"So," began Rainbow Dash, now back in Diamond Tiara's living room and currently enjoying a soda (which had been opened much more carefully than the last one). "Does anypony feel like having a snowball fight?"
Several of the others looked up from their conversations with one another in interest.
"A snowball fight?" asked Diamond Tiara.
"Yeah. Fresh snow is the best time to do it."
Hmm, thought Diamond. An opportunity to throw snow in each other's faces?
"Alright, I suppose that sounds fun. Is everypony else coming?"
There was a chorus of agreement from almost everyone.
"No thanks."
"Aw, common Fluttershy," said Applejack. "It'll be fun!"
"I'd rather not."
"Well, suit yourself then."
"We can't leave poor Fluttershy here all by herself!" protested Pinkie Pie.
"No, I'm fine, really."
"But what are you going to do while everypony else is outside?" asked Pinkie.
"I... I don't know."
"Hey!" cried Pinkie. "I know! While everypony else is outside in the snow, Fluttershy and I can whip up some hot chocolate and snicker-doodles for everypony! Would you like that, Fluttershy?"
"But I don't know how make hot chocolate or snicker-doodles," said Fluttershy.
"Don't worry! I can make the hot chocolate, and you can follow this recipe for snicker-doodles I just happen to have here!"
"I was actually going to just read a book..." said Fluttershy. Pinkie didn't hear.
As soon as the foals stepped outside, snowballs began flying. The Cutie Mark Crusaders immediately formed a team and quickly convinced Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash to join them with only a few snowballs being thrown at them during negotiations.
"Here come Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon!" announced Apple Bloom. "... And Dinky too? How did she manage to team up with those two?"
"Defend the fort!"
Snowballs began flying.
"Take cover!" cried Silver Spoon.
Twilight arrived at Diamond Tiara's front yard and beheld the chaos in confusion.
A snowball smacked her in the face.
"Hey!" she complained.
"Hey Twilight!" shouted Pipsqueak. "You shouldn't stand out in the open like that!"
Twilight hurried over toward Pipsqueak, who was apparently teamed up with Spike, Rumble, Featherweight, Snips, and Snails.
"So, you're all having a snow ball fight?" asked Twilight, as if the answer wasn't obvious.
"Yep!" answered Pipsqueak. "I think there's five teams. We're about to try sneaking up on the Crusader's group."
"Well, don't expect me to join you," said Twilight. "I have something else to be doing right now."
"I wasn't going to ask you to join our team," said Pipsqueak. "This is an all colts team. So, you know what happens now, right?"
A flurry of snowballs flew at Twilight as she screamed and ran away from the colts.
She took cover behind a tree and stopped to think.
Eventually, she stuck her head out of her cover and shouted, "Alright you guys! You're all going to regret that!"
She pulled her head back to safety to avoid another rain of snowballs.
"There we go!" cried Pinkie happily. "The hot chocolate is all ready to go! How are you coming along, Fluttershy?"
"Owky, I fink," replied Fluttershy, who was currently scooping up globs of dough in a wooden spoon held in her mouth and setting them on the baking tray.
"Cool! I'm going to pour this hot chocolate into some mugs and bring them out to the others!"
"Awight."
"Well," said Twilight to herself. "This may not have been the best idea."
She prepared another two snowballs and poked her head above the wall of her snow castle.
She got a face full of snow for her efforts.
"Ach!" she cried as she spat out the snow. She threw her snowballs into the Cutie Mark Crusader's group, uncertain which particular pony had attacked her.
She ducked down again to gather up more snow.
"The problem with having the biggest fort," continued Twilight, "is that you attract the attention of everypony around you. And I'm all by myself."
Suddenly, there was a blur of blue overhead and two more snowballs came plummeting down.
"Air strike!" shouted Rainbow Dash as she rocketed past.
Twilight hunkered down as she took the snowballs in the back.
After recovering from the impact, Twilight poked her head over the wall again and shouted, "No fair!"
She ducked back down again to avoid more snowballs.
"This isn't going so well."
Twilight decided that she would build up a reserve of snowballs before exposing herself again.
A few minutes later, Twilight had a pile of a couple dozen snowballs at the ready.
She realized that a significant period of time had passed without incident.
Bracing herself for another snowball in the muzzle, Twilight poked her head over the wall again.
To her surprise, no snowballs came. The other teams appeared to be taking a break.
"What's going on?" Twilight wondered to herself.
"Well-"
"Yipe!" cried Twilight as she jumped up into the air in surprise.
"I brought everypony some hot chocolate, so everypony is taking a break for a minute."
Twilight turned around to face Pinkie Pie.
"I brought you a mug too!" continued Pinkie. "This will keep you nice and warm!"
"... Thank you, Pinkie. But how did you get in here? There's no entrance!"
"I burrowed under your wall and came in through the floor."
Twilight realized in shock that there was an enormous tunnel in the floor behind Pinkie.
"Pinkie!" Twilight cried. "Now everypony else can get in here the same way you did!" A field of purple magic enveloped a heap of snow and it began forcing itself down into the tunnel.
"So do you want your hot chocolate?" asked Pinkie, apparently indifferent to Twilight's actions.
"Well," mused Twilight. "that would be nice, but then that would leave my castle undefended! There's nopony else on my team to stay on the lookout in case of a suprise attack!"
"I could join your team," Pinkie offered. "I don't have a team yet, since I just got through making hot chocolate for everypony."
"I guess that would be okay," said Twilight, taking her hot chocolate.
"Alright! Now get over there!"
"What?" asked Twilight, bewildered, but moving regardless. "Why?"
A moment later, there was a whooshing noise overhead and two more snow balls smashed into the ground where Twilight had been standing.
"Hey!" shouted Rainbow Dash's voice in annoyance.
"I got her!" cried Pinkie happily. "I got her!"
"Huh? Pinkie, did you just hit Rainbow Dash with a snow ball?"
"Yep!"
"That's the fourth time!" cried Twilight in astonishment as listened to Rainbow's cry of annoyance once again. "Seriously, how are you doing that?"
"I don't know!" said Pinkie Pie as she grabbed an entire load of snowballs. "I just listen to my Pinkie sense."
Twilight watched as Pinkie peeked over the wall and threw all of the snowballs in quick succession. There were a lot of complaints from the foals outside.
"Again with your 'Pinkie' sense?" said Twilight.
"Yep! Somehow I know stuff that's going to happen before it actually happens!"
"You mean like deja vu?"
"Nah. I just... feel it, you know?"
"Not really. Although, I can't deny, however you are doing it, we're suddenly dominating the battlefield."
Twilight did her best to keep up with the hyper-active pink pony, but she knew for a fact that she would be doomed without Pinkie's aid.
"That's the fourth time in a row!" complained Rainbow Dash as she landed, shaking snow out of her coat. "How is she doing that?"
"Because it's Pinkie Pie," said Sweetie Belle in deadpan.
"Hey, girls!"
Everypony looked to see Spike standing nearby.
"We've been so busy trying to get Twilight and Pinkie, we forgot about their team!" cried Sweetie Belle in panic as she grabbed a snow ball.
"No!" cried Spike in panic. "Wait! We want to call a truce!"
"A truce?" said Sweetie Belle, not lowering the snowball.
"Yeah!" continued Spike. "Us and you against Twilight and Pinkie."
"Deal," said Sweetie Belle without hesitation.
Fluttershy was sitting in an arm chair, reading. Daring Do is so brave, she thought.
When she hit a good stopping point, she stopped to wonder if the cookies had cooled enough to eat.
There was only one way to find out.
She jumped down to the floor and entered the kitchen.
She approached the counter. There were a lot of mouths that would be eager for a snack, so Pinkie had told her that she should make eight dozen cookies. The two giant pans that they had set the dough on were barely enough to hold so many, and also barely fit into the oven together.
She put her hoof near a snicker-doodle. It felt cool enough.
Fluttershy took one into her hoof and brought it to her mouth and took a small bite.
She grimaced.
"Remember, General Pinkie Pie," said Twilight as she scanned their surroundings. "Constant vigilance. We may have managed to hold them all off last time, but we haven't seen our enemy for some time now, and that probably means they are making plans for a sneak attack!"
"Here comes Scootaloo!" announced Pinkie.
"She's alone?" asked Twilight.
"Wait, hold your fire, Twilight! She's carrying baked goods!"
"Baked goods? It must be a trap!"
"Hey, Twilight, Pinkie!" cried Scootaloo. "Let me in! I brought you cookies!"
"That's not going to work!" cried Twilight. "I know a trap when I see one!"
"But Twilight, we're not playing any more," said Scootaloo.
"You're... not?"
"No, we're not. Everypony else went back into Diamond's house twenty minutes ago."
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"We couldn't! Every time we tried, we got pelted by snowballs!"
"So that means that Pinkie and I won?"
Scootaloo let out a sigh. "Yes, Twilight. You won. You swept the floor with us, in fact, thanks to Pinkie Pie."
"And now you're bringing your princess tribute!" declared Twilight happily.
"What? Princess?"
"That's right," acknowledged Twilight. "I won the snowball fight, so I hereby declare myself the Princess of Ponyville!"
"I'm the General!" added Pinkie Pie.
"..."
"Here, let me open up the wall so you can bring me my tribute!" said Twilight.
Twilight magically shoved a the section of the wall between herself and Scootaloo aside.
"So, what kind of cookies have you brought me?"
"Oh!" cried Pinkie. "Those must be Fluttershy's snicker-doodles!"
"Yeah..." said Scootaloo hesitantly. She held the plate of cookies out. Twilight and Pinkie took one each and took a bite.
"Whoa," said Twilight as soon as her mouth was able. "What did she put into these things?"
"It's..." began Pinkie. She hesitated and held the cookie up, frowning at it. "It's... okayyy...?"
Scootaloo let out a sigh. "It's alright," she said. "Nopony else cares for them either."
"Really?" asked Twilight in surprise. "I like them. They're... different, but I like this kind of different. Well, no, actually they taste kind of familiar, but I just can't put my hoof on it."
"You actually like them?" asked Scootaloo in surprise.
"Yeah, I do. In fact, these are delicious," said Twilight, taking another bite.
"Really? Because it turns out that Fluttershy messed up the recipe when she was baking these."
Twilight paused. "She did?"
"Yeah. Apparently, when the recipe called for flour, she accidently used cornmeal instead."
"Cornmeal?" said Twilight. "How did she mix that up with flour?"
Scootaloo shrugged. "I don't know. Fluttershy was apologizing like crazy for doing it though, and everypony tried a cookie just to see what they were like, but we all said that we liked them to try to cheer her up."
"But I was being honest when I said it before," said Twilight. "I really do think that these snicker-doodles are delicious. Everypony else is missing out!"
"Well, good then!" said Scootaloo. "We were afraid that we would have to throw them away when Fluttershy wasn't looking, but if you want them, you can have them all! There's like, a hundred of them. They'll probably last you for forever."
"Well... okay, I suppose? If really nopony else wants them."
"Trust me, nopony else wants them. Come inside then, let's get out of the cold."
"What's everypony up to now, anyway?" asked Twilight.
"Oh, you know. Just hanging out. You and Pinkie really wore us all out."