One fine, perfectly normal day, Twilight unlocks the doors to her School of Friendship... and promptly loses consciousness.
When she comes to, she finds that her friends, mentors, other ponies she knows and even a couple unreformed enemies are with her, and her School has been radically modified, relocated and encased within a barrier. A strange little black-and-white bear tells them that they now live here indefinitely; the only way they can leave this place is if they kill a fellow pony and get away with it in a trial.
But Twilight has nothing to worry about. As long as she believes in the Friendship between herself and the others, there has to be a way for everypony to escape alive and well. Surely nopony would even dream about killing another pony... would they?