The Ponyville Buckball Team had long since returned victorious. A party to celebrate their victory had lasted well into the night.
The next day, the tired but happy team and their coaches—minus Snails, who had chores to do at home—met up with their friends at Twilight's castle.
Their unicorn and alicorn friends.
Who were not terribly happy with them.
"Uhh...hey guys," Rainbow Dash said as she caught the disapproving looks on the faces of Rarity, Starlight Glimmer, and Twilight Sparkle. "What's up?" Her eyes widened. "Is there a friendship problem? A Cutie Map summons? Are we about to have an awesome adventure?"
"Snails," Twilight said sharply. "Snails."
Rainbow blinked. "Snails? What about Snails?"
Rarity narrowed her eyes. "You two," she said, pointing from Applejack to Rainbow Dash, "gathered every unicorn in Ponyville to try out for your little buckball team."
"Every unicorn but three," Starlight added, gesturing to herself, Rarity, and Twilight.
"Why didn't you invite any of us to your tryouts?" Twilight asked in a hurt tone.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack blinked, then looked at each other. Their eyes widened. "Oh horseapples," Rainbow said.
"Umm..." Applejack hemmed and hawed for a moment, looking at her three irritated friends. "W-well...y'see..."
"We didn't think it'd be Rarity's, y'know, thing," Rainbow said.
"And Twi, well, yer a princess now...you're awful busy an' stuff," Applejack said uncertainly, her eyes darting left and right.
"And let me guess. You just completely forgot I even existed," Starlight said archly, folding her hooves.
Two heads hung limply in shame.
Pinkie's mane drooped. "Hey, it's not just them," she said. "I guess me and Fluttershy didn't think about it either."
"We're sorry, girls," Fluttershy said, dragging her hoof across the floor contritely.
Starlight, Twilight, and Rarity looked at one another.
"It's just...we feel a little left out," Twilight said. "Even if we'd have had to decline, even if we'd probably have agreed with Snails being your unicorn for the team...you didn't even invite us to the tryouts."
"Wow," Rainbow said. "Some friends we are..."
Rarity sighed. "We forgive you, of course," she said. "It just hurts to be left out of something your friends are all doing together."
In the corner, Spike snorted. "Gee, can't imagine how that feels..."
And an alicorn.
That, and they didn't think you'd be particularly interested.
Want some fries for that salt?
Alternately...
"Actually, we thought you'd try to play every position at the same time."
"You ain't exactly a team player, Starlight."
Also, that last line really ties it all together. Sad but true.
Seems to be happening a lot lately. That should tell you something.
Or the episode just took place prior to Cutie Re-Mark.
I think that a lot of the episodes in Season 6 were written for Season 5, not used then, and are being used for Season 6.
Thus, no Starlight.
7590865 Yeah, it's a strong possibility. We know for a FACT Flutter Brutter was supposed to be an S5 episode, after all...
FINALLY, Spike speaks up!
Well, for Twilight at least, she's an alicorn. That'd probably be cheating to let her be on a professional sports team.
And just like that, the name of Swashbucklist was invoked.
7590978 Kinda like how it was cheating for Korra to play on the Fire Ferrets? They worked around that pretty well.
...Poor Spike.
"We figured you'd laugh at the idea, Rarity, and it calls for a unicorn, not an alicorn, so Twilight doesn't qualify. And Starlight hasn't come out of her room since that thing with Trixie and we were a little afraid to find out what would happen if we opened the door to her room."
Actually, it's canon that Spike doesn't mind getting left behind on adventures, as it lets him catch up on stuff like sleep.
7858920
Actually that was never actually accepted into cannon. Since we do see him cannonically bring up being left behind when the girls go on adventures, and feeling useless.
And they didn't invite Snips and Snails either. Yet Snails proved to be a complete natural.
They hadn't even been TRYING to recruit Snails, he just proved off hoofedly that he was way better than any of their other candidates.
7592608
Good point about Twilight, ironically. Reminds about the Avatar playing sports.