//------------------------------// // The Deadly Problem // Story: Meatball Marinara // by DEn-eaRP //------------------------------// When Celestia realized that she had bitten off than she could chew, that is, she teleported too many ponies into her private chambers, she had to decide on the next course of action. Either she could just go make a different chamber her private chamber, or she could figure out a way to make sure none of these police ponies would divulge it. "Policeponies! I will give you all tickets to Disneyland if you leave and promise never to tell what happened!" The lead investigator guffawed. "We've done less for larger bribes, your majesty!" "Very well." The white princess turned to her favored student, Twilight Sparkle. Leaning in close, she whispered, "What should I do?" "Meatballs?" suggested Twilight, her mind continuously becoming dipped in marinara sauce. "No, I'll teach 'em something... romantic." "You could teach them the funky-" "NO!" The sudden loudness made everypony jump. Even Rainbow Dash jumped despite being a former pony. "I don't think that was the best thing to teach you, my student, so please never, ever bring it up again!" she quickly said. Twilight just stared blankly while Celestia regathered her wits. This allowed her to remember that she was in fact, a princess ruler with jurisdiction over every pony (and meatball) in the room. "Policeponies!" she said, breaking out the royal Canterlot voice for the first time in 432 years, 3 hours, 6 minutes, and 58 seconds. "I ORDER you to take the tickets to Disneyland and promise never to divulge anything pertaining to this room, or you are all FIRED!" The police force collectively gulped. "F- F- Fired?" "By which I mean hurled into the sun instead of simply losing your jobs!" Though technically, that would still constitute as the "losing one's job" type of firing because ponies on fire in the sun cannot possibly hold jobs on Earth. And so they all left the chamber so hard that their fast motion smears left residue. Twilight had stars in her eyes. "Wow, princess, you're the best teacher ever!" "Twilight, we've wasted enough time already, but I need to tell you what the big deal about Keldeo is." "Huh?" Rainbow Dash broke into the conversation. "Isn't it just bad whenever anypony loses a life?" "No, that's not it," replied the princess. "He was going to be a cash cow for my clients and the country." "But he's not a cow," explained Twilight, who was always right. "Our economy is bad right now, and so when some foreigners came in and asked if we had a citizen they could exploit, one that could star in movies, merchandise, and generally whore himself out to make a lot of money, I put our star diplomat to be the one. Then, once he made these clients enormous profit, Equestria would receive a cut of it, thus helping to fight our deficit!" "And so the problem is...?" Twilight started. In her mind, that statement ended with "...I still do not have bread for a Meatball Marinara.", but she wondered what her mentor felt was the problem with everything. "If he's dead, he can't act in the movie or go to photo shoots or anything! My clients and I will have no profits! Our beautiful land is doomed, Twilight Sparkle, unless we can do something fast! I already had to sell this county once; it's going to break my heart if I must go so once again!" The cool meatball whistled. "Well princess, I'm about to come into some big money real soon..." Even as a small ball of meat, she had a feeling she could save the world... or at least Equestria County. "...I'm starting a trading card business. Kids love trading cards. Soon I'll be in the money, and I could give you some to defeat our deficit!" She somehow put on sunglasses that were somehow her size. "Problem solved." "Problem not solved, mysterious talking meatball." Princess Celestia was in despair. Her history of money troubles had left her in despair. "We don't know for sure if your plan will work." "What do you mean!? Kids love trading cards! There's a 120% chance that it'll be a big hit!" "If it's not 100%, it's just too risky for me to put all of my- I mean- my county's hopes on!" As Twilight was currently out of the conversation, she was checking on the state of the library in her saddlebag. Surprisingly, the borrowers inside were still alive, and only all of the books were intact. To her horror, though, she discovered that the shrunken books would be too small to read, and the magnifying glass was broken. It wasn't fair! She had all the time in the world to read those! Time enough at la-actually, she then remembered that she could just re-enlarge the library later and so closed the bag to rejoin the others. "Who in their right mind would frost a cake with her flank?" "Excuse me," interrupted Twilight. "So what do we do now?" "I don't know!" cried a despondent Celestia. Her typical brave face in the face of anything bad could still not hold up to the power of financial crisis. Twilight was shocked and did not like seeing her wonderful mentor in this state, so she laid an egg in her mind and made it hatch into an idea! "Why don't I go to another state and go find some fortune?" she suggested. "That's what happened in the old times; the poor went to new lands to search for riches, so as long as I can go find riches, I'll bring back enough to save Equestria!" Celestia, too dignified to wipe her tears, instead briefly intensified the sun so that her tears instantly evaporated. "Your idea sounds crazy, my faithful student, but I suppose sometimes there are plans that are crazy enough to work. Besides, you're of very sound mind..." The look on Twilight's face suggested that her meatball fantasies had buried any vestige of soundness in the poor mare's mind, but Celestia wasn't a face reader. "...and so I trust the fate of Equestria in your hooves." Twilight, Rainbow, and the borrowers saluted, and the purple unicorn spun around some odd amount of times in whichever directions to teleport them back to Ponyville. IN PONYVILLE "That's so cool of you to be helping the princess save Equestria." Rainbow Dash had to hand it to Twilight. For an egghead bookworm, she sure could pull through in the toughest of situations. "I... don't actually have a plan yet and I'm starving." "We could gather the other Elements and we'd all pitch in to help!" "That's a great idea, Rainbow Dash." Twilight aimed her head to the sky. "HEY EVERYPONY! I NEED THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY TO REPORT TO THE LIBRARY IMMEDIATELY!" A random pony responded, "But the library is missing!" "Oh yeah..." Twilight really had to dig deep to find out the answer for this. Eventually, she settled on conjuring up a 2D image and compositing it over where the library once was. And now, it was a waiting game.