Diamond Tiara stood at the schoolhouse doors, watching her classmates play joyfully upon the extravagant new playground furnished through a heady combination of Class President Pip’s wild campaign promises and her father’s money.

She took a long breath, then turned to her friend Silver Spoon. “Do you smell that?”

Silver Spoon’s brow furrowed as she sniffed. “Did Snips get into the cheese balls again?”

A deep grin overtook Diamond Tiara’s face. “No, Silver. This playground? It smells like… greatness. I mean, it’s really, really… [i]great[/i].”

“It is! I still can’t believe you got your dad to write such a big check.”

Tiara smirked. “It’s all about solving problems, Silver. Daddy’s always telling me he got rich by solving difficult problems. He thrives on ‘em. [i]I [/i]want to thrive on them, too.” She waved at the schoolyard. “Just look at this playground. In a way, it’s like Equestria. Yesterday, a broken-down craphole with griffons, changelings, Tartarus-knows-what-else running all over the place. But today? Ponies, Silver. Happiness, order... and [i]ponies[/i].”

Her friend pointed a hoof. “What about Pinion, the exchange student?”

Tiara nodded. “Sure, there’s room for [i]registered [/i]griffons.” She paused. “I could win the griffon vote because I know what they really want: [i]jobs[/i].” She shook her head. “Politics today is such a disgrace. Good ponies don’t go into government. I think it’s time we change that.”

“But how?” Silver asked. “We live in a monarchy… er, diarchy…”

“I’m going to have daddy book me a debate with Celestia,” Diamond Tiara continued. “She’s got issues, [i]big [/i]issues, that the ponies of this nation deserve to have answered. I mean, we’ve got Nightmare Moon—don’t tell me that you buy that’s [i]Luna[/i]—sitting on the throne, and we’re supposed to be ‘best friends’ with known criminals like Discord, and everypony’s supposed to ‘trust the government’ while changelings run unchecked within our borders?”

Silver’s face began to take on a look that suggested it was attempting to give birth to her own incredulity, and that complications might soon call for a C-section. “Diamond... that’s crazy talk! Princess Celestia has done more than anypony else to keep Equestria safe from all kinds of dangers!”

Tiara raised a hoof to her friend’s withers. “Silver, you’re a great friend, but I think it’s clear you lack the vision necessary for the days ahead. You’re fired.”

“I’m… what?!” Silver Spoon’s jaw dropped.

Diamond Tiara raised her eyes to the bright sky. “It’s all about greatness,” she said to nopony in particular. “It’s all about doing… no, being… no no no, [i]making…[/i]”

[hr]

Princess Celestia looked out at the crowd of ponies gathered before the pair of podiums that had been set up in front of the castle. Instead of the usual happiness and peace she’d come to see in her subjects, she saw only anger.

She raised a glass to her mouth in a trembling magical grip. The water cooled her tongue but didn’t stop her sweating.

“Princess, I don’t blame you for a lot of these circumstances,” boomed the magically-amplified voice of her pinkish, pint-sized opponent. “The world is a horrible place. We face adversaries big and small… everything from [i]griffons[/i] who don’t want to pay their taxes, up to beings like Tirek that just make a mockery of our whole security apparatus.”

The crowd roared.

“[i]But[/i],” Diamond Tiara continued, “what I [i]do [/i]blame you for is the way you’ve lulled these ponies into thinking that you and your [i]friends [/i]can make the world an okay place, even though you clearly can’t. Equestria had great days, long ago!”

Celestia opened her mouth to speak, but was overwhelmed by cheers from the assembled ponies.

“I will not give amnesty to criminals like Discord and Nightmare Moon!” her adversary bellowed. “I will not just threaten to use artifacts like the Elements of Harmony—I will use them! And I will build a great wall on our border with known changeling lands, and I will make the changelings pay for that wall. Mark my words!”

The princess hunched her shoulders, unsure how to defuse the situation—or whether that was still even possible.

Her eyes turned back toward Diamond Tiara. The girl’s smile was unnerving as she readied her verbal coup de grace: “Fillies and Gentlecolts… we will make Equestria great again!”

As the crowd went wild, Celestia shook her head. “I thought this was going to be a [i]debate[/i] about [i]issues[/i],” she breathed, taking a drink—but this time, from a hip flask.

“[i]And that’s why we can’t have nice things[/i],” she muttered.