"Why Do I Have to Be Called Sunny D?"
One summer day in the town of Maretime Bay…
Sunny Starscout was dressed up like a pirate on a movie set, wearing a straw hat, white uniform, eyepatch, and pirate hook while brandishing a toy sword. Izzy Moonbow was singing a cringe rap song while Sunny danced happily on the top of a pirate ship in front of a background of an ocean.
“Her name is Sunny! That’s Sunny D. Starscout! Going to be queen of the pirates!” Izzy sang into a microphone.
Sunny’s translucent yellow horn appeared below her hat and her translucent yellow wings appeared as well when Izzy sang the next verse.
“She’s got alicorn powers!” Izzy exclaimed as she pointed her right foreleg to her three other friends, Pipp Petals, who was filming Sunny and Izzy on her phone, Zipp Storm, and Hitch Trailblazer, sitting in chairs watching.
“How did that happen?” the trio asked, following cue.
“Yo ho ho!” Izzy proclaimed. “She took the other tribes’ crystals!”
“Wait, what?!” Sunny cried bemusedly, her cheerful mood subsiding. “Cut!”
“Uh, Sunny…” Pipp interjected, donning sunglasses and getting up from her director’s chair. “I’m the director here!”
“Well, that doesn’t mean I have to like parts that shouldn’t be in the script!” Sunny proclaimed. “I mean, “took the crystals”? You’re making me sound like some kind of thief!”
“Well, we definitely stole Mom’s crystal…” Zipp chimed in.
“Besides, I’m also pretty sure that a pirate’s a thief by default.” Hitch added.
“You’re not helping!” Sunny retorted. “And why do I have to be called Sunny D?”
“Marketing.” Pipp answered bluntly, drinking a bottle of orange liquid. “Call it shameful, haters gonna hate, but Mom’s not lending me any more money for the rest of the summer. That new yacht wasn’t cheap.”
“Ugh!” Sunny grunted, not noticing that Izzy was leaning back on one of the set’s cannons, resting her right foreleg before slipping and accidentally pushing the cannon forward towards the ship. It then tilted upwards from the shove.
“Look,” she continued, “I know we need this promotional film to be a hit so that more ponies from Bridlewood Forest and Zephyr Heights will come to the next Maretime Bay Day festival for the new water park ride! I know we need money! But don’t you think there’s such a thing as too commerci-woah, WOAH!”
Sunny realized she was losing control of her alicorn powers, accidentally zapping a stage light above her into glitter, as well as losing her balance. She tripped and fell off the top of the ship and landed into the cannon below her, causing the cannon to fall downward and blast her out of a nearby window that had been opened because of the summer heat.
“YYYAAAHHH!” Sunny screamed as she went flying.
“No, I’m pretty sure it’s “Yargh!” in the script, Sunny.” an oblivious Izzy remarked.
“AAAAAHHHHH!” Sunny continued to yell as the shot from the cannon sent her all the way past the shore of the ocean of the beach from Pipp’s beach house, where they were filming while Pipp was visiting on summer vacation to ride her yacht. With the sun shining bright over the ocean, Sunny felt an incredible amount of heat from the sun in the air, resulting in her magic briefly turning a shade of a fiery red color…
Soon, she landed, making a giant splash in the ocean, and with her alicorn powers still going haywire, a giant discharge of magical energy turned all the nearby water surrounding her into glitter. All the beachgoers watched the scene in astonishment, which was shared by Sunny’s friends once they arrived. All with the exception of Izzy, of course.
“Glitter ocean!” she proclaimed with gleeful innocence.
She then ran to the ocean and jumped inside, doing a cannonball just as a dazed Sunny poked her head out, only to be met with glitter splashing on her face from Izzy’s dive.
“Woo-hoo, yeah!” she continued joyfully, dog paddling through the glitter before she stuck her face in it and ate some. “Mhm! Tastes good too!”
“Tastes good?” a perplexed Sunny reacted before curiously licking some of the glitter that landed on her face. “Hey, this stuff actually doesn’t taste so bad! Who would’ve thought this stuff would actually be edible? Then again, it is magic…”
Approaching the glitter ocean out of her own curiosity, Pipp stuck a front hoof into the glitter and brought it to her mouth, tasting it. She then looked at her bottle of orange liquid and a lightbulb in the form of a phone battery reaching its full charge went off in her head.
“This gives me an idea…” she said, smirking deviously.
Later, at Sunny’s smoothie shack…
“Come one, come all!” Pipp declared ebulliently outside the shack, directing bystanders towards it. “And try out the exclusive, limited time edition of the latest and greatest refreshment, Shiny D!”
Sunny, now in her normal attire, peeked out the window of the shack with a blank expression on her face as she presented an orange and purple smoothie with bits of glitter gleaming inside of it, causing a crowd of ponies to “ooh” and “aah”.
“It’s everything you loved about your favorite old orange drink stylized!” Pipp continued her advertisement. “Sunny like the original, shiny brand new like a star, and only available from Sunny Starscout’s Smoothie Shack! And the best part is, if you order one today, 70% of your payments will go towards a good cause! The funding for great entertainment for this summer’s Maretime Bay Day Festival, the development of the Sunny D. Starscout movie and the development of the Sunny D. Starscout water park ride right here!”
Cries of “Alright!” and “Yeah!” among the crowd were heard as they began lining up for Sunny to quickly prepare the beverages for them. Zipp and Hitch, who were helping out inside, began to talk to each other.
“I don’t know what’s bugging me more.” Zipp said with concern. “My sister becoming entrenched in commercialism or the fact that we’re selling drinks to ponies mixed with a substance we just learned was edible!”
“It could be worse.” Hitch replied sheepishly. “As the sheriff, I can at least vouch for the fact that we’re not doing anything illegal. The food safety administration doesn’t have rules on magic glitter after all. Also, we know it’s safe from the fact we consumed it ourselves. It’s not like we’re scamming them into buying a product that’s actually garbage.”
“Hey!” Izzy exclaimed, popping out her head from a dumpster close to the shack, overhearing him. “You’re not trash-talking my trash, are you?”
“That’s not what’s nagging me…” Zipp asserted. “I’m more concerned about potential side effe-”
Zipp was interrupted by her widely smiling sister bursting through the door to the smoothie shack as the satiated customers were leaving and Sunny was wearily panting and catching her breath, slouched out on the floor.
“The fundraiser was a big success!” Pipp cried giddily, pulling out a miniature suitcase and opening it to reveal several large stacks of cash. “I’ve already placed an order for an extra large tanker of water and we still have plenty left to split between us! Can you believe we found more than one new way to swim in just one day? From swimming in glitter, to swimming in cash-”
“To swimming in trash!” Izzy interjected, causing Pipp to convulse in disgust.
Zipp sighed as a disgruntled Sunny pulled herself up to stand.
“Look sis, we need to talk.” she told her solemnly. “I understand you want to raise all this money for a good reason, but I think we’re losing sight of the entire reason we began working on this project in the first place.”
“I thought we were doing it to bond as friends and give ponies from all over a way to bond too.” Sunny dejectedly added. “We don’t need all this money for a high-budget movie or a high-budget theme park ride, we just need to have each other.”
Sunny’s dejection was shared by a now frowning Pipp. Meanwhile, Zipp and Hitch began to detect a familiar, unpleasant scent and felt encouraged to discover the source…
“Oh…” Pipp replied despondently. “I didn’t mean to take things too far. The only reason I had such a fire for raising all this money is because I thought that the more successful everything was, the happier we’d all be.”
“It’s not like there’s anything wrong with having a fire for doing a good thing, Pipp.” Sunny said with a comforting smile as unbeknownst to her, flames began to spark on top of her hair. “You just need to learn to control it.”
“Funny you say that…” a shocked Pipp replied in bewilderment and concern. “Because I think your alicorn powers are acting up again. Your mane is on fire!”
“Huh?” Sunny reacted in surprise and confusion before she looked up and shrieked. “WWWOOOAAAGGGHHH!”
Sunny rushed to a nearby sink she used to wash her hooves before preparing refreshments and put her head under the faucet she turned on, putting out the fire. Soon, Pipp’s mane went ablaze as well, in addition to her wings. She screamed before rushing towards the sink to put out the fire on her head the same way, also doing the same to her wings.
“That wasn’t my alicorn powers!” Sunny cried fearfully. “If your mane was on fire too…it must have been from that magic glitter we ate!”
“How does magic glitter set your mane on fire?!” Pipp yelled in disbelief.
Sunny gasped in realization.
“The sun…” she remarked in horror. “When I got blasted towards the ocean, the heat from the sun must have reacted with my magic, giving the glitter my magic creates a flammable property! My mane and wings transform when I become an alicorn…that’s why the fire starts there!”
“Um…GIRLS!” an aghast Zipp called to Sunny and Pipp after she and Hitch went to investigate the source of the smoke and were terrified by what they discovered. “Not trying to be funny here, but we have a real DUMPSTER FIRE on our hooves now!”
“IIIZZZYYY!!!” all four of them bellowed in terror.
“What?!” Izzy cried back in bemusement, popping out of the fiery dumpster with a fiery mane and an old fire hose wrapped around her left foreleg, apparently unphased by the current situation.
“GET OUT OF THAT DUMPSTER!” all four of them cried. “IT’S ON FIRE! YOU’RE ON FIRE!”
“Really?” Izzy replied. “I don’t feel like I’m on fire. And I’m all too familiar with hot garbage!”
The four friends were flabbergasted by how Izzy could be oblivious to the peril of her situation, but more concerned for their friend’s safety, immediately rushed back to the shack to find ways to help her. Sunny and Pipp grabbed a mop bucket and filled it with as much water as possible while Zipp and Hitch found a fire extinguisher kept for emergency use. Sunny took hold of the bucket and Hitch took hold of the extinguisher as they ran back out to the dumpster, where Pipp and Zipp pulled Izzy out. Sunny splashed Izzy with the bucket of water while Hitch put out the dumpster fire with the extinguisher. Even after the fire on Izzy and in the dumpster was extinguished, Hitch kept spraying foam from the extinguisher in a panic, covering Izzy in foam. With her nose being irritated from the foam, Izzy sneezed, getting the foam on her friends too and giving them beards similar to the ones on Santa Claus costumes.
“Wow, Winter Wishday in July!” Izzy joked, still not phased.
“This is not funny, Izzy!” her friends cried, indignant out of concern for her as they wiped the foam off themselves. “You had us worried sick! Why did you not listen to us when we said you were on fire?! Couldn’t you feel yourself burning?!”
“No.” Izzy bluntly replied, further perplexing her friends. “Had you not told me, I never would’ve guessed. I get so engrossed in that trash sometimes, I just forget everything else.”
“Even if everything around you is burning?!” they yelled in shock.
“This is definitely no ordinary fire…” Sunny said in realization, looking up at her mane and seeing that it looked like it had never been burned. “It’s a magical fire. I didn’t notice I was on fire either until Pipp pointed it out. Since it comes from my magic, and I only have the will to use my magic to protect, that must be why it doesn’t hurt.”
“I noticed it right away on my mane though…” Pipp chimed in. “Probably because I’m very conscious of maintaining the look of my mane as a hair stylist. Yet I wasn’t in pain either, even though I had it on my wings too. Regardless, we’re lucky none of our customers were pegasi.”
“The fact that it doesn’t cause ponies pain isn’t cause for full comfort though…” Zipp interjected worriedly. “Even if it can’t burn ponies or things, there’s plenty of ways for them to find out their manes are on fire and panic. They might even jump to the conclusion that they’re spontaneously combusting. It will be mass hysteria! We have to fix this! Especially when we don’t even know what else this magic glitter could do!”
“I’m sure the animals wouldn’t like it either…” Hitch said nervously. “And I’m not just Maretime Bay’s only sheriff, I’m also the only firefighter!”
“No one’s doing anything alone!” Sunny proclaimed. “We have to work together to undo this mess!”
“And I have just the plan for how we can use my advertising expertise to fix this disaster while sticking together and uniting every pony!” Pipp exclaimed.
“How do you propose we do that?” a curious Zipp questioned.
Later, outside Pipp’s beach house…
Zipp was now standing on a stage near a podium with a red curtain behind her, dressed in a tuxedo with a black tie. Pipp, now dressed in a tuxedo with a red tie, had gathered every pony who had bought Shiny D smoothies from them there with an advertisement of a free showing of an award show with the royal sisters that would precede a preview of what the new water park ride would be like. Behind them stood a “No Phones” sign beside a “Prepare to Get Wet” sign.
“I had to ask.” Zipp said, unamused as Pipp flew on stage and stood at the podium.
“Come on, you know Mom had us do stuff like this all the time back in the day to keep the masses happy.” Pipp whispered.
“That’s why I hate it!” Zipp retorted angrily before being shushed by Pipp.
“Fillies and gentlecolts!” Pipp called out to the audience. “We’re happy to have you here today as we present Zipp Storm an award for Outstanding Performance in an Independent Film. We’re here to honor her role in a movie featured at the prestigious flight academy, W.I.N.G.S., the educational documentary, Zipp Your Fly!”
Pipp handed a gold award modeled after a pony putting her front forelegs together to her sister, who forced a smile upon accepting it. Pipp then walked away from the podium, directing Zipp to stand at it and speak.
“Thank you, I’m flattered.” Zipp remarked, acting along. “You know, when I was playing my part in that movie, I was kind of just winging it, but hey, I’m glad that I’m winning it now!”
This caused most of the ponies in the audience to laugh, none of them noticing that the side effects from the smoothies were beginning to take effect, flames appearing on their manes. Zipp noticed, however, and growing nervous, knew she had to keep playing along with her sister’s plan.
“But hey, winging it’s not as bad as what my little sister Pipp would’ve done.” Zipp pretended to throw shade at her as part of the act. “She would’ve just squeaked by!”
Zipp then feigned a laugh as most of the audience kept laughing, still distracted from the fire as a few of Pipp’s fans gasped.
“Is she making fun of her own sister and us Pippsqueaks?!”
Pipp then walked over to Zipp, pretending to look angry and offended before she gave her still laughing sister a choreographed slap across the face.
“That’s NOT FUNNY!” Pipp shouted. “Why don’t you ZIP YOUR MOUTH!”
A big “OOOOOOOHHH!” was heard from the audience.
“Oh, and by the way…your fly’s down.” Pipp made another diss.
“Joke’s on you.” Zipp retorted. “I’m not wearing pants.”
A few ponies in the audience started taking pictures with their phones.
“Hey!” Pipp exclaimed to them. “Didn’t you read the signs? I told you not to bring your phones! You wouldn’t want them to get soaked for our next presentation, right?”
Pipp then pulled a rope on stage, pulling back the curtain to reveal Sunny, Izzy, and Hitch standing beside the water tanker Pipp had ordered. Izzy had unicycled the fire hose from the dumpster, attaching it to the tanker, while Sunny had infused it with her alicorn magic, so that when the water passed through the hose, it would react with her magic. This would not just put out the flames, but also undo any other effects done by the magic glitter, something Sunny knew from experimentation, drinking water enhanced by her magic with Pipp and Izzy. Hitch, being a firefighter, was holding the fire hose, ready to spray the liquid from it, since with his strength and experience combined, he was able to handle the pressure from the hose’s blast most effectively.
“Holy…” the crowd said, astonished.
“THAR SHE BLOWS!” Pipp cried to direct Hitch to shower the ponies with water.
Hitch pulled back the lever on the hose, soaking every pony in the crowd with the magically enhanced water, putting out the fire on their manes as well as undoing all of the fire’s magic. Once he stopped, some ponies in the crowd shook their heads, some shook off the water like a dog after a bath, and the few ponies who brought phones checked them immediately out of concern, then breathed a sigh of relief once they saw them still working.
“Just as I thought…” Sunny said happily. “Like my magical fire, the magical water and hose can’t harm ponies or things.”
“I aimed the fire hose above them just in case.” Hitch remarked, pleased with himself for his consideration of the crowd, knowing how strong the force from a fire hose could be.
“I noticed.” Izzy giddily chimed in. “It looked like you were taking a giant leak all over the crowd!”
“Why are you so obsessed with gross humor, Izzy?” an unamused Hitch asked.
“Is this what the ride you have planned is going to be like?” a pony among a puzzled crowd asked. “Hitch blowing a load of water all over us?”
“I liked it…” Primrose, a pony who had a crush on Hitch commented, smiling and blushing.
“Getting wet is just part of the ride, we assure you!” Pipp promised. “The real ride we have planned is actually more like riding a pirate ship!”
Immediately, the crowd’s tune changed from bemused to excited with cries of “Oh wow, that sounds fun!” and “Cool!” heard among them.
“Wow, that was easy.” Zipp said, surprised. “Looks like we’re already set for a conveniently happy ending.”
“With a SOOOOONG!” Pipp proclaimed with delight, pulling out a microphone.
She began singing a reprise of Let Out Your Light, the theme song of her hair salon, Mane Melody. The song soon ended with her singing…
“Can you keep it? At Mane Melody!”
However, suddenly, the crowd’s glances became ones of disapproval and skepticism.
“Wait a second…” one suspicious pony said. “I see what this was all about now…”
“Huh?” a perplexed Pipp responded to the now displeased crowd. “What?”
“You just wanted to get our manes wet so that you could bring in more business for your hair salon!” an audience member accused her. “Nice try, but we’re not that stupid!”
“No!” Pipp exclaimed in denial as the crowd began to leave. “That wasn’t done for advertising! I just didn’t feel like changing that lyric!”
Pipp’s defenses proved futile, however, as soon, the entire crowd had gone away.
“Wow.” Hitch remarked in astonishment. “They went from being so trusting to attributing to malice what could easily be explained by incompetence just like that.”
“Yeah, incompetence, I know…” Pipp said somberly, kneeling her head as her friends gathered to comfort her.
“Oh, sorry.” Hitch apologized, realizing that he had inadvertently kicked the dog.
“Sunny, Sis, you were right.” she said, subdued. “All this commercialism really did make me lose sight of what was important, and it only cost me in the end.”
“Hey, you’re good at what you do, sis.” Zipp complimented Pipp to uplift her. “It takes a talented business pony to run a salon as successful as yours.”
“You just have to understand that it’s not money that makes ponies happy.” Sunny chimed in to help. “You can buy a fancy yacht with it, sure, but what fun would riding on it be without great friends?”
After hearing that, Pipp recalled the yacht she had, and another lightbulb in the form of a fully charged phone battery went off in her head.
“That’s it!” Pipp exclaimed with restored confidence. “Instead of giving the ponies of Maretime Bay a pirate movie to promote a ride, we can make them feel like they’re in a pirate movie on a ride!”
“So we put them in a movie while they’re on a ride?” Izzy asked, confused. “How would that work?”
“No need to explain, I just need you to unicycle a lot of pirate costumes, please!” Pipp requested. “We’re going on a cruise!”
Later, on the ocean of the beach, far from the water turned to glitter…
Sunny was once again happily dancing on top of a ship in her pirate costume while Izzy was on the deck singing a reprise of her cringe rap song from before. This time, she wasn’t just singing to her friends, but a whole audience of ponies from Maretime Bay. The ones who had bought the smoothies and then gotten soaked were now sitting in chairs wearing pirate outfits like Sunny’s, only they had red bandanas wrapped around their heads instead of wearing a straw hat like Sunny. Izzy had also changed the lyrics of her song slightly. This time, when she raised her right foreleg to the audience, calling out…
“She’s got alicorn powers!”
Leading the audience to reply…
“How did that happen?”
She sang…
“Yo ho ho! She brought us all together!”
With that, Sunny’s alicorn form manifested, and this time, able to control her powers, used her magic to create an image of the Unity Crystals coming together to restore magic to the world. Seeing this, the crowd cheered as Sunny gave a bow. Pipp, Zipp, and Hitch were also watching in admiration.
“Now, I think it’s really time for that happy ending.” Zipp told her two friends sitting next to her, nodding in agreement.
Pipp flew to the stage and pulled out her microphone. Like Izzy, she was going to sing a reprise of her song from before with changed lyrics, as to not repeat her previous mistake.
“You’re a pirate, looking lit, just believe it!” she sang to the tune of Let Out Your Light. “Alright to be, on the sea, can’t you see it? Oh-whoa-hoooo, oh yo ho, ho! Show off…what you got! On this…fancy yacht!”
This time, the crowd was very pleased with Pipp’s performance and started clapping. Everything Pipp had done for them on this cruise from the ride, to the pirate outfits, to the entertainment was free of charge. One pony even put a bag of gold coins at Pipp’s hooves. Pipp smiled and shed a small tear of joy.
“You see now, Pipp?” a proud Sunny asked. “That’s how we use entertainment to bring ponies together! Summer’s not about buying or selling products! The true meaning of summer is about spending time with each other!”
“Wait, isn’t that the true meaning of Winter Wishday?” Izzy remarked, causing her four friends to laugh.
“It’s the true meaning of life, Izzy, does that answer your question?” Sunny replied, partly joking, partly serious.
Looking out at the sun that was now setting over the ocean, she mused over another part to the true meaning of her life.
“Hope I’m making you proud, Dad…” she told herself in thought as a translucent image of her father, Argyle, appeared in the sky…
The End
Bonus Scene
Still on Pipp’s yacht, Izzy got an idea for another cringe song to sing.
“So, is any pony up for a song about being on a yacht?” Izzy suggested, holding her microphone.
Ponies groaned in response while a familiar crab approached the microphone’s cord.
“Ugh, just don’t blame me if McSnipsalot can’t help himself…” an unamused Hitch said.
Author's Note
This is my first G5 story and my first comedy story in three years. Hope you got some entertainment out of this even if you're skipping Tell Your Tale. If not, hope you'll at least enjoy the alicorn power-packed taste of Sunny D and remembering that joke about commercialism in Wayne's World.
