The Show Ends with You

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...What have I done?

I looked around. It was dark. I had no clue where I was.

What have I done? Rainbow Mane manipulated me, she...

I started feeling my way around the dark room, hoping to find some kind of light.

Please, Pink... forgive me. I was being... I don't even want to think about it...

"Forgive me, Pink..." I said out loud.

"It's okay, Twilight. I forgive you."

Pink stepped out of the shadow, the eternal smile she always wore plastered on her face. "It wasn't your fault. It was that damn Pegasus. She controlled you, you know that."

"Yes, yes, I know. Now, let's just get out of here." And thank God for you, Incognito. You saved us both.

That's right, Twi! Keep at it! She's dead! 5 seconds left! 4, 3, 2-

Stop that! Put her down, Purple!

Who the hell are you?

One mission per day. Only the Wonderbolt captain can issue the Challenges. And you can't make them Obliterate another member. You know the rules. Now follow them.

What! I-I didn't know that-

It's okay, Twilight. You don't know these rules.

And how do you know them? You're a Player, just like these two dumbflanks.

According to who? Now go.

Thank you for helpi-

Hey! You are still part of this. You let your guard down, listened to whoever, did anything you could to get out of this... you nearly killed your Partner, and it would have ended with the Obliteration of both of you. Now go apologize to her.

...Pink... I'm sorry.

It's not your fault.

Who are you, anyway? And how do you know so much about this?

Name's Incognito. I watch over the Challenges, making sure the rules aren't broken. We have some time before another day passes. I can answer any questions you have; just make it quick.

Perhaps... perhaps I should be more careful. I may not like Pink, but getting her killed is the last thing I need. Hopefully, we can just finish the rest of the challenges quickly, and get out of-

"Oof!" Pink tripped over something, and toppled to the floor. As she tried to get up, her wristphone's screen began to glow, and my eye was instantly attracted to it. The picture on it was of Pink standing next to a yellow-ish mare with a pink mane. They were both smiling. They both looked happy.

"Is that what you were looking at before when you were playing with your wristphone?" When I thought you were spying on me.

"You-you looked at it!?" Pink glared at me as all four of her hooves once again touched the ground.

"The picture was on it. The screen was facing toward me. What was I supposed to do, blind myself?"

"...Yes, it's what I was looking at. It's a selfie me and my friend, Pinkie Pie, took."

"I see." What I don't see is who decided to call the bombastic pink thing Fluttershy and the cute yellow one Pinkie Pie.

"Well, anyway, come on. Let's get out of-" A ringing noise emanated from our Wristphones, followed by the now-expected pain from my forehoof.

"Mission's here. Let's see what it is."

Pink glanced at her wristphone again. "Defeat the monster at the Canterlot Concerta. You have 180 minutes. Fail, and be Obliterated." She looked up again. "I know where it is. Come on, let's go out into the city, and I'll find it."

We slowly worked our way around the darkness, constantly tripping over each other and either apologizing or yelling at each other. When we finally got out, we only had 170 minutes to go.

I looked up at the front of the building we had just exited. The title was prim and made me think of outfits with enough laces to choke a rhino: The Canterlot Concerta. "Um, Pink? We're here."

"Huh? Really?" Pink followed my gaze. "Huh. Guess we are. Well, we can't take out any monsters right now. At least not until we light the place up."

"Lighting the place up? You need something in the Concerta?"

Pink and I turned toward the voice to see a red mare with two saddlebags draped over her torso.. Her crimson mane with a yellow streak through the middle brought to mind a bright fire.

"Yeah, we do. Can you help us?"

"Perhaps." The mare extended her hoof in greeting. "The name's Blaze Ember. How're you doing?"

I hesitated to take her hoof. Something seemed off, but I couldn't figure out what.

Pink, meanwhile, instantly went up and shook hooves with her. "You're not THE Blaze Ember, are you? Lead singer of the Fire Spirits?"

Blaze smiled. "The one and only."

To say Pink had some form of mental orgasm would be an understatement.

"Oh my god! It's you!" Pink squealed in delight, ears be damned. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I was SUPPOSED to be doing a rehearsal with the Spirits in preparation for our concert about two weeks from now, but as long as the lights are shot, we can't do anything. We sent our tech out to get what we need to fix it an hour ago, and he's still not back." Ember smiled. "Hey, how about this. You find the tech and send him back here with the part, and I'll let you through. Deal?"

No. We have to-

"Deal!"

Damn it, Pink!

"Sweet! He went that way." Blaze pointed down the street towards a busy block of buildings. "Be sure to hurry, though. I've only got..." She looked at her own wristphone, and then back at us. "165 minutes left. Then, I have to go to some dumb meeting about what we wear on stage. Product placement, or something like that."

"Okay! See you later, Blaze!"

"C'mon, Pink. We don't have any spare time to screw around. Let's just get this guy as quickly as possible, beat whatever monster is in there, and be done with this stupid challe-damn, it's a wall." I trotted up to the guard whose presence meant some annoying task we had to accomplish and glared at him. "We need to get through here. What do we have to do?"

He looked back, stonefaced as ever. "Want past this wall? I'm going to summon some Changelings. Obliterate them."

"Ready, Pink?"

My partner nodded.

"Go ahead, then."

"Okay, but you asked for it." The Changeling Symbols floated around him, and what came out of them was enough to make me quake in fear.

Not one Bear Changeling, but two.

Pink vanished, and the fight began.

It didn't take long for things to start heading south.

The two of us could handle one bear without much issue, even with just one pin. But two seemed chaotic. The street became a frenzy, dodging and dodging and dodging, with chances to retaliate uncommon at best. I was tired, and so was Pink, even with our shared energy. Before even one fell, it was clear we weren't going to make it if we just kept this up.

Wait! I have an idea! Pink's voice sounded throughout my head. The pin! That special one Incognito gave us!

I'll tell you what you want to know. Do you have any questions?

How do The Challenges work, exactly?

Only the Game Master can choose the challenges for a given week. Your job is to clear them. The Master's is to stop you.  And, unless you're powerful, he will. Thankfully for you, only one group of Players has to clear a challenge for everyone.

So, we don't have to do the Challenges ourselves? We can just screw around and do whatever?

I wouldn't recommend it. If everyone does that, then everyone gets Obliterated. Not to mention, by day 4 or 5, there's usually only one group still alive, and if that group is you, then only you can complete a Challenge. And, one more thing.

Why are you whispering all of a sudden?

This is very rare information I'm about to tell you. Most Pegasi don't even know this, and if the WBs find out, they'll start wondering what I'm doing. You get graded.

What do you mean?

Not everyone who makes it through can go back. Depending on who the GM is, he may let everyone who survives through, the stronger member of all the surviving teams,  or only one person if he really wants to.

You can't be serious!

The GMs have their reasons. You'll find out, if you two make it to the end. Now, I'm sorry, but I have business to attend to.

Thanks for your help though.

One last thing. Take this with you.

A blank pin?

The Fusion Pin. It's the strongest pin you can use in the Challenges, but also one of the hardest to get to work. It can be used only once every ninety minutes, and only if you have complete sync with your partner.

Wait. Wait! Wow, he just vanished.

Who was Incognito, do you think?

I don't know. But I can tell he has some ulterior motive to helping us. And whatever that motive is, it's completely insane.

How do we use it, though?

"How should I know?" I began to send energy to Pink, as she was slowing considerably in my mind's eye.

As the energy traveled along the path between us, it struck something. Yet more energy, sent from her to me. Power seemed to flow through my body, making me feel like I could take on even the strongest of beasts. Glancing downwards while deciding which pin I should start with, I saw the Fusion Pin was no longer blank, and instead had the image of two intertwining five-pointed stars. One was purple, the color of my coat, and the other was a shade of pink eerily similar to my partner's.

I grabbed the pin, closed my eyes, and concentrated intensely. When I opened them again, I was standing back-to-back with Pink, the bears on either side of us. I looked down, and saw that my forehooves were glowing with energy. Jumping up to my hind legs, I fired a bolt of energy out of each of them. This will be fun.

Yes. Luck is on my side. With someone like that... this'll be easy.

"God, how far down this way did he go?"

"Come on, look on the bright side! Just ten minutes ago, we found out how to use the most amazing pin in the Challenges! No Changeling will be able to stand up to us now!"

"Hello! How are you doing?" a familiar voice chimed.

"I thought we agreed not to talk with them anymore, Lovehearth," echoed another.

"Oh. It's you two," I mumbled under my breath.

"Hi!" shouted Pink. "We're really sorry about yesterday." We are?

"It's okay," Lovehearth hurriedly stated. "We're all under stress right now. So, what do you think about today's Challenge?"

Pink was quick to answer. "We were at the Concerta, but it's pitch black in there. We couldn't see a thing, so now we're helping Flame Ember fix the lights."

"Well, you're doing better than us," admitted Cheshire. "We found out about an interesting new trick we can use, but that's about it."

"Really? What is it?"

"It's called imprinting," Lovehearth informed us. "You look at someone who's trying to make a decision, and by concentrating hard enough, you can basically throw a possible solution into their heads for them to use. You should try it."

"Okay! We'll have to try that sometime. So, how did the rest of yesterday g-"

"Come on, Pink. We only have so much time."

"Ugh, fine. Bye, you two!"

After everyone except me shared a quick wave, we continued on our way.

"Okay, here's the place that sells machine parts," I noted. "I'll do a quick scan around to see if I can find him."

I flipped the pin and looked around for someone who was thinking about technology. A few seconds later, I turned the scan off. "Oh god."

"So, he's possessed by the Changelings."

"Yup."

"And they're making him want to be the singer instead of the tech, so he's really depressed."

"Yup."

"So he's just moping around in front of the place until the Changelings around him are all Obliterated."

"Yup."

"And the Obliteration job is up to us."

"Yup."

"Ugh. Come on, let's get rid of them."

As we got into our battle positions and summoned the Changelings to us, I heaved a sigh of annoyance. This is going to be a really irritating Challenge. I can just tell.

The Changelings popped out of their symbols as usual, revealing themselves to be two of the frogs from Day 1 led by one of the wolves. Of course, since things never can be simple, they had a bunch of tadpoles the size of my hoof backing them up.

As soon as the battle began, the tadpoles all leapt on my body, weighing me down to the point where I could barely move. Thankfully, I was able to tear one off and bash the wolf with it just before it attacked.

I honed in on one of the frogs and used my beam pin. It wasn't nearly as powerful as the beams fired with Fusion, but that had yet to recharge, so this was the best I could use. The frog flew backwards, hitting the other frog and erasing one of them. Half the tadpoles immediately fell off and died. Thank God for Hive Minds. They make things so much easier.

I let flames lick the other frog's body as it attempted to get up, while sending energy to Pink so she could keep the wolf too focused on her dimension to bother with mine. Before long, the other frog and the wolf were defeated, leaving the tech to shout loud enough to attract the attention of everyone in the immediate area.

"What am I doing here? The Spirits need my help! I have to go work with them!"

"All right. Now, let's go back and defeat the monster!"

"You got the part, right?" Blaze asked the tech once we were back at the Concerta.

"Umm," the tech mumbled. "...No."

"God damn it! Go back and get what you need!"

God damn it is right. "Come on, Pink. We should probably follow him."

"Yeah. Make sure he doesn't get into trouble."

"Okay, I'm here... wait, why did I come here, anyway? I'd go back and ask Blaze Ember, but she'd probably murder me. I'm sure the owner of the Concerta would know, but to ask him, I'd have to go through Blaze. This sucks."

"God damn it! Now we have to go all the way back, find out what they need, then come back here, imprint it on him, and then go all the way back to defeat the monster. I knew this would be an annoying one."

As we crept into the Concerta, I flipped my Player Pin to see if I could hear the owner's thoughts.

God, how long does it take to get a bucking fuse, anyway?

"Fuse. Got it," I whispered.

--

Damn, why am I here again? I can't remember for the life of m- the fuse, yes! That's what I need!

"Okay, Pink. As long as he doesn't forget between now and buying it, we're good."

"Okay, Blaze. We just went all the way out there to find him, then all the way back here to find out he didn't have what he needed, all the way to the store with him, all the way here again to find out what we needed, all the way back there to tell him, then back here again. For the love of all that is good and holy, tell us the lights are working."

"Don't you worry. The lights are on now. Go in and do what you need. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we can practice today after all, but I hear the meeting is handing out free kickass stuff, so I can at least look forward to that."

"Thanks," Pink hurriedly replied as we walked in.

"One last thing, you two. The others? They'll help you immensely. Don't leave them like you did before."

"What do you think she's talking about, Twilight?"

"Not important. You see the monster?" I asked as I looked around. "Looks like a big empty room to me."

"Umm... I see it, all right," Pink whispered. She was looking straight up.

I shot my gaze up with her, and nearly tripped over myself in surprise.

A bat. A giant, yellow-bodied, purple-winged bat Changeling.

Great. Just great.

Pink vanished to her own dimension, and the lights went out.

I couldn't see a thing, but I could hear the bat's swooshes and shrieks. Glancing at Pink's dimension, I saw that it was surprisingly different, with the lights still on and a variety of smaller bats sucking electricity from some overhead wires.

Since I was clearly not going to be able to Obliterate anything in this dark, I concentrated on keeping away from the bat's calls and focusing energy towards Pink, who was easily using her stuffed dragon and dispatching bat after bat after bat, as the lights slowly came back on thanks to the lack of any power-sucking Changelings.

Several minutes later, when the room was light enough to see, I fired my beams at the bat. They all connected, but the beast barely seemed to notice. I tried slashing it and striking it with lightning, but it couldn't have cared less and continued swooshing down at me in an attempt to strike me with its claws.

Light! It's weak to light! Pink's voice sounded. That's why it put out the power.

Hmm, I thought back. Well, I have slashes, telekinesis...I've got it!

As Pink continued to Obliterate Changelings on her end, I lit up my fire pin. "Take this, you freak."

The fire scorched the bat horribly, and it immediately glared at me with its horrid crimson eyes. Large green blasts suddenly started shooting out of its wings, and I had no more time to attack as I dodged bolt after bolt after bolt.

Come on, come on... there! That's the last bat! Power fully functioning!

It was clear that Pink was right about her light theory, as the Monster dropped to the ground and covered its head with its wings. Free of any distracting laser blasts, I pulled out the Fusion Pin and sent energy to Pink.

"God, that was a tough Challen-oh crap."

"What is it?"

"That wasn't the Monster. Our timers are still going, and we only have 20 seconds left."

"No..."

"That's it. We failed. We're do-"

"Stop thinking like that! Here's the Monster!"

Cheshire and Lovehearth dashed through the entrance and focused their gaze on a small and cute-looking golden bat. Cheshire leaped up and smashed her hoof down on it, causing it to disintegrate. The pain in my forehoof that meant the timer had either appeared or disappeared was proof enough that we were safe.

"Thanks, you two!" shouted Pink. "Without you, we'd be gone."

"Same here," replied Lovehearth. "That little bat was the heart of the big one. Without your help, we'd be gone."

"Wow, really? Blaze Ember just told us that 'our friends' would help us a lot. Maybe she was talking about you. But how would she know?" Pink tapped her hoof on the ground. "Wait... how did she talk to us in the first place?"

"She's a Pegasus," I interjected. "You didn't guess?"

Pink stared at me. "...No, I didn't."

"Her saddlebags were covering her wings, and the meeting she had to go to was right when our Challenge ended. Not to mention, she could talk to us. Can't think of another idea."

"But why would she help us, then?"

Lovehearth raised her hoof and began to speak. "The Pegasi may be our enemies, but they're still ponies, and all ponies are capable of being nice and helping someone out. Surely, a Pegasus can still be nice to us."

I don't want to break your foalish fantasies, but there must have been an ulterior motive here.

"Well," Pink wondered, if it weren't for you, we'd be Obliterated, and if it weren't for us, you'd be Obliterated. How about we give teamwork another shot?" She placed her hoof in front of her.

"I'll do it!" Lovehearth cried, as she placed her hoof on top of Pink's.

"As long as we don't get any more outbursts like before, I'll do it," Cheshire gruffly noted, placing her hoof in as well.

Well... without them, I really would be dead right now. I guess if it helps me get through the week, I should do it. "So long as you don't slow us down," I compromised.

"Twilight, you have to put your hoof in with us. It doesn't work otherwise."

Ugh.