//------------------------------// // 13: Season Finale // Story: But Wait...There's More! // by McPoodle //------------------------------// But Wait...There’s More! - 13: Season Finale - “...and that is why at Poul Mason Whinery, we will sell no whine...before its time.” The season finale of the Risking It All Team began with a quick recap of the team’s dilemma, and how they got there. As they were about to be led out of their prison cell to certain doom, Shrinking Violet suddenly grabbed Spoke and threw him at the guards. The ponies and griffon were now free to escape in the chaos, but the little dragon was in the clutches of the enemy. “Surrender now or you’ll never see your dragon again!” shouted the Dark King. “Do your worst!” taunted Shrinking Violet. “I’ll do it! I’ll really kill him!” said the callous pony with a sneer. “He’ll do it!” cried Soft Heart. “Oh, we must save him!” “No!” shouted the leader of RIAT. “Dark King, I’m calling your bluff! I have in my hand a remote control to the explosive collar that Spoke always wears to prevent the secret of his mystical fire—given to him by the Light Queen—from falling in the hands of the enemy! You will call off your guards, immediately, or the dragon in your hooves will die!” “Are you mad?!” cried Wild Card. “Guards, eliminate RIAT!” shouted the King. “I warned you!” yelled Shrinking Violet, accompanied by the sound of a button clicking. “Gaggggg....Violet!” pleaded the dragon. “No, anything but that!” yelled the King. “Guards, leave us at once!” “What is going on here!” demanded Mysterio, along with the audience. “I knew that you would never sacrifice the life of your best friend and top double agent,” declared Shrinking Violet. “Fascinating. Most fascinating,” stated Fidelia. “Will somepony explain what’s goin’ on around here?” demanded Wild Card. “Spoke? A double agent?” “Yes,” explained the fearless leader, “we were betrayed by that dragon, but that dragon is not Spoke! Rather...” “...it is me!” the dragon, completely changing his accent. “Spoke’s twin brother...Sprechen Zedeutche!” Somehow you just knew he was now sporting a monocle and a dueling scar. There was a brief pause at this point, to allow everypony in the audience to stop their heads from spinning at so many plot twists in a row. “But where is Spoke?” asked a bewildered Soft Heart. “His fire is the active ingredient in the mind control gas!” gloated the King. “And with it...I will take over THE WORLD!” “TO THE FACTORY!” proclaimed a vengeful Shrinking Violet. “GUARDS!!!” shouted the king. ~ ~ ~ What followed was a scene almost too chaotic to follow, as the team split up to search the immense factory for Spoke. They all had their own run-ins with the guards, and each had a chance to shine. But time was also running out, as the formulation of the gas was reaching a critical juncture. Shrinking Violet, winded from a series of running fights, burst into the cauldron room and scrambled up a circular stair, to find one dragon dangling his twin over the mystical fumes. “...if you won’t breathe your flame willingly, then the mixture will just have to pull it from your bones!” the evil twin declared. “SPRECHEN!!!” shouted Shrinking Violet in fear and outrage. Spoke took this opportunity to turn his flame upon his brother. “Aarrggghh! I can’t see! I can’t see!” Sprechen screamed. “Oh, stop being melodramatic!” Spoke quipped. “It barely has an effect on dragons. I mean, unless you made a dark compact with an ifrit or something...” “Curse you, Spoke! Curse you...” And with that he toppled into the vat. “Sprechen, my brother! Noooooooooooo!!” ~ ~ ~ It is a little-known fact that adding an ifrit-enchanted dragon to a batch of mind-control gas will cause the entire factory to explode in slow motion. The team only just managed to escape, now chased by the entire Dark Army for a hundred yards before they reached the border and the safety of the Light Army. ~ ~ ~ “The Dark King’s greatest plot has been defeated,” declared the Light Queen later over a spot of tea. “And he now knows all about the Risking It All Team. It appears that I have no choice but to disband you.” “Yes, that is true, my foster mother,” said Shrinking Violet after daintily nibbling on a scone. “The team no longer has a reason to exist. But I must continue my quest, regardless, even if I do it alone.” “And what is your quest?” asked Soft Heart. “To find my family.” There was a collective gasp of amazement from all of the other team members but Fidelia. “Of course,” she deduced. “How else could Spoke and Sprechen be brothers, unless they are both from the Dark Kingdom?” “Exactly,” agreed Shrinking Violet with a heavy heart and a dollop of jam. “My mother died crossing the border so that Spoke and I could grow up in a land of happiness and friendship. And while I have served my queen and carried out her commands, I have also rescued those members of my family that I have come across.” “Wait,” said Mysterio. “You mean Roof-Light, and Custard Cream and Spackle...they were all your—” “Cousins and nieces, yes,” admitted the unicorn. “But I have plenty of other relatives, and I won’t stop until I have freed them all.” “Well, I’m with you!” declared Spoke. “And my disguises are at your service!” said Mysterio. “I could never abandon a friend in need!” added Soft Heart. “This is all most illogical,” said Fidelia in something resembling a pout. “But I shall assist you nonetheless.” “That just leaves you, Wild Card,” said the Light Queen. “What say you?” “All I’ve got to say is that I better be gettin’ a raise out of this!” “Dun, dun, DUN-TUN! Dun, dun, DUN-TUN! Dun, dun, DUN-TUN! Dun, dun, DUN-TUN!” “Wow, what an episode!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie. “I got to be the hero, and the villain!” proclaimed Spike proudly. “Yes, nopony can pull a finale off better than Oars In Wells,” said Vinyl with satisfaction. “You got that right!” Applejack exclaimed. “Not only did he tie up the loose ends, he also left ya wantin’ to come back in six months for t’second season premiere. I can’t wait!” “I’m impressed by the way Mr. Wells addressed a complaint by the fans,” Fluttershy stated quietly. “They said that Blue Bubbles voiced the bit parts of Roof-Light, Custard Cream and Spackle too close to Shrinking Violet’s voice, and accused her of ‘slacking off’. But it turned out to be a clue all along.” “If I know Mr. Wells,” Rarity commented, “he probably wrote that part in at the last minute precisely to silence his critics. That this circumstance revitalized the upcoming season was just a lucky accident.” “You’re keeping pretty quiet, Rainbow,” said Twilight Sparkle. “What did you think?” “Yeah, it was a great episode,” the weather pony said after a few moments. “But I just think it was missing something.” “What do you think it was missing?” asked Pinkie. “I dunno, but when I figure it out I’ll tell you.” ~ ~ ~ The group was still discussing the show when they were interrupted by a knock at the door, and the entrance of Octavia. “Tavi!” cried Vinyl Scratch, pulling her aside. “Look, I need to thank you again for covering for me on Saturday night.” “I saw the state you were in,” she said. “And besides, you were lucky. Those ravers were a tough crowd!” Vinyl somehow suspected that DJ Pon-3 would have had a slightly better reception from that crowd than the classically-trained musician received. “Now tell me you’re here for the reason I think...” “You mean the fact that I got you onto the performer’s list at Blue Bubble’s birthday party on Wednesday night? To quote a certain pony of few words: Eeyup.” “Ah, Tavi, you’re too good to me, you know that?” “Yes. Yes, I am. Will you be prepared at such short notice?” “Oh sure,” replied Vinyl. “I’ve got this really-neat arrangement of the RIAT theme using three CD players in tandem. It’ll knock their socks off!” Octavia then turned to the waiting group. “Miss Bubble is also extending invitations to all of you,” she told them. “Given the short notice, she does not expect presents. Your presence is enough.” “I wish she’d make up her mind,” Pinkie Pie said in a mock-serious tone. “Does she want presents, or doesn’t she?” “No...wait...” Cue another shared laugh amongst the ponies (and dragon). The group disbanded and returned to the various rooms in the apartment that Rarity had arranged for them. All but Pinkie Pie, who waited outside Vinyl Scratch’s open door to be noticed. “Still here, Pinkie?” Vinyl asked eventually. “Do we need to talk about something? Wait, I know. You feel guilty about telling the others what I did back at the party, don’t you? Well, don’t be. It all worked out in the end, didn’t it?” “Yes, it did, but that wasn’t it,” Pinkie said in a very quiet voice. Nearly Fluttershy-level quiet. “Your mind was in a bad place this weekend, and I haven’t had a chance before now to ask you about it.” “Curious about a state of mind utterly foreign to you?” Vinyl joked. Pinkie said nothing in response. “Look, you don’t need to worry about me. I’ve been to that dark little place before, and I’ll probably go there again, but I always get myself out eventually. This time I had a little help, for which I’m grateful. You don’t need to worry about me. I’d never take it so far as to...well, I just wouldn’t, OK? It’s just that...I worry too much about what total strangers think of me sometimes.” “You wouldn’t be a pony if you didn’t worry about what everypony else thought about you,” Pinkie said sadly. “You don’t...you don’t have to tell me this,” she said, stumbling over her words for the first time in Vinyl’s recollection, “but how do you get out? When you don’t have any friends in the world that believe in you, how do you get out of the dark place?” “Well!” exclaimed Vinyl, taken aback at how easily Pinkie got into the game of pretending to be a depressed pony. “I...well...in my case it’s DJ Pon-3. She’s always believed in me, even during the times when I stopped believing in myself.” She rubbed her neck nervously at revealing the fact that she treated her alter ego as something separate from herself, which some ponies might take as a sign of a less than stable mind. “It’s like she always tells me,” she joked. “‘Always have at least one head-voice on your side.’” “That is good advice,” said Pinkie simply. “Thanks for satisfying my curiosity,” she said, turning to go. “Wait!” exclaimed Vinyl, reaching out to her. “That thing with the head-voices, you’re not going to tell anypony about that, are you?” The earth mare made a “Pinkie Promise” never to tell a soul, and then hopped off, her somber mood of a few minutes earlier instantly forgotten. As she listened to the hoof-falls fading down the corridor, Vinyl Scratch wished she could just turn her emotions on and off so easily.