//------------------------------//
// Second leg at Canterlot pt 2: alliances and apologies 
// Story: The Amazing Race Equestria! 
// by River Dashe 
//------------------------------//

"Aw crap!" Rainbow said, getting off of applejack, there had been a little bit of blood, but not so much, they ran to the train and got the best seats, the second best seats were taken by sky and pinkie, third best seats were given to the Cakes, and the worst seats to the crusaders, meanwhile the first train arrived in Canterlot, with teams jumping out one by one.
Luckily for the siblings, Twilight and Shining had lived in Canterlot, and knew exactly where to go, Vortex and river on the other hoof...well, let's just say they weren't having the best of luck, but the musicians were having the opposite, they had performed here before, and luckily knew where the boutique was, soarin and spitfire on the other hoof, had no idea, and soarin had the stupidity to follow the exes, thinking they knew where they were going.

The first team to get there were Twilight and Shining.
"Alright," twilight said, "first place."

Twilight and Shining are currently in 1st place

"Hey bold text, I just said that!" Twilight shouted

oh, sorry, this is my first time being bold text

"You're forgiven."

Fancy Pants walked up to them, "welcome to my boutique, here's your next clue."
"Thanks," twilight said opening the clue and read: "detour, buy or sell?"

The next scene had spike standing in front of the boutique,
"A Detour is choice between two tasks, in this detour, teams must choose between Buy and Sell,
In sell, teams must be cashiers and earn 750 bits in this extremely busy boutique, but one problem, there will be no calculators, there's no tax, and the clothes have tags that tell you the price, but when the customers buy multiple items, it's hard to add it up. Once teams complete this, Fancy Pants will hand them their next clue. this task is stressful and harder, but the smarter ponies will be able to complete this quickly, and for smarter ponies, it can be faster. 

"In buy, teams must buy clothes with a budget of 150, and wear it for the rest of this leg, they may keep the clothes if they wish. They will show it to Fleur de Lis, if she approves of this, she will hand them their next clue, if she doesn't, they must try again, with 10 bits less each attempt. this is easy, and needs no work, but waiting in line could take a very long time."

"Hm, I say we do sell, it's the smarter choice." Twilight said.
"Yeah."

As they were adding up the price for their first customer, the exes noticed the musicians and figured they knew where they were going, otherwise meaning they followed them, the wonder bolts were close behind though, and as soon as they saw a rainbow flag (the Amazing Race Equestria route marker) in front of a building, they all dashed for it, all four pegasi were able to pass the musicians, it was a race between the pegasi again.

The wonderbolts had made it one second before the exes, but both ended up getting the clue at the same time anyway.

Vortex and River & Spitfire and Soarin are currently tied for 2nd place.

"Let's do sell" Vortex said.

"We should choose sell." Soarin said

As they started on their first customer, the musicians arrived, and chose buy.

Twilight and her brother had already served five customers, and were on their sixth.
"That would be....fourty two bits and sixty nine cents! Twilight said, One of the workers nodded, letting them know it was correct. They had earned exactly 654 bits so far.
Vortex and River on the other hand....
"UGH! It's too much stress River! I can't take it!"
"Do you wanna switch? We've already started."
"Uh, you know what? No. I've been through worse."
"You talking about-"
"Yeah"
"Hey I'm sorry okay?"
"Shut up, let's just do this."

The the next five minutes for them was pretty depressing, that was until they both heard the wonder bolts saying this:
"So soarin, we gonna beat river and that asshole?"
"Hell yeah."

Vortex looked at them, it turned into a glare, "That. Bitch."
They had themselves working two times faster, making them finish amazingly fast, right behind them finished twilight and Shining.
"Congratulations," Fancy said, "here's your next clue."
Vortex ripped open and read it, "
"Make your way to"
And twilight read,
"The Peformance Theatre to receive your next clue."

"Teams must now make their way on hoof to The Canterlot performance Theatre where the most amazing plays have ever been," spike said in a voice over, "for instance, last years hearts and hooves day play, which I was proud to be in, once they make it there, the stage manager will give them their next clue."

"Okay let's go."
As they dashed off, Octavia was helping Vinyl with buying clothes.
"Hmmm... How about this?" She asked holding up a dress with a mix of red and blue, it had a jazzy lightning strike pattern, but whatever it looked like, she loved it.
"OH CELESTIA YES!" She screamed.
Octavia giggled, she was pretty good at fashion choice and pleasing who she was choosing for.
"How much is it? I don't wanna ditch these boots and the hat."
"It's forty five bits and fifty cents, that totals your clothes to go to seventy bits and twenty eight cents, which leaves me with...$80.72!"
"Alright, let's pick you out some clothes"
"Nono, it's okay, I can hold out on my own."
"Oh no, I insist."
DUN DUN DUUUUUUN.

A little while later Vinyl had picked clothes that were smashing wait! Not smashing I mean they were a hit No! I mean they were well very good looking and would probably look good on octavia, they were about to find out.
She had bought a lovely brown dress with white squiggly lines, and they had a little red heart on the top of it, none the less it was good, she had also bought a top hat with a special silver lining at the top which Octavia loved to the bone, and last but not least, were these tights that were black, but had a perfectly straight line of blue on each leg, which Vinyl described as "mildly sexy",
Overall, she had done great picking out clothes.

When they finally got through the line and were at the till, surprisingly, they saw spitfire and soarin,
"Hey guys," said vinyl.
"Sup?" Soarin replied.
"Not much, buyin."
"I see, so guys, would you guys mind forming an alliance?"
"Uh no, what's the occasion?" Octavia asked.
"Two words...Vortex and River."
That's three words." Spitfire pointed out.
"Oh, I mean three words, vortex and river" Soarin corrected himself.
"That's understandable." Said octavia.
"They're just too crazy for my taste" Vinyl said.
SILENCE
"Vinyl," Octavia started, "how can I put this in a way you understand...you're crazy."
"Oh...well...Heh...anyway, we're game for an alliance against vortex and river"
"Alright! Let's do this!" Soarin shouted;Spitfire rolled her eyes.
"That's 150 bits on the dot please." Spitfire said, calculating the clothes that vinyl and octavia were buying.
"Just on our budget" said Octavia.
"Actually just on ours too, with this money, we exactly have seventy hundered and fifty bits, we did it! Good luck!" Said soarin.
"You too!" Replied Vinyl while they ran towards the changing room.

At that moment the train had finally arrived five minutes late, they all jumped out and started looking around.
"We lost so much time!" Rainbow dash said running. "We have to find the boutique first." So they ran, but found themselves lost immediately. "What?! How the hell did we get ourselves to Central plaza?!"
Applejack facehooved.

Octavia had finished changing, and was waiting on vinyl, when she got out she was wearing that jazzy red and blue dress, along with a yellow football cap (no not that crappy sport where the whole point of it Is to tackle the s**t out of ponies, the real, good, ball that you kick with a foot bitsopean football), with a green lightning strike on it, and green shoes, with a yellow lightning strike on it. she looked at Octavia and smiled, it was was everything she imagined it would be, awesome, beautiful, and pretty damn sexy, but she kept that to herself and said "you look great!" 
Octavia blushed "thanks, you do too, let's go."
They walked up to Fleur, she seemed very impressed, she didn't say a word, she just nodded, and handed them their next clue, and made their way to the theatre.
Speaking of the theatre Twilight and shining and Vortex and River had arrived (Vortex and River were following them)
They got the next clue from the manager like the past clue had said, and they read:
"Intersected Roadblock?" Vortex read
"Who is a romantic performer?" Twilight finished.
Each team looked at their partner, then at the other team as Vortex stated
"Ooooh s**t"

The next scene had Spike standing on the stage
"A roadblock is a team that one team member may peform, each team member can only do five, and this being an intersected roadblock doesn't change anything, an intersected roadblock is a roadblock that two team members from two different teams must work together, there are three intersections in the race, two of them are not roadblocks, but anyway, to the point, in this one, both team members from different teams must peform a romantic duet in front of 1000 ponies, they may choose which one to do, there are four different plays (I ripped some off of some stuff, but I invented most of them), two lesbian, and two straight, but anyway, when they finish, the audience will vote on each actor saying if they did good, or bad, if both actors get over five hundered good votes, they both may move on, if only one gets over five hundered good votes, then only that one moves on, and the other one has to wait for a new partner, if there is only one pony is left, then they will automatically be set with an actual actor. if neither team members get over the required votes, they both have to retry, but if any actor finishes with over that, they must search through the audience to find one holding a rainbow flag, who will hand them their next clue."

Neither team said anything, they just stood there...in total shock.

See who gets elimated next part! For real this time.