Two Background Ponies Revisit Season Five

Chapters

The Cutie Map
Castle Sweet Castle
Bloom and Gloom
Tanks for the Memories
Appleloosa's Most Wanted
Make New Friends but Keep Discord
The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone
Slice of Life
Princess Spike
Party Pooped
Amending Fences
Do Princesses Dream of Magical Sheep?
Canterlot Boutique
Rarity Investigates!
Maid in Manehattan
Brotherhooves Social
Crusaders of the Lost Mark
The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows
Hearthbreakers
Scare Master
What About Discord?
The Hooffields and McColts
The Mane Attraction
The Cutie Re-Mark

The Cutie Map

Hey there everypon...er...there's...even less of you now than there was last year, isn't there?

Well, according to the ratings, the same is going for the show, Carl...

Anyhoo...I'm Incarlsistency and this here is Sam Listens-To-Carl's Problems. And we are the "Two Background Ponies"! Yes...I'm sure there's five people in the world who that means anything to...

Another season is behind us, and so that means it's time to once more gather together all of our little "quickies" from each week this year and present them in one nice package! All for your viewing pleasure to peruse down memory lane! You've seen your heroes go through it, now watch as us common folk in the background tackle the aftermath!

Because if there's one thing this season has shown us...it's to pay attention to whatever pony is lurking in the background...

Cutie Markless The Cutie Map

"Hey Sam!"

Sam, grinning ear to ear, looked up from his desk. "Yeah?"

It was one of his co-workers. "Good news! They finished the analysis and Pencil Pusher isn't any more naturally qualified than you are, and you made us more money, so you're getting the promotion to Vice President!"

"Wow! Thanks for the good news!"

Sam was grilling some hayburgers for a family picnic, while behind him Dawn made the rounds to both sets of their relatives, passing out drinks and chatting it up. He finished digging his spatula under one and flipping it before Dawn came by and gave him a peck on the cheek. He smiled in response, but soon snapped around, put his arms about her, and escalated it into a full blown deeper kiss.

"Hey! Sam!"

He looked up a bit, noticing Stonewall looking at him as he sipped cider.

"Normally I'd knock your teeth in for so passionately kissing my daughter right in front of me, but I don't feel my natural inclination or strength to break the neck of any male who comes within five feet of her thanks to my lack of talent. So I'll simply have to sit here with a frown and worry about my upcoming grandkids."

"Sure thing, Mr. Charger!" Sam grinned back. "By the way..." He immediately went into a French kiss next. Stonewall merely sighed, rolled his eyes, and sipped some more cider.

Sam picked up a bunch of carrots from one of the market vendors and tossed him a pair of bits. He put it away in his saddlebag and turned to go.

"Just a minute, sir."

Sam stopped and looked back to the vendor.

"I couldn't help but notice your highly strange and unusual, malformed Cutie Mark. Do you want to know what disgusting and ugly thing it reminds me of?"

The blue stallion blinked, looked to his own flank, which was utterly blank, and then back up to the vendor. The salespony grinned.

"Nothing!"

Sam immediately smiled as well, and both of them enjoyed a merry laugh.

Sam and Carl both smiled as they saw a plate of cookies and two milkshakes set down in front of them at their favorite cafe. Both of them nodded, and then took one together at the same time.

"Say Carl?"

"Yes Sam?"

"Is there anything you would like to say before we start eating these cookies? Any concerns you have?"

"None at all, Sam! I'm perfectly content to eat these cookies made using animal byproducts of critters I talk to every day, sitting beneath this warm and golden sunshine that existed long before any ponies or alicorns moved to Equestria, admire the sounds of birds singing that somehow can't fly independently, migrate, build their own nests, or even feed themselves yet evolved independently from us, and just enjoy spending time with my best friend! What do you say for lunch we have ham sandwiches and then make arts and crafts out of naturally-made glue, Sam?"

"Sounds great, Carl!" Sam answered as he took a bite.

"Sam?" Carl spoke again.

"I said it sounds great, Carl."

"Sam?"

"Why do you keep-"

"Sam? Sam? Sam? Sam...?"

In Sam and Carl's favorite cafe in Equestria, Sam sat at his usual table staring out into space, daydreaming such lovely visions. However, he was shaken out of them by a green hoof waving in front of his face, all while the owner continued to call out to him in puzzlement.

"Sam? Sam? Sam, you in there?"

The blue stallion blinked, and then suddenly lost his smile and looked around. Everyone still had their Cutie Marks. Carl sitting across from him still had his Find-The-Difference picture, and he still had his human ear. He blinked again, then looked back to Carl.

The green stallion put his hoof down. "Sam, did you hear me? I asked you what you thought a world without Cutie Marks would be like."

Sam stared silently back at Carl.

He blinked once.

Twice.

Then, throwing his hooves and head on the table, he began to sob loudly.

Carl merely frowned at this before he took up another cookie. "Huh...I thought it would make for an interesting anti-Socialism piece myself..."

Ha! Great way to start the season! Don't you think, Carl?

Actually, thinking about it makes me glad we aren't still in the Cold War, Sam. That probably would have ticked off some Soviets.

But who would have thought that all that nastiness, anger, and obsession with "Cutie Unmarking" arose just because she was too scared to lose another friend?

...Hmm? Oh, oh yeah, Sam. I'm sure being afraid to lose another friend is why she made everyone style their manes the same way too.

...

Oh, and being afraid to lose another friend is why she angrily shouted at everyone at her commune at how they were essentially nothing before they met her.

...

I mean, if I was scared I'd lose a friend, I'd certainly lock them in an unsanitary room, deprive them of sleep, and subject them to 24-hour mantras every day until they groveled on their hooves and knees to me for forgiveness and acceptance into my community...

Let's...move on...

Castle Sweet Castle

Castle Sweet Castle

"So I say to myself...she's going to need a staff at some point. Someone to polish the floors. Someone to wash the windows. Someone to beat the dust out of the tapestries..." Carl shrugged to himself as he snatched up another cookie on his and Sam's weekly outing at Sugarcube Corner. "I mean, heck, cooking in that place alone must be a pain. Probably can't even find the stove in the kitchen... And as the whole thing's made out of crystal, it's got to get dusty like nobody's business... Get what I'm saying, Sam?"

Sam sighed as he nodded, but then used his teeth to turn another page of a magazine he was rifling through. "Yeah, Carl...but I'm kind of too busy to tell you to relax right now. I'm trying to pick out a gift for Hearts and Hooves Day." He turned the magazine around and pushed it to the green colored stallion. "I was thinking one of these. Deers Roebuck just recently started to carry them, and I've seen the ad before. Seems pretty romantic."

Carl looked to the ad while munching a cookie, then suddenly snapped to one side and spat it out...right in the face of a waitress, who merely groaned as if used to this and turned to go clean herself, while Carl glared at his blue-colored friend. "Dude! Sick!"

Sam recoiled. "Huh? What?"

Immediately, Carl frowned and turned the page around, revealing an advertisement for "Cuddly Clones" and what looked like a stallion and mare couple with the mare cheerfully hugging a plush doll...of the stallion, all looking very happy and, more importantly to the men, turned on.

"Out of all the crummy, stupid, and dumbass things they try to peddle to men to give women under the guise of them being something they'll like, this is what you want to get? This horrific thing? You actually want to get Dawn a plush version of you to sleep with at night?!"

Sam shrugged. "Well, what's the big deal? What's so bad about it? She loves me, doesn't she? It can 'keep her company' at night if I'm ever out on business or late. And the ad claims women love it."

Carl frowned. "...Dude, some days you are too dense for my tastes. A...you shouldn't be trusting anything any advertisement tells you. B...I'm sure your mom loves you too, dude. Doesn't mean you wouldn't think it's sick, twisted, and disturbing if she kept a stuffed version of you to sleep with at night! This ain't a teddy bear, man! It's a frickin' stuffed you!"

The blue stallion looked a bit unnerved. "Well...yeah, but still-"

"Still nothing! Do you know what this is? This is practically a soft corn porn device!"

"Oh, come on! It's not-"

"Question, Sam." Carl cut off. "How do you think Dawn would react if you went to one of those anime conventions and picked up one of those full body pillows that has a picture of a mare or stallion in a bikini on a mattress all over it and you gave it to her to cuddle with? I suppose you don't think those are glorified sex toys either."

Sam was silent. He was starting to see his point.

"Hey! Are those 'Cuddly Clones'? I got one of those last week!"

Both stallions turned to who was speaking, and exclaimed in alarm. It was Spike, who had been walking by and decided to look in on them. However, he also looked like he had been run over by a steam engine, with two black eyes, half of his scales broken, and numerous gashes. Still, he smiled with what teeth he had left as he pointed at the ad.

"Those things are great! I got one of my...ahem...certain special somepony..."

"My Celestia, man! What happened to you?!" Sam exclaimed.

"Oh." The dragon shrugged. "Uh...my certain special somepony paid attention to me long enough to notice I had it. But it was totally worth it." He sighed dreamily as he walked off. "I'll never dress these wounds again..."

Carl looked back to Sam sourly as the dragon walked off, and he sighed.

"Ok, maybe it was a bad idea after all... Let's just get back to what else was bothering you..."

"Oh, I'm done." Carl said with a shrug. "Nothing else much to say about today... Except why we let a big smoldering crater with a piece of a stump that could have fallen and hurt someone just stand right in the middle of Ponyville for six months. Seriously, that was practically a monument to Tirek. But the girls came and got it and turned it into some big arts and crafts deal with gems hanging from it that contained pictures of all of their favorite moments. I do kind of wonder how they got those photos in there, though. Did they use magic to put them in gems or just make gem molds that-"

"Guys! Guys! GUYS!"

Both stallions turned in alarm, just in time to see a panicked looking Spike running back to them, holding onto one of the gems from the mobile. He quickly ran up and held it out to them. Both blinked, and then took a look at it. It was the girls back on the night of the Grand Galloping Gala a couple years ago, all of them sitting around the donut shop, along with Spike and Princess Celestia, just having fun hanging out with each other.

As a result, both were rather confused at the alarm. "I...don't really see..."

"Guys..." Spike said, his face turning to terror. "Who took that picture?!"

Both stallions went wide-eyed.

Now that I'm remembering this...er...um... Did they ever happen to find who did it?

My guess is whoever sent them the pictures of them sleeping, Sam.

Good Celestia...

Anyway...what'd you end up getting Dawn?

Oh! I ended up getting her one of those pajama-grams.

...You mean the ones that run the ad that looks like the mare is going into heat and is two seconds from seizing you and throwing you into the bedroom all because you bought her pajamas?

Yeah... That's what Dawn said to me when she saw them. Apparently she had seen the ad too.

...

So long did you stay on the couch?

Let's just say there's a reason we're still working on our first foal after this long...

Bloom and Gloom

Bloom and Gloom

Sam read over the last page of the manga, and then gave it a close. Setting it to one side, he exhaled in a long sigh and looked up to Carl. The green stallion, on his part, was rather impatient that it had taken him so long to finish. The cookies were no longer warm and his shake was beginning to flatten.

"Sorry about that, Carl. I was really into the latest 'One Pace' issue that came out."

"I find that hard to believe, Sam."

The stallion blinked. "Huh? Why?"

"I find it hard to believe anypony is still into that after so long. Which number was that again?"

"Uh..." He held the side up and looked at it. "...197."

"Good Celestia, Sam!" Carl whined, hitting his head on the table. "You started reading that when we were in fifth grade! After this many years the pirates still haven't gotten to the end of the Grand Race Track?"

"Oh, they're not trying to do that anymore, Carl."

The stallion looked up in confusion. "Huh? But...I thought that was the whole point of the series? They need to get to the end and then the story's over?"

"Well, here's the thing." The blue stallion answered. "For years and years they were sailing on and on and going everywhere, and all of the fans were getting sick of the fact that they never got to the end of the Grand Race Track. But the author wanted to keep going on that storyline in spite of the fact it never went anywhere, so they got an idea."

"What?"

Sam leaned in and held up his hooves. "It's like this...they suddenly made Straw-Hat Lopey not want to get to the end of the Grand Race Track."

Carl stared blankly back. "...Seriously. That's what they did."

"Yup."

"...The whole reason for his plotline...the obsession he's had for years and years...the whole overall goal in life and his character's primary motivation...and suddenly now he wants the opposite?"

"Yup. He's afraid to get to the end now. So he's sailing away from the end of the Grand Race Track."

The green stallion stared a moment more, then smashed his head against the table.

"...Carl, if you have to do that every week, you'll eventually break it and then we'll have to-"

"Of all the crap they could have done, that's how they decide to keep the story going?! They couldn't just resolve that plot line and start a new one?! They couldn't just give his character more motivation than accomplishing one goal in life?! They couldn't try to expand on his friendship or relationship with the rest of the crew?! No...they're just going to have him start wanting the opposite thing?! That's the laziest writing I ever heard of!"

Sam grimaced. "Well...er...they had Commander Quirt reach the end of the Grand Race Track, if that's any consolation... He wanted to get there too..."

"He's appeared in the series, like, twice! And the last time he showed up was over a year ago!" He froze. "Wait...I get it! You said there was this new bad guy whose ability was to take away people's desire, right? Who disappeared after the start of the new arc? Oh! I get it now! That villain showed up and now he's trying to manipulate Lopey, right? That's actually pretty nice! Having a villain recur multiple times instead of just showing up at the end of the arc..."

"Uh...no, Carl." Sam muttered. "He just decided he didn't want to."

Carl slammed his hooves on the table. "Dangit, there's making a plotline go on longer and then there's shameless attempts to stretch! That thread is never going to get resolved, Sam! Eventually people will stop reading it and they'll have to throw out a pat final issue that's never going to resolve anything! It's best if you just stop reading it no-"

Sam immediately reached over and slapped his hoof on Carl's mouth, going wide-eyed.

"Don't say that, Carl." He spoke nervously. "Don't ever say that..."

The two stallions slowly turn their heads...and look at you.

...

Say...

...

Say Carl...

...

How's your crow taste? Need more salt?

Shut up, Sam...

Tanks for the Memories

Tanks for the Memories

Cloudsdale had seen better days. Currently, most of the residents of the flying city were working with Ponyville to erect a colossal 50,000 foot high scaffold system to support it while the large weather factory underwent repairs. It was quite loud, noisy, belching smog and smoke from work, and had pegasi swarming everywhere. A number of them were hauling what looked like large panels of special tiles up into the clouds.

Far below, on the main drag of Ponyville, two friends, a green stallion and a blue stallion, were seated at their traditional cookie venue near a space heater. They had their normal plate of cookies, but had switched to hot cider. Both had scarves and gloves, but the blue was in a stocking cap while the green was in a trader's hat. Both of them paused briefly to wave to a rainbow-maned pegasus with a book in tow as she flew by, then looked back to their food.

"Welp, it was rather 'hairy' for this year's Winter Set-Up..." Sam stated...grimacing a bit. "Especially since Rainbow Dash was following me around putting every leaf I knocked off back on the trees...but at last Winter is here, and so is hot cider season! Hope it seems to last longer than a day and a half like last year..."

"That reminds me, Sam." Carl said with a smile, holding out a hoof. "Give me my money."

Sam looked up a bit, but then frowned before he reached into his saddlebag, pulled out a 20-bit piece, and put it in his friend's hoof.

"And that makes five years running I've beaten you to the end of the Running of the Leaves." Carl grinned.

"That's only because you never eat any of the cookies before we get started! You always ramble about how we have to dig holes for the animals to hibernate in...except for the tortoises, of course...and so I always have a full stomach!"

"Hey, a win's a win. To be honest...I kind of wish Rainbow Dash had succeeded in her little plot to 'Steal Winter'. You know, if she tried to steal Mondays I'd totally back her up on that..."

"...Monday is a day of the week, Carl. Not a season."

"Then let's talk Princess Celestia into it." The green stallion shrugged. "Just leave the sun down on Monday and everyone gets to sleep in from the weekend and wake up more refreshed than ever on Tuesday."

Sam opened his mouth to respond...then froze. He blinked and thought a moment, before looking stunned.

"...Carl, as horrifying as it is for me to admit it, that might be the best idea I've ever heard...and it came from you."

Carl didn't seem to notice as he looked himself over, sighing a bit. "Anyway, getting rid of Winter would have kept me out of this ugly hat and scarf... Speaking of which...um...are our coats unusually thin around our necks or something, Sam? Or do we get a lot of blood flow there? Because we go to the trouble of putting on these hats, scarves, gloves and boots...and yet most of our bodies are still exposed to the elements. And it's even worse when you see someone wearing a jacket because their backside is still uncovered... Oh, and don't get me started about that weird trend last year when everyone was wearing saddles. That was almost sickening..."

Sam rolled his eyes and took a bite out of a cookie. "So long as I'm not getting frostbite, I'm fine. Anyhow...after that little disaster up in Cloudsdale, they say it's going to be at least a week before Winter is up and running to normal levels. That means the east side of town is going to stay snowed in the rest of the week, so it looks like we both get a surprise vacation."

Carl looked up. "That long, huh? When they're already hauling all that stuff up there in?"

"That's just flooring, Carl. We've got so many Earth Ponies in Ponyville... If they're going to help with repairs at all they need some way to move around Cloudsdale. So they're using the opportunity to upgrade the flooring in the Rainbow Factory to code and using approved tiling. Provides a nice hard surface so that non-pegasi have something to stand on besides clouds."

The green stallion nodded...but then paused. "Wait a sec... I get that non-pegasi can't stand on clouds, but...if they're standing on tile, what's the tile standing on? Tile can't stand on clouds either."

"Oh, they put down another layer of tile so that can stand on it too."

Carl began to nod...but paused again. "But what does that stand on?"

"The lower layer of tile doesn't stand on anything. They nail it up into the upper layer of tile, and that's what supports it."

"But...but what about the upper layer of tile?"

Sam quirked an eyebrow. "...Like I said, that stands on the lower layer. Weren't you listening?"

"But...but..." Carl stammered, then finally sighed. "Forget it. What are you doing for your week off?"

"Oh, Dawn and I are headed to this special workshop to teach you how to stretch out your facial muscles and achieve a greater range of visual expressions. It makes you a much more appealing persona, from what I hear. What about you?"

"Well, I was going to see Babbit and Costanza perform live their old variation on the 'Who's Playing Goalie?' bit...but it turns out they weren't in town. It was just two pegasi with badly-named Cutie Marks getting into a misunderstanding that ended up lasting two days before they knew what was going on. So instead..." He grinned. "I'm doing this."

Carl reached behind him and fished around, making Sam grimace at what would be coming next, before he came back with a lawn-stake sign that read: "Winter Set-Up Alternative: A Modest Proposal". The blue stallion looked confused.

"Carl, what is..."

"Ta-dah, Sam! Check it out! I'm hosting a town hall proposal! You saw what happened yesterday, right?"

The stallion paused. "Yeah, but..."

"It may have been a major industrial disaster and eight or so off-duty employees may have not made it out of the ice crystal grinders alive...but it also turned Ponyville from Fall into Winter with one major blast, all in seconds with no pegasi intervention! It's the wave of the future, Sam! Imagine it...a world where weather and seasons change all on their own without any conscious effort!"

Sam frowned. "That's pretty silly even for science fiction, Carl. Besides, even if this thing works out, you'll put hundreds of pegasi out of work."

Carl gave him a look. "Sam, exactly how many ponies in Equestria do you see currently unemployed, homeless, and destitute?"

The blue stallion paused. He grimaced and bowed his head after a moment. "...Alright, I'll admit I haven't seen any. But I haven't seen a whole lot of ponies around lately. In fact, looking through all these pegasi that have been in town lately, I can't help but think one was missing..."

Carl leaned back. "If stallions like you had your way, Sam, we'd still all hire unicorns to write our letters for us. You can't stop progress. Anyway, I've already posted these things all over Ponyville, so I'm sure to get a big turnout."

Sam suddenly looked alarmed. "Wait...you were putting these stake signs out everywhere? Dude, you can't do that! All this snow just fell down yesterday! There's no telling what's under this snow in a lot of spots!"

"Oh, relax, Sam. I only had one little mishap where I hit an obstacle. But it must have been a rock or something, because I just kept hammering it until I heard a crack and it went in."

The blue stallion's pupils shrank into pinpricks. He swallowed.

"...What if it was a shell, Carl?"

The green stallion waved a hoof. "If some egg was out there under all that snow, it had to be dead or rotten already."

Abruptly, a loud, resounding, agonized cry of anguish came from the forest and washed over the whole of Ponyville...sounding a lot like Rainbow Dash.

Carl turned his head slightly and frowned. "Sheesh. You'd think she never saw a cracked egg before..."

Gulp...heh-heh...

Ok, Carl. I'll bite. How'd you get out of that one alive?

Well...turns out I got lucky. The only thing she could trace the sign to was the shop where I had it customized and they gave her the wrong address. It sent her to some mare's house on the edge of town.

And...what happened to the mare whose house she went to?

...Let's just say her "Hibernation Service" was very touching.

Oh my Luna...

Appleloosa's Most Wanted

Appleloosa's Most Wanted

In a large auditorium, a group of rather sore, embarrassed, stressed, and otherwise miserable ponies were all looking to the front stage. A rather monotone pony with thick glasses and looking to be older than most was standing at the podium, reading over a printed sheet. Hanging above him on a large banner were the huge letters: "S.P.C.M.A".

"...Before our biweekly session of 'Sub-Par Cutie Marks Anonymous' gets started, we have an announcement. Troubleshoes Clyde, a member of SPCMA for over 30 years, has finally found gainful employment and the chance to live his dream of working in a rodeo by becoming a rodeo clown in the township of Appleloosa."

A chorus of applause came from the audience. The pony at the podium immediately grimaced.

"...And we should probably also thank the mayor of Appleloosa for allowing him to keep that position after that incident with the bleachers killed 8 ponies and fillies in all..."

Much quieter and more uneasy applause this time.

"...Right. First order of business, and that is welcoming new members."

Immediately, the pony stood to one side, allowing a green stallion with a Find-the-Difference picture for a Cutie Mark walk up on stage and to the podium. He gave a weak wave to the crowd.

"Hello everyone, I'm Incarlsistency, and my special talent is finding inconsistencies in everything."

The crowd stared blankly back for a moment, before many of them frowned. Some groaned. Others rolled their eyes and angrily muttered. Suddenly, one stallion covered with third-degree burns and bandages shot to his feet.

"That's it?! Inconsistencies?! You're here for inconsistencies?!"

Carl looked a little taken aback. "Well, uh...yeah. My talent causes me a lot of problems at home. I'm constantly annoying my family and friends and-"

"You want to know what my talent is, 'Incarlsistency'?!" The pony cut off angrily.

Carl blinked. "Not...not really, but-"

"Setting things on fire!" He screamed. "I can't stop myself! I lit my little sister's hair on fire when she was six, man! I can't wear a coat in winter because I set it on fire while I'm wearing it! A quarter of my skin won't ever grow back!"

Another angry mare shot up with mascara running down her cheeks from crying. "My talent is blowing up moving trains!" She cried. "Not stationary trains...moving ones! With ponies in them! Luna, I still hear the screams every time I try to go to sleep!"

"Your family and friends get 'annoyed' at your inconsistencies?" Another angry mare with gnarled hooves, a cropped mane, and big muscles shouted as she stood up. "My family abandoned me when they found out my special talent was being a furrier! First I turned their pet rabbits into slippers, and then I tried to skin my husband to make work gloves in my sleep! You ever try to skin your family and friends alive and cure their hides while they were asleep, 'Incarlsistency'?!"

The green stallion swallowed. "Um...no. But I have this one nephew that I'd really like to-"

"You know what my name is?!" A stallion looking like a shell of a pony in a full length trench coat said as he shot to his feet. "Puppy Lover! Yeah, sounds like a great name, doesn't it? Sounds so cute and innocent and sweet... Well, 'Incarlsistency'...look at what my Cutie Mark is!"

Some in the audience quickly covered their eyes before the stallion dropped his trench coat, exposing his mark. Carl gasped in horror.

"Oh my Celestia, dude! What the hell are you doing to that dog on that thing?!"

"I can't get a job! I can't go out in daylight! Fathers I never met punch me in the face while mothers drag their kids away from me!" The stallion went on. "And if you own a dog...oh, man, if you own a dog... You know how many towns I had to move out of because someone took their puppy for a walk in front of my house?!"

"Boo him out of here!" The burnt stallion screamed, pointing an accusing hoof at Carl.

As the place erupted into an angry uproar and began to pelt the green stallion with whatever they had on hand, he immediately covered his head and ran while he could.

At a cafe in Ponyville, a single blue stallion with a Cutie Mark of a human ear calmly ate cookies as he read the paper. After finishing his latest one, he looked up into the air with a smile.

"So much more relaxing when Carl is out some weeks. And yet..."

He slowly looked to his own Cutie Mark, then back to the sky.

"I feel strangely...unfulfilled."

Loud wailing and sobbing could be heard from the front doors of a small rented room elsewhere, this one with a different banner hanging on it: "U.C.A. ~ Underused Characters Anonymous". Inside, a ring of ponies and other creatures were seated, and a buffalo with a single feather headdress was bowing her head and sobbing loudly as a griffon patted her on the back.

"And...and then..." She sobbed. "When they finally set another episode completely in Appleloosa...I didn't even appear as a background character!" She wailed even louder for a moment, but then sniffled as she composed himself. "You know...some...sometimes I think...we were all just created as gimmicks for one episode..."

"Now that is just not true." An old donkey wearing a blond toupee spoke up.

"Pft, stop complaining. You know what happened to me? There I was, poised to conquer Canterlot..."

"Chrysalis, we've all heard that testimony a dozen times before and it's Little Proudheart's turn to talk."

"Strongheart!"

"Whatever."

Um, that reminds me, Carl. I want to apologize.

Huh? You do? For what?

For just being happy at the time that you tried out S.P.C.M.A. I know why you did it now...because you know that me, Dawn, and everyone else sometimes gets annoyed at your talent and everything... You're basically trying to change who you are in order to make me happy, and...that's a pretty big step, dude. And I'm sorry if I pressured you into it.

Aw, no problem, Sam. I'm glad you feel that way. Because I actually talked to the group again and they were sorry for booing me out too and let me back in!

Oh, really? That's great!

Yeah! And since you're feeling so bad about it, I guess you won't be mad that I told them all we could hold the next small group meeting at your place since it's clean and has the big dining room table!

WHAT?!

Uh, you should probably put away anything flammable and made of fur before Wednesday. Especially dogs.

Make New Friends but Keep Discord

Make New Friends but Keep Discord

A turn of a metal doorknob, and the roof access entrance opened up, revealing a smiling foo dog with lots of "bling" leading the way for a group of puzzled-looking, elegantly-dressed ponies to come in.

"And here we are! Best seat in the house! You can see Canterlot Palace nice and clear from here!"

Soon after, Carl, Sam, and a rather-confused-looking Dawn, intermingled with several others, walked up onto what was the rooftop of one of the numerous Canterlot bakeries. Not very clean either. Lots of pigeon mess, folding chairs, and only a six pack in a cooler...one of which had already been opened and was in the nicest chair. It was a rather sharp contrast to the three of them and their own attire. Dawn winced after a moment and looked to the blue stallion.

"Um...Sam...I thought you said we had gotten tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala?"

"Uh...heh... Yeah. One moment, Dawn..." Sam nervously answered with a sheepish smile, before looking to Carl with violent rage. "You said you had gotten us Gala tickets!" He hissed in a harsh whisper.

"Dude, relax." He answered in a whisper. "Besides, you got lucky! My own date purposely didn't eat any grit for a month so she'd have to have her teeth filed tonight!" He turned to the foo dog, Rex, a moment later. "You said you would get us to the 3G!"

"Hey man, trust me." Rex coolly answered as he walked up to the edge of the roof. "This is better than actually being at the Gala. I got the word that Celestia invited Discord again and asked him to bring a friend. You should have seen what he did to the New Year's Eve party. I think they're still trying to get half the guests 'unwished out of the cornfield'. You don't want to be within a hundred yards of the place." He raised his head soon after. "Alright, everyone. Time for your show. If you'll all proceed to the roofside and grab some binoculars."

"Er...binoculars?" Dawn asked uneasily.

"Binoculars...?" Sam said through grit teeth to Carl.

The green stallion merely swallowed and quickly ran to the edge, snatching up a pair setting there and putting them on. The other guests, including a reluctant Sam and Dawn, did the same. Rex came up from soon after.

"Now, for those of you that don't know, not only did Princess Celestia invite the same six who destroyed the Gala last year, but she also invited Discord and asked him to bring a friend."

"Wait...I thought that Gala was four years ag-"

"Carl, shut up. Now."

"Now if you'll all look to the front, you'll see him driving up right now, pulling a pumpkin coach behind him. And there's his friend and our 'guest of honor'."

"Er...Sam? Is that a horrible gelatinous blob over there?"

"I think the PC term is 'Schmooze', Dawn..."

"That's a Schmooze? I always thought they were opaque...and purple...and had googly eyes..."

"I said shut up, Carl! Don't make this worse!"

Rex chuckled. "Aw man, a blob? This is gonna be great... Now they just went in, so while we're waiting for the fun to begin, check who else is coming in. See that half-crazed, long-haired stallion? That's the winter caretaker for the Canterlot Royal Palace. But since winter only lasted a week this year, he's already laid off and he's been getting more and more disgruntled, especially since he learned that the party is going to be non-alcoholic. That black-haired mare is his wife and that little brown-haired foal is his kid..."

"Hey, look over there!"

"Ah great. Now the fun starts. Looks like Discord just pushed the blob outside. Seems he's eyeing the jewels on that one unicorn..."

"Oh...oh...oh my Celestia! Sam, it just devoured the boutique owner!"

"Nah, don't worry. It just wants her jewels."

The sound of a massive snotwad being spewed out rang over Canterlot.

"See? Spat her right out. So now she's running right back inside while it eats a few more jewels and gets even bigger, then it goes in after her... Heh, now things really get good. Wait...Everyone duck! Cop!"

At once, Rex went down, as did the other guests. Sam and Dawn were left blinking a moment, before Carl grabbed them and yanked them down too. A unicorn with his horn blaring like a claxion walked by on the street below, looked skyward to give a critical glare a moment, but then turned and kept walking. A moment later, the group rose again.

"He gone? Good. Aha! Now look!"

"Dude! There's slime pouring out of the windows and doors! How many jewels are in that building?!"

"Well, exactly how easy is it to find jewels around Ponyville alone, Sam?"

"Oh boy..."

"It's ok! Look! The slime's receding!"

"Heh-heh...looks like someone ruined Discord's fun. Now things get crazy. Any of you want to flee Canterlot, you should probably start now."

The three looked to Rex. "...Did you just say what I think you-"

Suddenly, a cosmic rip went out before wind and lightning began to flash around the palace. The group felt their clothing yanked forward, as if being sucked into a vortex even from this distance.

"The hell?!" Sam shouted. "What now?!"

"Aw, it's nothing man!" Rex shouted back. "He just opened a gate into another dimension! He did that twice at the New Year's Party!"

Dawn looked rather blown away, before gaping in shock. "There's...things running around out there! They look like...very crudely-detailed...hand puppets...?"

"Pft, that's no biggie!" Rex called back. "Let's just hope no Elderich Horrors get out this time, eh? 'Cause if they do we're kinda already dead, you know?"

"What did he just say?!" Carl screamed back.

"I'm going to kill you for this, Carl!"

"...Nah, that wasn't it! He said a lot more than that!"

Suddenly, the cosmic rip died, the thunder, wind, and lightning stopped, and all of the puppets vanished. However, it wasn't just that. The gala decorations vanished. So did the guests. So did the coaches. So did the fireworks and noise. In moments, it was just the palace in Canterlot again...and it was mostly darkened at that.

Everyone blinked.

"Huh?" Carl asked. "What happened?"

"Party's over, man." Rex answered.

"What? How?"

"There never was a party, dude. It was all in the caretaker's head the whole time while he was walking around going stir crazy from being locked in the palace that winter."

Sure enough, the crazy stallion from earlier walked to one of the windows, looked out...and then just stared with an open-mouthed glare.

Carl blinked, then frowned, turning to Rex. "But that doesn't make any..."

He trailed off. Rex was gone. Vanished into thin air. So was his beer and his chair.

Blinking again, Carl looked back to his other side. "Sam, what the...AAAH!"

Sam was there...but he was in a tux with a bloody gash in his head, giving him a toast with a wild grin.

"Cool party!"

"AAAAAAH!"

Carl continued to scream a moment, but slowly trailed off when he saw Undead Sam was gone, as was the roof and the rest of Canterlot. Blinking, he found himself suddenly hovering in a cosmic void full of stars. What more, instead of Sam being there, he saw Princess Luna standing in front of him. He kept blinking, rather shaken up from all of that, and looked around to make sure everything was fine, before looking back to her.

"Uh...Princess Luna? What...what just happened?"

"What do you think happened?" She calmly answered.

Carl blinked again. "I...think I just had a rather crazy nightmare."

"And you would be correct."

The green stallion sighed and rolled his eyes. "Oh, thank Cel-"

He cut himself off as he saw Luna's eyes narrow.

"...I mean, thank Luna...er, you... Anyway... So, what's the lesson I was supposed to learn from that? Don't look for shortcuts in life? Don't pay scalpers? Never trust Rex with anything? Jello is evil?"

"None of the above, actually." Luna answered. "I'm just venting my wrath on everyone in Equestria as revenge for my sister not inviting me to the Grand Galloping Gala...again."

Carl gaped in surprise. "Wh...what?!"

Luna merely smiled slightly, then leaned forward with a somewhat menacing demeanor.

"Sleep well the rest of this week, Carl." She said, before grinning just enough to show some teeth. "...But sleep light."

Remind me never to cross Luna, Carl.

Princess Luna! Call her princess, you fool! You want to never be able to close your eyes in peace again?!

Er...right, right! Princess Luna, if you're reading this: I'm sorry! We all love you! Please don't kill us!

Anyway...phew...how about we invite Discord to one of our parties, Sam?

...I wouldn't invite Discord to one of my parties if his 'plus one' was Cheese Sandwich, Carl.

You don't know what you're missing, dude. I hear at the Canterlot Hearth's Warming Eve pageant things got so crazy that past, present, and future versions of Princess Celestia had to simultaneously close a space-time anomaly before it erased the evolution of life in Equestria...

Ugh...I feel like I need some Earl Grey tea just thinking about that...

The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone

The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone

"...So I say to myself, why do we incorporate fur so much into all of our clothes? I thought we were herbivores? I thought we take care of all of these little critters and such running around?"

"Well, you never complained about all those people in Appleloosa wearing leather, Carl." Sam answered with a shrug as he leaned back in his chair.

Carl, in response, stared off into space a moment. Sam immediately facehooved.

"Damnit, me and my big mouth..." He quickly thought of something to change the subject, and reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a book. "Uh, um...here, Carl. Here's the new book I'm reading."

The green stallion snapped out of it after a moment, much to the blue stallion's relief, and looked to the cover. He quirked a brow. "'Friendship is Capitalism: How Greater Friendship Leads to a Greater Economy' by Ayn Rein?"

"Yeah, now that I'm married, I need to make sure my money goes farther."

Carl looked up and gave him an eyebrow quirk. "Wait...I thought friendship is magic?"

"There's a rather complex algorithm to explain it. Say you had three friends, and all of you got together and bought a barrel of crude oil..."

Before Sam could continue, the waitress came by and dropped off their plate of cookies. Both of them immediately took one up and began to eat them, before both gagged, turned to one side, spat them out, and then wiped their tongues furiously.

"Dude! What in Equestria was that?! It tasted deep-fried crap-I-scrape-out-from-under-the-stove!"

"Oh, sorry about that. I should have mentioned it before." The waitress answered. "We're out of baking powder."

Carl blinked and stared at her. "...Baking powder? You didn't put baking powder into the cookies, and that's what turns them from delicious to..." He gave a look at the cookies, and gaped in horror. "What the hell...?! These things look like a troll's turd! What the heck do you bake them with?"

The waitress shrugged. "Just the usual. Eight cups of crushed gravel, two cups of grass clippings, four tablespoons of salt, one and a half teaspoons of pitch, and then a dash of baking powder."

Carl's jaw hit the table. He whirled to Sam. "You mean we've been eating barely digestible crap for years...and baking powder is the only reason it's any good?!"

"Dude, baking powder makes everything better." Sam answered with a shrug. "Didn't your mom ever make you a quick shake?"

"...Quick shake?"

Sam returned to his saddlebags, rummaged around a bit, and came out with a glass and an 'instant packet' of baking powder. He proceeded to dip the glass into the nearest mud puddle, scooped out a bunch of it, and then set it in front of Carl. A moment later, he ripped open the baking powder and dumped it in. In a magic flash...it turned into a chocolate shake with whipped cream and a genuine cherry, not canned or stemmed. He pushed it in front of the gaping Carl.

"There you go."

Carl could only blink and stammer. "But...but, but...but how...?"

"Dude. We have one farmer in Ponyville and she only grows apples...and that one field of corn which may or may not have been put there by Discord just to make popcorn. How do you think we have all these different types of food around here?"

Carl stared a bit longer, then finally slumped and groaned.

"This one's going to take a while for me to process before I can start complaining about it, Sam..." He moaned...before subconsciously pulling the chocolate shake over and taking a sip. He lit up a little.

"...Tasty shake, though."

"Ok, this week on the UCA agenda..."

"Wait just a second...why the hell isn't Gilda hosting this meeting?"

"..."

"Don't tell me..."

"I...thought you found out in our electronic newslet-"

"Damnit, if they make 'Angela Lansbury' the season finale villain instead of me, so help me...!"

Speaking of 'the Monarch'...is she happy now?

Of course I'm not, moron.

GAH!

Holy Celestia! How'd you get in here?!

All I got was a callback and as much screen time as 'Pony Sauron'. And they actually had the audacity to put the Flim-Flam Brothers on my footing! They'll only be able to sell 'Clear Eyes' and Motel 6 ads by the time I'm done feeding on those apple-flanked pieces of...

Come on, Sam... While she's gloating...

Right behind you...

Slice of Life

Slice of Life

Ponyville hadn't been this deserted in a long time. The only signs of life now were coming from the gazebo, where, to the tune of brilliant flashes of light in the windows, a mixture of dubstep and cello music was belting out while a large sea serpent kept moving around windows sticking his head inside. As the night descended, it remained the only lit beacon in town...

...Save for Sugarcube Corner. Five friends were seated at a table there, each one in a rather bored and down mood, as a sixth one bounced out happily and put a tray of cookies down.

"Oh, thank you, Pinkie." Fluttershy quietly spoke up. She took up one cookie and bit into it, only to grimace. "Oh...oh my..."

"Sorry about that!" Pinkie cheered. "Looks like they used everything we had on hand to make the wedding set we were supposed to be getting for tomorrow, so I just kind of made cookies out of whatever we had left."

"Aw shucks, that's how Granny used ta' do it..." Applejack answered as she downed one.

"...You know, Twilight," Rainbow Dash grimaced. "You could have just opened the lock with magic or something..."

Twilight winced. "...If we suddenly broke into a wedding where my brother and sister-in-law were that happened to have a Changeling as one of the guests, how do you think that would have worked out?"

"...Good point. But this is boring. We spent all day wrangling a Bugbear, and no one even noticed!"

The alicorn leveled a gaze at her. "...How many times a year do we save Equestria and get a celebration thrown in our honor?"

Rainbow Dash merely muttered. "How you holding out, Rarity?"

The white unicorn was twitching in her seat. "I...spend weeks...planning in minute detail how perfect this dress will be... Embracing elements from their first meeting in Canterlot...all the way to their reuniting...to provide a gown fit for royalty... And they...go...with...that?! That hand-me-down?!"

"...Probably better you didn't go."

"Some 'apples to the core' mah family turned out ta' be..." Applejack griped. "Not even waitin' fer me ta' come in..."

"I missed a chance to see that lovely sea dragon again..." Fluttershy sighed. "And a Changeling..."

Everyone looked up in surprise at that. Fluttershy winced a bit.

"...I know they look like malevolent xenomorphs for the most part, but they have just the cutest eyes... Like little blue swimming pools."

"And I didn't get to plan the wedding!" Pinkie moaned. "In fact, the mailpony forgot to send me an invitation too! Can you believe it? Cranky sends an invitation to everypony else in town and somehow I don't get mine? What are the odds?"

The rest of the girls immediately looked away, finding things that were more interesting and muttering slightly.

"Heck, even those two guys who complain about Ponyville all the time are there and we aren't..." Rainbow Dash sighed. "They're probably in the reception area right now, seated to one side, eating cookies just like we are, and the green one is probably complaining about how weddings in Equestria are really just the minister saying a speech and then declaring you married rather than a real ceremony...which he shouldn't because the shorter they are, the better..."

"Girls, girls...enough." Twilight suddenly spoke up. "Look at the six of us. We're practically royalty. We have a palace that takes up half of the city. It wouldn't hurt if just for once we sat some other celebration out and let someone else have the limelight. I'm sure exactly one week from now something else will come up and we'll once again be the focus of everyone in the universe for 22 minutes."

Rarity looked up a bit. "...That was...oddly specific, Twilight."

"Well, your sister is the one who pointed out the time window."

The unicorn blinked. "...Pardon me, what?"

Rolling her eyes, Twilight's horn lit up and flashed out a ruby neuralizing light to the rest of the girls. They all blinked for a moment afterward, and then forgot the conversation ever happened.

"Besides," The alicorn smiled. "We get more time to spend with each other now. Just the six of us, hanging out, enjoying each other's company as friends and what a wonderful world we live..."

She trailed off as a tall, twisted, black-skinned nightmare creature walked up to them and sat at an adjoining table. Chrysalis grumbled as she began to rummage at a set of saddlebags and pulled out a cute little creature brimming with love to snack on.

The Mane Six went wide eyed. Twilight opened her mouth to speak.

"NOT TODAY." She cut off with a hoof pointed at them. "I'm not in the mood after that offspring of mine stole my invitation... Now I'm settling for having a date with the only other pony left who had less chance of reappearing than me..."

The girls blinked, then gasped as Slendermane appeared to slink out from behind a nearby fencepost and sit across from her.

Uh...

Er...

Um...

Ooo! White space!

Uh...girls? Where the heck are we?

Why are we...um...commenting on...uh...what's that... 'Season Five'? What season?

I always thought there were only four seasons...

Uh...

Mmm...

...

I...don't think they're going to let us leave unless we say something, dear.

Oh...well...uh... Thank you, everypony, for watching this season-

What 'season'?!

And, uh...hope to see you all again real soon! Um...you fans are the greatest! Uh, hopefully the next 100 episodes is as great as the first! ...Somepony give me a hoof here...

Yay for white space!

Er...eat more apples...?

...Go Indianapolis Colts!

Um, what's 'Indianapolis'?

Whatever the heck we were cheering for last February for some reason...

Princess Spike

Princess Spike

As a green colored and blue colored pair of stallions walked down the road, they noticed something unusual happening at the Ponyville Embassy. There were a group of unicorns, seemingly all the ones native to Ponyville, picketing about it and giving angry chants. Most of the signs had to do with unemployment and jobless claims, it seemed. As the two passed, Carl looked to his friend.

"Sam, what was that all about?"

"It seems a lot of the local unicorns are getting laid off. You know those new 'gas engines' they came out with?"

"Oh yeah...able to move things around using magic. Aren't they using them to power stuff like tree saws and jackhammers?"

"You got it. Only problem is it's putting a lot of unicorns out of work. It's small right now but it's getting worse. They're starting to get mad that ponies might use technology to just take over everything unicorns normally do... Plus they need to get more of that gas stuff to keep up. Apparently this summit is going to discuss drilling in the Crystal Empire..."

"They need to spend their time trying to learn new skills. You can't stop progress, Sam..." Carl muttered as they walked on by. "If I was them, I'd head back to school and take up studying speech writing."

The blue-colored stallion looked to him. "...Speech writing?" He echoed with a raised eyebrow.

"You bet. You can make a killing at that. The world will beat a path to your door."

Sam blinked. "I...don't see how that's terribly lucrative of a career..."

"Oh you don't, do you?" Carl retorted. "Remember that time that the one developer went to the edge of the Everfree Forest, chopped down about 2,000 acres, displaced countless animals and monsters which sacked Ponyville as a result, dumped gallons of industrial waste into our drinking water, and drove the Greater North Equestrian Marmot to extinction?

Sam looked up and thought a moment. "Yeah...when a bunch of us confronted him in an angry mob, he said: 'Citizens of Ponyville, I'm truly sorry. The results of my thoughtless actions have really made me seen the light. A businessman shouldn't strive to be 'stupid rich' at the cost of everything else. They should be content with being 'fabulously stinking rich' after exploiting only most of our natural resources and preserve the rest for everyone from the good ponies of Equestria to the birds, the bees, the rodents, and even the tiny ants."

Carl stared back. "...And the next think you knew, we were cleaning up his industrial waste and runoff. For free. Then of course there was the speech that one pony, Pyramid Scheme, made after stealing the retirement funds of half the old gray mares in town." He cleared his throat. "If there's one thing I learned from deceiving you all and taking the work of your entire lives and blowing it on lots of expensive suits, meals, carriages, mansions, and the like on myself and leaving me with no possible way to pay you all back, it's that the elderly deserve as much care and respect and recognition as everyone. They're members of this community too who have many things to teach us and share with us, not just their bank accounts they were planning to live on when they stopped working. We should all be honored to be in the company of so many stallions and mares of such wonderful backgrounds."

"Oh yeah..." Sam answered, rubbing a hoof along his chin. "...And then the people he scammed not only hugged him but threw him a potluck."

"And of course you remember the infamous speech from 50 years back by Thurgood Reich...after he was finally arrested for war crimes against ponyanity as well as mass genocide and torture... 'I may have taken the lives of your children, your mothers, your fathers, your brothers, your sisters, your livelihoods, your homes, your possessions, your pride, your freedom, and especially your dignity as individuals...but I assure you all...that you have taken my heart."

"Yeah...that's the part of the speech written on the statue erected to him they put up the next day in Gerwhinny."

Both friends were silent for a moment.

"...Sam?"

"Yes Carl?"

"I know I've said we're way too easy on criminals in Equestria before, but... You ever think you can play us for saps way too easily?"

"Hey! Incarlsistency!"

The green stallion went rigid and turned to who had shouted. By now, the two ponies were nearing Carl's apartment, and the landlord was already waiting for them on the upper floor balcony, shaking his burly hoof at them.

"You're two weeks overdue! Where's my money?!"

Both stopped. Carl recoiled a moment, then looked around. Finally, he looked to his foot.

"Oh! Uh...my...um...horseshoe...er...phone...is vibrating!"

Quickly, the green stallion pulled up a hoof, leaned over with his other hooves, then, with a great pulling sound, ripped his horseshoe right off with nails still embedded and put it to his head.

"Uh...yes? This is Incarlsistency..." Pause. "Uh huh. Really?" Pause. "That's great." He pulled the shoe down and looked up to the landlord. "That was Princess Celestia. She just said to write the whole thing off this month."

The landlord glared back a few moments. His teeth clenched.

"...Damnit, I'm getting sick of this." He finally hissed. "You tell her next time she calls to call me direct! I hate getting all these rent absolution notifications through you! You never tell me unless I get on your case and I want to-"

Carl cut him off by quickly putting the horseshoe to his head again, then looking back up. "Oh, and Princess Luna says to shut up."

The landlord went a bit wide-eyed, then turned and slank back inside with his head hanging down.

As Carl breathed a sigh of relief, Sam raised an eyebrow to him.

"You know, Carl... This reminds me of how you told me you couldn't get me a Hearth's Warming Eve present because Princess Cadance called you up and declared a bank holiday on the very day you went to withdraw some money, and then she immediately abolished it the next day."

The green stallion cringed and began to tremble...before Sam shook his head and kept walking.

"I really don't understand royalty...and, no offense, why they always just give you special instructions, Carl..."

As Sam went on, Carl wiped his brow.

"I got to thank that lizard of Princess Twilight's for giving me the best idea ever..." He muttered before following.

Heh! That was great, wasn't it Sam?

...

Er...Sam?

...So first you exploit our mental conditioning last year, and now this. You made me leave work six times to go pay your utility bill this year because you told me Princess Twilight Sparkle told you that she was creating the Festival of Pay Your Friend's Bills. Then there was the two times you said that Yakyakistan would invade if I didn't take your monster nephews to the amusement park. And I've pretty much guessed the Trottingham Prime Minister never told you to tell me I had to do your laundry for a month.

...I'm sorry, Sam. That was horrible of me. You're my best friend, and here I am exploiting your friendship for my own personal gain. Being a true friend is all about give and take, and I've been doing all the taking and not nearly enough giving. I promise from now on I'll be better...that is...if you're willing to forgive me?

Aw...well, shucks, Carl. Of course I'll-HEY WAIT A SECOND!

Damn, so close...

Party Pooped

Party Pooped

Within the town-wide festival to celebrate the highlights of Equestria to the delegates from Yakyakistan, two particular attendees looked like they had been better. The blue stallion of the two looked a little nervous while he helped a green stallion wearing numerous bandages and a head dressing limp along. The anxiety only increased when Princess Twilight Sparkle led the three muscle-bound and hostile yaks up to them.

"And here we have Incarlsistency and Sam-Listens-To-Carl's-Problems!" She announced, trying to make it sound grandiose without sweating herself. "Incarlsistency is a quality control operator at the local horseshoe plant. So Carl...any interesting tidbits about Equestrian culture you care to share with our Yakyakistani friends?"

The green stallion gave them a sour look for a few seconds.

"Yeah...yeah, I got a tradition. When ponies show up in a horseshoe plant in another country and they see that the shoes aren't made the 'Equestrian Way', we don't pick up the nearest section of conveyor and break it over the heads of quality control ope-"

"Oh my! Look at the time! Busy-busy-busy!" Twilight quickly and nervously cut off, gesturing the yaks along. "We still have to meet those two ladies over there to explain Equestrian same-sex cohabitation!"

As soon as the delegates had been pushed away, Sam gave Carl a glare. "Dude, do not make them mad again! My hooves are still throbbing from trying to sort out some intact seashells from what they did to my office! You want to start that war they were threatening earlier?"

"Who cares? How are they going to invade us, dude? We control the train systems!"

"...I'll give you that, but don't you remember world history? Every nation that ever tried to take over Yakyakistan always ended up in the hole and thrashed! It's hardly even a nation to begin with! You can't conquer a country with no government! Besides...they got General Winter on their side."

Carl turned his head. "...Oh, you mean if someone tries to invade them, they tear up the train tracks, burn all the fields, wreck all the buildings, and make sure that any invading force can't get any support and slow them down until the extreme cold season does most of the work of beating them for them?"

Sam blinked. "...No, I mean they got this yak twice the size of those guys named General Winter who could take the Canterlot Royal Guard single-hoofedly."

Carl frowned. "It's real confusing how we're all named after nouns and verbs sometimes... But..." He blinked. "That...brings up a good point, Sam..."

The blue-colored stallion began to wince. "Oh no..."

At once, Carl reached for his side and produced a complete map of Equestria. He displayed it to Sam and pointed. "Ok...the Crystal Mountains are right up here, and beyond them is Yakyakistan, right."

"Right."

"And Ponyville is here, right?"

"Right."

Carl stared blankly. "...So why was the train to Yakyakistan going to Dodge City...which is here?"

"To loop around by going down past the edge of the map and back to the top, of course." Sam shrugged. "Duh."

Carl blinked and stared. "...What?"

"Yeah, everyone knows once you reach the edge of a map of the world you're effectively on the other side of it."

The green stallion continued to stare. "Uh...no it doesn't...or shouldn't. I mean, this is of a globe, right? So once you hit the bottom you start going up again from another spot, right?"

"I don't think so, Carl." Sam answered. "That's how our airships get around the fastest. See?"

He pointed up, just as one of the airships was rushing by at full speed, bearing a crew of a spiky-haired unicorn with an oversized horn, a bulky earth pony with what looked like a gatling gun for a hoof, and a long brown maned pegasus who had...ahem...an ample bust size. As the two stallions looked, the airship roared over the sky far, far to the south...and then vanished in a blip...reappearing at the northernmost limits of Equestria instead.

"See?"

Carl merely stared open mouthed. "...I need to crack open my old physics textbook."

Suddenly, Princess Cadance walked by in front of them.

"Hi Sam. Hi Carl."

Both looked to her. "Hello princess."

She walked away soon after. Both stallions were left staring.

"...Did that seem kind of random, Sam?"

"Yeah, but apparently she's been popping in for no reason a lot lately..."

You know, I always thought it would be a bit more interesting if we saw more airships cruising around Equestria. Don't you, Carl?

I can't talk now, Sam... I'm practicing my squats so I can win that blond wig from Big Macintosh.

Okaaaay...why?

Why? Why?! You think I can sneak into a bordello with a regular old wig? Or one that's dyed?

...Nevermind, I don't want to know.

Amending Fences

Amending Fences

While on their latest cookie outing, a green stallion was flipping through a magazine while a blue stallion frowned as he looked over bills. In particular, he was using a special tool placed in his teeth to rifle through some of them, frowning all the way.

"That power bill of mine is through the roof now that one of the gems that makes up the Castle of Harmony focuses the sun on the house all day. Sure, it'll be fine in winter, but that only ever lasts a week..."

"Sheesh, they're putting more of that 'electricity' into things nowadays. Now they got cameras you don't have to set up with the dark curtains and flash powder..." Carl mused from his own book. He twitched a brow. "And what's this...'Net' thing they want to invent just so ponies can put up pictures of themselves with celebrities on? What kind of narcissistic, depraved society would be so obsessed with taking pictures of yourself everywhere you go?" Sighing, he shut the magazine and looked to Sam. "So just talk to the princess and tell her to throw a tarp or something over it."

"Oh, can't do that. She's out of town in Canterlot."

"Wha...again? I thought she was only going to be gone a day or two."

"Yeah, but she ran into some old friend of hers named Moondancer. Apparently she used to be a bookworm nerd like her but she never learned about friendship, so she became a recluse."

Carl stared blankly up at that. Sam continued to rifle through his bills a moment, then turned and looked up, noticing Carl's look. Immediately he rolled his eyes and facehooved.

"Oh boy...here we go..."

"So now...we have Sunset Shimmer, a unicorn who's basically Princess Twilight Sparkle if she had only cared about her own magic power and its potential; Starlight Glimmer, a unicorn who's basically Princess Twilight Sparkle if she had warped friendship to use as a tool to manipulate ponies into doing her bidding; and Moondancer, a unicorn who's basically Princess Twilight Sparkle if she had never come to Ponyville. Dude, exactly how many ponies are running around in Equestria who are 'alternate versions' of ponies we already know?" Pause. "Come to think of it, how many ponies are running around everywhere who don't just look similar but are the same pony?! Minuette owns homes in Canterlot, Ponyville, and the Crystal Empire alone!"

Sam sighed. "Would you just relax, Carl? There's a lot of really powerful unicorns in the world. Just because one of them has something in common with others doesn't mean this is just some cosmic way of constantly splitting off the same 'dark version of the individual'. It's a coincidence. That's all."

"Excuse us."

Both stallions turned and looked to one side. Over the fence to the cafe were a pair of stallions; one cerulean and the other chartreuse.

"I'm Conner-fusion. This is Ed-Pauses-To-Sit-Down-And-Lend-And-Ear-Whenever-Something-Occurs-To-Conner-That-Doesn't-Quite-Seem-To-Fit-In-With-Traditional-Rules-Of-Space-Time-And-Civil-Society-Leading-To-Him-Having-An-Inquiry-About-The-Nature-Of-The-World-In-Which-He-Lives-In Jr. We're friends, you see. I always find inconsistencies within Equestria, only I almost always ignore them or speak about things that are positive and worthwhile in Equestria instead. He always listens when I have a complaint, only he charges me 20 bits for every 30 minutes. Do you know which way to 'Quills and Couches'?"

Both stallions stared back blankly a moment, before slowly raising hooves and pointing down a street.

"Thank you."

Both new stallions slowly walked off.

"...I got to stay away from that guy."

"...I got to see if that guy has room for a new friend in his life."

Sam and Carl said this at the same time, and immediately snapped to each other in alarm. Both stared quietly for a moment.

"Wah, wah...iddy-boo..."

Hearing a mare complain out loud, the two stallions turned and looked, and saw Lyra walking down the road with a sour look on her face. She scowled as she read a letter she was using her horn to hover in front of her face as she walked by.

"So one little guest didn't show up to your birthday party and it's the end of the world... None of you showed up to my Coming Out Party! And get your damn glasses fixed already, you cheap old nerd!"

She magically tore the letter to bits and threw them away.

"We had a great time today, Moondancer!"

"You're pretty good at polo!"

"Heh...yeah, I guess I am."

"I'm so glad Twilight reintroduced us!"

"Let's get together again real soon!"

"Yeah...that'd be nice. Thanks!"

The three unicorns smiled and waved before turning and trotting out through the ruined fence. Moondancer slowly shut the door behind them, removing her helmet. After that, she paused and stood there, deep in thought, pondering something for a few moments. Finally, she looked up a bit as she seemed to reach a decision.

Turning to the nearest wall, she trotted over and pulled aside a bit of a curtain, revealing a list titled: "PONIES TO KILL".

She scratched "Twilight Sparkle" off the list.

Let that be a lesson to everyone.

That some ponies who lose their only friend go totally off the deep end and become vengeance-obsessed totalitarians while others merely become pale, antisocial recluses, but either way they'll become fan-favorites?

...I was going to say not to neglect your old friends in life, but...sigh...that works too.

Do Princesses Dream of Magical Sheep?

Do Princesses Dream of Magical Sheep?

Late spring/early summer had come to Ponyville. Naturally, that could only mean one thing for the citizens...although at least it wasn't happening in the town proper this time.

Currently the collective dreaming residents of the town were fighting furiously against a massive nebulous starry shadow monster, getting larger by the minute and constantly trying to rip holes in the universe to escape to the real world. It didn't help that every so often it transmutated something else into a giant pony-eating monster that likewise had to be destroyed. The likewise transmutated citizens had their hands full running everywhere.

Of course, one group of ponies was no exception. Giving a furious war cry, "Stonewall" Charger was in what looked to be a large metal golem suit with chain guns on either hand, standing on a pile of dead and shredded wagons-turned-monsters, more swarming around him all the time as he let the bullets fly and tearing them to bits. Some that were wounded he pinned down with one leg and shot multiple times in the head before wheeling up and keeping going.

Not too much farther, Sam-Listens-To-Carl's-Problems had mastered the use of one of Stonewall's mass-market rifles and was using it as well; firing, reloading, and firing again to try and pick off monsters one by one. Suddenly, Dawn slid in next to him carrying a firearm as well.

"Sam honey?"

He looked to her.

"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger."

She raised the weapon...now freshly turned into a grenade launcher, and turned a charging tool shed into a pile of flaming debris. Sam grimaced a bit that Dawn could dream of such military-intensive things, but nodded. "Um...thanks, dear."

As she went off, he quickly turned to shoot down an incoming birdhouse, before snapping to his side.

"Carl! How are you holding...CARL!"

The green stallion wasn't even making a move to defend anything. He was looking around curiously at everything. "Wow...can you imagine that..."

Sam facehooved. "Carl! Hello? Giant nightmare monster attempting to rip its way into Equestria?! Time limit as Princess Luna is rapidly weakening?! Why aren't you dreaming of something that can kill things?!"

Carl blinked and looked to him. "Oh...oh, sorry Sam. It's just...well...normally I escape to my dreams to get relief from inconsistencies because nothing makes sense naturally in a dream. But now that I'm here and looking around, I can't help but try to wonder what all of this means... I mean, we're in the collective subconscious of everyone in Ponyville, Sam. This is a big opportunity..."

Sam rolled his eyes and groaned. "Are you out of your mind?! You're talking about stuff like that now?!"

"Oh, come on, Sam! Try to think about it! Think of the chance to understand ponies so much better! I mean...look!" He pointed to a stallion riding on a living wave of gold bits, blasting away at the Tantabus. "There's Filthy Rich. Now, you see him with all that money and figure, 'Yeah, that's just some shallow greedy stallion who only cares about bits, right? But look, Sam! Look what he's doing! He's blasting the big nightmare monster with gold bits! Don't you get it? It's a metaphor! The stallion thinks money is the answer to everything! That he can solve all of his problems, even to his own life and well-being, by throwing money at them! It almost makes me pity him a little..."

Sam was nearly quivering at this point. "...That's great, Carl. Now please start-"

"Or look at Big Macintosh!" Carl shouted as he watched a big alicorn princess? fly around blasting away with his horn. "It makes perfect sense! He's always wanted to be the big brother and defender of Applejack and the family farm, but secretly he's always felt inept because she keeps succeeding in situations without him! So he dreamed of being an alicorn princess so that he could finally be the individual who could step in and save his family and the rest of Equestria! Or maybe deep down inside the reason he always works so hard is because he knows that for all his strength he can't do what unicorns can do with just a bit of magic...which is why he envisioned himself a unicorn first... An inferiority complex... Isn't that sad, Sam?"

Another gunshot went out. "You know what's making me sad right now, Carl? You not shutting up about-"

"And look! It makes perfect sense that Derpy is gigantic! I mean, duh! Duh! She's always stuck in crowds! People always have to search high and low for her if they want to find her! She wanted to stand out! She wanted to be so big that she'd always be noticed by people!"

"Right now the only thing I want..."

"And Lyra and Bon Bon being fused together in one body? That's...honestly very disturbing and makes me think of 90s cartoons for some reason...but it still works out! They want to be together but the world and society demands that they can't be together in 'that way'! So they dreamed that they'd be together in one body so that the world can't separate them!"

Sam began to quiver in fastly-escalating rage...

"And Berry Punch? Well...that obviously goes back to that one time when she was just a filly and she went with her mom to the laundromat that one Tuesday-"

"GAH!" The blue stallion roared, immediately making Carl clam up and recoil as he turned to him in rage. "I can't take it anymore! You're driving me nuts! You want to talk dreams?! Fine! Here's my most secret, darkest, most forbidden fantasy... And since this is just a dream I have no problem carrying it out!"

Snapping the gun barrel around to Carl, he squeezed the trigger.

The resulting gunshot echoed much louder and longer than it should have...or rather would have if this was real. It sounded almost like a cannon going off. In spite of the threat of the Tantabus, all the surrounding ponies in the area, including Dawn, snapped to the source of it...and gaped. As for Sam, his face was tight with rage and fury as he held the smoking gun out where he had fired a moment earlier. He seethed and panted a few times...

Then, slowly, his face relaxed. His anger faded as his eyes went wide. He looked down to the weapon in his hands, and as if it was a live snake he dropped it to the ground.

"Oh...oh Celestia... What have I done? I...I really did it..."

That section of dream Ponyville remained quiet. Sam continued to stand there and quiver. Finally, he swallowed. "It's...it's ok though, right? I mean...this is just a dream... When we wake up, everything will-"

"Sam-Listens-To-Carl's-Problems...what in the name of me did you just do?!"

The blue stallion turned and looked, and saw the sweating, straining Princess Luna, still trying to hold the dream together, glaring at him in horror.

"I...I..."

"Do you realize what you've done?!" Luna shouted. "Don't you know what happens to a pony who gets killed in their dreams?!"

At once, Sam's blue color turned a shade paler as his jaw dropped.

"No...it...you... You don't mean... Carl is..."

TO BE CONTINUED

Phew...and that marked the start of our little "mini arc"...where I thought I was going to be the only background pony. Remember that, Carl?

Uh...um...

...Ok. What you may find funny about this arc is that it was written to coincide with Rarity dominating a couple episodes in a row. Get it? It kind of turned into the 'Rarity Show' for a bit, so it became only "One Background Pony". You get it, right Carl?

Uh...er...yeah...

...Um, you...uh...really called it with Big Macintosh, didn't you?

Huh? Uh...uh...

...Carl? Is...something bothering you?

Nothing! I mean...nothing...

Canterlot Boutique

Canterlot Boutique

Sam had a rather downcast look on his face to match his blue skin tone, but that only figured. He had looked that way for a while now. Long before he had come to Canterlot and into this law office. It was clear his heart really wasn't in anything anymore...certainly not where he found himself at the moment.

He was seated across from a desk with a rather large, somewhat obese, brown and white stallion with a white suit and a bolo tie, looking over a deal of papers. In front of him read a desk plaque: "Haybeus Corpus - Attorneigh-At-Law and Part-Time Southern Stereotype". After looking over things a bit more, he leaned back in his chair, tucked his hooves in his pockets, and looked Sam in the eye.

"Well, son, you were rahght to call me after y'all got served the papers. When it comes tah legal matters, most younguns're as dull as ah spoon made outta cowhide. They got, ah say, they got the notion ya' jus' need ta' walk up to the princess and give'em ah heartfelt apology. Well, sonny, ya' got ta' get yer case on appeal before ya' get to that point. Especially in yer case when yer up fer murderin' ah pony in their sleep."

Sam only cringed more on hearing that, starting to tear up again.

"I...I still can't believe I did it... I didn't mean to! It just...kind of happened! The worst part is I only feel like half a pony ever since I killed him!"

The lawyer leveled his gaze at Sam.

"Son, ah say, son...if ya' wanna have a Timberwolf's chance in an oven of gettin' through this upcomin' trial, ya' best stop confessin' ta' the crime every time we talk ta' one another."

Sam looked up and blinked. "Wha...but...I wanted to enter a guilty plea..."

Haybeus frowned. "Yeah...and ah overwrote that decision. This is why ya' need ta' not act like ah mule in an oat factory an' listen to yer lahwyer; not try'n make yer own case. Ya' know what happened ta' the last pony who represented themselves in court?"

The blue stallion shook his head.

"...Let's jus' say she finally got outta the moon ah while back. Feel free, ah say, feel free ta' ruminate on yer unforgivable crime an' drink yerself into a pit o' yer own self-pity after the state says yer innocent o' all wrongdoin'."

Sam took in a deep breath and exhaled before leaning back. "...Alright. Um...I know murder in Equestria is really rare..."

Haybeus reached over and turned on a desk-top fan to blow in his face. "Oh, maybe. But y'all been in the business as long as ah have, and yah've seen it all. Ain't nothin' new no more. Ah been in an outta court more times than ah worn-out basketball. Why...check this out rahght here, son."

The lawyer reached over to one side, picked up a magazine, and tossed it in front of Sam. Looking down at it, he saw that it was an issue of Cosmare.

"Now what does that say right there on the cover, son?"

Sam blinked in puzzlement. "Um...'50 Ways to Please Your Stallion in the Bedroom'...?"

"What the...?! No, no, no, son... The other story."

Sam looked over it again. "...Oh! That's Rarity from town!"

"Just got done with ah case with her mahself. She had opened ah new franchise location rahght here'n Canterlot. Hired herself ah new mare ta' run it and, after ah shaky start, went back ta' Ponyville and let her handle the operations here. Problem is that unicorn had about as much sense as a junkyard of broken gumball machines."

Sam blinked in confusion a bit at that analogy, but kept listening.

"She didn't, ah say, she didn't know nothin' 'bout how possession an' caretakin' is 9/10ths of the law. Silly enough ta' let that manager run the ad campaigns, handle the orders, organize the store line...hell, even while she was there the owner was soon doin' nothin' but runnin' 'round in the back makin' dresses all day long. Well, once she headed back ta' Ponyville, the manager started filing a motion to have the store declared her property as owner."

The blue stallion was stunned. "She...she could do that...?"

Haybeus gave a grim nod. "Ol' Canterlot Edict 3.14.561, bettah known as the Equestrian Rite of Custodial Succession. Ya' manage the place, ya' conduct the financial and sales business, head up the marketing and whatnot long enough...in other words ya' handle everythin' as if you were the owner...ya' can declare ya' were the one who actually owned the business or property or whatevah and have it put in yer name. Ya' can get it declared ta' be yours easier than snaggin' blue tail flies with ah cheese grater."

Sam frowned. "...Ok, that one really didn't make any sense."

Haybeus frowned. "...Ya' ever tried ta' snag a blue tail fly with ah cheese grater, son?"

"Well...no..."

"Than button, ah say, button yer lip. Anyway, that little mare wasn't careful 'bout it an' should'a lost everythin' includin' the franchise rights. Sure didn't help she let the manager give her best sellin' dress her own name. Mahght as well signed over the rights ta' her right then and there... But ah'm good at what ah do, and ah managed ta' save 50%, at least."

Sam looked up a bit. "So...that means you think you can get me off?"

Haybeus let out a jolly chuckle. "Son, ya' must be dumber than ah cross-eyed pegasus. Right now ah'm just focusin' on tryin' ta' keep ya' outta Tartarus and merely get ya' banished and then thrown, ah say, thrown in ah dungeon in the place yer banished to."

The blue stallion groaned and let his face fall into his hooves.

In the main palace at Canterlot, a purple baby dragonservant looked up in a confused manner at the alicorn he served as she tried out sitting in Princess Celestia's throne.

"Um...Twilight? Why did you want to come here again?"

"Good news, Spike! When I was looking at some legal reading, I found out about Canterlot Edict 3.14.561..."

So that was one of the more "adult-themed" episodes the show went through so far. I mean, it's not like too many little kids need to worry about keeping artistic integrity in business. Isn't that right, Carl?

Uh...

...Carl, I'm kind of floundering out here.

Uh...

Carl!

Huh?! What?!

Carl, you're not...um...still mad about the whole thing, are you?

What? Oh...oh no, Sam. I just...

...Just what?

Forget it. It's...nothing.

...Ok then. Can you say something about this episode?

Huh? Episode? What? Oh...um...er...uh...

Come on, man...

Uh...Trottingham ponies have bad teeth...?

CARL!

Rarity Investigates!

Rarity Investigates!

As soon as the doors in the rear of the Royal Canterlot Courtroom opened, everypony went silent. The bailiff immediately stood up on all fours and made the proclamation.

"All rise for the Honorable Princess Celestia."

Swallowing a bit, Sam Listens-To-Carl's-Problems rose with his attorney, Haybeus Corpus, nearby from their table, along with everyone else. In walked Princess Celestia, appearing rather cross with her normally fluttering mane a bit moussed and sagging. She took her position on the bench and was seated, prompting everypony else to sit down.

"Let's get this over with..." She muttered aloud. "Court is now in session. Sam Listens-To-Carl's Problems v. the Nation of Equestria for the crime of murder."

A little later, after the opening statements, the first witness had been called to the stand: a stallion with oversized glasses making his eyes roughly the size of his head, and a Cutie Mark that was a huge set of eyeballs. The DA was slowly pacing back and forth in front of him.

"Please state your name for the record."

"Peeping Tom."

"Now, Mr. Tom, I have the understanding that you are the most observant pony in all of Ponyville."

"Well, I don't like to brag," He chuckled. "But I do have all-seeing eyeballs for a Cutie Mark. And I've been run out of town four times now for gossip."

"Now, were you present on the night of 11th when the incident occurred?"

"Yes sir. Everyone in town was having the same dream."

"And did you see the defendant in the dream?"

"Yes sir."

"And what did you see?"

"I heard a loud yelling from him, shouting at his green stallion friend, and when I turned to look he was swinging a rifle around and aiming it at his head. I looked away soon after because my mailbox was trying to eat my foot, but I heard a loud gunshot, and when I turned back a moment later I saw the green stallion go down and the defendant look shocked."

"And did you get a good look at the Cutie Mark of the victim?"

"Yes sir."

"What was it?"

"A Find-the-Difference picture."

"Thank you." The DA turned away to go back to his chair. "Your witness."

With a rather loud creaking and groaning, Haybeus rose from his own chair and began to lumber forward, taking the moment to stretch his suspenders...one hoof at a time, of course.

"Now, Mistah Tom...ya' say you were havin' the same mass dream on the night of the 11th." He formed a jovial grin. "Awful crazy night, weren't it?"

The witness blinked, as if unsure that was a question or not. But after Haybeus stayed silent a while, he moistened his lips. "Um...yes...yes it was."

"All sorts, ah say, all sorts o' tomfoolery and shenanigans and ruckus all up and about that night, weren't it?"

Again, the stallion was uncertain. "Um...yes. Yes sir."

"Why, ah reckon that place was nuttier than grandma's feline in a whole patch o' catnip. And ah'm sure ya' saw lots o' strange things. Ah don't suppose ya' happened ta' see ol' Big Macintosh, did ya'?"

"As...as a matter of fact, I did."

"Ya' don't say?" Haybeus laughed. "Ah guess it only figured, being every one of the folk in town bein' in that dream. Now what, ah say, what did ya' happen to see ol' Mac doin'?"

"Well...to be honest...he had...uh...er..."

"What's that son? Ah'm ah trifle deaf in mah old age. You'll have ta' speak up, sonny boy."

The witness cleared his throat. "He had...um...turned into an alicorn princess."

The big lawyer burst into a hoarse laugh. "Ha-ha! Well butter mah butt and call me ah biscuit! An alicorn princess! Whoo-hoo! Now ah done seen everythin'! Ah gotten see that fer mahself!" Immediately, he turned to the audience. "Hey son! Yeah, you! Our own Big Macintosh out there in the audience! Wah don't ya' stand up and let me get ah good look at yer horn and and wings and crown! Now don't, ah say, don't be bashful!"

Blushing in embarrassment quite a bit, keeping his eyes on the ground, a single red stallion stood up out of the audience. Immediately. Haybeus leaned in next to the witness.

"Say now, ah say, say now, Mistah Tom..." He reached up and adjusted his glasses. "Somethin', ah say, somethin's wrong with this picture. You just done told me that Big Macintosh turned himself inta an alicorn princess. But ah don't see no wings, no horn, and no crown on 'im. Are mah glasses more outta shape than a politician's spine 'r what? Tell me, ya' see any of those things?"

The witness grimaced a bit, but then shook his head. "Um...no, I don't."

"Oh, ya' don't. Say now, did ya' just commit perjury ah moment ago, son? That be a federal offense, ya' know."

"No, it's just..." He trailed off.

"Just what? Speak up, son. You're mumblin' more than ah filly with her mouth full o' shoo-fly pie."

The witness swallowed. "...It was just because that was in a dream."

"Oh! Oh really?" The lawyer boomed loudly. "So it was all just ah dream, was it? It was all just a little ol' magical girl transformation that never was, was it? All just in your head, eh boy? Well then...what's ta' say that you didn't just go 'bout imaginin' and supposin' that ya' saw mah client pull no gun on no stallion?"

The witness looked rather sheepish now. Celestia raised an eyebrow. In the end, Peeping Tom shrank in his chair.

"Well...nothing, I guess..."

With a loud smack, Haybeus slapped his hoof against the banister. "No furthah questions, yer honor!"

A while later, there was another eyewitness on the stand. This was one who claimed to have actually seen Sam shoot Carl and not just heard it. As before, Haybeus sauntered up to her.

"Good aftahnoon, ma'am. Ah understand ya' had quite ah' shock back at yer homestead."

The mare on the stand hesitated, but then gave a nod.

"Ah'm sorry, ma'am. Could y'all speak up fer the record?"

"...Yes, yes I did."

"Wah, ah heard yer whole two-story retirement cottage done come ta' life, grew big ol' teeth longer than a 80-year-old crocodile, and just started runnin' about snatchin' up ponies like they was corn fritters. Is that rahght?"

"Yes...yes sir."

"Ah even heard at one point, yer house done snatched up ol' Filthy..."

"Rich!" A voice shouted from the audience.

"...And threatened ta' eat 'im up faster than ah greased-up jackrabbit. Wah, only reason he's even still here is 'cause ah kind-hearted mare done come along and gave yer house ah big ol' pony bite. Issat rahght?"

The mare grimaced at the memory, and nodded. "Yes...yes sir."

Haybeus nodded. "Mmmhmm..." Suddenly, he reached into his overalls and pulled out a picture. "Yah honor, ah'd like to submit this as Exhibit C." He said as he brought it forward and held it out to Celestia.

The alicorn was absent-mindedly fiddling with her sagging mane, but shook her head and looked to the photograph. She blinked in confusion. "Um...counselor, this is just a picture of the corner of a house..."

"Correction, ma'am. It happens ta' be the corner of the witnesses' house." He stepped forward, leaned next to the witness, and showed her the picture. "That be your house, rahght, ma'am? Mah eyes 'r as warped as a frog in a pickle jar."

The witness took a moment to blink in confusion at that simile, but then shook her head. "Um...yes, yes it's my house."

"It is?" Haybeus answered, sounding stunned. "Why, lordie, lordie, ma'am..." He adjusted his glasses. "Ah don't see no teeth marks in it. Wah, ain't that right where that mare had ta' sink her choppers? Right inta' the foundation?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"But there ain't no teeth marks! She had ta' have left ah mark in yer big ol' house ta' make it leggo, don't ya' say?"

"Yes, yes, she had to..."

"But there ain't none here now. Wah, yer house is in better shape than ah water marker on a November Monday."

"...I'm really confused at that one-"

"So doesn't that just go ta' show if it happened in ah dream, it don't necessarily mean it happened in real life, ma'am? That jus' 'cause you saw mah client fire ah rifle at the victim, that didn't necessarily translate inta' reality? That maybe somethin' else did 'im in surer than ah Maltese doorknob on a warthog's snout?"

Severely confused at the similes at this point, the mare could only shrug helplessly. "I...I guess...?"

Another hoof slam. "No furthah questions, yer honor!"

Finally came the big one...

"Now...ah'm sorry, ah must be gettin' senile in mah old age... What's yer name again, young missy?"

Princess Luna narrowed her gaze. "...You know full well who I am, Haybeus Corpus. I was in your dreams earlier this week giving you a cautionary message about your love of chicken-fried steak leading you to having a stroke in the next year."

"Just state it again for the record, young ma'am."

Luna's gaze narrowed. "...You don't have to jump in on this, Celestia..." She sighed. "Princess Luna."

"Now, in yer testimony, Ms. Luna, ya' said, ah say, ya' said you allegedly saw mah client kill his friend with ah' rifle."

"...There's no 'alleged' about it, Mr. Corpus. I saw it with my own eyes. And being an alicorn, my testimony is legally four times the weight of an earth pony or pegasus and twice that of a unicorn."

Sam blinked at that. "Wait a sec...."

"Shore was quite ah' night, Ms. Luna." Haybeus went on, ignoring Sam and moving in. "Quite ah mess with that there Tantabus critter y'all whipped up..."

Luna grimaced at that. "...Yes, but I was able to stop it, and the town forgave me both for that as well as Nightmare Moon."

Haybeus nodded. "Shore, shore, ma'am. Of course they did. Hell, the whole damn town showed up ta' lend ya' ah' hand in sendin' that there unholy varmint back inta' the depths of yer tortured, black soul..."

The princess grit her teeth a bit at that.

"Hell, everypony came out ta' help ya'. Everyone from Berry Punch all the way ta' Mayor Mare... Got ah whole bunch of rahght good helpful folks rahght in Ponyville!" He boomed. After that, he paused and looked a bit confused. "Although...ah couldn't help but notice ah certain someone missin' from all that..."

He rubbed his chin and looked back to Luna.

"Ah certain older sister, ta' be precise... One who, ah say, one who probably should'a been the first ta' respond ta' somethin' as awful as her kid sister torturin' herself with ah nightmare o' her own creation..."

Luna's pupils shrank a bit at that. As for Celestia, her own look darkened.

"Now...was she there an' we just didn' hear 'bout it, ma'am?"

Luna paused a moment, but then looked to one side. "No."

"No what?"

"No, she wasn't there."

"Aw, shucks." The lawyer answered. "Well, ah'm sure she just had more important royal business ta' take care of. Her bein' the Princess of Equestria an' all. Although..." He continued to muse. "You're ah princess too last, ah say, last time ah checked an' ya' seem ta' find time..." He chuckled and shook his head. "Ah, ah'm just thinkin' harder than ah diesel engine jumpin' rope. It ain't like this happened before...like when she wasn't there ta' help reintraduce ya' ta' Ponyville..."

Luna shrank a bit at that uneasily.

"Or when she failed ta' wake ya' up fer that big ol' weddin' in Canterlot after ya' spent all night watchin' out fer it..."

Luna began to quiver as she stared intensely at a spot on the floor.

"Or the past couple Grand Gallopin' Galas where she didn't invite ya' ta' either one..."

Luna quivered more as her teeth began to clench.

"Ah'm sure that ain't nothin'. Ah'm sure ya' don't want just the teeniest, tiniest big o' revenge fer it...like, ah say, like fer example..." The lawyer leaned in. "...Trumpin' up charges 'gainst mah client and schedulin' the trial on the day o' yer sister's monthly perm with them big, fancy Canterlot stylists who are normally booked solid and'r the only ones who can get, ah say, can get her mane just the way she likes it!"

A unified gasp from the audience. Celestia herself went wide-eyed and looked up in shock, then glared at Luna.

"You didn't!"

Finally, Luna broke and wheeled to her angrily.

"I'm gone for over a thousand years and you have yet to invite me to anything with you! You never even ask me over for dinner! And then you try to blame me for forgetting the gift to that wedding in Ponyville! You even forgot your checkbook so I'm the one who had to write it at the last second! And you still owe me 100 bits for that, by the way!"

"And I told you to get it from Twilight Sparkle before you left Ponyville!"

As the rest of the courtroom went into an uproar, Haybeus cackled in glee and returned to his chair.

As dishonest as a lot of this seemed, Sam was feeling a bit better. It was starting to look like he might just walk out of this a free pony. At any rate, it took an hour recess, but everyone was finally calm again and Celestia had composed herself and sat down at the judge's bench again. Taking a deep breath, she looked again to the DA.

"Mr. Trotter, do you have any other witnesses before you rest your case?"

"I do, your honor. I call to the stand...Rarity."

Both Sam and Haybeus looked up in surprise on hearing that, and the crowd murmured a bit in confusion as well. As Celestia banged her hoof for order, however, the fashionista white unicorn, dressed in an attire of a noirish "stool pigeon" strolled through the aisle, batting her eyelashes at a few of the stallions, and came up to the stand to take her seat. At once, the DA came out and stood before her.

"Now, Ms. Rarity."

"Miss Rarity, please." She coyly answered.

Turning a bit red-faced, the DA pulled at his own tie. "...Miss Rarity, it is my understanding that you encountered both the defendant and the deceased at your boutique two days before the incident."

"Yes, I did."

Immediately, Haybeus stood up. "Objection, yer honor. There are, ah say, there are all sorts of green and blue ponies in Ponyville. Why would mah client and his friend be goin' to a ladies' boutique?"

Celestia turned to the witness. "Rarity, have you anything to say?"

"Well, I don't know why they were there, but I know for sure they were." Rarity responded. "They didn't buy anything or talk to me, but I distinctly remember it was them. You see...I distinctly remember one of them had a lapis coat. Not a blue coat, mind you, but lapis. I know that well because it's the exact same shade that was all the rage ten years ago in a line of neckties made in support of the Las Pegasus Coast Guard. And as far as I know..." She pointed a hoof straight at Sam, making him cringe. "He is the only stallion I have ever met with a lapis coat. As for his friend, I distinctly smelled an odor from his mane that was four parts oats and two parts meal. Now there are only two places you can get a mane conditioner that's four parts oats and two parts meal. One is the tacky, cheap, bottled conditioners that are present in Equestria's chain of Campton Inns. The other is a therapeutic conditioner for head lice in small foals."

"Let the record show the deceased's nephew was being treated for head lice in the same shower that he used," The DA spoke up. "And that the deceased was too lazy to buy refills of his own shampoo and conditioner, leading him to take whatever was in the shower whenever he felt like it."

A silence lasted over the court. Haybeus swallowed, and sat down. "...Ah withdraw mah objection." Once seated, he turned and whispered to Sam. "Ya never told me ya' were inta' women's dresses..."

"I'm not!" Sam shouted in a whisper back. "Carl insisted on going in because-"

"Now, Miss Rarity," The DA cut off. "Did you pick up on their conversation?"

"Yes, yes I did."

"What was the conversation about?"

"The green one was complaining loudly about how all of my latest fashion styles always seem to coincide with something that is going to happen that week. Such as the time I made a cape with too many sequins that were too bright the very day the Breezies passed through Ponyville. Or the time I just perfected my latest 'Camouflage Couture' just as the Great Dragon Migration took place. Eventually the conversation turned to saddles."

"Saddles, ma'am?"

"Yes. He seemed to wonder why ponies in Equestria incorporate saddles into their attire at all, as if we were waiting for something to get on our backs and ride us around. He went on about it for some twenty minutes while the defendant looked like he wanted to leave. Eventually he started to grow quite irate."

"Do you recall the last thing the defendant said to the victim?"

"Yes, yes I do. I remember it perfectly."

"What was that?"

"He said: 'Carl, it's a good thing none of those 'dream killings' I read about are real, because if I could ever go into the same dream as you I'd get a rifle and blow your face off.'"

The audience gasped and began to murmur, making Celestia again slam her hoof up and down for order. Sam had turned rather 'cerulean' at this point as he swallowed. Haybeus, on his part, leaned in near him and whispered uneasily.

"You're gonna fry."

About three hours later, the door to Canterlot Boutique opened up, and in walked Rarity, humming a bit to herself as she moved to the mannequins in the front to remove the ensemble she had worn to the court. The manager quickly stuffed away the book she was reading, ("How to Kill Your Boss and Inherit Their Business, Making It Look Like an Accident, in Five Easy Steps"), and immediately walked up to meet her as she entered.

"Zippers and zithers, Rarity. I don't-"

Rarity suddenly looked to Sassy with a puzzled expression. "I beg your pardon, but...what?"

The Trottingham mare sighed. "I can't think of a clever one each time I say that." She muttered. "As I was saying...I don't see why you had to take most of the day off."

"Oh, pish-posh, dear. Being hired as an Expert Witness is so much more profitable than sewing. I can afford a few fashion disasters with the bits I socked away after today. Which means I can afford to unveil my new line a bit early..."

After replacing her attire, she used her horn to pull aside another curtain, revealing what looked like a series of rather skimpy teenage high school student outfits.

"I was inspired by that low budget horror film I saw the other night. I call it...Slasher Swank! Feel like a victim...en vouge! What do you think?"

Sassy began to grimace a bit.

"I...think I'll be redeeming my PTO over the next few days."

So Carl...

...

Carl.

...

Here we go again...CARL!

What'sDiscorddoinghere?! Huh? What?

...Carl? What'd you just say?

...What?

You just said something that sounded like 'what's Discord doing here'?

...Did I...Did I...?

Maid in Manehattan

Maid in Manehattan

By this point, Sam was so nervous that his fate was sealed that he was sweating bullets. It didn't help that the moment they walked back into the courtroom after the recess for closing statements, the bailiff pony immediately began to advance to take him away, only for him to pause and say: "Oh wait...they have to actually say it out loud first..." As he nervously returned to his seat and looked around, watching and waiting for Princess Celestia to enter, he finally swallowed and leaned over to Haybeus.

"So...is this it? Am I doomed?"

"Well son," The large stallion answered. "There's only, ah say, there's only one idea left that ah got now."

"You already made your closing statement... Isn't it a little late for that?"

"Ah had ta' make ah' call 'r two, but just, ah say, just sit tight ah moment longer. There's ah way we'll get ya' outta this one yet."

Before Sam could ask anything else, the door to the back of the room opened, prompting him and everypony else immediately to stand. Having hastily adjusted her mane as best as she could, Princess Celestia once again walked back into the court and took her position. After doing so, she paused to take in a deep breath and then sat erect.

"Sam Listens-To-Carl's-Problems, rise."

Swallowing again and trembling, Sam slowly got to his feet along with Haybeus.

"In view of the testimony and evidence, as well as the magnitude of the crime," Celestia exhaled gravely. "I have no choice but to find you-"

Before she could finish, however, a dull-yet-rising noise cut her off...the sound of rather intense arguing coming outside the door to the court. It started off low, but quickly grew into the sound of a mob. Celestia's gaze shifted at that as both she and everypony else in the courtroom heard it, before they all began to look up and to the back. Sam included among them.

"What in Equestria...?"

Abruptly, the noise reached its zenith, and suddenly the doors burst open. An assortment of mares, stallions, and all manner of other sentient-and-semi-sentient creatures forming an angry mob immediately flooded the room, pouring into the aisle and making their way forward toward the front of the court. Everypony present reacted in shock as they shouted and stamped their hooves or whatever as their procession went up to the front of the room, roaring so loudly and making such a din that it was impossible to concentrate on anything else. As things grew more and more chaotic, Celestia held out her gilded hooves and began to call out.

"Everypony, settle down! Settle down!" She shouted ineffectively. "What is the meaning of this?"

The crowd died down long enough at that for one gray-coated stallion in large glasses to come forward frowning.

"The meaning? The meaning?!" He shouted back in a weak, trembling, and yet forceful voice. "The meaning is we demand to be heard! We demand justice!"

Celestia looked down to him. "And...who are you, sir?"

"Shill! Silver Shill, your highness! And just because my eyes aren't as large as most mares...my color scheme isn't as cute or intricate...I don't have a sweet little voice...my jaw has a horrendous underbite...and I don't wear an adorable little collar that somewhat resembles that of a Japanese schoolgirl...not to mention my lesson about honesty wasn't terribly noteworthy...doesn't diminish my right to exist as a pony! I refuse to be sentenced to the annals of history because I'm not a mare that combines the shyness of Fluttershy with the fashion sense of Rarity!"

"Just because I'm fat and he's ugly, and it's debatable whether or not we're foals or just stupid stallions, doesn't mean you can use us for pure comic relief or whenever you need dumb minions either!" A squat, fat young pony with scissors for a Cutie Mark shouted in agreement as his misshapen friend with a snail for a Cutie Mark nodded. "We have dignity!"

"And I don't care if I look like a jellybean with legs!" An obese mare shouted over the growing roar. "This country needs better representation of body types of all sorts and not conform to one pony standard of beauty!"

"Fat Pony is right!"

"Think of a better name for me than 'Fat Pony'!"

"Er...um...Melissa NeighCarthy?"

"...It'll do for now. The point being is just because we're poorly designed, don't have stand-out personality traits, and/or may have been created just for a cheap gimmick rather than serious marketing doesn't negate who we are and our right to a fair representation in this world! Ugly ponies matter!"

Immediately, the entire crowd began to chant the same thing, soon sending it booming through the courtroom. When this happened, Haybeus immediately leaned in next to Sam and whispered in his ear.

"Now's your chance, boy. Run for it."

The blue stallion turned to him in surprise. "Ex...excuse me?!"

"Crystal Empire border is 200 miles thataway. Make it there and yer home free."

Sam was aghast. "What the...?! You want me to go fugitive?!"

"It's that, ah say, it's that or Tartarus, boy! Now run! Run like ah six-legged gingerbread man!"

Sam winced. He hesitated a moment, looking at the angry crowd, everypony else being distracted, and the way clear...and, finally, as Haybeus kept ribbing him, he turned and broke for the door. Unfortunately, he only got about halfway there at full gallop before the bailiff managed to spot him over the crowd.

"Hey...he's running for it!" He shouted as loud as he could over the din.

Not able to stop now, Sam just grit his teeth, kept running, and pushed through the crowd nearest the door to charge outside.

The central area of the Canterlot Courthouse was crowded with both members of the latest angry mob as well as all manner of other ponies on business or awaiting their own trials. Confused, disorientated, and now panicked, Sam had to look around for a moment, trying to find the way to the exit. He glanced only a few moments before behind him a yell came from the courtroom to whatever guards were stationed in the hall to stop him, alerting the two ones nearest the door who also happened to spot him as he came out, prompting him to take off as fast as he could.

In an effort to try and lose them, he quickly shot to and weaved through another group of ponies coming out of a different court, this one carrying away two producer ponies in chains to enact their sentence for embezzlement.

"I don't understand how we 'went right'!" One cried as he passed. "Who would have thought a play about a costume designer unable to get orders done in time would be a success?"

At any rate, the pursuing guards got caught up in the mess, allowing Sam to gain some distance. He angled himself, spotting daylight from the entryway leading outside, and tried to head for it, only to cry out a moment later as he tripped over a pony leaning against a wall nearby. After crashing to the ground, he grunted, shook his mane, and began to rise and look back to who he had tripped on, and spotted a bum stallion who noticed him at the same time. His eyes widened.

"Hey! You're that stallion who murdered his friend!" Immediately, he cupped a hoof to his mouth and readied to cry out.

Swallowing, Sam quickly yelled the only thing he could think of. "Uh...look! It's Rarity!" He said, pointing.

The bum cut himself off, and went furious. "That unicorn ruined my shoe business by giving all my customers better ones for free!" He screamed before running in that direction. Sam quickly yanked himself back to his feet and ran again.

The crowd soon thinned out, revealing the open archway. He could see Canterlot and its gardens and spires just beyond, and he put on as much speed as he could to try and reach it...

Only for two pegasi guards with spears to suddenly slam down in his path and cross them in front of them.

"Stop right there, Listens-to-Carl's-Problems!"

Wincing, Sam quickly slammed his hooves down and ground to a halt. He nearly turned to go back...only to find six more royal guards quickly running up behind him and surrounding him. Sweating and panicking, the blue stallion looked around himself, but saw no escape. He was trapped.

As the stallion continued to look around himself at the stern faces waiting for him to make a move, one of the pegasi boomed out at him. "There's no way out of this. You're in the middle of Canterlot. Did you really think you could slip past the royal guard?"

Sam continued to look around a bit longer, still looking fearful, realizing he was trapped and that there was no fate for him now than being thrown into an otherworldly realm/prison. Yet as he stood there looking around, he gradually calmed. His eyes slowly shut, and the rest of his tension faded as he let out a long sigh. His head fell to the ground.

"...If Carl were here, I'm sure right now he'd make some sort of comment in response to that about how considering how ineffective the royal guard has been, escaping them shouldn't have been a problem. But he's not here..."

His eyes slowly opened as he kept looking to the ground.

"...He's not here because I shot him in the head."

The guards reacted a bit to that, as did a growing crowd of ponies having spotted a fugitive running for it and now moving in to get a look. Sam sighed again.

"Yes, I did it. I'm tired of trying to pretend I didn't. I deserve to be thrown into Tartarus or banished and thrown into a dungeon where I get banished to. Because I can't live like this anymore. Even though I shot him, Carl was my friend. More than that...he was my reason for existence. My name is literally 'Sam Listens-to-Carl's-Problems'. What is a Sam Listens-to-Carl's-Problems without a Carl to listen to?" He looked up. "Nothing. Nothing at all. In the grand scheme of things I might just be somepony in the background...but I'm always a pony paired with somepony else. And now that the somepony else isn't here...I'm nothing. And I can't go the rest of my life both incomplete and hiding from my crime."

Stepping forward up to one of the pegasi guards, Sam looked up at him.

"...I don't want to get off for a 'tearful apology' or 'lesson' either. Because I committed a horrible crime, and I deserve whatever I get. So...take me away or whatever. I'm done."

The guard looked a bit uncertain at that. All of them did, looking a bit uneasily to one another. At last, he turned and looked to his partner. The pegasi stared a moment, but in the end closed his eyes and gave a grim nod. Forcing a stern face, the pegasi guard began to advance on Sam...

When a small electronic jingle sounding like "The Smile Song" went out. At once, Sam blinked and looked up in surprise. Everypony else did as well. As the jingle kept going off...eventually the blue stallion grimaced and turned a bit red in the face.

"I...uh...had to borrow my wife's phone while I was in Canterlot because her plan had better coverage..."

Swallowing, he reached for his side and pulled out a seashell.

One of the guards raised an eyebrow. "...A cellular seashell?"

Sam grimaced. "That's something Carl would say...and I pointed out to him we have cellular books."

The guard blinked. "...True."

Sighing, Sam flipped it open and pressed a button to put it on speaker. "Um, whoever you are, this really isn't that good of a time... I'm about to be taken away to a hellish dungeon for the rest of my natural life and I'd rather use my one phone call to tell Dawn I-"

"Sam, be quiet! Just tell all of those ponies to bring you back to Ponyville! Right away!"

The blue stallion quirked an eyebrow. "...Who is this?"

"Who do you think, Sam? It's Carl!"

To be concluded...

On a train headed from Manehattan to Ponyville, a dusty cowgirl pony and a fashionista unicorn bored-ly looked out the window. Both were nearly nodding off and quiet.

"...Say, Applejack?"

"Yeah, Rarity?"

"Did anything about that trip seem particularly...unusual?"

The cowgirl thought for a moment. "...Nope."

Rarity frowned. "That's what I thought..."

Not one Charlie Brown joke! Can you believe it?

Sam, I didn't actually die when you shot me...did I?

...What?

Huh? What's wrong, Sam?

Carl, you just asked me if you didn't actually die back when I shot you.

What? No I didn't...

...

...Did I?

Brotherhooves Social

Brotherhooves Social

Within a few hours, all were assembled. Sam Listens-to-Carl's-Problems, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, the bailliff, the opposing council, Haybeus Corpus, and all the spectators were gathered in the same tiny apartment space...most of them sorely getting tormented by No Neck and his brothers...and staring at a bed from which Incarlsistency, a bandage around his head, was looking at them.

"Well, as you call can plainly see, I am still very much alive." Carl said with a shrug. "So this whole thing was really just a misunderstanding."

Princess Celestia, having to lower her head a bit in the poor clearance of the shabby apartment, looked rather stern. "I'm afraid 'a misunderstanding' is a bit of a flimsy apology in this situation, Carl."

"I didn't make a mistake. Ponies are supposed to die in dreams when they get killed in them." Luna reiterated.

"And...no offense, Carl...but I know I shot you in the head..." Sam muttered uneasily. "For a guy who harps on unexplained mysteries all the time, this one doesn't make a whole lot of sense..."

"I wouldn't have bothered calling you if I couldn't explain it, Sam. I would have just stayed in bed obsessing about it." Carl answered. "Alright...I'll concede your point that you did shoot me in the head and I should have died. But Sam...remember that time I was in the hospital two years back?"

Sam looked up, placing a hoof to his chin, and thought...

"Carl, I really think you should reconsider..."

"Hey, you won't believe me any other way, Sam."

"But..."

"I'll be fine. Rainbow Dash plows headfirst through trees all the time. Twilight Sparkle survives anvils and pianos falling on her head without even needing to stay overnight for observation. It makes perfect sense. You notice how the ground in Equestria is unusually rich in gems, right? Well...evolutionary pressures have obviously incorporated gems into our skeletons. Our skulls are indestructible."

"But...but Carl...this is a pile driver..."

"And watch as it shatters on my head. Now throw the switch!"

"...You did sign that document saying if you don't survive this, this was all your idea, right?"

"Yes, yes, just throw it!"

Sam grimaced uneasily while Carl sighed. "...In all fairness, that supported my argument more than refuted it. All I needed was a metal plate in my head as opposed to my brains being turned into Zap Apple Jam. Anyway..." He tapped his head dressing. "Most ponies think a gunshot to the head is an easy way to kill them, but the skull is a nice ballistic surface. Between that and the plate, the bullet slipped right around my skull and narrowly missed hitting me in the spinal column. I still got a concussion and I blacked out, but I survived."

"But...you got physically injured from a dream?"

Luna cleared her throat. "Actually, with the Tantabus opening all those passages to the real world, a lot of things that shouldn't have gotten out of that dream 'slipped through the cracks' and ended up becoming real..."

A sound of wheelchairs squealing were heard, and the group looked out the window...seeing Lyra and Bon Bon, their lower bodies covered in casts and looking to be in total agony, slowly pushing themselves along in wheelchairs as they painfully bumped their hooves.

"Totally...worth...it..."

Both Sam and Carl grimaced before looking back in the room.

"Uh, son," Haybeus spoke up. "One uh the exhibits the prosecutor put out on this here trial was the mortician reportin' you was deader, ah say, you was deader'n ah jar fulla pickled frogs."

Carl frowned. "Yeah, about that... Seems the ponies of Equestria really hate being exposed to death, blood, and injuries seeing as so few ever actually died. The doctor kept his back to me as he was trying to examine me and ended up grabbing one of his examining room models instead. And since I had been shot in the head, no one wanted to see my skull exploded so it was a closed-casket funeral. I'm guessing the mortician never even looked at my 'corpse'."

A sigh of disgust went out, and the group looked to see a doctor unicorn smacking his face with his hoof.

"So that's what happened to my homunculus..." Muttering angrily, he reached behind him and produced a shovel before turning to leave. "What's the nearest route to the graveyard? Maybe the soil hasn't packed in yet..."

"But, if all that's true," Sam answered. "How did you get back here?"

Carl groaned. "Well...as it turns out, my dear old sister came to the hospital to loot the body." He sighed.

"I heard that, Carl!" A mare's voice shouted from the other room. "And don't give me that tone! I have fillies to provide for! Just because you feel the need to drop everything and lose yourself in grief if a family member gets murdered doesn't mean other ponies don't grit their teeth and say 'life goes on'!"

The green stallion kept scowling and put a hoof to his snout to whisper. "When I came to, she was trying to get me to write my name on the lease to sign the apartment over to her through subconscious suggestion...and I swear No Neck was sizing up my hooves for the black market..." Removing it, he leaned up again. "So, that's how I got here."

Sam paused a moment, but then exhaled in relief, slumping. "I don't believe it, but...but damn, am I happy. I thought I had killed you, Carl..."

"Ah, well..." Haybeus spoke up, turning to everypony else. "Now that ya'll see the allegedly deceased is alive and well, mah client is clearly innocent. So ah move that the case be closed at once an'-"

"Now just one second here." The prosecuting attorney interjected. "Alright, maybe your client didn't kill Incarlsistency, but that doesn't mean he didn't try to. This trial proved he meant to blow his brains out with that rifle, and last I checked aggravated assault is still a felony."

Sam swallowed a bit at that, rubbing the back of his neck with his hoof.

"Well...yes, I agree...but...I only thought it was going to be a 'dream' and he'd be fine when he woke up. I just wanted to keep him quiet until the Tantabus was gone and then-"

"That's not what I heard you say!" One of the witnesses spoke up.

"Me neither!" Said another. "You wanted him dead!"

The blue stallion wiped his brow. "I...I did, but...haven't you all ever said anything in anger before? I mean...yes, I did it...but it's not like I want to do it now or thought it would permanently kill him. I just lost my temper and got angry is all..."

"When I lose my temper, I don't pull guns on ponies!"

"And I don't shoot them in the head!"

Rather nervous at this point, Sam looked slightly behind him. "Uh, Carl? Help me out here?"

"...Dude, I'm actually still kind of pissed at you about all this. You're lucky I made that call to Canterlot in the first place. The rest of it, you're on your own."

The green stallion gulped as he looked back.

"Hang on, everypony!"

Everyone stopped on hearing that; turning the heads behind them. They were just in time to see Princess Twilight Sparkle swoop down and make a landing outside the door, then quickly trot into the room; bearing with her a large leather-bound book with a sun emblem, half-yellow and half-red, on the front of it.

Celestia spotted that and went a bit wide-eyed. "Is that what I think...?" She trailed off, then immediately looked uneasy. "Listen Twilight, if she wants to talk to me, I'm really not in a good spot right now. I have...um...a royal summit in an hour. Yes... Could you handle this one? You'd really be...uh...'doing me a solid'."

"As horrible as Sam's crime seems, it's more understandable than you think." Twilight went on as she walked into the room. "I conclude that anypony else under similar circumstances would have done the same thing."

A number of ponies raised their eyebrows. "...I don't think anything could ever drive me to try and actually kill a pony."

"Me neither."

"That's why I brought this." The new princess went on. "Carl...this contains the latest messages from Sunset Shimmer from what happened recently in her world." She hovered the book over to him. "I'd like you to read it for ten minutes."

Carl blinked a bit, but accepted the book. A moment later, while still opening the cover, he looked up in surprise as Twilight cast a spell on him, instantly surrounding him in a purple energy shield.

"You're going to need that..." She muttered. "Princess Celestia, I need your verdict...and Sam...you've experienced it firsthand, so let's step out of the room. I'll lock the door behind us..."

Ten minutes later, Princess Celestia was sitting calmly, Sam was pacing back one way and another while Twilight Sparkle was looking at the time.

"58...59...60. That's ten minutes."

She looked to the door afterward, still glowing purple from the locking spell. Immediately, her horn lit up and removed it, and the door opened.

Pressed all around the purple hemisphere, desperately trying to force their bodies in through the magical energy with wild, ravenous looks, was the crowd of ponies. Carl, meanwhile, was in his element and seemed oblivious to it.

"...And how does the dog still being able to talk make sense? I mean, it's not like dogs in this world can talk either! Was the dog being turned into a dragon? If enough Equestrian magic is used will both versions eventually fuse into one? Is Spike now acting more like a dog in this world?"

The ponies around him screamed in anguish.

"Shut up...shut up...shutupshutupshutupshutupSHUTUP!"

"GAH! Stop making the noises, pony!"

"I've got it! We'll burn down the house! We can take him with us! DEATH IS PREFERABLE!"

Celestia was rather aghast at the entire thing, while Sam merely sighed. Twilight looked up to her former mentor. "So you see, princess...Sam's natural talent for listening to Carl enables him to put up with subject matter that would normally drive ponies to suicide within an hour. I think it's understandable that just this once we can overlook it when he 'slipped one time', don't you?"

The goddess blinked a few times, and then looked uneasily at the psychotic ponies, and gave a reluctant nod. "I suppose I can hardly argue with that..." She sighed, then looked over to the blue stallion. "Sam Listens-to-Carl's-Problems, by virtue of temporary insanity, I declare you not guilty."

The stallion sighed in relief. "Thank you, princess."

Twilight smiled a bit on her own. "Heh, so nice when the Cutie Map gives you 'easy ones'. So, Princess Celestia, care to help me out in calming everypony down?"

"Oh, sorry about that, Twilight. I have that royal business to take care of. I'm sure you can handle it."

The younger alicorn looked up in surprise. "But, don't you need to at least take Luna with-"

Too late. Celestia had already taken off. The former student sighed and muttered.

"...The sad part is I think I'm turning into her."

"Hey, Carl! Haven't seen you in a while! The usual?"

"Uh, I'll do fudge brownies today. The doctor's aren't sure if the bullet did irreversible damage to my masseteric muscles on the way out of my mandible yet..."

Mrs. Cake gave a nod and turned and left. As for Carl, he sighed and looked down to the table as he put a magazine out on it to read. Before he could open it, a shadow fell over him. He looked up...and saw Sam giving him a hopeful smile. Carl looked a moment, before looking down at the magazine again.

Sam swallowed. "...Hi, Carl."

The green stallion paused a long time. "...Hello." The voice was indifferent.

"...Mind if I sit?"

"Knock yourself out."

Grimacing a little, Sam uneasily took his seat across from him. The two stayed silent. Sam shifted in his seat and looked at Carl, but Carl merely opened his magazine and started to read silently.

"...How do you feel?"

"...Better."

Pause.

"You...um...know I'm sorry, right?"

"Yes."

"So...does that mean we're friends again?"

Carl didn't answer. He continued to slowly read the magazine as if he hadn't heard. Sam's ears fell as he slumped a bit. He fidgeted uneasily for a while.

"You...uh...know what happened while you were gone?"

"No."

"Well...Rarity finally opened her boutique in Canterlot. Then...she helped clear Rainbow Dash's name when she was suspected of backstabbing a teammate. Then...uh...she helped a friend in Manehattan... Ok, pretty much she's the only person who's done anything for a while." Pause. "...Isn't that...kind of weird?" He asked hopefully.

Carl turned a page. "...It happens."

Sam grimaced and looked down again. He dug his hoof into the table as Mrs. Cake came back and left off the fudge brownies.

"So...Sisterhooves Social was this week."

Silence.

"They...uh...let Big Macintosh compete even though he's a male..."

"That's just common courtesy, Sam." Carl idly answered as he kept reading. "Think about single fillies. Think about only-mare fillies in a household. Think about ones who lost an older sister and now only have older brothers. They're kind of leaving a lot of ponies out if they don't do that."

Sam's face sunk. He bowed his head a bit at this and went quiet himself.

"...Although..."

The blue stallion raised his head a bit. Carl slowly lifted his head from his magazine.

"Ol' Grizzleface...he nearly tried to hit on him when he was in drag, right?"

Sam paused a moment. "...Right."

"But...he was part of the committee running it...and they all knew he was a male the whole time...right?"

The blue stallion leaned up a bit more and nodded. "Right."

"So...in reality...this is some really horny old guy trying to hit on a dude without even knowing whether or not he 'swung that way'. Or maybe he had a thing for guys who dress in drag...you think?"

Sam was easing a bit now, as Carl leaned up from his own magazine and leaned back. He nodded more earnestly. "Possibly."

"And...what about how Big Macintosh is always wearing that horse collar? Is he just getting ready to plow things whenever the occasion calls for it? Does he think it's fashionable? You don't expect Crystal Ponies to go around wearing their old chains, do you? Or is it like those saddles we always wear?"

Smiling a bit now, Sam leaned over and took up a brownie. On biting into it...it wasn't quite the same as a gingersnap or chocolate chip, but it would do. "I don't know, Carl... You really think it's all that big of a deal? Ponies do body piercings and tattoos all the time and nopony cares..."

"And the events, Sam," Carl continued, smiling a bit himself now. "One of their events is to go get a chicken egg and bring it out to a basket. Baskets of eggs, Sam. Not for the chickens, but for us... And you know what those eggs end up getting put into, right? What we shove into our faces all the time?"

For once, Sam actually chuckled as he felt a sensation of "completeness" again; forcefully leaning forward and onto the tabletop, getting back into his "old position".

"I haven't thought about it in a while, Carl... Maybe you can remind me..."

Yeah...glad we could make up after that, Sam.

Carl! You snapped out of...whatever you were in.

Huh? Oh...hmm...guess I did. Weird.

That does kind of make me wonder, though. I never asked you this.

What?

What was it like to be in a coma?

You know...surprisingly...vivid...

Crusaders of the Lost Mark

Crusaders of the Lost Mark

Carl rubbed his jaw in a bit of puzzlement with one hoof as he worked a pencil over a sketchpad. As usual, he was seated across from Sam and a plate of cookies. After a moment, he snickered to himself a bit and wrote down a bit more. He leaned up to say something, then suddenly blinked.

"Er...Sam?"

"Yeah Carl?"

"Didn't we...uh..." He looked around a bit. "Just...do thi-"

"No, Carl. We didn't already do this for this week thinking that the fandom would be enraged over the fact that Diamond Tiara did a heel-turn-face and that this ended up with the CMCs getting their Cutie Marks at long last when it turns out most people actually supported the idea after all that no one is really 'born bad' but gets warped by their adult influences which was ironically very much in the spirit of 'Friendship Games' and so rather than 'jumping the shark' the fandom actually loves this episode and, even if they didn't, the author thought it was well done so he shouldn't be encouraging the negative viewpoint and so he deleted that post and started over again from scratch in a more traditional format. Stop imagining things. That never happened."

Carl blinked a few times.

"Hey!"

Both Sam and Carl looked up to the giant brick wall enclosing one side of town, now lying in pieces with dust rising from it. An angry stallion pointed a hoof at them.

"You two are fixing it this time! I've had it!"

He threw down his hard hat and stomped off. The two blinked, then looked to each other.

"...Right. Actually, in regards to all of that, so those three fillies who bothered me about quality control finally got their Cutie Marks, eh?"

"Yup."

"...They didn't happen to get it in repairing wagon wheels, did they? Because the repairs on my Hevvy for that one wheel are running me 300 bits..."

"Nope!"

Both stallions looked up and to the side, and saw a trio of fillies coming up to them with multi-colored shield emblems on their flanks.

"Turns out we'll keep on bein' Cutie Mark Crusaders, only now we help other ponies crusade with their marks!"

"So...either of you two think you aren't living up to your full potential?"

Carl scoffed. "Please, what do we look like? A couple of bums who spend most of our free time just hanging around stuffing our faces with junk food talking about crap that doesn't matter?"

"Uh...Carl..."

The green stallion turned, and the blue one gestured around them. Carl's own face fell a bit at that.

"...You have to admit, if we looked any more pathetic, ponies would give us free bits for a bite to eat."

"Well, maybe you need to look at your Cutie Marks in a new way." The pegasus in the group went on. "Maybe you should try and see what you're really good at and aim higher."

"Hmm..." The unicorn murmured as she looked at Carl's mark...making him a bit uncomfortable after a while. "You can figure out inconsistencies...things that are wrong... What do you do now?"

"I'm a quality control operator."

The CMCs blinked a bit. "Uh...that's it?"

"What if your talent for finding things wrong can help other ponies? Like have you ever thought of reforming villains?"

Both Sam and Carl grimaced a bit at that, looking rather nervous at the idea. "That's...kind of hard, isn't it?"

"Not at all!" The one with a bow chirped. "Takes less than twenty minutes!"

"Sometimes the bulk of it happens when no one is even watching!" The unicorn added.

"It's easy." The pegasus concluded. "All you have to do is go up to the villain, invite them to do something friendly and talk to them, get them to expose something really bad that happened to them that made them the way they are, and then tell them 'let me show you a better way'." Her eyes narrowed as she jabbed a hoof out. "You have to say 'a better way'. That's the zinger. Otherwise it doesn't work."

"Ah'm sure with your mark for findin' out inconsistencies, you'd be great at findin' problems with villains!" The one in the bow cheered.

Carl looked up a bit at that, seeming to be thinking it over. "It does beat looking at a conveyor belt full of horseshoes until the mere sight of them makes me have a nervous twitch..."

Sam also seemed to be considering this, and lit up as well. "And since my Cutie Mark is an ear, I can have a talent for listening to people talk about their problems besides Carl!"

The CMCs blinked a moment.

"Uh...I was going to say since your Cutie Mark is a cashew, and everypony likes cashews, they'll open up to you." The unicorn suggested.

Sam frowned, but shook it off a moment later and looked to Carl. "Say...how about it, Carl? Rather than just doing mundane things with our special talents, why don't we give it a shot?"

Carl gave a shrug as well. "Why not? I mean...if the most anti-social nerd in town can do it, we can do it!" He smiled in enthusiasm.

Sam grinned. "We'll be...um...Two Background Pony Reformers!"

"Yeah!"

The three fillies stared at them blankly.

"It...doesn't really work unless it starts with the same letter."

The two stallions paused, then Carl shrugged.

"Two Background Pony Therapists?"

"But now you don't have the 'hard T' sound for alliteration."

"Ugh," Sam sighed, shaking his head and getting up. "We'll worry about the name later, Carl. Let's get out there...and reform the hell out of Equestria!"

Carl soon jumped up on top of the table, scattering the cookies and shattering it in the process.

"FRIENDSHIP! F*** YEAH!"

Some time later, in a deep cave in the Everfree Forest, a massive roar suddenly bellowed out followed by a jet of flame...lapping behind the heels of a pair of singed stallions who barreled out of it for dear life.

"Dragons don't care about friendship!"

A bit after that, within the murk of the Dread Fire Swamp, two stallions ran for dear life from the jaws of a jaguar, the lightning spewing of a ram, and the poisonous strikes of a snake...all combined into one hideous monster.

"Neither do chimeras!"

"There's too many places in Equestria that involve fire, Sam!"

Soon after that, the two stallions found themselves doing their best three-legged race possible, considering both of them had a leg turned to stone, as they hobbled for dear life from a hissing, spitting cockatrice chasing after them.

"This would be so much easier if most of the remaining villains in Equestria were fully sentient, Sam!"

"Can't we do that griffon?!"

"Too late! This year is big on reformation!"

Far on the borders of Equestria, a hideous, malformed, black and green hive made out of secreted resin loomed dark and ominous on a desolate mountainside. With a loud screech, a hellish swarm of Changelings suddenly burst from it, flashing their teeth and crying out terribly, before arching down and snapping at the heels of a pair of stallions fleeing as fast as they could from it.

As a hideous warped evil-thing-in-pony-form led the swarm, the two shouted behind them to her.

"We just wanted to talk to you about your upbringing!"

"My mother was a rotten acorn and my father was a unicorn's decaying skeleton, you half-wits! Now don't come back until you need me to try and conquer Equestria again!"

Finally, the two stallions found themselves standing in front of a dark cave leading into a bottomless, flaming pit deep beneath the planet, in which a monstrous three-headed dog, snarling and snapping as he stood eternally vigilant, glared down on both of them. They stared into the darkness a moment, then looked to each other.

"...Hell no."

"Reformation sucks. Let's go back to eating cookies."

"Er...somewhere else, preferably. I have to pay for the plate and those cookies where we just left..."

Well...since Equestria has universal health care coverage, it ended up being a fun time. Dangerous, but fun. Life-threatening, but fun. Emotionally scarring, but fun.

Yeah...but, heh, I kind of wish our author had gone ahead and not deleted the first one. I mean, it was kind of funny for him to break th fourth wall for.

Oh, Carl.

Er...gulp...

Do you remember what happens to little ponies who tell big lies about posts that never existed?

They...get locked inside the Shack of Shame and subjected to Chinese Water Torture until they beg to forget they ever existed, Mr. Sky...

Mmmhmm...now be a good little OC and don't tell big lies, K?

The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows

The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows

The plate of chocolate cookies was set down in between a pair of stallion friends seated at Sugarcube Corner. As the deliverer turned and walked off, both immediately took up a chocolate cookie and dug in. However, both only chewed them for a few seconds before their faces turned a bit. Not so much disgusted as a bit surprised and confused. They continued to eat though but only slowly swallowed.

"Say, Sam..."

"Yeah Carl?"

"Do these cookies taste...a bit 'off' to you?"

The blue stallion swished his mouth a bit. "...I suppose so, but it's not too bad. Maybe they didn't put in enough baking powder this time."

The green stallion winced. "I don't know..." He said as he uneasily looked at his own. "It...doesn't kind of taste like...reptillian uric acid to you?"

Sam blinked.

"Carl?"

"Yeah?"

"How do you know what reptillian uric acid tastes like?"

The green stallion paused, then narrowed his eyes and frowned. "You win this round, Mr. Listens-to-Carl's-Problems. But why did we switch to the 'Monday Surprise' recipe today?"

"We needed something already baked. We got to clear out before 1 PM today. Apparently we've got royalty in town making executive decisions again."

"Huh? But...why would they need here? What's this about?"

Sam exhaled and glanced back. "Guessing from the frosting emblems I saw them putting on that big cake looking like baby paraphernalia? They're having a baby."

The blue stallion risked another bite of a cookie, but soon slowed as he saw Carl getting "the look" again.

"...A baby, you say?"

"Uh...yeah..."

"I noticed a little something-something in this town, Sam. No one ever really talks about having babies. Or, to be more specific, making babies..."

Sam grimaced a bit, and quickly glanced around at the other patrons. "Uh, Carl...this is one I think we should probably reserve for the privacy of our homes..."

"Well, Sam..." Carl answered as he leaned forward. "I was hoping you could actually enlighten me. You being married and all."

The blue stallion's eyes widened before he frowned. "What goes on in our bedroom is between me and Dawn, Carl! None of your business!"

The green stallion lit up a bit at that, however. "Oh, so you do actually bother going into the bedroom for it?"

"...Say what?"

"You actually go to all the trouble of going into the bedroom, getting, presumably, into a bed large enough to fit two good-sized ponies, and then you navigate through all the trouble of moving around with hooves on a mattress until you're in a good position to-"

Sam's jaw tightened. "That's quite enough, Carl."

"I mean, I always figured you'd just clear a space in the middle of the floor so you could get enough room to get up on one end of her and put your hooves around her midsection..."

"I said that's enough, Carl."

"...Then again, uh...how exactly do you do it, Sam? From the looks of things we've got internal genitalia just like 'Gumby'. I mean...do you do like birds do and give a 'cloacal kiss'? Do you actually get anything out of that? Or do you two need to start acting out a whole lot of foreplay to-"

Sam's hooves slammed on the table as his face turned purple.

"Stop asking questions about how me and Dawn have sex!!"

Instantly, he froze after saying that, for everyone in Sugarcube Corner turned and looked to him. One group had a baby that started crying, while another couple slapped the hooves over the ears of their foals and gave Sam a dirty look. Looking around with a nervous whimper, Sam sat back down again. He shrank his head toward the table and obscured his face with his hooves.

Carl himself leaned back and whistled uneasily, before calming and speaking more quietly. "So...why don't they just have that cake delivered? Why have it here?"

Sam frowned a bit in irritation at more questions, but sighed after a moment. "The prince announced at town hall he's commandeering the town so he can use it for a personal scavenger hunt to make it a surprise reveal to his sister."

Carl quirked his eyebrow. "...He can do that?"

"You bet. He got permission to access everyone's private records of their identity in town hall, was able to appropriate merchandise from the local outlets..."

"Not to mention became temporary editor of a school newspaper..."

The two stallions turned and looked to the street, seeing a rather tired-looking, rail-thin foal with a Cutie Mark of a feather slowly walk down the road, looking up to them after overhearing the conversation.

"We've had to answer 35 letters this morning alone asking us to explain what that article was about...and tomorrow's story will be about how the city hall restrooms exploded due to an unexpected number of visitors showing up there asking why the newspaper told them to come."

Both individuals stared at the child for a few moments of silence.

"...You were cuter when you never said anything."

Eyes tearing up, Featherweight sniffled and turned to run off sobbing. Sam looked to his friend with a frown.

"Dude, what the hell?"

"It's true! Most of us are more endearing when we never say a word, Sam! Then people can just look at us and make up whatever life story they wish to-"

"GAH!"

Both ponies shot up in alarm as a purple-and-green baby dragon tore by, knocked over their table and all the cookies, took cover under a spare pile of hay, and then used the table as a shield.

"Save me! Save me!" He cried.

Sam and Carl blinked a moment, before both exclaimed in shock as unicorn death beams fired off all over the area, causing minor explosions in their wake. The rest of the patrons screamed in terror, got up, and ran for their lives, but the two stallions were too close to the point of impact to be brave enough to break for it. Instead, they turned to the source, and were just in time to see a furious white stallion with a blue mane preparing another shot as he charged forward.

"Where is he?! Where is he?! I'll kill him!"

The two looked around in stunned shock, but soon realized he had to be going for Spike. As he reached the fence, Shining Armor spotted him and quickly took aim. Instinctively, Sam suddenly shot forward and formed a pony shield in front of him, putting up his hooves in stopping gestures.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Settle down, dude!"

"Get out of my way!" The unicorn bellowed in maddened rage. "He is dead! DEAD!"

"I didn't mean to!" Spike cried in terror from behind the table. "It was an accident!"

"My horn incinerating your right kidney!" Shining Armor shouted back. "That's going to be the 'accident'!"

"Hang on, man!" Carl suddenly exclaimed, although definitely not getting between the prince and the dragon. "What the hell could be so bad that you ran in here starting to shoot up the whole cafe?!"

Gritting his teeth, Armor pointed a hoof at the dragon. "He destroyed one of the mint condition comic books in my old collection!"

Immediately, Carl's face turned to confusion. Sam blinked in surprise, then formed a sour expression. "...Are you high or something, dude?! You're randomly blasting away at civilians just because he burned up one of your old comic books?! It's a damn comic book, man! It's not the end of the world or your wife or your first-born or-"

"It was 'Reaction Comics #1'!"

Immediately, Carl's own puzzlement vanished, turning to shock instead.

"...Seriously?! You really had a copy of 'Reaction Comics #1'? As in...the first appearance of Ultracorn? A.K.A. the Pony of Steel? A.K.A. Cor-Ral, last son of Argon?"

"Yes!"

"...And it was mint condition?"

"Yes!"

Carl stared blankly for a moment more, before his own face turned violent, he spun around, seized the tail of Spike, and furiously began to try dragging him out as he clung to the ground with his claws for dear life.

"Get out here! Get out here, you son of a bitch! Take it like a man, you rotten bastard! You deserve it! You deserve every flesh-searing beam of it you careless butthead!"

Immediately, Sam jumped on him and held down his arms with his hooves. "Carl! Carl! Wait! Stop!"

The green stallion very slowly paused and looked to Sam, who stared back silently a moment...before his own face filled with rage.

"Let me help you!"

The two immediately seized Spike and began to drag him out as the white unicorn readied for another blast.

Heh, well...everything's ok between them now.

Mostly because Shining Armor is so forgiving. Now me...I wouldn't have stopped until I had his head on a-

Thank you, Carl, but it turns out the prince is more forgiving. ...Incidentally, how did they make up?

Turns out he took half of Spike's heart and they called it even.

...Left or right?

Left.

No wonder Spike had to spend most of the time riding on Twilight in the season finale. But...dude, Reaction Comics #1...

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, man. That's all I gotta say.

Hearthbreakers

Hearthbreakers

"I think he's coming around..."

iving a dull moan and moving his head slightly, a green stallion lying on his back on a couch slowly cracked his eyes open. He had a wet rag on his forehead covering up a rather nasty bruise, and his eyes were crossed and refused to focus immediately. However, he blinked once, and soon saw the familiar faces of his sister, his brother, his best friend's wife, and, of course, the blue stallion that was his best friend all looking at him.

Immediately, his eyes shot open, and, in spite of the pain, he leaned up and grasped Sam.

"What...what happened?! Where am I?!"

Quickly, the blue stallion put his own hooves on his. "Whoa, settle down, dude. You banged your head pretty bad back there."

The green stallion blinked a few times. "Banged...my head...?"

Dawn, nearby, gave a nod. "Yeah. You were going off on one of your schpiels, talking about why Hearth's Warming Eve is coming before Nightmare Night this year and why we always bring winter back for it just for a couple days, and you didn't see where you were going and you walked headfirst into Sam and our flagpole."

"And we missed dinner waiting for you to snap out of it, you obsessive-compulsive psycho." Farrah nearby grumbled. "Sheesh, Carl...at this rate you'll be dead before you ever get a girlfriend."

Carl blinked two more times, then looked to his right, out a nearby window. Ponyville was in all of its holiday array and everyone was smiling and enjoying themselves as they were immersed in the Hearth's Warming Eve festivities. He finally exhaled in relief and leaned back down.

"...It was all just a horrible, horrible hallucination brought on by head trauma and excessive sugar intake..."

Both Sam and Dawn looked puzzled at that, while Farrah snorted and simply turned and walked away. "I'm starting on the cheese ball. I'm not waiting any longer."

"Uh, Carl..." Sam began to say. "What are you-"

Suddenly, Carl shot up.

"It was horrible, Sam! I was in Ponyville, only Hearth's Warming Eve was a much bigger holiday than before! Much bigger! Everyone got into it so much that they started celebrating it during Nightmare Night!"

Dawn blinked a few times. "But...Nightmare Night sometimes comes after Hearth's Warming Eve..."

"I know! That didn't stop them!" Carl shouted back. "But that was just the beginning! The non-pony residents started to complain to public schools and government institutions about being forced to acknowledge a pony-based holiday when their own religions or backgrounds refused to give credit to ponies... And so everything had to be changed to call it 'Winter Holiday'! They had to stop hanging the flag of Equestria in public buildings and exempting foals and kids of other species from participating in school events based around it...and then start celebrating other holidays like Yaksmas and Griffonalia at the same time of year...

"Then they started complaining about how the entire thing was too commercialized and brought up fillies to be greedy for presents and that this wasn't fair to low income families and ones who don't celebrate Hearth's Warming Eve! And then other ponies complained about how there was too much of an emphasis on sugar-laden food at this time of year and started trying to mandate more healthy snacks! And then other ponies complained about how planting monoculture crops of Lodgepole Pines to make flagpoles was terrible for the environment! And then entire anti-defamation leagues began to picket and protest the holiday pointing out how much the wild Windego populations have declined due to 'ruthless, unfounded persecution based on pagan superstition'!

"And then...and then...they started to edit the parts of the pageant that portrayed Earth Ponies as dim-witted or Unicorns as vain or Pegasi as arrogant...and tried to insist that they only portray the heart-shaped flame as naturally-occurring without directly describing any magical origin to it! Then they started having lawsuits about removing the hearth dolls from the Canterlot Palace! And then somepony tried to convert it into 'Commercial Hearth's Warming Eve' and ponies got outraged that they were letting everyone celebrate only the 'fun' parts without having any deference to its Equestrian origins! And then I think I saw Cheese Sandwich write a song called: 'It's Hearth's Warming Eve at Ground Zero'! Finally the holiday was so utterly destroyed that the only thing anyone was left doing was painting themselves gray and walking around playing with rocks every year because that was the only thing that didn't offend anypony!"

Taking a deep breath, Sam reached out and put his hooves on Carl to steady him.

"Now Carl...just relax. That was all just a delusion. Everything's fine."

The green stallion took a few deep breaths. "It was all so real..." A moment later, however, he exhaled in relief and brightened. "But I'm here now! I'm back in Equestria, it's Hearth's Warming Eve, I'm with my best friend for the holidays, there's a lovely Rock Brisket in the oven, and..."

He paused.

"...Dude, why do Earth Ponies eat rocks?"

"Well, we are 'Earth' Ponies. We had to eat something before we discovered agriculture and nothing grows if not for us."

"...I'll save that for another day. The point being is we're back in wonderful Equestria and we're going to have the best Hearth's Warming Eve ever and-GAAAH!"

Carl's eyes had drifted outside, and what he saw made him shriek in horror before passing out all over again. Both Sam and Dawn blinked, and then looked out at what he saw.

A certain gray pony with a listless stare and holding a small rock was walking up to the snow piles outside their house. On seeing them looking at her, she very slowly blinked.

"...Boulder likes to play in the snow."

She turned her hoof over, letting the rock fall into the nearest snow pile. After doing so, she merely stood there and stared at the indentation it left behind.

Both Sam and Dawn were left blinking.

"...I thought she didn't live in Ponyville."

"Well, neither do Fancy Pants and Fleur-de-Lis."

That was quite a good Hearth's Warming Eve that year.

Oh yeah? How so?

Our family only got into three arguments this time. How about you?

It was going fine until my kid brother slugged my uncle over who found the pickle first.

No more weird hallucinations like that one though, right?

Actually, when I was going into the attic for the presents, the ladder hit me in the head. Then I had a vision where Equestria went into a Civil War over a red coffee cup... That one was real weird...

Scare Master

Scare Master

It was Nightmare Night in Ponyville. Decorations of bats and evil Nightmare Moons were up everywhere, games and festivities were planned throughout the town square, everypony was in costumes either just for fun or to go out and look for treats door-to-door...

But through it all, two ponies made time for their favorite festivity.

Sam and Carl were currently seated on a park bench done up with a fake zombie pony and eating away a box of pumpkin spice cookies. For this year, Sam had elected for male vampire fruit bat. Carl, on his part, was dressed in a rather basic burlap cape, a white t-shirt, and some blue sweatpants. After a short while, Sam glanced over to him, scanning over his outfit for a moment. As for Carl, he looked around town blinking.

"...Did they, like, put in a bunch of green fog machines since last year?"

"...I know I've asked you this before, but-"

"I told you. I'm Neighruto. From the manga."

The blue stallion blinked. "You look literally nothing like him."

"I had to improvise my costume with whatever looked approximate! We don't all have wives to make our costumes for us, dude!"

Sam frowned at that insinuation.

"Besides, you're saying my costume is confusing and you let the rainbow-haired one get a pass."

"...Rainbow Dash. You need, like, flash cards or something, man. And she's an astronaut."

"...What's an astronaut?"

The blue stallion paused, caught by that. "They...ride into space on rocketships."

"...What the hell is a rocketship?"

Sam went silent afterward, grimacing and looking away.

"Besides, at least I didn't do what you did and dress in the trendiest costume I could find like a third of the town. Vampire fruit bats? Seriously? After the shy one turned into one and went on a reign of terror more ponies want to be like that? Well hell..." He cupped a hoof to his mouth and shouted. "Why aren't you all dressed like Tirek?!"

"Dude, shut up!" Sam snapped as several ponies looked to him. "Don't make a scene!"

Carl sighed and slumped down. "...Where is she, anyway? I thought I saw her running around the haunted maze earlier."

"Oh, she quit, went home, and got back under her bed until tomorrow."

"Ah..." Carl began to nod, then blinked and shook his head. "Wait now, what? She's still scared of Nightmare Night? Look, I know there's some crap out there, but...chocolate-covered peanut butter pumpkins, man... Only time of the year..."

"Oh, it's not that she's scared, Carl. It's that she doesn't like seeing other ponies scared. So she's back to abstaining from the entire holiday."

The green stallion gave Sam a dull look. The blue stallion reached for another cookie, but on noticing that Carl had "that look" in his eye, he sighed and simply leaned back and crossed his arms.

"...Carl, before you begin, you should know that's actually a good thing. Not everyone has to like the same things. Not everyone has to have the same preferences. Not everyone has to be part of this or that 'fandom'. Even if they're really, really good at it it's ok to never do it...unless, you know, it's something like curing cancer or being a genius at atomic science and you decide to just be a grocery clerk because then you're pretty much wasting your potential..."

"What 'scares ponies' about pinning the horn on Nightmare Moon, Sam?"

The green stallion went silent.

"What 'scares ponies' about bobbing for apples, Sam?"

He swallowed a bit.

"What 'scares ponies' about wearing a more complicated costume, Sam? What 'scares ponies' about not putting birds out to alert you when kids looking for candy are coming by, closing and shuttering all your windows, and hiding under a bed until morning, Sam?" He snapped his head around to the end of town and shouted. "And what 'scares ponies' about being too damn cheap to stock any candy, you-"

Sam lashed out and smacked him upside the head. "I said cut that out, dude! You can't force people to do things they don't like! It's as simple as that!"

"Oh, come on, Sam! This isn't about that! It's about justifying your anxieties! About 'hating something for the right reasons'! She's still the exact same as before only now she has a 'good excuse'! More like one she had to make up... So I guess that tells us we should turn all of our irrational hates into rational ones? That if you have a phobia for something, you should try it out once so you can think up a legitimate reason for your phobia and then resume having it using that as an excuse?"

"Look, she tried it out and she didn't like it! Respect her decision and let it go!"

Carl merely crossed his hooves and muttered something along the lines of "I hated having to sacrifice ten percent of my candy to Nightmare Moon as a filly but I still had to do it".

After a time, Sam exhaled and began to get up. "Well...I gotta get going. Dawn and I are a couple at this year's 'Monster Fest'."

Carl sighed and did the same. "Yeah...I got to pass out candy at my place too. Nice hanging out with you for a bit, though."

"Happy Nightmare Night, Carl."

"Happy Nightmare Night, Sam."

Sam turned around to grab a few of the cookies to go...only to have Carl reach over, snatch up the entire box, and then take it with him. The blue stallion frowned.

"Hey! We both paid for that and I only got five of them!"

"Oh, sorry Sam...but you need to watch your weight. It's far better if I just take them home and eat them all. I wouldn't be a good friend if I didn't."

Sam was aghast. "What the...?! You just want to have them all to yourself!"

Carl smirked as he turned and kept walking. "If the shy one can do it, so can I..."

Back in the Castle of Friendship, Spike was sighing as he picked one piece of candy from his haul out after another, compared it on a 'flow chart' Twilight had whipped up for caloric content, and then set it aside...desperately trying to find one low enough to where he could eat one more before stashing the rest for the following days. It was late at this point and most ponies were in bed, but when it came to sweets he was willing to "stay the course" even though he'd normally be out of it by now.

Suddenly, the doors behind him flew open with a loud bang. Spike whirled around, seeing a half-undressed, sweating, fearful Twilight Sparkle staring back at him.

"T-Twilight? I thought you'd be asleep by now..."

"I couldn't sleep! I figured it out! Spike...Hairy was the bear, Angel was the thing running around behind us, the spider made the trap webs, the birds were the ghosts, and Fluttershy was Flutterbat at the end..."

"Well...yeah. So what's the-"

Twilight grabbed Spike with a terrified look. "Then whose skeleton was that in that hole?!"

Spike's pupils shrunk as he forgot about candy.

...Did they ever find out whose skeleton that was, Carl?

Sure did. The last remains of Apple Jelly. Back in 841 on her wedding day she was playing hide-and-seek and accidentally locked herself up in a trunk in the attic. In 861, on her daughter's wedding day, she tried to hide in the same trunk and found her remains. There were hoofnail marks in the lid from her trying to claw her way out.

That's...rather horrific. But...why was she in that hole?

She was part of the act. Every Nightmare Night they drag out her bones, reattach them, and make them look like somepony in the Apple Family to scare the fillies.

...

...What?

Dude! Sick!

Well, they're cheaper and more realistic than fake skeletons. And you know Granny Smith grew up in the pioneer days and is thrifty as all get out...

Now I wonder what they bake in the pies on a 'lean' year...

What About Discord?

What About Discord?

Incarlsistency Presents: "DASHING & DOOFUS"

[Small cartoon of a suave, neat, and smiling-friendly pony and a sloppy, rough, and sheepishly-shrugging pony]

Dashing invites left-out friends on fun activities.

[Cartoon of the neat pony and his buddies dressed in soccer uniforms at the door of another pony's house, asking him to come along.]

Doofus purposely encourages his friends to leave out others so he can watch them get jealous.

[Cartoon of the rough pony grinning darkly over his shoulder as he and his buddies are off playing soccer, while a lone pony to one side is frowning and stamping his hooves.]

Dashing doesn't bother his friend when they have their relatives in town.

[Cartoon of the neat pony reading a book at a park bench while two other ponies are laughing and talking in the background.]

Doofus fakes being sick to try and stress his friend and their relative to the breaking point.

[Cartoon of the rough pony lying in bed surrounded by needs such as soup, medicine, tissues, and clear soda and grinning while the other two ponies argue over him.]

Dashing is polite and friendly to his friends' own friends.

[Cartoon of the neat pony shaking hands with another pony while a third smiles and stands in between them.]

Doofus tears a hole in the fabric of space and time and tries to throw his friends' friends into them so he can have his friends all to himself.

[Cartoon of the rough pony angrily trying to shove a pony into a cosmic gate in thin air filled with tentacles and multi-eyed creature while another screaming pony is trying to stop him.]

Dashing admits when he's made a mistake before anypony gets hurt.

[Cartoon of the neat pony looking sorrowful as he points out a loose wheel on a wagon to a friend.]

Doofus sits back and watches things play out because he's a sadistic bastard.

[Cartoon of the rough pony eating popcorn and smiling as a pony is screaming in terror from his wagon losing a wheel and now going out of control down a steep hill.]

Dashing has a tea party with his friends.

[Cartoon of the neat pony and friends having tea.]

Doofus uses the tea party as a pretext to sell out his only friends in the world to demonic entities in exchange for power and dominion.

[Cartoon of the rough pony's friends crying out in agony and torment from flaming cages while he himself laughs insanely.]

Dashing accepts his help not being needed gracefully.

[Cartoon of the neat pony calmly walking away when a group of ponies are working on building a parade float.]

Doofus gets revenge for being snubbed by introducing his friends' species to the Borg.

[Cartoon of the rough pony smiling smugly as a giant bionic cube begins to scoop up large sections of the town while the group of ponies flees in terror from cyborg ponies with white skin.]

Dashing goes bowling with a friend.

[Cartoon of the neat pony and a friend at the bowling alley.]

Doofus burns down his friend's house, covers the remains in a truckload of fresh manure, and then dumps a bucket full of ground up pet entrails on them.

[Cartoon of the rough pony laughing at the gory mess this all would leave.]

Sam was left staring rather wide-eyed at the last panel that Carl drew. Both were seated once again for a cookie outing, and the green stallion was producing his latest creation for the blue one to view.

"So I figure, 'I used to read those things in 'Gaslights' when I was younger'. Maybe it would do him some good to see some new ones."

Finally, Sam's face twisted into a frown as he flung the entire book over his shoulder into the street. "Sam, these things are crazy...not to mention explicit and inappropriate for foals! Besides, are you nuts? Look, I know you have problems with your own nephews, but do you think any kid is dumb enough to get these 'responses confused'?"

Carl gave Sam a look at that. "...Clearly you haven't been paying enough attention to the girls' 'Special Friend' lately."

"Well...I know he kind of helped drain the talent out of us back when Tirek was around, but...he's better now, right? I mean...it would make sense that now he'd be actively making an effort not to bring misery to other ponies, much less his friends, right?"

Carl only continued to give him the look. "...I think I'm rubbing off on you at last, Sam."

"Oh, come on!"

Both ponies turned and looked at that, and recoiled in shock as they saw a draconnequis standing behind them, having picked up their book. Currently he was using his ability to morph his body by growing extra limbs to hold several cans of gasoline, a dump truck full of steaming manure with flies buzzing around it, a gigantic sausage grinder, and Owluiscious and a rather panicked-looking Spike all at once...along with the discarded book, which he was now glancing over.

"Now suddenly that's bad too?!" Hissing in disgust, he let his arms go and dumped everything on the ground (the owl and the dragon immediately running for it), before he began to eat the book like a stale cookie. "This 'friendship' thing is getting more confusing all the time... And they say I don't make sense..." He turned and began to float away, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Alright, Discord... Baby steps... Baby steps float to Fluttershy's..."

Both Sam and Carl were left staring in stunned silence and unease.

"...I really hope he read the one about the cyborg ponies...or that nopony leaves him out of any activities."

You know...aside from that one bit, there really wasn't much in that episode to do with "What About Bob?" Which is a shame because that had a lot more comedic possibilities...

A bland Discord episode... What is Equestria coming to?

Actually, after the whole incident, Discord did try out a bit of that "death therapy" to cure Twilight of her jealousy...

...And...how'd that work out?

Who is John Galt?

That's a phrase I could have gone without ever hearing again...

The Hooffields and McColts

The Hooffields and McColts

A vast and horrid landscape stretched before the group of ponies. What was once lush, verdant, and beautiful had been turned into scorched earth. Nothing but clay, mud, and stumps as far as the eye could see. The rivers and streams were either fouled or non-existent. The remaining animals that were walking about were dirty, starving, cold, and forlorn. And over it all, there was an odd mixture of serpent and pony hovering to one side and singing a song over the area.

As most of the ponies were looking at the landscape with tears in their eyes over this, including the gold-colored one and the blue-colored one in a group, the green one was kind of blinking at the flying creature.

"Uh...is that a siren?"

The blue one wiped his eyes. "Yeah. That organization hired her. Adagio Forestrings."

"Um...she's not at all related to-"

"Of course not, dude. Naming a kid 'Adagio' is like naming a kid 'John' if you're a siren."

Finally, the siren stopped and an older pony with mane tied back, glasses, and dressed for outdoor work walked up to stand before the crowd.

"Thank you, Ms. Forestrings. I think that's enough guilt-shaming for the ponies who actually volunteered..." As the siren gave a nod and flew away, she turned to the others. "Thank you all again for volunteering for P.F.A. - Ponies For Animality. As you all well know, the ponies of Equestria are in charge of creating habitats, feeding, caring for, and maintaining the natural order of wildlife and not just pets and local agriculture." She turned and gestured. "What you see behind you used to be Neighnali National Park, but it was decimated from continuous saturation 'gourdings' that resulted from Yakyakistan incursion to assist the local rebels with 'nonviolent specialist consulting'." The mare grimaced and rolled her eyes at the concept. "Anyway...as you know from volunteering, our group aims to restore these ecosystems and assist the local wildlife and bravely goes into these areas of former No-Pony's-Land, irregardless of the danger from undetonated land mines, carcinogenic compounds that were used to clear vegetation, or rusted, Ebola-laced caltrops."

The green stallion began to raise a hoof. "Um, excuse me... Did you just say-"

"Alright, let's snap to it." The mare cut off. "This group will be in charge of feeding the local wildlife, that group will be in charge of planting, and that group will be in charge of cleaning up all of the loose munitions. For group three...please make sure your waivers to hold us harmless for any injury or illness you may contract are signed."

About two hours later, Sam and Dawn were working in a giant canvas tent covering a multitude of picnic tables. But rather than ponies eating from them, all of the starving and homeless forest creatures were. Toward the front, the ponies had set up their outdoor kitchen and were currently passing it out to a seemingly endless line of mice, squirrels, birds, and whatever other animal lived in the once-present forest.

Dawn herself was ladling from a giant pot of thin clover soup into tiny bowls, then passing them over to Sam, who dropped a single walnut in each before passing it on to the next in line. Both looked rather somber at the haggard and worn-looking animals coming in, especially with all the ones to go.

"Once again, thanks for volunteering with me, Sam. Groups like this always need more volunteers."

"No problem. I'm sure Carl is going to be ticked that our group got split up and he's working on cleaning up munitions, but I'll make it up to him. I'll make some time next week to listen to his whole treatise on how those two bachelor stallions at the Smoky Mountains managed to sire entire families... Besides, it really is for a good cause..."

Sam trailed off at the next individual in line, who was a wolf. He blinked a moment.

"Uh, Dawn? We need another 'meatatarian' meal here."

The gold-colored mare began to reach into another pot at that, but then paused. Swallowing a little, she looked up and over to a unicorn volunteer nearby.

"Er...um...we're out of the 'meatatarian' meals again."

The unicorn swallowed. She turned and looked over to a table where a number of squirrels were eating. She walked forward and glanced over each one for a few moments...before she found an elderly-looking one that coughed a bit as he ate. Sighing, her horn lit up and pulled him off the table. He immediately reacted in shock while the other squirrels squeaked in horror.

"Sorry, little friends. He's the sickest and weakest one." The unicorn helplessly shrugged as she turned and began to hover him over to a tent splattered with bloodstains. "Tell him to wait about three minutes."

"Everyone!" Carl shouted out to the line. "We're stopping for three minutes!"

The animals still in line threw down their bowls and spoons and began to curse in their various languages as they angrily waited. A few gave the wolf dirty looks...especially the squirrels in line.

Sam and Dawn could only look uneasy at that as they too idled, when a familiar voice chimed in.

"Great. We got time to sneak in some of this shortbread."

Both ponies looked up and saw Carl approaching from the side of the line, looking considerably cleaner and not nearly as exhausted as one would think. As soon as he came up, he reached into his side saddlebag and pulled up a box he had smuggled in.

"It's nice and buttery. I brought some for you too, Dawn."

"Uh, Carl? What are you doing here? I thought last we saw you that you were going to check and see if that tomato ammunition they found was depleted uranium or not..."

"Uh, yeah...forget that, Sam." The green stallion retorted. "While the rest of you spent the past week in Ponyville brushing up on your regional dialect and customs for this part of Equestria, I was checking out A.S.S."

Dawn went wide-eyed. "You were doing what now...?"

"A.S.S. Animals for Sustainable Systems." Carl reiterated. "It's a newer group that advocates independence of animals. Basically it teaches animals that rather than wait for ponies to do everything for them, they should act more to naturally restore their own ecosystems. Like when they eat a nut, don't eat it right there and give the refuse to ponies. Go out in the middle of a wilderness and just...well...'do your business' with the nut remains and it'll grow on its own into a tree one day. Don't wait for ponies to build you a birdhouse. Look for trees that are decaying and have cavities and then carve out a hollow into one of those using your beak. If you're a bear, don't go to a pony beehive farm. Just look for one in nature on your own and get it plus all the yellow jacket larva you can eat. You know...help animals to take care of themselves so they don't freeload off of us."

Dawn thought about that a moment. "Well...I don't know about the 'freeloading' part, although it's nice that you want animals to be more independent, Carl."

Sam was less supportive. "But I don't really see how they'd want to do all that when we can do it for them..."

"What are you, a socialist?" Carl snorted. "Trust me, the animals I shared all of this stuff with wanted to be independent. Think about it, you two. Here I am, some nice and pretty little mouse grazing in the forest. All nice and lovely... Suddenly...look out!" He began to shout as he held up his hooves and gestured. "Some dark alicorn goddess just ripped up the mountain escarpment I nibble on before ruining the stream my fish friends go up for spawning! Ok, that's over and done with, but... Oh no! A whole katamari worth of parasprites just got dumped right on my feeding grounds! Guess I get to starve now! Look out! Ponies just upset the local dragon and they burned down my home! Ack! Giant demon centaurs are ripping apart my 'city block' to vent their new power! And look! All of the ponies in Equestria started arguing with each other and they brought down a whole swarm of Windegos to turn my land into an icy hell and sentence me to a frozen grave!"

Pause.

"...On that note, guys...did any of the ponies back at Hearth's Warming Eve ever go back and 'thaw' their home country or is it still an icy waste?"

Another pause.

"Why do I have the strange sensation somewhere, someway, somehow, an author is sitting at a keyboard thinking that would make a great episode/fanfiction...?"

Dawn looked a bit uneasy at this. "You know, Sam...Carl's got a bit of a point. When he puts it that way, it looks like if animals want to be cared for by us, they've got to put up with quite a lot on our whims..."

Sam scratched his own mane. "I think you're right...which is always scary whenever I have to admit it where Carl is concerned but it's true. They may get free food and shelter but only if we're attentive to their needs. Unlike those animals in the Everfree Forest. They can eat and rest wherever they like whenever they like, seasons and days change of their own accord, and every one of them can live under their own tree without needing to defer to any ponies."

Carl nodded. "That's exactly what I told them, Sam. As well as pointed out by depending on ponies they had ended up in their current situation in the first place. And they seemed to take that message really to heart. Really got a kick out of it."

Sam began to nod back...when he froze. "Wait...what?"

Suddenly, a loud clamor took off from one side of the tent, followed by numerous ponies screaming and yelling before running for their lives. The three looked and gasped as they saw the tent had been set on fire, and a swarm of angry revolting forest creatures were storming the place, killing every pony they could find in a ravenous fashion. Some were brandishing crude knives. Others torches. All were shouting out in their native language and bearing signs that had the following crudely written:

"FOUR PAWS GOOD, FOUR HOOVES BAD"

As ponies began to scream and run for their lives around them, the three were left gaping in shock. Slowly, Sam's face twisted into a glare as he turned and stared at Carl. The green stallion stared a moment, but then shrugged and tapped Sam on the shoulder.

"And that will teach you to drag me along when you volunteer."

Er...ugh...so...so how's the region doing right now, Carl?

Well, last I read in the paper, not so good. 'Animality' is the new law of the land, pigs have taken control and are wearing clothes, half of the animals are being impressed into forced labor to build a mill, they found out they can sell whatever ponies they capture to other nations with processing plants for a hefty sum, which they're using to buy whiskey-

Moving on...

The Mane Attraction

The Mane Attraction

The entire town of Ponyville had come out to the edge of town see her off: the pink pegasus with a short, curly, black and blue mane and a cherry chimichanga for a Cutie Mark. Many were smiling, but many also had tears in their eyes. Derpy herself was being supported by Rainbow Dash, unable to keep from crying out loud. Sam Listens-To-Carl's-Problems and Incarlsistency were there too, beaming with pride and yet also struggling to compose themselves.

Tears in her own eyes, Princess Twilight Sparkle stood at the front of the group and advanced a single step, yet no further...as if getting any closer would drive her away even faster.

"Do...do you really have to go?"

"I'm sorry, Twilight." The pink pegasus answered as she shook her head. "It's time. The Great Alicorn was there with me at the start and she passed on...and now it's my time to follow in her hoofprints."

Twilight couldn't help it. She started to break down.

"I never would have gotten all seven of those tickets and to the Grand Galloping Gala if it wasn't for you..." She started to sob.

"I...I never would have met Matilda again..." Cranky Doodle Donkey stammered.

"Cheese Sandwich wouldn't have come to Ponyville!" Pinkie started bawling.

"I'd never have passed that test to get into the Wonderbolts Reserve!" Rainbow Dash shouted just as sorrowfully.

"I never would have been welcomed into Ponyville..." Zecora added, her own voice starting to break.

Carl blinked at that, then turned to her. "Wait, that didn't-"

"Do not be so asinine! Not everything I say has to rhyme!"

"We got our Cutie Marks because of you!" Apple Bloom shouted, losing composure completely.

"Fluttershy got her confidence to publicly perform from you!" Sam suddenly found himself crying out.

"And the Diamond Dogs captured Rarity because of you!" Carl tried to join in...immediately wincing. "Which...Rarity probably didn't care for so much but the rest of us all got a laugh out of it... And you gave Derpy a voice! Sure, a bunch of angry people called in about it and she ended up getting practically taken out of the show for it, so you probably did more harm than good on that one, but you meant well!" Pause. "And Rainbow Dash and Applejack got into that pointless rivalry because of you, but as a result the 'Appledash' fancanon started so it couldn't be all bad..."

"Carl, please shut up."

"The point is...can't you stay?" Twilight finally asked.

The pink pegasus sadly shook her head and looked off to the horizon. "I'm sorry...but my work here is done. It's time to move on. Because somewhere...far out there, beyond land and sea, earth and sky, there's another world. A world where unicorns are severed heads that float alongside horn-wearing girls. A world where children struggle to unravel the mystery of a remote mountain town. A world where a surprisingly large number of Jedi survived the Imperial genocide. And they need people like me."

The princess bowed her head a bit at that, and then looked up and asked meekly.

"Will...will we ever see you again?"

The pegasus smiled.

"...You'll see me every time you admire the wordplay in one of Zecora's rhymes. You'll see me every time there's a callback to Gustav LaGrande, Donut Joe, or Mulia Mild. You'll see me every time Cranky and Matilda smile and embrace. I'll be in every glimmer of the Cutie Marks of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, on every word that passes Derpy's lips, in every clothing euphemism that comes from Sassy Saddles, and..." She rolled her eyes a moment. "If there's any justice in the Emmy committee..." She looked back down. "In the golden luster of the award for Best Animated Original Song of 2015. I placed a part of myself in each one of you that will never fade or go away. Princess Twilight Sparkle..."

She stepped forward, and placed her hoof on her chest over her heart.

"I'll be right here."

In spite of her tears, Twilight was able to smile at that.

The pegasus smiled a bit warmly at her...and for a moment her own eyes seemed to form tears in them.

"It was...fun."

Then, spreading her wings wide, she gave one flap to launch herself into the heavens, before turning and soaring off to the horizon. As the citizens watched, each one stared until she was nothing more than a dot on the horizon...and then gone.

No one moved. They just smiled softly and began to freely cry as they remembered her.

Eventually, a quiet voice broke the silence.

"...'Svengallop'...really? I mean, that's like naming Chrysalis 'Princess Evil Doppleganger'. Telegraph, anypony?"

"CARL, SHUT UP!" Everypony in Equestria yelled in unison.

Amy Keating Rogers...R.I.P. 2015

...She didn't die, Carl.

It makes her sound more meaningful if she did, Sam. People will remember her fondly.

...She didn't retire, either.

You're a real buzzkill some days, you know that?

The Cutie Re-Mark

The Cutie Re-Mark

It was a rather quiet day in Sugarcube Corner.

Rather dead silent, to be exact.

On one end of the outdoor eatery, all of the regulars had crowded to one side. Their food and drink remained untouched, because all of their eyes and attention spans were on the other side. This included the eyes of a certain blue stallion and his green friend...although, in the case of the pony with a Find-a-Difference picture for a Cutie Mark, he was twitching a bit, and his pupils kept shrinking and dilating.

On the other side of the eatery, staring back silently at the entire group, was a pinkish-purple mare with a purple mane streaked with pastel green and a Cutie Mark of a falling star. No one said a word or moved.

Slowly, the mare reached a hoof up to cough.

Everypony spasmed and recoiled for a moment, until they saw she wasn't doing anything. Very slowly, they eased down again.

She blinked. A hoof raised. "Hello."

"Don't unmark me!" Sam screamed in reply loud enough for one pony couple to knock their glasses off the table. After doing so, however, he realized she had only said hi and as a result slowly eased down. "I...uh...I...um...that is...uh...hello."

After a moment, she pointed to the green stallion. "Is something wrong with your friend?"

"Huh?" Sam turned and looked to Carl. "Oh."

Grimacing, he reached over and clonked him on the head with a hoof. Immediately, Carl shook his mane, blinked a few times, and then seemed normal. "You see...his special talent is finding inconsistencies, so it seems that all of those inconsistencies that you generated last week have all converged into his head as a result of a spell Twilight used on him about a year back, so he's kind of experiencing six different realities at once...at minimum."

"...And I'm perfectly happy with that!" Carl suddenly interjected, sweating a bit at Sam's choice of words. "Because even though it's a talent that few ponies appreciate, it's what makes me unique! So I'd appreciate it if you'd not take it off me or anything!"

Sam blinked a few times. "Actually, I-"

Carl quickly seized him by the head and yanked him down to his level. "Don't encourage her! She starts with one and she won't stop until we're all living in an Orwellian nightmare!"

The mare began to frown, but was interrupted a moment later when Mrs. Cake...shaking all the way and gulping frequently...walked up to her with a tray. Very, very slowly and carefully, she picked off an order of a latte and set it down in front of her. "Y-Y-Your d-d-drink, M-M-Ms. Glimmer..."

She looked up to her. "Thank-"

"GAH! Don't touch me, you psychopath!" She screamed before throwing the tray and running away.

Mr. Cake stepped out from the back room just in time to see his screaming wife run past. Immediately, he began to sweat as he looked out with a sheepish grin. "Er...sorry about that! Please don't mind my wife! She gets jittery on Sundays, that's all! Nothing to worry about! Certainly no reason to lock us in a cellar blaring out brainwashing equality cultist mantras for 24 hours of sleep deprivation! Your latte is free!" He quickly ducked inside.

"Please don't kill me!" He threw out over his shoulder.

The mare let out a long sigh. "You know, I kind of expected this when the truth came out a couple days ago, but you all keep looking at me like I'm about to shove you all into meat grinders or something."

Carl frowned.

"Oh really? Gee, you think? I wonder why that could be... Could it be the fact that you're as powerful if not more powerful than an alicorn and you created a cult-like commune of Stepford Smiling ponies so obsessed with equality that you created the worst type of socialist dystopia imaginable, which you enforced through basic thuggery, mind control, and propaganda, before you attempted to alter history multiple times out of a shallow, selfish, attempt at revenge that nearly killed everyone here and left Equestria a wasteland..."

His gaze narrowed.

"And all...all...because your childhood friend got their Cutie Mark before yours?!" He threw his hooves up in disgust. "For the love of Celestia! That is the most shallow and petty thing I've ever heard of! That's like if King Sombra conquered the Crystal Empire because a crystal pony beat him in a first grade spelling bee! That's like if Tirek wanted to rule Equestria because a pony broke his window playing ball! Of course everypony's scared of you! They think if they look at you wrong you'll start breeding orcs in mud pits! If they give you your food order wrong you'll start building a Death Star!"

Sam gulped as he began to put his hooves up. "Uh...um...chill out, Carl." He looked to her. "Er, sorry about him. He gets that way sometimes. Please d-"

"Please don't 'Cutie Unmark' me." The mare sighed, beating the blue stallion to what he was going to say.

"...Right. Now Carl..."

"And another thing...really?" The green stallion went right on shouting. "Your friend broke things off with you so you turned yourself into Nurse Ratched meets Napoleon? You know how many friends I've driven off with my insane rambling over the years?! You don't see me warping the space-time continuum about it, do you? Sure, I get angry sometimes. Bitter that no one listens to me. I enact the occasional prank or petty vandalism in retribution...and sometimes I get into hooffights with guys at work. Once in a while I'll even grab the nearest deadly object and try to injure them with it...but not because I was snubbed by people when I was younger!" Pause. "...Except maybe that one orange stallion. Always thinking he was so better than me. And maybe my first girlfriend... Oh, so you're too good for a quality control operator, huh? Well I bet Mr. Owns-His-Own-Business doesn't have mob connections in Manehattan and can't call up guys to have certain studs' kneecaps broken..."

"Carl, shut up!" Sam shouted, getting the green stallion's attention. "The important lesson to learn from all of this was that friendship is such a special and beautiful thing that even something seemingly as meaningless and inconsequential as the friendship between six individuals can change the world! Which is why you can't ever give up on it because that means each new friendship has the potential to have greater downstream effects!"

"Easy for you to say... You don't have memories of losing your legs to a falling boulder from a minion of Sombra, living on a diet of mashed up grubs in the Everfree Forest, and having your circadian rhythm permanently shot to Tartarus from eternal night all colliding in your head at once, Sam..." He paused, then snickered. "...Although what Discord did to you what kind of funny in his universe...and what he did to No-Neck was downright hilarious... I'm still getting a kick out of asking him if he needs a sponge every morning... But anyway...that brings me to the latest problem."

The mare raised an eyebrow. "...Latest problem?"

Sam had already facehooved and was slumping in his chair. "Yeah, now that you live here you better get used to hearing that from him...a lot."

"All of this time travel loop stuff wasn't really a case of a single dystopian alternate universe from stopping one event. It was more of an illustration of Neigh Branberry's 'A Noise of Lightning'. A single tiny change in the past leads to a vastly different outcome in the future."

The blue stallion looked up slightly. "How do you figure?"

"Well, every time 'Eleanor Shaw' over there..."

The mare frowned and rolled her eyes yet again.

"Went back to stop that one event from happening, she succeeded but she also caused a vastly different universe by small actions."

"...So?"

"So...the mere act of simply going back in time and doing anything different would actually produce a totally different result. So even if all she and Twilight did was make up and then go back to the present, it still should have messed things up royally."

"Except it didn't, Carl. Ponyville is standing. Sugarcube Corner is back. The Castle of Friendship is back. Everything's back to the way it was before and the timeline is restored. Maybe some things are more important than others. Maybe some parts of history are simply inevit-"

Suddenly, Sam was cut off by a booming "Royal Canterlot" voice sounding throughout the entire region of Ponyville and beyond.

"Attention all subjects! The Greatest and Most-Powerfulest Princess Trixie is about to grace you with her presence! All ponies are to line up to kiss Trixie's hooves immediately!"

Instantly, all ponies began to rise from where they were and hurried out as fast as they can, as if fearful for being executed for being late, including Sam and the Cakes. All that was left in a moment was a cloud of dust, and when it cleared it revealed Carl and the mare, both of them still sitting there looking rather dumbfounded and stunned. Slowly, Carl's gaze narrowed as he turned to her.

"...I don't suppose you memorized that spell, did you?"

The mare grimaced. "It's the scroll I need, not the spell..."

"Terrific. Where in the world are we going to find another way to travel through time?"

As if on cue, a brown-maned doctor with a necktie and a gold hourglass for a Cutie Mark ducked his head in and waved at both of them. On spotting him, Carl looked back to the mare.

"See? Having different Cutie Marks does help things out."

And there we have it! Season Five!

So...why didn't the author call Starlight Glimmer by her name during that one?

Well...seems, similar to a number of episodes this season, he didn't 'take as well' to it like he did the others. Luckily he looked up the fan-reactions before writing it this time...but I think he's got the superstition that maybe if he doesn't say Starlight Glimmer's name she won't end up joining the cast and/or replacing Twilight Sparkle.

Hmm...well, you're still spacing out a lot, Carl. In fact, that's been happening a lot ever since that one night...

Uh...well...er...I try not to let it bother me, Sam. I'm sure it'll go away once...I don't know...my brain recovers or something. Besides, I'm getting used to it. It's not like it's the sleepwalking...

...Wait, what?

Oops...

Sleepwalking? Carl? You're sleepwalking now?

Uh...er...ugh. I didn't want to say anything about it because I knew you'd overreact, Sam...

Well, of course I'm going to react! That could be a legitimate mental disorder! You could have brain trauma!

It's nothing, Sam! Forget it!

You could be in trouble! People get into all kinds of crap sleepwalking!

I said it's nothing! Farrah watched me and she said I was fine! All I do is lie in bed with my eyes open, sometimes I walk downstairs and listen to a record, then I sit on the couch for a bit, and then I go back up and to bed! Nothing! Nothing at all! I'm sure it'll go away soon!

...Well, I'm not your doctor, but...alright, if you say so. Just...go to a specialist if you do something bad.

Sigh...Sam, writing a message in ketchup on the kitchen table that's nonsense is hardly 'bad'.

...Wait a second, you did what now?

Celestiadamnit...here we go again...

What message?

Sam, I said it was nonsense! It doesn't mean a thing!

Just, as a matter of interest...can you tell me what?

What does it matter? It's nothing! Just gibberish! I was dreaming of something and probably tried to draw a team playing baseball or something...

Well, what did it look like? Some sort of baseball diamond?

No...it looked like somepony wrote: 'THE WORLD WILL END IN 14 DAYS, 3 HOURS, 11 MINUTES, AND 55 SECONDS".

...

...What?

COMING IN 2016...

TWO BACKGROUND PONIES ENDURE THE APOCALYPSE

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!