Two Background Ponies Revisit Season Five

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.