“HmmmmmmMMMMMMmmmmmmMMMMMM,” Pinkie said. “I have an idea: visit Octavia! But you’re working. And why would you want to visit her anyway? Because we deserve the screen time. But you’re working. So I’ll just wait, then. I’m not a moron, you know.” She sighed. “This is the sort of thing I have to resort to when nothing happens here.”

The scene is Ponyville, a decent-size town somewhat near Canterlot, in 2012. Two ponies, one moderately prissy and one extremely prissy, are lying on a television-facing couch, having just come out of a rather standard kiss.

“You’re getting pretty good at kissing,” Lyra said like she actually had any idea. Also, what is she, a fucking teenager? If your partner enjoys it, then you’re good at it, there’s no “technique”.

“That’s good, I suppose,” Octavia said, “But to be honest, I don’t really care.”

“You need more commas.”

“You don’t need to be sarcastic.”

“I don’t need it in the same way that I don’t need everything that’s not food, water, or shelter.”

“Could you get off me and stop holding me lovingly?”

Lyra changed from a state of lying down of one of lying up, less commonly known as sitting.

“Thank you.” Octavia laid up.

“What are you going to do with your newfound freedom?”

“Get water.”

Meanwhile, Rainbow and Applejack had calm, passionate sex for a few minutes, then decided it was boring and had crazy passionate sex.

“Welpers,” Pinkie said, “It’s π^2 PM. Time to execute my plan! Wait, I can be cooler than that. Xecute. No, nopony does that anymore. Remember when ponies used to say kead? Or even keat! Good times. What was I doing? Right, execution. There was a chapter with Twilight, then Appledash times, so I need to complete the cycle.”

And so she walked to Octavia’s house. Knockeronis!

Lyra answered the door. “Hello, Pinkie Pie.”

“Hi, Lyra! I’m looking for...” Pinkie looked at her right foreleg, which had nothing on it or written on it. “Octavia.”

“She’s drinking water at the moment.”

“Oh. I’ll come back later.”

And so she walked a lap around Octavia’s house. Knockeronis!

Lyra answered the door. “Hello, Pinkie Pie.”

“Hi, Lyra! I’m looking for...” Pinkie looked at her right foreleg, which had nothing on it or written on it. “Octavia.”

“One second.”

“‘Kay.”

Lyra left off for something. One second later, Pinkie changed from her default Pinkiese happiness to annoyedness and dissatisfaction. Eight seconds later, Octavia came to the doorway.

“That took 900% as long as you ponies said it would,” Pinkie said.

“What do we have to do?”

“Well, first, approach it with more cheerfulness than that. Anyway, we need to do something to complete the cycle of mane characters.”

“What do we have to do?”

“Well, first, approach it with more cheerfulness than that. Anyway, we need to do something to complete the cycle of mane characters.”

“What should we do?”

“You could buy some delicious, nutritious—well, delicious—food from Sugarcube Corner!”

“If I was in that kind of mood, I would get something from Bon Bon’s Sweet Shop since it’s closer.”

“But we don’t just have sweets! We have pastries! That’s oor thing, dont’cha know, eh! And the extra walking will compensate for the fact that you’re eating pastries!”

“I would rather donate the money to Scootaloo.”

“But Scootaloo... is... very... very...”

“I know you’re trying to help a business you work for in a well-intentioned way, but we need to do something good for television.”

“Fine. Maybe we can... hmm... is there anything we mutually like?”

Nothing happened for fifteen seconds.

“I can’t think of anything,” Octavia said.

“Welps, then I’ll see if I can get Rainbow Dash. I have an idea involving her.”

“Okay. Good-by.”

“Adequate bye.”

Octavia closed the door, but Pinkie had anything worth showing at all planned.

Pinkie Pie walked back to right outside Sugarcube Corner. She planned to wait for Rainbow there, but quickly decided that there were no clouds and it was too cold, so she was obviously never going to find her. Thus, she decided to play some Glitch Wars. Glitch Wars 3 had several minor glitches, which caused intense debate when it came out over whether these glitches were intentional or not. The “debating” (mostly name-calling, but the smarter fans would occasionally dip into making the same point over and over again) continues on even to this day, which isn’t saying much considering the game was released last month, but that’s fine.

THE NEXT DAY!

Pinkie woke up. Which was unfortunate as far as she was concerned, as she was having a really erotic dream about Zecora. She was actually physically aroused for the first time in her life, and she wasn’t sure whether she really did or really didn’t want to do something about it. She would decide not to, but the mental arousal would annoy her for the rest of the day. She did boring morning things.

“I feel like I’m forgetting something... wait, I’m not. Time to walk down some stairs!”

“She’s heading downstairs not having read the note,” camerapony #1 said into his two-way radio.

“Understood,” said a race engineer-esque voice. Meaning someone with that voice, not an actual disembodied voice.

Pinkie went downstairs, almost running into incident by tripping and falling down the stairs. Fortunately, she was able to catch herself. As she went into the main store room (room which is a store, not storeroom) of Sugarcube Corner, she saw Derpy Hooves putting a package down through the giant glass windows and walking away. Pinkie did the obvious thing and got the package. By “got”, I mean pushed it with her leg into the building, but still got.

The package claimed it was for a “Pinkie Pie” from 0x2A Verizon Rd., Ponyville, Ponyprovince. She went to the kitchen, got a knife, went back, cut the tape, and opened the box. Inside was a bunch of packing peanuts. She overturned the box, causing a pile of packing peanuts to be on the floor of the main room of Sugarcube Corner, then dug through the pile, spreading the peanuts in the process, and eventually found a small piece of paper. It read, without doing any fancy formatting here: “Dear Pinkie Pie, Apple Bloom is a mane character again. Do stuff with her. –Programme Productions”.

“Hmm,” Pinkie said. “I wonder if she knows about this yet.”

Meanwhile, Derpy was on her way to Sweet Apple Acres to deliver two letters to Apple Bloom.

“I would totally go there anyway,” Pinkie said to herself, “But I have to stay here on the off chance we get any business.”

The year: 2012. The month: November. The weather: cold but tolerable, around five degrees. Location: Sweet Apple Acres. A mailpony who goes by “Derpy Hooves”, because that is her name, is delivering two letters. Update: the aforementioned mailpony is knocking the door right now. However, Big Mac and Applejack are apple-bucking and Apple Bloom is at school. The mailpony slips the envelopes containing the letters under the door and carries on. No, I don’t know why the Equestrian government hates mailboxes either.

LATER THAT DAY!

“Shouldn’t Apple Bloom be back by now?” Applejack said to Big Mac, or so she thought. After 3.2 seconds of not hearing a response, she looked up from her apple strudel to see that he wasn’t at the table. “Where is he?”

Applejack went upstairs and knocked on the door of Big Mac’s room. If you’re reading this in a reasonably-sized room, press escape and go over to a door. That’s how long it took for him to answer.

“Explain yourself,” Applejack said.

“Minecraft.”

“For fuck’s sakes, Ah like Minecraft as much as the next pony, but come on.”

“I finished my food.”

“Yeah, but you could at least trah to be social. You’ve done it before, so Ah know you can.”

“I don’t need to.”

Knocking: it was heard.

“Ah’ll get it,” Applejack said.

Applejack went back down the stairs and opened the door. It was Apple Bloom.

“Hi.”

“Hey. Can Ah bitch about school ta you?”

“No.”

“‘Kay.”

Apple Bloom went to her room. That makes it sound like she was being punished, but you know. Applejack went back up and knocked Big Mac’s door again.

“What?” Big Mac said.

“We need to start shoppin’ for Up Wood Day.”

“But—”

“Ah don’t care. We need ta start now or it’ll never get done in tahme.”

“Why do you need me for this?”

“We’ve always done it together.”

“That’s appeal to tradition.”

“No, you’re appealin’ to novelty. Okay, you’re not. But come with me or Ah’ll tell everypony ‘bout the tahme in the kitchen.”

“You were the one who did that.”

“Look, at the very least you’ll need to carry stuff.”

“Okay.”

“I guess now would be a good time to do stuff with Apple Bloom,” Pinkie talked to herself once again. “Just have to say something funny then walk out the door.”

Five minutes later...

“You know what, fuck it, I’ll just go over there.”

Knock, knock-knock, knock knock, knock-knock!

“Hi,” Apple Bloom said.

“Hi. Did you get the news?”

“About Rainbow Dash dahin’?”

“What?! Holy crap, are you... but....”

“She’s fahne, Ah made it up. ‘Bout me bein’ a mane character?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, Ah know about that.”

“We have to do stuff.”

“Ah know.”

“Soooo... I have an idea.”

“What?”

“You could go over to Suga—”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Silence.

“Yeah, you have fun,” Apple Bloom said.

“Wait! We—”

Apple Bloom closed the door.

“Fuck,” Pinkie said. “I’m so angry I could just pick up some dirt and throw it.”

She tried to pick up some dirt, but it didn’t work with hooves.

“Fuck.”

“Umumum,” Twilight said, “Okay, she doesn’t have a pulse, but you know. Don’t panic. All you did was choke Rainbow Dash to death. Um, okay, focus. If I can get her to Zecora, she’ll be fine, just need to concentrate... concentrate on the spell....”

She miscast the spell, causing them both to end up three metres directly under Zecora’s vaja and suffocate, ending the universe.

THE END

She performed the spell correctly and barged into the vaja without knocking.

“I see you’re dragging Rainbow Dash,” Zecora said. “Did she have a little crash?”

“You’re rhyming again?”

“No. That was a coincidence.”

“Anyway, more importantly, I was strangling Rainbow to rape her, as you do, but she doesn’t have any signs of life.”

“So she’s just out of air, I see? I’ll fix her... for a fee.” She laughed in a deep voice and lightning struck nearby.

“Just make her not die.”

“Seriously, this’ll cost you money.”

“I’ll pay whatever you want, just make her live.”

“You realise that if she’s dead, there’s nothing I can do.”

“She’s not dead, she’s way too important to die. Besides, she’s tied to an element, so if she died, then we’d know because the universe wouldn’t exist.”

“You have a point.”

Zecora mixed some liquid or something and poured it into Rainbow’s mouth. After a few seconds of tense silence, Rainbow opened her eyes.

“I’m laid down at Zecora’s place,” she said. “You know what, Twilight?”

“I’m really glad you’re alive and I’m sorry?”

“I’m sick of you almost killing me.” Rainbow got up. “I think we should break up.”

“But this is so sudden!”

“Okay, how about this. You do one more stupid thing and then I’m leaving you.”

“Who’s going to be your new backup girlfriend?”

“Hmm...”

Ten seconds later...

“Yes?” Twilight said.

“I’m thinking, okay? It’s an important decision.”

“How much is it, Zecora?”

“Um... I don’t know, how much does the hospital charge?”

“It’s free, it’s a hospital.”

“Right. Um, I don’t know, I’ll see what all the ingredients are worth....”

LATER!

“Did you decide yet, Rainbow?”

“For the hundredth time, stop asking me that.”

“I have the results,” Zecora said. “You owe me exactly one hundred bits.”

“A hundred bits?”

“I’m not worth two copies of Rarity Healer 3?” Rainbow said.

“Just a second.” She teleported to the treehouse and back. “Here.”

“Thank you. Now get out of my house.”

Twilight teleported herself and Rainbow back to the treehouse bedroom.

“I’m sorry I almost killed you,” Twilight said.

“Like I said, do that one more time and we’re through. And I decided who’ll be replacing you.”

“You’ll be fine. Who is it?”

“Only the cutest, sweetest pegasus I know.”

“What?!” Fluttershy said. She took one of the two pillows on her television-facing couch and gripped it in excitement. Yes, excitement. “Does she finally...?”

“We are thinking of the same pony, right?” Twilight said. “Just to be sure this isn’t a comical misunderstanding that’ll really fuck things up down the line.”

“She’s felt an unrequited love for me for a long time, and I told her I didn’t love her, but now that I’ve thought about it for a while, I’d definitely be willing to see how a requited love would go.”

“Finally!” Fluttershy said. She held the pillow tightly to her chest. “I’m so excited I could talk at a normal volume!”

“Of course, the only pony I could be talking about is Spitfire.”

Fluttershy let the pillow go. Sacked the pillow, rather. We don’t use euphemisms around here. Her face flooded with tears in a matter of seconds, and she laid roughly facedown on the couch, put her hooves over her eyes, and cried like she saw a kitten die for eight minutes. During that time, dialogue happened at the treehouse.

“Okay,” Twilight said, “That’s who I thought it was. So I know you had that one night with her way back when FiM was on.”

“Yeah, there’s not much I can really say about it. It was the first time I had sex, I guess.”

“That seems important enough to be something to say to me. Oh, and so is there a timeframe on the next stupid thing I do? Like, is it okay if I go a month or whatever before I do something?”

“Sure, but I’m putting it at three months.”

“What? Actually, you know what, it doesn’t matter. I won’t do anything stupid.”

“Good.”

“So what now? Should we snog or something?”

“No, I won’t be over how you almost killed me until tomorrow. In fact, I’m so mad at you that I’ll sleep on a cloud instead of here.”

“Fine.”

She flew off to whiter pastures.

Next Chapter: Chapter 146: Up Wood Day ‘012 Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 36 Minutes