The clock had just struck midnight a little over a minute ago, and thus truly marking the end of the old year and the beginning of a new one. All over the world, people celebrated and joined together, singing and hoping for a bright new beginning.
Canterlot City was no exception to this, the entire area being filled with song and happy exclamations and wishes of a happy new year. More specifically, the Apple family of Sweet Apple Acres were right in the middle of going through their traditional New Year's celebration.
While the large and old Apple family barn was filled by the sounds of cheers and many voices singing 'Auld Lang Syne', there were two teenage girls who had decided to take the time to enjoy some fresh cold of the winter air, and were coincidently out as the new year had descended upon them.
"Happy new year, Rainbow Dash."
"Right back at ya, Applejack."
They both clincked their glasses together, smiling at eachother before both taking quite a few sips of its contents. Both friends then let out content sighs, satisfied with their drinks, before sinking into a pleasant silence as they looked up at the night sky. Said sky was currently being bathed in all manner of lights in colours, fireworks being shot up consistently to celebrate the new possibilities of this year.
And so they both stood for a few moments, simply observing the impressive lightshow before them.
"Hey, AJ?" Rainbow Dash's seemingly out-of-nowhere inquiry pierced through the festive midnight air, easily catching Applejack's attention. "Is it just me, or is the whole fireworks-shtick kinda lame?"
Applejack was quiet for a while, staring at Rainbow Dash with an unreadable expression, shortly before cracking up herself and waving her hand dismissevly, "Nah, Ah agree completely, Dash! It's more that it's tradition, but it ain't really mah cup o' apple juice. Not to mention that it's just so darn expensive."
"Couldn't agree more!"
There was then a silence between them, both of the girls looking up at the very fireworks they had just claimed to not like all that much, mindlessly sipping their drinks. However, that was shortly about to change.
"O-Oh! What's this?" Applejack forcefully wondered aloud, faking the action of feeling around one of her pockets when she knew full well what was inside. Keeping in tact with her elaborate ruse, she reached into that same pocket and brought out a little firecracker.
"Huh, look at that!" She exclaimed a little louder than she meant to, her eyes darting about, "Seems like Ah had one o' dem firecrackers in mah pocket. Well, now that Ah got it Ah might as well just blow it up. Just don't wanna waste anythin, y'know?"
The athletic girl beside her just shrugged, not really looking as if she cared, "Of course. Knock yourself out."
Applejack did just that, just barely managing to contain her glee as she quickly brought out her lighter and lit the little devil right up, then throwing it some distance away as she watched it slightly blow up and fizzle for a brief moment.
"Man," Rainbow Dash laughed at the display, clearly not impressed, "That was a really lousy firecracker!"
Applejack nearly flinched, though she managed to shrug it off with a little laugh of her own, "R-Right? So lame."
"But," Rainbow Dash mused, starting to dig around in her pocket, "Now that I saw that, I couldn't help but remember that I also just happen to have a firecracker in my pocket!" Indeed, she then brought out a little pyrotechninc item, one that was bigger than Applejack's, "Scootaloo must've left it in there when she was doing my laundry or something."
Applejack blinked, "Scootaloo does your laundry?"
"Yup. Best thing is that she's the one paying me to let her do it. I see it as an absolute win. But anyway," Making sure to avoid any discussion of her possible violation of child-labour laws, Rainbow Dash instead focused back on the little thing in her hand, "Since we're all about not wasting stuff, I think I'll blow mine up, too."
Applejack started to suspect that there was something off about this whole thing, "Yeah, you, uh... You do go ahead and do that."
Either not noticing or not caring about the cow girl's sceptic tone, Rainbow Dash snatched the lighter out of Applejack's hand and lit up her small firecracker before throwing it at the same spot where the previous one had set off. Much like the previous one, it did so without a hitch, only this time the sparkles and fizzles were a bit longer and louder.
"Eeyup." Applejack remarked, a smirk dancing on her lips as she adjusted her hat, "Dat's also pretty darn bad there, Dash."
"Yeah, but still just a tad better than yours, ain't it?" Rainbow Dash's tone now sounded forcefully cheerful, her volume, the intensity and defensiveness in her tone rising just a tad. Applejack refused to lie down and take it, though, instead nodding to herself as she decided to continue.
"Okay, okay, well, ain't it just super that I just happen to have this here thing on me?" She brought out a clearly different type of firework, "It actually goes up in the air so I'd say it's rightly better than your little sparkle-fest, Dash."
Ignoring Rainbow Dash's frown, the farm girl walked over, planted her little rocket in the ground and lit up the fuse. Once the fuse was spent, the little thing whizzed up quickly and blew up with a weak BANG as it released just a few sparks. Applejack was proud nonetheless, crossing her arms in satisfaction, "Impressive, right?"
"Oh yeah, AJ, it was so impressive." Rainbow Dash snarked with half-lidded eyes. Though they were quickly replaced by a sly look and an equally sly smirk, as she reached into her own pockets once more, "But, I don't think that it's quite as impressive as THIS one!"
Having finally found what she was digging around for, Rainbow Dash brought out a proper firework which was noticably larger than the one Applejack had just lit, by all rights it shouldn't have fit in a normal pocket. Said cowgirl glowered at her athletic friend, feeling a familiar thrill of competitiveness flowing though her.
Rainbow Dash felt the same, gleefully and almost arrogantly walking over and planting her firework in the ground, giving Applejack a taunting smirk, "Which I just happen to have on my person by complete accident!"
The fuse was lit and not too long after the firework flew up and blew up. Unlike Applejack's which had simply blown up with a few measly sparks, this one was more of a proper firework that blew into sparkling, sizzling flowers of red and green.
"You see that!?" Rainbow Dash eagerly pointed upwards as the fizzling sparkles started to fade, grinning, "Way better than your puny little crackerjack, Applesmack!"
Applejack grit her teeth, her inner annoyance regarding the entire situation starting to both be more visible and audible. However, she had a plan, and therefore forced herself to calm herself down.
"Alright, it might be mighty respecatble," She acknowledged and Rainbow Dash started to smile. However, Applejack wasn't having it, "IF you're the type o' gal who likes fireworks dat only goes off once."
Ignoring her friend's confused look, the country girl dug around in her pockets before pulling out a firework that was even larger and thicker-looking than the one Dash had used earlier, "Unlike this here badboy which is the same as ten rockets in one. Ergo, ten times as good."
Letting that fact set in, Applejack quickly bent down and lit up its fuse and watched with pride as it went off and split off into ten seperate colourful sparkling explosions in the sky, quite the impressive display.
"Mhm." Applejack sounded awfully satisfied as she watched her ten fireworks go off, "Ah'd say that's objectively better, sugarcube. Ten times better, in fact."
Rainbow Dash was now looking downright angry, snarling as she brought over a large and quite heavy-looking box marked with all sorts of 'Danger'-sings, completely out of nowhere, "This thing contains a thousand fireworks, okay! A THOUSAND times as good!"
Fair enough, as soon as it had been lit and flown off into the air, a thousand different coloured explosions and sparks soon lit up the black sky, overshadowing every other firework which had previously been lit. There were so many small explosions that for a brief moment the sky wasn't black at all, instead lit up as bright as day, only far more colourful.
Rainbow Dash looked at her friend with an unbelievably smug and gloating smirk, "Pretty impressive, ain't it?"
Applejack let out a long and annoyed grunt, before she reached backwards and suddenly held a similar box to that which had just been blown up, "This here ALSO contains a thousand fireworks-"
"Big whoop!" Rainbow Dash scoffed, "That's exactly the same amount I had!"
"Oh?" Applejack practically growled, looked offended at the very idea, "Was Ah done talkin'? 'cause Ah missed the part where Ah was done talkin'!"
The rainbow-haired athlete glowered at her but therwise remained silent, simply glaring at her heatedly.
Applejack's eyes narrowed, "Yeah, dat's what Ah thought. Mah batch of a thousand fireworks will, upon exploding, form a darn tootin' photo-realistic image of the undisputed king of fireworks!" She quickly set of her box and shortly there after it flew upwards, ready to explode.
Indeed, much like Rainbow Dash's thousand of rockets before her, Applejack's lot lit up the sky in a truly glorious array of colours and sparks. But, the key difference being that as they exploded, the light seemed to form an image of what looked like the head of a dopey-looking, middle-aged man with a balding head and with his remaining strands of hairpointing upwards akwardly.
"Dynamite-Harry..." Applejack stated solemnly, taking off her hat in respect as she looked up at the projected image of the old swedish gangster. She quickly got out of it though as she then sent a heated look at her rival, "Ya'll got no idea how much that thing cost to make! Ah had to put up the farm on a third mortgage!"
This poor financial descision did not face Rainbow Dash, who simply rolled her eyes in disinterest, "It's hardly worth more than a human being's life!"
"... Wut?"
Rainbow Dash looked smug, gesturing to her left side where there now inexplicably stood a cartoonishly large firework-rocket. Tied to the rocket was a teenage boy clearly younger than the two girls, with a green-blue tinted skin and blond hair sloppily tied in a messy bun. His purple eyes were wide and darting around in panic, his cries muffled by the gag over his mouth.
Neither Applejack or Rainbow Dash seemed too bothered, the former mostly just being surprised while Rainbow Dash smugly explained, "Here I got our good friend Fluttershy's little brother Zephyr Breeze strapped to a rocket! And as we know, a person's very life is, by definition, invaluable."
Having explained her logic, the teen athlete bent down and eagerly lit up a match before using said match to light up the fuse. Zephyr Breeze's legs were kicking about in distress, his muffled cries and anguished eyes begging Rainbow Dash for mercy.
He recieved none, as she instead just cheerfully waved to him with a closed eyed smile, "Bye-bye, Zephyr!"
No sooner than those words had left her mouth, the rocket's fuse was burned out and the bottom lit up as flames began spitting out. Zephyr Breeze could do nothing but kick and scream as the giant rocket suddenly lurched upwards towards the midnight sky. His cries could still be heard from the ground before they were suddenly cut off as the firework eploded in a truly glorious fashion.
Despite the gruesome death of a child younger than both of them, Rainbow Dash just pointed up and laughed boisterously, feeling that this meant her victory, "HAHA! Look at that! He's dead now! Nothing can compete with the death of another person!"
"Ah, hogwash!" Applejack dismissed the weight of the boy's death with a wave of her hand, "Dat's just ONE person! It ain't nuthin' when compared to what this THERMONUCLEAR BOMB can do!"
Rainbow Dash blinked in confusion, "Wha-" Her words died in her throat as she saw that beside Applejack there had suddenly materialized a huge thermonuclear weapon of mass desctruction, with a cute little red apple painted on it.
The rainbow-haired girl could only gape for a good few seconds before helplessly shouting, "WHERE DID YOU GET THAT!?"
Applejack just shrugged, "You'd be surprised what eastern dictator's will give in exchange for some good applesauce."
Without delving any further to her vague explanation, the country girl dug into her pockets and pulled out what looked like a remote control of some kind. With a hard and determined look on her face, Applejack pressed a few buttons and before Rainbow Dash knew it, the bomb was launched into the air.
A tense silence reigned between them for a few moments, and then suddenly there was a great BOOM in the distance, and Rainbow Dash couldn't help but flinch as she realized what her friend just had done.
Applejack was unfazed, her face set in grim but satisfied expression, thinking that her victory was assured, "Denmark will never be the same ever again, Dash."
Rainbow Dash could only sputter in indignation, before growling as she realized she would have to pull out her biggest of guns, "What never will be the same ever again is the MOON!"
Not wasting another second, the athletic girl pulled out a detonator of her own, larger and more intricate than Applejack's. After pushing and pulling the right amount of buttons, there was suddenly a deafening and fiery explosion that lit up the entire midnight sky. Both girls had to briefly cover their eyes, but once it was safe to look again they did.
Applejack didn't understand just what Rainbow Dash had done at first. That was until she looked up at the completely black and now moonless sky.
"Well, Ah'll be..." She muttered to herself.
"YES!" Rainbow Dash pumped a fist, feeling adrenaline and a great rush flow through her as she began to celebrate her early victory. After all, not even Applejack could possibly top blowing up a celestial object, right?
Allowing herself to get just a tad too cuckoo for Coco Puffs, Rainbow Dash turned to Applejack with a downright insane grin and screamed extatically, "FIVE. YEARS OF MINE AND NASA'S RESEARCH AND TWENTY BILLION DOLLARS IN TAX PAYERS' MONEY SPENT! JUST TRY TO TOP THAT! JUST TRY TO-"
Her manic grin and boisterous gloating seized, an air of confusion settling around her as she saw Applejack bending down with a lit match in her hand.
"What, uh... What are you doing there, AJ?" Rainbow Dash asked carefully, not understanding why she suddenly felt so nervous.
Applejack didn't look up as she responded, instead seeming as if she were searching for something on the ground, "Just a lil' somethin', that's all." Before Rainbow Dash could ask any further, Applejack let out a small noise of satisfaction as it seemed she found what she had been looking for.
She put down the match, and as new sparks began to move about Rainbow Dash realized that the cow girl had lit a new fuse. And though she was initially confused as she couldn't see just what the fuse was connected to, it was with fear that she saw how the fuse was directly connected to the ground.
"Um, A-Applejack? Buddy?" She asked, not at all liking where she thought this was going, "D-Did you just lit up a fuse that goes DIRECTLY into the Earth!?"
The hat-wearing didn't immediatly respond, instead blowing out the small fire on the match before rising up from her kneeling position, not looking Rainbow Dash in the eye as she did so, "Ya'll thought it was mighty cool to blow up the moon, didn't yah?"
Applejack then finally turned around, her smug and narrowed eyes meeting her athletic friend's terrified ones, "Ah think this might just be a wee bit cooler."
Absolute horror was all that Rainbow Dash could feel, sputtering incoherently as she realized what their competition had made her friend do, "A-Applejack, you can't mean-..."
"Happy. New. Freakin'. Year!" Applejack hissed, an air of superiority about her as she glared at Rainbow Dash, knowing that this meant her ultimate victory over her friend.
Said friend was full on whimpering at this point, closing her eyes shut tightly as she could only wait for the impending doom of not only Canterlot City, but the entire globe.
In spite of her ironed resolve, Applejack herself couldn't help but close her eyes as well, ready to meet her end as long as it meant that Rainbow Dash would lose.
After a good few moments of holding her breath, both of the girls couldn't help but be confused, as they were still very much alive and the Earth hadn't yet been pulivirized. Rainbow Dash let out a sigh of relief, whilst Applejack was looking beyond annoyed as she looked at where the fuse had disappeared into the ground.
"Why don't it-"
And then the planet exploded.
THE END
