As the cheers rose again, Twilight felt anxiety kick in.
"Can I have Rainbow Dash and Sue Patterson up front, please?" He added once the cheers died down. He gestured towards a stand with a button on opposite sides and a microphone in the middle. "The way this works is I'll ask you the question," Billy explained, "the first cartoon to hit their own button answers first--obviously. Hands and hooves at their sides until I'm done asking, though." Rainbow sighed and put her hoof on the ground. "If you get an answer that wasn't the top submission, the opposing team can try and get that top answer or one higher than your team. The team with the highest answer goes first; understand?"
"Uh-huh." Human and pony chorused.
"Great!" Billy smiled, "now let's start! We asked 100 cartoons what sport they liked the best. Top 7 answers on the-"
Rainbow's button went off, making Billy jump. "... Yes, Rainbow..?"
"Buckball!"
"Excuse me?" He asked politely. A few laughs rose from the audience at Rainbow's eagerness.
"Er--I mean--Foot...ball? American football?"
Billy gestured towards the huge board behind him, seven answers already on the board; five on one half and two on the other. "Football!" He called.
A sign at the top slowly changed over to reveal FOOTBALL, with a number next to it that read 64. Rainbow gawked, not knowing she would've gotten the highest scoring answer. She quickly changed her facial features to one of smugness, saying that she totally meant to do that.
"Congratulations, Rainbow, your show gets to go first." Billy said, already walking over to where the ponies were as Sue walked back to her seat. He came to Twilight first, as he did before, and repeated the question for her.
"A type of sport?" Twilight asked, wrinkling her muzzle. "I don't know, I'm not really good with sports..."
"Then skip!" Brittney called.
"Yeah, give the answer to us! It'll make up for Sue's screw up!" Whitney added.
Twilight's eyes melted into a squint and she fought the urge to sigh in annoyance. "I guess... uh.... I guess I'll say... tennis."
Billy turned to the board, calling out Twilight's answer. The sixth panel turned over, revealing TENNIS with a matching 4 next to it.
And so, the game went on. Rarity guessed swimming, Applejack, soccer Pinkie, extreme baking (which wasn't up there), Rainbow, baseball, and Spike, hunting. Five of the answers were lit up, leaving only the fourth and second panel remaining. Twilight waited for Billy to restate the question, as she realized as he went down the line he had to do it for each toon. Sport, sport, sport, sport, sport.... her brain mumbled, trying to come up with one that wasn't already said. The only thing that came to mind was racing, but she doubted it would count. Unfortunately, nothing else came to mind.
As her turn came again, she looked around with wild eyes, trying to signal for help. "Uh..." She mumbled, oping there wasn't a time limit or anything on this show. "R-racing...?" She finally spit out.
"Racing!" He called to the board. A few seconds passed before a second red X appeared on the board. "Ooo, tough luck!" Billy exclaimed in his overly enthusiastic way. He moved down to Rarity, staring at the audience as he did. "Okay, Rarity, now that your team has two strikes, this will be your last chance to get a right answer. If you answer wrong, then the chance to win will go to Toon Team LPS. If they get their answer wrong, then your show wins; if not, then you lose, understand?"
"Yes, I believe I do," Rarity smiled as she put her forehooves on the counter before her.
"Great! Now, Rarity, we asked 100 cartoons what sport they liked the best; it's your turn to guess again."
She put a hoof to her chin and cast her eyes to the side as she thought of a response; "oh, dear me... I apologize, I'm drawing a blank as to the equivalent to this, but I do like a nice trot now and then."
Billy cocked his head slightly to the side. "So... trotting?" He asked.
Rarity sighed, upset she couldn't think of what trotting was called to everyone else. "Yes, I suppose so..." she muttered.
He turned to the board, calling out Rarity's reply. Unsurprisingly, a third red X blared across the screen. Her muzzle turned pink as Brittney and Whitney's screeching laughter filled the stage. "I'm terribly sorry, mares," Rarity mused as she tried to hide her face from the hundreds of toonies watching.
"Don't worry about it, Rarity." Twilight assured, "everypony makes mistakes."
"Yeah!" Pinkie added, "besides, you helped us out by getting the second highest one on there!"
"And even if we do get knocked off, this still was a mighty fun time, huh?" Applejack finished for them all.
Across the isle, Twilight could see the two nasty twins rolling their eyes and pointing to their open mouths, symbolizing them gagging. She huffed and looked away. "Don't let them irritate you, Sparkle..." she muttered to herself.
"Okay, LPS," Billy announced, "you got one shot at getting your answer right. If you get it wrong, your opponents team wins. He went right over to Blythe, who leaned in to the microphone, excited to answer the sporty question. "We asked 100 cartoons what sport they liked best. Blythe, care to answer?"
"Ew! Why would you even want, like, her to answer?" Britney cried.
"Yeah, she'd just, like, get it wrong or whatever." Whitney added, "let us just answer for her."
Billy and Blythe exchanged a look of confusion, not sure how to respond. "Guys, I already discussed the answer with Sue, Young Mei and dad." Blythe finally said, leaning over the counter a little to get a better view of them. "All you did was file your nails and text on your phones. How could you know that our answer is wrong and yours is right?"
"Omigosh, Britney, is she, like, totally questioning our intelabalance?"
"I think she totally is, Whit." Britney nodded, placing a hand on Whitney's shoulder, not bother to correct her sister, "I think she need to be put in her place."
"Yeah! How dare she call us imbycicles right to our faces?"
Blythe rolled her eyes, resting her head in her hand. "I think you're looking for 'intelligence' and 'imbeciles.'"
Britney's hands flew up to cover her mouth, her eyes wide, acting like Blythe had just called her a hippo. "Oh. My. Gosh." She ho was mimicking her actions. "She just did it again, Whit."
Billy, who had grown increasingly irritated throughout the whole scenario, walked over to where the twins were seated and thrust the microphone in their faces. "If I let you two answer, will you finally shut up?" He seethed through clenched teeth.
"Well if you're gonna be all moody about it..." Britney scoffed, crossing her arms.
Billy's eyes narrowed as he began to take the microphone away. At the last second, Whitney jumped up from her seat and snatched it from his hands. "okay, so, like, our answer to the question is, like, dodging people on Black Friday."
All mouths were dropped at that ridiculous statement except for the Biskit twin's. Whitney handed him back the microphone and waited, but after Billy hadn't restated their response to the board for a good minute or two, she jumped out of her seat again and sat instead on her portion of the desk. "Aren't you gonna, like, say it or whatever?"
Billy just blinked at them, slowly shaking his head. "I'm going to allow this one hint, just this once, and say that that answer is without a shadow of a doubt, absolutely--"
"--right! I knew it!" Whitney squealed.
Billy shook his head again, though the twins failed to notice.
"Ugh. He obviously wants us to say it, since he isn't," Britney sighed, "here, Whit, gimme the mic." Whitney snatched the amplifier out of the host's hand once more and stretched her arm backwards so Britney could reach it. She faced the bored, as she'd seen Billy do countless times before and announced their answer.
A few seconds passed by before a huge X blared across the screen.
Music started playing and balloons rained down on the ponies' side, though it took them a minute to start celebrating as they were still trying to comprehend what they had just seen.
Across the way, all actors minus two face-palmed, groaning in disbelief at what had just happened. "What?" Britney called, clueless, "wasn't that right? Why did it say it was wrong? It was obviously right, right?"
"No." Blythe scowled, "it wasn't. He was just going to tell you your answer was wrong. It wasn't anywhere close to being right."
"Like your answer would be any better?" Whitney retaliated.
"Our answer was going to be badminton," Young Mei supplied, "or lacrosse. One of the two that probably would have a better shot at being correct then... dodging shoppers..."
As their argument continued, Billy sauntered over to 'Team MLP' and smiled broadly at the audience. "Congratulations, mares and dragon," he boomed, "due to your recent winnings, you get to move onto the next round and win one thousand dollars!!"
"How much is that in bits?" Twilight queered.
"Per pony, or do we have to split it?" Rainbow asked at the same time.
"I dunno and you'll have to split it," Billy answered with ease. "Just take this check to your bank back home and deposit it or whatever you wanna do then you'll see how much it is in bits." He hopped up to try and grab a check that was being lowered from the ceiling, but to no avail. Twilight ignited her horn and levitated it over to her instead to help him out.
"Will you be joining us next show?" He asked happily as soon as the "On Air" light went dim.
"Can do." They all replied in unison.
As they went back to their studio, Twilight couldn't help but look back once more at the other team. She looked down at the check and back at the team, scrunching up her muzzle as she debated internally.
"Ya comin' Twi?" Applejack asked her.
"Just go on without me," she replied, "I'll catch up."
The farmpony nodded, albeit reluctantly, and carried on her way. Twilight turned back to the Cartoon Feud studio, galloping there as fast as she could, until she reached it's backstage.
"Billy?" She huffed as soon as she saw him.
"Hmm?"
"Uh..." she levitated the check in front of her, hoping her friends wouldn't mind what she was about to do. "Any chance you could split this and send the other five hundred to that other team?"