Two Background Ponies Revisit Season Five

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...