We now join My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic already in progress. The Legion of Doom has captured our heroes and locked them up.
Twilight Sparkle paced around the dungeon cell she was sharing with her friends. “I don’t get it! How did they escape the statue we sealed them in? Did the magic wear out? Was there some kind of escape clause?”
“Maybe they did it the same way Pinkie is always able to just randomly show up.”
“That’s a great idea, Rarity. Pinkie! You’ve got to get us out of here!”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?!?”
“I can only do that when it’s funny.”
“How do we make it funny?” Loose strands started sticking out of Twilight’s mane. “Quick! We need to get out of here now!”
Pinkie shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, right now I can’t even do it when it’s funny.”
“What? Twilight started hyperventilating. “Why not?!?”
“I gave up breaking the fourth wall for Lent.”
“Who or what is Lent?”
“Telling you would break the fourth wall. I’ll explain on Easter.”
“What’s Easter?!?”
“Twilight, I don’t reckon that’s all that important right now. Y’all let Pinkie Pie be Pinkie Pie and focus on what’s really important here: escaping and stopping Cozy Glow, Chrysalis, and Tirek. So start thinking of a logical plan t’ get us all outta here.”
“No, no, no. First things first. Who or what is Lent? And what’s Easter? I need to know! It’s a mystery and I need to solve it! Where’s a library when I need one?”
“Looks like it’s up t’ the rest of us to bust outta this here place. Anypony else got any ideas?”
“Allow me.” Rarity’s horn glowed, and she removed a bobby pin from her hair. She hummed a merry little tune as she used the hairpin to pick the lock. With a satisfying click, the door swung open. “Voila!”
“Nice work, Rares. All right, how do we stop th’ villains?”
“I got this.” Rainbow Dash buffed a hoof on her chest. She zoomed down the corridor and the sounds of a scuffle could be heard coming from the direction she’d flown off in.
“We should help Rainbow.” Sickly green changeling goo missed Rarity by a few hooflengths, hitting the wall next to her instead. “As I was saying, darlings, Rainbow can take care of this without our assistance.”
“Insolent fool! You dare to attack Queen Chrysl…”
Crack
Green blood splattered the wall in front of the gathered ponies.
“A little help?”
Fluttershy and Applejack galloped down the hall to help Rainbow Dash, while Rarity gingerly stepped over the disgusting goo and blood. She hadn’t made it far down the hall before Applejack passed her the other way, the limp form of the changeling queen on her back.
They dumped Chrysalis’ prone form in the cell they’d been confined to. The same cell where Twilight was still trying to get information out of Pinkie Pie regarding Lent and Easter.
“Oh…oh my. Do you think she’s going to be okay?” Fluttershy was beside herself as she walked alongside Applejack and Rarity.
“She’ll be fine, Flutters. She’s just sleeping.”
Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “I’m not a foal, Applejack. I deal with death every single day. The circle of life doesn’t take a day off just because I’m on a friendship mission. If she’s dead, just say it.”
“If she ain’t dead now, she’s going to wish she was when she wakes up to Twilight an’ Pinkie arguing.”
“Hold still, you pesky pegasus!” Tirek’s voice thundered down the corridor.
“Do you think Rainbow needs help?”
All the colors of a rainbow flashed down the hallway, and the sound of a sonic rainboom followed moments later.
“Nah, I reckon she’s good.”
Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity emerged in the villains’ lair. Rainbow hovered over Tirek, who was laying at the bottom of a smoking crater.
“How in tarnation are y’all expecting me to move him, RD?”
“Earth pony endurance. We can just dump him in that really convenient bottomless pit over there.”
It took all four of them pushing, pulling, and dragging, but they got him into the pit, which proved itself to not be bottomless when the centaur landed with a thud. Exhausted, Rainbow leaned on the wall, pulling a lever down in the process. Jets of flame shot out of the pit behind them, and the ponies dove for cover.
Rarity walked over to the lever and read the label. “Brilliant, darling. That’s not a bottomless pit, that’s an incinerator.”
“Ow. I’m injured…and now I’m on fire.” Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow, and Rarity all looked at one another as Tirek continued moaning. “I’m in a lot of agony…”
It was quiet for a few moments and the gathered ponies breathed a sigh of relief.
“There’s something seriously wrong with you ponies. The fire has gone out now, but I’m still in a lot of pain. And I think I inhaled some smoke.” Tirek coughed. “No, I know I inhaled a lot of smoke. I urgently require medical attention.”
“We should do something.” The others nodded, and Applejack pulled the lever, starting the incinerator up again.
“I’m on fire again! Sweet Celestia, it burns!”
Rarity decided to change the subject and drown out the protesting centaur. “Anypony seen Cozy Glow?”
They paused, and the air in the villains’ hideout was heavy with silence.
Applejack sighed. “Normally, this is the point where Pinkie Pie casually points out that she’s trying to slip away.”
“Or just trots over to her hiding place and pulls her out.” Rainbow hovered, scanning the cavern. “Aha! There she is!” Rainbow zoomed over to the fleeing Cozy Glow and the two pegasi scuffled for a few moments.
“I surrender! Golly, can we just try the friendship thing? Pwease?”
Rainbow guffawed. “In your dreams, kiddo.”
“Dang it.”
“Is…is she injured?”
“Hay no, ‘Shy. What kind of monster do you take me for? She’s just a kid. Sealing her in stone forever and ever is just fine, but hitting her, spanking her, or otherwise injuring her? Never!”
“I’ll give you ‘just a kid!’” Cozy tried bucking Rainbow, but she kept the pint-size villain at bay with a foreleg.
“All I did was pluck her primary feathers. She’s not going anywhere, except with us.”
That meant it was time to address the elephant in the room. “So how do we get him out?”
“Like this.” Applejack pulled her rope from her saddlebag, tied it to a stalagmite, and tossed it down the incinerator shaft. “Tirek, iff’n y’all can hear me, grab onto th’ rope.”
“Could you repeat that in Equestrian? I’m afraid I don’t speak redneck.”
Rainbow grasped AJ’s tail in her mouth before she could jump into the incinerator to pummel the centaur.
“What my friend is trying to say is that she threw a rope down to you. Can you pull yourself up? I’m afraid the four of us aren’t strong enough to lift you up without your assistance.” Rarity resisted adding the word ‘darling’ to the end of the sentence. Tirek was no darling.
Tirek climbed up and collapsed on the ground in front of the ponies. “Fine, you win, I surrender. Can I get some medical attention now?”
Once Fluttershy had administered basic first aid, mostly by applying Hello Kitty Band-Aids at random places on the centaur, the ponies returned to the jail cell, and tossed the clipped pegasus filly and singed centaur on top of the still unconscious changeling.
“What do we do about Pinkie and Twilight?”
Rainbow shrugged. “Let’s just lock ourselves back in the jail cell.”
“Why?”
“Because it would be funny. How long do you think it’ll take Twilight to notice?”
“I reckon that depends. Any o’ y’all know when Easter is? ‘Cause I’m thinking we all might jus’ be stuck here until then.”
Five hours later…
“When is Easter?”
“Sunday.”
“And you’ll tell me everything then?”
Pinkie Pie nodded.
Twilight huffed in frustration. “Fine. Now then, if we’re done with all this nonsense, we need to stop…” She looked around the cell to find Queen Chrysalis slumped in a folding chair, wearing sunglasses and a t-shirt boldly proclaiming the wearer was ‘Not Dead’. Tirek, meanwhile, was brooding in the corner covered in both soot and adorable bandages. As for her friends, Rainbow was napping, Applejack was pacing around the cell, Rarity was knitting, and Fluttershy was preening the remaining feathers in Cozy Glow’s wings, consoling the filly over her defeat, and encouraging her that next time she might come out victorious. “…Did I miss something?”
“Silly Twilight!” Pinkie patted her friend on the head. “They took care of everything when it was funny. I’m so proud of them right now.”
