“Twilight!” Spike said. “Check out what was in the mail!”

“What?”

“Four tickets for the Gala de Pâtisson!”

“But which one of my friends will I leave out?”

“That’s the point of the episode!”

“Wait, did you say Twahlaht? Ah’m Apple Bloom.”

“Oh. Huh, you looked like Twilight for a minute. And how did we get in jail?”

A guard walked by. “Apple Bloom and Spike?! How did you get in jail?”

After being kicked out of jail, Spike went back to the treehouse.

“Twilight? I’m home.”

She teleported down. “Spike! Where were you?”

“In jail.”

“How did that happen?”

“I don’t know. I went to sleep and woke up in jail. Apple Bloom was there too.”

“That’s odd. Hey, what’s in your hand?”

“Four tickets for the Gala de Pâtisson.”

“But which one of my friends will I leave out?”

“That’s the point of the episode.”

“I know, but it’s a tough decision. I can’t leave myself out because I’m the ticket holder and that would be really weird... I’ll talk to everypony tomorrow and see if anypony has commitments or something.”

The next day, it was almost time to hope everyone was home.

“All right, let’s do it,” Twilight said. “And by let us, I mean let me. Not that you could stop me from doing anything. Nopony could, I’m Twilight. They’re all at my mercy.”

“What?”

“See you soon.”

The first stop was Sugarcube Corner, and indeed, Pinkie Pie was at her post.

“Hi, Twilight.”

“There are four tickets. Why should I choose you?”

“When is... the thing?”

“The train leaves at eleven o’clock tomorrow and—”

“I’ll be here, so don’t pick me.”

“Your opinion will be considered in the final decision.”

As she went out of the building, Twilight saw Rainbow Dash. “Rainbow Daaash!” she said, only for Rainbow to either not hear or plainly ignore her.

Fluttershy was next. Twilight came in without knocking or otherwise giving any warning.

“Hello, Twilight,” Fluttershy said in a tone that was just a smile away from seeming evil.

“Hi. Uh... do you spend a lot of time standing in your living room?”

“Not a lot.”

“Anyway, there are four tickets, do you want to come?”

“I’ll be Fluttershy and not come.”

“Sounds good.”

When she came back out, Rainbow Dash landed in front of her.

“Hey, Twilight. I was just here to hope-crushingly tell Fluttershy that everything we did together last night didn’t mean anything to me.”

“There are four tickets, do you want to come?”

“I’ll be Rainbow Dash and come.”

“Sounds good.”

At Sweet Apple Acres, no one responded to Twilight’s knocking; Apple Bloom was at school, and the other two were Apple-fucking. She tried to come in, but the door was locked. With two places filled and one possible, she went back home.

“Hi, Spike.”

Spike looked over his shoulder. “How did you know I’d be right here?”

“Uh... in the front room?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t, I just came inside. Through the entrance.”

“But I’m never just here! How did you know?”

“I... didn’t. Look, there’s a free ticket, you want one?”

“Sure.”

After a light lunch of “rolling salad”, something very delicious to those raised in Equestria but so revolting to anyone else that the ingredients are best left unspecified to those who don’t already know, she checked back on Applejack.

“Hi, Applejack.”

Applejack opened the door. “How did you know it was me?”

“Magic.” She actually guessed and hoped it would look impressive. “There are four tickets, do you want the last one?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Be at Sunnyside Station by eleven tomorrow.”

“Ah will.” She closed the door.

“Shit, I forgot to tell everypony else that.”

Most of the episode happened again. Afterwards, Spike was lying on the couch watching combat sports and eating tortilla chips two at a time, perfect comedy material.

“Ever since we harnessed electricity, you’ve been a lot lazier,” Twilight said.

“I still do everything you tell me.”

“Get off the couch.”

“No.” She gave him a moment to realise the point. “Fine.” He got off.

“Get on your hands and knees.”

“Uh....” He did.

“Bark like a puppy.”

“Rrrauf!”

“You want a biscuit?”

He nodded. She teleported away, came back after a moment with a long box of biscuits, and took one out. It was rectangular, about seven centimetres long, and had a pale yellow colour. “You know what to do.”

“No, I don’t. I’m just doing this to show what I’ll do.”

“Oh yeah. Sorry, I do this with Rainbow sometimes, I was thinking of that.”

“Uh....”

“Anyway, I guess you’ve proven yourself.”

“Even though I don’t know what to do?”

“Yeah.”

Sunnyside Memorial Station was named after Sunnyside Grey-McCloud, who had killed the previous pony the station was named after. The argument that technically, to continue the line, the name should be Stupidity on a Motorcycle Station had never had many supporters.

It was a very boring place, with white walls, benches, a big high-up clock in the middle, a few boards with some times, and nothing pretty. The argument that technically, building it in the style of a bus stop would have been just as functional but much cheaper was correct, as the many restaurants and other stores that would clearly come and plant themselves there to make it a mall-station combination had in fact not. Two of the mall-like spaces were taken, one by a sandwich shop which actually did fairly well due to being literally the only place to get food, and another by a few ponies in sleeping bags who occasionally threw some money at the owner so they wouldn’t get kicked out. The term “rent” was sometimes used, which often gave a false impression of something regulated or reported as income.

Twilight and Spike had been sitting for a few minutes very bored, and they both wished something would just happen. Unfortunately, it did.

“Holy crap, Twilight and Spike?” said a pony who came up to them because they looked like Twilight and Spike.

“Um, no,” Twilight said. “That happens a lot.”

“You sure sound like Twilight.”

“I know. It’s caused some pretty annoying situations.”

Rainbow Dash came in. “Hey, Twilight!”

All three of them were smothered for autographs by at least six ponies each. After a minute, Rainbow was able to join the other two.

“Hi, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said.

“Hi....”

None of them said anything about what had just happened, as it was too common to be worth any sort of remark. A few minutes later, Applejack came in, dealt with it, and met the others.

“Have you tried new Cinnamon Lattices?” Spike said.

“Ah have. They’re shit.”

“Hey, my sp... favourite cereal is not shit. I happen to enjoy it.”

“Well, Ah ain’t really on the fence about it, so fahnd somepony else to bother.”

Rainbow Dash and Applejack sat together on the train, Applejack having taken the aisle seat in exchange for Rainbow doing that weird thing with a toothbrush holder. Meanwhile across the aisle, Spike was reading a Land Mall catalogue, the slight frown of apparent contentment on his face actually of moderate amusement. In the adjacent seat, Twilight was reading an article in the normal magazine entitled “Middle 100 Games of All Time”.

“Y’know, Spike’s readin’,” Applejack said.

“You just want me to look away from this window.”

“Ah’m serious, look.”

“Look away from this window.”

“You do know Ah’m Applejack.”

“Fine.” She looked in the other direction. “Holy crap.”

“See?”

“Can I go on a self-hatred trip about how I’m sorry I didn’t trust you?”

“You’re Rainbow Dash, you think Ah like ya ‘cause you’re soppy?”

“Okay.”

The Gala de Pâttison wasn’t held in a fancy palace in a big city, but in a fancy convention centre in a moderately-sized city. Despite the buffets, socialisation, and proper yet relaxed atmosphere, it was supposed to be a convention and not much of a gala, with the occasional serious discussion about budgets and other boring subjects of country management. The argument that technically, it should just be the politicians and scientists and that inviting famous ponies the organisers liked was pointless missed the entire point of inviting them: without them, there was less of the “I do rich stuff” atmosphere that made most of the attendees willing to head over and tolerate the boredom in the first place.

A very plain political map with a dotted line roughly showing the train’s path appeared on the screen, although it weaved in a much wider fashion than the actual route. The next shot was the train stopping at Kolja Train Station, as it was affectionately known. This one knew what it was, and was indeed a bit of concrete and a bus stop structure on either side. Once the group stepped out, they were mobbed for autographs.

“That was a tedious half hour,” Twilight said. “Anyway, I think the building’s that way.”

They followed her, and half an hour later, they were at the entrance to the city’s ski resort.

“This doesn’t look right,” Twilight said. “Hey, Spike, give me the map.” He handed her a printed street map. “So this is Paradsnow, and... oh, I took a left there. Okay.”

They went half an hour in roughly the opposite direction and ended up at the correct address, after getting tackled for autographs three times.

They went through the two pairs of double doors into a lobby, which included floor tiles of ten seemingly randomly arranged colours, two receptionists equipped with computers, and some potted plants in the corners.

“Attention!” said one of them. “Today, you may not step on any yellow tiles.”

“Go to the elevator, it’s floor 16,” said the other, not looking away from his computer. “Oh, and don’t think about teleporting or flying.”

They began to slowly make their way across. It was five metres to the elevator, with the tiles ten centimetres to a side. After thirty seconds, they were all about halfway across, and there was a brief, dull buzz. One of the receptionists levitated Spike to his face. “Your right little toe contacted a yellow tile,” he said before dropping him down a chute behind the desk. “You will receive him when you leave. If any of you do leave, of course.”

The rest made it to the elevator, and Twilight pressed 16. The door opened to reveal a single room, five metres in all dimensions, all sides painted black, lit by a couple of fluorescent tubes in the ceiling. They stepped inside. On the centre of the floor, there was a piece of A4 paper folded in half, and Twilight opened it.

“Dear Twilight and her chosen, there is no ‘Gala de Pâtisson’, and this was all by us to make an episode. If Rainbow Dash is here, tell her I’ll do anything, cheesy74.”

“Well, that sucks,” Applejack said. “So what do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight said. “Wanna kill some ponies and take their money?”

“Why stop at money?” Rainbow Dash said.

“Well, we don’t have to. Whatever we find, obviously.”

“Can’t we just incapacitate ‘em without death?” Applejack said. The other two looked at her blankly. “Just jokin’....”

They went down and did the course back, Twilight taking Spike along the way. Once they got outside, she put him down. There were long, thin wounds on his palms, several blisters on his chest, and he hadn’t stopped crying since they got him back.

“What did they do to you?” Twilight said.

“I don’t want to think about it any more than I already am.”

“Okay. We’re going to kill ponies, does that sound fun?”

“Yes....”

“So who are we killing?” Rainbow said. “Do any of these passersby look good?”

“I’d rather break into that house across the road.”

That house wasn’t particularly inviting. The wood it was made of was unpainted and not in any way smoothed, and foliage completely blocked the view except for the roof. They crossed the road and came up to the door. The garden was nondescript, the only significant feature a tyre swing that hadn’t been used for years.

“You gonna laser around the door or somethin’?” Rainbow said.

“I say we knock,” Twilight said. “Then we can come in and not draw attention by lasering somepony’s door off.”

“How would lasering somepony’s door off not draw attention?”

“Okay, you know what I mean.”

Twilight knocked the door. After a minute, just before she was about to knock again, hoofsteps were heard, and a turquoise earth mare got the door. Her mane and tail were light grey.

“Half the world-saviours and Spike?!”

“Hi,” Twilight said. “We have the show with us, you’ll notice, can we come in?”

“Yeah, um, holy crap, obviously I didn’t expect... honey!” That was a call for her romantic partner, not her suddenly realising “honey” for something. After some more hoofsteps, a disturbingly Octavia-coloured stallion came into view.

“What is it, glucose–fructose syrup? Wait, half the world-saviours and Spike?!”

“Yeah!”

“Holy crap!”

“I know!”

Everyone came in.

“So what brings you here?” the mare said.

“Your money,” Twilight said.

“What?”

“We’re going to steal all of your valuables.”

“Then we demand autographs in return. Right, honey?”

“There’s no way we can just let you leave.”

“Then we’ll just have to kill you. Or knock you out, I guess.” She giggled. “Knock you out. I can’t believe I said that. Yeah, we’re not letting you live. Unless you give us everything, of course.”

“We want autographs.”

Applejack lunged at the mare and sent them both to the floor. Twilight magically strangled the stallion, who countered by trying to clutch his neck, falling over because he was a quadruped, and losing consciousness. With the mare restrained, Rainbow crushed her skull into the floor, giving her flashbacks to the party a week ago. Applejack got back up.

“I’ll kill them,” Twilight said, “The rest of you look for stuff.”

The other three went away, then Twilight electrocuted the couple and spent the next minute and a half doing nothing. Rainbow came back.

“There are a couple of foals asleep upstairs.”

“So? Just leave them.”

“What did you do to the victims?”

“I electrocuted them.”

“You couldn’t’ve done that before?”

“I didn’t want to leave you out of the killing. Now keep searching.”

She left. After a while, Twilight got hungry, and she went to the adjacent kitchen to rummage through the cupboards.

“Powdered chips... cheese balls... salt soup... okay, is there anything in there for Twilight? Come on, they wouldn’t have been alive in the first place if this was all they had.” The mess on the floor she was making as she tossed things behind her was itself not for Twilight. “Well, there’s some trail mix, that’s all right... really, is there any... they can’t just eat snacks, come on. There’s got to be something you prepare.” She gave it another minute, then gave up and checked the refrigerator. “Okay, this looks better. There’s, like, ingredients... oh, this looks good.”

After getting herself a bowl of fruit salad, she went back to the living room to wait for the next report. Eventually, Applejack came in with a purse and dropped it in front of her.

“You have food?”

“No, this is a hologram.”

“You must be gettin’ so hungry standin’ all the tahme.”

“I’ll call it over soon. Now get back to work.”

A while later, the bowl formerly of fruit salad long since in the sink, Twilight decided she was bored and the purse was fine.

“Everypony come here!” They did make their way there. “This marks the end of the search. Applejack, as the only one to find anything, you win immunity.”

“What?”

“There’s hundreds of bits in here and I’m bored, so that’s enough.”

“So... tahme to go home?”

“Pretty much.”

Their train crashed and killed everyone on board, ending the universe. Next Chapter: Chapter 39: Dawn of Revenge Estimated time remaining: 15 Hours, 53 Minutes