It was a beautiful day in Equestria, and it’s been nearly three years since the nightmare incident with Ardyn Izunia and things were finally going just fine.
Cold Wind and the three villains were still locked away in the badlands, but still alive as death wasn’t a good punishment for them. Celestia and Luna made sure they were given three meals and plenty of water every single day. Enough for them to keep on living while also facing their crimes.
As for our favourite ponies and creatures, they were doing just fine, especially for Lightning Twister.
With his father finally gone, he wasn’t worried about him returning at all, not even a little. His life has gotten so much better now. And since Cosmos is his new auntie now, she’s been spending more time bonding together and having so much fun. It was like their little tea get together, only without the tea.
As time passed, technology has slowly been invented. Each pony and creature had their own little phone to send messages and call one another.
Twilight was now given the title as the third princess of Canterlot, but she still lives in her castle in Ponyville as well as Headmare of the School of Friendship with Starlight as Vice Headmare and Sunburst as the new guidance counsellor.
Celestia and Luna have announced that they refused to retire as the princesses of Equestria, but they both know they will have to retire soon and give Twilight the throne as she was more worthy to protect Canterlot and Equestria.
All seems to be going well.
However, just near Twilight’s castle, a big colourful rainbow building appeared. It had two doors on each side with a big board on top saying “cinema”, and on top was a tall long glass building.
This new cinema building is the beginning of a new adventure.
One peaceful morning, Twilight organised a little get together with her friends, son, students and two nephews as they all sat at two different tables near their favourite cafe.
The mane 8, Spike, Sunburst, Oliver and Capper sat at one table while the young seven sat the other table that was near to the table the adults are sitting at.
Rainbow sighed happily before saying, “This is the life. No worries, no bad things happening, and no villains trying to rule Equestria or take revenge on us. Not even an evil changeling queen in sight.”
“Something I can totally agree on, darling,” said Rarity while cleaning her sunglasses and placing them back on her eyes.
“I still can’t believe it’s been nearly three moons without nothing bad happening,” said Twilight happily, “I mean, we had no villains returning, no new villains, no friendship problems and no arguments. I think we did a pretty good job helping Equestria and making it a better place with friendship. We might as well give up our element roles and start getting new jobs to help others.” That joke made her, Spike and the others laugh.
“And Lightning’s doing a lot better too,” said Fluttershy, “He had no more nightmares, hasn’t said anything about his father returning or even got worried about becoming The Storm Pony. He’s been more happier than ever.”
The adults turned to the table where the young seven were and smiled as they saw them chatting and laughing together. It made them so happy that they’re still friends and getting along just fine.
“And he’s doing so well on his grades too,” said Twilight, “Seriously, he’s gotten so many As on his exams. Look.” She showed Fluttershy all the exam papers Lightning has done with an A coloured in red. Some have an A+ on. Fluttershy was amazed by this. “I’m impressed.”
“Our son deserves a special treat when we get home,” said Capper proudly with Fluttershy nodding her head in agreement.
“Though, I still can’t help but think something bad is gonna happen sooner or later,” said Applejack, “Don’t you ever get worried that something bad is gonna happen, Twi?”
“Not really. I mean, even though I would overreact to something and say a bunch of stuff like, “What if Sombra returns and takes over both Canterlot and the Crystal Empire?! What if somepony foalnaps Lightning and it won’t be his father this time?! What if Celestia takes away my princess title, wings and castle all because we haven’t solved anymore friendship problems or stopped an evil threat in a long time?!”, but I think it’s safe to say we shouldn’t about a thing. Plus, I did say I’ve changed and haven’t let my worries get to me in a very long.”
“That’s true,” said Applejack.
“Maybe you’ve just been harvesting apples in the sun for too long. You could use a relaxation,” suggested Rainbow, “Hey Rarity, when are we going to do a spa day together again?”
“I’m glad you asked, Rainbow,” said Rarity happily, “I’ve booked us all to go to the spa tomorrow afternoon. I’ve also booked Lightning and his friends to join us too, if that’s all right with you, Fluttershy.”
“Of course it’s all right with me,” answered Fluttershy while smiling, “I’m sure Lightning will enjoy having a spa day with us all.” Lightning doesn’t normally do spa days with his mother, father and all his aunts and uncle, he usually goes there with just his mother and Auntie Rarity. So this will be the first time going there with all the ponies and creatures that love him and consider him as part of their family.
“Yep,” sighed Sunset happily, “Nothing can ruin this moment. Not in a million moons.”
Just then, a flash of light appeared and disappeared to reveal Cosmos appearing. Lightning saw her and got off his seat before running up to her. “Auntie Cosmos!”
Cosmos smiled at her nephew as she gently picked him up and held him in her arm. “Hello, kiddo. Surprised to see me?” She chuckled.
“Hello, Cosmos,” said Twilight politely, “What brings you here?”
“Would you like to join us for our special get together day?” Pinkie asked.
“Oh I would love to, but that’s not the reason why I’m here.”
“Huh? Then what’s the reason you’re here?” Pinkie asked in confusion.
“I really hope it’s nothing bad, cuz I was just getting used to not dealing with bad things happen,” said Rainbow in annoyance as she crossed her hooves.
“No, nothing bad is happening,” said Cosmos, “It’s something more, how do I put it? Confusing.”
“Confusing? How confusing?” Sunburst asked.
“Follow me.”
Everyone got off their seats and followed Cosmos.
“Sometimes, I hate it when one of us says nothing can ruin this moment,” said Sunset in annoyance, “Because stuff often finds a way to ruin moments like this.”
Cosmos took them to Twilight’s castle, and they saw that she was right. They saw a cinema building next to the castle, and it was very confusing, because Twilight never said anything about putting a cinema building next to her castle.
“Huh? Where did this come from?” Twilight asked, “I don’t remember planning on putting a cinema near the castle and school.”
“Maybe you just forgot about it while also planning a get together day,” said Pinkie.
“No, Pinkie, Twilight’s telling the truth,” said Applejack, “She never said anything about wanting a cinema next to her castle, even without talking to us about it first. And I know she ain’t a liar.”
“Like the way you thought of her when she warned us that “Cadence” was evil during the rehearsal?” Rainbow asked while grinning at the farm pony as she slowly turned her head round to show Rainbow her glare expression.
“I thought we agreed to move on from that night incident,” she said through clenched teeth.
“What do you think is inside?” Oliver asked.
“A food stand, a ticket stand, rooms with projectors and tapes, and a bunch of rooms with lots of chairs and big screens like every cinema has, silly,” said Pinkie.
“I know that, but this cinema looks a little different than the other cinemas we’ve seen. I mean, it just showed up here and none of us know how it got here, what or who did it.”
“He’s right, darling,” said Rarity, “And none of us have anything to do it.”
“Yeah, well, it better not be Discord either,” said Smolder crossly.
“This doesn’t feel like a Discord thing,” said Sandbar while putting his hoof on his chin and then placing his hoof back down while saying, “He’s more of a “creating dumb tests for Headmare Twilight and Professor Oliver” than what this is.”
“And try to rid of poor Lightning Twister,” added Yona.
“That, too.”
“Sandbar does have a point there,” said Twilight, “Even I don’t know who could have brought this here. But whoever or whatever brought it here, we better go inside and see what’s there.”
“What?! Go in there?!” Rarity asked in shock.
“Yeah, besides, I don’t see what’s so wrong or evil on this building,” said Twilight, “I mean, sure, it appeared from nowhere, but I don’t see no harm on checking what’s inside. There’s no signs of anything bad gonna happen to us while looking around.”
The girls were a little shocked but have a big amazed looks on their faces after hearing Twilight say that. Normally she would reject the idea of looking inside strange buildings that they’ve never been to before and could be something dangerous inside, but this time, she actually said that they should check out the inside of the strange cinema without even worrying about a thing.
Rainbow was more amazed than the other girls as she crossed her hooves and said in an impress tone, “When did you start not worrying about these kinds of things?”
“After the many old and new places we’ve been to without anything happening to us, I’ve stopped worrying that we may get hurt, attacked or anything worst than that,” answered Twilight, “Plus I have friends and a family to help get over my fear of something happening when going into buildings like this one. So how about this? Let’s go into the cinema, take a look round, and if we see anything that doesn’t seem right, we’ll walk out and not go back in until we figure out what we might be dealing with.”
Rainbow was still amazed by this, but agreed to the idea Twilight suggested as she then said, “All right, Twilight.”
“All right, you heard the princess,” said Applejack, “Everyone, into the cinema!”
With nothing else to say, everyone walked into the cinema as Twilight used her magic to open the two middle doors. Once they were all inside, Twilight flew inside with the doors closing behind her.
Inside was a large main room with dark blue walls, a food and drink stand with a popcorn maker, ticket stand, empty movie poster frames on the walls and the carpet floor was lightish dark blue with dark red diamond shaped square patterns which are all up, down and across each other.
The mane eight, Spike, Capper, Sunburst, Oliver, the young seven and Cosmos gazed upon the first inside bit of the cinema. They’ve never seen an inside cinema room quite like this. Especially since it only just appeared and hasn’t been used yet.
“Wow,” said Gallus, “Popcorn, apple juice, empty poster frames. What kind of cinema is this?”
“I have no idea, Gallus,” said Ocellus, “But this is some cinema all right.”
“And look! There’s popcorn already made!” Rainbow said excitedly while pointing at the popcorn maker, “Let’s try some!” She was about to flew over to the maker, but was quickly stopped by Applejack pulling her tail with her mouth. She let go before saying, “Now hold on there, partner. We shouldn’t just go ahead and try something that has already been made. There’s no telling if it’s okay to eat or not.”
Pinkie leaned near Twilight with puppy eyes and said in a sweet tone, “Oh Twilight, may I taste them to see?” She blinked her eyes quickly.
Twilight smiled at her pink friend and said, “Already read my mind, Pinkie. Go right ahead.”
Pinkie squealed in excitement before dashing towards the popcorn maker. She pushes the small red button on the maker and out comes the one simple popcorn on the mini slide as Pinkie takes the popcorn, throws it into her mouth and starts chewing on it.
Her mane and tail deflated after a few chews, but then went back to normal as Pinkie’s eyes began to burst like fireworks before screaming in excitement. “This is the best popcorn EVER! You guys really need to try this! It’s great stuff!”
Pinkie pushes the red button and holds it, like an emergency stop button, as lots of popcorn came bursting out of the maker and lands everywhere, making the entire room covered in a mountain of popcorn while burying Pinkie and the others inside.
Twilight was the first one to burst out as she was chewing on some of the popcorn while having the happiest smile on her face. She had never tasted popcorn like this before.
“Wow! This is the best popcorn ever! You’re so right, Pinkie! It’s so yummy!”
Pinkie bursted out from the big popcorn pile and said, “I know, right?!”
Twilight and Pinkie began eating more popcorn as the others bursted out with happy smiles on their faces from the taste of the popcorn with Smolder saying, “Yeah! Now that’s safe popcorn!” She began eating some more.
While eating some popcorn, Lightning made a tiny ball out of popcorn and cheekily looked at his mother while saying, “Hey Momma! Heads up!” He threw the popcorn at Fluttershy as it broke into pieces. Fluttershy felt the popcorn ball before looking at her son with playfully grin on her face while saying, “Oh you cheeky little pony. Okay, if that’s the way you wanna play it.”
Fluttershy flew towards Lightning and landed on him, making a few popcorn fly everywhere and on them, as she started tickling her son making her laugh uncontrollable.
“How do you like them popcorn now?” She said jokingly while still tickling her colt.
“Stop!” Lightning said while laughing, “That tickles!”
Everyone began to laugh as they saw Fluttershy tickling Lightning. All seems to be okay, until they heard Pinkie calling out from the distance of the cinema.
“Hey, check this out! There’s only one theatre room with one projector!”
Everyone didn’t realised that Pinkie had went off on her own while they were enjoying the popcorn, and her voice was coming from the far end of the cinema, right behind the ticket stand.
“Okay, you know what? I think we should all stick together in case one of us takes a wrong turn around,” said Twilight.
“Yeah, I think so, too,” agreed Rainbow.
Everyone walked into the room Pinkie was now in, with Lightning riding on Silverstream’s back, as they saw the room had a big wide screen with over a hundred than fifty chairs in a row and a projector behind the row of chairs at the top of the room. Pinkie was standing right next to the projector as she was already there before the others did.
“Huh. So there really is one theatre room in this place,” said Sunset.
“Yep, and one projector as I mentioned,” added Pinkie.
“Okay. So a cinema appears out of nowhere, popcorn tastes just fine and not even harmful, and only one theatre room with one projector remains in this building. What is going on here?” Capper asked.
“I do not know for sure,” said Twilight, “But even though nothing seems harmful around here, I think it’s best we don’t turn on that projector.”
“Twilight’s right,” said Cosmos, “I may not know much about cinemas or weird ones appearing, but if there’s only projector here, there’s no telling what it might do.”
“What do you mean by that?” Silverstream asked.
“Well, since that’s the only projector here, it could mean that this cinema is a cinema that can either send us to a film that will appear on the big screen or it could cause some films to rapidly appear in Equestria without even knowing where they are, how they got here or know nothing of what we have and can do that they don’t have and can’t do.”
“Make sense to me,” said Gallus.
“Well, since we’re all here and this cinema only just opened for us, let’s see if this projector does do any of those things before sending everypony here,” said Pinkie before reaching a hoof to the lever of the projector.
The others all quickly told Pinkie not to touch the projector or anything on it, which did made her stop before she could even start it.
“Pinkie, stop! Don’t! This is serious!” Rainbow said.
“I just wanted to see if it works,” said Pinkie while turning to her friends and nephew.
“Twilight just said not to touch it,” said Applejack, “And you heard what Cosmos said. We don’t know what that one projector could do.”
“Right. It could send us into a film where we may not be able to return here, it could send dangerous characters that we can’t even defeat, it could…” Twilight was interrupted by Pinkie saying, “It could send us to a film that could be fun and safe for us.” She then grabs hold of the lever.
“No, Pinkie!” Twilight said worriedly. But it was too late. The pink pony had pulled the lever down as it turned on the projector.
“Pinkie!” Rainbow said crossly.
The projector shone a bright light on the big screen before turning into a portal which was like a black and white line going around in a circle to hypnotise somepony only in dark green. The group started to feel worried as to was going to happen next.
“That’s so doesn’t look good,” said Spike worriedly as he hugged Twilight’s hoof.
“Nope, it doesn’t,” said Twilight while gently rubbing her baby dragon’s head.
“Ummm…Momma?” Lightning said in fear. Fluttershy looked at Lightning and screamed in fear as she saw green ashes coming off of Lightning’s hooves and into the screen. “Lightning, what’s happening to you?!” She screamed again as she saw the thing happening to her. “What’s happening to me?!”
“And what is happening to us?” Ocellus asked in fear since it was also happening to her as well as the others, including Cosmos.
Their bodies all went into pieces of ashes while flowing into the big screen as they all screamed in fear with Pinkie saying, “But we haven’t chosen what film we wanted on!”
All the ashes flew into the big screen altogether before the portal disappeared from the screen, trapping them all in the movie that was about to go on and the one they are all now trapped in.
Author's Note
The first cinema adventure begins.
