Chapters The Twilight Sparkle Show (Under Construction)
Chapter I: A Morning in Ponyville
Prologue
"From this day forth, I would like you all to report to me your findings on the magic of friendship when, and only when, you happen to discover them." A wave of relief washed over Twilight as she heard the Princess's words. She wasn't going to get an incomplete for her friendship report! The others all cheered as a non-psychotic, genuine smile formed on her face.
There was something strange about this perfect moment, however, the Princess's smile seemed... off. It was as if she were hesitant, like she wanted to say something but didn't. No, it was as if she wanted with all her heart to do something, to hug her, to say something but she just couldn't. It wasn't like Princess Celestia, in her regal virtue, to crack her motherly, princess-like mask in this way. To say the least, Twilight was... perturbed.
Twilight opened her mouth to speak but was silenced as Celestia stepped back and faced towards the open balcony. Another, slightly more urgent thought popped to the front of her mind.
The Princess simply smiled back. "Your friend Spike made me aware that you were letting your fears get the best of you. I commend him for taking your feelings seriously. Now, if you will all excuse me, I must return to Canterlot. I'm expecting some mail." the Princess grinned, spread her wings, and took flight for Canterlot. The lavender unicorn hesitated, considering calling out, but was again cut off by a conveniently timed rise to action from Applejack.
"Y'all! You heard the Princess! Spike, take a letter will ya?" said the industrious farm pony.
And so the friendship report was written, every mare in the group dictating a sentence for the letter as Spike wrote their speech with amazingly fast (if not a bit sloppy for Twilight's taste) penmareship. Twilight's mind never fully left that look on Celestia's face, that look of... of helplessness. Twilight looked around, to the laughs of her friends, as they summed up the craziness of the day and her misfired Want-it-Need-it spell. Their whimsical conversations wandered far and wide and by the time that it was all over and her friends had split up to head to their homes it had already turned nine o'clock.
Twilight Sparkle went to bed that night at about nine o'clock with little worry in her mind. Her brain had long filed away the anomalous look on the Princess's face as just a passing feeling of nostalgia or perhaps a vestige of a stressful day in the life of a princess. Without further a do, Twilight Sparkle swiftly drifted into the dream world.
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There she goes! Twilight Sparkle is asleep!
Aaand... Cut!
...
"What is wrong with you!?"
"W-what?"
"You slipped up! Again! For the second time this season! And this time it got caught in the shot!"
"But, I...
"Get your act together, literally. If you make another mistake, we're writing you off!"
"Y-you wouldn't, she would be devastated..."
"Look, I don't want to either, but these things are necessary sometimes. At least as it is now we can write your mistakes into an interesting season finale... or something..."
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Pinkie Pie bounced merrily away from the Golden Oaks library, humming a cheery tune as she did so. The night was fresh and crisp, and light glowed forth from the perfect little houses of Ponyville. Anypony who was still out-and-about waved good evening to Ponyville's Premier Party Pony. Pinkie raised an eyebrow as she looked around at the background ponies still walking in their formations. It was a little too late to be walking around, the Director was taking forever to cut the episode...
Aaand... Cut!
"Finally!" Pinkie said, a little too loudly. The other background ponies hissed at her to shut up as they split up their pairs and trios and went back to their various houses. She rolled her eyes. It wasn't as if Twilight was actually around to hear her shout, and even if she was she would most likely think of it just as "Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie."
Pinkie trotted quickly towards the bakery that she called home, happy to give her knees a break from a long day of bouncing at the work that her life had become. She shook herself, her tired mane succumbing a little to the forces of gravity as it drooped and sagged like the fluffy hanging branches of a weeping willow. The glow of the bakery came into sight, approaching quickly as Pinkie quickened her pace.
She walked up the stairs of Sugarcube Corner and nodded to Mr. Cake as he left to go to his actual residence for the night. It was really a shame that his and Mrs. Cake's relationship fell apart last season so soon after their relationship had started. The pink pony went up to her room, sighing and stretching as she closed the door to her private little space at the top of the building.
The shower felt good as it slowly rinsed the deadly chemicals from her mane and washed the general stench of baking sugar and bright pinkness from her body. She stepped out with her hair beautifully straight and walked up to her vanity mirror slowly and regretfully, as a lamb would go to the slaughterhouse. She looked up at the mirror and at the bottle of dreaded Mane-Poofer and petted her perfectly lovely straight mane. She looked up at the hidden camera that she knew was behind the mirror.
"Can't I just leave my mane straight, just for the night?" she pleaded with her off-set superiors.
To her surprise, somepony actually responded, "No," the male voice said firmly, "what if Twilight sees you at night? You can't let your act fall! She might think of you as some sort of a murdering psycho out to turn her into cupcakes!"
Pinkamena sighed in resignation. With tears running down her face, she unleashed the slaughter that was the Mane-Poofer on her treasured locks. As powder flew and toxic gel settled on her scalp, Pinkamena wondered just how much longer it would be until she either went bald or was stuck with perpetually physics-defying mutated poofy hair.
Then she went for her tail, the poor strands of pink hair curled and frizzed up into warped, unnatural versions of themselves as they formed the classic Pinkie Pie vector. She sighed at her otherworldly appearance in the mirror, she should've gone ahead and ignored her mother's advice to take the "accelerating" career in acting and followed her dreams in the realms of physics. It was what her mark was for, after all, the science of superlight gases as seen in the three multicolored balloons.
Oh well, she would hate to get written out of the show now, after all they had worked for. An entire year of meticulous planning, scripting, and a bit of improv acting scattered here and there for just one season of a show that had already gained millions, if not billions, of followers. Even more than a year if you consider the expensive and pain-staking construction of over fifteen sets in the land of "Equestria".
With a tired demeanor, Pinkie picked a book at random from the pathetically limited supply on her shelf. She wondered why the purple unicorn got the library-house, neither did she understand why the Director insisted on restricting the amount of shelf space. "The Science of Space and Time, By Dr DeLorean". Ahhh, a classic! With that, Pinkie Pie read her sorrows away and made sure to fall asleep in a way that kept her pumped-up hair from getting flattened or messed up. Without further a do, Pinkamena Diane Pie drifted off into the dream world.
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Rarity Belle was never in a good mood. As soon as she was out of Twilight's eyesight her acting mask shattered and a sneer spread across her face. Her "friends" bade her goodnight, she didn't bother with a response. Right now, all she wanted to do was get back to her boutique, get a drink, and try to shake off all the things that the Director put her through.
'I swear,' she thought, 'if I had to spend another minute with that blithering idiot I would have strangled her! Prison be damned!'
Twilight Sparkle thought of herself as the most powerful unicorn under Celestia's sun. Little did she know that she couldn't actually do much more than lift a plastic spoon with that pathetic little horn she had. Half of the crew of this cursed set had been devoted to special effects and had a hard time getting Twilight's "magic" to be somewhat believable. Even she could cast more complicated and powerful spells than Sparkle could.
Aaand... Cut!
The unicorn shook her head vigorously, now officially off-camera, as if trying to shake off some unseen grime. She quickened her pace, trying to get off the streets just that bit quicker. The Carousel Boutique loomed in the distance. Rarity had always admired the architecture of that building. While it didn't meet the extravagance or the scale of Canterlot, the crew still seemed to know better than the Director when they built that place for the true star of The Show.
She flung the front door open, a soft "ow" echoing from the hardwood. Rarity grimaced and pulled the door away from the wall, revealing a flattened Sweetie Belle. Rarity drew a worried breath.
"Are you okay?" she asked, shutting the door all the way and inspecting her little sister closely.
The unicorn filly sighed, '"Yeah, I'm fine..." Sweetie Belle swatted away Rarity's nursing hoof, and headed into the kitchen to fetch some ice for her concussed head.
"Are you sure?" Rarity asked with concern in her voice as she trotted her way across the room and pushed a specific painting aside. Yet another affirmative echoed from the kitchen, Rarity shrugged and opened the hidden cabinet, her hoof searching absently for her prize. Something rose in her, however, when her hoof found nothing, and her eyes confirmed the lack of alcohol in her locker. She stormed angrily into the kitchen, finding Sweetie Belle with a bag of ice pressed against her head.
Rarity pointed her most potent glare at the whelp, poison laced words coming from her lips.
Rarity narrowed her eyes, "Answer me!" she practically roared. Still hearing no response she gave Sweetie a backhoof, flinging her across the counter.
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Dispatch to Officer Blaze, we got a situation over at Carousel Boutique, domestic incident.
That's the fifth time this has happened!
...
*Sigh* On my way, Dispatch
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A bright orange pegasus threw open the door, he wore a neat and tidy police uniform with the addition of the set radio that all set staff had to be wearing at all times as well as a pair of generic sunglasses over his sea-blue eyes. He laid sight upon a marshmallow white unicorn, a crazed look in her eye as she battered around her little sister seemingly without too much care towards her actions.
The officer shook his head and ran over to the actress.
Rarity snapped out of it, looking up at the policepony in shock. She looked at her hoof, and noticed blood on it.
He landed next to the shaking form of Sweetie Belle. Her nose was bleeding, and he saw a number of bruises covering her body, otherwise she was uninjured.
"Are you alright?" he asked, professional care flavoring his voice. Sweetie only looked at him, shaking and sobbing. He put his hoof to his radio's "Transmit" button.
He glanced over at Rarity, who had streams of mascara running down her face as she broke down sobbing (dramatically wailing more like it, as she did both on-camera and off-camera) on the couch.
As Nurse Redheart, another one of the Background Cast, tended to Sweetie's wounds on another non-fainting couch in the living room, Magma Blaze sauntered over to where Rarity was still wailing to heaven her exaggerated woes. The unicorn actress looked up at Blaze.
"You know you should quit," the police officer muttered to the actress. Rarity said nothing.
"You know that after this I can probably recommend that no alcohol gets to you on the set," Rarity remained silent.
"You know that you're hurting everypony else by doing this..." Blaze sighed. His radio beeped and the little blue light flashed, indicating that the Director was on the line.
"The Director wants you." Magma said, ending that conversation. He walked away as the nasal voice of The Twilight Sparkle Show's director berated the poor actress for the same mistake, for the same hurts, for the same reason for the fifth time since The Show started.
Honestly, a lot of the cast and crew wanted Rarity to be written out. They were tired of cleaning up her messes and they were tired of improvising for her missed lines and mistakes and simply wanted Rarity off the set. Many more, even the Director, wanted her off just to get Sweetie Belle out of an abusive home. The pony was a snobby aristocrat that really had the guts to think she was the actual star of The Twilight Sparkle Show! But Twilight had made friends with the well-concealed drunk, she was one of the main characters, and she held a lot of the male appeal for The Show. Therefore, the Director was just as likely to give her unlimited second chances. Oh well, Magma just hoped for something to eventually give and for Rarity to be ousted from the show's cast. And soon!
He walked out of the house, hitching himself back up to his patrol carriage and made haste for his bed in the Ponyville PD. Rarity fell asleep on her couch once everypony had left. Sweetie Belle eventually drifted into the drugged embrace of sleep having been given painkillers and placed in bed, and Magma Blaze drifted out into the dream world.
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Applejack trotted steadily back towards the homestead, away from "The Mane Character" and her home in the Golden Oaks Library. It had become a late night, and time had flown after the friendship report had simply "flown itself away to the Princess through Dragonfire". She was tired, and looked forward to the Director calling cut, she wanted to head to bed.
The branches of Sweet Apple Acres stretched out overhead, the stars twinkling like miniature little diamonds through the branches. The trees swayed and creaked as the crisp summer breeze rustled past through the orchards and blew AJ's mane and tail to the point where she had to put a hoof on her hat to keep it from flying off. The Director would kill her if she ever lost her hat. After all, she had begun to like the old Stetson and had gotten used to the feel of it atop her head.
She saw the trees, laden with fruit. She frowned, a sinking feeling forming in her chest. It had been a nightmare back when they had filmed Applebuck Season, she silently hoped that Twilight wouldn't be finding any friendship problems to solve that would require that she actually try to harvest them. She wished upon a star that the crew would be able to find a quiet enough night to buck the apples from the trees without Twilight noticing. Fat chance though, but maybe if Twilight found enough adventures to bring them on AJ could shirk her chores with excuses of Mane Cast business.
She would have to have a talk with the Director sometime later, maybe she would even be able to negotiate an episode where she was devastated by a permanent leg injury and she would never be able to continue the Apple family
Aaand... Cut!
She mopped her forehead and gave herself a mental pat on the back for a day's good work in entertaining the masses of the Confederacy. She made the final trot up to her front door, opening it and walking in, to find Granny Smith in the kitchen washing the dishes after supper.
"Is there not any dinner left for me Mrs. Smith?" Applejack asked in her casual, off-camera demeanor.
"Eh?" the elderly mare croaked, "What happened to yer voice AJ?"
Applejack rolled her eyes. Old, senile mare.
"No there's nothin' te yer left but air silly filly, but there's a counter to yer right!" Granny Smith hobbled over to the cabinets to put the dried dishes away, "What's wrong youngin', you gone blind 'er somethin'?"
Applejack shook her head and grabbed some of the previous night's dinner. She sat herself down at the table and scarfed down the foodstuffs faster than a wood chipper could chomp through a tree. Granny Smith simply watched in disappointment as the orange "farmpony" skipped cleaning up after herself and trotted up the stairs towards her room. Granny Smith sighed again, picking up a cloth to wipe down the table.
"Bein' a Hollywood actress 'as really gottin' to her head, it has..." she mumbled while shakily cleaning up Applejack's mess.
"Heya Applejack!" A small voice greeted her from the hallway. Applejack's eyes found a little yellow filly with a red mane peeking out of her bedroom door. AJ trotted over to Apple Bloom and gave her a hug.
"You're late..." Apple Bloom muttered, looking up at Applejack.
"Yes, I am sorry, you do know how Twilight can ramble on and on... Oh! Did your brother help you with your homework?" Applejack asked.
"Yeah! But you've always been better with arithmetic..." the filly said, disappointment seasoning her voice.
"I am sorry, Apple Bloom, but you would not want me to be written out, would you? I simply cannot draw away from Twilight before my cue!" Applejack said with concern. "Now, is your brother asleep?" she continued.
"Don't keep calling Big Mac 'my brother', he's your brother too!" the filly said quietly.
"He is not my real brother, even though I do hold him close to my heart just as I do with you!" Applejack muttered soothingly.
"Yeah, but," Apple Bloom's eyes diverted towards the floor. "The Show's been confirmed all the way to Season Eight now! So we're here together for at least another seven years unless one of us gets written out, a-and I don't want anypony to get written out!"
Applejack resisted rolling her eyes, the filly was a fair bit delusional in thinking that this... "Equestria" was some sort of new life, like a new house that you could just move into and spend the rest of your life in. In the end, they were all actors and actresses and their world was a stage. Oh well, at least Apple Bloom was a good child actress, those were hard to find these days.
"Now, now, we must not think of such things," AJ stated, "if we follow our cues and pull off our lines we don't get written out. And I know that you are too good an actress to do that, am I right?"
Applejack bid the yellow filly goodnight and walked through into her room, shutting the door behind her and pulling her curtains closed just in case something should go awry. She sat down at her "simple" desk, reaching down and pressing a button at the junction between the wall and the floor just under desk.
The prop setup of apples and pictures folded back into the wall and was quickly replaced with a professional desktop gaming machine. At the press of a button, the screen lit up with the wonders of the true modern age. It was a shame that The Show was set in some sort of mixed-up early-industrial era and that she could only use her computer when Twilight went to bed for the night.
Applejack looked at her games, considering which one she might want to play. Most of them were too energy-consuming, too long, or had too much action in them. She sighed and went for her alternative, navigating to PonyTube through her browser. She pulled open one of her favorite gameplay series and put on her headphones, leaning back in her chair. The video loaded up quickly, thanks to the high speed internet connections that permeated the set.
"Hello everybody, my name is Markipony and welcome to another episode of Subnautica..."
Applejack's eyes fell heavy as the butter-voiced PonyTuber ranted about how much he hated the ocean while raving about how beautiful it was. She leaned back in her chair as the video came to a close and her eyes slowly slid shut. Without further a do, Applejack drifted away into the dream world.
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Rainbow Dash flew away from the library at high speeds, the wind whistling past her ears and clouds whipping past her face. Sometimes it felt good to go above and beyond the restrictions of airspeed on a cool summer night, when the landscape below was nice, quiet, and at rest. Anywhere else besides the set and she would've gotten pulled over for speeding and had her wing clipped. Heh, all the set security could do was tell her off and watch as she tore through the skies. She spread her wings and came in for a perfect landing at the front door of her cloud-home. Twilight looked dead tired when they all had left the treebrary, it was only a matter of time until the Director cut the episode.
The door to her house was opened and shut by the cyan pegasus as she walked into the open-air lavish parlor of her cloud-mansion. She really couldn't boast all that much about the luxuriously large structure (although she would most definitely try). Cloud was a cheap building material and was easy to mold together and harden if you knew what you were doing.
Rainbow sighed and looked up at the clock, ticking away on the wall. She resorted to pacing around in the front room, simply waiting for her earpiece to tell her that another day of work was completed. The pack felt itchy on her back and she was desperate to pull out the augment and have a shower. She waited about twenty minutes, waiting, waiting for that stupid purple unicorn to fall asleep.
While yes, she could see her as being real friends with the poor mare, the circumstance of The Show forced her to treat Twilight Sparkle like some sort of little foal. Oh well, the job had to be one of the best paying acting gigs with the best benefits any actress could ever dream of. You got a free, well-built house with full medical care as well as food prepared either by yourself or by the vast catering service of Equestria. While sure, "Equestria" didn't have all the amenities and luxuries as the Confederacy had, it was still fairly idyllic and quaint.
Aaand... Cut!
Rainbow dashed over to the coat hangar and leaned up against it, pulling a specific hook as she did so. Electromagnets activated and the runic augment popped off and was immediately covered up by a standard-issue prop jacket to hide its glaring modern design from the rest of the house. She let out a sigh of relief and looked at the areas across the top of her barrel and around her wings. The skin there had been rubbed raw and some of her coat had begun to flake off from it. The areas where the pack's pincers were placed had almost become permanently scarred into her back, six little marks where needles carrying magical current had bitten into her body.
She did her best not to rub the burning rash-like sensation that blazed across her back, fearing that it might bleed if disturbed much more. She trotted away to one of her many showers, which were nothing much more than storm clouds fixed over shower drains behind foggy glass. The hot water did well to soothe the irritation that the augment's crystalline spines had wreaked on her back.
The magical devices were mostly deployed in the military, boosting pegasi magic to the point where ponies could fly beyond the speed of sound. It was modified to fit flush to Rainbow's back, and had an indistinguishable feel and texture to her coat. The gadget was definitely on the cutting edge of technology of, well, of the world outside of "Equestria".
The artificial boost took a lot of getting used to. Six months of training to be exact. The design was built to be as hardy and comfortable as possible. These devices, however, were not supposed to be worn around the clock, every day, all day. There were definite risks of permanent damage as well as a few reports of cancer manifesting through the overuse of magical augments. But nopony would dare report a breach of equine rights in this case. Neither would anypony dare shut down great and mighty Twilight Sparkle Show, would they? It's not like Rainbow really wanted to snitch anyway, the pay was way too good to risk getting written out. After this show was over, she could live in luxury for the rest of her life!
Exiting the shower, Rainbow Dash performed her standard minimalistic hygiene routine, taking some extra time to painstakingly rub some salve on her inflamed back (seriously, it was hard to do that by hoof if one wasn't a unicorn). She walked out of the bathroom whistling, and headed to the kitchen to make some coffee. While she waited for the coffee to percolate, she walked over to her writing desk, in the conservatory across from the kitchen, and grabbed some printing paper. A typewriter was pulled from a cupboard. While Rainbow would have liked an actual computer to type with, those items were restricted on-set and especially in Ponyville, where the mane character lived. Applejack had received an exception, but that was because the desktop was built so that it could be hidden remotely in an instant (not to mention the earth pony had begged for a computer like her life depended on it).
The coffee machine beeped and Rainbow poured herself a cup of hot, black liquid. A piece of partially written paper was inserted into the typewriter and Rainbow sat down in front of the machine, hitting the return bar as she did so. She donned her reading glasses and lost herself into the world of her imagination.
Daring Do ducked under the stallion's blow, rolling with the motion of the damaged airship...
After a good two hours of typing her life's work, Rainbow put down her reading glasses and headed up to bed. At about eleven o'clock at night, and without further a do, Rainbow Dash drifted off into the dream world.
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Fluttershy strolled through the plains back up to her cottage, the soothing sounds of the nighttime birds calmed the butter-yellow pegasus. Soon the moonlit glades turned into beautiful nighttime hollows, a quick turn off of the beaten path going east to her home. The cottage was more tree than house, with, unfortunately artificial, leaves covering the actual roof of the structure. Birdhouses littered the trees leading up to her abode, the birds already sleeping in their nests with their little ones close.
Fluttershy stopped at the entrance of the path surrounded by birdhouses, staring fearfully at the downy feathers littering the floor and ground beneath the bird houses. She really wished she had taken the time to grab her mask before she had run out the door to the picnic earlier that day. The prompt was just so sudden, and the crazed Twilight Sparkle hadn't even arrived until five minutes later than first thought and strategized by the writers. Fear rose in her chest, who knew what those fowl feathers held? So many ponies got sick and died from bird-borne disease!
Aaand... Cut!
The crackle of the Director's voice snapped Fluttershy out of her panic. She looked around, trying to collect herself a bit more, then held her breath and closed her eyes and galloped down the dreadful path and charged into her house. Still holding her breath, she grabbed her mask and gloves from a counter and only dared breath once the filtering fabric was over her mouth. She almost collapsed from the sudden intake of air and the drop in adrenaline that followed, staggering as she breathed deeply through the surgical mask.
A knock ran out on her door, and she trotted over to the entrance. She sighed in relief as three ponies in scrubs with the words "CLEANUP CREW" written on their shirts trotted in. They nodded at her, understanding their duty as they had for the past year. She smiled back. She stood back and watched as the elite professionals disinfected every inch of her cottage in record time, putting each and every animal that lived inside the cottage inside their "homes" (which were actually well disguised cages that could be closed up during the night) far away from all possessions that Fluttershy held dear.
Flutters didn't hate animals, in fact, she had considered becoming a veterinarian before she found that working in a completely environmentally-regulated set much more appealing to her irrational fear of disease. The weather was clear most of the time, and the atmosphere was completely clear of any smog or impurities that made up the cities of the outside world. It was an unfortunate paradox. She loved animals but couldn't stand to be around them!
It had been sheer luck that Twilight had found a friend in her, and it had required the crew and prop crafters to wing a lot of things such as reforging the element of kindness to match her cutie mark and changing a lot of future advertising to include her as one of the mane cast. It had also made her very nervous, she was never really trained in how to act in situations like these. It was why her acting on-camera didn't really vary from the way that she acted normally, aside from the fact that she tended to hide from the many strategically-placed cameras much more often than the Director would like.
It took some time for the entirety of the house to be cleaned, but Fluttershy was happy to rock back and forth nervously on her hooves while she waited for the crew to do their thing. Eventually the cleanup ponies left her alone in the house with nopony but herself, and a plethora of filthy animals rattling around in their various enclosures. Even after the cleaning, everything she looked at she gazed upon as a scared rabbit would upon a snake ready to strike. She took a deep breath, raising her head.
She walked briskly up the stairs, taking an extended shower and brushing her teeth for exactly two minutes. She then walked back down the stairs, figuring that she might read a little bit more from her books before heading to bed. She made some tea back down in the kitchen, making sure to boil the jug two times before daring to pour a cup. Some reading and drinking later, and she was ready to go to bed.
As she was heading up the stairs to the embrace of her covers, a rattle was heard from a cage underneath said stairs. Fluttershy peeked, terrified, at the caged and irate Angel Bunny. The rabbit gave her a look of utter rage, somehow telepathically communicating to the unfortunate pegasus that she would pay for the great wrongs done to him by his pony slaves.
Fluttershy practically crawled up to her bedroom in a fashion that would make mice sound like freight trains and jumped under the covers, desperately attempting to block Angel Bunny's telepathic threats with the cotton sheets. Eventually, it seemed, the distempered bunny fell asleep, and Fluttershy had the realm of rest within reach. Without further a do, Fluttershy drifted off into the nightmares of her dream world.
Author's Note
Big thanks to my mother for proofreading and editing.
The Twilight Sparkle Show (Under Construction)
Chapter I: A Morning in Ponyville
"Security Chief Shining Armour, Access Confirmed."
The door unlocked and Shining Armour pushed it open with a hoof, walking through, then shutting it with his telekinesis. Before him lay Ponyville's main control center. Hundreds of differing stations had been built in symmetrical rows and circles. Each one had a variety of complex displays, a plethora of monitors, and a bundle's worth of buttons and switches that he was afraid to look at out of fear he might switch something into a place it wasn't meant to be. Each station had at least two ponies (some had zebras or donkeys as well) dedicated to watching each and every detail. Each of the creatures probably had an advanced degree in the field that they controlled. Signs were built above each and every station, denoting their function and the ponies on shift. On his way to the security checkpoint, Shining noted a great many differing stations as he passed. There was Weather Tracking, Animal Control, Auxiliary Communications, Ponyville Power Grid, Tide Monitoring, Graphics Engineering, Set-Wide Dispatch, Background Pony Coordination, Air Traffic Control, Ambiance, Medical, and, the most critical of them all, Twilight Tracking. Keep in mind that this was just Ponyville's control center!
Suspended from the fifty foot ceiling were gigantic screens, each displaying the most important camera angles and data. All of said data seemed either pointless to Shining, or was too boggling to get much farther than the title sentence. Hundreds of voices echoed and chattered, making his ears constantly flick around whenever there was a shout from somepony in the room.
He finally made it to his destination; a set of titanium elevator doors with the words "Suite" written above. Four guards, each in combat uniform, stood beside the door, each with their hoof mounted rifles. The officers saluted the chief and Shining flashed his card over the elevator's scanner. The doors slid open to reveal a lavish, futuristic interior. He hit the "up" button as he stepped inside and the door shut behind him. With a whoosh, the elevator began its speedy ascent to the very top floor of the tower, stopping on a dime at the only floor it went to.
Shining stepped out, and could not help but admire his surroundings. The floor was carpeted in a lovely soft beige. The furniture was luxurious, and each and every thing was made out of hardwood or some sort of elegantly smooth synthetic material. Aside from the area that housed the elevator door, each and every inch of the walls were glass, looking out over the mighty capital city of the Confederacy. While the skyscrapers of the Confederate Capital were impressive, nothing in the city skyline was as tall as the Director's Tower. Speaking of the director, his figure stood in front of a lavishly large TV screen as he watched the delayed broadcast of the UECNN.
Before Shining could even open his mouth, the director silenced him with his own voice.
Shining gave a quick salute. "Yes, Sir." he said with an almost automatic tone.
"Go on then," the Director replied as he sat down in his chair, pointing to the swivel chair on the opposing side of his desk. Shining took the seat without a word.
"Order is being kept on the set. Well, at least better than order was being kept before. We've detected over fifty cases of contraband in the mail order systems. About twenty less cases than there were before the reboot. While the ponies outside of Ponyville are quite lazy about their schedules, I can be sure that they still are following set rules fairly well. I do have a concern however," Shining sighed, his eyes on the Director's.
"Yes?" the Director said, his eyebrow raised.
"My guards, Sir. They worked dutifully for the first year of the new Show. Now, they're starting to get a bit old," the Director's eyebrow rose farther. "They aren't doing there jobs as they should. They are constantly returning back to base for rest, and they're starting to miss important details that I was promised they should be able to find in a snap!" Shining Armour, trying to keep his voice level, breathed his frustration at the end of his sentence.
"I would like to request new guards," the security chief said with finality.
The Director sighed, "I had hoped they would last just a bit longer. Good guards are hard to find these days," he paused.
"I just hope we don't have to replace you," the Director said, pointing ominously at Shining's chest. After a moment of silence they both shared a small laugh.
"It won't come to that, Director!" Shining said with another chuckle.
"You're free to go. Expect those replacements some time next week!" the Director said with a jolly laugh.
On his way out, Shining noticed a small picture sitting on the Director's desk. It was a picture of him, as just a little colt, holding a baby Twilight Sparkle. The much younger frame of the Director stood above them both. Standing around the smiling trio was a camera crew, each member with grins on their faces as they aimed their various recording devices in the direction of the foal. Above them, stage lights illuminated the area. Behind them all was a pink logo with the words "My Little Twilight" written across the front of an intricate design with way too many hearts.
"I miss those days too, you know."
Shining jumped, he didn't even notice the Director standing right beside him.
"Those days when Twilight was too young to realize anything was out of place. Those days when "Equestria" didn't extend far from Canterlot and the surrounding fields. The days when you could depend on your security force for more than a year," the Director said, nostalgia in his voice. "If only we could've trained Twilight to think that a camera crew following her around was natural..." the Director's eyes wandered from picture back up to his TV screen.
"But, Sir, that would've ruined the entire point of The Show, wouldn't it?" Shining asked.
The Director nodded, turning to Shining Armour. "That it would have," he paused, "You may leave now, Security Chief Armour."
Shining nodded, turned, and walked back into the elevator.
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Lyra yawned for the billionth time that morning as she stepped out of the bathroom, towel around her mane, and a robe around her body. Thank goodness that Twilight was sleeping in! It drove everypony crazy when she woke up for a midnight snack and never went to sleep afterwards. Even though you were technically allowed to sleep, you always had to sleep with your eyes open for fear of a sneaky nighttime Twilight Sparkle.
She shoved some bread in the toaster, pulling open a cupboard and levitating out some vegemite. She picked up a newspaper, and put on a very specific set of reading glasses. The fake news of "Equestria" melted away and the latest news of the Confederacy showed through. It seemed that The Twilight Sparkle Show had broken TV records for viewership... again. She grinned as her eyes passed over a small article on a senator that had made a reference to her while doing a speech. She knew she had fans, but she never knew that she had fans in the government.
Putting away the newspaper and hiding the specialized glasses, Lyra walked over to the lounge. She hit some warm-up music. She breathed deeply, then started saying varying pitches of nonsense in beat with the music. While stiff at first, her voice eventually worked into a rhythm, her accent morphing into the one heard on The Twilight Sparkle Show.
*DING DONG*
Clicking off the music, she trotted over to the door and opened it. Her eyes popped open in shock as she saw not only her background buddy, Sweetie Drops, but Officer Blaze standing outside of her door. Lyra glanced around at the two.
"Yes, yes there is," the stoic officer mumbled, sparing a hard glance at a sheepish looking Sweetie Drops. He looked back at Lyra, "I've been told you have contraband on the premises," he stated matter-of-factly.
Lyra wracked her brain. She definitely wasn't hiding anything illegal. She wouldn't be surprised if the cops had searched BonBon's place, but Lyra definitely hadn't done anything wrong!
The policepony just shrugged, "Nevertheless, I have to perform a search of the place mentioned by Miss Bon here," he said, looking up at the mint green unicorn. Lyra looked at her friend, betrayed. What had BonBon accused her of?
The cop went straight for her (hardly used) Roll Top Desk, shoving the shutter open and peering inside. He reached and pulled out a pea-green hardcover book with "Anthropology" titled on the front and the back.
The officer dumped the contents of the desk out onto the floor. It consisted of thirteen more books in the Anthropology series, as well as a variety of papers, excerpts from other texts, and a dead rat.
"Both of you should get ready, it won't be long until we go live," Magma Blaze shut the door behind him as he walked out. Lyra waited until she heard the squad cart pull away.
She turned to BonBon, anger on her face.
By the time Lyra had finished ranting, BonBon's ears lay all the way back and she had practically sunk level to the floor.
Lyra looked down at the cream-coloured earth pony with a look of disgust.
BonBon said nothing, just looking up at Lyra with a mixture of sadness and anger. Before she could retort, however, a voice rang out over their earpieces.
"Attention all background characters! Twilight Sparkle is starting to wake up, please secure all sensitive belongings and begin morning routine!"
The voice from Background Pony Coordination brooked no argument. The background pair began to move into their positions around the house. BonBon grabbed a watering can and began to water the flowerbeds outside the house. Lyra went up to the window, forcing a smile on her face. She flung open the shutters and faced the fresh new day in Ponyville.
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"Attention all background characters! Twilight Sparkle is starting to wake up, please secure all sensitive belongings and begin morning routine!"
Octavia Melody squinted in a small flare of petty annoyance. She was already miles ahead of everypony else in Ponyville. Already preparing her cello to make some morning ambient music. Well, she was miles ahead in relativity. She couldn't start playing until that stallion came around and plugged all of the cords into their audio jacks. She heard clanging and scraping from upstairs, as well as the flare of telekinesis. She smiled as a bumbling Vinyl Scratch walked down the stairs with a roll of wiring in his telekinetic grip.
A small part of The Show's audience, about fifty million people, had become fans of her husband. She was proud of him, the sound tech who lived in the set, but was a bit disturbed when everypony started thinking he was a mare. A boom arm was adjusted while Octavia did a final check on her instruments. Vinyl plugged the cords into their jacks and hit a few switches on his station. They looked at each other, he nodded, and she started playing.
All across the land of "Equestria", everypony who wasn't currently listening to a specific channel tuned into the site-wide radio. A favourite song among the crew played through radio Channel Five and even through a small speaker in the Director's office. In the control rooms, everypony who wasn't actively giving or taking commands took a little time to listen in to the beautiful melodies being broadcasted from Ponyville. Maintenance workers in the upper skies of Equestria, working on the panelling that made up the sky itself, whistled in tune with the song. They turned their volumes up to be audible above whatever power tools they were using. Shining Armour listened in as he sat in his office monitoring the security command computer.
It was a small gift, performing for the ponies who worked hard to ensure the stability of the casts' everyday lives. Octavia knew for a fact that living anywhere else would mean living a very boring life, working a very boring job, on standby in a cramped apartment.
However, none of it would be possible without the love of her life by her side, not only for the help of his technological expertise, but just for the general support he brought into her life. They had met in the military, funnily enough. Both doing their part in the battlefields of the Draconian Uprising. They both had a love for music, and for each other, and they were married as soon as their service was over. One of the privates on their squad decided to make a show about a small purple filly. When the show got rebooted as The Twilight Sparkle Show, the Director had found them, (an unemployed musical couple) and offered them a job as extras/musicians on his land of "Equestria". Free housing and a job of their dreams -- how could they resist? The only downside was that their contracts kept them bound to The Show until it ended, which meant they would all be here for at least another seven years.
Eventually the song came to an end, and her husband flipped a switch to turn over to a recorded track.
"Background Pony Coordination to Octavia Melody. Melody, are you finished for now?
One of the twenty coordinators dedicated to Ponyville spoke through the commlink. Octavia simply replied out loud, knowing that either the earpiece's microphone or one of the other recorders scattered around her house would pick up her reply.
"We need some ponies to thicken the crowd in Town Square. Please head there immediately and begin pattern 15-02-Zeta."
"Will Vinyl be coming with me?" she asked, sparing a glance at her husband and walking over to the door.
"Negative, she'll stay here and keep the house under protocol 2-01-Alpha."
"He," she said, opening the door and letting the sunlight pour through the opening onto her face.
"Excuse me?"
"Last time I checked, my husband is a stallion!" she growled, irritation very clear in her voice. The coordinator remained silent, probably evading his slip-of-the-tongue by switching to another channel. Vinyl remained silent and just shrugged when his wife looked his way. With a roll of her eyes, Octavia Melody walked out the door and prepared herself to face a fresh new day in Ponyville.
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Derpy Hooves flew through the skies over Ponyville, mailbags shaking around as she soared over the Ponyvillian rooftops. The bags were filled with mail, most definitely, but the contents of the letters were not meant for any of the cast below her. They were bound for the ponies in the power plant underneath "Canterlot Mountain". It wasn't Derpy's job to know what they were. They could be plans, instructions, or just mail in general being sent to the technicians that ensured all of "Equestria's" power was generated and directed where it was needed.
Derpy eyed Rainbow Dash's house enviously with her lazy eye. That actress did nothing but hang around Twilight all day, while other pegasi like Derpy broke their backs maintaining the complex machinery and engineering of the set and delivering supplies (and mail) wherever they were needed. It hurt even more when she thought about the ridiculous amount of pay the Mane Cast got on top of their extended privileges: larger and more complicated houses, special exceptions for the allowance of technology, and Rainbow was even going to get her book series promoted on the air!
However, Derpy couldn't dwell on the things that others had, she had a package to deliver! With her wings spread wide, Derpy Hooves prepared to face a fresh new day in Ponyville.
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Twilight Sparkle stirred in bed, peeking an eye open and staring out her window at the eight o'clock sun. It took her a moment to realize the meaning of the already risen sun. Twilight Sparkle jumped out of bed, her mane in a frazzle, and dashed into the bathroom. She took a hurried shower, and brushed her mane and tail back into their proper styles. She trotted out down the stairs, mentally berating herself for sleeping in. Now the library would be open an hour late!
She trotted out to find the sign already switched into the "Open" position. Spike was seated in a chair next to the open entrance, comic book in his claws as his eyes scanned the pages. Twilight sighed in relief. She was foolish to think that her number one assistant wouldn't come through for her in a sticky situation like this. Spike lowered his book and peered at his surrogate mother.
"Heh, yeah. You know how it can go with me and my friends..." Twilight trailed off, a delicious scent coming to her nose.
"Yeah, I did!" Spike responded, nodding his head.
"Thank you Spike! You're so thoughtful!" she said, petting Spike's head as she did so. She proceeded to trot off to the kitchen to devour her food, having remembered just how hungry she actually was. She sat down and started forking her scrambled eggs and daisy sandwiches into her mouth. The food was excellent, as usual. She heard her little drake start dusting off the shelves, and she smiled at his dedication.
She stared out the window idly, watching as ponies walked by in groups of twos or threes. She watched the flower trio walk by, then she watched the flower trio walk by again. Most of the ponies walking were fairly silent, with only the sound of passing carts and the chirping of the songbirds breaking the silence. The feeling of food slipping down her gullet reminded her about something.
Her eyes narrowed as she thought hard about whatever she might be forgetting. Just as she swallowed the last bit of her healthy breakfast, she remembered.
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The Director stood at the back of the Control Center. Ponies ran back and forth in front of him, conveying information and taking data from their co-workers. A variety of screens displayed their information to the Director's searching eyes. He could see the current optimal camera angle on Twilight, the current patterns of the background ponies, and the most important of them all, the screen displaying the current live viewership. At this very moment, about two billion creatures from all around the Confederacy were tuned in to Channel 87, the channel whose sole content was The Twilight Sparkle Show.
In another week or so, the crew would have to start putting up the decorations for Nightmare Night. The writing staff had run the idea by him to have Princess Luna visit Twilight for Nightmare Night. It was not exactly what the Director would've wanted, but it satisfied the fans' thirst for more of the Lunar Princess. Satisfied fans equals more money. That, along with more viewers of course. The Director smirked. My Little Twilight had made trillions for him, The Twilight Sparkle Show would make him King of the World before long. He just needed to wait.
"Sir, Pinkie Pie is wondering whether or not it is permissible to check out a book from Golden Oaks, Sir," a pony to his left said, a slight quiver in her voice. The Director looked at the pony, and saw that she was an intern, of course. It explained why she was so intimidated by him. He couldn't blame her, he was fairly intimidating.
"What does she want to check out?" the Director asked, watching the amount of live viewers skyrocket as more and more creatures switched to Channel 87.
"She didn't say, Sir," the intern answered.
The Director looked at the mare for a second or two, then nodded.
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Pinkie Pie bounced her way to the tension zone of Ponyville, the Golden Oaks Library. Everypony was walking in their circular formations around the Library. Any normal observer would have eventually noticed the amount of repetitiveness in the ponies' patterns, but not Twilight Sparkle. Twilight had been raised with the world literally revolving around her, so how could she notice the strangeness of her situations?
Her mane and tail felt like fluffy concrete, stiff and bouncy as she hopped down the streets of Ponyville. She made sure to wave at the background ponies as they passed on by. It was part of her character to be happy and friendly, but she probably would've said "hi" to everypony in town with or without the Director's orders. Not only were they overworked and underappreciated, but they at least needed some support from their colleagues. In all honesty, Ponyville really did need a real Premier Party Pony to keep the cast's relationship with each other from falling apart. Unfortunately, Pinkie didn't see herself as the one to really bring that happiness about. Although, the Director would definitely try to put her in that position.
The pink pony bounced her way right up to the front door. The door flew open, catching her right across the face. Pinkie got a glimpse of Twilight's face as she inadvertently smacked her with the door. She tumbled, using a practiced manoeuvre to somersault over the door and land on the other side. She heard a gasp as Twilight realized who she had just clobbered. Twilight looked at the side of the door Pinkie should've been on, before gasping again as Pinkie voice came out from behind her.
Twilight spun on her hooves, before facehooving at Pinkie's presence. Twilight had had a very hard time figuring out how Pinkie "predicted" future events. She didn't realize that Pinkie was simply listening to instructions from her superiors. The acrobatics and sleight-of-hoof she had taken as a filly seemed to have paid off in the long run. Pinkie seemingly teleported around the set and pulled items our of nowhere by using the skills she had learned, surprising both Sparkle and the rest of the Mane Cast.
"Gee, you scared me Pinkie!" Twilight said, breathing heavily from the shock. "What-what're you doing here?" she asked.
"I wanna check out a book!" she said, starting to bounce as it clicked in her mind that she was supposed to hopping.
"Spike can help you with that," she pointed a hoof back at her little dragon. "I have to go out to Sweet Apple Acres. I just remembered that I had forgotten to pay Applejack back for that bushel of apples I bought last week!" Twilight said, trotting away as if she had not a care in the world. It wasn't as if she had any worries to speak of, anyway. A voice spoke over Pinkie's earpiece.
"Attention Sweet Apple Acres, you got lavender heading your way to interact with Applejack. Carrot Top, get yourself a cart and start heading out of town towards your house using the path towards the Everfree, over."
Pinkie bounced inside, almost having an unfortunate meeting between the doorframe and her forehead. Spike sighed, collapsing back into his chair. Pinkie glanced sympathetically at him, shutting the front door.
Spike looked over at Pinkie with the type of irritation that only nine year old dragons could muster.
Spike was once going to be the other Mane Character, but dragons were a bit more aware than your average pony. When he finally noticed the façade of his life, the Director thought it best to let him in on everything. No one really knew what the Director said to him, but all Pinkie knew was that it compelled Spike to keep the reality of the existence of The Show from his surrogate mother.
"You okay?" Pinkie asked, looking the little dragon up and down.
Spike sighed, "Yeah, I'll be fine." he said, walking over to the bucket and picking up his mop.
"Yeah! Now that you mention it, can you get me Volume III of Game Theory?" she asked, bouncing away down the library's stacks.
Spike grumbled something, getting up and heading towards row three, section four. Together, Spike and Pinkie prepared for yet another new day in Ponyville.
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"Attention Sweet Apple Acres, you got lavender heading your way to interact with Applejack!
Applejack's heart skipped a beat as she ran from her room out to the porch, grabbing a broom from the closet as she did so. The crew outside who were bucking and transporting apples to the barn made themselves scarce, running to their assigned hiding spots out of sight around the Acres. Sure, it would probably be a about a half an hour before Twilight got to her, but when lavender was coming your way, you'd better be ready to sing and dance. Applejack was content in making herself look busy by sweeping off the porch while Big Mac grabbed some of the baskets, abandoned by the crew, and started to haul them back to the barn.
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Derpy Hooves made a touchdown in front of the Reactor Administration Building, or at least what she thought was the Administration Building. The admin's building had to be the big tall grey one with all the warning labels, right? It was hard to tell which was which in the big, dark caverns below Canterlot. She walked right up to the big metallic door with "Danger: Electrified Surfaces" written on the front, and found it slightly ajar. That was soooo thoughtful of them, leaving the door open for her like that! With a smile, Derpy Hooves ran through into a long corridor lined with pipes and slightly sparky cables.
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Twilight Sparkle trotted a merry pace through the streets of Ponyville, making her way to Sweet Apple Acres. The town was quite lively today, with ponies walking around to their various destinations. Some were sitting on park benches, while some eating a late breakfast at the many quaint cafes littered around the town. She spotted Octavia sitting on a bench, reading a book, most likely something on classical music. The flower trio were tending to their flowers at their cute little stand. BonBon and Lyra were walking together with... very upset looks on their faces.
Twilight stopped, looking their way. The two ponies seemed to notice, smiles resuming a little too late.
"Uhh..." they both said intelligently. A quick look was shared between the two friends.
"No!"
"Of course not!"
"We're the best of friends!"
"Yeah... right?"
"Mmhmm, no problems here!"
"Yep!"
Twilight looked at Lyra and BonBon as they fell into awkward silence. She took a breath.
The lavender mare turned the question around in her mind for a good long time. After a bit of mulling she came to a decision. Friendship problems are made to be solved, ergo, she would be solving this one!
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Applejack had swept the porch about three times over, knowing that the only other thing she could be doing was bucking apples. That would definitely be her last resort! She had expected Twilight to have arrived by now. What could be taking do long?
"All characters please be advised, lavender is moving away from the Acres back towards Golden Oaks. Lyra and BonBon are currently instructed to stay with lavender until further orders. Ponyville, resume standard mid-morning protocols for a Class-D friendship problem, over.
Applejack threw the broom in a huff, grumbling as she walked back inside. The crew came back out of their places and set back to work clearing the apple trees of their apples.
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Derpy Hooves burst through the door on the other side of the Hallway of Electro-Zappy Hair. She patted down her locks as they kept insisting on pointing towards the ceiling. Her bright eyes searched the four-way hallway for a mail room, or anywhere that she could deposit her load. One door seemed to be locked and the other had some very scary noises pulsing from the other side. The last door, however, swung open on Derpy's push, leading into a dark room. It was empty, aside from a very large duct on the south wall.
Derpy trotted over to a small hatch on the side. A sticker on the side read, "Danger: Do not open whilst auxiliary ventilation is online." She twisted the handle, opening the panel. A long drop into an inactive fan awaited below the slab of metal. It was a lot different from the vacuum tubes that she had worked with back on the outside, but it wasn't her job to question the mechanics of it. Besides, this had to be the mail room, right? No idiotic reactor worker would leave all the doors open for her otherwise.
With a shrug, Derpy hefted her mailbag and dumped its contents into the shaft. Packages clanged and letters fluttered as the mailbag emptied itself. With a merry whistle, Derpy Hooves shut the access panel and trotted out of the facility, taking off back to Cloudsdale Distribution for her next delivery. With a positive attitude, Derpy Hooves prepared herself for the rest of her day in the Land of Equestria.
Author's Note
I wanted to cover a bit about the Background Six here.
The story is still mostly about the Mane Six however.
Again, big thanks to my mother for proofreading and editing!
The Twilight Sparkle Show (Under Construction)
Chapter II: Sun Outage
"All school-going foals assigned to the Ponyville district be advised, school begins at Ponyville Schoolhouse in approximately one hour. Please be ready to head to the Schoolhouse within thirty minutes using appropriate procedures relevant to your character class. If you are sick or otherwise inhibited from attending school, please contact your nearest medical professional for an application for sick leave within forty-five minutes of this message so that appropriate adjustments can be made to today's scripts. If you already are scheduled for sick leave, then you may ignore this alert. Out."
While Scootaloo may not have known exactly what all the words in the coordinator's message meant, she had heard it enough times to ascertain its general meaning. Get ready to head off to school. If you're sick, you'd better be ready to prove it! The little pegasus filly strolled out of the bathroom, totally skipping the "getting dressed in school uniform" part that the scrubs back in the "Confederate Educational Facilities" all had to do.
She was pretty much always ready for school by the time the coordinator came calling. It wasn't necessarily because she liked school. it was because her hero, Rainbow Dash, the author of the Daring Do series, was always there to pick her up and fly her to Ponyville. She got out her bag, packing her supplies into the leather satchel. In a small, hidden compartment, she packed a standard issue spare earpiece as well as the set's booklet on C-Class (Child Class) coordination protocols. Standard stuff.
She slung the bag into her back and walked over to her front door, opening it with a creak. She was met with the bustling streets of Cloudsdale, "Equestria's" main (and only) cloud city. The city swarmed with pegasi and air vehicles, all preparing for the day's scheduled work. Crew scurried back and forth, handling delicate equipment and tools. Background Class (B-Class) characters dressed in Equestrian Mail Service uniforms hitched themselves up to the various transport cars carrying spare parts and replacement equipment for every corner of "Equestria".
Cloudsdale was, among many things, Security's contingency centre in the case of outside attack or a mass terrorism strike. It was easy to mistake the floating city, what with its alluring décor and its social psychology. Under the cloudy exterior was a pop-up citadel, complete with anti-air flak turrets, triple layer energy shielding, long-range artillery, short-range missile batteries, and much more. You name the weapon or defence system, the Director had paid for it. Cloudsdale was truly one of the biggest nerve-centres of "Equestria".
When your show's following reaches the billions, you can probably expect some opportunistic morons with guns to come and try and ruin the Mane Character's perfect little life. Or maybe the haters would show up and start bombing "Equestria". There were even a few enemies of the Company that would love to hold the set hostage. It was why the entirety of "Equestria" was built underground in a location only known by the Director's most trusted ponies. The entirety of the cast and crew had been put into a soundproof jet with the windows shuttered and shipped over here for the express purpose of keeping the set's location a secret. Sure, the extensive defence contingencies and secrecy was overkill. However, it was overkill for good reasons.
Scootaloo walked in through the city in the general direction of the Tarmacs, the take off and landing zone for most of Cloudsdale's heavy vehicles. Here, tonnes of heavy machinery would airlifted to wherever they were needed around "Equestria" using huge cargo transport carts and airships. Scootaloo took a seat on a bench far away from the "Keep Clear" zones, watching the skies for her ride to Ponyville.
A klaxon blared, causing her took look to the left. There stood one of fifty gigantic warehouses, a metallic monstrosity with the letters RF-23. The doors were opening wide as a forepony with a spinning cog as a cutie mark began to guide a humongous aluminium cylinder out the doors. Hundreds of bits and bobs, gears and circuitry, fans and vents, and intake and output pipes lined the outsides of the machine. The entire thing was easily the size of a rocket ship, and was being attached using thick, composite straps to a looming crane. The crane began to lift the thing onto an awaiting cargo airship, red caution lights flashing on the cargo cradle. On the side of the machine was stamped the words "Bound for the Main Reactor Complex".
Scootaloo recognized the piece of machinery, it was a piece of pegasus engineering dubbed the Pegasus Device (the inventor of the Pegasus Device was quite proud of his winged heritage). A Pegasus Device was the modern replacement for the old air distributors. It utilized artificial pegasus magic to create everything from a whispering breeze to roaring miniature tornados and could supercool or heat the air. Consequently, they had found many applications in air conditioning, refrigeration, heat pumps, small-scale weather manipulation (large-scale weather manipulation was still mostly up to real pegasi), rainbow creation, and, in this case, reactor cooling.
This one was a fair bit larger than the standard Device, but if it was headed for the Main Reactor, it was large for good reason. The Main Reactor provided pretty much the entirety of the set's power, it also produced oodles and kaboodles of heat alongside. One large Pegasus Device did the trick in the most cost-efficient and, most importantly, safe fashion.
Scootaloo's ears perked as she heard the voice of her hero over the din of the heavy machinery. She turned and ran over to one of the few octagonal chopper pads where the rainbow-maned pony stood, waving. She trotted up the steps to Rainbow Dash, who smiled at her number one fan.
"Ready for school, squirt?" she asked, Scootaloo nodded. "Well then, let's go!"
Without another word, Rainbow scooped Scootaloo up and took off, heading in the direction of Ponyville (which happened to also be the direction a lot of cargo transports were heading). The two of them soared through the skies, Scootaloo tucked away nicely in Rainbow's grip. Their companionship started in the very first episode, when Scootaloo had missed the transport heading down to Ponyville where she was scheduled for background duty. The Rainbow Dash had flown up and picked her up, taking her down to the heart of the set.
Ever since then, they were inseparable. Even to the point where their friendship had been made canon. Just like how the Cutie Mark Crusaders had been formed. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, two "sisters" of two of the Mane Casters, had been friends with her ever since they went to the school in the Confederacy. Sweetie Belle refused to go with Rarity without Apple Bloom, and Apple Bloom refused to go with Sweetie Belle without Scootaloo. Scootaloo's family adamantly refused to let her go, so she ran away.
The Director had taken good care of her, at least. A caretaker would make sure that she was well cared for, but otherwise she could do anything she wanted as long as it didn't break set rules. She did wonder if her parents had looked for her, but she secretly hoped those monsters found the set and got arrested for it.
"Hey, Scoots. I heard that the Director's just written out somepony down in Ponyville and is planning to move you into their house for permanent residence down in Ponyville!" Rainbow said, looking down at the orange filly in her hooves.
"Really?" she asked, squirming a little to look up at the other pegasus's magenta eyes. After a moment of silence she said, "Why? I thought secondary background characters had to live off-scene."
"Didn't you hear? They're making the Cutie Mark Crusaders an actual thing and planning more episodes about you girls. I don't think it'll be long before you and the others get made into Secondaries," she laughed a little, weaving in and out a bit to overtake an especially large sky truck.
Secondaries were a sub-class of M-Class (Mane cast characters that weren't Twilight Sparkle). It meant that you got more air-time with the Mane Cast and played a significant role in the planned episodes. Sure, it wasn't anywhere near the amount of attention you got as a Mane Cast Character, but it was a huge step up from C-Class.
The rest of the flight was mostly made in silence, the buzz of the coordinator's voice coming in and out through the earpieces. Not before long, the duo flew over the "thatched" rooftops of Ponyville and descended towards the Ponyville Schoolhouse. Rainbow stuck the landing perfectly in front of the town's only schoolhouse. Ponyville Schoolhouse was a cute red building with a small spire that held a school bell, which was currently ringing. Schoolfoals were swarming around the school grounds and the street around it. Miss Cheerilee stood at the door, watching and counting the foals as they gathered. On Scootaloo's arrival, she reached up and clicked a button, the school bell stopping its ringing soon after.
Scootaloo turned and waved to Rainbow, only to see her contrails trailing off into the distance. She retracted her hoof from her wave with an air of disappointed silence. She probably had been called away, again. The set had gone live and Rainbow was the fastest of all the Mane Characters, so if there was a Mane Cast emergency where she "should" be available to help, she was usually there to take care of it first.
Scootaloo turned and walked over to the door, where Cheerilee was calling everypony in for class. She spotted Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle side by side, heading for class. Background characters (also known as B-Class) waved to their children as they headed back to town for their routines, whether their "children" actually be their children, or if they were simply surrogate parents. The massive amounts of children they needed for The Show had made a few problems such as parentless foals, like Scootaloo. That created many more positions for caretakers to be sure the children were taken care of. Many B-Class had also been given the choice to take in their own "families" and also took the responsibility of being watched by the set's Child Services.
"Hi girls!" the orange filly said, sidling up next to her unicorn and earth pony friends.
"Heya Scoots!" Apple Bloom said, a smile on her face.
"Hi Scootaloo," Sweetie Belle said, a weak grin on her face.
Scootaloo's eyes widened at the sight of a bandage over Sweetie's nose, before her face scrunched in anger.
Sweetie said nothing, placing her bag down on her desk and gazing off at the blackboard. Apple Bloom started to say something, but was cut off by the rapping of Cheerilee's ruler on her desk. Everypony turned to the front, where the teacher began to introduce the day's lessons.
Scootaloo didn't quite listen to the teacher's words, her mind having been taken up by Rarity's crimes to her little sister. This was the hundredth time she had done something like this (the only things the crew bothered to pay attention to was the physical abuse). For Scootaloo, the set was supposed an escape from the towering buildings, crowded streets, poverty, and homelessness. "Equestria" was supposed to be a perfect land, where justice always prevailed. Sweetie hadn't found her escape here, instead she was at the mercy of that monster in the form of a pony. Scootaloo steamed away silently as the Cheerilee began to drone on about that day's lesson. If Security didn't do something about Rarity, then Scootaloo would!
Meanwhile, in the Main Reactor Complex...
Spinning Cogs directed with a hoof as the crane hoisted the Pegasus Device into position beside the reactor building. The wall leading into the old Pegasus Device (the one to be replaced) had been opened up, allowing the workers to prepare the machine for removal. Cogs turned from the crane as the Device was placed neatly in position next to the old one. He shouted something to his compatriots who were busy removing the straps tying the Device to the crane. He pulled his radio to his mouth.
"Control, this is Forepony Cogs, can you shut off the Device for us?" he asked into the mic.
Up in the Reactor's control room, a pony heard the call of the maintenance worker and reached over to the general control panel. He pulled a switch labelled "Pegasus Device" from "Active" to "Neutral". There was a whine as the Device powered down. He then hit a button next to it labelled "dismount". A "Ka-Chunk" was heard as the structural support around the old Device popped open, enabling removal. A light labelled "Cooling" began flashing and beeping. Undisturbed, the controller pulled another switch labelled "Ventilation" from "Pegasus Device" to "Auxiliary Ventilation".
There was a whoosh as the more conventional non-magical fans dedicated to Auxiliary Ventilation whirred to life inside the various ducts. In the far away volcanoes of southern "Equestria", steam began to lift from various "natural" vents as the reactor started to blow its furious flame through the ventilation systems.
Within the ducts leading from the reactor to the "volcanic" vents, a copper statuette rewarding a random employee for excellence got sucked out of its paper package and began clanging its way through the ducts. Its paper brethren from Derpy's mailbag met the unfortunate fate of becoming shredded inside some of the many fans. The wind propelled the relatively light copper sculpture down the metallic tunnels of the Auxiliary Ventilation system. A lucky fan blade managed to smack the statuette, propelling it into the wall. The sculpture knocked out a light and lodged itself inside an alarmingly important-looking junction box.
In the Reactor Control room, the various staff watched their screens and glanced up at the replacement procedures every once and awhile. Outside, the new Pegasus Device (the old one having been removed without much trouble) was now being hoisted into position along the Main Cooling duct. A worker jumped as an alarm began blaring from his panel. He looked over at the system and noticed that an entire duct had gone dark, the fans spinning to a stop.
"Ma'am!" he said, turning to his supervisor. "Duct B has lost power, I'm not getting any response from the fans in there."
His supervisor turned to him, walking over to his screen and looking into it with professional scrutiny.
The reactor had been built with redundancy in mind, meaning that there were plenty of other ducts to handle the output of heat from the cores.
"Of course," she answered dismissively, already walking away from his station.
With a flip of a switch, the errant shaft sealed itself up.
Within the shaft, the stagnant heat having already started to build without the help of the fans, the deformed copper model began to melt. The drips of molten metal dripping down onto the now-exposed wiring of the junction box. Before cooling back into a solid state as the heat in the shaft began to decrease. The cables, now fused by the conductive metal (although still too hot to be completely conductive), began to slightly spark.
"So, that's why obsessions can be so destructive in friendships!" Twilight finished, underlining her final point on her blackboard. She turned to Lyra and BonBon, a smile on her face. She frowned slightly at their expressions, Lyra was looking out the window and BonBon had her head in her hooves. Both seemed both angry at each other and bored with Twilight Sparkle's lecture on the psychology of obsessive behaviour in friendships.
She couldn't fathom why, everypony should be open to solutions to their problems. These two's thick skulls seemed more stubborn than even some of the villain's skulls that her and her friends had come across. When she had asked them to explain what was wrong, they had both looked at each other and said that the other had done something wrong. When she asked what, they both told a different story. Therefore, it was only logical that she break out the lecture on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
She began to think that her lecture had had the opposite effect of what she had intended. The two seemed to be more upset with each other. Well at least this little friendship problem was something to write the Princess about...
With a sigh, Lyra suddenly got up. Without much preamble she turned to Twilight with a bit of a forced smile on her face.
Twilight looked at them for a couple of seconds, attempting to process the abruptness of their request. Something must be seriously wrong here but maybe she could... Twilight shook her head. Maybe it was just one of those rare times that she should just stand aside.
The memory of her debt to Applejack popped back into her mind. With a bit of a start, Twilight levitated her bag of bits onto her back and headed out the door for town.
"What. Is. Wrong with you two? You were meant to play along!"
"Sorry Director, but..."
"No buts. No buts. No buts! I thought you spent three years studying how to act, and then you just go in there and act like... children!"
*Sigh*
"Look, this is the first of three warnings I'm going to give you. Pull your socks up or I'll pull your employment. Over and out!"
The copper finally cooled to the temperature where it could actually conduct electricity again and the lights in the duct flickered on again. In the control room, the worker had finally rebooted Duct-B again. To his surprise, the signal actually came on again. Without further thought, he switched the duct back on again, unsealing the shaft. As the air began to move again, the copper kept cooling, providing convenient paths for electricity to jump their resistors and hit targets it they weren't meant to. There was a high pitched whine as the fans began to speed up dangerously.
In the wrong directions.
The Pegasus Device had finally been re-installed, and the same worker struggled with his controls, trying pushing the Device's harness back into place to secure the new Pegasus Device for proper use again. In doing that, he looked away from his screen and missed the notification for excessive speed in Duct-B.
The fans began to spin out of control, their blades sparking up against the sides of the tunnel. One, whose bolts had become just that tiny bit more rusted than the others, snapped out of its harness and banged around Auxiliary Ventilation.
At the work site, Spinning Cog's ears perked as he started to hear a thunderous banging up above the Reactor building. He raised on eyebrow, trying to figure out what the noise could be coming from. He lifted his radio to his mouth, about to ask Control about the noise.
Above him, the sparks started to fly from their fans in reverse and peppered the opposite wall, before a shattered fan blade shot through and fell into the air intake...
A thunderous explosion rocked through the facility. Spinning Cog dropped his radio and turned to see a wall of flame approaching him from the Inner Reactor Building. Magical shields popped into existence behind him. The flame hit him, and a brief moment of burning pain ran through him.
It was the last thing he ever felt.
A nuclear warning blared through the radios and earpieces, everypony around Equestria hitting the deck. Magical shields immediately sprung up around the inner reactor building and the force equal to thousands of thunderclaps rocked Canterlot Mountain as a nuclear blast thundered inside the blast shielding.
All around Equestria, fail-safes activated and breakers closed to weather the sudden surge in power. What seemed to be lightning jumped from substation to substation as voltmeters jumped out of their gauges. In the Ponyville Control Centre, terminals exploded and screens glitched, all before a whine was heard as everything lost power.
Around the Confederacy, hundreds of people muttered in confusion as Channel 87 suddenly flickered and jumped to a floating "No Signal" sign. In his office, the Director jerked in shock as the lights in his office went out. Hundreds of background ponies, foals, workers, and other miscellaneous crew winced as their earpieces were filled with static before shutting off. The Dome's simulated sky suddenly went dark, the sun going with it, leaving everypony in pitch blackness that was darker than night.
All around the set, workers wasted no time in priming the emergency generators. Emergency systems took priority above others, with the larger actual power-producers taking longer to boot up safely. Some lights came back on and the emergency set-wide radio channel crackled on, orders being given to emergency services.
The worker lay on the floor of the reactor control room, covered in powdered concrete. Emergency lighting had been switched on, bathing the room in red. Everything was torched, with some equipment still being on fire. The floor was littered with desks, terminals, wiring, shattered concrete, jagged metal rebar, and broken reinforced glass.
The worker slowly stirred from his resting position, feeling stabbing pain all over. He rubbed his eyes, only to find them stinging as he rubbed the dust on his hoof on his eyeballs. Hardly able to see, he tried to take stock of his environment. Outside, shield generators sparked, having given their all to, quite frankly, save his life. An outdated, twisted, half-vaporized, and overall charred Pegasus Device leaned into the control room through the glass. Its inner workings having mostly deposited themselves across the room and... into his co-workers. The only thing that has saved him was his close proximity to the window putting him under the shotgun-like blast radius of the output end of the Device. The worker, after taking a moment to cough and stumble around, saw a flashing red light, denoting the emergency exit. He began to shamble towards it.
He fumbled for his key card, only to find that his clothes to be very crispy and his chest to be covered in burns. He punched the "open door" button next to the steel surface anyway, hoping the meltdown overrides had done their job. Lettering flashed across the screen.
EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ENGAGED, AREA CONTAMINATED BY ARCANO-RADIATION. THIS DOOR HAS BEEN SEALED REMOTELY
It seemed the overrides had done their job too well...
He lurched, coughing terribly. He desperately began banging on the door, hoping for somepony, somegriffon, somezebra, somedonkey, or anything to come and recue him. A voice blared through the door. The worker looked up in hope, only to break down in tears as he realized it came from the PA. The whiney ironic voice kept repeating its message.
"Evacuate, all personnel proceed to their emergency evacuation stations. This is not a drill. Evacuate immediately. Repeat. Evacuate, all personnel proceed to their emergency evacuation stations..."
Twilight Sparkle jumped as she heard a thunderous roar from Canterlot Mountain. The sun suddenly brightened dangerously, before everything went dark. The only thing illuminating the scenery was what seemed to be lightning jumping from far away electrical poles.
Twilight stumbled, suddenly finding herself in pitch black darkness. She looked to the sky, only to find nothing but darkness. Everywhere she turned, only darkness met her. She stumbled over something, tripping onto her face. She suddenly realised that everything had gone dead silent.
What had happened? Was it Nightmare Moon? Had she returned to bring about eternal night? No, that couldn't be. When Nightmare Moon had plunged Equestria into her night, at least the moon and stars illuminated where she was going. Here, the "night" sky was completely blank. She attempted to cast a light spell, at least to see where she was going, but only stumbled as her horn did absolutely nothing. Her magic was out too? Whatever had happened must have been serious.
She felt around carefully, trying to find the path again. Maybe if she could find Sweet Apple Acres, she could get Applejack to light a lantern or something. She continued to walk and stumble, her eyes still not finding anything in the distance.
General Control was working at a feverish pace, ponies running back and forth from their terminals. Laptops and other PCs were being transported and plugged in to the cables that had been left computer less as their companions were fried in the surge. A slightly glitchy and buzzy screen showed the power grid slowly coming back online as emergency power groaned to life across Equestria. Keyboards were hammered frantically as the crew diverted power to environmental systems, hoping to reboot before Twilight Sparkle began to notice.
A hum erupted across the Dome as the SkyScreens turned back on, the sun quickly being moved back into place to illuminate the set.
With a click, Fire Neutralization turned on, supressing fires across damaged facilities across "Equestria". The top of Canterlot Mountain began to steam as the air scrubbers vented decontaminated smoke furiously from the Main Reactor out of what was supposedly the inactive crater at the very top of the mountain.
Inside the reactor control room, the vents sealed and whooshes of fire suppressant shot at the various fires across the room. Unfortunately, the reactor worker was far gone...
Twilight Sparkle gasped and squeezed her eyes shut as blinding light suddenly flashed around her. She heard a strange, rising hum as the sky suddenly was lit up by the sun again. She looked around, trying to figure out her situation. To her surprise, she saw sunshine and the blue skies above her. The birds began to chirp again and, after a short pause, the breeze that had been present not too long ago kicked up again.
She stood, rapidly trying to process what had happened. Had Canterlot erupted? She turned to look at the mountain, only to stare in shock as the top of the mountain smoked white steam mixed with black smog. In the distance, she could see fires burning from Ponyville's hydroelectric dam. She put a hoof to her mouth, the fire looked pretty bad. Perhaps her magic could be of help. Speaking of which...
Twilight tried her magic again, finding it suddenly, oddly functioning as normal. She trotted away from the Acres, towards the burning dam. She was beginning to think she would never get around to paying Applejack for her goods.
She arrived at what looked like the Ponyville substation, finding that the firefighters had managed to put out a fire that had erupted within a large transformer box.
"Uh, just an electrical difficulty, nothing to worry about ma'am," he said, pulling the helmet down over his eyes. "It shouldn't cause any trouble, just a small malfunction," he laughed nervously.
Twilight stared on for a few seconds, before looking around at the rest of the site. She gasped as she saw a pony on a stretcher, burns covering much of her body. Paramedics were taking the poor pony to an awaiting ambulance. She ran over to them, the paramedics startled a little before letting out a breath.
"Is she okay?" she asked, looking at the burned body.
"Y-yeah, s-she'll recover," they responded, before quickly pushing Twilight aside and moving towards the ambulance.
Twilight looked at the pony, who didn't really seem to be moving all that much. She opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by the slam of the ambulance's doors.
"Is there any way I can help?" she called to the firefighters, they all unanimously shook their heads, the captain stating that the fire was completely put out.
With a sigh, Twilight turned and jogged back towards Ponyville. Something was at work here, and Twilight had to figure it out! The first step was writing the Princess a letter...
The Director was furious.
He stormed through the Control Centre as soon as the elevator had power again. Ponies stood at attention as he thumped angrily across the floor of Ponyville Control. He went through the hallways, taking a left turn and then a right. He threw open the door into General Control and thundered towards the station labelled Power Grid.
"What. Happened. Out. There." he said, his words sharper than any sword.
The station supervisor looked up at the Director, her legs beginning to quiver.
"I KNOW THERE WAS A POWER FAILURE YOU NITWITTED NINEPIN!" he roared, making Luna's amplified voice sound like a whisper. "WHY DID SAID POWER FAILURE HAPPEN!?"
"We don't know sir!" the supervisor cried, having been pinned to the side of his console by the Director's advance. "We had an alert that the meltdown shielding had been activated and then the power surged!"
"I paid millions for the most advanced, most redundant power system the Confederacy can provide and the reactor still melts down! I thought I hired ponies that took their jobs seriously. I thought I hired somepony who had their doctorate in Nuclear Power!" He screamed, lifting the supervisor by his tie. "Not only that, but I was promised the power could be restored in seconds. How long did it take? An entire minute! An entire minute for Twilight Sparkle to notice that the set had been plunged into utter darkness! Explain yourself!"
The supervisor was shaking, his hind hooves scrambling for purchase on the ground. His co-workers were standing, staring at the Director with wide eyes. The Director took a breath, setting the supervisor back down.
"I'm sorry Director, but the only ponies that would know are the ponies that were in that site. I'm afraid the entirety of the Reactor Control Room has been irradiated, and the insides of the reactor have been blown to Tartarus and back. If anypony has survived in there, they probably are dead by now..." he trailed off, looking at the panels on his console. His eyes suddenly swelled with tears.
"I-I had a brother in there, I just realised he probably didn't make it," he said, a sob sinking into his voice.
The Director bit his lip. The Reactor had two blast shields, one around the core itself (between the Central Building and the Control Centre) and another around the entire cavern that housed the Reactor. That shield was then backed up by a lead/titanium composite amour that encompassed the entirety of the Old Headquarters. He had already ordered Search and Rescue to don hazmat suits and were currently discreetly making their way through the Crystal Caverns to access the Main Reactor building. He could only hope the blast hadn't fused the access doors closed, which would add hours to the ETA. Hours that somepony trapped inside the Reactor complex might not have.
Afterwards, he would need to get a surveyor to ensure that the mountain itself was still structurally stable, and to reinforce it if need be. While it wasn't likely that Canterlot Mountain was too badly damaged (if not a bit shaken up), the shields and reactor location had been strategically placed to make sure that catastrophic meltdown couldn't bring the mountain down. He had spared no expense in ensuring the safety of his set, which is what hurt so much when a disaster like this happened.
The Director sighed, turning and walking back to his office. He would need to make some calls to Security. He wanted an investigation into this matter. He would make sure whoever was responsible was written out and then tried in a court of law. That much he would be sure of.
Author's Note
Things are gettin' real.
Unfortunately, my editor (mother) is out of service and this chapter had to be self-edited.
I apologize if it suffered in quality.
The Twilight Sparkle Show (Under Construction)
Chapter III: Reboot
Shining Armour, covered horn to hoof in a reinforced hazmat suit, clambered through the sawed open access door and into what remained of the Main Reactor Complex. The whirr of air filtration filled a good portion of the air as the devices worked steadily to remove the excessive amount of nuclear ash from the air within the cavern. Floodlights and smaller electric lanterns had been strewn about the complex, their light illuminating the path around the rubble and the debris that had dropped from the ceiling and fallen from the walls during the explosion.
Ponies, all wearing protection, scampered to and fro. Clean-up crews danced around, vacuuming up dust and clearing debris into awaiting carrier trucks. A few of the ponies had the mark of the Royal Guard. The ones from the Guard all were equipped with a plethora of nonlethal weaponry, from tasers to beanbag guns. No lethal weapons on the set was what the Director had decreed, ever since that incident with the murder up on Restaurant Row.
The only place on the site that wasn't busy was a taped off area at the side of the disaster zone, a site filled with body bags. The numbers of lost fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, and friends only increased as crew drove their way through the rubble.
It had been a few days since the explosion, and ponies' calendars were starting to near Nightmare Night. The Director had reluctantly reinstated the daily live broadcast for the fan's Twilight Sparkle fix. He hadn't wanted to do it until they could figure out the cause behind the meltdown. That was why Shining Armour was here, to try to recover anything that might point to foul play.
The fact that sabotage may have been the cause had come under investigation when an investigation of the ducts leading into the facility had uncovered a copper piece wedged into the fan's junction box. Recently, the workers had tracked down the location of where the reactor's surveillance recordings could have been left. He had a suspicion that Administration was where he was looking, and that was where he was headed.
The rescue crews had already cleared most of the rubble and searched the remains of the Main Reactor Complex for survivors.
They had not found one living soul.
It had taken too long, welding and drilling through three blastdoors, each one a foot thick. Shining would never forget when they approached the last door, when they heard someone screaming from the other side and hammering on the door, begging to be let out. The screams had turned into whimpers and then went silent as they made crawling progress on the doors. When they finally welded open a pony-sized hole in the door, they found nothing but a dead, irradiated corpse on the other side.
Most of the dead that were lined up in body bags at the side of the disaster zone had died from the initial blast or from the burns they had sustained afterwards. An unlucky few had survived the blast and the fires and had died slowly from radiation poisoning or from suffocation as they were trapped in rooms where the vents had been sealed of by Fire Suppression.
Shining gritted his teeth, approaching a particular expedition site by Reactor Administration, a building far left of the actual reactor. If there was a pony to be held responsible for this, he would find him or her, and he would... he would... he would! He would... do something.
It wasn't like him to think murderous thoughts, he realized. Perhaps whatever was getting into his guards was getting into him as well.
Shining shook his head.
No, he was much better than them. He wouldn't rot and expire so quickly as they would. He knew that. He had just let his emotions get away from him.
The Reactor Administration building wasn't too impressive. It was simply a few offices built off to the side where eggheads would work their numbers, the real reactor control being done right next to the Reactor itself. However, here was where the Reactor's security office lay and here was where they might be able to retrieve the hard drive with the surveillance of the meltdown itself. Unfortunately, the clouds of flying debris and fire had also blasted through this building, scorching the inner rooms and covering everything in the ash that was ever so present.
The security office lay at the end of two long hallways. Sealable doors could shut off either entrance and floodlights lay above the door itself. Beside the doors where windows, having been muddied by the blast. The office itself wasn't much more of a broom closet, but it had been fairly well sheltered from the fires and fallout. A 5x8 room with a desk, a fan, some buttons, and a swivel chair. A small tablet lay on the desk, a cable connecting it to the complex's surveillance system. Its screen was cracked and, like everything in this room, covered in dust.
A guard stood by the right door, opposite to Shining on the left. An IT pony worked away at a server rack beneath the desk, seemingly slowly moving delicate parts around within the equipment. Shining, not seeing any room within the office to put himself, opted to peek in around the door frame. The tech looked up.
"Security Chief Armour, good to see you. I think I've got the hard drive here but the surge set the thing on fire, I don't want to risk having something break if I'm not careful," he grunted, being as careful as one could be with full radiation protection on.
Shining Armour nodded, a surprisingly hard thing to do with a bajillion life-supporting air pipes suckered to your helmet. His ears perked as the sound of hoofsteps rang through the halls. Shining turned, before frowning slightly at the pony he saw.
"Good afternoon Inspector Neighsay," Shining said, attempting to be as polite as possible. "Dropped by to see how... my investigation is going?"
The beak-faced unicorn stared back at him, an eyebrow raised.Director asked me down here to check up on you."
"I guess we do what the Director says, don't we?" Shining answered, his lips drawing into a tight line.
A moment of silence was eventually interrupted by the excited giggle of the technician as he finally lifted the drive free of the charred server rack.
Before Shining could say anything, Neighsay pushed past him and snatched the hard drive with his telekinesis. He procured a portable device, plugging the hard drive into it.
"Neighsay, the Director wants to review the footage himself. Give the drive to me!" Shining said sternly, holding out a hoof.
The Inspector looked back at him as a loading screen circled around the device's screen.real detectives, Armour," he said dismissively as he began to click through the files.
"Give it to me. Now," Shining demanded, the guard across the room looking up at the commotion.
Neighsay didn't answer, instead clicking onto a random recording. The file began to play. The screen showed a grey pegasus mare in the uniform of the Equestrian Mail Service, dumping her mail bag into the auxiliary ventilation shaft.
Without another word, he turned tail and walked down the hallway, ignoring Shining like he was but a fly.
Shining turned to the guard, the tech having left long ago.
"Yessir," the guard said dutifully, concealing his stun baton within his spear and starting after Inspector Neighsay.
Shining began his own trek towards the exit, dodging damaged rebar and toppled debris as he went. He was going to make his way to the Cloudsdale Distribution Centre to find the name of that pegasus.
He had an arrest to make.
Twilight Sparkle stared through her telescope, looking out at the starry skies. Everything seemed normal, the stars were in their expected places and the moon was orbiting in its usual path. Nothing showed evidence to anything wrong with the sky. Neither had Princess Celestia's letter shed any light on the mysterious darkness that had seemingly consumed Equestria four days ago.
I'm not sure what you're talking about Twilight, nothing is out of the usual. Don't tell me your letting your fears get the better of you!
Love, Celestia
PS, my sister Princess Luna is coming by to visit Ponyville for Nightmare Night. She isn't expecting anything from you so please. For the love of me. Don't shoot off your rocker.
Again.
Twilight can't have been the only one to see the sky go dark! She can't have been hallucinating. Could she have? Twilight looked away from her work for a moment, considering the possibilities. Nah, just because she'd been up teaching a lecture to two very bored townsponies before heading out into the bright sun certainly couldn't have caused her to start seeing things!
Besides, when Twilight Sparkle saw things, she actually saw things. She definitely didn't go blind and stumble around in the pitch darkness!
Hmm, maybe there was something wrong with her. That didn't matter right now, however. She needed to inspect every inch of the sky to be sure that there was nothing out of place! Her work and her Spike lay forgotten on the desk, instead being covered by star charts and various graphs. She pushed her household Spike aside, a soft "oof" and a complaint echoing from the floor.
Her household Spike began making noises behind her as she furiously scribbled away at her notes, trying to find a solution to the puzzling enigma before her. Suddenly, her Spike uttered a terrifying prospect.
"Twilight, Princess Celestia is here."
Twilight spun on her hooves, knocking over Spike in the process.
Spike dug himself out of the piles of seismic data that Twilight had thrown him into.
Twilight opened her mouth to retort, but shut it again as she glanced around the library. Precious books had been thrown around the library. Chalkboards filled with calculations and prediction filled every square inch of floor space. Printed charts from the computer downstairs hung from the ceiling and rolled off the desks. A mirror, abandoned in a corner, revealed her own state. Her mane had popped out of place again and she was grinning psychotically... again.
She cleared her throat and calmed herself, trying to get her mind back into its proper state again. She lit her horn, intending to pick up her upended books and to put them back onto the shelf.
The books didn't budge.
She furrowed her brow, shooting a glare in the direction of the disobedient tomes. The volumes finally, reluctantly returned to their places. With a frown, she picked up her quill, intending to write down the anomaly. Until she felt Spike's claw on the quill. The baby dragon looked up at her with a deadpan.
"Okay, alright. I'll take a break," she said, putting her quill down in the inkpot. "Maybe it was nothing."
"It was nothing Twilight, nopony saw anything. You're just a bit stressed!" he said reassuringly, giving her a small pat.
Twilight sighed, before smiling at her assistant. He was right, she had just come out of a mental freakout a week ago, it wouldn't look good for her if she went insane so quickly. Besides, Princess Celestia said it was fine. It wasn't as if the Princess would lie to her or anything! Right?
Twilight paused a moment, a worried look on her face. The distressed look on Princess Celestia's face from that day coming to the forefront of her mind. What if the Princess was secretly under duress and couldn't tell her about whatever was happening?
Twilight put a hoof to her mouth as she considered the possibilities, her pupils shrinking as her mind began to run at full tilt. Spike could only muster the energy to facepalm behind her as he saw Twilight begin to rocket off into the insanity ward again.
She had to do something! But what? How could she contact the Princess without either embarrassing herself or tipping of the villain? She couldn't just walk into Canterlot? Could she?
She stared out of the library window, a few strands of her mane beginning to pop out of place. Outside, the town of Ponyville was getting ready for Nightmare Night. Decorations had been hung seemingly overnight and some temporary vendors had appeared in the marketplace selling a variety of spooky items.
Wait a second.
Twilight picked up her mentor's letter again, skipping down to the postscript.
Princess Celestia had said that her sister, the one that they had freed from Nightmare Moon. Twilight believed her name was Lunar... or something like that. Maybe she knew something about whatever was going on!
It made sense, Princess Celestia had said something about her not "expecting anything from her" or some baloney like that. Maybe that was code for "be indiscreet and take her away to your basement for questioning" or something like that!
Twilight gasped, her household Letter-Toaster losing its balance and falling over, another "oof" coming from the purple dragon.
Maybe Celestia was giving her a quiz on counter-espionage!
Twilight Sparkle snatched the letter and placed it flat underneath a loyal microscope, pushing her household Spike aside and ignoring its objections as she poured over every inch of the parchment.
If the Princess needed her help, incognito style or no, Twilight Sparkle would be the one to give it to her!
The Director gazed upon the elevator doors, a snarl on his face.
Just a few moments ago, Security had informed him that they had just arrested the saboteur responsible for the explosion in the Main Reactor and that they were escorting her to him that moment. He watched as the display above the door displayed the "up" arrow as the elevator made its ascent from Ponyville Control to his suite.
He took a deep breath as the elevator played a jingle from The Twilight Sparkle Show's theme song as it reached the top of its ascent. The Director cracked his neck and leaned forward in his chair as the doors slid open to reveal a grey pegasus mare with a blonde mane being escorted by two masked security officers. Security Chief Shining Armour and Security Inspector Neighsay stood behind the arrested and the two officers.
Neighsay came up to his desk placing a flimsy-looking hard drive on the glossy hardwood in front of him.
With that, Neighsay stepped aside and motioned to the two burly officers. They marched the now frightened-looking pegasus up to the desk, goading her along with the butts of their shock rifles. The director fixed the two officers with a glare.
"While we may all hate this miscreant, that is no reason for excessive force. Officers, step back," he warned.
The guards looked at each other, before stowing their rifles and taking a step back from the desk, leaving the derped out mare in front of the Director's desk, a place where one does not want to be when they have committed a crime.
"What is your name," the Directors imperative brooked no argument.
"D-Derpy Hooves, Director sir," she quivered, trying to back away from her employer's desk only for her rump to meet the legs of her guards.
"Derpy Hooves, I. Want. You. To. Explain. Yourself," he said, leaning out over his desk and bearing down over the shaking mare.
"I d-d-d-d-d-d-don't kn-kn-know w-what's h-happening..." she stuttered, attempting to become one with the carpet below her.
The Director didn't spare her a word, instead turning and switching on his flatscreen. The screen began to display pictures of the disaster, each one labelled "Evidence". he switched past a few of the aftermath of the meltdown, before stopping at a picture of a junction box with the words "Duct-B" written above it. He pointed at the junction box, or more specifically, a large glob of orange/red material that had melted over its exposed wiring.
"What does this look like?" he asked, his voice too stable for Derpy's liking.
"I-it looks like... a-a melted... thingamabob..." she said, still shaking.
"This... "melted thingamabob" has been identified as the cause of the reactor meltdown," he muttered, his voice still as even as the floor beneath them. "This, melted thingamabob, was in your mailbag when you dumped it down the access panel for Duct B," he finished, switching the screen over to a grainy surveillance video of Derpy emptying her bag into the shaft.
"N-n-no! T-that was the mail tube! I swear! A-and all the doors were open, so I thought that was were I was supposed to go!" she pleaded, looking up at the Director with shaky, skewed eyes.
"Wrong answer. Even if what your telling me is true, how could anypony, even the most retarded mind think it would be a "good idea" to dump their cargo into a duct that anypony with common sense could deduce, was NOT for mail!" he shrieked, towering over her.
Derpy paused, thinking over her memory of that night. She could not refute what her employer had told her.
The Director huffed, sitting down in his swivel chair.
The Inspector fettered the pegasus and restrained her wings, enunciating her right to remain silent as the chains clicked on.
"You will be detained until you can be convicted of reckless mareslaugter," the Director sighed, leaning back. "I hope you have more to say for yourself than 'I don't know what went wrong' when you face the courts as well as the families you just stole a total of one hundred and fifty five members from, collectively."
Shining Armour took up the back as the security officers seized the mare and guided her back to the elevator.
"Oh, by the way," he called out, looking at Shining as his squad entered the elevator, "I would like to congratulate you, Armour, on finding the hard drive."
The Director smiled knowingly as Neighsay scowled at the security chief.
"Don't think I don't know everything that goes on in this set, Neighsay."
"L-little Timmy? W-where are you? Can you please come out for me, little squirrel?" Fluttershy called, poking carefully around the forest, looking for the stray animal.
She had spent the ten minutes of power outage quivering beneath her covers, hearing the animals go crazy in her cottage downstairs. When the lights had come back on, she found her home in disarray with every single animal gone from their electronically-sealed cages. Apparently, this was the case in many places, with Animal Control losing all coordination. Fluttershy had, much to her dismay, been drafted into Animal Control: Character Squadron Alpha to search for the lost "animal assets" that had broken loose.
All characters who had any background with animals had been diverted to the Ponyville Dome to recover the wildlife and put them back in their places. They wouldn't, after all, enjoy a mauling due to Stray Bear on top of all the deaths that had happened in the Main Reactor explosion.
Now, it was the middle of the night, and Fluttershy was wishing she was home where she had more light than just her standard-issue flashlight and a couple of glow sticks.
Fluttershy was scared of the dark.
Something rustled in the bushes, and the butter-yellow pegasus jumped back from the noise, her flashlight coming to rest on the suspicious bush. She inched closer, before taking a few steps back.
What if the animal was infected with rabies? She didn't want to go insane! Fluttershy backed up until her behind met a tree.
No! That was ridiculous. Everything that came in and out of the set was screened for anything that could carry viruses. Fluttershy clutched her flashlight with a wing and crept closer, trying to whisper some sweet nothings but only uttering scared whimpers.
B-but... what if something made its way in... past Security?
Fluttershy reached for her pack, before pulling out her stun baton and gripping it in her mouth. Her tongue hit the "On" button and the metal buzzed to life.
The bush rustled again, this time the disturbance coming from the leaves nearest to her position.
She gripped the stun baton, ignoring the protests of her imaginary dentist's comments on the proper use of teeth for handling tools.
The bush exploded out, a figure coming from the shadows. Fluttershy squinted her eyes shut and lashed out with her baton, right before a pony's scream echoed through the forest right before she heard the thump of somepony falling over.
Fluttershy opened her eyes, the spent baton rolling out of her mouth. She gasped as she saw the twitching form of Roseluck, one of the Animal Controllers on her squad, lying on the path.
"O-oh! I-I'm so, so sorry! A-are you okay?" Fluttershy cried, running to her fallen comrade's side.
Roseluck groaned, slowly getting up, her muscles still slightly seizing from the shock.
"I'm fine... I guess?" she said groggily, struggling to keep herself on her hooves.
"I'm really sorry! I thought you were a rabid animal!" Fluttershy said, beginning to check her friend over for injuries. Roseluck, however, just fumbled with her Animal Control vest, looking for her radio, and gave Fluttershy a queer look.
"Rabid? Really? They sanitize the dirt in this place. How could rabies... or any disease for that matter, get past the two year quarantine they put on any biomaterial thhhhat," Roseluck stumbled, her eyes still slightly dilated from the shock.
"Are you okay?" Fluttershy asked, motioning for Roseluck to sit down.
"What setting did you put that stunner on?" Roseluck asked, sitting crookedly on the soil.
Fluttershy looked behind her at the baton, gasping when she noticed the switch was still in the "On" position. She ran over, clicking the baton off. She looked at the shock settings, which was metered by the size of its target.
It was set to take down bears.
"What were you thhhhhhhhhh------" Rose stumbled again, "Th-thinking? That could've killed me!"
"I-I... I don't know. I'm so sorry..." Fluttershy mumbled, taking the baton back down to the lowest level (bunny rabbit size).
Roseluck sighed, noticing the burn mark on her vest for the first time. The Kevlar was probably the only thing that stopped her from suffering a sudden stop of the heart.
"Look, it was an accident. Just... always identify your target next time. 'Kay?"
"O-okay..."
"Cool! Come on, help me up, I don't think there's anything more we can do tonight," Roseluck reached out a hoof, and Fluttershy took it gratefully, helping what used to be her background buddy up off the path.
Together, they began to limp back to Ponyville, simply enjoying the silence of the forest.
"You know, I'm really happy for you, Flutters," Roseluck sighed, stamping her back left leg a few times to try and shake the pins and needles from it.
"Why?" Fluttershy responded.
"Well, duh. You got into the Mane Cast. The Mane Cast! Ponies dress up as you on the Outside! You have museums dedicated to you inside of the Ox Ford! You know, I've even heard somepony started a cult dedicated to you!" Roseluck drawled, her steps just beginning to stabilize twenty minutes after the stunning.
"A-a cult? Oh my..."
"Yeah, well. I guess it must be kinda creepy, huh?" Roseluck chuckled, shaking her head a bit.
Fluttershy paused, before taking a breath and sighing.
"Why do you still like me?" Fluttershy asked.
"Well... I really wouldn't be your friend if I got upset about you becoming a Mane Character, right?"
"No..." Fluttershy stopped, looking over at her friend. "You know why. I stole your spot."
Roseluck paused for a moment as well. The only sound that could be heard was the sound of the wind in the trees and the night birds singing their lullabies.
"Well, Flutters. Maybe some ponies just like to stick to the background," Roseluck smiled, before restarting her march back towards Ponyville. "Besides, I'm in The Twilight Sparkle Show. Friendship is Magic."
Fluttershy furrowed her brow, frowning.
"You should hate me, all the magic in the world shouldn't change that," she stated, continuing her trot as well.
"Look, just because some purple unicorn decided she liked you before I got my cue doesn't mean I should change my opinion of the filly I've been by the side of since kindergarten," Rose sighed. "'Sides, I got to meet the rest of the Flower Trio. That's a plus for me."
Rose turned to her friend.
"Hey, did you like my line from Applebuck Season?" she asked, a grin on her face.
"The Horror! The Horror!" they synchronized voices, before bursting out laughing.
"They gotta let you do that again!" Fluttershy said, a smile returning to her face.
Their earpieces buzzed.
"All Animal Controllers be advised. Timmy the Squirrel has been recovered and recaptured. All stray animal assets have been contained. All undercover agents, prepare to switch places with your proxies. All Animal Controllers from Character Squadrons, please return to you positions and resume Night Time Routines. Out."
"Already on it, Coordinator!" Roseluck called to the wind.
Before long, Fluttershy and Roseluck parted ways. Fluttershy returning to her cottage, Roseluck trotting off to meet her trio of background buddies.
"I'm just saying, Director, I really don't think we're up for another episode so soon!" Perfect Logistics said, trying his best to keep up with his employer.
The Director sighed, turning to the Head of Scripted Ops.
"Look, how much more stress does it put on the system to send a simple signal to our satellites?" he asked, his mind seemingly considering his employee's concerns to be below the urgency of his current actions.
"Not much, Sir. But-"
"Twilight Sparkle is already expecting Princess Luna this Nightmare Night. We may as well continue on with the episode so that the resources we've put on don't go to waste. Besides, everypony is waiting for Luna's next appearance. We don't want to disappoint," he said dismissively.
Logistics hurried up to catch up to the Director before he left his division.
"But Sir, this thing with the lightning that you've got planned, the power grid's still sketchy! We don't want another failure!" he pleaded.
The Director nodded, pressing a button on the wall, the door beside it opening up.
"Yes, I guess we wouldn't want that happening... I want you to revamp the SFX for tomorrow's episode. Minimize system load. That probably means you'll have to cut that thing with Twilight Sparkle turning everyone into vampires," the Director began fumbling with his coat subconsciously.
"Here's what you do," he continued, "Everypony in Ponyville is afraid of Princess Luna due to her past as Nightmare Moon. We gotta set Twilight up to try to solve that problem... in her own way," the Director winked.
"But sir... we can't change the script now! We have ponies wanting to hit the hay. We don't have the time to redo the episode!" he cried as the Director began to walk through Ponyville Control towards his suite.
"You're the one who wanted the script changed, Perfect Logistics. Get it done," the Director called out behind him.
Logistics wanted to cry out again, but the door shut in his face. He sighed.
"Sir, yes Sir."
"Hello Everypony, Griff, Zebra, and Dragon out there today! This is Mythical Morning of the Supper Broadcast! IN our headlines today: a big blowout in a Hab Dome on the lunar surface causes colonist deaths, Confederate military movement on the eastern borders to counter reported refugee movement, and the an exclusive interview with the Director of the one and only, Twilight Sparkle Show!
"In fact, here we are now. An one of a kind interview with the creator of the media giant that we all know and love, the Director of The Twilight Sparkle Show!"
The Director sat down at his desk, adjusting his suit and tucking in his handkerchief. His sponsors had requested that he sit through an interview with a popular TV personality. One of the few shows that actually managed to survive The Twilight Sparkle Show's dominance over the airwaves.
"Good morning, sir! How is your evening?"
The Director looked at the pegasus, forcing a smile onto his face.
"Oh, you know. Every day presents a... new crisis."
"I bet! So, I would like to congratulate you, sir, on you're 546th episode! Now, I know the show has come oh so very far ever since My Little Twilight premiered on the 7th of April 1998. How far do you think The Show has progressed since its humble beginnings?"
The Director pursed his lips.
"Let me give you an idea in terms of overall scope of this little project. We started out with a singular camera, one held by an undisguised camerapony inside of Twilight's room. Now, the number of cameras we have around the entirety of Equestria numbers in about the five hundred thousands."
The Director shifted in his chair.
"In 1998, the most advanced camera printed live video with a frame rate of about 28fps. Now, we have cameras that record at a silky smooth 100 frames per second. The creators of which, I should note, were hired by my company to produce such cameras.
He cleared his throat.
"When My Little Twilight moved into its second season, it earned a gross income of about ten million. Now, it earns enough to compete with some mid-sized countries.
"We started with a full cast of about ten ponies when Twilight was still a foal, now we have about a thousand background ponies active around the set with several more on standby for emergencies.
"Our communications system started with a singular two-way radio and word-of-mouth, now we have earpieces that are considered to be military grade.
"We used to share a channel with kid's cartoons. Now, we have a satellite grid and multiple broadcast stations across the planet.
"When Twilight Sparkle took her first steps, the show's viewership numbered only in the millions. By the time she spoke her first word, astronauts held their breath to listen to her say "mama"."
The Director left a pause, to let his words sink in.
"Wow, that sounds like a great many achievements Director. Now, there's something I've always wanted to know. What was your favourite Twilight moment?"
The Director tilted his head slightly, breathing in.
"Probably when she was about six months old. We had installed a new independent remote-controlled camera on her cot, it was the first non-handheld camera we had. She would wake up every morning, and it warmed my heart to see her lying there talking to herself in her incoherent babble. Anyway, one evening, the duct tape construct holding the camera frame to the cot became unstuck and the camera tumbled into her bed while she was sleeping. You see, the camera was covered in this grey sock and had a tiny hole for the lens to poke through while the mounting extended through the mouth of the sock."
A grin came to the Director's face.
"Now, when it fell over into her cot, she woke up. She looked deep into the lens, with that cute, confused look in her eyes. She then babbled something and then hugged the sock-camera close to her. From then on that one surveillance camera became her number one toy. You'll never guess what she named it."
"What? What did she name it?"
"Smartypants."
The Director grinned as a gleeful smile crept onto the host's face.
"We eventually removed the camera's mount and coated the thing in a teddy bear exterior, but she would never take any other substitute for that darn camera."
"Really... huh. So that's where that ugly doll came from, huh?"
"Yes, yes it was," the Director nodded slowly.
"So, I've got one last question. Four days ago The Twilight Sparkle Show cut transmission for the first time in all of its airtime. What happened?"
The Director sighed.
"Technical difficulties. I am... less than happy about what has happened, but the pony responsible will be severely punished. I can tell you that much."
The host nodded.
"So then, some unbelievers don't understand what is so attractive about The Twilight Sparkle Show. What is your opinion about your Show's selling features?"
"In my opinion, The Twilight Sparkle Show is a showcase of how life should be. It is a story, without cue cards or scripts, about the life of a perfect little filly in her perfect little world. The Twilight Sparkle Show is a testament to the true, unadulterated nature of all intelligent creatures. Kindness, loyalty, laughter, honesty, generosity, and the magic of friendship. Principles that our great nation has been founded on."
The host made his closing remarks to his audience, making sure to mention his sponsor on his way out. As the call ended and the audio feed from the Supper Broadcast cut out, the Director sat in the seclusion of his office. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the picture of him, Chief Armour, and Twilight.
He had said that The Show valued honesty, he felt a pang in his heart as he realized how easy it felt for him to lie.
Author's Note
I had tried to write a segment on Celestia and Luna, but I stalled out again. Fun fact, they were actually going to be included in the big boom from the last chapter but I couldn't engineer a way for them to survive.
Anyway, here you are, the next chapter of The Twilight Sparkle Show.
Also, we haven't seen the last of that Grey Pegasus Mare
I really don't hate the Derp, but in this universe her mess-up really required punishment of the court of law style.
Also, its late. I need to travel. This chapter's unedited.
Sorry about that. I'll update with an edited version soon.
The Twilight Sparkle Show (Under Construction)
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Chapter VI: Second Draconic Uprising
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