Peace Was Never An Optionby The Sleepless BeholderChaptersPanicBetrayalBreakReunitedPanicTwilight Sparkle, ruler of Equestria, sat on her throne as the usual pile of paperwork slowly grew at her side, no matter how fast she read and signed them. She knew by now that she would never finish it, since she had to hire a second secretary just so the piles of paperwork could be delivered to her throne before the day ended. Twilight let out a sigh and tried to smile. “Just endure it a bit more. It has been more than a year. It will happen soon.” One of her secretaries walked up to her and tried to whisper in her ear, but Twilight turned around in a snap, frightening the mare with her huge grin. “What is it? An emergency? Which kind?” the alicorn asked excitedly, almost bouncing in place. Her secretary composed herself and took a few steps back just for safety. “Uhm, I wouldn’t call it an emergency.” “Tell me already!” Twilight exclaimed, her hair getting messy with her desperation. The secretary took another step back and started sweating a bit. “W-well… Ink just injured her back while bringing in the next pile of papers, so I wanted to–” The mare was suddenly lifted by a purple aura and pressed against her ruler’s face. “Are you telling me that there's no villain attacking Equestria right now?” Twilight asked with a tone of voice that gave the impression she was about to banish her secretary straight to Tartarus. “No?” the mare answered trembling. “Really? No major catastrophe about to destroy the world? Magical disturbance? Anything?!” Twilight asked, her voice getting louder with each question. The secretary was too frightened to speak, so she just shook her head. Twilight let go of the mare and put her hooves against her temples. “This can’t be happening. It has been a year already. Why is everything so… peaceful?” she asked herself, the last word leaving a bad taste in her mouth. By this point, one of her guards was slowly approaching her with a book and a mantle, following the procedure in case of Twilight having a breakdown. But before he could tempt the godly bookworm with the literary sacrifice, the alicorn disappeared in a flash of light. “Uhm, what’s the next step if she goes away?” the guard asked, and another soldier pulled out a small guidebook with Twilight’s cutie mark stamped on the front. He flipped through the pages while the rest of the staff waited expectantly, until he found the answer. “Contact Starlight Glimmer, evacuate the castle, and panic.” “Very well,” the guard with the mantle said before pointing at one of the pegasi. “Go to the School of Friendship and warn the Headmare. We will organize the evacuation in the meantime and–” “Oh wait, I read it wrong,” the guard with the guidebook shouted. “It says panic, evacuate the castle, and then contact Starlight.” The entire staff let out a sigh of relief. “We almost failed to follow protocol,” one guard said. “That would’ve been much worse.” Then they all started to panic. BetrayalTwilight appeared in the middle of Discord’s house; eyes filled with anger born out of frustration. “What’s taking you so long?!” The draconequus put down the leather shoe he was reading and took off his glasses before responding. “Am I late for something?” He spit out a pocket watch and opened it, revealing a mass of worms wiggling inside. “Why haven’t you enacted your plan yet?” the alicorn asked accusatorily. Discord was still confused. “I was just reading some good leather,” he said pointing at the shoe. “It’s size 42.” Twilight let out a laugh as her hair became a little frazzled. “Oh, right. Surely you want to truly surprise me this time, so just give me a date and I will wipe my memories before you can enact your plan and I will be totally surprised by your betrayal! Win-win right?” Discord stood up from the couch with a more serious expression. “Okay, I know I’ve failed to learn my friendship lessons various times before, but I’m not planning on betraying you again. It would get predictable by this point, which is a no-no for me.” Twilight looked distraught. “B-b-b-but then who is it?” “Who’s who?” Discord asked, wondering if he should get some tea for her nerves. “The villain!” the alicorn shouted. “The one who will threaten Equestria and me and my friends will have to defeat. It happens every year! It has to be coming soon!” Discord raised an eyebrow. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t I turn all the villains into stone statues?” “Well… maybe they can find a way to escape. Just like you did!” Twilight exclaimed with hint of hope. Discord shook his head. “I’m afraid not. My ways are permanent.” “Well, somecreature has to be the villain!” The alicorn shouted; her mane now fully frazzled. Discord crossed his arms. “Well, as I said, I’m not betraying you.” Twilight started to prance around, trying to think a solution while muttering incomprehensible gibberish. Discord pulled out a banana out of his ear and was about to call Fluttershy when the alicorn suddenly shouted. “I know! If you are not going to betray me, then I bet somepony else will turn evil! It would be such an unexpected twist!” She laughed maniacally as she rubbed her hooves together. Before Discord could say anything, Twilight teleported out of his dimension. “Well… this should be interesting,” he said before summoning a TV and sitting down to watch his favorite show. Starlight was looking over her design for the next round of exams for the students when Twilight appeared in front of her desk in a flash of purple light, making her fall from her chair and throw the papers into the air. “Hi Starlight!” Twilight exclaimed as the unicorn slowly stood up. Starlight looked at her friend and mentor, noticing that she was a bit unhinged by Twilight standards. “Hey… Twilight… Are you feeling okay?” she asked with a bit of nervousness. “Oh, enough about me,” the alicorn said, dismissing her with a hoof before leaning over the desk. “Now tell me, do you have some plans for the following days?” “Uhm…” Starlight pointed at her exams. “Make the students take a test?” “HA! No no no, I need something more evil than that.” “My tests aren’t evil,” the unicorn complained, clearly offended. “Exactly! Now really, do you have some nefarious plan brewing?” Twilight asked, leaning over until she almost touched snouts with Starlight. The unicorn pushed her away. “No.” Twilight teleported behind her. “Come on, aren’t you feeling a bit more–” she placed her mouth uncomfortably close to Starlight’s ear, and whispered. “–equal?” Starlight teleported to the other side of the room in a panic. “For your own good, that better have just been the worst flirting ever done by a living creature!” “Just tell me if you’re going to betray me or not!” Twilight shouted as she smashed the desk into splinters with her hooves. Starlight was more confused than terrified at this point. “What? I’ve no reason to betray you!” Twilight snorted. “Come on! Aren’t you even a little bit resentful about me constantly leaving you to run the school and trying to control your friendships?” Starlight rubbed the bridge of her nose. “We are not having this conversation. Did you eat one of Trixie’s pills again?” Twilight’s eyes lit up. “Trixie! That’s a great idea! Starlight you’re a genius!” The alicorn teleported in front of her student to give her a big hug and then vanished in a flash of magic. Starlight just stood frozen in shock for a few seconds before shaking her head. “What in Tartarus is going on?!” The Great and Powerful Trixie was taking her usual Great and Powerful nap when something landed on her lap. She opened her eyes groggily as she woke up from her slumber, and her vision slowly focused on the object on top of her body. It was a familiar alicorn-shaped collar that was looking at her with its hateful, piercing eyes. Trixie let out a high pitch scream as the memories of wearing the cursed amulet flooded into her mind, and immediately threw the collar against the wall. “No silly, you have to wear it around your neck,” Twilight explained as she picked up the Alicorn Amulet with her magic. “Don’t tell me you forgot how to use it.” “Trixie wishes she could!” The magician looked at the alicorn, noticing that she was moderately unhinged by Twilight standards. “Did you eat one of my pills again? Do you know how difficult it is for me to produce them?” “Uh! Are you going to use them to mind-control the town and form a rebellion against me?” Twilight asked with a big smile on her face. “How exactly would Trixie mind control a town with homemade medicine?” the magician asked with genuine curiosity. Twilight put her hooves up. “I don’t know! You’re the evil mastermind in this scenario!” Trixie fished out a bottle of blue pills from her hat. “Here, take two of these a day with some water for a couple of weeks.” Twilight gasped with a smile. “Are you planning on putting me on a coma so Starlight can take my place as ruler, and when I wake up a decade later we’re in a post-apocalyptic dystopia were you and Starlight rule in a total dictatorship?” “Aren’t we in a sort of dictatorship already?” Trixie shook her head. “Stop that! Trixie is trying to help you here!” “Me too!” Twilight exclaimed frustrated as she shoved the Alicorn Amulet against Trixie’s chest. “Don’t you want to be great and powerful again? Beat me in another magic duel? Take out your frustrations and resentment with an overly elaborate plan of vengeance?” Trixie stared at the unicorn with eyes scarier than the ones in the amulet, and lifted the cursed collar with her magic. “Trixie is great and powerful,” she growled before turning the amulet into a teacup. “She doesn’t need to show it to you. Now, go away.” The magician pulled down her hat over her eyes and went back to her nap, ignoring the alicorn completely. Twilight gritted her teeth and took the teacup before banishing in a flash of magic. Twilight was walking back and forth in a far corner of Celestia's gardens, scribbling some words in a piece of parchment. "Come on, almost ready..." She added the last touches almost violently, and finished writing the spell. "Yes! Now to test it." She turned to her right, looking at the three villains Discord had turned into stone statues. "They may have failed before, but with a bit of help I'm sure they will bring ruin to the land one more time, and then we can valiantly stop them and be revered as heroes once more!" Twilight lit her horn and activated the scroll, casting the de-petrification spell on the statue. She had a huge, terrifying grin as she saw the stone break apart and uncover the bodies of the three most dangerous villains Equestria had managed to defeat. As the trio were freed from their stone prison, Twilight couldn't help but start to cackle and scream. "They're alive! I always wanted to say this. Fly my minions! Show them how much you love me!" *Thump* *Thump* *Thump* Her mad laugh came to a stop, and she slowly looked down. Chrysalis, Tirek and Cozy were laying on the ground unconscious... With their eyes open. “Are you guys okay?” She got no response. Twilight picked up a nearby stick and poked each of them with it, getting no reaction. She then smashed the stick against Chrysalis head, snapping it in half, but the bug-queen still didn't move or react. Twilight looked at the spell she had made and immediately burned it to erase the evidence of her actions. "Maybe I can petrify them again and nopony will notice." She then heard sobbing behind her, and when she turned around, she saw the horrified faces of Cheerilee and a group of fillies she had been escorting during their tour of the castle's gardens. “Are they dead?” the younger of the group asked. "Oh... Buck." Break"...and that's why, in my endless crusade of forgiveness and compassion, I decided to put these three villains in a new reformation program!" Twilight declared to the small crowd that had gathered in the gardens, doing her best to cover the three unconscious bodies being treated by the best doctors she could get in the small time she had before the rumors about her actions started spreading. "Didn't they survive the rainbow laser already?" Somepony in the crowd asked. "Yeah, I always thought it was the evil remover." "I used it as an allegory for my dishwasher soap brand." "Do not question the ancient powers I control!" Twilight shouted to silence the crowd and then cleared her throat. "As I was saying, these three may have seemed unredeemable at first. And second... And third. But, I'm sure that if we give them just one more chance at reformation, they will become respectable citizens of Equestria." "And what if they don't?" somepony asked. "Oh, then they would surely concoct an evil scheme beyond our simple pony minds. Maybe steal the Crystal Heart as a distraction while preparing a spell to release the Pony of Shadows from limbo and adding him to their ranks, becoming an even greater, almost unstoppable force. Then they would steal the scepter of the dragons to order them to attack Equestria, and do the same thing with the griffons once they recover their ancient artifact, initiating a domino effect that plunges Equestria into total war with all of its neighbors. And while we are busy fighting each other, they will secretly capture all my friends and loved ones and use them as ransom for the kingdom, forcing me to decide between them or my crown and–" Twilight stopped her rambling as she noticed the terrified stares of the crowd after her speech of theoretical doom. "Or maybe they will just try and destroy me directly. Same thing really." She added, not really helping to calm down her scared subjects. "That was all, have a good day!" She shouted far too loudly as she teleported away from her problems and social awkwardness. The crowd of ponies just stood there, scared and unsure of what to do now, until a royal guard approached them in a mad sprint. "Everypony panic!" He shouted to the confused crowd that just stared at him. Then the guard pulled out the small guidebook. "Princess's orders." Everypony followed protocol. “I’m running out of options,” Twilight grumbled as she walked back and forth in her library, trying to come up with somecreature she could get to threaten her kingdom. “Discord, Trixie, and Starlight aren’t cooperating, the evil trio are in the hospital, I have no idea how I can resurrect Sombra, and I can’t bring back the Pony of Shadows without the pillars. There're no villains left in Equestria!” Then a thought crossed her mind. “But there are some outside of it!” She quickly looked for the large diary with half of Sunset’s cutie mark stamped on the front and took a quill. “Hey Sunset! How’s everything doing? Are there any magical shenanigans occurring over on your side of the mirror? Any teenage-shaped villains?” She waited for a few minutes until she finally got a response. “Hey Twilight! Everything’s fine here, I just finished my last exams so me and the girls are planning a slumber party. You can come join us if things are doing okay on your side. I can imagine ruling an entire kingdom probably doesn’t leave you with much free time” "You have no idea." Twilight growled in frustration. “Why is everything so damn peaceful?! A couple years back something would be on fire by now!” She sighed and tried to plan her next move. “I don’t think I can convince Sunset to betray me, that friendship laser basically did a reset on her personality. Maybe I could convince the sirens, but I have no idea where they are and neither does Sunset. That Wallflower girl may be corruptible, but without the Memory Stone she’s harmless. Wait, that’s it!” Twilight pulled out the teacup and turned it back into the Alicorn Amulet. “As soon as someone puts this on, Sunset will have a new villain in her hands, and she will have to ask for my help to defeat it!” She started laughing maniacally at her unquestionable genius and quickly opened a portal to the human world before throwing the amulet through it. “And now we wait,” Twilight said, sitting on her crystal throne to relax. [Several hours later.] “Finally!” Twilight exclaimed when the book started glowing and buzzing. She picked it up and saw a very large message. “Oh great! Things must be catastrophic on her side!” She got comfortable and started reading. Dear Twilight, you’re not going to believe this. I met this girl in school that was just recently been transferred to CHS from– actually, I think after everything that happen I either don’t remember right now or never got to ask her. Anyway, it was a sweet girl that seemed absolutely normal, which gave me a massive red flag because, let’s face it, everyone has something weird going on. After introducing ourselves, (she asked me to not mention her name after everything that happened so I will just call her X), I offered X a tour of the school, which made me remember when I did the same thing for the Dazzlings when they came to CHS. Do you remember the Dazzlings? Those sirens we had to defeat with music? I found them again after they escaped the battle of the bands with their voices broken, but hey, they got them back! Minus the mind control, lucky us. They seemed to regret their actions and while still antagonistic, they appear to be more on the side of good now, judging by the song they sang at the festival. I also ran into them today, there was some musical contest in Canterlot we were also participating in, so it was sort of nostalgic and tense (is there a word for that? You should know, or maybe Pinkie can invent it), but also funny whenever Sonata was around. We also ran into the Shadowbolts, I don’t think you officially met them so you may have forgotten about them, they were this world’s Twilight’s old classmates that bullied her and push her towards abusing Equestrian magic and turning into that evil version of herself. (Oh, I miss turning into that angel thing during that fight, it was the best transformation ever!). They also improved their attitude with time, and it seems that Cadence has been guiding Crystal Prep into a better path for the students. Did I ever tell you about the human versions of your brother and sister-in-law? My memory is horrible today, you would think I was under the influence of the Memory Stone again, but that’s impossible since we destroyed it with rainbows. Oh, that reminds me, Wallflower (the girl that had the memory stone) is also doing much better now with her gardening club and I was wondering if you would want to meet her someday. I’m sure that it would do wonders for her self-esteem to have a chat with the princess of friendship and hear your advice. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, X. While I was giving her the tour of the school, I noticed that she seemed to be constantly pulling up the top of her turtleneck sweater, which was a weird thing to wear when it’s like forty degrees outside and the goths are dying of heatstroke during recess, like if she was trying to hide her neck for some reason. It only took a few moments for my brain to come to a conclusion; she was hiding the bitemark of a vampire! Which wasn’t true, I just had been watching a lot of vampire movies with the girls recently during our sleepovers, and it got kind of stuck in my head. Speaking of sleepovers, I had my first one at my house last week! I was so nervous but in the end we had a great time, I hope to get them to stay over more often, sometimes it gets kind of lonely in the apartment, but luckily I have Ray with me to cheer me up. I love that little ray of sunshine. Anyway, I finish giving X the tour, ending in that shadowy section of the hallways with the malfunctioning lights where you and I had our confrontation when you arrived to this world looking for your crown. Someone should really fix that light, but honestly, now its like a feature of the school. I actually chuckled at that. Could you imagine? “Come to Canterlot high, we boast some of the best dramatic scenarios to accentuate your evil intentions”. I wonder if principal Celestia has been using all of our magical incidents as a marketing campaign, we are getting more and more students every year, but it may just be a coincidence. Back to the shadowy hallway, maybe it was because of that that X decided it was the perfect place to make her big reveal! Turns out, she wasn’t a transfer student! In fact, she wasn’t a student at all! (dramatic gasp) she was actually a ghost-writer that worked from home, and she had a blog where she theorized a lot about what happened in the school and Equestria. A lot of her theories were very close to the truth. I don’t know if we should be worried for that or not. what do you think? Oh, sorry, I was at the big reveal. And as she told me all of this, she pulled down the neck of her sweater, revealing the Alicorn Amulet!!! But that’s not the part that truly shocked me, because when I told her that the magic of that Equestrian artifact was way to dangerous for her to control it, (make sure you won’t fall over after reading this, it’s a real shock) she gave it to me. Just like that! No epic magical fight or overlong song about her motivations, she just took the amulet off and handled it to me! Unbelievable, right? Like, who just hands over a cursed artifact that grants magic? especially in the human world! Many would give their firstborn for something like that. I think some have actually done it. Back to X, it turns out that she found the amulet in her backyard and tried it on, but when it started glowing ominously on her neck she freaked out and came to CHS looking for me. She was so nervous that it took the entire tour for her to build up the courage to show me the amulet, thinking that I would “cleanse” her or something like that with a rainbow beam of magical friendship. Which to be honest, magical blasts, being rainbow colored or not, is our solution to most things. Hey, that reminds me, have you ever wondered why we summoned a giant ethereal alicorn when we fought the sirens? Is that how the spirit of harmony manifests? I have so many questions. Luckily none of that was necessary, I was proud of X so I invited her to hang out with us some time, she seemed extremely nervous but said that she would consider it, so fingers crossed! After all that, I took the amulet to the school’s workshop where Rainbow and I filmed a little video. “1300-degree blowtorch vs ancient evil magical artifact. Will it melt?” We got a lot of views thanks to that video. Spoiler alert: it did melt. Twilight smacked the book against the table in rage. “Fine! If nopony's going to become a villain, then I will have to do it myself! This day will be remembered as the day Midnight Sparkle took over Equestria!” As her first act of villainy, Twilight threw the diary as hard as she could towards the window of the castle. The book bounced off the crystal glass and flew back at her at full speed. *CRACK* Twilight slowly regained consciousness, finding herself in a hospital bed, surrounded by the worried faces of her friends. “She’s awake!” Pinkie exclaimed, making her ears ring. “Lower voices please,” Twilight begged. “Ups, sorry.” “What happened?” Twilight asked, trying to remember the events before everything went dark. “You got hit in the horn very hard, the pain knocked you unconscious,” Starlight explained, and Twilight noticed the dread in her voice. “Why am I in the hospital? Did something else happen?” Twilight questioned. Starlight rubbed the back of her head. “Well…” “You broke your horn.” “Rainbow!” Applejack exclaimed disapprovingly. “There’s no point in sugar coating it,” the blue pegasus excused herself. Twilight was starting to hyperventilate as she tried to look at her horn. “I– I lost my magic?” “Of course not darling, you’re the element of magic and an alicorn. You’re still perfectly capable of casting spells. It’s just that…” Rarity looked at her friends, hoping that somepony else gave her the rest of the bad news. “You won’t be able to cast very powerful spells. We need to run a few tests, but the doctors think that you would be stuck in– uhm– unicorn level,” Starlight explained. “Advanced unicorn level?” Twilight asked hopefully. Starlight couldn’t look at her in the eyes. “Regular, unicorn, level. But only until we can heal it. Luckily you didn’t break it off like it happened to Tempest.” Twilight felt a bit of relief. “And how much would that take?” “A year, maybe two.” Twilight stared at the ceiling, letting out a long sigh. “Well, I guess it’s for the better. Equestria has remained stubbornly peaceful so it shouldn’t be much of a problem.” “Yes, and I can assure you, there'll be nothing but peace from now on,” said a voice that Twilight didn’t recognize. Turning her head to her right, she saw another creature beside her friends. “Girls, why is Discord disguising himself as Grogar again?” “He isn’t, this is the real Grogar,” Fluttershy explained. “I heard about what that draconequus did using my face, and decided to come to Equestria with my undead army to teach him a lesson,” Grogar said, like an old man complaining about foals playing in his lawn. Twilight’s eyes almost popped out of her sockets. “Did you have a large battle against him without me?!” “Oh, not at all. The Pillars got in my way first and…” Twilight was even more surprised at the sight of the most powerful villain in existence looking embarrassed. “Well, meeting Starswirl again after so many years made me sort of… nostalgic. We started threatening each other like the old times, but then it turned to just bickering, and by the end, we both admitted that we were far too old to keep doing this.” “So you just… stopped?” Twilight asked incredulously. “With the condition that the draconequus got severely reprimanded for using my image wihtout my consent. Chrysalis suggested getting a “lawyer” and "press charges". I didn’t know evil could be so organized,” Grogar sadi with a shudder. “Wait, Chrysalis is ali– I mean, healed?” Twilight questioned. “Yeah, she, Tirek, and Cozy made a full recovery once they spent a few hours in the hospital getting a bit of magic back into their bodies,” Starlight explained. “Okay, and where are they?” “They left Equestria. Said something about giving Tirek’s dad a visit. Ah hope it ends well for everycreature involved,” Applejack answered. Twilight let out a long sigh and sank a bit more into the bed. “It all ended well then.” Starlight got closer to the alicorn. “Twilight, you were acting really weird today, and you got a lot of us worried. Is something giving you trouble? You know we wil help you if you just ask.” Twilight took a long minute to think, and let out another sigh. “Honestly, after today, I think I got it out of my system. But I need to do something.” She moved her head until she spotted her number one assistant. “Spike, could you send a letter to the princesses?” “Sure. It has been a while,” the dragon said as he got quill and paper. “Ready when you are.” “Dear Celestia and Luna. Due to a recent incident involving my horn, I will take a one-year break from the rule of Equestria. I will designate adequate replacements for all my duties, but I will need you to raise and lower the sun and moon in my place until I fully recover. My best wishes to you both, Princess Twilight Sparkle.” Spike finished the letter and sent it with a breath of flames. “Done.” “Thank you Spike,” Twilight said with a smile. “Uh! This calls for a party! Like the old times!” Pinkie exclaimed excitedly. Twilight chuckled. “It does, but I would like to rest some more before that.” “Okay, we will be close by if you need us,” Fluttershy said with a smile. “Thank you. All of you,” Twilight said before her eyes closed, and went back to sleep. ReunitedTwilight looked in awe as two conveyor belts carried the piles of paperwork to a full squad of secretaries that checked them before signing, following the guidelines the princess of friendship had written to facilitate their work, and leaving them in a third conveyor belt that sent them to another section of the castle where they would be archived. “You guys really managed to streamline the process,” Twilight said, looking at the two unicorns she had hired for the job. “It was our pleasure princess,” Flim said with a small bow. “We hope to keep doing work for such a generous mare,” Flam added next. Twilight smiled, proud of the change of heart of two ex-scammers. “You know, if you do a couple more good jobs like this, I could give you a place in Equestria's research and development department.” Their jaws dropped. “W-we would be honored princess,” Flim said. “Clearly generous fell short to describe you,” Flam added. Twilight chuckled. “Give yourselves more credit, I believe your particular work will help push Equestria to a more productive era. I will be expecting the best of you two.” Both stallions saluted. “We won’t let you down.” Twilight nodded and walked out of the room, crossing paths with Prince Blueblood on her way out. “Hi Blueblood, how did the meeting with the Saddle Arabian prince went?” The white stallion smiled. “Hello princess. It went smoothly, I would even say that he really enjoyed his visit, and he may come back to vacation a few days with his family.” “I’m impressed. It seems I made a good choice appointing you as our foreign diplomat,” the princess praised. “Spike has been giving me some advice on the side, so make sure to give him some credit too.” “Will do.” Twilight’s new watch started to beep, reminding her that the train to Ponyville was about to leave. “I need to go, keep up the good job.” “Good luck,” Blueblood shouted as she ran away to the train station. Sitting comfortably in one of the passenger wagons, Twilight took out the diary and sent a quick message to Sunset. “Hi Sunset, how’s everything doing? Did X take you up on your offer?” She waited for a couple of minutes, until the book signaled a response. “She did! She was a little intimidated by the amount of people that were present, but she warmed up to them in no time. How are you doing? Is your horn getting better?” Twilight looked up, seeing the cast the doctors had put on it for protection. “Its okay, still too soon to have it getting better, but it doesn’t hurt other than some migraines if I use my magic too much.” “I’m glad that it’s not giving you much trouble. Do you still want to hang out next weekend?” “Absolutely! We haven’t seen each other in forever. I hope I still recognize you.” “Hey! I’m not getting older yet.” They continued chatting until the train finally made its stop at Ponyville station. Twilight wrote a goodbye before getting out of the wagon. She took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air of the town, and was immediately tackled by a pink blur. “Welcome back!” “Hi Pinkie, thanks for waiting,” Twilight said with a chuckle. The pink pony helped her stand up. “We have everything ready near the lake, everypony is waiting for you.” “Lead the way,” Twilight said before following Pinkie’s hopping step. When they arrived, Twilight saw all her friends gathered in what was originally going to be just a picnic, but with the amount of ponies’ present, it was practically a small festival. Trixie was entertaining the young six with her magic tricks, having Starlight and Sunburst helping with her acts, The Pillars and Grogar were playing cards on a nearby table, a bit annoyed at the pile of bets Obsidian had gained during the game, Discord was enjoying some tea with Fluttershy, Applejack was keeping Rainbow away from the cider so she didn’t drink it all before the party started, Zecora was telling stories to the Cutiemark Crusaders, Celestia and Luna were chatting with Rarity, Moon Dancer and the rest of Twilight’s old friends, and Spike was finishing setting a large banner that said, “Reunited once again!”. “I can’t believe they are all here,” Twilight said with a small tear in her eye. “Of course they’re silly,” Pinkie said before giving her a side hug. “No matter how much time passes, we will always find time to get together.” Twilight smiled, closing her eyes before taking a deep breath. “Let’s go, I have a lot of catching up to do.”
PanicTwilight Sparkle, ruler of Equestria, sat on her throne as the usual pile of paperwork slowly grew at her side, no matter how fast she read and signed them. She knew by now that she would never finish it, since she had to hire a second secretary just so the piles of paperwork could be delivered to her throne before the day ended. Twilight let out a sigh and tried to smile. “Just endure it a bit more. It has been more than a year. It will happen soon.” One of her secretaries walked up to her and tried to whisper in her ear, but Twilight turned around in a snap, frightening the mare with her huge grin. “What is it? An emergency? Which kind?” the alicorn asked excitedly, almost bouncing in place. Her secretary composed herself and took a few steps back just for safety. “Uhm, I wouldn’t call it an emergency.” “Tell me already!” Twilight exclaimed, her hair getting messy with her desperation. The secretary took another step back and started sweating a bit. “W-well… Ink just injured her back while bringing in the next pile of papers, so I wanted to–” The mare was suddenly lifted by a purple aura and pressed against her ruler’s face. “Are you telling me that there's no villain attacking Equestria right now?” Twilight asked with a tone of voice that gave the impression she was about to banish her secretary straight to Tartarus. “No?” the mare answered trembling. “Really? No major catastrophe about to destroy the world? Magical disturbance? Anything?!” Twilight asked, her voice getting louder with each question. The secretary was too frightened to speak, so she just shook her head. Twilight let go of the mare and put her hooves against her temples. “This can’t be happening. It has been a year already. Why is everything so… peaceful?” she asked herself, the last word leaving a bad taste in her mouth. By this point, one of her guards was slowly approaching her with a book and a mantle, following the procedure in case of Twilight having a breakdown. But before he could tempt the godly bookworm with the literary sacrifice, the alicorn disappeared in a flash of light. “Uhm, what’s the next step if she goes away?” the guard asked, and another soldier pulled out a small guidebook with Twilight’s cutie mark stamped on the front. He flipped through the pages while the rest of the staff waited expectantly, until he found the answer. “Contact Starlight Glimmer, evacuate the castle, and panic.” “Very well,” the guard with the mantle said before pointing at one of the pegasi. “Go to the School of Friendship and warn the Headmare. We will organize the evacuation in the meantime and–” “Oh wait, I read it wrong,” the guard with the guidebook shouted. “It says panic, evacuate the castle, and then contact Starlight.” The entire staff let out a sigh of relief. “We almost failed to follow protocol,” one guard said. “That would’ve been much worse.” Then they all started to panic.
BetrayalTwilight appeared in the middle of Discord’s house; eyes filled with anger born out of frustration. “What’s taking you so long?!” The draconequus put down the leather shoe he was reading and took off his glasses before responding. “Am I late for something?” He spit out a pocket watch and opened it, revealing a mass of worms wiggling inside. “Why haven’t you enacted your plan yet?” the alicorn asked accusatorily. Discord was still confused. “I was just reading some good leather,” he said pointing at the shoe. “It’s size 42.” Twilight let out a laugh as her hair became a little frazzled. “Oh, right. Surely you want to truly surprise me this time, so just give me a date and I will wipe my memories before you can enact your plan and I will be totally surprised by your betrayal! Win-win right?” Discord stood up from the couch with a more serious expression. “Okay, I know I’ve failed to learn my friendship lessons various times before, but I’m not planning on betraying you again. It would get predictable by this point, which is a no-no for me.” Twilight looked distraught. “B-b-b-but then who is it?” “Who’s who?” Discord asked, wondering if he should get some tea for her nerves. “The villain!” the alicorn shouted. “The one who will threaten Equestria and me and my friends will have to defeat. It happens every year! It has to be coming soon!” Discord raised an eyebrow. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t I turn all the villains into stone statues?” “Well… maybe they can find a way to escape. Just like you did!” Twilight exclaimed with hint of hope. Discord shook his head. “I’m afraid not. My ways are permanent.” “Well, somecreature has to be the villain!” The alicorn shouted; her mane now fully frazzled. Discord crossed his arms. “Well, as I said, I’m not betraying you.” Twilight started to prance around, trying to think a solution while muttering incomprehensible gibberish. Discord pulled out a banana out of his ear and was about to call Fluttershy when the alicorn suddenly shouted. “I know! If you are not going to betray me, then I bet somepony else will turn evil! It would be such an unexpected twist!” She laughed maniacally as she rubbed her hooves together. Before Discord could say anything, Twilight teleported out of his dimension. “Well… this should be interesting,” he said before summoning a TV and sitting down to watch his favorite show. Starlight was looking over her design for the next round of exams for the students when Twilight appeared in front of her desk in a flash of purple light, making her fall from her chair and throw the papers into the air. “Hi Starlight!” Twilight exclaimed as the unicorn slowly stood up. Starlight looked at her friend and mentor, noticing that she was a bit unhinged by Twilight standards. “Hey… Twilight… Are you feeling okay?” she asked with a bit of nervousness. “Oh, enough about me,” the alicorn said, dismissing her with a hoof before leaning over the desk. “Now tell me, do you have some plans for the following days?” “Uhm…” Starlight pointed at her exams. “Make the students take a test?” “HA! No no no, I need something more evil than that.” “My tests aren’t evil,” the unicorn complained, clearly offended. “Exactly! Now really, do you have some nefarious plan brewing?” Twilight asked, leaning over until she almost touched snouts with Starlight. The unicorn pushed her away. “No.” Twilight teleported behind her. “Come on, aren’t you feeling a bit more–” she placed her mouth uncomfortably close to Starlight’s ear, and whispered. “–equal?” Starlight teleported to the other side of the room in a panic. “For your own good, that better have just been the worst flirting ever done by a living creature!” “Just tell me if you’re going to betray me or not!” Twilight shouted as she smashed the desk into splinters with her hooves. Starlight was more confused than terrified at this point. “What? I’ve no reason to betray you!” Twilight snorted. “Come on! Aren’t you even a little bit resentful about me constantly leaving you to run the school and trying to control your friendships?” Starlight rubbed the bridge of her nose. “We are not having this conversation. Did you eat one of Trixie’s pills again?” Twilight’s eyes lit up. “Trixie! That’s a great idea! Starlight you’re a genius!” The alicorn teleported in front of her student to give her a big hug and then vanished in a flash of magic. Starlight just stood frozen in shock for a few seconds before shaking her head. “What in Tartarus is going on?!” The Great and Powerful Trixie was taking her usual Great and Powerful nap when something landed on her lap. She opened her eyes groggily as she woke up from her slumber, and her vision slowly focused on the object on top of her body. It was a familiar alicorn-shaped collar that was looking at her with its hateful, piercing eyes. Trixie let out a high pitch scream as the memories of wearing the cursed amulet flooded into her mind, and immediately threw the collar against the wall. “No silly, you have to wear it around your neck,” Twilight explained as she picked up the Alicorn Amulet with her magic. “Don’t tell me you forgot how to use it.” “Trixie wishes she could!” The magician looked at the alicorn, noticing that she was moderately unhinged by Twilight standards. “Did you eat one of my pills again? Do you know how difficult it is for me to produce them?” “Uh! Are you going to use them to mind-control the town and form a rebellion against me?” Twilight asked with a big smile on her face. “How exactly would Trixie mind control a town with homemade medicine?” the magician asked with genuine curiosity. Twilight put her hooves up. “I don’t know! You’re the evil mastermind in this scenario!” Trixie fished out a bottle of blue pills from her hat. “Here, take two of these a day with some water for a couple of weeks.” Twilight gasped with a smile. “Are you planning on putting me on a coma so Starlight can take my place as ruler, and when I wake up a decade later we’re in a post-apocalyptic dystopia were you and Starlight rule in a total dictatorship?” “Aren’t we in a sort of dictatorship already?” Trixie shook her head. “Stop that! Trixie is trying to help you here!” “Me too!” Twilight exclaimed frustrated as she shoved the Alicorn Amulet against Trixie’s chest. “Don’t you want to be great and powerful again? Beat me in another magic duel? Take out your frustrations and resentment with an overly elaborate plan of vengeance?” Trixie stared at the unicorn with eyes scarier than the ones in the amulet, and lifted the cursed collar with her magic. “Trixie is great and powerful,” she growled before turning the amulet into a teacup. “She doesn’t need to show it to you. Now, go away.” The magician pulled down her hat over her eyes and went back to her nap, ignoring the alicorn completely. Twilight gritted her teeth and took the teacup before banishing in a flash of magic. Twilight was walking back and forth in a far corner of Celestia's gardens, scribbling some words in a piece of parchment. "Come on, almost ready..." She added the last touches almost violently, and finished writing the spell. "Yes! Now to test it." She turned to her right, looking at the three villains Discord had turned into stone statues. "They may have failed before, but with a bit of help I'm sure they will bring ruin to the land one more time, and then we can valiantly stop them and be revered as heroes once more!" Twilight lit her horn and activated the scroll, casting the de-petrification spell on the statue. She had a huge, terrifying grin as she saw the stone break apart and uncover the bodies of the three most dangerous villains Equestria had managed to defeat. As the trio were freed from their stone prison, Twilight couldn't help but start to cackle and scream. "They're alive! I always wanted to say this. Fly my minions! Show them how much you love me!" *Thump* *Thump* *Thump* Her mad laugh came to a stop, and she slowly looked down. Chrysalis, Tirek and Cozy were laying on the ground unconscious... With their eyes open. “Are you guys okay?” She got no response. Twilight picked up a nearby stick and poked each of them with it, getting no reaction. She then smashed the stick against Chrysalis head, snapping it in half, but the bug-queen still didn't move or react. Twilight looked at the spell she had made and immediately burned it to erase the evidence of her actions. "Maybe I can petrify them again and nopony will notice." She then heard sobbing behind her, and when she turned around, she saw the horrified faces of Cheerilee and a group of fillies she had been escorting during their tour of the castle's gardens. “Are they dead?” the younger of the group asked. "Oh... Buck."
Break"...and that's why, in my endless crusade of forgiveness and compassion, I decided to put these three villains in a new reformation program!" Twilight declared to the small crowd that had gathered in the gardens, doing her best to cover the three unconscious bodies being treated by the best doctors she could get in the small time she had before the rumors about her actions started spreading. "Didn't they survive the rainbow laser already?" Somepony in the crowd asked. "Yeah, I always thought it was the evil remover." "I used it as an allegory for my dishwasher soap brand." "Do not question the ancient powers I control!" Twilight shouted to silence the crowd and then cleared her throat. "As I was saying, these three may have seemed unredeemable at first. And second... And third. But, I'm sure that if we give them just one more chance at reformation, they will become respectable citizens of Equestria." "And what if they don't?" somepony asked. "Oh, then they would surely concoct an evil scheme beyond our simple pony minds. Maybe steal the Crystal Heart as a distraction while preparing a spell to release the Pony of Shadows from limbo and adding him to their ranks, becoming an even greater, almost unstoppable force. Then they would steal the scepter of the dragons to order them to attack Equestria, and do the same thing with the griffons once they recover their ancient artifact, initiating a domino effect that plunges Equestria into total war with all of its neighbors. And while we are busy fighting each other, they will secretly capture all my friends and loved ones and use them as ransom for the kingdom, forcing me to decide between them or my crown and–" Twilight stopped her rambling as she noticed the terrified stares of the crowd after her speech of theoretical doom. "Or maybe they will just try and destroy me directly. Same thing really." She added, not really helping to calm down her scared subjects. "That was all, have a good day!" She shouted far too loudly as she teleported away from her problems and social awkwardness. The crowd of ponies just stood there, scared and unsure of what to do now, until a royal guard approached them in a mad sprint. "Everypony panic!" He shouted to the confused crowd that just stared at him. Then the guard pulled out the small guidebook. "Princess's orders." Everypony followed protocol. “I’m running out of options,” Twilight grumbled as she walked back and forth in her library, trying to come up with somecreature she could get to threaten her kingdom. “Discord, Trixie, and Starlight aren’t cooperating, the evil trio are in the hospital, I have no idea how I can resurrect Sombra, and I can’t bring back the Pony of Shadows without the pillars. There're no villains left in Equestria!” Then a thought crossed her mind. “But there are some outside of it!” She quickly looked for the large diary with half of Sunset’s cutie mark stamped on the front and took a quill. “Hey Sunset! How’s everything doing? Are there any magical shenanigans occurring over on your side of the mirror? Any teenage-shaped villains?” She waited for a few minutes until she finally got a response. “Hey Twilight! Everything’s fine here, I just finished my last exams so me and the girls are planning a slumber party. You can come join us if things are doing okay on your side. I can imagine ruling an entire kingdom probably doesn’t leave you with much free time” "You have no idea." Twilight growled in frustration. “Why is everything so damn peaceful?! A couple years back something would be on fire by now!” She sighed and tried to plan her next move. “I don’t think I can convince Sunset to betray me, that friendship laser basically did a reset on her personality. Maybe I could convince the sirens, but I have no idea where they are and neither does Sunset. That Wallflower girl may be corruptible, but without the Memory Stone she’s harmless. Wait, that’s it!” Twilight pulled out the teacup and turned it back into the Alicorn Amulet. “As soon as someone puts this on, Sunset will have a new villain in her hands, and she will have to ask for my help to defeat it!” She started laughing maniacally at her unquestionable genius and quickly opened a portal to the human world before throwing the amulet through it. “And now we wait,” Twilight said, sitting on her crystal throne to relax. [Several hours later.] “Finally!” Twilight exclaimed when the book started glowing and buzzing. She picked it up and saw a very large message. “Oh great! Things must be catastrophic on her side!” She got comfortable and started reading. Dear Twilight, you’re not going to believe this. I met this girl in school that was just recently been transferred to CHS from– actually, I think after everything that happen I either don’t remember right now or never got to ask her. Anyway, it was a sweet girl that seemed absolutely normal, which gave me a massive red flag because, let’s face it, everyone has something weird going on. After introducing ourselves, (she asked me to not mention her name after everything that happened so I will just call her X), I offered X a tour of the school, which made me remember when I did the same thing for the Dazzlings when they came to CHS. Do you remember the Dazzlings? Those sirens we had to defeat with music? I found them again after they escaped the battle of the bands with their voices broken, but hey, they got them back! Minus the mind control, lucky us. They seemed to regret their actions and while still antagonistic, they appear to be more on the side of good now, judging by the song they sang at the festival. I also ran into them today, there was some musical contest in Canterlot we were also participating in, so it was sort of nostalgic and tense (is there a word for that? You should know, or maybe Pinkie can invent it), but also funny whenever Sonata was around. We also ran into the Shadowbolts, I don’t think you officially met them so you may have forgotten about them, they were this world’s Twilight’s old classmates that bullied her and push her towards abusing Equestrian magic and turning into that evil version of herself. (Oh, I miss turning into that angel thing during that fight, it was the best transformation ever!). They also improved their attitude with time, and it seems that Cadence has been guiding Crystal Prep into a better path for the students. Did I ever tell you about the human versions of your brother and sister-in-law? My memory is horrible today, you would think I was under the influence of the Memory Stone again, but that’s impossible since we destroyed it with rainbows. Oh, that reminds me, Wallflower (the girl that had the memory stone) is also doing much better now with her gardening club and I was wondering if you would want to meet her someday. I’m sure that it would do wonders for her self-esteem to have a chat with the princess of friendship and hear your advice. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, X. While I was giving her the tour of the school, I noticed that she seemed to be constantly pulling up the top of her turtleneck sweater, which was a weird thing to wear when it’s like forty degrees outside and the goths are dying of heatstroke during recess, like if she was trying to hide her neck for some reason. It only took a few moments for my brain to come to a conclusion; she was hiding the bitemark of a vampire! Which wasn’t true, I just had been watching a lot of vampire movies with the girls recently during our sleepovers, and it got kind of stuck in my head. Speaking of sleepovers, I had my first one at my house last week! I was so nervous but in the end we had a great time, I hope to get them to stay over more often, sometimes it gets kind of lonely in the apartment, but luckily I have Ray with me to cheer me up. I love that little ray of sunshine. Anyway, I finish giving X the tour, ending in that shadowy section of the hallways with the malfunctioning lights where you and I had our confrontation when you arrived to this world looking for your crown. Someone should really fix that light, but honestly, now its like a feature of the school. I actually chuckled at that. Could you imagine? “Come to Canterlot high, we boast some of the best dramatic scenarios to accentuate your evil intentions”. I wonder if principal Celestia has been using all of our magical incidents as a marketing campaign, we are getting more and more students every year, but it may just be a coincidence. Back to the shadowy hallway, maybe it was because of that that X decided it was the perfect place to make her big reveal! Turns out, she wasn’t a transfer student! In fact, she wasn’t a student at all! (dramatic gasp) she was actually a ghost-writer that worked from home, and she had a blog where she theorized a lot about what happened in the school and Equestria. A lot of her theories were very close to the truth. I don’t know if we should be worried for that or not. what do you think? Oh, sorry, I was at the big reveal. And as she told me all of this, she pulled down the neck of her sweater, revealing the Alicorn Amulet!!! But that’s not the part that truly shocked me, because when I told her that the magic of that Equestrian artifact was way to dangerous for her to control it, (make sure you won’t fall over after reading this, it’s a real shock) she gave it to me. Just like that! No epic magical fight or overlong song about her motivations, she just took the amulet off and handled it to me! Unbelievable, right? Like, who just hands over a cursed artifact that grants magic? especially in the human world! Many would give their firstborn for something like that. I think some have actually done it. Back to X, it turns out that she found the amulet in her backyard and tried it on, but when it started glowing ominously on her neck she freaked out and came to CHS looking for me. She was so nervous that it took the entire tour for her to build up the courage to show me the amulet, thinking that I would “cleanse” her or something like that with a rainbow beam of magical friendship. Which to be honest, magical blasts, being rainbow colored or not, is our solution to most things. Hey, that reminds me, have you ever wondered why we summoned a giant ethereal alicorn when we fought the sirens? Is that how the spirit of harmony manifests? I have so many questions. Luckily none of that was necessary, I was proud of X so I invited her to hang out with us some time, she seemed extremely nervous but said that she would consider it, so fingers crossed! After all that, I took the amulet to the school’s workshop where Rainbow and I filmed a little video. “1300-degree blowtorch vs ancient evil magical artifact. Will it melt?” We got a lot of views thanks to that video. Spoiler alert: it did melt. Twilight smacked the book against the table in rage. “Fine! If nopony's going to become a villain, then I will have to do it myself! This day will be remembered as the day Midnight Sparkle took over Equestria!” As her first act of villainy, Twilight threw the diary as hard as she could towards the window of the castle. The book bounced off the crystal glass and flew back at her at full speed. *CRACK* Twilight slowly regained consciousness, finding herself in a hospital bed, surrounded by the worried faces of her friends. “She’s awake!” Pinkie exclaimed, making her ears ring. “Lower voices please,” Twilight begged. “Ups, sorry.” “What happened?” Twilight asked, trying to remember the events before everything went dark. “You got hit in the horn very hard, the pain knocked you unconscious,” Starlight explained, and Twilight noticed the dread in her voice. “Why am I in the hospital? Did something else happen?” Twilight questioned. Starlight rubbed the back of her head. “Well…” “You broke your horn.” “Rainbow!” Applejack exclaimed disapprovingly. “There’s no point in sugar coating it,” the blue pegasus excused herself. Twilight was starting to hyperventilate as she tried to look at her horn. “I– I lost my magic?” “Of course not darling, you’re the element of magic and an alicorn. You’re still perfectly capable of casting spells. It’s just that…” Rarity looked at her friends, hoping that somepony else gave her the rest of the bad news. “You won’t be able to cast very powerful spells. We need to run a few tests, but the doctors think that you would be stuck in– uhm– unicorn level,” Starlight explained. “Advanced unicorn level?” Twilight asked hopefully. Starlight couldn’t look at her in the eyes. “Regular, unicorn, level. But only until we can heal it. Luckily you didn’t break it off like it happened to Tempest.” Twilight felt a bit of relief. “And how much would that take?” “A year, maybe two.” Twilight stared at the ceiling, letting out a long sigh. “Well, I guess it’s for the better. Equestria has remained stubbornly peaceful so it shouldn’t be much of a problem.” “Yes, and I can assure you, there'll be nothing but peace from now on,” said a voice that Twilight didn’t recognize. Turning her head to her right, she saw another creature beside her friends. “Girls, why is Discord disguising himself as Grogar again?” “He isn’t, this is the real Grogar,” Fluttershy explained. “I heard about what that draconequus did using my face, and decided to come to Equestria with my undead army to teach him a lesson,” Grogar said, like an old man complaining about foals playing in his lawn. Twilight’s eyes almost popped out of her sockets. “Did you have a large battle against him without me?!” “Oh, not at all. The Pillars got in my way first and…” Twilight was even more surprised at the sight of the most powerful villain in existence looking embarrassed. “Well, meeting Starswirl again after so many years made me sort of… nostalgic. We started threatening each other like the old times, but then it turned to just bickering, and by the end, we both admitted that we were far too old to keep doing this.” “So you just… stopped?” Twilight asked incredulously. “With the condition that the draconequus got severely reprimanded for using my image wihtout my consent. Chrysalis suggested getting a “lawyer” and "press charges". I didn’t know evil could be so organized,” Grogar sadi with a shudder. “Wait, Chrysalis is ali– I mean, healed?” Twilight questioned. “Yeah, she, Tirek, and Cozy made a full recovery once they spent a few hours in the hospital getting a bit of magic back into their bodies,” Starlight explained. “Okay, and where are they?” “They left Equestria. Said something about giving Tirek’s dad a visit. Ah hope it ends well for everycreature involved,” Applejack answered. Twilight let out a long sigh and sank a bit more into the bed. “It all ended well then.” Starlight got closer to the alicorn. “Twilight, you were acting really weird today, and you got a lot of us worried. Is something giving you trouble? You know we wil help you if you just ask.” Twilight took a long minute to think, and let out another sigh. “Honestly, after today, I think I got it out of my system. But I need to do something.” She moved her head until she spotted her number one assistant. “Spike, could you send a letter to the princesses?” “Sure. It has been a while,” the dragon said as he got quill and paper. “Ready when you are.” “Dear Celestia and Luna. Due to a recent incident involving my horn, I will take a one-year break from the rule of Equestria. I will designate adequate replacements for all my duties, but I will need you to raise and lower the sun and moon in my place until I fully recover. My best wishes to you both, Princess Twilight Sparkle.” Spike finished the letter and sent it with a breath of flames. “Done.” “Thank you Spike,” Twilight said with a smile. “Uh! This calls for a party! Like the old times!” Pinkie exclaimed excitedly. Twilight chuckled. “It does, but I would like to rest some more before that.” “Okay, we will be close by if you need us,” Fluttershy said with a smile. “Thank you. All of you,” Twilight said before her eyes closed, and went back to sleep.
ReunitedTwilight looked in awe as two conveyor belts carried the piles of paperwork to a full squad of secretaries that checked them before signing, following the guidelines the princess of friendship had written to facilitate their work, and leaving them in a third conveyor belt that sent them to another section of the castle where they would be archived. “You guys really managed to streamline the process,” Twilight said, looking at the two unicorns she had hired for the job. “It was our pleasure princess,” Flim said with a small bow. “We hope to keep doing work for such a generous mare,” Flam added next. Twilight smiled, proud of the change of heart of two ex-scammers. “You know, if you do a couple more good jobs like this, I could give you a place in Equestria's research and development department.” Their jaws dropped. “W-we would be honored princess,” Flim said. “Clearly generous fell short to describe you,” Flam added. Twilight chuckled. “Give yourselves more credit, I believe your particular work will help push Equestria to a more productive era. I will be expecting the best of you two.” Both stallions saluted. “We won’t let you down.” Twilight nodded and walked out of the room, crossing paths with Prince Blueblood on her way out. “Hi Blueblood, how did the meeting with the Saddle Arabian prince went?” The white stallion smiled. “Hello princess. It went smoothly, I would even say that he really enjoyed his visit, and he may come back to vacation a few days with his family.” “I’m impressed. It seems I made a good choice appointing you as our foreign diplomat,” the princess praised. “Spike has been giving me some advice on the side, so make sure to give him some credit too.” “Will do.” Twilight’s new watch started to beep, reminding her that the train to Ponyville was about to leave. “I need to go, keep up the good job.” “Good luck,” Blueblood shouted as she ran away to the train station. Sitting comfortably in one of the passenger wagons, Twilight took out the diary and sent a quick message to Sunset. “Hi Sunset, how’s everything doing? Did X take you up on your offer?” She waited for a couple of minutes, until the book signaled a response. “She did! She was a little intimidated by the amount of people that were present, but she warmed up to them in no time. How are you doing? Is your horn getting better?” Twilight looked up, seeing the cast the doctors had put on it for protection. “Its okay, still too soon to have it getting better, but it doesn’t hurt other than some migraines if I use my magic too much.” “I’m glad that it’s not giving you much trouble. Do you still want to hang out next weekend?” “Absolutely! We haven’t seen each other in forever. I hope I still recognize you.” “Hey! I’m not getting older yet.” They continued chatting until the train finally made its stop at Ponyville station. Twilight wrote a goodbye before getting out of the wagon. She took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air of the town, and was immediately tackled by a pink blur. “Welcome back!” “Hi Pinkie, thanks for waiting,” Twilight said with a chuckle. The pink pony helped her stand up. “We have everything ready near the lake, everypony is waiting for you.” “Lead the way,” Twilight said before following Pinkie’s hopping step. When they arrived, Twilight saw all her friends gathered in what was originally going to be just a picnic, but with the amount of ponies’ present, it was practically a small festival. Trixie was entertaining the young six with her magic tricks, having Starlight and Sunburst helping with her acts, The Pillars and Grogar were playing cards on a nearby table, a bit annoyed at the pile of bets Obsidian had gained during the game, Discord was enjoying some tea with Fluttershy, Applejack was keeping Rainbow away from the cider so she didn’t drink it all before the party started, Zecora was telling stories to the Cutiemark Crusaders, Celestia and Luna were chatting with Rarity, Moon Dancer and the rest of Twilight’s old friends, and Spike was finishing setting a large banner that said, “Reunited once again!”. “I can’t believe they are all here,” Twilight said with a small tear in her eye. “Of course they’re silly,” Pinkie said before giving her a side hug. “No matter how much time passes, we will always find time to get together.” Twilight smiled, closing her eyes before taking a deep breath. “Let’s go, I have a lot of catching up to do.”
