//------------------------------//
// The Ticket Master 
// Story: All the Elements for Disaster 
// by Radicool223 
//------------------------------//

	Cobalt Spikes, Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, and Spike were harvesting apples at Sweet Apple Acres. Or at least Twilight, Cobalt, and Applejack were. Spike was busy looking at each apple in the basket on top of Twilight’s back and tossing out most of them.
“Thank ya kindly for helpin’ with the harvestin’, Twilight and Cobalt.” Applejack said. “I don’t know how ah could’ve done this without y’all.”
“Psh, it’s nothing.” Cobalt said with a small smile. He was more looking forward to spending time with Dash afterward though. They were planning to have their first official race afterward, though he was just happy to see her. After she and Twilight had that argument a few days ago,	Cobalt had been trying to be close to Rainbow as much as possible.
As Fluttershy had said, he did have a crush on her, and being around her made him happy.
“Took a little longer than I expected though.” Twilight added.
“Yeah, I almost missed snack time.” Spike complained, pulling a perfect looking apple out of the pile. “Ah hah!”
“Whoa, nice apple!” Cobalt commented. There was a sound like a chainsaw and the apple disappeared.
Twilight facehooved.

ONE TITLE SEQUENCE LATER

Just then Spike’s stomach made a lurching noise. “Ohh,” he groaned. “Bad apple.” He burped out a wisp of green smoke that solidified into a scroll.
Spike held his stomach and unfurled the scroll. “Umm, this says, Princess Celestia is pleased to announce the annual Grand Galloping Gala and is offering two tickets to Twilight Sparkle for herself and a friend.”
Twilight’s eyes grew wide and she nearly choked on her words. “The Grand Galloping Gala?! That’s the social event of the year!”
“The what now?” Cobalt asked, still suffering from amnesia.
“The Grand Galloping Gala.” Applejack informed him. “It’s only the most attended event in Equestria. Ah swear if ah could get in there ah’d be able to sell enough apples to fix up everything on the farm!” she was really getting into it now. “We could fix Big Mac’s saggy old harness. We could fix the barn’s saggy old roof! For the heck of it we could fix Granny Smith’s saggy old hip!”
Cobalt nodded. “Didn’t need all that, but thanks.”
“Oh, could ah please go?” Applejack pleaded of Twilight. “Ah’d do anything!”
A rustling sound was heard overhead and a familiar cyan mare’s head poked out of a tree. “Did I hear Grand Galloping Gala?” Rainbow fell out of the tree and got up off the ground, dusting herself off.
“Yes, ya did.” Applejack said dryly. “Was y’all spyin’ on us?”
“No I’all wasn’t.” Rainbow said sarcastically, flying up to the tree and pulling out a pillow and blanket. “I was napping. It’s important stuff.”
That was only half true. She had been taking a catnap, but she’d also been spying. Not on the whole group particularly, but on Cobalt. She wasn’t sure why, but she was still partially suspicious that Twilight was going to make some sort of move, but she wasn’t going to let jealousy control her actions like last time’s disaster.
“So, what about the Gala?” Rainbow asked eagerly.
“Twilight’s got two tickets and is gonna give one to a friend.” Spike said matter of factly.
Dash let out a cheer and flipped a few times in the air, flinging the blanket and pillow on top of the tree. “Oh this is great! The Wonderbolts perform at the Gala! This is my big chance! I can see it now, they’re doing the show, then the crowd’s attention is drawn by a solitary flier on the edge of the arena. Who is it? Then the figure draws closer… and it’s me! I’ll…”
While Rainbow was doing her spiel, Cobalt and Spike were watching and mumbling to each other.
“Twenty bits that neither get the ticket.” Cobalt muttered.
“What, are you nuts? I’m not taking that deal.” Spike hissed. “Speaking of, why don’t you want the ticket?”
“I don’t know a thing about the social situation around here, I’d probably act stupid and get laughed at. Better just not to go. What about you?”
“What, me? Get all wrapped up in that girly frou-frou nonsense? Forget it bro.”
“Like a man, dude.” They discreetly brohoofed/brofisted.
Rainbow finished her fantasy and before Twilight could say anything, Applejack interrupted.
“Ah’m sorry Rainbow, but Twilight’s already givin’ the ticket to me, isn’t that right?” she shot a pointed glance at Twilight.
“Uhh,” Twilight began to sweat.
“Whoa, if that’s your take on it, let’s settle this with a hoof wrestling contest, here and now.” Rainbow challenged.
“Umm, guys?” Cobalt said, getting a bit worried. Applejack dropped the crate of apples as a makeshift table and she and Rainbow got into a hoof wrestling position (I can’t remember the term in the show, so I’ll just call it hoof wrestling, which is the equivalent of arm wrestling).
They were about to start duking it out, when Cobalt, desperate for an excuse, looked at the position of the sun in the sky and cursed. “Oh man!” he realized. “Dash, I totally forgot, we’ve got double shift today preparing for the rainstorm since Clear Sky and Robinwing are out, remember!”
Rainbow’s eyes widened and she cursed as well. “Oh crud! If we don’t get moving our supervisor from the Weather Council is gonna clip our wings! I’ll deal with you later.” She added as an afterthought, pointing at Applejack.
“Anytime.” Applejack retorted.
Cobalt grabbed Rainbow’s foreleg, which made her heart flutter a little bit, and started pulling her away. “Come on, we’ve got to go!”
The pair took to the skies and zipped off.
“Aww, they are so cute together.” A voice next to Applejack and Twilight said. They looked down to see a white unicorn with a blue mane trotting toward them.
“Hi Rarity? Why are you here?” Twilight inquired.
“I was just looking for a second opinion on my new hair design.” Rarity explained. She held back a bit of her mane to make it look shorter. “Well, what do you think?”
“Ya look like a varmit jackrabbit in a–” Applejack began.
“Yes, thank you Applejack.” Rarity interrupted. “Your opinion is very appreciated.” She let her mane fall. “So is anything else going on?”
“Yeah, Twilight’s got two tickets to the Gala.” Applejack said before Twilight could get anything out.
“The Gala?!” Rarity exclaimed. “Oh my gosh! I’ve wanted to attend that for years! I could¬–”

ONE ANNOYING SONG SECTION LATER

“Sorry, but Twilight’s givin’ the ticket to me.” Applejack interrupted Rarity.
“And whatever could make you say that?” Rarity demanded, giving way to cool, collected anger.
Twilight started to sweat again. “Uhhh.” She hauled Spike onto her back and galloped away right before Pinkie bounced in with a springing noise.
“I heard you talking about the Gala guys!” she announced.
“Wait, how’d ya hear about that from so far away?” Applejack queried in utter confusion.

WITH COBALT AND RAINBOW DASH

“Go, go, go!” Rainbow shouted as she and Cobalt zipped through the doors of the Cloudsdale cloud factory and into the weather pony meeting room.
They dashed into their place in line and carefully tried to look normal without attracting any attention from their supervisor. It didn’t work.
“You’re late. Again.” Their supervisor growled. “Miss Dash, this is your one hundred and fifth tardiness. I am afraid that if you are late more than twenty more times I will have to let you go.”
Rainbow bit her tongue and nodded. “Yes sir.”
“And you, mister Spikes. This is your third violation. I expect better of you, and I believe that your spending time with miss Dash is affecting your performance. I believe that if you two cannot do your jobs responsibly together then you will have to stay away from each other until further notice.”
Cobalt couldn’t hold himself back. “WHAT?!” he exploded. “How exactly is that fair?! Working together we get our share of the work done in half the time!”
“Cobalt no.” Rainbow muttered in an effort to calm her friend. “You’ll get fired.”
“Mister Spikes, I would advise you not to step out of line.” Their boss said threateningly.
Cobalt took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself. “Yes sir.”
“Good.” The supervisor said coldly. “I will give you one, and only one, more chance. You are all dismissed to your duties.”
The fast duo dashed out of their place in line, eager to get away from their supervisor. As soon as they were out of earshot, Rainbow growled, “I HATE that guy!”
“I know.” Cobalt agreed. “Who does he think he is? You have to stay away from each other if you can’t do your jobs right.”
“I wouldn’t do that for all the bits in the world! I like spending time with you!” she blushed. “I mean… uh…”
“I like spending time with you too.” Cobalt began to blush along with her. “Heh, uhh,”
They hovered there in the air facing each other for a few seconds until one of their coworkers flew past, saying, “Hey, are you two lovebirds going to just sit there or are you going to help?”
Rainbow’s blush deepened while Cobalt rolled his eyes at the pegasus in question. “Oh, shut up!”
The pegasus shrugged and flew off.
“I don’t know why everypony thinks that we’re together.” Rainbow complained. “I mean, where do they get that idea?”
Cobalt shrugged. “I don’t know.”
They zipped off and started pushing rainy clouds.
Then Rainbow had an idea. “Hang on dude.” She said to Cobalt. “I’ve got something to do.”
She peered through the cloud layer and quickly sighted Twilight sitting despondently at a table on a restaurant patio. Rainbow parted the clouds right before the rain started and grinned, just waiting for Twilight to notice the surrounding rain.
As she watched, the waiter came out, covering his head. “Ma’am, are you sure that you want to stay out here in the rain?” he asked. Twilight looked up in confusion to see that she was sitting in the middle of the only dry section in a giant rainstorm with Rainbow Dash looking down at her from the hole blocking the rain.
“Hi, best friend in the whole world.” Rainbow greeted her with a smile. Somewhere in the sky Cobalt twitched and felt an overwhelming sense of jealousy.
“Rainbow Dash, why are you doing this?” Twilight asked.
“Oh, I just thought that my bestest friend wouldn’t want to get wet.” Rainbow grinned.
Twilight sighed. “Look, if this is about the ticket, everypony wants it and I need to think about it for a while, okay? So if you could put the clouds back together–”
“On it.” Rainbow interrupted, pushing the gap together and letting the rain pour down on Twilight. The lavender mare was not ecstatic about that.

LATER

Twilight was sitting in the library late at night with Spike, Cobalt hanging with Rainbow Dash at the moment.
“So, have you figured out who you’re going to give the ticket to?” Spike asked.
Twilight twitched and grabbed a throw pillow. She held it to her muzzle and screamed into it in order to muffle the sound and not to wake up half of Ponyville.
“Oookay then.” Spike said cautiously, looking at her funny. “I’ll make a note not to ask you a question. Ever.”
Twilight sighed. “I’m sorry, Spike. It’s just that everypony has such a good reason for going. Applejack for helping the farm, Rainbow for impressing the Wonderbolts, Rarity with meeting the stallion of her dreams, Fluttershy with simply being there, Pinkie with her party thing, it’s just so confusing! It seems like Cobalt’s the only one who doesn’t care. Why wouldn’t he care?”
“Why would he?” Spike countered. “He can’t remember a thing.”
There was a knock on the door and Twilight magically opened it with a weary. “Come in.” She couldn’t say she was surprised when all six of her friends entered.
“All right, Twi. We’ve consulted and come to an agreement.” Applejack announced. “We want to know who ya’ve chosen to go to the Gala.” Twilight shot a dry look at Cobalt. “You too?”
He held up his hooves in defense. “I had absolutely nothing to do with this. These girls did it all on their own.”
A loud sigh escaped from Twilight. “Okay. You want to know? I’ll tell you.” She let her gaze pass over each one of her friends. “You all have very good reasons to go, and I just can’t pick one of you over the others. My decision is that I don't decide.”
All the rest started to feel guilty.
“Ya know what? I don’t want to go.” Applejack said. “If it really makes you that stressed, then I don’t want to make you feel torn like that.”
“Neither do I.” Rarity agreed.
“Same here.” Pinkie declared with a nod. “I could never put a friend through that.”
“I didn’t know that you were so stressed about that.” Fluttershy said, lowering her head.
“Heh, then I guess that means the ticket is mine!” Rainbow exclaimed, flying into the air before Cobalt shot her down with a killer glare. “Uh, what the others said.” She grinned sheepishly.
Twilight smiled gratefully. “Thank you all. Spike, take a note.”
Spike grabbed a piece of parchment and quill. “Ready.” He announced.
“Dear Princess Celestia.” Twilight dictated. “I have put in a lot of thought, and I have reached the following conclusion: if I can’t take all of my friends to the Gala, then I don’t want to go either. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”
Spike finished it and then sent it with his dragon’s breath.
“Wow. That was really cool of you Twilight.” Cobalt said approvingly.
Almost instantly after he finished saying that, Spike burped out another letter. He gripped his stomach with one hand, and held the letter with the other.
“It’s from the Princess.” He announced. “It says, Well why didn’t you just say so?” He then pulled out five extra tickets.
Twilight levitated them and gave them to each of her friends, including the extra from the first letter. “Wow! There’s one for each of us, even Cobalt!” she exclaimed.
Cobalt facehooved while the rest cheered. “Aw shoot.” He muttered. “I’m gonna look like an idiot.”
Rainbow gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Don’t worry dude.” She reassured him. “I mean, who could not like you? You’re the coolest guy I know!”
Cobalt grinned. “I am pretty awesome, aren’t I?”
“Heck yeah!” They brohooved.
The seven ponies exited the library with Spike trailing, and then Spike burped smoke again. It solidified into another letter, which he read in his mind.
Oh, and one for Spike too.
He pulled another ticket out of it, cheering, “Sweet!”

ELSEWHERE

Somewhere deep in the Everfree forest, a pair of evil looking red eyes flickered on.