“Ugh, these train rides can be so boring,” said Sunset as the train rolled along.
“You’re in an even worse mood than usual,” said Suri.
“I’m tired of apparently being Chrysalis’s personal errand girl!” said Sunset. “Can’t she send somepony else on these things?”
“What if she does do that, just for all the other missions she has to have somepony do? You aren’t necessarily getting any shorter end of the stick than any of them. Besides, you’re uniquely qualified for this one… sort of.”
Sunset opened her mouth to answer, then closed it as she considered Suri’s statement. After a short while, Sunset said, “I just want to fume here. Stop making legitimate points!”
“Just think of it as a free trip,” said Suri. “Get in, make sure Starlight hasn’t inadvertently created another interdimensional portal, then spend the rest of the day doing whatever you want. After that, you can tell Chrysalis that she was doing fine and you fulfilled your obligation to check in on her.”
“That’s what I was planning to do,” said Sunset.
“Then why were you complaining?” asked Suri. “You know, sometimes I think you just complain in order to hear yourself complain.”
“That is not true!” said Sunset. “It’s so annoying when somepony just tells me I’m doing something like that! If you ask me…” Sunset stopped talking as she realized the situation. “Oh, forget you,” she said grouchily.
“You could have gone alone,” said Suri.
“If some kind of major problem occurs, which it probably will considering my track record, then I need somepony else along to help out,” said Sunset.
“And you didn’t ask Gilda? She’d probably be far more useful in a fight, and you seem to get along better with her.”
Sunset shrugged. “She said she was busy.”
“‘And then Glida pulled out her bazooka and was able to hit the tank’s only weak spot right on the nose,’” Gilda said out loud as she wrote. “‘Her marksmanship, combined with her legendary beauty, was so perfect that she immediately captured the heart of everyone who was there, even those who were already in relationships.’”
“Well, no complaints here!” said Suri. “Free trip, and I might be able to sell off some of my wares. Like this one!” Suri pulled out a sweater. “What do you think of this?”
“I don’t care,” said Sunset.
“Great!” said Suri. “That one was lame anyway.”
“Screw it,” muttered Sunset. “I guess I’ll just read something.” She searched her pack. “Wait, did I not pack any books?”
“It looks like there’s a book there,” said Suri.
“Yes, but that’s a Mare Do Well comic that Lightning Dust foisted on me that I haven’t gotten around to getting rid of yet,” said Sunset.
“You could read it,” said Suri. “That book did end up saving all of Equestria.”
“Fine,” muttered Sunset as she opened it and started reading.
The rest of the train ride later…
“So, what’d you think?” asked Suri.
“Um,” said Sunset, not wanting to admit she thought it wasn’t that bad. “I guess it wasn’t that bad.” Oops, I just admitted it.
“That’s high praise coming from you!” said Suri.
“Well, it helped pass the time, at least,” said Sunset. “Let’s go find Starlight and get this over with.”
The two went over to Starlight and Sunburst’s house to find a note on the door. “‘Out right now. Be back later,’” read Suri.
“I can read, you know,” said Sunset. “I guess we can go do whatever we want and then come back later for them.”
“But what if they’re not back by then?” asked Suri.
“Then I’ll just write in my report that they mysteriously disappeared!” said Sunset. “It’s not like we have any idea where they went!”
Suri looked more closely at the note. “Oh, wait, there’s something here in small print. It adds some further detail about where they went and also mentions it could be a while until they come back. It looks like they’re out in the snow. I guess you did need me to help you read after all!”
“Why are they out in that snowy wasteland?” asked Sunset.
“It doesn’t say,” said Suri. “They probably ran out of space.”
“Well, I say we just come back later,” said Sunset.
“It said they it could be a while until they come back,” said Suri. “What if they’re not back?”
“Again, mysteriously disappeared!” declared Sunset.
Suri shrugged. “Well, sure. It’s not like I’d be in any trouble if something goes wrong.” She paused. “Or would I? I’m not entirely sure how blame works in these sorts of things.”
“Fine!” said Sunset. “We’ll just go take a quick look, so we can at least write down we put forward some effort into trying to find Starlight.”
The two wandered out into the snowy wasteland outside of the Crystal Empire. “Well, I don’t see anything,” said Sunset after they looked around for several minutes. “Now let’s go back.”
“Wait!” said Suri. “I thought I heard something.”
Sunset listened and did indeed hear some scuttling about. “Okay, let’s look over there.”
After moving, they still didn’t see anyone. “All I can see is my reflection,” said Sunset as she looked at herself in what seemed to be some kind of mirror.
“Hey, you never know how noisy reflections can get!” said Suri as she walked up to Sunset and looked, though no reflection of herself appeared. “Wait, where’s my reflection?”
“Maybe it means you’re a vampire?” said Sunset. “Because I don’t–”
Sunset’s speculation was put to rest by Sunset’s “reflection” suddenly turning into a nervous-looking changeling.
“Hey!” said Sunset. “You need my express written permission to do that!”
“You’re… not afraid?” asked the changeling.
“I’m more curious about why you’re out here,” said Suri. “Isn’t it rather cold? Why not go into the Crystal Empire?”
“Oh, I wanted to share in all of the love there,” said the changeling, “but I don’t think the Crystal Ponies want to be friends.”
Sunset and Suri shared a confused glance. “Um, why?” asked Suri.
The changeling looked at them in a perplexed matter. “The Canterlot invasion? Didn’t it make everyone dislike changelings?”
“Invasion?” asked Sunset. “That whole thing was just some convoluted scheme of Chrysalis to blast Sombra and get his voice back. She had some of the changelings hold down some members of the royal guard temporarily to stop them from interfering with it, but that was it. Who told you it was an invasion or that there was any kind of particular dislike towards changelings as a result?”
“Oh, that was…” started the changeling before trailing off, then frowning. “Oh, I am going to kill my brother when I find him,” added the changeling grouchily before flying off.
“I wish more of our problems were that simple to solve,” said Suri.
“But it didn’t bring us any closer to finding Starlight and Sunburst!” said Sunset. “But, hey, we tried, right? I say we just go back to–”
Starlight and Sunburst suddenly walked up to the two. “Oh, hi,” said Starlight. “What are you two doing here?”
“Looking for you,” said Suri. “What are you two doing here? The note on your door didn’t say.”
“Huh?” said Starlight. “Yes it did. Didn’t you look at the note below it?”
“What note below it?”
“Darn it!” said Starlight. “We should have gotten stronger tape. The wind must have blown it off. Anyway, we were here because we were testing out our new invention. We wanted to see how it’d work in an area like this.”
“What is this invention?” asked Suri.
“Oh, it’s really exciting!” said Sunburst. “This could revolutionize Equestria! See, I record something with this camera–” he held up a camera “–and then it transmits what it records into this little box wirelessly for viewing.”
Starlight held up a box that had an odd sort of screen on it. “Take a look!”
Suri and Sunset looked at the box while Sunburst aimed the camera at them. They saw themselves on the screen. Suri made a few silly gestures which were replicated on the box’s screen.
“We got the idea because we saw some of these in that human universe we went to,” said Sunburst. “But unlike there, we can use magic to make it!”
“Since the whole thing can transmit wirelessly, you could take something you recorded, like a movie, and then play it on here!” added Starlight. “Except unlike a movie, there’s no need for giant screens or projectors, so you can watch it anywhere the transmission can reach! Think of the possibilities!”
“That’s… actually… one of the most brilliant ideas for an invention I have ever heard in my entire life,” said Suri. “How do I sign up to get one of these?!”
“Well, you can’t yet as we’re working still on it,” said Sunburst. “There’s a number of issues. The transmission can’t work that far, and the quality isn’t very good. We need to work on fixing that. Anyway, we were out here trying to see how being away from everything else affected things.”
“What’s this invention called anyway?” asked Sunset.
“We haven’t fully settled on a name yet,” said Starlight. “What do you think of ‘minivision’?”
“I don’t care what it’s called,” said Suri. “I just want it made. I need one of these so I can watch soap operas!”
“What’s a soap opera?” wondered Sunset.
“Exactly!” said Suri. “Until this is finished, they can’t be invented! What do you need? How can I help? Need promotion? Funding? Inspiration? Moral support?”
“Well, it looks like things are going fine with you two,” said Sunset. “If you want to keep testing out this ‘minivision’ then go at it. I’m going to go do something else.”
“I’d think you’d be more excited to be at the cutting edge of technology!” said Suri.
“I don’t like movies to begin with,” said Sunset. “Why would I be excited about a smaller version of them?”
“Well, I see the potential!” said Suri. “I want to become an investor!”
“To make money?” asked Sunset.
“Actually, mostly because I really want one of these,” said Suri. “But money is great also!”
“Suri, do you even have enough money to be a real investor?”
“Hrm,” said Suri. “Let me see.” Suri pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil and did some calculations. “Carry the 4… ah, here we are. I think this is about the amount I have.” Suri showed the piece of paper to Sunset.
Sunset looked at the piece of paper. “You have that much? How? Why?”
“That trip to the griffon lands was highly profitable!” said Suri. “Besides, I’ve been saving up to open up new locations, but I can just divert those funds to this. Completely worth it!”
“Well, have fun with your investment,” said Sunset. “I’m going to go do anything else.”
“‘They then named a national holiday after Glida,’” Gilda continued in her writing. “‘However, this was just the first holiday. Glida received a second after–’” Gilda was interrupted from writing her self-insert story by a knock on the door. After quickly shoving the papers into a drawer and out of sight, she went to open it.
“Hi, Gilda!” announced Lightning Dust.
“You have twenty seconds before I slam the door,” said Gilda.
“Aw, you’ve become a lot nicer,” said Lightning Dust. “That’s more than you offered last time!”
“Fifty seconds,” said Gilda. She paused, then said, “Oh, wait, sorry, I meant fifteen–”
“Too late!” said Lightning Dust gleefully. “Now I have fifty seconds! Well, forty-five by now. Anyway, Trixie and I were going to go to a nearby comic book convention, but she can’t make it, so I was wondering if you could come instead so the ticket doesn’t go to waste!”
“There are comic book conventions?” asked Gilda.
“Well, it’s primarily a comic book convention,” said Lightning Dust. “It, like most other conventions, also have things like games or movies on the side.”
“Uh-huh,” said Gilda. “Why do you think I’d have any interest in something like that?”
“I have special VIP tickets!” said Lightning Dust.
“Because you two are so famous as the creators of the comic?”
“Oh, no,” said Lightning Dust. “It’s not possible to go out and enjoy a convention if everypony knows that. They were purchased under another name. By VIP I mean paying extra to get various bonuses.”
“Like what?” asked Gilda.
“Priority in lines, mostly,” said Lightning Dust. “Anyway, it’s next weekend! Want to go? I don’t want my ticket to go to waste, and everypony else I might ask is annoyed at me for breaking some of their stuff when I tried kicking it in order to fix it.”
“Well, ordinarily I’d laugh in your face and slam the door,” said Gilda. “But I actually have nothing to do that weekend, and if you’re footing the bill I might as well try. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“The convention center might be the target of an attack by a previously unknown enemy that would destroy it and kill us,” said Lightning Dust.
Gilda stared at her.
“You asked!” said Lightning Dust.
Gilda sighed. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”
“That is a distinct possibility!” said Lightning Dust cheerfully. “By the way, anything broken you want kicked?”
“No,” said Gilda.
“Good, because I’d probably break it worse,” said Lightning Dust.
And so the next weekend, Lightning Dust went up to Gilda’s house and knocked on the door. Gilda opened the door, revealing she was wearing an extremely accurate Mare Do Well costume.
“That’s an extremely accurate Mare Do Well costume,” said Lightning Dust.
“Well, of course,” said Gilda. “You think I’d want to be identified at this stupid thing? I bought this costume to obscure my identity.”
“Hrm,” said Lightning Dust. “This poses a problem. Since I’ll be in costume also, and in fact the same costume, how do we find each other? What about secret code words? One of us says ‘supercalifrag’ and then the other says ‘it is and shall be’ in response?”
“Not only is that an incredibly stupid idea,” said Gilda, “you also seem to be under the mistaken impression that I actually plan to spend much time with you at this thing.”
And so the two left for the convention. Before getting there, Lightning Dust put on her own costume. Upon reaching the convention, the two quickly discovered that they had chosen what seemed to be the single most popular character for cosplay.
“So, want to go back to those code words now?” asked Lightning Dust.
“No,” said Gilda.
“Fine!” said Lightning Dust. “I’ll go out and hang out with real fans by taking part in the trivia panel coming up!”
“Is taking part in something like that really fair when you helped write the thing?” asked Gilda.
“Well–” started Lightning Dust.
“Actually, I just realized something,” said Gilda. “I don’t care if it’s fair or not! See you.”
And so, in another paragraph beginning with the words ‘and so,’ Gilda and Lightning Dust split up. Lightning Dust went off to a trivia panel about Mare Do Well. Being one of the authors of the series, she quickly was able to accumulate an inordinately high number of points, but actually lost the game to another convention-goer due to not remembering the pun that was made in page 4 of issue 21 thanks to mixing it up with the pun from page 5 (there were a lot of puns in that issue).
“You really know your Mare Do Well,” said Lightning Dust to the aforementioned convention goer, a brown-coated earth pony stallion.
“Oh, I’m a big fan,” he said. “It helped fill the massive void in my life after the Daring Do series went downhill.”
“I never really read those,” said Lightning Dust. “But I heard that the fourth and fifth books were way worse than the first three?”
“Oh, absolutely! And even worse, there was a much longer wait between them. So we waited longer just to get a worse product. And it’s been so long since the last book that I’m not sure it’ll ever even come out!” He sighed. “Well, at least we’ll be able to find out the ending via the film adaptation.”
“So, what’s your name anyway?” asked Lightning Dust.
“I’m Quibble Pants,” he said.
Lightning Dust stared at him briefly. “What did you do to make your parents hate you so much?” she asked.
“They wanted a girl,” said Quibble Pants. “What’s your name?”
“Oh, my name?” said Lightning Dust. “It’s… Thunder Blast.”
“Well, that’s a lot better than my name,” said Quibble Pants. “I was planning to head to the open gaming room after this panel. Do you want to come?”
“Would I?!” asked Lightning Dust in an an excited tone. She paused, then added in a more pensive tone, “Would I?”
“Well, it would be nice to have some company,” said Quibble Pants.
“Oh, sure, why not,” said Lightning Dust. “Trying out one of those roleplaying games might be interesting.”
The two went to the convention’s tabletop game room to find a number of games in progress, some roleplaying, some card games, and some simply being regular board games.
“You know,” said Lightning Dust as they looked around, “I never realized exactly how many of these games have pony-based puns in their names until now.”
Fortunately for the two, a mini-campaign for one of the tabletop roleplaying games was just about to start, so they joined with several other convention goers in costume.
“All right,” said the game’s master, “so we start–”
“Wait a minute,” said one of the players, “I just noticed we’re using Ogres and Oubliettes, 3.75 Edition. That’s lame. Can’t we use another one? Or maybe Trailfinder?”
“What’s wrong with 3.75?”
“What’s not wrong with 3.75?”
An argument quickly erupted between the two. “Maybe we should go somewhere else,” suggested Lightning Dust.
“Oh, fine!” snapped the game’s master. “You want a different system? I’ll give you a different system!” He snapped his fingers—an impressive task, as he had no fingers to snap—and suddenly turned into Discord.
“I didn’t expect that,” said Lightning Dust.
“No one expects the…” started Discord before stopping, then finishing with, “Meh, that’s overused.” He snapped his fingers again and the group was suddenly transported to another place entirely. “Ta-da! Ogres and Oubliettes in real life! It’s like LARPing, except without looking like a fool while doing so!”
“Wasn’t this a Mare Do Well comic?” wondered Quibble Pants.
“Yeah, there was a story where something really similar to this happened,” said Lightning Dust. “See, the villain–”
“Oh, fine!” said Discord. “If you’re not going to listen, then–”
“What do you mean, not going to listen?” asked Lightning Dust. “You weren’t in the middle of a sentence when we started talking.”
“I was in the middle of a sentence when you interrupted me the second time!” snapped Discord.
“Hrm, good point,” said Lightning Dust.
“Anyway,” said Discord, “I was going to have this all be a fun way to do this, but since you guys are annoying me, I’m going to make this even more realistic, with actual pain and danger!”
“Wasn’t that in the Mare Do Well comic also?” asked Quibble Pants.
“I have to say, this really isn’t very creative,” said Lightning Dust.
“So, um,” said the other unnamed player who had been previously mostly quiet up until this point outside of the complaint regarding 3.75 Edition, “because they were the ones who interrupted you, can I get a reprieve and get out of this?”
“Not after you denied the greatness that is 3.75!” declared Discord.
“Can you just compromise at 3.625?” asked Lightning Dust wearily.
“That makes no sense whatsoever!” said the other player.
“You know what?” said Discord. “Just go through the game already!” He snapped his fingers and disappeared.
“So!” said Lightning Dust. “What’s your name anyway? I don’t want to just refer to you as ‘other player.’”
“Well… I… well…” started the other player. “Oh, screw it.” She threw off the costume to reveal Gilda.
Lightning Dust shrugged and took off her own costume as well. “You play this game?”
“It seemed more interesting than the rest of the convention!”
“But you seemed awfully knowledgeable about the intricacies if you were just trying this out for the first time,” said Lightning Dust.
“Look,” said Gilda, “just because I tried this out once or twice in the past doesn’t mean–”
“Can you set aside your squabbling for a moment?” asked Quibble Pants. “It looks like a horde of monsters is suddenly coming at us.”
“All right,” said Gilda, “what classes are you two?”
“I don’t know,” said Lightning Dust. “We sort of got sucked into this game before we got around to choosing them.”
“Hrm,” said Gilda. “So, level 0. Okay. I have a suggestion.”
“What?” asked Lightning Dust.
“RUN FOR IT!” said Gilda, before quickly adding, “But do so with as much dignity as possible.”
The three ran away screaming, albeit with extreme dignity, while the horde of monsters chased after them with much less dignity. However, dignity prevailed, and they were able to outrun the monsters. Suddenly, their surroundings returned to the convention and everything was back to normal.
“Well, that was short,” said Quibble Pants.
“Oh, darn it,” said Discord. “I didn’t program that right. It wasn’t set up to handle running away with dignity. Shouldn’t have skipped on the beta playtesting. Oh well.” He snapped his fingers and disappeared.
Lightning Dust, Gilda, and Quibble Pants all stared blankly at where Discord was. “So, um, want to go through the actual game?” suggested Gilda. “I might as well try this out for lack of anything better to do.”
“Who’s going to be the game master, then?” asked Quibble Pants.
“I don’t know, I could give it a try?” said Lightning Dust.
“Well, that means you can’t be one of the player characters,” said Gilda.
“Aw, why not?”
“Because it makes no sense whatsoever for anyone to double as both! Unless you were playing against yourself, I suppose.”
“You seem to–” started Lightning Dust before being interrupted by one of the other ponies in the room taking notice of her.
“Hey, look!” said the aforementioned pony. “It’s Lightning Dust! One of the creators of Mare Do Well!”
A large swarm suddenly came her way. “Um, see you,” said Lightning Dust as she flew straight up, breaking through the ceiling along the way. Everyone stared at the hole in the ceiling.
“Just to be clear,” said Gilda, “I’m not paying for that.”
Some time later…
“So,” said Trixie, “did anything interesting happen while I was gone?”
“Well,” said Lightning Dust sheepishly, “I got banned from a convention. Sorry about that.”
“Another one?!”
“It wasn’t entirely my fault,” said Lightning Dust defensively.
“Uh-huh,” said Trixie flatly. “And how much of it was your fault?”
“About 95.8%,” said Lightning Dust. “That’s a noticeable improvement from last time, when it was 98.3%!”
Trixie sighed. “When did I become the sensible one?” she wondered.
“Hey!” said Lightning Dust. “I’m perfectly sensible. I’ll have you know that my insurance covered all of the damage! They’ll probably double my rates again after this, though.”
Meanwhile…
“‘And then Glida was unanimously voted the best table RPG player of all time,’” continued Gilda in her writing. “‘Well, almost unanimously. She was far too humble to vote for herself.’ I know this is all absolutely terrible, but darn it if it isn’t therapeutic.” She paused briefly. “I really need to stop reading all of my writing out loud.”