Chapters "Twilight Sparkle, you are guilty of trying to murder a pegasus named Derpy Hooves," boomed Princess Celestia from a judge chair. Princess Luna was also sitting next to Celestia, looking just as angry as her sister.
"Celestia, please!" shouted Twilight Sparkle, "I didn't do it!"
"She's right ya know," said another voice. There were Twilight's friends, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight's assistant, Spike. They all believed Twilight was innocent.
"My Pinkie Sense tells me that Twilight would never hurt or kill an innocent pony intentionally, not even if she was out of her mind!" shouted Pinkie Pie.
"I've known her for a long time," said Spike, "And she never did anything this disgraceful!"
"Darling, please," said Rarity to the two princesses. "I know you're the princess and all, but are you seriously going to accuse Twilight without evidence?"
"Evidence?" said Celestia, "I do have evidence that proves Twilight is guilty! I have this footage to show you all!" And she showed the footage from a camera onto a projector.
YESTERDAY
Twilight Sparkle was minding her own business, but something seemed off. Her eye color was a different color, despite the fact that she had purple eyes! Instead, she had green eyes!
Just then Derpy came and gave a friendly wave to Twilight, but then Twilight stopped. She got angry and suddenly beat up Derpy, punching and slapping and kicking her. She gave her cheek a last slap, then she ran off, leaving a battered and bruised Derpy behind.
BACK TO THE PRESENT
Everypony was surprised.
Except Pinkie Pie.
"Wait," she said, "I watched the whole thing, and I saw Twilight with green eyes instead of purple! This could be a doppelganger!" The rest of the Mane 6 and Spike nodded their heads in agreement.
"Well, maybe she put eye color changing contacts on herself!" shouted a pony from the bleachers of ponies who thought Twilight was guilty. The rest of the guilty bleacher roared in agreement.
Twilight looked nervously. Only her friends and assistant were supporting her, and everypony else thought she was guilty, even her parents, brother and sister-in-law! They thought she had tried to kill Derpy!
"Wait!" shouted Rainbow Dash. "What you're doing isn't 20% cool at all! Think of all the good things she did! She defeated Nightmare Moon! She stopped Discord! She helped us with our problems! She stopped Chrysalis and helped us realize we were being fooled by the fake Cadence!"
"And even if she hurt or even successfuly killed Derpy," said Applejack, "She would automatically realize what she did wrong. Ah reckon she was probably just having a bad day and took out her anger on Derpy. As wrong as that was, ah know she would never hurt anypony intentionally."
"But she also did bad things too!" yelled a pony.
"She caused the parasprites to attack Ponyville!" yelled Bon Bon.
"She ruined the Grand Galloping Gala!" shouted Royal Ribbon.
"She hypnotized mah grandson and caused a riot over a doll!" shouted Granny Smith.
"She interrupted the wedding rehearsal!" yelled Shining Armor.
"But that was because the imposter-" Twilight was cut off by Shining Amor, who then said, "Imposter or not, you still interrupted it!"
"She stole Philomena!" yelled a royal guard.
"She caused an avalanche during Winter Wrap Up!" screamed Dr. Whooves.
"What did she do? She made me spill my brew!" said Zecora.
"She snuck into the archives to find a time spell!" shouted another royal guard.
"She didn't show up to Moon Dancer's party!" yelled Minuette.
"She drenched my cello in fruit punch!" shouted Octavia.
"Actually, that was my fault!" blurted out Pinkie Pie.
"Oh." said Octavia.
"You should all be ashamed of yourselves!" shouted Fluttershy all of a sudden, "Twilight is most definitely innocent, and even if she wasn't, you have no right to remind her of all her mistakes!"
"Everypony makes mistakes," agreed Rarity, "remember the time I tried to make dresses for the Grand Galloping Gala? Or the time I got mad at my sister for wasting all the gems to create a picture for me? Or the time we all thought Zecora was an evil enchantress?!" Everypony fell silent after that. That is, except Celestia.
"Settle down, everypony. Let's have a vote to see what the outcome will be. For those who believe Twilight Sparkle is innocent." Celestia said, making several hooves raise in the air. The ones who believed Twilight were Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Spike.
"For those who believe Twilight Sparkle is guilty." Luna said, making everypony else, and Celestia and Luna themselves raise their hooves. Twilight felt tears in her eyes. Almost everypony thought she was guilty.
"Twilight Sparkle, you are now seen as guilty for the attempted murder of Derpy Hooves. You will be banished from Equestria and if we hear that you have returned, you will face harder and worse consequences." Celestia said, making Twilight's eyes widen in shock.
"Tia darling, y-you can't be serious." Rarity said, shocked at Celestia who only looked back at Rarity with a raised eyebrow.
"I very much am, Rarity. This criminal is to be banished from Equestria. You will have twenty minutes together in this room, then she will be banished." "Understood?" Luna asked, and Rarity could only nod. The crowd of ponies left, leaving only the Mane Six and Spike together.
Twilight looked at her friends and assistant, tears in her eyes. Just then they got into a group hug, crying tears everywhere. "We're very super duper over the top sorry Twilight!" sobbed Pinkie. "It's okay," cried Twilight. "I'm just glad you believe me." "Aw, shucks," said Rainbow Dash, "You're making me all sappy!" And then the seven cried and hugged for some more, until Princess Celestia and Luna walked inside, and looked at Twilight.
"It is time." Celestia said, not looking at anypony or creature except Twilight. She then quickly shot the spell at Twilight, who managed to catch a glimpse of her friends and assistant look at her sadly.
Just then, she was teleported into a desert and landed face first in the sand.
Twilight groaned, and pulled herself up from the sand. As she looked at her surroundings, she saw a sign that said:
"Neighborville, 50 miles away"
Twilight then looked behind herself and saw the Everfree Forest. She knew she had to make a choice. She began walking towards the direction of Neighborville, for she knew that she would face worse consequences if she went back to Equestria.
Author's Note
Finally, another MLP/PvZ Crossover fanfiction! Too bad this chapter hasn't introduced any PVZ characters or stuff yet, but they will be introduced next chapter!
Front Yard - Day 1: Peas Hitting Knees
Twilight Sparkle was walking through the desert, tired, but she couldn't give up right now. She needed somewhere to live now that she was banished from Equestria, and there was no way she was going to die out in a desert.
So she kept walking.
Until she ended up in a forest.
MEANWHILE SOMEWHERE ELSE
A zombie wearing a lab coat was talking to some other zombies. There were eight of them (nine of you include the one wearing a lab coat): four of them were completely normal zombies, one had a slightly deformed face, one had no arms, and two of them had purple skin, with one also having a slightly deformed face.
"Alright, my zombies!" said the zombie who was wearing a lab coat. "Today, we're going to attack that crazy man's house."
"Zomboss," said one of the basic zombies, "Why can't we just attack another house?"
"Because he's my arch-enemy!" said Zomboss. "He always gets what he wants and I don't! Anyways, I think we should go and start attacking."
Just as the zombies were about to leave, Zomboss then tapped the basic zombie with a slightly deformed face. "Hey?"
"Yes, Zomboss?"
"Go and carry this seed packet to taunt the crazy man before you eat his brains." the zombie nodded and grabbed the seed packet, put it in his pocket, and then ran off to catch up with the other zombies.
The house had a lawn of grass in front of it. However, most of it was unsodded and bare, with only 1 line of grass in the middle of the bare lawn. Sitting in the far back of the line was a pea plant with eyes and a mouth that looked like a shooter.
"Man, I wonder when those zombies are gonna come," said the pea plant, "Crazy Dave told me about them, and I can't wait to finally test out my shooting skills at them."
The zombies were sneaking behind bushes, ready to attack the plant.
"Ready to go first?" whispered the purple zombie with a slightly deformed face.
"I'm ready!" whispered a basic zombie, who was wearing shorts. He then began walking towards the plant. But the pea plant was ready. He shot a pea at the zombie. It flew, then it hit the zombie in the head. But the zombie was still walking.
The pea plant kept shooting, until after the zombie got hit by four more peas, his arm fell off! The pea plant smiled. It was working! He shot five more peas, one at a time, as the zombie kept taking the brunt of the peas, his head suddenly popped off and fell onto the ground!
The now-headless body stumbled for a few seconds, then fell over.
"We lost one!" yelled the armless zombie quietly to avoid being heard.
"Then I'll go next," said the purple zombie with a slightly deformed face.
He advanced towards the plant, but the peas hit him many times. Until his head popped off like the one the peashooting plant just killed.
Then another basic zombie, whose eyes were bulging out so much that they looked like gumballs, hopped onto the lawn and marched towards the peashooter like the other two zombies did, but unsurprisingly, he was met with several peas hitting him. Then he suddenly tripped just as the peashooter shot another pea, and the pea hit the zombie, knocking his head clean off, and the head rolled towards an unfinished building zone, where it drowned in the wet cement.
Now this made the other zombies angry. "Get him!" roared the normal purple zombie as he charged towards the Peashooter, the other zombies following him behind. Peashooter shot many peas. He killed the purple zombie, the basic zombie with hair sticking up, the armless zombie, the basic zombie with the slightly deformed face.
But there was only one more basic zombie left, and he also had gumball-like eyes. However, unlike the one Peashooter had just killed, the eyes weren't bulging out as much. He was near the peashooter, and was close to eating the poor plant up. When suddenly:
"Leave him alone you big bully!"
The peashooter and zombie turned to see a purple unicorn running and she pounced the zombie. She fired a few magic beams at the zombie, before the magic was enough to damage the zombie so much he stopped breathing and fell limp to the ground.
The unicorn then turned her head to the peashooter. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"Don't worry about it, I am," said the plant, "But thanks for saving my life. What's your name?"
"My name's Twilight Sparkle, what's yours?"
"Oh, my name is Peashooter and I shoot peas at my enemies, hitting their knees."
"Hey, you just rhymed," said Twilight, and the two shared a laugh, before Twilight spoke up again, "Anyways, do you know where I can live?" asked the unicorn, "I was banished from my old home for an attempted murder I did not commit."
"Well, you can always live with me and Crazy Dave!" said Peashooter. "I'll show you the house." and the two walked in the house.
"Well, that was a fail," said Dr. Zomboss to his minions, who have been revived by some gravestones. "Luckily, it was only your first time, so I can forgive you all for that. But I do feel like you need proper names so that I can address you all more easily." Just then an idea went into his head. "I know!" he said. "Shorts-wearing zombie, your name is now Basic, the gumball-eyed zombie will now be Watterson, the zombie with smaller gumball eyes will now be Elmore, the zombie with his hair sticking up will be Untote, the deformed-face zombie will now be Boot, the armless zombie will now just be Armless, the purple zombie will just be Purple, and the purple deformed-face zombie will now be Nurp."
"My name sounds stupid!" shouted Elmore.
"Shut up. It was either that or Gaylord," said Zomboss.
"Good point."
"Twilight, I want you to meet Crazy Dave," said Peashooter. Just then, an peach-fur earth pony with a brown beard, mane and tail, along with a saucepan on his head, and a potted plant for a cutie mark, came down the stairs.
"Wabby wabbo!" shouted Crazy Dave, "So that's the Twilight I've heard about all over the world. It's such an honor to meet you!"
"Heh, thanks," said Twilight, "But I'm not the hero I once was." And she proceeded to tell Crazy Dave the story of how she was banished from Equestria forever and how she ended up in Neighborville.
"You mean these ponies thought you murdered an innocent pony and didn't even look closely?" said Crazy Dave. "They need to get their facts straight."
"I mean I can't really blame them," said Twilight. "The imposter was convincing, and I'm more upset about how the princesses and my family were quick to jump to conclusions and blame me for it! At least my best friends and assistant stood by me the whole time."
"Well, since you don't have a home now, I'll gladly give you an offer to live with me and my plants here."
"But isn't Peashooter your only plant?" asked Twilight.
"Hey you two!" shouted Peashooter. "Check what I found!" The two ponies ran to see that Peashooter had discovered a seed packet. It had a smiling sunflower on it.
"Oh, that was one of the plants Zomboss stole!" exclaimed Crazy Dave.
"Who's Zomboss?" asked Twilight.
"He's my rival. We used to be best friends, but one day, he began bullying others and acting too arrogant, and I had enough of his bullying, so I stood up to him. However, he ended our friendship and swore revenge on me, and he stated that one day he would create an army of zombies to end me."
"Wow, so that was what was attacking Peashooter and what I killed with my magic beams."
"Yeah," said Crazy Dave. "Last night, he kidnapped all my plants, except Peashooter, who was fast asleep with me, and my room was locked so he and the other zombies couldn't get in." He then planted the sunflower seed, and a smiling sunflower popped out of the ground.
"Happy birthday!" she yelled happily, only to have a brick thrown at her by a grumpy old pony. "It's not my birthday!" he yelled and staggered off, his cane helping him move his fragile and tired body.
"Sunflower, are you okay?" asked Peashooter.
"I'll be fine, just a minor bruise," said Sunflower.
"Who are you anyways?" asked Twilight.
"My name's Sunflower, and I give sun energy to plants to help them defeat zombies quicker."
"Wabbo, I think we should all go back to the house and find a room for you to sleep in, Twilight." said Crazy Dave.
"Alright then," said Twilight, as she followed him, Peashooter and Sunflower back into the house.
Author's Note
Yes, Crazy Dave will be a pony in this fanfic. However, the zombies will still be undead humans. Next chapter will explain why.
Front Yard - Day 2: Hidden Talents
"Alright, my zombies!" said Dr. Zomboss. "We failed our first attack, so we're going to attack that crazy man's house again."
"Um, Zomboss?" asked Basic, "Aren't there going to be new recruits?"
"Well, yes, but actually, no," answered Zomboss. "The new recruits I ordered yesterday were late, so we'll have to make do without them."
"Aaah, such a nice day on the lawn," said Sunflower, who was just sitting on the lane of grass along with Peashooter.
"You said it, pal," agreed Peashooter.
"If any zombies do come, we'll just attack them," said Twilight Sparkle, who was just relaxing on a beach chair.
"BRAINS!"
"That sounded like a zombie!" exclaimed Sunflower.
"As a matter of fact, it is," said Peashooter. "I guess we have to attack." And then he began to shoot peas at Elmore, who was walking towards the lawn.
Just then, Twilight jumped in and began shooting magic beams at the zombie, assisting Peashooter. After several magic beams and peas, the zombie's head popped off.
"You know," Twilight wondered, "If those zombies are really undead humans, I wonder how they were brought back to life?"
Nurp then went next, but he was met by a bunch of peas and magic beams. One magic beam went into his mouth, and he exploded into pieces. Nobody expected that at all.
"Wow," said Sunflower
"I guess those zombies are sensitive to magic," said Twilight. She tried shooting magic beams at the next zombie in line, Watterson, but when a magic beam went into his mouth, nothing happened.
"Ok, forgive me, it's actually only those purple zombies who are sensitive to magic."
"Sukhbir Brainz!" wheezed Watterson, as he was hit by a few more peas, until his head popped off.
Armless then went next, but due to him being armless, he tripped and couldn't get back up. "Darn it! I wish Zomboss would just give me new arms!" he muttered, and was met by several peas and magic beams.
"Well, I guess it's time for the Final Wave!" said Purple to the remaining zombies: Basic, Untote, and Boot.
As Purple lead the other three zombies into the lawn, Peashooter couldn't hold it in any longer.
"MUST! RESIST! THE! HYPEEEEEEEEEEER!" screamed Peashooter as he began shooting peas very fast. Twilight and Sunflower were surprised, as Purple and Basic were decapitated by the sheer amount of peas. And it would have also happened to Untote and Boot, if Peashooter didn't suddenly stop shooting very fast.
"Oh, sorry," said Peashooter. "I've tried to hide that ability for a long time, but I guess today was the day it decided to come back."
"It's okay," said Twilight as she shot some more magic beams at Untote, "you did a great job taking these two down, but now we still have to deal with these other two."
Untote then went to Twilight, but rather than eating her, he shoved her off, the unicorn landing face-first into the unsodded area of dirt, and the zombie began gnawing on Peashooter, who was trying to shoot the zombie.
"Help me there please?" shouted Peashooter, as Untote kept biting, until he was suddenly met with several magic beams to the eyes. Untote screamd in agony as his eyes caught on fire, and he tripped over Purple's decapitated head, and he fell onto the grass as he burned up into a crisp.
As everybody watched the brutal death, Boot snuck up and kicked Peashooter. It seemed like he was going to win, but not for long.
"SUN BEAM!"
"Wait, wha-"
Before the zombie could reply, he was disintegrated by a powerful sun laser from Sunflower's mouth, leaving nothing of the zombie remaining.
"We did it," said Peashooter weakly, before he flopped on the ground. Sunflower then went near him and shot a beam at Peashooter, but this beam was different. It began healing up Peashooter, and his injuries disappeared every second. After several seconds, Peashooter got back up, looking completely unharmed.
"Thanks Sunflower, you're a lifesaver."
"I know," giggled the flower as she and Peashooter hugged. Twilight could only watch in awe, before she realized she had a question to ask to Crazy Dave.
"That stupid Sunflower ruined everything!" ranted Zomboss. "My calculations stated that the last time a sunflower used their sun beam to disintegrate a zombie was 10 years ago! Ugh, I'm so angry that-" the zombie couldn't finish any longer, before he tripped over a beaker he had left on the ground for 2 months and fell on his head. "I hate my life so much."
"So, Crazy Dave," asked Twilight to the crazier pony, "how did all these undead human zombies come back to life?"
"Wabby, I'll tell you a story. It all began long ago..."
25 YEARS AGO
"Back when me and Zomboss were friends, 1 year before he became a bully, we learned about humans, and Zomboss, whose name was Edgar at that time, was very interested in them." Edgar, who was back then, a green earth pony with a pink mane and tail, was digging up a grass field with a shovel. Just then Past Dave came over.
"Oh, hey Dave!"
"Oh, hey Edgar, any luck?"
"Not yet, but I know I'll find one and prove they are real!"
"Well, good luck on your discoveries!"
"Thanks, Dave."
Dave then continued narrating. "Even when he became a big bully, he still never gave up with trying to find humans, but at this point, he had become so selfish and big-headed that he never let us help him. Eventually 4 years after he became a bully, he had finally found a dead human body after 5 years of digging, but of course he was being a big arrogant bragger about it, that nobody cared. He was so angry that he decided to bring the human back to life in hopes that everybody would stop ignoring him, not realizing that the reason he was being ignored in the first place was because of his arrogance."
Edgar began making potions and serums to bring the dead human back to life, but they never worked. "Edgar never gave up though, after his discovery, he spent 1 whole year trying to bring the dead human back to life, and by the time he had finally made a successful formula, and brought the dead human back to life, Edgar decided to show it at the end-of-the-year science fair."
The science fair was exciting to all the students. They all got to present their inventions. "I was excited too. I made the first Peashooter using some potions that I had made with random ingredients, and I was excited to show it. The judge then arrived and saw the Peashooter."
Past Dave showed it. "This is Peashooter. He can shoot peas at your enemies to keep them away."
The judge looked at it. "Very cute and good, I see, your grade is an A+."
Past Dave was so happy he jumped for joy. "Edgar," continued Dave from the narration, "had seen everything and was so angry he wanted to get a higher grade than me."
"Me next!" Edgar yelled, and the judge went to his table. "This, is a zombie." said Edgar, "He was a human who died long ago, but I brought him back to life yesterday-"
"F-. "
"E-E...e-excuse me? " stuttered Edgar, "Did I forget to give him manners?"
"No, you definetely gave him manners." said the judge, who was secretly afraid that Edgar would do such a thing as bringing a zombie back to life. "It gets a F-, Edgar. Just accept it. Not everything needs an explanation."
"Of course, Edgar was so furious," narrated Dave, "that his mane and tail caught on fire and his fur changed from green to a glowing white!"
"Reminded me of that one time where I was proven the Pinkie Sense was real," said Twilight, recalling a memory where she got so angry at being wrong that she burst into flames. "Anyways, back to the story."
"YES...IT... DOES!!!!!!!!!!!!" shouted the enraged Edgar, as fire flew out of his mane and tail, and burnt all the other inventions! Past Dave hid behind a cart of tacos, as it got burned. Edgar, who was now bald, but no longer on fire, fell on the ground, and took several deep breaths and felt more calm, before he was shocked at what happened. Every invention and table except for Peashooter and the zombie, was on fire and everypony else, including the judge, was hiding behind the taco cart.
"Um... WHAT did you just do? " shouted the judge.
"OH! So now we SUDDENLY need explanations?! " shouted Edgar, "I didn't mean it! "
"Well, this ended horribly," said the judge, "But Dave was the only one I graded, so he gets an A+ on his overall report card, and everypony else gets a B or less."
As the other ponies walked away complaining about the science fair being ruined, Edgar gave Past Dave an angry look and said six last words to him, "I hope it was worth it."
"And that was the last time I saw him until 5 years after the science fair," finished Dave. "Which will be another story for another day."
Twilight was amazed. "So humans do exist!" she said to herself. "If Lyra was here, she would be all happy."
"Well, I have to go do some business," said Dave, "Peashooter and Sunflower found a new seed packet. See you in several minutes."
"See you too," said Twilight, as Dave left the room, which left Twilight to ponder about Dave's backstory.
Author's Note
The Hyper, Sun Beam, and Heal Beam were inspired by abilities from PvZ Garden Warfare.
Also, the science fair scene in the flashback was inspired by a scene from Inanimate Insanity.
Front Yard - Day 3: The Bomb Goes Boom
"Man, I can't wait to go CHA-BOOF on them after 1 year of being stuck in this seed packet!"
The voice came from the left head of two cherries whose stems were attached to each other. They were sitting on a table decked out on the front lawn, and there was a label on the table that said, "Insta-use Plants belong here ".
"Same here, bro!" shouted the right head. "I just feel the urge to explode!"
"Calm yourselves," chucked Twilight Sparkle, "You don't wanna waste the explosion right now."
"Alright my zombies," said Zomboss, "We have two new recruits today, come introduce yourselves."
A smiling zombie with a cone on his head came to the lab. "My name's Conehead!" he shouted.
Then another zombie with a cone on his head walked up as well. "The name's Caleb!"
"Well, since there's eleven of us now," said Zomboss, "We should-"
"Wait! You forgot somebody, and his name is Crazy!"
A zombie walked up. He looked like Basic, except that unlike Basic, he had a smile on his face like Conehead.
"Sorry for the inconvenience," apologized Zomboss, "Now that there's twelve of us, we should go and attack the plants for the third time!"
"I think I see the zombies, for the third time!" exclaimed Twilight.
"Well, I guess we have to start attacking," said Peashooter.
The first zombie coming was Crazy and he skipped along the line of grass singing to himself happily. He was shot by a pea, but that did not diminish his mood. Even when his arm popped off from a magic beam fired by Twilight, he still sang and sang until his head got knocked off by a pea.
Then Basic came next, but what was surprising was that he had a few other zombies going with him: Nurp, Watterson, and Caleb. "Get them," Twilight whispered to Cherry Bomb. The twin cherries jumped into the four zombies...
CHA-BOOF!
What used to be four zombies, were now a pile of ash. "We destroyed them!" shouted the left head.
"Actually, we obliterated them," said the right head.
"Destroyed!"
"Obliterated!"
"DESTROYED!"
"OBLITERATED!"
"Fine, I guess we'll settle for Destrobliterated!"
"Alright then."
"Hmmm," shouted Dr. Zomboss to the other zombies but quietly, "we should all go out at once, because the Cherry Bomb's recharging! That way, the two shooters and that flower can't take care of all of us, and we'll finally get the brains! So what do you think?"
The zombies wondered, until:
"Sounds like a nice plan!" agreed Untote.
The other zombies then agreed with the plan.
The zombies all began marching towards the plants and Twilight! Twilight knew they were doomed, but all of a sudden, Cherry Bomb replanted itself! The other plants and Twilight gasped in relief, while the zombies gasped in shock. The fuse lit, the cherries jumped into the horde...
CHA-BOOF!
Once again, ash was everywhere, but surprisingly, two of the zombies, Purple and Zomboss weren't turned into ash, although they were pretty much charred from the blast.
"We did it!" shouted Peashooter.
"But why were the zombies going out all at once?" wondered Sunflower.
"Uh, we didn't know we spent 75% of Cherry Bomb's recharging moment discussing that plan!" shouted Purple a bit too loudly, in which he realized his mistake and gasped. Zomboss had also heard and was shocked as well. Let's just say the consequences were full of peas and beams.
"Why did you zombies snitch on me?!" demanded Zomboss, as he stood in front of them like an angry father scolding all his children.
"Sorry," apologized Purple.
"He didn't mean to," Boot added.
"Ugh! Well, I'll never trust you zombies with getting that crazy dude and that unicorn's brains ever again!" decided Zomboss, who received sarcastic gasps from the other zombies.
"Do you actually mean that?" asked Caleb in a taunting way.
"Um… maybe?" a rather sheepish Zomboss replied.
"I never even got to show the world what I was made of!" yelled Conehead for no reason.
"Stop breaking the fourth wall!" yelled Zomboss.
The three plants were in the living room, along with Twilight and Crazy Dave. Just then, Twilight spoke up.
"So, Crazy Dave, since you already told me how Zomboss made the zombies and brought them back, can you now please tell me the story of how Zomboss himself, turned into one?"
"Wabbo, sure. It all happened 15 years ago..."
"I was just minding my own business once again, until I ended up bumping into my old rival, Edgar," narrated Dave. Past Dave received a glare from Edgar.
"What do you want?" scoffed Edgar.
"Look, Edgar," said Past Dave, "I came to say sorry about-"
"HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THAT "SORRY" MIGHT NOT CUT IT?!" Edgar screamed at Past Dave, who could only say, "You'd think I would know that by now..."
"You've set a reputation for yourself, Dave," Edgar continued, "For all I know, you could be pretending to be sorry and still be mocking me in your thoughts! Ever since you caused my zombie to get an F- 5 years ago, I've been disgraced by others every year, everybody hates me now, and that's your own fault!"
"Look, Edgar!" Past Dave shouted, "I know I shouldn't have yelled at you in front of everybody, I know I should have done that when nobody else was there, but you were bullying others for no reason, and I had to stand up to-"
"Just deal with it!" yelled Edgar, walking off, "I don't trust you anymore. And I probably never will. Oh, and by the way, if I were you, I wouldn't show up to see this!" And then Edgar grabbed a syringe and injected himself with it! Suddenly, he began turning into a human, but the human had a grayish-green skin color, so now Edgar was a zombie! Past Dave was surprised. His once friend had angrily abandoned him and turned himself into a zombie!
Edgar then turned around.
"From this point on, don't call me Edgar anymore! Call me Zomboss, and I'm also declaring war on you and your puny Peashooter!"
"And that's why for the past 14 years, there has been a zombie and plant war going on," said Dave. "I had to make many new plants to counter all those new zombies by Zomboss, and if that wasn't bad enough, he thinks it's all my fault it happened."
Twilight felt bad for Dave. He had been through a lot during his childhood, and he had to spend the last 14 years defending himself from zombies using plants, suffering a paranoia of zombies, and slowly going crazy. "I'm sorry this all happened to you, Dave." she comforted.
"It's not your fault," said Dave, "And I think we're more alike than we thought. You became a disgrace, I became a disgrace, and not to mention, I've invented many things during my life, and every time I see you, you remind me of all these inventions I've made. We're both geniuses in a way."
"Thanks, Dave, I'm here for you," said Twilight. "I'm just glad to have new friends, but if my name is ever cleared and I go back to my old friends, I'll give you something to remember me by."
And the two ponies shared a friendship hug. Peashooter and Sunflower awwed, as both heads of Cherry Bomb turned around in disgust, as they weren't the type for cute moments like these.
Author's Note
A pretty short battle.
Also typing the second half nearly made me cry. This was because the scene in the flashback where Zomboss turns against Dave was inspired by a scene from Battle for BFDI.
Front Yard - Day 4: Not the Nuts!
"So, you're the seed packet from last battle?"
"Yeah! My name is Wall-nut, and I block zombies like a wall!"
"Alright, let's get you onto the lawn," said Twilight as she picked up a walnut with white eyes that had black pupils, and the walnut was smiling. She placed the nut down onto the grass.
"Alright zombies," said Zomboss to the other zombies, "There's no new recruit today, but I did order one yesterday, and he shall be arriving in two days."
"Two days?" said Basic, "But if today's our fourth day of fighting plants, then he shall be arriving on the sixth day."
"Precisely!" smiled Zomboss. "In the meantime, just go and fight those plants, bring me the brains, okay?"
The lane of plants, along with the unicorn, were getting ready to face the zombies. Sunflower was in the back, Peashooter and Twilight in front of her, and Wall-nut sitting in front of them to protect them. Cherry Bomb sat on the table waiting for the right moment to strike.
"The zombies are coming!"
Boot was the first one up, and as he was getting pummeled by magic beams and peas, Caleb decided to come next, but both zombies were blocked by the Wall-nut, whose chewy shell made it hard for the zombies to get through for a while. Before they could take some more bites, they were knocked out by the peas and the magic beams.
"Me next, me next!" yelled Crazy, as he ran towards the damaged Wall-nut, but was met with magic beams and peas. One magic beam pierced through his forehead, and he fell over dead.
Basic, Nurp, Purple, Armless and Conehead decided to go out all at once. They were just about to finish eating the poor Wall-nut, when Cherry Bomb jumped in front of them.
"Say goodbye."
"Mommy," gulped Purple.
CHA-BOOF!
As ash fell all over the lawn, the 3 remaining zombies, which were Watterson, Elmore, and Untote decided they would be the last ones to go, as Cherry Bomb was recharging.
"We're gonna get the brains!" sang the three zombies, as they ate up Wall-nut and kept getting shot by magic beams and peas.
Peashooter and Twilight tried their best to shoot down the three zombies, but by the time they had shot down Elmore, Watterson began chewing on poor Peashooter, and Untote helped as well, and soon Peashooter was gone.
Now, it was only Sunflower and Twilight against Untote. Thankfully for them, Untote's neck was starting to crack, so only a few more magic beams, and Untote would be defeated for this battle.
"I can't take this anymore!" screamed Untote after a magic beam hit him in the eye, and he jumped into a bush, cracking his head off from his neck in the process.
"I guess we win this round?" said a perplexed Sunflower.
"All of them are dead, so I guess so." agreed Twilight.
"Grrrr, that does it!" growled Zomboss. "It's time to give those plants a challenge, one they're sure to lose!" He began writing a note on a piece of lined paper. It took him 10 minutes, with most of the time being about him thinking of the challenge, but at last, he had finally came up with an idea and written it down.
Zomboss then walked up to Conehead. "Conehead, please send this note to the plants."
"Yes, Zomboss!" obeyed Conehead, as he walked out of the lab. Zomboss then gave out an evil grin.
"This is gonna be a hard time for them indeed."
Conehead knew he had to place the note, but he didn't want to be spotted. Luckily, Sunflower was bringing back all the dead plants by shooting her healing beam at them, and Twilight was near the front door, waiting for Sunflower to finish healing so that she and the plants could go in the house and talk about what the zombies might be planning.
So Conehead hid in the bushes and waited, until Wall-nut was brought back by the beam. Then Twilight opened the door and let the plants in first, and then she went in and closed the door. Conehead smiled. Now he could send the note.
Conehead went onto the lawn and then he slipped the note through the door and rang the doorbell. He ran off, snickering to himself.
In the house, the plants and Twilight were discussing about what the zombies might be planning.
"Zomboss could be planning something big for all I know," said Peashooter.
"I agree," said Sunflower, "he's probably ordering a load of new zombies for his army right now."
"Maybe he's gonna go easy on us next time?" suggested Wall-nut, who wanted to make the situation less tense.
"Doubt it," scoffed Cherry Bomb's left head.
"Those zombie attacks have been getting harder and harder each day," agreed his right head.
Twilight was about to tell the plants what she thought, when she heard the doorbell ring. "I'll get it," she said, and she trotted off to see who was there to answer.
When Twilight opened the door, she saw nobody there, but she did see a piece of paper on the floor. She levitated it with her horn and she began reading it.
Dear, Crazy Dave, Twilight and their puny plants
We're gonna change things up for our next battle tomorrow. You can only use Wall-nut in tomorrow's battle, so that we can finally win a battle and eat your brains.
Also because I'm so kind, here's a new seed packet. You can use him in tomorrow's battle too.
From Dr. Zomboss
Twilight gasped. She knew she had to tell the plants, but first, she decided to plant the new seed packet. As she planted the seed packet into the grass and poured water on it, a stem grew, followed by a sweet-looking red cherry growing on top of the stem. The cherry had yellow eyes and a mouth with two buck teeth.
"The name's Single Cherry!" said the new plant. "If zombies try to eat me, I'll explode them when I lose enough health!"
"That's nice," said Twilight, "Let's get you acquainted with the other plants." The two walked back into the house, with Twilight levitating the note with her horn.
"He WHAT?!"
"Me?! Me and that new guy are the only two plants allowed for the next battle?!" exclaimed Wall-nut. "How am I ever going to manage this?"
"Well, he can explode zombies once he's eaten," said Twilight, "But I feel like you could try and attack them, Wall-nut."
"But, how?" asked Wall-nut "I can't attack."
"You could roll at the zombies," suggested Twilight.
"Roll?" said Wall-nut. "I haven't done that in years! Alright, I'll do it."
"Alright Zomboss," Twilight said to nobody at all. "Be prepared for tomorrow. We're still going to win the fight with only two plants."
Author's Note
Another short battle.
Also, if you're wondering who Single Cherry is, he is a fan-made plant that somehow got a plush toy of him. It's currently unknown where he originated from.
https://pvzplush.fandom.com/wiki/Single_Cherry
Front Yard - Day 5: Nutty Bowling
The night after the battle, the plants, Dave and Twilight were sleeping, but Twilight wasn't having a peaceful sleep. She was having a nightmare.
Twilight found herself in a pitch-black place. There was nothing else, just black everywhere. She looked around, confused. Just then Princess Celestia walked up, glaring down at Twilight. The unicorn gulped.
"Um, Princess... Celestia???"
"Twilight. You tried to murder Derpy Hooves. You're not an equestrian citizen, and you're not my student."
"But-"
Just then, a bunch of ponies appeared looking just as angry as Celestia was. Some of those ponies even included her parents, her brother, and her foalsitter!
"YOU BIG MEANIE PANTS!! HOW DARE YOU TRY AND MURDER DERPY?!?!"
"Stay away from me you pony-murdering varmint!!"
"Scram you traitor!! I never want to see you AGAIN!!!!"
"You disgust me, jerk!! Get out of my sight!!"
"I thought you were my friend, but you just betrayed us by trying to kill her!!!! GET OUT OF HERE!!!!!!"
"You are the worst pony I ever gave birth to!! I would be far happier if you were a miscarriage!!"
"You are the WORST excuse of a daughter we EVER had!!"
"I knew we should have actually killed you at my wedding!! We are way better without such a lying traitorous foal like you now!! GO AWAY or I will KILL YOU if you don't!!"
"I just CANNOT BELIEVE I actually AGREED to be your foalsitter!! If I knew you would do this, I should've beaten you up or even KILLED you if I had the chance!!"
This was getting too much for poor Twilight. She couldn't take it anymore...
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Twilight screamed as she awoke from her nightmare. She looked around with teary eyes and saw Dave, Peashooter, Sunflower, Cherry Bomb, Wall-nut, and Single Cherry with worried looks on their faces.
"Twilight, are you okay?" asked Dave.
Twilight tried to hide her feelings, "I'm fine, okay?" she said, but she wasn't fine at all.
"You don't look fine to us," said Single Cherry.
"Tell us what happened," said Sunflower, "We won't be mean to you."
"Alright then," said Twilight, and she told Dave and the five plants about her nightmare. Once she had finished telling her nightmare, they were all saddened.
“Oh Twilight, I’m sorry to hear that”, Peashooter finally responded.
“If you don’t mind me asking…” requested Sunflower, “But could you tell us which ponies thought you were innocent?”
“Well, the only ponies who believed me were Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and my dragon assistant Spike”, Twilight answered.
“Well if anypony who isn't them come, we’ll explode them!” Cherry Bomb's left head said proudly.
"No, we'll detonate them!" yelled the right head.
"Explode!"
"Detonate!"
"EXPLODE!"
"DETONATE!"
"EXPLODONATE!"
"Wabby, we'll protect you if anypony else who isn't them tries to break in!" said Dave.
“Really?” questioned Twilight as she stopped crying tears.
"We all promise," Dave and the plants said at once.
“Thank you all so much”, said Twilight gratefully.
"Alright zombies," said Dr. Zomboss to his current army of zombies the next day. "We're gonna have an easy win today, because that Dave and Twilight only have two plants out on the lawn."
"Zomboss, I have one question," said Basic, "What if these two do something unexpected that could kill us for the day?"
"Then I have this golf club," answered Zomboss, pulling out a shiny golf club. "I can use it to whack them out cold. Now let's go attack the house again!"
"Well, time for the Wall-nut and Single Cherry only challenge," said Peashooter.
"I'm ready to roll!" shouted Wall-nut.
"The zombies are coming!"
Basic went onto the lawn first. He was just walking, whistling to himself, as he knew it would be an easy victory. Or so he thought.
Twilight began levitating Wall-nut with her magic, then she bowled Wall-nut down the lawn.
"WHEE!"
As Wall-nut rolled through the lawn, he hit Basic and ricocheted, leaving the now-headless zombie to fall down.
Zomboss had seen everything.
"She what?!" shouted Zomboss. "That's it! Untote, Elmore, Watterson, you three go next!"
"Alright then!" said Elmore, as he, Watterson and Untote walked out and stepped on the lawn. But this caught Single Cherry's eye. Twilight noticed too, and she bowled Single Cherry through the lawn as well, using her magic. Single Cherry rolled into the three zombies...
CHA-BOOF!
The three zombies were now a pile of ash. Zomboss was even more furious.
"WHAT?! THAT DOES IT! CALEB, NURP, ARMLESS, YOU GO NOW!"
"Geez, attitude," muttered Armless to himself, as he went on the lawn. But then he saw Twilight use her magic to carry Wall-nut back onto the lawn. And then she bowled.
Wall-nut hit Armless and knocked his head off, but the plant ricocheted into Caleb, knocking his cone off, and then he ricocheted into Nurp, and knocked his head off as well.
Now Zomboss was really mad. So mad that he couldn't even describe it.
"A HUGE WAVE OF ZOMBIES IS APPROACHING! CONEHEAD BRING THE GOLF CLUB WITH YOU!"
"Yes boss!"
As Caleb was still walking on the lawn, Purple, Conehead and Crazy followed him.
Twilight had just replanted Single Cherry. She rolled Single Cherry, who took out Caleb and Purple with an explosion, but the explosion wasn't big enough to damage the two zombies left: Conehead and Crazy.
"We're gonna get the brains!" yelled Crazy.
"Yeah!" shouted Conehead, "I know these brains will be ours, and they will be all juicy and plump, just the way we like it!"
Wall-nut was being carried back to the lawn for a second time. He was then thrown again, and rolled at Conehead, but just at the last second, Conehead grabbed out the golf club and whacked Wall-nut away!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
The screaming Wall-nut flew over the roof, and disappeared. Twilight was really mad now. Nobody hurt these plants like that and gets away with it.
She replanted Single Cherry, and then with the biggest strength of her magic, she threw Single Cherry at the two remaining zombies. This was so unexpected for the zombies, that Conehead didn't have the time to whack Single Cherry away with his golf club...
CHA-BOOF!
Twilight gave out a huge sigh of relief before she collapsed and fainted. As Sunflower and Peashooter went near Twilight to check on her, Cherry Bomb was confronted by Zomboss.
"ARGH! FINE!" yelled Zomboss. "You all win for now. Because I'm so nice, we won't be attacking for a few days." Both heads of Cherry Bomb beamed. Zomboss then continued his rant, "And because I'm so nice, you get two new seed packets!" He threw two seed packets at Cherry Bomb. "Oh, and have a good day, mister."
Just then Wall-nut came back.
"Wall-nut?!" said the left cherry.
"We thought you died when you flew over the roof." said the right cherry.
Wall-nut just rolled his eyes and smiled, "I didn't, thanks to my hard shell. Anyways, did we win?"
"We did," said the left cherry.
"And we won't be attacked for a few days, plus we got two new seed packets." finished the right cherry.
As Twilight regained consciousness, she saw the two new seed packets and planted them, along with replanting Single Cherry.
The seeds began to grow after water was poured onto them. The first new seed packet grew into a potato with eyes and a mouth with buckteeth, but on top of the potato was a red ball on a metal stick. The second new seed packet was now two smiling sunflowers connected to each other on a stem.
"The name's Potato Mine!" said the potato. "I blow up zombies when they step on me!"
"We're Twin Sunflower," said the left head of the two sunflowers.
"We give out twice the sun energy as a normal sunflower!" said the right head of the two sunflowers.
"Sisters!" shouted Sunflower as she gave Twin Sunflower a hug. The two-headed sunflower responded by hugging their sister back.
Peashooter, Wall-nut, Potato Mine and Twilight awwed, as Dave came out of the house and awwed too, but Cherry Bomb and Single Cherry were disgusted.
"Ugh, again with the lovey-dovey stuff."
"It makes us sick!"
"Be quiet and let them have their reuniting moment!" yelled Peashooter. This shut the cherries up.
Author's Note
Next chapter will happen in Ponyville, where we'll see how Twilight's friends are doing without her.
Intermission: Without Twilight
Author's Note
The first chapter (not counting the prologue) that takes place in Ponyville.
This one happens simultaneously with the events of Peas Hitting Knees.
Intermission: Without Twilight
"Uuuuggggh!"
It had been an hour after Twilight's banishment, and Applejack was cross for Twilight and furious at the princesses. How dare they banish her friend for murder, a thing she would never do? And to make matters worse, almost everypony was against Twilight.
And now there she was, sleeping on her bed to try and calm herself down, trying to ignore the glares she received from Big Macintosh and Granny Smith. Even Winona ran off the second she saw her owner.
Applejack then noticed that she never saw Apple Bloom, her younger sister pass by. She knew that there was school that day, so her sister and her crusading friends couldn't show up for the trial. She hoped that they thought Twilight was innocent.
"Hello, ah'm home!"
Applejack jumped in surprise. She heard Apple Bloom's cheerful voice.
"Where's mah sister?"
"Hello, ah'm home!"
Apple Bloom opened the door to the barn, a cheerful look on her face. She saw Big Macintosh and Granny Smith wave at her and hug her, however, she then noticed her sister was missing.
"Where's mah sister?"
Her grandmother and big brother's faces became serious.
"Apple Bloom, we have a lot to tell ya."
"Eeyup."
"Have you heard about Twilight getting banished?"
"I have. I can't believe Twilight would do something like that,"
"She calls herself the Element of Magic? More like the Element of Betrayal!"
Rarity heard all the chatter and grumbled as she walked through Ponyville. Everypony she saw was talking about Twilight's banishment and how they thought she tried to murder Derpy. Rarity knew better though. She knew Twilight would never do something like that.
Just then she saw a small line at Sugarcube Corner, with several ponies she recognized, such as her younger sister Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Flitter, Cloudchaser, and the dragon who had a crush on her, Spike.
"Hello, Rarity!" said Rainbow Dash. "Pinkie and the Cakes are making a fundraiser to free Twilight from her banishment. We're here to buy as many cake products as we can to save Twilight."
"Well, that's nice of these darlings," said Rarity, "I just hope there are more ponies who believe Twilight's innocence."
"Well, the crusaders all agreed Twilight would never do such a thing," said Spike, "and I also noticed that Flitter and Cloudchaser are in the line up to buy cakes."
"We couldn't show up at the court due to flying practice," said Cloudchaser.
"But we disagree with almost everypony!" finished Flitter, "Twilight's innocent whether they like it or not!"
"Did you try convincing everypony?" asked Fluttershy. "I tried and I got called a baby for it."
"Those darlings didn't listen to me and tried to throw rocks at me!" grumbled Rarity.
"I was nearly pushed off a cloud!" yelled Rainbow Dash.
"Me and Scootaloo were ignored," said Sweetie Belle.
"I was ignored too," said Spike.
"They threatened to embarrass us in front of everypony on the next day of flying practice," said Cloudchaser.
"Out of the way, bubs." shouted two ponies known as "Surf" and "Turf". They were the same ones who had bullied Fluttershy before when she was trying to buy asparagus.
"Not again," groaned Rarity to herself.
"Move back, you're in our personal space!" yelled "Turf".
The Cakes and Pinkie saw the two ponies cut in front of everypony else and push them out of the way, but before Mrs. Cake could scold them, Pound Cake threw a toy block at "Surf"'s head!
"Ow!" she yelled, as Pound Cake laughed. Pumpkin Cake also saw the bruise on "Surf", and laughed as well. But "Surf" wasn't laughing. She lunged at Pumpkin Cake, but tripped over some more toy blocks the baby twins had left on the floor, and fell so hard that she startled Mr. Cake, who was holding a cake on a plate in his mouth. He was so startled he dropped the cake onto "Surf"'s hair!
"My hair!" wailed "Surf", whose hooves were trying to get all the cake off. "You two shall be sued by my dad! Come on, Turf! We're leaving this abomination!"
"Same here!" yelled "Turf", who tried to throw a rock at Mrs. Cake, but she dodged and the rock hit a wall instead.
"Rude," muttered Mrs. Cake to herself.
"Are ya two kidding me?!"
Big Macintosh and Granny Smith jumped back at Apple Bloom's outburst.
"Ya two seriously think Twilight would do such a thing?! And to ignore Applejack for having a different view of things?!"
"Look, Bloom," said Granny Smith, "She tried to murder a pegasus!"
"But this ain't usual for Twilight to do such a thing!" yelled Apple Bloom. "Pinkie told me something about a doppelganger of Twilight being around, and now that ah learned Derpy nearly got murdered, ah think it's safe to say that Twilight has a doppelganger of her roaming around!"
"Don't talk back to us, young lady!" scolded Granny Smith.
"Ah have the right to talk back to ya two right now!" yelled Apple Bloom. "Ya two should be shamed of yersel-"
"You should be ashamed of yerself, talking back to yer grandmother and me like that. We don't want to talk to ya right now. So, you're grounded, and take yer Twilight-defending stance somewhere else and just GO AWAY! "
Apple Bloom's expression during her older brother's rant, was now one of sadness, tears in her eyes, but then she became angry again.
"Fine then! So ah'm grounded and ah have to stay upstairs most of the time. At least ah have a sister ah can talk to up there!" and then the filly stomped off upstairs.
"Hello, welcome to Sugarcube Corner," said Pinkie Pie, "what would you like to order today?"
Spike looked at Pinkie and smiled sadly.
"I'm in a bit of a rough spot, Pinkie." said Spike, "Have you heard anything from Twilight?" The question made Pinkie's hair deflate. She sadly shook her head, and Spike sighed sadly. He had hoped that Pinkie might have used her Pinkie Sense to confirm Twilight's state.
"No, I'm really sorry, Spike, but I really haven't. My Pinkie Sense hasn't even done anything to hint that Twilight is alive and well. We'll just have to wait and see." Pinkie said sadly. Spike nodded in understanding. He had expected that this might have been the response he'd get, but he was still hopeful for his adoptive sister.
Spike pulled out some bits and handed them to Pinkie. "I'll take a gem-filled cupcake," he said, and Pinkie nodded. She rushed to make everything done. As Spike got the cupcake in his hand, he smiled sadly at Pinkie who also smiled sadly at him. He left the building, hoping that wherever Twilight was, she'd be okay.
Applejack was sitting in her bed that night. She was having a hard time, and after all the commotion that she heard downstairs, she was worried for her sister. Suddenly, she heard some groaning, and then her sister entered the room looking just as disheveled.
"Apple Bloom!" asked Applejack, walking over to her sister, "What are ya doin' up?"
"Ah was gonna ask you the same thing," said Apple Bloom.
"Ah can't sleep," said Applejack, as she laid down on her bed, "Mah gears are turnin' in mah head about what happened today!"
"Yeah..." yawned Apple Bloom, as she laid down on the bed as well, "Twilight got banished for something she didn't do, Pinkie told me about a possible doppelganger roaming around, and yer grandmother and brother grounded me."
"Ya had it bad?" asked Applejack, "They ignored me for the rest of the day, all because ah tried to tell them Twilight was innocent! Ah'm just so mad right now!" She then heard her sister snoring and cuddling next to her, which diminished all of Applejack's anger. She then smiled.
"Love ya, sugarcube."
And then the two sisters snuggled and slept with each other that night.
Intermission: A Great and Powerful Return
Rainbow Dash was not having a good morning.
Everywhere she flew, there were ponies calling her a "traitor" and a "disgusting skunk with hooves". Rainbow Dash was angry, but she tried her best to not yell at them, and often took out her anger on nearby clouds. She was careful to make sure there was nopony in them, as she didn't want to hurt her adopted sister, Scootaloo in case she somehow got stuck in a cloud.
Just then, she saw a pegasus in a black and green jumpsuit and helmet with an orange-yellow tail zoom through her. "Oh my cloud," said Rainbow Dash. "Who was that pony?"
She zoomed through the skies to look for the pegasus that had just zipped through her, but then she stopped in front of a cloud. She hovered over the cloud and saw the pegasus lying down on it, her front hooves behind her head. The helmet was off, revealing the pegasus' teal fur and orange-yellow hair.
"Um, who are you?" asked the rainbow-haired pony.
"Name's Lightning Dust," said the pegasus.
"I'm Rainbow Dash, the fastest pegasus in the world!"
"Doubt that," scoffed Lightning Dust. "You should prove it."
"You're on!" smirked Rainbow Dash, as she and Lightning Dust gave a hoofbump to each other.
Spike was out in Ponyville, but he didn't see anypony.
"That's odd," said Spike to himself, "Where have they all gone? Is it some sort of pony holiday?"
"Spikey-Wikey!" shouted a voice that Spike knew all too well. He saw Rarity smiling at him.
"Spike, you should check this out!"
Spike decided to go with Rarity to see what was going on and gasped!
There was a stage in the middle of the Town Hall, and guess who was there? The Great and Powerful Trixie!
Spike looked surprised. "She's back? Even after all the things she did to you girls?"
"Yes," said Rarity, "but that darling was genuinely sorry for what she did before, and she's putting on an apology show in a few minutes."
Spike looked around at all the excited ponies, then he sighed. "I guess I'll trust her for now, but if she tries anything funny-"
"Don't worry about it, Spikey-Wikey," said Rarity, "we told her that too, and she understood and promised."
"Attention, everypony!"
The crowd stopped talking and turned to Trixie on the stage. "I, the Great and Apologetic Trixie, is going to put on a show, and also to apologize to everypony, especially Twilight, wherever she is in the crowd." Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie let out a quiet gasp. They forgot to tell her that Twilight was banished, but Trixie continued. "If you don't forgive me, then I understand, but if you do, sit back and relax!"
Over 85% of the ponies left the crowd when Trixie mentioned apologizing to Twilight, leaving only Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Spike, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Flitter and Cloudchaser in the crowd.
"Um, what now?" murmured Fluttershy.
"I guess Twilight doesn't accept my apology," said Trixie with regret, thinking that Twilight was among the ponies who left the crowd.
"Trixie, we have something to tell you," said Spike.
"I won!" shouted Rainbow Dash proudly.
"No fair!" sulked Lightning Dust, although she couldn't help but enjoy the race they had.
"So," said Rainbow Dash, "Wanna meet my friends? I can look for them by flying around Ponyville."
"Alright then," said Lightning Dust, as she followed the flying Rainbow Dash.
As the two ponies flew around, they noticed a stage in the center of the Town Hall, and some ponies in the crowd the rainbow-haired pony recognized.
"So, you're telling the Great and Apologetic Trixie that Twilight was banished from here for an attempted murder that she did not commit?"
"Yes, darling, and we aren't doing good without her."
"I can't believe that. I may have had a grudge towards Twilight once, but I would never kick her out of here. I feel even badder for the way I treated her in the past..."
"Hello!"
The ponies turned to see Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust.
"Hi, Rainbow Dash," said Fluttershy. "Who is that pony with you?"
"The name's Lightning Dust, and you are all Rainbow Dash's friends, right?"
"Yes, sugarcube," said Applejack, "Ah'm Applejack, and here's mah sister, Apple Bloom."
"Hello darling, the name's Rarity, and this is my sister, Sweetie Belle."
"Ummm, I'm Fluttershy."
"Hello! I'm Pinkie Pie!"
"Spike the Dragon, at your service."
"I'm Rainbow Dash's adopted sister, Scootaloo! We became sisters after she saved me from a waterfall!"
"I'm Flitter,"
"And I'm Cloudchaser!"
"The Great and Apologetic Trixie is pleasured to meet you!"
"Nice to meet all of you," said Lightning Dust, "you're all pretty cool! I heard some talk about a pony named Twilight though. I wonder what that was about."
"Basically," said Rainbow Dash, "Twilight was accused of attempted murder on my childhood friend, Derpy. Only me, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy and Spike were here to defend her. Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had school, Flitter and Cloudchaser were at flying practice, and Trixie didn't know about it until we told her. Speaking of which, what are you doing here, Trixie?"
"I came to apologize to all of you," said Trixie, "and I also wanted to apologize to Twilight, but sadly she's gone..."
Rainbow Dash felt bad. She placed a comforting hoof around Trixie.
"It's okay, we forgive you," she said, "And we all feel the same about Twilight. Hopefully, she'll be okay."
"Say, didn't I hear something about you two being in a reunion of some sort?" asked Sweetie Belle to Apple Bloom and Applejack.
"Well, we were banned from the reunion when we tried to tell our family that Twilight was innocent," said Apple Bloom.
"That sucks," said Rainbow Dash.
"Well," said Trixie, "since we're all friends now, I feel like I should postpone the show and get to know you all better, especially since I no longer hold a grudge."
"We should tell stories!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie.
"I'll start about the time Applejack saved me from those timberwolves," said Spike.
And throughout the whole day, the twelve ponies and the dragon talked about their heroic moments and adventures, as they had a fun time telling stories.
Queen Chrysalis was on her back laughing like a total maniac.
"THE PRINCESSES FELL FOR IT AND BANISHED HER! OH, THIS IS SO GOLD!"
Four changelings were watching the whole thing.
"I swear, she's been like that ever since yesterday," said one named Pharnyx.
"I have second thoughts about working with her," said another named Kevin.
"I never liked her," said a third named Thorax.
"Me neither," said a fourth named Ocellus, whose voice was one of shyness, like Fluttershy's.
The four changelings left their queen to be, as she kept laughing maniacally while on her back.
Author's Note
Judging by the title, you knew which Season 3 episode would be adapted in this chapter.
This chapter's beginning also adapts a few scenes from "Wonderbolts Academy", with a few elements from "The Washouts", a major difference being that Lightning Dust was never a bully or a jerk to begin with, though she still has her daredevil personality. Throughout the chapter, there are mentions of the events of a few Season 3 episodes and how they turned differently in this version, like Applejack mentioning an Apple Family Reunion without her and Apple Bloom, and the events of Sleepless in Ponyville along with Spike at Your Service happening before Twilight's banishment.
The appearances of Thorax, Pharnyx, Kevin and Ocellus also imply some foreshadowing to later episodes such as, "The Times They Are a Changeling", "To Change a Changeling", "Slice of Life", and "School Daze".
This chapter happens simultaneously with the events of Hidden Talents.
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Intermission: Discord, Grudges, and Washouts
"Go on, say it."
Reforming Discord had been the Mane 5's next challenge. They were originally supposed to go to the Crystal Empire for a visit, but after Twilight's banishment, they didn't want anything to do with Shining Armor and Cadence anymore. Due to that, Princess Celestia assigned them to reform Discord. Even though they didn't trust Princess Celestia anymore, they had to do the task they were assigned.
Celestia knew that if they reformed Discord, his magic could be used for good instead of evil, and she entrusted Fluttershy to help reform Discord.
Nopony except Fluttershy trusted Discord after what he had done before, but after Discord's chaotic antics, Angel warning everypony and Discord about the flood of Sweet Apple Acres, Fluttershy and Discord forming a friendship, and Discord using his powers for good by stopping the flood, he has now been reformed and was ready to be a good use for Equestria.
Now Discord was in front of Celestia. He took a few hesitant steps towards her, and then...
"Um, uh…all right, friendship is magic." admitted Discord.
"See?" said Fluttershy as she grasped his paw with a front hoof, "He can be a real sweetheart once you get to know him."
"Say," said Pinkie Pie, "why don't we have a hang-out with him to get to know him more?"
"That's a great idea!" exclaimed Fluttershy, "what do you think?"
Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Spike looked reluctant at first, but they knew that after Discord had stopped the flood and learned the value of friendship, they could trust him, "Alright, we'll hang out," said Rainbow Dash.
"Then it's settled!" said Pinkie. "Tomorrow, we'll have a hang-out with him by the lake!"
Things weren't going well for the other ponies. The Cakes were bullied and harassed by most of their customers, and Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake's aggressive sides began showing more. Whenever a pony who thought Twilight was guilty entered the bakery, they were met with toy blocks. The babies' parents tried to calm them down but to no avail.
The CMC were ignored at school by their classmates. Even Cheerilee wanted nothing to do with them either. The CMC wondered to each other why the grudge towards Twilight that the other ponies had was so bad they'd be rude to others just for defending her.
Flitter and Cloudchaser couldn't have even one minute without being mocked and bullied for believing that Twilight was innocent. At flying practice today, the other pegasi went too far with the name-calling. It got to a point that when Flitter was told that she would never have a good life in the future, Cloudchaser got so angry she gave a huge earful to all the pegasi. This ended with the two being kicked out of flying practice.
Trixie's stay was only temporary, but most of the ponies would throw trash at her and call her names. Trixie knew that her actions in the past were bad, but the ponies weren't being mean to her for just that, but also the fact that she regretted the way she treated Twilight, in which the other ponies still thought she had tried to kill Derpy, and hated her. Trixie hoped that one day, she would find Twilight and give out her most sincere apologies to the unicorn she had held a grudge towards.
As if the other ponies were being bad with their grudge towards Twilight, the mayor was surprisingly worse! She had given all the ponies tasks to place "Anti-Twilight" signs everywhere! The Mane 5, Spike, CMCs, Trixie, the Cakes, Flitter, Cloudchaser, Lightning Dust and Discord refused to do it, and ignored the mayor's threats to tell Celestia to banish them from Equestria as well. They just walked or flew away back to their homes, leaving only Trixie, Discord and Lightning Dust.
"I just wish I could apologize to her," moped Trixie, as she trotted through Ponyville, with Discord walking, and Lightning Dust flying. "I thought I was the Great and Powerful Trixie. Now I'm just the Useless and Pathetic Trixie."
"Trixie, we all do stupid things at some point in our lives," comforted Discord. "I took over Equestria many times in my life, before Fluttershy showed me friendship was magic."
"And I did a lot of reckless stunts at flight camp before I joined the Washouts," added Lightning Dust. "I was never allowed to try and join the Wonderbolts ever again after I knocked over several pegasi with my reckless flying and landed them in the hospital."
"Say, what's the Washouts?" asked Trixie curiously.
"It's my flying team I made," said Lightning Dust, "Ever since I got permanently banned from the Wonderbolts, I still wanted to achieve my dream somehow, so I found a couple of pegasi who couldn't join the Wonderbolts, and we made our own team of daredevils. I think I should introduce you to them right now, as I'm flying home anyway."
Rainbow Dash had just gotten a letter when she flew back to her home, and after she read it, she was very cross. The letter's message said that she would never be allowed to join the Wonderbolts.
"Those Wonderbolts!" she growled. "I'll never be allowed to pursue my lifelong dream, all over some silly grudge?!"
Rainbow Dash was so mad she flew out of her home, and kicked a cloud so hard, it burst into puffs!
"Remember, ponies. While we're amazingly awesome, the Washouts are highly trained professionals in protective fire-proof flight suits! Do NOT try this at home!"
"Lightning Dust, who are you talking to?" asked Trixie.
"I was just practicing my warning announcement for our next show," said Lightning Dust. "We do our stunt shows all over Equestria. We're staying here for the week."
"So, this is your team?" asked Discord.
He pointed to two pegasi ponies in Washout uniforms. The red runt, Short Fuse with yellow hair, had a short mane/tail styled to resemble flames, and a turn of the head identified him as a stallion with light brown eyes. The tall purple mare with a white mane, Rolling Thunder, had her mane as a pile of curls, and she had an X-shaped scar intersecting her left eye socket.
"Yes, this is my team," said Lightning Dust, meet two of my friends, Discord and Trixie!
"Nice to meet you," said Discord.
"The Great and Apologetic Trixie is honored to meet the Washouts."
"Hello, join the club." came a voice from Rolling Thunder, who had an Australian accent. She was met with silence.
The pegasus then kicked a bucket of water, and it landed upside down. "No, I mean literally. Join the club," she said, as she sat on the bucket. "We’re called the Washouts because we all used to be Wonderbolts until we washed out."
She sighed. "Name’s Rolling Thunder. I got booted out of Wonderbolt Academy ’cause of flagrant disregard for hazardous weather. If doing barrel rolls through nine hundred million volts of electricity in a raging thunderstorm is wrong, then I don’t want to be right."
"The Great and Apologetic Trixie has only just met you, but she thinks that this team is cool!"
"Same here, especially since I was trapped in stone for a long time."
"Heh!" said Rolling Thunder, "This here’s Short Fuse."
The red pegasus set his bottle aside and walked to Trixie, and offered a hoof, as Trixie was not a pegasus. "Oh, nice to meet you," he said, as the two shook hooves.
"The Great and Apologetic Trixie wants to know, what’s your story?"
With no warning, Short Fuse hovered in the unicorn's face. "ANGER ISSUES!! GET OFF MY BACK!!" he yelled, jumping to the top of the shrillness and volume scales.
This left Trixie cowed and huddling on the grass. "Uh... okay?" said the unicorn, "So…I'm assuming that the leader is Lightning Dust?"
"Yes, I'm the leader of the team. Only the most reckless ex-Wonderbolt of all time." said Lightning Dust.
"Well, it was nice meeting your team," said Discord. "I know it'll be just as good as the Wonderbolts."
"Maybe even better."
Trixie, Discord, Lightning Dust, Short Fuse, and Rolling Thunder turned to see Rainbow Dash flying near them, and then she landed.
"Those Wonderbolts didn't let me join, all because they think Twilight was the one who committed a murder and they didn't accept the fact that I thought Twilight was framed!"
"So, that was her name?" said Short Fuse.
"Seems like it," said Rolling Thunder.
"Who are these two?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"Allow me to introduce you to my teammates," said Lightning Dust, "their names are Short Fuse and Rolling Thunder."
"Well," said Rainbow Dash, "after being kicked out, I really feel like joining your team. What do you say?"
Lightning Dust though for a minute. "Sure, why not? After all, we're all a team of pegasi who got kicked out of the Wonderbolts."
"Cool!" shouted Rainbow Dash. "Just don't hurt yourselves too bad, okay?"
"Um, sure?" said Lightning Dust.
"That's her way to show she cares," said Trixie.
"I guess we'll just leave then," said Discord, and he and Trixie left, but not without saying goodbye to the pegasi.
Lightning Dust then turned to Rainbow Dash. "Want to be roommates for the night?"
"Heck yeah!"
Author's Note
Before you comment stuff about RainbowDust, they're only going to be roommates as friends, not as a ship or have romantic feelings, okay???
The beginning references "Keep Calm and Flutter On". Basically, the events of that episode don't change that much, even without Twilight's presence. I also referenced "Games Ponies Play", where I mentioned the Mane 5 originally being supposed to go to the Crystal Empire.
I also expanded on this AU's version of Lightning Dust, and her team of Washouts a bit. Basically, the team is made up of ponies who failed to join the Wonderbolts, but still wanted to pursue their dreams. I kept their daredevil aspect from canon, but I didn't make them antagonists like in canon.
This chapter happens simultaneously with the events of The Bomb Goes Boom.
Intermission: A Hang-Out?
The rumor of Twilight attempting to murder Derpy Hooves spread all over Equestria. There were mixed feelings on the subject: some ponies were heartbroken and thought Twilight was framed; others figured Equestria would be better off without her. There were a few odd bits about that, like some ponies who were usually kind and forgiving, thought Twilight would actually attempt murder, and a few of the tougher and rude ones believed that Twilight was innocent. One of them was a yellow unicorn with a red and yellow mane and tail named Sunset Shimmer, who was currently locked up in jail after she nearly destroyed all of Canterlot with her power.
"I can't believe I'm the one saying this, but how could that Celestia stoop so low!" she roared. "It's obvious the unicorn was framed, because I heard stories about her and her adventures, and the white piece of trash didn't even consider asking what had happened! After all, she was the one who told me, during that Flash Sentry incident, that it was wrong to jump to conclusions before knowing the truth, which makes her a hypocrite! That's infuriating, especially when she's compared to me and I'm the one who nearly destroyed Canterlot several years ago. The princess should be ashamed of herself."
Rainbow Dash had just woken up from last night's sleep. She then turned to see Lightning Dust, who had also woken up. "Oh, morning," said Rainbow Dash.
"Morning to you too," said Lightning Dust. "Are you ready to become a Washout today?"
Rainbow thought hard. "Truth is, sadly I don't feel like joining your team."
Lightning Dust gasped. "but why?"
"Well, even though I'm a pretty fast pegasus, I know when I'm going too far, and I know when being reckless crosses the line. But, that doesn't mean you need to cancel your shows. Maybe you and your teammates can try and just tone it down just a little bit, and all the fans would still enjoy your shows and-"
"So," growled Lightning Dust. "We become good friends, we have a nice chat, I offer you to sleep with me for the night, and this is how you return the favor?! By not joining my team?!"
"Look," said Rainbow Dash, "I'm just trying to make things safer for you and your team-"
"If that's how you think of me," shouted Lightning Dust, "then fine! I wish I was never your friend! In fact, your princess might be right! Twilight is a murderer!" and then she kicked Rainbow Dash out of her house.
Rainbow Dash just sat there with tears in her eyes. Her new friend just betrayed her. And she realized something. Lightning Dust''s nice attitude was only an act to get others to join her team. In reality, she was just as cruel and reckless as she had been just now.
"Fine!" Rainbow Dash growled to herself. "I don't need her! She was only taking advantage of me the whole time so that she could make me join her team! Who needs them anyway? I don't even need to be part of a stupid flying team in order to succeed in life!"
Discord had just met up with Fluttershy and Spike. The two, along with Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash are going to go to the lake today to hang out with him and get to know him better.
"Oh hey, Discord," said Spike.
"How are you today?" asked Fluttershy
"Hey, Spike, hey Flutters," said the draconequus, which made the pegasus briefly blush at the nickname, but he didn't notice. "I'm doing good today."
Just then Rarity and Applejack arrived. Applejack had a beach ball and a beach chair on her, and Rarity had her beach chair, umbrella, and blanket.
"Hey, darling," said Rarity.
"Howdy," said Applejack.
"Hey, Applejack. Hey, Rarity," Discord responded.
"So, Pinkie Pie will be waiting for us at the lake. She's going to be setting up the party there," said Applejack to the others.
"Rainbow Dash should be here in a few minutes or so," Spike said. "It doesn't take her long to arrive."
After a few minutes, Rainbow Dash arrived, but something was different. she looked depressed with her head down. The girls, Spike and Discord noticed this.
"Hey, Rainbow Dash."
"Something wrong?"
"Are you okay?"
"What's wrong?"
"Why are you sad?"
As soon as Rainbow Dash lifted her head up, everypony gasped. Her mane was messed up, she was crying, there were many tear stains on her eyes, and she looked terrible.
"Girls, me and Lightning Dust had a feud. Her nice behavior was just an act for me to join her team of Washouts, but I refused to join her team, because of all the crazy reckless stunts that could put lives at risk, but when I tried suggesting how to tone things down, she yelled at me, and said that she wished I was never her friend! And she literally admitted out loud that she's starting to believe that the princesses were right about Twilight being a murderer!" This caused the five to let out a gasp.
"She what?!"
"Why that little..."
"How dare she?!"
"She fooled all of us!"
"I thought she was my friend."
"Same here," said Rainbow Dash. "But, she wasn't." and then the pegasus began sobbing again.
"You poor darling," said Rarity.
"She ain't what we thought she was," said Applejack, who hugged Rainbow Dash. Followed by Fluttershy, then Rarity, then Spike. The five shared a group hug for a while until Discord snapped his claw, which made a box of tissues appear so that Rainbow Dash could use to dry her tears. After a few minutes of Rainbow Dash calming down, the gang decided to head to the lake now for the hang-out.
At the lake, Discord, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Spike arrived. But what they saw was not what they had expected at all.
They saw lots of angry ponies, including some familiar faces like Lightning Dust, her Washouts team, the Mayor, the Wonderbolts, Big Macintosh, Granny Smith, "Surf", "Turf", and several others. Pinkie had just got the food ready when she bumped into Lightning Dust, making the pegasus look behind.
"Weirdo," she sneered.
"I told you, no blocking the path!" snapped Pinkie. "I thought you were nice! And I was going to have a hang-out with my friends, and you all suddenly show up and block every path! How did you all even get here?!" The pegasus angrily walked off.
"Hello, friends!" shouted the pink mare, her usual sweet voice returning. "I've got a bit of a situation here!"
"Ah can tell," said Applejack. "We didn't know this was going happen..."
"I've been trying to get them out of here," sighed Pinkie. "But no matter how hard I try, they don't listen."
Just then, the ponies saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders arrive.
"What in Equestria?!" cried Sweetie Belle.
"What happened?" asked Apple Bloom.
"Rude ponies," sighed the Mane 5, Spike and Discord together.
"Ever since Twilight was banished," said Pinkie, "They've been very disrespectful to me, my friends, and my workmates recently."
It wasn't long before the crusaders got an explanation about what happened, which involved Lightning Dust telling everypony else about the hang-out at the lake, and the CMC led the rude ponies out of the lake after some threatening. The Mane 5, Spike, and Discord were pleased that they were able to round up everypony and lead them away.
"Hey, squirt," smiled Rainbow Dash, "how was your day before you three found us?"
"It was okay, thanks, sis," replied Scootaloo. "We still didn't get our cutie marks, and we noticed everypony was disappearing. How have you been?"
"Lightning Dust told everypony about our planned hang-out," explained Spike. "These ponies didn't exactly know the meaning of 'respect'." He and Scootaloo looked over to see Sweetie Belle leading Sweetie Drops, Lyra, Octavia, Vinyl Scratch and Berry Punch away from the lake. The pegasus filly was quite cross with Lightning Dust, and wasn't afraid to speak her mind.
"Nopony treats my friends, especially my sister, like that and gets away with it!" she snarled. "I bet your fans won't be impressed with your behavior at all!"
"That serves her right," said Pinkie Pie.
After a few minutes, everypony else was gone, leaving only the Mane 5, Spike and Discord. Pinkie piped up, "Well, maybe we can have our hang-out now, even if it is late?"
"I'd love that," smiled Fluttershy. "At least we can get to know Discord better now. But what will you do first?"
The pegasus got her answer when she saw lots of decorations and a beach-themed party, including a table with all sorts of foods, desserts, and drinks, a volleyball net set up at the side of the lake, lounge floaties in the lake, a hot tub for Spike, and pool toys for the lake.
"Come on, everypony!" shouted Pinkie. "Let's hang-out!"
As Applejack and Rarity placed their beach chairs on the side, Spike got into his hot tub and relaxed. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy grabbed a drink and some snacks Pinkie placed on the table. Discord spawned a cannon and then shot himself into the lake.
Even though the seven were having fun with each other at the lake, Chrysalis was watching everything from a bush.
"Those fools may be enjoying themselves for now, but they'll be in for a big surprise tomorrow!"
The changeling queen laughed to herself, but not too loud as she would have been found out and spotted if she did laugh too loud.
Author's Note
We'll see more about Sunset's backstory in later chapters. Her mentioning the events of her nearly destroying Canterlot is a reference to "Equestria Girls", although the events happened differently.
Also, the tension-building increases, and Lightning Dust's true colors are revealed! Dun dun dun!
I was also crying when writing this chapter.
This chapter happens simultaneously with the events of Not the Nuts!
Intermission: Bombing the Bakery
The Mane 5, Spike and Discord had a great time at their hang-out yesterday, but today would become serious.
As Spike and the Crusaders were busy pet-sitting, and Discord was in his chaos dimension, this left only the Mane 5. They saw Trixie.
"Oh hey Trixie," said Rainbow Dash.
"What brings you here, darling?" asked Rarity.
"The Great and Apologetic Trixie wants to tell you five that she'll be leaving Ponyville today." This surprised everypony except Pinkie.
"I always knew your visits are temporary," said the pink mare, "But why are you leaving this time?"
"To look for Twilight. And apologize to her."
"Well, good luck on your search," said Fluttershy.
"I'm sure she'll forgive ya," said Applejack.
"Thanks, you five," Trixie smiled gratefully. "'l'll visit again when I've finally found her!" And then the blue unicorn made her leave.
"Well, I'll miss her!" shouted Pinkie.
"That darling has surely improved ever since the first time we met her," said Rarity.
"She's truly changed," said Applejack.
The five ponies walked around Ponyville. They were going to go to Sugarcube Corner to buy some treats and see how the Cakes were doing. They saw Flitter and Cloudchaser talking to each other.
"I say, sis," said Flitter, "It was exciting to meet Daring Do!"
"Same here," agreed Cloudchaser, "It was fun battling all these henchponies and rescuing her!"
"Who knew Daring Do herself was the author of these books the whole time?" said Flitter.
Rainbow Dash was jealous that the pegasus sisters got to meet Daring Do in real life and not her, but she sucked it up and continued walking with her friends for a few more minutes.
At last, Rarity broke the silence.
"Darlings, I think we're almost-"
Just then, the five heard an explosion and some crying. Pinkie recognized the crying all too well.
"It's the Cakes!" shouted Pinkie Pie. "Follow me!"
She and her friends ran towards where Sugarcube Corner once was. It had been blown up and was in smoke and flames, Mr. and Mrs. Cake were luckily uninjured and were trying to comfort their two crying babies.
"Ssh, don't cry."
"We're alright, we're alright."
"Oh my! What happened here?" asked a worried Fluttershy.
"Somepony bombed our bakery," said Mr. Cake.
"Everything was on fire," said Mrs. Cake.
"Do you know who bombed Sugarcube Corner?" asked Pinkie.
"All I saw," answered Mr. Cake, "was a lavender pegasus with a pink bow, and she had green eyes."
Pinkie knew what this meant. "Queen Chrysalis has been pretending to be Flitter so that she could bomb Sugarcube Corner!"
But unfortunately for Flitter, she was being surrounded by a bunch of angry ponies. Cloudchaser was trying to defend Flitter.
"You bombed Sugarcube Corner!" yelled Lyra.
"Where will we eat delicious treats now?" wailed Berry Punch.
"Everypony, shut up!" yelled Cloudchaser angrily. "My sister would never do such a thing! If she did, she would have told me!"
"My sister's right!" yelled Flitter, "I'm-"
"Don't act all ignorant, you bomber!" yelled Golden Harvest.
"You're just as bad as Twilight was when she tried to murder Derpy!" screamed Shoeshine. But this enraged Cloudchaser even more. She took a deep breath...
"HOW DARE YOU!"
This stopped the angry crowd, and attracted the Mane 5, along with the Cakes to the scene.
"You should all be ashamed of yourselves! Flitter is most definitely innocent!"
"Explain the bombing at Sugarcube Corner then!" yelled Dr. Whooves.
"That-"
"-was a doppelganger!" interrupted Pinkie. "The Cakes told me that their bomber was a lavender pegasus with a pink bow, like how Flitter is, but then they said that the bomber had green eyes! Flitter does not have green eyes!"
"Have I told you all already that color changing contacts exist?!" yelled a pony from the crowd. The crowd began roaring again. Things couldn't get worse.
But they did.
Celestia and Luna appeared in the scene.
"Everypony, settle down!" said Celestia. And they did.
"Flitter and Cloudchaser," boomed Celestia, "Flitter, you're guilty for bombing Sugarcube Corner, and Cloudchaser, you're guilty for trying to justify her actions. Let's have a vote to see what the outcome will be. For those who believe Flitter and Cloudchaser are innoc-"
Just then the ponies saw Spike, the CMC and Discord chasing after the pets.
"Get back here!" yelled Scootaloo.
"I know you all think Twilight is guilty, in which she's not," said Spike, "but you don't have to disobey every command we give you!"
"Oh my," said Fluttershy, "What's happening here?"
"Those pets aren't listening to even the most simple order we give," grumbled Discord. "They sure hold a huge grudge towards Twilight, like most of these ponies here do."
"Shut up, Chaotic!"
Discord, Spike and the CMCs turned to see the crowd of ponies yelling at Flitter and Cloudchaser.
"What's happening here?" asked Sweetie Belle.
"The ponies are being jerks and framing Flitter for a bombing," said Applejack.
Apple Bloom swore she saw Big Macintosh and Granny Smith in the crowd. But then Luna spoke up.
"Settle down. As Celestia was saying, We'll have a vote to see what the outcome will be. For those who believe Flitter and Cloudchaser are innocent, raise your hooves." Only Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Spike, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Discord, Mr. and Mrs. Cake, Pound Cake, and Pumpkin Cake raised their hooves. (or hands in Spike and Discord's case) The fact that the Cakes believed Flitter and Cloudchaser to be innocent was a surprise to all the ponies who saw these two pegasi as guilty.
"Now, if you believe Flitter and Cloudchaser are guilty, raise your hooves." Everypony else raised their hooves, outnumbering those who thought Flitter and Cloudchaser were innocent.
"Flitter and Cloudchaser, you two are now seen as guilty. Flitter for bombing Sugarcube Corner, and Cloudchaser for justifying her act. You two will be banished from Equestria like we did to Twilight, and if we hear that you two have returned, you two will face harder and worse consequences." Celestia said.
The two pegasi didn't want to argue with the princesses, so they asked the two to banish them already. Celestia shot a spell at the two pegasi, and teleported them somewhere outside Equestria. They managed to catch a glimpse of the Mane 5, Spike, the CMC, Discord, and the Cakes looking at them sadly.
In a store, there were several plants in pots. They were stuck in cages, and some of the cages were hanging. The plants all looked pained, bruised, and a few of them looked terrible.
A cream-colored unicorn with a red and purple mane and tail entered the store. The unicorn had glasses and a sweater on that made her look nerdier. She saw the owner of the store, who was a pink earth pony with a cyan and white mane.
"So," said the owner. "Welcome to The Lotus n Flora Store! How many plants do you want to buy? One? Or two? Maybe all of them?"
The unicorn looked at the plants. They were all beaten up and were begging to be bought for a new owner.
"Hmmm," the unicorn thought for a few minutes. She was suspicious of the owner, and wondered why all the plants looked beat up, but she decided not to say anything out of respect.
"I'll choose the cabbage," said the unicorn finally, as she pointed to a green cabbage with darker green eyebrows. He had a catapult on the back, with the basket containing a smaller cabbage.
"That'll be 4 bits," said the earth pony.
After the unicorn paid her 4 bits and the owner let the cabbage catapult out of the cage. The unicorn waved a goodbye to the owner, and she walked off.
As she was walking back to her home, the unicorn began to frown and said something to herself.
"Remember, Twilight, I'm only doing this for your safety during the zombie apocalypse. Even though I'm still mad at you for not showing up at my party, I definitely don't want you dead. Don't expect me to be forgiving towards you if we cross paths again."
Author's Note
This chapter happens simultaneously with the events of Nutty Bowling.
In this AU, Flitter and Cloudchaser met Daring Do in person instead of the Mane 6. I do plan a future rewrite of "Daring Don't" alongside a rewrite of some of the other Season 4 episodes in the future. Just don't ask me when, please?
Also, Chrysalis frames an innocent pony once again, and gets two ponies banished.
The ending scene is the POV from a certain unicorn after the bowling battle from "Nutty Bowling". Judging by the last scene, you'll know who it is.
Will Flitter and Cloudchaser end up in Neighborville? Will Zomboss have new tricks up his sleeve? Is Twilight going to make new friends? What's going on inside The Lotus n Flora Store?
Find out in the next chapter!
Front Yard - Day 6: Pulting it to Use
"Alright zombies," said Dr. Zomboss to his zombies, "Today, we're back to attacking the plants, Dave and that purple unicorn again. I've spent the last few days coming up with a plan."
"Boss," said Basic, "What's the plan?"
"I stole all these shields from the store!" laughed Dr. Zomboss, pointing to eight shields. "Basic, Purple, Nurp, Crazy, Untote, Elmore, Watterson and Boot, you will be carrying these shields, so that the plants will have a hard time going through you!"
The zombie boss laughed some more until he coughed. "Anyways, we have two new recruits today. Meet Vaulty and Sprinty!"
Two zombies in red tanktops came to the scene. They looked athletic. Both zombies had yellow hair, and a blue headband.
"Hi, I'm Vaulty," said one of the zombies, "and this is my cousin, Sprinty. We jump over plants."
"Excellent," laughed Zomboss. "Now go attack!"
"Welcome to the team."
"Thanks," said the cabbage catapult, who was sitting on the lawn with the other plants. The lawn now had two lanes. "The name's Cabbage-pult and I can throw cabbages that go over shields."
"How did you get here anyways?" wondered Twilight. "You weren't a seed packet from a battle."
"I was a plant in a store along with many others, but we were often abused by our owner, who was a pink pony with a cyan mane and tail. I swore her name was Winter Lotus. Luckily, a unicorn rescued me after she paid 4 bits. I think her name was Moondancer or something."
The name surprised Twilight. She hadn't heard that name in a long time. She began having a memory.
At Canterlot, Twilight was just walking with her books in saddlebags. Just then, she saw three unicorns. Their names were Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, and Minuette.
"Moondancer is having a little get-together in the west castle courtyard," said Twinkleshine. "You want to come? "
Back then, Twilight was into books and studies and valued them over friends.
"Oh, sorry, girls." said the purple unicorn, as she was eyeing her bags. "I got a lot of studying to catch up on." She gave the trio a big grin and galloped off, much to the annoyance of the three unicorns.
"Does that pony do anything except study?" sighed Twinkleshine, "I think she’s more interested in books than friends."
Twilight felt terrible. "I've been such a bad friend!" she wailed. "I've gotta make it up to her!" and then the purple unicorn trotted off leaving only the plants on the lawn under the eye of Dave.
"The zombies are coming!"
"Well, I guess they're back at it again," said Peashooter, as he began shooting Basic. But Basic grabbed a shield, which stopped all the peas.
"Let me try!" yelled Sunflower, as she began shooting a sun beam at the shield, but the shield took no damage. "But how?!" yelled the flower.
Just then Cherry Bomb jumped down and exploded themselves.
CHA-BOOF!
Basic and his shield were sent flying into the air.
Zomboss was aghast. "Vaulty! Sprinty! Go now!"
The two athletic zombies were running like crazy. Just then they both vaulted over Wall-nut and Single Cherry. (Vaulty vaulted over Wall-nut, and Sprinty vaulted over Single Cherry)
Both zombies landed and began walking normally. This gave Peashooter and Cabbage-pult time to shoot these two down.
Twilight was making her way to Moondancer's house. She saw the unicorn in a cottage, which was old and broken down, had dead grass and trees, broken windows, grass growing from the roof, and there was a dead and dried up tree in the yard.
“From the looks of this place, it looks like no one has really lived here at all.” Twilight dryly responded after looking at the cottage.
Twilight knocked on the door but got no reply. She knocked on the door again but accidentally punctured a hole into it, as it was made from weak wood. The unicorn peeked through the hole to see if Moondancer was home or not, but then the door creaked open, and she was immediately faced with a pair of eyes causing her to gasp in surprise seeing them.
From the shadows, a cream-colored unicorn with a red and purple mane and tail came out. She was wearing a sweater and glasses and looked like she hadn't left home for a very long time.
“Moondancer?” Twilight asked with a smile. But she was met with an aggravated and cranky response.
“What do you want? I'm trying to study.” But this didn't make Twilight upset.
“It's me! Your old friend Twilight!” Twilight replied and greeted her.
“Ugh!” groaned Moondancer very uninterested as she slammed the door shut on the purple unicorn.
"That went well."
Conehead and Armless were going next. But as they didn't have shields, they were taken down easily, even with Conehead's roadcone on his head serving as an armor.
Caleb was next. He suddenly stepped on something and looked down.
"UH OH!"
SPUDOW!
Caleb had stepped on Potato Mine, and what was left of him was now all over the lawn.
Twin Sunflower suddenly saw the huge wave of zombies approaching them and their fellow plants.
"Oh no!" yelled the left head. "They all have shields!"
"What will we do?" said the right head.
"I'll take care of them!" said Cabbage-pult. "My projectiles can go over shields!"
So he did. The cabbages flew over the shields and hit the zombies. Purple was down. Then Nurp. Crazy tried to brave through the cabbage, but he got a cabbage in the eye. Untote, Elmore, Watterson and Boot were not on Cabbage-pult's lane, so he couldn't get through them, but guess who was on these four zombies' lane?
"Um, I've got a bad feeling about this plant!" said Boot.
"Oh quit being a crybaby and eat him already!" yelled Untote.
So the four zombies ate through Single Cherry, but all of a sudden...
CHA-BOOF!
The four zombies were now a pile of ash, and the damaged shields were laying where they once were.
"THERE'S A CABBAGE IN MY EYE!" wailed Crazy, who was running around in circles like a total baby. He had forgotten about his shield, which was lying on the grass. This gave Peashooter a perfect opportunity.
Twilight was walking sadly. She felt terrible for the way she acted in the past. She knew Moondancer would never forgive her for not showing up at her party. She really was a bad friend.
Just then she heard two shooting noises, followed by a head popping off. She raced back to her house and saw what happened.
There were a bunch of dead zombies parts and shields all over the place. Peashooter was taking a deep breath as Crazy's headless body stumbled around for a few seconds, then fell over.
"We won!" yelled Twin Sunflower's right head.
"I knew we would win," said Cabbage-pult.
"Of course we would! We've fought them before!" replied Wall-nut.
"Wall-nut's right," agreed Sunflower. "No matter how hard fighting these zombies are, we'll always find a way."
"I wish the same could be said for me and Moondancer..."
The plants turned to see Twilight.
"I ran off to make amends with her, but she didn't seem interested at all. I've been such a terrible friend." The unicorn began walking back into the house.
“I really messed this one up." she moped to herself, "That party was everything to her. I can only imagine what it must've felt like when I didn't show up."
“If there was only a way to undo the damage...“
"Those shields didn't work?!" yelled Zomboss angrily. He grabbed a phone and began talking.
"Hello?"
"Why hello!" said a mysterious voice from the other end of the phone, "It's Zomboss, my best customer!"
"I know that, but I need some new zombies! Have you got any zombies with tough armor?"
"We've got a zombie with a bucket on his head."
"Perfect. How much?"
"5 bits. And he will arrive in two days."
"I'll pay the bits when you arrive with the zombie, okay?"
"Sure."
And then the phone chat ended.
"Huh? Where am I? The last thing I remember was sacrificing myself to freeze that pesky zombie. I must have been in that seed packet for a long time."
A blue frozen lettuce looked around where she was. She saw a writing on the wall that said "Lotus n Flora store", and a few plants tied up and blindfolded.
"Meow?"
"Bonk Choy. Wanna punch."
"Money money money money money"
She then heard some screaming and angry yelling.
"I'm sorry, Winter Lotus!"
"Sorry does not cut it! You have proved your worthlessness just now, Scaredy-shroom. Now time to die!"
The lettuce peeked to see what was going on but shut her eyes when she heard some scared screaming, and some blending sounds. Then she saw a pink earth pony with a cyan and blue mane drink the juice she had just made out of the mushroom.
"What a coward." said the earth pony. Just then she saw the lettuce. "Iceberg Lettuce! Why are you peeking?! That does it! Time to blend-" she saw the lettuce making a cute face. Even though Iceberg was annoyed about her cute-looking eyes that she was born with, they were useful in some situations.
"Fine!" grumbled the earth pony. "You get one more chance."
Iceberg Lettuce silently cheered. Now she had to tell the other plants of what was truly going on.
"The Lotus n Flora Store will be exposed someday," she muttered to herself. "That Winter Lotus isn't getting away with all the plant abuse she's putting us through!"
Author's Note
Amending Fences vibes, anybody?
Also, who is supplying all the zombies to Zomboss? Will we ever see what happened to Flitter and Cloudchaser? Will Moondancer forgive Twilight? Will Iceberg Lettuce succeed in exposing Winter Lotus?
Find out in the next chapter!
Front Yard - Day 7: Chill Out
"Guys, can you believe it?"
Peashooter was hopping around the house, and was very excited.
"What's got into him?" asked Single Cherry.
"Apparently, he got a letter from his sister that she's returning home from Antarctica right now," said Sunflower.
"Can't really blame him," shrugged Twilight, "It's his sister that's returning! He might have not seen her for a long time!"
Just then, the doorbell rang. Peashooter opened the door and saw Snow Pea, who looked like him, but blue, cold and female. She even had ice crystals growing on her back!
"Snow Pea!" said Peashooter, hugging his sister, "I missed you! You're looking just as cool as ever!"
"Give the ice puns a break, will you?" said Snow Pea, who rolled her eyes, "But yeah, I missed you too."
"What did you do in Antarctica?" asked Peashooter.
"I helped stop a bunch of zombies there," said Snow Pea, "I was hailed a hero there, and when I left, everypony there said their goodbyes and farewells."
"Sounds like quite the adventure," said Wall-nut. He, Twilight, Dave and the other plants overheard the chat the two peashooters were having.
"Who are you?" asked Snow Pea to Twilight. "I've never seen you before."
"The name's Twilight Sparkle," said the purple unicorn.
"Um, plants?" said Dave. "I hate to interrupt, but the zombies are coming!"
The plants and Twilight raced out onto the lawn, which now had three lanes, and positioned themselves on where they felt most comfortable attacking.
"Alright, my zombies," said Dr. Zomboss, "You are all going to attack the plants again."
"I have one question," said Purple. "Where's Conehead?"
"Sorry I'm late," said Conehead, who just walked into the lab. "But I found this zombie wandering around here." Just then, a zombie with a grass skirt and a grass crown walked up. Apart from those, he was wearing nothing else.
"Hi!" shouted the new zombie. "My name's Grass Skirt Zombie, but you can just call me Grassy for short! I can camouflage into the grass so that the plants don't see me!"
"That name is stupid!" shouted Dr. Zomboss. "You stole that from jacknjellify's Battle for BFD-"
"Shut up!" yelled Grassy. "I like that name! And stop breaking the fourth wall!"
Zomboss knew he couldn't win this one. "Just go attack already."
Untote was the first zombie to come. Unsurprisingly, he was met by peas and magic beams. Then Caleb came next.
"Time to chill things out!" shouted Snow Pea, and she shot a frozen pea at Caleb.
"What's happening?" moaned Caleb slowly. "Why am I so slow all of a sudden?" Just then he stepped on something.
"Hello!" came the voice of Potato Mine. Caleb looked down. "Oh, just my luc-"
SPUDOW!
"My turn, my turn!" said Sprinty as he ran and was pelted with cabbages. He was about to jump over Single Cherry, when a cabbage hit his head and snapped it off. The now-headless zombie fell onto the ground.
"A HUGE WAVE OF ZOMBIES IS APPROACHING!"
Nurp, Boot, Elmore, Crazy, and Conehead began marching towards the plants. However, Cherry Bomb was ready.
"Let's explodonate."
And they threw themselves into the five zombies...
CHA-BOOF!
What used to be five zombies was now a pile of ash. Just then Vaulty came running as Grassy tried to camouflage himself and sneak through the plants.
"You do realize we're not dumb, right?" said Twin Sunflower's right head, who saw Grassy's attempts to camouflage himself.
"Uh-" the zombie was immediately disintegrated by a sun laser from the mouth of Twin Sunflower's right head.
Vaulty had jumped over Single Cherry, but then he was frozen by Snow Pea's peas.
"Take this!" yelled Snow Pea as she shot some more frozen peas. "And take that!"
"Must... not... give... up..." struggled Vaulty, as he was becoming more and more slower, but at last he couldn't take it anymore, "I GIVE UP!" he yelled as he fell to the ground in defeat.
"ANOTHER HUGE WAVE OF ZOMBIES IS APPROACHING! FINAL WAVE!"
Purple, Armless, Watterson, and Basic came as the final wave. Since Cherry Bomb was still recharging, the plants had to take down the four zombies without any explosives. Even when Potato Mine was replanted, he was only able to take out Purple.
"Come here, bite me!" said Single Cherry. Watterson and Basic decided to go and eat through him, unaware that it was a trap.
As Armless died from the excess amounts of peas and magic beams he was hit by, Watterson and Basic were taking care of Single Cherry, but Single Cherry smirked to himself when the zombies weren't looking. "They fell for it!" he thought to himself.
CHA-BOOF!
The two zombies had now become a pile of ash. Had they been smarter, they might have gotten the brains.
"Hey, look!" shouted Twilight. "A seed packet!"
She planted the seed packet and poured water on it. All of a sudden, a purple stem with green leaves at the bottom popped up, then a head sprouted from the neck! The head looked like a venus flytrap, and like the stem, the head was purple, and around the neck were some leaves. The new plant even had spikes on top of it!
"Hello, I'm Chomper!" said the new plant, "I specialize in eating zombies! I just sneak behind them and eat them up!"
Twilight was weirded out by what Chomper had just said. She had heard of eating dead animals, but eating a live zombie? "Doesn't that sound disgusting?" she asked.
"Nope! They taste delicious!"
"Um, okay?" said the unicorn, who still found it weird to eat something as disgusting as live zombies.
"Hey," said Dave, who just walked out of the house, "I've seen many Chompers before in my life, but how come you have eyes unlike the other ones I've seen?"
"Mutation!" shouted Chomper.
"Oh, okay then," said Dave.
Iceberg Lettuce knew she had to be careful. She had to be quiet, otherwise Winter Lotus would find out what she was doing.
She snuck into Winter Lotus' room, which the earth pony has left open by mistake when she was going out to clean the store, as it had dust all over some places.
Iceberg had just entered, when she saw a horrifying sight.
Dead plants were everywhere!
Iceberg saw several dead rotting remains of some plants, including a burnt tree stump, a blue mushroom with ice crystals on it, a pea pod, some kelp, the cracked remains of a red walnut, and she even saw what was left of Scaredy-shroom sitting in a mug.
Iceberg then saw a paper taped onto a wall. The paper said:
To-kill list:
~~Cabbage-pult~~
Iceberg Lettuce
Gold Magnet
Bonk Choy
Cattail
Threepeater
Blover
Doom-shroom
Small Pepper
Cactus
Starfruit
Lightning Reed
Hypno-shroom
Scaredy-shroom ✓
Ice-shroom ✓
Grave Buster ✓
Tangle Kelp ✓
Spikeweed ✓
Spikerock ✓
Plantern ✓
Torchwood ✓
Pea Pod ✓
Sea-shroom ✓
Explode-O-Nut✓
Power Lily ✓
P.S. - If you're reading this, you're going to die next.
Iceberg Lettuce was shocked. This was Winter Lotus' intention all along?! To have all of plantkind killed?! She definitely needed to warn the other plants now.
Using a stool to make it easier for her to reach, she slowly ripped the tape off the wall. She grabbed the paper, went back onto the floor, and quietly went out of the door.
It was lucky that Iceberg had just left the scene, because Winter Lotus showed up. She was done cleaning up the store and went back into her room to formulate the next plant she was going to kill. But as soon as she entered, she noticed her "To-kill list" was gone!
Somewhere at the zombie headquarters, Zomboss was drawing some plans for an experiment he would use for the ultimate battle, when he swore he heard an angry scream. He ignored it and continued writing the plan down on the paper.
"I just need to steal the DNA of that Peashooter and his sister," said the zombie boss quietly to himself, "and then I mix them with a zombie's DNA, and we'll have a plant-zombie hybrid!"
Winter Lotus was furious. So furious, you couldn't even describe how furious she was.
"Whoever stole my list, shall be the next one to die! Nobody exposes my plans and gets away with it! Whoever did this shall be punished! You hear me?! Punished!"
“I had no idea that party was so important to her. I've been a terrible friend...”
Twilight went out of the house. It was night time outside, but that didn't stop the unicorn from singing.
"I have to find a way, to make this all okay." "I can't believe this small mistake, could've caused so much heartache..."
"Oh why, oh why?"
"Losing promise, I don't know what to do." "Seeking answers, I fear I won't get through to you..."
"Oh why, oh why?"
"Oh, Moondancer... What have I done?"
Author's Note
Yes, Snow Pea is a female in my headcanon. Don't judge me!
Also, if you're wondering who Grass Skirt Zombie is, he is a fan-made zombie that somehow got a plush toy of him. He is from the fake PvZ 2 leaks.
https://pvzplush.fandom.com/wiki/Grass_Skirt_Zombie
Chomper having eyes in this series is a reference to his plush toy, which has eyes, despite him not having eyes in the game.
Front Yard - Day 8: Plant Food for Thought
"Welcome to The Almost Everything Store, and my name is Starlight Glimmer, what's yours, and how can I help you?"
"My name's Crazy Dave, but you can call me Crazy Dave," said Dave, who was at a store and talking to a unicorn pony, who had pink fur, and a purple and teal mane and tail. She was helping out as a volunteer at the store. "I want to purchase some Plant Food. I heard that they were just made last week and were stocked yesterday, and I want to use it to help my plant army."
"Well, we only have one bag of it left," said the unicorn.
"What happened?"
"Some zombies raided the store and took every bag, but they dropped one without noticing it."
"Well, I want to buy it. How many bits?"
"10 bits."
"Sure, show me it please."
The unicorn led Dave to where the last bag of Plant Food was. Dave thanked the unicorn and bought the bag. He then went to the cashier, paid the ten bits, thanked the cashier as well, and walked out of the store.
"Say," said Zomboss to the other zombies, "maybe we should all go out all at once?"
"That might work," said Purple.
"Let's do it then," said Grassy.
The ten plants were just chilling out on the lawn.
"Aaaah, such a nice day on the lawn," said Peashooter.
"At least until the zombies come," muttered Single Cherry.
"Always the snarker, aren't you?" said Sunflower.
"Say, I wonder where Dave and Twilight are," wondered Potato Mine.
"Dave went out shopping, and Twilight is trying to make amends with an old friend of hers," answered Cabbage-pult.
Just then Dave popped out of a bush, making all the plants scream in surprise.
"WABBY WABBO!"
"Dave!" shouted Peashooter. "You scared us!"
"Oh, sorry," said the peach-colored pony. "Anyways, I bought the last stock of Plant Food. Apparently, somepony told me that Zomboss and his cronies stole the rest of it."
"What's Plant Food?" asked Cabbage-pult.
"What he said," said Snow Pea. "None of us know what Plant Food is."
"I read the instructions," said Dave. "It says that it will give you all special abilities. Some are temporary, while others last until you are eaten. Since the zombies are coming all at once," he pointed to the zombies walking towards the lawn, "Here, try some," And Dave threw some Plant Food at the plants.
Sunflower and Twin Sunflower began producing more sun energy which made the plants feel more energized, Peashooter and Snow Pea shot a bunch of peas, at Basic, Untote, Armless, Crazy, Elmore, Watterson, and Boot. Wall-nut and Single Cherry gained armor, which stalled Conehead and Caleb for a long time. Potato Mine cloned himself two more times, resulting in three Potato Mines, in which Grassy, Purple, and Nurp stepped on the three, Cabbage-pult's catapult became a cannon and shot cabbages into the sky, which hit Caleb, Conehead, Vaulty, and Sprinty. And last but not least, Chomper's mouth went wide open and pulled Caleb, Vaulty, and Sprinty into his mouth.
"Well, nothing happened to us," said Cherry Bomb's right head.
"The instructions also said that Plant Food doesn't work on several plants," said Dave. "I guess you two don't have a Plant Food ability."
"Darn." frowned the left head of Cherry Bomb as Single Cherry exploded Conehead after the latter bit the former several times, which meant that the plants won the battle once again.
Twilight knew she had to make it right. So she knocked on Moondancer's door again...
"Ugh, what is it?" grumbled Moondancer, who opened the door. “If we're going to talk about that party, you know that was only the first time I put myself out there, and you didn't even bother to show up! Then you left town without saying goodbye even though we were supposed to be friends! I was humiliated! I felt like I wasn't important! I never wanted to let myself be hurt like that again! That was why I moved here!” The cream unicorn began sobbing on the grass while covering her face with her hooves. Twilight put a hoof over Moondancer's shoulder to comfort her.
"You're right. This was all my fault. Back when we were in school together, you invited me to a party. I was so focused on my studies that I didn't show up, but now that I realize how important friendship is, I'm really sorry, Moondancer. I've faced magical creatures, the changelings, zombies, all sorts of things. But seeing how my actions affected you, that was one of the worst feelings I've ever had. Even if you never forgive me, please don't let my mistake be the reason you can't be friends with anypony else."
At that moment, a pony showed up, in which Moondancer recognized her. She had creamy white fur with a light red mane with purple streaks much like Moondancer.
“What? That's my sister!” Moondancer recognized her. She ran up and gave her sister a hug. "I missed you so much, Morning Roast!"
"Heh, you too, Moondancer."
"We'd be glad to be your friends too,"
Moondancer turned around and also saw Dave, Peashooter, Sunflower, Cherry Bomb, Wall-nut, Single Cherry, Twin Sunflower, Potato Mine, Cabbage-pult, Snow Pea, and Chomper.
"We decided to eavesdrop after we tested out the Plant Food and attacked these zombies," said Chomper. "We understand your pain, but that doesn't mean you have to shut yourself out from everypony else. We'd be glad to be your friends forever."
"So, this is the pony who rescued you?" Potato Mine asked Cabbage-pult.
"She is."
Moondancer then came to face Twilight.
"Thank you, Twilight. I never realized how much I needed to hear that. But please don’t hurt me again.”
Twilight gave a nod, before Moondancer continued.
"Thank you for helping me make some new friends." she then turned to the others. "Can I talk to Twilight alone?"
Twilight looked at the plants, Dave, and Morning Roast. She signaled for them to give her and Moondancer their privacy. She then turned back to Moondancer, "Sure, what do you want to talk about?"
"Well," said Moondancer, "Back at school, we were very close, and I had feelings of love towards you. I admired you for your hard work and smartness, but I remember how scared I was to tell you. I was so afraid you'd reject me that I decided to have that party so that I could confess my feelings for you. I even read every book on how to reveal your crush to your best friend. But you didn't show up! Like I said earlier today, I felt like I wasn't important."
Twilight felt even worse. Moondancer had a crush on her and was going to tell her at the party?! And she never noticed at all and had chosen her studies over the party?! "I'm really sorry again, Moondancer." said the unicorn shamefully. "I should have treated you better. I even swore I had feelings for you as well, but I dismissed them over my studies."
"Twilight," said Moondancer. "Even during my anger towards you, I didn't want you dead or hurt. I heard of the news of Derpy nearly getting murdered by you, and I never believed it was you at all. I know that you would never attempt murder at all. I also knew that you came here and ended up being attacked by zombies, and I knew I had to try and help you. Why did I bring Cabbage-pult onto your lawn? I wanted you and the plant team to have more plants to help out with fighting zombies."
"Ohhh," said Twilight. "So that was why."
"Yes, and I'm planning to go and buy some more plants and bring them to your lawn." Moondancer began to consider sharing her feelings. "Twilight, I want to tell you one more thing."
"What is it?"
"Even after all this time....." Moondancer hoped Twilight would accept what she said. "I still have a crush on you. I still admire and adore you."
This surprised Twilight, considering the fact that it was coming from the same pony who had gotten upset over her not showing up at the party, but then she realized that Moondancer wanted to confess her feelings at the party and that even during her anger, she was secretly helping her and the plants with getting more defenses to stop the zombies. Moondancer may have been mad at her, but she still cared about her. Just then, a blush appeared on Twilight.
"Moondancer," said Twilight, "I, um, uh..." Moondancer was confused, until Twilight snapped. "UGH! FINE! I ADMIT IT! I HAVE A CRUSH ON YOU TOO! BOTTLING MY FEELINGS UP WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA!"
Moondancer was taken aback by Twilight's rant. The purple unicorn then took some deep breaths. "I'm sorry I snapped. I shouldn't have chosen my studies over my feelings back then."
"I already forgave you, you know?" said Moondancer.
"Well," said Twilight, "since we're starting anew with our feelings to each other revealed, how about a date at a restaurant for dinner?"
"Sure, I'd like that." Moondancer responded.
And the two unicorns walked off, having made amends with each other. The plants, Dave, and Morning Roast were watching.
"My sister's got a crush!" shouted Morning Roast.
"Wabbo. I'm happy for them."
"Ew, romance!" grumbled Cherry Bomb and Single Cherry.
"Aw, let them have their moment!" said Chomper. "They just reconciled!"
"She's definitely not getting away with killing all of plantkind. Once I tell every other plant in this store, we're going to expose her plan!"
Author's Note
Quick battle once again. Also, could Neighborville be this AU's version of "Our Town"?
This won't be the last time you'll see Plant Food in this series.
And yes, I ship Twilight Sparkle X Moondancer! Don't judge me plz!
Front Yard - Day 9: Magnet Alone
"Wow, Moondancer," said Twilight to her crush. "That was a nice date we had yesterday."
"Same here," agreed Moondancer.
The two unicorns were inside the house and on the bed cuddling each other. Ever since the two rekindled their friendship, Twilight promised to never treat Moondancer badly ever again.
Meanwhile, the plants (except Cherry Bomb and Single Cherry, who weren't the type for all that romance stuff) were spying on the two inside the room. They carefully hid under a bunch of pillows to avoid revealing themselves.
"Ship!" whispered Potato Mine to the other plants.
"Potato Mine," whispered a magnet growing on top of a purple and green mushroom, "how long are you going to stay in your little fantasy world?" This gave out silent gasps from the other plants.
"You never heard of romance, Magnet-shroom?" whispered a surprised Sunflower.
"Not really, the second I was created, I was immediately killed and put back into my seed packet for being "ugly," but Dave found me yesterday and freed me, and then I was accepted into the gang by you all."
"Well, that must suck," whispered Wall-nut, "being trapped and cramped inside a seed packet for most of your life and barely having knowledge of anything."
"Don't worry, I'm learning new things," reassured Magnet-shroom quietly.
"I must say," said Chomper, "this is cute."
"Same here," said Twin Sunflower's right head.
Twilight swore she heard some voices from the pillows, but she dismissed them and went back to cuddling Moondancer. Just then the pillow fort couldn't hold any longer and fell, revealing the 9 plants.
"Um, hi?" said Cabbage-pult.
"How did you all get here?!" exclaimed a surprised Moondancer, "And who are you?" she asked to Magnet-shroom.
"We went to spy on you and Twilight, as we wanted to see if your date would go well, and it did!" said Snow Pea, "And this guy here is Magnet-shroom, our new recruit. He can steal metal things from enemies."
"Alright, my zombies," said Dr. Zomboss to his fellow zombies. "I know our last attack didn't work out thanks to that stupid Plant Food incident. We would have succeeded if Grassy didn't drop one of the bags at the store."
"Sorry!"
"Anyways, we have a new recruit. Meet Buckethead!"
A zombie wearing a metal grey bucket came out. The bucket had a few blood stains on it.
"Hi, I'm a tough zombie with my bucket, so the plants will have a hard time getting through me."
"Excellent." smiled Zomboss. "We'll attack later today."
"Magnet-shroom, are you going to come with us to the movie theater?" asked Dave. "It's opening today, and they're playing the Equestria Girls movie!"
"I saw that movie before," said Magnet-shroom, "so no thanks. Plus I can guard the house against zombies myself."
"Alright then," said Crazy Dave, "please take care of yourself."
"Don't worry, I will."
As soon as the plants, Dave, and the two unicorns left to go to the grand opening of the movie theater, Magnet-shroom went to the living room, sat on the couch and began relaxing. But it wasn't long until...
"Brains!"
"So these are the zombies I was told about," said Magnet-shroom to himself. He opened the door and saw Basic and Buckethead walking towards the lawn.
"Nothing can stop us now!" shouted Buckethead, but then his bucket flew away! "Huh? Why do I feel lighter all of a sudden?" Then he saw the problem.
Magnet-shroom had taken the bucket!
"Well, at least he can't attack us," said Buckethead, but he was wrong. Magnet-shroom grabbed what was left of the Plant Food bag, and ate it all up! Then suddenly many metal things from the house began flying towards him! A ladder, some extra buckets, and even a pickaxe!
"Uh oh," said Purple, who just walked onto the lawn, along with Nurp, Elmore, Watterson, Boot, Crazy, Untote, and Armless.
Then the zombies saw all the metal things floating around Magnet-shroom, and he was ready to throw! "Uh oh!" yelled Watterson.
And he did! Magnet-shroom threw all the metal things towards the zombies! "UH OH!" screamed Crazy.
CLANG!
BANG!
BOOM!
Magnet-shroom saw the ten dead zombies he killed with his Plant Food ability. He was surprised, but amazed at the same time.
Zomboss, on the other hand, was furious.
"CONEHEAD! CALEB! GRASSY! SPRINTY! VAULTY! TAKE DOWN THAT MAGNETIC BRAT RIGHT NOW!"
"Yes, boss!" yelled Caleb.
"He sure sounds funny when angry," said Conehead.
Magnet-shroom was about to eat the Plant Food again to take down the five zombies left, when he realized that there was none left!
"Oh no. Well, looks like I have to take matters into my own hooves!"
"You're a mushroom! You don't have hooves!" yelled Grassy from the road.
"It's an idiom!"
Magnet-shroom found a lawnmower and decided that he would try and run over the zombies with it. He pulled the string, and the lawnmower began moving!
Grassy tried to sneak through, but this was a bad idea right now, because the lawnmower ran him over. While Conehead and Caleb weren't so lucky either, Sprinty and Vaulty jumped over the lawnmower!
"Um..." said Magnet-shroom, as the lawnmower was picked up by Vaulty and thrown back where it was originally was, except it landed upside down.
Magnet-shroom wasn't giving up that easily though. He ran inside the house, and got out a fake brain toy. Upon seeing it, Sprinty and Vaulty began chasing after Magnet-shroom, who ran around the lawn for a while, until he saw an open sewer manhole near the lawn. He ran towards that direction and threw the brain into the manhole, and the two zombies, being complete idiots, jumped into the manhole!
"Well, they've been taken care of," said Magnet-shroom, as he put the lid of the manhole on top, which would prevent the two athletic zombies from getting out.
2 hours later...
Magnet-shroom was just chilling out on the couch. He was reading some Daring Do books.
"I like that pony, she's awesome." said the mushroom to himself.
Just then the door opened, and Magnet-shroom saw the other plants, along with Dave, Moondancer, and Twilight. They had come back from the movies.
"Hello, how was the movie?" asked Magnet-shroom.
"Wabby, I loved it!" shouted Dave.
"These people are like human versions of us ponies," said Twilight.
"How was your time at home?" asked Snow Pea.
"Well," said Magnet-shroom, "the zombies attacked again, but I used plant food, metal things, a lawnmower, and a fake brain to defeat them. Then I just chilled out reading Daring Do books."
"Um, everybody?" said Peashooter, "I found this note near our door."
Everybody came to Peashooter to see the note. The note said:
Hello,
We are about to launch an all-out attack on your houze.
Sincerely, the Zombies.
"Looks like, we need to get prepared," said Twilight, "for the ULTIMATE BATTLE!"
It was night time, and tomorrow would be the ultimate battle. Dr. Zomboss had snuck into the house by smashing a window and using a ladder. Slowly but silently and carefully, he ate all the plants except Peashooter and Snow Pea, until they turned back into seed packets. He put all the seeds into his pocket, and grabbed Peashooter and Snow Pea by the necks!
"Huh?!"
"What's going on?!"
"Silence, you two!" hushed Zomboss. "I'm stealing you two for a project!" And then he jumped out of the same window he came in from.
At the lab, Peashooter and Snow Pea were in cages. Zomboss was carrying a tweezer.
"Let us go!"
"This isn't cool at all!"
"Too bad! I need your DNA for a project!" snarled Zomboss. He used the tweezer to pull a chunk of Peashooter's leaf off, and then he did the same with one of Snow Pea's ice crystals.
"Excellent," smirked Zomboss. He walked over and found two zombie hairs on the ground. He put one hair on the chunk of Peashooter's leaf, and the other on the chunk of Snow Pea's ice crystal.
"I know that if I let you two go, you will tell everybody, so your brains will be eaten."
"Wait-"
Zomboss unlocked the cages and dropped the two peashooters on the ground. All the zombies that were currently on the team came racing to the two and began eating them up until they were nothing but seed packets.
Zomboss then grabbed a serum and poured a drop onto the plate with the Peashooter leaf chunk and the zombie hair, and poured another drop onto the plate with the Snow Pea crystal chunk and the zombie hair.
"Tomorrow," laughed Zomboss as the two serum-covered plates began shaking, "will not just be the ultimate battle, but also the Zombotany battle!" With that, he gave out an evil laugh that echoed through the sky.
"Thanks for freeing all of us from the cages," said Blover.
"You're welcome, but, how will we expose her?" asked Iceberg Lettuce to the other plants in The Lotus n Flora Store. Winter Lotus was sleeping, so the plants had to be quiet.
"I say we show the security camera footage to the next customer," said Lightning Reed.
"We take a picture of the to-kill list and show it all over the public?" suggested Threepeater's middle head.
"Meow meow meow meow?" asked Cattail, which was then translated by Cactus to "Show the dead bodies?"
"All great ideas," said Iceberg Lettuce. "But we can't expose her immediately. Otherwise, everypony will think we're crazy."
"So, when will we expose that Winter Lotus?" asked Doom-shroom.
"When the time is perfect. We just have to wait for the right moment to happen."
Author's Note
I know you would find it odd that I introduced Magnet-shroom this early and you might be wondering, "When's Repeater gonna be in this series?" Well, I wanted to mix things up a bit, so Repeater will appear in the future, but for now, he's not going to be in the series.
Next chapter will happen in Ponyville, where we'll see how Twilight's friends are coping with not only the banishment of their friend but also the banishments of Flitter and Cloudchaser. Speaking of which, I will reveal their fate in the next few chapters, so stay tuned for that!
Intermission: Cutting Ties
"Applejack, what's the matter with ya?!"
Applejack had been recently punished after she had another argument with her older brother and grandmother yesterday. She had been forced to sit in the corner and the rest of her family (except Apple Bloom) refused to talk to her as they didn't want to see her face ever again.
The orange earth pony knew she had no choice. So she went down the stairs and confronted her big brother and grandmother.
"What do ya want?" grumbled Big Macintosh.
"Big brother..." Applejack muttered darkly. "Ah can't believe that ah'm going to say this, but ah quit!" This gave out gasps from Big Macintosh and Granny Smith.
"How dare ya yell at us, young lady?" scolded Granny Smith, "Ya're only mah granddaughter, and ya can't just abandon us like-"
"Oh, ya're one to talk," said Applejack. "Ya two literally abandoned me just because ah thought Twilight was innocent! Ah know she would never do such a thing like that, and yet instead of listening to me, ya ground me, abandon me, and not to mention that ya're also treating mah sister just as badly."
Applejack opened the door of the barn. "Goodbye, ya two," she said. "Ah hope ya two realize yer actions will have consequences." And with that, she left the barn.
Apple Bloom had heard everything and was angry too. "Congratulations, grandmother, and big brother. Ah told ya two it was a bad idea, but did ya two listen? No! Now ya’ve lost mah sister’s trust for good, and ya’ve also lost mah respect." And she walked out of the barn as well.
Fluttershy wasn't faring it any better. Every animal ignored her when she tried to take care of them. Some were even rebellious enough to try and attack her. Right now, they wouldn't eat the food she had just gave them.
She knew she had no choice. Even though she was the element of kindness, these animals were being stubborn. So she took a deep breath...
"How dare you!"
This surprised all the animals and they turned to look at Fluttershy.
"You should all be ashamed of yourselves!" scolded the yellow pegasus. "You may all hate Twilight right now, but that doesn't give you the right to harass your owner or my friends just for having different views!" She gave out "The Stare" to the animals, which scared them and they began eating the food Fluttershy had just laid out for them a few minutes ago.
Fluttershy was still angry, so she decided to take a few breaths and go outside of her cottage. She recounted all the things that happened several days ago: Twilight was banished, she and her friends became pariahs, Discord reformed, Lightning Dust's betrayal, the Cakes got bombed, and Flitter and Cloudchaser were banished.
"I wish Twilight didn't get blamed." sighed the pegasus to herself. "If she were still here, our lives would still be normal like usual."
"Alright, fellow crusaders and friends," said Scootaloo. "Today we're going to discuss why everypony's hatred towards Twilight is going too far."
Scootaloo was talking to her friend, Sweetie Belle, but it wasn't just them. Rumble, Pipsqueak and Button Mash were also there. Apparently, they had been kicked out of school too for believing Twilight was innocent and the Crusaders had gladly let them join their club.
"Say, where's Apple Bloom?" asked Sweetie Belle.
Just then the yellow filly came into the clubhouse. "Sorry, I'm late, I had to deal with my sister being harassed again."
"You're actually on time," said Pipsqueak, "Anyways, Scootaloo said we're going to talk about why everypony is taking their hatred towards Twilight too seriously."
"Oh yeah, that," growled Button Mash. "Cheerilee expelled you, me, and Rumble just for believing Twilight's innocence!"
"Me and mah sister got harassed by her brother and grandmother!" yelled Apple Bloom.
"Not to mention that Flitter and Cloudchaser also got banished as well," said Rumble. "I think there's a changeling on the loose again and is impersonating ponies! I mean, Helia is a good substitute for a foalsitter, she's just as kind and friendly, but she often makes me nap on the clouds with her."
"I'm sure she just wants you to relax yourself," reassured Scootaloo.
"I guess..." came the reply from the grey pegasus colt.
"But, if everypony realizes the truth," said Sweetie Belle, "How are these three going to get back? We don't even know where they are!"
This left the six fillies silent. Rumble piped up after a few minutes.
"Um, I guess I better be heading back home." said the grey pegasus colt, who had no answer to what Sweetie Belle had asked, and he left the clubhouse.
During Flitter and Cloudchaser's absence, things were difficult for Thunderlane. He never once believed that Twilight, Flitter and Cloudchaser were guilty, and had even quit flying practice to spend time with his little brother and to get away from the other horrid pegasi.
Now he was sitting on the couch worrying about them and hoping they would be okay. Just then, Rumble flew in.
"Little bro!" shouted Thunderlane. "How are you?"
"It's been good in spite of Twilight and my two foalsitters still being missing," said Rumble. "Anyways, how's your day so far, big bro?"
"Terrible," said the dark gray pegasus. "I miss Twilight already, and I miss Flitter and Cloudchaser even more! I appreciate Helia's help, but it just isn't the same without these two."
"The feeling's mutual, big bro," said Rumble.
"Hey, you two?" came the voice of Helia. "I baked you two some cookies!"
"Not right now, Helia," said Rumble. "Me and Thunderlane are talking about, um, stuff."
"Oh okay," said the blue pegasus. "If you two want cookies, they are on the counter in the kitchen!"
"You quit your family?!"
Applejack looked at Pinkie Pie, who had said the surprised response.
"Ahm sorry, sugarcube, but ah just can't take it anymore. Mah family wants me to stay away from them and ah have had it with the way they treat me right now."
Pinkie Pie looked at the orange farm pony, and then she sighed,
"I know how you feel. My parents never appreciated my parties. Even on my birthday, they never let me have a party or even any fun at all. They took the dullness of their rock farm job too seriously. The only party I successfully had back then was when I discovered my cutie mark and made my family smile for once. But that was one time. They found my parties annoying. Luckily, I had three of my best sisters, because they were my only sisters, who liked the dullness of the rock farm job more, but at the same time, they respected my choices and even stood up for me a few times. It got to a point where me and my parents had an argument that I quitted the family and ran away, but not before I said my farewells to my sisters. I ended up being found by Mr. and Mrs. Cake, who were kind to me, took me in to Sugarcube Corner, and that's where I live now."
After Pinkie told her story, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity and Spike were surprised at how sad the pink mare's past was. They all began tearing up a bit. (except Applejack, who cried on the inside)
"Pinkie, darling," said Rarity, "You never told us that."
"I was waiting for the right time to tell you all that backstory, and when Applejack told us that she quit her family, I knew how she felt."
"Um, excuse me?" wondered Fluttershy, "What happened to your family now?"
"They're still working and living at the rock farm," said Pinkie. "My sisters are still in contact with me. They write emails every month about what's been going on at the farm lately and I write back."
"Nice to see that there's at least some family that cares about ya, sugarcube," said Applejack. "Apple Bloom was the only one in mah family who still cares about me now, and even then she suffered just as much as ah did."
"Say, if you and Apple Bloom quit your family," wondered Rainbow Dash, "Where are you two going to live?"
"The library's been empty without Twilight," said Spike. "You and your sister can live there until your family realizes their mistake."
"Aw, shucks, sugarcube," said Applejack gratefully. "Ah'll go look for my sister and tell her."
"Well, ah'm going to have to get used to it, since it's a new place for us to live," said the yellow filly once her older sister asked her, "but ah'm in!"
That night, Rumble, Thunderlane, and Helia were sleeping together in the bed.
"Oh hello, big bro," Rumble greeted. "It's nice to see you feel better."
"Yeah," said Thunderlane. "Thanks to you."
"You're welcome," smiled the younger pegasus brother.
"Can you two keep it down?" grunted Helia, "I'm trying to sleep and I don't want any noisy interruptions. How can I fly well if I don't get my beauty sleep?"
"By 'fly well', you mean nap on the clouds all day," Thunderlane chuckled.
"Plus, it's not like you don't snore loudly at night," smirked Rumble. Helia's protests were drowned out by the laughter of the two pegasi brothers.
Before long, the three pegasi went to sleep. All the same, Thunderlane had his thoughts about Twilight, Flitter and Cloudchaser and had high hopes that they would be okay.
Author's Note
When writing this chapter, I edited some of the other chapters to fix the quotes from Applejack and her family to have their accent. ("Ah" replaces "I", "Ya" replaces "You", "Mah" replaces "My".)
We also get a few more ponies who believe the innocence of Twilight, Flitter and Cloudchaser!
I felt that after the Sugarcube Corner incident from "Intermission: Bombing the Bakery", Rumble needed a substitute foalsitter, so I chose Helia, as I felt like she would be the best substitute, plus given that she was seen with Thunderlane in "Hurricane Fluttershy" and "Rainbow Falls" (despite that episode not having happened yet in this AU), it would make sense. I also gave her a personality. In my headcanon, she's like Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy in a way, she's usually kind to others, but sometimes likes to slack off on the clouds and gets annoyed when her sleep is interrupted.
Also, about Pinkie's parents, this is an AU, so several things will be different. This includes the personalities of several characters.
This chapter happens simultaneously with the events of Pulting it to Use.
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Intermission: Farewell Equestria (The Search and Rescue Adventure Part 1)
The next day, the search and rescue team decided to make their leave, but first, they decided to say farewell to the Cakes, who were the only ponies not on the team who still trusted them.
The thirteen ponies, the dragon, and the draconequus had brought many resources to keep them going, like several bottles of water, a first aid kit, and some snacks. Discord was leading the way and they were in the middle of Everfree Forest right now.
"So, how long is this going to take?" asked Fluttershy.
"A day at most," said the draconequus. "They've gone far, but not that far." The team continued walking. (or flying in the case of a few of them)
As Discord was leading the way, his mind wandered off and he began having memories from his past.
Young Discord was sitting inside a rock home he had made a few days ago in a desert. He had no idea how he got here or how he was born, but he didn't have a home. The home he had made wasn't the best and sleeping was uncomfortable there.
He decided to go and explore the world for a new home. Maybe he would be accepted by society? He saw a few ponies come and go each day, but none of them ever came to say hi. Back then, he thought that they didn't know he lived in the rock house and that they thought it was just an ordinary pile of rocks.
He decided to fly his way. After all, he had seen some of these ponies fly, and he had wings.
Soon, the draconequus was flying high in the sky. He surveyed the world for a town of ponies. Hopefully, there would be at least one pony who was accepting of him despite his odd looks.
After a few minutes, he saw the world has become greener. Then his eyes fell to two young alicorns playing on a grass field. One was white with a pink mane and tail, and the other was blue with a lighter blue mane and tail.
"They look friendly," he thought to himself. So he flew over.
"Um, excuse me?"
The two alicorns turned and gasped at the sight of him.
"Yeah, gasping, I know," said the draconequus. "I don't look normal, but even then, can we be frie-."
"No way!"
"You're ugly, freak!"
"Freak..."
"Freak..."
"Freak..."
This made Discord very mad and something inside him snapped.
"FREAK?! DO YOU KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO SUDDENLY BE BORN WITHOUT ANY FAMILY?! THAT I HAD TO LIVE IN THE DESERT INSIDE SOME UNCOMFORTABLE ROCKS AND THAT EVERYPONY IGNORES ME WHEN THEY PASS BY?!" He was so mad that he snapped his claw and all of a sudden, water went all over the two alicorns!
"I wasn't prepared for this!"
"I'm soaked!"
Discord took a few deep breaths and saw that by retaliating, he had made the two alicorns even more upset. All because he overreacted to them calling him a freak. He flew off in remorse.
"Discord?" said a concerned Fluttershy, "are you okay? You haven't said anything for a while."
"I'm okay, Flutters. I was just having memories of my past, but right now, I suddenly have a feeling of deja vu." said the draconequus to his friend.
Right now, the team was at the Bone Dry Desert. They had gotten this far and were still walking, but they were very exhausted.
"There's sand in my... everything..." said Pinkie, who was laughing weakly. "Heh... Rescuing... Twilight... and... Flitter... and... Cloudchaser..." she then saw a skull. "Oh! Look! Maybe this guy knows which way to go! What's that, friend? We're lost?" she continued her weak laughter, but then she coughed and fainted. Helia poured water into the pink mare's mouth and instantly she regained consciousness.
"We could be going in... circles! Endless... sand..." said Spike, "Nothin' for miles... but sand... and this rock... and this cactus... and this roooooooooaaaaaad.... ...this rooooooad...."
"Hmm? A road?" said Scootaloo.
"Where there's a road, there's a..." Apple Bloom gasped at what she saw. "Oooh! A city!"
"You know what they say," grinned Rarity, "where there's a city, there's a spa!"
"Who says that?" asked a confused Rumble.
"'Case you forgot," added Applejack, "We're on a mission to look for Twilight, Flitter, and Cloudchaser."
"I can multitask." came the reply of the white unicorn mare.
Soon, Discord was leading the group through the city. It looked old and abandoned, along with the fact that there was barely anypony in sight. Instead, there were creatures who sold things.
"Everything costs here!"
"Nopony says "free" here and gets away with it!"
"Ripe fruit! Come buy ripe fruit from me!"
"This is Klugetown, a place where nothing is free and everything costs. Flitter and Cloudchaser are definitely there," said the draconequus. "Before the princesses drained my magic a few days ago, I sensed that they were captured and taken there."
"Well, this city isn't the cleanest," complained Rarity. Just then she saw Pushkin's barrels fall. "Hi there! Ooh, I'm sorry. Here. Lemme help you with that." Just as she tried to pick the barrels up...
"Hey! No magic around my merchandise!" shouted Pushkin.
"Hmph!" grumbled Rarity. "No way to talk to a lady."
"Okay. We just gotta stick together," advised Discord to the rest of the group, "Be careful who you talk to. And try to blend in-"
"Can I have your attention please?!" shouted Pinkie Pie out loud. This let out groans from Discord, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Scootaloo, Rumble, and Helia. "Can anypony here take us to Flitter and Cloudchaser?!" continued the pink pony.
"You want something?" said Mori, "You gotta give something!"
"Well, how about a big warm hug from a grateful pony friend?" said Pinkie, as she gave Mori a big hug. She jumped off and continued offering things to the creatures of Klugetown.
"How about this comb that I've never used? A picture of my sisters Maud, Limestone, and Marble? This breath mint? Seriously, buddy. Help me help you." she was interrupted by a pig creature burping into her face.
"Pinkie darling, you can't just take off!" said a frustrated Rarity.
"And," agreed Rainbow Dash through clenched teeth, "you don't need to announce to every-"
"Relax!" assured the pink pony, "I totally got this!" She began bouncing happily and towards the direction of an arrow that had been traced a few days ago. She was completely unaware that she had fallen into a trap. One creature began playing the piano as another blew into a road cone. They started singing terribly:
"There are rumors that they're selling free To make cheapskates happy. We aren't the ones who take anything we're given We only want bits."
Pinkie was bouncing through several bear traps which snapped, but not on her. A creature tried to jump on her, but he jumped too late and barely missed the pink pony.
"Gifts, candy, and chocolate are useless Rocks are just plain dull!"
As the creatures were singing, one bumped into a stand and many rocks fell on him.
"No comparison, they're shiny outside and very essential! Bits are all we want!"
The creatures threw all the bits they had so far into the air, and Pinkie was dancing too. This got the search and rescue team worried about the pink pony.
"We'd rather kill ourselves than having no bits It's not because we hate poverty, But because we... only want... But because we only want bits!"
A creature strummed on the guitar, as another threw a stick of dynamite at Pinkie, which landed, but her bouncing made it fall off and it rolled back to the creatures, causing an explosion that surprisingly didn't kill them, but they were unconscious. The search and rescue team was in shock and walked off, as Pinkie bounced along with them.
The group had just stopped at a building. It was old and rusty, but the doors were open.
"Why would somepony leave their doors open like that?" asked Thunderlane.
"I don't know, but what I do know is that Flitter and Cloudchaser are in there," came the reply from Discord. "Everypony!" He briefly stopped and turned to Spike, "And dragon. Follow the leader!" The group went inside, but not before Applejack closed the door to prevent the Klugetown creatures from going in if they did regain consciousness.
"You won't get away with this!" shouted Cloudchaser.
"The Portal Master" just laughed. "Oh yes, I will! Nobody knows where you two are!"
"Except me!"
"The Portal Master" turned in shock. There was Discord, the master of chaos, in front of him.
"You seriously need to keep your doors closed," said Discord. "What if somepony tries to steal your stuff?"
"Our friends are here!" exclaimed Flitter when she saw the search and rescue team. "We're saved!"
"You've got some nerve kidnapping these ponies!" shouted Discord to "the Portal Master". "They did nothing to you!"
"The Portal Master" tried to think of a lie, "Yes they did! Their parents bullied me!"
"Ah know a liar when ah see one," retorted Applejack.
"Be quiet, you western weirdo!" shouted "the Portal Master". Applejack just gave him a glare. Then "the Portal Master" grabbed several potions and threw them at the search and rescue team. Before anypony could move out of the way, they were hit by the potion and Immediately fell asleep.
"These potions I stole are pretty handy," he said to himself. "Too bad the effects of this one only last for 24 hours." He grabbed Discord's paw and dragged him somewhere.
Author's Note
And that's where the MLP Movie references come in.
QUESTION: Why is Capper not in the story yet?
The song is a reference to this Chinese PvZ video , but I changed the lyrics to make it suit the Klugetown creatures more.
Also, I like to headcanon that Celestia and Luna were once bullies. This would prove that they aren't flawless princesses.
Anyways, this chapter takes place during Plant Food for Thought.
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Intermission: Charming Capper (The Search and Rescue Adventure Part 2)
"Huh? Where am I?"
Discord woke up to see that he was chained to a wall.
"Discord," said "the Portal Master", as he walked into the room. "I have one thing to reveal." He took off his cloak and it revealed another draconequus! "I am your father!"
"Say WHAT?!"
"Where's Discord?"
The group heard Fluttershy's words a few minutes after she awoke and they checked. Discord wasn't with them!
"He must have been kidnapped when we were knocked out by that potion!" shouted Pipsqueak.
"We need to find him!" said Rainbow Dash, "even if we found Flitter and Cloudchaser, we still need to find Twilight and only Discord knows the directions to where she is, plus he's the one who's leading us!"
The group began looking everywhere all over the building for Discord.
"Discord?"
"Where are you?"
What the group didn't know yet was that there was a secret room that was locked with a 6-digit combination code. This was where Discord was taken in and chained up.
"But, if you're my father," said Discord in disbelief, how come I never knew you?
"Well," said Discord's father, "the second you were born, I thought you would be able to cope with the outside world and become the next Master of Chaos so I left you in the desert. I watched every move you made and you were doing a great job on being the Master of Chaos! During that time you corrupted these ponies and made their land your funhouse, I was watching and I was impressed! But these ponies ruined everything! But then came several days ago when you were freed that I saw you do the most atrocious move ever. You became friendly towards these ponies! Don't you see? They are only making you look bad, weak, and useless!"
"So what if I look bad, weak, and useless?" retorted Discord. "These ponies taught me the true meaning of friendship and that being bad was never what I wanted. You abandoned me the second I was born. Do you know how much pain I went through? I was called a freak. Barely anypony liked me at all and when there was a pony who liked me, he or she was taken by their parents! Even when I did nice things for the ponies that I didn't know, they were mean to me. And it was only several days ago when there was finally a pony who was nice to me. Fluttershy, the element of kindness. Despite the time I corrupted her and her friends, she was willing to give me a second chance. Not that I blame the others for getting mad at me the second I came back."
This left the draconequus' father surprised for a few seconds, but he dismissed it. "You're a disgrace. I can't believe you would suck up to these ponies and become their friend. That's not what we draconequuses do. In fact, I wish you were the one I captured instead of these two lavender pegasi. Then maybe I wouldn't have to waste every few minutes each day repelling your magic from bringing these useless ponies bac-" he stopped as he realized his mistake.
"You were the reason why I couldn't use my chaos magic beyond Equestria?!" shouted Discord. "So if it weren't for you, I could have snapped these three innocent ponies back to their friends?!" If he wasn't chained to a wall, he would have lunged at his father and attacked him.
"Ah give up!"
"I guess he's gone for good..." sighed Fluttershy sadly.
"We looked everywhere..." moped Sweetie Belle.
"Not everywhere!"
The group turned to Pinkie. She was typing in random numbers onto a door.
"This door isn't opening! And since Discord isn't anywhere else, my Pinkie Sense tells me that he's in here! I've tried every combination code up to 0-9-1-7-1-0, but the door still won't budge!"
Pinkie typed in another number, which was 0-9-1-7-1-1. Just by sheer luck, the door managed to open and Pinkie saw a long hallway. She bounced through, and the group decided to follow her in hopes that they would find Discord.
"Goodbye, son..." said Discord's father darkly. "Since you have shamed your father, you're not seeing him again. Here, take this before I leave." He threw a picture of the two young alicorns that were the same ones Discord met in his flashback.
Suddenly Discord began having another bad memory...
Discord winced at the mess that had happened. He had tried to put a bottle of cider back on the stand, but the seller saw him, screamed, and ran off, but accidentally ripped the sign off, which fell on the ground. The other ponies had screamed at the sight of a draconequus and ran, but one pony that was lighting a campfire accidentally caused a fire to happen onto the sign, which caused the stand to catch on fire, and everything else around it to also catch on fire. The firefighters and doctors had to sort the mess out. Luckily, nopony was hurt, but they were all glaring at the draconequus.
"I knew it all along from the start," said a voice. Discord turned to see the two alicorns glaring at him for the accident.
"You've definitely proved yourself to be one thing: a freak." said the white and pink one.
"A freak..."
"A freak..."
"A freak..."
"He's in there!" shouted Pinkie, when she heard Discord's screaming. The rest of the group followed after the pink pony and saw the draconequus chained up to a wall. He was shaking in fear while taking deep breaths.
"Discord," said Fluttershy, "are you okay?"
"All of you, "the Portal Master" revealed himself." said the draconequus. "He was my father all along." This surprised the group.
"Why didn't you tell us, darling?" asked Rarity.
"I never knew I had a father until now," answered Discord, and he told the ponies everything his father had told him from being abandoned to the chaos magic unable to bring the three innocent ponies back, as his father had repelled the magic.
"I'm so sorry this happened to you, Discord."
"When I see your father, I will teach him to not mess with you!"
"Where is he right now anyways?"
"He left the place so that he would never see my face again," said the draconequus. "He claims that I have shamed him. I wish I could locate him, but at this point, he knows my every move and is probably teleporting from one place to another, so who knows where he is."
"Well, let's just get these chains off of you," said Rainbow Dash.
After a few minutes, the draconequus was no longer chained to the wall. He thanked the group and they went to the room where Flitter and Cloudchaser were. After freeing them, the group decided to leave, but all of a sudden, a charming-looking cat in a red jacket jumped in front of them!
"Who are you?" asked Thunderlane.
"Capper's the name. Charming's my game."
"We could definitely use a friend out here!" said Flitter, "the more, the merrier!"
"You know what?" agreed the cat, whose name was Capper, "Miss Pink Bow Hair is right. And, if I do say so myself..."
(pretend that Twilight is not here and that Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Flitter, Cloudchaser, Discord, Helia, Thunderlane, Rumble, Pipsqueak and Button Mash are here)
Capper opened a trapdoor that led to a room. "Welcome, my little ponies." the ponies (and Spike and Discord too) came out of the trapdoor and gasped.
"Ooh! A sort of a roco-hobo-Bohemian hodgepodge." awed Rarity.
"Ooh!" said Pinkie, as she saw some glass lamps up on the ceiling, "So many fun breakables!" the group toured Capper's manor as they saw several things like rugs, pictures, books, and other things too.
About an hour later after touring the manor, the group was telling Capper stories of their adventures in Equestria.
"Stop playin' me!" said Capper, as he laughed along with the rest of the group, "A sonic rainboom? That's not a real thang! Is that a real thing?"
"I'll show ya!" grinned Rainbow Dash, as she was about to fly, but Capper stopped her.
"Naw-naw-naw, I don't need you sonic "rainbooming" up in my place, thank you very much." Suddenly, he saw some thread move with unicorn magic, "Whoa, hey, hold up now. Whoa." the thread went through one of the rips on his sleeve in his jacket and tightened, making it look brand new! Then the source of the magic, Rarity, put two shiny gold buttons on the jacket.
"Here you go, darling, I do apologize. If we were back home, I could've done something truly fabulous."
"Okay..." said Capper, "What's the catch?"
"Nothing." answered Rarity, "After all that you've done for us, consider it a "thank you"."
"Oh. Uh, don't thank me. Really."
"Um, all of you?" Discord interrupted, "I like Capper just as much as the rest of you do, but shouldn't we be going to the Neighborville city to find Twilight?"
"Oh! Oh, Neighborville!" said Capper. "Nobody's talked about that city for years."
"Isn't that the city right outside the window?" asked Pinkie, pointing to the shape of a city outside of a window.
"Objects in windows may be less citious than they appear. Heh heh heh..."
"Well, since it's getting dark out," said Cloudchaser, "we can't go right now. How about tomorrow? Tonight, we stay with this Capper dude."
The rest of the group took Cloudchaser's words into consideration and agreed. For now, they would spend quality time with Capper.
Author's Note
The 6-digit code, 091711, is a reference to the date "the Return of Harmony Part 1" was released.
Also, more MLP movie references.
This chapter takes place during Magnet Alone.
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Intermission: Onward to Neighborville! (The Search and Rescue Adventure Part 3)
The next day...
"Thank you for giving us a place to stay and for being so nice to us," said Fluttershy.
"It's no problem at all," said Capper modestly.
"Anyways, I think we should all be going to look for our friend Twilight," Rarity turned to the cat. "Darling, want to join us on the search?"
"I don't know who this Twilight is," said Capper, "but I'd be happy to help!"
"Well, onwards to Neighborville!" yelled Discord, and the group was about to leave, when...
"Wait!" shouted Capper, which brought the attention of the group. "You can't—you can't make it by y'allselves. You need an airship! And lucky for you, I can get you a ride."
"Well, some of us can fly and carry others," said Rainbow Dash, "but you've got a point. We can't carry everybody at once. Lead us to the airship!"
"With pleasure! But this is going to be one crazy journey! Jump on the windmill!"
"Well, here goes nothing," said Scootaloo, as she jumped onto one of the windmill blades and gripped onto it.
The rest of the group followed suit except for Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rumble, Thunderlane, Helia, Flitter, and Cloudchaser, who could fly. Suddenly, one of the bolts came loose and the windmill fell off! It began rolling through Klugetown, as the flyers chased after it.
"I think ah'm gonna be sick!" shouted Apple Bloom.
"Me too!" agreed Button Mash.
The ponies on the windmill had luckily landed on their hooves (or feet in Capper, Spike and Discord's case) on top of the building’s nearby roofs as the flyers rejoined them and the windmill chased after them, destroying the wooden getaway path as they just narrowly avoided falling from their crumbling path.
“We have to get there! To the docks! Hurry!” Capper told the rest of the group as they approached said docks ahead in the distance using stairs, doors, and pathways.
Rainbow Dash, using her quick thinking, used her teeth and grabbed ahold of one of the airship ropes for the others to quickly cross onto the airship.
“That's it.” Applejack assuringly nudged Rarity ahead who whimpered in fear of the height. “Don't look down now!” as Discord walked across the rope, Flitter (with Apple Bloom), Cloudchaser (with Sweetie Belle), Thunderlane (with Pipsqueak), Helia (with Button Mash), Rumble and Fluttershy (with Capper) flew across, Scootaloo tried to stay light on her hooves with Spike walking too, Pinkie jumped onto the rope, but she lost her balance and fell off the rope! This caused Spike to nearly fall and Rainbow Dash to lose her grip on the dock and be pulled along with the airship.
“Pinkie!” cried out the rainbow-maned pegasus as she let go of the rope and quickly flew downwards and saved the pink pony's life from the sharp and pointy rocks just in time and flew her up onto the airship.
“Best... escape... plan... ever!” cheered Pinkie.
“WHAT?!?!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash in shock as Applejack quickly lassoed them to the group.
"Well, my dear friends," said Capper, "this is the airship. We need it to cross the river between here and Neighborville." The group looked out of a window and saw a giant river rushing fast. The river led to a waterfall that was so high that if you fell down from there, you would die.
"Knowing Twilight," said Spike, "She probably teleported over the river."
The airship crossed over the river as the group was still looking. Just then, Discord's father appeared out of nowhere!
"Surprise!" yelled the draconequus. The group was shocked. "What? Have you forgotten that I can teleport? I was spying on you all the entire time."
"You again!" growled Rarity, "Fighting is not really my thing. I'm more into fashion. But if you mistreat your son or hurt my friends again, I'll rip you to pieces!"
But the draconequus wasn't fazed at all. "I don't care! I can just use my magic to put myself back together!"
"Dad," said Discord, "please don't hurt my friends!"
"Be quiet, you disgrace of a son!" yelled Discord's father, in which his son fumed at this remark. "And how dare you associate with these ponies?! They're not your friends! They're useless, weak, pathetic, pawns!" He turned to Fluttershy, "Want to know what the most disgusting thing in the world is?"
"Um, rotten milk?" asked Fluttershy.
"Wrong! The answer is YOU!" Discord's father snapped a barrel into the scene, and dropped it on the yellow pegasus, as the barrel shattered on impact, drenching her in garbage.
Fluttershy realized what happened and shuddered, frozen in place.
"Hey, Flutters!" Hoops grinned maniacally. "Your fur could use a nice cleanup."
"What do you mean?" replied Fluttershy.
"Yeah, what do you mean?" Dumbbell asked.
"You know what I mean, you idiot!" snapped Hoops at his friend.
"Oh yeah, I do!" Hoops, Dumbbell, and Score grinned at Fluttershy viciously.
"Your fur needs cleanup because it's...GARBAGE!" And with that, Hoops kicked Fluttershy into a trash can. The trash can wobbled for a few seconds, then it toppled over...
Fluttershy couldn't handle her flashback anymore and sobbed.
"Yeah, that's right! Cry like a baby! A little baby!" yelled Discord's father.
But everyone had seen everything. Discord growled and began to walk.
"Get him," muttered Flitter.
Discord's father continued to laugh at the misfortune of Fluttershy, until something grabbed his neck. He opened his eyes and saw his son.
"And what do you think you're doing?" demanded Discord.
For the first time in his life ever, his father was nervous. "U-um, it was just a harmless joke!"
"A HARMLESS JOKE?! That was neither harmless nor a joke at all! That was bullying! She was severely traumatized by something like that in her childhood! She suffered bullying at flight camp, and only several ponies, like Rainbow Dash, Derpy, Flitter, and Cloudchaser stood up for her! Everybody else in flight camp, even the teachers, were mean to her!"
"Who cares about her?" scoffed his father, though there was a bit of nervousness in his voice, "she was a wimp, a weakling, a useless old pegasus who screamed and flew like a coward everytime she saw her own shado-."
Now Discord was really angry at his father for insulting Fluttershy. "I CARE ABOUT HER!" He pointed to the group, "THEY CARE ABOUT HER!" He turned back to his father, "YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO THE DRACONEQUUS RACE AND TO EQUESTRIA AND TO THE ENTIRE WORLD! YOU ARE AN ABUSIVE, SELFISH, HEARTLESS, BOSSY FATHER WHO ABANDONED HIS SON AND LEFT HIM TO SUFFER FOR MANY YEARS! OH WAIT, WHY AM I CALLING YOU MY FATHER? I LITERALLY JUST SAID THAT YOU ABANDONED ME AND LEFT ME TO SUFFER! YOU HAVE CAUSED NOTHING BUT TROUBLE TO THIS PLACE, AND YOU HAVE ATTACKED FLUTTERSHY, MY FIRST EVER FRIEND, AND A KIND AND INNOCENT ONE TOO! I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU NEAR HER OR MY OTHER FRIENDS EVER AGAIN, AND IF YOU EVEN THINK OF HARMING THEM, I WILL GO TO THE EXTREME LENGTHS AND STEAL ALL YOUR CHAOS MAGIC! IS THAT UNDERSTOOD, MY SO-CALLED FATHER? BECAUSE IF YOU HURT FLUTTERSHY, OR ANY OF MY FRIENDS EVER AGAIN, SO HELP ME I WILL VIOLATE MY OWN PRINCIPLES JUST TO SEE THAT YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE!"
Discord's father opened a window and screamed like a little girl as he flew off and over the horizon. "AND DON'T COME BACK!" shouted his son.
"Ah never knew Discord could get this mad," said Applejack.
"Me neither," agreed Helia.
"Well, can't really blame him," said Cloudchaser.
The group turned and saw Fluttershy, still crying, shaking, and covered in garbage, and Discord, who was breathing heavily to calm himself down, after his long rant to his father.
"I can't believe my father," muttered the draconequus, as he snapped all the garbage off Fluttershy, though she still reeked. "Don't worry Flutters, it's okay. I'll look for a shower to get the smell off of you."
"...Thank you, Discord," murmured the yellow pegasus, though she was still shaking and crying a bit.
1 HOUR LATER
"Is it mah turn yet?" asked Apple Bloom.
"No," said Applejack to her sister. The orange earth pony was looking out at the window to see if they've flown over Neighborville yet.
"Aaaw..." groaned the yellow foal in disappointment.
"Now, ah said no!"
Just then, there was a loud crashing sound.
"Oh my," said Fluttershy, who had just been cleaned, "Another airship crashed into ours!"
She was right. Their airship was jammed on the side by another airship, which was gray in color. Just then, some creatures jumped onto the top of the group's airship and opened a trapdoor that led to the inside.
"What are you?" asked Capper to the creatures. Just then, they grabbed the group except the Mane 5, Spike, Flitter, and Cloudchaser.
"Sorry," said one of the creatures, "Storm King's orders. He wants the Elements dead and everypony else to be captured."
Soon, the creatures had the rest of the group inside the gray airship. They saw the group's airship come loose and fall off.
"We got them, boss. And the Elements are dead."
"Good job!" shouted a yeti-like creature happily. He had black armor.
"Why are we here?! What is going on? What do you want with us?" growled Rumble.
"We're going to conquer Equestria!" smiled the Storm King evilly. "But I need some more helpers on my Storm Army. As the old saying goes, the more help, the better."
"You won't get away with this!" shouted Thunderlane.
"Oh yes, I will." the yeti-like creature gave out an evil laugh.
Author's Note
Just one more chapter, and then we are done with the Day Levels!
Also, we will see more events based on the MLP movie in future chapters, so expect fan-favorites like Skystar, Celaeno, Tempest, and more!
What will happen to the Mane 5, Spike, Flitter, and Cloudchaser?
Front Yard - Day 10: The Ultimate Battle
"Today is the day that the ultimate battle happens," yawned a tired Twilight, who had just woken up. After fixing up her mane, which she had messed up from tossing and turning during the night, she trotted downstairs.
"Wabbo, morning Twi, how was your night?"
"It wasn't good," said the unicorn, "I kept having bad dreams about Dr. Zomboss winning the battle, eating our brains, and taking over the world."
"Huh?"
"What is this place?"
Two zombies looked around the laboratory. However, these zombies were different. One zombie had the head of a Peashooter, and the other one had a Snow Pea's head!
"Welcome to the world, my Zombotanies." came a voice.
"Zombotanies?" asked the Peashooter zombie.
"Yep, Zombotanies," said the voice, which turned out to be Dr. Zomboss, "You two are my latest creations of zombiekind. You two will help me and my zombie army stop these plants. I know your shooting skills will be useful."
"Shooting skills?" wondered the Snow Pea zombie. She tried to shoot a pea, and she did. The frozen pea hit a target on the wall.
"Great job!" smiled Zomboss, "you hit the bullseye on the target on your first try!"
"Let me try!" said the Peashooter zombie. He shot a pea, which missed the target and hit a certificate on the wall.
"Aw man," grumbled Zomboss, "You ruined my certificate! Anyways, you two go attack the house now! The other zombies are waiting for you."
"Peashooter? Sunflower? Wall-nut? Chomper? Where are all the plants?" said Twilight, as she looked all over the house.
"Wabby, this is odd," added Crazy Dave, "it's like they've completely disappeared or something."
"Oh no," panicked Twilight, "This is bad! Today's the ultimate battle, and we don't even have any plants to fight those zombies!" She began hyperventilating. "I'm the only one who can attack! But how can I do it alone against 16 zombies! Well, technically 15, since Zomboss is not attacking, but still! And even then, there might be new recruits on the zombies' side!"
"Twilight," said Dave. The unicorn turned to the crazy pony.
"I believe in you! I know you can take them down alone! I'm even sure the plants believe in you. You're a smart unicorn. You'll find a way to stop them without letting them eat your brains."
Twilight took a few deep breaths to calm herself down as she listened to the speech from Dave.
"You're right," said the unicorn, who was now confident, "I'm sure I can do this. I'll find a way! Let's attack!" and she ran out the front door.
As soon as Twilight stepped out, she noticed a conveyor belt on the side of the lawn.
"What is this conveyor belt doing here?"
"Greetings, Twilight!" shouted a voice.
Twilight turned her head towards the direction of the voice. There was Zomboss.
"Oh, it's you, Zomboss," muttered Twilight, "What do you want?"
"I wanted to say that the conveyor belt is here for a reason," explained the zombie, "You're getting random plants this ultimate battle!"
"But how?" asked a confused Twilight.
"I broke into your house by going up a ladder and breaking the window carefully so that nopony or plant would hear me. After that, I ate all your plants so that they turned back into seed packets, and I took the DNA of the two Peashooters to make my newest recruits! Meet the Zombotanies!"
The two zombies, or shall I say, zombie-plant hybrids, came into the scene.
"Can we shoot her now?" asked the Snow Pea zombie.
"Not yet!" scolded Zomboss, "We're having a chat right now!" He turned back to Twilight, "Anyways, now that I've explained the plants' disappearance, I have one more thing to say."
"And what's that?" asked the unicorn with a raised eyebrow.
"Let the battle, begin!"
The conveyor belt started moving. Twilight positioned herself to attack the first zombie, which was Boot.
"Heh, looks like I am going to get her brains after all," laughed the deformed zombie. Suddenly, he was met with magic beams.
"I'm not giving up!" said the zombie, as he continued walking towards the unicorn, but he succumbed to the powerful beams anyway.
Just then, a seed packet came in from the conveyor belt. Twilight levitated the packet and planted it into the grass.
"Potato Mine at your service!"
Twilight gave out a sigh of relief. This was the first plant she had seen today.
Grassy tried to sneak through the lawn, but his hand touched something.
"Hello!" shouted a cute voice. Grassy looked up and saw he had touched Potato Mine.
"Aw, horse-"
SPUDOW!
The zombie was blown into smithereens by the explosion.
Vaulty and Sprinty raced towards the lawn.
"I'll get her brains first!"
"No, I will!"
Twilight facehoofed at the two athletic zombies' competitiveness. It was like Applejack and Rainbow Dash's rivalry, but worse! Just then, the unicorn saw two more seed packets from the conveyor belt. "I'll place you two down!"
On the far back of the lawn, she put Cabbage-pult and Single Cherry. Even though Cabbage-pult couldn't get the two athletic zombies killed, the unicorn was confident her strategy would work. The two athletes jumped over Cabbage-pult and right in front of Single Cherry!
"Ooh, a snack!" shouted Sprinty.
"Let's eat!" added Vaulty.
The two zombies began eating Single Cherry, but they were so indulged in their eating that they didn't see him grin.
CHA-BOOF!
"I knew it would work," smiled Twilight to herself.
As Cabbage-pult took care of Caleb, Crazy rushed towards the lawn, laughing like a total maniac.
"Okay, this is annoying already," muttered Twilight. She shot the crazy zombie down with several magic beams to cease his annoying laughter.
Three more seed packets came from the conveyor belt. The unicorn noticed and planted them down. Out sprouted Peashooter, Snow Pea, and Sunflower!
"Time to kick zombie butt!" shouted Peashooter.
"Let's cool things up!" added Snow Pea.
As the two Peashooters took care of Basic and Watterson by shooting peas at them...
"A HUGE WAVE OF ZOMBIES IS APPROACHING!"
"Come on, follow me!" said Purple to Untote, Elmore, and Armless. They followed the purple zombie into the lawn. Luckily for Twilight, the conveyor belt had a seed packet on it!
"Hi guys! Wall-nut's back!"
"Oh no!" groaned Purple, "I'm stuck eating you again!"
While Cabbage-pult lobbed his cabbages at Elmore, the two Peashooters had just finished Basic and Watterson off. They saw Untote and Armless headed for them. Twilight, who had just finished shooting Purple down, decided to take care of Untote, as the peashooting plants shot at Armless.
Just then, two more seeds came out from the conveyor belt. Twilight planted them...
"Twin Sunflower's here to help heal and energize!"
"Hey!" shouted the two-headed sunflower's left head, "I was going to say that!"
"Rawr! Chomper's hungry!"
As the sunflowers energized the plants and healed them when they got bitten by the zombies, Twilight just smiled. The battle was going well.
Just then, a pea hit her. She saw the Peashooter zombie.
"Oh hey, cute unicorn thingy!"
Twilight was about to shoot magic beams at the zombie-plant hybrid, when...
"I'll take care of that hybrid, Twilight."
Twilight moved out of the way for Sunflower to shoot her sun beam at the zombie-plant hybrid, which disintegrated him before he could shoot any more peas.
"ANOTHER HUGE WAVE OF ZOMBIES IS APPROACHING! FINAL WAVE!"
The final wave consisted of Nurp, Conehead, Buckethead, and the zombie-plant hybrid that had the head of a Snow Pea. Twilight threw the next seed packet at them...
"CHA-BOOF!"
The seed packet was Cherry Bomb. But due to the windy weather, it had caused the seed packet to misland and only blow up Nurp and Conehead.
As the Snow Pea zombie shot frozen peas at Cabbage-pult, Buckethead was headed near Twilight. She picked up the last seed packet and planted it in hopes that it would save her life...
All of a sudden, Buckethead's bucket flew off! The zombie turned around and saw Magnet-shroom! He had the bucket!
Buckethead lunged at the mushroom, but Chomper happened to be on the same lane as the mushroom, so before the zombie could eat the mushroom up and take back the bucket, the purple hungry plant was looming over him...
CHOMP!
Chomper had eaten the zombie up.
"You're pretty delicious, Buckethead. Pity about your skin though, it could use lots of color."
Poor Cabbage-pult was losing hope. He was getting colder and colder, and he was the only plant on his lane left... The zombies would win after all...
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
The plants and Twilight looked up to see six ponies and a dragon falling from the sky at a very high speed. There was also a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane chasing after them by flying very fast.
"It's a bird!" exclaimed Sunflower.
"It's a plane!" yelled Cabbage-pult.
"It's Supermare!" called out Magnet-shroom.
"I don't believe it!" shouted the unicorn, "My friends! I'll save you!" She jumped as high as she could to catch them. She was able to catch the dragon, but an orange earth pony fell on them.
"Sorry, sugarcubes," she said, rather sheepishly.
The two lavender pegasi had just realized they could fly. They flew down to pick up the falling ponies. The one wearing a bow on her head was able to catch a yellow pegasus in her hooves, while the one in a darker shade of lavender caught a white unicorn.
"Oh my, that was rather scary," said the yellow pegasus.
"Thank you so much, darling", smiled the white unicorn to the pegasus that had just saved her from falling to her death.
The blue pegasus with a rainbow mane swooped towards the ground. She saw Twilight, "Twilight!" shouted the pegasus, as she gave the unicorn a hug, "I missed you!"
"We all did, sugarcube," said the orange earth pony. The rest of the group joined into the group hug. Just then, they heard a scream, followed by a squishing sound. The group turned to see a pink earth pony, who had landed on the Snow Pea zombie, killing her instantly.
"Um... oopsie!" the pink pony gave out an embarrassed grin.
"Pinkie," said Twilight, "you saved us!"
"Um, what do you mean?" asked the confused pink pony.
"That was the last zombie of today's battle!"
"Battle?"
The unicorn just smiled. "It's time I told you all a story."
"Stories?" said Pinkie, "I love stories! Tell us!"
"Well, to make the long story short, I ended up here after I was banished, saw Peashooter being attacked by those zombies, helped take down these undead things, I met Crazy Dave, we got some new plants on the way like Sunflower, Cherry Bomb, Wall-nut, Single Cherry, and more, but also encountered new zombie enemies, like Conehead, Buckethead, those two athletes, and more, and then today was an ultimate battle, Dr. Zomboss stole all my plants and installed a conveyor belt to load the plants randomly, there was one zombie left, but it nearly won, then you all fell from the sky, and Pinkie landed on the last zombie, and that's what happened."
"So, this is Neighborville," said the yellow pegasus.
"It is, Fluttershy," smiled Twilight, "and you'll like these plants."
Fluttershy turned to see the plants.
"Oh my Celestia! They're so cute!" She squealed cutely as she hugged Sunflower, though gently. "You are all cute!"
Twilight smiled at her friend's reaction to the plants. She then turned to the rest of the ponies, "You went looking for me?" the unicorn teared up, though they were tears of joy.
"We've always got your back, Twilight," said the blue rainbow-maned pegasus.
"Thanks, Rainbow Dash. But I have one question. How did you know I was here?"
"Well," said Pinkie, "We tried to contact you, but we couldn't find you. A couple of days later, we helped reform Discord-"
"Wait, Discord?!" exclaimed Twilight in surprise.
"There's more to him than you think," reassured Fluttershy. "He's really sorry for all the bad things he's done, and he made friends with us, though he considers me to be his very best friend. He also went through a lot of torment in the past." And the yellow pegasus proceeded to tell the unicorn about Discord's past and how he was an outcast just for being different.
"I don't believe it! So he went through all that torment in the past?" The unicorn had once thought Discord was just an evil entity who liked to corrupt others and make things chaotic, but after what she had heard, she now knew that Discord had gone through lots of pain and only took over Equestria, because of what he went through.
"Well, if what you're saying is true, then I'll give him a chance."
"Glad you understand, Twilight," smiled Fluttershy.
"Anyways, can you continue the story about how you got here?"
"I believe I'll take it from here, darling." said the white unicorn. "So, it wasn't just us who believed you were innocent. There were the Crusaders, the Cakes, Thunderlane, Helia, Rumble, Button Mash, Pipsqueak, Flitter and Cloudchaser, Discord, even a visiting Trixie-"
"Trixie?!" yelled Twilight, who was surprised once again.
"Believe me, darling, she really was sorry for what she put you through when she visited, and she's even looking for you right now! At least that's what she said before she made her leave."
"She's really that remorseful that she went looking for me?" thought the unicorn to herself. She realized that Fluttershy and her friends were able to reform Discord, plus Trixie might have been able to change herself.
"That's awfully nice of her," said the unicorn after what seemed like ages, "Rarity, is she really sorry?"
"Don't worry, she is. We were skeptical of her at first and we even warned her no funny business, but she meant every word of her remorsefulness."
Twilight knew that her friends would never lie to her. Not after the Lesson Zero incident. "Well, she's really come a long way then. If I can't get in contact with her, but you can, please tell her that I forgive her."
"Will do, darling."
"Anyways, sugarcube," interjected the orange pony, "Continuing on, some changelings in disguise bombed Sugarcube Corner and Flitter and Cloudchaser were blamed and got exiled. After that, we had it with ponies getting exiled, so Spike asked Discord where ya were, and he gave out directions. But sadly, the draconequus was on a magic drain, after an incident involving him zipping up many ponies' lips after they insulted Fluttershy. We all formed a search and rescue team. We ended up finding Flitter and Cloudchaser in a place called Klugetown. These two were taken hostage by Discord's father. Apparently, that varmit had the nerve to abandon his own son. Then, we met a charming but friendly cat named Capper, who joined our team, and knew where Neighborville was. He gave us an airship ride, but then another airship hit us, and those creature things captured all of us except for me, Fluttershy, Rainbow, Rarity, Pinkie, Spike, Flitter and Cloudchaser. These creatures said something about a Storm King and how he wanted us dead. We tried to go after these creatures to stop them and rescue the rest of the search and rescue team, but our airship came loose and we fell off and ended up here, and that's how we got here."
Twilight was surprised at the story. "Applejack, that was one crazy adventure."
"Yeah, it was, sugarcube. But, mah sister and her friends along with everypony else who believes ya, well except the Cakes, who are still in Ponyville due to their job, but still! And we don't know where they are! They could still be in that airship or they could have landed somewhere!"
Meanwhile, the airship was flying over Equestria. The creatures were watching over the Crusaders, Thunderlane, Helia, Rumble, Button Mash, Pipsqueak, and Discord
"Can you seriously not stare at us every second?" asked Scootaloo.
"She's right," agreed Pipsqueak, "you're creeping me out."
"Sorry, once again, Storm King's orders," said the creature.
The captured ponies (and draconequus) looked out of a window.
"Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Spike, Cloudchaser, and Flitter... please be okay..."
Twilight patted Applejack on the back, "There there, we'll find them eventually."
"I hope so," sighed the cowgirl pony sadly.
"Anyways, it's nice to have you back," said the purple unicorn, "I've missed you."
"We missed you too!" exclaimed Pinkie, as she and the rest of the group got into a hug.
"So, who are these plants anyway?" asked Spike
"Oh right, we forgot to introduce ourselves," said Peashooter, "I'm Peashooter, and the rest of the plant team is: Sunflower, Cherry Bomb, Wall-nut, Single Cherry, Potato Mine, Twin Sunflower, Cabbage-pult, Snow Pea, Chomper and Magnet-shroom."
"Well, shucks," smiled Applejack, "nice to meet you all."
"Same here," agreed Peashooter.
Crazy Dave then walked up.
"Let's have some tacos-"
He was cut off by a loud smashing noise. Everybody turned around and to their surprise, they saw a very damaged airship in the middle of the lawn! Smoke was rising from the twisted metal remains.
"I was wondering what happened to it," said Pinkie after a few minutes of silence.
"So, is the plan ready?" asked Iceberg Lettuce to the other captive plants.
"It's all set!" called out Starfruit.
"We got all the cameras hidden all over the store!" added Small Pepper.
If Iceberg Lettuce had a visible mouth, she would be smiling. "Good job, all of you." she said, "Miss Lotus here thinks she has the right to call us cowards, put us through physical abuse and she thinks she can get away with it. Well, this plan will make sure she won't get away with it! Tomorrow, she will be filmed by the hidden cameras, and the day after tomorrow, we will show the footage! She's not getting away with the torment she's put us through for the last couple years or so!"
But what would happen tomorrow?
That's another story for another day.
Author's Note
The day levels are officially done!
So, what does that mean? Well, I'm going to put this fanfic on a hiatus for now so that I can take a break from writing. After that, I will make the last five chapters, which will serve as a buildup to Season 2, which will have the Night and Pool levels. (each season will have 26 episodes as par tradition to the actual MLP with the exception of Season 3, which will have 13 episodes.)
During the hiatus though, I might rewrite all the episodes prior to this one to make them longer, lengthy and more detailed. After all, this is the first chapter to go over 1,599 words!
Spitfire: That's an academy record!
Anyways, about Twilight knowing that her friends would never lie to her after the Lesson Zero incident, I know some of you will say, "But the rehearsal at the Canterlot Wedding happened!"
Well, in this AU, the events of the wedding rehearsal happened differently. The details of this event will be explained in one of the next chapters.
What was left of "The Real Rehearsal"
"Got any eights?"
"No, go fish."
The plants and ponies were spending quality time with each other. Sunflower, Snow Pea, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy were playing a friendly game of Go Fish, as Peashooter and Cabbage-pult were practicing with dummy zombies for the next battle.
Just then, Twilight stormed in with a bag of fertilizer, and as soon as everybody saw the expression on her face, they knew something was bothering her.
"What's brought on that frown, Twilight?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"Well Dash, I'm really cross over what some of these ponies said to me while I was buying fertilizer."
"What did they say?" asked Snow Pea curiously.
"Well apart from asking about my past adventures, they kept asking me about the wedding."
Everybody looked at each other, confused.
Just then, Peashooter asked the obvious question, "Why did these ponies ask you about the wedding anyway? What's wrong with it?"
"These ponies claim that my friends abandoned me at the rehearsal after I made the changeling imposter cry."
Silence fell. After a few minutes, Cabbage-pult broke the silence, "That didn't really happen, did it?"
"Of course not," said Twilight, "After the Lesson Zero incident, my friends would never do that. But these questions made me so mad because I know how the rehearsal actually went, and my friends never did such a cruel act as to leave me behind to check on the fake bride."
Just then, Flitter piped up. "Can you tell us the real story about the wedding rehearsal, Twilight?"
"Gladly Flitter. Everypony and plant," The purple unicorn turned to Spike, "and dragon too, this is what actually happened at the wedding rehearsal."
"After I had called the fake bride evil, she ran off crying. I had been yelled at by my brother, who thought the fake bride was actually Cadance. After he said that, he also said I could forget about being his best mare and that if he was me, he wouldn't show up to the wedding at all."
Twilight felt upset as she watched her brother leave. What if Cadance really was stressed out? She was about to apologize, when...
"You have a lot to think about," said Princess Celestia harshly as she left the room as well.
The unicorn turned to her five friends and her assistant. She expected them to walk out of the room as well or yell at her, but they didn't.
"It'll be okay, sugarcube," comforted the orange earth pony. "We're here for you."
Twilight didn't expect her friends to comfort her. Not after what she had done, "But I messed up. Now my brother and mentor are mad at me and you girls should be too!"
Applejack sighed, "Yeah, Ah admit it that ya kinda took things too far with calling her evil and making her cry."
"I could have gained a sister," Twilight moaned, as tears started filling her eyes. "But instead.....I lost a brother."
Twilight began sobbing as she sang:
He was my Big Brother Best Friend Forever, But now we'll never Do anything together....
Author's Note
This chapter was being worked on before I cancelled the fanfic. This is what was left of it before the fanfic ended up being cancelled.
Read this for why
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Intermission: Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures
This morning, the five mares and the dragon were talking to each other in the library.
"Why must something absolutely dreadful always happen here?" complained Rarity. "First a dragon spreads smoke everywhere, then Spikey-Wikey turns into a giant and goes on a rampage, and now this!"
"All things happen for a reason, sugarcube," insisted Applejack. "If the dragon didn't spread smoke everywhere, Fluttershy would not have learned to be braver and to stand up to the bigger beasts who try to harm us, and if Spike didn't go on a rampage, he would have never learned the values of kindness and generosity. Sure, bad things do happen to all of us, but in the end, something good always happens."
"She does have a point," agreed Pinkie.
"But that was within Equestria," argued Rainbow Dash. "Twilight, Flitter, and Cloudchaser are miles away beyond Equestria and who knows where in the world are they?"
Just then, Fluttershy noticed that Spike was looking anxious, even more so than usual.
"Are you okay, Spike?" asked the yellow pegasus.
"What if these three never come back?" Spike asked. "What if they get lost or get kidnapped or die from the lack of natural resources?"
"I'm sure Twilight, Flitter, and Cloudchaser will be okay," Pinkie insisted gently. "Twilight's a smart unicorn and Flitter and Cloudchaser can fly. They'll find a way to live beyond Equestria."
But Spike wasn't convinced at all and before anypony else could say anything, he raced out of the library.
"Spikey-Wikey darling, where are you going?" called Rarity, but the little purple dragon didn't reply.
Discord was just hanging out in Fluttershy's cottage. She had made him in charge of the animals while she was gone for a meeting with her friends at the library. Discord put several bowls of animal food on the floor, and the animals came to their bowls and ate it all up.
"It's not the same without my chaos," he muttered.
Just then a knock on the door was heard. Discord walked to the door and opened it. Spike came into the cottage.
"Why, isn't it my good old friend, Spike!" said the draconequus. "What brings you here?"
"Discord! I'm so glad you're here right now!" cried the dragon. "Do you remember how Twilight, Flitter, and Cloudchaser were banished from Equestria for a crime they did not commit?"
"I remember that," said Discord. "What about it?"
"Do you know where they are?" asked the dragon. "They've been gone for a while and we haven't received any status on whether they are okay." He knew asking Discord for a favor was a bit of a selfish act, but he was worried about the three ponies and didn't care about the consequences as long as the three were okay.
"Well," said the draconequus, "I can't give you a portal to that place, as I'm on temporary magic drain right now. He recalled the time he zipped up many ponies' mouths for saying mean things about Fluttershy a few days ago. The princesses found out, made him unzip the ponies' mouths, and temporarily drained him of most of his powers. "But, luckily, I can gladly tell you what happened to them the last time I checked and that I have the directions to where these ponies are."
"Ooh, please do."
"Well, Twilight is currently in a town beyond Equestria. That town is called Neighborville. The town is full of ponies and talking plants. She's currently residing with one of the residents, Dave and his plants. They are currently under attack by zombies, but they do a good job of taking them down.
"Well, that's good to hear," sighed the dragon in relief.
"And as for Flitter and Cloudchaser," Discord continued, "I hate to say it, but..."
"But what?"
"...they were kidnapped."
"What do you want from us?!" shouted Cloudchaser. She was tied up with Flitter and were being dragged into a dark room.
"Oh, nothing," said a voice. The lights then turned on, revealing a tall figure in a black cloak. "You can refer to me as the PORTAL MASTER!"
"The Portal Master?!" exclaimed Flitter.
"I thought it was a myth!" said Cloudchaser.
"Well, I'm real!" said "the Portal Master", and he dragged the two pegasi to a room full of portals. There were many portals, but they were turned off. "Ever since I was born, I've had the power to create portals from one place to another. This helped me a lot. But I was mocked for that, so I threw these bullies into a portal, and now I'm going to use them to get rid of you two!"
"But why us?" said Flitter.
"Because your parents were the ones who mocked me!"
"They did WHAT?!" yelled Cloudchaser.
"Yes! Your parents mocked me just for my powers!" shouted "the Portal Master". "I was so mad I did something to them!"
"Did you ki- But.. you didn't!" shouted Flitter.
"Yes I did, I killed them last year by throwing them into a portal, and now it's time for you two to die!"
The two pegasi prepared for "the Portal Master" to turn on a portal and throw them in, but he didn't. "Never mind! I'm not in a killing mood right now, so I guess you two can work for me!" He gave out a loud terrifying laugh. He had these two fooled and the two pegasi now thought their families were bullies that were killed by him. "That's a good story." he thought to himself. "I'll just manipulate these ponies into hating their families, work for me, cause disharmony and throw them into the portals when I don't need them, and no more."
"They were what?!" shouted Spike.
"I'm afraid they were kidnapped," sighed the draconequus sadly. "I tried to snap Twilight, Flitter, and Cloudchaser back here many times before, but I don't think my chaos magic works beyond Equestria."
Spike knew he had to tell the others. He ran off, leaving Discord confused.
"Was it something I said?"
Spike ran back into the library.
"Oh, Spikey-Wikey!" Rarity ran over to the dragon to give him a big hug. "We were wondering about you!"
"You girls," said Spike, "I now know what happened to Twilight, Flitter, and Cloudchaser!"
And he proceeded to tell the details of what Discord had told him. From Twilight being in Neighborville to Flitter and Cloudchaser being kidnapped. Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie, and Applejack were amazed, but Fluttershy was cross.
"I know you are worried about these three, and I am too, but Discord is our friend, not a tool for us to use to solve our problems!"
"I know..." said Spike. "I knew it was a selfish act the moment I asked him, but I just wanted to see if Flitter, Cloudchaser, and especially Twilight were okay! I'm worried about these two, and Twilight's been like a big sister to me since Day One!"
"Don't put all the blame on him, sugarcube," said Applejack. "Ah would've done it had ah not knew it was a selfish act."
"Me too!" agreed Pinkie.
"Same here," added Rainbow Dash.
"And besides, darling," said Rarity. "You probably wanted to ask Discord for the whereabouts of these three too!"
The yellow pegasus was silent for a moment. Finally, she spoke up.
"Okay, I wanted to, but I'm the Element of Kindness, and using Discord as a tool to see if they were okay was a selfish act, so I decided not to. I'll let it slide this once. I'm sorry and I forgive you, Spike."
"No need for the apology," said the dragon. "I deserved the scolding."
"So what now?" asked Applejack. "Since we now know Twilight, Flitter, and Cloudchaser's locations, should we all start a search and rescue party?"
The four ponies and the dragon were contemplating amongst themselves. Just then, Pinkie Pie bounced to Applejack's side, followed by Spike and Rainbow Dash. Rarity walked over too, and they turned to Fluttershy.
"Umm… I’ll try my best." smiled the yellow pegasus nervously as she walked over. Applejack smiled. Now that she got her best friends on her side to help with the search and rescue party.
"Ah think we should go ask everypony else if they want to help us join the party. The more help the better."
But most of the ponies didn't want to help look for Twilight, Flitter, and Cloudchaser. They still thought these three had committed the crimes involving the attempted murder of Derpy and the bakery bombing. And then there were the Cakes. They wanted to help, but due to their jobs, they had to stay in Ponyville. Discord volunteered to help as he knew the directions, and when Rainbow Dash took to the skies and found Thunderlane and Helia and told them about the search, the former gladly agreed to help with the search as well. Helia was a bit reluctant at first, but when the mares allowed the Crusaders, Rumble, Button Mash, and Pipsqueak to help as long as they stayed close to the adults and didn't wander off too far, she decided to join the search and rescue party so that she could grow closer to Rumble.
That night at the library, it was settled that the team would start the quest to find the three missing ponies tomorrow. Even though the library was where Spike, and more recently, Applejack and Apple Bloom lived, they decided to let their friends sleep with them for the night as tomorrow would be a big day for them and they would become a team to find Twilight, Flitter, and Cloudchaser.
Author's Note
Now that the Mane 5 and Spike have found out about where Twilight, Flitter, and Cloudchaser are (thanks to Discord), and have assembled the search and rescue team, how will the Mane 5, Spike, Discord, Thunderlane, Helia, the Crusaders, Rumble, Button Mash, and Pipsqueak find the way to Neighborville (and also find the whereabouts of Flitter and Cloudchaser)? Find out in the next chapter!
This chapter happens simultaneously with the events of Chill Out.
