Villa Del Pony
The farewell party was coming to an end after several hours of partying and goodbyes.
Don Cider trotted over to Rosita and hugged her, he was going to miss his daughter, but her happiness was what mattered the most for him.
"Are you sure you want to go Rosita?" Don Cider asked as Rosita broke the embrace and started packing her stuff for the journey.
"Yeppity! I've always wanted to go to the capital! It will be so much fun!" Rosita looked up from her saddlebags. "Don't worry dad, I'll bring you something when I get back!"
Don Cider smiled and hugged his daughter one last time.
"Just be careful Rosita."
Rosita nodded eagerly and placed her, overly full, saddlebags on her back, then with a wave to the rest of the ponies that had attended the party, pretty much all of the village, she trotted off down the path to the the capital, Arcoiris and Diana where already waiting for her.
Don Cider looked at the departing mares as a single tear rolled down his face and disappeared in his thick mustache.
"Be careful..."
His whisper lost in the wind.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Arena Caliente Desert, an hour after the party
"Rock!"
"Paper!"
"AGH! You win again!"
Diana crossed her forelegs as her wings kept her in the air, the furious match of rock, paper, scissors had been going on for a full hour and no clear winner had emerged up until then.
"Don't worry Diana, best out of six hundred and forty five?" Rosita smiled happily as her hoof rose up into the air, challenging her opponent to a rematch of the gods.
"You're on!" Diana smiled and her hoof shot out in response to the challenge.
Hooves shook, sweat ran, blood...
um...
well, no blood. But they were really concentrated though!
Arcoiris had been walking in front of the two mares who were still locked in fierce combat. The cupcake frosting on her wings was still giving her a bad time and she still couldn't fly, but at least she could walk.
"Hey not fair! You cheated!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
Arcoiris's eye twitched slightly, it was bad enough they had been at it for over an hour, but now they had to start shouting? At least it couldn't get any worse... Right?
Several hours passed as the mares crossed the desert, the brutal battle between Rosita and Diana had subsided into a draw, neither mare wanting to continue.
Arcoiris looked up to the sky, it was getting dark.
"Let's stop here for the night." Arcoiris dropped her saddlebags and started to build a fire.
Rosita and Diana collapsed to the ground, utterly exhausted.
"Phew! Finally! I thought my wings would fall off if I didn't rest!" Diana sat down on a broken log and started munching on a muffin, but not before staring at it as if it were a god.
"Silly Diana, muffins can't compare to this!" Rosita pulled out a cupcake from her saddlebag, the treat perfectly baked with a crunchy exterior and the softest bread on the inside, the delicious vanilla frosting perfectly sprinkled and molded, a bright succulent cherry on top completed the mirage of sweetness and god-like trance.
Diana, however, was not pleased by the statement.
"Pffft! My muffin is ten times better than any cupcake!" She crossed her forelegs and glared at the cupcake.
"Oh really? Because my cupcake is twenty times better than any muffin!" Rosita glared at the muffin as she held her cupcake above her head.
Arcoiris was too tired for any of that nonsense, she wasn't used to walking and her legs ached all over.
"Guys, cut it out, they're just bread..."
Poor Arcoiris had no idea of what sort of monsters her comment had just released.
Silence followed the statement, not the awkward kind of silence you get when you ask a mare out in front of her grandparents while wearing a duck costume.
This was an evil kind of silence...
Arcoiris had been laying on her back, eyes closed, feeling relaxed. Then the silence hit her.
She opened one eye then the other, as she sat up to see what was going on, a chill went down her spine, cold sweat dampened her forehead and fear shook her bones.
The pink and the grey mare were looking at her, no, not at her, they were looking into her. Their gazes penetrated deep into her very soul.
"Just..." Rosita began.
"... bread?" Diana finished.
Arcoiris simply sat there, completely terrified as the two mares slowly approached, murder in their eyes.
Arcoiris was paralyzed, in her frightened state of mind she prayed to every god and goddess she had ever heard of, all to no avail.
Rosita was a few steps away from her while Diana hovered just behind her.
"Just bread huh?" The pink pony smiled.
"I think we may be able to convince you to think otherwise..." Diana placed her hooves on Arcoiris's shoulders preventing her from moving.
Arcoiris then realized what was about to happen, she tried to wriggle free of Diana's hold but she was too tired and the pegasus was stronger than she looked, Rosita got closer until their faces were right in front of the other.
"No! Don't do this! I don't wanna hear it! I won't!" Arcoiris covered her ears with her hooves but she heard it anyway.
"All you have to do is take a cup of flour, add it to the mix." Rosita began singing the infamous cupcake song and Diana continued.
"Now just take a little something sweet, not sour, a bit of salt, just a pinch." Diana's smile grew as the song progressed.
"Baking these treats is such a cinch, add a teaspoon of vanilla" Both mares began dancing in front of Arcoiris as Rosita sang the following verse.
"Add a little more, and you count to four, and you never get your filla" By now Arcoiris could barely maintain her sanity, the song rang across her brain in the same manner a something rings across something else...
Then the chorus followed, Diana and Rosita were lost in their singing and Arcoiris's cries for mercy fell on deaf ears.
"Cupcakes -- so sweet and tasty
Cupcakes -- don't be too hasty
Cupcakes -- cupcakes, cupcakes, CUPCAKES!" Both mares finished their song with their forelegs waving in the air and enormous smiles on their faces, Arcoiris, however, was not amused.
"Do NOT do that again..." She was exhausted just from listening, a headache was developing on the back of her head and the rash in her wings got itchier.
Diana and Rosita grinned and sat down beside the fireplace they had built a while back.
The following minutes went by relatively peacefully.
Until a lasso shot out from nowhere and wrapped itself around Rosita's neck.
"What the-!" Rosita was then pulled away by the mysterious rope.
"Headshot!" Diana hoof pumped into the air before another lasso wrapped itself around her legs and dragged her off into the darkness.
Arcoiris heard her two friends scream, she swiftly took out her six shooter and looked sideways, expecting a third rope to dart out at any moment.
Sure enough the lasso emerged from behind a cacti, rushing at full speed towards the rainbow maned pegasus.
Arcoiris dodged swiftly and emptied a chamber of her gun in the direction of her attacker.
"WHOA!" As the sweet projectile pierced through the cacti and smacked into a rock, a high pitched scream was heard from behind said rock.
Arcoiris was slightly puzzled by the sound of her attackers voice, it sounded... Childish...
"Get her! She has a gun!" Another voice, now from behind a cacti.
Arcoiris turned around again, but she didn't shoot this time, It was a filly's voice.
"Who are you? Come out!" Arcoiris tried to fly but the frosting on her wing made it impossible.
As she fell to the ground another voice screamed and a little orange filly with purple mane charged at her from the shadow of a large rock.
Arcoiris evaded the charging filly and looked in the direction where she had come from, Diana was lying there, struggling to get free of the rope that tied her legs.
Arcoiris then turned back at the filly that had tried to attack her, she was running back for another try.
She would have evaded the charge again, if not for a small white unicorn.
As Arcoiris prepared to move away from the orange filly, she felt something jump on her back.
"What the hay?!" Arcoiris tried to move but a sudden pain stopped her as the orange filly smashed, headfirst, into her stomach.
She fell on her back and dropped her gun.
The now three fillies, a yellow one with a ribbon on her head joined in after Arcoiris fell, all jumped up on her and tried to tie down her legs and wings.
"Get off! Get off! Get off!" Arcoiris swung her legs around in an effort to break free of her attackers, to no avail. The fillies were too many, Diana and Rosita kept on trying to free themselves but the knots on the ropes that bound them were too well made.
"Stop moving so much!" The small white unicorn complained as she tried to tie down her legs.
"Hold her down Dulce! Ah just need some more time to tie down her wings!" The yellow earth pony with the ribbon on her head had slipped a rope behind Arcoiris's wings and was trying to keep her from flailing them.
"I got it!" The orange filly then smacked Arcoiris behind her head with a wooden scooter.
Arcoiris made what could probably have been the funniest pain face a pony could make before passing out.
The orange filly smiled widely, proud of her success.
"What?" Speed Devil asked as her two friends stared at her with open mouths.
"Why in tha hay would you do that!?" Retoño swung her forelegs in the air as Dulce continued to stare.
"Well, she wouldn't stop moving! What was I supposed to do?"
"Not that!"
"Whatever... Lets just take their stuff and go..."
Speed Devil rolled her eyes and walked over to Rosita, who just glared at her while growling menacingly.
"Um... Isn't it wrong to steal their things?" Dulce Bella asked fearfully as she glanced at a glaring Diana.
"Do ya want ta get your cutie mark or not?" Retoño tried to sound determined but failed, she also didn't like the idea of stealing, it was the same feeling they felt when they tried their hoofs at being reporters, lucky for them the presidente wasn't too angry for the whole cake expropriation story they made up...
"Y-yeah... It's the only... Way..." Speed Devil was also wavering by now.
They were not bad ponies.
Rosita stopped glaring for a second as doubt covered Speed Devil's face.
The orange filly was now right in front of Rosita's saddlebags, they were full of stuff and it was her's for the taking.
Sweat ran down her forehead as her hoof opened the bag.
Dulce and Retoño gasped as their friend did something none of the present ponies thought she would do.
Speed Devil closed the saddlebags and untied Rosita.
The orange filly sat down and looked at the floor with a sad expression on her face.
"I'm sorry..." Tears began to form in her eyes as Rosita stood up.
Speed Devil felt a hoof on her shoulder and looked up.
There, face against the setting sun, portraying a protecting shadow that covered Speed's face, stood Rosita with a forgiving smile.
"No prob! Just don't do it again ok?" Rosita smiled and walked off towards Diana who was now smiling as well.
Neither mare could hold a grudge for too long and all three fillies apologized a lot. Arcoiris on the other hand... Well, it was a good thing she was unconscious...
The three fillies then helped untie Diana and carried Arcoiris back to her sleeping bag.
"What are three fillies doing out here in the desert anyway?" Diana asked as she pulled a snoring Arcoiris back to the camp.
"Yeah! Shouldn't you three be in school?" Rosita said as she hopped up and down around the unconscious mare, trying to reanimate her.
The cutie mark crusaders looked at each other nervously, they couldn't reveal their secret cutie mark mission! They had to think of a cover story quickly!
"Um... Vacation!" Dulce was the first to come up with her story.
"Field trip!" That was Retoño...
"Alien abduction!" Speed waved her hooves in the air for emphasis.
Retoño and Dulce facehooved immediately as their friend spoke, there was no way the mares would believe her...
"No way!"
"What did they look like!?"
Rosita and Diana rushed over to the orange filly's side and began questioning her.
Retoño and Dulce facehooved once more and then rushed over to Arcoiris to keep her from sliding downhill.
Speed, now overwhelmed by the avalanche of questions from the two mares, tried to slowly back away.
"Um... Yeah... Four eyes... Sure..." She said as the questions rushed out of the mare's mouths.
"Wait! But did they have lasers and, and, and, and?!?" Rosita was ecstatic with curiosity.
"How did their muffins look like though?!? Did you see their muffins?!?" Guess who asked this one...
The two other fillies giggled as they slowly dragged Arcoiris back to their fireplace and began roasting marshmallows and berries.
As the sun came down the questions finally ended and Speed was finally able to take a break, Diana and Rosita collapsed, exhausted from their own interrogation, and the smoke from the fire rose up to the evening sky.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Villa Del Pony
Shouts and screams filled the air.
Earth ponies rushed to the towns defense, unicorns opened fire from afar raining wave after wave of frosting over the small town's houses.
Don Cider stood outside the inn, gun in hoof.
"Don Cider! The unicorns are approaching!" An earth pony called out from one of the makeshift barricades they had built.
"Hold them off as long as you can! If they get too close," Don Cider's gaze darkened. "Bring out the cannon..."
"Si señor!" The earth pony saluted and rushed off to spread the orders.
Don Cider pulled out his old cupcake shotgun.
"Mi querida Rosita... May our sacrifice give your friends enough time to clear away from the desert..."
Placing his old sombrero on his head, Don Cider ran towards the main street to aid in the defense of the town.
***
The mastermind of the attack stared ahead towards the battle.
"Señorita Valiente, the troops have breached the barricades, and the villagers have holed up inside an inn." A white unicorn with a brown vest and a cowboy hat informed his mistress.
"Um... Move the rest of the soldiers around the town... and um... make sure no one leaves... If that's ok with you..."
"Yes ma'am!" The unicorn rushed off, his rifle levitating beside him.
Aleteo Valiente, Ironic name for her personality, was the leader behind the attack on Villa Del Pony, much to her displeasure.
Valiente, as the unicorns referred to her, knew that if any of the villagers left the town and warned the government of Mexicolt about her soldiers being there, she would be in a lot of trouble.
You know, the kind of trouble that involves being covered in chocolate cake and frosting...
She didn't feel up to the task and the thought of being in command terrified her senseless.
"Oh my, all those ponies want me to lead them, they expect me to be a good leader. What if i mess up? Oh, Rareza is going to be so disappointed!
Her thoughts swam around in her head filling her with doubt, but Rareza trusted her, that was all she needed for encouragement.
Rareza had been her best friend for a long time and she had always supported Valiente and now Rareza needed her help for a small retrieval job, not too hard.
Despite what everypony thought about Valiente, she was a very clever pony, clever enough to have been chosen as economic overseer of all the money that ran through Rareza's hooves.
She was good with numbers, caring for animals required a lot of math and Valiente had several degrees on the subject, so it was no surprise that Rareza chose her to lead this mission instead of one of the clumsy unicorn thugs she usually sent.
And this was an important mission.
Arcoiris had stolen something from Rareza and now Valiente was going to bring her to justice, it was the least she could do for a friend.
Even if she had to do things she didn't quite like...
A loud explosion from the town center caused the poor yellow pegasus to squeak in fear.
They had a cannon.
***
Don Cider stood outside his inn, several other ponies were with him. The unicorns had taken the streets and were now headed for the town center.
Don Cider was not about to let them get closer...
*BOOM*
The large cannon shot another double chocolate cake at frightening speeds.
Several unicorns rushed out of the barricades as soon as the explosion was heard, the large, delicious chocolate projectile smashed into the trenches and sent several unlucky unicorns flying backwards, covered in sweet doom.
Don Cider and the remaining villagers continued shooting at the now running unicorns, the cannon was placed on the second floor of the inn so the unicorns couldn't reach it.
Everypony ran inside the inn as the unicorns fired another barrage of cupcakes, several cries of surprise were heard as two villagers were reached by the flying desserts.
There were only about five left of them and the unicorns just kept on coming.
The villagers took cover behind the inn's walls, every now and then a unicorn would play brave and rush out of cover shooting wildly, Doña juliana, Don Cider's neighbor, would just pull out her makeshift cupcake sniper rifle and place a toothache on said unicorn.
This kept on going for about thirty minutes, before a chorus of...
"I'm out!"
"No ammo here!"
"Anyone's got anymore frosting?"
...filled the air.
It was over, they had fought bravely but it would be pointless to continue the fight, so after firing the cannon a few more times, they surrendered.
The unicorns cheered as the earth ponies walked out of the inn, heads low.
All villagers were questioned by the leader of the unicorns.
"So... um... if it isn't too much trouble mister, could you please tell us were Arcoiris went?"
"...no?"
"Oh, well sorry for your trouble then..."
Most of the interrogations went like this, Valiente was leaving the inn were the prisoners were being held for questioning, when a tall white unicorn with a monocle and a top hat walked up to her and asked in a thick British accent.
"Excuse me ma'am, but would you be so kind as to allow me some time with the prisoners?"
"Oh, I don't see why you would want that... They don't seem willing to talk..."
The unicorn grinned and pulling out a cookie he said in his thick British accent. "I have my ways of making them talk..."
"Ok then..."
*The following interrogation may contain inappropriate and terrifying content, read at your own risk*
Sir Biscuit of trottingham sat on a wooden chair, opposite of the blue stallion in front of him.
"So I'm told that you have knowledge of the whereabouts of a certain bandit pegasus, am I correct?" Sir Biscuit sipped from a levitating cup of tea that floated next to him.
"Nah-uh, sorry but i dont know about that..." The stallion looked away.
"Really? We'll see about that..." Sir Biscuit pulled out the cookie from under his top hat and waved it in front of the stallion before asking in an evil tone of voice. "Do you know what this is?"
The stallion was slightly confused. "A cookie?"
Sir Biscuit smiled and commenced his torture. "Wrong, what I hold here is nothing more and nothing less than a..."
"... Biscuit."
"What? No it isn't! That's a cookie!"
The stallion took the bait.
"Biscuit."
"Cookie!"
"Biscuit."
"COOKIE!"
"Biscuit."
The procedure continued for almost an hour, in the end, the stallion was no longer able to hold on to his sanity.
Sir Biscuit smiled and leaned closer to the defeated pony.
"You tell me where the rainbow maned mare went, and you can call it whatever you want..."
The stallion's eyes widened, he desperately needed to be proven right about the one thing that mattered to him at the moment, to prove that it was a damn cookie!
The stallion explained thoroughly everything he knew about Arcoiris's destination.
Sir Biscuit smiled evilly and stood up as soon as he had the information he wanted.
"Very well, thank you for your cooperation." Sir Biscuit turned around and trotted over to the door but stopped, tossing the cookie to the table before he left.
"Enjoy your..." Pause for dramatic effect, slow motion turning around with evil grin for emphasis.
"Biscuit..."
Evil laugh and slow exit out of building for added malevolent behavior.
The screams of frustration from the stallion filled the air as Sir Biscuit laughed evilly.
"IT'S A COOKIE! A COOKIE! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"