Chapter 4
Strange Disappearances
After helping Micro Chips out of a rather sticky situation, Applejack was curious to find out what Vignette had been discussing with Fluttershy. She was unable to find either of them after wandering around for half an hour, so she decided to try calling Fluttershy to see if they could meet up somewhere, but every attempt to call her ended up going to voicemail. Now getting a little concerned, she decided her best chance of finding Fluttershy was to find Vignette, but although she had no idea where to find the park’s PR manager, she was confident her friend Rarity would know where she would likely be. And thankfully for Applejack, she knew exactly where to find the fashionista.
Applejack walked over to the massive hangar and stepped through the regular doorway into the building. She glanced around at the numerous floats being assembled — brick by brick by the workers wearing hardhats and orange safety vests. None of the numerous people moving around seemed to mind her presence, so she walked forward through the middle of the hangar as she continued to glance around for any sign of her friend.
At the other end of the building, Rarity was on a western themed float as she put the final touches on a cowboy costume that one of the performers was already wearing. “And… finished!” she declared with satisfaction. She then reached over to pick up an electric plug. “Let there be light!” She then connected the plug.
The cowboy costume became illuminated with dozens of little decorative lights all over it, and the performer wearing it gave Rarity a smile of approval.
Rarity let out a sigh of relief and remarked, “Maybe tonight won’t be a disaster after all.”
BZZZZTT!
The lights suddenly short circuited, shutting off the lights and electrocuting the performer, who twitched and jerked uncontrollably for a few seconds before he collapsed on his back. As wisps of black smoke began to rise from the ruined costume, one assistant quickly rushed in with a bucket of water and dumped it over the fallen performer. This attempt to mitigate a fire hazard only resulted in further jolting for the unfortunate performer. Once the electric current stopped coursing through the ruined costume, the performer on the floor weakly said, “I’m okay.”
Confirmation that the performer was not seriously hurt did little to ease Rarity’s nerves. After witnessing the latest in a series of minor things not quite going according to plan, she was on the verge of completely losing it. Summoning what little sanity she had left, she calmly told all the people around her, “Will you, uh, excuse me for a moment?”
As a few assistants tended to the electrocuted performer and his ruined outfit, Rarity walked in a dignified manner towards a nearby large pile of clothes, then promptly collapsed face-first into the pile and started shouting and thrashing her limbs around furiously. The clothes muffled her shouts enough that no one could understand what she was saying, but her body language was enough to convince all the nearby assistants to back away from her at once.
Applejack happened to be passing by when she heard the muffled wailing of Rarity, so she walked over to her friend and greeted, “Hey, Rarity. How’s—?”
Rarity suddenly leaped off the pile of clothes and furiously shouted, “I wasn’t having a meltdown! Who said I was having a meltdown?! I AM NOT HAVING A MELTDOWN!!”
“Whoa, easy there,” Applejack carefully responded. “Ah, uh, just came by to ask if ya seen Fluttershy ‘round here lately. See, she went wanderin’ off with Vignette an’ then just disappeared.”
Rarity glared at Applejack and asked, “Are you honestly asking me this right now?”
“Oh, it’s not that Ah don’t trust Vignette, if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” assured Applejack.
“We’re in a giant fun park with fifty thousand people,” scolded Rarity. “Of course you can’t find her.” She then suddenly gasped and worriedly muttered, “Fifty thousand people… all looking at my costumes!”
“Are you seriously not concerned about Fluttershy?” asked Applejack in disbelief. “She’s one of our closest friends!”
“That’s a hundred thousand individual eyes,” Rarity continued muttering fearfully. “And that doesn’t take into account any one-eyed pirates or three-eyed aliens…”
“Fine!” declared Applejack in frustration. “If you ain’t gonna worry ‘bout her, then Ah’ll just have to track her down mahself! An’ when Ah find her, Ah’ll be sure to let her know that ya don’t even care about her one bit!” She then turned away and stormed off back towards the door out the front of the building.
Rarity had apparently not reacted at all to any of what Applejack had shouted back at her. Instead, she remained petrified in terror for a few more seconds before she suddenly hollered, “SOMEBODY GET ME A BIGGER PILE OF CLOTHES TO SCREAM INTO!!”
BEEP… BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…
A small truck slowly backed up towards Rarity, then stopped and tipped its bed back to dump a much bigger pile of clothes right on top of her.
“Ugh, ask and you shall receive…” came Rarity’s muffled response from under the pile.
At the ring toss booth, Sunset tossed another ring towards the bottles. The ring hooked around the neck of one of the bottles, spun around it for a second, then bounced right off the bottle. “Come on!” she shouted furiously as she slammed her fists against the counter.
After yet another failure, Twilight opened a notebook she had been carrying around and began frantically scribbling ideas and calculations on its pages.
Meanwhile, Flim counted up the tickets from the small pile they had collected from Twilight and Sunset, then turned to Flam. Flam used a calculator to crunch the numbers, then turned to his brother and smiled, who then smiled back at him.
Sunset growled in frustration, then turned to Twilight and firmly asked, “All right, what’s next? What are we doing? How are we going to win this?!”
Twilight continued scribbling in her notebook for a few more seconds, then smiled as she turned to the brothers in the booth and boasted, “Guess who just mapped out a perfect projectile trajectory taking into account propulsion, gravity, and aerodynamic drag? This gal! Betcha thought I forgot about friction, air drag, and veering initial velocities. Well, guess what? I didn’t!”
Flim and Flam stared at Twilight with dumbstruck looks on their faces.
“What she said!” insisted Sunset as she held out another bunch of tickets to go for yet another round.
The brothers glanced at each other and shrugged with smiles on their faces.
“You know what they say…” began Flim.
“…hundredth time’s the charm,” finished Flam.
When the tickets and rings were exchanged once more, Sunset picked up one of the rings and held it up. She allowed Twilight to make all the subtle adjustments to her aim and posture to hopefully ensure the highest probable chance of achieving the elusive winning shot. Once Twilight was confident everything was as close to perfection as physically possible, she smiled and nodded at Sunset. With that gesture of confirmation, Sunset swung her arm back and prepared to make the toss.
“Howdy, y’all!”
Applejack’s sudden arrival behind their backs startled Twilight and Sunset, causing Sunset to fling the ring way off course. The ring flew over the booth, bounced off the bell atop the high striker, deflected off the frame of another booth, and finally slammed into an ice cream sundae on a table between a mother and young boy. The ice cream splattered all over the boy, who then began to cry loudly. “Just when I finally got him to calm down…” grumbled the mother.
With their latest toss totally wasted, Twilight and Sunset both glared back at their friend and furiously shouted, “Applejack!”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to throw off your game,” said Applejack as she defensively held up her hands. She then lowered her hands and continued, “Ah was just wonderin’ if either of ya have seen Fluttershy. It’s been hours since Ah last saw her, an’ her phone’s goin’ straight to voicemail. I keep thinkin’ somethin’ real bad might’ve happened.”
Sunset took a deep breath to calm herself, then assured her friend, “Lighten up, Applejack. There’s not always a villain with Equestrian magic out to get us. If it makes you feel better, I promise I’ll text you right away if Twilight or I see any sign of Fluttershy.”
“Thanks, Sunset,” said Applejack with a smile. “Good to know that even in the heat of whatever ya got goin’ on here, y’all still care about one of our close friends.” She then sourly grumbled under her breath, “Unlike a certain other friend of ours.”
“On a side note,” Twilight spoke up, “do you have any tickets we can borrow? We’re kinda starting to run low.”
Applejack glanced past her friends to see Flim and Flam dumping a large pile of tickets into a large sack. When they noticed the apple farmer watching them, Flam quickly hid the sack behind his back while he and his brother whistled innocently and glanced away from her gaze.
Applejack rolled her eyes as she reached into her pocket and pulled out many strips of tickets. “Here, take ‘em all,” she muttered as she handed over the tickets. “Not like Ah’m gonna be usin’ ‘em, anyway.”
Sunset and Twilight both smiled as they took the tickets from Applejack. Sunset then clenched her fists around the tickets in her hands and firmly stated, “I don’t like to lose.” She then turned around and slapped those tickets down onto the counter.
Applejack didn’t say a word as she shook her head in disapproval and then walked away.
Sunset once again picked up one of the rings, but before she made another attempt to toss it, she paused and glanced back at Applejack waking away. Then in a swift series of moves, she set down the ring, opened Twilight’s notebook, and pulled Twilight close to her and held up the opened notebook so Flim and Flam couldn’t see their faces. “Spike once told me you secretly put tracking devices in our phones,” whispered Sunset. “Do you think you can use that to find Fluttershy?”
Twilight’s eyes widened in shock as she quietly asked, “When did he tell you about that?”
“Juniper Montage,” stated Sunset.
“Right, when we all got pulled into that magic mirror,” muttered Twilight.
“He called me when the signals from all of your phones vanished because of that,” explained Sunset. “I doubt anything similar happened to Fluttershy today, but if you have a way to be sure of that, I don’t see any reason not to.”
“Unfortunately, I hadn’t anticipated a need for it today,” explained Twilight. “The system is currently switched off, and since Spike came here to the park with us, I can’t ask him to simply go into my lab and switch it back on.” She then pulled out her phone. “I could remotely activate and then access it, but I’m afraid it may take some time to set everything up.”
Sunset set down the notebook and spoke up, “The way things have been going here, I’d say we’ve got plenty of time.” She then picked up the green ring again and went back to preparing her next toss attempt.
Near the roller coaster at the far side of the park, Rainbow Dash had long since recovered from her nausea after her first — and so far only — ride on the roller coaster, but that did little to ease her nerves. She was practically frozen in terror as she watched the train of cars rush along the track once again. Without any of her friends around, she was already building up a sweat as she nervously glanced around for any excuse for a distraction. She soon got just what she needed when she saw her friend Applejack approaching.
“Hey, Applejack!” greeted Rainbow Dash enthusiastically. There was subtle hesitation in her voice as she continued, “I was just about to ride this thing for, like, the tenth time already!”
A red-haired little girl standing next to Rainbow Dash coughed intentionally with a look of disbelief on her face.
Rainbow quickly shushed the little girl and harshly whispered, “Not a word outta you!”
The little girl rolled her eyes and walked away.
“Right…” muttered Applejack. As much as she would normally welcome the opportunity to taunt Rainbow for her hypocrisy, she had more important issues to deal with right now, so she spoke up, “Anyway, Ah was just wonderin’ if you’ve seen Fluttershy anywhere.”
“Oh, she was with me,” explained Rainbow Dash, “super scared of this ride, but she got a text from Vignette and went off to have a little chat with her.”
“An’ she hasn’t come back yet?” asked Applejack.
“Now that you mention it,” replied Rainbow, “she did promise she would be back as soon as possible. I dunno how long I’ve been waiting here, but I trust her to keep her word.”
“Well, if she does show up, Ah guess she’ll most likely try to find ya right here,” acknowledged Applejack. “Just be sure to let me know if she shows up, alright?”
“Sure thing,” assured Rainbow with a smile.
Applejack responded with a smile and a nod, then turned and began walking away.
Rainbow Dash then quickly called out to her friend, “Oh! And if you see her first, tell her she still owes me a roller coaster ride!” She turned her attention back to the roller coaster and gulped nervously as she watched it rush along the tracks once again.
Less than a minute later, Rainbow heard a ping from her phone and felt it vibrate in her pocket. She took it out and read the text she had just received. When she noticed it was from Vignette, she shrugged and remarked, “I guess I could just ask her directly where Fluttershy went.” She put her phone back in her pocket and began walking towards the hangar building where Vignette wanted to talk with her.
Now that Rainbow actually had a good reason to get away from that terrifying roller coaster, she was already starting to feel much better — not that she would ever admit it to any of her friends, of course.
Applejack continued wandering around the park, trying to search for Fluttershy in all the places she had not yet checked. As she walked beside the bumper cars, she continued reading the slightly crumpled map in her hands in an effort to figure out where she should go next. Suddenly, a sharp whistle from someone startled Applejack and caused her to nearly drop her map, only to have it suddenly yanked out of her hands by Pinkie Pie.
“No frowning allowed!” Pinkie firmly declared right in Applejack’s face. Instead of her usual outfit, Pinkie now had dark blue on her legs, pale green on her left arm and the left half of her torso, pale yellow on her right arm and the right half of her torso, and an oversized pale green cap on top of her hair piece, with all of those things covered in various brown stains and the occasional bit of refuse. She also had what appeared to be a pair of macaroni art badges, one on the left front of her torso and the other on the front of her big cap.
“Uh… what?” muttered Applejack in confusion.
Pinkie continued to stare hard at Applejack. As she then crumpled the map and tossed it over her shoulder into a trashcan, she stated in a serious tone, “As ‘Fun Inspector’, I’m a little concerned about what I’m seeing here.” She waved her hand in front of Applejack’s face, but then her oversized hat slipped down to cover her eyes.
“Pinkie Pie?” asked Applejack. “Don’t tell me you’re workin’ for the park now, too.”
Pinkie pushed her hat back up as she giggled and replied cheerfully, “No, silly! Fun Inspectors are freelance! And don’t get paid! And totally made up by me earlier today when I saw a little girl crying because she dropped her ice cream, and I said to myself, ‘Pinkie Pie, this place isn’t as fun as it could be!’” After all of the wild gestures she made as she spoke, her oversized hat slipped down over her eyes again.
“Uh, Ah’m pretty sure the people who actually work here won’t take kindly to seein’ some fake official runnin’ around the park,” Applejack pointed out carefully. “Especially since ya look like ya just went dumpster divin’.”
Pinkie pushed her hat back up again and blissfully continued, “I see you noticed my official Fun Inspector uniform. I made it out of things I found in that dumpster behind the hangar, but you can’t even tell the difference! If anything, Rarity might’ve handled this stuff before she decided to let it go, so I decided to give it a better purpose, just like me!” She then casually reached behind her rear, ripped off a dirty lollipop that had been stuck to the back of her pants, and began to bring it towards her mouth.
Applejack immediately slapped the filthy treat out of Pinkie’s hand, then took a breath to calm herself and said, “Look, Pinkie, Ah don’t have time for this nonsense. Quite frankly, the only thing that could make me happy right now is if ya happen to know where Fluttershy is.”
With a smile still on her face, Pinkie shrugged and replied, “Sorry, can’t help you on that one. But I do know where to find my new Deputy Fun Inspector. And she’s right here!” She swiftly pulled out another macaroni art badge and slapped it onto Applejack’s chest. “Ta-da! Now you have full access to the entire park, Deputy Fun Inspector!”
Applejack glanced down at the handmade badge, then took it off and irritably stated, “Pinkie, ya don’t have the authority to gimme that kind of authority. It don’t work like that.”
Pinkie quickly snatched the badge out of Applejack’s hand and slapped it back on her chest. “You said you wanted a job in this park, and I’m giving it to you!” insisted Pinkie. “No give-backsies!” She then turned Applejack around and shoved her away. “Now go start fun inspecting over by the ferris wheel! I’ll cover the concession stands!” She then turned and began happily skipping away.
Applejack glanced back at Pinkie, then shook her head and muttered, “Ah guess it’s just one of those days for Pinkie.” Having asked all of her friends and now without a map of the park, she decided to just go on ahead towards the ferris wheel.
Back at the ring toss booth, it was all more of the same for Twilight and Sunset. They had made numerous attempts to toss any of the rings onto any of the bottlenecks, and still they had zero successful hits.
After making the usual exchange of tickets for rings, Sunset turned to Twilight and said with determination, “All right… we’ve tried frisbee style… we’ve tried the straight launcher… we’ve tried the slinger toss… we’ve tried the boomerang… we’ve tried high lobbing… we’ve tried the pincer move… we’ve tried the flying saucer… what’s our next tactic?”
Twilight flipped through her notebook past all those failed strategies. When she reached a page that had not yet been crossed out, she smiled and pointed at the diagram she had drawn as she proudly stated, “Hwacha method!”
Sunset quickly studied the diagram and concluded, “So just throw a whole bunch of ‘em at once? Worth a shot.” She gathered up all of the available rings on the counter and barely managed to grasp them all at once in her hands. “This one’s gotta work. This one has to work!” Despite her awkward grip on the projectiles, she made sure to aim for the center of the table to maximize their chances of getting at least one ring to land successfully. Once she was sure her aim was perfect, she made the massive toss.
The big clump of rings did hit the middle of the set of bottles as hoped for, but somehow, every single one of those rings managed to bounce away and land on the ground.
Off to the side, Flim and Flam had long since lost all enthusiasm.
“Oh, wow,” muttered Flim in a bored tone.
“So close,” added Flam in a similar tone.
Sunset and Twilight both stared in disbelief at their latest failure. They both groaned at they turned away and slid down against the side of the counter until their rears hit the ground.
“I feel like my hands are about to fall off,” moaned Sunset. Sure enough, both of her hands slid out of their sockets in her arms and clattered on the ground.
Twilight flipped through all the pages of her notebook again and again. From front to back, the clean and precise scientific charts and diagrams gradually gave way to sloppy sketches and doodles. “It all looks the same…” mumbled Twilight, sounding almost delirious. “Is this real life…? How long have we been here…?”
While the two girls had slumped from endless failure, the two brothers took a moment to observe some other park guests and noticed how some seemed to be steering clear of their ring toss booth. Flim turned to his brother and whispered, “I highly suggest for everyone’s sake that we put an end to this right away. If they continue like this, not only will it be bad for them, but it will also give everyone else the impression this game is completely impossible and therefore not worth their time and money.”
“Indeed,” agreed Flam quietly. “We’ve made a fortune off them already, but there’s only so much you can make off of a single customer.” He reached up towards the displayed prizes and took down a large stuffed parakeet. “It’s time to move them along and let someone else give it a go.”
The brothers leaned over the counter to look down at the two girls. “Uh, hey, listen, girls,” Flim spoke up. “We applaud you for a level of persistence we rarely see in anyone.”
“And we’ve agreed that you at least deserve a reward for your impressive efforts,” added Flam in sympathy. “How about you just take this parakeet and go home?”
Sunset immediately stood up and suddenly smacked the stuffed parakeet out of Flam’s hands as she furiously shouted, “IT’S NOT ABOUT THE PARAKEET!!”
The stuffed parakeet flew through the air and ended up right in the hands of the very same young boy who had been splattered with ice cream earlier. As the little boy smiled and hugged the giant stuffed animal, his mother silently decided to let him keep it rather than return it from where it was lost, justifying it as a good deed from those girls to make up for what had happened earlier.
With her hands still missing, Sunset scraped her arms across the counter until she managed to loop one of the rings around her left wrist. “I don’t care if I have to fling it off the stubs of my arms!” she furiously declared. “I AM GONNA WIN THIS!!”
Twilight quickly gathered up Sunset’s hands and stood up as she protested, “Sunset, stop! This has gone far enough!” She grasped Sunset’s right arm and reattached one of her hands to it. “You said it yourself at the start of this whole mess. These games are rigged.” Sunset grabbed the ring with her right hand and took it off her left wrist, allowing Twilight to reattach the other hand. “How about we use what few tickets we have left to get ourselves some ice cream?”
Sunset stared at the green ring in her hand for a moment, then let out a sigh of defeat and muttered, “You’re right. Why didn’t I listen to myself? We never even had a chance.” She then carelessly tossed the ring behind her back as she and Twilight began to walk away.
That one particular ring flew back into the booth and, of all the places it could’ve gone, it miraculously made a perfect landing right on the neck of one of the bottles.
“Wow!” exclaimed Flim in astonishment. “Did ya see that, everyone?!”
“If she could do it with a blind toss behind her back,” declared Flam to a rapidly gathering crowd, “then surely those of you who actually try are guaranteed to win!”
That remarkable display had made many of the nearby park guests very excited for the ring toss game, and they quickly started handing in tickets to make their own attempts to win.
Of course, that commotion had been loud enough to catch the attention of Twilight and Sunset, who had managed to walk only a short distance by the time they noticed what was going on.
“Seriously?!” exclaimed Twilight in disbelief. “Now we finally got a successful hit?! And it came from a completely random blind toss?!” When she didn’t hear any reaction from her friend, she turned to Sunset, only to see that she was apparently so stunned that she was practically frozen stiff. “Uh, Sunset?” asked Twilight in concern as she waved her hand in front of Sunset’s face — stuck with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. She then lightly nudged Sunset, but she remained as stiff as a statue.
Meanwhile, Flim and Flam were more than happy to be collecting tickets from new participants for the first time in hours. “I have to say, this worked quite well,” remarked Flim as he gathered the newly collected tickets.
“You said it, dear brother of mine,” agreed Flam as he handed out the rings to the new players.
Flim picked up the gathered tickets and walked to the back of the booth, but then suddenly stopped and exclaimed, “Hey! What happened to the rest of our tickets?!”
Flam quickly stood beside his brother and they both stared at the empty space on the floor. “That’s odd,” he noted as he scratched his head in confusion. “I could’ve sworn I left them right here.”
While Sunset was still in too much shock to react, Twilight had been able to overhear the odd mystery that Flim and Flam was suddenly faced with. But right at that moment, she also noticed two minifigs suddenly run away from behind the booth, each of whom were carrying a large sack in their arms. Knowing there was little time to lose, Twilight turned to her unmoving friend and urgently said, “C’mon, Sunset! There’s two robbers getting away!”
Sunset finally snapped out of her shock just as Twilight grabbed her hand and began pulling her in the direction the lavender girl had seen those robbers escape. “Hey, easy! I’m right behind ya!” exclaimed Sunset as she let go of Twilight’s hand and continued following after her.
Meanwhile, the two robbers snickered mischievously as they made their getaway with their ill-gotten loot. “Who are the suckers now, huh?” remarked one robber tauntingly, speaking with a gravelly gangster voice.
“Yeah, we sure showed them!” agreed the other robber, speaking with a deeper dim-witted voice.
The two robbers didn’t make it much further before their sacks full of tickets were suddenly lifted into the air, and since they refused to let go of them, they were left dangling helplessly beneath the hovering sacks.
Twilight held up her glowing hands, using her magical powers to levitate the sacks up and hold the robbers in place, while Sunset glared at the two robbers.
“Aw, fudge!” groaned the first robber.
“Hey, haven’t we seen them before?” asked the second robber.
“Rocky and Mugsy,” noted Sunset in contempt. “Two of the most incompetent crooks in all of the Lego World. Did you really think you even had something to gain from stealing all those tickets?”
The second robber, Mugsy, shrugged and replied, “We figured it had to be worth something if those two guys were so happy to have a whole bunch of ‘em.”
“Lemme guess,” grumbled the first robber, Rocky, “you’re gonna give all these tickets back to those guys, ain’t ya?”
Sunset and Twilight glanced at each other, then smiled slyly and turned their attention back to the robbers. “Actually,” Twilight spoke up, “since those tickets were scammed from us, we’ll let you go if you agree to give those tickets back to us.”
“Aww, do we have to?” moaned Mugsy.
“Eh, let ‘em have their loot,” responded Rocky in a resigned tone. “Better to get away empty-handed than to get busted and thrown in jail.” He let go of his sack and dropped to the ground.
Mugsy hesitated for a moment, but soon followed his accomplice’s example and also let go of his sack and dropped to the ground.
Twilight levitated the two sacks over to herself and Sunset. They checked inside both bags and confirmed they were filled with all the tickets they had wasted at the ring toss booth. They both shared a smile, but then frowned when they noticed the two robbers were still standing where they had landed.
“What are you two brick-heads waiting for?” scolded Sunset. “Get outta here before my friend and I change our minds!”
Rocky and Mugsy quickly glanced at each other, then they both mumbled various words of agreement as they ran off.
Sunset shook her head as she sighed and grumbled, “Those two will never learn…” She then turned to Twilight and asked, “So what now?”
“Simple,” replied Twilight. “We’ll reimburse these tickets to recoup our losses, so it’ll be as if we had never carelessly blown a fortune on that one booth. Once our finances are secure again, then we’ll go ahead and get that ice cream I promised.”
“Sounds good to me,” agreed Sunset as she grabbed one of the sacks full of tickets.
Twilight grabbed the other sack full of tickets and walked with Sunset to the park’s ATM to exchange their tickets back. Neither of them ever gave a second thought to whatever Flim and Flam might be going through right now.
Applejack made it to the ferris wheel as insisted by Pinkie Pie, but with absolutely no idea what to do, she decided to just sit down on a bench and gather her thoughts. Fluttershy had gone missing quite some time ago and she had asked all of her friends to help find her. Although none of them had agreed to actively help her, many of them did promise to at least keep an eye out for her. The only one who had seemed completely dismissive of Fluttershy’s well-being was Rarity.
Just thinking about Rarity made Applejack cringe in disgust. As much as she understood her friend having so much to do in so little time, she did feel quite hurt that Rarity seemed to pay much more attention to the parade preparations than the feelings of her own closest friends. Especially frustrating was how hostile Rarity got simply at the mention that Fluttershy had gone missing, as if the safety of their close friend was merely a distraction to be ignored at all costs.
If anything, the only “friend” Rarity seemed to have any respect for today was Vignette Valencia, who she had never even met prior to accepting her new job at the park just two weeks ago. She certainly seemed to have no hesitation with wasting time trying desperately to stay on Vignette’s good side. And when Vignette practically criticized Applejack for her lack of social media exposure, Rarity had made no effort at all to defend her against such a condescending attitude.
But now that Applejack thought about it, she couldn’t recall any of her other friends seeming to have any issues with Vignette, and actually seemed pretty okay with Rarity being friends with her. And when Fluttershy went missing, none of her friends appeared to regard it quite as seriously as she did. In fact, in was possible that her bias against Vignette might actually be clouding her judgement and preventing her from seriously considering more reasonable explanations.
“…Or maybe Ah want her to be my prime suspect because she’s Rarity’s new best friend at the park,” muttered Applejack worriedly to herself. “Am Ah goin’ crazy over a whole lot o’ nothin’?”
“What’s that badge ya got there?!”
Applejack lightly gasped as she was startled and turned to the source of that voice. Standing beside the bench she sat on was a security guard — dressed in the standard uniform of navy blue pants, white shirt with a black tie, and a navy blue cap with a security badge on the front — with light pink skin and messy grey hair and a mustache on his face. Applejack saw the sternly serious look on his face, then glanced down at his hand and saw that it was pointing specifically to the macaroni art badge that Pinkie had given her. Upon realizing that, she awkwardly explained, “Oh! Uh… Y-Y-You see, it’s—”
“It’s a crime to fake security badges, you know!” scolded the security guard. “I’m a fake cop, but I can send ya to real jail!” He then held out his hand, silently demanding Applejack to hand over the badge.
Not wanting to make the situation any worse, Applejack stood up and handed over the badge as she carefully said, “Uh, if you’ll just let me explain, officer, Ah’m lookin’ for mah friend an’—”
“Shush!” the security guard demanded firmly as he swiped the badge out of Applejack’s hands. “Hands on your head! No suddenly moves! Got that?!”
Applejack had no choice but to immediately comply with the security guard’s demands. As she turned away and held her hands against the sides of her head, she couldn’t help but bitterly think, If this ends badly, then Ah swear Ah’ll get back at ya for this, Pinkie. Cupcake bribery ain’t gonna do ya any good this time.
While Applejack nervously held perfectly still, the security guard closely inspected the handmade macaroni art badge he had taken from her. After a few seconds, he suddenly smiled and remarked, “Well why didn’t ya tell me you were a Deputy Fun Inspector?”
With a confused expression on her face, Applejack immediately turned to the security guard, then narrowed her eyes and asked, “Seriously?”
The security guard stuck the handmade badge back onto Applejack and said in a more relaxed tone, “I am so sorry about that, ma’am. I can see you’re doing your rounds, so I might as well make up for this misunderstanding by giving you access to my workstation. Right this way, please.” He began to walk away as he gestured for Applejack to follow.
Either Pinkie Pie’s been spreadin’ crazy lies everywhere again, or this guy is just flat-out stupid, thought Applejack in disbelief as she shook her head and followed after the security guard.
After a short walk, the two minifigs arrived at a small building with no windows and only a single door. The security guard took out a key, unlocked the door, and then stepped inside. “Here you are, ma’am,” said the security guard as Applejack followed him into his workstation. “It hasn’t been fun inspected in years.”
Applejack wasn’t exactly the kind of person who was okay with going along with something that just wasn’t true under any circumstances, so she facepalmed and grumbled, “Ah’m tryin’ to tell ya, mah friend made this badge. It ain’t real.”
“Oh, an undercover Fun Inspector,” the security guard slyly replied. “I get it. Anyway, have fun ‘not inspecting’ my workstation. Wink, wink.” He winked twice at Applejack as he said that last part.
“How many times do Ah have to say it?” asked Applejack in exasperation.
The security guard simply walked past Applejack towards the door, turned back to wink twice more at her, then shut the door, leaving her alone inside his workstation.
Applejack rolled her eyes and grumbled under her breath, “Ugh, if Ah had to bet between Pinkie lyin’ or that guy bein’ dumb, Ah’d put mah money on both of ‘em at the same time.” She glanced around at the security workstation and her attention soon focused on the security monitors at the opposite side of the room from the door. She shrugged and muttered, “Well, no point in passin’ up an opportunity like this.”
Applejack sat down in the chair in front of the security monitors. She remembered all too well how poorly things had gone the last time she found herself in a security control room, so she decided to not touch anything and simply observe what was being displayed on the monitors. She glanced back and forth between each of the monitors, but then she focused her attention on one displaying the exterior of the hangar building when she saw Rainbow Dash walking alongside Vignette.
Vignette led Rainbow Dash around to the back of the hangar building as she continued speaking, “Rarity told me you’re the coolest, smartest friend who knows what’s the opposite of down. What’s up!”
Rainbow Dash chuckled and remarked, “True.”
Once they were completely out of sight of all the park guests, Vignette stopped walking and excitedly explained, “I have a bold new vision for the Rainbooms that you are going to love!”
Rainbow Dash frowned and raised an eyebrow as she asked, “You wanna change something about my band?”
“Just hear me out on this,” continued Vignette proudly. “I’m calling it The Throwbacks! Capital T, hashtag T.B.T., Throwback Today. Or for short, T.C.T.H.T.B.T, pronounced ‘ta-ca-ta-ca-ba-ta’!”
Rainbow Dash crossed her arms and muttered, “Yeah, I’m not buying it yet.”
“Oh, the best is yet to come,” continued Vignette. “You are going to represent the touchstones of cool throughout the ages.”
Rainbow Dash smiled and said, “Okay, now I’m starting to like it, and I assume I’ll like what you say next.”
Vignette made dramatic gestures as she declared, “Your role will be ‘Rainbow Dash: Fifties Sockhop Sweetheart’!”
Rainbow’s smile immediately fell. As far as she was concerned, that idea was the exact opposite of coolness.
Vignette blissfully continued, “Poodle skirt, adorable blond hair. Do you mind tossing that hair piece of yours? I only ask because I’ve already got an ideal replacement for you.”
“Uh, there is no way I’m losing this hair,” insisted Rainbow Dash as she ran her hand over her rainbow hair piece. “I can’t be Rainbow Dash without the ‘Rainbow’ part.”
Vignette glared at Rainbow. She just couldn’t believe that a second member of the band was also refusing to fully agree with her brilliant vision. Some might consider that a sign the idea might not be so good after all, but Vignette was so persistent to prove her greatness that backing off from any aspect of her vision was simply unthinkable. She decided to give Rainbow one last chance to change her mind by reminding her of her famous catchphrase. “B.Y.B.B.?”
“B.I.A.A.T.B. But I already am the best?” argued Rainbow. “Seriously, the Rainbooms are already awesome just the way we are. The fans are gonna wanna see us as us, and not as some cheap knockoff wannabes. Like my friend Applejack says, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’”
In the Lego World, calling someone or something a “cheap knockoff” was considered highly offensive, so of course Vignette did not take that accusation lightly. She huffed and grumbled, “Well if you insist on just, ugh, being your lame self or whatever, then at least let me take a picture of the real you.”
Before Rainbow had a chance to react, Vignette held up her magically enhanced phone and took a picture of her. This quickly transformed Rainbow Dash into a holographic image which was then pulled into the phone and vanished.
Back in the security room, Applejack had watched everything happen on that monitor. Although there wasn’t any audio to help her understand what was going on, there was no way she could deny the sight of Vignette’s phone somehow causing Rainbow Dash to suddenly vanish.
Applejack gasped in shock and exclaimed, “Vignette is zappin’ mah friends with a magical phone?! Ah knew she was up to somethin’! Just wasn’t expectin’ somethin’ so magic an’ evil…” As she watch Vignette walk away on the monitor, she muttered, “She makes ‘em disappear, but where did they go?”
Applejack tried to think of any possible reasons for why Vignette would do such a terrible thing to her friends, but then she shook her head and urgently said to herself, “What am Ah doin’? Thinkin’ about motives can wait. Ah gotta take action right away! Ah gotta warn the rest of mah friends before she does the same thing to all of ‘em!” She pulled out her phone to check the time and saw that it was starting to get close to four in the afternoon. “Good thing we agreed to meet up at a certain place an’ time, so Ah know exactly where to find ‘em.”
With no time to lose, Applejack got up out of the chair, walked out the door out of the security workstation, and began rushing towards the hangar where the parade was being prepared.
Meanwhile, in a featureless white room, the holographic image of Rainbow Dash suddenly materialized and transformed her back into a regular minifig. She glanced around in confusion and quickly noticed Fluttershy sitting on the floor. “Aw man!” she groaned. “Are we trapped in a magical phone?”
Fluttershy nodded without saying a word.
“Typical…” grumbled Rainbow. She looked around and soon saw the bowl full of spoiled salad. “I’m not eating that,” she muttered under her breath.
“Oh great, another one?” asked security guard Cranky Doodle, who was sitting on the floor behind Rainbow. “Unless you have reason to believe otherwise, I’d say Vignette is practically on a rampage at this point.”
Rainbow turned back to face the grouchy security guard and said, “She wants to turn our band into something she seems to think will be awesome, but any sane person would know is totally uncool.”
“And she thinks getting rid of you will solve her issues?” asked Cranky incredulously. He crossed his arms and grumbled, “There’s no way she can keep this up. Sooner or later, people are gonna get suspicious that we’ve gone missing, and when they realize Vignette was the last person seen with all of us, it won’t be long before they realize what’s really going on. Mark my words, it’s only a matter of time before someone puts a stop to Vignette’s rampage, one way or another.”
“But what’ll happen to us?” asked Fluttershy.
Cranky just shrugged and replied, “Beats me.”
Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash looked at each other worriedly. Neither of them could deny how scary it was to think that, being at the mercy of someone as selfish as Vignette, there might not even be a way for them to escape.