cubed fate when a familiar form caught her eye.

"Greta!" she called out desperately. Silence, but then the other griffon caught sight of her friend and quickly flew over.

"Woah, you're all cubed and stuff," she remarked, tilting her head to get a better look at Gilda's strange transformation.

"Yeah, I realized," Gilda deadpanned. "Fix this, will ya?"

"Uh, how?" Greta scratched her head with a claw.

"Just do something. I want to be normal again."

Greta stared at her for a minute. "Actually... I don't think I will."

Gilda's jaw dropped. "Wait, what?"

"Well... you look adorable as a cube." Greta walked around Gilda, studying her form. "You're much less threatening and you're all tiny and squishy-looking."

"...you have got to be kidding me."

"No, really, you do!" Greta poked Gilda in the side with a wing.

"Greta, cut it out and just get me some help already! Don't be a dweeb!" Gilda shouted, but Greta ignored her.

"Y'know, I think I'll take you home with me," Greta decided.

"No," Gilda demanded, "you can't do that."

Greta shrugged and lifted Gilda onto her back. "I don't know about that. No one is stopping me and we don't have any laws against it, so I think it's fine."

"Well, we also don't have laws against burning down the house of someone kidnapping you, so you better watch yourself," Gilda snapped. "Now let me go!"

"Nope."

"Yes!"

"I don't wanna."

"Too bad!"

"No, too bad for you, because you can't actually stop me," Greta pointed out.

Gilda growled angrily and scowled, even though she knew that Greta couldn't see her face. Maybe if she tries hard enough, her scowl would burn through the back of the other griffon's head and engrave its image onto her pea-sized dweeb brain. "You're horrible," she informed her.

"Don't be mean," Greta scolded. "Just keep your beak shut until we get back to my house, then we can talk all night long if you want."

Gilda opened her mouth to argue, but she was silenced as Greta suddenly leaped into the air.

Unfortunately for Gilda—or maybe it was actually fortunate for her, as this allowed her to escape her "friend"—cubes don't easily grip onto uneven, moving surfaces. Gilda soon slipped off of the griffon's back and fell through the air for a few seconds before crashing through a trapdoor that just happened to be on the ground for some reason, and totally not because the author is too lazy to come up with something that actually makes sense.

"Oof!" Gilda yelped as her cubed self slammed into the ground beneath. She has no idea where she was, but it was rather dark dark and stuffy. "Ow! That—"

"Shhhh!" a voice shushed her. If Gilda hadn't been a cube, she would've jumped so high that her feathers would've burned up in the atmosphere. "Ya has'ta be quiet!"

"Wha—?"

"SHHHHHHHH!" a candle flickered on, revealing the face of an age-worn, slightly crazy-looking griffon. Her eyes were glossed over, her feathers were thinning, and her left ear was twitching uncontrollably. "I said to ya, ya gots ta be quiet!" she screeched.

"You're being plenty loud yourself," Gilda hissed back at her, being careful to keep her voice down. Even so, that still earned her a kick in the side.

"We's gonna be caught if ya keep up the chatter," the elderly griffon warned her.

"Caught? By whom? What are you even—OW!" Gilda could already anticipate the dark purple bruises that were surely forming on her side.

"By YOUR MOM!" the griffon cackled, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. "Oh, that joke never gets old," she chuckled more quietly to herself.

Gilda silently disagreed, but she kept her opinion to herself because she felt that she had already sustained enough injuries.

"No, no. Not your mom. In all seriousness, though, I'm runnin' from the illuminati," the old griffon informed her.

"Illuminati?"

"Yeah, an' that idiot who's tryin'a become the king o' Griffonstone when e's nothin' but a dirtbag."

"Riiiiight," Gilda said, not wanting to question this griffon's strange ideas. "Anyway, can you help me get to a place called Ponyville? I sort of have a problem and I have a few friends there that might be able to help me fix it," she explained.

"O yeah, of course. Just go through that portal o'er there, darlin'," the older griffon instructed.

"Portal? What portal?" Gilda asked. She didn't see any portal.

"This portal!" And with that, she grabbed Gilda Cube and chucked her, hard, at the other side of the room. Gilda braced herself for impact with a wall, but instead found herself shooting out of a mirror and straight into Pinkie Pie's face, knocking her to the ground.

"Oh hi Gilda!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, jumping back up to her hooves as if nothing out of the ordinary had just transpired.

"Hello Pinkie..." Gilda groaned, her face smushed into the floor. Pinkie Pie frowned and turned her over so that she could breathe.

"Wow, you look like you just went through a really weird day," Pinkie Pie remarked. "Even weirder than my weirdest days, and that's really saying something."

"You don't know the half of it," Gilda laughed.

And then everything exploded into marshmallows and confetti.

THE END.

don't read this it sucks

You’re kind of used to having various ponies in your bed by now, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less annoying. Especially not when you’re tired and in need of a good night’s sleep, which of course can never happen due to the ponies inhabiting your bed.

Tonight, as you yawn and make your way to your bedroom, you see flashes of light and

Sassy Saddles does bad stuff omg

Sassy Saddles shifted her weight from hoof to hoof, inspecting the boutique for any imperfections. Rarity's dresses were lined up neatly on the rack, the floors were sparkling, and the back storage room was efficiently organised. Nothing looked out of place, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd done something wrong. It was only yesterday that Rarity had left to go home to Ponyville, leaving Canterlot Carousel in Sassy's care. This was her chance to prove that she could handle the responsibility, but what if she messed up again? She'd only had a little bit of time to observe Rarity's way of doing things--it was entirely possible that she'd ruin things.

Sassy Saddles sighed and shook her head at herself, smiling at her silliness. Negativity got ponies nowhere in business. However, coffee did, especially with mares such as herself who often stayed up late at night to set up shop for the next day. With that in mind, she trotted into her office, making a mental note to thank Rarity for buying the small coffee machine. Tiny though it may be, it worked miracles. Without it, she probably would not have had the energy to prepare the shop the previous night.

Smiling, Sassy Saddles closed her eyes and took a deep breath, savouring the pleasant aroma of the coffee. She could almost taste its flavour already. Thinking about coffee wasn't a particularly engaging task, however, and she soon found her mind wandering back to the boutique. What if she'd forgotten to dust a shelf? What if one of the sewing machines had a malfunction? What if her own outfit was too drab? The list of things that could possibly happen seemed endless.

The coffee dinged and she quickly filled up a coffee mug, lifting it up with her magic aura and wiping up any spills that she'd made, then she exited the room.

Everything still looked perfect--there were no obvious flaws to be seen. But what of the less obvious ones? Double-checking everything had yielded no problems, but triple-checking everything would ensure that everything was indeed okay.

The sewing machine caught her eye. Aha! She hadn't given that a test run yet.

Humming to herself, she walked up to the sewing machine, grabbing a piece of scrap fabric on her way over. She slid it into place under the needle, then levitated the plug into the electrical socket. Normally she used magic-powered sewing machines, but because the boutique's income was fairly high, Rarity could afford to have more powerful appliances to keep up with the demand of the customers. It was a welcome change for Sassy Saddles--no longer would she have to put ridiculous amounts of energy into powering the machine.

She positioned her forehooves on the fabric and stepped down on the floor pedal, nodding in satisfaction when a line of perfect stitches were made.

Firstly she is shocked then she looks for a fire extinguisher

She looks by the entrance and she finds one but can't figure out how to use it

She aim's it at the fire but the extinguisher accidentally sets on fire

She looks shocked. She then proceeds to look for another extinguisher (she doesn't find one) before evacuating to streets where she can watch her dream burn to ground

Balloons

Hey. My name’s Red.

My sister is Blue, and my little brother is Green. My other brother, the bigger one, is called Red. It’s a bit confusing, having two Reds, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. We never say each other’s names. Besides, I know who I am, I think. It’s pretty hard to mistake yourself for someone else.

I mean, I guess they’re not my real siblings, but they might be. I don’t know. We probably came from the same place, and we’ve been together pretty much forever. Well, I assume that’s the case, anyway. I can’t remember that far back. Honestly, I can’t really say if I even have any memories from before this morning. That’s when I became Big, when I was finally able to stand upright. Or am I hanging from something? I can’t tell. Doesn’t matter.

I hear noises. I think they’re happy noises. I’ve heard sad noises before, like when Purple died an hour ago. Maybe it was two hours. I was just standing next to her, and then it happened. It sounded angry. It was loud, and quick, and I flinched back a bit. Then suddenly I found myself standing next to Red. Purple was gone.

Yes, these noises are happy noises. It sounds like the noises that I heard when I was made Big. Are they coming closer? Yeah, I think so. It’s hard for me to tell, but I think they are. I can feel the vibrations on the ground getting stronger.

Oh, I see the noise. It's Tan again. Tan was here when Purple disappeared. I remember that. Tan was making sad noises then but there's just happy noises now. Did he forget about Purple? I guess it has a shorter memory than me. I'm lucky to remember this morning.

And now Tan is touching me, and I can't feel my siblings anymore. I've been taken away from them, I think. Does Blue notice? He might not realize that there's more than one Red… oh, I wish I could be with him again, but Tan is still pulling me away, pulling me away so fast, and Blue and Red and Green are but friendly smears in the distance.

Ugh, so fast. It really is too fast. Can I slow down? No, I can't. I'm not moving, really. Tan is moving, and making me move with it, so I'm not the one doing the moving. Does that make sense? I don't like the fast. I'm going against the wind and it stings, stings, stings. It's the bitter lash of a whip across my sides, trying to make me fall like Purple did. Is that what Tan is doing to me? Am I to meet my end here?

But no! I don't fall. There's a jolt, and Tan falls over. Then the noise, it's the sad noise again. Piercingly loud, so much so that I find myself free of the Tan grasp, and I fly away, up and away, to escape. I don't like the sad noises. They're… sad.

So I keep climbing up, up, up. Tan is so small now. Did the sad noises make it shrink? It's a good thing I got away. He's still shrinking. Smaller, smaller, smaller. I can't hear the sad noises anymore.

Although… no, all is not well again. I don't feel right. My skin is burning. Is it because I'm Red? I look like fire, in a way. Fire seems hot. A Brown had it earlier. It was so close to me, and it felt like this. It's a sad feeling.

I need to go down. Down is cold, I think. It hurt, the wind, but less than this. It's so sad up here. I can't see. There's too much spinning.

I can't think… the fire, it burns, and something is pushing on me… is Tan back? I can't see… It hurts… My skin, I think it's going to break… I…

…

A Dashing Rainbow

In Carousel Boutique, a blue pegasus was being fabulous.

Rainbow Dash smiled to herself, twirling around in front of the mirror. Posing, she admired her reflection. Her colorful mane was done up in a messy bun. She’d been trying to replicate a style that seemed simple to do, but having almost no experience styling hair, it didn’t turn out quite right. Her dress, however, was magnificent. This was because Rarity had made it. It didn’t fit her perfectly, as it was made for somepony else, but it fit her well enough and Rainbow couldn’t deny that she looked gorgeous in it.

Rainbow sighed, dropping her pose as the smile slowly slid off of her face. She walked up to the mirror and put a hoof to the glass, staring longingly into her reflection’s eyes. Ever since she’d discovered her love for fashion, she’d been having trouble coping with her feelings. On one hoof, she’d found her passion, and she felt as if she’d recovered a piece of herself that she hadn’t realized had been missing. On the other hoof, however, she felt ashamed of herself. What would other ponies think? She’d never make it into the Wonderbolts if she was found like this. She was supposed to be tough and athletic, not girly.

Suddenly, she went absolutely still, having heard a noise. Her ears perked up and swiveled around towards the door of the boutique, her eyes widening as she realized that Rarity had arrived home earlier than usual. Hastily, she tried to make a dive out of the window, but it was too late—she had been seen.

Rarity blinked in surprise, unsure if her mind was playing tricks on her. “Rainbow Dash?” she asked.

Rainbow Dash groaned in defeat and rushed over to her friend, pulling her inside and slamming the door shut behind her. “I can explain…”

“I sure hope so. You’ve broken into my house—not that it’s all that unusual for you—and are parading around in a dress of mine. And what in Equestria is going on with your mane? Did it get caught on something while you were flying?”

“Uh, yeah. I, um, like…” Rainbow Dash frantically searched through her mind for an excuse. Like a blessing from Celestia herself, one quickly popped into her head. “Right! You see, I’m not Rainbow Dash.”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Rainbow Dash, of course it’s you. It’s rather difficult to mistake you for another pony, what with your rare mane coloration.”

“Nope, it’s not me! Uh, I mean, I’m not Rainbow Dash,” Rainbow Dash corrected herself. “I’m Rainbow Dash’s twin sister, Dashing Rainbow.” She gave Rarity her best winning smile. That smile was not returned.

“Riiiiiight,” she said slowly, walking around Dashing Rainbow to get a better look at her. “Okay, Dashing Rainbow, why don’t you tell me about yourself, hmm?”

“Uh, sure! I was born in Cloudsdale. I’m not as awesome as Rainbow Dash, obviously, but I’m still pretty awesome. I’m really into fashion and stuff.” Dashing gestured to her stolen outfit. “I’m a fan of your work.”

“I can see that,” Rarity said, letting her tone show how much she disapproved of her dresses being taken without her permission. “Why have I never heard of you before, Dashing Rainbow? If you were Rainbow Dash’s sister, then wouldn’t she have mentioned you before?”

“No,” Dashing replied immediately, not even needing to think about her answer. “She’s embarrassed that she could be related to somepony like me. Y’know, somepony into dresses and being fancy and whatnot.”

“But she’s friends with me,” Rarity pointed out.

“Well yeah, but being friends is different from being somepony’s identical twin sister. What if a pony thought I was her? It would be a disaster!” Dashing Rainbow cried out. “She’d be the laughingstock of Ponyville.”

Rarity shook her head. “There’s no need to be embarrassed. If you like fashion, then why hide it? It’s simply awful to pretend not to like something just because you’re afraid of being judged for it.”

“I know, but it’s better than being laughed at for it.” Dashing Rainbow poked a hoof at the floor, not meeting Rarity’s eyes.

“Well, you don’t see me laughing at you, do you?” Rarity smiled reassuringly at Dashing Rainbow.

“But you’re Rarity. You do this stuff all the time. It doesn’t make any sense for you to judge me,” Dashing reasoned.

“Oh, but darling, I am judging you,” Rarity informed her. “That dress is too slim to fit your muscular form, and your mane deserves better treatment than that.”

“Hey, I did my best!” Dashing Rainbow protested, self-consciously patting her mane with her hoof.

“Your best is not enough,” Rarity scoffed. “Would you like me to do my best to pretty you up?”

“P-pretty me up?” the pegasus stammered.

“Of course! I can’t stand to see a mare in clothes that don’t perfectly fit her. As well as a new dress, I could also take you to the spa, my treat,” Rarity offered, and was surprised when Dashing shuddered.

“Uh, no thanks. I really don’t like the spa and I should probably get going anyway,” she told her.

-designs dress for rainbow

-stuff, idk

-trea or something

-secretly invites friends over

Smart Cookie

Smart Cookie groaned and slammed the paper down on the desk. "Another F! My parents are going to kill me!" This was the third F she had gotten in the past month. Angrily shoving her math quiz into her school bag, she ran out of the school to catch up with her friend, who was slowly walking away from her while singing to himself.

"Au Claire de la lune, j'ai pêté dans l'eau," he sang, completely unaware that there was a filly running after him, tripping over her own hooves multiple times. "Ça faisait des bulles, c'était rigolo-Hey!" he yelled as Smart Cookie plowed into him. "What was that for? I'm telling!"

"Oh shut up, Dusty, it's only me. And I'm pretty sure you're getting the words of that song wrong," Smart Cookie told him, standing up. "You really need to get better at music or Celestia might banish you to the moon 'cause she's so sick of hearing your voice," Smart Cookie taunted.

"I'm gonna be a rock star when I grow up, just you wait and see. And I am not singing it wrong. My older brother taught it to me yesterday, and he's a big colt. He's always right," Dust Bunny declared.

"Whatever you say. What'd you get on your quiz?" Smart Cookie asked.

"I got a B. I think it's stupid that we get graded on stuff. My brother says that he was never graded on stuff in kindergarten. He just played games and learned about weather."

"I already know about weather. It can be hot or cold, and sometimes it rains and the thunder makes lightning. Oh, and there's the tornado storms too. They make everything shake," Smart Cookie explained.

"No, that doesn't sound right... I thought they made things really spinny? I'll ask my brother, he knows a lot about weather."

Smart Cookie playfully shoved Dust Bunny. "Nobody cares about your smarty pants brother, besides, my older sister says colts are stupid. She's probably right, because my little brother really ugly and dumb. He can't even talk," she complained.

"Colts are not stupid," Dusty protested, "colts are awesome. And fillies have icky germs."

"I don't have icky germs!" Smart Cookie argued.

"You know what else you don't have? Your cutie mark."

"So? Neither do you."

"I'll get it soon. How did your violin lesson go yesterday? It better have been good enough to leave my house early for."

Smart Cookie shook her head and shuddered at the memory of the awful screeching sound she had produced. "It's definitely not my special talent. The instructor told me to lighten up on my magic 'cause I was putting too much pressure on the violin stick thingy, but when I told her I didn't know how, she wouldn't believe me. She called me a liar and sent me home early. "

_____ started to laugh, but quickly stopped and winced when he received a glare from his friend. "Sorry. Anyway, we're at my house now. I gotta go. See you tomorrow, Cookie."

"Bye," Smart Cookie said glumly as he sprinted over to his house. Now she was alone. She didn't like walking alone. Whenever she was alone, she always got really nervous and panicky. Scared, even. Normally, she would rush home as fast as she could to be with her parents. Today, however, she failed a quiz. Which did she prefer? Angry parents or being alone? Being alone or angry parents?

"Angry parents, definitely. That's future me's problem, and right now me's problem is being alone. I like right now me better," she said to herself decidedly. Speaking out loud helped her cope with the nervousness of being alone. Cheerilee had said something about how it worked in class once, but, as usual, Smart Cookie hadn't been paying attention. Instead, she had been daydreaming about her life once she was a grown-up and didn't have to go to school anymore or listen to parents. She was thinking about what she would do when she was allowed to do whatever she wanted. Her daydreams often consisted of eating ice cream for every meal and playing on the playground all day long.

The End of The Wonderbolts

“And you’re absolutely sure that this is necessary?” Spitfire asked yet another time, rubbing the dark circles under her eyes with a hoof, too tired to care that she was demonstrating poor manners in the presence of the most powerful being in Equestria. Besides, she’d already lost all of her dignity when she’d started pacing around the room and whacking things with her wings in frustration.

“Yes. I’m sorry, but we simply don’t have the funds to continue the program. We’ve spent too much on repairing the damage left by the numerous attacks on the city, and we need to save up as much as possible because we anticipate even more in the future.”

The Wonderbolts’ captain sighed and walked out of the conference room, unable to continue this conversation any longer.

“What?!” Rainbow Dash slammed the paper down onto the ground, hovering above it as if reading it from a different angle would change the content of the letter, eyes so wide they looked like they could fall out at any second. “No. Nonononono. Nuh uh. This is a forged signature, right here”—she jabbed a hoof at the bottom of the sheet—”and this is just a cruel joke, because some dimwits want to take my place as a Wonderbolt. That’s what this is.”

Twilight frowned and wrapped her magical aura around the piece of paper, then shook her head and released it. “It’s legitimate,” she told her friend. “Looks like it’s not a hoax. The Wonderbolts program is being shut down.”

“No.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. The Wonderbolts couldn’t just shut down.That’s not how things worked; the center of her life couldn’t just disappear with barely any warning. What was the point in anything if she couldn’t ever be the elite flier that she’d always wanted to be?

Starlight Glimmer Sees a Psychologist

“I don’t get it, though. I wasn’t doing anything bad!” I protested. I shifted around on the sofa, trying to get comfortable - not that it was possible. I’ve never been comfortable opening myself up to ponies and talking about my feelings, so it was only natural that I found it difficult to relax in the presence of a psychologist. Seriously, having someone listening intently to my every word, analyzing my thoughts and occasionally scribbling down a few notes in a notebook - it was unnerving.

“Do you really believe that, Starlight?” the mare gently asked. I can’t remember her name - it was Cranky Bitch or something like that - but it didn’t really matter, anyway. It’s not like I’d be coming back here often.

“Well, of course. Why else would I say it?” It’s the obvious questions like this that make me dislike psychologists. They dig too deeply into everything.

“Maybe that’s just what you want to believe,” she suggested. I rolled my eyes.

“Well then, what do you think? Was I doing something bad?” I asked her.

“What I think is not important.” She jotted down something on the paper.

“We’re all equal. Your opinion is just as important as mine.” Ugh, why did I even agree to come here?

“While that may be so, this time in this room is dedicated to you, not me.” If it was really dedicated to me, then she would do what I wanted to do. Ponies these days…

“You’re a fraud,” I decided.

“Pardon me?” she asked, raising an eyebrow and looking slightly offended.

“You’re a fraud,” I repeated. “I bet that the only reason you went into this dumb field is because your cutie mark told you to, and not because you’re actually good at it. See, this is exactly why I started my community in the first place! It makes perfect sense. You should leave this stuffy room and follow me in the lifestyle of equality.”

There was a long, awkward pause as Crabby Butt scribbled furiously on her paper, having to turn it over for a fresh sheet when she ran out of room. Finally, she said, “I enjoy my work.”

Aha! I’d gotten her. Short responses to my long rants are usually a sign of lying.

Checkmate.

“Do you really? Perhaps you've just convinced yourself of that to make your life more bearable,” I suggested, leaning back and relaxing in the chair.

some trollfic thing

My name is Fanged Doom, and my life sucks. You'd think that my life would be great--I'm an alicorn and shit--but it's not. I was supposed to be a powerful ruler of some sort, dominate Equestria, and have everypony bowing down to me. But noooooo, that Celestia-damned plant had to mess everything up. All I wanted to do was to find something to eat before entering the domain of my sisters, but apparently that was too much to ask for.

My stomach grumbled louder than if an earthquake had shaken the ground, and I groaned in defeat.

I couldn't ignore my hunger anymore lest I starve to death. Walking thousands of miles through deserts, swamps, and taigas had finally begun to take its toll on me.

Another stomach growled behind me, reminding me that I was not the only one suffering.

"I would kill for some gems right now. Or maybe some eggs... hell, I'd eat a sofa right now. I don't care at this point," the owner of the stomach complained.

"Be quiet, Shadow," I scolded her. I didn't need to hear her whining.

"Whatever. We're in a forest. Can't we just find food? I'm sure there's lots of plants and shit to eat," she pointed out.

I stopped dead in my tracks, realising the truth in what she'd just said. There was most certainly a plethora of wildlife in the Everfree. "Yeah, I knew that," I lied. No way was I going to admit a retarded dragon could possibly have thought of something before me.

Shadow shrugged and used her tongue to polish a dirty scale on her neck. "Right. So, food first, then taking over the world?"

"Yeah, sounds about right." I stopped to inspect a mushroom of some sort growing at the base of a tree. "Can you eat this for me? I want to know if it's edible or not."

"Boss, you know I'd do almost anything for you, but eating poison 'shrooms is not one of those things." Shadow shuddered and stuck her nose up in the air in refusal. "Besides, there's plenty of other things that aren't potentially deadly, like those flowers over there."

"Flowers?" I turned my head to see the flowers in question, and was pleased with the site that was before my eyes. Although the tall trees and vines blocked out the majority of the sunlight, the few rays sneaking through the leaves were just enough to illuminate the area and reveal a patch of rather delicious-looking flowers. Their azure petals appeared to be healthy and flavourful, unlike the other half-dead plants found in the forest. "Yes, flowers would be a good idea."

"Yeah, like I said," Shadow laughed. "I don't eat icky plants like that, though. You should know this by now. Can I go hunting or something?"

I waved a hoof, dismissing the hungry dragon to run off and catch her own food. Honestly, I couldn't care less about what she did, so long as she always returned to aid me in my mission to conquer this land. Besides, all the more flowers for me, right?

I walked over to the delectable plants, taking care not to trip over any roots or large rocks. An injured hoof was the last thing I needed right now. Usually I'd fly when the ground was as uneven as this, but I feared that my fragile wings would tear in the unpredictable weather of the wild forest.

I felt something squishy underneath my hoof, and stepped back to realise that I'd reached the flowers. Grinning in anticipation, I knelt down and devoured the food greedily, satisfying my crying stomach. Never before had a meal tasted so great.

I ate until I could eat no more, then I lay on the ground, knackered. Walking had taken a lot out of me and I needed to rest. Yawning, I stretched out my limbs, listening to the satisfying pops of my joints. Before I knew it, I was asleep.

I woke up to Celestia's great fiery ball of fire burning through my eyelids. That, and Shadow was drooling her sticky dragon saliva on my hooves.

"What the hell, Shadow?" I hissed, whacking her cheek to wake her up. "That's disgusting!"

"Huh?" Shadow stirred, slowly prying open her crusted-shut eyelids. “Oh, oops.” She wiped the drool from her chin and slithered away from me.