“We said we’d do it today,” Rainbow said in the purposefulness-confused secret base, because that’s where she was.

“But how should we do it?” Twilight said. “Social network posts? Dramatic town hall announcement?”

“I like dramatic town hall announcement. If everypony in Ponyville hears it at the same time and can make physical contact with us, they’ll probably panic less.”

“Does that sound good to you, Applejack?” Apple Bloom said

“Apple Bloom,” Applejack said, “What’re you doin’ ‘ere?”

“Er....” She ran out.

“Anyway, that sounds good.”

“Okay,” Twilight said, “Then we’ll do that. Now how do we plan to get town hall?”

“Let’s see...” Rainbow said, “You’ve saved the world and Celestia’s ponially endorsed you as smartest pony ever, I’ve saved the world, and AJ’s saved the world. I think that’s how we plan to get town hall.”

“I just don’t want to seem needy....”

“Hey, Fluttershy, let me remind you of something: we saved the world and everypony loves us. I don’t think this is too much to ask.”

“But you complain about Rarity always bugging you for your time.”

“Well, yeah, but this is one thing, and we saved the world.”

“Rarity saved the world too.”

“Yeah, but we both saved the world, so we’re even. Do you even understand the concept of what I’m saying?”

“Yes—”

“Good. Now let’s get a reservation or however it works. I don’t know, you do it.”

There was a lazy writing wipe to our three heroes behind a podium in a room which wasn’t nearly big enough for everypony in Ponyville.

“Hey, don’t these usually happen outside?” Rainbow said.

“Yeah,” Twilight said, “You’re right. Hey, Mayory, can we move to where you usually make your announcements?”

“It’s ‘Mayor’,” The Mayor said, “And yes, we can do that. And by we, I really just mean myself, I have... all the power... but, er, you know how it is.”

“You have delusions of grandeur?”

“No. I mean, there are other ponies who do things, it’s just that I can’t really be overruled....”

“Why? Don’t we have a council?”

“Well, that’s the thing, I’m the only one who’s interested, so only I ever run, so... I am the council.”

“Oh. Well, you seem benevolent. So are we moving this to the outside stage place?”

“We can do that.”

And so they moved to Announcement Place, as it was officially named. They were greeted by the cheers of four ponies who had arrived early.

“Hey, early ponies,” Rainbow said. “Are you ready to learn a love-related secret we’ve been hiding from almost everypony we know for months and months and months?”

“Yeah!” said the “crowd”.

“Well, you’ll have to wait until six.”

“What?!”

“Er, PM. Eighteen.”

“Oh.”

“What do we do for two hours?” Rainbow said to the other two.

“I don’t know.” “ah dunno lol.”

“Any ah you wanna be a character?” Rainbow said to the “crowd”. “Just come up here and state your name!”

Nothing really happened.

“Come on! Don’ any ah you wanna be characters?”

They apparently didn’t.

“What do we do for an hour and fifty-nine minutes?”

“I still haven’t thought of anything.” “ah dunno lol”

“Twilight?”

“What?”

“Why can’t you think of anything? You’re supposed to be the smartest pony in existence ever!”

“You should be complaining about Applejack just as much right now as long as she can’t come up with anything. And you’re being hypocritical anyway.”

“Well, I don’t think... actually, that’s a good point.”

Silence.

“Did you hear about that hoofball game?” Rainbow said. Everyone there said yes.

“You mean the one with Aquaville and Canterlot South-South-West?” Twilight said.

“No, that one with the CMC and stuff.”

“Oh. Yeah, I heard about that too.”

Silence.

“Can’t we just do a clock wipe or something?”

After a time card, the crowd was a genuine crowd. Many in the crowd were eating strawberries and cream, a detail which would not become important later.

“Who’s gonna say stuff?” Rainbow whispered, but in front of the microphone so everyone could hear her anyway.

“You’ve been the one talking to them the whole time,” Twilight whispered; however, in front the microphone, with the result that everyone was able to hear what she was saying regardless.

Rainbow tapped the microphone a couple times because it felt like she should.

“Welcome,” Rainbow said, “To our massive earth-shattering confession!”

The crowd cheered wildly.

“Look... for about a year now, we’ve been keeping a huge love-centred secret from almost everypony we know. Now, I know what you’re thinking: Rainbow and Applejack have secretly been dating, why is Twilight up there. We’ll get to that. The reason we didn’t want to tell anypony is because we were worried it would ruin the whole equality and balance the mane six had and/or everypony would just hate us because that happens sometimes. But then we realised that August was coming up, and it was a good window of opportunity to confess, since nothing ever happens in August and ponies would be happy to hear anything at all. So the first of our two huge shocking confessions is... for six, seventeen months, AJ and I have been in a romantic relationship.”

There was thunderous applause from the crowd. Pinkie Pie ran up to the stage and shoved Rainbow out of the microphone’s zone.

“This is gr* with a capital 8!” Pinkie said. “We’ve been waiting and waiting for you ponies to get together for years now and to know it’s already been going on for so long is great! AM AH RIIIIIGHT?!”

The crowd cheered loudly.

“Now, I’m one of the ponies they told,” Pinkie said, “So lemme ask ‘em a few questions. I mean, I could say everything, but drama, right? So... do you have sex?”

“Yes,” Rainbow said. “Usually a couple times a week.”

“That’s great! Why did you think everypony would hate to hear this?”

“We thought you’d be mad ‘cause we were keeping stuff from you.”

“Come on, Rainbow, we’re Ponyvillians. We’re understanding and forgiving and stuff. AM AH RIIIIIGHT?!”

The crowd cheered even more loudly.

“You know, Pinkie,” Rainbow said, “This’d be less awkward with a pony who didn’t know.”

“So? The point is that we’re all really happy to hear this! You need to tell us everything that’s happened between you ponies!”

“Uh... hey, you know the new reality show we’re in?”

The crowd cheered.

“It’s airing next week!”

The crowd cheered wildly.

“Great! So we’re fine with that, what’s the other big secret?”

“Um... well....” Rainbow tapped the microphone a couple more times. “Let’s go to a commercial.”

(That Diamond Shreddies picture)

“And we’re back,” Rainbow said. “Anyway, the other big secret is... Twilight and I are together.”

The crowd went silent.

“What,” Pinkie said.

“I wanted a backup girlfriend and we liked each other.”

“Oh. Well, that’s a reasonable explanation. AM AH RIIIIIGHT?!”

They made more noise than a really big plane!

“See?” Pinkie said. “Those are both good ships. Those aren’t ‘earth-shattering’.”

“But we’ve been hiding this from you for so long. We thought you’d be wicked mad at us.”

“Well, you have good explanations. We all still love you and Twilight and Applejack. Except camerapony #3, she doesn’t love you, but everypony else.”

“I have an idea,” Twilight said. “We should get everypony up here and compile a list of what ponies love each other. Then we could make one of those huge love quivers.”

“They’re called ‘heart charts’,” Rainbow said. “It rhymes.”

“I think you made that up.”

Over minutes and minutes, all the named ponies who held affections stated their affections.

“Okay, are we ready to hear the list?” Twilight said.

“Yeah!” the crowd said.

“Okay, here goes... Rainbow loves Applejack and me, I love Rainbow, AJ loves Rainbow and... AJ, did you say Big Mac? Because I put it on the list here.”

“Yeah,” Applejack said. “Ah don’t love ‘m romantically, but we’re fuckbuddies. Whah, you got a problem with incest?”

“Actually, yeah... I do. But that’s a politics fight. So AJ loves Rainbow and Big Mac, Fluttershy loves Rainbow, Big Mac loves AJ and... Fluttershy...? Okay, Bon Bon loves Lyra, Butterscotch loves Big Mac, you didn’t really need to come up for that, by the way, Lyra and Octavia love each other, Spitfire loves Soarin’, Spike loves Rarity, Spitfire loves Rainbow, Trixie loves me, some married ponies who obviously love each other, and apparently Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara like each other sexually but not platonically too, so that’s—wait, Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara? Is that right? That’s definitely a mistake.”

“Nope,” Apple Bloom said.

“No,” Diamond Tiara said.

“Okay, so you’re not attracted to each other,” Twilight said. “Mov—”

“No as in you didn’t make a mistake,” Apple Bloom said. “We do lahke each other lahke that. Raht, Dahmond?”

“Yes,” Diamond Tiara said.

“Okay, you ponies are funny,” Twilight said, “But anyway—”

Apple Bloom ran over to Diamond Tiara and kissed her. She accepted the offer. All the other ponies looked at them in stunned silence, everybody wanting it to be broken up but feeling nervous about doing it themselves.

“Applejack?” Twilight said. She nudged a catatonic Applejack. “Are you okay?”

“She hasn’t even blinked,” Rainbow said. “Do you have a spell to fix her?”

“Making ponies better is hard. Making them worse is easy, and I try not to think about all the power I have because it makes me want to go on an insane killing spree, but I don’t think I can help her right now.”

“It makes you what?”

“I don’t know, sometimes I just get this random urge to kill.”

“We all get that, Twilight, you’re not special. Anyway, how can we wake up AJ?”

“I don’t know, nothing’s coming to me.”

Rainbow looked into Applejack’s eyes. “Do I have a catatonia fetish?”

“I don’t know, do you?”

“Not as far as I know. But it might wake ‘er up....”

Rainbow put a leg behind Applejack’s neck, Applejack’s mouth open due to her jaw dropping, and got to kiss her for about a tenth of a second before she regained movement abilities and took a couple steps back.

“Holy Fau—” Applejack said. “Oh, it’s just you. Ah thought some random pony had their tongue in mah mouth.”

“No,” Rainbow said. “Um, Big Mac got Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara to stop.”

“Ah just thought they were bein’ funny or somethin’....”

“No, they really love each other. Well, they hate each other, but you know. And it’s not one of those things where they say they hate each other but they don’t, they really—”

“Ah know.”

“Sorry.”

They noticed that the crowd had been watching them the whole time.

“You ponies wanna see some Appledash snogging?” Rainbow said.

“Yeah!” said the crowd.

“You wanna see some Twidash snogging?” Twilight said.

“Meh.”

Appledash snogging ensued. The crowd cheered wildly.

“You know, the announcement’s over,” Twilight said. “You can go now.”

“No!”

“Come on. Do you really want to watch a thief and a... um... well, I can’t think of anything bad that Applejack’s done, but do you really wanna watch them just kiss for an hour?”

“Yeah!”

“You know, you’ve been lied to by half of your greatest heroes since last year. Aren’t you angry?”

“No!”

“Come on! It’s been a year! Not that times change or we age or anything, but over a year!”

“We’re! Not! Mad! We’re! Not! Mad!”

“Fine, don’t be mad. You should be. You’ve had this big secret hidden from you for months, you have every right to be angry at us.”

“We! Un-der! Stand! We! Un-der! Stand!”

“Come on! Aren’t our reputations seriously damaged now?!”

“No!”

Rainbow stopped the kissing and turned to the microphone.

“I’d just like to thank Scootaloo for a moment,” Rainbow said. “Others tried, but she was the one who convinced me that we should reveal our huge earth-shattering secrets.”

Scootaloo was sitting next to Apple Bloom eating an apple. Everyone in the crowd focussed their attention on her. She nervously smiled and waved, then they looked back to the stage. Rainbow and Applejack went back to kissing.

“So is that the chapter?” Twilight said.

“Yeah!”

Next Chapter: Chapter 132: CMC-CA Series Leg 1 Estimated time remaining: 8 Hours, 56 Minutes