Cadence had enough, and she wasn’t the only one. Every creature was sick of it. ‘Pinkie Pie this’. ‘Fluttershy that’. When they reformed Discord, he clung to Fluttershy, going around claiming how she was the best. Which was fine, annoying, but fine. Then they reformed Sombra, who clung to Pinkie Pie. That was their mistake, having them reformed by different elements.
It wasn’t something that they anticipated. See, a battle had started between Discord and Sombra. A battle for the best element, they went around fighting about who could do what. Who could do it better? Who could do it faster? Whose skills were the best? Who would be a better alicorn than Twilight? Who reformed their villain better. Who reformed them quicker. Who was a better friend, and on, and on, and on.
So that’s why Cadence was on her way to Celestia. She had heard about the times Twilight's parents settled things between her and Shining. Sibling Supreme, that’s what it was called. Shining had told her how he and his sister did it one last time. With Celestia and in the end, they decided Spike should get to be Sibling Supreme, so Cadence was hoping something similar would happen. A sort of compromise between them.
She kicked open the door to Celestia's throne room. “Celestia!” She started as she trotted right up to her, “I am sick of Discord and Sombra going on about who is the best element. I want to organize a sort of Sibling Supreme. Settle this silly rivalry they started once and for all.”
Celestia smiled. “Good it was getting on my nerves too.”
“Good because-” Cadence started before she was interrupted.
“We all know Twilight is superior,” Celestia stated, she was the princess of friendship after all. Created new magic, was an alicorn. Clearly, she was underappreciated.
“WHAT?!” Cadence squealed. Celestia was supposed to solve the issue and not contribute to it. Was she the only reasonable mare in this room?
“Twilight is superior, did you not hear me the first time? Let us settle this, once and for all.” Celestia said as she wrote up some letters and teleported them right to Ponyville. She knew her student would come up on top, she always did.
The elements and the two reformed villains had gotten Celestia’s letter and all met up with her at the center of Ponyville, eventually, a crowd of curious ponies gathered. They wondered what it could be, it had to be important. It was from Celestia. Did they wonder how important, was it an emergency?
“Hello, my friends. Cadence and I have come to announce that we are bringing Sibling Supreme back. You may be wondering why, because there is something I wish to prove. Twilight is the superior element, in fact, I can prove it. She will get this crown, not only will she do it. She will do it the best.” Celestia announced.
“That is some nonsense!” Discord yelled, “Fluttershy is the best. She reformed me and is my friend therefore she is the best.”
“Oh like that’s so special. Pinkie Pie reformed me and is my friend. She can also bake, and she is way funnier than you. Therefore, she is way better.”
“Oh ho ho ho. Try me -!” Discord started to say before he was interrupted.
“Well, I think you are both wrong. Rarity is the best, her generosity knows no bounds!” Spike claimed, “I think she is the much better element!”
“Oh like Rarity is that great, we all know Rainbow Dash is better. She is 90% better than the rest of you. So she is the greatest element.” Scootaloo interjected.
“We all know the Apples would beat ya hides any day.” Granny Smith yelled.
“100 bits Fluttershy wins!” Discord claimed. He was so sure of his answer, of course, she would win. She was the best element.
“OH, you are so on!” Sombra said as he added his bits to the pot. Pinkie was clearly superior. He teleported a chalkboard to himself, so he could keep tally on who bet on who, and how much. Soon all of Ponyville joined in. Bets were placed and ponies divided. 3000 bits on Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack. 3250 on Pinkie Pie. 4000 on Rainbow Dash and 6000 on Twilight Sparkle, of course, since she was an alicorn.
Trixie and Starlight sat back and watched as they smiled at one another. They waited until every creature finished betting. Then they went up to make their bet. Couldn’t have any creature find out what they planned to bet on. “1000 bits on all of them winning, together.” Starlight said.
“Trixie would like some of that action. 1000 bits on the concept of friendship.” Trixie said as she put in just as many bits as Starlight did. She was not worried In the slightest and neither was Starlight.
“Oh come on,” Discord said “This isn’t the end of the world, again. This is a friendly competition. I’m sure somepony will come out on top. That pony will be Fluttershy! So why not bet on her?”
“Guess you don’t want it.” Starlight said as she slowly levitated her bits away. She wasn’t surprised when Discord stopped her.
“It’s your funeral.” Discord shrugged as he placed Trixie and Starlight down for the concept of friendship. In the end, it would only mean more bits for him. Also more bragging rights.
"Wait! You can't just do this!" Twilight piped up.
"Well if you need some extra motivation, I am more than happy to provide." Discord said as he snapped up a familiar set of keys.
"Wait!! Are those the keys to the Castle of Friendship? Discord. No!!" Twilight said as her magic activated, but she was too late. Discord had swallowed the keys whole.
"Now we could wait for one to two weeks to find those keys again. Or you can play and get them back. Call it an extra incentive." Discord said with a jump, the keys jingling in his stomach.
"Celestia you can't let this happen!" Twilight called out to her mentor.
"Show no mercy!" Celestia bellowed, she had bet 1500 bits on her student.
Twilight just stuttered and scoffed, she looked at Cadence who mouthed 'I'm sorry' to her. She sighed. "Fine."
“Bets are closing! Bet now or forever hold your bits!” Sombra announced but every pony seemed satisfied in their bets.
“Now we set up for the showdown,” Celestia said as she levitated Trixie's hat off of her.
“Hey! That is Trixie's!” She said.
“I’ll just be borrowing it,” Celestia said, “Discord please snap up some paper with the symbol of the elements on it please.” She watched as Discord gave her the paper, and she checked to make sure that they were not all Fluttershy. They were not so she shook the hat. “Every creature please reach into the hat and pick a pony at random. We will set up an obstacle for the element we pick.” She said as she held the hat out. The idea was to make it fair, to set up the challenge for someone else's chosen pony.
But what she didn’t know is that every creature cheated for their pony. Not only were they cheating, but they also had planned on making the other elements lose. So after about an hour, everything was set up and the elements were placed on the outskirts of the Everfree forest.
“Good luck elements,” Celestia stated.
“May the odds be ever in your favor.” Discord said as he pointed a finger at Fluttershy and whistled a tune.
The six elements just stared at one another, even Celestia supported this endeavor which meant that they had to go along with it. They looked at the forest and took in a deep breath.
As they entered the forest and got away from the public ear, or at least the ones that didn’t have supernatural hearing, Twilight allowed herself to give a heavy sigh. “I can’t believe this. Even Celestia is in on it!”
“Relax Twilight, it’s just a fun game!” Pinkie exclaimed with her usual spring in her step.
“That would be easier if Discord didn’t use the keys to the Castle of Friendship as leverage for us to participate! We got lucky the entire thing didn’t just turn back into a locked box!” Twilight screamed with exasperation.
Rarity put a hoof over her shoulder. “That would’ve been dreadful darling, but as Pinkie said; it’s just a little game. Just concentrate on getting your key to unlock the crown pedestal.”
Twilight sighed once more and lifted her head. “I guess I should just try and end it quickly. Wait, where are Rainbow and Applejack?”
“They ran off before you started complaining,” Fluttershy responded.
“Horseapples!” Rarity and Pinkie explained before running off, Fluttershy following close behind. Twilight grunted in frustration before walking towards the forest.
Rainbow flew, both figuratively and literally, through the forest, following the cyan path that Sombra had made to guide each of them towards their challenges.
When she reached the end, she saw her key hanging from the tallest branch of a large pine tree. Beside the trunk, a sign was posted that read: ‘No wings allowed.’
Rainbow smiled confidently. “Heh, of course not, it would be too easy if that were the case.” She then ran at the trunk and started climbing it slowly but surely, using the branches as railings to climb faster.
When she got close to the top, the branches started to get more thin and frail, and one of them broke with her weight, but she managed to hold onto the trunk to prevent her from falling.
“That was close,” Rainbow said just before a branch grabbed her by the leg and pulled her off the tree. She then was dragged towards the tree’s midsection, where the branches and leaves formed a very angry face that frowned at her. “Uhm… sorry?”
The tree roared before throwing her against the ground, but Rainbow managed to spread her wings and slow her fall. “So that’s how we’re going to play huh, well get ready.” She launched herself at him, flying towards the key, but when she got closer, her wings suddenly closed, and she plummeted to the ground.
After the hard landing, she looked up and saw the sign again. “Oh, right.” The tree looked down at her, face still full of anger. “Uhm, can I have a one-minute break?”
Applejack followed her path with a quick step, and at the end found a really weird kind of obstacle.
Her key was inside a glass box that stood atop a weird contraption that could have come from the Flim Flam brothers. It most notably had a small speaker pointing at her, and a keyboard with twelve red buttons.
She approached the machine, and a robotic voice shouted out of the speaker; “Welcome, participant Applejack. This will be your obstacle for tonight. In front of you are twelve colored buttons. These are, in no particular order; cherry, rose, crimson, ruby, scarlet, wine, apple, berry, garnet, jam, merlot, and brick. Please press the berry colored button.”
“What in tarnation is this?!” Applejack exclaimed, feeling both played and insulted. “These are all red! How in Equestria can I tell them apart?!” She angrily took a wild guess, and a high pitch sound rang from the speaker.
“Wrong answer, participant Applejack. Please press the brick colored button.”
Applejack was about to try again, but the buttons suddenly disappeared inside the keyboard before reappearing in a different combination. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“Would participant Applejack want a clue?” the speaker asked.
The farm pony huffed. “Sure, this thing is unfair anyway.”
“The color brick isa shade of the color red.”
Applejack growled. “Son of a-”
Pinkie bounced along her path, quickly reaching a large metal box in the center of the forest, which had a small glass window that showed her key inside.
When she got closer to it, she saw that it had a small speaker and a thin groove at the front of it.
“Welcome, participant Diane. This will be your obstacle for tonight,” a robotic voice said through the speaker.
“Just call me Pinkie, and what challenges do I have to do? A baking contest? Kite flying? Surfing? Maybe-”
“Taxes!” the voice announced.
Pinkie was confused. “What?”
“You must do my taxes!” the voice, which now sounded a little bit like Trixie’s, said as a bunch of papers were printed out of the groove in the box.
“This doesn’t sound very fun.” Pinkie took some of them and started to look them over, her eyes glancing over the confusing amount of numbers and words. “Uhm, wouldn’t you prefer that I write a poem or a song? Maybe some origami?”
“You must do my taxes!” The voice repeated, now definitely sounding like it came from Trixie.
Pinkie looked at the papers once again with her hair a little deflated. “Wait, what is this twelve-hundred-dollar charge labeled ‘mass shooting’?”
“Trixie denies all evidence against her!”
Rarity arrived at her challenge and simply stared at it. “Is this some kind of joke?”
Her key was right there, in a pedestal, surrounded by barbed wire, and a pit of snakes, a firewall, four Timberwolves chained to stakes around it, and at the end of a complicated racetrack full of dangerous obstacles.
And the worst of all; a pool of putrid mud. “I am not dirtying my coat in that.”
Fluttershy reached the end of her road and found her key inside a small glass box on a pedestal. At the front of the box was a sticky note with a drawing of Discord winking and saying: “Just lift the box and the key is yours.”
Fluttershy approached the box and looked at it from every angle. It was a normal average box, brown on all sides. Sealed tightly but not impossible to get off. But Fluttershy knew better. Discord was playing. Which meant this box was anything but normal.
“What should I do?” The Discord drawing pointed at the ‘lift the box’ part of the message. “I mean, it can’t be that easy, right?” The drawing nodded. “It must be some sort of trap, or maybe a riddle?” The drawing shook his head and pointed at the message again. “Maybe it’s just to distract me and the real key is further ahead.”
Discord facepalmed as Fluttershy walked away from the box.
Twilight grumbly walked through her path. ”Become a princess, they said, it'll be easy, they said. No more end of the world disasters. Just bureaucracy and another young group of heroes would pop up. But here I am, doing this. Instead of having a quiet moment with my friends at Sugar Cube Corner.”
She finally found a large cement statue of her unicorn self with her key hanging from her horn. “I was half expecting it to be rigged.” She tried to pull it off with her magic, but the statue came to life and canceled her magic.
“Hi Twilight,” the statue spoke.
Twilight was confused at the familiar voice. “Starlight?”
“Nah, they just asked me to record some lines for your challenge.”
“Oh, okay, what is it then?”
“Just a simple logical question.” The statue took a more lecturing pose. “A hen and a half lays an egg and a half in a day and a half. How many eggs does one hen lay in one day?”
“What? That doesn’t make sense. Hens can’t lay a portion of an egg.”
“Sorry Twilight, wrong answer.”
“Wait, that wasn’t my answer!” she complained, but the statue just continued with its mission.
“You’re rummaging around your great grandmother’s attic when you find five short chains each made of four gold links. It occurs to you that if you combined them all into one big loop of 20 links, you’d have an incredible necklace. So you bring it into a jeweler, who tells you the cost of making the necklace will be 10 bits for each gold link that she has to break and then reseal. How much will it cost?”
“50 bits,” Twilight quickly responded. “You break a link on the end of each of the five chains, and then reattach the link to the back of the next chain in the loop.”
“Incorrect!” the statue declared.
Twilight recoiled, her mane getting frazzled. “What?! But I-”
The statue continued its mission without a care for her objections. “Kenny, Abby, and Ned got together for a round-robin pickleball tournament, where, as usual, the winner stays on after each game to play the person who sat out that game. At the end of their pickleball afternoon, Abby is exhausted, having played the last seven straight games. Kenny, who is less winded, tallies up the games played:
Kenny played eight games
Abby played 12 games
Ned played 14 games
Who won the fourth game against whom?”
Twilight’s mind started to crash. “What? Who are these ponies? What’s pickleball?”
“Incorrect,” the statue declared before starting its next riddle.
Rainbow Dash dodged another branch from the tree monster and tried to get closer, but its many limbs made it impossible, and not being able to fly meant that the key was simply unreachable.
“How am I supposed to get this key?!” she shouted in frustration, getting too distracted to notice a branch. It hit her on the side and sent her flying into the forest. She tried to flap her wings to stop her fall somewhat, but she was too tired to do it well and simply crashed between the trees.
As she landed on the hard ground, a meek eep called her attention. “Fluttershy?”
“Hi Rainbow,” the yellow pegasus said with a little nervousness. “How’s your challenge going?”
“Pretty bad,” she admitted, stretching her body, making some bones crack. “There’s some sort of evil tree protecting the key.”
“Oh, I still can’t find mine. Just some sort of decoy made by Discord.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Really? That doesn’t sound like him.”
Fluttershy shrugged. “It could’ve been Sombra. You know how competitive those two can get.”
Rainbow sighed. “Yeah, this thing is probably super rigged against us.”
“Do you want some help?” the pegasus proposed, taking Rainbow by surprise. “I’m not really interested in winning this, and if it’s important to you, I don’t mind if I help you win.”
Rainbow smiled. “Thanks, Shy, but I think that would be cheating.”
“Well, you said this is probably rigged. Does it matter then?”
Rainbow thought about it for a minute. “How about this; you help me with my challenge, and I will help you with yours, then we both can still compete for the crown in equal ground.”
Fluttershy knew that once they had their keys Rainbow would easily outrun her, but she was doing it for her. “Very well.”
“It’s over here,” Rainbow pointed before they both flew towards the tree.
“Darn it, just work already!” Applejack had abandoned all hope of figuring out the colors and was just pressing buttons at random, hoping to use the laws of probability against the damned machine.
“Please press the apple colored button.” Applejack almost dented the console when she pressed it, and a ding sounded from the speaker. “Correct!”
“Yeh haw! How you like them apples!” The farm pony cheered.
“Now please press the rose colored button.”
Applejack started hitting her head against the keyboard in frustration, hearing the ‘incorrect’ sound each time.
“Applejack dear you are going to hurt yourself.”
The farm mare turned around and saw Rarity walking towards her. “What are ya doing here?”
Rarity rolled her eyes dramatically. “My challenge was stupidly rigged against me. they expected me to walk through mud. Mud! Can you believe it?”
“Those bastards.” Applejack exclaimed half sarcastically. “They also mocked me with this color puzzle. I just see red. In both ways.”
“Please press the scarlet colored button.” The machine repeated once more.
Applejack was fuming. “How about you kiss my-”
“May I?” Rarity interrupted her before walking up to the keyboard and pressing one of the buttons.
“Correct!” the machine responded.
Rarity continued solving the riddle while Applejack simply face-hoofed. “But of course.”
The fashionista finally retrieved the key from the box and presented it to her. “I think you’ve suffered enough to deserve it.”
Applejack smiled. “Thanks, Rarity,” she said before hiding the key in her hat. “Do you want me to help you with the mud as a thank you?”
“That would be very generous of you.” With that, both ponies walked towards Rarity’s challenge.
Twilight wandered through the forest, her mane, and psyche a complete mess. She constantly mumbled each of the failed riddles, trying to wrap her head around an answer.
Pinkie also similarly wandered through the forest, mumbling about numbers, equations, names, and dates.
When both mares passed each other, Pinkie overheard Twilight’s mumbling. “A hen and a half lay an egg and a half in a day and a half. How many eggs does one hen lay in one day?”
“⅔ of an egg,” Pinkie responded.
Twilight’s neck almost snapped off as she turned her head towards her friend and pulled her closer to her. “You’re rummaging around your great grandmother’s attic when you find five short chains each made of four gold links. It occurs to you that if you combined them all into one big loop of 20 links, you’d have an incredible necklace. So you bring it into a jeweler, who tells you the cost of making the necklace will be 10 bits for each gold link that she has to break and then reseal. How much will it cost?”
“40 bits. Break all four links in one of the chains and then use those four links to attach the remaining four chains together,” Pinkie responded with her eyes equally crazed.
“Kiss me!”
“Do Trixie’s taxes!”
“Deal!”
“Hey, how ya doin' over there?” Applejack called out when she saw Fluttershy and Rainbow walking through the forest.
“Hey girls, we’re on our way to fight an evil tree that’s protecting my key,” the blue pegasus responded.
The farm mare raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t yah just turn it into lumber?”
“It’s very angry and I can’t fly close to it.”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “So they rigged it for you too.”
“They put a dreadful racetrack for me. Full of obstacles, Timberwolves, fire, and snakes.” Rarity complained.
Rainbow’s eyes lit up. “That sounds awesome! Can I try it?”
“Be my guest darling.”
“What did they do to you Fluttershy?” Applejack asked.
“Well… I’m not sure. They are trying to trick me with decoys and such,” the pegasus explained with a little bit of confusion.
“Well, ah can help ya if ya want to. Ah, think we’re quite pass the point of this whole thing bein' fair.”
“You’re right. I just feel sorry for Discord and Sombra. They really wanted to do this competition.” Fluttershy said.
“They are grown creatures; they will get over it eventually.” Rarity remarked, a little bit of bitterness seeping into her voice.
After Fluttershy pacified the tree by planting seeds around it so it could have friends in the future, Rainbow beat the racetrack and defeated the Timberwolves, snakes, and survived the dreaded mud. Applejack simply did what Discord’s note said, all four mares walked along the forest with their keys, chatting about their usual stuff.
But then they heard another pair of voices.
“How do you know so many riddles?”
“Oh, they are amazing party tricks when you’re dealing with adults. Although some get too into it sometimes.”
Twilight laughed a little nervously and noticed the rest of the girls with their keys. “Oh hey, you beat your challenges.”
“Nah, they were rigged against us,” Rainbow confessed.
“We had to do each other's to get our keys,” Fluttershy added.
“It seemed fair all things considered. Did yah bet yours?” Applejack asked.
Pinkie shook her head. “Nope.” She then turned a little red. “Twilight solved mine in exchange for a k-”
“Friendship!” The unicorn interrupted, redder than Pinkie. “We used friendship.”
“You know, maybe that was the point of all this. To reaffirm our friendship,” Rarity proposed.
“Yeah, we couldn’t have beat any of the challenges if it weren’t for one of our friends. It shows that we complement each other perfectly,” Rainbow exclaimed with a smile.
Applejack smiled. “Heh, how long has it been since we had a friendship lesson?”
Twilight smiled too, feeling a pang of nostalgia. “Long enough that it still makes me very happy when we do it.” Her friends smiled and shared one big hug around her. “I think this silly thing was worth it in the end.”
“We still need to decide a winner,” Rainbow pointed out.
“I’ve got a better idea.”
The main 6 walked out of the forest together. Their friendship was stronger than ever. When they reached every creature's eyes Twilight announced, proudly, "in the end friendship won!"
Loud groans could be heard, many a creature lost a lot of bits. Except for the two unicorns that were currently squealing.
Discord threw the chalk he was holding onto the ground "Why it always gotta be friendship?!"
"Puke me a rainbow why don't you?" Sombra said as he kicked over the chalkboard. Very reluctantly, he hoofed over the bag of bits to Starlight and Trixie. Who just stared at their winnings with drooling muzzles.
Celestia's eye just twitched. She had put 1500 bits on Twilight. She assumed that since it was a friendly competition, there would be a winner.
“Was this your plan Celestia?" Cadence asked as she looked over to Celestia. One look told her no, that she didn't. She could see the oof in her face.
"Of- of course!” Celestia nervously smiled, covered head to hoof in Twilight merch that she got from Snips and Snails. “I uh. I definitely planned for a friendship lesson.” She said, but no creature was convinced.
“Whatever, Trixie is going to enjoy her winnings with her friend,” Trixie said as Starlight teleported a large pool to herself and dumped the bits into it. Next, she teleported towels, put them down before she and Trixie laid down on their towel in their pool of bits.
“Well, would you look at that. Looks like friendship is cash, Trixie.” Starlight announced. “Who wants to serve our every whim for 3 bits an hour?” She asked as she watched many hooves raise, and she and Trixie giggled.
Author's Note
Thanks to sleepless who helped write and edit this. it was a lot of fun.
