"Action!" said a man as he brought the clapboard down to start shooting the scene for the movie.
"We don't need magic to beat those hoity-toity Crystal Preppers," Rarity said smugly. Her friends all clamoured in agreement.
"Still, the Friendship Games is serious business," Luna said before bursting out into laughter. She clutched her sides as she almost collapsed to the ground, wheezing and gasping for breath.
"Cut!" the voice said.
"I'm sorry, but that line just seems cheesy to me," Luna had calmed down, but she was still trying to stifle a chuckle. "How can anything called the 'Friendship Games' be taken seriously?" she eventually stopped altogether and composed herself. "Alright, I'm over the joke now, let's do this again."
"Action!" the clapboard came down again.
Spike ran towards the door only to get knocked away into the trash can as Twilight walked into the room on key.
"Spike? Spike!" she called, only to see him pop out of the trash can and run up to her. "There you are." She picked him up.
"Cut! Great take, Twilight!" The man holding the clapboard said as Twilight stepped off of the set to prepare for the next scene.
"It was, but I'm just a little concerned whether or not we should show that in the movie." Twilight scratched the back of her neck as she watched Spike run back to the dog trainer so that he too could get ready for the next scene. "I mean, trying to re-enact the pilot episode of Friendship is Magic is a nice touch, and the demographic who watch the show would like that reference, but don't you think that P.E.T.A. would show up if we showed Spike getting flung into the trash like that?"
"We'll have a disclaimer at the end of the credits," the man said. "You should just grab a bite to eat before we go to the next take."
"Alright." Twilight walked off towards the food table.
"Action!"
"Coming through!" Indigo shoved Twilight aside so that she fell onto Sunny Flare on cue.
"Seriously?!" Sunny growled.
"Sorry!" Twilight dusted herself off.
It would've been a perfect take as well, but someone suddenly farted so loud that the whole set could hear it.
"Cut! Try it again!" the clapboard holder said.
"Speaking of seriously, why did you have to fart like that, Neil?!" Sunny stomped off of the stage and approached him. "That was a perfect take right there, and you just had to let one loose at the worst time!"
"Sorry, Sunny." Neil waved his hand in front of his nose to block out the smell of the fart. "I shouldn't have eaten that bean burrito for lunch," he said. "Alright. I'm better now, let's just do the take again. Won't take much time."
Letting a single groan slip, Sunny Flare got back into postion, just after Indigo and Twilight.
"Action!"
"And our music career has really taken off." Celestia guided Abacus Cinch down the hallway towards the music room, but opened the door to a peculiar sight.
Everyone was in position, but they were busy talking to some important executives about future movie deals and television adverts. Rainbow Dash and Rarity were on their phones while Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Sunset, and Twilight were speaking to some men in suits.
"I know that the fans have wanted me to be on the show, but I just can't do it," Sunset said to her agent. "I've just got too much work as Sunset as it is. You know, this movie cost over ten million dollars with all of the special effects, props, musical numbers, and special guest actors."
"Cut! Not a good time, girls!" the man said to the Rainbooms and Twilight.
"Oh! Were we filming?!" Rainbow Dash almost dropped her phone. "I'll talk to you later, Gary. Got this super-important shot I gotta do where we meet the Human Twilight. TTYL!"
"First the Twilight movies and now this?" Cinch groaned as she stepped off of the set to prepare herself for a retake. "I swear, my life is going down the drain..."
"Action!"
"Dude! You've gotta hear this!" Lemon Zest stopped headbanging just to slip her headphones onto Twilight's head.
"Uh, Lemon Zest?" Twilight raised an eyebrows as she slowly took the headphones off. "Why are you listening to a rock ballad of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?"
"That's what it was?!" Lemon almost fell out of her seat. "Aww man! I thought it was playing Future Fighters!" She facepalmed.
"Cut! Next time let's not have it on shuffle, Lemon!"
"Sorry! Sorry! I'll get it right next time!" Lemon walked off of the set piece normally, instead of being as bouncy as she was going to be in the final product. "Knew I should have just hit autoplay..."
"Alright, people. We're on in three minutes, so take your places, get your last conversations out now, and let's make this take of the Aca-Deca song a one-take," a technical engineer said before walking off to get the clapboard and camera ready.
"So, Indigo. How did you make it into the movie?" Sugarcoat smiled as she asked.
"Well, truth be told, some girl named Lightning Dust was gonna have my place in the movie, but she couldn't make it." Indigo pulled out her phone and showed a portrait of the girl. "Minus a few spikes and the goggles, and she's pretty much a copy of me."
"What happened to her?" Sunny Flare asked.
"I dunno. She probably got a cold or dropped out at the last minute." Indigo shrugged. "But I think that I'm a good replacement for her."
"So what's gonna happen to you when we're done filming?" Sour Sweet asked.
"Well, it all depends on whether or not the developers like me better than Lightning," Indigo put her hands into the pockets of the CPA uniform outfit she was wearing. "Either way, I can at least say that I was in a movie."
"Good luck on making the final cut, Indy." Lemon Zest shook her hand which she was more than happy to return.
"Thanks, Lemon."
"Action!"
Sour Sweet grabbed her arrows, swung over the sandy pit, did a roll on the podium, and launched a volley of three arrows at the target. However, they were shot too early and flew up and over the set where they hit a spotlight, causing it to fall down and crash on the ground, shattering the glass when it landed. Luckily, no-one was near the impact.
"Sorry!" Sour Sweet ran off of the set to clean up the mess she had made. "Does anyone have a broom or something? I'll pay for the damage!"
All that the actors and staff could do was laugh at what had just happened. Despite the fact that some of their own property had been damaged, it was a rare occasion that this would happen, so they were relishing the moment.
"Guess I shot a little too early, didn't I?" Sour let out a little giggle of her own as she hauled the smashed spotlight away from the set and over towards the dumpster.
"Action!"
"What if they grow wings again?" Sugarcoat asked Cinch.
"A fair question. But I believe we can now fight fire with fire." Cinch paced up to Twilight and suddenly looked out to the people working with the cameras and microphones. "Does anyone have a can of Red Bull that we can use?"
To that, everyone burst into laughter once again, with even Cinch letting out a few hearty chuckles of her own.
"Because, you know, you know the saying? Red Bull gives you wings?" Cinch squatted down and started to slap the floor as her voice was diminished down to a fit of laughter that had brief momentary pauses. "Oh, god. I'm sorry. We'll try this again, and I promise I'll say it right this time..."
"Action!"
"At least she didn't manipulate Twilight into releasing all of the stolen magic to turn her into a power-crazed magic—" Sugarcoat started, but then stuttered and burst out into laughter "—I'm sorry. I just can't do this. Saying all those words is like trying to say hippopotamus ten times fast. It's too fast, and it makes me sound stupid if I mess it up..."
"Let's just try this again, Sugarcoat. OK?"
"Yeah. I'm ready now."
"Take two! Action!"
"At least she didn't manipulate Twilight into releasing all of the stolen magic and transforming into a power-crazed magical creature that tried to crimp the—" Sugarcoat immediately stopped and facepalmed, causing more laughter to spew from her mouth "—I'm sorry! It's just that this is such a hard sentence to get out. And this is supposed to be my closing line! Oh my god..."
"One more take?"
"Yeah. One more take."
"Alright. Take three! Action!"
At least I didn't manipula—" Sugarcoat burst into laughter for the third time in a row as she fell to the ground with tears streaming out of her eyes "—I manipulated her? That doesn't seem right at all!"
"Cut!" the laughter seemed infectious as the man did it as well.
"This is very unprofessional of me, I'm so sorry..." Sugarcoat walked off of the set to get a drink.
"Action!"
The scene was supposed to have Cinch trying to escape from the scene of the chaos without anyone taking notice of her, with Sunny Flare calling her out. But Sunny wasn't anywhere to be found.
"Cut! Where's Sunny Flare?" the director asked.
"I swear, this cannot be the last line I get in the movie!" Sunny Flare slapped her script and threw it to a member of staff with a baseball cap. "Three lines, and not one of them gives me any character?!"
"Sorry, Sunny, but we did a recent poll, and you came out as the least popular Shadowbolt of Crystal Prep." The man pulled out a clipboard with the poll results on a pie chart.
"Unbelievable! I demand to speak to the producer about this!" Sunny stormed off in a huff to find the producer of the movie.
"Sheesh. What pooped in her cornflakes?" Lemon Zest shrugged as the rest of the Shadowbolts got off of the set. "I mean, I only get one line in this movie, but you don't see me whining about it..."
"Action!"
"Am I the only one who thinks this is overkill?" Sunset asked as she laid eyes on the course for the Tri-Cross Relay.
"Nope! That's pretty much what we're all thinking." Pinkie Pie blurted out. "I mean, with how big the budget is, we haven't even received proper archery, skating, or motocross training for this movie, so if this scene gets messed up, the director's gonna have a lot of backlash for it..."
"Cut!" yelled the director.
"Oh! I'm sorry. Were we filming?" Pinkie Pie turned towards the camera. "Sorry. Let's just try that again."
"Seriously, Pinkie Pie? That's the third time we've had to do this take, and you can't keep quiet about the fact that we've had no training?" Applejack crossed her arms.
"Yeah! I mean, they're just gonna have us sitting in place with the background moving so that it looks like we're actually riding these bikes for real." Rainbow Dash nodded her head. "Stop worrying about it."
"Okay. But I'm not gonna continue if one of us get hurt on this set..." Pinkie Pie walked back into position for the shot.
"You think we should get rid of the fly-trap monster for the upcoming shot?" A man whispered to a set designer.
"Nope." the second man took a bite out of his sandwich.
"Ready on set?" the director asked.
"Yeah! Let's do this!" Indigo Zap put on the helmet she was going to wear for the motocross scene, only to hear the production team laughing again. "What? What's so funny?"
When Indigo took the helmet off, she noticed that someone had doodled a goatee and glasses onto the screen. "OK, Lemon. You're real funny, you know that?!" she shouted.
"Action!"
The Aca-Deca song was being sung now, and for the first two lines it was going perfectly until Indigo pulled down her goggles over her eyes. All of a sudden, the music stopped, and the singers themselves were starting to laugh.
"What? What's so funny?" Indigo Zap asked before she noticed the blue star that had been painted onto her right goggle. "Lemon!"
"Sorry! Still got Arc V on the brain!" Lemon called from the other side of the set.
"Action!"
"Are. We gonna. Win?!" Indigo got up in Twilight's face, but when she took her hands off of the rails, she heard even more laughter, causing Twilight to stop as well. When she looked down at her hands, she noticed that they were now covered in silver paint.
"For god's sake, Lemon Zest!" Indigo stood up from her chair and marched to the back of the bus to approach her.
"Action!"
"Take my hand, Twilight." Sunset reached out to Twilight in the scene where Midnight had been defeated and Twilight was given redemption. "Let me show you there's another way. As someone once did for me..."
Twilight was about to take Sunset's hand when all of a sudden the wires holding them both up snapped, sending both of the actresses—still in their costumes for the final battle—to the floor.
"Cut! Jerry! Get some stronger wires for the next take!" the director shouted to a man in the studio, who immediately jumped to his feet and ran off.
"Way to kill the mood, guys!" Twilight shouted as she quickly went off to get a snack from the nearby table. "God! That was a once in a lifetime take right there, and yet the equipment just had to ruin it! Get my agent on the phone!"
"Action!"
"The Games aren't really competitive, since we've never lost," Sugarcoat deadpanned.
"That doesn't seem very nice," Fluttershy whispered.
"Sorry, dearie, but these games aren't about being nice," Sunny's voice sounded innocent, but deep down, she was really pumped for the events.
"They why the heck is it called the 'Friendship' Games?" Pinkie Pie asked.
"Actually, that is a good point..." Sunny put a finger on her chin and looked to the ceiling. "Why is it called the Friendship Games?"
"Cut! While that was a nice little question, it's not what we're gonna use this time, girls," the director said.
"Sorry about that," Sunny said before she walked off to get a drink and wipe herself down for the second take.
"Oh, don't worry about a thing, darling." Rarity followed her. "Apart for that psuedonym 'dearie', you were flawless."
"Thanks, Rarity," said Sunny as she took a paper cup from the watercooler and filled it up with cold water. "But let's not let this friendship carry over to the movie, alright?"
"Yes. Or at least not until the end."
Everyone laughed at that sentence before they went back to prepare to shoot the scene again.
"Action!"
"Well, I was gonna Pony-Up and—" Rainbow Dash stifled and clutched her chest as she hunched over and started to laugh. "Okay, I know this is supposed to be a family movie, but Pony-Up? Seriously? That's gotta be the silliest thing I've ever heard in my life!"
"Yeah! It's like every time we say that, it sounds like we paid someone instead of using our magical powers." Pinkie Pie couldn't compose herself and giggled. "That'd make the movie much more different..."
"Action!"
Fluttershy drew back her bow and looked away as she let go of the string. This was meant to be the shot that would let Applejack get started in the archery part of the relay, but instead of hitting the target, it managed to leave the set, just like Sour Sweet's shots before it, but impale someone's sandwich this time.
"Did I get it?" Fluttershy asked as she looked at where the arrow had hit. She brought her hands to her face when she realized what had happened. "Oh my! I'm sorry about that, sir."
"Cut! Okay. While that was a stunning shot, we can't have that in the movie, so let's just try this again, get Ross a new sandwich, and then we can move on." The director stood up from his chair and let everyone take their places again.
"Hey, Fluttershy." Sour Sweet walked up to her and leaned in close to her ear. In a near-silent voice, she whispered, "Fifty bucks says that you can't hit his sandwich again in the next take."
"Oh, it's on, Sour..." Fluttershy smirked as she pulled out a new arrow from the quiver and loaded it up for the second take.
"Take two!"
Fluttershy did exactly the same thing as she had done in the previous take, only she accidentally sneezed when she pulled back the bow and shakily re-aimed the bow to hit Ross's sandwich again. The arrow flied, and once more impaled his sub when she let go of the string.
"Oops! Sorry, Ross!" she called out once she had seen where she had shot her second arrow.
"Seriously?!" Ross cried out as he wiped the sauce off of his face and went away to clean himself up.
The crew couldn't help but laugh for the umpteenth time that day.
"Looks like I owe you fifty bucks." Sour Sweet smiled as she shook Fluttershy's hand.