> LEGO Equestria Girls 7
>  by Chronicler06
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


LEGO Equestria Girls 7

Prologue


Not far outside the city limits of Canterlot City, a new theme park to entertain and thrill the masses was being established. On this mostly clear afternoon, opening day was now only two weeks away. With all the major construction work complete, final preparations involved testing all the attractions, hiring and training employees, and rehearsing the parade that would go around the park during the night hours of opening day.

Overseeing the majority of these preparations was Vignette Valencia, one of the biggest social media celebrities in all of the City Regions. She often proudly claimed that her immense number of followers online proved that she knew exactly what people these days wanted to see, which convinced the park’s owner, Filthy Rich, to place her in charge of public relations. For her appearance, she had pale yellow skin, a short and wavy hair piece on her head that was purple and faded to white at the edges with a headband and a pair of leaves on the sides, dark brown on her feet, medium blue on her upper legs, white on her torso and shoulders, a brown leaf belt buckle on the front of her waist, a light brown cape attached around her neck, and her face had pink lips and light blue eyes with slightly dark eyeshadow.

Vignette was currently standing in front of the massive door that permitted access into the hangar building where all the floats for the parade were being assembled and would remain in storage until the big night. “Places, everyone!” she called out. “Let’s get this rehearsal started ASAP! The sooner we get this done, the more time we’ll have to iron out any wrinkles and bump out any kinks.”

The few nearby workers in orange vests rushed to set up simple barriers to provide a clear path for the parade route, while muffled noises on the other side of the hangar door indicated all the performers were getting into place on their floats. The first issues began almost immediately, as the workers in their haste simply tossed the light barriers haphazardly into place, in some cases moving on too quickly to even notice some of them tip over, and one worker even tripped over one of the barriers.

As she observed the chaos outside, Vignette sighed and grumbled, “All that sloppiness is unacceptable. Looks like we’ll just have to extend the scheduled prep time.” She pulled out her phone and quickly texted in her notes about the necessary adjustment for the next rehearsal.

Inside the hangar, someone pounded on the door twice and called out, “Okay, all set!”

Vignette quickly pocketed her phone and turned to face away from the hangar and towards the imaginary crowd. She took a deep breath and smiled as she proudly spoke up, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages! It is a real privilege to have you all join us tonight for the grand opening of the newest and coolest amusement park in all of the Lego World! I’m sure you’ve all had a wonderful time like never before, but now it’s time for the greatest spectacle of the year!” She paused dramatically for a moment, but when nothing happened after a few seconds, her smile fell as she glanced back at the hangar door. She loudly cleared her throat and scolded, “That’s the cue!”

“O-oh! Right!” exclaimed the worker standing next to the door as he suddenly flipped the nearby lever.

As the door began to rise open, Vignette turned back to her imaginary audience and put up a smile again as she resumed her speech. “Experience the world like you’ve never seen it before, at the one, the only, Equestria Land!” With excellent timing, she finished her speech just as the first of the parade floats began to roll outside. She turned her attention back towards the oncoming start of the parade, but what she saw caused her to immediately lose all of her excitement.

The float consisted of little more than a basic light brown platform, and the four smiling performers standing on it were dressed in costumes that resembled nothing more than white 2x4 Lego bricks.

“Stop! Cut! Cut!” Vignette immediately shouted.

The float came to an abrupt halt and the performers on it wobbled from the sudden change of momentum, with one of them falling off the float and landing on the pavement.

“Why is everyone dressed like they’re not dressed?!” exclaimed Vignette in frustration.

As Vignette voiced her complaint, an older woman with purple skin and hair walked out of the hanger and marched over to Vignette. “Because you keep changing your mind about the costumes on almost a daily basis,” she grumbled in her Russian accent before she stopped and crossed her arms. “I did not sign up to be micromanaged like this.”

Vignette rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone. She glanced frequently between her phone and the woman standing before her as she explained, “Do you know what it means to be in charge of public relations for this park? It’s my job to make sure the world knows how amazing Equestria Land is gonna be. And in two weeks, when there’s fifty thousand people here for opening day, the last thing they’ll see before they leave at night will be this light parade.” Finally taking her undivided attention off her phone, she glared at the designer. “And, by extension, your costumes, which apparently do not exist as of this moment.” She held up her phone and smiled as she quickly took a few selfies. “Need I remind you of my philosophy in life? B.Y.B.B. Be yourself, but better. Do you even have a philosophy?”

The designer continued to glare at Vignette for a moment before she flatly responded, “G.W.I.Q. Guess vhat? I qvit.” She then turned around and began marching towards the park’s exit.

As she watched her lead parade costume designer walk off the job, Vignette sighed and rubbed her forehead. She took a deep breath, then snapped her hand and furiously shouted, “I need a stress salad!”

The performer who had fallen to the pavement quickly jumped to his feet and ran off as he responded, “On it!”

Vignette walked over to the nearest table and sat down on the adjoined bench. Within seconds of sitting down, the performer returned with a bowl filled with a salad consisting of lettuce and tomato. As the performer added some final seasoning, Vignette stared down at her phone in her hand as she grumbled, “Where am I gonna find a new costume designer for the light parade with only two weeks left?”

Having overheard Vignette’s complaint, the performer smiled and opened his mouth to speak, only to have her hand swiftly shoved in his face and send him tumbling back to the pavement.

“I’m not promoting you,” stated Vignette with no hesitation.

The performer groaned sadly, then stood back up and walked away.

Vignette set her phone down on the table, then picked up the fork and stirred the salad as she muttered to herself, “If only I could put a filter on real life to make everything the way I want it…”

With Vignette’s attention focused on her salad as she considered her first bite, she failed to notice a glowing trail of magical energy fly down from over the hanger, pass behind her back, and circle the umbrella over the table once before finally plunging into her phone resting on the table. When the magic infused itself into the phone, the custom design on the back of it transformed from a content smiling face to a furiously scowling face.

The magical transformation was already complete by the time Vignette glanced back at her phone. She set down the bowl of salad and shrugged as she assured herself, “Only way to feel better is getting ten thousand likes with the perfect salad pic.” She picked up her phone, aimed its camera towards the salad, and took a picture of it.

As soon as the picture was taken, the real salad suddenly transformed into a holographic image, and then quickly vanished.

Vignette immediately gasped in shock. She glanced around, but saw no signs of anyone nearby. She then turned her attention back to her phone and brought up the picture she had just taken. No matter how she aimed her phone, the displayed image always showed the salad exactly the way it had been on that table the moment she had taken that picture. Confused by what she had just seen, she tried swiping the display to the side, only for the image on the phone to switch to a bowl of potato salad. She swiped the image aside again and the displayed image switched to a bowl of fruit salad.

“Did somebody install a new app on my phone?” muttered Vignette in confusion. She randomly tapped another button on her phone and it suddenly projected an image of the currently displayed fruit salad onto the table where the regular salad used to be. Even when she moved her phone away, the projected image remained perfectly in place. She reached a hand out to the projection and while the holographic image did slightly distort as it passed through, it quickly returned to normal as she took her hand away from it.

As she began to understand the kind of strange power her phone suddenly now had, Vignette soon realized that her wish for a means of enhancing things in the real world at the push of a button had miraculously been fulfilled. “Well, whoever gave me this app… I like it!” she remarked as a wicked grin formed on her face.
> Seasonal Employment
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 1
Seasonal Employment


It was late in the morning on another fine day in Canterlot City. With the arrival of summer, school was out and children all across the city were thrilled to start the longest vacation of the year. While there were plenty of excellent places throughout the city for family activities, this particular summer was coming with the promise of a brand new theme park at the edge of town. With all kinds of thrilling rides and fun attractions, this new amusement park was sure to attract plenty of visitors once opening day finally arrived. But for a theme park to run successfully, it was going to need employees to operate all the rides and attractions, and with opening day fast approaching, word had spread all over the city about the large number of job openings that the park was desperate to fill as soon as possible.

Among the numerous people who were applying for jobs at the new theme park were Applejack and Rarity, two of the famous LEGO Team members known as the Equestria Girls. The two girls were sitting next to each other on a bench along Sunshine Plaza, and with concerned looks on their faces, their attention was focused directly on their phones in their hands.

Rarity worriedly glanced over at Applejack and asked, “Anything?”

Applejack shook her head and dejectedly responded, “Nothin’. You?”

Rarity also shook her head and shamefully responded, “Me neither.” She then let out a sigh of sadness.

The two girls were so focused on staring at their phones that neither of them noticed the rest of their friends approaching. The other five girls stood around the bench and looked down at their two friends, then glanced at each other in confusion.

Pinkie Pie smiled as she spoke up, “Somebody has some unspilled beans around here, and it’s not me, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, or Sunset Shimmer!”

The other four friends smiled back at Pinkie as she mentioned their names, while Rarity and Applejack finally turned their attention up to their gathered friends.

“Oh, hey girls,” greeted Applejack. “Rarity and Ah are just waitin’ for a response. Ya see, we both applied for seasonal jobs at the new theme park.”

“Equestria Land?” asked Pinkie Pie. She then gasped in shock. “Wait… Will you get to go there for free?!”

“As employees of the park,” Rarity pointed out, “they shall be paying us to go there.”

Pinkie let out another gasped and started squealing unintelligibly.

Applejack chuckled as she picked up a fruit smoothie drink she had sitting next to her on the bench and handed it over to Pinkie. “Easy there, sugarcube,” she remarked.

Pinkie immediately took the offered drink and happily slurped it down.

Twilight suddenly spoke up, “Wait, don’t you two already have day jobs?”

“Work on the farm is a lil’ slow this time of year,” explained Applejack, “so with all this free time on mah hands, Ah decided to try doin’ somethin’ a lil’ different this summer.”

“And my summer inventory has already been completely filled in,” added Rarity, “so I too have suddenly found myself with little to occupy my time with.”

Applejack continued, “The two of us talked it over an’ we agreed to try workin’ side-by-side sellin’ caramel apples at the park.”

“Yes, that is indeed what we ultimately agreed upon,” acknowledged Rarity hesitantly. “It’s not that I’m nervous, but… Applejack, you’re perfect for the job, and, well, my résumé is… less apple-centric.”

Applejack chuckled and turned to Rarity. “We’ll be together,” she assured her friend. “Ah got a good feelin’.”

Rarity smiled back at Applejack, then turned her attention back down to her phone. She let out a disappointed huff and grumbled, “No missed calls while we were talking about caramel apples.” She smiled again at Applejack and suggested, “Shall we practice answering our phones and sounding calm?”

It was right at that moment that both Rarity’s and Applejack’s phones suddenly vibrated and made a faint buzz, which immediately startled both girls quite obviously.

Sunset chuckled and remarked, “That was about as calm as Pinkie Pie on Cake Day.”

Pinkie immediately grasped Sunset’s shoulders and exclaimed in panic, “Was it today?! Did I miss it?!”

Sunset calmly shoved Pinkie away, then turned back to the rest of her friends and quipped, “Need I say more?”

Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy couldn’t help but giggle at that.

Meanwhile, both Rarity and Applejack gasped in excitement. “One new email!” noted Rarity.

“It’s from the park!” noted Applejack.

The two girls turned to each other and exclaimed simultaneously, “You open yours first!” Upon realizing they spoke at the same time, they both again excitedly exclaimed, “No, you open yours first!” They then shared a friendly laugh.

Once they had both calmed down a little, Applejack spoke up, “Okay, okay, same time.” They both held up their phones and held their free hand over the screen. “One, two—”

Rarity’s patience just couldn’t last long enough as she quickly tapped her screen. “Too late! I opened mine!” she remarked before she let out a squeal of excitement. She then began to actually read the email and her expression quickly fell. “Oh… they said I’m overqualified for caramel apple girl,” she stated dejectedly. But as she continued reading the email, she then gasped and excitedly added, “They want me to be lead parade costume designer!”

All of Rarity’s friends cheered for her.

“You haven’t even started and you already got promoted,” noted Twilight.

“That’s gotta be a record,” remarked Rainbow Dash.

While the others cheered for Rarity, Applejack checked her email, and her expression fell. “Ah didn’t get the job,” she pointed out in disappointment. She turned to Rarity and smiled as she spoke up, “But Ah’m really happy for ya, Rarity.”

Rarity immediately scoffed and dismissively said, “I’m sure there must be a mix-up, darling.”

Pinkie Pie quickly suggested, “Obviously, the internet mailman gave you the wrong letter.”

Twilight raised a hand and opened her mouth, but didn’t get a chance to speak before Pinkie continued.

“I know that’s not how the internet works,” admitted Pinkie, “but I’m trying to cheer you up.”

In an effort to assure Applejack, Twilight spoke up, “Technically, Rarity didn’t get the job, either, since she got a different job, so they’re probably about to send another email with your promotion.”

Just seconds later, Applejack’s phone buzzed and vibrated again. She gasped as she quickly checked the alert she received, then slumped as she groaned and muttered in disappointment, “Just a sale at Stinky Bottom’s Discount Hat Emporium.”

Rainbow Dash leaned over to look at the screen on the phone and cheerfully pointed out “Forty percent off!” When she noticed everyone glare at her, she awkwardly added, “But I guess that has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.” She chuckled in embarrassment and stepped back.

Rarity hesitantly tapped her hands together as she stated, “Well… I’m not going to accept it without you, obviously.” Now committed to her decision, she crossed her arms and let out a huff, the puff of air enough to slightly rotate Pinkie’s hair piece so that it now partially covered her face.

Applejack turned to Rarity in shock and exclaimed, “What?! You cannot let this opportunity pass you by, Rarity! Think of all those vision boards, the late-night sewin’! This has been your dream since… since practically kindy-garten, Ah’d imagine!”

Rarity giggled nervously and tapped her hands together again. “Preschool, actually,” she admitted quietly. She then firmly spoke up, “But that’s not the point. My mind is made up. We planned to spend the summer together, and… and even if it means looking elsewhere, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Riiiiiiiight?” She then stared at Applejack with the most adorable begging face she could manage and blinked twice.

Applejack saw right through Rarity’s emotional mask and insisted, “You’re takin’ the job, an’ that’s final.”

“Okay, if you insist!” Rarity quickly replied before squealing excitedly. “I’m gonna be a costume designer for a parade!”

All of Rarity’s friends gathered together and gave her a group hug as they all said various words of encouragement and congratulations.

Once the group hug broke, Applejack assured her friends, “Well, don’t worry ‘bout me, y’all. Ah’m sure Ah can find some other hobby to keep me occupied. There’s much more to Canterlot City than some brand new theme park.”

Pinkie Pie finished the last of the smoothie she was holding and suggested, “Ooh! Maybe you could work at wherever they serve these delicious fruit smoothies!”

“Ah’m afraid they ain’t exactly hirin’ at this time,” Applejack pointed out, “but Ah’ll be sure to keep an eye on ‘em, just in case. Not like a seasonal job can be that hard to come by, right?”





The next day, Rarity went out to Equestria Land to meet with her new employer. The acceptance email had insisted that she only had to “be yourself, but better,” so while she stuck to her current standard outfit, she took great care to ensure her appearance was as flawless as possible for the vital first impressions.

Once Rarity arrived at the park, security pointed her towards the large hangar building near the backlot section of the property. Carrying her portfolio with her, she made it only just past the main park entrance when she encountered someone who seemed immediately thrilled to meet her.

“Ah, you must be Rarity,” greeted the woman with yellow skin and violet hair and wearing a brown cape. “Our new lead parade costume designer?”

“Oh! Yes, indeed,” confirmed Rarity with a smile and a nod. “I take it you’re the one who offered me this prestigious position?”

“You know it!” confirmed the woman as she and Rarity began walking side by side towards the hangar. “My name is Vignette Valencia, and to answer your first question, yes, I’m that ‘Vignette’, but no, I don’t think I’m better than you just because I have three million followers on Snapgab.”

Rarity stopped and muttered in shock, “You’re up to three million now?” She quickly shifted her attention back to more important matters and caught back up to Vignette as she spoke up, “I mean, yes, uh, yes, I-I am familiar with your online repertoire.”

“I have a good feeling about you, Rare,” noted Vignette confidently. “Oh, you have to let me call you ‘Rare’. It’s the perfect name for lead parade costume designer.” She opened the folder she was carrying and glanced at Rarity’s application page inside as she added dismissively, “Not a, um… caramel apple girl. I don’t even know why you applied for a job like that. Not with a Snapgab feed like yours.” As she spoke that final sentence, she closed her folder and pulled out her phone.

“Oh, uh, i-i-it was intended to be part of a joint venture with a friend of mine,” Rarity awkwardly explained. “Though I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore, seeing as her application was rejected.” When she noticed Vignette looking at her phone, she spoke up, “You’ve seen my Snapgab feed?”

By this time, the two of them arrived at the hanger and stopped walking. “Obviously, I looked you up,” explained Vignette. “Great pictures, by the way. That gingham and linen sundress caught my eye, and your follower count is im-press-ive. For someone whose business has yet to expand beyond a single location, of course, but I can already tell you’ve got magique inside.”

Rarity was so awestruck by Vignette’s words of praise that she fumbled over her words for a moment before she managed to ask, “Y-You can?”

“The light parade is going to be the most important event in the park on opening day,” continued Vignette. “We have over a hundred cast members, and you are gonna make them look perfect.”

Rarity let out a content sigh and politely responded, “Miss Valencia, I am very grateful for this opportunity of a lifetime. I cannot wait to get started.”

“Then let’s stop wasting time with idle chatting,” agreed Vignette. “Right this way, please.” She began walking towards the hanger, but after just a few steps, she suddenly stopped beside a round table and umbrella that was oddly surrounded by yellow caution tape. “Oh, and before I forget,” added Vignette, “don’t put anything on that table. Especially your phone. No reason, just a super-important rule I made up, ‘kay?”

Rarity smiled as she shrugged and remarked, “Eh, everyone has their quirks.” She then followed Vignette into the hangar, excited to begin her new temporary job.





Over a week had passed since Rarity accepted her new job at Equestria Land. While Rarity was hard at work creating all kinds of costume designs, the rest of her friends had continued with their typical day-to-day lives. For Applejack, this involved doing various chores around the farm with her family. Today, she was assisting Big Mac and Apple Bloom with making applesauce the traditional way, which involved simply stomping on apples in a large tub and having the sauce drain into a container.

As Applejack continued stomping the apples, she suddenly heard her phone ring. She pulled out her phone and smiled when she saw it was her friend Rarity calling, so she accepted the call and put the phone against the side of her head and spoke, “Hey, Rarity! Fancy hearin’ from you!”

“Applejack! Darling!” responded Rarity, just as pleased. She put her phone on speaker and set it down on the table she was sitting at so she could resume her work with a sewing machine as she continued speaking. “How’s work on the farm?”

Applejack spoke in a forced pleasant tone, “Fantastic! Ah could not be happier! Just makin’ foot-stompin’ applesauce the old-fashioned way with mah family!”

“Less chatter, more splatter!” complained Granny Smith, who sat in a rocking chair next to the large tub. “Besides, you was the one who complained ‘bout not havin’ much to do ‘round here lately.”

Applejack groaned and grumbled under hear breath, “Me an’ mah big mouth…”

Rarity didn’t seem to hear that last part before she said contently, “Oh, good. I’m so happy for you.”

“An’ Ah’m happy for you an’ your new job, too,” replied Applejack.

“Oh, yes, well,” responded Rarity with a nervous laugh, “it’s certainly a big job.”

In the workroom of the hangar, Rarity had just finished sewing a yellow sheet of cloth and set it aside, only for one assistant to rush in and drop off a roll of purple cloth right next to her desk, As soon as she had picked up that new roll, another assistant suddenly rushed in and dropped off a roll of orange cloth. With no time to complain — not to mention not wanting one of her best friends to hear about any of her issues — she immediately went to work on the purple cloth.

“Ah’m sure ya won’t slip up,” assured Applejack over the phone. Ironically, it was right at that moment when she suddenly slipped on the applesauce, but was quickly able to regain her balance.

Rarity flipped through her numerous pages of sketches as she nervously responded, “Well, I-I was calling because, well, you see, it’s not that I’m…” She let out a nervous giggle as she carelessly flung away page after page all over the place before eventually finding the sketch she was looking for. “…nervous or anything silly like that, but I-I-I was wondering if…” With no free space on the table, she set down her sketches atop a nearby pile of fabric, then turned her attention away from it just before the stack slid off the table and scattered all over the floor. “…if you and the girls wanted to come on opening night to see the parade.” She finished in a pleasant sing-song tone, “V.I.P. passes! You can cut the lines!”

“You bet your britches, missy!” answered Applejack excitedly. “Ah wouldn’t miss your big night for the world! Whoa!” She once again suddenly slipped in the applesauce, but this time failed to keep her balance and fell over backwards into the tub between Apple Bloom and Big Mac, both of whom looked down at her in concern.

“Applejack?” asked Rarity over the phone. “Darling? Hello?”

As Granny Smith tossed a towel to her, Applejack held her now messy phone back up to her ear and responded, “Ah’m fine. Just a lil’ mishap. Ah’d better hang up so Ah can clean this up.”

Rarity glanced over to where she left her sketches, only to discover they were now scattered all over the floor. “Uh, same here, darling,” she spoke to her phone as she picked it up. “See you and the others in a couple days!” She ended the call and pocketed her phone, then began the tedious effort of regathering all of her scattered sketches.

Rarity hastily gathered most of her sketches back together into a sloppy stack and was just about to even it out when she saw the rest of her sketches being offered to her. She glanced up and smiled to see who had offered her that helping hand. “Oh! Thank you, Miss Valencia,” she said as she took back the rest of her sketches.

“Please, just call me Vignette,” insisted Vignette with a smile. “We’re supposed to be working on friendly terms, after all. It’s why I even bothered to help you out with that little paper incident.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” acknowledged Rarity as she began to even out the messy stack of papers.

“Anyway,” continued Vignette slyly, “correct me if I’m wrong, but did I happen to overhear you offering some V.I.P. passes?”

Rarity immediately gasped in shock and dropped her sketches on the floor again. She quickly turned to Vignette and fearfully responded, “Oh! Uh, t-t-terribly sorry for my faux pas. I should’ve known better than to utilize a privilege that is beyond my employment status.”

“Oh, you didn’t do anything wrong,” assured Vignette. “To be fair, a person in your position would be allowed to hand out a strict limit of five V.I.P. passes.”

Rarity initially smiled upon hearing she wasn’t going to be in trouble, but her expression fell when she realized she wouldn’t have quite enough for all of her close friends.

“But for you in particular,” Vignette quickly added, “I’ll throw in an extra so you can invite all of your friends.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” muttered Rarity with a huge sigh of relief. With the weight of a perceived disaster off her shoulders, she was able to think again and soon raised an eyebrow as she realized something. “Wait, how did you know I have six friends to whom I intended to offer V.I.P. passes?”

Vignette pulled out her phone and smugly explained, “I decided to delve a little deeper into your social media accounts, and let’s just say you should’ve seen the look on my face when I discovered you also happen to be one of the Equestria Girls, the LEGO Team’s special squad of seven girls who have saved the Lego World from all kinds of crazy evil. I kid you not, that was a real OMG moment for me, and let me tell you, that’s become a very rare achievement as of late.”

“Oh?” asked Rarity, intrigued by Vignette’s excitement.

“Just think of it: The greatest team of heroes in our time, all coming together to be part of the prestigious opening day of Equestria Land,” continued Vignette. She then gasped and excitedly added, “Equestria Girls in Equestria Land! That kind of publicity just wrote itself!” She quickly texted a note into her phone.

“I take it you welcome my request to invite my friends?” asked Rarity.

“Absolutely!” confirmed Vignette excitedly. “Kids idolize heroes, and with the rep you girls have built, those kids are sure to be thrilled to have this incredible opportunity to meet you in the plastic!” She speed-dialed a number on her phone as she began to walk away. “I’ll get our ad team to put together this new ad campaign overnight. You just make sure your friends actually show up on opening day.”

Rarity let out a sigh of relief and quietly remarked, “That worked out quite nicely.” She turned back to her worktable and quickly lost her content feelings as she saw over a dozen rolls of fabric were now piled beside the table and her sketches were once again scattered all over the floor. She let out a sigh of sadness and began to pick up all of those sheets of paper yet again.





A few minutes later, Vignette finished her call with the advertising department and hung up just as she walked out the door from the hangar. She was just about to put away her phone when she suddenly stopped and glanced back at the security guard posted beside the door.

The guard was asleep, sitting on the ground with his back against the wall. He had light nougat skin and wore the park’s security uniform of navy blue pants, white shirt with long sleeves, black tie, and navy blue cap over his black hair. Labeled on the front of his shirt was a name tag that read “C. Doodle”.

Vignette huffed and grumbled, “Is some competent security too much to ask for around here?” She glanced down at her phone, up at the sleeping guard, then back down to her phone. “I wonder…”

Vignette brought up the camera app and held her phone out at the snoring security guard. She took a picture and, just like with the salad bowl less than two weeks ago, the guard immediately transformed into a holographic image and then quickly vanished. She looked down at the picture of the sleeping security guard on her phone, then swiped the image aside to a picture of that same guard standing up and alert and wearing black pants, a red coat, and a tall black hat. She then swiped that picture up and a hologram of that alert and redressed security guard suddenly appeared exactly where the original sleeping one had been. He stood perfectly still, practically as stiff as a statue, with an unblinking gaze that stared straight ahead.

“Much better,” said Vignette with satisfaction. She turned and began to walk away, but then stopped and turned back to the hologram of the security guard in a royal sentry uniform. She tapped her hand against her chin and muttered thoughtfully, “Hmm… Doesn’t seem quite real enough…”

Vignette held up her phone again and returned to the picture matching the hologram standing in front of her. She swiped down to discover a wide range of additional features, including a section identified as “animation options”. She made a few quick setting adjustments and then tapped the final button to “accept changes”. As soon as those new settings were entered, the hologram guard suddenly turned right and began steadily marching alongside the wall of the hangar. Once he reached the end of the wall, he made a swift about-face and continued marching, then repeated the process once he reached the other end of the wall. As he marched, he moved so precisely and consistently that he appeared to behave more like an animatronic than a living minifig. He never spoke, never grunted, never made any noise at all, not even the plastic clacking of his footsteps that one would normally expect to hear.

“Now that’s more like it!” said Vignette with approval. Now that she felt more confident with that particular security guard, she turned and walked away to take care of more important matters.
> Welcome to Equestria Land
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 2
Welcome to Equestria Land


Opening day for Equestria Land had finally arrived. There was so much excitement for it that some guests had arrived hours before the park officially opened. Once the main gates were finally opened, there was practically a mad rush among the guests in an effort to become the very first people to enjoy the various rides and attractions. The new theme park had everything imaginable, such as a roller coaster, a ferris wheel, bumper cars, a log flume ride, a haunted house, a wild west show, and all kinds of carnival games and food carts.

The parking lot out front continued to fill with vehicles as the early morning hours passed by, among which were a rusty red pickup truck driven by Applejack, a blue sleek motorcycle driven by Rainbow Dash, a small pink and white car driven by Fluttershy, and a red convertible with yellow flames driven by Sunset Shimmer, with Twilight Sparkle riding shotgun. Those five girls gathered together just in time to see Pinkie Pie arrive in a pink van with blue and yellow stripes. As soon as Pinkie swiftly swung the van into a parking space — remarkable stopping only an inch away from the bumper of the adjacent vehicle — the rear doors opened and out climbed her four passengers — Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Spike.

Spike slammed the doors shut and followed the three younger girls — commonly known as the Creative Mark Crusaders — across the parking lot as he furiously exclaimed, “I don’t care how expensive a taxi cab is! I am not riding home with Pinkie Pie!”

“Aw, c’mon, Spike,” assured Sweetie Belle. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Yeah!” agreed Scootaloo excitedly. “It was awesome!”

“It was like the thrill ride before we even entered the park!” agreed Apple Bloom with just as much enthusiasm.

“After what I’ve been through,” grumbled Spike, “I think I’ll stick to lower intensity rides for the rest of the day.”

As the two groups met up, the three little girls quickly gathered around Applejack. “Applejack! Can we please go on ahead on our own?” begged Apple Bloom.

“I know we all promised to meet Rarity,” continued Sweetie Belle, “but we just can’t wait to see everything in Equestria Land!”

“There’s no telling how long the lines will get, so we need to be there as soon as possible!” finished Scootaloo.

Because Rarity had already used up all of her available V.I.P. passes on her closest friends, the younger girls would not be able to have the privilege of cutting the lines, so there was a legitimate reason behind their impatience. Applejack looked into the adorably huge eyes of the three little girls, then conceded with a sigh and answered, “Alright, but make sure ya stay near Spike so he can keep an eye on y’all.”

The Creative Mark Crusaders cheered as one and then rushed ahead towards the main entrance into the park.

“Why am I always stuck with caretaker duties?” grumbled Spike as he began to run after those highly energetic young girls.

“Y’all be careful, now!” Applejack called out to the little girls. “An’ don’t forget to stick around for the parade tonight!”

With those four kids rushing ahead, the remaining six girls walked after them at a much more relaxed pace. As they approached the main entrance, Rainbow Dash noticed a rather familiar minifig standing to the side. “Indigo Zap?” she asked aloud.

Indigo, much like her fellow former Shadowbolts agents, no longer wore any of their standardized uniforms and instead had black on her torso and arms, medium blue on her upper legs, bright red around her feet, and printed on the front of her torso detailing of an open jacket over a light grey shirt with a symbol — a purple cloud with a magenta star in the middle and a blue lightning bolt coming down from the bottom — in the middle, along with those round goggles she still had resting on her forehead. She glanced up from her phone, then smiled and greeted, “Oh! It’s you girls! I guess it’s no surprise you’d be here. This place is practically right in town for you.”

“True, but there’s more to it than that,” Applejack pointed out. “Our friend Rarity happens to be the lead costume designer for the parade they’ll have later tonight.”

“Nice!” remarked Indigo. “My friends will be here soon, so I’ll be sure to pass that along to them.” As she put away her phone, she chuckled and muttered, “Sour Sweet will be so jealous when she finds out.”

“So what brings you and the other Crystal Girls here?” asked Pinkie.

“Officially speaking,” Indigo slyly replied, “Princess Cadance wants us to inspect the park grounds to make sure Filthy Rich hasn’t done anything seriously wrong with building on this site. But I’d be lying if I said any of us had no interest in checking out what this new park has to offer.”

“I’m just glad to see you out here and completely okay,” Fluttershy spoke up. “The last time your friends were in town, they said that you… weren’t feeling so well.”

“Yeah, that sure was a horrible experience,” acknowledged Indigo in displeasure. “That’ll teach me to never believe in the five second rule ever again, especially when you’re out in the jungle.”

Twilight stared at Indigo and asked with mild disgust, “Uh, are you saying that you actually…?”

“Yup,” grumbled Indigo bitterly. “Definitely one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done in my entire life.”

“Regardless, it’s good to see you made a full recovery,” said Sunset. “And I’m glad we were able to help you out with some of the prize money we won in that contest.”

Indigo smirked and remarked, “Then I guess I should thank you for that. The physical recovery alone was bad enough. In all honesty, I don’t think I could’ve handled the financial stuff that came with it.”

“Just lookin’ out for each other like true friends,” stated Applejack. “Speakin’ of which, we’d better get goin’. Rarity’s been workin’ hard for the last two weeks, an’ Ah’d hate to leave her waitin’ on us.”

“Have a nice day, Indigo,” said Twilight as she and her friends resumed heading towards the main entrance.

“You, too!” called back Indigo as they left.

The six girls walked up to the main entrance, showed security the V.I.P. passes Rarity had provided them with, and stepped through the gateway.

As soon as they were all officially on the park grounds, Pinkie Pie cheered, “Equestria Land opening day!” She then practically jumped back and forth between her friends as she excitedly asked, “What should we do first? Appleloosa Wild West Stunt Show? Nightmare Moon’s Haunted Castle? Sugarcube Everything?!”

“Now, hang on,” spoke up Applejack. “When she called me a couple days ago, Ah got the sense Rarity was feelin’ overwhelmed, which is understandable. Ah mean, she’s all alone here without any of her friends.” She then muttered under her breath, “Which is why Ah wouldn’ta taken the job, but that’s just me.” She then spoke up again, “Uh, point is, we’re here to support Rarity.”

The rest of the girls smiled and nodded in agreement.

A group of screaming teenage girls with huge smiles on their faces suddenly ran past the Equestria Girls and gathered around a certain minifig with yellow skin, short purple hair, and wearing a brown cape. The teens quickly started taking selfies with her while pulling all kinds of goofy faces.

Applejack scratched the back of her head in confusion and asked, “Uh, which character is that?”

Pinkie Pie had her phone out and took a picture of the girl at the center of all that attention. Upon hearing Applejack’s question, she turned to her and excitedly explained, “Oh, that’s not just some random character, silly! That’s Vignette Valencia! She’s famous on Snapgab, which you’d know if you actually logged in once in a while. You’re missing my ‘Cupcake of the Day’ series! That reminds me…” She handed her phone over to Applejack and removed her hair piece, then reached inside and tossed out a small tire and a large wrench before eventually pulling out a cupcake with pink frosting on it. “Aha!” She put her hair piece back on, took back her phone, then took a selfie with that cupcake before taking a bite out of it. “Mmm, pomegranate.”

“I’m familiar with Vignette Valencia,” noted Fluttershy. “She posts a lot of pictures of her Welsh corgi named Yas Queen.”

“And she’s friends with, like, every awesome athlete in the world!” added Rainbow Dash.

When Applejack turned to Twilight, the intelligent girl just held up her hands and said, “Don’t look at me. I only follow bots that post interesting scientific facts. Personally, I just don’t see the appeal of celebrities who never accomplished anything tangible.”

Sunset handed her phone over to Applejack and said, “Here’s a few examples to get you up to speed.”

Applejack looked through the images displayed on Sunset’s phone and asked in confusion, “These are her pictures?”

One picture had Vignette taking a selfie while lying down on a beach with the caption, “Chillin sandy style. U kno how I do.” Another picture had Vignette taking a selfie while holding a tennis racket and surrounded by other tennis equipment with the caption, “I came I saw I vintaged.” The picture Applejack eventually stopped at was actually a short video of Vignette lying in bed with her hair piece slightly rotated to obscure her left eye as she simply said, “Hashtag… bangs…” As Applejack scrolled through all those images, most of her friends looked over her shoulders at the screen and smiled in approval.

“Okay, how the heck did this one end up with twenty thousand likes?” Applejack spoke up in confusion. “Ah… Ah just don’t get it. Spendin’ all that time just to look good in a picture ain’t mah idea of fun.”

“There you are!” called out Rarity pleasantly as she approached her friends gathered near the park entrance.

Applejack smiled as she handed the phone back to Sunset and greeted, “Here comes the lead parade costume designer!”

“Guilty as charged!” responded Rarity with a giggle as she shared a hug with Applejack.

Once they broke their hug, Applejack asked, “So? You’ve been here solo without your best friends all this time. How can we help?”

Rarity held up her hand and said, “Hold that thought.” She then turned around and called out, “Vignette! Over here!”

As Vignette dismissed the crowd of fans and began walking towards the Equestria Girls, Applejack asked, “You know Vignette Valencia?”

Rarity scoffed and playfully retorted, “Do I know her?” Once Vignette arrived, she and Rarity greeted each other by blowing a kiss on each cheek. “Why, she’s my best friend at the park!”

“Wait, what?!” asked Applejack in shock.

Before Rarity had a chance to respond, Vignette suddenly spoke up, “Selfie! Oh, but can we use your phone? Mine’s been acting super-weird lately.”

“It happens,” remarked Rarity with a smile as she pulled out her phone.

“Thanks, Rare. You’re the best,” said Vignette before they both pulled mildly silly faces and took the selfie.

Applejack couldn’t believe that Rarity, one of her closest friends, had completely blown off her questions and seemed more interested in nonsense friendly behavior with someone who was all but a total stranger to the apple farmer. This quickly frustrated her enough for her to cross her arms and let out a faint growl.

Rarity shared a giggle with Vignette over their selfie, then turned to her friends and said, “Everyone, this is Vignette Valencia. She runs P.R. for the park, and she’s my boss.”

“I told you not to use the ‘B’ word,” insisted Vignette politely. “I’m your friend who gets to boss you around.”

In an effort to sound polite to her new friend, Rarity immediately began to laugh awkwardly at what was, after all, a rather poor joke. As she continued her forced laughter, she glanced back at her friends.

The others understood Rarity’s subtle request to help avoid embarrassing herself, so they tried to laugh along as well, though their lack of enthusiasm was difficult to hide. Eventually, Pinkie simply confessed, “I don’t get it.”

Applejack had refused to join in the fake laughter and instead rolled her eyes.

Vignette glanced across the group of girls and contently said, “So you must be the world famous Equestria Girls, the special ops LEGO Team squad for slaying evil magic. Let’s see if I got your names right…” She went down the line from right to left, pointing at each minifig as she listed, “Sunset Shimmer, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, and Fluttershy.”

“An’ Applejack!” spoke up Applejack irritably, standing right beside Fluttershy. “Ah’m here too, ya know!”

Vignette quickly checked her phone for a few seconds, then glanced up at the girls again and responded, “Huh… so you are.” She turned her attention to Applejack and added, “F.Y.I., you really need to expand your social media footprint. No offense, but you’ve set yourself up to be the most easily forgettable member of your team.”

Applejack said nothing and just continued to glare fiercely at Vignette.

Vignette glanced around beyond the group of girls and began to frown. “Are you sure you girls are actually world famous?” she asked. “I’m not seeing any screaming fans demanding your autographs. If anything, all I see are park guests walking right by like you’re not even worth a selfie with.”

“We normally don’t get that kind of attention,” said Sunset. “And as far as I’m aware, we’re completely okay with that.”

Vignette groaned and grumbled, “First moments of opening day, and already I’ve got a disaster on my hands. Our ad team pulled an all-nighter to ready this park for a rush of fans eager to see the Equestria Girls, only to hear that such fans don’t even exist! Filthy Rich himself had even said that he designed Equestria Land — including its very name — to reflect that alternate universe that Twilight is from.”

“Sunset’s the one from Equestria,” Twilight clarified. “I’m the one from the Castle Region.”

“And if this park was supposed to be inspired by Equestria, then why was I never contacted for advice?” added Sunset. “I’m literally the only authority in the entire Lego World on anything that has to do with Equestria.”

“I heard he mostly relied on second-hand sources,” replied Vignette. “He’s not saying it, but it’s clear he doesn’t wanna deal with the girls who ruined his rep not long ago.”

“Wow, sore loser,” quipped Rainbow Dash quietly.

Vignette sighed and began texting on her phone as she muttered, “Lesson learned: heroes who save the world do not equal popular celebrities.”

Rarity knew her attempt to introduce Vignette to her friends was taking a very unfavorable turn, so in a desperate effort to salvage the situation, she spoke up, “Uh… fun fact! We, uh, also perform together in a band called the Rainbooms.”

Vignette was just about to start voicing her complaints online, but hearing that band name made her immediately stop. “Rainbooms?” she asked. “Why is that familiar?” She started quickly searching though the social media sites on her phone. “A hundred thousand followers… focused consumer-centric demographic, too…” She glanced up at the girls and began to smile as she asked, “Does your curated content consistently aggregate across multiple platforms?”

There was complete silence, as none of those girls had any idea what the brick Vignette was even talking about. After a few seconds, Pinkie blissfully remarked, “We sing songs together!”

Vignette gasped and excitedly said, “Of course! Your heroic identities may not be celebrities, but maybe your alter-egos as band performers can be! This is just what I need to salvage this ad campaign disaster! I am going to turn you into the centerpiece of tonight’s light parade!”

“Oh, what a splendid idea!” cheered Rarity in agreement.

“Uh, you want the Rainbooms to perform on tonight’s parade?” asked Rainbow Dash in confusion.

Vignette shushed Rainbow and confidently replied, “Are you ready? B.Y.B.B. Be yourself, but better!” She began marching around the girls as she continued, “That’s been my power phrase since I started my first company, a middle school girl selling artisanal handmade mascara, ‘But isn’t that just melted crayons?’ Hey, naysayers gonna neigh, but I say…” She struck a dramatic pose. “B.Y.B.B.”

Rarity was ginning widely in excitement, but the rest of her friends still expressed uncertainty, while Applejack continued to feel peeved at Vignette’s display.

“Um, how many people will be watching us?” asked Fluttershy worriedly.

“All of them!” Vignette proudly answered. “Official estimates are there will be fifty thousand people here tonight, and there’s no telling how many of them will be live streaming for other people who couldn’t make it to opening night. So what do you say?”

The group of girls glanced at one another. Sunset spoke up, “Well, if it’s gonna help Rarity…” One by one, the rest of them nodded and voiced their agreement. The sole exception was Applejack, who kept her arms crossed and continued to glare furiously at Vignette.

Vignette rapidly tapped away on her phone as she spoke, “Like, like, like… like, like, like. And since I already liked Rare, that should cover all of you.” When she noticed Applejack’s grumpy expression, she added, “Oh, don’t give me that look. Trust me, you’ll thank me for this.” She then turned her attention to the entire group and continued, “Upload and post it, ladies. This’ll trend for sure! I’ll ‘at’ you later with the exact deets. B.Y.B.B., Rare. V, out.” She then turned around and began walking off.

Rarity watched Vignette depart, then turned back to her friends and pleasantly remarked, “I know, she’s amazing, right?”

“She sure is… somethin’,” grumbled Applejack.

“Logistical question,” Twilight spoke up. “How are we supposed to get our instruments here on such short notice?”

Rarity scoffed and dismissively replied, “Vignette will handle everything. She’s got plenty of interns who can make the trip into town to retrieve our instruments.”

“Ah got a question, too,” Applejack spoke up irritably. “When ya said she’s your ‘best friend at the park’, did ya mean ‘best friends, comma, at the park’?”

“Did I say that?” muttered Rarity. She then gasped and spoke up excitedly, “Listen, tonight’s a huge opportunity, and not just for me now, but for all of us!”

“Tonight’s gonna be awesome!” agreed Rainbow Dash with enthusiasm. “But while we wait for them to get our stuff set up, let’s go see the park!” She quickly zoomed off in a rainbow motion blur, then just as quickly returned with a few park maps in her arms. “Maps for everyone!” She tossed those maps around to all of her friends, with the last one smacking Applejack in the face, to which she didn’t even flinch.

At this point, Rarity could no longer ignore the very obvious sour look on Applejack’s face. “Honestly, I don’t know why you’re giving me your frowny eyebrows,” she complained.

Applejack considered outright telling Rarity exactly what was bothering her, but there was a difference between honesty and bluntness. As much as she desired to be completely blunt, she still wished to remain on friendly terms with Rarity. Not to mention, with all the work Rarity still had ahead of her, she didn’t want to be responsible for piling on any additional unnecessary stress. With all that in mind, Applejack just sighed and grumbled, “It’s nothin’…”

That reaction left Rarity at a loss. As far as she was aware, she had done nothing wrong to deserve Applejack’s ire. As much as she wished she could stay and try to reconcile their issues, she was well aware that she was on a tight schedule, so she reluctantly said with a false smile, “Well, uh… in that case, enjoy the park.”

Rarity stepped away and turned her attention to all of her friends. She pulled out her phone checked her schedule as she explained, “I’m gonna be super-busy preparing for tonight, so let’s meet in the staging area for sound check and run-throughs. I have a three-minute break at four o’clock, and I can give you two of them.” She put away her phone and then made an attempt to imitate Vignette’s departure by saying, “B.Y.B.B.! Rare, out!” And with that, she ran off back to the hangar building where there was still plenty of work for her to do.

Applejack couldn’t help but let out a sigh of disappointment.

Rainbow Dash leaned close to Applejack and remarked, “Well, looks like Rarity doesn’t need us as much as you thought, so…”

“Should we practice for the parade?” asked Fluttershy worriedly. “It’s a little…” She let out a faint gasp as she was suddenly reminded of the immense size of the expected audience. “…daunting, isn’t it?”

“We know all of our songs by heart,” assured Rainbow Dash as she put an arm around Fluttershy’s shoulders. “Wouldn’t you rather go have some fun?”

“Well… I-I guess it would help keep my mind off tonight’s show,” Fluttershy hesitantly replied with a small smile.

“Awesome!” cheered Rainbow. “And I know exactly where to start. C’mon!” She pulled Fluttershy along as they both headed off into the park.

Twilight was studying her park map, then pointed at something on it as she turned to Sunset and suggested, “Let’s try this area, first. I’m curious to see what kind of things they have set up.”

“Sounds good to me,” agreed Sunset as she and Twilight began walking off into the park.

Pinkie Pie shoved her park map into her hair as she cheerfully remarked, “I dunno where I’m gonna go, but I know one thing’s for sure. I’m gonna have as much fun as possible, no matter what! WHEEEEEE!!” She then ran off into the park.

Applejack was now left standing alone at the park entrance. It just didn’t make any sense to her. Just a couple days ago, Rarity had called to invite her and the others to the park, presumably to provide some well-needed emotional support. But here, Rarity had displayed so much affection for this Vignette girl that she practically tried to make them appease her. Although she didn’t exactly have any issues of performing with her friends on the parade, she certainly didn’t appreciate how dismissive Vignette was of any of their concerns and seemed more interested in attracting the biggest audience possible. But what really stung the most was how Rarity seemed just as dismissive of her seemingly selfish behavior, but that could be excusable as a result of stress from the tight work schedule.

Regardless of all of that, Applejack still had an entire day ahead of her to spend at Equestria Land. With all of her friends already off doing their own things, she decided there was no point in moping around at the main entrance any longer. She picked up the map that had landed at her feet and opened it as she began to walk forward. Whatever was going to occur in the day that lay ahead, she would try her best to make the most of it.
> A Day of Fun
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 3
A Day of Fun


Opening day at Equestria Land was in full swing. All over the park, guests were having a blast at all the various rides and attractions. Among the most obvious of these rides was the large roller coaster at the far end of the park. This roller coaster started with a climb to the highest point on the track, followed by a steep drop and turn, a pair of vertical loops, a wide banked turn, and a few more smaller hills and drops and two more turns before returning back to the station. The track was painted in consistently short segments of all the colors of a rainbow, the train cars were shaped and painted with bright swirls to resemble clouds caught in a strong breeze, and there were large scenery boards shaped like large clouds with a hole in the middle for the coaster to pass through located at the apex of the initial climb, atop the two loops, and in the middle of the wide banked turn. For the ultimate thrill seekers visiting the park, this was the one ride they had to try.

Why did I have to go with Rainbow Dash? thought Fluttershy as she stared up at the roller coaster in terror. I should’ve known she would go straight for the biggest and scariest ride in the whole park.

While Fluttershy cowered in fear while holding her park map up in front of her face, Rainbow Dash was casually slurping a drink as she watched the train of cars run through the course of the roller coaster. “Pretty great, right?!” shouted Rainbow over the noise of the cars rattling along the track and the screaming people riding on it.

While still shuddering in fear, Futtershy was unable to understand what her friend said, so she shouted back, “What?!”

“Can you hear me over all the screaming?!” Rainbow responded.

“I can’t hear you over all the screaming!” Fluttershy shouted back. Thankfully, it was at this point where the train cars had moved on to part of the track that was further away and thus reduced the background noise near the two girls. Fluttershy remained cowering behind her park map as she muttered fearfully, “Oh, I wish I’d gone with Sunset, or Twilight, or Pinkie, or anyone else in the entire park.”

“Look at it this way,” assured Rainbow Dash. “It’s the perfect opportunity to conquer one of your greatest fears.”

The train of cars arrived at the station and came to a stop, then the riders began to climb out.

“Can’t I conquer something a little smaller first?” begged Fluttershy.

“Hey, good idea!” agreed Rainbow excitedly. “A warm-up before the big game! Oh! What did you have in mind?” She stretched out the crumpled map in Fluttershy’s hands and began pointing at some of the other rides that interested her. “Dragon Lands Drag Racing? The Appleloosa Runaway Train? Neighagara Falls Barrel Flume?”

Fluttershy shook her head at all of those suggestions. She glanced down at the map and when she noticed one ride that seemed more suitable for her level of intensity tolerance, she smiled and pointed at it on the map.





Fluttershy screamed in absolute terror as the ride made its first descent.

It was actually a kiddie roller coaster, with each individual rise and drop never exceeding the height of a minifig and each turn was comfortably wide. Riding in the dinosaur-shaped train cars were Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash in the back, Spike and Scootaloo in the middle, and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle in the front.

Once the slow-moving train leveled off, Fluttershy relaxed and remarked, “Oh, these kids are so brave.”

“You know it!” Spike proudly replied. “Believe me, after you’ve survived a ride with Pinkie Pie, you can handle just about anything else.”

Scootaloo was unamused by Spike’s boast as she rolled her eyes and grumbled, “Ugh, why are we even on one of the most boring rides in the park?”

“When Ah said we were gonna try every single ride, Ah meant it,” replied Apple Bloom.

“Except for that big roller coaster,” Sweetie Belle pointed out. “We’re too short to ride that one.”

“But hey,” assured Spike, “at least this way we can say we got to ride a roller coaster today.”

Rainbow Dash simply groaned and facepalmed.





“I must say, I’m surprised you chose to accompany me backstage,” said Rarity as she and Applejack headed towards the hangar building where preparations for the parade were well underway. “I would have naturally assumed that you would be enjoying all the festivities in the park with the rest of the girls.”

Applejack chuckled and remarked, “An’ Ah probably would’ve, but Ah came here promisin’ mahself that Ah’d support ya through whatever struggles you’re goin’ through. If there’s anythin’ ya need help with, Ah’d be more than happy to lend ya a helpin’ hand.”

“I appreciate the offer, Applejack, but I’m afraid I must politely decline,” responded Rarity. “You’re not on the payroll, and permitting unauthorized outside assistance could lead to some serious disciplinary consequences, most likely resulting in my termination.”

“Ah guess that makes sense,” said Applejack in understanding. “But Ah’m sure there ain’t any rules against havin’ a friend ‘round for moral support.”

“Technically, you are correct,” acknowledged Rarity, “though I would highly advise that you please try your best to not interfere with my work.”

“Understandable,” agreed Applejack with a nod.

Once they arrived at the building, Rarity threw open the door and proudly proclaimed, “Behold the backstage room, where all the magic for tonight’s light parade is taking place as we speak!”

Aside from an enclosed office room to the left, the entire building was one massive open room with a high ceiling. Nearly half of the building’s floor space was covered by large objects under tarps — presumably the various floats that were already completed. And scattered all over the remaining floor space were open boxes filled with either rolls of fabric or finished costumes, with various workers running back and forth as they rushed to bring everything where they needed to be.

Applejack let out a long whistle and remarked, “Wow… You’ve really got your work cut out for ya.”

As Rarity walked ahead of her friend into the building, she proudly stated, “Applejack, this parade is going to be a living, breathing dance of light and sound.”

Three assistants immediately ran over to Rarity and each held up an object; a blue top hat, a pair of purple sparkling pants, and a red shirt with gold trim.

“Love it, lock it, stitch it,” Rarity quickly listed off.

Four more assistants immediately ran over to Rarity and each held up an object; a red bowler hat, a white walking cane, a banana costume, and a pair of pink roller skates.

“Beautiful, perfect, I just threw up, love it,” Rarity quickly listed off again. “Now hurry up! I need these done yesterday!”

Despite the unease of witnessing Rarity’s impatience, Applejack smiled and said, “You were born for this, Rarity. Still sure there’s nothin’ Ah can do to help?”

“I suppose you could try your best to play a great show tonight,” replied Rarity. “As pleased as I am that I managed to arrange for our band to be included, it’s still a last-minute addition I hadn’t quite accounted for. That reminds me, I’ll need to determine which float we’ll be performing on so I can have the set builders make some quick modifications.”

“Ah’m sure you’ll figure it out,” assured Applejack.

Rarity glanced around and her attention suddenly focused on one of the performers currently dressed up in a costume that resembled some kind of sea serpent. “Excuse me!” she scolded. “I know I am not seeing a lapped zipper on that faux fur!”

“Is that a problem?” asked the performer, his voice muffled by the mask over his head.

“A lapped zipper is simply a stuck zipper waiting to happen!” Rarity sharply replied.

“Well, we’re doing this only once, right?” asked the performer in the sea serpent costume. “Can’t I just tear this thing off when we’re done?”

Rarity immediately gasped as if she had just heard something very highly offensive. “Over my shattered pieces!” she furiously shouted. She then snapped her hand and called out, “You there! Help this nincompoop out of his costume so I can make proper adjustments!”

One of the assistants quickly rushed over to the costumed performer.

Rarity facepalmed and grumbled, “Ugh! This is what I’m up against.” She then walked over to another group of assistants gathered together nearby.

Seeing Rarity’s stressed behavior, Applejack spoke up, “So, uh… wanna take a break an’ go get a caramel apple?”

“I’d love to, darling, but I am a tad super-insanely busy,” replied Rarity with a nervous giggle. She didn’t even bother glancing at Applejack and instead had her attention focused on the things the assistants were holding out to her. She inspected a red and yellow striped scarf and dismissed the assistant holding it, she carelessly discarded two sketches and dismissed the assistant holding the third and only one remaining, and she slapped a pirate hat with a yellow feather out of the hands of another assistant.

Applejack held up her hands and politely responded, “Oh, of course ya are. Ah just thought…” She sighed and added in disappointment, “Uh, never mind. You’re right. Ah wouldn’t wanna rain on your parade.”

“Rain?!” Rarity suddenly exclaimed in shock. “I didn’t plan for rain!” She immediately grabbed the nearest assistant within reach and shoved him forward as she shouted, “Get me one hundred ponchos, stat!”

“Ah was speakin’ metaphorically,” Applejack pointed out irritably. “An’ when Ah checked early this mornin’, the weather forecast was callin’ for clear skies tonight.”

“One never knows, darling,” Rarity emphasized as she walked off to check on progress elsewhere in the building. “One never knows.”

Applejack sighed in disappointment, then turned away and began walking towards the door out of the building. “An’ here Ah was hopin’ to spend some time with one of mah best friends…” she muttered sadly to herself.





After riding the kiddie roller coaster, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy returned to the big roller coaster. Despite Fluttershy’s obvious fear, she knew she promised Rainbow Dash that after the small one, they would both ride the big one together. As much as Fluttershy didn’t like it, she was willing to face it because what mattered most to her was spending the day with one of her best friends, and if this was something Rainbow Dash wanted to do, then they would do it together.

Naturally, Rainbow Dash chose to ride in the front car, leaving a very reluctant Fluttershy to climb into the seat beside her. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” assured Rainbow Dash. “And even if the worst happens…” She pulled out a small paper bag and handed it over to Fluttershy. “I got ya covered.”

Fluttershy hesitantly took the offered bag. Understanding what it was intended for, she gulped nervously and shoved it into her pocket.

It wasn’t long before four more people climbed into the two remaining cars. With the ride now full of passengers and the lap bars lowered into place over their legs, the train was released from the station and slowly rolled forward until it latched onto the mechanism that would lift it all the way to the top of the highest point on the track.

Halfway up the climb, Fluttershy was noticeably shivering in fear, so Rainbow Dash spoke up, “I’m proud of you, you know that? You’re facing your fears head-on, just like I always did as a kid. I mean, look, a four-hundred-brick drop right into these loop-de-loops and a corkscrew?”

Rainbow glanced over the side of the car to look down at the track ahead, and very quickly got hit with a sense of vertigo. She immediately sat back in her seat with a stunned look on her face. In an attempt to not show her own nervousness to her friend, she continued with forced confidence, “You’re probably super-nervous about that, I bet. And that next part where it goes backwards? Uh, how are you feeling, Fluttershy?”

By this point, Fluttershy had shut her eyes tight and held a very strong grip onto the lap bar in front of her. She was so terrified that she didn’t dare utter anything at all.

Rainbow’s confidence grew even more fragile as she watched a seagull fly right beside the gradually rising train of cars. She turned to Fluttershy and continued more nervously, “Is it even safe to be this high up? You’re probably thinking, ‘Stop the ride! I wanna get off!’ That’s what you want, right? Right now? You’re about to yell it?” As the train of cars finally reached the apex of the climb, Rainbow completely lost it and shrieked in terror, “Stop the ride! Seriously! Please! Somebody stop the ride! STOP THE RIIIIIIDE!!”

The train of cars plunged over the first drop, then rushed along the tracks through the double loops, around the corkscrew turn, then rose and fell a few times before going around a banked turn, some more climbs and drops, then one more wide turn before finally slowing to a stop at the station. By the time the ride was over, Rainbow Dash was shaking in her seat and her face had faintly turned a shade of green, while Fluttershy seemed more relaxed and was actually smiling.

Once the ride was over and the lap bars lifted away, Fluttershy climbed out on her own, while Rainbow Dash had to be assisted out by the ride’s operator. The two girls then walked away from the ride through the cloud-themed entryway, with Rainbow Dash wobbling in an unsteady balance with every step.

After the two girls passed through the entryway and stopped not far in front of it, Fluttershy remarked with a giggle, “That was actually kind of… fun.”

Rainbow Dash forced a smile and bluffed, “Totally! That’s why I didn’t wanna get off! I was just saying what you would’ve said, that’s all.” She suddenly wobbled and began to fall over, but Fluttershy quickly caught her and held her upright.

Fluttershy gave her friend a sly look and politely remarked, “You were very brave.”

Rainbow smirked and responded, “You too… by the way.” She let go of Fluttershy and managed to take a step back before she suddenly started to gag.

With that knowing smile still on her face, Fluttershy pulled the small paper bag out of her pocket and held it out to Rainbow.

It was not difficult for Rainbow Dash to see the irony of this moment, but in her current condition, she was not about to make any arguments. “Th-thanks…” muttered Rainbow as she grabbed the offered bag. She then turned around, pressed the bag’s opening against her mouth, and began retching into the bag.

Fluttershy sighed and rolled her eyes, but then she heard a ping from her phone and felt it vibrate in her pocket. She took it out and read the text she had just received.

By the time Rainbow was sure her nausea had passed, she turned back to her friend and asked, “What is it?”

“It’s from Vignette,” replied Fluttershy as she put away her phone. “She wants to speak with me one-on-one about our show tonight.”

“In that case, go on ahead,” said Rainbow as she crumpled the opening of the barf bag and tossed it into the nearest trashcan. “We already know what we’re gonna do, so just tell her we’re all set for tonight.”

Fluttershy nodded in agreement, then began to walk away as she said, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“No need to rush,” assured Rainbow. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be ready for another go whenever you are.”

Once Fluttershy had walked away, Rainbow wobbled over to the nearest bench and sat down. As much as she wanted to prove she wasn’t scared of any of the big thrill rides in the park, she secretly dreaded the thought of going on that insane roller coaster one more time.





Meanwhile, Sunset and Twilight were exploring the other end of the park, where all the various concession stands and carnival games had been set up. On one side were the stands and carts that served all the usual amusement park food such as cotton candy, corndogs, slush drinks, and funnel cakes. On the other side were the booths that held all kinds of various carnival games such as a ring toss, a pyramid of bottles, a wall of balloons, a basketball hoop, a gallery of targets, and a strength-testing tower and bell — all of which were surrounded by various stuffed animals being offered as prizes.

Twilight and Sunset were sharing a box of fries as they walked around the game booths, curious to see what kind of fun activities were being offered. As they reached the end of one row of booths, they both suddenly stopped as they recognized that booth was being operated by a familiar pair of minifigs with yellow skin, red and white hair, and one with a mustache on his face.

“Step right up! Don’t be shy!” called out the one without a mustache.

“You like prizes? We got prizes!” continued the one with the mustache.

“Toss this ring onto any one of these bottles!” challenged the first guy as he demonstrated the game by casually flinging a green ring towards a table completely covered in large upright bottles, where the ring landed perfectly onto the neck of one of those brown bottles.

“Easiest game in the park!” finished the other guy.

“Flim and Flam?” asked Twilight as she approached their booth. “What you doing here? Aren’t you still running that business selling Lego parts in the Steampunk Region?”

The two brothers turned to Twilight and smiled. “Well, if it isn’t our old loyal customer, Twilight Sparkle!” greeted Flim.

“A real pleasure to see you again after the Shadowbolts were disbanded,” added Flam.

“And to answer your questions,” continued Flim, “while normally we would be operating our Pick-A-Brick distribution warehouse, we’ve been forced to close it down for the next few weeks due to extensive repairs.”

“Who knew a burst steam pipe could cause that much damage?” remarked Flam with a shrug.

“As you might expect,” continued Flim, “this unfortunate disaster has left us without our usual daily occupation or means of income.”

“But when we heard about the numerous job offerings with the opening of Equestria Land,” continued Flam, “we knew that this was just the opportunity we needed to help us get through these hard times.”

“And seeing as you’re here and we have a job to do, care to give our ring toss game a try?” asked Flim as he offered one of the green rings to Twilight.

“For a dear friend like you, the first toss will be on the house!” added Flam.

Twilight glanced over at the bottles, then smiled and replied, “This game does look easy, and a free trial run is hard to resist.”

Sunset set the box of fries she was carrying down on the booth’s counter as she suddenly grabbed Twilight by the shoulder and spun her around so they were both facing away from Flim and Flam, then quietly cautioned, “Twilight, they’re just giving you the old bump-and-tingle to lure you in. These games are rigged.”

“Slanderous!” exclaimed Flim, sounding offended.

“Libelous!” exclaimed Flam in a similar tone.

Sunset frowned and rolled her eyes at their over-the-top antics.

“Do you know what’s not rigged?” explained Twilight with a smile as she adjusted her glasses. “The laws of physics. Assuming no air resistance and a vertical displacement of zero, horizontal displacement equals initial projectile velocity squared times the sine of twice the launch angle divided by the acceleration due to gravity.”

Sunset stared at Twilight with a blank expression and blinked once.

“Wow!” remarked Flim with enthusiasm. “Now there’s somebody who knows a thing or two about a thing or two!”

“But actions speak louder than words, so let’s see if you can put your money where your mouth is,” stated Flam as he handed one of the rings over to Twilight.

“Gladly,” declared Twilight proudly as she grabbed the ring and held it up towards the bottles. She took her time to get her aim just right, and once she was confident she had the ideal trajectory, she tossed the ring. The ring hooked onto the neck of one of the bottles and ended up rapidly spinning around it, but not yet quite landing as required to win.

“Oh, the suspense!” shouted Flim dramatically.

“The drama!” shouted Flam in a similar tone.

“I can’t watch!”

“Hold me!”

The two brothers hugged each other tightly and shuddered in mock fear.

Twilight and Sunset watched eagerly as the ring continued spinning around the neck of that bottle. The spinning ring soon began to slow down, but just as it seemed it would finally land, it suddenly bounced right off the bottle and landed on the ground. Twilight’s jaw dropped, then she groaned in frustration and pounded the booth’s counter.

“You were pretty close, though,” assured Sunset with a smile. “Maybe we could try just one more time?”

Twilight smiled back at Sunset and nodded. “Totally worth another shot,” she said in agreement. “And seeing as I’ve used up my free first toss…” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a strip of tickets. “I’ll need to use some of these.”

Flim and Flam turned to each other, smiled slyly, and gave each other a light fist-bump.





Not far away, Applejack had wandered aimlessly though the park to end up near some of the concession stands. As she walked, she stared at the park map in her hands, occasionally turning the map around and scratching the back of her head in confusion. Eventually, she let out a huff of frustration and sloppily folded up her map and shoved it in her pocket. “This place sure ain’t much fun without a friend by mah side,” she grumbled.

“Apples! Caramel apples over here!” called out a guy from one of the nearby concession stands. “We’ve got red and green and everything in between!”

Applejack froze on the spot as she realized she recognized that voice. She turned to where it came from and saw a stand that seemed to be serving caramel apples. It briefly occurred to her that, had she and Rarity gotten the jobs they had originally applied for, this was where they would’ve been working. But what really caught her attention at this moment was seeing a rather familiar face standing behind the service counter. “Micro Chips?” she asked in confusion as she approached the caramel apple stand.

Instead of his standard clothes, Micro Chips had dark green on his legs, pale green on his torso and upper arms, a red bowtie piece around his neck, and printed on his torso were brown suspenders and apples all over the shirt. The lavender guy with blue hair and black glasses turned to the approaching apple farmer and offered, “Caramel apple?”

“Uh, Ah’m Applejack,” said Appelajck. “Caramel Apple is the name of one of mah cousins.”

“I wasn’t trying to identify you by name,” clarified Micro Chips. “I was offering to sell you one of these delicious caramel apples.”

“So you’re who they hired to be the caramel apple… girl?” asked Applejack. “Ah thought you were one of those tech specialists who work for the LEGO Team.”

“That and being one of the core members of the reserve team who are called in whenever you and your friends are unavailable,” acknowledged Micro Chips. “Originally, I came here to offer my tech skills when I heard they would have a server room on the park grounds. But before I got a chance to inspect whatever they had set up, Vignette Valencia came over and offered me this job for the summer, claiming that she was looking for ‘cool nerd chic’. Not exactly my area of expertise, but how could I resist an opportunity to look cool in front of everyone?”

Micro Chips decided to smugly demonstrate his coolness as he dipped an apple on a stick into a vat of caramel. But when he tried to pull the apple out, that batch of caramel proved to be a little too sticky. He struggled to pull the apple free, and when that sticky caramel finally snapped off, the force of achieving that was enough to throw him back into one of the other caramel apples on display and end up with it stuck on his arm. As he then struggled to pull that caramel apple off his arm, he stumbled backwards into some more caramel apples on display.

Applejack couldn’t help but flinch and cringe as she watched Micro Chips become increasingly entangled with caramel and getting apples on sticks stuck all over his body.

Eventually, Micro Chips stopped struggling, sighed in defeat, and reluctantly asked, “Do you by any chance have a knife or samurai sword or several tiny but very sharp nail clippers?”

Applejack facepalmed at the epic fail she had just witnessed. She was about to say something when she faintly heard a familiar voice in the distance. She glanced back and saw Vignette walking with Fluttershy towards the candy-themed attraction. She was suddenly curious about what they were discussing and wanted to follow them, but the sound of a thud brought her attention back to Micro Chips, who had now disappeared behind the counter.

“And now I’m stuck to the ground,” muttered Micro Chips.

Applejack sighed and grumbled, “Lucky for you Ah always carry a pocketknife.” She then hopped over the counter and began to help free the nerd entrapped in caramel.





Meanwhile, the conversation continued between Vignette and Fluttershy as they walked behind the giant candy structure with a tunnel through the middle. Vignette excitedly continued, “I know what you’re thinking. ‘But, Vignette, how can I ever thank you for coming up with such a brilliant idea for the parade?’”

“Actually, I’m thinking more along the lines of ‘I don’t understand,’” responded Fluttershy hesitantly. “You want me to pretend I’m someone else tonight? No offense, but if you’re advertising the Rainbooms as the main attraction of the parade, wouldn’t it make sense to just let us do what we normally do? I mean, that’s what everyone will be expecting from us.”

Vignette scoffed and replied, “Expected is boring! If we’re really gonna wow the crowd, what we need is something totally new and never before seen. Everyone in the band has a new role. It’s part of my bold, new, vision! All caps, Helvetica, sixty-five. For you, you’ll be ‘Fluttershy: Bad Girl’!”

Fluttershy froze in shock at that suggestion. She was already hesitant enough to perform in front of a massive crowd, but to do so in an image she was completely uncomfortable with was downright paralyzing to her.

“Spiked hair, ripped tights,” continued Vignetted, oblivious to Fluttershy’s reaction. “I’ve already commissioned and A-list graffiti-slash-sneaker artist to tag up a custom guitar for you to play. How do you feel about skulls?”

Fluttershy’s shocked stance and stare had remained unchanged. In her view, there were so many things completely wrong with that entire description that she had no idea how to even react.

“B.Y.B.B.” insisted Vignette.

Fluttershy thought of many ways to respond. She could’ve told her that none of her friends would ever approve of that. She could’ve told her that she can’t force such a drastic change on someone and already make plans without her permission. She could’ve told her that she should better recognize the “be yourself” part of her philosophy before coming up with such wildly out there ideas. But, being the kind and shy girl she was, Fluttershy nervously responded, “Uh, maybe I, um… shouldn’t do it. Like… at all.”

Vignette immediately frowned. She was so convinced that her ideas were the best thing ever that she couldn’t believe that one of the performers would refuse to give it a full endorsement. She glanced down at her magically enhanced phone in her hands, then smiled as she came up with a new plan to make things much easier. “You’re right,” she said contently. “If collab-ing isn’t your thing, that’s your life decision to make. But I just thought of a way for us both to get exactly what we want.”

“You did?” asked Fluttershy, now starting to feel a little more optimistic.

“Of course!” declared Vignette. “Getting what I want is what I do best, sweetie.” She then held up her phone and pointed it at Fluttershy. “Now say ‘Cheese!’”

Fluttershy’s expression turned to confusion just before Vignette took a picture of her. This quickly transformed Fluttershy into a holographic image which was then pulled into the phone and vanished.

“Sorry, Fluttershy,” remarked Vignette with no remorse at all. “You’ll thank me later.”





In a featureless white area, the holographic image of Fluttershy suddenly materialized and transformed her back into a regular minifig. She glanced around in confusion and worriedly called out, “Um, excuse me? Vignette?” She hesitantly took a few steps forward. “Where am I?”

“Huh? Wha…?”

Fluttershy immediately spun around to see what appeared to be some kind of security guard sitting on the ground, who seemingly had just woken up from a nap.

“Aw, man,” groaned the tired security guard. “Am I ever gonna wake up from this weird dream?”

Fluttershy uneasily replied, “Uh, I’m afraid this isn’t a dream, mister…”

“Cranky Doodle,” replied the security guard. “And what makes you so sure I’m not dreaming?”

“Well, my friend Pinkie Pie says subjecting yourself to pain is a good way to know for sure,” replied Fluttershy. “Not that I’d want to hurt you in any way.”

Cranky shrugged and decided to test the theory by placing his hand under his rear and sitting down on it. “Ow!” he shouted as pulled his hand out from under his butt. After shrugging off the crushing pain in that hand, he asked, “So if this isn’t a dream, what exactly happened to us?”

“I don’t know for sure,” replied Fluttershy as she stared down at her feet. “I was just talking with Vignette Valencia when she suddenly decided to take a picture of me with her phone, and then… I’m suddenly right here.”

Cranky crossed his arms and grumbled, “Next time I see her, I’ll be sure to have a word with her about this.”

Fluttershy hesitantly asked, “Um, if you don’t mind me asking… how long have you been here?”

Cranky shrugged and asked, “When’s opening day for Equestria Land?”

“That’s today,” replied Fluttershy.

“Then I’ve been stuck in this weird place for two days now,” stated Cranky in a resigned tone. After a brief pause, he looked up at Fluttershy and asked, “Do you have any snacks with you? I considered trying that stress salad over there, but, well… I don’t wanna take my chances on something that’s been sitting around for so long.”

Fluttershy glanced around and soon found the salad bowl Cranky was referring to. She walked over to it and saw that the salad inside had indeed started going bad from sitting around for likely many days. She sighed and sadly remarked, “I sure wish it was still fresh. I’m feeling stressed right now…”
> Strange Disappearances
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 4
Strange Disappearances


After helping Micro Chips out of a rather sticky situation, Applejack was curious to find out what Vignette had been discussing with Fluttershy. She was unable to find either of them after wandering around for half an hour, so she decided to try calling Fluttershy to see if they could meet up somewhere, but every attempt to call her ended up going to voicemail. Now getting a little concerned, she decided her best chance of finding Fluttershy was to find Vignette, but although she had no idea where to find the park’s PR manager, she was confident her friend Rarity would know where she would likely be. And thankfully for Applejack, she knew exactly where to find the fashionista.

Applejack walked over to the massive hangar and stepped through the regular doorway into the building. She glanced around at the numerous floats being assembled — brick by brick by the workers wearing hardhats and orange safety vests. None of the numerous people moving around seemed to mind her presence, so she walked forward through the middle of the hangar as she continued to glance around for any sign of her friend.

At the other end of the building, Rarity was on a western themed float as she put the final touches on a cowboy costume that one of the performers was already wearing. “And… finished!” she declared with satisfaction. She then reached over to pick up an electric plug. “Let there be light!” She then connected the plug.

The cowboy costume became illuminated with dozens of little decorative lights all over it, and the performer wearing it gave Rarity a smile of approval.

Rarity let out a sigh of relief and remarked, “Maybe tonight won’t be a disaster after all.”

BZZZZTT!

The lights suddenly short circuited, shutting off the lights and electrocuting the performer, who twitched and jerked uncontrollably for a few seconds before he collapsed on his back. As wisps of black smoke began to rise from the ruined costume, one assistant quickly rushed in with a bucket of water and dumped it over the fallen performer. This attempt to mitigate a fire hazard only resulted in further jolting for the unfortunate performer. Once the electric current stopped coursing through the ruined costume, the performer on the floor weakly said, “I’m okay.”

Confirmation that the performer was not seriously hurt did little to ease Rarity’s nerves. After witnessing the latest in a series of minor things not quite going according to plan, she was on the verge of completely losing it. Summoning what little sanity she had left, she calmly told all the people around her, “Will you, uh, excuse me for a moment?”

As a few assistants tended to the electrocuted performer and his ruined outfit, Rarity walked in a dignified manner towards a nearby large pile of clothes, then promptly collapsed face-first into the pile and started shouting and thrashing her limbs around furiously. The clothes muffled her shouts enough that no one could understand what she was saying, but her body language was enough to convince all the nearby assistants to back away from her at once.

Applejack happened to be passing by when she heard the muffled wailing of Rarity, so she walked over to her friend and greeted, “Hey, Rarity. How’s—?”

Rarity suddenly leaped off the pile of clothes and furiously shouted, “I wasn’t having a meltdown! Who said I was having a meltdown?! I AM NOT HAVING A MELTDOWN!!”

“Whoa, easy there,” Applejack carefully responded. “Ah, uh, just came by to ask if ya seen Fluttershy ‘round here lately. See, she went wanderin’ off with Vignette an’ then just disappeared.”

Rarity glared at Applejack and asked, “Are you honestly asking me this right now?”

“Oh, it’s not that Ah don’t trust Vignette, if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” assured Applejack.

“We’re in a giant fun park with fifty thousand people,” scolded Rarity. “Of course you can’t find her.” She then suddenly gasped and worriedly muttered, “Fifty thousand people… all looking at my costumes!”

“Are you seriously not concerned about Fluttershy?” asked Applejack in disbelief. “She’s one of our closest friends!”

“That’s a hundred thousand individual eyes,” Rarity continued muttering fearfully. “And that doesn’t take into account any one-eyed pirates or three-eyed aliens…”

“Fine!” declared Applejack in frustration. “If you ain’t gonna worry ‘bout her, then Ah’ll just have to track her down mahself! An’ when Ah find her, Ah’ll be sure to let her know that ya don’t even care about her one bit!” She then turned away and stormed off back towards the door out the front of the building.

Rarity had apparently not reacted at all to any of what Applejack had shouted back at her. Instead, she remained petrified in terror for a few more seconds before she suddenly hollered, “SOMEBODY GET ME A BIGGER PILE OF CLOTHES TO SCREAM INTO!!”

BEEP… BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…

A small truck slowly backed up towards Rarity, then stopped and tipped its bed back to dump a much bigger pile of clothes right on top of her.

“Ugh, ask and you shall receive…” came Rarity’s muffled response from under the pile.





At the ring toss booth, Sunset tossed another ring towards the bottles. The ring hooked around the neck of one of the bottles, spun around it for a second, then bounced right off the bottle. “Come on!” she shouted furiously as she slammed her fists against the counter.

After yet another failure, Twilight opened a notebook she had been carrying around and began frantically scribbling ideas and calculations on its pages.

Meanwhile, Flim counted up the tickets from the small pile they had collected from Twilight and Sunset, then turned to Flam. Flam used a calculator to crunch the numbers, then turned to his brother and smiled, who then smiled back at him.

Sunset growled in frustration, then turned to Twilight and firmly asked, “All right, what’s next? What are we doing? How are we going to win this?!”

Twilight continued scribbling in her notebook for a few more seconds, then smiled as she turned to the brothers in the booth and boasted, “Guess who just mapped out a perfect projectile trajectory taking into account propulsion, gravity, and aerodynamic drag? This gal! Betcha thought I forgot about friction, air drag, and veering initial velocities. Well, guess what? I didn’t!”

Flim and Flam stared at Twilight with dumbstruck looks on their faces.

“What she said!” insisted Sunset as she held out another bunch of tickets to go for yet another round.

The brothers glanced at each other and shrugged with smiles on their faces.

“You know what they say…” began Flim.

“…hundredth time’s the charm,” finished Flam.

When the tickets and rings were exchanged once more, Sunset picked up one of the rings and held it up. She allowed Twilight to make all the subtle adjustments to her aim and posture to hopefully ensure the highest probable chance of achieving the elusive winning shot. Once Twilight was confident everything was as close to perfection as physically possible, she smiled and nodded at Sunset. With that gesture of confirmation, Sunset swung her arm back and prepared to make the toss.

“Howdy, y’all!”

Applejack’s sudden arrival behind their backs startled Twilight and Sunset, causing Sunset to fling the ring way off course. The ring flew over the booth, bounced off the bell atop the high striker, deflected off the frame of another booth, and finally slammed into an ice cream sundae on a table between a mother and young boy. The ice cream splattered all over the boy, who then began to cry loudly. “Just when I finally got him to calm down…” grumbled the mother.

With their latest toss totally wasted, Twilight and Sunset both glared back at their friend and furiously shouted, “Applejack!”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to throw off your game,” said Applejack as she defensively held up her hands. She then lowered her hands and continued, “Ah was just wonderin’ if either of ya have seen Fluttershy. It’s been hours since Ah last saw her, an’ her phone’s goin’ straight to voicemail. I keep thinkin’ somethin’ real bad might’ve happened.”

Sunset took a deep breath to calm herself, then assured her friend, “Lighten up, Applejack. There’s not always a villain with Equestrian magic out to get us. If it makes you feel better, I promise I’ll text you right away if Twilight or I see any sign of Fluttershy.”

“Thanks, Sunset,” said Applejack with a smile. “Good to know that even in the heat of whatever ya got goin’ on here, y’all still care about one of our close friends.” She then sourly grumbled under her breath, “Unlike a certain other friend of ours.”

“On a side note,” Twilight spoke up, “do you have any tickets we can borrow? We’re kinda starting to run low.”

Applejack glanced past her friends to see Flim and Flam dumping a large pile of tickets into a large sack. When they noticed the apple farmer watching them, Flam quickly hid the sack behind his back while he and his brother whistled innocently and glanced away from her gaze.

Applejack rolled her eyes as she reached into her pocket and pulled out many strips of tickets. “Here, take ‘em all,” she muttered as she handed over the tickets. “Not like Ah’m gonna be usin’ ‘em, anyway.”

Sunset and Twilight both smiled as they took the tickets from Applejack. Sunset then clenched her fists around the tickets in her hands and firmly stated, “I don’t like to lose.” She then turned around and slapped those tickets down onto the counter.

Applejack didn’t say a word as she shook her head in disapproval and then walked away.

Sunset once again picked up one of the rings, but before she made another attempt to toss it, she paused and glanced back at Applejack waking away. Then in a swift series of moves, she set down the ring, opened Twilight’s notebook, and pulled Twilight close to her and held up the opened notebook so Flim and Flam couldn’t see their faces. “Spike once told me you secretly put tracking devices in our phones,” whispered Sunset. “Do you think you can use that to find Fluttershy?”

Twilight’s eyes widened in shock as she quietly asked, “When did he tell you about that?”

“Juniper Montage,” stated Sunset.

“Right, when we all got pulled into that magic mirror,” muttered Twilight.

“He called me when the signals from all of your phones vanished because of that,” explained Sunset. “I doubt anything similar happened to Fluttershy today, but if you have a way to be sure of that, I don’t see any reason not to.”

“Unfortunately, I hadn’t anticipated a need for it today,” explained Twilight. “The system is currently switched off, and since Spike came here to the park with us, I can’t ask him to simply go into my lab and switch it back on.” She then pulled out her phone. “I could remotely activate and then access it, but I’m afraid it may take some time to set everything up.”

Sunset set down the notebook and spoke up, “The way things have been going here, I’d say we’ve got plenty of time.” She then picked up the green ring again and went back to preparing her next toss attempt.





Near the roller coaster at the far side of the park, Rainbow Dash had long since recovered from her nausea after her first — and so far only — ride on the roller coaster, but that did little to ease her nerves. She was practically frozen in terror as she watched the train of cars rush along the track once again. Without any of her friends around, she was already building up a sweat as she nervously glanced around for any excuse for a distraction. She soon got just what she needed when she saw her friend Applejack approaching.

“Hey, Applejack!” greeted Rainbow Dash enthusiastically. There was subtle hesitation in her voice as she continued, “I was just about to ride this thing for, like, the tenth time already!”

A red-haired little girl standing next to Rainbow Dash coughed intentionally with a look of disbelief on her face.

Rainbow quickly shushed the little girl and harshly whispered, “Not a word outta you!”

The little girl rolled her eyes and walked away.

“Right…” muttered Applejack. As much as she would normally welcome the opportunity to taunt Rainbow for her hypocrisy, she had more important issues to deal with right now, so she spoke up, “Anyway, Ah was just wonderin’ if you’ve seen Fluttershy anywhere.”

“Oh, she was with me,” explained Rainbow Dash, “super scared of this ride, but she got a text from Vignette and went off to have a little chat with her.”

“An’ she hasn’t come back yet?” asked Applejack.

“Now that you mention it,” replied Rainbow, “she did promise she would be back as soon as possible. I dunno how long I’ve been waiting here, but I trust her to keep her word.”

“Well, if she does show up, Ah guess she’ll most likely try to find ya right here,” acknowledged Applejack. “Just be sure to let me know if she shows up, alright?”

“Sure thing,” assured Rainbow with a smile.

Applejack responded with a smile and a nod, then turned and began walking away.

Rainbow Dash then quickly called out to her friend, “Oh! And if you see her first, tell her she still owes me a roller coaster ride!” She turned her attention back to the roller coaster and gulped nervously as she watched it rush along the tracks once again.

Less than a minute later, Rainbow heard a ping from her phone and felt it vibrate in her pocket. She took it out and read the text she had just received. When she noticed it was from Vignette, she shrugged and remarked, “I guess I could just ask her directly where Fluttershy went.” She put her phone back in her pocket and began walking towards the hangar building where Vignette wanted to talk with her.

Now that Rainbow actually had a good reason to get away from that terrifying roller coaster, she was already starting to feel much better — not that she would ever admit it to any of her friends, of course.





Applejack continued wandering around the park, trying to search for Fluttershy in all the places she had not yet checked. As she walked beside the bumper cars, she continued reading the slightly crumpled map in her hands in an effort to figure out where she should go next. Suddenly, a sharp whistle from someone startled Applejack and caused her to nearly drop her map, only to have it suddenly yanked out of her hands by Pinkie Pie.

“No frowning allowed!” Pinkie firmly declared right in Applejack’s face. Instead of her usual outfit, Pinkie now had dark blue on her legs, pale green on her left arm and the left half of her torso, pale yellow on her right arm and the right half of her torso, and an oversized pale green cap on top of her hair piece, with all of those things covered in various brown stains and the occasional bit of refuse. She also had what appeared to be a pair of macaroni art badges, one on the left front of her torso and the other on the front of her big cap.

“Uh… what?” muttered Applejack in confusion.

Pinkie continued to stare hard at Applejack. As she then crumpled the map and tossed it over her shoulder into a trashcan, she stated in a serious tone, “As ‘Fun Inspector’, I’m a little concerned about what I’m seeing here.” She waved her hand in front of Applejack’s face, but then her oversized hat slipped down to cover her eyes.

“Pinkie Pie?” asked Applejack. “Don’t tell me you’re workin’ for the park now, too.”

Pinkie pushed her hat back up as she giggled and replied cheerfully, “No, silly! Fun Inspectors are freelance! And don’t get paid! And totally made up by me earlier today when I saw a little girl crying because she dropped her ice cream, and I said to myself, ‘Pinkie Pie, this place isn’t as fun as it could be!’” After all of the wild gestures she made as she spoke, her oversized hat slipped down over her eyes again.

“Uh, Ah’m pretty sure the people who actually work here won’t take kindly to seein’ some fake official runnin’ around the park,” Applejack pointed out carefully. “Especially since ya look like ya just went dumpster divin’.”

Pinkie pushed her hat back up again and blissfully continued, “I see you noticed my official Fun Inspector uniform. I made it out of things I found in that dumpster behind the hangar, but you can’t even tell the difference! If anything, Rarity might’ve handled this stuff before she decided to let it go, so I decided to give it a better purpose, just like me!” She then casually reached behind her rear, ripped off a dirty lollipop that had been stuck to the back of her pants, and began to bring it towards her mouth.

Applejack immediately slapped the filthy treat out of Pinkie’s hand, then took a breath to calm herself and said, “Look, Pinkie, Ah don’t have time for this nonsense. Quite frankly, the only thing that could make me happy right now is if ya happen to know where Fluttershy is.”

With a smile still on her face, Pinkie shrugged and replied, “Sorry, can’t help you on that one. But I do know where to find my new Deputy Fun Inspector. And she’s right here!” She swiftly pulled out another macaroni art badge and slapped it onto Applejack’s chest. “Ta-da! Now you have full access to the entire park, Deputy Fun Inspector!”

Applejack glanced down at the handmade badge, then took it off and irritably stated, “Pinkie, ya don’t have the authority to gimme that kind of authority. It don’t work like that.”

Pinkie quickly snatched the badge out of Applejack’s hand and slapped it back on her chest. “You said you wanted a job in this park, and I’m giving it to you!” insisted Pinkie. “No give-backsies!” She then turned Applejack around and shoved her away. “Now go start fun inspecting over by the ferris wheel! I’ll cover the concession stands!” She then turned and began happily skipping away.

Applejack glanced back at Pinkie, then shook her head and muttered, “Ah guess it’s just one of those days for Pinkie.” Having asked all of her friends and now without a map of the park, she decided to just go on ahead towards the ferris wheel.





Back at the ring toss booth, it was all more of the same for Twilight and Sunset. They had made numerous attempts to toss any of the rings onto any of the bottlenecks, and still they had zero successful hits.

After making the usual exchange of tickets for rings, Sunset turned to Twilight and said with determination, “All right… we’ve tried frisbee style… we’ve tried the straight launcher… we’ve tried the slinger toss… we’ve tried the boomerang… we’ve tried high lobbing… we’ve tried the pincer move… we’ve tried the flying saucer… what’s our next tactic?”

Twilight flipped through her notebook past all those failed strategies. When she reached a page that had not yet been crossed out, she smiled and pointed at the diagram she had drawn as she proudly stated, “Hwacha method!”

Sunset quickly studied the diagram and concluded, “So just throw a whole bunch of ‘em at once? Worth a shot.” She gathered up all of the available rings on the counter and barely managed to grasp them all at once in her hands. “This one’s gotta work. This one has to work!” Despite her awkward grip on the projectiles, she made sure to aim for the center of the table to maximize their chances of getting at least one ring to land successfully. Once she was sure her aim was perfect, she made the massive toss.

The big clump of rings did hit the middle of the set of bottles as hoped for, but somehow, every single one of those rings managed to bounce away and land on the ground.

Off to the side, Flim and Flam had long since lost all enthusiasm.

“Oh, wow,” muttered Flim in a bored tone.

“So close,” added Flam in a similar tone.

Sunset and Twilight both stared in disbelief at their latest failure. They both groaned at they turned away and slid down against the side of the counter until their rears hit the ground.

“I feel like my hands are about to fall off,” moaned Sunset. Sure enough, both of her hands slid out of their sockets in her arms and clattered on the ground.

Twilight flipped through all the pages of her notebook again and again. From front to back, the clean and precise scientific charts and diagrams gradually gave way to sloppy sketches and doodles. “It all looks the same…” mumbled Twilight, sounding almost delirious. “Is this real life…? How long have we been here…?”

While the two girls had slumped from endless failure, the two brothers took a moment to observe some other park guests and noticed how some seemed to be steering clear of their ring toss booth. Flim turned to his brother and whispered, “I highly suggest for everyone’s sake that we put an end to this right away. If they continue like this, not only will it be bad for them, but it will also give everyone else the impression this game is completely impossible and therefore not worth their time and money.”

“Indeed,” agreed Flam quietly. “We’ve made a fortune off them already, but there’s only so much you can make off of a single customer.” He reached up towards the displayed prizes and took down a large stuffed parakeet. “It’s time to move them along and let someone else give it a go.”

The brothers leaned over the counter to look down at the two girls. “Uh, hey, listen, girls,” Flim spoke up. “We applaud you for a level of persistence we rarely see in anyone.”

“And we’ve agreed that you at least deserve a reward for your impressive efforts,” added Flam in sympathy. “How about you just take this parakeet and go home?”

Sunset immediately stood up and suddenly smacked the stuffed parakeet out of Flam’s hands as she furiously shouted, “IT’S NOT ABOUT THE PARAKEET!!”

The stuffed parakeet flew through the air and ended up right in the hands of the very same young boy who had been splattered with ice cream earlier. As the little boy smiled and hugged the giant stuffed animal, his mother silently decided to let him keep it rather than return it from where it was lost, justifying it as a good deed from those girls to make up for what had happened earlier.

With her hands still missing, Sunset scraped her arms across the counter until she managed to loop one of the rings around her left wrist. “I don’t care if I have to fling it off the stubs of my arms!” she furiously declared. “I AM GONNA WIN THIS!!”

Twilight quickly gathered up Sunset’s hands and stood up as she protested, “Sunset, stop! This has gone far enough!” She grasped Sunset’s right arm and reattached one of her hands to it. “You said it yourself at the start of this whole mess. These games are rigged.” Sunset grabbed the ring with her right hand and took it off her left wrist, allowing Twilight to reattach the other hand. “How about we use what few tickets we have left to get ourselves some ice cream?”

Sunset stared at the green ring in her hand for a moment, then let out a sigh of defeat and muttered, “You’re right. Why didn’t I listen to myself? We never even had a chance.” She then carelessly tossed the ring behind her back as she and Twilight began to walk away.

That one particular ring flew back into the booth and, of all the places it could’ve gone, it miraculously made a perfect landing right on the neck of one of the bottles.

“Wow!” exclaimed Flim in astonishment. “Did ya see that, everyone?!”

“If she could do it with a blind toss behind her back,” declared Flam to a rapidly gathering crowd, “then surely those of you who actually try are guaranteed to win!”

That remarkable display had made many of the nearby park guests very excited for the ring toss game, and they quickly started handing in tickets to make their own attempts to win.

Of course, that commotion had been loud enough to catch the attention of Twilight and Sunset, who had managed to walk only a short distance by the time they noticed what was going on.

“Seriously?!” exclaimed Twilight in disbelief. “Now we finally got a successful hit?! And it came from a completely random blind toss?!” When she didn’t hear any reaction from her friend, she turned to Sunset, only to see that she was apparently so stunned that she was practically frozen stiff. “Uh, Sunset?” asked Twilight in concern as she waved her hand in front of Sunset’s face — stuck with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. She then lightly nudged Sunset, but she remained as stiff as a statue.

Meanwhile, Flim and Flam were more than happy to be collecting tickets from new participants for the first time in hours. “I have to say, this worked quite well,” remarked Flim as he gathered the newly collected tickets.

“You said it, dear brother of mine,” agreed Flam as he handed out the rings to the new players.

Flim picked up the gathered tickets and walked to the back of the booth, but then suddenly stopped and exclaimed, “Hey! What happened to the rest of our tickets?!”

Flam quickly stood beside his brother and they both stared at the empty space on the floor. “That’s odd,” he noted as he scratched his head in confusion. “I could’ve sworn I left them right here.”

While Sunset was still in too much shock to react, Twilight had been able to overhear the odd mystery that Flim and Flam was suddenly faced with. But right at that moment, she also noticed two minifigs suddenly run away from behind the booth, each of whom were carrying a large sack in their arms. Knowing there was little time to lose, Twilight turned to her unmoving friend and urgently said, “C’mon, Sunset! There’s two robbers getting away!”

Sunset finally snapped out of her shock just as Twilight grabbed her hand and began pulling her in the direction the lavender girl had seen those robbers escape. “Hey, easy! I’m right behind ya!” exclaimed Sunset as she let go of Twilight’s hand and continued following after her.

Meanwhile, the two robbers snickered mischievously as they made their getaway with their ill-gotten loot. “Who are the suckers now, huh?” remarked one robber tauntingly, speaking with a gravelly gangster voice.

“Yeah, we sure showed them!” agreed the other robber, speaking with a deeper dim-witted voice.

The two robbers didn’t make it much further before their sacks full of tickets were suddenly lifted into the air, and since they refused to let go of them, they were left dangling helplessly beneath the hovering sacks.

Twilight held up her glowing hands, using her magical powers to levitate the sacks up and hold the robbers in place, while Sunset glared at the two robbers.

“Aw, fudge!” groaned the first robber.

“Hey, haven’t we seen them before?” asked the second robber.

“Rocky and Mugsy,” noted Sunset in contempt. “Two of the most incompetent crooks in all of the Lego World. Did you really think you even had something to gain from stealing all those tickets?”

The second robber, Mugsy, shrugged and replied, “We figured it had to be worth something if those two guys were so happy to have a whole bunch of ‘em.”

“Lemme guess,” grumbled the first robber, Rocky, “you’re gonna give all these tickets back to those guys, ain’t ya?”

Sunset and Twilight glanced at each other, then smiled slyly and turned their attention back to the robbers. “Actually,” Twilight spoke up, “since those tickets were scammed from us, we’ll let you go if you agree to give those tickets back to us.”

“Aww, do we have to?” moaned Mugsy.

“Eh, let ‘em have their loot,” responded Rocky in a resigned tone. “Better to get away empty-handed than to get busted and thrown in jail.” He let go of his sack and dropped to the ground.

Mugsy hesitated for a moment, but soon followed his accomplice’s example and also let go of his sack and dropped to the ground.

Twilight levitated the two sacks over to herself and Sunset. They checked inside both bags and confirmed they were filled with all the tickets they had wasted at the ring toss booth. They both shared a smile, but then frowned when they noticed the two robbers were still standing where they had landed.

“What are you two brick-heads waiting for?” scolded Sunset. “Get outta here before my friend and I change our minds!”

Rocky and Mugsy quickly glanced at each other, then they both mumbled various words of agreement as they ran off.

Sunset shook her head as she sighed and grumbled, “Those two will never learn…” She then turned to Twilight and asked, “So what now?”

“Simple,” replied Twilight. “We’ll reimburse these tickets to recoup our losses, so it’ll be as if we had never carelessly blown a fortune on that one booth. Once our finances are secure again, then we’ll go ahead and get that ice cream I promised.”

“Sounds good to me,” agreed Sunset as she grabbed one of the sacks full of tickets.

Twilight grabbed the other sack full of tickets and walked with Sunset to the park’s ATM to exchange their tickets back. Neither of them ever gave a second thought to whatever Flim and Flam might be going through right now.





Applejack made it to the ferris wheel as insisted by Pinkie Pie, but with absolutely no idea what to do, she decided to just sit down on a bench and gather her thoughts. Fluttershy had gone missing quite some time ago and she had asked all of her friends to help find her. Although none of them had agreed to actively help her, many of them did promise to at least keep an eye out for her. The only one who had seemed completely dismissive of Fluttershy’s well-being was Rarity.

Just thinking about Rarity made Applejack cringe in disgust. As much as she understood her friend having so much to do in so little time, she did feel quite hurt that Rarity seemed to pay much more attention to the parade preparations than the feelings of her own closest friends. Especially frustrating was how hostile Rarity got simply at the mention that Fluttershy had gone missing, as if the safety of their close friend was merely a distraction to be ignored at all costs.

If anything, the only “friend” Rarity seemed to have any respect for today was Vignette Valencia, who she had never even met prior to accepting her new job at the park just two weeks ago. She certainly seemed to have no hesitation with wasting time trying desperately to stay on Vignette’s good side. And when Vignette practically criticized Applejack for her lack of social media exposure, Rarity had made no effort at all to defend her against such a condescending attitude.

But now that Applejack thought about it, she couldn’t recall any of her other friends seeming to have any issues with Vignette, and actually seemed pretty okay with Rarity being friends with her. And when Fluttershy went missing, none of her friends appeared to regard it quite as seriously as she did. In fact, in was possible that her bias against Vignette might actually be clouding her judgement and preventing her from seriously considering more reasonable explanations.

“…Or maybe Ah want her to be my prime suspect because she’s Rarity’s new best friend at the park,” muttered Applejack worriedly to herself. “Am Ah goin’ crazy over a whole lot o’ nothin’?”

“What’s that badge ya got there?!”

Applejack lightly gasped as she was startled and turned to the source of that voice. Standing beside the bench she sat on was a security guard — dressed in the standard uniform of navy blue pants, white shirt with a black tie, and a navy blue cap with a security badge on the front — with light pink skin and messy grey hair and a mustache on his face. Applejack saw the sternly serious look on his face, then glanced down at his hand and saw that it was pointing specifically to the macaroni art badge that Pinkie had given her. Upon realizing that, she awkwardly explained, “Oh! Uh… Y-Y-You see, it’s—”

“It’s a crime to fake security badges, you know!” scolded the security guard. “I’m a fake cop, but I can send ya to real jail!” He then held out his hand, silently demanding Applejack to hand over the badge.

Not wanting to make the situation any worse, Applejack stood up and handed over the badge as she carefully said, “Uh, if you’ll just let me explain, officer, Ah’m lookin’ for mah friend an’—”

“Shush!” the security guard demanded firmly as he swiped the badge out of Applejack’s hands. “Hands on your head! No suddenly moves! Got that?!”

Applejack had no choice but to immediately comply with the security guard’s demands. As she turned away and held her hands against the sides of her head, she couldn’t help but bitterly think, If this ends badly, then Ah swear Ah’ll get back at ya for this, Pinkie. Cupcake bribery ain’t gonna do ya any good this time.

While Applejack nervously held perfectly still, the security guard closely inspected the handmade macaroni art badge he had taken from her. After a few seconds, he suddenly smiled and remarked, “Well why didn’t ya tell me you were a Deputy Fun Inspector?”

With a confused expression on her face, Applejack immediately turned to the security guard, then narrowed her eyes and asked, “Seriously?”

The security guard stuck the handmade badge back onto Applejack and said in a more relaxed tone, “I am so sorry about that, ma’am. I can see you’re doing your rounds, so I might as well make up for this misunderstanding by giving you access to my workstation. Right this way, please.” He began to walk away as he gestured for Applejack to follow.

Either Pinkie Pie’s been spreadin’ crazy lies everywhere again, or this guy is just flat-out stupid, thought Applejack in disbelief as she shook her head and followed after the security guard.

After a short walk, the two minifigs arrived at a small building with no windows and only a single door. The security guard took out a key, unlocked the door, and then stepped inside. “Here you are, ma’am,” said the security guard as Applejack followed him into his workstation. “It hasn’t been fun inspected in years.”

Applejack wasn’t exactly the kind of person who was okay with going along with something that just wasn’t true under any circumstances, so she facepalmed and grumbled, “Ah’m tryin’ to tell ya, mah friend made this badge. It ain’t real.”

“Oh, an undercover Fun Inspector,” the security guard slyly replied. “I get it. Anyway, have fun ‘not inspecting’ my workstation. Wink, wink.” He winked twice at Applejack as he said that last part.

“How many times do Ah have to say it?” asked Applejack in exasperation.

The security guard simply walked past Applejack towards the door, turned back to wink twice more at her, then shut the door, leaving her alone inside his workstation.

Applejack rolled her eyes and grumbled under her breath, “Ugh, if Ah had to bet between Pinkie lyin’ or that guy bein’ dumb, Ah’d put mah money on both of ‘em at the same time.” She glanced around at the security workstation and her attention soon focused on the security monitors at the opposite side of the room from the door. She shrugged and muttered, “Well, no point in passin’ up an opportunity like this.”

Applejack sat down in the chair in front of the security monitors. She remembered all too well how poorly things had gone the last time she found herself in a security control room, so she decided to not touch anything and simply observe what was being displayed on the monitors. She glanced back and forth between each of the monitors, but then she focused her attention on one displaying the exterior of the hangar building when she saw Rainbow Dash walking alongside Vignette.





Vignette led Rainbow Dash around to the back of the hangar building as she continued speaking, “Rarity told me you’re the coolest, smartest friend who knows what’s the opposite of down. What’s up!”

Rainbow Dash chuckled and remarked, “True.”

Once they were completely out of sight of all the park guests, Vignette stopped walking and excitedly explained, “I have a bold new vision for the Rainbooms that you are going to love!”

Rainbow Dash frowned and raised an eyebrow as she asked, “You wanna change something about my band?”

“Just hear me out on this,” continued Vignette proudly. “I’m calling it The Throwbacks! Capital T, hashtag T.B.T., Throwback Today. Or for short, T.C.T.H.T.B.T, pronounced ‘ta-ca-ta-ca-ba-ta’!”

Rainbow Dash crossed her arms and muttered, “Yeah, I’m not buying it yet.”

“Oh, the best is yet to come,” continued Vignette. “You are going to represent the touchstones of cool throughout the ages.”

Rainbow Dash smiled and said, “Okay, now I’m starting to like it, and I assume I’ll like what you say next.”

Vignette made dramatic gestures as she declared, “Your role will be ‘Rainbow Dash: Fifties Sockhop Sweetheart’!”

Rainbow’s smile immediately fell. As far as she was concerned, that idea was the exact opposite of coolness.

Vignette blissfully continued, “Poodle skirt, adorable blond hair. Do you mind tossing that hair piece of yours? I only ask because I’ve already got an ideal replacement for you.”

“Uh, there is no way I’m losing this hair,” insisted Rainbow Dash as she ran her hand over her rainbow hair piece. “I can’t be Rainbow Dash without the ‘Rainbow’ part.”

Vignette glared at Rainbow. She just couldn’t believe that a second member of the band was also refusing to fully agree with her brilliant vision. Some might consider that a sign the idea might not be so good after all, but Vignette was so persistent to prove her greatness that backing off from any aspect of her vision was simply unthinkable. She decided to give Rainbow one last chance to change her mind by reminding her of her famous catchphrase. “B.Y.B.B.?”

“B.I.A.A.T.B. But I already am the best?” argued Rainbow. “Seriously, the Rainbooms are already awesome just the way we are. The fans are gonna wanna see us as us, and not as some cheap knockoff wannabes. Like my friend Applejack says, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’”

In the Lego World, calling someone or something a “cheap knockoff” was considered highly offensive, so of course Vignette did not take that accusation lightly. She huffed and grumbled, “Well if you insist on just, ugh, being your lame self or whatever, then at least let me take a picture of the real you.”

Before Rainbow had a chance to react, Vignette held up her magically enhanced phone and took a picture of her. This quickly transformed Rainbow Dash into a holographic image which was then pulled into the phone and vanished.





Back in the security room, Applejack had watched everything happen on that monitor. Although there wasn’t any audio to help her understand what was going on, there was no way she could deny the sight of Vignette’s phone somehow causing Rainbow Dash to suddenly vanish.

Applejack gasped in shock and exclaimed, “Vignette is zappin’ mah friends with a magical phone?! Ah knew she was up to somethin’! Just wasn’t expectin’ somethin’ so magic an’ evil…” As she watch Vignette walk away on the monitor, she muttered, “She makes ‘em disappear, but where did they go?”

Applejack tried to think of any possible reasons for why Vignette would do such a terrible thing to her friends, but then she shook her head and urgently said to herself, “What am Ah doin’? Thinkin’ about motives can wait. Ah gotta take action right away! Ah gotta warn the rest of mah friends before she does the same thing to all of ‘em!” She pulled out her phone to check the time and saw that it was starting to get close to four in the afternoon. “Good thing we agreed to meet up at a certain place an’ time, so Ah know exactly where to find ‘em.”

With no time to lose, Applejack got up out of the chair, walked out the door out of the security workstation, and began rushing towards the hangar where the parade was being prepared.





Meanwhile, in a featureless white room, the holographic image of Rainbow Dash suddenly materialized and transformed her back into a regular minifig. She glanced around in confusion and quickly noticed Fluttershy sitting on the floor. “Aw man!” she groaned. “Are we trapped in a magical phone?”

Fluttershy nodded without saying a word.

“Typical…” grumbled Rainbow. She looked around and soon saw the bowl full of spoiled salad. “I’m not eating that,” she muttered under her breath.

“Oh great, another one?” asked security guard Cranky Doodle, who was sitting on the floor behind Rainbow. “Unless you have reason to believe otherwise, I’d say Vignette is practically on a rampage at this point.”

Rainbow turned back to face the grouchy security guard and said, “She wants to turn our band into something she seems to think will be awesome, but any sane person would know is totally uncool.”

“And she thinks getting rid of you will solve her issues?” asked Cranky incredulously. He crossed his arms and grumbled, “There’s no way she can keep this up. Sooner or later, people are gonna get suspicious that we’ve gone missing, and when they realize Vignette was the last person seen with all of us, it won’t be long before they realize what’s really going on. Mark my words, it’s only a matter of time before someone puts a stop to Vignette’s rampage, one way or another.”

“But what’ll happen to us?” asked Fluttershy.

Cranky just shrugged and replied, “Beats me.”

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash looked at each other worriedly. Neither of them could deny how scary it was to think that, being at the mercy of someone as selfish as Vignette, there might not even be a way for them to escape.
> Unwanted Upgrades
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 5
Unwanted Upgrades


By late afternoon on opening day at Equestria Land, final preparations for the upcoming light show parade were well underway. Final assembly of all the floats had been completed and were now being arranged into a proper order of when each would leave the building. The performers went through final fittings of their costumes and rehearsed their choreography as much as they could in what little time they had left. All of the assistants were running around in a hectic rush all over the building as they swiftly tried to make last-minute deliveries of just about anything to keep things running smoothly. And in the middle of all of this was lead costume designer Rarity, personally overseeing all of the final preparations.

“One hour until wheels up, everyone!” Rarity urgently called out as she quickly scribbled something onto a paper and then tossed the clipboard toward an assistant passing by. “The light parade waits for no one! Tick-tock! Tick-tock!”

Not far behind Rarity stood Vignette Valencia with a smug look on her face. “Big night tonight, Rare,” Vignette spoke up confidently, catching Rarity’s attention. “Perhaps the biggest of all time. Definitely the biggest of your life. I’m excited for you.” She finished her remarks with a friendly wink.

“You’re not worried?” asked Rarity as she increasingly struggled to keep her cool. “Uh, not that I’m worried, unless you’re worried, in which case, I’m very, very worried!”

“There’s no room for self-doubt,” assured Vignette as she stood beside Rarity and put an arm around her shoulders. “You’ve gotta get rid of it faster than a pleated cargo skort.”

Both Rarity and Vignette immediately shuddered at the mere thought of such a hideous crime against fashion.

Vignette let go of Rarity and walked over to take a closer look at a nearby mannequin displaying one of many dresses designed by Rarity for the parade. “So I love everything you’ve done here,” commented Vignette. “One thought — do we want the costumes to have lights on them?”

Remembering the electrical incident earlier that day, Rarity tried to voice an objection to that suggestion, but Vignette just continued speaking.

“Eh, you’ve got time,” noted Vignette with a shrug. “I think we should start from scratch.”

“What?!” asked Rarity in shock and disbelief. “But… but the parade is on in only a couple hours! It’s simply unrealistic to make such a drastic request at this stage!”

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” responded Vignette dismissively. “It’s what I hired you for. B-T-Dubs, every amazing fashion vlogger and Snapgab celeb’s gonna be here tonight! No presh.” As far as she was concerned, there was nothing more left to be said, so she simply walked away without even bothering to see or hear any reaction from Rarity.

Rarity’s anxiety levels had skyrocketed so much that she was practically petrified for a moment before she finally muttered worriedly, “Really? ‘Cause I’m feeling presh…” She was soon snapped out of her impending panic when she saw one of the performers in costume walk by, and she was not pleased with that costume’s design. “Why am I seeing neon pink and yellow on that dragon’s tail?!” she called out furiously. “Is this a beast of legend or a safety vest?!”

As Rarity stormed off to deal with yet another suboptimal design, Vignette made her way out the backdoor of the building. She was momentarily startled when someone passed by right in front of her, but then let out a sigh of relief when she saw it was just that hologram security guard in a royal sentry uniform she had created a couple days ago. As she watched that virtual guard continue his ceaseless patrol along the side of the building, she noticed a cardboard box had been left in the guard’s path, and when he reached it, he just passed right through it like it wasn’t even there — though the hologram’s temporary distortion probably indicated it was more like he was the one that wasn’t even there.

“That sure doesn’t seem right,” muttered Vignette. She pulled out her phone and opened up that app she had used to create the guard. She was about to check the settings when she noticed a notification for new updates that were ready to install. She decided to go ahead and install those updates, then watched the progress bar fill up in only a matter of seconds. With that done, she checked the settings and saw among many of the new features was a toggle to “solidify” an active hologram. She pointed her phone at the patrolling guard and tapped that toggle option, then watched as he marched back towards the box and then tripped over it and stumbled to the ground.

As that virtual guard stood back up to resume his patrol, Vignette smiled and confidently muttered, “If all else fails, this is just the thing I need to make everything perfect.” With that minor issue taken care of, she headed back inside the building and made her way over to her office.





Despite the immense stress of overseeing all the preparations, Rarity had made sure to remember her promise to meet with her friends at a specific time to prepare themselves for their role as the main performance for the parade. To save precious time, she has instructed some assistants to guide her friends to the float they would be performing on, ensuring that she could immediately meet with all of them at once and then just as quickly return to her other important tasks.

The float that the Rainbooms were due to perform on was built like a stage that had a purple backdrop bordered by a large grey arch shaped like a giant horseshoe, and the lower sides of the float surrounding that stage were white with decals of swirling patterns to resemble clouds. As Rarity arrived at this float, what she saw left her with mixed feelings. She was pleased to see that the assistants assigned to retrieve their instruments had successfully delivered them all without any unacceptable delays, but she was upset to see only half of her friends — Sunset, Twilight, and Pinkie — had arrived on time for preparations and rehearsal.

The three girls who were already present on the float were in the middle of being measured by some assistants so their costumes could be properly fitted for them. “Stop it! That tickles!” giggled Pinkie Pie as she kept fidgeting each time the measuring tape was wrapped around various parts of her.

“Why are we even doing this?” asked the assistant who was measuring Twilight. “Isn’t every minifig supposed to be exactly the same size?”

The assistant who was measuring Sunset shrugged and replied, “Beats me, but as long as we get paid to follow whatever orders we’re given, I’m not gonna complain.”

Rarity glanced over at the instruments and her attention focused on Applejack’s bass guitar. Although they had met and spoken a couple times earlier that day, their most recent encounter had ended in disagreement over Applejack insisting that some petty issue she already forgot about was more important than preparing for the parade. Rarity huffed and grumbled, “I suppose Applejack has better things to do than final fittings and sound check.”

“Don’t be mad at her,” argued Sunset as the assistants finished up with her and the others. “She’s been looking for Fluttershy all afternoon, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Rainbow Dash decided to help her out before coming here.”

“Don’t tell me who to be annoyed with!” snapped Rarity.

That sudden and vicious reaction from Rarity caused Sunset, Twilight, and Pinkie to glance at each other worriedly. Sunset leaned close to Twilight and discreetly whispered, “How’s progress on the you-know-what?”

Twilight, knowing that Sunset was referring to her attempt to remotely access her secret tracking system of her friends’ phones, pulled out her phone and glanced at it for a few seconds, then put it away as she sighed and muttered, “Still loading.”

Pinkie Pie — who always made it her personal obligation to ensure that everyone around her had a happy smile on their faces — jumped off the float and landed in front of Rarity. “I know you’re stressed, Rarity,” she assured her friend, “but I’m sure you’ve got something totally amazing up your sleeve!” She then suddenly grasped Rarity’s bare arms and held them up at various angles as she added, “You did remember to wear sleeves with amazing things up them, right?”

Rarity quickly slapped Pinkie’s hands off her arms and scolded, “Pinkie Pie, this is hardly the time for your unreasonable antics. I need you and the others to take all of this very seriously! This parade could be the one defining moment of my entire livelihood, and I will not accept anything less than absolute perfection!”

“As someone who admittingly still struggles with a desire for perfection,” Twilight spoke up, “I can say from experience that you’re only setting yourself up for failure with that kind of attitude. I would highly recommend that you take a step back and try to think about all of this from a more realistic perspective.”

“Twilight, darling, I can hardly afford such a luxury at a time like this,” insisted Rarity in frustration.

“STOP!!”

Everyone in the area immediately turned to the source of that shout and saw Applejack marching with determination towards the Rainbooms’ float. Her expression quickly softened when she noticed all the surrounding assistants had stopped in their tracks to stare at her.

“Oh! Uh, not everybody stop,” clarified Applejack in embarrassment as she continued walking forward. “Ah just meant mah friends. The rest of y’all keep doin’ what you’re doin’, sewin’ up them, uh, clothes an’ whatnot.”

The numerous assistants quickly resumed their various tasks, many of them now choosing to stay clear of Applejack and her friends.

“Where have you been?!” demanded Rarity.

Having moved past the embarrassment of drawing too much attention to herself, Applejack regained her determination as she firmly said, “Nobody go anywhere with Vignette, understood?”

As Pinkie Pie backed up and jumped to sit upon the edge of the float, Twilight, Sunset, and Pinkie glanced at each other and muttered various words of confusion.

Applejack was unaware that Vignette was currently inside her office, which happened to be right on the other side of the wall behind the Rainbooms’ float, so she had been able to overhear Applejack’s word of caution. She immediately took cover behind the portion of the wall that was between the door and the window to prevent anyone from noticing her presence. She wasn’t sure how, but that apple farmer was somehow onto her, and she knew she had to think of something to discourage any suspicion. She glanced at her desk and noticed someone had decided to plug their phone into her recharger cable. Normally, she would complain about someone committing such a blatant disregard of her office space without her knowledge, but seeing that plain regular phone just sitting there on her desk gave her an idea.

Back outside near the Rainbooms’ float, Rarity grabbed Applejack and shoved her towards the float as she grumbled, “You can explain yourself after the parade. I’m sure—”

Applejack immediately shrugged off her friend’s grip on her and sharply responded, “No, Rarity, this cannot wait. Vignette is evil!”

Vignette decided that now would be the perfect time to make her presence known, so she casually opened the door and stepped out of her office, convinced that her timing would be ideal to minimize Applejack’s credibility.

Sure enough, Rarity’s shock at Applejack’s accusation quickly turned to mortification when she heard the door close and saw Vignette standing right behind her.

Pinkie remained sitting upon the edge of the float as she loudly whispered, “Applejack, she’s right over there!”

Applejack ignored the awkwardness that had just built around her and firmly continued, “Ah know Fluttershy was last seen hours ago goin’ somewhere with Vignette, an’ Ah saw her from the security office when she made Rainbow Dash disappear with her phone!”

“How did you get access to the security office?” asked Sunset.

“Trust me, ya wouldn’t believe how pathetic security is ‘round here,” replied Applejack. “The guy practically welcomed me into his office with open arms!” She turned her furious glare to Vignette as she continued, “Point is, Ah know what Ah saw! Ten eggs in a chicken coop says it’s Equestrian magic.”

“Oh, honey, delusional isn’t your color,” said Vignette dismissively in a sweet tone as she tugged at the back of Applejack’s hair piece. “You’re an autumn.” She then let go of Applejack’s hair and proceeded to occupy herself with the plain purple phone in her hand.

“If you’re so innocent, then how do ya explain this?!” accused Applejack as she swiped the phone out of Vignette’s hands, brought up its camera feature, and aimed it at a nearby pink dress on a mannequin. “Say goodbye to your mannequin thingy!”

Applejack quickly took a few pictures of the target object, but against her expectations, nothing out of the ordinary happened at all. “Uh, hang on…” she muttered uneasily as she started randomly tapping buttons on the phone. “Watch it… disappear!”

As Applejack seemingly made a complete fool of herself, Rarity crossed her arms and turned away, feeling absolutely humiliated that someone she considered a friend would behave in such an awful manner in front of someone who had done everything to encourage her efforts for the parade.

“Uh, Ah think Ah hash-gabbed mah snap-tag or all in the— Ugh, Ah can’t figure out these new fandangled apps,” grumbled Applejack in frustration. She quickly realized what she had just said and mumbled in embarrassment, “Ah sound just like Granny Smith…”

Little did any of the Equestria Girls know, Vignette had made sure to conspicuously hold the regular phone she had found on her desk, while keeping her magically enhanced phone hidden in her pocket. With that bit of deception successful, Vignette casually took the regular phone out of Applejack’s hands and sweetly said, “I just saw your friends, Rare. They’re in wardrobe and they’re fine.” She walked over to stand beside Rarity and took a selfie with her on that regular phone.

“Are you sure?” asked Rarity.

“And looking good in your costumes, by the way,” complimented Vignette, which brought a smile to Rarity’s face.

Applejack facepalmed and exclaimed, “Seriously?! You’re gonna take her word at face value over the word of one of your real friends?! Sunset! Come over here an’ check her!”

Before Sunset had a chance to speak up, Rarity scolded, “Applejack, the parade is less than an hour away and—”

“This is bigger than the parade, Rarity!” insisted Applejack.

“Nothing’s bigger than the parade, Applejack!” argued Rarity.

Applejack gasped in shock, then furrowed her brow and sharply responded, “Ah know ya didn’t just say that about your missin’ friends!”

“Don’t mind me, ladies,” Vignette spoke up smugly as she walked away from between the arguing Rarity and Applejack. “I’m just gonna let you two sort this out amongst yourselves.” As she walked away, she encountered a group of assistants who had stopped to watch the escalating conflict, so she tossed the regular phone towards one of them and spoke up, “Move along, people. Nothing to see here.”

All of the assistants quickly rushed off to resume their various tasks.

“Admit it, Applejack!” exclaimed Rarity furiously. “You don’t care about my parade!”

“‘Mah parade’?! This ain’t about you!” Applejack shot back. “She’s done somethin’ to our friends!”

“Is this about our friends or about you and Vignette?” argued Rarity indignantly. “Ever since she gave me this opportunity, you’ve been jealous because she sees my potential but she didn’t hire you!”

Sunset, Twilight, and Pinkie felt helpless as they watched the argument between Rarity and Applejack continue to heat up.

“You girls, please stop!” begged Twilight.

“This isn’t like you!” exclaimed Sunset worriedly.

“Don’t say something you’ll regret!” cried Pinkie desperately.

The pleas of their friends went ignored as Applejack shouted back, “In case you’ve forgotten, ya didn’t even want the job when it was first offered, an’ the only reason ya took it was because Ah told ya to go for it! You accepted this opportunity because of me, an’ this is the thanks Ah get?! Even worse, you’re so blind that you can’t even see Vignette’s been usin’ ya! You only like her because she’s always blowin’ smoke up your chimney, but that’s what she does to everyone! YOU’RE NOT THAT SPECIAL!!”

As soon as those final words left Applejack’s mouth, all of the girls were completely stunned, including Applejack herself. The feelings of intense anger between Rarity and Applejack quickly evaporated, leaving Rarity hurt and Applejack ashamed.

After a moment of awkward silence, Applejack shamefully muttered, “Maybe Ah should just… go.”

“Yes… maybe you should,” Rarity bitterly agreed.

Applejack turned away and lowered her head in shame as she slowly walked towards the nearest door out of the building.

“Applejack, wait!” Sunset called out.

With Applejack gone, Rarity finally broke down and started sobbing as she ran towards Vignette’s office.

“Rarity!” Pinkie cried out as she hopped off the float and ran after her hurt friend.

As Rarity entered the office and slammed the door shut, Vignette — who had been standing on the sidelines the whole time — walked forward and blocked Pinkie’s path. “Waiting is for waiters, ladies,” she said smugly as she pulled out her actual phone and wrapped her arm around Pinkie’s neck. “We’re better off without her.”

“What do you mean by ‘we’?” asked Twilight as both she and Sunset frowned and clenched their fists.

“The Throwbacks, formerly known as the Rainbooms,” answered Vignette as she hugged a nonconsenting Pinkie Pie closer to her.

Sunset jumped off the float and yanked Pinkie out of Vignette’s grasp. As Twilight also jumped off the float to join them, Sunset asked suspiciously, “Hang on, why does ‘we’ include you?”

“Obviously, somebody needs to fill Applejuice’s spot,” explained Vignette proudly, “and since it’s so last-minute, we are lucky to have someone with as much talent and vision as moi.”

“Uh… you?” asked Pinkie, completely baffled.

“And not just that,” added Vignette excitedly, “we’ll be playing a song I wrote!”

The three present Equestria Girls had their hands on their hips and glared at Vignette as Sunset firmly explained, “Okay, one; you are not in the band! You also sure as heck don’t have our permission to change the band’s name, and if you’ve already been spreading word of your unauthorized name change, we can have you sued for false advertisement. And two; just because our friends had a fight doesn’t automatically mean one of them is permanently kicked out of the group, which is why we are absolutely not performing without Applejack.”

“Which is her name, by the way,” emphasized Pinkie in displeasure. “Not ‘Applejuice’.”

“And you know what?” continued Twilight with growing determination. “She’s not usually one to make up crazy lies, like, ever.”

“Yeah, that’s usually my shtick!” added Pinkie, her expression just as serious as those of her friends beside her. “She’s supposed to be the reliable, dependable one!”

Sunset slowly raised her fists as she concluded, “So all that stuff she said about you…”

Vignette had remained completely relaxed in the face of all those accusations — even keeping most of her attention down at her phone the whole time — and when they gave her the chance to respond, she just shrugged and contently replied, “Meh, all true.”

Pinkie immediately gasped and tearfully exclaimed, “Holy spaghetti! How could you do such a horrible thing to our friends?!”

“Like this!” replied Vignette as she immediately held up her phone at the three girls and took a picture of them before they had a chance to take even a single step forward. The magically enhanced device quickly transformed the three of them into holographic images which were then pulled into the phone and vanished.

Now standing completely alone, Vignette’s smile grew as she said to herself, “Now let’s see if this Equestrian magique is all it’s cracked up to be…” She swiped through the pictures of the five girls she had taken and settled on Sunset Shimmer as her test model. She then quickly swiped through some various costumes and decided to go with an excessively frilly princess dress. “Looking much better already…”

Vignette repeated the process with the other four girls in her collection. She gave Fluttershy a hardcore punk design with wildly messy hair, provided Rainbow Dash with a highly feminine dress and excessive makeup, applied a sporty uniform on Twilight without glasses, and finally put Pinkie Pie into some restrictive business attire with straight hair. With all five girls now in her envisioned “Throwback” costumes, she swiped the finalized models up onto the performance stage float, where those holograms suddenly appeared with their own musical instruments already in hand.

With her work complete, Vignette sighed in satisfaction and happily remarked, “I wish I’d had this thing years ago! Just think how perfect my life could’ve looked!”

It was at this moment that Rarity finally opened the door and stepped out of the office room, still sniffling away her last remaining tears.

Upon seeing her favorite employee return, Vignette squealed excitedly as she pulled Rarity close to her and gestured towards the holograms. “Rare, you are not gonna believe this!” she exclaimed cheerfully.

Rarity pushed herself out of Vignette’s grip and walked slowly towards the float. “What… What is this?” she asked quietly. She noticed that standing on that mobile stage were five holograms that resembled her friends, but dressed up in garish costumes that she knew would horribly clash with their respective styles. But what made those holograms especially creepy was how they stood perfectly still like statues with unblinking gazes that stared straight ahead and unnaturally big smiles on their faces.

Growing increasingly freaked out, Rarity turned back to Vignette and hesitantly asked, “W-What am I looking at?”

“Your friends, but better!” Vignette proudly answered as she placed an arm around Rarity’s shoulders. “Do you love it? Of course you do! Now we can make the parade exactly how I want it!”

“How… you want it?” asked Rarity in shock as she pushed herself out of Vignette’s grip and slowly backed away. “You said you hired me for my vision!”

Vignette shrugged and shamelessly admitted, “Well, I needed your vision to bring out my vision. And thanks to this new app I’ve got, I can easily fill in any gaps you left behind. Nobody will ever notice the difference!” She then turned her attention down at her phone without a care in the world.

Rarity turned around to face the holograms on the stage. She hesitantly stepped forward and reached out to grab the leg of who she believed to be her friend Fluttershy. When her hand passed right though that ghostly leg, she recoiled in horror and disbelief.

“Oh! Right. I should probably apply those upgrades I just downloaded,” noted Vignette as she quickly tapped on her phone. Seconds later, the holograms took on a more solidified appearance, allowing the bright colors on their costumes to really stand out. However, those holograms still remained completely still, as she had not yet given them any movement commands. “Looking even better already! I’ll assign their moves just before the parade starts, which should be enough to make them really stand out like no other band had ever done in history!”

Rarity turned back to Vignette and fearfully asked, “Vignette… wh-what is going on here? Where are my friends?!”

“Like, trapped in the internet as zeroes and ones or erased from existence or something?” replied Vignette nonchalantly with a shrug. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

“What?!” exclaimed Rarity, aghast.

Vignette began casually pacing back and forth as she explained, “See, like, my phone somehow became magique or something, and now it has this wonderful power where whenever I take a picture of something, it disappears, and then I can customize them with a swipe of my hand and make them real again. Or… real enough to matter, but hey, blah-blah-blah, O.M.G., I’m boring myself just talking about this stuff. This whole monologuing thing is so not my style.”

As Vignette spoke, Rarity felt increasingly hurt, terrified, and above all else… betrayed. She had placed so much faith and trust in Vignette over the past two weeks, and hearing her confess to practically wiping out nearly all of her friends and behave like it was no big deal was an absolute act of treachery beyond imagination. But even worse for Rarity was the sudden realization that, despite how wild and crazy those claims had sounded at the time, Applejack turned out to be completely right! She had ignored Applejack’s warnings all day long, and now all of their friends had paid the price for her blind envy. All of these feeling crashing together in such a short amount of time caused another emotion to quickly rise within her — rage.

As soon as Vignette finished her monologue, Rarity furiously shouted, “Bring back my friends this instant!”

Vignette smirked and responded, “Fine. If you wanna be with them so bad, I’ll do you one last favor.” She held up her phone and aimed it at Rarity. “You’re welcome.”

Rarity had only enough time to gasp and hold up her hands before Vignette took a picture of her.
> 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?”
> Corruption Deleted
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 7
Corruption Deleted


It seemed the Equestria Girls were once again faced with a large crisis unleashed by an individual corrupted by Equestrian magic. Although they had successfully escaped and knew exactly where they had to go next, their path ahead was blocked by over a dozen digital copies of a certain security guard, all set to strike at any moment.

The real version of that security guard, Cranky Doodle — who had been trapped alongside them — stood up from where he had fallen, took away the caramel apple Micro Chips had been holding in his hand, and spoke up, “You girls go ahead and do what you always do in these situations. I’ll just take shelter in here until it’s all over.” He then rushed back into the small building containing the empty white room and shut the door.

All eight minifigs in the group glanced back at the building, then Fluttershy asked, “Um, he does realize that door can’t be opened from the inside, right?”

“We’ll worry about him later,” replied Sunset with determination as she turned forward to the hologram guards. “We need to get to Vignette as soon as possible, and it looks like we’ll first have to get past her goons.”

“No problem!” remarked Rainbow Dash confidently before she charged at one of the guards in a royal sentry uniform. The guard rushed at her and tried to take her down, but she dodged the attack and swiftly spun around, delivering a roundhouse kick to that guard’s chest hard enough to shatter him to pieces that clattered all over the pavement. “Ha! Too easy!”

But almost immediately after those minifig pieces had settled on the ground, they rapidly flickered in and out of existence before they completely vanished, then the suddenly rebuilt guard rapidly flickered in and out of existence until he was fully restored back to normal right on the spot where he had fallen.

“What the—?!” exclaimed Rainbow in shock.

“That thing just respawned like some sort of video game character!” noted Twilight in astonishment.

The respawned guard quickly made another attempt to strike Rainbow Dash, but she was able to easily dodge it. She was unable to follow that up with a counterattack as she was forced to dodge an attack from another hologram guard, this one wearing medieval armor. At the same time, all the other digital guards began to charge at the rest of the Equestria Girls.

“An’ now we start the big fight,” grumbled Applejack before charging ahead to confront the oncoming guards. She swiftly punched one to the left, one to the right, and one directly in front of her, shattering all three of them with just one punch each. But just like with the first guard, the scattered parts flickered away, then the restored guards flickered back into existence.

For the most part, many of the girls tried to avoid getting hit by those digital guards, but they tried to help each other out whenever they could. Sunset used her advanced combat skills to fend off every guard that came at her, but their rapid respawn rate left her fighting the same two particular guards — one a royal sentry, the other a sailor — over and over again. Twilight used her telekinetic magic to lift one guard in medieval armor that came at her, then slammed him into the ground to easily shatter him to pieces, only for him to respawn seconds later. Pinkie Pie danced around one guard in a ninja outfit, taunting him with every missed strike at her. Rarity used her diamond shields to simply shove away any guards that got too close to her, sometimes shoving away two or even three at a time. Fluttershy did little more than dodge every attack directed at her, sometimes causing two guards to smack each other to pieces.

As the fight between real girls and hologram guards played out, Micro Chips held back and made no attempt to join the battle. He was well aware of how terrible he was at physical combat, but as a fellow LEGO Team member, he knew he had to do something to help them out. He looked back at the small building they had escaped from, then glanced around and smiled as he came up with an idea. With a plan in mind, he began to quickly harvest Lego parts from various objects nearby such as benches, vending machines, and lampposts.

Sunset noticed Micro Chips running around and gathering parts, so as she punched yet another digital guard, she spoke up, “What are you up to, Micro Chips?”

“I’m building a computer terminal,” responded Micro Chips as he continued his efforts. “If that white room is somehow linked to Vignette’s phone, then building a terminal connected directly to the building could provide me with access to that system, allowing me to remotely hack that phone and delete whatever program is being used to sustain those holographic guards. It might also allow me to eliminate whatever magic power is possessing that phone, which means we may not have to directly confront Vignette to stop her.” By the time he finished his explanation, he had gathered enough parts and began quickly assembling them.

Click! Clack! Click! Clack! Click! Clack!

“Good thinking, Micro Chips!” praised Twilight as she used her magic to send a guard in a sailor uniform flipping through the air. “We’ll hold off these cyber projections so you can accomplish that.”

Like most members of the LEGO Team, Micro Chips had creative talents as a Master Builder, so it took him only a matter of seconds to fully complete his computer terminal. The console consisted of a large keyboard, four monitors, and a lever that could be shifted into four different positions. He booted up the computer system, then started rapidly tapping away on the keyboard. Although the four monitors each displayed different programs, his hacking efforts would show up on only one of them at a time, so every few seconds, he would shift the lever into a different position, allowing him operate on a different monitor.

Rainbow Dash noticed the usage of that lever on the computer terminal. “I’m no computer expert, but that lever seems a bit too much work,” she spoke up with uncertainty as she grabbed a charging holographic guard and hurled him into another guard, shattering them both.

“Trust me, this is much more efficient than hitting control-alt-delete every thirty seconds,” assured Micro Chips as he flipped the lever again and continued hacking.

The girls continued to fight well against the holographic guards, usually taking just a few quick moves to shatter them to pieces. However, those holographic projections kept restoring themselves just as quickly as they were taken out, so the fight had essentially reached a massive stalemate.

Applejack slammed one of the guards in medieval armor against the ground, then glanced back at Micro Chips and hollered, “Hurry it up over there! We can’t keep doin’ this for much longer!”

“I’m trying my best!” insisted Micro Chips as he flipped the lever again and continue rapidly typing. “I think I might’ve located the program, but it’s proving to be unbelievable resilient to everything I can throw at it! It’s like I’m dealing with some sort of advanced A.I. that keeps anticipating my every attempt.”

“If only these projections weren’t the advanced upgraded versions,” lamented Rarity as she used a diamond shield to slice through three guards in a row, separating their torsos from their legs. “When I first laid eyes on the holographic copies Vignette made for her vision of our band, my hand was able to pass right through them like they weren’t even there. That reminded her to apply some upgrades she claimed to have recently downloaded, one of which undoubtedly made these things solid to the touch.” As she spoke, she continued using her diamond shields to strike and shove away any other digital guards that came her way.

Micro Chips suddenly stopped typing and smiled. “That gives me an idea,” he spoke up. “Hang on while I try something different!” He flipped the lever again and resumed rapidly typing.

Meanwhile, the girls still continued to fight off the holographic guards, but fatigue was starting to become a serious concern as the fight dragged on, especially since those digital projections were incapable of exhaustion like real people. They started making more desperate moves, such as Applejack occasionally head-butting an oncoming guard, Twilight using her telekinesis to simply tear apart any guards coming at her, and Rarity slamming two diamond shields together against a couple guards and sending their shattered pieces flying in all directions.

“Let’s dance!” taunted Pinkie Pie as she grabbed one guard in a sailor uniform and spun him around herself a few times before letting go, sending him flying away and smashing to pieces upon slamming into the wall of a nearby building.

“Hurry it up, geek!” hollered Rainbow Dash as she punched yet another holographic guard in the face. “We’re running out of time!”

“Almost…” muttered Micro Chips as he flipped the lever yet again and continued rapidly typing. After only a few more seconds, he finally hit the enter key and declared, “Done!”

The effect was felt immediately by both the holograms and the girls. The evil projections suddenly lost their solid state and passed right through their opponents, while the girls were briefly thrown off balance when their attacks suddenly didn’t connect. Both sides paused in confusion for a moment before turning towards Micro Chips.

“Success!” declared Micro Chips triumphantly as his raised both of his fists up. He then relaxed his stance and explained, “I was able to reset some of the definitions on that special app, effectively negating the upgraded content and thus rendering the system back to its original standard state.”

“Nicely done, Micro Chips,” acknowledged Rarity. “It seems my earlier observations provided the key to our triumph over these cyber duplicates.”

The smile on Micro Chips’ face quickly fell when he noticed something suddenly show up on one of the monitors on the computer terminal. “Uh-oh, it’s trying to automatically reinstall those upgrades!” he alerted everyone. He immediately flipped the lever again and resumed rapidly typing as he explained, “I can slow down the process with a DDoS attack, but you girls have to hurry! If I can’t delete the software, then the only other option is to destroy the hardware.”

“Vignette’s phone,” acknowledged Sunset with determination. “Let’s go!”

“Could we at least acquire ourselves some motorized transport?” asked Rarity. “As much as I desire putting an immediate stop to Vignette, I am afraid that I’m nearing the point of exhaustion.”

“No problem!” declared Pinkie Pie cheerfully before she swiftly started gathering Lego parts from some nearby benches, streetlights, and hotdog carts. In her usual style, she appeared to be in many places at once as she rapidly assembled all the Lego parts she had gathered.

Whoosh! Click! Clack! Whoosh! Clack! Click! Whoosh! Click! Clack! Click! Clack!

In only a matter of seconds, Pinkie had built a simple motorized cart. “One cart, ready to roll!” she declared cheerfully.

“But there’s only six seats on it,” Twilight pointed out.

“That’s okay,” assured Rainbow Dash. “I’ll just run ahead on my own. I’ve actually got an idea on how to stop Vignette. Meet ya there!” She then rushed off towards the middle of the park, her magical super speed making her appear as a rainbow motion blur.

With that minor issue dealt with, the rest of the girls climbed into the cart — Twilight and Fluttershy in the back seat, Rarity and Applejack in the middle seat, and Sunset and Pinkie in the front seat with Sunset at the steering wheel. Sunset started up the motor and quickly drove the cart towards the parade route near the middle of the theme park.

Meanwhile, Micro Chips continued typing away on the computer terminal, desperately buying as much time as he could to help the girls. The holographic Cranky Doodle copies had now swarmed around Micro Chips in a futile attempt to subdue him. No matter how much they tried to grab at him, their phantom state prevented them from having any physical affect, but that was not to say they had no effect at all.

“Would you cyber ghosts cut it out already?!” snapped Micro Chips irritably. “I’m trying to concentrate here!”

Startled by that outburst, the holograms collectively decided to take a step back and stay clear of the hacker at work.





At the middle of Equestria Land, the gathered crowd was cheering as the floats began to roll out of the hangar building and slowly moved forward along the parade route. The first float was candy themed, consisting of a giant gumball dispenser surrounded by large candy canes and dancing performers who were dressed in various oversized candy wrappers. The second float was wild west themed, consisting of a saloon behind performers in cowboy costumes, some of whom hurled lassos at some prop cattle at the front of the float. The third float was the performance stage, upon which Vignette Valencia and her Throwbacks were playing a song.

Prior to the start of the parade, Vignette had programed the five holograms on the stage to play their respective instruments to provide the music for her song. She had no musical talent at all, so she just selected whatever available samples of audio she liked best and had them play it on repeat. However, just moments before the actual start of the parade, those holograms had suddenly glitched back to their non-solid forms. She was confused when she discovered the recent upgrade was suddenly gone, and even more so when attempting to reinstall that upgrade ended up going way too slow to be ready for the parade. Since the musical acts were still correctly programed, she decided to just go ahead with the show, figuring that the holograms not being solid would have no effect on the performance.

As the performance stage float rolled along the parade route, the five Throwbacks stood in place and moved almost robotically as they played standard fragments of rock music on their provided instruments, but with each of them programed to play separate tracks, there was little to no harmony between their vastly different tunes. While the holograms seemed lifeless and uncoordinated, Vignette tried to more than make up for it by loudly singing into the microphone in her hand, despite having very little experience as a singer. “Be yourself, but better!” she sang, seemingly unaware of how horribly off-key she was. “Or don’t be yourself at all! Follow Vignette on Snapgab! That’s V-I-G-N-E-T-T-EEEEEE!”

SCREEEEEEEEEE!

That audio feedback broke Vignette out of the grove she was in, which allowed her to notice that the initially cheerful crowd had now considerably soured.

“What the brick is this?” asked one guy in the crowd.

“This is so lame,” grumbled one girl in the crowd.

“Those girls would never dress like that!” accused another girl in the crowd.

“We were promised the Rainbooms! Not some cheap knockoff!” exclaimed another guy in the crowd furiously.

“Your music stinks!” shouted yet another guy in the crowd before chucking a rotten tomato towards Vignette.

Vignette narrowly dodged the disgusting projectile. As further jeers from the crowd continued to be directed at her, she growled furiously and threw the microphone down onto the stage floor. “This crowd isn’t cheering enough for my taste,” she grumbled. She then grinned wickedly as she pulled out her magically enhanced phone. “Luckily, that can be tweaked with the flick of a hand.” She quickly brought up what was now easily her favorite app and aimed her phone a random portion of the crowd — which happened to include Spike and the three girls collectively known as the Creative Mark Crusaders. “Say ‘cheese’, everyone!” she spoke up tauntingly as she prepared to take the picture.

Clunk!

Vignette suddenly found herself thrown forward and down onto the stage floor. She was momentarily stunned by the impact, but then she rolled over and saw a large harpoon was now hooked onto the top of the stage backdrop. That harpoon had yanked the top of the stage back, causing the float to pivot on its rear wheels and flip the front end upwards, which was what had thrown Vignette off her feet.

The harpoon was tied to a rope, and the other end of that rope was attached to a turret that Rainbow Dash had swiftly built atop the hangar building. “Yeah!” cheered Rainbow Dash from her seat on that turret as she pumped her fist up in the air. “Nailed it on the first shot!”

Vignette glared at the rainbow girl — not bothering to question how she had managed to escape from wherever she had ended up — then stood up again and aimed her phone at that meddler. But due to the float no longer having any forward momentum and the harpoon rope holding tight, the weight of the front end caused the float to roll backwards a little and pivot forward on its rear wheels, sending the front end slamming back onto the ground. That impact again threw Vignette towards the front of the float, this time sending her down onto her back.

The crowd had since fallen silent as they witnessed the rather strange interruption. But then one section of the crowd was startled and forced to move aside from a cart that was heading directly towards the hooked float.

Beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep!

“Make way! Coming through!” called out Sunset impatiently as she drove swiftly but carefully through the crowd, giving the people just enough time to move aside while still moving ahead. After a few seconds, the cart and its six passengers had made it through the crowd and onto the parade route. Sunset stopped the cart in the middle of the parade route — in an effort to block any attempts by Vignette to continue the parade— and shut off the motor.

Vignette grunted in pain as she sat up. She then got back up on her feet and turned around just in time to see most of the Equestria Girls climb out of that cart, who were then swiftly joined by Rainbow Dash through her speedy rainbow motion blur.

“Sorry to rain on your parade,” Rarity spoke up defiantly.

Applejack couldn’t help but smirk and remark, “Good one, Rarity,”

Rarity winked at Applejack, then turned back to Vignette and continued, “But I’m afraid this event is canceled. Now turn off your phone and hand it over!”

The people in the surrounding crowd glanced back and forth between the Equestria Girls and Vignette while muttering various words of confusion.

Vignette held her phone defensively close as she arrogantly asked, “Are you honestly asking a social media star to hand over her phone?”

“If ya mean the one that’s been infected by Equestrian magic an’ corrupted you into a reckless villain, then yes, she is,” Applejack firmly replied.

Many people in the crowd gasped at the revelation that what was happing before their very eyes was actually another one of those big magical incidents that had on previous occasions caused all kinds of madness and destruction.

“Rarity, this is the version of your friends that will be popular,” argued Vignette as she gestured back at the holograms of the Throwbacks — who were currently standing perfectly still and did absolutely nothing like a bunch of statues. “I have the metrics to back that up!”

Rarity and Applejack both crossed their arms as they shared a look of disapproval, then turned their gazes back to Vignette without saying a word.

“Doesn’t matter if they’re real!” insisted Vignette desperately. “It’s what you show people online! This is your chance to be everything you’ve always wanted!”

“No!” Rarity shot back defiantly. “It’s a chance to merely look like everything I’ve always wanted!” She started to relax as she turned back to the others girls. “What I really want has been right in front of me the whole time…” She smiled at Applejack and held out her hand, to which Applejack also smiled and grasped with her own hand. “My friends!”

Around Rarity and Applejack, the rest of their friends also joined together. Sunset and Twilight joined hands with each other, with Twilight’s other hand grasping Applejack’s free hand. Pinkie Pie joined hands with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, with Fluttershy grasping Rarity’s free hand. With all seven girls now hand in hand, their magical geodes started to glow. The intensely bright glow quickly covered their bodies as they began to rise up into the air. After a few seconds, the glow faded, revealing the seven Equestria Girls were now hovering in the air in their ponied up forms — they all had pony ears and longer hair like a tail, while some had either feathered wings on their back or a unicorn horn on their head — and their outfits had changed to be just like what they were given during the previous magical incident involving the Memory Stone.

Vignette stared up at the magical girls hovering before her. “Okay, that’s pretty impressive,” she admitted, “but I’ve already seen it in a video, so—”

“Silence!” shouted Rarity firmly down at Vignette. “No amount of online success is worth it without my real life friends to share in it!” She glanced left and right at her friends and smiled at them all, and they all smiled back at her.

Now joined together for a single cause, the seven girls channeled the magical energy within their geodes, bringing it all together upon Rarity in the middle of the group. Sparks of magical energy danced along Rarity’s arms as she let go of her friends, then channeled that energy into a long glowing whip. She swung that magical whip around once and then swiftly flicked it straight down directly at the phone in Vignette’s hand.

CRACK!

Vignette yelped as the magical whip pierced right through her phone. That 1x2 tile was split lengthwise in half as it flew out of her hand, and the two halves clattered to the floor of the stage. With that phone now completely destroyed, the magical energy trapped within was dispersed into nothing, and the custom design on the back of those halves reverted from a furiously scowling face back to the content smiling face it originally was. Without the magically enhanced apps from that phone, all of the holograms created by it — both the Throwbacks and the security guard clones all over the park — quickly flickered out of existence.

“What have you done?!” exclaimed Vignette furiously as she fell to her knees. “Now how can things ever be perfect?!”

The Equestria Girls slowly descended to land in front of Vignette upon the performance stage float. “I love nothing more than someone telling me I made a perfect outfit,” acknowledged Rarity, “but I’d say you got a bit carried away.”

“I-I… guess so…” confessed Vignette hesitantly.

“You guess so?!” asked Applejack in disbelief. “You replaced our friends with virtual holograms an’ were about to cram an entire crowd of people into a room no bigger than a Manehattan apartment!”

That revelation caused the crowd to gasp and start muttering words of displeasure.

“I-I… I had no idea…” muttered Vignette uneasily.

Sunset turned to Rarity and Applejack, both of whom turned to her and nodded. With that silent approval from her friends, she walked over to Vignette. “You sure about that?” she asked as she knelt down and grasped Vignette’s arm, which immediately caused her body to stiffen and her eyes glow white as she peered into Vignette’s memory.





It had been only a few hours after Vignette discovered the new magical ability that her phone now suddenly possessed. As much as she wished to try it out on many other things, she figured it wouldn’t be really necessary just yet with the opening of Equestria Land still two weeks away. Besides, she had plenty of other obligations to take care of, such as hiring a new lead parade costume designer on such short notice. Thankfully, she was pleasantly surprised to see one of the recent applicants for some other job in the park had a very promising résumé, which she was currently reading on her phone as she walked around the far end of the park near the big roller coaster and the ferris wheel.

“I think this Rarity girl might be just the right kind of person I need to pull off this parade,” she noted to herself in satisfaction. Now that she was convinced she had found the perfect individual to fill the sudden vacancy, she began composing an email to inform her soon-to-be new and highly trusted employee.

“Huh? How did that stress salad get in here?”

When Vignette had discovered her phone’s new ability, it was her stress salad that she had made disappear, so upon hearing about that particular kind of item, she immediately stopped what she was doing and turned to the source of that voice. She saw a security guard looking through an open doorway into a small building. Not hesitating to find answers, she quickly walked over to the building and lightly shoved the security guard out of the way. She looked inside the building and saw that it consisted of a single room with white walls, floor, and ceiling with bright overhead lights, and within that room was nothing more than a bowl of salad. She glanced at the photo she had recently taken and, sure enough, it was a perfect match to the one sitting in this weird room.

“Is that salad yours, Miss Valencia?” asked the security guard.

Vignette glanced back at the security guard she had quickly forgotten about, looked over at the bowl of salad sitting alone in the empty white room, then back to the guard and responded, “Uh, yes! I was… planning to do a photo shoot in here! But all the other props have yet to arrive, so, uh, could you please lock this door so no one tries to come in and steal it?” It was all a total lie, and she hoped the guard would buy it.

The security guard stared at Vignette with a raised eyebrow for a moment, then just shrugged and remarked, “Eh, you’re the boss.” He then pulled the door closed and used his keys to lock it shut.

“And while you’re at it,” added Vignette, “could you unlock the door to your workstation? I’d like to make a quick note on the floor plans so everyone knows that room will be occupied.”

“Sure thing,” acknowledged the security guard as he began walking back to said workstation.

As Vignette followed him, she decided to take this time to resume her email response to the one who would soon be the new lead parade costume designer. She had just barely finished and sent that email by the time they arrived at the security office.

As the guard left to do his rounds elsewhere, Vignette pulled out the floor plans and unrolled the one showing that building at the far end of the park. She set that sheet of paper down on the desk and grabbed a nearby pen. Now what kind of note should I write that’ll make sure everyone will stay away from that room? she thought to herself. She didn’t think the photoshoot room excuse she gave to that security guard would be good enough for most people, and she had no idea what that rather peculiar room was actually intended for anyway, so she thought about it and eventually settled on some tech terminology, since it was somehow linked to her phone. Unable to come up with anything better, she decided to simply call it a server room, with the additional note to “Keep Out”.

With that taken care of, Vignette put the floor plans back and left the security office. Now that she was confident no one would stumble across what appeared to be a storage room of things she would photograph on her newly enhanced phone, she decided to try some subtle experimentation over the next few days to figure out for sure what her phone was really capable of now. Unfortunately, with so many last-minute preparations and unforeseen setbacks over the next two weeks, she was unable to make any attempts to learn more about her new phone until just a couple days before opening day, when a sleeping Cranky Doodle became only the second thing to ever be captured by that magically enhanced device.





Sunset’s body relaxed and her eyes returned to normal as her glimpse into Vignette’s mind ended. She stepped back and suddenly exclaimed furiously, “You were aware of that room all along, weren’t you?!”

The rest of the girls gasped at that revelation, as did much of the crowd followed by more words of displeasure.

Vignette chuckled nervously and awkwardly explained, “I, uh, guess I forgot all about it. Too many other things to keep track of in a place like this, you understand, right?”

“You should’ve been much more responsible with that kind of magic right from the start,” argued Sunset. “Let’s hope for your sake you can afford a good lawyer, because once the lawsuits start heading your way, you won’t be able to use ignorance as a defense.”

“You sure got that right!”

All the girls on the performance stage float turned to the crowd and saw standing in front of everyone with his arms crossed and an angry look on his face was a certain businessman they were all familiar with.

“Filthy Rich?” asked Vignette, unable to hide her shock. “What are you doing here?”

“As owner of Equestria Land,” explained Filthy Rich with a tone of disapproval, “it was practically an obligation for me to attend what you’ve insisted to be the most significant event on opening day. I must say I am very disappointed in you, Miss Valencia, not because of the parade, but because you failed to obey one of the most important rules I insisted upon all of my employees: If you notice anything weird that one might consider caused by magic, report it immediately. Need I remind you why I instated that rule to all of my businesses?”

“It was done in response to that incident at Lego City involving Gloriosa Daisy,” answered Vignette, struggling to hide the nervous tone in her voice.

“Precisely!” Filthy Rich sharply continued. “That incident was a PR nightmare that forced me to significantly restructure every business affiliate under my name, all because I made the mistake of not respecting a powerful force that continues to affect our world in unpredictable ways. I’ve already had my reputation tarnished by one magical incident, and I refuse to let it happen again! Therefore, effective immediately… you’re fired.”

“What?!” exclaimed Vignette in shock. “Surely you don’t have to go that far, right?!”

“If you had done the right thing and turned in that phone the moment you realized it was suddenly more powerful than usual, then perhaps you could’ve kept your job,” explained Filthy Rich. “Instead, you kept that thing to yourself and abused its power, all without my knowledge. This incident was entirely your doing, so cutting all ties with you right here and now is the only way to ensure that I won’t face any liability for your actions.” He then pulled out his phone and started dialing. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make a few calls to try finding a new PR manager for this park.” He gave a fierce glare toward Vignette as he sharply added, “Preferably someone who actually cares about public relations.” He then held his phone up to the side of his head as he began walking away.

Vignette slumped and let out a sad sigh. “I should’ve been better than this,” she muttered shamefully. “How could B.Y.B.B. have failed me so horribly?”

“It’s not a bad thing to want to be better,” assured Rarity, “but not at the expense of other people.” She smiled as she glanced around at the other girls. “And especially not your friends.”

“Friends?” muttered Vignette. She sighed as she stood up and turned away from the girls, then sadly confessed, “I have three million followers, but no real friends. How pathetic is that?” She sulked in silence for a moment, but when she felt a hand on her shoulder, she turned back and was surprised to see the smiling face of Rarity.

“You’ve got one… if you want,” offered Rarity.

“Make that two,” agreed Applejack as she stepped forward.

“Are you sure?” asked Vignette hesitantly. “Even after everything I did to you?”

“Let’s just say we’re known to be a rather forgiving group,” Rarity slyly remarked.

“An’ if you really are sorry for what you did,” assured Applejack, “Ah can promise the worst you’ll get will probably be a few months of community service.”

Vignette smiled slightly and softly said, “I think I can be okay with that.” She then shared a friendly embrace with Rarity.

It was at this moment when the surrounding crowd began to cheer excitedly.

As the Equestria Girls glanced over the crowd of minifigs, Pinkie Pie asked, “Why are they clapping? Do they even know what’s going on?”

Fluttershy responded with only a shrug.

Rainbow Dash had pulled out her phone and checked something on it. “Whoa!” She spoke up excitedly. “The Rainbooms are trending on SnapGab!”

Pinkie glanced over at Rainbow’s phone and upon reading one of the displayed comments, she excitedly exclaimed, “People are saying that rainbow laser thing was the coolest light parade show they’ve ever seen!”

Everyone on the float glanced across the crowd and saw the thousands of gathered people were taking pictures of them and chatting cheerfully with each other.

“Hey, maybe the parade ain’t ruined after all!” remarked Applejack with a friendly smile towards Rarity.

“We do still have our real instruments up there,” Sunset pointed out as she gestured at the main part of the performance stage.

Rainbow Dash turned to Fluttershy and asked, “You’re not too nervous?”

“I should ask you the same thing,” Fluttershy playfully retorted.

Rainbow nudged her elbow against Fluttershy and they both shared a giggle.

Rarity turned to Applejack and asked, “Do you mind if I start us off? I know just the song we should play for this occasion.”

Applejack smiled and nodded an approval.

“Don’t worry about me, girls,” assured Vignette as she gathered the fragments of her destroyed phone and made her way off the float. “This show’s all about you, as it should be.”

The seven Equestria Girls — or rather, for this occasion, the Sonic Rainbooms — gathered their instruments together, took their places on the stage, and did a brief sound check. Once they were sure everything was all set for the show, Rarity started off the first song of the evening, with best friend Applejack sharing the lead with her throughout much of that first song. The latest threat from Equestrian magic had been dealt with, and now it was time to celebrate.
> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Epilogue


It was now almost midnight, which was closing time for Equestria Land. The few thousand remaining guests who had not already left were now gradually making their way through the exit gates back to the parking lot. Among these departing guests were the Equestria Girls — who had turned back into regular minifigs and regained their regular outfits after the end of their band’s performance — along with Spike and the Creative Mark Crusaders. Now that they were all heading home after their band’s performance, the girls also had to carry their instruments with them — for which Pinkie had to make use of that cart she had built in order to carry her drum set. As they left through the gates and started walking across the parking lot, they continued to talk about the events of the remarkable day they had just experienced.

“I’m glad Micro Chips actually remembered to let that security guard out of that weird room, once those holographic clones were gone,” noted Twilight. “I guess we were having so much fun on stage that we completely forgot about that guy.”

“I actually feel bad for Cranky Doodle,” admitted Fluttershy. “He sounded like he was really looking forward to watching that baseball game.”

“Either way, he should be glad we helped him out,” said Rainbow Dash. “I wouldn’t mind missing even a Wonderbolts stunt show if it meant saving the lives of my friends.”

“At least the Crystal Girls will be able to report good news to Princess Cadance when they return to the Castle Region,” Twilight pointed out. “Filthy Rich had not only obeyed all zoning laws with the construction of this park, but he also made all the right decisions he could’ve made in response to this latest magical incident.”

“I’m just relieved that we not only stopped Vignette from causing any serious harm,” noted Sunset, “but also made her understand that what she did was wrong.”

“Indeed,” agreed Rarity, “though it is quite a shame it had to come at the cost of her position as PR manager at Equestria Land.”

“Not to mention her reputation on SnapGab,” added Pinkie as she glanced down at her phone in her hand while slowly driving that cart beside her friends as they walked. “I had no idea it was even possible to lose over a million followers in only a matter of hours.”

“To say nothin’ of all those hateful comments that have been bombardin’ her SnapGab account,” noted Apple Bloom as she and her two best friends were also looking down at their phones as they walked.

“You said it,” agreed Scootaloo as she shook her head in disbelief. “Even though she did do some awful things, she doesn’t deserve to be trashed and trolled this badly.”

“And to think I was so looking forward to getting a chance to see her in person,” lamented Sweetie Belle. “But the very moment it actually happened, it turns out she would’ve done something totally evil to all of us and was stopped only at the last second.”

“You’re welcome, by the way!” quipped Rainbow Dash smugly.

Rarity turned to Applejack and hesitantly suggested, “Seeing as Vignette is without her phone and thus incapable of internet access for the time being, perhaps we should refrain from mentioning these online woes at her court hearing tomorrow.”

Applejack, who always valued honesty more than almost anything else, took a moment to consider Rarity’s suggestion, then spoke up, “Well, maybe not go into any details ‘bout how bad it really is, but we should at least let her know that loggin’ onto SnapGab might not be such a good idea for her anytime soon. Besides, now that she needs to find a new job, this could be a good chance for her to build some real connections with other people. She just needs to find what she’s good at an’ stick with it.”

“Easier said than done, darling,” responded Rarity uneasily. “Vignette has practically made her whole livelihood revolve exclusively around internet stardom for years.” She then smiled as she spoke up, “Even so, I shall remain cautiously optimistic for her sake. If she does end up sentenced to a few months of community service, as we anticipate, then all those charitable activities shall go a long way towards helping her rebuild her tarnished reputation. Given enough time, I believe she may have what it takes to prove herself to be a true role model worthy of the popularity she once took for granted.”

“So that’s another person corrupted by evil magic who we’ve beaten and turned into one of our friends,” remarked Rainbow Dash proudly as she arrived at the parking spot where she left her blue motorcycle. “All in a day’s work! We’re getting good at this.” She threw on her helmet, hopped onto the seat, and started up the engine, all while keeping her guitar strapped to her back. “See ya tomorrow!” The motorcycle engine rumbled loudly as she pulled out of the parking spot and headed out to begin her ride home.

A few seconds later, the group had reached Pinkie Pie’s van. As Pinkie stopped her cart and started loading her drum set into the back of her van, Apple Bloom turned to Spike and asked, “Are ya still sure you won’t ride home with us?”

“Definitely!” replied Spike without hesitation. “I’d rather spend my entire monthly allowance on a cab ride than take my chances with Pinkie Pie ever again.”

“That’s okay,” assured Pinkie as she shut the rear door. “I needed some extra space to pack my drums anyway.” As she hopped into the cart, she turned back to the three younger girls and said, “You three can just wait in the van. I gotta return this cart before we can get going.” She then began to drive off back towards the park entrance.

“Ah ain’t exactly comfortable ‘bout leaving you girls unsupervised this late at night,” stated Applejack as she slung her bass guitar over her shoulder, “so Rarity an’ Ah will keep ya company ‘till Pinkie gets back.”

“I do appreciate you providing me with a ride home,” Rarity spoke up as she slung her keytar over her shoulder. “My car is still in the repair shop, so I’ve had to rely on mass transit to get around town lately. Of course, I haven’t stayed at the park this late at night over the last few days, so I can’t exactly rely on the schedule I’ve gotten used to.”

“Just doin’ what any good friend should do,” assured Applejack with a smile. “Consider it a favor to make up for the way Ah behaved earlier today.”

“Please, Applejack, I was clearly much more in the wrong than you were,” insisted Rarity. “If anything, I should owe you a favor to atone for my atrocious behavior earlier today.”

“Oh, just kiss already!” snapped Scootaloo irritably.

Rarity and Applejack turned to the three young girls, glanced back at each other, then turned back to the girls while awkwardly stammering over each other as they struggled to get over the shock of that accusation.

“Mah barn door don’t swing that way!” Applejack firmly insisted.

“And I’ve fawned over plenty of boys over the years to know with certainty where my preferences lie,” insisted Rarity indignantly.

“C’mon, Scootaloo,” complained Sweetie Belle, “just because there’s nothing wrong with certain girls liking other girls doesn’t mean it’s okay to assume any girl could be like that.”

“Yeah, how would ya like it if someone suddenly shouted for you to kiss a girl?” argued Apple Bloom.

Scootaloo huffed and crossed her arms as she grumbled, “I have no comment on that.”

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle shared a laugh at Scootaloo’s expense, which Applejack and Rarity couldn’t help but soon join in laughter as well.

Meanwhile, Sunset, Twilight, Fluttershy, and Spike continued to make their way across the parking lot. “I still don’t think you should take a cab home, Spike,” argued Twilight. “That money could be better spent on more important things.”

“You mean like those science journals with expensive subscriptions that you never bother to read?” retorted Spike.

“They’re reference material!” countered Twilight. “I’ll read them when I have need for that information.”

“It’s okay, Twilight,” assured Fluttershy. “I can give Spike a ride home. I should have just enough room inside my car.”

“Now that you’re offering, I guess I’ll be cool with that,” agreed Spike. “Out of all you girls, I actually trust you the most to obey all the rules of the road.”

“Are you sure you know where to go to reach our apartment building?” asked Twilight.

“We’ve been friends for some time now,” assured Fluttershy. “I always make sure to know where to find my friends if I ever need them. Besides, my car does come with GPS.”

It wasn’t long before they reached Fluttershy’s car. As Spike climbed into the passenger seat, Fluttershy placed her tambourine inside the car’s trunk and then climbed into the driver’s seat. Fluttershy took her time going over the usual safety checks before she started up the engine and began to drive away.

Not much time later, Sunset and Twilight arrived at Sunset’s red convertible. Sunset tossed her guitar into the backseat before hopping into the driver’s seat, while Twilight climbed into the passenger seat beside her. Once both girls were buckled up, Sunset started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.

A few minutes later, as Sunset and Twilight cruised down the road on their way back into the city, Twilight spoke up, “It’s quite unfortunate, really. Last time we tried to take a vacation together, it was marred by that incident involving the Memory Stone. Now, an attempt to spend just one day off at a new amusement park has been overshadowed by a social media diva with a magical phone.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” agreed Sunset. “It sure would be nice to go somewhere that we didn’t have to worry about Equestrian magic for once. Though considering just how widespread it’s been getting lately, we might as well have to go all the way out to the middle of the ocean.”

It may have been an offhand remark, but Sunset’s suggestion was something Twilight found quite intriguing. After thinking about it for a moment, Twilight muttered, “I have occasionally considered the idea of going on a luxury cruise.” As she began to smile, she turned to Sunset and said, “I’ll look into it and see what’s available. If I find something that can work for all of us, I’ll be sure to inform you and the others.”

“Now that’s something I can look forward to,” remarked Sunset contently.