“There has got to be some way for me to convince you to help win Discord’s game. Even if you don’t want the world to go back to normal, don’t you want to help some of those that do? All those innocent people who have been suffering. You’re the Element of Laughter, you can’t just turn your back on them,” Sunset pleaded. She was trying everything. Begging, threatening, guilt tripping. None of it seemed to work. “Is there anything you’d rather have than dessert land?”
“Yeah, peace and quiet,” answered Pinkie Pie. She had put back on her headdress, covering her maneless cranium. “Ponies always talk too much, even when they eat. Gives me a headache, which gives me a toothache, and a toothache around here is a real bad problem to have.” She rose from her cracker chair. “And last time I checked, a queen was higher on the totem pole than a princess. So unless your jaw’s thick enough to join us, I suggest you skedaddle.”
Sunset backed up, eyeing the supposed queen. “How’d you become queen of all these dragonuts, anyway?”
“We saw her eatin’ and went, whoa, she can eat!” answered one of the dragonuts. “Made her our queen, we did. Of course, we use’tah be under the chain of a princess. Queen sounds nicer if you ask us.”
“So, if someone else wanted to be queen, all they’d have to do is out eat her?”
The two dragonuts stared at Sunset for a moment before bursting with chipper laughter. “You think you can out eat the queen?” replied the other dragonut. “I once saw mum bite off the bottom of a cone pillar just so she could get at the ice cream innards. She ain’t need no help finishin’ it, no ma’am.”
“Face it, princess,” Pinkie said, “I’m not going anywhere. Your stomach is too lean to challenge me.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. But winning this means I have to take on challenges I wouldn’t normally take on. Discord knew that when he made this senseless game. So, whatever it takes to get you to come back with me, eating competition or by force, I’ll do it,” Sunset persisted, a full note of firmness in her voice.
The two dragonuts came to the fire pit wringing their banana and bread hands. “Mum, you know we ain’t want no other mums. But not takin’ no challenges makes you look weak, donnit?”
Pinkie Pie sat back down in her seat, the odd sounds of the cracker smooshing was not unlike a regular wickerwork chair. She placed her chin on her front hooves, staring into the flame. “An eating contest? It has never been done before,” she murmured. Her eyes flickered against the heat, the rising smoke bringing tears. A sudden black smile shot up her cheeks. “Alright. I’ll take your challenge, little princess. Which means I get to choose the food.” She looked to her dragonuts. “Cookie Cakes. Have the others ready the plates. It’s time for a Food Fight.”
“Food Fight!” both dragonuts yelled, tearing out of the longhouse.
Of course it’s called Food Fight, Sunset groaned mentally, her regret already seeping to her face.
Pinkie Pie led the alicorn out of the longhouse. The crowd already gathered to see who their queen met. “Food Fight!” chanted several dragonuts, and Sunset could see several more rushing around to get things started.
Tables made from cookie wafers were brought out and taffy sheets were sprawled across them like tablecloths. Sunset and Pinkie Pie each got their own table, and more were added to hold the oncoming onslaught of outrageous cookie cakes. Each one was the size of a large pizza and they were all plain old chocolate chip. When Pinkie Pie sat down, so did Sunset. The piles started stacking up, each holding ten cookie cakes. Once both tables held about eighty, a referee dragonut stood in the center. Her pretzel stick arm rose above her raspberry head as she shifted her eyes between the two ponies. When her arm dropped, that was the signal.
Before Sunset could even finish a quarter of the very first cookie cake, Pinkie Pie had finished her second. It took only a minute for the match’s observers to know exactly who would win. It took less for Sunset to come to the same conclusion. She wasn’t kidding, Sunset thought, finally finishing with her first cookie. “Ref!” Sunset jostled up, raising her hoof to get the referee’s attention. “Excuse me, but are there any rules to this competition? Pinkie Pie didn’t declare any.”
The dragonuts were roused with laughter. “The pony needs rules. Chaos has no rules,” she heard one dragonut say.
“Only one, pony,” the referee answered, “You must eat the cookie cakes. That is all.”
Sunset breathed a sigh of relief, her eyes shifted over to Pinkie Pie who had downed ten of her platters. “Already giving up, Sunset?” Pinkie asked with a mouthful, licking up the crumbs afterward.
“No. Only giving you a chance, that’s all.”
“Is she serious?” one dragonut asked, the laughter of the crowd was becoming an uproar. “She’s lost her marbles.”
Sunset sat back in her seat, her forelegs craned around the back of her head. She began humming to herself, waiting and watching the pink queen grow increasingly nervous. Once Pinkie reached her twenty-first cake, Sunset decided enough was enough. “Oh boy, am I hungry,” Sunset said, loud enough to distract Pinkie Pie. She wanted the Element of Laughter to watch as she made a joke of their competition. “I could sure use a snack. Oh! Look! Cookies!”
With her magic, which she desperately missed, Sunset lifted five of the cookie cakes into the air. Shrinking them to the size of bite-size snacks, she dropped them into her mouth and let out a crunch. “Mmm. Chocolate chip.”
“Hey! That’s cheating!” yelled Pinkie Pie as she dropped one of the cookie cakes, shattering it into pieces.
“Cheating?” Sunset repeated, her own mouth full. “The ref said I only had to eat them. She didn’t say I couldn’t change their size.” She downed another five, and before Pinkie Pie could blow another gasket, Sunset caught up.
“Whoa! Mum’s gettin’ beat by an ol’ smarty pants princess!” yelled a dragonut.
“She ain’t wearin’ no pants, though,” another dragonut replied.
Of course, Sunset wanted her victory to go smoothly, but Pinkie Pie was queen for a reason. With a swift throw of her headdress, Pinkie Pie knocked a leg out from Sunset’s table, toppling the cookie cakes to the ground. “Hey!” Sunset jumped from her seat, the cakes were now in broken pieces. “That was rather rude.” She wanted to sound mad, but her grin betrayed her. “Well, I can just fix that.”
Levitating the table up with all the cookie cakes, Sunset broke off the three other legs and held it with her magic. Without missing a beat, the cookie cakes transformed into their bite-sized counterparts, becoming a far more manageable mass. Sunset sat back down, her nose tilted a haughty height. Pinkie Pie’s anger could be heard from the sounds of her heated chewing. When Sunset glanced over at her, the pink pony had turned a bright red.
This is a piece of cake. Maybe too easy. I don’t want to turn her against me, after all. Sunset stopped her eating and looked at the Element of Laughter. She was about to forfeit when the chocolate bell that had rung earlier in the morning stole the mare’s attention. Dragonuts started to scramble beneath the dulcet tones of the sugary sweet ringing. “What’s going on?” Sunset yelled, spitting out a dollop of chewed cookie cake.
“Now of all times!? She’ll never quit!” Pinkie Pie slammed her table and threw herself from her chair.
Sunset followed but was immediately stopped by a crash through the same open gate she had entered. Her surprise could be surmised as jaw-dropping, she never expected a group of vehicles. Chariots, wagons, and sleds were a common sight—but these monstrous mobile mechanisms were exact to the make of a truck and open roof bus, except they were made of hard candy. It was the same type of candy that the dragonut’s weapons were made of—solid lollipops that often took an hour to get down.
In the first vehicle that tore open the modest tribe’s taffy covered fences stood a golden goddess. “Pinkie Pie, you terror!” the golden warrior roared, her fists in the air. Sunset could see it was a dragonut wearing pure gold armor, a rare sight in a land of food, and molded to fit the doughnut-shaped figure. “I will crush every pony bone in your body and force you to eat nothing but vegetables!” The voice was unmistakable—Princess Ember.
As the dragonuts leapt from the bed of the truck, landing within their armor, Pinkie Pie pushed Sunset toward the longhouse. “Get inside! You need to hide while we deal with this nuisance!” Sunset chose to follow Pinkie Pie’s words, trotting up the steps into the longhouse. Once inside, Pinkie pulled the handle of the fire pit, dumping the contents down a hole underneath, darkening the taffy building. “Stay. Here.” Upon the command’s uttering, Pinkie rushed back out with a war cry echoing loudly. Sunset peered through the cracks of the flaps, eyeing the outside. Princess Ember versus Queen Pinkie Pie. This is the pure chaos Discord’s wanted, I’d hedge my bet. Her eyes ran between the two forces of cannibals and raiders.
Though both sides were dragons, it was clear who the invaders were. Strapped with non-edible equipment to their food bodies, the invaders prevented the cannibalistic tribe from snacking on whatever limb they could get a hold of. Some sets of armor were made of gems or stone while others were wooden or cardboard pads that acted like nothing more than chainmail. The invaders had the advantage of surprise and protective covering, but the hungry clan were far wilder. Swarming like wolves, two or three dragonuts would attack at once, ripping the armor off along with whatever piece of body they could get at. Sunset watched in horror as several were eaten, leaving only the head. One melon was kicked to the side, rolling into the bottom step of the longhouse. “Argh!” it hollered. “Stupid celery spear. I knew I should have stuck with the spiked jawbreaker!” To Sunset’s surprise, the melon tilted one way and then started hopping up and down, rolling off to find parts to rebuild itself.
Well, I suppose this is a safer battle than some of the others I’ve seen. Only way it could be safer is if everyone wore bubble wrap and fought with foam swords like I’ve seen some of the younger students at CHS do.
Refusing to cower in some building, Sunset crouched as low as she could and crawled out and around the side of the encampment. Moving behind the teepees and wigwams, she managed to find cover close enough to view the vehicles. Eyeing them, she noticed something odd. All of it is candy. The wheels, the frames, even the seats on the inside looked to be made of the same stuff lollipops were. The hoods were not popped, she could not see the engines, and there was no noise coming from the insides. Taking a chance as the battle raged in the center of the camp, Sunset crossed the gap and slid underneath the first truck, rolling onto her back. Seeing the underside, she realized why no one heard any rumbling, mechanical noise. They pedal with their feet! She had to laugh at that—remembering a cartoon running the same sort of cars.
As she giggled to herself, a voice yelled, “Come here!” Dragged by her back hooves, her backpack and wings scraped against the ground as she was pulled out from underneath the truck. “You’re a pony just like Pinkie Pie—and an alicorn to boot. You friends with her?”
Sunset stared upside-down into the eye holes of the golden helmet. She could see blue—a very large blueberry—and the butterscotch eyes staring back at her. The muzzle of the dragonut was non-existent, it reminded Sunset of the people beyond the mirror—without a nose, of course. A mouth made of jellybeans, specifically green apple and bubblegum, asked her once more, “Are you friends with Pinkie Pie?”
“Yes,” Sunset answered honestly, only to be immediately slapped in the horn. “Hey!” she yelled. Her hooves went to her horn only to feel the stickiness of caramel cling to her fur. “Aw, this is worse than gum in my hair!”
“Shut up. Now you can’t cast your way out of this.” The golden armored dragonut tossed Sunset by her hooves, slamming her into a birdcage made completely out of jawbreakers. “Any friend of Pinkie Pie will pay for her crimes as well.”
After fumbling onto her shoulder and pushing herself into a less cramped position within the small cage, Sunset noticed Pinkie Pie had been caught as well. She sat in a similar cage next to Sunset, her forelegs bound by licorice cuffs. “I thought I told you to wait in the longhouse. First, you try to challenge me, then you don’t listen. I guess you are a princess if you’re this incompetent,” the pink mare grumbled.
“Sorry. I was just trying to get a closer look.” Sunset glanced back over her shoulder at the rest of the village. The invaders won and had begun gathering heads and stuffing them into crates made of actual wood. “I’m assuming they want you all to pay for eating so many of their people. What will they do with you and me?”
Pinkie Pie refused to answer. When Sunset peeked over at the mare, she noticed that Pinkie Pie would not tear her eyes away from Ember. “All the dragonuts who sided with Pinkie Pie, along with Pinkie Pie herself, will be set before a trial,” Ember answered, her golden arms were crossed. “Of course, the trial is not for whether you all are guilty. You are. The trial is to determine whether or not you will be thrown into our molten pit.”
“M-molten pit?” Sunset repeated. “I’m new to this—uh, area. Could you fill me in on what exactly that is?”
“Sure. It’s a pit in Pepper Rock to the east where melted chocolate swirls constantly and is hot enough to consume pony or dragonut,” answered Ember. “We will finally be rid of this fiend.” She kicked Pinkie Pie’s cage, and the pony instinctively tried to snap at the carrot toes.
“Well that sounds awful.” Sunset scratched the underside of her chin, some of the caramel tangled within the furs. “I need Pinkie Pie to win a game against Discord. Any chance you might reconsider letting me take her off your hands? She won’t bug you anymore, I can assure you of that.”
Ember refused. “Absolutely not. She needs to pay for the number of times I’ve had to roll around and find a suitable body.” Some of the dragonuts under Ember’s command returned from their triumphant battle carrying the imprisoned heads. Sunset could hear the moaning and name calling coming from inside the wooden crates. “That everyone?” Ember asked, and her comrades gave swift nods. “Load them, I want to be to Pepper Rock before the color drains from the sky.”
At the back of the bus, behind the hard candy seats, the dragonuts stuffed the crates filled with heads. Pinkie and Sunset’s cages had been stuffed there as well, sticking to the lollipop-like candy with a buckling crunch. Sunset shifted her weight, but the cage refused to budge. They were packed away like luggage for a summer getaway. Sunset could hear the grunting of dragonuts as they pushed the vehicles back out the broken fence, turning them around to face east. As they began to move forward with a greater speed, Sunset caught a glimpse of the disheveled tribe homes in the growing distance. I suppose they’re easier to rebuild with the vast amount of candy supplies, she guessed with a shrug. But then a different thought crossed her mind. To understand and build with what they’ve been given, it must have taken years to perfect it. How long was that place there? How long have the dragonuts been this way?
When only the four pillar cones were visible, Sunset glanced back to Pinkie Pie who sat frozen in her cage. “Hey. You okay?” The pink mare looked so depressed to Sunset that the thought of Discord’s game sat on the backburner. “I guess you’re done playing queen, huh? Being a leader—it’s not easy.”
But the bald mare sat still. Her mouth was a hard, unmoving line. Only her ears flicked every once in a while. Sunset knew she wouldn’t get any answer from the mare. “If you want, we can escape. The caramel—” Sunset used her magic to melt away the gooey candy “—it doesn’t work to block magic like they seem to believe. Not sure why they thought it would.”
“I don’t need your help to escape.” There was a calmness; a sort of eerie tone to the voice that Sunset noticed. In a sudden strength, the pink mare unhinged her jaw and snapped off the jawbreaker bars as if they were mere uncooked pasta noodles. “I can eat anything,” she said, grinding the hardest of candies like it was nothing. “And I’m going to eat Ember, head and all.” With the grace of a veteran ballerina, the pink mare leapt from the broken bars out the back of the bus.
Sunset wanted to yell “Wait!” but that would have added an unnecessary involvement from the dragonuts. With her magic, she melted the lock and push her cage open. With a lift of her head from behind the crates, she saw that the dragonuts had not seen the pink pony tuck and roll out the back, their minds on their manual pedaling. Turning to the back, Sunset followed in Pinkie’s call to action, throwing herself in a much less graceful finesse. Landing on her right side, she groveled on the ground for a moment, waiting to see if any of the dragonuts noticed. As Pinkie Pie walked past, following the direction of the cars, Sunset wobbled to her hooves. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Why escape just to follow them? We could leave… we could just go.”
“She wants to play a hero,” replied Pinkie Pie. “I’m going to make sure she doesn’t have her happy ending.” Sunset couldn’t see it from the backside of Pinkie, but a huge, disgusting smile wrapped from cheek to cheek.
“Pinkie—” Sunset called and was ignored. “Pinkie!” she repeated twice, then thrice, before trailing after the mare. “Why? Why deal with Ember? Why eat them? I don’t get it. What’s your goal?”
The pink mare did not answer, her trotting remained a meticulously hustled pace.
“Can you do it alone?”
That caught the pink pony’s attention, her marching stopped. “What are you implying?”
Sunset huffed as she stopped in front of the pink mare, her head raised higher than Pinkie’s. “I need you, Pinkie Pie. I can’t leave without you. Winning this game—it’s everything for this world. It’s everything for me. If you want revenge on Ember, as much as I hate the idea, I can help you. You just have to promise to come with me, to help me defeat Discord.”
Everything from Pinkie Pie’s terrible expression to the horrible want for revenge told Sunset that it was wrong. I have no choice, she told herself.
“You haven’t got the background,” Pinkie remarked, eyeing the wings. “Princesses are goodie goodies. Why do I need the help of someone like that?”
“You’re a goodie goodie, Pinkie. You are in my world.”
“Well, this ain’t your world.”
“Being friends transcends worlds, Pinkie Pie. I’ve run into four different versions of you, and I was friends with them too. We are friends,” Sunset explained.
“If we're friends in your world then that just proves my point. Why do I need you? All you’ll do is get in my way or try to stop me. This isn’t your world and I don’t care.” Pinkie Pie threw her head forward with a hungry growl as she continued her trot, heading in the direction of the cars.
Sunset kept up with the pink mare, never stalling behind. “I need you to help me fix this world. So, you’re right, I will probably stop you from destroying Ember. I’d stop her from destroying you, too, though. You and I both saw how many dragonuts she brought, you can’t take them on alone. Your followers couldn’t do it alone. But I can, I’m an alicorn.”
The pink mare understood, but she did not stop. “Alright, I can make you a deal,” she said as she walked. “You don’t get in my way of Ember and once I’m finished with her I’ll help you.”
“Deal.”
“Pinkie Promise?” The pink mare stopped and stared directly into Sunset’s eyes.
“Yeah, though don’t ask me to remember the words. It’s been a while since my last Pinkie Promise,” Sunset replied with a shrug.
Pinkie sighed. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. Now you.” Sunset nodded and repeated the verses with more enthusiasm. “And if you break this promise it’ll be a lot more than just a cupcake,” the pink pony growled.
Sunset tugged nervously on one of her backpack’s straps. This Pinkie’s a real meanie. Her mind wandered for a moment as they walked, trailing back to the previous worlds and their Pinkies. I have to wonder what sort of events this Pinkie has lived. That first world, with the silent Pinkie Pie, was depressing. At the time, I thought it couldn’t get any worse. How wrong I was, about a lot of things. If it had been my Equestria’s Pinkie Pie who went through this, if she had touched the map before I did, how would she have handled all this?
A smile graced her lips as she recalled the Pinkie who stuffed her mouth full of cake, gobbling it down like a baby in a highchair. “What’s Maud like in this world?” Sunset asked, making conversation as they walked.
Pinkie Pie wanted none of it. “The promise has been made. Less talkie more walkie.”
The walkie was not long, though it was far enough for the sun and moon to dip in the sky. The low light made the strawberry frosting look almost grey in color as they reached the furthest mountain in the east. Protruding from the mountain was a rounded cliff where the non-motorized vehicles sat beneath. The dragonuts had already lifted the crates from the back of the topless bus and carried them up the slanted sides. “That’s Pepper Rock?” Sunset wondered aloud as they marched up the stilted surface. “It kind of looks like a toilet bowl.”
“You’ll see the reasoning once we get to the top.”
“What are we going to do with the dragonuts of Ember’s crew? You only made me promise not to interfere with Ember.”
“As long as they don’t get in my way, I don’t care. Ember’s mine.”
Reaching the vehicles, Sunset glanced up at the rounded cliff. She tried to imagine what it looked like with red sand and dry earth, but nothing came to her. Treading carefully as to not make a sound, the two mares went up the same side. Sunset managed to reach the change of incline first where she discovered why exactly it they called it Pepper Rock. That’s the stupidest, most dimwitted pun I’ve seen in the longest time.
On the opposite side from where she stood, near Ember and her crew of dragonuts, sat the terrible pun. It was not a rock in the shape of a pepper or a rock made of peppers, as Sunset originally assumed. Instead, it was a glass container with a metal top about the size of Ember. A large black P sat painted in the middle, and several snowball sized rocks filled it about halfway.
The heads of Pinkie’s crew lined in front of the terrible joke, waiting for their punishment. Though they were several meters away, Sunset could hear the yelling done by the dragonut princess. In front of Ember and her comrades sat the heated pit of chocolate that had been mentioned. Though Sunset could not see the center from where she crouched, the heat emanating from the swirling chocolate forced her to wipe sweat from her brows. When she looked to see how the pink pony faired the heat, she found the mare had disappeared. Like a magic trick, Pinkie somehow reappeared near the dragonuts.
“Pinkie!” Sunset whisper-yelled, but she was too late. Pinkie grabbed one of the dragonuts that allied with Ember and threw him off the edge. He screamed as he fell into the hot pit—but Sunset was fast, perhaps the quickest reaction she’d had since escaping a blast from Midnight Sparkle. Catching him just as his legs dipped into the hot chocolate, Sunset pulled him out with her magic, but the damage had been done. He moaned something about having to find new legs as Sunset laid him down in front of her. She had no time to speak to the dragonut, Pinkie Pie was already fighting with the next. Ember ordered all of her forces to charge toward the glutton.
The rounded surface of the bowl-shaped cliff only allowed for two dragonuts to attempt battle with Pinkie Pie, but even that proved more than enough to deal with the revenge-filled mare. All she could do was dodge the swift attacks of the weapon-made food.
Sunset chose to honor her promise. Tearing over the edge with her hooves, falling down the cliff side they had just trotted up, and then gliding back up to flank the enemy. She didn’t consider them her opponents any more than she considered the changelings or brainwashed crystal ponies to be enemies, but she did her duty. With a slick bolt of magic, she unhinged the ground beneath them and let them fall onto their pedaled candy vehicles. They would be fine, she knew. They had no bones to break. As she recoiled in the air, turning back around, she could see them climbing through the rubble.
The two dragonuts who had gone head-on with the pink mare were stunned by the tremoring ground, leaving an opening for Pinkie Pie to strike one of their pretzel legs off. Sunset dashed down to catch the other leg, sweeping him off the side that did not have the terrifying molten chocolate. She left Pinkie Pie to deal with only one more dragonut.
Pinkie understand somewhere within her bald cranium that Sunset honored her word, as this time she chose to severe the head from the food body before kicking it off into the pit. Of course, she still threw the coconut head with a hefty toss at Sunset, who managed to catch it midair. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve had those toes!?” the head screamed in Sunset’s face. “They were the envy of all dragonuts, and now they’re gone! Thanks a lot, you savage!” Though Sunset wanted to feel bad, she had no time to waste on pity. Pinkie Pie jumped across the gap that Sunset had made, meeting Ember.
The princess dragonut gathered up the heads that her clan had previously lined up, putting them back into a single crate. With a carrot foot pushing against the wooden side, Ember threatened the pink mare to not come any closer.
It was then Sunset noticed the dragonuts who had fallen onto their candy cars were now hovering up the side of the cliff. As Sunset swooped down, mowing over the flyers, she heard Pinkie yell, “Drop ‘em. Makes no difference to me.”
Sunset wasn’t about to let that happen, but her attention divided. “Holy guacamole! That things gonna blow!” one of the dragonuts screamed from below, though it took a second for Sunset to understand what he was talking about. The ground that she had torn from beneath the dragonuts sprung a leak—one that would melt those below. Oh, come on! she internally screamed, gliding down to the set of cars. A small cascade, the hot chocolate splattered the broken ground, melting the hard candy bus like candle wax in an oven. As the leak became three sprouts, Sunset told the dragonuts to leave.
“Why are you helping us now? You’re the one that caused this!” one dragonut yelled, a hammer made of gumdrops sat in his thick marshmallow hand.
Sunset didn’t answer, her mind concentrated on the ever-increasing leak. It was not unlike lava, the thick chocolate texture crept at the pace of a slug. But it was not the crawl that worried Sunset. If I don’t repair that, the whole cliff will fall, creating a hotbed further down below. She threw her eyes over her shoulder, noting that there was nothing but the dragonuts trying to escape. I don’t even know if this stuff will cool like magma does, or just how far the pit goes. Creating a magical hammer, Sunset tore off the candy hood of the truck. Sticking the hood against the spouting liquid, she attempted to smash the edges into the cliff, hoping the chocolate would form its own glue.
While struggling below, she caught a glimpse of the pink mare and golden dragonut. They stood hand to hoof on the edge of the broken gap. The more they moved, the more the shelf loosened. “Can’t you guys fight somewhere else!?” Sunset screamed at them as she held the hood in place with her magic, waiting for the chocolate to set in.
It did not hold. A permanent, messy liquid, the chocolate ate through the hard candy hood and flooded down. When she let go, realizing her failure, the hood fell with the chocolate, creating an even larger gash to drop. Sunset was thankful the dragonuts heeded her advice, but the crate that held the heads of Pinkie’s followers still sat upon the cliff. Knowing she could not stop the chocolate that leaked out like water in the gaps of clutched fingers, Sunset flew to the top. The cliff hadn't stopped cracking, and just as she went to land, the floor fell out from under her, taking the Pepper Rock monument with it. They’ll have to find a new name for this place, she thought as she landed once more, this time making sure her footing was stable.
The bubbling melted chocolate popped and pooled just a few yards away, flowing down the cliff side like paint. Her eyes dared not stare for too long. Her head swiveled between Pinkie and Ember and the crates of dragonut heads. The pony and princess stood in the epicenter of the destruction, the leaks of hot chocolate surrounded them on all sides. Pinkie Pie managed to get the high ground while Ember planted her carrot feet onto the broken ledges that sat lower than the cliff’s edge. “Hey! Help us!” Sunset heard the yells of the dragonut heads, turning her focus to saving them.
“Can you guys roll quickly?” Sunset asked as she stood bipedal, staring into the crate. “Pepper Rock is about to turn into a chocolate sea.”
“You get us out of here and we’ll roll faster than marbles on tilted glass!” one blackberry head yelled.
With a levitation spell, Sunset lifted the crates over the side and slowly lowered them to the canyon floor. The gash drizzled down onto the smashed up cars, but was finding it troublesome to go any further. She carefully tilted the crates and let the dragonuts fall gracelessly. Some hit the ground too hard for Sunset’s liking, but none smashed. As she made sure the crate was empty, watching all the melons, oranges, and apples roll, the cliff began faltering even more.
A rumble quaked, followed by a crack breaking between her hooves. The crack was wide enough for the hot chocolate to begin filtering through, causing Sunset to leap into the air. I hope they’re as quick as they say. There was no stopping the thick liquid now. Even with all her magical strength, Sunset knew she wouldn’t be able to push the chocolate back into the pit and seal it up at the same time. Battle or not, we’ve got to go, Pinkie Pie.
With all the time she’d been given, Pinkie Pie had not yet gotten her revenge. Nor had the dragonut princess defeated the supposed pink fiend. They’d been at a stalemate in their raw power, neither willing to let their determination falter. Even as the ground broke apart around them, the roar of coursing chocolate muffling their howls, neither of them let up. With her hands balled up around Pinkie’s hooves, Ember tried her best to push Pinkie off. Sunset watched from the sky, assuming Pinkie was doing the same thing. But the pink pony was far too forward for such a feat. Sunset remembered all too late Pinkie’s words, “I’m going to eat Ember, head and all!”
The pink mare snapped her teeth between the exposed joint of the golden armor, right where the wrist plate and shoulder pauldron met. Breaking through the brown binding and tearing straight through the candy cane arm, Pinkie seized the advantage. Missing an arm, Ember flung herself backward, trying to escape the ever-closing gap between glutton and food. Her wings remained tucked into her golden armor, preventing her from flying. With a lunge from the pink pony, both girls fell against the edge of the broken cliff, smashing into a jutted piece of cake ground. The jut was the right size, piercing Ember’s torso perfectly. Had she not had a doughnut for a body, it would have been a grisly sight.
Sunset dashed down to catch Pinkie Pie, but the bald mare snatched onto Ember’s legs, peeling the carrots with her teeth. All around the pink pony were flowing globs of chocolate pouring down the unleveled cliffside. “Don’t help her!” Ember commanded Sunset. It did not work, of course. Ember would be unable to halt the alicorn even if she wasn’t missing an arm. But that didn’t stop her from barking and pleading. “She’s a menace! She’s a terror! She’s a—”
“Villain,” Sunset finished Ember’s sentence, her hooves reaching out to pick up the pink mare.
“Yes! If you’re really friends then that makes you a villain too! You pony princesses are supposed to be better than that, aren’t you? Has Discord changed you so much that you’ve forgotten your purpose?”
“My purpose?” Sunset repeated, glancing back at Ember.
“I may not be an alicorn, but I am a princess, and I’ll protect my race with all I have in me. Is that not what we are destined for?”
Sunset looked back at Pinkie Pie, the mare clearly angry. Her eyes were glaring at Sunset with a heated intensity that only amplified the melted chocolate hammering around her. “You’re right. I am a princess. But I don’t stop at just my race. I’ll help anyone. That includes Pinkie Pie, no matter how terrible she is in this world.” Grabbing the mare by the underside of her forelegs, Sunset lifted Pinkie Pie up from the danger. Ember’s legs snapped off as Sunset pulled her toward the opposite, more stable side of the cliff. She saw the hungry gaze that filled the earth pony’s eyes, the bits of raw carrot in the fur around her mouth. “Sometimes, protecting everyone isn’t easy. Sometimes, it’s the hardest thing to do,” Sunset said.
“Thanks for protecting me, Sunset,” Pinkie said, “Seems like you’ve fulfilled your end of our promise.” The pink pony walked to the edge, staring at the maimed dragonut. “Bring her to me. I want to feast upon that sweet blueberry first.”
Doing as she was told, Sunset levitated the dragonut off the jutted cake and pulled her to Pinkie Pie. “I wasn’t talking about protecting you. No. To protect everyone, I’m going to break that promise.”
“If you break a Pinkie Promise, Pinkie breaks you!” Pinkie roared and turned, rearing up on her hooves to strike down the alicorn.
Tearing off Ember’s remaining golden armor in an instant, Sunset snapped it into a muzzle for the earth pony. As the mare tried to remove the metal, a pair of golden cuffs wrapped her front hooves tightly together, then another for the back, leaving her helplessly on the ground. “Sorry, Pinkie Pie, but I wasn’t always a goodie goodie. I know how to lie. I know how to break promises.”
“You’ve done it! Quickly, finish her now!” pleaded Ember.
Sunset shook her head. “I’m sorry for what she’s done to you and your people, Ember. But this is my purpose.”
Carrying both the broken Ember and the ensnared Pinkie Pie down with her magic, Sunset found a spot far enough from the created lakes of melted chocolate. The dragonuts of both sides had remained to watch the fight and came to tend to their side’s leader. “The queen is captive, is she?” a melon head said. “Does that mean us ‘ave to lose the ol’ funny accents?”
“Keep the accents, stop eating each other,” Sunset told the heads before turning to Ember’s crew. “And stop trying to throw each other into molten chocolate pits.” She slumped Ember in front of them on her missing legs. “I’m taking Pinkie Pie with me. Without her, maybe you guys can get along.”
“Thank you. I don’t even know your name,” Ember said as she tried to turn her doughnut around, though it was difficult for her with only one arm.
“I’m Sunset Shimmer, and I’d suggest getting your bodies together because I’m not sure what’ll happen if you don’t once I win Discord’s game.” She glanced back at Pinkie Pie, the mare was clearly not ready for any sort of reform. The necklace will come later. It’s going to be difficult to drag her around caged up like this, but I’ll deal. That’s what Sunset assumed, at least, but this world was full of chaos.
“I cannot believe you actually did it!” The voice was all too familiar to Sunset, but it caused all the dragonuts to look up in panic. “Finding her was one thing—capturing her is so much more impressive!”
The voice eventually found its mouth, the draconequus slithering in around the pink mare. “It only took cheating, getting captured, and lying for you to do so, but you actually managed to do it! Quite impressive. Quite impressive, indeed!”
“Discord? What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean? You are the one who is here!” replied the draconequus.
She looked around, the melted chocolate, dragonuts, and food-related land had disappeared. The crystal table, upside-down buildings and trees, and cotton candy clouds now surrounded them. Before she could ask why he brought her back, Discord unraveled Pinkie Pie’s golden garb and stuffed her into a cage of his own design. It was not unlike a birdcage, though the entire thing was made of cardboard. “Discord! What are you doing? I need her!”
As he levitated the cardboard cage into the air above the crystal table, he turned back to face her. “One down, five to go!” He gave a wide smile as he stared at her. “Wipe that confusion off your face. Did you really want to travel around with someone who would most likely throw you into a pot of boiling chocolate? Come now. Being that naïve will only end in folly.”
“Are you going to do this for all the bearers I find?”
“Of course! I said you had to gather them up. Convincing them to join you, that is one way. I much prefer your lock and key method, however!” He threw his head back in a fit of laughter. “Do not fret. They will not escape while they are here.”
Pinkie Pie had already been quick at work chewing on the cardboard, but even her magical set of chompers stood no chance against Discord’s cage. “See? See as she struggles?” Discord pointed out. “Oh, what wonderful chaos! The Terrible Toothed Trapper has been trapped!”
“How am I supposed to get her Element of Harmony if I can’t bring her with me? She needs to be able to experience laughter!”
“That is not part of the game,” he replied with a wink. “But you shall be rewarded nonetheless. Every gameshow has the hook of a smaller prize, and this game is not unjust in its prizes!” With a quick snap of his fingers, a small wire cage appeared next to him. Inside it were five white plastic balls, each with a number in black. To Sunset, she assumed bingo would be part of this game now, but she wasn’t that lucky. “This is a very simple prize system. I spin the wheel, draw a ball, and then you get to choose whether or not you want that prize! Of course, the game ends should you choose that prize.”
Sunset laughed at the idea. “Sorry, I doubt that a prize could be good enough to shift my focus.”
“Save your mockery until you have seen the prize!” he replied, spinning the cage with his tail. Once he finally stopped, he covered his eyes with his lion’s paw and reached in with his eagle’s claw. Pulling a ball out, he uncovered his eyes and gasped. “How absolutely chaotic! Number one on the first try!” He lifted the ball to her face, a big black number one had been painted on in a shoddy fashion.
“Great. What’s behind curtain number one is what you’re going to say next, aren’t you?”
“No, no, no, no.” With another snap of his fingers, the world shifted. As if moving at the speed of light, everything was a blur. Eventually, it slowed and Sunset found herself in a long hallway. Both walls were covered from floor to ceiling in small, thirteen-inch CRT televisions, all of them displaying snowy, scratchy static. “What do you think, Sunset? Shall we check out one?”
“What is one? What’s with the TVs?”
Grinning, Discord, bounced down the hall. Sunset followed after him but slowed when the TVs started displaying something more than just static. She stopped fully when she saw a place she’d seen before. Crimson tents surrounded by white snow. She looked around for more TVs that had turned into something other than white noise. Another one. Sheep in a dimly lit barn. “Discord, what is this?”
“Welcome, welcome, Sunset Shimmer!” Discord had transformed into his gameshow host persona, a microphone in his hand, a bowtie at his neck. “Each pony you discover will earn you a chance to return to a world previously visited! This time, it is your Crystal War timeline. Take a look down this way, this is what is happening right now!” He pointed at a TV that was knee high.
As she came close, she reflexively revolted at the sight. “Tirek!” The centaur appeared to be laughing, his large size stood over the alicorn Sunburst. In the bubbles behind Tirek sat the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. “How could this happen!?”
“Well, let us see, shall we?” He pointed to another monitor. “Past, present, and future—oh, well, I suppose that future can change if you accept.”
“You’re saying that, if I accept, you’ll send me back to the Crystal War world?”
“That is accurate. You will, of course, be stuck there, as Celestia spoiled earlier.”
“Why? Why help me like this, Discord? I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do seem to be the type of pony who has trouble understanding.” Discord leaned on one of the tube televisions, a purple mare was shown shouting at a pony with yellow and red hair. “You are always so focused on you.”
Sunset stepped forward. “Excuse me? I have spent the last four worlds trying to help others.”
“No. You spent the last four worlds helping yourself. Especially that last world. You did not even try to defeat Tirek, much less reform him.” Discord yawned as if the conversation was starting to bore him. “You were so focused on fixing your anger issues that you did not stop to think about what you could do to help time.” One of the screens went to static before reviewing the Tree of Harmony.
“That’s because it was impossible to stop him!”
“Yet Sombra did it—with your help.”
“I didn’t mean to help him! I didn’t even know that he wanted to take on Tirek.” She covered her face with her hoof. “I was trying to... I don’t even know anymore.”
“I suppose you had gotten so used to the world beyond the mirror and its lack of magic that a magic-less Equestria must have felt right at home for you. Of course, that does not explain away your reasoning for helping Nightmare Moon in that third world. You even named it after her—Nightmare’s Night. How tragic, really. To be shrouded in darkness like that. You really bumbled your way through that one.”
Sunset gritted her teeth as she tried to think of an answer; to justify her actions.
“In fact, had you chosen to put your feelings aside, both Nightmare Moon and Tirek could have been defeated much like Chrysalis and Sombra.” Discord slithered his way into a TV, a pixelated version of himself sat on the right side of the screen while the four villains he mentioned sat on the left. “Instead of fixing time, you fixed nothing.” With a bolt of electricity, Discord defeated all four of the villains. A champion’s tune echoed out from the speakers.
“I tried my best to find a solution to benefit everyone! Who knows what the Elements of Harmony would have done to Nightmare Moon—to Princess Luna—had I asked the bearers to turn on her. In the previous worlds, Celestia used the Elements to banish her back to the moon. It was only the last world that it had not happened! You can’t blame me for trying to keep everyone on the same side.”
“Your world still lacks a reformed Sombra, Chrysalis, and Tirek. Yet it has me! Meanwhile, none of these last worlds have me around, the renounced villain that I am. And you assume that Tirek, your mentor, was truly on your side? What was it he said right before you were cast out like a wet dog?” Discord’s face popped up on all the screens, his toothy smile was comically evil.
Sunset tried to hide her anger, gulping down her emotion. “He asked if I felt like a hero…”
“No, no, no. Not that!” Discord’s head abruptly erupted from the screens, his voice chorusing amongst the hall. “The thing before that.”
Sunset had heard it, though she tried to deny it. She had been too heartbroken at the jab against her heroism. “He said…” she mumbled. “He said that he should have never trusted ponies. But that was because he assumed I betrayed him! I didn’t! I didn’t know Sombra would do that!”
“If you had been a little more focused on others and not yourself, you might have seen it coming.”
“What’s that supposed to mean!?” she bitterly growled.
“Something to be saved for another time. Now? It is time to choose. Would you like to return to this Crystal War timeline or continue on in our little game?”
She glanced from screen to screen. Sunburst, Celestia, and the bearers were shown at different points in their lives. “They have the Elements of Harmony—they can fix themselves. Sunburst is there too. They don’t need me again. I’ve got to keep moving forward.”
“Always about you,” mocked Discord as he snapped his fingers.
The CRTs blurred into one motion as the world returned to its chaotic nature. Sunset’s eyes adjusted to the light of the purple sky. The caged pink pony had been smacking her cardboard lock while they were gone, but she did not manage to escape. “Discord?” Sunset yelled, and the pink pony stopped. “Where’d you go?”
The draconequus had vanished, leaving her to decide where to head next. As she placed her hooves on the crystal table, verifying Rainbow Dash’s location in Las Discord, Pinkie Pie called to her. “Hey.” Sunset glanced up at the greeting. “Hope you fail,” the pink mare said before disappearing back into her birdcage. Grimacing, Sunset rolled her eyes. Rainbow Dash is next. Hopefully, she’ll be an easier situation to deal with.