I Think It's Called Ponytown

by Lasairfion

Placeholder Text - Insert Trasnlation here

As the cupcakes ran out and the crowd started to disperse, the group of alicorn-led ponies headed back in the direction of the castle. They passed a heaving market place as they aimed for the particular side-street that housed the Distinguished Furniture Society and the Honourable Partnership Stationery Supplies Consortium.

Rarity paused outside DFS. "Look at all those lovely sofas", she said, drooling over a yellow chaise-longue. "Such colour. The kind I wish I saw before my feelings were like no other."
"A distinct lack of verisimilitude around here", stated Twilight. "Let's fix it."

"Citizens!" Canterlot-voiced Luna, enjoying the opportunity to use it. "There has been a major magical incident in this area. You must all evacuate the area immediately, but do not..."
"PANIC!!!!" screamed a tidal wave of ponies flooding out of both stores into the street. Two members of staff appeared dragging a desperate-looking pony who was resisting by fanging hold of a lovely leather davenport. His pockets were stuffed with quills.

Once the stores were empty of occupants, the Sock War Pony Group once again ranged themselves out in a rough semi-circle facing the sofa store; with Rainbow Dash, the test subject, centre of the firing line. Since Rainbow couldn't take part in the spell-casting they were going to have to fire the spell at her. As this could likely end up with a nasty mess on the floor, Twilight was inscribing shielding spells onto Rainbow by tracing complex patterns across her body with her horn. The lines glowed faintly against her coat like some sort of glittery art project. Rainbow giggled as the horn tickled against her stomach.

A pony trotted up behind Twilight.
"Hey, Name Here", said Rainbow to Twilight's intern. "Come to see what's going on?"
Twilight turned her head around to look at the pony behind her, then looked at Rainbow in puzzlement. "Really, Rainbow?" she said. "After all that's gone on today, you're not even going to blink at a pony called 'Name Here'? This is my friendship student Starlight Glimmer."
"Well", countered Rainbow, "it totally could've been she had some weird parents, right? Or maybe it was some Our Town equality naming-convention thing."

Twilight looked back at the newly arrived pony. "For now", she said, taking advantage of the intern's obedience to seniority, "just assume that you're called Starlight Glimmer okay? I'm sure it's a much more preferable name anyway." The other pony nodded.

Twilight turned back to the job at hoof, and the princesses all powered up their magic. Once again, the metallic-looking beam of matrix-wrapped magic blasted out, hitting Rainbow square in the chest and spalling onto the ground as it was held at bay by a luminous green shield. The shielding slowly diminished as it flowed back into the lines now criss-crossing Rainbow's body allowing the magical beam to also flow along these constructs. Finally the now re-converged beam thrust out from rainbow's dock before hitting the sofa store.

Suddenly Rainbow's wings flared out. Dark thunder clouds rolled in and a strong wind began to howl along the street.

Twilight could feel the magic start to shift and lose cohesion. She probed the flowing matrices before realising the inherent problem. "Rainbow's natural pegasus magic is interfering with the spell!" she gasped, as the magical beam stopped being transported around the pegasus and started to soak into her.

"The matrix cannae take it!" shouted Name Here, channelling a character from her favourite TV show. "You need more power!" Rarity, having already helped before, joined in the spell-casting but it was still a losing battle.

"Join in, Starlight!" shouted Twilight, above the howling winds. Keen to do as her commanding superior governing officer told her, Name Here, aka Starlight Glimmer, poured her considerable raw talent for magic into the fray.

There was a brief flash of light and the magical beam and Rainbow appeared to disappear. Celestia's excellent eyesight caught a rainbow-glint high over-head and she indicated upwards with the tip of a wing. Rainbow was falling... no... speeding down towards them pushing an expanding cone of air ahead of her. Everyone recognised this manoeuvre.

Water Clover, who was standing with the rest of the crowd had sudden flashbacks to having her barn demolished, and wondered what being at ground zero was going to feel like.

Rainbow was glowing a luminous green all over. The marks across her coat were saturated with the stored power of the beam spell. She plummeted automatically towards the ground in the final culminating move of the classic Sonic Rainboom.

BOOM.

---

The Chinese stock market crashed. Forbes was running hourly updates about investment losses, and the government in meltdown as it tried desperately to stabilise the Shanghai and Shenzhen Composites from a huge percentage loss. It turned out that massive investment in manufacturing for day to day items like furniture and consumables had driven an unsustainable bubble that had suddenly popped.

CNN reported that the Chinese government had moved aggressively to control the crisis, giving money to brokerages to buy stocks and ordering company executives not to sell shares. The Central Bank cut interest rates to a record low.

A key indicator amongst manufacturing purchasing managers, called the 'Flash' measure, showed that the country's factories were losing momentum as it tumbled to its lowest level in more than six years at just 47.1 according to Beixin Insight.

The results indicate "the economy is still in the process of bottoming out," said Beixin economist Wan Derong. "There is still pressure on the front of maintaining growth rates ... the government needs to fine tune fiscal and monetary policies."

---

A circular tidal wave of rainbow burst across the sky, its fringes coruscating luminous green. A flood of metallic looking energy goo was dragged behind it, splattering against and coating not only the sofa store, but also all the other surrounding buildings and the unfortunate ponies who happened to be in the way. A tearing sound, like a cross between a giant zip and a passing goods train, could be heard as the buildings were completely flattened. The smell of burning socks mingled with a shower of feathers and fluffy stuffing.

It was rather like, Pinkie thought, being on the end of one of her welcome wagon mistakes when the cake batter ended up in the cannon instead of the oven. As the magical coating started to dissipate she realised that while she was still pink, she now knew that she was a Pie and not a Pudding at heart.

Other ponies had also undergone a transformation, leaving behind a now less confused Starlight Glimmer who after being directly under the impact of a Rainboom was wondering how they had all survived. A large crash behind them revealed a sobbing Davenport staring as the remnants of the stationery store collapsed in on themselves, and the pieces started to disintegrate into thin air along with the magic.

There, under the now rapidly disappearing remains, stood an 'olde worlde' looking store named 'Quills and Sofas'. In the window stood a lovely yellow chaise-longue.

Davenport stood up as Rainbow Dash came in to land next to him. He sniffed.
"But I was really getting into ball point pens and wardrobes", he said.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Lesson of the day: Meddle not in the affairs of IPs that don't belong to you. Not for profit, anyway. Karma is as creative as it is vindictive.

Also, I can't help but wonder what will happen to the ponies who didn't exist before as the world is put to rights. If the Pinkie clones were bad, just imagine the potential fallout from that.

[Georg]

So *that's* what a Hasbro Cease and Desist order looks like from the other side.

Groovy.

[Irrespective]

"PANIC!!!!" screamed a tidal wave of ponies flooding out of both stores into the street.

Hey, they're all rememering what they're supposed to do in case of an emergency!

[Zaten the Changeling]

"The matrix cannae take it!" shouted Name Here, channelling a character from her favourite TV show. "You need more power!" Rarity, having already helped before, joined in the spell-casting but it was still a losing battle.

Redirect power to the shields!
I'm givin' her all she's got, captain!

_{i apologize, but I don't know much Star Trek. Of course, because TEH INTERNETZ, I know a Star Trek quote when I see one.}

[Okie Brony]

manoeuvre

What? Do you mean "maneuver"?
Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a spell-chequer!

[Lasairfion]

11451916
:P
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/manoeuvre