"This is so frustrating!" said Vignette Valenzia, "This park, and my models, need to be as beautiful as Cassandra!"
"Who?" asked her assistant.
"Honestly I have no idea, but 'beautiful as Cassandra' is an expression that everyone's using nowadays. Bring me a stress salad!" As she ate her salad she pondered "If only there was a real life filter." At that moment, a latent wisp of magic changed her phone into just that! She took a picture of her salad, only to see that it got sucked into her phone! She could now change it into other types of salad, but closer inspection revealed that it was just light. "I'll find a way to make this work."
The mane 8 were hanging around, with Applejack and Rarity awaiting responses on their job applications. They had applied to be caramel apple slingers. Rarity's letter came first, and sadly, she was rejected for being overqualified, but on the bright side, they wanted her to design costumes for the parade. Next, Applejack got a ping
"Hey Twilight, what does this say?" asked Applejack
"Let's see.... oh, I'm sorry Applejack, you didn't get the job either."
"Well horseapples, ah knew ah was overqualified too. Ah mean, the apples part is obvious, but ah guess ah have too much experience with caramel too - eatin' caramel, gettin' burned while makin' caramel, rejectin' Caramel's prom-posal and goin' with Braeburn."
"Ugh," said the gorgeous, wise, and bluntly honest Cassandra. "I'd say TMI but that would incorrectly imply that I'd ever need any amount of information from you, Applejack"
"I'm standing united with Applejack, I won't take the job if they don't want Applejack, said Rarity."
"No, said Cassandra firmly, "you're taking that job Rarity, it's I who will stand united. I was rejected from the costume designer job for being overqualified, and they offered me the CEO position, but I will sacrifice myself in your place." Once again, the Equestria Girls were bowled over by Cassandra's self-sacrifice.
"Boy howdy, ah should't'a quit mah job," said Applejack, "good thang it has high barriers ta entry so there ain't no way they could replace me already
Bulk Biceps was trying to make a smoothie, but he couldn't figure out the blender. He resorted to shaking it, splattering fruit juice all over himself.
"This is still an improvement," said the manager.
"I'm Vignette Valenzia and I run the PR department. I've recently gotten up to 1/100th as many followers as Cassandra on SnapGap." Everyone on SnapGap measured their followers that way.
"Wow," said Rarity, "and here I thought my 1/1000th was impressive."
"I know I am," said Vignette, "anyway, your job is to make costumes and they had better be good, or else..."
"Or else you'll be forced to make them yourself?" said Rarity worriedly,
"Well, no, I don't do manual labor, but let's pretend like that's a threat that lights a fire under you."
"My stars, I would hate for you to kick me off and make the costumes yourself," said Rarity
"Indeed. Oh, before I forget, no one's allowed to sit at this table. Even though my smartphone mysterious changed designs, I'm pretty sure the table is the source of magic."
The next day, they went to the amusement park, but Applejack decided to kill their buzz by mentioning that Rarity's job was hard.
"Isn't that why they pay her?" asked Twilight, "because she's giving them her time?"
"Nah, she's miserable, so miserable that she'd be better off standin' in solidarity with me by not takin' the job." Their attention was drawn to a large group of people posing for a photo with Vignette,
"Here's her feed," explained Fluttershy, "her pictures get almost 1/100th as many likes as the typical Cassandra picture."
"Ah dun get why anyone would spend this much time just to look good," said Applejack
"Well that's not surprising coming from you, Applejack, you don't spend any time trying to look good," said Fluttershy
"Her feed is the only one I follow besides Cassandra" said Rainbow
"Rainbow, I didn't know you were into fashion," said Fluttershy.
"I'm into an attractive woman with a photo stream of seductive pictures," clarified Rainbow. Applejack gasped,
"Don't tell me y'all're bisexual! Ah'm intolerant of bisexuals!" said Applejack.
"Applejack!" scolded Cassandra, "that is a very small-minded thing to say, even for you! One of your closest friends happens to be bisexual."
"Cassandra, you???"
"Yes, I am," said Cassandra
"Well ah suppose ah was wrong. Not all bisexuals are bad, in fact this might just be evidence that bisexuality is the best sexuality of all." Rainbow was about to make a counterpoint, but Cassandra held up a hand
"Let's just quit while we're ahead, Rainbow. I'll make you feel better later," said Cassandra. Rainbow smiled and agreed. Rarity arrived on break.
"There's our lead coordinator!" said Applejack going in for a hug, which Rarity politely declined. She was quickly joined by Vignette. "You know her?" asked Applejack quizzically.
"She's my best friend at the park!" said Rarity.
"Glower," said Applejack, "how dare she be friends with someone ah don't completely like." Rarity introduced Vignette to her firends but the obvious antagonist wasn't interested, until Rarity pointed out Cassandra.
"Cassandra? The Cassandra with 4 billion followers?? Does your curated content consistently aggregate across multiple platforms?" The 7 least-smart members of the Mane 8 looked confused
"What do all those big words mean?" asked Twilight
"Yes," said Cassandra knowingly to Vignette, "my content does exactly that."
"Then I shall make you the centerpiece! And your friends can be there too, because they're friends of Cassandra! BYBBC"
"Huh?" said Pinkie?
"Be Yourselves but Be Cassandra" said Cassandra
"Hah, that's easy," gloated Rainbow, "because that's already my mantra!" They all agreed to help, vehemently insisting that it was for more selfless reasons than just getting to spend time with Cassandra.
"BYBBC" said Vignette again before departing
"Rarity," said Applejack "ah have a question, when yall said one sentence that wasn't about affirmin' how much yall like me, did yall really mean that we aint freinds anymore an' yall're dumpin' us forever to hang out with V.V.?" To her credit, at least she admitted she couldn't pronounce Vignette Valenzia.
"Applejack, I know the plot is going to vindicate your bitchiness, but you're really being more unlikeable than usual," said Cassandra.
"Alright, ah guess ah can give all of y'all probationary permission to have fun."
Dash was trying to get Fluttershy to go on a really frightening rollercoaster, but the shy girl wouldn't have it. Instead, she wanted to go on a children's ride. Dash didn't want any part of that.
"I'll go with you Fluttershy," said Cassandra, "we can hold hands, and I'll put my arm around you to comfort you, I won't leave your side the entire time. And if you get really scared, you can cling to me and squeeze me as hard as you need, pressing our bodies together to make you feel good."
"WAIT!" said Rainbow, "I changed my mind, I'll go on whatever ride you want, Fluttershy."
Meanwhile, Rarity was trying and failing to make a costume with electric lights. It shorted out on her and started smoking. "H-hey, is it safe for me to keep wearing this, or should I take it off?" asked the model. Getting no response, he determined it was safe.
"Don't worry Rarity, I can fix this," said the wise, beautiful, and fashion-conscious Cassandra.
"Oh, my hero!" said Rarity, "I was going to need to scream into a pile of clothes, but now I don't thanks to Cassandra!"
Later, Vignette approached Fluttershy, asking her to dress up like a bat. When Fluttershy said no, Vignette sucked her into her phone!
"I wonder why I didn't do this to the obnoxious one that actually seemed like a threat to my plans?" she wondered. Meanwhile, the obnoxious one was disrupting Twilight and Sunset's attempts to do the ring-toss. Luckily, Cassandra was there to do it for them.
"Look y'all, Fluttershy's gone missing, ah think she's..."
"In Vingette's phone, which was turned into a magical phone a remnant of Equestrian magic, and I'm currently playing the long game, because unless she reaches the peak of evil & madness, we won't be able to strongarm her into learning a lesson, and this won't be exciting enough to warrant a TV special." said Cassandra without turning to look
"Whatever. Mah brain can't comprehend such a complicated idea. I'mma ignore yer advice an' resort to an immediate direct confrontation! She stormed off.
Elsewhere, Vignette approached Rarity with a ludicrous amount of last-minute changes, however she kept the light-up outfit that Cassandra had made exactly the same. Rarity was stressed out by that, and by Applejack not showing up for sound check.
"She's tolerable when she does as Cassandra says. She must've disregarded Cassandra's advice." As if on cue, Applejack burst in and, in accused Vignette right to her face.
"VV is makin' stuff disappear. Show me how ta use yer phone so ah can demonstrate for everyone!" As usual, Applejack made herself look dumb and came dangerously close to tipping of Vignette that someone smart (Cassandra) was onto her. After AJ and Rarity ran off, there were only three people left, and Vignette easily captured them. Rarity re-entered the room, and Vignette presented the SnapGap-based holograms to Rarity.
"Applejack is making more sense than you, and that's saying something!" exclaimed Rarity.
"Whatever, I'll just upload you too!" said Vignette. She fired her phone at Rarity, but when the light cleared, the fashionista still stood before her, and a much prettier and more talented fashionista was with her. "Cassandra! You were onto me this whole time? But how? You must've been playing some sort of long game so that I wouldn't know you were onto me!"
"I sure was, and I told Rarity to use her shield just now. Now let's get out of here, Rarity!"
Elsewhere, Applejack was moping. "If only ah'd done somethin' different... thought honestly ah did just aobut everythin' wrong. Ah miss Cassandra, an'the rest of mah friends to a lesser degree."
"No time for sobbing!" said Cassandra, "Applejack, Rarity, we don't have time for chin-wagging about feelings, we have to save our friends! Now, I've instructed Twilight on how to hack Vignette's Applecopter app to rout a VOIP connection to your IP address. You should be getting a phone call right about... now." Applejack's phone rang.
"Twilight?" said Applejack
"Applejack! Cassandra's level 99 hacking skills worked! Now, I need you to write a virus..."
"Applejack, just give me the phone," said Cassandra. She did exactly as Twilight instructed, which not only rescued her friends but shut down Vignette's phone just in case she decided to teleport an entire crowd before the Mane 8 could stop her. The raced to the scene, and confronted Vignette, who surrendered immediately in the face of their Equestrian forms and Cassandra's reprimand on why zapping people into your phone is wrong. Cassandra was merciful and agreed to start the reformation process in exchange for 3 sessions of practice kissing.
"I have 3 million followers, and no real friends" lamented the fallen villain, "how pathetic is that?"
"You've got one, if you want," said Rarity, reaching out. Vignette took her hand and smiled.
"Make that two," said Applejack.
"I'm good with one," said Vignette. Cassandra helped Rarity dress up like a chandelier, and then led them in a song that she had just wrote. The amusement park went on to quadruple its revenue after people learned that Cassandra was a regular. Once again they had learned that apart from friendship, Cassandra was the most precious thing in their life.