Night at the Mall

"Rarity fer the luhv a all that is hoe lee, just pick a bracelet and let's git gone. We been here fer HALF N ARE!" Applejack snapped from under the mountain of bags and boxes that she was holding.

Rarity gasped in outrage. "Applejaqueline!" Rarity snapped the name she used whenever Applejack was in trouble. It wasn't her name, and it drove her nuts, but that just made Rarity use it all the more. "I'm surprised at you! How many times must I tell you proper accessorization is essential for a lady!"

"Oh please!" Applejack said as she carefully put the pile of goods on the floor. "Y'all think any beau is gonna notice ev'ry lil goo gaw n bauble?" She smirked as she straight arm lifted the sales counter, and the terrified sales clerk, into the air. "Naw missy. Fellers are all about physicality!"

Rarity grimaced at the unladylike display of brawn. "Oh please Applejack. Twilight dahling, help me out here, weren't you saying something the other day about humans responding to fetching colour patterns like certain animals do? . . . Twilight? Twiiiiliiiiiiight!" She called several times, but the purple girl clearly wasn't listening.

She, as usual, had her nose planted firmly in a book, but with this particular tome she seemed to be in rapt wonder. "Yes Rarity, that's a very nice hat." She mumbled absentmindedly.

Applejack chuckled to herself. "Don't bother with this'n Rares." The farm girl hoisted the book worm straight into the air by the hips and placed her down beside where they had begun to loiter. Twilight for her part was completely unaware she was being moved about like a mannequin. "She's been wrapped up in er book about. . . Hand talkin er somethin."

Finally Twilight's monkey lizard brain felt the need to observe its surroundings and she shook her head. "What? Who?" She realized that she was no longer in the music store she thought they had entered when her mind lost itself in the pages of the book, and was instead at a table in the food court being offered a steaming basket of fries. "Oh, sorry girls." She smiled apologetically. "It's just that I found this really amazing book on deaf culture. It's like this whole other world parallel to ours!"

Both of her friends rolled their eyes at their friend's love of the esoteric. "Yeah that's great Twi. Say settle a argument fer."

"AN argument, Ms Applejaqueline. Remember all those talks we had about grammar." Rarity said, with more annoyance than most would've considered appropriate.

Applejack blankly met the piercing gaze. "Settle UH argument." She said overemphasizing the Wesley Willisian grammar. "Which do fellers like more. Distractin em with all manner a superfluous nonsense."

"Or by ruining one's natural delicacy by trying to bulk up like a bodybuilder?!" Rarity asked in an accusing tone.

"Uh huh." The book worm responded, eyes once again devouring the information like a rescued cast away at a buffet.

They both looked at her with an eyebrow raised. "Uhm, Twilight, it was an either or sort of a question."

"That's nice Pinkie." Twilight muttered.

"TWILIGHT!" Both shouted. Applejack pounding the table with her fist, causing the various foods and drinks to jump.

"Huh! What?" She saw the annoyed scowls on both of her friend's faces. "Oh, I'm sorry you guys. Really, I am. It's just when I get really interested in a new book I kinda block out everything else." She placed the book determinedly away and firmly snapped the seal on her book bag in place like a holy seal banishing the unhallowed parchments back to the pit from whence they came. "There! Now." She folded her hands neatly in front of her and looked at them both. "What was the question again? I'm all ears."

Rarity sighed in exasperation and summarized the question to take full advantage of her friend's brief moment of lucidity. "Which do young gentlemen callers respond better to, style, or physique?"

Twilight genuinely pondered for a brief moment. "Well, there's several different things that can trigger the human mating response. Some might, like Applejack says, respond more to physical prowess as a display of a healthy breeding partner." Applejack smirked and Rarity frowned. "Then again some might see a female displaying high attention to detail and a drive to appear desirable as a beneficial trait for someone to feather a nest with." The faces traded places. Twilight shrugged her shoulders. "And in some cases it can be as simple as finding a common interest."

"But which uh the two is the case more often would ya say?" Applejack asked.

Twilight raised her open hands. "I couldn't say off the top of my head. I haven't done enough research into the subject." A light came into the bookworm's violet eyes. "You know, it might be fun to do a field experiment! I mean we'd have a hilariously sized sample group, but we might do a little experiment right here at the mall! Even if it's not very informative it'll still be a good data point for future reference."

The farm girl grinned. "Ah see what cher gettin at!" She pointed a challenging finger at the fashionista. "Let's have us a little wager! Prove who's method is more potent."

Rarity returned the challenging smirk. "First one to get a young gentleman to invite her to a film unprompted wins."

"But if Ah win." Applejack said with an evil glimmer in her eye. "You gotta come with me n R.D. to our workout routine every mornin fer uh. . . Let's say six weeks. Get some meat on your bones!"

Rarity gasped at the very notion of getting up at six a.m. every weekday for six weeks straight to suffer tortures no longer allowed by the rules of civilized warfare, but her pride wouldn't allow her to back down. "Oh! Fine you're on! But if you looooose." She held out the notice torturously long to let the dread sink in. "I get to give you a full makeover! And you have to wear it to school for six weeks. Hair, makeup, eyebrows, nails, piercings, and all!"

Applejack went pale. "Oh that ain't fair! Picture day's coming up! Y'all cain't expect me to have y'all's demented fru fru gaudiness immortalized in print!"

"Oooooh?" Rarity asked, again holding off the note for emphasis. "Is someone suddenly not so sure in her position? Scared I'll prove you wrong?"

Applejack popped to her feet. "I ain't scared a nuthin! Y'all got yerself a wager!"

Rarity extended a braceleted wrist and a perfectly manicured hand. Applejack spat in her hand and tried to shake, but Rarity snatched her's away. "APPLEJACK REALLY!" She cried in disgust. She snatched a napkin off of the desk and wiped furiously at the farm girl's strong hands. "You and Rainbow, every time, I swear!"

"Okay! We've got our experiment!" Twilight called out triumphantly. "And even though the observer's not supposed to be involved I guess I'll be the control group." They made their way to the central hub of the mall where all the foot traffic had to go through to get anywhere else in the large multistory building. Rarity stood on one side of the mall, propping herself up in as alluring a fashion as she could. Applejack took the other side, leaning casually against a column.

Twilight sat on a bench in the middle between the two so that she could observe both comfortably. She nodded at the two of them to signal that the experiment had officially begun. Applejack and Rarity nodded and smirked at each other. All three sat in their various positions, all watching diligently for their cue. Rarity would arch her back and flutter her eyelashes at the passersby, but most simply smiled back at her and moved on.

Applejack leaned in a way that accentuated her powerful leg and well defined abdominal muscles, but not one of the many groups of young men in the mall that day stopped to flirt with her. Twilight sat furiously typing into her phone, taking notes on the weather during the experiment, the general mood of the population being studied, and the time as it slowly passed. They all noticed, sooner rather than later that the experiment was going poorly.

Not one single eligible bachelor had stopped to flirt with either of the test subjects in the first two hours of observation. Even Twilight's obsession with science waned in the utter tedium of observation. From her book bag the informative text she'd been so engrossed in called to her seductively for her to explore the wondrous secrets locked within. She tried her best to resist, but after the three hour mark she lied to herself saying, "Eh, I'll glance up at them regularly. I can multitask!"

But she didn't, she immediately dove head first into the tome and was lost to the world instantly in its depths. She found the utility of using the thousands of hand signs to be inspiring. As the experiment wound on however it became harder and harder to read due to the loud music pouring in from the music store near her perch.

Rarity stood, feet aching from the heels she was in, back sore from the awkward position she was assuming, fuming at the lack of attention. Suddenly however her vision was filled by a sea of yellow cloth, bordered by barrier islands of rippling muscles. The man had long shaggy yellow hair sticking up under his backwards facing snapback baseball cap. He stared down at her, clearly having something on his mind, but not being exactly certain how to phrase it.

Rarity blushed momentarily at his proximity and staring eyes, but she quickly saw her chance and went for it. "Well hello there big boy. What can I do for you?" She purred in her most seductive voice.

The man's vapid expression once again took a minute to process the remark. "Like Ummm. What you can do for me is like."

"Yeeeees?" She said, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

"So could you like Ummm, move so I can get to the protein shake machine?" Rarity's face went blank. She realized almost as an afterthought that she had been propped all day against the protein shake dispenser. She silently shuffled away from the machine and the hulking man smiled. "Thanks brah!" He held up his phone to the machine and it began to dispense a disgustingly thick white mush that made Rarity gag. The man cocked his head at her and smiled. For just a moment her hope rose again.

"Do you want one?" He nodded at her diminished frame. "You look like you need to carbo Ow!" He shouted more in surprise than pain as the thick white drink in the disposable paper cup proceeded to leap off of the stand and vault off of the muscle man's head.

Rarity gasped as she watched the inanimate object scamper away like a vermin across the floor. "Some magic from Equestria must've slipped into our world! I've got to tell the others!" She ran off without saying another word to the befuddled gym bro.

The man in the yellow shirt simply stood there rubbing the spot on his head in utter confusion. "I think I need to hydrate. I must be hallucinating."

Applejack still leaned against her pillar, but with one giant overriding factor obstructing her mission to tempt the youth at the local mall. She was asleep. She leaned against the post snoring like a chainsaw with a cold engine, reluctant to start up, until she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. She flinched and snapped upright. "Huh, who what. . . Well howdy." She said, summoning up all of her feminine wiles.

"Howdy, yes, Hrmm." The very well dressed, rather attractive man in the tight black button up shirt, impeccably ironed white pants, and expensive looking brown loafers said dismissively with an accent similar to that of our favorite fashionista, but robbed of all charm. He stuck out a single finger exposing his matching golden bracelets and ring. "Sorry to wake you from your nap in public, but I simply must know. Where did you get that simply exquisite purse on your shoulder, and do they have a satchel equivalent?"

Applejack raised her eyebrow high on her head. "Purse? I don't wear no. . ." She looked down on her shoulder and to her astonishment she saw a white faux leather strap, leading down to a small bag, barely large enough for a large wallet, a phone, or a few necessaries. The sheer uselessness of the garment offended her sense of pragmatism. She quickly tore the bag off of her shoulder like it was a venomous serpent poised to strike. "I don't wear no purse!" She shouted as she flung the bag away.

The rather attractive, if not a bit too scrawny in Applejack's opinion, man raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow in confusion. "Then why are you wearing a purse?" He pointed to her other shoulder and sure enough the bag had mysteriously reappeared on her other shoulder. She tore it off and flung it from her again, and again it resumed its place on her shoulder, resting gently against her hip. A short cartoonish fight broke out between the offending bag and the outraged farm girl. The man backed away slowly, an uncomfortable look across his angular face. "Uhm, well you appear to be having a wardrobe malfunction so. . ." He strutted away as quickly as he could without working up a sweat.

"Get offa me ya demoniacal so and so!" The orange girl shouted as she contemptuously flung it over the railing. She watched in shock as the purse landed on the second story and scuttled away, using the thin faux leather strap like a pair of legs to scuttle with. "Some kahnda magic from the other world must be leakin inta this'n again!" She breathed to herself. "I gotta tell Twahlahght!"

The two girls met their friend in the middle, calling out in unison, "Twilight!"

"I'm watching!" The book worm snapped in embarrassment, quickly hiding the book beneath her bag.

Rarity rolled her eyes. "Twilight, we're not concerned with that just this moment! We've got a serious problem."

"Yeah, magic from that pony place is possessin thangs in this here mall!" Applejack said.

Twilight rolled her eyes and waved a hand dismissively. "Oh girls! How could that be? We're nowhere near the portal, and besides my magic detector would. . . Oh!" She snapped and turned in frustration towards the music store. "They should really install a door to that place so they don't disturb the." She gasped when she saw a pair of headphones dancing about on their own, bending in half like one head banging to the rhythm of the heavy metal song that was blaring in the music store.

"Girls! Equestrian magic is leaking into our world again!" Twilight called out in shock.

Both the farmer and the fashionista rolled their eyes. "Really, you don't say?" They said in unison.