When Rarity throws a client get-together at Canterlot Boutique, nerdy geologist Frazzle Rock sees an opportunity to confess her feelings for the older mare. But can her fantasy survive Rarity’s stern professionalism, Pinkie Pie’s excessive attempts to help, and a totally unnecessary musical number?

Teen/Sex rated for drug and alcohol references, language, childish innuendo, and mature themes. No actual sex. Not even kissing, actually. Did I really write this?

Edited by Cerulean Starlight

Sunset Shimmer visits Equestria and spends some time taking care of animals with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash is apparently not good with certain animals.

Sunset discovers very quickly that what you learn from the human world cannot be unlearned, ever.

Rated Teen and Sex for a pile of juvenile innuendo, though technically no bad language. Only technically.

This story is a sequel to Freeze Frame

When Minty Flower first came to Fillydelphia to become a reporter, she had no idea what she was in for. Now that she's achieved that goal, however, she'll learn that even more challenges face her and her friends as they try to get by in a city fighting to recover from its shady past.

(Cancelled!)

"If you can make it in Fillydelphia, you can make it anywhere," or so the saying goes. When a young mare comes to the big city with dreams of being a reporter, she is instead thrust into a world of corruption and squalor where she will need the strength of friends to survive.

Derpy was just trying to make a sandwich. Vinyl was there too.

Now the world is ending.

Really, it's all their fault.

A stylistic tribute to Terry Pratchett.

Russian translation by Repitter.

Proofread by MrNumbers, Octavia Harmony, and TheMaskedferret.

Only a few hours after she learned of the Griffon Empire's invasion, Princess Celestia surrendered herself to the griffon army and asked for an audience with the Griffon Emperor.

The Emperor thinks she's here to negotiate Equestria's surrender.

He's wrong.

Spanish Translation
Polish Translation

Noticing her Princess' plight, the kitchen mare helpfully offers some of Luna's "special brew" to jumpstart Celestia's day. Chaos ensues when an overly percolated princess can't handle her caffeine!

(Rated "Teen" for the single use of one naughty word.)

Daybreak's story is told here in Sometimes It Takes a Double Shot!

(Many thanks to CaptainBron3y for this live reading!)

Don't miss the unofficial sequel "A Princess Needs her Coffee", a lovely story by my wonderful friend Broman.

Crime was easy before Princess Twilight and the First Five ushered in a golden age of Harmony. Back then, any idiot could plan a robbery, just like any rat could sneak through the cracks in wooden granary walls. But now that everything is cloudstone and clearsteel, with magical countermeasures over the few remaining holes, it takes a different breed of rat to survive.

"Slippery" Jimmy the Grey is one of the rare few ponies who can still slip through the cracks — even with the legendary Rainbow Corps on his tail. Now he's got a billion-bit heist planned in the gleaming skyscrapers of Cloudsdale. If only he hadn't made the mistake of stealing from a dragon …

Now with a reading by Illya Leonov and Scribbler!

* * *

This is a crossover with Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat novels, but it assumes no knowledge of the series.

Winner of February's Writeoff Association competition! * Featured by Equestria Daily! * Featured by Seattle's Angels!

REVIEWS: "Highly Recommended" by Titanium Dragon; "Recommended" by Present Perfect; rated "Why Haven't You Read This Yet?" by PaulAsaran

WORD OF MOUTH:
"The Iridescent Iron Rat was not only my favorite story from the most recent writeoff... it's my favorite story of anything I've read in months." —Sharp Spark

"What a ride it is. This story is made of awesome moments." —Casca, Seattle's Angels

"[A]stounding on so many levels. … If there’s one story from this round you have to pick, make it this one." —Corejo, Seattle's Angels

"Absolutely beautifully done. It fits the style and feel of the books to a perfect T." —Themaskedferret

This is a commissioned work for Cucharrador.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna decide to check and see if they are truly blameless in the eyes of their subjects. To do this, they decide to play a game from long ago... The Sisterhooves Anti-social.

When the Royal Wedding scatters defeated changelings all over Equestria, a member of the hive winds up being captured in Ponyville, tied up, stunned, repeatedly shot by a cannon, and held against his will.

The truly frightening part is he’s starting to like it.

Thank you to my twisted editors: Tek, Seether00, GameKnut, Cerulean Blue and Peter
The picture Pinkie Pie uses Party Canon is from Atmospark at DeviantArt

This story is listed as comedy⁽*⁾ because the author has an odd sense of humor. No changelings were harmed⁽¹⁾ during the production of this story, despite what the newspapers printed or the ongoing lawsuit from the ESPCA⁽²⁾. The management would like to remind all readers to spay and neuter your pets. Unless your pet is a changeling, in which case…

(*) Dark humor, to be exact. If you are someone who finds pleasure in the misfortune of others, enjoys watching the occasional inept chainsaw juggler or cheers during a NASCAR crash, welcome home. Also, get help.

(1) Excluding blunt trauma, thermal impingement, chemical exposure, radiation, thaumaturgic infusions, and confetti ingestion. All characters represented, including changelings, are the exclusive property of Hasbro, no matter what they may shout at you from between the bars of their cell. Any violence or pain inflicted on the changeling in this story was simulated on a stunt changeling with special effects and mirrors. Except for the cannon. There is no truth to the rumor that Queen Chrysalis provided the stunt changelings from a supply of disobedient changelings in her dungeon⁽³⁾.

(2) Equestrian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Arthropods

(3) The Changeling Kingdom does not have dungeons. They have Call Centers. It explains a lot, actually.

Here is a link to some appropriate background music to listen to while reading: Piotr Tchaikovneigh’s 1812 Overture

Additional Note: This story is tagged Sex because it has the occasional reference to… well, sex. There are no explicit references, but there are things.