The Replacements

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Chapter 1

The Replacements
Written by ROBCakeran53
Edited by Cthuluigi

Chapter 1

A set of double doors slammed open, casting only a glimpse of light into the pitch black room. A man, skinny and frail, was shoved through the light, falling onto his chest in the darkness. He quickly sat up, looking back in time to see the last trace of fluorescent light disappear as the doors closed.

“Do you know why you are here, Mr. Bowing?” A deep voice boomed through the room’s darkness; the man's body began to shiver, unsure where the menacing voice came from.

“Uh, I'm, uh, not sure sir,” the man stuttered.

“According to my files, you are one of the men in charge of maintaining cast and crew of our television department, is that correct?”

The man simply nodded and, upon realizing that the pitch black room made it impossible to see, responded vocally, “Uh, y-yes sir.”

“And tell me Mr. Bowing, what show’s cast do you exactly care for?”

“Uh, M-My Little Pony: F-Friendship is Magic, sir.”

There was a loud buzz from ahead and a long line of shades opened up to cast natural sunlight into the room. A better visual was given, showing that he was in an office; lush leather furniture made for comfortable seating arrangements, showing that this was a higher ranking executive's room. Adding to the decor, antique oak wood cabinets and book shelves filled with an array of books lined each wall, besides where the window took up an entire side on its own. In the center of the room stood a sturdy dark oak desk with a massive, and strangely wide, leather chair facing away from the man, its occupant looking outside.

“So then, Mr. Bowing, why is it this morning I get wind that some of the cast of that show have decided to go on a strike? Would you care to explain that?”

He now recognized the voice, and the nervousness that had settled in before began to intensify. Trembling, he gulped, trying to find his words. Tapping of plastic fingers began to bounce around the room; the man sitting in the seat, his boss, was growing impatient. He was not happy, and Mr. Bowing quickly gave the best answer he could.

“W-Well, you see sir, it appears the six main characters of the show have had enough of our 'marketing' messing up their image, and are on strike until the problem is resolved.”

“So then tell me, why have you not resolved this dilemma?”

“B-Because that's the toy line department's area, sir.”

There was a long silence as the man remained knelt, staring with sweat running down his face at the back of the dark red chair. Finally, the chair swung slowly to the left, revealing its occupant. He adjusted his thick, solid, and black mustache as he looked down to the cowering employee. His trademark black hat sat on his head slightly to the right. His large, oval eyes seemed to be glaring at the cowering, if not terrified man as he tried to think up his next words to speak. Finally, casting a massive shadow on the man was his large, brown and potato shaped body.

His appearance was by all means silly, but by no means to be taken lightly.

“M-Mr. Potato Head, sir, trust me, I've been doing what I can to resolve this. They just won't listen to me. I've tried to talk to toy production, marketing, even-”

“All excuses, Mr. Bowing. All just worthless excuses,” Mr. Potato Head said as he began to extend his right plastic arm towards a large cluster of buttons.

“NO, WAIT, SIR PLEASE! I-I can still resolve this. I just need some more time.”

“Time that we do not have, Mr. Bowing. We must get those ponies back for rehearsal for the next episode, otherwise we are going to be in a heap of trouble. How do you plan to-”

Mr. Potato Head stopped as his right ear rotated for a better hearing angle. From somewhere in the room, a series of loud metal crashes could be heard. They sounded as though they were getting louder with every crash and boom of metal before something fell into the room from the ceiling vent, sending plumes of dust throughout the room; Mr. Potato Head and the man both coughed in attempts to clear their throats of the old dust particles.

Finally, from within the dust cloud sat a gray pegasus. Her blond mane seemed to glisten in the sunlight from the windows as she lazily looked around the room.

“Ah, Ms. Hooves,” Mr. Potato Head started with a dull tone, “Once again you find your way into my office. I'm not sure how you do it, but I commend your determination.”

“Hello Mr. Boss-Tato!” Derpy happily called as she stood up, “You know me, your one and only trusty mailmare.”

Mr. Potato Head looked to the cowering man with a curious look and rested his left arm atop the desk.

“You're the one in charge of these ponies. What's this one's deal?”

The man looked to the gray pegasus, who wore her brown mailbag to her right side, almost covering the bubbles making up her cutie mark.

“Oh, uh, Ms. Derpy Hooves, yes. She is, uh, one of our more 'special' cast members. She was intended to be a stunt pony for Ms. Dash, but somehow managed to sneak into the episodes among the other background ponies as we were filming. Some of the fans found her to be a riot and insisted we included her in the show.”

“Ah, so she is that Derpy Hooves.”

“The one and only!” Derpy stated, “Though some call me Ditzy Doo, either works for me!” She then reached her head around into her mail sack. “ And like every one of my visits, I have your mail.”

Derpy placed several white envelopes onto Mr. Potato Head's desk, scattering them about the desktop. Mr. Potato Head looked to Derpy, then to the envelopes, and back to the frightened man with another quizzical look.

“And what is this all about? She has been bringing me my mail now for months, unannounced, most of the time intruding and leaving destruction in her wake.”

“W-Well sir, somewhere along the lines she became Ponyville's official mailmare due to the fans of the show, and when she heard this she thought it was her duty to remain in character however much she could. That apparently even goes up and beyond when the show is being filmed.”

“I see,” Mr. Potato Head clasped his white, gloved, plastic hands together, deep in thought as he examined the gray pegasus. Suddenly, an idea sparked itself into his head, “So you are very proud of your job, Ms. Hooves?”

“Yes sir! I love my job, and help out in any way I can.”

“So tell me, would you be the type of pony to go the extra mile to help your show in its time of need?”

“Of course!”

Mr. Potato Head tented his fingers under his large nose, contemplating. Finally, a smile creased along his removable mouth as his brain racked up an idea, one that might help his situation, “Ms. Hooves, tell me, do you have many friends among the other ponies?”

Derpy's ears perked up as one eye began to stray from its normal position, “Of course I do! I have lots of friends!”

“Hm...” Mr. Potato Head continued thinking, shifting his chair left and right as he thought. “Mr. Bowing, from your previous statements, you say these, 'background ponies', much like Ms. Hooves here, are quite popular among our fans?”

The man nodded.

Mr. Potato Head then returned his gaze back to Derpy, who by this point had taken a seat on one of the many leather sofas and was quietly munching on what appeared to be a muffin.

“Ms. Hooves,” Derpy quickly scarfed down the last remaining half of the muffin as she jumped to attention, which only ended with her bouncing off the couch and onto the ground, shooting the half-muffin out of her mouth and into a bookcase, spilling the organized books all across the floor in a very unorganized cluster.

“Oops, sorry Mr. Boss-Tato.”

Not unfamiliar with Derpy's antics, Mr. Potato brushed the incident off, “Not to worry Ms. Hooves, I'll have that cleaned up. In the meantime, how would you like to be bumped up from your status as 'background pony' and put as a lead role of the show you work in?”

Derpy blinked, both eyes looking in strange, separate directions not normal to ponies. Mr. Potato Head looked to the half eaten muffin on the ground, then back to the pony with a smile.

“How would you like to be able to purchase more muffins?”

Derpy blinked again, both eyes returning to their normal position as her wings shot up in attention, “More muffins?”

“Yes, Ms. Hooves, more-”

“Sign me up!” Derpy interrupted as she glided around the room with excitement.

“Alright then, you will have a very important task to perform first.”

Derpy dropped to the ground like a rock, landing on all four hooves. The impact shook the office, spilling another few expensive objects from bookshelves in the office-turned-disaster-area.

“Ms. Hooves,” Mr. Potato Head said calmly, trying his hardest to remain level-headed despite the presence of what was evidently the world’s smallest and klutziest tornado, “I need you to round up five of your friends and bring them here within twenty four hours. We must air a new episode by the end of the week, and that will only give us six days to film it. With the main cast of the show on strike, I need some ponies to 'fill in' for them. And seeing your popularity with the fan base, I'm sure there are others among yourself that would jump at this possibility of main character status until this problem is handled by Mr. Bowing.”

The man let out a deep sigh, finally releasing the breath he had been holding when his boss had started speaking to the gray pony. The mention of his name along with words that meant he still had his job was a huge relief.

“Do you understand Ms. Hooves?” Mr. Potato Head finished, reaching over his desk with his right hand.

Derpy stood in place for another few seconds; one eye lazily gazed to the side as her brain worked its special kind of “magic”, going over what her boss was telling her. Once all the puzzle pieces were complete, and the muffin was fully assembled and eaten, she blinked her stray eye back to its normal position and stepped forward to her boss, extending her hoof and making contact with his hand.

“We have a deal Mr. Boss-Tato!” Derpy said, shaking his hand in agreement.

Derpy pulled her hoof away a little too quickly, for as she did so Mr. Potato Head's entire arm popped off along with her drawback.

“Oops, sorry.”

“It's quite alright Ms. Hooves. It happens more than you'd expect,” Mr. Potato Head said with a little chuckle.

Derpy handed her boss back his arm, which he took and popped in with one swift motion, giving it a quick test to make sure everything was in working order.

“Alright Ms. Hooves, I expect to see you by this time tomorrow with five of your friends. Now remember, this is a pony show, so you must only choose friends that are ponies.”

“Okie dokie Mr. Boss-Tato!” Derpy cheerfully said as she made her way back for the ventilation shaft.

“Uh, Ms. Hooves, you can exit through the-”

Before he could finish, Derpy was back up the ventilation shaft and gone from sight. He shook his head, unsure if this mare was indeed up to the task he had given her. From her mail duty, he felt she was capable of it, but her bubbly attitude could be a problem.

“We will have to see what she is capable of then.”

“Uh, sir, what about me?”

Mr. Potato Head glared back ahead, remembering that his less faithful employee was still kneeling on the center rug of the seating area.

“Oh, right, you,” Mr. Potato Head said with a dull expression, returning to his desk, “You are tasked with coming up with a compromise to getting our main six ponies back before production of the following episode starts.”

“B-But-”

“Isn't your cubicle on the fifth floor Mr. Bowing?” Mr. Potato Head asked, looking at the arrangement of buttons on his desk.

The man gulped as he nodded his head.

“Well, the ground floor is close enough I suppose. See you in a week.”

Mr. Potato Head pressed one of the unmarked red buttons, making a loud buzz as the floor from underneath the man opened to a long, deep, dark hole. He screamed as he was rushed down along with the rug into the pitch black abyss that has once again found a good use. As his screams were still audible, Mr. Potato Head had walked over to the hole and peered down himself.

“Remember, you have exactly one week!” He shouted, as the trap doors swung shut with a loud clamp of their locks.

Today was a beautiful day. Almost perfect; perhaps a tad warm, but nothing that was going to hurt anyone. Outside of the Hasbro studios and general marketing building, the large HASBRO logo stood out on the face of the massive glass paned building. From the center of the O, a mother bird was in the process of feeding her chicks when a massive puff of dust engulfed them. When the dust cleared, the mother bird looked to her chicks, who were now resting atop a grey pegasus's head as it was now sitting in her nest.

“SQUAWK!” The mother bird chirped in rage.

“Oh, sorry mommy bird.” Derpy stepped out of the basket, replacing the chicks and leaving a muffin as a parting gift and apology, and flew on her way.

Leaving her building of occupation behind, she made her way home, passing all the other ponies who worked with the show, many humans who supervised and did marketing, as well as many other well known Hasbro exclusive toy line figures. Many G.I. Joe's walked down the sidewalk. Even some Transformer vehicles drove down the road.

Like every day when Derpy returned home, she stopped quickly at her mailbox, which greeted her with the fresh aroma of blueberry muffins. She took one of them and closed the mailbox lid. Cheerfully, she marched up the small pathway that lead to the home she shared with a long time friend, Carrot Top; the muffin balanced perfectly on the top of her head as she pranced along. Before entering the house, Derpy thought to check the backyard to see if her housemate was out tending to her carrot patch, much like she did every day.

Upon seeing her orange maned friend, she joyfully bounced towards her with excitement. If she knew anypony she could trust or rely on to help with something like this, Carrot Top would be the first to volunteer.

“No” Carrot Top said through her occupied mouth.

She was watering her carrot patch with a metal watering can gripped with her teeth; her green gardener’s hat was on her head, covering most of her face with shade to block out the sun's rays.

“But... but, CT-” Derpy began.

Carrot Top set down the watering can carefully, “No. The last time you had me 'help out' as a cast member of the show, they dyed my mane green.”

“But-”

Carrot Top closed her eyes as she reflected upon the memory, “Then they promptly had this stuck up white mare further insult me for having such a mane that wasn't even my natural color, when hers was quite the rat’s nest itself.”

“But that's part of acting CT!”

“I don't care.”

Carrot Top picked up the watering can once more and began to water. This time, though, instead of her carrot plants being showered, it was Derpy's face. Carrot moaned as she saw her roommate laying on top of her plants, being showered upon and getting all muddy; a mess that she knew she'd be cleaning up later.

“PLEEEEEEEEEEEASE CT! THIS MEANS A LOT TO ME!”

Carrot Top set down the watering can in frustration, then proceeded to remove her cap as she returned to the house.

“I'll think about it Derpy, but for now isn't it almost time for Dinky's bus to get here?” Carrot Top asked, looking into the house at the wall clock.

Derpy jumped up and shook herself off, throwing most of the water and mud onto Carrot Top, whose sour expression was made almost unnoticeable by the new layer of grime on her face.

One of Derpy's eyes drifted to the side as she frowned, “Sorry CT...”

“No, it's perfectly alright Derpy,” Carrot Top grumbled through clenched teeth, “I was going to wash up anyway, so now I'll just take an entire shower while I'm at it.”

Derpy smiled as she pranced past her orange friend, “Good thinking there CT! That's why I leave that job up to you!”

Carrot Top simply huffed as she entered her home in disgust.

Derpy made her way back to the mailbox, sitting down beside it as she waited with anticipation for her daughter Dinky to be dropped off from school. One thing that made her so happy to work with Hasbro was the promise to give her daughter a full education! As long as they were allowed to get footage for certain episodes from her school, of course, but that did nothing to deter the perky child’s enthusiasm, and Derpy knew the sudden news of her mommy becoming more popular on TV would make her ecstatic. Maybe they would even get to be seen together on screen! Oh she would love that so much.

From down the road came a bright yellow school bus, stopping on occasion to drop off other fillies and colts. The particular neighborhood that Derpy and Carrot Top lived in was primarily meant for ponies, though some other Hasbro lines did live around here. Derpy looked to her right, inspecting her neighbor's Lincoln Log home. Just recently built, it was a more expensive house than Derpy or Carrot Top themselves were able to afford, and it made the two ponies’ simple wooden home, with its ordinary Play-Doh foundation, seem all the more plain.

Derpy’s admiration of her neighbor’s luxury was interrupted when the bus stopped in front of her. Dinky was normally the last to depart from the bus and sure enough, the pony that hopped out from the bus’s door was, in Derpy’s admittedly biased opinion, the most adorable filly she had ever laid her eyes on.

“Muffin!”

“Mommy!”

Dinky jumped into Derpy's front legs, wrapping her own around her mother's neck in a huge hug. Then, Derpy looked back to the yellow school bus as it stayed parked there a moment longer.

“Thanks Ms. Bus Lady!” Derpy called out.

Before their eyes, the bus suddenly changed shape. Parts shifted in and out as the bus took on the form of a large robot, one that towered over the neighborhood’s homes around it.

“Don't you mention it, Ms. Hooves! Have a good day Dinky, and be good!” She called down.

Suddenly from her back, two large jet turbines became exposed and fired up. The noise was extremely loud - nearly deafening, in fact - as the Autobot took off into the air, leaving a large plume of smoke and scorch marks in the road. Derpy and Dinky simply continued to wave, both their manes frozen backwards, until finally the bus was out of sight.

“So what are we going to do today, mommy?” Dinky asked, bouncing around her mother in excitement.

Derpy smiled as she handed Dinky another muffin from the mailbox.

“I have some big news to tell you.”

The two walked inside the house as Derpy told Dinky all about her adventures she had today and about her new role as a main character in the TV show that she worked for.

Later that afternoon, Carrot Top was still washing up after Derpy's incident. She had just begun drying out her mane with her hair dryer when she heard the small clacks of hooves running. It had to be Dinky; Derpy was more likely to fly when in a hurry, or at least try to, as the many shattered pots around the house could attest to.

“CT! CT! Did mommy tell you the news?” Dinky burst into the bathroom, all manners forgotten in that moment. Not at all surprised by the rude entrance of Derpy's daughter, Carrot Top put on a large smile as she looked at the small filly through the mirror.

“Why, no, she hasn’t. What news sweetie?”

“Mommy is gonna be a main character on TV! Can you believe it?”

Carrot Top stuck out her tongue as she narrowed her eyes.

“And when she told me you were too, I was so excited!”

Carrot Top immediately looked to the purple unicorn filly with surprise, “Whoa there now, I never said-”

“I'm so excited that you are working with my mommy CT,” Dinky then ran up to Carrot Top, and giving her a hug around her leg.

Carrot Top could only smile at the filly's cuteness, and return the hug. She then looked to the doorway, spying Derpy peeking inside the bathroom at the scene, giving her a sheepish grin.

”I'll get you back for this, you owe me,” Carrot Top mouthed to Derpy, not wanting to spoil the moment for Dinky’s sake.

Derpy closed her eyes, tilted her head to the side and smiled big. She knew if she couldn't convince Carrot to help her, Dinky would. And it never failed her. She backed into the hallway once more, elated at the knowledge that CT was on board. That meant she needed four more ponies for this, and she had until tomorrow morning to get them.

She looked to a clock, showing it was only four p.m. She still had plenty of time, and she knew some ponies she could go ask right away.

“Hey CT?” Derpy stuck her head back into the bathroom.

“Yes, Derpy?” Carrot Top groaned.

“Could you watch Dinky for a few? I need to go and find more ponies to help out!”

“More ponies?”

Before Carrot could ask further, Derpy had already disappeared from view. A second later, the click of the door signaled she had departed.

Carrot looked down at the smiling filly, then to her reflection in the mirror and sighed.

Chapter 2

Mr. Potato Head waited on the production set of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic for his new crew of actresses to arrive. He had shown up earlier to discuss the situation to the director personally. Standing beside him, tapping his foot impatiently, was the director himself, Jason Thiessen. Nervously, Mr. Thiessen managed to speak after hearing the new course of action.

“Mr. Potato Head, are you sure you can trust Derpy with this? I mean, she isn’t the-”

Mr. Potato Head smiled. “Now now, Mr. Thiessen, there is nothing to worry about. I assure you Ms. Hooves has proven herself to me multiple times. She is plenty capable of doing this small task.”

“This isn’t like giving you your mail, sir. She is needed to find optimal replacements for the six main characters of the show. I don’t think she is up to the task.”

Mr. Potato Head looked to a wall clock ahead of him, eying the exact time.

“Well, in roughly five minutes we’ll know then, won’t we?” Mr. Potato Head looked over to Thiessen, who also glanced towards the clock. Behind his glasses, his eyes bounced back and forth from the clock to the double doors that signaled the set entrance.

The clock continued on its course, until it was within seconds of hitting the twenty four hour mark. Thiessen removed his glasses, rubbing his temple as his mind reeled in its previous doubt.

“Look, I know you had a lot of faith in Derpy, Mr. Potato Head, but I’m telling you, she’s just-”

Suddenly the two large double doors swung open. One door smashed into a broom, causing it to fall over and land on a stereo set, turning it on to booming music.

“They see her flyin’, they hatin’
They try to put her down when she's flyin' derpy
Ya know dat she's flyin' Derpy”

From the overly-lit doorway, Derpy Hooves walked in at a slow pace as five other mares followed suit.

“She's a strong mind
though cross-eyed
Still they put her down because she's flyin' derpy,
Ya know dat she's flyin' derpy”

Mr. Potato Head's plastic mouth cracked a smile as Thiessen could only look distraught from seeing the six mares. In a slow walk onto the set was Derpy, followed closely by five differently colored mares. While the five other mares approached with caution, Derpy marched on with pride at having succeeded in her job. Her jovial mood wasn’t diminished any even when her hoof caught on an extension cord, tripping her and yanking the power cord from the wall, killing the radio with a sharp pop of its speakers. She sat back up, brushed her mane a little with a hoof and looked to Carrot Top, one of the ponies following her, who only shook her head in shame at her friend’s klutziness.

Thiessen looked back to Mr. Potato Head, raising a brow.

“Well, she is on time, isn’t she?” Mr. Potato Head said to the director, forcing a smile.

Thiessen simply groaned as the small band of ponies finally approached the two important individuals. Derpy, leading the pack, stood straight in attention, giving her boss and future director an honorable salute. Her hoof made a loud “clop” as it smacked into her forehead, causing one eye to gaze in a completely different direction from the other.

“Ms. Hooves reporting in, sirs!”

Mr. Potato Head, in a show of good sport, saluted Derpy in return.

“Right on time, Ms. Hooves. That’s one reason I knew I could trust you,” Mr. Potato Head then looked to the merry band of ponies that Derpy had brought with her, “Now, who are all these fine mares?”

Derpy’s lazy eye started to creep upwards, then with a blink it aligned correctly again as she smiled.

“Oh, right!”

Derpy pointed to a light blue unicorn with a blue and white mane, resembling toothpaste being squirted out of a tube. “This here is Colgate. She's a dentist.” Colgate smiled to the human and potato, showing off her immaculate, clean teeth.

She then pointed to the purple mare, whose deeper purple mane looked like grapes on a vine. “This here is Berry Punch. I don't know her job, but she likes to drink!” The pony nodded, looking even more drunk than usual as she nearly lost her balance swaying on her hooves.

Next in the lineup were the mint-green unicorn and the pale-yellow earth pony. “These two are Lyra and Bon Bon. Lyra plays a lyre and her maybe-possibly-unsure what to exactly call her girl friend Bon Bon makes yummy candy! And finally my bestest best friend in the whole entire world, Carrot Top! She's the orange one if you didn't know.”

Carrot Top, hearing her name alongside the word “friend,” moaned as she still tried to figure out exactly why she had agreed to any of this. Derpy gave Carrot Top a bright smile, oblivious as to what exactly was causing her palpable frustration. Carrot’s ears flattened... she had a bad feeling about all this, and Derpy’s smile did nothing to make her feel any better - if anything, it worried her further.

“Alright,” Mr. Potato Head started, “I assume Ms. Hooves has explained our little predicament to you all?”

All five mares, as well as Derpy, nodded.

“Good, so I will leave it all up to you then, Mr. Thiessen,” Mr. Potato Head said, as he began to stroll out of the production room. His plastic feet making similar clops to the ponies hooves.

Mr. Thiessen motioned to stop him, wanting to beg him not to do this and just give the original cast a little more time to come back... but stopped himself as he knew how arguments went with the head of Hasbro. One second he’s the head of one of the biggest things to strike the Internet... next, he’s directing on one of it’s lesser shows. Like...

“Strawberry Shortcake...” Thiessen shuddered from the thought and then snapped out of his musings, returning his attention back to the six new mares he would be casting.

He recognized them all as background ponies from many scenes of the show; ones that suddenly and inexplicably underwent massive surges in popularity, enough to have a fandom rivaling that of the main characters. Mr. Potato Head seemed to have enough faith in them, or at least enough faith in Derpy to pick out good candidates, but Jason was more skeptical. The alcoholic in particular worried him; alcoholism is one thing, but showing up drunk on set? A bigger production company would’ve fired a main character on the spot for doing that, let alone a pony whose hitherto biggest roles in the show have been literally just being there.

“'scuse me, Mr. Deere-K-tor?” a slurred voice spoke.

“Speaking of…” Jason thought to himself as he looked down to his right, only to be met with the gaze of Berry Punch, who somehow seemed even more intoxicated than when they first met only minutes ago. She swayed to and fro on three hooves, somehow not dropping the large bottle cradled like a baby in her fourth.

“No, Berry. I don't have a cork opener. We've been over this.”

“Draaaaaats” Berry slurred, before stumbling back to her hooves and returning once again to pester Colgate, remembering to have once gotten the mare to assist in opening a bottle before.

Jason moaned as he grabbed a clipboard from his director’s seat. “Okay, let's just get this over with already. I can tell this isn't going to go well, so let's just make the best of it. Alright everyo- er, everypony?”

Immediately Derpy rounded up the other five mares, and sat themselves in front of Mr. Thiessen. They sat in a semi circle like schoolchildren being read a story. Derpy's tail even wagged in anticipation, excited to be helping.

“Good, thank you Derpy,” Jason said, not expecting those words to ever be part of the same sentence. “First thing, what we need to do is decide on everypony's roles.”

“Roles?” Lyra asked, finding a seat to sit in alongside Bon Bon.

“Yes, since you all are subbing for the original cast, we need to decide who is going to play who.”

“Don’t we all look different from the original cast, though?” Colgate asked.

As if on cue, the double doors to the set swung open. This time, a massive steel box was pushed in by two individuals.

“Ah, just in time, gentlemen. You can just place it over there near an outlet, thank you,” Jason called out to them.

Both men rolled the metal box to the wall, and with a single lift they kicked the cart out from under it, dropping it onto the floor. The entire set shook from the impact, and both workers left under the cover of the ensuing dust cloud. Thiessen walked over to the box and gave it a quick inspection. Finding what he was looking for, he plugged in the machine. Immediately there was a loud snap sound, as motors spun and the scraping of metal created a cacophony that echoed around the set.

“Alright, just gotta give it some time to warm up,” Jason loudly stated, trying to voice over the loudness of the machine.

“Uh, let what warm up?” Bon Bon asked, looking curious along with the other ponies.

“Ah, this contraption here is what we're gonna use to change your colors.”

All six mares blinked at once.

“Basically, this thing changes a pony’s genetic code to match whatever color scheme we want. It can’t change your cutie marks of course, but we've got that covered.” Jason said, flashing cutie mark stickers matching the original main six ponies.

“How did you come up with something like this?” Lyra asked.

“Hell if I know.” Jason shrugged, then flipped a switch on the box, “It was made back from generation one, and most people don't like to talk about generation one.”

All the ponies eyes widened from the mention of their predecessors, whose names seemed to be taboo among the studios; not many of them were still around, but on occasion a generation one pony was seen walking around the building – or haunting it, as their detractors would say.

“So then, who's gonna be our first volunteer?” Jason asked, cranking open the torpedo tube-style door.

With a loud click, the circular door opened. From inside twenty plus years of dust were expelled into the room, causing everypony (and human) to erupt into a coughing fit.

“When was the last time this thing was used?” Carrot Top sputtered between coughs.

“Like I said, generation one,” Jason answered matter-of-factly, as if the machine’s age and evident lack of testing would lead to no problems whatsoever. “But that's not important. Right now, we need to get this episode rollin'. So stop standing around and one of you hop on in.”

Five of the ponies blanched at the idea. Berry Punch was still drunk.

After it was clear that none of the ponies were going to volunteer – even the drunk maintained some common sense, after all – Jason tried for a new tactic.

“Nopony? Fine, we'll get someone else to try it then.”

Jason looked around the set. Many different ponies were walking around, assisting in setting up the props, or rehearsing their lines for background roles. One pony, a light orange stallion with a brown mane, stood in a corner. His apparent lack of activity would be his undoing.

“Hey, you.”

The stallion looked around, then noticed Jason pointing to him.

“Yes, you,” Jason said, “Come here, we need your assistance.”

The stallion, nervously glancing at all the attractive mares around the director, joined the group.

“Ok, Mr. uh...” Jason began.

“Caramel, my name is Caramel,” the stallion finished.

“Right, well Caramel, we need to test this machine to see how it works, so these mares here can see that it's perfectly safe.”

Caramel looked to the rumbling machine. It hissed, expelling compressed air from a vent.

“Is it safe?” Caramel asked.

“That's what you're here to test.” Jason flipped absentmindedly through a few pages of the owner’s manual, itself hardly in better shape than the machine. “So, just step on in and we can try this thing out.” He then began turning knobs and flipping switches, in an attempt to understand the color scheme mechanism of the steel box.

Caramel gulped, but not wanting to appear cowardly in front of a half dozen attractive mares, cautiously stepped inside.

“So, just how exactly does this thing change our genetic code?” Carrot Top asked.

Jason flipped through some of the pages of the book, before shrugging.

“I don't know. It doesn't really explain how it works. All I know from reading the manual is that sometimes it's prescribed to wear hearing protection.”

“'Cause the machine is loud?”

Jason read the page again, then looked back to the ponies.

“No. Because of the screams.”

The six mares gulped in unison, as Jason slammed the chamber door shut before Caramel could protest any further. He then retrieved a large rubber glove and slid it onto his right hand, up to his elbow. Gripping the large throw switch with the gloved hand, Jason knocked on the box and shouted towards it.

“You ready Caramel? Knock once for yes, and twice for no.”

There were two very quick, but very quiet taps coming from the machine’s thick steel walls.

“Alright, here we go!”

“Waaaait,” Berry Punch slurred in a dull daze, surprisingly silent until now, “I thought…two knocks was ‘no,’ wasn’t it?”

Too late to hear the drunken pony’s protest, or simply ignoring her, Jason threw the switch, showering him in sparks. Within seconds, the entire Hasbro Building went completely dark.

Twenty square mile's worth of homes found themselves without power as a result of the failed machine. On top of that, the heat it generated was enough to permanently seal the door shut. It took the rescue team two hours to cut Caramel out of the metal death trap; thankfully, he was alive but unconscious as the paramedics rushed him to the hospital. The six mares and Thiessen stood on the set, watching as another work crew took away the Pony Genetic Re-Coder to be destroyed before it could harm another living creature ever again.

“Well, that was a bust.” Thiessen pouted.

“That poor stallion, I hope he'll be alright.” Bon-Bon worried.

Lyra attempted to calm her friend. “Rest easy, I'm sure he'll be fine.”

Derpy looked to her friends, then noticed that their director had wandered back to his seat, flipping through some papers. She walked over, curious.

“Mr. Director, sir?”

Thiessen didn't even give her a glance. “Yes, Derpy?”

“What do we do now?”

Jason sighed. “Well, since we can't make you girls look like the original cast, I have to figure out another plan.”

Derpy tapped her chin. “Could you just paint us?”

Jason let out a light laugh, bemused by Derpy's attempts at aid. “I thought of that, but because you're a pegasus you have a higher body temperature. The paint will more than likely sweat off of you.”

Derpy sat down, hoping maybe it would help her thinking process.

“I've only come to one idea that would work, but I don't like it.”

Derpy's ears perked. At this point, all the other mares had joined the two. Jason looked around at them all, and let out another sigh. He felt there would be many more to come.

“Well, pretty much, I think I'm going to have to completely scrap this script. Or at least save it for if the original cast returns. And instead we're going to need an entirely new script. I'm just not sure how Mr. Potato Head will take the news...”

“Take what news, Mr. Thiessen?”

Jason Thiessen jumped, turning around in his director's chair. “M-M-Mr. Potato Head, sir, uh... well, you see, there have been some... complications.”

Mr Potato Head stood still, his hands on his body where his hips would be if he were not a potato. “Well, when I heard about one of our other background ponies being rushed to the hospital, I knew something was wrong Mr. Thiessen.”

“Oh, yes, Caramel, well he wasn't vital to the roles of this episode.”

“Well, I wanted to make sure you weren't taking out any pent up frustrations on these fine ponies here.” Mr. Potato Head patted Derpy on the head. Her tail wagged in response.

“No no, they're fine.”

“Ok. Well, then, what is the complication?”

“Well, I... uh, I need to... write a new script. You see, sir, we can't-”

“You don't need to explain anything to me Mr. Thiessen, I trust your judgment enough. Do what you feel is right.”

Thiessen let out a held breath.

“Just be sure to have the new script on my desk by tomorrow morning.”

He re-inhaled the breath, choking on it. Between fits of coughing, Thiessen spoke. “But, sir! I can't write up an entire script in just one night! That's crazy!”

“Oh, don't worry, I have faith in your work.” He then leaned in close, so only Thiessen could hear. “And if you don't, well... I'd hate for your talent to be wasted on another, less appreciated show.”

Mr. Potato Head then stepped back, returning to the double doors to exit.

“Good luck everypony!” He snickered. “Hah, everypony.”

He left the set without another word. Jason continued to kneel backwards in his chair, mouth agape. Derpy looked to the director, poking one of his overhanging legs.

“Uh, Mr. Director, are you ok?”

Thiessen ignored the pony, lost in his own little world of worry. “H-how does he expect me to make an entire script by tomorrow morning?”

Thiessen turned around, slumped in his chair. Derpy walked around, looking at him curiously. He just stared towards the set. What Derpy didn't see, however, was that he was hard at work thinking.

“Uh, Mr-”

Jason Thiessen jumped up, surprising Derpy. “Ok, I know what I must do.” He then turned to the rest of the ponies. “Ok, while I work on the new script, you all take the day off. But be ready to work your tails off tomorrow.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Derpy asked.

“Thank you Derpy, but no. This is something I must do on my own.”

Derpy pouted. “Oh... ok.”

Jason Thiessen grabbed his jacket and briefcase, and quickly rushed out of the room.

With that, the new Mane Six exited the set soon after.

With nothing better to do, they all agreed to stop at a local restaurant and have a snack. They chose the nearby Candyland Sweets Shop, known for its famous treats and goodies in the area.

Sitting outside at a table, the six mares enjoyed their treats.

“Ah...” Lyra exclaimed, resting into the back of her chair, “That hit the spot, eh Bonnie?”

Bon-Bon simply nodded, eyes half-lidded as she felt the onset of a very familiar sugar coma.

Colgate, vigilant in her never-ending struggle against plaque, was vigorously brushing her teeth, maneuvering her toothbrush in practiced motions with her magic. She had staunchly refused to order any sweets, citing the common dental knowledge of the effects sugar has on enamel. As the lone fleck of lettuce stuck between her teeth finally gave in to her frenzied brushing, she glanced at the other five mares, annoyance playing across her features as she recalled each of the five shrugging off her expert advice and ordering the sickeningly sugary treat of their choice, consequences be damned.

While inspecting her smile in her glass's reflection, her immaculate teeth, along with much of the rest of her face, were suddenly splashed with speckles of icing as Berry Punch's face fell muzzle first into her slice of cake. Colgate was quick to start brushing the splatters off the table, herself, and even Berry's mane with her hooves, her magic occupied as her toothbrush anxiously scrubbed her teeth even harder than before.

Derpy, oblivious to the faux-chaos around her, happily munched on her cinnamon muffin. With her mouth full of muffin crumbs, she turned to Carrot and spoke. “Sphee? Ism'ph dish phun?”

Carrot Top couldn't have looked more annoyed if she tried.

With her face now doused in muffin crumbs, she wiped her face clean, making a mental note to never face Derpy directly while she was eating ever again. “Oh yes, Derpy,” she agreed dully, looking to the band of misfits around her. “Real fun...”

“Personally, when Derpy first told me about this, I thought she was just joking.” Bon-Bon started, stifling a small yawn as she wiped her muzzle with a napkin.

“I thought it would be an awesome idea!” Lyra added. “Plus, it's not often I get to hang out with other humans, after that last incident. I gotta thank you again Derpy for getting my restraining order revoked from the Hasbro building.”

Derpy swallowed the last bite of her muffin. “It was a piece of muffin. They understood.”

“Derpy...” Carrot Top started, “Accidentally burning down the police station wasn't them understanding. They lost the records of the restraining order.”

“And now she gets to hang around humans again! At least the ones that'll let her, anyway. You shouldn't be so negative all the time.”

Carrot Top, with her mind now broken from her friend's odd sense of morality, merely slammed her forehead on the table top.

“Well before I said yes, I did some research into the thing.” Colgate said through flossing her teeth. “The show's popular with its target audience, of course, but no one expected it to be as much of a hit as it was with other demographics.”

“Oh?” Lyra asked, raising a brow. “What kind of demographic are we talking here?”

Colgate motioned for the group to get closer. They all did, however reluctant Carrot Top was.

“I heard that the show is a huge hit with older male humans.”

Bon-Bon gasped.

“They call themselves... bronies.”

“Bronies!?” Berry Punch yelled, globs of cake falling from her muzzle as she catapulted into a sitting position. Her gaze shot from one mare to another. “What's a brony?”

It took all of a half second for the six mares to realize the sudden utter lack of noise. All the chattering and bustling of the city around them, once full of life, had died down completely as people and ponies alike were giving them questioning glances.

Berry looked around in a daze. “Uhhhh... was it something I said?”

Lunch ended on a spectacularly awkward note following Berry Punch's outburst. From there, the group had paid for their meals and disbanded for fear of saying another “magic” word. Derpy and Carrot Top walked side by side, but the two didn't speak a word to another. Whatever these bronies were, the people of Hasbroland did not seem to like them.

That night, Derpy laid in bed thinking.

When Dinky had gotten home, the first thing she did was ask her how her time at the studio went. When Carrot Top told her nothing had been filmed yet, Dinky seemed disappointed, like she was looking forward to nothing more than being the proud daughter of a TV star – on one of her favorite shows, no less.

It was in that moment, when Derpy had looked on at her daughter's downcast expression and thought about what it meant, that it all clicked for her; she realized for herself just how much was riding on the line with this casting position.

Being a mailmare was all well and good. Her memory wasn't fantastic, and to say her klutziness left trouble in her wake was putting it mildly, but she was great at everything else that had to do with the position and her heart was definitely in it – the fact that she still had the job after all her mistakes was telling enough. What troubled Derpy about it wasn't her perspective on the matter, however; it was Dinky's.

Dinky was a sweetheart through and through – she had a smile and a kind word for anything and everything. There was no doubt that Dinky loved her, that much was clear. But did she respect her?

It meant one thing when Dinky once introduced her to her class as, “the greatest mailmare in Equestria,” all with a smile on her face. It meant something else entirely when Derpy took note of the little details; the forced curve of Dinky's smile, the slight embarrassment in her eyes, and the uneasy wavering in her tone. Dinky was friendly, bright, and cheerful; there wasn't a single aspect about her that Derpy wasn't proud of, but the thought that while their love was mutual, the respect might not be tore her up inside.

While she stopped beating herself up over her mistakes long ago, the fact that they might cause other foals Dinky's age to regard Dinky not as the talented filly she is, but as just the daughter of “that goofy klutz” put her own problems in a new light. Knowing how happy and proud Dinky was over the prospect of Derpy becoming a TV star gave her a glimpse of what could've been, if she weren't too preoccupied with her own happiness to become somepony that Dinky could be proud of.

Tomorrow would be the start of a new career for her. Dinky would no longer be the daughter of, “Derpy, mailmare extraordinaire,” but, “Derpy, the famous star who acted for truth, muffins, and the Equestrian way.” Dinky would no longer quietly shy away from conversations that inevitably swayed towards her mother's latest incident with delivering mail to the wrong address, or any of the times her mother broke windows on her route because of her faulty depth perception, but would instead talk about her with pride. Just imagining Dinky beam at the mention of her mother's name was enough to wet Derpy's eyes out of joy.

Derpy was a natural born klutz – it ran in her family, and her own parents were no stranger to goofing up from time to time – and her mistakes were many; any sort of negative effect her mistakes had on her self-esteem had dissipated long ago with time and experience. But with this new career possibly being the difference between her daughter's empty words and her genuine pride, she couldn't help but cast doubts on herself.

Every upturned piece of furniture, every broken window, every dropped valuable, every wrong address; memories of slip-ups and goofs as far back as she could remember came together in a powerful mesh of misery that left her in a cold sweat. It told her this was all a mistake, that there was no way this could end in anything but disaster, that she would fail, utterly fail, and Dinky would forever look upon her with distaste, that-

No.

She couldn't fail. She wouldn't.

If not for herself or her friends, if not for all of Hasbro, then for Dinky. For mutual love and admiration. For every word to be spoken in genuine pride. For the respect that Derpy wanted and Dinky deserved. There would be no faltering, no backing down.

No giving up.
No failures.
Not anymore.

Not on her watch.

“Crap... I left my watch at the set.”

Chapter 3

As the doors automatically slid open to permit her entrance, Derpy Hooves proudly marched into the Hasbro building. Her head was held higher than she thought possible; all the lights in the main lobby dimmed to accommodate the brilliant luminosity of the golden muffin crown atop her head. But perhaps even more shiny than that was her glowing pride. The sheer radiance of it all sent employees and janitors alike diving to the floor, hands shielding their eyes to prevent them from melting in awe.

“Good morning, Miss Hooves!” one random human said who, despite being unable to wave because of both hands trying to keep all eye matter inside his eyelids, sounded like he had been waiting to say that to her for days on end.

“Morning there, Miss Hooves! Beautiful day, isn't it?” a pony greeted her as she trotted by, who had been fortunate enough to bring sunglasses to the occasion.

Derpy nodded towards the properly prepared pony, and swore she could've heard a head or two exploding.

She pranced with vigor to the set where she was to be filming, accepting each and every compliment given to her from passersby. Lights flickered overhead, barely able to withstand the onslaught of shininess without the bulbs shattering into a million pieces.

“I CAN'T DO IT, I JUST CAN'T DO IT!” A familiar voice wailed dramatically, just ahead of her.

“Mister Thiessen,” Derpy began, recognizing the frantic voice of her director. Though he was only a few feet away, she strained to see him against the glow of her muffin crown. “What's the matter?”

“I just can't direct this episode anymore! It's too awesome and muffinly for my talent! Look!” He took the first page of the script he was holding and nibbled on the corner. “It tastes like blueberry! Only the muffinliest of the muffinly turn things blueberry flavored!”

“Yes you can, Mister Thiessen.” Derpy, taking flight, shook Thiessen by the shoulders and looked into his eyes, her expression deathly serious. “Yes! You! Can! You MUST! For if not, who would direct this episode of epic blueberry flavored, muffinous proportions?”

“...you?”

Derpy stood on her hind legs, dropping a spaghetti-legged Thiessen to the floor, as a powerful sense of muffinly duty ran through her being.

“If that is the way it has to be, then so be it.” she began, as straight-faced as a pegasus of her status should be. “I shall direct this episode, for great justice... and blueberry muffins. Chocolate chip muffins as well...

“but not raisin muffins.”

Mr. Thiessen let out a very unmanly whoop of joy, grabbing onto one of Derpy's legs in near-orgasmic glee.

“Did you hear that?” he bragged to a similarly entranced, nearby pegasus. “She'll direct the episode I wrote! I mean, the one she wrote, but I handed her her own script for it! Close enough!”

“Derpy! Derpy!” another familiar voice called out. It was her best friend in the entire world, Carrot Top.

“Yes, CT?”

“Derpy, my bestest best friend in the entire world that I could never replace or would ever say or do mean things to, I need your help!”

Derpy pushed off the cowering and frantic former director. “What's wrong?”

“We've run out of muffins for the episode! We need more, but we're out of time! The horror, THE HORROR!”

“The HORROR!” Mr. Thiessen cried from his supine position, limbs hysterically flailing.

“No worries CT, my laser-muffin-vision can fix this problem!”

From her focused, misaligned eyes, red lasers shot out at the floor, casting the room in a red glow that mixed with her muffin crown's glow to produce a truly mindblowing combination. One explosion that may have been somepony's brain later, the plume of smoke rising from where the laser met the floor cleared to reveal the giant pile of muffins that had materialized. A massive crowd suddenly appeared, cheering and praising Derpy's name.

“All hail the muffin queen!”

“She's our hero!”

There was a sudden explosion, as the roof of the Hasbro building was torn apart. The gasping crowd cowered from the shower of shingles, but Derpy didn't bat an eye.

The behemoth standing above them was monstrous, to say the least. At least sixty feet from the bottom of its cake-like legs to the tip of the sweetened frosting on its head, the monster from out of nowhere was an abomination of all things good, wholesome, and sugary.

It was the bane of all things muffiny.

“Oh no! It's the evil cupcake king out to destroy us all! And to banish all the muffins in the world! The horror, THE HORROR!”

The king's beady eyes glistened with anticipation as it let out vile, gluttonous laughter; for once, the pony would not be feasting on the cupcake, but the dreaded reverse. Many of the ponies fainted dead away while the rest, scared and confused, looked to Derpy, who stood resolutely despite the king's massive frame.

“Not on my watch, which I didn't forget this time!” Derpy said, standing proud.

She now wore a blue cape with a muffin logo on it, and her golden muffin crown was now a golden muffin helm; a gift from the mysterious realm of hammerspace.

“I SHALL SAVE US ALL!”

“My best friend, the hero!” Carrot Top cheered, though her words were lost among the rush of flame now jetting from the bottom of Derpy's hooves as she took to the air and bravely charged the evil cupcake king. She had just aimed her watch laser towards the cupcake king when-

“Derpy! Wait, I almost forgot!”

Derpy looked back down to her best friend, whose face was now very serious.

“We're running late Derpy! Get up!”

Derpy shot up from her bed, a half eaten muffin falling out of her mouth.

“Finally, I've been trying to get you up for fifteen minutes now.” Carrot Top said, then looked to the half muffin and the collection of muffin wrappers – about a dozen strong – strewn about her sheets. “And Derpy, what have I told you about eating muffins in your sleep? You really need to lay off those things. Remember what the doctor said?”

“That I can't reference him in this story because he's trademarked with another franchise?”

“I... what?” Carrot Top gave a stressed look. “Just... get ready. We're running late.” She left the room, already having had all she could handle of Derpy's eccentricities.

Derpy looked to her clock. The little arm was over the muffin with eight blueberries. The larger arm was over the muffin with just one. Late.

“Oh no!” Derpy cried, rushing out of her room to catch up with her friend.

Late late late!

The word itself hit Derpy particularly hard – no matter what obstacles stood in her path, one thing she never allowed herself to be was late. With the promise to Dinky and herself still fresh in her mind, she flew as fast as her wings would physically allow her to. She cursed not having her “Animation License”; without it, the benefits of free physics defiance or plot convenience weren't available to her.

“DERPY!” Carrot Top shouted through the gusts of wind, “FOR THE LOVE OF HASBRO, SLOW DOWN!”

Carrot Top hung onto Derpy's hind legs for dear life; to her, if the gray pegasus kept up this speed, she'd see for herself if Hasbro Studios would remain standing after a Sonic Rainboom.

“I CAN'T CT! WE'RE RUNNING LATE!” Derpy shouted back to her friend over the harsh wind.

Carrot Top's eyes watered from the cold, sharp breeze in her face. It was perhaps all for the best that her cheeks were numb, because right now she was mentally slapping herself for ever thinking going along with Derpy's crazy schemes would be a good idea. She cursed her unfortunately lethargic “morning brain,” as it was evidently somehow able to make her believe that this wouldn't end in disaster.

Derpy suddenly and swiftly cut right to narrowly avoid a street light. The potted plant hanging from it, however, met with Carrot Top's thankfully numbed face. The parts of the plant that hadn't stuck to her face instead fell onto the sidewalk below, the pot making a loud crash as it shattered.

Inside the adjacent building, a very nervous Mr. Bowing jumped, startled; his attention was temporarily stolen away from the eyes of the purple unicorn mare in front of him.

“Well, Mister Bowing? Does everything seem to be in order?”

He looked back to the mare, Twilight Sparkle, as she glared at him through a pair of thin-rimmed glasses waiting for his answer. While she could see clearly without them, even her eyes got sore after dozens upon dozens of pages of tiny text, despite her well-established reputation as a bookworm. He shifted his body, trying to find a comfortable position to sit in; after three hours of sitting, his rear was getting quite sore.

The five mares that had accompanied Twilight didn't seem to be faring well either. Of the five, only Rarity, the white unicorn, seemed to be paying any attention at all. Two hours in, she had lent Twilight her spectacles, but otherwise hadn't contributed much beyond correcting small errors as Twilight went through the seemingly endless paperwork. Towards the corner sat Fluttershy, a yellow pegasus who, besides a small yelp when the flowerpot broke outside, said nothing the entire time. She seemed preoccupied with watching a flock of birds congregating outside.

The other three – Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie – didn't bother with hiding how bored they were; Applejack had offered a polite greeting through clenched teeth, and had non-verbally made it perfectly clear she would rather be anywhere else ever since. But at least she was awake.

Rainbow Dash had fallen asleep no more than ten minutes into the proceedings, to which Mr. Bowing thanked his lucky stars; the meeting would no doubt take at least twice as long if they had to pause to wake her up every time she nodded off. Pinkie Pie managed to be even more disruptive; the first half-hour was her rapidfire stream of progressively more inane questions, before prattling on about random non-sequiturs without even waiting for an answer – not as if Mr. Bowing would've been able to, anyway. The next two-and-a-half hours was her snoring, the volume of which may have been the only reason Mr. Bowing hadn't fallen asleep himself.

What Mr. Bowing did remember of the drudgery was that he was sure not all of their demands could be dealt with. At least the mare had been kind enough to “abridge” it down to the most important demands, such as more show-accurate merchandise, but even the abridged list of demands took the full three hours.

Mr. Bowing snapped back to reality as the ponies who were awake looked to him, waiting for his delayed response.

“Oh, um, yes. Everything seems to be fine. I'm sure they'll agree to everything.”

He couldn't lie to himself... he too only half-listened to the demand list. In his defense, the sun would probably have gone supernova long before the unabridged version could be read through.

“Great,” Twilight said, using her magic to place the ten inch stack of paper into a box, stirring two ponies out of their slumber. “Now just take this to the toy department for review, and let us know what they have to say.”

Mr. Bowing nodded, taking the heavy box. With a moan and grunt, he began to walk out of the room when a phone rang from behind him. Twilight answered it.

“Hello?” She said cheerfully, feeling better now that things might be going in their favor.

That cheerful mood soon diminished, as her smile quickly turned into a frown. Mr. Bowing could only guess what she was being told, but made haste to leave before he became a target. Just as he closed the door behind him and rounded the corner, the phone Twilight was using had been launched through the door, leaving a large, phone-sized hole in its wake.

Wide-eyed and possibly fearing for his life, it took an approximate 0.2 seconds for him to exit the office building and find himself on the busy streets of Hasbroland.

“Next stop for the morning... Hasbro Toy Department,” Mr. Bowing mused to himself. “and note to self: don't talk to any purple unicorns.”

Colgate, Berry Punch, Lyra, and Bon-Bon all sat on the set where they were to work today, all of them bored out of their skulls. Missing however were Derpy, Carrot Top, and Jason Thiessen, the director. They watched as many stagehands continued to clean and place props, even though none of them had any idea what was needed.

“So, where is everyone?” Bon-Bon asked, breaking the silence.

“I dunno.” Lyra shrugged, going back to kicking around a pen cap between her hooves.

From above the mares, a sudden racket of metal bangs erupted. They looked up, just in time to see the golden, crossed eyes of Derpy come crashing through the ceiling vent, along with what was certainly years of accumulated dust. The stagehands worked quickly to clean up the dust cloud that dirtied the group and much of the set.

“Look CT, we made it!” Derpy said proudly, shaking herself to rid her of the dust. “You okay CT?”

Carrot Top sat upright, spitting a chunk of dirt from her mouth. Her mane was covered in random plants, dirt, dust, and even bits of what used to be a bird's nest.

“Yes, just fine Derpy.” The sarcasm dripped off her debris-caked lips.

“Great!” Derpy, ever-oblivious to her friend's harsh tone – Carrot Top rolled her eyes – looked to the other ponies around her. They were trying to regain their composure after being dive bombed by a gray dust cloud. “Looks like we're just in time, too!”

Carrot Top went to cleaning herself off while Derpy wandered the room.

“Oh, Mister Director! Mister Director, where are you?”

“He's not here Derpy.” Bon-Bon said.

Derpy's head turned a full 180, her body following a second after.

“What do you mean? Where is he?”

Suddenly, as if on cue, the double doors slammed open.

“I'm here! I'm here!” Mr. Thiessen wobbled into the production set, his jacket buttoned up incorrectly. He was missing a shoe, and his briefcase was crammed full of papers, most of which were sticking out the sides.

“Whoa, what happened to you?” Lyra questioned.

“Beenupallnighthaven'tsleptyetnotime.” Mr. Thiessen spoke with speed rivaling Pinkie Pie. His bloodshot eyes and nervous twitching showed signs of caffeine abuse.

“Did you finish the script?” Colgate asked.

“YES!” He shouted, dropping the suitcase onto the ground.

It exploded with a shower of papers raining upon the crazed director.

“Okaythen, nowwejustgottaputthepagesinorder.” He began to sway back and forth.

“Uh... Mister Director, are you okay?” Derpy asked.

Mister Thiessen stood still for a split second. “JuuuuuuuustfineDerpy. Now, Imustgogettheboss-”

Jason Thiessen took one step towards the doors and collapsed. Derpy ran quickly to help him up, but he had passed out.

“Uh oh... What do we do now?” Lyra asked.

“Panic?” Berry slurred.

“No, he needs to rest.” Derpy, with assistance of the other ponies, dragged Jason to a couch and laid him down to rest. “There there, Mister Director, get some rest. We'll handle it from here.”

“Handle it? How?” Carrot Top asked, ever the skeptic.

“Uhhhhhh...” Derpy looked around, noticing Colgate trying to straighten up the mess of papers. An idea came to Derpy's mind.“Easy! Colgate, do you mind getting the script in order?”

Colgate was in the process of placing sheets of paper in multiple stacks. “Um, I suppose,” she answered, though she looked like a deer caught in headlights against the mess of jumbled paper.

“Great! Okay, well Mr. Boss-Tato doesn't know he's here yet, so we should have-”

There was a sudden ringing, interrupting Derpy. A brown phone – the receiver in the shape of a spud – continued to ring as the ponies stared at it, waiting for somepony else to answer. Derpy, feeling all eyes on her, walked over and picked up the receiver between her hooves.

“Hello! Derpy Hooves speaking.”

“Ah, Miss Hooves.” It was Mr. Potato Head's voice. “I was told by security that Mister Thiessen had finally arrived, but he hasn't come by my office yet.”

Derpy bit her lip.

“Can I speak to him?”

“Uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh...” Derpy looked over to her director, still fast asleep on the sofa. “He... can't right now. He's... making some... last minute... edits?” “Oh please buy it, oh please buy it...”

“Oh, alright Miss Hooves.”

Derpy let out a held breath.

“I'll just be on my way down then.”

Derpy inhaled the breath, which tasted a lot like her blueberry flavored toothpaste.

“Well, Mister Boss-Tato, you see, he's-”

“It's quite alright Derpy. I just want to see the script and speak with him for a moment. I'll see you all in a few minutes.”

“Wait, Mister Boss-”

The call ended.

“Tato...” she drifted off. “Aww, raisin muffin.”

Derpy hung up the phone, looking frantic as she tried to use her brain to think up a solution.

“Derpy, what's the matter?” Carrot Top asked uneasily, sounding the slightest bit worried for once at her friend's expression.

Both of Derpy's eyes crossed in panic.

“Mister Boss-Tato is coming down to see the script, and talk to Mister Director!”

“So?”

“SO? Look at him!”

Derpy pointed to the director, a drool puddle forming on the couch cushion. His shoeless foot twitched.

“If Mister Boss-Tato sees him like that, it could be bad.”

Carrot Top seemed to understand where Derpy was going, which was arguably a miracle in itself. Shocking herself further, she cared enough to ask, “So what do we do then?”

Derpy's eyes began to drift further apart as she racked her brain for some sort of idea. Her right eye caught Berry Punch attempting to open a bottle. She succeeded, but in doing so sent the bottle skidding across the ground and spilling out most of its contents. The muffin above her head lit up with an idea.

“Berry!” Derpy called, rushing to the intoxicated mare.

Berry Punch looked up from licking the liquid off the floor. “Yesh?”

“Mister Boss-Tato is on his way, I need to you sit outside the doors and distract him while we try to wake up Mister Director.”

“Uh, Derpy...” Carrot Top started. “Are you sure that-”

“You got it!” Berry tried to salute, but only succeeded in falling backwards, having smacked herself in the face.

“Great! Colgate, how comes the script?” Derpy turned to the dentist. Her mouth fell agape at the sight.

“I'm doing my best, Derpy!” Colgate said, a slight tone of panic in her voice. She looked to have assembled only a small fraction of the mess together, several strands of her mane having gone haywire. Sheets of paper were still spread out everywhere around the mare.

“But I can't seem to figure out his ordering system!” she complained. “The first several pages are numbered correctly, but after page twenty five they stop looking like numbers.”

“What do they look like then?” Lyra asked, stepping closer to a stack of papers.

“Just random squiggles! At first I thought I found a pattern in them, but now they are completely erratic! Some pages don't even have that! And why in the hay is there a page G3.5?”

“Okay, well just do your best before-”

“No thank you Berry,” Mr. Potato Head's polite, but clearly impatient voice called from the other side of the doors. “I don't wish to see how many bottles you can balance on your nose. I just wish to go inside and see Mister Thiessen.”

Derpy froze. “Crap crap crap...”

She took notice to Lyra, magically levitating a stage prop and poking Bon-Bon. It startled the mare; in turn she began whining to Lyra in a different voice than her usual one. Carrot Top saw the growing smile on Derpy's face and suddenly found herself apprehensive.

Derpy had an idea.

Berry Punch stood on her two hind legs, blocking the double doors leading to the set.

“Please, Miss Punch, I'd really like to enter the set now.”

“Weeeeeeeell... you can't. Because... they're... uh...” Berry smacked her head, trying to unclog her thoughts as she tried to stall for more time. “Still setting up.”

“For what? I do not need to see any of the props. Just the script.”

“Well... OH! Did you know that I'm a good juggler?”

The absolute randomness of the question caught the spud off guard.

“Um, a juggler?”

“YEA! Watch!” Berry Punch withdrew from behind her three green bottles. She weighed them with her hooves, comparing each and taking quick sips to level them out. When she was finally happy, in more than one way, she threw them up in the air and began to juggle.

If the sounds of shattering glass constituted juggling, then Berry Punch was the greatest juggler the universe had ever seen.

Her cutie mark wasn't based on juggling for a reason. Two of the bottles hit the tile floor with a crash, with the third one bumping her head and shattering on the floor in kind – three bottles' worth of contents all over both her and the floor.

“Uh-oh!” Berry Punch said, clapping a hoof to her mouth in mock surprise. “Safety hazard! Safety hazard! There's broken glass everywhere!” She began trying to push Mister Potato Head away; he didn't budge an inch. “Why don't you come back in about...oh, I don't know, twenty-five or thirty hours and-”

Mister Potato Head had seen enough. He began to push on the double doors, trying to force them open while Berry Punch shifted her efforts to the door, trying her hardest to ignore the quickly drying and delicious liquids around her.

“Wait...” Berry strained through gritted teeth.

“No. I've waited long enough!”

The double doors suddenly swung open, but not from the two's struggle. Derpy looked between the spud and purple pony, then smiled.

“Mister Boss-Tato! It's good to see you, please come in.” Derpy stepped aside, allowing her boss to enter. “Mister director is waiting to see you now.”

With a final scolding glance to Berry, he followed Derpy into the production room, taking a large step over the mess of broken glass.

Seated, if it could even be called that, on the couch was a sloppily dressed Jason Thiessen. He leaned to one side, and his right leg was straightened out in front of him despite not having a rest to lay it on. His normal glasses had been replaced with a pair of dark, oversized sunglasses. Mister Potato Head stopped, taken aback by his unusual appearance.

“Mister Thiessen, are you... alright? You look worse for wear.”

Jason's mouth opened, and moved in a crude, but seemingly believable talking motion.

“Of course, Sir. I'm just fine.”

Derpy and Carrot Top both looked to one another in astonishment, both silently crediting Bon-Bon's mimicry; the voice actually sounded identical to that of their director.

Behind the couch, crouched and out of sight were two ponies: Lyra, using her magic to control the directors mouth and other body parts if necessary, and Bon-Bon, using her impeccable speech skills to voice for him. Her cutie mark was deceiving, for her mimicking skills were far superior to her candy making skills.

“I was running a tad late, so I got ready in a hurry.” 'Thiessen' said. Lyra could hardly contain her laughter. “It also seems this couch is in quite poor condition. Very uncomfortable.”

Mister Potato Head looked skeptical, but he couldn’t place a plastic finger on what it was. “I see. Well, do you have the script?”

“Right here, Sir!”

Mister Potato Head, along with the other ponies turned to Colgate, who was floating a stack of papers alongside her. “Mister Thiessen's suitcase latch failed, so his entire script had spilled out. I was straightening it up for him.”

“Not a problem, thank you.”

Mister Potato Head took the stack of papers, breezing through them like he was Twilight Sparkle herself. Five of the mares looked on anxiously, awaiting the boss's next words. Carrot Top was just curious if Derpy and her merry band of misfits could actually pull this off.

After several silent moments, Mister Potato head looked to Jason, whose head had slumped over.

“Well, Mister Thiessen,” Lyra was quick to straighten up his head. The pair of sunglasses shifted slightly, now crooked and nearly revealing his closed eyes, “everything seems to be in order.”

Derpy beamed with delight. Carrot Top’s jaw dropped.

“You can’t be serious?” she remarked, gasping in breath when Derpy elbowed her a moment after.

“Miss Top, I didn’t need to fully read the entire script. I have enough trust in Mister Thiessen that no matter what he writes, it came from his heart. He gives one hundred and ten percent for everything he writes. I simply wanted to make sure that my deadline wasn’t too short, and he was able to fully complete this. I see the appropriate page amount, plenty of text, and a bold The End at, well, the end.”

Mister Potato Head handed the pages back to Colgate.

“Well, now I imagine you’re all going to be quite busy the next several days, so I shall leave you be. I’ll stop by on occasion to check on your progress. Oh, and I'll send someone up later to replace that broken down couch. I can't have you all uncomfortable.”

The mares watched as he walked to the doors. Even Lyra and Bon-Bon stuck their heads above the back of the sofa.

“Good luck, ponies!”

The double doors clicked closed, leaving the mares to themselves once more. Plus their director, whose shirt was beginning to get wet from drool.

“Well, that went better than expected.” Derpy happily stated.

“Or just dumb luck.” Carrot Top added. “But that was some quick thinking, Derpy. I'm impressed.”

Derpy beamed as though she had just become the CEO. Carrot Top managed to not roll her eyes. Barely.

A short time later, the six mares were once again in a group, going over what Colgate had been able to place together of the partial script. Until their director came back to life, they'd have to use what they had.

“From what I can actually read of this,” Colgate began, “we've got about ten minutes of episode we can record. For the rest of it, we'll have to wait for Mister Thiessen to wake up and rewrite when he's mentally capable. Also, I think he's drooling again.”

“Sounds good!” Derpy clopped her hooves together. “So now we just need to start!”

With those words, the production set of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic beamed to life. Camera crew set up their equipment. Lighting engineers checked the bulbs and made final adjustments. Daniel Ingram sat in his music room with his orchestra, awaiting and ready to begin.

Derpy tried one last time to wake their director, but he only seemed to drool more in response.

The mares studied their lines, got into their places, and with the smack of the clapper board and an “ACTION!” they began recording.

Against all odds, and Carrot Top's better judgment, the first several hours of recording went off without a hitch. Even without having the director giving orders and forcing heaps of retakes, the mares did decently in their first time ever in the spotlight.

They each had their little falters – Derpy a few more so than the rest – but this was something very important to her. She couldn't allow the show to suffer due to her klutziness, so she tried her hardest to stay on goal.

After an exhausting day, the cast and crew finally called it a day around eight at night. Dinky, who had been watching their performance at the studio since her school let out, ran to Derpy, the huge smile on her face telling more words than she could say.

“Well, what'd you think?” Derpy asked, ruffling her daughter's mane as they gathered their things.

“You were awesome, mommy!” Dinky said, giving her a tight hug.

Lyra and Bon-Bon couldn't help but gush over the affectionate display. Carrot Top, who was long-since used to the mother-daughter mushiness, had a silly grin on her face. Even though she thought Derpy was klutzier than every other pony and some of the Transformers put together, she couldn't help but smile when Derpy rose to the occasion.

The mares decided to celebrate a successful recording day with dinner.

Derpy had stopped at the doors when she accidentally knocked a broom over. Sloppily setting it upright, she ran out to join her friends. The slam of the door as she exited was just enough to knock it back over again. This time, the falling broom landed on a switch to a power strip, switching on an industrial fan used for windy scenes. The sheet that had been covering it flew off, gliding at the perfect arc to cover the nearby couch.

Seconds after, the double doors swung open. Floating, using an unknown source of technology, were two massive robots. One was blue, the other was red, and both had strikingly large 'M's of the opposite color on their chest.

“Now, the boss said we were getting a couch, right?” The blue bot questioned.

“I thought we were getting a sofa?” The red one responded.

“I think those are the same thing.”

“What are?”

“A couch and a sofa... right?”

“I think so. Isn't that what the boss told us to get?”

“Yes. So let's get it.”

The two bots began searching the set for their objective. They searched high and low, finally stopping at the only couch in the room, still covered with a white sheet.

“Do ya think this is it?” The red bot asked.

“Hmmm...” The blue bot raised a mechanical hand to his head, rubbing his face as if he had a chin, and thinking as if he had a brain. He then lifted the sheet up and was greeted by the visage of a still-sleeping Jason Thiessen.

“Excuse me, sir. Is this the couch we're supposed to be getting for the boss?”

Jason incoherently mumbled a response.

The red bot peered from behind the blue one. “I think that was a yes.”

“I think that was a yes, too.”

“That's two out of three. The odds are in our favor, Slash.”

“I do believe you're correct, Hack.”

Slash replaced the cover back over Jason and the two each grabbed a end of the couch, completely ignoring the passenger on board. The two bots floated towards the door, the lead bot opening it so they could exit.

“Hey Hack.”

“Yea Slash?”

“Where were we suppose to take this thing again?”

“Hm... I'm not sure.”

“You know, Hack, I've always wanted a couch for my room.”

“I've always wanted a sofa for my room.”

“Why don't we share it then?”

“Sounds like a plan!”

And with that, the bots exited the set, carrying their new found prize and passenger homeward... wherever that was.