Things were looking pretty hopeless. The trio of commentators were surrounded by censors, closing in to free the world from dirty thoughts. There was only so much that one unicorn who thought she was a Psychonaut could do. "Can't you do something, Discord? Don't you have the power to break reality?"

"Yes, but they can fix what I break, and stop whatever I want to do. First I have to deal with Sequel Police and now this? Organizations have it out for me."

"Sequel Police?"

"Well, this looks like the end. It's been an honor working with you ladies, but it's the final cancellation for us. Here I come, grandma! You big jerk!"

Just as they had accepted their fates and embraced the inevitability of death, a mysterious figure came in through the ceiling. It was a darker cream-colored mare, with a swirled blue mane, and a white delivery outfit. She also had something else definitely of note, some huge...tracts of land. She reached into the box she was carrying, and pulled out a glass bottle of milk. Turning towards the army of censors, she uttered only two sentences, enough to make them all visibly afraid. "I am the milkmare. My milk is delicious."

Now that she had made her identity known, she made the cap of the bottle ignite, and threw it into the center of the crowd. It produced a large explosion that managed to kill all the censors, yet leave the ponies (and Discord) unharmed. Once they had realized they had been saved, the heroic mare turned to them and nodded once. "The milkmare has completed her route." And before any questioning about what the fuck just happened could start, she left.

"Well...that happened. There goes a mare that somehow knew we were in trouble, and saved us with dairy products. I might just need to lie down and question reality."

"Awesome rack on her, though."

"Aw, true dat. By the way, do you think we should get someone to fix these gaping holes in our studio?"

"You two get back to our program, I'll call someone."

While Pinkie walked to the phone, Discord and Lyra sat back down. "So...we're back. I can't even say anything about this. Just start it back up, please."

Twilight and Bristle walked through the school halls, following the signs pointing to the gym. Bristle was carefully studying a piece of paper he pulled off a wall, reading it multiple times to make sure he didn't miss anything. "Alright, so I'm reading over this flyer for Fall Formal Princess, and there's actually nothing on here that says a male can't apply."

"I think being female is implied with the title 'princess'. Because if you're thinking to apply, I don't think I want to be paired with you anymore."

"What kind of a horribly biased culture do we live in where a man can't be beautiful? If I want to be admired by my peers for being the most loved student, damn it I will be! Winning a title like this has been my dream ever since I was little. It was either that, or bring about the destruction of the world through fire. Also, I wanted to be a Jedi, but come on, who doesn't?"

While Twilight didn't say anything, she did take a large step to the side away from him as they kept walking. They both stayed silent until they reached the set of the doors to the gym. Twilight stepped in front, pushing open the double doors. They stepped into the giant empty gym, exactly what you'd expect a high school gym school to be like. It was a bit nicer with some colorful streamers and balloons, but still pretty boring. The only other point of note was the girl putting up the decorations.

"I'd say that's the party manager, and she looks like another mare I'd know. She'll help us out, no doubt." Twilight went up to her, with Bristle following. Just as she was about to talk to the pink party...person, she turned around with a very full balloon, still blowing into it. They made very brief eye contact through the not-transparent balloon, before she let it go to talk. "Hey there, I haven't seen you before. Are you new? I'd love to throw a party to celebrate, but I'm a little busy with the Fall Formal 3 days away."

"That's why I'm here, actually. I wanted to sign up for the running of Fall Formal Princess."

Her mouth was agape. Before she could gasp, the balloon she let go landed, at the top of the tall ladder she was using. She instantly switched from shocked to normal. "Can you wait a second? Need to go get that."

She started to climb, while Twilight and Bristle looked on. Twilight was confused herself why she reacted how she did, and Bristle just wanted to add another upskirt to his daily count. Which is why he joined in the absolute wide-eyed shock when he saw nothing up there. Oh, it's not like there was a void beneath her skirt, but there certainly weren't any panties either.

"So what if my alternate universe doppelganger doesn't have underwear on? I never do."

"Humans wear clothing to cover their bodies. Their society is built around these clothes, so when they don't wear them, it's a shock. She also picked the best missing piece, at least to any male onlookers."

"So Bristle can see this Pinkie's privates? So what? I see our Pinkie's stuff all the time."

"Yes, but he's not fucking this one."

"I KNOW! THAT'S THE PROBLEM!"

Human Pinkie descended from her perch, deflated balloon in hand. She noticed Bristle staring at her, seemingly never blinking. She left him be and turned back to Twilight. "All right, where were we? Oh right, you wanted to sign up for Fall Formal Princess. So I was at this part, then." She resumed her aghast look, flabbergasted someone would even dare compete.

"Well, yeah. Why is that such a big deal?"

"Because no one competes anymore. Sunset Shimmer has run unopposed for the past 3 years. She intimidates anyone else running so bad they drop the race. It's gotten pretty bad before, and I wouldn't want to see it happen to you."

Twilight put her hand to her chest. "Well, I'm made of tougher stuff. I've dealt with bullies before. Well, my big brother did. Well, he didn't so much 'deal with them' as 'beat them up'. But it got them to stop making fun of me, that's for sure."

Bristle had since gotten over his arousal overtaking his thought, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't thinking about it at all. "And since her big brother isn't here, I'll fill the role. I wouldn't mind beating up a jerk."

Pinkie shook her head. "I don't think beating up Sunset Shimmer is going to help anything. I wish the best of luck to you." She pulled out a clipboard with a piece of paper strapped to it, with only one name on the list. Twilight took the pen, and held it unsure of what to do with it. After pulling her hand back a few times, she put the pen in her mouth and wrote that way.

Bristle rolled his eyes and took the pen in his hand, and wrote it that way. "They call it 'handwriting' for a reason, Twilight."

Pinkie looked at Twilight. "Your name is Twilight? Are you the twin of the Twilight Sparkle that lives in the city, looks exactly like you, and has a dog named Spike that looks exactly like yours?"

Twilight turned her head to her backpack, where Spike was indeed poking out. He shrunk back into the bag. Bristle covered for her. "Most likely, one of these Twilights is a robot duplicate, clone, or alternate dimension doppelganger. Don't ask me to decide, Pinkie."

"How did you know my name is Pinkie? I never introduced myself."

Bristle wiggled his fingers in her face. "Psychic powers."

"You have psychic powers too? There should be a camp for ponies like us."

Suddenly, the gym door opened again, and all they could see was a pair of legs with a stack of crates being carried above them. "Order for 20 cases of fizzy apple cider?"

Pinkie lit up. "That's me!" She ran over to the boxes, and grabbed one off the top of the pile. Now, the face of the girl who was carrying them could be seen. She was decidedly southern, with noticeable freckles and a stetson, probably because stetsons are cool. She set her boxes down on a table and pulled out one of the bottles, popping the cap and taking a sip as someone else carrying a larger stack of crates came in.

Twilight leaned next to Bristle. "That'd be Applejack. If Sunset Shimmer is a bully like Pinkie says, Applejack would be more than willing to help. And that's her older brother, Big Macintosh."

Bristle put his hand in front of her mouth. "You don't have to act like I have no idea who any of you are. You're kind of famous. Being heroes of Equestria 4 times over will do that."

"Right. I tend to forget that a lot."

Twilight walked over towards Applejack to enlist her, when Pinkie introduced them. "This is Twilight, she's planning to run against Sunset Shimmer for Fall Formal Princess."

Applejack did an impressive spit take before standing up and grabbing Twilight by the shoulders. "Are you crazy, sugarcube? Do ya want to know what sort of horrible things she'll do to you just to get rid of the competition? Ya'll are probably gonna have to change schools!"

Twilight gently brushed her off. "Applejack, I think I can handle a high school girl with an inferiority complex. I've dealt with worse."

"You don't understand! Her heart is pure evil, and...wait, how did you know my name?"

Pinkie slid next to her and whispered in her ear, "They have psychic powers."

Applejack looked at Pinkie like she was insane...

"SHE IS!"

...and gently pushed her away. "Alright. Ah won't stop you if ya really want to do this, but just know that it's gonna be hell."

Bristle finally joined their conversation after doing god knows what on the other side of the gym for so long. "Yeah yeah, teenage girl is the scariest thing we'll ever see. I think we should probably get going, Twilight."

Twilight nodded. "Probably, other things to do, you know. Need to get ready for the campaign, after all. Nice to meet you both." The two of them left the room, leaving the room feeling empty and unsure of what had transpired.

Good thing Sunset Shimmer came in right then with her cronies to "lighten up" the mood. As the lackeys went about their business criticizing everything, Shimmer got down to business with Pinkie. "These streamers are horrible! The color choices are abominable! And you know I hate balloons! You expect me to accept the crown with a ceremony being plagued with decorations for a six-year old?"

Applejack got straight up in her face. "And what makes ya think ya'll are gonna win this time? You've got competition this time."

"WHAT?!" She ripped the sign up clipboard away from Pinkie and read it over. She looked at it again, and one more time. "What is this? I can't read it at all. Did they write this with their mouths?"

Pinkie answered the question that wasn't supposed to be answered. "One of them did. The other used their hands."

"Well then, this other has the worst handwriting I've ever seen. Can you just tell me their names?"

Pinkie replied again, a veritable stock of the answers. "Twilight Sparkle and...actually, I don't know his name. The guy she's hanging out with."

Sunset Shimmer held her fist out. "Sparkle! You'll suffer for daring to stand against me, and wait did you say 'guy'?"

Meanwhile, far away, Twilight noticed Bristle lost in thought. "You okay? Something on your mind?"

"Nothing much, just realized I didn't get a chance to look up Applejack's skirt. I was on a roll. Actually, I missed out on Fluttershy too. I need to step up my game if I'm planning to enjoy my time in high school again."

"That's the spirit!"

"You don't have very lofty goals, do you?"

Author's Note

What's this? A chapter uploaded only 4 days after the last one? A large influx of bees ought to put a stop to that!

Yeah, don't get used to this. This entire chapter was written on a bus ride home because I didn't have anything else to do. Maybe there'll be another one for the bus ride home.

Also, I swear I'll ease off on the Psychonauts references now, especially since, statistically, very few of you are going to understand them. Though that's something you should fix, it's a great game that's pretty cheap on Steam.