This story was bubbling round in my head, and thus is my first fanfic. Please critique, and enjoy.
When the Mane 6 fail horribly at throwing Princess Celestias' birthday party, they get at each others' throats. When they get at each others' throats, Princess Celestia gets very upset at them, and when the Mane 6 upset Princess Celestia, they find themselves role-playing as each other for a day as punishment for such collective disharmony. Will they all gain the epiphany Princess Celestia hopes they'll get, or will Ponyvilles' collective eyebrows rise so high that they'll cause irreversable damage to everyponys' faces?
It was a busy, hectic day in the busy, hectic hustle n’ bustle of busy, hectic Canterlot, capital of Equestria. Unlike all those other busy, hectic days that wish they could be as busy and hectic as this day, however, today was the busiest, most hectic day of the year, because it was Princess Celestia’s birthday!
Thus, a birthday for a princess, especially one that raises the sun to usher in a new day each day, called for professionals. Professionals with a similar, yet unique, background. A background that forged an immovable friendship out of six mares that otherwise would never have known each other. With that in mind, even the strongest of bonds succumb to tasks as busy and hectic as this one. Like the one between a certain purple unicorn, and- "Rainbow Dash!" Twilight yelled.
Twilight was fixating on one thing right now. Banners. “The banners should be displayed across the top of the walls, not over the corners!” she advised. The cyan pegasus indignantly replied, “Twilight, I’m mixing it up. Adding a little Rainbow Splash, you know?” While the exchange took place, Rainbow Dash was punishing the wall in front of her by impaling it with nails and a hammer, all while outfitting it with a triangular banner.
“More like a Rainbow Smash.” Twilight noted. “The edge of the banner is coated with nails. Maybe you should take a break.” “Nu-uh!" the rainbow-trailer began to argue. "I said I was gonna put up the banners, and I’m gonna do it!” “Rainbow Dash,” Twilight started to plea, but Rainbow Dashs' stubborn glare deterred her. Twilight sighed. "Can I at least get someone to help." Rainbow Dash sighed herself. "Fine."
Twilight, happy to have gotten Rainbow Dash some help(and get those banners up the correct way). Twilight galloped into the kitchen and not long after came back out with the farm mare Applejack. Twilight explained the situation to Applejack, and pointed her to the banners. “Rainbow, what’n the hay did that wall do to make you so darn’d mad at it?” was AJs' response. “Well, it won’t hold onto the banner, for one!” Rainbow exclaimed, not amused by the orange mare questioning her style. “Huh, if Ah didn’t know any better, Ah’d say you were tryin’ to decorate the wall, but all them nails in that one flag tipped me off.” "I'm adding a little Rainbow Splash!" Rainbow Dash argued. "More like a Rainbow Thrash!" AJ exclaimed bluntly. “…I’m gonna take a rest, Twi.” But before she left, Rainbow Dash flew over to Applejack and challenged her. “Let’s see you decorate the walls, Applejack!” and with that, Rainbow Dash was on break.
Twilight watched as Rainbow dashed off to nap in the courtyard, and preceded to scold Applejack. “Applejack! Why were you so rude to her? You could have told her more nicely!” Applejack was about respond, saying they always pal around like that, but the neurotic unicorn Rarity trotted in, muttering under her breath to herself. The most intelligible mutterings from Rarity were “Oh dear, must be perfect, must be punctual, must organize. Must complete the task at hoof. No gargantuan feat, just Princess Celestias’ birthday, that’s all!”
“Rarity!” Twilight yelled at the unnerved unicorn. Raritys’ deep blue eyes widened, and her long eyelashes shot up, at Twilights’ shout. “AAAAGGHH,” Rarity added. “Oh, yes, Twilight?” she asked, rather embarrassed. “Rarity, don’t stress yourself out.” Twilight reassured her. “Your gowns are astounding, and the adornments are, well, fabulous!” “Yeah, but a certain pegasus went n’ lost it on those banners up there,” AJ informed Rarity with a hoof pointing upward. “You know, maybe you should work on the banners if you think they’re so horrible!” Twilight shot at Applejack, all the while tacitly agreeing about the banners. Rarity agreed twice as much, and four times as tacitly. “Gladly! Where’s the ladder?” AJ proudly accepted the challenge. “Okay then," Twilight cooled down, "it’s…umm…” The ladder was right in the corner, Twilight noted. Great, as if she needed anymore problems! “Somethin’ missin’ huh?” Applejack had a hunch about the ladder.
Sure enough, Applejack found the ladder in the kitchen, in a boiling pot, being held hostage by her co-chef, Pinkie Pie. She was shaking salt, pepper, and hot sauce into the pot. Twilight and Rarity were right behind Applejack as they got to see this. Twilight decided to directly ask her the question. “Why are you cooking a ladder, Pinkie?” “To give our cake some spice.” Pinkie Pie replied matter-of-factly. Thus was the word of Pinkie Pie, who worked in mysterious ways. “Hmm, I see.” Rarity replied business-like, organizing her own complaint in her head. “Pinkie?” Rarity had a complaint of her own. “Yeah, Rarity?” Pinkie couldn't sense the complaint. “For future reference, could you perhaps not schedule important preparations on the day they’re called for?” Raritys’ voice went stern as she mentioned this to the official party pony that was organizing the party with Twilight Sparkle. The preparation was cutting it rather close. “Well, I guess I am cutting it rather close,” repeated Pinkie as she beat the ladder broth, which was orange for some reason.
Just then, Rainbow Dash returned to the kitchen. “Hey guys, Fluttershy needs you.” “Needs whom?” asked Twilight. “All of you." Rainbow said tiredly. "And me, of course,” remembering how great she was. And with that, they left the kitchen to assist their friend who was in charge of training the performing animals.
The perpetually introverted Fluttershy was waiting in the courtyard, with a very irate flock of animals inflicting a flurry of frenzied stomps across the garden. Everypony was tentative to go outside, and Twilight wanted answers. They all wanted answers. She gestured Fluttershy over to her. Fluttershy walked over as if she were about to be punished by her mother. In a way, Twilight delivered. “Fluttershy?! What happened?! Why are all the animals so angry?!” Fluttershy stammered “T-Twilight, please! I…I just fed them the food Pinkie gave me... Did I mess up?” Twilight cooled down once again, even amidst the stampede. “No, Fluttershy, you didn’t.” Twilight assured her. She turned venomous again, but against another pony. “It was Pinkie Pie who messed up!”
Pinkies’ cheery demeanor was replaced with a look of incredulousness. “Me? What are you talking about?” “Oh, you know what I’m talking about!" snapped Twilight, "You just had to organize the party on the day it happened! You just had to cook with Applejack! You just had to give the animals your psycho food!”
Pinkie got defensive. “Now wait a minute! You could have just told me not to do those things you let me do!” “Oh, so now it’s my fault?” retorted Twilight in heated emotion. “Well, yeah!” Rainbow Dash interjected. “You know how crazy Pinkie gets when she’s planning parties! Nobody can work as fast as her!”
“So that explains that mangled banner!” Applejack said off-hoof, looking away from Rainbow Dash very tongue-in-cheek. Rainbow glared at Applejack and barked “So why didn’t you get a ladder?!” Applejack was angry now. “’Cuz Pinkie wanted to serve up Ladder Cake!” “Hey, I’ll have you know that Ladder Cake is a royal delicacy!” Pinkie shot back. “I’m afraid not, dear.” Rarity calmly rebuffed, with a fury boiling behind her façade. “Ladders are not considered a delicacy by any royal palette, or indeed any palette outside of termites.” “That’s not true!” Even Fluttershy was joining in. “My beaver friends like ladder!”
And so the six ponies with manes, whom typically are known across Equestria* as the Three Amigos, were catapulted into a heated, very important verbal debate about who screwed up Princess Celestias’ birthday party the most. Rainbow Dash argued that the animal show should have been replaced with a couple more Sonic Rainbooms. Rarity argued that the party should have been planned out earlier. Applejack wanted to bake her apple cuisine, not a ladder cake! Fluttershy was defending the animals, saying they were trying their best. Twilight callously declared they’d be a lot better off without Pinkie holding everypony back until the last minute. Pinkie il(?)logically declared that she’d be a lot better off without the others holding her back.
And everypony, sans Rainbow Dash, agreed that the banners were poorly suspended.
*“Across Equestria,” in this case, means “by the pegasus named Derpy Hooves”
All the while, Princess Celestia was watching this argument take place. She was watching ever since the animals demolished the castle in their collective frenzy. Celestia decided she had to exact some tough love at the six angry mares. “Excuse me!” she bellowed.
Astonished by the shout coming from such a rare source, the six bowed down to her majesty, all ready to present the pony they thought bungled her Majestys'birthday party. Celestia raised a hoof to silence them all. “I don’t want to hear any excuses!” she started. “This isn’t just a day for me to celebrate! It’s for everyone to enjoy! I’d be content with a rusty old shack if everypony in it was enjoying themselves!”
The mares were all either looking at the ground in shame or closing their eyes in shame. “This project was made to foster the cooperation you six had for so long. I thought this party would be beyond spectacular! I thought the food would be more euphoric than any ladder I’ve ever had! I thought the banners wouldn’t be suspended as ugly, Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow Dash cringed the hardest. “You’ve ruined not only my birthday party with your incessant infighting, you’ve ruined the birthday of a new year!” Princess Celestia was seething. She then thought of something perfect for a punishment. “You six will all meet me in my master bedroom. Now.” And with that, she was off. The six slowly trailed Her Majesty in shame.
The six ponies awaited their sentence in the royal courtroom, or at least what was left of it. “Alright, this is how you will repay your debt to society,” Celestia explained, a look of pure sadism and vengeance forming on her face. “You will live out a whole day in each others’ hooves. I can’t make you do so literally,” Celestia regretted irately, “because I’m bound by the Geneighva Convention, so, unfoaltunately, I’ll have to go the metaphoalical route.”
The six traded their looks of shame for confusion. Five of the expressions were from the punishment itself. “What’s with all the filly puns all of a sudden?” Pinkie whispered to Twilight. Pinkies’ was for a different reason. “Silence, Pinkie, or I’ll banish you to processing tofu!” Pinkie gasped, then passed out. Tofu is quite bland, which Pinkie abhors. She also hates the lethal allergic reaction it gives her.
Celestia carried on. “Now then, as I was saying: The day after you return to Ponyville, you will all have to live the lives of your friends, so as to get a feel for how they live. Gain some understanding, you understand?” Celestia chuckled at her little joke at their great expense. “That includes waking up in each others' homes, eating their food, you know. Only catch: no body swapping.” Twilight pondered, then worried, then exclaimed “Oh, like role-playing! An impression of each other!” “Exactly, Twilight!” exclaimed Princess Celestia. Even in this storm of collective anger and shame, she was proud to have been Twilights’ personal mentor. “Now then, who will play whom?” Celestia pondered to herself for a minute. The anxiety was unbearable. “Twilight.” Celestia quickly decided. “Yes, Princess Celestia?” asked the ever-diligent pupil. You will be Rainbow Dash.” The Commander of the Sun issued this with a most authoritative face. Rainbow Dash chortled under her breath as Twilight objected. “But Prince-” “Twilight, you will be Rainbow Dash.” and that was the end of that.
Celestia looked for another student to teach. Had to be the pony snickering at someponys’ expense. “Rainbow Dash” the Princess decreed. Rainbow Dash ceased her schadenfreude. “You are Pinkie Pie.” Rainbow Dash went through a day of trying to fill in for the mentally enigmatic Pinkie Pie, to no avail. “Rarity, you are Fluttershy.” Rarity wasn’t very distraught at this news at all. Indeed, she saw herself getting off lightly. Still into fashion, just have to tend to animals every so often, why, she was practically the only good one, evidently. Princess Celestia must have sensed the cocky thoughts emitted from Rarity. Thus, she summoned “Pinkie Pie," the pink pony was conscious and eager again. "You’re Rarity.” Celestia decreed. All of a sudden, Rarity didn’t feel so secure. Pinkie Pie, meanwhile, was just happy not to handle tofu.
Celestia wrapped up the assignments. “Fluttershy, you are Applejack.” Fluttershy shuddered at the manual labor Applejacks’ life entailed. “And Applejack,” the Sun Princess breamed at the uneasy cowpony, “you’ll have to fill in as my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.” Applejack wasn’t very content with that news. While she found reading enjoyable from time to time, she couldn’t fathom being cooped up in a library all day organizing books.
The Princess wasn’t finished, though. She continued, “I believe a few more rules are in order. First off, if anypony, or any dragon, asks,” Celestia looked at her real pupil, “you cannot tell them why you’re impersonating each other.” Twilight started to argue. “But don’t we owe it to everypony to tell-” “No, you don’t.” Celestia flatly replied. “For that reason,” she continued, “you will all fix your hair, and adorn it,” Celestia looked at Fluttershy, the fake Applejack, “to look like your friends’. Just fix it, no dying.” Celestia concluded. “That is all you need to know.”
Princess Celestia let the mares reflect quietly on their respective roles for minutes. Silence was thick in the air. “Hmm,” Rarity reflected, breaking the silence. “This may be a good time to give our impressions of each other. It can only give us a more refined view of both each other, and ourselves. For example,” Rarity cleared her throat and fixed her hair into a purple, spitting image of Fluttershys’. “Um, hi. I’m, ummmm…” She looked away from the onlooking crowd, complimenting her acting techniques all the while. “Mm, Fluttershy.” Everypony clapped, even Princess Celestia, even Fluttershy herself. Rarity continued “Um, could, er, I, uh, please, maybe, perhaps… possibly-” “Nah jus’ get t’the cottn’-pickn’ point, Fluttershah!” the calm, yellow pegasus tried to snap. More applause ensued. The onlooking ponies were pleasantly surprised with Real Fluttershys’ bravado, as well as how the Stetson looked on her pink ponytail. Fluttershy was quite thankful Applejack let her borrow her brown cowgirl hat. “Oooohhh, oohhh! My turn! My turn!” Pinkie Pie was cutting in, all too eager to join in the fun. She dashed into a clothing room, and came out with a stovepipe hat over her newly-coiffed mane and a monocle, in a very refined pose. “I do say,” Pinkie started in her most over-the-top British accent, “my clothes make me feel distinguished! And my pants fancy!” Everypony was once again, quite amused. Rarity, however, found that impression mediocre at best. Everypony knows that a proper lady going for such a look would look more distinguished in a fedora.
The heavy mood surrounding everypony was lifting. Even Applejack, who wasn't the biggest fan of acting, or a lot of other impractical stuff, felt prompted to say “Heh, ya know, this might not be so bad after all!” “Then let’s see you do it!” Rainbow Dash challenged. All eyes were on Applejack, now. AJs’ response? “Spike, take a note! Dear Princess Celestia:" the farm mare started. "Today I have learned that I was so engaged in moving books around in mah-my home, I have accidentally misplaced my key! Not a problem, I am used to being in my house for hours at a time.” More laughter emerged, except for Twilight, who reassured herself that she clearly gets out enough. Rainbow Dash caught Twilight not even uttering a chuckle. “Come on, then!” the athletic Pegasus demanded. Twilight looked at her, slightly caught off guard. “Do me, already!” Rainbow Dash was clearly waiting for this one. Twilight shuffled her hooves and then replied “Okay, then… let’s see…” Twilight wasn’t the biggest fan of acting. She was more of a behind-the-scenes unicorn. She did act once, also at Celestias’ service. She finally imitated the pegasus. “So radical! I’m Rainbow Dash, the raddest, baddest, skyslayer that ever invented flying!” Twilights’ acting summoned a sea of guffaws.
The great reception prompted the overachieving, purple unicorn to overachieve. “My Rainbow Splash puts craters in walls! Who needs banners, anyway?” Everyone was busting a gut, except, of course, poor, regretful Rainbow Dash, who had more than enough of hearing about those stupid banners. Twilight wasn’t stopping there, though. “And I make everypony else go before me, ‘cuz I’m lazy!” and then she pretended to fall asleep and snore. Twilight wasn’t fond of being put on the spot, so shined the spotlight on Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow blinked, taken aback by the sudden shift of attention; the mixture of surprise and latent annoyance on her face was highly legible. Ten seconds later, she snapped out of it and put on her Pinkie face. “Hi everypony!” Rainbow mimicked. “This day is gonna be so super sugary awesome!” She pinkied to the kitchen, then back out with a jar of honey between her fore-hooves. “I’m hungry, again!” Rainbow yelled overenthusiastically. “I think I’ll have my 7th meal out of twenty for today.” and proceeded to chug the jar of honey. Pinkies’ face was fixed into a caustic stare. “Oh, come on, Rainbow Dash. You know I eat at least 42 square meals a day!” Rainbow Dashs’ violet eyes widened with horror while she was downing the jar of pure sweetness. How was she supposed to eat 42 meals in one day?!
Everypony else was having the time of their lives, except the now-rattled Rainbow Dash. Even the once-seething sun Princess was finding leisure in watching all of this role-playing. Celestia soon after remembered that business had to be finished. “Well, then, I hope you all have gotten a handle on who you’ll be living as. Anymore questions?” The Six all shook their heads. “Very well.” Princess Celestia exclaimed. “In that case, it’s time for all of you to return to Ponyville.” They all nodded, and then they trekked through the ruins of the Royal Palace.
Nopony said anything on the way back to Ponyville. Between newfound farm labor, learning a levitation spell, running a library with Spike, having to work with a new style, running a pancake house, and swallowing everything in a kitchen while still somehow baking something, there were new tasks to prepare for that weighed on everyponys' minds.
The new day was conjured up by Celestia, which meant that everypony would be living a collective day in each others’ hooves. One of which was particularly unable to meet the demands of the mares’ daily life she was imitating. Fluttershy was around animals often, yes, but she was more like a mother. She was certainly not the rough n’ tumble farm mare her friend Applejack was. She was also unaccustomed to rising with the sun, especially after sneaking into Applejacks’ room to prepare for the day.
The rooster cawed not long after the sun rose. The fake Applejack ignored it, deep in her slumber, under the covers. What she couldn’t ignore, however, was the farm filly bouncing up and down on her stomach, creaking and straining the wooden, hoof-made bed. “Giddup, Applejack!” yelled the yellow filly. “Giddup giddup giddup giddup giddup giddup giddu-” Not Applejack groaned loudly in response, echoing throughout the wooden, hoof-made bedroom. “Aww, come ooonnn, Applejack,” the farm foal whined.
The covers let out a more subdued groan. The red-haired filly frowned, then pulled the covers off with her teeth. “Applejack!” the filly whined again, but was silent at what she saw. “Uuugghghhhghhggh…” the false Applejack replied. “Uughh, oh! Howdy, there, Apple Bloom!” Not Applejack was still groggy. Apple Bloom was confused. “Uh, Fluttershah? Why are you sleeping in Applejacks’ room?” The imposter Applejack now had to sell herself as legitimate. “Apple Bloom, Ah am , uhm, your sister!” Not-Apple-Blooms’-sister insisted. Apple Bloom decided to play along. “Oh, oh! Sorry, I didn’t recognahze ya, sis! Ah have a question, though.” “What is it, um, little sis?” asked Not Applejack. “Where’s Applejack?” Apple Bloom demanded, now asking sternly.
Imitation Applejack shifted her eyes across the room. She couldn’t outright tell her what was going on, but she could probably hint, she thought. “Well, maybe, um, we could… mozy on over to Twili-” “Why would we need Twilight to find Applejack?” Apple Bloom inquired. She didn’t get the hint. “Sh-shouldn’t we g-get workin’?” Imitation Applejack tried to shift the focus quickly. “Alrighty then!” said Apple Bloom in excitement,changing her tune. She thought it would at least be fun to work with somepony else, especially Fluttershy. She then darted down to Sweet Apples’ Acres to get to work on the apple trees. Fake Applejack tried to fly down the stairs to wake herself up, but then she remembered: her wings were tied to her sides! Of course! It was all a part of the illusion. She opted to trot down to the Acres.
When the disguised Pegasus got to the field, she found Apple Bloom, and her red, older brother, Big Macintosh, talking to each other, the latter with a profoundly confused expression fixed to his face. Apple Bloom then pointed towards the imposter, then acknowledged her herself. “So Applejack,” the yellow-coated foal said. “Ready to buck some apples?” “N-naw, I-Ah couldn’t” Fluttershy imitated, “I-Ah mean, not before you n’ Big Macintosh.” Looking inquisitive for a moment, Apple Bloom replied “Okay, then!”
Galloping several feet away from the tree of her choice, Apple Bloom readied herself. She then galloped as fast as her filly legs would carry her, then, at the last moment, she turned around, jumped into the air, and extended her hind legs at the tree she took aim at. Both hooves connected, and Apple Bloom was rewarded with only four apples. “Awwwww!” Apple Bloom moaned. “Ah wanted to knock down more than that.”
“Jus’ keep at it, sis.” Big Mac reassured her. It was his turn. In a form much unlike his diminutive sister, Big Macs’ form of getting the apples down was to walk up to an apple tree, turn around, and buck the tree hard in its midsection. The turnout was much greater, one might even say, a bushel of apples. Big Macintosh smiled with a tranquil pride emitting from him.
Now, it was Not-Applejacks’ turn. She gulped heavily. How could you possibly even think of hurting this poor, defenseless creature, she thought to herself. But she was Applejack, she thought. Applejack did this for a living, that monster! Oh no, Applejack isn’t a monster, Fluttershy scolded herself again. B-bu-but…but-“Hey Applejack, are ya gonna buck a tree?” Apple Bloom cut in. “Or maybe you ain’t even Applejack!” No time to think now, Fluttershy realized. They were going to get bored and call the police!
She galloped to the tree of her choosing, then ground to a halt in front of it. Big Mac and Apple Bloom exchanged a look of doubt. Imposter Applejack meekly turned around, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then, with all the strength her body could muster, she launched her hooves into the trees’ lower façade. The real farming ponies looked on thoughtfully. Fluttershy opened one eye to look at the damage she caused.
It turns out that buckng was all for naught, unless a lone, fallen worm can magically produce apples. Big Mac and Apple Bloom looked at their sisters’ replacement; they were not amused. “Weeeeellllllll, howdy everypony!” An elderly green mare on a walker was slowly making her way over to the Apples and Fluttershy, greeting them all the while, and saving the phony Applejack from this awkward situation. Despite Fluttershy not being Applejack, she knew this was her relative, Granny Smith.
When Granny Smith finally made her way over to the three tree buckers, she observed the spoils. She started with Fluttershy. “Hmmmm,” Granny said, observing the worm with much focus. “Applejack,” Granny said to Fluttershy, whom apparently passed for a convincing Applejack in her grandmothers’ eyes. “This pile just ain’t like what you usually bring in!” Granny Smith noted. The fake granddaughters’ eyes became dinner saucers. “It’s even better than ever!” Everyponys’ mouth went agape. Even the worm looked up to make sure it heard the old farm mare right. “Yup, I’ve raked in some apples in mah time,” Granny started, “But this here’s the mother lode!” Fake Applejack smiled back at the two ponies with working vision, their mouths still agape.
“Yessirie!” Smith continued, “We can buy me a new walker with all these apples!” She evidently forgot to check the other two piles. “Why, we can buy that purple friend of yours some cals…clium!” “Um, well,” the fraudulent Applejack began. “my friend don’t need no calcium. Why would she-” “Oh, you know,” Granny continued, ignoring her fake granddaughter entirely, “I once knew a feller named ‘Cleum.’ Cleum!” The three were slightly taken aback by the appearance of this story that came from nowhere. “Now, this pony, he was one dumbass hillfilly, bless his inbred heart!” the white-haired mare said thoughtfully, if somewhat insensitively towards donkeys. “Now, Cleums’ family was infamous for its’ inbreedin’, but that colt wasn’t to be outdone! Nope, this idiot was conceived…while his parents were still in the womb!” Granny Smith was getting more jovial, while the three ponies listening were getting more uncomfortable. After a short, strong bout of laughter, Granny Smith seemed to wrap up her story. “Heh heh, needless to say, this kid liked to dine on cardboard-”
Apple Bloom raised her hoof, and Granny Smith abruptly ended her story. “Yes, Big Mac?” she said. The filly paused for a second to take that in, then asked “Can we please go to the bathroom?” “Um, all of us?” asked an off-put Fluttershy. Apple Bloom put a hoof in her moth to silence her. “Ah don’t see why not.” the elderly mare agreed. “Just be back in time for supper. This Cleum feller did all kinds of stupid things that you ought to know about.” “Thanks Granny Smith!” Apple Bloom said, galloping past her grandmother. “Certainly! Bye, Big Mac!” Big Mac followed Apple Bloom. “Bye Apple Bloom!” Fluttershy was hot on Big Macs’ tail. “Bye, Rarity!”
Back at the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres, the three Apples were recovering from Granny Smiths’ sudden inbred story. Just then, Apple Bloom hatched a way to have fun with her ‘sister’. “Hey, Applejack?” the filly asked. “Uh, yeah, sis?” Fluttershy replied. “We won’t ask if you’re really Applejack anymore if you take us all out for beer.”
Author note: School's starting, so this one is a little shorter than the others, and it will probably take longer to make the next chapters. Now that that's out of the way, order up!
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Rarity usually awoke earlier than 11AM like she was today. Then again, she doesn’t usually sneak into someponys’ home through the window and sleep in their room under their identity, either. Nor did she normally wear her purple mane down like Fluttershy, wear wings she never used like Fluttershy, or tended to animals like Fluttershy. She rose slowly, still somewhat tired. “Hmm!” Rarity, as Fluttershy, thought to herself. “I should probably go pay my darli-um, cute widdwe babies a visit.” The pony that was typically a fashion enchantress was, today, an unassuming, meek, perhaps shy, Pegasus, one which was more suited to care for a myriad of animals, all domesticated from various states of the wild. Not that imposter with fake wings tied around her waist would know of if she visited Fluttershys’ abode without her.
As she trotted downstairs to tend to another mares’ house, and her animals, and her own acting abilities, she was met with a flurry of irate animals.
“Um, hi my darli-” muttered Fake-Fluttershy, with only the increased volume of angry animals thrown her way as a response. “Well, uh, mamma is here to tend to-” More animal noises, boos, if the fraudulent Fluttershy was going to hazard a guess. “Can I at least fee-” An object thrown right at her face said no. Sliding off her static, yet mortified, face, was a ghastly substance, unmistakably an overripe tomato from the compost heap! “Um, I’ll just come back later,” said Not-Fluttershy, through a mix of anger and rejection.
Rarity, distraught with her poor reception from Real Fluttershys’ pets, decided to familiarize herself with ‘Raritys’ Carousel Boutique, which Pinkie Pie was managing. No matter how unnerved Rarity was by the prospect of Pinkie Pie tending to her workshop, she still would not be prepared for what Pinkie was doing.
The shock of eighty pounds of bricks struck her clean in the face as she opened “her” door. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!” was the most suppressed reaction Rarity-posing-as-Fluttershy could muster. “Oh, salutations, Rari-er, I mean Fluttershy!” greeted the ever-cheery Pinkie Pie, or pink Rarity in a stovepipe hat & monocle, as the case was. She greeted the aghast fashionista as if they both met up at a highly anticipated, highly classy, highly British party, rather than in the batter-stained ruins of Raritys’ home that once sold designer clothes. “Would you care for some salad dressing, Fluttershy,” the clothing-cooking mare offered, extending a dress rendered unrecognizable by the salad sticking to it via ranch dressing towards the revolted faux-alicorn, “or perhaps you’d like a wool parka, a la mode?” She held out a parka dripping with vanilla bean ice cream.
The imposter Raritys’ offers were burrowing further into Real Raritys’ brain as a great injustice to her once-proud Boutique, now full of broken mannequins and stains of failed culinary concoctions coating the walls and floor. “Um, Ra-Rarity?” False Fluttershy started to argue. “May-maybe you should, uh make clothes, you know, that, um, aren’t edible?”
“Not edible?!” patronized Not-Rarity “My good Fluttershy, I’m afraid you’re coming off as quite dahft!”
“But, but, this, I mean…” Fake-Fluttershy tried to put it through barred teeth. “Don’t boutiques usually, um sell clothes?”
Imposter Rarity suppressed, then released, a short, hearty laugh. Then, she inquired, “Wait, why would we sell clothes at the Carousel Pancake House?” Actual Raritys’ face was crimson. Her blessed boutique, once a candidate for Fashion capital of Equestria, or at least Ponyville, was now a cheap, gimmicky diner!
“Um, well, maybe, you know, last time I, well, checked,” Fake Fluttershy started, a deep scowl crawling over her face, “Carousel Boutique was kind of a fashion store of, well, class and not a”- her rant stopped cold as she saw a furry beige batter ball roll across the floor meowing in discomfort. “OPALESCENCE!”
“Oh, dear!” the pink Rarity imposter said in her fake British accent. “It was not me, Rar-I mean, Fluttershy!”
If the white, horned, fake-winged Fluttershys’ face was crimson before, it had elevated to scarlet at that moment. “Well, ‘Rarity,’” the fierce, fraudulent Fluttershy said through ground teeth, a body quaking with rage, and no attempt at impressions, “this just proves my point. That point being, that this Boutique is a fashion store or prestige, not a battleground between your KITCHEN PANTRY AND YOUR EMPTY HEAD!!!” At this, real Rarity pounced at fake Rarity, and a truly unladylike scuffle ensued inside the Carousel Pancake House/Boutique.
It was inside a tree house, a house made out of a tree, that Applejack found herself. Specifically, finding herself waking up far earlier than the studious unicorn she had to mimic for a day. With a hearty yawn, she was up and ready to go at 5 in the morning. “Perhaps I should tend to my library!” the orange ersatz unicorn suggested to herself out loud, remembering she was Twilight Sparkle.
She galloped to the main library room, where a purple dragon was snoozing away in his basket bed. Not Twilight trotted over to wake him up like she did with her little sister. She said, “Giddup, time for workin’!” She then remembered that Spike wasn’t Apple Bloom. Too late. The baby dragon rose slowly, perhaps passive-aggressively.
“Uuuughhhhgh, what is it, Twilight?!” Spike snapped, while in a haze. “Why are you up?!”
Applejack scrambled for an excuse, trying to suppress the Southern accent. “Uh, well, I feel that we must, um, you know,”
“No, I don’t. Why do you sound like Applejack?”
“Ha ha! Really? Ah-I hadn’t noticed…sorry about waking you, I guess I just couldn’t…sleep!”
“…Oooookay. G’night!” and Spike promptly collapsed into a ball of snoring, purple scales.
Applejack took a sigh of relief. No further need to try to bluff her way out of questions from Spike, she thought. She decided that, when in Twilights’ hooves, read a book! One in particular caught her eye. “The First Beer, huh.” It kept Applejack awake as Spike slept. It told of a little girl who evades her older sister and coerces her sisters’ friend and older brother into buying a case of beer for her. While reading all of this, Applejack couldn’t help but feel that if Apple Bloom were to run amok like that, she’d beat her little sister like a mother from Dark Ages. Thankfully, the farm mare knew she raised her sis right.
Before the fake librarian knew it, it was 9AM. Spike was just awakening, and getting some cereal. Fake Twilight was ready to face the dragon head-on. She trotted in, offering Spike a nonchalant “Gooood morning, Spike!” Spike looked back at her and responded, “Applejack, why are you in Twilights’ house with a cone glued to your forehead?”
Well that didn’t take long for the dragon to notice! She did look mighty silly, she thought to herself. She had an orange paper cone with lines on it adhered to her forehead to simulate a unihorn. She also had her hair, which was typically in a ponytail, fixed to fall down off the sides of her face, à la Twilight Sparkle. Applejack cleared her throat, but couldn’t think of something to say, so she told the truth, sort of. “Spike, Rainbow Dash” earth pony Twilight explained with a wink, “ain-isn’t here right now.”
Spike just put the milk carton down and sighed in response. “I didn’t ask about Rainbow Dash. I asked why you’re trying to act like Twilight.”
He didn’t get the hint. Time to tell the truth. “Okay then. Spike, come close.” She gestured the dragon towards her and whispered her predicament in his ear. Celestia or no Celestia, she was not a damned liar, she was the Element of Honesty. Not that she felt like sharing it with the world right now. In fact, she felt tense at rebelling against the Princess’s orders, no matter how inane they may be.
“So Twilight’s acting like Rainbow Dash right now?”
“Yup. I mean, indeed.”
“Huh. But why would the Princess make you somepony everypony knows can’t use magic?” Spike pondered.
“It beats the bu-perplexes me too.” Applejack concurred, making sure to keep up the façade nonetheless.
“Welp, better go on about our day! You know,” Spike was clearly preparing a way to exploit the situation, “Twilight usually takes me to Sugarcube Corner for lunch!”
“Heh, suuuuure she does!” The orange mare shot the ultimatum down immediately.
“Actually, she does, I mean, you do.” Spike was happy to play along. “I mean, who else works so diligently to organize all of her books? Or rather, the ones she’s not organizing with her magic.”
Low blow. Well, the argument was convincing, entirely true or not. Spike pledged to labor endlessly until noon, in which the fake unicorn would try to help, adverse to laziness and all. She even helped organize some books, hoping that Twilight wouldn’t mind the spit on the books.
After finally putting the last book in, called Mouths of Holding: The Earth Pony Immune System, Replacement Twilight and Spike wandered off to the lively center of Ponyville, where Sugarcube Corner, and all of its’ tasty treasures, lie. Before they could get to downtown, however, they noticed a randomly-placed wooden fence in the distance. In front of that fence were three familiar-looking ponies, the one on the far right was a large, crimson stallion with a farmers’ build. He was leaning against the wall with a stern expression on his face, while looking away from the other two, with his forelegs crossed. The middle one, a mare with her pink mane in a ponytail under a familiar Stetson was darting her eyes from side to side, both bashfully & nervously, all while crouched on the ground. She had a hardly touched can of beer in front of her. The last one, a filly, had a six-pack of beer in front of her, holding a can in her hoof, coupled with a look of serene satisfaction.
“APPLE BLOOM!” exploded Applejack, fed up with the acting, rage pouring from her ears like a magma plume.
No notice from the three, though. They couldn’t hear the mare yearning to get medieval on her little sister because they were too involved in their deeply philosophical conversation.
“Yup,” the filly said.
“Eeyup,” the stallion forced, still not looking at his little sis.
“Mmmmm hmm,” the pink-haired look-alike uttered in agreement.
Applejack quaked the ground beneath her with each step she took towards her immoral little sister. Spike followed tentatively, not wanting to be in the crossfire of this.
“Eeyup,” the curious foal concurred, with her older sister standing over her.
“Nope!” Applejack grabbed her sisters’ foreleg with a vice grip found only between the jaws of the strongest crocodiles.
Neither she nor Apple Bloom were even sure if the orange farming pony would even have a sister after today. Big Mac wasn’t sure of it. Fluttershy-as-Applejack was frightened for Apple Bloom. Spike could only hope she’d live after Applejack was done with her.
Wait, live! Spike saw his brief life flash before his eyes as Applejack stormed towards his general direction. She stopped in front of Spike, handed Spike Twilights’ wallet(Celestia was thorough) and flatly said, “Enjoy yourself.” Spike took the wallet, knowing that Applejacks’ day was kind of ruined with her having to impale her little sister. She stomped past Spike after that, Apple Bloom in tow and on death row.
“Man, poor Apple Bloom.” Spike mourned to the ponies left standing. “She really Guess she’s pretty bucked! She must’ve squeezed an orange in Applejacks’ eye, huh?” Big Mac & Fluttershy-posing-as-Applejack just shot daggers at the pun-lobbing dragon. “What is this, wooden fence of the living dead?! At least humor me!” The daggers got sharper. Spike, realizing his callousness, tried to make amends. “...who wants to go to Sugarcube Corner with me?” he offered, holding up Twilights' wallet.
After a minute, the stallion responded. “Count me in,” Big Mac accepted. “I could use some cream puffs after Apple Bloom took us through all that!”
“Yeah. I’m-I mean,” Fluttershy was scouting for her motivation. “Ah’m comin’ with you! Ah’d bring Apple Bloom, but, uh, Ah think she’s had enough!”
Everyone had a good chuckle at that joke. Big Mac then joined in. As they turned towards Sugarcube Corner, beer out of their systems, a single rainbow steak shot towards the base of an upside-down funnel-shaped tower, from Sugarcube Corner.
“Yeah, Rainbow Dash is Pinkie Pie today,” Spike responded, deadpan. “Princess Celestias’ orders.”
“Wait,” Big Mac said. “So is that why…” As Big Mac pointed towards her, Fluttershy nodded. “And…” she and Spike nodded. After a minute of absorbing all of that, the crimson stallion remarked, "Welp, you can take the mare out of the country, but you can't take the beer out of Apple Bloom!"
Everybody busted a gut at the joke. “Let’s order them creampuffs!” Flapplejack proclaimed, good moods finally showing themselves. And so they merrily walked to Sugarcube Corner, with no need to pummel anyone ever showing up.
Twilight Sparkle held claim to being rendered the most miserable mare to mingle among the mimics, minding Midnight. The self-levitation spell she had to study left her up all night, since role-playing Rainbow Dash involved using a legendarily difficult spell. She discounted the wing spell, since it didn't feel like Rainbow Dash, opting for prosthetic wings as an aesthetic substitute. Unfortunately, the spell ate magical energy like Pinkie Pie ate…well, anything! Thus, Twilight struggled to even remember, much less cast, the cloud-standing spell she had to cast to complete the replacing of her fast-flying friend. It left just enough with room to spare. After casting that spell, she then had to cast a spell that made her horn, and its’ aura, invisible, and finding the correct measurement with the amount of energy she had left was nightmarish. Thankfully, she already knew that spell, otherwise she would just sleep on a park bench. Now, though she lied awake on her cloudy bed, not knowing how to obey Princess Celestias’ orders and not use magic, her prime element. After what felt like a fortnight, she finally drifted off to sleep…
…only for an ill-tempered, grizzled-looking Pegasus with a black crew-cut mane and a white coat to scream in her face. “GET UP, MAGGOT!”
Twilight yelped and Rainbow Spashed the cloudy floor next to her with her face in response. She merely rolled over onto her back to look up at the angry winged stallion. She muttered to him, “Uughh, just five more minutes, having all this awesome can tire a girl out…”
“I said MOVE, WORM!” The white Pegasus opted to scream in her ear this time, and fake Rainbow Dash was wide awake. She stood up and awaited orders. The angry stallion leered into her purple eyes and barked, “Why are you slacking off at 10 AM?!”
It’s 10 in the morning right now?! Twilight really woke up at this news. She stood up to be examined by this new pony she was forced to meet. He leered at the fake wings fastened to her waist with a belt. Then he glared at her some more, this time at her mane, which was fixed in a tomboyish style not unlike the speedy Pegasus she was replacing for the day. He looked like he was of the opinion that glaring at somepony for a long enough time would get them to cough up some answers.
All of this glaring was making Twilight tense. What was she going to say to this psychotic stallion? Will he stop leering at me? Can he let me know already? “You sicken me, newblood!” he finally spoke. “Trying to take our finest weather patrols’ style!” Rainbow Dash kept up a style? Twilight was perplexed that she was considered so conscious of her appearance. Or maybe she misunderstood him. Or maybe it was just him thinking that. Or maybe-“WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?!?!”
The authoritative pegasus was really hurting Magical-Rainbow Dashs’ feelings, especially since he rudely awakened her. Despite herself, she wanted answers. Through tears, she asked “Who are you?”
The stallions’ yellow pupils shrunk to ants in pure rage. “Listen well, hoofsucker!” Did this jerk ever stop shouting insults? Or shouting in general? “I am Sgt. Swearzelot: Coordinator of the Weather Patrol!” Wait, wasn’t that Rainbow Dash? Twilight pondered. “Former Sergeant of the Royal Guard!” Wait, I have to coordinate the Weather Patrol?! Twilight realized. “And you, my shit-faced little-”
Not Rainbow Dash tuned the mental Weather Patrol ‘leader’ out to stare at his Cutie Mark: @#!*%. Swearzelot indeed. “ARE YOU ZONING OUT, YOU SNOT-FACED PUNK?!?!?” Twilight was sure that she’d be deaf by the end of the day: she was already desensitized by all of the screaming Swearzelot was forcing into her face. “I’VE HAD IT UP TO HERE,” he gestured as high as his foreleg would go, “WITH YOUR STUPID-ASS HIDE!” He then shoved her off of the cloud she was standing on.
Even wide awake, she was totally unprepared for somepony to shove her off into her death! She had to think quickly, now. Self-levitation, self-levitation. She mustered her focus into giving herself flight. The plummeting stopped. She looked around, then celebrated. “Yes! Yes! I truly am the most radical thing in the sky!” Swearzelot, however, just looked at her like she had shape-shifted into a giant Swedish meatball, floating carelessly in the sky.
“What in fucks’ name?!” he said, humbled, yet still loud.
She responded, now cocky, “Yeah, you must be shocked, ‘cuz you didn-”
“WHAT ARE YOUR WINGS’ MALFUNCTION, SHIT STAIN?!”
Crud! Fake Rainbow had forgotten to incorporate the wing movement into her illusion! How would she blend in, while standing out, in Pegasus society now?!
“Uh, heheh heh. Uh, it’s a unique thing that runs in my family!” Twilight was, for the purpose of getting away from Swearzelot, acting as not Rainbow Dash, but a cocky, levitating Pegasus.
“…just get to pushing clouds!” The Sergeant was obviously just as eager to be rid of the faux-pegasus as she was to be rid of him. “You can help that misfit over there.”
He gestured to a female grey Pegasus with a blonde mane. She was scratching her head while looking at the cloud in front of her. She clearly wasn’t cut out for Weather Patrol. She didn’t even look cut out to dress herself, if the look in her yellow, freeform eyes said anything about her. The purple Rainbow vaguely recognized her. She... delivered muffins, or something? Whatever it was, she sure wasn’t on Weather Patrol! This guy was insane!
Sgt. Swearzelot then took notice at a flock of pegasi absentmindedly pushing a cloud somewhere, not really sure where. He flew towards them, hurling a barrage of obscenities laced with orders at the poor mares, who promptly followed his every word. So he did have power, Twilight thought. Or at least, he was a substitute leader. Oh, no! She wasn’t following Celestias’ orders! How would she explain herself? How would she fill in for Rainbow Dash?! Oh, if only she read a book about Pegasus weather-changing patterns. If only she could read the weather schedule!
Twilight Dash calmed herself. She hovered over to the confused-looking mare to try to be Rainbow Dash. She wasn’t failing the Princess without a fight! She greeted the pony wit ha hearty “Hey, pal! What’chya doi-”
“RAINBOW DASH!” she yelled. Does everypony yell up here, she thought. It's been a long time up in the clouds. Regardless, she was just glad to be ‘recognized’ as ‘Rainbow Dash.’ “Hey, remember me?” The not-so-speedy Rainbow didn’t have a second to even think. “Everypony calls me Klutzy, but I know!” Oh! It was all coming back to Twilight now. How could she not see that it was clearly- “My name’s Santa Claus!” That’s Derpy for you, Twilight noted. Only a week, and she already forgot her name, again. Twilight recounted that on good days, the lovable dim bulb was considered a public nuisance, while on bad days, she was a public menace. Nopony else could crash through several homes just by picking up a rock. Regardless, Not-Rainbow found a place to be Rainbow Dash.
“Derpy, I thought you were a mailmare.” Ersatz Rainbow said to her.
“I thought so, too,” the clueless mare replied. “But Sgt. Swearzelot whipped me into shape, and now I am pushing this cloud somewhere so he doesn’t yell naughty words at me.” Twilight noted to herself not to go up into the clouds ever again if she could help herself, lest she find herself harassed by that public menace.
“Welp, come on, Derpy, this cloud ain’t gonna push itself!” Twilight swelled up inside with pride at her acting.
“Thanks, Rainbow Dash,” Derpy started, “for being so cool to me when everypony else just yells at me.” Twilight then swelled up inside for the village dunce. If Swearzelot wasn’t in the Royal Guard…
Derpys’ forehoof met the back of the purple Rainbow Dash mane with uncoordinated, yet brute, force. “Look, Rainbow Dash!” Derpy yelled. “You’re psychicing a rainbow to that power plant!”
Twilight Dash tried to look at the sight of a rainbow headed towards the rarely-discussed Ponyville Power Plant. However, Derpy was surprisingly strong, or her hoof was surprisingly hard. Either way, Twilights’ self-levitation spell shut down as a response, so she hurdled to the ground below.
“Oh, no!” the accident-prone mare cried out. “Don’t worry, Rainbow Dash, I’ll save you!” At these words, Derpy pulled out a pillow, flew down with a vast reservoir of speed in her wings. She placed the pillow where she thought the Fake Rainbow Dash would fall, and she left a unicorn shaped implant in the ground… twenty feet from where Derpys’ pillow was. “Oops,” she said, feeling stupid, even for her.
She flew over to the shallow crater, pillow in tow, and did the only thing that what was right: she dropped the pillow on top of her replacement hero. “Get well soon, Rainbow Dash!” she muttered to her, regret latent in her voice and on her face. She then flew away feeling quite unhappy.
Twilight forgot how good sleep felt. She could feel each lone molecule breathing a gargantuan sigh of relief. Her eyelids were draped over her vision and firmly anchored there. She drifted out of consciousness, floating away from this inane day… so much relaxation… so much harmony… so much window crashing…
…so much window crashing? Slowly, her eyelids rescinded to check out what the problem was. “Just wait ‘til I get my hooves on you!” cried a familiar, vindictive voice.
“Oh dear, somepony, do assist, please!” responded a fake British accent. Twilight saw a pink earth pony, whom looked noticeably tattered, gallop across the green sky, with an enraged white unicorn hot on her heels, wielding something with her magic, something indescribable from her viewing angle. The battered pink mare then suddenly ran in Twilights' direction in desperation, but the angry unicorn caught up with her and grabbed hold of her. They both then rolled over Twilight.
“What in the hay’s goin’ on, here?” interjected a Southern accent.
Applejack looked at Rarity, as Fluttershy, rose up, picking up Pinkie Pie, as Rarity, with her magic. “Um, Applejack!” Rarity responded in her usual voice, dropping the truncheon she was wielding, but then she remembered she was Fluttershy. “Um, well, Rarity, kind of, well, destroyed Carosel Boutique,” fake Fluttershy explained, looking at the ground and shuffling her left hoof.
“Twilight, this ruffian attacked me for my business practices,” Pinkie replied, now trilling her r’s, much to real Raritys’ annoyance. Regardless, real Rarity was fairly cruel to fake Rarity, whom had two black eyes, a couple missing teeth, and glass from being thrown out the window. She also had truncheon marks across her torso and legs.
Twilight was just regaining the last of her consciousness. She could make out Applejack yelling at the two for torturing each other so brutally. “An’ Rarity, um real Rarity,” Applejack continued, noticing Pinkie paying more attention than usual. “Whah would you pound your friend to a pulp over servin’ some pancakes at your frilly clothin’ store?”
“Indeed,” Pinkie concurred. I was merely enhancing the menu with pancakes!”
“You were vandalizing my clothes!” yelled not-Fluttershy.
“I was serving pancakes!” Pinkie argued, her façade waning as well. “If anything, you made my pancakes boring!”
“Girls, girls!” Applejack yelled. “We need to keep our heads together if we wanna get through this day!”
“Shouldn’t you be, um, acting like Twilight?” Fraud Fluttershy inquired.
“Rarity, jus’ give up this here actin’ cra-TWILIGHT!”
At Applejacks’ realization that the substitute Rainbow Dash was just regaining consciousness, the three mares rushed to her side. “Twilight, what happened? You okay? Need anythin’?” Twilight couldn’t take in all the questions Applejack kept throwing at her.
“Twilight,” the Rare Pinkie started, “why would you be referring to Rainbow Dash as yo-”
“Pinkie, jus’ shut up an’ get her some water!” And with that, Pinkie galloped to the Pancake house/Boutique.
“Twilight, darli-um,” Rarity lowered her voice, “speak to us.”
“Uhhh, I’m okay… ‘cuz I’m the Ruler of the Sky!” the Purple Rainbow proclaimed, her head still pounding and in a slight daze. Pinkie then came back with water.
“Do drink this, dearie.” Fake Rarity offered Not Rainbow Dash a glass of water, which she grabbed with her psychic energy. She then downed it quickly.
Twilight now saw just how awful Pinkie looked, with all of the bruises and cuts the genuine Rarity inflicted upon her in her rampage of revenge. She also saw that everypony was in front of Carousel Boutique, which itself looked in pretty bad shape. She knew why, however, so she decided to ask Applejack a question that’s vexed her ever since she woke up. Dropping the act for a minute, Twilight asked, “Applejack, why aren’t you acting anymore?”
“Yeah, and, um,” Rarity the shy Pegasus interjected “what are you doing in front of the Carousel Boutique,” emphasizing boutique deliberately within earshot of the Rarity imposter, whom appeared to take no notice.
Applejack responded rather touchily. “Well, playin’ around lyin’ about how you’re somepony else is all well n’ good,” The farm mare was clearly too disillusioned with today to remember how she was in the Hearths’ Warming Eve play, which didn’t really require much flexing of her real character, “‘til your little sis thinks she can extort your friends for free beer!”
A smug grin crept over Pinkies’ Rarity face, not even trying to contain it and clearly missing the ‘polite’ part of Raritys’ character. “Figures,” she taunted in jest, and a hammy British accent, “that your sister would be unable to fill her prepubescent body system with enough intoxicating fluids.”
“Ah don’t know what’chyu just said,” AJ argued, “but Ah think you just called mah family a flock a drunks!”
“Why else would she partake in the consumption of intoxicating fluids?”
“Excuse me!” real Rarity but in, being Rarity for a moment, “But I do not talk like that!”
“Right!” AJ agreed. “An’ Ah was draggin’ Apple Bloom home to give her the punishment from b’fore the Geneighva Convention, but that lil sneak slipped right outta mah grasp! Could’a felt her in mah-well, Twilights', satchels, too” AJ was carrying Twilights’ wallet at the time. “Must a wanted to get her cutie mark in pickpocketin’, little juvie!”
“Oh, no, Applejack! Need anything from us?” Twilight offered.
“Ah want Apple Bloom!” AJ demanded. “…but lookin’ for a sneaky little sis does tire a mare out. Ah could use some water, Twah.” She appreciated the gesture. “Hey Rarity, could’ya get me some pancakes?” she asked tongue-in-cheek. Proper Rarity shot her a scowl, but the pink Rarity happily bounced into the Carousel Pancake House.
The purple unicorn wanted to know something, though. She asked the farm pony, “So…how was Spike?”
“Yes, do tell! How was my Spikey-Wikey?” Rarity interjected. “Oh, um, that was rude…I’ll go, um, get the water…” As she left for the water, AJ answered Twilights’ question. “Spike was mighty fine today, but he asked questions too early.” AJ just remembered that she still has the orange cone glued to her forehead. “In fact, he’s got your wallet now, as a reward for puttin’ up with mah outburst at Apple Bloom.”
“But, how did Apple Bloom-” Twilight asked, but Applejack answered her question before she could finish asking.
“She made Fluttershy buy some, to get her to stop talkin’ probably.” AJs’ hooves were leaving craters in the ground. Twilight felt fear for Apple Bloom looking at AJs’ hooves.
“I can’t imagine having any siblings getting drunk behind my back,” Twilight said, unable to say anything else. “So…I guess I could imagine Spike, but…well…you know…”
“Darling, you, well, should leave that, um, to me…maybe? I’m sorry.” Rarity, as Fluttershy, came back with water, which Applejack gladly accepted. “So, um, Applejack…” She shuffled around, looked at the ground, basically did Fluttershy things. Her mouth then went a mile a minute with questions. “So how is he? Did he get drunk with your sister? Probably not, since you gave him Twilights’ wallet, but are they getting drunk together, oh pleeeeeeeeeease tell me he’s not the type to drink, plea-”
“Slow down, Rarity-Ah-I mean, Fluttershy!” Applejack was back in high spirits after her water, and back to acting. “Spike has been raised too professionally to partake in such unintellectual activities. He’s a good dragon! He’s much unlike that weak-willed foal Apple Bloom,” her acting was over before it started, largely due to angering memories, “whom rummages through ponys’ pockets like a cotton-pickin’ snake-in-the-gra-”
*CRASH*
Pinkie the ersatz Rarity rejoined the three by smashing through the wall next to the shattered window, leaving a hole shaped like Pinkie Pie with Raritys’ hair and a stovepipe hat. Before anypony could explain, Pinkie was explaining, with fire in her voice. “Somepony’s using my trademark name for pancakes! We have to stop them!” She grabbed everypony around her, and, with the bang of her Party Cannon aimed at the ground, she launched herself, and her friends, and her cannon, 90 miles into the air, towards Sugarcube Corner.
"Pinkie...?" Faux-Fluttershy squeaked. And not a second later, she commenced previously unfathomable screaming in terror for ones’ life.
“Somepony remind me to ask how this cannon can propel us into the air at such a verocity!” AJ yelled, imitating Twilight.
“Velocity!” the now-soaring Twilight screamed at AJ. “The word you want is ‘velocity!’”
“Why Rainbow Dash, I had no idea you were expanding your vocabulary!” the less-articulate Twilight yelled back.
“I am not going to be able to recall your inquisitions, ladies!” Rarity Pie cut in. “Apologies!”
And so these Four Amigos(that consisted of Pinkie Pie) were propelled onto a new adventure: busting the felon whom had decided to ignore copyright laws that only Pinkamena Diane Pie could make(and comprehend). The sane one (the other three), meanwhile, had a simpler goal in mind: to survive the impact.
Using her catlike tread, Rainbow Dash used her ultra-stealthy getting-thrown-through-the-window skills to enter Pinkies' room in the dead of night. The tosser was the Ersatz Rarity, whom informed the fake Pinkie that she always enters her room that way. Outside of her glass shard cuts, Rainbow had no reason to suspect Pinkie was lying. Even considering the glass shard wounds, Rainbow had no reason to assume Pinkie was lying.
With that Pinkie Pie Pondering over with, she looked in the mirror. Aside from the cuts, which Pinkie probably doesn't even get if she really does enter her own house like this, Rainbow was a spitting cyan image: Her hair was curly, if colorful, not unlike the ditzy pink earth pony. Her face was incredibly expressive. Rainbow knew that nopony, except Pinkie, could make as funny faces as Rainbow Dash. And there were bandages in front of the mirror! Maybe Pinkie really does throw herself through the window every night.
However, Rainbow Dash had to be like an earth pony, even if Pinkie doesn't seem to be on Earth half nine-tenths of the time. Enter the cyan belt: it was fastened around her wings, so she couldn't fly around like the cocky, light-blue pegasus she normally was.
The only thing Rainbow needed to complete her transformation was a liter of Coca-Foala, the premier drink for hyping Pinkie up to liven up a party. Rainbow fondly reminisced about how they had to call an ambulance for some poor foal with an attitude problem after Pinkie downed the Foala. The best part was that Diamond Tiara was out of town that weekend! After the memories, she held the over-sugared soft drink in her forelegs and drifted off to sleep...
One toss in Pinkies' bed woke Rainbow Pinkie up. Anypony would wake up to the taste of cotton candy stuck to the bed. Not-Pinkie scrambled away from the sweet, sticky mess she was too tired & wounded to notice last night. She made a disgusted sound all the while, rushing to the bathroom wondering if Rarity tries not to hang out with Pinkie because of her food habits. Food habits...
Crud! Pinkie eats a planets' worth her weight in food, Rainbow lamented. Sugary food at that! She washed her hooves and face profusely, trying to scrub away the worrying thoughts. All the while, she was very thankful Pinkie didn't reroute the plumbing to pour chocolate or something like that. At least not today. "Pinkie!" cried an affable stallions' voice.
It was Mr. Cake. He and his wife, the owners of Sugarcube corner, would be expecting the bouncy pink mare to, well, bounce down the stairs and greet them enthusiastically. The only thing Rainbow Dash was enthusiastic about, however, was being able to bathe with water. Rainbow also gained some morning pep, or at least alertness, from the cotton candy surprise Pinkie left her. "Just a minute!" the Forgery Pinkie cried back.
After washing her hooves and her face, and brushing her teeth with chocolate-flavored toothpaste, Not-Pinkie leapt into the air to try to dash down the stairs. Instead, though, she only tasted the floorboards. She counted that as a meal, and the chocolate toothpaste as a meal, too, for that matter. Then she remembered the cyan belt fastened around her hooves. Of, course, Dash thought. She couldn't dash down the stairs: she had to pie down the stairs. Rainbow chuckled at her little epiphany.
Then she bounced down the hall, and down the stairs. Or rather, she tried to bounce down the stairs: she instead landed on the wrong part of the highest stair, and then her bouncing became tumbling. "Good morning, Pinkie," Mrs. Cake nonchalantly responded. Rainbow had a feeling that the Cakes were used to Pinkie hurting herself in her eternal pep. Good thing, too, since it was the only feeling in her head at that moment.
"Uugghh, call a doctor..." Not-Pinkie responded.
"Doctor?!" Mr. Cake responded, as Mrs. Cake gasped. "Pinkie never talked about doctors before!"
"She never had that voice before, either!" Mrs. Cake added, looking at the rainbow-maned mess at the base of the stairs. They walked over to her, inquisitive looks looming over the semi-conscious mare. "Rainbow Dash? Why were you in Pinkies' house?"
Dash looked up, confused. "Wait, house? You don't live here, or something?" Their inquisitive expressions became tainted with annoyance. "Uh, I mean, uh... Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Rainbow was hoping this was Pinkie enough, because she felt that she had lost before she started.
"Is this another prank?!" Mrs. Cake asked.
Saved by the Mrs. "Yup!" the forged Pinkie proclaimed, energy suddenly rising in her voice, as well as her voice itself. "Rainbow Dash wanted to be me, and I said 'okay,' but then Twilight wanted me to be Twilight, I mean, well, anyway! Rarity became Fluttershy, and Fluttershy's Applejack, and Applejack's Twilight, and Pinkie Pie-I mean-I-I mean-"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Mr. Cake demanded. "So your friends had a dare to be each other?"
"You got that right!" Cyan Sundae sunnily replied.
"Aw, you see that, Cup?" Mr. Cake assured her. "They're just play-acting! No need to call the cops on her friends."
"No-siree, bob!" the Cyan Pinkie replied. She really, really, really didn't want the law on her today, considering she was already under the law right now. Her head pounded at the thought. "So how about that doctor?"
At those very words, a distinguished-looking white unicorn stallion galloped in, with a whole examination kit being levitated. Dash felt confused, yet relieved. His cutie mark was a big plus. "I am that doctor you need!" His voice was deep-ish, yet nasally.
Before she could ask, Fake-Pinkie was suspended in midair, her neck twisted in various positions for the mysterious medic to examine. "You're fine!" he proclaimed, and gently lowered her to the ground.
"But you didn't play with your toys!" Rainbow Pie said, disappointed.
"Oh, they're nothing," the medic waved away. "Those tools just cut heads open to examine their brains with hooves." Rainbow was disgusted, yet amazed. Still, she's glad that all it took to diagnose her was treating her neck like a TV antenna. "Anyway, I must be off. Tending to the potentially wounded is my calling in life." And he was gone as fast as he came.
A long silence lingered in the air. Seconds felt like minutes. Minutes felt like hours. Hours felt like days. Days felt like weeks. Weeks felt like months. Months felt like years. Years felt like decades. Decades felt like æons. Æons felt like centuries. Centuries felt like millenia. Milenia felt like even longer than millenia. Even longer than mille-"So, Pinkie, let's get to work!" Mrs. Cake exclaimed, beyond grated by that drawn-out hyperbole about how every silent moment felt longer than it was.
"Aye aye, captain!" Fake Pinkie agreed, making a hoof salute to boot. She leapt into the air, face-planted again, then undauntedly bounced to the kitchen.
Well, this is new! Rainbow Dash was never accustomed to actually cooking...baking......frying...whatever! The point was, she often just grabbed an apple off of a tree or went to some restaurant. She never even touched a stove, before! Alas, she was Pinkie Pie, now, which means that she was about to get a crash-course lesson. Emphasis on crash.
She looked around for a cookbook, wondering what to make. "Pinkie!" Mr. Cake exclaimed. "We need a dozen cookies here! Frosted! Sprinkled!" Well, no need to pick, at least. She found a cookbook, titled "Cooking for the Culinary-Illiterate(and generally Illiterate)". The author was Gustave le Grand. The imitation-Pinkie vaguely remembered the name, but looked through the book, finding the cookies, dubbed "Frosting cookies" by this le Grand.
She was thankful that the book was also for the illiterate. It was all in French! Who the buck titles a French book in English, Rainbow Dash tried to fathom. Gustave le Grand, apparently! No matter! The illustrations were all detailed, and Rainbow actually found herself enjoying making these cookies. She also remembered the griffon in the pictures from that dessert contest. Man, that was awesome!
Back to work, though! She did everything right, cooked at the right temperatures, even remembered to get them out at the right time. After devastating the kitchen in her quest, Pinkie-style, she gazed upon her frosted, sprinkled cookies. The cookies looked marvelous! The frosting could elicit the drool of a Horse with No Name. "Order up!" Not-Pinkie cried.
Mr. Cake then took the package with his mouth. Then it came over her. Rainbow Dash just had to see. Who would be the lucky soul to eat her cookies?
It was a yellow foal in a sweat-stained hooded coat. She was also wearing a Grazo Manx glasses-and-mustache 'disguise'. Apple Bloom wasn't fooling anypony.
Rainbow trotted over to her after she took a seat facing the wall, away from everypony else. "So, Apple Bloom," Fake Pinkie inquired. "What brings you to Sugarcube Corner dressed like a gym bag?"
"Well," Apple Bloom prepared. "Ah'm hungry."
"Yeah, but why all the sweat?"
"Well, Ah, uh, wanted to work some carbs off before eatin' cookies! Yeah!"
"'Kay. And the glasses?"
"...Ah, Ah... Ah felt like bein' funny!" AB defended. "Surely you'd feel the same!"
The Rainbow Pinkie looked at her intently for a moment. Apple Bloom gulped, and not on a cookie. Cyan Sundae finally said "Welp, enjoy! I made them myself." Rainbow silently congratulated herself on a role well played as she hopped back to the kitchen.
She sat in the kitchen for ten minutes, playing with an egg-beater. The tool amused her-no! Enchanted her. Beckoned her. beckoned her to twirl its' mechanically-brilliant design harder. Harder! Harder! Mrs. Cake summoned the messy Rainbow to serve a tower of cream puffs for here. She noticed cake batter all over the walls, and her mane, and her face. She wrote it off as "Pinkie Pie" being hard at work, since the real Pinkie does have a similar method to her madness.
She followed Gustaves' drawings right down to each molecule of ink. After that, and more playing with the egg-beater, she put the tower of cream puffs on a platter for here.
She went to the window, when she heard her name. It was Spike! Man, we're getting all the cool ponies today, Rainbow thought. Well, ponies & dragons. Whatever! Mr. Cake asked for the platter, but Not-Pinkie opted to serve it herself.
At a circular table, there was the purple dragon, along with Big Mac, the red stallion, and Fluttershy, who was replacing Applejack for the day. Spike was just finishing up a tale of his, about how he, Twilight, & Rainbow Dash went to the Griffin Kingdom. "So then Rainbow Dash says 'What? You can't throw one house party in the Palace of Verskailles?'" Big Mac & Flutterjack guffawed at Spikes' anecdote. Rainbow Pie just got to their table when the laughter died down. He wrapped it up, saying "Ah, yeah. So, that's why we're not allowed to go back to the Griffin Kingdom. Isn't that right, Rainbow Dash-I mean, Pinkie Pie."
"Well, it would make for the ultimate house party!" Pinkie Dash defended jokingly, putting the cream puffs on the table.
"Actually," Big Mac started, "that Palace was used for just that reason. It was just for the king n' his friends." Everypony looked at him in awe. "Ah had to retake World History," he replied, becoming very interested in a cream puff in front of him.
"Welp, what're we waitin' for?" the Stetsoned Fluttershy proclaimed. "Let's dig in!"
The four of them(they let Rainbow join) sunk their hooves, or claws in Spikes' case, into the fluff-filled creamy delights. After tasting it, they all promptly spit it into a napkin. All except Spike, who was quite pleased. "Blech, sorry Pinkie," said Appleshy, "but these cream puffs taste lahk hoof stink!"
"Eeyup!" Big Mac agreed, looking traumatized by the cream puffs in front of him. Spike just kept eating, remembering to savor each bite like Twilight repeatedly had to tell him.
"Hey, Spike likes them!" the Rainbow-maned Pinkie defended. Spike happily nodded in agreement. The farm ponies, however, were unconvinced. Even Rainbow herself spit out her sweat-tasting cream puffs. "Well," she said, sounding less secure by the minute, "let's ask this patron." She poked the sweat-wrapped filly. "Hey, aren't my cookies awesome?"
The wanted filly nodded, forcing the ghastly baked bads down her throat. She wasn't about to get on Rainbows' bad side, especially since Scootaloo worshiped her, and especially since Big Mac, Flutershy, and Spike were behind her. The two farmers were still unmoved. No destitute filly could change their minds about the horrid cream puffs.
"Pinkie!" Mrs. Cake yelled, watching the whole scene. "What did you do to the cream puffs?!"
"I made them," Not-Pinkie replied, her voice shaky, yet absent-minded.
"Ya done made 'em, alright!" Farmer Fluttershy butted in. "Made 'em bad! "
"Alright! Alright!" Rainbow caved in. "I'll make 'em again, on the house! I just need a new ingredient." She tore off her belt, revealing her hardy, eager wings. "Be right back!"
She Rainbow Dashed out the door, leaving a trail of rainbow behind her. She also inadvertently blew Apple Blooms' sweaty hood, and glasses, off. AB was caught off-guard, but she tried not to turn around. The farmers were not amused. Big Mac towered above her, glaring down syringes at her, while Flutterjack put her in a chokehold. "So where'd ya get the bits for them cookies, sis?" Fluttershy was clearly neck-deep in her role-playing. And in revenge.
"Ah jus' got 'em from Sweetie Belle." AB said through her breath, though she wasn't really in danger of death, for a multitude of reasons. "Said Ah'll pay her back!"
The roughened, tumbled Fluttershy looked at Big Mac for what to do next. He merely replied "Eeyup!" and the chokehold unravelled. Apple Bloom gasped for air, and slightly bobbed back & forth, slightly dizzy. Big Mac loomed over her, and said "Ah thought Applejack was takin' care of you!"
"Well," AB responded, having to think on her hooves. "She sent me to get her some cookies."
"Nice try," Big Mac rejected. "Applejack doesn't like frosted cookies!"
"Yeah!" Flutterjack interjected. "They give me indigestion!"
Buck! They were right! "Well," AB started, "She was lenie-"
"She was not!" Big Mac interrupted. "Come on, you little liar!" Big Mac grabbed his booze-buying sister by the ear, somehow. "We're goin' back to the farm, 'til Appleja-"
"Twahlaght." Fluttershy corrected.
"...'til Twilight" Big Mac rolled his eyes, quite peeved. "gets back home."
The two led the extorting filly out the door, leaving Spike alone with the crummy cream puffs. Before they made it out the door, though, the same streak of Rainbow that condemned Apple Bloom returned to save her, if only for a moment. The streak had a glowing green sack on its' back, and it exclaimed "Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow." all the way back to the kitchen.
She then went straight to work on the new concoction of cream puffs(with a kick!). The three farm ponies just stood there as the kitchen flashed bright green. Pots and pans clashed together. Bowls and dishes broke, bludgeoned apart, from the sound of it. Lime green batter flew out of the window, and dissolved the floor it landed on. Even Spike turned his attention away from the cream puffs to notice that. "Well, Ah think Ah'll skip lunch for today!" the ersatz Applejack proclaimed.
Looking to divert attention away from the impending health violation looming in the kitchen, Spike looked at Big Mac and asked, "So Big Mac, why did you let Apple Bloom make, uh, Applejack buy her beer?"
Big Macs' eyes shifted. "Well, lemmie put it this way," he started. "We all have secrets. Some embarrassing! That's all Ah'm sayin'." Apple Bloom stayed silent. She already had Big Macs' hoof gripping her ear somehow. No need to exacerbate the situation.
Spike had one of Apple Blooms' 'cookies' and then said "Okay then. I understand." They all looked at the window, witnessing what may have been a science experiment. "So," Spike suggested. "Anypony wanna see what Rainbo-er, Pinkie's doing in there?" They pondered for a moment, then nodded, in agreement.
They all entered the room of acidic sludge. Holes were everywhere. The spots that weren't dissolved were caked in lime-green batter. They looked at the batter-coated mare responsible, who was using an electric egg-beater this time.
A glob of glowing goop went right for Big Macs' head, but he ducked in time. The door behind him, however, wasn't so lucky, as it was eaten molecule-by-molecule. The colorful cook energetically said to the kitchen visitors "You haven't lived, until you've tried one of my Thermo, nuclear-o...dynamicano...So-Bucking-Good-It-Oughta-Be-A-War-Crime Pancakes!"
The four onlookers just stood there, a couple eyes twitching. Cyan Sundae didn't notice. Minutes felt like hours. Hours felt like da-
As the debris cleared out of the ruins of the kitchen, Rainbow Pie could make out the irate pink Rarity glaring at her. At the same time, Spike, Big Mac, Flutterjack and Apple Bloom could make out the four semi-unconscious mares scattered all over the plywood that made up the kitchen for Sugarcube Corner. "Uh, heheh..." The fake Pinkie was confused and frightened at why the real Pinkie looked so cross with her, so much so that she had stopped being Pinkie at this moment.
"So, uh, anything wrong?" she asked, futilely trying to diffuse the tension.
"You darn tootin' there's something wrong!" Pinkie snapped, in a distinctly not-attempting-an-accent accent.
"Hey now," Flutterjack butt in. "Ain't Ah the one sayin' 'darn toot-'"
"I'm busy right now, Fluttershy!" Pinkie spat.
"Um, okay."
The four conscripts in Pinkies' war were just regaining full consciousness, getting a better feel for their surroundings. Twilight, in particular, was taking note of the glowing green goo that gave the kitchen a ghastly guise. Her eyes became saucer plates that weren't broken like the ones in this kitchen, and her pupils became smaller than the remains of the things covered with the radiated slime. She slowly got up, trying to deny it, then quickly confronting the two mares, unable to hide from it. Her mind raced to the conclusion the lethal batter gave her. "Has the Ponyville Radiation Plant seen what you've done?" Twilight asked Rainbow Dash in a hushed, audibly mortified voice. "because when they do, YOU'LL PAY FOR THE CONSEQUENCES!"
"Darn tootin,' she will!" Pinkie interjected.
"Okay, okay!" Rainbow conceded further. "What did I do wrong?"
"Hmmmm, let's see, shall we?" Pinkie was being rather antagonistic today. If Rarity and Applejack didn't wake up from Twilights' freak out, Pinkies' barbed, sarcasm-soaked response to Rainbow Dash trying to reason with her sure did.
"Maybe, perhaps, somehow, in a way, you may have, kind of, perhaps, slightly, maybe, possibly, a little more slightly-"
"Just get to the point already, Pinkie! Really!" Rarity shouted. All the tension in the "room" dissolved all the passion for role-play at the moment.
"What I'm saying, Miss Rainbow Dash," Pinkie summed up in a not-Rarity accent, contrasting with that last sentence, "is that you are in violation of copyright laws."
"Copyright?" Rainbow said, dumbstruck. "What kind of bakery involves copyright?"
Pinkie went livid. "The kind of bakery that trademarked Thermo-nuclearo-dynamicano-So-Bucking-Good-It-Oughta-Be-A-War-Crime Pancakes!"
"Is that why we're both sterile?!"
Standing next to the over-stimulated eardrums of the farm ponies and Spike were an equally livid Mr. & Mrs. Cake. Mrs. Cake was the one who intervened. Pinkies' anger subsided almost entirely. "Wait, all these radiation blocks in the secret stash sterilized you?" She asked this as she opened up a trap door in front of her that let out a much stronger burst of lime green. Everyponys' jaw hit the floor. As did Spike's.
"Pinkie?" Twilight asked apprehensively. "Why did you steal all of those radiation bars?"
"Do tell, Pinkie." Faux-Rarity was gesturing at Faux-Pinkie.
"Uh, 'Rarity?'" the fake Pinkie responded. "Rainbow Dash means you."
"Oh!" Pinkie exclaimed, dropping the act. "Wait, I didn't steal them! I paid the nice mares in hazmat suits for them."
"Paid?!" Twilight spat with hushed disharmony. "You bribed them for radioactive rods?! And they accepted?!"
"Nope!" Pinkie responded proudly. "I left them a gift for all those sticks!"
"A GIF-" Twilight was frenzied, but she caught herself, trying to right what Pinkie made wrong. "Okay," not-Rainbow said with a deep breath. "What, pray tell, did you bribe them with?"
"Laundry detergent!" Pinkie shouted excitedly. She paused, then added, "With chocolate! I had a bite before I picked up the radiated sticks, and I didn't know how to present the two together, so I stuck the chocolate bar to the detergent contai-"
Before Pinkie could talk about how to present presents, blaring sirens sounded all over Ponyville. The sounds were especially noticeable outside, which the group essentially was. "This is an emergency announcement!" Mayor Mares' voice boomed across the town limits. "I've just received word that the Ponyville Radiation Plants' radioactive equilibrium has been thrown out of balance." Twilights' eyes managed to widen even further in horror. Everybody else just stood there looking perplexed. "I've just received more word: what the PRP is saying, is basically 'The power plant is having a meltdown because of some laundry detergent and a bar of chocolate replacing nuclear sticks.'"
Since real Pinkie was once there with some detergent and chocolate, everyponys' eyes were now on her. There was no sound in that crowd, except for the sirens still cutting through the air, and whole herds flocking to get out of Ponyville. "Wow!" Rainbow Dash broke the potential silence. "I thought I was wreaking havoc by taking those rods! But I guess I am the best role-player, since I thought like Pinkie, and acted like Pinkie." She sounded totally nonchalant and cocky as she said this. "Welp, I think I've won this bet! I'll have $200 from everypony, starting with Apple Bloom over there. Pay up!"
"Apple Bloom?!" With all of this talk of nuclear meltdowns and friends facing a very real extended life sentence at best, Applejack understandably forgot about her fugitive, beer-drinking little sister. But there would be no salvation now. "Well, well. Looks like Ah found mah fugitive."
"Fugitive?" Apple Blooms' knees trembled. "No, sis, Ah'm sorry! It was a kid thing! Didn't you ever drink beer when you were a filly?"
Applejack paused, remembering that she did, in fact, drink beer when she was a young foal. She even got drunk! "Actually," Applejack said, her death stare on Apple Bloom melting into a look of deep emotion. "Ah did." The 'room' went silent, except for Flutterjack, who said, "It's all good to have moments lahk these, ev'rypony, but shouldn't we-"
"But nopony else in this family's gonna do that!" The fire in Applejacks' eyes lit up again as she tackled the redhead foal and pinned her to the ground.
"Twahlaght," Fluttershy the fake Farmer intervened. "There's a-"
"No time!" Applejack rejected. "Apple Buzz here's gotta get home! Granny Smith'll be waitin' for her!"
"But Twahlaght-"
"Ah ain't Twilight, Fluttershy! Mah name is Applejack! And your name is Fluttershy! And 'Rarity' is Pinkie P-"
Applejack lost her voice as her eyes followed a regal chariot swooping out of the sky and onto the ground in front of the ruined kitchen. An even more regal mare exited the chariot and quickly approached six of the ponies in the ruins. "Girls!" Princess Celestia urged. "We have a serious problem right now, and I need you six to put everything that happened today behind you!"
Rarity, being a keen listener, decided to give Celestia some trivia she learned today. In Fluttershys' voice, she said "Um, well, if it's about the, well, you know, I think I should, well... I mean, Pinki-"
"NO!" Celestias' voice boomed, sending Raritys' hair into disarray. "Total cooperation! We have to put an end to this now! Follow me!" The six mares, and Spike, trailed the Summoner of the Sun without question. The only inconveniences were Rarity having to readjust her hair into Fluttershys' style, Pinkie grabbing the nuclear rods, and Applejack giving Apple Bloom to Big MacIntosh. She wasn't lettin' no nucular meltdown get her connivin' little sis off scot free!
"So..." Mr. Cake said, as everypony departed. "What about our kitchen?"
Nopony, or Spike, wasthinking about where they were running, or what direction they were taking. They just had to set everything right. "We're here!" the Princess declared.
"Here?" Twilight asked. "Princess, this is Town Hall."
"I know. Your point?"
"What about the pow-"
"Sssshhhh!" The Princess silenced Sparkle. Then she said in a hushed voice "We need to approach quietly."
Bewildered, everypony complied regardless. They snuck through the whole tower. It was refined, yet abandoned, like a fine China teapot. "Ugh, where is she?" Celestia asked herself as her magnificent horn began to glow.
"But Princess," Twilight said, "Shouldn't we be trying to stop-"
"Aha! In that bomb shelter! No use hiding from me, you miserly little weasel!" Celestia proclaimed in a singsong tone.
She walked towards a safe in the floor, and she blasted it open like it was paper. Something scurried into a corner, but Celestias' magic pulled her out. It was Mayor Mare, shaking and jittering like a pug out of water. "Oh, good day, everypony!" greeted the Mayor to the six swapped ponies. And Spike. She then turned to a peeved-looking Celestia. "And a very fine welcome to you, Your Highness!"
"Can it, Mare!" Celestia wanted to get to business, meltdown sirens be damned. "You lost that bet fair and square, now pay up!" She caught the shocked ponies staring back at her. "Oh, and, I need to collect those taxes, now!"
"Everypony?" Flutterjack wanted the floor, but Twilight pushed her out of the way.
"Princess? Mayor? what did you two gamble on?" asked Sparkle.
"Aheyum!" Farmer Fluttershy interrupted.
"Rainbow Dash?" Celestia exclaimed. "Why are you acting like Twilight?"
Twilight tried to keep her cool. "I don't think this is the time for acting and debt-collecting. There's a nuclear meltdown going on right now, didn't you hear?"
"There was actually a nuclear meltdown?!" Mayor Mare and Celestia shot out in surprise.
"Princess?!" Twilight was shocked, then turned enraged. "Mayor?! You activated a false alarm just to get out of paying a gambling debt?!"
"Of course not, Twilight!" Mayor defended. "I was merely testing it, and...everypony passed! But there really is a meltdown at the power plant, so let's go!"
"Wait!" Celestias' hoof calmed everyone, even with the sirens sounding. "You girls." She gestured to the Mane Six. "The day hasn't ended yet."
"Princess, with all due respect," Applejack started, "This ain't the buc-"
"Giddy up, slowpokes!" yelled Fake Farmer Fluttershy as she galloped past everypony and Spike. She knocked over a book, detailing the powers and checks on Equestrian Royalty, in front of Twilight, who got a good look at it.
"That's the spirit, Applejack!" Celestia called out.
Everypony got the message, even if the Princess was acting completely insane. "I do say!" Rarity Pie yelled as she ran into the fray. "Let us teach that ruffian power plant what happens when its' manners are misplaced at its' abode!"
"Um... Rarity?" Faux-Fluttershy trailed her imposter.
"Anypony got a lollipop?" asked the curly-haired Rainbow.
"Huh?" Twilight was finished reading an interesting piece of trivia about Equestrian royalty checks. "Oh, ri-yeah. No stupid plant's gonna hurt my friends!"
"Wait up everypo-" Celestias' slender foreleg blocked Applejack.
"Twilight, you're acting strange!" said the Princess. "Almost like Applejack!"
The orange mare sighed aside and forced out "Let's go, girls! I have a plan that'll save Ponyville from a nucula-"
"Nuclear."
"Nuclear meltdown."
"Here's a map to the generator that the PRP provided me. Good luck, my apprentice." As 'Twilight' left, Celestia turned her attention to the gray-maned pony trying to sneak away from her debt. "Nuh-uh-uh!" Celestia held the Mayor in a tight levitational grip. "We didn't pay off our debts, now, did we?" The momentarily meek Mayor Mare merely whimpered.
As the mares and Spike ran to the power plant, Pinkie was eating something bright out of a bag with a fork. Nopony noticed, though. But Spike did. "Uh, Twilight?" Spike said.
"Not now, Sug-Ah me-I mean, I mean Spike." Applejack of all ponies said.
"But Pinki-"
"No I'm not!" Rainbow Dash was merrily bouncing towards the facility. Why did Celestia have to make everypony get back into 'character' right now of all time?
"Do you see what Pi-I mean, what Rarity's eating?"
"Huh," Violet Dash looked at the fashionista fraud eating bright stuff from her bag. "That is pretty weird."
"Well, let's talk to her when we get to the plant. You might know what to do."
"Probably not. Go ask Twilight." 'Rainbows'' response caused the purple dragon to bury his face in his claws. "Wait, girls!" Everypony stopped at the fake Rainbows' demand. "We're he-"
"Hold it, partner!" the surrogate Twilight butt in. "I am the highest ranking member of this unit, so I declare our arrival." Everypony looked at her, puzzled, for a number of reasons. "Ahem. Wait girls! We are at our desired location of problem-fixing." Violet Dashs' face was stone.
"Uh, Twilight," Imitation Dash asked, "maybe I should lead us in. You don't seem too well today."
"Phew! Ah didn't what Ah'd do at a power plant! Thank Celestia you're around!"
"We probably shouldn't thank her for this day. Anyway, let's split up and look for the ge-"
"My most wise, most beautiful, most sexy mentor Princess Celestia has provided me with a cartographication of the Ponyville Radiation Plant. It's right through the doors, there!" Everybody laughed loudly at Applejacks' impression of the bookish unicorn. Even Twilight couldn't hold back her giggles.
And with that, the seven walked through a giant, dark, rusty, chrome room with green puddles everywhere. Machines were still working, but the glow around them said they were not to be trifled with. It made real Twilight drip beads of sweat. "Hey, uh, Twilight?" she asked Applejack. "Did the Princess provi-g-give us hazmat suits?"
"Huh." That question caught Applejack off guard. "I suppose we were not completely armed to subdue this potential nuclear holocaust. However, time is running thin and we must corre-"
"We have arrived!" The verbose earth pony was interrupted by the other verbose earth pony, whom was right. The generator was a hexagonal mass of dark blue techno-metal suspended by a thick, cybernetic pole of the same color. It was glowing the brightest.
"Alright Pinkie-I mean Rarity." Twilight the Dash instructed. "I've been an egghead and read stuff about handling nuclear energy. Still have that bag of radiation?"
"Ah, yes!" the False Designer replied, holding up the empty sack. "I most certainly did have it! It was spicy, yet filling! And the consistency was top-notch! I give it a B+ for effort!" Everyponys' jaw dropped. Spike just rolled his eyes. Rarity, the real one who was Fluttershy, however, had a reddening face and twitching eyes. She stopped being Fluttershy to give 'Rarity' even more of a piece of her mind. In fact, she was giving her the whole pie!
"YOU ATE THE STICKS?!" Pinkies' face scrunched up as Rarity started screaming in her face and holding her coat. "Pinkie, you brainless dolt! I've put up with you for years, and this is how you repay us?!" Pinkie looked back at her other friends, but they merely wore a stern expression. "Destroying my Boutique! Nearly killing us on impact! Wrecking the Sugarcube Corner bakery! But nooooo, that wasn't good enough for you, was it?! You had to go above and beyond annoying! You had to eat Ponyvilles' salvation, too! What do you have to say for yourself?!?!"
Rarity tossed Pinkie backwards, and she regained her balance quickly. Pinkie mumbled something totally unintelligible, like her mouth was full-to-bursting with something. Sure enough, she opened up her mouth to reveal a red, glowing octopus that had grown on her tongue. A chorus of screams erupted from everyone in the room not named Rarity. The real one just started breathing through her stammers. Then a loud, royal laugh bellowed through the generator chamber. "That was amusing enough," the empowered voice echoed. "The day is over!"
Through a pink and white portal came Princess Celestia. She looked very amused. "Princess, stay back!" the real Twilight yelled. "Pinkie Pie's contaminated with radiation. She has an octopus on her tongue!"
"It popped off!" She declared happily. "I'm naming her Pointy!"
After a beat, Celestia said, "Don't worry, Twilight. You were never in any real danger."
"Wh-What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean there never was a power plant!" Celestia responded. "I just got everypony to think there was!" And with a swoop of her mighty left wing, the plant disappeared around them, and a barren school for fillies and colts appeared in its' place. Everyones' jaws hit the floor, except for real Pinkies', who was squeezing Pointy with her hugs. Nopony, or Spike, knew how she managed to become mutated when the Ponyville Radiation Plant wasn't even real. Pinkie Pie works in mysterious ways.
"Princess Celestia," Twilight started, "doesn't this seem a little unethical?"
"Come now, Twilight!" She responded. "What's the harm in a little fun?"
"Well," the bookish mare began. "You've had too much fun! Mass illusions and brainwashing are only excusable in times of Total War, Gambling for any reason is inexcusable in the Royal Court, and forcing subjects to role-play for a whole day is illegal."
"Twilight," Celestia said, amused. "Where did you get such ridiculous ideas?"
"The Geneighva Convention. When Fluttershy ran by you, she knocked over a very interesting book detailing the powers and limits of Equestrian Royalty."
"Oh, Twilight," Celestia tried to hoofwave, increasingly desperate to drop the conversation. "Don't you know that these things change all the time?"
"I also read that Geneighva Convention Amendments must be publicly announced before ratification, and even if they weren't, I would have heard about them."
Celestia opened her mouth with a response, but even her voice was against her. The mares who endured each others' lives looked at Celestia with a devious smile etched across their faces. Even Spike derived some schadenfreude from the Princess Celestias' predicament. "Spike," Twilight announced. "Take a note. But send it to a different source."
"With pleasure, Twilight!" Spike gleefully replied, pen and paper already ready. Celestia gulped. And Pointy hugged Pinkie back.
The weeks after Twilight put her mentor in the worst kind of spotlight went by too fast for her to comprehend. Princess Luna was tasked with not one, but three trials, which had fairly important mares on trial, all of which were overwhelmingly ruled guilty, and all had a secret draconian punishment added to the sentences for good measure. Princess Celestia was found guilty of violating her mandatory medicine prescription, with hefty evidence suggesting that she felt she was "seeing things clearly for the first time!" She got a month of community service, with the Royal Guard watching her closely from then on, making certain she takes her medicine.
Mayor Mare was was found even more guilty, charges being money laundering, embezzlement, gambling with taxpayers' bits, tax evasion, financial fraud, bank fraud, mortgage fraud, medical fraud, forgery, and counterfeiting, amongst the ones she was convicted of. Her first year would consist of repaying Ponyville for all the money she had leeched out of it. After that, life without parole.
The final trial, of Pinkamena Diane "Pinkie" Pie, was all too bitter a pill for her and her friends to swallow(except Rarity, who kept a picture of her ravaged house as an easy transformation from a tragic court ruling to a birthday party on Hearths' Warming Eve in Canterlot.) Found guilty on Destruction of Property and Hoarding of Volatile Chemicals, Pinkie was sentenced to only a month of community service(given her personality), and she was forever banned from power plants, role-playing, and clothes, until the end of time.
And while it wasn't de jure, the sentence of Apple Bloom was drawn out and merciless, with her entire family guilting her about her antics until Applejack inflicted the coup de grace upon her little sister. "More tea, everypony?" Apple Bloom asked the four mares, and Spike, sitting around a rectangular table in Twilights' House. She asked this in a defeated, slightly contemptuous tone, since she was dyed purple, with her mane green.
"Don't mind if I do!" Spike said, grabbing a tea cup.
"Spike!" Rarity scolded. "Be more polite to our waitress! Thank you Mizz Apple Bloom"
"Rarity, don't waste time bein' formal with Spike II!" Applejack scolded, content with the water bottle by her side. "She's grounded."
"Oh." Rarity said, conflicted about what she would do if Sweetie Belle went rogue. She then decided. "Don't mind if we do!" and conjured a cup towards her, and another towards a scarlet-faced Spike.
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy walked over to get their tea, secretly thanking Apple Bloom, by her name, outside Applejacks' earshot. Soon afterwards, Twilight walked in, accepting tea from Spike II. "Thanks for the extra help, Applejack," the violet unicorn said, "but do we really have to not thank her and call her Spike II?"
"Welp," Applejack replied, "it was either this, or beatin' her. Ah gave her a choice, so if anythin', Ah was bein' civil!"
"Well, our mentoring methods seem to differ..." Twilight said. "Spike II, take a note!" Spike II sighed as she walked over to a table with a pen and a scroll. "Dear Princess Celestia, the time spent yesterday in each others' horseshoes has been both the best and worst days of our lives. Regardless, it was the most illuminating day of our lives as well, for we have learned what you wanted us to learn all this time: that you are a batspit-insane abuser of power, and Equestria would be much better off with a parliamentary system, complete with a prime minister- specifically, me!"
"Uh, Twah?" Applejack interjected. "Pills or no pills, the Princess is goin' to hunt you down after she reads that."
"Hmm, you're right." Twilight responded. "Spike II, destroy that letter!" Apple Bloom complied. "Now write a new one." She complied still. "Dear Princess Celestia, the time spent yesterday in each others' horseshoes has been both the best and worst days of our lives. Regardless, it was the most illuminating day of our lives as well, for we have learned what you wanted us to learn all this time: that role-playing is a great way of ponies teaching lessons for misbehavior! Here's hoping you follow by your own rules. Your Most Faithful Student(All four of those words start capitalized, by the way), and her friends -Twilight Sparkle(and her friends)."
Apple Blooms' penmareship was above average compared to most other fillies at her school, but she was no Spike. She also couldn't breathe the letter to the paroled Princess of the Sun, which she realized fairly quickly. "Twilight?" she asked. "How do I send this letter to the Princess?"
"Don't worry Appl-" Twilight stopped to catch Applejack shaking her head disapprovingly. "Uh... how the hell do I know? Walk?" She looked back at Applejack, who was nodding like a strict teacher would to her pet.
"Come on, Spike II!" Applejack ushered her little sister out the door. "Ah'll walk ya to her." She then whispered in the equine dragons' ear, "Can't have ya runnin' off for more booze, now, can Ah?"
As the door shut behind the two, Rarity turned to Twilight. "I must thank you again, Twilight, for letting me stay in your house while mine is under repair."
"It was our pleasure!" Spike said, quite enamored with this arrangement.
"Aaaanyway," Twilight intervened, "Who gets to fix your house?"
"Why Princess Celestia, of course!" Rarity exclaimed. "And Pinkie Pie! And Apple Bloom!"
The purple earth pony with her older orange sister entered the door to Carousel Boutique, escorted by two royal guards. The house was still coated with splashes of various batters and broken windows. The mannequins were still in a state of extreme ruin.
They made their way to the Princess that was cleaning the bathroom, who wasn't the princess at the moment. "Hello, Applejack and App-" She caught the glares of the royal guards. She sighed, and said "Howdy, big sis! Hey Spahk!" Celestias' coat was dyed yellow, and her flowing aurora mane was now red and fastened into a ponytail.
"Ah do not sound like-"
"Well anyway, Princess," Applejack cut her sister off, and grabbed the note from her, "here's a note from Spike II here!"
"Bring it to me, my loyal subjects!" Pinkie Pie canoed her way over to the farm mares on a mop bucket, dressed up in a giant, soaking wet robe. Her hair had melted taffy all over it, her coat was white with melted ice cream, and-
"Uh, Pink-er, Princess?" Applejack asked. "D'you know there's a white traffic cone glued to your forehead?"
"...yep!" Well, Pinkie would be the one to know.
"Durr, forget about the stupid traffic cone, get me a stupid new toothbrush!" Mayor Mare had her hair undyed to pink, and her coat was made pink. She was stuck repainting the walls with a toothbrush, or she was until her former one snapped and fell on the ground.
"I haveth with me," Princess Pinkie regally declared, "ein royal toothbrush!" She salvaged a filthy old toothbrush from out of the mop bucket. She then threw it at Mayor Pie, whom then cringed at the mop bucket toothbrush adhered to her forehead.
"Somepony get me a wrench!" Celestia Bloom decided to get plumbing out of the way.
"Feareth not, mine little-eth subject!" Pinkie declared. "For I haveth avec moy, ein wrench aussi!"
"I do not talk like that!" Celestia said indignantly.
"Sink!" Mayor cried, unaware of the wrench/dialect business. "I need the sink!"
"Mayor-I mean, Pinkie! Don't" Celestia cried, taking focus at her panic for the faulty sink.
"Do you-eth not wanteth mine wrench?" real Pinkie asked.
"Uh, Ah think we should go." Applejack said to her punished little sister. The little sister was all too eager to be ushered out the door.
Celestia followed the Mayor to the bathroom, ad Pinkie followed Celestia. As the Mayor turned the sink nozzle, a rusting sound came out, and then the sink and the toilet exploded with chocolate. "So this is the house I rerouted to flow chocolate through!" Pinkie observed as she, and her jail pals, and Raritys' bathroom, were swamped with chocolate.
"...shut up, Pinkie." Mayor Mare said, deadpan.
"This is going to be a long sentence." Celestia added.
