They were eating hayburgers when it happened.

There was no particular build-up. No reason to expect that it would happen. And after it did happen, the conversation continued as if nothing had happened at all.

And yet, it had in fact happened. That’s what kept her up at night.

Sunny and Hitch had been eating lunch at the usual place, talking about everything and nothing. Crystals and alicorns. Smoothies and beaches. Sparky’s newest antics and Sunny’s latest re-reading of her father’s journal.

And at some point — in retrospect, Sunny couldn’t even remember exactly how this topic of conversation came up — she had casually said “I can’t even get a date.”

And then Hitch had smiled and replied, “What, I don’t count?”

And then they had both immediately gone on to talk about other things.

Which left Sunny awake in her bed at 1am, wondering what he’d meant by that.

It certainly seemed like a hint, didn’t it? Like he was saying “I’d take you on a date if you were interested. Are you?” But he couldn’t say that, especially not right in the middle of lunch! How do you just drop that on the pony who’d been your best friend ever since you were foals?

Sunny turned her head to one side. Oh, crap. Am I seriously considering this?

It wasn’t as if Hitch was a bad prospect. As Sprout often pointed out, Hitch was well-known for his “perfect mane”, “shredded abs” and “paid-off mortgage” (Side note: Is Sprout gay??) More importantly, Hitch was a good person. Sure, he’d hassled her about her pro-Unity protests for awhile, but he came around eventually, didn’t he?

I just never thought about him that way, ok?! Wait. Who am I arguing with?

Evidently this was not a good night for sleep. Sunny climbed out of bed and walked to the kitchen. Maybe I’ll just…make a smoothie and forget this ever happened.

But as she passed the bathroom, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She paused, turned on the light and took a closer look.

What does he see in me?

She looked at her reflection with fresh eyes, posing her head one way and then another. She tried a few smiles; her expression seemed much more awkward than usual.

Does he…think I’m attractive?

Sunny wasn’t ugly by any means. She’d always thought her mane was her best feature. Heck, even Hitch had complimented it once or twice.

Wait, was that a sign? Was he trying to say something earlier, and I was just too dense to get it?

“Uh, Sunny?”

Sunny snapped her head around to find Izzy standing behind her, smiling awkwardly.

“Oh, Izzy! I’m sorry! Did I wake you up?”

“No, not really…”

“I was just, uh, fixing my mane in the bathroom here. I guess that’s kindof weird, because it’s 1am, but I-”

“-Sunny?”

“Just had a lot on my mind, actually, hey do you know Hitch? I mean, what am I saying, of course you know him, I just meant like, has ever complimented your mane? Not that there’s anything wrong with it, of course! I was just wondering how often-”

“SUNNY!”

She jumped. “What?!”

“I tried to unicycle Zipp’s detective gear and Pipp’s old phone and I might have accidentally created a killer robot.”

She paused.

“You WHAT?!”

A mighty crash shook the Brighthouse to its foundations. Sunny tumbled into Izzy and found herself looking up at a giant hole where a wall had been just moments ago. Through the hole she saw a huge metal mailbox-shaped head with a cartoonish grin drawn on the outside.

“I tried unicycling all the trash I could find!” shouted Izzy. “I didn’t think I would make a monster!”

“VIEWS!” yelled the mental monstrosity in what was apparently meant to be an imitation of Pipp’s voice. “FOLLOWERS!” It rammed its head into the hole again, making it larger as Sunny and Izzy scrambled toward the bedroom.

Pipp and Zipp were already awake.

“What’s going on?!” shouted Pipp.

Sunny ran to the window and unlocked it. “No time to explain! You have to fly us out of here!”

“What?!”

Another crash sounded and Sunny found herself lifted up under Zipp’s strong grip. The agile pegasus carried her through the window and deposited her roughly on the grass outside the Brighthouse, before turning back to grab Izzy.

Pipp flapped out the window in a daze, gawking at the giant robot currently trashing their home.

“MUST GET MORE VIEWS!”

“Ohmigod! It sounds like the voice in my head!”

“Pipp! Focus!”

Zipp, who had already taken Izzy to safety, now grabbed her sister and pushed her away from the scene of destruction. The four mares took a moment to regroup.

Sunny looked to the rest of them. “Anypony got any ideas?”

Zipp considered. “What about your alicorn powers?”

“Um, sure. But how do I use them?”

“Well normally they turn on when things get desperate.”

Pipp pointed a hoof. “Things are pretty desperate right now!”

Sunny tried to breathe. “Ok, ok! Let me focus!”

In a moment she could feel power surging through her. An ethereal horn appeared on her head and wings spread out from her body.

She grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. “Stand back, everypony. This feels…pretty intense.”

The power built to a crescendo as the rest of them stepped back. Finally Sunny’s eyes snapped open and what appeared to be an orange laser shot out of them, slicing through the robot and sending it tumbling to the ground below.

Sunny gasped as the power faded. The remnants of Emperor Butterscotch made an electric whine before they lost power entirely.

“Well,” said Sunny, still gasping. “That was unexpected.”

Zipp looked from her to the robot wreckage. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

“Sunny?”

They turned to see Hitch approaching from behind. “I heard an explosion! Is everything alright?”

Sunny babbled. “Oh, yeah! It’s fine. Just, uh, you know, another night at the Brighthouse.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No no! Don’t worry! We’ll just clean this up on our own.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely!”

“Well…alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Hitch!”

Sunny and the other mares walked back to the Brighthouse. Hitch just stood there for awhile, watching Sunny as she walked.

He sighed softly. He muttered to himself.

“Damn, she’s hot.”

Author's Note

This was a speedwrite where they gave us a random twist halfway through. The twist I got was "Change of tone". You can probably guess when that happened! =P