‘Twas the night before... um... well, no important eves were going on, but what was going on was Apple Bloom realising she had to talk with Twilight for contractual reasons.

“What am Ah gonna do?” Apple Bloom said to herself. “Ah can’t just walk over there, it’s dark. Ah’ll either trip over somethin’ or get raped.”

Meanwhile, Twilight was wondering what she was going to do.

“I can teleport,” she said to Spike, not because he needed to know or cared, but just so that she wasn’t talking to herself, “But that still doesn’t solve the problem of what I’ll actually talk about.”

“Pancakes?”

“Pancakes?”

“I don’t know.”

“I need to think of something.”

Meanwhile at the midpoint of the line segment which starts at Twilight’s treehouse and ends at Sweet Apple Acres, a pony tripped over an errant rock in the darkness and, before she could get up, got pulled into an even darker alley and raped.

“Fuck it,” Twilight said. “I’m going over there and saying something.”

“Shouldn’t you be all Twilighty nervousness caution?”

“Well, that’s not working, is it?”

And so Twilight teleported into the entry/living room of the housebarn. She went up to the upstairs hallway equally undramatically and punched Apple Bloom’s door in its face.

“Yogos,” Apple Bloom said.

“Open the door.”

Apple Bloom opened the door. “Yogos.”

“Hi.”

Twilight came in.

“Ah hate the new update even though all it does is add stuff you can completely ignore,” Apple Bloom informed the masses and infromed 7ox News. You know, I must be the first to ever come up with that joke.

“I’d rather be violently raping my sexual partner than talking to you right now.”

“Me too.”

The conversation ended.

“Ah have some money Ah stole from the new foal, wanna do stuff?”

“You’re a bully?”

“He came in an’ decahded to be a generic school bully for a couple weeks, then Ah clichély defeated ‘im an’ that’s how Ah got the money.”

“Cool. Shouldn’t you save the money or something?”

“Well, Ah’m never gonna use it. Ah mean, what’ll three bits do to get me ahead in lahfe?”

The door could be heard being knocked. It could also not be heard if you were, for example, deaf or covering your ears really well. But either way, Twilight and Apple Bloom and Applejack all stepped a step outside their respective rooms to get the door and noticed each other. Well, Twilight and Apple Bloom had already noticed each other, but you know.

“Ah’ll get it,” Applejack said. She went downstairs.

After going said downstairs, she opened the door to find a pony with infrared-coloured fur wearing a balaclava covering his not mouth, including the eyes. Not that those features were really important, they were just funny, but what was important was the hoofgun he had in his mouth. Before Applejack could even think “oh crap gunpony-tahpe situation”, he put the mouth, I think it’s called—the shooty end of the gun—to one side of her forehead and his other forehoof to the other, able to stay up because a unicorn behind a wall was using magic.

“TWAH—” Applejack said as loudly as possible, choosing Twilight since she was powerful, smart, and other things important for getting out of sticky situations. Not to be confused with the kind of sticky situation I got into when I mispoured some syrup for my pancakes.

“Don’t talk,” the gunpony said in that really firm voice you hear in films when someone’s stressed and there’s a critical situation going on.

Twilight and Apple Bloom heard them, of course.

“So should you...” Apple Bloom said, “Go over there, or....”

“Probably.”

Twilight teleported down there. The gunpony changed from staring at Applejack to staring at her.

“Don’t move or I’ll blow her fuckin’ brains out!” used a cliché expression the gunpony. “I am sufficiently insane to perform such a manoeuvre!”

“What can I do to make you not do this?” Twilight said.

“Money!”

“What quantity of money do you desire?”

“Three bits!”

“I’ll get that for you in just a minute.”

Twilight teleported back to Apple Bloom, hoping that teleportation wouldn’t count as movement.

“Apple—”

“Ah heard.” She took the aforementioned three bits out of her thing that she was carrying them in when she brought the money from school. “‘Ere.”

“Thanks,” Twilight said before teleporting once more.

“I have the money,” Twilight said, hovering said money to within reach of the gunpony. He took the coins in his mouth, as in his mouth was closed with them inside, put the gun back in his mouth, and stood like a normal pony. Just as he started to turn around to leave, Applejack snatched the gun from his mouth and gave him a taste of his own holding. Twilight, realising what she was doing, kept her up.

“Hey,” the unnamed unicorn partnering the unnamed gunpony said, peeking through the doorway, “What’s—” at seeing what was going on, he teleported away to safety.

“Anyway,” Twilight said, walking slowly to the gunpony, “Let’s see who’s under this mask.”

She took off the balaclava.

“Old Man Jenkins?!” she and Applejack said.

“And I would’ve gotten away with it too,” Jenkins said, “If it weren’t for you meddling foals.”

“So...” Twilight said, “What do we do now?”

“Ah dunno, you’re the smartest pony ever.”

“I think we should take him to a prison that’s not made of cookie dough.”

“Good ahdea.”

Twilight sent him a knockout bolt. “Do you know any good prisons?”

“No.”

And so they Googled for prisons near Ponyville, eventually finding Boron Nitride Maximum Security Facility of Correction, which specialised in the holding of gunponies over the age of fifty.

“So what do we do now?” Applejack said.

“I don’t know. Do we just turn him in and tell them to take him there? It doesn’t seem like that’s something you could do.”

“Maybe we could just bring ‘m to the prison? If you zoom out the map, you could see how far away it is....”

“I’ve never been there and it’s sort of far away, so we’d probably end up in a tree.”

“Then what are we gonna do?”

“I guess just call police and ask them to take him there. I mean, the worst that happens is they say no and we feel embarrassed for a few seconds.”

“Ah guess.”

As such, they called police. Jenkins woke up once as the police were coming, but was quickly knocked out again. Really, it wasn’t exciting. But eventually after much small talk, the police arrived and Twilight and Applejack were outside waiting there for them. One thing they both couldn’t help but notice was the fact that the police arrived in a car.

“Our police get cars now?” Twilight said.

“Yep,” Policestallion With Car said. “So what—is that Old Man Jenkins?”

“Yes. And can you take him to—uh, what was it called, AJ?”

“Boron Nahtrahde Maximum Security Facility ah Correction?”

“Yeah, there.”

“Good idea,” Policestallion With Car said.

“Yeah!” Policemare With Car said.

And so the policeponies put Old Man Jenkins in the boot and drove off.

Next Chapter: Chapter 152½: the food irradiation crisis Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours