• Published 29th Jun 2019
  • 1,119 Views, 22 Comments

Escalation - Crack-Fic Casey



Pinkie Pie has a crush. Her family overreacts.

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Chapter 2

Sunset pinched the bridge of her nose and didn't look up. She couldn't look up. The sound and smell were bad enough.

She heard Ruby shift uncomfortably. "Okay, I know this looks bad—"

Sunset raised her hand. Ruby stopped talking. Pinkie stepped forwards. "No, you can't be mad at Ruby 'cause—"

"No no," Sunset said, "Still processing. Sh."

There was a long stretch of silence. Neither of the girls risked moving. There was a chance they'd stopped breathing. With a reluctant sigh, Sunset opened her eyes.

Proportionally speaking, there wasn't that much fire. The banquet hall was a huge, cavernous room that could fit thousands, and the fire only really extended to a few tables and some wallpaper. Of course, that cavernous room was filled with scattered rubble, the shattered pillars, and an alarming amount of smashed food, so maybe it felt like there was more fire because of how crowded it was. "One at a time. Explain. Now."

Ruby, the girl who'd formed a whole movement around prostrating herself ironically to someone else to make that person feel better about the people who meant it, looked abashed. "Heh heh... Well, we kinda were fighting over who was the best at throwing celebrations."

Pinkie, the girl who'd needed someone to explain what humiliate actually meant, bit her lip. "While we... ya know, did that, there was... a pie thrown by... someone..."

There was another stretch of silence, filled with Ruby hoping that Pinkie would finish that part of the story and Pinkie trying to form words.

Sunset didn't have an expression. An expression would have been less scary.

Ruby coughed. "Things sorta... escalated."

With a creaking groan, part of the roof behind them caved in. Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

Both girls flinched. Sunset had moved into sarcasm. Sarcastic Sunset did bad things to people. Heaven help them if she moved into irony.

Ruby drew in a deep breath." Okay, so I think the whole fight is on Ewetube, so I thought I could sorta gloss over that—"

"Oh, would you like to gloss over that?" Sunset asked. "Would you like to gloss over the pie tins that you've somehow embedded in the stone wall? Would you like to gloss over thousands of dollars of food you've wasted? Are you glossing over everything you've set on fire? How do you set fires in a food fight?"

"Well, it's got something to do with friction—"

Sunset held out her hand. Ruby stopped talking. "I can't believe you challenged Pinkie Pie to a food fight! You could have been hurt—"

"Actually." Pinkie interrupted, "She kicked my ass."

This pulled Sunset up short for several reasons. Firstly, Pinkie had interrupted her, and Pinkie had just leveled a part of Sunset's church. But Pinkie had also said that someone had beaten her in a food fight, and that didn't happen. Not to mention that was the first complete sentence Pinkie had said, when normally Pinkie would be outright assaulting logic in an attempt to get out of trouble. And come to think of it, since when did Pinkie swear? And—

Sunset's eyes narrowed. Pinkie had been quiet for most of this conversation and made a point of avoiding Sunset's eyes. That was to be expected, but she also kept looking at Ruby and then looking at the floor. She shifted uncomfortably. She nervously chewed on her lip. She caught herself looking at Ruby again—

No way. Sunset looked back at Ruby, who had flushed crimson at Pinkie's praise. "You beat Pinkie in a fight?"

"I mean..." Ruby said. "I studied the Elements a lot, and Laughter was always really interesting."

"Mhm," Sunset said as she watched Pinkie perk up.

"And I train all the time!" Ruby said. "We're fighting against monsters and stuff, and Sunny's coaching us and I've gotten really strong! See?" She flexed her arm and Pinkie's eyes trailed her thin but developing biceps.

"Right," Sunset said. "Pinkie, do you have anything to add?"

"Well," Pinkie said, "I mean, no, that's pretty much it, yeah."

Pinkie Pie is having trouble forming coherent sentences. Pinkie Pie.

Sweet Celestia she's been twitterpated.

"Well," Sunset said, "That must have been an amazing fight, Ruby. It'd take a lot to impress Pinkie this much."

"...Thank you?" Ruby said slowly, not noticing how Pinkie's gaze began dancing away from her and around the room in an attempt to find something not-embarrassing to look at. "Does this mean you're done yelling and stuff?"

Sunset sighed. "Tell you what: the two of you clean this up and we're cool."

"Oh!" Ruby looked at the rubble and food was strewn across a structure that was big enough to house a circus troop and swallowed. "Uh, how long—"

"As long as it takes." With a gesture, the fires smothered themselves, the roof reversed and formed back into one solid ceiling, and the more dangerous piles of rubble were dumped in a sector of space Sunset used as a junkyard when she felt lazy. "So! Brooms and mops are in the janitors closet, trash cans and bags are over there, and I think you can see where the mess is?"

Both girls nodded glumly. Sunset wasn't going to make them clean the whole thing up; both of them would feel bad enough that they'd work themselves late, and then Sunset could be impressed by their dedication and do the rest herself in the morning.