But Wait...There's More!

by McPoodle

4: Worst Excursion Ever

But Wait...There’s More!

- 4: Worst Excursion Ever -

---

Getting to sleep at a decent hour meant that Vinyl got up at a decent hour. That meant she actually had time to begin implementing the plan she had cooked up in her dreams.

The day was Friday, and DJ Pon-3 was scheduled to act as backup for Sapphire Shores at a cute-ceañera party at 7:30 that night. Thankfully, this group was more tolerant of modern music, increasing the chance that she might actually have a chance to use her equipment. Prince Steadfast was out on his luxury yacht most Fridays—Vinyl heard he brought his new friends out to see which ones got seasick—so that left the day open for the entire group. Vinyl was going to need the help of Rarity’s friends to pull off her plan, but there was enough time in the day to have some fun first. Soon, everypony began planning which sights Rainbow Dash “simply must see” in Canterlot. They eventually agreed to begin with the Farmer’s Market, as it was conveniently located near all of the other rival destinations.

Inside the building, Rarity had struck up a conversation with the apartment building’s day-shift security guard—she soon learned that he was a Canterlot Opera season-ticket holder, and they were now locked into a spirited discussion of whether or not the character of Red Letter deserved his fate at the end of The Scarlet Plague. It was just this sort of easy repartee with other ponies of quality, regardless of class, that had gotten Rarity use of the penthouse rent free when it wasn’t being used by its owners. While this was going on, Twilight, Vinyl and Rainbow waited for her outside. Playing in the street before them was a group of young fillies and colts. They separated into two groups, one made up of mostly colts, and the other of mostly fillies.

“Hmm...I don’t think I’ve ever seen this particular game before,” Twilight observed.

“I am the King of the Dark Kingdom!” announced one of the colts in a melodramatic style. “None may enter my kingdom and live! From the depths of my realm, I plot the overthrow of the Light Kingdom!”

Why does this sound familiar? Vinyl asked herself. Oh, that’s right, “worst excursion ever”. “Rainbow,” she addressed the pegasus, “did Rarity ever get around to telling you to do...or not do...anything important today?”

“Yeah, she did say something,” Rainbow replied, the emphasis somehow subtly pointing at Twilight. “Why do you ask?”

“I am the Queen of the Light Kingdom!” announced one of the fillies playing the game. She was valiantly attempting to match her rival in histrionics. “The safety of my subjects depends on my learning the evil plans of the Dark King. Shrinking Violet, take your team into the Dark Kingdom and trick the dark ponies into revealing their plans to you. Because of the delicate nature of this mission, if you are caught, I will be forced to pretend we never met. Do you accept this mission?”

“Uh-oh,” said Rainbow, suddenly remembering where she had heard those words before.

“I accept,” said another filly. She and her team of “covert operatives” then began to sneak into the territory controlled by the colts, loudly singing their highly-addictive theme song:

“Dun, dun, DUN-TUN! Dun, dun, DUN-TUN!”

“THE HILLS ARE ALIVE!” sang Rainbow as loudly as possible. “WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC!”

“Wow, I didn’t know you liked The Sound of Music!” exclaimed Twilight. “I’ll have to get us tickets to the Manehatten engagement.”

Rainbow Dash groaned loudly. “Thanks a lot, Rarity,” she muttered. “I’ll never live this one down!”

“What was that, Rainbow?” Rarity said as she exited the apartment’s office. “I almost thought I heard...”

“DO-do-do! DO-do-do! DO-do-do! Do-dat!” The fillies were still singing the Risking It All Team theme song, having completely abandoned the game as they got their musical groove on.

“Twilight!” Rarity exclaimed. “It’s time we get going, yes this is the perfect time that we, get going!”

“Aw, but this is such a cute game!” exclaimed Twilight as she was quickly dragged from the scene by a near-frantic team of Rarity and Rainbow Dash. “Who’s Shrinking Violet?”

“Oh look, a bookstore!” Dash exclaimed.

“Where?!” demanded Twilight, looking eagerly around her.

“Um...right around this corner!” Dash said before dragging the mage out of sight of the group of young ponies. “The door’s right here, past the...POSTER! No, on second thought, I meant ‘left’ when I said ‘right’!” She immediately turned Twilight around and practically shoved her across the intersection.

Vinyl stepped into the side street Dash had nearly pulled Twilight into, waiting until Rarity had torn the offending piece of paper to shreds before speaking. “Are you sure you don’t want to just tell her?”

Rarity hemmed. “You know I would have told her about the show eventually—honest! It’s just that, well, she does have a...smidge of a temper. And I know she’s not going to take the news well.”

“And by ‘not going to take it well’...”

“...she’ll demolish the etheric station,” Rarity concluded. “And you know, I really, really like that show.”

“Well, I like that show, too,” admitted Vinyl. “So I suppose this fandom includes Rainbow Dash?”

Rarity shifted a hoof in discomfort. Finally she corrected the DJ by saying “...and Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Spike. Oh, and Angel, Winona, Opalescence, Gummy and Owlowiscious.”

Vinyl allowed a full five seconds to elapse before stating her conclusion. “I’m living...in a soap opera.”

“I prefer to think of it as a sitcom.”

---

“FIGS! In the name of Celestia, FIGS!!!”

It was a very competitive farmer’s market. After nearly a minute of taking in the bustling flavor of the city square, the attention of the now-calmer group of ponies was finally drawn to one conversation out of dozens:

“Look, I can guarantee delivery of a hundred bushels of carrots a week,” declared the farmer. “Surely that’s enough for just one animal?”

“Actually,” replied the meek voice of his customer, “I’ll need just a little bit more than that.”

“More? More?! How much more?”

“Um, about two orders of magnitude more,” the customer admitted.

The farmer did the math. “Te...ten thousand bushels of carrots? A week?!!”

“At her present level of consumption, yes.”

The farmer sat down in shock. “That’s not an animal, that’s a walking matter compactor!”

“Fluttershy!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash, uttering the name of the customer. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ll take the one hundred bushels,” Fluttershy told the farmer to end their transaction, before turning to Rainbow Dash. “Well...we’re here on a certain business, and we did want to invite you, but you were always with a certain somepony...”

“Err...yeah, we just found about the season fin...”

“Fluttershy!” exclaimed Twilight as she entered the space around the farmer’s stall. “What are you doing here?”

Fluttershy looked up to see the gathering ponies. Rainbow and Rarity were behind Twilight’s back, wildly trying to signal something to the animal caretaker. “Um...getting some carrots for Rooky?” she finally answered. It may be strange to consider a living being to be an artifact, but nevertheless, Rooky was Fluttershy’s particular Ancient artifact.

“I thought Applejack was letting you use as much of her crop as you needed.”

“She is,” Fluttershy explained. “You see, Rooky has this neat little trick: she eats every carrot you give her, and I do mean every carrot, but never seems to gain any weight. I wonder if it has something to do with...” She stopped as she noticed Vinyl and the farmer listening in. “...with the way in which she became my pet.”

“I don’t think so,” said Twilight. “After all, we sort of went through the reverse process and while we were there we...never ate anything. The whole time. You might be onto something, Fluttershy.”

Vinyl took this moment to quietly slip away from the others. She made her way past the stalls, stopping to ask each of the vendors what they were selling, and seeking one item in particular.

~ ~ ~

“Fluttershy! Fluttershy! Where are ya, Fluttershy?”

Twilight looked in the direction of the voice. “Is that Applejack? What’s she doing in Canterlot? She told me she had important business this weekend!”

“Um...” began Fluttershy. She stopped upon seeing a pink mare’s head peek through a gap in the crowd of customers.

“I spy,” said the voice belonging to the head, “with my cartoonishly-large eye, something that begins with...I found her, Applejack!”

“And Pinkie Pie?!” demanded Twilight as the pony in question joined them.

“Um...” said Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash in unison.

“I’ve got good news and bad news, Fluttershy!” shouted Applejack, pushing her way through the crowd towards Fluttershy and the others. “They’re all out of tickets for the finale, but I did buy us tickets for a special encore performance of last week’s episode at noon today! How do ya like them app...eep!”

“What’s going on here?!” Twilight demanded.

“I wish you gals wouldn’t run so fast!” said a familiar voice. “I’ve still got these stubby little legs...which will now head in the opposite direction...”

“Spike? Get back here!”

Vinyl silently emerged from the crowd to sit down next to the carrot-seller’s stall. She pulled out the sack of popcorn she had just bought and started eating.

“Ooo, popcorn!” exclaimed Pinkie as she reached out a hoof for the tasty treat. “Can I have some?”

“Sorry,” Vinyl replied dryly as she levitated a mouthful of kernels out of the bag. “In the game of Griffish Inquisition, the snacks are for the spectators, not the defendants.”

“And Pinkie!” cried Twilight. “You told me you couldn’t come with me to Canterlot because you were going to a show, but now Applejack buys tickets for a show in Canterlot!”

“Um,” Pinkie replied, trying to come up with the least-insulting answer, “well, I said I couldn’t come with you because I was going to a show...I never said the show I was going to wasn’t in Canterlot!”

Twilight’s voice quivered. “And why didn’t you think to invite me?”

“Here it comes...” murmured Rainbow.

Pinkie sat up straight. This one was easy! “Well, it’s the recording of an etheric show, and everypony knows how much you hate those! Going to a recording is the only way for somepony who isn’t a unicorn to hear what all the unicorns are getting with their horns.”

“You were going to an etheric show? You were all going to an etheric show? How did you even know about this show?”

“Well, Rainbow and I weren’t going to go,” explained Rarity, answering the second question before she had processed the third. “We were with you the whole time when Pinkie had her little brainstorm about a show that I had told them all about, and she got everypony else organized for the trip, while we were regretfully far too close to you for her to tell us in any case, and...I may have said too much.”

“Wait, is this the same show that was on that poster?” Twilight asked. In an instant, her photographic memory brought the image before her. “A pony and a baby dragon, leading a group of ponies against a dark kingdom on behalf of a light kingdom? Is this a show designed to exploit the return of Nightmare Moon, for commercial purposes??”

“Um, kinda?” squeaked Pinkie.

“Ooo, wrong answer, Sugarcube,” muttered Applejack.

“WHAT?!?!”

Comments

[Sunderbraze]

957322 ...What? Advertise like Billy Mays and I'll consider it

[McPoodle]

957394
Don't worry--I killed it.

[Adam95F]

Woosh, I wonder what the aftermath will be like when Twilight expresses her rage.

[djthomp]

“Oh look, a bookstore!” Dash exclaimed.

Brilliant distraction!

[LittleSallyDigby]

Wow. Twilight's hair trigger is even more sensitive than we thought.

This should be interesting.

[Yami Vizzini]

Is the RIAT theme meant to be the Team Fortress 2 theme?

[Yami Vizzini]

5213678 I've read chapter 6 now, never mind. Close enough, really.