WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?

EIGHT DAYS LATER

Princess Celestia was absolutely disgusted by what she had just read in the report in front of her.

Shortly after the arrival of a recently apprehended criminal named Trixie Lulamoon, who had caused much chaos in Ponyville and severely injured four of the six bearers of the Elements of Harmony, she was informed about the crimes that the said mare had committed and her apparent reasons for committing these crimes. Unable to fully comprehend these reasons and not wanting to believe the accusations that the mentally broken mare had thrown against the very ponies she trusted most besides her own sister, she ordered the said guards to conduct a full investigation in Ponyville in order to find out what exactly transpired there.

She received their report a week later, and both she and Luna were utterly shocked over its contents. Their shock soon turned into rage as they summoned the four ponies who were left crippled both physically and emotionally by Trixie's actions. Needless to say, the said ponies did not receive a warm welcome by the princesses when they arrived at the throne room in the Canterlot Castle the very next day, and the injuries that they had received the previous week did not gain them any sympathy whatsoever.

"Twilight, how do you explain the horrendous things that are written in this report?!" Celestia asked as she put the said report aside and faced her student, who had an extremely nervous and apologetic look on her face.

"I... I don't know what to say, Princess Celestia," she began. "My friends and I had no idea what Trixie was going through when she first arrived on Ponyville. We only saw her a simple showboating magician and treated her as such. We never once thought we would be causing so much damage as a result."

"No, you most certainly did not," Princess Luna interjected. "Thus, your short-sighted and hypocritical actions have led to not only your current state, but also the loss of six innocent pony lives, including three foals and the mayor of Ponyville!"

Twilight and her friends all flinched, especially Rarity and Applejack, upon hearing Luna's words. Celestia then sighed and continued, "Even if you didn't know about Trixie's difficult life, you still had no right to treat her the way you did. I am immensely disappointed in all of you. As the current bearers of the Elements of Harmony, you were supposed to not only protect Equestria from threats, but also inspire its citizens to uphold the very virtues that you represent. Instead, the only things that you inspired are mayhem and disharmony. The way my sister and I see it, you have demonstrated just how unworthy you are of those elements."

While her friends all silently bowed their heads in utter shame, Twilight tearfully pleaded, "Princess Celestia, please, we didn't mean for any of this to happen! We've made some huge mistakes, but we can still make up for them, right? Please, tell us how to fix the mess we've cause and we'll do anything you say!"

Unfortunately, her pleas were met with Celestia shaking her head in disappointment and Luna declaring, "You may not have intended for these tragedies happening in the first place, Twilight, but you still have no clue in regards to the consequences of your actions. Allow me and my sister to show you."

Immediately after finishing her sentence, both her and Celestia's horn began to glow. Then, in a bright flash of light, they were all teleported to the middle of a square in Manehattan. While the facial expressions of the princesses remained angry as they looked at their new surroundings, the expressions on the faces of Twilight and her friends turned from confusion into pure dread.

What they were looking at was nothing like the Manehattan that they were familiar with, because at that moment, the entire city was full of mayhem and anarchy.

There were violent protestors wearing the exact same clown make-up that Trixie was wearing all around them. They were breaking into shops to steal various items, setting buildings on fire, and attacking the royal guards who were desperately trying to contain the situation. While none of them were focused on the royal alicorns and their companions who had just teleported to the center of an ongoing riot, the said onlookers could clearly see how this once-majestic metropolis was crumbling and burning all around them.

What terrified Twilight and her friends the most was the fact that the rioters all looked exactly like the very pony that they had mistreated and shunned, almost as if her spirit had possessed the citizens of Manehattan and influenced them to commit acts just as terrible as her own. Thus, with a desperate need for a reason to all this madness around them, Twilight asked the princesses, "What... happened here?"

In response, Luna sighed once again and revealed, "Before her return to Ponyville to exact her vengeance on you, Trixie was somehow able to acquire the medical records of her brother from the Manehattan General Hospital and mailed them to a local gazette. Apparently, the editor was so intrigued by the story that he arranged an interview with her, where she revealed everything that happened on her first visit to Ponyville, as well as everything else that happened until her second visit. She then requested an anonymous journalist to accompany her to the town, where she not only committed acts just as depraved as the ones we are seeing here, but also delivered a grand speech that made the townsfolk gathered there and even the Mayor Mare corroborate her story, which was all the evidence the anonymous journalist needed to paint a clear picture of the events."

Just then, she picked up a newspaper that was printed exactly one week earlier from the sidewalk with her telekinetic magic and showed the front page to Twilight and her friends, which caused them to become even more horrified than they already were, since it contained both a picture of Trixie as she was delivering her speech and a detailed description of the events that transpired during her first visit to Ponyville.

"Just one day after the article was published, we started receiving reports of regular civilian ponies wearing clown make-up starting riots all over this city," Celestia continued. "Judging from their behavior and appearance, we believe that they feel immense sympathy for what Trixie's been through."

She then turned to Twilight with an angry look on her face and finished, "As well as deep resentment for the supposed heroes who made her life much worse than it already was."

Just then, one of the rioters struggling with a royal guard pony noticed the alicorn princesses and their companions before grabbing the attention of the other rioters by pointing at the visitors and shouting at the top of his lungs, "HEY!!! It's those ponies who ruined Trixie! LET'S GET 'EM!!!"

Right after hearing that, every single protester in the area started rushing towards the direction that their shouting comrade was pointing towards. Even when the princesses conjured up a shield to protect both themselves and their guests, the oncoming swarm of clown ponies started attacking the said shield relentlessly, pounding on it with either their bare hooves or whatever object they could find, including bricks and crowbars.

To say that the ponies inside the shield created by the princesses were deeply unsettled by what they were seeing would a total understatement. They were surrounded by all sides by angry civilians, all wearing the same clown make-up that Trixie had on her face when she was terrorizing Ponyville. On top of all that, every single one of them had immense hatred in their eyes and they were doing everything in their power to break through the shield in order to make the sources of their hatred suffer a whole lot more than they already had.

Meanwhile, the said sources of hatred could do nothing but stare at the swarm of ponies around them with absolutely terrified expressions on their faces. Applejack and Rainbow Dash could neither run nor fly away no matter how much they wanted at that moment due to the severity of their injuries, so they simply held each other for much-needed comfort. Rarity was unable to see anything, but she could still perfectly hear the angry noises that the ponies outside the shield were making, so she covered her ears in a desperate effort to drown out those noises. As for Twilight herself, she was standing completely still, while also contemplating in silence how could she and her friends have messed up so badly that they were now under attack by the very people that they had sworn to protect at all costs.

Nonetheless, their attention was soon diverted when they heard the sound of a tiny crack forming on the shield, making the princesses finally nod to one another and teleporting their group back to the throne room in the Canterlot Castle. As soon as they returned to their thrones, Luna asked, "So, Twilight, how exactly do you plan on putting an end to all this chaos?"

Still reeling from the nearly traumatizing experience that the princesses had put her and her friends through in order to teach them a lesson, Twilight took a moment to compose herself before taking a deep breath and solemnly replying, "I don't have a plan. Not for this. I was wrong. There's no way we can fix this by ourselves. Instead, we should be punished for causing the chaos we just saw. In fact, we deserve to be locked up in the dungeons just like Trixie was, since we're all just as guilty as she is for this mess."

Her friends briefly looked at her in bewilderment upon hearing this suggestion, but as they thought about the situation more thoroughly in their heads and recalled everything that happened since Trixie first arrived at Ponyville, they all came to the conclusion that they have done enough damage and perhaps they really do deserve to be punished like this in order to atone for their sins. Meanwhile, the princesses looked at each other with uncertainty for a moment before turning back to the four and Luna announced, "Your punishment won't be that severe. Even though Trixie was clearly the victim of your hypocricy and ego, it doesn't change the fact that she committed all those crimes with her own free will."

Celestia continued, "That being said, we have decided to strip you four of your respective positions as the bearers of the elements of Magic, Honesty, Generosity, and Loyalty. As for what will happen to Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, they-"

"PRINCESS CELESTIA!!!!" they suddenly heard a royal earth pony guard shout as he barged into the room. "You need to come quick! There's an emergency outside!"

However, before he could tell them more, a black spiky vine appeared behind him and started dragging him back the way he came from by his hind legs. Immediately afterwards, Celestia shot a beam of magic from her horn directly at the said vine, severing its hold on the guard's legs and allowing Luna to telekinetically move him beside herself. Then, the two sisters teleported themselves, Twilight and her friends, and the guard pony right outside the castle, and they were all met with a sight just as horrible as the one in Manehattan.

Almost the entirety of Canterlot was covered in the exact same type of vine that they had just seen. The civilian ponies were running away in order to avoid being caught by the vines, while the royal guard ponies were doing the best they could to cut them down to prevent them from spreading any further and free the civilians that had been trapped by them. Needless to say, the situation was just as chaotic as the one in Manehattan at that moment, and the ponies who were observing it from afar were both perplexed at what they were seeing and exasperated by the fact that they had another problem to deal with.

Just then, Celestia came to a realization about the source of the vines and it made her even angrier than she was earlier, causing her to shout, "Discord! What have you done?!"

She then started hovering in the air with her wings before turning to Luna and saying, "I'm going to the Tree of Harmony to tear out the roots of these vines. You stay here bring as many ponies as possible to safety."

"Understood," replied Luna. "Good luck, sister."

Celestia nodded with determination and began flying as fast as she could towards Ponyville. Before an even more befuddled Twilight could ask her what was going on, Luna turned to her and her friends, and declared, "I suggest you go inside the castle for shelter. I am going to find more ponies in need of it."

Just as she took off to do just that, Twilight came to a realization of her own and exclaimed, "Wait! Where's Trixie?!"

Righ afterwards, she began trotting towards the castle with the intention of going to the dungeons to make sure that Trixie was still in her cell and keep him there if she had managed to get out. Despite hearing her friends yelling at her to stop from behind, she kept going, since she knew all too well how dangerous Trixie was and if she could stop her from causing even more trouble than the city was already facing, then she could both save lives and redeem herself a bit in the eyes of the princesses. Thus, she quickly entered the castle and made her way down the stairs towards the lower levels of the building.

When she finally reached her destination, however, she became both shocked and disappointed to find every single one of the cells had been opened by the vines, and that there was no sign of any of the inmates, including Trixie. Nevertheless, she started searching the prison from top to bottom and once she finally reached Trixie's cell, she instead found a stone brick on the floor with the words "Just missed me!" carved on it, along with a smiley face.

Upon seeing this, she threw the brick aside and let out a scream of pure anguish before crying on the floor, convinced that she had become an utter failure.