Twilight and Luna stood in front of a large building. A tacky sign with the
words “The Flower” stood above its two large front doors. It was much
bigger than a newspaper office needed to be. Twilight had passed by the
building before, but she had never been inside. It was clear that the
newspaper was connected with the strange events, yet Twilight had no
idea what to expect inside. She looked at Luna with an uncertain
expression. Luna simply nodded at her. As nervous as she was, Twilight
had to find out what was going on inside. She gathered her courage and
pushed the door open.

Twilight stepped inside the lobby, with Luna beside her. The cold interior made
Twilight shiver. It was a simple lobby, with a counter at the end and
some seats for waiting in. There was only one door in sight, right ahead
of them. Twilight's heartbeat sped up as she heard footsteps from the
other side of the door. The door opened slowly. Lily was in the dark
room on the other side. Her eyes widened as she saw Twilight. Lily
retreated and spoke to somepony in the other room.

“I-it's her! She's come to bully me again! Help me!” Lily said.

“I'll handle this. You can go work on the newspaper, you don't need to listen
to our conversation.” A firm voice said. Footsteps echoed as a pony
walked towards the lobby. The pony walked from the shadows. Twilight
recognized her cream body and dark red mane. It was Rose.

“Ah, Twilight Sparkle. I've been expecting you.” Rose said while grinning.

“You got me wrong. We're not here to bully anypony, we'd like to see the back room.” Twilight said.

“I'm afraid I can't let you do that. It would ruin my plan. You've already
gone too far off the script. Everything would've gone perfectly if it
wasn't for you.” Rose said and glared at Luna.

“What are you talking about? I’ve only been helping Twilight.” Luna said, confused.

“That's exactly the problem, Princess Luna.” Rose said. Luna and Twilight gasped in surprise.

“You know me?! That means...” Luna began.

“You're from our dimension!” Twilight finished.

“Of course I am. You weren't supposed to survive for so long, though. If
only I knew you had connections to the princess...” Rose said.

“You know everything, don't you?! Tell us!” Twilight said.

“Why should I? I'm not your friend. In fact, you're exactly the kind of pony
I hate. If you're as intelligent as you claim, you should figure it out
yourself.” Rose mocked. She was full of herself. Seeing the way she
acted, Twilight got an idea.

“You know what? You won. Your plan is so brilliant that I'll never
understand it. I want to hear how you managed to come up with all of
this. Will you teach me how to be as clever as you are?” Twilight said
in a depressed voice.

“What are you doing? You can't admit defeat now!” Luna whispered to Twilight's ear.

“I know her type. You just have to feed her ego and she'll do whatever you say.” Twilight whispered back.

“Oh, you finally came to your senses and realized how much better I am. I
pity you, so I'll tell you everything.” Rose said proudly. She cleared
her throat and began her story.

Back when Rose, Daisy and Lily were in high school, they ran the student
newspaper together. They had always dreamed of being famous reporters,
thanks to a comic book they liked as children. When they realized
everypony in the school read their paper, they knew it was their destiny
to start a daily newspaper. After they finished high school, they
bought an old factory building in Ponyville and ran The Flower from
there. They soon realized it wasn't as easy as they expected. There was a
lot of competition from foreign newspapers. The Flower’s information
network and writing skills were nowhere near as good as their
competitors. In order to sell any copies, they had to make their
headlines as eye-catching as possible. They didn't care about how
accurate their articles were, they simply wanted The Flower to be as
famous as possible. It worked at first, but they were soon criticized
for being sensational. The sales plummeted and they almost had to
abandon the paper.

Rose had to come up with a plan so the paper would survive. She would do
anything to relive her youth, when everypony praised her paper. It
became an obsession for her. Every day, she would think of ways to get
ponies to read her paper. A long time passed before she came up with her
brilliant idea. What if the sequence of writing a newspaper would be
reversed? Instead of the newspaper being written according to real life
events, reality would be written according to the newspaper. If this
would happen, her newspaper would always be accurate. All of their
competitors would be late, since theirs is the only one that can decide
what happens. She spent three long years researching and planning for a
way to accomplish this. After all that time, everything was ready. Seven
days ago, she executed her master plan.

Rose contacted the royal castle in Canterlot to get a press pass inside the
castle. She claimed to be doing research for an article on the security
in the castle. The castle had always been very accepting of the press.
Despite the paper's questionable reputation, she easily got a pass.
Their only condition was that two guards would follow her movements.
Rose wandered around the castle, writing notes she would never use. The
last location she went into was her actual goal, the entrance to the
underground vault beneath the castle. She asked the guards to open the
door so she could do research in the tunnel. Her press pass gave her
permission to enter, so the guards opened the thick door. Standing at
the entrance of the deep tunnel, she turned back at her escorts. She
looked around the hallway to make sure nopony was around, then dug into
her bag. Under the reporter's equipment was a secret compartment. She
had prepared it to get the tools she needed past the security check at
the entrance. The two bags inside contained all of her savings split in
half. She offered them as a bribe to the guards. The guards gave into
temptation and agreed to wait at the entrance. If anypony asked, they
would have simply lost sight of her for a moment. Rose smirked as she
entered the dark tunnel.

The tunnel was pitch black. Rose walked next to the cold wall. The sounds
from the castle gradually became quieter, until it was completely silent
inside. When Rose was sure that nopony could see her, she took a torch
from her bag. She dropped the torch to the ground and lit it up using
the matches she'd brought along. The tunnel lit up in a red light,
revealing the metal walls that surrounded it. Rose put the torch into
the portable stand on her back. The heat from the torch made the tunnel
much warmer. Rose kept walking on the long, straightforward tunnel. The
trip felt even longer than it really was. With every step she took, she
wished she'd see something other than darkness ahead of her.

At last, Rose saw two thick, steel doors ahead of her. Both of them had a
large and rusty keyhole on them. The two princesses held the keys
required to open the doors. Despite her brilliant planning, Rose hadn't
been able to figure out a way to get them undetected. She had came up
with an alternative way inside. Rose dug into her bag in the dim light.
In the secret compartment were two blocks of plastic explosives. They
were molded into the same shape as the keyholes, only a bit smaller.
Rose took the first one in her mouth and carefully inserted it inside
the keyhole. After all the trouble it took to get them, she couldn't
afford to waste any. She took the other block in her mouth and put it as
close to the locking mechanism as she could. The power of the
explosives was calculated so it would destroy the locking mechanism,
allowing the door to be opened without the keys. Rose backed away from
the door while counting her steps. She stopped after she had gone far
enough that the shockwave from the blast wouldn't affect her. She faced
away from the door and took the detonator from her bag, carefully
placing it on the ground. She took a deep breath and stepped on the
detonator. A loud explosion rang from behind her. As loud as the
explosion was, the tunnel was so deep that the sound shouldn't have been
loud enough to reach outside of it.

Rose went back towards the door. The smell of smoke became stronger as she
got closer. The light from the torch reached the door, allowing her to
see the effects of the explosion. The deep hole inbetween the keyholes
made her feel relieved. Nothing but pieces of metal were left of the
locking mechanism. Rose took several pieces with her as a memento.
Pushing the middle of the doors made them open with a creak. Rose
stepped inside the underground vault.

Rose had reached the room she worked so hard to get in. She was overjoyed,
but forced herself to calm down. Her mission wasn't complete yet. She
looked around in the large, square room. It contained many artifacts on
golden pedestals, sealed inside glass cases. Rose was only interested in
one of them, she paid no attention to the rest of them. The light from
the torch had a short reach, so she had to walk close to the cases to
see what was in them. She looked at the cases one by one as she went
past them, until one of them caught her eye.

Inside the glass case was an eerie object. The organic surface shaped like a
brain flickered in wild colors. The eyes etched onto its surface stared
at Rose. It was just as the book on ancient artifacts had described it.
The day had finally come. What Rose had been searching for was right in
front of her. All she had to do was reach for it and it would be hers.
She lifted the case with her shaking hooves. She dropped it to the
ground, causing it to shatter to pieces. Nothing stood in the way of her
precious artifact. She grabbed the slimy object and put it inside the
hidden compartment.

“After that, I simply walked out of the castle. The guards acted their part
and nopony suspected a thing. What a bunch of naive fools.” Rose said
with a satisfied look.

“So you're the one who broke into the vault!” Luna said.

“Yes, it wasn't much of a challenge. You should hire better guards. Not that
you'll ever get the chance to. You'll never escape on your own and I
have no intention of letting you go.” Rose said.

“Why did you drag me into your plan? I barely even know you!” Twilight said.

“You were a last minute addition. It's the only flawed part in my plan. You
know what they say, even geniuses make mistakes.” Rose said.

Rose was euphoric on her way back to Ponyville. The hardest part of her plan
had gone perfectly. The rest would be much easier. She was confident
she could do anything. It wouldn't be long before her dream would come
true. She would leave all those neighsayers behind and become the famous
reporter she wanted to be. It would be so satisfying to see them get
what they deserve. In fact, she could do that. To represent them, she
chose a pony she truly hated. Twilight Sparkle, the pony whose face was
full of disgust when she was introduced to Rose's beloved paper.

The moon had risen by the time Rose got to the library building. All of the
lights in the building were off. Rose climbed the back of the tree onto
the balcony. Rose gently pushed the balcony door. It wasn't even
locked. Rose quietly opened it and went inside.

The moonlight only barely reached the house. Thankfully, Rose didn't need
to see anything. Her hearing was enough. She heard snoring from two
different sources. The louder, low pitched one came from upstairs. The
quieter one came from near the entrance. The quieter one was likely her
target, as it sounded feminine. Rose slowly sneaked towards the sound.
Her eyes gradually got used to the dark. She could make out the source
of the snoring. It was a purple, sleeping unicorn. The unicorn laid on
her stomach, using an open book as a pillow. Rose quietly began her
operation.

Rose opened her bag and dug into the hidden compartment. She took out the
artifact and placed it on the floor. The bag had a knife Rose always
carried with her. She took it into her mouth, with the sharp edge
pointing ahead of her. She crouched next to the artifact and cut out a
small piece of the slimy substance. It looked like the eyes of the
artifact cringed as she did so, but Rose thought she must be seeing
things. She put the knife away and took the flickering piece of slime
onto her hoof. Keeping the hoof up, she crawled next to Twilight. She
used the free hoof to slowly raise her mane and stuck the slime onto her
neck. It was slippery and kept falling off. That wouldn't do, it needed
to stay still.

Rose had to improvise. She couldn’t hold the slime still by herself, she
needed something else to do it with. After some thought, she picked up
one of the pieces of metal she took from the tunnel. She put it on the
ground and stuck the slime on it. One of the pockets in the bag had a
stick of strong glue in it. Rose applied it at the edges of the piece of
metal. This should hold the slime still. All she needed to do was to
get it onto the unicorn’s neck. Rose took the piece of metal onto her
hoof, while raising Twilight's mane with the other hoof. She stuck the
piece of metal on the neck. It easily held in place.

Only one step left in the plan. This was the moment she'd been waiting for
so many years. In her impatience, she decided to perform the last step
right now. She stood in front of the artifact and mentally prepared
herself. She would leave this world behind and live out her dream. All
it took was one simple move. Rose crouched next to the artifact. She
poked its eyes with her hooves. She stuck them as deep as she could
reach, feeling the goo inside. The artifact shook and flickered rapidly.
The goo wrapped itself around Rose's hooves, pressing against them. It
hurt, but Rose did her best to stay still. After a moment, the artifact
calmed down and stood still. Rose took her hooves off the artifact.
Nothing seemed different, yet Rose knew everything had changed. She was
overjoyed. She quickly packed her bag and sneaked onto the balcony. She
recklessly jumped off the roof. The landing hurt her hooves a bit, but
she barely noticed.

Rose ran on the road leading to Canterlot. Ponyville was the same as before.
Judging by the surroundings, everything had gone perfectly. There was
only one way to make sure the artifact worked. In order to confirm that,
she dashed at the road. Just as she expected, she soon hit a wall. This
was proof she wasn't living in reality. This was her dream.

Twilight was nothing more than a guest who overstayed her welcome. Rose tortured
her by ruining her trust in herself. Twilight's intelligence was
useless when the world played by Rose's rules. One day, Rose would have
the satisfaction of watching Twilight destroy herself. She simply
modified her dream in ways that would make her lose confidence in
herself. The newspaper she so hated would become her doom. The plan
would've succeeded if it wasn't for the one thing she couldn't predict.
Princess Luna's arrival. The two princesses were the only ponies
powerful enough to enter her dream. Rose had no idea Twilight knew them.
Magically sent letters can cross dimensions, one must have given away
the location of her dream. A third being from reality entered the dream,
siding with Twilight. Luna made Rose's goal of driving Twilight insane
much harder. Twilight was no longer alone. Luna's comfort allowed her to
stay sane.

“That’s how my brilliant plan went. Before you say anything, I'd like you to
know that tomorrow's headline has already been prepared. Twilight
Sparkle Dies a Gory Death. I'm sure that'll be our new best seller.”
Rose said and chuckled.

“You're crazy! This dimension makes no sense, just like your articles! This isn't a dream, it's a nightmare!” Twilight said.

“It's my dream, not yours. Everything is just the way I want it to be.” Rose
said with a mad grin. “You two are the only thing that stands in my way.
All I have to do is get rid of you and things will be perfect. You know
what? I'm not going to wait for tomorrow. I'll kill you with my own
hooves!”

Rose leaped at Twilight. Twilight barely had enough time to react and dodge
to the side. Before Twilight could do anything else, Rose grabbed her
neck. She pushed her to the ground and strangled her with her front
hooves. Twilight struggled to get away, but Rose had her in a tight
grip. Twilight was about to run out of breath, when the pressure on her
neck went away. The hooves were still around her neck, but her grip had
loosened. Rose was standing still, as if she was frozen. Twilight got up
and looked at Luna, whose horn had just stopped glowing.

“I paralyzed her with my spell. I had to cast it quickly, so it won't last
too long. We don't have much time. We have to stop tomorrow's The
Flower from being printed!” Luna said.