Sunny looked to the left, and saw what had to be one of the most technologically advanced devices she had seen in Bridlewood so far.
A pair of large speakers were built into the bottom. On top of that was a wooden panel with a rotating wheel built in to the middle. On top of that was a carved and painted sign panel, with the words 'JUST PRANCE' written below a likeness of Alphabittle with sunglasses, which did absolutely nothing to keep his ego in check. In front of the machine, on the floor, were two large panels with nine tiles each, with different colored horseshoes on each tile.
"A dancing game... Seriously?" Sunny asked, raising an eyebrow as she and Alphabittle started walking towards the machine. He placed the unicorn crystal, wire stand included on the table behind the left side, and Sunny did the same with the pegasus crystal, trying to keep her mind from racing as a crowd of unicorns began to gather around them and the arcade machine.
"Both ponies agree, best out of three," she heard the beat poet say into the microphone.
'Alright,' Sunny thought to herself. 'I'm guessing I have to hit the tiles as they rotate on the panel up front.
"Let's make this more interesting," Alphabittle told her as they stepped up onto the platforms. "You only need to win one out of three."
With that, he pressed a button on the machine, and a song began to play. Sunny heard an upbeat song begin to play The hoof symbols on the center display began to rotate.
I got some news for ya,
Some feels, they be good for ya
You know we be getting those good times
Whoops there's a camera
As soon as the twin rotaries locked in, Alphabittle did a short jump up, and placed all four hooves on the respective tiles, while Sunny had to do several double takes as she got her hooves placed correctly, and didn't manage to do so before the rotaries began spinning again as the song continued.
Jump on the weekend
Don't let your jam end
You can count on your best frie...
The song quickly slowed to a stop as a bell chimed out, and Sunny saw that the scoring meter on Alphabittle's side had already risen to the top.
"Yeah! That's how ya do it!" Alphabittle exclaimed in victory. None of the unicorns in attendance seemed particularly enthused.
"It hasn't even been twenty seconds, and you haven't told me how to play!" Sunny objected, glancing back at her friends.
"I-It's okay. You're just warming up!" Izzy encouraged as best she could.
"What can you do? Round two," the beat poet announced.
Sunny turned back to Alphabittle, who was smirking down at her.
"You tap on the corresponding tiles to the beat, either horizontal or vertical patterns. Different combinations equal more points. The worse you do, the higher my meter climbs, and vice versa. Don't worry, I'll make this quick," he gloated.
"Focus," Sunny told herself as Alphabittle pressed the button again to restart the song, and the pair of ponies began to dance on the platforms to the beat.
Hitch glanced over at Zipp, who shared his look of concern; Sunny was getting the hang of it at an impressive pace, but the bartender was still dancing circles around her. Izzy was equally concerned, but Pipp's gaze was unquestioningly glued to the arcade machine.
Show me the moves you got
DJ dropping them beats real hot
And I'm liking it a lot
It's the party the world forgot
The song stopped once again as Alphabittle's meter topped out.
"Yeah! Hey, critters, get my crystal polish ready, would ya?" Alphabittle asked, smirking again at Sunny.
"Round three, who will it be?" announced the poet at the microphone.
Sunny groaned half-heartedly.
"Here goes nothing..." She muttered worriedly as Alphabittle stepped forward to press the button again.
"Okay, time out!"
The pair of unicorns turned to the source of the voice; Pipp Petals stepped forward.
"Sunny. Tag out?" She asked, offering her her right hoof.
The earth pony's expression began to shift to something akin to relief, when Alphabittle cleared his throat.
"Whoa, not so fast. You don't think this actually works that way, do you?" He asked.
"Maybe, maybe not. It's not like you're giving your audience any kind of show here," Pipp said, motioning to the positively dull-looking unicorns surrounding the arcade machine. "So do you want to crush my friend here in a solidly boring three-and-oh, or do you want to raise the stakes?"
Now Pipp had Alphabittle's attention.
"I'm listening..." the unicorn answered.
"Let me take her place for the final round, and we'll go double or nothing," Pipp said.
Alphabittle smirked confidently.
"And just what do you have to double it?" the bartender asked.
Taking care not to bump the horn glued to her coat, Pipp reached up and removed her gold tiara, with the shimmering emerald embedded below the ribbon.
"Tick tock," Pipp said.
"Pipp, you don't have to..." Sunny said.
Pipp shook her head.
"We're in this together, Sunny," Pipp reassured her, continuing to hold her tiara up as Alphabittle inspected it as she awaited his answer.
"Deal. One more round. Tell your friend to step back."
Sunny did so, stepping off of the platform as Pipp stepped up onto the right platform and handed her tiara to Sunny, who took it over to the table on their side, and set it next to the holder that contained the pegasus crystal. She glanced over at Zipp, who looked positively shocked at her sister's gesture.
"Feel the rhythm take you over..." Pipp told herself.
Sunny stepped back to stand with her friends as Alphabittle pressed the button to start the song again and stepped back to the left platform.
When the spinning horseshoes landed on their first set of four colors, the unicorn and pegasus moved almost as one, coming down on their tiles at the same time. Alphabittle was clearly caught off guard at the unquestionable improvement of his new opponent.
Pipp's score meter ticked up, matching Alphabittle's inch for inch as the song continued. Zipp spotted Alphabittle's gaze shooting over to look over at Pipp's meter, and knew his concentration was broken.
"Get him, sis," she whispered to herself.
"Yes! She's doing it, she's doing it!" Hitch cheered.
I don't think that I can take much more
I'm bout to lose my mind
But then I'm slip n sliding on the floor
I think my dreams came true and...
It's alright alright alright right right
It's alright
Lock the door, swallow the key... it's alright to party
Pipp's friends knew if she kept it up, they had this one on lock.
The bell chimed again, and this time, the victory flag popped out on the right side, signalling Pipp as the winner.
"We won... We won!" Sunny cheered.
Cheers erupted from all of her friends as Pipp jumped up, overjoyed. Sunny rushed up and threw her front hooves around her. Even the unicorns watching found the outcome unexpected and exciting.
"Alright," Pipp said, pulling away from Sunny and turning back to the stunned Alphabittle. "A deal is a deal. Pay up."
The unicorn eyed her suspiciously, but stepped aside, motioning to the table containing the unicorn crystal.
"I am a pony of my word," Alphabittle said, his tone defeated. "It's all yours."
Pipp stepped forward and took the crystal from its holder, giving it over to Sunny, and then went over to the other table and took her tiara back while Sunny put both crystals in her saddlebags as the spectators began to disperse.
"Let's go, everypony," Sunny said.
Alphabittle, who had returned over to the bar, watched the group of five exit the crystal tea room, before going over to the beat poet, still at the mic with her drummer companion.
"Say, Onyx, you've got a pretty good memory. Other than Izzy, have you seen any of those four around the forest before...?"
This was excellently done! I really, really enjoyed seeing Pipp be the one to step up and shine in this chapter!
Figured the upload could have gone either way with this chapter. Either almost immediately after the new Flurry Forgotten chapter or about a week later.
... Does that count as "damning with faint praise?"
Whaaaat? Are you suggesting that Bridlewood is a small enough forest village with no other known unicorn settlements that every unicorn in Equestria should know each other? Don't you know that Equestria has over 100 million ponies? Tell Your Tale sa- okay, no. I can't type that with a straight face.
I once had a suggestion for this scene that Pipp would get too caught up in the song and accidentally unfurl her wings during her round. Not sure if that would be cliche, and it would just expose the group in a manner not dissimilar to what happened in the movie.
Damn! Didn't expect Pipp to take Sunny's place here but I'm interested where this is going.
I hope she doesn't regret it!
And here I thought they were in the clear.
I'm not sure where I read that Pipp should have taken Sunny's place but I have seen that suggestion before. This is certainly a good alternate take on the movie. I wonder if they try to combine the crystals now or if they head back to Maretime Bay first.
Actually it would make sense for pipp to take over since she knows how to dance
Oh dear well that's not good at all they're getting a little suspicious 😥
Kind of figured they were going to show The Dance Dance Revolution and as we expect that Sunny is having problem catching up with Alphabittle but until pipp suggested that she can do this she even tried to bet her own crown to raise the bet which that's pretty risky knowing how good he is but of course she's a dancer so she knows how to dance as well after a couple of minutes she won and they won her crown back and the Crystal but it looks like suspicious is starting to raise I figured it's not going to be that easy well let's see what's going to happen next time
With the way this story's unfolded, I have a suggestion: I was thinking that maybe Sprout won't exactly be the big bad boss; there really shouldn't be one. Rather he finally tells off his mom for her greedy ways and decides to side with his friends in the end.
Excellent work on this latest chapter. Definitely liked the work that went into the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Definitely liked the detail of how well Sunny was getting the hang of it even if Alphabittle was still noticeably better, but Pipp tagging in at the last round by putting in her own crown was downright beautiful. And, yeah, even though Pipp won, Alphabittle is getting suspicious. Hopefully, the gang will be out of Bridlewood before the other unicorns manage to catch up. But then, that would be too easy I suppose.
Anyway, definitely looking forward to the next chapter.
Great job on Pipp in this chapter. This is what should've happened in the movie!
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I came very, very close to having her reveal her wings during the dance, but then we'd be right back on track with the movie, in my view a little too much. Wanted to mix it up a little bit more than that.
Good on Pipp for stepping up.
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And after the last chapter played it mostly straight, I figure you'd want to do it differently here.
The only one I caught. I think there should be an 'e' there.
Did you give any thought to the group putting the two crystals together right after winning them? Because part of me thinks that Sunny has been hoping for this for so long, she'd want to combine them right away. Granted, they've discussed the possibility of a third crystal, but barring that, I can't help but wonder if they wouldn't want to put this off any longer, or if they'd want to pick a better place to do this than the middle of the Crystal Tea Room.