Further Tales From Day Court

by Blade Star

Chapter 5 - A Prank Too Far

If I could describe Rainbow Dash in one word, that word would be annoying. Deeply annoying if I can have two. She is without a doubt the single most irritating resident in all of Ponyville. And I include Pinkie Pie in that, after she randomly appeared under my bed to provide me and Margaret with party invitations.

I still have no idea how she did that. Or how long she was under there for.

Actually, I’m not sure I want to know.

Still, Pinkie might annoy me from time to time, but it’s just her way. She’s friendly, kind hearted and has always been in my corner when I’ve been feeling down, even if I do snap at her from time to time.

In contrast, Rainbow Dash has been a near constant source of problems and issues. First of all, there’s the fact that her case actually wound up on my desk. A while back, in a misguided effort to stop winter, brought on by not wanting her pet tortoise to hibernate, she inadvertently caused some pretty severe damage to Cloudsdale’s weather factory, including sending a giant snowball Ponyville’s way, which covered the town in a couple feet of snow a good week before it was supposed to, never mind the effect it had on weather control over the next few weeks. I managed to get her off with a serious slap on the wrist, but it still looked pretty awkward for all concerned, having the bearer of an Element of Harmony hauled in for criminal damage charges.

Then there’s her problem of crashing with some frequency when she’s trying out new tricks or stunts. That usually ends with somepony having to shell out the bits to repair whatever damage she caused, or it sends somepony to the hospital. Like a drunk driver though, Rainbow never seems to get too badly knocked about, just the ponies she slams into at over 300 miles an hour.

Besides that, she and I have something of a personality clash. To describe Rainbow as boastful, doesn’t really do it justice. She is so damn full of herself, more so since she got into the Wonderbolt Reserves. More often than not, her ego has gotten her, and others, into serious bother. I don’t mind ponies making mistakes, but she never learns her lesson, and like Starlight, seems to get off scot free more times than I care to remember.

And then, there’s her pranking. Now, I’m a pretty introverted guy at heart; I’m quiet, I prefer to keep to myself or spend time with a few select friends, and I certainly don’t enjoy surprises, least of all nasty ones. In contrast, Rainbow loves her pranks and practical jokes. Everything from the cliched whoopee cushion to more imaginative ones, like ‘borrowing’ an active storm cloud, and landing lightning strikes perilously close to a pony’s hind quarters. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can take a joke; Celestia after all, loves her own brand of practical jokes, as does Discord. The problem with Rainbow’s brand of humour, is that it can sometimes come across as more mean than funny. She just does it to boost her own ego.

I’ve been on the receiving end of a few of her gags since I arrived. At first, I took it as her way of being friendly; Discord did something similar as his way of showing he cares. I expected that after a few weeks, she’d get bored, or I’d get wise, and she’d move on to some other victim, having accepted me as a friend. Instead, she’s kept up her campaign quite happily. The worst by far had to be the time she sneaked into my house when I was kipping on the sofa, and stuck my hand in a bowl of cold water. The result was…unfortunate. I didn’t think I’d be waking up to something like that until my eighties at the earliest.

After that, I’d reached by breaking point. Between the continued pranks, and the lack of gratitude for dragging her rump out of the fire over the Cloudsdale incident, I decided it was time to push back. There was just one problem.

I’m not that good.

You’d have thought a man who had a knack for planting fairly sizeable bombs in places no one would expect, or detect if they did would be able to do something like hide one of those snake in a can prank toys. As it turned out though, Rainbow was too quick for me, and always seemed to sidestep or avoid whatever I tried to pull. And at the same time, she continued to play jokes on me.

I’d long toyed with the idea of pursuing legal action as a very last resort. I didn’t want to of course, but I was starting to run out of options. Obviously, I’d tried the most obvious solution first, and asked her to stop with the pranks. But she hadn’t listened. I’d had no luck going through Twilight either. Then I’d tried to put her in her place by pranking her back, and that hadn’t worked. The problem was I had no leverage. Rainbow wanted to prank me for the hell of it. I couldn’t buy her off or anything like that. It was looking like my only option was to do something drastic and finally throw some consequences in her face.

Still, as annoying as it all was, I did think it a bit of an overreaction, and Margaret agreed, using her marital veto to stop me actually doing it. Ever the primary school teacher, she advised me to just ignore her and not react. And to be fair, for the last couple of weeks, that plan had served me well. I’d only had to put up with one doorknob being loosened, so I was locked in the en suite, and one case of her winding my alarm clock two hours forward, making me think I was late for work. Irritating, yes. But I didn’t show it, and Rainbow did seem to be getting bored.

Unfortunately, Margaret’s plan didn’t take into account that, given the situation, Rainbow might just up the ante to get a rise out of me.

And that’s exactly what happened.

---

The straw that broke the camel’s back came when I was busy writing up a case report for Celestia. Not all the cases I deal with are criminal. The only thing that is needed to request my presence, is for the issue at hand to have something to do with either Equestrian or foreign law. That can be anything from treaties with other nations, all the way down to the regulations surrounding the use of bonfires within a city. Just because I’m needed doesn’t mean somepony is standing tall before the man. On the contrary, the vast majority of my cases aren’t even relating to the law directly, merely being a facet of it.

Anyway, I’m rambling a bit. The case I was working on at the moment was one of no small importance. Celestia was busy negotiating a new trade deal with the Griffon Kingdom that would hopefully see trade between the two friendly nations grow almost exponentially. As Equestria’s biggest ally, we already had the usual slew of trade agreements. This one however, was going to be a little different. We were going to move the agreement from a tariff model to a free trade one. That is to say, each country would be removing the tariffs on various goods that could only be found in the other country. For the Griffons, that meant eliminating tariffs on gemstones and other precious minerals, while Equestria would remove tariffs on some of the heavy machinery produced in the Griffon Kingdom.

The agreement had taken months to work out, as there was notable opposition on both sides of the eastern sea. But finally, Celestia, ever the chess master, had managed to strike a deal that would ultimately benefit both parties. All that had to be done now, was for the agreement to be ratified and checked to ensure that it didn’t clash with any existing Equestrian legal conventions.

This was what I was doing as I sat at my desk. In front of me, I had the final draft copy of the free trade agreement, and all around me were books, many borrowed from the Royal Canterlot Law Library, on Equestrian trade and commerce law from the past century. As I’ve said before, much of Equestrian law was not codified in a single document, and was scattered through case law old and new. It would only take one ancient, but still valid judgement, to bring the whole agreement down and put us back at square one.

I’d been going over the agreement carefully all that morning, and I was on my fifth pot of tea, and second pack of chocolate biscuits, and I was only a fifth of the way through the agreement. Right now I was examining the riveting notion of the definition of a lawful importer of precious minerals in contrast to a lawful retailer, complete with definitions of precious minerals and Equestrian precious minerals to boot.

As I was going over the work, my thoughts turned briefly to Rainbow Dash. It had been a few weeks now, and I’d not heard a peep out of her. I’d heard that she’d been pulling pranks on other ponies, including Fluttershy, much to my surprise (in the past Fluttershy was always a no-go for Rainbow, on account of her sensitivity and borderline panphobia). But she seemed to have left me alone. There had been no more whoopee cushions, no more cardboard stand-ins in my wardrobe, and no more replacing sugar with salt.

However, I overlooked the obvious. My study had a couple of windows, since I like to have some natural light given how long I sometimes spend in here. One of these was right in front of my desk, and allowed me to look out towards the nearby Ponyville Park; a picturesque scene if ever there was one. And today, due to how warm it was, I’d left it open to stay cool. That was my downfall.

I was going through a section on the timescale to implement the new agreement when I first heard the signature jet-like sound of a pegasus flying at speed. I really must look into how they do that. I’ll be bits to biscuits though that the answer is magic.

Anyway, hearing the sound relatively close by, I glanced up to see who it was. I was expecting a delivery today and was on the lookout for Derpy. But it wasn’t my favourite mailmare, it was Rainbow Dash. While her cyan form could make her hard to see against a clear sky, the rainbow trail she left in her wake was unmistakable. What was more, she seemed to be heading toward me.

It never clicked in my head what this could mean, until it was far too late. I just thought she practising one of her speed runs through town, trying out some new bloody stunt she’d come up with. To my surprise though, she zoomed right up to my open window. It was then that I realised her intentions.

“Hey, Roger! Catch!” she called out.

Pulling into a steep climb and banking away from the house, she soon zoomed out of sight. She actually used the RAF lobbing tactics, which the V-Force bombers used to safely drop their nuclear weapons without vaporising themselves. Of course, it wasn’t a megaton range warhead that Rainbow threw at me,\it was something far more juvenile; a water balloon.

It landed with a splat right in front of me, bursting onto my desk, and utterly soaking all my notes, one of only two draft copies of the trade agreement, as well as the various books that happened to be on the table at that moment. I got a pretty good soaking too. In one fell swoop, she’d managed to destroy a good week’s worth of research and hard work.

Now, I’ve already said, I’m not averse to pranks. I don’t mind laughing at myself from time to time, particularly if the prank is clever or brilliantly executed, like when my daughter fiddled with my computer screen and turned everything upside down. But when a joke isn’t funny and destroys some very important work, then...well, I tend to lose my temper.

Having recovered from the shock and sudden soaking, I was soon on my feet and shouting out of the window, hurling the most vile and insulting names I could remember in Rainbow’s direction, as well as promising swift and violent retribution.

Luckily, my shouting and swearing, while earning me no points from our neighbours, did bring my wife running. She was able to eventually calm me down, and after taking my frustrations out on an unfortunate filing cabinet, I was able to make my way back to sanity. Having calmed down, I decided that I was left with no option. Rainbow had just destroyed some very important government documents; this time, she would have to face consequences.

---

After heading upstairs, heading changed into fresh, dry clothes, and doing my best to calm the still boiling rage inside me, I prepared to head out. I would head to the train station, which was where the telegraph office was also located. I’d wire Celestia and ask her for permission to bring a petition before her tomorrow. While I wasn’t expecting Rainbow to get in too serious trouble, I rather hoped that she’d get something along the lines of what she got after that whole winter incident. At least here, community service and garnished wages were fitting and proportionate punishments.

All I really wanted was to see her put in her place and taken down a peg; something to check that massive ego of hers. As it turned out though, I wasn’t the only one getting sick and tired of Rainbow’s pranks. While other ponies had put up with her antics for far longer, she’d recently been on something of a spree, and even Twilight’s patience with Rainbow’s unamusing tricks was beginning to run out.

But it wasn’t Twilight who came up with the frankly genius plan to get one over on the prankster pegasus, it was the pony who’s intelligence I sometimes believe may well be on a par with Discord. No, not Celestia, although she is close, I’m talking about Equestria’s number one party planner.

I was making my way past Sugarcube Corner when I first felt that I was being watched. Pinkie Pie does this; she ambushes you. You won’t see anything, and then all of a sudden, there’ll be a pair of baby blue eyes and a massive smile in front of your face, like some extremely happy facehugger from the Alien movies. And that’s precisely what happened. I all but jumped out of my skin.

“Gah! Pinkie Pie!” I exclaimed in fright. “How many times have I told you; don’t do that!” The pink earth pony just giggled though.

“Ha ha, sorry, Roger,” she said kindly. “It’s just that I haven’t seen you in ages, and I wanted to say hi to my joint-best human friend in all of Ponyville.” She continued to stare at me with those unsettling blue eyes.

Of Pinkie Pie, I’ll say this. I don’t fear Discord, Tirek, or the power of immortal alicorns. But that mare...she scares me. Truth be told, I do my best to avoid her, but I think that just encourages her.

“So what are you doing out here anyway?” she asked, continuing on, either unaware on unconcerned by the mortal terror I was presently feeling.

I figured that Pinkie wouldn’t be too thrilled with the idea of me trying to have Rainbow hauled over hot coals, so I tried to sidestep the whole thing, literally backing off from the party mare at the same time.

“Oh...erm...I was just going to see Twilight,” I explained, doing my best to keep my nerve. Pinkie may be the Element of Laughter, but she’s just as good a lie detector as Applejack.

She saw right through me as I started to walk around her.

“Oh, me too!” she said excitably, now bouncing alongside me as I continued on my way. “Are you planning on doing something about Rainbow’s pranking too?”

If I’d been drinking coffee, I’d have spat it out in surprise. As it was, I ended up choking on air.

“What the?! How did you figure that out?!” I exclaimed, too surprised to deny it.

“Well, my back left foreleg itched, and my right ear was floppy. That’s my Pinkie Sense telling me that you’ve had one of your little temper tantrums. You really shouldn’t take out your anger on helpless filing cabinets, you know. They have feeling too.”

Again, not even Discord scares me this much.

“So, you know about Rainbow’s pranking spree then?” I asked, a little nervously as she continued to bounce along beside me.

“Sure,” she replied. “I don’t mind them, but she really seems to have ticked off a lot of ponies. And her latest prank just doesn’t seem that funny.” Of course, Pinkie would know what Rainbow was planning next, she sometimes seems omniscient as it is.

“You know what it is?” I asked. Pinkie nodded.

“She’s planning to switch out all the Filly Scouts' cookies for joke ones that turn your mouth rainbow coloured.” Yep, there’s the ego. Pinkie went on. “I’m going to go to see Twilight and the others to see if I can bring her in on my plan.”

“What plan’s that then?” I asked. Pinkie now turned serious.

“We’re going to prank Rainbow like she’s never been pranked before.”

And instantly, all thought of civil prosecution was forgotten in favour of being part of perhaps the single greatest revenge prank in pony history. I only had one question.

“Can I help?”

---

Pinkie was glad to have me on board. To my amazement, she seemed to have roped pretty much the entire town into her incredible prank, even the usually morally superior Twilight Sparkle had agreed when presented with the opportunity to get one over on Rainbow.

Her plan was simple, yet brilliant. Rainbow planned to leave everypony who ate those cookies with a rainbow covered mouth. Well, we could all live with that for a little while. Pinkie’s counter prank called for a spot of acting. In addition to staining our mouths, these cookies were going to have an unexpected side effect; an all-consuming addiction and a desire to rip anypony who might have more cookies to shreds. Basically, it was your standard zombie apocalypse scenario, only eating cookies instead of the flesh of the living. Rainbow would return to a Ponyville overrun with cookie craving zombies, and what few survivors she encountered would soon too fall victim to the infestation. Eventually, she’d be left on her own. And then, right before she expected to get eaten, we’d reveal the whole thing to her, showing how a prank, while funny to the prankster, can be quite harmful to the victims.

Pinkie took me to Twilight’s castle, where we planned the whole thing. Twilight’s innate organisational ability was key in giving us all roles to play to make the whole thing frighteningly believable. It would all happen after the cookie drive, with pretty much everypony buying a box, including myself. Rainbow’s cloud home was a little distance away from Ponyville, and she’d only come back in an hour or two to gloat. That would give us all the time we needed.

With the plan all set to go, we all dispersed to prepare. I headed back to the house, noticeably calmer, and far, far happier than when I left. Margaret was quick to pick up on my good mood.

“Well, you seem a damn sight more chipper than earlier,” she said as I walked in. “I take it you’ve had a chance to calm down?” I smiled as I walked into the kitchen where she was busy doing the ironing.

“Absolutely!” I declared happily. “I ran into Pinkie Pie while I was out. And she’s come up with a plan to get back at Rainbow for all her pranking. We’re going to fake a zombie apocalypse.”

I waited for my dear wife to process that little titbit of information. She set her iron down for a moment.

“You’re going to what?” she asked in amazement. I briefly outlined Pinkie’s plan, offering her a role as well. However, she was less then impressed.

“Absolutely not!” she said hotly. “I know Rainbow’s got a bit out of hoof lately, but that’s just juvenile.”

“Well, you know what they say,” I replied. “Send a thief to catch a thief, and Pinkie’s the best prankster around. Apart from Discord, but I don’t want Rainbow sent to a creepy sock puppet dimension. Not yet anyway.”

“It’s still ridiculous,” she answered.

“C’mon, even Twilight’s pitching in,” I persisted. Margaret sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Alright,” she said. “Tell you what. I’ll stay out of the way and I won’t blow your cover if that silly pegasus comes knocking.” It was a fair compromise.

“Alright then,” I agreed. “But on one condition.”

“What it is?” she asked, with the tone of a wife who’s long since gotten bored of her husbands childish behaviour.

“Once I’ve sent Rainbow on her merry was to the finale, you and me meet up at the pub in town.”

“And wait for all this to blow over?” she finished. I just grinned.

I ended the evening by sending a brief wire up to Canterlot to let Celestia that I would be taking one of my vacation days tomorrow.

---

And so, the next day, the plan began. It all started with the Filly Scouts' cookie drive. I swear, those girls are worse the Jehovah’s Witnesses and doorstep salesmen combined in terms of how quickly they can use pressure selling tactics. As planned, pretty much everypony, myself included, bought at least one box. Taking mine into the kitchen I cracked one open and examined the filling inside. It was rainbow coloured and stained your fingers. Even running them under a very hot tap took about thirty seconds to start washing it off. I wondered just how much Rainbow had spent on all this. The amount of cookies needed had to have cost a tidy sum.

Speaking of Rainbow, she’d gone back to her cloud mansion to wait for her prank to take effect. After all, the last thing she wanted was to be strong armed into buying and eating a box of her own joke cookies. It also though gave us the time we needed to prepare our own little show.

First things first, everything was closed down. All the shops were locked up, some even boarded up their doors and windows to add to the effect. The streets were cleared, with most ponies hiding in carefully worked out positions to jumpscare Rainbow wherever she might flee to. And for added effect, a few of the weather team, led by Thunderlane, who had leapt at the opportunity get back at his boss, moved in a large front of clouds and set them to hang at low level just above the town. That in particular gave the place an unsettling look, particularly as, despite the clouds, there was absolutely no wind. Fluttershy even convinced her friends in the bird world to hold off on singing for the extra ominous feeling.

By the time everything was complete, Ponyville could have been a scene from the Langoliers. The place was dead silent, there not a soul about (or so it seemed). And the only hint of what had caused everypony to disappear was the scattered, and empty, boxes of cookies.

With the show almost ready to start, Margaret left to go and hole herself up in Ponyville only pub, which from the outside appeared to be boarded up and fortified. I meanwhile set to work on my make up. Pinkie had mixed up a version of the rainbow colouring that washed off more easily, she’d also provided me with a few more items to make my face appear pale and haggard, even giving me sunken eyes. I even had a tattered costume to complete the getup. As I looked at myself in the mirror, I beheld an unsettling sight.

Personally though, I think the rainbow stain around my chops just made me look ridiculous.

The show started at two that afternoon. Pinkie had already warmed Rainbow up by feigning being ill in bed with a fever. Now she was coming back to Ponyville and would find it a very strange place.

Unfortunately, there was one flaw in Pinkie’s plan, and that was my daughter, Lizzie. Rainbow had sent her on some long range patrol, or something like that, which meant that she was out of town for a couple of days. She was coming back a day early, and was about find herself caught up in the whole affair.

---

About twenty minutes later, and I was in my specially organised position as per Twilight’s instructions. The script as it was, called for Rainbow to find Twilight and Spike eating what few cookies remained in the square outside Town Hall. They would then reveal themselves to be the cookie craving zombies they were pretending to be. We would all then work together to ensure that Rainbow was directed toward Sweet Apple Acres.

In the grand scheme, I only had a small part to play, but I nonetheless had a whole lot of fun when Rainbow all but galloped straight into me. While I’m not usually an intimidating character, in the guise of a zombie, my superior size more than helped to scare the living daylights out of Rainbow. Genuinely believing that her prank had gone horribly wrong, the terrified pegasus turned tail and ran hell for leather away from me, and the various other ponies that had jumped out at her from seemingly every corner.

I have to admit, as petty as it was, it felt good to finally get revenge on Rainbow for all her pranks. I sort of wanted to see the grand finale where the ponies would all reveal themselves to have just been playing a joke, but I’d made a deal with Margaret. Besides, who knew the next time the pub was going to be empty for everypony except me and the missus?

I headed straight over there after I was certain that Rainbow was gone. Whilst on the outside, the place looked boarded up tight, it was actually unlocked and open. I found Margaret sitting in one of the booths in the far corner, having apparently having helped herself to a bottle of wine. She took a slightly disgusted look at me as I walked in. I was reminded of the look our family cat used to give me on a daily basis; the sort of look that says their disgust with you is too deep for words. I suppose I did look a bit of a mess in my costume.

“Good God, don’t you look a mess,” she commented as I stepped into the light. “At least wash that rainbow muck off your face before you sit down.” I smiled ruefully.

“Alright, alright. Just give me a minute,” I said pleadingly. “I’ll go and wash all this make-up off.”

Heading into the gents, I ran some hot water and quickly washed away the vast majority of of the make up I’d got on. I soon looked at least moderately respectable, apart from the still slightly tattered clothes. Heading back into the tap room, I found Margaret pouring herself a second glass.

“You know that’s technically stealing,” I said half-seriously. I was actually a little surprised that she’d gone and helped herself.

“There’s a zombie apocalypse going on,” she replied, taking a sip. “Technically, it’s looting. Beside, I left a few bits on the bar, and I’m not even down to the label yet.”

For a moment, I considered chiding her further. But hey, as long as she was paying, was there really any harm in having a quiet drink down the local? I shrugged my shoulders.

“Eh. Fair do’s,” I replied, joining her in the booth. Grabbing another glass from behind the bar, I poured myself half a glass out. I didn’t have work tomorrow, so there was no harm in having a drink or two.

So we drank and chatted together for an hour or so. I figured we had a fair while before everypony would be back from finally putting Rainbow in her place, and it would take even longer for everything in Ponyville to get back to normal. However, to my surprise, as I was working on my third glass of the afternoon, I heard a dull roar overhead, the same jet engine like noise that pegasi make, only lots of them. While the weather team would be moving all those clouds back out of the way, there seemed to be far more ponies than that.

Curious about what was going on, the two of us headed for the front door and stepped outside. To my surprise, Ponyville was bustling. Not only were ordinary ponies back and just going about their business, but half the Royal Guard seemed to be in town, with patrols buzzing all around.

“What’s going on here?” I asked a lieutenant (and you better read that as left-tenant) as I walked out into the open, my wife following behind. He quickly recognised me; I am rather recognisable after all without blowing my own trumpet.

“Somepony came up to Canterlot, sir,” he replied. “Said there was some kind of zombie invasion going on. Seems like it was all some sort of joke.”

And that was where things came a bit unstuck, particularly after I found out that Lizzie, believing everything to be real, had smacked Filthy Rich across the mouth with a cricket bat.

---

So, as it turned out, I didn’t have the day off the following morning, and found myself in Canterlot to explain the minor cock up I’d inadvertently caused. You see, Lizzie had come back to town, seen what was going on, been spooked by Filthy and knocked him out cold, and then gone up to Canterlot to find me. Only, because of Pinkie’s prank, I wasn’t there, so she’d gone straight to Celestia, who had sent Captain Strong Shield and a detachment down to Ponyville. And of course, by the time they got there, the whole business was done with.

Technically, nopony had committed any crime. This was a sort of War of the Worlds moment where a series of events and misunderstandings had come together to result in the events that unfolded. Pinkie hadn’t intended any of that to happen, and as the whole town was in on the prank, she couldn’t have reasonably foreseen what would happen. Rainbow, while possibly guilty of criminal mischief, was not really worth chasing, and my absence from work was hardly an issue either.

Still, the whole incident had caused a few ripples in the Equestrian government. And as a result, Celestia was standing in my office, regarding me with a level stare that almost made me empty my bowels. It was like when your mum caught you sneaking snacks or something. I fidgeted ever so slightly as I sat at my desk, her gaze boring into me

“Well, this is awkward,” I said, trying desperately to break the silence that had prevailed since she walked in.

In response, Celestia merely raised an eyebrow, her princess mask not dropping for an instant. She was unimpressed at my poor attempt at deflection. I continued to squirm under the gaze of her magenta eyes.

“Look,” I said, more earnestly now. “How in Equestria was I supposed to know any of this would happen? Lizzie wasn’t even supposed to be back for another day. Nopony got hurt, and at the very least, the guards got some good exercise for a change.”

Celestia was silent for a moment. Then, after taking a breath, she finally spoke to me.

“I’m...disappointed in you, Roger,” she said simply, her eyes locked on mine. That stung far worse than anything else. I sighed.

“Tia, I’m sorry,” I said remorsefully. “I know it was a silly thing to do, but I just really wanted to get back at Rainbow; teach her some humility.”

I was about to go on, but Celestia held up a hoof, gesturing me to stop. I did so instantly, unwilling to draw her ire further.

“I’m disappointed,” she said, her princess mask now falling away as a smile graced her features. “That you didn’t bring me in on this.” I was speechless.

Celestia actually loves her pranks. It’s one of the few ways she can put ponies at ease around her, letting them see her as just Celestia, rather than a princess. But her jokes tend to be more long game, or subtle, in contrast to something brash and obvious, like organising a fake zombie apocalypse for instance. And she’d just got me. She’d had me sweating bullets, expecting her to tear my head off, when in reality, she found the whole situation deeply amusing. I couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

“Well, sorry, I figured that you’d be busy,” I replied.

“Too busy to have some fun and scare Rainbow Dash silly?” she asked. “Never. My duties as a princess may occupy much of my time, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun every now and then.”

“Okay, then,” I agreed. “Next time Pinkie Pie gets the whole town in on a massively organised prank, you’ll be the first pony I call.” Celestia chuckled at that.

“I’m certainly glad to hear that,” she replied. Now suitably recovered from my fright, I turned back to business. I had a few cases to catch up on.

“Was there anything else, your highness?” I asked, now professional once more. Celestia smiled again.

“No, my loyal advisor, that will be all,” she replied, turning and heading toward the door.

With that, the alicorn departed, leaving me alone to continue in my work. Pulling a few pieces of paperwork out of one of my filing cabinets, I prepared to start on completing a few reports on some closed cases; matters that had been already settled by the courts.

But the moment I touched my fountain pen (a relatively rare sight in Equestria, where quills and pencils are more common), I was surprised to find back ink suddenly shoot out from the wrong end of the pen, splattering my face with black ink. After spluttering for a moment and composing myself, I examined the pen to see what had caused it to do that. The pen wasn’t a pen at all, it was one of those joke props.

Looking over to the small box that it had been sitting in, I noticed a small note, folded up in the case, picking it up, I opened it and saw a simple statement written in flowing hornwriting.

‘Gotcha – Tia’ it said. As I grabbed a tissue to wipe the ink away before it dried, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. That was a prank I could find plenty funny. But there was only one response to this.

“Right, this means war, Time to reap the whirlwind, Tia.”

Author's Note:

Proofread by Sweetolebob18.

Comments

[Da Fennec]

Good luck Roger I think Tia might have a little more experience

[Booster Spice]

Time to leave birthday cards with pictures of Fruitcake on them?.. Or, is that not for another ten levels of escalation or so?

[Vaalintine]

Margaret is the only one here that wasn't plain stupid. RD isn't going to stop from that, she's just going to use it as justification to keep going.

If you really wanted to get back at her, just ask Discord to continually have water ballons hit her from various places all day (without harm, or course). Relentlessly. Then explain to her that's what its like being on the recieving end, ect. Or you know, just tell her that its to the point of being anti-funny and plain mean, so if she doesn't stop she'll actually be in legal trouble.

[Alden MacManx]

As Bugs Bunny puts it, "Of course you know this means WAR!"

Excellent chapter, Blade Star. I would say more, but I can't. stop. LAUGHING!

[redmar]

Personally I think the description of Rainbow's character and the thing with all those pranks are only accurate for one episode which is the problem with that episode. Roger should try to think of a way to avoid Discord joining in since he assumes that he's automatically invited to every prank war in the universe.

[Jahbraz]

I was making my way past Sugarcube Corner when I first felt that I was being watched. Pinkie Pie does this; she ambushes you. You won’t see anything, and then all of a sudden, there’ll be a pair of baby blue eyes and a massive smile in front of your face, like some extremely happy facehugger from the Alien movies. And that’s precisely what happened. I all but jumped out of my skin.

Second reference to Alien here.

[PinkDragonJr]

to prank Celestia you just need to replace her cake with some cornbread done up to look like a cake.