The Dating Game... in Equestria!

Trixie bounded onto the stage as the generic theme music boomed out of the speakers, signaling the third episode of "The Dating Game in Equestria." A bright, honest smile was on Trixie's face as she proudly flourished herself before the crowd.

"Why, hello everypony!" Trixie said, calm and confident. "Welcome to the third episode of 'The Dating Game in Equestria,' hosted by me, the Great and Apologetic Trixie! Now, you might be asking yourself, 'Why is Trixie so giddy today?' Well, it is simply because Trixie has received the very good news that this show's ratings are falling faster than a banana on the moon!"

"Actually, the moon's gravity-" one pony in the audience started.

"Shut up!" Trixie interrupted. "You know what I meant anyway, don't split hairs! Anyway, it is very likely that this terrible excuse for entertainment will be cancelled, and no show means no binding contract, which makes Trixie very, very happy!"

"Does this mean you'll actually be nice to contestants for once?" asked one of the audience members.

"Don't be picky, you're lucky enough that Trixie is in a good mood today!" Trixie snapped. "Anyway, let's get on to our game. Our mare of the hour is-"

As Trixie turned and locked eyes with the twinkling purple eyes of the pony in the seat, she froze stiff. Only her jaw moved, falling wide open before Trixie slowly closed it again. She raised her hoof, pupils shrunk to pinpricks, and lamely poked at the air, mumbling random gibberish.

"Oh gosh, this is so exciting!" Twilight Sparkle said, looking around the room eagerly and flapping her wings slightly. "I've never had a date with anypony before, but Pinkie Pie said she had a fantastic time with Soarin', so I decided to try my hoof at it!"

Trixie shut her eyes, bracing her legs against the cheap wooden floor and taking a few deep breaths. "No. Not even Twilight Sparkle is going to ruin today for you, Trixie. This is just another test for Trixie before the day when karma rewards Trixie for all that she's suffered through." Opening her eyes again, Trixie forced down the desire to hit Twilight with the steel folding chair that the alicorn was perched on and instead forced a smile. "Well, Twilight Sparkle, I hope you find your stallion quickly!"

"Oh, thank you!" Twilight Sparkle replied.

"Just so that the game's over quicker," Trixie mumbled under her breath, haphazardly tossing the questions card in Twilight's direction. "Alright, let's meet our three contestants. In spot number one, we have... ugh, Prince Blueblood."

Prince Blueblood wiggled his eyebrows, standing next to his chair.

"Why are you not sitting on your chair?" Trixie demanded.

Blueblood scoffed. "Oh please, that chair is absolutely nasty! Why, I'll bet there are germs and diseases on that chair from all sorts of places, seeing how this so-called 'studio' is such a dump! I'm even uncomfortable standing on this very floor!"

Trixie rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

"How can you just say 'whatever'?! This is a living nightmare for me!"

"Aaaaand moving on," Trixie said, pointedly turning away from Blueblood to the next seat. "In seat number two, we have the co-ruler of the Crystal Empire and captainoftheRoyalGuardShiningArmor?!"

Shining Armor snorted, hooves folded over his chest as he sat on his folding chair. "Cadance decided to appear on this show, so I figured I'd repay the favor! See how she likes it when her love is on a game show scouting out the mares!

"Um..." Trixie said. "You... do know that your sister is going to be the one asking you questions, right?"

Shining Armor's confidence quickly vanished, to be just as quickly replaced with horror. "Wait, what?!"

"And contestant number three," Trixie announced, smirking at Shining Armor's rapidly growing panic, "is Davenport, from Ponyville, he sells quills and sofas in a shop, he's weird, yes yes yes. Let's applaud at these three contestants, or whatever."

A few solitary claps and one cough echoed through the auditorium, quickly making way for the awkward silence to rush back in.

"Anyway," Trixie continued, marching back over to Twilight, "Trixie is going to be over here. If any of you need something, ask somepony else, because Trixie is sure as hay not going to help you." Pulling out a picture of Twilight Sparkle from her hat, Trixie carefully hung it on the back wall before beginning to lazily throw darts at it.

"Um, okay!" Twilight said, looking slightly confused yet very eager to begin. "All right, pony number one-" Twilight paused to let out a giggle. "Sorry, I'm nervous."

A snort of irritance was heard from behind Twilight Sparkle, as Trixie flung a dart a bit harder at Twilight's face.

Twilight cleared her throat, composing herself. "Pony one, are you an outdoors pony, or do you prefer staying inside?"

"Well," Prince Blueblood began, slicking back his mane with a flawless hoof, "I really have no preference, provided I may bring some sort of assistance with me. You know, just a few dozen servants, nothing much."

The crowd booed loudly, louder than they had ever cheered in the history of the show, but security guards around the studio managed to keep anything more than loud voices of disapproval from occurring.

Twilight, confused with the audience's disapproval and pony one's answer, shook her head and glanced back at the questions card. "Pony two, what would be your song of choice for a serenade?"

By this point, Shining Armor was going through a complete nervous breakdown; of all ponies it could have been, it was his sister. Shining Armor was terrified of what might happen if Twilight picked him, then labeled him as incestuous. As a result, he had taken to rocking himself back and forth on the ground, sucking his hoof and trying to comfort himself by singing the happiest songs he could think of. "Giggle at the ghostie..."

Twilight leaned as far back as she could without tipping her chair over, unsure whether she misheard or pony number two was simply insane. "Uh, o-kaaaaaaay... Um, pony three, do you love books?"

Davenport snapped to attention, having been very transfixed on Shining Armor's sudden reversal from angry yet collected to a blubbering mess on the floor. "Oh! Um, well actually, yes I do! One of the reasons why I run my shop is to have something to write with while you're reclining on a comfy couch!"

Twilight's eyes lit up. "Oh, that's fantastic!" Looking back at the card, Twilight scrunched her eyes up to read off the next question. "Pony one, are you one for love and tolerance?"

"Why, of course!" Prince Blueblood said, cleanly lying through his teeth. "I am a very loving and tolerant pony. So much so, that I'm very popular and have many friends!"

The audience broke into pandemonium as members immediately began screaming at Blueblood and frothing at the mouth, only barely held back by various security members from rushing the stage.

Out of the stage left section of the audience, a brick came flying directly at Prince Blueblood's head. It contacted with his skull directly below his horn, shattering his cranium with a loud thunk. His body flopped over, slamming into the folding chair and knocking it to the floor with a loud crash.

The crowd quieted to dead air almost immediately. All watched Blueblood as a bloodstain slowly grew around his immobile figure. Trixie, mouth agape, dropped the forty-seventh dart she owned and tentatively approached the figure, grimacing at the red liquid his body was lying in. The entire audience made not a sound as Trixie slowly bent down, flipped around Prince Blueblood's hoof, and checked for a pulse.

"...He's... dead..." Trixie announced, after a few tense seconds.

Nopony said a word.

Then, an uproarious cheer rose, even louder than when they had booed at the unpleasant unicorn, and compartments on the ceiling opened up to let confetti and balloons shower down on the crowd. Amongst the festive party elements, security guards lifted up a tan pegasus with a cleanly cut brown mane from the crowd, to even louder shouts of joy. The pegasus in question, a mare named Wild Fire, was grinning ear to ear like she had just won a prize. And indeed, with the way that everypony, even the guards, were heaping praise upon her, one might assume at a glance that she had been awarded a gold trophy for being the Best Young Flier Who Killed Blueblood. Gifts and hugs were lavished upon her in earnest as she exited the studio in triumph, head held high.

"Huh," Trixie mused, unheard over the deafening screams of unbridled elation. "Trixie would have put every bit she owns on Trixie being the one to kill someone onstage first, but it appears that she has been beaten to the punch. Much respect, pegasus. Much respect."

The partying could not be contained for an entire ten minutes, the entire duration of which Trixie threw darts at Twilight's poster. She eventually ran out of darts, and began scavenging spare nails and other sharp things to use as ammo against her archenemy's paper face. Once the celebratory shouts had lost their luster and the noise died down to relatively tame whispers of uncontrollable excitement, Trixie's conversation-volume voice finally managed to carry to everypony's ears.

"Well, since we're due for a commercial in two minutes, you'll have to pick your pony now, Twilight," Trixie droned on, not looking over from where she was delicately aiming a dull pencil at the poster. Twilight's face was unrecognizable from beneath the hundreds of sharp objects obscuring it.

"Oh, okay I guess," Twilight said, frowning. "I sort of wanted to ask a few more questions, but I suppose I'll just have to go with what I have. So, I pick pony three!"

"Sweet Celestia yes thank you I promise I will give you hooficures for a month for this!" Shining Armor shouted, forelegs raised in gratitude. Clicking his hooves together, the unicorn pranced out the studio doors, shouting "life is grand!"

"I'll make sure to hold him to that promise," Princess Celestia commented from her front row seat.

"Great, great," Trixie said, squinting as she fired a pair of scissors into one of the few open spaces on her Twilight poster. "You rejected your bro, and a corpse. Good job."

Twilight had never felt such a strange urge to cheer and retch at the same time before.

"Anyway, Davenport, get your flank out here and pick a vacation spot," Trixie yelled irritably. Whimpering, the quill and sofa salesman cautiously approached the three envelopes being held up by magic. His hoof noticeably shook as he slowly reached for one.

"Come on, Trixie doesn't have all day!" The hostess screeched.

Flinching, Davenport cowered away from the envelopes, terrified. However, as he glanced toward Twilight, and her bright smile, he gulped hard before forcing down his apprehension and quickly swiping the left envelope from Trixie's magical grasp.

"All right, great," Trixie said, ripping the paper out of the envelope so harshly it tore into two pieces. Placing them lazily back together, Trixie muttered briefly before reorienting one part so that the location was actually readable. "You two are taking an all-paid trip to Baltimare. Congratulations, somewhere that doesn't outright suck."

Twilight beamed at Davenport, to get a nervous grin as a reply. The two walked offstage, Davenport decidedly stiffer than Twilight.

"'Kay," Trixie said, addressing the audience, "Trixie's gonna go and crash for a couple of minutes. With any luck, the rest of this show will go by really quickly so that Trixie can be free for the rest of the day." As a janitor came out and began cleaning up the mess that was once Blueblood, Trixie dragged her hooves to the edge of the stage as the generic theme music once again played out of the speakers.

Trixie dragged her hooves to the edge of the stage as the generic theme music once again played out of the speakers, eliciting déjà vu from many audience members and saving the author from writing something to restate the previous sentence, but in different words.

After the technicians quickly patched up the fourth wall from where it had been breached with wads of bubblegum collected from the audience and a spare piece of lint, Trixie walked to center stage, cleared her throat and began speaking. "Fillies and gentlecolts, we are now going to watch a poor sap choose from three bland ponies of the opposite sex to have a date with. The only difference here is that now it's an unlucky male picking from three equally unlucky females. Why yes, this show is the most unoriginal ever, everypony else has thought that before you."

Turning to the stallion in the seat, Trixie was unable to get out a word before needing to hold down bile in her throat. "Who-... no, what are you?!"

The incredibly old and disgusting-looking unicorn was splayed out like a cadaver, yellowed eyes rolling up into the back of his head and tongue lolling out of his mouth. Letting out a crackly grunt, the stallion moved slightly. "I am... Star Swirl... the Bearded..."

"What?! Lemme see, lemme see!" Twilight Sparkle rushed up to the stage only to be caught and held back by two unicorn security guards. "No! Star Swirl! My greatest love!"

"How old... are you?" Trixie asked, backing away from the ancient pony.

"Rumors of my death... were greatly exaggerated," Star Swirl croaked out.

Trixie's eye twitched, and she had to look away before she vomited on the floor. "Okay, well, I guess our three mares are even unluckier than usual. So, for pony one, we have- okay, you are not a pony."

Queen Chrysalis huffed on her seat. "Oh what, you think that just because I'm a changeling, I can't date? Is dat it?" the changeling queen smacked her lips loudly, crossing her hooves and blowing a stray hair from her mane out of her face.

Trixie facehoofed. "No, I just-"

"Then what, huh?" Chrysalis interrupted. "Y'all ponies just think that all changelings look the same, and that we can't even get some without changing. I see how it is. We're all about the 'hearts and hooves,' all dat shit, to you ponies. I get it."

"Ugh. Fine. I don't even care." Trixie moved over to pony two's location, snorting. "Sheesh, next thing you know Princess Celestia will be in one of these seats... all right, pony two is..."

Princess Celestia smiled down at Trixie. "Hello Trixie! I love the gaudy yellow vest you're wearing, it matches very well!"

Trixie looked directly in Celestia's eyes with a straight face. "Trixie is going to stop tempting fate so often."

"That would be wise," the princess agreed.

"Pony three," Trixie said, screwing up her eyes and holding her head defensively from the coming migraine, "is multimillionaire music producer and party mare, Vinyl Scratch, also known as DJ PON-3."

The crowd erupted into cheers and catcalls, as Vinyl Scratch smiled, adjusted her signature purple shades, and leaned back casually on her folding chair.

"Well," Trixie said, doing her best to ignore Twilight's pleas to get past security and cuddle with Star Swirl, "here's your question card, Star Swill or whatever. Ask your questions." Trixie immediately went back to throwing things at her Twilight poster, picking up a plastic fork.

"This is a question... to all three of you..." Star Swirl rasped. "How... old are you?"

Chrysalis crossed her hooves, reclining deep into her folding chair. "Oh, what, you gonna criticize me on my age now? Ponies, typical. Well, I'm over a thousand years old, live with it."

"I'm older than Chryssy, here," Celestia replied. Chrysalis snorted, angrily pushing farther back into her seat as Celestia smiled triumphantly at her.

"Twenty seven, baby!" Vinyl Scratch said, garnering several cheers and whoops.

"I choose... pony three!" Star Swirl choked out.

Trixie jerked, whipping her head around in disbelief as she dropped the kitten she was preparing to throw. "Wait, you can't just pick the youngest pony!"

"Forget it," Chrysalis said, bashing down the screen with a punch of her hoof. "No pony wants this, then no pony's gonna get this." Buzzing her wings, the changeling queen flew over the audience and threw open the doors, leaving the studio. Celestia teleported out right afterwards, leaving nothing to protect Vinyl Scratch from the raging hormones of a certain desiccated magician.

With the screen down, Star Swirl was in a clear line of sight with a very perplexed Vinyl Scratch. "Ahh, there you are, my pretty!" With a surprising amount of strength in a body several hundred years old, the wizened unicorn leaped out of his chair and ran towards Vinyl Scratch, hearts in his eyes.

"Ewww, get away from me you freak!" Vinyl yelled, pivoting around and bucking Star Swirl right in the face.

Despite the energy he could display once he had a sufficient boner, Star Swirl was still extremely old, and his delicate and brittle bones were unable to stand up to wet tissue paper, let alone a mare's hind legs. Body parts were flung everywhere as Star Swirl exploded, coating part of the stage with random entrails and isopropyl alcohol being used as a substitute for blood for the old unicorn.

"Two dead bodies," Trixie mentioned off-handedly, having returned to her sharp-object-throwing game after Star Swirl blew up. "Neither of which I liked. Yet, I didn't need to touch a hair on their mane. Trixie is on a roll."

"Schmoopy-doo!" With enough force to destroy an entire kitchen, Twilight Sparkle blew the two guards holding her into the wall with a magic blast, before leaping onstage and desperately sifting through Star Swirl's dismembered body parts. "No, please, Star Swirl, come back!" Tears leaking down her face, Twilight flopped to the ground and began rolling around in what was left of the ancient wizard.

Upon the urging of the security guards, everypony in the audience reluctantly agreed the show was over, and that what Twilight Sparkle was doing was very uncomfortable to watch, and so began filing out as Trixie lazily packed up her Twilight poster and left.

Twilight stayed there, slathering Star Swirl the Bearded's organs on herself and crying her eyes out, until a few hours later when her brother, having gone back to bring her home, finally agreed to place what remained of Star Swirl in Ziploc bags and donate them to the Canterlot Museum of History.