"Bwahahaha, if you don't sign him up for cotillion within 24 hours, I will KILL your boyfriend, Pinkie!" the scourge known only as Ms. Harshwhinny declared in the letter Pinkie had found in her mailbox. The letter was postmarked on the twenty third, and it was now the twenty ninth, so Pinkie was already more than a bit worried, but then she read the P.S. on the bottom:
"P.S., This countdown begins when you read this letter, which is right now. Beware the swift passage of time, or the stallion you love will face swift passage in an industrial sized blender. BWAHAHAHAH! Signed, Her Honorable Ms. Harshwhinny"
Pinkie gasped, surrounded by her friends outside her mailbox. "Wait, how does she know when I've actually received and read this?"
At this, the gang heard some rustling in the bushes. Twilight turned and fired a denuding blast at the bushes. Were this the human world, such a spell would result in a lot of indecent exposure, but ponies are already usually naked so it's less of an issue. However, Ms. Harshwhinny usually wears a nice looking blouse or suit or whatever it is that she wears is called, but the point is that it makes her look professional. But she did not look professional standing there stripped of her suit thing in some bushes stripped of leaves.
By law, in situations like this one, somepony is required to shout "There she is!" it was Tuesday, so this job fell to Applejack today. "There she is!" yelled Applejack, right on cue. Rainbow was about to tackle her, and Twilight, who at this point is kind of OP was about to blast her with a freeze ray, and Starlight was about to congratulate her on the first step to being a reformed villain, which is to be an unreformed villain first, but before any of these things could happen, Ms. Harshwhinny exploded!
BOOM! Shards of hot metal hurtled towards the mares at over 9000 uh... feet per ten seconds. Twilight barely had time to throw up a defensive bubble around them before the blast incinerated them. As it is, it blew out the windows of six nearby houses and knocked over a nearby cart and also started several fires and left a crater like really it was a bad scene all around. But the big reveal here was that this wasn't Ms. Harshwhinny watching them, it was one of her robots. Dun Dun Dun!
Back at the BUYOURTOYS crystal tree castle thingie, the girls plus Spike planned their next moves. Pinkie was really nervous and was chewing her hooves a lot, which could be a serious problem if she ground them down too much. Hooves can be very sensitive, you know. I'm sure you've accidentally fucked up a finger nail once or twice in your life. Imagine that but on a much bigger scale.
Above them, there was a little digital clock from Twilight's workshop that had been converted into a countdown clock. It read 23:27:04. They all had been a bit discombobulated after that robot blast, and that had robbed them of some precious time.
Pinkie was trying not to cry. "I love Cheese Sandwich so incredibly much and I really really really really don't want him to either die or have to take cotillion lessons. Cotillion is evil. It should really be considered torture under the Kyoto Protocol!"
Twilight leaned over and whispered in Pinkie's Ear.
"Yeah, okay, whatever. Global Warming, Human Rights, same thing! Cheese is a wild stallion. If Ms. Harshwhinny doesn't kill him, surely the formality of Cotillion will. I can't let that happen. we HAVE to save my Cheesy Bread!"
Rarity chimed in. "Darling, I believe I know just the trick!"
"Go on, I'm all ears," said Discord, who indeed had turned into a pile of about 500 different animal ears and appeared in this story for the sole purpose of making that pun. He does not make a further appearance.
Rarity grinned. "I certainly sympathize with Ms. Harshwhinny's professionalism. But that's besides the point. If we are to save our good friend from either death or learning about which of five forks to use for what at a fancy dinner (Which as an aside, sounds lovely to me, but I'm Rarity Belle, not Cheese Sandwich), then we need to exploit Ms. Harshwhinny's predictability. All we need to do is set a trap so unrelentingly professional, that she will me magnetically attracted to it like 4chan to loli anime (Oops I went there) and expose her location. We then have to counter kidnap her and torture her unprofessionally until she reveals the location of Cheese. Then we can have a cockatrice turn her to stone and she can be a prize dresshorse in my modelling collection, alive but unable to move, immobile and fully aware as her body is eroded over the centries until she is naught but dust."
"Jesus, Rarity, tone it a fuck down a few notches, eh?" replied Fluttershy, speaking a bit out of character. "But um, it's a good plan."
"Alright," said Applejack, the clock now reading 23:24:25, which was kinda cool except for the severity of what the clock counted down, "Good idea. What can we do that's super professional to draw her out of hiding?"
Twilight, who was so very smart, grinned. "Girls, I believe I know just the thing."