My Little Pony: Friendship is Absurd

by Lord Seth

Master of the Ticket

A knock on the door woke up Sunset Shimmer. Or rather, the crash of the door as it fell into the library woke her up, as the door hadn’t been fixed yet since the last time it got broken.

“What is it?” she asked as she walked over to the door.

“Mail delivery for Shimmer Sunset!” said the gray-coated, cross-eyed pegasus mailmare.

“That’s Sunset Shimmer!” Sunset said crossly as she took the envelope.

“That’s not true! It says Shimmer Sunset right here.”

Sunset put her hoof in front of her forehead, an act she was finding herself doing increasingly often ever since having to move to Ponyville. “It says ‘Shimmer, Sunset.’ The comma shows the last name came first.”

“Ooooh,” the pegasus said, as if she had just learned some kind of ancient knowledge. Sunset decided not to further the conversation. Instead, she picked up the door and placed it back where it was. It seemed no worse for the wear outside of there being a noticeable hole in the center now.

“That carpenter had better get here soon,” she said. “I need all this stuff fixed.” She looked up at the ceiling, where the holes from Lightning Dust crashing into and out of her new house were still around. “Whatever, let’s just see what I got in the mail.”

Sunset opened up the letter to find two tickets and a note. The note said:

“As appointed ambassador to Ponyville, you are entitled to two free Gala tickets. One is for yourself; the other is for another being of your choosing. It is customary to bring someone else, so if you don’t have a significant other, friend, dependent, or someone else to ask, you should hurry up and find one. No, imaginary friends do not count.”

In smaller print, the following was added:

”Void where prohibited. This ticket is only valid for the applicable year of the Grand Galloping Gala and cannot be redeemed on any other year. Tickets are nontransferable and ineligible for resale. Actual cash value 1/10,000th of a bit. Offer only valid in Equestria and related territories.”

“Well, so much for the plan of auctioning these off,” she said to herself. “I guess I’ll have to find some shmuck that’ll agree to go with me.”

Quite abruptly, Lightning Dust crashed straight into the house. Fortunately for Sunset, this time she went through one of the already-existing holes rather than a new one.

“Please, Lightning Dust, use the door,” pleaded Sunset. “Also, by ‘use the door’ I mean knock and wait,” she further clarified.

“No time!” Lightning Dust declared, picking herself off the floor. “I heard on the grapevine that you got two tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala!”

“How did you hear that?” Sunset asked. “I just got them!”

“The grapevine has finely attuned ears! Anyway, I’m just the shmuck to go with you!”

“Lightning, even if I were to give you a ticket—and I don’t think I will, because you did break parts of the ceiling—why in the world do you even want to go?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Lightning Dust asked.

“No. It isn’t,” Sunset deadpanned.

“The Wonderbolts are totally going to be there! I’m going to take the opportunity to show off my awesome skills to impress them! And maybe do a little social networking while I’m at it. But especially that whole showing-off-my-skills thing. Anyway, so what if some parts of your house got broken? I do that all the time!”

“That doesn’t make it any better!” Sunset shouted.

Lightning Dust considered the matter. “So, like, if I fix these things for you, you’ll give me the ticket?”

Sunset’s fury disappeared as she realized she might actually get something out of this. “I’ll consider it,” she said noncommittally.

“Awesome!” declared Lightning Dust. “I will be back with the necessary materials!” She zoomed out of the house at high speed.

“Something good might actually come of this,” Sunset noted to herself. She was interrupted as a knock came on the door, which caused it to promptly fall over. The knocker turned out to be Gilda, who then walked in. “Wow, you really need to get that fixed.”

“Hopefully, it will be. What do you need?” Sunset asked.

“Oh, I was just wondering what Lightning Dust was so excited about. She was babbling about fixing things, and I figure anything that will get her to do something useful would be great to know about.”

“Oh, I just got two tickets for the Grand Galloping Gala, and I said that I might give the other to Lightning Dust if she was willing to fix the things she broke.”

Gilda suddenly grabbed Sunset, picking her up with her claws and bringing Sunset’s face next to hers. “Wait, you have tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala? And you didn’t tell me?”

Suddenly nervous for her life, Sunset simply answered, “I just got them.”

Gilda released her. “Do you realize how much I need one of those? Forget Lightning Dust; give me the ticket!”

“Why do you want it so badly anyway?” Sunset asked, dusting herself off.

“Oh, actually, I don’t. I was just screwing with you,” Gilda said. “Oh man, you should’ve seen the look on your face! It was priceless! Heck, the look on your face right now is pretty great too!”

Sunset glared at Gilda. “If you’re not going to be useful in any way, get out of here!”

Gilda stroked her face with her talons. “Yeah, you’re right. Don’t want to wear out too many pranks on one individual too quickly,” she said before flying out the door. Coincidentally, Lightning Dust chose that time to return carrying a variety of tools.

“Where’d you get all of those tools?” Sunset inquired.

“Enh, I’m sure the store won’t mind if I borrow them,” Lightning Dust said. “Much,” she added.

Lightning Dust quickly got to work on repairs. Unfortunately, her lack of expertise in the matter was soon apparent, as her idea of repairing the roof amounted to simply putting a big piece of cardboard on top of it and attaching it with duct tape. Her solution to the door was no better, which was to simply paint “Out of Order” on it. “Ta-da!” she declared. “Good as new! How about that Gala ticket?”

“I don’t think a fixing job that bad deserves a Gala ticket,” Sunset said.

“All right then! What do you want me to do?”

Sunset blinked. Lightning Dust was still offering to do favors? Maybe she could get something out of this after all.

“Well, if you can’t fix it yourself, you could at least pay the carpenter to fix it when he gets here.”

“All right!” shouted Lightning Dust. “I won’t let you down! Just like how lightning never strikes in the same place twice!” she added before zooming off before Sunset could ask her to explain how that analogy made any sense at all.

Sunset turned around, only to suddenly find herself face to face with Flim. “Gah!” she said in surprise. Regaining her composure, she added, “How did you get behind me?”

“Oh, I’ve actually been here for a while; I just didn’t have much of an opportunity to say anything yet. You can be surprisingly not perceptive sometimes,” he noted. “Anyway! After pulling a prank, Gilda happened to mention you have a spare Gala ticket! I was wondering if I might be able to obtain it.”

“What do you need it for?”

“Well,” Flim said, “apparently the Grand Galloping Gala attracts all kinds of upper-class people. We’ve been trying to get investors to invest in the next iteration of the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, named the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 7000. But the only person around here with much money is Filthy Rich, and he hasn’t been interested. This seems like a great opportunity to raise some funds!”

“Can't you just get a loan at the bank? It hardly seems necessary to go to the Gala.”

“Well, yes,” Flim said, “but rumor has it that producers from the hit show Shark Den will be about, and there might even be tryouts. We totally want to make it on there!”

Sunset was confused. “Shark Den?”

“You know, that show where entrepreneurs try to convince the investors to give them an investment in exchange for equity?”

“You want an investor?”

“Oh, certainly not. A loan would be preferable; we’re sure not giving up any equity. That whole thing about wanting an investment is just made up so we could get on the show. But the exposure from appearing on the show is basically free advertising!”

“You know, I do only have one ticket, so only you could come. Your brother wouldn’t be mad?”

“Oh, not to worry! We legally count as one individual.” Sunset gave him a puzzled look. “Look it up; it’s true!”

“Uh, well, gee,” Sunset said, an idea coming to her, “Lightning Dust already asked me about that and said that she’d pay for repairs, and–“

“Ah, so you want something a bit better than that, eh? How about some free cider?”

“Not really that big a fan of cider. How about a cut of your profits?”

“Well–“ Flim started before abruptly being covered by a puff of smoke. When it dissipated, Trixie was there, and Flim had collapsed to the floor, apparently unconscious.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is here to prevent you from making a major mistake! You should bring me to the Gala!”

“Uh, Trixie? I think you hurt Flim kinda bad there,” Sunset said, looking at the farmer. “I mean, normally I wouldn’t care, but it did happen at my residence, so I might be legally–“

“He’s only been put to sleep. More importantly, stop thinking in the past! I’ve got a much better reason to go to the Gala than anypony else!”

“Do tell,” Sunset said flatly.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie must go to the Gala in order to impress ponies with her feats! Surely one will find it impressive enough to hire her out for shows, which would lead to exposure and substantially higher income!”

“So, basically, exactly what Flim wanted, except without the Shark Den part?”

“Exactly!” Trixie seemed quite pleased with herself. “And I am willing to do anything to get that ticket.”

“Anything?” Sunset asked eagerly.

“Anything! Including…” A sudden burst of smoke surrounded Sunset. When it cleared, she saw Trixie standing at the door, holding one of the tickets. “Stealing them straight from you! See ya at the Gala!” shouted Trixie as she ran off.

“Wha… get back here!” Sunset shouted, running for the door. Unfortunately, Lightning Dust chose this time to return, flying at breakneck speed through the broken door and slamming straight into Sunset as she was trying to leave. The resultant crash sent both ponies flying backwards, crashing into the walls and breaking various items in the process.

“Why don’t you look where you’re going?” Sunset screamed at Lightning Dust.

“I was! Not my fault you got in my way. Anyway, I totally got all the coins to pay for the repairs! Can I have my ticket?”

“Uh, well, Trixie just stole it, but–“

“What? Then what am I talking to you for? I’ll just go get it from Trixie, then!” Lightning Dust declared. “Plus, because it’s stolen goods, I probably don’t have to deal with any legal repercussions for taking it from her!” Lightning Dust zoomed up through the roof without giving Sunset the money, breaking not only the fixes she had made but also creating another hole in the process.

Sunset decided she was going to worry about the additional repairs after she got the ticket back. Then she suddenly realized she had no idea which way Trixie went or even where she was likely to head.

Naturally, this was when Suri chose to drop in. “So, can I get your Gala ticket?” she asked. “The Gala would be the perfect place to–“

“I don’t care! I don’t even care how you found out! All I have to say is that I don’t have the stupid thing because Trixie stole it!”

“Trixie? That ruffian,” Suri said. “I bet she made a show of it also, rather than simply taking it discreetly. She has no business smarts. No wonder she never gets hired for anything and has to try to desperately attract attention.”

“Do you at least know where she is?” asked Sunset.

“Oh yeah, she and Lightning Dust were having a go of it in the town square. Of course, if she does have the ticket, then that means I should…” Suri trailed off as she noticed Sunset had already run off. Shrugging, she followed her.

The town square was not as chaotic as one might expect. Trixie and Lightning Dust may have been fighting and chasing each other, but all the other ponies seemed content to watch from a safe distance.

“Give me that ticket!” Lightning Dust shouted as she lunged at Trixie.

“Never!” declared Trixie as she used a cloud of smoke to distract Lightning Dust long enough to move to another location.

“I want you both to stop being idiots and give me back the ticket!” declared Sunset. “Then I’ll decide who gets it!”

Neither Lightning Dust nor Trixie took any notice of Sunset. They did, however, take notice of Suri, who was able to use the fact each was distracted by the other to seize the ticket from Trixie’s grasp. “Now I’ve got it!” she crowed. However, Flim then bashed into her, causing her to drop the ticket, which Flam picked up. “Hey, two against one! No fair!”

The fight between the six continued with substantial kicks and various other injuries being directed in all directions while Sunset watched. Gilda walked up to her.

“Are the idiots fighting over that stupid ticket?” Gilda asked.

Sunset nodded.

“Hey, are they aware that those things come with a built-in defense mechanism if they change hoofs too often?” Gilda asked. “Ugh, ‘change hoofs.’ I’m sticking around you ponies too much.”

“Wait, what? What are you talking about?” asked Sunset, still transfixed by the surprisingly epic struggle.

“Oh yeah, to try to prevent them from being stolen or auctioned off, if the person in possession of the ticket changes too many times, especially in quick succession, the ticket blows up. It’s a security measure.”

“What?!” screamed Sunset. “I need that ticket! Hey! Guys! Stop fighting over that ticket and give it to me! It’s dangerous!”

“Never!” Trixie declared, having snatched the ticket back from Suri. “I’d rather die than–“

BOOM.

When the miniature mushroom cloud dissipated, the conveniently empty town hall in the center of the town square had been vaporized along with everyone who had been fighting over the ticket, which floated down onto the ground, perfectly fine.

“Huh, bigger explosion than I thought,” Gilda said. “Maybe that was had a defect. They’re not supposed to be that big… ah well, should be safe to pick it up now. It resets after that happens.”

“Gilda, they all just got killed by that explosion! Don’t you care at all about that?” Sunset asked as she walked over to grab the ticket.

“What, do you particularly care?” Gilda responded.

Sunset considered the matter. “Okay, not really. How did you hear about the explosions on the tickets anyway?”

“Enh, I read.”

“Well this is just great,” Sunset said, “now who do I bring to the Gala? After that display, nopony is going to want to compete to try to get it, so what’s even the point? How do I decide now? At random?”

Gilda gave whatever the griffon equivalent of a thumbs-up is. “I could go!”

“Wait, I thought you didn’t want to go?” Sunset asked, feeling confused.

“Well, not enough to do any favors, but hey, might still be fun. I mean, it’s not like I knew all about the tickets blowing up, so I deliberately stayed away from it knowing the others would fight over it, causing an explosion that would get rid of the competition and leave me as the sole recipient, right?”

Sunset stared at her.

“No, really, it’s not like that! I just realized how amusing it would be if it actually was like that.”

“Fine,” Sunset said, giving Gilda the ticket. “Darn it, I can’t believe I didn’t even get anything out of this. Let’s just get out of here before anypony decides this is our fault.”

“I’ve decided this is your fault!” one of the ponies in the crowd declared.

“No, no, no,” another said. “Don’t you see? In a small way, it’s all of our faults for letting this happen. We can’t simply lay the blame on these deaths on the individuals who perpetuated it, because they were molded that way by our society. A society that each one of us contributed to. And really, every single one of us had the opportunity to try to stop this from happening, but instead we all simply watched. We can’t waste all our energy placing blame on others when something bad happens; that is the path towards ruination. We should view this not as something to place blame for, but an opportunity to examine ourselves and try to prevent such a thing from happening. Besides, they were all jerks anyway.”

This explanation appeared to satisfy everyone else, who soon wandered off.

“Oh crud, that carpenter is probably going to be here to fix the house!” Sunset said as she suddenly remembered. “I have to go back!” She dashed off.

Sunset reached her house. To her relief, the carpenter had not arrived yet. “Well, might as well get something done in the meantime,” she said to herself. She pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and started writing.

Dear King Sombra,

Today I learned that if you have a lot of friends—although I use the term “friends” loosely—fighting over something you have, the correct answer is to make there be fewer friends.

Sincerely,
Sunset Shimmer

“I guess I’ll just put this in the mailbox,” Sunset said to herself. While heading out the door, the mailmare from that morning suddenly appeared.

“Sorry!” the cross-eyed pegasus said. “These were supposed to come in that envelope for you!” She handed Sunset five more tickets.

“Wha… how?” she asked.

The pegasus shrugged. “I guess they got mixed up in the mail.”

“No, I mean how were they supposed to be in here? The envelope was shut; it wasn’t open or anything. And the note said there were two tickets! How were there supposed to be five more?”

“Oh, right. There was a letter that accompanied them,” said the gray pegasus. She pulled out a letter and read it. “Sorry about only sending you two by accident. See, there was this mixup involving a giant octopus fighting a squid, and… well, the details aren’t important. The point is, since it’s obvious you’d want to bring everyone that went with you on that adventure with Nightmare Moon, here are the necessary tickets to bring them all! Hopefully whacky hijinks didn’t ensue due to the mixup.”

Sunset stared in disbelief.

“By the way,” asked the gray pegasus, “did wacky hijinks ensue? I’ve been busy and haven’t seen much as of late.”

If Sunset was going to give a response, she was cut off by Lightning Dust suddenly flying in at high speed. “So, hey, I heard on the grapevine that you got more tickets and that it’s actually straight up supposed to go to me! Can I get it?”

“How did you hear about that so quickly?” asked Sunset. She blinked. “More importantly, aren’t you dead?”

“Oh, come on. You think I’d be killed by an explosion that small? I’m made of sterner stuff. I welcome the explosion that thinks it can kill me! Besides,” Lightning Dust added as an afterthought, “all the explosion actually did was teleport us away from the ticket. Nopony got vaporized. Who told you we got killed?”

“Gilda,” said Sunset.

“Oh, Gilda told you that?” asked Suri, who suddenly walked up to them. “What a genius! Make you think we’re all gone as an excuse to get the ticket! Why didn’t I think of that? Ugh.”

Flim, Flam, and Trixie arrived right then. “Wait, did I hear something about additional tickets?” Trixie asked.

“Oh yeah!” said the mailmare obliviously. “Apparently there were extra tickets sent that are supposed to go to all of you. Anyway, I’ve got more deliveries to do, so see you!” She flew off.

Sunset stared at the ponies assembled. “Why in the world would I give you these tickets after all the aggravation you’ve caused me today?” she demanded.

“Well,” said Suri, “probably because the letter said that they were to go to us, so if you give them to somepony else you’ll look really bad.”

Sunset closed her eyes and counted to 10, then sighed and threw the tickets to them. “There. Take them.” She stomped back inside her house and slammed the door in frustration, which of course only caused it to collapse.

The celebration of the other five over their new Gala tickets was cut quite short when a police stallion arrived. “There you are! The guys who made the town hall get teleported! Well now it’s all broken, and you have to fix it.”

“What?” asked Trixie incredulously.

“Well, it was you fighting over the ticket that caused its teleportation spell to trigger, and the hall happened to get teleported several feet off the ground. So it fell and broke. Now you guys have to get all of the pieces, bring it back to the town square, and rebuild it.”

“I don’t even know anything about rebuilding buildings!” protested Lightning Dust.

“Well, it’s time to learn! And none of you are going anywhere until that town hall is good as new! Now let’s get going!”

Their expressions suddenly far more depressed, the five all were led away by the police stallion. Before Sunset had an opportunity to take any schadenfreude from any of this, however, the carpenter arrived. “I’m here!” he said.

“How much will it cost to fix all of this?” she asked him.

The carpenter examined the damage to the roof and doors. “Hrm, well, ordinarily it would be covered by the warranty, but that got voided after a non-certified individual tried to fix it.”

“When did any non-certified individual try to fix it?”

“Well, as clearly can be seen, there was an attempt to fix the hole improperly with cardboard as well as an unauthorized attempt to fix the door. That voids the warranty and means you have to pay full price for the repairs.”

Sunset cringed and then sighed. “Fine. Just do it.”

“Alrighty!” said the carpenter, who immediately set to work.

Sunset went back to her letter and read through it again. She added:

P.S. Never trust the mail service.

Comments

[Aria H Discordia]

Good, more. Keep it coming.

[Lord Seth]

5283885

Thanks for the comments; it's great to know people are entertained! Expect another chapter up before this week is over.

[Rakaziel]

This. Is. Genius!

[keaton-furman-prower]

Today I learned that if you have a lot of friends—although I use the term “friends” loosely—fighting over something you have, the correct answer is to make there be fewer friends.

Sir/madam, you are absolutely brilliant