//------------------------------//
// The Temple Run 
// Story: Legends of the Hidden Temple 
// by arglefumph 
//------------------------------//

All the losing contestants were gathered inside the green room, where they watched what was happening on a TV.

"Do you think they'll win?" Twilight Sparkle asked.

"Rainbow Dash is the coolest!" Scootaloo said.  "Of course she's going to win!"

From the corner (where she was braiding Trixie's hair), Rarity asked, "What if they decide to send Fluttershy into the temple first?"

"Hmmm..." the ponies thought.

Fluttershy grit her teeth and braced herself.  The instant the gate was lowered, she charged into the temple, letting out a scream of rage that would throw fear into the hearts of bears and minotaurs.  Wings working at full power, she burst into the first room of the temple.

She immediately ran into a stagehoof, wearing a silly costume and dancing around.

"Oh no, that's a temple guard!" Kirk said.  "You have to give him your pendant!"

Fluttershy's bottom lip quivered.

And trembled.

Then her mouth opened wide.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!" Flutterhsy screamed.

"Don't worry, he won't hurt you," Kirk said.  "He just wants your pendant!"

"AAAAAA!  AAAAAAA!   AAAAAAAAA!"

"The pendant—"

"AAAUUUGAAARAA!  AAAUUUGAAARAA!  MOMMMMMMY!"

Kirk and Rainbow Dash stared at each other for a moment, as Fluttershy kept screaming incomprehensibly.  The stagehoof tried to calm her down, but that only made her scream louder.

"Should I go in now?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Yes," Kirk said.  "Yes, I think that would be best."

"I'm pretty sure they'll pick Rainbow Dash to do the temple run," Twilight said.

"That would make the most sense," Applejack said.

"Shhhh!" Pinkie Pie said, pointing to the TV.  "It's starting!"

"Welcome back to Legends," Kirk Trot said.  "Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy have proven themselves worthy and now have earned the right to enter Olmec's temple.  But before we get started, Olmec's going to give them some information to help them retrieve the lost hat of Starswirl the Bearded."

Dra

 as Olmec gave his usual monologue for the Temple Run.  As fans of the show knew, his temple was made up of twelve rooms, each room containing a challenge.  The players entered the temple through the rightmost room; the artifact that they were looking for was usually on the left or in the middle.

"You could start, by running up the stairs to the Crypt!" Olmec said.  "Grab the book from the skeletons and pass into the Pit and the Pendulum!  Knock over the pillar and climb into the King's Storeroom!  Smash the clay pots and find the key that will lead you into the Room of the Ancient Warriors!  Place yourself in the correct suit of armor, and you'll find yourself in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey!"

"That's where the artifact is located today," Kirk pointed out helpfully.

"Assemble the statue, and you may be headed towards the Room of the Sacred Alicorns!  Put the three cutie marks onto the proper alicorns, to activate the secret passage below!  Slide down the tunnel to the Quicksand Bog, where you could smash through the wall to the Dark Forest!  But beware of the Temple Guards, who may inhabit the trees!

"Find the key in a tree and enter the The Jester's Court!  Press yourself against the correct wall painting, and you'll gain entry to the Tomb of the Headless Kings!  Pull the vine to release their bones, and attach the missing skull to its proper king.  Then, race through the pit, climb through the ledges, race down the stairs, and back to the temple gate."

There was a brief pause, as the cameras (which had been focusing on the temple's rooms) returned to Olmec and the competitors.

"The choices are yours, and yours alone," Olmec said.  He was lying, of course.  Some of the doors remained locked, no matter what, so the contestants were forced to follow a particular path.  Otherwise, contestants would always pick the shortest path through the temple and skip half of the rooms.  That would make for boring TV.

"You won one and a half pendants in the Temple Games," Olmec said.  "Who is going first?"

"I am!" Rainbow Dash said proudly.

"Very well, Rainbow Dash," Olmec said.  "When Kirk gives the signal, you'll race your way through the gates into the temple and make your way towards Starswirl's hat.  Hidden inside the temple are Temple Guards, assigned to protect three specific rooms.  You can trade your pendant for an extra life, but if you're caught without a pendant, you will be taken out of the temple, and it will be Fluttershy's turn to enter and try her luck.

"If you can reach the hat, all of the doors of the temple will instantly unlock, and the Temple Guards will vanish.  Return through the gates with the hat of Starswirl the Bearded within three minutes, and you'll both be handsomely rewarded.  And here's how!"

"You'll be going to Space Camp!" the announcer said.  "Spend six nights with Princess Luna and get a firsthoof experience of what it's like to live on the moon!  Impress all your friends by living like an astronaut and/or banished megalomaniac!  Space Camp!  It's lonely up here!"

"That sounds good to me," Kirk said.  "You ready to go, Rainbow?"

"Hoof yeah!" Rainbow Dash said.

"Olmec, lower your gate!" Kirk ordered.

Olmec groaned slightly as the gate retracted.

"Let's put three minutes on the clock," Kirk said.  "On your mark...get set...GO!"

Dramatic music played, as Rainbow Dash flew up the steps.  "There goes Rainbow Dash, into the temple!" Kirk said.  "She's in the Crypt!  She's in the Crypt!"

The Crypt had three skeletons, each one holding a book in its arms.  Pulling on the correct book would open the door to the next room.  The only way to win this challenge was by luck, and luck was not on Rainbow Dash's side, as a temple guard appeared.

"Oh, it's a Temple Guard!  Give him your pendant!" Kirk said.

Rainbow Dash muttered something about how cheap it was to have a temple guard in the first room, then she handed her pendant over to him.  This left her with only half a pendant.  The other half was hidden in the temple somewhere, so it was possible for her to find it and have a full pendant.

The guard left, and Rainbow Dash pulled one of the books.  Nothing happened, so she pulled another book.  With a mechanical clunk, the door to the next room opened.

"She's at the Pit and the Pendulum!" Kirk said.  "She needs to take the rope and swing to the other side of the room, then swing to the pillar!"

Rainbow Dash ignored these rules and flew straight at the pillar, knocking it down.  This saved her at least ten seconds of time, and it opened the doors to the two rooms on the left.  Since she was closer to the ground, Rainbow went to the lower room.

"She's in the Tomb of the Headless Kings!" Kirk said.  This room had two decorated skeletons, seated on thrones.  Green-colored ropes hung down from the ceiling; they were attached to some sort of ceiling net.  Rainbow grabbed a rope and pulled it hard.  A small scream was heard as the net came loose, dropping several things on the floor.

Rainbow took a moment to sort through the items.  Most of them were props shaped like bones, but one was a head.  She flew up and put it on the rightmost statue, but it didn't fit.

"Oh, no, try the other statue!" Kirk said.  "You can do it, Rainbow Dash!"

Rainbow put the head on the other statue.  Instead of opening the door to the left, which would have been helpful, the door to the ceiling opened.

"And she's flying up to the next room!" Kirk said.  "No, wait, she's stopping.  Why is she—oooh!  She's found the second half of the pendant, on the side of the ladder!  Good eye, Rainbow Dash!  Now she has a full pendant, and she's in the King's Storeroom"

Rainbow Dash stopped inside the room and looked around.  There were three pedestals with pots on them, but Rainbow couldn't remember what she had to do here.  Olmec's instructions had been a bit of an information overload.

"Smash the pots!" Kirk said.  "Smash the pots and find the key!"

"Right!" Rainbow Dash said.

Rainbow Dash grabbed the pots and threw them into the small indentation on the floor.  This was conveniently located in the center of the room, so she wouldn't make a mess.  The third pot had the key inside.  She jammed the key into one of the holes on top of a pedestal, and the door to the next room opened.

There was a five-second shot of Fluttershy clapping her hooves, as Rainbow Dash went to the left.

"She's in the Room of the Ancient Warriors!" Kirk said.  "She's only one room away from the Shrine of the Silver Monkey!  Keep going!"

This room had three coffins against the back wall.  Each coffin had a suit of armor inside, with levers on the side.  Rainbow jumped into the first suit of armor and pulled the levers, but nothing happened.  She jumped into the second suit of armor, and a Temple Guardian who had been hiding there grabbed her from behind.

Rainbow Dash would have nightmares about that later on, but at the moment, all she did was scream in fright.  She picked up the Temple Guard and threw him off of the set.  "Don't you dare sneak up on me like that!" she shouted.

"Uh..." Kirk said.  "Rainbow Dash deals with the Temple Guard in a unique way.  You still have to give up your pendant, though."

Rainbow Dash threw hew pendant on the ground and jumped into the third suit of armor.  She pulled the levers, and the door opened!  Unfortunately, this was not the door to the left, which led to the Shrine of the Silver Monkey.  It was the door to the room below.

"She's in the Jester's Court!" Kirk said.  "She's got a little more than two minutes left!  Oooh!  Keep moving!"

The Jester's Court had fancy designs on the wall.  The main three designs were outlines of pony bodies.  To get through the room, you have to put yourself up against the outline perfectly, hitting the buttons on the wall.  Some of the smaller fillies had trouble with this challenge, but Rainbow Dash was a full-grown mare.  Even without the use of her wings, she could easily line herself up against the wall and hit the buttons.

Rainbow Dash got it correct on the first try, which almost never happened, and she went into the dark forest.  This room had spooky-looking trees, which didn't go away, even if you giggled at them.  Rainbow was supposed to put her hoof into each tree, in hopes of finding the key to the door, but she decided to save time by going through the fake wall.

"She's heading into the Dark Forest now!" Kirk said.  "She has to find the key and, no wait, she's smashing through the wall to the Quicksand Bog!  Oooh!  She skipped the trees completely, and now she's flying up the slide!  She's going backwards through the pharaoh's secret passage to the Room of the Sacred Alicorns!"

The Room of the Sacred Alicorns was on the upper level of the temple.  The wall here had a mural of the three alicorns: Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and Princess Cadance.  There was a small hole in the wall, where each alicorn's cutie mark was supposed to go.  On a table in the center of the room were three tiles.  One had a moon, one had a sun, and one had a crystal heart.  Rainbow Dash picked up the tiles and put them in the correct holes, and the door to the right locked.

"SHE DID IT!" Kirk shouted.  "She did it!  She's in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey!  That's where the hat of Starswirl the Bearded is!"

Rainbow Dash was feeling confident now.  She had made it through all the rooms of the temple, in less than half of the three minutes.  All she had to do now was grab the hat of Starswirl the Bearded, then leave.  Rainbow Dash was somehow unaware of this rule, though, and she mistakenly thought she had to assemble the Silver Monkey Statue in order to win.

Rainbow was certain that assembling the Silver Monkey Statue would be a piece of cake.  It was an incredibly simple three-piece puzzle, and she was confident she could solve it quickly.

[Cue the montage of people failing this challenge.]



"You gotta... No, you gotta turn it around. No, turn it around. Turn it around. You have to turn it around. Ok, now she's going out the wrong way," Kirk said.  "Rainbow, turn the pieces around so they're all facing the same direction!  How is that so complicated?  No, turn it around!  Don't...annnd she dropped the middle piece."

Swearing loudly, Rainbow bucked the incorrectly-assembled statue with her hind legs.  Then she flew up and grabbed Starswirl's hat from the shelf on the room.

"She's got it!  She got the hat!" Kirk said.  "Now all the doors to the temple are unlocked!  She just has to get back to the entrance in time!  Can she make it?"

The crowd started chanting down the seconds left in the game.  "Ten!  Nine!  Eight!"

Rainbow Dash flew to the right, through the now-open doors.  She went through the room of the Ancient Warriors, through the King's Storeroom, into the Pit and Pendulum and through the Crypt.

"Three!  Two!  One!" the crowd chanted as Rainbow blew down the steps to the temple and landed in front of Kirk as the horn sounded.

*Bwooooomp!*

"Just in time!" Kirk said.  "This is amazing, folks!  Rainbow Dash has become the first-ever pony to win Legends of the Hidden Temple!  At the very last second, she brought the hat of Starswirl the Bearded out of the temple, and—"

"I'm afraid that is incorrect," Olmec said.

"What?" Kirk asked.

"Rainbow Dash does not have Starswirl's hat with her," Olmec said.

"The hat!" Kirk said.  "Where is the hat?"

"Back in the monkey room," Rainbow Dash said.

"You left the hat behind in the temple?" Kirk asked, stunned.

"Duh, I can't fly my fastest with a hat in my hooves," Rainbow Dash said.

Kirk facehoofed at this.  "My apologies, everypony!" he said.  "It seems that Rainbow Dash has not won the game!  She failed to bring the artifact here in time!"

"What?!" Rainbow Dash asked.  "The rules were that I had to get the artifact, not that I had to bring it with me!"

"Um, why would you get an artifact, just to leave it in a temple?" Fluttershy asked.

"Exactly!" Kirk said.  "But you will get a special prize for making it this far!  What's the prize today, Olmec?"

"For failing the challenge, you both get an 'I'm With Stupid' T-shirt!" Olmec said.  "Let everypony know that you blame your partner for your team's colossal failure!"

"Not as good as Space Camp, but still very nice!" Kirk said.  "Anyway, let's have a round of applause for the Blue Barracudas!  They tried their hardest, and they almost won the game!  Until next time, this has been Kirk Fogg and Olmec on..."

"Legends of the Hidden Temple!" Olmec said.

"Goodbye, everypony!" Kirk said.

The ending music played, while Rainbow Dash bewailed her loss.  Fluttershy tried to comfort her, as the camera faded to black.

Ten minutes later, the crew was packing everything up, and Kirk had changed out of his work clothes.

"Well, I'm going home," Kirk said.  "Too bad you can't come along for our guy's night out, Olmec.  I'll see you tomorrow."

"Kirk, wait," Olmec said.  "Hold on a second."

"Huh?" Kirk asked.  "What is it, buddy?"

"You...you've never seen the backside of my head, have you?" Olmec asked.

"No, why?" Kirk asked.

"Just...come and take a look," Olmec said.

Kirk shrugged, wondering what this was all about.  He walked around the side of the large Olmec head, then almost fell over in surprise.  The back of Olmec's head had wires sticking out of it, along with a lever and four mechanical-looking buttons. A microphone was at the bottom of the equipment, and sitting behind the microphone was a male Earth pony.

"Hey, Kirk," the pony said.  "Nice to finally meet you."

"OLMEC?" Kirk asked.

"My name is Dee Trotter," the pony said.  "I do the voice of Olmec."

"You...but...Olmec is a machine?" Kirk asked, amazed.

"What, did you think he was real?" Dee asked.  "There's no such thing as magical talking heads."

"My best friend is imaginary?" Kirk asked.  He felt like bursting into tears.  "I've spent months bonding with Olmec, and he's not real?"

"Hey, I'm real," Dee said.  "And I'm your friend.  You're a great guy, Kirk."

"No, no," Kirk said, rubbing his forehead with his hooves.  "I'm having a hard time processing this.  The whole time I was talking to Olmec, I was really talking to you?"

"Uh huh," Dee said.  "And I've loved working with you.  You said you wanted to have a guy's night out?  Let's go!"

Kirk was taken aback.  On the one hoof, this was a dream come true: he could finally spend time with his best friend Olmec, outside of the studio.  On the other hoof, it was definitely not what he expected.

"Hold on a second, Dee," Kirk said.  "If you're really Olmec, that means you and I can do the one thing I've always wanted to do."

"What's that?" Dee asked.

Five Minutes Later

"The choices are yours and yours alone!" Dee said, in his Olmec voice.  "You have three minutes in order to get the artifact.  Now GO!"

Kirk ran up the stairs to the temple, and went into the Crypt.  "I'm gonna do it!" he said.  "I'm going to win the challenge!"

"You can do it, Kirk!" Dee cheered.  "Look out for the Temple Guards, though!"

And that's the story of the time Twilight Sparkle and her pony companions appeared on TV.  It is also the story of how Kirk Trot became the first and only pony to ever successfully win Legends of the Hidden Temple.

The End