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// Amber Night and the Curse of the Diabolical Pastry Thief 
// Story: Amber Night and the Curse of the Diabolical Pastry Thief (Maximum Grammar Overdrive Edition) 
// by dehydromon 
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	Tears fell from the eyes and wet the fuzzy brown cheeks of the mare as she lay in her bed, trembling in utter anguish and outright torment that was the result of such a terror, such an abomination, such an unmitigated cataclysm that she couldn’t believe such a thing could possibly happen to her. Indeed there was no amount of preparation she could have done that could brace her for the suffering in her heart as she bawled her eyes out.
She just felt so hopelessly alone in her darkest moment. After all, what was she to do? She couldn’t have imagined something that could be more horrifying to her than what she was now going through. Amidst her quivering, she had seemingly given up already; she wasn’t even sure she really wanted to anything else in the world but just lay there and cry. Friends, family, pets, and carbonated beverages were all there for her, but deep down inside she knew they could never feel her pain. They would never understand how she felt in her hour of deepest despair.
She may as well have had her house burn down or be thrown in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. At least with such tragedies as those she would have someone to sympathize with, but there was no sympathy for her here. This was a fight in which she had no choice but to battle alone, and in doing so she would grow to become a better equine, even if it killed her.
But it soon dawned on her that sulking in her room was no way to go about fixing the problem at hoof. This was a catastrophe that required action! She would get those Pop Tarts back no matter the cost! Today she would grow a little older. Today she would become a little wiser. Today she would increase her maturity by twenty percent! Today she would grow at least two levels or her name wasn’t Amber Night! Today she would take revenge on the pony who stole her Pop Tarts!
After a narrative monologue that she somehow grew inspired by without actually hearing, seeing as it took place on the other side of the fourth wall, she jumped out of bed and got to work. Using her highly-developed investigative powers, she took in her surroundings, noting an empty Pop Tarts box on her bed and a trail of crumbs leading out her door.
That was it! The culprit must have taken her Pop Tarts and run out her door!
She squinted her eyes dramatically as her vision followed the trail of leftover pastries. “This fiend has poor proficiency in covering his or her tracks!” she bellowed, and she quickly ran out the door and followed the crumbs.

What she saw before taking two steps out of her bedroom outraged her so much that one of the veins popped out in her forehead, for what she found at the end of the trail of crumbs was nothing other than the door leading to the room of her very own twin sister: Storm Gazer!
Amber shrieked internally at the thought of the gray Pegasus she called “sibling figure” eating the pastries clearly meant for the brown-coated hero of this story. In a show of raw, unconstrained exasperation, she gently knocked on the door and then waited patiently for her gray-colored sister to respond.
“Come in!” a female voice chimed from beyond the portal.
Amber could hardly control herself. Furious and almost frothing at the mouth, she twisted the doorknob and slowly created an opening into the room, through which she walked in order to enter the place in which Storm Gazer dwelt.
Straight ahead of her, sitting on the top half of a bunk bed the gray-coated mare didn’t really have any reason to own, was Amber’s first suspect, reading a book titled “Pride and Pegasus” and tapping her foot to the gentle audial vibration exuding from the stereo device located across the room from her. It was all Amber could do not go Super Saiyan and fire her laser at that moment, but she managed to maintain herself without resulting in a complete nuclear meltdown.
“Um… did you want something or…?” A voice interrupted Amber’s contemplative state.
The devastated Pop Tart-less mare glared mildly at Storm Gazer, took a deep breath, and delightfully answered the question with another question. “Have you seen my Pop Tarts?” She had apparently grown more powerful than she could have ever imagined, being able to disguise her unlimited fury into such a polite query.
“Why would I have your Pop Tarts?” Storm Gazer fell back on her pillow once again and looked into her book. “They ain’t even mine!”
Amber couldn’t believe it! The mare she had grown so close to, having been bonded by the indestructible chains of siblinghood since birth, just flat-out lied to her! This was absolutely unacceptable! Her mind had already begun simulating scenarios in which she would exact payback upon the deceptively cheery pony she had dared pollute her perfect mind with by conversing with before she was interrupted by the sound of Storm Gazer’s voice once more,
“Oh,” the grey pony began, “but I think I heard someone walk by my door crunching loudly a few minutes ago.”
That was it! The culprit wasn’t Amber’s angelic sister after all! How could Amber possibly have suspected such a saintly sibling stealing her savory sweets? Another criminal had taken the Pop Tarts and attempted to cause a familial dispute that could have ended in intercontinental warfare by leading a trail of Pop Tart crumbs to the poor, innocent pony with a bunk bed!
“Air mattresses!” Amber execrated uncharacteristically. “What event could have triggered a fellow technicolor horse to commit such an act? And by what means have they developed the ability to cause audible mastication with unhardened flour products?!”
With that, she darted at full speed out of Storm Gazer’s room.

Just outside the door, she could see something she would have never noticed had she not been looking for it: an overturned chair that could not have been moved without force as it was deadbolted to the floor! On second thought, how did she miss that?
Without a moment to ponder what mighty force she might be up against, she booked it, following a trail of misplaced items until she reached what she could only identify as her worst fear. It wasn’t an open Pop Tarts wrapper, but by Celestia’s beard it was close! She had come to a fork in the hallway! Someone must have taken it from the silverware drawer!
But that would have to be a mystery for another time. Under no circumstances could she allow the escape of the pony that changed her life forever. There must be consequences! And for her to enact those consequences, the fork would have to wait!
She continued on her tumultuous journey to the center of her house, enduring the ravages of many a hardship, before finally, after approximately 162 seconds of unrelenting famine and drought, she caught a glimpse of somepony whom she thought looked suspicious. She couldn’t let him or her escape! Despite the severe hunger that began afflicting her sometime in her journey, she picked up speed until she was trotting violently in the direction she last saw movement. She bravely soldiered on for many more seconds, but after all that time, she had begun to wonder if she had really seen anything at all. Could it have been a mirage? Or was she just giving up too early? Her life was in the balance and she appeared to be chasing something she didn’t even know was there. But it was all she had to go on, wasn’t it?
Shaking, she stood back up to her feet. Ahead of her was a turn in the hallway. Six feet. That was the distance she had to travel. She wasn’t sure if she could handle it, but she had to! The Pop Tarts depended on her! She crawled on her hooves and knees, enduring the blistering spectrum of color from the cheap miniature chandelier hanging from the ceiling above her, until at last she had reached the end! She peered around the corner and what she saw brought the light back into her eyes.
Parched and heavily feeling the effects of extreme thirst accrued throughout her journey, the water dispenser just in front of her almost looked as if it were glowing and made of solid gold. She stood to her hooves and filled a styrofoam cup with water, drinking deep and revitalizing herself with the indescribable power of H2O. Nothing could stop her now!
Following a long and glorious drink of the spectacular liquid, she was feeling reinvigorated and ready to take on anything that could possibly come her way. She was unstoppable! Now she was sure the Pop Tarts would be back in her possession in no time! She stretched, pulled up her invisible socks, and made a mad dash onward once more. The crook couldn’t be too far ahead of her, she thought.
And she turned out to be right! Just as she turned around the second corner, she caught yet another glimpse of a red-orange pony as the door closed behind him or her. She had him now! That door was a dead end as far as she remembered! She smiled in victory as she knelt down like one of the guys about to begin a 100-yard dash and then dashed 100 yards to the door just as it clicked shut in front of her.
Not to worry, she thought. After all, ponies have spent thousand of years working endlessly to adapt their bodies for the sole purpose of using doorknobs. All she had to do was twist. But the life drained from her eyes when she realized not only that the door was fully close, but it was also locked!
A minor setback, of course. Any door that could be closed would soon be opened! Especially if said door came between her and somepony who probably might have her Pop Tarts! This was going to be her crowning moment of triumph and naught but a piece of wood stood in her way!
To her left was a conveniently placed battleaxe that had no conceivable reason to be there, but she didn’t question it, for it was a gift to have it so close and handy at that particular moment of time. Hastily, she took the axe in her mouth and swung with all of her might at the wooden door blocking her path.
Eighteen enormous blows was all it took before the door crumbled before her into a million tiny pieces, followed by eighty more to ensure that the door would never block her path again.
“First try!” she exclaimed, but now was clearly no time for celebration. Before her, to her shock and horror, was not only the red-orange pony she had befriended some time ago in a freak noodle incident, but also a mysterious, hooded pony that disappeared in a flash of unicorn magic the moment she laid eyes upon him.
“Magma Flow!” her voice filled the room and the lava-colored pony froze in his tracks. He knew he had been caught, but seeing as Amber was blocking the only way in or out of the room, there was nowhere he could run. He would have to squeal or face the consequences!
And squeal he did! It was a tad shrill and irritated Amber’s eardrums a bit, causing minor discomfort, but it did not lower her defense stat by a single stage.
“What have you done with my Pop Tarts?!” She had visibly stricken fear into the fiery Pegasus she had confronted, for he knew good and well that it was the worst of all crimes to deprive this bronze pony of her favorite snack. There would be Tartarus to pay and he knew it!
“Please! You don’t understand!” he pleaded, his eyes sincere, but conflicted, “They kidnapped Zephyr!”
For a fraction of a microsecond, Amber didn’t believe a word he said, but then she knew he had to be telling the truth, because he was similar in color Applejack, and Applejack couldn’t lie (except for those times when she did). Truly Magma Flow did the right thing and she had appeared angry at him! She apologized profusely and offered him a large cup of the finest tea she could muster before querying her honest friend as to the whereabouts of the pony who now possessed her precious Pop Tarts.
“He can’t have gotten far,” Magma replied, “Only the alicorns have long-range teleportation!”
He was right! The unicorn had to be nearby! She hugged Magma Flow briefly and booped his nose before making way for the doorway.

Ahead of her, a secret passageway opened to reveal a purple Pegasus dressed in high-ranking royal guard armor. He stumbled out of the hidden dungeon and clearly looked like he might need help, but that would have to be Magma’s responsibility, for the pony who stole the Pop Tarts Magma Flow stole from her was still on the loose!
To her left, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a door open, out of which ran a hooded unicorn pony, galloping much too fast for a pony like her to keep up with. Lucky for her, she had an unfair advantage: wings. She spread them wide and flew like the wind down the hallway to catch the mysterious pony, but even then getting near this pony was no easy task. He was skilled in his ability to teleport, for more than once she was right on top of him, ready to grab him, only to have him teleport ahead and either to the left or right.
Few obstacles littered the path, but even through her stalwart determination, she was aware that the Tart thief was leading her to a place where he could lose her much more easily. Frankly, Amber wasn’t even quite sure why that room was even part of the house, and now she regretted the decision to allow Stormy to give the police the okay to sign the permit giving the fire department the authority to approve the builders building it. That was a mistake she would never make again!
Through the door the thief went, with Amber hot on his tail. Sadly for the pursuer, this was where it would even more difficult. Storm Gazer had insisted that the room was a gym room, and exhorted Amber to allow the room to become a reality, despite the fact that neither of them have touched it in years.
In actuality, considering the needless difficulty to get through each station, the so-called gym was more like a maze than anything else, and that was a fatal flaw the Diabolical Pastry Thief was using to his full advantage.
He jumped over a barrel, then rolled beneath a balance beam, then barrel-rolled through an array of laser defense systems specifically designed to stop him.
Amber had met her match! How could she possibly match the moves of a unicorn with this kind of agility? Her life flashed before her eyes as she imagined the possibility that her Pop Tarts may indeed be gone forever. Was this it? Was this really how it would all end? She couldn’t bear to think of what might happen if he got away, but she was sure that could be exactly what was happening. Truly something so horrible couldn’t really be happening! There had to be some other way!
She looked around, but to her dismay, there was nothing in reach that she could prove useful in this situation. Beyond the lasers, she could see the perpetrator escaping through a door on the other side of the room. Truly she was the cosmic plaything of some horrifically cruel two-legged creature with fingers that was typing on his keyboard at this very moment! The only question was how she could convince him to help her rather than laugh maniacally at her unfortunate circumstances.
She approached the fourth wall and put on the most chagrinned, grief-stricken face she could possibly imagine, hoping to strike his heart and trigger a favorable response, but much to her disappointment, there was no such reaction.
“Please, sir!” she pleaded, “Think of the children!”
Apparently this plea struck a chord with the sadistic hairless chimpanzee pounding away it the keyboard that controls the fate of the pastryless pony, although he still had much development he wished to instill into this story, so all that he felt compelled to do was disable the laser defense system, allowing her safe passage to the doorway at the end of the hall. Also she now had amazing agility.
“Thank you so much, mysterious guy!” Amber was delighted to know that she was heard, even though to anyone else it would have appeared that she was speaking to the wall. In her heart she now knew there was still hope. She hugged the (fourth) wall once again and ran on her way through the door leading out of the gym room and into the subsequent layer of doom.
What she saw there was equally as discomforting as that time when she accidentally dropped a slice of bread butter-side-down onto the floor and had to clean up all by herself. The Pop Tarts were changing hands again, but this time to pony so grandiloquent, so metacognitive, and so downright penntransitphobic that Amber instantly saw her chances of safely reacquiring her luncheon diminish rapidly.

“Mwahahahaha!” the malevolent laughter rang throughout the room as the malignant mare monetarily made merit to the mantled mustang, who retreated post-haste with his bag of bits, leaving the two conflicting forces alone in the room. “I daresay I have outdone myself this time! My posse of partiers will be quite pleased.”
It was clear that one of two adjectives would be able to accurately describe the events that would follow: macabre and gyroscopic. Amber sincerely yearned for the latter.
“You will shudder at the potentiality of my unlimited capabilities!” the mahogany mare mentioned obstreperously.
The sinister bluish unicorn scoffed sanctimoniously. “Prevarications, the lot of it! You gamble with your very essence in the altercation you convey!”
Amber Night scrunched vehemently, and without another word, flew up high in the air, narrowly averting an unpleasant collision with the ceiling. She could see that her every move was being followed meticulously by the elegantly adorned gangster below. Thankfully, her perfected agility patterns would aid her monumentally in the intergalactic battle that would likely follow. She swooped down in an attempt to calcitrate the opposing equine, but in a highly unexpected development, she missed!
A catastrophe! Amber hadn’t calculated the possibility of such an error! Her whole plan had been foiled! Or it would have been, had it not been for the fact that she failed to remember the pepper spray she had stored in her tail for safe-keeping that circumstantially went off just as she passed the bearer of the tarts. Amber swiftly regained her composure and recomputed her strategy accordingly.
“Concede, Moodbeam! Your heinous cunning is no match for my protagonism!” she taunted, but Moodbeam had contrary arrangements.
With the snap of the unicorn’s wrist, the tables turned, and suddenly everything had changed.
“How dare you!” Amber gasped in incredulity. “I allocated many hours to the positioning of those articles of furniture!”
Moodbeam smirked evilly, then evilly walked toward the flying Pegasus pony and evilly tucked the Pop Tarts into her own evil bag. Then, with an evil grin, she spoke evilly. “Now your hope levels in relation to my defeat have flatlined!”
Amber made a dramatic face, indicating to Moodbeam that the Pegasus had accepted the unicorn’s challenge. Never would our hero be defeated so easily, even now that her dinner tables were now facing the outer walls rather than each other. There was one last weapon in the brown mare’s arsenal. A weapon of mass destruction. A plot device packed with so much raw exceptional power that the author didn’t even want to use it because it sort of could end the story too early. That’s why it jammed when Amber attempted to use it.
“Oh, nooooo!” Amber cried. Her plan had ridden so much on this device that she had gone from an attitude of triumph to one of melancholy in mere twinklings. Now what would she do to reacquire her Pop Tarts?
“Bid farewell to your beloved pastries, Amber Night! This will be the last you see of them!” Moodbeam reached into her evil pouch and retrieved an evil cable gun, with which she shot evilly at the ceiling and made her evil escape through a hole that she had evilly crafted moments before Amber had entered the room. That was it! There was no hope this time!
Except there was, for it was then that she came to the realization that the next room above this one was the pool room! It would be impossible for Moodbeam to ascend to a level where she could walk without first getting wet on her way up! This gave Amber the advantage.
Now with a new hope, the Pegasus spread her wings and flew through the hole, following the evil trail of the evil unicorn Moodbeam as the latter made her attempted getaway.

Within minutes, the Pegasus had hit the water from the pool, which for some reason didn’t fall through the hole in the pool’s bottom despite it being pretty gaping and there was literally nothing keeping it from draining into the room below, but hey! If it ain’t broken don’t fix it! That was Amber’s philosophy, and she was sticking to it.
Moments later, she breached the water, knowing full well that the battle ahead would be fierce. Pegasi naturally had the unfair advantage of flight, but unicorn magic could wreak absolute havoc in any battle with the right amount of power. This Pegasus would have to play her cards correctly if she wanted to get a royal flush.
She swam hurriedly to the edge of the water and climbed out, ready for anything the evil unicorn pony had in store for her. Everything, that is, except for two more unicorn friends that would aid Amber’s opponent in this messed up game of Keep-the-Pop-Tarts-Away-from-Amber. It seemed the bearers of the stolen Pop Tarts always had another trick up their sleeves! Now Amber would have to battle three unicorns instead of one! And she was wet!
Of course, under no circumstances could she allow her enemies to learn of her distress. “Concede to my almighty prowess or acknowledge the dismal ramifications!” she bluffed. Surely, she thought, this would drive terror into their souls.
But she was oh, so wrong. The unicorn on the left – a seemingly timid gray pony named Plush with a white mane and pink eyes, horn, and bunny plush – shifted her weight.
Amber knew this could only mean one thing: that she was preparing to unleash her final form! There was no way she could allow such a thing to happen! Frantic, she grabbed the nearest inanimate object to her, which in this case was a rusty spatula, and with a powerful wind-up, flung the spatula at the gray pony, impacting right on the foreleg above her left elbow.
With a mild stumble, Plush caught her balance, averting making facial contact with the ground beneath her. Her expression didn’t appear to change, but Amber was absolutely positive that Plush’s transformation had been completely disrupted and there would be much time before the pony could fully recover.
However, having closely observed the hostility Amber had shown toward her pony pal, Moodbeam’s composure stat decreased by at least two stages and she let out a mighty roar before using her unicorn magic to cause a major disturbance in the water behind Amber. “You will pay dearly for your sins!”
Amber, despite Moodbeam’s unexpected response, had somehow prepared herself anyway and flew up higher than the water could reach without gale forces. From there, she could pelt her opponents with all the rusty spatulas she could possibly desire! The only problem with that plan, as she had come to discover, was that she had no spatulas left! How could she have made such a disastrous error?
No matter, she thought. To the right of the evil Moodbeam was yet another unicorn. One with a brown coat, much like Amber herself, but unlike Amber, this pony was a little on the chubby side and her mane was white and red, just like a jar of delicious Nutella! Oddly enough, her name was Nutellina.
Amber Night knew her as the one who would always put her to shame in Nutella-eating contests, but therein lay her weakness! And Amber happened to have been crazy prepared enough to anticipate this possibility, and hid items in her mane accordingly. Among such items was a jar of Nutella!
She retrieved the jar of delicious sweetened chocolate hazelnut spread and tossed it to the other side of the pool. The slightly-overweight Nutella-obsessed pony instantly forgot about the security she had promised to Moodbeam as the latter attempted a getaway with the beloved Pop Tarts and posthaste chased the cased paste across the pool room.
That left Amber with just one more threat to her Pop Tarts: Moodbeam. “Acquiesce to my prior conditions immediately!” the Pegasus demanded.
The evil unicorn scoffed evilly, then replied in an evil voice, “A minor setback! The incapacitation of my sycophants does not enhance your probability of success!”
Before Amber could reply, the last unicorn standing lept into the air and punched the poor airborne mare right in the face!
Amber couldn’t even believed it! After all the effort she put into staying high up in the air where the evil mare couldn’t reach her, she still was in immediate danger of being damaged by an attack! Surely this could not be!
Moodbeam landed evilly on the ground after her evil attack and adorned her evil face with an evil grin as she evilly watched the Pegasus lose altitude and crash-land in the water.
Our hero was down, but she wasn’t out. She knew the Pop Tarts depended on her and if she gave up now, it would be as if she had betrayed them herself. Also she wouldn’t have them, and that would truly be the worst. Possible. Thing!
Quickly she climbed out of the pool, faking that she apparently had the resilience to withstand a thousand more blows to the face and trying with everything in her to suppress her violent obsession with donut-shaped objects as she stared the evil mare right in the eye. Surely her bluff of power would strike terror and despair and laser beams into the eyes of her enemy.
But then the most unexpected thing happened. Amber could suddenly feel a disorientating presence in the room, and by the looks of it, so could Moodbeam. It was as if all logic and common sense had suddenly been removed from existence, put into a blender, and then given to a flower girl to be scattered randomly around the world. Amber knew this could only mean one thing.
“Not the buttons!” Amber cried. “Anything but the gumdrop buttons!”
But her cries went unheard. I mean, I think they did. I didn’t actually hear what happened next because someone turned on a leaf blower outside, but what followed was the most unexpected thing of all.

“Thine Pop Tarts shall in future reside inside of me!”
Amber Night’s eyes dilated as she glanced in the direction of the all-too-familiar voice that came from the new doorway in the wall. What she saw there was nothing short of shocking. There, standing in the doorway and looking as regal and determined as equinely possible, was the last pony Amber Night expected to find in her house. It was none other than Princess Luna herself!
But what surprised Amber Night even more was Princess Luna’s selfless proposal to the Pop Tart-less mare.
“Amber Night!” she proclaimed, “Thou hast come at a loss of thine beautiful pastries and I, Princess Luna of the Night, hereby extend to you a deal! Thou, Pegasus keeper of this abode, wouldst verily grow to become much more masterful against such vile unicorns as Moodbeam once our powers united twain! All I require in return is the sharing of a single Tart to thine benevolent ruler!”
Amber, skeptical though she be, saw much to be gained through this alliance, knowing truly that there may be no other way to secure the safety of her pastries. “To this new manifesto I acquiesce my allegiance!” she announced triumphantly.
Right on cue, Princess Luna somersaulted through the air. Moodbeam appeared to have thought she was all-too prepared for what suppress of action violence Luna could bestow upon her, but she was truly mistaken. The evil unicorn mare was defeated with naught but a single roundhouse kick to the posterior!
Amber Night’s jaw dropped in sheer amazement at the stunning display of visual effects Luna displayed in full HD. Truly it was too good to be true!
Unfortunately for the Pegasus, it really was too good to be true. The instant the Princess of the Night came into possession of the box of pastries, she ran for it as fast as her clearly superior alicorn extremities would take her.
Appalled at the princess’ blatant betrayal toward her loyal subject, Amber didn’t waste a single moment before giving chase to the horrible double-crossing alicorn princess of Equestria. The chase led Amber all over Canterlot, causing lots of trouble in the streets as the two ran in front of coaches, ran down lemonade stands, ran into old friends, and ran in front of the other kind of coaches, until the pair of overly energetic horses found themselves nowhere else but in the Canterlot castle itself!
“I pledge to reacquire that which belongs in my possession!” Amber shouted, though Luna was proving this to be a task of colossal difficulty. Of course, it was an alicorn Amber Night was chasing. Alicorns were royalty for a reason, and Luna undoubtedly had a plethora of experience in this particular activity. Amber, on the other hand, was infinitely younger and by necessity also much less accomplished in her skills of chase.
“Verily I say unto thee: such a feat is nary accomplishable!” Luna taunted.
Furious, Amber took to her wings and flew at maximum speed, now closing in on the dark-coated princess at a much quicker pace. This was the final stretch! Amber Night could feel it!
But then she lost all feeling of closure as Luna’s speed abruptly quadrupled and the larger of the ponies suddenly vanished in a cloud rustled jimm– I mean smoke as she made her most promising getaway yet!
Amber did her best to pick up even more speed as she darted after the princess, following not the figure that had disappeared from view already, but the trail of vapor she left in her wake. But to no avail. The alicorn princess had escaped! This couldn’t be! She flapped her wings harder than she had ever flapped them before, inadvertently losing approximately four feathers as she approached mach speeds, not wavering in velocity even as she climbed a massive spiral staircase .
Sadly, the next obstacle would be impossible to surmount with speed alone, for at the top of the stairs lay a structure with fortitude beyond Amber’s wildest dreams.
A door!
But not just any door. It was the door. The door is everything. All that was and all that will be. The door controls time and space! The door can see into your mind! The door can see into your soul!
“Really?” Amber gasped in awe, clearly terrified at what The Door could imply for her quest. “The- the door can do all that?”
lol no. You’re so gullible, Amber Night.
But the door was indeed of a much greater resilience than the previous door she had encountered on her journey. Indeed it was made of stainless steel, the most unstainable steel of all! There was no way Amber would ever penetrate its horrendously epic defense.
“Please extend assistance to me!” she cried with many a tear streaming from her eyes, “Currently I am crying!” But nopony could hear her, for there were no other ponies in earshot. She truly was alone.
“To mine advantage, young pony subject, neither pony nor pet dwells within range of thine shouting!” Luna taunted while laughing maniacally in a manner not unlike the evil Moodbeam who previously held Amber’s stolen Pop Tarts.
But then Amber hatched a glorious new plan! Without skipping a beat, she darted back down the stairwell and ran as fast as her legs could possibly take her until she reached the magnificent Solar Throne Room, wherein waited the Princess of the Sun, Princess Celestia!
“I require assistance immediately!” Amber screeched to a halt several meters from the massive chair the Princess of the Sun sat upon. “A robbery has occurred! Luna’s abduction of my Pop Tarts demands action of the instant variety!”

Princess Celestia removed her sunglasses. “Mother of me,” she gasped dramatically, the screen narrowing like in those old kung-fu movies. “It’s time to let Luna know there’s a new sheriff in town. And she’s got an army of assassins.” She looked Amber Night deep in the eye before continuing. “Come, child! It’s time to show her what the meaning of winning!”
With that, Celestia flew up high into the air, followed closely by Amber Night, and together they flew at stupid speeds straight to the top of the staircase. Celestia, with her epic explosive alicorn horn, blew the door into a million pieces in a raging fireball so intense that there was no reason Luna’s tower should have still been standing. Undoubtedly its continued survival was the work of one princess or the other. Amber wasn’t sure which.
But the safety of the tower was of no consequence to the Pegasus now. No, not when her Pop Tarts were so much closer now than they had ever been before. She could just about reach out and touch them, and this brought a smile to her face.
But then everything took a turn for the worst when the unthinkable happened.
“Thine efforts shall be in vain!” Princess Luna shouted. She shone brightly as her coat began to glow a radiant white color before disappearing with the Moon Princess in a brilliant flash. Then the younger princess was nowhere to be found.
“She’s teleported!” Princess Celestia was invisibly shocked, but Amber soon knew that the white-coated monarch must have known something she didn’t. “But when we find her she’ll be no match for my fire-breathing fists! Once she steps into my octagon I’ll be winning so hard she won’t be able to sit down for a week! Come, little mare. This just got personal!”
Amber nodded, watching as the princess’ horn also began to glow, its light engulfing both the equines before transporting the both of them high up in the air somewhere between Canterlot and Ponyville. There, the two vehemently searched the towns beneath them for the elusive Princess Luna and the stolen Pop Tarts.
But alas, there was so much ground below and so little time. Not to mention neither of them quite had good enough vision to be able to make out anything at their elevation.
“She’s certainly not in Canterlot!” Princess Celestia pronounced assuredly.
“Of your observation I would be inclined to concur,” Amber replied. The left only one possible location for the thief to be: Ponyville. The vast megacity spanned thousands of feet in every direction as far as the mouse-eye could see. The sheer duration of time it would take to search every inch of it almost left Amber in tears. But then, to her credit, she came up with what at the time seemed like her best idea yet!
“We can find her faster if we split up!”
Celestia smiled radiantly. “Winning, child!” she applauded. “Keep at it and if you’re especially lucky – and manage to accrue tiger blood and adonis DNA – you could hope to be half the pony I am!”
Nodding, the two split up at breakneck speeds, knowing that every second wasted was another second Princess Luna could be chowing down on Amber’s Pop Tarts. Their speed clearly reflected how desperately they would endeavor to make sure that sort of unthinkable crime would never happen!
Amber’s search led her far and wide but did not lead her to her goal. The day was growing darker and with every passing moment, Amber lost one more milligram of hope. Indeed she was on the verge of giving up in lieu of returning home to cry on her bed for the rest of her life, never to smile or have a happy thought again.
But then, just when she had thought she’d lost the last of her hopes, an explosion rang throughout the air. Amber gyrated in place until she could see the enormous fireball rising toward the sky near the edge of Ponyville. The sight made drove fear into her heart for the lives of all the ponies in the area, but even more so did it drive home the revelation that there really was nopony in Equestria worthy of Amber’s trust.
Celestia had betrayed her! That horrible dingle! She would pay dearly!
“This causes me to be unhappy!” Amber Night yelled as loudly as she could into the sky. “This occurrence is entirely unacceptable!”
At top speed, she flew furiously in the direction of the explosion, fully ensured that they hadn’t heard her screaming moment prior. She was much too far away to be heard and this gave her the most important advantage of her journey so far: the element of surprise! Not the Pegasus Surprise, although that would have also been advantageous to her quest, but the abstract thought of surprise, being that the princesses hadn’t a clue that Amber was about to sneak attack.
And sneak attack she did! The princesses were aghast at her bold actions but, unfortunately to Amber, remained in possession of the Pop Tarts.
“Your action of betrayal is highly inappropriate!” Amber Night announced to Celestia loud enough for the nearby ponies to hear.
But Celestia was savvy enough to even have a cover story to justify her betrayal. “There is no justification for the unwinning crime they’ve committed!” she bellowed.
Amber Night lowered an eyebrow at Celestia, incredulous. “In what manner is there such a possibility for these pastries to break the law?!”
To this, the princesses both replied at once. Although they said it differently.
“They have committed maximum curfew breakage!” Celestia shouted.
“Verily their nature walk is much too late!” Luna included.
Both princesses then showed grim faces as they glared into Amber Night’s very soul. “As have you!” they said at once.
Amber looked up, noticing then that the moon had already reached the center of the sky. Her eyes widened as she realized what they had done. “This act of disingenuity cannot require me to be held accountable!”
This accusation of cheating only seemed to anger the princesses.
“How darest thou accuse us of the crime of perjury!” the darker-colored princess spat. “Forsooth these pastries have tainted thine mind! Thine imprisonment would lie among the stars if we had not passed such powers to thine guardian Twilight Sparkle and her acquaintances! Thou shall pay dearly for thine insubordination!”
A bead of sweat formed on Amber Night’s forehead as her nervousness welled up in the back of her head. She wasn’t sure what to do at first, but she had an idea! She pulled out a camcorder which she had been using to record her journeys in case such a need arose and waved it through the air. “I, Amber Night, possess video proof on this here camcorder of your betrayal and thievery!” she announced proudly and as loudly as possible.
The princesses gasped.
“If the public saw that video for three second’s,” Celestia declared, “they’d be liked ‘Dude! Can’t handle it! Unplug this machine!’ They just can’t process it with a normal brain, Amber Night!”
But it was too late. In the time it took Celestia to spout Charlie Sheen-related material and pretend like she was in a Michael Bay movie, Amber Night had already found someone who would buy the film at the outrageously gigantic price of one million bits. This made her rich enough to buy the Canterlot Castle itself!
“That’s it!” Celestia proclaimed, “I’m tired of pretending I’m not a ridiculously epic rock star from space! I have one speed; I have one gear, and that’s GO! I’m ready to start winning all over the place and you won’t ever stop this pain train!”
With that, the solar princess took control of the sun and began to unleash it’s truly mammoth power upon the brown pony below. Unfortunately for many Ponyvillian residents, the sun had a very wide area of effect and the collateral damage drastically mounted with every second Celestia was after Amber. Houses burned, explosive exploded, and many children’s toys were incinerated as the Pegasus made her epic getaway. Even some unlucky equines were unfortunate enough to find themselves in the path of the terrible sun ray! Celestia was really in for it this time!
“I plead thou to cease this violation!” Luna pleaded to Celestia as the latter continued to wreck everything. “For it is I who wish to join your quest to abolish this Pegasus from the earth!”
Then the princess of the night took her own control over the moon and began smashing it into the ground below! Amber Night was luckily agile enough (having been granted the power by that horrible monkey thing across the fourth wall from her several paragraphs ago) to avoid every attack the monarchs could dish out to her.
But still, such an ability to not bring her any closer to getting back her snacks! It was as if all of time and space had aligned to make her believe she would have a chance by giving her false hope only to yank it out of her grasp again and again! How cruel the universe must have been to do this to her!
But then hope arrived once more!
Explosions raged in all directions, the sun firing its laser all over the town and the moon crushing everything in sight, but there was one hope that appeared seemingly out of nowhere in a brilliant flash of pure awesomeness! It was some kind of Pegasus pony, Amber had deduced, and it swooped in between the princesses and stole the Pop Tarts right out from under them!
The resulting distraction even cause a beautiful display of fireworks high in the sky as the moon crashed with full force right into the sun, exploding everywhere yet somehow not completely destroying either celestial body. All was safe once more! Well, except for the billion bits worth of damage to the city and the undoubted hundreds of lives that must have been lost at the hands of the moon and the sun, but that was the least of Amber’s concerns. What was important was now her Pop Tarts had changed hooves yet again!
As she fled the scene in chase of the new mysterious pony, she could hear the furious expletives of the princesses behind her.
“Verily I am truly angered!” Luna screeched most unregally.
“You and your air mattresses will pay dearly for this!” Celestia wailed in return.
But soon the both of them grew bored and flew on back to the castle to have a cup of tea or something. Like real princesses should. It was to Amber’s relief that she could be certain she had seen the end of them forever!

As she grew nearer to the mysterious pony who saved her Pop Tarts from the nefarious clutches of the questionably benevolent leaders of their world, she started to recognize the coat and mane colors. The Pegasus had a grayish sapphire blue coat with a matching light ceruleanish gray mane and tail. He also was carrying a keytar on his back.
It was him! It was that one guy she probably met that one time in the one place with the people and the other things! It was Cloud Control! In that moment, she knew everything would be fine. Cloud Control was one of her best buddies, after all. It was truly a stroke of fabulous timing that he showed up when he did. Amber Night was so close to defeat that her life was beginning to flash before her eyes. But Cloud Control was there to save the day.
“I am infinitely beholden to your convenient extrication, Cloud Control!” she yelled ahead.
The bluish-grayish-whatever-colored pony looked back behind him and suddenly slowed way down so that they were flying side-by-side, Pop Tarts guarded safely in his hooves as he flew at full speed back to the brown Pegasus’ abode.
“Yo what up dawg, Amber Night!” Cloud Control responded, “What’s crackalackin’?”
In all honesty, today was perhaps the most upsetting day of her life, having been repeatedly stolen from by many of her closest friends and then being violently attacked by the monarchs of the land, but she really didn’t want to relive the trauma of narrowly averted death and the agony of enduring the loss of one of the most important things in her life. Speaking of all that had happened that day would be an unwelcome reminder of times that should never be spoken of again. Cloud Control didn’t have to know.
“I am currently faring reasonably well,” the protagonist answered. “What location are you currently in transit to?”
Cloud Control held up the wrapped pastries. “I gots the tarts and ready to break-it-down on my way to y’all’s crib, yo! These sweets got a true owner there and it ain’t me!”
Amber Night smiled in relief. Cloud Control had reacquired her misappropriated jelly-filled pastries and was even willing to ensure their security in transit by returning them to their proper residence himself. What a great friend! All she had to do was follow him and she would finally be reunited at long last with her long-lost Pop Tarts! The day was saved!
After a period of time that was somehow both excruciatingly protracted and pleasantly brief, the two Pegasi landed lightly on the balcony and sauntered inside the sumptuous establishment.
“At long last my perilous journey is approaching a conclusion!” Amber Night said, but as events unfolded before her very eyes she soon realized approximately how asymptotic her progress proved to be, for instead of handing the delicious treats back to Amber Night, Cloud Control went straight to Storm Gazer’s door and handed her the Pop Tarts instead!
Amber Night stared agast. “Your action has caused boundless dejection in my cardiovascular organ!” she uttered, tears visibly streaming from her eyes. She had trusted this subtly off-blue Pegasus and he had betrayed her! Sure he had proven himself no better than the princesses! Had he not realized the immeasurable torment she had sustained in order to recover those plot devices? Did he even care?
Suddenly she broke down and sobbed uncontrollably upon the floor beneath her. After all she had gone through, after all the effort she had put forth, and after how infinitesimally proximal she had grown to reaching her goal, this was where it all ended. She had suffered through many hardships on her campaign, but by far the most harrowing of them all was this very moment, when all of her labor and all of her endeavors were jerked from her clutches and rewarded to another. She no longer had any will to continue. This really was the end, and this time she was ready to accept her fate.

But then a deed most unexpected occurred. After a moment of chatter between Cloud Control and Storm Gazer, it was the pastryless mare’s gray-coated sister that tried to console her. “Amber,” she said, “What’s wrong?”
Oh, how she wished it would have been in her favor to not dignify such a question with an answer, as there was no doubt in Amber’s mind that Stormy must have known the only thing in the universe Amber could possibly have gotten so emotional about was the snack she had spent the entirety of this story trying to regain possession of, but alas, it appeared Amber’s assumptions were flawed. Stormy truly didn’t know.
“I exclusively desire Pop Tarts!” she squealed amidst tears and wailing. “I question what causes this objective to necessitate such callous misery!”
Stormy was visibly flabbergasted.but perhaps even this was justified. This, now that Amber had recalled, was perhaps the only instance in which the gray pony had beheld her twin sister in such a state. Last time such a calamity occurred, Storm Gazer had been away touring the world’s chocolate cake factories. And Storm Gazer wasn’t even born yet the first time it happened. Now she understood how the sister she had grown up with failed to see her pain.
“Neither might nor grit has yielded favorable results in my expedition to restore said McGuffins to my own custody!”
It was then, Amber could see, that Storm Gazer suddenly understood the gravity of this situation. Her sister was in need! And what kind of twin sister would she be if she didn’t return her sister’s Pop Tarts? She would be a terrible sister! She would be an evil sister! One with no compassion or mercy, one so wicked and vile that all the forces of the world would eventually align for the sole purpose of exacting comeuppance in the most dreadful scenario imaginable! This was the kind of sister Storm Gazer couldn’t possibly allow herself to become.
“Be informed, younger sister, that in this moment you will be reunited with that which you have gone without for so long! Consider your quest completed! You shall never go without your beloved pastries again!” Storm Gazer bounced to her feet, ran into her room, and stopped dead in her tracks.

The Pop Tarts were gone. Storm Gazer screeched loudly at their disappearance.
“I just don’t understand!” she howled “I left them right here!”
Amber Night jumped to her hooves and ran into her sister’s room to verify the claim, and to her disgust, the sibling was right! Somepony had slipped into the room during Amber’s dramatic breakdown and ran off with the delicious appetizers!
“Diabolical!” Amber Night growled furiously. Anger had welled up in her guts and quickly replaced all sorrow she had felt. There was yet another thief on the loose and this time there would be consequences of unfathomable proportions! Nopony in Equestria would be able to contain the wrath of Amber Night once she caught this truly fiendish adversary.
“I am placed in a position of utmost discomfort in this particular moment!” she moaned, but her claim did nothing for the situation they were currently confronting.
Together, the three Pegasus ponies galloped at full speed in no direction in particular, hoping and praying that the path they had chosen at random would lead them to the culprit behind the crime. They ran at full-speed for approximately two hectoseconds, then slowed to a canter for another five decaseconds before their prayers were finally answered.
Amber was most appalled at the sight before her now. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected this pony to lay her hooves on her Pop Tarts. It was none other than Concise Calculation! The Tarts were resting squarely on her back as she did nothing but stand there in the doorway and watch as the trio of Pegasi closed in on her.
“Amber Night, wait!” she pleaded. She could see very clearly that Amber was indeed most enraged by this unfolding of events and apparently wished for the sorrow to go on no longer.
Amber Night, on the other hand, demanded retribution! There was nothing that would stop her now and anypony who dared try would truly experience the meaning of persecution!
Concise Calculation knew this could mean the end; Amber was deadly serious!
But she had a trick up her sleeve! A shield of made of pure mathematical equations suddenly activated and created a formulaic barrier around her that could only be passed once every equation was solved.
But Concise Calculation had no intention of stealing the Pop Tarts. She only wanted to talk to Amber Night.
“What is the meaning of this?” Storm Gazer implored.
Concise Calculation stepped forward as near to the three as she could get without stepping through her defenses. “You have to understand! All this was meant to be!”
Cloud Control gasped. Could those words possibly mean what he thought they meant? “Y’all dawg was the perp all dis time?!”
Concise Calculation nodded once. “It was I who enabled Veridian Mist to imprison Zephyr in this establishment’s secret dungeon! It was I who told Magma Flow that the only way he would ever free the general of the solar guard again was acquire Amber’s Pop Tarts and frame Storm Gazer for their theft! It was I who encouraged Moodbeam to pay Veridian Mist for bringing the snacks to her and sharing them with her friends! It was I who alerted Princess Luna that, somewhere in Equestria, somepony was eating Pop Tarts without her. It was even I who directed Winter Opus to Cloud Control to tell him that the princesses were in possession of Pop Tarts that belonged to somepony in this house. And lastly, it was I who stole the pastries from Storm Gazer’s room just moments ago.”
“What a cruel and downright fricative procedure to obtain my Pop Tarts!” Amber Night retorted. “What surmounted your dazzling intellect to coerce you into enacting this operation?!”
The calculator pony blinked, but didn’t answer for a moment. She appeared confused, but was trying not to show it.
“You asked me to,” she replied flatly. “To get your Pop Tarts back.”
Amber Night’s eyes dilated. By the princesses, the math pone was right! This whole struggle was Amber’s fault all along!
“Oh, yeah!” Amber chimed rather out-of-character. “I forgot about that for a moment there. Thanks, Concise Calculation! You’re a lifesaver!”
The four ponies then trekked onward back to Amber’s room with the Pop Tarts, which were at last back in the hands of their rightful owner, and shared them amongst themselves at Amber’s request. Finally all was right again with the world and Amber would be able to sleep in security knowing the the Pop Tarts were back where they belong.