Coming up with ideas to win the Fall Formal and to bring the human counterparts of their friends together took the better part of the evening, but eventually Pinkie and her team hit upon the notion of solving both problems with a single plan. After all, with only one scheme running there was less to go wrong. Once Pinkie had entered her name, she’d convince Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Applejack to help her out—separately, of course. Penumbra seemed confident that Rarity would be willing to pitch in as well, as she’d gotten the impression that there was a rather heated rivalry between Rarity and Sunset Shimmer. If all went as planned, the bonding experience of working towards a common goal would also allow progress towards the secondary goal of mutual friendship.
It was really quite elegant. In fact, there was only one obvious problem, though Pinkie considered it potentially serious: at the moment, none of them had any idea how to get Twilight Sparkle involved. Sure, Discord professed himself confident that he’d be able to wing it (complete with visual aids), but Pinkie really disliked the idea of giving him carte blanche to complete his part of the plan. But as Penumbra had pointed out, he was the only one of the three who would have any time to spend at Canterlot Tech; the two of them would be far too busy with Pinkie’s campaign, which got underway the next morning, before their classes began.
Step one was the easiest part: stopping by the office and filling out a short form to get Pinkie’s name on the ballot. The next step was almost as easy: making sure everyone knew that she was eligible. Pinkie did this by standing near the entrance and chatting up every student she could corner, figuring that at least some of them would be willing to spread the news through the school’s gossip networks. This plan turned out to be quite effective indeed, as Pinkie found out on the way to her second period history class.
Pinkie was in the middle of an engrossing conversation about baking techniques with the human counterpart of her mailmare when she suddenly found herself face-to-face with Sunset Shimmer, who was glaring at her with a stony scowl. “So, you’re Pinkie Pie,” she said.
“Um, yes, I am,” Pinkie said cheerfully as she extended her hand. “And you’re Sunset Shimmer, right?”
Sunset ignored the proffered handshake. “You’ve entered your name for Princess election at the Fall Formal.”
“Well... yes, I have.” Pinkie really couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Sunset squinted. “You’ve only been a student here for a day. Why would you even want to enter the contest?”
“Well, it seems like it could be a lot of fun.”
“Fun? You don’t actually think you can win, do you?”
“Why couldn’t I have fun trying? Besides, there’s no reason to think it’s impossible.”
“Oh, there’s a very good reason, and that reason is me. I’m your competition, and only last month I was elected student council president. No one else even bothered to enter their name before you stopped by the office this morning.”
It was around this time that Pinkie noticed that the conversations of the other students in the hallway had petered out. “Well, like I said, it sounded like fun, and I thought it would be a nice conversation starter to meet new people. Besides, a little bit of competition never hurt anyone, right?”
Sunset Shimmer didn’t answer her, and Pinkie thought it best not to mention that a few of the students she spoke to seemed happy that anyone had the gumption to challenge Sunset for the crown, even if it was a long shot (which in Pinkie’s admittedly limited experience with elections usually meant that the front-runner had a few problems brewing under the surface of her campaign).
“Yeah, right,” Sunset said skeptically. “What’s your real game?”
“Knowing Pinkie, it’s probably charades,” a new voice deadpanned.
Sunset Shimmer whirled around and saw Penumbra staring at her with the faintest hint of a smirk forming on one corner of her mouth. “You again!” Sunset said as her eyebrows flew upward. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m attending classes,” Penumbra said. “But as to why I’m here in this hallway, butting in on your conversation, that’s because you’re trying to intimidate my sister.”
“Sister? But... aren’t you both...”
“Fraternal twins,” Penumbra said, guessing the source of Sunset’s confusion. “Though I must say it’s awfully welcoming of you to have noticed that two new sophomores started here yesterday. I suppose that’s a student council thing, though.”
Sunset regained her composure as best she could and tried to return to her usual “alpha female” posturing. “Yes, well, if your sister needs you to protect her from intimidation, she doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Oh, I wasn’t trying to protect her. I was just giving you a heads up that it wasn’t going to work. Take a look.” Penumbra pointed down the hallway, where Pinkie, who had apparently gotten bored with the confrontation, was chatting and joking with another group of students, seemingly unaware that she was supposed to have been cowed by Sunset’s aggressiveness.
“It still isn’t normal to just jump into a competition like that,” Sunset retorted.
Penumbra snorted. “What on earth gave you the impression that Pinkie was normal?”
Sunset narrowed her eyes. “Just what are you insinuating?”
Penumbra returned the expression. “Just why do you think I’m insinuating something? Pinkie’s an unusual girl. I’m sure you’ve met lots of those.”
Sunset Shimmer didn’t say anything; Penumbra was fairly certain that Sunset suspected that she and Pinkie were ponies like her, but obviously, she couldn’t say that out loud with a dozen or so students watching (at least, not without some sort of irrefutable proof), so Sunset had to settle for a glare. It was only when the bell rang to signal the imminent start of the second period that the two of them broke eye contact.
———————
In reality, Pinkie had found Sunset to be somewhat intimidating, though she wasn’t sure why. She initially assumed that it was simply the neuromancy that Princess Celestia had warned her about, but upon further reflection, this seemed unlikely. If this world really was resistant to magic, then surely Sunset would have had to exert some sort of effort visibly... unless, of course she was using relatively small amounts of magic to reinforce her preexisting personality. It was an interesting puzzle, but for now it would have to wait. Pinkie’s next class would be her first literature class of the week, and as luck would have it, Rainbow Dash was in this class as well. It was time to start recruiting her campaign staff.
“Hey, Dash,” she said as she plopped into the desk next to her gym class partner.
“Hey, Pinkie,” Dash replied. “How’s your morning been?”
“Pretty good,” Pinkie replied. For this particular pitch, she’d decided to go with a direct approach, and since their teacher seemed to be running late, now seemed like an ideal opportunity. “I signed up to run for princess of the Fall Formal. You wanna help?”
If Rainbow Dash had simply been making small talk before, she wasn’t now. “The Fall Formal? Seriously? Didn’t you just start here yesterday?”
“That’s just what Sunset Shimmer said when she found out,” Pinkie said with a mildly puzzled look on her face. “Is it really that big of a deal?”
“Uh, kinda. I mean, the princess is technically supposed to be the student who best exemplifies the school spirit here at Canterlot High. How can a transfer student possibly do that?”
Pinkie shrugged. “Eh, I sort of figured that when they said that, they were just looking for someone who embodied the school spirit everyone wishes they had, rather than the kind they might have.”
Rainbow Dash sighed. “I guess that’s possible. So what kind of school spirit are you trying to be?”
“Oh, you know, I’m just hoping to show off all the basics. You know... uh, laughter... and um, honesty, and generosity, and kindness, and loyalty... you know, all the good stuff.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t know... that all sounds kind of corny to me.”
“What’s wrong with corn?”
“Plenty, considering that you’re going up against the student council president. I mean, all those things are nice and all, but do you really think they’ll be able to beat sheer popularity?”
Pinkie tilted her head slightly as she responded. “Well... it’s not like I’m going to be making a speech and listing all those things as if they’re campaign promises. I just try my best to live my life to those values.”
“Huh? How is ‘laughter’ a value?”
“Help me out, and I’ll show you.”
———————
It hadn’t been too difficult to get Rainbow Dash on board, but that was only because she hadn’t known that Pinkie intended to recruit Applejack to her cause as well. Her first chance to do so came at the end of Ms. Cheerilee’s algebra class in the third period. “I dunno, Pinkie,” Applejack said as the two walked out of the classroom. “Winnin’ a competition like that when you ain’t been goin’ here that long sounds like a mighty tall order.”
Pinkie nodded her head. “I know that. That’s why I want your help.”
“Uh, well, I suppose that makes sense, but still, we ain’t known each other for more than two days.”
“Oh... so you don’t want to help, then?”
“Now, hold on, I didn’t say that. I’m still tryin’ ta wrap my head around it, that’s all. I mean, I ain’t exactly sure how I could help ya out with this in the first place. I mean, the way I see it, it’s pretty much just a popularity contest.”
Pinkie cocked her head to the side. “That’s odd.”
“What is?”
“Well, you aren’t the first person to tell me something like that today.”
“Is that so? Sounds to me like they got a good head on their shoulders—pragmatic and all. Who was it?”
As Pinkie was fairly certain the last thing Applejack wanted to hear was evidence that she and Rainbow Dash had any similarities whatsoever, she ignored the question and changed the subject. “I don’t really think I’ll need a really involved campaign or anything; I just need to make sure that as many people as possible know that there’s someone they can pick other than Sunset Shimmer.”
“Is that so?” Applejack said with a rather skeptical look on her face. “An’ what happens if Sunset Shimmer starts to think you might have a shot? I mean, despite the L’il Miss Perfect act, she can be pretty ornery when she wants to, and I doubt you’ve actually had to deal with her clique yet. I mean, no one’s ever proven anything, but Sunset’s win for student council president this year was a bit too much of a landslide for my liking.”
“Her clique?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s got herself an impressive circle of suck-ups and hangers-on to cause trouble for anyone that gets in her way. The student council thing’s a good example; one of her opponents dropped out at the last minute. Rumor has it the members of her clique got photos or maybe a video of Time Turner doin’ somethin’ real embarrassing—and for all I know, Sunset still might have that to dangle around if he does anythin’ else to cross her. Look, I don’t mean to sound paranoid, but you’re gonna have to watch your back.”
Pinkie dismissed this with a wave of her hand. “Oh, don’t worry about that; my sister can handle that. She volunteered, in fact.”
“Really?” Applejack asked. “Penumbra hasn’t really struck me as the overconfident type.”
“She isn’t overconfident; Sunset’s clique hasn’t actually had to deal with her yet.”
Applejack looked around. “Where is she, by the way? I thought she was right behind us a few seconds ago.”
“She had to hurry off to her art class. She’s eager to get back to work.”
———————
As far as her creativity was concerned, Penumbra’s second pottery session was even better than the first; her work seemed sleeker, more geometric, and much closer to her normal visual style. More important, though, was the chance for another conversation with Rarity, who didn’t waste any time before launching into some gossip.
“Well, it sounds as though you have a rather ambitious sister,” Rarity said as the art teacher’s instructions ended and the pottery wheels began spinning.
“I see the rumor mill is up and running this morning,” Penumbra said. “Presumably you’re referring to her decision to compete for that tiara.”
“Indeed.”
“Then it sounds like the rumor is unusually detailed—not to mention accurate—if my name is attached to it. I don’t believe I even mentioned that I had a sister in our conversation yesterday.”
Rarity let out a slightly chastened chuckle. “Ah, well, I actually had to read between the lines of several rumors flying about to work out that bit, mostly from rather garbled accounts of your confrontation with Sunset Shimmer.”
“Seriously? That can’t have been much more than two hours ago.”
“Well, do keep in mind that it follows upon your previous encounter with her in the cafeteria yesterday. It’s not often that a new student resists a browbeating from our illustrious student council president.”
“Take it easy on the sarcasm, there. Not that I mind; I use it all the time, but I find that a little subtlety goes a long way.”
Rarity sighed as she returned her gaze to the teapot on her wheel. “You’re right, of course, and I suppose that Sunset Shimmer does have some qualities which one might call admirable, provided that the rest of her personality is conspicuously ignored.”
“Do you think Pinkie has a chance?” Penumbra asked.
“Oh, she certainly has that,” Rarity affirmed. “After all, there are quite a few students here who respect Sunset only grudgingly; merely providing an alternate will garner her some votes right off the bat. However, her chance is an extraordinarily slim one, unless she’s proactive in her efforts.”
Penumbra offered Rarity one of her smirking smiles. “She’s way ahead of you there. Pinkie’s already recruiting some friends to help her connect to the student body... though I’m sure she wouldn’t mind some advice from the reigning Princess.”
“Nor would I particularly mind providing it, especially if Pinkie is truly as interesting as she seems to be in hearsay.” Rarity said. “However, I must keep other considerations in mind.”
Penumbra glanced over towards Rarity, who was smoothing over a small crack that had appeared in her jar. “Because it would be unseemly for a reigning Princess to weigh in on the current contest?”
“It has less to do with being the Princess and more to do with being the chair of the decoration committee.”
“Ah... a conflict of interest, then.”
“No, it’s actually much simpler than that: there’s only a week or so before the Fall Formal, so I’m going to be quite pressed for time. I doubt I’ll be able to contribute much of anything to Pinkie’s efforts.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have to actually participate directly, but I’m sure you could help us strategize. It seems like out of all the students here, you’re the one with the most experience dealing with Sunset Shimmer.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Rarity conceded, “but experience only gets you so far when dealing with Sunset Shimmer. As far as I can tell, she tends to make up her plans on the fly—it’s the only explanation I can think of for her tendency to change tactics at the drop of a hat. It makes her rather unpredictable.”
Penumbra’s mouth drew up into a sly grin. “Is that so? Well, then it’s a good thing I’ve got experience with unpredictable people.”
Rarity seemed somewhat confused by Penumbra’s statement. “But isn’t Pinkie the one who has to compete with Sunset?”
“On the night of the Formal, sure. Until then, however, I’ve volunteered to run interference to keep her out of Pinkie’s hair.”
“Ah... so that’s the reason behind your exchange.”
“Precisely. And it seems she’s taking the bait, assuming the two freshmen who trailed me to this class are among her lackeys.”
Rarity paused for a moment as she considered this. “That does sound like the sort of thing Sunset would do; in the early stages of our rivalry she had several students engage in reconnaissance to learn about my personal habits. What did they look like?”
“One girl was pink; the other one was grey.”
Rarity nodded. “That would be Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, and you’re right: they are aspiring lackeys of Sunset. If I were you, I’d try to avoid any potentially embarrassing behavior until after the Formal, or possibly longer.”
“I’ll do my best. Still, you haven’t really answered my question. Are you willing to help Pinkie out?”
Rarity stopped her wheel and carefully examined her teapot for imperfections. After about a minute, she looked over at Penumbra and grinned. “Well, if there’s an opportunity to throw a wrench into Sunset’s machinations... of course I’ll help.”
———————
Pinkie wasn’t surprised to find Fluttershy eating lunch by herself again—in fact, she’d been counting on it. “Hey, Fluttershy,” she said as she set down her lunch tray and slid into the seat across from the junior. “How are you doing?”
“Oh, um... pretty good, I guess. Last evening I took my pet rabbit, Angel, to the vet, and he got a clean bill of health,” Fluttershy replied softly.
“Awesome,” Pinkie said as she shoveled a forkful of salad into her mouth. She took some time to swallow the greens and continued, “I’m doing pretty well, myself. I’ve decided to compete to become the Princess at the Fall Formal.”
Almost every other person she’d mentioned this to that day had reacted with surprise, and Fluttershy was no different. “Really? But... um... isn’t that a little, you know, soon?”
“After all, I just got here,” Pinkie said, repeating the most common response in a mildly singsong tone. “Yeah, I kind of expected that it would leave some folks scratching their heads when I signed up.”
“Oh... sorry.”
Pinkie giggled. “You haven’t said anything to be sorry for, so you don’t need to apologize. Although...”
“Yes?” Fluttershy said, looking up from underneath her bangs.
“If you did want to make it up to me, I could use a little help convincing the other students to vote me the Princess.”
Somehow, Fluttershy managed to look even more flabbergasted. “What? But... but I couldn’t... What could I do? I’m not really connected with any of the social groups around school...”
“Well, maybe not, but I bet you at least know a few of the other introverts, right?”
“Um, I guess... maybe....”
“Look, the way I see it, people like Sunset usually just ignore people like you, which means they don’t bother trying to pressure them for things like Formal votes, because they don’t have any reason to think you’re interested in the winner.”
“Actually, I wasn’t really planning on going at all,” Fluttershy said.
“See what I mean?” Pinkie said. “You’re exactly the kind of student she’d completely overlook, which means there’s an opportunity for a candidate who makes the effort to connect to folks like you.”
“Oh... well, I guess that kind of makes sense... but I’m still not sure....”
Pinkie sighed. “Why don’t you meet up with some of the others who have agreed to help me out? Once the brainstorming starts, I’m sure you’ll see where I’m coming from. Besides, this’ll give you a chance to get back in touch with Rainbow Dash.”
“Rainbow’s helping you out?”
Pinkie nodded. “You bet.”
Fluttershy sighed and began to rummage around in her purse. “Well, alright. I guess it can’t hurt. Why don’t we exchange numbers?”
Pinkie looked somewhat confused. “Numbers? Um... okay. I’ve always sort of been partial to π.”
Fluttershy blinked a few times. “Actually, I meant phone numbers.”
“Phone numbers?”
“You know, so we can stay in touch,” Fluttershy said as she pulled out a small, plastic rectangle. She tapped a button and a small display screen turned on—it was like a miniature version of Discord’s laptop.
“Um... I don’t actually have one of those....” Pinkie said uneasily.
“What? Oh, of course. You probably had to change your phone service when you moved here.”
Pinkie chuckled. “Uh, yeah. I’m, er, definitely going to need to talk to my dad about that.”
———————
“I can’t thank you enough for taking all this trouble for me,” Discord said as he walked through the campus of Canterlot Tech with the Dean of Admissions, whose name he’d already forgotten.
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all,” the dean said. “This sort of thing is what I get paid for. I’m just glad to be in a position where I can help. It’s not often that we have students who are the same age as your daughters, after all.”
Discord nodded his head appreciatively, even though the man’s small talk was starting to bore him. “I do hope I won’t be inconveniencing the young lady too much.”
“Well, when she responded to my e-mail, she said she had the time for a conversation, so long as it wasn’t unreasonably long.”
“I doubt that will be a problem,” Discord said. “Now, where did you say we were headed?”
“She asked us to meet her outside of the library,” the dean said. “There are some tables near there that should be an ideal place for you to talk.”
A few minutes later, Discord spotted the purple teenager, surrounded by a pile of textbooks as she scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad. After a brief introduction from the dean, he left the pair to their own devices, telling Discord to return to his office when they were finished. With that out of the way, the actual conversation could begin. “I must thank you for taking the time to talk to me, Ms. Sparkle,” Discord said as he sat down.
“Please, call me Twilight,” she replied as she pushed her textbooks off to the side. “And really, it’s no trouble at all. Now, Mr. Veritas said that you had a daughter my age?”
“Two, actually—twins,” Discord clarified. “And yes, they’re around your age, and they’re both extremely intelligent, though as their father, my opinion is somewhat biased,” he added with a smile.
“And they’re interested in attending college early?”
“Let’s just say it’s not out of the question at the moment,” Discord said. As it happened, he was fairly certain that if Pinkie really was a teenaged human, she would want to graduate from high school with her fellow students, regardless of how much smarter she was than them, though Penumbra was another matter. Still, there was no need to dwell on such hypothetical situations when there was actual work to do. “As a parent, I feel that I ought to give the matter careful consideration, and while I feel that both are intellectually ready for higher education, I’m somewhat concerned about the effect it might have on their social lives, which is, naturally, where you can assist me.”
Twilight shifted in her seat. “Um, well, I’ll do the best I can.”
“Excellent,” Discord said, grinning. He had successfully directed the conversation in precisely the direction he had wanted it to go; he had read more than enough of Twilight’s blog to know that she was having doubts about her lack of friends her own age, and he figured that the best way to convince her to consider associating with high school students was to reinforce those doubts. “So, tell me, how is the social life of a sixteen-year-old college student?”
“Uh... well... it’s okay, I guess. I mean, I’m really busy with my coursework, so I don’t have much spare time for socializing.”
“But you still have a few friends, don’t you?”
“Oh, sure. There’s my big brother, Shining Armor—he’s actually a sophomore here at Canterlot Tech, too. He’s been my best friend for a long time.”
“Ah, so you hang out with your brother, then.”
“Well, not as much as we used to. I mean, his course load is pretty heavy, too, plus there’s his officer training program.”
“But you’ve been able to make other friends here, right?”
“Uh, not really...”
“Is it because the other students don’t respect you because of your age?”
“Oh, no! It’s nothing like that. I’m shown plenty of respect. It’s just... well, they aren’t all that interested in spending time with someone like me. After all, a lot of the things they do involving going places that serve alcohol, and I’m not old enough to drink yet.”
“Ah, I see. Then do you find ways to spend time with kids your own age, then?”
“Er, not really... like I said, my coursework keeps me pretty busy....”
Discord tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I see.... This is definitely something I’ll need to take into consideration, then.”
“Er, but that doesn’t mean that your daughters would be alone, though,” Twilight hastily added. “After all, if they attended Canterlot Tech, I’d be here.”
Hook, line, and sinker, Discord thought to himself. “Well, if that’s the case, then it seems that I’d also need to consider how their personalities would mesh with yours... and that’s the sort of thing that I’d rather learn directly from them, rather than making a blind guess.”
“What do you mean?” asked Twilight.
“Well, I suppose that I’m suggesting that you actually meet Pinkie and Penumbra. I’m beginning to think that that would clarify the issues far more than a short conversation with their father can.”
“Um... I don’t know... I don’t have a lot of time....”
“Well, you needn’t meet up with them today. The dean said you use email, correct? Why don’t you simply email me when you’re able to make the time, and we’ll set up a meeting then.”
“I, uh, really don’t want to inconvenience you....”
“Oh, trust me, my dear: This will not pose any inconvenience at all.”