The prior evening to Gordon and Twilight's restoration of Burger Princess Shack, a contingent of Royal Guard had arrived in Ponyville. Their task was to arrest and escort alleged conspirators Red Skillet and Tulip back to the capital where they were to be personally interrogated by the Princess of the Moon herself. With the rumors of the Cult of Tirek emerging in Equestria, the Royal Sisters had to be certain that the older couple weren't involved themselves. Applejack and Rainbow Dash had them tied up and walked to the train station under close observation where a Royal Guard staff Sergeant took the suspects off their hooves. The train ride was only a few hours, but the ride felt more like years for the couple in question. It might as well have been. They arrived accordingly with minimal attention from the public there. Noble ponies had their noses in the metaphorical clouds and only a couple of the middle class that lived there took any notice of the procession. They were hauled into an armored, blacked-out carriage with steel bars across the windows and a thick magic resistant glass pane blocking off themselves from the driver ponies.
The Princesses were there at the central plaza to meet the guard squad amidst the tradeoff to the Castle's personal legion. Normally, the interrogation would be handled by the Royal Guard's punishment squad in the new above-ground precinct, but the princesses asked specially to intervene in this instance. If only to brush up their old skills from days long past.
"So how do you want to do this Lulu?" Celestia asked. "It's been quite a while since we've done any meaningful investigations into anything. This is a very serious matter. We must know the whereabouts of the last vestiges of the Cult of Tirek. Even if it's only a few small remnants, even if they are pathetically weak remnants, I'd rather not allow them to regain their former strength."
"With our education into Earthen media, I have a proposal. Good mare, bad mare. Apparently, it's the oldest game in their book, though they failed to mention the name of the book in question. I go in strong, and then you come in. We can make up the rest. First Red, and then Tulip. Even if they're innocent, we must know for certain. It's been too long since I've had any fun with potential enemies of the kingdom. "
"Hm. I think I can handle that," Celestia replied.
Red was tossed into a sterile room with an enchanted one-way mirror. A single table and two chairs were all that was provided. He gulped in apprehension, not liking where all of this was going but still glad he could bring his father's crimes to a proper conclusion. Sitting down with a thud, the silver chair scraped across the cement floor, screeching as it scratched and clung. Silence filled the room for a minute and all Red could hear was the sound of his own breathing.
Suddenly, the door burst open and the two royal sisters came in with guards visibly outside the room ready to pounce in at a moment's notice. Red had the urge to stand up out of his chair and bow to his true rulers, but their stoic expressions kept him still and silent. He felt his teeth stiffening and locking in place nervously, not wanting to so much as breath. Luna slowly walked over with a fire in her eyes.
"Listen you piece of dragon shit, it's just you and me and I'm gonna rip you apart!" Luna growled.
She pushed the chair backward and leaned it back against the wall so Red was staring up into her eyes, shadowed even more by the light of the room. Her Canterlot voice in this tiny room without the proper acoustics was given a unique sound.
"WHERE ARE YOUR ASSOCIATES FROM THE CULT? HUH!?!!? ARE YOU WORKING FOR THEM NOW??!?"
Red was beginning to panic. He looked to Princess Celestia. The loving, caring, compassionate ruler of Equestria. Surely she would listen to his story.
"May I please talk to you, your majesty? You look reasonable!" he pleaded.
She appeared to merely be staring at her hooficure vainly and pulled out a file absent-mindedly tending to them. Blank-faced and innocent for a couple of seconds amid Luna's protests, but snapped completely without warning as she levitated Red onto the table, and leaped up, banging her head against the ceiling light. It swung back and forth creating a rather epileptic atmosphere.
"YOU WANT TO TALK TO ME? DO YOU WANT TO TALK TO ME? HUH? I'M GONNA MAKE YOU EAT A PLATE OF HUMAN SHIT!"
She went insane screaming and throwing the table and chair around all over the room, shattering the one-way mirror and tackling Red to the ground in a heap of wings and fur. Luna trying to pull her sister back jumped into the pile herself, making things worse.
Luna and Celestia were breathing sighs of relief back outside, finally calming down, as they walked down one side of the precinct courtyard. She was unnaturally calm, despite the prior interaction.
"I'm sorry Luna. I saw how much fun you were having being aggressive and I thought...Wow, that's good. I gotta go even bigger than that since we were doing bad mare, bad mare."
"What??? Where did you get that idea? I said good mare, bad mare. I'm the bad mare, you're the good mare."
"Ok, then there it is," she replied sweetly. "Hoo, that was fun! That escalated quickly. I mean really got out of hoof fast!"
"Sister, you are one crazy old mare. Take a look at the results of the mind probe I snuck into Red."
Luna materialized a tall stack of reports with a flash of blue light and floated them over to Celestia who grabbed them and scanned through each of them quickly. She flipped through them like a flipbook darting her eyes faster than her younger sister could track.
"I still have no idea how you can do that. Who did you say taught you that again?"
"Just a certain ruggedly charming stallion with curly gray hair, a very sexy Trottish accent, and a talent for guitars and magic screwdrivers."
"Oh yes, one of your many cosmic boyfriends, of course," Luna rolled.
As Celestia finished reading the reports, her face went back to neutral, but concerned.
"He really doesn't know..." Celestia concluded.
"Yes, I came to that conclusion as well. It seems Clay Skillet didn't believe Red was worthy enough to be trusted with a deeper knowledge of their organization. Though, I have an idea as to whom might have that information."
"Tulip?"
"Precisely."
Into the next few hours, the guards outside the bottom floor of Tulip Skillet's interrogation cell could swear to their wives and foals they saw gallons of milk and gumdrops leaking out of the room while nursery rhymes were being shrieked in the Canterlot Royal Voice. All present made an unspoken agreement to never speak of the horrors that they witnessed that day. The sugary, sweet horrors.
"RUN, RUN, RUN, AS FAST AS YOU DARE! YOU CAN'T CATCH ME! I'M THE GINGERBREAD MARE!!!"
Back in Ponyville, Gordon and Twilight were taking the day off, relaxing from the stress of their most exhausting nightmare to date. Everyone had woken up once again in the luxurious confines of Friendship Castle. Gordon's room was still simple and only had a bed, end table, lamp, and alarm clock, but it was comfortable enough for him. He idly thought about buying some books to expand his knowledge of Equestria's various flora and fauna. In that same way, he needed to think about their next outing and what kind of subject matter they were going to tackle.
He put on some casual clothes and went downstairs, finding everyone already eating in the dining hall. The striking red banners and tablecloths in this room contrasted well with the castle's cooler violet crystals. It gave off a royal air that Gordon was still impressed with. Spike was the first to see him walk into the hall and waved to him. The other girls including Goldie and Gilda were seated at the table, eating and conversing with one another. Bowls of fruit, pancakes, waffles, muffins, bread, scones, and jams sat scattered about the table while the ponies absent-mindedly ate. Gordon saw what was most likely their equivalent to hash browns on their plates along with sizable stacks of pancakes and eggs prepared differently for each pony.
"Howdy do Gordon! Good mornin!" Applejack exclaimed.
"Good morning sleepy head!" Pinkie chimed in.
Rainbow, Spike, and Gilda only perked up and waved their hoof and claw simultaneously in greeting while mumbling something with their mouths full of food. Goldie, Rarity, and Fluttershy greeted him last, daintily and politely as they could.
"Sorry if I missed anything ladies, I really needed a full night's sleep after the past few days," Gordon apologized.
"That's alright. You looked so exhausted. We only got here thirty minutes ago anyway," Fluttershy consoled.
"Yeah, I heard about that," Gilda replied. "Some Far South Eastern hicks turned traitor right?"
Rarity coughed delicately coughed awkwardly at the griffon's phrasing but reiterated.
"Lord Tirek's supporters as it were, but yes."
"Scary stuff."
"C'mon down here Gordon! I have your food and coffee ready to go!" Spike announced.
Gordon smiled kindly at the little drake who was pulling out a chair for him as he approached. He patted the boy on the head who soaked up the praise.
"Why thank you, Spike! I'll take you up on that!"
"Your welcome! That's what I'm here for!"
The human sat down to his extensive breakfast, including a bowl of fruit, a small stack of pancakes, a small pile of scrambled eggs, and some real hash browns. All accompanied by a nicely sized cup of earthy, rich-smelling coffee which he drank heartily. The warmth went down his throat and all the way down to his toes as he finally felt the sleepiness going away.
Twilight put her newspaper down and looked at Gordon, finally greeting him with a smile.
"Oh! I didn't notice you were here Gordon! Sorry about that." Twilight apologized. "I must have been zoning out."
"You're fine. Just glad to have the company. What are you looking over exactly though?"
"Reports on hundreds of businesses trying to get us to look them over. Some are probably just looking for the attention and the press. But I see a lot of these that legitimately might be good for us." she said. "But I believe it's time for us to mix things up."
"How so?"
"You mentioned one of your other shows? The one we talked about on the way back from Griffonstone."
"Oh yes!" Gordon exclaimed. "Did you want to move on to that for the moment?"
Twilight nodded and drank her tea and folded the newspaper neatly, levitating it back onto the table.
"Yes, but we need a good place to start. Do you have your gear for that show?" Twilight asked.
"Never leave home without them," he joked. "Our camera equipment could use a good cleaning though. That hike left a couple of our cameras in poor shape."
"Rarity and I can handle that. She may not be as familiar with technology as I am, but she does have a concept of cleaning delicate objects."
Spike came back into the room and sat down in one of the chairs with a blueberry muffin in his claws.
"I don't know how your electric ones work, but do you have a studio to give those cameras to?" Spike asked. "I'd imagine that you would need to if Earth is going to see your show."
"That's good vigilance on that, my boy," Gordon complimented. "Yes, we have Fox and ITV Studios. We'll need to go back to Earth to broadcast the footage, but we don't have to worry about that for a while."
"Why not?"
"It usually takes a few months for post-production on a full season of the show." Jay jumped in. "Even then, tv stations have to properly schedule time slots for each episode premiere."
"A time slot?" Spike asked.
"Basically it means that since there are already thousands of tv shows on every station and network, the network has to properly plan out which one is shown and when during the day. The slots are the periods of time that the shows or movies are shown. Primetime, what we might be aiming for is between 7 PM to 11 PM. Just after dinner for most people."
Twilight giggled and clapped her hooves in delight, wanting to see what kind of organizational process the networks use for such a practice. She materialized a notebook and scribbled down everything she heard. Jay went through the arduous tasks of post-production in media such as editing, financing, localizing, merchandising, captioning for the audience, etc.
"Knowing how much you filmed, I will definitely have to go back to Earth with you and your team Gordon. Do you have people you can trust back home? For the time being, the four princesses including me have to be very strict about what goes to and from Earth."
"Oh sure. Yeah, I know a few people who can pull some strings." Gordon stated. "We haven't quite reached a season length of episodes yet though. So we won't have to worry about Postproduction for a while."
"That's good for our purposes. However, I do have an idea to sate the curiosity of everyone on Earth."
"What's that?"
"Something Applejack could help with."
"What's that sugar? I don't know all that much about that fancy human television." the golden earth pony questioned.
"Oh! I know! I know! I know!" Pinkie chattered. "A concert! You want to do a concert!"
"You talking about Rara? I guess I could call that girl up and see what she thinks. I'll do my best to hook you up if it will help Gordon."
"Who?" Gordon asked.
"Ah yes! Countess Coloratura." Rarity surmised.
Twilight ignited her horn and showed Gordon an image of the mare in question. A white unicorn with a dark-colored mane and a colorful cutie mark.
"She's our newest music idol. From what I understand, Earth is familiar with that process." Twilight explained.
"We just say singer or star, It's more Japan and Korea that says idol."
"We solved a friendship problem between her and Applejack not too long ago," Fluttershy added.
"She did have a pretty grouchy manager," Pinkie justified.
"Haven't been much into singing," Gilda mumbled. "But I guess I'm gonna have to get used to that living here."
"It gets easier after a while," Rainbow encouraged the griffin.
"You want to use a concert...to promote the next show and you want us to film it?" Gordon asked. "You can do that?"
Applejack, looking proud of herself lifted her head proudly into the air with a whiff of superiority.
"You kidding? Rara will get those humans back at yer home eating out of her hooves by the time she's done with them," Applejack preened.
"I don't know...a concert for a reality show about cleaning and restoring hotels sounds a bit much."
"Oh come on!" Pinkie exclaimed. "It'll be fun! I can finally try out my new Sax a Boom!"
"Don't forget Gordon. This isn't just for your show." Twilight reminded. "Our service and farming industry has gotten unusually lazy as of late. Whether it's because of the constant threat of monsters and villains, naivety, arrogance, or just overall laziness. That in turn has been passed to other ponies whether its getting sick, injured, or just passing on the negative aspects of the places they eat or sleep at. Numerous pandemics and famines have popped up from this and it's hurting us badly. This has evolved far beyond just normal friendship problems."
"Well, I certainly do what I can to help," Gordon affirmed. "You've been quite nice to be around."
Gordon was thoroughly impressed by the ideas these girls were putting his way. Just knowing how much pull these girls had in their land just by solving "friendship problems". A concept that he wished could make things easier back on Earth. If what she was saying was true, then of course, he would do his best to help. He still had doubts about the concert, but if it got him more business in Equestria, and back on Earth, he supposed that it would do more good than harm. The most it would do was harm his gruff, serious persona in the eyes of the public.
'Oh, fuck it. I should lighten up a bit. I mean, I've done silly things before for Disney.' Gordon thought reminiscing about his sketch with The Muppets.
"We do however have some precedent for going back to Earth. Your team recorded a lot of Ponyville and the inside of the Castle. So I will need to follow you back to Earth for security reasons. The Princess was very clear on the restrictions between Equis and Earth." Twilight explained.
That made sense to the human. He knew that more than several parties in both dimensions would be more than willing to cause trouble. So limiting knowledge and heavily watching anything being sent back and forth wasn't without precedent.
"Sure, we can do that. Jay will run you through the editing process back at the office," Gordon agreed.
"After that, we'll give that "footage" to your media as just a small taste. This is a diplomatic exchange too. We have to give up something."
"Sounds like a really big hassle if you ask me," Gilda commented as she threw another muffin into her beak.
"We could take a small trip back," Gordon suggested. "I don't mind."
Everyone's attention was on the human and they looked at each other, liking the idea.
"Do you think I could come along this time Twilight?" Rainbow asked. "I wanna see their crazy weather."
"I suppose a trip there couldn't hurt. Just to let my family know everything is alright." Gordon agreed.
"Think you could hand me something to write on and with Twi? Rara will probably want the scoop on everything," Applejack asked.
The alicorn nodded and materialized writing materials which the earth pony grabbed. Everyone marveled at just how fast Applejack filled up the entire piece of paper within only a couple of seconds. Her head appeared to be vibrating with the quill in her teeth. She made what looked like her signature at the bottom, and in one fluid movement, licked the envelope, folded the letter, and whipped it into the envelope. She handed it over to the dumbstruck alicorn who grabbed it in her magical grasp.
"Can all ponies do that?" Gordon and Gilda asked in unison.
"I taught her!" Pinkie offered.
"Yeah, you'd be surprised how exhausting writing well over a thousand letters a dozen times a year can get." Applejack groaned. "Especially with a family like the Apples. Pink taught me to do it fast."
"You ponies seriously need to develop email and develop it fast." he chuckled.
Gilda and Goldie coughed politely into their claws to get everyone's attention. Gordon and Rainbow looked at them first.
Gilda scratched her front-facing crest nervously and appeared to be blushing through her feathers.
"Do you think, ya know. Is it okay if Gold and I can...uh...come?" she asked.
"You want to come to Earth with us?" Twilight replied.
"Yeah...that. Sorry. Not used to asking favors yet."
"We just wish to finally see the human world if that is quite alright with you your majesty," Goldie said properly. "If you will allow it that is."
Twilight and Gordon smiled and agreed, not seeing any harm in the suggestion. Pinkie and Rainbow smiled dangerously at each other as if coming up with an evil scheme. Pinkie moved off somewhere and came back, wearing an Aclopuco shirt and a pair of Wonderbolt glasses. She placed the same on Gilda, including a bucket hat and a long bubble cigarette. The action deeply disturbed the hen, but not as much as the way Pinkie talked. She even turned off somewhere a few times, insisting it was an unseen audience.
"Just follow us closely kid," Pinkie said in a husky voice. "We'll show you the Equestrian Dream, and Ponk...Journalism.
A week later...
It had been a few weeks since Chef Gordon Ramsay had been invited to Equestria by Princess Twilight Sparkle herself and the whole Earth was in an uproar of speculation as to what he was experiencing. Most hypotheses' were outlandish and over the top, of course, being the fact that nobody had ever seen Equestria yet. Gordon's family in South London were worried the most. Gordon had told his wife Tana and his children that he was taking a trip somewhere strange. Tana didn't think anything of it, as her husband's international escapades were accepted and expected. But interdimensional travel with a pastel-colored unicorn with wings? A little hard to swallow, to say the least. Their children asked Tana so many questions that she had no answer to.
That night, Tana and the kids came in as usual and she prepared dinner after another busy day. Jack and Oscar were causing a ruckus, the girls were busy with their studies. Comfortable noise she considered it to be. Her cooking, while not as good as her husband's, was still quite masterful. Being around such a world-class chef for so long, she was bound to have some of his skills rub off on her. She turned on the TV to the BBC, expecting to hear the usual garbage going on in the world. Instead, though, she got something strange.
"Princess Twilight Sparkle and Chef Gordon Ramsay have returned to Earth! This just in!"
Tana nearly panicked as she dropped the knife in surprise, barely jumping out of the way before it hit the ground. She ran into the living room and called their children. They all gathered together to watch the news unfold.
"Just this morning, Chef Gordon Ramsay and the alien Princess Twilight Sparkle spontaneously returned to Earth. While she could not comment on one of our correspondents, Princess Twilight had informed the media that she is here to edit and allow footage to Earth of her country Equestria. Jay Hunter, Gordon's Ramsay's director has made a statement that he wishes to not only release the footage but release a trailer in just a moment regarding the Chef's new show in Equestria."
The phone suddenly rang, shaking Tana out of her mesmerized state, and ran over, grabbing their house phone off of the wall.
"Tana are you there?" a familiar voice asked.
"Gordon? Thank God! We were starting to get worried. We just saw on the news!"
"Hey Dad!" the kids called excitedly.
Gordon laughed good-naturedly through the phone.
"Yeah, sorry about that. The past few weeks have been a little...complicated," he admitted.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm better than fine! The portal was a little dicey back and forth, but Twilight here helped me through it all."
"Making friends with the alien princess already? Jeez, you really do get around," Tana chuckled while breathing out a sigh of relief.
Gordon explained what they were doing back and Las Vegas. Some of it is ordinary business and some of it was introducing two more Equestrians. Griffons this time to Earth. With comedically mixed results, but he felt uncomfortable mentioning those results to his wife and kids.
"Equestria is quite the place! A little strange, but everyone is friendly enough."
"We're sure glad to hear that."
"I have to head back in a week, but thankfully Twilight thinks the portal is safe enough for us to travel consecutively back and forth. So we don't need to worry about that anymore."
"I definitely have a LOT of questions for you love."
Gordon went through the events of his extra-dimensional trip since first setting foot in Equestria. Regaling all of the madness and the idiosyncrasies of the ponies that lived there. She gasped a couple of times hearing about some of his injuries from the...less than cordial inhabitants of the magical land. Though she was glad to hear that he had plenty of protection and help along the way.
"I think Jay's little project will explain everything. You might be in for a little bit of a shock," Gordon chuckled.
As if the TV was responding to his voice, the newscast moved to something new.
"The BBC has just received a copy of the hour-long edited footage of Equestria," the anchor lady announced. "Ladies and gentleman of Earth, let us all marvel at this new world."
The footage was relatively standard to Gordon, having seen much of Ponyville already. For his wife and daughters, however, everything was absolutely astounding. Equestria was quite beautiful to their credit, and he shared the kinds of reactions they are having now. He could imagine everyone was too. Twilight led the cameramen through the "known" parts of the castle since she had only just discovered 25 percent of it. The other 75 percent of the castle was a complete mystery to the alicorn. Being told the castle grew out of the ground from a solid crystal tree didn't make it any easier to understand.
"Now, I'll show you the Friendship Council Throne Room," Twilight proudly stated. "It was created by our "power source" when I fulfilled a requirement as Princess."
She went up a few flights of stairs and down a few more corridors until they reached a cavernous room Gordon had only seen once before. The six crystal thrones with each of their respective cutie marks encircled a massive stone table with strange markings on it.
"This is where my fellow royals and I conduct meetings and discuss the various conflicts and problems that plague Equestria. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna manage the country as a whole along with bigger problems. While we manage the nation on a micro-scale and deal with conflicts before they occur. We define those smaller conflicts as "friendship problems" which is almost always the basis. Sometimes though, we do deal with monsters and "terrorists" as I believe humans call their villains."
Back at the office in Las Vegas, Gordon realized Twilight left out explaining the magical "conflict detecting" map in the middle of the room, which was probably for the best. He could only imagine how many paranoid nations and news organizations would take that.
It went on like this for the better part of an hour, cutting to different times and places. It was in Ponyville, they handled the unusual human guests a little better than in other places. However somewhere like Canterlot, where ponies noticeably had an awkward time introducing themselves through the glass nosed black boxes some hairless ape was pointing at them. Some handled it better than others. Fancy Pants and Fleur De Lis, enraptured by the new technology ate up everything and listened to their instructions. Gordon was quite glad that those two were very open minded ponies.
One pony who introduced herself as Lyra Heartstrings had a chair already angled away from the camera like a proper interview and told the cameramen to stand in a specific spot. Everyone could hear her arguing with somepony else in the background as she levitated a chair into the frame and sat down on it like a human. She crossed her hind legs in a "comfortable" human position she had heard about. The result was quite humorous for everyone back on Earth.
"She's so cute!" Tana cooed.
Nearing the last twenty minutes, the shots cut to Canterlot Castle and its grand architecture. To say that many people watching were amazed by it was an understatement. Twilight's Castle and Canterlot Castle were implausible feats that one might see out of a child's fantasy book. Here they were though, larger than life and real for all to see. Gordon realized that much of that footage in particular was taken when he visited Canterlot for the first time. This is probably why music took up the audio for the majority of the segment. Soon enough, the main throne room was shown and the audience was introduced to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna who graciously took the time to take small interviews from Jay.
"Greetings Earth, I am Princess Celestia." Celestia greeted.
"And we are Princess Luna," Luna greeted. "We were certainly surprised when our fellow Princess Twilight discovered that we were certainly not alone in the cosmos."
"Or that the beings she discovered were a wonderful, charming race," Celestia glowed. "I certainly hope we can continue to talk and expand our relations in the future."
As the pleasantries went on, the footage soon ran out and their first look into Equestria had come to an end. The shot moved back to the anchorwoman who smiled and kept her cool as best as she could.
"That was certainly quite the astonishing sight. We shall keep you updated and try to seek more footage from Princess Twilight. Now though, both the Princess and Gordon Ramsay have something special planned for you all which we shall show in just a moment."
After a quick commercial break, the broadcast came back and she introduced the video as it began to play.
It showed various clips from her husbands' many shows throughout the years. The narrator was the same one her husband had been using for many of his shows, including Kitchen Nightmares. Their daughters were cheering for their father with every shot.
"Chef Gordon Ramsay has battled poor conditions and poor cooking the world over, Traveled to the four corners of the globe, learned recipes from countless cultures, and has been a stalwart teacher of cooking in the next generation. As well as providing awareness for endangered animals."
The image shifted to a crane shot of him standing side by side with the Princess, just outside Hell's Kitchen. The pony was smiling warmly at the camera while Gordon was stoic and strong as always.
"Now, for the first time, Chef Gordon Ramsay is taking a trip to the other side of reality. To a brand new world, with new Nightmares and Hells to tackle. Princess Twilight's land has come overrun with an epidemic of food sickness and sanitation problems. How will these ponies handle our human atom bomb? We have a quarter of a season done with one show, but I think it's time we switch to something all know very well."
Strange static came and a visual of a swirling vortex filled the screen, along with humanoid forms stretching and spinning along endless streams of color. When the image finally cleared up, Gordon and Twilight were walking through the long dark corridors of some castle at night. A song Tana knew too well began playing in the background. Following behind were nightmarishly adorable bat-winged ponies carrying spears and showing their pearly white teeth to the camera. All around, debris and navy blue flames were falling, giving the environment quite the hellish vibe. A taller blue mare wearing a black cloak, trying to be intimidating, gave Gordon a glowing red key with a double H H. Tana held back a laugh, knowing what kind of madness was coming. When the Princess and Gordon entered a room with all manner of eldritch horrors, the screen drastically switched to a wide shot of a stage.
Some strangely dressed white pony with a dual-colored mane was strutting along the stage with backup dancers. Lights of different colors gleamed, illuminating the stage in an eerie rainbow. Tarantulas and snakes crawling and slithering all over the stage. It was a split second, but she swore she saw a little yellow and pink mare catch the spiders before they fell off the stage. All around, tesla coils blasted lighting over the stage that seemed to enhance the mare's singing. Her voice was beautiful, but all of the additions made her sound hilariously domineering. The crowd of ponies all around her in the stadium were screaming in jubilation at her every word.
Thursday is pay-day so I thought I'd have some fun
Go down to the hotel and find me some action
They say that's where it happens
They say that's where it's at
But when I paid the doorman I knew I'd smelt a rat
The band playing in the corner maybe Clopton, Buck, or Jimi
No one seemed to care much someone said it sounded tinny
Well so much for the good time then the rat began to smell
I knew I'd hit the middle of Hotel Hell
I headed for the mare's room feeling like a long lost pup
But it was overcrowded with fillies all throwing up
So I crossed my legs and went back to the bar
Someone trapped my shoulder
Hey they just ripped off your chariot
So much for the good time so much for the fun
So much for my Chevy, I shoulda brought my hun!!!!!!!!
When the mare hit the high note, fountains of fire, lava, and sparks poured out of the stage and into a pool below.
Hotel, Hotel Hell stand aside everybody I'm gonna rebel
Hotel, Hotel Hell if you think the beer is rotten
You should see the clientele
At that stanza, a fifty-foot screen materialized behind the stage replaying the "hallway scene" everyone had just witnessed.
When I got back you know my chariot had been smashed
I went back inside to get my paycheck cashed
Some mare came up to me and said
How about a chat
Like to read some poetry or maybe paint my flat
She said I like your body but gee I hate your face
When it gets dark enough come over to my place
So much for the good time see you later Jezabel
Show me to the door I gotta leave this Hotel Hell
I saw Frankenstein, Gargantua, and Eskimo Hell
Down at this place they call Hotel Hell
Someone stole my trousers and tore off my lapel
At this place out in the suburbs called Hotel Hell!!!!
As the music started to quiet down for the moment, until just the drums were playing, a pink mare with frizzy hair came out playing a saxophone solo. Her saxophone though looked more like a toy. It was certainly smaller and completely yellow with a purple mouthpiece and noticeably bigger buttons going down the neck.
When Thursday comes around you know I'm staying home
Yes I've learn't my lesson there's no way I'm gonna roam
From the room above the laundromat on the dirty side of town
When the fridge is always full and the beers not watered down
Where they never lock their cars or punch each other heads
Spike your drinks with mandies or try to sell you reds
Where Clopton, Buck, and Jimi are jamming in the sun
And the girls are very friendly I think I'll get me one
You know I've had a good time drinking my moselle
Forget about this place they call Hotel Hell
Hotel, Hotel Hell bad place to visit and a rotten place to dwell
Hotel, Hotel Hell ain't nothing like there ain't no parallel
The entire stadium erupted into roars of applause and cheers and the singer pony bowed to the audience and bowed to the camera in the background.
"Hey, ponies of Equestria! Why don't we give applause for those nice humans on Earth?" the mare called out. "I hope you folks over there enjoyed this!"
Everypony roared even louder as they turned around to the camera and waved vigorously as an iris shrank into the screen and everything faded out.
When the shot moved back to the anchorwoman, she was noticeably stunned and at a complete loss for words. Needless to say, everyone else around the world was the same. In a single moment, that day the Earth really did standstill. Silence permeated out into the void of space. Until that too cracked and for that day, every human on Earth cheered for what was to come. Everyone responded to the broadcast with their own roars of jubilation.
Gordon himself didn't know what this would do to their respective worlds, but he was glad in that moment that the madness was working in his favor.
Next Time: Hotel Hell Prologue: Drunk Griffons and Helpful Zebras