Author's Note

By popular request, here are some scenes that just didn't quite fit right. Probably a little rough and unpolished.

The scene I'm probably most annoyed I couldn't fit in is the last one, because that information will be important to later stories...

Deleted Scenes

SCENE: On the spaceship.
DELETED BECAUSE: I didn't have anywhere good to put it, it didn't affect the plot in any way, and it sort of breaks my rule of being 100% clean. This scene is only about 95% clean. If a few swear words being implied, but not stated outright, bothers you, then skip to the break to read the next deleted scene.

The flight was beginning to drag on. Scootaloo had already asked "Are we there yet?" at least three times, before wandering off to talk to Peter across the room. Rainbow, Tony, and Doctor Strange had started chatting, and their conversation had wandered over a variety of topics, but it was starting to wane.

"Ugh," Rainbow muttered. "This is boring as hay."

"As what now?" Doctor Strange asked with interest.

"Hay."

"Is that some kind of minced oath?"

"Some kind of what?" Tony asked.

"Minced oath. It's when you don't want to say a swear word, so you replace it with something else that sounds similar."

Rainbow shook her head. "No, why would it be a minced oath? Hay is boring. There is absolutely nothing interesting about hay."

"So you don't mean something like-"

"Nah." She shook her head. "I know your human swears. If I wanted to use one, I would've."

"Human swears?"

Tony shrugged. "Yeah, apparently all pony swears are really, really weak. Like, they'll say 'peeved' and then gasp and cover their mouth."

Rainbow grinned. "I was pretty excited to get my hooves on human swearing vocabulary, but no ponies even knew what I was saying, so there wasn't much point in using it. I've just fallen out of the habit."

Doctor Strange raised an eyebrow. "So, what word would you use for just generally complaining--like if you stubbed your hoof?"

"Buck," Rainbow said promptly.

"That sounds like-"

"Yeah, but it's not," Tony interrupted. "It literally just means kicking something."

"Really?"

Rainbow shrugged. "What? Have you ever been on the receiving end of hooves? They are extremely painful. So we also have phrases like 'Go buck yourself,' which would require some major flexibility and hurt a lot. Or, some ponies say 'We're totally bucked!' in bad situations, because they're about to be in a lot of pain."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Pony swears are wimpy."

SCENE: During the fight between the Space Squad and the Guardians of the Galaxy
DELETED BECAUSE: It was improbable, both too long for the length of the fight and too casual to be realistically carried on while fighting. Plus, it might have tipped the Guardians off too early.

Scootaloo bucked with all her might, kicking out at the grey creature, but he barely seemed fazed. "Huh? Rainbow said humans were really weak to hooves!"

"I'm not a human!" the alien protested.

"Wait, what?"

Tony shrugged. "Yeah, humans don't come in grey."

Scootaloo paused. "Don't tell me the only color you guys have is that boring whitish-brown!"

"Well, some of us are dark brown," Tony retorted defensively.

"Seriously? It's all just different shades of brown?" He nodded, and she crossed her hooves. "Man! This trip was such a ripoff!"

He rolled his eyes. "Well, maybe next time you can just visit Earth and insult my entire species there, instead of crashing a hijacked spaceship and fighting aliens."

"Fair point."

SCENE: After the Space Squad fought Thanos.
DELETED BECAUSE: There was nowhere it fit. I left this group when Thanos left, and didn't get back to them until after the snap.

Rainbow groaned and looked up at Tony. "You all right?"

He shrugged, then winced at the movement. "Aside from the stab wound, I'm doing great."

"Yeah, that's great, but I'm asking about the stab wound."

Tony tried to smirk confidently, but still looked a bit pained. "I'm not gonna die. Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt." Rainbow nodded and looked down. Painfully, Tony spoke again. "Something on your mind?"

She sighed. "It's just--I feel like I didn't make any difference. It didn't even matter that I came. Thanos still took the Stone. He's only got one left, Tony." She swallowed hard. "And I can't help wondering if, if I'd done something differently, we could've stopped him."

Tony paused throughfully. "Well, at least we can find out. Hey Strange!" The doctor looked up. "Still three futures where we win?"

Doctor Strange shook his head. "Two."

Rainbow's head drooped. "Then it's true. I could've done something different. It- it was convincing him, wasn't it? That was the long shot. If I'd said something different..."

Starlord, standing next to her, shook his head. "It was my fault. I attacked him."

Doctor Strange shook his head, too. "There was no universe in which you didn't," he admitted. "Just one that it was later, and he was more willing to listen by then."

Rainbow groaned. "Then it was my fault. I brought up Gamora right away, instead of waiting."

"It's not your fault!" Tony insisted. "You couldn't have predicted that."

She sighed. "Maybe not. But still--there has to be something I could've done! There has to be something I can still do! I can't just sit here waiting for the apocalypse to strike!" Her eyes lit up. "Hey, Peter!"

Spiderman looked over. "Yeah?"

"No, sorry, the other one."

Starlord looked down at her. "Yeah?"

"You guys have a spaceship, right?"

"Yeah."

"Great! Let's go! They've got the last Infinity Stone on Earth, we can head there and-" She jumped to her feet and spread her wings, then froze, taking in a hissing breath. She'd almost forgotten about her broken wing."

"You all right?" Tony asked.

"Will be." She folded the wing, trying to ignore the feeling of slicing pain that slid through it at the movie. "Let's go!"

"No." Doctor Strange's voice was firm.

"Why the hay not?" Rainbow protested.

He started listing on his fingers. "One, you can barely move your wing."

"I'm fine!"

"You're not. Two, we can't move Tony."

"Why not? He said he wasn't about to die."

Doctor Strange rolled his eyes. "That doesn't mean he's perfectly stable! He needs time to recover, several hours at least. A day or more would be preferable. And that's before he even walks around!"

Rainbow scoffed. "You're making a mountain out of a molehill." She tossed her head, then winced, but tried to hide it.

"Am I? Which one of us is the actual doctor, hmm?" Strange snapped. "And three, even if we were all perfectly healthy, we wouldn't reach them in time to make a difference. The fight for the last Infinity Stone will be short. It may be almost over as we speak."

"But... I can't just sit here... I have to do something!" Rainbow protested. Her legs seemed to bend of their own accord, and she lay back down. That felt a little better.

"There's nothing you can do, Rainbow. It's out of our hands now."

SCENE: An alternate version of Twilight's fight with Thanos
DELETED BECAUSE: It just didn't end up flowing neatly, and I couldn't figure out how to end it

"Hello. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I'm here to tell you why you're an idiot."

Thanos snorted. This would be over with quickly. He clenched his fist and launched a massive wave of energy, one that stemmed from all the Stones at once, not just one. Twilight raised her own Gauntlet and let it absorb the incredible power. When the wave ended, she was still standing there, smirking.

"That's not possible."

She ignored him and launched into a lecture. "You killed a bunch of people so they wouldn't use up all the resources, right? Well, guess what? NATURE ALREADY DOES THAT!" She waved her hoof, launching a ball of magical energy at him.

He dodged around it. "What?"

She lit her horn up and displayed a diagram in midair.

"This is called a logistic curve. It describes population growth. As a population gets bigger and approaches the limit of its natural resources, the growth tapers off, and it becomes almost flat. Completely naturally! It's impossible for a population to use all the resources and destroy itself, unless it happens in the space of a single generation!"

Thanos sent another wave of energy at her, but she blocked it like it wasn't there. "I've seen the effects of cutting a population in half!" he shouted. "The planet will experience unprecedented growth!"

Twilight scoffed. "For a generation or two, maybe!" She fired a beam of magic at him. He absorbed it easily. "But people will keep having more kids. It'll never be permanent!"

"I improved their lives! It's a paradise!"

"Killing people is no way to improve living for anyone else!"

"Before me, nobody had enough to eat!" Thanos insisted. "People were starving!"

"So the fact that some people were dying makes it okay to kill half the population?"

"I saved the universe!"

"You're an IDIOT! Just double the resources!" she screamed.

[And so on. I told you I didn't know how to end it. All I knew for sure was that, even in the face of reason, Thanos would cling to his beliefs, because it was too uncomfortable to admit he'd been wrong.]

SCENE: During the party
DELETED BECAUSE: The ending of that chapter wouldn't flow as well if I added this near the end

Pinkie and Thor were bending over the map. "Ooh! And you can send a student to the school!"

"School?"

"Yeah! We started a school for everyone in our world to learn about friendship! We've got creatures from all over the world, all sorts of nations. It would be a great way for ponies to start getting used to having you around." Pinkie frowned. "Although, there's this one guy who really doesn't like creatures other than ponies, and he's in charge of education in Equestria and-" She started to freak out.

"First of all," Twilight interrupted, trotting by with a glass of punch held by her horn, "the EEA doesn't have any authority over our school, remember? And second, Neighsay doesn't have any authority over any education anymore."

Pinkie tilted her head. "Huh? Why not?"

"Princess Celestia fired him." Twilight took a sip of punch, the tiniest hint of a smirk gracing her face. "She was really mad. So was he, actually. They had a big argument." She took another sip. "Apparently, in the end, he just ran off."

Pinkie shrugged. "Well, then we don't have to worry about him!" She turned back to the map as Twilight trotted off again. "So, anyway..."