Mending Friendships
Chapter 6
Mending Friendships
Inside the strange featureless white room, Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, and Pinkie Pie materialized from holographic images and quickly turned back into regular minifigs. They glanced around saw that sharing this strange place with them were their missing friends Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, along with who appeared to be a security guard.
“Whoa! Three at once?” noted the guard, Cranky Doodle, in shock. “Vignette’s really gone mad…”
“How bad is it?” asked Rainbow. “Last I heard, Vignette wanted to change the name of our band and force us to wear some wacky costumes that are so not our style.”
Fluttershy silently nodded in agreement.
“Oh, it’s gotten way worse,” explained Pinkie Pie in her usual rapid pace. “Applejack was onto her, but she sweet-talked Rarity into believing her, so Applejack and Rarity had a big fight and ran off in opposite directions, and that was when that heartless meanie Vignette swooped in to tell us that, on top of everything you just said, she was taking AJ’s place in the band and demanding we sing one her songs, but we told her no on all levels and realized Applejack was probably right all along, so Vignette admitted to all the evil things she did and then zapped us right here!”
“What?!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. “Okay, it’s bad enough that she’s practically hijacked our band — seriously, anyone who’s gonna watch the parade will realize they won’t be seeing the Rainbooms as promised, and as a result will totally hate whatever whack-job Vignette tries to replace it with. But turning two of our friends against each other is going too far!”
Twilight groaned and grumbled, “I just can’t believe we got ourselves trapped in Vignette’s phone.”
“Kinda reminds me of that time Juniper Montage trapped us inside a magical mirror,” remarked Pinkie. “Only this time, we actually have walls in this weird white place.” Pinkie demonstrated her observation by leaning her back against one of the walls surrounding the room.
“At least Rarity and Applejack are still free,” noted Sunset. “If they can set aside their differences and stop fighting, they might be able to get us out of here.”
“That’s a big ‘if’,” Twilight spoke up, “and even if they do reconcile, I honestly have a hard time believing they can do anything to get us out of here.”
“Well it’s not like there’s anything we can do from the inside,” grumbled Rainbow Dash as she crossed her arms.
“Not necessarily,” responded Twilight with a smile as she pulled out her phone. “If we’re inside a phone with internet access, we can hack our way out!” As she glanced around at her friends, she sheepishly added, “Well, I can. Maybe…”
“Better than just sitting around hoping to get rescued,” acknowledged Sunset with a shrug.
Twilight turned her phone on and almost immediately paused for a moment, then sighed and muttered, “Figures…” She turned to Sunset and quietly said, “That you-know-what thing finished downloading just before Vignette trapped us in here.”
“Talk about too little too late,” grumbled Sunset.
“What are you talking about?” asked Rainbow Dash as she raised an eyebrow.
Twilight uneasily glanced around at her friends, then sighed and reluctantly explained, “I, uh, wanted to create a system that would allow me to keep track of where my friends are, just in case if one of them went missing, so I… secretly installed a tracking system into all of your phones.”
“You’ve been spying on us?!” asked Rainbow Dash accusingly.
“No! Of course not!” insisted Twilight defensively. “Like I said, it’s intended to help me find any of you in case if you go missing, so as a way to assure everyone I have no intentions to abuse it, I typically leave that tracking system switched off. Unfortunately, that meant that when I heard about Fluttershy going missing, I had to go through the lengthy process of remotely activating and accessing that system.”
“And that download took so long that by the time it finally finished, we already knew what happened to Fluttershy and Rainbow, so now all that effort has turned out to be totally pointless,” deduced Pinkie.
“Exactly,” confirmed Twilight. She looked down at her phone and added, “Not only that, but there’s something about this place that seems to somehow block any signals from getting through, so even if my system had already been activated, it wouldn’t have been able to find them anyway.”
“Okay, so the secret tracking system turned out to be pretty pointless,” stated Sunset. “Do you still think you can hack us out of here?”
“Well, the signal-blocking has reduced my options,” admitted Twilight, “but since this is supposed to be Vignette’s phone we’re trapped inside, it should still be possible for me to access and utilize it to our advantage. In other words, I might be able to use Vignette’s own phone against her.”
“If you really think you can do that, then go for it!” encouraged Rainbow Dash.
“Then I’d better get to work,” said Twilight as she began tapping away on her phone.
As Twilight got started on her hacking efforts, Fluttershy worriedly muttered, “Oh, I hope Rarity and Applejack are okay. I wish we knew what’s going on out there.”
“If neither of them show up here in the next few minutes, I’d call that a win,” stated Cranky Doodle as he sat down on the floor and rested his back against the wall.
In the part of the hangar building where all the floats were parked, Vignette had aimed her magically enhanced phone at Rarity and taken a picture of her, intending to easily get rid of her as she had done to the rest of the Equestria Girls. “Sorry, Rare,” she remarked smugly. “Guess you’re not so ‘rare’ after all.”
But when Vignette actually bothered to glance up from her phone, she was shocked to discover that Rarity was still standing there right in front of her, completely unaltered in any way. By the look on her face, Rarity seemed just as surprised as Vignette to have avoided whatever fate had befallen her friends.
“Okay, that was your cue to disappear!” complained Vignette as she held out her phone and tried again to take a picture of Rarity.
Rarity again reacted by holding up her hands in front of herself. This reflex caused her to use her magical power to summon a diamond shield which, upon being photographed by Vignette’s phone, turned into a holographic image that was then pulled into the phone and vanished. Rarity now realized that by having that magical diamond shield blocking the phone’s view of her, she was effectively protected from its effects like some sort of breakaway armor.
Knowing she now had an upper hand against her foe, Rarity smirked and remarked, “Never underestimate a good accessory!”
Vignette held up her phone and again tried to get rid of Rarity by taking a picture of her, but again Rarity blocked the effort with another diamond shield. “Stop un-magique-ing my magique thingy!” whined Vignette before making another attempt to photograph Rarity with her magical phone.
Rarity blocked that attempt with yet another diamond shield. “I can’t believe I actually listened to you over Applejack!” she furiously shouted, then unleashed a spray of smaller diamonds directly into Vignette’s face.
“Ow! Hey! Watch the face!” cried Vignette as she held up her arms to protect herself.
“Oh, that’s the idea, darling,” quipped Rarity as she maintained the bombardment while also summoning another large diamond shield, which she then flung around to strike the back of Vignette’s legs, flipping her into the air before she slammed onto the floor on her back.
Rarity had hoped that would give her an opening to swipe the magical phone out of Vignette’s hands, but that arrogant diva had kept it close to her chest when she fell, so Rarity decided not to risk it. Instead, she quickly dove for cover behind one of the nearby floats.
Vignette took a few seconds to recover from that hard fall, then slightly winced as she stood back up. She glanced around and was momentarily frustrated to see no sign of Rarity anywhere, but as soon as she spotted her adversary standing out in the open, she didn’t hesitate to use her phone again. The image was captured by her magical phone, but the shape of the resulting hologram suggested it was actually just another one of those diamond shields displaying a reflection of Rarity.
Rarity had in fact summoned numerous diamond shields and scattered them around the area at just the right angles to create a series of reflections between herself and Vignette, allowing them to see each other without Vignette being able to use her magical phone. Of course, after Vignette got rid of the diamond that showed the reflection to her, Rarity simply summoned another diamond to replace it.
“That’s a good mirror trick, Rare, but it won’t save you,” remarked Vignette tauntingly. “You can’t hide forever.”
“Not necessarily,” countered Rarity. “I need only to hide long enough to exchange some minor conversation.”
“What’s there to talk about?” asked Vignette with disinterest as she crossed her arms and frowned.
“For starters,” replied Rarity firmly, “I do not appreciate you working my posterior off for the past two weeks, only to suddenly find out that you had intended to take all the credit for yourself all along! Plagiarism at its worst!”
“And why should that matter to me?” retorted Vignette. “All the hard work is already done, so I don’t need you anymore. Especially now that I’ve got the power to make everything how I want it, and everyone will learn to love it!”
“That’s delusional thinking, and you should know it!” argued Rarity. “Just because you can change something doesn’t necessarily make it better.”
“But of course I can,” insisted Vignette as she started glancing around in all directions. “That’s the whole point of B.Y.B.B. in the first place.” She was beginning to realize that if she could keep this silly conversation going, she could figure out which direction Rarity’s voice was coming from and ambush her.
“One does not simply slather paint on a canvas and expect to instantly create a world-renowned masterpiece,” stated Rarity. “Especially worse if you choose to do so over a preexisting masterpiece, which is precisely what you are attempting to do to the Rainbooms.”
“The Throwbacks will be ten times bigger than the Rainbooms!” argued Vignette. “I’ve studied plenty of online stats to be sure of it.”
“Statistics are meaningless in the face of broken promises!” Rarity shot back. “When you offered to make the Rainbooms the centerpiece of the parade, I was under the impression that we would be performing just as our fans would typically expect from us. If you run the parade with that cheap knockoff you call a band, there is no doubt in my mind that everyone shall loudly voice their displeasure, and you’d better believe that I shall inform them that the entirety of the blame should rest squarely on your shoulders!”
By this point, Vignette was now confident she knew where Rarity’s voice was coming from. She smiled menacingly as she began to approach the nearby float, only to have yet another diamond shield suddenly be summoned, which slammed right into her face and stopped her in her tracks.
“Nice try, darling,” taunted Rarity, “but these are two-way mirrors. Any attempts at an ambush shall be futile.”
Vignette growled and punched the diamond shield that had blocked her, only to yelp in pain and shake that now very sore hand around when that shield proved to be completely immobile.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” mocked Rarity with a naughty smile. “Did you not remember that diamonds are one of the hardest naturally-occurring materials in the universe?”
“That is, like, so unfair!” whined Vignette.
“Says the woman who used petty flattery to turn me against my best friends!” retorted Rarity furiously. “How dare you toy with my emotions?! I should have known better than to trust some celebrity I just met over the most honest and dependable of all my friends. I never thought I would ever say such a ghastly thing about you, Vignette Valencia, but you are not a role model. You’re a monster!”
“Ugh! Why do you insist on treating me like I’m some kind of worthless villain?” asked Vignette irritably.
“Because you’re behavior at this time is precisely that of a worthless villain!” replied Rarity firmly. “In case if it’s escaped your notice, my friends and I are members of the LEGO Team, an organization intended as a force for good. After what you’ve so heartlessly done to my friends and fellow teammates, I swear in Ole’s name that you will be brought to justice!”
“Look, Rare, I don’t have time for any more of this nonsense,” grumbled Vignette nonchalantly. “Either finish your job or get outta my sight, ‘cause this all-important light parade is not gonna wait on our little squabble.”
“Fine!” snapped Rarity as she dispersed the diamond mirrors. “You go ahead and worry about your silly little parade! But I intend to finally focus on matters that are truly important, starting with the one person who needs me now more than ever before!” She immediately summoned a diamond shield and flung it under the float directly towards Vignette, once again knocking that arrogant celebrity off her feet and causing her to slam down onto the floor. Rarity didn’t waste a second as she quickly surrounded herself with diamond shields and rushed for the nearest exit out of the building.
Vignette groaned as she pushed herself off the floor. By the time she was back on her feet, she watched Rarity push open the door and rush outside. She crossed her arms as she huffed and grumbled, “U-G-H, Whatevs! I don’t need you anyway.” She then snapped her hand.
All of the assistants in that part of building immediately rushed over to Vignette.
“Attention, random people who work for me!” Vignette spoke up irritably. “I am now the lead costume designer because our former lead costume designer is being H.B.W. Herself, but worse! Now pretend I just gave you an inspiring speech and get back to work!”
None of the assistants asked any questions as they immediately rushed off to resume their various tasks.
With that business taken care of, Vignette marched over to the exit Rarity had fled through. As she stepped outside, it was obvious that Rarity was already long gone, but Vignette wasn’t about to give up that easily.
Vignette held up her phone as she brought up that special app that stored everything she had photographed. “If you think you can escape from me that easily, you thought wrong,” she grumbled as she swiped through her options and settled on the model of that security guard from a few days ago. “Let’s see how you’ll deal with this.” Vignette swiped up the image of that guy in a royal sentry uniform, causing a hologram of him to appear in front of her. She had already set the advanced options to automatically apply the recent upgrades, so that hologram quickly solidified into something that resembled a real minifig.
But Vignette wasn’t stopping there. She swiped that image up again, creating another copy of that security guard. She swiped it up again to create another one, then another one, and another, and another…
Evening was beginning to descend over the theme park of Equestria Land. Guests continued to enjoy the various rides and attractions as lights started coming on all over the park. Eventually, the moment everyone had waited all day for had finally arrived, as a brief musical tone rang out on megaphones all over the park to signal that the light parade to celebrate the park’s grand opening would soon begin. Guests from every corner of the park quickly finished whatever activities they were in the middle of and began to rush towards the center of the park to gather along the parade route that was already being marked by some workers. While most of the guests were excited to see the upcoming parade, there was one minifig in particular who instead felt dejected upon hearing the announcement.
Applejack had been wandering around aimlessly for the last few minutes after she had shamefully walked away from her friends following her big fight with Rarity. She had ended up near the log flume ride by the time she heard the announcement tone, and as the excited guests rushed past her, it finally hit her just how bad things had really gotten between her friends, and she had no one to blame but herself. She groaned in frustration and grumbled, “If only Ah had done somethin’ or said somethin’ different, maybe none of this woulda happened.” She let out a sad sigh. “Ah really screwed things up with Rarity…”
“Applejack!”
Applejack gasped in shock and quickly turned around to see Rarity was running towards her with a look of desperation on her face. “Rarity?!” she called out, both relieved and confused.
Once Rarity reached her friend, she slouched forward with her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. Between pants, she desperately begged, “Please… don’t go!”
Applejack raised an eyebrow and muttered in confusion, “Uh… what are ya—?”
“You were right,” admitted Rarity as soon as she had caught her breath. “I got carried away and let this stupid parade become the only thing that mattered to me! And I foolishly let Vignette manipulate me with false flattery into forgetting what really matters…” She smiled. “My friends.”
As Rarity made her confession, Applejack smiled to hear her friend had finally come to her senses. In an effort to make amends, she placed a hand on Rarity’s shoulder and assured her, “Come on, now. Your talent puts you so far beyond the need for flattery.”
“Stop flattering me!” protested Rarity as she brushed Applejack’s hand off her. “I’m not finished apologizing!”
Applejack chuckled and conceded, “You’re right, that was a bit too much, too soon.”
Rarity took a deep breath to calm herself and continued, “I’m sorry we lost sight of why we applied for summer jobs here in the first place.”
“An’ Ah’m sorry Ah got jealous,” admitted Applejack shamefully. “All this time Ah thought Ah was bein’ honest with you about not likin’ Vignette, Ah wasn’t bein’ honest with mahself. Ah felt like Ah was losin’ mah best friend.”
“You didn’t,” assured Rarity as she grasped both of Applejack’s hands. “Caramel apple girls to the end?”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” replied Applejack with a smile and a nod before they both shared a friendly hug. Their friendship had been strained to the breaking point today, and now it had mended with renewed strength.
The close hug lasted only a few seconds before Rarity suddenly gasped and exclaimed, “Our friends!” She pushed Applejack away so they could see each other in the eye as she hastily continued, “Vignette has them all trapped in the internet! She confessed to everything you accused her of with no remorse whatsoever! We have to get them out! We have to save them!”
“What?!” exclaimed Applejack in shock as she pushed herself out of Rarity’s grasp and took a step back. Despite being completely vindicated, she knew this was hardly the time to gloat about it. The rest of their friends were in trouble and they had to do something, so she spoke up with determination, “We’ve been wastin’ all this time chin-waggin’ about feelin’s?! We need to get crackin’ on a rescue plan!”
“Where should we start?” asked Rarity.
Applejack was about to respond when she suddenly heard the ringtone from her phone and felt it vibrate in her pocket. She pulled out her phone and her eyes widened when she saw who was calling her. She glanced up at Rarity and said in astonishment, “It’s Twilight…”
That shocking revelation filled Rarity with a renewed sense of hope and determination. When Vignette had confessed to her nefarious actions, she had admitted with complete disregard that she had no idea what happened to everything she made disappear with her magical phone. That kind of uncertainty had left Rarity dreading the possibility that her friends had simply ceased to exist and thus rescuing them would have been impossible. But receiving a phone call from one of them confirmed that, whatever actually happened, at least they were still alive. “What are you waiting for?” asked Rarity urgently. “Answer it!”
Applejack nodded as she tapped her phone to put it on speaker so Rarity could listen in, then answered the call and asked, “Twilight?”
“It worked!” responded Twilight’s voice on the phone. “Applejack, we’re stuck in Vignette’s phone! I found a way to hack her apple popper app to route a VoIP connection to your IP address!”
Applejack glanced over at Rarity in confusion, but her friend responded with only a shrug. “Uh… magic. Got it,” responded Applejack with uncertainty.
“First of all,” continued Twilight, “is Rarity anywhere near you?”
“Yes, I’m right here, darling!” responded Rarity. “And I can assure you that I now realize my side of the conflict was absolutely wrong, especially after Vignette exposed her true colors. It turns out she had been using me all along so she could take all the credit for the parade herself.”
“What?!” exclaimed Applejack in shock. That was news to her as much as it was for the others, and it made her quite infuriated. “It’s bad enough she drove us apart by inflatin’ your ego, but to also make ya do all that hard an’ honest work for nothin’ while she takes all the glory is goin’ too far! Ah don’t care how many fans she’s got — she’s goin’ down!”
“I wholeheartedly share in that sentiment,” agreed Rarity with determination. “She had attempted to capture me with the rest of our friends, but I was able to resist and barely managed to escape.”
“We figured you fought back against Vignette when we saw all those diamond shields of yours suddenly show up in here,” noted Twilight over the phone. “I have to say, using them as disposable shielding was quite ingenious.”
“To tell you the truth,” admitted Rarity, “the first of them was merely a fortunate accident which I then quickly exploited to my advantage.”
“Save the stories of heroics for later!” Applejack spoke up. “Right now, we gotta figure out a way to get y’all outta there!”
“Right,” responded Twilight. “Listen, I’ve come up with a plan to set all of this right. You’ll need to remotely install a virus that creates a backdoor admin account, which you can use to reset all the permissions on Vignette’s phone and make a proxy backup. That should get us out of here! How much coding do you know?”
As Twilight explained her plan, Applejack and Rarity shared a look suggesting to each other that neither of them were able to make any sense of it. Once Twilight was finished speaking, Applejack replied, “Uh, none. Of course, you’d probably already know that if ya remembered what happened the last time Ah tried hackin’ a computer system.”
“When was that?” asked Twilight.
“How could ya not—” began Applejack irritably, only to suddenly realize something. She then grumbled, “Right, that was back when the other Twilight was on the team. Long story short, Pinkie couldn’t help due to gettin’ her head stuck inside a trashcan, so Ah spent hours in the control room mashin’ buttons an’ gettin’ nowhere, only for Pinkie to do the whole job in one move after she finally got rid of that trashcan.”
“I’m afraid I cannot be of much assistance either,” Rarity spoke up. “I had to hire a professional service to help me build a website for my business.”
“Service…” mumbled Applejack under her breath, that word somehow starting to ring a bell in the back of her mind. “Server…” She then suddenly gasped in shock, then snapped her hand and excitedly spoke up, “That’s it! Ah saw Micro Chips earlier today an’ he said somethin’ about there bein’ a server room somewhere in this park! Would that be of any help?”
Twilight responded, “If that server system is connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot that Vignette has been using for internet access while on the park grounds, then perhaps if you were to connect your device directly to those servers, it might provide enough computing power for me to remotely proceed with the plan myself.”
“Then it seems our objective is clear now,” stated Rarity. “We must find and obtain access to this server room. But how?”
As they had been talking, Applejack had noticed some minifigs occasionally passing by — no doubt on their way to watch the upcoming parade — but didn’t bother paying any attention to any of them. However, it was at this moment that she noticed one nearby minifig was the very same security guard she had encountered earlier that day. As much as she despised lying, she knew that relying on his ineptitude could possibly be her best chance to help her friends.
“Ah might have just the ticket we need,” said Applejack as she eyed that security guard. She turned her attention back to her phone and added, “Better mute the call on your end, Twilight. Can’t afford any interruptions for this part.”
“Understood,” responded Twilight over the phone.
There wasn’t exactly an indicator on her phone to tell Applejack that the caller on the other side was muted, so she had to trust that Twilight had followed her advice. She handed her phone over to Rarity, reached into her pocket and pulled out the macaroni art badge that Pinkie had given to her earlier that day, and then rushed towards the security guard.
“Excuse me!” She called out, catching the security guard’s attention. As she stopped in front of him, she held up her badge and continued, “It’s me again, that ‘Deputy Fun Inspector’. Just, uh, tryin’ to finish mah rounds here, but, uh, a few locked doors have gotten in mah way. Do ya mind if Ah, uh, borrow your keys?” Her speech was always impaired whenever she tried to lie, but she hoped it was good enough to fool the guard.
“Oh! Yes! Of course!” agreed the security guard eagerly as he grabbed his set of keys from his belt and handed them over to Applejack. “Just make sure you return them to my workstation before my shift is over.” He then turned away and resumed walking toward his destination.
Applejack smiled as she glanced down at those keys in her hand, then turned around and walked back to Rarity.
“I can’t believe he was really that gullible,” said Rarity in astonishment.
“Told ya security ‘round here’s pathetic,” remarked Applejack as she continued walking, prompting Rarity to follow. “Quite frankly, Ah wouldn’t be surprised if Vignette was the one who hired him.”
“At this point, I would be inclined to agree,” replied Rarity. “Now that I’ve had the chance to know her on a personal level, she does strike me as the type of person who would value appearances over merits. Whatever that man’s shortcomings are, he does seem to pull off the gruff look of a stereotypical security guard.”
As they got close to the small security building, Applejack took back her phone and said, “All right, Ah’d say you’re in the clear to unmute now, Twilight. Rarity an’ Ah are at the security office where Ah saw Vignette zap away Rainbow Dash. Ah reckon we might find somethin’ in here that can help us figure out where that server room is.”
“That’s sounds like a reasonable assessment,” responded Twilight over the phone. “Be sure to keep us posted.”
“You got it,” confirmed Applejack as she used one of the keys to unlock the door. She and Rarity stepped into the security room and glanced around. To the right were the security monitors displaying images of various locations throughout the park. To the left were a bunch of filing cabinets along with a desk.
“I’ll start searching through the paper files,” stated Rarity as she walked over to the filing cabinets.
As Applejack tried to figure out where to begin her search, her gaze settled on the live video feed being displayed on the monitors. Despite the fact that it was starting to get dark outside, enough lights were on to show that large crowds of people were already starting to gather in certain areas. The parade was still a few more minutes away from its official starting time, but seeing the size of those crowds left her feeling quite unnerved. Since Rarity was obviously no longer there to oversee final preparations, there was no way to know for sure what kind of show was waiting to be unveiled. With the kind of power Vignette had in the grasp of her hand, anything could be possible, and Applejack would be lying if she said she wasn’t dreading what Vignette was planning to do next with that power.
“I believe I may have found something of value,” Rarity spoke up.
Applejack quickly shook her head to break the stare she had on those monitors before she turned to Rarity, who set down a large unrolled sheet of paper onto the desk.
“This appears to be a complete floor plan of all the service buildings in the park,” noted Rarity. She pointed at one particular small building located between the big roller coaster and the ferris wheel at the far end of the park. “Take a look at this one right here.”
Applejack leaned forward to look closely at that specific building. She noticed it was marked with a handwritten message that said, “Server Room. KEEP OUT!” She held up her phone and reported to her entrapped friends, “The note on that buildin’ says, ‘server room, keep out’. Ah don’t know ‘bout y’all, but that sure seems mighty suspicious if ya ask me.”
“Not only that, but I also recognize the handwriting,” Rarity pointed out. “It’s Vignette’s handwriting!”
“Okay, she’s definitely tryin’ to hide somethin’ in there,” concluded Applejack. “Let’s head on over there an’ find out what’s what.”
As Rarity rolled up and put away that map, she cautioned, “If Vignette truly intended to keep the contents of that room a secret, there’s little doubt the door will surely be locked.”
“Then it’s a good thing we got the security keys,” remarked Applejack as she held up and jingled that set of keys. “Now let’s move out!”
Applejack rushed out of the security room with Rarity following right behind, who made sure to close the door on their way out. It took about a minute of running, but the two girls eventually arrived at the small building that had been marked as the supposed Server Room. This building consisted of only a single floor, had no windows at all, and just a single solid door on the front wall.
Applejack held up her phone and asked, “You still with us, Twilight?”
“Still listening in, loud and clear,” confirmed Twilight through the phone.
“Okay, we’re at the server room now,” reported Applejack. She tried opening the door, but, just as Rarity had suspected, it was locked. “Once Ah can figure which of these keys can open the door, we’ll head inside an’ see what we got to work with.”
Applejack handed her phone over to Rarity so she could handle the keys. The first key she tried didn’t work, neither did the second key, but the third key was able to turn and produce a faint click noise. Applejack and Rarity smiled at each other, then pushed the unlocked door open.
The interior of the room was surprisingly bright, forcing Applejack and Rarity to put a hand in front of their eyes until they were adjusted to the light. Once they could see clearly into the room, they were shocked to discover that this completely white room with bright ceiling lights contained absolutely nothing except for six minifigs — five of whom happened to be their missing friends.
“Seriously, y’all?” asked Applejack in confusion and mild disappointment.
Twilight — still holding her phone against the side of her head — stared with a blank look on her face at Applejack and Rarity, glanced back at the rest of her friends, then glanced forward again. She slowly lowered her phone and ended her call as she said with embarrassment, “Ohhhhhh, Vignette’s phone actually teleported us into this particular room on the park grounds.”
“We were just sitting in a white room this whole time?!” asked Sunset furiously.
“Wait, you girls didn’t know that?” asked Pinkie in confusion as she leaned against one of the walls.
Sunset’s face started turning red with rage as she turned to Pinkie and exclaimed, “And you didn’t bother telling us that?!”
Pinkie just shrugged and replied, “What was the point? The door was locked, had no handle on the inside, and it blended in with the walls so good that even I had a hard time trying to find it.”
Rainbow Dash facepalmed and grumbled, “Couldn’t you have just used your exploding candy powers to blow a hole in one of these walls?”
“Sorry, I ate the last of my on-hand stash before Vignette zapped us in here,” confessed Pinkie.
It was at this moment that the one minifig in this room who was not among the group of friends — security officer Cranky Doodle — suddenly rushed out the door and shoved his way past Applejack and Rarity. “Freedom!” he cried with relief as he fell to his knees and started kissing the pavement outside the building. “I swear I will never take anything in life for granted ever again!” He then heard a ping and felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, so he took out his phone and checked what kind of notification he just received. As soon as he read it, he immediately stood back up and pocketed his phone as he urgently exclaimed, “Oh, shoot! I gotta get home and turn on the TV! The baseball All-Stars game is on tonight!” Without another word, he quickly ran off towards the main entrance of the park.
“Now there’s a man with skewed priorities,” remarked Rarity under her breath.
Fluttershy checked a notification she had also suddenly received on her phone. She then glanced up at Applejack and asked, “Um, Applejack? Did you try sending me a voicemail a few hours ago? Somehow, I just received it right now.”
“Huh, that’s odd,” noted Applejack as she scratched her head in confusion while she took her phone back from Rarity. “Ah tried callin’ ya numerous times after ya went missin’. Why is it only now that Ah’m able to contact ya?”
Twilight looked down at her phone for a moment, then smiled as she spoke up, “I may have a hypothesis.” She began typing something on her phone as she continued, “Applejack, I want you to step outside, shut the door, count to ten, then reopen the door.”
Applejack stared at Twilight in confusion for a moment, then shrugged and stepped back outside as she pulled the door shut. While her friends waited inside, she silently counted slowly to ten, then opened the door again. As soon as she pushed that door open, she heard a ping from her phone. She checked her phone, then stared at Twilight with another confused expression.
“I sent that text less than a second after you closed that door,” explained Twilight. “I can’t determine how or why, but there’s something about the molecular structure of these walls that prevents any cell phone signals from passing through.
“But if nobody could call us inside and we couldn’t call anybody outside, how were you able to call Applejack?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“I did say I was able to hack through Vignette’s phone to get the call out,” Twilight pointed out with a hint of pride. “My best theory is that this room is somehow linked to Vignette’s phone, explaining not only why we were sent here of all places, but also a potential reason for why she didn’t want anyone to access this room, as Rarity and Applejack had reported to us.”
Just then, a holographic image of a minifig suddenly materialized in the middle of the room, startling all the girls. Once the image transformed back into a real minifig, it was revealed to be Micro Chips, still wearing his caramel apple vendor uniform and holding a caramel apple in his hand.
“Micro Chips?!” asked Twilight in shock. “Did Vignette use her phone to take a picture of you just now?”
Micro Chips glanced around in confusion as he uneasily explained, “I was just minding my own business making perfect caramel apples when suddenly Vignette saw me and said I wasn’t as cool a nerd as she thought, then she took my picture and I ended up here, violating all known laws of space and time.”
“At the very least,” assured Applejack as she took a step forward, “Ah can tell ya that this here place we’re in is the so-called server room that Vignette apparently didn’t want ya to take a look at.”
Micro Chips glanced around again, focusing more on the surrounding room this time. After a moment, he quietly remarked, “This has gotta be one of the weirdest cover-ups I’ve ever heard of.”
“Girls, this is bad!” Sunset spoke up in a serious tone. “Vignette is no longer holding back! She’s almost certainly putting herself into the parade in our absence, and she’s using her phone to change whatever she doesn’t like!”
“What happens if she decides she doesn’t like the crowd?” asked Fluttershy worriedly.
“Everyone in the park will be watching that parade!” noted Twilight with concern. “The estimate we’ve heard for the total number of park guests today is approximately fifty thousand! If her phone teleports that many people into this tiny room at the same time—”
Pinkie Pie suddenly gasped, then hugged Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy tightly together with her as she exclaimed, “Squish City!”
“I was about to describe the lethality of such an action,” Twilight quietly added, “but… sure, we’ll go with that.”
Rarity gasped in horror and exclaimed, “Applejack, our sisters are in that crowd! We’ve got to stop her at once!”
“You do realize that if we stop the parade, no one will see all your hard work,” Applejack pointed out.
Rarity smiled and replied, “Someone reminded me that none of that matters without my friends.”
Applejack smiled back and quipped, “Now there’s a girl who’s got her priorities straight.”
“We’d better hurry!” Sunset spoke up urgently as she ran through the doorway out of the empty white room. “I’m sure Vignette’s getting more corrupted by Equestrian magic every minute!”
Knowing there was little time to lose, the rest of the group — including Micro Chips — followed Sunset out of the room. However, they had made it only a few steps outside when they suddenly saw the security guard Cranky Doodle hurled through the air and hit the ground at their feet, forcing the group to stop and look down at him.
Having landed on his back, Cranky groaned in pain for a moment before he looked up at the group gathered around him. “Well, I guess I can forget about watching baseball tonight,” he spoke up. “We’re under attack by a bunch of clones of, well… me.”
All eight minifigs in the group followed Cranky’s gaze straight ahead. Standing before the group were well over a dozen copies of Cranky Doodle himself. These holographic copies were wearing various costumes — some wore the royal sentry uniform of a red coat and a tall black hat, others worse white sailor uniforms, a few others wore medieval armor, and a few more of them wore black ninja robes — but all of them had the same look of fierceness and determination on their faces.
Applejack sighed and grumbled, “Why must these things never come easy?”
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To quote Mushu, "That's better, much better. Let's go."
The room reminded me of a sound stage, or studio set. Seen the effect demonstrated in the old days for video compositing. You project analog images on the surfaces to essentially texture map them, then stand in front of it etc to be overlayed without needing pixel slicing etc.
Definitely better with the white room thing here than from the original special.
Something tells me that Rarity had something up her sleeve during her "chat" with Vignette for later on. Unless I was wrong about this.
9884289 So I take it you liked my version better than the official version. Pretty much all I did was start off with the same circumstances and then try to explain everything so that there's no aspect that's totally random just for the heck of it (and like I said in the author's note, there will be more explained about it in the next chapter).
9885218 Are you talking about something like those green screens they used to use in film-making? I suppose I can see how one might get that impression from a room like that.
9886514 To be honest, that whole conversation was more about Rarity telling off Vignette for being such a horrible person. After all, she had practically idolized Vignette, so it's understandable that Rarity would go off on a furious rant after such a betrayal.
9897743
I only remmebered afterward that the pure white room was used for the Blue Peter Studio, they did a walk round once, moving the camera to show behind the cameras, dollys, cables, and the cieling of lights etc.
Well I really hoped for this white room to have something more with Vignette's phone but not a random white room work well too.
Also
Isn't this should be "our" ? Or it's just my bad English?