Five of the elements of friendship, ~~earth~~ loyalty, ~~wind~~ honesty, ~~water~~ kindness, ~~fire~~ magic, and ~~heart~~ laughter, all arrived in Twilight’s new castle to discuss the pressing issue one friend who was not acting like herself.

“Alright girls,” Announced Twilight Sparkle, “So what is the big problem? Why are we all here?”

Applejack stepped forward to begin. “Well first thing’s first is that she cleaned out all my cider barrels. I don’t know how she did it, but she managed to drink up my entire stock!”

Fluttershy followed suit “She said some very confusing things to me and now I can’t stop thinking about very scary stuff. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

Pinkie Pie hopped into the fray. “Aaand she ‘squashed a beef’ with Diamond Tiara which at first I was like ‘Oh, yay, they played this super new game that I can take and spread everywhere just like that time when everypony was playing faceball’ but no! It turns out she just beat up a little kid!”

Twilight then turned to Rainbow Dash. “And you?”

“She drank up all of Applejack’s cider and now I don’t get a glass! Let’s just beat her up and knock some sense into her.”

Twilight held a hoof up to Rainbow’s lips. “No Dash, we’re not going to do that again. It didn’t work last time and it won’t work this time. I’m going to write a letter to princess Celestia and ask her for advice, plain and simple.”

Twilight quickly got to work drafting up her composition of explaining the situation in as fine hoofmanship as she could manage. Applejack, meanwhile, was pressed for time.

“Sugarcube, I get that Celestia probably has seen everything in Equestria but this is really strange. Rarity’s been using these messed up words I’ve never heard before so I don’t think even Celestia might get it. Even if she does know what the problem is, we’ll have wasted so much time on this that we might not even be able to find Rarity.”

Regardless, Twilight poofed the finished letter away. “Oh come on, Princess Celestia’s not that-” immediately a scroll bearing the princess’ seal poofed back. “slow? Holy moly that was quick!” She unraveled the scroll and read it out loud. “Ahem, ‘Dear Princess Sparkle, please for the love of your friendship should you not beat up your friend. We have learned that this doesn’t work as we tried it the first time a pony was possessed. By the way, your friend is possessed. The last time we had this problem was with a little filly, back before there was a Nightmare Moon, who was possessed by the spirit of Ray Charles, but nopony noticed because nothing was different until she started playing the piano surprisingly well. It did not go over well, at the time we were not ready for the idea of such a musician. To fix this, what you want to do is just dump as much salt over her as you can find, and this is guaranteed to work. We don’t know why, it just does.

P.S. Luna says ‘Hi, you mentioned something about a beef? Don’t be starting nothing, trust me. As ~~Machinegun Mare~~ a concerned citizen, I can tell you it doesn’t work out.’

Best Wishes, Princess Celestia’” Twilight set the note aside and looked at her equally confused friends.

“Salt? That’s it? Well shoot, what are we all standing around for? Let’s get ’er!”

DMX was in a field daintily skipping about and picking flowers. Oh, wait, no he isn’t because he doesn’t wear pumps and tie his shirt up into a bra. No, instead he’s sitting on a porch scouting out the local female population and sipping the remnants of a forty-ounce bottle of cider he filled up for such an occasion.

Then, out of nowhere, an assortment of five ponies, two of which he met before, started stepping up on his street. But, being the man of the dark that he is, he was not frightened in the least. Seeing Applejack alongside them didn’t hurt either.

“Yo, whassup my nigga!” He said, getting off of the porch and bringing in a brief hug with Applejack. “Whats with the posse, we gon’ stomp some fools?”

Applejack looked nervously at her friends and then turned to Twilight. “Uh, Twi, do we really gotta do this? I mean, she seems better than usual, at least by a tad.”

Twilight placed a hoof on Applejack’s shoulder. “We need to get Rarity back.”

Applejack sighed and looked back to DMX. “I’m sorry, new Rarity.” And then with her hoof she threw a hoof-full of rock salt at DMX. His skin was stable yet from his pores poured out a turgid violet ichor that seemingly rose into the air like a pungent perfume.

“The hell you doin’ nigga?” Professional rapper DMX shouted before taking notice of his wavering consciousness. “Oh shit! It’s a crack attack! Nah bitch, nah!”

And so the other ponies joined in, tossing as much salt as they managed to bring at DMX until he was ankle deep in sodium chloride. Soon, the vapors stopped flowing leaving behind the shell of Rarity. With the situation seemingly resolved, the ponies ceased their assault. No pun intended.

“Is it over?” Dash asked, only to meet with the equally confused faces of her friends.

“No it is not over!” Shouted the white unicorn as she stood from the pile of salt. “Just take a look at my mane! My conditioner does not do well when exposed to salt, you ruffians!”

Applejack smacked her face and lowered her head. “Well she’s back, and now I need that cider more than ever.”

DMX awoke from the darkest slumber he ever had and did a quick check over himself. Six pack abs? Check. 24 inch pythons? Check. Disdain for just about everything in society? Checkarooni! But just to confirm he walked over to the nearby mirror made entirely of pit-bulls and checked his reflection in the teeth of one particularly large dog. He was indeed the DMX he always knew he was.

“A’ight, I’mma roll with this.”

The End, suckas.

Author's Note

I just realized this whole story was basically Quantum Leap but with DMX instead of Sam Beckett. That's cool!