"Hello and welcome back to Who Wants to Be A Bit-lionaire! Many Questions here back again with Princess Twilight here in the hot seat!" the host announced to the audience as they slowly made their way back into their seats in the spectator corner, the surrounding lights dimming in anticipation.

Twilight returned to her seat at the centre of the theatre, shivering constantly for the longest five minutes of her entire life. Her hooves were shaking, even though she tried to push them down onto the side rests of the chair in an attempt to hide her distress from the entire audience. As her eyes were staring in the general, rough direction of the host blankly, her brows seemed to jump out from her face with exhilaration. She simply sat there, watching intently, with every aspect of her facial apparatus staying unwaveringly frozen.

"Five minutes ago, our contestant here has used her last lifeline to call for her friend Rainbow Dash to help her answer the two hundred and fifty thousand bit question. So, the question was this: which of the following four options is not part of the Daring Do series by A.K. Yearling?" Many Questions glanced down to his cue cards to jog his memory on the question answered, but in reality, he actually really wanted to avoid that perturbing glare from his royal contestant. "She followed her friend's advice and went for Daring Do and the Razor of Dreams. And now, the real question now is whether this is the right answer or not. So, princess, how do you feel about your answer?"

"Well, I wish that you could stop teasing me with this needless suspense," Twilight replied, her voice giving away a hint of irritation. "Could you please get on with it?"

"Alright, alright, calm your nerves, princess; I was getting to that," Many Questions reassured. "For two hundred and fifty thousand bits, the answer is-"

"TWILIGHT!"

The heavy double doors of the theatre slammed back into their closed positions, the sound emitted demolishing the relative silence of the theatre.

"Rainbow Dash?" Twilight blurted out, as the sudden noise jolted Twilight's nerves to instinctively turn towards its origin, to spot a pony sporting a multicoloured rainbow mane who was none other than her loyal friend.

Before Many Questions could even begin to blink in surprise at the arrival of Rainbow Dash, she flew down the steps of the theatre to land at Twilight's side, carrying with her a gust of wind that swished through the ranks of the spectating audience.

"Twilight...I'm sorry," Rainbow Dash spoke to the stunned Twilight, pausing only for a short moment to catch her breath to ease the strain off her lungs. "I just realised that I gave you the wrong answer...and you didn't choose Daring Do and the Razor of Dreams, right? Please tell me you didn't!"

Twilight's jaws gave way to enable her tongue to taste the coolness of the air in the theatre as she slumped back into the chair despondently, sinking deeper and deeper into it.

A tense moment of silence ensued as Twilight's mouth could only tremble as she quickly realised the implications of Rainbow Dash's words. Rainbow Dash remained by Twilight's side, the knees of her front legs shaking before collapsing to the carpeted floor simultaneously with a faint thud, forcing her eyes away from gazing into Twilight's lifeless eyes.

"Erm...yes," Many Questions stumbled, appalled at this sudden turn of events. "I'm so sorry...but your answer to the question is wrong. I'm afraid that you will have to leave with thirty-two thousand bits."

The audience gave out a resounding cacophony of disappointment and dismay at this jarring news, as Twilight's eyes turned to sink towards the ground to bring a disheartened Rainbow Dash into view, whose head was bowed down in sheer resignation and remorse.

Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but her conscience stopped that act dead in its tracks. It was all too easy for Twilight to scream out her feelings of negativity at her failure, or rather, perhaps, at Rainbow Dash's failure to help her appropriately. After all, the thought of losing that astronomical sum of money to a singular wrong answer came all too quickly for her mind to register cognitively and logically, prompting her emotions to seize control of her mind and her actions. Yet, when she stared down towards her friend who was evidently feeling the guilt and remorse, she paused for a moment.

Why would Rainbow Dash provide her with the wrong answer intentionally? Twilight felt that, as a genuine friend, Rainbow Dash would definitely not want her to lose the chance to win the million. And judging by how her loyal friend rushed down into the set to apologise in advance for her mistake and the doleful look that she surely must be carrying then and there, Twilight realised how much Rainbow Dash actually cared for her.

Argh, it pained her to almost think of considering that her friendship with Rainbow Dash could be tied to a quantifiable sum. And she almost gave in to that thought to yell at her friend because of this...

How could she possibly recover from this if she allowed her emotions to command her actions in the heat of the moment? How could she possibly get Rainbow Dash back if she destroyed her feelings like that? And as the princess of friendship, how would every single pony in the audience judge of her actions?

Meanwhile, while the din from the crowd faded back into silence, Rainbow Dash remained motionless, her mind refusing to bring her eyes to glance up to look at Twilight. How could she possibly make it up to Twilight after what she had done? How could she conjure almost a hundred thousand bits to repay Twilight to make up for her mistake? How could she explain this to Twilight?

And above all, was their friendship over?

While Twilight remained silent, Rainbow Dash's mind was riddled with troubling thoughts as she knelt in front of Twilight, bracing for a barrage of words her mind would not dare to conceive of. She took a deep breath, sucking up the still air, before expelling it out forcefully to try to calm her nerves down.

However, what happened next was not what Rainbow Dash expected.

Suddenly, Twilight pushed herself out of the comfort of her chair to bring herself closer towards her loyal friend and hugged Rainbow Dash. In spite of how cold Twilight's body was, this unexpected act poured warmth into Rainbow Dash's heart. While Rainbow Dash could feel Twilight's forehooves running through the length of her own rainbow mane, as though Twilight was trying to console her, tears uncontrollably left the confines of her eyes to trickle down onto Twilight's body when she returned the embrace.

Many Questions and the audience watched the proceedings closely, their eyes fixated on the two close friends who were in a deep embrace with each other, as most of their mouths were left wide open to gape at the scene before them. They certainly did not anticipate for this to occur, for everypony believed that Twilight must have been extremely upset at Rainbow Dash for sabotaging her stride towards the million. Yet, they witnessed the alicorn before them trotting forth to console her friend, to assure her that everything was alright and that she should not feel remorse for what she did.

"Why...? How...how are you not...mad at me?" Rainbow Dash asked, halting at several moments in time to stifle her tears that continued to drip down the sides of her cheeks. "I caused you to lose...everything."

Twilight inhaled deeply.

"No, you didn't. I mean, I did lose a hundred thousand bits, yes," Twilight responded softly as she placed her forehoof over her friend's back. "But...I still have you as a friend...a friend that I know I can count on."

As Rainbow Dash heard each and every word uttered from Twilight's mouth with absolute clarity, she leaned forward to bring her head to rest onto Twilight's body, as her tears continued to stream down.

"I could...I could not bring myself to scream at you for what you did," Twilight continued after summoning her courage to do so while patting Rainbow Dash's back. "I didn't want to hurt your feelings more than you have already inflicted on your own. Our friendship should never be measured in bits...it's priceless."

"Thank...thank you...Twilight for forgiving me," Rainbow Dash uttered between sobs, as she released Twilight from her embrace to look at her with her teary eyes. "I-I thought that you never forgive me for what I did. And that was an unintentional mistake, I promise!"

"Rainbow, remember, it's not entirely your fault that I lost that sum of money. I chose to lock in the answer you gave me, not you," Twilight reassured. "Anyways, I will still have my thirty-two thousand bits, which is more than enough to repay my loans."

"Come on everypony, a round of applause for the Princess Twilight's great job on the show today and her extraordinary display of friendship with Rainbow Dash!" Many Questions declared to the audience, hoping to provide the two with affirmative encouragement as he began clapping his two forehooves together for the two. "Princess Twilight leaves with a whopping thirty-two thousand bits!"

As the crowd's massive applause drowned out every bit of silence in the theatre, Twilight pushed Rainbow Dash back into another hug and whispered a word of thanks into her friend's ear, for she knew that she had just learnt a valuable lesson worth more than a hundred thousand bits.

Author's Note

Thank you joining me for my second story, Who Wants To Be A Bit-lionaire! Cheers for all the support and motivation you all have given me!