“From ze moment zat I first began photographink ze magiks, I knew zat my life vould be made komplete srough ze art medium alone...”
As Rainbow spoke, she looked through the corner of her shades. Lancie was slowly making his way towards the window, dragging the granite torso by its outstretched arm. He strained with each painful inch he had to scale.
Rainbow glanced back at the sea of pony eyes, eyes, and more eyes staring at her. “It is how I, Photo Finish, kapture eferysink zat is... uh... awesome! And beautiful! And sparkly!” She gulped. “Did I mention awesome?”
At last, Lancie reached a window. He tried shoving the thing open, ultimately failing. The window was stuck too tight within its frame, so he had to drag his statue towards the next one.
Wincing, Rainbow continued, “For awesome is vhat awesome does!” she said with a nervous smile. “My moser always told me, life is like a box full of awesome. You nefer know whose flank you're goink to kick!”
The crowd chuckled, which masked the sound of Lancie dropping the shard with a thud, leaping on top of it, and shoving against the next window with all his strength.
“Cry hafok... and... uhm...” Rainbow fidgeted. “Let slip ze dogs of awesome? Ja. Zat's a good one...”
One of Don Canter's stallions leaned in towards the other. “The buck kind of a speech is this?”
“She's stalling,” the other one said. He pulled something metal and glinting from his coat. “Come on. Let's give her a reason to hurry up...”
“The only sink ve hafe to fear is awesomeness itself—” Rainbow glanced to her side. She spotted the two stallions making their way towards the far end of the apartment where the Hanzes' bedroom was.
“Hmmm?” Sapphire Shores turned to follow Rainbow's line of sight. Fancy Pants also pivoted to see. They were milliseconds away from spotting a little statue with antlers about to make off with a granite shard—
“Fillies and gentlecolts!” Rainbow shouted. “I, Photo Finish, present to you...” She grabbed the tarp in her muzzle and hoisted it clean off. “Meine greatest masterpiece efer!”
With a loud flapping sound, the tarp fell to the floor. The two thugs stopped in their tracks, turning to glance. Suddenly, their pupils shrunk, turning to red pinpricks in a yellow sea.
Rainbow blinked curiously at that. Out of the corner of her eyes, she spotted several more ponies freezing in their place. A collective hush fell through the crowd. Feeling a chill, she pivoted her head and glanced at them.
One by one—Sapphire Shores, Fancy Pants, Coco Pommel, and even Filthy Rich who was standing up—everypony stood dead-still in their tracks. Their eyes widened, and the cornea turned from eggshell white to vomit yellow. Their pupils took on a crimson shade, and their bodies twitched in their extremities.
“Uhhhhh...” Rainbow turned to look at the thing she had just unveiled. She raised a confused eyebrow. “Huh...?”
The “masterpiece” was nothing more than a gigantic paper mache doppelganger of the shard that she and Lancie had just retrieved from Photo Finish's vault. But that wasn't all. Every single square inch of the “sculpture” was covered from top to bottom with copy upon copy upon copy of the same photograph: of the shard itself. Rainbow couldn't even fathom counting, but she presumed there were no less than five hundred copies of the same photograph of the chaotic shard. And for whatever inexplicable reason—
“Guahhhh...” Coco Pommel twitched all over as if being overwhelmed with a seizure. Suddenly, with a flash of light cascading down her body, her mane and coat turned a dull gray. She blinked, put on a mischievous smile, and turned towards the graying mare next to her. “Hmmmm... what a lovely silk dress you're wearing.”
The other pony mearely drooled where she stood. “Huhhhhh...?”
Riiiiiiiip! Coco spontaneously ripped the gown straight down the middle. “Not anymore!” She spat on the lady's torn gown and snickered to herself, turning to the next pony and ripping the cuffs off his suit. “Oh, I'm so sorry! Lemme alter that for you!” She ripped his collar off and threw it across the room.
“Hrmmmm...” Fancy Pants—a gray spectacle of what he once was—trotted down a line of partygoers. “Don't mind if I do, ladies...” He levitated several pearl and silver necklaces off of random ponies and stuffed them into his pockets. “These are going deep underground in my mansion!” He grinned, his red eyes a stark contrast to his alabaster form. “That way, nopony will ever enjoy them!”
“LAA LAA LAA LAA LAAAAAAA!” Filthy Rich hollered straight into Sapphire Shores' ears.
“Please... st-stop it!” Sapphire wept, clutching her gray head as tears came out her yellowed eyes. “I c-can't stand music... I hate it!”
Slowly, the party mysteriously unraveled, morphing into a roaring commotion of chaos, anger, and confusion. Ponies shoved each other. Ponies shouted vulgar insults. Ponies laughed and ponies wept. Rainbow stood, gawking curiously at the scene. She spotted several of Don Canter's thugs fighting with one another while Romulus wandered in a dumb circle, crashing champagne glasses over his skull, but this was hardly a relief to her.
“What... the... b-buck...?!” Rainbow stared over at Lancie.
Lancie was frozen in the middle of trying to open the window. He glanced awkwardly at Rainbow. The two of them—for whatever reason—were the only two unaffected.
And yet the party grew louder and louder, with the inexplicably gray ponies growing more and more violent. Soon, statues and portraits and chairs were being tossed left and right, crashing against the floor and walls of the place.
Rainbow gulped. She lowered her shades and stared with twitching, ruby eyes.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh boy...”