LEGO Equestria Girls: Holiday Short Stories

Chapters

Winter Blast
Operation: Soufflé Delivery
Past Reflections
Secret Stash Recovery
Holiday Rush
The Ridiculous Robbery

Winter Blast

Winter had arrived for many regions of the Lego World, with lower temperatures and snow accumulation signaling this annual change of seasons. Minifigs in these regions dressed up in warmer outfits whenever they traveled outside, and there was no shortage of children who were more than happy to play around in the snow. The beginning of winter also signaled the arrival of the holidays, a cheerful time of the year for everyone, regardless of what they believed in or how they celebrated.

This time of the year was also special because a very special region — the Winter Village — was now open to visitors. It was said that the highly secluded region of the Winter Village was always in the holiday spirit all year round, but the only way to reach it was by riding a train known as the Holiday Express, which was in service for only one month of the year around the holidays. Anyone who was capable of acquiring tickets for such a privileged journey knew they would be in for a holiday experience like nowhere else in the Lego World.

At the train station in Canterlot City, several groups of minifigs eagerly awaited the arrival of the fabled Holiday Express. Among these people was a group of seven girls who were not only the best of friends but also happened to be a team of heroes who had defeated a number of magical threats to the Lego World over the last few years. For their successful efforts, the LEGO Team had gifted them with tickets for the Holiday Express, and they were all very excited for this special experience.

“Oh, I can’t believe this is actually happening!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie cheerfully as she practically hopped in place from one foot to the other. “We’re gonna ride the Holiday Express to the Winter Village! Do you girls have any idea how special that is?!”

Applejack chuckled and playfully remarked, “Of course we do. It’s only the once-a-year opportunity to visit the one region that’s all about the holidays.”

“I’ll say!” agreed Rainbow Dash eagerly. “This is gonna be the best holiday ever!”

“So long as we’re absolutely certain we’ve packed everything we need,” noted Rarity as she gestured to the small pile of luggage beside her. “After all, this is the one and only scheduled ride, and it would be quite a shame to depart without even one of our essentials.”

“Relax, Rarity,” assured Sunset Shimmer with a smirk. “The only true essential we really need is the key to the cabin we’re renting, and I’ve got it right here in my pocket.” She then patted the pocket on her vest that held that key.

Fluttershy glanced around and her smile slowly fell. She turned to Twilight and asked, “Where’s Spike? He’s gonna miss the train if he doesn’t get here soon.”

“I’m afraid Spike won’t be joining us this time,” answered Twilight Sparkle in a tone of disappointment. “He was caught hacking into the school’s computer system in an attempt to alter his report card.”

As everyone suddenly turned to Twilight with shocked expressions on their faces, Fluttershy gasped and asked, “Why would he do that?”

“An’ how could a lil’ boy like him even know how to do such a thing?” asked Applejack skeptically.

“It’s a little complicated,” explained Twilight. “Working alongside me when we were Shadowbolt agents, he had to learn a lot about computers at a young age, and with how selfishly rebellious he can be at times, I’m not really surprised by how he made that attempt. It’s the why that really ticked me off. I’m not sure if it was from the old Shadowbolt culture of victory at all costs or if he was just envious of my near-perfect academic record, but despite having relatively decent grades, he somehow believed that anything less than straight A’s was simply unacceptable.”

“That’s ridiculous,” argued Rainbow Dash. “Why would he wanna prove himself to be an egghead when he’s already an awesome guy for his age?”

“Well, whatever his reasons,” continued Twilight, “not only has he been given three months of detention, but as his legal guardian, I’ve been told to also provide some punishment of my own. I figured missing out on our next group vacation should be significant enough for him to learn his lesson.”

“I should certainly hope so,” stated Rarity. “After all, my sister Sweetie Belle and her two friends, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, had to be severely disciplined for some atrocious behavior they once perpetrated during the holidays a few years back.”

“You’re referring to that ‘Anon-A-Miss’ incident, aren’t you?” asked Twilight. “When those three younger girls framed Sunset for spreading sensitive personal information about all of you in an ill-conceived attempt to spend more time with you for the holidays?”

“How did you know anything about that?” asked Rainbow Dash in confusion. “You weren’t part of the team back then.”

“Don’t forget, she was a Shadowbolt agent who was stalkin’ our every move back then,” Applejack pointed out.

“It’s true,” Twilight regretfully acknowledged.

“Yes, Twilight, that’s exactly what happened at the time,” grumbled Sunset irritably. She then turned to the others and firmly stated, “And we all agreed never to speak of it ever again.”

The five other girls all shamefully nodded in agreement.

Sunset turned back to Twilight and quietly added, “Trust me, it’s best that we all pretend that it never happened. Too many hurtful words that we’ve all come to regret…”

“I’ll be sure to make a note of that,” muttered Twilight as she pulled out her phone and began texting a note to herself.

“Speaking of those three girls,” Fluttershy spoke up, “I heard they’ll be spending the holidays this year together at Applejack’s place. If Spike’s not going to be with us, do you think he could spend the holidays with them instead?”

“Those three have Big Mac an’ Granny Smith lookin’ after ‘em,” noted Applejack. “If it’s okay with Spike, Ah can call Big Mac to go pick him up an’ bring him over to Sweet Apple Acres.”

Twilight considered the idea for a moment before she responded, “Well, I’m sure he’d rather do anything to avoid being grounded for the holidays, so he might be open to such an offer. I’ll inform him and let you know whether or not he agrees.” She then began entering a text message on her phone.

“It’s here! It’s here!” Pinkie suddenly cried out cheerfully as she leaped with joy. “Here comes the Holiday Express!”

Woooooo!

The sound of that steam whistle caught everyone’s attention, causing them all to look towards a steam locomotive as it slowly rolled along the railroad tracks and pulled into the station. The engine that passed by was black on the front end and roof of the cab, green on the middle portion and the sides of the cab, and red on the wheels and a stripe along the bottom. Trailing behind the engine were several passenger cars that were black on the roof, green on the sides with decorative white branches attached below the windows, and red on a stripe along the bottom. And at the very end of the train was a caboose that was black on the roof and red on the sides with green decorative branches attached below the window.

Once the train finally came to a complete stop with a hiss of steam from the engine, the doors on all the passenger cars opened up. The train conductor stepped out from one of these cars and cheerfully called out, “All aboard! Next stop, the Winter Village!”

Pinkie squealed in delight and excitedly exclaimed, “I can’t believe this is really happening! I’ve been dreaming of this magical moment my whole life!”

“Then let’s make it come true by actually boarding the train,” quipped Rainbow Dash as she began walking towards the nearest passenger car.

Pinkie immediately followed right behind Rainbow as they both boarded the train. Next to board the train was Sunset, followed by Twilight, then Fluttershy, then Applejack, and last in line was Rarity. They had already turned in their tickets to access the platform, so there was no need for them to stop for anything before they took their seats within the passenger car.

The train waited in the station for a few more minutes before the doors to all the passenger cars were closed. With a loud toot of the whistle, the engine began chugging and the train slowly started rolling out of the station. The Holiday Express was now on its way to the Winter Village.

After many hours of traveling along the railway through spectacular winter landscapes such as conifer forests, frozen lakes, and snow-covered rocky mountain ranges, the Holiday Express was getting close to its destination. It had been a long ride, but all of the passengers riding along knew it would soon be worth the wait. In one of the passenger cars, most of the Equestria Girls were looking out the windows and smiling as they admired the scenery passing by, made even more beautiful with the persistent snowfall everywhere they gazed.

The only person not currently staring out the window at the surrounding winter wonderland was Twilight, who instead had her attention down at her phone in her hand and with a frown on her face. “Oh, boy…” she muttered worriedly.

“What is it, Twilight?” asked Sunset as she turned her attention to her friend.

“The weather forecast is not looking good,” Twilight spoke up. “It says here there’s a severe blizzard warning for the Winter Village Region, which means meteorologists have strongly recommended that we stay indoors and avoid any travel outside under any circumstances.”

“Don’t think that’s gonna be an option for us,” stated Applejack reluctantly. “This is the Holiday Express to the Winter Village we’re talkin’ about here. If we don’t get off this train when we get there, we’re headin’ straight back home an’ that’s that for our holiday plans.”

“Besides, how bad could it be?” remarked Rainbow Dash dismissively.

It was at that moment that the train entered a tunnel through a tall mountain. After a couple of minutes, the train emerged through the other end of the tunnel, where it encountered complete whiteout conditions with heavy snowfall blowing practically sideways. The fierce howling winds were so strong that the passengers could slightly feel the cars rock side to side and hear the subtle creaking of the structure. There was no doubt this was a very severe blizzard indeed.

“You were saying?” grumbled Sunset as she glared at Rainbow.

Rainbow chuckled awkwardly and responded, “Okay, so maybe it is that bad, but we can still make this work. All we gotta do is throw on our winder clothes, make a run for the cabin we’ll be staying in, then we can just wait it out until it clears up and we can start enjoying the place.”

“Great idea, Dash!” agreed Pinkie eagerly as she stood up from her seat. “As long as it means we get to stay in the Winter Village for the rest of the month, I’m totally on board with it!”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” agreed Applejack with a smile as she also stood up. “Let’s get our winter gear on right away so we’ll be ready to go for it as soon as we arrive.” She began to look around the car they were in, then her smile fell as she asked, “Uh… any idea where our luggage is at?”

Rainbow Dash scratched the back of her head, Fluttershy shrugged, and Pinkie Pie mumbled incoherently as if to say that she had no idea.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Rarity glanced around and was stunned to see all of her friends turn their attention toward her. “Why is everyone staring at me?” she asked in confusion.

“You’re the one who always packs tons of useless stuff,” Rainbow Dash pointed out as she stood up from her seat. “If any of us oughtta keep track of our things, it’s you.”

“First of all, they are not ‘useless stuff’. They are all essentials,” responded Rarity irritably. “And secondly, I assumed Spike would handle our luggage.”

“Didn’t you hear what Twilight said earlier?” Fluttershy spoke up in a slightly annoyed tone. “Spike’s not with us this time. And even if he was, we all know by now that he would never do any favors for you, no matter how much you ask.”

“Yeah, even I know that, and I’ve practically got the attention span of a goldfish,” added Pinkie. She then grinned as she suddenly noticed something on the floor and cheerfully remarked, “Ooh, a candy wrapper!” She then reached down and picked up the discarded wrapper.

“Please don’t tell me we left all of our luggage behind at the station in Canterlot City,” muttered Twilight worriedly.

“Sure seems that way, Ah’m afraid,” replied Applejack shamefully as she continued glancing around at all the empty racks and shelves in the car. “Ah’ve looked all over this place an’ Ah can’t seem to find any of our bags.”

Rainbow Dash facepalmed as she groaned in frustration and grumbled, “Why did we even take off our winter gear in the first place?”

“Because we were waiting inside the station for a while and it was way too hot in there,” Sunset pointed out. She then crossed her arms and grumbled, “I swear, whoever thought it was a good idea to crank up the thermostat that high doesn’t seem to care about practically burning away their money.”

“So what do we do now?” asked Fluttershy. “We’ll be arriving at the Winter Village at any minute now.”

Sunset sighed in resignation and declared, “We’ll still make a run for it. It’ll be brutal, but I think we can make it. At least I still have the key to make it worth the risk.”

“Are you sure there isn’t a better alternative?” asked Twilight uneasily.

Screeeeeech!

The girls who were standing up stumbled as they felt the train begin to slow down significantly.

Sunset glanced out the window and, despite the blizzard making it impossible to see anything even a short distance away, noticed the end of a train station platform begin to slowly pass by. “No time left for second thoughts!” she urgently spoke up as she stood up from her seat. “If we really wanna spend the next month in the Winter Village, it’s now or never!”

“I’m in!” declared Rainbow Dash.

“Same here!” agreed Applejack.

“I’ve been desperate to see this place ever since I was a little girl, and I’m not about to let a little blizzard ruin my lifelong dream!” declared Pinkie Pie.

“I suppose if we must,” stated Rarity as she stood up.

“Not like we have any other choice,” muttered Fluttershy reluctantly as she also stood up.

“There has to be a better way than this,” grumbled Twilight under her breath as she remained seated.

Finally, the train came to a complete stop in front of the platform beside the station. “Winter Village!” called out the train conductor from the far end of the car. “We have arrived at the Winter Village!”

Had the weather conditions outside been more ideal, the girls would have been thrilled to hear that announcement, for it meant they had finally arrived at the very special region where most minifgs very rarely ever got the privilege to visit. But under the conditions the Equestria Girls currently found themselves in, they found little reason to be cheerful at the moment.

Sunset quickly rushed over to the nearest door. “Brace yourselves!” she warned with determination as her friends gathered around behind her.

After a few tense seconds, the door opened. Gale-force winds suddenly rushed into the train car and the girls felt the bitter cold and snowflakes slam against the front of their bodies.

WHOOOOOOSH!!!

“Go, go, go!” shouted Sunset over the noise of the howling winds as she led the charge out of the train and onto the platform. She held her bare arm up in front of her eyes as she struggled to look around and figure out which way to go.

“Holy crud!” shouted Applejack as she quickly held her hat down against her head to avoid losing it to the fearsome winds.

“This is pure madness!” exclaimed Rarity as she grasped her bare arms close to her body and already began to shiver.

Sunset had to take an extra moment to remember the directions to their cabin from the train station before she glanced back at her friends and spoke up, “Come on! The cabin’s this way!” She gestured for everyone to follow and began walking towards the left.

The girls struggled against the winter storm as they made their way past the train station and towards the village — or at least where they hoped the village was, since the whiteout conditions made it virtually impossible to see anything more than a few dozen feet away.

As the group trudged off the train platform, Rainbow Dash walked ahead towards Sunset and desperately suggested, “G-G-Gimme the key! I’ll r-r-run ahead to the cabin and w-w-warm it up for all of you!”

Sunset was hesitant about the idea, but she understood that since the cabin would be empty upon their arrival, it was going to take some time to warm it up, and in these intense blizzard conditions, they would desperately need that warmth right away. Somewhat reluctantly, she took the key out of her pocket and handed it over to Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow grabbed the key and immediately used her magical super speed to rush ahead, only to suddenly slam face-first into a wall at some unknown distance. “Ow…” she muttered as she shrugged off the pain and sped off to the right, only to once again smack into a wall. She grunted in pain as she stood up again before zooming off to the left, only to quickly lose her footing and slide across the snow-covered ground, burying herself into a snowbank she had built up in the process of slowing to a stop.

Although Rainbow Dash managed to cover only a little distance, it was enough for the rest of the group to completely lose sight of her in the storm. Thankfully, the trench she had carved through the knee-deep snow had left a trail that was easy for them to follow. By the time they finally caught up to her, she had just managed to pull herself out from the large pile of snow she had accidentally created.

“R-R-Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy cried out worriedly. “Are you ok-k-k-kay?”

“It’s too icy!” responded Rainbow Dash as she knelt down and began brushing away the snow on the ground. “I can’t use my super speed to help out!”

Sunset raised an eyebrow as she watched Rainbow sift through the large pile of snow. She then frowned and irritably spoke up, “Please don’t tell me you lost the key!”

Rainbow Dash briefly paused her search, then continued frantically brushing away more snow without saying anything.

Sunset growled in frustration as she dropped down to ground and began searching for that key. “This is the last thing I need right now,” she grumbled under her breath.

The rest of the girls knew that key was essential for their desire to escape this brutal winter storm, so they all quickly dropped to the ground and began helping to search for it through the frigid snow, risking frostbite to their hands, arms, and exposed legs.

After only a few seconds of frantic searching, Pinkie stood up and took a moment to think of a better way. She smiled as she suddenly got an idea, then reached into her hair and pulled out a small piece of candy. “Fire in the hole!” she cried out with enthusiasm as her magical power made that piece of candy glow pink before she threw it down at the large pile of snow.

“No, Pinkie!” screamed the others simultaneously in panic.

Boom!

The blast threw everyone away from the snowbank and sprayed piles of snow all over the girls.

Pinkie shook off the snow that had fallen on her as she sat up and glanced around at the scene of frigid devastation. She saw that the site of that pile of snow was now reduced to a crater of slush, while all of her friends were scattered all over the place and partially covered in snow. “Okay, maybe that wasn’t such a smart idea,” she shamefully muttered.

“Found it!” Applejack suddenly cried out triumphantly as she held up her right hand, within which she held the key to the cabin. “Ah found the key!”

Sunset immediately stood up and rushed over to Applejack, then quickly snatched the key out of her hand. “Let’s stop messing around and get to that cabin!” she firmly declared.

“Wait!” Fluttershy suddenly cried out as she glanced around worriedly. “Where’s Twilight?!”

Everyone else also looked around and grew concerned when they realized they couldn’t find any sign of their missing friend in the area. Come to think of it, none of them could even recall seeing Twilight at all since they stepped off the train.

“We’ll search for Twilight later!” insisted Sunset. “Right now, we gotta save ourselves and get to that cabin!” She glanced around at her surroundings, but struggled to find anything to help her regain her bearings. She growled in frustration and furiously screamed, “And now I can’t figure out which way to go!”

“I can help with that!” Pinkie spoke up cheerfully as she leaped out of the snow and landed on her feet.

“I think you’ve helped out quite enough, darling,” grumbled Rarity as she stood up and brushed the snow off herself.

“Let’s just hear her out,” argued Rainbow Dash as she and the rest of the group also stood up. “Not like any of us have any better ideas right now.”

“I’ve been so excited to see all the sights of the Winter Village that I spent over a week studying the map on the official website,” explained Pinkie as she began walking forward in a random direction. “All we gotta do is find and identify any building and I’ll know exactly where we are!”

With no other options, the rest of the girls followed after Pinkie. It wasn’t long before a large structure began to come into view directly ahead of them, though the whiteout conditions made it difficult to identify any features on it. It wasn’t until they were practically only a few steps away from the door that they finally saw the nearby sign that was shaped like a long hook and was painted with red and white diagonal stripes.

“The candy cane shop!” Pinkie pointed out excitedly. “I know where to go from here!” She then turned left and continued walking. Her friends were hesitant and skeptical, but they followed after her anyway.

After several minutes of trudging through knee-deep snow and shivering against the bitterly cold wind, the girls finally arrived at a large cabin. Sunset walked up to the side of it and looked at the address number beside the front door. “This is it!” she cheerfully stated. “We made it!” She pulled out the key and held it out to the lock on the door. Her hand was shaking uncontrollably so much that she missed the lock twice before she finally managed to insert the key and twist it, then quickly threw the door open.

All six girls immediately rushed inside. After only a few steps, they were quickly blasted with soothing heat, causing them all to suddenly stop and let out a collective sigh of relief.

Rainbow’s smile fell as she noted, “Wait… If this cabin was supposed to be empty when we got here, why is it so warm in here?”

The rest of the girls also frowned and began looking around in confusion. Sure enough, all the lights were on and the fireplace was already alight. Their attention eventually fell on one of the comfortable chairs in the room, where they saw their friend Twilight Sparkle was seated and sipping from a mug she held in her right hand.

Twilight let out a sigh of satisfaction as she finished her sip of hot cocoa. She then waved her left hand at her friends and cheerfully greeted, “Hi, girls! Took you long enough.”

“Twilight?!” asked all six of the other girls in stunned confusion.

“Do you mind closing the front door?” continued Twilight casually. “You’re letting all the heat escape. Oh, and if you’re wondering about your winter clothes, I took the liberty of dropping off all of our luggage upstairs in the bedroom we’re all gonna be sharing.”

While Fluttershy turned back and shut the door, Applejack continued to stare at Twilight and asked, “How did you…?”

Twilight sighed as she set down her mug of hot cocoa. She then held up her right arm and tapped her left hand against the Jump-Gate return device that was attached to her right wrist.

The six girls briefly continued to stare dumbfounded at Twilight, but once they understood the message, they all simultaneously muttered, “Ohhhhh…”

“Seriously, am I really the only one of us who even considered that option?” asked Twilight in disbelief.

“Yeah, well, we’re not the ones who invented that thing,” retorted Rainbow Dash. “I think you can cut us some slack.”

“Eh, true,” acknowledged Twilight with a shrug. She then pointed towards the kitchen area and stated, “By the way, I made plenty of hot cocoa for all of us, so feel free to help yourselves.”

The six girls who had just spent the last few minutes struggling through the horrible blizzard in nothing more than their standard civilian clothes just to get here glanced at one another and then burst out laughing.

“Yeah, after everything we’ve been through, we could really use some of that,” conceded Sunset. “Thanks, Twilight.”

“That’s what friends are for,” remarked Twilight before taking another sip of her hot cocoa.

While the others were busy warming themselves after the bitter cold they had just endured, Twilight had taken the opportunity to call Spike back home and offered him the suggestion that he could spend the holidays with the trio of girls known as the Creative Mark Crusaders. Spike tried to insist he would’ve been perfectly fine on his own, but the tone in his voice made it clear how excited he actually was to be able to spend the holidays with some familiar faces, since he happened to attend the same school as those girls. Once that was taken care of, Applejack made sure to call her brother to provide Spike with a ride to their place.

The blizzard lasted for the rest of the day and throughout much of the following night. By the time the sun was up on the following day, the winds had finally calmed and the skies had cleared up, providing ideal weather conditions for everyone to start exploring the Winter Village.

Thanks to the convenient recovery of their luggage, the Equestria Girls made sure to put on their winter outfits before any of them even set foot outside. Twilight had dark teal on her lower legs, navy blue on her upper legs, sky blue on her torso, arms, and the skirt around her upper legs, light purple on the front of her torso under an open jacket, medium purple on the bottom edge and front of her skirt under an open jacket, a dark teal scarf around her neck joint, and pink earmuffs over her head and hair piece. Rainbow Dash had dark purple on her legs, navy blue on her torso, arms, and feet, zigzag vertical stripes of red and yellow on the outer sides of her legs, zigzag horizontal stripes of red, yellow, and green across the front and back of her torso and her upper arms, and a sky blue beanie hat over her head and hair piece. Applejack had dark teal on her legs and torso, orange on her arms and the front of her torso around her neck, green on her hands and feet, and a light blue hat with earflaps over her head and hair piece. Rarity had sky blue on her torso, arms, feet, and the skirt around her upper legs, black on her legs and the front of her torso around her neck, navy blue on her hands, and a light grey tall furry hat over her head and hair piece. Fluttershy had turquoise on her torso and arms, medium purple on her upper legs, dark purple on her lower legs, navy blue on her feet, lavender on her hands and the beanie hat over her head and hair piece, and pink rabbit ears sticking up from the front of that hat. Pinkie Pie had lavender on her legs, light blue on her torso, arms, hands, and feet, and a beanie hat over her head and hair piece that had horizontal stripes of light blue, white, and lavender. And Sunset had navy blue on her legs, dark teal on her torso and arms, patches of lighter teal on the sides of her arms, burgundy on her feet and front of her torso around her neck, and magenta on her hands.

Once everyone was properly dressed for the outdoors of winter, Sunset opened the front door and led her friends outside. She and her friends smiled as they glanced around at all the various sights and shops the Winter Village had to offer. “Well, girls,” declared Sunset proudly, “time to enjoy the holidays.”

The Equestria Girls all cheered in excitement, then spread out to begin exploring the Winter Village.

Author's Note

The inspiration for the setting of this series of short stories is the Winter Village subtheme of the Creator Expert theme of Lego sets, typically releasing only one new set every year close to Christmas (I also took a lot of inspiration from the special holiday-themed world in the video game Lego Worlds). For this short story, since Spike never appears at all in any of the Holidays Unwrapped shorts, I decided to come up with a reason why he couldn't join the girls for this vacation. It also gave me an opportunity to acknowledge that a version of the events of Anon-a-Miss did occur in this series (which quite a few people have asked me about, but I will state here that I will never write a story about how exactly it occurred, as I feel like there's just too many of those stories already done for me to feel like I could come up with anything unique, to say nothing of how controversial such stories often tend to be). Also, as I previously mentioned elsewhere, only some of these short stories will be based on any of the official Holidays Unwrapped shorts, so I'll be sure to point out which of these are original or inspired and why (in the case of this one, it's entirely original, though I did develop it around the concept of severe winter weather like the first holiday short did).

Operation: Soufflé Delivery

The holiday season was now underway across the Lego World, and in the special region of the Winter Village, visitors from all over the world had arrived and were beginning to explore the various shops and sights there were in the village. Among many of the buildings in the Winter Village were several cabins where outsiders could reside for their month-long visit to this region. This year, one of these cabins was being rented by a group of best friends from Canterlot City known as the Equestria Girls.

On this afternoon early in the season, most of the girls had gone out to search for anything in the village that might interest them. Sunset had decided to stay behind in the cabin for a little while to set up a gaming system on the cabin’s television so that she and her friends could have something fun to do in case if bad weather forced them to stay inside for an extended period of time. Once she was finished with that, she headed downstairs and saw Pinkie Pie doing some baking in the kitchen.

“Hi, Sunset!” greeted Pinkie cheerfully as she poured the batter into a small pot. “Just about to start baking my special holiday soufflé!” She then opened the preheated oven, tossed the pot of soufflé batter onto the rack inside, then closed the oven. She then turned away from the oven and closed her eyes as she quietly mumbled, “Adagio Dazzle, Apple Bloom, Applejack, Aria Blaze, Benny Blue Junior, Bernie von Beam, Big Macintosh, Bluffbeard…”

Sunset walked over to the kitchen and peered through the oven window. As she watched the soufflé begin to rise, she smiled and remarked, “Wow, Pinkie. You sure know how to bake just about anything.”

Pinkie made no reaction and continued to mumble, “…Chase McCain, Cheerilee, Cheese Sandwich, Chestnut Magnifico, Chumbly-Bonk-Bonk, Cloudy Quartz, Clutch Powers, Cole…”

Sunset raised an eyebrow and asked, “Uh… Pinkie?”

Pinkie seemed to completely ignore Sunset as she continued mumbling, “…Flash Sentry, Fleetfoot, Flim and Flam, Fluttershy, Foreman Frank, Frank Honey, Gail, Gloriosa Daisy, Gordon Zola, Gorilla Suit Guy, Granny Smith…”

Sunset continued staring at Pinkie in confusion for a moment, then shrugged and glanced back at the soufflé baking inside the oven.

Meanwhile, Pinkie kept mumbling, “…Lemon Zest, Lily Pad, Limestone Pie, Lizard Suit Guy, Lloyd Garmadon, Lucy, Luna Playwell, Lyra Heartstrings, Marble Pie, Maud Pie…”

As she watched the soufflé continue to rise, Sunset eventually became curious how much longer it would take to finish baking. She turned her gaze up to a timer on the counter and was shocked to discover that it was currently off. She gasped and exclaimed, “Pinkie! You forgot to set the timer!”

“Shush!” snapped Pinkie abruptly, causing Sunset to flinch. Pinkie then immediately resumed mumbling, “…Scootaloo, Shining Armor, Soarin, Sonata Dusk, Sour Sweet, Spike, Spitfire, Starlight Glimmer…”

Sunset glanced again at the baking soufflé in the oven, now feeling a little concerned. She turned to a clock on the wall at the other side of the cabin. As she then struggled to determine how much time had already passed, she also tried looking around for a cookbook that might specify how long it should take to bake a soufflé.

Pinkie finally turned back towards the oven and slipped on some oven mitts as she continued, “…Zane, Zecora, Zephyr Breeze, Zipporwhill… Done!” With that final declaration, Pinkie opened the oven and pulled out the freshly baked soufflé. As she set the baked good down atop the stove, she explained, “I stopped using the timer after I realized that a soufflé takes the exact same amount of time to bake as it takes for me to say the names of all my friends in alphabetical order.”

Sunset let out a sigh of relief, then chuckled and remarked, “Yeah, probably should’ve expected you’d have your own way of keeping time.” Her smile fell as she then asked, “Wait, you’re friends with some guy named Chumbly-Bonk-Bonk?”

After tossing off her oven mitts, Pinkie shrugged and confessed, “Eh, he’s more of a walk-by-what’s-up acquaintance, but I needed an extra half-second on the list.”

Sunset smirked in amusement. She then gestured at the soufflé and asked, “So what special occasion is this for?”

“It’s a holiday tradition I have with Rarity,” Pinkie cheerfully explained. “Every year, I surprise her with a dessert that’s as elegant as she is.” She then slumped and shamefully mumbled, “And every year, she asks me why it’s all deflated.”

“Huh?” asked Sunset in confusion.

“Soufflés are good for only a little while,” continued Pinkie, “and in all the past years I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to get it to her on time.” She then furrow her brow and spoke up with determination, “But not this year! This year, now that we’re all together in a small village, I intend to finally make my delivery within the time limit. We officially have just seven minutes to get this soufflé into Rarity’s hands before it frumples into a soggy yuck-bucket.”

“Seven minutes?” asked Sunset with concern as she picked up the timer. “Is that longer or shorter than listing the names of your friends?”

Pinkie scoffed and retorted, “How would I know? Just gimme that timer!” She then snatched the timer out of Sunset’s hands and immediately set it to seven minutes. She then grabbed her soufflé and rushed to the door outside as she declared, “C’mon, Sunset! There’s no time to lose!”

“Wait!” Sunset spoke up as she followed after Pinkie. “Do you even know where Rarity is right now?!”

“Of course I do!” replied Pinkie as she and Sunset began quickly throwing on their winter outfits. “I texted her just before I started baking and she said she’s out window shopping. Thanks to all that time I spent studying the map of the Winter Village on the official website, I ran several mental simulations to guesstimate the likelihood of every possible scenario. Now that I know exactly which building she’s at, I’ve got it all figured out. The route, the speed, the exact angle I need to hunch over at to protect this soufflé from the wind. There will be no deflation this year!”

“If you’re really that sure about everything, then I’ll be happy to help out in any way I can,” assured Sunset. Once she and Pinkie had finished putting on the last of their winter clothes, Sunset grabbed the doorknob, then turned back to Pinkie and asked, “You ready?”

“It’s go time!” declared Pinkie with a smile of determination.

Sunset responded with a smile of confidence before she turned forward and opened the door. Almost immediately, she gasped as she saw three white projectiles flying directly at her, so she swiftly shut the door.

Thud-thud-thud.

As soon as the noise of those impacts against the door had passed, Sunset carefully opened the door again. What she and Pinkie saw out in front of the cabin made them both gasp in shock.

“Holy baked ziti!” exclaimed Pinkie. “It’s a warzone out there!”

Along the path leading straight from the cabin, two opposing lines of snow forts and snow berms had been built, and hiding behind them were several minifigs who occasionally exposed themselves as they tossed snowballs at the opposing side. The team on the right was marked with red flags, while the team on the left was marked with blue flags. On the red team, Applejack relentlessly pelted anyone who popped up into view, often hitting them with enough force to throw them back. On the blue team, Twilight breathed heavily as she hid behind the end of a berm with a snowball in hand, then jumped out and prepared to strike, only to be forced to dodge an opposing shot and ended up slipping onto her back.

“I’m not hit!” announced Twilight as she swiftly crawled back to take cover behind the berm again. “I just slipped!”

As snowballs continued to be flung, lobbed, and chucked across the path, Sunset and Pinkie continued staring at the frigid combat from the front door of the cabin. “How are we gonna get past this?!” exclaimed Pinkie in disbelief.

Sunset also stared out at the snowy battlefield in disbelief for a moment, but then she furrowed her brow and clenched her fists. “We’ll just have to run the gauntlet,” she declared with determination. She glanced back and Pinkie and added, “Like you said, it’s go time.”

Pinkie’s expression soon also turned to a look of determination as she smiled and nodded in agreement. She shoved the ticking timer into her pocket, shut the door behind them, then immediately took off down the path, with Sunset swiftly following right behind her.

Pinkie and Sunset made it down only a quarter of the length of the fortified pathway before Applejack suddenly called out, “Ambush!”

Right away, virtually everyone on the red team began a coordinated attack on Pinkie and Sunset. The two girls were suddenly forced to duck, dodge, and leap to avoid being pelted by several snowballs. With the bombardment seemingly endless, the neutral duo was forced to take shelter behind the nearest berm on the blue team, where they suddenly found themselves crouched down beside a terrified Fluttershy.

“The reds have mercilessly pushed us back,” muttered Fluttershy fearfully with a slight shiver. “Without any air support or reinforcements very soon, we’re little more than sitting ducks.”

Quack!

Fluttershy glanced over and saw a duck sitting in the snow beside her. “Aww…” she cooed with a smile as she gently patted that duck. That tender moment didn’t last long before an incoming snowball suddenly splattered right on top of her head. “AHH!! I’m hit! I’m hit!” she cried out as she fell over forward and the duck immediately flew away.

Sunset and Pinkie glanced at each other for a moment before Sunset shook her head and mumbled, “This is ridiculous.” Sunset then climbed up to stand atop the berm and called out, “Hold up, everyone! Pinkie Pie and I are not involved in this game!”

“What game?!” retorted Applejack fiercely. “This here’s total combat!”

“Can’t we at least agree to a ten second truce so the neutral party can pass through unharmed?” begged Sunset.

“There ain’t no neutrality on this battlefield!” argued Applejack as she knelt down and pulled something out of a cooler by her feet. “You’re either with us or against us, an’ seein’ where you’ve taken shelter, Ah think it’s clear which side you’ve chosen.” She then flung her mystery projectile directly at Sunset.

Sunset quickly dove back behind the berm just before the object impacted, which sent slush spraying over her and Pinkie as they hunched forward, resulting in their backs getting damp. Thankfully, the soufflé in Pinkie’s hands remained unscathed, but Sunset knew there was no guarantee that would last long in a situation like this. “Just one hit and that soufflé will be completely ruined,” she stated worriedly.

Pinkie pulled out her timer and saw that it was now just under three minutes left. As she pocketed the timer, she sighed in defeat and muttered, “Oh well… Maybe I’ll have better luck next year…”

Sunset turned around and peeked over the top of the berm to see if perhaps the frosty combat might soon lighten up. Her futile hopes were quickly crushed as she watched what appeared to be a small white dome with a long barrel sticking out the front side scoot across the ground from behind the red team’s fortifications.

“Ha!” gloated Applejack from atop her snow fort not far from the newly arrived weapon. “You bluies are in for it now, ‘cause we got ourselves a snow tank!”

The operator of the snow tank stuck his head out atop that mighty weapon and boasted, “I call this thing the Hammer, and I’m gonna show you why!” The snowy contraption lightly rattled as it swiveled around, took aim at one of the blue team’s fortifications, and shot a large snowball out the barrel. The large snowball pounded the fort with enough force to cause the whole structure to collapse.

The snow tank operator cackled like a maniac as he took aim at another blue team fortress and shot another large snowball, quickly obliterating that frosty structure as well. He laughed again as he then took aim at one of the long berms on the blue team’s side and fired another large snowball. The berm was no match for the large projectile, with clumps of snow flung out in all directions from the impact, covering everyone who had been unfortunate enough to take shelter behind it.

The snow tank continue to lightly rattle as it swiveled around to take aim at another blue team snow berm, and Sunset felt her heart race as she realized it was now pointing directly at her and Pinkie.

Twilight yelped as she suddenly stumbled out from her hiding spot behind a different berm. The snow tank operator apparently decided to instead go after an easy target as he swiveled the barrel away from Sunset’s position and now aimed directly at the completely exposed girl. With another mad cackle, he fired another large snowball.

Twilight screamed as she reflexively flinched and held out her hands. After a few seconds of nothing, she opened her eyes and discovered that she had managed to use her magical powers to halt the large snowball in midair just inches away from her. Realizing she now had the large projectile in her possession, Twilight smiled confidently as she levitated the snowball up, sent it spinning forward faster and faster, and finally lobbed it right back at that snow tank.

The large snowball plunged directly back down the barrel it had originally been shot from. With the barrel now effectively plugged up, the snow tank began to shake and rattle more and more violently. The tank operator looked down at the increasing vibrations of his frigid vehicle and worriedly muttered, “Uh-oh…”

Boom!

The snow tank suddenly exploded, spraying fragments of snow, ice, and bits of machinery all over the nearby red team fortifications. The tank operator was flung straight upwards, then screamed as he fell until he landed head-first into a snowbank, burying himself up to his waist so that only his legs were left exposed. “I’m okay,” he weakly stated, his voice muffled by the surrounding snow.

Applejack turned to Twilight and protested, “Hey! That’s not fair!”

“That’s what you get for trying to fight dirty against a former Shadowbolt agent,” retorted Twilight with a smirk.

“Alright, y’all asked for it!” threatened Applejack as she dropped down from her perch atop the snow fort. A few seconds later, she climbed back up, this time holding over her head a massive snowball that was wider across than the height of her body. And thanks to her magically enhanced strength, she had no trouble at all with holding up that ridiculously oversized snowball.

“Uh, Applejack?” asked Sunset, now feeling very terrified. “Don’t you think this is going too far?”

“As if!” retorted Applejack confidently. “Real life ain’t the same as them silly ol’ video games you play, ain’t that right?”

With that insult, Sunset quickly dropped her fears as she stood atop the berm and glared at Applejack. “Okay, now you just made this personal!” Sunset furiously shot back. She swiftly scooped a handful of snow from the berm under her feet and rolled it into a snowball. “Bring it on!”

With that declaration, Applejack flung the massive snowball up and over towards where Sunset stood.

Sunset was more than ready for the incoming oversized projectile as she jumped to the right, leaped off the side of the nearby snow fort, and bounced off the top of the massive snowball as it arrived. The final jump sent the giant snowball straight down to impact the ground just in front of the berm where it did almost no damage, while Sunset was flung upwards and thus provided with the perfect height from which she could throw her snowball directly at Applejack.

Applejack was so stunned from watching Sunset’s astonishing evasive maneuver that she failed to dodge the retaliating strike, and that regular snowball hit her with enough force to knock her off her perch atop the snow fort and down to the ground on her back.

Sunset landed on her feet atop the berm, and with a stoic look of determination on her face, she glanced back at Pinkie and firmly declared, “Rarity is getting that soufflé, and you’re gonna deliver it to her!” She then turned her gaze towards Fluttershy seated on the ground further along behind the berm and ordered, “Fluttershy! It’s time to call in some air support…”

Over on the red team, members had recovered from the destruction of the snow tank and were hastily making repairs to their snowy fortifications. Just seconds after Applejack was felled by Sunset, they all began to hear an ominous noise.

Quack-quack-quack-quack-quack-quack-quack…

Everyone on the red team paused and looked up to see a flock of ducks flying directly towards them, each of which was carrying a snowball within the grasp of their feet. As those ducks flew across the front line of the wintery battlefield, they began to dive down towards the opposing forces on the ground.

Applejack had just recovered from her hit and sat up on the ground, only to gaze up at the incoming aerial assault. “Ya gotta be kiddin’ me…” she muttered in disbelief.

With their targets in sight, the diving flock of fowls released their payloads, bombarding the entire red team with dozens of snowballs along their entire front line.

As those ducks under Fluttershy’s command unleashed their air attack, Sunset swiftly pulled Pinkie up to her feet and exclaimed, “Go, Pinkie! Now’s our chance!”

Pinkie protectively held her soufflé as she followed Sunset down the path away from the cabin and towards the rest of the village. They were just about to pass the final forts along the battle lines when Sunset was suddenly pelted by a snowball from the side and knocked over onto the ground.

Pinkie immediately stopped as she gasped and exclaimed in horror, “Sunset!”

Sunset grunted as she rolled over onto her back. “Don’t worry about me!” she insisted as sat up. “Keep going! I’ll cover your escape!”

Pinkie hesitated for a brief moment, then nodded in agreement and ran off towards the village.

Sunset stood up and glared out at the red team as she furiously spoke up, “All right, who threw that cheap shot?! Was it you?!” She pointed at one boy who was taking shelter in a small personal fort at the end of the red team’s defensive line.

The nerdy boy hesitantly responded in a squeaky voice, “Uh, I-I’m a conscientious objector.” As he was then suddenly pelted with snowballs from all directions, he shrieked and screamed, “Have mercy!”

Meanwhile, Pinkie began to smile as she cleared the snowy battlefield and made her way down the path towards her destination. Victory was finally within her sight.

RI-I-I-I-I-I-I-ING!

Pinkie gasped in horror as she felt the timer in her pocket ring. The seven minute deadline had just passed. She had failed to deliver the soufflé to Rarity in time. “NOOOOOO!!” she cried out in despair as she fell to her knees. She stared down at the now only slightly fresh dessert in her hands and sobbed, “Oh, my sweet little soufflé! All I ever wanted was for you to be torn apart and digested by my friend Rarity so she could feel the same kind of joy she brings to me!”

“Is that this year’s soufflé?”

Pinkie gasped as she stood up and spun around and was shocked to discover Rarity standing right behind her. “Rarity?!” she asked in astonishment. “Where’d you—?! How did you—?! I mean, why are you right here?! The window shop is over there!” She gestured over her shoulder down the path she had been running along.

Rarity raised an eyebrow and asked, “Why would I be at a window shop?”

“You told me you were window shopping!” exclaimed Pinkie in response.

Rarity just giggled and explained, “Oh, no-no-no, darling, not that kind of window shopping. I meant the kind where I simply browse the display windows of various shops just to see what they have to offer. I even deliberately left my purse back at the cabin so as to avoid the temptation to make any impulse purchases.”

Pinkie just stared blankly at Rarity and muttered, “Oh…” She then shook her head and urgently spoke up, “Never mind any of that! Here! Enjoy it while it’s still fresh!” She held out the soufflé to Rarity.

Rarity had anticipated Pinkie might be preparing the holiday soufflé for her, so she had thought ahead to carry a fork with her. She took that fork out of her pocket, removed its protective wrapper, and used it to take off a bite-sized portion off that soufflé. She stuck that bit of soufflé in her mouth, took a moment to savor it, then smiled and proclaimed, “It’s heavenly!”

“Yes!” cheered Pinkie triumphantly. “I finally did it!”

“I must say, Pinkie, you were certainly right that your soufflés are best enjoyed while fresh,” acknowledged Rarity as she took off another bite-sized portion of that soufflé.

The two girls were startled when a nearby snowman suddenly burst apart, exposing Rainbow Dash with a snowball in her hand and a cocky grin on her face. “Ha! Sneak attack!” she declared excitedly. “Bet you weren’t expecting this!” She then chucked the snowball directly at Rarity.

Rarity just rolled her eyes as she used her magical power to instantly summon a diamond shield that easily blocked the frozen projectile.

Rainbow Dash stared blankly at Rarity for a moment, then groaned in frustration and complained, “No fair! I spent two hours disguised as a snowman for that!”

Rainbow was then suddenly pelted by a snowball from behind and fell over.

“And all I needed was two seconds to do that,” boasted Sunset from behind where Rainbow Dash had stood.

Rarity and Pinkie glanced at each other and shared a friendly laugh together. As Rarity savored the next bite of that soufflé, Pinkie was absolutely satisfied that her efforts for this particular holiday tradition had finally paid off.

Author's Note

I did say some of the official holiday shorts were good enough that it was rather easy for me to adapt them into this collection of short stories, and this was definitely one of them. The part where Pinkie lists the names of everyone she knows was an opportunity to throw in a few additional names, including some Lego characters. The snow tank was inspired by something I saw in one of the Lego video games, which gave me an opportunity to give Twilight some actual involvement. Fluttershy's involvement was something I spontaneously came up with as a result of simply trying to come up with something different for her to say than what she said in the official version (mostly because I couldn't include Trixie due to her probation keeping her in Canterlot City).

Past Reflections

Sunset Shimmer had a smile on her face as she walked through the snowy streets of the Winter Village on this fine morning that was only moderately cold. All around her, she could see both local residents and seasonal visitors walking by as they made their way to certain shops or were simply out for a relaxing stroll. For Sunset, the destination she had in mind was a simple café somewhere just a little further down this street, where she had arranged to meet with her friend Twilight Sparkle. They weren’t planning anything in particular or celebrating anything special. This was meant to be little more than a friendly get-together to share some idle conversation, and Sunset was perfectly fine with that.

“Good morning, Winter Village!”

Sunset turned to the source of that rather chipper voice and saw a guy with a cheerful expression on his rather generic face walk along an adjacent street with a bit of a skip in his step. He had the typical yellow skin and was wearing a bright orange construction worker’s outfit with reflective silver stripes that showed a few scratches in some places. Over that, he was also wearing a green scarf around his neck and a green holiday style hat on his head.

As this minifig strolled down the road, he took a moment to eagerly greet everyone he happened to pass by. “Good morning, carolers!” he said to a man and a woman dressed in a black suit and black dress respectively. “Can’t wait to hear your songs tonight!” As he turned away from them, he nearly bumped into a woman with long blonde hair and wearing a blue coat who was carrying a small wrapped gift. “Whoa! Nice to see ya! I bet you got that for a special someone in your life!” He then walked past a bald guy wearing glasses and a plaid red jacket. “Hey there, Big Jim! Love that new show you’ve been working on!”

With their paths about to cross, Sunset decided to stop walking and placed her hands on her hips as she had a bemused smile on her face. “Well if it isn’t the Special himself,” she quipped playfully. “Emmet Brickowski!”

Emmet stopped and turned to Sunset, then gasped and excitedly stated, “No way! It’s Sunset Shimmer! One of the Equestria Girls from Canterlot City!”

Sunset chuckled and remarked, “I guess we’re both pretty famous if we could instantly recognize each other right at the moment we just met for the first time ever.”

Emmet giggled and responded, “Yeah, well, I’m still getting used to this whole saving world from total destruction more than once. I mean, really, how do you girls put up with that kind of attention?”

Sunset just shrugged and replied, “Eh, we’ve gotten used to it by now. If anything, we’ve become desperate for a vacation that doesn’t involve defeating a force of evil magic from Equestria.”

“Well, when you put it like that, yeah, I don’t blame ya,” remarked Emmet. “So what are you up to today?”

“Oh, just heading to that café over there to meet with my friend Twilight,” replied Sunset as she pointed at the building in question not much further down the street. “Nothing special, just a friendly get-together.”

“Hey, would it be okay if I join you?” asked Emmet eagerly with a smile. “I was just on my way to meet with Lucy, but I can text her and see if she’d like to meet you and Twilight.”

“No problem,” agree Sunset. “I sure wouldn’t mind having an opportunity to meet Lucy as well.”

“All right! Thanks!” cheered Emmet with a leap of joy. “Let me just…” He pulled out his phone, sent a text message on it, then put it away. “And done! Let’s go!”

As the two of them began walking towards the café, Sunset giggled and remarked, “I have to say, your enthusiasm could give even Pinkie Pie a run for her money.”

“I just can’t help it,” confessed Emmet with a shrug and a smile. “I’m always so excited to see what awesome things each and every day will bring.”

Sunset and Emmet arrived at the café after a short walk. They were just about to enter the building when Emmet heard his phone ping, so he checked the text he had just received, then leaped with joy and cheerfully spoke up, “Awesome! She’s on her way right now.”

“Cool,” responded Sunset casually as she opened the door into the café. “I look forward to meeting her.”

Inside the café, in addition to several stools surrounding the central service counter, there were a few small tables set up along the windows at the edges of the room. A few of these tables were occupied by various patrons, and it didn’t take long for Sunset to find Twilight seated at one table not far away.

Twilight was quick to notice her friend’s arrival, so she smiled and waved at her and she contently spoke up, “Hi, Sunset! Glad you could make it.”

“Hey there, Twilight,” greeted Sunset as she walked over to the table her friend was seated at. “Look who I happened to meet on the way here.” She gestured over to Emmet, who smiled and waved with a slight chuckle.

“Wow, Emmet Brickowski of Bricksburg,” remarked Twilight in awe. She then frowned and glanced away as she muttered, “Or is it Apocalypseburg now? Or rather should it be called Syspocalypstar?” She then showed Emmet a smile of amusement.

Emmet chuckled awkwardly as he rubbed the back of his head and acknowledged, “Yeah, I guess my home region has gone through quite a few changes over the last few years.”

Ding!

“Oh! Our order’s ready,” Twilight spoke up. She turned to Sunset and asked, “Could you go grab it?”

“Sure,” said Sunset in agreement as she turned to the service counter.

“Oh, that reminds me,” noted Emmet to himself, “I should get something for me and Lucy.” He followed Sunset to the service counter, then once Sunset had grabbed two full mugs and brought them back to the table, he walked up to the person behind that counter and placed his order.

Meanwhile, Sunset sat down beside Twilight on one side of the table and passed one of the mugs over to her. She took a small sip of the hot beverage and remarked, “Nice choice of tea, Twilight.”

“I knew you would like it,” agreed Twilight before she took a small sip from her mug.

About a minute later, Emmet returned to the table with two full mugs in his hands. “I got two cups of coffee,” he contently noted as he sat down at the table opposite from Twilight beside the window. “One black for Lucy, and one with cream and sugar for me.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and playfully quipped, “Oh, you Bricksburg people are always ordering coffee. Not even a ridiculously overpriced brand would ever tempt you to try anything else.”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk,” Emmet playfully rebuked with a smile. “You Canterlot girls are so obsessed with tea, you practically make it part of your regular schedules.”

Sunset giggled and remarked with a sigh, “Ah, the old beverage rivalry between our home regions. May it never be settled…”

They then heard the faint ringing of the main door being opened. Emmet turned to look back towards that door, then smiled and waved as he eagerly called out, “Lucy! Over here!”

The minifig who had just arrived smiled as she saw Emmet and walked over to the table he was seated at. She had the typical yellow skin and was wearing a black jumpsuit with blue and pink scribbles all over the right side. Like Emmet, she was also wearing a red scarf around her neck and a red holiday style hat on her head.

As Emmet scooted over in his seat towards the window so Lucy could have a place to sit down beside him, he remarked, “Look who I just happened to meet today. It’s two of the Equestria Girls from Canterlot City! Sunset Shimmer and—”

“Twilight Sparkle!” greeted Lucy in sudden excitement as she sat down beside Emmet. “Wow! It’s been so long since we last met. How’s it going?”

“A lot better than the last time we saw each other, that’s for sure,” remarked Twilight with a smile.

Lucy kept her smile as she scoffed and quipped, “Tell me about it…”

With a baffled look on his face, Emmet asked, “Whoa, whoa, wait… You two actually know each other?”

Lucy chuckled awkwardly and hesitantly replied, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

Sunset smirked and asked, “You haven’t told him about that part of your past, have you?” She then took a sip from her mug of tea.

Lucy fidgeted with her mug of coffee as she replied, “If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, then can you really blame me for being reluctant about that part?”

“Lucy, I thought we agreed to stop keeping secrets from each other,” noted Emmet, sounding slightly hurt.

“I was gonna get around to it,” insisted Lucy. She then glanced down at her mug of coffee as she hesitantly added, “Eventually…”

Sunset set down her mug of tea and suggested, “Well, seeing as you’re here with a couple of friendly faces who already know about that part, now might be as good a time as any.”

Lucy sighed as she let go of her mug of coffee and leaned back in her seat. “Okay…” she conceded. She turned to Emmet and began, “Well, I’ve already told you about that band I was once part of.”

“You used to be in a band?” asked Twilight abruptly. “I never knew that part about your past.”

Lucy groaned and rolled her eyes before she grumbled, “Fine, I guess I’ll tell everyone the whole story.” She then reached up and removed the hat on her head, revealing her hair color to be multiple stripes of bright blue and pink.

“I see you’ve decided to dye the rest of your hair,” noted Twilight.

“Actually, it was more like the rest of my hair got un-dyed,” corrected Lucy as she pulled out her phone and began tapping on it. “It was also kinda done against my will, but that’s another story.”

“Hey, I’m not gonna judge you for your natural hair color,” assured Sunset. “I mean, look at me.” She pointed at her own hair, which consisted of multiple stripes of red and yellow. “I can’t tell you how many people have taken one look at my hair and couldn’t resist comparing it to bacon.”

All four minifigs seated at the table couldn’t help but giggle at that remark.

Sunset then suddenly glared at Emmet and Lucy across the table and firmly insisted, “Seriously, though. No bacon jokes around me, please. I can’t stand ‘em.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” assured Emmet with a nervous grin.

Lucy cleared her throat and spoke up, “Anyway, back in my late teens, I was part of a pop music band known as ‘POP-ular’.” She then turned her phone to show the image she had on the screen, which was the cover of an album showing the four members of that band.

Twilight and Sunset looked closely at that image and soon realized that the girl in the middle right of that lineup was virtually identical to the girl seated right in front of them. “I’ve heard of that band,” noted Twilight. “I can’t believe I was never able to make the connection between you and that Lucy.”

Lucy took back her phone and continued, “So yeah, that’s how my backstory started. I was part of one of the hottest bands in the world at the time, and I loved every moment of it back then. In fact, I’m the one who wrote our most famous song of all, ‘Everything is Awesome’.”

“I always wondered who was originally behind that one song everyone was always singing together just for the heck of it,” muttered Sunset.

“And that is where my backstory takes a dark turn,” continued Lucy, “because it was also back in those days that President Business was acquiring a whole bunch of different regions and claiming ownership over them. He was looking for ways maintain control over the lives of everyone in those regions, and one of those methods happened to be catchy music.”

“So he went with the most popular song at the time, which just so happened to be your song,” concluded Sunset.

“Yup,” confirmed Lucy bitterly. She took a sip of her coffee, then continued, “At first, I was thrilled that my song was able to stay so popular for so long, but as it stayed at the very top of the charts week after week, month after month, I started getting a little suspicious. It eventually occurred to me that it was because it was quite literally the only song being played in all the regions owned by President Business. I wrote that song as a way to just have fun anywhere at any time, so to see him use it as practically mind control over all those people really hurt me. I tried telling my bandmates about it, but they all dismissed it as me just being paranoid over nothing.” She took another sip of her coffee. “I won’t go into any details, but long story short, that triggered a series of events that ultimately caused our band to break up.”

“Aw, I’m so sorry, Lucy,” said Emmet sadly as he placed a hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “I bet you and all those bandmates used to be such good friends.”

“Yeah… we were,” acknowledged Lucy shamefully. “I have no idea where any of them went after that, and quite frankly, I simply didn’t care at the time. Instead, I was more focused on trying to get some petty revenge on President Business for pretty much ruining my life. At first, I struck out on my own, sneaking around under the cover of night, spraying graffiti, vandalizing public property, anything to commit any kind of sabotage wherever I could. I even dyed my hair black to help blend in with my surroundings. I never got far, but my rebellious actions did end up attracting the attention of a shady group of secret agents who called themselves the Shadowbolts. They were determined to overthrow the world order and place themselves in total control over everything, and since I assumed that would include President Business and his own plans for world domination, I accepted their invite without even a second thought.” She took another sip of her coffee. “Boy, did that turn out to be a horrible mistake.”

“Indeed,” concurred Twilight. “Abacus Cinch became very determined to get rid of the Playwell family after the humiliation of being fired from the old Board of Directors, among whom was also President Business. Naturally, they formed an alliance to work against a common foe. Business chose to do all those public takeovers, while Cinch organized a team of secret agents to persistently disrupt all organizations that supported the Playwell family, which especially included the LEGO Team.”

“Wow,” said Emmet in astonishment. “I can’t believe you actually used to be one of those evil secret agents.”

“Of course I was,” confirmed Lucy. “I mean, this black jumpsuit I always wear started out as one of their standard issued uniforms, which I later customized myself after I got away from those guys. And besides, where else do you think I learned to be so good at kicking butt?”

“I always wondered about that…” muttered Emmet.

“So, yeah,” continued Lucy, “as soon as I realized the Shadowbolts were actually in league with President Business, I knew I had to get away from them. Much easier said than done, because the thing about joining the Shadowbolts is that, well… let’s just say they never allowed anyone to leave alive. Either you stayed loyal, or they sent someone to get rid of you for good.”

Emmet gasped in shock and asked, “You actually risked your life by just walking away from them?”

“Crazy, but true,” confirmed Lucy. “But you see, after how my life had kept getting worse and worse by that point, I figured I didn’t have much left to lose, so I went for it. I was lucky enough to end up being taken in by Vitruvius, the legendary Master Builder. While he sheltered me from being captured by both the Shadowbolt agents and President Business’s Super Secret Police, he taught me how to become a true Master Builder. When he told me about that prophecy about the Piece of Resistance, I knew I had to find that ancient relic so I could finally bring down President Business once and for all. I searched many places, often risking exposing myself to those who were after me, so I protected my identity by frequently changing my name. I eventually managed to track down the Piece of Resistance to that construction site in Bricksburg and, well…” She smiled as she lifted her mug of coffee. “You know the rest of the story from there.” She then took a sip of her coffee.

Twilight giggled and noted, “Ah, yes, your habit of changing your name several times. I certainly remember that. In fact, there was a running joke among the other agents that Lucy changed her name about as frequently as I changed my base of operations, and I can confirm that I was so insecure that I never stayed in one place for more than a few months.”

Lucy smirked and remarked, “Glad I’m not the only one who was insecure at the time.” She then frowned and asked, “Wait, how did you guys know that was me behind all those names?”

“Facial recognition software,” answered Twilight casually, “yet another invention I ended up providing to the Shadowbolts. Though, to your credit, by the time we got suspicious enough to utilize it, you had already moved on and switched to a different name.”

“How many different names did you go through?” asked Emmet innocently.

Lucy suddenly got notably anxious and glanced around nervously as she hesitantly replied, “I, uh… don’t remember?”

Twilight pulled out her phone as she playfully noted, “I still have the complete list that was compiled by the Shadowbolts.”

“Oh, this I’ve gotta see,” remarked Sunset with a naughty smile as she leaned over to glance at Twilight’s phone.

“No! Please don’t!” Lucy urgently begged as she tried to reach forward, but Twilight used her telekinetic magic to grab Lucy’s hood and pulled on it to yank her back into her seat.

Meanwhile, Sunset read through the list of names and within seconds, she burst out laughing and asked, “Seriously? You actually used these names for fake identities?”

Lucy rested her chin on the table and held her arms over her head as she groaned in embarrassment and grumbled, “Go ahead and tell the whole world while you’re at it.”

“Relax,” assured Sunset as she calmed her laughter. “Your secret’s safe with me. Trust me, as the one who can read minds, I’m already keeping plenty of other secrets.”

“How about I let you in on one of my secrets?” offered Twilight as she put away her phone. She leaned across the table towards Lucy and quietly stated, “As I’m sure you can guess, someone among the Shadowbolt agents had the assignment of trying to find and eliminate you. Well… that agent was me.”

“Wait, what?!” asked Lucy in astonishment.

“Okay, this is news, even to me,” admitted Sunset.

“But here’s the real shocker,” continued Twilight with a grin. “Unbeknownst to my fellow agents, every time I got close to reaching you… I allowed you to escape.”

Emmet gasped and breathlessly muttered, “Mind. Blown.”

“Why would you do that?” asked Lucy as she sat up. “You had to have known that defying such an order would put you in some very serious trouble.”

“Of course I did,” acknowledged Twilight. “You see, when I was assigned that mission, one aspect of tracking you down involved trying to understand your motive, so that I could try to anticipate your next move. But the more I followed you around, the more curious I got about whether you knew something I didn’t, so I became tempted to simply stand back and continue observing, just to see how far you would actually go.”

“Did you wear that old astronaut suit you later used for stalking me and the rest of our friends?” asked Sunset with a smirk of amusement.

“Not initially,” replied Twilight, “but after my brief stay on Mars, I realized how effective it was at concealing my identity, so I started using it for most of my missions from that point onward.”

“Are you saying my search for the Piece of Resistance actually encouraged you to consider leaving the Shadowbolts like I did?” asked Lucy.

“When you look at the big picture, I suppose that might actually be true,” confessed Twilight. “Sure, I had secretly questioned my loyalty to the Shadowbolts ever since the laser beam incident that permanently damaged my eyesight, but witnessing your tenacity and determination out there really inspired me to believe that perhaps being part of the Shadowbolts might not have been the preferred means to achieving that better life away from the Castle Region I had so desperately desired.” She took a sip of her tea and continued, “In hindsight, my frequent failure to eliminate or even capture you may have contributed to Cinch’s decision to later force me into working with a team of other fellow agents.”

“I know where the story goes from here…” muttered Sunset uncomfortably.

Twilight gave Sunset an assuring smile, then turned to Emmet and Lucy and continued, “I’m not sure how much you’ve heard, but the brief version is that, after I had accidentally collected all the Equestrian magic from Sunset and her friends, I found myself caught between the choices of either staying with the Shadowbolts or joining the LEGO Team.” She turned her gaze down at her mug of tea and bitterly added, “I selfishly chose a third option, and unleashed that magic upon myself.”

Twilight hesitated to continue speaking, so after a few seconds of uneasy silence, Emmet asked, “What happened?”

Twilight took a sip of her tea and let out a sigh before she shamefully answered, “I literally turned into an overpowered magical monster. She called herself Midnight Sparkle, and her only desire was to understand everything around her, even if it meant tearing apart anything and anyone that got in her way.”

“Whoa,” muttered Lucy in shock. “Talk about going all mad scientist to the extreme.”

“That experience gave me horrible nightmares for weeks,” continued Twilight. “It still haunts me even to this day, but I’ve learned to move on from it. I’m just glad I had a good friend like Sunset Shimmer to help me come to my senses.”

“Thanks, Twilight,” responded Sunset with a smile. She turned her gaze down to her mug of tea and frowned as she sadly added, “At least you had immediate support from everyone who would become your new friends. I had to spend six months in prison before I could be given my second chance.”

“Oh yeah, you also once turned into a magical monster,” noted Lucy. “If it’s not too personal, do you mind telling us what that was about?”

Sunset leaned back in her seat and sighed before she explained, “Well, I’m sure you already know by now that I’m originally from the alternate universe of magical ponies known as Equestria. What you may not know is that I was once the personal prodigy of Princess Celestia, absolute ruler over all of Equestria. She taught me everything I know about magic, but the younger me was very arrogant, and I foolishly convinced myself that I practically deserved to become a ruler like Celestia, no matter what. When Celestia told me I was not yet ready for the most advanced lessons, I secretly tried to study those subjects myself, but I was caught and Celestia expelled me from her castle. That’s when I made the fateful decision to cross the magical mirror into this world. Even though I eventually adapted to this world, the old me still had plans return to Equestria and seek vengeance against Princess Celestia. I stole a magical artifact, which turned me into a raging she-demon who practically enslaved an entire city in a futile attempt to use them as an army to conquer Equestria.” She took a sip of her tea before she casually finished, “So yeah, Twilight needed only a helping hand to overcome her dark side, while I had to get smacked in the face by a rainbow friendship laser to overcome mine.”

“Wow,” said Emmet in astonishment. “And here I thought I was the only nice guy with an evil alter ego who tried to destroy everything in existence.”

“You had a dark past, too?” asked Twilight in confusion.

“Well, technically, it was more of an alternate future, but it was still scary enough for me to consider that other me to be evil, no doubt about it,” explained Emmet. He took a sip of his coffee and asked, “So tell me, girls… have you ever heard of a guy named Rex Dangervest?”

“Yeah, but not much,” admitted Sunset. “As far as I’m aware, he was this macho space guy with a crew of raptors who tried to completely destroy the entire Systar System, just for the heck of it.”

“Along with all the territory owned by President Business in the process,” added Emmet, “though he didn’t really care about that part at all.”

“And you’re saying that guy was your evil side unleashed?” asked Twilight.

“I know it all sounds crazy, but believe me, this is all true,” explained Emmet, his voice now sounding less enthusiastic than usual. “While the rest of the world was wondering what happened to Bricksburg, all of my friends were captured and brought to the Systar System, so I rebuilt my house into a spaceship to go after them. Now here’s where things start to get a little weird. In an alternate timeline, that other me crashed his ship and ended up in a place called Undar of the Dryar system, where he was incapable of moving and could do nothing but watch everything that was happening in the universe. He saw his friends welcomed by the Systarians and enjoy their stay there, but none of them ever bothered to go back to look for him. He was completely abandoned for so long that he let his hatred take over, allowing him to finally escape on his own, but he also remade himself into the kind of tough guy seemingly everyone had wanted him to be. He then collected and dismantled practically every time machine he could find and rebuilt them into a new spaceship, which he then used to not only gather his crew of raptors, but also to go back in time to save me from that crash.” He took a sip of his coffee and continued, “I still don’t really understand what he was thinking, but as far as I could tell, he wanted revenge against everyone who he was convinced had completely ditched him, and he wanted to really hurt them by tricking me into doing it for him, which he also somehow hoped would make me turn into him in the process.”

“Seriously?” asked Sunset skeptically. “Seems a little overly complicated just for some petty revenge. And coming from me, that’s saying something.”

“You know, now that I think about it, you’re probably right,” agreed Emmet. “I guess all those years he spent completely on his own might have caused him to go a little nuts.”

Lucy scoffed and retorted, “A little? That guy barley even resembled you, both physically and mentally.”

“So what happened to Rex Dangervest?” asked Twilight.

Emmet leaned back in his seat and answered, “Well, unlike what happened to him, my friends were quick to realize the trouble I was in, so they came to rescue me, despite his crew of raptors standing in their way. With my friends — especially Lucy — there to support me, we destroyed the time machine part of his ship and I swore I would never become like Rex. Of course, with time travel being involved, my declaration right then and there caused him to just… fade out of existence.”

Twilight and Sunset glanced at each other for a moment before Twilight remarked, “Somehow, I should’ve expected that.”

Sunset smirked and noted, “Come to think of it, that whole experience sounds like it could be an interesting friendship lesson worth sharing with Princess Twilight in Equestria. If I had my journal with me, I would’ve offered to let you write an entry in it.”

“Really?” asked Emmet as he sat up. He smiled and excitedly prattled, “Wow, that’s gotta be quite an honor. Is it, really? Oh, who am I kidding? Of course it’s a huge honor! I mean, this is a princess in an alternate universe we’re talking about here. But what should I write about? Does she want just the basic lesson? Or should I go in depth with every detail I can remember? Where should I even start?”

As Emmet continued babbling, Twilight leaned close to Sunset and quietly asked, “Is this what I’m like when I get overly stressed about something?”

Sunset giggled and quietly replied, “Yeah, pretty much.” She then turned to Emmet and spoke up, “You know, if you’ve really got that much to talk about, then maybe you should consider writing a whole book about your life experiences.”

“You mean like an autobiography?” asked Lucy. She glanced away thoughtfully for a moment, then smiled as she turned back to Emmet and contently noted, “That’s actually not a bad idea.”

Upon hearing the suggestion, Emmet cheerfully remarked, “Awesome! I love that idea! ‘The Autobiography of Emmet Brickowski’!” His smile fell as he then pondered, “No, wait, that might be more appropriate as the subtitle. I should use a title that’s more iconic, more catchy, more special.” He suddenly gasped and excitedly declared, “That’s it! The Special! No, even better! ‘You are the Special!’ And by ‘you’, I mean whoever happens to be reading it, which kinda fits in with that other friendship lesson I learned while going up against President Business, before that whole mess with Rex Dangervest.”

“I think it’s a great idea!” stated Twilight. “I look forward to reading it, once it’s complete.”

“And I’m sure Princess Twilight in Equestria would love to read it, too,” agreed Sunset. She then chuckled and added, “Heck, I might even order several copies to be delivered to Equestria, in case if she wants to use it for some classes in that School of Friendship she recently started up.”

Lucy laughed a little and playfully remarked, “Okay, let’s take it easy there, everyone. We’d better take this whole thing one step at a time. I mean, it’s not like you can just write a best-selling book in only one day.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” conceded Emmet as he relaxed in his seat. “If I’m gonna go for it, then I might as well go at whatever pace I’m more comfortable with. Some awesome things just can’t be rushed.” He then took a sip of his coffee.

Lucy stared down at her mug of coffee for a moment before spoke up, “You know, it’s kind of ironic, now that I think about this. I once tried to make my life as dark as possible, yet, out of the four of us sitting here at this table, my experience has probably been the least traumatizing of all.” She gestured at Sunset, Twilight, and Emmet as she continued, “I mean, you turned into a raging she-demon, you turned into an overpowered psychopath, and you met a version of yourself who’s practically a heartless jerk. Me? All I ever did was dye my hair black and change my name a lot.”

“Just because you never saw yourself become a rampaging monster doesn’t mean you haven’t changed for the better,” Emmet pointed out. “The girl I met who called herself Wyldstyle is hardly anything like the girl named Lucy who I know today, and personally, I’ll take Lucy over Wyldstyle any day.”

Lucy giggled and playfully retorted, “You really didn’t have to say that.”

“But it made you feel better, right?” asked Emmet with a goofy grin.

Lucy just rolled her eyes and lightly punched Emmet’s shoulder.

Sunset and Twilight both giggled at the more than friendly exchange between Emmet and Lucy.

“But seriously, though,” Emmet spoke up, “I think we can all be proud of how much better we’ve become over time.” He then raised his mug of coffee and declared, “No more Wyldstyle. No more Rex Dangervest. No more Midnight Sparkle. And no more… uh…” He trailed off awkwardly as he stared at Sunset.

That made Sunset realize that her darker alter ego was apparently the only one among those four to never be given a name, so she hesitantly raised her mug of tea and awkwardly suggested, “Sunset Satan?”

There was complete silence at the table for a moment, then all four of them suddenly burst out laughing together. “Okay, yeah, I think we’re all glad we don’t have to worry about calling ourselves such ridiculous names anymore,” quipped Lucy as she raised her mug of coffee.

“Absolutely,” agreed Twilight as she raised her mug of tea.

Sunset smiled as she fully raised her mug and declared, “Well, here’s to putting a dark past behind us, and to looking forward to a brighter future.”

The four minifigs then simultaneously tapped their mugs together over the table, signifying their acceptance of past mistakes and sharing those experiences to learn from them together.

Author's Note

As has been the case since quite literally the very first story, the events of the Lego Movie (and now its sequel too) took place in this Lego World, even though things work a little differently in this world compared to the official version from the movies (so I guess you could say a slightly different version of those events took place in this series, much like with all of the Equestria Girls content). For the record, I came up with with the idea for this brief story shortly after I first saw the Lego Movie 2, originally intending to have it be a one-shot story taking place between the ninth and tenth main stories. However, we later got the Equestria Girls holiday shorts, so I started thinking of how to incorporate them into my fanfition series. Although I was able to adapt some and come up with original ideas to replace others, I struggled to figure out what to do with this third part of these short stories, but since I still wanted to include that idea of Twilight and Sunset meeting Emmet and Lucy, I decided to simply use it to fill in this gap. Anyway, as you may recall from the prologue of the sixth story, Twilight had informed her friends about being familiar with Wyldstyle/Lucy back when they were both Shadowbolt agents. While the final scene of the Lego Movie 2 revealed that Lucy was part of the band that wrote the "Everything is Awesome" song, further information such as how that song's misuse by President Business caused the band to break up and Lucy to darken her attitude was explained only in the movie's official commentary, but all of that seemed like such fascinating aspects to Lucy's backstory that I had to include it here. And yes, you can expect to see a reference to Emmet's autobiography at some point later on in this fanfiction series.

Secret Stash Recovery

Late in the morning of yet another fine day in the Winter Village, Sunset Shimmer led her friends to a rather sparse forest just beyond the edge of the settlement. She hadn’t explained much to them, only stating that it was for something important that she felt they deserved to be informed about. They weren’t sure what could be so important that she refused to specify much else, but since she insisted they accompany her, they figured they would soon get some answers.

“So what exactly are we doing out here?” asked Rainbow Dash.

Sunset stopped walking and glanced around, then sighed and muttered, “Well, I don’t see anyone else around, so I might as well get it over with.” As her friends came to a stop behind her, she glanced back at them and replied, “Let’s just say I’d like to right an old wrong from my past.”

Applejack hesitantly spoke up, “Uh, no offense, Sunset, but ya did a lot of wrong things in the past. You’re gonna have to be a bit more specific than that.”

Sunset glanced around and took a few steps forward as she explained, “Well, it kinda has to do with those secret stashes that I’ve kept hidden all over the world. As I’m sure you know, the old me used to do a lot of robbery, and since it was never practical for me to carry around all that loot, I decided to hide away much of it in all kinds of places.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with that,” noted Twilight as she adjusted her glasses. “And if what I’ve heard is true, you’ve since been allowed to keep all those stashes for yourself, despite the illegal means you had used to collect them.”

“Yes, that’s all true,” confirmed Sunset. She paced around in various directions and continued glancing around as she explained, “Although I would’ve preferred to return everything I stole, I guess the authorities acknowledged that I had stolen so much from so many different places that it would’ve been impossible to properly determine where all that loot should be returned to, and after how essential one of those stashes had helped me during that Memory Stone incident, the law and I reluctantly agreed to let me keep everything.”

“Informative, but what exactly does this have to do with us being out here in the forest on the outskirts of the Winter Village?” asked Rarity.

“I typically hid at least one secret stash in every single region of the Lego World,” replied Sunset as she continued slowly wandering around aimlessly, forcing her friends to follow after her. “The one that I hid in this region is unique in that it’s not just a pile of cash. The vast majority of it happens to be a bunch of various toys that were originally intended to be given out to all the little kids in the area during a previous holiday season.”

Fluttershy gasped in shock and asked, “Are you saying you… r-r-robbed all those poor innocent children of their holiday gifts?”

“Why would you do something like that?” asked Pinkie in disbelief.

Sunset shrugged and answered, “Just to see if I could, I guess.” She then sighed and shamefully continued, “As you can imagine, I’ve felt really bad about that ever since I stopped being mean to everyone. So I figured since we’re in the area, this would be a perfect opportunity for me to redeem myself by not only offering all those toys to this year’s gift giveaway, but also spend the loot I stashed away with it to buy even more toys for the giveaway.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” said Applejack in approval with a smile.

“Indeed,” agreed Rarity. “Such a gesture of generosity is sure to bring goodwill to any who might recall that heinous past misdeed of yours.”

“And if there’s anything we can do to help, you can count on us,” assured Rainbow Dash.

“Thanks, girls,” said Sunset with a smile. “I knew you’d be with me on this.” She then frowned as she glanced around yet again and quietly muttered, “Now if only I could figure out where I left it…”

“Are you saying you can’t remember where to find that stash?” asked Twilight worriedly.

“Oh, no, I do know where to find it,” assured Sunset. “Specifically, I know exactly where it is in relation to three landmarks.” She put her hands on her hips as she glanced around at the surrounding snow-covered open woodland and stated in disbelief, “But the thing is, even though I’m sure this is the right area, I can’t seem to find any of those landmarks.”

“Maybe we can help out,” offered Applejack with a friendly smile. “What kind of landmarks are ya lookin’ for?”

Sunset turned to her friends and explained, “First of all, I know for sure that it should be in the woods just west of the village, which is where we are now.” She pointed eastward past her gathered friends back towards the village. “Right at the edge of the village, there should be an outhouse not far behind one of those cabins right over there.” She next pointed to her left. “To the northwest, there should be a beaver lodge in the middle of a frozen pond.” She then pointed to her right. “And to the southwest, among the trees over there should be one with my initials carved into the side of it.” She turned back to her friends and continued, “Those three landmarks should create a perfect triangle, and right in the exact center of that triangle should be the site of my secret stash, buried underground.”

“So if we can find those three landmarks, we can find your lost stash,” concluded Rainbow Dash.

“In that case,” stated Twilight, “I suggest we split up so each group can focus on locating just one particular landmark.”

“Ooh! Ooh! I’d like to go look for that tree!” Pinkie Pie eagerly offered.

“And with my super speed, we’ll find it in no time!” boasted Rainbow Dash.

“I’d prefer to search for that beaver lodge,” Fluttershy spoke up.

“I’m sure I can find ways to help out with that,” offered Twilight.

Applejack turned to Rarity and noted, “Then Ah guess that just leaves us to find that outhouse.”

Rarity let out a groan of disgust and complained, “Do I really have to?”

“Not to worry,” assured Applejack. “Ah’ve got somethin’ in mind that should make this search go much easier.”

“And while the rest of you search for those landmarks,” stated Sunset, “I’ll go grab some flags so we can mark the locations of those landmarks, if you’re able to find them. I’ll also grab some shovels so that if we do find the site, we can start digging right away.”

“Alright!” declared Rainbow Dash with enthusiasm. “We’ve all got our game plan, so now let’s get out there and find that secret stash!”

Rainbow and Pinkie quickly headed off further into the woods, while Fluttershy and Twilight made their way into the other side of the woods. As Applejack led Rarity back into the village, Sunset also returned to the village on a different path. The team of seven best friends was now on a mission to recover Sunset’s lost secret stash.

“Castor Canadensis,” stated Twilight contently as she and Fluttershy walked further into the woods. “The beaver is a semiaquatic rodent identifiable by their long incisors, webbed feet, and flat tails. Their preferred habitats are typically woodland streams and rivers, ideal environments for gathering small trees and large branches with which to build dams in order to create a pond, where they are most protected from predators. Not to mention, those ponds generally provide numerous ecological benefits and higher biodiversity.”

“I think it’s amazing how their works as nature’s engineers can have such a positive impact on the environment,” noted Fluttershy.

“It sure is,” agreed Twilight. “Did you know that the largest recorded beaver dam has a total length of over eight hundred fifty meters?”

“Wow!” responded Fluttershy in astonishment. “I bet it must have taken those beavers many years to build that, if not multiple generations!”

Twilight giggled and remarked, “I have to say, Fluttershy, it sure is nice to be able to share some of my scientific knowledge with someone who’s genuinely interested in actually listening.”

“Why would I not?” responded Fluttershy with a smile. “I love everything involving animals! I just think it’s so fascinating how much we can learn from observing nature.”

“Despite my wide range of other scientific interests, that’s an appreciation I share, too,” acknowledged Twilight. “We should consider setting aside some time for just the two of us to discuss all kinds of things in the field of biology.”

“I’m looking forward to it already,” agreed Fluttershy.

Twilight and Fluttershy continued walking through the wintery woodland. Less than a minute after they finished their conversation, Fluttershy stopped and stared at something over to her left.

Twilight also stopped walking and asked, “What is it, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy gestured for Twilight to follow as the shy girl began walking towards whatever it was that caught her attention. It wasn’t long before they came over a slight rise in the land and saw on the other side was a frozen pond, and in the middle of that was what seemed like a large mound of sticks and mud rising up above the ice. In addition, they also saw three beavers roaming around near a hole in the ice close to the nearby shore.

“Look!” Fluttershy called out cheerfully as she pointed at the structure in the pond. “There’s the beaver lodge!” She then began to quickly make her way towards the shore of that frozen pond.

“Really?” asked Twilight in confusion. She glanced back and quietly noted, “We’re pretty far away from the village…” She turned her attention back to Fluttershy and skeptically asked, “Are you sure this is the right one?”

Fluttershy ignored Twilight and rushed over to the three beavers, but as soon as those beavers noticed her, they suddenly began angrily chattering at her. Thanks to her magical power allowing her to understand them, she hesitated for a moment before she spoke up, “S-Sorry! We didn’t mean to disturb you. We were just trying to find the location of your lodge. You see, one of my friends used it as a landmark to help her find something she left behind.”

One of the beavers stepped forward and chattered in a seemingly irritated tone.

“Oh? Really?” asked Fluttershy in confusion.

That beaver chattered some more and made a few gestures with his forelegs.

Fluttershy nodded in acknowledgement, then turned back to Twilight and explained, “It turns out these beavers made this lodge and pond only this past summer. The old lodge they used to live in was much closer to the village, but they kept getting bothered too much by the villagers, so they tore it down and drained the old pond, then built a new dam and lodge further upstream.”

“So that means this lodge is not the correct site for one of Sunset’s landmarks,” concluded Twilight in disappointment. After another thought quickly crossed her mind, she then asked, “Do any of them happen to know where the old lodge used to be?”

Fluttershy turned back to the beavers and asked, “Could you show us the site of your old lodge? We promise to not bother you anymore once we know where that is.”

The three beavers huddled together and chattered quietly amongst themselves. After almost a minute, the beaver that had spoken with Fluttershy turned away from the huddle and scurried past her.

Fluttershy smiled at Twilight and explained, “Zeke has agreed to take us there, so we’d better follow after him.”

Twilight was momentarily confused by the name that particular beaver seemed to identify himself as, but then she just shrugged and spoke up, “All right, then. Lead the way!”

Zeke the beaver scurried down the shallow hillside with Fluttershy and Twilight following close behind. As they ran, Zeke would occasionally stop and chatter something quick before continuing ahead.

“He says they ended up redirecting the stream,” explained Fluttershy, “so there won’t be any water at the old site.”

“I guess that explains why the original site was so hard to find,” noted Twilight.

The two girls followed the beaver though the snow-covered forest for a few more minutes. Eventually, Zeke came to a stop atop a small mound, sniffed around it for a minute, then pointed down at it as he turned to Fluttershy and chattered something quick.

“This is it!” declared Fluttershy excitedly. “This is the site we’re looking for!”

Twilight turned her attention to the beaver and contently stated, “Thank you so much, Zeke. I promise that as soon as we find the other landmarks and grab what we came here for, you’ll never have to worry about us ever again.”

Zeke nodded in approval, then turned back and began scurrying back towards the new lodge.

Once that beaver was out of sight, Fluttershy glanced around — noting that they were in fact close enough to the edge of the village to see some nearby structures — then turned to Twilight and asked, “So, um… now what?”

“I guess we just wait here until Sunset returns with those flags,” replied Twilight with a shrug. “Until we have a way of marking the site, we can’t afford to lose track of where it is.”

“Makes sense to me,” agreed Fluttershy with a nod.

Pinkie Pie, with her typical cheerful smile on her face, stood in the middle of the woodland and watched as Rainbow Dash used her magical super speed to rush from tree to tree and quickly checked for any markings on any of them.

Whoosh! “No.” Whoosh! “No.” Whoosh! “No.” Whoosh! “No.” Whoosh! “No.”

“Keep it up, Dash!” Pinkie cried out excitedly. “You’re doing great!”

Rainbow scoffed and irritably retorted, “I wish! I’ve lost count of how many trees I’ve checked and I still haven’t found any sign of the one we’re looking for.” She then turned to Pinkie and raised an eyebrow. “Besides, you’re not exactly doing much to help me out here.”

“Oh, I’d love to, Rainbow,” responded Pinkie with that blissful smile still on her face, “but you seemed so confident that you’d find it in ten seconds flat that I decided to simply stay out of your way.”

Rainbow let out a sigh of frustration as she rolled her eyes and facepalmed. “Fine,” she grumbled. “I’ll check another part of the forest. You keep searching in this area.” She then zoomed off through the woods as a rainbow motion blur.

Pinkie hummed a cheerful tune to herself as she skipped towards a random nearby tree. As she inspected the trunk and found no markings, she frowned and muttered, “Wait… did Dash already check this tree?” She glanced around at some of the other nearby trees and scratched the back of her head. “Maybe I should’ve payed more attention…”

Whoosh!

Rainbow Dash suddenly arrived right beside Pinkie and had a look of concern on her face. “I think we might have a problem in that next area,” she reported before zooming off back in the direction she just came from.

Pinkie stared blankly at where Rainbow had just stood, then just shrugged and followed after her at a more modest running speed. About a minute later, she was a little surprised as she came across a small clearing in the woods with tree stumps scattered all over the place. “Whoa. Looks like there’s been some logging going on here recently,” she noted. “Which I guess kinda makes sense when you consider that a lot of cabins in the village are made of logs.”

As the two girls looked around at the clearing in front of them, their gazes eventually fell on a nearby stack of logs lying on the ground. They both glanced at each other, then quickly made their way over to those logs.

“Please no markings, please no markings…” pleaded Rainbow Dash quietly as she and Pinkie approached the logs. She inspected the log on top of the stack and, sure enough, close to one end of that log was an etching deep into the bark in the shape of the letters S-S. She let out a roar of frustration and beat her fist against the side of that log. “Just our luck,” she grumbled. “Now we’ll never know where this landmark is supposed to be!”

Pinkie frowned and tapped her chin as she thought deeply for a moment. She then smiled and snapped her hand. “I got it!” she cheerfully spoke up as she pulled out her phone. “I’ll just call a guy I know who happens to be a super expert on trees. If there’s anybody who can help us figure out where this tree used to stand, it’s this guy.”

“I don’t think a tree expert is gonna be of much help to us in this situation,” muttered Rainbow skeptically.

“Trust me,” insisted Pinkie as she tapped away on her phone, “this guy isn’t just any tree expert. This guy is the biggest source of know-how on all thing wood, trees, and sticks. This guy’s as obsessed with this stuff as Maud is with rocks.” As she held out her phone and awaited a response on it, she casually added, “I should know. He happens to be Maud’s boyfriend.”

Rainbow gave Pinkie a blank stare and raised an eyebrow. “Maud has a boyfriend?” she asked in both confusion and astonishment.

Pinkie ignored Rainbow’s question as a live image came up on her phone, showing the face of a minifig with light brown skin, a short dark brown hair piece on his head, and a dull expression on his face. “Hi, Mudbriar!” she cheerfully greeted with a grin and a wave of a hand.

“Greetings, Pinkie Pie,” responded Mudbriar on the phone in a monotone voice. “I must confess that I never expected I would ever receive a video call from you, especially in light of your questionable behavior the last time we personally met.”

Pinkie giggled awkwardly as she tried to turn away from Rainbow Dash in a futile effort to hide her embarrassment. “Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure we’ve got nothing left to argue about after what happened back then,” noted Pinkie with a shaky smile. She then dismissively waved her free hand between her face and her phone as she swiftly spoke up, “But that’s not important right now. I actually could really use some of your tree expertise right about now. You see, one of my friends is trying to find something she hid somewhere a long time ago and the only way to find it is to locate some nearby landmarks, one of which happens to be a tree with her initials carved into it.” She then turned the phone around to show Mudbriar the log with the initials carved into it. “Unfortunately, we just discovered that tree was recently cut down, as you can see.” She then turned the phone back to her face. “Obviously, this makes it a little tricky to figure out where that old landmark is supposed to be. Do you happen to know if there’s any way we can figure out where this tree used to stand?”

Rainbow Dash crossed her arms and impatiently grumbled, “This is a waste of our time.”

Mudbriar turned his gaze upwards and remained silent for a few seconds, then looked forward again and responded, “Technically, there is a way to determine the exact site of where that tree once stood. First of all, you’ll notice that the carved initials are close to one end of the log. I’m going to assume your friend carved them near the base of the tree, as I seriously doubt she would go through the overly excessive effort of climbing to the very top of a tall tree just to set a barely noticeable landmark for some other site that would be relevant only to her. Anyway, take a look at that end of the log.”

Pinkie walked around to face the end of the stack of logs and turned her phone around the show Mudbriar the end of the log of interest.

“You will notice there is a pattern of concentric rings on that surface. These tree rings indicate the unique lifelong history of that tree’s growth rate, year after year. Wider rings indicate years of abundant growth, while narrower rings indicate years of lesser growth. It’s basic dendrochronology, really. For the purposes of your search, you will need a way to precisely record the exact pattern of those tree rings. If you can then find a tree stump on which the tree rings are a perfect match to the ones on this log, then you will have found the exact site of where that tree once stood.”

“Wow!” remarked Pinkie excitedly as she turned the phone to her face again. “That’s a great idea! Thank you so much for your help! I’ll let you know latter how it turns out. Oh, and say hi to Maud for me. Happy holidays!” She then ended the video call and put away her phone.

“I don’t know, Pinkie,” muttered Rainbow Dash skeptically as she stared at the patterns of rings of the end of the other logs on that stack. “They all look the same to me.”

“You mean like all those white towels Rarity brought to the beach that one time?” quipped Pinkie. “Just because you can’t look hard enough to see any difference doesn’t mean that nobody else can figure it out either.”

“Whatever…” grumbled Rainbow as she rolled her eyes.

“Now let’s see…” muttered Pinkie thoughtfully as she stared closely at the pattern of tree rings on the log of interest. “How are we gonna make a perfect copy of these rings that’ll be easy to carry around with us? Hmm…” After a few seconds, Pinkie removed her hair piece and stated, “I’d better check my inventory.” She then reached into the underside of that magenta hair piece and began pulling out and tossing aside all kinds of random objects, such as an air horn, a teddy bear, a steering wheel, a toaster, and a kayak paddle.

Somehow, all of those random items ended up being tossed towards Rainbow Dash, who was forced to dodge each of them as they were flung through the air. She successfully dodged all of those first five items and briefly glanced back at them in confusion, only to then suddenly get smacked in the face with a rubber chicken. She held out the floppy yellow object and asked, “Why do you always seem to carry one of these around?”

Pinkie just shrugged and replied, “Because it’s funny.” The next item she pulled out was a cupcake with grey frosting on it, to which Pinkie excitedly remarked, “Hey! It’s that special cupcake I misplaced three weeks ago! I was wondering where it went.” She then tossed that cupcake into her mouth and quickly ate the whole thing in one bite, then resumed digging through her seemingly limitless inventory storage.

Rainbow Dash tossed aside the rubber chicken and placed her hands on her hips as she looked around impatiently. When her gaze fell on a certain kind of object not far away, she began to smile.

“Come on,” grumbled Pinkie Pie as she pulled out and tossed aside a plunger from her hair inventory. “There’s gotta be something in here I can use to make a perfect copy of those tree rings.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Rainbow Dash spoke up contently as she began walking away. “Why bother trying to make a perfect copy when we can just take the real thing with us?”

Pinkie glanced back and forth between Rainbow and the log with a baffled look on her face before she pointed out, “Uh, in case you haven’t noticed, the real thing happens to be part of a really big and heavy log. Even if we had Applejack’s super strength to help out, there’s no way we’d be able to easily carry it around to check which stump it matches with.”

“It’s actually pretty simple,” explained Rainbow Dash as she picked up the object of interest to her — which happened to be a chainsaw — and began walking back to the stack of logs. “Let’s just say that I’m sure no one will care if we take only a one inch section away from the end of that log.” Once she arrived at the logs, she held up the chainsaw and gave a cocky grin as she added, “And I’m sure no one will mind if I borrow this thing for a little bit.” She then started up the chainsaw, revved up the motor, and promptly began cutting into the log of interest.

Pinkie quickly put her hair piece back on and backed away from the logs to avoid getting showered with sawdust flying through the air. Rainbow Dash didn’t mind getting coated in all that sawdust as she continued using that powerful tool to slice through the log, all while she had confident grin on her face.

After a little over a full minute, Rainbow Dash finished slicing through the log, and the one inch thick section fell away and landed flat on the snowy ground near the base of the stack of logs. She then shut off the chainsaw and set it down on a nearby stump as she let out a light cackle of triumph. She reached down and easily flipped the log segment over onto its edge, but then let out a grunt of pain as it proved to be too heavy to completely pick up off the ground. After taking a moment to catch her breath, she sourly concluded, “Fine, we’ll just roll this thing along the ground.”

“Great work, Dash!” praised Pinkie Pie. “Now all we have to do is find the stump that perfectly matches with this log section and we’ll be one step closer to uncovering… la caleta!”

Right after Pinkie dramatically spoke that final word, there was a noise of a rapid strumming of a guitar. Pinkie and Rainbow turned to the source of that brief musical tune and saw sitting on the ground against another stack of logs was a guy wearing a red sombrero, a colorful poncho over his torso, a black large mustache piece around his neck, and holding an acoustic guitar in his hands. This stranger waved at the two girls and cheerfully greeted, “Feliz Navidad!”

Rainbow and Pinkie stared blankly at the unexpected stranger for a moment, then glanced at each other. Rainbow Dash then shook her head and grumbled, “Let’s just roll out and get this over with.” She then began rolling the log section along the ground as she headed off towards a different part of the clearing. Pinkie just smiled and shrugged, then followed after her friend.

“If I’m not mistaken,” Rarity spoke up as she followed Applejack through the middle of the Winter Village, “Sunset specified that the outhouse among her landmarks was located at the outer edge of the village. Perhaps you might care to explain why we are not searching anywhere close to that area at this time?”

“We’re just gonna grab somethin’ that’ll make it easier to find the site of that outhouse,” explained Applejack. “Once we’ve got it, then we’ll head on back over there to start searchin’.”

“We’re looking for an outhouse, darling,” argued Rarity. “I think such a structure should be fairly obvious to identify.”

“An outhouse ain’t like one of those porta-potties ya normally see in the city,” Applejack pointed out. “It’s basically a big pit in the ground with a shack built on top of it. Once the pit eventually gets filled in, the shack is torn down an’ the pit is covered up. Mah guess is that’s just what happened to Sunset’s landmark, in which case our only hope of findin’ that site is to find the filled-in pit underneath where it once stood, an’ Ah can think of only one tool that’ll give us a realistic chance of findin’ it.”

Applejack stopped in front of one particular shop and smiled as she faced it. Rarity stopped beside her and saw the sign hanging from the side of the building that read “Prospector’s Hardware”. Rarity raised an eyebrow as she turned to Applejack and incredulously asked, “Surely you don’t expect me to do any extensive digging in the dirt? You know how adverse I am to such intensive and filthy manual labor.”

Applejack chuckled and assured, “Relax, Rarity. We’re not here for picks an’ shovels. Ah’ve got mah eye on somethin’ a li’l more high-tech.” She walked forward, opened the door into the shop, and stepped inside.

Rarity followed Applejack inside and glanced around at the contents of the shop. In addition to countless shovels and pickaxes, there were also numerous gold pans, metal detectors, basic sluice boxes, and some small generators and water pumps. This first impression left Rarity doubtful there was anything here that could help them locate the former site of an outhouse, let alone anything that she might consider “high-tech”.

“Ah-ha! There it is,” Applejack spoke up as she walked over to something that Rarity would best describe as resembling a small lawn mower. “This here’s a ground penetratin’ radar,” explained Applejack. “These things are used to scan up to several feet underground, allowin’ us to find any large objects without havin’ to scoop out any dirt.”

“Yes, I’ve occasionally heard of this form of modern technology,” acknowledged Rarity as she inspected that special tool. “Though I have my doubts that either of us could afford to purchase something like this.”

“Yeah, same here,” confessed Applejack. “Ah was kinda hopin’ we could arrange to borrow this thing for a li’l bit, then return it once we found that outhouse site.”

“Are you certain this shop would permit that?” asked Rarity.

“Don’t count on it, partner!” spoke up the store’s clerk as he approached the two girls. With his brown pants, black vest, and big cowboy hat, he seemed like someone from the Old West Region rather than the Winter Village. “In this here store, if ya break it, ya buy it, an’ if ya ain’t willin’ to pay up for this here model, then Ah can’t let ya just scurry off with it.”

“But sir, this thing would really save us a lotta effort,” pleaded Applejack. “Ah promise we’ll be real careful with it an’ return it as soon as we’re done usin’ it.”

The store clerk shook his head and firmly stated, “Ah can’t just take ya fer your word like that. Either ya buy the darned thing or y’all can high tail it outta here.”

“Perhaps you might be interested in an arrangement of collateral,” suggested Rarity as she stepped forward.

The store clerk raised an eyebrow and asked, “What are ya willin’ to offer?”

Rarity removed the tote bag from over her shoulder and held it out as she replied, “This high-end custom designed specialty tote bag, along with all of my possessions stored within.” She then reached into the bag and quickly removed a few plastic cards. “With the obvious exception of my credit cards. I’ve heard plenty of identity theft horror stories to know better.”

The store clerk took a hard look at that bag for a moment, then looked up at Rarity and asked, “Ya really sure ya wanna do that?”

“We believe that ground penetrating radar will be of significant assistance towards helping one of our friends locate something of great importance,” explained Rarity. “Never let it be said that I’m unwilling to make sacrifices for the sake of my friends.”

“Ah’d rather have some actual business done with y’all,” muttered the clerk in displeasure.

“Alright, ya know what? Throw in a purchase of that auger over there an’ ya got yourself a deal,” offered Applejack as she pointed at the simple drilling tool that she believed would be both affordable and possibly useful.

“Done,” agreed the clerk as he held out his hand.

With the deal agreed upon, Applejack handed over twenty dollars for the auger and Rarity handed over her tote bag as a loan in exchange for borrowing the ground penetrating radar device. Once the exchange was complete, Applejack picked up the radar device and carried it out the door, with Rarity following behind with that newly purchased auger in her hands.

A few minutes later, the two girls returned to the western edge of the village. As Applejack set down the ground penetrating radar device behind one of the cabins, Rarity asked, “Have you used one of these before?”

“Nope,” answered Applejack as she switched on the display screen atop the handlebar.

“What?” asked Rarity aghast. “Then how can you be so sure this device will be of such vital assistance in our search?”

“Mah family an’ I watch a lotta shows on TV where they occasionally use one of these things,” explained Applejack. “From what Ah know, all we gotta do is push this thing around like we’re mowin’ the lawn, an’ this screen will show us a color-coded image of what’s underneath us as we move it around. For this search, what we’re lookin’ for is a large area of disturbed ground, which should show up as a jumbled mess rather than the smooth layers of virgin ground.” She then furrowed her brow as she stared at the settings being displayed on the screen. “If only Ah could figure out how to get this thing goin’ properly…”

“Perhaps you should allow me to handle this piece of advanced technology,” insisted Rarity as she handed the auger over to Applejack. “After all, my designer tote bag is being used as collateral for this device, so I should have a say in how it’s utilized.”

Applejack was momentarily stunned as she was practically shoved aside with that auger shoved into her hands. “Uh… sure,” she responded with uncertainty. “Ah guess ya can go ahead an’ try it out.”

Rarity took a moment to study the options that were displayed on the screen before she tapped one of the buttons on the side of it. She smiled in satisfaction as the screen went dark with the exception of a notification to begin the scanning process. With this device now seemingly all set to begin the search, she proceeded to push the radar forward along the ground, much like how she had observed her father mowing the lawn throughout her childhood.

Applejack walked beside Rarity and guided her across the ground while Rarity kept her focus on the colorful images being displayed on the screen. As they slowly made their way past one cabin after another, the displayed images were mostly of just smooth layers that were to be expected of undisturbed soil, with only the occasional minor irregularities very close to the surface.

After several minutes of careful searching, they eventually reached an area where the smooth layers on the screen suddenly transitioned into a scattered mess that extended from the surface down to just over halfway down the screen. “Oh!” Rarity spoke up and suddenly stopped. She pointed at the screen and asked, “Is this what we’re looking for?”

Applejack glanced over at the screen. What she saw certainly seemed promising, but as she knew from how she had seen this device in action, one could never be certain of what was really in the ground based solely on those radar images. “Only one way to be sure,” responded Applejack before she stuck her auger into the ground and began twisting it around to start drilling down.

Rarity pushed the ground penetrating radar device a little further ahead to provide her friend some space to work.

It took Applejack about half a minute to twist the auger as far down as it would go, then she yanked it straight upwards, pulling out a sample of the soil underneath. She brought the tip of the auger close to her face and took a sniff of the sample, then immediately recoiled in disgust. “Eyup,” she spoke up with a slightly strained voice. “That’s definitely the stench of an outhouse alright. Hoo-wee!”

The awful stench quickly reached Rarity, who practically gagged before she complained, “Ugh! Was that really necessary?!”

“Hey, at least now there’s no doubt we found the site we’re lookin’ for,” argued Applejack. She then stuck the auger into the ground close to the borehole she had just drilled and walked over to Rarity and the ground penetrating radar device. “Alright, now that we’re done usin’ that thing, Ah’d better return it to that hardware store right away. You stay here an’ wait for Sunset to arrive with those flags.”

“There is no way I am staying here with that horrid aroma!” insisted Rarity furiously. “Especially seeing as I don’t have my can of air freshener with me!”

Applejack rolled her eyes and declared, “Fine. You can return that thing an’ Ah’ll wait here for Sunset.”

“Fine by me!” Rarity shot back as she immediately began pushing the radar device back towards the village. “After all, I should rather take back my custom designer tote bag and its contents personally to ensure that clerk has committed no foul play of any sort!”

Applejack watched her friend storm off with the borrowed radar device, then shook her head in disapproval as she walked back to the recently discovered site of where an outhouse once stood.

Sunset Shimmer returned to the open woodland just west of the edge of the village by the middle of the afternoon. She had been able to gather three flagpoles the height of a minifig to mark the locations of the three landmarks and seven shovels for herself and her friends, but since all of that proved to be a little cumbersome to carry around in her arms, she had also obtained a small red wagon that she was now using to haul those supplies around. She still wasn’t quite sure where her secret stash was possibly located, so she pretty much had no choice but to just wander around the area and hope that some of her friends were successful in locating at least one of those landmarks.

“Sunset!” cried out the voice of Twilight Sparkle. “Over here!”

Sunset followed the source of her friend’s voice and quickly made her way towards a small clearing, where Twilight and Fluttershy stood atop a shallow mound in the center of it.

“The beavers built a new lodge further upstream,” explained Twilight, “and according to what they told Fluttershy, their old lodge used to be located right on this site.”

“Nice work, girls!” praised Sunset. “I knew those landmarks had to have been somewhere in this area, and now you’ve proven that at least one of them definitely used to be here.” She then grabbed one of her flags and firmly jabbed the pole into the ground atop the mound. “One down, two more to go.”

“Sunset!” cried out the voice of Applejack. “Over here!”

Sunset followed that other voice to some open ground behind a row of cabins, where Applejack stood alone beside an auger stuck into the ground. Since the site of the old beaver lodge was now marked, Twilight and Fluttershy were now free to follow after her to meet up with the apple farmer.

“Ah figured that ol’ outhouse must’ve been torn down,” explained Applejack, “so Ah borrowed a ground penetratin’ radar to look around an’ found a lotta disturbed ground right here. Ah then used that auger to take a quick soil sample an’ Ah can say for sure there used to be an outhouse here.”

Sunset waved her hand around in front of her face in disgust and remarked, “Sure smells like it alright. Whew!” She quickly grabbed one of her two remaining flags and firmly jabbed the pole into the ground beside the auger. She walked back to her wagon, but then suddenly paused for a moment before she turned back to Applejack and asked, “You borrowed a ground penetrating radar?”

“Sure did,” confirmed Applejack proudly. “Rarity had to put up some collateral to make it happen, but it was worth it.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow and asked, “And it never occurred to either of you to consider using it to just directly find the site of my secret stash instead of that old outhouse?”

Applejack’s expression of confidence quickly fell as she hesitantly responded, “Uh…”

It was at this moment that Rarity returned, the radar device now traded in for her designer tote bag. With all of her personal items within that bag now back in her possession, the very first thing she did upon arrival was pull out a can of air freshener and vigorously sprayed it all over the site of that former outhouse.

The scent of that air freshener was applied so thickly that the other girls started to cough from the irritation it caused them. “Jeeze, Rarity,” wheezed Applejack. “Ah think ya just made the air ‘round here even more toxic.”

“You can never have too much air freshener,” argued Rarity as she finally finished spraying the air and stuck that can back into her bag.

Before yet another lengthy argument could break out between the farmer and the fashionista, Sunset spoke up, “Okay, so that’s two out of three landmarks identified. Great work, girls! Now let’s go see if Rainbow and Pinkie had any luck finding that last one.” She then grabbed her wagon and hauled it behind her as she walked away in what she believed was the approximate direction of that third and final landmark. With the first two landmarks now identified by those flags, Twilight, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rarity followed after their friend.

The five girls soon arrived in a clearing full of tree stumps, where they found Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie apparently hauling around a wide and short log segment as they wandered from one tree stump to another.

“This is getting ridiculous, Pinkie!” complained Rainbow. “Can’t we just pick one of them at random and call it good enough?”

“No, because we still won’t know for sure if that’s really the site of Sunset’s landmark,” argued Pinkie. “For all we know, identifying the wrong stump could throw the whole search over a hundred feet off course!”

“I’m telling you, Pinkie, this is hopeless!” grumbled Rainbow, looking visibly exhausted from rolling that big log section around. “We’ll never be able to figure this out!”

“We will find the right tree stump,” insisted Pinkie. “The one that perfectly matches that tree slice we took from the log has to be around here somewhere.”

“Fine!” snapped Rainbow furiously. “If you’re so confident, then maybe you should take a crack at it!” She then rolled the log section directly towards Pinkie.

The one inch thick and two foot wide log segment knocked Pinkie over backwards and rolled between her legs and up onto her torso. “Ow, my lasagna,” muttered Pinkie in a strained voice as that heavy log segment pressed down on her body.

Applejack quickly rushed over and effortlessly lifted the log segment off of Pinkie. As the rest of the girls also arrived, Twilight spoke up, “Pinkie, lasagna is the name of a meal dish, not a major organ.”

“I know that, silly,” responded Pinkie as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a large serving dish with a fully cooked lasagna on it that was now smooshed flat across the middle. “I’m just saying my lasagna’s ruined and now I’ll have to make something else for dinner tonight.”

Twilight raised her hand and opened her mouth as she was about to ask something, but hesitated upon realizing who exactly she was speaking to, so she reluctantly lowered her hand and remained silent.

Applejack continued to hold up the log segment in her grasp as she turned to Rainbow Dash and asked, “So, uh, any reason why you’re carryin’ this thing around?”

Rainbow Dash sighed in frustration and explained, “The tree that Sunset marked was cut down recently, so Pinkie called some tree expert who told us we could figure out where that tree used to stand by finding a perfect match in the tree rings between that log and one of these stumps. I sliced off that section so we could carry around a perfect sample from the log to match with these stumps, but I just don’t see how that’ll be even possible. They all look the same to me.”

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss a search for an identical match, darling,” retorted Rarity as she walked over to Applejack and began closely inspecting the log section in her grasp. “One must simply have an eye for detail and an abundance of patience.”

While Fluttershy helped Pinkie back up onto her feet, Rarity took some time to carefully study every subtle imperfection in the pattern of rings she could identify. Once the fashionista was confident she knew what to look for, she turned away and began inspecting every tree stump in the area. The rest of the girls silently followed after her, anxious to find out if she could succeed where Rainbow and Pinkie had failed.

After several minutes of searching over a dozen different stumps, Rarity smiled and gestured for Applejack to bring that log segment closer. She glanced back and forth between the stump and the log to double check the tree ring patterns on both wooden surfaces, then gently guided Applejack into rotating the log section around and then finally setting it down atop the stump.

“Et voilà!” declared Rarity triumphantly. “A precisely perfect match!”

Sunset grabbed the last flag from her wagon and stepped forward. She looked closely at the stump and the log segment resting on top of it and was astonished to see that from every angle, the outer edge really did seem to be an absolutely perfect match. She smiled and stated, “If you’re really that sure about it, then I guess this is the one.” She then firmly jabbed the flagpole into the ground beside that tree stump. “And with that, all three landmarks have now been located!”

The rest of the girls all cheered in excitement at this remarkable accomplishment.

Once all the cheering calmed down, Applejack turned to Sunset and asked, “Now what?”

“These three landmarks form a perfect triangle,” explained Sunset, “and my secret stash should be buried at the exact center of that triangle. To identify where that is, I suggest we tie a string to each flagpole and rung those strings out to the exact center between the other two flagpoles. The three strings should all cross together in a single location, and that’ll mark the site of where we need to dig.”

“I can take care of that!” volunteered Pinkie Pie excitedly. She swiftly removed her hair piece, then pulled out and tossed aside a banana split and a pogo stick before she triumphantly held up three rolls of ribbons in different colors. After putting her hair piece back on, she tied the end of the blue ribbon to the flagpole beside the stump, then quickly unrolled it as she ran off towards the space that was equally between the other two flagpoles.

The rest of Pinkie’s friends watched as she dropped the roll of blue ribbon, ran over to the flagpole behind the cabins, and tied a red ribbon to it. After she unrolled and ran that ribbon out to the space between the other two flagpoles, she dropped the roll of red ribbon and ran over to the flagpole on the mound. She tied a green ribbon to that final flagpole, unrolled and ran that ribbon out to the space between the other two flagpoles, and dropped that roll of green ribbon on the spot.

With that task now complete, the seven Equestria Girls made their way towards the site where those three ribbons crossed over each other. “This is it,” declared Sunset in awe. “This must be the spot.” She let go of her wagon and retrieved one of the shovels in it. “Everyone, let’s get digging!”

The rest of the girls each quickly grabbed a shovel and stuck them into the ground around that central site, then began scooping out dirt and soil from under the snow-covered surface. Some worked faster than others, but they were all equally committed to uncovering that lost secret stash.

“Dig a hole, dig a hole, dig a hole!” said Pinkie cheerfully as she flung shovelful after shovelful of dirt away from the dig site.

After several minutes, the girls had created a shallow pit in the ground, but had yet to find any signs of a secret stash hidden below. Fluttershy paused and wiped her brow in exhaustion, then stuck her shovel back into the dirt.

Thunk!

Everyone immediately froze as soon as they heard that noise. “Oh!” a startled Fluttershy spoke up. “I think I hit something!”

The rest of the group of friends quickly gathered around Fluttershy and began digging in that particular location, where they quickly heard that same impact noise repeated with every strike of their shovels. They had definitely struck something solid.

It took the seven girls a couple minutes to fully uncover what turned out to be a wooden trap door in the ground. Sunset stepped forward and pulled on the handle to open the trap door, exposing a ladder that descended down into the darkness below. “This looks promising…” sang Sunset with a smile as she pulled out a flashlight, switched it on, and began climbing down the ladder.

Sunset climbed down only a dozen rungs of the ladder before she reached the bottom. She then turned around and aimed her flashlight ahead. Right in front of her was a large chamber that was packed full of giftwrapped boxes of various shapes and sizes, along with a few briefcases and sacks, the latter of which had a few gold coins spilling out from some of them. This was all she needed to see to immediately recognize the contents of this chamber. She laughed triumphantly and excitedly proclaimed, “We found it!”

Up on the surface, all of Sunset’s friends cheered and danced with enthusiasm upon hearing their search for the lost secret stash of the Winter Village had been a complete success.

Later that evening, a large crowd had gathered around the center of the Winter Village, where the Equestria Girls were handing out all of the gifts from Sunset’s secret stash to all the children in the village. The numerous children were all very thrilled to be receiving so many gifts before the proper holiday, and they eagerly waited in several lines for their turn to be handed one holiday gift. While many were excited with what they got, not all of them were entirely satisfied with the surprises they received, so Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie helped those kids find other displeased kids to trade for more desirable gifts.

Some residents had remembered Sunset’s heinous crime from a few years ago, so it really warmed their hearts to see her going through all this effort to make up for her awful past behavior. As she had promised, Sunset had also spent the sacks full of coins and briefcases full of cash on even more gifts for the kids, practically buying out the entire inventories of many toy shops. Some local newspaper reporters had even done a few interviews with each of the girls, all of whom were very proud of this wonderful deed they were doing for the entire village.

After the last of the gifts had been given away and words of gratitude had been shared with all of the villagers, the seven girls finally had a moment to themselves to reflect on the positive outcome of this day.

“This sure has been a productive day, hasn’t it?” remarked Applejack.

“Indeed,” agreed Rarity. “I must say, this act of generosity far exceeds anything I could have ever envisioned myself capable of accomplishing.”

“And to think this was all possible because Sunset finally decided to do something good with all that stuff she stole a long time ago,” quipped Rainbow Dash

“Best redemption ever!” Pinkie Pie excitedly declared.

Twilight turned to Sunset and stated with a smile, “I’ve very proud of you for giving away the entirety of that secret stash to brighten up everyone’s holiday.”

With a faint smile on her face, Sunset reached into her pocket and muttered, “Actually…”

All of Sunset’s friends dropped their smiles and looked to her in confusion. “What is it?” asked Fluttershy.

“I know I promised to spend all of the loot on more gifts for the kids, but, well…” replied Sunset as she pulled out a small handful of green 1x2 tiles, each labeled with a white “100” on the top surface. With a slightly guilty smile on her face, she confessed, “I just couldn’t resist keeping a tiny portion of that loot, just for us.” She then began handing out those pieces of cash to her friends. “A hundred dollars for each of you.”

All of the girls initially smiled as they received that little gift of cash from their friend, muttering various words of thanks in response.

It didn’t take long before Fluttershy frowned and shamefully muttered, “I-I not sure about this. I mean, I’d much rather see this being spent with all that other money to help the kids.”

Rarity sighed and confessed, “Yes, I suppose I would prefer to donate my share towards additional charity for the children.”

“Money never buys me happiness,” remarked Pinkie Pie, “unless it ends up making someone else happy, which means I’ll be better off giving my share to the kids.”

“Ah oughta donate mah share, too,” acknowledged Applejack. “It’s just the right thing to do.”

“I already make a fortune on royalties for my inventions,” Twilight pointed out. “I can do without an additional hundred dollars.”

Everyone now turned their attention to Rainbow Dash, who looked down at her hundred dollars with an indecisive look on her face. Eventually, she smiled and shrugged as she conceded, “Oh, what the heck? I guess I’ll throw in my share, too.”

“So that’s what you’ve all decided on?” asked Sunset as she glanced between each of her friends. She glanced down at the hundred dollars in her hand, then smiled. “Well, in that case…” She turned around to face the crowd of villagers still present and held up her share of the cash as she proudly declared, “Another seven hundred dollars for the kids!”

Everyone in the village, children and adults alike, cheered in excitement at the news of one last donation of goodwill from Sunset Shimmer and her friends.

Author's Note

This short story sure turned out a lot longer than I had anticipated, which might explain why I barely managed to get it done on time. Anyway, while the basic concept of accessing a stash of toys to give away to kids is definitely inspired by the fourth of the official Equastria Girls Holiday Shorts, I decided to write an entirely original series of events on how that was accomplished, complete with all kinds of funny moments. Just two more short stories left to go in this holiday collection.

Holiday Rush

It was the final week of the holiday season in the Winter Village. Throughout this special region of the Lego World, minifigs were making their final preparations for their holiday celebrations. Nearly all of the decorations were already in place by now, and plans for the annual feasts were well underway in many households. Perhaps most importantly of all were all of the various gifts that were being purchased, acquired, or created for the purpose of being shared with friends and family. Various shops and markets all across the village were busy selling the last of their products and merchandise to those who braved the final rush to obtain any reasonable holiday gifts they could get their hands on.

Within one particular cabin, the Equestria Girls — a group of friends from Canterlot City — had gathered around the table and were sharing some idle, pleasant conversations with each other as they waited for the arrival of the only member of their group not yet present.

SLAM!

The six girls immediately snapped their attention to the front door, which opened a few seconds later to reveal Rainbow Dash standing in the doorway with a pained expression.

“Ow…” muttered Rainbow Dash as she staggered into the cabin. “If not for all these icy roads, I would’ve totally gotten here in ten seconds flat.”

“That’s why I insisted you should’ve taken the snowmobile parked out front,” reminded Sunset Shimmer as she gestured towards one of the front windows of the cabin.

“It wasn’t out there when I left for the post office,” Rainbow pointed out.

“Oh!” spoke up Pinkie Pie with realization. “That’s because I decided to go out joyriding on that thing earlier. Who knew it was possible to get a speeding ticket on one of those things?” She then casually took a sip of hot cocoa from the mug in her hand.

Rainbow stared blankly at Pinkie for a moment, then turned to the others and asked, “Do I even wanna know?”

“Probably not,” confirmed Rarity bitterly.

Rainbow sighed in displeasure and noted, “Well, the important thing is that I mailed in all of our greeting cards and they’re already being sent out to our friends and families.”

“Thank you so much for taking care of that for us, Rainbow,” praised Fluttershy.

Twilight Sparkle turned her attention to everyone around the table as she eagerly asked, “So, now that we’re all here, who wants to go first?”

While the rest of the group also smiled with anticipation, Rainbow Dash frowned and raised an eyebrow as she asked in confusion, “Uh, for what? What are we doing?”

“The secret present switcheroo!” answered Twilight excitedly as she and the other girls each pulled out a giftwrapped present and placed them onto the table.

Rainbow’s jaw dropped as she stared at the small pile of gifts that had suddenly been set out on the table. “That’s today?!” she asked in disbelief.

“Don’t you remember?” reminded Fluttershy. “We pulled names from Applejack’s boot when she forgot her hat.”

“Ya mean mah lucky boot,” added Applejack smugly.

“Uhhhhmmm…” muttered Rainbow as she awkwardly tried looking away while rubbing the back of her head.

“You forgot about this exchange, didn’t you, darling?” asked Rarity with a knowing smile.

Rainbow quickly responded awkwardly, “Oh! N-No, of course not! I, uh, did remember! Um, I just have to, uh… return something I borrowed. B-R-B!” She then immediately rushed out the doorway she had left open and sped off in a rainbow motion blur towards the village.

Sunset smiled as she turned to the rest of her friends and confidently asked, “She totally forgot about it, didn’t she?”

“Eeyup,” agreed Applejack smugly. “Definitely.”

Whoosh!

Rainbow Dash sped away from the cabin and towards the center of the village, but once again, the icy roads caused her to be unable to stop where she intended and instead slid forward until she plowed through a snowman that two kids were just putting the finishing touches on. She landed face-down on the snowy ground, then groaned as she pushed herself up and muttered, “Sorry about that.”

The two kids moaned in disappointment and walked away.

Once Rainbow was up on her feet again and had brushed the snow off her winter clothes, she groaned in disbelief and exclaimed, “I forgot! I can’t believe I forgot to get Fluttershy a present! How am I supposed to find a present in the next few minutes?!”

Rainbow Dash desperately glanced around at her surroundings, but soon smiled as a realization hit her. “Oh, yeah,” she remarked in delight. “This is the Winter Village! This place practically exports holiday gifts! I won’t let you down, Fluttershy!” With that declaration, she zoomed off to begin a quick search for any shops that might offer a reasonable gift for her animal-adoring shy friend.

The first place Rainbow chose to check was a pet supply shop, as she felt that such a place would be easy to find something Fluttershy would appreciate. Unfortunately, as soon as she got there, she was stunned to discover there was a line of people that extended outside the main door.

“A line?!” exclaimed Rainbow in disbelief. “Seriously?!”

Rainbow zoomed off to check another potential shop for a gift for her friend. The next place she came across was a clothing shop, but just like with the pet shop, there was a line that led out of the main door and extended around the corner of the building.

“An even longer line?!” shouted Rainbow in disbelief. “Come on!”

Rainbow continued to rush around the entire village, checking practically every single shop she thought could offer anything that could be a decent gift for Fluttershy. But no matter how many different places she looked — such as a bakery, a bookstore, a toy shop, a hardware store, and even a sporting goods shop — she saw long lines of people waiting outside each and every one of them. She knew she was getting really desperate when the next shop she decided to check was a video game store.

“Please no line, please no line, please no line…” Rainbow quietly pleaded as she approached that building, only to once again see a long line of minifigs leading out the main door. She growled in frustration and furiously screamed, “What is with the Winter Village being so crowded on the holidays?! Some of us have some last-minute shopping to do!”

“Then stop whining and get in line,” grumbled one of the minifigs in line nearby.

Rainbow Dash gripped her hair and clenched her eyes shut as she let out another growl of frustration.

“Need to cut the line?”

“Yes!” begged Rainbow as she turned to the source of that voice. “I’d do anything to—!” She immediately froze in terror the moment she opened her eyes and saw who was standing in front of her. This minifig may have been wearing the shop’s uniform of a white shirt and brown pants, but she immediately recognized him for his aquamarine skin, blond hair tied up in a messy bun, purple eyes, and stubble on his face. It was none other than Zephyr Breeze.

Zephyr Breeze was Fluttershy’s younger brother, and since Rainbow had been close friends with Fluttershy since childhood, that inevitably meant she had known that guy for just as long. Much like his sister and her best friend, Zephyr grew up in the special region of Cloudsdale, a floating city that would often change its location as protection against outsiders, with security so strict that even lifelong residents who chose to leave were unlikely to ever be allowed back in ever again. But while Rainbow and Fluttershy were both quickly able to find a nice place to live and hold a steady job they enjoyed, Zephyr ended up frequently jumping around from one job to another, often in entirely different regions of the Lego World. He always insisted he quit each and every job he held, although all of his former employers would argue that he was actually fired for his atrocious work ethic. But perhaps Zephyr’s worst trait of all, in Rainbow Dash’s opinion, was how he was fully convinced that he was an irresistible ladies man who was destined to be with Rainbow, when in fact the reality in all aspects of that was the complete opposite.

To put it simply, Zephyr Breeze was absolutely the last person in the entire Lego Universe that Rainbow Dash wanted to be anywhere near under any circumstances.

“Undo!” Rainbow swiftly insisted desperately as she waved her arms around in rejection. “It’s been less than three seconds! What I just said doesn’t matter!”

“Rainbow Dash,” greeted Zephyr Breeze smugly. “It’s all good, Miss Awesome.” He then stepped aside and gestured at the shop behind him as he proudly stated, “Come on in to ‘Trend of the Line’, your home for everything trendy from wi-fi shoes to… uh… regular shoes and… smaller shoes?” His confidence quickly fell as his voice drifted off. “Uh, how’s it go again?” He quickly cleared his throat and tried again. “Come on in to your trendy home for everything from wi-fi shoes to, uh… just plain old regular shoes and… uh, how’s it go again?”

As Zephyr continued to fail as a salesman, a bored Rainbow Dash glanced through the windows into the shop. That place seemed to be full of novelty items, fad merchandise, and other randomly assorted trendy stuff. They were hardly the kinds of products that would make an ideal gift for someone like Fluttershy, but at this point, she was desperate enough to try any place.

“You work here?” asked Rainbow irritably.

Zephyr chuckled awkwardly and acknowledged, “Not for long if I can’t remember our slogan, but yeah.” He then perked up again offered, “But hey, since we’re buddies, I’ll let you jump the line!”

The other minifigs standing in line who overheard that immediately muttered words of protest. “Hey! How come she gets special treatment?” complained one woman.

“She’s part of the LEGO Team,” the guy in line behind her pointed out bitterly. “I bet they all get VIP passes for everything.”

As Zephyr gestured for her to follow him inside, Rainbow hesitantly responded, “Uh, thanks, but I don’t know if ‘buddies’ is exactly the word I’d use.” She then shook her head and quietly told herself, “No! You gotta be nice to the guy, but only because you’re doing this for Fluttershy.”

Zephyr glanced back and asked. “Oh, you’re getting something for Fluttershy?” He then grinned and gestured towards the main doorway into the store. “Then you’ve come to the right place. Follow me, milady.”

Rainbow Dash glared daggers at Zephyr and grumbled, “Call me that one more time and you’ll find out what happens when you get punched in the face at three hundred miles an hour.” She then reluctantly walked through the doorway into the small building.

Zephyr — following the cliché “ladies first” rule — stood beside the door and allowed Rainbow to walk by. Before he followed after her, he noticed a lot of looks of displeasure from everyone waiting in line outside, to which he chuckled and smoothly remarked, “What can I say? She can’t get enough of me.” He then turned around and closed the door on his way inside.

“Now there’s a dummy in denial,” grumbled one guy in line.

“Yeah,” another girl in line sourly agreed. “He wouldn’t know rejection, even if it knocked his head off.”

Inside the store, Rainbow Dash began browsing the shelves and was already starting to feel a little conflicted about her decision to search this place in particular for a potential gift. Among the products on display were handheld spinners, the latest dolls and action figures, novelty clothing, silly accessories, obscure sports equipment, and all kinds of wacky things on a stick. A lot of these things were something she could easily get for herself or one of her other friends, but she just couldn’t imagine anything around here that could be worthy of being a gift for Fluttershy.

Rainbow was trying out one of the skateboards when Zephyr approached her with a large box in his arms. “This is so Fluttershy,” he explained as he held up that box, the front of which depicted a basketball hoop with a basketball flying towards it. “A high-tech basketball hoop! It yells at you to ‘Get good!’ when you miss a three-pointer, so you’re always motivated to reach your athletic performance goals.”

As Rainbow Dash took a look at that box and listened, she silently admitted that it was pretty tempting to purchase that for herself, but she knew she had to stick to her priorities. Once Zephyr was done speaking, she responded, “Uh… I’d like to have that, but no. I don’t think Fluttershy would be interested.”

“Cool!” remarked Zephyr excitedly. “I knew you’d love it!”

Rainbow Dash facepalmed and argued, “No, I’m not here for me. I need a gift for Fluttershy.”

Zephyr held the large box under one arm so he could point his free hand at Rainbow and confidently responded, “Got it.” He then walked away behind one of the nearby shelves.

Rainbow Dash shook her head in disapproval and approached one of the other nearby shelves along the wall. On the upper shelf were some plush animals with ridiculously goofy faces that she wasn’t sure Fluttershy would approve of. On the lower shelf were scepters with a ball on one end surrounded by a hoop and pair of wings. She picked up one of those novelty scepters to inspect it more closely, only to get briefly startled as the sphere popped open to spray glitter and elastic snakes across the floor.

“Nah,” muttered Rainbow dismissively as she put that novelty scepter back on the shelf. “Too flashy.”

Behind Rainbow, Zephyr tapped on her shoulder and asked, “How ‘bout these?”

Rainbow turned around and yelped as she suddenly found her face close to Zephyr’s with his eyes obscured by some kind of high-tech goggles with built-in headphones. Once she got over the initial shock, she frowned and noted, “Ooh, that looks expensive.”

“They sure are!” confirmed Zephyr eagerly. “And when you wear them, it takes everything you see and turns it into an urban landscape under attack by aliens from outer space.”

“Even forests with cute animals?” asked Rainbow skeptically.

“Absolutely nonexistent when you’re wearing these bad boys!” confirmed Zephyr excitedly.

Rainbow stared at Zephyr with a bored expression before she stated, “That might be something Twilight or Sunset could appreciate, but it’s definitely not for Fluttershy.”

Zephyr removed the goggles and once he actually saw the look of displeasure on Rainbow’s face, he smiled awkwardly and responded, “Right, right, my bad. Hang on one sec.” He then walked off behind the shelves again.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes before she approached some other nearby shelves. She glanced past all the novelty clothing with cheesy catchphrases printed on them and soon settled her attention on a push of a rather cute-looking fluffy cat with an adorable top hat and bowtie. She smiled as she picked up that plush and remarked, “This looks promising.” She then lightly squeezed the plush toy.

FRRRRRRRRT!

“What the—?!” yelped Rainbow Dash in shock, not only from the flatulent noise but also the toy’s eyes and tongue bulging out. After she relaxed her grip — which silenced the toy and brought its face back to normal — she searched around the plush until she found the tag, which she then read aloud, “Novelty joke plush, with built-in self-inflating whoopy cushion?” She reread the tag again, stared at the plush toy in disbelief, then gently set it back down on the shelf as she muttered, “That seems more appropriate for Pinkie Pie than for Fluttershy.”

“Oh, yoo-hoo!” sang Zephyr Breeze from the other side of the shop. “Rainbow Daaaaash” With a smile of amusement on his face, he laughed lightly as he pulled out what appeared to be a hand on the end of a stick. “How about this?”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow and asked, “What’s that?”

“It’s for high-fiving when you’re really far away,” answered Zephyr, “or when you’re really short.” He then demonstrated the function of that novelty item by aiming it towards Rainbow and extending the rod until the hand on the end of it was less than an arm’s length away from her.

Rainbow Dash glared at Zephyr for a moment, then slapped away the extended hand and furiously exclaimed, “What?! That’s not a gift! That’s not for anybody! Who would want such a stupid thing?!”

“Wow!” exclaimed a little boy excitedly as he walked out from behind one of the shelves while holding another one of those extendable hands. “This is so cool!” He then looked up at Zephyr and pulled out two green 1x2 tiles with a white “1” printed on them. “I’ll take two!”

“Good choice, kid,” praised Zephyr as he retracted the extendable hand he held, then exchanged it for the two dollars. “I’m guessing one of them is for your best buddy, right?”

“Nope!” replied the young boy eagerly. “They’re both for me, so I can do this!” He then slapped the two novelty hands together a few times.

Smack-smack-smack!

The little boy giggled and cheerfully shouted, “Slappy-slappy!” He then charged out the door and repeatedly slapped those hands together again.

Smack-smack-smack!

Zephyr watched the young boy run away with his recent purchase, then turned back to Rainbow as he chuckled and remarked, “Kids these days.”

Rainbow facepalmed and shot back, “These are your suggestions? Do you even know Fluttershy?”

“Who?” asked Zephyr innocently with a smile.

“Your sister?!” snapped Rainbow furiously.

Zephyr recoiled, then took a few steps back as he responded, “I know, I know, I-I was just joking around. Sorry. Look, I know a gift that will make Fluttershy super-happy. I’ll go grab it for you now.” He then turned away and walked behind the shelves once again.

Rainbow crossed her arms as she growled in frustration and grumbled, “Same old Zeph. Completely hopeless at everything.” She then walked over to yet another set of shelves and browsed through some of the accessories. After a brief search, she decided to grab a headband with fake flowers covering the top of it. It certainly seemed like something Fluttershy would not find terrifying or offensive, but after thinking it over a bit more, she sighed in disappointment and put that accessory back on the shelf. “Who am I kidding?” she muttered in defeat. “If I give this to Fluttershy, everyone’s gonna think I didn’t put any thought into it.”

“Here it is!” declared Zephyr Breeze confidently as he returned. “Trust me, she’ll love it. It’s an instant camera.”

Rainbow Dash looked closely at the camera in Zephyr’s hands and noticed that not only was it pink, but also had a casing that was shaped to look like it had rabbit ears on top of it.

“Around this time last year,” explained Zephyr, “Fluttershy’s instant camera broke, and she really wanted another one.” He then spoke in a more sincere tone as he added, “Trust me, if you really want to make someone happy, then give them something they’d never get for themselves.”

Rainbow stared at the camera and muttered, “Huh… that’s actually…” She then smiled and excitedly spoke up, “…a great idea! Thanks, Zephyr! You’re amazing!” She then zoomed past Zephyr and out the door in a rainbow motion blur, the pink camera in his hands suddenly replaced with a green 1x2 tile with a white number “50” printed on it.

Zephyr stared down at the fifty dollar bill in his hand in confusion for a moment, then smiled as he looked out the open doorway where Rainbow Dash ran off and remarked, “Well, I may not have gotten the girl this time, but at least I got a paying customer out of it.” He then made a pathetic effort at striking a cool pose and proudly declared, “Zephyr Breeze is makin’ progress!”

Back at the cabin, the rest of the Equestria Girls had decided to determine who would be receiving which gift they had brought for their exchange while they waited for Rainbow Dash to return after “returning something she had borrowed”, although practically all of them were convinced they knew exactly what she was actually out doing.

“So I guess that just leaves Fluttershy,” concluded Sunset, “which means—”

SLAM!

The six girls immediately turned their attention towards that impact noise at the front door. Twilight used her telekinetic magic power to open that door, revealing Rainbow Dash, who then groaned as she stumbled inside, slightly dazed.

“You forgot to close the door on your way out,” Twilight pointed out, mildly irritated as she then closed the door behind Rainbow.

“Yeah… I noticed,” muttered Rainbow Dash as she staggered her way across the room towards the table where her friends were gathered around. She shook her head briefly, then once she had recovered from running into that door, she held out something and spoke up with uneasy confidence, “Here you go, Fluttershy. I totally had this thing ready ahead of time.”

While Fluttershy happily accepted the gift, the rest of the girls were unconvinced by Rainbow’s effort and gave her suspicious looks. After all, that gift had apparently been hastily wrapped in what seemed to be napkins and used cheeseburger wrappers.

Rainbow ignored the others and watched anxiously as Fluttershy slowly unwrapped her gift. She couldn’t help but feel increasingly nervous as she saw her friend slowly peel off one strip of tape after another. As Fluttershy finally started removing some of the wrappers, Rainbow was really struggling to handle the pressure and eventually closed her eyes, waiting desperately for any reaction.

Finally, Fluttershy lightly gasped and spoke up, “An instant camera? I love it!”

Rainbow Dash opened her eyes and smiled as she asked, “You do?”

“It’s perfect for fun candid photos,” replied Fluttershy happily. “Zephyr got me one last year after my old one broke.”

Rainbow Dash stared blankly at Fluttershy for a moment before the cyan athlete asked in disbelief, “He did?!” She facepalmed as she let out a groan of frustration and grumbled, “I should’ve known!” She then sighed and sadly muttered, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” asked Fluttershy as she pulled out her other instant camera, which was virtually identical to the one Rainbow just gave her. With a smile on her face, she noted, “Now that I have two, I can finally do two-angle instant photo bear cub candids.” She then lightly giggled as she stood up and gave Rainbow a hug. “Thank you, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow chuckled as she hugged back and quipped, “Yeah, I knew all along you’d love it.”

“Sure you did,” Applejack slyly remarked with a smile.

Rainbow released the hug and dropped her smile as she turned to the rest of her friends.

“Okay, hands up,” confessed Sunset as she faced Rainbow and held up her hands. “We all knew you got that gift at literally the last second. We just let you go ahead and try to find something that would be at least acceptable.”

“But seeing as that gift exceeded everyone’s expectations — including your own by the look on your face — I guess you’ve proven just how much of a good friend you really are,” acknowledged Twilight.

With a confident grin on her face again, Rainbow crossed her arms as she smirked and remarked, “What can I say? I’ll always be there for my friends, even if I need a little reminder every now and then.”

“I suppose you deserve a little reward for your successful efforts,” Rarity spoke up as she picked up the blue gift box that was wrapped with a purple ribbon. “This one is for you, Rainbow Dash. I customized it myself.”

Rainbow Dash accepted the gift apprehensively, knowing all too well that the word “customized” in relation to Rarity often brought to mind something with an excessively impractical design. But with all of her friends watching her, Rainbow made sure to not hesitate for too long before she removed the ribbon and opened the box. Not surprisingly at all, it was a piece of clothing, but when she pulled it out and unfolded it, she smiled.

“No way!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash excitedly. “It’s a jersey that’s just like the ones used by the basketball team that won this year’s championship!” She turned around the red jersey and saw the white number “1” printed on the back. “Aw, sweet! And it’s even got the number of my favorite player on that team, too!” She turned her attention to Rarity and cheerfully added, “Thanks! I didn’t think you’d ever give me something that was even half as awesome as this!”

Rarity giggled in response and quipped, “Never let it be said that my desire for fabulousity should come at the expense of a more appropriate gift for the intended recipient.”

“In that case, I think you might like what I got for you,” Twilight spoke up as she grabbed the purple gift box wrapped in a magenta ribbon and handed it over to Rarity.

Rarity delicately untied the ribbon and set it aside, then removed the lid of the box. She lightly gasped as she removed what turned out to be a book from within that gift box, then turned to Twilight and asked, “Is this the latest novel in the Shadow Spade series?”

“It sure is!” confirmed Twilight. “I preordered it online and arranged to have it shipped here.”

“I was wondering what was in that package that arrived yesterday,” noted Pinkie Pie.

“Goodness,” remarked Rarity happily. “I thought I’d have to wait until next summer to eventually get my hands on a copy of this.” She reached one arm around to give Twilight a brief hug. “Thank you so much, darling!”

Twilight giggled as she returned the hug, then noted, “I many not know much about fashion, but I am aware of your interest in the Shadow Spade series of mystery novels, so I figured it would be a relatively simple gift idea.”

“‘Atta girl, Twilight,” praised Applejack. “Knowin’ when not to overthink somethin’.”

Sunset smirked and remarked, “I guess the same could be said for my gift to Twilight.” She then grabbed the orange box with red ribbon and passed it over to her intelligent friend. “It’s not anything either of us find particularly interesting, but I’m sure you’ll get a good laugh out of it.”

Twilight untied the ribbon and removed the lid from the box to reveal something soft and covered in green fur had been stuffed inside, practically completely filling up that box. She raised an eyebrow in confusion, then grabbed the green furry surface and gently tugged it. It took a little effort, but she soon managed to yank the mystery object out of the box, allowing it to quickly expand back to its original form and revealing that it was actually a giant stuffed parakeet.

Sunset struggled to suppress her laughter as she watched her gift being opened, and once it was finally revealed, she couldn’t hold back anymore and began laughing out loud.

Twilight was initially confused by Sunset’s reaction to such an object, but as she began to remember the circumstances from the previous time she had seen a giant stuffed parakeet like that one, she immediately understood and it wasn’t long before she also joined Sunset in hysterical laughter.

The five other girls, on the other hand, continued to stare at Sunset and Twilight in confusion. “Uh… I don’t get it,” Rainbow Dash spoke up.

Sunset wiped away her tears of joy as she struggled to bring her laughter under control. “It’s a bit of an inside joke,” she explained. “Applejack might remember this, but back when we visited Equestria Land, Twilight and I practically blew all of our ticket money on a single ring toss game. That stuffed parakeet was the prize they offered, but not once did we ever succeed in winning it.”

“She tried to warn me that carnival games like that one were rigged,” continued Twilight as she set down that large stuffed parakeet. “I thought science would be on my side, but let’s just say that both of us had to learn the hard way that we should’ve listened to Sunset’s advice.”

Pinkie Pie giggled and remarked, “Yeah, it’s nice to be able to look back on some embarrassing moments and still have a good laugh over it.” She then reached over to grab the gift that was covered in pink wrapping paper and held it out as she excitedly declared, “Your turn, Sunset!”

Sunset tore away the pink wrapping paper to quickly reveal the package box of a video game. She initially smiled as she often enjoyed video games, but that smile faltered when she looked closely at the box and saw the front cover featured a squirrel trying to catch a falling acorn. “Wow, Pinkie,” she spoke up awkwardly. “It’s, uh… that game!”

“I knew you’d love it!” cheered Pinkie as she gave Sunset a brief hug. She then released her friend and explained, “I saw that live stream of you and Fluttershy having so much fun playing the first game, so when I found out there was a second game in the series, I figured that you just had to have it. I’m sure you’ll have so much fun with it!”

As Pinkie turned away, Sunset chuckled awkwardly as she stared down apprehensively at that new squirrel video game. Perhaps Pinkie might’ve been a little oblivious, but that particular live stream was notable for Fluttershy achieving a perfect score with little effort, while Sunset struggled so badly that she failed to score any points at all by the time Fluttershy had finished. Behind Pinkie’s back, Sunset was already thinking over how she could give this game to Fluttershy for her next birthday without Pinkie suspecting it was the very same copy she had just given to her.

“Ah guess this means you’re next, Pinkie,” Applejack spoke up as she grabbed the orange gift box wrapped in a green ribbon and handed it over to the pink party girl.

Pinkie didn’t waste any time tearing off the ribbon and tossing away the box’s cover. She blindly reached into the box and pulled out what appeared to be a replica of her party cannon, only this one was small enough to fit within her hands. She gasped and excitedly exclaimed, “A mini party cannon! How did you know?”

Applejack chuckled in amusement and replied, “Ah know how much ya love that party cannon of yours, so Ah figured ya might find some good use outta one that’s a li’l more portable.” She leaned back in her seat and rested her hands behind her head as she continued, “Ah had to make a lotta phone calls to find somebody who specializes in makin’ mini models that work like the real deal, an’ he was more than happy to take on the challenge of your party cannon.”

Pinkie aimed the mini party cannon upwards and pulled the trigger cord, causing it to produce a high-pitched squeak as it shot out a handful of confetti that then scattered through the air. “And it was a total success!” she cheerfully declared. “Best holiday gift ever!”

“Glad ya like it, Pinkie,” responded Applejack. She then sat up in her seat again as she added, “An’ if Ah’ve been countin’ right, looks like the only gift left is the one Fluttershy got for me.”

Fluttershy nodded in acknowledgement before she grabbed the round gift box that was yellow with a turquoise lid and pink ribbon and passed it over to the apple farmer.

Applejack untied the ribbon and removed the lid. She looked inside the gift box, then smiled as she reached inside and pulled out a golden hammer. “Practical an’ fancy!” she noted with enthusiasm. “Now there’s a tool Ah can be proud to show off! Thank ya, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy let out a sigh of relief, then reached forward to share a brief hug with Applejack.

Twilight and Sunset turned to each other with looks of confusion on their faces. Sunset simply shrugged and quietly quipped, “Simple things for simple people.”

“Looks like that’s everyone,” noted Rainbow Dash, who by now had swapped her regular shirt for the sports jersey she had received. “I gotta admit, this secret present switcheroo went great for all of us.”

“Eeyup. Even for those of us who waited ‘til the last minute to get their present,” quipped Applejack teasingly.

Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her head as she chuckled nervously and remarked, “Yeah, next year, I’ll make sure to have my present ready before the switcheroo day.”

Smack-smack-smack!

Rainbow paused when she heard that rather familiar noise. She turned back and walked towards the nearest window to glance outside. The rest of her friends were curious what had suddenly caught her attention, so they all also gathered near the front windows to take a look outside.

Running around in the streets just in front of the cabin was a rather happy little boy who held what appeared to be a pair of hands on extendable sticks and kept repeatedly slapping them together.

Smack-smack-smack!

“Slappy-slappy!” the little boy cheerfully shouted as he continued his rather obnoxious behavior. “Slappy-slappy!”

Smack-smack-smack! Smack! Smack! Smack-smack! Smack! Smack!

The persistent slapping of those extendable hands was finally halted by a local police officer who marched over and snatched those extendable hands out of the boy’s grasp. “Alright, young boy,” he scolded the boy. “I think you’ve been disruptive enough today. I’d better have a word with your parents for giving you these silly things.”

“But I bought them myself with my allowance!” argued the little boy.

“Then I’ll instead have a word with the shop worker who thought it was a good idea to let you buy them,” stated the police officer as he grabbed the boy’s wrist and began pulling him along away from the area.

As the Equestria Girls watched that police officer march away with that pesky boy, Rainbow Dash smirked and remarked, “Yeah, he’s totally gonna get fired.”

“Who?” asked Sunset as she and the others turned to Rainbow.

“The guy who sold those ridiculous things,” replied Rainbow Dash. “I had a little help from that same guy finding that camera for Fluttershy. I’m sure you can all guess who it is right on the first try.”

The six girls glanced at one another for a few seconds, then they all simultaneously responded flatly, “Zephyr Breeze.”

“Yup. Called it,” noted Rainbow with little enthusiasm.

Fluttershy sighed and sadly muttered, “If only he could just learn his lesson…”

“At least he’s not completely hopeless,” admitted Rainbow as she turned to Fluttershy. “He was actually cool enough to give me the idea of getting you that camera.” She then glared to the side and sourly added, “Though he didn’t bother to mention that he already got you the exact same camera.”

“Well, either way, at least he actually made an effort to do something nice for once,” muttered Fluttershy. She stared down at the two identical cameras in her hands, then smiled and spoke up, “If it’s okay with all of you, I was thinking of taking a picture of all of us with our gifts.”

“That sounds like a great idea, Fluttershy!” agreed Twilight cheerfully.

“Let’s pose around the table,” suggested Applejack as she began heading back to the table where most of the girls had left their gifts.

While her friends made their way over to the table, Fluttershy set up a small stand for one of her cameras and noted, “I’ll use the camera I got from Zephyr to take the picture, so that it’ll show me holding the one I just got from Rainbow.”

As Fluttershy set up that camera, the other girls grabbed their gifts and got into position. Twilight’s stuffed parakeet was the largest gift, so she placed it in the middle of the table and stood just behind it. To Twilight’s right, Applejack also stood behind the table as she held up her golden hammer, and in front of her, Rarity sat down in a chair and held up her new book so as to show the front cover to the camera. To Twilight’s left, Sunset also stood behind the table and held her video game upright upon the table, though she deliberately held it in such a way as to partially obscure the image on the front. Rainbow Dash wore her jersey and struck an athletic pose as she stood beside Sunset at the end of the table, while Pinkie Pie sat in a chair at the other end of the table as she proudly held up her mini party cannon.

Once the camera was set up, Fluttershy rushed back to the table and quickly sat down in the empty chair in front of the table near Rainbow Dash. Once she was in position, she held up her recently gifted camera as if to take a picture of the camera that was about to take their picture.

Soon, the small light on the camera came on to alert them the picture was about to be automatically taken in only a couple seconds, to which they all smiled and cheerfully shouted, “Happy holidays!”

Click!

Author's Note

This short story conveniently gave me an opportunity to show the Zephyr Breeze of the Lego World, so now I've been able to introduce or mention the siblings of all of the main girls at some point throughout the entire LEGO Equestria Girls series. The only reason I threw in that slap-happy kid was simply because I wanted to maintain the complete absence of Snip and Snails from the entirety of this fanfiction series (the role of two dumb guys is already covered by the robbers Rocky and Mugsy). And yes, rather than settle for a montage like in the official version, I decided to expand on some details for the gifts that each of the seven girls exchanged. Finally, I should point out that since the only short story left to go in this collection will be an original idea, this short story is technically the last part of this entire fanfiction series to be based on any official content. From now on, everything is going to be entirely original content by me.

The Ridiculous Robbery

Morning had arrived on a rather special day in the Winter Village. It was now close to the end of the holiday season, and while several holidays of numerous cultures and beliefs had already come and gone, it would soon be time for the biggest and most widely celebrated holiday of them all: Christmas. That very special holiday was tomorrow, which meant today was the final day to complete all preparations for it. The last of the lights and decorations were put in place, pantries were fully stocked in preparation for the upcoming feasts, and the last gifts were purchased before all the shops would close until next holiday season.

At one of the cabins, a group of seven best friends known as the Equestria Girls were eagerly looking forward to tomorrow’s celebrations. Throughout the last few days, they had already set up their holiday decorations, mailed in gifts to friends and family back home in Canterlot City, received packages from friends and family back home, and completed all other preparations for Christmas. As far as they were concerned, today was a chance for them to simply relax before the big holiday arrived.

Knock, knock, knock!

All seven girls immediately stopped what they were doing and turned their attention towards the front door. None of them were expecting any visitors anytime soon, so they were all confused and curious about who might be at that door.

It was Sunset who decided to make her way to the door and opened it. She was somewhat astonished to see standing before her was a rather short person with a green uniform, red scarf, green conical hat, pointy ears on the sides of his head, and a joyful smile on his face. The little individual didn’t say a word as he handed an enclosed letter to Sunset, tipped his hat to her, then turned and walked away.

Sunset watched the unexpected visitor leave, then she stepped back inside and shut the door.

“Who was it?” asked Fluttershy.

“I’m not sure,” replied Sunset as she turned back to face her friends. “He kinda looked like an elf.”

Pinkie gasped and excitedly exclaimed, “You mean like one of Santa’s elves?!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Pinkie,” muttered Rainbow Dash as she rolled her eyes.

“Actually,” noted Twilight as she adjusted her glasses, “Santa’s workshop is located on top of a tall mountain not far from the Winter Village, so it might not be that farfetched to see some of his elves wandering around here.”

“Well, whoever it was, he gave me this letter,” Sunset pointed out as she held up the envelope in her hand.

“Then ya might as well open it an’ read it to us,” suggested Applejack.

Sunset tore open the envelope and removed the letter inside, then tossed aside the empty envelope. She unfolded the letter, then read aloud, “To the Equestria Girls. The seven of you have done such a wonderful job of protecting the Lego World against all kinds of magical threats, and in gratitude, I have decided to offer you a very special Christmas gift. Since you happen to be in the neighborhood this year, I would like to invite all of you for a tour of my workshop, a privilege that very few from outside the Winter Village ever have a chance to witness. I look forward to meeting you. From, Santa Claus.”

As soon as those final words were spoked, Pinkie immediately let out a loud — almost deafening — squeal of joy and literally bounced around the room as she cheerfully shouted, “A letter from Santa! And he wants to give us a tour of his workshop! This is the bestest day-before-Christmas gift any of us could ever ask for!”

“Some of us might beg to differ,” muttered Rarity under her breath as she and the rest of the girls ducked and dodged to avoid being hit by the bouncing ball of pink energy.

Applejack reached out and grabbed the overly enthusiastic Pinkie Pie by the ankle, causing the ecstatic party girl to hit the floor flat on her face. “Easy there, Pinkie,” Applejack spoke up with a chuckle. “Ah don’t think we’ll get much of a tour if you’re gonna be jumpin’ an’ hollerin’ all over the place.”

Pinkie rolled over to look at Applejack, then giggled in embarrassment before she stood up and responded, “Sorry about that. I’ll try my best to keep my cool so we don’t get kicked out.”

“A tour of Santa’s workshop?” questioned Rainbow Dash. “I didn’t think the guy or that place even existed.”

“Oh, it’s real, alright,” assured Twilight. “Santa Claus just prefers to keep his existence and the true location of his workshop a secret so as to avoid any unwanted attention. In fact, the only reason I even know that much is because the old Shadowbolts organization was very thorough with gathering all kinds of information — especially classified intelligence — so the fact that I don’t know much more about Santa and his workshop really demonstrates just how good he is at keeping his secrets.”

“And yet, he seems to trust us enough to have given us directions to his workshop,” Sunset pointed out as she held up the letter, pointing specifically at the short list on the lower part of the paper.

“And since tomorrow is Christmas,” noted Fluttershy, “he’ll have to leave later tonight so he can deliver all of those presents. If we wanna go on that tour, we should probably get there as soon as possible.”

“Then what are we waiting for?!” declared Pinkie cheerfully. “Let’s go!” She then rushed towards the door and began throwing on her winter clothes.

“Wait!” Sunset spoke up. “If I’m reading these directions correctly, we’ll never get there on foot before nightfall, which means we’ll need to use a vehicle.”

“All we’ve got is that one snowmobile,” Applejack pointed out, “an’ it’s only got one seat.”

“Maybe we could build and attach some sleds to the back so we can all right along,” suggested Twilight.

“Given our limited time and resources, I supposed that should suffice,” agreed Rarity.

“Leave that to me!” declared Rainbow Dash confidently as she rushed to the door and began quickly putting on her winter clothes. “I’ll have it done in ten seconds flat!”

“Ah’ll give ya a pint of cider if ya can do it in less,” challenged Applejack as she held up a stopwatch.

“You’re on!” accepted Rainbow with a huge grin before she threw the door open and zoomed outside, immediately followed by the rapid clicking noises of Lego parts being assembled.

Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-click-clack-click-clack-click-clack!

“Done!” declared Rainbow as she stuck her head back in through the doorway.

Applejack checked her stopwatch, then let out a long whistle and remarked, “Nine-point-nine.” She shook her head in disbelief, then tossed aside the stopwatch as she walked towards the refrigerator. “Well, a deal’s a deal.” She opened the fridge, took out a bottle of cider, and tossed that bottle of cider to Rainbow Dash before closing the door.

Sunset chuckled in amusement, then began grabbing her winter clothes as she stated, “I guess I’ll drive, since I’ve got the directions.”

The rest of the girls responded with various words of agreement as they all put on their winter outfits and prepared to head out.

Later that morning, the Equestria Girls were on their way along the snowy trail up the mountains to the north of the Winter Village. Sunset was driving the snowmobile which was dragging along three sleds — Twilight and Rainbow Dash rode in the front sled, Rarity and Fluttershy rode in the middle sled, and Applejack and Pinkie Pie rode in the back sled. The trail through the conifer forest was rather smooth and straight at first, which allowed Sunset to drive the snowmobile at high speed without much to worry about, but as they reached the mountains, she was forced to slow down in order to safely navigate the winding, uphill trail.

“Why would Santa build his workshop on top of a mountain?” asked Applejack as they reached approximately halfway up to their mountaintop destination. “Ah always thought he lived up at the North Pole.”

“First of all,” explained Twilight, “the North Pole lies in the middle of a frozen ocean. That sea ice is constantly shifting around with the ocean currents, so a permanent structure would never last more than a few years in a place like that. And secondly, if Santa is really serious about keeping the location of his workshop a secret and difficult to reach, then it would absolutely make sense that he would place it on top of a mountain that’s far away from almost any settlement.”

“And don’t forget,” added Pinkie Pie, “Santa’s sleigh is pulled by flying reindeer, so when it’s time for him to head out and deliver all those presents, he won’t have to worry about going up or down this trail at all.”

It took almost another hour for the girls to finally reach the end of the trail at the top of the mountain. Unlike most of the surrounding mountains, the top of this mountain had a significantly large flat area, providing just enough room for a rather modest cabin-like structure with a steep roof. There wasn’t much in the area surrounding the building aside from some pine trees, a couple snowmen, and a fully decorated Christmas tree.

Sunset brought the snowmobile to a stop in front of the building and shut off the engine. She and her friends then climbed out of their seats and approached the front door. With the invitational letter in her hand, Sunset walked up to the front door and knocked on it a few times.

A few seconds later, a tiny window in the door slid open, exposing only the eyes of whoever was on the other side.

“Hey, uh, we’re here for that tour we were invited for,” stated Sunset as she held up the letter.

The person on the other side of the door looked closely at the letter for a moment, then turned his gaze back to the girls as he cheerfully responded in a rather high-pitched voice, “Sure thing! I’ll send for him right away!” He then shut the tiny window in the door.

The seven girls waited patiently outside the front door. As several seconds passed in rather awkward silence, their gazes began to wander around. Eventually, Pinkie couldn’t resist running over to the nearest window and taking a peek inside.

“What do you see?” asked Fluttershy

“It’s just like I always imagined it!” replied Pinkie cheerfully with a grin on her face as she continued to stare through the window. “All the elves are busy building toys for all the good boys and girls!”

“In this tiny little building?” asked Rainbow Dash skeptically as she glanced up and around at as much of the structure as she could see.

“I must concur,” stated Twilight as she also looked up at the rather small building. “Unless if there’s some highly advanced spatial dimensional folding occurring on the interior, I find it hard to believe that a team of elves in a facility of this size could possibly supply several toys to every child in the Lego World. If anything, I’d argue this would be barely enough for just a single neighborhood.”

“You do raise a valid argument, darling,” acknowledged Rarity politely. “I suppose we shall receive a definitive answer, soon enough.”

Less than a minute later, the front door opened, and out stepped a minifig with the standard yellow skin, red on his torso, arms, and upper legs, black on his hands, lower legs, and around his waist, a white strip along his wrists, collar, and down the front of his torso, a red and white festive hat on his head, and a large white beard piece attached around his neck. “Ho, ho, ho!” he greeted with jolly laughter. “Merry Christmas! And welcome to my workshop!”

Pinkie gasped in shock, then excitedly squealed, “IT’S SANTA CLAUS!!” She then rushed forward and immediately embraced Santa with a huge hug. “I can’t believe this is really happening!”

Applejack stepped forward and practically had to use her magical super strength just to pry Pinkie’s arms off the jolly old man. “Sorry ‘bout that,” she apologized.

“Oh, not a problem,” assured Santa. “I expected it.” He then slyly added, “After all, I am always watching.”

Twilight and Rainbow Dash glanced at each other with looks of concern, then turned their attention back to Santa. “What kind of surveillance method are you utilizing?” asked Twilight.

Santa responded with some of his jolly laughter and answered, “Oh, no need to feel alarmed. Let’s just say it’s thanks to a special form of magic that’s unique only to me.”

“Thank goodness,” remarked Rarity with a breath of relief. “I would rather not imagine anyone besides you possessing such capability.”

Sunset stepped forward as she cleared the throat and spoke up, “Anyway, we got that letter you sent us, so I guess this means we’re ready for that tour you offered.” She then held out that letter to Santa.

Santa Claus glanced down at that letter for a moment, then smiled and stated, “Indeed, you are correct.” He then gestured into the workshop. “Please, come on in so we can get started. There is a lot to do to prepare for tonight, so I don’t have a lot of time to spare.”

As Santa turned and walked back into the workshop, the seven girls followed him with mixed feelings. Pinkie was absolutely thrilled, though Applejack remained skeptical, while Twilight couldn’t help but feel slightly apprehensive, and Rainbow Dash felt simply unimpressed.

The interior of Santa’s workshop was remarkably similar to what most would have expected. The room just past the front door was a living space similar to most cabins in the Winter Village, complete with a stairway towards the bedroom on the floor above. What made this a workshop rather than just another cabin were the several rooms that branched out, each of which had a small group of elves hard at work creating all kinds of simple toys. In one room, some elves carved chunks of wood into shape, passed them onto other elves who hammered the pieces together, then passed them onto other elves who applied coats of paint to finish the products. In another room, some elves were busy sewing all kinds of fabrics into dolls, blankets, and various clothing. There was even a room with a forge, where some elves either poured molten metal into molds or used hammers to pound heated metal objects into shape, then quenched the finished shapes into water to cool them off before passing them over to receive some finishing touches.

With so many elves working in such a limited space at every corner, it was difficult for the visitors to see how a proper tour could be done. In fact, the presence of the seven Equestria Girls was making this workshop feel a little crowded at the moment.

“I sure hope we’re not getting in anyone’s way,” muttered Fluttershy worriedly as she glanced around at the various work rooms. “I’d hate to think we might ruin Christmas for some poor children just by us being here.”

“No need to be concerned,” assured Santa. “None of the elves you see around us are here against their will. They know very well that working in these rooms involves very little space to operate and very little time to get it all done. They wouldn’t be doing any of this if they didn’t think they could make a difference at bringing Christmas joy to little boys and girls all over the world.”

“Admirable work ethic, to say the least,” remarked Rarity with her attention focused on the sewing room.

“Hard to argue with that,” agreed Applejack as she watched the assembly line process running smoothly in the woodworking room.

“With all due respect, Mister Claus,” Twilight spoke up, “I’m still struggling to understand how this tiny little workshop could realistically manufacture a worldwide supply of Christmas gifts, even with a timeline of an entire year to accomplish such a feat.”

“And besides,” Rainbow Dash pointed out, “I hardly ever got anything for Christmas that was even close to the stuff I’m seeing being built here. What about all the cool things like action figures, or RC cars, or video games?”

Santa simply gave the doubtful girls a knowing smirk and stated, “Oh, this tour has only just begun. You see, most visitors only get to see this much, but I’m about to let you all in on a very special secret.” He then walked over to a seemingly empty space on the wall beside the fireplace and pulled a wall-mounted lamp like a lever, causing that empty wall to slide aside to reveal an empty space that was seemingly not really attached to the surrounding wall.

“A secret elevator,” noted Sunset with a smile. “This just got more interesting.”

As Santa gestured at the revealed elevator, the seven girls stepped inside. Santa followed in after them, then pulled the lever on the inside of the elevator, which made the secret wall slide back into place to hide the elevator once more. However, unaware to anyone inside the workshop, two figures had been watching them through the nearby window.

As the elevator began its descent, Rainbow Dash asked, “You’ve got a basement in your workshop?”

“Oh, it’s much more than just a basement!” responded Santa with jolly laughter.

It wasn’t long before the surrounding elevator shaft ended and the elevator — which turned out to be transparent — continued descending into what appeared to be a very immense underground complex occupied by thousands and thousands of elves. Everywhere the girls looked, they could see elves either wandering the corridors, operating all kinds of machinery to manufacture practically anything, or simply relaxing in some of the lounges.

“Whoa,” muttered Rainbow Dash in astonishment. “Sure wasn’t expecting this.”

“Incredible,” remarked Twilight with a smile. “A facility of this scale would definitely be more practical to achieve a global delivery run.”

The elevator soon reached the floor at the bottom of the glass shaft and the door slid open. As everyone stepped out of the elevator, Santa gestured for them to follow.

“We have a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time,” stated Santa, “so we’ll be riding in this for most of the tour.” The group approached what resembled a small train ride similar to those typically seen at an amusement park. The chain of red and green cars were open on top with the seats arranged in single file, two for each car with the exception of the front car, which had control levers sticking out and was shaped to resemble a steam locomotive.

While Santa went straight for the front car, the seven girls all climbed into the trailing cars. There were just enough seats available for all of them across the four passenger cars, with Sunset taking the front seat just behind Santa, and behind her was Twilight, followed by Pinkie, then Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow, and finally Fluttershy with the only remaining empty seat right behind her.

Santa pulled a long lever on the front car and soon the miniature train began to roll forward along the tracks. As the ride began, he explained, “I’ve been around since the early days of Ole Playwell himself. Quite a highly talented craftsman, I must say. Back in those days, that little workshop you saw atop the mountain was enough to fulfill my Christmas deliveries. But as the decades passed and new regions were established all over the world and beyond, my elves and I had no choice but to substantially expand our operations, and the only way to keep all of this secluded was to simply hollow out the mountain beneath my original workshop.”

“Impressive,” remarked Sunset as she and the rest of her friends glanced around at their surroundings. The mini railroad traveled along the middle of the main corridor, which was open to all of the floors of this underground facility. Each and every floor had rather high ceilings, which provided plenty of room to build and move around all kinds of items in various shapes and sizes.

“This first area we’re passing through is the manufacturing sector. While some areas are merely additional space for traditional crafting like you saw in the classic workshop, the vast majority of these floors are dedicated to creating and assembling the more modern kinds of toys that kids these days frequently ask for. We’ve got plastic molding machines for all things made of plastic, precision machining for high quality goods, electronic components for devices, and so on.”

Because much of the manufacturing activity was being done at a distance away from the central corridor, the only examples the girls could see was on the bottom floor where they currently were. To the right was a large furnace from which some elves wearing safety goggles carefully extracted molten metal and poured it into several molds that were then set aside to cool off. To the left was an assembly line where each elf would attach one specific part over and over, at the end of which completed bicycles were rolled off and placed into large crates that would then be picked up by a forklift and carried off.

It wasn’t long before the mini train moved on past the manufacturing floors and soon went around a curve as it reached an area that consisted of several rooms enclosed by transparent walls, within which numerous elves appeared to be testing out all kinds of various things, such as working through patches of dirt with gardening tools, baking and cooking with kitchen utensils, and playing video games.

“This is the quality control department,” continued Santa. “If anything is at risk of not working as intended, then any potential failures will be identified here, and all necessary repairs or replacements shall be dealt with right away.”

In one particular room the mini train passed by, the girls watched one elf climb to the top of a ladder to reach a basketball hoop. Once he reached the top, he then glanced over to another elf below who stood nearby with a clipboard in his hands. This inspector elf gave a nod of approval, and the elf on the ladder nodded back in acknowledgement before he leaped off the ladder and grabbed onto the hoop, as if doing a slam dunk. However, only a second after that elf grabbed onto the basketball hoop, it suddenly snapped off the backboard, sending the unfortunate elf plummeting to the floor and landing hard on his back.

The inspector elf winced from the impact, then flatly muttered, “Yup. That’s a fail.” He then marked off that item on the checklist with an X.

The mini train continued ahead along the track as it went around another curve and soon began to pass by a new area where dozens of elves were seated at tables as they focused on wrapping up all of the toys and other finished objects that were delivered to them.

“And right here is perhaps my favorite part of the entire process,” continued Santa as he gestured at the surrounding workspace. “Giftwrapping the Christmas gifts! This is the special place where all these items and products are finally packed away and wrapped up in all that special giftwrapping, ribbons, and bows to turn them into Christmas presents.”

As the worker elves were busy wrapping those gifts, a few manager elves would occasionally walk by to make sure everything was running smoothly. One of these managers suddenly swiped a gift from a worker who had just finished wrapping it. “How many times do I have to remind you?” scolded the manager. “Never use the same color of ribbon as the wrapping!” The manager elf then tore off the wrapping paper and ribbon, then placed the now unwrapped box back on the table in front of the worker elf, who moaned sadly in response.

“Good to know those managers properly understand the atrocity of clashing colors,” muttered Rarity.

Santa began to slow down the mini train as it went around one last curve and passed by what appeared to be some office rooms that were divided by walls with only the front wall being transparent. While most of these offices were occupied by elves, one particular office on one of the upper floors seemed to be occupied by an elderly woman minifig who was busy typing away on a keyboard as her attention was focused on the computer on her desk.

“Is that Mrs. Claus in that office?” asked Twilight as she pointed at the office in question.

“It sure is,” confirmed Santa. “She doesn’t sit around all day and occasionally bake cookies, you know. She actually does a wonderful job of handling all of my logistics. I may be the one who decides which of my two lists everyone should be placed on, but she’s the one who organizes them so that I can complete my Christmas deliveries as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

“That makes sense,” acknowledged Fluttershy. “There’s only so much anyone can do on their own, so it’s nice to have a helping hand from someone you can really trust.”

Within her office, Mrs. Claus glanced up from her computer and watched the mini train as it slowly rolled by. Santa noticed that and smiled as he waved at his beloved wife. Mrs. Claus smiled and waved back in response, then held down a button on her desk. “A pleasure to see you, Equestria Girls,” she greeted through a speaker just above the door to her office. “I wish I could come out and chat, but I have some last-minute adjustments that need to be taken care of as soon as possible.” She then immediately turned her attention back to her computer.

“Completely understandable,” remarked Santa to his passengers. “Tomorrow does happen to be Christmas, after all.”

As the Equestria Girls continued riding in that mini train, Applejack glanced ahead past Rarity in front of her and over to Pinkie Pie. “You’ve been awfully quiet, Pinkie,” she noted in confusion. “With how jumpy you were when we first got here, Ah’d expected ya to be squealin’ an’ hollerin’ all over the place.”

“I just don’t know what I can say,” confessed Pinkie. “There’s so much to take in that I never could’ve imagined in even my wildest fantasies. And I love everything about it!”

After listening to that conversation behind her, Sunset turned to Santa and asked, “How much more of this place is there left to see?”

“Only one more stop left to go,” assured Santa, “and I think you can all guess what it will be.”

The mini train soon came around one more curve in the track and arrived at what appeared to a hangar with the massive door that presumably led outside currently closed. However, some details quickly made it obvious this was no ordinary hangar. On one side was a row of stables, with each of the nine stalls housing a reindeer that some elves tended to. On the other side was a conveyor belt that led to a separate massive area where countless Christmas presents were sitting in storage under some kind of organized system under constant inspection by some other elves. And sitting in the middle of this hangar space was a single large red sleigh.

Santa pushed the large lever on the engine car and the mini train slowed to a stop not far from that sleigh, then he climbed out of the mini train and began walking towards the sleigh. The seven Equestria Girls also climbed out of their seats on the mini train and followed Santa.

“So this must be it, huh?” remarked Rainbow Dash with bemusement. “The one and only magical sleigh you ride in to deliver all those Christmas presents.”

“Not quite as magical as the flying reindeer who pull it aloft, but yes,” confirmed Santa.

“Forgive me for trying to apply logic,” Twilight spoke up, “but while this facility certainly has enough scale to prepare enough Christmas gifts for everyone in the world, I fail to see how this one little sleigh could possibly carry such an immense supply for a journey that leads quite literally all over the world.”

Santa let out his typical jolly laughter and replied, “Christmas Magic does much more than allow me to watch everyone and judge their behavior. It also allows these reindeer to fly while pulling this sleigh and for me to fly up through the chimney once my delivery at each house is complete, but perhaps the one usage most people probably wouldn’t even consider is that the bottom of my sack leads directly to that loading dock over there.” He pointed at the end of the conveyor belt, where there was a platform with what appeared to be a seemingly bottomless hole that covered much of its surface. “The elves assigned there must send all the presents through that one-way portal in the correct order provided by Mrs. Claus so that I can deliver them to the correct houses every single time.”

Among the three elves currently inspecting that loading dock, one of them smiled as he turned to the girls and waved, then he turned back to the loading dock and jumped straight into the dark pit. Only a second later, the seven girls were startled as the seemingly empty sack in the sleigh suddenly shifted around a little until that same elf freed himself from within, then he smiled and waved at them again.

As that elf climbed out of the sleigh and returned to his assignment, Twilight had a blank stare on her face as she muttered, “Suddenly, my Jump-Gate system doesn’t seem quite so special anymore.”

Clang!

“AAAHHHHHHHHH!!”

Crash!

The series of unexpected noises caused everyone to immediately turn their attention towards the storage area for all the presents, but due to how high many of the storage compartments full of presents were, they couldn’t see any of whatever had just occurred.

“What was that?” asked Rarity worriedly.

It wasn’t long before they began to hear a bunch of various clattering and thumping noises coming from within the storage area, soon followed by the screams of elves as they suddenly fled the area in panic.

“What is going on over there?” asked Santa in confusion.

One of the fleeing elves stopped in front of Santa and fearfully reported, “Some burglars just dropped in through an air vent in the ceiling! They’re taking the presents!”

“Burglars?!” asked Applejack in shock.

“That better not be who I think they are,” grumbled Sunset as she frowned.

The commotion in the storage area lasted a few more seconds, followed immediately by the rapid clacking of footsteps at a running pace. Finally, two robbers came charging out of the storage area and into the hangar, both of whom carried a large sack full of stuff slung over their shoulders. Both of these robbers wore dark grey pants, black and white striped prison shirts, and black beanie hats, but one of them also wore a grey jacket over his shirt while the other had the sleeves ripped off his shirt. As soon as the two robbers rushed into the hangar, they suddenly skidded to a stop when they noticed the group of seven girls standing in their way.

“Rocky and Mugsy,” stated Sunset in displeasure as she crossed her arms. “What are you two brick-heads doing here?”

“We’re here to steal all these presents, that’s what!” declared Rocky forcefully, speaking in a gravelly gangster voice.

“Yeah!” added Mugsy excitedly, speaking in a deeper dimwitted voice. “Why wait for Christmas when we can just take it all right now?!”

“All the presents?” asked Twilight skeptically. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s far more Christmas gifts in this facility than the two of you could possibly carry away on your own.”

“Then we’ll just grab what we can an’ take off with ‘em!” Rocky shot back.

The two incompetent robbers then split up and ran around the gathered group on opposite sides until they both reached the sleigh. They tossed their sacks full of stolen presents into the sleigh, but they both overshot it and ended up getting hit and knocked over by each other’s stuffed sack. They both scrambled back to their feet and again tossed their sacks over the sleigh. This time, those two stuffed sacks collided into each other above the sleigh and then dropped down into the backseat. With that loading job dealt with, the two robbers then hopped into the front seat of the sleigh.

“Thanks for giving us this getaway ride, big guy!” remarked Mugsy.

Santa turned to the Equestria Girls and desperately requested, “You must stop them at once!”

Rainbow Dash smirked and quipped, “Compared to what we’ve been up against, these dummies are barely more than just practice!”

“Besides,” Applejack pointed out, “without any of those reindeer hooked up, those nincompoops won’t be goin’ anywhere with your sleigh.”

“Oh, but we will, thanks to these rocket boosters we just found!” boasted Rocky as he and his partner in crime each pulled out a large rocket motor and stuck them onto opposite sides of the sleigh. “You sissies will never catch us!”

As Rocky quickly powered up the rocket engines, Mugsy waved at the onlooking group and tauntingly shouted, “Bye-bye, sissies!”

SHOOOOOOM!!

The rocket boosters ignited, sending the sleigh swiftly skidding across the hangar floor until it smashed through the massive doors and took off into the air outside the mountain.

Back inside the hangar, Santa and the Equestria Girls had barely avoided getting scorched and blown over by those rockets thanks to Rarity using her magic power to quickly summon a wall of diamond shields to block the fiery exhaust. Once the rocket-propelled sleigh had taken off, Rarity dispersed her diamond shields and muttered, “That was unexpected.”

Rainbow Dash turned to Santa and asked, “How come you didn’t see that coming?”

“I don’t have foresight,” Santa pointed out. “I only know a person’s recent behavior, allowing me to determine on which of my two lists they rightfully belong.”

“Well if they weren’t on the naughty list before, they sure are now,” grumbled Applejack.

“But how are we gonna catch them?” asked Pinkie Pie.

“Maybe they can help us,” suggested Fluttershy as she pointed at the reindeer in the stables.

Meanwhile, the stolen sleigh continued shooting through the sky over the winter woodland, its rocket boosters still firing at full thrust. With no fins or stabilizers anywhere around those rockets or the sleigh itself, the flying contraption began to sway around in all directions. The ride had already become so uncontrollable that the two incompetent robbers could do nothing but hold on tight as they screamed in terror.

It wasn’t long before the rocket-propelled sleigh began flying directly towards the Winter Village. As it approached the outskirts of the village, the airborne sleigh suddenly swerved downward and came very close to the ground before it suddenly leveled off again. However, the sleigh was now flying so low that it had to maneuver along the streets between the buildings. Since the robbers still had no way to control the sleigh, they inevitably collided left and right with practically every other building they flew past. With each impact, some of the stolen presents spilled out and various decorations were torn off the buildings. The wild ride finally came to an end at the village’s main square when the sleigh slammed directly into the big Christmas tree, the impact and the continuous thrust from the rockets causing it to topple over. When the tree and the stolen sleigh crashed to the ground, the rocket motors broke free and independently took off upward, but didn’t get far before they finally ran out of fuel and then simply plummeted back to the snowy ground right beside the fallen Christmas tree.

Thunk. Thunk.

Within the crashed sleigh tangled up in the branches of the fallen tree, Rocky and Mugsy groaned as they struggled to regain their bearings. By the time their vision began to clear, they saw standing over them amidst the carnage was a police officer glaring down at them.

A few minutes later, as the villagers wandered around to assess the damages, they began to hear the distinctive jingling of small holiday bells. They looked around for the source of that noise and soon noticed eight reindeer flying towards the village, and riding on their backs were Santa Claus and the seven Equestria Girls. The reindeer flew low over the village and followed the trail of destruction, then finally landed at the main square at the center of the village where they found the stolen sleigh partially embedded within the branches of the fallen Christmas tree.

As the group dismounted the reindeer, Sunset asked, “Have these reindeer ever had anyone ride on their backs like this?”

“Certainly a first, so far as I know,” confirmed Santa.

While Fluttershy immediately focused on looking after the reindeer after that flight, the rest of the group glanced around at the surrounding carnage. Applejack placed her hands on her hips and muttered, “Sheesh. What a mess.”

“Where’d those brick-heads go?” asked Rainbow Dash, mildly irritated.

“Got ‘em in cuffs right here,” reported one of the nearby police officers as he pointed at the fallen Christmas tree, where a few other police officers struggled to pull the two incompetent crooks out of the tangled branches of that huge pine tree, but weren’t yet having much success.

“Of course it had to end right there,” grumbled Sunset under her breath as she rolled her eyes.

“Ho, ho, ho,” muttered Santa sadly as he facepalmed. “This is a complete disaster. My sleigh is wrecked, the village has been extensively damaged, and two sacks full of Christmas presents have been scattered all over the place.”

“I know a lot of things look bad right now,” Twilight spoke up, “but I think we can still salvage this.”

“Have you seen the scale of this devastation, darling?” asked Rarity skeptically. “How could we possibly resolve all of this in time for Mister Claus’s departure?”

“We’ve dealt with plenty of tough situations before,” responded Twilight. “If we can utilize our talents and work together as a team, then we have a realistic chance to not only recover and restore everything essential to Santa’s Christmas gift deliveries, but also clean up and repair the village while we’re at it.”

“Twilight’s right,” agreed Applejack with determination. “If we could defeat evil magic several times before, then cleanin’ up after a couple of pathetic robbers shouldn’t be that hard.”

“It’s a pretty big to-do list, though,” Sunset pointed out. “We’ve gotta lock away those robbers, pull the sleigh out and repair any damages to it, recover the looted Christmas presents and reorganize them back into the system, re-erect that Christmas tree and put the fallen ornaments back on, fix up several damaged buildings all over the Winter Village, and replace the destroyed hangar doors at Santa’s workshop.”

“And get it all done before sundown?” asked Rainbow Dash. She then grinned and confidently remarked, “Then what are we waiting for?”

“Come on, girls!” declared Pinkie Pie excitedly. “Let’s save Christmas!”

It didn’t take long for the Equestria Girls to come up with a plan for how they would help clean up and restore everything that had been wrecked by that ill-conceived robbery attempt. The most immediate task was to free the sleigh and the two incompetent crooks that were still tangled up in the branches of the fallen Christmas tree. Rainbow Dash used her magical super speed to quickly build a simple bridge over the toppled large tree. Twilight climbed up to the middle of the bridge — which allowed her a good view down into the impact site inside the tree — and used her magical power to push several branches aside at once, levitate the sleigh and the robbers out of the tree, then gently set the damaged sleigh down on some open ground while she flung the dimwitted duo over to Rarity, who had used her magical power to summon a construct of large diamonds in the shape of a small cage within which she caught the crooks and then sealed up the opening. Rocky and Mugsy, both of whom were now covered in twigs and pine needles, groaned in defeat upon being locked away inside that shimmering cage.

While Sunset helped Santa inspect the damage to his sleigh, Pinkie Pie used her magical power to toss some candy canes onto the bridge, quickly blasting it to pieces. With that bridge now out of the way, Applejack tied a cable around the middle of the tree’s trunk, then ran over to grab the other end of the cable — which was looped through a pulley attached to the corner of a nearby rooftop — and used her magical super strength to begin pulling the massive tree. It was quite a struggle, even for Applejack, but with encouragement from all of the gathered villagers, she eventually managed to single-handedly pull the huge Christmas tree upright. Finally, while Pinkie Pie quickly reused the bridge pieces to secure the base of the tree, Fluttershy used her magical power to instruct some birds to gather up the dropped ornaments scattered where the tree had fallen and then fly up to hang them back on the tree.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash — using her magical super speed — rushed around the village, gathered up any Christmas presents she found scattered all over the place, and dropped them off close to where Twilight stood. With Santa’s assistance, Twilight was able to contact the elves back at the workshop to obtain a complete list of the Christmas presents that were not accounted for after the break-in. With that list now in her hands, she inspected the tag on every present Rainbow brought to her, then checked them off the list as she placed them into the sacks.

After Rarity dropped off the captured brick-heads at the only jail cell in the village, she then set out to help clean up some of the minor damages done to the village. With her magical ability to utilize her summoned diamonds like levitating tools, she made quick work of various delicate tasks, such as hanging lights and wreaths back where they belonged. Once Applejack had finished hauling up the tree in the main square, she pitched in with repairs to any buildings that had a window smashed or a chimney toppled over.

As all of that was going on, Sunset carefully readjusted the arrangement of Lego parts to restore Santa’s sleigh back to its proper structure. When that was finally taken care of, Fluttershy was then able to help the eight reindeer into the harnesses attached to the front of the sleigh. Soon after that, once Twilight was certain that every lost present was finally accounted for, she levitated the filled sacks into back of the sleigh. Finally, Santa climbed into his sleigh, grasped the reigns, and guided the reindeer to take flight, allowing him to return to his workshop with the recovered presents.

By the time Santa departed, the Equestria Girls had completed most of the repairs to the village, and the villagers who watched them had now volunteered to help finish the few small tasks that remained to be done. Since it turned out that Santa’s workshop also served as the headquarters facility for the Winter Village’s branch of the LEGO Team, Twilight was able to use her Jump-Gate return device to access the gateway located there, allowing the girls to instantly return there.

Now that they were back at Santa’s workshop, the Equestria Girls had only a few more tasks left to complete. While Twilight, Rarity, and Sunset helped Santa’s elves organize the recovered presents back to where they belonged in the storage area, the other four girls searched through the sector that was dedicated to LEGO Team activities and soon found another hangar where some relatively standard vehicles were stored. Rainbow Dash decided to take the cargo helicopter, and once the retractable roof of the hangar was opened at the base of the mountain, the four girls climbed into the helicopter and flew outside in it.

Riding that helicopter made it easy for the four Equestria Girls to quickly locate the two massive doors from the hangar of Santa’s workshop that had broken loose and fallen down the mountainside. With Rainbow Dash piloting the helicopter and Fluttershy operating the winch cable, Applejack and Pinkie Pie slid down the dangling cable to safely reach the ground close to where those hangar doors had landed. By tossing some more candy canes, Pinkie used her magical power to quickly blast away any debris of rocks or trees that were blocking access to those doors. Once the fallen doors were cleared away, Applejack attached the cable to one of the doors, then she and Pinkie ran over to the other door as the helicopter flew over there. Once that second door was also attached to the winch cable, Applejack and Pinkie Pie rode atop those doors as Fluttershy winched them up above the trees, then Rainbow Dash flew the helicopter up the mountainside to where the gaping hole left by those doors was located. Thanks to some careful maneuvering by the two girls in the helicopter, the two girls riding those doors were soon able to simply step off into the hangar, then they hauled the doors onto the ledge within the doorway and finally detached the cable.

While Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flew off to return the helicopter to the LEGO Team hangar, Applejack borrowed a sledgehammer that she used to beat the warped doors back into shape, then she helped the elves fit those doors back into place. Despite those repairs, one task the Equestria Girls unfortunately didn’t have enough time to accomplish was restoring the rocky mountainside camouflage that covered the exterior of the hangar doors to keep the true scale of Santa’s extended workshop hidden from view, but Santa assured them that the elves would take care of that after Christmas was over.

Finally, as dusk began to settle over the Winter Village, virtually every disruption caused by that pathetic burglary attempt had been undone, and just in time for the completion of the final preparations for Santa’s Christmas Eve gift deliveries.

As all the elves cheered in celebration, Santa gave his typical jolly laughter and praised, “Well done, girls! You truly have gifted us all with a real Christmas miracle!”

“What can I say?” remarked Rainbow Dash with a shrug and a smile. “The Magic of Friendship can make anything possible.”

“We’re just happy we could help out,” added Applejack.

Pinkie Pie squealed in excitement and exclaimed, “I can’t believe we actually helped Santa Claus save Christmas! This is like a childhood fantasy come true!”

“Not to mention, we were privileged to gain an inside look at the true scale of Santa’s Christmas operation,” noted Twilight.

“I just wish the tour hadn’t been interrupted by those two brick-heads,” grumbled Sunset. “I swear, it’s like they always seem to follow us around wherever we go.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, Sunset Shimmer,” assured Santa. “The way I see it, everyone deserves to have a merry Christmas, this year.” He then leaned in close and quietly added, “And I do mean everyone.” He then gave Sunset a subtle wink as he held out a small envelope to her.

Sunset looked down at that envelope, glanced up at Santa in confusion for a moment, then turned her gaze back to the envelope before she gently took it from his grasp.

“Ooh! A gift from Santa?” asked Pinkie eagerly as she and the rest of the girls gathered around Sunset. “What is it?!”

Sunset looked closely at the envelope and noticed the written note on it that said, “For Sunset Shimmer Only”. That underlined word confused her, but with all of her friends eagerly looking over her shoulders, she responded, “Whatever this is, I think I’m not supposed to share it with anyone. Call it one of Santa’s secrets, I guess.”

All six of Sunset’s friends collectively moaned in disappointment.

Santa laughed heartily at that, then stated, “Well, thanks again for all the help. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must now ride off into the night.” He then walked over to his sleigh and climbed into his seat at the front. As he grasped the reigns to his reindeer, a small group of elves pulled open the hangar doors that led out of the mountainside.

Finally, the moment Santa and his elves had prepared all year long for had arrived. With a final smile and wave to the Equestria Girls, Santa cheerfully said, “Merry Christmas!” He then whipped the reins and the nine reindeer pulled the sleigh across the hangar, out the open doorway, and out into the night before Christmas, just as some light snowfall began to descend.

Within seconds, Santa and his sleigh flew over the Winter Village. As happened every year, the villagers gathered outside to watch as he departed on his worldwide Christmas deliveries. As he heard the cheers and joyful shouts below, he cheerfully cried out, “Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!”

Christmas Day had come and gone, and as night fell after the conclusion of all the festivities, it was time for all the visitors to once more board the Holiday Express and depart from the Winter Village. The seven Equestria Girls had certainly enjoyed their month-long stay in the village, but now they were just as eager to finally return home to Canterlot City. As they rode the train though the nighttime wintery wilderness, they took this time to reflect on their recent experiences.

“I have to admit,” Fluttershy spoke up, “we all sure had a good time in the Winter Village.”

“Absolutely,” agreed Rarity. “Our near-calamitous arrival a few weeks ago sure demonstrated the importance of remembering to carry our luggage with us.”

“I was finally able to deliver my holiday soufflé to Rarity while it was still fresh,” remarked Pinkie Pie.

“Sunset and I got an opportunity to befriend Emmet and Lucy from the city of Bricksburg,” stated Twilight.

“I made up for a past wrong by giving away the secret stash I left behind years ago,” Sunset pointed out.

“We all shared some awesome gifts with each other,” noted Rainbow Dash. She then sheepishly added, “Even though I kinda got mine ready at pretty much the last minute.”

“An’ we even saved Christmas from a break-in burglary attempt,” added Applejack with pride.

“Best holiday season ever!” declared Pinkie ecstatically.

Twilight then smirked and remarked, “And you know what makes this even better? We finally made it through our entire planned vacation without once ever confronting anything bad caused by Equestrian Magic.”

“A vacation that wasn’t ruined by Equestrian Magic?” quipped Rarity. “Now there’s something worthy of our celebration.”

“Cider’s on me when we get home!” offered Applejack contently.

“Awesome!” cheered Rainbow Dash excitedly.

Sunset Shimmer remained silent while her friends celebrated the realization of such a major accomplishment. Although she was just as thrilled as other girls about finally not being faced with evil Equestrian Magic for once, she alone knew there was still one more task left to complete before she could officially declare this vacation a total success. She pulled out her phone and glanced at the time, then put away her phone and got up out of her seat.

“Where are you going, Sunset?” asked Fluttershy.

“I’m just gonna check on something real quick,” replied Sunset vaguely as she began to walk towards the back of the train. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

The six other girls watched Sunset walk away, then they all looked at each other with confused looks on their faces. Although baffled by Sunset’s vagueness, her assurance that she would return soon was enough for them to simply shrug it off and resume their friendly chatter.

Sunset passed through two more passenger cars before she arrived in the first storage car. As she made her way around some stacks of crates, she quickly found what she was looking for. Sitting in the middle of the car was a large cage, and locked inside were the two incompetent crooks, Rocky and Mugsy, on their way to a more secure prison than the barely effective one the Winter Village had.

Mugsy noticed Sunset’s arrival and spoke up, “Hey, Rocky. Look.”

Rocky turned to where his dimwitted partner in crime was pointing, then groaned in irritation and grumbled, “What do you want, sissy?”

“I’m just here to follow a special request,” responded Sunset as she pulled out the envelope that Santa had given to her. “If you want a happy ending from all of this, then you’ll follow the instructions I’m about to give you.”

“An’ if we refuse?” asked Rocky irritably.

“Then you two will stay in that cage until we arrive and you get transferred to an actual prison cell,” replied Sunset bluntly.

Mugsy turned to his snappy partner in crime and argued, “C’mon, Rocky, whatever it is can’t be any worse than what we’ve got right now.”

Rocky stared at his partner in crime for a moment, then turned back to Sunset as he sighed and grumbled, “Alright, what’s the deal?”

“There’s more to this than just breaking you out,” replied Sunset. “If we time your escape just right, you’ll get more out of this than just a free ticket out of jail. I’m gonna open that cage, then I’m gonna open the door out of this car, and at the exact moment I tell you to, you’re gonna jump out of the train. From that point, you’re on your own.”

“But how are you even gonna get us outta this cage?” asked Mugsy.

“With this,” remarked Sunset as she pulled a key out of the envelope from Santa.

Rocky raised an eyebrow and asked, “Where’d ya get that key?”

“Let’s just call it part of a little Christmas gift,” Sunset cryptically answered as she inserted the key into the lock. She turned the key, then pulled open the cage door.

The two pathetic robbers were initially hesitant, hardly believing that their escape could really be that easy. They watched Sunset as she walked a few steps over to the side of the car and then grunted as she pulled aside the heavy door outside to the cold and dark winter night.

As the pathetic duo continued to stare at her in disbelief, Sunset quipped, “Remember all those times I used to bust you dummies outta jail whenever I had need of you? Think of this as doing you that kind of favor one last time.”

Rocky and Mugsy both glanced at each other, then they both simply shrugged and walked out of the cage and stopped beside the open door out of the train car.

Sunset pulled out her phone and held up her hand as she stared at the time indicator.

The two failed robbers were itching to make their getaway at once, but they were gullible enough to believe that the one who used to help them out a lot would do so again, at least for this one last time.

Sunset continued starting at the time, silently counting down the seconds. When the instructed moment of escape finally arrived, she swiftly dropped her free hand and shouted, “Go! Jump!”

With the signal given, Rocky and Mugsy both immediately hurled themselves out of the moving train and began to tumble down the snowy slope away from the railroad track.

Sunset chuckled in amusement as she watched them fall away. She waved back at the freed incompetent robbers and playfully cried out, “Happy holidays, you dirty brick-heads!” With a smile on her face, she then slid the train car door closed.

Rocky and Mugsy continued tumbling uncontrollably down the snowy slope until they eventually landed near the shore of a frozen lake. Already shivering from the cold, they quickly rolled themselves out of the snowbanks they had unwittingly created and struggled to stand up. Since they were out in practically the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, it was very dark. Not only that, but there was also some significant snowfall coming from the sky, though thankfully there was hardly any wind to speak of.

As the brick-head duo worked to regain their bearings, Rocky halted as he suddenly spotted something red only a few steps out onto the icy surface of the lake. “Hey, Mugsy,” he spoke up as he pointed at that mystery object. “You see what I see?”

Mugsy followed Rocky’s gaze and quickly also spotted the red object resting on the frozen lake. “What is it?” he asked.

“Let’s find out,” replied Rocky as he immediately began trudging through the snow and out onto the ice, with Mugsy following right behind him.

As the two failed burglars slid and slipped across the ice in various awkward movements, they eventually realized the object they were approaching was a large sack that appeared to be full of something. Once they finally skidded to a slippery stop in front of that sack, they noticed there was also an envelope tied to the opening of the sack, and it had their names written on it.

They both glanced at each other in confusion for a moment before Rocky grabbed the envelope, opened it, unfolded the sheet of paper inside, and held it out so he and his dimwitted associate could read what was written on it.

It’s true, I am always watching, and just like many years before, the two of you definitely belong on my naughty list once again. Normally, I would give you piles of coal for your misdeeds, but after all of those shenanigans you’ve endured with absolutely nothing to show for them, I figured that you two deserved to finally catch a break for once. The contents of this sack are yours to keep, but take care not to lose or break any of them, as this will likely be the only time I’ll be this generous to the likes of you.

Mugsy turned Rocky and asked, “Did this come from Santa?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” grumbled Rocky dismissively as he tossed the letter away. “Whoever wrote that didn’t even bother to sign their name, so it could’ve come from anyone.”

Mugsy then turned back to the mystery object and asked, “So, uh… what’s in the sack?”

Rocky didn’t bother responding as he immediately reached forward and pulled open the top of the sack. He dug around inside and soon pulled out what appeared to be a black smaller sack that was full of some heavy stuff that clattered around a little, though it was hard to tell what exactly it was due to the darkness. He felt around and soon managed to find an opening on one side, so he reached inside and the first thing his hand bumped into caused a bright light to suddenly flash right in his face. He instantly shut his eyes and winced in pain. Once his eyes stopped stinging, he swiftly pulled out the offending object and discovered that it was a flashlight. Now that he had a source of light, he aimed it at the object he was holding and soon began to grin.

“No way!” Rocky cried out excitedly. “It’s a professional burglary kit!”

“No! Even better!” exclaimed Mugsy as he reached into the big red sack and pulled out an identical bundle of objects to the one Rocky held. “Two professional burglary kits!”

“Now this is what I call a holiday miracle!” declared Rocky triumphantly.

“Looks like Sunset was right!” remarked Mugsy in delight. “We did get a happy ending outta all this!”

With the flashlight in his hand, Rocky soon caught sight of the discarded letter. He quickly noticed there was something else written on the back side of that sheet of paper, so he picked it up and looked more closely at it. It turned out to be a crude map, indicating the railroad track, the frozen lake, and what appeared to be a settlement on the other side of the lake. He gazed out across the icy surface and, sure enough, he noticed a faint glow on the horizon that could potentially be a sign of civilization.

“C’mon, Mugsy!” stated Rocky as he hefted his unexpected Christmas gift over his shoulder. “We’d better get goin’. It’s a long walk to the nearest town.” He then began marching his way across the ice.

“Right behind ya Rocky!” responded Mugsy as he also hefted his gift over his shoulder and followed after Rocky.

It was very rare for those two incompetent crooks to ever have anything work out well for them. A life of crime was never easy for anyone, but for these brick-heads in particular, it was as if they were perpetually doomed to never obtain any success, no matter where they went or what they wet after. Robbers like these pathetic goons would never believe in anything silly like holiday spirit, but it was hard for them to deny just how uplifting this incredible miracle had been for their attitudes.

It had truly been a happy holiday for everyone.

Author's Note

Once again, I barely managed to complete a chapter in time for the schedule I had set out. Good thing this is the last one for this particular collection of short stories, because at this rate, I am in serious need of a major reset to stop making a habit of this frequent last-minute crunch. I'll explain more in a blog post that I hope to have done by the end of this month. Anyway, since Lego has made various forms of Santa Claus since before even the earliest minifigures, I figured it would make total sense to have Santa exist in this Lego World, which gave me an opportunity to share how I think he could realistically pull off delivering presents to everyone in the world in just one night, complete with bits of Lego's quirky humor. When I came up with the idea of this particular short story, pretty much all I had come up with before I began writing was "robber duo shows up to steal Santa's sleigh, they make a big mess in their failed getaway, Equestria Girls fix up everything, Sunset frees the robber duo on the train ride back home, and robber duo find a Christmas gift from Santa". Practically everything else in this chapter is stuff that I essentially came up with as I was writing it all out, and since I'm a rather slow writer and my thoughts often outpace my writing, I pretty much came up with a new way for me to write these chapters where, as soon as I come up with an idea at any point later in the chapter, I'll make a quick note of it at the bottom of the page and come back to it later, so once my writing progress does eventually reach those parts, all I'm doing is essentially filling in the gaps between everything I had already come up with. Looking back, that new method of writing actually worked out quite well for me, so I think I'll be applying it to all of my future writing. Despite how proud I am of how I was able to write this short story, I'm much less confident in whether the actual story being told in it is even any good. I guess I'll just have to wait for comments from readers like you to know for sure.