//------------------------------// // The Return of Irony // Story: My Little Pony: Friendship is Absurd // by Lord Seth //------------------------------// “Today’s lesson is mighty important to remember,” said Bullwinkle. Rocky read what was on the chalkboard. “Bullwinkle is a dope.” “Not that lesson!” said Bullwinkle in a slightly harsher tone than usual. He spun the chalkboard. While it was spinning, he said in a his more usual voice, “This lesson.” In a completely different story… “Welcome to the gardens of Canterlot Castle!” said Cheerilee. “I’m hoping you’ll all enjoy this field trip slash educational experience!” “Boring,” yawned Diamond Tiara. Silver Spoon snickered. “Diamond Tiara!” called out Cheerilee. “I’m certain that if you think it’s boring, it’s because you already know the material. So, tell me. What is this?” Cheerilee gestured towards a statue. “Um,” said Diamond Tiara. “A hydra?” “No, it’s a draconequus. He has the head of a pony and a body made up of all sorts of things.” “Looks lame,” said Diamond Tiara. “I think it looks cool!” said Snips. “Of course the guy dumb enough to bring an ursa into Ponyville would think that,” muttered Silver Spoon. “Hey!” said Snails. “We were ruled legally not responsible for that!” “Oh!” said Diamond Tiara as she sarcastically widened her eyes. “You know the word ‘legally.’ Clearly that means you’re smart. Not.” “Oh yeah? Well I think you–” “All right, that’s enough!” snapped Cheerilee, being far less cheerful than her name would suggest. “It’s ironic that you’re arguing, especially because this statue represents discord, which means a lack of harmony between ponies. Now let’s just move on or else I’ll start handing out detentions.” They all left. No one took notice of the cracks that had appeared in the draconequus statue. Or, for that matter, the cracks in the other statues in the garden due to the general lack of upkeep on them. Trixie was walking through Ponyville when she felt something liquid hit her on the head. “Ugh, what now?” She looked up and saw the clouds raining chocolate. “Haven’t seen that before,” she said. “Hey! Trixie!” shouted Lightning Dust as she zoomed straight up to her taking shelter from the rain. “You don’t happen to know what’s going on with this chocolate rain, do you?” “Wait, you don’t know? I just assumed this was some prank you were pulling.” “Oh man, I wish I knew how to pull of a prank like this,” said Lightning Dust. After some consideration, she added, “Well, not enough to actually bother studying cloud composition enough to figure out if it’s possible to begin with, because that sounds boring.” “Well, I’m going to get some buckets to make usage of all this free chocolate before it ends.” Elsewhere… Sunset’s concentration on putting a potion together was broken completely by a loud alarm noise. “What is that?” she asked as she looked around. Unfortunately, she couldn’t actually remember what this particular alarm sound meant or what it was coming from. But she did know that it was extremely annoying and loud, so she had to find the source as quickly as possible. Several noisy minutes later, she finally discovered it was coming from a book that was loudly buzzing. Sighing, she opened it up and read what was in it. “Great, now I have to get those idiots together again. Joy.” A short time later… “All right, so we’re all on this train to Canterlot now,” said Suri. “Can you tell us exactly why it’s so critical we go that you couldn’t spend any time explaining why beforehand?” Sunset shrugged. “I have no idea. I just got a message saying all of us had to head to Canterlot right away. I assume that since it was the seven of us who got summoned, it’s probably some stupid adventure or something we have to embark on.” “Hey, the dragon thing wasn’t that bad!” said Trixie. “Because you bailed on all of us the instant things looked like they were going slightly wrong!” “So I guess we’re not going to get any answers until we get to Canterlot,” said Gilda with a sigh. “This had better be worth it. Probably has something to do with the chocolate rain and the cotton candy clouds and all the other crazy weather that seems like it was all done by some kind of candy-obsessed person.” “Something comes to mind,” said Trixie. “What?” asked Lightning Dust. “If our lives were a film, would this scene be necessary?” Everyone stared at Trixie. “I mean,” she said, “it seems a bit redundant. It’s repeating things we either already know or presumably will learn once we get to Canterlot. If I was trying to adapt my life into a movie, this whole bit would be unnecessary, I think.” “I vote that Trixie not talk for the rest of the train ride,” said Flim. “Seconded!” said Flam. “How’d you get the summons so fast anyway?” asked Lightning Dust. “The mail service isn’t that fast. Especially the Ponyville mail service.” “Oh, well, I’ve got this journal that actually lets me communicate back and forth with Canterlot, because it magically writes in a journal they have there.” “Why wasn’t this ever used before?” “Because it’s only supposed to be used for absolute emergencies.” “And Nightmare Moon wasn’t an emergency?” “What’s with all the questions?” protested Sunset. “Because the existence of such a sudden and convenient method of communication makes me wonder why it wasn’t used before!” “Well, the reason I didn’t use it with Nightmare Moon was because… um… I forgot.” “Seems plausible,” commented Suri. “Okay,” said Trixie. “Now this scene would be worth inclusion, as it explains some critical points. Man, I have to write this all up in a screenplay sometime.” “So do you think it would have been proper, if my life was a film, to include scenes of us moving from the train to where we are now? Or would a regular cut be sufficient?” “Trixie,” Sunset said, eyes blazing with anger, “you’ve spent the last hour analyzing if every single thing that happens to us might work in a movie. We don’t care! Shut up!” “I’m pretty sure that would’ve been mostly cut out if it was a film, though. The gag would get a little repetitive otherwise. How much do you think you would cut out?” “Ignore Trixie,” said Sunset. “Now, what were you starting to tell us before somepony interrupted us for no reason?” “Well,” said Shining Armor, “all this crazy weather and animal mutations is most likely the act of Discord. Now, our history books are a bit sketchy on the details, but apparently Discord was this guy who ruled over Equestria a long time ago but was sealed away by Celestia and Luna. Of course, later–” “Yeah, yeah,” interrupted Sunset. “Celestia beat up Luna, Sombra beat up Celestia, and that’s how we got to our current state. I know how history goes. I want to know why he’s up and around now. More to the point, where is Sombra and why isn’t he telling us all this?” Shining Armor shrugged. “Communication with him can be a bit slow due to his inability to speak, so it made some sense for me to do it all in order to speed things up.” “Who cares?" asked Lightning Dust. “Just tell us why we have to be here.” Shining Armor rolled his eyes but continued. “If Discord is back, we have to re-seal him, and since the Elements of Irony do technically belong to you, we wanted you to do it. You’ve been authorized to use them against him.” “What, didn’t you guys have those super-powerful cannons and other weapons that were on par with the Elements? Why not just use those?” “Well…” said Shining Armor with a bit of a guilty look. “Funny story there. Our weapons were supposed to get Discord-proofed, but there was a bit of a mix-up and all of our Discord-proofing material got used on our glass cups instead. Not only that, it’s not certain the weapons are strong enough to begin with. We haven’t really had any opportunity to test them against someone at Discord’s level. But the Elements are supposed to be inherently resistant to Discord’s powers and are known to be something that can defeat him, so we want to try them first.” “So just take us to the Elements already, so we can do our thing and restore things to normal,” said Gilda. “Right! Let’s go. The Elements are being held in a vault just down this way.” The eight went to the aforementioned vault, which Shining Armor opened, only to discover nothing. “Oh no!” said Flim. “They’ve disappeared!” “Actually,” said Shining Armor, “this is a fake vault to trick potential robbers. He pressed a wall, which created a door. “This leads to the real vault.” The real vault, however, was also empty. “I don’t get it,” said Shining Armor. “This is supposed to be protected by a magical spell that only I or Sombra can break. This doesn’t make sense.” “Make sense?” came a voice. “Oh, what fun is there in making sense?” Everyone looked around for the source of the voice. “Oh, darn it. You didn’t put the vault near stained glass windows? Did you know how awesome it would have been for me to appear in those? Ugh. I mean, it would’ve been so much more entertaining because you could’ve seen me and I could’ve moved around, but now I’m just stuck as a voice. Ugh.” “Discord?” asked Shining Armor. “The very same! Anyway, I just wanted to say–” “Hey!” said Trixie. “I have a complaint!” “Oh joy,” said Gilda, rolling her eyes. “You can’t just say ‘what fun is there in making sense’ in response to what, if my life had been a movie, would be an obvious plot hole! You need some explanation as to how the Elements were removed!” “See, this is the problem with the whole verbal-only communication,” said Discord’s voice. “If you could see me, I’d be able to be visually fatigued by your complaint, which would make my response more funny. Anyway, fine. I was just so powerful I was able to get past the spell. Is that good enough for you?” “I don’t know, it would seem that if my life was a film–” “No one cares, Trixie!” shouted everyone at once. “Fine,” muttered Trixie. “But the audience would complain about weak writing, I’d think.” “Anyway,” said Discord’s voice, “to find your missing Elements, just make sense of this change of events. Twists and turns are my master plan. Then find the elements back where you began.” “I approve of the rhyming scheme!” declared Flam. “But what does that mean?” “That’s why it’s a riddle! Figure it out yourself!” Sunset considered it. “Maybe it’s that labyrinth that’s in the garden?” “You guys go there,” said Shining Armor. “I’m going to do some extra research on Discord to see if he has some kind of weak point we've overlooked.” The seven all looked up at the massive garden maze. “What was the purpose of putting such a gigantic maze in the castle garden? I mean, this thing is huge.” “The gardener went a little crazy is what I heard.” Discord suddenly appears. “Hi everypony!” “Hi, Discord,” the rest all said unenthusiastically. “Now I know you’re all probably ready to do stuff like fly around, but no can do!” He snapped his fingers, suddenly leaving Lightning Dust and Gilda without wings, and Sunset, Flim, Flam, and Trixie without horns. “The pegasus and griffon lose their wings, the unicorns lose their horns, and the earth pony loses… well, who cares about that.” “Hey!” protested Suri. “So anyway, the rules are you have to go through the maze without magic or wings or… whatever it is earth ponies get. And no quitting midway through! If anyone violates the rules, you lose the game!” He paused, then facepalmed. “Oh, great, now I just lost The Game!” “I don’t get it,” said a confused Flam. “Enh, it was never funny to begin with,” said Discord. “Regardless, those are the rules. Good luck!” “Wait,” said Trixie. “This doesn’t make sense. If we can’t use magic or fly—as in, literally, can’t use magic or fly—how do we possibly break that rule?” “Not the point! Now get going!” said Discord as he pointed to the maze. The seven ponies all went into the maze, only for the hedges to suddenly separate all of them. “Okay, uh, guys? Let’s just try to get to the center of the maze,” called out Sunset. They all went off on their own paths. “Well, at least you and I ended up sticking together,” said Flim. “I know! Wasn’t that a lucky coincidence?” asked Flam. Suddenly, three apples appeared in front of them, only to then run off. “Moving apples!” declared Flam. “We could sell them and make a fortune!” The two ran after them, only to come upon a large orchard of apples. “How in the world did all this get in the labyrinth?” wondered Flim. More apples fell from the trees and converged together to make several weird-looking blobs that were made of apples. “Huh. What are you guys?” wondered Flim. “We are the keepers of the grove of truth. You may ask us one question, past, future, or present. But be warned that the truth may not always be pleasant.” Flim and Flam briefly conferred with one another. “Got it!” said Flam. “What should we do to make the maximum amount of money?” The apples seemed confused. “Um, you sure you don’t want to ask something like what happens at the end of this mission?” “Who cares?” asked Flim. “What will happen in regards to that will happen. What I want is practical advice. How do we increase our cash flow?” “Um,” said the apples. “Economics aren’t really our thing.” “Fine, we’ll just go with the original idea. Grab those apples and sell them! People would pay a fortune for talking apples!” “Gyah!” screamed the apples as they all jumped into a pool of water that immediately disappeared. “Darn it,” said Flim. “Now we’re never going to get those apples. Let’s just go on.” “Maybe we’ll find talking pears!” said Flam hopefully. “Ugh, this is such a pain,” complained Gilda. “Why’d they make this thing so gigantic anyway?” Several butterflies suddenly appeared. “Butterflies? Meh.” She tried to swat them away, but they moved out of reach. “So, Gilda, looks like you’ve been left behind by your so-called friends, huh?” asked one of the butterflies. Gilda stared at the butterflies. “You can talk?” “Focus, Gilda. Your friends left you behind, didn’t they?” “If you take a really loose definition of ‘friends’ I suppose they qualify, but they didn’t leave me behind. Discord did something to the maze walls that separated us all.” “Well, it must be upsetting to know how weak and helpless they think you are.” “Uh, how would you arrive at that conclusion based on the facts established so far?” wondered Gilda. “We all got separated. Whether I was weak or strong doesn’t have relevance to that.” “Well it burns you up, right? That they’re always pointing out your flaws?” “Actually,” said Gilda, “I am getting kind of burned up by how dumb this conversation is. If you can’t help me through the maze, then just go away.” “Oh, for crying out loud!” said Discord as he appeared. “You’ve been kind for far too long, my dear. Time to be cruel.” He touched Gilda on the forehead. Gilda looked around, confused. “Uh, did you do something to me?” Now Discord was the one that looked confused. “Why didn’t that work?” he asked. He touched her on the head again. “Why are you doing that?” asked Gilda. “It’s rather annoying. Look, if you don’t want me to go through the stupid maze, fine, but make up your mind.” “Oh, screw it,” said Discord. “Maybe I’ll come back to you.” He snapped his fingers and vanished. “Well, that was weird,” said Gilda. Suri, meanwhile, was trying to make her own way through the maze when she discovered a wall with what appeared to be diamonds on it. “Oooh!” she said, her eyes widening. “These could be worth a lot! Forget getting to the center of the maze; I want these!” She examined them carefully. “Oh, wait, never mind. These aren’t real. Should’ve known they’d cheapen out on the decorations. Bah.” Suri walked off. Lightning Dust ran through the maze, looking around. Unfortunately, her lack of paying attention to where she was going caused her to slam straight into Discord, who fell down due to the impact. “Don’t you look where you’re going?” he asked irritably. “Not as much as I probably should,” said Lightning Dust with a shrug. “Now let’s put them up! I bet I can take you on!” “Well, if you’ll put that on hold for now, I do have a message for you. A weighty choice is yours to make. The right selection or a big mistake. If a wrong choice you choose to pursue–” “Can you just give it to me straight instead of cryptic rhymes? I’m kind of in a hurry.” Discord rolled his eyes. “Ugh, fine,” he said with a scowl. “Cloudsdale will crumble with you,” he said. He snapped his fingers and a vision of a being-destroyed Cloudsdale appeared. There was an awkward pause. “So, aren’t you going to run off and try to save Cloudsdale?” he asked. “Enh,” said Lightning Dust dismissively. “Don’t really care that much for the place. Besides, even though I’m awesome, I doubt there’s any disaster or destruction they couldn’t handle without my help that they could handle with my help.” “Oh come on!” said Discord, looking flustered and irritated. “You’re supposed to be so concerned for Cloudsdale that you forsake your friends once I offer you some wings! That’s going against your Loyalty element and helps me win!” “Wait. Wouldn’t going to Cloudsdale show my loyalty to Cloudsdale, thereby being a demonstration of loyalty?” Discord stared blankly. “I mean, if there’s two things you’re loyal to, and you have to choose between them, that would be showing loyalty to one of them. Wouldn’t either decision be an expression of loyalty?” She stroked her chin in contemplation. “I suppose you could try to claim one deserves more loyalty, but that’s difficult to quantify.” “Fine!” snapped Discord. “How about I guarantee you entry to the Wonderbolts if you agree to give up this quest to get the Elements?” “You can do that?” asked Lightning Dust. “Sure! Once I’m ruler, I can do whatever I want, including forcing them to immediately accept you. And if you join with me, it’ll be sure I will be ruler! How about it, Lightning Dust?” “This won’t cause anything bad to happen to the world that could adversely affect me, right?” “No,” said Discord with a groan and a sigh. “It won’t. If you don’t like something, I’ll undo it for you.” “Sounds great! You’ve got a deal!” The two stared at each other in silence. “So, uh, we have a deal, right?” asked Lightning Dust. Discord looked at Lightning Dust with confusion. “You’re supposed to be turning gray, you know.” “Why in the world would I do that? That would just make me look lame.” Discord face-palmed. “All right, this is getting ridiculous. What do I have to do to get you corrupted? Nothing is working!” “So wait, no Wonderbolts entry? The deal wasn’t for real? Darn it.” “Okay, that is it!” said Discord crossly. He snapped his fingers and disappeared. Lightning Dust stared after him, then shrugged and continued on. Eventually all seven of them made it to the center of the maze. “Here we are in the center of the maze!” said Trixie. “We know,” said everyone else. “So, did anybody else encounter Discord on the way here?” asked Gilda. “Because I did, and he was all weird.” “Yeah,” said Lightning Dust, “it seemed like he was trying to achieve something, but it didn’t work and he gave up.” They all shared the details of their encounters with Discord. “I can’t believe I didn’t get one,” complained Trixie. “What, does he not think I’m worth it?” “Look,” said Sunset, “none of that matters. The question is, where are the Elements? Weren’t they supposed to be here?” Discord suddenly appeared. “Well, actually, you just assumed they were; I never explicitly said that. Bet you feel pretty dumb right now, eh?” Sunset stared to answer, but Discord cut her off. “That was a rhetorical question. Anyway, that’s not the point. You know what?” Discord threw his hands up in exasperation. “I finally figured it out. I couldn’t corrupt you idiots because you’re all already sociopaths! There’s no point!” He stamped his foot in annoyance. “How in the world did you manage to gain access to the Elements of Harmony when you’re all so obviously the opposite of them?” “Elements of Harmony?” asked Sunset, feeling puzzled. “Yeah, the Elements of Harmony! The things that were used to seal me in the first place! Isn’t that what you’re looking for?” “No, we were looking for the Elements of Irony. Never heard of the Elements of Harmony.” “Oh,” said Discord. “Huh. Wonder what happened to them. Could something mysterious have happened in the intervening years to change them from the Elements of Harmony to the Elements of Irony?” He stroked his beard in contemplation. “Well, it has been quite a few years. Maybe I just got things mixed up. My memory could have been playing tricks on me.” He shrugged. “Guess it doesn’t really matter at the moment, though.” “So, uh, where does that leave us?” asked Sunset. “You can keep your stupid Elements, which weren’t even in the maze to begin with; they’re back in Ponyville, as hinted in the poem. Anyway, until I can think of some way to have fun with you guys, I’m just going to go on vacation. Oh yeah, and here’s your stuff back. You unicorns get back your horns, you pegasi and griffons get back your wins, and you earth ponies get back… whatever it is you have.” He snapped his fingers and everything returned. “Wait a minute!” said Trixie. “I have some questions! If you’re so super powerful, why did you bother with all of this stuff in the maze? Why give us any hints at all? Heck, if the Elements are all you fear, why not just put them someplace we’d never find them and give us no hint? And then take away our powers just to be sure? There’s just so many things you could have done to easily achieve victory, and yet you chose this roundabout way. You’re not as dumb as Nightmare Moon, but it still kinda seems like your evil plots aren’t that smart. I can tell you, if my life was a film, the audience would be really angry about your constant idiocy.” Discord glared at Trixie. “Okay, just for that you get the penalty box.” He snapped his fingers and she disappeared. “What’s the penalty box?” asked Flim. “Hope you don’t have to find out!” said Discord. “Hey!” said Suri. “I just remembered something! I think you were the one responsible for that brief bit of generosity I was doing a while ago!” Discord shrugged. “Huh, don’t remember that. Maybe later on I got bored and went back in time to fiddle around with things. Meh.” “Before you go on vacation, could you possibly get us some of those talking apples? Those really would be worth a fair amount,” said Flim. “See, this is what I’m talking about,” said Discord. “I can’t have any fun with you because you’re all already screwed up. Anyway, I hear Acapulco is nice this time of year. Arrivederci!” He snapped his fingers and disappeared. They all stared at each other. “Guess that’s a no,” said Flam. “Darn it!” said Flim. “I bet talking apples would be the next big thing, too.” “I’m just disappointed about the fact the gems were fake,” said Suri. “I would’ve loved to have those things if they were real. But Discord was so rude. Sociopath? Screwed up? I’m perfectly fine! Where did he get any of that from?” “Yeah,” agreed Lightning Dust. “That seemed kinda harsh. What, wanting to join the Wonderbolts makes me screwed up now?” “Don’t really care,” said Sunset dismissively. “Well, this whole thing felt really dumb. Guess we might as well tell Shining Armor we won… kind of.” They all made their way out of the maze and met Shining Armor. “Discord seems to be gone for now,” said Lightning Dust. “You re-sealed him with the Elements?” he asked. “Wait, that can’t be it. You still don’t have them.” “He kind of got bored and decided to leave,” said Lightning Dust with a shrug. “Well,” said Shining Armor, “the weather does seem back to normal, so I guess he is gone, at least for now. Did you happen to find out where the Elements were, at least?” “Yeah, he said that they were back in Ponyville.” “Great!” said Shining Armor. “I’ll just send another member of the royal guard back with you guys to pick them up. By the way, even if it was apparently somewhat accidental, I’m sure that aiding in defeating Discord is definitely going to look great on your guys’ records!” “So do we get some kind of epic awards ceremony for defeating Discord?” asked Lightning Dust eagerly. “Well, you didn’t exactly defeat him,” said Shining Armor. “But I’d say you do deserve at least something. But definitely no ‘epic awards ceremony’ because we’re kind of low on funds right now. It really cost us a whole lot to get the castle fixed up after that whole Gala disaster, and then there were also the reparations for the foreign dignitaries. But I’m sure we can scrounge up something to give you all as a gift.” “By the way,” said Sunset, “I know this is kind of coming out of nowhere, but I wanted to kind of clear the air on something. You’re Twilight’s brother, so… you don’t happen to bear any grudges against me about what happened to her, right?” “You mean the fact that after that ursa incident, we haven’t been able to find her? The assumption being that she’s convinced she’s going to go to prison if she’s discovered, so she’s on the run?” “Yeah,” said Sunset with a guilty look. “That.” I really don’t want to be on his bad side. Could hurt my promotion chances, she thought. “Several years ago, I probably would have been upset about it,” he said. “But Twilight and I… haven’t been on the greatest of terms for a while.” “Why?” asked Sunset. “That’s between me and her,” said Shining Armor in a voice that made it clear he wanted the subject to end there. “Besides, if I were to get angry, it’d be at Lightning Dust or Trixie, not you.” “That’s right!” said Lightning Dust proudly. “Er, wait, what?” “You know,” said Flam, “I do want to know the reason Discord didn’t zap us all away when he apparently has the power, or why he didn’t use the opportunity to take over Equestria while Trixie was gone.” “Well,” said Shining Armor, “I’ve done a little bit of research while you were in the maze, and apparently all draconequus have a whole lot of extremely random and arbitrary limits to their power, though exactly what they are is unknown to everypony else. I guess under those restrictions, he wasn’t able to do it due to whatever random limitation there was. Oh yeah, about Trixie. What happened to her? I assumed she was just getting here a little slowly, but she’s still not here. Where is she?” “Penalty box,” said Gilda. “Penalty box?” “Penalty box.” Meanwhile… “All right,” said Stormy Skies crossly. “We’re 0-for-2 so far with your plans. If this one doesn’t work, I’m coming up with the next one.” “Well, all we have to do is impress Discord enough that he’ll cut us in on the ground floor of his new empire,” said Thunder Strike. “Granted, it won’t give us the rule of Equestria we desire, but as long as Discord’s around we won’t be ruling it anyway, so we might as well get the best thing that’s available at the moment.” “I know all that,” said Stormy Skies. “Why do you feel the need to tell me that again?” “Just making sure we’re on the same page,” he said. “Now let’s find Discord! The Shadowbats will gain their rightful place as rulers—or semi-rulers in this case—of Equestria!” “I still want to register the fact I think Shadowbats is a really stupid name,” said Stormy Skies. “Now you’re the one repeating things I already know. Let’s go!” Stormy Skies, Thunder Strike, and Maelstrom Tempest all took off at breakneck speed. Unfortunately, this was all too literal, as they broke their necks and had to go to the hospital. “Okay,” said Thunder Strike while lying in the hospital bed. “You can’t hold that one against me. That actually had nothing to do with the plan at all. I still get the next one!” Stormy Skies, also lying in a bed, pulled out a newspaper. “According to this, Discord is gone. Therefore, that plan would have failed regardless. So I do get it next time!” “Oh come on! That shouldn’t count!” “Ha! Doesn’t matter; your plan won’t work anymore! Next time, we do things my way! And that means you have to pay for the medical bills!” “What?!” asked Thunder Strike. “That’s ridiculous and has nothing to do with plans!” The two continued arguing. “Hrm,” said Maelstrom Tempest. Several days later… “Special delivery!” declared an all-too-familiar voice. “Maybe now I’ll get that award!” said Sunset. She ran over to the door and opened it. The mailmare gave her a letter and flew off. “Odd, usually she’s more talkative.” Sunset shrugged. “Whatever, let’s see what I got.” She tore open the envelope to find a letter. “In recognition for your achievement in sort of defeating Discord,” she read, “please enjoy this free 2-year membership in the Jelly of the Month club.” Sunset stared at the letter for a little longer, then finally went over to write a letter herself. Dear King Sombra, I’ve really got nothing for this one. Sorry. Sincerely, Sunset Shimmer In a completely different story… Rocky scratched his head in confusion. “I don’t think that was the right lesson, Bullwinkle,” he said. “It did seem off,” admitted Bullwinkle. “Let’s try something else. Hey, Rocky! Watch me put a rabbit out of my hat!” “But that trick never works!” protested Rocky. “This time for sure!” said Bullwinkle. “Presto!” He reached into the hat and pulled out a blue female unicorn. “Huh. That one’s new.” The unicorn sighed. “Penalty box,” she muttered ruefully.