The Elements of Incompetence

Another beautiful day began in the capital of Equestria. "What a perfect day for suffering!" sang the few ponies who were still at the city as they came out of their houses, the first musical number in a few days was then starting. Even in the middle of the biggest catastrophe Equestria had ever faced, they refused to leave their home. The flame of hope, now reduced to embers, still shone a powerful light inside their hearts. It was the fourth day since the villains were freed from Tartarus, despair was in the air.

Grogar watched Canterlot from a nearby hill. He took a deep breath from the despair-filled air. Soon, these pitiful ponies will find out their hope is nothing but a foolish foal fantasy, and I, Grogar, the ram necromancer, will be able to taste the biggest fear feast this wasteland would witness! Hey, that was a great alliteration. I should write it down.

"And you locked yourself in your house to study? That's crazy! Me too!" Sunburst rose both of his forelegs and wrapped Moondancer in an excited hug.

Moondancer could barely talk, her cheeks pressed against Sunburst's hooves. "Yeah, haha..." she chuckled nervously, uncomfortable at the sudden invasion to her personal space.

Sunburst eventually noticed Moondancer's discomfort. "Oh. Sorry," he said, letting go of Moondancer with a sheepish smile.

"I mean, we do have a lot in common, it's–"

A beam of sunshine hit Moondancer in the eyes and cut her off in the middle of her sentence. "Wait..." she got up and walked towards a window. She removed the curtains, and what was behind them shocked her: It was the sun, shining bright over the city of Canterlot, and what was left of its population, moving along what seemed to be... "A flash mob? That can't be. Massive musical numbers are forebidden before 8 in the morning."

"Well, I mean, when society is falling apart it's usual for ponies to give in to anarchy," said Sunburst, walking towards the window, "but judging by the sun's position and general brightness, I'd say it's definitely later than that."

Moondancer's ears dropped back. "Oh, okay." She took a deep breath and sat down.

"Uh, Moondancer? Are you–"

Moondancer shouted her lungs out, "EVERYPONY WAKE UP!"

The room shook, books fell from the shelves, Sunburst's heart nearly jumped out of his chest.

"Sorry," Moondancer said upon seeing Sunburst's startlement.

"It's..." Sunburst breathed heavily, "it's okay. Gee, Moondancer! That's the loudest scream I've ever heard! Be gentle or you might need to replace me as the leader," he joked.

Flash Sentry appeared from behind a bookshelf, rubbing his eyes with his wings. "What was that horrible sound? I was dreaming about Princess Tw– Wait. Did Sunburst just say he's going to be the leader?"

"Yup!" replied Sunburst with a smile. "Moondancer and I had a short talk and it made me realize that–"

"Wait," Flash Sentry cut off. "We can't have an inspirational speech until we're all here." He looked around. "Where are the others?"

"INCOMIIIING!" Lightning Dust flew through the room and crashed against a book shelf. "Dang it, girl, you're strong! But how 'bout you throw me into something a little softer next time?"

Limestone Pie dashed after her, her eyes flaming red from anger.

"What happened now?" Flash said to Quibble Pants, who had just joined the group.

Quibble replied with a shrug.

"Well, now that we're all here..." Moondancer dragged Lightning and Limestone with her magic.

"Like I was saying..." Sunburst cleared his throat. "I've come to realize that... I can be messy, I don't organize my books on a certain order, and yeah, sometimes I wake up cursing the day I was born. All my life plans were a complete failure, I have no leadership skills or any skills whatsoever..."

Flash Sentry leaned forwards. "But...?"

"Oh, there are no buts. I have no idea why the princess would choose me to be the leader and I'm sure we're gonna be dead by the end of this day. We might just play along, and well, I wanna fix my mistakes. So, uh, does anypony have a plan?"

Lightning Dust raised her hoof.

"Yes, Lightning Dust?"

"Quibble is smirking."

Sunburst arched an eyebrow. "Quibble Pants, is that true?"

The pony in question chuckled and glared at Sunburst. He was, indeed, smirking. It was evident that he knew something, something the others didn't know. And he was going to brag, oh, he would brag like he had never bragged before. "Oh, sorry, Mr. President, I just couldn't help but notice that you are as blind as a bat."

Sunburst tilted his head in confusion. "Would you mind to explain why?"

"Oh, nothing." Quibble walked around the group. "You know, as the adventure book conoisseur I am, I have quite the IQ. I'd be glad to enlight you, but you see, my wisdom has a price."

He stopped and turned to Sunburst. "MAKE THEM APOLOGIZE!" he demanded, pointing his hoof to Lightning Dust and Limestone Pie.

"I don't understand," said Sunburst, still tilting his head.

"They know what they did, make them apologize!"

Lightning folded her forehooves. "Over my dead body!"

"Quibble, this is ridiculous," said Moondancer. "Look, I don't want to be here either, but–"

"Keep your kind words to yourself, unicorn," interrupted Limestone as she leaned her body over a chair she made out of books. "It's impossible to argue with him. Besides, he's most likely lying," she acussed.

"Oh, I'm not lying! I know more than what you'll ever know!" spat Quibble. Then he proceeded to take a book out of a shelf. "See this?"

Flash Sentry gasped. "A book!" he exclaimed in genuine wonder.

"It sure is," said Quibble, tittering at Flash's response to a clearly rhetorical question. "And see–" He walked a few meters away and grabbed a book from another shelf, "–this?"

"No!" replied Flash.

Quibble Pants returned to the group with the book in his mouth. "Ish dee shame boog!"

Moondancer levitated the book out of Quibble's muzzle and cleaned it in Flash Sentry's feathers. "What?"

"It's the same book! Don't you see? This library has many copies of the same books!"

"Yeah, that's..." Sunburst scratched the back of his head, "that's usual in libraries."

"Ohoho. Pshh. Not like this, my friend. You see..." Quibble Pants resumed his walk around the ponies, "During my quest to find something readable in this freaky book storage, I noticed something about this place was... odd."

The rest of the group let out a collective gasp.

"W-what is it?" stuttered Flash Sentry, embracing Moondancer in fear.

"THERE ARE NO NOVELS IN HERE! Like seriously, hundreds of books and there's not even one Daring Do novel? That's weird."

"Oh, wow, tragedy!" Sunburst frowned. "Well. Does somepony else have useful information?"

"Hey, let me talk! Geez, what's with the quick judgement?"

Sunburst groaned. "Fine, go on."

"Like I was saying... I looked all over the D section of the library and there were no Daring Do books. So, after a few more minutes of searching, I found another D, and guess what? No Daring Do either!"

"Wait. Did you say there's another D section?" inquired Moondancer.

"That's right! It turns out this whole library has four sections, all organized in alphabetical order. After Z, another A comes, then B, C, X, Y, Z, A again! And what's weirder, they all have the same books, in the exact same order! We aren't going to find anything in here, it's all boring magic and history books. I know, I checked."

"Hm, I can't believe I didn't see that." Moondancer adjusted her glasses. "That's quite useful. Good work, Quibble Pants!"

"Ha. Being so passionate about a book does have its benefits, it seems," said Flash Sentry.

Quibble flicked his ears and a wide smile appeared in his lips, more sincere than smug. "Why, thank you. I've gotten a few observation and puzzle-solving skills from it, actually. And I'll be more than glad to share them with you."

Flash and Moondancer stared at him, waiting for something that completed the phrase – a condition, a reference, even an insult to A.K. Yearling's latest book. Nothing happened.

"What, you don't believe me?"

"So-sorry. I just–"

Moondancer was cut off as Flash Sentry suddenly burst out in laughter. Quibble and Moondancer looked at each other, and without thinking twice, they started to laugh too.

But Moondancer's laughter stopped when she turned her head to look at the rest of the group. There, behind her, was Sunburst. He was laying down on the floor and one of his forehooves was covering his face.

She walked closer to him, worried. "Are you okay?" she asked to her friend.

Sunburst's head jumped up as Moondancer's words got him out of his trance. "Uh– I–" he looked around, shook his head and put his eyes over Moondancer. It took him a few seconds to understand her question before he replied with a slow, silent nod. Then he looked away and glanced at Moondancer. Her face told him she didn't buy it.

"You're freaking out."

"I– I, ah... Kinda?" Sunburst shook his head once again, trying to free himself from his thoughts. His stress finally manifested in the form of a soft chuckle. "We've been wasting our time... That's fine. Fine! Can, uh, can somepony come up with a plan?" Sunburst rubbed his eyes. He was having a hard time trying to concentrate. "That's... an order and such."

Moondancer smiled, she knew what was going on. She levitated Sunburst and put him in Flash Sentry's back. Before Flash could say anything, she covered his mouth with her hoof. "Shh. Just, uh, take him somewhere nice where he can sleep," she said.

Sunburst frowned. "But why."

"No, no, I don't want to hear anything from you. Go to sleep, young unicorn." She gave Sunburst a soft, motherly kiss in the forehead. "You need it."

"Hmm, yeah, that..." Sunburst settled in Flash Sentry's back and tucked himself with his wings. "That sounds nice."

Yeah, that sounded nice. Maybe Sunburst could get a good amount of sleep then, not just a few minutes before a dream about himself freeing a bunch of baddies woke him up. Now he could go back to his usual nightmares, about Flash Sentry or magic school or Starl...

Flash stayed in the room until he was sure Sunburst had fallen asleep. It wasn't the first time he had to carry him on his back, nor the first time he saw him sleeping in the cold floor of a library, but usually those two things happened the other way around.

He came back to the others and found Moondancer and Quibble Pants in the middle of a conversation.

"Maybe, but I still like–" Moondancer's gaze deviated from Quibble and she noticed Flash Sentry standing behind him. "Flash! Is he asleep?" she asked.

"Like a log."

"Good. Our leader needs to be well rested, right?" she said to Quibble.

"Well, that's one less thing to worry about. But I'm calling it now: Sunburst can't be our leader."

"Uh, why?"

"Are you forgetting that he caused all of this? I don't trust him."

"Oh, come on! He's sorry, he wants to fix this, that's what matters. Uh–" she turned her head to Flash Sentry. "Flash, you know him. He's nice, right?"

"Totally!" replied Flash. "One time he even–"

"Oh, I thought you were sharper, Sentry. Really? Did you forget he tried to blame you for this?"

Flash sighed. "Yeah, he... he can be mean to me, sometimes."

Moondancer scratched the back of her head, her sweater was making her neck itch. "Well, I still trust him."

"Ha! When you've read – and lived – what I have..." Quibble glared at Lightning Dust and Limestone Pie, narrowing his eyes, "...you learn that you can't always trust everypony.

"Ahem! Anyways, let's not talk about that. We've got stuff to do and I'm actually excited to be a part of this. Oh! Maybe I could write fanfiction based on this..."

Lightning Dust chuckled. "Nopony would read that."

"Oh, we'll see. I know ponies in my daringfiction group who'd be interested."

JINGLE-JANGLE!

"I'm not sure I can keep going."

JINGLE-JANGLE!

"Well, I am sure."

JINGLE-JANGLE!

"Sure of what?"

CRACKLE!

"I'm sure you can't. You're a loser."

The dream ended there. It always did.

Sunburst woke up relieved, even smiling. That dream, the one about the day he left magic school, was one of his most frequent nightmares. He used to have it every night, but after helping save the Crystal Empire, it lowered to once or twice a week. Did the princess really call him "loser"? Sunburst couldn't remember. She probably did.

He got up and...

Wait a minute. What's that?

CRACKLE!

CRACKLE!

RUMBLE!

JINGLE-JANGLE!

A piece of the wall flew in Sunburst's direction and smashed him against a book shelf. He removed it with his magic and coughed a few times. "Oh, diggity darnit," he "cursed" under his breath and tried to get up, only to catch sight of a backlit silhouette standing in front of him and, startled, drop to the floor.

JINGLE-JANGLE!

"Why, hello there. Sunburst, right? I apologize, for I believe our first encounter was a tad..." the ram approached him and offered his help, putting his hoof in front of Sunburst's muzzle, "...troubled."

Sunburst could barely talk. "G-G..."

"Grogar," he finished. "From Ponyville. Remember?"

How could I forget? Sunburst thought as he attempted to reach his back with one hoof. It still hurt from the time Grogar threw him through the crystal walls of the Ponyville castle. He hit Grogar's hoof away.

"Ouch," Grogar said, snickering. "You're right. I think they call it Damagesparkian Empire now, although a better name would be..." – Grogar's eyes glowed red – "Shambles."

Gulp. Sunburst was paralized. He knew he had to do something, or at least say something, but he was petrified by fear... Or by cowardice?

"What, you can't talk? Huh. I thought Princess Celestia would at least teach good manners to her students. But oh, right, I forgot. You didn't graduate."

And that was the final straw. How dare he says something completely true? How did he know, anyway? Sunburst didn't care. He grunted, ready to do something he would later regret. But when he stood up, Grogar had already turned around.

"Although I understand why Celestia would send you to beat me," Grogar said. "She's always had that foolish faith in her subjects...

"The power to learn anything you want, at the cost of your own magical abilities. I pity you. Nevertheless, I'm surprised. I would have given up already. Know your limits, Sunburst. You can't defeat me. What a useless talent..." Grogar shot one last glance at Sunburst. "Actually... I think it couldbe useful."

One jingle-jangle from the bells in his neck and Grogar was gone. Sunburst, trying not to think about the things he had said to him, turned around and started organizing the books that fell when he got potato-mashed against the shelf.

I pity you.

Sunburst shunned his thoughts and faced the wall. He could fix the mess, but the massive ram-shaped hole in the wall? No way. Unless...

For a moment, Sunburst thought he could do it. So he levitated the debris, put it in the wall... ZAP!

His horn caught fire.

Of course. A reparation spell was just a slightly more complex transfiguration spell. And he could barely do those.

Know your limits, Sunburst.

Sunburst went back to where he thought the rest of the group would be, but there was no one to be seen. At first he didn't worry, maybe they had moved to another place in the library so they wouldn't disturb him. He seeked throughout the library, he didn't find them. Were they trying to play a prank on him? Again. Nothing. Sunburst started to freak out.

Maybe they got an emergency message from the princess and had to go back to the castle. Or maybe they thought I won't be a good leader and decided to move on without me. Or maybe Grogar caught them!

That Grogar. Sunburst liked him much more when he was the villain in a book for foals, that was for sure. He was much more charismatic then.

Sunburst sat down, he was feeling a little dizzy.

You can't defeat me. What a useless talent...

Try as he might, Sunburst couldn't get Grogar's words out of his mind. "That Grogar!" he said to himself. "My talent isn't useless. I can do tons of stuff..."

Silence.

"...inside my brain." Sunburst sighed. Grogar was right. He was useless on his own. He could never defeat Grogar...

Or could he?

Moondancer stumbled and nearly dropped the cake she was carrying with her magic. Luckily, Lightning Dust flew to the rescue.

"Careful, nerd!" she said to Moondancer, scowling.

"Oh, sorry for carrying the cake YOU wanted to steal!" Moondancer levitated a handkerchief and used it to wipe the sweat in her forehead. "Ooh, I can't believe we're doing this. Are you sure the princess won't find out?"

"She's the princess, she would manage to get a cake in the middle of the apocalypse if she wanted!"

"We are we going to take orders from an evil selfish unicorn and you are worried about cake?"

Moondancer facehoofed. "Ugh, come on Quibble! Sunburst is not evil!"

"You know, it's funny that you assumed I was talking about Sunburst when I never said his name."

A few sparkles flew out of Moondancer's horn. "Look," she said, "if you knew about all he's been through you'd see that he's more than willing to be the best leader he can be." She opened the door of the library and entered, followed by the others. "He'll act different once he wakes up, you'll see."

BANG! The door was slammed behind the five ponies. They turned around and were mildly surprised by what they saw.

"Sunburst, you woke up!" Moondancer smiled. "I was just telling– W-wait. Why is your head on fire?" she asked as she cast a spell to extinguish the flame.

"And why do you look like you were potato-mashed against a wall?" added Flash.

"That doesn't matter. Where were you? I was worried!"

"Aww, that's so sweet!" Quibble clapped slowly. "Ladies and gentlecolts, the leader of the elements of incompetence!"

"Leave the snarky comments to me, Quibble Pants."

"Sorry, Sunburst. We were coming up with a plan, but Lightning Dust snook out of the library without permission and went to the castle cook, we chased her and, well..." Moondancher snatched the cake from Lightning's hooves and showed it to Sunburst. "We noticed that we haven't eaten anything so... cake?"

Sunburst groaned. "Now is not the time for cake!" he yelled, dropping the cake from Moondancer's hooves.

"Looks like somepony got anger from hunger! Luckily, we brought muffins too!" Flash Sentry rose two paper bags full of muffins.

Sunburst licked his lips. "I love muffins... I-I mean–" he sighed. "Fine. Let's eat and then you can tell me about than plan you were cooking up– err, coming up with."

Flash Sentry flew towards a table and put the muffins over it. The ponies sat down and began their so-needed meal, and for the time it lasted, nopony said a word.

Once they were finished – and Lightning had made sure there were no leftovers of the cake on the floor – Sunburst pulled his chair backwards, producing a loud, noisy creak.

"Well, that was very nice," he said as he got up of his chair, "now can we please get going?"

"Sure!" replied Moondancer.

...

"Oh, right–" she chuckled. "The plan. Well, while you were sleeping we were talking about how we've been wasting our time in the only plan we had, and I realized that we didn't really have to give up on it. We just need to seek somewhere we can be sure we'll find the book or at least some useful information, and I just happen to have full access to Commander Duskhorn's former home and personal library." Moondancer pulled a key out of her sweater. "I know Duskhorn liked Gusty the Great as much as we do. If there's a pony in Canterlot who owns the sequel, it's her."

Sunburst eyes sparkled, but he supressed his wonder and kept a plain face. "Good thought, Moondancer. And then...?"

"Well, we haven't come up with anything beyond that. I just thought that we could make something up as we go along." She shrugged.

"Make something up as we go along?Huh. I'm surprised," he said. "I didn't think you were that unconcerned, Moondancer."

"Yeah, well, I just realized that maybe I was worrying too much. This is a team effort after all, and I mean, there's plenty of room for failure, right? I think our plan will do for now."

"Not if we want to defeat Grogar," grumbled Sunburst.

"Wait. What did you say?"

"I said your plan is not what we need."

"W-well, surely it needs some–"

"Now look who's talking!" interrupted Quibble. "The pony who hasn't done anything at all. Seems like you have something in mind, don't you, leader?"

"I actually do, Quibble Pants. So if you could please let me talk..."

"Go on."

"Fine." Sunburst stood in front of the others, trying to give off a solemn look. "You see, the princess brought us together because she saw that we're a bunch of incompetent ponies, and so far you've only proved her right. So I want to give you a chance to show that we're more than that."

Quibble rolled his eyes. "So...?"

"So we're going to defeat Grogar."

Gasp!

"Defeat Grogar?" Moondancer used her hanky to wipe her sweat again. "Sunburst, I-I'm not questioning you choice but... are you sure?"

"I'm everything but sure! But I talked with Grogar. He's–"

The sole mention of Grogar's name made Flash jump out of his skin. "G-G-GROGAR WAS HERE?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you? Yes, he came by, you know, to say hi and attack me a little bit."

"Oh my. Are you ok?" asked Moondancer.

"It hurts a lot, thank you very much."

Lightning Dust whispered at Limestone's ear, "Does he mean emotionally or...?"

One kick from Limestone and Lightning flew off.

Sunburst sighed, fed up. "Whatever. Let's go on with that plan of yours."

After a few twists and turns, the elements managed to leave the castle. Finally outside, they watched in terror as the once beautiful city decayed in front of their eyes. The ram-shaped holes in the walls of the buildings suggested that Grogar had bursted into every house in Canterlot, feeding off of everyone's fear. The few ponies who remained in Canterlot had noticed his presence. They were fleeing. It wasn't a ghost town, no. Calling it a "ghost town" would be being too generous. It was a corpse town, with worms coming out of its eyes and flies flying everywhere. Anywhere you looked it seemed like all hope was lost.

And that only made Sunburst feel worse. Even after four days, he hadn't had the chance to take a scenic route through his mistakes. Guilt hit him death in the face. All the thinking about life and stuff, about how his foolish idea would affect thousands, if not millions of ponies, about how maybe he was just overreacting and Starlight or Flash Sentry or even Princess Celestia would show up and fix everything... It was all wrong. It was in that moment that he saw what he truly had caused.

But he still had time to redeem himself. He had a second chance to show Equestria what he could do, not as a superhero but as a real pony with real flaws and–

Quibbled plugged Sunburst's mouth with his hoof. "Shut up, drama dude. We're here."

Sunburst's face turned so red you could easily mistake him with one of Quibble Pants' original characters. "D-did I really...?"

"Yup."

"Do you always narrate everything you do?" asked Lightning Dust.

"Uh, no, not me. But sometimes a little demon inside my head does."

Beat.

Moondancer walked towards the door. "Stay out everypony!" she warned.

Flash Sentry got worried. "Is there something wrong?"

"Oh, terribly wrong. It's the door lock, we're going to need a very complicated spell to open it. Back off, ponies, I don't know if it's going to work!"

That said, Moondancer pulled a key out of her sweater. Twist, twist, twist and the door opened. She covered her mouth snickering and looked at the others. None of them seemed to be having as much fun as she was.

"Hey, that's no fun," said Flash, "I got genuinely worried!"

"Sorry," she replied, trying not to giggle.

"Flash Sentry is right." Sunburst got a little nauseous after saying that, but he kept his cool for the sake of his authority. "It's the worst moment to joke."

"Sorry," Moondancer repeated. "I just thought that we could use some humor to loosen up."

"You thought wrong."

Sunburst hurried into the room and Moondancer stood in front of the door, not knowing what to do.

"Huh. Kind guy's got a sense of humor," said Quibble.

"Welp, it's official." Lightning Dusk kicked a book towards a pile. "Saving the world is much more boring than I thought."

"I don't get it!" screamed Moondancer in distress. "I was sure it would be here. We're six ponies in a small library, all looking for the same book. Why can't we find it?"

"Maybe if it was, you know, organized like a library?" Lightning Dust pointed at the room – yes, the whole room. There were more books on the floor than in the shelves, and more ponies in the shelves than on the floor. "I don't know much about libraries, but I'm pretty sure this is not what bookworm dreams look like.

"Hey, bookworms don't have to be the same!" Moondancer folded her forehooves. "I know it's hard to see at first but I'm not Twilight Sparkle. My methods are a bit messier. Besides, you made most of this mess."

"Yeah, I guess, but my mess is an organized mess. That one over there is my trash pile and this one here" – Lightning patted three books stacked – "is my not-so-trashy pile. Simple."

"Wait." Flash Sentry looked at the heap beside him. "This is your trash pile? I thought it was your 'Flash should really check these out' pile! I have been looking through this pile for the past hour!"

"Ugh, I am surfeited! This is disadvantageous!" groaned Quibble. "We are just squandering our inestimable time with this substandard machination."

Lightning Dust cleaned her ear with one hoof. "What."

Quibble Pants closed the book he was reading – a thesaurus – and cleared his throat. "I said that we are wasting our time. Why have we spent hours searching a book that might not be what we need at all? If you ask me, I say we should be heading towards the Damagesparkian Empire. I bet there's lots of ponies there who could help us."

"We can't do anything that could compromise our mission," said Moondancer without looking at Quibble. "And if you really want your plan to be taken into account you know what you have to do." She pointed at Sunburst, who was too focused in the search and hadn't noticed the others' conversation.

Quibble frowned. One swing from his hoof and a bookshelf fell over Flash Sentry.

"Oh no," he said, deadpan, "I have killed Flash Sentry. We better bury him before his dead body starts attracting flies. Limestone, come help me dig a hole. Moondancer, Lightning Dust, you're coming too. It's not a funeral if nopony's crying."

The five ponies walked out of the room and Quibble Pants slammed the door.

"Why are we here?" Moondancer asked. "Grogar could see us."

"Yes! And I'm not an expert, but I'm sure I'm not dead!" Flash Sentry patted the wall of the tower to really make sure he was not a ghost. "Not dead!"

"Yet," said Quibble under his breath. He cleared his throat again. "Sorry. I needed to get out of there so Sunburst couldn't hear us."

"Oh. Ooh no. I'm not staying through another one of your 'Sunburst is evil-exclamation mark-exclamation mark-one-one-one' lectures." Moondancer turned around and opened the door, but Quibble stoped her.

"Moondancer, student of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. I thought you were bright, but I guess I was wrong. A pony like you, taking orders from a nopony like Sunburst? Puh-lease."

"Hey, he's not a nopony! Need I remind you that he saved the Crystal Empire? Also, he studied there, too. You already knew that. Sure, he didn't graduate, but he's as smart as any–"

A smile appeared in Quibble's lips.

Moondancer covered her mouth with her forehooves. "Please forget I said that."

"Ohoho! So not only are we following the pony who caused this in the first place, but also a magic washout? Well, what a surprise!"

"He's not a washout!"

Quibble booped Moondancer in the snout. "And what's even more surprising, you keep defending him even though he's been a jerk towards you and the team!"

"He's not a jerk!" said Moondancer as she pushed Quibble's hoof away. "He's nice, I know it. He-he's just under too much pressure! His behavior is justified. There must be a book on psychology around here that could help..."

"You want psychology? I got a diagnosis for you: Sunburst is mean. He's just taking advantage of the position the princess gave him."

"If you ask me," joined Lightning, "I wouldn't trust a pony with a goatee. One tried to stab me in a bar once."

"See? He's going to stab us in the back any time."

"Come on guys. Would an evil pony save th–"

"The Crystal Empire, yeah, we get it. But he did it who-knows-how-long ago! Wanna hear what he's done lately? He freed Equestria's most dangerous enemies, made us come up with a plan while he took a nap, destroyed the cake you carried through the castle and despised your idea and your joke. You've practically done everything for him, but has he ever thanked you?"

Moondancer's eyes were narrowed and her eyebrows furrowed. She looked away, trying to find something to say, but she got nothing. She couldn't just admit that Quibble was... right?

"That's right," he said with a smirk, "he hasn't. He's annoying, whiny and bossy. Is that what you seek in a leader? Do you really expect him to be a good friend?"

"I..." Moondancer sighed, "I guess not."

A sudden CREAK! paralized everypony.

"Sweet Celestia, please tell me it's Grogar," whispered Moondancer.

Flash Sentry walked towards the door and, alarmed upon seeing who was behind it, asked, "Sunburst?"