Sunset Shimmer was having what was, for her, a good day. So far she didn’t have to actually interact with anyone, the spell that she was studying seemed to be coming along well, and the meal she had just eaten was decent enough. At the moment, she was relaxing in the shower, having temporarily forgotten about her utter hatred of the world.
“Ahhhhh,” she said to herself. “It’s so nice to not have to deal with anypony else. Could this day get any better?”
She quickly discovered how it could get worse when she exited the shower and looked at her reflection. “AHHHHH!” she screamed. All of her hair was missing. “But… where… how… what?”
Her mind quickly raced through the possibilities. She certainly had her hair before the shower. Therefore, something must have happened during the shower to make it fall off.
She quickly examined the shampoo bottle she used. Now that she looked very closely, it did seem slightly different than normal, though it nonetheless was a very good fake. “Ugh, did someone switch out my regular shampoo with hair removal shampoo?” Her mind quickly named several possible culprits. However, before she could do anything about that, she still had to do something about the hair situation. There were some spells to grow hair more rapidly, but even those would require at least a week for it to fully grow back.
A quick scouring of her rather limited wardrobe showed a surprisingly limited amount of clothing that was particularly effective at hiding the baldness. Ultimately she had to make do with an old dress she hadn’t worn for years to cover the lack of a tail, and the hat she bought from Suri when she first got here to (partially) cover her head. She looked at herself in the mirror; it worked as long as no one took more than a cursory look at her.
With the disguise complete, she left and made a beeline for Suri’s store, the only place in town to get the new clothes she needed. She knew that Suri would probably charge a markup of 2000% or something due to her desperation, but she was so desperate that she didn’t care.
However, upon actually reaching the store, she was stopped by giant signs saying “BIOHAZARD.” Various ponies in the pony equivalent of a hazmat suit were cleaning up a gross-looking green liquid that surrounded the store.
“What is going on?” she asked aloud.
“Oh, someone just decided to dump toxic waste on my lawn,” Suri said, appearing next to her. “I can tell you, this is killing sales. What happened to your hair?” she asked as she got a closer look at Sunset.
“Someone switched out my shampoo with something that got rid of it.”
“Darn it! And I could’ve made a fair amount of money if I had the opportunity to sell you something due to it. Gilda’s gone too far this time with her pranks, because she made me lose money!”
“You know,” Sunset said, “I just realized. I don’t even know where Gilda lives.”
“I do! Let’s go and demand she adequately compensate me for my damages!”
“You mean the fact you can’t sell me stuff at drastically marked up prices?” Sunset asked.
“Exactly!”
“Ugh,” Sunset said, “and I still need that stupid hat. Let’s just get over there quickly and hope nopony gets a good look at me in the meantime.”
A short time later, they reached Gilda’s house. Suri knocked on the door, and Gilda opened it. “Oh, you guys. What do you want?”
“What do you think?” Suri asked. We’re angry about the pranks you pulled!”
“Actually, Lightning Dust was the one who pranked you. See, we had a competition going as to who could pull the best pranks, and she got you two as some of the targets to prank. What’d she do, anyway? I can at least see she somehow got rid of Sunset’s hair… and by the way, you look really dumb in a dress. What’d she do to Suri?”
“Dumped toxic waste on my lawn,” Suri mumbled discontentedly.
Gilda looked at her for a moment, then fell over laughing. “Oh man… toxic waste! How’d she even get that? That’s just so good!” A look of concern suddenly overcame her. “Oh, crud! That’s so good it might win her the bet! I have to beat that!” she added before quickly exiting her house, closing the door, then flying off at breakneck speed. There was an awkward pause between Suri and Sunset.
“Okay, so I guess we confront Lightning Dust about it, then,” Sunset said. “Do you think the toxic waste cleanup is done yet, so I can get that bigger hat?”
“Well, they gave me an estimate of two weeks before the place was habitable again. Hey, can I stay with you in the meantime?”
“Two weeks? By then I probably could have gotten all my hair to grow back anyway!”
“Well, sure. But anyway, about staying with–“ Suri started.
Sunset wasn’t paying attention. “Ugh, two weeks? I’ll probably just stay home the whole time and avoid contact with anypony even more than usual. After I deal with Lightning Dust, anyway.”
The two went for Lightning Dust’s house. Sunset was finding it increasingly difficult to successfully hide herself from the various ponies that were milling around. Still, they were able to get to Lightning Dust’s home fairly quickly. Which was, to Sunset’s surprise, not covered with holes.
“What?! So she only crashes through the roof and door when it’s my house?” Sunset asked indignantly.
“Well she doesn’t do it to mine, so I guess it is only yours,” Suri observed. “Huh.”
Rather than knock, Sunset simply knocked the door down with her magic and marched in. “Lightning Dust!” she screamed.
Lightning Dust looked up from the book she was reading. “Oh, hi guys. Did you like your pranks?”
Sunset glared at Lightning Dust with the anger of something that was incredibly angry.
“Huh, guess not. Well, I thought they were funny.” Lightning Dust went back to reading her book.
“Are you going to compensate us for our damages?” Suri asked. “I’m losing tons of money because my store is closed, and Sunset… well, her problem is far more minor, but it bears mentioning!”
“What are you complaining about? Those pranks were hilarious! Do you know what I had to go through to get that toxic waste? And that shampoo was special order!”
“Oh, that is it!” Sunset said as she started firing magical blasts at Lightning Dust. However, the pegasus was fast enough to avoid them, then zoom out of the house.
“Well, I can see you’re in a grumpy mood,” Lightning Dust said. “Maybe some more pranks in the future will lighten you up. So see you later. Oh, and don’t think that destroying my house will be revenge; it’s all insured!” Lightning Dust zipped away.
“After her!” Sunset shouted, and the two tried to run after her. However, Lightning Dust’s incredible speed had her vanish out of sight before they could follow her for long. “Now what?”
Suri looked in the direction Lightning Dust was heading. “Sweet Apple Acres is in that direction. Maybe she went to prank Flim and Flam?
“What if she was just going in that direction to make us think that, and then she quickly went in another direction as soon as she was out of sight?”
Suri stared at Sunset. “You think Lightning Dust is capable of that kind of forward thinking?”
“Okay,” Sunset replied, “fair point. Let’s go!”
The two galloped off to Sweet Apple Acres, home of Flim and Flam. Who they happened to run into on the road there.
“Did you see Lightning Dust?” panted Sunset, who wasn’t used to running this much for so long.
“Her? Oh, she was at the farm briefly. Not sure why,” Flam said.
“Did Lightning Dust pull any pranks on you?” asked Suri. “She’s been doing that.”
“Oh, no. She didn’t pull and pranks on us,” Flim said. “Gilda, on the other hand, gave us brownies a day or two ago that turned out to have laxatives inside. It was… not a pleasant experience.”
“Oh,” Suri said. “You must have been one of the people Gilda pranked. Apparently they’re having a prank-off or something.”
“On a completely unrelated note,” Flam added, “we’ve discovered a great new fertilizer! Want to hear about it?”
“No!” Sunset and Suri found themselves saying simultaneously.
“Well, I thought it was interesting,” muttered Flam. “Ordered it all the way from Saddle Arabia, too.”
“You know, you two seem awfully chummy considering all that stuff that happened between you,” Sunset said.
“Oh, you know how it is,” said Suri. “Someone lies to you and tricks you, you nearly kill them, you have to go to prison for a while. It all evens itself out and becomes water under the bridge. Anyway! It’s obvious what we should do. Since they’re both to blame, we should all team up and force them to make compensations for us. Is there anypony else they pranked?”
“Well,” Flim said, “Lightning Dust did say something about Trixie…”
The four decided that without any other leads to go to, they might as well head to Trixie’s home.
"Yet another house I'm learning the location of today," muttered Sunset.
"Oh, it's not a house," said Suri. "She lives in a cart."
“Wait, she lives in a cart?” Sunset asked. “Does she actually move around enough to warrant the mobility?”
Suri shrugged. “Apparently she just never bothered to buy a house. I guess living in a cart is probably reasonably cheap, m’kay.”
Sunset stared at Suri. “What did you just say?”
“I said ‘Apparently she just never bothered to buy a house. I guess living in a cart is probably reasonably cheap, m’kay.’”
Sunset face-hoofed. “Please never use that phrase again. It sounds really stupid.”
“Which one? Apparently? Bothered? Guess?”
“The whole m’kay thing. It’s just annoying.”
Suri shrugged. “Fine. It’s not like it’s a major trait or anything that a lot of people have associated with me despite it only being stated once or twice.”
Sunset was confused. “Huh?”
“Oh, I said it once, and apparently it caught on for some reason. Just thought it might be fun to try it again. Oh, and here we are!” The four stopped upon reaching Trixie’s cart. Or at least what had been Trixie’s cart, as it had been cut in half.
“Huh,” Flim said, finally breaking the silence. “I guess that was the prank.”
“That’s probably fairly significant property damage…” Flam observed.
“So where’s Trixie anyway?”
“Aha!” Suri said, pointing to a note. “That must be a clue!”
Sunset blinked. “A clue?”
“Look, I’m just trying to make things more exciting by pretending this is all a mystery or something.”
Sunset read the note. “Out for a while. Will probably be in the Ponyville Hospital if you need me. Signed, Trixie.” She looked up. “Huh, might as well look there.”
The group did look there. Sunset found herself relieved to be traveling in a group, as she could simply stay in the middle and avoid attention. Eventually they reached the hospital.
“Hi. What is your emergency?” The receptionist seemed to be paying little attention to them, instead working on a crossword puzzle.
“Uh, no emergency,” Suri said, “we were just looking for Trixie, who we think recently came here.”
“Oh, her? Pretty sure she’s recuperating from the operation in Waiting Room 6. By the way, do you know a 28-letter word for a movement opposed to the removal of an establishment? I’m stumped.”
No one had the faintest idea, so they went to Waiting Room 6. Inside they found Trixie, somewhat unexpectedly, waiting.
“You guys?” she asked, her face clearly disappointed. “I was hoping that doctor would get back here and tell me if my insurance covered that operation…”
“Operation?” Sunset asked. “What operation?”
“Well,” Trixie said, “somepony apparently thought it would be hilarious to replace my toothpaste with glue. And by the way, it was not pleasant to have to get all that explained while my mouth was stuck shut!”
Earlier that day…
“Hi. What is your emergency?” the bored-looking receptionist at the Ponyville hospital asked, not even looking away from her crossword puzzle.
“Mmm mmmph mmmph mmmph!”
“Huh? Speak up, I can’t hear you.”
“Mmm mmmph mmmph mmmph!”
“Can you stop with the mumbling?”
“MMM MMMPH MMMPH MMMPH!”
“Ah!” The receptionist put down the crossword puzzle and looked at the blue unicorn who was standing there. “Someone replaced your toothpaste with glue and you now find yourself unable to open your mouth? Why didn’t you just say so?” She pressed a button. “They’ll be with you shortly. Also, do you know a 29-letter word for the act of believing something to be basically worthless or trivial?”
Trixie stared at her.
“Oh, right. Glue. Sorry about that.”
In the present…
“And let me tell you, that operation wasn’t pleasant either!”
Suri looked carefully at Trixie. “It doesn’t look like it left any scars.”
“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t painful!”
“Anyway,” Flam said, “we were trying to figure out how to get back at Gilda and Lightning Dust after all these annoying pranks they’ve pulled. Laxatives in brownies, hair-removing shampoo, toxic waste on lawns, cutting carts in half, and now apparently replacing toothpaste with glue.”
“Huh. Whose cart did they cut in half?” Trixie asked.
Flam raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t know your cart got cut in half?”
“No!” Trixie screamed. “I’ve been here most of today!”
“Oh,” Flim said. “Guess you didn’t know.”
“So that’s what Gilda went and did when she said she needed to top Lightning Dust’s prank…” Suri said.
“All right, that’s it!” Trixie declared. “I finally know how to get back at them! I vote that we sneak into their houses late at night, gag them, drag them by their feet to the middle of the woods, and shove them in a big plastic bag!”
Everyone stared at Trixie. “Wouldn’t that kill them?” Suri asked. “I, for one, am not keen on heading back to prison, at least not if I didn’t have some control over the uniforms.”
“And even ignoring the prison sentence, it would kill my chances at getting any kind of promotion,” said Sunset.
At that point, the doctor came in. “Well, after doing some examination, it looks like your insurance doesn’t cover this. Sorry.”
“Okay, seriously, we’re going with that bag in the woods plan,” Trixie said.
“Why not get back at them in a more reasonable fashion, like returning the same pranks?” Suri asked.
“There’s some new pranks I can think of…” Flim muttered.
“Uh, maybe it’s not my place to ask, but what’s going on?” asked the doctor.
“Oh, some people we know pulled a whole lot of annoying pranks,” explained Sunset, who then filled the doctor in.
“Hrm,” said the doctor. “You know, did you consider just suing them for damages?”
There was a lengthy pause. Suri finally spoke.
“You know what, guys? I just realized something. We’re idiots.”
“So because I took slightly less of a monetary loss from all those lawsuits, I think I should be considered the winner of the prank-off,” Lightning Dust declared.
“Are you kidding? The fact my pranks incurred a higher penalty just shows they’re better!” Gilda said.
“Hey, I took enough of a loss from those lawsuits! I’m not losing more money on that bet we made.”
“Well, I’m not paying up because I clearly won! Not to mention you were the one that said we wouldn’t be legally responsible for any damages!”
“Yeah… about that…” said Lightning Dust. “Turns out what I was reading was about accidental damages. Ones done on purpose are another matter.”
“Hey, you two!” said a pony observing them. “We put those hazmat suits on you for a reason! Stop slacking off and get back to cleaning up that toxic waste! There’s a lot left!”
Gilda and Lightning Dust sighed and went back to work.
Dear King Sombra,
Today I learned that lawsuits solve everything.
Also, according to Trixie, revenge is a dish best served cold with shiitake mushroom sauce. No, I don’t get it either.
Sincerely,
Sunset Shimmer