How it Could Have Happened
Fear.
Terror.
Panic.
Guilt.
All of these emotions and more ran through her mind as the large mob of ponies closed in. But their behavior wasn't pony-like. It was far from it. Now they were no more than sick, rainbow mouthed, cookie craving zombies. The mob kept closing in on Rainbow Dash as she clutched three boxes of cookies to her chest, her back pressed against a very large stack of them as if she was shielding them from the crowd. By now she had figured it was the cookies that had done this to them. And it was her own fault, she thought. She did this to her friends. And for what? A laugh?
Now she wasn't laughing.
Escape was futile. All the windows in the barn had been barricaded in order to shield Rainbow from the zombies. Now they were the wooden planks imprisoning her in the barn of horrors. Closer and closer they slowly crept. Moaning, "Cookies... Cookies..."
"No!" Rainbow Dash protested. "Stay away! You don't want these! They're making you sick!"
"We want cookies!" Pinkie Pie droned.
Rainbow Dash began to hyperventilate. Her body began to shake. Her eyes began to sting. "Please, don't hurt me!" she pleaded. But the herd kept advancing now even more closely. This just had to be the end, Rainbow thought.
"Please stop! I never meant for this to happen!" Rainbow exclaimed. She then did something that she would have been mortified of if she had been of sounder mind. She allowed a tear to trickle from her eye. The zombies didn't seem to notice, but one did. Fluttershy wasn't far from the front of the mob, so she had a decent view of Rainbow Dash and she froze she could see the tears emerging from her friend's eyes. In almost an instant, her mind went back to the Everfree forest. The scary dragon monster prank that Rainbow pulled on her. She remembered how it made her feel. Terrified. She remembered her own tears that came with the feeling of being in danger. And she remembered saying that she didn't like seeing her friends feel like they were in danger.
"Oh no..." she whispered. Fluttershy saw that everyone was still slowly creeping along, moaning their little cookie refrain. "Um, everypony.." she said softly. "I think we should stop." But no one seemed to hear her and kept slowly walking and moaning. Whether she was too soft or they were too loud could be debated later. The scowl on her face shown that clearly she had had enough of this prank.
She lifted her hoof, and commanded, "Everypony STOP!" with a stomp of her hoof and the loudest voice she could muster.
Then came a silence. The eyes of all the zombie ponies turned to Fluttershy. No longer moaning nor droning. The only sound was the echo of her voice in their ears. Many questions rang through their minds. Primarily, why did they have to stop and when did Fluttershy learn to talk like that?
Rarity was the first to break the silence.
"Fluttershy, darling, why ever did you do that!?"
"Yeah! We were right in the middle of giving Rainbow Dash the taste of her own medicine!" proclaimed a less than satisfied Applejack. The crowd grumbled in dissatisfaction as Rainbow Dash opened an eye, uncurled from her ball and blinked away some tears as she saw what was happening. What the hay was going on? The zombies... They weren't walking towards her, and they were speaking normally. She even saw Rarity combing out her mane which had become frizzy earlier when she was thought to be a zombie. Now Rainbow was officially confused.
"Wait..." she said. "You're not sick? None of you?" All eyes fell on Rainbow Dash again. Fluttershy finally spoke.
"No, Rainbow Dash. We're not." She wiped away the offensive rainbow dye from her muzzle. "At least not in the way you think."
"What's going on?" Rainbow asked, baffled. Pinkie Pie giggled nervously.
"Hehehe... gotcha?" she squeaked, smiling. Wait a minute. Did Rainbow Dash hear right?
"This... this was all... a prank?" she asked. She couldn't believe it as a new wave of emotions swirled within her mind. Confusion, fear, shock, as well as a touch of anger.
"Well... yeah." Applejack admitted. "After you told Pinkie about your plan to prank the whole town, she got everypony to come together and turn the tables on ya. But, Fluttershy well, I don't know what she's doing." Fluttershy looked down, saddened and embarrassed at her behavior.
"Isn't it obvious? Look at us." she said softly to the crowd. "Look at Rainbow Dash. All of this... This is wrong."
The crowd of ponies, or at least some took notice of how frightened Rainbow Dash still looked. A slight shaky body, eyes still wide, an expression of pain on her face; she had clearly been shaken by their prank. Fluttershy turned to face her friend.
"Rainbow Dash, how do you feel right now? How did you feel when we pulled that prank?" she asked. The simmering fury within Rainbow was beginning to boil and a scowl formed on her face.
"Are you kidding? How do you think I feel!? You think I thought that was funny? Well, you're dead wrong!"
Pinkie giggled slightly. "Zombie pun." Rainbow shot a death glare at the pink pony making her shrink back. Unable to hold it in anymore, she burst out,
"I was really scared! I thought I made you all sick! I thought you were gonna eat me with these cookies! I felt terrible! I'll probably have nightmares for weeks after this! Ha ha! What a laugh! Thanks a lot!" Her eyes began to water again, now being noticed by the crowd. Fluttershy looked at them, silently asking if they understood how wrong they were. But there was still some confusion.
"Uh.. I don't get it. We were trying to teach Rainbow Dash a lesson." said Spike. "Her pranks were totally out of control!"
"She put a brick in Mr. Cake's sandwich!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"She could've hurt my big brother with that giant rock!" said Applejack. "And if Pinkie didn't tell us about this cookie prank, the CMCs might've gotten the blame for it!" The fillies in question nodded in agreement.
"And she made you cry, Fluttershy!" Rarity interjected. "Remember?"
"Yes I do." said Fluttershy. "And that's exactly my point. We were no better than she was."
"No, we are." Spike said matter-of-factly. "You do something bad, you face the consequences."
"So if someone steals something from you, or makes fun of you, you have the right to do the same thing to them?" Fluttershy asked, pointedly. Spike opened his mouth to say something, but it seemed his conscience kept him from uttering a syllable as he contemplated Fluttershy's words. As did the rest of the pranksters. And Applejack was the first to see it.
"Uh oh..." she said.
"But... she..." Cranky Doodle began.
"It doesn't matter," said Fluttershy. "Even if we wanted to teach her a lesson, we did it the wrong way. What sort of example is that to set for these fillies?" She gestured to the Cutie Mark Crusaders as the fillies by now were feeling guilty.
“We should be ashamed of ourselves." said Fluttershy as she hung her head in shame. "I sure am."
By now everypony was feeling guilty, and not just because Fluttershy was sad. A chipped tooth could be fixed, a strained back healed in a couple days, and as demonstrated by Fluttershy, that dye from those cookies could be wiped away with ease. While their own pains certainly mattered, they had forgotten Rainbow Dash's mattered too. The emotional trauma from a prank like this could take much longer to heal. Princess Twilight sighed and removed the rainbow dye from her mouth before she spoke to the herd.
"Fluttershy is right." she said. "We said that a prank isn't good if you're the only pony laughing. Now look at us. We knew Rainbow Dash wouldn't like this prank, or think it was funny, but we didn't take the time to think about exactly how bad she would feel either. And making somepony feel bad like this is never okay." The ponies hung their heads in shame as they realized their mistake and wiped away the rainbow off their muzzles, disappointed that they had stooped to Rainbow's level if not done worse. Pinkie's lips started to quiver. Fluttershy was right. Princess Twilight was right. They were all wrong.
"You know you're all talking about me like I'm not even here, right?" a raspy voice spoke up. Twilight and the others turned to face Rainbow Dash, who had been silently watching and listening.
"Rainbow Dash..."
"Wait." interrupted the blue pegasus. "I wanna say something first." The room fell silent and all eyes and ears were on Rainbow Dash as she spoke. Unbeknownst to them as they were arguing a few moments ago, each practical joke accusation that her friends told Fluttershy had stung Rainbow Dash to the core as she listened.
"I see what you did there, and I'm really sorry. I deserved it. I wasn't thinking about how I made everypony else feel with my pranks." she said. She sighed and sat down, ashamed. "Now I know how you guys felt. I guess I was so caught up having fun with my pranks, I didn't stop to see that you guys weren't." She looked up at them with a sorrowful, regretful look. But she was also met with that same look.
"And we're really sorry too, Rainbow." said Twilight as she approached her friend. "We're all guilty of the same thing. Getting caught up in something and not thinking about the outcome. But two wrongs don't make a right." The other ponies present nodded and said their own apology to Rainbow Dash.
"Yeah, we're sorry." said Applejack. "We knew you weren't gonna enjoy this prank, but we didn't think it'd make you cry." Rainbow Dash blushed, embarrassed that everypony saw her like that.
"Wha- I-. I didn't cry!" she stammered in denial.
"It's okay, Rainbow. We don't blame you," said Fluttershy with a slight grin. "I mean, an entire town of zombies coming after you is pretty scary." Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck.
"Heh, yeah." Feeling a little better, she started laughing. "And I gotta admit. That was a pretty epic prank. I mean, you really had me going." She looked around at the "zombies," some starting to smile at her praise.
"Aw, shucks." Pinkie said modestly. "It was nothing." The rest of the ponies shared a chuckle. But then there came a moaning. All eyes turned to Spike who was crouched over, his claws around his little belly.
"Spike?" Twilight asked, slightly concerned.
"Uh, Spike, the joke's over." said Applejack. "You can cut the zombie act."
"It's not that." he groaned. "It's not an act. Ugh... I think I ate too many of those cookies too fast." He curled into a ball, clutching his tummy. Rarity came over and rubbed his head to help him feel a little better.
"Aww, poor little Spikey-wikey." she said. Suddenly, she began to feel a little uneasy herself, wincing and feeling a bit of pain in her own stomach. "Ooh... Now that I think about it, the excitement of it all made me gorge myself. Oooh, so unladylike."
"I feel fuller than a gulley after a monsoon." Applejack said, also feeling unwell.
Soon more ponies began to feel the effects of eating too much too fast. They must have done so to sell the zombie act. As Rainbow looked at them all, she felt pity for them and guilt within her.
"Ouch. You guys don't look so good. I guess I really did make you guys sick after all."
"That's not true." Twilight said.
"We did this to ourselves," said Fluttershy. "But we all be better after a good night's sleep."
"And tomorrow we can all move on from this." said Applejack. Rainbow Dash chuckled.
"I don't know about the rest of you. But being freaked out like that works up an appetite." She reached into a nearby cookie box and took out one of the treats inside.
"Wait, Rainbow Dash!" Pinkie cried, but it was too late. Dash ate up the cookie and got the rainbow dye on her muzzle. She noticed that all of the ponies and Spike were just staring at her.
"What?"
"Uh... Rainbow Dash... you got a little something on your.." Applejack said, pointing her hoof towards her face.
"Huh?" Rainbow asked. She touched her hoof to her cheek and pulled away to see a multicolored smudge that matched her mane. She smirked before laughing out loud. "Well you wanted me to get a taste of my own medicine! Haha! Looks like the joke's on me!"
Everypony just stared at her for a moment. Then a few small chortles began to sound. Then a few giggles and chuckles. Even Applejack couldn't help but laugh.
"That is pretty funny." she admitted. Even Fluttershy was overcome with a case of the giggles. Soon the ponies forgot about their tum my aches for a moment as they enjoyed Dash's little joke.
"Now, that is a prank that I can appreciate." said Rarity.
"I'll say." Twilight replied with a smile. She was just glad that this was all over. In fact, all of them were. Especially Rainbow Dash. Now all that was left to worry about was what they were going to do with all of the extra joke cookies. Most of the ponies didn't forget their bellyaches enough to want another one for a while.
"So, what do we do with all these things now?" Spike asked lifting one of the boxes of joke cookies.
"I'll take them!" Pinkie called. The ponies stared at her, puzzled. "What?" she questioned, "They made my mouth all rainbow-y, but they sure were yummy!"
Author's Note
Hi all.
A little backstory: I was pretty disappointed at how the lesson of 28 Pranks Later was handled. 
I felt that it focused too much on Rainbow Dash doing something wrong and not enough on how everyone else stooped to her level to get her back. And so I, with the help of some friends, put together an alternate ending to the episode. It's a little too long to be an actual ending, given the limited time of an episode. But that's the beauty of fanfiction. 
Many thanks to my friend and fellow writer Blazewing for editing and grammar suggestions, and my ever-awesome boyfriend knightcommander for further editing and helping me shape the story. Y'all are awesome! 
Feel free to comment below what you think. Please keep any critiques constructive and polite. Many blessings! 
