LEGO Equestria Girls: More Short Stories

Chapters

Leadership Expectations
Parkour Pie
Build-Off!
The Science of Creative Magic
Creative Differences

Leadership Expectations

“It is always a pleasure to see you again, Luna,” said Celestia Playwell contently as she and her sister walked through one of the hallways of the LEGO Team Headquarters Building of Canterlot City. “It’s just a shame that this will only be to help you get settled.”

“I, too, wish we could spend more time together like we used to when we were younger,” acknowledged Luna with a smile. “But I understand why that cannot be the case today. After all, you and Uncle Kjeld will be very busy for the next few weeks.”

“Indeed,” replied Celestia with a nod. “He and I will be traveling to many regions to attend a series of business meetings. We will be consulting with regional leaders on what’s been working, what areas could use some improvement, and so much more. Not to mention, we will also be finalizing the establishment of an entirely new region.”

“But I think the real highlight of these business trips will be the day you meet with President Business,” added Luna. “If I’m not mistaken, this will be the first time he has invited outsiders into his office since he reformed his ways.”

Celestia smiled as she replied, “You are indeed correct. I am very pleased that he was eventually able to see the error of his old ways without the rest of us needing to intervene in some way.”

“And that was no more than a month before Sunset Shimmer was also shown the error of her old ways,” remarked Luna with a smile. “Quite an interesting coincidence, I must say.”

“Agreed,” acknowledged Celestia with a smile and a nod. “Though as much as I would wish that all villains could be reformed, I am actually kind of glad that some won’t go as well as others. Otherwise, our heroics division would very quickly find themselves with nothing left to do.”

The two Playwell sisters shared a small giggle at Celestia’s little quip as they reached the end of the hallway. Luna opened the door for her sister and allowed her to pass through before following right behind.

As they walked over to the parked private jet in the middle of the hangar, Celestia asked, “Are you sure you won’t have much trouble feeling comfortable in this facility?”

“Oh, not at all,” assured Luna. “Overseeing the Wonderbolts Lunar Headquarters for the last few years has been a fine experience, but I must confess that it’s starting to get a little… monotonous. I’m actually looking forward to a little change of scenery.”

Celestia smiled and said, “In that case, I am sure you will a great job of keeping an eye on things here while I’m away.”

Celestia began to walk up the steps into the jet when Luna suddenly spoke up, “Before you leave, I’d like to ask a favor of you.”

Celestia turned back to Luna and responded, “Of course, dear sister. What is it you would like?”

Luna smiled innocently and asked, “On the day of your meeting with President Business, could you ask him if I could be granted partial control over the Super Secret Police?”

Celestia couldn’t help but roll her eyes as she smiled and replied, “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll be sure to put in a good word for you.” She then resumed climbing up the steps and walked into the jet. She turned back and stuck her head out as she said, “Good luck to you, Luna. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

“Same to you, dear sister,” responded Luna.

Celestia responded with a simple smile before she leaned back into the jet and shut the door.

Luna turned away and headed back to the doorway that led back into the building. She stopped at the door and turned back to watch as the jet’s engines began to power up. Within a few seconds, the main hangar doors opened and the jet turned towards them. Finally, the jet accelerated out of the hangar, down the runway outside, and took off.

Once the jet was out of sight, Luna finally turned back to the door and pulled it open. She was now the temporary head of the Canterlot City branch of the LEGO Team, and she was feeling very excited to get started.

“And that should cover the last of the daily reports,” stated Luna as she closed the last of the manila folders on the table in the break room. She gathered up those folders and handed them back to the assistant who was standing patiently beside the table.

The assistant accepted the folders with a smile and tucked them under her arm as she turned away and left the room.

At the same time, Luna glanced over at the clock on the wall and was surprised to see that the day was barely even halfway over. With so much already accomplished in so little time, she decided to turn her attention towards some of the other lower priorities.

She finished the last of the coffee in her mug and then got up out of her seat. “Now that that’s taken care of,” she said to herself, “I suppose it’s time to check in with progress at the engineering department.” She then left the break room and proceeded down the hallway.

It didn’t take Luna long to reach the engineering department on one of the upper floors of the building. She glanced around and saw many of the engineers were already hard at work, either sketching up some new designs, assembling the parts of some large equipment and machinery, or just simply moving things around.

Luna figured that if things here worked similarly to how they did back at the Wonderbolts Lunar Headquarters, then her best option of inspecting the engineering department was to check in with the top engineer. As one random engineer passed by, she tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “Excuse me, sir, but could you tell where I might find the top engineer of this facility?”

“Yeah, he’s workin’ on somethin’ over there,” replied the engineer as he pointed at a particularly messy corner of the room, then continued on his way.

Luna thanked the engineer and then walked over to the messy work area. She saw all kinds of Lego parts and pieces scattered around in piles, both on the floor and on the workbenches. After some further glancing around, she finally managed to find someone, though all she saw was a pair of brown legs sticking out from under a small chassis that was propped up above the floor. Without any hesitation, she called out, “Excuse me, sir?”

Clunk!

The pair of legs jerked as the person they were attached to suddenly grunted and then muttered, “Ouchy.” The tan-skinned minifig then scooted out from under the chassis and sat up. He briefly rubbed his head before turning to Luna. He quickly stood up and displayed a shaky smile as he said, “Oh! Y-you must Celestia’s sister!” He held out his hand and greeted, “Top engineer Rusty Wrench, at your service!”

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wrench,” greeted Luna as she shook Rusty’s hand. As soon as the handshake was finished, she glanced down at her hand and immediately grimaced at seeing all the grease stains that were suddenly on it. As she pulled out a white handkerchief and wiped her hand clean, she continued, “I take it that things are running smoothly in the engineering department at this time.”

“R-right!” replied Rusty. “Everyone’s hard at work on their assigned tasks. Mine has been to rebuild that spaceship that Twilight’s team used on their first mission.”

“Ah, yes, the one that was blown up while they were at the Lunar Headquarters,” recalled Luna with a nod of understanding. “How goes progress on that?”

“It’s almost done,” answered Rusty, “b-but I’m still waiting on some parts to arrive. So for now, I’m just doing some tinkering around with a few other things around here. You never know where the next big idea might come from.”

As they were speaking, a forklift that was hauling four large crates slowly rolled up to Rusty’s work area. As soon as the forklift came to a stop and had lowered the crates to the floor, the operator announced, “Delivery!”

Rusty’s expression suddenly brightened as he rushed over to the crates and excitedly exclaimed, “Alright! The spaceship upgrades have arrived! Now I can finally finish rebuilding that thing.”

As Rusty tore off the lid of the first crate, Luna couldn’t help but grin and ask, “Is there any way I can be of assistance?”

“No thanks. I got this,” replied Rusty dismissively as he continued to devote his attention to the contents inside the crate. “I’m actually pretty good at following the instructions.”

With Rusty excitedly unpacking his next major project, Luna knew she had no choice but to walk away and let the top engineer do his job. With a sigh of disappointment, she turned away and left the room.

Once she was out in the hallway, she suddenly got an idea and pulled out her phone. “I wonder if anyone has booked the Creativity Floor today,” she mumbled to herself optimistically. She took a few seconds to search through her phone, and then sighed in disappointment and muttered, “Nothing. Absolutely empty today.”

She huffed as she put away her phone and proceeded down the hallway.

Luna sat behind the desk in Celestia’s office. She had a bored expression on her face as she rested her head on her right hand while using her left hand to idly roll a pencil back and forth across the surface of the desk. She had already gone over all of the daily reports, checked in on the progress being made by the engineers, and had even replaced the name on the desk to signify that she was now the one in charge. As a result, there was now practically nothing left for her to do for the rest of the day, and the sun outside wasn’t even close to setting just yet.

Finally, Luna flicked the pencil off the desk and sighed before muttering, “This may be a different facility… but the monotony is still very much the same.”

The next few weeks were going to be very long.

Author's Note

Just so everyone is aware, unlike with last year's short stories when I added one per day for a week, I will be adding these short stories only once per week for a month. Going for every day for a whole week had been too exhausting for me, so this year, I'm going to try spacing it out a little bit more. Just as well, because I've honestly had a bit of difficulty writing some of these stories, but I'm sure I should have them all done on time. For this chapter's story, take note of some of the minor details that were mentioned, because many of them will be mentioned again throughout the full sequel story next year.

Parkour Pie

Rainbow Dash carried a crash test dummy over to an empty stand and loosely attached the dummy to it so that it would stand upright. With that last one in place, she smiled as she glanced around at the dozens of other dummies she had already set up. Now that everything was finally all set, she was more than eager to get started.

Rainbow walked over to a simple brown staff on the concrete floor and picked it up. She smirked as she twirled it around a few times before suddenly jumping into a combative pose, tightly gripping the staff with both hands. She narrowed her eyes as she slowly moved her gaze across all the dummies that stood before her. The only noise to be heard was a faint whistling of wind through a few gaps in the surrounding walls of the abandoned warehouse.

Finally, Rainbow leaped into action. She yelled out as she rushed towards the nearest dummy and swung her staff sideways at it, swiftly smashing it to pieces. She then swung her staff sideways in the other direction, smashing another dummy, then smashed another one by swinging her staff down on its head. She repeated these moves with a few more dummies, then jabbed a few more with either end of her staff. She also used the staff as a pole-vault to lift her feet off the floor and swiftly kick another dummy. She repeated all of these moves almost flawlessly, and had managed to take out most of the dummies before even a full minute had elapsed.

“Hi, Dash!”

Rainbow yelped as she suddenly noticed the next “dummy” she was about to smack turned out to be a smiling Pinkie Pie. She barely managed to stop the staff just one inch in front of Pinkie’s face, who didn’t even flinch. She then lowered the staff as she raised an eyebrow and asked, “Pinkie? What are you doing here?”

Pinkie Pie, as usual, spoke rapidly as she replied, “I saw you moving a whole bunch of stuff into this empty warehouse and I was curious what all that stuff was for, so I decided to sneak inside and see what you were up to and when I saw you setting all this stuff up I thought that it all looked like it would be so much fun to try it all out, so I decided to just walk right in and ask if I could join you with whatever fun games you have in here!”

Rainbow Dash stared at her grinning friend for a brief moment, then glanced back at the series of obstacles she had set up throughout the old warehouse. She turned back to Pinkie and explained, “This isn’t for fun, Pinkie. This is a hardcore serious training ground, intended to improve my already awesome abilities.” She began to expertly twirl her staff around as she continued, “Since we’re on the LEGO Team, that means we could be called away on missions at any time — y’know, the kind where we beat the bad guys and save the world again. So it’s really important that I always stay at my peak performance.”

Rainbow then suddenly lost her grip on the twirling staff, causing her to drop it. She and Pinkie glanced down at it on the floor, then back up to each other. “Uh… I meant to do that,” Rainbow quickly said with a fake grin as she picked up the staff.

“Can I still join you, anyway?” asked Pinkie Pie eagerly.

Rainbow briefly glanced away before she turned back to Pinkie and replied, “Well, since we’re both on the same team, I don’t see why not.”

“Yay!” cheered the pink party girl with an excited jump.

“But don’t think this is gonna be easy,” warned Rainbow with a serious expression. “These obstacles are meant to push ya to the limits. I wouldn’t even be surprised if you end up falling to pieces at some point.”

“So what’s first?” asked Pinkie Pie, enthusiastic as ever.

“Let’s see…” Rainbow turned towards the rest of the obstacles and took a moment to consider which one to begin today’s training with. Eventually, she smiled as she made her choice.

“Let’s start with this one,” said Rainbow as she walked over to a wall with three long poles sticking horizontally out of it. The pole on the right was just barely within arm’s reach, the one in the middle was higher up, and the one on the left was even further higher up. And not far from that final pole, there was a platform about a dozen bricks above the floor.

“The Spinning Poles,” explained Rainbow as she casually tossed aside her staff. “All you have to do is get up onto that platform up there by doing this.” She quickly ran up to the first pole and jumped up. She grabbed onto the pole and began to spin around it, shifting her body around to build up more momentum. She made only two revolutions before she let go, did a single backflip in midair, and grabbed onto the second pole. Again, she spun around the pole twice before repeating the move onto the third and final pole. Finally, after just one revolution, she let go, did yet another midair backflip, and landed on her feet atop the platform. She stumbled around for a second, but otherwise managed to stay on the platform.

Rainbow smirked as she turned back to Pinkie and confidently stated, “Your turn!”

“Okie-dokie-lokie,” responded Pinkie cheerfully before she ran over to the first pole and leaped up onto it. She spun around that pole only once before she let go, backflipped in midair, and grasped the second pole. On the second pole, she didn’t even make half a revolution before she let go, did a backflip, and grasped the third pole. Her takeoff from the third pole was just as swift as on the second, and unlike Rainbow Dash, she managed to perfectly stick the landing onto the platform. “Ta-da!” cheered Pinkie with a singsong voice.

Rainbow stared blankly at Pinkie, blinking only once. On the inside, she was astonished to see her friend top her effort right on the first try. But since this was her obstacle course, she wasn’t going to show that on the outside. Instead, she grinned smugly as she slyly commented, “Not bad, for a beginner.” As she turned away and slid down a pole back to the floor, she boastfully added, “Now let’s kick things up a notch!”

Pinkie followed Rainbow down the sliding pole, then watched as the blue athlete grabbed a ladder and set it up under the second pole on the wall.

“In a real world scenario,” explained Rainbow as she climbed the ladder, “things aren’t always gonna be this perfect. Sometimes, you’ll find yourself with a missing piece.” She yanked the pole out of its socket, slid down the ladder, and then set down the ladder. “In this case, you’ll first need to fill in the gap. Like this!” She then threw the pole up at the socket… but barely missed and just made it bounce off the wall.

Unfazed, Rainbow picked up the pole and repeated, “Like this!” She threw the pole again, but barely missed the socket again and got a similar result. She repeated these actions again… and again… and again.

Rainbow was starting to lose count by the time she huffed in frustration and shouted, “Like THIS!!” She threw the pole again, and this time, she actually made it stick into the socket.

“Yes!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash in both excitement and relief. She then ran over to the first pole as she stated, “And now I just need to swing across.” As with the first run, she jumped up onto the first pole, spun around it twice, then let go, did a backflip, and grasped the second pole. However, as soon as her momentum transferred to the second pole, it popped right out of its socket, causing her to drop down and hit the concrete floor flat on her back.

Pinkie Pie casually walked up to her fallen friend and innocently asked, “Is it my turn?”

Rainbow glanced up at Pinkie, who still had a silly grin on her face. With an exasperated sigh, she tossed the pole to her and grumbled, “Knock yourself out.” She then slowly stood up and walked away from the wall.

Once Rainbow Dash was out of the way, Pinkie Pie raised the pole in her hand, took a moment to aim it at the socket, then threw the pole. Right on the first try, she managed to perfectly stick the pole into the socket. Without any hesitation, she then ran over to the first pole, grabbed onto it, and spun around it once before letting go and grabbing onto the second pole. Unlike with Rainbow’s attempt, the second pole stayed firmly in place as Pinkie swung forward onto the third pole and then up onto the platform. Pinkie turned to Rainbow, raised her arms, and cheerfully sang, “Nailed it!”

Rainbow couldn’t help but furrow her brow as she stared up at Pinkie. The super athletic Rainbow Dash had always struggled with this particular obstacle, but party girl Pinkie Pie had somehow mastered it right on the first try! As much as that infuriated her, Rainbow knew she wouldn’t gain anything from lashing out at her friend and teammate, so she just mumbled, “Not bad.”

As Pinkie slid down the pole back to the floor, Rainbow glanced around at all the other obstacles she had set up inside the warehouse. With a smirk, she turned back to Pinkie and confidently stated, “But we’re just getting started.”

“Next up: The Rock Climb!” announced Rainbow Dash and she and Pinkie Pie stood at the base of a wall with various handholds all over it.

Rainbow immediately jumped onto the wall and began to scale upwards. She made it up a few steps with no trouble at all. She slipped on one foothold, but quickly managed to stabilize herself.

“Wheeee!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie cheerfully as she scaled the Rock Climb so quickly that her arms were literally spinning around like propellers.

Rainbow could only stay still and stare upwards with her jaw gaping as she saw Pinkie reach the top of the wall in only a matter of seconds.

“I win!” shouted Pinkie triumphantly.

Rainbow finally closed her mouth, frowning as she furrowed her brow again.

“The Double-Wall Ninja Jump!”

Rainbow Dash stood between two walls that were only six studs apart. Without any hesitation, she jumped up onto one of the walls, grasping the flat surface with both arms and both legs. She then swiftly jumped off it and onto the opposite wall, then immediately repeated the process back and forth. It took her about half a dozen of these wall to wall leaps before she reached the platform at the top. The final leap only brought her high enough for her torso to land on the platform, so it took her a few extra seconds to swing her legs up and over the edge.

Once Rainbow stood up and glanced down, her jaw dropped again as she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Pinkie Pie was bouncing back and forth between the walls with just one foot, left leg off the left wall and right leg off the right wall. Within the timespan of a single breath, Pinkie had made it all the way to the platform atop the double walls.

Rainbow furrowed her brow and frowned again. This time, she also clenched her fists very tightly.

“Grapple Gun!”

Rainbow Dash aimed her grapple gun forward and upwards at one of the roof struts on the ceiling. She fired the grappling hook, which soared up at an angle and looped around the strut once before hooking onto it. With the hook secured, she leaped off the elevated platform, swung across the wide empty space, and safely reached the other platform on the other side. Now that she was across, she flicked her grapple gun to loosen the hook from the strut. Once the hook began to fall away, she quickly retracted it back into the gun. Rainbow Dash smirked at easily completing another obstacle.

Pinkie Pie simply turned away, stuck her grappling hook onto the platform, and fired her grapple gun. She immediately shot off the platform and was sent soaring across the gap until she landed right next to Rainbow on the other platform. With a flick of the grapple gun, she loosened the hook and retracted it.

Rainbow Dash repeated her furious expression, with the addition of a light growl.

“Precarious Ledges and Balance Beams!”

High above the floor, Rainbow Dash carefully stepped onto a ledge that was only one stud wide. She pressed her back against the wall and slowly shimmied her way along the ledge. After about a dozen steps, she reached the balance beam, which was also only one stud wide. Rainbow kept her breathing slow and steady as she carefully stepped onto the beam, slowly placing one square foot in front of the other. The narrow beam creaked lightly as she moved across, but she maintained her balance and soon made it safely across onto the platform. There was no denying that making such a risky crossing took a lot of guts, so she made no attempt to hide her sigh of relief.

“La la-la la-la la-la!” sang Pinkie Pie cheerfully.

Rainbow glanced back and her jaw dropped yet again as she was shocked to see that Pinkie was merrily hopping along the incredibly narrow ledge. She even had her eyes closed!

Pinkie opened her eyes only once just to confirm that she had reached the balance beam. She then began skipping along the beam as she continued her cheerful tune. Despite the beam visibly flexing with each bounce, it wasn’t long until Pinkie reached the platform. Safely across, Pinkie finally opened her eyes and simply smiled at Rainbow.

Rainbow Dash repeated her furious expression, except with a louder growl.

“Power Drilling!”

Rainbow Dash picked up a jackhammer, pointed it onto a concrete wall, and immediately started hammering away. After a few seconds of relentless pounding and shaking, she began to break through the wall, and it took her a full minute to drill out a big enough hole. She quickly dropped the jackhammer and squeezed her body through the hole in the wall. She struggled a little bit, but successfully managed to climb through to the other side. Rainbow couldn’t resist laughing at this accomplishment.

Further jackhammer noises suddenly brought Rainbow’s attention towards another part of the concrete wall. With remarkable speed, the outline of a standing minifig was drilled through the concrete, and once the outline was complete, the slab of concrete within the outline simple fell over. Pinkie Pie casually stepped right through the perfectly shaped hole, then simply smiled and waved at Rainbow.

Rainbow Dash repeated her furious expression, but now with enough intensity to bare her clenched teeth.

“Okay, last obstacle!” declared Rainbow Dash, no longer able to hide her frustration. “This is the most challenging one of all, so don’t expect this to be a cake walk!”

“Well, what is it?” asked Pinkie Pie eagerly, seemingly unaware of Rainbow’s sour expression.

Rainbow Dash smirked. She knew this last obstacle would finally break Pinkie, because it required techniques so advanced that she knew of only one person in the entire Lego World who could successfully pull it off — and that person was currently not inside this warehouse. She proudly gestured at a structure that had a series of plate pieces placed vertically along a wall, and even some that were upside down at the top of that wall. “SNOT Walking!”

“Oh! Oh! I can do this!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie happily. She then casually walked toward the wall, walked right up it, and then up onto that ceiling. Once she reached the middle of that ceiling of studs, she glanced down at Rainbow as she smiled and waved.

Once again, Rainbow Dash repeated her furious expression, with the addition of gritting her teeth. Now this was going too far! She decided that enough was enough! “Oh yeah?!” she shouted furiously. “Well I can do that in half the time! Just watch!”

Rainbow stared firmly at the wall of studs, took a deep breath, and sprinted towards it. She immediately rushed right up the wall, but just halfway up to the ceiling, she yelped out in shock as she suddenly felt her legs flailing around helplessly in the air. Without any grip on the wall, she was left at the mercy of gravity. She screamed and flailed her arms and legs around as she fell all the way down to the floor, smashing to pieces upon impact.

Once her head finally rolled to a stop, Rainbow Dash looked around at all of her pieces scattered across the floor and sighed. Forced to swallow her pride, she glanced up at Pinkie — who was still standing on the ceiling of studs, albeit now with a concerned expression for the first time today — and reluctantly asked, “Hey, uh… could you help be pull myself together?”

“Absolutely!” replied Pinkie Pie, a smile quickly returning to her face. She walked along the ceiling and back down onto the wall.

As she watched only the second person she knew of to successfully pull off SNOT walking, Rainbow couldn’t help but ask, “How did you do that so easily?”

As Pinkie finally got down on the floor again and began picking up the pieces of Rainbow Dash, she replied, “Duh! It’s called SNOT walking. Not SNOT running.”

Rainbow Dash’s only response to that was a long groan.

Author's Note

For those of you who may have noticed that change in the category tags, I cleared up a few things with the story approver and was allowed to remove the human tag, though it was highly recommended that I add the new "Equestria Girls" tag to all of my stories. (Even though this series technically doesn't take place in the official Equestria Girls world, I'll admit that the fact that the name is right there in the title means adding that tag would be a good idea.) As for this chapter's story, most of the obstacles were inspired various character abilities from the Lego Movie Videogame (such as Wyldsyle's agility, Batman's grapple gun, Emmet's drill, and Vitruvius's "blind courage"). The final obstacle, of course, comes from Sunset Shimmer's SNOT (Studs Not On Top) walking talent mentioned in the most recent story, LEGO Equestria Girls 2.

Build-Off!

It was the middle of another ordinary day in Canterlot City. Minifigs all cross the city went about their day under a sunny and cloudless sky. In one of the city’s plazas, two girls were waiting beside an ice cream truck. One of these girls had light green skin; yellowish orange eyes; a two-toned messy hair piece of aqua and white; magenta on her lower legs, turquoise on her upper legs; and pink on her torso with a golden lyre printed in the middle. The other girl had light nougat skin; sky blue eyes; a two-toned curly hair piece of dark blue and pink; white on her lower legs, torso, and the skirt piece; and printed on her torso was light blue around the neck and a blue and yellow candy wrapper near the waist. These two minifigs were none other than Lyra Heartstrings and Bon Bon, two of the closest friends anywhere in the Lego World.

The ice cream vendor handed an ice cream cone to each of the two girls and took the two dollars they had left for him on the counter. Bon Bon grabbed the ice cream that was pink, while Lyra accepted the one that was light green. The two best friends began walking together along the edge of the plaza as they started to enjoy their delicious treats on such a beautiful warm day. It was only after a few licks that they decided to resume their conversation.

“So, anyway,” began Bon Bon contently, “just the other day, I finally received a delivery of that display shelves kit that I ordered for my candy shop.”

“Oh yeah!” responded Lyra with a smile. “You’ve been waiting for that thing all week, haven’t you?”

“Right!” replied Bon Bon. She then frowned. “But when I opened the box, there were no instructions inside!”

Lyra gasped. “No way!”

“I know! Somebody at the factory must’ve goofed up and forgot to include them. So, at first, I thought about returning it and waiting for a replacement.” Bon Bon smiled again. “But before I even closed the box, I got an idea.”

“Oh! Let me guess!” responded Lyra excitedly. “You decided to ignore the missing instructions and just build it your own way?”

“Exactly! I mean, what’s the point of building anything if you can’t use your creative talents every now and then?”

“I know! You should see the changes I made to my car after that little fender-bender last Tuesday.”

“Sounds fascinating! Can we take a look right now?”

Lyra shrugged with a smile. “Sure. It’s parked not far from here.”

“Awesome, dudes. Mind if I tag along?”

Lyra and Bon Bon suddenly stopped and glanced to their left to see an additional minifig was now walking beside them. He had pale orange skin; green eyes; a long, dark green hair piece in a dreadlock style with a dark grey hat on top; medium blue on his legs; brown on his torso, dull red around his shoulders and down the front of his torso; dark grey bands around his wrists; and printed on the front of his torso close to his right shoulder was a green recycling symbol within a white circle.

The two best friends glanced at each other in confusion, then turned back to the guy beside them. Lyra raised an eyebrow and asked, “Who are you?”

“Name’s Sandalwood, dudes,” he replied as he handed a pair of identical fliers to the two girls. “Environmental specialist and reserve member of our local branch of the LEGO Team.”

Lyra and Bon Bon glanced down at their fliers and gasped excitedly as they immediately saw the LEGO logo printed at the top. Both girls suddenly grinned and turned to each other as they simultaneously exclaimed, “Wow! The LEGO Team!”

“If you think that’s cool, wait ‘til you hear this,” continued Sandalwood. “We’re always open to new members, and I think you two may have what it takes to join us.”

Both girls immediately squealed excitedly and simultaneously exclaimed, “This is the best news ever!”

Sandalwood quickly held up his hands and added, “But we only accept the best of the best, so if you ladies wanna join us, then you gotta prove you’ve got what it takes to become Master Builders.”

“Oh, we can do that right here right now!” stated Bon Bon excitedly.

“Yeah!” agreed Lyra. “I can totally build an awesome racecar in no time!”

Bon Bon frowned. “Actually, I thinking of building a delivery van.”

Lyra glared at her friend and argued, “But I think we should build a racecar!”

Bon Bon returned the glare and shot back, “And I’m saying we should build a delivery van!”

“Racecar!”

“Delivery van!”

“Racecar!”

“Delivery van!”

The two best friends stared furiously at each other for a moment. The tension was soon broken when Lyra grinned smugly. “How about a Build-Off?” she challenged.

Bon Bon also gave a smug grin. “All-out with no restrictions?” she suggested.

“You’re on!” declared Lyra.

As the two girls then quickly handed their ice cream cones to a suddenly confused Sandalwood, Bon Bon quickly stated, “You’ll be the judge, so hold these for us while we compete.”

Sandalwood glanced down at the two ice cream cones in his hands, then returned his gaze toward the two girls. “I’m sensing some bad vibes right about now,” he muttered with uncertainty.

Lyra and Bon Bon ignored the environmentalist as they turned away from him and crouched down as if to start a race. “Ready, set, GO!!” they both shouted simultaneously before they immediately rushed into the middle of the plaza.

The two girls quickly raced around the plaza, gathering up all the parts and pieces they could get their hands on and tossing them into their respective piles. Bon Bon managed to take an early lead by picking up a bench and slamming it into a hotdog kart, smashing both objects to pieces. She then swiftly started putting all those pieces together and in only a matter of seconds, she had completed a small, one-seat convertible car. She turned to Sandalwood and smiled proudly.

That accomplishment was short-lived when Lyra suddenly drove a mail truck right into the smaller car, smashing it to pieces and shoving those pieces into her pile. Lyra immediately jumped out of the truck, quickly tore it apart, and then started building a new vehicle on its chassis. In just under half a minute, she had finished building an even bigger truck, complete with extra-large bumpers and a row of bright lights along the front of the roof.

Bon Bon wasn’t going to stand for that, so she swiftly grabbed a large flower cart and pushed it all the way towards that truck. The cart slammed into the side of the top-heavy vehicle hard enough to tip it over and make it completely fall apart. She didn’t hesitate to start building something new out of all those pieces.

“Hey, check it out! There’s a Build-Off going on!” exclaimed one random passerby. Before long, a crowd had begun to gather around the plaza.

Bon Bon was completely disregarding the fact that she was building something using pieces from Lyra’s pile. It wasn’t long until her new creation, a basic helicopter, was completed. She quickly hopped inside, started up the rotors, and began to take to the air. As soon as she was airborne and the crowd began to cheer, she peeked her head outside and stuck out her tongue. However, had she even bothered to open her eyes, she would have realized that Lyra was nowhere within her field of view.

Bon Bon was quickly forced to drop her taunting gesture when she felt the helicopter jerk to a sudden halt. She quickly glanced around worriedly until she eventually saw Lyra, who had somehow used a grapple gun to latch onto the helicopter’s tail.

Lyra tugged on her grapple a few times until she finally managed to yank the whole tail off the helicopter. With that vital section gone, the helicopter quickly spun out of control and crashed into Bon Bon’s pile of pieces.

Bon Bon crawled out from the wreckage of her helicopter, then was suddenly alarmed to see Lyra was now stealing pieces out of her pile. She tried to stand in the way of her friend turned competitor, but was promptly shoved out of the way.

It took little more than a full minute for Lyra to complete her next creation: a large mech in the shape of a pony, including a color scheme that matched its creator. As the crowd cheered again, Lyra hopped into the control seat in the mech’s head and suck out her tongue at Bon Bon.

Bon Bon growled in frustration before she turned back to her pile and quickly rolled out a cannon on wheels. She swiftly loaded the ammunition — a 1x1 round brick — aimed the cannon at the mech, and yanked the trigger. The cannon shot the projectile at the mech, easily blasting it to pieces. She didn’t even bother waiting for the rain of Lego parts to finish before she went to work on her next creation.

Once again, the crowd was cheering in excitement. “Yeah! Throw in the cannon!” someone shouted.

Bon Bon did exactly that. She picked up the cannon and tossed it on top of her big-wheeled vehicle. After a few more final additions, she jumped up onto her vehicle and began slowly turning the cannon around, itching to blow up her competitor’s next creation.

But it was Lyra who struck first. She drove a similarly large big-wheeled vehicle up to Bon Bon’s creation from behind and released a giant hammer that had been held upright.

Before Bon Bon even knew what hit her, the mighty hammer came down and completely smashed her vehicle apart. Fortunately, she had landed beside the cannon, so she quickly reloaded and fired it, blasting Lyra’s big vehicle to pieces.

Without any hesitation, both girls quickly went to work with any bunch of pieces they could get their hands on. After a short period of time, Lyra and Bon Bon stood face to face against each other from within their latest creations: a pair of mighty monster trucks. Both competitors glared at each other while occasionally revving their engines. The surrounding crowd silenced, waiting with anticipation to see who would make the next move.

As a single newspaper blew harmlessly through the middle of the plaza, Lyra and Bon Bon both floored it at the exact same time. The massive tires screeched and formed lots of smoke as the two monster trucks accelerated directly towards each other. Finally, within the blink of an eye, the two mighty vehicles slammed together in a head-on collision so violently that they were both blasted completely to pieces.

The gathered crowd had stayed silent at first. Once all of the pieces finally settled all across the plaza, some people began to mutter amongst each other.

“Who won?”

“I dunno who was better.”

“Is it possible for a Build-Off to end in a draw?”

Tweeeet! Tweeeeeet!

That police whistle caught the attention of the entire crowd. Many of the people turned to see none other than the city’s Chief of Police walk over to the front of the crowd.

“All right!” called out Flash Sentry as he slowly waved his arms towards the crowd. “Break it up, everyone! Move along, people! Nothing to see here!”

As the crowd finally began to disperse, Flash glanced back at the big mess in the plaza and sighed. “This whole Build-Off craze is starting to get out of control,” he muttered to himself. “At this rate, we may have to turn it into an official competition just to keep it off the streets.”

When Flash turned his gaze toward Sandalwood, the environmental specialist raised his hands — still holding those two ice cream cones — and explained, “Hey, don’t look at me, dude. This Build-Off was totally their idea. I only agreed to be the judge.”

Flash turn his attention back to the pile just in time to see Lyra and Bon Bon pull themselves out from under all those pieces. As soon as the two girls saw each other, they both smiled, but when they turned to the police officer standing not far away, those smiles quickly fell and were soon replaced with sheepish grins.

Flash sighed as he facepalmed and shook his head. He then returned his attention to the two girls and said, “I’ll let you two off with a warning this time, as long as you promise not to do this in a public space again.”

Lyra and Bon Bon glanced at each other, then turned back to Flash and nodded.

“Good,” said Flash with satisfaction. He then gestured sideways and requested, “Now move along. I’ll need to call in some professionals to clean up this big mess.”

“We’re sorry, officer,” said both girls simultaneously as they shamefully walked past Flash Sentry.

After a few steps, the two girls paused and glanced back to see the police officer had now turned away and had a phone in his hand. They both smiled at each other and then rushed over to Sandalwood.

“So how did we do?” asked Bon Bon excitedly.

“Who won?” asked Lyra with just as much enthusiasm.

Sandalwood glanced back and forth between the two girls. “You both did pretty awesome out there. In fact, you both did so well… I’m honestly having a hard time choosing only one winner,” he admitted with a shrug.

The smiles on both girls quickly fell.

“But don’t think of that as a bad thing, man,” he assured them. “When I get back to headquarters, I’ll be sure to recommend both of you for the reserve team. So, in a way… I guess you both win.”

Lyra and Bon Bon immediately beamed. They both hugged each other and cheerfully exclaimed, “YAY! We got a chance to be on the LEGO Team!” After they broke their hug, they took back their ice cream cones and simultaneously thanked Sandalwood.

“No problem, dudes,” said Sandalwood. “Catch ya later!” He waved back at the two girls as he turned away and walked off.

Lyra and Bon Bon then turned the other way and began to walk together away from the plaza. However, they had both taken only a single lick of their ice creams when they realized something.

“Wait…” said Lyra as she looked closely at the pink ice cream cone in her hand. “I think this one is yours.”

“And I think this one is yours,” added Bon Bon, eyeing the light green ice cream cone in her hand.

Lyra and Bon Bon stared at each other for a brief moment, then smiled and simultaneously said, “That’s okay. You can have it.” They both giggled and resumed walking side by side.

It was truly a wonderful day in the life of two best friends forever.

Author's Note

As you may have noticed by now, many of these short stories will be based on the actual shorts that came out over the weeks prior to when the Friendship Games movie came out. To be honest, out of all the ones I've written for this group of short stories, I found this one to be the most difficult one of all to write. I guess this means I'm not that great at writing about the friendships of the background characters, so I think I'll leave that kind of focus to other writers, once I'm done with this set of stories. Regardless, I still think I did good with having them build all kinds of wacky things to demonstrate once again the seemingly unlimited possibilities of building with Lego.

The Science of Creative Magic

“I wonder why Sunset Shimmer wanted us to meet her here,” said Fluttershy quietly as she and her friends, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash, gathered in front of a small hangar at Canterlot City’s airport.

“Yes, she was rather vague about her intentions,” said Rarity with a nod of agreement.

“I bet she’s planning a big surprise for us!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie enthusiastically. “Who knows what the surprise could be? It could be some big news she got from Equestria, or the instructions for a new creation she built, or even a party!”

“Whatever it is, we won’t find out by just standing out here,” remarked Rainbow Dash as she led her friends to the door into the hangar. She opened the door and walked inside, soon followed by the rest of her friends.

The five friends didn’t go far before they stopped and stared in confusion. Sitting in the middle of the hangar were all kinds of large pieces of high-tech machinery and equipment, humming and beeping with lights of many colors blinking on and off. Standing in the middle of it all was Sunset Shimmer — wearing a white lab coat in place of her usual black leather jacket — and a purple-skinned guy with glasses.

“Thanks for helping me set up all this equipment, Micro Chips,” said Sunset as she glanced up from the clipboard in her hands. “It’s nice to have tech specialists like yourself on the LEGO Team.”

“No problem,” said Micro Chips. “I’m just glad I could help you solve one of the greatest mysteries of our time.” He glanced down at his wristwatch and added, “Anyway, I need to get back to headquarters, so I’ll see you there later.” As he turned away and headed out of the building, he couldn’t help but excitedly add, “I can’t wait to find out what results you’ll get!”

As the tech specialist left the building, the five friends approached Sunset Shimmer. “What’s all this stuff for?” asked Rainbow Dash as she glanced around at all of the surrounding machinery. “Going all mad scientist on us?”

“Not exactly,” replied Sunset as she made a last-minute check on one of the computers. Once that was done, she turned to her friends and explained, “You see, back when I was Princess Celestia’s student, I learned best by going out into the field and actually doing something. Studying ancient books is fine for some people, but I like to solve magical mysteries by rolling up my sleeves and getting my hooves— uh, hands dirty.” She then grabbed a pair of blue gloves nearby and quickly slipped them over her claw-shaped hands.

“Ah can relate to workin’ hard outdoors, but what did ya need us here for?” asked Applejack as she raised an eyebrow.

Sunset connected a large electrical plug on the floor as she replied, “I’m trying to figure out how Equestrian magic works here. Why you grow ears, tails, and wings or horns when you pony-up and what your creative talents as Master Builders have to do with it.”

“Um, are you sure we need to figure it out?” asked Fluttershy quietly with uncertainty.

“It’ll be fun,” assured Sunset as she began strapping some sensors onto Fluttershy’s body. “I left a large pile of Lego bricks over there. All you have to do is build anything you want, and I’ll just stand back and observe. You won’t even know I’m here.”

Fluttershy glanced over at the huge pile of bricks at the other side of the hangar, then glanced back at her friends uneasily. They responded with their own looks of uncertainty.

Once Sunset Shimmer had switched on all the computers and recording sensors, she smiled at Fluttershy and gave a single wave of a hand.

Fluttershy turned back to the pile of Lego bricks. She couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable about being observed so thoroughly, but the fact that it was one of her closest friends who was conducting the experiment help to ease her anxiety. And besides, all she was told to do was to simply get creative and build anything she wanted. It seemed like a simple enough task.

She took a moment to look though the pile and see what kinds of bricks and pieces she had to work with. She eventually smiled as she began to form an idea. She started off by pulling a small chassis out of the pile and setting it down on the floor. She then ran back to the pile, grabbed a small brick, and attached it to the chassis. As she kept running back and forth between the pile and her build site, she began to move faster and faster. As she added more pieces to her build, a yellow magical glow began to appear around her body, and her ears, tail, and wings started to materialize.

Meanwhile, Sunset eagerly observed her monitoring equipment. She felt very excited to start collecting the first of many sets of data… until she started hearing some faint electrical sparking. She immediately started glancing around for any potential problems and was stunned to see tiny bolts of electricity were arcing just about everywhere around her. She observed with an eyebrow raised as she noticed that these frequent sparks were actually colored pink.

Before long, Fluttershy had completely ponied-up as she finished building a simple small car. The instant she attached the final piece to complete her creation, swarms of pink butterflies suddenly burst from the computer screens and fluttered all over the place, startling everyone in the building. Just seconds later, all of the equipment and machinery suddenly shut off. Everyone turned their gazes towards Fluttershy, who simply blushed and smiled uneasily.

Once the magical butterflies had been cleared out of the hangar and all of the computers and machinery were powered up again, Sunset decided to move on to her next test subject: Applejack.

Applejack had decided to build a small tractor in three chunks. By the time she had assembled those three sections separately, an orange magical glow surrounded her and she ponied-up. It wasn’t much longer before she slammed the three sections together and finished her creation. After that, her magic faded and she reverted back to normal.

Meanwhile, Sunset looked between each of the computers in confusion. She had been expecting to record some data, but somehow was getting nothing at all. She quickly grew irritated and smacked one of the monitors, somehow causing a ton of apples to suddenly burst from it and pile up on top of her.

One of the apples rolled over to Applejack, who picked it and glanced back and forth between it and the rest in that pile. She then simply shrugged and took a bite out of the apple she held.

After Sunset removed the magical apples and reset everything, she next moved on to Rarity.

Despite how much the sensors chafed her, Rarity chose not to complain about them and instead focus on doing her part for the experiment. She took a moment to look through the pile of bricks and soon smiled as she got an idea. She immediately began tossing various bricks around, somehow making them all land perfectly into place. As her creation slowly took shape, a purple magical glow enveloped her and she began to pony-up.

As Rarity put the last few pieces on her build — a brick-built statue of a person sitting in a thoughtful pose — Sunset stared at one of the computer monitors and waited patiently for the data to arrive. But then a blue diamond suddenly flung out from the monitor, whizzed right past Sunset’s head, and smashed into one of the other machines. Almost immediately after, the same thing happen from another computer monitor, and then another, and another. Sunset and the rest of her friends were quickly forced to duck and cover as a barrage of diamonds was unleashed over much of the equipment and machines.

Once all the smashing noises finally stopped, Sunset slowly raised her head and glanced over at Rarity, who had by now reverted back to normal. The white fashionista responded with merely an uneasy smile and a shrug.

After Sunset repaired all the damage from the magical diamonds, it was now Pinkie Pie’s turn.

The moment she was cleared to proceed, Pinkie didn’t hesitate to start rapidly putting Lego pieces together. In just a matter of seconds, a pink magical glow surrounded her and she ponied-up, allowing her to literally appear in many places at once as she quickly rebuilt her favorite party bus.

This time, Sunset decided to observe the data in front of a different computer, not only to possibly catch any data she might have previously missed, but also to avoid another incident. However, once Pinkie threw the last brick into place, a large mass of balloons shot out from another monitor, slammed into Sunset, and slammed her against the nearest wall.

Pinkie Pie smiled at her completed creation, but that grin fell when she glanced back at Sunset Shimmer, who was now stuck to the wall and with her hair very messed up.

Once the static electricity from the magical balloons wore off, Sunset was ready to observe Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow did a little bit of digging around in the pile of bricks before she found one that gave her an awesome idea. With a wicked grin, she immediately started running around to gather up all of the pieces she needed. It wasn’t long until a blue magical glow appeared around her and she ponied-up, and she started moving so quickly that she appeared as a rainbow-colored motion blur.

As Rainbow Dash rapidly built a large jetpack, Sunset suddenly noticed something flashing from one of the computers. She quickly rushed over to the monitor, only to suddenly get completely splattered by all the colors of the rainbow. She wiped some of the mess from her eyes and blinked a few times.

After cleaning herself of that magical rainbow splatter, Sunset Shimmer decided it was time to be her own guinea pig for the experiment. She told her friends to wait outside to prevent any interference, so she was now all alone in the hangar as she strapped on the recording sensors and turned toward the pile of Lego bricks.

Sunset knew that she wanted to create something special enough to bring out her Equestrian magic, but it also had to be simple enough to be able to build out of what she had to work with. It wasn’t long until she smiled as she got the perfect idea, causing an amber magical glow to envelop her as her ears, tail, and horn materialized. Once she was fully ponied-up, she used her unicorn magic to levitate a bunch of pieces out of the pile and quickly put them all together, creating a miniaturized version of her very first creation as a Master Builder: her Titan.

Sunset smiled proudly at her creation, but was startled within seconds when alarms suddenly started going off on all of the computers and machinery. She immediately turned back to the equipment and her jaw dropped as she saw everything begin to glow red hot.

Meanwhile, Sunset’s friends waited patiently outside the hangar, wondering what the final result of her experiment would be.

BOOM!!

A loud explosion suddenly rocked the building, blowing out all the windows of the hangar. As bits of shattered glass clattered on the surrounding tarmac, the five friends immediately rushed over to the building. Rainbow Dash pounded a nearby button, triggering the main hangar doors to slowly open automatically.

The main doors were only halfway parted when the girls heard Sunset Shimmer’s voice simply state, “Well, girls, after all this testing, I’ve come to a definitive conclusion.”

The five girls stared silently at their friend inside, who was now covered in soot and had hair wildly sticking out in all directions.

As soon as the hangar doors were completely opened, Sunset coughed up a tiny rainbow before she weakly finished, “I have no idea how Equestrian magic works in the Lego World.” She then fainted and fell forward, landing face-down on the concrete floor.

Author's Note

And that's all for this group of short stories. Even though I'm still on the fence on whether or not the upcoming third full story will be my last, I will say that I've already got most of it completely planned out, so it will now be simply a matter of taking the time for me to write it all out. You can expect to see the start of LEGO Equestria Girls 3 in just over two months from now.

Creative Differences

“I can assure you boys, this is not the result of a scheduling conflict,” stated Luna Playwell to the three minifigs standing before her. “I have intentionally given all three of you access to the Creativity Floor for the exact same timeslot.”

The three minifigs who were gathered on the Creativity Floor with her were Sandalwood, Micro Chips, and Flash Sentry. The minifig on the left was Sandalwood, an environmental specialist. The minifig in the middle was Micro Chips, a tech specialist. He had lavender skin; black thick-rimmed square glasses around his black eyes; a smoothly-combed blueish grey hair piece; dark grey on his legs; yellow on his torso and arms; a green stripe around his neck and wrists; white suspenders on the front and back of his torso; and printed on the front of his torso close to his left shoulder was a symbol of an atom within a blue circle. And the minifig on the right was Flash Sentry, a law enforcement specialist, better known as Canterlot City’s Chief of Police. However, instead of wearing his standard blue police uniform, he had blue on his legs; black on his torso and arms; white over much of the front of his torso and in a stripe around his upper arms; a symbol of a yellow lightning bolt over a blue shield on the white area on his torso; and no hat over his spikey blue hair.

“Why would you do that?” asked Flash Sentry with a confused shrug.

“You all may be merely reserve members,” replied Luna, “but that still makes you members of the LEGO Team, and one of the most basic expectations we have of our members is a willingness to work together with others. If there is one way I can know for certain that you boys are capable of this, then it is without a doubt by practicing here on the Creativity Floor.”

“And how exactly will you be able to quantify that?” asked Micro Chips.

“You three have already proven separately that you have what it takes to become Master Builders,” replied Luna, “but now you must demonstrate that you can do the same while working together.”

“No problem, ma’am,” assured Sandalwood. “We totally got this.”

“My only request today is that I should see only one creation in this room when I return,” added Luna. “Everything else is entirely up to you.” She turned and began walking towards the door out of the room as she finished, “I shall return in approximately one hour. Good luck.” She opened the door and stepped into the hallway, closing the door on her way out.

The three guys had spent the first few minutes inspecting the piles of various Lego parts and pieces scattered across the room as they thought about possible ideas for their combined creation. They were so deep in thought that they had barely spoken to each other since Luna had left.

Eventually, Flash grabbed a small wheel and a 2x2 plate with axle pins on opposite ends. He briefly looked over these two parts before he smiled. “I got an idea,” he spoke up, catching the attention of the other two. “We could build ourselves an awesome car!”

“Are you suggesting a police car?” asked Micro Chips skeptically.

“My career choice may have been a police officer, but in case if you haven’t noticed, I’m currently wearing my off-duty uniform,” responded Flash as he gestured at his torso. He dropped the wheel and axle plate and picked up a pair of 1x1 bricks, each with an indented stud on one side, and continued, “The truth is that I still haven’t outgrown my passion for music, so I was thinking of building a customized car with an awesome sound system, with speakers that completely surround the driver on every side and can play your favorite tunes loud enough for everyone around you to feel the music.”

Micro Chips reached for another pile and picked up a pair of 2x2 sloped bricks with various technical buttons and monitors printed on their slopes as he explained, “I like the car idea, but I think instead of a sound system, we should install all the latest high-tech gadgets that can fit inside, such as biometric recognition, GPS navigation, voice-activated commands, and autonomous parallel parking.”

Sandalwood held up a small propeller and stated, “But what we should actually build is a car that is fueled by renewable sources of energy. By not being held hostage to Octan Fuels, this car will be able to go anywhere in the world with no worries about mileage.”

With their ideas all laid out, the three guys glanced at one another and grinned. Almost immediately, they rushed for the parts bins and swiftly began grabbing all the pieces they wanted. A basic chassis and frame on wheels came together rather quickly, but once that was done, the three minifigs quickly went their own ways.

Flash Sentry attached parabolic dishes to some 1x1 bricks with a single stud on one side, then put those special bricks together with a few basic ones, completing a large set of subwoofers. He grinned at this setup and quickly started building a few more just like that one.

Micro Chips attached to the car a pair of pieces that were connected to each other by a hinge. He then carefully adjusted the direction of the hinged section, using a protractor to precisely measure its angle. Once he achieved his desired measurement, he smiled and moved on to his next set of pieces.

Sandalwood finished covering a black 4x8 plate in blue and white 1x1 tiles in a random arrangement, creating a solar panel. Smiling at his accomplishment, he then picked up the solar panel and lifted it into the roof of the car. However, before he could climb up there to make the attachment, he glanced over and saw Micro Chips grabbing some of those 1x1 tiles that were meant for a second solar panel. Sandalwood promptly spun around and shoved Micro Chips away while exclaiming, “Dude! Get your own bricks!”

Micro Chips dropped the tiles as he stumbled forward, tripping over a brick on the floor, and fell onto one of Flash Sentry’s mega subwoofers, causing it to tip over and fall apart.

“Hey, watch it, man!” shouted Flash as he shoved Micro back. “I just barely put this thing together!”

Micro Chips stumbled backwards until his feet ended up on a pair of attached 1x1 round bricks that were lying on their side. He struggled to regain his balance atop the rolling round surface before falling flat on his face, flinging the parts past Sandalwood and knocking over a small wind turbine, which then smashed to pieces as it hit the floor.

Sandalwood briefly gawked at his destroyed wind turbine, then glared at Micro and grumbled, “Dude, you’re harshing the flow.”

Micro Chips sat up and readjusted his glasses as he shot back, “Hey, you did that on purpose!”

Before the argument could continue, Flash removed an antenna from atop the roof of the car and tossed it aside.

This made Micro Chips immediately gasp and exclaim, “My GPS navigational receiver!” He promptly responded by grabbing a bunch of his 2x2 sloped bricks with technical printing and placed them all around the front interior of the car.

Flash Sentry swiftly rushed over to Micro and shouted, “Hey! You just put your techno-junk where I was gonna place my subwoofers!”

“Well you put your sound system where I was gonna add half of my gadgets!” Micro Chips shot back.

Sandalwood then stepped up to the other two and argued, “And where am I supposed to install my hydrogen fuel cell when there are speakers and computers in the way?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Flash rebuked with frustration. “Maybe this car doesn’t need to be fueled by every source of energy at once!”

All three minifigs on the Creativity Floor were quickly reaching a critical breaking point. As one, they all shouted at each other, “You’re ruining my creation!”

Knock knock knock!

The three guys suddenly froze in place and turned to the source of the knocking, just in time to watch the door open and Luna Playwell enter the room. As she approached, they all quickly stepped away from their creation and stood beside each other while putting up their best smiles.

Luna walked up to the single creation in the middle of the room. She stopped right in front of it and her eyes widened as she muttered, “Oh my.”

Convinced that Luna was disappointed in them, the three guys frowned and lowered their heads in shame. Micro Chips sadly said, “We’re really—”

“Proud of yourselves, I hope,” Luna interrupted, before turning to the guys and revealing that she was actually smiling.

The guys looked up at her in shock, then glanced over and finally took a good look at what they had built. The completed car had a set of large speakers and subwoofers in the back, various kinds of technical switches and buttons in the middle, and an electric engine in the front with a pair of solar panels on the roof.

Luna continued, “This is quite an ingenious vehicle you boys have been able to build. And I especially like how you were able to incorporate your own unique styles in all the right places.”

“Uh, thanks,” said Flash Sentry contently. “I mean, you can’t exactly enjoy a sweet ride if you can’t go far with it.”

“Not to mention,” added Micro Chips, “an epic stereo system can be the ultimate of interior features.”

“And let’s not forget,” finished Sandalwood, “there’s no better way to guarantee efficiency than with the latest in modern technology.”

“I am very pleased to see this exercise was a complete success,” stated Luna. As she turned away and headed back to the door, she happily continued, “I shall be sure schedule more of these team-building sessions for the next few weeks. I am certain that you boys won’t have much trouble working with other reserve team members. Have a nice day!”

As soon as Luna was out of the room and had shut the door, the three guys slumped and let out sighs of exhaustion. Flash Sentry bitterly remarked, “This whole teamwork thing is a lot harder than it looks.”

Author's Note

Even though I still don't think I'm very good with writing background characters, I actually found this short story much easier to write than the previous one. I guess it just seemed easy to imagine these three guys having such very different building styles and how problematic it would be to try combining them into a single creation (kind of like how that submarine from the Lego Movie very obviously showed who built which sections).