Spike double-checked the money he brought with him for snacks while he waited for his three other friends to arrive. The line he was standing it was at least a hundred ponies long and he was sure that the rest of the line was not going to let him hold onto three spaces any longer.
"Come on," he mumbled to himself as he saw the disgruntled looks on the nearby ponies' faces. "They'll be back any second," he said, hoping that it would make them stop staring. It did not.
"Hey Spike. Thanks for holding while we freshened up," Apple Bloom said as she got back into her spot. The rest of the line seemed to calm down once they had returned.
"What took you so long?" he asked them.
"We're not gonna answer that," Scootaloo replied. Spike was going to say something when he realized that where he was going was no place good. "So, when are they gonna open?"
"I heard that the makers of the comic are coming tonight, so I think we'll be allowed in once they get in as well." Spike told them.
"You think we'll be able to get their autographs?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"I really hope so," Spike told them as he brought out a poster of the film along with a marker. While the four of them waited in the line, around the back of the theater were the comic creators sneaking into the theater.
"Can't believe they told us to come this way," Heyfield complained again. "We made this thing! We should get the red carpet."
"You didn't make it. Buronson and I made the thing," Sound reminded her coworker. "Heck, we just made the comic also, not the actual movie."
"Still don't get why they made us all wait out here for some employee to sneak us is," Queso said as he spoke for Williams, Low Web, Red Lead, and Finch, all of them just resting while they waited for the midnight premiere.
"Look, I already explained it to you," Mr. Bates, their boss and editor explained, "that the theater doesn't want us causing a scene with our appearance." They think that the fans that hated our mandate issues will cause a disturbance if we're known."
"Are ponies still upset about that?" Sound asked.
"Just this morning I recieved a flaming bag that I hosed down, only to find that inside were copies of my mandate issues," Heyfield told them. "They left a note saying that it was the best possible use for that comic."
"Can't believe we've actually ended up making more money from ponies hate-buying our comic to destroy than when our comics are actually good," Bates once again pondered. "Really think I should do another-"
"Bates, you do that and I will personally set our studio on fire," Low Web said before he fell back to sleep.
"So why isn't our beloved Quality Control pony here?" Heyfield asked, noticing that Cloverbud wasn't among them.
"Remember, dear? She said that she had something really important to do and then just ran off," Golden Bell, his girlfriend, reminded him.
"Yeah. Don't know why she needed to run away. It's like she wanted us to be suspicious of her." The back door to the theater opened as Heyfield finished up, a whispering employee on the other side.
"Okay. I think you guys can come in now. You all have disguises?"
"I dyed my hair aquamarine, so that'll be less conspicuous than my normal hair," Sound told the employee. "Anypony else?"
"Nope. Just you." Sound looked around and saw nopony else but her had changed her appearance.
"Come on, guys! You know that my hair got permanently dyed before this. Now I have two layers and feel like I have my hair glued together."
"Well, it, um, looks good on you?" Queso said, trying to calm her down.
"Look, can you guys just get in here. Lot of fans wanting to get their food before the show starts," the employee reminded them.
"Oh yeah. The fans that want to kill us," Williams said as he got up.
"Hey. You're only a true fan if you hate the thing you claim to be a fan of," Bates reminded him. "Now let's go see this possible train wreck."
The doors to the theater cracked open to reveal a slim, teenage colt forcing through the space in the door, closing it behind him as he exited.
"When you get to the ticket booth, be sure to-"
"BE FIRST OR DIE!" somepony in the crowd yelled out, pushing the group forward and starting a riot. The teenager tried to get back into the theater before being crushed, but only managed to let the mob inside the theater. The first target the mob went for was the ticket booth.
"Come on!" Scootaloo yelled to the other three who had curled up in order to protect themselves. "We already got our tickets, so let's get to the snack booth before they get there!"
"Scootaloo's right!" Apple Bloom declared before following her friend. The other two quickly joined up with them while they saw the chaos going on at the ticket booth. The dealer didn't know who was putting money down and who was grabbing the tickets he tried to print out. At least his area was bullet proof. The mare at the food booth would soon seen the oncoming tide.
"I'll have a box of Cookie Crumbles and a Gummy Trees," Scootaloo ordered.
"I'll just have a small popcorn and a large soda," Sweetie Belle added.
"Nothing for me," Apple Bloom said modestly.
"Since I assume you don't have gems to eat, I'll have, let's see...hmm...what would you suggest?"
"I personally would tell you not to eat anything cooked. It'll probably take longer for you to digest it than you can live," she joked. "But yeah, I like Gummy Trees."
"Okay. I'll take two of them." As Spike placed his part of the order, the mob from the ticket booth started to move in.
"That'll be twenty-two and three-fourths bits," the mare told them.
"Wait, so how do we divide this up?" Apple Bloom asked them.
"Oh. I forgot to bring my own money," Scootaloo admitted. "Spike, can you cover mine?"
"I'm not sure how much mine counts toward the bill." As Spike tried to figure it out, he spotted the line started to push in behind him. "Let's just give her whatever we have before this gets ugly." The group dumped out whatever they had and tried counting it off to get the closest they could to the bill.
"Alright. Looks like you have twenty-three bits here. Let me just get you your change-"
"Keep it!" Scootaloo yelled as the group grabbed the food from the counter. Each of them secretly wondered what one-fourth of a bit in change looked like.
"Wow. We're making great time," Apple Bloom remarked as she walked behind Spike and Scootaloo, making sure they didn't drop their food. "Sweetie Belle, why did you get a large-" She looked behind her to find that in the midst of the actual mob that had apparently broken out, Sweetie Belle was at the soda machine filling up her cup.
"SWEETIE BELLE!" Apple Bloom yelled out, trying to get her friend's attention through the chaos, "GET OUT OF THERE!" Sweetie Belle nervously filled up her cup and stopped. Just when they thought she was finished, she decided to put a new soda in the cup. "STOP MIXING DIFFERENT SODAS TOGETHER AND COME ON!" Sweetie Belle topped off her drink with some ice, some of the soda spilling out when it came down. She capped it and got away from the machine just as a large stallion got thrown into it, soda exploding everywhere.
"This'll be interesting to see when we leave here." Spike and the others walked away as the mob had devolved into some insane semblance of a society where somepony stood atop the machine and distributed the remaining soda. "I think we're in Number 8." Just as he said this, the door opened, revealing a stallion and a mare.
"Excuse us," the quiet mare with a bell for a cutie mark said. "Me and my coltfriend were going to get some snacks."
"I don't think that's a good idea," Sweetie Belle informed them as they entered the theater. Whatever was going to happen in the lobby would hopefully not be their concern.
