When Twilight's friends had come over for their scheduled 'Council Of Friendship Meeting' (just really an excuse to socialize and have fun), they were surprised when Twilight 'check lists for check lists' Sparkle wasn't there to greet them with Spike on the dot. Spike said Twilight had research that had run a little long, though even the baby dragon seemed a tad concerned. But the girls only had to wait for a short while until Twilight stepped out of the castle.

Twilight Sparkle looked around at her friends, and sighed. "Fine, let's hear it."

"Uh, hear what Sugar Cube?" AJ asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Whatever it's going to turn out to be today, let's just hear it. One of you is secretly a serial killer?"

"How do you kill cereal?" Pinkie Pie asked.

"Uh, daring, are you feeling well?" Rarity asked, noting the rarely said word 'killer'. The word killed was one rarely tossed about, the only time in recent memory it was relevant to them was when King Sombra had been obliterated by the Crystal Heart, but the only tears shed for the dark tyrant's death were those for a lost soul.

"You're part of a massive conspiracy that silences and eliminates anypony or anything that might upset the status quo of Equestria, only answerable to yourselves?"

"That sounds kinda cool, but no," Rainbow Dash said.

"NO IT ISN'T!" Twilight snarled. "It's a mockery of everything Equestria was meant to be! Everything it's supposed to be!"

"Uh okay?" Dash flew back some. Twilight's composure had slipped for a brief moment and that was enough to make Dash shudder.

"So... so let's move on. You're social opportunists who were using me from the start?"

Rarity shook her head. "Darling, as much as I always look for a chance to expand my business connections: when we first met I helped you with your mane like I would ANY pony. And I went into Everfree because Fluttershy was, and because I wasn't about to let somepony from outside of Ponyville just wander blindly through Everfree."

"And really," Pinkie Pie said, "That really doesn't make much sense. Remember how we all buttered you up trying to get those Gala tickets? I think that's about the ONLY time we really ALL acted like that. And we probably would have done that to anypony we knew with tickets. Sure, Dashie moonlighted with the Wonderbolts during the Equestrian Games, and Rarity two-timed us and lied to us on your birthday so she could socialize with the fancy ponies more, but neither of those really had anything to do with you."

RD and Rarity lowered their heads some.

"So is Equestria at a war that'll make a mockery of all our non-lethal methods of fighting, and have us all slaughtered unless we're MORE savage and cold-blooded on the battlefield than the enemy?"

"Um, not last time I checked, uh, no," Fluttershy said.

"Last 'war' we had was with the Changelings and nopony died," Rainbow Dash pointed out. "And that was when we got ambushed."

"Are we under occupation of sexist monsters who have brainwashed all the males into being sexist monsters too and broken us mares into slaves and sawed off our horns?"

"Um, Twilight, do you have a fever? Why don't we go inside? Please?" Fluttershy put a hoof to Twilight's forehead.

Twilight shook her off. "Answer the question."

"No," AJ said with a stern face, feeling extra disgusted at that one. Spike shook his head too. Rarity pointed at her own horn wonder how Twilight had missed it.

"Sweetie Belle is a robot/demon hybrid and is going on a town rampage?"

Rarity frown deeply, not looking the least bit amused. "Now you are just being silly dear! I think I would know if that was true!"

"Did Celestia changed her name to Molestia and abuses me and her servants?"

Spike frowned and pointed. "Twilight you should know better than anypony that was just garbage those journalist printed to sell their stupid tabloids."

"So is Celestia secretly Tirek?"

"NO!" All her friends said together.

"We just kicked Tirek's sorry flank back to Tartarus, Twilight! You can't have forgotten that already!" Rainbow Dash pointed out in disbelief. "Remember? New castle? Epic new rainbow superpowers?"

Rainbow demonstrated by letting the blue glow shine a little bit, still loving how it felt.

Twilight breathed in deep. "So is Celestia at the top of a racist supremacist system with Alicorns at the top, then unicorns, then pegasi, then earth ponies, followed by everycreature else?"

AJ shook her head. "Twili' are ya feelin' okay? Ah PAY Daisy Jo and her girls for their milk! Same with the sheep and their wool! In bits! We have a contract!"

"And darling, you and I both know that elites aren't rude over species! I know I'm not a Canterlot native, but nothing I've seen suggests they base their bad attitude on race."

"Plus, racism kinda died out after the Windigos nearly destroyed pony civilization by feeding off of racial hatred, remember? The fancy historical play?" Rainbow Dash said. "And, well..." she said, pointing to everypony. "Does anypony give a darn about us all being different races?"

"Spike, have I been planning to betray my friends in some twisted selfish interpretation of harmony and become a goddess?"

"Uh, no. And Twilight, erm, you kinda already are, remember?" Spike pointed at her wings. "You're Friendship, not Harmony..."

"Okay, am I having a existential crisis over the realization that there are multiple universes, and that the choices of other Twilight Sparkles somehow negate or trivialize the choices, I, myself make?"

"Besides that freak out you had over accidentally getting some check lists out of order because you insisted on trying to read three books at once while organizing, no."

"I did NOT freak out!"

"No offense Twili, but ya do freak when things are outta order, worse than Rarity."

"I have a business to keep afloat all by my lonesome! Besides, I have my messy rooms, they just serve a purpose."

"Okay, are we stuck in an ever repeating temporal loop that will never ever be fixed, living the same time over and over, becoming all powerful to where an army of fully empowered Tireks would be a triviality for one of us to take care of while drunk? Destroying any hopes for the future because there is none rendering all that power and knowledge meaningless?"

Pinkie Pie look at a pocket watch. And then quickly whispered with Time Turner who happened to be just passing by to where he parked his blue shed.

"Nope!" Pinkie Pie said politely and cheerfully.

"Is an evil, potential future, superpowered version of myself trapping us in a timeloop to punish a villain?"

The pink party pony talked with Time Turner again. "Nope!"

"Do we have an extra-reality self-righteous visitor who none of us could hope to take on in a fight, lectures us, brow beats Princess Celestia, and leads to the reveal we live in a dead universe while we all fall for the manipulations of an equally overpowered extra-reality magic eater that can eat the Elements power when we try to use them?"

"No," Fluttershy said looking up at the sky, shivering a little.

"And we just beat a magic eater," Rainbow Dash explained. "And our big friendship powered Rainbow cannon thing seemed to kick his flank pretty nicely."

"We're all about to be turned into hedonists who see mating as something done in the name of pleasure rather than a sacred union that's meant to be preserved for marriage?"

"No way!" Applejack shook her head. "That's nuts! No offense to anypony, but Ah ain't got TIME for that sort of thing! And Big Mac and Cheerilee aren't tah the 'admit we're in love' part yet."

Fluttershy blushed deep red and hid her face behind her mane at the mere idea of being mounted by a stallion.

"Me and Cheese Sandwich aren't past the holding hooves stage yet," Pinkie Pie said.

"Me and Soarin' are just friends, besides, he'll never leave Spitfire."

Rarity also blushed. "Twilight! I can ASSURE YOU am not that kind of mare! I have a high standard for stallions."

Spike looked at himself in a mirror looking for imperfections.

"Rainbow Dash! Are you stuck in a futile loop where everything I just asked is true all at once, even though it makes no sense, and everypony else is now an empty shell for a force beyond our comprehension that loves miserable and horrible things to happen to us for no reason?"

"Twilight you're the only one acting weird. Did you not get any sleep? My life is actually about 20 percent more awesome than it was before, since you know, the Rainbow Power Form thingie. Is this like that time I, ahem, erm, sleep walked through a Daring Do dream? What kind of creepy stuff have you been reading?"

Twilight sighed. "Okay, so there's some horrible, cynical, pessimistic, ahem, excuse me, 'realistic' social truth I've been blissfully ignoring all this time because I'm a pampered filly whose completely ignorant of how the real world works?"

Her friends all looked at each other.

"Twilight," Rainbow Dash asked, "Is this about how I was a day late in returning that Daring Do book to the library? I told you I just wanted to read it over twice. I said I was sorry!"

"NO! NO! What is it? Tell me already! Tell me! I'm sick of it already! Does my brother secretly now hate all changelings whether they work for Chrysalis or not?! I can't take it anymore! Just tell me already! Are we about to be hit by a deadly virus where my years of studying magic and friendship prove useless as we die one by one?! Are any of us secretly changelings?! Am I really a mental patient and I just hallucinate I've been Celestia's student in Ponyville?! Or am I a human in one imagining ALL of this? Lies are a gift to society?! Ponies who are born poor should just smile and nod and stay poor?! Nopony's choices matter because we live in a caste system!? We're all one big computer program about to be shut down?! Or am I not the target this time? Is it Rarity because she has so many rules for herself that she needs to have her nose rubbed in them!? TELL ME ALREADY!!!! Give me the off hoofed remark that'll reveal that the truths and ideals I've fought for and learned about for the last four years are just little niceties that have no place in how life really works!" Twilight shouted at the sky. "I KNOW YOU WANT TO! Just say it already! Come on you big bullies!"

Ponies stopped on the street, worried their princess was having another break down.

Drenched in sweat, her breathing haggard, Twilight fainted.

Several hours later, Twilight Sparkle was in her bed, surrounded by her friends.

Spike had Nurse Redheart look her over as a house call, castle call, whatever. Spike had to fight tooth and nail to convince them that restraining Twilight would only make things WORSE given she had included 'hallucinating mental patient' as part of her rant.

The Alicorn slowly woke up, seeing the loving and worried faces of her friends.

"So are you ready to tell us what that was all about now darling?" Rarity asked smiling politely.

Twilight Sparkle sighed. "I was experimenting with the world mirror. Now that I can keep the portal open, regardless of the phases of Luna's moon, I figured that using a traditional 'magic looking glass' spell on it couldn't hurt."

Everypony (and dragon), sighed. Yet another disaster caused by the Princess of Friendship's magical experiments. Was it any wonder Mayor Mare requested that the castle have measures to keep Twilight's experiments from effecting the town by accident?

"Don't give me those looks. Progress and experimentation inherently has risk, that's part of life. And the vast majority of my research has HELPED ponies. . .And...and I don't put anypony at risk but myself if I can help it, unlike...I was... hoping maybe... I could find a new connection to the world with the good King Sombra that Celestia... that Celestia was best friends with. Maybe help him in a way that wouldn't cause a sympathetic-karmic-inversion in our world. After all, I was able to help with Sunset's new world without that happening, so maybe it was possible. But I wasn't just seeing alternate worlds anymore... I was seeing possibilities, I had gone past the quantum state accidentally due to how broad I set the spectrum. Then... I was seeing the shadows of thoughts, of what a lot of ponies out there THINK Equestria is like, or... their world is so full of hardship and unfairness, that a more fair world feels UNFAIR to them."

"Like how a lot bully poor Minty."

"What was that Pinkie Pie?"

"NOTHING! Continue please!"

"The point is... I lost track of myself. I couldn't tell where other worlds ended and mine began. I keep seeing it over and over, where the Equestria we've been working so hard to protect, to make just a little bit better every day of our lives, was just a farce, that everything we believed in were just polite lies to keep societies gears turning. That friendship was just a drug fed to the herds so they wouldn't rise up against their masters. There were ponies... out there... who didn't WANT our Equestria to be real, or at least, they didn't want a place where ponies like Suri and Flim and Flam were exceptions, not the norm. They wanted an Equestria were EVERYPONY was like Suri, or Lightinng Dust, or Flim and Flam, or Blueblood deep down. That it was all just polite lies. They wanted an Equestria were miracles just dumb luck instead of proof that you shouldn't give up on tomorrow or your morals because things get tough. We... we aren't the Equestria they want."

Her friends, Spike included, all hugged her.

"Well, that's too bad for them!" Rainbow Dash said.

"Yes darling," Rarity said, "If they can't enjoy a happy place without some uncouth underbelly, then that's their problem."

"There's plenty of dirty and unhappy stuff out there already. It doesn't need to be here," Pinkie Pie said.

"And Twili," Applejack said. "Do yah think yer friends in that world Sunset's stayin' in believe that stupid stuff about friendship bein' just a game?"

"...No, I don't think so..."

"Even if we didn't completely save good Sombra's world, Ah think their Princesses are a lot happier as nice gals than monsters..."

"I saw it in the mirror when I managed to view it...they were. They're trying to save Sombra..."

"Maybe there are worlds that ain't as good as they are here, maybe those ponies are happy there. But that just means we should be happier this one's real."

Pinkie Pie nodded. "Yeah! And if another me is a big meanie pants? That just means me deciding not to be is better, isn't it?"

Fluttershy gave a smile. "And...even though he fell for Tirek's temptation...Discord didn't go out of his way to hurt ponies because he could anymore. Friendship definitely means a lot to him. Friendship is anything but a happy little lie for him now."

"Ah think he's the ultimate proof what you're sayin' ain't right, Twili," Applejack pointed out.

"Yeah! Have you seen him smile when he's around Fluttershy or being nice?!" Pinkie asked, hopping over. "His smile before was all 'hahaha! look how bad I am!' but his smile when he's a good guy is all 'Oh I'm really truly happy!'"

"...I think what Pinkie is trying to say is that Discord seems a heck of a lot happier on our side," Rainbow translated. "...I hate to admit it, but I saw him cringe when he handed us over to Tirek, that ain't the old Discord..."

"And dear Trixie has changed as well," Rarity pointed out. "I don't think there's been one time we've interacted with her since the Alicorn Amulet incident where she didn't enjoy our company."

"And don't forget Babs," Applejack continued. "She's a nice little sweetheart now, and a LOT happier as the Crusaders' friend instead of their bully."

"...You're right...But what about Suri and the Flim Flams?"

"...You said it yourself, Twilight, there are some RARE ponies who aren't kind, but Suri...I believe she's become lead astray, not that she's proof of some greater darkness in this world."

"And Granny met up with the Flim Flams at an expo," Applejack admitted. "Last Ah saw them we left on good terms and they were actin' legit."

"And Lightning Dust actually THANKED me for calling her out," Rainbow Dash explained. "She wasn't a bad girl, she just needed a reality check."

Twilight blinked...then gave a small smile. "...I guess we have made the world better..."

Each of her friends looked to each other and nodded. "Even if yah don't count savin' it a few times," Applejack pointed out.

"And I'm quite glad we live in the world we do because of that dear," Rarity said with a smile. "And it's that way because it's the world we strive for, not because there's some conspiracy about it."

"And if there was, we'd kick its flank and make the world nice for real," Rainbow snarked with her characteristic smirk.

"The six most powerful magic thingies in our world are powered by Friendship, Laughter, Kindness, Honesty, Generosity, and Loyalty! Those things can't be a lie if they're that strong! That'd be too big a plot twist even for a little kids show!" Pinkie Pie cheerfully pointed out.

Fluttershy nodded. "...Choosing to be kind is a choice, Twilight...just like choosing to be mean...so long as we choose to make the world better, we don't have to worry..."

Spike finally jumped up. "And I don't know about you, but no matter what some silly ponies say, a world were friendship saves the day? That's the world I'm glad we live in!"

"Yes," Twilight's eyes misted over. "So am I!" She sat up in bed and hugged her friends, who happily turned it into a group hug.

Outside, the crystal palace shined just a little bit brighter.

Author's Notes:

20141217: I added a little something of a particular nasty fanfic among Twilight's questions to Rainbow Dash.