//------------------------------//
// Chapter 14 
// Story: This Story Did Not Explode 
// by PseudoBob Delightus 
//------------------------------//

"We are gathered here today in honor of Innocent Bystander," spoke the somber priest, "whose life was cut expectantly short."

"How did they put this together so fast?" Twilight wondered.

"Uh, Twi, it's been an hour," Applejack reminded her.

"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie agreed. "We've been watching the whole time. Isn't that strange?"

By now, attendants of the funeral were starting to look at them funny. The priest carried on: "Though many still grieve, we must remember that they lived a good life. They crossed the street without looking. They loitered in the bad parts of town. No stampede nor tsunami nor storm, nor flash of magical light, did they fear." He gestured to the closed casket. "Surely, this is what they would have wanted - to have died an avoidable, meaningless death, at the careless hooves of-"

"Hey!" Twilight shouted. "We were trying to save you ponies! We weren't careless!"

A crowd of indignant eyes turned towards her, and the priest dropped his clerical act and spat back, "Listen, toots, you're the one who couldn't leave well enough alone."

"Toots!?" Twilight fumed. No, really - there might as well have been smoke coming out of her ears.

"Ours is not to wonder why!" the priest continued. "A title comes down from the sky and says this is all gonna explode. Well, that's authorial intent! Why question it?"

There was an 'amen' from the crowd, but Twilight did not agree. She pretended to roll up her sleeves and began a menacing advance towards them before Applejack and Rainbow Dash managed to grab her and drag her away.

"You're fools!" she cried, into the distance, as the assembled townsfolk resumed their prayer. "Fools!"