Sunshower

by Roseluck

Rating: everyone
Tags: Alternate Universe, Comedy, Adventure
Length: 21249

When the devil beats his wife or when foxes get married, this is what tends to happen.

Cheerilee loses her cheer when life becomes a little too routine. On her birthday, when she learns of inter-dimensional travel, she yearns to soon venture to a new world. Cheerilee and the mane 6 all travel to a Technical High-school in our dimension.

Meanwhile, with the elements no longer in their dimension, Discord has broken free again and seeks to turn the world into a puddle of chaos and insanity. Celestia must quickly scrounge up a counterfeit mane 6 to combat him while she combats her own sister.

Yup.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-05-12 22:04:01 UTC

I

     Cheerilee faced the back wall of her same old classroom. Her spring green eyes dimmed at the sight, for this was the same room she had taught in for years now. The only things that had changed since her start were the foals. They came and they went. Most leaving behind great memories, others leaving some thoughts Cheerilee wished to forget, and this was common for many teachers.

     It was an hour or so before class was in session, and Cheerilee already had her lesson planed out for the day. It was her birthday, so after school, she'd go out and celebrate. That is, if anypony remembers, unlike Last year. Minuette, one of Cheerilee's best friends that she calls 'Colgate', had forgotten. Colgate worked overtime at her dental care clinic and didn't even seem to notice. They soon held the party 5 days later, only because Pinkie Pie had reminded her. Then again, Pinkie knows everypony’s birthday.

     Cheerilee sighed as she tried to think of a brighter side to this extremely dull day. Just as she looked out of her window where the sun poured in from, she saw the weather ponies gathering clouds into a pile in the sky. It was scheduled to rain today. Cheerilee buried her face in her hooves.

     The school bell rang; it was a sound that Cheerilee heard everyday at the same time. Her ears perked up as she heard the giggles of fillies outside her window and the chuckles of the colts. Cheerilee then picked her head up and tilted it to the sides, having an audible cracking sound in between. She put on her game face, and was ready to start her normal, bleak, uneventful day of school.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

     Soon the day was over, and it was just as Cheerilee expected it to be. Uneventful. She wore an expression of melancholy. Cheerilee's occasional sadness had now officially turned into a clinical case of dysthymia that was now getting too hard to cover up. She had a pain in her throat that almost seemed to tear at it. It was from holding back the tears that had built up over the day. The pain slowly crept over her entire face. She was walking home when she realized she was going to cry in public. Instinctively, her walk switched to a full gallop home.

     As she approached her house, she noticed that her window was wide open. So she jumped through, landing firmly on all four of her hooves. She laid her bag down and collapsed on the floor, bawling. She didn't know why she started crying, or why she was crying so furiously. Nothing happened to her. Her day was fine, only dreary enough to be lachrymose. It didn't matter. She just let it out. She cried and cried until she just fell asleep on her floor.

     It wasn't too long before a neighbor woke Cheerilee up. She was still on the ground when she looked up to see a silhouette that she couldn't quite make out. The sun was shining brilliantly behind her.

     "Cheerilee? Are you okay?" She still didn't know who it could be. A lot of ponies know her name, so it could be anypony.

"You awake, honey?" Cheerilee sat up so the sun could no longer molest her eyes. She could now finally make out who the mare that woke her up was. She had a soft green coat and a bluish mane in a style quite similar to her own. It was her friend, Emerald.

     "Good afternoon, Emerald." She found the strength to speak, but it was difficult.

     "My goodness, I came to wish you a Happy birthday, but I saw you laying on the floor." Emerald adjusted her eyes on Cheerilee's. "Have you been crying? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, thank you, dear." She responded as she got up on her hooves.

"Well, Happy birthday, Cheerilee. I got you a diamond. Now don't think it cost me much, I'm a jeweler, you know."

     Emerald popped her head into her satchel bag and produced a large, round-brilliant cut diamond. You could tell it was flawless. Cheerilee's jaw dropped.

     "I cut it myself. I think it's my best work, but really I give all the credit to the diamond itself. Look at it! It's brilliant! No pun intended. Heh."  Emerald handed her the gorgeous rock. Cheerilee had never held something so wonderful.

     "I...I...I don't know what...I don't even...thank you..." The sunlight was captured by the perfect diamond. A bright rainbow was spread around the room. The pastel colors of their world were all spit out in the most glorious manner. Cheerilee was awestruck.

     "I knew you'd like it." Emerald said proudly. "Enjoy your special day! I gotta get back to work. I heard some folk from Canterlot and Las Pegasus were coming to check out the shop."

"Thank you!" Cheerilee whooped as she stole a hug from her visitor.

     "Bye-bye!" With that, Emerald exited. Cheerilee looked into her present. She played with it like a Kaleidoscope. "This is fantastic!" She thought. She wanted to enjoy her gift to the fullest, so she figured she'd go and study up on how many Karats it was, or how diamonds were even made. She grabbed her bag and plopped her diamond in it and headed over to the library. She had plenty of time to lounge about anyways. It was vacation time.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

     "Hmm...this book looks good." Cheerilee was searching for books about diamonds, at the local library. Twilight was eating her lunch casually outside, waiting for her guest to check out a book. Finally. Cheerilee had spotted a book that caught her interest, but it wasn't a book on diamonds. She took it off the shelf and began to read it.

υπερδιάστατο ταξίδια: ισχυρό μονόκερους   notably written in Greek. Colgate once told Cheerilee that all unicorns from Canterlot had to learn Greek to learn spells, and simply to know one of the former languages of Equestria. Cheerilee could make out the word 'Travel' and the word 'Powerful' but had a hard time figuring out the other words. She tried to sound them out, but she wasn't doing too well.

     "epeardi...eperdiastato....taxidia." The last word she said with confidence. Taxida. It meant travel, and she remembered when Colgate told her how the word 'Taxi' must have come from the Greek word for travel. She wished Colgate could come help her with the translations.

"Are you trying to speak in Greek?" Twilight came in unexpectedly. She just finished her lunch.

"Yeah, could you help me out?"

"Sure!" Twilight lifted the book over to her with her magic. When she saw the cover, she read it herself, quickly, with an expression of confusion.

"I don't think I've ever read this book before. Which is strange because, I've read all these books! Then again, the cover kinda blends in with the book shelf."

"What does the title say?"

"It says, 'yperdiástato taxídia: ischyró monókerous.'"

Cheerilee had a disappointed look on her face.

"Ohhh, heh, it says 'interdimentional travel: powerful unicorns.'"

"That sounds pretty interesting. Mind if you read it too me?"

"Why, I'd love too! It looks like a pretty short instructions booklet."

     It took Twilight nineteen minutes to read. She would have been done with it a while ago if she didn't have to read it aloud or translate it. Cheerilee was captivated by the idea to travel to a different world. Her over bearing curiosity got the best of her and it formed a sense of longing. At the end of the book, it read: επικίνδυνο ξόρκι. Meaning "Dangerous spell."

"Epikíndyno xórki. Well, the end!"

"Wait what did that last part mean?"

"Oh, it means I won't be doing this spell anytime soon." Twilight giggled.

     That made Cheerilee a bit upset. She was hoping Twilight could bring her to another land. She envisioned what it would look like. What would be different? What would stay the same? It looked like she'd never find out now. Her face was splashed with a tinge of sadness noticeable enough for Twilight to pick up on.

"What's wrong, Cheerilee? Didn't you like the book?"

"It's not that...it's just..." Cheerilee really wanted to travel to another dimension. "I wanna know what it's like.

"Oh, well I'm sorry, Cheerilee. The book said it was too dangerous. As much as I'd like to see myself, it's just too dangerous."

     "I understand. It's just that I'm tired of the same old thing, every single day. I go to class, I teach the kids, they sometimes say something I find funny, but all in all, it's all so dreary and boring. I'm tired of doing the same thing over and over and over and over and..."

"I'm sorry. I just can't do it." Twilight said, sternly as she swiped the book away and found a place for it on the shelf.

Cheerilee turned around furiously, and trotted toward the door. Just before she left, she said one last thing.

"Did you know," she began, "that today is my birthday? I'm getting pretty old." With that, she escaped slowly out of the door. Twilight stared at the floor, disappointed in herself. She trotted outside to get Cheerilee before she left.

"Wait..." Twilight called out to her. Cheerilee stopped in her tracks, perked up her ears, but didn't look back. "I'll do it." This made Cheerilee grin. She knew what she did was just wrong, but she really wanted to escape from her dull reality in Ponyville.

"Thank you, Twilight. When can we leave?"

"Tomorrow. I'd like to bring my friends along." Twilight stated in a defeated tone.

"Great!" Cheerilee exclaimed as she bounced off to her house.

II

     The next day at the Apple family's farm, Fluttershy was helping Applejack get ready for the adventure they were suddenly invited to go on.

"Are you sure you can come along? I would think that you'd be...busy." Fluttershy said just loud enough for her friend to hear. The two mares were in a tool shed beside the barn. The door was closed, so Applejack could see the entire room, but the sunlight was strong enough to peer though the cracks. Vertical lines of light streaked the dirt ground.

"Oh I'm alright. Don't worry 'bout me. Big Mac's got it covered." Applejack began to chuckle. "An' so does Applebloom, heh! Her grades dropped faster than a flyin' pig, they did, so she's helpin' Big Mac up in the farm." Applejack and Fluttershy giggled a bit. "She's gonna be in a hella suprise when she finds out we gotta surplus of apples this time around."

"Oh goodness," Fluttershy said disappointingly before laughing out loud. "How bad were her grades?"

"Well, thing is," Applejack tried to begin before she burst out laughing, "she wanna get her cutie mark so bad, so she went crusadin' about wit them friends a hers. They were gonna get some...HEH HA...some gangsta cutie marks."

"Oh shi-Hah hah!" They both shouted with laughter, Applejack obviously louder than Fluttershy.

"So, Applebloom and ‘er friends tryin' act gangsta by standing on the roof of the school. Her friends chicken out, though, but instead of bein' a smart lil' filly,"

"Don't tell me,"

"She decided to stand up on the roof her damn self! Ha! She failed for the day and her grade went," Applejack motioned her hoof slowly toward the ground while whistling for dramatic effect. "Best part of that story is,"

"Uh-hu?"

"That's exactly how she got of that there roof too!"

They both exploded in laughter. Fluttershy was left in tears, and Applejack pounded on the ground. After regaining full awareness, Applejack took a sip of cider she had laying on a wooden table to her left.

"Yep," Applejack started, "I'm all set." She wiped a tear from her eye and chuckled.

Just then, the barn door opened. There stood Applebloom in a cast on her left foreleg, and a head bandage.

"IT AIN'T FUNEH!" Applebloom whined audibly. This made Fluttershy almost die of extreme laughter. Applejack spit out all her cider and dropped to the ground and choked on her giggles. It was a scene. Applebloom huffed and trotted away angrily.

"C...come on Fluttershy, we better get to Twi's place."

Meanwhile, at the library:

     Twilight studied the Interdimentional Travel book over and over. In order to make it work, you must stand outside while it's raining and perform the magic spell. However, it cannot just be raining. The sun must also be out fully during the rain. Twilight knew the weather schedule for the week and thought that if she were going through with this, today would be a perfect day. The sun was shining radiantly and yet, there were storm clouds rolling by. The sun was nowhere near the clouds, so a 'Sunshower' would soon ensue.

     Cheerilee had been ready for the travel. She brought along her diamond and wondered what it would look like in another universe. She stared into it curiously and waited for the journey.

     Twilight read the book for the twenty-ninth and final time before she closed it and put it back on its shelf. She sighed and butterflies fluttered about in her stomach because she knew how dangerous the trip could be. Anxiety gave her a headache. Soon the library doors opened, and her five other friends appeared. Twilight invited them in, and quickly jotted up a list of thing for Spike to do when he finally wakes up. She then kindly asked if Rarity could help her prepare a breakfast for him. Twenty minutes passed and everything was ready, so everypony walked outside and waited for the rain.

Rarity was the only pony not too thrilled about getting wet.

"Good heavens, Twilight! We could all catch colds standing around in the rain!"

"Don't worry, Rarity," Twilight assured, "when we get to the other world, we'll be dry."

"Right...other world, " Applejack spoke up "that don't sit too well with me."

"Me either..." Twilight grumbled as she turned her gaze to Cheerilee. However, Cheerilee ignored her and pretended she didn’t notice.

It took almost fifteen minutes before Pinkie felt a drop of rain. She hadn’t said anything since she arrived, so everypony questioned if she was all right.

"Ooo!!! I think I felt a raindrop!! This is gonna be so much FUN!"

"Wow, Pinkie," Rainbow Dash said as the rain picked up, "I thought you were broken."

The sun shined as if there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but the seven mares were standing in the rain that quickly came down in sheets.

"GOOD HEAVENS!" Rarity yelled, trying to speak over the loud roar of the rain.

"THIS IS PRETTY AWESOME, ACTUALLY!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

"EVERYPONY HOLD ON,” Twilight yelled, “WE'RE ABOUT TO DEPART!"

"WATSTHAT? YOU SAY YOUR 'BOUT TO FART?" Applejack shouted. "I DIN'T NEED TO HEAR ALL THAT, SUGAR CUBE!"

A flash of ianthine light sparked from Twilight’s horn that engulfed the seven mares.

That's when....

         The world around girls

         Slowly unraveled

         As a new one unfurls

         The land they have traveled

         No one knew how,

         No one knew why

         But it's happening now,

         As the colors began to cry

         Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy,

         Rainbow Dash, and Rarity

         Then comes Pinkie Pie

         And lastly Cheerilee.

         Ponyville's where they started,

         Then POOF now they've departed.

     Twilight opened her eyes slowly. She could barely see her refection on the ground. She adjusted her eyes and she could not believe what she was seeing. The ground she was laying on was glowing, but that's not what was amazing.

The colors. They looked so different. Twilight was seeing colors she's never seen before. They all came together so well, it was so unorthodox. The shadows and the textures were unreal. Twilight finally got the courage to lift her gaze to the rest of the new-found world.

Using words to describe what Twilight was thinking would be impossible.

     The rest of the gang was dog piled beside Twilight. They were just as awestruck as she was. Fluttershy wasn't in the pile; she was a bit farther away lying on her back. Her legs were all perked up as if she were in pain.  She probably was. She fell into the new world. Everypony was shocked, and didn't want to move.

Everypony but Cheerilee.

     She was walking around and admiring the sights. From what she could tell, they were in a building of some sort. To her right, there was a desk that was the same color as the floor, which was a glossy ebony. Her friends were laying on a lighted platform of some sort. It was 9x6 tiles of a glowing blue. The platform was strange. It seemed to be translucent with magical crystals shining humbly underneath.

     Cheerilee took a step on the platform. Suddenly, six of the bright blue lights turned red. They made a diagonal red cross from side to side. Cheerilee loved these lights. She walked on the platform more, hoping to create more red lights. Something cooler happened. All the lights on the floor flashed all sorts of brilliant colors.

     Amaranth, cerise, Azure, emerald, violet, gold, teal, turquoise, cyan, magenta, and all other colors that the ponies were unfamiliar with. Everypony's jaws dropped. The sheer amazement kept the hallway quiet. Or at least, Cheerilee thought it was a hallway. It was dimly light by what was probably this world's sun. It was bright out, but it was raining. A sunshower, to be exact. The dimness gave the hall all the colors that Cheerilee could not see more character and definition.

     The glowing platform continued to dance to a beautiful spectrum.

Pinkie was the first to speak up: "Ooo!!! This place is-" She was cut off by a lavender hoof to the mouth.

"Quiet Pinkie! We can't let whatever lives here see us! Who knows what they'd do to us?!"

Rainbow Dash stared at the lighted floor for a good long time.

"Rainbow Dash." Twilight called to her cyan friend, "I need you and Applejack to take Fluttershy and Cheerilee someplace out of the open. The rest of us will investigate what this building is."

"Why can't I investigate?!" The rainbow manned pony objected.

"Wouldn't it be much 'cooler' to find us a secret lair?" Twilight said sarcastically.

"...I guess that sounds pretty cool." Rainbow crossed her fore hooves as she floated in the air.

"Alright! Rarity, Pinkie, you girls are with me! We're gonna go through those glass...window doors?"

Twilight pointed at the glass door surrounded by windows where all the light came from.'

"You mean outside?!" Rarity complained. Twilight nodded her head once and headed for the glass door. She looked at it for a moment, then opened it with magic, holding it open for her two friends. The rain outside was now audible with the door open. Pinkie zoomed out to experience the new world, while Rarity took her time leaving the building.

     When they got outside, the light shined very brightly, and the rain was warm. Twilight looked at the building wall and saw "BEST TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL" on a poster.

A school.

     It was a school. It was hard to believe. Why would a school have to be so big? Pinkie bounced around and found a marble bench. It had words on it so she read them aloud:

"Class of Two, zero, eleven. Look! It's a bench!"

"This is a school? Rarity asked as she read the words on the building herself."

"I guess so. But where are the students?"

     The mares circled around the building, because Twilight presumed they exited via the back of the building. Twilight wanted to know more about the building, so they walked to the front.

     The rain was a strange thing. It was very clear and colors seemed to be enhanced through the drops. Twilight felt overwhelmed, so she tried her best to ignore the sites as they circled the building. However, her attempts were in vain. Her eyes caught these glossy, smaller buildings with 4 wheels on them that resembled a carriage. She didn't know what they were, but she guessed they were for travel.

     The three walked by the building's main windows that were sectioned off by long white ledges. They all looked up at each ledge. To their right, they saw wheat growing high from the ground. They continued walking a bit further until they reached the front of the building. Twilight could tell it was the building's front by reading the big words on its wall:

'W. F. Kaynor Technical High School'

Well, looks like we'll be living here for our journey. Twilight concluded, while still marveling the sights of this dimension.

The spring rain seemed to have ended while the three trotted around the building. They probably didn't notice due to extreme culture shock.

"Let's head inside, everypony." Rarity said, lukewarmly.

III

Meanwhile, in Equestria,

     Celestia went out to her courtyard to find Luna sipping nonchalantly on chamomile tea and reading an old novel in Latin. (She probably started reading this book a millennium ago, but never finished it.)

Celestia noticed that the flowers were not watered. Rather than getting her gardener to do the job, Celestia decided to have a bit of fun with her sister.

"My dear sister," Celestia began, harboring the most solid poker face on this side of the universe, "could you do me a favor and water these flowers?"

"But of course, beloved sister." Luna said, rather sarcastically, but not disrespectfully as she lowered her book a bit. "MISS SPRING BREEZE!" Luna called our to the gardener in the royal Canterlot tone. "I REQUIRE YOU ASSIST-"

"No, Luna. I'd like YOU to water these flowers for me."

"We do not follow." Luna said, skeptically.

"Water the plants Luna." Celestia made herself sound annoyed, but was really laughing on the inside.

"Is thou bestowing orders upon us?!" Luna was becoming irate.

"Yes."

"WE'VE BIDED FOR A MILLENNIUM UPON OUR LUNAR PRISON, WAITING, LOATHING, PINING FOR LOVE AND AFFECTION, AND PONDERING IF MY PUNISHMENT WAS TRULY AN ACT OF ACQUIESCENCE OR OF PURE CHOICE, JUST TO COME BACK AND DO A JOB THAT ISN'T OURS?! COGITARE ITERUM!!!!"

"Just water the damn flowers...or I'll forget to raise the sun tomorrow."

"That won't work on us again. We'll just raise it ourselves."

"Do you know how hot the sun is?"

Luna thought for a moment, then lowered her head. "I'll water the flora." She said, shyly.

Celestia smiled and flew to the tower of the castle.

As Luna walked by the stone statues to fetch a watering pail, she noticed that one was out of place. She looked around, and soon saw a familiar draconequus lounging on a lawn chair.

"Oh! If it isn't the ruler of the night, Princess Luna." The character smiled at Luna.

"Do I know you?" Luna said, again in her rare, shy tone.

"Oh I believe we've met, a very long time ago. I'm the guy who set your carriage on fire, I'm the guy who sank Atlantis, I'm the guy who beat the TAR out that sister of yours, I'm the one who put those evil thoughts into your head, I'm-"

                                                          "DISSSCCCCOOOOOOOOORRRRD!!!!!!!!"

     Luna's voice threw Discord back a long distance. Anger bubbled up rapidly in her expression.

"Bleh!" Discord said, wiping saliva off his face. "Next time, say it, don't spray it... Yes I'm Discord. God of strife and chaos."

Luna was angry beyond repair. This frightened Discord. He had to act fast.

"Urm, here, I got this for you. To apologize for all the evil I've caused." Celestia's poker face had been beat. Discord magically made a chocolate milkshake for Luna in a tall glass with a swirly straw. Luna was curious, but she accepted the offer.

"This pleases us." Luna said, holding the cup with both hooves.

     Later on, Luna and Discord had both watered all the flowers. They talked and laughed all day while doing so. Discord told stories about what the world was like when Luna was banished, and Luna told stories of what it was like when he was turned to stone. How it seemed candid at first, Discord was actually lying to Luna, telling her things about her sister that would be considered slander.

"That sister of yours, mare," he giggled, "she went around selling your things to ponies like you died, and she was happy."

"What?!"

"Yeah! She was so glad that you had left. I was pretty worried that she'd killed your something."

Luna became very upset. "That sordid, foul, evil bitch." Luna had ice in her words, and a colorful vocabulary.

     "Couldn't have said it better myself." Discord had done his job. Luna was so blinded with rage that she didn't see him fly off into the afternoon sky. Celestia just so happened to be looking out the window, and she caught a glimpse of him. Her mood changed dramatically. She was tempted to chase him down, but it was best to rely on the elements of harmony. Celestia was about to call the mane six for their aid to stop Discord, but couldn't feel their presence. This absence of feeling made Celestia's sun-kissed blood to run cold. She stumbled back as if she had died for a split second.

"Where are my girls?!" Celestia's clairvoyance could not locate either of them. She didn't know what happened to them. Just when she was about to search for them personally, she found a scroll on the floor. She leapt at it and read it hastily. It read:

Dear Princess Celestia,

Twilight went to another universe and left me a long list of chores. One of the chores is sending you this letter saying she'll be gone for a while

~Spike.

"Oh Twilight," Celestia spoke calmly as ever, despite her current disposition, "when you get back, I'll bury you."  Celestia groaned when she realized that killing Twilight wouldn't solve any of her problems.

"I need six ponies to use the elements!" She thought, urgently. "Where can I find six friends willing to die for their country?" As the thought wandered in her head for long enough, a cynical thought came to mind.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

Back at Kaynor Tech, Rarity had located a hairdressing salon.  She started to work on her, Pinkie and Twilight's manes with the provided tools.

"What kinda school needs a salon?" Pinkie asked.

"GASP! Why Pinkie! EVERY school should follow in the tracks of this one. This place is simply DIVINE!" Rarity preached happily as she curled Pinkie's mane.

"According to this note book," Twilight said, "this is a school where it's students learn various things in these rooms called 'shops'. This is the H.B.C. Shop. I'm guessing H.B.C. stands for 'Hairdressing, barbering, and cosmetology.'"

"So this is a school that gives cutie marks?" Pinkie questioned.

"Actually Pinkie, yes. That exactly what this school does." Twilight answered, happy with her Pink friend who wasn't enjoying having her mane curled.

"Where did you find that notebook, darling?" Rarity asked, confused.

"Oh! Apparently each shop has a 'Theory Room' where the students learn normally as opposed to actually working in these shops. I found this lying on a desk in this shop's theory room. "

"Well who's it belong to?" Pinkie asked.

"Somepony- er someone named Yahira."

"Lovely name?" Rarity said, unsure.

Rarity had just finished curling Pinkie's mane. She turned her chair around towards the mirror, and despite the lack of light, the windows allowed the bright sun to shine through just enough for Pinkie to see herself.

"Thanks, Rarity. Urm, I really like my mane." Pinkie said, hopping of the chair.

"It suits you well, darling!” Rarity complemented, proud of her work.

"We'd better go find our friends," Twilight instructed, "they're waiting for us, someplace."

After trotting for quite some time, Pinkie, Twilight, and Rarity discovered the school's atrium. They all looked around and saw its wonders. Twilight particularly enjoyed the architecture. The ceiling had glass windows that made the sunlight shine through perfectly. This was the brightest place in the building, so Twilight could see the spiral stairs the reached each of the floors. Each floor had a balcony that over watched the atrium. There were two top floors and the floor they were gazing on.

"This school is amazing." Twilight drooled.

"It reminds me of Canterlot!" Pinkie exclaimed.

"Ahhh... Canterlot..." Rarity admired the building as much as Twilight and Pinkie.

Twilight then walked towards the room that caught her full attention. Most of its walls were glass, so she could she the wonders inside. She cantered toward it as if she had no control of her body.

"Are you feeling alright, Twilight?" Rarity asked, worried.

Twilight didn't answer. She walked over to the room and popped her face on the locked, glass doors. Rarity walked toward the doors and read the sign on the right:

MEDIA CENTER

"Library...." Twilight drawled, in a daze. She then shook her head rapidly to snap out of her state. She pulled out a piece of paper, and a pencil she found in Hairdressing. She wrote:

Schedule:

·    Find a place for all to sleep without being seen,

·    Find food

·    Set up trips all around this world

·    Read all books in the Kaynor Media Center.

·    Study this worlds inhabitants

·    Find weather schedule

·    Go home

"Alright," Twilight sighed, "Let's re-group with the other girls!"

MEANWHILE in the Kaynor Cafeteria, all seven mares had found wheat muffins and milk to eat. They all trotted with their food towards their safe room that Applejack and Rainbow Dash discovered. It was on the third floor where a ladder lay.

"Our room is up this ladder?" Rarity asked.

"Shur is, sugar cube. Jus climb on up thar an we'll be on this nice warm section on the roof."

"But what if it rains again?!" Rarity complained.

"Uhhh, then we just come back inside. Ain't a big deal."

"Alright. I'm only agreeing to this for now. But I'm not sleeping on the roof!"

"Don't worry!" Cheerilee said, "I'm sure we can find bedrooms here!"

"This is a school, Cheerilee." Twilight said.

"A school? Why would a school have to be so huge?" Fluttershy said, finally.

"I'll be glad to share my findings!" Twilight said happily.

IV

Back in Equestria,

Princess Celestia stood before six selected mares. The expression on her face was strongly affected by gravity. She was anxious to see if these ponies could save Equestria.

"Greetings, loyal subjects! Soon, I will shape you into mares capable of taking this difficult task." Celestia said, while pacing in front of her line-up.

"Princess Celestia," a young Zebra started, "Princess Celestia, good afternoon. What is this task, and what do you mean by 'soon?'"

"The six of you must defeat Discord." Celestia said matter-of-factly.

"You mean the destroy everything, drink glass, chocolate rain, blow shit up Discord? Or the cute and cuddly, suck his thumb Discord." A white unicorn with a neon blue mane spoke next.

"This is no time for games!" Celestia roared.

"Um...I need to be someplace," a cream-coated gardener pony informed, "I promised Daisy I'd-"

"LOYALTY!!!" Celestia yelled at the pony while pointing at her with intensity.

"What?" The pony asked.

"You are loyal to your friend, Daisy. I'm glad, and therefore you are the element of Loyalty.

"Trixie thinks this is bull-shit." A soft-blue unicorn spoke out of turn.

"HONESTY!!!! You were honest about your feelings towards this ordeal, and therefore, symbolize the element of honesty."

"Cool." The white unicorn said, randomly.

"KINDNESS!!! Such a complement to your peer!"

"Umm, okay." The unicorn said while nodding her head rapidly. In doing so, her purple sunglasses fell onto the marble floor. "Oh, crap."

"Here, lemme get those for you." A blue maned pegasus grabbed the glasses with her mouth and returned them to their owner.

"GENEROSITY!!!! You donated your time to retrieve the item of a stranger to return it."

"Urm, It was only, like, two seconds."

"I could kill you in two seconds." Celestia's voice ran cold.

"Celestia, this insanity, what is your reason? Has Discord committed treason? Whatever it is, your crazy and my homeland is far beyond your reach, so I wonder sometimes if to you I should preach."

"LAUGHTER!!!!"

The zebra looked very confused. "Urm...To the title you've given me, I will not pout, but what is there about me to laugh about? To some, I'm not funny at all, and to most I'm as creepy as a spiders crawl. "

"I found it funny that you'd question my supreme power. Because you know as long as I control the sun," Celestia's voice, again lost its warmth, "I control LIFE."

Everypony in the room was scared and or annoyed. They've all been appointed false titles to go on and fight a powerful force they had no business messing with, except the pegasus mare in the back with blonde mane. She hadn't been appointed with anything. Everypony walked up to her and watched her to see a reaction. All they saw was her left pupil move slightly toward the right while the other stayed in place. Bubbles started to form through her lips.

"MAGIC!!!!" Celestia declared, then everypony stared at each other in disappointment.

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, PRINCESS!" Trixie objected. "I'm more magic than this buffoon! I'M THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!!! And if anypony deserves the title of 'magic', it is Trixie."

Celestia looked at Trixie for a few seconds. "How would you like to spend your spring vacation on the moon?”

“Uh...well, uh. Trixie will settle for honesty. A-after all, It’s one of her many, many virtues!”

“Good. Okay, My little solders, follow me to the dining hall where we will eat a fine dinner and discuss the problem you will all solve.”

Everypony was against the whole idea, but they didn’t want to eat moon rocks for the rest of their lives, so they followed Celestia in a single file line  down the magnificent corridors of the castle. The two pegasi of the brigade floated after a while because their legs were tired. The unicorns and the earth ponies nearly died.

“Alright, everypony take a seat.”

It was midnight, and it was evident. The room was mostly glass and moonlight flooded nearly the whole area. It gave it a nice mood, so as the ponies sat amongst the large, marble table, tension seemed to disappear, and everypony felt a bit looser.

“What’s for dinner, your highness?” The pegasus with her cyan mane asked, politely.

"Before we even get to dinner, I'd like to get to know you girls." Celestia put her hooves on the table and looked at the moon, then returned her gaze to her militia. "Starting with you, what's your name?"

"Oh, I'm Cloudchaser."

"And what do you do?"

Cloudchaser pointed to her flank. "I do the weather. Push clouds and stuff."

"How wonderful. And what about you?" Celestia pointed to the white unicorn that had taken her sunglasses off to see, revealing her vermilion eyes.

"Names Vinyl Scratch. My stage name is D-Jpon3. I'm a disk Jockey." Vinyl said, proud of herself.

"Hmph! Anything you can do, The Great and Powerful Trixie can do better. Just give Trixie a set of turn tables and she'll show you."

"What's your deal?" Vinyl questioned.

"I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and guess your name is Trixie?" Celestia said sarcastically.

"WRONG! You, princess or not, will address Trixie as THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE! Here's Trixie's card."

Trixie gave her card to the princess. It read:

COME AND BEAR WITNESS TO THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE! ANYTHING YOU CAN DO, TRIXIE CAN DO BETTER.

It ended with a picture of Trixie's cutie mark, a magic wand. It was hard to see, but the princess managed.

"Lovely." Celestia mustered to say. "And how about you, young mare? What's your name?" Celestia fixed her gaze on the pony near the end of the table. She was rubbing her eyes as if to keep awake.

"My name's Roseluck. My friends call me Rose. I-I'm great with flowers and other stuff."

"I'm glad to have you on the team. Now, for my funny zebra. Zecora, I presume?"

"Yes princess, that is right, and I guess I'm glad to be here tonight."

"Why do you speak in rhyme, Zecora?"

"I don't know, I just do. Tell me Celestia, does it bother you?"

"Not at all, Zecora, thank you. What about you, down there at the end?" Celestia was now looking at the derped pony at the end of the long table. The moon was right above her, fully painting her in it's light. She looked more like royalty that the princess, who was on the opposite end of the table and had the least light.

"I like muffins."

"That's wonderful! What's your name?"

"It's Derpy Hooves... I think."

"Don't hurt yourself dear."

"When are we gonna eat?"

"We can eat right now, miss Derpy. I just have to call the chef who is probably asleep right now..."

"No need, Princess." Vinyl interrupted. "I can make some grub. I'm great at cooking."

"If you insist." Princess Celestia said, not really caring.

"I can also cook." Cloudchaser said, "just show us to the kitchen and we'll all eat."

After 23 minutes, Vinyl and Cloudchaser had tossed a salad, baked muffins, and cooked a macaroni pie and a double chocolate cake.  Everypony drooled at the sight, even the princess. It took them about 8 minutes to eat if you didn't count the funny conversations they had.

"So then she said, 'Oatmeal? Are you crazy?" Everypony laughed at the ending of Vinyl's story about her friend Pinkie, except the princess. The mentioning of Pinkie Pie only made the princess want to kill Twilight harder.

"Oh, Pinkie Pie," Zecora started after catching her breath, "she's quite funny. Shouldn't she be the element of laughter, not me?"

Celestia got angrier.

"Kinda reminds me of the time when," everypony's heads turned over to Cloudchaser as she began her story, "all the pegasi had to make this huge tornado to bring up water to Cloudsdale. We were in the tornado, right? And I was flying as fast as I could. Suddenly, Flitter flies over to me and says, 'Isn't that Spitfire down there? Why the hell isn't she up here?'"

Celestia knew Twilight helped with calculating the wing power for that very tornado. She now wanted to eat Twilight's face off.

After the dinner was over, Celestia brought all the ponies out side and told them what to do.

"Use the elements of harmony to stop Discord! I have faith in you girls! Good luck."

All the ponies looked at each other and sighed then finally walked away except for Derpy. Derpy walked backwards, then walked to her side, spun in a circle, then floated away. Upside down. This made Celestia tear up. She walked back inside the castle and she knew she was doomed. She buried her face into her hooves and sobbed. A door opened behind her.

It was Luna. She was very angry with Celestia. Luna walked over to Celestia in her time of weakness and took full advantage.

"Bitch." Luna huffed as she used her magic to slam a stool at her older sister.

Celestia lay on the ground without the energy to retaliate. Luna stood there and kicked her around a bit, then walked away.

"We'll be back." She warned as she left.

V

     The school had opened at Kaynor tech, and these strange yellow vehicles that were larger than the ones they saw before had approached. Twilight pulled out a pair of binoculars to investigate.

"I see movement in the things, but I can't quite see what they are..."

"Are they other ponies?" Pinkie said, butting her head in to see for herself.

"I dunno, Pinkie. Could be."

The yellow vehicles pulled up in front of the school. It was doors on the side and they opened.

"This is so exciting!" Cheerilee giggled.

Suddenly, a swarm of creatures poured out. Twilight listed every detail:

"They're standing on two legs, like griffons, they have...claws of some sort, they're all wearing clothing, I believe these are anthropini."

"Hubba, what?" Applejack slurred.

"Anthropini. I've read of them. Some notable Anthropini would be Apollo, said to have been the anthropic version of Celestia. Male too."

"Fascinating!" Cheerilee awed.

"I know. I'd like to gather a bit more information. There's only one way to do that!"

"Ask them quietly and nice?" Fluttershy wondered?

"No...Learn!"

"I'm afraid I don't understand, Twilight." Rarity stated.

"This is a school. Since the anthropous learn here, so can I."

"What're we 'sposed do all day while you learn?" Rainbow Dash said, annoyed.

"I guess you can go sight seeing as long as you don't get caught." Twilight opened the hatch into the building and began her decent down the ladder. "If anyone wants to come with me, they-"

Before Twilight could finish, everypony had left. She wasn't surprised.

     Twilight waltzed into the building and searched for a classroom. She found a suitable one at the end of the hall:

"Ms. Ognats's science class."  Perfect! Twilight thought. She quietly slunk into the room, for she saw who could very well be Ms. Ognats, sorting out paper work. Twilight had found a nice box to hide in that had a wide slit in the front to observe. She got a great view of the class. She smiled at how much fun she was about to have taking notes.

After the anthropini, Ms. Ognats, finished her paperwork, Twilight took notes:

At Kaynor tech, In Ms. Ognats's classroom on top floor. Class not yet in session. Ms.Ognats had picked up a device and began to speak to it after it made a bell sound. It must be for telecommunication, due to the fact she (If 'Ms' mean 'she' in this world) talked to it as if it were a being someplace elsewhere.

     Twilight ended that note there. A bunch of students came in and greeted each other the same way Twilight did in Ponyville. Twilight jotted that down as a note and continued to observe. Every little thing the anthropous did was very similar to the way things were done in Ponyville. Twilight sat there and waited for something else interesting to happen. Sure enough, that's just what came next.

Then, what seemed like a larger, louder anthropini talking, turned out to be an intercom, and it said:

"Good morning. Please join me in the pledge to honor America.."

Twilight watched as all the Anthropous stood up and put their claws on their torsos and faced toward one place on the wall.

"I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the united states of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. "

After what seemed to be a poem, they all sat down.

Twilight jotted the poem in Yahira's notepad. America, or a mare? She didn't understand that one part, but it was clarified when the intercom continued. It said something about Skills USA, Sophomore rings, girls’ basketball team, something about a place called Waterbury, and something about serving AMERICA. Twilight guessed Waterbury was a city in America, and her current location.

She looked around the room at the anthropous and tried to see how to tell which gender from which.

She concluded Ms. Ognats was an elder female, so she guessed all females had to look similar to her.

She found that females usually had longer hair, had qualities very similar to mares, such as make up and eyelashes and higher voices, and they also had two round teats upon their torsos. This differed from the males. She drew a picture of a female in the notebook and also drew a picture of a male. After she drew the pictures, however, her pencil tip was dull, and needed to be sharpened.

Dread reaped her face. She needed to take more notes. That’s when spied a sharpener right next to the box. She knew it would make noise, so she deleted that option from her brain. She decided she would only take important notes, and she'll skip small stuff. She waited for a huge breakthrough. But all the waiting made her anxious and the anxiety made her tired. Soon she drifted off to sleep.

Twilight woke up about an hour later to see a new class walk into the room. She shook her head violently to wake herself up.

"Xavier..."

One of the males said to another as they took their seats.

"Yeah..." Xavier, the other male, responded, nervously.

"I think we're boned. That test was today."

"Ooo..."

This made Twilight laugh, and she tried her best to hold it in. Test anxiety. She thought. She always found test anxiety funny during her time at school because she was always prepared and never had to deal with it herself. She continued to observe the anthropini throughout the day.

A couple hours later, Twilight had learned a bunch of new things.

Anthropini were called humans, or people.  Specifically, male humans were called boys, or men, or guys. Female humans were called girls or women or ladies or chicks or shorties… the list goes on for them and some of the words, Twilight would rather not think about.

     Also, this world wasn’t like Twilight’s in more ways than she thought. If Twilight wanted to buy something, to eat, that food would be made with care and put into a bag for her to carry home. She’d eat the food and throw the bag away, or recycle it. If it were thrown away, it would disappear.

     However in this world, things were different, and overpopulated. Things were made with haste to make profit. Therefore, there is no care. Also, when things are thrown away, they linger forever, and kill the environment here. Twilight also learned about war. She was aware of war, but the humans waged war over profit and other reasons she thought were dumb.

Twilight was disappointed, and was thankful to have lived in her world, and not this one.

“Hey, Amar,” Twilight heard, Xavier say, “When do we go back to C.A.D.D.?”

“Um… shop starts in eight days. Not counting the weekends.”

     The two people exited. Twilight was intrigued as to what shop C.A.D.D. was. She’d probably have all the questions she wanted to ask answered at her next destination, the library. Her stomach growled just as that thought came to mind. She figured food a bit more important.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

     Six mares wandered Ponyville in search of something they really don’t want to find. They walked and walked until they left the city and came across a deep trench. It was also very wide. Only a pegasus could traverse it.

“Urm, should I fly over there without you or should we work someplace else?” Cloudchaser asked, rubbing the back of her head.

“It’s seems we are at a loss. Without wings, how can we get across?” Zecora rhymed in worry.

Everypony thought for a minute. Then Trixie got a brilliant idea.

“Alright, shut up. Trixie knows how to solve the problem.” Everypony stared at her. “We take the trench,” Trixie used her hooves to illustrate actually grabbing the trench, “and push it somewhere else!”

Zecora face-hoofed and everypony followed.

Then Roseluck thought of a plan.

“How’s about the unicorns levitate each other and the earth ponies can be carried by the pegasus ponies.”

“Right on, Rosy, dozy!” Vinyl said in applause.

“Hmph!” Trixie huffed. “There is a flaw in your plan.”

Everypony looked at Trixie and Rose looked puzzled.

“If Trixie levitates Scratch, and she levitates Trixie, we will not be able to move forward because nopony is walking forward.  We’d be floating in place.”

Everypony then looked back at Roseluck who began pondering the gap in her solution.

“…Maybe the unicorns can be pushed by the earth ponies sitting on the pegasi.”

“Now that might work.” Trixie concluded.

“Well, then let’s get a move on,” Zecora cheered, “before the moon sets with the light we are upon.”

“You know,” Trixie said, hoof on her face, “You could just say: ‘let’s go before the night ends,’ but whatever.”

“Trixie, please, listen,” Zecora caught the mares attention and things got serious, “Don’t make fun of my rhymes, it’s a condition.”

“Fine.” Trixie sighed. “I guess I was outta line… DAMN! It’s contagious.”

Everypony laughed and they got into position to clear the gap ahead.

     They did so just smoothly. The act was like a striking symbol of teamwork. It was a bit uncomfortable for the Pegasi, but they were happy to have conquered a problem together.

“Good job, that was like a dream,” Zecora kicked her fore legs in the air excitedly, “and I’m now glad to be on this team.”

“Don’t let your guards down just yet, losers.” Trixie scolded as she scanned the dark horizon.

     Suddenly, the muddy ground that the team was standing on turned into a gooey substance. They lost their balance and fell upon themselves.

“Mmmm... Chocolate pudding.” Derpy said as she munched on the trap.

      Vinyl decided to taste the substance as well to see if Derpy was being derpy or if they were all, in fact, sinking in delicious chocolate pudding. Sure enough, Vinyl had the same reaction as her blonde pegasus friend.

“Man, this is some awesome pudding.” She took her glasses off and dipped them in the pudding, using them as giant spoons.

Just as Trixie were about to taste some for herself, a large, serpentine shaped figure slowly arose from the chocolate.

It giggled.

     If a few seconds, all of the chocolate pudding slid off the figure, like water off duck feathers, and revealed the sight the gang knew they were going to see soon enough. Discord.

“Ha! Look at you! Chocolate covered ponies! How rich!”

     Trixie grumbled at Discord’s taunts. She performed a simplistic, yet ostentatious magic spell to relieve her sea blue coat of the goop.  She then levitated out of the trap while the other ponies attempted to climb out.

     “Discord,” Trixie began her lecture with irritation, “Trixie has already had enough of your sinful foolishness! Put an end to this, or THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE will smite you with righteous powers beyond your comprehension!”

     Discord had a confused face that slowly transited into bellowing laughter. He rolled onto his back and cradled himself as Trixie watched, becoming more and more irate. Discord pulled himself together and wiped a tear out of his eye.

“Oh, and I thought you didn’t have a sense of humor! Honestly, you couldn’t vanquish an Ursa, which by they way are the most docile constellations, what in the hell makes you think you can vanquish me?  I don’t understand how a cute little poodle horse could possibly stand in front of me with her adorable little magician costume and bark threats at me as if it could do any harm. I thought it was just Celestia, but COME ON, do all you ponies have the Napoleon complex or something?”

     As soon as the word ‘Ursa’ ran through Trixie’s caballine brain, it simply stopped processing the rest, however, she could feel the words going through her, and they hurt. Trixie’s horn glowed vibrantly and quickly glowed bright enough to pour light throughout the entire area. It was brighter than daytime. Trixie dig her hooves into the ground and unleashed a wave of raw power into the air. The blast was blinding, and lasted a good four seconds until it dissipated, leaving dust where Discord stood.

However, when the dust cleared, Discord was still there, filing his nails.

“Are you done throwing your little hissy-fit, child?”

Trixie looked up, catching her breath with a look of pure trepidation. Her legs quavered beneath her.

“Good. I’d like to warn your girls about something.” Discord began, sounding serious, which the other ponies, which were still covered in chocolate, thought was strange.

“I’d like to tell you, that you can not always rely on those you love. They just might turn on you.”

     Derpy, who had just got finished licking the chocolate off her friends, looked up with her eyes crossed and her tongue out. One can’t tell, but Derpy was expressing fear.

“I’m going to the Everfree forest to collect some toys. While I’m gone, I’d like you girls to have some fun with those you love. I’m sure they still love you.”

“You’re not going anywhere, bastard!” Trixie screamed as Discord flew away, revealing six silhouettes where he had been standing.  When they all walked into the light, everypony else’s heart sank.

“Flitter? What are you doing here,” Cloudchaser yelled at on of the silhouettes, “you should be in Cloudsdale!”

“Pfft, I got tired of waiting for you,” Flitter yelled back, “actually, I got tired of you all together.”

Cloudchaser shook her head, hoping to fully understand what was just said.

Derpy attempted to focus her derp eyes to the other six ponies standing where Discord was.

She saw Flitter, Lily, Applebloom, and then her gaze fixed itself on the brown-coated stallion. Doctor Hooves.

“Hey, Doc!” Derpy waved her hoof high in the air.

The stallion gave Derpy a look that made her frown.

“Applebloom! What is this about,” Zecora ran to her young companion, “Don’t you know it’s too late to be out?”

“Why you gotta rhyme like that, loser?”  Applebloom asked, walking slowly away from the Zebra.

Zecora looked confused, and so did the rest of the team.

     Applebloom was verbally abusing Zecora, Flitter was treating Cloudchaser unfairly, and Derpy was being avoided by Dr. Hooves, Rose knew something was going on. She walked away from the chocolaty pit to speak to her friend, Lily, who was with the other six ponies, to possibly get some idea as to what the heck was going on.

“Hey, Lily, why’s everypony acting’ so-“

Rose was cut short with a heavy, and unexpected uppercut from Lily.

This is when Vinyl thought she had seen enough. She saw her good friend, Octavia amidst the crowd and wondered what she was doing out so late, and why she was HERE of all places.

“Octy! It ain’t safe here! You gotta go-”

Just before she could finish, Octavia clocked Vinyl in the snout, and laughed.

“This is just silly.” Trixie said, dodging a horse kick from an assailant that looked identical to her.

“The element of laughter belongs to me,” Zecora started, walking away from Applebloom, who had just growled at her, “so what could possibly be silly?”

“Don’t you idiots get it? Discord is stalling us by having us fight our loved ones, when really, these aren’t them.  Come on!”

“How do you know these aren’t really them, cause it just sounds like you running your mouth.” Cloudchaser shot at Trixie.

“Look who came to see yours truly.” Trixie said pointing her hoof at what would seem like a mirror at first. “Do you really think there could be another mare this magnificent?” Trixie boasted as she cartwheeled her way out a punch.

“Trixie is right,” Zecora sighed, still walking away from the false Applebloom, “so, do we run away or fight?”

“Pfft, do whatever pleases you, Zebra.” Trixie finally retaliated against her attack by leaping up in the air, turning around and dropkicking her in the face. The fake Trixie fell to the floor and puffed into magic.

“Yeah, anypony trying to be as amazing as Trixie has to fake.” Trixie smirked.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

     School had ended at Kaynor Tech, and Twilight found herself a nice and cozy office chair to lounge on as she munched on the wheat she found by the school and read the library’s great novels. The lighting in the library was almost non-existent, but the moonlight shining from the atrium’s glass roof snuck into the room giving it a lugubrious feeling.  Twilight used her horn’s light to read.

     So far, Twilight had read 67 books. She found out what C.A.D.D. was and it had intrigued her. She also read about ponies from this world and felt bad for them, but didn’t really think much of it. It just shocked her a bit. She was currently reading a few books about date rape drugs and such. She found this world to be much darker than she had anticipated.

      Twilight had assumed the Kaynor kids were going on spring break, so she became relaxed. Then, out of nowhere, the library door slams open. This shocks Twilight, and her magic vanishes off the books she was levitating. She searched desperately for a place to hide, but it was too late. A student of the school stumbled into the library and sat down by the bookshelf Twilight was in front of.

Twilight would have been afraid, but she smelled something strange on the boy, and studied his behavior.

“You’re high.” Twilight concluded. She had recently read 12 books on weed, alcohol and drugs. 4 of which were by the same person.

“You’re a talkin’ poodle.” The boy said and laughed.

Twilight also concluded he was drunk and wondered where he could have smoked and drank without someone noticing.

“Poodle. Okay. I’ll take that.” Twilight said, hopping off her chair, and stretching her four legs.

“I’m pretty upset.” The boy slurs under his breath.

Twilight finds it warm by him, and instinctively sits beside him.

“Mm… Why are you angry?” Twilight's voice was slightly weak due to fatigue. She yawned and blinked her large, purple eyes rapidly.

“I failed one of my classes.”

“Mm…whys that…” Twilight closed her eyes and sat her head on the drunken boy’s lap, knowing he’s totally delusional and assumes he thinks she’s just a part of his imagination. She was tired, so she tried to find sleep wherever she could.

“It's because I work very hard at my job and don't have time for school.”

“I think that's a lie.” Twilight said, drunk with fatigue.

“That’s what Mrs. Ognats said! Stupid poodle. What do you know.”

“I know…that I’m tired… and you’re strange…and you need to be more efficient.”

“Stupid poodle.”

“I’m a pony.” Twilight then found it quiet for a minute and drifted off to sleep.

     One minute, Twilight was having a dream about talking to a human scholar and the had conversations about dark matter, quantum theory and time travel when she woke up with a hard hitting headache and blood trickling down her head. She looked up and she saw the boy from last night and another man in an animal control uniform. He had a blunt stick in his hand and a camera.

“Why did you have to hit her? She’s waking up!" The boy looked concerned. "What do you suppose she is?”

“Nonie, shut up, your gonna spook her.” The man was fiddling with his camera.

“She’s already gonna wake up, take the damn picture, then leave her be.”

     Twilight’s eyes widened. She got up quickly and used her magic to throw the camera into the man’s face, breaking his nose, and the camera. Twilight ran as fast as she could and leapt out a window, hiding herself in the tall wheat grass. She found it hard to catch her breath. She didn’t do much; she was just scared to death.  She could hear the angry yells from the man in the background. Twilight hid herself professionally in the wheat as she nursed her head that trickled blood down to the corner of her mouth.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

     Back at the palace in Canterlot, Luna had just made herself some cookies. She quickly swaggered into the room where Celestia still lay and instantly began to kick the life out of her again. This time she was munching on cookies. Angrily. The sheer animosity in Luna’s motions could have given a mortal mare a heart attack just by witnessing it.

     Celestia remained on the floor, taking her beating, until a crumbled chocolate chip fell from Luna’s cookie. It landed on Celestia’s horn, and then plopped on the floor. Celestia glared at it as Luna continued to destroy her. She had an epiphany. Celestia stood up, making loud cracking sounds in her movements, for she had not moved in a long time. Luna began to quail at the sight, for she knew the amount of trouble she was in, however, Luna hadn’t gotten much sleep. She wasn’t thinking straight and couldn’t process the danger she was in right now.

     Without thinking, poor Luna stared at the cookie in her hoof. Celestia muttered something under her breath that made Luna’s lips quiver. She didn’t hear what she said, but she could tell it basically meant: “don’t you dare.” Luna acted on impulse and threw the cookie at Celestia’s face. As soon as the cookie made contact and a ‘thud’ sound was heard, Celestia teleported her and her sister to the sun.

     While on the sun, Celestia wasted no time in slamming her sister’s face into the blazing star. She grabbed some space rocks and smashed Luna’s head with them. Solar flairs busted randomly every so often, and Celestia just kept going. After about an hour, they went back to Equestria where they started. Luna fell flat on the ground and Celestia kicked dust in her eyes. They didn’t blink.

     Celestia used her magic and lifted the cookie off the floor. It floated into her mouth where she chewed it slowly.  “This cookie is horrendous.” Celestia chucked the cookie out the window.

     Just when Celestia left the room, Luna arose from her pain like a phoenix from its ashes. Celestia either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.  Either way, Luna was able to fly out the window without her sister following her.

Luna made it to the courtyard where she caught a few maids dusting the statues.

“Come here, friends.” The maids dropped their dusters and walked to Luna. They (The maids and janitors and such) all loved Luna, so they were happy to she her, and not her sister.

“Celestia has become agitated. She believes she may treat us how she pleases. She, of course, is incorrect. I’d like for you all to band and form a militia for us to lead. It’s will make your lunar princess very happy.”

“What are we gonna do in this militia, your highness?” One of the maids asked, huddling with one of the others.

“We’re going to batter her until she treats us fair.”

The maids all looked at each other. Luna noticed they sort of swayed in unison.

“Okay,” one of the maids volunteered, “I’ll rally up the rest of the workers.”

“We love you.” Luna said, hugging all the maids at once.

     Celestia surveyed the scene, atop on one of the high balconies. She watched the whole thing, and deemed it mutiny. Treason, even. She contacted the equestrian guard to come to her room immediately.

     Of course they followed her orders. ‘If you find a worker for the castle, take them into custody. Be prepared for a fight. If you see Luna, bludgeon her with a baton until all four of her humors have been spilled onto the floor. Then contact her to cast a reviving spell on the sorry corpse. Simple tasks.

The guard marched in order down the hallway. They stopped when they saw Luna leading her army of servants.

“Treasonous fools…” The lead pegasus guard pointed his hoof and his stallions went forth.

VI

“MRRRAAAWAA!” Derpy let out a battle cry when she ninja kicked the fake Doctor Hooves in the face, blowing him to magical smithereens.

“We’ve got a date with Discord.” Vinyl said, stomping on the fake Octavia’s ashes. “Nopony impersonates mah mare.”

“Well, I’m no pony.” That same voice from earlier had returned. Discord’s voice. He flew towards the ponies in a snake-like motion.

“It seems you don’t care about your friends anymore.” Discord said, picking up the magical ashes and letting them fall through his claws.

“You can end the malformed façade.” Trixie said, confidently. “We’re not stupid.”

“Coulda fooled me.” Discord pointed at Derpy, who was eating her tail, and laughed hysterically.

“I’d like to make a deal with you ponies.”

Nopony budged.

“I challenge you all to a series of quick, and separate competitions against me. If I lose any of them, I’ll leave Equestria forever, never to show my face again!”

“A what if you win?” Roseluck blurted out, causing everypony else to lean toward her a bit, as if they were drawn in by the question itself.

“If I win, I get to, oh I dunno, EAT YOUR SOULS.” Discord then laughed again.

“Um, excuse me, Mr. Discord,” Cloudchaser raised her hoof, “how does someone eat a soul?”

“I’ll be glad to show you.” Discord stretched his arm out toward a house and found a yellowish colored unicorn mare.

“Put me down!” she screamed, “I have three fouls!”

“Three souls?!” Discord said as he cracked the poor mare’s neck, making a sound similar to opening a soda can. He then raised her up in the air if he were raising a soda can and a white smoke flew out of the mare’s mouth into Discord’s, making a faint screaming sound. Discord then wiped his mouth with his paw.  “She lied to me. How depressing.”

Everypony cringed when Discord cast the body away as if it were trash.

“Does that answer your question, young pony? Good. Well, this ‘Challenge Royal’ will consist of 6 challenges. A rap battle, a god ole’ fashioned hoof fight, a race, a chess match, a DJ Battle, and a magic fight.”

“Those challenges seemed haphazardly thought up.” Trixie complained.

“It’s all good, Trix.” Vinyl said, stepping up the plate, putting her hoof around Trixie.  “We accept your challenges!”

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Trixie whispered.

“Relax. A rap battle against Zecora? She SPEAKS in rap, man. If that somehow doesn’t turn out well, you’ve got me for the DJ Battle. HA! I’m all over that, no problem, and if SOMEHOW I goof up, you got the magic fight.”

“I guess its fail-safe.” Trixie looked up at Discord who was waiting patiently for full agreement. “Alright, we’re in.”

“Wonderful! Shall we begin with the rap battle?”

“If you’d like. Zecora!” Trixie pointed at the Zebra who gave the dead mare who’s soul was reaped a special blessing.

“Yes? This mare is about to receive my bless.”

“You’re rapping against Discord.”

Zecora looked at Discord and sighed. She walked up to him, and gulped.

“You go first, Zecora.” Discord said, chuckling a bit.

“I forfeit.” Zecora lowered her head.

“WHAT?!” Everypony yelled harmoniously.

“You heard me, I quit. Rap is an acronym, you see, it stands for rhythm and poetry. The poetry I have down to a T, but rhythm just isn’t in me.” Zecora looked up at Discord to see him smirk.

“Discord, for now, you have won. This battle is lost, but the challenge isn’t done.”  Zecora then walked away toward the dead mare’s body and continued the prayer.

“Go Zecora….” Cloudchaser cheered silently.

“Woo hoo.” Roseluck followed.

“This is priceless.” Discord laughed again.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

“We’re back!” Cheerilee climbed up the ladder to the roof first wearing a brown baseball cap. “What happened to your head, Twilight?”

“It’s nothing. How was… wherever you were?”

Rainbow Dash flew up next.

“Aw it was sweet! We got to sleep this mansion. The guy didn’t wake up, so everything was cool.”

Applejack climbed up next.

“Yep. We went to this place that sells everything. Brass Mills Center Mall. Ah thought it was pretty fun sneaking about in a place with so many anthra-whosie-wutsits while wearin’ that funky disguise Rarity fashioned.”

“Anthropini?” Twilight questioned. “I found that they’re called people.”

Fluttershy floated up next. “We went to the pet store. The animals were so cute…”

Twilight looked at the hatch expecting for either Rarity or Pinkie Pie to pop up, but they didn’t.

“Where’s Rarity and Pinkie?”

Just then, everypony heard a huffing and puffing sound amongst the sound of the school buses arriving getting louder and louder.

“Oh, dear Luna.” It was Rarity, and she just appeared at the edge of the roof.

“Pinkie and I forgot where the ladder was, -huff- so we –puff- came outside climb the rungs on the windows. –huff- who knew -puff- that there would be so many.”

“Well the roof is like, three stories high.” Rainbow Dash said, helping Rarity up.

“And it’s so HOT out.” Rarity wined.

The hatch then opened, startling everypony, and Pinkie Pie popped up from it.

“PINKIE!” Rarity screamed. “HOW THE HELL DID YOU-“

“Funny story, actually.” Pinkie started. “I saw you climbing the school, and I thought: that looks exhausting! So then when the buses came, which by the way, these kids don’t have a spring vacation. Bummer. Anywho, I walked behind this guy with fuzzy hair like mine and jumped into his backpack. He was talking to his friend. I hid myself in there really good, so nopony saw me. He walked into the cafeteria and got a chocolate muffin. I grabbed one too, but I think he paid for his. Opps. Anyway the bell ran and he went up to the third floor and there I saw the ladder, so I jumped out and here I am!”

Everypony stared at her.

“Pinkie,” Twilight was about to begin one of her lectures on how impossible Pinkie is. “You can’t just jump into a book bag because you can’t fit into one, for one thing and the person would have felt it if his/her book bag got any heavier and how were you not seen? You’re bright pink!”

“Okie dokie loki. I’ll remember not to do that next time.”

Twilight face-hooved.

“So girls,” Twilight started. “I read about these snowy mountains in the north where there are no people and it’s fun to play in.”

“That’s great, we got some winter clothes for ourselves!” Cheerilee raised the shopping bags in the air.

“Um… How did you guys purchase those?”

“Purchase?” Applejack asked.

Twilight face-hooved again.

Twilight had been practicing her teleporting skills. They were a lot better than before. She could now teleport many ponies at once. Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow, and Pinkie were dressed in winter attire. Rarity and Cheerilee were enjoying tea, for they decided they’d stay where it was warm. Fluttershy was in a tree playing with the birds.

“Everypony ready?” Twilight challenged.

“Eeyup.” Applejack responded, adjusting her red winter cap.

In about four seconds, they vanished.

Rarity took a sip of her tea and opened a parasol with her magic.

The four other mares had ended up amidst some trees. The snow nice and mushy, however the abrupt change in temperature shocked them.

“So now what Twilight?” Pinkie asked, eager to jump around in the snow.

“Go nuts. Just meet back here before the sun goes down.”

“What are those humungous stars next to the sun?” Applejack asked.

“Those? That’s mars, that’s Saturn, that’s Jupiter, and those are four of Jupiter’s moons. Today is a great day for astronomers.”

Pinkie and Rainbow Dash looked up at the planets for a bit. Then they looked at each other and ran off.

Applejack trotted with Twilight who began to venture through the trees. The trees were covered in snow and seemed jagged. They were far apart from each other, too. They continued walking until they saw a steep slope traveling at least a mile down. Applejack had torn a flat piece of wood off one of the trees.

“Thinkin wut I’m thinkin’ Twi.” Applejack’s voice was quiet, but not whispering, and her face looked like a rape was about to happen.

Twilight’s eyes widened.

“Well I don’t care wut your thinkin’. I’m gonna do it. It’s gonna happen. Not even a talking apple could stop me now.”

“Then do it,” Twilight challenged, also using a quieter voice, “you won’t.”

“Is that so?”

“Do it, no balls.”

“Wut?”

“I dunno, I heard one on the students at Kaynor say it.”

“Whatever. I’m goin’ for it.”

“Can I come?”

“You were gonna come from the get-go. You had no choice in this one, sugar cube.”

“Are we gonna sit here whispering or are we gonna get this thing going?”

“Don’t you rush me, crazy bitch.”

“You’re scared?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“There’s a big ramp like thing over there.” Applejack pointed down the mountain at an area where the alabastrine snow formed a large bump. “If we hit it, were gonna fly.”

“So?”

“Fly rhymes with die, Twi.”

“No balls.”

“Now ah still don’t know what that means.”

“It’s how the people get somepony to do something they don’t want to. If they don’t they have no balls, or courage.”

“Okay. I’ll go…IF YOU are in front.”

“Okay.”

“Aright then, shake on it.”

“Okay.”

Applejack was about to spit on her hoof, but Twilight warned her that her spit could freeze instantly. After that, Twilight sat on the tree bark. Applejack hesitated.

“No balls.”

Applejack then sat on the bark and held onto Twilight tightly.

“Well?” Applejack said, clenching her eyes tight.

“You have to scoot the bark forward, Applejack.”

“Oh.”

Applejack scooted up a bit.

“More.”

Applejack scooted up a bit further.

“Scootscootscoot!”

“You callin’ chickens, Twi?”

This made them both laugh hysterically, and loudly. They laughed loud enough to cause an avalanche. Twilight and AJ turned back to see a mass of white death plummet down the hill towards them. Applejack bucked the ground behind her, causing the makeshift sled shoot down the slope. They flew down the mountain at an unbelievable speed. Twilight felt like Rainbow Dash must feel when she flies. They continued to zoom down the slope for 3 minutes. Applejack noticed that the avalanche was catching up.

“Twilight!!!”

“What?!”

“We gotta aim for that there ramp!”

“I thought ‘fly’ rhymed with ‘die’!”

“But ‘no balls’ rhymes with ‘good calls’!”

“Clever!”

Twilight veered the sled toward a huge mound of snow that made a ramp that seemed to head toward the sun.

“Duck your head! We’ll go faster!” Twilight yelled back.

The avalanche almost had the ponies in their grasp when they shot up into the air like rockets. They flew into the sky and Twilight could swear she saw the planet curve. This scared the living crap out of her. Could this be the highest point in the world? No, that was Mount Everest. Was this Mount Everest? How did they end up so high? How did they not have trouble breathing? Nothing made sense.

Applejack didn’t understand why Twilight was freaking out. They were high up, but wasn’t that what Twilight planed?

“What’s wrong Twi?” Applejack’s voice was calm; they weren’t at the peak of their arc yet, so things were calmer.

“We’re dead.”

“Why? This was only about a mile down, right?”

“Yeah. A mile down to the clouds.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“We’re above the clouds.”

“Oh.”

They just reached the peak of their arc. Twilight saw the planet curve on both ends. She prayed to Celestia.

“Dear princess Celestia…”

Then they fell.

Twilight did the math equation in her head.

Gravity. 9.8 m/s^2 or 32 ft/s^2  (times 5 seconds for air resistance.) 160 ft/s^2.

If Twilight wanted to find out how long it would take her to die, she’s have to take the square root of double the distance she’s falling divided by the gravity. Not even mentioning terminal velocity, she was too frightened to do the ACTUAL math.

G= 975.36 km or 975,360 m/s^2

The square root of 2x20000/975.36=…

After doing all the math in her head, she concluded it would take more than half an hour to hit the ground with this wind resistance. Or so. She couldn’t really think with all the wind in her face.

After a while, Twilight saw the ground, but then she saw something that looked like a rainbow. Applejack was still screaming in Twilight’s ear. All this just made Twilight worry a bit more.

“I gotcha!”

Twilight looked to her right and saw Rainbow Dash. She tackled them and flew them safely to the ground. Just like that Twilight actually seemed disappointed.

“What’s wrong Twilight? I saved you!”

“Well, I was going to teleport someplace safe before we hit the ground. I wanted to get Applejack back for putting bugs in my cereal.”

“Heh heh…” Applejack laughed, still very shaken from the whole falling like a billion feet.

“But it’s okay! Hey, where’s Pinkie?”

“Her tongue is stuck to an icicle.”

VII

“And here comes Rose with the left jab!”  Trixie poofed herself an announcer’s table and gave commentary on the ‘Roseluck vs. Discord’ hoof brawl. The second challenge was a one on one bout, and Vinyl elected Rose to be the fighter. She was doing pretty good. Dodging hits were crucial, because Discord’s right hook was devastating. He had a tiger’s paw for an arm.

“We sure do have a battle tonight, folks!” Vinyl Scratch gave supporting commentary.

Roseluck delivered a swift kick to Discord’s legs, tripping him. He giggled as he got up. Either he was immune to pain, or he was a masochist. Rose decided if she wanted to hurt him, she’d have to work on his face. She galloped at high speed toward the nearest building and climbed it with great skill.

“Such finesse!” Trixie cheered. “She can almost do it as well as The Great and Powerful Trixie!”

Rose got to the roof and paced demonstrating great agile ability.

“Rose’s alacritous actions may end this now.” Zecora awed. “She just might finish it with a thunderous ‘POW’.” Zecora watched Roseluck leap in the air and prepared a seismic dropkick to Discord’s snout.

Rose flew through the air and grinned until she saw Discord’s tail slam her in the face. Rose flew back and smashed into another building.

“Oh!!! That’s gotta hurt!” Trixie cringed.

Derpy’s derp eyes fixed themselves where Rose had landed. There was a lot of dust, so no-pony could see if she was okay. Plus it was still dark out, despite the moon.

Everyone leaned in to see any response from the dust. Discord grinned when there wasn’t one.

“Could this be it?” Trixie because anxious.

“Is she down for the count?” Vinyl also became a bit scared.

Suddenly, a shadow leapt into the air from the dust, holding a long vine from the house. It was Rose, and she wasn’t going down yet. Discord stood akimbo and watched as he was strangled with the vine. He didn’t even phase. His face changed colors as if he was the suffocating, but he kept a consistent poker face.

Rose pulled and pulled on the vine when Discord turned his head and looked at her. He opened his mouth wide and burning hot flames spewed from his mouth. He was a flamethrower.

If you looked at the other ponies, you’d think they were watching fireworks. The fire was so bright; Trixie took Vinyl’s glasses so she could see what was going on.

“It looks like Discord just breathed FIRE on Rose. This could be the end!”

When the fire disappeared, everypony saw Roseluck in Discord’s hand, blowing the fire out on her tail. Discord began to walk toward the town hall building casually, as if he were at a promenade.

“What’s he doing?” Vinyl said, snatching her glasses back from Trixie.

Trixie squinted her eyes as Discord climbed the town hall building.

“Celestia, no.” Cloudchaser finally spoke up, putting her hooves over her eyes.

Discord climbed all the way to the top of the building and kissed Roseluck on the snout. She whimpered a bit then she looked down. Then she shook her head violently, Discord nodded, and Rose shook her head harder.

Discord turned Rose around and constricted her waist with his arms.

“OH CELESTIA, NO!” Cloudchaser began to scream.

“ROSE, GET OUT OF HIS CLUTCHES,” Zecora warned, “DISCORD INTENDS ON PUTTING YOU IN CRUTCHES!”

Rose writhed to no avail. Discord leapt backward in the air like a pool diver and suplexed Roseluck. Discord got up and dusted himself off. He walked away from Roseluck and took a drink from the lake.

Everypony else ran to Rose’s aid. She wasn’t responding, so Trixie attempted CPR. When she still wasn’t responding, Zecora attempted CPR. Then Vinyl, not knowing CPR, tried it anyway. Cloudchaser was weirded out from all the mouth-to-mouth going on at once.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

Celestia was in the castle’s library, drinking tea and reading a book on how to beat somepony to death with just about anything. She had quite a smug look on her face. She decided she had read enough for the day and walked out of the library, catching one of her solders on her way out.

“Princess Celestia, we have apprehended a large amount of the maids. We had also successfully put harm on Luna. “

“Very good to hear. Be on your way. Complete the task.” Celestia took a sip of tea nonchalantly.

There were about of dozen of them surrounding Luna and her troop. The marble hallways looked as if they we being undone from the white stallions charging at them. They were defenseless and Luna should have thought this through. Now death was a tidal wave crashing through the reality of Luna’s mind. Of course Luna will be revived, but the servants will receive a cruel punishment and that will not settle well with Luna. She then did what was required.

It all happened at once. Luna’s horn glowed so vibrantly, she had to warn her army to shield their eyes. The moonlight became brighter out side the windows that lined the sides of the corridor. The guards continued galloping down the halls. Everypony suddenly felt lighter weight wise. The room’s brightness got instantaneously darker.

“Get behind me.” Luna put a force field around herself and her army.

The hallway was not basically pitch black. You could see orange light barely coming through all the windows. Then it happened.

The windows all shattered and water rushed in at a rate impossible to calculate. The castle shook with all the water being forced into the halls. Water then filled the hall and calmed. Luna and her army were in the force field that now felt like an aquarium.  They saw the guards float by and laughed.

Luna had brought the moon down to Equestria and raised the tides. As she placed the moon back, the waters drained. She dropped her force field. The force of the water killed the guards, if not they drowned. Luna saw more guards coming through the hallway.

Luna squinted her eyes and used a summoning spell to conjure a crank powered Gatling gun.

“Here, fire this.” Luna instructed one of the maids.

She grabbed the crank and the handle and mowed down all the guards coming in. Luna smiled and searched for her sister.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

A large flash appeared at Kaynor. It was nighttime and Rarity, Fluttershy, and Cheerilee had been through tempest weather while their friends were gone. It rained extremely hard for two minutes, then the sun had already dried most of it up. They were in the school kitchen grilling some corn. The school kitchen was large and had two sections. One for the school restaurant, and one for the cafeteria. Nearly all the appliances were silver. The doors to the kitchen opened. It was Twilight, Rainbow, Pinkie and Applejack.

“That was summn’ else.” Applejack stated as she threw down her winter clothing.

“Pretty awesome when we rode the polar bears into the sunset.” Rainbow dash concluded.

“We had a pretty nice time too.” Fluttershy said.

“Apparently we’re famous here, darling.” Rarity said, putting 4 more cobs of corn on the indoor grill.

“Don’t tell me on of you got caught-“

“No, no, we’re on a children’s T.V. show.”  Cheerilee cleared up the conclusion as walked over to the walk in freezer, propping it open with a box.

“Huh?” Applejack and everypony else was confused.

“In this world,” Fluttershy began slowly, “we are a part of a children’s T.V. show.”

“That’s…” Twilight searched for words, “pretty cool actually.” She smiled and heard a door slam. She saw the Cheerilee had been locked in the freezer.

“I told you to prop it with a box.” Fluttershy said, opening the door for her friend.

“I did, I did.” Cheerilee blushed.

“The more fabulous side of this discovery of ours was that some grown men actually watch the show that we’re on.” Rarity continued, checking on the corn. “They’re called Bronies.”

“Oh! I’ve heard that term tossed amongst a few boys here.” Twilight sparkled.

Rarity kept an eye on the last four corn cobs “Yes, yes. They get a lot of hate, and there are only a few of them.”

“So!” Rainbow, changing the topic, “what’s for dinner?”

“Corn,” Rarity started, finally deciding the cobs were cooked, “stuffed peppers in the oven, home fries, and chess cake for dessert.

“We’re gonna go sit down in the cafeteria.” Cheerilee plopped the food on a circular serving tray and trotted out to the cafeteria, Fluttershy following her cautiously.

“Pinkie,” Rarity began with a concerned look on her face staring at Pinkie, “you haven’t said a word. That’s not normal of you.”

Pinkie looked around the room searching for a method to answer Rarity until finally looking at Twilight while swishing her tongue around in her mouth.

“Pinkie got her tongue stuck on an icicle.”

Rainbow Dash giggled, and so did Pinkie.

“So about these Bronies,” Twilight asked curiously, “what else do you know about them? Have you conducted a study?”

“Well, no, but we know they always sit over there.” Rarity pointed at the table near the center of the cafeteria.

“They have more class than most of the people we’ve seen.”

“How so?”

“Holding doors, doing kind deeds, maintaining a tight friendship, stuff this world is lacking.” Rarity set the dark brown, picnic bench style café table with a smooth, pearl-like tablecloth that flawlessly masked the table as icing masks a cake.

“Ooh! I love cake!” Pinkie randomly blurted out, holding her hurt tongue in. How did she do that?

“Pinkie, who are you talking to?” Twilight asked skeptically.

Rainbow was tired of waiting for food. “Can we eat now?”

“Go ahead…” Fluttershy timidly slid a plate over to Rainbow, who instantly packed it with food.

Applejack also began eating, then something caught her eye, and she giggled. Twilight took notice.

“What’s so funny, Applejack?”

“Oh nothin’. Just a light behind ya flickered is all.”

Twilight turned around to see a perfectly working light that hung from the ceiling. There were tons of those lights about the cafeteria, but Twilight assumed the one she was staring at was the culprit.

“I guess it’s fine now.”

As soon as Twilight turned back to eat her food, the light turned off.

“There ya go, Twi. Look now.”

Twilight turned around again to see a perfectly fine light. She heard Applejack giggle and Fluttershy also laughed a bit.

“Are you pulling one of my legs?” Twilight asked, turning her head and having the light turn off once more.

“No, no, no Twilight, look.” Fluttershy pointed at the light.

Twilight turned all the way around quickly. The light was on.  Applejack’s laughter grew louder and Fluttershy nearly choked. Twilight also heard Cheerilee laugh.

“That light hates you, Twilight.” Cheerilee declared, pouring some water into her cup.

Twilight stared at the light. It remained on.

“Um…it’s still on.” Twilight said, looking at it for about a minute and a half, then returning to her food.

Of course, the light turns back on again. This time, Twilight saw the lack of gleam in Fluttershy’s massive eyes due to her laughing.

“AH HA!” Twilight spun her head around to see a working light.

Amidst all the loud laughter, now from everypony but herself, Twilight got out of her chair and used her magic to fix the light by tightening the bulb.

“There.” Twilight said, finally getting to eat her food, which was still warm.

The light never flickered again. It didn’t have the balls.

After a nice dinner, Twilight had agreed to help Rarity pack up the evidence.

Using their unicorn magic, they brought the trays to the dish room where they will be washed, and swept the floor. On Twilight’s way to the dish room, she saw a silhouette in the hallway. A human silhouette. Twilight tried to teleport herself into the dish room before she was spotted, but she was already caught. It was Nollie and that man from animal control. Twilight hopped never to see those two again.

“Look, I found it!”

“Grab it!!”

Twilight bucked the man hard in the chest, knocking him into Nollie, giving Twilight time to teleport into the kitchen and warn them to run. The man cringed in pain and searched for Twilight, and her absence ignited anger in his eyes.

The bolt out of the cafeteria and down what may be the longest hallway in existence. Twilight had been to the castle, so she’s seen hallways that take half an hour to traverse, but this hallway just seemed endless. The came to a stop by two shops: Machine Tool and Health Tech. Twilight walked into the health tech room and everypony else followed. They flipped the light switch and fixed their eyes on one thing.

The bed. There was more than one, actually. There was a practicing mannequin on one of them, but there were beds.

“Is thith a hospithal?”  Pinkie asked, her tongue still in pain.

“This is were students learn medical terminologies.” Twilight concluded. She shut and locked the door behind her, and walked over to a cabinet that read “First Aid”. She found peroxide in it, and gave it to Pinkie.

“There’s a sink over there, Pinkie. Wash your mouth out.”

Pinkie did as instructed and Twilight looked around the room, nodding in approval. “Yup. This is a better place to sleep for tonight.

“Everypony saw that as a queue, and went to sleep on the beds. Applejack and Fluttershy slept when the mannequin was, while Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie slept in a grass green hammock-like transport device probably used in hospitals. Rarity slept in another cozy bed by herself. Twilight and Cheerilee, however, didn’t sleep and found themselves sitting in the desks.

“Do you like your stay here so far, Cheerilee?” Twilight asked, fetching herself one of the student’s medical textbooks.

“It’s pretty dangerous, but I’m enjoying it very much!”

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this, but this trip has been extraordinary. Really dangerous, though.”

“I’m very sorry, Twilight. It didn’t think it would be like this.”

Twilight set down her book and gave Cheerilee a sincere smile “It’s not a problem.”

Soon, everypony was asleep, and the school closed for the weekend. The next morning was just as fun; they slid around on polished floors, and discovered more shops in the school. Their trip was defiantly worth the danger. Pinkie found that the kitchen actually belonged to a shop called ‘Culinary’ and they learned to cook. Pinkie and Applejack studied the texts books and became better chefs than ever.

The weekend passed, and Twilight wondered how the princess was doing. She assumed there would be a time difference of some sort, so perhaps their trip was only five minutes in their world. The city was sure to get some well-needed rainfall in about a week or so. The town was currently in a dry state. Twilight watched as Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash formed rain clouds and thought about life back in Equestria.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

“We’re getting our butts kicked.” Cloudchaser concluded as she held Roseluck in her hooves.

Zecora agreed and gave Rose some herbal tea to sip on. “You’re right. We need a plan to win this fight.”

Trixie recollected back to the order of the challenges before she spoke. “Next is the race. Cloudchaser, how fast are you?”

“Fast enough.” Cloudchaser lowered her eyelids, indicating an abrupt change in demeanor. There was fast, but then there was pegasus fast. When a pegasus is fast, then, and only then, can it truly be fast.

“You’ll be the racer then.”

Just as Trixie announced that, Cloudchaser cringed. “I don’t really care for races...”

“Shut up. You’re doing it.”

“Okay then. Shesh.”

Derpy cocked her head back, randomly and sang a song, forelegs in the air.

“We’re gonna die! Discord can fly and shoot fire from his eye! We’re gonna die, everypony will cry, as we meet our demises. Mortality despises fatal surprises and death is our prizes when we pay the prices. Our souls will dispel to the dark depths of hell and heaven as well as well look to the Earth from where we fell. What could have happened NOPONY CAN TEEEEEEEEEEEEELL!!!!!”

Derpy was a surprisingly good singer. Everypony was astonished. Derpy lowered her legs and her head and returned to her derp state. Trixie and Vinyl looked at each other and nodded in unison. They had a plan.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

“She did what?!” Celestia spilled her tea on the lavender carpet that complemented the carpet walls.

The solider was painting, giving a battle report to Celestia. “Luna killed a fourth of our men using tides!”

The black tea stain on the carpet reflected Celestia’s plans. They were looking flawless, but now it’s just a mess.

“Any report on the pegasus guards?” Celestia asked, concerned.

“Luna…,” the solider shuddered, “forced us to watch as she gouged their eyes out with her horn…”

“Really?”

“Well…no, but she said she would!”

“Rally up the troops in the library. I’ve got an idea.”

“As you wish!”

The solider galloped at full speed to relay the message to his allies. Celestia thought about Luna gouging out somepony’s eyes with her horn. She cringed as she walked out into the hall, bumping into a bust of her sister on a marble pedestal, startling her. She trotted quickly into her study. She sat down there, feeling safe.

That’s when her comfy purple lounge chair spun around. Luna sat there with the smuggest look on her face. Celestia’s blood ran cold.

VIII

Today was an average day at Kaynor Tech.  It was pretty warm out too. The students all rallied in the schoolyard scrambling for their buses as they do every school day’s end. Today was really calm. Rarity and Rainbow Dash slept on one of the roof’s pillars. Applejack and Pinkie were playing with a Frisbee Twilight made in the machine tool shop while the students were at lunch.  Twilight was sketching a picture of the school while holding a conversation with Cheerilee. This was their last week at Kaynor and Twilight wanted some memorabilia of her own.

Just then, Pinkie over-threw the Frisbee, and it flew over Aj’s head. She laughed as she pulled down her hat and chased after it. Twilight saw the Frisbee and she caught it in her mouth right before it flew off the roof.

“You girls should play on the other side of the roof before…”

“DIDJA SEE THEM?!” a familiar voice bellowed from below. Most people can detect a slight change in sound amongst crowds of people. The murmur below indicated something had happened.

Not wanting to be seen, Twilight levitated a mirror from Rarity’s bag over to her to see what the commotion was for. She tilted the mirror just enough to see that man pointing at the roof. He stood by a truck that read: 'ANIMAL CONTROL WATERBURY SERVICE' Twilight was frozen.

“Didja see it!? It poked its head out up there!” Pinkie, Applejack, and Cheerilee stopped moving. Rarity and Rainbow Dash woke up.

The murmur quickly turned into pandemonium after a loud CLICK CLICK sound was made. People were screaming and this made Twilight want to look down without the mirror's aid.

“No way I’m lettin’ some poodle hit me like that!” He yelled. "I catch dogs e-v-e-r-y DAY!"

The man was marching toward the school with a weapon Twilight recognized as a Twelve Gage Shotgun. She had read about those in a book on the Mafia. Twilight kicked her fore hooves up and gasped. Screaming down below continued.

Twilight could also tell he was high on something. She had read enough drug books in the Kaynor library to know he was a textbook example of someone high on acid of something else. She figured it didn't matter. She felt pretty bad for him, but he was still a threat.

“We gotta go!” Twilight leapt up and was followed by Cheerilee, Rarity, Pinkie, and Applejack. Putting faith into their friends, the non-winged ponies jumped off the roof on the side of the school where no-one could see. Rainbow Dash swept Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie from the sky and plopped them safely on the ground. With Cheerilee and Twilight still in the air, Fluttershy grabbed both of them simultaneously and clumsily dropped into a bush. They all herded together and ran for a safe place.

The man ran around the corner of the building with his shotgun and calked it with anger. He saw the herd and took aim.

Then he pulled both triggers.

Shotguns do not fire birdshot very far, but 4 pellets had hit Cheerilee in the back. She stumbled to the ground and screamed in pain. Everypony stopped and IMMEDIATELY aided their friend. It was muscle memory to help a friend in need in their world. At least for these six mares. Rainbow and Applejack both lifted Cheerilee off the ground and Rarity sacrificed her hat and used it to help Fluttershy apply pressure to the wound. Fluttershy checked vital signs, Pinkie helped hold her and kept her conscious, while Twilight kept Cheerilee’s head leveled. They began trotting again in ten seconds flat.

It was a sight to behold. All the ponies seemed to do this out of pure instinct as if they had done it over and over until they perfected each movement. Their eyes were flooded with their pupils and their faces were expressionless. Together, they were a machine carrying out the task of getting the fuck out of there.

The man stopped chasing the ponies. He didn't mean to hurt any of them. He liked animals. He was probably too out of it to realize he grabbed a shotgun and not a rubber bullet substitute. He dropped his gun ashamed and rubbed the back of his neck. He wondered if he'd lose his job for hurting a harmless creature.

Police sirens sounded in the distance, and he knew he was doomed. He ran full stride with his arms swinging like pendulums and leapt over a chain-linked fence, and as if karma had planed this, he was nailed in the side by a speeding police officer. He was instantly handcuffed and was charged for bringing a loaded weapon to a school zone and for firing it in public. That’s not all, the poor guy failed the drug test when he told to police he was trying to capture colorful puppies.

Nevermind that, though. The six ponies had to help Cheerilee out.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

Back in Equestria, Derpy Hooves was staring at a chess board across from Discord. Discord laughed. Derpy had been staring at her chess piece for about an hour. She moved her king to the left. Discord laughed even harder as he moved his knight up.

“Checkmate, dear. Good game.”

Derpy foamed from the mouth and her eyes derped really hard. She flipped the table and mumbled something angrily.

Cloudchaser had just finished stretching. She was ready for her race. Discord teleported over to the starting line and got into a runner’s position.  Cloudchaser readied herself also.

“Ready?” Zecora held a flag for the racers.

Discord and Cloudchaser locked eyes on each other then looked ahead.

“First to the finish wins this part,” Zecora explained, hoping for Cloudchaser to win, “on your mark, get set, START!”

And like that, Cloudchaser was a friggn’ tornado, and her speed was a work of art. The wind she left in her wake kicked dust into the air. She wasn’t the fastest pegasus, but she was athletic, and fast when needed be.

Discord yawned and pulled out a line of chalk. He turned 90 degrees and drew a line before him.  He then walked over this line.

“I win!” He cheered, letting go of the chalk and having it fly into the air. The chalk flew out to the horizon of the night. Cloudchaser stopped at the horizon about a kilometer away.

“WHAT?!” She shouted from afar. Just then, a piece of chalk met her head and exploded.

Discord looked back and put his claw to his mouth. “Oops! Did I do that? Ha ha!”

Cloudchaser had a woebegone look on her charred face as she trotted glumly towards the small crowd.

   “Fucking cheater!” Trixie exploded, flipping a random shop table into the window of a china shop. Trixie blushed in embarrassment as it took two minutes for the sound of glass to cease. Lights went on in some homes and Discord teleported the whole gang to a desolate location.

“Fucking cheater…” Trixie repeated, quietly.

“Fuck me cheater.” Derpy cocked her head back and tried to repeat what Trixie said. Everypony including Discord just looked at her in silence.

“You ponies made me play chess with her. You should be ashamed.” Discord stood akimbo in disapproval. “Who’s idea was that?”

“Mine…” Trixie mumbled.

Discord lifted Trixie and patted her on the butt then set her down gently.

“Bad!”

“Sorry.”

“Not to me! To her.”

“Sorry Derpy.”

“No biggie.”

“Now…who am I Dj-ing against?” Discord clapped his hands together and looked about.

“That would be me, Discord.” Vinyl stepped up to the plate with a 10” subwoofer and large speakers (Customary in early Dubstep tracks) and a set of turntable with a synthesizer.

Discord looked down at her gear and used magic to recreate his own set.

Vinyl cracked her neck and began to DJ. Music filled the air quickly, and the bass shook the glass in the window frames. There was a slight pause that had the small crow crave for more. Then they got just what they wanted soon after. Soon, a loud complexto track came up, and Vinyl mixed it perfectly with the harmonic tune of violins to complement the bass perfectly. The work of a true master. Vinyl had ended her play. It was now Dj-Pon3, Vinyl’s alter ego, and now her tag teammate in this battle. The bass kicked up, and the music got more powerful. The ground started trembling.

Trixie didn’t particularly care for techno of any sort, but Vinyl’s style seemed as if it were composed rather than created.  It was that clear and that empowering. Derpy started adding her beautiful vocals to the mix and the music was now unstoppable. The music flowed through the ponies, causing them to dance.

Discord wasn’t impressed. He giggled.

This made Pon3 stop the music, making the records scratch up and having the euphoric melodies cease abruptly. Vinyl tore the glasses off her face in anger.

“Can you do better?” Vinyl coughed amongst the silence.

“You tell me.” Discord smiled and pulled out a most peculiar instrument.

It was a triangle. With a cord in it. An electric triangle.

Everypony laughed viciously at the steel tri-gon.

Then he played it.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

Everypony was teleported into the team locker room by the gym; a safe and vacant location. Twilight set Cheerilee’s head down on the bench, and everypony followed. Everypony was drenched in her vitals.

Cheerilee’s corneas were now of a lighter color as she gassed into oblivion. Sweat had poked out through her coat, making it look darker. Rarity was sure to use her magic to make the trail of bright blood disappear as they carried her. They didn’t want to be followed.

“Twilight! T-Twi!” Applejack’s voice cracked and her eyes became emerald green falls that poured onto the ground. “she gonna be okay, right?! Jus’ fine! Like always, right? Twilight! Answer me!”

Fluttershy continued to apply pressure to the wound, but her shivers in-between cries made her languish.  Fluttershy began yelling in a way where she sounded like a deeply concerned mother. “Answer her! Is she okay?! Please Twilight I-”

“I-DON’T-KNOW!”

Twilight lowered her head and bawled her eyes out.   Applejack and Fluttershy screamed with her. Twilight held her head on Cheerilee’s and continued to sob: “I don’t know” slowly.

Rainbow Dash and Rarity were in the stalls of the locker room vomiting and screaming. Pinkie’s reaction was different. She was laughing.

This had happened before, when her sister, Inky, was crushed by a large rock on her farm and broke her leg. Pinkie laughed and was punished. However, Pinkie wasn’t laughing out humor. She was traumatized. She had a coughing laugh, choking on her tears and her pupils shrank, probably because the tears amplified the light being brought into them. This laughing was a sign of extreme trauma, but it also helped her think.

“Hey, hey!” Pinkie yelled over everypony.

“I have a plan!”

Twilight drooled and looked over at Pinkie as if all the life had been drained out of her, just as Cheerilee’s life was draining out of her and into the locker room drain.

“Wh-why don’t we go to-to health tech? They can help her! R-right?”

Twilight leapt over to Pinkie and nuzzled her violently.

“You’re a genius, Pinkie! We have to hurry!”

Rainbow Dash just stumbled out of the stall and was still grieved at the sight of her friend bleeding out before her.

“You’re not dyin’ on this mare!”

Out of pure adrenaline and impulse, Rainbow Dash snatched up Cheerilee, while still holding the wound, and darted out of the room to go all the way to the other side of the building.

Rainbow Dash got to the doors of health Tech in exactly ten seconds. Flat.

Cheerilee needed medical attention, stat. Rainbow laid Cheerilee flat on the CPR practice table and gave her heart palpitations.

Rainbow became tired of waiting for her friends to show up and aid her, so she grabbed a pillow off the hospital style bed and beat Cheerilee with it.

“LIVE!!!” Rainbow screamed as she repetitively bashed Cheerilee with it. Cheerilee glowered at Rainbow for doing something stupid.

Twilight and the rest of the gang arrived, finally, and automatically began to help.

Then the door opens.

Apparently, some of the health tech students and Mrs. S had returned from a field trip. They were probably going to take late buses home.

“Help us…” Fluttershy asked ever so sweetly.

All the students looked at each other, then realized it would be best to help the pony, even if they assumed she wasn’t real.

Mrs. S spotted the victim on the CPR table. She instantly assumed ballistic trauma could have caused the laceration.

“OKAY, CLASS, HUSTLE! WE NEED SOMEONE TO APPLY PRESSURE TO THAT WOUND!”

Two young girls rushed to the med cabinet and pulled out two first aid kits and latex gloves. While slipping on the gloves with the utmost skill, Mrs. S rushed to fashion. The girls had successfully disinfected the wound and removed the birdshot. Cheerilee was breathing and gritting her teeth.

“What should we do about the blood loss?” A student asked.

“We can call the animal blood bank! I went there for my cat!”

“That won’t be necessary…” Rarity said, weakness in her voice.

“I collected most of the…blood…in this bag before it hit the ground… can we use it?”

“I don’t think it works like that, but we’ll try.” A student suggested, considering she thought this was all a dream.

Mrs. S had returned with a needle and medical thread. She had come to find that Cheerilee was being given GALLONS of water to sustain herself, and a bunch of muffins from the café. One student fashioned her a makeshift drip for intravenous therapy and to replace lost blood. Mrs. S congratulated the students and gave the needle and thread to one, instructing them to sew Cheerilee up.

Mrs. S then found a saline bag in the closet. It was still good.

After about half an hour, Cheerilee was saved. She lay on the bed drinking orange juice and eating toast with a bowl of strawberries beside her. You could easily tell she’d been through a lot due to the red in her eyes. She held the orange juice box with both hooves smiling with each sip, staring into space and probably thinking of who to thank first.

Mrs. S realized that she had to get the students on the late bus now. She knew the school was about to get checked up on soon, and assumed the whole ordeal was a gas leak and the fumes had burdened their minds into thinking they ran and hour-long intensive care unit for cartoon ponies. They walked out of the room and took small breaths, so as to not inhale anymore of the alleged fumes.

The ponies were alone now, and they all knew what had to happen now.

“Twi,” Applejack removed her hat and watched Cheerilee sip on the orange juice, half conscious, “I reckon we hit the dusty trail. I got a family back home.”

“I think that’d be best, Twilight. I’ve animals to feed.” Fluttershy whispered tiredly.

Everypony looked out the window and imagined home.

Rainbow Dash perked up her wings, almost hitting Pinkie. “Can we go back…like, now?”

Twilight shook her head. “The weather must be in our favor if we are to go back home, Rainbow-Dash.” Twilight looked out the window and couldn’t see a cloud in the sky. This wasn’t a good time to have a drought.

Suddenly, Rarity hatched an idea. “Why don’t Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy make the weather you need?”

Rainbow stretched her wings out further, getting a glare from Pinkie who was sitting on one of the beds. “We need clouds to make weather, Rarity.”

Twilight drowned herself in thought for a minute, and then came to a conclusion.  “We’re gonna have to bring the weather to us then.”

About two hours later, the sun was shining on the school. Fluttershy and Rarity were listening to the radio outside in the courtyard, waiting for a signal. The radio was playing “Motivation” for the fourth time. It made Rarity queasy, but Fluttershy was singing along with it, naïve and unaware to the meaning behind it’s dirty lyrics.

Suddenly, the song stops and a loud beeping sound could be heard. It beeped three times, then a high pitched sound followed. Then a voice could be heard:

The national weather service in Tulsa has issued a tornado warning for: The Litchfield county in CT, and surrounding major cities until 5 Pm. A storm capable of creating a tornado was located southeast heading west toward Waterbury at an uncharitable speed. This is a dangerous storm capable of creating a tornado at anytime. Some locations in the path of the storm include: Norwalk, Bridgeport, Watertown, Naugatuck, and Waterbury.  If you are in the path of this storm, take cover now. If no underground shelter is available, move to an interior room on the lowest floor. Mobile homes and vehicles should be abandoned for more substantial shelter. Avoid windows. Heavy rain may obscure this tornado. Take cover now. If you wait to see or hear it coming, it may be too late to get to a safe place. Repeating: A tornado warning has been issued in Connecticut.

Then the beeping continued, only quicker, then concluded and the music began again.

Twilight was inside and looked up at the sun from the large window staircase. She needed to make sure this storm didn’t cover up the sun.

Rarity squinted her eyes and saw the huge storm cloud above. The feeling of a sunshower- the change of light, making it seem brighter due to the sky being darker someplace else- was present. In the huge cloud, Rarity saw a streak of rainbow. Then hurricane siren sounded in the distance. It was a loud whirring sound that could be heard virtually everywhere. Cars seemed to quiet down as the wind grew intensely strong.

Then, Rarity saw the signal.

Rainbow dash swooped down and shot up at a 90-degree angle and disappeared into the clouds. The whole town then heard the heavy BOOM above. The clouds in the one area where Rainbow vanished were now turned into water. Rain instantly poured down from the sky as if it had been raining for an hour. Rarity and Fluttershy were being assaulted with raindrops. Also, the wind became vicious and was screaming at the mortal beings caught in it’s wild furry. Trees looked like fur on a car being pet. This was the signal. Kinda hard to miss.

Rarity and Fluttershy dashed as quickly as racehorses toward the heath tech entrance. They were in the direction the wind was blowing, so they basically flew over there. They opened the door for Applejack and Pinkie, who was carrying Cheerilee, and all their things.

They ran out into the courtyard and waited. Applejack looked up and found it hard to believe the sun was shining so splendidly as if nothing were happening.

“FLUTTERSHY!” Twilight yelled as she ran toward the group, “FLY UP THERE AND GET RAINBOWDASH!”

“okay…” Obviously, nopony heard that, but since Fluttershy uses this as her popular answer for nearly everything, Twilight saw her lips move and her mind matched them to false sound.

Fluttershy began her accent sky bound, but the wind was battling her. She struggled to climb her way up. After what seemed like forever, she finally made it above the clouds. Things were very quiet up there. It was like she walked into an empty auditorium. There was no storm where she was. Everything was serine.

“Hello? Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy’s voice echoed and it made her feel alone. The sun was even brighter up there, and soon she saw Rainbow’s wet mane glisten in the distance. She landed onto her hooves and began to gallop toward Fluttershy at high speeds.

“Hey Fluttershy! Am I on time?”

“Yes… It’s kinda dangerous down there.”

“Oh really?”

Rainbow Dash poked her head down into the clouds and was instantly taken aback by the winds. She pulled her head back up as fast as possible.

“Whoa…” Rainbow had to fix her mane with her hooves; the wind mangled it.

Fluttershy and Rainbow cantered toward the edge of the clouds where the storm ends. Before them was a world untouched by the rain. When Fluttershy squinted her eyes at the sight, it seemed like a normal day. Rainbow took a quick look at Fluttershy and jumped off the clouds, nose-diving back to earth. Fluttershy hesitated. She then walked off the clouds and opened her winds to glide down slowly and safely.

Everyone but Fluttershy was present in the courtyard. Twilight brought her gaze up to see what was taking so long.

“HURRY UP FLUTTERSHY!” Twilight barked, annoyed at this point.

Fluttershy stopped flying and fell toward the group.

“Oh for Celestia’s sake.”  Twilight quickly performed the spell to get back home. The purple light shined as bright as the sun and caught Fluttershy too.

Finally….

         The colors came back together

         Like a family reunion

         And it will be that way forever

         A rainbow communion

         A well-deserved homecoming

         Awaits on the other side

         This place got their blood running

         But now they cannot abide

         “OOO I love this poetry!”

         Who was that, there?

         “It’s me! Pinkie!”

         Pinkie, that crazy mare.

         Well, looks like they’ve arrived.

         Glad that Cheerilee had not died.

     The ponies’ eyes had to adjust to the colors of their world again. They’d been out of it for so long. The feeling of security overtook Twilight’s heart, causing to sigh audibly.

     They’ve arrived right outside the library. It was nighttime and Twilight assumed a party was going on, because deep in the distance she could hear DJ music. Twilight looked at the stars and assumed Celestia overslept, because it’s about 5:23 am, but it looks like midnight. This has happened on occasion around this time of year, so it was a safe assumption.

Everypony helped Cheerilee into the tree house and Twilight rushed in to make tea.

It took a while for everypony to settle, but soon enough, they all laid on the floor while Cheerilee sat in Twilight’s bed.

Twilight pulled out a quill and scroll and walked over to Cheerilee.

“I learned something very important, Twilight.” Cheerilee said, sipping on some warm tea.

“Go ahead, I’m all ears.” Twilight flapped her ears about to illustrate her attention.

    “Dear Princess Celestia…

I learned that I have to be thankful for the things I have and how far I’ve come in life. I thought that traveling to a new world would be an experience, and, as fun as it was, I had forgotten the importance of gratefulness, and I was selfish to have gone and asked for something I really didn’t need.

Cheerilee.”

Cheerilee pulled out her gift from Emerald and admired it fully.

“That was lovely Cheerilee.” Rarity said, smiling and being the only other pony awake.

“How are we going to send the letter?” Twilight wondered looking at her lazy dragon companion napping in a basket. Then a fiendish grin painted itself onto her face.

“Rarity, go get some pepper.” Twilight pleaded.

Rarity stood up and stretched her legs, making cracking sounds, and started for the kitchen. She came back with a large peppershaker.

Rarity passed it over to Twilight “I don’t know where you’re going with this.”

Twilight levitated the letter over Spike’s face. She then grabbed the peppershaker and sprinkled it over his face.

“A-AAA-AAAACHOO!”

The room was illuminated by green fire, waking Fluttershy up, slightly just for her to fall back asleep.

Spike subconsciously wiped his nose and was fast asleep. The letter had disappeared.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

“Let’s get this over with, Discord.”

“If you say so, The Weak and Helpless Trixie.”

“Have we resorted to cheesy insults?”

“This whole battle is a cheesy insult. I’m about to fight a dressed up blue crayon!”

“Pfft. I do recall you being set into stone by a bunch of ‘crayons’”

“…Alright listen, Harry Potter. The rules are simple. Whoever can magically beat their opponent into submission wins.”

“Trixie believes this is child’s play. Trixie can lick you in a minute with her cunning abilities.”

“Acta, non verba, my little pony.  A wise, yet foolish, princess once told me that.”

“No problem.”

The air went cold when the two faced each other ready for combat.

Everypony stood around the two (Except Vinyl, who’s mouth was still agape from somehow losing the DJ battle.) anticipating the next moment. Discord cracked his knuckles and giggled.

Trixie then grinned. “DERPY, NOW!”

“ARABLABLABLAAR!!!”

Derpy jumped off a tree and grabbed Discord’s head upon falling. It was a perfect RKO. They fell into an abyss in the far left and Discord’s head slammed on a rock, knocking him unconscious and causing him to fall all the way while Derpy floated back up the chasm.

“I did it.” Derpy said, with little enthusiasm in her voice, but she wore a big grin. As always, her speech was followed by silence, but this time, everypony smiled and gave her a group hug. (Except Vinyl who was still crying manly tears) Derpy absorbed the warmth of the ponies ad hugged them back.

Then a loud sound, like air escaping a balloon, emerged from Derpy, and it reeked. She farted.

“I’m sorry for giving birth to gas babies.”

Everypony stared at her with blank expressions. Derpy then farted again.

“Twins.” She claimed.

IX

Celestia was bleeding profusely from her head, the pool starting from her pole and drooling down her face. Luna sported a few scratches, but they made her look cool. Celestia found refuge behind a long table and she levitated a chair to keep her powerful assailant at bay. Luna grinned and blew up the chair with magic. Celestia made prayers to her parents in Greek as Luna uttered nasty words in Latin.

Just before Luna could deliver the coup de grace, she was denied with an arrow to her dock. Startled, she scanned the room for the foolish shooter.  It was one of the guards. He was leading a group of 300, probably and they were all in the doorway. Luna’s eyes widened and she was then spear-tackled into wall by Celestia.

Celestia ducked and a horde of arrows flew into Luna’s body. Celestia then round-horse kicked her sister out the window. Luna plummeted into the roof of another one of Celestia’s studies.  This one had a fireplace and was full of scrolls. Luna struggled to stand back up, but she heavy sister had landed on her from the sky.

Luna lay inert on the floor and waited for punishment. She clenched her eyes shut and anticipated the blow. Just then, a scroll appeared over Luna’s head and fell on her. This caused Luna to faint, thinking it was her sister’s hit. Celestia knew this letter was from Twilight, and rage boiled inside her immediately.

She ripped it open, predicting there to be a postcard from wherever she was vacationing from. Instead, it was a friendship report. Luna woke up, only because she found she wasn’t dead at all. Luna snatched the letter from her sister and read it aloud.

After a few minutes of exchanging stairs and apologizing, the full message of the letter had sunk in, and the sister’s hugged. An “awwww” could be heard from the maids down the hall.

“We’ve returned from our quest!”

Celestia and Luna turned to see Trixie and the faux mane 6 materialize into the room.  The divine sisters give a loving look at the team and trot over to them.

“Congratulations, my little ponies!” Celestia celebrated.

“Why are you two bleeding?” Rose asked, worryingly.

“Kisses.” Derpy said, out of nowhere, facing a mirror and assuming she’s addressing the other ponies. “We want kisses.”

Everyone looked over at Derpy, Cloudchaser actually had worry in her eyes this time.

Celestia shrugged and lifted Trixie to her level and kissed her on the cheek. Trixie looked embarrassed.  Luna did the same.

Celestia then took Zecora and kissed her on the cheek, and Luna repeated, but then added a nuzzle. Celestia foolishly took this as a challenge.

Roseluck walked up to be kissed, but she went to Luna first instead, due to their friendship. Luna kissed her on the forehead and hugged her, and wished her good fortune.

In Equestria, foals who are born during the night (which is relatively rare now) are especially watched over by Luna, and foals born in the daytime are Celestia responsibility. Rose was the only night foal of the group, so this could be where the special treatment was from. Luna didn’t have many to watch over, so she loved all the night foals especially.  Celestia had many day-foals, so she cared for them as anyone else.

Celestia forgot this fact and this only angered her. She grabbed Roseluck and kissed her full on the lips. Everypony gawked at her and Luna sighed. She then tossed Rose to the side and pointed at Cloudchaser. Cloudchaser shuddered and walked over to Celestia slowly. Celestia smooches Cloudchaser violently as well, but she could feel the poor filly shudder under her lips, and she puts her down gently.

Luna can feel the disappointment arise from within her, and she simply pats Cloudchaser on the head. Cloudchaser nuzzled her arm in thanks. Vinyl scratch trotted up to Princess Celestia and puckered her lips. Celestia, now seeing the error of her ways, simply gave her a gentle peck on the lips.

Vinyl lifted her head in triumph. “Octy’s gonna be so jealous when she finds out I smooched a princess!”

Before Celestia could even locate Derpy, she was assaulted by a wild nuzzle from out of nowhere. It was Derpy, and she was making a loud ‘RAWRABLARGAR’ sound as she haphazardly prodded the princess with her snout.  There was almost a look of worry on Derpy’s face as she did it.

Derpy soon calmed down and received her usual stares from the other mares. Luna wanted her to leave, so she made haste to kiss her so she could do so. When Luna’s sacred lips touched the pegasi’s forehead, her eyes spread far apart.

“I love you.” Derpy said in the most angelic voice Luna had imagined. Everypony’s heart warmed at the sound. Except Trixie’s. She looked at a grandfather clock to her left and noticed the time on it.

“Trixie has to be in Baltimare at noon. As awesome as she is, she’ll never make it on time if she doesn’t leave now.” Trixie said.

“Are you not fatigued?” Luna questioned. They’d been out for a long time; it would only be sensible for them to be tired.

“No, my lord,” Roseluck confirmed, being one of the few that address her as such, “we’ve been out so long that we aren’t tired at all. A bit thirsty, but not tired.”

Trixie teleported into the middle of the conversation. “You should all come to Trixie’s show.”

They all mulled it over a bit, then Zecora spoke.

“Normally, I’d say no…” Zecora sighed and gave a smile. “But, for now, I’d love to go.”

Everypony laughed and rejoiced in the disappearance of Discord, and Luna couldn’t help but feel like an idiot.

“Discord spoke of time during my imprisonment…” Luna began, “Celestia, was Discord even free during this time?”

“No, of course not.” Celestia giggled. “You and I both turned him to stone.”

“He’s dead now.” Derpy informed the two.

________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-________-

It was about 1:15pm when the sun finally came out. The mane 6 and Cheerilee were still hanging around in Twilight’s library. The sunshine poked in through the window and made the ponies giggle, for they assumed the princess had just woken up, where in reality, she probably just went to sleep.

Cheerilee was just telling a story about Applebloom trotting on the roof of the school. The mention of it nearly killed Fluttershy and Applejack.

“And when I asked what the heck she was thinking, she told me,” Cheerilee made her best Applebloom impression, after giggling with everyone a bit first, “Ah jus wanted a gangsta cutie mark.” Twilight nearly fell from her bedroom ledge laughing. Rarity was in the middle of making tea, but she and to put it down and bury her face in her hooves and laugh. However, her laugh was most lady like. Pinkie was rolling around on the floor in pain. Rainbow Dash had just ate, she stood up so she didn’t laugh up her lunch. Applejack just walked outside so she could regain control of her lungs. She wasn’t prepared to here Cheerilee with a southern accent.

Cheerilee watcher her friends laugh and cherished them moment, for she knew that she could lose everything at any time. She looked out the window to see small clouds forming around the sun, but not covering its radiance. Cheerilee chuckled and pulled out her diamond and watched it capture the light and display all the colors of this world.