//------------------------------//
//  DID SOMEPONY ORDER A LARGE HAM?! 
// Story: DID SOMEPONY ORDER A LARGE HAM?! 
// by Super Trampoline 
//------------------------------//

	"'DID SOMEPONY ORDER A LARGE HAM?!'

"Trixie burst into the crowded diner like an up and coming artist would burst into the national spotlight. She was panting, clearly out of breath. The patrons stared at her in shock, waiting for some sort of explanation for this madness. Alas, the one they got was rather anticlimactic: 'Oh wait, 'tis the Great and Powerful Trixie herself the stallion must have wanted. Thus, I shall be going now. Cry not for my departure, for I shall return in due time.' With a flourish and a puff of smoke, she was gone, galloping away into the night.

"'Please don't come back,' a bar tender muttered."




Silence ruled the clubhouse. The three crusaders stared expectantly at the caped performer, waiting for a punchline that would never come, like a letter lost in the mail. Eventually, Apple Bloom spoke up. "Ummm, Ms. Lulamoon, that story was, uh, kind of boring. And well, pointless too.

"Yeah," Sweetie Belle chimed in, "a story should have plot, characters, conflict, theme and setting. That story had a setting and a rather weak and trivial plot, and I suppose one and a half characters, but no conflict or theme. What were we supposed to get out of the story? Where was the tension. It's a good start, but this story as it is now is fundamentally flawed. I'm afraid we cannot publish it in the Foal Free Press. That is to say, we have to reject it. This is your first strike.

Trixie looked at the fillies dejectedly. "Is it really that bad?" All three of them shook their heads up and down as one, as if automatons buildt to run in sync. Sweetie Belle, of course, was the only one of the three who actually was a robot though.

Scootaloo tried to cheer Trixie up. "Hey, cheer up ol' buddy o' pal. Your story has a nice start. But, like, it just doesn't go anywhere. Like, you're a race horse, all revved up, rearing to charge out of the gates, and then you trip and fall on the first step. That's fine--falls happen. But what isn't fine, is that you don't try to get back up. You just sit there, braying and whinnying, waiting for a doctor to come and shoot you (with a tranquilizer dart). That is all to say, it's a good start, but it needs more. You dig?"

"The humbled and somewhat inferior Trixie understands and regrets her submission of such a lackluster story. I, I mean Trixie should probably stick to doing magic shows and stay away from story writing, be it fictional or real. She just doesn't seem to have the knack for it."

"Woah, woah, woah, hold on a minute," said Apple Bloom. "You are just going to give up like that? That's not the Great and Powerful Trixie Lulamoon I know! I know a jerky braggart determined to show the world that she's the best, no matter the cost!"

Apple Bloom looked around awkwardly and realized she might have been a bit too frank, like a colt finally confessing his love for the filly of his dreams, babbling on and on without saying anything like a mountain stream in Spring, three weeks after Winter Wrap Up. "Ummm, ignore the first half of that sentence. Just pay attention to the motivational speech part at the end."

Sweetie chimed in. "Apple is right. Are you really going to give up that easily?"

Trixie began to cry, like Rarity does all the time because she can be a melodramatic prima donna, albeit a generous one. "Yes, yes I am going to give up that quickly, because the truth of the matter is, I'm not Trixie. I'm..."

"You're what?" questioned Scootaloo.

"I'm a changeling!"

There was a collective gasp heard throughout the two thousand one hundred and thirty seven square yards that were within earshot of the club house, as three fillies screamed at the sudden dramatic reveal. Fortunately for the changeling, nopony actually heard the gasp of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, because the clubhouse is in the middle of nowhere, relatively speaking. Inasmuch, the secret was safe with them.

Still, the spirit of the reveal was dampened somewhat, as the alleged Trixie-replicator did not actually cease to replicate Trixie. After a few seconds of grinning awkwardly, she declared, "Well, this is awkward, huh? I, uh, guess I'll just get going then. Thanks for your company girls!"

The changeling tried to walk out of the clubhouse, but Scootaloo stopped her. "Hey, wait a minute. How do we know you aren't just Trixie being a huge ham? You already admitted you are one earlier. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and considering that a changeling hasn't been seen in Ponyville in..."

"One hundred and six years"

"Thank you, Sweetiepædia. --one hundred and six years," Scootaloo continued, "I'd say the burden of proof that you are a changeling falls squarely on you, alleged changeling who hasn't even told us her name yet."

"Fine, fine," she replied. "Don't believe me?" A sickly green flame like the inbred, starving, and unbathed cousin of Dragonfire lit up the air surrounding the Not-Trixie, and after a few seconds, all that remained was a changeling, which I'm not going to describe the appearance of because you all know what changelings look like by now.

"There, you see, I'm a changeling. All I wanted to do was to tell stories, but as you can see, I'm apparently not cut out for it, not even as my favorite musician.magician"

Just then, the real Great and Powerful Trixie burst into the crusader's clubhouse. "CMC behold, Trixie has brought the story you desired to publish in for critique and evaluation."

"Awkward," the changeling muttered.